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cuddlytogas · 4 years ago

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i mean, i cannot stress enough that the problem with the canon gay watson in the irregulars goes well beyond "but it's unrequited"...

it's the fact that the hero's immediate reaction was "no, you're incapable of love". like, it's irrelevant that that's not the last word; obviously the character and narrative themselves are deeper than that, and royce pierreson did a fantastic job. but the idea of writing a scene where a man confesses his love for another man and the response is "you're cold and incapable of love" is just... like, did you think this through? at all??

it's the re-hashing of centuries-old and incredibly harmful tropes about queerness as destructive, selfish, even monstrous; that same-sex desire and activity will tear apart the Good White Heterosexual Family. gays don't need to get married. it's such a lonely and dangerous lifestyle. the homosexual is coming for your children. the sodomite is an inhuman criminal who will spread his plague across the city and destroy the nation.

it's that the whole attitude was pretty much foreshadowed in episode three, when a woman cast a spell to make a teenage girl infatuated with her in order to kill her and steal her power. it's that she and watson are the only queer characters in the entire show.

(this one's petty, but it's the fact that the first five minutes had me fully on board with a bea/jessie slowburn before revealing they're sisters and bea instead gets a near-love triangle with two identical skinnny white men)

it's the fact that yet another period piece took the boring route of "make it diverse" without giving a single thought to any of the potential implications. if you're going to make an adaptation or a period piece, the least you could do is think it through. this is not a call for less diversity in period pieces: that itself would be ahistorical. it's not just "the costumes were anachronistic". it's not to demand that marginalised characters suffer in the name of historically accurate bigotry.

but it is the obvious colourism in the villain being a dark-skinned black man contrasted with the heroic lighter-skinned black men, one of whom was pretty blatantly sidelined (spike my beloved). it's about a narrative where one of our heroes is a sad white literal prince, while also making the greedy duke a black man (set against a poor black woman who's out for evil revenge) instead of making even a token effort to examine why mainstream history and period pieces are so damn white.

If you're not going to examine history, why are you making a period piece? (especially in a genre which explicitly is about examining both morality and criminality!) what's the point? the options aren't just "all white cast and suffering through piles of racism" or "ignore systemic marginalisation and just write whatever". I know that it's poor form to suggest that diverse media can't be fun or escapist, and that marginalised people should be able to see themselves in princess stories and period romances, but also, like... no? we have not sufficiently dealt with the crimes of the british empire to be able to make mindless period pieces woobifying a member of the royal family.

There is so much potential in making a show with young, poor, black and Asian leads and a black, queer John Watson. There is so much to be explored in the actual, real intersections of class, race, sexuality, and criminality in the late Victoria era that could easily be written in a light enough way to not seem preachy or too serious for a schlocky supernatural mystery show. (I'm thinking again about marianhalcombes' ever-relevant post about the potential implications of criminality and sexuality around a queer sherlock holmes.) yet this is what we have to settle for? queer love is selfish and lonely and destroys the white family? mystical dark-skinned black men from new orleans are evil monsters because they want to become god to... stop wars and the holocaust from happening?? seriously?????

I mean jesus fucking christ. I am begging writers to just think things through for an iota of a second, and also just to Be Better. if my amateur ass can do it, so can yours.

#AND YES YOU KNOW I AM INTENTIONALLY GOING TO PUT THIS IN THE MAIN TAG #The Irregulars #Sherlock Holmes #look out tom bidwell because i am Coming For You #you have a real ass budget and a whole team of professional and experienced creators behind you and THIS is what you put out???#GET GOOD ASSHOLE #I'VE DONE BETTER AS A SIDE-PROJECT BETWEEN A JOB AND A MASTERS DEGREE #The Irregulars spoilers //

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vrishchikawrites · 3 years ago

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About YZY leaving YMJ/JFM with her kids Post-WWX Arrival

Dear Dee, feel free to delete or ignore this or post it, whatever floats your boat. This just stuck in my head after those posts and I had to blurt it all to someone. Thanks for taking the time to read my word vomit.

So I had to do this instead of an ask because it got long and I wasn't sure how many asks it'd need or how short I could cut it down without losing parts of the argument. And then other things came up as I was writing and, well. Well..... >_>;;;;

But you know, after that post/ask you had about YZY fics saying 'Fuck U' to YMJ/JFM & leaving both with her kids, I had a sarcastic 'yeah right' attitude about it. Mainly due to a lot of negation emotions to such an abusive (and delusional) bitch, partly due to how she wouldn't do that since it doesn't seem to be something her sort of character would consider either because she'd think of it as 'losing' (losing what, IDK, it's why I consider her type of person crazy) or she legit wouldn't think about such a viable action.

But then later, in the shower, I seriously went 'Wait, she can't fucking do that' and it wouldn't be about how MXTX uses her as a part of the narrative but entirely about the/their culture in the novel; the actions that have and would be taken in response; and her entire toxic personality as well.

1) We already know that the sects and the cultivation world in general is sexist, elitist and so Capital T 'Traditional' to the point that it's starting to petrify and any deviancy from this is an exception rather than the norm. YZY might be a madame of a great sect (for what that's worth considering how shit of a madame she's been and the titles she's chosen for herself) but she's still a woman even with her high rank and the things she's personally accomplished.

Even if she was in her rights to leave a 'bad' marriage, she'd be the one who'd get scolded more instead of JFM by her natal family, her former husband's family and by their entire society at large even if she had a few singular supporters. Because That's Not How Things Are Done in their society and I do believe that such a thing was rare even when it was accepted method by the upper echelons. Especially since it would have to be done by more than YZY simply deciding that She Wants Out and just- goes and Gets Out. With no serious allegations that would allow her to divorce or separate from YMJ/JFM without the input from her family, JFM's family and, I think, possibly some measure of compensation as well. And no, having or bringing in a 'bastard child' is not a serious enough offence for such a humongous decision. I think something more along the lines of treason or crimes against multiple, high-ranking parties would be more along the lines. Maybe.

And even if she does this, she'd be considered 'Used Goods' (such a terrible comment) and there'd be no other good/proper marriage prospects for a divorced woman with children let alone a woman like YZY with her entire abrasive personality and attitude put off even easy-going JFM.

(If she'd been widowed then it'd be more forgiven but I consider that a Real Bad End since, IMO, it would lead to the sudden and inevitable decline of YMJ either via mass exodus of disciples and/or residents of LP; being merged with another sect due to it's unstable leadership; or create an internal political war 'cause I bet you anything that the YMJ Elders/relatives (if they have any) Would Not Want YZY in charge of YMJ when she's already proven herself such a shit betrothed let alone madame.)

2) Speaking of families, while YMJ/JFM/LP as a whole might be glad to see YZY's back, I don't think her natal sect, MSY, will be glad to see her come storming back after all the effort they put into getting that particular marriage alliance with YMJ. And if she brings her children with her? Oh man, oh boy- mother or not, that could be considered as kidnapping or line theft (is that a thing?) especially if YZY is also seriously considering divorce proceedings and raising them as Yu and not Jiang. That could give leave to, for anyone more unforgiving and maybe JFM if he's pushed enough, disown both JYL and JWY from the Jiangs through no fault of their own (though I'm sure YZY would make it so as well as blame JFM for her own decisions and mistakes).

Therefore, any inheritance or benefits they might gain for being legitimised children of a great sect are forfeited. JYL will likely lose that betrothal with JZX because JGS will drop it like a hot potato and JWY won't be a sect heir because YZY literally decided to remove that by deciding to raise JWY as a Yu, no matter their blood relation to JFM. They leave him, they leave YMJ and everything attached with it. Which is if YMJ/JFM doesn't demand MSY to give back their heir/ess and to punish YZY for her actions. Or send all three of them back for the appropriate reactions/decisions.

Their society would demand no less in reaction because, to them, it would seem like YZY had gone mad and JFM would look weak (or weaker) and imply that YMJ is vulnerable and exploitable if JFM doesn't do something in response to her actions. That's not even getting into what the other smaller sects may try to do in an attempt to curry favour with YMJ or what LLJ or QSW would try in order to destroy or diminish YMJ. And whether JFM chooses to demand his children back or not, it may not change the fact that this may give him reason enough to choose a nephew or niece to be the new sect heir especially if, even after getting rid of YZY's poisonous influence, JWY grows up to be his mother's child more than his father's or even his own person.

Either way, such a thing would bring great backlash on YZY, and MSY as well as the collateral. No one would want to give face to her or her children because it would bring up some very uncomfortable questions and scenarios to the other sects- specifically, what would happen if the female members of their clans/sets decided to follow the footsteps of YZY and leave with their children and heirs. Especially if they use it as an excuse to leave for their own comfort and whims and not some legitimate wrongs and dangers. That would create some more restrictions on women thanks to YZY

3) And lastly, if any one of those idiot YZY stans think that she'd ever give up the status of being a madame of a great sect they'd be as crazy or crazier than her. YZY is all about status and power and face. Specifically, her status, power and face and how people in her reach reflect her or 'insult' her. She is a selfish, terrible, abusive and toxic person and can only see people in regards to how they would benefit her and the elevation of her and in no other way. Especially her family. They cannot be their own person, they can only be an extension of her and gods forbid they go against her.

We can see this in how she treats the people she supposedly loves. JFM? Arguments day in, day out along with accusations and slander of cheating, having one(1) supposed 'bastard' and being 'in love' with CSSR. Which all seems sus as hell. And that's when she's actually there and not out 'night hunting'. Even her 'training' seems to border on unhelpful rather then helpful if my vague recollections of juniors fainting from exhaustion can be relied upon (please call me out if they're not or find proof).

JYL? Berated by not being 'strong' but not helped at all to be 'strong'. It doesn't help that YZY seems to believe in the same standards strength in their society- that is, of martial masculine strength which does not and should not apply to JYL who has been said to be sickly. Which means h should have been learning a different way of cultivation/fighting anyway. If that was something she wanted and had been offered in the first place- which I doubt. That isn't even getting into her repeated generational trauma mess of a betrothal which was decided only by those 'sworn sisters', accepted by her as a way out of her terrible home life and puts her squarely within reach of JGS who we know to be a womaniser, rapist, predator and a possible ephebophile considering we don't know the exact age of his youngest 'conquest' or the age of MZY's mother when they met which could be anywhere from 14 to 21.

JWY? Gods, so much meta on him and his(non-) relationships with his parents that I don't think I can contribute more to it. It's been all said and done. Unless people want me to stir the pot by saying that, maybe, just maybe, YZY resents JWY as much as she 'loves' him.Either because he's her son and yet never manages to 'accomplish as much' as WWX or because he's a boy and therefore, more benefits and allowances than a girl/woman- more than anything that YZY ever got without either a fight or screaming at someone about. *shrug*

So, in conclusion to this sudden an unexpected essay that I wrote(I'm so sorry about that, I thought it would be shorter -.-;;;;), YZY leaving YMJ/JFM with her kids? Impossible. Not without some sort of personality transplant or a complete AU. She's too prideful, too bitter, too angry, too everything negative and little positive. She's a resentful product of the values and restraints of her society taken to the extreme negative with a willingness to inflict her pain on others to an abusive degree. But she's also too obsessed and reliant on those same values and restraints to keep up the image of her status. So her? Giving those up? You'd be more likely to see WRH as a doting grandfather than that.

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Dee - All of this is true and yes YZY leaving YMJ is highly unlikely. While there will be consequences if she decides to leave, she does canonically lives separately from her husband. They seem to be in a situation where they are married but living separately, which was a common way to end a marriage (at least in spirit) back then. She essentially had all the perks of being Madam Jiang but fulfilled none of the responsibilities.

Afaik, her training the Jiang disciples is a donghua thing? I may be wrong but I recall she spent most of her time nighthunting.

As for taking her children along with her- that's completely impossible. At that point, children were the property of the father. She could leave but she would've never been allowed to take JC.

#submission

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youngdumbamericanteen · 4 years ago

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Mabel bad?

Oof sorry for never answering you nonnie! I’ve been pretty busy lately haha. But the post you’re responding to is a bit...old. I now understand Mabel a bit more now as a person, however I do still dislike her as a character because her flaws I was talking about in that post are never meaningfully addressed.

This might get a wee bit long, oops. Click for a big Gravity Falls writing analysis/essay/thingy.

It’s good for characters to have flaws. Flaws that actually affect them and have consequences. Otherwise you have something of a Mary Sue that isn’t relatable and has a story that’s too easy and boring for the audience. The narrative punishes or addresses those flaws and they present a challenge for the character.

But at the opposite end, you have characters who have flaws that the narrative never addresses, which means the characters never have to grow. There’s two reasons this is bad. One, that you can have the same issue where they don’t face any struggle or grow as characters and it’s a boring story, or two, people don’t generally like to root for characters who they’d want to punch if they ever met them irl. You can have a story with main characters who are bad people, but you have to either make the character likable in other ways, present the situation so that the audience can gather that they’re in the wrong and either be rooting for their downfall or their growth, or have their actual story be compelling enough that the need to know what happens next outweighs dislike for the character. (And all of these things often require the story to be told from said bad character’s point of view.) Gravity Falls doesn't really do any of these things. Or rather, it tries but is ineffective for around 50% of the viewers.

Mabel is often presented as a pure soul, good of heart and just overall a good person. But she’s got flaws. She’s selfish and a bit inconsiderate, which is normal and not an unforgivably terrible thing, especially for a 13 year old girl figuring out her place in the world. All the Pines are a bit selfish, I think it runs in their genes. But the thing is, the show will treat her selfishness as perfectly fair and normal, with anyone her selfishness affects being shown as in the wrong. She often guilts people, mainly Dipper, into sacrificing things for her while rarely making any sacrifices of her own. She does it to other characters as well, but here’s a brief list of times Dipper has sacrificed something for Mabel (which I compiled with the help of this post on Quora):

Tourist Trapped: Dipper spends almost the entire time worried about Mabel’s safety and trying to protect her, while she just brushes him off and laughs at him.

The Hand that Rocks the Mabel: Dipper agrees to break up with Gideon for her.

Time Traveler’s Pig: Mabel insists that Dipper give up the reality that doesn't break his heart so that she can adopt Waddles, and when he initially refuses she purposely endangers the space-time continuum as retaliation.

Little Dipper: Mabel is very angry about Dipper making himself taller, even though Dipper would not have resorted to it if now for her teasing. She immediately demands and fights for the magic flashlight, causing it to fall into Gideon’s hands.

Summerween: Mabel drags Dipper out to go trick-or-treating in a costume he dislikes because she’d planned on them having a duo costume.

Boss Mabel: I shouldn’t even really have to explain this one, the whole episode is about her going on a power trip.

The Deep End: Mabel embarks on a rescue mission for Mermando, doing and using things that would lead to Dipper being fired from the pool job he loves, without consulting him at all. She hears his concerns and instead of just explaining she’s saving Mermando the first time, she completely ignores him and speeds off, destroying more pool property and ensuring he’ll be fired.

Carpet Diem: Dipper informs her of the the issues he has with her roommate habits, and she completely denies any fault, even though she and her friends had legitimately destroyed the room and the mini-golf course the twins had built. The two of them both overreact, and act selfishly throughout the entire episode, but she absolutely refuses to listen to him.

Boyz Crazy: This one isn’t Dipper but I still wanted to mention it because she is so ridiculously selfish throughout the whole episode, to the point where it’s to her and the people she loves’ detriment.

Dreamscapers: Again not Dipper or a sacrifice, but her worst nightmare is apparently losing her cuteness and becoming ugly. I dunno if that’s exactly selfish or anything but God did it make me wrinkle my nose in distaste.

Sock Opera: After promising to help Dipper with the laptop, she almost immediately abandons him for her crush of the week, then proceeds to ignore him for, and inconvenience him with, her puppet show, taking his things without asking and expecting him to be completely cool with all her actions. Bill literally mentions her selfishness to manipulate Dipper and it completely works.

The Love God: Dipper leaves Wendy and her friends in chaos to help fix Mabel’s mess.

Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons: Mabel, her friends, and Stan all make fun of Dipper and Ford and insist they should have full use of the living room.

Dipper and Mable vs the Future: This is one of the big ones that people talk about. Mable finds out that Dipper might want to stay as Ford’s apprentice and becomes incredibly upset because she dreamed of the two of them having fun in high school together. She sees Dipper and immediately makes it about her and her feelings, treating something he’d been dreaming of all summer (being The Author’s apprentice) as some direct attack on her happiness. She proceeds to literally give Bill the ability to start the apocalypse to avoid being separated from Dipper, all without having any sort of meaningful conversation with Dipper or considering his feelings.

Weirdmageddon Part 2: Escape From Reality: Out of all of these, this might be the one that gets to me the most. Mabel, seemingly knowing full well that she’s trapped by Bill, creates an imaginary fantasy land and refuses to leave just to spite Dipper for considering taking the apprenticeship. And despite doing all this, and attempting to convince him to stay with her, she creates an alternate “better” version of Dipper who’s “cool” and supportive and very, very, different from the real Dipper.

And this isn’t even mentioning all the times she just assumed she was completely in the right about something or had the moral high ground. Mabel frequently makes rush decisions because she thinks everything should be her way or how she thinks is right.

And I want to say again, none of these things are unforgivable. Honestly, a lot of the things on the list are pretty standard sibling things, and like she isn’t even always in the wrong. The issue is that I’m naming at least 15 times where Mabel has been selfish or forced someone to give something up for her, and she almost never learns her lesson or is punished by the narrative. There are also only 2 or 3 times I can think of where Mabel sacrificed anything for Dipper, and they were all times he was in actual danger or someone had to talk to her and say she messed up and needed to fix her mistake.

Dipper, on the other hand, sacrifices things for Mabel, faces consequences for his mistakes and his flaws, learns substantial lessons, apologizes, and rarely, if ever, repeats said mistakes. Now, this doesn’t mean that Mabel is awful and Dipper isn’t. I mean, Dipper does some pretty crumby things and has to be told he’s in the wrong or to apologize. And Mabel isn’t a bad person. Like legitimately, that is not what I want anyone to take away from this. She does genuinely love her brother and care about his wellbeing. She’s just a little selfish and unthinking sometimes, like anyone else.

Like I said, my issue is that it goes unpunished, and she repeats the same type of offense wayyy more than any other character. She’ll disappoint Dipper enough that he’d make a deal with Bill and then everyone will still say she’s the best and most caring person ever. That’s just annoying, honestly, or it is to me at least.

This isn’t dunking on her, this is dunking on the writers. And they aren’t unforgivable either, I mean Gravity Falls was a masterful web of foreshadowing, character building, lore, plot work, and incredibly intelligent humor mixed with jokes kids would love too. I don’t blame them for dropping the ball on Mabel, and I don’t hate her or the show or anything because of it. I just want us to acknowledge this flaw of the show, and also have people get it when Mabel gets on my nerves a little bit.

#ask b #i adore mabel as a character/person #but as an example of writing? she's not so hot #gravity falls #gf #mabel #mabel pines #mabel salt #anti mabel #<< those are just in case

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lastsonlost · 5 years ago

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This is what it looks like when you can't see past your own bias.

Aka: what happens when your lived experience is inconvenient to the narrative.

By Andrea Thompson

Watching the movie “Brian Banks” is...awkward. To some extent, it's a classic sports underdog movie, but the struggles Brian Banks had to overcome are anything but conventional. As the movie continually points out, he's exceptional. And he is, in more ways that this movie is aware of.

Based on a true story, which the movie is quick to point out with dramatic music (uh oh), the title character, played by Aldis Hodge, muses on his great love for football, which he was on track to play professionally until he was stopped in his tracks at 16 years old. It's how he was stopped that would make anyone pause; Banks was falsely accused of rape by a classmate.

After some bad legal advice leads to jail time and some years struggling to navigate the conditions of his parole (and having to register as a sex offender), Banks struggles to simply find a job while simultaneously fighting to clear his name and reclaim his life. He also repeatedly writes the Innocence Project and asks them to take his case. Refusing to give up even after they reject him, Banks goes to meet with the lawyers on the project in person, first convincing them to give him advice, then take him on, and finally, actively fight for him.

It's impossible not to get invested in just how much Banks had to overcome, from his poverty-stricken childhood and the various legal road blocks that threaten to end his fight before it even begins. Banks wasn't imprisoned, so he was not a priority for the Innocence Project, and since he took a plea rather than going to trial, he needs completely new evidence rather than simply using what was already discovered. He also has to stay sane in jail, especially when he's put in solitary. Banks even took the initiative and managed to record his accuser recanting her confession.

Except. Except. Well, there was going to be misgivings about this film being released during the #MeToo Era, wasn't there? That the film would fully embrace Brian's perspective and his struggles is natural, even admirable. However, this type of story demands more, and what the movie doesn't say is far more noteworthy than what it does. It doesn't mention that the percentage of false rape accusations are not only incredibly low, the conviction rate for them is even lower. It limits its empathy for what many women have gone through to one scene, where Banks's love interest Karina (Melanie Liburd) reveals she was raped in college, and how devastating the aftermath was for her.

Even if there's little to no doubt of Brian's innocence, it's hard not to wince as his accuser is subjected to the kinds of questions which are used to discredit actual victims, as the men questioning her ask just what she expected to happen when she went off alone with Brian, why she didn't shout, etc. It also doesn't help that Brian and the people assisting him are all easily identifiable as various levels of middle class while his accuser and his family are...not so much, let's just say.

Yes, Brian Banks suffered a terrible injustice, and he proved himself to be exceptional not just for his athletic prowess, but the strength of character it took to fight for the truth over a period of years. The performances are also incredible, and help to elevate this movie above the simplistic melodrama it would otherwise be, although it also depicts faith and how it can be a bedrock for those in pain more respectfully than most mainstream films are typically capable of. It's all in service of someone who deserves to be vindicated, but it shouldn't have to come at the expense of so many other victims.

Rating: C-

Fortunately I wasn't the only one who took issue with this "review".

Cassandra3

This is a disgusting review of a great film. I can not believe that I read what I just read. And also why did you put "(duh duh)" after saying it was a true story. You give Feminism a bad name and I am embarrassed to even have someone like you even pretend to fight for women's rights. SMH

Andree4

This is a wretched review, that quite possibly reveals deep-seated implicit biases, on your part. You didn't review the movie, you made a political statement, rooted in radical feminist, and male-hating rhetoric. This man, along with other men of similar misfortunes, is the victim-not the woman who accused him. He is a human being, that has every right to have his story told, unmolested by contrived issues that would shift the focus off of him, onto a non-victim. And so what if his economic status is above his false accusers status: does it then justify her lies against this man, that resulted in his imprisonment? Nice attempt at a fake out, but I'm sorry-you miserably failed. At the core it appears as if you feel more sorry for false accusers of men, than the men who are falsely accused by these liars. It appears that way, in light of you inserting that jab. This pitiful analysis betrays your binary agenda: all women are truthful and good, in spite of potential liars and deceivers amongst them, whereas all men are just BAD-because they're men. And God help the men if they are assertive, confident and forthright, for then they'll be accused of having TOXIC MASCULINITY, whereas a woman with those same qualities will be labeled a BOSS. Look at the woman in the mirror...

Crystal4

This is a horrible review of the movie. It doesn’t even review the movie. It more about your perspective in the Brian Banks case. I have never seen so much bias. You make it sound like the movie forces you to see Brian Banks as a victim. When in all reality he IS the victim. He was accused of raping his girlfriend and it was completely false. It was prisoned and register as a sex offender. His whole life changed on a lie from a girl who’s family wanted money. What other victims did it come at the cost of ? He just telling his story. SHOULD HE LIE OR WATER IT DOWN, BECAUSE IT HURTS YOUR SENSITIVE IDEALS ? Should he not get justice? Please explain to me what you are trying to say.

Jesse4

Even in the face of a story that proves there are two sides to this extremely challenging issue, you demonstrate that you have no regard for men who can see their lives completely destroyed when false allegations happen. This review is equivalent to me watching The Accused then writing about how it was important to shine a light on violent gang rape, but not if the movie didn’t properly explore situations where men were jailed over false allegations. I also love how you threw in the problem with WHITE MEN when the movie is about a BLACK WOMAN FALSELY ACCUSING A BLACK MAN OF RAPE. Your ideology clouds your vision to where the hierarchy of victimhood drives all understanding of right/wrong and how any narrative should be interpreted. It’s transparent to 90% of us, but your kind lives in an echo chamber. You aren’t more educated...you’re more indoctrinated and I’m looking forward to the cultural shift that sees your viewpoints thrown in the dustpan of history.

Gordon Shumway4

At no point in this cinematic review did you review the movie on its story-telling, 'watchability', acting, or general movie presentation. You took your biased, personal opinion about the story, and decided that it does not fit your false narrative that the female is always the victim.

#brian banks #the Brian Banks movie

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precuredaily · 5 years ago

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Precure Day 186

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 38 - “Precure 5′s Cinderella Story” Date watched: 15 May 2020 Original air date: 28 October 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/Sc5B6vA Transformation Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/6k6SzS0 Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

Glass slippers: not even once

This episode introduces an idea that will get explored a fair few times in series down the road: the fairy tale episode. Cinderella is a particularly popular one, because it’s a simple story that little girls can imagine themselves in and there’s a lot of room to play with the narrative. It’s hardly a revolutionary idea for fiction, but it’s still fun to see how Precure plays with it, and the spin in this episode is particularly unusual for manifesting in two different ways. Let’s explore!

The Plot

Milk decides to try copying down the story of Cinderella for writing practice, as she plans to write her own novel a la Komachi, and copying a book is apparently a good way to study story structure. However, she gets bored copying it verbatim, so she decides to put her own spin on the narrative, portraying the cures as the characters. Nozomi is Cinderella, Komachi is the evil mother, Rin and Karen are the evil sisters, and Urara is the witch (no fairy godmother here). Coco fills the role of the prince at the ball and Nuts is another nobleman. All of the characters are strangely self-aware, except for Nozomi. They know the story of Cinderella, they know they’re characters in it, they’re basically going through the motions as the story dictates. When Urara shows up to give Nozomi her magical makeover, she winds up transforming her into other fictional characters first before she gets it right.

this dress should look familiar

Once she’s at the ball, Nozomi trips and falls, getting the attention of Prince Coco, who in turn dances with her. Nuts also approaches Komachi and asks her to dance, commenting that it’s just the kind of story they’re in. Karen and Rin have an exchange where they ask who Coco is dancing with despite both of them knowing exactly who it is. Urara shows up in a gown, and everyone knows she was supposed to be the witch. Did I mention it was weird? And to reiterate, Milk is writing this, these aren’t the real Nozomi and co. transported into the story. Milk has written them to be self-aware. What a strange book. Anyway, she has Nozomi trip and fall and they all end up in a pile on the ground and that’s where her story leaves off when she’s interrupted by the real girls knocking on her door. She hides her writing from them and tries to find somewhere more private to write, but as soon as she steps outside, Bunbee confronts her and decides to suck everyone into the world of her story.

Darkness imprisoning me, all that I see - wait have I used that joke before?

The next thing they know, they’re inside Milk’s Cinderella! But they don’t bother acting out the story, they see Bunbee holding Milk hostage and he turns the chandelier into a Kowaina, so they transform as well.

The Kowaina is able to use reflected light as laser beams to attack the girls so the team scatters. Dream and Rouge focus on fighting Bunbee to try to rescue Milk, but the kowaina keeps getting in their way, so Lemonade, Mint, and Aqua manage to hold it off while the other two get the jump on Bunbee. They free Milk, and then get upset at collateral damage to the castle being caused by their fight. Bunbee taunts that he’ll destroy this world like he destroyed the Palmier Kingdom, but all the girls respond by kicking his ass and the kowaina’s ass and then Dream performs Crystal Shoot to defeat it, and Bunbee flees.

After they detransform, the clock strikes midnight and they realize they’re still in the story, so they all run to get “home”. On the way down the stairs, Nozomi trips and one of her glass slippers flies off, opening a portal back to Natts House.

Somehow the glass slipper came back with them, and they remember that whoever it fits is supposed to marry the prince. Nozomi and Coco share a glance but before she can put it on, Milk LEAPS into the air and lands inside the shoe, claiming it as a perfect fit. Nozomi starts to chase her, demanding her shoe back, while Karen, Komachi, and Rin pick up the scattered pages of Milk’s manuscript. They take umbrage with her portrayal of them in the story, and the episode closes on Nozomi, Karen, and Rin all chasing her up the stairs.

The Analysis

It’s certainly a fun episode, a nice uptick from the last few. The spins on Cinderella are clever and funny, and this cast really makes it work. I do find it weird just how self-aware they seem to be in Milk’s story. One time in high school (probably around the time this show aired actually) I did a creative writing assignment which completely shattered the fourth wall, but my jokes were more absurdist than this. The characters act as though they’re the real Nozomi, Rin, etc who have been transported into the story and know they have to act it out, rather than like they’re characters within the narrative watching as the events unfold. I don’t really understand why it was composed this way, it doesn’t make sense from Milk’s perspective to have them be self-aware and make comments on their knowledge of the story, that sort of gag is much more suited for the characters being sucked into the story, which they did in the second half of the episode anyway. Structurally it may have been better to have them absorbed into the story early in the episode, play out the tale of Cinderella until the mid-point, and then Bunbee reveals himself or something and the rest goes as normal.

Regardless of whether the gags make sense in context, though, they are hilarious. The wicked stepmother being played by the nicest girl of the bunch is peak irony, and Rin and Karen the frequent head-butters as the stepsisters makes me laugh, although they didn’t really play up their little rivalry. None of them take their roles very seriously, which adds to the comedy. The highlight for me has to be when Urara shows up and transforms Nozomi. She cycles through a couple different outfits before she gets it right:

The most notable ones are Momotaro and Princess Kaguya, who are the subjects of famous Japanese fairy tales.

She also gets turned into a bear, a clown, and even a monster! I enjoy the self-awareness as well. Urara showing up at the ball despite and being called out by the others as the witch, the frequent comments about this all being “how the story goes” or what have you. My favorite exchange is when Karen asks who’s dancing with the Prince and Rin tells her it’s Cinderella, the title character, and Karen responds that she knows but she has to stick to the script. I don’t know why but this is peak comedy to me, and my greatest wish is that it be the actual characters who are saying this and not just Milk writing.

The payoff to this, however, is the revelation at the end when Karen, Komachi, and Rin look at Milk’s manuscript and realize exactly how she’s cast them. Even if Karen and Milk have a good relationship, she doesn’t like being exploited in this way, and when Milk remarks that an angry Karen is scarier than an evil sister, she and Rin lose their minds and start to chase her. Komachi, in typical fashion, is upset but not angry. I have said it before but I love the character interactions in this show. They always manage to play off each other wonderfully, and they seamlessly and believably transition between comedy and seriousness.

Curiously, Milk doesn’t insert herself into the story for whatever reason. You would expect her to place herself in the role of Cinderella so she could get the handsome prince, but she seems more content to play god with her friends, and especially to make Nozomi suffer.... although the worst thing she actually does is have her trip and break things a lot. Considering she says she wants to be with Coco romantically, she doesn’t show it much. She fantasizes about it a little bit when she’s in his presence but on some level she seems to realize he’s a better match for Nozomi. I think it’s telling that she automatically pairs up Coco with Nozomi and Komachi with Nuts even in her fantasy.

The villain plot of this episode is rather lackluster. Sucking the girls into the world of Cinderella and then destroying it isn’t as effective as sucking them into Komachi’s novel, which was an actual dangerous setting that Arachnea enhanced in that instance. It doesn’t benefit Bunbee in any way to have them in this setting, and that’s disappointing. I wish they could have better justified it. It does allow for a pretty good fight, but it’s not any better than battles they’ve fought in the real world. My favorite part is when Cure Rouge mule kicks Bunbee, and then a sequence where everyone gets single or pair attacks in on him where their animation is really warped because it’s going fast.

It’s not bad, you can only see this if you freeze-frame, but boy is it weird. And there’s some other animation oddities in this episode. I’m not sure if I’ve brought up before their habit of drawing a shot from far away that has low detail, and either zooming in on it or starting up close and zooming out, but the point is, when they do this, it really enhances how low-quality the drawing is. And there’s a shot of Bunbee that’s drawn this way for some reason. It’s zoomed in on him as a person, he transforms, and THEN the camera zooms out. I can only assume they originally blocked this shot out as being zoomed out always, because otherwise there’s no reason that his human model should be as low-res as it is.

Here’s a fun little bit of continuity I picked up on that relates to Bunbee as well. If you remember way back in episode 14, he used a missile attack that broke Mint Reflection, and they had to team up to deflect it. Well he uses it again here, but this time, Komachi has Mint Shield at her disposal, which we know is stronger, and it’s able to block the missile completely without anyone else’s assistance.

Additionally, one little oddity I picked up on is, of all things, a reused piece of background music! During the scene where Urara-as-the-witch appears to Nozomi-Cinderella, they cue her in with the track “Strange Occurrence” from the FWPC soundtrack. I haven’t noticed any other instances of them using backing tracks from outside this season’s OST, so this sticks out to me.

I want to say a quick piece about these ball gowns that they’re all wearing and then I’ll wrap this up.

If you have a keen eye and a good memory, you might remember Nozomi’s dress and Coco’s suit as being first seen in her brief fantasy in episode 34:

The others are new.... sort of. Chronologically speaking this is their first appearance, but they also show up in the movie which premiered a week after this episode’s broadcast, and I’m reasonably certain, because of how long movies take to produce, they were designed for that first and then incorporated back into the show. Reusing costume designs isn’t a new phenomenon, I pointed out way back in FWPC that they reused the Romeo and Juliet costumes in the dream episode, I just wanted to point it out.

This was a fun episode with some great gags in it, but while they tried to put an original spin on the concept of placing your characters in another established fictional work, the execution fell short of its potential and keeps the episode from being as good as it could have been.

My next review will be the Yes! Precure 5 movie! I always allow myself to indulge on movies, and this one will be no exception, so in order to make it the best review possible, it’s going to take several days of work to get done. I hope to have it out within a week, and I’ll make progress announcements about it on PCD Status, so please be patient and look forward to that!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 kettei!

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! Precure 5 #YPC538 #PCD186

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sparklyaxolotlstudent · 5 years ago

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Things I Don’t Understand Of The Miraculous Ladybug Fandom And Are Kind Of Annoying Even If I Do Them Myself.

Also please note I’m not calling anyone out, it’s just weird when people latch into seemingly the same conclusions for fanon even if there is back up for that in canon.

1. The obsession and fighting about the Love Square. Like, I understand people can get passionate about shipping, but, like… they’re the same 2 characters people are fighting about…

2. Describing Chat Noir suit as “leather”, but no one else, even though it’s extremely clear all of them are of the same material. (I dunno if it has been described that as that in show, but still)

3. Describing the Kwamis as “gods” or “goddesses”, when they have never been called that in-universe. (The closest thing that has been explained about them is in the comics, and their canonicity is doubtful)

4. People that still believe anything That Guy says. I get it that sometimes he says stuff that kinda fit with our own narratives, but he has admitted to lying before (The whole Felix thing), retconned his own opinion (Luka being two years older than Juleka), and threw people under the bus for his own change of decisions (“The miraculous can only be destroyed by cataclysm” is now a translation mistake).

5. People that hate Marinette. Enough said

6. People that “stan” Lila. Or Chloe, really. I have never understood how the “mean girl” character gets popular. Like Audrey in Descendants. She’s a Wolf in Sheep Clothing and should have been thrown at the Island after willingly terrifying the kingdom, but they went the easy route… Sorry, I’m rambling.

7. Using the Lucky Charm as a tool for angst. Ladybug has multiple times detransformed mid battle to recharge and try again… Hell, she did it in The Bubbler, which is one of the first episodes, yet is a common plot for Angsty Fics that she detransforms and now the changes are irreversible.

8. Making the Miraculous super OP. I get that some of their powers are disappointing and kind of lame compared to the akumas, and even each other (I’m watching you, Pollen), but giving them all the powers that can fit their theme is not the solution, and it honestly would get hella boring if they had New Powers As The Plot Demands.

9. Likewise, I don’t remember really being a “tier” of Powers. Sure, the box was designed that way for some reason, but we don’t know that reason, and a couple of the “third” tier seems more powerful than the ones on the second, and even than the first. The only thing I remember is that the Ladybug and the Black Cat Miraculous are considered the most powerful because of their capability to bend reality and grant a wish, not because they are particularly powerful on their own.

10. The Aus that end up having nothing to do with the show other than sharing the names with some characters. Don’t get me wrong, I love Aus, and there are some that are hella interesting with different settings and relationship etc. But there are some that are so far removed from canon that it would make more sense to make them Original Fiction, like:

“AU were Adrien is the son of Tom and Sabine, so he’s half Chinese, but he looks more like his mom, so he has Black hair and grey eyes, and looks Chinese, and he’s growing up to be a baker. But they’re in a fantasy medieval world. Chloe is the Elf princess that was also his childhood friend and sees him as a brother. Lila is the Mermaid princess of a rival kingdom and has her eyes on the baker, for reasons I’m not going to explain. She’s also Kim’s brother. Gabriel is the father of Chloe. Marinette is one of the knights, and is friends with Prince Kim. She’s also blonde and brave and loud and kind of rude, and likes archery”

I am exaggerating, but in case I’m plagiarizing someone’s work, I’m sorry.

#ml salt #fandom salt #sorta

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rwbyremnants · 4 years ago

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WARNING: Creepy dad talk, das it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR and stuff! Thanks for the love and continued readership, I know this is getting really long (and it has SO much left to go), I'm going to try to keep up posting a little more frequently now just so I don't keep everybody waiting too much longer.

=Chapter 26

The Vale Police Department was a dreary building indeed. Small and quaint, but undecorated and forbidding on the inside. Grey walls and white tile floors, and burly men in blue uniforms leaning against desks and chatting with each other in terse voices. They all looked a little surprised to see a teenaged girl in white dress, ponytail only slightly askew.

“Hello,” she said with a small curtsy. “I’m here to speak with Jacques Schnee?”

The one with the black sunglasses on tilted his head back to look at her. ‘Officer Burns’, his nametag read. “You got a name, sweetcakes?”

“It isn’t ‘Sweetcakes’. It’s Weiss Schnee.”

“One second, honey.” He disappeared briefly. Weiss wasn’t sure if she was supposed to keep standing or take one of the uncomfortable seats just inside the front door, but just when she had made up her mind to do the latter, the man returned.

“Yes?”

“Ironwood says you can go on through. Just watch yourself, girlie; this ain’t no sock hop.”

Once through a door in the back, she saw another door made of iron bars. The officer unlocked this, then led her down a row of what she could only describe as cages. They were mostly filled with men, and they all seemed to be interested in wolf-whistling and cat-calling her as she walked past. Maybe she should have worn the longer skirt…

“Want in there with him? I’ll be out here.” He tapped the baton at his hip, suggesting he was ready at a moment’s notice to subdue any prisoner.

“No,” she whispered softly. “I need to speak with him, but I don’t want to be locked in with him. Not ever.”

That earned her a sideways glance. But all he said was, “Righty-o.”

Her father was not in fantastic shape, but in far better than most of his fellow inmates. His suit was a bit grimy looking from sleeping on the dirty cot in the corner upon which he now sat, and his hair and moustache were devoid of their usual lustre. The footsteps had brought his head up, and now he favoured her with a tight smile.

“Hello, little Weiss. Come to gloat?”

“Can we have a moment?” she whispered to the officer, not even daring to acknowledge him first.

“Remember,” he muttered, tapping the baton again. Then he moved further back down the hall, snapping things at prisoners here and there.

“Father.”

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he began while spreading his hands wide, smiling at her. “Gloating is still my first guess, but maybe you’re just curious. Or maybe you’re about to ask ‘Why, Daddy?’ or some other such drivel. As if my answer would be worth a hill of beans to a disobedient child.”

“Who was it?” she demanded.

“Who was what?’

Leaning closer, she glared daggers at him. “The one who set the fire. We both know you had something to do with it, so you might as well tell me.”

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said mildly.

“Yes, you do.”

“I have spoken to no one other than the warden and my attorney, Weiss. Certainly not to you or your mother - even though you both owe me quite the heartfelt apology.”

“Apology? You… we owe you an…”

After a moment, she began to laugh harshly. Jacques weathered that sound for a moment before he grew weary and snapped, “What’s so hilarious to you, my idiot daughter?”

“Oh, just that you somehow can’t figure out that you’re the one who failed us. I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, you’ve been abusing my mother for our entire lives, and right under my nose. I just chose not to see it. Too late for cover-ups and cleverness, Father; you tried to beat the both of us senseless.”

“You deserved it,” he growled under his breath. “All this gallivanting with gangsters, and somehow, I’m the villain of your narrative, just because I tried to discipline you?”

“It’s not ‘discipline’ to lash my face!” she half-shouted, ripping off the bandage to show the healing cut the leather had left there. “One scar wasn’t enough, huh? You won’t be satisfied until my entire face is so marked up that no one will ever love me! Is that about the size of it?!”

Sighing, he shook his head for a moment. “Don’t be hysterical. It’s unbecoming.”

“So is this beating you gave me. Not attractive at all.”

“Then stop earning beatings,” he bit out as if she weren’t grasping simple concepts. “The same could be said of Willow, really; she never could grow up entirely. And though the last thing I would ever want was to need to treat my wife like a child, it became necessary at times.”

“Liar.”

“Excuse me?”

Teeth bared, Weiss wrapped both hands around the bars so tightly that the knuckles turned whiter than her dress. “Who do you think you’re fooling with that ‘the last thing I would want’ routine? You do want this.”

“Careful,” he said in a dangerous tone.

“You want us to be your… your punching bags! Love to see us get hurt, love that you have the power to do that to us! It’s sick! You’re sick, Father, and I don’t ever want to be alone in the same room with you again!”

With no forewarning, he flung himself at the bars, just barely managing to catch one of her hands before she could pull it back fast enough. She tried to jerk away, but his snarling face was suddenly there, and she found she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t force herself to turn away or try to break free again.

“I’m sorry you were ever born, you ungrateful trollop. Daughters? I never wanted any daughters. Too much trouble, and too much like their mother. Don’t know their place. But I’ll be back to restore order soon enough.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Oh, haven’t I mentioned?” he continued in his oily growl, so low no one else could hear. “Daddy’s getting out of here soon. And you’ll have a lot worse to look forward to than some shabby old building being destroyed the way it should have been years ago.” His grin was positively demented, and she began to worry that his time in the jail had driven him over the edge completely. “I’ll mark your skin once for every stupid word of disrespect you’ve ever said to me. And Willow can look forward to the same.”

“No…” Gulping, she looked up for the officer, but he was turned away. “I’m- you can’t! You hurt us, the police-”

“Weiss, I own the police. I own this entire town. There isn’t anyone I can’t buy off, or call in a favour that they can’t refuse. Within a few days, my hearing will come due, and I’ll be out of this birdcage quicker than you can blink.”

Shaking all over, she whispered, “You’re a monster. You’re really a- I wish I’d never- no. I wish you’d never been born.”

“Then you wouldn’t be born, you bimbo! Honestly, how could I have raised such a dunce?”

“How did you set the fire?!” she demanded, hoping to squeeze some real information from him before she couldn’t stand to be this close anymore.

“Doesn’t matter, does it? I made sure it happened. And I’ll keep doing the same until you see the error of your ways.”

“GUARD!”

By the time he had turned around, he had let go and taken a single step back, enough so that it would not be readily apparent that he was holding her hostage. Shaking and angry beyond measure, she turned to make her way back to the front.

“See you soon, sweetie,” he promised in a carrying, cheery voice. “Very soon.”

--------------------------------

“Wow…”

Weiss nodded as she gazed down into the malted she couldn’t even force down, no matter how hungry she was. Again. Her father’s words had ruined what little appetite she had left.

“Weiss, this is unacceptable,” Pyrrha whispered across the table. “He isn’t being… well, he isn’t being a father at all. How could he say such things?”

“I’d like to smash his face in,” Yang growled under her breath. Many of the diner’s patrons were glancing at her nervously; even if she was a girl, she still looked like a rougher element than they were used to seeing in the warm atmosphere of the establishment.

“Now, now… we won’t solve anything that way. Weiss’s mother will just have to work with Blake’s extra hard to ensure that he won’t be able to do such things.”

The brute rolled her eyes. “Sure, sure. I’m surprised you ain’t trying to tell Weiss to give him a second chance.”

“Well…” This time, she had to pause a bit longer to consider her words. “Forgiveness is divine. But he struck both his daughter and his own wife. Sometimes, God punishes people through the law, and I believe he needs to at least serve his time in jail before he gets any second chance. But if Weiss and Mrs. Schnee don’t want to give one to him… they have my full support.”

“Hmm…” Slowly, her head began to nod, then nodded a little faster. “Alright, Nikos. I guess I can respect that.”

Pyrrha's smile was weak, but at least present. None of them were in a particularly chipper mood anymore. She turned back to Weiss to ask, “How are Cinder and your leader? I can't recall her name.”

“Terrible. I haven't gone to see them yet myself, but the other girls say Cinder is in terrible shape. Salem will be just fine, and Emerald will need to wear some bandages for a little while. But they… they aren't sure about…”

When Yang's hand draped over her own, the tightness that had been building in her chest slowly began to loosen. “Hey. Not your fault, remember? And if it would make you feel better, we could go try to visit them right now. At least Salem and Emerald should be able to have guests and all; with Cinder they keep saying ‘family only’, but what good does that do anybody when she’s got no family?”

Weiss flashed her a grateful smile. “Thank you. And I know Sienna is helping them, but I really would feel better if I checked in on them myself.”

That was how the three of them reached the decision that they would go to the hospital after the soda fountain. All the way there, Weiss was on pins and needles. Would Salem even want to see her? But this wasn't about what anyone did or didn't want - it was about duty. Even though Yang kept telling her not to feel bad about what happened, she couldn't help feeling partially responsible since it was her father's doing.

As they had worried, Cinder was not available for visiting hours. But Salem was. The worst she had suffered was mild smoke inhalation and a few bruises. They also learned that Emerald would soon be released once her bandages were firmly in place, though Weiss had a sneaking suspicion that she would want to remain by Cinder's side.

The strangest thing about Salem wasn't the oxygen tube running underneath her nostrils, or seeing her in the sterile surroundings of a hospital. It was seeing her face and hair in full. She wasn't just pale… she was white. An albino! Weiss had heard some people were born without enough pigment in their skin, but had never met anyone like that before. Her hair was also yet whiter than her own, and done up into several braids. The curtains on her window were drawn, and now she understood that was to protect her sensitive skin from the harsh rays of the sun, just as that ever-present cloak usually helped with.

“Are you just going to stare?”

Dipping her head in mild chagrin, she and Yang paced into the room. “High Dragon. I'm glad to see you are well.”

“And I you, Little Schnee. Though I'm saddened to hear about Cinder. She was… still is, one of my most loyal girls. A fierce Dragon. To lose her would be a great tragedy.”

“I'm sorry, too,” Weiss said. She wanted to get this out of the way as soon as possible. “And… I'm afraid I am partially to blame.”

“Oh?”

“It wasn't really her fault,” Yang butted in, voice urgent. “Just because he's a big-”

“Silence, Xiao Long.” Her tone was merely cold, not overly severe. Either way, Weiss saw her girlfriend shut down immediately. “You were saying?”

As succinctly as she could, she explained about what had gone on between her parents, the abuse they had both received at the hands of her father. Then she summarized her visit to the jail itself, and everything he had said. As she listened, Salem made no other remark other than to ask for clarification on a point or two, and nodded or shook her head very slightly. It was as if she were listening to the news on the radio.

“I see. And because your father has taken these actions against us, you feel it is your responsibility?”

“Yes. You… you asked me to… regain his trust, be his good little girl, and I couldn't do that. Now, he thinks he's going to destroy all of us just to make me obey him again. I failed.” She felt Yang's hand fall to her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. “No, I don't deserve to be comforted about this! I'm a Dragon now. You were trusting me to do a job, and I didn't, and I deserve whatever punishment you give me.”

There were a long few seconds that passed in silence in that hospital room. Yang's hand went to her shoulder again, unperturbed by her effort to get her to stop, and Weiss neither pushed her away nor acknowledged it.

“Your apology has been noted. No disciplinary action is needed at this time.”

“What?”

“However,” she went on with a single finger raised, eyes locked onto Weiss's. “You should never do that again. Before going to see him in prison, you should have consulted with me, or with the acting High Dragon - Yang.”

“What?” It was Yang this time, stunned. “I thought… well, I know I'm supposed to be someday, but I'm still a kid. Isn't Kali-”

The way she shook her head made Yang fall silent. “No. You should take her counsel into consideration, of course, but you are my successor. Not Kali, not Cinder, and not anyone else. I thought I had made that perfectly clear in the past.”

“You have,” she assured her with a brief bow. “Sorry. I won't forget that next time - but I hope there isn't a next time.”

“One can never know.” Her eyes returned to Weiss, pale hands folding in her lap. “As for you… I suppose you have done no real harm, not directly. This matter will be dealt with. Do you still believe that your mother can be swayed to our side?”

“I, um… I'd rather she not be any more involved than necessary. But yes, she's still working with Kali. And I can tell you she's completely finished with my father! We both are.”

“Then I find that satisfactory for the moment. If you could fetch Sienna from the hall, I believe we have much to discuss before my discharge. You are both dismissed.”

Though she had an ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach, Weiss did as she was asked. Once they had spoken with Sienna, who looked tired enough for a dozen lifetimes but was as vigilant as ever, Yang led her to the waiting room where Pyrrha sat, sipping from a paper cup of water and looking completely out of her element. She stood the minute she saw the two of them approach.

“How are they?”

“Salem's fine,” Weiss told her softly. “Emerald, too, but… still no word on Cinder. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.”

“I'm worried.” They both turned it to look at Yang, and she shrugged her shoulders. “The way Salem said she'd just ‘take care of it’. What's that mean?”

Pyrrha's shrug was even higher than Yang's. “Search me. But it sounds to me as if she doesn't hold Weiss responsible for what happened. That's a good thing, isn't it?”

“It is,” Weiss sighed weakly. “Now let's get out of here. Hospitals give me the creeps.”

“Me, too,” Yang admitted. She had seemed a little on edge since they got there, but Weiss attributed that to their pending talk with Salem. “Ever since Mom- I mean, Summer…”

Now it made too much sense. Sliding her arm around Yang's waist, she began to lead the other two outside. If they never saw the inside of a hospital again, it would be too soon.

--------------------------------

This time, Yang went with Weiss when she made her way home. There was a possibility the introduction could be awkward, and Yang had certainly expressed a plethora of misgivings, but she wanted to get it out of the way immediately - especially if her mother was going to have more and more contact with the Dragons. Salem seemed to be under the impression that it would become such a regular occurrence that she might as well be one of them, but Weiss was determined to keep that from happening; her high-society mother was not ready to enter that world. Not fully.

Willow Schnee was getting set up in the living room for Kali's daily visit. Though Weiss had never seen her mother dating before, she was certainly pulling out all the stops for her guest as if she were; finger sandwiches, the good tea set, and quite a lovely, pale pink dress gracing her figure. That certainly did nothing to dissuade Weiss from thinking there was a larger amount of affection between the two of them than two new friends would typically share. She looked up at the sound of the door opening, and her expectant expression turned into one surprise.

“Oh! Weiss, hello! Sorry, I thought you would be out quite late this evening. Weren't you going to spend time with your new friends?”

Suppressing a wry smile at the way her mother said “new friends” instead of “group of thugs involved in organized crime”, she closed the door and led Yang over toward the couch where she was seated. “I wanted to check on you. Besides, I'll see them again tomorrow.”

“Well, thank you,” she set earnestly, reaching up to take Weiss's free hand. Her other one was nestled in the small of Yang's back, trying to be reassuring. It didn't seem to be helping much; the blonde brute was still sweating bullets. “But I told you, I'm fine.”

“I know. By the way, Mother, um, this is Yang Xiao Long. My, uhhhh…”

She didn't end up needing to explain. Her mother blinked a few times, looked between the two of them, then lowered her eyes to stare into space.

“Ah. So… she's the one you're… that you- well.”

“My girlfriend.” Somehow, her mother's inability to say it out loud made her need to finish the sentence herself.

“Girlfriend,” she repeated in a tone of utter disbelief. When no one else spoke, she looked up at her daughter, eyes pleading for her to take it back. It made Weiss's stomach clench but she pressed on.

“Yes. I told you about this, remember?”

With a slight nod, her mother turned away again. “Of course, of course. This is very…” A frown line creased the center of her forehead. “I'm sorry, Weiss. Really. I'm just not sure what to say about it. Everything I'm thinking sounds so…”

Yang volunteered a guess. “Bad?” It got Willow to look up at her, and only the presence of Weiss's hand in the small of her back kept her from retreating. “S-sorry, ma'am.”

“No, no, it's alright. That's exactly it: I keep hearing things that our pastor would say, or Jacques, or… but my daughter swears to me that it is true love, not just sin. And she's certainly had a better head on her shoulders than I have for these past few years. Who am I to argue?”

“Maybe,” Weiss attempted, her voice quivering very slightly from sheer anxiety, “if you got to know her, you'll see that she's not just a sinner, or an obstacle, or whatever Father thinks that she is. But you might have to try talking to her yourself to do that.”

That seemed to shake the woman even more. Though she had glanced at Yang once or twice, she finally turned to properly look at her. Whether it was how young she looked, or how uncomfortable and worried about the outcome of this initial meeting, Weiss could never know - but it had the effect of making her frown even more.

“Goodness, I am sorry. Yang Chan, was it? I'm Willow Schnee. Must have left my manners in my other dress.”

As she offered her hand for Yang to take, palm facing down, the Dragon looked a little confused for a moment. Weiss guessed it was partly because her mother had missed her surname and substituted that of Charlie Chan, since that was possibly the only Chinese family name the woman knew. Weiss was inwardly groaning but kept her comments to herself. In the end, Yang accepted the proffered hand and leaned down to kiss the back, as if she were some kind of prince at a royal function.

“Oh!” Willow gasped.

“U-uh,” she began, shaking the hand now even though it was still in that awkward position. “Nice to, um, make your acquaintance?”

Tittering with delight, she turned a wide smile toward her daughter. “So polite - and she speaks very good English! Will wonders never cease?”

Yes, Weiss did indeed feel like she could die then and there.

#princess and the dragons #freezerburn fanfic #weiss x yang #rwby fanfiction #rwbyremnants

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anubianreviewsstuff · 4 years ago

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The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Main Characters

Let’s begin with a breakdown and my overall reactions to the main characters of this series shall we? Over all, I like alot of them, the actors for many are skilled and their skills make everything else bearable to be honest. But narrative wise, they have a lot of issues.

Harvey: Nice guy, he comes off heavily naive and just Sabrina’s man puppet toy right off the bat. He’s oblivious to the fact Sabrina is a witch, as he should so his reactions seem normal, but he is overly forgiving at times. Personality wise he comes off as weak-willed and easily manipulated, which he is, his best reactions for me, have been when he broke it off with Sabrina, because he was tired of the horrors she often unleashed into his life. Many of which he eventually just forgave or was forced to “get over it” which, for one particular event, his brother, felt so jarring. A lot of the time he felt like a caricature of a male rather then a real person.

Roz: At first she was insufferable, she came off as a typical woke feminist type of character you want to see vanish into some narrative void and never come back. She only really became more like a real person after she loses her eyesight and then, even after regaining it, she continued to be an actual person and not some tumblr activist insert. I like her more then Sabrina which, says a hell of a lot.

Theo: Now, I’m all for having characters who explore their transgenderism in a show, and a show like this, could have the space if we had LESS characters taking up space. There’s so much going on, so many subplots and side-quests going on off screen, or in the background that at times in many episodes it’s clogged and muddled and I felt it just took away from this experience. For what it was, it was great and Theo is a fun character, who came into their own and kept challenging gender stereotypes in the show. This was sort of weird considering the muddled time-frame the show takes place in, but we’ll get to that later. Over all I liked Theo and her transformation from Susie to Theo. I felt they needed less going on to really give this a fair shake to be honest, though. Alot of it got lost in the supernatural world ending apocalyptic events unfolding in the next scene stole alot of power and impact from this and made it feel in places, tossed in for woke points. Which I didn’t like because the parts we did see were well written imo.

Auntie Hilda: I love this character. She is bubbly, loving, sweet, kind, and will shank you in your sleep if you come for her family. She is so warm and a great chef, she is always supporting her family despite the abuse from her sister. Whom she loves dearly. She got a lot of screen time but not much of it was exploring her as a character as much as they gave to other characters. When she started breaking out to have her own life I was thrilled, she found love and was happy. She deserved it, I loved seeing her find happiness away from the family she is virtually slave too.

Aunt Zelda: So, over all I kinda like her for her assertive and constant devotion to family, (mostly how she verbally whips Sabrina at times because she deserves it so much). Besides that she left no real impressions on me other then narrative issues we will get too later but the jist of it is, she way to easily hurls life long beliefs into the trash on a whim. I’m all for characters who are adaptive but when it’s your life-long religion you threw everything of yourself into...you just don’t shrug it off say “ah well who cares” and move on like you broke your favorite mug.

Ambrose: He is a fun and knowledgeable character but unfortunately he suffers from being a man in a show about women, whose writers clearly have severe slants that show like glaring plot holes. His wisdom is often ignored or he is laughed off at times for “haha being a stupid MAN, what’s he know!”. In the start Sabrina often gets helpful advice from him, and sometimes followed it, he was valued then, somewhat. But as the show progresses he is ignored more and more as a valuable confidant and becomes just another male character who doesn’t really have self-agency alot of the time. By the end of the 3rd season he is pretty much laughed off as just “a man who doesn’t know anything.”

Father Blackwood: He is so evil he makes the DEVIL seem tame. I love him as a villain, he is so devious and vile. I enjoy how he keeps being a villain. He is well written and evil, like and evil cult leader should be.

Lilith: She is such a fantastic manipulator in this show that really shows her power and ability to walk a tight-rope between truth and lying. She is murderous, and ensures Sabrina commits the worst corrupting crimes in the entire book while also giving her plenty of openings to just...not do what she says. The dynamic between her desire to be free of Lucifer’s abuses and being her own entity seeking her own goals and agency. She in my opinion, is basically the hero of this show, unintentionally. Michelle Gomez really brings her to life and lends a magnificent personality to the character, she brings Lilith life in a way that makes her more sympathetic then the main character. Gomez’s expert acting talents for me, really brought the character to life.

Sabrina: Ahh the wart on the boil. At first she was actually relatable, decent, and sympathetic. But she over the course of the show’s seasons became increasingly unbearable as a terrible person without any good traits. She went from being a normal teenage girl to being an insufferable child with such an over-inflated ego that it begs belief that she can walk without keeling over. Really this change is most noticeable between season 2 and 3, she changes from being a manipulated child wanting her independence from THE DEVIL’S OPPRESSION AND SLAVERY TO HIS WILL, to, thinking if she demands the universe bend the knee, it will just happen. Sabrina is perhaps the most oblivious character in the entire show, as well as the least intelligent, without any sense of nuance, masquerading as a character who has a moral compass (she doesn’t), nor does she have foresight. She’s pretty much become a character that is a typical arrogant teenager who thinks they already know everything and doesn’t need anyone’s help, ever, except she constantly needs hand-holding. She’s dumb, easily mislead, arrogant, self-absorbed, and values no one’s advice but her own, even as she abuses her romantic partners and ignores their plights because her own little problems are more important. If ever you could watch a character pretend to be the hero but is actually the worst villain in the entire show, it is this ones. Good gods is she the best villain that doesn’t realize she actually is the villain. I honestly loathe Sabrina because of how unintentionally dumb and vapid she is, good lord, she just commands other characters to do her character development for her, instead of doing it herself, while she runs off to pull other plot points together and somehow we are supposed to root for her when every time she gets yelled at and broken down, it’s so enjoyable because she absolutely deserves it. My one moment of utter loathing for Sabrina had to come from when her boyfriend came back from literal Hell. He sacrificed his soul and body to save the world and Sabrina by being the prison Lucifer gets sealed into, then dragged into Hell where he was debased, violated and abused daily by Lilith for a good while. Shocking when he came back from Hell with PTSD and horrifying nightmares and Sabrina, ignored his needs and plights as unimportant because “something something, it’s not about me”. Then she yells at him that his suffering doesn’t matter because she is busy. Sure, it was important what she was doing but Nick didn’t deserve to be told to fuck off and his suffering was just not important to her to deal with at the time and she could have either waited or delegated it to some other character for awhile and help her boyfriend she claims to love, deal with his issues that are destroying him. But no, it wasn’t worth her time. She is despicable.

Lucifer: I love Luke Cook’s devil. Albeit the Devil is...the devil...what do ya know the PRINCE OF LIES is evil...shocking. But Cook makes him fun and enjoyable to see as an evil entity.

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ansheofthevalley · 6 years ago

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Different approaches to the truth: Dænerys, Jon and the Iron Throne

(this is in response to this post)

The Starks vs. Dænerys clash is very clear, especially in ep. 4. So we have two scenes in which Jon seems to be in the middle of this clash: both sides want him to pick them. But from what I’ve seen all week is that something really important is flying over people/stans’ heads, and that’s their reasons. While the clash started as something purely political, it turned to be extremely personal (for Dæny in 8x02, for the Starks in 8x04). The conflict is still very much political, but now in a way that not only affects the North but the whole Seven Kingdoms, and it’s personal because it puts at risk the last of two of the greatest Houses in Westeros, all because of RLJ.

While the Starklings view this issue as a personal one, one that has political connotations; for Dænerys is the other way around: this is a political issue that happens to be personal as well.

The scene really start when they kiss, because that will be the catalyst for their conflict in the scene: the fact that Jon is Rhaegar’s son and what that means, both personally and politically.

D: I wish you’ve never told me. If I didn’t know, I’d be happy right now. I try to forget, tonight I did for a while, and then I saw them gathered around you

D: I saw the way they looked at you. I know that look. So many people have looked at me that way but never here, never on this side of the sea.

She wants what Jon has: the people’s devotion. Just as she was Mhysa in Slaver’s Bay, just as she’s the great Khaleesi to the Dothraki, she wants that same devotion from the Lords and Ladies of Westeros, but the thing is Westeros is not the same as Essos. In Essos, she broke chains; in Westeros, she’s trying to subjugate people. Of course people won’t look at her the same way people did back in Essos. She’s been aware of this ever since she set foot in the North:

The fact that she witnesses the loyalty and trust Sansa also has is noteworthy. This ultimately becomes an issue for Dænerys. I believe one of the biggest issues Dæny has with Sansa is the fact that she has the things she so desperately wants: the people’s love, loyalty and trust. And she ends up resenting her for it, as we’ve seen in 8x04.

J: I told you I don’t want it

D: It doesn’t matter what you want

D: You didn’t want to be King in the North. What happens when they demand you press your claim and take what is mine?

Well, there’s a lot to unpack here. First of all, Jon is telling her he has no interest on the Throne. She can keep it. But Dæny offers two good points: he didn’t want to be KitN and he ended up being one and she’s factoring in the will of the people. I know we joke around saying she lacks self-awareness (it’s not really a joke if it’s true but that’s not the point), but right now, in this moment, she’s self-aware. She’s aware she doesn’t have the support of the people, that her chances of getting the Throne rest on her firepower and the support of the Lords. 8x01, 8x02 and the feast in 8x04 made her and us see that. She does not have the people’s loyalty, nor does she have their love. Who does though? The Starks, namely Jon and Sansa.

J: I’ll refuse. You are my Queen. I don’t know what else I can say.

D: You can say nothing to anyone, ever. Never tell them who you really are. Swear your brother and Samwell Tarly to secrecy and tell no one else

D: Or it will take a life of its own and you won’t be able to control it or what it does to people, no matter how many times you bend the knee, no matter what you swear.

Like I said, this is the first time in a while we’ve seen Dæny this self-aware, in this case, of her fragile grasp on the little power she has. While she asks Jon not to say a word, she’s passionate and vulnerable, a stark contrast to, let’s say, the audiences in 8x01 and 8x02, the war council in 8x02. Even during the reveal in 8x02, she had her “queenly mask”. But not here. Because she’s looking the truth at the face. While asking this of Jon, she’s acknowledging how fragile her power actually is. Because, in a land where people chose who should rule them, she knows she wouldn’t be first choice.

But there’s also another thing. She’s openly rejecting Jon as a Targaryen. For her, the complications of Jon being her nephew are purely political. Jon is a threat to her claim. So, to neutralize the threat, she asks him to keep the truth a secret. To make him consciously live a lie, all so she can get the Throne. And to be fair with Dæny, I get it. I fundamentally disagree with it, but I get it. She’s been on this journey for years. She suffered a lot in order to get where she’s now. And just when the Iron Throne is at the reach of her hand, another contender for the Throne appears. A legitimate Targaryen with a higher claim than hers who is loved and respected by northerners, the wildlings, the Knights of the Vale, and even some of the Lannisters. From her POV, it’s as if everything’s falling apart, just when she’s about to get the one thing she’s been after for so long. After facing many foes, after being abducted, after crossing the Narrow Sea, after losing Viserion, after losing a large part of her armies, after losing Jorah; it turns out she’s not the last Targaryen and she’s not the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. But she’s been isolated for so long, unapproachable, alone in that bubble of hers, all the while she feeded the idea of destiny, of being the princess that was promised, that she has a warped version of reality. So when she finds out Jon is her nephew, her family, she isn’t happy. Instead she sees it as a threat to what she’s set up to do. All of this contrasts the dynamic Jon has with the Starks:

But let’s go back to the Jon-Dæny scene.

D: I want it to be the way it was between us.

J: I have to tell Sansa and Arya.

I’ve given a definition (according to Roland Barthes) of a romantic scene in a previous meta:

In a romantic narrative, the scene is a back-and-forth. The two (they’re always two) argue or exchange remarks and they want to prove to the other that they are the ones on the right. They both seek to have the last word. As this is a back-and-forth, neither of the two is above the other; they’re on the same level, they’re equals, but most importantly, they need each other. It’s a confrontation, but neither of the two will leave the scene or submit to the other; it’s a way for the characters to have pleasure without it being physical: it tortures them, it’s perverse, but they will give into it.

For the scene to work, there must be a bait, something that will get the scene started. The bait can either be a) a fact (one affirms it and the other denies it) or b) a decision (one imposes it and the other rejects it). There is no way the tension in the scene can be resolved, there’s no agreement, simply because what’s being disputed between the two is not a fact or a decision, it’s something that lays outside the scene: it’s subtext. So the scene has no object or loses this object (the reason they’re arguing) very quickly. The scene builds in like a crescendo, what one character says reinforces the opposite idea of the other and so on and on. Silence is a powerful tool. It doesn’t stop a scene, it strengthens it. There are three possible ends to a scene, all external to the scene’s structure:

-both characters are fatigued -a stranger arrives -the aggression changes into desire

At first, one could read this scene as romantic. But it’s not. This scene plays like a reverse romance scene. It starts with desire (the kiss) but it quickly changes to aggression. There’s also the fact that Jon and Dæny are not equals. Jon tells Dæny she’s his Queen twice, one of them while he’s on his knees. She constantly brings up the power inbalance in their relationship (”it doesn’t matter what you want”, ”take what is mine”, “never tell them who you really are”, “no matter how many times you bend the knee”). The scene, instead of working as a back-and-forth, gives the impression of Jon trying his best to reassure Dænerys that what she’s saying that will happen won’t. It looks like the bait is a fact, the matter of Jon’s parentage and its impact, that one is affirming it and the other one is denying it. But Jon’s denial of what Dæny is saying comes from a place of submission. Jon denying what Dæny is affirming is him trying to appease her doubts and fears, nothing else. What’s my basis for saying this? The fact that there is no subtext. The conflict is explicit, it’s part of the text. This is not a romantic scene.

D: Sansa will want to see me gone and you on the Iron Throne.

J: She won’t.

D: She’s not the girl you grew up with. Not after what she’d seen, not after what they’ve done to her.

J: I owe them the truth.

I’ll repeat myself (for the third time). God knows I have my issues with the dialogue in this episode (x) (x), but one of the things D&D manage to do right is to make Dænerys aware of the situation at hand. She’s not been in Winterfell long, but from what she’s seen, Sansa is a respected and loved leader, one that defends her own interests (her fierce allegiance to her House) but that of her people (Northern Independence). Whatever she says, it will be heard and it will be taken into consideration. And for Dæny, that’s a problem, because Sansa and the North’s interests go against her own. And from the little time they’ve spent together, she knows she cannot sway her nor subdue her.

And the fact that she sees only Sansa as the problem goes on to confirm that Dæny sees this conflict as a political one first and a personal one second. She can’t see the deep bond the Starklings have with one another and how they make their decisions as a pack, as a unit, moved by their sense of family.

D: Even if the truth destroys us?

J: It won’t.

D: It will. I’ve never begged for anything... but I’m begging you, don’t do this. Please.

Again, Jon is trying his damn best to appease her doubts and fears. He tries to reassure her that him telling Sansa and Arya won’t be a problem, but Dænerys continues on challenging him. But what’s interesting is that she’s really vulnerable here. She begs him not to tell them. IMO, this is the closest thing we had of them being shown at “a same level”, of them being equals. In this part of the scene, she’s not Dænerys Stomborn, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. She’s just a girl begging her boyfriend to keep his mouth shut. But the fact that this is the closest thing we’ve had of them being equals goes on to show how disproportionate the power dynamics are in this relationship.

J: You are my Queen. Nothing will change that. And they’re my family. We can live together.

D: We can. I’ve just told you how.

What I like about this scene (after rewatching it a couple of times and forgetting about that god-awful line) is the fact that Jon himself reinforces the Starks vs. Targaryen conflict. He sees Dænerys as a figure of power/authority and he sees the Starks as his family. This is huge. For all the POV blocking he’s fallen victim to, Jon basically tells the audience that his allegiance is to the Starks, though it’s subtle. This is reinforced by the fact that, after Dæny begged/ordered him to keep his mouth shut, he still makes sure Sansa and Arya find out the truth.

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scarletgardensrpg · 4 years ago

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UNDEAD ♦ THIRTY-SEVEN ♦ ASCENDANCY

CECILE BUCHANAN is the Resurrector of the Ascendancy and second-in-command to De Dominee. Killed and resurrected by Nikolaas in the Red Room, Cecile is the first recorded Undead to walk the Earth. The circumstances of her death and revival are peculiar and scientifically unreplicable thus far—the product of extensive experimentation prior to her exposure to the 197th iteration of PM-GRNT, her body reacted to the chemical abnormally by simultaneously killing, then reviving her as a semi-conscious rotbeest following consumption of Nikolaas' blood. This genetic anonmaly, wherein she never developed a true rotbeest state, enables her to survive without PM-GRNT 197. She and her brother, Evander, are responsible for the initial Scarlet Death.

BIOGRAPHY

tw: gore, implied animal cruelty

At fifteen, she was already vicious. The dog's fucking dead, what am I supposed to do about it? Revive it? She was still in her Sunday clothes: Valentino kitten heels and a jumpsuit the color of wet ink. Six rubies and a rosario dangled from her ears. By the quiet, seething look in Julian's eyes, she knew it was taking everything in his power not to rip them out. They stood opposite of one another in the foyer, six unbreachable feet between sister and brother. Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan were God knows where. Evander was drinking on the beach. And the Dobermann was dead. Don't be a baby, Jules, Cecile said, and turned to go, pleasure heavy in her gut. You have others. She'd do anything to hurt Julian, if it meant that pretty expression would bloom on his face: wrath, spreading like blood in water.

- ❀ -

It came down to three things: she was a bastard, she was a girl, and she was second-born. Senator Buchanan made his preferences clear, and that preference burned through every designer dress, every blank check, every Maserati and summer house in the Hamptons. What good was it to look good, live well, when every nice thing felt like an IOU to Julian? Why pander to her older half-brother when he already looked at her with cold, patronizing eyes, as if she were a particularly troublesome dog to keep on a tight leash? Maybe Evander could live like that, hanging onto his every word and lolling after him mindlessly—but Cecile could not swallow the indignity of it. Her girlhood was one turbulence after another: the burn of her cheek where her stepmother struck it, the noxious silence of every family dinner, the freezing bath tile against her knees when she would bite down on her knuckle to keep from screaming. She would grow into a cruel, mean girl. A bitch. She would prowl boarding school halls at midnight with predatory calm, one hand gripping a bucket of gasoline; the other a lighter and match. You're making it worse for yourself, Evander said, after the third expulsion. Is getting kicked out for arson your grand strategy for earning Papa's approval? But by then, she was just angry. She was just trying to kick hard before going under. Fuck Papa's approval, Cecile said, and rolled herself another joint.

Eventually, Papa ran out of ideas. He met with doctors, businessmen, then a scientist and lawyer, both young. Harvard brats, Cecile learned, one ear pressed to the mahogany door of her father's study, who were working on something that was sure to intrigue you, sir, and certainly Julian. Because, of course, Julian had a place in this room of important silhouettes; he'd soon become one himself. Cecile's twenty-first birthday present was a swig of vodka and a biochemical test subject consent form. Evander had looked so terrible, signing his own set of paperwork while Julian simply watched them from the other side of the desk, Papa's hand on his shoulder. See? Cecile leaned over in her seat to poke Evander in the cheek with a single manicured nail. We're the same in this family's eyes. Disposable vermin. Terrible, harsh silence. She was looking at Julian, and found all of it unspeakably funny. Twenty-one years of Cecile's best efforts at nightmarish behavior—and here he was, winning in a landslide. Even she couldn't have dreamed up something so cruel. She was drunk on rage. She was dizzy with fury. And yet, when she addressed him, her voice was soft as a lily. You know, Jules, I really should've killed the other two dogs.

Later, they would call her helpless. A young, naive woman, dragged kicking and screaming into the Red Room, terrified for her life. As if Cecile has not spent every waking moment raising hell and terrorizing others. They would forgive all her sins, it seemed, so as to make room for the greater one: for what was a wealthy Senator's troubled, bastard daughter to two people in pursuit of divinity? One was inappropriate; another was utterly sacrilegious. Cecile supposed it was the easier narrative to tell; Eve, tricked by the devil to bite the fruit, could still claim some morsel of innocence at the trial of God. But, of course, the truth was, Cecile had never once been interested in innocence. She would always go after what she wanted with teeth and nails. She would always worship herself before all others. Nothing frightened her anymore. Whatever elixir they were perfecting for Julian, she would taste it first. Chemicals, poisons, pain—all of it was but a symptom of eventual power. And, ah, in her did power rise. Whatever she had become under Nikolaas' guileful hand, it was heady and powerful and utterly inimitable. Half-beast and half-woman, waist-deep in death: was Cecile not single-handedly responsible for ending a world? Did she not raise rotbeest after rotbeest, and let the ones she adored most feast upon her own flesh until they were returned to consciousness? Later, they would call her helpless—and perhaps, in comparison, the spiteful little girl of her past was helpless. But not anymore. Divinity lived within her now. She had swallowed God whole.

CONNECTIONS

NIKOLAAS – LOVE DESTROYED, TOO. Is she in love? Not with him. With his jungle garden of a mind? Maybe. Maybe it's psychological delusion, wired into her for survival's sake in the Red Room. Maybe it's a product of dying and living again by his hand, of having known what his blood tasted like in her mouth. Maybe it is simply true, unadulterated friendship, forged on strange foundations. I'm your one and only? She teases him, and licks the rim of her champagne flute. He is, whether aware of it or not, afraid of her. Or, more accurately: afraid of what he is capable of creating. After all, she has him to thank for a number of things—her untempered darkness, her gift for passing that same darkness to whomever she pleases with a single bite, her freedom from a past life that would have chained her to Julian. But, in spite of the wondrous creature he has forged from blood and science, Nikolaas refuses to spawn another like her; perhaps because he can't stomach the flesh it requires, or perhaps because he sees what she is capable of. Cecile doesn't mind—she's rather possessive of him, and dislikes the idea of sharing. She has followed him to Amsterdam, as she is sure she would follow him anywhere—to hell, to the ends of the earth, to heaven with a torch. They've made something beautiful since then: an ascending legion of the restless Undead, fed on a new drug that will carry them to dizzying heights. Cecile plans to rule someday with Nikolaas by her side. I'm your one and only, she says again, and this time, it's not a question.

BLUE, DIMITRI, & JACQUES – BLOOD HOUNDS. They carry within each of them a vicious appetite for disaster—her appetite, dark and divine enough to swallow a city whole. They are perfectly cruel, unrivaled in beauty, unmatched in prowess—and of the hundreds of Undead who call her Mother, Blue, Dimitri, and Jacques remain her undisputed favorites, all raised on her blood. They are the three she looks upon with cold pride and infinite expectation; the standard by which all her other creations are measured. Do they share Blue's labyrinthine mind, her measured capacity for torment? Can they wear violence with grace and allure, as Dimitri does? Does Jacques' bizarre madness gleam in their eyes? The collective name Cecile gives them is fitting: for they are her dogs, her beasts, her children. She commands: Kill for me. Die for me. Live for me. And like good pets, they always oblige. She does not need their love, and shows them very little of her own—but still she demands their loyalty, their fear-tinged worship, and a promise to accompany her to the ends of the world. As their Resurrector, this is an eternal debt they owe to her.

JULIAN & EVANDER – BLOOD IS BLOOD. The funny thing is, Cecile loves them. She loves them as all families are condemned to love one another, from birth to death to beyond that, too. One simply cannot discard of convenants made in blood—as much as she wishes she could. Julian, princely and immaculate, has always inspired murderous pursuits within Cecile: some ugly roiling mix of jealousy and resentment for her older half-brother that has seized her since girlhood. He has never taken her seriously. Instead, he insists on taking care of her, on filing away her teeth so she will stop biting his hand; not understanding Cecile can never be the sort of girl to accept condescension for benevolence. Now, stronger and standing on a level playing field with him at last, she finds herself continuing to provoke him, even word from her mouth a harsh lashing she hopes will make him flinch. If she is yearning unconsciously for the nod of respect she never once received while alive, Cecile will never say it out loud.

As for the youngest Buchanan, Cecile regards her little half-brother with less hostility—but contempt nonetheless. Brilliant, handsome Evander, who could aspire to great heights, if he didn't have such an inferiority complex when it came to Julian. She had hoped to make him into someone worthier when she killed him—but if he'd rather sulk uselessly in the cementary, fine. The fact that her brothers get along with one another just fine, even now, is a source of confused frustration for Cecile—and if she must be honest, once an injury to her feelings as well. They have always seemed to get along better with one another than with her—and being the bastard daughter, Cecile used to find it hard not to feel bothered. Of course, many years have passed since then. In death, Cecile is calm and calculative, unfazed and secure in her own power. She harbors some resentment against Julian for his complicity in selling her and Evander to the Red Room—but the satisfaction in having come on top regardless outweighs it. The matter of her killing Evander is also...well. Her baby brother was not appreciative of that gesture, possibly. All in all, she wouldn't say she's on good terms with either one of her siblings—but alas, blood is blood. For all their complicated histories and intertwined grievances, Cecile suspects they will always be apart of each other, for better or—more likely—for worse.

OPEN ♦ FC: OLIVIA MUNN

#cecile #o #ud #r #asc #all #lsrpg #lsrp #new rp #bio rp #horror rp

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kob131 · 5 years ago

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https://melonishus.tumblr.com/post/190368286718/theres-something-really-weird-and-about-the

Well anon, the issue is a lot more complicated than that.

It’s really how the narrative treats the traumas of the characters that upsets people. Salem was traumatized and mistreated by her father and the gods, but we’re supposed to side against her because of her reaction to it.

She wasn’t mistreated by the gods: they literally treated her like everyone else. She was demanding special treatment.

And her reaction was ‘ruin innumerable lives’. That kind of removes any justification.

In another sense, it’s also the main reason why I rag on Taiyang so much and am more defensive/neutral about Raven. It’s about how they’re treated. Taiyang shut down on his kids, but according to his defenders, “It’s okay if he shut down, because he’s trying!” Opposed to Raven who would likely have to go through the “Redemption Equals Death” trope to get people to forgive her.

Taiyang shut down once and made amends and made a joke Yang laughed at.,

Raven abandoned her daughter and left her with emotional scarring, watched her but never helped her aside from once, ditched her again, used her brother/Yang’s uncle to say ‘I don’t love you, fuck off’, never tried talking to her daughter about her depression or severed arm despite having an instant teleport to her AND you people insisting she’s always around, tried manipulating her in their first encounter, tried gaslighting her into joining her, insulted her family, threatened her life, used her as bait, dared to call Yang out on the issues SHE caused and then left her for the THIRD TIME.

The narrative treats these differently because they are different situations. You treat them different because sexism.

It’s all about the narrative in this situation. Yang’s trauma is met with “She needs to get over it!” while Tai’s was met with “He lost people closest to him! Cut him some slack!”

Taiyang already got over his drama.

Saying the same thing would be redundant.

As for the whole “shipping” thing, it’s primarily the way the writers framed it. They promised same-sex couples and a lot of LGBT+ Representation. So when the writers shoveled hetero couples at a mile a minute, it’s understandable that people would be a little miffed that they were baited into watching when the first rep that was gotten was a bitter lesbian that was ready and willing to drag Blake back to her abuser and was complicit in the attempted murder of her parents, that they would only want to focus on positive and healthy same-sex couples. With Emerald x Cinder being more like a “Harley and Joker” vibe (Admittedly, it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine).

Except that Illa was also a victim, saved them all and you have directly called out people for calling her a psycho lesbian.

As for the whole “Men are trash” thing… Well, look at the track record. Ironwood’s army was hijacked into attacking Vale, Ozpin has been throwing bodies at an immortal opponent with no real plan of how to stop Salem, the gods started Salem’s start of darkness with their insensitivity, and Adam is Adam. Pyrrha’s character revolved around Jaune until her death, and there are a lot more scenarios that II could bring up that highlights the double standards that the narrative is willing to let slide that the fndm is less willing to (Example: Yang charges in on her emotions ad gets belittlement and a lost arm, Jaune does the same thing for far more selfish reasons and gets to unlock his semblance).

Meanwhile we have: bitchy teacher (Glynda), Mass Murderer (Raven), Terrorist (CInder) and Attempting Mass Genocide (Salem).

Yep, looks like the woman are worse. Kind of what happens when you focus a show on one gender.

TL;DR: It’s because the narrative won’t give them any slack when the other characters have been given every bit of it.

Hold on you misspelled somethings

TL;DR: It’s because the narrative won’t give them any slack even though they do far more harm with either no regret or meaningless regret than their male counterparts who try to right their wrongs and regret their actions because I’m sexist.

Fixed it for you.

You know what anon …no

Time to prove my point.

Salem’s story starts with being locked in a tower, is saved for like five minutes and then loses her savior before she tries to get him back and is punished FAR more severely than what was warranted

She directly tricked and lied to gods, the show literally said they had a life together and she still kept doing it.

Ozpin had some semblance of a life, he had his large chunks of freedom through several lifetimes as he threw bodies at the wife he was all too eager to betray. Oh no ! He’s sad for a few lifetimes ? Did he get cursed to become an immortal monster because he got too mouthy for the gods liking ? No ? Fuck Ozpin

Same semblance of a life as Salem since they SHARED that life, Ozpin literally hesitated to betray Salem and had kids with her during that time, they were all willing participants as Jinn said and Ozpin was tricked into this scenario whereas Salem knew she was gonna get punished because she kept doing the same shit. Funny how context changes things huh?

The male characters are given an annoying amount of leeway from the fandom, to the point where people could see someone like Sun, stalk Blake across the world in a creeper cloak, and not see why a girl would have an issue with being stalked. But god forbid a girl show the slightest amount of emotion in the face of trusted authority figures throwing them into harms way for no reason at all

Except the majority of the fanbase criticized them and no one calls any of the female character’s angst ‘womanpain.’

And please excuse me if I’m not up for the “My het ship is abused by the fandom “ spiel again. Ya’ll are doing fine. You’ve all been perfectly content with shipping Jaune with every woman that breathes, or pushing Ruby X OzpinJr or still clinging desperately to Blacksun while simultaneously harassing Bumbleby shippers and trying to deny any connection between the two characters past friendship

Meanwhile you and Dudeblade will make DIRECT THREATS to the creators and spread slander about them due to being born the wrong gender.

This fandom spots a male character and latches onto it from the second they’re introduced, desperate to support or idenitfy with any male character, even if they have to cling to winners like Adam or Mercury. And the second they do, they can never do any wrong. Then when they decide to turn their attention to lets say…Yang, they see her yelling at Ozpin, and deciding she’s being abusive to Oscar, because of course she is

Or Ozpin killing his kids, killing every single human on the planet and planning to it again. Or Taiyang destroying entire villages for his own selfish desires while repeatedly abusing his kids.

Oh wait, that’s Salem and Raven, the people you both defended. Who we know wouldn’t get away with it if they had dicks.

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foolgobi65 · 5 years ago

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meta re: figuring out how old bhadra is, and also when exactly bhalla got married and spawned a child lmao. (also some about the poor woman who had to be his wife.) under cut for length lol

hmm so i just saw a meta which puts bhadra as just a few months younger than mahendra which is interesting, and i can see that being possible given the two actors, but where i disagree is the part of this theory that implies bhalla is married when baahu and devasena are still together. i think if bhalla were to get married, baahu and devasena would have to be invited, just in terms of propriety. i think bhalla would actually enjoy the huge state ceremony that would serve to show how small devasena and baahu were now in contrast. i also think that at this point in the story, while baahu is still alive and married to devasena, bhalla has no interest in his own marriage -- he’s definitely not married (at least imo) at the time of their exile, and even if he wanted a child to compete for the throne at that point baahu’s kid would still be a good 6 months older regardless. i think bhadra must definitely be a few years younger than mahendra (who i believe is around 24ish years old.) bhalla’s obsession with devasena reads to me as about possession rather than a singleminded love or want to make her his real wife. the fact that we don’t see bhalla’s wife at all later makes me think that she’s either dead, or he never married and bhadra is bhalla’s child with a woman bhalla never married. i can see bhalla being obsessed with devasena his entire life, particularly as a transference of both his prior obsession with sivagami as the mother and queen ruler figure who in is mind loved baahu more, and also his obsession with baahu who was just better than bhalla at the things that bhalla wanted (primarily the easy adoration of the people and sivagami.) devasena, both as legal queen mother and clearly sivagami’s annointed heir at her last moments, and as baahu’s love, becomes the object of bhalla’s lifelong hatred and to me he tortures her daily as both substitute for sivagami and baahu who are dead and beyond his reach, and also for her own sake because let’s not underestimate devasena’s ability to piss off bhalla. i think on a surface level when he saw her picture he did feel lust, and so i think there is a very gross and terrible sexual aspect to his need to keep her in chains and under his grip. bhadra clearly states some very disgusting sexually tinged insults at devasena (calling her a whore multiple times) which is obviously a learned behavior from i assume bhalla and maybe biju. all this to say that for me, the main woman in bhalla’s life until his death is devasena. his last words are even to devasena, rather than mahendra who is the clear baahu replacement, and he tells her to join him on the pyre which is reminiscent of what this society demands of good warrior wives.

if bhalla was married, it was a grand alliance where she was probably fabulously wealthy and beautiful and the marriage was conducted with lots of pomp and circumstance in order to distract people from the fact that baahu and sivagami were dead alongside mahendra, and devasena was in chains in the city center. biju found the bride, sent the single most annoying proposal on earth, which implied invasion if she wasnt promptly sent having tied the mangalsutra to bhalla’s sword. definitely wealthy, may or may not have military importance. definitely a beautiful woman, a quiet woman with no personality who was promptly destroyed by having to live under a cruel sadistic man who was obsessed with his dead brother’s caged wife. if bhadra didnt seem so old that he could probably be only max a few years younger than mahendra i would say that bhalla’s wife probably takes a few years to concieve: bhalla would probably be the type of terrible man to treat a woman so badly she would miscarry. but bhadra is pretty close to mahendra’s age, so bhalla’s wife must have conceived pretty quickly. as he desperately needed an heir at the time bhalla, once she is pregnant, ignored her almost entirely except for once a week when he had her carried in a palanquin to see devasena so that he could gloat about his impending fatherhood. the poor woman would by this point be of a sickly sort, even if she had been healthy at the time of her marriage, have a difficult pregnancy exacerbated by her sheer terror at the thought of having anything less than an exceedingly strong male heir. ( i cant imagine biju or bhalla would be anything less than extremely direct about the consequences if the child was born with a disability, or god forbid was a girl.) her entire pregnancy would be one folk remedy after another guaranteed to produce a strong, healthy prince, all eight months after the pregnancy announced to the public an empire wide endeavour to ensure the safe arrival of the prince to be. thousands of ceremonies across the kingdoms would be funded, each sending her the fruits of their sacrifice for her to eat. everything about her day would be micromanaged from the time she woke, to the clothes she wore and the direction she faced when she slept. devasena, who spent the last three months of her own pregnancy exiled in a mining community and yet delivered a strong child, looks at the queen who somehow seems to be weakening every visit and wonders at the great gods’ irony.

one of my headcanons about the weird family strength is that these babies take a toll on their gestating mothers, and so only a particular type of woman is capable of surviving the pregnancy and birth -- sivagami and devasena are both of this type, and so they find their pregnancies relatively easy, and their births are normal and safe. you can either take this to be something physical or mental, or if you’re more into magical explanations for magical strength, its a (terrifying and horrible) way of the family line basically validating the queen: if she survives, she’s deserving of being queen mother. baahu’s mother and bhadra’s mother aren’t sivagami and devasena, though they’re probably wonderful women in their own right. the pregnancies sap them of their strength and nutrients (kind of like a leech), and when they give birth it is a long, drawn out process in which the babies had they not had the family strength would have died. the mothers both bleed out. the kingdom barely mourns the queen it barely had a chance to know -- if she becomes pregnant so quickly after marriage, bhalla would never have risked her out in public. instead, there is a massive celebration to anoint the heir to the empire, and bhalla invests heavily in propagating a narrative that has bhadra solely his son: his wife the queen is erased from the stories entirely, it is almost as if bhadra sprung straight from bhalla’s skull, the perfect son.

the queen’s death doesn’t break the alliance of her marriage, but it does downgrade them from slightly favored allies to just one with the rest -- there is a rumor that does not die no matter how hard they try that she died of a broken heart, that she grew so sickly in the heart of the empire despite the best of all medicine because she did not want to get better, or try to mother the son of her demon husband. (they are half right: the queen, delirious in her last moments, does not regret leaving her husband who happens to be the worst man she has ever met, nor does she regret leaving her disgusting father in law. she regrets somewhat having to leave devasena, whom the queen had nursed a slight hope of helping somewhat in the future when her place as the heir’s mother gave her a little more leverage. most of all, she regrets that she leaves her son, whom in her heart of hearts she had viciously wished to be a daughter, to the cruel mercies of his father. she was never going to be a strong woman in this palace, but even something might have been better than nothing, she thinks. just a little kindness, she hopes for someone to teach him, a little mercy. and then, thinking again of her burning hatred for her husband, whom she damns to all the hells that exist, the only true empress mahishmati has in 50 years dies. her first marriage anniversary will be in one month.)

the other option for bhadra’s mother imo is that she’s a favoured courtesan of bhalla. for this i think its definitely possible that their relationship can be established even before mahendra’s birth -- there’s no reason they aren’t together even prior to the kalakeyan war. this might be a way to make it easier for bhadra to be closer in age to mahendra, where bhalla, despite being consumed with his obsession for devasena continues to visit and the courtesan becomes pregnant (whether she plans this after reading the room and realizing bhalla has ruled for 3 years and has no heir is up to you.) there is obviously no pomp and circumstance here for the duration of the pregnancy, almost no one is aware of the child’s paternity. many kings have many natural born children, and bhalla initially believes that this child will be like any other though unique in a sense for himself because it will be his first child at all. then, he thinks, realizing that he isnt really inclined to marry but requires an heir. within this option there is the possibility for a queen who simply cannot give bhalla a child (maybe she miscarries, whether because of bhalla’s behavior or on purpose because she doesn’t want to have his child) or just ... bhalla doesnt want to get married because he’s obsessed with devasena. the courtesan is sent a message, and under the utmost secrecy is moved to a chamber in the inner palace where her every want is cared for in the hopes of her delivering a strong, male child. she is treated as a queen for the eight months and when she gives birth she probably survives. she is definitely not allowed to raise the child -- bhalla announces that bhadra is his heir, his natural born son, and does not announce the mother. bhadra is raised entirely as bhalla’s son, never allowed to question his mother’s identity or to meet her. either she remains within bhalla’s palace, as a continued object of his favor or is allowed to leave mahishmati after a vow of silence regarding bhardra’s parentage.

anyways, i’m putting bhadra at 20/21 to mahendra’s 24, and if bhalla gets married he probably thinks about it a year after baahu’s death, gets married a year after that, the queen dies within a year of the marriage (all a space of 3ish years.) option 2, it’s been 3 years and bhalla keeps pushing off thoughts of marriage and then opportunity falls into his lap. in general this is in line with my belief that bhalla at a base level does not care about any woman except for devasena, particularly after he has her in chains. before this, his sole object was the throne, and if he married at that point it would be a political alliance to make him a more favorable candidate for the crown for sure. needing to get married doesn’t occur to him (and to be fair doesnt seem to occur to baahu until he falls in love.) as king he’d only consider marriage in terms of getting an heir, and he wouldn’t care about the woman he married at all -- he’d treat her horribly, probably venting all the anger and frustration he cant with devasena because she lives in the cage which in a sense protects her from the worst physical/sexual abuse. the only respite his wife, another woman entirely under his control, would have is probably becoming pregnant. a favored courtesan, particularly one who had a relationship pre the whole devasena obsession, would have a different dynamic with him, especially since she’s technically “his’ but also not entirely in the way a wife would be. less abuse imo for sure, and the significantly less scrutiny and pinned hopes on her pregnancy results in her general good treatment rather than the exhausting micromanaging characteristic of a wife/queen.

both of these options basically result in bhalla and biju having total control on the raising of bhadra to be the Worst, and for bhadra’s identity to basically be “bhalla’s son” more than even regular princes who define themselves as their father’s sons. the woman is erased entirely from the narrative, and exists entirely to give bhalla an heir and then conveniently disappear, as distasteful as that is.

as usual, any other ideas/opinions/complete negations are welcome!! please comment or reply i’m really interested to see what you all think!!!

@teammahishmati @teambaahubali

#baahubali

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thehandmaidstalehulu · 6 years ago

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“She’s just a teenager,” Sydney Sweeney impressed upon me when we spoke over the phone.

Sweeney was talking about Eden, the 15-year-old Gileadean wife she played on this season of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The 20-year-old actress was unprepared for the strongly negative reactions that Eden, a rural teenager who is “given” to 30-something Nick as a wife, elicited from the show’s fans. She expected people to resent her character for separating Nick and June, one of the series’ central couples, but she was taken aback by the extreme suspicion Eden brought out in viewers. Fans surmised that she was Serena Joy’s spy, that she was truly meant to be with the brutal and abusive Commander Fred Waterford. My co-worker and I wondered whether she would be Nick’s downfall.

“Never underestimate a zealous teen,” I wrote.

“Nick’s New Wife Is Definitely Going to Be Trouble,” declared a Vanity Fair headline.

As of the penultimate episode of the season, we know that Eden wasn’t trouble at all. She was, as Sweeney said, just a teenager ― albeit a teenager raised with little access to peers or education in an oppressively theocratic society. A teenager who was married off to a 30-something man without having a choice in the matter. A teenager who was taught that her only duty in life was to build a household and bear children and who rarely experienced any empathy or affection.

So why were so many of us hellbent on mistrusting her? Perhaps because she’s a teen girl.

Of course, audiences were primed to question Eden’s intentions from the start. Not only was she an impediment to a popular romantic subplot, but also she was framed as one of Gilead’s true believers. Eden questioned whether Nick was a “gender traitor” when he wouldn’t sleep with her. She gaped at the handmaids when they whispered their real names to each other in the supermarket. She found the contraband letters intended for resistance group Mayday. At every turn, she could have upended the lives of the other people who live in the Waterfords’ home. And yet … she didn’t.

Instead, she wondered what it might be like to have the opportunity “for love and a baby.” After June urged her to grab love wherever she could find it, Eden tried to do just that. She unexpectedly ran off with a young guardian named Isaac ― the person who gave her her very first kiss ― with the sole hope of making “a real family.”

And for that “sin,” Eden and her young lover paid the ultimate price.

She and Isaac were sentenced to death for the crime of adultery. They were taken into a gymnasium filled with spectators, their families and the entire Waterford household; they were escorted to the top of a very high diving platform; and they were pushed off it with weights tied to their hands and ankles. It’s an end almost no fan saw coming and one that will set into motion the major arcs of the season’s finale. The death of a character that few understood — or even bothered to take notice of — will have a ripple effect that could bleed into the already anticipated third season of the show.

“The Handmaid’s Tale” showrunner Bruce Miller teased this pivotal scene when we spoke before the first episode of Season 2 was released. He explained that the drowning was an updated version of dunking, a method of execution historically reserved for women suspected to be witches.

Sweeney said she found herself screaming at Eden (and crying) while reading the scripts for her final scenes. Ultimately, she found empathy for her character ― a 15-year-old who wants to find God and love and makes choices according to those guiding principles. In Eden’s final moments alive, the camera is right in Sweeney’s face. Eden’s eyes water, full of fear and confusion and horror and resolution.

“There was definitely a lot of thought behind Eden’s eyes during all those moments,” Sweeney said. “Is she doing the right thing? Will God save her? Is love enough? But she chose love.”

It would be easy to believe that Eden is a pious idiot for giving up her future in favor of staying true to her values and desires. But as I was watching Eden make her heart-wrenching exit, all I could think about was how much I had underestimated her ― how the confused reactions of fans and even the characters surrounding her in the show mirrored the way we see teen girls in real life.

In both Gilead and our world, teen girls are alternately dismissed and feared. They are silly fangirls, lovestruck fools, narcissistic selfie takers too young to be truly listened to. And yet, despite the fact that teen girls are constantly belittled and condescended to, they are still considered a threat. Their knees and shoulders can destroy entire school days for their male peers. They can take down behemoth brands with their fickle preferences. They can tempt older men into falling in love with and assaulting them. And if one deigns to explore her sexuality, she is labeled, as the commander labels Eden, a “slut,” a woman “swept up in her own selfish lust.”

“I gave her the opportunity to elevate herself. To be a wife, a mother, to associate herself with the Waterford name,” the commander rages before Eden’s execution, worrying what her actions will mean for him and his power. Until this point, she was below his notice. She barely mattered until her quest for love and a baby — exactly what she believed Gilead demanded from her — conflicted with his veneer of control.

In Gilead, teen girls are terrifying precisely because they might call into question the motives of powerful men and act in ways that run counter to the narrative Gilead tries so hard to push. The autocratic regime claims to care about nothing more than children, then turns around and murders two of them in a swimming pool.

It’s difficult to believe that the commander’s attempts to punish Eden into submission on Gilead’s behalf will prove fruitful. So much is conveyed in the various characters’ silent reactions to the pool scene. It is one thing to watch adults be tortured but quite another to watch a child. Given that there is now a baby girl in the house, Serena, Nick, June and Rita ― all of whom have an investment in the child’s future ― will have to decide how they will protect her from a society that offers so little to and takes so much from girls.

When I asked Sweeney how her character’s death might affect the others, she paused and then answered forcefully:

“They will never be the same.”

#the handmaid's tale #sydney sweeney #eden #elisabeth moss #postpartum #2x12 #article #huffingtonpost

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ayearofpike · 6 years ago

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Thirst No. 4: The Shadow of Death

Simon Pulse, 2011 492 pages, 28 chapters + epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-1319-1 LOC: PZ7.P626 Th 2011 OCLC: 731720997 Released August 9, 2011 (per B&N)

The immortal Sita has died. Only not — her soul still lives, in the body of her descendant. How did this happen? In seeking the answer, Sita will learn the secret to defeating the ancient race that imperils humanity. The search won’t be easy, though. Sita must traverse time and space, heaven and hell, the physical and the spiritual, and what the hell is even going on my head hurts.

Honestly, I’m not sure what Pike is going for in this book. Is it trying to be smarter than other authors of the era and genre by bending the rules of continuity? Is it striving for a narrative that is just beyond his reach? Is it just pounding out Another Damn Sita Book against deadline to get that green? It could be any of those. At least it ties up the story of the Telar and the IIC relatively well, although there’s still enough loose ends to keep our vampire going if necessary (and of course it is; Thirst 5 is still on the horizon).

One thing Pike has totally bought into is the arbitrary capitalization of the names of things to make them Important Artifacts. You remember this: probably the impetus was Suzanne Collins, naming specific elements of the Hunger Games to showcase why they were relevant and how the country had accepted them as elements of the competition. But then every single friggin’ YA book about a post-apocalyptic dystopia started adopting the shit. At least Collins tried to come up with catchy names for her Artifacts. The other authors just come up with a word to call something and throw an initial cap on it, and Pike leaps happily aboard the Proper Name Train. And every time you think he’s drilled down to the smallest level of a Category, he names a smaller subgroup that needs its own Capital. Eventually it makes me want to put the Book down and kick the Ass.

Is it obvious I’m teaching again? Not just because I’m going all loco on repetitive cliches, but also because it’s taken me like three weeks to write this.

Let’s just bore down into the summary. We start with Sita in her descendant Teri’s body, awakening to that fact at her own funeral. Apparently she had a couple of days that are just blank or at best hazy, but then Miracle Baby Teen took Teri’s hands and looked into her eyes, and crystallized Sita’s presence. Nobody is sure what this means, exactly, but Sita is feeling blood hunger for the first time in years. The new body doesn’t have the five thousand years of experience and transfusions from multiple vampires and gods and saviors to abate it, after all. So when she gets back to her hotel, she orders room service — only they don’t offer blood. But the delivery boy has some, and dude does she drink it ALL. So then there’s some wacky hijinks as she has to clumsily get the body out of the hotel and dispose of it.

She’s not ready to reveal herself to Immortal Boyfriend yet, though. He was against her turning Teri into a vampire in the first place, remember, and in her weak state she figures he’d kill her. So she carefully and strategically reveals some info like Sita told Teri as they try to figure out what to do about the bigger threats of the virus wielded by the immortals and the crippling mental focus of the monster corporation. The Telar-ites want to focus on mass producing the cure to the virus and getting it distributed, but Sita thinks the only way they can do that is to involve IIC. Someone’s research has turned up that all of the main members were students of the same parapsychology professor at Berkeley(?), and so Sita, Seymour, Miracle Teen’s mom, and the young Indian girl who has been sucked into this life all drive out to meet him.

But before they go, Sita/Teri has to clean up her mess. Apparently she’s not as stealthy as she used to be either, because some dumbass kid saw her taking the room service cart with a body stuffed under it down to the garage, and his mom reported this Olympic champion to the police. So she has to try to wipe out any trace of suspicion from the cops’ minds, as well as finding a safe source of blood to feed on. Turns out one of them has a wife who is a doctor, and after an overreaching act of hypnotism, Sita gets into the hospital blood bank and takes all of it, then goes back home with the doctor and wipes out her memory as well as her husband’s. So it’s cool that she still has her vampire hypnosis, but it’s super clumsy, just like everything else in this new body. And what happened to Teri? Miracle Teen seems to think she’s dead, but that can’t be right. But why not? And if not, how come Sita is so in control?

The professor is quite a font of information, and he sure is scared of the IIC boss. He suggests they go talk to her ex from school, who was one of the major catalysts in the discovery of group-focused mind control via ESP. This dude and his girlfriend are still living in Santa Cruz, and they aren’t at all surprised to find four random diverse strangers at their door. Sita is confused, though, that the math doesn’t add up in regard to how old these people are. According to the research, their studies happened in the ’60s, but there’s no way this dude can be older than 40 when he ought to be knocking on 70. It gets late quickly, and so the couple offers our ramshackle group a couple of rooms for the night. Sita takes the opportunity to decode some more of Original Vampire’s book, and learn more about the deep and true love between him and the Telar he married. She also calls Teri’s parents to check in, and learns that the cops are still looking for her in connection with the missing room service dude, so that sucks.

In the morning, the CEO’s ex tells them more about his research and how IIC stole it to find exactly the right sociopaths to use in its mind-control device. Basically it was an astrological predictor, so that you could tell with a high degree of accuracy what someone would be like and how their extrasensory facility would manifest based on where and when they were born. Sita realizes, all of a sudden, that the creepy kid she ran into at the CEO’s house is actually conceived with this ex, because of his own predilection for ESP and his familiarity with the needs of the astrological predictor. He talks about having been targeted by the device himself, and his girlfriend says that she managed to shake him free by pushing him down the well on the property. They’ve mentioned this well before, and how it provides such amazing water, so now Sita is curious.

She ends up climbing down the bucket rope in the middle of the night, into a vast cavern with a faint glow at one end. Following the light leads her to: her own body. Sita’s body, that is, the one that was supposed to have been buried in Denver. Sitting by it is the astrological researcher’s girlfriend, who Sita immediately realizes is more than she’s revealed herself to be. Yep: it’s Original Vampire’s wife, Immortal Boyfriend’s mom, and one of the oldest and most ancient Telar still in existence. But it’s not like that. She took the body to protect what it holds, not just to keep it from these creepy evils that are trying to get more power but also because — check this shit out — it’s healing.

Sita can get back into her body, Ancient Telar says. All she has to do is let Teri finish dying.

Obviously when he finds out, Immortal Boyfriend is pissed. He is totally ready to murder Sita, without actually ritualizing it so she returns to her body. And Sita knows she deserves it, sort of. She’s as much to blame as anyone for the mess they’re all in, and she loved Teri as much as any of them, maybe even more. So she’s not going to fight back if Immortal Boyfriend exacts his rage. But he can’t do it, and he does realize that having a full-strength Sita will help their cause. So they all end up back down in the cave, where they reconnect the appropriate bodies by ripping Teri’s femoral artery and allowing Sita’s corpse to drink the blood. The transfer happens fast, and lucky for Immortal Boyfriend Teri has just enough consciousness to say goodbye.

I have to step out of summary for a minute to flat-out state how GROSSLY DISSATISFYING this is. Like, for seven books now we’ve known Sita as this inhuman giant, capable of defeating everyone and anything. Now she’s in a newer body, with a younger brain and less experienced reflexes even if it has all her consciousness, and she’s supposed to start figuring out how to overcome that. To just un-write the whole thing and stick her back in her old body not even half a book later strikes me as Pike didn’t want to commit to a decision he’d already made, rather than any kind of grand plan that this was always gonna happen. And yeah, I get it, Sita’s body has all kinds of implications, but why did it have to come back almost immediately? I’d go so far as to say that this makes Teri Raine practically irrelevant to the grander scheme of the story. And it sticks the whole personality quirk we’ve just learned about Sita — where she has followed and cared about her line of descendency, one that never actually seemed believable having read the first six — even deeper into the grave.

So now the gang is all together and ready to carry out their plan. Sita waltzes into the IIC office, releasing the deadly virus as she does so, and makes her demand: use the mind control group to destroy all of the high-ranking Telar or die painfully and frightened today. This is where the Arbitrary Capitalization makes its most insidious entrance. The top Telar, the Source, can meld to form the Link, which makes them unbeatable. But IIC can focus its Array through the Cradle, powered by a smaller group known as the Lens, and at least find where they are. So once she learns a Location, Sita can use her Knowledge to open up a Can of Whoop-Ass. But to join the Lens, she’s required to offer up a sacrifice, and she figures the best candidate is the mole who keeps feeding up information on where the group is, and not least the DNA of Immortal Boyfriend so he could get possessed. Who is it? Probably the math teacher who conveniently keeps not being with the group every time they get attacked. Only as the Lens forces her to climb to the top of Truman College’s bell tower and hurl herself off it, Sita sees inside her mind and knows she was innocent the whole time.

As it happens, she feels claws on her shoulders. Ancient Telar warned her that this would probably happen: in order to tap into the powers of the extrasensory, one has to connect to a Familiar. Sita can see the ones clinging to the kids in the room, but is not permitted to look back at her own, which makes her suspect that it’s probably the most powerful demon of all — a demon that was never actually a demon, but an angel that refused to accept its grace in being less than God and ended up falling into the deepest of despair. Yeah, that one.

She calls back to base and lets her crew know what’s going on, then tries to use her newly replenished powers to fix the police detective whose brain she screwed. Only he starts feeling scared and disturbed, and she realizes that this Familiar that is now attached to her is having a negative effect on her powers. IIC Boss comes in and they talk about the computer game that everyone’s playing, the one about being saved and moving to higher planes of heavenly ability, which is (not coincidentally) being constantly written and updated by the kids in the Lens when they’re not out brain-murdering.

Have I talked about this game before? It feels like I did, but maybe I’m thinking of Alosha. Miracle Teen loves it, and he said his presence in game was literally just to make himself known. But there are obvious creepy levels behind it, and IIC Boss reveals that there is no possible way to delete or destroy the code because of how it’s been embedded into the Internet. What’s it for? We don’t know yet! We do know that there’s significant backmasking and subliminal messages which echo the invocations the Lens uses to get into its power state. So maybe this game somehow charges telepathic batteries? I’m pretty sure this is the last time Pike mentions it in this book.

But now they’re getting ready to attack the major players in the Telar, so they have to work fast and without many breaks. They get two by melting them with too much chlorine in a hot tub, and then there are four in an LA hotel that they attack by forcing one of the guards to disrupt them and break their Link. But before they can kill all the Telar, one invokes a name that throws the psychic connection into the garbage. Sita knows where they are, though, and attacks in person. We get some more Matrix shit as she leaps from a helicopter and uses stairs like trampolines, and she ends up leaving the last Telar alive with a command that he use his high-ranking government contacts to launch a missile strike on a location that she will psychically contact him with in a few hours. That is, once she figures out where the rest of the Source is hiding.

The rest of Team Vampire shows up (well, not Miracle Teen, who is smart enough to keep the hell away from the demon-summoning corporation that would love all of his power) to help Sita fight the final battle. Seymour and Immortal Boyfriend are going to vaccinate the IIC against the virus, which is dormant but not totally gone as Sita’s bargaining chip. Only not the kids in the Cradle and the Lens: Sita has arranged for them to get a full dose of the virus instead, so the company can’t wield its devilish mind-control device with impunity once its primary antagonists are all dead. Yeah, we’re murdering children now. Sweet. Oh, and also, Ancient Telar is also the mother of the leader of the Source, and Sita has learned that you can control someone who is related to the person with the blood (or DNA, or whatever the fuck marker it is they’re actually using) and so attacking the dude might kill her too. It’s a risk Ancient Telar is willing to take.

She joins the Lens, and her sacrifice is the creepy teenager who leads it. Like, she literally breaks his arm and allows his brain to murder himself. Shit, if Sita knew she could do that! They find the Source and realize it’s impenetrable; their shield is too strong and all the kids will break before they can get through. (Like, I’ll murder kids, but not before I’m done using them to murder immortals.) Ancient Telar tells Sita there is a way — she just has to remember what happened after she died. Like it’s that easy.

But she does. Suddenly, we’re back on the mountain, where Sita has just been lasered in the heart. She finds a cave and follows it down forever, until she sees others and decides she needs to follow them. The path leads to a giant river teeming with inhumanity, all sorts of dead people who are trying to answer a question about their lives in order to take a boat across. Only thing is, if you answer it wrong you’re forced to forget it. We get to remember them, though, because this is a book and not some crazy spiritual encounter.

Sita answers the first question wrong (”what is the most useless human emotion?”), and then finds a beautiful and familiar-looking young woman who tells her not to despair, because she has plenty of time to think about the answer. She’s already gotten her question right, and is waiting for Sita so they can ride together with another woman. After a second missed question (”what quality is both great and dangerous in humans?”), she meets the other woman, who also looks familiar. Weird! She tells Sita that all of the questions may be different, but the answers are all important, and they should come back to us when we need them. So I guess we can yell at the book like it’s Dora the Explorer later on. The third question is “what is the greatest mystery in the universe?” Sita knows this one: it’s that God and his names are all the same, so by invoking the name you are bringing God to you. It does take her a second, because she has to argue with the boat driver over misleading info he’s given her, but in the end she gets to cross the river with her new friends.

On the other side is a mountain full of caves. They each have to go through their own cave, and Sita ends up at an abyss, where she can see the tunnel on the other side but doesn’t know how to get there. A woman with some grotesque facial scars shows up and walks across the space, offering to help Sita do it, for a kiss. She knows about Sita’s final sin, showing a blood-stained syringe like she’s predicting kid-virus-murder, and with a kiss they will bond and the woman will protect her when it comes to final judgment. After all, she did miss the second question. And suddenly it comes flooding back to Sita, with a realization of what the correct answer is: faith. She doesn’t need to get across, necessarily; she just has to take a leap of faith.

She passes out for a minute after jumping, then comes to in a pathway with the syringe on the ground next to her. She makes her way to the obvious judgment house and sees how it works. You state your name and age, put your hands over a scale, and one of them makes diamonds and the other black pearls. Whichever side is heavier determines where you go in the afterlife, and the younger you are the less the scale expects, I guess. The young woman that Sita rode in the boat with offers to go first, and OH HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK IT’S TERI. Because this is happening in the past, remember, Sita doesn’t think Teri is dead, but the other woman says time doesn’t matter here, you can encounter people who are dead from all periods, including apparently the future. But Teri was good, duh, and she goes up. And now we learn just how old Sita is exactly: 5152 years old. Naturally someone with this long of a life and this complicated of a history produces enough gems to bury the scale entirely. Her hands drop with the exhaustion of producing so much junk, and ultimately the dark side of the scale prevails. The devil himself shows up to make a deal with Sita, though: if she destroys the light bearer, he’ll go easy on her.

And now Sita is back in her living body, still channeling into the room that observes the Source, with a bitter realization of what she has to do. Ancient Telar has described their initial Link, the one that granted her people immortality, as one that filled them with light. So she needs to kill this lady in order to make the current Source vulnerable. Which, duh, Ancient Telar knew it the whole time, and is ready to make peace with her twelve thousand years. Her soul’s absence weakens the Link, and Sita makes herself visible through multiple ancient magics to let them know of their fate. Of course they try to reason and bargain with Sita, but as she’s already been tortured nearly to death by the leader she doesn’t think it’s necessary to make a deal, and sticks around long enough to make sure they’re all still present when the last dude she left alive sends in the missile strike.

So now obviously the kids are sick and dying and Team Vampire has to get out of this building. They’re stopped by the CEO and her husband, who insist that they heal all the kids, only Sita refuses and the CEO knows why: this Cradle business has gotten out of their control and the only way out is to let it die. When her husband argues in favor of the kids, she shoots him in the fucking head and then asks Sita for one kid: her daughter. They get in the van, Seymour screaming and protesting the whole time, and they’re only maybe a mile away when the shit blows up. See, while Sita was planning for her child murder to be slow and painful, Immortal Boyfriend laced the whole place with powerful explosives so that they’d just die instantly.

Almost immediately, they get pulled over. Why? There’s no connection between this van and the building they just left, or any of their identities. But CEO confirms that the Internet program just kicked on, which means maybe there’s one person still connected to the Cradle who could make it go. Who the hell could it be? For now, Sita hypnotizes the cops away from the van and they figure out how to make it to a middle-of-nowhere hellhole hotel, where she shares a room with the young Indian girl who had been a part of the Array but has had some unusual powers against it, who had also been scarred in the face before Sita found her, who somehow had the original copy of Original Vampire’s book even though Sita KNOWS she made a copy of it to send back with her. Weird!

And suddenly Sita realizes who is the mole, the rat, the link, the answer to all of the problems. And the young Indian girl slowly drops her facade and reveals that yes, she’s been the human connection for the devil the whole time, and that she was dark and evil even before her arranged fiance threw acid in her face. And just as suddenly, Sita is talking with the devil himself, in a luxury hotel room overlooking ... I dunno, Hell City? He’s kind of pissed that she wiped out the Cradle, and counts himself lucky that the Internet program was able to be started up. Still, he offers her another deal so that his connection to the human realm won’t be lost. Sita wants the answer to the ferryman’s first question in return, but he won’t give it up. But she’s figured something else out: the light bearer is actually this first fallen angel, Lucifer. And now she’s back in the nasty hotel room, where she doesn’t hesitate to rip of the Indian girl’s head and throw it out the window.

And suddenly AGAIN, Sita is back in front of the scale, where she knows the answer to the riddle and realizes just what is holding her down: guilt. It’s her guilt that has caused her hand to rest on the dark side of the scale and pull it down. She releases it and immediately the light side takes over. She is led to a long tunnel, which leads to an intoxicating blue light, and a man with a long braid and a flute. Finally, Krishna has come for Sita. Only he didn’t have to, because he’s always been there for her, and will be even if she chooses to go back to her body.

And that’s the end of Thirst No. 4! It seems like this would have been a satisfying enough ending for this whole series, right? We got some closure, we know that the monsters have been dealt with, we are ready to be done. But we can’t, because we know there’s still a fifth book coming. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I’ve never read that one, after two attempts by Pike to end this series. Maybe it won’t suck? Let’s find out.

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rapeculturerealities · 6 years ago

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Warning: This post contains spoilers about “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Season 2.

“She’s just a teenager,” Sydney Sweeney impressed upon me when we spoke over the phone.

“Never underestimate a zealous teen,” I wrote.

“Nick’s New Wife Is Definitely Going to Be Trouble,” declared a Vanity Fair headline.

So why were so many of us hellbent on mistrusting her? Perhaps because she’s a teen girl.

And for that “sin,” Eden and her young lover paid the ultimate price.

“There was definitely a lot of thought behind Eden’s eyes during all those moments,” Sweeney said. “Is she doing the right thing? Will God save her? Is love enough? But she chose love.”

When I asked Sweeney how her character’s death might affect the others, she paused and then answered forcefully:

“They will never be the same.”

#the handmaid's tale #entertainement #television #sexism

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