#it's a parallel world + love triangle setup

[diaospuppy]

Two Worlds - โลกสองใบ ใจดวงเดียว

Official Poster - Series coming 2023

[sunriseverse]

for the wip game ask, i see tiansanjiao fem canon divergence au and tsl - dmbj i am intrigued 👁️

ahhhh excellent choices!!!! both of these are ones i have GOT to get back to working on because i find them INTERESTING. anyway.

tiesanjiao fem canon divergence au is an au where the iron triangle meet pre canon—when wu xie is in uni specifically. the other two have their own reasons for being there, but wu xie winds up befriending them regardless. it’s half “wu xie dealing with internalised lesbophobia and telling herself it’s FINE to be attracted to them it’s just a PHASE that you go through in uni it doesn’t MEAN anything she’s going to get married and have kids anyway regardless of whatever is happening now and she’s not REALLY attracted to them right it’s just friendships between women are deeper!!!!!” and half “wu xie accidentally cozying up to two big names in the grave robbing business and making them fall for her only for them to meet and go [spider-man meme.png] GRAVE ROBBER???? (well. not exactly like that. but that phrasing is funny to me)”. also part of my neverending “make fem versions of characters masc/butch or androgynous” agenda. little excerpt for you:

The hood hiding the person’s face shifts as they tilt their head, and Wu Xie catches the edge of a rounded jaw, a nose with a low bridge, the hint of a phoenix eye, an iris so dark that it swallows the pupil. And then the gaze fixes on her, the slow sweep of the head pausing, and Wu Xie’s breath catches, stutters in her throat.

the sun telling the same lies about how beautiful the world is (tsl for short) i forgot to mention is also a sunrise fic, it’s my sha hai parallel (with a number of things changed that were driving me batty/dropped plot threads that i clipped or picked back up and wove into the plot properly). i’m on the third chapter now which i haven’t started properly WRITING yet but. it SHOULD be when wu xie shows up (only took me 10k+ rip) which i’m really excited about because i LOVE writing sha hai era wu xie he’s so very fucked up and i adore playing with that. fic summary from ao3:

Something is wrong with Shen Qiong.

That's how it starts, for Li Cu—a single pulled thread in the otherwise ordinary life around him. But, as all things, there's more to the story than that.

-

In the year 206 AZ, the tail end of Wu Xie's planning comes into motion, sweeping up Li Cu into the wake of a man he knows nothing of, for the sake of a man he's never met.

chapter three is TENTATIVELY “the one where li cu gets his back utterly fucked, starts hosting a parasite, and meets the man who’s going to ruin his life” while also doing some setup re: that goddamn parasite/map in the first place when it comes to lore (because unlike the show i actually took the time to bang out a semi coherent explanation for how that shit even makes sense. tailored to sunrise of course but still).

[emblazons]

hi marie, its me again <3 the anon with byler doubt haha ... you made such great points! and tysm for such a thorough response.

I am SO CURIOUS how do you think they'll get Mike and Will together? I think that's the aspect that has me doubting the most because it feels so so MESSY and they can very easily mess it all up if they aren't careful.

Explaining Mike's internalized homophobia etc might be something too difficult to unpack in just one season, on top of everything else going on as well with the world literally ending. I also don't know what the point was of having Mike say he loved Eleven if it wasn't true, what do you think they were trying to achieve with that?

Do we truly think she'd be okay with breaking up with Mike? And if the answer is yes, how will that affect Mike and El's dynamic going forward, you think? Will they really not only break up milkvan, but leave elmike underdeveloped in favor of Byler?

I look at the Steve/Nancy/Jonathan love triangle and that has been a mess for seasons now and still no resolution, so I don't know how they'll do it for Mike and Will. I fear they'll go for the "easy route" (aka milkvan endgame) to focus on the supernatural and other characters more. Because if Byler is endgame I feel like they'd need to devote a great chunk of the season to them in order to explain wth is going on with Mike specifically + giving him closure with El.

I suppose something else that gives me doubt is how Mike and Will have been sidelined in these last few seasons to give more screentime/protagonism to other characters and dynamics, so I don't know if I can fully believe the Duffers care THAT much about romantic!Byler if that makes sense.

Hopefully this all doesn't sound overly pessimistic or something, I am genuinely curious about your thoughts in some of these more like looking for reassurance tbh! Especially after reading your response to my first ask <3 TYSM once again!!

hello again!

To be honest, you've got a lot of questions that require separate (and equally detailed) responses, but...let me see if I can briefly explain each, and maybe link to other analyses I've done that might help make sense of why I say.

note: some of these are just my frankest opinions unfiltered, but I do have analytical reasons for all of them. Your questions are also asking things it's taken several rewatches and a year to sort through so...apologies if you just get the simplest version of the idea delineated here haha. also, a cut, because this got really long.

1: How do you think they'll get Mike and Will together? Transparently? I'm not really all that into specifics, because expecting specific things means I'm going to fall into the trap of thinking I'm the one writing it when I'm not and then say The Duffers "lied" or "messed up" because I expected something they never put in there. That said—in terms of plain setup, they will need to address the painting because that was a critical plot point from damn near minute one of S4, and now it's become fully integrated with not only Will's feelings for Mike, but Mike's own sense of El's feelings for him.

Beyond that...I think El will need to be the one to initiate the "complete" breakup, because she's the one who wanted space in the first place, the one who is repeatedly having her romantic partner paralleled to parental and tragic figures, the one refuses to be vulnerable & who built lies into their relationship...and the one whose general arc centers around reclaiming autonomy and choice from the men in her life. I also think Mike will be the one to initiate the romantic aspect, if its not a bit mutual.

2: Mike's internalized homophobia etc might be something too difficult to unpack in just one season - I disagree. We managed to sort through introducing Will's romantic feelings and sense of his queerness in a single season just fine...and Mike has had queer-coding show up throughout every season if you know what you're looking for.

The fact that this boy already has a one way sign into his closet, has repeatedly yelled about "boys only" every season AND shows clear signs of male attraction already has most people (even the supposed 'GA') suspicious of his sexuality, and combined with his devotion to will + the wider context, there are plenty of ways to introduce the idea of him liking boys explicitly that don't require any intense delineation...unless you expect them to say "he's gay" out loud, which they didn't do when Robin came out, and still haven't done for Will either...despite everyone knowing damn well they're gay.

3: I also don't know what the point was of having Mike say he loved Eleven if it wasn't true - I think that most of the breakdowns I've done of parentified!mike make clear that the love he has for her is somewhat genuine...though its being written as misplaced familial love, because he spent so much time believing he needed "a girl" to assuage his insecurities.

While I absolutely lean toward a gay!Mike reading myself, it's still clear even without a label that Mike's love mirrors Hopper's more than it resembles any of the love given by potential romantic partners to other women across the show—and Mike, given that he was being told by Will that El needed him to say he loved her for her to win, did what he thought was necessary to help her.

I do not think his love for her is a lie—I simply think it isn't romantic, and has now been so conflated with something negative in El's mind that it wouldn't matter if he mean't it romantically anyway. That said: narratively, Mike had to say he loved El because unless the fullness of what was expected (an I love you) was accomplished, it would hang over the story and any relationship Byler might have. El needed to hear it...so she could reject it, which she did.

4: Do we truly think she'd be okay with breaking up with Mike? yes. I think El will be absolutely 300000% just fine being broken up with Mike lmao. She has Hopper back now (who she was mourning the loss of, and therefore looking to fill with Mike emotionally), on top of having Max's "there's more to life than stupid boys" at the fore of her mind saving her.

Mike is also paralleled to parental and abusive figures in El's mind, on top of the fact that she has been keeping him at an emotional distance for the entirety of S4. Given that she and Lucas will probably also get closer in the search for Max...I'm quite sure she's not going to take it as hard as people imagine, especially given the fact that we already know she was happiest in S3 when they were broken up.

I also don't have any expectation of ElMike being super close friends (beyond party bonds + civility) either, which...I mean if you are I apologize but. I don't see that happening in canon, so them being developed deeply as friends before the show ends is not important to me as a plot point, and doesn't really have any canonical backing considering their ongoing lack of platonic connection outside of the necessary + lack of common interest. That's even a note thematically in the show...which means its makes sense for them not to be that close by the end of the narrative.

5: Steve/Nancy/Jonathan love triangle and that has been a mess for seasons now and still no resolution, so I don't know how they'll do it for Mike and Will. Truth be told, that love triangle has a resolution—Nancy has chosen Jonathan, and continues to, even though she flirted with Steve when she felt lonely. Nancy's arc has always centered around choosing something different than her parents and has from S1—her brief flirtation with Steve aside, her loyalty to Jonathan hasn't changed, though they are absolutely not a perfect couple.

If anything, the end of S4 set up Jonathan and Steve learning to be friends less so than anything implying Nancy might choose Steve instead—Jonathan is finally in a narrative position to choose something for himself now which frees him up to be honest with Nancy, and even outside of that, Nancy is far more likely to end up with single than she is with Steve—which is the exact opposite of how they've set up Mike to be with Will rather than El over the course of the season.

6: I fear they'll go for the "easy route" (aka milkvan endgame) to focus on the supernatural and other characters more. I don't agree. The supernatual plot has always been well-integrated with the romantic elements in every couple across the board, from Mike's "first love lost" energy happening when El disappeared in S1, Lumax bonding in S2 in a fight with demodogs, Jancy's bonding across S2-3 happening in the lab seeing the gate, while Will was un-possessed, and while they fought the thing monster in the hospital....and Jopper in Russia fighting a demogorgon in S4.

The Duffers have never slacked in setting up their romances in conjunction with the supernatual plots, and there's no reason to think they're gonna start with Byler, especially given Will's mirroring of Vecna/Henry, the way the day his disappeared is the day the UD is frozen, and how he's the one who can sense him...while now having Mike glued to his side.

7: if Byler is endgame I feel like they'd need to devote a great chunk of the season to them in order to explain wth is going on with Mike specifically + giving him closure with El. The 5th season is going to bring all of the characters together again, and they've already said Will is central to that. I've written before about the reason why they had to sideline Will in their plot to make a narrative point, but regardless...like I said before, if you know how to read subtext, Mike being queer won't come as all that much of a surprise.

Note: I've done several (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) analyses on Mike and his arc, which might help.

Beyond that...again, I honestly don't think The Duffers care much to make ElMike besties like fanon seems to think they should be (they haven't done it with any of the other romantic couples they've broken up) so...closure can include civility and acceptance for them the way it did S2 Steve with Jancy, imo. What Mike needs most is to gain the courage to accept himself and realize he doesn't need a girl to assuage his insecurities—and him being casual friends with El the same way he is casually supportive canonically with Max makes more sense than trying to skirt over all the mess of their relationship for the sake of an attached fandom ☠️

—that was a lot to cover, but hopefully that cleared up my position on a lot of your questions? I would also encourage you to take a look at my ST commentary tag & analyses highlights list (soon to be updated again) and even my asks for more context, on top of maybe giving the show a rewatch in its entirety if you can.

Sidebar: I also encourage you to dig into my Duffer Brothers tag and commentary (see bottom of the page), because knowing who made the show is just as helpful as understanding the show itself.

Its really easy to get caught in other people's wants and headcanons for the show if you don't keep going back to it yourself, so—as lovingly as possible, I really do encourage you to just sit and watch it with the "byler knowledge" you have from users like me, your other fave analysts, and maybe some of the "old guard" like @kaypeace21, who was integral in my own development of opinions before I dug in for myself. If you're ever doubting, that's always your best bet.

That said: It's literally impossible to summarize a framework crossing nearly 37 hours of TV in a single ask (or even 20)...which is why I've got almost a year worth of posts about it (and have evolved my depth of understanding dramatically over time).

The same way you can't spark notes your way through a degree without missing a lot of context, even me saying this with evidence won't help a lot if you haven't dug into it yourself—and doubt will repeatedly creep in if you're trusting me over the show itself, even though the show is where I've pulled all this from lmao.

—this got really long, but....I hope it helped. And again, sorry if I seemed short anywhere lmao. This was a lot to cover. Still, as always, thanks for the ask!

[bylerism-bible]

Category 5 Autism Event

(sorta long post)

Oops! I slipped and now I'm outlining a byler-centric Hunger Games AU

BUT it's super tragic and fucked up and I'm gonna hurt so bad writing it help me out and tell me if this is anything y'all

Key Alterations to setting:

no boy/girl pair gender restrictions on tribute selection

Some ages will be wonky compared to ST bc I need certain characters like Henry to be tribute age range, which will be set at 12-18

self contained plot not conducive to the original HG narrative but inspired heavily by it

set in a canon divergent Panem but not lore or history heavy

ST cast names are less whimsical and too traditional for what is lore-friendly in canonical Panem so I'll be ignoring the wild naming conventions of OG Panem for any BG OCs I need to bullshit on the fly

No spanning rebellion arc like in OG Hunger Games, but still a brutal hopepunk tragedy with themes of grief, finding something to fight for in hopelessness, community, love, and compassion (and also kicking ass when applicable)

Narrative parallels to original Hunger Games:

Katniss/Gale/Peeta | Mike/El/Will [not 1-1, slightly skewed or subverted in ways by El being a tribute, and by emphasis on Mike (Katniss) and Will (Peeta) being childhood best friends while El (Gale) and Mike (Katniss) meet spontaneously, which opposes the HG love triangle setup. Otherwise this parallel remains closely aligned due to Will's pining for Mike and his emphatic Peeta Coding among other things. Though I don't want them to be flat cut and paste to one another, they'll have their own characteristics that suit them in this setting). El and Mike will also fake a romance for appeal, which is adjacent but skewed from the original love triangle.]

District 11's emphasis on racialized classism and slavery parallels must remain intact

Other real world oppression parallels must remain intact

Premise/synopsis:

Mike is selected at the reaping, but Will immediately volunteers. Sensing that the two have a bond despite not appearing to be family, the authorities ask about their relationship and learn they're childhood friends.

Said authorities decide to send Mike and Will together for ✨ drama ✨ rather than to allow Will to replace Mike and take his place with another tribute– to their shared horror.

No matter how long they ally to one another, they'll be eventually expected to face one another to the death as well, if they live that long (They will). If they reach this point, what will happen if they refuse?

Will and Mike are immediately separated at the cornucopia but come back together later. While they're apart Mike allies with El, they play up a romance to accrue sponsor interest, but Mike secretly actually loves Will, and the the Capitol audience may just realize this eventually.

Tribute Pairs (by District):

1 - Henry (career*) (18) and Kali (18)

2 - Heather (17) and Billy (career) (18)

3 - Jason (career) (17) and Chrissy (17)

4 - Troy (career) (15) and James (career) (15)

5 - El (14) and Max (14)

6 - Eddie (19) and Robin (17)

7 - Steve (18) and Dustin (14)

8 - Tommy (18) and Carol (17)

9 - Andy (15) and Fred (17)

10 - Barb (17) and Vicky (17)

11 - Patrick (15) and Lucas (volunteer)(14)

12 - Will (volunteer)(14) and Mike (14)

*as a refresher for those who don't know or recall, Career in Hunger Games context refers to people who train their whole lives with the intent of winning the games by any brutality necessary, they also usually have been vetted a bit on how to be presentable for the Capitol. Careers are usually from districts 1, 2, 3, and 4 for regional class reasons, but can technically be from any of the districts under the right conditions. Technically training is against rules and in policy disqualifies tribute, but this is ignored constantly because in such a brutal system it's near impossible to find kids who don't have some survival skills and because it adds to drama.

Arena biomes: Forest, lake, ravine, cave systems

Mentees/Mentors:

Will and Mike - Murray Bauman

El and Max - Jim Hopper

Non tribute familial character POVs featured:

Joyce Byers

Nancy Wheeler

Erica Sinclair

With heartbreaking bangers such as:

Jonathan died in a previous Hunger Games

Lonnie forced both of his sons through some preparation for potential reaping, in abusive and cruel ways such as being forced to hunt when they were very young

While the family did need more food and it doubled as subtle "training" prep; it was traumatic and forced because Lonnie taught a cruel and abusive dog-eat-dog philosophy with it

Before Jonathan died as a tribute, Lonnie had left them spontaneously a few years prior, and this left only Joyce and Will to mourn his death

Once Jonathan died Joyce grew erratic and Will became isolated and hyper independent as a result, their relationship is loving but deeply disconnected without Jonathan

Mike's family is slightly more well-off than Will's in class for their district, as a result Mike takes food to Will's family on a regular basis and this is part of how they got so close

Mike and Will met in the woods as kids

Will not only has a decent chunk of combat, hunting, and survivalism prep because of Lonnie's abuse regime, but also has artistic prowess that assists him in camouflage (Peeta insp), AND he's a self taught science geek (esp mycology and botany aka identifying mushrooms and plants)

Mike trained himself in combat to a degree secretly from a young age, but he's not exactly gifted considering he never had a sparring partner, he's mildly proficient with wielding a machete or knife and he's somewhat versed in survivalist skills that he self taught or learned secondhand from Will (though Will is far ahead of him in bushcraft survival, Mike is a natural tactician and is good at building traps), AND he's a self taught science geek (esp physics and chemistry), has theatrical and dramatic masking skills that work to his benefit on TV

Lucas volunteered to save Erica and was allowed to replace her. For the integrity of the narrative concerning racism and associated oppression, Lucas and Erica's perspective will be occasionally shown as she watches Lucas progress and processes his journey, even if this story is byler centric. They deserve that, and it's in faith to the Hunger Games concerning such systems.

Mike and Will's reaping occurs as Nancy can only watch in horror. She'd volunteer herself, only it's too late and the authorities have settled on the story they want. Peacekeepers drag her away and she can only watch. Nancy was close to Jonathan before his death and was in love with him.

Once he has taken a life, Will struggles with the fact that in some ways Lonnie's cruel survival ideology makes sense, only to realize that it collapses upon further inspection, he then doubles down on his compassion and aversion to unnecessary violence while understanding that violence can still become necessary.

Know that this will be a brutal tragedy and most of the characters will die. I do however want to end on a note similar to the books themselves. Just don't set expectations for many to survive.

I will probably break your heart with this a lot, but I'll do my best to make it powerful and meaningful.

The story will touch on things like generational abuse, trauma, violence, fascism, classism, racism, other general forms of oppression, anti-capitalism, and more. It will not be pleasant; but if I write it, I promise I will make it move you and I will remain in good faith to the spirit of the Hunger Games. I don't want to risk it becoming tone deaf to the point of the Hunger Games Premise.

👉Lmk what y'all think of these notes (this isn't even all of them) bc I'm legitimately curious about who would be interested in reading it👈

It would probably become an insane amount of work so I need indication of interest for ✨motivation✨

[fzzr]

Shakugan no Shana is My Favorite Anime I Recommend To No One

Shakugan no Shana is a 2005 anime about a guy who is already dead, so he decides to fight the demons that killed him. The title character, Shana, is a little girl with a big sword and she is really good at killing demons. Together, they kill demons and also have school romance for some reason?

Shana (the character) is one of the Four Tsundere Wonders, the quartet of small girls with big attitudes produced by the voice of Rie Kugimiya in the mid-noughts. The quality of the anime in which they feature varies widely. Toradora! (Taiga, of course) is Perfect In Every Way That Matters (10/10). Zero no Tsukaima (Louise) is a pre-SAO example of the contemporary isekai harem anime and it is also a pioneer in the ways they suck (5/10). I haven't finished Hayate no Gotoku! (Nagi), but I found it to be inoffensive (6/10). Shakugan no Shana is smack in the middle.

Shana is a standard if a bit convoluted secret world protect the mortals setup. While out on the town, male protagonist Yuuji suddenly finds himself to be the only person moving, with everyone else frozen in time. Then he sees demons draining the life force ("power of existence") of those around him, including his crush. Just in time, a girl with a big sword shows up and takes the demon down.

After the action scene, she introduces herself as the "Flaming-Haired, Blazing-Eyed Hunter" and explains that those who the demons consumed are dead, and the shells left behind are "Torches". Torches are essentially placeholders for their presence until their remaining power of existence burns out and the world forgets about them. She is a "Flame Haze", an unaging warrior contracted with a demon to fight them. (Incidentally, this is why she is 200 years old but looks 12.) She then gives him the biggest shock of his un-life: He is also a Torch. Yuuji is already dead, and the entity she is speaking to merely thinks it is him. Surprisingly, the show actually pushes back on that and examines the p-zombie problem in extremely literal terms.

The Torch currently and henceforth known as Yuuji spends a day being crushed by the philosophical and existential questions raised by this whole situation. In the end he challenges the girl on her humanity as well. She doesn't even have a name of her own, just her title. He dubs her Shana after her weapon, the legendary blade Nietono no Shana. He insists that he wants to spend the rest of his limited time protecting others from the fate that befell him. Shana is hesitant to accept Yuuji's help, but after he sacrifices nearly all his remaining power of existence to protect his classmates, she recognizes his determination. As he fades away, midnight tolls - and his power of existence surges back. Yuuji is a strange Torch indeed, and his renewable energy pool makes him a valuable asset as the two work together in earnest.

Wow that was quite the setup for the premise. From here, things settle into a pattern. Shana impersonates Yuuji's evaporated crush so she can attend school with him. Over the course of season 1, a love triangle develops between the two of them and Kazumi Yoshida, a normal human student. Other Flame Hazes come into the picture and a few mortals are drawn across the barrier of the masquerade. There's a good mix of fun action scenes and antagonists ranging from sympathetic to utterly hatable (and sometimes both).

At the end of season 1 we find out what exactly what makes Yuuji such a special Torch. The romance plot also finally comes into focus. Going into season 2, Yuuji moves with great difficulty from support to a more active role. In parallel, the romance plot increases in volume. At the end of the season, the girls give Yuuji an ultimatum - pick one of us. And then....

The first half of season 3 is where Shana goes off the rails. After the cliffhanger twist at the end of season 2, Shana falls into the raised stakes trap of Three Supernatural Threat Levels, moving from a local hero/school romance story into a world-wide supernatural war. A huge number of new characters are introduced so the battles can be bigger in scope and feature more scenery destruction. The fights are still solid in variety, choreography, and creativity, but they're no longer the personal, philosophical conversations of the previous seasons.

All of this is prompted by the biggest and least explained face heel turn I can immediately recall. In Shana, season 3 starts with Yuuji having moved offscreen from "I want to get strong enough to save the world" to "actually I think I will assume the mantle of a dark god and lead an army of demons." We never really understand how that shift happened. (At least Lucas tried to make Anakin have a bad week before he started on the genocide.) All we know is that Yuuji is chaining up love interests in his castle and accepting that his new version of saving the world will have a lot of collateral damage.

After the big mid-season downer, things actually start to look up, both in the plot and in the quality of the writing. The final battle weaves together characters and events from the previous seasons, which makes it all feel more worthwhile in retrospect. Sure, Yuuji is still chaining up love interests and laughing maniacally, but we're getting cool lore and seeing the recurring villains go truly all out. By stationing the final battle in the city where we spent the first two seasons, we feel way more engaged with the stakes than when it was in the middle of nowhere. This is where it shows the good side of the Three Supernatural Threat Levels. The ending isn't perfectly satisfying, but it does wrap things up neatly and doesn't leave you feeling cheated.

Conclusion

So, I clearly have a lot of love for Shakugan no Shana. Why don't I recommend it? Well, that huge whiplash between seasons 2 and 3 is a big factor. There are a number of other plot contrivances I skimmed over. You probably noticed all those Capitalized Words I used - having to learn a bunch of jargon to follow a series can be a barrier to enjoyment for some. While I do enjoy the action, I recognize that it's good rather than great in absolute terms, especially by modern standards. The art is fine but not amazing, and the effects haven't all aged flawlessly. Other than the standout first opening and ending themes of season 3, the music is likewise serviceable but not exceptional.

Shakugan no Shana is good, but it's not great. It's a a 7/10. I won't tell you not to watch it, unlike Spellforce. I just never recommend it to anyone because if you have limited time there are plenty of other, better things to watch. All I want to say is I really like it, and someday I will probably watch it again.

Comparisons

Shakugan no Shana has the deep misfortune of needing to face the Perfect anime Toradora! when it comes to comparing main characters and their arcs. The tsundere archetype is defined by a relationship with a corresponding protagonist, but Shana is also obligated to fulfill the role of action hero. Her relationship with her suitor therefore makes use of the tropes consequent to working together as a team to do violence. The beats of that story, eg. where the weaker character needs to process whether he's a drag rather than a value add, don't always mesh with the necessary beats of a romance. Additionally, the way the romance plot sorta wraps up in season 2 means the tsundere archetype essentially no longer applies to her in season 3. Instead she takes up the mantle of "I know if my love reaches him he can be saved." Delaying the final romantic resolution in order to have an entire war and two climactic battles separates her path from tsuntsun to deredere too far from the reward for that transformation, and her arc is less satisfying as a result. Obviously Toradora! is better.

Dog Days season two and Shana season two both add extra focus on romance compared to their respective first seasons. The notable point of comparison is a conversation between two major love interests around the start of act three where they acknowledge each others’ feelings for the main guy, and agree that they’re not willing to go poly so only one of them can get the guy. Both conversations come to the same conclusion - it’s up to him to make the choice. These conversations are very similar except one bit at the end. In Shana, they present contending for his affections as a competition with a zero-sum result. In Dog Days they prioritize everyone being at least comfortable with the result, making it clear that as they are currently both satisfied with being good friends, changing to romance proper is a desirable but optional upgrade. Shana's increased stakes makes it my preferred example, despite Dog Days scoring higher in general.

Saekano and Shana both struggle somewhat to harmonize their romantic plot with the binding material. They both use the main plot to implement the obligatory will-things-fall-apart twist at the end. In Saekano's case, that twist takes too little time and is a bit unconvincing, and for Shana it takes far too long and distracts from the impact. Overall Saekano does a better job by making the connection between the two plots stronger and keeping their respective tones aligned.

Final Thoughts

It's a bit surprising that I had as much to say about Shana as I do the 9s and 10s, but here we are. No other 7/10 stirs as much passion in me as Shana does, so I doubt any other 7/10 will get this much attention.

[aimoosh-blog]

BERSERK: A MASTERSTROKE IN VIOLENCE

Berserk is a series that is both influential and overlooked. This might sound pretentious to fans of the gory medieval anime, but hear me out. Despite having a long-running manga which was originally released back in the ‘90's, after two anime series, a trilogy of movies and various video game adaptations, Berserk still remains somewhat niche and obscure.

The series is known for its gruesome imagery and I would strongly advise that if you've experienced abuse or are easily affected by violent and distressing material, that this series simply isn't for you. However, it's this cycle of violence that makes Berserk so compelling. 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the Soulsborne series doesn't shy away from this. Hidetaka Miyazaki has openly discussed how Berserk inspired games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne and you don't have to look far to find Berserk's influence spread throughout the Souls series.

But when you think of your favourite hefty sword-wielding himbo, I'm sure Guts isn't the first to spring to mind. Before we get into the debate of who wore it better, let's talk about Berserk's creator.

The most distinct and memorable aspect of Berserk is the apparent pleasure the series takes with relishing visceral imagery which is brought to life by Kentaro Miura. Berserk's first volume was released in 1990 when Miura was twenty-two years old. At this point in his life, Miura was already experienced within the industry after having written his first manga at the age of ten and eventually self-publishing in 1982.

With his experience and indisputable style, Miura's abhorrent rendition of the numerous satanic beasts and mythological creatures that populate the bloodthirsty world of Berserk, are both horrifying and captivating. The series manages to succeed in simultaneously being horrendously violent and strikingly beautiful. This parallel is prominent throughout the story and feeds the reader/viewer with a morbid curiosity.

The first and most obvious juxtaposition can be found in Guts' and Griffith's appearance. If you put Berserk in front of a newbie, they would most likely assume that the androgynous Griffith was the series’ main hero.

With his petite frame, feminine features, and charismatic charm, he certainly looks the part of a typical anime protagonist. Especially when set side by side with Guts who's hulking physique, stoic disposition, and hardened exterior is a stark contrast to the Hawk of Light. But scratch the surface and you'd find something entirely different.

Once you pull back the curtain and look beyond his angelic façade, you'd uncover Griffith's selfish, almost sociopathic personality which is accompanied with an unyielding ambition to stop at nothing until he achieves his dream. In contrast, Guts’ intimidating appearance and seemingly aloof attitude are a front concealing a lonely and tormented individual.

Shrouded by death, Guts was born from the corpse of his executed mother and eventually discovered by a group of mercenaries, who find the infant beneath a hanging tree covered in blood and entrails. The baby is presumed to be dead until he begins to cry, to which prostitute Shisu immediately rushes to comfort the child and is permitted to keep the newborn by leader Gambino. The baby is given the name Guts after the gory manner in which he was found. However, many members of the group are unsettled by Guts’ arrival and consider it a bad omen. 

Shisu had been deemed mad following her miscarriage and quickly became attached to Guts as a result. The pair seemed destined to meet but their happiness is tragically short-lived as three years later, Guts’ adoptive mother contracts the plague and dies while Guts watches over her. Unfortunately Shisu’s death only strengthens rumors about Guts’ reputation as a source of bad luck.

Guts promptly begins practicing swordsmanship and joins Gambino on the battlefield in an effort to gain approval. However, one night while Guts is sleeping in his tent, fellow sellsword Donovan, sneaks in and forces himself on the young boy. Guts later lures his abuser away and forces his sword down Donovan’s throat, killing him. No longer feeling safe, Guts begins to sleep clutching his sword.

Guts’ relationship with Gambino rapidly deteriorates following Shisu’s death. Gambino resents Guts for the subsequent loss of his leg and fixates on the misfortune that seems to have followed the boy. Gambino soon begins to verbally and physically abuse Guts, and consequently makes an attempt on Guts’ life. It’s in this moment that Gambino confesses that he had sold Guts to Donovan for the night. 

Horrified by this revelation, Guts is forced to kill his paternal figure in an act of self-defence and is hunted down by Gambino's men. After narrowly escaping with his life and defending himself against a pack of wolves, Guts eventually falls unconscious. The cycle begins again as he is discovered and enlisted by a separate mercenary group where he becomes a child soldier.

After surviving battlefield to battlefield, Guts eventually crosses paths with the Band of the Hawk. Impressed by his skills, leader Griffith, openly expresses that he is eager for Guts to join the Band of the Hawk. Guts agrees to this proposal but only if Griffith defeats him in a duel. Much to Guts’ disgust, he is defeated and begrudgingly joins the new group of mercenaries. But soon finds himself at home among his companions within the Band of the Hawk and is swiftly promoted to Captain of the Raiders.

It is clear that Guts is conflicted in the first arc of the story. After years of coping with isolation and abuse, he is torn between carving his own path or sticking with the Band of the Hawk. It's safe to say that whether you read the manga or watch the anime, the series doesn't sugar-coat the trauma Guts is forced to endure. But despite everything, Guts still carries on and it’s his mental fortitude that makes him such a sympathetic character.

But after forming strong friendships and concealing an unrequited love, it's Guts' decision to leave the Band of the Hawk and break free of Griffith's control that ultimately leads to The Band of the Hawk's downfall.

Amidst this complicated bromance you have Casca. A seasoned warrior who commands the respect of The Band of the Hawk and is Griffiths right hand – that is until Guts steals the spotlight. This setup may sound like a clichéd love triangle but Casca plays a crucial role in Berserk. Without her, Guts would've likely given up following the aftermath of the eclipse. She is the driving force in the story, feeding Guts' lust for revenge.

If you're considering checking out Berserk, I can highly recommend the manga as the best way to consume the series, as you are able to see Miura hone his craft over the years and create some truly remarkable panels. Another benefit is that with over 300 chapters, you'll have more than enough content to keep you occupied. But if that's not your style you have a few options to choose from.

The Golden Age Arc Film Trilogy concisely summaries the first narrative arc, if you want to get up to speed quickly. The larger budget in the subsequent movies allows for less 3D animation and more stunning hand-drawn sequences. However, if you have the time and patience for it, the 1997 adaptation spares no details and has an alluring nostalgic 90's aesthetic, if you can forgive it being a little rough around the edges.

Whichever version you decide to pick if you still can't get enough, I would advise saving the 2016 Berserk anime for last. Not only because it takes place after the first arc and follows the aftermath of the eclipse, but fans of the series have openly criticised this version's cheap animation style that fails to do justice to Miura’s concepts.

As previously mentioned, Berserk is unashamed in its cruelty and some might say the series renowned violence is needlessly excessive. Although this may seem off-putting, Berserk also has it's softer moments. It's in these more subdued scenes that you're drawn deeper into the fascinating narrative.

If asked how best to describe the series, I would say that it's the love child of Japanese horror artist, Junji Ito and fantasy author, George R. R. Martin. The medieval-fantasy setting allows for breath-taking architecture and scenery which often resembles Salvador Dali's surrealist paintings, but inhabited with monsters from Hieronymus Bosch's famous works such as The Harrowing of Hell. It's this contrast that makes Berserk so bewitching, in the thick of all the violence, gore, and carnage, you have a tragic story bursting with drama, rivalry, betrayal, lost love, and most importantly, revenge.

But if The Last of Us Part 2 taught us anything about seeking revenge, it is that it comes at a high price. However, the story remains largely unfinished with the current hiatus and recent chapter having been released as far back as 2019, it's uncertain when we'll see how this revenge story will play out. Nevertheless much like the A Song of Fire and Ice series, having no ending has its positives...

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 9 of 26

Title: The Priory of the Orange Tree (2019) 

Author: Samantha Shannon

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Third-Person, Female Protagonists, LGBT Protagonists

Rating: 10/10

Date Began: 3/12/2021

Date Finished: 4/12/2021

1000 years ago, the world burned. Draconic creatures terrorized the land, led by a horrific evil known as the Nameless One. But then something happened that sent the monsters into a seemingly endless sleep, and the world has rebuilt in the centuries since.

But the Draconic evil begins to stir in its slumber, and the divided nations of the world have little chance to stop it. Eadaz is a mage from the Priory of the Orange Tree, sent to spy on the northern queendom of Inys. Legend has it that as long as the royal line continues, the world will be free from the Nameless One. While it's a long shot, Ead guards the young Queen Sabran closely to preserve the peace. However, as she and the queen grow closer to each other, Ead has to decide where her loyalties lie. Meanwhile, her close friend Loth is secretly sent into exile by the royal spymaster due to his controversial friendship with the queen. Supposedly sent as an ambassador to the newly Draconic kingdom of Yscalin, he soon finds himself out of his depth, entrusted with a deadly secret.

In the isolationist Eastern country of Seiiki, Tané wants nothing more than to become a dragon rider. The dragons of the East are old, wise, and revered as gods-- eternally opposed to the Draconic legions of the West. However, the night before the choosing ceremony that will decide her fate, she breaks isolation and discovers a young man from the West on the shore. Rather than report him to the authorities, she and her friend smuggle him to the island of Orisima, the only place Westerners are permitted. Niclays Roos, an old man exiled to Orisima by Queen Sabran, soon finds himself caught in the conflict. He believes if he finds an elixir for eternal life, he will finally be able to return home. When he's forced to shelter the forbidden Westerner, Niclays' entire way of life is upended-- but he is soon granted the opportunity to escape his exile.  

'My grandmother once said that when a wolf comes to the village, a shepherd looks first to her own flock. The wolf bloods his teeth on other sheep, and the shepherd knows it will one day come for hers, but she clings to the hope that she might be able to keep him out. Until the wolf is at her door.’

Full review, minor spoilers, and content warnings under the cut.

Content warnings for the book:  Some sexual content. Blood, gore, violence, traumatic injury, suicide, and death. Torture and execution. Miscarriage. Body horror (kinda). Drug use.

Clocking in at just over 800 pages, The Priory of the Orange Tree is a long, detailed story. I tend to label things Epic Fantasy when they have world-changing stakes. While Priory certainly fits that criteria, it's the first fantasy book I've read in a while that really does feel like an epic. It stars a huge cast of interesting characters from many walks of life, all of whom find themselves caught up in a world-spanning conflict. It captures the sense of a standalone, grand adventure that shorter fantasy novels of today don't typically reach.

With a book this long, it would be easy to ramble on forever about everything I liked. However, I'm going to try to keep it short and simple.

One of my favorite things about this story was the sheer depth of the world. Lots of people compare this to The Lord of the Rings not for its tropes, but the attention to detail regarding the countries, politics, history, religion, and so on. I'm inclined to agree with this assessment. The world felt alive and multi-dimensional. I could pinpoint many parallels to our own mythologies and histories-- particularly drawn from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. There's also a clear love of language in the story via its beautiful prose. I like to think I know English pretty well, but this book taught me quite a few new words! Might fuck around and call sunsets "rutilant" from now on.

I thought all four leads were interesting. Ead is kinda the "main" lead of the novel, although Tané overtakes her in the latter half. Everyone had different personalities and backstories, and I genuinely enjoyed all of their arcs. Niclays in particular would be an easy character to hate; of the four, he's the most selfish and does some real questionable shit. At the same time, it's hard not to sympathize with him. He's a sad, unjustly exiled elder who's lost the one man he cared about, and finds himself in a desperate situation. These types of characters are interesting to me; a glimpse of what anyone can become given the wrong circumstances and cruel treatment.

With stories like this, one of the most satisfying payoffs is how the different characters and stories come together. It was interesting to see how their paths converged and diverged over time, and ultimately how everything tied together in the end. I also appreciated the character relationships. I liked that Loth's close friendships with both Sabran and Ead were intimate yet platonic without some awkward love triangle.

From some story specifics... I'm a sucker for the bodyguard romance trope, and seeing it done with women in a mainstream novel gave me life. I thought the romance between Ead and Sabran was really sweet; I didn't see how it would work early on since Sabran was a little insufferable, but she had hidden depths (oh god, another weakness of mine). I also really liked the idea of traditional European and Asian dragons being diametrically opposed, and that being a core theme of the story. Intelligent and/or talking animals are another thing I adore in spec fic, so I dug characters like Aralaq. Kalyba's ongoing relevance and gradual exposition was also neat; I love minor world details that turn out super relevant later.

Also, the entire final battle/ending sequence was SO good. Really creative and action packed. Action scenes often blend together for me (and can be logistical nightmares) but Priory's climactic ending was just awesome. I don't want to spoil specifics, but it reminded me of many beloved epic battles in modern fantasy. Avatar the Last Airbender, How To Train Your Dragon, and Pirates of the Caribbean all came to mind. 

My main criticism with Priory is that often, the plot relied on convenient coincidence to get the characters out of a jam or otherwise advance the story. I can excuse a minor contrivance or two for the sake of a smooth story, and the scope of this book is big enough that it'd be hard to avoid. But some are nuts. For example, Loth gets rescued from certain death by a giant ichneumon while traveling through the mountains. We later learn the ichneumon is Aralaq, a friend of Ead's, and he just happened to be in the middle of nowhere, far from his home, and stumbled upon Loth. Loth, who ALSO happens to be Ead's best friend... which Aralaq presumably doesn't know?

Another is the MAJOR SPOILER regarding the rising jewel's location. I didn't hate the twist itself, but there was so little build up to it. I wish there were more early hints to justify it, because with setup it would be a pretty cool development. These things didn't ruin my enjoyment of the story, but the borderline deus ex machina (machinae? machinas?) did take me out of it a bit. It’s possible I missed stuff so I’ll give some benefit of the doubt. 

Overall, though, The Priory of the Orange Tree is a fun, world-spanning adventure. Like any long book, it's an investment to get into. However, if you're looking for a standalone, feminist fantasy epic, this is certainly a good place to start.  

[norgestan]

I'm going back for seconds! Viri/Hugo, Nora/Miquel, Lucasim, Emma/You. Lol tbh I just want an Emma ship and I feel like we haven't properly settled for one. 😔 Who should end up with Emma, Mia excluded since you haven't watched Druck yet?

ardi round 2, i loooove this :)

VIRIHUGO:

i think at the end of the day i’m just resigned to virihugo’s existence. do i hate that they just Start pining for each other with no setup at all? yes. do i hate that their relationship was a noorhelm+vilde esque get-together where dylan is the one who ends up alone? yes (imagine if noora had told william something like “oh lol vilde is just some slut that goes for every boy around her, she’ll get over it soon and she doesn’t really care about us being together ;)”. bc that’s essentially what virihugo did LOL). do i hate that half of their clips are they just standing still and monologuing about each other? oh yes. do i care? not really. i would resent them a lot more if viri had been the protag of s3, but eskam had really compelling couples with noriquel and norandro so i just spend my time focusing on them and not the lesser part of the season.

viri is an endearing character, and although i didn’t like most of her subplot in s3, i do think eskam made her an interesting character with what they had and i’m happy she got a nice boyfriend that she has lots of fun with. moreover, norandro was lacking the enemies-to-lovers snarky interactions (too busy being a really compelling couple!) and the trope was picked up by hugo and viri. which i kinda dig, because those interactions were the only things that i enjoyed about various noorhelms in the skamverse - if most of them were like that and less bad abusive boy feminist girl jerk-fest, i wouldn’t loathe noorhelm as much as i do. although this also makes me wish viri and hugo had been that kind of dynamic from the start, and just gotten a lot of will-they-won’t-they glances from their friends throughout the show until they finally got into each other on s3. but i guess that would’ve made it impossible for eskam to use dylan just to *checks notes* make every person in the love triangle insanely infuriating, oh well.

tl;dr: they are allowed to exist.

NORIQUEL:

ardi, you just want to see the world burn LMAO

to me it’s hard to dislike any pairing with nora on it because she’s a very good character and that just means she’ll always have great dynamics with other good characters. and oh is miquel a good character. in a lot of ways, eskam gave us two great williams in one season: my boy alejandro, who is the perfect candidate for a nora love interest, who earned his place and then helped nora earn her place as the best candidate to be his love interest as well, and then miquel, that has just enough characterization to be exactly what the narrative of the season needs him to be - not only a mustache-twirling antagonist who will punch out then smirk his way out of situations, but a real person.

see, they could’ve made miquel into a one-dimensional asshole that nora is stupidly into because he’s hot (does that sound familiar to you? LOL) but oh no, miquel is way more than that. he earns nora’s trust because he’s not an asshole, he resents olga for cheating on him and you can see how nora waits until the moment where he’ll call her a slut but it NEVER comes, he defends nora in front of his friends... he gives her what she needs, and he fits right where she expects him to. and that’s so important in a season where every other character is challenging nora in one way or another: alejandro doesn’t fit in her box of “incorrigible fuckboy”, viri doesn’t fit in her box of “helpless friend who needs my pity”, emma doesn’t fit in her box of “s/a victim”. being with miquel is easy, when he just humors her and spits out thoughts that nora agrees with all the time. it’s just REALLY great to watch. not only is her season a display of how emotional abuse looks like, but also her entire relationship with miquel showcases her shame, her flaws, the things she needs to work with to better her relationships with the people who ask more of her because it’s only fair.

i honestly never was in the miquel hate train. once you get the point of the character, it’s easy to love him for what he is. as i said before, miquel was also a call of attention because the conversations that he had with nora reminded me of talks with male friends i’ve had in my uni years, and it really put it in perspective and made me realize that i have been humoring numerous miquels by sitting through their “i’m actually a feminist, ya know” think-pieces and agreeing with the general feeling of it. and i don’t think a character like niko could EVER make anyone feel like that.

i’ve checked the middle square because that was my reaction every time eskam made a point to parallel noriquel to noorhelm. like YES. YOU DO GET ME. TRULY A SEASON FROM NOORHELM ANTIS TO NOORHELM ANTIS. what a skamverse treat. this relationship is good for the SOUL. that’s why i never got infuriated watching the couple, despite knowing what the point of their existence was: at the end of the day, i knew that the signs of abuse weren’t pointless and just fillers for an end-of-season sex scene, but they were actually going to do something interesting with them. and that’s exactly what they did. noriquel is actually a perfectly crafted relationship for what its message is and it deserves to be remembered as that.

LUKASIM:

oh BOY.

i just.... kasim is in this relationship. that already makes this REALLY difficult to tackle it. the thing about kasim is... if you only watched the season as the movistar+ channel shows it, kasim is simply a plot device. he’s not a character. he’s only there to introduce conflict and stir some shit and then fuck off to the sunset. he doesn’t have an og counterpart which meant that eskam didn’t have to actually try with him, and kasim is just what they need him to be: a way to introduce the main conflict, a reason for dounia to hate amira, boy on boy action for that sweet fanservice, misogynist microaggressions towards amira, a loose way to wrap things up at the end of the season and absolve her from any guilt or shame, etc. he just shows up when the plot needs him and then walks away very swaggily. and that’s why kasim is an essay kind of topic because to talk about him, you have to tackle the racism in s4 and all the ways they could’ve made a conflict-inducing gay muslim guy actually likable. which i won’t do here.

but then if you look at the lucas extra clips... he’s actually LIKABLE. he’s a character: he has personality, he’s funny, he doesn’t take lucas’ shit, he will only be with him if lucas apologizes and changes first. and as someone who desperately wants to protect kasim from the shit characterization and treatment he got in the show, i treasure those clips immensely - which i don’t think a lot of people do, and i can see why. it’s just sad that the moments where kasim was a likable, real character were hidden behind a paywall, and drown in a convoluted plotline of outing people when they behave badly as a good punishment. the thing about their get-together is that their impact relies only on amira, and is meant to make her life a living hell. other than that, there’s not really a narrative or character reason why they’re both into each other. is it only because they’re conventionally attractive guys and the only recurrent mlm in the show? wow, that shit’s BORING.

sigh, anyway. in a slightly better world, kasim being gay wasn’t actually a nuance as it was presented in the show. rather, kasim was out and confident about it, close to his sister, probably a regular in las labass where he could also work with organizations of other queer muslims in madrid. this also means that lucas and kasim’s relationship wasn’t the typical hidden gay love story that they were in the actual show, but they’re just, ya know. typical gay kids who made out in the club and then became just friends. or lucas’ activism on s2 warranted some instagram dms and then they upgraded to acquaintances. it’s upsetting that lucas is the only eskild who doesn’t really get to hangout or be in queer circles like other eskilds are implied to, so it would be great for him to actually have gay friends that he enjoys just as much as his primarily friend group. like, their version of lucas’ queer lifestyle being going to bars and hooking up with older guys it’s so....................... why. they didn’t have the time to say anything interesting about it and so obviously they didn’t do it lol. at this rate lucas’ only platonic queer companion is cris, which is lackluster to say the least.

the decision of making kasim lucas’ endgame is just another one on the list of things s4 got so, so wrong. what for? why does lucas need (another) boyfriend, again? why does every queer person in this show have to be dating someone and also come out to their parents? again, their relationship is just another rushed hidden gay love story that i found interesting at 13 years old and then never again. they could’ve taken it into ANY other direction, please. i’m begging.

anyways, you had really nice headcanons of lucas being the only eskild willing to revert to date a muslim guy, so that’s the only reason why i’m open to the idea of them being a couple. in a better universe, eskam actually made a case for these two being a good couple, and i agreed with it. as it is for now, it’s just really pointless, and rooted on the fact that kasim is not a real character to begin with. so i’m OBVIOUSLY sending them to superhell <3

EMMA/ME:

standard wlw relationship that would probably get sooooo much backlash about how neither of the characters Really feel like wlw and the emma love interest being boring as fuck, tbh.

alright, now that we’ve covered all that.... should dear emma grace even end up with someone in the skamverse? maybe one of the skamau girlies, given the proximity? maybe she’ll hook up with the female eskild that i know so many people dislike? idk. emma deserves a nice love story, in the same wavelength as nora. she deserves someone who is patient, who communicates well, who establishes boundaries and asks for respect, who understands she’s not only the act of crazy party girl and there are really interesting, carefully placed layers around her. maybe someone who went through a similar situation or at the very least sits down with her and tries their hardest to understand all the things going on with her life. like... there’s something about emma dropping the accusations and then dipping to another country, away from her parents and even her hometown in the states, just to throw herself in a city as busy as nyc is, that is desperately asking to be explained and explored. in a lot of ways, emma’s story is the other side of the noora story that couldn’t be told through nora’s perspective. in a perfect universe, there’s a spinoff that takes place right between s3 and s4, where emma gets the news of how much of a shithead miquel actually is and she has to question all of that yet again, and break the sense of normalcy and comfort she had built during all those years. it would be great if that story featured her closest friendships, and a newfound love. yes i was serious when i talked about the emma grace spinoff @ movistar+

[homosexualmorelikehomiesexual]

I just noticed an interesting parallel between The Hunger games and Sucker Punch. They both rather brilliantly predicted the way they’re be received by audiences and, more importantly, how they’d be marketed.

The Hunger Games was about a literal bread-and-circuses setup situation in which an elite Capital forced it’s working classes to send their children into an annual death match as entertainment for the rich and a form of humiliation for the poor. The antagonists are a couple of children in the death match, forced to play the role of 'star crossed lovers’, hoping to gain enough pity from their capitalist audience (who initially just wanted their violent death) that they will both be allowed to survive. It works, but inadvertently inspires the working class to rebel, and the antagonists are forced to keep up the act in order to avoid being suspected by the Capital of intentionally starting the rebellion. Due to having survived such a traumatic series of events together, they eventually do end up developing real feelings, but it is a small element of their lives given that their very existence is being used for propaganda by both sides of a war they never wanted.

However when the movies were made, they completely ignored the social and political commentary, and heavily based their marketing on the almost completely irrelevant love triangle, ironically doing exactly what the Capital attempted to do in the books-portray the antagonists as shallow entertainment, therefore invalidating the entire sociopolitical world that they represented. Anyone who has read the books will tell you they are brilliant. Anyone who has only ever seen the marketing for the movies looks down on them with disdain as being just another Y/A teen romance.

Sucker Punch was about an abused girl placed in a mental institution, who disassociates into a fantasy setting in which she is trapped in a brothel with a handful of other girls, unable to leave without being killed. She is forced to participate in her own sexualization, but eventually frees herself by sacrificing her body. It’s a very carefully crafted depiction of on rape culture, and was designed to be a literal sucker punch to the misogynistic nerd audience that it intentionally marketed itself towards. It lured gamers in with the slutty costumes and a vague, seemingly nonexistent plotline (seriously, google it! It’s nigh impossible to find a good explanation of what it’s about unless you actively read the whole synopsis on Wikipedia, effectively spoiling the whole thing) and then for 2 hours depicted a brutal, gut wrenching story of young girls trying to reclaim agency of themselves by using the sexualization of their bodies as a weapon, with the harsh allegories of lobotomy and a mental institution very bluntly pointing out how sick the whole thing is.

[lenonizi-fics]

So, let me throw this into the universe and maybe they can get out of my head and into the world.

A MacGyver male OC that worked with Desi before and is hired to the time in a capacity kind of like that agent on Season 2, undercover work, dealing with people, accessing places, that kind of thing. He comes right after Desi and Angus break up because they are incompatible and get kind in the middle of the two because of the awkwardness. After a while, he starts to fall for Angus and keeps asking to be in the HQ until Desi confronts him and he tells how he feels. Parallel to this Mac is getting restless because OC isn't coming to the missions and when Rileu asks why it bothers him so much, he confess he may be feeling some new feelings, it can even tight up with the whole mac/jack situation that should definitely have happen. Anyway, OC thinks mac is straight and feels horrible because of Desi, Mac thinks OC isn't interested and he isn't sure what he is feeling, some angst, some miscommunication, some ill die for you in some mission, maybe even some Riley/Desi because is so much better then a love triangle. Faceclaim: idk. Name: Luke Holt

Legacies male OC creates as a result of a deal Hope makes with a magical spirit to defeat Malivore. The witch ghost says she'll have to give up being unique and therefore OC appears out of nowhere from her DNA, kind of a magical twin. She hates it and keeps telling everyone that she'll never see him as a brother, but everyone knows she lost so much family, she is just guarding himself. He, on the other hand, has no history, no nothing, just all the stuff hope knows with fighting and magic and stuff. Also, he is bi and both Rafael and josie get interested in him and they decided to be a ot3 because it's just the perfect setup. So monsters, teen romance, ot3, people brought together by ridiculous circumstances becoming family, some lizzie/oc one line sparring and both making fun of Landon. Faceclaim: Connor Jessup; Name: Nicolas Michaelson

A Marvel male OC that was in a Shield Academy during Winter Soldier and his school was attacked because of a technology he helped develop and Hydra started to kill his schoolmates until he unlocked the access codes. OC goes crazy and kills the agents until he is found covered in blood next to his schoolmates corpses. He goes into an institution until Steve takes him out to help track down Bucky and becomes his legal guardian (he is seventeen) and he goes through all the movies. He helps in age of Ultron, where we see some of the relationships with the other avengers, like Tony keeps saying he should work for him and he keeps saying no, asking natasha to teach some fighting things and Hawkeye wants to teach him archery and he is like 'I'm just trying to see if I can convince thor to take out his shirt' while Bruce is like 'it's late, you should be sleeping' and he is like 'you are a human disaster, shut up'.

Civil war goes super bad because he is all team cap and Tony keeps saying they should not be putting the kid in the middle of the thing, but he was almost murdered in a state controlled institution, so he is not ready to put the government in charge of superpowers. He has crazy tech glasses first (sorry for from home) and is not afraid to use it.

He goes to wakanda with bucky, but Tony negotiates a deal for him to go back to the States under his mentorship. He moves to the same building where Peter Parker lives and Peter had a big big crush on him. Tony asks OC to look after Peter, but he gets involved in the whole stolen tech thing and Tony gets mad. Steve gets mad. He yells lot.

This one is kind of a 'solo' movie where Oc goes work for a construction company and his boss is a villain that is about to be caught by the FBI for business mess and he finds a way to blame OC and his own daughter, Kate Bishop. So OC and Kate have to work together to get her father and they become best friends and partners and that goes on to influence his other stories (there was no Hawkeye show when I plotted this. I don't know what I'm gonna do about it). Peter shows up for a cameo on this, but it's more about OC and Bishop becoming partners in crime/superheroing. At the end, they find out that OC is inhuman and had the option to use the rock thing to get his powers. He destroys it because he says he doesn't need it.

Infinity war comes and both Bishop and OC are involved. they keep getting separated by stuff and trying to reach each other while OC gets involved with Tony, strange and Peter in space. At the end, he is not snapped, but Kate is and the movie ends with him losing his mind again and repeating not again because of how he lost his school friends before.

The inhumans believe that they develop the powers the community needs to survive, so endgame is a lot about OC wanting to get powers and Steve fearing it'll just make things worse. He is full uncle to Tony's daughter and helps natasha with keeping the avengers alive, but he is full on not okay and wants to do anything to bring everybody back. He helps with the time heist, but needs to unlock his powers to make it work. Nothing bad happens and he gets some mind and telekinesis powers (think some Jean grey kind of thing). At the end, although he uses his powers to help defeat thanos, it isn't the thing the saves the day and he wonders if that means something bad is still to come. He is super hurt that Steve left, but has to accept it. Maybe he meets Peggy during the time heist just to kind of come full circle. Anyway, no more OC/Peter because he is so much older now (from 2 to 7 years of difference).

He does show up in far from home, in the plane with Happy when Peter is lost in Europe. He helps and even pushes Peter/mj together.

Not sure about the plot for falcon and winter Soldier, but kind of wondering if with people not wanting Sam as cap, maybe try to use OC as caps son and he saying absolutely not. Maybe some OC/bucky if makes sense with what they are doing. Name: Leonard Knight

I'll post more if I remember more.

I also have a ton of seasons plotted for arrowverse Kyle if anyone wants to know .

[takerfoxx]

Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight: A 'Revue'

Remember that one anime I compared to wrestling a while back? Well, this is that show, and here’s why I think you should give it a chance:

Karen Aijo is a cheerful lesbian thespian (‘Thesbian’, as the fandom likes to say) attending a prestigious theatre academy with seven other thesbians. Until one day her old childhood 'friend’ Hikari, an aloof, mysterious thesbian who speaks little and doesn’t show emotion, shows up at the academy one day, turning her world upside down! In short, a wholesome, if somewhat saccharine setup for a yuri show. 

Then the second half of episode 1 hits. 

Karen accidentally wanders to a secret room under the school, where thesbians fight in (elegant) UNSANCTIONED MUSICAL DEATHMATCHES where the referee is a talking giraffe (did I mention this show gets weird?) and you can beat your opponent to death with a bot (elegantly) if you wanna! And it’s not just any deathmatch: because Hikari is in the ring, getting the tar beaten out of her by the student council president. But just as Hikari is pinned to the mat and all hope is lost, Karen jumps into the ring and gets REBORN AS A STAGE GIRL!

As a great man once said: “LET’S GET READY TO RUUUMMMBBBBLLLLEEEE!!!!”

Anyway, here’s a more concise list of reasons:

Into yuri? The series has every lesbian archetype under the sun. Whether you like aggressive pairs with lots of sexual tension, more wholesome childhood girlfriends, or more traditional butch-femme relationships, there is something for you.

Like stylized weirdness? The show has it in spades (Again, talking giraffe announcer).

As I said earlier, this series does remind me of professional wrestling: each episode follows a general formula where the first half focuses on two girls, establishes their over the top personalities and gets you invested in them, so in the second half when you watch them fight, you’re properly hyped. Heck, just change 'thesbian’ to 'wrestler’ and 'Revue Starlight’ to WWE and you’ll start seeing parallels.

It has lesbians stuck in a miserable cycle that pits them against one another. 

There’s a love triangle that can pretty much be summed as 'Madoka must choose between shy, nerdy Homura or angst, aloof Homura’

Also, fights are gorgeously over the top and the music is a delight.

And that is my pitch.

WAKARIMASU

You know, I think I have had that one pitched to me a couple of times (might have been by you?). But anyway, with Ducktales and She-Ra to drop new seasons soon, my docket’s going to be pretty full, but I’ll put this one on the radar for now.

[gloriousgwendolinechristie]

Press: Gwendoline Christie on ‘Game of Thrones’ and Brienne’s Love Triangles

  NY TIMES – In Sunday’s Season 7 finale of “Game of Thrones,” after arriving at King’s Landing from Winterfell, Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) bears witness to the presentation of the undead wight, the hard-won proof of the common evil all of the show’s characters will soon face.

  Can opposing sides put aside their squabbles and band together to prevent the end of the world? For her part, Brienne tries to facilitate that, even if she’s rebuffed in the moment by Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), her former road trip partner. We talked with Ms. Christie about Brienne’s tête-à-tête with her gold-handed man, her reunion with a past combatant and her unusual love triangles. Following are edited excerpts from that conversation.

  Sansa sent Brienne to King’s Landing as her representative, but also because she didn’t want or need her around to dispose of the Littlefinger problem. How do you feel about how that was resolved?

  Back in Season 3, when she was escorting Jaime Lannister to King’s Landing, there was a farmer who witnessed them on the road. Jaime said, “That farmer knows who I am. What if he tells someone?” implying that she needed to go and kill him. And Brienne refused, because she didn’t believe it was the right thing to do. She doesn’t believe in dispatching a life unless it’s absolutely necessary. Unless it’s official. Look at the way she beheaded Stannis. She essentially read him his rights. Although it was loaded with emotion for her, she presented it in a very official, formal way, with great nobility. So I don’t know how Brienne will react to people taking matters into their own hands at Winterfell. Brienne is about a code of honor, a code of conduct, and she never kills anyone just for the sake of it.

  It’s complex, though, because Brienne’s made her oath to Catelyn Stark to protect the Stark girls. It’s a little bit of a tricky situation because both Sansa and Arya have had their own journeys, and at times, some horrific experiences. I think she wishes she had been able to save them from what they had been forced to experience. We can use the word “maternal” because it has so many connotations, but what I like about it is that, in Brienne’s own way, she is expressing something of their mother to them. She’s protecting them as best she can. I think things are getting more interesting for Brienne now. I know it’s not what she wanted, to leave Sansa’s side, but being at King’s Landing as Sansa’s representative sort of upped her game. It’s going beyond the remit of what she thought her job description was.

  Brienne and the Hound get a nice little reunion, considering the last time she saw him, she left him for dead.

  She’s shocked when she spies him, because of course she thinks that when she defeated and dispatched him, that she killed him. And she decides to do the decent thing and go up to him, and he quite understandably gives her a bit of the cold shoulder at first. She says that she’s sorry for harming him, that she was only trying to protect Arya, and he says that’s all he was doing as well. And so they come to a sort of begrudging respectful silence. An acknowledgment of each other. Of each other’s status as warriors.

  And it’s rather good to see them come together. You don’t expect the Hound to overcome the injury, not just to his physical body, but to his male pride, being nearly killed by a woman. And Brienne sees in the Hound a quality that she has, which is utter resilience, against all of the odds. What seems to be becoming clearer is this idea that they all need to overcome their differences and see the similarities in each other, to fight something that is essentially the destruction of mankind. No matter how large or how small, they need to engage with this idea of unity against a common evil.

  That’s the crux of her argument with Jaime Lannister.

  Why will he not give everything to overcome that? Brienne is … not heartbroken, but incredibly shocked and hurt, and that hurt makes her question the relationship and what it really means to her. Jaime sort of treats her like she’s a stranger, and fobs her off. It’s incredibly tense. Their past trust and mutual respect just seems to be meaningless. They have had this complex relationship which really can’t be defined, so it’s a really fascinating setup to move forward, for where we will go in the final season. I think although he treats her fairly coldly, what we’ve seen with Jaime Lannister is that he might respond badly to something, particularly with Brienne, but then he takes the time to reflect and think about it, and he’s sort of brought back.

  Unlike Cersei, Brienne usually makes him want to be a better man. It’s kind of an inversion of the Beauty and the Beast scenario, where he is both the beauty and the one who needs to be transformed.

  Yes! It’s so interesting the way the parallels are played with, in that you have a female character who isn’t cute, isn’t beautiful, isn’t sexy, isn’t conventionally attractive, but she has an incredibly attractive interior world, a world that is firmly harnessed to a moral compass. She’s very focused on dedicating her life to the good of others. She’s driven and selfless, and that’s a rare combination.

  When Brienne and Jaime are together, something incredibly magnetic seems to occur. Last season, there was that scene where she tries to persuade him to allow her to speak to the Blackfish, and she’s able to communicate and negotiate with him, and be heard by him in a way that doesn’t really exist between many of the other male and female characters. In a way that’s not about manipulation, but is positive. So I’m endlessly fascinated by their dynamic. I really am.

  And then there’s the dynamic with Tormund, which delights a lot of fans. He recently announced his desire to procreate with Brienne, despite the fact that she does not seem to reciprocate his affections, at all.

  [Laughs] Yeah! Do you think she actually likes him? I don’t think it’s something Brienne wants! Tormund is quite a rough and ready man. He’s a man who’s bragged about having sexual intercourse with a bear, and so I question whether that is necessarily the right person for Brienne. Does that man display enough sensitivity? What do you think Tormund would have to come up with to win her heart?

  Well, that’s a bit of a problem with wildling culture. The free folk believe the man should steal the woman. That’s their idea of courtship. With Brienne, he might have more success if he tried to have an actual conversation with her first.

  I think he’d have to have a conversation with her for at least four years. [Laughs] She seems fairly repelled by Tormund’s strong overtures toward her. She’s more enthused by a more cerebral approach. Brienne puts her hand on Jaime’s shoulder in this episode, to stop him as he goes to walk off, and that really throws him off balance. So it’s taken them, what? Nearly five years to just put a hand on his shoulder?!

  And that’s after they’ve seen each other naked!

  [Laughs] They’re working from Point 10 to Point 2. Exactly. And then I think, the poor woman. Look at her choices: the man who brags about having sex with a bear, or the man who has sex with his sister! Maybe there’s another option? I really want her to have someone more stable. I don’t know. I’m a bit surprised by how much attention that the most unconventional female character on the show has garnered for her love life!

Press: Gwendoline Christie on ‘Game of Thrones’ and Brienne’s Love Triangles was originally published on Glorious Gwendoline

[tirkdi]

Thoughts on Raven Stratagem

Many spoilers! All below the cut. 

I loved the book. It was so good. It was so good! It was so good that at multiple times throughout the book I looked up at my husband and said: “This book is so good. IT’S SO GOOD!” Then he gave me that weird look he sometimes does when I’m just repeating myself a lot. So, okay, I loved the book.

I liveblogged it on my reading freakouts tumblr so I had a place to put my on-the-go thoughts, but there are a few things I wanted to say more broadly before I get to the main point of this, which is: Khiruev, And Where The Hell Is Nerevor.

(Also, I’m writing this all without looking back at the book so if I say anything that is Actually Incorrect … that’s why.)

I was really surprised to not get any Jedao/Cheris POV in this. I thought it was going to come slamming back at the end.

WHERE THE HECK WAS KUJEN!!!!!!!!!!! He just flipping disappeared??

Based on all the tension built up from these first two points, I think RG is going to have to be all Cheris & Kujen POV with comedic relief servitor bits thrown in. Also, I’d straight up adore a chapter from the perspective of the onion plant.

I loved Kujen and Jedao in the black cradle. So much. SO much. My entire black cradle fic was destroyed, and I’m not even mad.

The flowers they showed Jedao in the black cradle. The flowers.

I LOVED HEXARCH SHOUS FUCKING MIKODEZ!!! When I was reading Ninefox Gambit, I finished chapter one and was like “wtf was that.” When I finished chapter 2 with Kujen & Miki (!!!), I was all “I still have no idea what this is but I love these two characters.” Seeing more of Miki was amazing. I love what an interesting and important character he became.

Although, Istradez, what the heck! I didn’t get that at all, right up until he stared at his palms and punched me in the gut.

Need more ugly green onion plant, stat.

I currently have no idea of much of anything “Jedao” “remembers” I should trust. I kind of like series that explicitly destabilize a narrator late in the game (Terra Ignota whaaaat) – it makes it a much more complicated read.

KIDS! WHY SO MANY CONVERSATIONS ABOUT KIDS! JEDAO HAS A KID OR SOMETHING???

Kujen’s kids, though. Or like, great-great-greats. Are they also sociopaths or did regression to the mean really help his family out? I need fic about this, for science.

Seriously how has the Hexarchate stayed standing if there are so many traitors and even the Hexarchs (or at least Miki) are okay w missing remembrances. 

Okay. So, Let’s Talk About Shipping Cheris.

As is well documented on tumblr (I’m not sorry) I’m a fan of Cheris/Nerevor. I was thinking that YHL would bring Nerevor back (we were all thinking that), but she does not make a triumphant return in this book. 

I knew the ship was a long shot – it felt like they had a little chemistry, but handling someone whose lost their memory (not to mention the whole formation instinct thing) was always going to be an uphill battle. But, I could see a world where Nerevor reappears, recovers some of her memory – just enough to be happy but not enough to be Kel – and then she and Cheris fall madly in love and live on a beach in their retirement. Or whatever.

But Then, Khiruev.

The parallels between Khiruev and Nerevor are too strong for me to really in my heart of hearts believe that Nerevor is coming back in book three. It’s kind of weird, because we don’t see much of Nerevor and we see a lot of Khiruev, but their setups are similar for shipping: Nerevor was skeptical of Cheris/Jedao, Khiruev started their relationship with an assassination attempt; they both have the formation instinct issue which makes consensual sex impossible; but then that changes (Nerevor gets wiped, Khiruev goes all suicide-rogue); they both made enormous sacrifices for Cheris/Jedao (memory, life) that cannot be explained by formation instinct alone. One might be led to believe these things are done out of pure belief in them/the cause/desperate love that they are hoping will someday be requited even if they don’t remember or are dead. 

RS ends in an odd place, though – Cheris has been (very illicitly) falling for Khiruev, but Khiruev has been falling for an impeccably performed Jedao. How do they move the relationship forward from there? Their relationship at the end is a little strained and a little strange, though it seems like as everything began to crumble there was maybe a change of heart, somewhere? 

My hopes for book three are more pinned on Cheris/Khiruev now, even though it’s not clear to me how it shakes out. With this setup, I’d feel a little bad for Nerevor returning into the middle of it and being part of a weird love triangle that is almost a square because it kind of involves Jedao. 

I intend to reread RS like I did with 9fox, but haven’t yet, so if anyone has more thoughts on Khiruev and Cheris’s relationship position at the end I’d love to hear.

To wrap up, I’ll revisit my lead-up-to-RS’s-release meme’s response of what the plot of RS would be if it was fanservice just for me. Let’s take it line by line and see how I did:

“KUJEN BLOWS TONS OF STUFF UP!” Kujen did … very little blowing up. A different Hexarch really was holding down the blowing up fort in this book. I have high hopes for Kujen in book three though.

“Cheris/Jedao BLOW THINGS UP IN RETALIATION!” They blew up so much!!!

“The Andan appear and stab everyone in the kidneys.” bY ENTHRALLING THEM

“The universe collapses” “A green onion is planted”

“around Nerevor, who has fully recovered her memory,” :( :( :( 

“and Cheris” :) :) :) 

“as they share one beautiful kiss.” :/ :/ :/

“For some reason, Shuos Mikodez is there.” Honestly, this isn’t such a bad summary of the book.

[sbknews]

New Post has been published on Superbike News

New Post has been published on http://superbike-news.co.uk/wordpress/bonneville-bobber-black/

The Bonneville Bobber Black

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Following the overwhelming success of the Bonneville Bobber – the fastest selling motorcycle in Triumph’s 115-year history, the company has taken the model to new heights for the 2018 model year, with the darker, meaner and stronger Bonneville Bobber Black.

With all of the Bonneville Bobber’s beautiful unique features

Authentic custom style

Elegant engineering innovation

Category defining capability

Thrilling hot rod ride and sound

Now with even more attitude

More aggressive and more muscular stance with a “fat” 16-inch front wheel (vs 19-inch on the Bobber) and chunkier 47mm front forks (vs 41mm on the Bobber)

Fully blacked out style, detailing and finish across the whole bike

And even higher specification

Category-leading twin disc front brakes with Brembo calipers

Higher specification chunky Showa cartridge forks

Higher specification full LED headlight with distinctive daytime running light

And single button cruise control as standard

An unparalleled success

Launched to international acclaim in 2016, the award-winning Bonneville Bobber is loved by customers and enthusiasts worldwide. Inspired by the original post-war Bobber movement of stripped back, hard tail motorcycles tuned to the extreme for maximum performance, the Bonneville Bobber has stunning handcrafted custom style and a thrilling hot rod ride. With its 1200cc High Torque Bonneville engine with distinctive Bobber tune, it is selling out in dealerships all over the world. And because Triumph was there from the start with the most powerful and lightweight bikes around, the new Bonneville Bobber has absolute peerless authenticity.

Now taking the Bobber to new heights, Triumph’s Bobber Black delivers much more.

Authentic custom styling, now even more aggressive

With imposing poise, distinguished presence and the iconic Bobber silhouette, the Bobber Black shares the Bobber’s low, muscular and minimalist stance – purposeful, distinctive, and stripped back. Featuring all the classic hallmarks of a Bobber, the Bobber Black’s single seat and hard tail look are teamed with wide flat bars for intuitive handling, minimal bodywork and sculpted Bonneville tank, minimal fenders with centre ridge, and authentic wire spoked wheels.

The Bobber Black features a host of fully blacked out details and finishes. These include:

Black painted exhaust (silencers, headers and upper finned casting)

Black anodised brake pedal and footrests

Black anodised gear lever

Zinc nickel plated gear linkage

Black anodised brake and clutch levers

Black painted handlebars, with black anodised risers and clamps

Black painted seat pan

Black powder coated engine covers, cam cover and sprocket cover

Black chrome plated headlight rim

Black painted wheel hubs

Carrying over all of the beautiful Bobber details, the Bobber Black boasts an authentic battery box with heritage-inspired cover and stainless steel strap, classic rear ‘drum brake’ inspired hub, rear mudguard loop, side-mounted ignition barrel, bar end mirrors and a premium branded locking fuel cap. Plus an exquisitely sculpted top yoke, carb-styled twin throttle bodies and gloss black bullet indicators.

Arriving in two alluring colour options, the Bobber Black is available in either a classic gloss Jet Black or a stylish and contemporary Matt Jet Black. 

Elegant engineering innovation, now even higher specification

Raising the bar in terms of specification, the Bonneville Bobber Black delivers characterful and class-defining riding dynamics.

Triumph’s highest specification brakes in the Bonneville line up with ABS as standard; the Bobber Black has category leading 310mm twin discs on the front with twin Brembo two-piston calipers and a single rear disc setup with single piston caliper. The suspension also sees an upgrade from the Bobber spec with chunky 47mm Showa cartridge front forks, offering 90mm front wheel travel for improved feel and feedback. The new “fat” 16-inch front wheel, still with classic wire spokes, black rims, and the specially-developed Avon Cobra tyres, gives the Bobber Black its meaner and more muscular stance.

As well as the considerable specification upgrades, the Bobber Black retains the elegant engineering innovations now synonymous with the Bobber – like the beautiful and distinctive floating aluminium seat pan with cantilever support, the adjustable riding position, the elegant monoshock RSU with linkage, the distinctive ‘swing cage’ for that hard-tail look and the clean line hidden technology packaging.

Accessible for any size of rider, the Bobber Black has a low seat height of just 688mm providing excellent ergonomics and a confidence-inspiring low centre of gravity. Category defining capability, now with even more technology

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The front end of the Bobber Black is transformed with the new 5” full-LED headlight with unique LED daytime running light* pattern (DRL) and charming Triumph maker’s mark triangle branding integrated within the headlight cluster. Longer distance cruising is also easier on the Bobber Black, thanks to cruise control as standard, easily accessible as a single button elegantly moulded into the left-hand switch cube.

Complementing these upgrades are a suite of rider-focused technologies carried over from the Bobber and sensitively incorporated to ensure clean-line packaging – like the Road and Rain riding modes, both delivering full power, and the switchable traction control for maximum safety and rider control. On top of that is the torque assist clutch which reduces pulling effort at the lever to help prevent rider fatigue, the durable and power efficient all-LED lighting (rear light, indicators and number plate light), and a state of the art immobiliser with transponder incorporated into the premium Triumph badged key for maximum security.

Stylishly minimal and angle adjustable, the Bobber Black’s beautiful single clock has a machined bronze dial face and multi-function display controlled by easily reachable fingertip controls.

As with all Triumphs in the Modern Classics range, the new Bonneville Bobber Black is liquid-cooled, reducing emissions and offering a high first major service interval of 10,000 miles (16,000 Km). For added piece of mind, it also features the latest immobiliser with the transponder fitted into the premium Triumph badged key.

Standard Equipment

All-LED Lighting with Full LED Headlight with DRL*

  All new, distinctive and elegant, full LED 5 inch multi-function headlight with beautiful Triumph maker’s mark triangle branding. Main and dipped beam, and front position light, plus Triumph’s signature style LED daytime running light.

Compact and elegant, with a distinctive light pattern, the LED rear light, LED indicators and LED number plate light are power efficient and durable.

  Single Button Cruise Control Easy to use, single button function cruise control with one press for on, one press to set the speed, and one press to cancel. Easily accessible button mounted into the left hand switch cube. Ride-by-Wire For a crisper, more precise and more accurate throttle response, with improved on/off throttle transition. Enabling different throttle maps, linked to two different riding modes. Riding Modes Linked to the ride-by-wire system, there are Road and Rain riding modes, selectable via the new switch gear, for maximum, control and safety in different riding conditions, both delivering full power. ABS The contemporary safety standard, with minimal visual impact, the ABS is responsive yet unobtrusive. Switchable Traction Control Contemporary switchable traction control, maximising rider safety and control. Torque Assist Clutch Reducing clutch lever effort, the Torque Assist Clutch improves long distance rideability and reduces rider fatigue. Immobiliser State-of-the-art immobiliser system as standard, with a transponder incorporated into the Triumph branded key.

*Availability of the DRL function is governed by local market legislation – please check with your Triumph market representative for availability. 

Thrilling hot rod ride and sound

Featuring the critically acclaimed 1200cc High Torque parallel twin engine with charismatic 270° firing interval and a dedicated Bobber tune which delivers category-leading torque and power low down the rev range:

Peak torque of 106Nm @ 4,000rpm

Peak power of 77PS @ 6,100rpm

The Bobber Black also has a new black painted twin skin straight line exhaust with twin ‘slash cut’ sawn-off black peashooter silencers and a hidden cat box. A dual chamber air box with twin filter design helps to deliver that rich and raw exhaust note and hot rod feel.

120+ custom accessories

As with the Bonneville Bobber, the Bobber Black has been designed with customisation in mind, with over 120 accessories for custom styling, additional detailing, enhanced comfort and more performance. These include different handlebar options like the mini ape hangers, alternative mirrors, compact LED indicators**, short mudguards, luggage, statement seats, and heated grips.

Branded accessories include the Fox adjustable rear suspension unit, and the elegant machined aluminium Vance & Hines silencers with adjustable end caps 

**Availability of Vance & Hines silencers and LED indicators are governed by local market legislation – please check with your Triumph market representative for availability.

Bonneville Collection Clothing: Bobber Black Range

Adding to the hugely popular Bonneville clothing collection, a dedicated range of Bobber Black clothing has been designed, with four casual t-shirts, a trendy hoodie and a stylish leather riding jacket.

Triumph is also continuing its new-found partnership with UK-based thrill seekers P&Co by collaborating on a range of original Bobber Black pieces – a cool t-shirt, casual coach jacket, classic cap, and debossed keyring.

Triumph’s Bonneville Bobber and Street Scrambler hits dealers

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