#that's just a one-note 'damsel in distress' trope but as the protagonist

[eviltothecore13]

Is it just me or has fandom overall...changed a lot in how it talks about its favourite characters over the past few years?

It used to be people who really liked a character would be like “this character’s the best at everything, they can do no wrong, they’d win every fight, they have a plan for everything, they’re the coolest cleverest most attractive person in the whole story!!!”, and like...that could go too far, it could be annoying or just really really inaccurate compared to canon (I used to know a Jill fan who insisted that Jill could easily beat every single character in the series in a fight--and look, Jill is very cool, but Chris was canonically the best in hand-to-hand combat at STARS and was also training HER in marksmanship, Jill is of course extremely capable but...she really does not have to be the best at everything to prove why she’s your favourite...for that matter, Wesker fans who were like “Wesker in RE5 has to be a clone/a fake/whatever because the REAL Wesker would never LOSE because Wesker can’t make mistakes!”...always made me go *stop, please, it’s embarrassing*), but it did...make sense why someone who really loved a character would say these things about them?

But now it seems like the kind of comments people make about their favourite characters, and the way they portray them in fics, are...pretty much the opposite of that? People will be like “my blorbo is SO STUPID! they’re so useless they can’t do ANYTHING! they’re a pathetic weak little wet paper bag!”

Like, a few years ago if I’d seen a post saying things like that about a character I’d assume it was written by someone who hated them?

And obviously...sometimes a character you love is kind of a dork, or makes some silly mistakes sometimes. Other times a character you love is a terrible evil person. I’m not saying everyone should equate liking a character with thinking they’re perfect. But...most popular characters AREN’T actually completely stupid and incompetent at absolutely everything, and I can never quite get my head around it when people seem to hold this view of a character and it’s clearly not true, like...if you really think they’re pathetic, stupid, and can’t do anything right...do you really like them that much?

I’ve seen fandom call characters stupid/idiots when they are either science geniuses, or they’re brilliant inventors who build sci-fi gadgets, or they’re scheming chessmaster strategist types who manipulate all the other characters for years and come very close to taking over the world, or maybe they just canonically speak several languages and are well-read, or even if canon doesn’t focus much on their intelligence you’ve got characters like Chris who was a USAF fighter pilot--which means he has a degree, judging by the timeline probably an Air Force Academy one, which means he was likely in the top 3% of his high school classes and DEFINITELY didn’t “barely scrape through” as I often see headcanoned (not just by people who want to bash him but people who are like “I love him! He’s such a big dumb himbo! He’s so stupid!!” like. what.)

Similarly I see characters who are canonically very confident and self-assured, never really doubting themselves for a second, and who canonically react to things going wrong by calmly adapting their plans and moving forwards without ever getting discouraged, get tagged on posts about “pathetic wet paper bag men who’ve never had a good day in their life and an insult from a child would make them cry”.

Or characters who are shown in canon as dangerous, powerful and near-fearless fighters get written in fics, by people who say they’re their favourites, as spending all their time crying and flinching and not even trying to defend themself from whoever’s attacking/trying to hurt them (and not because they went through some major trauma previously in the fic that left them in this state, either--often the fic is set during canon and the character is just...like that rather than something having happened to change them from who they were at that point in their life in canon)... personally, while I enjoy whump, whumping a character who’s ALREADY weak and helpless and spends all their time curled up in a corner crying BEFORE whatever you do to them in the fic can easily just feel like kicking them while they’re down and is honestly boring because it doesn’t show anything NEW about the character, so it’s particularly odd to see fics written that way when the character in canon is exactly the confident powerful type that I do think is fun to whump.

(For a specific example, RE canon is that Wesker and Sergei had a rivalry and Wesker seems to view Sergei mostly with disdain and see him as an annoying obstacle. Wesker never gives any sign of being scared of or intimidated by Sergei, and certainly doesn’t seem to start panicking the instant Sergei enters a room. And even before he had his powers, he had extensive combat training by the time he met Sergei, and Sergei being taller and heavier doesn’t inherently mean that Wesker would be defenceless and go down in one punch in a fight, or even that Wesker would LOSE a fight against him. Canon doesn’t depict Wesker as a helpless victim for Sergei to beat up...hurt him by all means but it’s OOC if Wesker doesn’t give as good as he gets.)

Oh, and characters who are canonically master manipulators who are experts at getting people on their side and gaining their trust being portrayed as so socially awkward and clueless that they’re incapable of holding a conversation without coming across offputtingly weird...

Maybe I’m the odd one out here but I can’t really get why you’d want to present your favourite character as LESS capable, LESS intelligent, LESS brave or confident or powerful or whatever other impressive traits they might have in canon? Like I wouldn’t go so far as to say I ADMIRE all my favourite characters, because some of them are murderous evil monsters, but...I generally do see them as either having some kind of admirable personality trait (courage, integrity, confidence, determination... or maybe just a lot of charisma and a good sense of humour, though I feel like charisma tends to overlap with confidence a fair bit...), or at least as being very good at what they do. I can kind of get the appeal of the “sweet and kind and caring but not that bright ‘golden retriever man’ type”, even though they’re not usually MY type, because I know some people primarily like characters who they think it would be good to be friends with (and most of those types of characters aren’t USELESS, at the very least they tend to be good at listening and being supportive), but when someone’s favourite character is a bad person AND they seem to think they’re stupid, useless, incompetent and pathetic on top of being evil it’s like...so what do you even like about them?

[dw-flagler]

In this post, I will attempt to calmly, reasonably, and in-a-good-faith-manner argue all the points raised by tumblr user @library-bat-girl in the following posts. I am starting a new thread so as not to further destroy the original poster, @skitterenjoyer's, tumblr notifications. Worm (+MHA) spoilers ahead. This will be a long post.

Firstly, I would like to apologize on the worm fandom's behalf. We will not engage in ableism of any kind. I sincerely hope that this was a singular incident and @skittersdrippygirlcock will be better about this in the future.

"MHA has better characters,"

My Hero Academia's primary achievement, I think, is managing to make many decently well rounded characters in a fairly short time-span. It certainly has very good visual character design, with easily memorable character designs, like Mina Ashido or Tsuyu Asui. Most of Class 1A is shown to be more than single-note gimmick characters. For a story with such a tight schedule, and only so much page real-estate, that's impressive! For instance, a character decidedly outside of the main cast, Fumikage Tokoyami, is shown to have more to his personality than "is an edgelord," showing a humility and friendliness that is highly against-type. This is very different than a lot of its peers, especially in Shonen manga, where side characters (and sometimes even main characters) are never more than their tropes (see Fairy Tale, One Punch Man*, The Seven Deadly Sins, or Black Clover). My Hero Academia does clear that bar, by making side characters little more than their tropes. This is to say nothing of the primary cast, who, again, is largely defined by tropes and easily slotted into standardized interchangeable Shonen roles. Rival, Love Interest, Rival but Nice About It. Additionally, MHA has an uncomfortably sexualized main cast, for one composed primarily of minors.

This is compared to Worm, in which many characters are fully realized and could have been the protagonist (and often were in older drafts of the story, due to Worm's 10-year development hell). Every character that gets an interlude, and most that don't, all have fully realized interiority, traumas, and wants. In fact, this is one of the major themes of Worm. Every character, from the protagonist Taylor, to characters so minor they're seen only once (see Damsel of Distress, Dauntless), to major antagonists and monsters (see Jack Slash, Bonesaw) all have their own story, even if this is never shown on-screen. There are no "side characters" in the same manner as in My Hero Academia, because every character is a protagonist of their own story, and not in a trite "life is so beautiful" way.

Taylor isn't the center of the universe, there's an entire world outside of her 3-block bubble. The mechanism by which all characters get their superpowers means that the mere fact of having powers implies this about them. Even the seeming exceptions, aren't (see Alexandria, Garotte). Taylor is a good character. I don't even know how to elaborate on that. She just is. Worm does not have the character Minoru Mineta.

"a better plot,"

What... what is the plot of My Hero Academia? For the life of me, I can't seem to recall. I can tell you the general formula of most of the arcs for the first ~2/3rds of the story. Class 1A goes to do a hero high school thing, like do rescue training, or on-the-job training, or on-the-job-training, or on-the-job-training (they do it like 4 times for some reason), the League Of Villains shows up (even when it's seemingly not the league of villains it actually is the league of villains) they fight about it, the class beats all the villains, and Deku beats up strongest bad guy and also breaks his bones. Repeat step 1. But like. What's... the plot? The League of Villains is evil and wants to kill people and do bad stuff. They explicitly do not have greater motivations. There's generally themes of passing-on-to-the-new-generation, so there's Tomura Shigaraki as the arch nemesis to Izuku Midoriya, just as All Might's Nemesis is All For One. Eventually they fight a big fight about it and I stop reading because I find out about Worm. From what I understand (I have not read the conclusion) the series ends without addressing any long-running questions, wrapping up any character arcs, or concluding anything in a narratively satisfying manner. As if severely rushed.

Worm, there are maybe 15 main stories going on simultaneously, which are all tied into the final confrontation with Scion. The most obvious is Taylor's and the Undersiders' story, about taking over Brockton Bay and defeating Coil, which is a smaller part of Coil's story about taking over the bay, until their confrontation with him in arc 17, when it supersedes Coil's story, and then intersects with Cauldron's story, the Traveler's story, the Case 53s' stories, the Wards' story, all of it, in arcs 18-19. This is one example. A great deal of attention is spent making sure the reader knows that Taylor, the Undersiders, Coil, all of them, are bit players in a very large game. Despite this, it's never hard to follow, because Wildbow, while lacking some of the more flowery prose, manages extremely well at making his stories easy to understand.

"I feel like even people who like Worm can agree that Worm is not the most consistent piece of fiction ever written. The disjointed way it was written meant that emphasis was primarily put on 'What Wildbow thought was cool in the moment', [sic] and the story RADICALLY shifts gears every time a new arc starts."

What? Huh? Worm is extremely consistent. Like. 1.1 to E.x. It's, like. Not disjointed? Oh my god, are you talking about interludes? Is that what you mean? The interludes shift gears? Because that makes sense. It's one of the hardest things about worm, yeah. It's gripping! The interludes are a great idea to expand the world of worm, but the problem is that taylor's story is so intriguing that stepping away from it to focus on something else is hard, no matter how individually interesting. I want to read about taylor's escalation spiral, not the travelers! (As opposed to My Hero Academia having random escalation and de-escalation between arcs with no real explanation. We're reading about lives-on-the-line battles with child-slavers and then move to playing on a playground with little kids? Best I can think of is that this whiplash is intentional, but this is never communicated to the reader. Worm does not do this. Any de-escalation is met with the explicit understanding that this is merely a period of calm before things get even worse). Taylor's story wraps up in an extremely narratively satisfying fashion, following her story to its logical conclusion. There were so many ways it could have been avoided, but there was really only one way that it could have ended.

"better worldbuilding,"

This actually offends me. MHA could have had great world-building. It doesn't. Every potentially interesting bit of world-building is backpedaled out of or stopped before it could get anywhere. Or it's just never elaborated or expanded upon. Everyone having a superpower could have been cool, but the implications of this are nonexistent. The reasons for this having no real implications, that being the banning of quirks, also has implications that are also immediately backpedaled out of. It's been hundreds of years since our time, yet life is exactly the same. Nothing ever happens. Endeavor is a cool concept. I like Endeavor. his existence implies such interesting things about the world, how important hero ranking is to these people's lives, that he would create this horrific system of domestic abuse to try and get to the #1 spot. What does this say about this system of heroes that operates like a popularity contest? It could have said a lot. It says nothing. What does the League of Villains, a league of people who call themselves out-and-out villains, who base their ideology in opposing this system of heroes, say about society? Nothing. On purpose. Worm does something with this. One Punch Man does something with this. My Hero Academia puts it in the story, and lets it sit, unused, for a decade.

Worm has... unique world-building. Because it's both good and bad at the same time. Worm's #1 feature is its world. It's brilliant, full stop. Triggers, The Birdcage, the PRT, Exclusion Zones! Why does the status quo exist? what does it say about that society? What does it say about our society? Why hasn't society radically changed from how it is in our world? This is explained. This plays into the themes. The story wants to say something about this world, and so it does. There are characters whose stories explicitly delve into these themes that are set up in the worldbuilding, like Armsmaster, or Battery, or Bonesaw, or Coil, or Piggot or Alexandria or Taylor herself or Brian or Lisa or ANY OF THEM THEY ALL DO THIS. Sorry.

Anyway, the bad part is that the actual world is not well built (and is kind of racist). What's going on in Europe? There's a 3 blasphemies! a 3 what? never explained. What's going on in Asia, aside from Japan? China is a monarchy for some reason. Why? It's never elaborated on. India gets a little bit of elaboration, we're told its different but not how it's different. Wildbow uses machine translation wrong and names some guy caliph of dogs. This is like worm's #2 problem honestly (#1 is Amy). Wildbow tries to make the implication of a well thought out globe without actually making a well thought out globe.

"stronger themes,"

It really doesn't. As I said in the worldbuilding section, MHA makes a point out of not saying or doing anything. I don't know if editors made Horikoshi walk back the more ambitious story beats or what, but there are multiple points in the story where the author pretty much looks you directly in the eye and goes "This Story Isn't Saying Anything At All Even Though It Looked Like It Would. Lmao."

Worm has lots of themes. I think Armsmaster/Defiant's story is my favorite. His entire character arc (which is fully realized despite him being a background character for nearly the entire story) has a point to it. It says something. It's misanthropic and uplifting simultaneously, and manages to feel like it earns both. It's a shared theme with Bonesaw/Riley's story, explored in two different ways.

"Meanwhile MHA establishes an actual overall theme/message right from the start that expands and develops throughout the story. The worldbuilding is informed by the message, which informs the characters arcs and the people they become by the end of the story."

I notice that you never actually say what that message is. What is it? Like, for real. I'm not being confrontational or anything, like what is the message? Cuz' I can't think of one. My Hero Academia, at its very core, is a defense of the status quo. Much like its world-building, but much less forgivable, because it does do something new and unique with its world-building. MHA could have done some extremely interesting stuff with its early implicit critique of heroic society as shown with characters like Bakugo, or Shigaraki, or Endeavor, or Overhaul, or Midoriya himself! It just doesn't! It doesn't do stuff that Worm does do!

Worm does have a message. It has a lot of messages, actually, some that the author disagrees with somehow. Prison abolition, for one. We know Wildbow loves prison. Anyway, the big one is in the subtitle: doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Taylor's constant spiral of escalation, her dwindling attachments to her friends and greater focus on treating herself like a soldier is prevalent, and it is to be avoided. Taylor isn't a sin-eater. They don't exist. From what I remember, this is sort of explored in Deku's character arc for a short period of time, but much like everything else in MHA, it is backpedaled out of.

The funniest is "don't text and drive" though.

"Just on a basic level the way that the audience is meant to feel about Taylor oscillates wildly between being directed to think of her as a misunderstood victim of circumstance, or history's greatest monster."

That's kind of the point. Like. the audience isn't meant to look at Taylor the same way throughout the entire story. It's meant to change as she changes. Taylor's opinion of Taylor changes. The mistake here is saying it "oscillates wildly." it doesn't. It's a slow and steady change for the worse, as Taylor gets more violent and starts throwing away greater and greater parts of herself to become more like a robot and less like a person.

"But a bigger issue in general is tone. It's very focused on being dark and gritty and edgy, and it makes the mistake a lot of consciously edgy media does. IE: it thinks that all it has to do to be smart is be bleak and/or graphic. It doesn't really try to say anything, in fact it contradicts itself throughout the book as I mentioned before, it just throws in extremely graphic scenes and content periodically to remind the audience how fucked everything is."

Did you read the boys and think it was worm? What? It's not being smart when it's bleak or graphic? I actually personally like the endbringers or the slaughterhouse 9, and not because I like watching people suffer. These things exist for a reason. It's not being dark for the sake of being dark. The heroes could stop the slaughterhouse 9. We see that, when they almost stop the slaughterhouse 9 (it's explicitly shown that they are stopped from destroying the slaughterhouse 9). The question then becomes why don't they? It's a grim, brutal calculus, and one that wasn't worth it. That's the point. The Endbringers are different. It's not until arc 27 that they're really explained. You could either read them as a criticism of Eidolon or of ableism, honestly. I mean, it wasn't intentional, he didn't create them on purpose, he needed something to fight, because without that he's nothing. His powers are all he has.

"Worm spends so much time trying to be edgy that as with a lot of edgy media the edginess loses all impact quite quickly and becomes sort of cringe."

I don't really think so, but like. Okay. I don't think this is a reconcilable viewpoint (none of this is really but this especially), so like we're probably gonna have to agree to disagree. The only thing I can really think of as edgy for the sake of edginess is Amy's arc. But even that's not really true. It's meant to be an utterly avoidable tragedy that could never have been stopped because of the people involved. Much like Taylor, actually. Amy could have stepped back from the brink, but she didn't, because Amy could never have done that, and nobody else was willing/able to help. It's supposed to be a thing where you sit back and think of all the tiny ways this could have easily been avoided, but wasn't.

"When body horror happens it still has impact because it's not happening constantly."

I mean, I guess. But like. I never got desensitized to the body horror in Worm. It hit pretty consistently for me throughout. As opposed to MHA, where it was usually walked back by the end of every arc. I never felt much tension or suspense because it felt as if there weren't actual consequences. In Worm, when Brian was strung up on his nerves, it felt disgusting because I was fully aware Worm would explore the ripple effects of this. It felt entirely possible he would die there, or never recover, because Worm didn't pull its punches. MHA did. This is a matter of opinion. We'll just have to agree to disagree about it.

"But most importantly - you root for the heroes because the world actually seems like it's worth saving."

that's just, um. sorry. I'm really trying here. That's just. Uh. Dumb. Do you root for Batman cause Gotham is a nice city? Everything's worth saving, that's, like, at its most basic what the concept of a superhero is about.

"Not only that but MHA simply does villain protagonists objectively better than Worm."

um. No? There straight up aren't villain protagonists in MHA. The villains are the POV characters for, like, one arc? You know what, here's a good spot for it. It's stated throughout the story that Shigaraki and the League of Villains have a goal, beyond just death and destruction. They're here to stop the corrupt society of heroes (that MHA hints at the existence of before backpedaling away from), and bring about a fairer society. But then, and this part pissed me off, one of the characters, I think Bakugo, says: "you're just using that as cover! you just want to kill people, you have no noble goal!" and shigaraki's like "dang you caught me." and then it happens again with Deku! Because My Hero Academia is allergic to saying something. Nope! They're villains! No moral depth here! They're Villains, We're Heroes, Go Put Them In Jail.

This is opposed to Worm, where- "The characters of the villains and their origins are used to highlight the flaws in the Superhuman society"

"Most of the villains are only villains because society failed them in some way, and the specific ways in which that happened become big plot points that then play into the future arc of our heroic characters."

I had to walk away from my computer for this one. It's hard to be civil. It's really hard. Polite and reasonable.

So Worm is about this. To even say this without a shred of irony makes me thing you've never once read a single word of Worm and are doing this purely as bait. Or you've read all of Worm and are doing this purely as bait.

"They're actually extremely complex in a way that ends up being fundamentally important to the overall story - where in Worm the villains are either based heroes fighting a corrupt system or they're histories [sic] greatest monsters... until they're presented as heroes again."

I think I get it now. I really think I do. You're not supposed to agree with all the characters. Like. Worm is inconsistent, in that it follows the perspectives of inconsistent people. Of course Triumph and Armsmaster don't agree on what is right! They're different people, they have different perspectives!

"See. Worm fans keep saying "This is Bait." It's not Bait, you all are simply ridiculous and obsessed with this series to such a degree that you feel compelled to say "This is Bait" instead of just... ignoring it, because you have no actual counterargument."

Perhaps worm fans are inclined to believe you posted rage bait because you brazenly walked into another fandom's post and wholeheartedly proclaimed that the thing they liked was Stupid Idiot Bullshit For Fucking Morons, and refused to elaborate until prompted, at which point you said several things that are demonstrably false about Worm.

"Your only response to anything I've said is pedantry, bigotry, and deflection. If it was obviously just bait why are you engaging?"

Well, I'm engaging because I've been in a foul mood since I woke up this morning. Also because you, again, said some very rude and patently false statements about a story that I really enjoy and find narratively rich, even in its faults.

"MHA's characters do fall into archetypal shounen character roles - but they are all given a solid amount of focus explaining why they are like that and developing them into something bigger."

Again, as I said, it's a genuinely impressive feat to have an ensemble cast like what My Hero Academia has, and give so many of the characters a degree of depth, with such little manga to work with. I think worm does it better, but worm doesn't have to be economical about it. MHA does. The problem I have with this statement is that it becomes a question of scale. How much bigger? They're no longer defined by their tropes, instead defined by their opposition to their tropes. It's still a one-note character, you've merely changed the note from C to C sharp.

"so almost every member of the cast has an arc that either develops them past the person they initially seemed to be or explains why they're like that."

This is probably my favorite part about MHA. They do have arcs! I love ensemble casts! it does a much better job in this than all of its contemporaries, even One Piece. However, they are comparatively simplistic arcs that all follow a similar formula.

"I've heard people say MHA is neocon or pro-establishment but the story literally concludes by showing that society HAS TO FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE or the same problems that created the villains in the first place will keep happening. The entire time skip specifically focuses on the fact that for eight years the main characters have been forcing change in the world and addressing the issues the villains brought up."

Now, I'm going to be clear. I stopped reading My Hero Academia around chapter 275. I don't know the exact number, but it was the latest chapter in ~mid 2020. I would occasionally attempt to reread, in an attempt to catch up, but give up around chapter 200 out of boredom. I don't know exactly how the story ends, but I have read ~2/3rds of the story. I feel this gives me a pretty good understanding of the general tone of the story, unless it wildly changes tone at the 3/4ths mark, which you have explicitly said it does not, as it is extremely coherent and consistent. Therefore, I believe I can state with some degree of confidence that MHA does not do that.

I would certainly believe that it tries (and fails) to SFP it, but SFP does not promote a fundamental societal change. That's the problem. Strong Female Protagonist was willing to come up and say that Alison lived in a fundamentally unjust world, even if it was never willing or able to offer real change. And hey. You do what you can. I sincerely doubt My Hero Academia is even willing to call its world fundamentally unjust, from the 200+ chapters that I did read.

"In the case of the actual main characters, they have extremely comprehensive character arcs."

Adding this behind the last point just so that I don't have to reiterate I haven't finished the book. I am, however, very much not inclined to believe the actual main characters had extremely comprehensive character arcs.

Which plays back into the initial theory that ANYONE CAN BE A HERO.

man, spider-man did that better (not a real argument, but like, spider-man totally did that better). Not least because midoriya specifically could not become a hero were it not for all might giving him a power.

No, the Villains don't get happy endings,

Why not? Why do they go to jail, even the ones who changed and wanted to redeem themselves? Endeavor never goes to jail. He did some horrible stuff. He's redeemed himself in the eyes of the story, right? Anyone can be a hero, right? So why not them? Why haven't they redeemed themselves in the eyes of the story?

You may wish to turn this back on me and ask why doesn't Armsmaster go to prison? Because he's similar in some respects. But worm never calls prison justice. (for some reason, even though wildbow totally loves prison). Prison is punitive, a tool for those in charge to control those it manages to capture. Maybe some deserve life in the birdcage. Many don't. It doesn't matter. Because the birdcage isn't a tool of justice. It's not meant to be. it's a box to put the uncontrollable capes in, until they can be used as meat shields. So Armsmaster doesn't go to prison because the story says explicitly there is no point to it. But MHA? MHA says there is a point to it. Endeavor needs to go to prison if he wants to atone. He's escaping justice every second he's outside.

I have actually read Worm, and for the first half to two thirds I loved it.

Weird. That's exactly how long I really enjoyed MHA. Not, like relevant, to anything. Just odd. I mean, I don't actually dislike MHA. I think it's fine, actually. It feels like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to me. Funny (when Mineta isn't around), bombastic, and a good time, even if I don't think it's super thematically rich.

I'm not coming at this from the perspective of someone who has never seen any of the merits of Worm, I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone who really liked it, gave it a fair shot, and was eventually disappointed when it ended up not tying together right.

See, this makes me more inclined to think it's bait, actually. since you said "Oh yeah. MHA is published. MHA's been an ongoing publication with a large following for ten years, in a notoriously competitive industry. Now this might seem kind of unimpressive, it's a very low bar to clear I know. But it's one Worm hasn't, so. I dunno, I'd say that's fairly objective. Now you may think "Yeah, but Trash fiction gets published all the time." And that's true but again - Worm hasn't. The worst piece of fiction you can think of got published and Worm didn't. You wanna be an asshole about this? The thing you love is so mid that it was self published in 2013, couldn't get picked up for professional publishing until 2019 and as far as I can see has stayed in development hell since then." in your previous post. Sure, perhaps we can say you were pissed at the time, but "the thing you love is worse than trash fiction, an altogether nothing piece of literature that isn't even worth the paper it would hypothetically be printed on" does not strike me as the words of someone who "really liked it, gave it a fair shot, and was eventually disappointed when it ended up not tying together right." In fact, going back through your other statements on the story, you seem to have genuinely disliked it from the very beginning, on grounds of being too edgy (which I can fully understand the logic of): "IE: it thinks that all it has to do to be smart is be bleak and/or graphic," thematically incoherent: "It doesn't really try to say anything, in fact it contradicts itself throughout the book as I mentioned before, it just throws in extremely graphic scenes and content periodically to remind the audience how fucked everything is," and utterly devoid of purpose or meaning. "When it does introduce new lore that new lore is almost always overly convoluted and acts as a catalyst for things happening, but not really things happening that play into a wider theme or message. It's just "Oh and here's this team of god-level serial killers who are gonna string a dude up by his nervous system." Like yeah, cool visual, but what is any of this actually saying?" This does not sound like a ringing endorsement of the first half of Worm to me. In fact, this sounds like you hated every second of it.

"And frankly given the number of comments that are just people saying "Bait" - I don't think any of y'all have engaged with this in a fair or honest way"

I'm going to reiterate on my previous statement. I like my hero academia. Capeshit is my favorite genre, it probably always will be. They're my favorite genre of story. While I find the themes—or lack thereof—extremely frustrating, I still think of it as fun. I gave it a fair shake. I would probably really enjoy the ending if I didn't have a reading list that was 300 books long.

[xenonmoon]

Some last notes on the Volume 1 of the 2016 run before I go on with volume 2!

There's a layer of meta-commentary going on??? The way Khonshi tries to exploit him seems to vaguely echo the way the character was being treated by previous authors - reducing it at its mask only and/or insisting heavily on his mental health problems in a derogatory way. So slowly uncovering the lies, getting out and oppose Khonshu might also be seen also as an attempt to distance themselves from some characterisation drifts that has been piling up on the character after the original run But I want to see how it goes on at this point, might be something that seems like this in the beginning and then nope (or at least not like this)

The ending reprising the "you thought they were death? Surprise, it was all a dream!" that was also used in previous runs (kavanagh to resurrection war) and had a loooot of tongue-in-cheek vibes that I'm expecting to explode in a glorious subversion of the trope at some point, I'm curious

I really appreciated that the supporting cast was there working together to flee from the hospital and helping Marc along the way, it was a very important part of the original concept that with time was kinda lost and forgotten, drastically reduced to just a cameo for the sake of the plot or eliminated altogether to focus even more the spotlight on MK. Ok, they've removed them from the scene one by one over the course of the volume, but for a small moment it smelled like home.

I appreciated how when the last character of the supporting cast (Marlene, who MK cares about a great deal) left him leaving him alone his mental integrity (?) sort of started to crumble cycling through the different alters and each one of them had their own unique perspective that's visually rendered as a change of artist and setting. This plus the story being told in a way that the reader knows exactly as much as Marc does on what's going on creates a kind of engagement between the character and the reader that's integral part of the narration - god I don't know how to explain this The story being trippy and confusing becomes a way to tell the experience of the protagonist along with the events and story Like - the story is being told in one way, the way that it's being told is perceived as confusing by the reader, the perception of the story as confusing to the reader tells how the character's living it I HOPE IT MAKES SENSE

Gena staying at the diner - I've found it kind of forced. Ok, even the others leaving weren't super solid but they had their own plausibility within the narrative while Gena really smelled like "I'm staying because the plot says so", especially after telling Marc a few pages before she'd have helped him

Marlene being unconscious, ultra passive or going away with Khonshu-MK sounds pretty off for her character, considering one of the strong points of her characterisation was a subversion of the damsel in distress archetype

It's still a very good story mind you, I'm very curious to see ho it evolves with time

[semper-legens]

13. The Silver Collar, by Antonia Hodgson

Owned?: No, library Page count: 312 My summary: Thomas Hawkins, after surviving a death sentence and the ire of all of London (it seemed), was looking forward to a quiet time of relaxation. But when a bothersome preacher darkens his door, he soon finds himself in a spot of trouble. What does the preacher want with his girlfriend Kitty? Who wants him dead? And when he finds the truth, how will he save himself and Kitty from a terrible fate? My rating: 4/5       My commentary:

Some books just sort of call to you. Like this one, as a point of fact. It was out on one of our displays in the library, and I kept casting it curious glances every time I was shelving or doing the item request and happened to wander by. A historical mystery set, not in the Victorian era as is so common, but in the 1720s? Featuring a rogue who is notorious for having escaped the gallows, and touching on the impact of slavery in Britain? My interest, as I am sure you have gathered, was piqued, and I decided I was going to read this one posthaste. And, reader, I was not disappointed.

However, one note - is there anything so disheartening as getting about 50-100 pages into a book you're enjoying only to realise that, not only is it not the first in a series, but is in fact the fourth? People who design book covers should put that information front and centre, I swear it. Nevertheless, it is to this book's credit that I was never lost without the context of the previous books. Events pertinent to this book were recapped in a brief, but informative manner that was still entertaining, and the status quo of the characters and their relationships was well laid out from the get-go. Which, if you're going to come into a book series at the fourth instalment, was pretty much the ideal. No complaints from me writing-wise on that front!

So what of the actual book itself? It was a good read! I'm always interested in historical fiction that doesn't centre the white aristocracy or middle-class, and although the protagonist, Thomas Hawkins, is a gentleman by birth, he doesn't really have any of the privileges associated with it. Kitty, his girlfriend, likewise comes from money but is basically living as a pauper. There is mention of gay characters from previous instalments, and a major supporting character is Jeremiah, a previously-enslaved black man who is searching for his daughter. Jeremiah is interesting - the traumas he has experienced meant that he spoke with a stammer, but when he tells his story in writing he is eloquent and passionate. He is dedicated to his daughter, to the point of calling out Thomas when it seems that Thomas is just using him for his own revenge, and not wanting to help Jeremiah on his own and for his ends. This idea of a man born into slavery who manages to free himself and carve out a life is incredibly compelling, even if it's ultimately not the point of the book.

That's not to say that our main protagonist isn't anything to write home about, either. Thomas is exactly my kind of historical male character - rogueish, dashing, criminal, but with a heart of gold and a burning passion to do what's right, even when it goes against the social mores of the time. What I liked about Thomas was that he had elements of the Genius Detective archetype - he's very quick and makes logical deductions based on cold-reading his clients - but he shows how he came to his conclusions or where he just bluffed or made a lucky guess, and sometimes he's wrong, with devastating consequences. It's a more realistic take on that trope and I'm glad to see it. He's also chugging that Respect Women juice, which for an 18th century fella is very good to see.What else? Kitty, Thomas' not-wife, is a reasonably strong character as she fights against her kidnapper, though at times she did fall too much into the distressed damsel archetype for my liking. The villain is deliciously evil. And the glimpses into Thomas' past adventures, far from putting me off, ended up galvanising me to request the three previous books from the library. So, uh, watch this space for those, I guess!

Next up, we're back to the world of the vampire, as Lestat takes the stage.

[make-mine-movie]

Cinderella (1950)

Cinderella is the opening film of the Silver Age, and one of the most notable films in Walt Disney history. This movie set a huge precedent and is still exceptionally popular in the minds of young and old alike today. It has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 97%.

Cinderella is a fantastic movie that pulls Disney out of one of its darkest times in animation history and makes a profound comeback. It has set a multitude of precedents, some positive and others not, and has remained a staple in United States media since its release in 1950. It has a good plot and consistent theming as well, featuring a mostly interesting cast of characters. Unfortunately I can not attest to the prince’s personality, which is predominantly nonexistent. Beyond that, the movie is well-crafted and well-executed. I should elaborate upon two specific precedents this movie sets that are rather concerning although completely unintentional and not problematic if contained in this film alone (which they unfortunately are not). The lesser of the two, although still bothersome, is the premise that cats are inherently harmful and malicious. Lucifer, a cat literally named after the devil, is a sadistic, cruel, and overall terrible character. It is continuously implied that all cats are like this, not just him, although he seems to be an exaggeration of this characterization. The second problematic precedent set by Cinderella, which is both more impactful and harmful, is that of women as submissive “damsels in distress.” In Cinderella, Cinderella is submissive to most of the characters in the movie and in order to escape she has to be saved by a man. It should be noted that in her film she essentially gets herself out of a bad scenario, continuously advocates for herself, and works hard to achieve her own happiness. Her intention of going to the ball is not to be saved by the prince, but to have a singular night of freedom. Rather, this trope is not at the fault of the actual story of Cinderella, but the poor interpretations of the audience. However, the narrative persists nevertheless.

In conclusion, Cinderella is a great opening into this next era of Disney animation. Overall, Cinderella receives 10 out of 10 stars from me, a perfect score! It initially lost a point for Prince Charming’s nonexistent personality, but easily regained a point back with its wonderful music. It also passes the Bechdel Test.

Summary of the film under the cut.

Cinderella opens like a storybook, introducing the protagonist as a young girl with a widowed father. Her father, with the intention of giving her a loving mother and expanding their family, married Lady Tremaine, a wealthy woman with two daughters, Drizella and Anastasia. However, after a short while Cinderella’s father died, leaving her alone with the rest of her family. Her stepmother began to abuse her, and eventually after years of disrepair and poor spending at the hands of Drizella and Anastasia, Lady Tremaine forced Cinderella to become the family’s servant. Flashing forward to the present day of the story, Cinderella is living in a tower on the side of the family’s manor. She is awoken by birds and mice, her closest friends. She tells them of the dream she was having, her dream of leaving her abusive household for something better. One of her mouse friends, Jaq, informs Cinderella about a new mouse in the house that is stuck in one of the traps. Cinderella rescues and clothes the mouse, named Gus Gus. Jaq then spends an extended period of time explaining to Gus Gus all of the workings of the household, but predominantly the presence of Lucifer, the cat. Lucifer is exceptionally sadistic and has not notably killed any of the mice, but has a reputation for torturing them. Cinderella begins her daily chores, which include feeding Lucifer, the chickens, and the rest of the farmyard animals. She also feeds the mice, but they cannot obtain food until Jaq distracts Lucifer, who is lying in wait. Afterwards, Cinderella goes inside the house and upstairs to her stepsisters’ and stepmother’s room. There the three of them give her a variety of additional chores such as doing the laundry and mending their clothes. Anastasia finds Gus Gus, who was previously hiding under a teacup from Lucifer, on her breakfast tray. Absolutely appalled, she blames Cinderella for this. Cinderella is called into Lady Tremaine’s bedroom, where she is given her punishment. Since she “has enough time for pranks, she has enough time for extra chores.” The story pans over to the king, who is having a complicated conversation with the duke about the loneliness of his castle and his fraught relationship with his son. He wants to have grandchildren to improve his life, so he is creating a ball commemorating his son’s return to the kingdom in the hopes of finding him a wife. Back at the Tremaine manor, Lady Tremaine is instructing Drizella to sing while Anastasia plays the flute. They are both very bad at this, which is obvious considering Lucifer’s negative response. Meanwhile, Cinderella is singing the same song beautifully as she cleans the base of the stairs. While she is cleaning a letter is delivered on behalf of the prince. Cinderella immediately delivers it to her stepmother and stepsisters upstairs, who are thrilled to be invited to the upcoming ball. Cinderella notes to Lady Tremaine that all available maidens are required to attend, therefore she has to go as well. Lady Tremaine makes a deal with her, agreeing that she may attend. Cinderella continues to work hard into the evening. Meanwhile, her animal friends are working on her dress so that she can attend the ball in style. Jaq and Gus Gus sneak into the room in which Drizella and Anastasia were previously dressing and get past Lucifer, managing to take a beaded necklace and a sash, both of which were thrown away by the stepsisters. The mice and birds manage to complete the dress. At first Cinderella does not know this, and tells Lady Tremaine that she cannot go, which pleases her stepmother. However, after discovering the dress in her room, she runs down the stairs in a hurry and makes it in time to leave. Lady Tremaine points out the beads to Drizella and Anastasia, emphasizing how beautiful they are. This act is not out of love or appreciation, rather drawing attention to the stolen accessories. Drizella and Anastasia immediately rip apart Cinerella’s dress, leaving her in rags. Not being able to attend the ball in this state, her stepmother and stepsisters leave her behind, while she runs out the back door to cry in the garden. Suddenly, glimmers of light surround her, but she does not notice. Her Fairy Godmother appears, a magical woman who believes in Cinderella’s dream to escape her abusive household. She blesses her with the magic of her wand, singing the infamous song “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo,” and proceeding to turn a pumpkin and Cinderella’s animal friends into a functioning horse-drawn carriage. Cinderella then has her dress not only restored but drastically improved. She goes to the ball as initially planned. Meanwhile, at the ball the prince remains uninterested towards every princess he is introduced to. The king is panicking, but Cinderella walks in the background just as her stepsisters get introduced, and immediately catches the prince’s attention. The king notices this and encourages the orchestra to play a waltz while the lights are dimmed, setting his son up for a romantic evening. Prince Charming and Cinderella dance into the night, and at the end of the night they kiss. Cinderella then realizes it is midnight, which is when the spell granting her the dress and coach will disappear, so she panics and leaves the castle. Prince Charming and the duke try to stop her, but they are unsuccessful. She gets away and resumes her life. The prince is not done trying to connect with her though and uses the glass slipper she left behind as a means to find her. He has the duke put every woman in the kingdom try on the shoe. When he arrives at Cinderella’s home, Lady Tremaine locks Cinderella in her tower bedroom. Drizella and Anastasia desperately try to put on the shoe, forcing it onto their feet. At the same time, Jaq and Gus Gus are trying to get the key out of Lady Tremaine’s pocket. They eventually succeed, but are pursued by Lucifer, who traps Gus Gus underneath a tea cup. The birds manage to summon Bruno, the family dog, who chases Lucifer out a window. Despite not being seen for the rest of the film, it is assumed Lucifer lives because “cats always land on their feet.” They get the key to Cinderella who manages to get down the stairs right when the duke is about to leave. They start to bring Cinderella the glass slipper, but Lady Tremaine trips the man carrying it, and it shatters. However, she has the other one. Cinderella is proven to be the woman Prince Charming is looking for, and the two of them get married. They live happily ever after.

[colleybri]

My God, I’m so sorry you received personal crap from these people. I’m so new to tumblr that I haven’t got enough followers to attract that kind of attention yet. I’ve spent decades as a teacher – the last thing I would be able to tolerate would be childish hurtful nonsense of that kind. Geesh.

I chose the wrong word when I said that the trope is subverted. As you say, it’s actually played straight.. “damsel in distress”. But if you flip the gender roles, would there still be a problem with it? I guess what I’m arguing is that writers shouldn’t hold back from these tropes if there is a genuine need for them in the story. They are tools, not clichés. But I do agree that this will all be very very uncomfortable unless there is considerable focus on developing Bix now, and definitely those parts of the story which are independent of her relationship with Cassian. I really want her, for example, to develop her own resolution to become a rebel. I would still argue that because she is a lot more complex there on the screen in episodes 1-3 and 7 than some of her detractors seem to think, for me it “ carries her through” those final episodes – I remember who she was, mourn for that person, I hate the Empire because of what they have done to her and I desperately want her back. For that reason, I would still disagree that the fault lies in the actual writing of her character as opposed to the writing of the narrative. It absolutely is the case that she is reduced to a shivering victim in those final scenes – but I still can’t see what the alternative would be really. But I completely agree with you here: it is deeply uncomfortable just to see that she is still… existing, just about, and in need of rescue by the male protagonist. It really does depend, for me, how they take this in season 2 about how I will judge this arc in the end. At the moment, I just think they’re trying to establish how very low she has fallen in order to make sense of the journey still to come. Her line about Cassian finding them at the end actually makes me wonder if season 2 might start off, quite realistically, with her in a state where part of her coping /healing mechanism is to idolise and idealise him in a way that spells – let’s say – deep trouble. Then they would effectively have to rebuild their relationship from scratch as she starts to recover her independence. All complicated, of course, by her trauma and his commitment to the rebellion. Perhaps it rather ironically becomes the beginning of the end.

Funnily enough, I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately, and your excellent original post essay has fed in to that . and because I had no idea before coming to Tumblr that there was that very limited view of Bix out there, she just became the subject of my latest in a series of essays on Reddit designed at ‘defending’ less popular Andor characters. I’ll link below. Re the comments: some are obviously from very sexist perspectives. I suspect that’s because Reddit skews more male and conservative, while Tumblr skews more female and liberal (but I may be wrong on both of those).

On a lighter note, I really like the idea that somebody came up with in one comment that Bix is to be the one who reprograms K2-SO. I don’t think it’s very likely – but I kinda like it anyway :) Anyway - putting her skills as a mechanic to use for the rebellion would be very nice to see. 😀 And I’m not opposed to sapphic Bix either - that could certainly make sense going forward.

https://www.reddit.com/r/andor/s/n86BznwFJH

me before experiencing the star wars fandom: "huh bix seems like a cool character. kinda underutilized though, i'm sad they didn't pull much on the threads of her being the main rebellion contact on ferrix and likely fencing stolen tech on the black market even before that. her isolated situation even when surrounded by community was really interesting and she clearly had a lot of potential there, I hope she gets to do more in season 2" *ready to move on*

half of the star wars fandom: "bix only exists as an accessory to cassian. if you talk about her, you should be talking about him"

the other half of the star wars fandom: "bix is a flat nothing character and anyone who sees anything to like about her just thinks she's hot. i will not consider anything else to like about her so clearly no one has"

me: "... ok it's now my life's mission to explore every bit of this character's circumstances and emotional depth i am thinking about her 24/7 she's everything to me i will defend her to the death"

[surprisebitch]

what’s the tea on sao? like what makes it bad im out of the loop on this one

i dont know where to start.. but i will give the main points. do note this is my personal opinion. if you love the show then that’s fine, but anyway..

Kirito is the blandest and most boring protagonist from any anime ever. He is stupidly overpowered and he is depicted as a saviour of damsel in distresses. There is no logical explanation to why he is just strong.

Many timeskips makes the storytelling incoherent.

It is a harem anime disguised as an isekai rpg. Literally every girl Kirito meets wants to get in his pants

The logic and plot holes. I’m just gonna tell you the ending of SAO absolutely made no sense and if that was the solution all along, then Kirito should have done that since the early episodes. It’s stupid and laughable. When did he even learn how to hack..

Rape trope. Asuka is mistreated. Also, they did an incest type of plot in a later season lmao.. it’s really the last thing anime needs 💀 

Boring anticlimactic fights because you know Kirito will win anyway. Also, no thinking involved. There are much better fight scenes out there that will keep you on your toes. The stakes are NOT HIGH in SAO.

Squandered potential. Promising synopsis, only to be let-down and disappointed.

Anyway.. the only good thing about SAO is the soundtrack slaps. The anime openings are bangers. LISA got her big break thanks to SAO. Adamas and Crossing Field are amazing, so listen to them. Other than that, avoid this anime and watch Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Attack on Titan, My Hero Academia, and whatever anime that’s relatively popular. 

SAO is a disgrace and I’m just in disbelief how an anime so bad ended up being the “isekai” staple. If you want better isekai, the Rising of the Shield Hero and Re:Zero are much better

[transmasc-wizard]

When does a trope become a cliche in your opinion?

Thanks for the ask!

So, first, it's important to note that this isn't some easy sliding scale--the entire point of a cliche is that it's an overdone trope, and whether something is overdone varies from person to person.

[Some things that are pretty universally considered cliche, though, are the "damsel in distress" (weak feminine girl is put in danger in some way, must be saved by the strong male protagonist) and the "evil mcbad guy dark lord" (as i like to call it. super evil guy takes over everything, knows how evil he is, completely 1-dimensional).]

I think a trope becomes cliche when there's nothing new the interpretation is offering. People like tropes because they give a general structure of one element--e.g found family--while still retaining unique elements. They're familiar, but not boring. A cliche is familiar to the point of boredom.

That's why I don't understand the whole "I hate cliches *cut to a trope the person likes* oh my god, Trope I Like" meme. A cliche is a term that inherently means you think the thing is not only used a lot, but overused.

And like... yes, a cliche is still a trope! An overused, boring, and badly done one. That's why trope is a neutral word, instead of an exclusively positive one; tropes do contain cliches.

But tropes can be very good, as well. There are tropes in almost everything, especially SFF. Even if they've been twisted and changed, they still are tropes! See: the Chosen One is a trope, but is done in many different ways.

Tropes are a tool. Cliches are a problem.

Anyway! That became a bit of a tangent! To go back to my rather roundabout point, I think a trope becomes cliche when and only when it's overused and unoriginal. There's a difference between tropes you just don't like (e.g. soulmates, enemies-to-lovers, Chosen One, whatever) and cliches (damsel in distress, evil mcbadguy).

(They can cross over, of course, but as a rule: tropes are neutral, cliches are bad.)

[vanhelsingenthusiast]

.... Omg! Can you please give us analysis of each character and how they are portrayed in the book and then the movies?

Oohh ok! (I’m just gonna go thru the characters and how they are in the book vs how they are usually portrayed in adaptations. These things do not apply to every single adaptation, or even necessarily one specific adaptation, full disclosure, lol) (also this will be very long, so, it’s under the cut.) 

Mina: 

~ In the book: kind, sweet, caring, motivated, intelligent, interesting, funny. I could go on and on. The protagonist. She IS the moment. She could defeat Dracula without the men but the men could not defeat Dracula without her. I said what I said. 

~ In adaptations: typically kind, but may or may not be any more intelligent than the men. Typically portrayed as a damsel in distress, though in the book she isn’t. Almost always Dracula’s love interest. Sometimes she even low-key betrays the Crew to help him. Her personality is very often reduced to one or two traits/archetypes so she can better fit the role of Dracula’s love interest. 

Jonathan: 

~ In the book: Damsel in distress. He can sometimes come across as boring, because he’s the only very average person in the book, but that’s because he’s supposed to be. It’s a compare and contrast type of thing. Even then, he’s incredibly brave, and incredibly determined. He represents the average person, rising up to the challenge. 

~ In adaptations: oh, Jonathan?? You mean the only reason why Mina and Dracula can’t bone??? Yeah but it’s fine if Mina cheats a little bc also he’s an asshole for no reason ://// 

Lucy: 

~ In the book: A delight. Absolute angel. Everyone loves her and she loves everyone but not always in the way they want. If she could she would move all of her friends into a little cottage and bake bread and make tea for them for the rest of forever. Part of the reason why her transformation into the Bloofer Lady is so scarring is because she was genuinely so good-hearted before that. 

~ In adaptations: lol she has three suitors so she must be suuuuper promiscuous (side note: not a bad thing but most adaptations portray it as such), and also because of that she definitely wanted Dracula to turn her into a vampire. 

Arthur: 

~ In the book: Lucy’s fiancée. Also he’s fuckin loaded so he helps fund the whole expedition. Interpretations of him change kinda drastically because he’s not given much canon personality or back story, but he’s overall a pretty decent guy. He can be mean but, like, in a loving way. 

~ In adaptations: if he’s there at all he’s usually Just Some Guy. Which, like. fair.  

Jack: 

~ In the book: a psychiatrist who desperately needs to see a psychiatrist but he is not self aware enough to know this. Used to be Van Helsing’s student. He definitely can be an ass (especially to Renfield), but it’s usually more that he just doesn’t think how his actions affect other people all the way through than him actively being a terrible person on purpose, if that makes sense. Him and his interest in science and technology symbolize the heralding of the new age, which is in contrast with Dracula, who is only ever “living” in the past (bedum tsss). 

~ In adaptations: sometimes he’s Van Helsing’s peer rather than ex-student. Usually he doesn’t still keep a phonograph, or even an active interest in technology, which is...a disservice. He can either be nice, or mean, usually not very nuanced or interesting. Honestly I feel like usually in adaptations he’s kinda just used as the gap to get Van Helsing there and then he does nothing after that.  

Quincey: 

~ In the book: literally the guy who kills Dracula. A Texan, as well, which seems funny now but at the time it was a fairly common trope to add in a foreigner. He’s pretty calm always, especially in a crisis, and also willing to step up and do whatever’s needed of him. And, again, he literally kills Dracula. Easily one of the more important characters in the book, except he doesn’t keep a diary so most people don’t acknowledge this. Also at one point it’s stated he’s rich af iirc so that’s funny. 

~ In adaptations: what do you mean we should add the guy who killed Dracula??? Nah it’ll be fine without him 

Van Helsing: 

~ In the book: he’s the hero of the story (not the protagonist, that’s separate). Him and Dracula are character foils. He’s the guy who knows everything about vampires, and also the guy who specifically knows how to stop Dracula. Even then, he isn’t a professional vampire hunter, or even, like, an expert. He just happens to know a shit ton about this. His name means “father of multitudes” and he is the Designated Dad of the group. He probably makes everyone hot cocoa and tells them weird stories about spiders drinking oil from lamps after a long day. 

~ In adaptations: murder grandpa is an asshole who also has no idea what he’s talking about because it makes Dracula look better 

Count Dracula: 

~ In the book: the villain. He could represent a lot of things — anything from a plague, to the past creeping up and not staying buried where it should, to Stoker’s internalized homophobia, to Stoker’s own xenophobia or antisemitism, or all of the above, or none. He has a lot of layers and each layer is a new level of villainy. We don’t know a lot about him, admittedly — who he was in life, why he became a vampire, what all of his powers are, or even his motivations for coming to London. He can represent any evil we want at all, which makes him a very affective villain. Also he’s supposedly related to Atilla the Hun which is funny af to me for no reason 

~ In adaptations: incel!Vlad III 

Renfield:  

~ In the book: admittedly, he does not have much baring on the plot. He tends to act as a meter for how close Dracula is at any given moment, until his death when Mina takes over that role. However, he introduces many themes and topics into the story: insanity, corruption, idealization of evil, etc., and he and Lucy work together to showcase how vampirism corrupts and how it can destroy even relatively innocent people. Even though Renfield has a bit of a reputation of being violent and volatile, he only ever really does something violent once, which wasn’t even entirely of his own volition and he sacrifices himself for the greater good. 

~ In adaptations: oh no scary evil insane man1!!11! he’s obviously just horrible it’s not like Dracula is manipulating him!11!! if Dracula were to manipulate him then Dracula wouldn’t be a sympathetic antihero :((( 

The Three Weird Sisters: 

~ In the book: the antithesis to Lucy’s suitors. They are supposed to be seductive, and dangerous, above all. They might be Dracula’s victims, or they could be some other vampires unrelated, we don’t really know. Not much is said about them and that’s likely very much on purpose. They have the same air of mystery about them as Dracula does, if not more. A lot of the horror in this book is based in the fear of the unknown. 

~ In adaptations: walking boobs with fangs. Usually so much is changed about the story that none of the above is even relevant or can be applied to them. 

Anyways thanks for the ask and I hope this answers your question :) 

[magatsunohana]

Today, I came to talk about the inspirations I have for Jiyuu.

I’m late to this, but this is basically what makes her up and dictates the way she conducts herself on the usual; and during times when she is just by her lonesome.

The general inspiration for Jiyuu is the amalgamation of literature that have been passed down through generations along with the changes it underwent and still undergoes as time moves forward and progresses.

As a child, the gist of her character is reflective of the values and moral lessons that one learns from reading fables and fairytales; of happy endings and happily ever afters; that these things are attainable so long as one meets the criteria that the protagonist of the story possess; diligence, kindness, resilience, selflessness, to name a few-- but overall, her childhood represents the moral aspect of a story’s hero/heroine. Their willingness to help others and endure, in the belief that this was the true way to attain both peace and joy; that good deeds are rewarded-- and that the reward is the happiness of those around them.

Of course, not all fables and fairytales end beautifully; some mark their last chapters on a tragic note. The end of Jiyuu’s childhood and the start of who she becomes while growing up is a reflection of the darker side of these tales-- ironically, some of which were the original sources of the stories that have been twisted throughout generations in order to appeal to the general audience. How? By taking away its darker tones and endings, and thus replacing it with concepts that inspire people to mirror an ideal life filled with optimism and positivity.

Even the girl's eventual need to make money is a reflection of how companies, industries, etc., try to bank on re-spinning tales and packaging it differently in order to make a profit.

Just the same, her desire for freedom is a reflection of people’s constant need for self expression as they create more and more tales. It's also the struggle of the creation process, as well as the willingness to take up the pen and write in order to diversify the ever changing world of literature. It is the hope of one day reaching an audience that can accept a piece of written work for what it is, all-the-while coming into terms with the notion that literature is often consumed subjectively and is open to varying interpretations that may or may not always be agreeable-- and that that in itself is perfectly, and understandably fine.

Here are Some other things, lore, and tropes that put her into perspective:

The Damsel is Distressed: As a sheltered young lady, Jiyuu could have used some saving from many things. A lonely home which she often denied to be lonely; parents who see her as an ornament to boost their reputation; her own naïve mindset which thought that if she was good and did what everyone said, gave in to what they want, gave up what little she truly had for herself-- that it would bring her some semblance of happiness and satisfaction. Well, that brought her something alright, a lot of regret, resentment, anger, and anxiety, for starters.

Evil Sister with a Heart of Gold: Jiyuu has an adopted sister who she loves to bully because why not? Her step-sister was pretty, pretty stupid, was made to take credit for achievements that Jiyuu worked hard for, was given the love that Jiyuu hoped would be shared with her, became a promiscuous and spoiled brat. Somehow, rather than the truth behind the flashes and blinding lights, everybody just loved a sob story about how an orphan was adopted and raised so well and into perfection. In addition to that, everybody wanted a story about a scandalous, jealous older sister... even if it meant that all of it was just a fabrication. What can you do when life was controlled through the lens of a camera? For her, at that time, nothing apart from playing the part she was forced into. So eventually, she began to despise the orphan that her family had taken in, picking on her at any given chance, at any given time. Even if, in reality, she actually truly loved the girl, she could no longer stomach seeing her. Jiyuu knows that she was part to blame, but also blamed her parent for always using their children like this-- a publicity stunt, an ego booster, just another tool for some additional fame.

“Maybe if I had done something sooner, maybe I could have preserved her innocence a little better...”

So, are you a spoiled, naïve rich kid who has never experienced working hard a day in your life? Have always been spoiled, doted on, and given everything that you’ve ever wanted? If you are, she's probably going to be extra hard on you too. After all, she wants to correct the mistakes that she made, and if she couldn't do it for her sister, then she will do it for someone else who'd benefit from the cruelty.

Bitch with a Heart FOR Gold: Jiyuu likes money. As someone who has lived off on wealth, discomforts are very hard to ignore. So when she no longer associated herself with her family due to snapping from mental abuse, running away from home led her to new dwellings and experiences; experiences that would reteach her how the world works through a particular perspective; one that would allow her to live as humanly comfortable as possible without being thrown away like some piece of garbage.

Reverse Stockholm Syndrome (Lima Syndrome): So she ran away right? Jiyuu ends up getting captured by a couple of criminals who operated a pub at that one shady place downtown. They recognized who she was and placed a ransom, however, no one came to get her-- Feeling quite sorry for the kid, the boss and owner of the pub takes her in and cares for her... in the best way a criminal could for any one of his goons.

It’s a dog eat dog world: “Don’t mistake this place for a home or a family, kid. There’s none of that bullshit here. This place, it’s a business. You slack, princess, and you’re dog meat.”

Safe to say, Jiyuu’s boss retaught her everything when he saw how pathetically sheltered she was. The knowledge that she had was for little girls who would not survive a day out in the wild. So he mentored her; trained her in practical life skills, introduced her to a hobby that could bring in money, made her go with his loan sharks to show her the ropes on how to successfully collect from valued clients.

All the fun things that may or may not be harmful to someone’s health.

“Her only real redeeming quality is being hard working and resilient. The cute face? A bonus. Might as well put this broken mutt to good use.”

As the years go by, things become more manageable. Jiyuu may not be the best in all fields that have been pounded into her head, but she does excel in certain areas that allow her to live somewhat comfortably-- at least enough to scrap up something decent for herself amid fierce competition. She may not be the best at making someone hurt, and may often need tools to execute such things... but Jiyuu can probably knock someone out in ways that were a little less violent... or at least that's what her patrons say after a shot or two of her pretty looking drinks.

Well, that's it for now.

[miloscat]

[Review] Portal Runner (PS2)

For my final game of 2021... why not this Army Men spinoff?

I’m not too familiar with the Army Men series, but I played the GBC version of this years ago on a stream. An errant comment recommendation led me to pick up the console version, and my friend Laureline picked the related game Sarge’s War for game club this month, so I took that as an excuse to get around to this. Compared to the gritty turn that Sarge’s War took the series in, this was a light-hearted romp with a dodgy control scheme.

The heroine is Vikki Grimm, who is otherwise the Smurfette of the Army Men franchise and love interest of the lead character Sarge. The series has covered genres from strategy to air combat to third-person shooters; this instalment with an odd name fits broadly in the latter category (and its story directly follows Sarge’s Heroes 2), although there’s lots of platforming to be had as well. Vikki grabs a bow for her playable outing—with a wide variety of specialised arrow types—and gains a lion companion in Leo. Various levels will have you control different combinations: Vikki or Leo alone, Leo following you, or Vikki riding him.

The companion mechanics are a little underdeveloped though. Even when Leo is supposed to be a partner he’ll often get separated from you and your actions are limited, and riding him is just like controlling Vikki but faster. Here I’ll bring up the controls again because they cast something of a pall over the whole experience. The game uses tank controls (Tomb Raider is perhaps a reference point), which are poorly suited to the platforming... or anything, really. They’re slippery, and their directionality is irrespective of the camera position, which I found disorienting, so I left it alone as much as I could. The dedicated strafe buttons help, but not enough.

The game partially fulfilled one of my wishes for it: using the fact that all the characters are toys. Most of them have a plasticky sheen, which in this case is intentional, and some levels take place in eg. a sweets shop, or a giant chessboard. This kind of thing always charms me. Other levels just use the toy factor as an excuse for somewhat generic fantastical settings in dinosaur times, medieval times, or space alien times, although they are nice and colourful.

Originally, the GBC version caught my eye due to its female protagonist... but as a feminist text it could be better. The central conflict is between the only two women in the cast over the affections of a man, with a side conflict between Vikki and her strict father, both tired sad old tropes. The changing settings put Vikki in new, usually revealing, outfits, and she even gets imprisoned into a damsel in distress role at one point in her own game, leaving the lion to save her!

Oh well, they can’t all be winners. There’s a basic multiplayer mode that’s not worth bothering with, and an unlockable gallery for finding secrets and collectibles in the levels. I enjoyed collecting them as an end in itself and exploring the maps, more than the simple combat and janky platforming at least. On the whole I reckon the GBC version, with its larger enemy variety and combat mechanics, is the superior game despite its obvious limitations. One final note, I was tickled to recognise a reused music cue from another 3DO Company project that I’m intimately familiar with, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, as well as some sound samples that were also used in Conker’s Bad Fur Day! (The same vocal sample is used in the music track in both games’ prehistoric world, and I think maybe the Martians have the same voice as the armoured Goblings...!)

[ninakaina]

why do you like maria kaina so much? ì'm just really curious.

this is the most exciting question i’ve ever gotten in my life

[image id: a screencap from the pathologic wiki, which says “personality: femme fatale.”] 

EDIT: im gonna make this into a video essay sooooooo read it if you want or stay tuned for a video in like a week and a half

first of all, i’m a lesbian and she’s a goth girl. secondly, she combines many of the tropes that i adore in female characters, and i’ll try to get into some of it as concisely as i can. in short: femme fatale, magic woman, scary woman, cassandra, sublime. i’m going to draw some concepts from the essay “the woman in the red dress: sexuality, femmes fatales, the gaze and ada wong” by jenny platz in the beginning here.

in the scope of their function as femmes fatales and the ways they transcend the typical boundaries placed on femmes fatales, ada wong resident evil and maria have a lot of similarities beyond obvious similarities in design (you can see patterns forming in my interests but also if you don’t know anything about ada this should still all make sense). so we’re all on the same page, a femme fatale is a woman of dubious morals and unknown or false motives who uses her sexuality and wit to get what she wants from men. the femme fatale has a long, uncertain, and pervasive history, and a love-hate relationship with the misogynistic writers/audiences/societies that create her, but ada and maria break free of many of the tropes that allow the femme fatale to be part of a misogynist power fantasy. together they have functionally very similar relationships to their male protagonists, although i wouldn’t say maria cares about daniil half as much as ada cares about leon if at all, in which they’re more than willing to lie to the men and put them in harm’s way to achieve their own unclear ends, while serving an essential function in keeping them alive, often without their knowledge (in the changeling route, maria sends daily letters to clara to keep daniil from getting murdered by artemy).  they add an element of unease verging on horror to their games through their sheer power - which stems from a weaponized womanhood, the player’s unfolding understanding of the vastness and nature of their power, and the fact that you have no idea what they’re going to do with it. the weaponized womanhood is relevant here because in theory, to a male audience, it adds its own level of horror, but to me it adds a level of love.

like ada too, and unlike the typical femme fatale of books and movies even in the modern era, maria is never purified or punished; in fact, she only becomes more powerful over the course of the game. her death can only come via the plague; there are no plotlines where she may die. even when she’s caught red-handed by artemy in patho 2, he has two options: to tell her father, who is unlikely to stop her and even less likely to punish her, or to note that this is maria’s world and we’re all just living in it and move on. in classic she can get married at the end, but not for love and it’s made explicitly clear that her husband’s role is to serve her, like victor served nina; instead of finally conforming to a patriarchal mold like the archetype would predict, she again uses a man to advance her agenda. (she still deserves better though. killallvlads2020)

another similarity between maria and ada that’s also the biggest way they diverge, is their expanded power of body over the typical femme fatale. where typically the femme fatale is just a wickedly smart, sexy woman (good for her), she has little power beyond the sexualization of her body, and little recourse when she’s in danger besides getting a man to help her out of it. the way this is subverted is the most obvious in ada, so it’s a good lead-in; her power of body also translates into fighting skills greater than that of most of her peers-- she uses acrobatics and melee attacks more often than other characters, making her distinctly equipped to survive without anyone’s help and destroy her opposition. maria, obviously, is not a fighter, and she’d die immediately if she was locked in a police station with zombies, so at first glance she seems to fall more into the wicked damsel aspect of the trope. but thematically and functionally, pathologic is not a game about physical fighting or even physical power. in a game world where guns and bullets are exceedingly rare while information (as well as picking truth out of lies) is the form of power that gets characters to the end alive, maria has, in herself, the access to more information than any male character. aside from mark’s (and grief’s) special role as the fool, clairvoyance and particularly mistresshood are specific to women, and come to maria from the steppe. she’s also “sensitive to lies and deceptions” and “can instantly see one’s true colors”. she is shown barefoot in pathologic 2, which symbolizes her personal and physical connection to the wild earth, a power of body in itself. maria and ada are both apex predators, perfectly suited to their particular environments and narratives- on that note, maria is never endangered at all, aside from typical plague mechanics and distress in her issues with aglaya.

okay, enough about ada wong. beyond her connection to the femme fatale trope, maria’s narrative in itself also draws on a really compelling archetype. i mentioned that maria is never purified or punished, nor really endangered, but  that doesn’t mean her story is without tragedy. instead, her tragedy is more personal and psychological, as she’s one of several characters who deal in the theme of lost childhood, and maria’s particular refrain has a hint of lost humanity. these are characters who are forced to grow up, often too fast, and for whom growing up carries an inherent trauma where some aspect of who they were or who they could have been is ripped away from them. i would also call maria and capella’s stories lost girlhood, since there’s a lot of... you know, it feels like stuff that mitski would sing about. i could talk for ages about “i can hear [your mother’s] voice [in you]” and how effectively it’s played for a bittersweet horror. in classic we are very clearly shown maria changing from who she is at the beginning, acting completely differently, and it’s left unclear as to whether this is simply the new maria or her mother’s spirit is literally possessing her (again, some obvious metaphor here). in pathologic 2, they make a change that i really love. maria has already taken up the mantle of mistress or at least claims she has and is in the process of change-- “a mistress in the making”, but it’s mentioned that artemy remembers her from before he left the town. 

he says “i remember when you were just a kid. who would have thought you’d grow into-- this?” if you read my writing, you may have picked up that i seriously fixate on this piece of her narrative. from when she was a girl (16 at the oldest) to when she’s 21, she’s changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable, and more than unrecognizable, she’s become a complete mystery, a nightmare. this is a tragic horror, in the sense that tragedy is horror that’s already happened. from the uncanny valley of the familiar turned unfamiliar, the creature-that-was-once-maria, the not-quite-nina, to that same sense of loss as someone who was once just a girl is forced to be more grown than she is and more grown than any person should be expected to be. as anna angel wears willow’s hair, maria wears her own. that one haruspex line asks a thousand, unsettling questions to which we can expect no answer. who was she before? who is she now? what happened to her? when did she change? what has she lost? what has she gained? is this who she wants to be? did pressure from her mother shape her, or grief over her mother’s death, or something else entirely? is this who she was always going to become, or could she have been something else? all of these and more lead into the central questions that define both the dark/scarlet mistress and monster movies: what is it?, what is it capable of?, and what does it want? these questions are, naturally, never answered, although it’s likely we’ll get a little more insight into her motives in the bachelor route of patho 2. 

stepping back from the specifics of mistresses, this again carries strong themes of coming of age and lost childhood/girlhood; the idea that in order to ascend so to speak and to take on role greater than you are, you have to either destroy yourself or be yourself destroyed. maria’s version of this story is, again, a tragedy. she is plagued by the stress of her destiny, haunted by nightmarish prophetic visions (which fucking DANKOVSKY doesn’t even BELIEVE), and completely alone, so much so that to express her love physically would destroy the object of her love, and yet she is still the incredible femme fatale i was talking about before. this is where i end up with the quote i captioned my painting of maria with: “a girl burns, and the sublime blossoms.”

i used the word sublime to describe maria twice in my writing, in that quote and in “her eyes are fierce, dark, sublime.” this is literally the best word i can come up with to describe the scarlet mistress, and the sublime is a big concept in aesthetic theory, but one which is hard to describe in itself. i try to portray elements of the sublime whenever i write or draw her although i’m not THAT good yet lol. it doesn’t have any physical or functional criteria except the feeling it causes (for a good example i think of the earthrise photo). this quote on the sublime, by edmund burke, feels very reminiscent of the way nina is described in game: “the passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment, and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror.” it’s awe-inspiring, it’s scary, it’s a force of nature, both refined and wild and personally impersonal, and it’s pretty much the only word i have for the iconic maria quote.... you know the one. “and you know, mother, that forge is me. sometimes i wake up with a burning in my chest, and the sky becomes crimson. in that very moment, if i kiss someone, they can see it too. it’s true.” 

one last thing i LOVE about maria is the power of self and autonomy she retains, especially in 2. in the diurnal ending as the utopians are planning to cross the river (which was her plan in classic), maria says she doesn’t want to; she wants to stay and create, not art or buildings but people, to bring them into the sublime. her cruelty is how she nurtures those around her, as opposed to capella whose nurturing is in many ways cruel. and it’s in the diurnal ending that we first hear the title “crimson mistress”; where in classic, nina was the scarlet mistress and maria became the scarlet mistress, in 2 nina was the dark mistress and maria becomes crimson. there is no question that she’s not her mother. after all she’s endured, she forges herself into something new, not necessarily brighter but more visceral, takes her mother’s legacy and makes it her own.

so i guess tldr: what’s not to like about maria kaina?

[animationforce]

Helen McCarthy and the importance of women in anime and manga fandoms

(This interview took place in 2019, now published for the first time in a two-part series. Read part one here.)

A longtime fan of Japanese comics, British writer Helen McCarthy was determined to showcase women’s place in art and fandom.

Before she achieved acclaim as a manga expert, McCarthy experienced significant sexism in the world of publishing. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, comics and cartoons were considered “kids’ stuff," therefore no specialized knowledge was required to review or write about them. As a result, publications reviewing manga often gave assignments to male staff instead of paying a specialty (or female) freelancer.

“My personal issues with sexism really aren't different from anyone else's, and sadly things haven't changed enough in almost 40 years,” McCarthy said via email. “Patronizing, condescending gatekeepers, both male and female, remarks about my appearance, questions about my personal life, uninvited chat-ups, the lot. I had no physically unpleasant experiences because despite being small and apparently defenseless, I am sarcastic, loud and threatening when necessary.”

To combat this sexism and gatekeeping, McCarthy made Anime UK gender neutral as a matter of policy. It made sense to do so, as very few writers at the time had working knowledge of Japanese animation. Today, however anime and manga news sources like Anime News Network (ANN) are typically open to hiring anyone who has the skills they require.

But despite that inclusivity, McCarthy added that “women starting out in the field seem to face more active hostility and negativity. It baffled me that those attitudes come both from a section of the male anime community and from women who collaborate with patriarchal views, or men impersonating women online.”

While women have always existed in the world of anime and manga, as artists, fans, or anything in between, they have never been the majority. In recent years, women have claimed space for themselves in manga fandom, and are “very feisty, very vocal and very well organized,” McCarthy noted.

McCarthy recalled a group of young teen women who created an anime-focused zine, developing a space for girls like themselves. A number of those artists are now scholars, professionals, and “just astonishing people.” There is also a cohort of Western manga artists who were teenagers when McCarthy began writing about Japanese animation in English.  Among those remarkable women are Leah Holmes who is working on her PhD and studying the unrecorded early history of anime in the UK, as well as artists Laura Watton, Emmeline Dobson, and Mary Beaird whose Elephant, Elephant, Hippo, Rhino…? comic strip is a favorite of McCarthy’s.

More than 30 years later, McCarthy sees the fandom as a much more inclusive place where women can not only claim their right to be there, but have their own space. Sites like Crunchyroll, My Anime List, Naruto Forums, as well as a long list of fan-made forums and social media platforms, have provided anime and manga fans with the space to get together and discuss the things that they love without fear of being ostracized. This space has allowed female fans to showcase their prolific commitment to the genre.

“Now I see young women claiming their rights, staking their claim in anime and manga fandoms,” McCarthy said. “[They’re] producing amazing artwork, producing amazing costumes. And the great thing is that there are now more and more young men who are willing to work with them on their own terms."

Despite the strides that women have made in the world of anime and manga fandoms, there is still significant misogyny and sexism within the genre. Although some stories feature a strong female protagonist (and sometimes multiple female protagonists), problematic, sexist tropes exist throughout manga/anime. As user Zylania noted on the forum Amino, women are often portrayed as stupid, defenseless damsels in distress. Their breasts are often oversized, distracting focal points for male characters and, in some cases, the women don’t even have heads or faces to differentiate themselves. In some anime and manga, females are never shown above the neck. Additionally, the increasingly popular Ahegao shirts — a term from hentai (Japanese pornography) for a woman’s often exaggerated orgasm face—are sold at manga/anime conventions, which puts female sexuality under a distinctly male gaze.

“Japan is a modern, developed society like America, Russia and Europe, and racism and sexism are not exactly dead in any of those areas,” McCarthy explained via email. “It's a combination of centuries of male privilege and prioritizing the male gaze and male concerns. The attitudes and history that gave the Internet the Captain Marvel trolling incident are alive and well all over the world. Most Japanese people have very good manners, which can make it seem as if outdated attitudes like that couldn't possibly exist there, but Japan isn't some fairyland where everyone is magically polite, reasonable and politically correct, except in our dreams.”

However, feminist women and works do exist in the genre, though it can be difficult to find them. San from the film Princess Mononoke and Major from Ghost in Shell are two characters often referenced by fans who are looking for strong, iconic women. McCarthy said Princess Mononoke is Hayao Miyazaki’s best example of a feminist character, since San does not rely on a man (Ashitaka) to rescue her and exists independently from male characters. San is free to live as she pleases and does not ultimately “belong” to Ashitaka by the end of the film.

So how can a feminist watch anime and still be empowered? McCarthy encourages women to watch everything they can. “Women in the fandom have to know what’s going on outside of what they’re watching. If you don’t know what the men in the community are watching, you can’t combat the concepts they are being given about you as a woman,” she said.

McCarthy encouraged feminist anime fans to be fearless. “You decide what's feminist and what isn't. I hope that that encourages a few other young feminists to go out and do what they do so beautifully, which is just be great women.”

After decades spent writing books and articles, and making appearances, McCarthy has spent the last 10 years slowing down. McCarthy is most concerned that the work she’s doing is worth being done—and being done well.

She has devoted her life to advocating for inclusivity in fandom and hopes to pave the way for other women to follow in her footsteps. McCarthy encourages other women to embrace their potential, especially as men become more in tune with the equality presented through feminism.

“My response to anyone who tells me they can do better work that I do — and trust me, there have been and are a lot of them — is to say, ‘Please, do it,’” McCarthy wrote. “I absolutely love reading great work by other people. I will be delighted to read yours, either right now or when you stop wasting your time sniping at other people and get around to writing it.”

READ PART ONE HERE

--

Amanda Finn is a Chicago based freelance journalist who spends a lot of evenings in the theater. She is a proud member of the American Theatre Critics Association. Her work has been found in Ms. Magazine,  American Theatre Magazine, the Wisconsin State Journal, Footlights, Newcity and more. She can be found on Medium and Twitter as @FinnWrites as well as her website Amanda-Finn.com.

[boltlightning]

man. i know this episode deserves accolades out the ass and we have collectively talked it to death as a community, but the back half of mr. yin presents is so, so powerful. let’s dive in:

chief cares about her people above all else; you see her, for the first time ever, arm up and offer to drive when she knows where yin has taken juliet. she is using every tool available to her to make sure her team is safe, she constantly insists on shawn/gus/henry (who are civilians) being given stricter security, she takes the blame when juliet disappears.....she cares SO MUCH. 

henry would do absolutely anything for shawn. they were a bit cool this season — there’s a few moments where henry sardonically notes that he’s almost always the one who helps shawn unravel his case. he literally bails shawn out from a false accusation in think tank. but when he knows abigail is in trouble, and knows shawn is going to save her alone, he takes a job he didn’t really want just so he can go after his son.

AND BOTH OF THEM IMMEDIATELY PUT ON THEIR CHARMERS TO KEEP ABIGAIL CALM. without hesitation, henry leaps right in with his swiss and cuts abigail free under the pier. shawn and henry spend so much time consumed with their differences that they don’t ever acknowledge their similarities, and especially not the good similarities. both these men have everflowing compassion that are overlaid by their affable manner (shawn) or rigid competence (henry) and it is so gratifying to see them come together at the climax of the episode

gus is just the...the bravest and kindest man. he cares so much about shawn, and has really come to trust and love the entire team. it is amazing to see him seriously involved in the episode, as good as his support system for shawn was in the first yang episode. shawn may have the psychic-ness, but gus is the heart of psych. gus is (very realistically!) afraid of these terrible situations they find themselves in and hates the sight of blood and is adamant about not becoming the casualty of a slasher movie trope...but he is the first to go after juliet when they lose sight of her in yin’s trap. he picks up her gun and chases after her in a secret tunnel. he goes to the clock tower when shawn cannot because they trust each other SO MUCH, and keeps the wire from snapping even though it is the mechanized clocktower for an entire city because he is a brilliant and brave and strong man and i love him with all my HEART

no one needs Another Essay About Lassiter And Juliet from Me, Bolt Lightning, but god. i’d noticed a few episodes in that their dynamic in s4 has shifted to lassiter being overly friendly with juliet because he trusts her that much, while juliet is a lot more confident in their relationship...but their trust and love runs so goddamn deep. for the first time in the entire series (and i think for the rest of the series total!), lassiter directly defies chief’s orders. he sets off on his own to go get juliet as soon as they figure out the clue and doesn’t even stop to consider what it may do to his career if he does. carlton lassiter!! carlton fucking lassiter who, one episode ago, was telling everyone to shut the hell up so he could chase a fantastical lead and get better press coverage. he is petty and mean and calloused but he is loyal to his very bones, and juliet has earned every ounce of his trust.

and juliet...i feel like women who are competent and in actionable roles often get written into a box where they’re defined by their badassery. they aren’t allowed vulnerable moments because it doesn’t suit their image as an asskicking action girl. but juliet is both in spades in this episode; she is fearless and dedicated, and walks into what she knows is a trap because it’s what needs to be done. she knows the risks. she does it anyway. and juliet has never been a damsel in distress — most of the time she and lassiter are bailing shawn and gus out from danger — so the way she faces this says so much about her. that she reads yin’s clue as he directs, and still tries to let shawn know that abigail can be saved too with what little opportunity she has? even though shawn has kind of been an ass to her for the last year? fucking STELLAR. 

she stares straight ahead the entire time she’s on the clocktower, even after gus and lassiter save her, and you can see the absolute terror and eerie acceptance in her eyes. she knows shawn will go to abigail, and she would prefer it. abigail is a civilian, she is not.

maggie lawson is so talented jesus christ. like they all are but this performance is so phenomenal

and then we get that amazing, powerful, wordless shot of her and lassiter at the end. anyone would be rattled after that, and juliet, who is always a beacon of understanding and acceptance and cheer, is going through shock. i actually paid enough attention to lipread on the rewatch and i’m pretty sure she’s insisting to lassiter “i’m fine, i’m fine” and lassiter just says “you don’t need to be fine” and she collapses against him. that fucking shit kills me man. carlton lassiter, the king of emotional repression, tells her it’s ok to not be fine. god. strike me down where i stand

this is getting unwieldy but shawn is the person of the hour. truly. he is such an amazing protagonist. i have so many gripes with how he’s written in certain spots of s4, and i’m sure i’ll talk more about that in s5 and s6, but good god. everything that happens in this episode is his worst nightmare — people he cares for are hurt because he can’t crack a case fast enough. his very profession puts abigail in danger. he has always been flippant, and wise-cracking, and even a little careless, but his intention was to put bad guys away and make a living. he knows the dangers of his career and his loved ones being put in harm’s way has always, ALWAYS made him deeply uncomfortable. and in this episode he confronts what is maybe the worst example of it in the show

he really, truly cares for abigail, and that this completely unpredictable side effect of his job likely ate him up alive for so long. he may have been a bad boyfriend, but he was so willing to see what she needed from him to make the relationship work after her rescue...shawn is also a character you rarely see vulnerable. he has a gun pointed at his head every second episode but he is almost always certain that some serendipitous event will happen to get him out alive. but this was all him. and he bares his heart to abigail, without any of his wordsmithery or reference-laden snark. this case took so much from him. and it truly beat him down the entire time

lighter notes:

i love buzz mcnab and he loves the team so much. tall king

mary’s death is really goddamn sad and it makes me doubletake at the way he’s been portrayed in the musical/second movie

if you read all this thank you very much please talk to me about carlton and juliet

[obirains-archive]

Fir, fern, and bonsai for the floral ask? ❤️💐

Mia ! ! ! 💕💖💟💓💕💗💞 

fern: if you could turn to anyone for guidance, who would it be?

The lion turtle from AtLA!!! I find Aang’s character arc so, so compelling as someone who really struggles to maintain a balance of I think is right and what I fear is necessary. The idea of the lion turtle not only understanding Aang’s reluctance to take a life (which is a totally valid concern that too often gets dismissed and even ridiculed by the fandom!) but also equipping him to administer justice while still solidifying the value of his ideology, and the legacy of his people is just *chef’s kiss*

bonsai: what is something you could spend hours, even days doing?

I haven’t worked on language learning much in the past few months, but there have been stretches of weeks where I didn’t do anything in my free time but take grammar notes, make flashcards, and practice speaking alone in my room like boo boo the fool I’m hoping to take it back up during the schoolyear!

fir: which tropes/archetypes do you find the most and the least compelling?

I'm a simple girl who enjoys a good hero's journey, as well as a good corruption arc. Dorian Gray? Beautiful. Azula? Stunning. Anakin Skywalker? Here for it. I’m also a hoe for masculine men who are willing to be emotional with one another (RE: the Lord of the Rings). I know morally gray protagonists are super in right now but I’m such a slut for people who are flawed but genuinely always try to do the right thing (RE: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Aragorn).

On the other hand I really despise the super badass woman who rejects all traditionally feminine things, as well as the bad boy -> sad boy trope. In my opinion the first isn't really a character, but a shallow reaction to the damsel in distress trope that was and is designed to give men a feeling of power and importance. So there came the badass fighter lady- but incidentally the only qualities that make up her character are qualities men will respect :/ I think AtLA's Suki best summed my feelings on it: "I am a warrior, but I'm a girl, too." I'm all for women being good fighters and mechanics and strategists! But when Hollywood writes them it's still for the male audience imo lmfao

Okay i started on the bad boy trope and then couldn’t stop so, trigger warning: rape and also I’m coming for Kylo Ren’s throat and also the whole ass sequel trilogy, y’all. Reylos, read at your peril. Mia, I am so, so sorry for hijacking this lovely ask :/

Bad boy -> sad boy trope is at best lazy writing and at worst an implicit affirmation of rape culture (and so I don’t understand why it’s so prevalent in the romance genre which boasts of so many female writers!). The bad boy is a young (usually aged 17-35), very conventionally attractive male who exhibits patterns that range anywhere from socially unacceptable to explicitly abusive. He often receives a half-assed "my mom died" and/or "my dad was an abusive alcoholic” which is meant to explain his behavior. If this were followed by an exploration into consequences and familial patterns, I’d be on board. But usually it only results in his love interest “understanding” him more deeply and writing off his abuse tactics because, in a way, it’s not really his fault. Besides, he’s still young, and wants to do better. It’s rarely addressed again. 

Fact: while everyone needs to feel loved and no true love is truly wasted, your love will never fix the Bad Boy. The only thing that will is years and years of therapy. 

Unfortunately there are too many good examples of the Bad Boy -> Sad Boy trope, but this is a Star Wars blog so I’m gonna talk about Kylo Ren again. Sure, he got a “redemption arc” (which was such bullshit and an insult to all redemption arcs. It’s not even an arc; it’s a fucking U-turn in the middle of the last installment of a trilogy. Make. An. Effort.), but he had his ardent fans and defenders long before TRoS, even after TLJ when he made the choice, of his own free will, to continue his path to the dark side and the legacy of murder. 

(Side note: remember when Snape got a semi-redemption in TDH and people got pissed at Rowling because it seemed like she excused his horrendous behavior? I’ve been saying this for years and I’ll say it again: if Snape were a younger, more attractive man portrayed by Adam Driver, he’d have an army of supporters. I’m not saying Snape was a good person, or even that Rowling pulled off that redemption. But Kylo Ren committed crimes 1000% worse than Snape ever did. Given that they were both in their thirties when they died, you can’t even use age to defend Kylo as a lost, immature young boy and demonize Snape as a grown-ass man who should have known better. The only real difference between them is that Snape struck us as an unattractive, older man whose flaws struck a personal chord in readers (many of whom undoubtedly had a teacher who picked on students out of spite), and Kylo Ren is played by Adam Driver and I guess mass murder is a less personal crime to many audiences? The double standard simply disturbs and distresses me.)

The fact that Rey ends up falling in love with him, too, is perfectly on brand for the Bad Boy -> Sad Boy trope in the worst way possible. The first hints came in TLJ, when Kylo’s tragic backstory based entirely on some of the most blatant character assassination i’ve ever seen in my life holy shit elicited her compassion. This was followed by Kylo choosing the dark side of his own volition (not Snoke’s influence! After that choice, he should not have been redeemable), and then, of course, Rey falling in love with him sometime during TRoS. Given that torture scene in TFA, their “love story” made me (and still makes me) sick to my stomach. That scene screamed rape metaphor: Rey restrained and stripped of her agency, Kylo “You know I can take whatever I want” Ren forcibly penetrating her mind in what we know to be an excruciatingly painful process, obviously without consent. The fact that Rey can use her miraculous Palpatine Force powers to fight back doesn’t mean a damn thing; for all intents and purposes, it was rape, clean and simple. Never, by the way, do we see Kylo having to atone for his actions. Never does Rey hold him accountable for what should have been an extremely traumatic incident (I mean, yeah, she relates to him like you would a villain, but not as if he had targeted her personally and taken advantage of her, which he did, dammit).

I’ve also seen the argument that more or less divides Kylo Ren and Ben Solo into two different people, as if Rey’s love story is with one and not the other. I’m aware that this depends on your interpretation of what the dark side actually does to you. I’m of the opinion that the dark side doesn’t kill you like Yoda and Obi-Wan say; there’s too much evidence, for example, that Darth Vader was still Anakin Skywalker- twisted beyond recognition, perhaps, but still one and the same. A love story with Ben Solo (especially given the timeline of the sequel trilogy) is necessarily a love story with Kylo Ren, a rapist and a mass murderer who happened to be portrayed by Adam Driver. 

For whoever made it this far: I do not hate you if you support Kylo Ren or if you ship Reylo. But I do find them extremely problematic. If you take issue with any of my points, I’d rather you message me privately rather than reply to or reblog this post. Thx!

[velkynkarma]

Why Brandon Sanderson Is an Amazing Writer (and Why You Should Read His Novels)

Last week I was recommending some novels to @bosstoaster and was really struggling to not fan squeal all over the place about just how incredible Sanderson’s novels are. Usually, when this happens, I try to pick 1-2 things I like about his writing to talk about, so I don’t talk a person’s ear off...but that usually means so much gets left out.

But I’ve been thinking about it since, so you know what? I can do whatever I want on my blog. So here’s my full, unadulterated breakdown of all the things that are so damned incredible (and consistent) about Brandon Sanderson’s novels (as well as his writing methodology). 

Does contain minor spoilers, but not for anything huge, and I tried to keep even the minor spoilers vague.

PLOT

Incredible world-building—that isn’t generic medieval fantasy-land

I love fantasy as much as the next person, and I enjoy most generic medieval fantasy stories if the plot or characters are great. But Sanderson’s always exploring different kinds of worlds, and entering them is always engaging. Magical cowboy western? A world continually buffeted by enormous hurricanes on a regular basis, so everything evolved to survive them, including the flora and fauna? A world where ash constantly falls? A world that is literally the embodiment of thought and concept? There’s always something exciting to discover.

Incredible magic systems

Like the generic medieval fantasy world-building, I’m used to the D&D style magic systems with energies and fireballs. Sanderson doesn’t touch these kinds of magic systems, though, and I’m continually stunned at just how creative the ones he does use are. Ingest metal, and use it to activate a latent power of yours? Bonding with the literal living embodiment of a concept in order to gain abilities? Re-writing the history of an item so it believes it can be different, and it changes? Using color as payment for a system based entirely around souls and soul coding? The list is long and always entertaining. He’s even written a whole article about how to design magic systems, which is also worth a read.

Really good at the ‘good’ kind of plot twists that leave you genuinely satisfied

I know we’ve all been frustrated by the recent trend that media seems to have these days: viewers or readers guess the direction the plot is heading in, and creators, in a panic, throw in a completely unrelated plot twist (changing the whodunnit, killing off a character, adding a resolution that makes no sense). Those suck. Let’s be real.

Sanderson does the opposite. He leaves the clues in his stories—they’re always there, and you can figure it out with the context clues, if you’re clever. If you’re not, he’s real good at throwing in twists that are hinted at, but still feel incredibly impactful and really satisfying. The end of The Emperor’s Soul still gives me chills, and I still love the twists regarding the big bads in Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive.

Also? He genuinely will catch you by surprise, sometimes. I consider myself to be a pretty experienced reader, and a decent writer. I can usually tell where plots are going for most stories. That’s satisfying, of course. But Sanderson has a way of still managing to sucker-punch me with a plot twist or reveal that feels shocking in a good way. I don’t see a lot of these coming, but the result isn’t disappointment, it’s a “holy crap—wow, how cool!” followed by an intense desire to reread half the story to pick out the clues that were sitting in front of me the whole time, now that I know what they’re actually for. 

Really interesting meta-level stories 

Depending on how invested you want to get, there’s a meta-level of interconnected story with the Cosmere. All of Sanderson’s stories are enjoyable on their own, and you’re never required to go deeper. But if you want to, you can, and suddenly there’s a whole second layer of information and characters in the background that you never really noticed, because most of his stories are actually connected to each other too. You don’t have to know who Hoid is or how he contributes to each separate story, you don’t have to be able to find the crossover characters that have literally crossed over from other books, and you don’t have to understand the whole Shards angle, and you can still enjoy all those books on an individual basis. But when you do know how to spot them in the narratives, it’s really fun, and you feel like you’re in on a great secret.

CHARACTER

Only male author I’ve ever read that actually writes GOOD female characters 

Brandon Sanderson seems to have hit on the not-so-secret secret that most male authors—who dominate the fantasy genre—haven’t seemed to figure out yet: women are people too. 

Consequently, Sanderson writes incredible varieties of female characters, each with their own personalities and quirks, who don’t necessarily fall into the “damsel in distress” or “masculine-coded action lady” stereotypes. See the politically savvy Sarene, the scholarly Shallan, the clever and artistic Shai, rebellious and somewhat childish Siri, the formal and analytical Steris. (These are literally just the ladies with names that start with S). 

But it gets better. Because even with action-hero ladies, they still have characterizations outside of ‘being a lady that beats people up like a man and strives to be as unlady-like as possible to prove she can beat people up like a man.’ Vin might be an action heroine, but she’s also a young woman who’s learning how to have a family, who’s scared of opening up to people, and who’s insecure about her place in the world. Marasi wants to be part of law enforcement, but admits to another character that she also likes the make-up and dresses and looking pretty—and she hates that people expect her to be a masculine action-lady that wears pants and starts fights, because she feels like she won’t even be seen in her field if she doesn’t, and like she has to represent all women. 

But I think the biggest example of this comes from his short story Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, which (despite its edge-tastic title), is about a mother trying to protect her daughter. Sanderson wrote it as a part of the anthology Dangerous Women, and in his post-script on the story in Arcanum Unbounded, he writes: 

“I thought for a long time about the nature of an anthology called Dangerous Women. I worried that the stories submitted to it might fall into the trope of making women dangerous all in the same way....I didn’t want to write just another cliched story about a femme fatale, or a woman soldier who was basically a man with breasts. 

What other ways could someone be dangerous? I knew early on that I wanted my protagonist to be a middle-aged mother.”

In short, Sanderson actually understands how women work and writes actual, believable, likable female characters, who are just people and not sexual objects or prizes for men to receive at the end of the novel. It’s something we need, and it’s refreshing to see.

But on that note—he’s not afraid to let his male characters be softer either

In the same way that most female characters in fantasy are forced to be masculine-like action ladies, most male characters are also forced into the same role. There’s this misunderstanding that male characters have to all be sword-swinging barbarians who can’t have emotions. 

Sanderson punts this misunderstanding out the window and will have none of it.

There are so many good male characters in this series too that don’t immediately make you want to cringe. Look at Elend, who’s an intellectual doing his best but genuinely screws up a lot, and is all but useless for the first half of the series as a combatant. Look at Wayne, and his heartbreaking moment at the end of Bands of Mourning, who grieves for a person who’d been family to him and isn’t afraid to show how much he cares. Look at Adolin, who seems like the quintessential sword-swinging action-oriented jock, but then completely subverts all expectations by patiently and carefully helping characters with mental illnesses deal with them on their bad days, and being unhesitatingly supportive of his autistic brother. Look at Gaotona, who spends the whole book trying to educate someone on how they’re wrong—only to learn from them instead, and realize he was wrong, and to admit to it. 

Men have their soft moments, written by a male author who’s not afraid to put those moments into his works. And that’s really good, too.

In general, just really good characterization

Sanderson’s characters feel like people. They have oddball quirks, realistic-sounding conversations, and occasionally do things that make no sense. Just like friends, family, coworkers, etc that you and I all no doubt know. Hammond’s philosophical rambling (and Breeze’s frustrated bickering over it), Lift making it her life goal to steal dinners, Wayne’s justification for his kleptomania since he ‘trades’ items instead, David’s weird speech patterns and idioms—these characters are just fun to read, and have extra layers that just make them feel more real.

His books have a strong non-romantic relationship focus

Media in general is inundated with romantic and sexual relationships, and doubly so for fantasy novels—especially when fantasy novels often have a ‘prize’ romance at the end of the epic journey. Save the girl, get the girl. It can be frustrating, especially for people who aren’t interested in romance as a genre (there is a reason a lot of us are reading fantasy novels, and not romance ones).

Sanderson loves focusing on all kinds of relationships though, not just romantic ones. Found family, real family, strong platonic friendships, mentorships, interesting rivals, bonds out of duty—they’re all in here, and Sanderson’s not shy about making it clear. Look at Kelsier openly telling Vin he wishes he and his wife had a daughter like her and admitting he sees her as one, or the way the rest of the team turns her into their little sister that they all teach and protect. Look at Wax taking in Wayne, a scared kid who’d gotten in over his head and didn’t know what to do. Look at Kaladin looking at an entire band of slaves and going, ‘yeah, you’re all mine now and I protect you all,’ and how he forms a whole family out of Bridge Four that ultimately turns around and takes care of him, too (and of course, a lot of Kaladin’s story is driven by his own relationship with his actual family, specifically his younger brother). Look at Shallan doing all that she does at the start of the series to protect her brothers. Look at Prof struggling so hard to protect his little band of Reckoners even as he struggles to protect them from himself. Look at Shai and Gaotona, how they’re set up as prisoner and jailer, and yet they grow to ultimately respect each other.

I could go on and on, but the point is, these non-romantic relationships are everywhere, and they are considered to be just as important as—and sometimes more important than—romantic relationships. 

But on the flip-side, his romantic relationships are very well handled

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a big fan of romance or shipping. It generally doesn’t hold my interest. In most books, I skim or skip the romance parts, because I’m just not invested in those relationships. They feel flimsy. 

I don’t do that with Sanderson’s works. They’re the only books I’ve ever read where I genuinely feel invested in the characters’ romantic relationships. 

Because here’s the thing: all of these characters that are romantically involved, are also good friends, and that’s the basis of their entire relationship to begin with. And that means these relationships are accessible to everyone, regardless of romantic inclinations or interests. 

Adolin and Shallan just joking around and bantering, with him teaching her how to use swords, with her rattling off witty repartee to defend him in verbal spars? When they just genuinely enjoy each others’ company, without having to constantly make out or have sex to indicate why they like being around each other? That’s genuinely fun. It’s some lovely character interaction. Maybe I don’t “get” the parts where they want to do more romantically inclined things, but I can enjoy that they legitimately enjoy being around each other, that they’re good friends as well as romantic partners, and that they trust each other. And that means I can still be engaged in their relationship instead of yawning and skipping ahead a few pages.

Which brings me to:

He also takes common romantic tropes...and throws them in the garbage bin

Sanderson has other ways of handling romantic relationships that I (as a person who doesn’t like romance) finds so impressive it deserves its own section. Because he takes common romantic tropes, and subverts them, and makes the characters all the more healthy for it. 

On at least two occasions (in Stormlight Archive, and in the sequel Mistborn series), Sanderson has set up a classic love triangle...and then immediately broken it. In one novel, one of the male love interests graciously offers to back out if it will mean the female love interest is happy, because he really just wants her to be happy even if that means he’s not around, and she chooses him anyway...whereupon he makes it clear he’ll definitely help her with her mental health and he wants to be supportive of her. Holy shit, what a wild notion, an actual supportive character in a love triangle. In the second series, the love triangle gets set up, but ultimately broken when the man ultimately chooses the arranged marriage over the ‘true love’ angle, and then realizes he actually, legitimately enjoys the company of the lady in the arranged marriage, and the ‘true love’ love interest realizes that actually, that would have been a terrible idea and she wants to pursue her career. Again, a refreshing and ultimately all-around healthy take for all the characters on something that normally has some nasty fallout. 

In Mistborn, my first introduction to one of Sanderson’s series, I remember being genuinely floored and in awe of Elend’s and Vin’s relationship...because Vin is still really nervous about opening up to people and not comfortable with intimacy, and Elend is completely okay with that. He takes it slow with her, lets her set the pace, and doesn’t force her to do anything before she’s ready. Vin is most comfortable just being around/near him without doing anything inherently romantic, just being in his presence, and he is completely cool with that. And that’s such a healthy thing to see in a romantic story, because it’s really important for readers to see that yes, it’s totally OK to not rush into things, and yes, it’s totally OK for people to take it slower or easier for an uneasy partner. 

I could go on and on, but basically, romantic relationships in Sanderson’s novels are also engaging because a lot of the time? They’re healthy, and friendly, and toss most dramatic romantic subplots out on their ass.

While on that note?

He doesn’t do sex scenes

This one might be a loss for some, but it’s a win for me. Depending on how I feel on a given day, I’m either ‘irritated by’ to ‘really uncomfortable by’ sex scenes in novels...and unfortunately they’re prevalent, especially in fantasy novels. I usually end up uncomfortably flipping through these pages, trying to figure out where the scene ends so I can get back to the actual story. 

I honestly can’t think of a sex scene in any of his novels though. In fantasy, it’s stunningly refreshing, and I feel super safe and comfortable reading his novels because I don’t have to worry about uncomfortable surprises. Plus, circling back to the above points, it’s kind of nice to see characters having established relationships without it having to be solely reliant on them having a good or bad sex life.

Has LGBT+ relationships 

Yup, they’re there, and edge past ‘strongly implied’ to ‘blatantly stated’ in some cases too. Offhand, I can think of a pair of men in the Stormlight Archive who are noted to be in a relationship with each other, and a lesbian gunsmith in the second Mistborn series.

What I find important is not just the inclusion of these blatant relationships, but also how it’s treated as completely normal and not taboo in the context of these worlds, too. Non-straight relationships aren’t treated like a scourge or a difficulty these characters have to deal with; it’s just normal in these realities. 

Additionally, what I really like about them is the way other characters will get called out about it if they do cross a line (usually accidentally). In the above cases, Kaladin makes an ignorant off-hand remark about his gay Bridge Four soldier and is immediately called out about it by the rest of the Bridge Four gang, whereupon he realizes he’d crossed a line and apologizes right away. In the Mistborn series, Wayne repeatedly makes passes at lesbian gunsmith Ranette, who spurns his advances. But when he realizes she’s actually into girls, he backs off and respects that, rather than insisting on her dating him. These are some nice little lessons on how straight people actually should react regarding their non-straight friends and family, and normalizes non-straight people existing in society.

Sanderson has also been openly responsive to and cool about people interpreting his characters in non-straight relationships or reading “implied” relationships/romantic subtext, even if he hadn’t originally intended to put them there. Offhand, I can think of one situation where a reader told him he probably didn’t realize “just how bi” he’d written Shallan in regards to her interactions with Jasnah, to which Sanderson’s response was basically, “Well that wasn’t on purpose, but alright, cool, cool.” 

Also very good about inclusivity for mental illnesses and disabilities

While we’re on the topic of inclusivity, let’s talk mental illnesses and disabilities as well, because Sanderson is great about including these too. In Stormlight Archive alone, we have: 

Renarin, who in addition to having some physically disabilities (specifically, seizures and being physically weak), is confirmed by Word of God to be on the autistic spectrum. And he’s treated with respect and support by his family members and friends. His father shows up to meetings or events he wants to go to, just so he can feel comfortable going to them to show interest in things men typically aren’t supposed to. His brother protects him fiercely in combat but also does his best to give him space to grow, and understands that his brother is incredibly intelligent but sometimes just needs a little time to organize his thoughts or figure out how to communicate. Kaladin understands his physical disabilities immediately and is able to give advice on how to deal with them. The entirety of Bridge Four adopts him as another brother. Jasnah finds another way. I could go on, but basically, Renarin is great

Kaladin has clinical depression, and possibly some form of PTSD, even if they don’t have the technical words for this in-universe. He really struggles with this a lot in the series. Despite that, other characters look out for him a lot, and this creates some genuinely tender moments. 

Shallan rapidly developing some identity disorders. Actually breaks down and admits this to another character. The other character is fiercely supportive of her despite that and doesn’t give up on her so easily

Lopen doesn’t have an arm, but despite being physically disabled, Kaladin still immediately values him and he finds a place on the team. He’s also just...legitimately chill about being an amputee, makes missing arm jokes all the time, and doesn’t seem terribly bothered by it. I believe Sanderson even stated that there’s no real tragic story behind the missing arm...it’s just Lopen. That’s it. 

Teft struggles with substance abuse and insecurity, but the entirety of Bridge Four is super supportive in helping him break it

There’s a character who ends up paralyzed from the waist down over the course of the series. She thinks she’s done for and her life is over, but her mentor keeps encouraging her to try things anyway. 

Honestly, this series is enormous—there’s probably a ton more I’m not even remembering off-hand.

All of this is usually handled pretty tactfully and often brings in some really heartwarming character interactions when characters struggle with issues and other characters help them overcome them. Do you like hurt/comfort and whump in fanfiction? Sanderson does this in actual fiction. It’s great.

WRITING METHODOLOGY

He actually takes the time to write good stories

Sometimes a long-awaited book in a series coughDeathlyHallowscough comes out and you just know it was rushed. You can see it in the way the plot threads are resolved, in the way some threads are just never resolved and end up hanging there open-ended, in the way the epilogues are short and empty.

Sanderson doesn’t do this. He’s pretty transparent about it on his Twitter, where he’ll post updates on his writing progress percentages. Sometimes he apologizes for a delay on a book, because he wants to make sure it’s done right or he works out a plot point just so, or he needs to go back and re-read some old material to make sure there’s no hanging plot points. 

This is good. This is great. This means he genuinely cares about his work, and he wants to produce good content. I will happily wait an extra couple months if it means the book that’s going to sit on my shelf for years to come has a satisfactory start, middle and end.

He’s always ready to give advice to up-and-coming writers, and he’s great about fandoms

Sanderson has a whole segment on his blog devoted to answering questions about writing. He also has a whole series of lectures available for free online. I’ve even heard him in podcasts and blogs in other things. He’s not shy about giving advice and encouraging up and coming writers, and he’s always so encouraging about it too. He’s also totally cool with fanfiction, unlike some big name authors out there who get very elitist about fandoms and the comparative “worthlessness” of fanfiction. 

Some of his novels are available for free, right now, on his website

A bunch of his novels and novellas are available totally for free on his website, which means additional accessibility for people who don’t have the cash for books, ebooks, or audio books, and don’t have time to get to a library. 

Many of them are also available as audiobooks, which means you can probably snag them through your local library’s audio book checkout system as well. 

In conclusion

Brandon Sanderson rocks, his stories rock, and everyone who likes fantasy should really give them a shot, for all of the above reasons.