#it’s a shame the writer of this story isn’t know because they did a great job with it

[daydreamerdrew]

Whiz Comics (1940) #50

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  MuseumGiftShopEraser! They have 9 works on AO3 in the Stranger Things Fandom, and 6 of those are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @museumgiftshoperaser:

Paint the Devil on the Wall

Conversations About Love

Now I'm A Stranger

An Exercise In Denial

Baby, You Were Meant To Follow Me

Her fics are BEAUTIFUL. When I first read Paint the Devil on the Wall I was so obsessed I immediately recced the fic to everyone I knew who would be vaguely interested in a steddie fic. -- anonymous

Below the cut, @museumgiftshoperaser answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I stumbled into it immediately after season 4 came out. I’ve felt very attached to Steve as a character from the beginning of the show and I think I was subconsciously waiting for someone to pair him up with. I think they’re both such great characters to explore themes of dealing with expectation (either by conforming, or fighting against it) and that’s something I always love to write about.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Absolute sucker for fake dating. Can’t get enough of it.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Enemies to lovers! Though now that I’m looking through my AO3 I haven’t actually written that much of it. It doesn’t have to be very intense enemies, though. I just like it when characters don’t immediately get along.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

My brain has been forever rewired by took you for a working boy by pukner. It’s such a gentle, nuanced queer story. It feels vulnerable to me in a way that really only fanfiction can be. Can I sneak in another one?? Because everyone should also absolutely read the shame is on the other side by scoops_ahoy. It taps into this very specific kind of queer compartmentalizing, that I’ve never seen written this well. It broke my heart and patched it right back up.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I’ve been stupidly busy with my masters lately so there’s probably not a lot of writing on my horizon. I do have a wip called Doll that I’m slowly chipping away at. It’s a little darker than stuff I’ve written before. I know ‘dark’ isn’t really a trope, but I’m excited to see if I can push these characters a little further. 

What is your writing process like?

Absolute chaos. I write non-chronologically, without an outline, all in the same document. I keep writing snippets and scenes until the whole thing slowly comes together. 

Do you have any writing quirks?

Italicizing words for emphasis. I love it so much, you can rip it from my cold dead hands. It accidentally makes its way into my academic writing for my degree sometimes which is a little embarrassing, but I just love the flair of it. 

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

I don’t really do schedules, it doesn’t work for me at all. I try to make sure I have a decent amount of the story written before I start posting to give me a bit of a head start, but forcing myself to finish something by a certain date is a surefire way to kill my motivation.

Which fic are you most proud of?

Probably Paint the Devil on the Wall. It was the first time I’d written the entire story before I started posting so it went through way more rounds of editing than normal. I think you can really tell. It’s also the longest story I’ve ever written (in general, even outside of fanfic). The whole project gave me a lot of confidence as a writer.

How did you get the idea for Paint the Devil on the Wall?

I knew I wanted to participate in the Bigbang and the deadline was coming up, but I still didn’t have an idea. I decided to work backwards and try to think of something that would be fun for the artist(s) to draw. I had a vision of Eddie wearing dungarees without a shirt, absolutely covered in paint and I knew I had to write something to make it happen. I set the story in 80s New York because neo expressionism is really the only kind of art I could see Eddie making. I think it suits him very well. I do actually have a background in art, though! I’m currently getting my MFA, but I’ve worked full time as an artist for several years before that. I had a lot of fun working my passion for art (and all those art history classes I had to take) into the fic.

When writing Paint the Devil on the Wall, what was something you didn’t expect?

All of Steve’s character, to be honest. The fic is written from Eddie’s POV and for a large part of it he has a very hard time figuring out what Steve’s deal is. Right alongside him, I also had an incredibly hard time figuring out his character. It wasn’t until I was working on the final chapter that he finally clicked for me. I realized very late, just like Eddie, that Steve liked him from the very beginning. Most of the enemies to lovers premise was all in Eddie’s head.

What inspired Now I'm a Stranger?

Oh boy, that was forever ago! I remember I started writing it while I was camping with friends because I liked having something to do after everyone went to bed at night. I think I had the idea for that very first scene where Steve doesn’t remember Eddie and it all sort of spiraled from there.

What was your favorite part to write from An Exercise in Denial?

That was the very first fic I wrote, right after season 4 came out! I’ve never written something that fast, I think the whole thing took me less than a week. My favorite part was probably Robin being completely exasperated with both of them. They’re such complete idiots in that fic.

How do/did you feel writing Baby, You Were Meant To Follow Me?

Ahhh… I never got around to finishing that one. I probably never will, to be honest. I wrote the first two parts quite quickly and then the idea I had for the plot spiraled out of control and I realized I didn’t actually feel like writing the rest of it. There were going to be a lot of misunderstandings and I learned that I find that an incredibly frustrating trope to write (when done for drama at least. For comedy, I’m a sucker for misunderstandings.) So I guess I felt a little in over my head.

What was the most difficult part of writing Conversations About Love?

The ending! That fic is so incredibly personal to me and I knew from the beginning that I wanted it to have a very sappy, happy ending. It was important to me to write an aromantic character getting everything they wanted, but I realized as I was writing it that I don’t actually fully know what that means. So it took a bit more soul searching than fics typically do, but it was very much worth it. 

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

I still think the short little prologue for Paint the Devil on the Wall is the best thing I’ve written. “You don’t draw on things that aren’t yours, baby” is probably the best summary I have for that story.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Not really!

Thank you to our author, @museumgiftshoperaser, and our anonymous nominator! See more of @museumgiftshoperaser works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[yonemurishiroku]

Jason died cause he boring. He literally an all American boy someone who would have been popular in the 90s. Compare all main characters first chapter to Jason and you can tell he bland like white bread. Jason lacks the popularity of Percy cause if Percy was dead expect a riot plus we already had a better Zeus contrast with Thalia. Apollo is the more interesting character and Apollo son is a better contrast to Nico. Had he not had a GF maybe he could have been Nico love interest but Rick decided on Nico being gay extremely late he said it himself and what does it look like having a guy break up with his GF (poc) to be with Nico(white emo kid) in a kid series. Will was convenient no weird background no known relationship and the complete opposite to Nico and people get mad but it work you don’t get a solo book if the fanbase wasn’t big. The

There’re so many points at once in this ask and I don’t think I’m comprehending them right so I guess I’ll just post my reactions upon reading this.

- Jason’s bland like a white bread -> Good news! I like white bread. I think white bread is a perfect canvas to add all of your favorite toppings to make the best meal for you. ☺️😋😋

So if Rick really did kill Jason only bc he’s bland then he’s a coward solely bc he can’t figure out what color to put on Jason’s canvas.

- Apollo’s son is a better contrast to Nico -> This is subjective so I’ll leave it for any day. Though it got me thinking. Why, exactly, should the contrast matter?

Because fun fact! Jason and Nico have many working parallels that can be great materials for relationship development. Ask a random Jasico fanfic writers and they’ll give a thesis.

On the other hand, to be honest?, we already have Percabeth as the opposites-attract/bantering/significant annoyance trope. I ngl can do without another similar one. 🤷‍♀️

- Err i’m not American so I don’t think I’m in any position to talk about the poc girl vs white emo boy thing but if anything, I find it’s valid. Smh shame

Edit: Haise pointed out that Nico is not white, he’s Venetian and has olive skin. I honestly don’t know what it makes this…

- You don’t get a solo book if the fanbase isn’t big enough -> This is undeniably true.

HOWEVER

Pal. My friend. Mate. Listen. Just wait until I show you how many people absolutely despite the existence that is TSATS——

I’m all for letting people enjoy things. Though, if you ask me - me, who came to PJO solely for Solangelo and binge read TSATS in like 2 nights and cried a river on my pillow, I would say TSATS is Rick’s poor attempt of:

1/ milking the franchise (which is understandable. Capitalism you know bla bla bla)

2/ giving a half-heartedly made closure to the fandom’s favorite (which is sort of fanservice? Idk)

3/ and along with it solidifying the foundation of his gay love story, which didn’t have the… err prettiest start? (which I reckon accounts for a lot of the franchise’s popularity).

And yeah it’s easy to see that Nico being gay is a late decision with how Rick worked it out lmao.

[shut-up-rabert]

This makes me so so soooo fucking angry I can’t be tamed. These people will fall to any level to make my religion look bad. Fucking shameless.

Now that some of my anger is out, lets get into this:

Shree Laxmi wasn’t given to gods, she isn’t a goddamn cattle animal like Kamdhenu, and the demons and gods respected her wishes as a supposed human being to choose either side. She chose devas, not because she was partial against the asuras, but because a) she’s the universal mother, she knows everything that goes on, including which side has bad intentions and which one will use her powers for the good, and b) she chose to be with her eternal Lover/Husband Shree Narayan, and since he was on the deva’s side (aka the good side), she was with them by default.

The fact that literal demons had more respect for her than our secular writer over here, *sigh*

The elixer was given to gods because it was to restore their powers? Like, you know, the ones that were taken away from them? Why the frick would the lord allow Demons to have elixir when he knows they don’t have any good intents? They are literally evil, and protecting against evil is like god’s whole job ffs🤦🏻‍♀️

Literally no one in Mahabharata except Shree Krishna is purely good, get that through your fucking thick skulls. That’s the entire point, you learn what you do from Ramayan and what not to do from Mahabharat. And the Hidamba Mata’s (aka the Danvi whose name you didn’t bother researching, great work 👍🏼) backstory is never discussed in detail, neither is Ghatotkach. For all you know, the pregnancy could have been hidden from him, atleast that’s what their first meeting shows. So if you plan on demonising sex, you proved no motive here.

“Ohh, Ravan never did anything wrong, bas kidnap hi to kiya tha akeli nari ka.” Is such a sad argument tbh, y’all literally see no issue with kidnapping and terrifying a women over your own sister’s lose character? What a shame. “He never touched her.” Social distancing se kidnap kiya tha kya bhenchod? He never touched her sexually you mean, not because he was a saint of a man, but because he was a verified rapist with a blue check. He had raped his own to be niece in law and was cursed by his nephew that raping another woman would lead to his death. He literally threatened to cook Devi Sita and eat her up if she didn’t submit. Another reason he didn’t touch her was because if he had touched her, It would be Jankiayan instead of Ramayan because she would fucking kill him before you all can blink.

“He humiliated her on more than one occasion” is a very sneaky way to say two occasions so that the number can be inflated, eh?

The first occasion: Calling her names so that she will submit herself to agni out of spite and emerge unharmed, which literally everyone condemned, including the loyal brother Lakshman who rebelled against his own brother (for whose wake he would pick up a sword against everyone , mind you) because he dared disrespect a woman like Maa Sita, and even Hanumanji who’s Shri Ram’s biggest, and I mean biggest devotee. Literally no one stood by Sita’s humiliation, and it was later revealed by Shri Ram that the act was staged by the him so that she can have an excuse to perform agni pravesh so that no lecherous person would dare point a finger at her in future. Even the shlokas say he did it so that no one would suspect his wife’s character. And before you say Shri Ram was “saving face”, one of his plus points as mentioned is that he doesn’t lie throughout the entire story, so think again. Y’all really think he spent the entire story worrying for her safety only to insult her in the end?

You think Seeta would have anyone humiliate her once and give them a chance for a second humiliation? Ohhh you dead wrong!

Second occasion: Shree Raghuvar sending Maa Sita to exile, which is a very infamously known interpolation denounced by many. So he only “insulted” her once and that too in a staged act. One of the shlokas he uses to coax his peers after agni pariksha is that a woman like her can never be denounced by him, and like I said, he never lies, sooo…… :P

Shree Ram decietfully killed Bali because Bali was a foe who could not be fought face to face? Do you even Know the story of Bali? Do you know he was such a bad guy he literally took his brother’s wife like she was property? Ugh, I can’t.

Guru Drona didn’t accept Eklavya not because he was “Tribal”, but because he had promised his loyalty to the Bharatvansh Clan. Had even Shree Krishna gone to him asking for training, he would have refused. Eklavya’s tribal background was never discussed in this context.

(Also sidenote to my followers but isn’t it funny how despite Eklavya having to lose his thumb Guru Drona’s boon to Arjun wasn’t fulfilled because he still couldn’t surpass Bhagwaan Ramchandra as the greatest bowman? Khaya piya kuchh nahi, paap sar chadhaya barah aana XD)

I mean, God really out to set a limit to hypocrisy now because the more I see these people the more I disagree with Modiji ki Hypocrisy ki seema hai. Agar hai bhi to ye namune kaise long jump krke laanhg rhe h unhe, oof.

[cctinsleybaxter]

2023 in Books

I need to stop bragging that I’ve got this reading thing all figured out, because man if 2023 wasn’t a year of terrible books. I liked less than half of the 37 I read and nothing quite gripped me in the way it has in years past… but to put it more optimistically I liked a full third of what I read, and the ones I liked best were a fascinating and unexpected silver lining. Without further ado:

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, trans. Brian Hooker

Tell this all to the world- and then to me. Say very softly that… she loves you not.

I read a couple of plays this year for the first time since college and liked them fine, but there’s a reason this has been adapted five million times. Everyone go watch Megamind right now.

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

Of all the found footage-inspired horror fiction I’ve read this one makes the best case for existing in its chosen medium, as a 70s UK folk rock band are interviewed about the summer they spent recording what would become their final album [thunder crashes.] It reminded me of a Tana French mystery in its language and ability to make space feel lived-in; the character writing is so strong I realized that at some point I had stopped checking the interview headings to know who was speaking. Hand unfortunately distrusts her audience to read between the lines at a few crucial moments (and ruins what would have been a perfect ending and a deeply affecting scare by gilding the lily, or, in this case, photograph), but I love that she went from seemingly by-the-numbers American YA fiction to a meticulously-researched and truly unique horror novella. Puts other writers working in the genre to shame.

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin

Reminiscent of the best kind of TCM suspense thriller (and was adapted into one), but could only exist as a book for the kind of narrative tactics it employs. Levin is brilliant at setting and character; I think any one of his contemporaries would have leaned into archetypes for this sort of story, and he instead distinguishes his proper nouns in subtle, clever ways that lend them the weight a noir needs. Can’t wait to read more of his stuff!

All the Names They Used for God by Anjali Sachdeva

I’d like to know why this anthology got hit with what a friend has termed a pottery barn throw pillow cover + a ‘the tiny things we know to be small’ title, because the eponymous story isn’t even called that! It’s just The Names They Used for God, and is, appropriately, about two women kidnapped by a religious extremist group. High risk-high reward; I think taken at their base premise the stories could have been insufferable and are instead strange, compelling, and fantastical. There’s a methodicalness and, I don't know, lack of whimsy? to them that’s unusual for fantasy, but also an absence of any one goal or moral in the way Le Guin speaks so highly of. It made me feel the way I did reading and adoring Kelly Link in middle school, and Sachdeva has a much different style that I guess works all the better on adults. My favorite was Robert Greenman and the Mermaid.

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Lauren Hillenbrand

Someone recommended this to me via Tumblr anon over five years ago, so let me start by saying if that was you I’d like to thank you properly! This book rules! It was written in ‘99 so falls prey to a very specific kind of jingoism, but the mechanics of that are interesting in and of themself. Seabiscuit the animal is a lens through which to view turn-of-the-20th-century America written from the precipice of the 21st; his story told through the expertly-researched biographies of his owner, trainer, and jockey. Hillenbrand is not only a good pop nonfiction historian, but has been a sports writer since the 80s and I never imagined the genre could be so thrilling as I did reading her work. Horse racing is insane and no one should be riding these things btw.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

It was one of the great livery-stableman’s most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.

Wharton came from old money New York*, was deeply disillusioned with it and pined for rational (i.e., even more insane) social and political scenes, had myriad thoughts about women and gender relations, and held a love for interior design. I learned all of this after reading but it’s apparent on every page; deeply funny and perceptive, fantastic use of language, the moments where it lost me completely nothing if not interesting. What sticks with me the most are a flair for the operatic and an ability to voice both the feeling and consequences of losing oneself to imagined scenarios. Read the pink parasol scene.

*Ancient Money New York; the saying ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is apocryphally attributed to her father’s side of the family

Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl by Jonathan S. Slaght

We’d return to our camp to huddle in the freezing tent and wait for our owls in silence, like suitors agonizing over a phone that never rings.

One of the better pieces of science writing I’ve read in a long time, as Slaght frames rural communities as a quintessential part of ecology rather than a barrier to it. His style is amiable and matter-of-fact (sometimes overly so; the amount of metric GIS directions, help), but he's super engaging and clearly holds just as much compassion for people and history as he does animals and natural landscapes. The Blakiston’s fish owls he’s studying are described as unreal, with hoots so low and quiet it sounds like someone has thrown them under a blanket. You can listen to them here.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Took my breath away and surprised me in a way a book hasn’t in years. I'd read Clarke’s 2004 novel when I was maybe fourteen and had vaguely positive but mostly neutral memories of it, and Piranesi being sci-fi-fantasy that came recommended by Tiktok had me very dubious. I ended up devouring it in the way I haven’t read books since I was fourteen; more of a mystery than the suspected high fantasy, with characters I would do disservice to in trying to describe in brief. While the mystery isn’t difficult to ‘solve’ (I’d argue the book also skews young!), the story ends in a way that’s both deeply unexpected and in the only way it could have.

Honorable mentions

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, trans. Peter Washington

[Jigsaw voice] Every man has a devouring passion in his heart as every fruit has its worm.

I spent so much time running my mouth about this one on Tumblr there’s really not much left to say. I think it’s a work of genius that was physically exhausting to read, and I’m sticking it with the honorable mentions mostly because I remember The Three Musketeers being the better book. If you want to read Dumas- and you should- start with that one.

Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

I would’ve liked this more had I read it in my late teens/early 20s, but I still think it’s pretty good and would absolutely recommend to anyone in that age bracket. Things that normally annoy me about philosophical first-person lit fic didn’t matter under the weight of Jon’s narratorial voice. He reminded me a little of Lynda Barry’s Maybonne in his understanding and depictions of community and family; his stream of consciousness letting contradictions sit rather than trying to explain them away (Whitehead also makes sex very prosaic and pretty-sounding while still being frank and gross about it, which is a rare talent!)

The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to da Vinci, from Sharks' Teeth to Frogs' Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come From by Edward Dolnik

This one fell in the rankings because the writing isn’t my favorite (think early days Vulture article rather than NYT), but I cannot stop referencing it in conversation. I want to read the whole thing to people and make them understand how truly unfathomable it is not only that every one of us is the product of 1 sperm and 1 egg, but that anyone ever figured out how that process works. When Western Europeans first started using microscopes they studied water; there were gross little bugs in there to watch and enjoy, so when semen was revealed to have its own bugs no one was shocked, but they also weren’t impressed. We would not see one enter an egg until EIGHTEEN SEVENTY-FIVE.  

Killer Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh

The Malaise of First Night Nerves had gripped Peregrine, not tragically and aesthetically by the throat but, as is its habit, shamefully in the guts.

Has made it into my top 5 favorite Inspector Alleyn mysteries. I’m not keen on Marsh’s theater settings (and there are a LOT of them), but a convoluted setup made this one all the more rewarding. The final revelation as to a point of blackmail is visceral and bizarre in a way I haven’t seen from her before.

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

We all have dirty hands; we are all soiling them in the swamps of our country and in the terrifying emptiness of our brains. Every onlooker is either a coward or a traitor.

Best read in conversation with other writers, I wouldn’t recommend Fanon as the end-all-be-all introduction to communist and socialist thinking (the fact that he inadvertently describes what was going wrong with the USSR at time of writing is fascinating), but he explicitly invites that conversation and the value and impact of his work really can’t be overstated. Our points of disagreement tend to be in regard to nationalism, not his condonation of violence.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Fascinating to see how Austen was thinking about relationships near the end of her short life. I laughed to see the idea of preferring your brother-in-law’s family to your own was back in full force from my own favorite Emma, as well as an eleventh-hour ‘maybe I should ship the villains??’ My biggest issue is that, like Emma, Persuasion is written in third person limited narration, but Anne is fundamentally Good™ so doesn’t need to learn anything about herself or the world; critic Bob Irvine points out that she and her dashing, misogynistic sailor are beset rather than changed by it. That said I love a people being beset by people (concussed temptresses) places (Bath) and things (cars), and Austen's writing style is really firing on all cylinders here.

[outrunningthedark]

my biggest 911 hot take is that I think the fans overemphasize how important the show thinks the will scene is. not that it isn’t important to the characters! but the show hasn’t so much as hinted at it since, and the insistence that’s it’s a giant thing hanging over Buck/Eddie is just not true imo. glances to analyze and speculation to make are fun, but the show has yet to in-canon reference that either buck or eddie are particularly hung up about it.

I think it’s a damn shame for the writers to *not* address it, but I do worry fans will be crushed if it’s never talked about again. 😞

My feelings on the will scene have definitely (and obviously, for anyone who's been reading my blog all season) changed with time. Back when it happened and at different points in s5 (like when the expectation was for Lucy to tap into Buck's recklessness) I was anticipating *something*, but like you said, there's been no allusions or outright admissions even when BUCK WAS IN A COMA. Chris knows about the will, about how the will means Buck is always going to be there (he'll always fight to come home to Chris just like Eddie) and IT NEVER CAME UP??? Yet that should have been a great opportunity to remind the casual viewer of the conversation if there were actually any plans in place to build towards canon in the future??? Something I *really* don't vibe with in this fandom is the insistence that story lines can and will be addressed a later date even if it takes longer than you'd like. Look. None of us - myself included - were taking the cancellation talks seriously because "it's FOX's number one show, lol wtf", but this idea that waiting two, three, or even MORE seasons for a story to be fully fleshed out is PEAK toxic positivity. We have no insight into what negotiations are like, or how the actors feel about committing to the show for multiple years beyond their current contracts. By dragging their feet on specific plot points, the show runners are not only telling us those things don't matter until and IF they say they matter (meaning we're giving it more importance than intended), but they're also operating under a false sense of security. If ABC didn't pick up OG for a seventh season (gonna repeat myself and say that Angela Bassett is probably what did it because that network has plenty of programming) the story lines would be ending in a way that leaves us feeling unsatisfied. 9-1-1 no longer has the hype of seasons 1, 2, 3, or even 4. "Next season" is no guarantee and the show runners need to start telling stories that reflect this (unfortunate) reality.

[transamorousnetwork]

No, Sexual Abuse Doesn’t Create Trans-Attracted People

Back in May I gushed about the Netflix Limited Series “Baby Reindeer”. My focus, obviously, wasn’t on the main plot, but the sub plot; that being the main character “Donny’s” trans-attraction. I gushed about it because I thought the entire series did a great job describing how shame and self-loathing can create a truly, sucky life.

Which is exactly what Donny lived.

While writing that series of posts, I received an interesting comment from a trans-attracted guy. The comment made a point I hadn’t considered. I hadn’t considered it because I don’t believe the point the writer made about trans attraction or about the show. So the point went right over my head.

I’m glad then, that the commenter made the point. It’s worth taking a closer look at it.

So let’s take a look at what he wrote, then unpack what he’s saying.

The comment

Reading between the lines of his comment, it’s clear the writer isn’t ashamed of his trans attraction. Not only that, it seems he’s out about it. That’s great. So here’s what he had to say. I’ve added some clarifications [in brackets] for reasons that will be obvious:

I was baffled at first that people kept asking me if I’d seen Baby Reindeer – I’ve never seen *any* must-see TV shows. Then I realised there was this cis-trans relationship subplot. People I know wanted to know how I felt about that because they know of my own orientation and dating experience… I thought [transgender actress] Nava Mau’s performance was fantastic and [her character] “Teri” was probably the only likable and relatable person in the show tbh. But I did feel that the show let her down in plot terms. No exposition at all for *why* the main character decided to go on a trans dating site. In an ideal world, sure, it would be unremarkable, but in the real world, it’s obviously not something everyone *just does*. And in that absence of explanation it felt uncomfortably like we were supposed to see it as some kind of sexual trauma response to his previous experiences as revealed in ep. 3. When, after their split, he hardly seemed to give her another thought, that seemed to reinforce that she was almost just a plot device to show him going through stages of trauma and self-questioning. Given that it’s based on a true story, of course, that may just be a reflection of this individual’s reality. And yes, that reality may reflect a wider reality of a lot of cis man/trans woman relationships. But I guess I’m just disappointed that the plotline in that regard always seems to be one of trauma, hangups, internalised shame, etc. That’s not at all my experience in my own relationship, and I’d like for once to see that portrayed! So as representation goes, yes, Teri was a triumph, but as a portrayal of a relationship between a trans woman and a trans-attracted man I felt it was a lot less positive.

Shallow thinking creates condemnation

I really like this guy’s perspective. And, he’s right. I believe a trend exists in the minds of people that trans attraction is a response to some unsavory past. Often, that past includes sexual “trauma”. And while that may be true for some, I don’t think that’s true for the majority of trans-attracted men.

The commenter, clearly, hasn’t had that experience. As well, most of the men I’ve worked with also don’t have sexual “trauma” they’re responding to. Many of them did experience an event which surfaced what may have previously been unconscious orientation behavior. But sexual abuse “trauma” doesn’t create trans attraction in people.

Take me, for example. I didn’t realize my trans-attraction until a girlfriend in Japan took me to a bar that featured trans go-go dancers. That doesn’t qualify as sexual trauma or abuse. But it did open my eyes to an aspect of who I was.

One could say the trope that trans-attracted men trans attracted because of past sexual abuse parallels the idea that trans women are just “men in a dress”. Like the latter, the former offers no introspection or analysis. Nor does it reveal any effort on the part of the speaker to understand trans attraction, nor the men (and women) who orient that way sexually. Such comments don’t point to a truth. They just represent shallow thinking on the part of the person expressing them.

Which is why they’re worthy of us ignoring them.

Another trope needing examination

Trans-attraction is just as valid as any other sexual orientation. For transgender people, it is an important orientation. That’s because such people represent perfect matches for trans people. And because of that, trans people can find love they desire.

I’ve written before about how every sock finds its shoe. The way the Universe works, no aspect of being goes unmatched. There always exists someone to match someone who wants to match with someone.

Now, some people do exist for which no match exists. Such people eventually discover they are happier without relationships. I’ve known women who, after dating men and women, for example, discover their best relationship is with themselves.

That’s a great realization to come to. But it often comes after trial and error. Because all of us are conditioned so strongly to have a relationship. Otherwise something is wrong with us. And that’s another expression that’s gone without much examination.

A lot more happiness would exist if people didn’t try fitting themselves into the box the peanut gallery prescribes. That goes for trans people, trans-attracted people and everyone else.

Stories DO create reality though

All that said, I did have a client who believed part of his experience in desiring trans women came from what HE considered to be sexual trauma involving a relative. After looking at what happened over several months, however, we discovered a couple things about that experience. One, such sexual experimentation between relatives is very common. It’s not sexual abuse. And two, his role in it was far less offensive than he was making it.

In other words, his stories about what happened shaped his judgments about what happened. They also shaped his self-judgement. A self-judgement so harsh he contemplated suicide many times. 

These days, however, this client is becoming more and more free of his negative stories. As a result he’s finding himself more comfortable accepting who he is, what he likes, and what happened in the past.

And that’s the point of all of this. Our stories create our realities. That’s why it’s so important looking at the stories we have. Looking at them we change those that create experiences we don’t like. Every experience we don’t like comes as a result of beliefs we hold. That means any experience we don’t like we have the power to change.

I think Donny, the main character in Baby Reindeer showed us this. By changing his stories he came to embrace who he was. The result not only transformed his life, it also produced a sensational hit streaming show.

Read my series on that show here: Post one, post two, three and four.

[samobservessonic]

Today’s issue starts with Sonic not quite managing to meet his treadmill expectations, before stopping so take a shower out in the middle of Green Hill. So there you have it, folks, if you’ve ever wondered where Sonic lives, the answer has been here all along - he just leaves random household appliances around Green Hill and I guess everyone lets him do that

I guess chili dog lore hasn’t been established yet, because Sonic stops to have some burgers, before Tails gets kidnapped by what looks like bacon, but is actually more badniks. The badniks threaten to pull Tails’s arms and legs off if he tries to resist them, so once again, no one is messing around in early StC

We get what could’ve been some cool lore about how Labyrinth Zone stretches under half of Mobius, because the badniks have been digging it out for months - another moment of showing how staggeringly OP the badniks are in these comics that I’m honestly all here for. But what ruins it for me is that it doesn't look like Labyrinth Zone. After seeing the preview for the last issue saying that we’d be going to Labyrinth Zone in this issue, I was excited to see such an iconic location from Sonic 1 visited in the comics, but the art is just some dark tunnels and I think that really lets down what the story was going for here

Sonic decides to take some of his friends along with him to rescue Tails this time and look, actual Sonic & Sally interaction in StC! Even if it is him telling her not to be “such a girlie”

We get some sequences that flick between the badniks kidnapping Tails (literally threatening to “bash his brains in” if not for Robotnik wanting Tails alive) and Sonic & friends travelling through the apparent labyrinth until they catch up. There’s not much to say here, but one of the badniks does drop this line about being something called a prime badnik - a pure robot with no animal battery. This works with what Kitching established last issue about badniks seeking out their own batteries. Though the implication here is that the prime badnik is stronger or at least harder to destroy, which creates the question of why they'd seek out animal batteries if that's the case? Anyway, I didn’t expect to be talking so much about badniks in these posts, but it is interesting to see what StC did with them, since at this point they were the only enemies besides Robotnik that the series has to call upon

Anyway, the labyrinth floods, Sonic burns the last badnik and everyone gets away. There isn’t much else to talk about here. I have to admit that this is the first story so far that I haven’t particularly enjoyed and that’s a bit of a shame, because writer Mark Millar was bringing great concepts to the table and expanding upon what’s already been established, even only five issues into the series. The labyrinth flooding was a neat reference to the latter part of the Labyrinth Zone stage in the game itself. But the art really does let this issue down a lot. Which is a shame, because we already saw Woodrow Phoenix do art in an earlier issue and it was fine! But it feels lazy here? Or perhaps Phoenix just wasn’t told what the Labyrinth Zone was supposed to look like? Either way, it was a bit of a let-down, but I know things only improve going forward, so I won’t dwell on it

[alectology-archive]

a day of fallen night final thoughts below the cut, but to summarise I think this is a book people can enjoy easily but it didn’t really do anything particularly great for me in terms of the themes it was dealing with (although I do feel very positively about it’s scathing criticisms of monarchical systems of power especially when they wield power in alliance with the fantasy!church. also that climate fiction is always delicious to read about). spoilers include the ending and partly the general character arcs.

thoughts on the technical aspects of the book:

having finished the book I still strongly believe that the pacing of the story progressed at break-neck speed and left no room for the characters to breathe. I do think this is specifically an issue with the editors involved with this book because all of her other books have never given me the same impression and samantha has repeatedly mentioned that her editors trimmed a lot of words from tpotot and adofn. male writers get to keep nonsensical bits of useless exposition; she should’ve been allowed to throw in a couple more thousand words to let the characters breathe and develop and feel. not that it necessarily means that the manuscript didn’t need to shed some weight, but you know what I mean. the scenes also cut off pretty abruptly sometimes to shift POVs which is well. not good.

… speaking of which a lot of scenes that we build up to take place off-screen despite having a lot of emotional and narrative significance (for instance we learn off-screen that wulf spent 9 months in the priory and also that he was easily convinced that cleolind really defeated the nameless one). this happens multiple times, and made for a very frustrating reading experience - I think dumai’s storyline particularly suffers from this.

I never really felt my heart leap in my chest the way it did multiple times while reading priory and tbs - her writing style involves making her characters face a continuous stream of conflicts that seem insurmountable which is kind of what really drew me to her books in the beginning. I suspect this might be because I kind of have a sense for her writing patterns now that lets me predict her style of storytelling.

I think glorian’s storyline should have started around the time preceding/following sabran vi’s death because I really tired of her POVs before that - it just didn’t have any plot significance. I also admittedly don’t care for reading about characters who’re in their teenhood any more.

with dumai’s storyline, the story seemed to promise court intrigue but failed to really deliver on it. samantha’s also pretty good at writing flawed antagonists but none of them landed well for me in this book.

adofn also seemed to feature a lot of Telling rather than Showing, but this might also be a personal issue because I prefer books to be a lot more subtle with their character development and themes. this was not really the case when I was 16, so I’m not sure if I’ve just become more critical of her work (it’s probably just that).

I think samantha isn’t very good at writing Nice Male Characters. I say this fondly. I love that she excels at writing terrible men, though. jaxon tbs sucks! I love him.

we spend more time with training sequences than we seem to with scenes with conflict between the protagonists and antagonists which is kind of a shame.

this is a very vague criticism and people might not agree, but I also did get the impression that samantha had a hard time letting women just be… horrible in this book. really morally questionable in a significant way. this was not a problem she had in priory. I do think it’s interesting to really deconstruct the concept of a witch in the woods and instead present her as a person who seeks to protect the land, but it also seemed to… contradict kalyba’s pre-established characterisation? like she retconned her background while working on this book? just…. let women be horrible lol. nikeya also wasn’t nearly half as devious as the narrative tried to convince us she was.

she often clarifies how a certain character is queer sometimes in ways I don’t necessarily like (this is specifically referring to the point about how I’ve gradually grown to appreciate more subtlety in books recently). in nona the ninth, we learn that camilla hect has two dads and tamsyn muir never descends into discussing the minutiae the way samantha does.

while the climate and balance element of the magic system was dealt with a lot of nuance a lot of the antagonists lacked the depth that the magic system had with a bunch of conflicts being painted as black and white scenarios (it doesn’t really turn out that way at the end of the book, but you do spend most of the book with certain assumptions that are only countered in the very last chapters of the book. it doesn’t make for an fun reading experience).

kediko onjenyu should have waged a war against the priory. prince guma and robart ellar should have been allowed to mount a more formidable political opposition to glorian. the river lord and nikeya shoild have done more politicking. there was a lot of opportunity for more politicking that was wasted as empty threats.

I was personally a little annoyed that religion played such a heavy role in every single POV we got, but it’s fine, it’s not a big deal. I love examinations of religions in text, but I also don’t enjoy stories that have a high density of religious characters because I don’t like the touch of false belief that religion infuses into the narration of the characters who keep strong faith.

While her writing style was really the one I first remember falling in love with, I do think you could tell when certain sections of the book were better edited and went through more rewrites. it’s fine! she cares a lot about writing as a craft and that’s all I really expect from an author. it didn’t particularly wow me this time, although I continue to love her usage of metaphors.

thoughts on thematic coherence:

the single most frustrating narrative was the very unsatisfactory conclusion to siyu’s storyline - it ended with the narrative seemingly concluding that she needed to properly submit to the suffocating structure of the priory that caused her severe psychological and emotional distress ie it ignored the family as a tool of oppression. I’m not saying the criticism was entirely absent - the narrative is pretty sympathetic to her and generally indicates that she was treated very cruelly - but that criticism is negated when it’s ignored in the latter half of the series. why would you do this to her! I’m glad she was allowed to go to inys at the end of the book, but the conversation where tunuva and esbar apologised to her should have taken place, and it never did. ead’s storyline did focus more on the need for reform in the priory, but I don’t recall if it really dealt with the questions siyu’s storyline was posing.

^^^ speaking of which I do think it’s weird to reaffirm the need for siyu to integrate into a system that has hurt her when samantha specifically writes with the intent to critique the concept of family and marriage. she needed to do some more retrospection in that department, I think :/ also I’m probably making it sound worse than it really is, but the resolution was still Not Great.

the reproductive burden that women face in continuing bloodlines and its significance in monarchies particularly was dealt with excellently, as was the mechanisms through which the institutions of power that they were a part of played a role in the dehumanisation of women and in denying them any real autonomy over their bodies.

samantha’s personal struggles with mental health also give her an informed view on depression and I could Relate. excellently done, no notes, I did mark the quotes so I’ll hunt them down and post them later.

the individual endings presented to us in the epilogue were all pretty great though! I always love her endings - particularly, the touch of tragedy she infuses into them always makes them very satisfying.

[carlos-tk]

hello beloved and happy nice ask week !!

i know we talked briefly in replies about buddy the vampire slayer, so i wanted to ask what you fav season, character, couple and villain from it are !! + if you wanna use this to gush about any other shows/characters you like feel free to (/nf) <3

Hi my dear Flare 💗

Thank you for giving me a chance to talk about my forever gal Buffy 👩🏼

My favourite character: Of course it has to be Buffy Summers. Strongest girl in the universe. I love everything about her. Her strength, her courage, her personality, her sarcasm and wit, her kindness, how much love she has for everyone around her 💗 She’s dynamic, she’s layered, she makes mistakes and she isn’t perfect. She just feels like a real person that you want to root for. We got to watch her go from adolescent to adult and persevere and survive it all. I could talk about her for hours!! SMG gives such a great portrayal of her and it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role

Favourite episode god there’s so many good ones! Let me just say ‘The Body’ S5 E16 is one of if not the best episode of television ever, one that you’ll rarely ever want to watch again. It’s a beautiful, heartwrenching exploration of grief and mourning. and in a show that deals with so much death and destruction from monsters the worst loss you have is a human death by natural causes 💔 That episode is so hard to revisit so I’m gonna give you a favourite that is a fun one! ‘Tabula Rasa’ S6 E08. In the episode, a spell goes bad and every character forgets who they are and it’s just so funny. You get a lot of references to earlier episodes and funny jabs about the characters usual selves and the comedy was a nice break from how serious the rest of the season is

My fave couple obviously involves Buffy herself. Spuffy or Spike x Buffy! Vampire slayer and vampire. Literally trying to kill each other enemies to lovers excellence. There’s a lot to say about this ship but the thing I fell in love with most about this paring is the fact they just capture your attention in any phase of their relationship. They're just so interesting!! The constantly changing dynamic is just something special. You’re invested when they're enemies, when they're reluctant allies, when they're lovers, and when they're something undefinable by the final season. Their journey is a long one fraught with so many differences and similarities to become a real love story. But in saying that the ship was definitely toxic and not all that healthy at times but whatever!! and I understand people who don’t like it because the writers certainly made a choice in one particular episode that really does sour the relationship. Also sorry not sorry if you’re a Bangel fan lol 😅 I have some fave ship quotes I can share too because look at the material:

“When I say I love you, it’s not because I want you, or because I can’t have you – it has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try… I’ve seen your kindness, and your strength, I’ve seen the best and the worst of you and I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You’re a hell of a woman. You’re the one” LIKE they wrote that and I was supposed to be normal about it!! Impossible!!

“No you have to stay”, “You’ve got another demon fighting for you”, “That’s not why I need you here”, “Is that right? Why then?” “Because I’m not ready for you to not be here”(screaming btw!!)

“But I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again, do something different. Faster or more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways. Every night I save you”

“Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he musn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev... To be a kind of man. And she shall look on him with forgiveness and everybody will forgive and love. And he will be loved”

“I've lived for sodding ever, Buffy. I've done everything. I've done things with you I can't spell, but I've never been close to anyone, least of all you until last night. All I did was hold you, watch you sleep and it was the best night of my life. So, yeah, I'm terrified”

This is them in the final episode btw and I cry everytime 😭❤���

Fave season has to be S3. Buffy’s last year of high school and the introduction of Faith, another slayer! The ‘big bad’ of the season Mayor Wilkins is one of the best too. It had great overarching themes, amazing character development and a satisfying conclusion. The season as a whole is probably the series most consistent and some of the best episodes are from it. It is just stacked with contenders if I sat here and named it would be the whole season 😂 ‘The Wish’ is a goodie, ‘The Prom’ is <3 ‘Helpless’ is just !!!! and the 2 part finale ‘Graduation Day’ is spectacular! It’s a fan favourite with good reason

The best villain is so hard because there’s so many great options, I’d say S3s Mayor Wilkins or S5s Glory. Mayor Wilkins is a reminder that the worst guy in the world is probably a white male politician lol!! he was also a demonic snake for anyone that doesn’t know 😂 and Glory! Buffy battled all kinds of vampires and demons and the S5 rolls around and her enemy is a legit God from a hell dimension😳 and by far the worst has to be S6s pack of complete losers ‘The Trio’ that these days we’d call incels 😂

Thank you for joining me on this journey of my og hyper fixation ❤️ and if anyone wants to ask me more about my fave shows pls do!!

[being-of-rain]

Legal notes from my court-appointed Classic Who watchthrough. This time season 23, The Trial of a Time Lord.

The Trial of a Time Lord reminds me of Flux in New Who in a lot of ways. Both are shorter seasons that have a unique and more prominent story structure. And idk if it’s the neurodivergent in me or the writer in me (or both), but I really love an interesting and strong story structure that shows itself off, so I really love Trial and Flux in theory. I like some of them in practice too! But oh boy do both stories have their weaknesses, especially in their endings, that could’ve been fixed with some planning and editing and good writing. Though to be fair, both had reasons that accounted for some of their messiness- Trial’s final story saw the death of its author partway through and his first replacement quitting, and Flux was made during the COVID pandemic. So yeah, I have a soft spot for Trial of a Time Lord. Putting the Doctor on trial so they watch videos of his adventures to debate is perhaps a little on the nose on the meta level... but I’m fine with on the nose themes, and it’s a great premise just on its own, so whatever. I’ve heard people say they get sick of the trial scenes and I can’t say I’ve ever agreed. It’s a fun gimmick and there’s not that much of it compared to the rest of the story, it’s just a shame that eventually they stop having anything particularly interesting to say in them. But honestly I’d always be happy to watch some Doctor Who that randomly pauses sometimes to have Six give commentary on how good he’s doing or how much the Time Lords suck.

The Mysterious Planet isn’t the most gripping story ever and goes a bit slow, but honestly it’s a solid start to the series. The introduction to the trial is a great build-up, and the shot of the space station at the start is obviously wonderful. Six and Peri’s relationship being a little softer is nice (though, like most of their soft moments last season, it kinda looks like that character development was down to Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant working hard to deliver the script in a way that makes the characters watchable. I’ll never understand why the writers thought the Tardis team fighting and bullying each other all the time would make for a fun show). Glitz and Dibber are very funny, so are a lot of the Doctor’s interactions with most characters. Setting up the mystery of the sleepers and why the Time Lords want to censor what they found is the sort of story arc Classic Who had never really tried before, and I love it. And its eventual answer of people stealing secrets from Gallifrey itself is a cool payoff. But it does raise the first of many, many questions/holes in the trial plot: why on Earth did the Valeyard choose this story to show as evidence? Out of the history of Doctor Who, he chooses the only one the High Council wanted him to keep secret? Also, I don’t like season 23′s theme music. Maybe it fits the court intrigue better than the action-packed early-80s theme, but damnit I just love that action theme. SO catchy.

Mindwarp is.. a mess! I mean it’s meant to be a mess, but apparently nobody working on it knew exactly what was supposed to be happening in it. And that’s not how you make a deliberate mess! Because it shows, and it means I don’t know what was supposed to be happening either! Specifically, the bits where the Doctor goes evil. Was he acting evil to earn the trust of the bad guys, was he actually evil because of something their machine accidentally did to him, or did the Valeyard edit the footage to make him look evil? Or a combination of those? According to Tardis wiki Colin Baker asked the script editor, the writer, and the producer for the answer, but they all said they didn’t know. How is that even possible. The way the Doctor at the trial says he’s starting to half-remember what had happened makes things even more confusing. So... yeah. The story reminds me a lot of Vengeance of Varos. Obviously it’s by the same author and features the same villain, Sil, who still just doesn’t do it for me. Again story feels like it’s being very meta (even more than the rest of the Trial season) and I’m sure you could make some clever observations about it and the way season 22 plays Six as very unlikable, but again it just doesn’t interest me a lot. It’s a bleak serial without a lot to enjoy watching. Brian Blessed is one of the most fun things in it, but I’d rather he was in another story. Peri’s departure is... well, I guess it’s the right story for an exit as brutal as that. I think I prefer making a happy ending out of it, but being left to marry a random warlord is still pretty rough. Still, if there’s one thing that I love in this story, it’s the Doctor’s reaction to her death. Colin Baker’s acting in that part (and at the start of the next story too) kills me every time, and the moment of silence before his delivery of “you... killed Peri?” is heartwrenching in a way that I love.

First of all, I love any story that follows the structure of A Christmas Carol with past, present, and future, so kudos to the three stories used in the trial as evidence for that. And it’s a very fun way to introduce a new companion. But if the trial was starting to confuse itself a little in Mindwarp, it completely loses its focus in Terror of the Vervoids. Calling the Doctor’s argument in his defence ‘flimsy’ feels like it’s giving him too much credit. He chooses it so he can point at one adventure and say “in this case I was explicitly asked to interfere,” something that has already been made clear isn’t always the case, and something that I’m not sure would even matter in Time Lord law! And why this adventure specifically? Obviously he didn’t see it coming that it would get him saddled with a charge of genocide too. In the next story it looks like the Doctor would’ve genuinely been executed if the Master didn’t intervene, and honestly... it makes the Doctor look like an idiot more than any other time in the show. It’s bad writing lol. Another thing that seemed silly- its made clearer in this one where the Valeyard had tampered with the evidence, but his two edits are wildly different. One of them is writing the Doctor out of a certain scene so it looks like he let Mel investigate something alone- not particularly damning and not very unbelievable either, with the Doctor thoroughly edited out of a certain sequence of events. The second edit is a quick scene where the Doctor sighs in satisfaction while holding an axe and looking at the wreckage of the radio room, which is so absurdly out of nowhere and nonsensical that it makes me laugh every time. The way the Inquisitor is willing to believe it makes her look very gullible, especially when she was quite ready to consider the idea that the Matrix had been tampered with when it was the Valeyard suggesting it, but pooh-poohing the idea as impossible when the Doctor suggests it. Anyway, I can enjoy watching Terror of the Vervoids, and not just because of poking fun at it. Mel’s strong personality matching the Doctor’s makes a nice change after Peri (sorry Peri), and a love a murder mystery so setting up the characters then watching them sneak around and suspect each other is also fun. ...Though that said, I think the mystery gets a little too complicated. There’s a few different parties up to no good who are all facing double-crossing in their own ranks, making things very hard to keep track of, so the trial scenes on top of that is quite a lot of plot that isn’t executed very clearly. Maybe I was just happy for an all-round brighter story after Mindwarp. I think the most interesting character was Travers, the guy who’d met the Doctor before and had both a healthy respect for his ability to root out the truth, and a healthy wariness of the chaos that he causes. Oh, and the scene where the Doctor pauses and rewinds the Matrix to explain how he made a deduction was kinda fun, like a peak into the thought process of the Doctor that might turn up in Moffat’s Doctor Who, if a little rough and smarmy. It’s a peak at the kind of entertaining things that could be done with the trial format. It’s this kind of thing that makes me wish they reused the trial format for another season in modern Who, with better writers who’d actually work together to make a coherent story.

The Ultimate Foe is a lot! Just so much. From the moment the Master turns up, the trial premise that’s been building (and then decaying) for twelve episodes collapses into an absolute shambles. I don’t know why so much of these episodes are set in the Valeyard’s Victorian England-themed Matrix hideaway, or why the Valeyard spends it pretending to be a completely random character he made up. Maybe the funniest moment in the story is when, in the middle of everything, the Keeper of the Matrix runs into the court and announces, with no build up, that the High Council has been deposed by insurrectionists. Are these insurrectionists allies of the Valeyard, the Master, or just random people who have somehow been following the trial and realising just how shit the High Council is? I don’t know, because it isn’t mentioned again until the Inquisitor mentions that she guesses that they’re going to have to elect a new Council. One day I’m going to make a post going through the politics of Gallifrey in Classic Who, because oh boy is it a hell of a mess. Another moment that I always find very funny is the reveal that the Valeyard is the Doctor, which is written and delivered like it’s supposed to be a super casual line from the Master, but the most talented actor in the world couldn’t deliver that line and make it sound casual. Actually, that’s something I could say about a heck of a lot of lines in this story, especially for poor old Mel. Bonnie Langford you tried so hard with the script they gave you, and I respect you for it. Oh also, shout out to the Keeper of the Matrix for looking the Doctor in the face and telling him that no one could possibly get into the Matrix. As if The Deadly Assassin and basically every other Gallifrey story didn’t happen. As if the Master and Goth didn’t have a DIY bootleg Matrix link in their sewer lair. I feel like so much of some Gallifrey stories are Time Lords saying very dramatic things that are demonstrably false, but I guess that’s an empire for you.

I’ve really spent most of this post dunking on The Trial of a Time Lord, but I’ll say again that I always enjoy revisiting it. It’s partly because of the little great moments sprinkled throughout, partly because of nostalgia, and largely because of the fantastic premise that they had to work hard to make such a mess of. It becomes more and more of a disaster as it goes on, and by the time the Valeyard turns to the camera in the Keeper’s clothes and laughs I’ve completely given up caring about questions like “how does that make any sense at all,” but I enjoy the ride every time. They even managed to write Six in a way that isn’t aggressively unlikable and rude all the time! Good for them. As always, it’s a shame that Colin Baker was treated so poorly by the show in so many ways, but I’m grateful he got a chance to play the role with such better scripts in Big Finish (and specifically I’m grateful for Jac Rayner and The Marian Conspiracy for writing the blueprint for Six and Evelyn. I’ll never not stan that audio.)

[glapplebloom]

You would think I would have similar opinions...

As you have seen with my Pony Comic Reviews, I don't seem to favor a lot of the decisions IDW made for the My Little Pony comics. While there were ones I do enjoy, it's their long going plots that I have issues with. But if you have been following my thoughts, you see I don't have that problem with IDW's Sonic comics. So that got me thinking, why is it that I enjoy Sonic's IDW stuff more than I do IDW's My Little Pony stuff? Thinking it over, I think I came up with a few reasons...

1 - Better Use of Underused Characters

If you played Sonic games recently, you may notice a lack of things for others not Sonic to do. Like the last playable thing that isn't Sonic was Forces with Shadow DLC and Sonic 06. So there are a lot of characters that are in desperate need of stuff to do and this comic provides it. We got Amy being a leader and motherly figure, Knuckles and Blaze talking to each other, Omega and Gemel fighting, Rouge being Rouge. It's nice to see these characters interact with each other. It's what made Sega's April Fools game so fun. Meanwhile, IDW Ponies tends to focus on the usual characters the show does. Sometimes doing similar stories we would see on the show. Yet there are so many characters they could use and when they do they're a lot of fun. Like IDW did a better job building up a potential Diamond Tiara face turn than the show did. Shame it came out after she turned good. Like wouldn't you like to see more stories with Gilda or Lyra and Bon Bon's relationship?

2 - Better Exclusive Characters

So far from reading, there has been no comic exclusive character in MLP that stays around beyond their one story. Mina the Dragon, great dragon to hang around with Spike. Gone. Princess Eris, cousin of Discord and just as powe... Gone. Cosmos, evil ex who was REALLY responsible for all the chaos Discord's reign di... GONE! Like the ones who stay around is the old pony who keeps the Princesses on track and Luna's Pet Opossum. Meanwhile IDW's Exclusive Sonic characters get to stay around for more than one story and explore things the main cast couldn't. Belle the Tinkerer finding out her father is gone and replaced by Eggman. Whisper having to get used to having a crew again. Tangle trying to curb her enthusiasm. Surge and Terrance basically doing the Android Saga without Cell. They fit so well, they could fit into the games with no issue. Speaking of which...

3 - Better connection with the Main Series

This is more about how tight of a control Hasbro and Sega has over the comics. Hasbro was more loose, only vetoing stories that they would likely explore on the show. So the IDW Crew could do whatever they want since nobody has to worry about missing something important in the comics since it's not necessary reading. Even the Season 10 comics are not required to enjoy the TV series, since they did a time skip and showed what would happen in the future and the Season 10 comics barely explored things leading to that ending (just a few times with Pinkie/Cheese). Sega was like this back in the days of Archie, which is why you hear some weird stories that probably wouldn't fly today. Then one of the writers decided to fight for the rights of his characters he made for the series. Because of the incompetence of Archie, Sega demanded stricter guidelines in future Archie works and eventually IDW. So they're more hands on at keeping the characters act like how they want. Though recently they are losing their grip with IDW... That's because the head writer for IDW Sonic is now writing the games for Sonic. Which allowed him to explore the main cast in the games like he would do for the comics. And the Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog showed so much personality among the crew. As far as I know, there was never a case where a Pony Writer for the comics worked on the show or vice versa.

So that's why I enjoy IDW's Sonic works more than their pony works. But I would definitely be open for a Crossover with the two. Ian Flynn did write the Pony/Transformers crossover and he is what made Frontiers good.

[moviemunchies]

So, uh, that was… not good.

A couple of years back the team behind the Netflix adaptation of The Witcher announced that they were doing a prequel mini-series that tells the story of the Conjunction of Spheres (an important event in the backstory of The Witcher) and the creation of the first proto-Witcher. It was written and filmed as six episodes, but somewhere along the line it was cut down to four episodes, and after some reshoots it was finally released Christmas Day 2022.

The result is a disjointed mess. Let me start by saying the good things: the performances are good for what they are. The performers aren’t given much good material, but they’re doing well with what they have. None of the blame here lies with them, and at least a couple of them are pretty fun to watch on screen. I particularly liked Francesca Mills as Meldof. She’s clearly having a ball with her role.

Fight scenes are pretty good throughout. Not all of them are, insanely good, but they’re pretty good. Scian’s first fight scene is pretty awesome though, which is kind of what you’d expect from Michelle Yeoh. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in the fight scenes if you decide to watch this series. Unless you’re expecting realistic tactics and strategy, but I’ve learned that you should never expect that from Hollywood.

I AM intrigued in how some of the characters in this will pop back up later. Eredin and Avallach appear here, and they’re important characters in the overall storyline of The Witcher. No, they’re not well-utilized here, but they’re not bad characters and I want to see them moving forward.

Other than that, though? This show feels like a SyFy Original Movie from back in the day. That’s not the worst thing, but it’s also very much not a good thing. When the narrator isn’t telling us obvious things, like counting for us every time someone joins the group of heroes, most of the character backstories are told to us through infodump conversations. So much of this story is just characters standing around talking. I’m supposed to be getting the idea of seven heroes standing up to and leading a revolution against a tyrannical empire (itself not a particularly inspired storyline, despite the series acting like it is), but it’s bogged down by so much talking and lack of interesting characters that it’s just… boring, most of the time?

It’s a shame because these are ideas that really could do with a great prequel treatment! How DID someone come up with the idea for making something like a Witcher? In the series, Syndril just decides somehow that using the heart of an extradimensional monster and bonding it to an elf will create a hardcore warrior who can kill monsters better? Or something?? It doesn’t make a lick of sense to me, especially since Syndril’s expertise seemed to be in hopping dimensions and artifacts, not biology. And then we finally get the Conjunction of Spheres at the end, which is an accident and seems to be more of an afterthought to the story.

And if you think it skimps on those major world-changing events, wait until we get to things like the love story between the two leads!

The story does absolutely nothing with the fact that none of its characters are human–aside from Meldorf, they’re all elves. Except the elves all act exactly like humans do in the main series, and the only indication that they’re not human is that they have pointy ears and refer to each other as elves. All the magic and wonder of their culture is just… absent, it seems. And apparently when elves had their golden age, they were exactly the same in their douchery as the humans who later took over the Continent, just to dwarves instead. It doesn’t feel like it’s leaning into the themes of the world as much as that the writers couldn’t think of anything unique to do with this story.

I am not a massive fan of The Witcher to begin with, though I do like it, but The Witcher: Blood Origin? It’s bad. It’s embarrassing, really. I don’t know if it would have been good had it been six episodes (I suspect not, because not every problem is a pacing issue), but I would like to think it would have been better. I sincerely hope that if there are more spin-offs they’re better than this.

[askgothamshitty]

I’m curious, did you watch Poor Things? What did you think of it? I, to admit honestly, found it to be quite rapey and pedophilic. Even the blasé and base level mentions of socialism go unexplored to allow Bella to adopt and forgive her initial groomers( Godwin’s) position as a doctor while forgiving her fiancé too, who she was betrothed to while mentally still a toddler. Not to mention the brothel sequence…

Well I did very much enjoy it; I would rank it as my 4th favorite movie of the year. I thought it was really funny, and the production design, costuming, makeup, and music were great. Emm Stone definitely deserved the win for the way she portrayed Bella, who I loved. And I think Mark Ruffalo should have won over RDJ!

I have seen many people, though, agree with you and say that it was pedophilic. I would have to disagree. I don’t think the “baby’s brain in a woman’s re-animated corpse” is meant to be taken literally. Lanthimos himself says the movie doesn’t work if you approach it that way. It’s supposed to be a outrageous and fantastical and bizarre way of setting up the premise of Bella’s character - a woman who has not experienced the socialization of polite society and is autonomous enough to resist it. This very much follows the spirit of the director’s other work like The Lobster. And it’s not like the movie ends with her defeat either. She turns her abusive ex into a goat, lives with her female lover, has a successful career as a surgeon, relieves Mrs. Prim from her menial work, and frees Felicity from the role of lab monkey.

Now, the sexual politics were very liberal, yes. The idea of revolutionary sexuality in this movie doesn’t go further than the idea of an individual woman’s personal journey. I didn’t expect much from a male writer/director, but I still think the writing was overall very smart. Bella rejects Victorian-era mores, resists marriage and sexual domination, and asserts herself as autonomous. And although this is the bare minimum, it’s still enough to torment and emasculate the men that try to control her (which was hilarious to watch).

The brothel sequence did leave much to be desired. The madame was portrayed as exploitative, but this was kind of played off as clever for playing the male system. And Bella’s experience is not very representative of reality since she exited the industry rather easily. But! There were some good things. The johns were not romanticized; it was very clear that these are perverse, uncaring, shameful men. And the whole experience does serve a purpose - to show Bella that not everyone sees sex as she does, and that her attitude isn’t enough to change that.

And I think the best takeaway from the story, for me, is that liberal feminist sexual politics can only work in a fantasy world. The only reason Bella’s journey lands as revolutionary and subversive is because she lives in a different reality and is a completely unique creature.

Those are just my thoughts, though! I know the movie wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I’m definitely not trying to convince everyone that this is some radical feminist masterwork. And I’m also probably biased because Lanthimos is one of my favorite working directors.

[devilbeez]

I might regret asking this but

what is your thought on Snow White live action so far?

Like don’t give me “it’s gonna be bad” or “I think we could give it a chance” nononono I wanna hear a full on writing essay if possible. I am genuinely curious about this. I wanna know your thought on the casting both from mindset of the cast and from the physical appearance. I wanna know your thought on the outfit. I wanna know your maybe controversial opinion about race washing that this casting and movie lead to. I wanna know what you would’ve done differently, what story you would’ve prefer for a modernize Snow White or do you not want Snow White to be touch at all?

I am genuinely curious what everyone’s opinion is because I certainly have a few and as long as We’re respectful of other and have a civil discussion and debate I think this would be a fun and educational thing. We can see something from others pov and maybe apply that in our own work for the future in case there people out there like me who just— sometimes write story out of pure spite

Here I’ll go first:

1. In term of casts physical appearance there’s 2 point here

1.1. The dwarfs. Cutting the dwarfs out because it’s “offensive” and “stereotypical” and leaving just one singular token dwarfs in is bs. Snow White is a traditional stereotype of what a woman should be in her time and that didn’t stop Disney’s grabby hands. I think this is just straight up more disrespectful especially when this would’ve been a great opportunity for little people in the acting industry. Even if the original have the dwarfs as one dimensional character— which to be fair in this time “story” isn’t being taken that much into account, just the technical advancement and giving hope to the people, in the new live action though there could’ve been— some more characteristic of the dwarfs aside from “my name is Grumpy and I’m grumpy”

1.2 The actress who play Snow White, Rachel Zegler. This is a difficult topic because I, a 19 year old Asian that had never left her country and only face minimum to none discrimination and racism in real life outside the internet discord, feel like I don’t really have a say in “Is race washing bad?” but I’m going to say this;

in my point of view “Race washing” is equally bad no matter if it’s white washing or poc washing, one just not as offensive as the other because historical contexts. However, if drawing your favorite character in your race empowered you as a poc, I am in no place to tell you to stop. As long as it doesn’t erase other existence of other minorities in media then to each their own, I’m not gonna tell you how you choose to take back the power, if you feel empowered by it then slay.

On the other hand, if you’re doing race washing to be woke for woke sake, I feel like at that point just create a new character and call it an oc. “But the representation!”, is “representation” really what you want? Because a lot of poc and I, myself would much prefer if our representation is not just our features slapping on a certain character. We can do that ourselves in gogirlsgame dress up games we don’t need the media to do it for us. Also if representation is truly what you want to show, wouldn’t creating new story and new characters be much more effective? You would get to tell a new story, to new generations of people, that’s what Disney is doing with Snow White anyway so why not just— create a new princess? Obviously for cash but let me ask rhetorical questions

2. In term of mindset everyone is shit here. I’m sure these actors and writers excel in other movies and work they were a part of, which is a really unfortunate thing that they did not get the messages of Snow White and feel the need to be a “feminist”

which by the way, this is not feminist. This is the same fight back of social norm as “I’m not like other girls”. It’s the mindset that shame women who actually do like to be traditional, who like cooking and cleaning which honestly if you do, please give me tips like how tf and to say that these things are not “feminist” ideal because it “give in to traditional stereotypes” is just not correct. Feminism is a movement to make women equal to men. That mean men can like pink and cooking and be a god damn princess without being call gay if he wish, and women can work mechanic, and choose to not have a child OR VICE VERSA. We often forget that being a feminist also mean woman can like traditionally feminine things and men can like traditionally masculine things, and I think what happened here is when we started feminism movement and women empowering we associate that with everything that isn’t “traditionally feminine”, so much so that any woman who actually like those things, are belittled and get accused of “not doing enough for the movement” or “making patriarchy worse” when it’s not true. No one should be shame for doing what they enjoyed, that’s the real essence of feminism, not some snarky person saying that “it’s 21st century, get with the time and stop enjoying those things. It’s a bad example for the next generation”

3. The message they intended. Oh boy— from what we know the live action story of her would be some type of coming of age where Snow White is learning to be the leader her dad knew she could be. I would’ve have no problem with this if the story isn’t about Snow White. The message of Snow White was literally don’t trust stranger, simple kid’s lesson as that. But if we want to dig deeper, it’s a message about how kindness would take you over vanity, it a message telling people to be kind to one another like Snow White. So if we change that part of her, changing the essence of the kind, gentle and sweet Snow White, it will no longer be Snow White. Hell we could’ve have a movie about kindness where it show that being kind does not mean that you’re weak, that would’ve been a modern day Snow White, that would teach people what we need to understand, especially with the false sense of feminism we’re having right now.

4. What I would’ve done differently I would honestly just create a new story tbh. Like— the reason Alice in wonderland and Maleficent live action worked is because the movie is not— a copy and paste of the original and it’s not a weak attempt to “add on” to the story like an author tweeting that a character is queer. It’s a new story with the original movies as prompts. If anything those movies are good “what if” fanfictions with budget. It work because it bring something new to the table that completely detached from the original storyline. People go to watch them for the source material THEN bring new fans in because of its story. Honestly, if we want a “girlboss” story, the evil queen is right there and if we wanted a Snow White story, a post canon what if is there for the taking. What happens to Snow White after happily ever after? What if Snow White try to understand the Queen but still get manipulated into eating the apple? What if the prince is Snow White childhood friend? There are countless possibilities from a simp,e prompt of “Snow white” and yet we chose to recreate something that already existed.

Summary of it all, I think Disney gonna crash and burn, tehy should’ve stick with animation and fantasy, and who else wanna rewrite stories out of spite with me—

[hamliet]

Hello, Stranger (Things)

So, Hamliet finally watched Stranger Things, motivated by the promise of a super hot squid villain I mean, 80s nostalgia and a good story. 

Overall, I enjoyed it. Eleven and Max are my daughters, and Will is my son. Steve and Eddie are too pure for this world (so were Alexei and Bob). Robin and Erica are amazing. Nancy is my girl. It is a good story. 

The writing itself varies wildly, with characterization inconsistency as the story’s main flaw. Seasons 1 and 2 were extremely tightly written and well done. Season 3 is definitely the weakest, with several characters just doing what the plot needed them to do for Reasons, but it ironically has what was, for me, the most satisfying climax. I also found Season 4, while also having some very, very, very obvious flaws in its writing, the most interesting in terms of themes about the past, choices, parents, and more. We’ll see if they continue to explore those in Season 5. If they do, it could be great. 

The Part Where I Complain

Y’all know critique’s coming so let’s get it out of the way before I gush about other things and give theories. 

Season 1: 

The subtext around intercutting shots of Nancy choosing to have sex for the first time with scenes of her BFF literally dying is decidedly Not Great. Yes, I know it is a deliberate flouting of the typical horror movie trope in which the dark-haired girl who has sex gets murdered. But it still relies on this premise that women choosing to have sex for the first time is a negative and results in losing your friends and not knowing who you are anymore. 

Season 2: 

Season 2 introduces the good victim/bad victim dichotomy between El and Kali, and Max and Billy (which continues into Season 4 with Henry). The writers also don’t seem interested in exploring this deeper. 

Also, the writers are addicted to sacrificial death starting this season. 

Season 3: 

If you thought I was going to complain about Billy’s death, you’re not wrong. But it’s honestly decently done so writing-wise it’s not terrible, and now I’ve complained a bit so let’s go on.

Why did Steve and Billy never interact again? After that fight in Season 2, there was unfinished business. I can only conclude the writers were terrified of the sexual tension. (I kid. Kind of.) 

Mostly, here is where the inconsistent characterization emerges. Hopper’s character is the worst victim of this. His arc could have worked, but the execution didn’t. It makes a lot of sense for Hopper to struggle with anxiety and to have all his insecurities stirred up with having a daughter again. But how controlling he was to the point of threatening a child? It wasn’t shown how he got there at all. Hopper deserved a way better arc than acting controlling with El and Joyce without the substance behind that being explored.

Jonathan was also somewhat inconsistent in Season 3, again not because his conflict couldn’t work, but because the writers didn’t put the time or effort into making it work. Jonathan being mad at Nancy for pursuing the rat lead was a bit nonsensical, and then being furious when they lost their jobs--the conversation about their experiences with sexism and classism could be an excellent source of conflict for them. However, it’s brought up just once and then dropped. If you’re gonna bring it up, explore it. 

And I know the show isn’t over and these issues could come back, but like. Patience only gets you so far when you’re telling a story in serial format which inevitably affects the experience consuming it.

Season 4: 

Why is the Upside Down’s poison air now gone? Do you know how obvious a worldbuilding inconsistency has to be for me to notice and care? 

Brenner’s characterization was also a retcon that puts BNHA’s Enji retcon to shame. ~He may have abused and been a monster, but he still really loved them~ The complexity, again, is not inherently bad, but it wasn’t even remotely hinted at earlier and four seasons is a long time to suddenly be like “surprise!” But I am glad El chose not to say she understood at the end. 

Ye old "the way the world is is actually a prison and we should change it" is again the ideology of a villain. Like... really, it’s a bit tiring to see revolutionary ideas always framed as dangerous. Not that I’m advocating violence or Vecna’s solution, but.  Vecna's making points. Since we can't have that let's show him slaughtering innocents to show us he's wrong even though--well--some of it ain't wrong. 

The clear neurodivergent and gay coding of Henry Creel is... here is where I’ll invoke patience. I’m not entirely ready to say I don’t like this yet. It really depends on how the show handles it next season. 

The Parts Where I Liked Things

Will’s sexuality (and also, just. Will) 

Going into Stranger Things, I only knew a few things. I did know that many people were complaining about Will being a queerbait-y character, and went into the show expecting Will’s sexuality to be a subtextually teased thing that I would complain about. 

Not the case.

Even before Season 4 Volume 4, and actor interviews aside, the show is very upfront about Will’s sexuality from like the first 20 minutes of Season 1 Episode 1. If people didn’t get that Will was gay, I’m sorry, but--how? Joyce literally says that he’s “sensitive,” and other kids call him “queer” and other things. Season 3 has Mike directly state that Will does not like girls. Yeah, kids say stupid shit all the time and people develop at different paces, but it’s a story, not real life where we say dumb things that don’t matter. In a story every detail should be important. The writers are trying to set expectations. Something that is repeated multiple times across seasons is obviously intentional. It doesn't need to be spoonfed to the audience be abundantly clear that Will is gay. 

The scene in Vol 2 of Season 4 where Jonathan and Will talk--where Jonathan is clearly telling him that he knows Will is gay and he loves him--is beautiful, one of the show’s best scenes. 

Give Will a Boyfriend please (Mikhail, anyone?) 

But, more on Will later. 

Season 4′s Themes

Like I mentioned earlier, I really enjoyed Season 4′s questions about the past, about parents, about the difficulties of growing. Everyone regressed this season: Jonathan being Mr. Mom, Joyce was absent (even w good cause), Max isolated herself, El thought she was the monster again, Steve obsessed over Nancy, etc. 

Steve: Too Pure, Too Good For This World

Speaking of Stancy/Jancy... the writers really don’t need to draw out this love triangle. Unless a major retcon is coming (not impossible), Jancy should be endgame as it’s always been set up to be. Steve and Nancy will probably have another moment, but there’s enough weird framing of Steve’s feelings in Season 4 to make me doubt any possible endgame for them. Despite Dustin and Robin insisting it’s true love, Nancy never once said it was love herself, and the problem is that Steve also says--after Dustin has already suggested he get Nancy back--that he would date Robin if she was not a lesbian. Hence, I’m not convinced the story wants us to buy Steve really loves Nancy, or if he just loves an idea of hers.

The thing is, Steve already has what he says he dreams of. He wants six kids. Well, that’s ironic considering he has six kids Robin explicitly identifies as “your kids”: Dustin, Mike, El, Max, Lucas, Will. He also says he dreams Nancy is there with them and the kids--and she is. She already is, even if not romantically. My guess is Steve will realize this at the end of his arc. 

Honestly, Steve’s arc is a fantastic deconstruction of toxic masculinity. Which... don’t hurt him Duffers. Don’t. I’m begging you. 

Max Will Be Fine

Seriously, I promise. Max will be fine. You don’t leave a character in a coma unless you plan to wake them up, unless you’re the latter two seasons of Angel levels of horrifically bad writing which, for all of my complaints, Stranger Things is not. 

Max is heavily foiled with Vecna (and Chrissy): traumatized, isolated child subject to the whims of their unstable mother. Vecna tells Eleven that he wants them to make their own rules, essentially to be gods of the world. Max, way back in Season 3, tells Eleven that “we make our own rules.” 

Max’s words are what El remembers when she brings Max back. No, this isn’t negatively framing El bringing Max back. It’s showing that there might in fact be some nuance. Max’s rules are based in love and friendship, in hope, in love of humanity, while Vecna’s are based in hatred of humanity. To uphold Max’s message--which the story needs to do--Max has to live. 

Eleven, I am Your Brother!

Okay, now let’s talk Squid. 

Henry’s whole story is Star Wars. Actually, Season 4 was just Star Wars (makes sense given the 80s stuff). Brenner was Yoda, telling Eleven that she wasn’t ready to leave just yet, that if she ran out to save her friends she’d fail. I know the prequels weren’t until the late 90s-early 00s, but Anakin killing the younglings is clearly the inspiration of Henry’s rainbow room massacre. And Henry’s “join me, Eleven, to build a better world” speech is essentially Vader’s speech to Luke and Kylo Ren’s speech to Rey braided together. 

With that said, I fully expect Henry to get some kind of human ending. Will he atone? Don’t think so. But the foreshadowing is pretty obvious. (More on that later.) 

Brenner tells El that she and Henry are not alike: “that’s where your similarities end.” Brenner’s the least reliable narrator about this. (Also, you cannot give the abuser--Brenner--a redemptive death and not give that compassion to his victim.)

El and Compassion 

El’s true superpower isn’t her telekinesis. It’s her compassion. It was her compassion, her empathy with the abused child in Billy, that inspired Billy to sacrifice himself. Her compassion saved Will. Yeah, she’s human and lashes out, but she loves deeply. Her compassion freed Henry and then her uncontrolled powers turned him into Vecna (not that she’s at fault; she isn’t). But her compassion should ultimately be what helps save the world.

Vecna himself asks El this. "Why cry for them after everything they did to you?" Well, let's see Vecna. Why does Max cry for Billy? It’;s kind of a theme in Stranger Things. Even without forgiveness (like El not forgiving Brenner), she still acknowledged his humanity. I don’t have to love it to see the theme as it is. 

I strongly suspect the main question at the end for Vecna will be "after all I've done to you, why cry for me?" But compassion is what Vecna’s missing, what he lacks in his view of humanity. It’s the true magic of being human.

Henry and Vecna, Unreliable Narrator

Did Vecna choose to become the monster like he proclaimed? Yes. And no. 

It’s not a coincidence that an abused child targets other abused, isolated, and traumatized children. Even if Victor loved Henry, his mother was clearly implied to be considering locking him up and lobotomizing him. Like... woof. There’s a lot there subtextually. He’s clearly targeting himself as much as he’s targeting everyone else. I’m not sure the writers will entirely explore this, though. But I do think they will have him experience humanity again. They should. 

Honestly, Victor should die trying to save/stop his son. If Victor’s alive, and if he mourns his son--which he does--he should have to consider whether he loves Henry despite everything that Henry has done. If he does, he should try to convey that even if it kills him. 

But who will the actual key be to stopping Vecna? 

Will as the Key

So, there are two characters--and only two--who have survived the Upside Down for any significant length of time. Vecna, and Will. 

I actually think Will is the one who can reach Henry. It can't be Eleven, because Henry sees her as having hurt him. But a “weak” helpless boy who is an outcast, gay (Henry is absolutely coded this way) and has just been suffering his entire life still choosing love (or even choosing corruption for a time and going back to love/friendship even though I doubt the writers have the balls for this particular plotline)? 

Vecna thinks he and El are the two most alike, but it’s actually Vecna and Will. And Will is so human, in everything Henry thinks he hates about human beings. He’s not superpowered. He’s a sad boy in unrequited love with his best friend. He just happens to have a mom and brother who love him. 

Plus, tbh, structurally Will should be the focus of season 5. Season 1 was Mike (the heart, which Will called out funnily enough in Season 4), Season 2 Lucas (the mind), Season 3 Dustin (the body), Season 4 Eleven and Max. 

Obvious Foreshadowing is Obvious

I’m not sure how much clearer the D&D game at the start of Season 4 could be in terms of foreshadowing. 11 couldn’t defeat Vecna. 

But 20 did.

How interesting that the three kids still alive are 11, 8, and 1, which totals 20. 

Henry--Vecna’s humanity--is probably going to be key to stopping himself. No, I don’t think he’ll get any sort of classic redemption, and he certainly won’t survive it, but I can see him pulling a Zeke Jaeger where he doesn’t exactly repent but still chooses to sacrifice for some bigger goal like destroying the Upside Down or something in a moment of compassion in the end.