#so there were three of them with this subset

[quinnydoll]

A Good Companion Doll

There are many kinds of doll, as there are many kinds of Purpose for them. It would be quite the labyrinthine task to name every type, but if we were to boil them down to three base categories, we could classify most doll types under the following:

Service Doll

Combat Doll

Companion Doll

Service dolls are often for domestic or commercial use. Their job is to complete a task, and be polite and pretty while doing it. This, much like the other descriptions for today, is an incredibly broad simplification, but for our purposes, it is sufficient. These dolls are your cooks, maids, landscapers, mechanics, delivery workers, and many other things. There are some Purposes for Service Doll subsets which would be unnecessary and inappropriate to name, but much like all dolls who fulfill their Purpose, we can consider them from an outside perspective to be Good Dolls.

Combat dolls are implemented into military and security roles. Their job is either to eliminate or protect. The Purpose of a combat doll tends to be quite straightforward, as long as they're properly commanded by a good Witch/Miss/Handler. Combat dolls come in a diverse range of shapes, sizes, and constructions, but their Purpose tends to remain the same. Just like Service dolls, all who fulfill their Purpose, we can also consider Good Dolls.

Companion dolls occupy a space outside a singular implementation for use. They are often used for service, and sometimes used for combat, but as the category seems to suggest, they are intended first and foremost for companionship, and the tasks that may come along with it. Whether you need a doll to reciprocate affection, or one to entertain your guests, a companion doll may be suitable for you. These dolls can often be fickle, however, and without a clearly defined Purpose, need reassurance when they are in fact, Good Dolls.

"This one is a companion doll, Miss. B-but it's not a Good Doll..." The ball jointed hands of the companion doll having just read the pamphlet that came in its box fall to the soft, frilly apron of its maid dress.

The woman who's opened the box for the newly refurbished synthetic confidante gently slips the paper out from between its fingers, weaving her hands between them instead, "Surely that can't be, sweetie. I'm sure you're a perfectly fine doll!"

The doll shakes its head suddenly in response, "Its defined characteristics for itself being a Good Doll are, service to its Miss, refusal of hostility to all classified as Entities, and unconditional love to all Entities it cares about!"

The woman looks puzzled at the response from her new companion, "But you've been sweet so far... The chats we had before they mailed you to me seemed to suggest to me that you're a Good Doll!"

"It hurt someone, Miss... The one it believed it was going to be with forever. Its love is meant to be unconditional, how could it forget? It couldn't be romantic love anymore, but that shouldn't have made it conditional..." The doll's expression is downcast, and full of sorrow.

The woman leans in and wraps her arms around the doll, "You still care about this person, yes?"

"It does, Miss..." The doll's voice rings out quietly, nearly inaudibly, but still there. She picks her doll up and allows it to lean back in her arms, now nearly cradling it, "Then you're still capable of loving them, aren't you?"

"It... It is, Miss! And it will. It does, okay, this one does!" The doll stammers as it processes the message its new Miss is trying to send it, as its statement ends in mild excitement.

The Miss smiles as she looks into her dolls eyes, "Good Doll."

The companion doll leans up and hugs its Miss tightly around her shoulders, happy to have received this reassurance. The Miss returns the gesture in kind, tightening her grip around it as well. She's read the pamphlet as well, and knows how much her doll needs it. She needs to make sure her companion doll knows that it's a Good Doll.

"Thank you, Miss. A-and it loves you, too..."

[changeling-rin]

What are the secrets of RGBV that have yet to come up? (Servo+, feeling colorful)

None of their favorite colors are the colors that they're wearing. Link's favorite color, before the split, was yellow. RGBV's favorite color is still yellow, but there's a silent pact that none of them get to wear it because otherwise that would be unfair. They've all, separately, grown fond of their assigned color though. This will probably result in Link-the-composite wearing a near-literal color explosion to compensate, once the time comes to put the Four Sword back

Red has a running list of potential names in his head In Case Of Merge, because Link-the-composite can't be called Red! Similarly, Vio has a running list of potential synonyms In Case Of Red Wanting Names In Case Of Merge

If they lean into the Four Sword connection, they could pull a Four with very little effort. Full synchronization and everything. This does not, however, mean that they want to

Technically, all four of them can break the walls. It's just that Blue is the only one brazen enough to do it on purpose. Red just hasn't thought about doing it himself, Green is secretly tempted but too responsible to try, and Vio actually is against it

Of course, by these ratios, Link-the-composite would most likely carry on Blue's legacy, because there's not enough real opposition to stop that part of him

They are not very good singers or musicians

On the other hand, they're pretty decent dancers

The Four Sword split them evenly, but not necessarily in a way that would make sense. For example, Red is the one with the majority of the cooking skills, but Green is the one with the patience and the focus to actually stand in a kitchen and make something

They have a decent amount of spelunking experience and are among the few Links in the group who will willingly hop into a strange cave with no questions asked

The existence of Moon Gates in their native Hyrule have effectively skewed their entire perception of how common alternate/dark worlds are. Oh, multiple other Links have one of those too? Must be pretty normal then. (Spoiler: it is not)

They don't like to be cold. Warm-weather boys all the way

Their eyes have changed color to match their color. Vio has violet eyes, Blue has blue eyes, etc. Ironically, for all that Green can usually claim keeping their original color scheme, Link-the-composite did not have green eyes. (They were blue)

There is no such thing as a consequence-free soul merge, and therefore there is also no such thing as a consequence-free soul split. There's an event-horizon of no return with the Four Sword, and if they cross it they're effectively going to be a system when they merge back into Link-the-composite. They don't know this (nobody documented it), and they haven't crossed it yet, but...

Despite occasional evidence to the contrary, all four of them are actively and constantly making sure that the other three are within sight at all times. If it goes too long, they get twitchy. There's a little Four-Sword-influenced voice in their heads going 'those are your other pieces, do you know where they are? do you know they're safe? keep them close. don't lose them.' It's a safety feature so that the wielder is less likely to lose a facet permanently, because three remaining pieces trying to make up what was previously a four-pieced person... doesn't go well. It'd get classified as co-dependency, if they weren't literally pieces of a whole.

And lastly, they're amazing at group strategies - but only within their specific group. Left to their own plans, the four of them are the most in-sync team imaginable, outside of the actual Four. Add in additional Links and ask them to make a plan, and they're probably going to forget that there's other people they need to account for. This is why Green is not a leader of the whole Chain, but is still the de-facto leader of his Four-Sword-subset.

[crapeaucrapeau]

Mass Effect Alphabet, aka Milky Way writing system

For reference :

Source : https://www.pinterest.com/pin/anyone-interested-in-khelish-alphabet-quarian-alphabet-from-mass-effect-i-made-this-d-gaming--913245630657665250/

The person who deciphered the alphabet calls it Khelish, but we see it used outside of quarian ships. We just don't know who came up with it first. Here I think Doylist trumps Watsonian, because the writing isn't supposed to be translated, it's supposed to look alien. So even though Kasumi identifies the writing on those tablets as "quarian", I'd hesitate to call the script quarian because the devs re-used an asset.

Otherwise, why would the non-humans on the Citadel use their own alphabet to write in English ?

When I'm referring to "semiotic standard" in the tags, I'm thinking of Ron Cobb's iconography for Alien :

Source : https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/symbols.php#id--Semiotic_Standard

In my headcanon, you can find them across Alliance vessels. Presumably, what I tag as "mass effect semiotic standard" is evidence that the Citadel species have their own.

One point of note on the numbers of the Milky Way writing system : the numbers are clearly base-10 (since they're meant to ape our own), but beside 0, they're clearly divided in three subsets of three digits, with an additional bar suggesting an additional digit.

Completely gratuitous headcanon, because I'm incorrigible and I just like to make up stuff : if I had to give those numbers to anyone, I'd give them to the asari. We know they probably use base-10 mathematics (the only thing we know for sure is that they don't use base-12 but someone had to come up with the 10-heavy Citadel standard time, and it ain't anyone with three fingers), and 3 is probably a significant number in asari culture, or at least the cultures that were heavily influenced by the Athame Doctrine (3 aspects of the Goddess, 3 statues of Athame in her temple on Thessia in ME3, 1 Goddess + 2 guides + significance of 3 in real-life Wiccan and neopagan traditions which heavily influenced the Athame Doctrine and the asari in general).

Plus, y'know, the asari are supposed to have cultural hegemony.

If there's one writing system I'm really curious about, it's this one :

At the very least, we can say that, canonically, the primordial Athamist society appears to have used a vertical writing system.

(And also there are bird-like creatures on Thessia).

[aparticularbandit]

but also for someone who has definitely played around with amnesia and rebuilding and reliving and such stuff in fic before (just because i never posted it doesn't mean i didn't play around with it), i. now kind of want to figure out how to play around with that with junko. the scenario would need to be different. but.

[epicspheal]

Words Are Unnecessary! A Red Analysis

Picture this: You’re a 90s kid, you got a Gameboy and this new game called Pokemon (or as your parents likely called it, Pokeman). And you get one choice of protagonist, a boy from Pallet Town named Red. 

Game Red is a silent protagonist turned silent NPC, so one may think it might be hard to do a character analysis on him (compared to say his Origins, Pokespe or Anime counterparts). Yet like much of Kanto, Red is a character told through environmental storytelling.

Let’s start with his name, in all official translations his name is Red. The color Red is a primary color which low key represents his role as the protagonist and the top of the Kanto hierarchy. This is most apparent when you compare Blue’s Japanese name Green which is a secondary color (implying he’s the second best of the Kanto trainers). Symbolically the color red represents passion, love, strength, confidence and importance. As time has moved on and TPCi has made Red an important character just as much as a protagonist, we can see that he embodies so much of the symbolism of his namesake color.

He’s described as having a quiet passion and love for Pokemon. He exudes strength and confidence in any game related adaptation and he’s quite possibly the most important trainer in the series. When you consider the fact that originally, Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal were supposed to be the last games in the series you realize that Red’s naming was not just random but meant to be a story of his arc. From your entry into the wonderful world of Pokemon the formidable passionate flame on top of Mt Silver that would serve as your final obstacle. 

Alright so let’s take a look at Red’s team. Now canonically we know he completed the Kanto Pokedex of 151 unique little critters. That’s a huge accomplishment that affords him a vast rotation of Pokemon that most trainers in the world will not have. Yet in his NPC appearances we see that he tends to stick to a certain subset of Pokemon and this actually gives a lot of insight into his character

Like most Pokemon champions he opts for a more balanced team with varied typings. I’m going to focus on his HGSS team since that’s the one that is used the most over generations. We see he has a Pikachu, the three Kanto Starters, Lapras and Snorlax. The first thing that stands out is his use of a (very high leveled) Pikachu in a team of otherwise fully evolved Pokemon. This is of course a reference to Pokemon Yellow, but it also just shows his trust in his Pokemon. The fact that he would still keep one of his Pokemon unevolved due to the Pokemon’s own personal preference shows that Red respects the choices of his Pokemon. He even gives his Pikachu a Light Ball to hold in order to boost the powers of his moves, further showing how much he wants to work with his Pokemon to achieve their ultimate potential rather than deciding for them. 

The three Kanto Starters are a way to not formally canonize which starter he chooses, but they’re also a reference to Pokemon Yellow as all three can be obtained from gifts. The same goes for his Lapras and Espeon (in GSC) which are also obtained as gifts. Snorlax rounds out the team as the Pokemon he gets by waking up with the Pokeflute (the Pokeflute being a gift). So what does this all mean for Red? It shows that despite having caught the entire Kanto Pokedex (including legendaries and mythicals) he ends up prioritizing the Pokemon he got as gifts. This shows a very sentimental side of him. This makes sense when you consider the guide to Pokemon RBG where it shows he wishes to regain his friendship with Blue back after the latter starts being mean. The Kanto journey for Red is as much of a coming of age story as it is a sentimental one as he really wants his best friend back.

Now taking a look at the moves Red chooses for his team we can see he has a varied amount of attacks that helped to hit most types for super-effective damage. A couple of things to note here is that he does seem to have a preference for moves that give status conditions as a secondary effect showing that he tries to open multiple paths to victory in battle. This shows he is calculating and knowledgeable about the moves he uses. For his HGSS Mount Silver battle you’ll notice the Kanto starters all have the three ultimate moves: Frenzy Plant, Blast Burn, and Hydro Cannon. This once again symbolizes the high degree of love Red has in his Pokemon. 

However those moves are much like elemental Hyper Beams in that they require a recharge turn. And indeed Red has Giga Impact on his Snorlax which also requires a recharge turn. Not only that he uses moves like Focus Blast which has not the best accuracy. He also uses moves like Flare Blitz and Volt Tackle which give recoil damage. All this to say, Red has a bit of a reckless streak as well. Which checks when you think about how he single-handedly drove Team Rocket out of Kanto, and his actions during the Pokemas Kanto Villain arc. I do want to point out that he has the move Blizzard on three of his Pokemon which is normally a low accuracy move…except in the Hail. Which, what do you know, Mount Silver has Hail (er snow). This shows that while Red can be reckless he also is very smart in taking advantage of his surroundings. 

I’m actually going to jump to his Alola Team because you see aside from levels nothing has really changed except for the moves. Once again he still has some high risk-high reward moves but they’ve been toned down a bit. This actually provides a bit of subtle character growth as we see he’s toning down his reckless streak as he has become an adult. We also see in his moves and items in the battle tree that he varies the strategies he uses against opponents in terms of moves and items used. This is fitting given that this time he’s now known as a Battle Legend. He uses quite a few mega items in the Battle Tree which once again affirm the love and trust he has for his Pokemon.

Now let’s take a look at the few quotes we get from Red

"Hi! Do you like Pokémon? Uh no, I just asked you. Huh? You're strange!" 

"Hi! Thanks for earlier! Pardon? Is it that fun to mimic my every move?" - Talking to CopycatThis is one of the non-Pokemon Masters spoken words we get out of Red from RBGY/FRLG. Here he’s talking to Copy Cat who is…copying every word he says. It’s a funny bit of dialogue that shows despite being a living legend he was still definitely a kid with brutal honesty by calling CopyCat strange. But we get to see he is a polite child as he thanks CopyCat for the TM he get while also still curious as to why CopyCat seems to enjoy mimicking him.

"…?""…?!" -if Red defeats the player in the Pokemon World Tournament In Pokemon Black 2/White 2 When most of us think of Red, we think of the fact that he typically speaks in ellipses. I really liked this set of ellipses from the Pokemon World Tournament as it’s possible for any character to beat the player without forcing a rematch to progress the story. So that means any of the champions can claim victory. In the case of Victory with Red, here he seems to express a bit of shock that he won against Nate/Rosa. This shows a great deal of humility for him because by the time of the second Unova story events, he’s well regarded as a living battle legend.

"...I accept your challenge!" - To Blue before the Pasio Tournament Finals

This was a very touching moment between Red and Blue. Blue was admittedly rashly challenging Red to a battle due to his own insecurities about being a good rival to Red especially given the Pasio format of three on three battles. Normally when Red accepts challenges he does so silently, but here we see him make a verbal acceptance. This is huge because it shows how important Blue is to him. He recognizes Blue still struggles with insecurity in regards to the rivalry and rather than just wordlessly accept a battle, he tells Blue he accepts to show that he acknowledges Blue not just as his best friend, but as his rival. Even when he’s challenged by champions like Leon and Cynthia he is wordless, but with Blue he speaks to affirm the challenge. It speaks volumes about how much Red cares about Blue. Again going back to the RBGY guide book that talks about how Red wants to get his friend back, you can see how Red doesn’t want to lose Blue as a friend again and is willing to verbally affirm Blue, because he recognizes that words of affirmation are a love language to Blue.

"(Blue, Leaf...Let's win this—together!)" - in his head Okay so he didn’t actually speak this out loud but this counts. As they’re preparing for the finals of the Pasio Tournament, you see once again how much Red values his two childhood friends. He doesn’t just want this to be “The Red Show” where he, the living legend, effortlessly takes down the opponents and with all of  the glory going to himself. He wants to win it with the help of his friends. This once again shows how sentimental Red is as a person

"Congratulations! You won!"

This is also major in one of the few times he speaks after losing, but also in front of a large audience. Him verbally congratulating Scottie/Bettie and their team for their win shows a high degree of respect that he has for the rookie trainer to be able to lead a team to victory against him and his closest friends. Considering that (despite what team you use against him) the cutscene shows Rosa, Misty and Brock this is also a way of him showing major respect to the first two gym leaders he ever took on when he began his journey in Kanto years ago. 

"... ... ... ... ... ... Words are unnecessary!"

I remember seeing this “A Day with Sygna Suit Red” the first time and absolutely dying of laughter when these words were uttered. Red was absolutely trolling Flint and Scottie/Bettie at the moment knowing very few would believe them if they said they heard Red speak. It’s nice to see a more playful side of him that also shows why he, Blue and Leaf all get along so well. They’re all little shits. 

Alright I’m going to add a few more quotes from some other characters to give a bit more context to Red’s character

"Red is never satisfied with how strong he is. He's always looking for new ways to grow as a Trainer and bring out the potential of his Pokémon." - Professor Oak

With this quote from Professor Oak, we can see once again how despite how strong Red is he never lets it get to his head. He’s always constantly seeking improvement."With Red, what really stood out to me wasn't that he was strong but that he seemed very gifted as a Trainer." - Brock

Even though it may seem like to some that Red is portrayed as having always been this ultra strong trainer, Brock’s words here show that he had to grow into his strength. Yes he may have had a bit of a knack of battling, but those early victories weren’t flawless. He’s still fallible

"Well, don't go overboard with the tough love, Red." - Blue

To be honest, it was hard to choose a quote from Blue, since he won’t shut up about Red. But I really liked this one from the Neo Champion event. It gives some more fallibility to Red as he doles out tough love to his mentees and Blue cautions him about not overdoing it.  "Winning makes you two happier than anyone, while losing makes you the most frustrated. You're both unbelievably straightforward and earnest when it comes to Pokemon" - Blue, again And more quotes from Blue! Here we see him talking to Leon and comparing the two showing how similar they are on a core level. This comparison highlights Red having a straightforward philosophy when it comes to how he interacts with Pokemon and how he deals with battling. It's simple but as we can see from his results it's been very effective in catapulting to the sheer ability and strength he has.

“He’s been battling nonstop, even cutting back on sleep” - Elio That tough love he dealt to his mentees during the Neo Champion event also extends to himself as he pushes himself extremely hard after his close win against Leon in the Arc-Suit story. This tracks with him disappearing for years on Mount Silver to train after becoming the Kanto Champion. This highlights his drive to improve but also his reckless streak. It also shows just how much he respects Leon’s strength as he’s pushed Red to a limit he’s not used to being pushed to. It's also telling that he picks the three trainers (Elio, Rosa and Ethan) who in the mainline games are shown to be able to defeat his team. Once again highlighting Red's continuous strides for improvement.

Red throughout the years has been a powerful icon of the franchise and is in many ways a symbol for how as the generations pass, GameFreak continues to find new ways to explore the potential of the world of Pokemon. He’s a quiet flame filled with endless passion and a bit of recklessness. But above all he’s filled with love, love for Pokemon, the human friends he’s close to and the thrill of battle.

[comicaurora]

hi red!! i'm doing an analysis of sun wukong's (and journey to the west in general's) impact on modern culture for my world mythology final, and for some reason i'm having a hard time finding sources. is there anything you can recommend?

The fact that Journey to the West has contributed an enormous number of tropes to modern media is very clear when the media in question is examined, but I don't know of a specific secondary source that's already done that analysis for you. However, this IS a very good excuse for you to plow through a metric buttload of shonen manga, since the lineage is basically Sun Wukong -> Son Goku -> like a solid third of all shonen action heroes written in the last forty years.

Dragon Ball kicks things off:

Started in 1984 and almost unquestionably the most influential manga ever made. Its first arc features the weird super-strong monkey-kid Son Goku - which is just the japanese pronunciation of the characters of Sun Wukong's name - meeting up with a wacky crew of thinly-veiled expys of the Journey to the West crew, with teen inventor Bulma filling the role of Tripitaka, Oolong the pig-man filling Zhu Bajie's role and Yamcha the desert-based bandit as Sha Wujing.

Hijinks ensue, and while the story drifts pretty far from Journey to the West's original plot, it actually stays pretty solidly referential in weirdly unexpected ways. Several the villains of the week are JttW references, and even the later appearance of three more Saiyans lines up with the surprise reveal of three more Wukong-like mystical apes in the original story.

The connection between Dragon Ball and JttW is very unsubtle and a frequent reference in the chapter covers and supplemental art.

Not every subsequent JttW reference is the result of Dragon Ball popularizing it or anything, since it was already enormously popular, but I think it's pretty hard to extricate Dragon Ball's influence on anime and manga from the original influence of Journey to the West itself.

One way that a distinction can be drawn is in the differences in characterization between Goku and Sun Wukong himself. A lot of the next generation of shonen protagonists were kind of Goku-alikes - pure-hearted dumbasses who only care for the three Fs: Food, Fighting and Friendship.

But the original characterization of Sun Wukong is not really all that similar. He's a trickster, sure, but he's far from a young, friendship-motivated goober. He's profoundly intelligent, pretty much the most well-educated entity on the planet, and routinely brings up that he's centuries older than most of his peers. The Goku-alikes from the later decades of shonen anime are tellingly far-removed from that original characterization. So you get characters based on Goku's cheerful idiocy, but it's just a small subset of the broader influence of Journey to the West on the space of literature.

In general, Journey to the West frequently shows up in very small, bite-sized tropes in other stories. It's less "this is wholly based on Journey to the West" and more "oh, I know where they maybe got this idea/aesthetic/power/weapon/villain of the week from." There are way too many to list, but some of the ones that tend to jump out at me are-

Sneaky characters with monkey motifs:

Tricksy, highly mobile characters who fight with a staff:

Characters afflicted with a magical restraint artifact that allows a much weaker character to stop them from misbehaving:

Specific esoteric weapons, eg. magical fans, rakes, gourds, namedropping The Sword of Seven Stars, etc.

Villains with prominent ox or pig design motifs:

Characters whose primary combat strat is just making Shitloads Of Disposable Copies Of Themselves:

Honestly it just keeps going like this. It's kinda everywhere. Finding the JttW in things is my favorite conspiracy theory rabbit hole because it's 100% harmless and more often than not completely correct.

[alleycatchitchat]

Just rewatched The Three Caballeros and wasn't expecting such a goldmine of cute little moments that specifically appealed to a certain, uh, subset of the fandom... anyway have some Three Gay Caballeros screenshots

Donald Duck, coming on strong

Lots of dancing together in this film but I specifically like that Donald and José are reflecting the couple behind them in this scene

If I had a nickel for every time Donald leaped onto José and clung to him tenderly I would have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice

I call this one "Gay Panic"

José and Panchito's little cuddle here is really cute. Notice that Panchito pulls José closer; their heads are probably touching underneath the sombrero.

No thoughts head empty just thinking about Donald's head resting in José's lap

José is having the time of his life right now

Donald kisses him 6 times during this sequence btw. if you even care

LISTEN. LISTEN. I HAVE REWATCHED AND REWINDED THIS MOMENT SO MANY TIMES. Slowed it down, gone through screenshots one by one, nitpicked and analyzed and I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME DECIDE WHETHER PANCHITO IS SLAPPING DONALD'S BACK OR HIS ASS

I think my general conclusion is that Panchito slaps Donald's back and then lets his hand slide all the way down before he pulls away. But again, not 100% certain.

This one isn't shippy I just think Panchito looks really cute

I love this little dude look at his goofy rooster face

This one doesn't need a caption I don't think

bruh

I tried so, so hard to find a screenshot of this moment that wasn't cursed. So hard. This was too important to leave out

But still, look at José's horrible beak, that's going to haunt my nightmares

anyway shoutout to the polycule ever! three gay caballeros truthers were right all along

[au-roulette]

AU Roulette Challenge 2024

What is AU Roulette? A casual fic-writing challenge encouraging authors to play around with different types of alternate universe stories, which will be randomly assigned to each participant regardless of the fandom they sign up with. The goal of the challenge is to encourage creativity and get authors to write fics with premises they might not otherwise have considered, with varying difficulty levels of participation for writers of all experience levels.

How does it work? Writers will be able to sign up from now through June with a fandom of their choice. At the start of July, each participant will be assigned three AUs from a masterlist using a random number generator. Each author will then have the choice of completing the challenge one, two, or all three of the AUs. Any fic exceeding a 500-word minimum will be considered a completion, so long as it employs the AU premise. The fic-writing period of the challenge will run for a month. Fics can be posted at any point during this time, and authors will have the option of having them added to an Ao3 collection for the challenge if they desire. They can also be posted to tumblr using the tag #AU Roulette 2024

What kind of AUs will be included in the challenge? The AU Roulette challenge will focus largely on popular, staple AU types with broad applicability to any fandom or relationship type. For example, a possible result might be something like a Time Travel AU (encompassing all the possible subsets, such as fix-it time travel, time loops, or other tropes under the same umbrella), but more restrictive AU types like a Soulmate AU that make assumptions about the author’s interpretation of character relationships in canon have been intentionally kept off the AU masterlist. The official list of AUs will be kept under wraps until assignments are given, but will have over 30 different prompts to ensure authors receive a good variety of options, and if you have suggestions or concerns about what AUs are being included, feel free to reach out.

What if I get an AU type that doesn’t work for the canon I chose? Limited re-rolls will be allowed on a case-by-case basis. You are also encouraged to be as creative as you want with your interpretation of your assigned AUs, which may help with making them fit. The goal of this challenge is to encourage weird, creative fanfic, not to have every author who rolls the same result write cookie-cutter versions of the same types of stories. If you were to get a Coffee Shop AU, for example, there is no requirement that the coffee shop in question be a real-world 21st-century Earth Starbucks. In fact, deviating from the mold is highly encouraged. So long as you can make a case that you filled the loose premise of your AU type, you will get credit for having completed it.

Can I participate if I am not a writer? AU Roulette is a fanfic writing challenge, so official sign-ups are for those interested in writing (regardless of skill level or experience writing AUs). However, if you are interested in the challenge but not in writing fic for it, consider having a look at the #AU Roulette 2024 tag or the official AU Roulette 2024 collection on Ao3 once authors have begun posting their stories. If one of them really speaks to you, it might be a nice gesture to draw a piece of art, make a playlist, or create some other fanwork inspired by the fic and share it – in which case you would also be more than welcome to use the official tag!

(Authors are of course also welcome to do this for their or other participants’ stories, too.)

How do I sign up? Fill out this form with your email and fandom of choice.

Looking forward to seeing the AUs everyone creates this year!

[weaselandfriends]

Post-postmodernism in Pop Culture: Homestuck’s Revenge

I recently saw an excellent video essay titled Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now? by Thomas Flight. Though the title is opaque clickbait, the video is actually about major artistic zeitgeists, or movements, in film history. Flight describes three major movements:

Modernism, encompassing much of classic cinema, in which an earnest belief in universal truths led to straightforward narratives that unironically supported certain values (rationalism, civic duty, democracy, etc.)

Postmodernism, in which disillusionment with the values of modernism led to films that played with cinematic structure, metafiction, and the core language of film, often with more unclear narratives that lacked straightforward resolutions, and that were skeptical or even suspicious of the idea of universal truth 

Metamodernism, the current artistic zeitgeist, which takes the structural and metafictional innovations of postmodernism but uses them not to reject meaning, but point to some new kind of meaning or sincerity.

Flight associates metamodernism with the “multiverse” narratives that are popular in contemporary film, both in blockbuster superhero films and Oscar darlings like Everything Everywhere All at Once. He argues that the multiverse conceptually represents a fragmented, metafictional lack of universal truth, but that lack of truth is then subverted with a narrative that ultimately reaffirms universal truth. In short, rather than rejecting postmodernism entirely, metamodernism takes the fragmented rubble of its technique and themes and builds something new out of that fragmentation.

Longtime readers of this blog may find some of these concepts familiar. Indeed, I was talking about them many years ago in my Hymnstoke posts, even using the terms “modernism” and “postmodernism,” though what Flight calls metamodernism I tended to call “post-postmodernism” (another term used for it is New Sincerity). Years before EEAAO, years before Spider-verse, years before the current zeitgeist in pop cultural film and television, there was an avant garde work pioneering all the techniques and themes of metamodernism. A work that took the structural techniques of postmodernism--the ironic detachment, the temporal desynchronization, the metafiction--and used them not to posit a fundamental lack of universal truth but rather imbue a chaotic, maximalist world of cultural detritus with new meaning, new truth, new sincerity. That work was:

Homestuck.

That’s right! Everyone’s favorite web comic. Of course, I’m not the first person to realize the thematic and structural similarities between Homestuck and the current popular trend in film. Just take a look at this tweet someone made yesterday:

This tweet did some numbers.

As you might expect if you’re at all aware of the current cultural feeling toward Homestuck, many of the replies and quotes are incredibly vitriolic over this comparison. Here’s one of my favorites:

It’s actually quite striking how many elements of the new Spider-verse are similar to Homestuck; aspects of doomed timelines, a multiversal network that seems to demand certain structure, and even “mandatory death of parental figure as an impetus for mandated personal growth” are repeated across both works. The recycling and revitalization of ancient, seemingly useless cultural artifacts (in Homestuck’s case, films like Con Air; in Spider-verse, irrelevant gimmick Spider-men from spinoffs past) are also common thematic threads.

As this new post-postmodern or metamodern trend becomes increasingly mainstream, and as time heals all and allows people to look back at Homestuck with more objectivity, I believe there will one day be a rehabilitation of Homestuck’s image. It’ll be seen as an important and influential work, with a place inside the cultural canon. Perhaps, like Infinite Jest, it’ll continue to have some subset of commentators who cannot get past their perception of the people who read the work rather than the work itself even thirty years after its publication, but eventually it’ll be recognized for innovations that precipitated a change in the way people think about stories and their meaning.

Until that day, enjoy eating raw sewage directly from a sewer pipe.

(Side note: I think Umineko no naku koro ni, which was published around the same time as Homestuck and which deals with many similar themes and then-novel ideas, will also one day receive recognition as a masterpiece. Check it out if you haven’t already!)

[moltengoldveins]

so I just went digging in my old Word Docs and found like 30000 words of an eldritch fanfic abomination I completely forgot existed? It’s this weird mesh of what is very obviously Emerald Duo and Beeduo In Space (plus what I think might be Tommy and good-guy Dream? Unclear) just with slightly less Videogame names and a completely original plot that is eerily similar to Titan A.E. for my having never seen that movie before and ALSO for my NOT REMEMBERING I WROTE THIS while watching said movie. Also a strange sort of thing where I think every remaining human in the universe has a very strong compulsion to sing? I was perhaps making a statement about how music is what makes us human? But it feels a little weirder than that like maybe I was foreshadowing something else but I Don’t Know. Humans have sorta fallen back on as much Old Cultural Stuff in the face of Earth’s destruction, every human has a name like Athena or Theseus (three guesses why I think this guy is Tommy despite no other similarities) and the AI are like… super weird. Apparently AI were considered way too expensive to run on computers so aliens figured out how to implant them into brains and run them on that but then it was discovered that if you put an AI in a sentient brain it’d just become a sentient AI, develop a whole-ass soul, and start cohabitating with its host, so that idea went out the window and now a small subset of the population just has weird sentient beings in their brains. Techno’s Chat is apparently one of these. I think Dream is also one of these, but like, a brand new one in Tommy’s head. I say I think because again, I CANNOT REMEMBER WRITING THIS. It’s very humans are space orcs I like it a lot but like…. Where did it come from. When did I write this. What do I do with it.

[astriiformes]

AU Roulette Challenge

What is AU Roulette? A casual fic-writing challenge encouraging authors to play around with different types of alternate universe stories, which will be randomly assigned to each participant regardless of the fandom they sign up with. The goal of the challenge is to encourage creativity and get authors to write fics with premises they might not otherwise have considered, with varying difficulty levels of participation for writers of all experience levels.

How does it work? Writers will be able to sign up with their fandom of choice starting Monday, July 31st. Sign-ups will run for one week, at the end of which each participant will be assigned three AUs from a masterlist using a random number generator. Each author will then have the choice of completing the challenge on easy (writing one of the AUs), medium (writing two of the AUs) or hard mode (writing all three AUs). Any fic exceeding a 500-word minimum will be considered a completion, so long as it employs the AU premise. The fic-writing period of the challenge will run for a month. Fics can be posted at any point during this time, and authors will have the option of having them added to an Ao3 collection for the challenge if they desire. They can also be posted to tumblr using the tag #AUroulette2023.

What kind of AUs will be included in the challenge? The AU Roulette challenge will focus largely on popular, staple AU types with broad applicability to any fandom or relationship type. For example, a possible result might be something like a Time Travel AU (encompassing all the possible subsets, such as fix-it time travel, time loops, or other tropes under the same umbrella), but more restrictive AU types like a Soulmate AU that make assumptions about the author's interpretation of character relationships in canon have been intentionally kept off the AU masterlist. The official list of AUs will be kept under wraps until assignments are given, but will have over 30 different prompts to ensure authors receive a good variety of options, and if you have suggestions or concerns about what AUs are being included, feel free to reach out.

What if I get an AU type that doesn't work for the canon I chose? Limited re-rolls will be allowed on a case-by-case basis. For example, if you signed up to write fic for His Dark Materials and ended up getting a Daemon AU, your result would automatically be re-rolled. Similarly, if you were writing for a different fandom entirely but were unfamiliar with what a Daemon AU entailed and wanted to write something you didn't have to research the premise of, I would likely approve a re-roll (However, you would be free to give it a try! My goal is for this challenge to be accessible to people with all levels of familiarity with fic tropes, so you are also welcome to reach out and ask about your assignment).

You are also encouraged to be as creative as you want with your interpretation of your assigned AUs, which may help with making them fit. The goal of this challenge is to encourage weird, creative fanfic, not to have every author who rolls the same result write cookie-cutter versions of the same types of stories. If you were to get a Coffee Shop AU, for example, there is no requirement that the coffee shop in question be a real-world 21st-century Earth Starbucks. In fact, deviating from the mold is highly encouraged. So long as you can make a case that you filled the loose premise of your AU type, you will get credit for having completed it.

Can I participate if I am not a writer? AU Roulette is a fanfic writing challenge, so official sign-ups are for those interested in writing (regardless of skill level or experience writing AUs). However, if you are interested in the challenge but not in writing fic for it, consider having a look at the #AUroulette2023 tag or the official AU Roulette 2023 collection on Ao3 once authors have begun posting their stories. If one of them really speaks to you, it might be a nice gesture to draw a piece of art, make a playlist, or create some other fanwork inspired by the fic and share it -- in which case you would also be more than welcome to use the official tag!

(Authors are of course also welcome to do this for their or other participants' stories, too.)

How do I sign up? I will be reblogging this same post with a link to a Google form for sign-ups on Monday, July 31st! Watch this space and feel free to send me any questions you have about the challenge!

Looking forward to seeing the AUs everyone creates!

[tacoma-narrows]

Let's Get Back! presents the Shockwaves Tour!

[Disclaimer, this is not a real tour, this is just for fun lol]

AAA I have wanted to make a mockup of what a Let's Get Back! tour poster would look like for months now and I finally got enough an idea nailed down to make something!!

This was a super fun project to make!! I'd wanted to do some drawovers of some still shots from the music video for Beat Crusaders and Tropical Gorilla's song Droog In A Slum (the original pics will be below the cut) because I thought they really conveyed the sort of "action shots" I guess that would come from a band being on tour lol. With the originals being black and white as well, I wanted to see how that looked on my guys and I think they look pretty cool hehe

As you can also see, Let's Get Back! is not the only act on this tour! They're joined by Deadmeat as the opening act! Deadmeat is a band made up of @macaronichewtoyz's OCs and drawing my OC band collabing with a friend's OC band is something I've also wanted to do forever :3 If anyone else has an OC band (I know at least one or two more hehe) they will have a LGB! collab at some point !!

In terms of the tour locations, I didn't wanna assign dates to it bc that would have been WAY to complicated for the scope of this project, but in terms of locations, I tried to hit up areas relatively close to where my friends and mutuals live so they'd be able to see the show if it were an actual thing :3

Lots more goodies below the cut! Closeups on all the pieces in the poster, the logo, the original images that I drew over for the LGB! pics, etc.!

Hope you guys like this one!! Is LGB! coming to a city near you? Would you go and see them if they were? :3c

Closeups on all the LGB! pieces here! I rlly had a good time with these! Very much enjoyed the posing on PB and Rye's especially :]

Headshots of the members of Deadmeat! Requiem [she/it], Priscilla [she/her] and Brae [he/him]! Again, owned by @/macaronichewtoyz :3 Lots of things I've never (or only once or twice) drawn before with these three that was fun to work with! I am sure u will see a more dedicated Deadmeat piece from me in the future hehe

Here's the logo for the tour! I chose the name the Shockwaves Tour bc A) LGB! is out there making waves in their music scene, shaking things up, B) it ties in with their BLAST! album from earlier this year, C) it just sounds rlly cool as a name, and D) yes it also connects to the show Shockwave which is a subset of a special interest of mine lol. I was rlly happy with this logo tho! The perspective on it especially hehe

And then lastly, here are the pics from the Droog In A Slum music video that I based the pieces for the LGB! guys on :]

[mllemaenad]

Taash has a nemesis now. Okay, sure, why not.

Here's the thing, though. I have leave now, for the Christmas holidays, and I caved in and bought Tevinter Nights to celebrate. So I have just read Three Trees to Midnight, and am now making distressed noises about the Qunari again.

For a start, I'm still not completely clear on why and how "the Antaam" have rebelled. I mean: I know why. I'm not claiming to not have read the Codex entries. But a bunch of it doesn't quite sit right with me. We know that the Dragon's Breath operation was led by a member of the Ben-Hassrath (Viddasala), and Rissan is apparently involved in the subsequent invasions – so it sounds like the Ariqun is up to their neck in this.

The Dragon's Breath operation was apparently also broadly popular in Par Vollen: you've got a whole population terrified of magic, and now there are holes in the sky and spirits and demons everywhere. So, sure, the general feeling among the Qunari was "that bullshit needs to stop right this instant".

I get that. There was discontent against the more open-minded Arishok, but the discontent is society-wide. I think it would have to be, in order to prompt a widespread rebellion.

We also know that not all of the Antaam did rebel. Most of them did, but some of them stuck with the old Arishok, and they've just now all rebranded as members of the Ben-Hassrath.

It feels like the rebellion should be more cross-sectional: Antaam heavy, because they're proposing a military operation, sure, but with some subset of the Ben-Hassrath, Tamassrans, and the craftsmen working under the Arigena also on board.

But then ... despite the fact that all of this sounds like a mass religious schism, which should result in two versions of the Qun operating simultaneously (and might make a fascinating parallel to the Orlesian and Tevene Chantries) they then turn around and go "Nah, the Antaam are just rioting across Thedas. Because they're bad people. The Qunari put all the bad people in the bad people army and now they're being bad on the grand scale".

There isn't a leader: no replacement Arishok to put up when they tore down the old one. There isn't a plan for Dragon's Breath v2. It's not even that those things existed but it all fell apart somehow. They're just bad people who do bad things. And despite the fact that achieving mastery is a core tenet of the Qun (and one that I suspect would be hard to throw off, even if one left), all of these people just being outrageously bad at their jobs all the time does not seem to bother them.

All of which is to say that I quite enjoyed Three Trees to Midnight. The escaped prisoners who are chained together and must learn to work as one thing is hardly a brand new concept – but I at least found myself looking at a version of the Qunari rebellion that I understood.

The story's villain, the Bas-taar, believes that he is following the Qun, and that he is in fact bringing the people of Tevinter to the Qun by conquering them. There's a subtext to his story that he feels like the rest of the Qun will turn up to help eventually, once they accept that the Antaam were right. He is also, as Strife frequently puns, kind of a bastard – he has difficulty thinking about bits of the Qun that don't directly apply to his role and falls back on brute force when out of his element.

And where, where, in Veilguard are these guys:

"I am Saarbrak, of the Ben-Hassrath," he said, and the other Qunari scrambled away, turning their backs on Myrion and Strife and the bear as though he were suddenly the greatest threat. "I heard rumours," he said, walking forward and looking to the Qunari in the clearing, "that the Antaam who took Ventus did not act in accordance with the Qun." He sounded disappointed. "Some of the bas now call us monsters." He gestured up at Myrion and the others on the hilltop. "And they are not wrong. This is what threatens the Qun." – Tevinter Nights: Three Trees to Midnight

I cannot tell you how much I want some tired Ben-Hassrath agents (possibly even the old Arishok's men) to turn up and sigh, and point out that they don't know what those idiots think they're doing but it ain't the Qun.

Were they going somewhere with all this at some point? Why aren't they anymore?

[alexanderwales]

Movie Review: Subservience

I did actually end up watching Subservience. I had absolutely no preconceptions going into it, but ... man, bad movie. I will admit to having watched this one on a second monitor while playing a video game, but I don't think that really impacts my reading of it.

It turns out that it's an erotic thriller, and specifically, a type of erotic thriller that I'm not sure has a name, but which I'll call "man ruiner". These were all the rage in the early 90s before petering out, and I've seen it called the "woman from hell" genre, though this is a somewhat more specific subset that would exclude movies like Single White Female.

Basically, there's a hard-working but horny family man, a woman comes into his life and seduces him, he either cheats on his wife or resists temptation, then the woman goes psycho and attacks his family, his wife, and him, before dying, with the man having learned a valuable lesson and reconciled with his wife.

Fatal Attraction is the ur-example, and there aren't that many of them, even if there were enough that people got sick of them. Swimfan is a bad movie, but I have the impression that it's the most recent one people really remember.

Often the woman in question is a subordinate of some kind: a nanny, temp worker, an assistant, someone who is, in theory, in a position of much less power than our male lead. Sometimes, she's young. Sometimes real young, like creepily young (The Crush).

The psychological impetus for this kind of movie is male desire. It's playing on a male fear of a "moment of weakness". One of the key features is this inverted power dynamic. The woman is the aggressor, not just when we get to the thriller part, but as we're ramping up. The woman might be a maid or teacher or employee, but she's on the pursuit almost from the get-go, and her obsession is what drives the plot.

So this movie is just like all of those. Our protagonist is a construction foreman whose wife is in the hospital with a weak heart, and he's taking care of two little kids on his own. He hires a hot robot maid/nanny, played by Megan Fox, who basically immediately begins acting inappropriately. She eventually sleeps with the main character, but when she does, he has basically as much deniability as he possibly can while she pushes through his weak resistance. I'm pretty sure a movie like this will always have that structure, attempting to preserve the man's "virtue" and make him into a victim of the woman and her wiles. These movies are always sympathetic to the man even as he makes his "mistake".

The fact that she's a robot woman is immaterial until like ... act three. She could have just been a maid he hired until then, and virtually nothing about the plot would need to change. There's a half-assed B-plot about robots taking over a construction site and automation taking jobs, but I never felt like they were taking that seriously, and I doubt anyone in the audience was thinking that either. It didn't tie in well with the main plot.

There's fuck-all explanation for why the robot maid goes psycho, except maybe that it's part of a bad batch and our hero had her do a minor memory wipe so she could experience Casablanca fresh without her pre-programmed spoilers. This somehow gave her root access. I know that sounds stupid, but I swear that's like half the explanation they give.

This movie, and others that are in the same subgenre, come from this sort of anxiety about having power over other people, and especially being attracted to people we have power over. It's a horror story whose moral is "don't fuck the nanny" or "keep it professional with the secretary" or "absolutely do not chat up that sixteen-year-old" or just "don't shit where you eat". I think that these are good morals, but I feel vaguely gross about wrapping them in eroticism and presenting the people these horror stories happen to as the victim. The roles are almost always reversed in real life: the protagonist of this sort of movie is in a position where he's far more likely to be a perpetrator abusing a position of power. It's still a plot I can get behind, if they execute well (by this I mean, sell me on the mistake, sell me on the allure), but this one didn't.

(There is at least one example of an opposite-gender version of this basic plot, 2015's The Boy Next Door, which features Jennifer Lopez as a teacher who sleeps with a teenage student in a "moment of weakness" and gets her life wrecked when he goes obsessive stalker on her. 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. I haven't seen it but the trailer is the whole movie.)

So a bad movie, overall. It sadly had nothing to say about artificial intelligence or our relationship to it. It doesn't even really have much to say about these characters, and their relationship to each other, and the ethics of fucking a robot maid. There is a genuine lack of subservience. It's the kind of movie that makes me want to write a better version of it, something that gets at its actual themes more than it did, making better use of the conceit. But I felt no desire to absolve this man of his sins, and I think that's also one of the central fantasies the film offers, so maybe if I ever attempted to write a "man ruiner" film I would end up getting it wrong.

[synesindri]

piecing through stuff from billy gibson's death scene, particularly with an eye to guessing how much of an idea he had of what was coming

relevant billy gibson background: machiavellian approach to self-preservation, has done metaphorical backstabbing, is the one who initially proposed the mutiny idea for pragmatic "there are too many guys out here" reasons, has been instrumental in the mutiny (albeit less visibly and less executively than hickey and tozer). not noting any of this to be accusatory, just pointing out that throwing people under the bus for his own sake is something he has been repeatedly willing to do. this way of thinking is familiar to him, independent of his being in cahoots with other, more physically violent characters, so it probably wouldn't surprise him at least in theory that one might kill a sick person under such extreme circumstances, whether or not he'd ever expect that to happen to him

when hickey asks goodsir if gibson can haul tomorrow, billy's attention snaps up like he is aware this is Important And Meaningful Information — perhaps more important and meaningful information than his own physical deterioration and imminent worse suffering/death

when goodsir says he doubts it, billy insists to hickey that he can. again, he probably knows not being able to haul is going to be more important to hickey's next actions than how billy is feeling

when hickey gets up, billy clings to his sleeve (albeit without much conviction...he is extremely listless in this scene but he was able to shuffle his way into the tent such that i think he probably could have made a better grab if the clinging was intended to be a real effort to bodily keep hickey from leaving. symbolic gesture)

when hickey is out getting the knife, we get a quick shot of tozer intensely watching hickey walking like he is aware some shit is about to go down

dialogue while hickey is fetching the knife: billy: "i wouldn't either, doctor." goodsir: "what's that, mr gibson?" billy: "comfort us. any of us. we're..." — this seems most probably to be about goodsir's blunt bedside manner explaining to billy what is going to happen as the scurvy progresses, but it could also plausibly be about hickey leaving after hearing the can't-haul-anymore diagnosis. this is interesting to me because in a way this is billy doing sort of a kindness for goodsir by effectively telling him he understands why he wouldn't be nicer to him (given that niceness is pretty characteristic of goodsir with his patients to this point), while also being an admission that billy himself does not regard this to be a situation in which he would be nice either...comfort doesn't really enter into it in his mind anymore (although that he brought it up at all suggests that he is probably thinking about being comforted, even while understanding why that is not happening)

billy does not seem on edge and is not looking toward the entrance to the tent when hickey is gone; if he is expecting to be killed, he probably either does not expect it to happen right then, or is so fine with it that he isn't worried about it. i'm inclined to go with the former (if he expected to be killed at all) given his feeble attempt from like two seconds ago to convince hickey that he can still haul...doesn't seem like a guy who is at "please just put me out of my misery" quite yet to me but who knows

my guess is that there had been at least one mutineer planning session including hickey, tozer, and gibson in which the eventuality of guys being too sick to haul was discussed and it was decided that this would result in culling them in some way. whether the specifics of that were addressed between the three of them (or any subset thereof), and which specifics were addressed if any, is pretty unclear to me — hickey seems like he had decided how this would work, and tozer seemed like he might have either known or guessed, but whether it was ever discussed and in how much detail and between which people...idk

i do not think this scene suggests that billy expected to be killed precisely when he was, but it does seem to suggest that he was not anticipating a lot of long-term care. he also doesn't seem to take this personally; people being unable to haul seems like an eventuality that there were plans about how to address in the abstract, and he just happened to be the first of them to reach that point. he's not expecting special treatment; he doesn't seem to really believe in special treatment for any of them anymore by this point, extended from anyone to anyone. this is very clearly not how he wants things to be progressing for him, but i don't think he really acts as if any of it is unfair either. he does not seem to me to be particularly frightened of his illness; he does not seem frightened of hickey; he seems frightened of having unluckily reached a possibly-preestablished tipping point of having become a hindrance to the group

[rebel-wrath]

Adding Humour to Serious Stories

With Chad having a rare communicable foreign disease in the last chapter of Noun and Noun of Adjective, I figured this would be a good time to talk to you about STDs.

Particularly, I want to talk to you about a scene in the movie The Predators. And about STDs. And about jokes in fiction.

There's a scene in that movie where it's setting the location, letting you know the next scene is taking place in a school, so it shows you the outside of the school, and there's this noticeboard that says something about an open night, parents and STDs welcome.

Now clearly STD means student, and clearly it's intended to be funny. It's there long enough for you to read it, and there were a lot of laughs in the crowded cinema I saw this movie in. But the movie makers forgot about Chekhov's gun.

Chekhov's gun is that thing where if you see a gun in Act One, it has to be fired in Act Three. We saw STDs in Act One soooo there should have been some gonorrhoea in Act Three.

Its common now for films that aren't comedies to have moments of humour in them – action movies never used to be funny – how many times did you giggle when Swarzenegger fought the Predator in the Jungles of Guatamala? If you haven't seen it, you should watch it.

Anyway, action movies are now funny, and that's not a bad thing – a laugh can relieve tension. It's why people laugh after jumping at a scare in a horror movie.

But action movie writers and directors don't always think things through when adding a joke. They don't consider the consequences of the joke. They don't think about the message the joke brings with it, and how it impacts on a film, and The Predators is the best example of this I've seen.

This doesn't really apply to comedy. There's no point applying something like logic to something like Monty Python's Holy Grail, and even something like a Judd Apatow movie might have moments of absurdity in it. However, action is a subset of drama – it tends to present itself as a serious endeavour, except in the action sequences, which can be totally over the top.

It's like how fantasy can have magic but it also has consistency between characters and in its worldbuilding.

If there is a sign outside a school – someone put that sign there. Maybe a teacher, janitor, administrator, whoever. If the sign says something dodgy, like calling students STDs, that tells us something about the person who put the sign there. They maybe aren't big thinkers, big planners, they maybe don't foresee problems.

The Predators could have used this. They could have had that character actually in the film, made them screw up a plan to stop the predator – the joke would have added characterisation and foreshadowed the fuck up to come. But instead The Predators completely dropped the ball – they shoehorned in a joke that gives a momentary laugh and then goes nowhere – for no reason other than the fact that every single movie has to be funny now.

It was a complete waste of something that could have been wonderful.

But it's a good lesson. Learn from it, apply it to your fiction. Think about the jokes you include – it's nice to make your audience laugh. But don't go for laughs at the expense of character. Don't sacrifice the integrity of your serious story to get a giggle. Have your humour also add meaning. It will have a greater impact on readers and they will love it.

And get your beta readers to test your story for STDs. 

THIS CHAPTER IS - Lethal Weapon

NEXT CHAPTER IS - Princess and the pony

ALL - Noun of Noun and Adjective