#like if this was a SERIES finale with stronger more obvious buildup and not just like.

[gayemoji]

this week on I DONT THINK HE WOULD FUCKING DO THAT: house ramming a car into cuddys house while she has guests

[kimberlyannharts]

misc thoughts on Issue #116 -

= still by far the best issue of the event but admittedly it's only so good because the DrakkonSlayer parts are so great. Everything else was kind of meh. Especially since the mission side can be summed up with "they went to Safehaven! Then they immediately left"

= even then I feel like it's only so good because DrakkonSlayer itself is such a complex and interesting relationship that you would have to like. actively TRY to fuck it up in order to fuck it up. I am genuinely surprised to this day that they outright confirmed he was in love with her, but I'm glad they finally stopped beating around the bush with it, and it allowed for a stronger confrontation and emotional catharsis. I just wish there had been more buildup to their relationship and confrontation beyond just The Coinless book, but......"i wish there was more buildup/more time for different character dynamics and motivation" is kind of the theme of Darkest Hour

= Why was Kim morphed in this issue when last issue she had gotten demorphed. How did she morph again without getting corrupted. Why didn't you guys corrupt Kim. I'm sorry I keep bringing it up every issue but IT WAS SO OBVIOUS THAT'S WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED

= Going along with that this is also where they made the mistake of including Harturian Kid with the escaped Rangers when future issues will confirm he was supposed to have been shown captured. Which I think adds to my critique that Kim should have been among those captured and corrupted; we technically lose some "major players" here, but they're all.....side characters. Coinless Bulk, Yale, Harturian Kid, and Scorpina. (And obviously Drakkon straight-up dies.) Scorpina was the only one who felt kind of important with her bond with Coinless Trini, and obviously the books want us to consider Yale and Harturian Kid major characters, but like......they're still clearly The Expendable Ones compared to the actual MMPR characters, especially in this framing. Even with Drakkon, considering as ML's review stated, he was just written as the guy no one likes up until now, and the plan to find the Emissaries and Morphin Masters ends up being for nothing anyway. If they wanted to make this feel like a huge loss, we should have lost like.......some actual MAIN characters. (Even Rocky and Adam barely count.) The loss of Tommy is the one we're getting the most genuine emotion out of, and we know that he's not going to be corrupted and will be freed in a few issues

= All in all I do think this was the best possible way for Drakkon to go (if he IS gone. I know the main series is confirmed to be done so who knows what state the Coinless characters will be in, but I still find it hard to believe they'd give up Drakkon and Ranger Slayer) - I'm glad they made it about him and Ranger Slayer since they were the heart of the Coinless story. I just wish it wasn't a small piece of this giant event. (Especially when Drakkon's death won't be like.......announced? or really reacted to by the other characters. Not even by Tommy.)

[avidbeader]

CW: Voltron S8 talk, VLD S8 talk, Shiro’s marriage, ship wars

I’ve been seeing an influx of new VLD fans in the last several months – guess people have more time to watch shows – and it’s brought in a new wave of Sheith fans. And that’s lovely – having more people to create and cheer is a good thing. I know I’ve pointed a lot of people at “Sheith the Movie” so they can have just the Sheith (all 3.5 hours of their scenes with some context) if they want.

However, even if the new fans have been aware of how toxic the klanti shippers were (Klance fans who resorted to slander, harassment, and threats to both other fans and the show’s cast and crew in an attempt to force the studio to make their ship canon), I’m seeing some conflict crop up because some new fans aren’t aware of just how ugly things got in 2018, that most of the people who embraced Shiro and the random groom as a ship were the same people who had spent the previous two years attacking Sheith fans.

In June, we had Season 6. Keith and Lance interaction was at an all-time low. Keith said “I love you” to Shiro in what he thought was a dying confession. Yes, it was preceded by “You’re my brother (in arms)”, but interviews with showrunners like story editor Josh Hamilton made it clear that Keith was trying his best to encapsulate just how important Shiro was to him (without saying that they almost certainly had to include the “brother” line to give DW executives plausible deniability).

In July, we had the SDCC showing of Season 7’s first episode and the confirmation that Shiro is an LGBT character. Klance fans jumped all over the character of Shiro’s ex-boyfriend Adam, because in their minds he would be the key to invalidating Sheith. The media properly observed that Shiro and Adam had broken up over very profound issues and drew the conclusion that if Shiro were to get an on-screen romance in the remainder of the series, Keith was the obvious choice.

In August, we had Season 7. Instead of the heartfelt Shiro/Adam reunion klantis were salivating for, we saw Adam get killed in the Galra invasion. And the klantis rose up, hurling so many unjustified accusations of “fridging” or “bury your gays” over a minor character with a total of maybe three minutes of screen time, that JDS actually had to put his name to an unnecessary apology from the studio.

We also had Keith and Shiro’s backstory, showing just how close of friends they became after Shiro helped Keith join the Garrison, AND Keith saving Shiro yet again. While Lance and Allura continued to grow closer. Because it was clear that the producers had never once considered making Keith and Lance a thing, klanti fans went ballistic with their slander, accusing Sheith of being pedophilic and incestuous when neither accusation has any canon basis at all.

And in December, we got Season 8. Season 8 with a mostly new set of writers who didn’t do their research. Season 8 that tried to cram in too much excess content while finishing up a major plotline. Season 8 that finally showed that the producers had never fully thought through or sought input for handling Shiro, a character they’d originally planned to kill off, decided to make their LGBT rep when told to keep him, and then failed to pick up the strong story arcs he had in the first seasons. And because studio execs gave JDS and LM a single day to change their epilogue cards from minor characters to the main team, we got the very bad decision to marry Shiro off to a random character.

(And the character was random. Stills were leaked that showed Shiro kissing a character that had been seen once in the very first episode, but was too obviously a reference to a character in another series. It clearly didn’t matter to JDS/LM or the people above them who Shiro married as long as it wasn’t another main character. Because we’ve barely passed the point where we can have more than one character of a certain race in the main cast, much less multiple LGBT characters.)

Like they did with Adam, klantis jumped all over “Curtis” as their savior, because to them this should have killed Sheith fandom. And a great many Sheith fans did leave, angry and hurt, not because their ship wasn’t canon (very few Sheith fans expected more than an open ending) but because the concept of Shiro marrying some random character with absolutely no buildup undercut the notion of Shiro as a strong example of LGBT rep. Because those endcards erased every single character’s growth through the series, not just Shiro’s.

Media saw the ploy for what it was, a clumsy attempt to try and reach for a historic milestone when today’s audiences aren’t looking for milestones anymore. Today’s audiences want to be included in the entire narrative. No one talks about Shiro’s wedding as a good example of rep. In mainstream pop media, no one talks about Shiro at all, in contrast to the celebrations post-SDCC. When articles are written about progress in children’s media, Shiro is never included on the list. It’s only this past June, 2020, that DreamWorks shoved Shiro into the background of a collage of LGBT characters from their cartoons, WITHOUT his desultory groom.

LGBT fans, especially gay men, saw the ploy for what it was. Just as the media collectively set Shiro’s wedding aside when talking about positive LGBT rep, gay men spoke out against it. Too bad they didn’t get any kind of apology from DW and the best JDS/LM could say on their one appearance on an “Afterbuzz” was “But we tried! Something was better than nothing!”

And the majority of Sheith fans who remained in the fandom collectively jettisoned Season 8 and began producing even more content. There have been schisms and fallouts, mainly over whether/how carefully to tag for content that includes Adam or “Curtis”, but the fandom as a whole has continued to produce fic, art, vids, and merch. There’s a reason people outside the fandom groan “Sheith in 2020?” There’s a reason antis continue to push their lies about the ship. We haven’t let go of what we love, we continue to create, and we continue to attract new fans.

But most of us do not want to engage in any way with “Curtis” content unless a fix-it is involved (and sometimes not even then – for many of us, Season 8 does not exist). We don’t care about a character who had zero interaction with Shiro before the endcard, whose name isn’t even spoken once in the show’s dialogue – the only reasons we know it are the IMDB credits and one reference in the close-captions identifying who is speaking (and there’s stronger evidence to show that “Curtis” is a last name, not a first name).

If other people find enough of an attachment to this character to ship him, fine. You do you. But most Sheith fans expect those who support Shiro’s wedding to be klantis and therefore look to avoid conflict by minimizing contact. We do not forget. We do not forgive. We just want to be left alone to enjoy our ship in peace.

[itsclydebitches]

The issue with yangs anger, is legit that it’s never presented as a flaw until that very moment with Adam. Yangs anger has never done anything until the series decided that it had to be a problem. Her fight with Neo, She was calm. The rwby fight with Roman, she was calm. her attack against the Grimm was nothing more than a bit. Mercury, she thought he was attacking her first. Notice how her anger never escalated. And then they tie it to her semblance instead of her aura and it’s even worse.

(Slamming these asks together with @thewhitehairedwitchgirl’s - as always - excellent commentary.) 

First: yup. We’ve discussed elsewhere RT’s difficulty with building up to things, whether that’s because they didn’t know early on that they wanted that thing to happen, or because they’re just not sure how to naturally build that into the story before it becomes a Big Plot-Point. In fact, I’m starting to notice a trend wherein RWBY will provide evidence for a change right before that change occurs. Another good example involving Yang is her a relationship with Blake. Prior to their relationship becoming canon (“canon”) we saw them being much more intimate earlier in Volume 6 and arguably a bit in Volume 5. That’s the “buildup” to their bedroom eyes and hand clasping at the end of Volume 6, but people are right to point out that this buildup is pretty short, especially from an in-world perspective. We didn’t see this behavior from them in Volumes 1-3 so it “came out of nowhere.” Some fans are okay with that (I’ve argued in its defense for numerous reason). Others nevertheless have a point that RT could have – and arguably should have – provided more of that buildup over a longer period and, as a result, in a more slow, “natural” way. The same, I think, can be said of Yang’s flaw: we saw “buildup” to that right before it became an issue. Whether that was enough depends on each fan’s interpretation.

Specifically, I think the buildup occurs in the one fight not mentioned here: Yang vs. Neon.

As said, Yang is pretty calm in those other fights, but that’s arguably because the writers hadn’t figured out that Yang’s tendency to get very mad very quickly – see previous metas for evidence there – was going to turn into a legitimate flaw that the story would attempt to acknowledge. You can’t write something if you don’t know you want to write it. However, Yang vs. Neon happens right before Yang vs. Adam and serves as a pretty good way of demonstrating that flaw when Yang vs. Mercury is already doing other work. Namely, setting up her framing.

Let’s break this fight down:

We start with Flynt insulting Weiss over what her father has done. Note that she’s upset at this accusation, but not angry. She apologizes on behalf of her father and doesn’t seem inclined to let this impact her fight. Meanwhile, when Flynt continues Yang is the one who gets pissed off on Weiss’ behalf.

Neon mimics her and starts a trend of insulting Yang throughout the fight: her hair is weird, she’s top-heavy, she should go on a diet, etc. Yang is riled up before the fight has even started and, as mentioned elsewhere, Ruby recognizes this as a problem.

When the fight begins Yang can’t touch Neon. She does no damage to her. Meanwhile, Neon hits her at least fourteen times and manages to coat both an arm and a leg in ice, all while keeping the insults up so that Yang is too furious to fight well. If it’s not already obvious to the audience that this is a psychological strategy of Neon’s – see more about Yang being off-balance below – Neon herself says it. “You should cool off. Get it? Because you’re angry.” 

Neon tells her opponent that she’s too angry to see straight, let alone fight straight, and instead of taking a moment to realize, “Oh yeah. I’m so furious that I’m letting that anger blind me. I should actually breathe for a second and figure out how to beat this girl, rather than letting her string me along and emotionally manipulate me into making bad calls" Yang just gets angrier.

Neon seems to realize that this would happen. She recognizes by this point that Yang can’t put her anger aside and is thus confident enough to comment on her anger itself, knowing Yang won’t turn the tables on her. Instead, Yang starts flashing her semblance, which Neon uses as further ammo to keep Yang riled up. 

We see that Yang, while angry, isn’t capable of changing her strategy. It’s clear that running after Neon has done absolutely nothing, but that’s all Yang can think to do. She actually reaches a point where she just demands that Neon hold still so she can hit her.

And this behavior has a major consequence. Namely that Yang is so angry – so distracted – that she doesn’t notice Flynt aiming a shot of his own. Her anger has not only blinded her to Neon’s strategy and made it impossible for Yang to come up with one of her own, she’s not paying attention to her environment either. Yang doesn’t care about the second enemy on the field. She doesn’t care about her teammate. She only cares about getting back at Neon for these insults and the only reason why she isn’t taken out is because Weiss is paying attention. She’s put in a position where she has to sacrifice herself in order to protect Yang, but it’s a protection that never should have been necessary in the first place. 

When Weiss goes up in flames Yang is surprised. Oh, there was something happening over there? That level of distraction is not good. 

And when she realizes what’s happened… she just gets angrier.

Yang is finally at a point where she’s using her semblance and yeah, it does give her the boost needed to take out Flynt. But he’s the fighter whose aura is already a centimetre from the cutoff because of Weiss’ sacrifice. How does Yang beat a fully powered Neon though? She... doesn’t. Neon trips and lands very conveniently on one of the water shoots, giving Yang the chance to easily pick her off while incapacitated. There was no strategy here, only luck. Yang didn’t win, Neon just lost.

That’s a lot of character work packed into one fight and that’s what Tai is referring to. I don’t have good screenshots for their conversation but I have quotes. It begins when Tai comments that Yang is “still off balance” and Yang, surprise, gets angry: “What? No I’m not!” She also (again) gets distracted. After she declares that Tai is wrong – totally not off balance here – she starts admiring her arm and Tai comes at her with a punch that Yang just barely dodges. When he’s successfully taken her out, he clarifies, “I wasn’t talking about your actual balance. Although, that could use some work too.”

Yang still doesn’t welcome any criticism when Tai brings up the tournament. “Let me guess: I was sloppy.”

“No, no… you were predictable. And stubborn. And maybe a little boneheaded. Do you realize that you used your semblance to win every fight after the qualifiers?”

Tai is right. Those are all things we saw in Yang’s fight with Neon. For once RWBY has succeeded in showing as well as telling. Yang was predictable, both in the ease with which she let Neon continually rile her up and in her “Charge ahead and hit it” strategy that never once changed. She was stubborn. She was boneheaded, and she only (sort of) won because of her semblance. But as Tai points out, “What happens if you miss? What happens if they’re stronger? What then? Now you’re just weak and tired.” What happens if Flynt was strong enough to withstand that one attack? What if Neon didn’t conveniently trip and basically take herself out? What if, say, you fired up your semblance, charged at someone stronger than you, and they sliced off your arm?

“Your semblance won’t always save you… obviously.”

Yang voices the exact criticism the fandom relies on. What? I’m not supposed to use my semblance now? Tai clarifies that “not everyone else’s [semblance] is basically a temper tantrum.” They’re harsh words, but they’re true. The problem is not Yang using a semblance. The problem is that Yang (obviously through no fault of her own) ended up with a semblance that relies heavily on her a) taking damage, b) getting mad, and c) is something she now relies fully on to win her fights. So when it fails… she’s likely to fail too, both because she had to take those hits and because, in the act of getting mad, she can’t think straight. Unlike someone like Weiss and her OP semblance, Yang has a harder hand to deal with. It sucks, but she has to face the reality of that if she wants to survive this career. She needs to keep her emotions under control in a fight and, connected to that, she needs to fight intelligently. Note that when Flynt insults Weiss – “Too bad all that money couldn’t buy you skill” – she demonstrates that skill by combining her ice with her glyphs, creating a projectile too fast for Flynt to dodge. That’s Weiss using her semblance in a new way and keeping calm enough to make smart decisions, despite someone insulting her and clearly experiencing anger from that. 

Yang, meanwhile, let her anger consume her. She had no second strategy – involving her semblance or otherwise – and ultimately allowed her emotions to seriously hinder her. That’s the heart of Tai’s criticism: “You’ve got to keep your emotions in check. Keep a level head and think before you act.”

Which still leaves the pushback of, “But, Clyde, how is Yang supposed to think when Adam was attacking Blake? What else was she supposed to do? A traumatized 17-year-old is obviously going to get riled up. She can’t help it.” Yes, but she can learn. She can learn how to think before she acts, even in traumatic circumstances, and more importantly she can learn that skill for less traumatic events too. Note that Tai kept the criticism within the bounds of the fun tournament battle. He didn’t say, “You should have kept a level head despite seeing your friend get stabbed in the middle of a war zone” he’s saying, “You should be able to keep a level head in a meaningless tournament fight… and figuring out how to do that will assist you during the times where it really matters. Like Adam.” If you can’t do it when it should be easy, you have no chance of doing it when it’s really hard. 

Just because we expect something of someone doesn’t mean we don’t likewise strive for more. Meaning, just because the traumatized 17-year-old did what we expect a traumatized 17-year old to do - perhaps even the only thing a traumatized 17-year old could do under those circumstances - doesn’t mean Yang should never be called out on that. Namely, months later after she’s had time to recover. If we put this in slightly different terms:

Parent: Yeah, my kid found out that her friend nearly died in a car accident. It was horrible. She broke a bunch of stuff when she heard the news. I need to talk to her about that once things have calmed down some. 

Friend: What? They’re 17 and that’s a horrifying event. Of course they’re going to break things! What, you expect them to handle this situation like an adult?

Parent: No, but how will they ever learn how to handle it like an adult if I don’t teach them? How will they develop better coping skills if no one shows them any? Besides, she already has a habit of breaking things when she’s mildly upset - she’s prone to that - and I don’t want it getting out of hand.

Now slide in Yang’s situation. As Thewhitehairwitchgirl points out, what’s reckless about Yang’s actions? How could she have known what Adam’s power was? She couldn’t have, but that in and of itself is the problem. She charged at an unknown enemy without thinking through any options, without taking a moment to assess the situation, without knowing whether her semblance would be enough... and it wasn’t. That’s not something she can afford to do again in the future because next time Yang might lose her life instead. Does Tai expect her to have handled Adam differently? Based on the conversation, I’d say no. Does he still think it’s still worth using that moment as a teaching tool? Yes. Is this particularly important for Yang as an individual given that she’s already prone to letting anger blind her/charging ahead without thinking things through? Yes. As her fight with Neon demonstrates, running and punching her enemies won’t always be enough to beat them. As her fight with Adam demonstrates, running and punching her enemies with her semblance as an additional boost may not be enough to save her. Yang has to think. Even in situations where it’s really really hard to. Especially as someone who isn’t inclined to do that naturally. It’s something she, as an individual, has to conquer given her personality. Blake, for example, doesn’t need this talk because she has the opposite problem of running away from things. She’s often too cautious. Yang, who will later jump straight to “You turned my mother into a bird?” needs to learn to take a step back and not let her anger guide her.

Basically there’s a venn diagram of “17-year olds who will of course make impulsive decisions” “People experiencing a traumatic event who can’t be expected to think things through in the moment,” and “People who, as individuals, are prone to letting their anger drive them to make mistakes.” Yang just happens to sit right in the middle. 

For the Adam situation those other two categories absolutely come into play, but we also can’t ignore that Yang is poised to make that same mistake even when she’s older, even when it’s no longer a traumatic event. Indeed, as we see post Volume 3 - bird accusations, screaming at Ozpin, stealing the airship, impulsively telling Robyn, etc. - Yang is still struggling with this flaw. Even if the story seems to think that she’s overcome it. 

[alwaysspeakshermind]

Top 5 Anti-Varchie Arguments & Why They Make No Sense

#2: “Varchie’s too rushed/forced/there’s no development.���

[Note: this is one of the arguments that really grates my cheese, because the refuting evidence is so! Very! Obvious! that I don’t even know how anyone can bring themselves to actually use it. So be warned...this post is long. Also, it definitely jumps around a bit, because I was in a serious ‘Really, dude? Really?’ mood when I wrote it, and upon calmer reflection, I decided to remove a few overly sarcastic things I put down in the heat of the moment and add a couple of clarifications so it doesn’t sound like I’m trying to insult anything I’ve no intention of insulting.]

Varchie’s too rushed? Varchie’s too forced? Varchie has no development?

Yeah, no.

I’m trying to not lose all pretense of tact here, but this falls in the “anyone saying this must be too young to grasp the concept of abstract reasoning because people cannot possibly be this dumb” type of arguments.

Because again...no.

NOOOOOOOOOO.

Since the beginning of the series, Archie and Veronica have been Riverdale’s best-developed couple. (Yes, even better than Bughead, who, no shade whatsoever because this is by no means a post meant to disparage one of the other three pairings I’m 100% on board with in this show, didn’t even interact in the pilot), and anyone with more than an ounce of common sense can recognize that. Even if they hate it with every fiber of their being and wish it weren’t true—it’s true.

Development (particularly that of the onscreen relationship variety) does not fall in the category of artistic elements that lend themselves to subjective interpretation. It is a technical, structural element, meaning it is either there, or it’s not, and deliberately ignoring or refusing to acknowledge its existence does not render it null and void. Though they are the first of the canon couples to kiss onscreen, Varchie is also the only ship on the show that takes longer than two or three somewhat-romantic interactions to begin a relationship.

No, seriously. 

Give it a second and really think about it…

In six episodes, how many the-average-person-would-recognize-this-as-romantic times do Betty and Jughead interact before they kiss and begin a romantic relationship? [Note: and by “the average person,” I mean “would even your clueless dad who would probably rather be watching something else instantly recognize this as a Definite Romantic Moment™?”]

How many times in twelve episodes do Cheryl and Toni interact at all before romance is inarguably hinted at [in 2x14; 2x14 is where their half-second interactions become more than fanon and the average viewer learns what most of the rest of us already knew anyway]? 

How many times do Alice and FP interact at all in ten episodes (the point when people suddenly decided they had an entire romantic history and “needed to be put together”), and how many times do they interact after that before they begin whatever kind of relationship it is they have?

How many times do Kevin and Joaquin interact at all, period in one episode before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times do Kevin and Moose interact in thirteen episodes before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times in one and a half seasons do Kevin and Fangs interact at all, period before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times do Archie and Val interact at all, period in six episodes before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times in two and a half seasons do Archie and Josie interact at all, period before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times in two and a half seasons do Veronica and Reggie interact at all, period before beginning a romantic relationship and how many of those scenes also include Archie? 

(I’d also mention Josie and Reggie, but apparently I’m the only one who remembers that pairing. And also Josie and that summer fling “relationship,” but I’m kind of still trying to block that one from my mind because it really horrifies me that my girl kissed a dude who looks like he pours axle grease on his hair every morning, walks around wearing plaid shirts with cutoff sleeves like Larry the Cable Guy, but still has the nerve to whine publicly about her not wanting it to be anything more, so I won’t.)

But, etc., etc. You get the picture.

This is not, of course, to hurl accusations of “worthless!” at any of the above-mentioned ships or those who ship them; it’s just an example used to illustrate the following point:

If any or all of those pairings seem[ed] cute/promising/full of potential and/or not rushed or forced to you when none of them were so much as hinted at in the pilot (and the show goes for long periods of time without those characters even sharing screentime, let alone actual interactions or even glances), Varchie shouldn’t either. 

Especially in light of the fact that Varchie has a stronger romantic buildup in one episode than most teen couples get in three.

For instance:

Varchie Development In 1x01

Diner scene: Archie and Veronica meet at Pop’s and the romantic interest on both sides is made obvious from the beginning.

School Hall scene: Walking with Betty and Kevin, Veronica spots Archie, asks about him, and makes her interest in him explicitly known (“In that case, mind putting in a word?”) once Betty says “we’re just friends.”

Lunch scene: Veronica immediately addresses Archie regarding the song he’s playing, and Archie surreptitiously checks Veronica out  (it’s quick, but he does. If you don’t believe me, go back and watch Archie during that scene while keeping in mind where Veronica’s at.)

Invitation-to-the-dance scene: Veronica calls Archie over from practice in order to give Betty a prime opportunity to finally ask him out, and Archie pays more attention to Veronica during the conversation—jogging over right away, smiling at her, even agreeing to go to a dance he’s indifferent to because Veronica jokingly insists and agrees to come with him and Betty. Also, “Archiekins,” Veronica’s pet-name-of-choice (besides “Lover”) for Archie in the comics, makes it first appearance.

Dance scene: Veronica jokes about how Archie needs to drop the fine arts/sports question for a night so they can all have fun, Archie refers to her as Ronnie for the first time and tells her he’s trying. Veronica teasingly tells him to work faster, and Archie watches her leave with a look similar to the one he wore in the diner when they first met.

Seven Minutes In Heaven scene: As soon as Archie’s name is suggested, Veronica looks his way, and she visibly leans forward to watch the bottle make its selection. Although it does not “clearly [point] to the new girl” as Cheryl claims (the bottle actually lands in-between Betty and Veronica, meaning no one can say for sure who Archie’s going to kiss), Archie’s eyes immediately cut over to Veronica, and Veronica immediately looks at Archie.

Closet scene: There isn’t much doubt what’s going to happen as soon as the door shuts behind Archie and Veronica, because the sexual tension is palpable, and the entirety of their conversation is like a very awkward dance around the fact they are interested in each other. By the time they kiss it feels inevitable, and even the kiss itself is postponed until the end of the scene so that it acts as the exclamation point to the story arc.

 Once they exit and find Betty gone, the next eight to nine episodes consistently juxtapose Archie and Veronica’s new Friendship™ status with mildly flirtatious and subtly romantic moments that hearken back to the 1x01 makeout; by the time they become an official couple toward the end of Season 1, their relationship development is already slower and stronger than that of most of those previously-listed canon ships after three seasons. So, quite frankly, if you can’t recognize/acknowledge exactly how well-developed and non-rushed a relationship Varchie is, the problem is not the show/writers/the Varchie shippers.

The problem is YOU.

**IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING SLOW-BURN DEVELOPMENT**

When it comes to fictional relationships, development is not the same thing as a preexisting history between characters. In all forms of fiction, everything important—whether it directly impacts/advances the plot or not—must take place on the screen, stage, or page. (The motto is show, not tell.) Character interactions are not excluded from this rule, particularly when it comes to film or television, where narration is an optional touch to be used sparingly, rather than the default mode of conveying information to the audience. While you can absolutely try to argue that “Barchie has the best development, not Varchie” on the grounds that the former has a long history of friendship, the reality is that at this point in the show, Barchie does not have enough onscreen interactions period, let alone romance-tinged interactions over the course of three seasons, to qualify them for a slow-burn status, let alone a good slow-burn status.

Now.

I’m not sure exactly why, but the concept of slow-burn has lately become so popular and so synonymous in fandom with “best development” and “superior quality” that the term gets thrown around until its original meaning is all but lost and everyone seems to think that if a certain potential pairing doesn’t happen right out of the gate, it automatically = EPIC! SLOW-BURN! ENDGAME!** while any pairing that does happen first automatically = boring. forced. predictable.

Which is…just…not…true.

[**Yet another side note: I LOATHE the word endgame. Always have, always will, and one day I will write the essay on the ever-swirling debate regarding Riverdale’s use of that word and why Veronica had to say it in-narrative for the pure and simple reason that people wouldn’t shut up about Kevin saying it that one time back in the pilot, and in math we call that an inverse operation, BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY.]

Fictional relationships are about character dynamics just as much (if not more) than they’re about story, so it really doesn’t matter if the relationship that winds up being the E-word relationship is expected/planned or unexpected/unplanned. Slow burns can be great, but they are not the only type or relationship with value. Furthermore, not every ship that doesn’t show immediate progress on the romantic front is a slow burn, and not every attempt to create a slow burn works.

In TV, there are epic slow-burns, there are mediocre attempts to create epic slow-burns, there are bad attempts to create epic slow-burns, and then there are blatantly terrible pairings that attempt to cloak their pulled-out-of-a-hat-for-drama-ness beneath the heading of “slow-burn.” (Come to think of it, maybe that’s why people are so confused about what actually constitutes a slow-burn???)

Using another Friends example, think the J/R pairing…did they have the potential to be a good slow-burn relationship? Yeah, sure. All the actors on that show had chemistry and everyone interacted enough to make everything narratively plausible. Were they a good slow-burn relationship? No, because they came from left field, happened so late in the game and, worst of all, had to follow a strong relationship with better romantic chemistry and multiple seasons of solid storylines behind it. There are some people who prefer them together, yes, but even everyone who does like them (at least everyone I’ve ever come across) fully admits that they would also have preferred that pairing occurred much earlier in the show, when not so much water had gone under the bridge.

[Or, if Friends isn’t your sitcom, think instead of the giant misstep in How I Met Your Mother’s finale, where 7-8 seasons of plot and character development were bent, clipped, and otherwise torpedoed to splice existing material onto the plan for an ending that was concocted back when the show’s creators expected to only get maybe 3 seasons. Could that ending have worked after 2-3 seasons? Yes! It could’ve even been great. But after all those seasons, and all that story/character/relationship development in directions that wound up being more compelling than the original plan, it just didn’t work. It wound up feeling like someone luring you on a fun-but-long car ride with the promise of dessert at the end, and then being like “Ta da! Here’s a fruit parfait! Eat up!” Because while plenty of people enjoy fruit parfaits and wouldn’t mind eating them for breakfast or a snack, no one really appreciates being served berries, yogurt, and granola when they were led to expect ice cream/cake/cookies/pie. When you expend a lot of time and effort building something up, you absolutely have to deliver. You can’t pull a switcheroo at the last minute and call it good, because all that does is beg the question if this was your plan all along, why did you waste so much time developing everything but this?]

When it comes to creating slow burn, there are no shortcuts. It’s a delicate and tricky road, because in addition to needing to make sense from an in-narrative and character aspect, it also requires careful, unflagging cultivation over an extended period of time. It can’t show up and disappear at random for the sake of plot convenience; it needs normal and consistent onscreen interaction (i.e., frequent everyday conversations with and without other characters present), readily-observable-by-audience romance-tinged interaction every 2-4 episodes (flirting, furtive or longing glances, touches that linger, special smiles, noticeably consistent too much attention paid to the other person’s dating or personal life, etc.), as well as an unwavering attraction/willingness to go there from both parties.

In other words, slow-burn is exactly what the name implies: a long, slow, process where each step depends on the one before it, and you can’t rush it, skip steps, or let it fade into the background for a couple seasons while you work on something else. It must be shown, not told, the connection must be inarguable from the beginning, and there must be so much sizzling sexual chemistry between characters that even interactions in platonic settings resemble mutual flirting rather than friendly banter. After one season, Barchie doesn’t have any of that. After two seasons, Barchie doesn’t have any of that. After three seasons, Barchie still doesn’t have that.

But you know who does have all of that? 

Varchie. 

In every. Single. Season. 

(You know who else does? Bughead, but that’s a different essay.)

S1 takes about thirteen episodes to bring everything that begins the second A&V see each other to fruition, and is peppered throughout with flirty interactions, wistful glances, etc., and every few episodes, they share a moment that unmistakably hints at romance/their continued interest in one another. 

In S2, even their breakup is handled along the lines of a slow-burn formula…they sit on opposite sides of the room and exchange glances at the beginning of the episode. Their “we’re still friends” moment is awkward and laced with obvious sexual tension where a direct reminder of the relationship they’re trying to forget is introduced (the watch), and Veronica’s instinctive grab for Archie’s hand makes everything worse. Their I Love You Too reunion beneath the fake mistletoe is built up to like a first kiss scene. 

In S3, in order to make other pairings seem remotely plausible, the narrative goes out of its way to separate Archie and Veronica and keep them from interacting, but still throws the two of them together every few episodes or so for a moment that underscores their connection and shows how even their best attempts at friendship are sabotaged by the very non-platonic feelings they have for each other.

They are not rushed. They are not underdeveloped. They are most certainly not “forced.”

Oh, and speaking of forced...

Some quick definitions of “forced,” because we seem to be very confused about this word in relation to fiction as well:

(1) Obtained or imposed by coercion or physical power.

(2) (of a plant) having its development or maturity artificially hastened.

(3) (of a gesture or expression) produced or maintained with effort; affected or unnatural.

Beyond the fact that definitions 2&3 clearly refer to plants and facial expressions and thus maybe shouldn’t be used as an argument against a fictional relationship in the first place, none of these apply to Varchie. Their relationship involved no coercion/exercise of physical power whether you look at it from a meta or in-narrative perspective. Neither development nor maturity was hastened; if anything, it was deliberately stalled to create conflict between three of the main characters and then grown on an episode-by-episode basis. It is effortlessly produced/maintained thanks to the actors’ dynamic (which is also the point where the affected/unnatural part collapses; KJ Apa and Camila Mendes work too well together to make their interactions seem anything but natural) and the ease with which the characters’ personalities mesh.

But, hey...you know what could be reasonably construed as “forced?” You know what does actually fit all three of those above definitions? The contortionist-level attempts it took to break Archie and Veronica up in order to pair them with characters they have had hardly any onscreen interactions with in three seasons. If you truly despise forced fictional relationships, then perhaps it would be better to focus more energy on decrying the plot gymnastics that were required in S3 to break up Varchie and bring Archie/Josie and Veronica/Reggie into existence. Because regardless of whether you like or dislike those last two pairings, they are, by positive rather than normative standards, extremely forced.

So, once again...Varchie: not rushed, not underdeveloped, not forced. 

And once again (I’m getting so tired of typing this, but hey, it will never not be applicable, so oh well): You’re perfectly free to be mad that Archie and Veronica  prevent your ship from happening, and/or get all the scenes you’d like your favorite pairing to get. But arguing that they have no development when they are objectively the best-developed and least-rushed pairing on Riverdale is just ridiculous. 

[maneaterwithtail]

Fangbone PageとScreen

Yep, another at long last, I have a terminal some free time, and some actual encouragement.

Sorry but as these screenshots from me from a hastily web-based editor ... but well I just gotta continue

Shout outs to @badkunrules @brusk-ghost @nubeth @cricketgreens @its-yasleepygal @ghostofawolf300 @vaultpanda101 @rosy319 @cartoonfan7 @tortugadechocolate

And not forgotten the aid of

 @book-series-fandom and @cordset

And any other Suburban Barbarians I missed and I hope you keep with the encouragement or make or share love of your own of the series

Again this is as amateur as gets but hope to have some insights and sometimes, with a web project, its about just keeping it going.  And thanks for the encouragement to do thatl

I updated the last installment for a *brief* look on how the toe ended up in Bill’s backpack and Fangbone ends up meeting him compared to the graphic novel

This is, now that I think about it, really and VERY strongly where the two stories and depictions diverge.  GN Fangbone is sly, wily, and cunning. But with our increased kinetic action.... well

Fangbone accuses Bill, ignorant of everything of theft but the Krakken catches up snatches him yanks him about, to comedic affect and then...throws him

With REMARKABLE Hangtime,

Moreso factoring in the scene where Bill is in his PJs, presumably after dinner being tucked in by his mother, notices glow and effluvium from it leading to the toes discovering presumbling parallel to the above.

Likely screaming and flying some hours in the air 

He does need a nap.

Needless to say this if VERY different from his ‘infiltration’ into class 3-G of the same day

TBF the Forging of Friendship is combination of the Summit of Swords plot, where the Shadowsteppers and Mighty Lizard Clan meet to negotiate their feud to non-mutual extinction levels, AND the flashback to the cartoon’s version of their first adventure.

The change up in pacing as well as circumstances lead for a more dramatic arc and number of action scenes as to the immediate friendship that forms then grows stronger as the stakes get more severeof the GN.  And also illustrate the difference between GN and CN Fangbone and Bill.

Like so,

 as on the next day, and start of the next Flashback framed as Bill reasoning with Axebear on a trampoline and Fangbone with One-Eyed the Slippery at Weinerdogs, Bill is admiring the toe when fangbone attacks

. . .Or tries too

Despite this amazing lack of tactical comprehension and proof of his safety Bill panics and RUNS OUTSIDE where

He is snatched up by a prepared trap, which does show while more obviously buffoonish this Fangbone DOES have his own means and cunning.  In fact this slightly turns around the near constant humiliation and embarrassment that’s been befalling our favorite 3rd grade barbarian.

While STILL insisting Bill is a thief this is where, unable to show you proper with just pictures (please don’t get struck down) 

We finally get their first proper meeting and for all that its got Fangbone raging and being stubborn its actually a nice bit of characterization for both individually and set up for how we can see these two getting along.

Taylor and Colin really deserve a thumbs up for the rapidfire overlap filled with characterization.  As Bill seems more intrigued and gleeful and Fangbone is fronting.  To a degree, he HAS to know this is *his* screw up and he’s projecting some and puffing himself up to assert himself over his plain as day weakness and poor performance and confusion.

Bill does prove not *quite* as foolish as thought, between jumping out of the door it seems he hid the toe in a gambit.

This is sort of the closest analogue in the GN

Eventually Bill is cut down 

questions fangbone and then reveals where hid toe, his locker, 

But then finds it *wiggling* and that means

Heh, the CN REALLY emphasizes action in these encounters as the characterization, buildup, and worldbuilding is in the framing device... and also past episodes. 

 Fangbone is eager to stand his ground and “dance the dance of death”  But Bill, as can imagine, RUNS

This leads to Fangbone being distracted at the fleeing toe and gaining concussion number six or so (this episode) running after pursued by krakken.

As can see we really don’t emphasize the bond with the class this episode or encounter them as the GN was building things up with Fangbone and establishing a more...well I’m not sure mature but as least not the same overaggressive character.  Plus setting, and general sense of boys adventure written and pictured story.

I mean GN Fangbone knows to ask to be excused to “make droppings” During which we get the stranger in a strangeland cliches people can note like this

Also meet Duncan,  he didn’t make the adaptation.  At all.  Not even a hint.

PRAISE BE TO STONEBACK (and his prophets Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott)  But seriously ANOTHER character difference

Like night and day.  Part of it is the style choices in the artforms.  Fangbone even when gesticulating never seems that out of it.  And he handles this challenge smoothly and like he knows what he’s doing.  whereas, admittedly because unlike this one which hasn’t have a different battle (aside from a rusted scrapheap) we haven’t seen him fail or tricked yet.  In fact he’s, more out of luck but still, being the clever one.

This is even more of a divergence.  See In the GN Fangbone is very focused on mission and life.  While it is here at long last we see monsters, though some were in a narrated flashback to the class, attack Fangbone and see the writhing of the foul footfinger macguffin of Morg

And the attack of the first of three monsters

the Dirt devil trio

Admittedly not the most clever or involved of fights but they indicate Bill’s quick wit and how this will contribute to Fangbone and Bill’s friendship and battles.  At first Bill thinks Fangbone is cool and has obvious vulnerabilities. They talk and interact.  Bill sees fangbone triumph over things big to him that are as nothing to Fangbone.

And Fangbone sees the immediate benefit to Battle in bill’s awareness, dovetailing with his ambitions to build an army, making him remarkably more controlled and yet less obedient or drone like? Less a model barbarian?  Its just something that stands out.

Also this leads to a feature of both series, what every adventurous duo needs hideouty/digs

Cavebania is found and was introduced to Fangbone by Bill.  This is a touch that’s put aside in the Forging of Friendship but a similar scene could be 

afterwards with Bill freaking out at home somehow ditching Kraken and Fangbone by bus, hoping he doesn’t know what one is and then.  okay damn

Again after the near humilation conga of incompentence Fangbone is proving himself more than the buffoon he’s played as the closer his and Bill’s worlds meet.

What happens is the series taking advantage of motion and set up action scenes happening so fast aren’t robbed of threat or excitement.. even if the direct confrontation is ended 

Because fangbone impaled his sword at a door and Bill pulled out a cheap plastic light up toy that scares him.

But then bill *gets it* Fangbone “isn’t from around here” and this is the scene it feels they genuinely calm down and commiserate.  Fangbone finally being allowed to chill Bill returns the toe .. then it writhes

Fangbone actually suggests luring it to Bill’s room as believes it will trap and confuse and scare it like it has him.  But instead...

Another opening image shout out

As they pedal away to better ground as Fangbone awkwardly rides in back swording off arms in desperate attempt to avoid attack.

Really the differences is this is more near the end of the series and giving us a lot of charming firsts, made all the moreso with the framing device, how we see Fangbone can be loudspoken and childish but plenty focused and consider even wise, to a degree, as to overly severe and fruitless.  Bill is more childish but more...socially aware and intrigued.  And that exchanging of names works to get them on the same page and already cooperating and appreciating each other more.

The GN is building the concept and characters from ground up  Taking its time.  It also gives us more sense of two pals growing closer as to a whirlwind happenstance slamming them together.

But the snappy action and turn and reversals in such short time is efficient in the television series, while the more casual development of a regular day of a refugee also trying to see to his objectives is also nice in the graphic novel.

And the Graphic novel has even more encounters, including the more... involved bit about Fangbone and Bill’s developing friendship along with Fangbone’s with 3-G.

[glasscomets]

i hated that got episode SO MUCH.

i feel unfair saying that -- i thought it was the greatest episode ever for most of it. the music was incredible, notably the night king’s theme. i thought there were a decent amount of deaths. theon and jorah had me in a puddle of tears. 

four main reasons i hated it.

1. i was waiting for that showdown we’ve been teased from the beginning of jon’s character arc between him and the WWs. WE DID NOT GET IT. he doesn’t even get near the night king.

arya dealing the final blow could have been okay to me if we at least got to see jon 1v1 him. maybe the nk is too much, and arya has to intervene. but nope. even bran, the other character with a connection to the nk, did fuck all. i think it makes sense for arya to be involved - her storyline has had her train so she could be a master killer! but jon has been fighting these WWs for YEARS, and he didn’t even get to kill any WWs this ep.

and d&d’s reasoning? it’s too obvious for jon to be the hero. okay! so instead 8 seasons of buildup, with no payoff. what’s the point now? am i really supposed to believe he cares about the throne after his whole story revolved around the WWs? i feel as though they destroyed his arc.

2. arya is a master assassin now, sure, but am i really supposed to believe she snuck past all those WWs? she didn’t even put on, say, a WW face to get up close? and the night king died to a SINGLE FUCKING DAGGER? no combat. just plops dead, ggez.

i don’t think he should have shattered so easily like the rest of the WWs. it should have been more difficult.

3. the white walkers fought absolutely nobody. we had brienne. we had jaime. we had arya. we had jon. we had basically every amazing fighter alive here, and NONE OF THEM FOUGHT A DAMN WHITE WALKER

this is the equivalent of fighting trash mobs the entire hour, no mini-bosses. it’s just sad that the only time we ever will get to see a white walker in proper combat is hardhome. thinking back to hardhome is excruciatingly depressing after knowing how it all ends -- all that buildup for nothing

4. this whole series, it’s been very apparent how pointless the battle for the throne is, with the dead marching on westeros. a throne means nothing if there’s no one to sit on it. from the very first scene of the show, we see the real threat: the white walkers. the stark words, “winter is coming”, repeat throughout the show. 

and.... the long night lasts a single night. so, fuck 8 seasons of buildup, am i right? it wasn’t so hard after all! now let’s focus on the REAL threat, motherfucking cersei and euron--who is by far the worst character in the show. cersei is a brilliant character, but as a villain she can’t compare to death itself, in my eyes. this bit is a bit unfair, but from reading the books and getting inside cersei’s head, you really get a sense of how incompetent she is. it’s hard to take her seriously as a real threat.

or.... it’s leading to jon vs. dany, in the end. which is even more horrendous character assassination, on a level i don’t want to imagine. 

on dany’s side of it: i’m not dany’s biggest fan, but throughout the show she has demonstrated she has a heart. we saw that even in this past episode--she saved jon from the wight swarm, she helped him during the viserion fight. she has some sadistic tendencies, but is able to reign them in (see: wanting to murder jaime, being convinced out of it). so for her to suddenly go mad queen--which is the only way i see jon feeling pressured to go against her and make a bid for the throne--it feels WRONG. the foundation is not strong enough. characters like sam question her motives, but from what I have seen over the seasons, i don’t see a mad queen. she has empathy! and she loves jon for fuck’s sake. if this mad queen crap happens, it’s likely because jon’s stronger claim sets her off. which is ... gross, gross character assassination.

jon doesn’t want the damn throne. but, he’s going to be a contender for it, isn’t he? i fear that’s where we’re going. R+L=J comes in here. if it happens, the starks and sam will push him to do it--they’re probably going to convince him dany is mad. flashback to arya telling him to remember his family... and if dany isn’t mad but jon just decides he wants the power, we’re right back to character assassination on an even worse level than dany suddenly going mad. 

basically, either way dany and/or jon’s characters are getting FUCKED if this horseshit is what they’re setting up for.

of course, fuck if i know why can’t this just be a non-issue where they get married and co-rule

so basically fuck this shit, i didn’t watch 8 seasons to see dany flip a switch and go mad queen in the final 3 episodes and have that take precedence over the long fucking night

at least the best boi in the world ghost is alive and well

[micronecro]

KHR fanon VS DET: The Tragedy And Darkness Of Sawada Tsunayoshi

<<KHRF VS DET Part 2: The Station Location

Now that DET is over, I can FINALLY talk about how I broke a minimum of 3 fanon!Tsunas over my knee out of spite because I’m a bitter, bitter person who bathes in plot bunnies 24/7. This one is really long, because Tsuna is the main character and one of the most consistent elements in fic I’ve read.

So let’s talk about fanfic based around Tsuna’s tragic backstory.

From the outset, fics that try to make Tsuna tragic don’t really work. Tsuna already has a coping mechanism for emotional abuse, it’s his loser complex, created to cope with the fact he internalizes other people’s opinions of him and thus struggles to deal with the concept of him being an innate burden to society, a natural-born failure who will never amount to anything. This is the kid who goes “haha, I’m so dame” and committed so deeply to acting like this is comfortable to him that his mom picked up on it, even though he directly mentions how much he doesn’t want to end up like his father, who he perceives to be doing the exact same thing. This kid has issues, is what I’m saying.

And I get wanting to write Tsuna differently; his attitude means he’s a complete self-satisfied buzzkill unless you go to cartoonish extremes. If you keep telling him he’s awesome instead, he’d instantly switch to being an egoist (a la Mochida), but it’s not exactly easy to get an emotionally battered and socially isolated teenage boy to internalize ‘if you try harder, people will be comfortable with you’. It’s like telling him ‘if you REALLY get into it, you can make rejection feel even MORE painful and scary’. Reborn pretty much had the right idea when he went with “fuck you, these people are your friends now, and there’s nothing you can do about it”. AU Tsunas are pretty natural, here, because Canon Tsuna really only works in a select few kinds of fic. Less of a dark drama character and more of a ‘awkward guy in your coffee shop who struggles to speak to people and is uncomfortably willing to prostrate himself to the guy who spilled coffee all over his shirt’ character.

The problem is that people treat Tsuna like he’s a completely ordinary delicate flower and try to fly by on that concept alone.

And to make interesting AUs from that, they give him a tragic backstory.

The tragic backstory is always the same. His peers don’t just reject him, they beat him up. (Presumably because Enma got beat up..........by irrelevant high-schoolers.) His mom neglects him and never shows him affection. His dad is is, in Reborn’s words in at least 16 different fanfics, “Idiot Iemitsu”, who is incapable of noticing the blatantly obvious. A lot of the time, there’s an abusive twin brother soaking up the attention. Neglect is often involved. Something traumatic might have happened to drastically change Tsuna’s personality, like a kidnapping.

Now, I have to remind you, there’s nothing actually wrong with drastically changing Tsuna’s personality. DETsuna is completely unrecognizable. 

The problem is that the fics use that tragedy as excuse to stop treating Tsuna like a person.

Type 1 - The Wilting Violet

So your Tsuna has well and truly broken.

 This is the Tsuna that appears most often with ship fics written by Teens, because Teens are the type of people least likely to understand how acute stress affects people; that level of empathy can only be achieved by personal experience, acute research, or extended exposure to media that depicts trauma in empathetic ways.

For the Type 1 OOC Tsuna crumples, acts shy, and does a bunch of self-conscious stuff, often in ways that don’t really make sense for the abuse he experiences. People who don’t understand abuse tend to be hyper-correct, like small children learning how English works (using words like “eated”); someone being physically abused is going to be hyper-vigilant for possible attacks. It’s not logical for a person to flinch when someone raises their hand to grab something off the shelf, but it happens anyway. And even if the author has the character act irrationality, they still love making it seem like it’s Correct behaviour, with the abused character acting like they genuinely think they’re about to be struck, even actively thinking about the assumption, rather than a kneejerk jolt of fear at a familiar gesture, completely separate from conscious thought, like you can somehow convince someone to stop doing it if you make sure they trust you.

It pretty much works this way for Wilting Violet Tsunas. Tsuna is just a trembling woobie, and he shies away from others, but holds a Great Kindness. People who open up to him are like people baiting a wild animal with food, coaxing him into comfort. He’s constantly set to ‘slight fear, occasional happiness’. He’s nothing but a hurt/comfort vehicle. Wilting Violet Tsunas are completely incapable of anger unless it’s on behalf of his friends, and are never petty unless it’s against bad characters who deserve it. 

In DET, Tsuna is demure, self-loathing, and ‘broken’, but he’s mean.

He’s spiteful and easily frustrated, gets bored all the time, is unreasonably petty and often really catty. He compulsively talks back. His personality is riddled with flaws.

Tsuna is more or less aware that he’s pathetic, but all that does is make him feel powerless to stop his own flaws. He, too, listens to people when they tell him he’ll never amount to anything and is deeply scarred by this concept, but most people just tell him he’s really creepy and emotionless. Tsuna kicks off the series genuinely thinking he doesn’t have feelings because emotions don’t come quickly to him and his lack of external reactions made people Assume that of him, and because he's devastatingly lonely, he’s more willing to listen to them.

As stress is added, he does wilt, but it’s not just a crumpled pathetic little baby to dote on, it’s a kid with a very strong idea of what his Normal is struggling to balance out the negative buildup through his life. The thing is about Giving Up is that that is, in of itself, a type of coping mechanism, a way to reduce stress so no matter how bad things get, the person is always on the exact same level of Rock Bottom. It’s the reaction of someone who’s decided they don’t have the strength or footholds to risk dancing on the edge of the Marianas Trench. 

 In DET, Tsuna starts out with that caution, that pathetic baby attitude that makes you want to take care of him, but he’s not hiding some deep, untouched purity and kindness. He’s hiding ugly shit, the kind of tumultuous emotion that comes from trauma; anger at innocent people who are dealing better than he is, pushing people around so they don’t get anywhere near his actual psyche, abandoning people so he doesn’t have to deal with actually addressing his problems, and just being a snarky little bastard in general. 

Tsuna’s wilting personality isn’t just sad emo crumpling, it’s turning into something ugly, rotten, and unappealing.

But the important thing is that he’s still likeable, he’s still kind-hearted, and deep down, he’s the type to fight back his stress with teeth and nails, clawing his way back up until he ruins himself. Tsuna’s emotional coping mechanisms are always extreme, violent, and unstable, but the amount of effort he puts into them is alluring to people not used to dealing with any sort of stress. That’s true for both the characters that interact with him and the readers themselves.

Type 2 - The BAMF

But wait, you say. All this anger sounds a lot like the BAMF! The hardass that is angry that they’ve been wronged. They’re snarky, forceful, and tend to be bitter. And when that goes into unhealthy territory, the character funnels their rage into a fighting spirit.

This one is actually a more accurate representation of dealing with trauma, but it also kind of reeks of liberal Suffering Is Fake and How Dare You Hurt.

In fics, BAMF Tsuna has been wronged, and his abuse made him stronger. He’s powerful and competent now. Everyone who wronged him? They were mistaken. Tsuna is actually quite strong and awesome, and now he’s pissed.

The BAMF is a power fantasy, pure and simple.

This is actually reflected both in Hibari, who is being actually actively physically and psychologically abused, and Tsuna, who has his negative self-image and PTSD reinforced at every turn. 

Hibari is unstable, and his unwillingness to show weakness doesn’t do much but make him incredibly annoying to deal with. Hibari is an asshole, and he has no motivation to do awesome stuff, and the actual BAMF stuff he does (like beat Zeni to death) are poisoned by his selfish motivations and awkward (and on some level horrifying) execution. Tsuna’s running commentary on his baddassery sounds like like ‘UUUGGGHHHHHHH’ than any acknowledgement of him being cool.

Mirroring this, Tsuna is, again, pathetiiiiiiic.

Tsuna is constantly doing badass stuff, but he doesn’t just poison the image, he actively sabotages it as much as possible. He talks casually with the feared Hibari Kyouya, but he’s scared shitless of the guy and the only reason he sounds casual is because of his blunted affect. He throws down with Hibari, but only because Hibari is forcing him to do it; he doesn’t like it, and the only reason he doesn’t quit the DC is because he enjoys the high of having some sort of power because dodging Hibari just feels so awesome, in theory.

Tsuna kills someone to save his friends, but it’s not rational; it’s an extreme self-destructive impulse, tempered by his lack of respect for his own self. There’s nothing cool about it. He’s scared, but doing his best to galvanize himself by telling himself he’s worthless so there’s nothing wrong with throwing himself at someone who will definitely kill him. Protecting Hana barely even factors. He just feels like it’s the most sensible thing for him to do because he values his own life that little.

Combined with the fact he’s still bitter and petty, you get the picture of...someone who is unstable, and hard to use as a power fantasy. His triumphs don’t give you a rush, they’re at best comedic and at worst emotionally exhausting.

Type 3 - The Dark character

But wait, you insist, isn’t that what a dark!Tsuna is?

Oh boy, my dude, you sure hit the mark, because parodying dark!Tsuna fics was the entire point of DET to begin with. They are an epidemic and I’ve had enough.

An important part of understanding how this is is knowing what dark characters are, and how they work in relation to an intertextual narrative. I’ve used this phrase before; You see, an intertextual narrative is when one story’s narrative is influenced by knowing about the progression of other narratives. CLAMP’s xxxholic and Tsubasa Chronicle are intertextual narratives, for example, but in the context of fanfic, it’s something closer to, say, BBC Sherlock or CBS Elementary’s relationship with the original Holmes canon. Their very existence is intertextual, their texts being influenced by knowing the text of the Holmes canon exists at all.

A Dark character AU is an extremely intertextual trope. The entire appeal is giving a normally harmless character an edge. Dark characters have very few moral compunctions, are very Machiavellian in nature, and aren’t limited by their strength; they can be destroyed by their demons or rise above them with a vicious kind of of ambition. The point is simply that they go against the grain of comfortable social standards and break away from complacency. You may recognize this from ‘way too many Harry Potter fics, please god stop, I’m so tired’.

A badly written Dark character is a loosely-strung-together collection of concepts that seem cool and Dark, and with Tsuna, those concepts are often stereotypical canon stations mixed to be edgy. Tsuna often runs away from the world that’s limiting him to excel in his ambitions. Sometimes, an event turns him cold and calculating. Most of the time, the world feels afraid of what they’ve done to make Tsuna like this.

And here’s how DET breaks this trope:

The things that happen to Tsuna are infinitely darker than Tsuna himself, and Tsuna is funny.

Rape is quite possibly the most uncomfortable thing for the average person to think about. It hasn’t been normalized by society and media the way torture and domestic abuse has. It’s used as an atom bomb of tragedy and horror, a shocker to create cheap villains and cheaper drama. If you’re depicting rape as bad in your story, it’s bad. Child rape is the most dramatic possible thing anyone could write. This is true darkness. True horror.

Tsuna does not care.

That isn’t to say that what happened to him somehow doesn’t matter, or that he wasn’t horribly traumatized and had his spirit broken and shattered into itty-bitty pieces. That definitely happened. The fact he was already broken was a huge factor in how he reacted to the Seal. 

The most important thing, though, is that people are still people, no matter how bad the things that happen to them get. They’re complex and constantly striving for some semblance of normality, and they’ll often do literally anything to achieve it.

Tsuna isn’t preoccupied with what happened, and doesn’t strive for revenge, and doesn’t consider his behaviour in terms of the all-consuming influence of his tragic backstory. This shit was normal to him, and he strives to maintain that normality. It’s the same rhetoric that makes people crave their abuse after leaving it, but he funnelled into healthier things. He knew what happened was wrong and he felt he was wronged, but the most important thing to him was that he had been ‘gullible’ enough to manipulated and used by someone he thought cared about him, and then was subsequently ‘abandoned’. It fed into his conformation bias of things that are horrible to him, specifically, which is abandonment, isolation, and neglect. Since the neglect is what spooks him the most, Tsuna’s reaction is less on overcoming tragic backstory and more on doing his best to keep it from happening again by never doing anything to jeapordize his positive relationships. If someone’s decided to treat him a certain way, Tsuna is dead-set on making them keep that opinion, even if it would improve if he was more proactive. He is TERRIFIED of rejection, and he will do ANYTHING to avoid it, up to and including actually abandoning his friends before they can do it to him.

And above all, he’s funny.

He’s cold and bitter and angry and prone to backtalk, he’s shy and meek and submissive and puny and cute, but his headspace is a screaming wreck. It’s almost impossible to tell that he doesn’t emote on the outside for most of the fic, because he spends so much time overreacting and overthinking, picking at the scabs lining his train of thought, and losing himself in his ideas. He reacts to everything. It’s a constantly-jumping series of surprises, and surprises are the heart of comedy. Tsuna’s actions are unexpected to even Tsuna himself, and it drives him nuts. His attempt to deal with sudden fear is to scream at it in his head until it goes away. His attempt to deal with confusing new circumstances is to go to unnecessary extremes to make the situation completely unfamiliar to him, and he hates that he does this, but he feels compelled to do it anyway.

Tsuna knows that he’s dark, is the point. He knows, and he doesn’t like it, and not unlike a teenage Spiderman, his primary reaction to it is to sass it to gain some level of power over it, to shine as much light as humanly possible onto himself just to maintain the illusion of normality, and most of the time, he does it so loudly that it works. His urges to do things that make him happy are just as ludicrous as the things that make him feel stable, and Tsuna has decided that YOU KNOW WHAT, MAYBE THAT’S A GOOD THING ACTUALLY. MAYBE IT’S AN OKAY THING???? EVER CONSIDER THAT?????

It’s not. It’s terrible. It fixes nothing and without a second Roof Scene he’s going to burn out. It’s pretty clearly exhausting him. But the internal conflict and brazen unpredictability is, by nature of all absurd things, very funny.

It makes him complex. It makes him tangible. The Reaction To Self is the most important aspect of writing, as a three-dimensional character, and in DETsuna, it’s brought to its most logical extreme.

I mean, canon Tsuna does this too. That’s why his attitude isn’t completely insufferable. The self-awareness is what’s causing his problems to begin with. KHR wasn’t popular for it’s compelling plot, after all. But sometimes, you just wanna be a little Extra.

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who Series 12 Review Part 9/10: Ascension of the Cybermen

Air date: 23 February 2020

The first part of the series finale has aired and it’s just tension all round. There isn’t a lot of story arc progression, so I hope the wait will be worth it come the second part’s premiere.

My spoiler-free thought for this episode: “Is Ireland going to be the main theme of these two episodes?”

Spoilers continue after the break.

This story follows three streams covering three groups, with one such stream seemingly being separate from the other two.

Stream 1: Graham, Yaz and the survivors

Having failed to protect the human settlement, the fam are separated from the Doctor as she tasks them with protecting the human survivors. Graham and Yaz become separated from Ryan when the damaged Gravraft they boarded had to take off as it was being attacked by Cyberdrones.

In the middle of a field of dead Cybermen, they find a dormant war carrier ship and board it. As they discover that said ship is full of dormant Cybermen, Ashad (the Lone Cyberman) and the two Cyberguards under him board it and proceed to reactivate them while Graham’s group attempts to get the ship moving to Ko Sharmus. Upon approaching Ko Sharmus, Yaz manages to contact the Doctor just as the Cybermen break into the control deck.

Stream 2: The Doctor, Ryan and Ethan

The Doctor is unable to stop Ashad and decides to act as bait. As the Gravraft takes off, she finds Ryan and Ethan, saving the latter from Ashad in the process. They steal one of the Cyberfighters and head for Ko Sharmus while Ashad and his Cyberguards follow in the other Cyberfighter.

Later, they make contact with Ko Sharmus, which is actually a person rather than a planet. Upon landing, Ko Sharmus shows the Doctor and the others to the Boundary, which is seemingly the way out of the galaxy that leads to a different destination each time (according to Ravio). The Doctor approaches the Boundary and discovers the destroyed Gallifrey on the other side just as the Master comes out to greet her and the others.

Stream 3: Brendan

This is the separate stream of which the context is currently unknown. I smell IRA influence from this, but let’s hope I get proven wrong next week before any Irish people get offended (not that they would care anyway, probably).

An Irishman, Patrick, finds a baby in a basket while riding his bike in the lane. He takes it back home to his wife, Meg, and inform a policeman, Michael, about it. With the parents seemingly nowhere to be found, Patrick and Meg are granted custody of the baby, who they name Brendan. As the boy grows up, he joins the gardai with Michael leading his interview.

While chasing a thief to a cliff, Brendan is shot in the heart and falls off, seemingly dying in a sequence slower than Takatora Kureshima’s defeat by his brother in Kamen Rider Gaim. Upon being found by Michael, Brendan seemingly comes back to life and is commended for this miraculous recovery.

Later, upon his retirement, Patrick and Michael, who seemingly haven’t aged a day (along with Meg), take Brendan to the back office and strap him to what is apparently an electric chair (or a device that looks similar to the Chameleon Arch), claiming that they had to wipe his memories. This is where we leave them.

More on the Lone Cyberman

We learn a bit more about Ashad’s origins in this episode. It was already obvious that he was partially converted, but we learn that while he volunteered to be converted, he was rejected by the Cybermen for some reason during the middle of the conversion process. After loathing his own existence, Ashad came to understand that he was chosen for a higher purpose and as such, he took it upon himself to revive the Cyber-Empire following their destruction.

Adding onto my comparison to Dogold of Kyoryuger in last week’s review, I feel that Ashad’s story now has additional elements (or throwbacks) from Chaos and Brajira/Buredoran, the respective main antagonists of Kyoryuger and Goseiger. Given how he was initially rejected by the Cybermen, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ashad gets killed later so the Cybermen can get stronger. I might have to trawl around for more tokusatsu examples again if that happens.

Speaking of which, I find it strange that the Cybermen rejected Ashad, given their belief that humans and everything that they embodied, including their emotions and physical bodies, were weaknesses to them. Initially, they would only convert humans, but as we saw in Nightmare in Silver, they decided to start upgrading other species as well.

The TARDIS Data Core’s article for this episode compares Ashad’s self-loathing to the Daleks cultivated from human cells in The Parting of the Ways. I think that in comparison, the Daleks are the insaner of the two, in part due to hiding in silence for hundreds of years and being driven mad by their own humanity. What contributes to the latter is the Daleks’ hate against anything that isn’t Dalek.

Other general thoughts

There have been multiple Cyber-Wars shown in the series, including the one shown in Nightmare in Silver. None of them can all fit in one timeline because over the years, the history of the Cybermen has been known to be different due to parallel evolution.

I thought that Fuskle may have autism, but maybe he just has PTSD.

The Doctor’s words to her fam about the Cybermen may probably be the most emotional moments of her life.

So the unit that Ryan was strapped into in last week’s teaser image appears to be the piloting mechanism for the Cyber-shuttle. That’s a bit of a relief. We still don’t know what the full context of that image is, but still, I should probably leave out any speculation in my reviews.

Was there any doubt that the Master would escape from the Kasaavin’s realm?

You know, maybe Missy did manage to regenerate on the Mondasian colony ship and become O. Given how distraught he was at having discovered the Timeless Child, the Master as O doesn’t seem as antagonistic towards the Doctor than he was as Harold Saxon or any incarnation before that. Maybe the Doctor trying to turn Missy good did have some effect on her future incarnation, that is if it is even true.

Summary and verdict

Like I said at the start, this episode was just buildup upon buildup upon buildup (as with the first part of every other series finale pretty much). Next week, our questions will hopefully be answered as the Cybermen chase the Doctor into Gallifrey while the Master shows her the truth that he saw.

Rating: 9/10

Stay tuned next week as I review the tenth and final episode, The Timeless Children. The question of whether I’ll need a (strong) drink after that will be answered in the spoiler-free thought for that episode’s review. There will be an epilogue post following that as well.