#mun3001s

[purpleladyofthenight]

Hi, thanks for answering my last ask. I'm almost done reading through the starter guide you had layed out for Helena Bertinelli, save for the original 1989 comic I still need to find. Are there any other stories with her worth checking out? I'm a Batman reader by trade so those stories appeal to me more but I did have a lot of fun with Birds of Prey, not gonna lie!

No Man's Land is really good and more Batman centric. I'm going to link you an ask where I talk about specific issues where Helena appears:

You could also check out:

Shadow of the Bat #53

Detective Comics #652, 653, 720, 721, 763

Huntress/Spoiler: Blunt Trauma

Detective Comics #859-865 aka The Question: Pipeline

Batman versus Predator II: Bloodmatch

DCU Holiday Special 2008

Showcase '93 #9-10

Showcase '94 #5-6

Huntress (1994) #1-4

Batman: Chronicles #1, 14

Batman The Brave and The Bold #11, 14

Catwoman (1997) #51-52

Helena's early stories, before she joined the Birds of Prey are way better than after she joined the team. Before she joined the team she was way more involved with the Batfam too. And Bruce was pretty rough on her, but he also kept offering her the city in his absence and he kept telling her that she should take over if he died.

[lefthanded-sans]

Don't forget the Garrus analysis!

There’s no Shepard without Vakarian: An analysis of Garrus’ characterization in the Mass Effect franchise

Oh yes, thank you, Mun! During yesterday’s stream I commented I could write an analysis on how Garrus’ character arc is in many ways unusual, both within the Mass Effect franchise’s brand of storytelling, and in the broader scheme of how narratives tend to characterize principle personalities. Most main characters are given a significant arc that grows them greatly as an individual. By the end of the tale, they have actualized into someone with more experiences, abilities, and integrity. They stand on their own stronger than before. Garrus’ arc, interestingly enough, focuses less on him growing by himself, but rather him growing closer to Shepard.

A more typical characterization arc is found for most Mass Effect squadmates (especially those introduced in ME 2). It’s brilliant - large plot threads from major political scuffles, to individual personality plot threads of character internal conflict - are given arc, development, and wrap-up by ME 3. Mainly, squadmates are given a central conflict that is developed and resolved by the end of the storyline. To give a few examples:

Grunt is introduced with the problem of needing identity. He needs to become actualized as his own, personal krogan. By joining Clan Urdnot and leading the Aralakh Company, he becomes that krogan with a proud, personal, found identity.

Mordin’s character arc is wrapped around his complicated, conflicted logic and emotions regarding the genophage - whether it was, in fact, the correct choice to make. As much as his emotions and logic mostly agree that the second genophage was the correct move, his internal discomfort suggests that he’s not as settled in this choice as he should be. He’s still struggling. His logic and emotions come to a common goal to cure the krogan genophage in ME 3, leading him to internal peace. He goes from someone who sterilized the krogan, helping continue the collapse of krogan civilization… to their hero.

Miranda’s arc is focused around struggles with her abusive father. In the end, she can help her sister and stop Mr. Lawson once and for all.

Jacob struggles with the question of whether or not allying with a shady organization like Cerberus is okay so long as their mission goals are profitable and get the job done. His suspicions in ME 2 lead to worse experiences in ME 3; he leaves the organization and puts behind this conflict once and for all.

Wrex’s arc is about becoming a revolutionary leader. Shepard meets him after he gave up leading a small krogan clan. But he becomes reinspired to try to build his people into a stronger civilization, a stronger future.

Jack is introduced with emotional scars from an abusive past. As a child she was abused and exploited for her biotics. In the end, Jack helps nurture other biotic children into a greater future.

And so we can go through almost all squadmates this way: Ashley / Kaidan regarding trust, Samara regarding her Ardat-Yakshi familial legacy, Thane regarding his family and illness, EDI regarding what it means to be a sentient non-organic, etc. Characters are given a central problem, which they grow through and overcome.

But Garrus, I feel… is a little different.

Garrus’ arc is centered around the idea “There’s no Shepard without Vakarian.”

Now, it’s true Garrus has a few overarching problems he needs to handle throughout the franchise. It mainly involves his sense of enacting justice outside the scope of regulations. In the first game, he wants to hunt down Dr. Saleon, who got away because C-Sec regulations forbid Garrus from making risky capture moves the first time. In the second game, Garrus wants vengeance for Sidonis’ betrayal. Several times, Garrus plays a turian Robin Hood-esque character: he skirts the law and does his own vigilante thing to enact justice and punish immoral lawbreakers who have harmed others.

The thing is, these incidences are framed secondarily to Garrus’ main narrative contribution. These narrative arcs are used to reinforce Garrus’ attachment to Shepard.

Garrus does learn and grow based upon how Dr. Saleon and Sidonis are handled, yes. He’ll reach different conclusions depending upon whether you take Renegade or Paragon dialogue choices, but regardless, Garrus takes away these incidences as life lessons... life lessons pulled to him largely by Shepard’s sense of justice. Results of the Dr. Saleon mission come from Shepard’s guidance and philosophy, ideas that Garrus take to heart and mull over. The same sort of thing happens with Sidonis. Shepard’s interactions in these missions influence how Garrus thinks. He reflects upon the missions and (no matter what path players take) ultimately reaches the conclusion Shepard has a point. He aligns his thinking more with Shepard after each incident. Thus, Garrus’ experiences on the missions with Shepard aren’t about Garrus growing beyond a problem… so much as it leads him to become more synced with and loyal to Shepard.

Even the problem of Garrus’ imperfect relation with his father ultimately ties up to him building a bond with Shepard. In the first game, Garrus mentions that his father didn’t approve of Garrus taking Spectre training, so Garrus found himself as a C-Sec officer instead… albeit one who didn’t play by the books as his father did. That leads him to be interested in working with a Spectre and leaving C-Sec... all driving him to Shepard. Garrus does eventually go to his father by ME 3 - a surprising development - and tell his father about his ventures and the upcoming Reaper threat. Garrus gains his own task force to handle the Reapers and lead… which pulls him back into the central war efforts with Shepard. He’s yet again a squadmate with humanity’s first Spectre. Everything Garrus does ultimately draws him back to the Normandy.

All of Garrus’ problems in 1 and 2 are written to build that bond between Shepard and Vakarian. It’s fascinating - his character growth arc isn’t about one specific personal problem to characterize through, so much as it is about him aligning with someone else.

In this sense, the Shadow Broker’s dossier on Garrus is curious commentary on his characterization arc. The dossier begins: 

Former C-Sec officer. Exceptional tactical and team-building skills. Leadership potential overshadowed by Shepard. Unlikely to fully develop under Shepard’s command.

Now Garrus does gain and expose these skills solo. He creates his team on Omega. He directs forces during the start of the war with the Reapers. But that is never where he fully actualizes, fully shines. Garrus being with Shepard is never narratively shown as a limitation, but contrarily, Garrus apart from Shepard is where he is shown to be weakest and most out-of-his-zone. 

Characters out of their element can be one means of growth - it’s hard to grow unless you’re out of your comfort zone, after all - but it can also signify they’re not where they’re supposed to be. The latter is primarily how Garrus’ time apart from Shepard is depicted. If anything, his experiences on Omega worsen him into someone more emotionally unstable, hurt, and raw. And instead of it being a time where Garrus notably actualizes, it feels like a somewhat stagnant period of his life, where he’s living active inactivity, trying to figure out what to do now that Shepard is dead. Shepard reuniting with Garrus on Omega is one where Garrus is in a tight and unpleasant spot. He demonstrates he can lead and build a team like Shepard, but his experience also isn’t the one where he is depicted at his best and most heroic. He gains more motivation, resolve, and heroics when he joins the suicide Cerberus mission - he’s not just picking off villains on Omega, but now he’s out to save every human colony.

Where Garrus is depicted as his best is with Shepard. Maybe it’s just me, but I suspect that many fans get excited every time Garrus returns to the squad because they associate him with that friend always at Shepard’s side. He’s the bud Shepard can always count on. And over and over again, throughout the franchise, Garrus says some great quotes about his siding with Shepard. One of my favorites comes from the start of 2:

G: Frankly I’m more worried about you. Cerberus, Shepard. You remember those sick experiments they were doing?S: That’s why I’m glad you’re here, Garrus. If I’m walking into hell, I want someone I trust at my side.G: You realize this plan has me walking into hell too. Hmm… just like old times.

And then there’s Garrus’ character farewell in ME 3 before the final London charge. Most of these farewells bring up the central point of the character’s conflict in some way or another - for instance, Grunt thanking Shepard for taking him out of the tank, Samara mentioning the monastery where her final daughters have lived. It’s the final wrap-up to the story we’ve experienced through each squadmate. It’s to note that Garrus and Shepard’s conversation is not centered on justice, ruthless calculus, Garrus’ father, Sidonis, regulations, or any of Garrus’ other side-struggles. Garrus and Shepard focus the conversation on their friendship. On supporting each other. They talk about them being together - be it here on Earth, or up in the afterlife:

G: Shepard. So I guess this is…S: Just like old times?G: Heh. Huh. Mmm. Might be the last chance we get to say that.S: You think we’re going to lose?G: No, I think we’re about kick the Reapers back into whatever black hole they crawled out of. Then we’re going to retire somewhere warm and tropical and live off the royalties from the vids.S: I wouldn’t know what do with all my time. Neither would you.G: Sign autographs?S: We haven’t won yet.G: James told me there’s an old saying here on Earth - “May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.” Not sure turian if heaven is the same as yours, but if this thing goes sideways and we both end up there, meet me at the bar. I’m buying.S: We’re a team, Garrus. There’s no Shepard without Vakarian. So you better remember to duck.G: Sorry, turians don’t know how. But I’ll improvise. And Shepard, forgive the insubordination, but this old friend has an order for you: Go out there, and give them hell. You were born to do this.S: Good-bye Garrus. And if I’m up there in that bar, and you’re not, I’ll be looking down. I’ll always have your back.

Between these two conversations, Garrus and Shepard literally talk about going through heaven and hell together. They connect through old times and forge into new times together, onward and onward. And there is an undying support between the two. They make each other stronger.

The Shadow Broker is sort of right that Garrus’ leadership potential overshadowed by Shepard. Garrus gains respect from teams on his own, but he never rises to that legend Shepard does by himself. That said, the Shadow Broker is also wrong that Garrus development is hindered by being around Shepard. Garrus being with Shepard is the best that Garrus is. The point of Garrus narratively is to be with Shepard, and that’s where he makes the most memorable storytelling difference. Garrus’ narrative is about being Shepard’s loyal best friend (or lover, if you romance him) - the second-in-command whose support is critical to the Milky Way’s salvation.

Garrus’ story isn’t centralized about how to handle justice outside regulation. Garrus’ story isn’t one about deciding what to do with gray morals and ruthless calculus, as much as he speculates about that topic. Garrus’ story isn’t one of getting out of Shepard’s shadow. It’s a story about him syncing with Shepard’s shadow.

The idea that there’s nothing sweeter than his loyal friendship.

[purpleladyofthenight]

Just out of curiosity, what's the problem with Helena's stories from when she joins the Birds of Prey on?

Writers started using her less in Batfam stories and even though she used to basically be kind of a member of the Batfam, she became adjacent Batfam after she joined the BoP and her importance to DC Comics kinda went away. She had less significant appearances in other comics after she joined the BoP, she'd only appear for like one panel in most comics and she wouldn't even get any lines. Whereas in the early days, she would be more important to the plot of the comic she appears in. And then she was deleted along with Dinah and Oracle and the rest of the BoP when the reboot came along. I think if she stayed as mainly part of the Batfam rather than being BoP, she might have escaped the reboot. But then again, every Batfam girl who wasn't named Barbara Gordon was deleted. And I doubt Paul Levitz (creator of Helena Wayne) would miss his chance to bring his Huntress back and make Bertinelli just a dead mafia daughter who had an interesting enough name for Helena Wayne to steal her identity.

But I think that if she wasn't part of the BoP, we would have seen her in more significant stories before the reboot. When Gail wrote BoP, she mostly kept Helena in the background to Barbara and Dinah. There were some good times too, but we didn't get a lot of Helena with BoP either. Barbara and Dinah were featured way more. Helena was allegedly a main member of the team, but it definitely didn't feel that way with how little she was featured compared to the other two main members. When other writers took over, the girls got more balanced when it came to how much they were featured and also, their interactions seemed more friendly and more as a team working together, and it was less Barbara and her two henchwomen.

[purpleladyofthenight]

Hi there! I'm a relatively new Helena Bertinelli convert. I was wondering, which origin do you prefer: Huntress Year One or the first six issues of Huntress (1989)?

Huntress 1989 definitely. Huntress Year One didn't get Helena that well and they made her too angry and preachy and forgot to develop anything else.

I have a post that talks about the origin stories more:

I really recommend the 1989 run. If you're able to (I think Comixology has them), read all 19 issues of that series. It's a very good story.

[lefthanded-sans]

Do you like roleplaying?

I do indeed enjoy the occasional roleplaying! I have a semi-used blog, @lefthanded-sans-rp, for the purpose of roleplay. I admit don’t jump into spontaneous one-on-one roleplays with people without any prepared story, though, and I don’t roleplay characters from my fandoms. For instance, I’d never roleplay as Sans or Papyrus or any of the characters within Undertale. The most I’d do is roleplay in the Undertale fandom universe with Undertale-inspired characters.

Usually how I do roleplay is getting together with a group of individuals with a basic theme. Someone may help set the story, though oftentimes we all work together to write the setting and the story together. The first big roleplay adventure I got involved with (Battle of the Grounded Dungeon, or botgd) happened entirely accidentally... I was just trying to do a prank on someone, and that somehow turned into everyone’s dashboards exploding and people entering into a roleplay. It turned into an epic adventure with a memorable tale, lovable characters, and... to be honest... I’ve met some of my best friends through that! We got over a hundred and fifty people involved (with maybe two dozen people regularly rping for over a year). Lots of fun.

I’ve done some other text roleplaying on tumblr. In fact, I’ll be starting a roleplay with a group of awesome people tomorrow!!! It’s going to be set in a space/science-fiction setting, and I’m expecting it to be a blast (pun slightly intended). In fact, if you’re interested, you’re free to join! It’s going to be great. Let me know and I can give you the discord link so that you can meet everyone and see group announcements. All posts for the roleplay will be tagged #abchron so that you can follow and add on. The first few posts about #abchron give some more information, in fact, in case you’re curious to learn more. :)

Hahaha, didn’t mean to turn that into an advertisement for the upcoming space rp, but yeah! TL;DR, I do sometimes roleplay. I only pick and choose to do a small number of rps (so don’t feel sad if I don’t take an invite, but I’m always flattered when you send one!), but when I do rp, I tend to get very, very, very involved.

[lefthanded-sans]

Wait a second. So you're an Undertale nerd AND a Mass Effect nerd...? This way Mun is gonna fall in love~

I’m a huge nerd of both, absolutely, yes!!! XD XD XD I can’t even begin to describe how obsessed I am with Mass Effect. I will scream about UT and ME to the end of my days. These are by far my favorite video games period. Glad to see that you’re a fellow enthusiast of both too, Mun!

Heh, I should warn everyone that I will be screaming BIG TIME when Andromeda comes out in a few weeks! I’ll tag everything very thoroughly, though.

[lefthanded-sans]

So, we spend most of the time talking about how great Undertale is, and to its credit, it's an amazing game. But would you say that the game has any flaws? Anything that is not so good, or straight up bad? Because Mun is at least 90% sure that the game is not perfect, it's just that Mun loves it too much to see it

It is absolutely an amazing game, and talking about what is amazing about it is where I find the most fun dialogue. But yes, like anything, it’s not perfect. There are a few things that I think could have been improved upon in the game. They don’t bother me, but I recognize they’re there.

Orthographic errors. I don’t mean things like sentence fragments or other prescriptive rules of grammar. What I mean is that there are some misspellings in the game. There are some useless inconsistencies of text formatting - such as whether or not to capitalize ASGORE - or whether or not to put parentheses around some narrative comments in places like New Home. There are also some very strange uses of commas that, traditionally speaking for English orthography, are not “correct”. Punctuation as a whole is a little sloppy, inconsistent, or prescriptively incorrect.

Programming Errors. There are a few lines of dialogue that don’t go into the game because of typos in the programming. There is a way to predict when the “Are you allergic to anything?” question will pop up in the RUINS, but it was intended to pop up all the time. Programming errors happen and that’s no exception for Undertale. 

World building holes. The underground is an amusing world of magic, and I’m not asking for all things to be explained - I don’t mind that somehow there’s an entire snowy forest underground. But there are definitely a number of world building inconsistencies. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that the suggested timeline is inconsistent with the technologies the monsters own. I’ve seen a number of creative theories arise about what the timeline for Undertale is - even placing it one hundred years in the future - to try to work around the problems. There’s a whole lot of confused handflapping you have to do to figure out how far back in time Toriel was living with Asgore if they had access to VHSes… but then she had a cell phone in the RUINS… and on and on and on. It’s hard to settle a good timeline with what we know as time scale without running into technological anachronisms. As a linguist, I could point out how things get even worse if we look at linguistic data. How the monsters talk, for instance, is in contemporary day slang. Slang terms rarely last more than a few years of native speaker usage. So trying to “salvage” some of the technological questions by putting UT in the future doesn’t work because then we have linguistic problems galore (and I still don’t think it solves some other social and technological things).

Limited worldbuilding. There are some intriguing elements of the Undertale world. The lore behind monsters, magic, and SOULs is cool. But there’s admittedly a lot - a lot - that is underdeveloped in the world of monsters. I’m fine with not everything being explained, but there is a lot that isn’t even touched upon, or technically doesn’t make sense if you think about it. And much of the worldbuilding relies just on how humans live their lives... instead of creating new cultural elements, the monsters just copy their lifestyle from humanity.

Alphyne. Don’t get me wrong. Alphyne is fun and I love the fanart. Alphys’ date at the end of the Pacifist Route is very amusing and made me laugh. Yet while Toby Fox did hint that Alphys and Undyne were interested in one another, I feel as though he did not tap on all the storytelling elements he should have to make the chemistry work between these two characters. His hints were so subtle they were basically useless. For a first-time player, it’s going to pass completely over our heads. We don’t understand why there’s soda in Undyne’s house. We might not guess that Alphys is interested in Undyne during MTT’s quiz show. We might not hear the story of how Undyne and Alphys met at the dumps. It’s extremely easy to miss all the signs that Alphys and Undyne are interested in each other. Most of the signs are optional dialogue that you have to uncover by being thorough (like going through the Papyrus and Undyne phone calls). Since it’s that subtle, learning about Alphys and Undyne’s romance near the end of the Pacifist Route can feel a bit sudden and unexpected. It doesn’t feel naturally developed, but honestly, sometimes I play Undertale and it feels forced. I know Frisk is hopping into the middle of the monsters’ lives and all, but I still think that the foreshadowing, the hinting, the growth, and the characterization of Alphyne could have used a lot of storytelling improvements. I like it, it’s cute, but I recognize there could have been cool ways to expand it even more.

Visuals. There are some legitimately beautiful moments in Undertale. Don’t get me wrong. I love, for instance, lots of the rooms in Waterfall, and the boss fights with ASGORE and Asriel have some awesome instances for the eyes. I still feel as though a lot of the visuals in the game could be hugely improved. There are lots of areas that are very black and somewhat bland. I know some of that simplicity was intention by Fox (he frequently scrapped or modified art others did for his game to make it look crappier in fact), but I still think that making some areas look a little nicer would have been good.

These are some of the things I can think about now that I would say could have been improved. There are many more things that could have been improved, of course, but I don’t think I need to make this post longer. It’s good to be able to recognize that no story is perfect, but at the same time still celebrate and appreciate it and applaud it for all it’s done well. None of the mistakes or imperfections bother me. The game’s amazing, and it’s full of a lot of amazing nuance, attention to detail, characterization, narrative, emotionality, and creativity.