#it’s almost like this a story with thematic elements

[thecatsaesthetics]

It’s almost like in the world of ASOIAF bastards have a negative stigma and Martin plays on that theme several times throughout the story…

i’m so annoyed at people who criticize every single thing that comes out Tom’s mouth related to Aegon.

They’re trying to say he’s stupid for saying Aegon values his children with Helaena, like what’s not clicking? A prince values his legitimate children rather than his bastards? Wow so shooking

[the-crooked-library]

Alright so it seems that I'm not quite done beating the horse that is the Bacon triptych - because the potential layers in its presence have me absolutely enthralled. As a visual element, it illustrates the "currently unfolding" part of the drama, but also appears to allude to a story that's yet to come; and, granted, that may be the brainrot speaking, but my art history fixation is insisting that there's gold in them hills, so bear with me here.

As tenuous as it may seem at first glance, I firmly believe that the writing itself supports my fascination with this piece. It demands to be noticed. It is a vivid splash of red in a box of brutalist grey; and, furthermore, unlike the other paintings in the Dubai penthouse, it's written into the dialogue. The camera lingers there - hence, the series wants us to pay attention; and, while its subject-level significance is not to be discarded, I cannot help but see another, similarly emotional allusion within the same frames.

Instead of drawing from the painting, this story layer connects more to the artist himself. One of the most notable periods of Francis Bacon's personal life was his relationship with George Dyer, which lasted from the 1960s to the early 1970s. Unlike his previous paramours - who were largely older (and, in the case of the last, abusive) men, Dyer was a young addict. Described as someone who could "throw a decisive punch," he was nevertheless vulnerable and trusting; as such, Bacon took on a dominant role, and Dyer became his muse. Among Bacon's portraits, he was ever-present; and though the relationship was tumultuous, often overwhelmed by their shared addictions, those paintings are uncharacteristically tender.

The story ended with tragedy - it's an account of drugs, alcoholism, neediness, dependence, classism, friction, and Dyer's eventual suicide; and within the context of IWTV, this framework is undeniably thematically relevant.

From the beginning - a decade-long involvement, addiction, an uncharacteristic tenderness - beat for beat, the book version of Devil's Minion is the same story, happening only a few years off. The presence of the Bacon painting within the Dubai penthouse is, in my opinion, an indicator to it having happened in the show as well. Just like Dyer, the TV version Daniel met Armand in a pub (or bar); just like Dyer, he is compact, athletic, pale, working-class - and, when under the influence, boisterous and active.

There is, naturally, one key difference; unlike Dyer, Daniel survives.

In the Doylist sense, the painting, therefore, acts as a visual cue - almost as evidence, of sorts. The memory of their entanglement may be effaced, but the blood-red stain of it is impossible to ignore, as is this placement:

I don't believe it is accidental that the painting is sold almost as soon as Daniel arrives in Dubai. It is an indication that the Devil and his Minion are no longer locked within a determined ending; their story continues, and memories are replaced with the real, living thing.

Edit: it bears pointing out that, while I had this post hanging in my drafts, convinced that I was reading far too much into something that already had another reason to exist, it's been announced that the relationship between Daniel and Armand is, in fact, going to be explored within the series. My every wish has been granted, and I can hardly wait.

[blueskittlesart]

did u not like totk?

i LOVED totk. i think it was well-written and did its job as a sequel to botw very well. HOWEVER. i do think it suffered slightly from the commercial success of botw. as i mentioned in my last post, nintendo does this. thing. when one of their games gets popular where every game after it has to be Exactly The Same so they can make all the money in the world via comparison marketing. (and this is a problem with the wider game industry in general but also a very observable pattern in loz specifically.) I know it's been a pretty long time since botw came out, but before (and immediately following) its release there was some pushback from longtime fans who worried that the open-world and lack of traditional dungeons meant that the game had strayed too far from the classic formula that makes a game a "zelda game." this is to say, botw was EXPERIMENTAL. and the devs had no idea if what they were doing was going to be successful or not. the open-world of botw wasn't a gimmick, and it wasn't the devs jumping on the open-world bandwagon. it was what CREATED that bandwagon. the open-world was a deliberate choice made specifically for botw because it reinforced the story that botw was designed to tell. the game is about exploring a desolate world, about making connections, and rebuilding both the broken kingdom and the player character's shattered sense of self by traveling and learning and building relationships. a large open-world map with only minor quest guidelines and lots of collectibles and side quests lends itself perfectly to this specific story, which is specifically about exploration and rebirth.

the problem is, botw was. almost TOO good. it was so good that every other game company on the planet started scrambling to build giant open-world maps into their next release, regardless of how much sense that actually made narratively. and because of that, when it came time to release a sequel to botw, the devs had a lot to think about. they had HUGE shoes to fill in terms of fan reception, but they were ALSO being asked to follow up one of the best-performing games of all time, commercially. totk needed to SELL as well as botw. And, likely because nintendo was worried about that potential commercial value, totk needed to keep people comfortable. I don't know for certain, but I definitely get the feeling playing totk that the devs were specifically told not to stray too far from what made botw marketable and successful--that being the open world and the versatility of gameplay. so in order to follow that up, they made... 2 more huge open maps, and new gimmick gameplay which was explicitly super-versatile.

do i think that the extra maps and ultrahand were BAD choices? no. however, i don't think they necessarily ADDED anything to the game as a narrative whole. one of my favorite things about botw was how everything seemed to be designed AROUND the narrative, with gameplay elements slotting neatly into the story thematically. totk just. didn't really have that, imo. there wasn't a huge narrative benefit to the gigantic, completely unpopulated depths and sky maps. ultrahand was cool, but within the context of the story it meant basically nothing. in some ways, i almost think totk could have benefitted from a much more linear approach to its storytelling, a la skyward sword, because there are a lot of story beats that have to be found in chronological order in order to have the right emotional impact, but because of the nonlinear open-world it kind of became a struggle to hit all the important story points in the right order. an easy example of this is the dragon's tears in comparison to the memories--the dragon tears have a very specific set order in which they happen, and finding them out of order can make the story you're seeing in them feel confusing and disjointed. the order in which they should be found is technically displayed on the temple wall, but most players aren't going to pick up on that or follow it--more likely, they're just going to explore the geoglyphs as they come across them organically, and therefore will likely witness the story in a completely disjointed way. compare this to the botw memories, which ALSO technically have a set order--the order in which they're displayed on the sheikah slate. however, because they're largely just small moments in time, and not one continuous story, finding them out of order has a lot less of an impact on how you as the player experience the narrative, and it's not hugely detrimental to your experience of the story if you find them naturally as you explore rather than explicitly seeking them out in order. If TOTK had been allowed to deviate from the botw formula a bit, i think we may have ended up with a more cohesive game in terms of narrative beats like that. as it is, i just think the game is torn slightly between wanting to be its own new game with new gameplay and needing to be botw, if that makes sense.

[emmcarstairs]

The Ghoul and Lucy MacLean as Modern Orpheus and Eurydice: A Fallout Meta

(art by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot)

We’ve all heard the Greek myth of Orpheus who ventures to the Underworld to bring his wife Eurydice back to life. It’s one of the greatest tragic love stories that has been retold and passed down to us in different forms of media.

Isn’t it interesting that Fallout begins with The End and ends with The Beginning? It refers to the bombs falling in the first episode, and the past being revealed in the last, but I believe it goes deeper than that. It’s a direct reflection of Lucy’s character journey.

Lucy’s journey begins with the shattering of her perfect world. It's the end of her life as she has known it. The event that triggers her descent (in her case, ascent) is the raiders’ attack. Which significantly happens at her wedding. Lucy is stabbed by her husband who had snuck into her Vault with deception. Similarly, Eurydice is bitten by a snake at her wedding with Orpheus, which kills her and sends her to the Underworld.

Interestingly enough, if we think of Norm's words as Lucy walks down the aisle, the Ghoul is coded as a possible husband for Lucy. And it's only after she goes to the Underworld/Wasteland that we are introduced to the Ghoul.

In a post-nuclear world, hell would be on the surface and heaven under the ground. The Ghoul emerges from the underground like Lucy as if he's coming after her. (It's funny that three men welcome him as if he's Orpheus at the gates of the Underworld and they're Cerberus.)

After the tragic wedding, Lucy resides in the Underworld. (An important note here is that while we learn that the Wasteland isn't dead, it is perceived as an Underworld by the Vault dwellers.) Throughout her journey, there is one person who, by happenstance, is always on her trail.

In the final episode titled The End, we find some thematic and visual similarities with The Beginning. Lucy is again betrayed by a person she considers family. Also, the passage of time in both episodes (midday-sunset-night) is clearly marked by the change of colors in the sky.

Two significant scenes for Lucy happen during the sunset. As a symbol, the sunset stands for transition or even death. The world is changed for the night. It's both an end and a new beginning. It's a meeting between the day and the night. In both these scenes, Lucy agrees to share her journey with another person.

If we rewind back to the Ghoul's entrance in the scene, we see him catching Hank by surprise with his words. In fact, the Ghoul speaks a lot and almost enthralls his enemies with his power of speech/acting. It's reminiscent of Orpheus' gift of music which helps him tame the beasts.

Here begins the deviation from the original story. In the myth, Eurydice has no agency. Orpheus ventures into the Underworld, begs for her soul, and takes her on the journey back. Some modern critics point out she'd already forgotten him and wouldn't want to return back to life.

The Ghoul offers Lucy a clear choice between her staying with the dead (in this moment, they are surrounded by Max's unconscious body and her mother's remains, as well as the soldiers' corpses) and risking that she dies herself. Or going with him to learn more about the world.

Another important element in the myth, is the backward glance. Hades lets Eurydice leave the Underworld on condition that Orpheus doesn't look back at her until they make it out. As they near the exit, Orpheus turns back and Eurydice vanishes back in the Underworld forever.

In this case, the backward glance isn't a condition. Yet, in this scene, the Ghoul and Lucy's gazes don't meet at all! He has his back turned to her and the one time he turns around, she isn't looking at him. It shows their vulnerability but also their newfound mutual trust.

What follows is the scene that inspired this whole meta. The night has fallen. The Ghoul climbs up from a ruined building's dark exit alone. After a moment, Lucy emerges too. They have made it! And the Ghoul still isn't looking back at her. He leads and knows she'll follow him.

Take a look at this bit from A. S. Kline's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book X, and look at the following frame:

"They took the upward path, through the still silence, steep and dark, shadowy with dense fog, drawing near to the threshold of the upper world."

A final note about Orpheus and Eurydice's names: Orpheus means "the darkness of the night", while Eurydice means "wide justice". Well, what can I say?

Looking back on my Lucy analysis, it's interesting that the final scene with them both emerging from underground marks the transition between Act 2 and Act 3, or Death (Transformation) and Emergence (Support). This would've been Eurydice's POV journey if Orpheus had succeeded.

[whetstonefires]

See I don't necessarily disagree with what seems to be the primary reading that Yue Qingyuan's shifu fucked him over, caring nothing for his needs or preferences and only for whether he was useful. That makes sense, it ties into plenty of the generational and societal themes of the story. It fits.

But iirc we don't actually get enough information to know that's what happened.

And the thing is it would be so in-character and also thematically appropriate if Yue Qingyuan absolutely did not explain his goals or why he was working so hard, because it was private and shameful and he didn't expect any sympathy, and there was a high risk of losing everything if he blabbed.

And also if he engaged with the existing ruleset with which he was presented, i.e. 'can't go off on your own on personal business until you've mastered your sword,' in the most negative and controlling manner possible, as absolute commandments.

He's a different kind of guy but he comes from the same background as Shen Jiu! It fucked him up also!

He is very very very not a guy who trusts the system to make allowances for him--even once he has all the power he 'does what he wants' and 'makes selfish choices' as a conscious transgression; not something he has a right to do, just something he can get away with so he's gonna. (And ofc he spends almost all the latitude he grants himself on sqq.)

And even less is he a guy who opens up easily.

He isn't too proud to ask for help or pity, so much as he just doesn't expect to get any.

So in this interpretation, he understood that rule as a non-negotiable barrier in his path, the target to overcome, and focused all his considerable will and talent on overcoming it through the sphere of action he felt he had control over.

And fucked himself up bad.

Whereupon his teacher, possessing absolutely no context for this dumb shit their star pupil pulled, did the only thing they thought might work to save his life, paying in the process no attention to the raving of someone deep in a psychotic break.

Like, I feel like there should have been a better, kinder medical option, but I don't know for sure that there was, so I can't say with certainty this was the kind of cruelty that derives from not caring enough.

And it really would be kind of elegant and so typical of Yue Qingyuan's fundamental tragedy if the real mistake was 'not confiding in anybody' the whole time.

And he was just so deeply sunk into the understanding that explaining and asking were useless that, even looking back, it never really occurred to him that maybe his mistake wasn't 'fucking it up when trying too hard to solve everything on his own' but 'assuming there was no help to be had, and that he had to do it all on his own.'

Like. What if this really could all have been avoided if he'd just trusted and communicated with the adult in charge of him? But of course, of course his history of trauma (neglect, child abuse, exploitation, being the One Responsible for the younger kids whom he could not keep safe) meant he was absolutely not going to do that.

It was basically impossible. For the person he was, the person the world had made of him. And that's always been the core tragedy the whole novel circles back upon.

People can only ever be themselves, and so very often the elements of self that let them survive until now are that which dooms them, that means they need someone else to intervene if they're ever going to be saved. Because your personal doom is always the thing from which you can't save yourself.

[quill-and-whetstone]

“The Sniper Problem”

I have a favorite litmus test that I apply to just about everything I write: “Could this entire plotline be resolved by one sufficiently trained sniper?” The hypothetical sniper is there to evaluate the quality of the conflict I’ve set up. If they can resolve the whole thing by taking out their target then I… probably have some rethinking to do, because the test succinctly highlights a few key issues with any story that fails it.

First, the obvious: if the problem your protagonists are facing can be solved this way it’s probably just not as interesting as it could be. A conflict of “big bad evil dude does a big bad evil thing and our hero goes and mercs him about it” can make for a fun blockbuster action film, but the plot of those films are rarely–if ever–the point. Stories with a central villain stand to gain a lot of narrative depth from asking yourself what issues would linger if they were suddenly removed from the picture. What internal struggles might remain in your protagonists? How might the world around them still need to be changed or healed? Which elements or areas of the story just seem empty without the big bad to fill the narrative space, and how can we develop them?

The second facet of the sniper problem is an inverted Occam’s Razor, a call to ensure that there’s a good reason the protagonists aren’t just using a simple and direct route to solve their problems. It’s like how modern horror movies have to cripple the victims’ cell phones to justify everything else that happens, though ideally less contrived. When revising a story through this lens, it’s almost difficult not to improve it. It aids suspension of disbelief, lets your protagonists present as more competent, and gives them more to do outside of biffing people they don’t like which in turn showcases more of their personality.

A great example of all of this is Avatar: The Last Airbender. Throughout the show the bottom line is that our heroes are out to defeat the Firelord to stop the atrocities he’s committing against the rest of the world. So it stands to reason to ask, why not camp outside his house early on with an assassin good enough to score a quick or lucky kill? But the show answers this amply with just its concept, mostly without having to draw direct attention to it. If Firelord Ozai dropped dead in the pilot there would still be a whole Fire Nation pursuing his goals complete with other emotionally unstable royals and military officers. It wouldn’t actually… solve anything. “Defeat the Firelord” is just the mission that sets our heroes on the path they need to take to stop a war that’s destroying the world. The real solution is cultivating friendships across cultures, healing and maturing together, growing spiritually, protecting and empowering victims of generational violence, dismantling fascistic power structures, and ultimately even finding a relatively peaceful / humane solution to the problem of the Firelord. While they do call this out directly in one episode, they didn’t have to, because with the way they structured the narrative it was already evident. As a result of that good planning the characters got to do a lot of interesting, character driven, thematically resonant things and the show isn’t just one long and kind of dry martial arts training montage until they show up at the finale.

So keep the sniper problem in mind as you write! Or even as you read, watch, and analyze other media for what worked and what didn’t. I can’t promise it’ll be relevant to every story, but I can promise that it’s a quick and easy standard that’ll help you layer in a lot of nuance and flavor into your narrative.

[tossawary]

Reading the end of "Naruto" on a whim was funny because there was a lot about that final battle that was really Not Good, but I was approaching it with neither investment nor expectations. "This story can't hurt me because I don't care" vibing.

And then I hit the Sasuke/Sakura stuff at the end and I was suddenly struggling with anger and something that felt a lot like nausea. WHAT was that?! It was like getting slapped in the face. Sakura's character development got yanked out of my arms and thrown out the window to die AGAIN.

I don't ship it, but I wasn't necessarily against the pairing as a concept until canon's execution jolted me out of indifference. If I WAS a shipper, I'd be furious at what a crap deal both of these characters I supposedly liked were being given by this ending. Fuck all of Sakura and Sasuke's previous motivations and experiences and growth as people, I guess? Fuck their problems and grievances and arcs, I guess??? Fuck having resolution for all of their previous interactions??? I don't necessarily need either of these characters to have a happy ending, but they and their relationships (and every other character and relationship tbh) deserved far BETTER writing for either a happy ending or a tragic one. Wow. This is sad! The quality of this ending is really not good! Wow.

(This is the kind of terrible execution that I'm talking about when I say that I would prefer Luffy dead at the end of "One Piece" rather than married to a random woman and having bio-kids. If I have to choose between some Sasuke/Sakura type of shit and Luffy going out on a far more thematically coherent and in-character bang, if those are my only options, then I want my boy dead.)

Like, this story element becomes almost compelling because it sucks so much??? I'm fascinated. It's a canonical pairing that's not just failing to stick the landing, it's breaking both hollow legs, and I've been letting it go every time I think about it because otherwise, I will go mad trying to understand just how much a person can suck at writing convincing romantic relationships. It's SO bad. Damn.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Do you have any tips/checklist that can help identifying weaknesses in your writing? I read what I have written and there is always just something that seems off, I go through some of the tips you have given before and try to implement said changes but there is still something that's keeping the story from flowing/developing as intended but I just can't pinpoint what exactly. So if you have some tips for this, I'd love to hear it! Thanks!

Pinpointing Story Weaknesses

Here are some common story weaknesses to keep an eye out for:

1 - Weak Plot - Does the story revolve around a conflict? Does the conflict challenge the characters in ways that will captivate the reader's attention? Is the plot full of clichés and other tired elements that make it predictable and unoriginal? Are tropes used in fresh new ways that offer a twist on their usual usage? Are there loose threads that would be unsatisfying if left untied? Are there plot holes that won't make sense to the reader? Is the plot enriched by the exploration of theme and subtext that isn't heavy-handed but offers the reader a deeper understanding of the story? (See: Basic Story Structure, How to Move a Story Forward, How to Find Your Story’s Themes and Thematic Statement; Tropes, Clichés, & Finding Which  Clichés to Avoid)

2 - Weak Characters - Are the characters three-dimensional? Do they have a compelling internal conflict (in a story that is character-driven or both character-driven and plot-driven)? Do they have a satisfying character arc? Do they have corresponding wants and needs? Do they have an emotional wound or back story that helps the reader understand who they are and why they make the decisions they make? Do their actions, motivation, choices, and dialogue feel authentic with the personality and circumstances you laid out? Do the main characters have a unique character voice? Do they have fleshed out relationships with other characters? Do you get at the heart of the character's emotions and how they relate to the events of the story? Are emotions illustrated mainly through showing body language, facial expressions, gestures, and suggesting internal cues versus telling how a character feels? Does the dialogue feel unnatural or clunky? Is there an over-reliance on dialogue tags? (See: Plot Driven vs Character Driven Stories, Understanding Goals and Conflict, Character Arc Tips, Recognizing a Flat Character, Important Points of Character Personality, Showing a Character’s Feelings, Giving Your Characters a Unique Voice, Avoiding Repetition with Dialogue Tags)

3 - Weak Setting Development/World Building - Is the setting well-developed, relevant, and believable? Does the setting have so much character it almost feels like a character itself? Do you use plenty of emotional and sensory details to flesh out the visuals? Is the setting immersive to the point the reader will feel they've stepped out of their immediate surroundings and into the world of your story? Are there contradictions in the setting that will pull the reader out of the story? Is there an over-reliance on expository info-dumps or dialogue (aka "telling") to illustrate the world, versus "showing" it through action and the events of the story? (See: Five Things to Help You Describe Fictional Locations, Setting Your Story in an Unfamiliar Place, Guide: Showing vs Telling, The Right Amount of Description (5 Tips!), Weaving Details into the Story)

4 - Weak Narrative Voice - Is the narrative voice consistent, clear, and engaging? If multi-POV, are new POVs switched into only after a scene or chapter break, and is it immediately clear to the reader whose POV they're now in? (See: What is Writing Style?, Understanding POV and the Narrator)

5 - Weak Writing - Is the story well-edited and free from spelling errors, grammatical errors, typos, formatting errors, improper syntax, and punctuation errors? Is the sentence structure clear, strong, and varied? Is there an over-reliance on telling vs showing? Are there problems with the pacing, such as being too slow in places where not much is happening and too fast where important things are happening? Is there an over-reliance on passive vs active voice? Are strong adverbs used in place of weaker ones? Is there an over-reliance on present participles and gerunds (--ing words)? Are contractions unnecessarily omitted, leading to overly formal sounding narrative/dialogue? Is there "purple prose" or description that is excessively ornate/flowery? Is there a compelling beginning, a strong middle, and a satisfying end? (See: Ten Ways to Cut Your Word Count, Guide: How to Skip Time in Your Story, Subtle Scene Transitions, Balancing Dialogue with Exposition and Action, Dropping Hints without Giving Everything Away, Writing Great Beginnings and Endings, The 3 Fundamental Truths of Description, Exposition, Action, and Dialogue, and How to Pace Your Story) You can also see more on my master list of top posts. I hope that helps!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[silverwhittlingknife]

hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

[pocketseizure]

I still consider it a crime that the Gerudo sage of the past had NOTHING to say about Ganondorf in TotK. They could have grown up together. They could have trained against each other. They could have been siblings, friends, lovers, or just classmates. Is she sad or angry at him for attacking Rauru? Did she like him as king before he attacked Rauru? Is she jealous that he gets to rule the Gerudo and not her? How does she feel about the other Gerudo joining him over her? So much missed potential.

This is all true. So much missed potential. The same goes for Riju.

The same goes for all of the Gerudo, especially given that anyone can see the giant geoglyph of Ganondorf in the Gerudo Highlands from the walls of the city. A main theme of the development of the Gerudo in Tears of the Kingdom seems to be the reconsideration of their rule not to allow men into Gerudo Town, which stems from "a long-held belief that men only bring disaster." The revelation that the Eighth Heroine was a man in Rotana's "Heroines' Secret" quest could have been used to make a strong thematic statement in this regard, as could the stories of several other NPCs in and around Gerudo Town. Unfortunately, since no one is allowed to acknowledge or discuss the existence of Ganondorf or the origin of the prohibition against men, all of these narrative threads are left hanging.

I understand that a lot of the writing in Tears of the Kingdom was outsourced, and the contracted writers were almost certainly given the directive not to include anything that might inform or contradict series lore. For most of the NPCs in Hyrule, this is fine. In fact, I'd say it's actually quite lovely to be able to see all sorts of small stories that have nothing to do with magical princesses or ancient kings. For the Gerudo in particular, though, the inability of characters to talk about a major element of their history and culture is extremely awkward and frustrating.

[meglosthegreat]

If Dishonored 1's element is water, Dishonored 2's element is air. Karnaca is described as a city "at the edge of the world", and is defined by its elevation, its towering trees, and the wind currents that provide the city its power. Almost every map in the game has you climbing upward, away from the water that is your home and haven, until you reach the Dust District where the clouds blowing through obscure it completely. Bloodflies are the game's primary environmental hazard, replacing the river krusts and rats of Dishonored 1.

The wind is a double-edged thing in the story. It brings prosperity, allowing Karnaca to escape the need for whale oil in the face of rationing. But that prosperity does not extend to those facing the brunt of its effects; those condemned to toil in the silver mines and live in the district poisoned by their exploitation. The wind powers homes; it also powers the devices used to exert control over the city's population. In short, the wind is like the Empire - as easily put to harm as it is to good. All it took was one Empress deposed by another, and those forces shifted with all the fickleness of a breeze.

Even the Void changes from the serene, underwater-like place in Dishonored 1. It becomes a wasteland of howling emptiness and tall, jagged spires. Shindaerey Peak is the place where the Void meets the world, and the gulley connecting it to Karnaca is where the city's wind currents originate. It is a city at the edge of the world not just in the physical sense - it also lies at the boundary between this world and the Void.

When you leap from Coldridge Prison at the beginning of Dishonored 1, the water is there to greet you. But in Dishonored 2, the water is withheld. When you fall, there is only empty, unforgiving air. Which makes it all the more compelling when the Outsider reaches out to catch you.

(Also, I should point out that there are two more Isles yet to be featured in a game and two more elements yet to be thematically implemented...)

[hamliet]

Monkey D. Luffy: The Fool's Journey, and One Piece's Intricate Structure

So while reading One Piece for the first time, I was struck by how the story seemed to continuously reference and often even follow the Fool's Journey in tarot (much like Tokyo Ghoul did). All I'm saying is that if any of y'all who nagged me to read it for years had told me this, I would have read it MUCH sooner!

Anyways, I want to talk about OP's structure, which is paradoxically simple on the surface and intricate when you dig into parallels and analyses. Much like our protagonist, and the story's themes. I'll divide this meta into two parts, based on the two parts of the manga: pre and post timeskip.

Pre timeskip follows the Fool's Journey perfectly. Post follows the Fool's Journey in reverse... but also has each arc zigzag to thematically mirror its matching arc in terms of chronology in the pre-timeskip part. So, the first arcs of both pre and post timeskip mirror one another., even though pre is the Fool and post is the World. I'll also talk about why I think Oda is doing this below, and what that indicates about the story Oda's trying to tell.

To start with, what is the Fool's Journey? It's the "Major Arcana" of the tarot deck, consisting of 22 cards that follow a particular order and tell a story that is supposed to represent a journey through life. The cards are numbered 0-21, and each is present in One Piece... but sometimes they overlap and sometimes the inspiration in certain arcs is more direct than others. In other words, the tarot card references are not always done in the same way--sometimes it's a thematic reference, sometimes it's a visual reference to an element of the character, sometimes it's the embodiment of a character.

I will reference this summary of the Major Arcana, but I also know a lot of random ish on tarot so I'll be drawing from that too.

Pre Timeskip: The Fool's Journey

The Fool - Luffy

I don't think this should be controversial. The Fool is the central character of the Fool's Journey, card 0. The Fool isn't to be condemned for his foolishness--sure, he's not wise at the start of his journey, but he's bold enough to begin. He wants to explore what it means to be alive, and to accomplish his goals.

Luffy's foolhardy faith in people is his greatest strength, and also his weakness.

The Magician - Roronoa Zora

Card 1 is the Magician:

He represents the active, masculine power of creative impulse. He is also our conscious awareness. The Magician is the force that allows us to impact the world through a concentration of individual will and power.

Zoro is pretty clearly the embodiment of this. He's fabulous with a sword, very much active to the point of it being a flaw (pushing himself to fight Mihawk before he is ready), but also very "what you see is what you get." He doesn't hide aspects of himself, which is necessary.

The High Priestess: Nami

However, the Magician isn't complete without card 2: the High Priestess. The High Priestess is meant to parallel and balance the Magician, because the Fool needs both of these people and what they offer him to grow and continue on his journey.

If the Magician is active and upfront, the High Priestess is mysterious (much like Nami hides her deal with Arlong from the crew). The High Priestess is potential rather than passivity--she needs the Magician to activate her potential. She is creativity, planning, and emotionally in tune with the world around her. (All things Nami is.)

The Fool needs both to grow.

The Empress

The Empress is best represented by Princess Vivi. Not only is she actual royalty, but she takes on an almost maternal role in the crew--which is necessary, because the Empress as a card represents maternal influence, influence that opens the Fool's eyes to the realities of the world around him while also providing for him. Through Vivi, Luffy starts to participate in the politics of the world.

The Emperor

The Emperor is the father figure, who represents structure and authority--hence, Vivi's dad, Nefertari Cobra, and Crocodile both represent this figure for Luffy. Oda even draws Vivi's father to look like the Emperor tarot:

The Hierophant

Skypiea. The Fool here starts to learn about various cultures and beliefs, and adopts a spiritual understanding. The entirety of the Skypeia arc involves Luffy and crew facing a literal deity (Enel, the cruel god) as well as learning about the people of the Sky and their histories and traditions.

The Lovers

Here's where we get a little vague--at least, in this version (less so in the reverse post-timeskip one). Oda is allergic to romance. But while this can represent a sexual union, it doesn't necessarily have to. It can also represent the desire for human connection, particularly that knit together by the angels (as the card's appearance indicates).

Anyways, this is the first part where I was like "oh, this isn't actually the Fool's Journey." But I do think there is a reference, albeit not as direct as most of Oda's references.

A snake slithers up a stalk going up towards heaven, where the angels watch. Nola and Giant Jack, anyone? The card is also supposed to represent healing and union, which is thematically what happens between the Skypieans and Shandians.

The Chariot

The Chariot itself represents the Fool feeling in control... which Luffy feels, for a bit. Hence, Luffy using the Merry (the crew's literal chariot) to race in the Long Ring and Long Land Arc...

Strength

So, Strength can actually be switched with Card 11, so we'll come back to it. Oda introduces Strength in this arc via Kuzen defeating Luffy, someone they acknowledge they cannot beat because he is too strong.

The Hermit

Tonjit, who encourages Luffy to look inwards.

The Wheel of Fortune

Now we enter Water 7, which is conveniently shaped like a wheel:

And upon entering, the place where their fortunes change. It's a turning point in the Fool's Journey, and it certainly is for Luffy.

Justice (+ Strength)

So, in some decks Justice comes as card 11, and in others as card 8--it switches with Strength. While I do think Kuzan represents Strength as a glimmer, Oda actually introduces Strength as a person alongside the concept of Justice.

Strength is Franky.

While Justice becomes the major theme of the arc... tied to Robin.

The Hanged Man

Or woman, in this case, because this is Robin in Enies Lobby. She wants to live, but she doesn't believe she can.

Here, the Fool is supposed to feel defeated, stuck and trapped and unable to act in a lot of ways. Robin eventually makes her own decision, while the crew could not make it for her--she decides to live, and that's when they act and rescue her.

Death

Death sounds ominous but it really isn't; it's supposed to represent a transition to a new stage of life. Which happens, but also we get introduced to Brooks... a literal skeleton.

Temperance

Here, the Fool finds balance in the wake of what has just occurred.

The Fool has combined all aspects of himself into a centered whole that glows with health and well-being.

Here, Luffy talks to Garp and begins to reconcile that part of himself. Luffy's crew reunites, including Usopp and Robin, and comes together again for their next adventure.

The Devil

This was actually the arc that convinced me we were following Fool's Journey imagery because there's a common aspect to the Devil that often gets overlooked: two people, a couple, chained together.

The couple in the tarot card are not able to free themselves even though they seem like they should be able to (the chains are loose). Here we have an attempted forced wedding of Nami to Absalom--she's under a spell.

The Tower

The Fool only escapes the Devil via the calamity that is the Tower. Which just so happens to be where this arc takes place.

And Oda just so happens to have to people fall from the Tower, which is what the card displays too.

The Star

After the calamity of the Tower, the Fool encounters the Star, a moment of calm, of hope, often represented in a woman... and water. So here Luffy encounters Camie the mermaid, and her friend Pappagg.

The Moon

The Moon is a card of illusions. Camie is taken to a place that thrives on illusions and is shaped like, well, a moon:

The crew's experience on the island causes them to question who they are, and who they want to be.

The Sun

The Sun emerges and provides clarity for the Fool. Here, it's represented by their new ship--the Thousand Sunny. Luffy's sun is that he realizes love for his crew and loved ones (like Ace) are his starting point.

Judgement

Judgement is a card where the Fool has been reborn and has to rise up and embody his potential at last. Here, Luffy survives Themyscira, essentially becoming reborn, before goes into prisons and freeing people (hence the image of the dead rising--people being freed from dead on the card). Waves and mountains rise up around the freed, but the Fool presses on...

And onwards to Marineford, where we do see literal waves rising like mountains.

The World

Luffy rescues Ace, but Ace still dies for him. Here, he reconciles with aspects of himself that he's tried to suppress--his relationships with his grandfather, with Ace, with his own weaknesses and strengths, with the people he's previously defeated and with his crew. So Luffy and his crew, now scattered across the world, take several years to regroup.

Post Timeskip: The Fool's Journey Reversed

The Fool's Journey itself is meant to represent a cycle. At the end, after the Fool has arrived at the World, he realizes the possibilities that are open to him--and that he knows less than ever. So he begins again. Hence, the Fool's Journey begins again, with each arc in the second part mirroring two.

The World

Here, Luffy and his crew reunite, mirroring a lot of Romance Dawn's early arcs. Luffy is ready for a new adventure in a new world, which he finds in...

Judgement

The Fish-Man Island Saga, which mirrors both the Arlong Park Arc (High Priestess) and the Judgement Arc. Except this time Luffy is the one prophesized to bring Judgement.

You see, the Judgment tarot is portraying the idea of "Judgment Day," a concept from the Biblical book of Revelation wherein the living and the dead are judged... and the world is destroyed and remade anew. Here, because the arc is reversed, the waves don't rise up to tower over Luffy et al like mountains; Luffy instead dives beneath them.

Reversed, the Judgement tarot also asks the Fool to look back at their life and their journey thus far, which is pretty much exactly what characters are asked to do--Nami with Arlong, the mermaid princess, and more.

Continuing on, we then dip into Punk Hazard, which mirrors elements of the Little Garden and Drum Island arcs (giants, snow, etc).

The Sun

Then we hit the Dressrosa Arc, which mirrors the Alabasta Arc in that there's a focus on a royal family and dastardly rebels.

The sun reversed indicates that the subjects are stuck in a delusional state... which they kind of are, albeit forced into it.

Oda references the Sun with sunflower fields and with the theme of children. The child is Kratos as well as Rebecca, learning how to be reborn.

The Moon

Now we go backwards into illusions again. Zou is an illusion, and we're told to beware the Moon, because it's reversed.

We then delved into Whole Cake Island, which mirrors Enies Lobby in that a character is taken from the Straw Hats and the others have to chase them down... and the ensuing events force them to grapple with what they mean to one another, and with their places in the world.

The Star

Reversed, the Star is about feeling overwhelmed and slightly in despair. Essentially, the entirety of Whole Cake Island.

The Tower

There is a literal tower again. Even reversed, the Tower represents a crisis--but instead of falling into it, the reversed Tower is about trying to dig heels in and refuse to accept change and that what has been a pillar of support will no longer be. Which is kind of the Vinsmokes' issue, but also Big Mom's main issue.

The Devil

In a character, Big Mom, forcing her children into marriages.

Reversed, however, the Devil is about throwing off chains and breaking free--which we see both Sanji and Pudding do. Also, unlike the false couple in the earlier Devil Thriller Bark Arc, Pudding does appear to develop genuine feelings for Sanji.

Temperance

As a visual nod, Jinbei returns the ceremonial cup.

But in reversed form, Temperance means excess--gluttony, rather than on balance. Which is Big Mom.

Death

Reversed, it's being afraid to make changes in life, which again applies to most characters in this arc.

The Hanged Man

Like Robin in Enias Lobby, here we have Sanji. Reversed is pretty similar to upright, though it is more focused on being stuck than on actually making a decision--yet eventually Sanji does.

Justice

So this time I think Justice and Strength show up as 8 instead of jointly as 11. We have justice addressed thematically via the Whole Cake Island Arc, but it's not fully delved into until Wano.

Wheel of Fortune

Luffy gets sucked into an actual whirlpool that spits him and his friends out in not only a different country, but different times... mirroring the Straw Hat's separation and Amazon Lily Arc, to an extent.

The Fool may recognize his destiny in the sequence of events that led him to this turning point.... His perspective is wider, and he sees himself within the grander scheme of a universal plan. His sense of purpose is restored.

This above description will essentially be Luffy's journey through Wano.

The Hermit

Tama, the opposite of Tanjit. Instead of an old man, this time it's a young girl, because we're reversed tarot carding this.

Justice/Strength

The entire Wano arc is about justice and injustice, and about what it means to be strong.

The Chariot

The Chariot is all about making your own fate, about having control over yourself, and reversed it's about an illusion of control. Notably, the crescent moon is a prominent feature adoring the driver of the Chariot on the card, because it symbolizes the process of becoming.

Orochi, Kaidou--both these characters maintain a veneer of control, but they're actually very much out of control.

The Lovers

Well, there's sort of romance here. In a twisted, one-sided way, that is. It's Orochi and Hiyori, and since it's a reversed card, it fits that it's pretty twisted and not an actual love story, but instead a desire to possess rather than love.

Notably, we have another snake reference--Orochi's name means serpent.

The Heirophant

Kaidou, who basically plays at being a god. The Heirophant is also associated with Taurus--the bull.

Kaidou also stands in contrast with Luffy in regards to the nature of the Heirophant--which is about a character learning to identify themselves with the larger world. Kaidou, much like Orochi before him, tries to forced others to identify with him, to fit his goals, while Luffy does the opposite--he genuinely tries to learn about people and their dreams and goals.

The Emperor

Overlaps with Kaidou (one of the Four Emperors). Reversed, the Emperor represents abuse of power, which is extremely fitting.

This part is also where Nefertari Cobra, our previous Emperor, actually dies.

The Empress

Vivi, our Empress, is missing... and that's pretty much where we are now. Reversed, it represents insecurity... which we see discussed and repudiated, with the Straw Hats declaring that they trust that Vivi has a plan.

Going forward, I expect the Final Saga to somehow mirror Impel Down and Marineford as arcs, and also to reflect the reversed High Priestess (a focus on intuition), reversed Magician (illusions), and reversed Fool that will ask Luffy the question: who do you want to be?

[nyaagolor]

What are your thoughts on Apollo Justice (the character)?

OH BOY. OHHHHHH BOY. I have a fever and some free time lfg.

So honestly, I think part of the reason I love Apollo so much is because he runs parallel to Phoenix but also counter to him at the same time. I always saw Simon and Athena as the successors-- in terms of ideology and job and all that other stuff-- to the Phoenix-Edgeworth dynamic and status rather than Apollo and Klavier. Athena and Simon, to me, feel like extensions of the arcs of Phoenix and Edgeworth + the vibes of the original trilogy. Apollo and Klavier ( who I will not talk about bc we will be here all day)? They're the antithesis.

Apollo Justice The Game directly foils the original trilogy in so many ways, but I think even on a more base thematic level it runs counter to a lot of the ideas that we take for granted about the original trilogy, and because Apollo sits at the center of this, the things I love about the game are encapsulated in why I like him. There are a ton of themes in the ace attorney trilogy-- support networks, faith, trust, the truth-- and Apollo is defined by their limits, their failures, and their absence. He is let down, kicked around, defined by abandonment and betrayal and distrust. Apollo is defined by everything that Phoenix is not, and bc of how the timeline goes we don't really get any retribution for that, just a steady march forward, and I think that gives me a lot to think about with his character

Phoenix's arc right from Turnabout Sisters is about the building of a support network, and the ways that developing this support is integral for when things go wrong. We contrast Phoenix with Godot, Maya with Dahlia, and see how people left to stew in their resentment can chase vengeance to dark places (wow I wonder who also does this after the death of a dear friend leading to a crusade of misplaced revenge that almost leads someone they care about being killed.). With Apollo we get to stand on the precipice of resolution, but the important part is we don't get it. Apollo's life falls off the rails, and he's the one left to pick up the pieces.

We see through him how our trust can be betrayed by people of good and bad intentions, and the lingering consequences that has on one's ability to not only trust the people around them but themselves. And yeah!! That's why I adore him so much-- he's tested not by the possibility of failure like Phoenix often is, but climbing up from the reality of it. It's less "how do we make our way out of this mess before it goes nuclear" and more "things are already destroyed-- where do we go from here?". It has more of an element of recovery than prevention to me, and I think that's a fascinating avenue to explore in stories like these. Apollo pushes the envelope of the themes of the narrative and the characters-- he is the epitome of what it looks like when things fall apart, and it gives him and the trilogy characters something to reconcile

A lot of people have complained that Apollo barely feels like the protagonist in his own game, but that's honestly a huge part of the reason why I love him so much. He's defined by the spaces between, the limits and failures of things we had up to this point taken to be true, and left with a pretty limited degree of autonomy through it all. He's pushed around and puppeteered by people who mean well and those who don't, and I feel like a major theme of AA4 that I love but don't often see talked about is "what does it mean to have autonomy-- and by extension, control? What does it mean to take it back? What does it mean to lose it, and what does it mean when you'd do anything to keep it." Most of what I said is only partially resolved bc AA4 is... a game. A technically finished game. but!! Because it eviscerates our expectations of the franchise so thoroughly AND leaves open so many avenues, it makes Apollo and the rest of his crew some of my favorite characters because there's so much you can think about and do with them!!

also he's like. An insect to me. <3

[youthofpandas]

Emil Sinclair & Frau Eva

A consistent problem I’ve run into while discussing the novel Demian is the rejection of Emil’s relationship with Eva in favor and treating it as if it is nothing but a tool to analyze the relationship that he shares with Demian. People treat his feelings towards Eva as fake, imagined, and entirely as misplaced affections that he holds towards Demian and become quite defensive when told that isn’t the case in the actual text of the book. I’m no stranger to interpreting things in ways that don’t quite match canon, especially when they make me uncomfortable, and it is clear to me that discomfort or even disgust is how a lot of people view this relationship as given the age gap between them and the general preference for seeing Emil with Demian instead of Eva. I have no problems with that aspect of this little debate, discomfort is more than allowed and I’m not writing this to force people into liking the idea of their relationship.

What I am writing this for, and what I do find a problem with, is the way that people attempt to force an erasure of this aspect of the book and will accuse people of misreading the novel when acknowledging its existence. To say that someone does not understand the book or Emil’s character because they made reference to his love for Eva or his general affinity for mature women just seems to signal that there is a confusion of what the book actually says. Emil does love Eva and it is not misplaced love for Demian. From the moment he dreams of her to the moment Demian passes a kiss from his mother to Emil, Emil loves her. (That doesn’t mean he doesn’t also love Demian, by the way, but this post/essay isn’t about that, so I won’t be dwelling on the feelings he holds for Demian).

This is not going to be a complete, in-depth look at her character and role in the story and will instead simply focus on the actual relationship Emil has with her throughout the story and the ways that the novel sets up their relationship and makes it explicitly clear what sort of relationship exists between them. I feel it has been a massive disservice to her character to view her as nothing more than a woman getting in the way of a relationship or as if all of the quite beautiful descriptions of her person and effect on Emil are inconsequential and/or imagined, so I hope that this does some justice to Hesse’s work.

All quotes taken from the translation of the novel done by W. J. Strachan.

To begin, I will actually be talking about Max Demian himself, because Eva can be understood through son as he acts as a bit of a proto-Eva in Emil's life. They have a similar appearance, as it is often noted, they both bear the ‘sign’, they are deeply linked to Emil’s personal growth and relationship with the world, so to get a full grasp of his relationship with Eva it is also important to look at how he sees Demian and the key overlaps between them. So, let's look at one of the descriptions Emil writes of his dear friend.

This remarkable boy seemed older than he looked; he did not in fact seem like a boy at all. He moved among us more childish members of the school strangely mature, like a man, or rather a gentleman. He was not popular; he took no part in games, still less in the general rough and tumble and it was only the firm self-confident tone he adapted in his attitude towards the masters that won him favour with the other boys. He was called Max Demian.

Note how it focuses on his age and maturity, even though he is literally a couple years older than Emil, spiritually, thematically, he is older than even that. He is like a man, an adult. Here's a similar passage from another moment where Emil describes his friend:

I saw Demian's face and remarked that it was not a boy's face but a man's and then I saw, or rather became aware, that it was not really the face of a man either; it had something different about it, almost a feminine element. And for the time being his face seemed neither masculine nor childish, neither old nor young but a hundred years old, almost timeless and bearing the mark of other periods of history than our own.

Once again we see that he is more than a child, Demian is aged, grown, but not old nor young. In contrast to Emil who is youthful and immature, someone who has not yet begun his true journey. Here we also see a hint at there being a feminine element to Demian. Demian represents not just the fact that he is mature and capable of leading Emil through the spiritual journey he so longs for, but that he is not limited to just one world. He is not stuck in the dichotomy of light and dark, of masculine and feminine, of age and youth, he is both and neither.

Continuing the subject of maturity, we can take a look at the moment we share with Alfons Beck, a relationship that Emil describes with "we seemed to have a perfect understanding of each other" and, while a character who does not stay around long, acts as a mentor in the way he teaches Emil to grow up when it concerns sexuality and affections. It isn't long after this moment that Emil begins his venture into the world of darkness and almost loses himself to indulgence and excess of drinking and what have you, but it is clear from the later scenes with Knauer that Emil retains this personal growth surrounding sex and desire.

I heard amazing things; things I would not have thought possible were trotted out as part of everyday reality and seemed quite normal. Alfons Beck had already gained experience of women in his less than eighteen years of life. He had learned, for example, that girls were only out for flirtation and attention, which was all very agreeable but not the real thing. There was more chance of that with mature women. They were much more reasonable. You could talk with Frau Jaggelt who kept the stationer's shop, and a book could not contain all the various goings-on behind her counter. I sat there spell-bound and stupefied. Certainly I could never have loved Frau Jaggelt - but nevertheless it was terrific. There seemed to be hidden springs as least for my seniors, whose existence had never suspected. It all had a false ring about it, a more ordinary and insignificant flavour than love should have, in my opinion, but at all events it was life and adventure and I was sitting next to someone who had actually experienced it and to whom it seemed a normal thing.

By the end of this talk, Emil feels like a boy listening to a man. He understands that in this area he is behind, yet still is drawn to it. Alfons Beck is here, quite clearly, setting up and building upon the themes of maturity, especially that of women. This is very important seeing how it is one of the first times he is so explicit about his feelings regarding sexuality, and it is not by accident that this conversation regards mature, older women.

Another element here is that Emil points out that he finds more passing encounters, attraction without the intent to form a significant relationship, to be not founded in love - or at least the type of love he desires. I point this out because it establishes the idea that the types of relationships and attraction Emil is most interested in are ones that are serious and lasting. Quick, temporary connections excite him, intrigue him, because of course they do, he is a young man away from home and free to explore the world for the first time in his life and he has wants and desires. But, as we will see in his actions towards Eva later on, what he is most interested in a more true kind of love.

I'm going to hop straight to the painting next, as it is the real start of his relationship with Eva. There's a lot with the painting that I don't believe needs to be quoted directly so I've chosen a description of his realization of who it reminds him of.

Then one morning when I awoke from one of these dreams, I suddenly recognized it. It looked so fantastically familiar and seemed to call out my name. It appeared to know me as a mother, as if its eyes had been fixed on me all my life. I stared at the picture with beating heart, the close, brown hair, the half-feminine mouth, the strong forehead with its strange brightness-which it had assumed of its own accord-and I realized that my recognition, my rediscovery and knowledge of it were becoming more and more a reality.

He says after this that it resembles Demian, it was not his features exactly but there is no mistaking the fact that it was ultimately Demian's face. A motherly, matured woman version of Demian. This will later be seen to be the same description he gives Eva, even beyond the fact that he explicitly states that it is her as I'll quote later.

The effects this painting have on him are, as we all know, quite extreme and trigger many contradictory feelings within him. It is obvious that he worships it, he puts it on the wall in a way he can look at the face first thing in the morning, the same way one would look at a lover in bed upon waking up, he cries over it and clearly experiences intense lust and attraction towards the figure depicted in it. He also finds these feelings towards it revolting and terrifying, and would sometimes call it a devil and a murderer. At this point in the story, he still has lingering shame for these sorts of desires, even if he has begun to embrace them in some ways, he hasn’t fully overcome his belief that the world is separated in two halves and as a result views many things in extremes of both the most beautiful parts of the world of the light and the worst of the tempting world of darkness.

But for full context on this painting, we also need to look at the dream in which its subject appeared in, the most important dream of his life that he dreamed of night after night.

This dream, the most important and enduring of my life, followed this pattern: I was on my way to my parents' home and over the main entrance the heraldic bird gleamed gold on an azure ground. My mother walked towards me but when I entered and she was about to kiss me, it was no longer she but a form I had never set eyes on, tall and strong with a look of Max Demian and my painted portrait - yet it was somehow different and despite the robust frame, very feminine. The form drew me to itself and enveloped me in a deep, shuddering embrace. My feelings were a mixture of ecstasy and horror, the embrace was at once an act of worship and a crime. The form that embraced me had something about it of both my mother and my friend Demian and also this embrace violated every sense of religious awe, yet it was bliss. Sometimes I awoke out of this dream with a feeling of ecstasy, sometimes in mortal fear and with a tortured conscience as if I had committed some terrible sin.

Here we see Emil's most important dream: one where he is filled with ecstasy when embracing a figure that is a sort of halfway point between his mother and his friend. I'm going to share another passage from later, when he sees Frau Eva for the first time since childhood.

Sensing my interest in them, she took me into the house, looked out a leather album and showed me a photograph of Demian's mother. I could hardly remember her but now that I had the small photograph before me my heart stood still. It was the picture of my dreams. There she was, the tall, almost masculine figure, looking like her son, but with maternal traits, traits of severity and deep passion, beautiful and alluring, beautiful and unapproachable, daimon and mother, fate and lover. There was no mistaking her! The discovery that my dream image existed on this earth affected me like some fantastic miracle! So there was a woman who looked like that, who bore the features of my destiny! Where was she? Where? And she was Demian's mother!

So, this figure he dreams about, the figure he paints? It is Frau Eva. And we see here that, much like how her son is described as feminine, she is described as masculine. She also is inherently full of contrasts: daimon and mother, beautiful and unapproachable. Frau Eva and Demian follow the same pattern of being opposing natures who exist in one, the deconstruction of the binary and embracing something that is less easy to categorize. They embody the same ideals as Abraxas, of Emil's dreams.

Speaking of Abraxas and Frau Eva, here is his proper introduction to her as an adult.

With eyes moistened with tears I gazed at my painting, absorbed in my reflections. Then my glance dropped. Under the picture of the bird in the opened door stood a tall woman in a dark dress. It was she. I was unable to utter a word. From a face that resembled her son's, timeless and ageless and full of inward strength, the beautiful, dignified woman gave me a friendly smile. Her gaze was fulfillment, her greeting a homecoming. Silently I stretched out my hands towards her. She took them both in her warm. firm hands. "You are Sinclair. I recognized you at once. Welcome!" Her voice was deep and warm. I drank it up like sweet wine. And now I looked up and into her quiet face, the black unfathomable eyes, at her fresh, ripe lips, the open, queenly brow that bore the 'sign.' "How glad I am!" I said and kissed her hands. "I believe I have been on my way here the whole of my life and now I have reached home at last." She gave a motherly smile.

Eva makes her entrance quite literally alongside the painting of Abraxas Emil painted not long after he put a name to the face of the painting he made of her. He describes this as reaching home, incredibly important to him after he has been feeling so outcast from the home he grew up in. And he loves her deep voice, her quiet face that resembles her son's, and her friendly, motherly smile.

Eva and Abraxas, the god he worships and adores, are linked beings. This all builds on to the Demian and Cain, Eva and Eve connections. Eve the mother of both Cain the murderer and Abel the victim, Eve the woman born of God who spoke to the Devil and committed the first sin (which to bearer's of the Sign was surely not a sin), is now properly linked to Abraxas and it all feeds quite well into a similar theme. Eva is mother and she is home.

Eva is the origin of Demian, an embodiment of his ideals with even more maturity, she created the one who created Emil in a manner of speaking. She truly represents a world that is not divided into light and darkness, the very world that Emil chases after and wishes to believe in. It only makes sense, then, that he would find her so attractive and want her, desire her. By this point, so late into the novel, Emil is quite grown up, literally and spiritually, compared to the young, lost boy he was at the start. He has accepted sexual desires, accepted the world is complex and rejected many of the beliefs he held as a child, and he wants Eva the way any grown man might.

But, of course as we established earlier, Emil wants more than a passing encounter fueled by lust. He wants a real kind of love. And when he has gotten to know her and understand her as a real person rather than just a figure in his dreams, he writes the following, detailed, heavily romantic, filled with yearning and love passage:

On many occasions I believed that it was not really just her as a person, whom I yearned for with all my being, but that she existed as an outward symbol of my inner self and her sole purpose was to lead me more deeply into myself. Things she said often sounded like replies from my unconscious mind to burning questions which tormented me. There were other moments when as I sat beside her I was consumed with sensual desire and kissed objects which she had touched. And little by little sensual and transcendental love, reality and symbol mingled together. As I thought about her in my room at home in tranquil absorption, I felt her hand in mine and her lips touching my lips. Or I would be conscious of her presence, look into her face, speak with her and hear her voice, not knowing whether she was real or a dream. I began to realize how one can be possessed of a lasting and immortal love. I would gain knowledge of a new religion from my reading, and it would give me the same feeling as a kiss from Eva. She stroked my hair and smiled with all her warm affection, and I had the same feeling as when I took a step forward in knowledge of my inner self. Her person embraced everything that was significant and fateful for me. She could be transformed into each one of my thoughts and each of my thoughts could be transformed into her.

This paragraph here always sticks with me, the way his love transcends reality. It mirrors the way that Demian's existence is questionably real, that the moments he shared with the Demian family are somewhere fundamentally between imagined and real. Does she kiss him or is it imagined? It hardly matters, because reality and symbol are mixing together and becoming one and the same. These are his manifestations, these are his calls to the world to make his love true. And that love is so true in his heart he can hardly tell when it is real.

Also I just want to point out how cute he is when he's in love... kissing the things that belong to her, linking his learning and his growth as a person to her. It is similar to his behavior with Beatrice, in that this woman is helping inspire him to improve upon himself, but now it is not the desperate clutch to an unknown figure as a guiding light he can never speak to, it is a woman who pulls answers from his own mind, a woman who exists as a symbol of his inner self. Frau Eva, again just like Demian, is an extension of Emil's self and soul.

Alright, so I have now established Emil's feelings towards Frau Eva, but what of her feelings towards him? This following passage comes immediately after the one before

When I arrived back at H-- I stayed away from her for two days in order to savour this security and independence from her physical presence. I had dreams too in which my union with her was consummated in a symbolic act. She was a star and I was a star on my way to her, and we met and mutually attracted, remained together and circled round each other blissfully in all eternity to the accompaniment of the music of the spheres. I told her this dream on my first visit on returning. "It is a lovely dream," she said quietly, "Make it true!"

Emil tells her that he had a dream of the two of them in which they consummated their union (which, just to make this abundantly clear, means having sex. there is no getting around that fact) through a symbolic act of entwining around each other for all of eternity and Frau Eva tells him to make it true. She tells him, explicitly, that this dream he has of them making love is lovely and that he should work on making it happen in reality. This is of course a further extension of her trying to help Emil manifest a kind of mutual attraction between them through his extended longing and deep, honest desires. While she does not currently reciprocate the romantic affections he has for her, she is clear about being open to the idea of that one day being the case.

Let's also look at this bit, which is mostly about Sinclair's affections towards her but provides a bit of a conclusion to this theme of manifesting her love.

One day this foreboding came over me with such force that my love for Eva flared up suddenly and caused me great pain. My God, what a short time I had left; soon I should no longer be seeing her, no longer hearing her good, assured step about the house, no longer finding her flowers on my table! And what had I achieved? I had luxuriated in dreams and comfort instead of winning her, instead of struggling for her and clasping her to me forever! Everything she had told me about true love came back to me, a kindred stirring, admonitory messages, and as many gentle promises and words of encouragement, too, perhaps; and what had I made out of it all? Nothing. I stood in the middle of the room, summoned my whole conscious being and thought of Eva. I wanted to gather all the power of my soul in order to make her aware of my love and attract her to me. She must come; she must long for my embrace, my kisses must tremble on her ripe lips.

Emil is realizing that despite her encouragements and his continued love for her, he has never truly spent the energy required to make his love reciprocated. These things, him wanting her be his forever, him wanting to kiss her so much that he shakes, to attract her to him so that she desires him in the same way that he does her... those are the things Eva wanted him to manifest. Now, this also makes it clear that for as much time as they spent together (the book mentions that Max was out for long stretches of time, leaving Emil alone with Eva for the majority of his days there), they did not get to do any of the things he wanted so passionately AND that she had still be encouraging him to manifest this.

And does she get this message? Yes! She does, only there is The War starting and so she does not go herself to him, but she does tell him that she heard his appeal and to do it again if he should ever need her.

Now, let's talk about the ending of the book, about the kiss.

"And there is something else. Frau Eva said that if things ever went badly with you, I was to pass on a kiss from her which she gave me … Close your eyes, Sinclair." I closed my eyes in obedience. I felt the brush of a kiss on my lips on which there was a bead of blood that never seemed to diminish. Then I fell asleep.

Demian (who is made clear to be a hallucination or a purely spiritual being at this moment, regardless of what you believe his regular appearances are that of a real actual boy or a reflection of Emil's self or a mixture of the two. in this scene he is a dream-like being existing from Emil's mind here to help conclude the narrative) passes on a kiss that his mother gave to him. Eva wanted to give this kiss to Emil after all of those appeals he made for her love, and uses Demian as a vessel to give this to him.

Now I am absolutely not here to deny any sort of queerness in this moment, in the fact that it is not Eva herself who appears but rather Max. What I am trying to say is that Eva and Max are linked people, especially in the mind of Emil, and therefore it makes thematic sense for the boy who had introduced him to the world of the enlightened and to the woman he would come to love to be here in this quiet, scary moment and pass on a message from his mother. I am trying to say that denying that this kiss is even the slightest bit from Eva and 100% Max's moment is ignoring her entire character and a large, large portion of Emil's.

I could’ve gone on for longer, I skipped over the story she tells Emil of the man in love with a star and how that star eventually came to love him in return and how Frau Eva is his star. His last description of her before leaving for the war is about the myriad of stars glowing in the night sky and it is quite romantic, but I feel getting into the star symbolism in Demian would double the length of this and her feelings towards him cannot get any clearer than the part where she encourages consummating their union, which itself is still linked to the star story. This was all done taking passages I remembered off the top of my head and not a full reread of the book, but I feel like this does more than enough to explain my point.

In conclusion: never tell me again that I misunderstood the 1919 novel Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth by Hermann Hesse because I joked about how Emil is into MILFs. He is.

[crownedinkcomix]

Joker 2 is not about its fandom. At least not on purpose.

I agree with many of the criticisms leveled at Joker 2, and I almost didn’t bother writing this review since much of what I have to say echoes the general consensus. However, there’s one particular critique I’ve seen that I strongly disagree with: the idea that Joker 2 is a repudiation of the audience that connected with the first movie.

Many have argued that the sequel turns against those who found resonance in Arthur Fleck’s transformation into the Joker, especially as the character became a symbol in real-world political protests, much like the Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta was co-opted by Anonymous. But I believe this interpretation misses a key point that aligns with the themes of the original film.

The film becomes more engaging towards the end, particularly when Arthur’s followers reject him once he rejects the Joker persona. Some argue that this mirrors the way audiences connected with the first movie, using the Joker persona as a symbol during protests. However, this rejection of Arthur is consistent with the character’s portrayal in Joker (2019). Society didn’t care about Arthur as a person—an isolated, mentally ill individual—until he accidentally became a figurehead for a movement he never believed in. His followers, like society, only care about the Joker as a symbol, something they can project their own ideas onto.

While I don’t think Joker 2 is a strong film overall—it’s messy, and at best deserves a 2/5 rating—I do think it captures this idea well. It continues the theme that society values icons and symbols over real, complex individuals, much as the first film did.

Unfortunately, the first two-thirds of the film are a slog. The musical numbers, for example, add nothing of substance and slow the film to a crawl. I typically enjoy musicals, but Joaquin Phoenix is a poor singer, and the songs don’t advance the plot like they should in a good musical. Instead, they feel like pointless interludes. In the best musicals, songs are integral to storytelling, not interruptions.

The connections to Batman mythology, which were subtle but effective in the first Joker, feel more forced and distracting in this film. In Joker (2019), Gotham felt like Gotham, and there were enough subtle nods to Batman’s lore to justify the film's title. Here, however, it feels as though someone simply took an original screenplay and used a Find and Replace tool to rename elements: Arkham Asylum, Harvey Dent—they feel shoehorned in. Especially jarring is the fact that we're supposed to believe a character's Christian name is Harley Quinn (harlequin, get it?) in what is meant to be a world that is so grounded, I can't buy Bruce Wayne ever even grows up to be Batman in this continuity.

In the first film, even though Arthur Fleck’s story was largely inspired by Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, it still included some elements from The Killing Joke and The Dark Knight Returns, giving it a legitimate connection to the Batman universe. The riot at the end, leading to the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne, was a clever tie-in to Batman’s origin, even if it required some suspension of disbelief regarding the age difference between Bruce Wayne and this version of the Joker.

Joker 2 is ultimately a confused film that doesn’t know what it wants to say for much of its runtime. While it offers some interesting thematic continuity regarding society’s elevation of fictional personas over real people, it’s bogged down by poor pacing, weak musical numbers, and forced connections to Batman lore. While I’m glad I saw it for the final third, which genuinely resonated with me, I can’t recommend it to a general audience.

[chaos0pikachu]

Filmmaking? In My BL? - The Horror Influences of Dead Friend Forever

Okay off the bat I'ma say that this isn't me definitively saying these specific films or tv series are what inspired 100% DFF. I simply do not know what stuff the screenwriters were pulling from influence wise when writing the script, nor what the director was pulling from when directing the series, with 100% flawless certainty.

Rather, this is a chance to talk more about horror, from films, comics, visuals, and sub-genres and how these various mediums are what I see in the fabric of DFF's horror makeup. Also, general point, this post will be discussing minor spoilers of: Scream, DFF, and Girl from Nowhere. So like, be aware~~

This post is partially inspired by an ask from @italianpersonwithashippersheart in which the anon had mentioned Scream.

I couldn't really respond to this in detail before cause I hadn't watched the series, but I have now and I can say that the show is very thoroughly nothing at all like Scream. I'm not confident in much - other than my inability to reach the top shelf at the market - but I am confident in saying that lol

But this got me thinking, what type of horror IS DFF? I've seen a lot of folks say it's a slasher, and I both agree and disagree.

Horror as a genre is vast with sub-genres, it's probably one of the most universal and popular genres globally, and every culture has their own horror legends, cult classics, mainstays and shlock.

So that's what I'm going to talk about in this post, the slasher genre, why I don't think DFF 100% can be boxed into that sub-genre, what type of horror I think DFF is, and the influences I see in DFF's filmmaking and thematics.

So if we start anywhere, we gotta start with Scream (1996) since that's a comparison I've seen being made a lot.

The main reason I disagree in the comparisons to Scream is that Scream is considered a work of satire first and foremost. Through the power of capitalism and franchising, it's also consider a "whodunit" series.

“Scream” is the first movie of its kind to execute a satire genre within a horror movie, which is one of the most iconic and memorable elements of the film. The original movie makes many references to other well-known horror films and mocks them, while simultaneously leading the same plot points. [...] Although the following films in the “Scream” franchise do not follow as much of the same mockery of horror films, they are still considered to be satirical because of their use of mockery toward the movie franchise. “Scream 2” mocks film sequels and “Scream 3” mocks film trilogies." (source)

[sidenote one of my favorite examples of satirical meta horror is Wes Craven's New Nightmare]

DFF isn't satirizing anything in horror, it's almost entirely self-serious. Sure there's a couple of moments of hilarity - dick biting, and scooter snatchin' - but overall the show plays things pretty straight (gay sex notwithstanding). I've seen some folks claim it's subverting horror tropes, but I don't see that either (would be interested in discussing that tho cause I'm curious).

I get why people make this comparison though, Scream is a 27 yr old franchise, and probably the most relevant slasher franchise currently. The new Halloween movies were...cute but aside from the first Halloween (2018) the rest of the reboot franchise had diminishing returns; each film made less than the previous, and received lower critical scores.

However, Scream has actually grown as a franchise in the States in terms of box office draw. That said, Scream is actually not a huge earner overseas, Scream IV (2023) earned more than 60% of it's box office revenue domestically. In Thailand, according to reports, it only earned about 300,000 (compared to other international territories like Brazil where it earned around 4,600,000).

So I don't think DFF is pulling much from Scream in terms of setting, tone, or story. I do think the show most resembles Scream in directorial style, specifically in the imagery of the Killer's design and in the slow-crawl mask reveals that have happened so far.

[very obviously spoilers for all the scream films watch at your own risk etc, gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses]

So what is a slasher film or story?

"A slasher movie is a horror sub-genre that involves the murdering of a number of people by a psychopathic killer, typically via a knife or bladed tool (such as a scythe).

In general, the horror genre is known for its fear, violence and terror. It will typically feature a menacing villain, whether it be a monster or a supernatural evil spirit, for example." (source)

Other common but not inherent secondary characteristics of a slasher story will include: young adults as central characters, sex (typically as a means of punishment "sex gets you killed"), the killer is motivated by revenge, lots of gore and/or violent kills and a "final girl".

I point out common but not inherent because the main tenants of a slasher story is the overall body count, female protagonist and a mysterious (typically masked) killer.

For example, in Scream (96) Ghostface is motivated by revenge, however in Halloween (1978), Texas Chainsaw (1974), Prom Night (2008), You're Next (2011) and Wrong Turn (2003) the killers are not.

If there is a western horror franchise or film that the setting of DFF more closely aligns with, it's Friday the 13th (2009). Which was a sequel/reboot to the original Friday the 13th (1980) starring Tumblr's own Jared Padalecki as one of the leads (that was an interesting year as Jensen Ackles also starred in a remake of a classic 80s horror film My Blood Valentine).

In Friday (09) the bulk of the story takes place at a mansion styled cabin in the woods near Crystal Lake owned by one of the characters rich parents. Jason eventually hunts down each of the characters, killing them in various ways, and they even find his home with a shrine to his mother there. There's also like, a lot of sex and nudity in Friday (09) none of it fun or sexy as it's pretty, unfortunately, misogynistic.

Being in an isolated area, like the cabin in the woods in DFF and Friday (09) is also not a requirement within the slasher sub-genre.

Many slasher films, especially American classics during the genres 80s peak, actually take place more often in suburbia rather than in isolated locations like the woods. Which reflected real world anxieties from predominately white communities and a turn towards more conservative politics of that era in America.

"Those same well-kept neighborhoods and quiet backyards of my childhood were also the battlegrounds of the ’80s horror movie, a radical pivot in the genre’s history. The decade’s opening years were bracketed by the kidnappings of Etan Patz (which inspired the Missing Kids on a Milk Carton program) and Adam Walsh (which inspired his father John Walsh to later create the TV show "America’s Most Wanted"). Combined with the conservative turn in crime and punishment law brought on by the Reagan administration, horror appeared to turn from the supernatural curses of the decade before ("The Exorcist," "The Omen") to a homegrown product of our own sins. Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger are psychotic loons but also human beings who come not from afar but from down the street. The possibility that one of them could be lurking just beyond the sliding back door of a sleepover birthday seems too darkly delicious to pass up, a fictional killer standing in for a warning your parents and society gave you about “stranger danger,” real-life evil lurking in the dark." (source)

Isolated settings, while can be a setting in slashers are more often found in psychological horror films: The Strangers (2008), When A Stranger Calls (1979, 2006), Hush (2016). Also the Evil Dead (1981, 1987, 2013).

[The latter has it's own interesting history of wanting to be psychological body horror, to horror comedy cult classic, back to psychological body horror. Honestly if any franchise has influenced the "horror set in a cabin in the woods" it's Evil Dead, which is paid major homage to in Cabin in the Woods (2011).]

Sooooo is DFF a slasher?

Hm, for me, yes and no. Slashers require a high body count and pretty gory deaths. So far we've only had 3 deaths, only two of which were even committed by the killer themselves and not even by their own hand (ie directly).

For me, the slasher elements of DFF exist in the directorial styling of the film, meant invoke a classic slasher film but that's not where the true horror of the story exists.

I'm a big slasher fan, so I'm not trying to discount the sub-genre at all, lots of slasher films are good, and when done well, they're truly scary. But they also tend to be straight forward in design, the fear comes from the feature of being stalked by an unseeable and unstoppable force infiltrating what should be a safe space (your home, your school, your neighborhood, your camp grounds etc).

Which is why slasher films are also the most common horror sub-genre to be parodied (Scary Movie franchise) or made into horror comedies like Freaky (2020), The Final Girls (2015), Happy Death Day (2017), and Totally Killer (2023).

[sidenote slashers have this in common with the zombie sub-genre of horror as zombie films in America have also tended in recent years to be horror comedies or horror action like: Little Monsters (2019), Cooties (2014), Zombieland (2009), Pride Prejudice and Zombies (2016)]

I'd argue that DFF is much more in line with psychological horror than slasher horror. Because it is anything but straightforward and also has a strong emphasis on relationships and isolation as does most psychological horror.

Films like: It Comes At Night (2017), Us (2019), Perfect Blue (1997), A Tale of Two Sisters (2004), The Forgotten (2017), Dark Water (2002) all have similar elements in terms of tone as DFF.

The isolated setting, the allure of the mundane normality being a veneer for the violence lurking beneath the surface, the existence of the paranormal, the use of drugs to increase fear, the unsettling paranoia, and slow burn crawl towards all the characters being unteathered from themselves, the growing distrust between them and their loved ones, the plot twists and turns, the emphasis on human relationships and the horror that comes from those.

The backstory with Non is what pushed the show past slasher horror to psychological horror for me. Because Non's "downfall" as it were, feels more akin to the slow burn psych horror rooted in a lot of Japanese, Thai films/tv shows, and modern A24 style horror films.

The horror of Midsommar (2019) doesn't come from jump scares, or violence, but in slowly watching the protagonist grow more and more unteathered, mistreated, gaslit, more and more with each passing moment, slowly inducted into a horrific cult and being able to do nothing to stop her descent.

A big influence I saw in DFF was Girl from Nowhere (2018); the school setting, the crimes committed by a group of students against a singular student, class exploration, structural violence, the exploration of retribution are all topics explored in the first season of Girl from Nowhere.

Even the series trailer for GFN and the pre-release trailer for DFF are similar in production design and tone:

Titled "BFF" the two-part finale from season 01, is about a high school reunion, where a group of now established adults come back together for a party (their reunion) only to be confronted by their past via Nanno (the shows protagonist for lack of a better term).

Through Nanno we learn about the chars past misdeeds in high school - bullying, physical assault, stealing, the works - and their current crimes as adults. As more and more layers of the truth, lies, and betrayal are revealed, the friend group begins to crack, fracture and turn against each other, growing more and more paranoid and angry.

Nanno tells the group that they've also all been drugged with poison and there's only one vial of antidote left, the "friends" all horrifically murder each other in order to get the antidote. In the end, no one survives. EXCEPT, it was all a mass hallucinate and the group wakes up, remembering everything, and quietly leave one-by-one. No longer friends, no longer not-friends, everyone forever changed by the experience.

It's an unsettling ending that leaves things open ended. This group of friends were responsible for the bullying and death of Nanno (she's fine she's like immortal or something I'm pretty sure GFN was partially influenced by Tomie by Junji Ito) and they simply refused to acknowledge what they did to her, nor talk about her, eventually forgetting she existed until forced too through a traumatic retribution by Nanno herself.

[Nanno from Girl from Nowhere, Tomie from Junji Ito's Tomie series]

DFF has a lot in common, from my perspective, with GFN in terms of tone, themes and even parts of it's story.

Nanno isn't doling out "justice" she doles out retributions, punishments, sometimes they're outright torturous. Whether the recipients "deserve" these punishments or not, is really up to the viewer. The show does a good job of showcasing a wide variety of characters who are unrepentant, sympathetic, and somewhere in between. The fears it plays upon are more slow burn, it boils the characters rather than setting them on fire like slashers do.

DFF is similar in this aspect, it boils the characters. Watching Non's story, you already know at the start it's nothing good. We know from the first flashback something bad has happened to Non, but it's not really something, it's many things - so many things - that have led to whatever tragedy the main group must pay for.

It's these compounding factors one after another that brings Non to a boil, and the same thing happens with Tan/New. The horror of DFF is more about getting under the skin, causing the characters discomfort by forcing them to confront the sins they've committed (is there anything more horrific than being seen? Especially if you ugly?).

I mentioned Junji Ito in reference to Girl from Nowhere, to say Ito has been influential on horror feels like an understatement. His series Tomie has been adapted into 7 different Japanese films, he's won 3 Eisner awards (the highest award you can win in America for comics publishing), along with a slew of awards in Japan, his series Uzumaki has been referenced in super popular anime like Jujustu Kaisen.

A big factor of Ito's work is body horror and psychological horror. His work unsettles, and is very visceral. Since Uzumaki was referenced in DFF I think rather than being influenced by specifically Uzumaki (which DFF doesn't have much in common with in regards to general story) I'd argue the show is more influenced by Ito's desire to unsettle.

[from Uzumaki], 1998]

Also potentially to take symbols of piety, faith and protection (the temple, the cross at the chars high school) and turn them into places of horror for the characters.

Like Ito did with the spiral motifs in Uzumaki, said Ito in an interview:

"The "spiral pattern" is not normally associated with horror fiction. Usually spiral patterns mark character’s cheeks in Japanese comedy cartoons, representing an effect of warmth. However, I thought it could be used in horror if I drew it a different way." (source)

[I am also begging y'all to check out Junji Ito's book Cat Diary it's hilarious, even more so b/c his style of art is so rooted in horror]

I think DFF is actually very Thai in it's exploration of what's unsettling and horrific to youth culture in Thailand currently. The feeling of haplessness, judgement, an inability to exert control over one's circumstances, mental health, consent, bullying, these were themes and topics explored in both seasons of GFN but also some of these were explored in The Whole Truth (2021) a Thai horror/mystery film.

There's a scene in The Whole Truth in which one of the protagonists school friends secretly films their younger sister getting undressed without her knowledge, and when caught, the classmate threatens to release the clip publicly and claim the sister is "a slut". One of the protagonists is also bullied at school - including by this disgusting classmate who they still consider "a friend" - but puts up with it in order to be in a friend group at all (this bullied char also has a physical disability which contributes to their mistreatment at school).

I think DFF is exploring a lot of these same topics but most of the characters are just gay this time around.

Okay I'm losing steam here a bit, this has gotten very long, but overall I'd argue that DFF is much more psychological horror than a slasher, in terms of it's tone, and story. Whilst invoking slasher imagery in it's directorial style.

That said it's much more in line with Thai and Japanese horror than American horror in regards to it's themes. If the series was going to be boiled down just to the basics, I'd quantify it as psychological horror mystery.

And those are my thoughts on DFF and horror, I guess lol I'm not 100% satisfied with this but god damn I'm tired this took forever lmao if y'all made it this far, bless and stay safe out there cause the ship wars are wildin out in these parts.

Check out other posts in the series:

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition | Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI | Is BL Being Overly Influenced by Modern Western Romance Tropes? | Trends in BL (Sorta): Genre Trends

[like these posts? drop me a couple pennies on ko-fi]