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stardustizuku · 1 year ago

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PART 5: The Core of Everything and Why Thomas is BAD

As I said.

The moment I realized that this show was losing its footing, was when they started to mess up Mairinette.

The moment I realized this was going to be bad show, was when they messed up the Love Square.

The moment I realized this show was going to mess up the Love Square, was the introduction of Rena.

But.

That’s not when I dropped the series. That’s not when I became disillusioned with it. Because, as I said, I could overlook that.

I don’t care, as far as this essay is concerned, if it’s a good or bad show. I don’t care if it has cringey writing. I don’t care if it’s a mess.

What I care about, is how it treats the magical girl genre. What it borrows from it, how it interprets it, and what it transforms it into as a westernization of the genre.

That’s what this is about.

The moment it fucked over the magical girl genre, was when they destroyed Chloe.

People have a variety of different opinions on Chloe. Hate her, love her, think she’s wasted potential, think she’s a villain beyond redemption.

But the mere fact, we can all think about her and have an opinion, proves she was the best thing the show ever had going for itself.

Not because she was likable, but because it spoke. It dared to say something. That something being good or bad, it’s irrelevant to this point.

It said something. For the first time, since the fucking series debuted, Miraculous Ladybug dared to say something. Make a bold statement.

I think we can all agree that the show was trying to do something with her. It build her up through many episodes as a sympathizing character.

I did have my suspicions that it was going to fumble her arc, when a lot of the time these small details of her character got introduced - just to be dismissed by the narrative a few episodes later.

She was always back to being a villain and acting in reprehensible ways, even when previous episodes attempted to give her character growth.

But, I truly wanted to believe. I kept trusting this show. Over and over again. Because it was finally, finally, saying something. And most importantly, it finally touched the core of Magical Girls.

But everything crumbled away when Mayura happened.

Marinette never gave Chloe a miraculous back again. And while she claims it was (mostly) because she’s not someone Marinette trusts, someone who reveled her identity to the world…I don’t buy it.

(Also sorta weird that Ladybug is the one who forbids it when it Chat Noir who continued to seek Chloe as Queen Bee, and it was his choice but…we know how Ladybug never treats Chat as equal at this point)

Time and time again Chloe showed she is very willing to help. Yeah, sure, she is not good at it. But it was also showed that her not being able to be good was linked to the neglect she suffered as a kid.

I mean, she couldn’t remember someone’s birthday because her own mother forgot hers. This clearly upset her. She wanted to care for Mrs Bustier’s birthday, but her own trauma was making it extremely difficult. And in an attempt to to rid herself of the guilt, she lashed out.

That’s a realistic way in which hurt people, hurt others.

But she also proved that, if given a chance, she is more than willing to resist those urges to hurt others. In Miraculer, she fights off an akuma. She wants to be Queen Bee, she wants to believe in Ladybug.

While her trauma makes her prone to lashing out to others, by having Ladybug in her life as a role model, she wants to be better. She wants to heal. She wants to be a hero.

In a GOOD series, this is a way of proving the MC that not everyone who is annoying or a missy, or has a different attitude than Hers, is a bad person. That are people who are willing to do good, if given the chance to do good.

But this is not a good series.

The reason behind this…can’t call it anything other than insulting take, is that Thomas claimed in various tweets that “bullies can never be heroes”.

This was the last straw for me.

I truly do believe I snapped and it was the moment I stopped watching the series altogether. This is spitting on the very sacred name of Magicals Girls and everything that came before it.

Never mind that Chloe is a neglected teen - this is show inspired by magical girls. Name ONE magical girl anime where the girl who’s kinda mean to the MC but WANTS to do better - is shown to actually be cruel.

None.

Princess Tutu has Rue.

Shugo Chara has Utau.

Sakura Card Captor has Mei.

Sailor Moon has - well not girl but Fisheye -.

Mermaid Melody has Sara.

Mermaid Melody PURE has Michelle.

Madoka has Homura.

Lyrical Nanoha has Fate.

Pretear has Mayune and Mawata.

Tokyo Mew Mew has Mint AND Zakuro-

THIS IS THE CORE OF THE MAGICAL GIRL GENRE

I don’t know WHO in the name of FUCK does Thomas think he is to imply he knows more about this genre than the women who created it. But he always hides under the defense of “this is a little girls show for little girls and they need to have a positive role model”

It’s not.

I have already said that Marinette herself has failed as a protagonist. Not only is she unlikable, she fails to represent anything. She fails to stick to a theme, she fails as both a role model and a flawed character.

And it speaks to me about Thomas incredible misogyny how he keeps treating this genre as nothing more than excuse to fulfill his thinly veiled fetishizes and power trips.

He has no right to be in show linked to the genre of Magical Girls, or anything related to its westernization.

Magical girls are about forgiveness. They’re about kindness and the power of perceived feminity. It’s about offering a helping hand, when the world is cruel to you. A magical girl doesn’t raise her sword first. She talks. She asks. She feels. And only after all has been exhausted, she fights.

It’s something you can’t get in media catheter to other demographics, where kindness and love is seen as weak or corny.

If a girl wants to be better, it doesn’t matter what she did before. She is allowed a second chance.

Even in Madoka, the “darkest” magical girl - she saves every girl who wanted to do better. She stopped them from becoming witches, because they didn’t want to. But they were forced to. Forced to become horrible monsters, until someone killed them. But Madoka saved them.

The fact is, even other children’s show about, borrowing or alluding to Magical Girls touch upon this theme.

Have Star and Eclipsa for example. Eclipsa is a person who’s done everything wrong in the book of Mewni magic. Even when she herself and narratives admit she has done wrong things, it still brings forth the main issue. She was hurt too. Her family was taken from her, her baby, her husband, her Royal linage, her magic, her own history got erased and rewritten. She’s shown as someone who did bad things but ultimately who meant well. In the end, she is granted by Star redemption. By giving her her child, and her wand back.

Steven Universe touches upon it too, via all the other gems that are from Homeworld, mainly Peridot and Lapis, who despite having a hard time, after getting kicked out of Homeworld, make an honest attempt to integrate into Earth

As I’ve said, She-Ra is perhaps the best integration of Magical Girls into western children’s show. The way they handle Catra is the perfect example of why I say that. She is the best example of someone who wants to do good but can’t because of the trauma she’s faced. She’s extremely sympathetic but her actions are undoubtedly wrong. Even so, Adora’s adversion is never towards Catra, but Catra’s action. Because she knows she’s a good person, but until she admits fault and asks for help - she can’t really help her. Even if she tried (and she did) Catra would simply lash out. This drives home the message “you can’t save or help does who do not want to be saved or helped” but it also reinforces to girls the idea that - no matter how late your change of heart is, that’s all you need. Admit your mistakes, try to do better, and you’ll find a place where you’re truly happy.

But, if you wanted a slightly more cynical look at it - we have the Owl House

That’s one of the few that say “some people are straight up evil, don’t try to sympathize with them or they’ll trick you”. Belos is bad news, period. No matter how human he may appear to be, he’s far more of a monster than the witches he hates. But that’s an adult man.

The teenagers around Luz’s age are just that. Teens. Amity is not a monster, Hunter is not a monster. And Boscha is annoying but not a monster either. Nor is she irredeemable. In fact, she’s portrayed in the last season as more of a lost child without Amity’s mean girl guidance. Yeah, she’s a mean girl but she cares for her friends, she misses them and cries when she reunites with them. That said, for every Boscha we had, we also had an Amity, a Mathomouel, and a Hunter. Three other mean or bully characters that were shown to be secretly good or with the need of nothing more than a push in the right direction to become good.

(Also, side note but if you’ve noticed, Magical Girl stories are extremely intertwined with queer stories. I do find it extremely odd that MLB never touches on any queer main story - aside from Marc and the subtext of Rose and Juleca. Which again, subtext. Most westernizations of magical girls make it explicit and risk cancelation over it. All more to say that the creators of MLB have a complete disregard and outright contempt to the genre they’re stealing from, if this is as far as they’d go.)

Their attitude towards Chloe, in comparison, is nothing short of petty.

Why would Chloe be beyond sympathy? Beyond empathy? Beyond an attempt to a second chance?

If she truly showed that she’s remorseful, if she truly tried to become better, why would a man like Thomas deny her that simply because “bullies can never be heroes”?

BULLSHIT. That’s a terrible terrible message to send to kids. We all want to believe the ones watching are perfect girls who get bullied and have never done anything wrong - but a lot of them aren’t. And you’re essentially telling them “if you made bad choice in the past you’ll never be a hero. You’ll never be good enough”

You’re hurting little girls. You’re hurting this genre.

THIS IS WHY CHLOE MATTERS. This is why I dropped the series when I did.

Instead of saying something important with Chloe, it doubled down and said “actually she’s a monster” even when it was shown she could be good, that she could be better.

And maybe I could understand it, if they hadn’t introduced Zoe.

She’s seen by the creators as a “watered down version” of Chloe. They realized Chloe was actually a good addition but they didn’t like how she was too much of a bully or too mean. So, instead of dealing with their flawed compelling character, they make a “nicer” version of her.

Yeah Zoe was mean but she was mean once (1) and because of Chloe’s pressure.

Which is. Bad. Writing wise.

Not because the message is bad but because it’s hypocritical. Why should one be praised for being mean because of peer pressuring but stopping - while the one doing it to impress her family, her mother, and trying to stop, be considered bad? Because one gave up the “mean” act sooner?

Again, terrible message. Healing and becoming a better person isn’t as quick as talking once to someone. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes work.

Why is someone who doesn’t struggle with being a good person be “better” than someone who tries to be good even when it doesn’t come naturally to them? Not to mention, by the point in time, Chloe was not only hurt by her mother’s neglect but Ladybug’s neglect. It makes sense she’s mean to others, she’s known nothing but neglect and abandonments from the people she looks up to.

Is it that weird she treats everyone she sees as below her as disposable, when the people SHE looks up to sees her as disposable?

Chloe deserves sympathy, if not forgiveness at least a chance to understand her.

The fact that Thomas spat on the very core of THE Magical Girl Genre. Shows what he is. An old dude, who THINKS he knows what little girls want. Who thinks a woman who was mean, is an evil creature that knows no remorse, and deserves to be hated forever. Not forgiven, or handed a second chance. But despised.

He is the type man that pollutes the genre. Who thinks he knows, but really no one wants him here.

Fisheye isn’t a a girl, but because of the LatinoAmerican dub I grew up believing he was. And his interactions with Usagi, to this day, left an impact on me bigger than you can imagine. Fisheye was someone who constantly made fun of Usagi, who was a villain in every sense of the word. They kept constantly trying to steal Mamoru from Usagi and made fun of her on the way out.

But Usagi, when she say how down and heartbroken FishEye was - she cheered them up. She invited them to her house. Shared with them her dream. In the middle of poor Fisheye having an existencial crisis over being nothing more than a creature without dreams, Usagi offered a helping hand and comforted them.

Because Usagi cannot leave someone crying alone. She recognizes that Fisheye is a bit mean, but just like Rei, secretly cares for others. In the end, Fisheye sacrifices themselves to save Usagi. They cry when Usagi’s dreams get shattered, horrified but finally understanding why dreams are important.

It sounds silly, but it changed my brain chemistry. Something inside me recognized at my 12 years old that you have to be kind. Because you never know what the other person is going through, because you never know the impact your kindness can have on others.

And this is why I love Magical Girls so much, why I love Sailor Moon so much.

Yet.

What this show did to the genre I love, it’s…it’s plain unforgivable.

ML is bad. For a number of reasons. But it fails to be what it promised to me. It failed me on the first day. And I still stuck with it. Because a lot of western series failed me on their initial take of a Magical Girl.

Star Vs wasn’t best. Steven Universe didn’t borrow enough. She-Ra’s transformation left much to be desired.

But they all gave me something. And what’s most important, it held its core belief.

“Women can help one another. And kindness isn’t weakness”

Miraculous isn’t that.

It disappointed and hurt me, because it believes the exact opposite. Marinette only cares about Adrien, and cares little for other women. She is antagonistic for any girl who shows interest in him.

In her eyes, kindness isn’t a priority. Her friends and teammates are all people she chose, not those who she had to learn to love and fight alongside with.

If She-Ra’s last season is the culmination of everything a Magical Girl should be in the west. Miraculous is the exact opposite.

It doesn’t only fail as a show. It doesn’t only fail as a Magical Girl show. It borrowed every last thing it had from the genre.

And once it was popular, it spat on it.

Miraculous ladybug hates magical girls. And honestly,

I hate it too.

PREV << MASTERLIST >> NEXT

#miraculous ladybug #magical girls #mlb salt #mlb critical #this is one hell of an emotional analysis

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mtsainthelens · 1 year ago

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my across the spiderverse thoughts!!!

i did a similar writeup for the first movie but i think i deleted the post. no worries, i think a lot of it is irrelevant now anyway.

anyway.

-movie was incredible. animation was 10/10, most impressive i’ve ever seen maybe? the intro scene with gwen and miguel and the ending sequence where miles is swinging home were my favorites. writing was like 9.5/10, it always nails the comedy in such a natural and unpretentious way which is so perfect for a spiderman movie

-you can really feel the love and passion put into this movie. its a real shame to hear about the crunch conditions the team was put under but its remarkable that the movie doesn’t feel particular anxious or resentful in the way other crunch projects tend to be. really such a loving attention to detail in spite of the shit management. actually kind of ironic.

-also the energy of this feels so incredibly different from the vibe of the firet i supposed there really has been a culture shift! everything these days is about determinism and multiverses is that any indication of where we’re heading?

-miguels little jingle is fantastic. i’m gonna remember that sound forever

-i thought trans gwen was a theory but to me it seemed explicitly canon. unfortunately i felt mostly confused whenever i saw the trans colors appear explicitly in a scene because i didn’t understand the double meaning? i only understood a lot of her scenes in a literal sense

-those action sequences, goddamn. you know i never watched korra but i watch the best fight compilations on youtube. i love animated fights.

-i didnt know you could curse in sony movies i was gasping everytime….

-meta-commentary 1: the “what was their canon event” meme makes no sense because in the movie it says everyone has the same canon event!!! like it varies depending on the context but its all fundamentally the same its like not funny to me to think about cat gwen stacy dying or smth. not funny to me

-i love how this movie doesn’t make unlikable characters. i can’t think of a single character i dislike in either of the movies? if i was the kind of person who used the term “comfort movie”, well…..

-meta-commentary 2: i did notice the “spider-team” of miles, gwen, pavitr, and hobie was only on scene for like. that one sequence. i’m sure they’ll come back but what i saw of the fandom reaction to it made me go in expecting a lot more from that. this happened to me with the last movie as well i feel very detatched from the wider fandom reaction to it? nothing against it but to me the movies dont feel like either A.) hanging around a universe or B.) making a story that needs to be dissected through long ass essays. which is what i’m always looking to get out of a fandom experience and i think are my perquisites for being interested in a fandom experience at all. obviously im still a huge FAN of the movies but i can never really take them outside of what they are if that makes sense. they start and end at the credits for me.

-having said that i loved spiderpunk!!! i know he was like total…. fanbait if that makes sense? i usually feel averse to characters im supposed to like or who feel engineered to be liked or who are known for getting fang1rls but god he was such a sweetheart. that diy watch. he reminds me of a friend i guess thats why im attatched. i like how nice he was to miles im just incredibly endeared to him.

-and having said that. my thirst rating is that i didnt think hobie or migel or the spot or anyone else were hot. something about the way faces are rendered is very interesting but i cant find it attractive at all. btw im someone who can be attracted to fictional characters easily and i wish jeff the killer was my boyfriend. anyway….

-my only criticisms would be that some of the emotional moments felt not exactly flat but noticeably offbeat at times and that the final 15-20 minutes kind of wore me thin. forgivable.

soooo great. i think im going to rewatch the first one soon but it might make me feel really raw. i think theyre both fairly sentimental movies but the first one makes me feel just a bit sorer because it feels so sunny. hard to explain. i really wish Peter B was in this movie more but i get why he wasnt.

anyway back to work

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femkethefaineant · 1 year ago

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Well yes, but I take joking very seriously. That said, I did intend my post as a joke too, but perhaps we have either a different sense of humour or a different frame of reference. So, contrary to what I said, I will elaborate a tiny little bit.

Warning: infodump on why I thought my post was also a joke, why philosophy is a joke, and why both are serious. You don't have to read all this, I won't kidnap you. This post is a joke as well, even though I mean every word of it.

See, I study philosophy, and to me, philosophy is the one science where currently celebrated scientific methods are not usually helpful. Our most famous works are either over two millennia old, or written while on drugs. The most inspirational theories either are ridiculous or sound ridiculous until further examination. I myself still hold several views that I initially thought up as jokes.

Those theories that seemed ridiculous, however, especially in philosophy of mind, for example, have held up exceptionally well. Many neurologists have gone mad trying to figure out what their research results mean, when a philosopher thought up a solution for them several decades ago. Meanwhile, stances in the free will debate include "we are free to will but not to act" and "free will is inherently compatible with determinism" (the latter being the the official consensus, last I heard of it). But other sciences are free to just declare free will a myth without considering the implications of such a worldview. So the ideas that sound like jokes are actually the most impactful and serious.

Hell, even that Greek guy who thought movement was impossible because if the item is in a different place and time then it's not the same item, has come up in quantum mechanics as a basic metaphor for the uncertainty principle. Sure, if you know anything about physics it doesn't hold up, but for the average human it might just help.

Thus, philosophy in itself, while being very serious and prestigious and all that, is a joke. But like, in a 'it's funny cause it's true" or a "haha no that can't be it" type of way. And serious as in it still is and should be a science, helps us keep the other sciences in line, and helps us understand the world in a way far more grounded to most people than some mathematical formula consisting mostly of Greek letters.

The details of philosophy are in this case mostly irrelevant. The important thing is, this is same the way I constructed my paper. Originally I thought it up as a joke, but when confronted with research I found nothing to refute it and all to confirm it. What started as a random thought, perhaps even a pun, is now a full-fledged philosophical theory. Even though only I know of it. And some random economist. Hope he's doing well.

Now consider the similarities between a paper and an infodump. Both are only interesting if you share the same interest, both are usually way longer than necessary, both can be originated by either jokes or strongly held beliefs or opinions, sometimes all of those. But if you hand one in for a grade, then the person giving that grade is forced to engage with it and read it entirely. However, while writing, they cannot interrupt you. (Goddamn it, that's what Plato said)

Similarly, if a Tumblr post states "in this essay i will" without the actual essay, people will ask for it, meaning people want to read essays on tumblr and if you're reading this, either you're one of them or I am very curious why you're still here.

(The difference between an essay and an infodump, then, is only (1) the perceived difference in quality, which is both non-existent, more a spectrum than a binary, and heavily influenced by previous beliefs and faulty standards, and (2) the medium it is placed upon, thus making the difference rather circular. It's a bit like fanfiction vs books, one should be better than the other and one is published online while the other gets printed, not all books are good, some fanfiction is, not all books are printed, some fanfiction is, and both those are dependant on whether the work was originally viewed as a book or as fanfiction. I digress, back to my main point)

So, on the one hand, I tried to describe a paper that was originally a joke but turned serious in a jokey way, while also implying that I had sort of forced someone to engage with my lengthy content - sort of kidnapping the professor to listen to my infodump, if you will. Without interrupting.

And now, by typing all this without you interrupting me, we have data that this is indeed what Tumblr is for.

And now again, we have a working theory that to me sounds reasonably valid, even though it originates in a joke, meaning, this thread.

So that's why I thought my post was an expansion upon your joke, I did not mean it much more seriously than I take most philosophy. Just like this one.

guy who kidnaps people but only so he can infodump at someone without being interrupted

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sevenkittensinatrenchcoat · 3 years ago

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Gender and Sexuality in Cats

Thrown down the chimney unedited at least an hour late, but here it is. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and/or Have a Nice End of the Year and I Hope You Get Time Off!

Minors and Asexuals Who Feel Forgotten During Sex Talk: You should probably skip this one. You’re all valid and should have a Pleasant End of December, too :)

Gender and Sexuality in Cats

Okay, since this is Tumblr, do I really need to do a formal introduction/thesis statement. This easy is about how gender roles and sexuality are depicted in Cats. I’m writing it because it’s interesting.

It goes without saying by now that Every Production Is Different. Some are more or less sexualized than others. Blankenbuehler’s choreography is often less sexualized than Lynne’s, especially with the toms. This essay is mostly about Cats 1998 and London-based productions, which are a sort of “default setting” for Cats productions. 1998 is the easiest to watch when looking for small details because of frequent close-ups, so it’s just generally easier to work off of than anything else. But, I’ll bring up stuff from other productions if I have something to say about them.

Part 1: Jellicle Gender Roles

So, Jellicle cats have toms and queens, though I’ve sure there are productions that portray characters as non-binary. But, most of the time, all Cats characters fall into a gender binary. You can ignore it, if you really want to, but there are patterns of differences between male and female characters. When describing these, I might end up using language that would be a bit restrictive when applied to 21st century humans, but I know that nb people exist and are valid. They’re just not going to come up here. Sorry about that.

In human societies, though there are many exceptions, gender has traditionally been treated as a binary aligning with biological sex. I’m going to call the theoretical biological sex of these characters irrelevant. Some are portrayed as toms and some are portrayed as queens. Humans like to assign roles to gender, declaring some things “for women” and other things “for men”. Jellicle cats also have gender roles, mostly the same ones as humans of the culture that created them, but with a few differences.

Nurturing, looking after children, the elderly, the sick, and others who require care, is often thought of as “for women”. In Cats, nurturing is gender neutral. All the adults look after all the kittens to the point where it’s impossible to determine whose kids are whose. The toms are not more emotionally distant than the queens. Munkustrap gives and receives as many hugs as the “mom cats” do. Skimble is actually gentler with the kittens than the queens are when they’re doing something they’re not supposed to. In general, you get the vibe that all kittens are considered to be the collective responsibility of all adults. Some kittens seem to be closer to some adults than others, but any adult in the tribe can act as a parent to any kitten in the tribe if the situation calls for it.

When it comes to fighting and physically protecting the tribe, Jellicles seem to be a bit more like humans. In general, toms do the fighting. Queens aren’t banned from fighting, and several of them participate in the Macavity Fight, but you get a sense that when the tribe is in danger, queens can choose whether or not to fight, while toms are expected to fight.

When the tribe is in danger, you can see this in action in how the kittens are treated. In 1998, at least, there are six characters consistently treated as kittens: 2 toms, Pouncival and Tumblebrutus, and 4 queens, Jemima, Victoria, Electra, and Etcetera. During the third Macavity Scare, the one where he actually attacks, the adults form a protective circle around the queen kittens. Meanwhile, Pouncival just wanders off into a corner and nobody seems to care and Tumblebrutus is nowhere to be found. It’s not that the adults don’t care about the boys, but they’re treated as if they can handle themselves in a fight. Pouncival later joins the Macavity Fight and no one objects.

Another example of this is the difference between Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer during this scene. Whether they’re related or not, these two are clearly meant to be the same age. They’re often associated with the kittens, but considered a separate entity to some extent. They’re most likely slightly older than the kittens, but only slightly. During the Macavity scare, Jerrie and Skimble make sure that Teazer is inside the safety circle, same as the queen kittens. But, Jerrie stands outside the circle and prepares to fight. Unlike with most of the other cats standing, it’s clear that Jerrie doesn’t want to do this. Before Demeter even calls “Macavity”, Jerrie curls into a ball after hearing his laugh. Etcetera, who is right next to him, actually looks up at Macavity and hisses. If she was allowed to fight, she would, but Jerrie is seriously scared of Macavity. If he was allowed to not fight, he wouldn’t fight. Jerrie and Teazer are the same age, but Jerrie is required to fight while Teazer has no such requirements. Fighting isn’t exclusive to toms, but it’s required of them.

Another interesting detail is how the kittens interact with Grizabella. During her first appearance, all four queen kittens try to approach, curious and usually welcoming. The tom kittens pull cruel pranks on her. These characters are the same age and have the same amount of knowledge of Grizabella, but they respond in opposite ways. This makes the girls seem a bit more “morally pure” than the boys.

Then there’s how the adults respond to the kittens approaching Grizabella. Jemima and Electra are stopped immediately when they try to touch her. It’s not as clear what Victoria and Etcetera are doing when they approach her, but Jellylorum chases after them, either to pull them back or make sure they’re safe in this situation.

Only one adult queen tries to approach Grizabella in good faith. When Demeter approaches Griz, Munkustrap is right there. He could easily reach out to stop her, but he doesn’t. It’s clear from his facial expression that he doesn’t approve, but Demeter’s an adult and can make her own decisions.

And then there’s Pouncival. When Pouncival scratches Grizabella, he tricks her into approaching him. This takes a moment. Multiple adults are right there and don’t know what Pouncival intends to do. On the surface, he seems like he’s acting like Jemima and Electra did. When the girls reached towards Grizabella, they were stopped immediately. When Pouncival does it, the adults give Disapproving Looks, but do nothing to stop him, more like when Demeter reaches towards Griz. Pouncival is the same age as Jemima and Electra, but he has Demeter’s adult freedom. Boys are considered old enough to be responsible before girls are.

But wait! There’s more! If you watch closely, there’s another interesting pattern within the pattern:

Part 2: Misto Is the Exception to Everything.

In general, when it comes to the tribe’s gender roles, Mistoffelees isn’t treated like the other toms. He’s not treated exactly like the queens either, but he’s definitely Not Like the Other Boys. This doesn’t apply all the time. In Bustopher’s number, where all the toms flock to Bustopher while the queens have to sit in the corner, Misto is definitely with the toms, coming across as the most Bustopher-obsessed out of all of them. He is a tom. The tribe acknowledges him as a tom.

The tribe also acknowledges him as an adult. The line between adult toms and kittens is clearly shown in Bustopher’s number. Most of the toms gather around Bustopher during his solo, but when Pouncival and Tumblebrutus try to get close, they get Disapproving Looks from both Misto and Munkustrap. Plato and George, who are often seen hanging out with the kittens, are allowed to be around Bustopher during his solo, meaning that they’re considered adults. They’re young enough to have a connection with the kittens, but they’re not considered kittens anymore. Misto is one of the smaller toms and often behaves in a very Baby sort of way, so this scene also makes it clear that, despite all of that, he’s not a kitten. He’s young and small, but old enough to be placed with the adults. Most of the adult toms during Bustopher’s number treat him as an equal.

So, Demeter can approach Grizabella, because she’s an adult. Pouncival, despite being a kitten, can approach Grizabella because the rules are different for boys. But Misto, an adult tom, isn’t allowed to do the same thing. His interaction with Griz starts off similar to Pouncival’s with him signaling her towards him. This isn’t a prank, however. Misto is young enough to not really know who Grizabella is and he’s curious. He doesn’t try to touch her, so he’s not immediately welcoming her, but he’s trying to figure out whether he should or not. Then, Munk gets between to two, pushing Misto back, and glares at Grizabella in full Protector Mode. This convinces Misto that he was in some sort of danger, so he joins the adults in hating Grizabella.

But, by rushing to stop him from getting too close to Grizabella, Munk is treating him like the queen kittens are treated. When Pouncival, a tom kitten, younger than Misto, appears to be approaching Griz in a very similar way, Munk is close enough to stop him, but he doesn’t. But, Misto approaching Grizabella was the first thing Munk directly reacted to when she showed up.

Misto doesn’t participate in any fighting either. There’s an out-of-universe reason why he’s not around for the Macavity Fight, but there’s also the second Macavity Scare. Everyone runs and hides, except for Old Deuteronomy and Munkustrap. During the first scare, before Old Deut showed up, it was Munk and Alonzo that stayed out. Munk and Alonzo are the cats treated as the most responsible for protecting the tribe, but based on the third Macavity Scare, where no one even tries to hide, if the tribe is in a situation where there has to be a fight, all the toms are required to participate. If the second Macavity Scare led to an actual attack, all the toms, including Misto, would be expected to fight. Since he’d be called to fight anyway, the fact that Misto seems to want to stay out and help Old Deut and Munk during the Macavity Scare, seems like a thing he’d be allowed to do, but he’s not.

My theory with Misto is that as the tribe’s one magical cat, losing him would be more than just losing a member of the family, but losing the tribe’s future. If Old Deut ever dies, Misto would be the only cat powerful enough to access the Heaviside Layer. They don’t know what would happen to the tribe without Misto. Most of the tribe doesn’t treat Misto any different, but Old Deut and Munkustrap, the ones who have to worry about the tribe’s future, are very protective of him because of how much the tribe will need him.

But, yeah, whatever I say about Jellicle gender roles often excludes Misto. He’s a gender non-conforming character.

Now, I said this essay was about gender and sexuality, so maybe we should get to the sex part:

Part 3: Victoria

In modern western society, sexuality is treated as something inherently corrupt. Children are forbidden from even knowing that it exists. This might be because it’s something they shouldn’t be involved in, but they shouldn’t be driving either and we let them know whatever they want about cars. Knowing something exists is not the same as doing it. Lack of sexuality is seen as innocence, with awareness of it a loss. Having sex for the first time is the Loss of Virginity. Even if it’s celebrated, it’s a loss.

Take note that this all applies to women more than anyone else.

So, in most of our fiction, an innocent girl, even when old enough to be considered an adult, is without sexuality. They can have romance, seeking marriage and children, but no implications of sex allowed. At most, sex is something the woman is willing to tolerate for the sake of their man and getting pregnant. This is if the subject even comes up at all.

Why bring all this up? To explain just how unique Victoria’s arc is.

Victoria is one of the younger characters and the only one to be pure white, a color associated with both innocence and virginity. Her kindness towards Grizabella is the final element needed to bring her back into the tribe and is a major plot point. The adults all either have grudges against Grizabella, judge her for her messy appearance, or don’t try to help her out of peer pressure. The kittens don’t know why the adults have those grudges, what implications Griz’s appearance could have, or why they have to do what everyone else is doing if it doesn’t seem right to them. Jemima and Victoria are the two stand-outs in this, Victoria is basically Pure Innocent Virgin coded.

But, Victoria’s arc in the first act is all about her sexuality. Her solo dance is an exploration of her developing body and getting turned on for the first time. Later, at the Jellicle Ball, she has a dance with a boy that basically symbolizes sex. Before the end of act one, Victoria symbolically loses her virginity.

But, Victoria is still kind to Grizabella. Nothing about her personality really changes. She’s not corrupted by sexuality. In Cats, virginity is not a requirement for innocence, because sexuality is portrayed without guilt. Victoria’s sex dance happens publicly, with other cats doing similar things around it. It’s not the hidden, forbidden, taboo subject that it is the human culture who made the play.

On top of all that, Victoria’s dance with a boy isn’t a romance. It can be. Sometimes the actors playing Victoria and her partner will play them as a couple outside of this scene. But, usually, the dance has no build-up, no flirtation between the characters, and can easily be forgotten about later. This could’ve been a casual encounter, which Victoria is fine with. She wasn’t having sex as an extension of romance, but purely for its own sake. This is not portrayed as a bad thing that the boy did to her, nor is it treated like a bad thing that doesn’t seem to mind.

The romantic aspect of the pairing matters so little that it doesn’t even matter who the boy is! Admetus/Plato is often chosen due to being playing by the Macavity actor who can do lifts. He has to lift and throw men his own size, so lifting Victoria’s actress looks effortless. So, he’s chosen for convenience. Early on in the London production, before Admetus started doubling as Macavity, Victoria danced with Coricopat. Late in the production, for unknown reasons, she’s paired with Alonzo. Outside of London, it was decided that a girl having a sexual coming-of-age arc where the boy doesn’t matter only worked if the boy had an arc to parallel hers. This led to one of many kittens in the London production to gain the name Tumblebrutus and have an arc about trying to prove himself as a man. Paris and Zurich had Mistoffelees have an arc about mastering his magic and finding his place in the tribe when paired with Victoria. Later productions kept the arc, even without the Victoria pairing, just because it was a good arc.

This isn’t even a full list of toms that have been paired with Victoria for her dance. They are interchangeable in this scene. It’s a sequel to Victoria’s solo, with the boy basically being a prop for her development.

Part 4: Male and Female Sexuality

Thanks to the Black Magic of Heteronormativity, the way sexuality is portrayed in modern western media, when it’s allowed at all, follows a specific pattern. You might’ve heard of a thing called the Male Gaze. I highly doubt I can explain it correctly, but in this context, it means that the text assumes that the audience is heterosexual and male, and treats men and women in a certain way to match. Male sexuality is portrayed as something for the audience to relate to. Emphasis is put on his point of view in looking at pretty girls. Female sexuality is portrayed as purely for the audience’s amusement. Women stand around looking sexy and men flock to them. The audience is supposed to relate to the men flocking to the woman.

Cats sometimes does stuff like this, but it often reverses it. Most of the role reversal revolves around The Rum Tum Tugger. Tugger is a very sexual character, but the way it’s portrayed is not how male sexuality is usually portrayed. Tugger is not the pursuer. He attracts attention with his sex appeal and will flirt with the fans he gathers, but they always come to him. Even when Tugger leads a group of guys to dance with a group of girls, he gathers the guys together, leading his group. He helps his guy friends get laid. He can get laid whenever he wants. He doesn’t have to try. He basically has a waiting list. So, he doesn’t actively pursue women. They all come to him. When Tugger is being sexy, it’s while the audience is being introduced to him, and we see him from the point of view of his fans.

The way female sexuality is portrayed is also interesting. I’ve already gone over Victoria, but she’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Women are often sorted through the binary of a Madonna-Whore Complex: They’re either Virginal and Good or Sexual and Bad. We’ve already gone over this, at least on the Madonna side of things. I actually think there’s something of a third category: the Mother. These are older women, usually moms, who’ve probably had sex at some point, but they’re not meant to be attractive to the straight male audience. They’re “past their expiration date”. They also tend to be too conservative to express their sexuality. These women aren’t virgins, but they’re still not seen as sexual, and thus they can fall into the good category alongside the Madonna/Virgin.

The major character queens in Cats can mostly be sorted into these categories. The queen kittens are Virgins, Jennyanydots and Jellylorum are Mothers, and Bombalurina falls into the Whore category. But, though they match these categories in age and “vibe”, their sexuality and the way it’s portrayed are very different.

We’ve already went over how the Virgin is subverted. If you’re wondering why I covered it earlier instead of here, it’s because I had a bit more to say about it than the rest. But, going beyond Victoria, all of the queen kittens are sexual. They all have a crush on Tugger. Crushes aren’t always sexual, but these four are constantly checking out his ass and crotch. They all wanna fuck Tugger. Tugger flirts with them a bit, and though the older cats generally disapprove of his antics, they’re treating him as annoying, not dangerous. The kittens are old enough to be sexual with a non-kitten character.

All four queen kittens approach Grizabella during her first scene. They’re all sexual and they’re all innocent.

The scene immediately after Grizabella’s first is where the Mother category gets subverted. Jenny has a crush on Bustopher and everyone knows it. The kittens start to get grossed out when she keeps going on about him, because “ew Mom and Dad are kissing”. It’s an immature reaction from immature characters. Anyway, Jenny’s crush is played as a joke, but she’s not the butt of the joke. It’s a generally wacky situation. All the characters are given a new situation to interact with. Jellylorum has the same crush, just more subtly. Bombalurina doesn’t have this crush, but she doesn’t want to be mean to the older women and is a bit awkward around the subject. Bustopher himself has to react. He sort of flirts back with her, ending on giving her a flower. So, you have an older man and woman, not conventionally attractive, flirting. It’s not as aggressive sexual as Tugger’s stuff, but there is still sexuality to it.

So, older women don’t have their sexuality removed, and their sexuality isn’t played as predatory or comical in and of itself.

Lastly, there’s the “Whore” category. Bombalurina is the only obvious example. She’s older than the kittens, but younger than the moms, and is as blatantly sexual as Tugger. She’s confident in both showing off her body and directly flirting with men. She flirts with multiple male characters. She’s into bad boys to the point where she’ll admit that she thinks Macavity is hot, and she clearly isn’t ashamed of it. Combine that with a deep voice, a red and black color scheme, and spiked accessories, and you have a character that’s villain coded. You’d think she’d be some sort of femme fatale.

But she isn’t. Bombalurina is a loyal friend. She’s a loyal Jellicle. She might think Macavity’s hot, but she knows he’s a piece of shit and wants nothing to do with him. She’s a woman who’s mature and sexual and also on the side of good.

So, girls are not corrupted by developing sexuality, being very sexually active and promiscuous isn’t treated as a flaw or sign of villainy, and women don’t have to lose their sexuality when they get older. There’s a diverse cast of women who express their sexuality in different ways without being judged for it.

There’s one major queen character that I’ve not mentioned yet, because she’s complex enough that she definitely needs her own section, and that section fits better after talking about Bomba.

Part 5: Demeter

Demeter is not the only cat with a sexual story arc, but while Victoria’s was an arc of discovery, Demeter’s is an arc of healing.

CW: Mentions of sexual assault, abusive relationships, and similar nastiness

Demeter’s exact backstory varies between productions, but one element is clearly the same: She’s slept with Macavity and she’s now terrified of him. Different people have explained this in different ways. Cast members of the Broadway Revival say there was an abusive relationship, but don’t elaborate. Cast members from older US tours say that Macavity kidnapped and raped her. Commenting on the 1998 version, Jacob Brent said that she was kidnapped and held hostage, but with no mention of sexual assault. In general, Brent’s recap of the play avoids sexual themes most of the time, though whether this was him giving a censored version of things, or having been told a less sexual version of the story, I don’t know.

So, when everything is averaged out, Demeter was kidnapped by Macavity and they had sex at some point. She might’ve entered a relationship with him willingly but tried to leave when it turned abusive, if she wasn’t just kidnapped and raped. Both backstories make a certain amount of sense.

Whichever backstory you go with, whether it was consensual or not, Demeter enjoyed at least some of what Macavity did to her. Gillian Lynne phrased it as, “The man was wonderful when he made love to me, but I hated him!” This fits a bit better with the “abusive relationship that started as consensual” version of the backstory. But, either way, it’s a part of Demeter’s trauma. She feels like she shouldn’t have enjoyed it, because Macavity is a monster. Bombalurina is implied to have had a similar relationship with Macavity, but she’s okay with the fact that she enjoyed it. She thinks he’s hot, he’s good in bed, but he’s an asshole and she’s better off without him. But, Demeter isn’t as confident as Bombalurina is.

Demeter’s conflict over Macavity is best expressed in the dance break between the first verse and chorus of his number. Demeter caresses herself, touching herself like he once did, and then snaps out of it. Thinking about Macavity brings up those memories and she doesn’t like it.

The Shadow Dance, that appears in some Broadway-based productions, is also a part of this, combined with Demeter’s romance arc with Alonzo. In London, Demeter is paired with Munkustrap instead, so this never caught on. You can speculate however you want about why Alonzo performs the Shadow Dance, copying Demeter’s movements during the first verse and chorus. But, it could also be possible that Alonzo isn’t even literally there and this is just a projection of Demeter’s internal conflict. She’s found a guy she likes and she kind of wants to move on to a new relationship, but her memories of Macavity follow her everywhere she goes and she can’t help but compare every man to him. Macavity was “outwardly respectable”. How can she know what men she can trust? Even though she likes Alonzo and thinks he’s a good man, these thoughts just keep coming up. It’s not until Alonzo saves her from Macavity that she decides she can trust him. Macavity was what she feared and Alonzo protected her from that fear.

In versions where it’s Munkustrap that Demeter falls for, the romance arc still works. Macavity and Munkustrap are both big and strong, physically of a similar build. But, Macavity is a predator and Munkustrap is a protector. They use their strength in opposite ways.

There is a slight difference in the romance arcs, but not enough to change the conclusion. Munkustrap is a more established main character, so Demeter naturally gets to know him very quickly, while Alonzo spends a lot of time in the background, so his personality is less clear. Demeter isn’t entirely sure of who Alonzo is until the Macavity Fight. She learns his true character there. With Munkustrap, he’s already proved himself by being a constant presence and leader. The Macavity Fight brings out more emotion, so Demeter gets closer to Munk, acting on her feelings in the moment, seeing him wounded from trying to protect her, but still immediately looking for her when he regains consciousness. He’d already sacrificed a lot and he’d keep doing it if he needed to because he cares about his family, which Demeter is now a part of.

Demeter’s story has her sexuality as a key part of her character. Despite her bad experiences with men, she’s still a sexual being, just unsure about whether or not she should be. From Bomba, she learns that it’s okay that she enjoyed some of her time with Macavity. Then she gets with someone better than him. If it’s Alonzo, she learns from him that there are good men out there. If it’s Munkustrap, she learns that she’s found a family and unconditional love.

Demeter doesn’t fall into any clear sexual category, and her sexuality is not just for show, but a complex and developed part of her character.

Epilogue: To All Things Out of Place

Most of the unique depiction of sexuality in cats, as well as the diversity and complexity of the female characters, comes from Gillian Lynne’s choreography. She was a woman who wanted the show to be sexually-charged, but, she didn’t want the sexuality to be purely aimed at straight men. This meant more complex, nuanced depictions of female sexuality, and having the men be sexualized as well.

Some of this elements have lost in adaptation for certain productions. 2019 has quite a few examples of this, but I don’t want to tear into it right now. The Broadway Revival also had its problems with some of this. Tugger’s choreography was toned down, while the sexual content that focused on women wasn’t. I don’t think this was a deliberate choice, but I think most straight men who see Cats are uniquely uncomfortable with this one number, because it’s sexual in a way that isn’t what they’re used to seeing, or really meant for them at all. So much popular media is written by straight men, for straight men, that even people who aren’t straight men tend to see anything not targeted at them as “weird”, unless somehow clearly labelled. LGBT has to be its own genre, even though you could have queer characters and relationships in any genre. Some movies are “chick flicks”, aimed at women and considered lesser for it. If sexuality outside of the Heterosexual Male Gaze shows up in something not clearly marked as “for women” or “for gays”, people act like they saw a snake curled up on the sofa. Snakes can be pets. But, they’re not usually. Snakes, both wild and pet, have specific places we expect to see them, usually ones meant to be easy to avoid, and some people don’t handle it very well if they’re seen “out of place”.

Cats isn’t a “chick flick”. It isn’t clearly marked as “for women”, so it’s “out of place”. It does things differently, and people who are already different, or just very easily bored, are drawn to that, but the show ends up a punchline in the mainstream because, for one reason or another, it’s “out of place”. It’s a musical about animals, but it’s not for children. Men are the center of sexual attention, but it’s not exclusively marketed to women. It’s dance-based musical theatre, which is considered a gay domain, so straight men might just avoid it because of that.

But, for the queer, for the neurodivergent, and for everyone else who already feels “out of place”, a show like Cats can feel like home.

#cats musical #cats 1998 #cats victoria #rum tum tugger #Mr Mistoffelees #Bombalurina #jennyanydots #cats demeter #munkustrap #cats alonzo #sorry that this essay isn't gay enough

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regina-del-cielo · 4 years ago

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I was thinking about Copley’s Murder Conspirancy Board (mostly to deal with the absolute rage that the scene with Andy Copley and Booker gives me because ‘UGH THESE MEN ARE SO S T U P I D’), and... I may have a Theory about it - which mostly delves into how much Booker and Copley were in actual contact with each other before the events of the movie.

TL;DR: the Murder Conspirancy Board was built with a contribution of Booker’s information, and Copley was Very Confused on the workings of the Guard’s immortality

(the Essay(TM) is under the cut)

This excellent post expounds on how these two Grieving Dumbasses Definitely Did Not Think Their Plan Through, but still what little they did plan was not done in two days. And I would like to think that Booker would have required more than One (1) Persuasive Speech to get him to potentially get his family outed and put in danger for the (tiny) chance of getting a cure for their immortality.

So they’d been in contact for a while, possibly for almost the whole ‘break year’. Copley has lost his wife two years before the movie, so when he and Booker met again he’s one year into mourning. If Andy needed a break from their jobs, I can’t imagine in what mental state Booker must have been.

Copley probably started looking into the Guard because man, that Surabaya mission was a masterpiece, and how come these guys aren’t mercenary superstars? But they’re like ghosts, and the IDs don’t really match their supposed ages... and dealing with his wife’s death made him go into a Nerd Spiral. And then he finds Booker.

So this is how I think it went: they meet again. They talk. Copley is a grieving widower, Booker goes ‘man don’t I relate’. Booker is probably drunk a lot of the time (maybe so is Copley, misery loves company and all that). They enter a positive feedback loop of sharing grief over lost loved ones. Copley probably spills that he knows something, that they’ve done great things and they have a gift obviously. Booker probably answers along the lines of ‘fuck the gift, it sucks. Didn’t save my children when they needed it’. Copley goes ‘well, medicine is much better today. What if you could do it now?’ And the rest is history.

A) Booker ‘helped’ with the Murder Conspirancy Board

We know for a fact that the Conspirancy Board contains information about the Guard ‘from the last 150 years’ which is, approximately, the time photography’s been around. And it makes sense - photos are pretty easily accessible, and Copley knows their faces. He probably scanned them from one of those fake IDs and then used a facial recognition software to find them in historical photographic archives. But we know (and by the end of the movie so does he) that the last 150 years is a nothing in their lifespan. And while going backwards Copley may have found Booker’s original birth and/or marriage records, nothing of the sort would exist for Joe, Nicky and Andy.

Despite how much we joke about the Guard’s faces being Everywhere in museums and art galleries around the world, we can assume that they wouldn’t leave so many traces of them behind. The two known art pieces representing Andy in an obviously recognizable manner, her portrait with Achilles and the Rodin, are in the cave in Val d’Argent. I don’t believe Nicky and Joe wouldn’t have similar storage places, especially for Joe’s own art. Without photographic evidence and before newspapers, trying to pinpoint the three of them across history would be harder than finding a specific needle in a haystack of needles... unless someone tells you where to look.

When Andy enters Copley’s living room, he calls her ‘Andromache the Scythian, the eternal warrior’. But how could Copley have known that Andy’s “real” name was Andromache? It’s not on her IDs, and it’s not the top choice for a full name that has Andy as a nickname. It’s a literary name, of course it would appear through history in poems or plays or novels. And how could he have associated Nicky and Joe precisely to the Crusades with what he knows of them from the last 150 years alone? For all he knew, they could have been as old as the Punic Wars, or as young as the Battle of Lepanto. Assuming he’d actually caught on on them being together together.

Well, I think Booker told him. Maybe just a thing here or there, while Commiserating on How It Sucks being an Immortal, like ‘Andy’s been around for so long she doesn’t even remember her true age, that’s exhausting’ or ‘Joe and Nicky are ridiculous for two people whose first meeting consisted of killing each other during the fucking Crusades’. And Copley fell into another Nerd Spiral that brought him to understand that holy shit these people are much older than I thought what the fuck.

B) Copley is Very Confused on How Immortality Actually Works

Copley talks to Andy by calling her ‘eternal warrior’ and talking of her immortality as if it was some kind of gift that can somehow be transferred from one body to another (debatable, but... ok). But he’s also flabbergasted by her not healing from Booker’s shot, and later with Nile he says ‘but then why would the immortality leave?’, which is... well, it makes it sound like he thinks the immortals are some sort of Chosen Ones.

Which means that Copley knows nothing about Lykon. He had no idea that at some point the Guard will stop healing.

But why would he not know, since I just conjectured that Booker told him enough about immortality for him to pinpoint the origins of the eldest members of the Guard? Why would Booker not have told him such a central detail of their “power”? (Booker obviously knows about Lykon. We see Andy telling Nile, and you can bet that ‘is this thing permanent?’ is probably the third question Booker ever asked when he met the others. He can’t not know)

I think it’s because despite having bonded over their grief, they are approaching this ‘discovering what the fuck is up with immortality’ from two extremely different sides.

Copley wants to know if there is some biological aspect to their immortality that may be ‘transferred’ or ‘activated’ in any random human being. He’s gotten into his head that their regenerative powers can end all diseases. Which. I could probably write another entire separate post on how this is far-fetched at best. Point being, Copley never thought his endeavour as taking the immortality from the Guard to give it to someone else. He thinks Andy and the others are going to live forever and ever.

Booker knows their immortality is not forever and ever, theoretically. He knows that at some point, in the future, he’s going to stop healing and die. But he Wants to Talk to the Manager about it, damn it. He wants his death to be a certainty he can quantify, not something that may happen in another five thousand years based on the data he’s got at his disposal. He wants to have the choice to end it tomorrow or in fifty years - if discovering what causes his immortality saves other people, well that’s an undeniable bonus, but it’s not the focus of his motivation.

Just like Booker and Copley didn’t cover all the potential ways in which Their Plan Could Go Wrong (and honestly, has Booker not learned yet just how fast they revive on average? He tells Nile that ‘big wounds take longer’, and still he revived from the grenade in three/four minutes!), I think they also didn’t Delve into their motivations for seeking that knowledge. Booker probably thought that Copley knowing of their immortality being relative was irrelevant, because of course the doctors will find something (the thing that makes them stop healing), and then he’ll die anyway, so who cares?

And Copley... Copley was probably Convinced that the Guard was a group of superheroes that just needed to be suggested a new investment plan for using their powers, because saving individuals during wars and natural disasters is very noble and good, but come on, it’s inefficient as hell, they can do much better!

(It absolutely sends me that Copley saw the kind of accomplishments reached by the people that the Guard saved, or by their direct descendants, and STILL it didn’t occur to him that there was a pretty decent chance that sometime in the future they would save someone that would find the cure for ALS and/or other shitty diseases! HE’S LITERALLY HINDERING THEM!!!)

#the old guard #my ponderings #james copley #sebastien le livre #my favourite Depressed French Boi #James 'Dumb of Ass' Copley #Copley is an Absolute Imbecile and I will Die on this Hill #I hope this rant makes sense I changed the order of the paragraphs a hundred times I'm sorry #just to be clear Booker didn't Completely Spill the Beans about the family to Copley otherwise the man would know about Quynh too #Copley most likely scraped at any small detail he could glean from their conversations and add it to the Nerd Spiral #Copley is a Nerd that also somehow forgot how to extrapolate results from given data #for the Guard's sake I hope his skills were hindered by his grief and he goes back to Full Operativeness once he gets some Therapy #THEY NEED SO MUCH THERAPY OMG

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a-froger-epic · 3 years ago

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The Queen fandom, Freddie Mercury and Characterisation

Or: Why are those anons like this? Why are those writers like this? Why don't we understand each other?

In this essay, I will-

No, I’m serious, I will. And this is an essay. It’s roughly 2500 words.

The friction, concerns and hurt in fandom around Freddie’s characterisation - most recently centred around a fic the author tagged as ‘Bisexual Freddie Mercury’, stating in the notes that they have chosen to write Freddie as bisexual - have given me a lot to think about. And if you have been asking yourself the questions above, this here might be of interest to you.

First off, why do I feel like I need to talk about this?

The answer is not: Because I’m so very influential in fandom.

I think my influence in this fandom has been vastly overstated by some people. If I were so influential, everybody would rush to read anything I rec or write. And trust me, they really don’t. My relevance is confined to a very specific part of the fandom. That part is made up of: Freddie fans, Froger shippers, some Roger fans, a handful of writers who like to support each other and like each other’s work, and people who are really into research.

There are many parts of fandom where my opinions are entirely irrelevant. Looking at the big picture, by which I mean only the Queen RPF fandom, I simply am not that important. Looking at the even bigger picture: the Queen fandom as a whole, the majority of which doesn't read or care about RPF - I am literally nobody.

Furthermore, everything I will be talking about here is in relation to the RPF-centred part of Queen fandom.

So why this public essay?

Because I have been deeply involved for two years in a divide of opinions concerning how Freddie ought to be written and how people think of RPF. I think this is in large part because I - like several other authors currently writing for the fandom - absolutely love research. It's my idea or fun. I love to dig into these real people’s lives. Not everybody does that and not everybody is comfortable with that. It’s a personal choice depending on people's levels of comfort surrounding RPF. But this does put me firmly in the camp of Freddie fans who like to explore who this man really was, and track down every last fact about him.

Freddie Mercury vs. Fictional Freddie

I’ll admit that I am one of those people who have the urge to speak up when they see somebody claim that Freddie was bisexual, and sometimes I will say: “Well, actually, we do know that he didn’t see himself that way, because…” For me, these have often been positive exchanges.

I think there is overwhelming evidence that Freddie Mercury identified as gay from his split with Mary to the end of his life (wonderfully curated here by RushingHeadlong). In the niche of fandom I have frequented over the last two years, as far as Freddie the real man is concerned, I have barely ever seen anybody argue with this.

But fanfiction and talking about real Freddie are not one the same thing, and they shouldn't be, and as far as I am concerned they don't have to be. Some writers like to put every last fact and detail they can find into their fic, in an attempt to approach a characterisation that feels authentic to them (and perhaps others), and other writers are simply content to draw inspiration from the real people, writing versions vaguely based on them.

But writing historically and factually accurate RPF is more respectful.

Is it? I've thought about this for a long time, and I really can't agree that it is. This, to me, seems to presume that we know what kind of fiction these real people would prefer to have been written about them. That, in itself, is impossible to know.

However, if I imagine Freddie reading RPF about himself, I think that he might laugh himself silly at an AU with a character merely inspired by him and may be really quite disturbed by a gritty, realistic take full of intimate details of and speculations about his life and psyche. Such as I also tend to write, just by the by, so this is definitely not a criticism of anybody. Freddie is dead. Of all the people to whom the way he is written in fiction matters, Freddie himself is not one. There is no way to know what Freddie would or wouldn't have wanted, in this regard, and so it isn't relevant.

Personally, I can't get behind the idea that speculating and creatively exploring very intimate details of Freddie's life, things he never even spoke of to anybody, is in any way more respectful than writing versions of him which take a lot of creative liberties. As I've said so many times before, I think either all of RPF is disrespectful or none of it is.

So who cares about Freddie characterisation in fiction anyway?

Clearly, a lot of people do. Freddie Mercury was an incredibly inspiring figure and continues to be that to a multitude of very different people for different reasons. There are older fans who have maybe faced the same kind of discrimination because of their sexuality, who saw Freddie's life and persona distorted and attacked by other fans and the media for decades, who have a lot of hurt and resentment connected to such things as calling Freddie bisexual - because this has been used (and in the wider fandom still is used) to discredit his relationship with Jim, to argue that Mary was the love of his life and none of his same sex relationships mattered, to paint a picture where "the gay lifestyle" was the death of him. And that is homophobic. That is not right. I completely understand that upset.

But.

These are not the only people who care about Freddie and for whom Freddie is a source of inspiration and comfort. What about people who simply connect to his struggles with his sexuality from a different angle? What about, for example, somebody who identifies with the Freddie who seemed to be reluctant to label himself, because that, to them, implies a freedom and sexual fluidity that helps them cope with how they see their own sexuality? Is it relevant why Freddie was cagey about labelling himself? Does it matter that it likely had a lot to do with discrimination? Are his reasons important? To some degree, yes. But are other queer people not allowed to see that which helps them in him? Are they not allowed to take empowerment and inspiration from this? Can you imagine Freddie himself ever resenting somebody who, for whatever reason, admired him and whose life he made that little bit brighter through his mere existence, however they interpreted it? I honestly can't say that I can imagine Freddie himself objecting to that.

This is the thing about fame. Anyone who is famous creates a public persona, and this persona belongs to the fans. By choosing that path, this person gives a lot of themselves to their fans. To interpret, to draw inspiration from, to love the way it makes sense to the individual. Please remember, at this point, that we are talking about how people engage with Freddie as a fictional character creatively. This is not about anybody trying to lay down the law regarding who Freddie really was, unequivocally. This is all about writers using his inspiring persona and the imprint he left on this world to explore themes that resonate with them.

This is what we as writers do. We write about things which resonate with us and often touch us deeply.

But don't they care about the real Freddie?

Yes, actually, I would argue that a lot of people care about "the real Freddie". It seems to me that depicting Freddie as gay or with a strong preference for men is what the vast majority of the RPF-centered fandom on AO3 already does. You will find very, very few stories where Freddie is depicted having a good time with women sexually or romantically. That he was mostly all about men is already the majority opinion in this part of fandom.

But another question is, who was the real Freddie? If the last two years in fandom have taught me anything, it is that even things which seem like fact to one person can seem like speculation to another. I have personally had so many discussions with so many people on different sides of the debate about the exact circumstances of Freddie's life and his inner world, that I must say I don't think there is such a thing as one accurate, "real" portrayal of Freddie. Even those of us who are heavily invested in research sometimes disagree quite significantly about the interpretations of sources. So that narrows "You don't care about the real Freddie" down to "You don't care about Freddie because you don't interpret everything we know about his life the exact same way I do". Sure, by that definition, very few people care about Freddie the same way you do.

The bottom line is, there are so many writers and fans who love him, people who are obsessed with him, people who care about him deeply. They might care about who they believe he really was or who he chose to present himself as to the world, the way he wanted to be seen. But ultimately, in my personal opinion, if somebody is inspired to write Freddie as a fictional character they feel that Freddie means a lot to them. And it is hurtful to accuse them of not caring.

But what some people write hurts/triggers me.

Yes, that can happen. Because the nature of AO3 is that everything is permitted. Personally, I am very much in agreement with that. You will also find me in the camp of people who are against any sort of censorship on AO3, no matter how much some of the content goes against my own morals or how distasteful I find it. Some people disagree with that, which is fine. We must agree to disagree then. Here, I would like to quote QuirkySubject from the post she made regarding this whole situation because I cannot put it better myself: “The principle that all fic is valid (even RPF fic that subverts the lived experience of the person the fic is based on) is like the foundation of [AO3]. The suggestion that certain kinds of characterisations aren't allowed will provoke a knee-jerk reaction by many writers.”

No matter how much you may disagree with a story's plot or characterisation, it is allowed on AO3. "But wait," you might say, "the issue is not with it being on the site but with people like yourself - who should care about "the real Freddie" - supporting it."

This is some of what I have taken away from the upset I have seen. And it’s worth deconstructing.

I've already addressed "the real Freddie". Moving on to...

The author is dead.

This is something others might very well disagree on as well, but to me the story itself matters far more than authorial intent. And what may be one thing according to the author’s personal definition, may be another thing to the reader. Let’s use an example. This is an ask I received yesterday:

This author thinks they were writing Freddie as bisexual. However, going by the plot of their story, I would actually say that it is largely very similar to how I see the progression of Freddie’s young adulthood. To me, personally, Freddie would still be gay throughout the story because he arrives - eventually - at the conclusion that he is. The author and I disagree on terminology only. And I think simply disagreements about terminology, given that some terms are so loaded with history in Freddie’s case, trips a lot of people up.

It seems to me that many people still equate bisexuality with a 50/50 attraction to men and women, when in actual fact many - if not most - bi/pan people would say that it is nowhere near that distribution. Some people are of the opinion that anybody who experiences some attraction to the opposite sex, even if they have a strong same-sex preference, could be technically considered bisexual. (However, sexuality isn’t objective, it’s subjective. At least when it comes to real people. What about fictionalised real people? We will get to that.)

Let's briefly return to real Freddie.

What I'm seeing is that there are several ways of thinking here, with regard to his sexuality.

1. Freddie was gay because that seems to be (from everything we know) the conclusion he arrived at and the way he saw himself, once he had stopped dating women. Therefor, he was always gay, it just took him a while to come to terms with it.

2. Freddie can be referred to as bisexual during the time when he was with women because at that time, he may very well have thought of himself thusly - whether that was wishful thinking and he was aware of it or whether he really thought he might be bisexual is not something we can say definitively. He came out as gay to two friends in 1974 on separate occassions, and he talked to his girlfriends about being bisexual. (Personally, I think here it is interesting to look at who exactly he was saying what to, but let's put my own interpretations aside.)

3. Freddie can be seen as bisexual/pansexual because his life indicates that he was able to be in relationships with both men and women and because there is nothing to disprove he didn't experience any attraction to the women he was with. Had he lived in a different time, he may have defined himself differently.

Now, I'm of the first school of thought here, personally, although I understand the second and also, as a thought experiment, the third.

I think all of these approaches have validity, although the historical context of Freddie's life should be kept in mind and is very relevant whenever we speak about the man himself.

But when we return to writing fictionalised versions of Freddie, any of these approaches should absolutely be permissible. Yes, some of them or aspects of them can cause upset to some people.

And this is why AO3 has a tagging system. This is why authors write very clearly worded author's notes. This is the respect authors extend to their readers. This, in turn, has to be respected. Everybody is ultimately responsible for their own experience on the archive.

Nobody has the right to dictate what is or isn't published under the Queen tag. As far as I am concerned, nobody should have that right. As far as I am concerned, everybody has a responsibility to avoid whatever may upset them. I understand where the upset comes from. I also maintain it is every writer's right to engage with Freddie's character creatively the way they choose to.

None of us can control how other people engage with Freddie or the fandom. None of us can control what other people enjoy or dislike about the fandom.

The best way to engage with the content creating part of fandom, in my opinion, has always been to create what brings you joy, to consume the content that brings you joy and to respectfully step away from everything that doesn't.

#Queen fandom #Freddie Mercury #bi Freddie

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partnersatfazbear · 4 years ago

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Midnight Motorist - An Essay

I promised this awhile ago, but my thoughts on Midnight Motorist... This mini-game has literally kept me awake for hours on two separate occasions trying to figure it out, lol! So, reading the Updated Freddy Files *suggests, not confirms* that Toy Chica: The High School Years may be how William lured each child. I made notes on this, of course.

Although I listed who was used as a stand in for each, it has no bearing on the actual child killed.

The first, represented by Foxy, is already dead. I assumed this was a stand in for Norman/CC.

Second, represented by Freddy, was lured away with promises to help with homework.

Third, represented by Wolf. Run over their dog. We all know this is referring to Susie/Chica.

Fourth, represented by Toy Bonnie. It was suggested that their house be set on fire and then Chica uses her body to put out the flames. Best I could settle for this one was perhaps pulling a fire alarm at the restaraunt, or something similar.

Fifth, Funtime Foxy. Live hostages. Presumably luring a child away with promises that their friend / missing friend is in the back room.

Sixth, the Puppet. This one is the most interesting and why I'm including it here. Chica says "I'll come over to their house later, maybe break through a window, or set the house on fire and smoke them out [IIRC, I am paraphrasing a little]" The window, in my honest opinion, has to refer to Midnight Motorist. Scott has made a point of adding things in a following game to clarify the game before (starting at least since Sister Location). With the other one referencing Susie and Fruity Maze, I think this theory holds up, although it doesn't really help solve Midnight Motorist I think it's very important to note. (William has as much of an obsession with fire as Henry, huh?)

Lastly, there is Pigpatch. It's implied William would have knocked out a child and told them he rescued them after being "kidnapped". I really like this one.

The number of victims adds up to the number of children: BV, Freddy, Foxy, Bonnie, Chica, Golden Freddy, and Puppet.

Now that that's out of the way, I feel this heavily implies the footprints outside the window in MM are William's. The feet match the Glitchtrap suit, which most of us assume is a prototype for Spring Bonnie. Not only that, but obviously the springlock suits wouldn't work in the rain. Second, if you take some logic to it and see Charlotte as the first victim (no suit, no hiding the body, developing MO) then this killing would be the start of his MO--kind of an "in-between" point where he's evolving. Now, as to who the people in the house are...

In my fic, I kept the general idea that it was William as mustard man (thank you MatPat, this is my fav name for our mysterious fellow). Mostly because despite the evidence listed there is still a ton of evidence supporting it:

Later That Night - this is the name of the game file for MM.

Rain - Due to the in-game rain and this title its heavily implied to be just after Charlotte's death.

Grey Text - Michael is the only one to have the grey text and has similarities to Chair Person. (Note: I think Matpat did point out the color is slightly different, but it's still grey.)

Purple Car - William is the only one seen with a Purple Car back in one of the mini-games (FNAF 2, IIRC). To further support this, the car is also seen as an easter egg in the Dreadbear DLC of Help Wanted (with purple headlights). This is probably the most damning evidence that Mustard Man is William, in my opinion... but then how do the footprints make sense?

In my fic, I explained it away as footprints from the evening before (it was the best I could muster at the time) but this is super weak :V So this kind of brings us to alternative theories. If it is William, the supporting evidence is... good evidence of that. So, the other options are:

A Child Victim's Family - This is my second favorite theory because I think it could possibly work for, say, TOYSNHK [The One You Should Not Have Killed, hereby pronounced Toy-Shnuck] (who I made Cassidy). The problem with this is the child's gender is referred to as male. And there's a huge debate on Cassidy being female in game lore and TOYSNHK/GF being male. It IS a gender neutral name and wouldn't be the first time Scott changed a gender (see: Puppet), BUT it's pretty weak since all the info we have on TOYSNHK is recent. It could be another child that isn't Susie, though, but why show some random child as opposed to an important one? PizzaSim's games all revolve around specifics like Puppet (the first to die overall) and Susie (the first to die of the main five).

Henry is Mustard Man - This is the theory my wife likes. I can sort of see it and I even considered it at one point, but there isn't much evidence to go on. Why is the car purple is the biggest wrench for me. I also have problems with Mustard Man's attitude ("This is MY house", "He'll be sorry") Even if Henry was torn up about Charlotte, I can't see him treating his kids this way. This would also heavily imply the missing window kid to be Sammy, which hasn't been referenced in the game lore at all. He was barely mentioned in the novel trilogy, even. This also makes Gray Text either Aunt Jen or Henry's wife. There's just not enough to support this, in my opinion.

UPDATE 5/28/21 - Please see this post analyzing Fazbear Fright’s story “What We Found” for a more detailed look at what I’m about to explain that supports the Henry theory: Also from the books, CC / Norman is now referred to as Evan.

For this to work, we must assume Henry is an alcoholic after Charlotte’s death. I think the “later that night” evidence becomes somewhat irrelevant, because if this was the night of Charlotte’s death it wouldn’t really make sense. Part of me wondered if it took place after FNAF 2′s Springtrap cutscene, but the footprints don’t match. It has to be Spring Bonnie or Glitchtrap. Also, Evan and Elizabeth have also died by this point because neither are seen in the mini-game in this theory. You also must assume, based on the story evidence, that Henry married / stayed with Mrs. Afton after William either “died” or they divorced--they had to have been together for an x amount of time as for Mrs. Afton to be living with Henry but also the fact that Mrs. Afton kept Michael and the purple car. Henry using William’s car wouldn’t be unheard of if Mrs. Afton kept the car and the house, I just don’t feel Henry would use it unless he had been using the vehicle awhile. This also explains the Bonnie-esque footprints outside since William would want to come get / visit his kid he’s [most likely] no longer allowed to see. He may even be taking Michael back to the FNAF 4 house (implying that the house we see in MM is Henry’s). Speaking of, if we assume William’s intentions are [likely] bad, he’s probably taking Michael back to experiment with the Funtime-Nightmares, if you believe this theory. I think this theory is probably true considering the random grave (which, in this context has no answer except a Twisted animatronic aka a Nightmare) AND because the blueprints in Sister Location SHOW the Nightmares on the display during Funtime Freddy’s repair, implying they are real and not imagined. This is also assumed to be punishment for Michael killing Evan. I think Michael goes WITH William because of his tumultuous relationship with a now mentally ill and drunkard Henry. Henry probably knows that William killed Charlotte and a common theme in some works is a parent seeing their child (or a murderer) in a child aka Michael reminds Henry of William, so he neglects him (which in itself wouldn’t be out of place for Henry, since he already wasn’t a very attentive parent).

The main issue with this theory is that it sort of assumes that CC was Michael and not Evan. I don’t think that’s the case, though.

While we're on this version, I also want to discuss evidence for the MM driver being drunk. Not only are you driving on the opposite side of traffic, the Files book explicitly states "crashing" into the secret road for the mini-game. Not that Henry couldn't be drunk, especially if he just found Charlotte dead, but... for me personally it seems a stretch. And I already mentioned the car.

William's Father - This is an interesting idea, but the foot prints kind of rule it out. At least there's an explanation for the car, though, right? Still, it doesn't explain the foot prints unless you assume maybe his father was more alike Afton than we thought. But then why bother showing us background on our killer so late with no pay off? I easily dismiss this theory.

A new theory, at least one I haven't seen posed yet:

Vanny - That's right. Vanny. What if she survived/lived? Some leaks even suggest she may be related to the Aftons. Mustard Man's color is similar to Princess Quest's heroine. It explains the footprints, but doesn't explain the car. This would make for a nice foreshadowing of Vanny, IMO, but it’s weak at best.

You know when Matpat discusses "that one puzzle peice that we're missing"? That's this entire mess of a mini-game. Don't get me wrong, the music is bawlin and it's fun to talk about, otherwise I wouldn't write about it, but it is undoubtedly FRUSTRATING.

What are your opinions?

I also wanted to point out some other interesting things from the Files book I haven't seen discussed: There is confirmation of two sets of gold suits. Not only is there the FNAF 2 phone call, but the text specifies between Spring Bonnie/Springtrap and Fredbear/Golden Freddy. IE: FNAF 4 suit is Springtrap but the one from Stage 01 is Spring Bonnie. This could be oversight, but... I don't think it is. I'm sure most of the fandom does ASSUME this anyway, but I felt it was worth noting. (In my fic, they are the same suit, but the second sets are upgraded after the original failures).

The poster behind Scraptrap. Nothing really interesting here, but there is an image of a building with two gargoyle (lion?) statues behind him. Presumably this would be a police station or Fazbear Fright. I just thought it was cool since I never noticed this in the image. My initial thought was this might be a reference to the hospital in Man in 1280, but that’s a stretch.

Jr's. This is the random building in Midnight Motorist in which Green Man says "gtfo" to our Mustard Man. I should mention I feel that is good evidence to it being William or Henry, depending what the building is. We can 100% say it is NOT a bar (in my fic, that's what I used, even though it doesn't make sense. I don't see a drunk person driving to a second bar so close to their home when they could have gone there initially, BUT then I am a home-drinker when I do drink, so I don't know the night life). The Files refer to it as simply "a restaraunt". Whether this IS a FNAF location (also referred to as restaraunts) or just some random eatery, it's something to contemplate. I am in the camp that it isn't FNAF 2, at least.

I have some other things from Fazbear Frights' Blackbird I wanna discuss, too, but I'll wait until the book is out to help you all avoid spoilers.

Now, this is all just my thoughts on it. Please don't take anything too seriously (as Scott says don't rack your brain on this, it's not worth it). I just think these are some points that haven't been discussed before.

Also, if you wanna read my theory on why Scraptrap is partly the Golden Freddy suit, I have that theory here.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk? <-- is that a dated reference? Probably.

#fnaf theory #fnaf theories #midnight motorist #updated freddy files #the freddy files #fan theory #fan theories #five nights at freddy's

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deanstop13billyjoeltraxx · 4 years ago

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Superposition

a deancas college roommate AU

Chapter 4 is up on AO3! (Chapter-by-chapter masterlist here.)

They’re Gonna Love You

Three Years Earlier

Cas was terrible at making friends.

He really was trying his best — he spoke up in class whenever he could, he talked to his seatmates when it was appropriate. And that was fine, everyone was perfectly nice to him. But he couldn’t figure out what exactly he was supposed to say to make himself less “that one guy from accounting” and more “Cas Novak.” So, he was three weeks into college with nothing to show for it.

Nothing, save his roommate.

Unlike Castiel, Dean had already found a group of friends from their floor. He was hardly ever in their room. Cas didn’t mind so much; it gave him space to focus on his homework, which already felt overwhelming and never-ending. But every day, like clockwork, Dean was back by seven, and he dragged Cas away from his computer and into the dining hall with him.

Castiel had to admit that dinner was the best part of his day. Dean rarely failed to take his mind off of the dangerously constant spiral of social anxiety and school-related stress. Cas learned that Dean moved constantly because of his father’s job, that his brother, Sam, was “a textbook nerd,” that Dean’s guilty pleasure was Grey’s Anatomy (“Don’t look at me like that, Patrick Dempsey is in it”), that he loved pie probably more than anyone should be allowed to. And Castiel told Dean things, too, things he’d never had the luxury of sharing; how he decided to be a writer after reading The Great Gatsby for the first time, that his attending college had made him the black sheep of the family, how he had never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit (“Is that a friggin’ challenge, Cas?”).

They had occasionally eaten with Dean’s friends from the dorms, most often on Fridays when the group was heading to a party afterward. That is, until Castiel brought a copy of Pride and Prejudice to the table to read before his next literature class, and Cole Martin asked him if he was gay with a smirk. The table had gone silent; Cas just looked at him, heat flaming across his face; Dean was staring daggers. Cole, refusing to get the message, prodded for a response, at which point Dean asked if he could talk to him for a minute.

Dean didn’t speak to Cole again after that.

He apologized to Cas profusely on Cole’s behalf, the “sorry’s” punctuated by assurances that it was great if Castiel was indeed gay, that Dean didn’t care, that Cas was Cas. But even if he was curious, Dean never asked the question. And that was good, because Cas wasn’t quite ready to have that conversation, seeing as coming out to Bartholomew during his senior year had led to six months of no-contact. Instead, Cas just informed Dean that he was accustomed to the treatment by now, that bringing Twilight to school his freshman year placed him solidly in the “insert homophobic-slur here” category, according to his peers. This only partly fixed the issue, because while Dean stopped apologizing, he started on a tirade against Castiel’s high school demons.

Cas had never had anyone care enough to stand up for him. He thought he was very lucky to have Dean Winchester as a roommate

It was Thursday, and Castiel was agonizing over a problem set for accounting when Dean walked in.

“All right, Einstein, let’s go,” he announced, dumping his backpack next to his desk. “Dinner time.”

“Give me a minute,” Cas muttered.

Dean moved over to Cas’ desk and leaned over his shoulder.

“Damn,” he said. “You really are a genius. I don’t know what any of this shit means.”

“Save your accolades for when I pass the class,” Cas said, sighing.

“You’ll pass, but not if you die from starvation first.”

Cas rolled his eyes. “I think you’re projecting.”

“Maybe I am,” Dean said, shrugging. “But you still need to eat.”

“All right. I’m coming.”

The pair walked to the dining hall, Dean explaining the details of the party he was attending the following night, how he hoped the girl from his English class would be there. Cas never had much to add to these types of conversations, but he typically tried to remain engaged. Tonight, he just uttered monosyllabic responses when it seemed appropriate.

Cas couldn’t stop thinking about how alone he had become. The novelty of college had worn off; all Cas could see now was how many hours he spent in solitude. He couldn’t help but feel as though he was doomed for a repeat of high school. The interaction with Cole certainly didn’t help matters, and though Dean was a great friend, Cas couldn’t escape the feeling that everything he did was out of pity.

“Okay, dude, what’s up?” Dean asked.

“What?”

“You’re acting all weird. Kinda mopey,” Dean explained with a mouthful of pizza.

“Oh,” Cas said. “I apologize. It wasn’t intentional. I just…”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“I’ve just been distracted tonight.”

“By what?”

Cas gave Dean a look. “It’s not important.”

Dean opened his mouth to argue, but Cas interrupted him, changing the subject.

“How are your classes?”

Dean shrugged. “Eh. Whatever. I don’t pay attention much.”

“Have you thought about what you’re going to major in?”

“Wish I was smart enough for engineering, but… Nah, I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“Dean,” Cas said. “I’m sure you’re smart enough for anything you want to study.”

Dean chuckled. “Appreciate that, Cas, but definitely not.”

Cas eyed his friend a moment, but didn’t say anything else.

“Hey, you know the party I was telling you about?” Dean said after a moment of silence. “You should come. It’ll be fun.”

Castiel nearly choked on his chicken strips. There was only one thing that would make Dean invite him to a party. The thought of Dean feeling that bad for Cas made him want to become one with the floor. Not to mention the idea of attempting that level of social interaction was enough to send him into a tailspin.

“That’s very kind, but I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Cas said. “I’m not much for parties.”

“Oh come on, Cas. You’ve never even tried it!”

“I understand the general idea.”

“Man, it’s the experience.”

“Dean, I’m not going to a frat party. I have enough to worry about with my classes. Besides,” Cas looked away, refusing to meet Dean’s eyes. “I’m not… particularly adept at social interactions.”

“What?” Dean exclaimed. “Dude, you’re awesome. You do fine with me!”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Cas sighed. “You tend to do most of the talking. It saves me from ruining things.”

Dean just looked at him. “Ruining things?”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly your typical college student.”

Dean laughed. “Well, I mean, no, but that doesn’t ruin things. Plus, I can guarantee that every girl at that party would be all over you. Most of the guys, too, probably. You’ve got the sexy nerd thing going on.”

Cas blushed profusely. “That’s irrelevant. The point is, I’m not going.”

Dean sighed, long-suffering. “Fine. I give up. For now.”

Cas let out a breath of relief.

They finished dinner and headed back to their dorm. Dean asked what class Castiel liked the most, which led to Cas gushing about creative writing for ten minutes. Dean graciously humored him, and when Cas apologized abashedly, Dean punched him in the shoulder and told him to shut up.

When they got back to their room, Dean put on another record (Wish You Were Here, by Pink Floyd, Cas was informed) and left to take a shower. Cas finished his problem set with “Have a Cigar” in the background, grateful for the distraction from his earlier thoughts. That was the one good thing about his double-major — he truly did not have time to ruminate on his problems.

Dean returned to work on an English essay, talking to himself the entire time. Cas did his best not to laugh at the muttered “what the hell am I even trying to say” and “I can’t use ‘demonstrates’ again.”

Hours later, after trying, and failing, to read ahead for philosophy, Cas resigned himself to his bed for the night.

“Tired?” Dean asked from his desk.

“Yes,” Cas said, throwing off his t-shirt and getting in bed. “But you can leave the light on if you have more work to do. I’ll fall asleep eventually.”

“Nah, I’m tired too.”

Dean flipped the lights off and climbed in his own bed. Cas closed his eyes against the quiet blackness.

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

“Are you all right? Level with me, man.”

Cas sighed. He supposed this conversation would happen sooner or later, if this friendship was to continue. “I’ve never had many friends,” he said. “I told you, after Cole, about the comments regarding my sexuality?” Dean made a grunt in understanding. “Well, it didn’t help that I was homeschooled until I was fourteen. I was what I believe is called ‘the weird kid.’”

Dean snorted. “You? Weird? Never.”

Cas rolled his eyes in the darkness. “I’m serious. I just don’t want to be the ‘weird kid’ again, I suppose. I believed college would be my second chance, but it’s beginning to feel like a bad sequel.”

“Dude,” Dean said, “you have me. And Benny and Charlie like you, too. If you just went out more —”

“I’m not sure I want my friendships to be predicated on underage drinking,” Cas replied, and cringed at the way it sounded. When Dean didn’t respond, he added, “I just mean… I want people to like me, not my drunken antics.”

“Right,” Dean mumbled. Then, “What was homeschool like?”

Cas furrowed his brow at the change in subject, but humored Dean, anyway. “Terrible. My father attempted to teach all five of us on his own. It was mostly history and religion, which, coming from him, meant racism, fire, and brimstone. He had this grand plan for me, and for my brothers, to become pastors.” Castiel paused. “I had to sneak out to the library with Anna just to teach myself basic algebra.” Another pause, a breath. “Anna kept me sane most days. She was more of a mother than a sister.” I miss her.

“Where was your mom?” Dean asked.

“Not sure,” Cas said. “We were all adopted as children. My father never took a wife, and I never knew my real parents. I asked my father about them once. He told me they died ages ago.”

“Shit, I’m sorry, Cas.”

“It’s okay.”

“That makes more sense,” Dean said after a moment. “I was wondering why none of y’all looked alike.”

“I probably should have explained that earlier. I forget it isn’t common knowledge,” Cas replied.

Dean was quiet for a long time, so long that Cas suspected he may have fallen asleep. Cas was about to follow suit when Dean said, quietly, “Sometimes I was the weird kid, too.”

Castiel snapped his eyes open at that. It seemed unbelievable to him that Dean Winchester could be disliked by anyone. “What?”

“Yeah,” Dean mumbled. “Always moving, you know. Sometimes, people liked me. Sometimes, they really fucking hated me. It sucks, you know.”

“I do.”

tagging @nguyenxtrang :)

#destiel #deancas #supernatural #superposition #destiel fic

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witwerlove · 5 years ago

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What do you think about Deacon and Sarah's relashionship in days gone? I personally think that it's the cutest love story ever, like, imagine live your live thinking the love of your life is dead and then you find out she's not.

First off, I am really sorry that I am answering this over 2 months late. I actually started writing my response awhile back and it turned into a long rambling mess because I was in my feelings. But then I forgot about it and life just got so busy and stressful.

But here it is, if you or anyone is interesting in reading it. I may have gotten a little too caught up in it it, but it is what it is :)

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I LOVE DEACON AND SARAH!!!!!!! Their relationship is one of my favorite things in Days Gone, but I do have my gripes about them. I think there should’ve definitely been more development between them. I mean we got their “meet cute” and glimpses of their relationship, but since it was mostly via flashbacks and in pieces, it felt very….underdeveloped to me. I understand it’s not the main focus of the story, but it’s definitely a driving point of the narrative for Deacon. I just enjoy my ships having complete sequential narratives, rather than broken pieces that jump around and only give me brief glimpses of the relationship.

But I get it, the structure of video game story telling is completely different than tv shows and movies that get the luxury of telling a developing story over the span of many hours (or over the span of years). I’m not really a gamer so I feel like that’s the wrong mindset to have by…not necessarily penalizing the writing of a video game, but being aware that there’s going to be an obvious difference in story framing for different types of media.

However….outside of the narrative structure (or lack of), I really did enjoy Deacon and Sarah’s relationship for what it is. It definitely exceeded my expectations in the fact that Sarah played a much more significant role than I ever thought she would. She wasn’t heavily featured in the marketing for the game, so I just assumed she was just going to be a device for Deacon’s broody man pain. I expected her to be killed by or because of whatever caused people to turn to freakers. But that wasn’t the case at all. I will admit that Deacon’s optimism of Sarah still being alive after everything that happened was one of the best things about the character. His resolve and determination is very admirable.

Because even though the world had fallen to shit, that hope was what had driven him to survive for as long as he did. But in a way, it could also be seen as as a weakness because in a way it felt like a crutch. I think back to the scene when Deacon and Boozer get into a physical fight and Boozer says “Where’s your old lady, Deek?” and Deacon replies “She’s dead, Boozer.” And Boozer says “She’s been dead a long time. So don’t you think that you’ve mourned her long enough?” That exchange really struck me because it showcases the difference between the characters of Deacon and Boozer. Which is kinda irrelevant to this subject, but it shines light on how strong Deacon’s love for Sarah was….versus how insensitive Boozer was (or came off to be) to his friend’s emotional attachment of his wife. And it was also sad to see Deacon admit defeat. Because he’d been going on all these quests seeking any bit of information on finding Sarah alive, only for it to lead to nothing (until it doesn’t). Because that optimism kept her alive in his heart and he didn’t want to admit to failure by having to face the tragic truth of his loss. That’s no way meant to be an insult to Boozer by the way. I love him and the Deacon/Boozer relationship is actually my favorite in the game.

But I do have to say, at first I honestly wanted Sarah to actually be dead. I thought that would’ve had a much greater emotional impact on Deacon and it just seemed to fit the story better in my eyes. When it reveals that she’s alive, I was so disappointed when I first saw it. But now that I’ve had time to digest the story and sit on it for awhile, I’ve had a change of mind. I think the reason it disappointed me so much at first is because the reveal and their reactions to seeing each other again after so long felt so underwhelming to me. Sarah is a key element of what was driving the story.

And while the fact that she was alive was not what I expected (or initially wanted), the reveal of it was extremely underwhelming the first time I saw that scene. But I think that’s due to buildup of my own expectation. That if Sarah was alive and Deacon found her, I wanted it to be a more “fairytale-esque” reunion where boy and girl fall into each other’s arms and kiss and cry because I’m such a hopeless romantic in that way. But I‘ve since rewatched their reunion scene and I changed my mind because that element just doesn’t work in this setting at all. In fact, it was beautiful the way it is. Because it’s more realistic. Obviously their story isn’t going to pick up right where it left off. Yes, they’re still in love with each other, but there’s been a lot of time and trauma between them that it would’ve been more satisfying to me if there had been more awkwardness and tension between them. And they’d have to sort of relearn everything about each other because they’ve probably undergone personality changes from having to adapt to the way they world is when they reunite versus how they were when they left each other.

In the grand scheme of things, what happened in game much more enjoyable than if it had been all sunshine and rainbows between them like I’d wanted to in my own personal fantasy.

But because we are seeing the game through Deacon’s eyes (and because there’s a time skip between flashbacks and present time), we don’t get to see how Sarah coped being separated from her husband and how she came to terms with Deacon’s “death”. When they were alone and she let her guard down, she kept repeating that Deacon is dead and he’s supposed to be dead because she’d obviously moved on with her life, as opposed to him still holding out hope and actively searching for her. Their kiss in that scene was perfect because she’s the one that initiates it. Sarah being alive feels more satisfying to me now because with Deacon being the point of view character for the story, it’s like a…..reward? Like how at long last, the consistency and longevity of his hope that she wasn’t dead and will to find her was worth something. How even though everything was against him and everyone, including his best friend and perhaps even Sarah herself because she herself had given up on him, wanted him to give up on her still being alive.

Going back to what I said about it not being all “sunshine and rainbows”, I greatly appreciate the fact that they don’t jump right back in to the romance like nothing happened in those 2 years they were apart. Deacon tried to do just that when he takes Sarah’s hand and attempts to whisk her away from the camp being the “romantic hero” (maybe he wasn’t thinking that highly of himself, but the archetype weirdly fits that perspective), but she refuses. Deacon obviously had a “hopeless romantic” outlook on the situation’s outcome. It’s nice to see when that side of him comes out. But it just makes me wonder if he ever daydreamed about finding Sarah, being the hero rescuing her from danger, and they’d ride off in the sunset together picking up where their story left off. And in the end we eventually do get that “fairytale ending” for them, but not without bumps in the road. Mainly their difference in ideology is what creates tension and distance between them. But in the end, it’s almost as if they fell in love with each other all over again. And it was beautiful.

I also have to point out that the chemistry between Sam and Courtnee Draper is beyond beautiful and everything that makes Deacon and Sarah’s relationship worth being invested in. It’s not a bland and boring run of the mill seen it all before heterosexual romance that I initially thought it was going to be. I thought Sarah more or less was just going to be a footnote in Deacon’s story. A tragedy in his life that shaped him into the cynical person hardened by harsh life experiences. A part of his backstory. And yes, all that *IS* true, but Sarah was so much more. She is a very important piece to the narrative. You put the pieces together and she is in fact the true catalyst to the main story of how the freaker virus was created and spread. Deacon takes the audience to Sarah, but she is probably the most important character because she and her occupation is what establishes the conflict and is the driving point of the narrative (and Deacon’s motivation) up until the point that he finds her.

All in all, Deacon and Sarah’s relationship is so much more complex than I initially thought. And now that I’ve processed some thoughts and put things into perspective, I love and appreciate it more than I did before now.

I did not expect this to turn into some kind of essay analyzing their relationship, but once I started writing, I couldn’t stop. Mostly because I’ve kept my deep thoughts about Days Gone to myself and haven’t really expressed anything in lengthy detail. So it just came spewing out of me.

But it really helped me put my thoughts into perspective and I enjoyed writing this. I hope it all makes sense. Thank you for the thought provoking question that I’ve completely spiraled. And I’m sorry it took me so long to reply. My love for Deacon and Sarah has grown so much more now. I hope there will be a sequel that’ll hopefully deliver more on my shipper’s pipe dream of romance between them. Or there can be more angst. I’m down for that too. :)

#deacon st john #sarah whitaker #days gone #romeusbalcony #ask #reply #personal #text #2019 #i haven't written anything meta in so long so this was fun :)

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tanadrin · 6 years ago

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I think I’m starting to understand the difference in philosophies that underlies the two kinds of video game RPG better. I think of them as the Bethesda and the BioWare RPG, but more accurate terms would be the simulationist and the character-driven RPG. Which is not to say that the two categories are exclusive--they’re different points on a spectrum. The extreme simulationist RPG would be Dwarf Fortress’s Adventure Mode, where the entire world is procedurally generated ex nihilo, including attempts to procedurally generate things like history and politics and whole systems of magic. I’m not sure what the opposite would be--maybe something like the original Mass Effect, whose levels are quite cloistered, or the first Deus Ex, where you’re playing a character who is extremely defined as a person, but you still get to choose how the plot unfolds.

Each has aspects I like. I like that in character-driven games I have a strong narrative I get to operate within, and I get to make choices which affect the emotional outcome of the game. Bethesda games lack that, because for all the influence that in theory you have over the world, the ultimate outcome is usually always the same: Mehrunes Dagon is defeated, Alduin is killed, you’re sitting on a pile of treasure. What outcomes you do control tend to be binary yes/no levers (did you do the College of Winterhold quests? Congrats, you can add “Archmage” to your extremely long list of titles an honors), and moving through the game’s programmatic implementation of the plot feels more lack racking up Steam achievements than anything else.

Buuuut the price you pay for actually feeling like you inhabit these worlds is feeling like the worlds themselves are pretty two-dimensional. Skyrim was the first RPG I played where I felt a strong sense of place, like even though the experience was mediated by a computer screen and a mouse and keyboard, I could imagine what it would be like to stand on the road outside Riverwood and feel the cool breeze and look up and the foggy mountains. At the time I thought it was just the (then) shiny new graphics, but I bought Morrowind the other day just for fun, and I don’t think it is--I think placeness is just a thing Bethesda excels at in their games, because they pay close attention to it like BioWare does to characters. Morrowind’s graphics are much more primitive than Skyrim’s, but Vvardenfell definitely still has many of the same qualities Skyrim does in that respect, even with its blocky character models and super-short draw distance.

(Also, playing a little Morrowind has made me appreciate just how much the Dragonborn DLC is a love letter to Morrowind fans, which is neat.)

Are the two approaches compatible? Like, is one side of the spectrum necessarily exclusive of the other? I think they might be. The problem with the simulationist world (and this is a problem STA:GOB2:DF(AM) has in spades) is that you run the risk of a world a million miles wide and a millimeter deep (see also Elite: Dangerous, and No Man’s Sky reportedly but I haven’t played it myself), but Tarn Adams’ extreme fetish for procedural generation simply throws into relief the problem of a lot of these games, which is that random is not actually a substitute for complex, and even conceptually sophisticated Perlin noise is still just... noise. Utterly interchangeable. You can generate a million Dwarf Fortress worlds, and they’ll all be superficially identical.

Even a world like Daggerfall’s, which is the size of Great Britain, is mostly nothing. And it turns out (as fast travel and compass markers have shown us) that for most people, working your way over miles of empty country road and hunting for quest objectives is not the fun part of epic fantasy narratives, which is why most epic fantasy narratives... skip those parts.

(Tangent 1: I understand the impulse to huge fantasy worlds in video games, and I think it’s a positive one, mostly. Theme parks don’t feel real, which is why Azeroth has no sense of place. It could--it has some wonderfully atmospheric zones--but everything about the placement of NPCs and the way you interact with the world screams animatronic Presidents, Disneyland with the Burning Legion, so it lacks... worldlikeness. The problem with big, detailed, simulationist worlds is that if you’re inhabiting them from a pedestrian’s viewpoint, 99.5% of all that is going to go to waste. Either you will fast-travel past it or it will be Desert Bus With Dragons, but honestly, you don’t need to simulate weather fronts and biomes and a realistic medieval economy if all you’re doing is trying to assemble the Staff of Chaos so you can whack Jagar Tharn over the head with it. As soon as your viewpoint becomes even a little bit more elevated, though, that stuff is interesting, and even important. The fact that every merchant in Spira will buy your stuff for exactly one half the price you sell it for is an irrelevant triviality if all you ever see is one merchant’s storefront at a time. But as soon as you begin to piece together anything like a bigger picture, the world needs to make sense. I would combine this observation with the fact that no matter how important you become to the world of Skyrim, you never actually wield any political or administrative authority. Sure, nobody wants to play Dean of the College of Winterhold or have to spend half their time playing Skyrim marking freshers’ essays on the elementary principles of transmutation, but it’s also weird that you can be one of Skyrim’s foremost property owners, thane of nine holds, political counselor of the High King, and you can’t get a guard to so much as hold your horse for you while you pop into the blacksmith’s. A game where accomplishment actually translates into political authority is a game where the worldbuilder’s urge to detail every element of the life-cycle of the lesser mana stoat becomes a little more important, if, say, you need to manage the mana stoat farmers. Although that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate nods towards believability--Skyrim’s tiny-ass farms that couldn’t feed a family of four in a wintry climate, much less a tenth of a goddamn continent, are a major failure on that point. Visual believability is important. Noteworthy here also is landscape architecture: one reason Skyrim does well at placeness is that it feels reasonable, even though it’s a geographical absurdity. Something like the world of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, where even the “plains” regions are wacky moonscapes designed to maximize walking time, so as to substitute boredom for size, are failures in level design.)

(Tangent 2: I once had the idea for a fantasy film or comic book that involved all the usual players: a Scheming Villain, a Terrible Macguffin of Power, a band of Plucky Heroes, romance, war, intrigue, excitement, etc. Except all the big, exciting moments would be entirely implied; the actual story told would be of all the quiet moments between the battles and confrontations and tragic death scenes. The sitting around the campfire singing songs. The tossing and turning on hard ground or in lumpy, unfamiliar beds. The quiet conversation or the anxious exchange of looks before a battle. The moments of reflection or subtle self-doubt before committing to a course of action that could save or doom the world. I don’t actually know if it would make for an interesting story, but I think it would be a lot of fun to write.)

Bethesda for its part is firmly committed to the tabula rasa silent protagonist, and I think that’s a mistake. I don’t think you increase player agency in a world where your protagonist must remain mute, I think you only highlight the disconnect. I may be unusual here, but one of the things I love most about BioWare games, and which makes me feel most embedded in their plots and connected to their characters, is the fact I get to hear both sides of the conversation, and how I choose to respond has a lasting effect on the kind of person the other characters seem to understand me to be. That feels much more interesting to me that the cipher that moves through Bethesda worlds, about which little can be known, because little can be specified. Yes, such a cipher can have any history you want, but only because such a cipher can have no substantive history--so, like the details of a procedurally generated world, the history of such a protagonist, their motivations and intent, is rendered trivial. And for escapist fantasy, where part of the goal is to not be trivial, but to be important, vital even, I think that’s a failure. Unless your goal is to, like, RP a cabbage merchant, in which case--success!

What I really want, what I really feel is a seriously under-appreciated possibility in video game RPGs, is an open world with some of the simulationist aspects, but built around, or laid on top of, a strong central plot skeleton. One with rich character interaction and consequential, emotional choices (and no, Dawnguard does not qualify), and I think the payoff would be that we are so used to vast worlds that are ultimately quite shallow that even a few substantive concessions in this direction would feel like we had suddenly discovered benthic depths.

#video games #skyrim #bethesda #bioware #rpgs

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kierongillen · 7 years ago

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As i’ve seen this happen more than once, what goes through your mind when a big plot twist or piece of the puzzle gets unintentionally spoiled by the fans theorizing the future of the book? Does the rest of the story gets put on temporary hold to try to figure out how to write something new or is the story set in stone no matter what may happen? If someone were to spoil the ending of the entire book completely unintentionally and you were able to experience the reaction, will it change a thing?

Oh, god, no. Never change anything if someone’s guessed something. Nothing good lies in that direction.

Why?

Okay, let’s talk - with no specifics - Game of Thrones. If you go into the depths of fandom, Game of Thrones is - to some degree, in some areas - a solved problem. There’s a good selection of fan theories (some of which have come to fruition) which have so much meat on them it was clear they have to happen, or the book would break its structure and become unsatisfying.

These twists are available to anyone who wishes to google for them.

The vast majority of people don’t. So… why change the direction of the story? What’s the point of fucking over the enjoyment of the vast majority of people (i.e. making your story make less sense, as you’re abandoning the already existent thread) for playing gotcha on a tiny fraction of your audience?

(As a quick aside - compare and contrast theorising in a fanbase with actual events in the text that’s being adapted. Clearly, anyone who is watching GoT could have googled the synopsis of the book. Equally, anyone who’s read the books knows the big beats. Does the adaptation change the big beats? If surprise to everyone in your audience is all that mattered, you would. We don’t.)

It’s also worth noting that, while obviously some complain on the nature of the adaptation, most fans of a book generally complain that they wish it was more like the book. In other words, things that surprised them (i.e. differed from their knowledge of the text) were less satisfying. They wanted to see the big dramatic beats, even if they’re stripped of their surprise.

Surprise only matters the first time you read something. For me, any worthwhile piece of literature exists to be re-read, and will open up more upon re-reading. In other words, knowing the twist should add to the re-reading of the book. If it doesn’t, and renders the story less than it was, it’s probably a bad twist - which is one reason why I don’t tend to call them “Plot twists” to myself. I call them reveals. The plot doesn’t contort. It’s merely revealing something in the nature of the world the reader was unaware of.

(As an aside, this means that someone who has guessed successful the direction of the plot is actually effectively skipping to their second read of the book earlier.)

There’s the other side of this as well - not just whether a plot beat has been guessed, but the almost inevitability of a plot beat being guessed. GoT fans have had twenty years to puzzle this out. In that period, a mass communication device emerged which allowed fans to talk to one another and share ideas. This machine would have torn apart any plot.

No one individual needs to guess anything. People can make one step in a chain, and then that step is exposed to thousands of minds. If even one of them can make the intuitive leap to the next step, then it continues. No one person needs to be clever enough to see the whole thing. The internet hivemind is Miss Marple, seeing through the most contorted of machinations.

(In passing, this is one reason why Alternate Reality Games are hard to do, because the mass hive mind will figure almost anything out, almost instantly. Equally in passing, the failure to understand this is another reason why Ready Player One is bad, but that’s irrelevant.)

In other words, the reason why twists are guessable is the same reason they are satisfying. A twist that isn’t foreshadowed sufficiently to give the possibility of being guessed by someone is not a satisfying twist, as it - by definition - came out of nowhere.

To make this specific to my own work. In the case of the biggest and most intricate of my current books, WicDiv, we sell about 18k in monthlies and sell 18k in trades (in the first month of release). That’s our hardcore devoted readership. How many people of them actually read the essays in the WicDiv tags? I’d say 500 at the absolute maximum, and likely a lot less. So for a maximum of 1.3% of our readership, we’d derail a still effective twist for everyone else? No, that would be a bad call.

Especially - and this is key - the people who have chosen to engage with a fandom are aware that they may figure something out. They are trying to figure something out. Why take that pleasure away from them?

In a real way, I think, in long form narrative, pure plot twists which no-one in the world guesses are dead in the Internet age, at least when dealing with any even vaguely popular work of art. You can do them in short form narratives (like a single novel, a single movie and perhaps a streaming TV show they drop in one go) but for anything where you give a fanbase the chance to think, it’s just not going to happen. A creator should be glad their work is popular enough to have enough fans to figure it out.

Yes, I may have overthought this.

But that’s only half the question.

How do I actually feel when someone guesses something that’s going to happen? Well, this is long enough already. Let’s put the personal stuff beneath a cut…

I’d say you sigh “Oh, poop”and shrug.

And then you get over your ass, because you know all the above is true. Writers are often meglomaniacs who think they can control everyone’s response to their work. We don’t. We can’t control everything. We can barely control anything. We really have to let go. I’ve said WicDiv is a device to help me improve as a person? It would include in this area. I have to learn to let it go, and internalise all of the above. If I can make most of my readership have the vague emotional response I’m looking for, I’m winning.

I’ve mostly succeeded at this. I’m certainly better than I was 2 years ago.

(’ll probably write more about spoilers and twists and stuff down the line. I’d note that setting up twists that *are* easily guessable by the hardcore is part of the methodology. Having a nice big twist foreshadowed heavily is a good way to hide another twist behind it. “Hey - pay attention to this less subtle sleight of hand while I perform the actual sleight of hand over here.”In which case, there’s far less of an Oh Poop response and more of a cackling evil mastermind response.)

The sigh can occasionally be accompanied with a “Hmm. I wouldn’t have posted that” or - more likely - “I wouldn’t have posted that THERE.”

To stress, what follows, isn’t about my work per se, but culture generally, and very much personal. This is stuff which good friends disagree with me on.

As a fan, I never tweet my own fan theories. I only tweet joke ones. Even my crack theories I don’t tweet, as they’re normally so bizarre that if they actually DO happen, I wouldn’t want to take the thrill away from people. Even in person in conversation I make sure we’re going into a deep fan hole before sharing them, aware that they may be true.

In a real way, the more likely I think something is true, the less likely I’ll say it. As this is my job, I tend to see basic structural ways stories are heading way in advance of most people. I’m a composer. I know how music works. You have a vague sense of what way they’ll go.

(One day I’ll write down my crack theory for the end of the previous Game of Thrones season. Maybe after next season, as it’s not impossible that they may end up doing it, though it’s increasingly unlikely.)

If I had a really good theory I’ve gathered evidence for? You can guarantee I’d put it beneath a cut. That’s the stuff which bemuses me. It’s a cousin of posting major spoilers about any piece of culture the day it comes. The worst is one regular twitter trope - I’m always bemused when people do a “Calling it! XYZ will happen” tweet. Which strikes me a little like standing up in the cinema 20 minutes into a film and shouting out that you’ve guessed the ending. This ties back to the stuff I wrote above about twists being less effective in the modern age, except in a place you can control the context and conversation. People may message in movies, but they rarely message everyone in the room.

(In passing, as it’s vaguely on topic - you may remember the research from a few years ago saying people who know a twist enjoy the story more than people who don’t know a twist. Even this is true - and a single study should always get an eye-brow raise - but it strikes me as a confusion over what “enjoy” means. All pleasure isn’t equivalent, and you can only have surprise on your first time through a work of art. That’s novelty. You can have that and then gain the “Not surprise” experience second time through. If you spoil a work, it means the “novelty” experience is something you will never have. You may enjoy something more if you know the twist but you can always rewatch it to get that pleasure. If you’re spoiled, the individual specific pleasure of that first watch has been stolen.)

But that’s conversation of social mores. Really, it doesn’t change anything in terms of how we act… and sometimes, I even grin when someone gets a twist in advance. If someone gets it, great. The machine is working as intended. It’s actually kind of worrying if no-one is thinking something is up in an area you’ve set up to be iffy. And… the alternative is worse - hell, there’s buried twists and details in Young Avengers that no-one’s managed to figure out yet.

Twist ending: oh, no, I was a ghost all along.

#writer advice #WicDiv #Journey Into Mystery #young avengers

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