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variousqueerthings · 11 months ago

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Okay, well, what would you prefer then? The Dustmen?

Sleep No More! this season's dedicated spooky episode. I feel like I ought to have vibed more with this one than I did and I dunno why it didn't work with me that well. maybe I powered through s9 too quickly (EDIT: I have now analysed why it didn't work so well for me, ey!)

also: is this the first out trans actor we've had on this show? definitely some things to say about that

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 10/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 4/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 6/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 3/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 3/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 9/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 6/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 10/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 6/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 4/10

FULL RATING: 61/100 (if I can count….)

ok ok let's get into it!

OBJECTIFICATION: see, cured!

PLOT-POINT: I mean, it's a standalone episode that doesn't do much beyond the episode itself, so it doesn't really need to give Clara much development. still, I think in a season in which Clara doesn't have many emotional beats, considering what's coming up in the very next episode... I'd have liked something perhaps

COMPLEXITY: it's complexity lies in its structure and I am nooot convinced by it. there's nothing wrong as such with found footage, but it feels gimmicky very fast, and I think there should have been more done with the fact that the dust was "watching" them

the fact that it's basically the beats of a low-budget horror should have meant I vibed with it more, but I think because in the end a lot of it is just running from place to place while going "whaat is even happening here" makes it feel a bit thin

also the ending is probably an "either you like it or you don't" type ending, so I have nothing against it as such. I think the single-episode characters were thinner than a lot of the other ones we've seen throughout the years, which is kind of a shame, because there is some interesting Stuff to dig into with the wider world they inhabit (which we'll get to) but these are all -- with the exception of Nagata I think -- relatively threadbare. this might also be a feeling arising from the other episodes being two-parters, so we got more time with the "under the lake" gang idk. but maybe actually that's why I'm judging it a bit harsher -- this is a concept I've seen before a few times, done better

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: nothing much here either, although there is a delightful little exchange between Clara and the Doctor right at the beginning that goes like this --

CLARA: Looks like a Japanese restaurant. Oh! Have you brought me to a space restaurant? DOCTOR: People never do that, you know? CLARA: Do what? DOCTOR: They never put the word space in front of something just because everything's all sort of hi-tech and future-y. It's never space restaurant or space champagne or space, you know, hat. It's just restaurant, champagne or hat. Even if this was a restaurant. CLARA: What about spacesuit? DOCTOR: Pedant.

I just think that gives me more on them as characters than often exists in their episodes together, which often feel like they go so fast and are so specific to Plot things, that I've often struggled to engage with their dynamic as ostensibly good friends. this was actually something I highlighted in "the girl who died" which was the way everything with them was constantly framed around danger and high stakes and how that takes me out of understanding what draws Clara to travelling, and this is a little counterpoint to that

COMPANIONS MATTER: ehhhh not really from my memory. she's there.

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: the Doctor just fully runs around like a headless chicken in this one. no that's not fair, he solves most of the puzzle. crucially not the really important piece at the end though, but I'd assume that happened offscreen, as the implications of that ending have never been brought up again on this show to my knowledge

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: couple of tiny references. actually it's more of a big send-up to league of gentlemen, considering Gatiss wrote it and Shearsmith plays the main bad guy

“SEXINESS”: again, cured!

INTERNAL WORLD: I think if this had had more world-building and less attempts at being a PG horror movie it might have been more horrifying actually, because the implications are already horrifying enough. but yeah, this, because of the characters, is quite a thinly built world, made all the more noticeable because the ideas within it are kind of compelling as heck and I do want to know more!

POLITICS: there's a couple of things in this, the first and more intentional of which is it brings up some good horrific capitalist world-building, and I wiiish whatever the story was was actually more about that. I mean, actually there's a really good TV concept on its own in it, that this episode didn't have the time or focus or ability to tell, because it's Doctor Who, we're not spending a season dwelling on the implications of functionally removing sleep from people, but ooooh I'd be interested in a story that did!

the other thing is that this has the somewhat dubious honour of featuring the first ever out trans actor in a lead role, played by Bethany Black, and... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I mean. I mean. she's a vat-grown grunt referred to with "it" pronouns (and not, I get the sense, because of personal choice, if personal choice came into this in the first place), who "cannot speak properly" because these "grunts" are frequently not... bred well enough? there's a loooot of episodes on Doctor Who that are about personhood and respecting that, and this... is not one of those episodes. 474 is never a focus of the Doctor in this episode, and in fact relatively early on both (she?) and this cis guy who frequently insults her the most (whom she is in love with???) are separated from the others. she then sacrifices herself for this guy, but it doesn't really matter because he's killed anyway shortly afterwards

it's just kinda messy and badly thought-out, but Bethany Black is great, and we know it's going to get better at some point. I want to make a point though as well that Bethany is fat and was in her 30s during this episode I think, and her character is presented in a relatively genderless way and smeared with camouflage paint or oil or smthin (and again, referred to with "it" pronouns), so I don't think a lot of people casually watching would have noticed that this character was a woman (if indeed, the episode understood that), in the sense that obviously trans people should get to play everyone and not "just" have to be prettified in order to be allowed onscreen, but it's a shame we couldn't see a fat trans woman being respected as a woman in this story, or youknow... get to assert her personhood, considering this is Doctor Who, and I hope that the wonderful onscreen transness we're getting will not be equated with thinness and youth exclusively in the future

but like, they could fully bring Bethany Black back as another character and I don't think people would recognise her as having been on the show before, so... do it cowards. you did it with fuckn Capaldi and Gillan and Cribbins and and and...

FULL RATING: 61/100 (if I can count….)

so I did actually check what the feedback to this episode was, and apparently at the time it was the lowest rated episode apart from Love & Monsters, which if anyone has been on this blog for a bit, you know I'm so into that episode. and I think that's worthy of a little comparison, because the thing about Love & Monsters is that while it is a bit gimmicky in format and to the left of a traditional episode, it does all of this in service to something. it's about specific people who exist in the sphere of the Doctor's influence, and that in turn explores a tertiary character (Jackie) who herself occupies a difficult space in this universe. it is, fundamentally, a very very human, softly tragic tale that builds up ideas that we'll return to many times over the course of the show

this episode does not have that. it's characters aren't very fleshed out, its world-building is shallow, and its purpose as the episode before a Very Important Episode seems to be to just. be there. and I think that's its fundamental weakness. if this were in another season, and given some tightening here and there to give it some kind of focus (my preference would be on giving some emotional insights on the Doctor and whoever the Companion is and/or making this very much about the single-episode characters For A Purpose, with the Doctor and Companion taking a backseat) I would have liked it better

as it is I don't dislike it, it's just oddly situated and relatively forgettable to me. Bethany Black should come back though

#im watching nu!who #im watching capaldi who #episode sleep no more #the measurement

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courtofmatchups · 1 year ago

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hi! i've sent this to a couple other of my favorite COD writers, but it's a psycho-analysis thing on guy that i wanted to share as im curious about other's thoughts. i should mention that i am a psych student with a special interest in male psychological trauma and "toxic masculinity" (put in quotes because idk the scientific term for it Imao)

warnings for slight spoilers, i don't believe there's much of anything too triggering, just some mention of sexism in avari, and parental/generational trauma, but nothing too detailed.

(and j*sper jumpscare at the end but it's just slander)

this also isn’t at all and excuse for abuse or anything of the sort, and that’s not what i specialize in either; it’s more like a deeper analysis of internalized sexism, now if guy did anything on the level of j*sper or got physical or anything, i would not be writing this.

so, guy starts off very controlling (literally using mind control), but when you play his route + events (specifically the ones where he goes to avari) a much deeper story unfolds.

it is my understanding that avari has very different thoughts on women, and we even see guy tell MC that his father told him all women are cruel and only want power. i believe guy has been told all his life negative things about women, and that all he has seen was his father marry for power after his mother passed. we also see in a route that guy was much more open when his mom was alive, but closed his heart to everyone when she was killed. it is also seen that guy assumed his mother was murdered by other women. so, Guy has been told all his life these things about women, ever since he was a child, and never had the chance to see any differently as he never opened up to another woman until MC.

now this is where the beauty comes in. after a while, guy begins to truly love MC for herself and not just her power, and even tells her what he was told about women and says she changed that. guy was able to swallow his ego and be emotionally open to MC and begin to see her as an individual and not just a vessel for power. guy defends her to her father and tells him off saying that he truly loves her and no other, and it is not just because of her power, and that she will make a fine queen. we see him praise her throughout his stories and events, and through his thoughts we see he is truly a changed man who has changed his outlook on women through his love for MC.

although he is not yet open to fully sharing his thoughts quite yet, we see that he is actively working on himself for MC.

we also see a boyish side come out of him during these emotional moments, that i believe to be trauma regression and suppressed feelings that he has had to endure due to the excessively violent and aggressive nature of avari. i truly think guy's initial act towards MC is due to trauma and abuse he suffered in avari, and he only begun realizing he was lied to and was wrong about women through his relationship with MC. guy is actually my favorite character because of this, and i think it's truly a beautifully complex story that the creators made.

also, i love how his toxic masculinity was turned around and how it tells the story that growing up in such a toxic environment can truly damage a man.

thank you for reading my long ass ramble about a fictional character in a mobile game that i am utterly obsessed with.

Thanks for confirming that this man DESPERATELY NEEDS THERAPY

Real talk, tho. I am not a psychology major (psychology is more of a special interest of mine, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Or a kilogram. idk), but I can say that all of your points are valid. Growing up in a toxic environment will mess someone up, especially as a child. Bro basically grew up indoctrinated by the Saligian version of Andrew Tate's pHILosOPhY (for lack of a better term) and seeing that view on women unfold his eyes over and over again probably gave him a lot of trust issues too.

I do kind of appreciate that, despite him being very rough around the edges, his character was still ultimately salvageable. I just kind of wish we had the chance to explore his backstory more in his own consort path tho, cuz I feel that bit was a bit rushed. Or maybe it wasn't and I'm remembering wrong? Feel free to correct me on this. It's been a hot minute since I read his consort path

I still don't really like Guy, at least not as a consort, but I do appreciate his character growth, and you really hit the nail on the head

#court of darkness #otome #guy avari #not my usual stuff #i do like this character analysis of guy tho #maybe me appreciating his character development is also my character development #ithseem writes #court of darkness x reader #makai nightmare #court of matchups #man'z has trust issues and daddy issues up the wazoo

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dyke-bars-never-last · 9 months ago

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Lesbian Love & Relationships with Leaf and Firewalker | Women's Liberation Radio News Edition 94, commentary by Sekhmet SheOwl:

Lesbians arrive to romantic relationships whether they are life-long never-het lesbians or ex-het late-blooming lesbians, but the baggage of their individual childhood and young adulthood experiences, the effects of misogyny and sexism they've weathered as women and life-long exposure to anti-lesbian sentiment within their society and culture, that's a hell of a lot to unpack and heal. And just like any heterosexual, bisexual or asexual woman, if you don't do the healing, you're probably not going to create the experience you really want of romantic love. Lesbian romantic relationships aren't perfect, of course, but their potential to approach an ideal romantic experience are incredibly high, assuming the women involved have worked on themselves as individuals enough that they don't unintentionally sabotage their connection.

It's become cliched online, especially among women, but it's nevertheless true, self-love has to be your priority. Self-love is the foundation of the best most successful romantic relationships regardless of your sexuality and it's also the basis of a high-quality satisfying life. What does self-love even mean though? I've learned that it means taking care of yourself as your top priority, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. That's why healing the wounds of your youth, your past traumas and losses is an act of self-love, perhaps the most important act of self-love. It is these previous experiences that fuel our core beliefs about ourselves, other people, love and romance and life. I think it's safe to say that most if all women reach adulthood with deep-seeded feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, low self-esteem and self-hate. Growing up a girl in a woman-hating world will do that to you. Being raised by a mother who doesn't love herself will do it too.

Lesbians who grew up aware of their lesbianism, the ones who knew from early girlhood and came out in adolescence or even earlier, are likelier than their late-blooming counterparts to arrive at womanhood, having experienced anti-lesbian prejudges, abuse, rejection from family and friends, and a deep sense of social isolation, all of which leave lasting emotional and psychological marks.

Late-blooming ex-het lesbians have a more obvious history of internalizing anti-lesbianism and that doesn't just disappear over night once they come out.

All of this, the poor self-image, sexism, hetero-sexism etc. inevitably affects the way a woman shows up in romantic relationships, how she approaches them and the treatment she accepts from her partners. It's easy to brush off experiences we had as girls or young adults, dismiss them as ancient history and irrelevant to our present lives, especially if we don't spend much time remembering the distant past and emotionally reacting to it. But so much of our beliefs and emotions are unconscious, it's amazing how unaware of your own feelings you can be. These buried, unresolved emotions and the distractive beliefs they perpetuate in the psyche, are why so many lesbians struggle with chronic illness, mental illness, substance abuse and general unhappiness. It's also why some lesbians have a hard time finding and maintaining happy romantic relationships.

Time alone doesn't fix anything. Only doing the work will heal and change you. Healing in personal development work take many different forms and you probably need to use more than one method. The right kind of therapy, self-help books, mindset work, grief work, life-coaching and spirituality are all key tools we have at our disposal. Feminist controversy around therapy aside, I urge lesbians to do whatever it takes to process and heal from their girlhood trauma, their young adult trauma, their repressed feelings and their negative opinions of themselves. The younger you do so, the better, but it doesn't matter how old you are. It's never too late to do the work and it is always worth doing. Regulate your nervous system, examine your beliefs, identify the ones that harm you and do whatever it takes to replace them.

If you've been listening to this podcast or if you've been into radical feminism for a while, you should know by now that one way patriarchy prevents women from fighting for ourselves and seizing power is keeping us disconnected form each other. Lesbian relationships are the ultimate union between women, the ultimate challenge to hetero-patriarchy on the social level. So it's important for lesbians to succeed at their romantic relationships, politically, not just for their own happiness. That doesn't mean lesbians should feel pressure to make their romantic partnership work for the sake of feminism. The point is, there is political reward for straight men in the failure of lesbian relationships. At the very least, it's a rhetorical bar[?] that they can weaponize against lesbian relationships. Men do it all the time online, attempting to convince women that same-sex partnerships between women are even less likely than heterosexual marriages to deliver lasting happiness.

While being a good partner and creating a successful romantic relationship is up to individual lesbian, because her personal development and healing are her responsibility, the only reason she has healing to do in the first place is patriarchy. Internalized misogyny, mother wounds, internalized hetero-sexism, limiting beliefs about love and oneself as a woman, PTSD, and depression and anxiety, all of that comes from hetero-patriarchy. The system makes it as hard as possible, not only for lesbians to be themselves, but to love each other successfully. Damaged self-hating women can't pull off long-lasting happy stable partnerships. They don't have the standard they should have in romantic relationships, which is why opposite-sex attracted women tolerate what they tolerate from men. So many women don't even feel worthy of consistent love, commitment and excellent treatment, that's how hurt they've been as girls.

I want lesbians to have the superior romantic love and commitments they deserve. But even more than that, I want them to have the most self-confidence, the most self-esteem and the most self-love of all women. Luckily, taking care of the latter guarantees the former. If you're a single lesbian, good, now is the time to work on yourself, no matter how hard and even painful healing yourself might be. I guarantee it's the only way to get the best of what life and romance have to offer and it's so much easier to do the work when you're single. If you are a coupled lesbian who hasn't yet healed and resolved the past or established a rock-solid loving relationship with yourself, you, your partner and your relationship can only benefit from you taking care of yourself. Don't put off another year.

I wish all lesbians in the world the romantic love you desire and the joy of loving, adoring and caring for yourself.

Happy Valentine's Day to all the lesbians listening and best of luck making 2024 the year that you show yourself love!

#lesbian #radfem #radical feminism #WLRN #lesbian podcast #relationship advice

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daisychainsandbowties · 2 years ago

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I've been thinking of a Warrior Nun Temeraire AU too!

It would fit easily because we could just give them all Longwings! But! At the same time! I also want them to have different dragons so maybe it's set maybe a few decades or more after the events of the Temeraire series and make it so that women are allowed to bond with other types of dragons too. And the other option is they are all part of a crew of one dragon captained by Shannon. In any case, Mother Superion is Admiral Superion.

And obvs Ava would bond with a hatchling ala Laurence-Temeraire. A very important hatchling that was meant for Lilith. And maybe the hatchling could have been laid by Shannon's dragon?

Now, that's the happier premise. The unhappier premise is Shannon died and her dragon, called Halo, is left so heartbroken and didn't want to bond with anybody else until Ava comes along.

My thoughts on Ava is that she starts working for the OCS as supposedly just part of the ground-based crew. She would really love to fly on a dragon but she can't because she can't walk! She's on a wheelchair. But then the very important dragon chooses her and will not agree to anyone else. And, once the rest have reconciled themselves to the fact that Ava will be the new dragon's captain, they (Jillian) construct mobility aids to make it easier for Ava to ride her dragon.

Oh, Bea would be one of the youngest dragon captains. She will def have a Longwing, I think (WDYT?). She rose through the ranks quickly because she's Bea, and maybe she got the dragon shortly before Ava came into the picture. Although OMG, what if she gets one of the Chinese dragons? Doesn't even have to be a Celestial. Maybe an Imperial?

Maybe they don't even have to be part of a British force as well, they could be like... international agents keeping peace around the world... if this AU is set after Laurence's time. So that way, they could be bonded to different dragons from all over the world. Okay, I am excited about this idea. Shannon could have an American dragon! Mary can be her lieutenant or whatever. Bea has an Imperial, or maybe even one of Temeraire's "kids" (which means she's from Britain with a Chinese-descent dragon) and Temeraire was like, I only want my kid to go to this one, I like her, she reminds me of Laurence (ya know, all rule-following and stiff and all that.)

Anyway, I will stop because I'm getting incoherent.

Interested to hear your ideas! 😁

YES! so thrilled that someone else in the fandom knows these books

i really like the idea of all the girls having different dragons & being in one formation, because having more than two longwings working in close proximity wouldn’t work. either setting it after the events of temeraire or hand-waving the sexism thing due to intense need for dragon riders (or making a weird nun splinter-corps? could there be demon dragons!!!??)

i was thinking that ava would get some kind of firebreather. probably a Kazilik let’s be honest. Iskierka energy would suit ava so well. & i think shannon had one too called Halo for sure!! & they were lost recently - picture mary washing up with shannon’s body cradled in her arms - but left an egg behind, on the cusp of hatching.

naturally lilith is next-in-line. comes from a long line of dragon-handlers, worked on shannon’s crew but was injured the night that her dragon went down over the channel. my thought is that after ava’s dragon rejects lilith she has a whole semi-granby thing with ava but they foil an attack on one of the hatcheries and she rescues a longwing egg, though it’s damaged, and she almost dies doing it. the dragon hatches & immediately latches onto lilith. just!! lil should have the biggest wings.

bea YES definitely has an imperial (or celestial) and she is extremely young for a dragon-handler, sent as part of a diplomatic exchange (ostensibly, but really her parents don’t want her after she almost destroys their reputation). she’s got this streak of recklessness, but she has a gorgeous silver and black dragon (names are going to be so interesting to come up with!) who is also still very young. probably max a year. there’s little cosmetic difference between celestials and imperials but i really think bea deserves a celestial because she should get to shout stuff to pieces. (omg with the idea of her dragon being tem’s baby. & tem like… that’s a good kid right there i can tell. ofc being mad when bea is sent away but also… go see the world. adore that concept.)

cam either rides a midweight or a courier dragon (or just a tactical lightweight like maybe the spanish Felcha-del-Fuego?) but also her having a little Levi and being actually adorable with him & looking slick as fuck in her high-altitude leathers. would also be cool. think of her flying dispatches out to the blockade where the formation is stationed & idk maybe her & lilith being…. ahem.

onto ava! yes, for sure she’s in a wheelchair, but with carbiners and the dragon harness she’s perfectly capable of being on a dragon-crew. she has mobility in her upper body, & has always loved dragons. because flying and freedom. i think her dream is to get a courier dragon or just to be on a crew fighting, & her parents were both dragon-handlers who died & left her behind, so the corps kind of adopt her. but when shan’s dragon goes down, she goes to watch Halo’s offspring hatch, to see lilith claim her birthright, but the dragon doesn’t want lil & goes to ava instead.

i really like the idea that they’re international agents. demon dragons have kind of taken over my brain, b/c why not bring in a bit of the wn lore? mary is shan’s lieutenant, but becomes ava’s when she imprints with the baby Kazilik. bea is initially sceptical, & lilith is MAD, & basically nobody thinks that ava will be able to be a dragon-handler, but the Kazilik is so valuable they can’t afford to just… let it go feral, so they have to let ava try. so yes! with the way the harness is set up it’s supposed to be navigable, and rigging up something that benefits ava specifically is doable.

the potency of a longwing, a celestial, and TWO fire-breathers, plus like the urge to give mary a regal copper, so they have one mega heavyweight in there. & bea being cold and afraid to get close to this literal firebrand of a girl gradually thawing. their dragons hanging out. bea and ava discussing formations and coming up (re: tem) with new way of doing things, clever strategies, espeically since maybe demon dragons are trickier/really big/really dangerous. getting closer and closer like in switzerland but some incredibly dangerous coalition of demons dragons showing up & ava wanting to spare bea and spare her own dragon and the drama! (don’t think of the vibe with ava and bea being kind of like the laurence/granby initial vibe. bea disapproving because ava rides recklessly and with abandon and these dragons are people to her & the brits are Not Great about it but then she sees how much ava cares and has her little ‘oh’ moment)

okay wow thank you for immediately jumping onto this (dragon?) with me. i am bouncing up & down with excitement!!

#ily so much for humouring me on this #i am going fully insane about it #pls tell me what u think etc etc.#dragon au #omg bea and ava r gonna be so cute and gay and have DRAGONS wowowow #warrior nun

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brightbeautifulthings · 2 years ago

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A Curse of Roses by Diana Pinguicha

"'I was raised on the Bible, too, Yzabel. It's just something else written by men as well. Like history. Like my own story.'"

Year Read: 2022

Rating: 2/5

About: Princess Yzabel, poised to be the next Queen of Portugal, is hiding a curse from her fiancé and her people. With a famine plaguing the land, her touch turns food into flowers. She's been starving for years, unable to finish a meal before food turns to petals and thorns in her mouth. Desperate for a solution, she seeks out an Enchanted Moura to help her control her curse and possibly reverse it, but Fatyan has been trapped in stone for decades. A kiss will free her, but the more time Yzabel spends with her, the more certain she is that one kiss could never be enough. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Entangled Publishing. Trigger warnings: character death, strong religious themes, religious self-harm, magically-induced starvation, much discussion of food/eating, homophobia (internalized and external), fire, self-loathing, guilt, sexism, womanizing, infidelity.

Thoughts: I don't know what ever possessed me to request a historical fantasy novel with strong religious themes, but every one of those things makes this emphatically not the book for me. As interesting as I found Yzabel's curse in turning food to flowers and vice versa, and as much as I'm here for the wlw representation, it was constantly overshadowed by the very Christian mythos running through it. To some extent, it's clear Pinguicha is trying to work through some of the damaging effects of that worldview, but it doesn't successfully manage to overturn some of them--at least from the perspective of someone who wasn't raised in it and has a natural suspicion of organized religion. There are a couple of lines about how menstrual blood is impure and menstrual pain is god's will that made me just about feral, and some icky justification about how it's okay for men to sleep around but not women.

As much as the novel tries to make Yzabel a character, she's less a person than the concept of abnegation personified, and there’s some glorification of suffering/self-harm that doesn’t sit well with me. She's generous to the point of starving herself, both literally and figuratively, and self-sacrifice is a concept I struggle with in female characters. There are attempts by other characters to get her to take care of herself, but since they're praising her selflessness as the thing that makes her Such A Good Person in the same breath, it comes over rather disingenuous. I enjoyed her complicated romance with Fatyan probably more than any other aspect of the book, although it's rather dramatic in the way of teen love.

Given how much I struggled with everything else, I found the plot to be slow-moving, but that might be a reflection of my lack of enjoyment more than the story itself. I never found the villain that compelling or frightening; the real villain of the novel is the religious institution intent on crushing out anything that doesn't fit its narrow worldview. Regardless, I hovered around three stars until the ending. The plot resolution hinges on women forgiving their abusers, which is frankly pretty gross. All that being said, there are some important things A Curse of Roses is wrestling with. While I'm not the audience for it, I hope it finds its way into the hands of the readers who need a story like this.

#book review #a curse of roses #diana pinguicha #ya historical fiction #entangled publishing #netgalley #historical fantasy #ya fantasy #2/5 #rating: 2/5 #2022

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theresthesnitch · 3 years ago

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Shout out to all of my non-POC, non-marginalized friends. (If you’re not sure if this applies to you, then it does.) There’s something that needs to be said.

Let’s talk about responding to being called out on your privilege

I know that this is an uncomfortable thing to do. It is. It sucks to be confronted with your own potentially problematic behavior and to have to answer for it. However, the way you respond matters.

A note before I begin: I refer to non-privileged position here as either POC, minority, or marginalized individuals. This isn’t meant to limit this to those groups, but to any individual in a less privileged position. I’m also trying to generalize problematic behavior, but please know this applies to racism, antisemitism, sexism, colorism, etc, etc. I apologize for the insufficiency of my words.

Let’s talk about what this post is not, first.

This is not a list of things that are or are not offensive (if such a list is possible, I wouldn’t dare to assume that I could make it). This is not a call out to specific people. (However, if you feel called out by this, then it probably is for you.)

I also wouldn’t presume to tell POC and marginalized individuals how they should respond. I’m also not an expert by ANY means, just a person who has observed some of the responses and how they went wrong. I’m absolutely open to corrections or discussion on this, within reason.

How do you respond to accusations?

1. Let your first reaction be silent.

The problem is that our society was built and created on problematic ideals, and those things are taught to us from the time we are little. That first gut reaction is your internalized bullshit. That anger that you feel at being called out is normal, but it should not be how you respond. Let that happen in the silence of your home, and not online.

2. Do not focus on the language used, but the intent of the message.

This is hard, I know. The thing is you can’t tone police this kind of thing. Marginalized individuals are approaching a situation with a whole history of privileged people lashing out to minorities. There’s also a power to be found in naming the hate against you. So if someone calls you or something you did privileged, racist, sexist, antisemitic, etc., even if it is in a tone of anger, you do not get to tell the speaker that they are wrong for their reaction. If you think it’s uncomfortable for you, please consider it a small insight into what marginalized individuals have dealt with their whole life.

3. Accept that you may have said something problematic, even if you didn’t mean it.

Here’s a confession: I’m a little bit racist. It’s internalized racism that is so engrained that I don’t even realize it’s happening. I never intentionally do it, but it’s that engrained reaction that I haven’t managed to completely erase. I work every day to confront these ingrained biases and to counteract them. (Now reread that and replace racism with other forms of privileged bias). So here’s my point: It’s completely possible that I could post something without realizing it’s problematic. If someone points it out, I try to acknowledge that instead of immediately fighting back. I’m not perfect, but I try to remember not to let my initial reaction be the one I act on (see point 1).

4. Take time to reflect.

This is the part that’s the hardest. You have to actually look at what you’ve done that has been pointed out as offensive. Reflect on it, especially if you’re not sure why it is offensive. It’s important to confront our biases and try to do better. I’m not saying you have to delete your work or stop writing, but you need to address why it could be problematic. But do some research. Acknowledge what you’re being told. Consider what an appropriate reaction should be. Take the time to educate yourself.

5. Apologize.

Even if you don’t agree. Even if you didn’t mean to do it. Even if it wasn’t intentional. Even if there are other people from the same marginalized community who don’t agree it was problematic. Because the thing is… no person is a monolith for their community. We all have different experiences, and just because something harms one member of a community does not mean it does not hurt other community members. You should still apologize. You see, I have a toddler, and right now, we are working on “you have to apologize when you hurt someone, even if it was an accident.” I think some people here could use that message too.

#thoughts from snitch

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hamliet · 2 years ago

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Oscar and Ruby: The Hero and Heroine’s Journeys

I’ve written about the Hero/Heroine’s Journeys before for Tales of Arcadia’s Jim and Aja. Now, it’s time to look at these structures as they apply to RWBY. Note: this isn’t inherently shippy, but Ruby and Oscar’s respective arcs are classic examples of the Heroine and Hero’s Journeys, respectively, and this is probably being deliberately done.

The hero/heroine’s journeys are structures in storytelling. The hero’s journey was first identified by Joseph Campbell in his The Hero With a Thousand Faces, a well-known work in literary criticism, and was further expounded upon by Northrop Frye (another well-known literary critic). Both Campbell and Frye drew from Jung and therefore from alchemy, but stories that follow the hero/heroine’s journey are not inherently alchemical. A famous example of the Hero’s Journey is Star Wars (original trilogy) which doesn’t really reference alchemy deliberately, though some allusions and structural similarities can be found. The steps of the Hero’s Journey don’t always occur in the exact order described, but there’s a general blueprint.

The Heroine’s Journey came about a bit later than the Hero’s Journey, at least in recognition. It was first outlined by Maureen Murdock, and is in general much more internal than the Hero’s. In reality, of course, the Heroine’s Journey, much like the Hero’s, is not so much someone putting together a design and declaring it a structure so much as it is a recognition of already present, common patterns in literature/storytelling. The steps also can overlap, so keep that in mind as we chart them out!

Also, as a side note: the gender binary is sexist, yes, and that’s gonna continue for this post because both journeys reference “masculinity” and “femininity,” but let’s ignore it as a literal take and instead consider it as 1) a dated product of the time period in which it was written, that is not entirely separate from current times either, and 2) sadly, traditional, western ideas about what constitutes these concepts. Please don’t think I’m actually speaking for what hero/heroines should be, nor that I subscribe to the concepts of traditional gender roles, and nor that the writers do either. Again, this is just recognizing a pattern, not offering a moral treatise on it.

Ruby Rose: The Heroine’s Journey

Separation from the Feminine

This step is often portrayed through the death of the mother. Ever wonder why there are so many dead moms in fairy tales and other fiction involving heroines? Yes, sexism, but also it plays into this trope. Ruby lost Summer Rose very early on in her childhood. There’s also a ton of buildup regarding losing Summer, and Summer’s role in the story, that we have to deal with. Suffice to say, losing her mom is set up as a distinct issue Ruby will have to deal with.

Identification with the Masculine/Gathering of Allies

Ruby was then raised by her father and to an extent by Qrow. She’s even picked for Beacon by Ozpin, another man, who places her as a team leader. The reason she’s chosen is because she’s a good fighter and active rather than passive—both traditionally masculine traits.

Of course, at Beacon Ruby gathers allies: Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Nora, Ren, Pyrrha, even others like Sun, Neptune, Penny, and Emerald. All these relationships help shape whom Ruby is.

Road of Trials/Meeting Dragons

Do I even need to state how this applies to Ruby? It’s kinda the whole plot. She’s been facing trial after trial, and believes that no matter what, she must press on:

You told me once that bad things just happen. You were angry when you said it, and I didn't want to listen. But you were right. Bad things do happen, all the time, every day. Which is why I'm out here, to do whatever I can, wherever I can, and hopefully do some good.

Boon of Success:

Haven, when Teams RWBY and JNOR defeat Cinder and the others. They enter Atlas on good terms: they win Cordova over eventually, and even achieve Ruby’s initial goal: getting their hunter’s license. Things are going well. But since it’s the middle of the story, not for long. They even manage to save Penny from the virus and give her a human body.

Awakening to Death/Spirituality

Atlas falling, realizing that her mother was almost certainly turned into a Grimm and that’s what Salem wants to do to her as well, Penny’s death, and more. The volume 9 teaser even starts off by saying precisely this:

This is the story of a girl who had many problems. Before the girl went back home she had a great many questions to ponder: after all the lessons she’d learned, and the friends she had made and lost, who had she become?

But facing death is vital for any heroine, especially one with a past littered with death as well (Summer).

Initiation and Descent to the Goddess

This is where we are now, in volume 9. Descent is exactly what happened to RWBY—literally. Ruby herself is going to have to figure out just what she is/who she is, as I wrote here, in volume 9. As @aspoonofsugar theorized, the clip and teaser seem to indicate whatever world they’re in is tied to Ruby’s psychological state. She is stuck, so she can’t move forward; she is crying, and it rains.

Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine

This is for the future, but it will probably come from dealing with Summer’s death.

Healing the Mother/Daughter Split

Again, this probably concerns facing what exactly happened to Summer, and also making her own choices, as I theorized here. This could be where Ruby chooses to save Cinder from the fate of her mother (the arm going out of control seems like clear foreshadowing), but it could be later as well, and I’m inclined to think it will in fact be later.

Healing the Wounded Masculine Within

I honestly think there’s a good deal of this part that will have to do with Ruby helping Qrow finish his arc, quite possibly through helping Mercury. He’s the most obvious wounded masculine character, and is directly tied to Ruby because she basically moms him already.

Integration of the Masculine and Feminine

This could also be where Ruby chooses to save Cinder. The reason I think this step is more likely is because Mercury should be saved before Cinder, and I also think that it fits for the climax of Ruby’s arc to be saving, healing, rather than just fighting. In other words… integrating the feminine (healing) with the masculine (stopping Cinder). Ruby’s compassion may also help set the stage for Salem’s defeat.

Oscar Pine: The Hero’s Journey

Stage One: Departure

Ordinary World

The Hero’s Journey always begins with an ordinary person receiving an invitation to an adventure and declining, only to later embark on the quest. Oscar is just an ordinary farmer.

Call to Adventure

Oscar receives a literal call to adventure... coming from inside him!

Refusal of the Call

But Oscar isn’t eager to leave. He fears what’s ahead and refuses Ozpin’s call to adventure at first, delaying and delaying (in contrast to Ruby’s eagerness to leap into any adventure).

Meeting the Mentor/Supernatural Aid

I mean, Ozpin literally lives in his head. You can see here where the steps kind of overlap.

Crossing the Threshold

Oscar leaves his family farm. He’s also shown literally crossing a threshold when he meets RJNR in a doorway. He actually notably does not come inside until Ruby appears and he notices she has silver eyes.

Belly of the Whale

The moment of no return, really, where suddenly it’s all very, very real. This would be the fight at Haven for Oscar.

Stage Two: Initiation

Road of Trials/Tears

Here is where the hero meets enemies, allies, and encounters obstacles. Again, I think this overlaps with crossing the threshold/belly of the whale. Clearly, Oscar meets teams RWBY and JNR, Hazel, etc. Plus, Oscar then literally goes on the road to travel to Atlas, involving numerous obstacles such as the Apathy, the train disaster, and of course, Cordova. Plus, he loses access to Ozpin and gets blamed for it--with his new allies even confusing Ozpin and Oscar, which is Oscar’s worst fear (losing his identity).

Meeting the Goddess

Allies to help with their journey--we’ll see exactly who this is, if it is anyone in particular. It’s a positive influence and often either maternal or romantic. The goddess is supposed to encourage the hero to be true to who they are (think Leia in Star Wars). This pretty clearly seems to be Ruby—she always tells Oscar “you’re your own person.”

Approach the Inmost Cave

Here things get darker and darker. I also think a variety of the next steps are combined/not chronological. Oscar encounters Hazel and Leonhart, Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury. He succeeds, and he fails. He bonds with new friends and witnesses them lash out at him because Ozpin is tied to him. As things get darker and darker, Oscar loses access to Ozpin for a time… but the end goal of the quest isn’t quite here yet.

Meeting the Shadow Self

Oscar’s confrontation with Ironwood. Oscar tries to get through to Ironwood, who is very much a foil to him, but Ironwood literally sends him descending.

Woman as Temptress

Salem. I think this is obvious. The Temptress is supposed to tempt the hero to give up on their quest.

Atonement with the Father

To an extent, Ironwood, and to another extent, Ozpin and Hazel. Oscar is the one who gets through to Hazel, helping Ozpin atone--and helping Hazel atone by sacrificing himself to save Emerald, Oscar, and the other children... which is what Hazel’s sister would have wanted.

Apotheosis

A high point in development, where the hero understands their next steps and how to win. I don’t think we’re here yet. My guess, though, is that Oscar is going to be instrumental in understanding that they need to save the children--exactly the lesson he learned from Hazel and the “what not to do” from Ironwood--meaning Mercury and Cinder, who are key to stopping Salem.

Ultimate Boon

Here, the hero receives a reward, the goal of their quest. My guess is this might involve Team RWBY returning from the underworld, or the climax of the Vacuo Arc (which I do think will be a success as opposed to the tragedy of the Atlas Arc, and is probably where Mercury will defect from Salem).

Third Step: Return

Refusal of Return

Again, we’ll see where this goes. Generally this is the hero being offered the chance to go back to normal life, and they Do Not Want To, because they know the world is so much bigger. In Star Wars: A New Hope, this is when Han decides to leave before the final battle. My guess is that Oscar will be offered something to separate Ozpin from himself, and will face a moment of temptation but ultimately not go through with it.

Realm of Wild Woman/Man

Not sure, but again, Vacuo seems like a good setting for this, if it overlaps. My guessss is that this might have to do with helping Emerald save Mercury, especially if this overlaps with some of the earlier steps.

Magic Flight

Afterwards, though, they’re going to literally have to “return” to Beacon, where the final battles will occur. Hero’s still being chased. Seems clear they won’t solve everything in Vacuo, and will have to return to Beacon.

Rescue from Without

An outside force helps them escape. Ozpin? Tai? Who knows. Maybe Qrow? Maybe Ruby helping Oscar?

Death of Dreams/Dark Night of the Soul

Aaaand it gets even worse. I genuinely think Oscar is going to face the reality that he won’t be able to stay Oscar and probably ask for a moment to say goodbye.

Sacrifice

Oscar is probably going to fully become Ozpin (temporarily!)

Climax

Something about Ozpin and Oscar’s semblance—which will emerge and be distinct from Ozpin—will get through to Salem, along with another sacrifice (like Cinder).

Resurrection

Oscar will return while Ozpin will disappear. This may or may not involve physical resurrection and may or may not involve his semblance.

Master of Worlds

Generally, this involves being the master of two worlds and may involve having to make a choice about which to stay in (think Harry Potter post death in Deathly Hallows). I’m guessing this might be combined with the resurrection aspect, like it is in Harry Potter.

Freedom to Live

Oscar will be able to live as Oscar.

#ruby rose #rwby meta #oscar pine #hero's journey #heroine's journey #rwby theory #rosegarden

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variousqueerthings · 10 months ago

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You are the stupidest idiot ever! But I'm not going to let you die // In amongst seven billion, there's someone like you. That's why I put up with the rest of them.

OKAY! Pyramid at the end of the World +Lie Of The Land!

these are the last two that I didn't write notes for and it's been a hot second so probably have forgotten Some Stuff. that being said, they're... interesting. at some point there needs to be an analysis done of bill's season and why it does and doesn't work (mainly that I wish it had come sooner and/or been longer). BUT ANYWAY!

I put these episodes together, although the tonal shift is quite big in between, but it is one story that follows on from extremis. it's kinda Bill's "wandering the earth for a year six months" so obvs I'm going to compare it to Martha a little. they even used a bit of s3 music in there!

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 10/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 6/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 5/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 6/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 8/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 6/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 10/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 6/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 6/10

FULL RATING: 70/100 (if I can count….)

I gave this one a solid 70 out of 100. I think that's fair enough -- they're not necessarily my favourite stories (in fact I do kvetch about them a fair bit I think), but I do think they manage something M*ffat often struggles with, which is building a Big story that is also comprehensive and involves the companion in material ways

OBJECTIFICATION: listen, I do not remember. I think these episodes are free from this though.

PLOT-POINT: Bill technically does get to have feelings about things and these feelings do partially drive the plot -- she gets the Doctor's sight back, her feelings about her mother save the day, and she's very driven to save the world throughout (and her lovely self is what drives the Doctor to say today's second quote in the title, a sentiment that says a lot about who the Doctor is in this incarnation and the relationship between the two of them)

it doooes highlight how some of these things still suffer from M*ffat's penchant of just. throwing things at the wall in lieu of building a cohesive, deep thematic arc. the strongest part in my opinion is Bill getting the Doctor's sight back/saving the Doctor's life. I get why she feels this close to the Doctor at this point, what sort of a person she is that would take on this sacrifice, and how it drives the story

(I have mixed feelings about the Doctor being blind in the first place, it was never given any space in the story beyond being a narrative hindrance, and at the end of this it's simply fixed and never spoken about again. what was the point of having the Doctor be blind for about three episodes? but the bit where Bill finds out and saves him is good for me)

Bill's mother... doesn't have a name. it's the oddest oversight and leads to the incredibly silly line "Bill's mum... you've just gone viral." she's meant to be one of the core drivers of Bill's background, but it falls to pieces without a name, she's just a fridged mother without any personality --- also see me nitpicking, but this is the second companion in a row with a dead mother that should be at the center of who they are, but is sort of conveniently just there when needed. it was worse with Clara, because her mother was fully dropped from the storyline after s7, but it's... noticeable. at least Amy's parents came back from the dead (although were then never mentioned again). you can feel M*ffat tryyying to figure out those family relationship plots and being a different kind of bad at it with every companion

I still think Bill's is the best of these, simply because there are some bits and pieces of continuously acknowledging her mother's emotional presence in her life, but oof. it's tough being a no name dead mother character

also one thing I want to bring up that knocked this a full point was the Doctor and Nardole manipulating Bill into thinking the Doctor was on the side of the invading aliens to the point that she was going to shoot him dead (in her own head, she doesn't know about regeneration), and then completely brush it off afterwards. I think it's one of the crueller bits of writing from M*ffat and hearkens back to especially how he would write Sherlock. it very much undermines the development of Twelve as well, who's ostensibly learning to become kinder throughout his arc, and the Main thing is... if I'm going to compare this to Martha in s3 somewhat...

a. Bill is totally alone in remembering the events of the last six months, apart from the Doctor and pooossibly the handful of soldiers who were deprogrammed, from what I understand. this is not at all explored

b. Bill spends these six months trying to stay sane, and okay, so the Doctor is? isn't? held prisoner by the monks on this big ship, Nardole says he needed x amount of time to find him, but reaaally none of that makes a whole lotta sense the more one tries to break it down, and the bottom line is... there is no real point to Bill being there, other than the Doctor wanting her there. yes, the remembering her mother does become important later on, but that's not initially the plan, the plan is to just ask the Master what to do from the sounds of it, and I'm mainly just very very confused about the whole opening section of this plot. it's not well-written in that classic M*ffat way that makes it seem polished on the surface, but is full of holes that get waved away... and it's all, from what I can tell, in service of this big reveal that the Doctor was actually never on the side of the monks, because that whole section is cool

it's not really about Bill at all, as is obvious when we move past it immediately into "and then the Doctor continues to be cool"

(the stuff with the Master then gives us more pathos, but the opening is... bad)

... I could write a whole lot more about it tbh, but I'm not going to, it was stupid on several levels, took away

COMPLEXITY: a lot of this is over-the-top M*ffat nonsense, especially in pyramids of mars, where we mostly eschew your everyday perspective in order to focus on generals and world leaders or whatever. we do though have a (in my opinion) fun little tense counterpoint with two scientists who due to a series of little errors almost destroy the world. I actually do have questions about that though, in terms of what the heck was extremis for as a plot, if the invasion plan was to create a series of coincidences (I guess they have some reality controlling powers considering as well how they shift historical perceptions, but it's not explored all that much -- I'd say they fit well in the rtd2 upcoming era about gods and myths, but I don't have that much interest in seeing them again tbh) and then emotionally manipulate someone into handing over the world (my point isn't that this plan doesn't make sense in a Doctor Who way, my point is that extremis makes no sense)

questions questions. also oooh there were ways of recentering this on Bill, because apparently if Bill dies then the monks might be defeated. so why in the world do they just let her run around like she does? I mean, there's some real fucked up fun potential in all of this, surely Bill should be waaay more at the core of this plot than she is, she's key to their survival on this planet, and having just reread the transcipt, the Master has a throwaway line that says if they're booted off the planet due to the link (Bill) dying, they just chalk it up to experience... but there could have been more than that. more than just "eh, they're not that bothered one way or another"

bored aliens with (comparatively) godlike powers toying with earth is a good story, but it's not, in my opinion, this story. in this story it makes them seem less consequential, their motives even more opaque than they already were, and Bill's journey through the story meaningless -- again, to compare to the Jones Family Experience, the fact that they're the only ones to remember the events of the year of hell is one huge part of the trauma. they're glad the earth was healed, but they will always have the memories. Bill, by contrast, isn't given the space to rage against everything happening here, she just sadly accepts it, and maybe that's who she is. maybe that's the six months spent in it all. but I don't think it's well enough explored from her perspective in the text to really say

I think I'm rambling a bit, but it's something about Bill as sacrificial lamb, and it's going to come up again, I know, I know the ending of this season, I just don't remember how it's written. we shall see! but from a character pov I want more -- well, I want less of the Big Important Quick Moving Plots That Leave You Spinning And Going "hold on did that make sense?" and more character-centric narrative in this, but ah well

it's not the worst of these, I'm just kind of digging into what's missing. Bill is still fantastic to me, even if her mum isn't allowed to have a name, and generally she does have more grounding and things to do than either Amy or Clara, but there's a niggling feeling the whole way through -- this is the last season, so Bill is defining that ending, she's got to carry a whole lot after 5 previous seasons of very messy storytelling, she's a very different character to pretty much every M*ffat female character, so it's like there's a hit or miss with the story that I really wish there wasn't, because it's the last flipping season and you would have thought some of these basic narrative things were things a showrunner for one of the most high profile tv shows in the world knew how to do, but it seems like he's only just learning the ropes now

and he still overly relies on montages

actually the real issue with this three-parter was the pacing. the pacing was atrocious

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: we get a whole bunch of the Master in this one, which I think is great of course

it does contrast how I don't think Bill has changed all that much from extremis to now, because the Master is in... two scenes? and comes so far. although, to be fair, the Master technically has been in scenes since 1970 so there's a whole lotta foundations there

but yeah, the Master stuff to me is always satisfying

and of course Bill has now met the Master, which is exciting!

COMPANIONS MATTER: I do think Bill matters in this. she makes decisions absent of the Doctor that massively drive the plot, the main three of which are "gets the Doctor his sight back, thereby saving his life," "keeps her sanity/memories of reality completely on her own," (seriously that seems to be nigh-impossible and she never stumbles) and "puts herself in the brain-mincing machine and wins"

one in several billion indeed

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: mmmmm not so much in the first one, and technically Bill saves the day in both of them. he's a bit of a dick though, is my main thing about the Doctor in all of this. I actually just think he's oddly underwritten/out of focus? which is rare in M*ffat, usually the companion suffers this

he comes most into focus again during the Master scenes and during the end-sequence, but yeah. it made me realise that the Doctor really should have been properly helpless and Bill should have saved him from the monks/driven the plot even more, because it felt like the Doctor was smushed in there a bit to be a bit Doctor-y but then was kind of pointless

now makes me think of this alt plot: Bill remembers the vault from when she came across it in the first episode, and sneaks in periodically to try and get into it/speak with whatever creature is clearly on the other side. make this less than six months, because that was nuts. she gets in, meets the Master and it's really a Bill and the Master episode, akin to s9ep2 with Clara, except this time the Master is claiming to have become good, honest (Bill makes some deductions about why the Doctor might be keeping her in there, idk, but also can't get her out anyway) and you're left to wonder whether the Master would sacrifice Bill to save the day/the Doctor... again, like Clara

and so she helps Bill save the Doctor and get to the lair, and Bill already knows about the dying, which of course, the Master trying to kill Clara was a massive point of division between the Master/the Doctor, and this feels like that .2 except the Master swears this was all to save the world, etcetc...

and Nardole dies early on or smthin

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: I cannot remember, but I think not really anything + the callback to s3 makes you go "ah yeah, but s3 had a thematic throughline that led to Martha wandering the earth for a year and then leaving the Tardis, because it was all a fucking mess, while these episodes don't really take Bill in a new direction, from what I can tell + are just sort of plonked in the middle of the season"

“SEXINESS”: listen, considering the Master is in this and I'd even allow some silly lines from the Master (and we do get "that's Spanish for hot!" although that's technically related to them playing the game "hot or cold") we're remarkably free from all this nonsense

INTERNAL WORLD: I think the first episode is more of a mess than the second. the second is meant to be incompatible with reality upon close inspection, it's a flawed reality-bending tool using the brain of one woman, but the first one with the pyramid and president of earth making a reappearance, that was more suspect to me

POLITICS: I liked the casting of the main scientist in the first episode, she was cool and fun to watch -- I kind of wish she'd been in the second one too, to give it more throughline. after all she was also at the eye of the storm, I was sort of missing her. but yeah, I enjoyed some diverse casting practice in the first place

the whole "we've got prison camps now" bit was a bit surface-level nothing. I don't think it was even meant to be anything other than "see the monks are baaad" dystopian type stuff 1-0-1 but I think one can do more with that than this episode did

generally, again, I dislike whenever Doctor Who makes things too disconnected from ordinary people and gives the focus to "the important people" (and it's not just M*ffat who does this, but he did introduce the president of the world stupidity). it's not a show I watch for idk presidents and generals and armies (unless it's a story about that in some deliberate way -- not as set dressing!) and it takes away any thematic weight -- in the end the monks are gone again and... nobody was harmed? weren't people potentially killed? didn't they literally build camps and have people in them? what happened to that scientist who almost destroyed the world?

ungrounded, on the whole, but not offensive, except for the fuckn "let's manipulate Bill" part of it

FULL RATING: 70/100 (if I can count….)

I don't know if I'm nitpicking with these two, mostly because they just didn't speak to me much on an emotional level. they're perfectly serviceable on the whole, avoiding some of the more egregious mistakes of M*ffat-era, but they're a bit hollow to me

I very much enjoyed the Master parts (shocker), and Bill's competency, but it does on the whole feel like a lot of set dressing that was missing a bit of spark

#the measurement #im watching capaldi who #episode the pyramid at the end of the world #episode the lie of the land #the rambles were more rambly this time around

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ocean-blue-whump · 2 years ago

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The Logistician

Heist Team Masterlist

Tagging @painful-pooch @winedark-whump @justplainwhump @diyalogues @thingsthatgowhumpinthenight - let me know if you want to be added/removed!

CW: some very brief referenced sexism

***

Jude looks out the cafe window, taking small sips of her cappuccino and watching people bustle around on the sidewalk. “He’s supposed to meet us here.”

“Give him time, Jude,” Penn mutters, taking a sip of his own coffee. Jude was barely able to stop herself from laughing at the bartender’s face when he ordered a black eye—a cup of coffee with three shots of espresso. “He’ll be here.”

“I’m surprised you okayed this,” she admits, setting the cup down. “He’s going to be the only one on the team with no experience.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t have many options here.” Penn shakes his head. “He’ll have to do, Jude.”

“I know.” She purses her lips and crosses her legs at the ankle, sitting up straight. “At least this is a nice place to get coffee.”

The rest of the team is there with them. Ace and Markham are at a high top table, engaged in what looks like a very silent, passive aggressive game of go fish. Ace has a mocha, Markham has a cup of coffee that he totally didn’t pour vodka in.

Ace seems…good. Better than the last time she saw her, but that memory haunts Jude. She doesn’t think about it, won’t tell Penn.

Darien is sitting alone, drinking some sort of frappe and typing on his laptop, and Scipio isn’t too far over, drinking tea and writing in a notebook.

Once they’re done here, it’s off to the airport, heading to Atlantic City and their apartment for the foreseeable future.

But first, the logistician. She found him through a friend, someone with intricate knowledge of the building they’re supposed to rob. Apparently, he used to work there, but she has her doubts.

The door to the cafe opens, and Jude looks over to see a man walk in. He’s short and surprisingly young, probably a year or two older than Ace, wearing circular glasses and a fleece jacket. Jude watches him place his order, a latte with oat milk, and once he’s got his drink, he walks over, standing next to her and Penn.

“Are you Jude?” he asks Penn in a quiet voice.

Penn grins and shakes his head. “Nope.”

Jude’s more than used to people mistaking Penn for her. They assume because he’s the man, he’s the one in charge, pulling on the strings. They’re partners. He might be the face of their team, but she runs just as much on the more…subtle end. “I’m Jude,” she says in a calm, even voice. “Sit down.”

He practically falls over himself trying to sit down, and Jude can’t help but raise an eyebrow. Age is no indicator of skill, Ace proved that to her, but the logistician moves like an awkward teenager, clutching his latte. “I’m Be—”

Penn cuts him off, leaning forward. “Nah, man. We don’t do real names. You gotta pick something else.”

“Hollis,” he says, a little too quickly. “My name is Hollis.”

“Hollis.” Jude nods, taking another sip of her cappuccino. “Do you understand why you’re here?”

He runs a hair through his messy, curly brown hair, his leg bouncing up and down nervously. “I worked for Hammer Tech at their Artemieva House location. Well, I was an intern.”

Penn is barely able to keep a straight face, downing the rest of his drink and staring at Hollis. “More conviction. If you can’t sell this shit to us, well…” He shrugs. “This isn’t the job for you.”

Hollis bites his lip before saying, a little less shakily, “I was an intern for Hammer Tech at Artemieva House. You contacted me because I had less than stellar things to say about them online, but I’m also listed in the footnotes as someone who worked on their security systems. Unless I’m wrong?”

“Spot on,” Penn says with a grin, looking to Jude.

Jude fixes Hollis with a look, trying to read him. He just seems nervous, unsure of himself as he clutches his latte. “We need your knowledge of Hammer Tech and Artemieva House in order to pull off a job. You’ll make over a million dollars. All you have to do is give us information to help us acquire a certain item from that house.”

“What item?” he asks, leaning slightly as his eyes light up.

Good. She’s got him interested. “Are you in?” she asks. “I can’t say this is perfectly legal.”

“I’m in. Fuck Hammer Tech. They fucking fired me and I’d love to see their stupid jaws drop when they realize something is missing from their ‘impenetrable security system.’ As long as I don’t actually have to go in Artemieva House. Place gives me the creeps.”

“You won’t have to go in. You’ll be in the van with our getaway driver.” Jude taps her perfectly manicured nails against her cup, hoping this mismatched team won’t be the death of this job. “The Artemieva Diamond Necklace. That’s our target.”

Hollis’s jaw drops. “Oh, fuck. That’s…yeah. Wow. I, um…”

Penn stands up, gesturing with his chin to the other members of their team to stand up. “Well, the gang’s all assembled, then, so let’s get to work.”

Jude smiles at him. That’s what she can count on Penn for, his leadership and his charm while she runs the show. “Welcome to the team, Hollis. Hope you’re ready.”

He chuckles and awkwardly rubs the back of his neck, visibly nervous. “Can you ever be ready for something like this?”

Penn smirks. “No. No, you can’t.”

#penn #jude #hollis #heist team #whumpblr #whump writing #writeblr #i finally did it y'all #the final heist team intro #blue's words

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redrikki · 3 years ago

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Allison Argent: Not Like Other Girls

Written for @teenwolf-meta Teen Wolf meta week: Characters

Allison's defining character moment comes about half-way through the first episode. She has shown up in tears at the veterinary clinic where Scott works after hitting a dog with her car. Once she's calmed down, she and Scott have the following exchange:

Allison: Thanks for doing this. I feel really stupid.

Scott: How come?

Allison: I don't know. Cause I freaked out like a total girl.

Scott: You are a girl.

Allison: I freaked out like a girly-girl and I'm not a girly-girl.

Scott: What kind of girl are you?

Allison: Tougher than that. At least I thought I was.

Allison is an intensely emotional person. While all the main characters cry at some point, Allison probably sheds the most tears out of everyone, despite only being in three seasons. Throughout seasons 1 and 2, Allison repeatedly has moments where she expresses shame and self-loathing about her feelings of vulnerability. She tells her Aunt Kate how much she hated feeling afraid and needing someone to rescue her after the events of "School Night." When Allison gets pulled over in tears after learning about werewolves, she repeatedly tells the sheriff this isn't her and insists he give her a ticket. At Lydia's party in season 2, her hallucination self berates her for being weak and constantly needing help.

It's not hard to see where she gets this attitude. Her mom, Victoria, makes it clear she has zero tolerance for displays of emotion. She shuts Allison down hard when she starts to panic about Scott being a werewolf in "Code Breakers." In "Frenemies," she tells Allison that avoiding romantic relationships makes her stronger than other girls. Victoria doesn't just hold her daughter to unreasonable standards of stoicism; she holds herself to them as well. After being bitten, she can't bring herself to be vulnerable enough to actually talk to Allison before killing herself. When it comes time to commit suicide, she is insulted by Chris's proposal that she use pills like a normal woman and instead insists on stabbing herself with a big fuck-off knife. She's more concerned that Allison know that she didn't kill herself out of weakness than making sure that Allison knew Victoria loved her.

Tough hunter characters who eschew emotion aren't exactly unique, but the troubling thing is the way it's tied to a distain for femininity. Both Allison and Victoria are fine with dressing in sexy, hyper-feminine ways and having traditionally feminine interests like fashion and baking cookies, but emotions are too "girly" and shameful. The funny thing is, show runner Jeff Davis claims he set out to create a world without sexism, racism, or homophobia. Why, then, couldn't he have come up with a way to show the familiar discomfort with vulnerability without gendered language? Obviously, such distain for emotional vulnerability is intended to be viewed as toxic, but the repeated equating of weakness and emotion with femininity just serves to highlight the writers' inability to imagine a world without gender essentialism or internalized misogyny

After Victoria kills herself, Allison goes off the rails. Her first act is to destroy all the feminine fripperies in her bedroom before attempting to murder Derek and hurting Erica and Boyd. The entire time, she insists that she's not acting out of emotion, but instead making the rational, strategic choice. This is actually the second time Allison has decided violence is the answer to her emotional upset. At the end of season 1, she reacts to Scott being a werewolf and Lydia being attacked by helping Kate set up her ambush.

In season 3, Allison returns to Beacon Hills with a renewed sense of purpose. After a few months to sit with her grief and guilt, she's decided she will fight, not for vengeance, but to protect the helpless. This represents a big step forward, both for her and her family, but she still struggles to accept her emotions. In "Frayed," she hallucinates her mother haranguing her over being too upset to properly thread a needle so she can stitch up Scott.

By season 3B, Allison is getting better at being vulnerable. In "The Fox and the Wolf," she admits to the sheriff that she's scared without backtracking or shame. The best part about the scene is that the sheriff validates her, saying she sounds like a cop. In "Insatiable," Allison tells her father she loves him in a way her mother couldn't make herself vulnerable enough to do with her. And then she goes and dies because character development, I guess.

Allisons three season arc is a pretty archetypal example of the heroine's journey as articulated by Jungian psychotherapist Maureen Murdock in her 1990 book The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest for Wholeness. According to Murdock, the quintessential feminine arc consists of 8 steps: the shift from feminine to masculine; identification with the masculine; the road of trials; the illusion of success; the decent or meeting of the goddess; yearning to reconnect; reconciliation with the masculine; and union. Allison hits all of these notes, but in an interesting way. Two of Allison's three dark mentors who encourage her to eschew her feminine compassion and emotions in favor of masculine rage are, in fact, women, while the "goddess" figure who gets her to reconnect with her feminine ideals in her dark hour of the soul is Scott, a man. While the classic hero's journey is about outward success, the heroine's journey is largely an internal journey of self-actualization. It figures Allison, as Scott's designated love interest, would need him in order to learn how to be her best and truest self.

#teen wolf #teen wolf meta #allison argent

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cregan-starks · 3 years ago

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Beholden ch3 sneak peek

Words: 466

Warnings: mention of kidnapping, mention of death, implied sexism, smoking, cussing. Under no circumstances can you copy, plagiarize, steal my work, or post it somewhere else!

Notes: Life’s busy, but I am, in fact, working on the third chapter. Thank you for your patience.

Worse, the men tasked with bringing Gallardo to justice didn’t even give a shit about Kiki. Magnussen gritted her teeth in frustration. She had taken Leyenda’s pulse, and she had been left rather disappointed. How was she supposed to work with them? Petski was auditioning to be a mime, Mejía was an arrogant toe, Méndez and Álvarez were yes-minions, Orozco was Breslin’s mustached parrot, Garza’s favorite hobby was waterboarding – or spitting on puppies – Palacios hadn’t developed a personality yet, and Breslin was a narrow-minded redneck. He probably wouldn’t budge on the Azul situation. Typical Yankee; loved to hear himself speak, rejected anyone else’s input. Whatever. Magnussen was too woman for her opinion to matter. Morales had been the only one whom she had genuinely liked. At least he had had the decency to introduce himself and welcome her to the team… although, as far as Magnussen was concerned, he must have had ulterior motives, too. Severe lack of trust among coworkers. Off to a great start…

Give it time, she reasoned. Loosen some of that Eastern European pessimism. Magnussen dropped her cigarette on the ground, instinctively moving her foot to put it out before pausing in realization. Dodged a burn. She crouched and used the heel of one of the shoes that she was holding to extinguish the cigarette, mumbling “ridiculous” to herself, then headed into the complex. Magnussen peered to distinguish shapes in the dark in an attempt to not trip and fall flat on her mug as she tiptoed up the oddly dirty and sticky stairs. She cringed internally at the mere idea of navigating her apartment in this condition, already tired. Throw in hunger and an agonizing need to pee, and you could guess Magnussen’s general disposition.

Maybe contemplating building her own network within the operation would serve as a distraction and cheer her up a bit. She couldn’t depend on her colleagues forever. In fact, she didn’t fancy relying on them at all. Administrator Lawn had gotten one thing right. Magnussen was no team player. She refused to let Calderoni off the hook, too. She demanded answers, and she was certain that the Commander was in possession of one or two of them. Calderoni had potentially upgraded to triple agent, bumping elbows with the Mexican government, the U.S. government, and the Guadalajara cartel. When Magnussen had told Breslin that Leyenda required somebody on the inside, she had meant it. Commander Calderoni was the perfect candidate for the job. Her plans didn’t end there, either. She also wanted to set up surveillance on Tómas Morlet – a DFS agent who had actually been placed at the scene of Camarena’s abduction and the man responsible for Kiki’s neighbor’s execution – and the low-ranking assholes who just so happened to be on Leyenda’s hit list. Happy coincidence.

TAGLIST: @a-dash-of-random-magic @amidalaraan @artthurshelby @buttercup--bee @cleastrnge @dameronology @frodo-sam @itssmashedavo @kalondarling @ladygangsters @maevesdarling @maevemills @maharani-radha @mitchi-c @moonlight-prose @nicolettegreen @pascalisthepunkest @queenofthefaceless @revolution-starter @sullho @themangolorian @tisbeautifulfreedom @qoedameron

#narcos fanfic #narcos mexico #narcos mexico fanfic #walt breslin #walt breslin x oc #walt breslin/oc #walt breslin x reader #walt breslin/reader #tori's beholden

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earlgreytea68 · 2 years ago

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The West Wing thoughts - watching for the first time

I just wanted to feed back to you some of my thoughts upon watching The West Wing for the first time in 2021-2022. I got up to about the sixth season then started again from the beginning, so I haven't finished yet, but I can give you some of my initial thoughts.

Some of it, astonishingly and sadly, is still very relevant. There are discussions about gun control and education standards and strategies that I swear are still being replayed. The climate change sections are interesting, and I must admit that I frowned very sternly at Leo (who mostly I love) when he repressed/adjusted that environmental impact report. I'm not American, but I suspect that the episode (which I think is called 'Two Indians in the Lobby'?) about native title and land ownership and First Nations people is also still pretty accurate. The whole plotline about Charlie not being able to afford a lawyer, and the financial difficulties he has on his salary I think is also probably accurate. I don't think salaries for government workers have appreciably increased, despite their ridiculous time commitment. I also wonder how he manages to afford his wardrobe - his job obviously requires professional dress, and he would need to keep himself in suits, shirts, shoes, ties, etc.

The part which I find glaringly jarring is the sexism. It's not in the treatment of CJ, there's also very good commentary on the numbers of women in various roles, etc. It's partly in the treatment of Ainsley Hayes, who I like very much, and who is repeatedly referred to as a sex kitten. She's completely appropriately in her dress (the one time she comes straight from a reception she changes immediately), but Sam continually makes comments to her about her appearance. There is definitely respect for her brain and her input, but there's also an implication that as a Republican she would not have been hired if she wasn't really attractive. There's also kind of a running joke about Will Bailey and his interchangeable interns. I like Will very much, but these women are saving his bacon and doing stellar work, mostly overtime, he should at the very least learn their names and also champion the cause of getting them properly paid positions. There's an implication that he wouldn't treat them quite so casually if they weren't attractive women.

The technology is obviously out of date but doesn't really disrupt the story. The women's fashion holds up surprisingly well, I guess very classic office attire doesn't date too much, although the fit of Josh's suits particularly is very of his time. Toby's also, though Sam seems to spend more time in shirtsleeves rather than jackets, and I think his trousers are cut more closely (I think this is more about his wardrobe showing off a more attractive actor, though. For the record, I find Josh really hot in all his rumpled glory - it's probably the dimples and the very passionate personality).

Sorry, I need to stop here, but I might send you other thoughts if they occur to me, and they interest you.

Regards,

***

omg thank you so much for all of these!!! I think you're very right about how the political discussions are mostly sadly still relevant and how very little has been done to improve any of the issues they're worried about. I actually don't remember the climate change stuff (and only barely recall "Two Indians in the Lobby") but it would be interesting to think about how the discussion around climate change has shifted in the intervening years.

You are absolutely right about the sexism. A lot of it is the accusation that gets leveled at Sorkin all the time that he can't write women. Although I think he writes some women just fine, like, CJ is great, and I always loved Abbey, too. But Ainsley for some reason, I agree, stands out, and she did even at the time, that we were all kind of like, "Why does Sam keep making these weird comments about Ainsley????" I admit I don't remember as much about Will Bailey because that post-dated my passionate love for the show, then I was just kind of watching to finish out the Josh/Donna arc lol.

You are soooo right about Josh's suits, they are so, so boxy! It's interesting that they cut Sam's "sexier," so to speak, I didn't think about that! But I'm with you, Josh was the hot one to me, he was by far my favorite character, I absolutely adored him.

#submission #the west wing

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