#it as a show doesn't revel in being unkind

[flavia8]

I've come to the conclusion that I can read and enjoy the most fucked up literature as long as it doesn't feel mean. It's hard to explain but as long as the book/manga/comic/whatever doesn't feel mean spirited I'm totally down.

[theperfectquestion]

ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME, DEAN

The Venture Bros. approach to God Almighty is in line with its approach to all authority: one more rubber mask on one more old weirdo.

A revelation hit me during a recent rewatch of adult swim's long-running animated pastiche of adventure fiction, The Venture Bros. It is such a large scale Biblical relevation that I can't believe I didn't notice it before: Yahweh, the Lord of the Old Testament, is a recurring minor character, voiced by Archer and Bob Burger's H. Jon Benjamin.

For the uninitiated, one of the supporting players in The Venture Bros. is Doctor Orpheus, who rents rooms from Doc 'Rusty' Venture, the father of the titular twins. Doctor Orpheus is one of my favourite characters in the show, because he is a protagonist of a whole other pulp fiction genre who is comfortable being a secondary character in the world of The Venture Bros.

Orpheus is a mix of Doctor Strange any number of Christopher Lee's characters from Hammer Horror films. He looks like Vincent Price in those occasions when he is being chummy with Kermit the Frog. And this Sorceror Supreme, who guards the very fabric of reality from unfathomable peril, who commands his own super-team with its own villains and long-term plots, serves the sitcom role of kindly but wacky neighbour, and the father of young Dean Venture's hopeless love interest, Triana.

A brilliant recurring joke is that, although magic is definitely real in the universe of The Venture Bros., and that Doctor Orpheus unquestionably has talents that bring the entire nature of reality into question, Doc Venture refuses to acknowledge or respect magic. As a former boy adventurer, he has seen so many supernatural threats pulled out from under their rubber masks that, as an adult, he simply doesn't waste a microsecond of his time considering magic as anything other than a cheap trick. Doctor Orpheus is often torn between defefending his professional pride and placating his often unkind landlord.

There's a lot to Doctor Orpheus, but the aspect I'd like to focus on is the fact that he regularly visits an extradimensional entity in his daughter's closet. Orpheus' command of spatial dimensions is dealt with matter-of-factly: his rooms are physically located elsewhere, and the abandoned arachnid research centre he rents on the Venture property is just a convenient place to warp space so that he can access them from Colorado. You see, Doctor Orpheus is recently divorced, and retains full custody of his teenage daughter, Triana. One has to read between the lines here, but presumably the Venture Compound is close to where Triana's mother has moved, and this extradimensional trick is a way for Triana to be able to visit her mother while being legally resident at his address. The fact that this is treated so casually is a joke in itself, and is another Definitely Magical thing that Rusty completely ignores, though there may be some connection between Doctor Orpheus' rooms and the reason why Rusty, who is a notoriously workshy and light-fingered kind of super-scientist, is able to produce the world's first functional teleporter later on in the series.

So with all this malarky being commonplace, it is only a small elaboration to say that, within Doctor Orpheus' house, there is a portal to another dimension. But due to some magical snarl he can't straighten out, the portal is located inside his daughter's wardrobe. Orpheus goes inside the closet to talk to the Master.

The Master, all all-knowing, shape-shifting entity who lives beyond time and space and who mentors Doctor Orpheus in the magical arts (though, in practice, we see him act more of a life coach), is presented without ceremony or occasion. Even his flat voice which, as mentioned, is from the proudly rangeless but reliably hilarious mouth of H. Jon Benjamin, undercuts the enormity of his presence. The Master seems to spend most of his mental energy coming up with live-action productions of custom Aesop's Fables for Orpheus using his shape-shifting abilities and, occasionally, a put-upon assistant. These morality plays seem to always, by accident or design, lead to the Master getting his rocks off in some way or another. The Master's horniness seem to cast him in the mold of a Tibetan vajrācārya - after all, if Orpheus is Doctor Strange, then the Master is his Ancient One, who is vaguely Tibetan in origin. The joke is that rather than being enigmatic, the Master blurts out the morals and meanings of his koans almost immediately. But then in the Season 4 episode, 'The Better Man,' the Master shows that he may have origins further West.

So in that episode Triana, Doctor Orpheus' daughter, enters her closet and unexpectedly encounters the Master. We have established before that only Orpheus can enter the Master's realm. The Master of course was expecting her and has assumed a form to deliver a parable. In the form of an adult Dean Venture, the Master reveals that Dean is an artificially produced clone, insists that his genes are therefore polluted, and expresses profound disgust at the fact that Dean is uncircumcised. He outright tells Triana to leave the Venture Compound to live with her mother and claim her birthright as her mother's pupil.

To me, all this feels very unlike something a Tibetan Tantric Master would say. All this talk of bloodlines, foreskins and abominations makes me suspect that the Master is actually Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, in one of his burning bush moods. Now, in any other show, the existence of God Almighty living in a character's wardrobe might be more of a big deal. You could certainly build an entire series around that exact premise. But it is perfectly consistent for The Venture Bros. to present the ultimate authority of the Universe as a funny side character who appears in four episodes and has only a small bearing on the plot. That's all in a day's work for The Venture Bros., a show that shares Rusty's deep-rooted skepticism of any and all authority figures and the structures that support them.

For example, we meet the President of the United States on one occasion and he is a crass, childish buffoon who spouts out reheated Clinton jokes. That's fairly run-of-the-mill, but the secret agent characters of The Venture Bros. often invoke the Secret President. We never meet Secret President, and the character who is most likely to have encountered them in person, General Timothy Treister, talks about Secret President in the tone of voice a 13 year old would use to brag about their girlfriend in Canada. As it is, we're given no reason why there should be a Secret President or what function they serve, except to give spies something to brag about. In the United States of The Venture Bros., the fake President is an idiot and the real President doesn't do anything.

The pattern repeats: the diabolical Guild of Calamitous Intent, which dominates the world of professional villany, is governed by a board of shadowy figures who, once we get to know them, are all either has-beens or senile and I've of them is literally a clown. Their leader, The Sovereign, appears either as an intimidating floating head like The Wizard of Oz or as David Bowie, though we learn later he is just a shapeshifter who takes the form of David Bowie because he wants to be cool. The Guild goes through a few changes of management throughout the series, but it doesn't really matter who is at the top - the whole operation is run by two admin goofuses who are perfectly content to prop up a desk and pee in bottles.

Even when we meet the Illuminati, the chosen powerful few who work behind the scenes to keep the torch of civilisation alive by managing technological progress, they turn out to be a VR simulation designed to allow intelligence agencies to hoard the best gizmos for themselves.

When Doctor Orpheus detects the presence of a malicious evil so great that he nearly suffers a panic attack - Doctor Orpheus, who routinely travels to Hell and back without too much trouble - an unholy entity that turns out to be a vintage AI built by Rusty's father, this unspeakable Satan is easily distracted by a roll of old videotape projected onto her camera.

This is a world where it is rubber masks all the way down. Anybody who presents themselves as an authority is invariably mistaken. Doomsday devices are easily defused, or revealed to have never been anything of the sort. Secret are kept by braggarts, heroes are hollow, crowns are held by those who couldn't find a chair when the music stopped, and power is a ball that is always fumbled. So why wouldn't God Almighty live in a teenager's closet, licking his balls, obsessing over foreskins, while the world muddled along without Him?

[the-firebird69]

Tommy F wouldn't do it and he's standing in the way he won't let them look at the machine in Antarctica. I believe the machine is in place and it's been used that's the evidence there's nothing else to use it for down there the hole would be too tremendous it would be gigantic and 11,000 mi wide hole just doesn't get up and walk away okay the machinery being used is going to be detectable you couldn't have used it on anything else but what we're talking about one of two things and a pair of silicon did it too it was used twice it would be even worse now come on all you have to do is check that machine is a pump there's some kind of melting thing that door it's going to it's going to show this open and then used and nothing else is going in and out of there it is a huge event weird storms and so forth and Magnum has no reason to have opened it at all there's nothing that had to go in that way and he doesn't reveal things by doing that

Zues Hera

Is something silly happening to me we didn't use the machine and I'm having them check it the results are somebody used it and there's a lot of use this is going to suck these things are very evil I understand what he's saying it might be to get people to go up there and to take over in the Max and they planted but they're all retarded and had their brains worked on and Dr Miller there was the most unkind person I've ever seen on his mom he's evil okay that guy is nuts he'll squished down and he couldn't handle it it went sick on everybody in this computer thing is completely nuts I've never seen anything so sick in my life we've got to we've got to take pictures and send them to you we don't have anything to use it on we did not bring something that big in there we're building something big and we don't want to be detected this is going to suck I could have just told you I could have just shown you now in a war and he's right we need people we need everybody we have

Tommy f

We're going to publish this is huge

Olympus

We have a lot going on in the spring for bugs from above and they're not giving us any warning or allowing him to have it I'm going to file charges now you people are nuts just so dumb

Thor Freya this is a huge Revelation it's massive for people here you people don't know what's going on you're a bunch of assholes they're going to shut your mouth one way or the other

[embervoices]

I think what, exactly, Death is poking him about in The Sound Of Her Wings, and why, is actually really chewy, and subject to interpretation. I have many thinky thoughts, and apparently I feel like sharing them, so here goes!

From a human perspective, Dream is, at the very least, experiencing drop. Big event drop? I don't know what term to give it, specifically. Hero Drop, maybe. But one way or another, when you've gone through some big feels and intense catharsis and come out the other side, you drop, because the transition back into everyday consciousness is a sharp one. We're aware of it enough in certain contexts (e.g. kink) to consider aftercare essential then, but there are plenty of others where we still often forget. I get drop after pretty well every convention I go to. I think a lot of people get drop on the day after they've returned from vacation, such that there's the notorious need for another vacation after returning from vacation. It's normal. If you know it's coming, it's not hard to recover from, usually, especially with a bit of help.

But that's assuming the events being dropped from weren't also massively traumatic.

So, also from a human perspective, Dream was running on whatever equivalent of adrenalin he had going when he escaped. He went through with a purpose, gathering his tools after dealing with his captors. And then he got to the end, and no longer had big important things he knew how to deal with to distract him from how he FELT about it all, and just... hit a wall.

And he still, STILL won't ask for so much as an ear to listen.*

I think that's the big thing we see when we look at the interaction between Dream and Death there, being the messy, traumatized humans we are. And if that's the main thing? Then yeah, Death seems to be taking things awfully lightly, and that seems weirdly unkind for the single kindest character in The Sandman. Which is part of why I don't think that's what's going on, there.

When Death first enters, she appears to be entirely braced for a human-style belated trauma overwhelm to be the problem. She approaches gently, with sympathy. They aren't meant to interfere with each other without invitation, but he's in a neutral location, and nothing is going on, so she can get away with offering him the ear he refuses to ask for, at least.

It's only after Dream tells her what he's actually brooding about that Death is exasperated. I think what Death was seeing in Dream's response was something less human, more specific to what Dream is.

He's the Prince of Stories, and Death found him sitting there on a park bench trying to figure out what happens to the main character when the story is over, and the narration just... stops.

He expected a sense of satisfaction - an epilogue in which he could revel in his success. But instead, the page was blank. And he tells her, that confused him. It's not that he's processing big, unbearable feels about the traumas he just went through, it's that he doesn't know what to do with himself without the story. He knew the story. The story is over. Now what??

Now you have to think outside the box.

So she pokes him to startle him into looking up and out of the box he's put himself in.

The main thing Death is scolding him for in The Sound Of Her Wings is that his pride leads him to self-isolation. There's a LOT there and it takes the entire series to unpack the results, but the first step is her reminding him what it really means that his entire existence is defined by collective.

She does it much the way a human would, imperfectly. Presumably it's because they're both in their human-perceived forms at the time, but I think more significantly it's because she's come to understand how important that collective connection is by letting herself experience how connected she is with the humans around them.

And she shows him that connection. She reminds him what he actually is, instead of what he'd limited himself to over howeverlong it's been - because he began self-isolating long, long before he was captured.*

And then, in the TV version, he goes to see the one human to whom he feels relatively safely connected. To remember to identify a little bit less with the tidy, sensical stories, and a little bit more with the complex, irrational, messy entities who tell those stories.

* (Though, if we go with the comics timeline, wow, is it way more complicated than that, because Time is what, even, now? I need to re-read Overture. Yes, same footnote for both stars.)

Actually, what about death and Hob finally meeting and sharing embarrassing stories about Dream?

I LOVE Hob meeting Death and being friends with Death. I'm pondering embarrassing stories about Dream, though... because I feel like Dream is actually a very easy person to hurt. Not in all cases; if someone he doesn't respect or who's a particular opponent of his criticizes or insults him he's just like "okay, whatever." Lucifer was like "you're powerless here" and kept ragging on him and Dream was just like "okay if you think so. you're wrong though <3" so he's not always fragile, he's generally pretty assured in his capabilities as Dream except in certain cases like failing to stop the first Dream vortex, 'letting' the Dreaming decay while he was imprisoned and what not.

I'm not sure it would be the same with people he loves and trusts. Hob even calling him lonely sent him running, which wasn't intended to be insulting but probably felt that way to Dream. So I'm not sure Dream would tolerate being made fun of very well, even if it was done fondly; I think it would probably sting more than anything. I honestly didn't even love the way Death poked at him in ep 6 (and I love Death) especially after he had just been through hell. Dream is very proud and under that kind of fragile when it comes to his core self, and this would all probably just hurt more than anything.

Funnily, I think Hob is the opposite -- he can take ribbing from anyone and just laugh it off. The ONLY person I think it would hurt from, actually, is Dream himself.

[xserpx]

In all likelihood, Jin really was a token het, especially considering he's the only one who never, ever had a queer moment. Barniva I'm less sure on - though his observations matching Leo's is notable indeed - and obviously Ritter it's difficult to say, but I am 100% gonna headcanon them as bi anyway.

Antaup's POV was absolutely fascinating. I very much think the canon points towards him being aroace, because 1) the fact he doesn't actually sleep with women was a surprising revelation, which shows it meant something, 2) he's not enthusiastic about gay people, and 3) he clearly states he gets more fun out of telling stories than persuading people to bed. I guess you could argue that doesn't mean he doesn't still feel attraction, but, I mean... he's got his priorities. And IMO it totally points towards someone who just doesn't understand sexual attraction at all. To Antaup, sex is a fiction that happens to other people and has nothing to do with him. (Also having an ace character whose orientation isn't revealed by an awkward/uncomfortable sexual interaction that they suddenly realise they don't want? Yeah I dig that.)

I also love that although he's the most outgoing and personable of the group, Antaup is actually a really cantankerous bastard inside his own head. He seems so disparaging of everyone, and — although I grant it was a high-stress situation — even the way he thinks about Jurand and Finree seems unkind. I'm just fascinated by the fact that Leo's perception of Antaup is so incongruous with who he actually is. Antaup, whose opinion on women Leo takes as gospel. Antaup, who encouraged him to sleep with Rikke, thereby hurting Jurand (who Antaup knows is gay, and presumably he knows Jurand is gay for Leo!). Antaup, who makes up stories that Leo totally buys into and feels like he needs to live up to. Yes, Leo is a raging homophobe in his own right, but Antaup absolutely fuels that fire. Heteronormativity and toxic masculinity seriously fucking destroyed these boys! 😭

And the thing is as well... How much of it was just because of Leo? If Jurand was the leader, would they still be burned just by the nature of their homophobic, hypermasculine environment, or would their group actually turn into a safe haven where they could be themselves? What if Leo has been living in a separate world to the rest of them all this time? Because if Leo barely knew Antaup, and Antaup knew about Glaward and Jurand, presumably they were closer to each other than they ever were to Leo. It's possible Leo doesn't know Jurand or Glaward either. I mean, does Leo actually matter to Glaward at this point? I have a hard time believing Glaward ever liked Leo, if Glaward was the guy constantly picking up the pieces of Jurand's broken heart.

It's just so tragic. Fuck Antaup for blocking that Leo/Jurand kiss. Fuck Leo for just about everything. Fuck Joe Abercrombie for not giving us more insight into what happened in Sipani. All I want now is fluffy Glaward/Jurand/Jappo fic where they get to live freely and happily, away from all that heteronormative, Union bullshit. But I also really am desperate to see Leo look Jurand in the eye. I want him to fully appreciate how much he fucked up, and I want him to acknowledge his gay feelings and hate himself and really fucking grapple with the denial and the hard to swallow truths he's managed to ignore all this time. And I also want Jurand to finally decide: whose side is he really on? Is he still prepared to follow Leo into hell? Will he make the same mistake he's made over and over and over again? ... Or will he finally break free of Leo's spell?

I worry that the only way Leo will accept responsibility is if Jurand chooses to walk away. But with Leo so physically and emotionally broken, I don't know if Jurand is actually capable of that. You have to make of your heart a stone, and all that...

Jurand: “What are the chances of EVERYONE in a friend group being queer” you do realise that we all tend to flock together like penguins huddling for warmth in a cold, heteronormative world, right