#narrative foil? absolutely. i love that

[stealingdeansgender]

bela talbot was WRONGED and ROBBED (because gOD FORBID WOMEN DO ANYTHING) and i'm gonna write about it

[robertwaltons]

behold: the doomed unrequited waltonstein manifesto courtesy of twitter user ustfile

[fiftypiercings]

I shouldn't be the only one who thinks orv and gintama are alike...

[welcometogrouchland]

It's about like.

Willow fought to be seen as strong, because she is and for a very long time people not only convinced her that she wasn't, but that a lack of strength correlated to a lack of worth. And because of this past of having to prove herself and rediscover who she is and could be, Willow accidentally internalized the idea that others perception of her as strong is conditional on her always succeeding despite the obstacles, always staying in control and on top of things, always being the shoulder to cry on, etc etc.

And to an extent, she was right! Amity (unintentionally and well meaningly) refused to acknowledge willow's strength, leading to her having to prove herself, Boscha takes great pleasure in pointing out the chinks in willow's armour because Boscha feels better about herself when someone else is beneath her and she most often makes Willow that target. These are examples in which someone (correctly) paints Willow as pretending to be strong, but act like if they peeled back that facade, all you'd be left with is weak, half a witch willow. Whereas Hunter and Gus understand that even if you peel back willow's front of strength to see the more vulnerable side of her, there's still a strong foundation that takes little time in getting back into the swing of things once she's let it all out. Willow can be reliable and have debilitating anxiety. She can be whiney and needy and still be brave and powerful. Reliable people need someone to rely on too.

Willow's arc in labyrinth runners meant a lot to me because being consistently told that you are weak and need the help of people who love you but who struggle to understand you and see past their own need to protect you, by those people hit close to home and was incredibly validating to see. Somebody once compared the writing of those interactions to microaggressions, and intentional or not it resonated with me bc of that I think.

And now willow's arc in FTF completes this in a way that's very viscerally satisfying to me. Because proving your worth to people, no matter how successfully you do so, takes such a toll on your own mental well being and self perception. Bottling up your emotions so you don't drag others down is so difficult. And you deserve to cry like a big fucking baby if you've been doing this. Let it out!

For the future is an episode about being seen and heard, so to have Willow be so thoroughly seen and heard not just by the people who understand her best within the show, but also by the writers and consequently the audience is just.

It's what she deserves. And I love her very much

[ljf613]

Okay, but Galbatorix building an army of men who feel no pain while the Varden's ultimate weapon is a child who feels too much pain!!!

[r0ryy]

Christmas present for @artwheat of the beloved dads!

[lostsometime]

awwwwwwww, cuz Koby was there when Luffy was upset about not having a wanted poster! babies!!!!

[jessaerys]

this archeological expedition find from like 2012 is making meeee LOSE it askdkAkasndnAAKSDJSNdb Who The Fuck Is Near

[trashlie]

Meaning in Falls in ILY (spoilers for ep 200)

The last post I want to make about the recent ILY posts is something that came up on reddit. I’m going to copy and paste my response lol because it’s something I spent too long mulling over, and even if it ends up meaning nothing, sometimes it’s just nice to have all these thoughts in one place, isn’t it?

Someone over on reddit posed the following question in the FP discussion post for episode 200: 

[img: reddit user snaakeguy asked  so much of this story has these important life altering moments centered around falling. the formal, nol jumping into the pool, this. i wonder what the significance behind that is.]

My thoughts were this:

(spoilers for ep 200)

At the risk of overthinking it, too, I think we can separate it further into the difference between a fall and a jump, right? A fall is an event completely out of out control vs a jump being a choice. In general, things crash and burn in life all all time, and we're left to deal with the ramifications of them. That can range from things not working out to unexpected deaths, plans that get indefinitely shelved. I THINK in ILY the falls (simply) create (narrative) parallels, but I'm not against the idea of there being meaning in them, either. But we do know that Nol's fall vs dive foil each other - his fall was an "opportunity" to give in that he lost when he instead chose to help Shinae; his jump embraced that feeling but he was met with renewed vigor and rebirth. You can take it further, too, in that the fall could have been the death of Yeonggi (and maybe a less metaphorical death), but his chosen jump WAS the death of Yeonggi, one he made of his own volition.

We've seen both fall and jump paralleled with Shinae's, and that sense of peace and calm. She goes from shocked to a horrifying sense of peace, like she's welcoming what's coming. In fact, the way this is interspersed with those AWFUL girls and their "She deserved it" "You shouldn't feel bad" comments leans into what she was telling Nol - that she was punished for daring to believe she can change her fortune or stray from her path. In that moment, young Shinae concluded she cannot change this trajectory, that she does not deserve what she was seeking. Interestingly, where Shinae embraces that moment of peace, Nol denies himself it, says he doesn't deserve it.

[A sidebar here to add on to this thought above: at the time of the formal, when Nol falls and decides he doesn’t deserve this peace yet, it’s because there is something yet in the past that Nol blames himself for, and because he has not yet reached the absolution he believes he must seek. For him to give up in that moment would be unfair, because his mindset is that he deserves all punishment that comes his way, and that there is no point in fighting it. For the amount of mental strife he’s in, peace would be a gift, and thus it’s an unwelcome opportunity. Shinae had not yet reached that conclusion - that comes after. In this moment, she’s willing to embrace it because she’s not yet saddled with the concept of undeserving, hasn’t yet decided that maybe life is punishing her simply for existing. Until now, she had still tried to defy it. This is, instead, the moment Shinae concludes there is no reason for her to try to fight what she believes is her destiny.]

Though we don't know Shinae's thoughts during her pool fall, given her addled state and that we were pointedly in no one's head, even though this is not a chosen jump like Nol's, she DOES end up at the railing because she WANTED to jump into the pool. Obviously this is different than Nol's circumstances but I still find it interesting - Shinae wants to "follow her dreams", Nol wants to feel what it's like to fly. I don't think they're equally comparable in that way, but the RESULT is. Nol jumps and leaves Yeonggi behind, rebirthed as Nolan, embracing his identity. Shinae falls and leaves behind.... I wouldn't call it INNOCENCE exactly but it DOES ride on the back of learning she was taken advantage of, manipulated, and trapped into this position (AND Sangchul tried to PHYSICALLY take advantage of her). She had tried so hard to be the good girl that was asked of her, to take care of her father, to stay off the streets. In desperation she asked for a favor and was tricked. She's done being a "good girl" - she tries to fight back, she refuses to back down and let people walk over her. Prior in the story, Shinae lets people say whatever they will about her, because what does it matter. Later, we get to see her square up against Sangchul. Maybe in the past she may have kept quiet and let him imply she's the Hirahara family's bicycle but in the present we get to see her get in his face and yell at him lmaoooooooo. I think this probably extends further, too, in conjunction with this flashback arc. Shinae prior would likely have let Nol run away, accepted that this is how it goes, no one ever stays, this is what life decided you deserve, that she doesn’t matter, but instead she makes repeated efforts to reach out to him. EVEN THOUGH she went through something similar with Alyssa she still decides to make an effort so she's left with no regrets.

So even tho Shinae's pool fall is not a jump by choice, I think it still represents a sense of "rebirth" - rebranding yourself, embracing something you hadn't prior. In a way, they both come out of this choosing themselves. Shinae chooses to defend herself, to fight for herself; Nol chooses to stop being Yeonggi and to be Nolan, to give up his mask and embrace his real self.

So while I think falls/jumps are being used to maintain these parallels, I think we CAN read into them a bit, with what CHANGES in direct response to that fall. Is it a coincidence that the "rebirths" involves pools? (And it's not like a pool immediately equates to that, either; Nol's pool fall FOILS Shinae's, where hers parallels his pool jump. Where Nol is ready to let peace embrace him, he has to take up the Yeonggi mask once more to save Shinae. Like Shinae's school fall, this fall leaves him trapped in a fate he believes inescapable, a personal prison. In fact, Nol wears his Yeonggi persona like a prison in the same way Shinae builds up her walls and locks herself away. Tho he has people around him, he's not honest with them and is just as much isolated as Shinae is). There's something to read into regarding the intention vs lack of, tho it definitely does not hold up 100% regarding Shinae. I guess it's ultimately: what does the impact reveal? Embracing the believed inevitable vs those moments of "clarity" (ironic word choice since Shinae literally cannot recall parts of her night, but enough to realize she does not want to lie down and be taken advantage of).

I hope we won't see any more jumps/falls to test out if this is true tho lol. Maybe just, yknow, the metaphorical kind (perhaps a fall from grace, fall from power vs a leap of faith, jumping into something new, jumping at an opportunity.)

(And because I'm me and ADHD has me all over the place, I wonder if it's SUPER overthinking to compare Nol climbing up to the rooftop with falling/jumping lol. I think yes, but I'm still going to muse about the intentional choice to pull himself from his pit of despair and maybe allow himself a reprieve, rather than trying to jump to one only to realize it might not be what he actually wants. Choosing to join Shinae on the rooftop is just as intentional as choosing to jump from the balcony into the pool, and in a way they might be seen as part of each other. Nol needed to make that jump and free himself in order to face Shinae the way he did; that was him letting go of control, freeing himself from what was keeping him a prisoner (Yeonggi, himself) and joining Shinae is the intentional choice to take control and make his own choices for himself. I do believe lol this is very much overthinking and that it wasn’t intentionally written to be an extension of the pool jump, but I do like how the actions go together.)

[spacebugarts]

I'm going back through my old Raimiverse Spider-Man fanfics so I can add to them and akdhdbhdajsh I forgot about this parallel!!!

[deathbyworm]

lil magnagate symbol wants to be a time gear so bad. give up it loser! you'll never have what he had 💔💔

[patchodraws]

my hot take for today, rwby gets better when you realise that blake definitely did have a crush on sun in the early days but didn’t follow up on it because she realised post-fall that her feelings were stronger for yang and that sun just wasn’t the one.

1) it makes all the eclipse moments in early volumes not feel like they’re shitting on bumbleby (the eventual canon couple)

2) it highlights that yes, blake is indeed bi

3) it tells a very realistic story of how some crushes just aren’t meant to be

do i still think blake had a bit of a crush on yang at beacon? absolutely. do i still think yang fell first and was so head over heels for blake at beacon? absolutely! blake seriously has a type, and sun and yang are both that type.

the difference comes in how they treat her. sun may be fun and flirty, but he’s also senseless and pushes blake out of her comfort zones far too often without realizing why she doesn’t appreciate it. yang on the other hand is patient with her, invites her into her life to have fun without pushing her way in and trampling all over her boundaries.

and that’s what’s fun about sun and yang being so similar !! like, not only does blake have a type, but it shows the variance in that type and what she needs in a relationship. it’s a great narrative !!

and it works extra well when you consider that sun doesn’t get jealous and actively encourages blake to go on her own way (subtext: to get her girl), because then it makes him somewhat of a narrative foil to ilia, who was jealous of adam and let that jealousy fester, as opposed to sun, who let go of those conflicting feelings to let blake — who he undoubtedly loves — be herself and do what she wants. (it’s also why i really love the dynamic of sun and ilia, himbo and lesbian duo getting over the girl they loved)

long story short, eclipse isn’t bad but it also wasn’t meant to be and that’s okay. better, even, for the story they wanted to tell for blake.

[antiqua-lugar]

aside from everything else about durgewyll I am loving how it highlights wyll and gortash as narrative foils. both their upbringings lead them to interact with demoniac entities, both can only become archdukes and join baldurian high society through uldred, both are swaying the dark urge from simply following bhaal (and arguably the dark urge sways them from simply pursuing an ideal and the dark urge can recognise both as their equal)

and by playing your card right in act 3 wyll just...gets everything gortash was trying to get? wyll really is a hero saving baldur's gate from the legion of the absolute. wyll influences gortash's favourite assassin into becoming someone they can defeat the netehrbrain together. they can even become archdukes together! ...or they can turn it down and then they can go to he hells to sneak around and have adventures (like gortash and durge used to) and save karlach's life (the same life that is at risk because gortash mindlessly threw it away).

like. it's a lot, wyll and durge can even murder raphael.

[pineapple-split]

Ok ALSO (and then I promise I’ll shut up and dive in to the celebratory rewatch): EVEN IF IT WERE TRUE that Black Sails only has queer subtext (and let me make it clear, it absolutely is not true) that still doesn’t invalidate it as a piece of media?? The queer characters aren’t the only reason we love this show. We love this show because it’s beautiful.

It’s heart-wrenching. It dares to ask the questions “what if your civilized society isn’t all that civilized? Who does it leave behind? Whose blood is it built on? What lengths will people go to and what will they sacrifice for even the tiniest bit of agency and freedom in a world that is actively trying to kill them? Are they justified? Can you even make that judgment call?”

It’s a story about storytelling. It has narratives within narratives and foils and tragic flaws and parallels and overarching themes that begin in the very first moments in episode one and last all the way to the end. It’s a Greek tragedy put to the screen. It’s still so hopeful somehow, even when so many things fall apart. It’s the epitome of “the love may not have been enough but it’s important that it was there.” The writing is wonderful (mostly, I have a few hangups but that’s not important here), the cinematography and score is almost reverent. People who worked on this show still gush 10 years later about how it was their masterpiece.

Those headlines of “the best show nobody watched”? There’s a reason for that. Those of us who love Black Sails love it passionately, and the complex and wonderful queerness of it is only one of the reasons.

[captainmera]

My God I love your depiction of the Wittebane brother ❤️

Do you think there might have been a chance that your Pip wouldn't kill his brother when Calec goes to Demon Realm? He seems way more tolerable of weirdness and is actually curious about the taboo things. That it makes me wonder if other steps were taken by people around him, maybe he would make different choices and not turned into a brother-killing genocide goop man. Obviously, the blame is still his for what he did, but I can't stop wondering what if.

And him getting along with Evelyn instead of hating her right of the bat is really cute.

Thank you! :D <333

He grew up with this theatrical bisexual of a brother. Pretty sure the reason Belos didn't give a hoot on the Boiling Isles about queer stuff is because he kinda knew, and accepted, that Caleb was kinda queer. In some cases, people can ignore or bend certain rules for people they love. Even disregard them or pretend they don't apply or exist.

(long rant about writing and narrative foils and blah blah under the cut)

Unlike Caleb, I think Philip is the sort that only picks-and-chooses whatever rules he feels will supports his personal wants/thoughts and tosses the rest.

Caleb was not hiding it as well as he thought he did. lol.

I think that, sure, there was probably a turning point for Philip.

And absolutely, people around him influenced him. He's just a kid, a vulnerable one at that, in a protestant Christian cult.

I kinda like to think of it as a corruption arc. Mostly because it seems (to me) that the whole reason Luz was meant to have a depression-arc and Philip getting all "YoUrE JuSt LiKe Me!" thing was because.. There was supposed, I think, to be similar beginnings for them.

But Luz, in season 3, got depressed and felt a lot of guilt, so her arc is going from this happy-go-lucky kid interested in different things, to a depression arc where she questions herself. While Philip has a corruption arc, where he gradually goes from a well-meaning kid interested in different things, to evil and delusional.

I am also combining Luz, King, and the Collector into Kid-Philip's themes.

King is fascinating as a pre-narrative foil for kid-Philip. I think. As King was very clingy to Luz and didn't want her to leave, he too had a delusion about his own importance (disregard that it was kinda true in the end there). King tried to dictate (in that book episode) about what his and Luz' book should be about, how it should go, and it really hurt Luz' feelings. In the end, they solved it. But as a narrative foil, I think for the Wittebanes, they probably had a similar struggle on a larger scale, and it didn't get resolved.

The Collector, too! They're desperate to be close with someone, anyone, who gets them and wants to play on their terms. Kinda like Belos wanting him and Caleb to be witch hunters. Not accounting that Caleb is his own person outside of him-- Which, if you think about it, Caleb made his whole life (in my version anyway) about taking care of Philip. So I'm sure Philip felt like he really was Caleb's entire world. And then suddenly he wasn't. Because of a witch. The Collector, despite having this incredible power (just like Pip having his brilliant brain) is still a child and using their power in selfish ways. Not intentionally, I think, just out of a fear of abandonment or isolation.

I personally am in favour of nobody-is-born-evil-but-anyone-can-become-evil kinda thing.

I would like to explore how Philip gets corrupted.

I am slowly influencing Philip in my fanfic with little things that will, eventually, boil down to not so great moments.

The thing about delusions is that the person truly believes in it. Philip believing he's a hero has to make sense and feel believable.

Belos is a jerk. Philip isn't, yet. He becomes that jerk. But I don't want to write a sociopath. I also don't like using less-favourable mental illnesses as an "easy way out" to write why Philip became Belos and a genocidal maniac.

I have strong feelings about de-stigmatizing mental illnesses in writing, without romanticizing them or leaving out the really awful and less discussed sides of it. This includes diagnoses within all the clusters of the DSM5. I will not sit here and say I only support a diagnosis like Autism or GAD, and not things like Histrionic or Borderline.

And including people with MH issues and personality disorders is important, too, as well as not trying to downplay them.

People throw around Belos with things like Narcissism and Psychopath, without actually understanding what those means or what the different types there are. For example, is he a grandiose, oblivious or a fragile narcissist?

Yes, these disorders are looked down upon. A lot of people who have them aren't very nice people. But that doesn't mean they're evil or have no heart.

Lots of children can display early signs of these, and in a rough time like the colonial 1630s of America, it is not unthinkable that those rough times bred some dysfunctional people. I'm sure Philip has his own slices of pie as far as mental health goes, just like Caleb and many other struggling people.

But, I will not write from an angle that implies Philip just has darkness from the start in him.

There's a reason why I had Caleb go on a rant about being born evil in chapter 5. Because puritans, and Christians alike, at the time - truly did believe bastards were just... Half people. Did you know that if an orphanage found out a baby was a bastard, they wouldn't let it suckle the nursery goat's udders. Because they were afraid it would soil the milk and, in turn, might give the non-bastard babies bad influence. Somehow.

With that kind of logic in your culture, it's no rocket science that people would put nonsense together and think it made sense.

I'm much more interested in how puritanism and witch hunting culture influenced and corrupted Philip into becoming who he became, and why he refuses to budge on his beliefs to the point of murder.

As the owl house, the show, has commentary on systems influencing cultures in a bad and positive way. But in particular, the one Belos tries to influence the Demon Realm with; being a not-so-great way. So! With that as a clue: what made Philip turn bad, most likely, was partially the puritanism and its extremist ways. I think TOH is also a bit of a nudge at the HAYS-code of Hollywood and how it has trickled into most all the American culture-core. As it's both trickled into schools, morality, politics and other things outside cinema.

Just pointing at him and going "He's a sociopath because he became a genocidal tyrant" is, to me, cheap. Not only does it further stigmatising mental illnesses by implying only a disorder can make someone do such evil things. But it also disregards the most horrific truth of all; that the true monsters are people not at all unlike yourself. And that they, too, were children once.

[thedaythatwas]

I’m just thinking long and hard about the way Akiren and Akechi are written as foils for each other. Because of course, the game drives it home for us that the two are narrative foils: Akiren is the champion of free will who finds power through his friendships, Akechi represents the ways society binds us. He is chained by his desire to be wanted (importantly, by the wrong people– I’ll get to that).

At first glance, Akiren and Akechi’s point of divergence has to do with their relationships– Akiren has confidants, Akechi doesn’t, and this is the deciding factor in Akiren’s victory over Akechi on November 20th and in the engine room. Still, while this is certainly part of what makes their relationship important as a narrative device, it’s not the full picture. That, I think, has more to do with the fact that they both desperately want the very relationships that are used to foil them. They have common ground, and that’s what makes the emotional beats of their differences hit as hard as they do.

Even though Akechi doesn’t have the close bonds that Akiren does with his friends, he is defined as a character by his desire to belong. He wants to be praised and given everything he feels he was denied by Shido’s callous disregard for his mother and society’s unjust treatment of him after her death. He was a self-proclaimed “undesirable child” who spent his young adult life doing everything in his power to never feel unwanted again. He literally spells it out in his engine room monologue– “I was extremely particular about my life, my grades, my public image, so someone would want me around!”

Akiren, like Akechi, begins his character arc as a social outcast. Unlike Akechi, who appeals to systemic power to claim social clout and chase his own sense of belonging (the Shido revenge plot, which would, uhm, theoretically end with Shido acknowledging his son’s worth), Akiren finds family with other outcasts. All of the Phantom Thieves understand his struggle, and because of this they foster a sense of understanding and community that Akechi never gets to experience.

It is important to note that these bonds are deepened when Akiren helps those around him. While there’s absolutely nothing bad about doing things for the people you care about– in fact, most would argue that this is what makes a friendship a good one– we can take a reasonable guess that Akiren craves the love of those around him just a bit more than is healthy for him. He plays therapist for half of Tokyo– he stretches himself absurdly thin for the sake of his friends. That’s a bit much to ask of one person, but Akiren seems to demand it of himself. This is the nature of confidant routes as a game mechanic, of course, but hey, reading into game mechanics is important to getting a solid reading of who Akiren is behind the mask!

The crux of it is, Akiren and Akechi are both lonely characters. Their desire to be loved quite literally drives the narrative of the game, both in terms of plot and gameplay. What makes their foiling so tragic is the fact that Akechi so obviously wants what he has himself determined he can’t have. He says as much in the engine room when he questions why Akiren has things that he doesn’t, despite being (as he says) criminal trash living in an attic.

And yet, Akechi’s isolation is frankly the result of his own decisions. He is the one who chooses to work for Shido. He is the one who acts on a worldview that requires he keep his cards close to his chest to win— against Shido and against the world that wronged him— and to be considered desirable (even despite the fact that this mindset obviously works against satiating his hunger to be loved. He really needs to go to therapy, but I digress).

I don’t think Akechi even knows how to go about claiming what Akiren managed to. Akechi has agency in the actions he takes, absolutely– he would be furious about any suggestion to the contrary– but in many ways, the choices he feels himself able to make are constrained by his circumstances and the lessons imparted to him by his past.

All this to say, Akechi and Akiren aren’t different because Akechi doesn’t want teammates, or even friends. He sincerely wants everything Akiren has. He tells us this in the engine room. He shoots himself in the foot by prioritizing approval from society and love from Shido above other relationships. But thinking from inside his shoes, what else was he going to do? Where else would he have thought to turn to find what he wanted? He was dealt a horrible hand and he played his cards according to the rule book he was given. If the world were just, Akiren and Akechi wouldn’t be foils. It’s the injustice implicit in that that really drives home the point I think P5 is trying to make when it foils Akiren and Akechi in the first place. It also, personally, has been making me want to scream all day.

On a related note, this is also the exact reason that Akechi being the one to bring up that things might have been different if only he met Akiren a few years sooner makes me want to throw things, but this post is long enough. I’ll save all that for later!