#no i love it as a storytelling device. a lot. i also think we need to clown on show writers every now and then just for fun + health

[vaperarmand]

The whole "memory is a monster" thing and different povs are an amazing storytelling device and i love it.

But sometimes i just like to imagine the iwtv writers finishing the scripts for s2 and then going "okay, now let's find all the plot holes we missed and make Daniel call them out as inconsistencies in Louis narrative".

me when i want to write whatever the fuck i want and be inconsistent on a whim: so uhhhhh yeah let me write in a bunch of characters who don't know shit. and one guy who's the note taking king

[scrapyardboyfriends]

I think the main take away here continues to be that these people are just bad at their jobs.

I mean I get that they want us talking because they love nothing more than generating buzz and hype and this is getting us talking. It’s just that they also kind of fail to deliver every time. And it’s not just with the Robert and Seb of it all that they disappoint. Just look at the Tina nonsense. Or what they did to Rishi.

So all of this that has got everyone worked up again is seemingly just a repeat of what they did with Luke and Robert’s maybe appeal and Aaron moving on with Ben. And it didn’t work then and it doesn’t particularly work now either.

And I feel like the biggest reason it doesn’t work is because none of what they’re doing is actually necessary to achieve what are seemingly their goals.

The only thing it does is get people talking for a few days and lets the soap mags use Robert’s picture to get clicks again. And like that’s a goal too I suppose and it does give them a few episodes worth of ultimately empty drama but then they also just piss people off again. But they’ve also never truly cared about their viewer’s feelings either so 🤷🏻‍♀️

With the Ben situation, they went out of their way to provide a loophole for Robert to appeal and get out of prison early. Yes it provided an exit for Luke but none of that was actually necessary to make him leave. The sexuality retcon would have been enough or like literally just a random break up with Vic because he was such a nothing of a character who cared if he stuck around anyway.

But no, instead they had to dangle the possibility of Robert getting out of prison early in front of us and Aaron just to squeeze out some drama for Aaron and Ben and have Aaron ultimately choose Ben, which felt very silly all things considered even if we were supposed to take it at face value and then they gave us and off screen Robert telling Vic he didn’t want to try and appeal anyway because they didn’t have Ryan coming back so there was no point.

But there was no reason Aaron couldn’t have just struggled to move on from Robert with Ben on his own when they first started (badly) attempting to date. Like when the divorce was finalized. If they’d just had him deal with those feelings and have talks with Vic about moving on and feeling guilty because of Robert and actually talked to Ben about this too, that’s still potentially several episodes of drama and makes a whole lot more sense too and doesn’t throw any characters under the bus. Like sure, Robert’s in prison for another thirteen years at this point, Aaron does realistically need to move on and it is what Robert wanted for him. It’s just that this is the first time Aaron is confronted with that possibility. He’s allowed to have a hard time and there was plenty of character based drama there without inventing convoluted loopholes for Robert getting out of prison early and getting people’s hopes up only to do nothing with it.

It becomes just a frustrating short cut of a storytelling device that actively makes the story worse because when you compare Aaron’s wealth of feelings for Robert against the nothing he had going on with Ben, Aaron making a statement that he would “still choose Ben even if Robert showed up tomorrow” is absolutely absurd. And actually undermines the relationship they’re trying to build between Aaron and Ben.

This with Seb and Ross and John and Robert all feels like the exact same play from the proverbial playbook.

This time they’ve gone out of their way to make Seb coming back entirely possible. They’ve killed Rebecca off screen and with no previously known relatives of Rebecca’s, he really should have come to Vic but that’s not their goal.

They just want a few days of drama, a reason for Ross to be angry and bitter for his return and to give Aaron reason to talk about Robert again.

But in my opinion, they could have achieved all of that without dangling the very real possibility of a Seb return in front of us.

They could have just had Ross and Rebecca have a bad break up off screen. She could have denied him access to Seb and run off. That’s plenty for him to be angry about.

And Ross being back and talking about Seb at all is enough to bring up those feelings for Aaron and trigger a talk with John about it all.

Now, like with Ben, there’s absolutely no reason why Aaron couldn’t have the Robert talk with John without all of that considering that they also went out of their way to make John the long lost gay half brother of Robert, which is it’s own level of unnecessary absurdity.

And in fact it would have made far more sense for them to have had this talk like you know months ago when Aaron first learned who John was. But instead they decided that those two were just never going to have a real conversation about literally anything and that John, the man rebuilding the Sugden family, was just not going to be curious about the Sugdens at all and definitely not the brother that was literally the ex husband of the man he was sleeping with. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️It’s just even more absurd than the Ben thing, which takes so much effort. Haha.

So instead they dangle the Seb carrot and go out of their way to force a conversation that should have already happened just so Aaron can once again “move on” from Robert into a new relationship.

But it’s so much sillier this time because the relationship between Aaron and John is even more pathetic than the Ben one when stacked up next to both what Robron had and what Aaron still feels for Robert all these years later. And because this is literally the third boyfriend he’s has post Robert.

I mean don’t get me wrong, I love that Aaron still has this wealth of feeling for Robert all these years later and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him still loving him while moving on but he should have dealt with these feelings already but because the stories where he does are so ridiculous, it never feels like he genuinely does and so here we are again.

And I know it’s because they like having those short cuts in storytelling, they like being able to use Robert to get us talking but it’s so infuriating every time because all of that just makes the story worse every time and it’s baffling that they can’t see that.

The specter of the still very alive Robert Sugden is still haunting the narrative five years later on this Halloween because well…they can and it’s easy.

And once again you have a Robert from prison making decisions that will shut down the story as fast as it began because even though all signs point to something happening, it’s not.

And as absurd as it was for Robert not to even try to appeal back then, this is even more ridiculous that Robert wouldn’t want Seb to live with Aaron and his sister. At least with Vic. I mean I suppose you could claim that he doesn’t want to risk disrupting Aaron’s life after he made his sacrifice but this is his son we’re talking about. But fine, this retconned Aunt has a relationship with Seb and she’s probably stable since she’s not an on screen soap character. He probably is better off.

But the story isn’t.

And that’s the thing with this one that annoys me more. Sure, maybe they don’t want to hire a seven year old (though how expensive is a seven year old?) but there’s also nothing really stopping them from doing that. It’s not like trying to get Ryan to come back. This is something they can actually do and it would help Aaron’s character so much as I outlined yesterday and help rebuild the Sugdens. Once again they’ve gone out of their way to build a convoluted story that makes this possible but they’re not going to do it even though this time it would be so easy.

So again, I’m just back to these people being terrible at their jobs. And once again realizing just how much they don’t care about their characters.

[daystarvoyage]

I often see fans demonize some characters like Belos,The Blights, Camila, into far worse versions of themselves like fans portraying Camila as abusive since she wants Luz go to Reality Check Camp to correct her behavior and certain people interpret that of her sending her to a conversation therapy camp or the Blights while they are bad parents for sure they are sometimes depicted as physically abusive or homophobic despite that sort of thing not existing in the boiling isles and Finally Belos gets made into a bigot who is sexist,racist, homophobic because he a white Christian male despite not making any insults for Luz being a woman or POC while his stance of sexual orientation or gender identity is unknown the fact he didn’t insult Luz for being a woman or POC is remarkable progressive for a Man who is born in the 1600’s also He FICTIONAL and we already have enough of those people in real life what do you think?

I do say this, people need to start separating the art from the artist and fantasy from reality,

this type of writing and fictional perspective, a lot of viewers and fans sit through, its been done throughout animation, Even in real life affecting how we see our adult figures.

hope i say this, the best way i can cause the show did the adults and supporting characters dirty with its ill pacing in storytelling and character exposure

The Fans Of their favorite media love to exaggerate disliked characters (be it villains or unpopular ones) cause of how there perceived physically or in writing in the creator's eyes. We get this at the start of the first episode introducing Camila (whos a great mother who I relate to cause, I also was on the spectrum being raised by a single mom) I feel I look at her as a character who carries a burden with her being a single mother) yet relatable cause she does her best to take care of her daughter on earth cause she to is a single mother protecting her daughter from the harsh reality cause its not all huckydorey (like the ending of the show),when she wants luz to conform. the way fans see luz assomeone needing protecting, might villanize camila firsthand(DEMONIZING ADULT MOMENT BY FANDOM) as a cheerful person luz is, fans forget that she's also impressionable, impulsive, don't think far on consequneces and needy, might gloss over the fact she needs proper mannerisms (to get by in the world at times), cause shes young & fits the viewers mold of perception, that no one should be punished cause of sexuality, it might show she doesn't need help. Let's be clear the fans are gonna gloss the fact shes a troublemaker who brings harmful items to school WHICH fans should be concerned, i mean neurodivergent character doesn't mean good personality,

2. The blight situation I swear they did Odalia dirty with this GRRR & how talented and amazing Rachel MacFarlane is (Her VA voicing hayley from American Dad.) thanks for moring mark giving her proper depth in her character on how odalia acts.

She’s also over exaggerated for being ( DEMONIZED BY FANDOM cause SHE's an ADULT) to being just an abusive mother, but however others will see it is a character who was a dark and humorous character at least & she has great writing tools to be & alador was just a plot device to make amity look good even the twins, & get rid of odalia even though her had his hand in amity's abuse, which I feel no one in the blight fam is not innocent (neither was amity, also which the twins didn't get fleshed out more & used as plot device for lumity, Which fans at times gloss over. Fans will over-exaggerate that Odalia was physically abusive to the kids but NEVER WAS! cause that's a negative perception on the fandom that (We have a adult hater situation nowadays of how this new age of Gen Z & alpha kids are raised,

i also wrote a post on the matter btw

The Belos Treatment (we al know how the creator treated him, such good potential DOwn the Drain.)

Bruh or GiIIIRRRRLL, I commend the Belos fans for being on their own ship supporting and adding more to his BG in fanfic & art

Belos was an intriguing villain who rivaled not only Frollo, the horned king, & Prof. Screweyes. This man also has a perception amongst the fans who followed the creator's way of how he was written (basically the new Chloe bourgeois treatment from miraculous.) He was only a character who was hell-bent on piping witches out and saving his humankind NOT BEING Racist Homophobic, or BIgoted, However, Chloe made racist & prejudiced remarks To Marinette in the cooking episode,(BUT BELOS DIDNT!) So he's an equal villain Who is all about equal rights means equal fights (falls under the neutral evil cause of how he was depicted into a person of tragedy upbringing to now a one-sided character (getting tired of how creators write villains in a one-sided manner.) oh and some people need proper knowledge of the 1600s cause belos was born in that era and I heard someone saying he was born in 1700s which I feel the show does suffer from anachronisms.

And don't get me started of how the fans go about Darius cause that has angry black man written all over it, along Manny being ONLY relevant in Luz's dire moment not being explored more,

hope i put down a lot of tea & crumpets for everyone hope you also can look at my video essay on my YouTube.

hope you enjoy comment and subscribe for more.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I've often heard that it's not okay to put any sort of worldbuilding info(dump) in a prologue. But what are the parameters in which it would work well? I know Avatar has done it and it was fairly brief but I'm just curious as to how far one can go with "infodumping" in a prologue without it becoming boring to the reader. Also if it does get to the point where it is too much or not necessary then what are some ways you can explain worldbuilding in the story when every character is usually in the know of how the magic system works or whatever?

Info-Dumping, Prologues, and Weaving In Details

First, it's important not to confuse "info-dumping" with providing information in your story. Info-dumping is specifically when you use exposition to "dump" a whole bunch of information into the story at once, rather than weaving those details into the narrative through a balance of exposition, action, and dialogue. In The Hunger Games, for example, details about Katniss's life and the oppressive world she lives in are doled out between exposition (her first-person thoughts), dialogue (with Gale), and action (walking through District 12, hunting outside the electric fence, the Reaping.) If it had been info-dumped, the entire first chapter would just be Katniss "telling" the reader all of those things rather than the reader getting to experience some of them through action and dialogue.

Prologues have a very specific use, are rarely needed, and are often misused--which is why writers are typically told to avoid them all together. Prologues aren't there to be used as an expository introduction to your story's world, characters, back story, or situation so that the reader is up and running in chapter one. Prologues are meant to house a scene (or small group of scenes) that take place before the main timeline of your story but which provide critical information and details the reader must know going into the story. Just as with any other scene or chapter, prologues need to be a balance of exposition (explaining), action (things happening), and dialogue. A good example is the prologue at the beginning of George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. The scene takes place north of the wall and features some Night's Watch rangers encountering a White Walker. This scene is important because it sets up the hidden conflict at the heart of the story--the battle between humanity and the magical undead ice beings from beyond the wall. While we do certainly get some expository information in the way of world building, character details, and back story, it isn't dumped on the reader. Some of it is expository, but the rest is woven into the action and dialogue as these characters range beyond the wall and encounter the White Walker.

Even when your characters are "in the know" about the details of your story, that doesn't mean they can't think about them, interact with them, or talk about them. In the real world, we may not do that a lot, but books are not the real world. Books are a storytelling device which requires you to transcend some everyday realities in order to keep the audience informed of what's going on. Part of that means finding ways for your characters to think about, interact with, or talk about things that will help deliver the necessary details to your reader. For example, in The Hunger Games, we get a lot of world building details and Hunger Games set up through action and dialogue while Katniss walking through District 12 to meet Gale, and then hunting with him in the meadow. The entire scene exists solely to introduce the reader to Katniss, her world, the people who are important to her, her internal conflict, and the story's external conflict.

Have a look at my post Weaving Details into the Story for more help. Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

Learn more about WQA

Visit my Master List of Top Posts

Go to ko-fi.com/wqa to buy me coffee or see my commissions

[the-yuri-librarian]

Bloom into You Analysis: Chapter One

Bloom into You tells the story of high school freshman Yuu, as she discovers herself and tries to gain an understanding of "love," which all of her friends seem enamored with. She has never had someone who felt special to her in that way, though she desperately wants to. This all changes when she meets sophomore Nanami, who has also never fallen in love. As they get to know each other, Nanami begins to fall in love with Yuu, though Yuu does not understand why. At the same time, Yuu thinks her chest may be starting to flutter, a feeling that she has longed for but still does not understand...

In this analysis series, I am going to explore Bloom into You chapter by chapter, breaking down what the writing is doing, how what the writing is doing works, and why the series is so popular. But, first, here's my favorite panel from chapter one.

Analysis below the cut

This may be common sense on some level, but the first chapters of most works of fiction typically have the same goals: establish the main character(s) (including their personality and flaws), the setting, the story, and the antagonist(s), as well as any thematic through-lines that will be present in the story. These goals, however, are especially important for a series that is released weekly; when you're reading a novel or a collection of chapters in a manga volume, the writer has a lot more room -- and as a result, leeway -- to take their time laying the groundwork for their story. But, when something is released chapter by chapter on a week-to-week basis, like Bloom into You, it is imperative that the writer does their best to give you, the reader, a reason to come back next week, and the week after that, and so on. The constraints of the weekly release schedule are something to keep in mind as we proceed with this analysis, not just for this chapter, but for all chapters. The constant stress to keep audience engagement high likely had an impact on the writing decisions Nakatani Nio made as she developed this story, for better and worse. With that being said, let's dive in on page one:

Full disclosure: I really love this page. It utilizes a combination of visual storytelling, internal monologue, and the manga itself as a framing device to perfectly establish the protagonist, Yuu, in a single page. Visually, Yuu is laying on her bed listening to music, (presumably) a light novel spread across her lap. The "camera," which serves as the audience's POV, is above her, so she is staring at us as she stares at the ceiling. Laying next to her are a couple of romance mangas, another book, her music player (an mp3 player of some kind), and an open CD case. Even without the inner monologue, you can immediately tell that Yuu is interested in romance. Nakatani then uses Yuu's inner monologue to take the audience's initial impression of Yuu and twist it. She is not interested in love in the same way the average teenage girl is; she is not particularly boy crazy, nor is she very experienced in the ways of love. Instead, she is interested in love precisely because she has never experienced it. She even thinks it herself: "I don't need a dictionary to understand the meaning... But I've never felt them for myself" (v. 1, Ch. 1, page 4; emphasis original). This not only works to make Yuu more complex as a character, but it is also a way to draw the audience in. It leads them to wonder, "Why hasn't she experienced love? Has she been hurt in the past? Or, is something else going on?" And then, finally, in what I genuinely think is brilliant, Nakatani turns the manga itself into a framing device by allowing the title of the chapter to interact with Yuu's inner monologue. The first box of Yuu's inner monologue reads, "The words in shoujo manga and love songs... They're always sparkling brightly" (ch. 1, page 4; emphasis original). She then laments that she knows what the words mean, but she's never felt them for herself. In comparison, the title of the chapter is "I cannot reach the stars." Thanks to the use of bold text for emphasis, Nakatani is drawing a straight line from the monologue to the chapter title. In other words, the stars that Yuu cannot reach are the feelings in the manga and love songs she is lamenting about. This gives the audience incredible insight into Yuu's character, because it tells us right away that not only does she yearn to feel the love that comics and songs talk about, but she also blames herself for her inability to feel romantic feelings, a thought that is going to become a driving force of the plot right away.

The next four pages work to set up the story. In summary, Yuu is not sure what club she wants to join, and one of her teachers recommends the student council, offering for her to sit in on one of their meetings. Yuu agrees because it sounds interesting, but on her way to the student council building, she gets lost. Instead, she stumbles upon a boy asking a girl out, which leads to:

This is our introduction to Nanami, the somewhat deuteragonist, and, more importantly, Yuu's main love interest. As the above image implies, Nanami turns this guy down. Then, she spots Yuu, who admits she is lost, and together they go to the student council building, where Nanami reveals she is a member of the student council. As the chapter progresses, Yuu, and by extension the audience, learns a lot about Nanami, mainly through dialogue. She is a sophomore, ten people (including by some girls) have confessed their love to her since she started high school, and she has turned everyone down largely because she was not interested, but also because "none of their confessions made [Nanami's] heart pound" (ch. 1, page 22; emphasis original). This information is given briskly, and as it happens we watch as Yuu becomes more and more interested in Nanami. At first, it is explicitly because she saw Nanami turn down a confession; her inner monologue in the next scene reveals that Yuu was confessed to at her middle school graduation and has not answered yet. Then, she hangs out with Nanami and Sayaka (Nanami's best friend and fellow student council member and sophomore) the next day, and begins to realize that Nanami is a cool and interesting person. Then, when Nanami reveals she has never felt love, Yuu's interest in her increases exponentially. The pacing and speed at which we are given information really works here, as Nakatani employs Yuu's increasing interest in Nanami to keep the reader engaged while also only highlighting the key aspects of Nanami's personality. She provides the audience enough information to keep us interested, but not so much information we have the full picture. This series of scenes culminates in the final scene of the chapter, when Yuu asks Nanami for advice in the student council room the next day.

On the third day after Yuu meets Nanami, she finds herself exactly as she hoped: alone with Nanami in the student council room. She explains that she has been confessed to and that the boy in question is expecting a response. As she relays this information, Nanami mistakes her intentions and says that she is not the right person to give out advice on this subject. Yuu responds that she's already decided to turn him down. During this conversation, the audience is shown a flashback of the confession, and when the flashback is over, Yuu does just that: she turns the boy down. When she is done and has had a moment to relax, Nanami takes her hand and asks Yuu in clear terms if there has ever been anyone special to her, if she has ever had romantic feelings for anyone. Yuu says no, and this leads to the page that my favorite panel is from:

There is excellent storytelling happening here. At first, Yuu and Nanami are holding hands and standing acorss from each other, then, with a turn of the page, Nanami is pulling Yuu closer. In the next panel, the camera cuts wide, showing us how empty the room is and just how close our lead girls are standing. The perspective shifts here are meant to put the audience on edge and add pressure to the tension that has building all chapter. Then, on the last panel, right as the tension is at its highest, the plot twists, letting the tension release like a stretched rubber band. It's a twist for Yuu too; the confusion on her face is painfully clear, as she begins to realize she has misread Nanami. Then, Nanami voices the realization Yuu is having out loud, informing her that they are not the same, they are different...

...because Nanami is falling in love with Yuu. Just like that, with the flip of a page, the rest of the story is set up. Yuu, the girl who cannot fall in love, has made likely the most popular girl in school fall for her, seemingly because of the explicit fact that she has never fallen in love before. This twist takes the hook that was already in the audience's mouth and sets it into the flesh of their cheek; they're hooked now, and there is no telling where the story will go from here. Not all is perfect, though. In this scene, Nanami actually comes on a little too strongly for my taste, particularly dropping the L word so early. This is likely an effect of the weekly release schedule that I mentioned earlier; Nakatani likely wanted to end the chapter on the strongest note possible, leading to such a powerful confession. Additionally, it is hard to tell how valid this complaint is, as I am dealing with an admitted constraint: I do not read or write Japanese. This inherently limits my understanding of the scene, because I am perpetually an additional step away from understanding Nakatani's true meaning; not only am I reading the line through my own cultural values and life experiences, but the line itself has been translated from the Japanese, and since translation is itself an art, the translator's own cultural values and life experiences likely affects how they translate it. With that being said, assuming this is not a translator error and the original Japanese does say "love," then there is a moment later in the story that is the ideal place for Nanami to say "love" for the first time (in my opinion at least) that I will point out when we get there.

And, with Nanami's confession, the chapter ends. In the pages of this chapter, we can already see the emergence of the story's main theme: what is love? But, as the characters progress, this story is also going to grapple with questions of bodily autonomy, friendship, and what it means to find your way in the world. This story is, in my view, ultimately a coming-of-age story for Yuu. Not just romantically, but developmentally. She has to find her way in the world when everyone around her seemingly already knows their way. And, it is that journey that makes this story so special.

I hope you enjoyed this analysis! Sorry it was so long. Honestly, there was a lot more I wanted to say, but I ended up summarizing a lot to keep it as brief as I could. Chapter two is fewer pages so it'll be shorter (I hope). Speaking of, chapter 2 will go up on Wednesday, January 10th. Hope to see you then! ^-^

p.s. if you can fluently read Japanese and are interested in helping me on this project, please DM me!

p.p.s here's a cute bonus image from the end of the chapter!

[hell-heron]

Thinking of this comment by Treegoats, really lovely one I reread for self soothing often, and about how it's an incredibly fitting and nonjudgemental view of the way fandom creates shared tropes and motifs. I went on to think about the three fics produced by three iterations of the exchange that are about Theon witnessing his first beheading, all of which I love though one in a different way as it is my own. I thought about how one of the differences is what in the Propp framework of the fairytale is an "artistic" detail ie. The villain can be a witch, a wizard, a lion, an ogre, the devil according to the culture and sensitivity of the storyteller but it doesn't really have an impact on the structural role and should not lead to the classification of the fairytale in this or that subtype. This is in this case the identity of the executed criminal, which indeed changes nothing in the structure but tells a lot:

1) In bridge over troubled waters the criminal is the murderer of a mother and two small children: this connects him immediately to Theon's future moral downfall. He's immediately griefstricken but also struggling to reconcile that with the normalisation on the Islands of violence against the defenseless. However we see visibly in the following paragraphs that this spectacle of violence does not remotely enhance Theon's respect for life but slowly destroys it as he becomes more smiley and hardened at every execution, that the North and the Islands have equal blame in turning the scared boy into a murderer of mothers and babes. It's a story about what it truly means that Ned "failed" to "gentle" Theon.

2) In By The Sword the criminal is an anarchic rebel-type: Theon mentally compares him to his father and is divided between his sympathy for his fighting for freedom and the awareness that he, Theon, personally, is the sacrifice made to continue to fight for freedom, he reacts by violently distancing himself from the criminal. It's a story about Theon's fear of death infecting every moment of his day and about the repression he experiences, about him mentally beating himself into compliance and distancing himself from any aspiration as an effort to survive, about how his obedience and his irreverence are not separate facades but the same.

3) in creatures lurk below the deck the criminal is a soldier of the Northern army who killed a man in a fight. This is because the author is someone who likes to cram too many plot points in too little wordcount and needed an excuse for an execution to happen as soon as humanly possible: this is not self deprecation nor the detestable behavior of acting like if something is a needed plot device then it cannot have any other meaning, I would in fact really have liked to expand on my hypothetical themes, but I sadly have the Doylistic reasoning written down white on black in real time here:

Takes all sorts! I do love we all went with men with a vulgar defiant attitude though: that is indeed the Theon vibe.

[ananke-xiii]

Form and Void... Hands and Hearts.

Intro + the post before this you kinda need to read them all or it won't make a lot of sense lol

Dean and Crowley's relationship is not fun.

Full disclosure here: I have no problems in terms of shipping and having fun with the characters outside of what's canon but I personally don't see Dean's canon relationship with Crowley as "fun", it's not something that I particularly enjoy watching. Like, the actors are great etc. but the actual story makes me feel... uncomfortable. I actually find it sad that Dean's still attached to Crowley because, as much as I like him as a character, the King of Hell acts like a total predator towards Dean and this episode highlights this side of their relationship in uncomfortable ways. So be warned that things get a little ugly from here.

Let's see how food is treated in the episode: Crowley is presented as "Father Crowley" while he puts sugar in his tea and calls Dean "a rather scrumptious altar boy". The image I get from this is both that of the sugar daddy and, because of the religious references, of the scandals surrounding the Vatican and its priests (I'm trying to be as sensitive as I can but the show is really not and Crowley literally makes a reference to these events later on in the episode).

Father Crowley is a piece of shit.

He will later pull up in a van and kidnap young Amara with this line:

My, haven't you grown into a sweet young thing? Want some candy, little girl?

If we consider that Amara and Dean are connected (by the mark that's above Amara's heart and that was on Dean's right arm) Dean and Crowley's past relationship doesn't look so much fun anymore (well, it never was fun to begin with as I've written although the show did its best to make it look like it was fun with the karaoke, the cowboy hats and the sex. I mean, on paper it does look like fun if we can just forget that Dean was very much Crowley's guinea pig).

In case you were wondering, Dean and Amara are bound, guys.

Crowley here is the preacher/hunter of "The Night of the Hunter". He dresses like a priest but he's hunting for demons (yeah, I know, it's a clear reference to "The Exorcist" too). He happens to find "the child that eats the souls" and proceed to kidnap her. I mean, brrrrr.

And how does Dean feel about it? He still loves him! Poor, poor, poor Dean.

While Sam went for the heart of Poor Guy with the electrocution device, the angels went for Cas' heart (and other parts too) with the angel blades, Dean goes for Crowley's heart with Ruby's knife. Unlike Sam and the angels, he doesn't finish what he had set up to do.

Dean's knife is pointed at Crowley's heart but I'm bad at taking screenshots so this is what you get.

Instead, he pins Crowley's to the wall by stabbing his left hand (the hand of love and receiving) with an angel blade. Visually, it's quite similar (not the same, similar) thing that happened to Cas at the end of S10. It couldn't be more sexual (angels blades are the dicks, also interesting choice of weapon to stab Crowley: Cas' ghost in their relationship is ever present) and more problematic: in a heartbeat Dean goes from prey to predator.

They re-used this very explicit image in S12.

Just like Dean is bound to Amara, he's still bound to his former abuser Crowley. And, I mean, from a storytelling pov it tracks because Amara is very much Crowley's and Dean's baby ("You're very maternal, Dean"). Yeah, I can hear your "ewwww" from here knowing where they went with Dean and Amara but I didn't write the show, they did and I'm picking up the things they've put down. Anyway, Dean and Crowley's relationship will be over only once Dean's not bound to Amara anymore. Or, at least, it should be but like any love triangle writers liked to milk it unti it was dry, i.e. one of the three permadied. This is why, I think, we had the echoes of the same trite trope in S12 too and if you enjoyed it good for you. For me it was torture.

Demons would be the perfect angels. Sam too.

A SPN-related theory of mine is that demons would make perfect angels. Both demons and angels are cursed with the "I get what I want" mentality. Abbadon said it, Crowley says it again in this episode. It's a very angel-like mentality, however demons are unironically more likely to put in the effort, follow the guidelines, work behind the curtains. They would be perfect angels for Chuck.

Ironically this time, angels and demons have hardly ever gotten what they wanted (hello Castiel!). They all tend to work in a certain direction only for the result to backfire in the end or leave them dead. Which reminds of a certain character named Sam Winchester.

"Form and Void" is an episode that explicity parallels Sam to the angels and to Crowley. Sam and Crowley's parallels are my everything. Up until s8 they were quite obvious while after that they're in the story's backbone rather than clearly on screen. If you care, this is one of the reasons why Crowley and Lucifer's power struggle could've been way more interesting if they had thrown in Sam in some capacity instead of doing whatever they did with Sam in s12. *breathes and calms down*

The End (of this rambling post).

"Form and Void" foreshadows how S11 would end: dark and light becoming One. It's something that US tv shows (tended to) do a lot when they deal with Christian themes: when they're going a little over the edge and very close to blasphemy they pull a "Eastern Mysticism" card to signal that they were just kidding! In SPN they did the same thing to Jack in s15. When they deal with God they use buddhist concepts as a cop-out to avoid doing things that may upset Christian believers (and no, canon bisexual God is less of a threat than canon God's older sister who's more powerful, female-presenting and holding a huuuuge grudge or than having a world with no God, no Hell and no Heaven).

Hands and hearts are a huge motifs and they signal what the characters will be doing and/or their true intention/identity. In order to see this, though, one must pay appention to the scene shown at the very beginning of the episode, a scene from the movie "The Night of the Hunter". This specific scene tells us that what we see is the opposite of what the writers mean and that the core theme of S11 is not so much God vs The Darkness but rather love. This love, however, lies in cages protected by keys and it's secret and forbidden but, as that scene tells us, love's a-winnin'. To save the day and let Love still win we've got a giant plot-twist in the form of maternal love and the resurrection of Mary Winchester. The heart's needs are met, its wants are still unknown. You can't always get what you want... SPN really did believe that.

[frogletscribe]

A:FoP Sky Breaker DLC Thoughts P.2

Here's the other half of my thoughts on the Sky Breaker DLC, more focused on a specific aspect of the story and getting into the wider storytelling of the world of Pandora. A lot of this is me being very critical of Alma, so if you don't want to read about that, feel free to skip!

I'm also very open to other peoples opinions if someone disagrees!

Major Spoilers for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Sky Breaker DLC under the cut.

SO. The real meat and potatoes of the DLC (at least in terms of story) comes with the bits surrounding Mokasa and Alma.

Frankly, I was not thrilled that Alma was there. Ever since her Avatar was killed she has kind of become a walking pity party, and very few of her actions since have done her any favors.

In my own personal opinion, what she did/allowed to happen to the Sarentu is unforgivable. Full stop, I do not think she should have been invited to the Games. The rest of the humans? Cool, great, love them. Not her. I know that's harsh, but if Mokasa is (rightfully) being shunned by his clan, I think Alma should have gotten the same(obvi to a lesser extent, she would die immediately outside the safety of the resistance). But the general theme of the story, at least when it comes to Mokasa and Alma, is redemption.

I think that Mokasa gets as close as he can, dying to protect the Sarentu and Anufi. If someone had to die as a plot device, it makes sense that it was him. It doesn't make up for what he did, but it's something. 

I generally think killing off characters 'for redemption' is cheap and a little lazy, and this is no exception, but Mokasa's death I think tries to also serve as telling Alma that she needs to earn forgiveness.

Alma has an audio log you can find in the main camp talking about everything after the fact that I think does help her character a little, but I continue to not be thrilled with how she talks about the Sarentu. It's like she's clinging to them, trying to get them to accept her back, when as she says in her audio log afterwards, she is a chapter in their lives they would rather leave closed. Still, even as she says it, it doesn't feel like she accepts that, which on a personal level I get, no one wants to be rejected, but in this case, she just feels like she's still trying to take up space that no longer belongs to her, even though she knows she shouldn’t. 

Again, I'm being harsh with her character. I know that. I take issue with the fact that no matter what happens, she just doesn't seem to get that the fact that the Sarentu giving her anything but contempt for what she did, is already more than she deserves. They still talk to her, she still got to come to the games and have a relationship with the other Na'vi clans. She is in the Games tent among the Na'vi where all the other humans are sequestered away from the clans. That's more than what the Kame'tire gave Mokasa for doing the exact same thing as Alma did. Do I think she should have died? No. I don't think that serves anything, least of all her character. If 'redemption' is the goal, I think the simplest answer to Alma's story is to not give it to her. She can work as hard and as long as she wants, but she can never really be forgiven for what she did, and I think she needs to live with that.

I also think Alma could have easily been swapped out for Priya, Anqa or Alexander and I would have had 100% more emotional investment into saving one of them over her. But that's just me.

We also learned that the NeuroSect machine can and will kill the people they are used on. They're torture devices. A few people have pointed out how this changes things when it comes to Spider and Quaritch's story, but I also think this says something about how naive Jake still is when it comes to the RDA.

When Spider is taken, Jake keeps saying "he's human, they won't hurt him". But then Ardmore immediately puts Spider in a NeuroSect, a torture machine that is not intended to leave survivors, fully intending for Spider to die once she gets the info out of him that she needs. Jake probably thought that the RDA would see this teenage boy and just lock him up until further notice, because the idea of torturing a child is so insane, who would ever do that? Ardmore would. The RDA would. For the same reasons the RDA would slaughter an entire clan, steal its children, and raise them to be soldiers, or destroy known Spiritual and Cultural sites of the Na'vi, or blow up the Omatikayan Hometree. Despite being made up of humans, the RDA does not have humanity. The Na'vi and anyone/everyone associated with them, are not people to the RDA. Just enemies to be destroyed.

I do think it's also important/interesting to note that Alma was unable to resist the NeuroSect at all, basically giving Harding everything she wanted, while Spider is able to completely resist and gives Ardmore nothing.

The other thing we hear is that Alma has a way to contact Jake and Norm. I've seen a few people speculating whether or not that means Alma is actively in contact with Jake or not, but I don't think that's the case, at least as of right now. I don't think there is any official timeline for AFoP out there, and time jumps pretty sporadically? We hear that Alma and Anufi have been taken and then as soon as you get to the facility, RDA NPCs are talking about ‘the blue they grabbed last week’ even if you sprinted to that mission as fast as possible. So guessing a timeline is????? 

The most we get is early into the main game, there is banter between npcs at the resistance about the Train raid seen at the start of Atwow and later that Jake has effectively gone dark, so we know at that point he has taken his family to Awa'atlu. And we don't hear anything else about the Sully's or Norm until Harding questions Alma about them in the DLC. I think if Alma is actively in contact with anyone then it's probably Norm, but I don't think she is in contact with Jake at all.

We also already know that Alma hid the existence of TAP from Jake, so I doubt she has come clean about TAP and the Sarentu to anyone outside the immediate resistance. I think if she had then there would be evidence of it, either in logs or mentioned, bc i do not think Jake or Norm would take kindly to those revelations at all, and it feels important enough that it should come up if it does happen. I think there's a log somewhere in the main game where Alma basically admits that if Jake had known about TAP, then there was no way he would ever have let her stay on Pandora.

Overall I really liked the DLC, I like that the Sarentu are finally free (largely) of TAP, and that we got to see basically all the important NPCs that we met over the course of the main game (some more than others). I’m hoping that this will also largely be the end of the story revolving around Alma’s guilt, unless we get Norm/Jake/Max calling her out on hiding TAP from them, I'm just tired of her. If she needs to be a key player going forward, at least let her woe-is-me shit be finished and have her actually own up. If Nor comes back it will likely be a needed conversation.

[sapphire-weapon]

Hi! Sorry if this counts as shitstirring... But you got me thinking... Do you really think that someone really needs to play the games in order to fully understand the story? Or is watching them and reading up on them enough? Thanks, and sorry!!!

Don't be sorry. This is a valid question that deserves an honest answer.

There's nuance to this. This isn't just a simple "yes or no" question.

Do I think that you need to play the games to understand the story? No, I don't. Resident Evil's story is not difficult (though, you'd never know that, looking at the fandom). It's very easy to watch the games and movies, go "ok I got it", and move on.

Do I think that you need to play the games to be considered an authority on the canon? 100%, absolutely. And I'll tell you why.

We spend a lot of time talking about narrative direction and storytelling devices and the use of tropes and cinematography here on this blog, but the one thing that we really need to keep in mind at all times is that Resident Evil is a game first and a story second. This has been the design philosophy since the series's conception. This is why RE4 OG's story was slapped together in three weeks. This is why RE5 was the way that it was. This is why RE7 is what RE7 turned out to be.

The narrative of Resident Evil is not something that exists separately or divorced from its gameplay. In fact, the opposite is true. RE's story is not only influenced by its gameplay, it actually -- in some cases -- is directly written as a result of its gameplay.

I've talked about the story behind RE4's development before, but.

Was RE6's story borderline incomprehensible, and did it jump approximately sixteen sharks? Yes. Was that the main reason why RE6 failed? Absolutely fucking not. Not even close.

RE6 turned out the way that it did because RE6 was developed and released during a time in which the biggest moneymakers in the AAA game space were brown & bloom multiplayer shooters. Capcom wanted in on that gravy train.

RE5 sought to take the award-winning formula that RE4 developed and add a multiplayer element to it in order to initially chase that trend, and RE5 for a very long time was the highest-selling Resident Evil title ever made.

Capcom looked at that and took it to mean that it was RE5's added multiplayer element that made it so successful. They weren't exactly wrong, either. RE5, for a lot of people, was like a version of RE4 that you could play with your friends.

Wesker was not killed in RE5 because Capcom thought it was an appropriate time narratively to kill him. Wesker's death was a symbolic one -- it was the death of the "old" Resident Evil -- the death of the slow, plodding, single player experience that the entire AAA industry had convinced themselves was no longer viable monetarily and not what players wanted. This was especially true for RE, after the unprecedented success of the more action-focused RE4 changed the entire third person shooter genre forever.

By the time we reach RE6, Capcom is all on on this. Three campaigns, all with co-op, all of which play differently. Chris's story is what Chris's story is in RE6 because Capcom knew that most players were probably going to reach for his campaign first, considering he was the protagonist of the most recent release and, therefore, the most recognizable to players who maybe weren't necessarily super familiar with RE. They specifically wanted Chris's campaign to feel like a traditional third person shooter in order to get new players hooked, because Capcom was convinced that that's what a majority of gamers at the time in general wanted.

Leon's story is what Leon's story is in RE6 because it was designed specifically to cater to people who loved RE4 and would reach for him first over Chris. So, they gave Leon a female partner (Helena in place of Ashley) and a slower, more traditional horror setting (while still being action-oriented), and they tried to kill two birds with one stone by having Ada running around and also being the damsel in distress, so to speak, to replicate the "save the princess" plotline from RE4.

But the biggest issue with all of this was that it turned the design philosophy of the game into "how can we sell this?" over trying to just make a good horror game -- and it showed. Capcom cut a hell of a lot of corners in terms of pacing and level design and enemy design and enemy variety in favor of focusing on the combat system (which was never adequately explained and had its nuances lost on approximately 80% of the playerbase), the netcode, and making the game's story as easy to consume and digest as possible while chasing specific market trends.

RE6 didn't go super hard on Aeon because the writing staff was just so ~dedicated to the ship~. RE6 went hard on Aeon because they wanted Leon to look heroic and save the girl just like he did in RE4 but didn't want to create another Ashley after how universally hated she was. Knowing that is how I say so confidently that Remake is retconning Aeon -- it's because the ship itself was never the point. They used it as a gameplay contrivance that they thought would help sell RE6, and it blew up in their faces. So now they're trying something new.

The actual experience of playing Resident Evil 6 was downright miserable to a vast majority of the fanbase because it was a soulless, hackneyed mess that didn't even have the decency to bother giving itself a spooky atmosphere. It was an uninspired series of long hallways filled with bullet sponge enemies and literally nothing else.

So, when the story was stupid and fan favorites like Leon felt like they got screwed over on top of all of that because the same design philosophy of "make this as mass marketable as possible" bled into the story from the gameplay, that was just the shit icing on the shit cake.

People probably would have been much more forgiving of RE6's story if the game design itself was better. Or, conversely, people would've been much more forgiving of RE6's game design if the story was super compelling.

But RE6 was neither.

And so RE7 was Capcom's way of trying to re-learn how to do pacing, level design, and atmosphere. The gameplay was the most important thing. That's why they didn't even bother using the legacy characters and created Ethan and the Bakers. The legacy characters would've been a distraction. They had to fix things one step at a time: gameplay first, story second.

That's why RE7 is RE7 and why we have only seen Leon in CGI movies and not games since 6 (Remakes not withstanding). RE7 fixed the gameplay, and Vendetta, ID, and DI served to reconfigure and redefine Leon's character, and I'm more than sure that they're going to try to finally blend those things together in RE9.

And if you don't play the fucking games, and if you don't fucking understand how the games industry works, you're not going to have any of that fucking context going into your meta analysis.

That's why braindead motherfuckers in this fandom look at that stupid remark made about how the one director thought that Leon and Ashley holding hands during RE4make's gameplay made them look "too close" and they read way too much into it -- it's because the spoken words of the directors are all they have to go off of, and they don't realize what a bad gameplay decision having Leon and Ashley hold hands would have been.

If you don't play the fucking game, you don't know that the half-second it takes for Leon to switch from his knife to his gun can mean the difference between taking a hit or not -- and so you would have no reason to think of how annoying it would be to add yet another half-second delay to Leon drawing his gun if he had to disengage from Ashley first. If you fuck with the normal gameplay loop with something that only happens when Ashley is with you, it will make the player start to resent Ashley, and that's the opposite of what the devs wanted to do -- which is what the fucking conversation in the interview was about in the first place!

That is far more likely the reason why the handholding was cut. And while that decision was being made, it was probably pointed out that having them hold hands made it look like they were on a date -- and that's absolutely not the tone/atmosphere that this game was going for. That is far more likely what was meant by "too close."

It had nothing to do with ensuring that the players perceived Leon and Ashley's relationship as platonic. It had everything to do with tone and atmosphere and the pacing of the normal gameplay loop. It's just that "*juts a thumb in his direction* This guy thought it made them look too close" was a way fucking easier explanation of what they probably thought was a really fucking unimportant anecdote about a character animation that didn't matter.

But if you don't play the games, you won't know that.

If you don't play the games, Word of God is all you have to go on. That's why people who don't play the games insist on all Word of God being explicit canon. It's because they can't use the games themselves as a baseline -- and that gives them a skewed, fucked up perspective of what Resident Evil is trying to do and be and accomplish.

This kind of shit is constantly in my head when I'm writing my meta and trying to predict where a game's story will go next.

I pull my meta directly from the games, because that is what Resident Evil is. It is a series of games that are trying to be good games first and interesting stories second.

And if you don't understand that, you have no business calling yourself an authority on the canon.

[aihoshiino]

hello! I really enjoy your way of looking at oshi no ko so I wanted to know your pov on something that's been bugging me throughout the manga! do you think Miyako remembers the twins being 'gods' early in their lives?? I feel that as much as her character has evolved past the whole 'i'll sell Ai's secret for money and fame as revenge' it's still weird that she, as someone who clearly was witness to something supernatural for AT LEAST a year doesn't like... bring it up at all? or seems to actually remember even...

like I can see it being explained away as 'oh maybe as they grow up they forget, so it makes no sense to bring it up now' but also I'm just curious as to when the twins stopped using that as a way to get whatever they wanted lol.

like idk I know that bringing up that bit of silly lore from volume one into the world of the movie arc is out of place at best but also! I just feel like Miyako either gaslighted herself into thinking she was delusional for a year or she's too afraid to bring it up because then she'll sound insane.

this piece of silly lore will chase me to the grave if it isn't brought up again and I need someone else's thoughts cause sometimes I feel like it was quietly retconned.... I'm rambling. anyway! I love your Tumblr!

THANK U FOR THE LOVELY MESSAGE, ANON!! I feel like i say this every single time but it really does make me so wibbly to know so many people vibe with my OnK takes to this degree lol

tragically... I do not have a clever answer for this one, unfortunately!!! Funnily enough though, I did have a bit of a chat about it recently with my friend Silvie (@relares) who has been watching the anime for the first time with me, and it kind of rattled some of my thoughts about the scene loose.

I think a lot of volume 1, while it works really well in isolation, has a lot of what me and Silvie ended up calling 'clunk' in hindsight where it's clear that Akasaka was just... not quite writing the Oshi no Ko that the story ended up becoming, if that makes sense. This is understandable given that at that point, he and Mengo were literally not working on the Oshi no Ko we ended up getting! The decision to kill Ai and re-adjust the series trajectory is one that was made during serialization and it meant the two of them had to course correct a lot of stuff extremely quickly. For the most part, I think they did a shockingly good job of handling that genre shift to the point where a lot of the more jarring elements actually just help in making that shift feel more effective - it makes the horror of Ai's death feel just as sudden and shocking and life-altering to the reader on a storytelling level as it does on a very literal one to Aqua and Ruby.

Unfortunately, it also means there's a lot of choices made in terms of like... punchlines and characterization decisions that I don't think Akasaka would necessarily have made if he had the benefit of foresight and I think Miyako is definitely a victim – or I guess more of a prime example of that.

Miyako as she ends up functioning in volume one is both shockingly different in terms of characterization compared to the Miyako we get from volume two onwards and also pretty transparently kind of just a vehicle/plot device to give the twins an adult ally without revealing themselves to Ai prematurely. The twins manipulating Miyako in such an overtly silly way is also exactly the kind of absurdist problem solving that works fine in a comedy, where your suspension of disbelief is a lot different. I think Akasaka was still very much in Kaguya-sama mode while writing those early chapters and that kind of comedy beat as problem solving bit would feel really at home in an Oshi no Ko that was more tonally in line with Kaguya-sama... but that ultimately isn't the Oshi no Ko it became, so it feels weird.

In a lot of ways, the timeskip between volume 1 and 2 is sort of a soft reset for the series in terms of tone and genre and it allows the manga to sort of smooth out a bit of that clunk going onwards. This is why I think the Sweet Today arc is the best post-timeskip arc in the manga because it's the one that best balances the comedy, drama and industry commentary in a way it never quite managed again - not that all the other arcs are bad, but they generally tip pretty far in one of those three directions in a way that leaves the others high and dry.

TO UH, ACTUALLY ADDRESS YOUR QUESTION THOUGH... I honestly think this aspect of the story has been retconned! Or at least, that Akasaka is purposely not addressing it because he realizes it was a misstep and so he's just quietly pretending it didn't happen lol. It isn't addressed even in places we would expect it to be and Miyako herself never even once mentions it even when we get peeks directly into her head, so I honestly think Akasaka kind of wrote himself into a corner with it and decided to just ignore it.

That's nowhere near as fun as an in-character explanation though so I like to think Miyako thinks it was just a tripped out dream she had once and since Ruby and Aqua don't remember it, it's just never come up again. If she got drunk enough around them, though, she'd ramble about it to them while Ruby and Aqua lock eyes with each other and just have a moment of silent sibling communication like. oh my god. did we really do that????

For as serious as it is a lot of the time, Oshi no Ko is a pretty silly manga when you get down to it, eh....

[darklingichor]

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

Uh, so I reread this and accidentally wrote a rough draft for an academic essay on the satire and differences between the book and the movie. It's long... Sorry!

Most of the time, the book is better than the movie. It's inevitable, really. You get more of the story, more time with the characters, more of the why.

Sometimes, the movie is better than the book. I personally like the movie versions of Bridget Jones's Diary and The Shawshank Redemption more than the books.

And then you have things like The Princess Bride where the book and the movie are almost like the storytelling equivalent of divergent evolution. Both sprang from a common source (the imagination of William Goldman) but slot into separate niches. I'm of the opinion that it isn't fair to compare the one against the other to decide which is better because that's like comparing riding in a car to riding a horse. They can both be enjoyable, and get where you need to go, but they are fundamentally different experiences.

You can, however compare and contrast the two to analyze both.

So, I think that's how this one will go.

The bones of the book and the movie are the same.

Boy is sick, family member (grandfather in the movie, father in the book) reads the boy The Princess Bride by S. Mortensen.

The Princess Bride follows the beautiful Buttercup and her love, the farm boy, Westley on their journey of fencing, fighting, true love, and adventure.

The book, however, takes the framing device of a sick boy being read to a lot farther than the movie with Goldman inserting a fictionalized version of himself and his family in there. He was the sick boy, and when he realized that his father only read him the good parts of The Princess Bride, he decides to abridge it.

Goldman says that in the unabridged version, Morgenstern was satirically commenting on the royalty and general attitudes in Florin (which is a real place in this universe).

I think what Goldman is actually poking at is the archetypes and tropes of fairytales.

We have Buttercup, our damsel in distress, who has been in plenty of distress, but most of it, not coming from the villains.

We have Westley, our hero who spends very little time actually being heroic

Inigo Montoya, who is sort of cast as a sidekick, but if you really look at it, does most of the heavy lifting and has the only true hero arch in the whole story.

Fezzik, who is cast in the role of Inigo’s sidekick, but the action would have gone nowhere without him.

Count Tyrone Rugen, Vizzini and Prince Humperdinck who, are all deeply fucked up, but have to be taken together to make one fairytale villain.

And all of these are complemented but slightly contrasted in the movie to really shine a light on Goldman skills as a writer.

In the movie, Buttercup is beautiful, and that is just taken as a given first because Robin Wright is playing her, also, of course she is beautiful, she’s going to be our princess.

However, in the book, beauty is the first concept to be lampooned. The reader is told about the most beautiful women in various years of Buttercup’s life. The worlds women are ranked, and someone somewhere is keeping track.

The year Buttercup was 15, she was barely in the top 20 most beautiful, on potential alone. Of course, she didn’t really notice when the boys started flocking to her. And she would have been baffled if she had known that, two years later, the reason that Count Rugan visited her parent’s dairy farm was because of rumors of her beauty.

It was only when she and Westley fall in love that her potential starts to be realized (It should be noted here that Westley only seems to love her for her beauty at this point since he calls her “not the brightest”). Westley, immediately after they declared their love for each other, decided bugger off to America to make money for their life together. Buttercup decides to start taking care of herself and began climbing the ranks.

By making beauty the focus around Buttercup, Goldman is making an interesting commentary because at this point, there is nothing special about Buttercup, other than the fact that she is beautiful. In all other ways, she is fairly unremarkable. She does her chores, and she likes nothing more than to ride her horse. Think of the classic fairytale heroine, they don’t display any particular aptitude for much of anything, they are just pretty things to be rescued. They don’t need to develop anymore. And Buttercup is fitting into this mold well.

Then news comes of Westley's death. Her heart is broken, and she grieves, and she makes a vow to never love again.

She now has aptitude at something, being brutally practical. She made the decision after she lost Westley to carry on and that's just what she does.

So, when Humperdinck decides he wants a beautiful wife, the Count, remembering Buttercup's potential, turns the prince's head toward her.

Humperdinck asks her to marry him and she refuses until he makes it clear that she will die if she doesn't, and that he isn't looking for a love match, only someone agreeable to make an heir.

So it's either marry the Prince or die. Since he doesn't want her to love him, that would mean dying for no good reason, and that would be stupid, so she agrees.

Even after Westley returns, this doesn't really change.

In the movie, when Westley and Humperdinck face off for the first time and Buttercup agrees to go back to the castle as long as Westley isn't hurt, she says: "I thought you were dead once, and it almost destroyed me. I could not bear it if you died again, not when I could save you."

Romantic and self sacrificing.

In the book, the same scene goes like this:

“The truth,” said Westley, “is that you. would rather live with your Prince than die with your love.”

“I would rather live than die, I admit it.”

“We were talking of love, madam.”

There was a long pause. Then Buttercup said it: “I can live without love.” (pg. 191, Kindle edition)

Oof, harsh. In fact, Westley who doesn't give up, seems to spend the rest of the story, until their reunion, thinking that she did this for money and power.

It is clear, however, that Buttercup doesn’t care about either of those things, never has. She's willing to be queen, but doesn't lust after the power it would give her, and she never mentions money.

She says she can live without love, because she already has.

Westley's reality of the three years they are separated is not the same as Buttercup’s. He never utterly lost her, his vision of the future with Buttercup never changed.

Buttercup’s reality had a grenade thrown into it. Westley was dead, nothing was going to be like she thought, and she experienced pain she had never been through before. Love was off the table after that.

When Westley returns, she is happy, yes, but when faced with the prospect of both of them dying, that brutal practicality came out.

Living without Westley was nothing new, so she would just be continuing on the same path. This would be better though because at least Westley would be alive. She learned to live without love, Westley could do it too.

She does have a change of heart later, and that triggers the unhinged rescue mission that is my absolute favorite part of either book or movie. But even with this veering back on to the path of traditional princess narrative, she ignores the typical princess trappings.

Buttercup also manages to turn the damsel in distress role upside down.

She doesn't suffer all that much at the hands of Humperdinck, or even Vizzini, Inigo and Fezzik when they kidnap her on Humperdinck’s orders. in fact, the prince goes out of his way to be nice to her until toward the end of the book. And the kidnappers are pretty respectful of her, even while they talk about killing her.

No, our Princess suffered most before she ever put down her milk pails, and this suffering and some that she would endure later didn't come from our villains, it came from our hero.

Ah Westley, in the movie, lovely. In the book, sort of annoying.

In the movie, Westley comes off as alternately confident, and lovelorn. He is always intelligent, and other than when he thinks Buttercup threw their love away (the first time), a generally sweet guy.

In the book... Well, he’s not unlikable, but he is arrogant. Very intelligent, but not so much in the emotional department.

In the movie, the way it comes across, is that the two leads fall in love over a period of time, spend a period of time being in love together, and *then* Westley goes off to make his fortune.

In the book, Buttercup realizes she loves him, tells him, then he confesses that he’s always loved her *and then he leaves*. Less than a night between “I love you” and “Bon Voyage”.

Cary Elwes manages to make the attitude The Man in Black has toward the now Princess Buttercup, come off as anger inspired by hurt.

I don’t get that in the book. I mean, yeah, he’s hurt, but he’s mostly just pissed.

We find out how he survived being attacked by pirates in much the same way in both book and movie, eventually becoming the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Here’s a question I have always had no matter which version of the story I am thinking of: Three years, it takes for him to come back to Florin as The Man in Black. He couldn’t have dropped a letter to his girlfriend in all that time? He steps on shore for supplies, never once thought: “I should probably tell my one true love I’m still among the quick” ?

Yeah, yeah, secrecy and all of that, had to keep being the Dread Pirate Roberts. But movie Buttercup is bright enough to know not to say anything, and book Buttercup wouldn’t have needed details. And yeah, it would be a challenge to get letters back to him, but considering this is a world where miracle men can bring a dead man back to life with a chocolate pill, you would think that the most feared pirate in the world could figure out some kind of relay system. And then, when Humperdinck says “Marry me or die” she could use that relay system to get a letter to Westley and maybe things would be delayed what with one thing or another, and the whole kidnapping plot and stress can happen, but with the added benefit of Buttercup not being emotionally traumatized and Westley not acting like a dick.

But, the way the plot and his character is set up, this is a case of Goldman going after the classic hero.

The swashbuckling saver of ladies and practionor of daring dos are never in doubt of whether they are in the right and doing what is best for all, and because the narrative is on their side, they are not burdened with the needs of others, because the will align with his.

Westley is this hero, which is why he is able to hold fast to his romantic (in the literary sense) ideals. Life hadn't emotionally knocked him around. That's why when Buttercup leaves him after the fire swamp, he can't even compute things not going his way. It's not until he is actually killed and brought back does he have a crisis of faith. His doesn't last as long as Buttercup’s, because Westley has Inigo and Fezzik to shake him out of it, while Buttercup worked through her's alone.

This is another subversion of the normal fairytale. The men in this book need a lot of help and the women really work stuff out. Namely Queen Bella and Miracle Max's wife, Valerie. Things wouldn't have happened at all without the former, and would have come to a screeching halt without the latter screeching at her husband.

Westley really learns humility at the end of his journey rather than having his wonderfulness confirmed.

And two characters in particular help him get there.

Inigo Montoya and Fezzik are without a doubt my favorites. The Inigo and Fezzik are more fleshed out in the book, but are fundamentally the same characters. Both of their backstories are awesome and worth the read all on their own.

I mentioned earlier that Inigo has the only true hero arch in the book. Here's what I mean: He has an origin story that makes us care about him (losing his father to the six fingers man, over a sword) he works hard to learn sword play, devoting himself to it utterly. His quest is clear, avenge his father by killing the six fingers man. He loses his way, has a crisis of confidence, and finally completes his quest.

Although arguably somewhat amoral, he is kind to Fezzik and is generally loyal. He is not presented as our main protagonist, yet he spends more time doing things that would eventually rescue Buttercup, than Westley does.

But he lost to Westley, and heros don't lose!

Well, a big theme in this book is that life isn't fair, and I would argue that that is only half of the message, the rest is: and hubris will kick your ass.

Westley is a master swordsman, but if you read the scene in the book, you will see that he is not better than Inigo.

Inigo starts the duel left handed, for more of a challenge. Westley also does this, and that makes for the wonderful "Got'cha" moment where Westley beats him.

What you have here is two over confident people meeting at the same time.

The reader is told that Westley does his best fencing on open terrain, When Inigo gets him in the trees or around rocks, he wasn't as formidable. Inigo, by contrast, is an expert no matter what ground he is fighting on. By time both fighters are using their dominate right hands, Inigo is shaken - someone who pulled his own trick on him! This shock made him a fraction off his game, and meant that he was not able to maneuver Westley into terrain where Inigo would be able to get the upper hand.

If Inigo would have simply used his right hand at the start, it is possible that the fight would have been over as soon as they made it to the rocks,and long before Westley would have had a chance to switch to his right hand. But, he didn't, and he lost.

And he does learn this lesson, as hard as it was, and he didn't have to die to do it.

Fezzik is presented as the sidekick's sidekick

But, if it weren't for him overcoming self doubt and fear to simply survive, nothing would have worked out.

Growing up a giant with a gentle heart wasn't easy for Fezzik, especially because he had to learn to fight, not just for defense, but for a living, but he did what he had to for survival. In this way, he is very much like Buttercup.

When Westley bests him, he doesn’t have a crisis of confidence, instead he's afraid because Vazzini is dead, and he assumes Inigo is too.

But he knows he has to carry on, so he joins the Brute Squad that was formed on command of Humperdinck before his wedding. And that's how he found Inigo. If he hadn't figured out a way to live without being on Vizzini 's crew, Inigo would have been blind drunk when the count killed Westley and Humperdinck would have won the day.

Humperdink, the Count and Vazzini are fairly straightforward villains in my view, though fairy ineffectual on their own. Humperdinck has the power, and the means. He wants Buttercup dead so he can blame Guilder and go to war. Vizzini is seen as having the brains, he Inigo and Fezzik are hired to carry out the plot. Vizzini is an assassin, he does what the money tells him to do. When Westley cocks that up (and to be fair Westley does out smart him) Humperdinck decides to just do it himself.

The six fingered man is just interested in pain, as a hobby. He's not looking for power or gold, he has what he needs there. If he could hire people to hurt and study, he would. Also, he puts no thought into the consequences of his actions. He's a noble, there won't be any.

These three, are a commentary on power. Those who have it want more and also will abuse it, and will use those without it to meet their ends, and while the characters are different from book to movie, they seem to be making the same point, and in the end it is the people they abused that wind up being their undoing.

What's interesting between book and movie is that Goldman's outlook seem to have softened a little. There is a lot of pointed sarcasm and sharp satire in the book that is mostly subtext in the movie.

The true love through line feels more developed than it was meant to be in the book. In the book, up until the middle, Westley and Buttercup represented a literary ideal more than an actual fleshed out relationship. To be blunt, there isn't a lot of chemistry between the two until after the second reunion, and considering the way the other characters are written, I have to think this was deliberate. It's a commentary on the fairytale "I've known you for 17 1/2 minutes, let us spend our lives together" love story.

Not so in the movie.

Was this change just because Goldman didn't feel like the edged stuff would translate well to screen? Or did he decide, like his fictional father in the book, that a little high adventure and true love can make you feel better?

I don't know, but what I do know is that I love both versions.

If you want satire, and comedy with a lot of heart and just enough darkness to keep you grounded, go for the book.

If you want adventure and laughs, that keeps a wry smile and a wink turned your way watch the movie.

[wistfulwisp]

Nowwww for my thoughts on the second season of good omens 👼 (generally not including the ending)

So, going into season 2 I definitely was not expecting the dramatic change in tone and pace, but it was definitely welcome after the supercharged pacing of the first season. Going into season 1 I had known, having read the book, the general beats of what was going to happen but had no idea what to expect for s2 since it wraps everything up so well. So I watched it and uh 🤠

Yeah, subjectively speaking I liked the second season a LOT better than the first. That’s more because it’s more my style — less of a frenzy but still keeping the same charm as the first season. All the character development between Aziraphale and Crowley was fantastic, pitch perfect writing. The amount of depth Gaiman is able to cover with these characters is again inspiring to watch, and the topics he’s able to take a look at (from the religious trauma and abuse suffered from both of these characters to their shared love of humanity and each other and everything in between) was such a great pleasure, and it’s stuff like that that makes this show such a place of comfort for me. The quirky antics of these characters make them likeable and the depth of them make them believable. It’s easy to see myself in either of these characters and it’s easy to see how others would connect with how fleshed out they are.

This is also the first time that I truly felt the weight and seriousness of this project, and how passionate Gaiman is to continue this story and see it through to the end (Amazon be damned). You get the sense that this isn’t just a “funny little LGBT comedy” but also carries with it a sense of importance and of privilege to be able to portray such complicated ideas and do them justice. This is also present in s1, I just didn’t think much of it then (which again makes s1’s re-watch quality all the better). These two elements, and how slow, gentle and romantic it was is what truly carried the story for me. It makes you take visual media and storytelling all the more seriously in everyday life, and that’s something I’ll treasure that this show gave to me. More on this later.

However, there’s some things I’d change.

I said before that SUBJECTIVELY I found this season better. But, there’s an analytical part of me that gets the sense that objectively speaking, s1 is the stronger season. This isn’t just a matter of “less plot” — I’m kind of the opinion that you don’t need a grand plot or a plot at all if you have characters that are interesting enough to follow, which this show definitely does — but what is lost is the cohesion I mentioned earlier. Every beat in the first season felt important, even if I didn’t always gel with the characters. That’s because I knew it was all leading to some higher purpose or theme. Now, with this season a lot more is kept in the dark from viewers — why does Gabriel have no memory? What’s the significance of the record? How do Maggie and Nina play into everything? And a lot of this isn’t fully explored until the last episode, which to me felt very disappointing. I know why they did it! The last ten minutes felt like being punched in the solar plexus in the best possible way (we’ll get to that). But, you give and take when you do that. Yeah, you give the audience a more emotional punch at the end, but you lose the continuity of the narrative. Think about it, all we really get from the Gabriel storyline until the last episode is a fly, a matchbox and a record. That’s it, until the ending. I felt as though the mystery elements of this storyline fell so flat for me, and when Aziraphale went off to Edinburgh to find clues, it really felt like a plot device to either have an episode in Edinburgh or get him away from Crowley for an episode. It didn’t really feel like I was invested in the mystery until the end, which is a shame because I felt as if these elements had been sprinkled throughout we could’ve had a more fleshed out version of the message this season is trying to give (what if we had a talk with Beelzebub and Crowley where she’s absolutely furious, absolutely desperate to get Gabriel back? She’s throwing things and setting fires and cursing, and later we learn that it’s because her plan to keep Gabriel safe has gone askew and not because she’s a BAMF demon lord. What if we had a talk with Gabriel and Az that went beyond the “world feels better around one particular person”? Unfortunately these aren’t things that are explored as time goes on.)

Maggie and Nina also kinda felt like a missed opportunity. They’re super great and intriguing characters and are obvious reflections/foils of Crowley and Aziraphale and their love life, which I an absolutely, 100% PARTIAL to the character foil. Absolutely divine, love it. Wish it had been explored more! We get one very brief conversation where Crowley has that Revelation talking to Nina, and that’s just about it? Again, it makes the ending more impactful, but wouldn’t it have made the story stronger if we had those moments sprinkled throughout the six episodes? It may have been a little less subtle, but I think it would’ve been more impactful as a storytelling narrative. I’m here for more queer relationships though.

The first time I truly felt something drag in this show, other than the Gabriel storyline, was the 1941 date night episode. Yes, it’s was cute, yes, it fit the theming and vibe of the season. But did it really tell me something that I didn’t already know? We know Crowley will do whatever Aziraphale asks, we’ve established the “shades of grey” theme several times already in much more subtle ways. It’s basically seeped into all the decisions these two make together and how they justify them. I liked it, but I couldn’t help acknowledging that in a six episode season when you have one episode that doesn’t give you many new things to work with, it’s significant. I dunno, what do yall think?

That being said, I loved the final scene with Bildad a LOT. Imagine if we had more of those quiet moments intertwining all of these storylines together?

So, objectively I’d probably say s1 is stronger. But, s2 combines my love of little gay men, charming quirky shows, and deep dives into character struggles that I’m absolutely here for moreso than the first season. It acts well as a bridge between the two seasons (1 and 3) but there are some issues with it that does make me wonder where the continuity went.

[rhetoricandlogic]

Yumi and The Nightmare Painter - Brandon Sanderson

So, the third Sanderson book. Book 1 was a dud, Book 2 was so-so. How would I find Book 3?

I found Book 3 VERY much an improvement and my favorite of the three books released so far. You thought the romance angle in Tress was good? Compare that book to this and you'll laugh. Brandon apparently was told by his wife that his books need more romance. And, as an author who doesn't really dabble in it - it DOES show. However, he is leaps and bounds better at it here than in Tress.

For people who liked Tress you might not like this. Since it is a different type of romance. Sanderson references a story he read in college about two passangers on a train who share he same room but at different times and they fall in love with one another without really spending time with on another. It's funny, it reminded me of the screenplay Betty Schaefer and Joe Gillis are writing about in Sunset Boulevard - two people who share the same room, sleep in the same bed during different times - he works nights, she works mornings, and they fall in love.

Brandon was also inspired by anime, manga, and Final Fantasy. Which clearly shows in this book. The setting of the world and the characters in it are poc inspired (Korean/Japanese/Chinese), there is reference to noodles / chopsticks, tabook, painting that has a non-western aspect, and other things here and there. But I felt that it was handled nicely - but non white readers can go into that more.

The plot is basically two people seemingly from different worlds are linked and must solve their issues by working together under duress. [ Body swap stories are a thing I've been picking up in Chinese and Korean dramas. They're usually done for humor aspect, but it always ends up with the characters learning to respect one another which leads to them falling in love. That was like this book, the character would get tired and the male became the female while her spirit / essence could be seen by the female and everyone who looked at the male saw the female character, except the female character who saw the male. The female became the male literally and it was explained that she was legit changing his body type every time it happened. (hide spoiler)]

While Hoid is the narrator of this book, I found him not as annoying. He popped up here and there and his storytelling was a lot more muted than it was in Tress. In Tress I felt that Brandon was trying to hard to emulate the Grandfather in The Princess Bride by giving him side commentary / witty remarks. The remarks weren't as plentiful and they didn't detract from the story, so I felt I was really reading the Hoid from the Cosmere novels. There is also the presence of another character who we met at one point in the Stormlight books but I won't spoil it. I had to smile when they showed up! There are also tiny references to the Stormlight books but it is not important to read them to get them, just little easter eggs.

The reason I rate it down a star is the friends / associates of Painter's. I felt them to be weak or didn't really add to the story. And the end when they were needed they were just THERE are a plot device and not much else. It could have used more depth. I could also say the romance could be a tad bit more blatant, but what I got - again - was better than Tress. The theme of the book were two people learning to love themselves before the learned to love others and appreciate who they were and what they could give. There was a lot of healing and good discussions / inner monologues regarding grief, hurt, rejection, purpose, and love.

I'm really excited on getting the physical kickstarter copy of the book due to the gorgeous art / pictures done. I loved them and felt they brought the book to life. And even better the artist was Aliya Chen - go check her work out if you haven't seen it yet. Aliya Chen. I sadly don't think that non kickstarter fans who didn't subscribe / put down cash will get them in the mass market paperback, but maybe they'll get her work on the cover?

To be honest, Brandon did say that this book and the last were two Cosmere heavy books and I believe that will be why I'll enjoy them more. But we shall see. All in all, I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait for my box to arrive!

[gay-saltasaurus]

Ok so I just finished replaying BOTW post TOTK. Not a super detailed replay, just main quests and some of the larger side content.

Now that both are fresh in my mind...what the fuck.

I am legitimately kind of terrified of the team working on these games, they might be too powerful. How did they do this. How the fuck did they manage to hit it out of the park, then come back a few years later to hit it out of the solar system. So many big games are released half finished (looking at you Pokemon), and it would have been so easy to do a cash grab sequel. So many assets, systems, and minor sidequests were reused, as expected, but instead of just making botw+, they went in 100% to build somthing huge on the impressuve foundation they already had. As someone who works in games, I can't stress enough how so many people, in so many disciplines, had to be working at the top of their game for years to pull this off twice. Nintendo also deserves praise for giving the developers the time they needed to go above and beyond (this should be standard, but unfortunately the actual standard is to drive developers to make as much money as possible as fast and as cheaply as possible).

Replaying botw really highlighted how much totk was able to improve. Botw gave the player multiple ways to solve every problem, but the Zonai devices and new abilities make the solutions practically infinite, while somehow still making things challenging. The new abilities also feel more usefull, I think I only used cryonis twice outside of shrines.

There's also the little quality of life changes. I seriously missed being able to drop weapons from the hotbar, swap out an item after opening a chest, easily switch between inventory tabs, the little things that really streamline gameplay.

Totk's story is also made a lot stronger by botw's foundation. Everyone's already talked about botw's loneliness vs totk's theme of connection. But botw also creates emotional connections that totk builds on. Tarrey Town, the construction in Castle Town, the fucking Hateno house. It's similar to the environmental storytelling in botw. And despite Link's Tony Hawk syndrome, you know these npcs. You knew the Hateno kids when they were toddlers. You get to see the people you've met thriving. You know exactly what you're fighting for.

Botw tok a minute to get me emotionally invested in saving Zelda. "Yeah save the princess, I know the drill. You've seen one Zelda you've seen them all." At first I just expected her personality would be improved from Girl to Smart Girl. Then I saw the memory of her trying to force feed Link a live frog and instantly decided I would die for this character, and needed to save her asap. She's a full fledged character with an actual arc across games! And I love her! Yes there are things that could be better, the self sacrifice and not getting to do much in the actual game is an issue, but for what we got I'm pretty pleased with it. Botw got me invested, and totk used that to maximum effect. I saved a lot of the side content because I wanted to know where Zelda was, then when I found out I just couldn't get invested in sidequests because SHE HAS BEEN UP THERE BY HERSELF FOR 10,000 YEARS HOLD ON BABYGIRL IM COMING WE'RE GONNA GET YOU DOWN SOMEHOW.

So with Totk being so good, I have to wonder what's next. First, everyone who worked on this should get a vacation and a raise. And some awards. But after that, I think it might be possible to make this a trilogy. I have no idea where you could go from here, but that's what I thought after botw and look how that turned out. But if the team feels like they're done with this iteration of Hyrule, this is a perfectly good stopping point. There is just one thing I need first. Whether it's in a sequel or a major dlc. I need this Zelda. To not be having a terrible time. Just once. I know saving Zelda is the whole thing for this series, but my god she has been through enough. Just let me go on an adventure with her. You have the technology from the sage avatars. Or if that's too much, let me go in an adventure while she hangs out with Purah or something. Nintendo I'm begging you.

HOLY FUCK THIS IS SO LONG

[mindfulcuppa]

Dipped in Foreign Lands; An Exercise in Image Storytelling

The beginning of an offering of consolidated thoughts, photos, slices of life in between rocks, more photos, and general going.

Preface.

With an elongated farewell, a month passed before I departed the country. This time wasn’t spent finding accomodation, or sorting bank cards as it probably should have been. No, instead there was lots of relaxing, music, surfing, watching the NBA playoffs and organising of the hoards gathering dust in my parents cupboards. It wasn't until the final 2 days that the urgency of packing life into a bag for the foreseeable future became a priority. 

It was done though, thanks to my loving housemates who provided a ‘jacpac’ for its potential to be filled. 2 jackets, 6 t-shirts, 2 brother-made garments, 2 shirts, 2.5 pairs of shoes, 2 cameras, a recording kit (regrettable now…), synthesiser (also marginal…), 400 leaves of paper, and a whole lot of other possessions that I probably didn’t need to pack. I felt sad to think of time apart from some things, but their absence will drift like the main themes of Toy Story (1998). 

I write this now sitting at a glass dining table enclosed in a small house-in-progress situated on a piece of land in Almagreira. There are dogs barking next door, and many flies darting around the area. It has been 2 weeks since leaving Aotearoa, so I would like to tell you how I have been, and how it’s being seen. Through the lens of a digital camera (and the occasional iPhone pic).

1 Melbourne

As early birds get worms, I had an early flight to Naarm on 01/06/2023. Melbourne waited a bounty of friends, sandwiches, musical sharing, long walks, and pizza. A social extension on a Friday saw our Mouthfull ‘Live at Capers’ residence with a jovial group of deejays providing a space for listening, dancing - and a great meeting point for people to come together over some Mastika & Moussaka worthy of a trophy made of pure 1 million carat gold.

Tyler and I would also have so much fun playing songs on the radio for breakfast over 2 days (links below for listening). For breakfast we ate toast with avocado and tomato, and for breakfast radio we listened to a mixture of jazz, folk, new wave, ambient, worldly music with a sprinkling of a few classic ballads of course.

Sleeping on the sofa was comfortable after some cushion amendments and some wine. We would spend our days walking and talking in Carlton North, relaxing and imagining. Our best meal together was from the Sri Lankan spot, Citrus, where you can find a banquet of vegan smorgasbord for $15.

Once the event was said and done, a recovery in the mornings light was aided with a walk to the felafel shop to meet again with Olive. Hearing of her news in between bites brought great happiness and love.

The following day, I met with Poppy. We were to find a place in Brunswick for a coffee; opting for some breakfast too at Kines. While we were there, I would think of Denzel for his obsession with the cafe. His voice would riddle through echoes from the past. After our breakfast, we walked up and down, crossing Sydney road 3 times, turning corners, and entering discount food stores to browse the obscure flavours of pringles and chocolate. The day was hot and the walk long. Navigating our bodies to Ceres we rummaged through bike parts and found entertainment in a cat in the chicken coup. It was a pleasant walk, except the moderate panic when I left my jacket on a park bench with all money and devices embezzled in the pockets.

After all the catching up, walking, wandering; I caught a train down to Torquay to visit an old friend, Isabelle. It was strange down there considering last time was around 5 years ago staying in a resort not dissimilar to vaudeville. However, we would go for a long walk to discover an amazing mosaic sundial (designed by artist Claire Gittings - whom I have no known lineage to - but am probably related somehow). 

With conversations over a cafe breakfast of my conviction against mining, we would enjoy each others' company in a true taurus manner. I would stay in her house near Marshall and meet her love, and we would have a Spanish soup next to a brazen colour changing fire in a brazier. A casket of red wine was ordered for $10 and delivered promptly, while it wasn't exactly even middle of the road it was a fine drink.

Finally, a pizza evening at Leonado's with Harrison & Andre. Some of the best pizza you will try, the Italian community in Carlton is a reliable source. Twas a welcome carbohydrate to carry forward into the nights digestion on what was to be my last night in Naarm. I bought Tyler a Toblerone to thank him for my stay, and the constant trickling of happy travel wishes would soon be finished with a final embrace.

And so it was, as it was, an extended layover in a city being taken over by sandwich shops and wine bars. It was to be the takeoff point to the north, an expansion to signify the changing of place from previous programming. The world outside was luminous and the air filled with a freshness known to mother nature so much more well than ceiling fans.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

[roydeezed]

Some thoughts about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Hai Hai! I just watched Vol 3 yesterday and after crying approximately five times throughout the movie and three more times since, I have some spoiler-filled, rambling, not always coherent, going off on tangents thoughts on it and superhero films below the cut.

What a movie right?!?! If you follow me and see this, you probably know me as an animanga person, or perhaps even the darkness of my cinephile side that occasionally seeps through (shh, we don't talk about how pretentious I can get), but I am also a huge comic book fan. I am mostly a DC fan, but I appreciate what marvel has done to further superheroes in film.

As this is the first superhero movie I'm talking about on this blog in-depth I think it's long one.

So here's the thing, right? There's this eternal debate between superhero film fans and those who exclusively champion film as a higher art form. I, as someone who's happily living in the middle, loving these films for what they are but also recognizing their flaws, need to say one thing. Yall are suffering from the same criticisms, just removed by time.

There was a time when film wasn't seen as a higher form of art. We know that to be false of course. But there was a time when champions of film as a medium were the underdogs, fighting a losing battle in the critical sense against an elite that didn't want something as widely available to the general public as films were, to be considered art. Not just for it to be used in a storytelling sense but also as something more than entertainment for the masses.

And that's something I see fans of superhero films also doing. They want these films to be legitimized in the eyes of people who look down on them. They want it to be seen as high art, or in the more confrontational discussions, bring down the quality of the more dramatically inclined films or films that are considered high art. And what is high art in this context anyways, is it films like those of Jodorowsky or Tarkovsky, or Leos Carax or even recent films like Titane by Ducournau? Will superhero films ever reach that level of abstraction? Who knows, maybe?

But I think it's the wrong question. This may have seemed like a wild tangent to start off with but I wanted to highlight it as James Gunn, the director of this film, once took offense at Martin Scorsese calling Marvel not cinema. And now with this movie, I don't know if in response, or just coincidentally, has pointed out why these debates don't really matter. I want to believe it was on purpose as this film made a statement with how aware of public perception it was. Sure, as a whole, quantifying things in such a manner can sometimes be useful in describing things or ascribing attributes to them. But as a whole, this debate of quality in such a large sense, has always been reductive. What this movie points out, in the debate of superhero movies and being such a turning point in the genre with it being perhaps the last big marvel movie and also James Gunn's last film before switching sides, is the right question. And that is:

What does this film do?

A film should be judged on it's own merits at the end of everything. On what it is trying to achieve, and how much of that it actually achieves as well as anything else it achieves as a result either to it's benefit or detriment. In other words, What does this film do?

This film does a lot. But before we get into it, let's work from the outside in. And start more abstractly with Superhero films as a whole. More specifically, the state of superhero films.

Superhero films have transcended the genre tag and have become something more akin to a "setting" than an actual genre, as they're used to tell genre stories more now than the one type of story that they could actually claim, the origin story. I've seen "framing device" and "medium" used in place of "setting", but those didn't really land with me. And even "setting" has me kind of uncertain but we'll stick to it for now.

But to contextualize where we are in the state of Superhero media, through my point of view, it feels like the position that Marvel has enjoyed for the past few years as a cultural juggernaut has come to an end with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. The Infinity Saga we followed and were invested in ended a while ago and with Guardians 3 it feels like the last of the main players from the start have wrapped up their story. Much like the western genre it seems to be following in the footsteps of, I'm sure we will still get the occasional engaging story from Marvel, but their dominance is coming to an end. But that's only for Marvel itself. DC is now poised to take over in a big way as they seem to have a plan in place and actual leadership.

And it's in this context that James Gunn made Vol 3. Keenly aware of the public perception. In my eyes, Marvel has made quite a lot of good, fun films. But only a few excellent films, around five or so, being mainly the Black Panther and Guardians films. And this one is no different. And it leverages it's position and legacy incredibly well. Knowing it is basically wrapping up the core ideals of the MCU, it plays into it's nostalgic roots and tackles it in the story as well. The Guardians are all a little past their heyday and are working to build community rather than create spectacle. The film pays homage to the past while also injecting a lot of new ideas and scenarios into the mix. Whereas Counter Earth and Knowhere are relics of a bygone time, and thus symbolizing the past, things such as the Orgoscope represent the fun new space adventure that the Guardians have always been known for while solidifying their dynamic.

It's also this awareness of it being the last look back that makes each characters story mesh so well with the plot. It's a coming together of such seemingly disparate things. Rocket's story is quite obvious in that it's his life flashing before his eyes as he dies, but Peter's story is also a look back. It's connecting with his roots on a twisted version of earth but also a post mortem on his relationship. It's Drax coming to terms with having once been a father and being able to fill that role again. Mantis understanding the pain of being controlled and demeaned and taking control of her own destiny instead of riding along. And Nebula's everything. I love Rocket and Peter to death but Nebula is trying her hardest to not be everything she used to be.

Seeing Gamora be a literal extension of her past self when provided the opportunity to change, makes Nebula stick to her ideals that much more. Her hard exterior and the whole T-2000-esque self repairing is also an extension of this new self, someone who she was always destined to be. She is constantly healing from her trauma.

Another way James Gunn interacted with public perception was clearly defying it. First, we know one thing. In every Guardians film, a Guardian dies. First it was Groot and in the second it was Yondu. So we expected deaths. Yet he kept them all alive. He also played it up in trailers that Peter was going to die, with Nebula carrying his limp body prominently in them. But we all know that was the first shot of the movie. Every time I recognized a fake out from Gunn it made me laugh. It's almost a direct interaction with the audience. Another was the bathos that is so prominent in Marvel films and at times with the guardians as well. Heightened emotional moments are paid off with gags. And each time a character had a emotional moment, especially the comic relief characters, I was waiting for it to be upstaged by a joke. And most of the time it pleasantly wasn't. And when it was, it usually fed into their character, such as Peter lying to to woman at the Orgoscope to disable all the guards. And the final moment of societal and cultural awareness that I want to talk about is the end. The dance scene. We live in a world where final dance scenes have become synonymous with mediocre children's animated films. Where if the cast featured a famous singer, the heroes and villains, regardless of the acts they committed against each other, would come together in the end to show children that there were no stakes in the end. Nothing mattered. Everything will turn out all right.

And James Gunn flips that on it's head at the end. I haven't seen such a cathartic dance sequence in mainstream western cinema since Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire (Another Round wasn't mainstream okay?). Through the dance, the character's all shed off the trauma and pain that they've been through and focus on music and dance as a way of connection and shared experience. It's beautiful and and it takes such a weight off of the character's shoulder's as well as the audiences.

Now for this final part, I want to focus on the themes of the film. I think one of the main theses of it is something along the lines of "You can't force people to be the way you want them to be, but you can roll with the punches." It goes along with Peter and Rocket and the rest of the cast's end to their growth as character's. They weren't forced into becoming this way. They gradually learnt to grow by going through the struggles of everyday life. They all had expectations on them to be someone. Rocket and the High Evoloutionary's creations being the most obvious. They were forced to be something and someone that they weren't. Peter had been seen as someone he wasn't by Yondu, and Ego. Ego had done the same thing to Mantis as well. And Nebula had expectations for Mantis and Drax that didn't fit with who they were at heart. Nebula did so because of her history of having these expectations put on her by Thanos. And it all comes together because it's Peter's pain about Gamora that underlies the whole film. He wants to change her and become the one she knows. But she hasn't had the time and comradery of the Guardians as we know them to become the person she became in the end. She enjoys friendship and companionship, but on a crew more dedicated to the marauding lifestyle. Hence why her life is somewhat a continuation of her past behavior's. The High Evoloutionary being the capstone villain to such a journey of change and growth is such a genius move.

What this film set out to do was to give a proper sendoff to characters that we've known and loved for almost a decade. And to do it in a sense that made sense for their character's and not just in the context of a superhero film. It engages with the themes of growth as it pertains to each character and delivers spectacularly on that for each character.

I also have scattered thoughts on the violence and all of the High Evoloutianry's various facets but I think those will solidify once I watch it a few more times, so maybe that's for a loaded reblog.

Sorry about this post being such a mess. It was quite rambly and unfocused but I'm glad I was able to get my thoughts out on a movie I really loved. I like processing thoughts on media I consume through writing about it. Helps me get my head around it sometimes.