#the best way to fix that is have more female characters literally problem solved. maybe throw in a male coach too idk

[etchif]

Don't know how controversial of a take this is (not very I assume) but I don't really like I Am Me it's painfully generic lyric and sound-wise and it also doesn't really fit into the show that well

[cadybear420]

Really wishing PB would add an "are you cis or trans" menu like ILW and BB:TS Demo have, plus options to choose your anatomy separately from bodytype which I think ILW also had . Like I don't think it's that hard? I feel like it would solve a lot of these problems. And not just for the GOC books either, btw. Most of the genderlocked books, including the pointfully GL'd ones, could be really interesting to play as a trans woman MC. Especially books like BP and KND, which literally have canon trans women Aisha and Saff in their girl squad groups.

They/them options and choosing pronouns separately from bodytype (which they consistently included in most of 2022's new GOC books but pretty much dropped for all of 2023's new GOC books, which is not giving me good vibes, thankfully we're getting them back in TDG) is a good start, but there's more that can be done.

And seriously I will never fucking shut up about the clothing stuff on God. Why do the fem bodytype versions of an outfit need to be all slinky and revealing while the masc bodytype versions are more basic? Granted they have been stepping up their risque game with some of the masc body outfits in books like DLS, Alpha, TCH 2, and ID 2. But Even in those books and other books like Unbridled they often fall into what's basically the Female Video Game Armor trope but with a different coat of paint.

And people will complain about others wanting more GOC stories because "the video game industry has been catering to men for years, this is one of the few video games with female locked playable characters". Putting aside all the other problematic implications with that statement (if you can)... is this the game you wanna defend as that? Really? I will never not emphasize this. "One of the few games catered to women", yet the game in question hardly gives a damn about sapphic, aroacespec, trans, and GNC women. But sure, give them brownie points for doing the bare fucking minimum I guess.

Why do like, 90% of the GOC LIs in the past 2 years put the female versions in midriff crop tops while the male ones are not? And I really do mean this estimated statistic. Devon from TPS, Gabe and Cas from ID, Jordan from GG, Drew from RWB, Blake from FCL, Kaine from KND, formal outfit for Charlie from DLS, Channing from Alpha, Ash from Guarded...

If this TFS Chris Romantic Getaway side story doesn't completely expose their mindset with outfits and gender, then IDK what does lol (seriously, fuck this whole scene).

Anyways, continuing on. I'm a GNC cis woman, and every time the narration has to talk about how an outfit shows off "the curves of your waist" or when a LI has to give attention to my character's breasts (or ass, but I see it with breasts more commonly), it takes me right out of the story. It's part of why I prefer to play the smutty stories with a male/masc MC, but even then they have to make it all about his muscles instead. Because the only way for women to be attractive is to have "le sexy feminine curves" and the only way for men to be attractive is to have "le big strong muscles" apparently.

I'd like to see them change things up a bit. Like a female or fem bodytype MC get attention for stuff like shoulders, arms, hands. A male or masc bodytype MC getting attention for stuff like hips, ass, legs. Or, since the bodytype options are limited, at least allow us to imagine MC's bodtype a bit differently from how the sprite looks and give us bodytype neutral writing.

Also, for the love of god, different bodytypes for LIs too. I understand not doing it for MCs because it means different versions of an outfit for all the bodytypes, but LIs generally will always have fixed bodytypes so you could at least vary that up a bit.

Okay I'm maybe getting a bit off topic here IDK, but I'll finish it off by saying that... yeah, we aren't just complaining for no reason. We're complaining because we know PB can do better. People have said that of these kinds of apps, Choices is the best one for queer players, because most of the other VN apps similar to Choices don't even have GOC options or female LI options very often if at all. We have higher expectations for PB because we know they can do better.

If a bunch of passionate independent fancreators can incorporate stuff like cis/trans options in a non-profit VN fangame, what excuse does a professional company have?

i haven't yet gotten to book 2 but i read the wiki just in case and then i got to this part... WHAT. like literally what. i'm guessing what's happening here is one of two options

what they actually mean is "the third option depends on your character's pronouns, unless they use they/them pronouns, in that case it depends on their body type" but they didn't actually word it like that because it'd seem transphobic as fuck

they really do mean it depends strictly on mc's body type, not pronouns at all, meaning an mc that looks fem according to body type but uses he/him pronouns will still be called "queen" by the game and viceversa

long ass rant incoming lol

and it's not even specifically this fuck up in a supposedly "inclusive" book that makes me so mad but the fact that there's also the one MAH scene, the scene that discusses queer identities openly and maturely in a book that's supposed to be one of the most inclusive and queer friendly in the entire app, that when it's mc's turn to speak on what they've experienced, if they have a body type that doesn't match their pronouns and have romanced a li with the opposite pronouns (ie feminine body type, he/him pronouns and romanced stevie, or masculine body type, she/her pronouns and romanced a male li) the game treats mc like a cishet person by default and completely ignores body type. i don't know about y'all but i certainly find it ironic that, again, in one of the most queer friendly books, the only option to be considered queer "by default" by the game (and thus get the question of what you've experienced) if you're playing as a trans mc is to date someone of the same gender.

but let's go back to crimes of passion for a moment, eh? specifically the very first chapter. despite the dialogue here depending only on body type instead of pronouns, in the case of the first chapter (specifically the scene where trystan and mc first meet) it's a completely different situation, here it does depend strictly on pronouns even if it literally doesn't make sense. in my first ever play, i played as my usual mc, a nb!mc romancing m!trystan, and me being nb, trystan called me "a stranger". not particularly unusual, right? after all, "stranger" is gender neutral, and so i thought that was the dialogue in all cases. well... it's not. i decided to play differently, specifically with the masc body type, she/her pronouns, and f!trystan. she literally called me a "strange woman" despite not being able to guess that mc's pronouns are she/her just by looking at her, because obviously there's only two body types, fem and masc, and it's not like we ever get gnc clothing styles. that, and in all cases mc never tells trystan their pronouns, so even in the nb!mc play i got quite startled at "they're a private detective". yes, that can be interpreted as trystan simply not wanting to assume genders or it being a case of culture shock from drakovia, but then what about my masc f!mc?

and that's because pb never intended to add inclusivity in terms of binary trans mcs, or even just queer mcs beyond "gay, lesbian, bi, or non-binary BUT if they're nb they have to be either fem or masc" (see: option to pick specific sexuality for mc only appearing in the elementalists and then never again, except in the royal masquerade but they removed the option to be ace so that doesn't count for me). they never intended for players to play as a masculine looking mc that uses she/her or a feminine looking mc that uses he/him.

if they really cared about inclusivity, they would let mcs be androgynous. they would add skirts, dresses, stereotypically "fem" clothing - or just clothing that isn't just a plain t shirt or a suit in formal situations for amab or masc looking mcs. they would add more pants, baggy clothing, more stereotypically "masc" clothing - or just options that aren't always incredibly revealing slinky dresses or crop tops and short skirts meant to "emphasize your sexy feminine curves" for afab or fem looking mcs. THEY WOULD ADD NON BINARY LIS AND MORE TRANS LIS. they wouldn't have the only option to play as an explicitly trans mc (or, well, the closest thing to "explicitly trans" there can be given there's absolutely no dialogue or even implication about mc being trans in any pronoun of choice book, save for MAH but i already complained about my problems) be playing with an extremely feminine/masculine body type and having the pronouns as the only indication mc is trans, completely ignoring the dysphoria that'd give many actually trans players.

no, that's not their intention and it's never been that. their sole reason for adding the "body type separate from pronouns" is to categorize mcs that use they/them and tell them they have to be either feminine or masculine, no androgynous or gender non conforming options at all. basically the question "but are you a GIRL non binary or a BOY non binary?" they would've probably forced she/her or he/him mcs into their respective body types and only ask "but are you a pretty feminine afab enby or a handsome masculine amab enby" to they/them mcs but they knew they'd get the backlash of their lives for that so they just went "we'll just ask for body type regardless, it's not like players will actually pick he/him pronouns while playing as a WOMAN right???"

conclusion/tldr. if pb actually wanted inclusivity, they can actually put in the work and acknowledge that people do want to play as an explicitly queer mc beyond just same gender relationships and performatively adding they/them pronouns to only SOME goc books, or else just don't do anything and show they don't care at all. not pretend they care but only add the bare minimum and pat themselves on the back for it.

[dramatistvx]

Loki fic recs!

Hello there! Here are some of the Loki fics I’ve read that I thought were really good :) Enjoy! 

Some of the fics contain dark themes so please read the tags and be safe! :)

Time Travel -fix it- 

The Fun With Time Loops series by Infinite_Monkeys

Summery first work:

With One More Try (Can We Start Again) 

Loki's attempt to conquer Earth has, to his great dismay, succeeded spectacularly. When Thanos sends him to collect the Time Stone, he strikes a deal with the Stone's keeper: he'll be sent back to the beginning of the invasion, and this time, armed with knowledge about his opponents, he can lose properly.

Or: a time loop fic in which Loki does increasingly desperate things to try and get the Avengers to defeat him already. 

Words: 13,563 - chaptered

Series total; 4 works, words: 78,913

Pretty sure you’ve already heard about this one and for good reason. It’s so good! Loved the whole series. I liked the third work best, tho it’s quite a bit longer than the others -60 k- It has more depth and -wayyy more angst- you get to see more of Loki struggling and him generally being in pain oOp- but he’s trying! Also Thor just wants to help bc he cares hihi. Love love love.

those yesterdays bleeding through by wnnbdarklord

Loki dies on the desolate plains of Svartalfheim, Thor's howls of grief ringing in his ears. He wakes up on his bed in his cell, where there is no sign of destruction.

A time loop fic where Loki gets the chance to fix things on the day the Dark Elves attack Asgard. And another. And another.

Words: 9,508

Another great time travel fix-it fic! I actually read the Fun With Time Loops series because I liked this fic so much and needed more lmao. There’s also a twist in the end that I didn’t see coming ;) It has so much angst for 9k I love XD I’d say that it’s a bit more explicit in the angst so be aware! Overall great read if you want something short and angsty but with a hopeful ending. 

De aging

Amateur Theatrics by galaxysoup

In which Thor’s primary problem-solving method (a mighty blow from Mjolnir) fails to have the desired effect on a magical artifact, and his secondary method (a mightier blow from Mjolnir) proves to be actively disastrous.

Words: 26,586 - chaptered

Love love love this one! After a magical accident, Loki accidentally gets de aged and it’s the most adorable thing ever. There’s fluff and angst and kid Loki is just so precious. I also love how Loki and Clint bond in this. Literally go read this! xD

Hurt/Comfort, Angst

Ichor in Violet by tirsynni

When Thor learns that Loki can travel to other realms without Heimdall seeing, of course he convinces Loki to take them both to Jotunheim to hunt Frost Giants. There an accident unravels centuries of lies and threatens to unravel Loki, too.

Words: 14,574 - chaptered

Where Loki accidentally discovers who he really is and has trouble dealing. Thor is confused, he just loves his brother. The angsttttt. This is dark so be aware! 

The Tapestries series by Lise

Summary first work:

It turns out that even a god can't escape a beating by the Hulk unscathed. At the end of the Battle of New York, Loki doesn't get back up. This changes more than you'd think. 

Series total; 4 works, Words: 30,727

Oh the angst *wrings hands* 

This series is amazing! It’s Loki struggling to deal with centuries of unresolved anger and hurt while simultaneously trying to cope with more recent events, the Void..Thanos. 

Basically, Loki just wants to go home, wherever that may be. Everyone’s trying, genuinely trying. You just gotta know when -how- to stop fighting. It’s very well written and It really dives into the psychological aspects of his trauma. Also, Odin actually cares for once lmao. This one is also pretty dark so be aware! 

Mistakes Made (And Corrected) by ADreamer67

In a different universe, Hela rebelled sooner. In a different universe, Hela Odinsdottir seduced Laufey with promises of power and convinced him to attack Midgard. In a different universe, Hela got pregnant, and didn't want to be. In a different universe, Hela left her newborn son for dead and went to face her father.

In a different universe, Loki Helajarson is two hundred and fifty years older than Thor. Let's see what happens.

Words: 47,072

Woah, just- this is so good!! It’s a very different take on Loki’s character but it’s still really fitting. After Thor is banished and the Odin sleep is fast approaching, Loki is to be king. Things don’t go very well for him, to say the least. I loved how the characters were portrayed and absolutely adored the dynamic between Loki and Thor. There’s so much angst and turmoil and it’s pretty dark so read the tags and be safe! 

Just Close Your Eyes by ADreamer67

Ragnarok has come to pass, the Asgardians have reached a deal with the leaders of Midgard for territory of their own, Loki is allowed to stay (provided he doesn’t leave said territory), and Thor is settled on the throne. So all in all, things are going well, if you ignore the recent massacre and planetary annihilation.

Well, except for the fact that Loki is working himself into the ground. And Thor is having none of it.

Cue a not entirely legal brotherly field trip where Thor will make Loki relax, or die trying. Responsibilities? Pssh, who cares about those? (Hint - Loki. Very much so)

Words: 31,832 - chaptered, still going

So fun! It starts out pretty angsty but it gradually becomes a little more lighthearted. Then, it’s just Thor and Loki exploring Midgardian customs together -mostly Loki being mildly disgusted by them lmao- :) 

Birthright by ADreamer67

Four years ago, Odin told Loki his birthright was to die. If only he knew.

When the Laufeyson was born small, too small and frail to survive, the solution seemed obvious. Though it had been many a generation since it had been done, the child was brought forth to the Casket, to be bound to its' power in an ancient ceremony that would imbue the little one with all the strength of a typical Jotun. That ceremony was interrupted by battle, and the child was left with the unguarded casket, in the hopes that the casket could keep it alive until it was safe to finish the ceremony.

That ceremony was never finished.

Over a thousand years later, the Casket of Ancient Winters is destroyed during Ragnarok. No one thought this would be an issue, least of all Loki. Guess what.

Words: 76,599 - chaptered, still going

This is so good!!! It’s one of the first fics I read in the fandom and it has really set my standards high. There’s so much angst and turmoil and it’s so well written. I absolutely adored the dynamic between the crew and how much Thor loves his brother even though Loki thinks he doesn’t deserve it. I really like the way ADreamer67 portrays the characters. 

Soulmate/Soulbond, Relationships

Maybe You (and your sad blue eyes) by alby_mangroves

Loki had already come to accept being born without a bonded soul to cleave to, one more way in which he would always be the lesser brother. So of course it made sense that it would settle upon him when he least expected it.

(Set in the timeline of Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, and The Avengers. Canon divergent just before Chitauri invasion.)

Words: 29,258 - chaptered

I don’t really ship Loki and Steve -bc stucky heheh- but I came across this fic in another rec list and I absolutely loved it, plus the art is stunning! Def a great read if you like angsty soulmate/soulbond fics but with a happy ending.

The sexual awakening of Steve Rogers by aLoggedInReader

Steve's life has always been complicated, but he did not know just how much of a rollercoaster it could become until Bucky came to stay with him.

Bucky is trying to be helpful and get Steve to live a little, but between being a hundred years old and having only lived a couple of those years, as an assassin for Hydra to boot, he tends to miss the mark now and then.

Adding an Asgardian prince in exile to the mix surprisingly does not make things easier.

Words: 47,333, still going

Sksjsksksk I don’t really ship Loki/Steve but this one is just so fun. features a lot of female Loki, flustered Steve, protective Bucky and overall wholesomeness and chaotic energy. Everyone just wants Steve to be happy. -mostly Steve centric-

The lines, here are written by dfotw

In a world where everyone has their soulmate's name written on their wrists, Steve Rogers has quite a lot more... and Loki, a lot less.

Words: 18,009 - chaptered

Lmao Imma just stop saying I don’t ship them XD This one is also really good. It’s angsty and tender with a hopeful ending. 

[olivieblake]

KSIGJICNRJCNEHCBD HELLO HELLO WELCOME TO THE HELL THAT IS KNOWING ZUTARA IS EVERYTHING AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AS SUCH !!!! wow i love that you are as angry as i was (and am every rewatch? yikes) this is amazing i knew you're my favorite but yeah wow man this really. confirms it whew high five

yeah it’s pretty wild how I knew this was what happened and was already bracing for it and yet STILL got completely misled by the narrative??? MEN I tell you MEN. I’m also going to use this ask as a method to reply to some of the other commentary if you don’t mind since this seems like a good place for communal frustration (here is my original post for anyone scrolling around lost)

@meg-hemmings: I agree with all of ur thoughts and I would TOTALLY read anything you wrote for Zutara … your writing is among my absolute favorite ever and I think you would write the Zutara dynamic so beautifully!

@one-man-propaganda-machine: I am - begging - you to write it yourself.

I... am not going to make promises, but I may have to. I want something very specific and that never bodes well for me. I doubt it would be more than a one-shot, but there are multiple scenes that could have occurred between episodes that would flesh out what was there (and of course I’d cut the final 15 seconds of the show, much like another epilogue I loathe and ignore)

@deifiliaa: omg atla discourse in 2021; olivie, i’d love to see what your character tier list looks like now that you’ve finished the series 👀

I’m going to put azula at the top. not because she’s a good person obviously but she’s FULL. OF. HITS. every time she’s on the screen the narrative gets immediately more interesting. she’s savvy and self-assured and I love it. her ending depressed me although I like that it was kind of about the loss of her two best friends? if that had been more of a focus I think I would have enjoyed it more but yeah, losing mai and ty lee could have been rightfully devastating. who among us is not totally obliterated by friend breakups. I also really loved uncle iroh; if anything that’s why I wasn’t invested in zuko’s storyline until close to the end, because watching him disappoint his uncle was very difficult (I get it, he’s a teenager, he’s growing and evolving and whatnot, but also I am closer to being his uncle than to being him so like, yeah). I also hope the peter pan revenge guy (JET that’s his name, sorry pregnancy kills my brain cells) did hook up with both katara and zuko. I love that journey for all three of them. I wanted more time with mai than we got, so there wasn’t quite enough there to love... but I was very down with ty lee interfering on her behalf. what a pivotal moment

of the core characters I think I was quickest to love sokka; the episode where he apologizes to suki and asks her to train him cemented it for me. I think it’s a big deal to show boys apologizing on-screen and owning their misconceptions. I like katara a lot—she’s what a lot of people do with fanon hermione. toph is also great, and part of me feels there is a strong basis for a ship with aang that balances their opposing energy, though I also like the idea of them being platonic besties. aang is... twelve. pretty much every time he was on the screen mr blake (a teacher) was like “man, aang is such a seventh grader,” so it was nice how convincing that was for his emotional journey, but at the same time it was hard to forget he was in seventh grade. appa and momo are STARS. I am sure I have mentioned this before but mr blake really loves animals and he was devastated by appa’s kidnapping; he hugged our dog for about ten minutes after aang found appa. after he decided I was zuko, he speculated that he is closest to aang but he’s not happy about it lol. “ugh, aang and I are such boring pacifists” was I believe his take on the subject

@libbynico, who for some reason I can’t tag: so true! katara was literally something like a mother/older sister figure to aang the entire time, but whatever

yeah, I think it really sucks that katara, as the emotionally nurturing character, felt shoved into the role of love interest. it’s everything wrong with the distribution of emotional labor in male-female relationships but sure, WHATEVER, apparently nobody thought to ask me in 2008

@touslesnoms: I liked “such selfish prayers” by andromeda3116 if you ever decide to read zutara after the series; the worst prisoner by emletish is super funny too

thanks for the recs! I will take them. I do want something very specific so I will be accepting recs until I find it lol. or until I lose composure and write it (yeah this is me WITH my composure, no wonder mr blake thinks I’m zuko, “I’m never happy” indeed)

@gaeleria: THANK YOU!!! Ugh omg that “I’m confused” kiss scene made me actively hate the ending. I knew ahead of time they were endgame, so I tried to make myself accept it early on. Like, I really didn’t like the pairing, but I wasn’t going to be emotionally invested in the romance and it was just going to be like, whatevs. AND THEN THEY WROTE THAT SCENE??! 1000% no. What was even the point of that scene? If they had written it to make Aang have some introspection and realize it’s not all about him, Katara’s feelings matter too, or even apologize, or anything… but no, there was literally no point to that scene. No character growth, it was never mentioned again. Ugh.

this is in answer to both you and beloved @zabbini: yeah this was a fuck-up for sure lol. I think it may come down to editing for time; the series is very irregularly paced, what with the majority of the action taking place in the final three episodes of a 16 episode season. or maybe it’s just because MEN CAN’T BE TRUSTED TO WRITE ROMANCE but either way yeah this was a real misstep and just truly, truly reeked of a particular (white) male attitude about how women think and what they owe. had a bad day, dudes? buy a gun, kiss your forever girl, do whatever you want and it’s fine! (I’m exaggerating but barely)

in terms of what’s so angering for me: a character like katara who previously had tons of agency was robbed of it when it came to her romantic arc, which is just really upsetting. and to be fair, I was equally upset when zuko instantly agreed to the agni kai with azula because it was like okay well katara’s extremely valuable, as you know, but now you want her to just sit on the sidelines...? (more of a story flaw than a relationship flaw, but my chest sunk a little at the idea that katara was going to sit by and watch as an accessory to zuko’s story when she’s a crucial weapon in their collective fight. what a waste, right?) 

it’s also especially hard to buy into the aang thing when zuko’s method of problem-solving on katara’s behalf is there for comparison. he asks her what she needs in order to find closure and then from there, does everything necessary to get it without having to be asked twice. versus aang, who is a twelve-year-old pair of rogue lips who never wins any of his fights without the aid of phenomenal cosmic powers...? ugh I’m getting off track but in the end there’s just a complete lack of understanding what female audiences want, though again, I don’t think they were really considering that at all. which I guess is... fair, it’s not the point of the show, but then why make the ending romantic at all? to show that their brand of hero gets everything he wants, I guess

in conclusion in 2008 I’m not sure the industry was capable of doing better, which sucks but isn’t surprising. still, it does fit the components of “stuff I write fics for,” which is I enjoyed most of it but find myself enraged by slivers I compulsively need to fix—WHICH IS STILL NOT A PROMISE but ugh I can already feel myself giving in 

[casualotptrash]

Fixes to the Persona Series

Oh boy I hope you all are ready to talk about this for the hundredth time!

My recent tirade about the FES vs Portable discussion started to make me think about what I think could be done in the next coming installments of the series to make it either feel a bit more fresh or just as an overall improvement. Now, I know many of the things I’m about to say have been said time and time again, but...this is my post so I’m going to give my opinion on this :)

Enjoy and feel free to vent with me about your biggest gripes with the series, because I’m always ready for a salt-fest.

(This post will pretty much have any spoilers about Persona 3, 4, and 5 (including Royal) so beware if you haven’t finished those)

To clarify right off the bat, anything I don’t mention in here as something I would fix I either don’t think it is a problem or I just happened to forget it.

1. Player Gender Options

(Royal Spoilers)

Starting off with a great one, I think that an improvement to the series would be to allow an option between a male and a female MC. I don’t think this choice would affect the story in Persona 3 or 4 very much (and we’ve seen that with Persona 3), but I have imagined and seen so many fanfics about how it would actually be a really interesting twist for Persona 5. For most of the story it probably wouldn’t matter too much, but it could impact the first palace so much. The first palace/story arc is already one of the best arcs in the game, so imagine if the player could relate to Ann and Shiho on an even deeper level? To be clear, I’m not saying the player has to be sexually assaulted or something, but I imagine Kamoshida would at least treat the player more like Ann rather than just a delinquent nuisance.

Also, and this just came to mind, but picture this: in the third semester Maruki actualizes things that he thinks will make others happy. Obviously, Joker and Akechi are against this. In the game itself there are a lot of clues to point that Joker does care about Akechi, and does want to see him again, but in the end they both agree that they need to fight for the real world that they worked for, not for a fake reality. If Joker was a female, they could still go the route of doing this (especially if romancing Akechi was an option? Or they just hint at them having feelings but Akechi doesn’t want to commit because he’s a self-loathing boi who needs to work on himself first).

Alternatively...what about a badass narrative of a girl, in a powerful position as the leader of the Phantom Thieves, fighting against a man who believes he knows what’s best for her and tries to appease her by just bringing back Akechi? Kinda like a “Yeah fuck what you did, you just need Akechi/a man and he’ll make you happy” type of thing. Obviously this would all be subtle, because I do think Maruki has good intentions, but he also blames himself for all of the hard things Rumi has gone through and may internalize that as women needing a “strong man” to protect them. Of course this might seem too preachy for people, but I thought it was an interesting idea to run with and that some people could relate to the whole “Woman trying to think and do things for themselves? Nah just sit in your little fake world and be happy, thanks.”

(Sidenote, Sae would be such a good role model...after her change of heart of course. You crush it girl.)

However, I do understand that this could be a lot of extra work, especially when the game is so long and tedious. That’s why I would also be fine with the strategy of “switching off” per say. By that I mean if Persona 5 has a male MC, then Persona 6 would have a female MC, and if a 7th game was made (in 2040 or whatever) then it could go back to a male. This would eliminate the issue of having to record all the voice lines twice or any other extra work that would come with having to make both genders an option. Honestly I know this option doesn’t matter too much to people, they just want an MC who is either a self-insert or actually a character (more on that later), but I do think it would be a very nice inclusion especially for the female fans of the game. It kind of sucks that three of the most popular games in the series all have male protags, and the female protag who was introduced often gets shafted for very dumb reasons. (Oh no, you have the option to romance a kid that most people don’t even choose or like, that means she’s a p*do! :I I know this comment is normally a joke but seriously it’s not funny).

2. Setting of the game (not transfer but also maybe involve the other games?)

(Spoilers for the Arena games and Persona 5/Royal)

So there are two main points to this suggestion: where the game takes place and how it relates to the other games.

As we all know, the three latest entries in the mainline Persona series have all followed a certain trend. They are all high schoolers, who transfer to a town, and know basically no one there. This formula has been repeated for the last three games, and while they are still great games, I think this trend needs to change. Any amount of switching this up would be better than nothing in my opinion. For example, the MC could be a new college student who goes to a new place for college (if they wanted the MC to move somewhere), and there meets the party members who are a mix of people who also don’t know the area (new to the college) and those who do know the area/some people there. This would appease people who have been really wanting an MC to not be a high schooler, while also giving the feel of meeting new people and seeing a new place.

On the other hand, the next game could take place in the MC’s home town, where plot stuff happens and they connect more to the people they already knew (aka party members) to solve the plot stuff. They could be in high school or college, either I think would work, but it would appease people who don’t just want to be a transfer student each time and also have some connection to the characters prior to the game. However, this would be difficult to do given the current “flow” that the games have, that is that the MC doesn’t know anything and has to ask a million questions. It would be very strange to go up to someone you have known most of your life and ask them a basic question, which is why that style of storytelling(?) would not fit well with this and other methods would need to be used.

Now, for the second point, I understand that they don’t make strong connections to the other games because they want each game to be able to be played as a stand-alone, and not to hold people back by forcing them to play the other games to understand this. Makes sense, but usually what happens is that people play one game in the series and then try another game, if they really like the one they started with. After playing through the ones they want to, and if they like them, then there is an appreciation for the series as a whole. Of course Atlus sneaks in little references here and there, like having the P4 gang go to Iwatodai or some TV news announcements on P5 that allude to Adachi and other characters, but those cant always cut it. One of the biggest letdowns I would come to know is the fact that the Shadow Operatives are not mentioned at all, outside of those small references, in P5.

Persona 5 literally has the PT’s broadcasting all of their heists, and includes major government officials like Shido. There are also the mental shutdowns/psychotic breakdowns, which also have people confused, along with how the PT’s steal hearts in the first place. I don’t know about you all, but this seems like the perfect opportunity to get the Shadow Operatives involved. This is like...literally what they were made for? Investigating persona/shadow activity and such, and we already know that the PT’s deeds reached at least Hawaii so it would be strange for the SO’s to have not heard anything. There are headcanons that they were blocked by Shido or something, which is pretty interesting to think about/develop, but it was only thought up to make an excuse for why they aren’t there. Persona 5 introduced a lot of people to the story, so yeah some people would probably be very confused about who the SO’s are and stuff, but it could payoff in the long run for long-time fans and those who play the other games after.

Depending on the story of P6, I don’t think it would be a bad idea to start including casts from the other games into newer ones...especially when each game introduces 8-9 new characters per game, and those games usually get made into spin-offs that include the characters made in the previous games! Counting only the characters introduced in the previous games (3-5), Persona Q2 has 33 characters (11 P3, 10 P5, 10 P4, and 2 P3P, this includes the velvet room assistants for each respective game). That’s a ton! Sure, having new characters each time is part of the fun, but I believe there is definitely a way to split them up. I don’t think it would be too much of an issue to have a smaller party member group (you can only have 4 fight at a time anyway), that way there is still the enjoyment of seeing new characters, while also filling up some of those spots with preexisting ones.

3. Characterization

This kind of piggybacks off of the second point, but personally I think they need to stop with the self-insert protags. First, like I mentioned earlier, it kind of messes up the “flow” of the game since they have to pretend that the character doesn’t know anything because the player doesn’t know anything (yet). For example, how many times did the option to say “Probation?” or “Expelled?” or something like that come up as a dialogue choice in P5? Too often, in my opinion. I assume anyone over the age of 15 would probably know what those things mean, but in case anyone doesn’t they have to make it an option to say.

Adding onto this, it also seems like people start to like the characters a whole lot more when spinoffs or movies/animations come out that really expand on the character, because in those games/mediums the player is taken out of the self-insert role. I would say out of the three games, the Persona 3 protags have the most characterization in game through their dialogue. I haven’t watched the movies, but I heard it fleshes the MC out a lot more. In Persona 4...well, I see what they’re going for but I also feel like Yu has the personality of a cardboard box. The animations definitely helped out this one, as did Arena, and I’ve seen other people agree that they liked Yu a lot more after playing/watching those things.

As for Persona 5, I think they tried to give Joker some characterization (and oddly enough “Joker” has a lot more to him than Akira/Ren, but he still fell more on the side of self-insert. P5 the animation is...of questionable quality, but I think Xander did a good job in the Dub (which is the one I watched) in trying to make him feel more like a human being. I haven’t played Strikers, but I assume it goes more on the route of P5 because you’re still controlling Joker. Oddly enough, I feel like the dancing game gave him the most characterization? Call me crazy, but his dance moves and voice lines just ooze of his suave, friendly, and supportive attitude. I wish that they took whatever those voice lines embodied and just put them into the game, because I would like Joker a lot more than I already do (which, to be clear, I do still like him a lot).

Although this doesn’t have much to do with the characterization, it would also be nice if Atlus could just put the “canon name” in the game while also still having the option to choose your own name. Again, this might add a little more work but maybe if someone chose the “canon” option then their name could be spoken in voice lines, but if they don’t then the names would be left out (except for text) like usual. Honestly this is mostly up to personal preference because I like some of the “not canon” names more so I would want to use those if I could, but I also don’t like having the characters just randomly cut off in the end of sentences when they’re saying your name. Just kind of breaks immersion, which is probably why I really like Joker because at least they say “Joker” quite a bit.

(Little rant, but why do the PT’s get like two group names? At first Morgana defaults to “The Phantom Thieves of Hearts” but then when you get to choose the name of your team, that name is what shows up instead. However, everyone still calls you the “Phantom Thieves” and the gang refers to themselves as that too! I get naming the group is kind of cool, but I would have preferred if they were just called The Phantom Thieves (of Hearts) and that way their name could be spoken in dialogue too.)

4. Choices matter...please? (romance and regular dialogue)

This might be easy or difficult to implement, I’m not so sure because I’m not a game developer, but I really wish choices mattered more in this game. I feel like most of these suggestions (especially later on down the list) are just little things that could be added to the game that would really amp it up, and this is one of them.

When I talk about choices mattering, I do not mean that dialogue should be so open that there are branching paths and that your choices affect the story. What I mean is that you could choose two different options and not get the same exact answer. I get that this isn’t always the case, but when it is it feels very strange. In this same vein of things, please stop with the illusion of choice because everyone sees right through it. I didn’t really see this as much in P3, and I still need to finish P4, but it was definitely apparent with P5. I felt that so many times in the game there were two options that were just “Option A” or “Synonym for Option A” as the choices.

Along the same lines, I think it would be great if romance choices were actually acknowledged. Again, there is a little of this in P3 and P4 where some party members comment on your relation to the other party members (Ex. Junpei saying to take care of Fuuka if you date, Yukari stating that Akihiko probably wouldn’t want FeMC going on a group date if they’re dating, and Yosuke coming to assumptions about who Yu spends the summer festival with), but they are very few and far between. I also saw no evidence of this at all in P5, which was pretty disappointing. In fact, in Persona 5 Royal if you are dating Ann and go on the Christmas Date with her, she makes some comment about not wanting the others to find out about them. Like...girl, considering someone can finish Ann’s social link as early as June or so on NG+ I’m pretty sure your friend group would notice if you’ve been dating for 6 months?? I know that romance is definitely not the focus of the game, but if you’re going to include it why is it shoved into the farthest corner and never touched?

Don’t get me wrong, it is cute to see the romances in the game play out and such, but on the same hand I can see how much better it could be. In reality it kind of sucks to romance someone in the Persona games because no one acknowledges it, and you only get like 3-4 small scenes in each game to spend with them (beach in P5, festival in all, Christmas in all, valentines except for 3, White Day in P5R). Just imagine if you could take a walk in Kyoto with whoever you romanced, or were able to take your partner to the Jazz Jin in P5R and they would get like special date dialogue or something? Very very small additions, but it would go a long way in making the romances feel a bit more connected.

5. LGBT Romances

I went into this in some detail in Part 3 of my FES vs Portable debate post, so I to save your eyes from reading more I’ll just quickly say that Atlus definitely needs to add in more LGBT romance options because it’s ridiculous at this point. The fact that you can’t romance any guy (because all of the MC’s are male, this is not including the FeMC stuff because that’s not typical in the Persona series) but can have a whole harem (despite what they may do to you) is just ridiculous. They’d rather let you date a fully-fledged adult than someone of the same gender.

Also they’re cowards for scrapping the Yosuke romance and that’s that :)

6. Fixing Social Links

Link to the stand-alone post about this section.

I literally was going to include this in this post, but this section alone (which I knew was going to be the biggest) was almost as large (a few hundred words off) than everything prior to this point put together. I’ll make a separate post with just this section soon, but this criticism of mine can basically be boiled down into the fact that the main growth of a character should happen outside of their social link in order to avoid tonal whiplash in the story, and that this will fix the problem of some characters feeling “one-note” if you do not do their social links/confidants. Essentially, go back to the P3 method.

However, something that needs to be fixed for all of the games is that you shouldn’t only get social link points for saying what the person wants to hear. I get the train of thought that if you say what they want to hear they will like you more, but that’s not how real friendships work? Obviously you shouldn’t be saying something that offends them and think it will raise your points, but sometimes people just need to hear things?

I can think of three standout examples: Nozomi in P3 (Gourmet King), Mishima in P5, and Shinya in P5. Nozomi’s link is a hot mess in of itself, but it was very frustrating to at one point just be like “Hey can you chill?” when he’s trying to induct you into a scam/cult or whatever, and it reverses the social link. Like ok buddy fuck you too, I was just trying to say no and that you need to stop scamming people?? For Mishima in P5 (I’ll go more in depth on him in a later post), it’s just kind of strange that you can clearly see him starting to obsess about the PT’s but you can’t really tell him he needs to stop until the social link demands it. Even then, the only way to get points is pretty much to go “Wow Mishima, you’re the best! You’re the reason we exist! We love you!!!” and it just feels kind of wrong. Shinya’s is very much along the same line as that, except you basically have to do something even worse and encourage him to keep being a bully? Thankfully P5 doesn’t reverse confidants, but I probably would have done so with Shinya because I kept telling him he shouldn’t bully others until I realized how to get points with him. It just feels wrong to encourage such behavior until the character suddenly realizes they’ve been acting wrong. No shit, I’ve been trying to say that.

I think social links need quite the fix to them, but this is definitely one of them. Strong, real relationships are not just built upon telling the other person what they want to hear.

7. Have Characters Hang Out

This is mostly a suggestion based off of P5′s downfall in this aspect. I think that P3 and P4 did a good job at showing the characters hang out in other aspects, or hang out separately outside of the MC. P4 had a lot of good group hangouts, but not many scenes without the MC. P3 had the opposite where members kind of hung out together a bit, but also showed or mentioned them hanging out without the MC. However, P5 didn’t have much for the group hangouts and also I can’t really recall a single scene of the party members hanging out outside of the MC.

Along with all of the problems I mentioned earlier with the cardboard cut-out personalities, I feel that this contributed to P5′s group feeling a bit less cohesive. Obviously when they all hung out they acted like a real group of friends, but it’s hard to see it as legitimate when 95% of their hangouts are just meetings for the Phantom Thief stuff. The only times they hang out outside of the PT stuff is the TV station, the fireworks festival, helping Futaba + the beach trip, and the culture festival. Like I said, I can’t recall them hanging out together outside of being with the MC/PT business, although I could have missed some stray text message if one was mentioned.

In this aspect, P5 feels like a small step down from P3 and a huge step down from P4. I think some of the events in P4 are a bit unnecessarily long, but at least they go through the effort of showing that the group is also a real friend group, not just people trying to solve the murder. Strikers may be a step up from P5, but I haven’t played it yet so I can’t judge that.

Also bring back school trips to prior locations of Persona games. Imagine P5 group going to Inaba and it turns out this is the small country town that Joker came from? And they sprinkle in references to P4? *chefs kiss*.

8. Remove/Change Certain Tropes

(Spoilers for the babe hunts, stupid ass hot springs scenes, and Ryuji abuse after certain palace)

By that spoiler tag, you can probably tell that this is the category I’m most passionate about. I can deal with social links feeling a bit disconnected. I can deal with the MC being a self-insert. What I cant deal with anymore? These. Dumb. Ass. Scenes.

Let me explain (insert Sojiro voice here)

Every game has three main tropes. One, the babe hunt scenes. Two, the hot springs scenes. Three, one character being dunked on by everyone else. I’ll go through each, scream about my feelings about them, and why they need to change.

First, the babe hunt scenes. I don’t have much of a problem with this trope to be honest, I just think it could be done better in some games. I actually think the one in P3 was quite funny, because the group treated it like an “operation” which added a bit to humor. Truth be told, I was just a bit disappointed in P3P FeMC route when you didn’t have your own version of the “babe hunt” thing. I know Yukari and Mitsuru aren’t the types to go hunt for boys, but perhaps the MC could have suggested it as a fun idea. In P4, this scene happens in Okina and largely remains the same as the P3 formula, but I think it lacks just a bit of the humor that the P3 one had. Lastly, in P5 this scene happens during the beach trip but compared to the others it’s pretty...lackluster?

It shows a montage of Joker, Ryuji, and Yusuke talking to girls but no actual dialogue goes on. After talking to three or so, Yusuke disappears and this is when Joker and Ryuji meet the two “flamboyant” men again. This time, the men either chase them down or call after them (?) depending on if you’re playing Vanilla or Royal. I don’t like how they use these men in the first place, but on top of that it kind of takes the “babe hunt” out of “babe hunt” if you don’t actually...hunt for babes? Like no actual dialogue is spoken when trying to convince the girls, which was most of the fun in the other scenes. You don’t even have free reign to walk around at the beach, and the scene is formatted in a more cutscene type of way.  It just makes P5′s babe hunt fall flat in many ways, and overall I finished the scene with a strong “meh.” The only good things about this was watching Makoto and Ann defend themselves and Yusuke with the lobsters.

Now for the hot springs scenes....hoo boy.

Simply put, in my opinion, these scenes suck ass in almost all of the games. P3 is the least egregious in my opinion, for a couple reasons. First is that it shows that Junpei and Ryoji were kind of trying to peep on the girls, and Akihiko and MC were just dragged into it. They have some funny dialogue, and in FES and Portable they even included the option to try and evade the girls. I found the little evade minigame to be really fun, even though every time I can’t help but fail because I want to say “It was a cat!” I find it interesting that there is the option for the men to get off scott-free, and that their dialogue after the trip is over changes slightly because of this.

On the FeMC side, I also find it fun that you have the reverse of the minigame and actually seek out the boys. My only letdown with this entire scene is if the boys are caught. I get it, it’s supposed to be funny with Mitsuru executing them and such, but as a reasonable person with a brain it seems really dumb to me that Mitsuru would just punish all of them when it’s just Ryoji and Junpei’s fault? This is nothing against Mitsuru, but her actions just seem so...exaggerated for some reason? Like Mitsuru is usually smart, and even if she is embarrassed I don’t get why she would punish innocent party members. A huge disappointment for me was that the FeMC isn’t able to stop Mitsuru from doing this either. Not even a choice to try and encourage Mitsuru or discourage her (so both options would be available). You just kinda sit there and watch, even after Akihiko say “It was a misunderstanding!” or something. For me it was especially strange because MC was dating Akihiko at that point, so why wouldn’t I try to hear him out? Just struck me as kind of dumb.

If I thought that was dumb, P4 and P5 were out to really make me roll my eyes and sigh in disappointment. Unlike P3, which has most of the scene being pretty good besides the very end where Mitsuru punishes the boys, the P4 and P5 scenes are all bad. This is not the first time anyone has said it, and won’t be the last, but they aren’t funny scenes in the slightest.

In P4, it’s actually the girl’s fault that they’re in the hot springs when the boys walk in. They stayed over their allotted time and into the time when boys are supposed to be in there. So what do they do? Get flustered, yell at them, and throw buckets at the group. Oh, and they don’t listen to the boy’s protests at all. Really.

Who thought this was a good idea?? The girls even realize after that they were in the wrong, say they should apologize, but I don’t think they ever show a scene of them apologizing after. This whole scene, like the hot springs ones in general, are just exaggerated (ie. throwing masses of buckets) to be funny, but they really fail in my opinion. It just serves to make the player kinda angry (since they’re usually on the receiving end) and make the girls look wildly unrealistic and dumb. I have never really thought that needless physical abuse is funny, so these scenes are just the bane of my existence apparently.

There actually isn’t a hot springs scene in P5, but they did add one in Strikers.

If they wanted to still do these scenes, maybe they could switch from making it “just beat up the boys” into something else. For example, the girls could try to peep, or walk in on the boys. Equality y’all, sometimes girls can do those things too (but still don’t beat them up. Just don’t beat anyone up). If none of that happens, or maybe that’s how the scene ends, the rest of the scene could just be a chill, relaxing scene between those involved. Essentially, how the scenes go before the whole “lets beat up the boys” thing comes in.

Lastly, on basically the same vein as why I don’t like the hot springs scenes, I’m starting to get real sick of the “let’s shit on this one character” trope. In Persona 3, I don’t think it’s that bad because they kind of do it with Junpei but they also give him a lot of character development, and eventually the sort of hostile shitting on him turns into just gentle teasing.

For P4 I still don’t think it is too bad, because Yosuke is kind of the one being shit on but he also does the same to the other people in the group? I suppose the only thing that really sticks out to me is how Teddie abuses Yosuke’s wallet (making him buy/pay for a lot of stuff with his hard earned cash), but I also don’t like Teddie at all in the first place so I may be biased about him. Oh well, he still shouldn’t do those things and I don’t really find it funny but to each their own.

However...this problem walks and rocks the fucking runway in Persona 5. Namely, this happens with Ryuji. The most obvious aggressor in this is Morgana, because him and Ryuji butt heads so often, but the other thieves kind of do it as well. Obviously they don’t do this all the time, but it’s extremely frustrating when they do. Morgana getting into arguments with Ryuji at the drop of a hat get old very quick, and the other thieves poking a bit of fun about how dumb Ryuji can be is also not that riveting. Despite all of that, the scene that highlights all of this is the scene after Shido’s palace collapse.

You all knew this was coming, but I couldn’t resist talking about it. The scene is so tone deaf in so many ways that it takes away all of the emotional impact that they were trying to build. Even the first time I watched this scene, in which I didn’t think they would kill off Ryuji, I could still sympathize with the group being concerned about him. Then when he shows up they...just beat him up and leave him unconscious next to a pole while they walk away? Wow.

On all subsequent playthroughs I just skip this scene, but I truly cannot understand why that was the angle they went for. Were they trying to insert some humor right after an emotional scene? That can be done in certain cases, but....why??? It’s so unbelievable it’s almost laughable. It’s not even like the bath scene where the the girls think the guys are trying to peep on them. It’s simply because he survived which I assume is what they wanted!

“Oh no you made us thought you were dead (even though he didn’t because he couldn’t control any of this), we’re going to beat you up!” Now you just make the characters look like irrational idiots.

Seriously Atlus, stop doing this. In most cases it just serves to make the player kind of frustrated, and in this case it it literally takes all of the emotional weight out of the scene and makes me think worse of the entire female cast. Please. Stop.

Well that’s the end of that. I don’t think I said anything too revolutionary, although my opinions about the social links and characterization might get me some flak. I just want the characters to be more than one personality trait... This was a really long post again, so kudos to whoever made it to this point!

Next time, on Dragon Ball Z Casual’s pointless posts: something Persona related :)

[hobbitkiller]

She-Ra, Supergirl, and Tangled: A Tale of Three Female Relationships: Part 2

*SPOILER WARNING FOR SHE-RA, SUPERGIRL, AND TANGLED: THE SERIES*

For those of you just tuning in, I’m taking a deep dive into 3 female relationships in 3 of my favorite tv shows that all turned into toxic messes at some point. The point of this series of posts is to exam these relationships, where things went wrong, whether there’s a chance for redemption, and what conclusions, if any, we can draw from these relationships about media’s representation of female characters and female relationships.

Oh, and shipping, ‘cause this is tumblr after all...

So, in Part 1 I gave a summary of the female relationships in question in these three shows (Adora and Catra, Kara and Lena, Rapunzel and Cassandra). I also summarized how these relationships began and when they started to go wrong. If you already know that stuff because you love these shows too, you don’t necessarily have to go back and read it, but doing so is always encouraged.

In this installment, I will be exploring 3 themes related to the festering resentment within these relationships: Mother Knows Best, Chosen Ones, and Itty Bitty Boxes. Follow the jump to get started!

PART III: MOTHER KNOWS BEST

I’ve heard a few people claim that Mother Gothel is not a top tier Disney villain. She doesn’t have the following that characters like Scar or Maleficent have. However, at the same time, I’ve heard many people saying something along the lines of “This is my mother.” There’s something uncomfortably familiar about Mother Gothel in Tangled. I recognized the same putdowns and microaggressions that I used to get from my stepmom in Gothel’s targeted jabs at Rapunzel’s confidence throughout the movie...all done with a smile and “It’s for your own good” attitude.

A lot of media focuses on the relationship between fathers and sons. Mothers in Disney have historically been silent or dead. (Except Perdita. That bitch was awesome). 

This, of course, makes it interesting that 5/6 of these characters have verbally (and in some cases physically) abusive, manipulative mother figures. And for Adora and Catra and Rapunzel and Cassandra, that mother figure is the same.

Here are our three abusive mothers:

Shadow Weaver who raised Adora and Catra:

Lillian Luthor who is Lena Luthor’s adoptive mother (and played by the absolute joy to watch that is Brenda Strong):

And, of course, Mother Gothel who kidnapped and raised Rapunzel for most of her life and is the SPOILER biological mother of Cassandra:

There are, of course, good mothers sprinkled in. Rapunzel’s biological mother, Queen Arianna is great once she actually gets lines in the TV show. Lena’s birth mother was also, by all accounts, a very kind and loving person. Kara has two moms, and while both have flaws, both are inherently good people (particularly Eliza Danvers, her adoptive mother).

However, in spite of the presence of some positive examples of motherhood, the relationships between all three of these pairs is heavily influenced by the three narcissistic women above.

All three of these women are dishonest, withhold affection only to give it away as a special treat, and actively manipulate their children. Yet, at the same time, the children can’t help but seek approval. Adora and Catra both feared and desperately sought approval and affection from Shadow Weaver. Lena tries to cut ties with her family, but keeps being drawn back in when Lillian admits pride at her accomplishments or that she does, in fact, care about her. Rapunzel sought affection from Gothel growing up because she was her one human contact, and, when Cassandra learned the truth of who her mother was, Cassandra desperately wanted some validation that the mother who abandoned her loved her on some level.

These mother/daughter relationships scarred 5/6 of our characters (Kara has her own hangups about her mother, but not on the deeply psychologically scarred level as the other five.) 

Adora is mockingly called paranoid by Shadow Weaver for understandably thinking the woman who lied to and manipulated her her entire life was up to something. Catra pushes everyone in her life away emotionally for fear of being hurt (only to create a self-fulfilling prophecy when they leave due to her behavior). Lena is constantly scared of being “betrayed” and manipulated. When she’s hurt by Supergirl asking Lena’s boyfriend to snoop on her, she says it was “something my mother would do.” When she and Kara first became friends, Lena was reluctant to do so because of the trust issues from her family (Lex Luthor is obviously also a manipulative, abusive jerk). Even Rapunzel, the embodiment of sunshine, has lingering trust issues. In the Season Three episode “Beginnings” she explains to Eugene that one of the reasons she likes Cassandra is because Rapunzel spent 18 years with someone who lied to her, whereas Cassandra was forthright and said what she was thinking.

Cassandra’s mother issues are a little more complicated. When she was four, Gothel abandoned her in order to kidnap Rapunzel and Cass was adopted by the captain of the guard. Cassandra has deeply repressed this memory by the time we meet her when she’s 22/23. Then, she’s given a glimpse of what life was like with Gothel:

Early in the series, Cass talks about how her father instilled in her the value of “earning my keep.” It’s clear here, though, that love as a transactional relationship had been instilled in Cassandra early in life: “And when it (love/affection) came, it came with strings.” 

This transactional view of relationships is something shared by all 5 members of our “bad moms” squad on at least some level. Adora constantly feels the need to fix things and be useful to her friends. Catra thinks if she just wins enough or is good enough, maybe Shadow Weaver will finally love her. Lena’s approach to relationships largely revolves around buying things for them and trying to unilaterally solve their problems for them without their input. Rapunzel has to go through an entire episode to learn that you can’t buy friendship through doing nice things, and that she doesn’t have to. Cass ties her self-worth deeply to her usefulness to others. They all struggle to find internal validation at times.

The other way mothers play a part in the downfalls of these relationships is the element of competitiveness. This is an issue with Adora and Catra and Rapunzel and Cassandra. As previously stated, both of these couples share a mother figure. And, in both of these couples, there is a deep resentment on the part of the non-golden haired child toward the other. Shadow Weaver did not hide that Adora was her favorite. She frequently praised Adora while berating and abusing Catra even when both had done equally well. Even when Adora abandoned Shadow Weaver and Catra for the rebellion, SW was more concerned with getting Adora back than appreciating the loyalty and accomplishments of Catra. 

Mother Gothel literally gave up Cassandra to take Rapunzel.

Both Catra and Cassandra feel completely overshadowed by the blonde in their lives, and part of them can’t help but think that, if only Adora or Rapunzel were out of the way, or had never existed, maybe they would have been chosen as the favored one.

This, of course, brings us to our next topic:

PART IV: CHOSEN ONES

I’ve never been a big fan of Ron Weasley. I didn’t read the Harry Potter books until I was in my twenties (yes, compared to many of my readers, I’m old), and I think this lead to me being less charmed by his humor or bullying of Hermione than I otherwise might have been. I found his temper aggravating and he is just...the worst...in the sixth book. Like, he purposely starts dating someone to punish Hermione who had already asked him to Slughorn’s party because Ginny pointed out that Hermione had probably kissed the guy she was dating TWO YEARS AGO. No, seriously, read that book again. That’s what happened. Then the seventh book happens and it turns out Dumbledore KNEW Ron was going to ditch the team at some point...

That being said, as I sat down to write this novel-length meta, I found myself thinking about what it’s like to be the support team for the “chosen one.” In the seventh book, Ron could have stayed at home with his pureblood family. He would still be in some danger due to their involvement with the Order of the Phoenix, but it would have been a lot safer than traveling around with “Undesirable No 1.″ Yet, because he loves Harry, he chooses to go on this mission. 

In the three pieces of media we’re discussing, 2/3 have literal chosen ones--characters with specific destinies of supernatural origin: Adora and Rapunzel. Kara also largely fits into the trope as someone sent to earth from afar to “save us.” As I somewhat jokingly said in the first part, all three of these pieces of media feature a blond super-powered person who needs to save the world.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be the best friend or “sister” of the person who’s “burdened with glorious purpose”?

On the one hand, it’s constant fear over that person’s safety and wellbeing. On the other, there’s a bit that can’t help but feel resentful. Imagine having a friend that overshadows every accomplishment you’ve ever had seemingly by virtue of just who they are.

Now, of course we know that it’s no easy road being a chosen one. There’s a lot you have to sacrifice, and it usually involves injury, near death, and a boatload of trauma. And the support teams know this. For some, it’s never an issue. But for others...

In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Adora, to Catra, always had the presence in her life of a chosen one, even before she got the sword and became She-Ra. Shadow Weaver had sensed something powerful about Adora when she was a baby, and thus treated her as the “Golden Child” to Catra’s “Scapegoat.” 

This idea of the “Golden Child (GC)” versus the “Scapegoat (SG)” rolls a bit into this issue with “chosen ones.” In toxic, narcissistic families, parents often hold up one child as the great one while the other is the one to blame for their problems. Think Olga and Helga in Hey Arnold! (Is that reference too dated for some of you guys? Man, I’m old. Also, I remember finally being old enough to realize Helga’s mom was an alcoholic and it blew my mind.) This also usually entails encouraging a level of competitiveness between the siblings.

In some ways, it’s like a “chosen one” is the whole world’s golden child. Anyone who researches this dynamic knows it’s abusive to both the GC and the SG, which is clearly displayed in She-Ra when Adora is stressed by the pressure of expectations and the knowledge that her mistakes will most likely be taken out on Catra. That doesn’t change the fact that Catra resents the positive attention (the adoration if you will) Adora gets--that, no matter what Catra achieves, it will be nothing compared to Adora.  This resentment is a big part of what fuels the escalation of their personal conflict leading to one of the saddest pieces of animation since Fry’s dog died sad and alone on Futurama. In the Season 1 episode “Promise.” (This is, by far, the best episode of the series), Catra airs all of her feelings she’d been repressing about what it felt like living in Adora’s shadow--how it made her feel like a “side kick,” something Adora never consciously tried to do and is shocked to discover.

Cassandra on Tangled:The Series has similar feelings about her role in Rapunzel’s life. Not only is her best friend the one with the magic hair and great destiny, but she is also her boss and monarch. Aside from the two songs I included in my last post, “Waiting in the Wings” and “Crossing the Line,” this conflict is best demonstrated early in Season One in the episode “Challenge of the Brave.”

Cass didn’t suffer abuse in quite the same way Catra did (though Gothel was the worst mom for her first 4 years), but she does feel disrespected and overshadowed by Rapunzel even before learning about Gothel. In “Crossing the Line”--a song many likened to “Let it Go” when they first heard it, Cassandra lays out these feelings further:

There’s a line between the winners and the losers.

There’s a line between the chosen and the rest.

And I’ve done the best I could,

but i’ve always known just where we stood.

Me here with the luckless.

You there with the blessed.

Now, when this song first came out, there were negative reactions from some fans. How could Cassandra call someone who had been kidnapped and locked in a tower with the neglectful and verbally abusive Gothel for 18 years “blessed”? But, from Cassandra’s perspective, Rapunzel still gets everything, power, respect, etc., purely because she was born a princess while Cass has worked incredibly hard her entire life to achieve one goal, becoming a guard, and is constantly denied.

With Lena and Kara in Supergirl, the resentment, again, is mostly between Lena and Supergirl for most of their relationship. Multiple times during the show’s run, Lena has expressed concern about human’s relative helplessness in the face of aliens like Supergirl who have power. This is why Lena sees some of her shadier actions such as making Kryptonite or trying to give humans super powers as justified. She doesn’t go to the extreme levels of hatred that her brother Lex does, but that distrust in those who are naturally more powerful runs throughout the family as does the resentment that aliens have seemingly usurped the leadership role among humanity that should have belonged to the Luthors.

What makes this interesting is that, in most of her relationships, Lena, as a billionaire, is the more privileged and powerful one. This is really best demonstrated in her relationship with James Olsen, whom she orders around as his boss while buying him expensive gifts and going behind his back to fix his legal problems. And for much of their relationship, this is how Lena sees her relationship with Kara. It’s not a manipulative or cruel thing. Lena just sees Kara as her adorkable reporter friend who is hapless in the face of danger.

Then, all of these preconceived notions come crashing down when Lena learns that Kara is Supergirl. Suddenly, she learns that her hapless friend was actually playing her the whole time--that she was stringing Lena along and pretending to be only human. 

Lena’s resentment may not be as explicit in this case as Catra’s or Cassandra’s, but it is layered within all of the emotions Lena Luthor is pretending not to have.

This, of course, leads us to our final subject for today.

PART V: “ITTY BITTY BOXES”

I’ve mentioned a few times throughout this novel-length meta the word “repressed.” Catra, Lena, and Cassandra are not good at expressing their emotions in a healthy manner. Much of this can be blamed on the aforementioned mother figures and the trust and intimacy issues that having narcissistic, abusive parents can lead to. 

Narcissistic parents often place the burden of maintaining the emotional wellbeing of the family on the children. It is your job as the child to make sure they don’t get upset. It is you who has to keep the cool head and maintain the facade of positivity. Parents like Shadow Weaver, Lillian Luther, and Mother Gothel do not see it as their responsibility to help their children regulate emotion or address it. To them, “negative emotions” are character flaws.

Of course, anyone who’s watched Inside Out knows that emotions aren’t inherently good or bad and feeling, addressing, and understanding them are vital to good mental health.

Too bad Inside Out wasn’t there for Catra, Lena, or Cassandra growing up.

Instead, each of these characters has learned to bottle up and hide emotions like sadness, fear, hurt, and true, deep anger. Lena even outlines her approach to such feelings when helping Brainy, an alien who is basically like an organic computer, solve a problem:

I was not the only person that was reminded of this gem after that scene:

Putting emotions away in an imaginary box is a real technique for keeping yourself from becoming overwhelmed in a situation where you need to focus. However, “forgetting the box existed” is not the appropriate use of the boxes. They need to be opened, and the feelings addressed. 

Catra is interesting, because in some ways she’s very vocal about her frustration and anger. Yet, that surface level frustration manifests in yelling at her friends and subordinates over their job performance or just being a general jerk. It’s not an expression of her true, deep feelings. Catra doesn’t let anyone see the deep levels of hurt she feels when Shadow Weaver manipulates her to join Adora. Instead, she just almost destroys the world...as you do. Season 4 in particular features a Catra who is more mean to her friends than ever before, yet she is still repressing so much of her true feelings to the point of mental and emotional collapse.

Cassandra also struggles to express her feelings, particularly to Rapunzel. Part of it might be because Rapunzel is her princess, and it’s not Cassandra’s place, but it’s also something she struggles with in general:

The above line occurs in an episode where Rapunzel knows Cassandra is mad at her and keeps pushing her to share her feelings. As we can see, Cass is not a big fan of that. Even though they talk at the end of the episode, it’s clear that there are still some hurt feelings on Cassandra’s side that she doesn’t express until she has electric blue hair and is singing a rock ballad about “Crossing the Line.” This is also fascinating because, as previously stated, one of the reasons Rapunzel likes Cassandra is her honesty. But, like with Catra, Cassandra can be honest about surface level annoyances, but intensely represses anything deeper.

All three of these characters let their emotions fester until they become deadly infections that poison their relationships, not just with their best friends, but with everyone. Many of these relationships could have been diverted from their dark paths if there had been more honest and open communication both between the characters and internally. If Lena acknowledged the real reasons why she was hurt when learning Kara was Supergirl, if Catra had been honest about feeling overshadowed and pitied by Adora, if Cassandra had expressed the pain she was feeling in her relationship with Rapunzel, things could have been different. Instead, those feelings have turned toxic.

NEXT TIME IN THE NEVER-ENDING ANALYSIS:

Blond Bulldozers 

I Don’t Care (I ship it)

Just going to do 2, because 3 subjects were a bit much.

Hope to see you there.

[pass-the-bechdel]

The Good Place full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

96% (forty-eight of fifty).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

49%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Forty-four.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Twenty-eight.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

Positive Content Status:

Good - you might even say, strong - in the sense that it’s all there, pretty much all of the big representation bells are ringing, particularly the ones for women and racial diversity. That said, the show is generally content to sit pretty and not push the envelope on inclusivity, so if you’re looking for inspiration in-text instead of just in casting, you might be disappointed. At any rate, it’s a solid feel-good time, and not likely to make you mad (average rating of 3.01).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

The numbers stay pretty consistent across the whole series, but if I had to call a winner, it’s season four, which has the highest percentage of female characters and the only above-average positive content rating (though that was awarded somewhat cumulatively, and so doesn’t feel particularly well-earned by that season above the others). 

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

It’s such a close call, but season three must be the loser here by virtue of the lowest ratio of female to male characters; it also had one of the series’ two Bechdel fails. Like I said, it’s...a really close call.

Overall Series Quality:

There’s so much about it that is fresh and original and interesting, I wish I could love it more. After a magnificent debut season, the show suffers immensely for a lack of pacing and the absence of coherently-planned plot, and at times the stagnating characterisation and pointless filler caked into the cracks in the storytelling can be frustrating and/or tedious. I’m only as disappointed as I am because the potential for greatness was so strong. That said, even at it’s worst The Good Place is still entertaining, and most of it is better than that. It’s irreverent, it’s fun, it’s surprising, and sometimes it’s even as poignant as it is remarkable. I have my gripes, in droves, but that doesn’t mean this show is not worthy.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Imagine. Imagine a version of this show where the first season is basically the same, and the second season is...somewhat similar to how it is, but with more focus and direction, less time-wasting; a second season where figuring out that some fundamental change to their circumstances is necessary comes early, and instead of faffing about with ethical lessons in the fake neighbourhood again while Michael pretends he can get everyone to the Good Place, we get down to business with going on the run and into the Bad Place to find the judge and petition for help. Imagine this show, but the third season has none of that return to Earth crap, and instead, is the neighbourhood experiment from season four, properly fleshed out. And then season four is all about going to the Good Place and solving the problems there, addressing issues with the concept of utopia and the ineffectual bureaucracy of obsessive niceness (used for comedic effect in the actual show, but c’mon, there’s a whole untapped reservoir about morality there). Each season could have (gasp!) a properly-planned and plotted arc, dealing with a different school of ethical considerations, and I dunno, maybe the characterisation could have trajectory too, and the characters could vitally shape the storytelling, and maybe not get their personalities and experiences erased and rebooted over and over again, nullifying large swathes of the narrative which came before? Ideally, they could be reset zero (0) times, or at least have all their reboot experiences dumped back into them in the first few episodes of season two, so that they could proceed from there as whole people. Rebooting everyone’s personalities is not actually necessary to the plot in any way, and is, actually, incredibly detrimental to storytelling and especially, character development. Imagine this show, but just chilling out and actually telling a coherent story? 

I am all the more annoyed by how things turned out on this show because I know that the four seasons were planned for, rather than being the result of cancellation; the idea that the creators sat down and ‘plotted’ (using that term loosely) to make this mess drives me a little wild. The (attempted) avoidance of the dreaded ‘stagnation’ seems obvious, and it leads to major narrative shortcuts and jumps and instances where the show spends an episode or two on what should have been a half-season’s development, minimum, and yet at other times all momentum grinds to a halt for a bizarre bottle-type episode where the characters just talk about a concept for a while or work on some unimportant romantic subplot. The various ethical concepts that the show heavily incorporated as its bread and butter in the first season start to stick out like sore thumbs in season two, seemingly wedged into one episode or another for no real reason other than just to be there, and the fact that the show lets go of the idea of moral choices in the life mattering at all in the end leaves the backbone of the show in a very strange shape. I said in the season four review that I didn’t expect the show to come up with some One True Answer about how people should live their lives, but that I was baffled by the fact that the show side-stepped that altogether; what I expected them to conclude was something in the line of ‘we recognise that life is complicated, not all situations are created equal, and it can be hard to know how to proceed ethically or even to access ethical options within one’s circumstances. Still, it is important to do your best, not only for yourself but for your community, because the more good you put into the world, the more there will be to go around and come back to you. What matters most is that you are doing your best with what you’ve got’. The fact that the show distracted itself with fixing how the afterlife rewards people within the afterlife means that it suggests no incentive to perform moral actions in life, and frankly...who gives a fuck? The real world is the place we’re all living in, and there’s no point starting a conversation about morality in real life if the conclusion is just ‘guess we’ll straighten out all the fascists and bigots and the other pieces of shit after they die, so don’t worry, everyone gets to Heaven eventually!’

Anyway, if that seems like just a reiteration of what I said in the season four review, well. I’m still baffled by it. The other thing I was going to talk about in the season four review but held for the full series instead was that one big thing that I have railed about all the time since season one, and that’s PACING. For all ye wannabe-writers out there, please understand how important pacing is. Even vital plot or character beats can seem like meaningless filler in a poorly-paced story, because your audience’s mind is hardwired to try and follow narrative cues that are being incomprehensibly muddled. Standard structure can be played with, but if you toss it out in favour of ‘stuff just happens, ok? Except when it doesn’t’, you just end up with a soup of disconnected story ideas, and nothing threading it together. Character interactions and especially developments can help to create the through-line you need to keep the story functioning despite itself, but as variously noted with The Good Place...initial characterisation? Strong, excellent. Development? Not so much, not least because they kept getting deleted and rebooted. Also, time skips kept happening, and that’s a great way to fuck over your narrative coherence even more: remove the recognisable constant we call time! It’ll be fine! As with all things, it is perfectly possible to play around with this stuff, but you have to know what you’re doing and be doing it for a good reason, and that’s not what they had going on here. This was narrative soup, and when you have a soup, the pieces all kinda meld together and lose any individual purpose, meaning, or power they may have had. The result in this case was not bad, but it really could have been so much better, and literally all it needed for that was some attention being paid to the story structure via pacing.

So. The good news is, I think I have pretty well exhausted all of my complaints by now, and that leaves us with the good stuff, of which there was no paltry amount. The show was not a hit by accident (even if I do feel that it’s success had a lot to do with people sticking around after the spectacular first season, and not because it stayed strong throughout), and even if there was a lot of soup going on, what comprised that soup was all really fun and unique, and this made for a wonderful piece of light-hearted television that could be as hilarious as it was insightful. It still had a lot of great takes on things, the commentary was strong (even if it pulled all its punches towards the end), and whether the storytelling was ebbing or flowing, it was always delightful. The show also managed to pull a miraculous finale out of its hat, and that’s a rare thing in television; however the story wobbled over the course, the ending provided enough satisfaction to forgive just about any sins, especially if you don’t happen to have been watching with a deliberately critical eye. Do I wish that Eleanor got to hook up with a chick on-screen some time instead of just making a lot of bi remarks? Yes. Do I consider the show to have queerbaited instead of providing genuine rep? No. Is the underselling of the queer content my most significant representation complaint? Yes, it is, and that's good news considering the world we live in and the dearth of quality representation that the industry has brought us to expect. 

There's an important distinction to be made there, regarding the tokenistic representation that is very common these days in tv trying for brownie points and good publicity, exactly that kind of 'political' inclusivity that conservatives are always bitching about. It should not be surprising that I support that tokenism over the alternative of having no representation at all, but it can still be quite disheartening to feel like your identity or the identities that you value are being referenced as nothing more than an opportunity for some shitty producer to perform wokeness for attention, praise, and the almighty dollar. I bring this up because - even though The Good Place never really worked up much of a boost to its content rating - one thing I felt that it did really, really right was providing representation without it feeling tokenistic at all. Eleanor's bisexuality wasn't as prominent as I might have preferred, and as noted through the course of the show, there were times I feared it was more bait than real rep, but reflecting on it at the end, the way it was included feels organic, it never gets in the way in order to ensure the audience notices and is dutifully impressed. The number of women around and the multicoloured casting plays out even better; I never once felt cynical about the gender balance I was seeing, and I've said it before but I'll say it again: the fact that the show was packed with names from across the world gives me so much life. I'm still a little salty about Chidi's Senegalese origins getting the shaft (and we won't talk about 'Australia'), but the nonchalant diversity of naming goes such a long way to embracing the idea that this is a world for everyone (and an afterlife for everyone, too). And where anything else might fall apart or lose its way, that is an affirming thing. If you want feel-good tv, it’s here. This is the Good Place.

[lovemesomerafael]

Cinderella of Chicago             Chapter 1:  The Ball

His outfit was sheer genius. The wings could actually lift and wave, and fold back to their resting position smoothly and silently.  They worked on servos he’d spent way too much for, but it was worth it.  You couldn’t even see him toggle the switch that controlled them, because it fit perfectly within his palm.  Brilliant.

Not only that, but the workmanship on the suit itself was perfect.  His Baba had asked no questions, just taken the pictures he’d given her, drawn up a pattern, and sewed holy hell out of it.  It fit like a glove and made him look pretty damn good, if he did say so himself.  He’d had to make a few concessions here and there on fabric and trim, mostly because the real suit was undoubtedly butter-soft leather that cost about a million dollars a yard, but he’d done superbly there, too.  Well worth the number of days off he’d spent haunting every fabric store in greater Chicago.  

Which is why Brian Zvonecek could not be blamed for maniacally bouncing his foot and checking the clock every seven seconds as he sat ignoring the morning talk show on the common room TV, waiting for this shift at Firehouse 51 to end.  When ChicagoCon started in approximately three hours, he planned to be there, and he planned to be the best Sumendi anyone had ever seen. Including, hopefully, Anthony Lang, the guy who actually played Sumendi in all three movies, and was going to be on a panel talking about the upcoming movie that would have all the Planetary Saviors in it.  Brian couldn’t wait.  

************

At this stage of her nursing career, not much bothered Meg Armstrong, but this was a bunch of shit.  Literally, the largest amount of feces she’d ever seen, which had issued from a homeless woman who had come in to Chicago Med’s Emergency Room after not being able to “go boom-boom” (her phrase) for a week.  Well, they’d solved that problem.  And now, here was Meg, four years of college and fifty thousand dollars in student loans later, dealing with the aftermath of their success.    

At least her shift was almost over.  The minute she had Mrs. Carlsberg cleaned out and cleaned up, she could, at long last, catch the El to her friend Karen’s apartment where the girls were meeting to get ready for ChicagoCon.  After all the planning and all the work to make it, Meg was dying to put on all the pieces of her Tabiti costume and hit Rosemont.  

 ************

The hall was huge. Actually, if Brian was being honest with himself, it was a little overwhelming.  Half of Chicago was here, and a good third of them were in costume.  He’d get used to the crowd, and the more people in costume the better, because he knew he looked good.  He’d already lost count of the number of people who’d asked for permission to take his picture, or to be in selfies with him.  He graciously agreed every time, while his roommate Joe Cruz rolled his eyes and made annoyed faces.  Well, Cruz could be getting this kind of attention if he’d chosen to dress up, but he’d absolutely refused.  So there he was, wearing a T-shirt and jeans and absolutely invisible next to Brian.

“C’mon, Otis, we’re not gonna get a good place in line for the panel.”

Brian accepted yet another high five on his costume and joined Cruz for the short walk to join the throng in front of the doors to the main auditorium.  The panel wasn’t for another hour at least, but if they didn’t get in line now, they’d have lousy seats.  Brian wanted to be sure to get great pictures and – although he didn’t admit it to Cruz – he hoped someone on the panel would notice that he was looking crazy good as Sumendi.  

For the next hour, Brian and Cruz stood cheek by jowl with an odiferous mass of Planetary Saviors fans, many in costume.  There were a fair number of Sumendis, but none that could approach Brian’s costume, even without the real, working wings.  Unfortunately, there weren’t many women in the vicinity of Brian and Cruz to make the wait more enjoyable.  There were a few mediocre Tabitis and one group of all the female Planetary Saviors, but they were all too young to be interesting.  

Being taller, Cruz could see further into the crowd.  He mentioned a few particularly cool costumes, but Brian couldn’t see them.  It would be easier to check out the costumes when they were released from the horde into the auditorium.  For now, he was stuck among a mostly-male group of younger fans, all of whom smelled like they needed either a shower or a lesson in moderation when applying Axe body spray.  He wished he was wearing his SCBA apparatus.  It would’ve ruined the look of his costume, of course, but no one could really see it in this crush, anyway.  

At last, the doors opened and Brian and Cruz were propelled into the auditorium by a suddenly frenzied mob, having all they could do to keep upright.  But they had a plan.  Cruz was pretty big, and could use his arms and elbows to basically swim through the crowd. All Brian had to do was stay tucked right behind him, and Cruz would get them to the front.  Which he did with a minimum amount of elbowing teenagers and a very clever “accidental” de-helmeting of a Boba Fett.  

 ***************

Meg and her friends were not as successful, mostly because they didn’t have a plan beyond “get great seats”, and they didn’t feel like waiting in a huge, jostling melee for the auditorium doors to open.  Still, they got in for the panel and had seats.  They counted that as success, especially since all five women were seated together. Karen was determined to get to ask Ken Terhune, who played Sumendi’s wicked brother, Adranos, a question.  He was so hot, she was sure she would have an instant orgasm if he actually spoke to her, and she was going to do whatever it took to make that happen.  

The first thing she’d done to get his attention was to come dressed as Afi, wife of Adranos.  Another thing she’d done was to make sure that her boobs looked spectacular in her Afi costume.  Not that much of her boobs were in her Afi costume, but that was kind of the point.  

While they waited for the panel to start, the women looked around the auditorium, admiring all the costumes and looking for cute guys.   Liz saw one cute guy, right down front, in a really great Sumendi costume.  She elbowed Meg and pointed.  

“Look over there! That guy’s Sumendi is almost as good as your Tabiti!  You should totally get a picture with him,” Liz told Meg.  

“Whoa!  That is a good costume.  He’s cute, too.  But I’m not going down there.  What would I say?  ‘Hey, dude, I see we’re dressed as a couple, so let’s get our pictures taken together?’  I’d die of embarrassment.”

“Then I’ll say it.  You look really good, and it doesn’t look like he has a Tabiti with him.  Come on.”

“Not happening, Liz. Thanks, though.  Hey, look over there.  Is that dude supposed to be a zombie from The Walking Dead?”

“I don’t think so.  I think he just needs to eat some vegetables or something.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Highly.”

 *******************

“Cruz, Cruz… look at that Tabiti up there!”

“Whoa, dude, she’s checkin’ you out, too.  You should go meet her.”

“I can’t go meet her – we gotta… protect these seats.”

“You’re such a weenie, Otis.”

“Are you really willing to give up these primo seats just to -  Oh! They’re starting!”

 **************

The panel was awesome. Nobody on the panel said anything about Brian’s outstanding costume, but he was sure they saw him.  Both Brian and Cruz were hoping to get picked to ask their questions, which would have given Brian a perfect opportunity to show off his Sumendi wings, but that didn’t happen, either.  Still, it was a great panel.  Well worth the hassle of getting in and getting these seats.

After the panel, it was time to cruise the main exhibition hall.  That was going to take some time and coordination, because Anthony Lang was going to be signing autographs and taking pictures at three O’clock, and Brian had pre-paid for his photo op.  He was not going to miss out on that.  Cruz had thought that the $75 price tag was too high, but that was ridiculous.  How could you put a price on getting your picture taken with the real Sumendi?  

 ***********

Meg and her friends needed a break after the excitement of the panel.  They’d do the Exhibition Hall, but right now coffee was a must.  Karen was bummed that she didn’t get to ask her question, and that Ken Terhune hadn’t commented on her Afi costume (or her boobs). But they all thought a little caffeine would fix her right up.  

They’d been right, and for a while, they’d had a great time shopping the booths and checking out the costumes.  But after lunch, Susan and Lita were getting a little tired of the Con.  The others wouldn’t say it out loud, of course, until after they’d gone home, but Susan and Lita weren’t really “fans” so much as just there for the experience itself.  Maybe Susan and Lita wouldn’t even understand that was an insult.  But best not to say it out loud anyway.  

“Come on, you guys, we’re only halfway done with the Hall!  We’re never gonna see everything if we take another break,” Meg urged, pulling on Lita’s arm.

“We’re getting smoothies. We’ll meet you after.  We know the pattern you’re following around the Hall, we’ll just find you.”  And just like that, Susan and Lita ducked into the crowd and were gone, leaving Meg, Karen, and Liz (wearing a Sumendi T-shirt, which was closer to being in costume than her friends had thought they’d get) to shop the rest of the booths.  

The next booth they came to sold nothing but hoodies – from traditional ones printed with pictures and logos from all sorts of fantasy franchises to ones with attachments on the hoods that made you look like your favorite character.  They spent a long time looking through them all, especially trying to find one with Adranos’s crown in Karen’s size.  They were ultimately successful, and she waited in line to pay more than Meg ever would have for it.  Liz continued to hunt through every hoodie with a Dr. Who theme, afraid she would miss The One if she didn’t look at every single one to make sure she hadn’t missed a design.

Meg’s feet were starting to hurt in Tabiti’s signature stiletto-heeled red boots, so she took the opportunity to lean against one side of the booth so she could stand on one foot at a time, giving the other a rest.  

“That is an outstanding costume,” a voice at her ear said.  

Meg turned to face the cute guy in the really good Sumendi costume they had seen at the panel.  

“Oh, hi,” she stammered, immediately embarrassed at the overzealous squeal in her voice.  “Yours is great, too.  I saw you, at the panel.  It’s really… great.”  Could I be more of an idiot?  

“Thanks.  Your headpiece is awesome.  Isn’t that heavy?”  He asked. They had to practically shout to be heard over the jostling, milling throng hemming them in.  But it was worth it.  Brian couldn’t believe his luck finding the Tabiti they’d seen at the panel, who was even cuter up close.  

“It isn’t that bad,” Meg answered, self-consciously touching her headpiece and knocking a shower of glitter onto her shoulder.  “It’s papier-mâché, mostly.  So not that heavy.  You can, you know, touch it.  If you want.”

Brian touched Meg’s headpiece, knocking on it a little with his finger.  “Wow.  I’d swear it was metal, from a distance.”  From a distance?  Nice one, moron.  She’s gonna punch you.

“Thanks.  What did you use for the red streaks in your hair?”

“That?  That’s natural.”

Meg laughed, but then began to cough as she inhaled a bit of spit down the wrong tube.  Oh, for fuck’s sake.  Kill me now.  You, Aquaman over there, if you could just impale me with your trident, that would be great.  He’s gonna think I have fucking tuberculosis.  

The problem was that he had smiled.  This Sumendi, who was pretty cute to begin with, and had made a very funny joke, had smiled after he said it.  And his smile was… electrifying.  He had gorgeous, white teeth and, with his dark hair and dark eyes, and the little moustache and soul patch he wore (which Meg usually hated), it was just… well, it was enough to make her choke on her own spit like the gargoyle she was.  

He patted her on the back. “You gonna be OK?  I’m a firefighter.  If you need CPR, just say the word.”  

Meg flapped her hands around, trying to signal that she would be OK, and desperately tried to control her cough.  She could feel the tears smearing her mascara and knew for a fact her face was beet red. Yeah.  Some Tabiti.  She’s supposed to hold Sumendi spellbound with her charms, which I’m dead certain don’t involve hacking up a lung at his feet.  

“I’m…  I’m OK…”  Meg choked. The taller guy behind Sumendi handed her a bottle of water, which she gratefully accepted.  He was kind of cute, too, she noticed.  The water helped.

“I’m sorry.”  Meg covered her face with her hand.  “I just… something went down the wrong way, I don’t know…”

“As long as you’re OK.” Sumendi was looking at her with a sort of serious expression.  That looked good on him, too.  Did he say he was a firefighter?  Meg really, really liked firefighters.

“Yeah, yeah.  I’m fine.  Thanks for the water,” she said to the taller guy, handing back the bottle.

“Keep it.  Just in case,” he said, smiling.  “Hey, would you mind if we got a picture of you guys? You know, together?”

Sumendi smiled again. “Yeah, that would be great!”  

Meg was still working to calm her spasming trachea, and knew what her makeup must now look like.  “I’d like that, but…  Can I just…”  She pointed to a mirror in the jewelry booth next to the hoodie booth.  

“Oh, sure!”  Sumendi said excitedly.  Could I sound more like a fourteen-year-old?  Damn it!

Meg went over to the next booth, bending down to survey the damage to her eye makeup.  It was bad.  She pulled her small backpack off her shoulder and rummaged inside.  People kept bumping against her in the overcrowded Exhibition Hall, making her work much harder.  She was eventually pushed over to the other side of the booth, where there was another mirror.  She had to wipe a lot of smeared mascara off her cheeks, which messed up the rest of her makeup, which meant she had to re-do that, too, before she could re-apply her mascara.  It took a solid five minutes, with added time to deal with all the pushes and shoves from the crowd and those wanting to get closer to use the mirror themselves to try on jewelry.

“You ready to go on?” Meg heard Karen’s voice at her elbow. She looked up, surprised.  

“Oh, well, we’re gonna get a picture together, me and Sumendi.”  She looked over to where Sumendi and his friend had been, but couldn’t see them in the seething crowd.  

“What Sumendi?”

“The cool one, the one we saw at the panel.  They were right there-“

Liz stepped up beside Karen. “They didn’t have any good Dr. Who shirts.  Let’s go.”

“No, but… wait-“

“Meg, I don’t see any Sumendi around here.  Maybe he bailed.”

“He didn’t bail!  They were right there!”  She moved toward the hoodie booth as best she could, but there were so many people crowded around it was difficult to maneuver.  Pushing a bit, she got further into the walkway but couldn’t see Sumendi or his friend.  

“Damn!  They’re gone.”

Karen and Liz hustled Meg along to the next booth.  They still had a lot of ground to cover.  Meg was crushed.  That Sumendi had been really cute.  And he said he was a firefighter.  And that smile!  

Meanwhile, Brian and Cruz had been shoved into the hoodie booth, and were trying to get back to the walkway, but it was taking forever.  Finally, Joe used his elbow-swim move to escape the booth, with Brian in tow. By the time they got out to the walkway, Tabiti was nowhere in sight.  Brian sighed. He had really liked the deep copper color of her hair, especially with her green eyes.  Plus, she’d remembered him from the panel!    

 ****************

“OK, this is where I leave you,” Cruz announced as Brian joined the line for his picture with Anthony Lang.  It was only two thirty, but he wanted to be sure to get his picture and autograph.  

“You sure, Cruz?  This is Anthony Lang we’re talking about.”

“I know, but I’m not paying seventy-five bucks for a picture with a dude I can see in a movie for less than twenty.  You’re crazy. I’m going back in, to finish the Exhibition Hall.”

“Fine.  You’re missing out.”  

Cruz gave a little wave and disappeared into the crowd, just missing colliding with Meg as she maneuvered through the crush of people to join the line for pictures and autographs with Anthony Lang.  Looking around, she figured out where the end of the line was and stepped up behind the last person, who happened to have a really good Sumendi costume –

“Hey!  It’s you!”  Brian greeted Meg, again giving her that blinding smile.  She blinked a bit, momentarily confused by his sudden reappearance and by the effect that smile had on her.

“Oh, hi!  We got separated.  I’m sorry, I really wanted to have a picture with you.”  

“Yeah, so did I.  But we can do it now.  You know, if you want.”

Meg’s face fell a little. “I’d like that.  I guess you’ll have to text it to me, though, because my phone died.”

Now Brian’s face fell. “You are not going to believe this.”

“What?”

“I don’t have a phone, either.   I gave it to my roommate, because there’s no place for it in my costume, and I didn’t want to be bothered with it.  He has it in his jacket.”

Just Brian’s luck.  Here he was, looking great as Sumendi, with a long wait ahead next to the best Tabiti he’d seen at the Con, who seemed genuinely excited to have their picture taken together, and neither of them had a phone. His choices were laugh or cry.  Or swear a blue streak, he supposed, but he didn’t know this girl and she seemed really nice.  Maybe she would be turned off if he swore.  But he was brutally disappointed.  

Meg laughed, so Brian joined her.  She was no more thrilled than he was not to have a camera, but maybe they could find her friends, or his, when they were done with Anthony Lang.  Or maybe they could get a picture taken in the booth with Anthony Lang.  That would be really cool.  In any event, she was pretty happy to get to spend the next hour or so with this cute Sumendi while they waited.  They were going to get a chance to actually talk.  To get to know each other.  She wondered whether he was single.  She also wondered, based on the excellent craftsmanship of his costume and his obvious closeness to the guy he’d called his “roommate”, whether he was straight.  She really hoped so.

“I’m Brian, by the way,” he introduced himself.

“Meg.”

“Meg.  Nice name.”

“Short for Margaret. Call me Margaret and you’ll get Tabiti’s scepter up your nose.”

Brian held up his hands. “Meg it is.  That tip looks like it could do some real damage.”  

Meg smiled and took a look at the tip of her scepter, which had a lampwork glass flame at the end.  It was fairly pointed.  “Just letting you know the rules.”

“That scepter is great. You’re really talented.  How’d you make that?”

Meg explained the rather simple process of fabricating the scepter.  The basic idea wasn’t too complicated; she’d started with an old baton. But she made Brian laugh with her story of the lengthy and heated negotiations she’d had to conduct with the friend who made the tip.  

The friend, Alice, made lampwork beads, which was a fairly expensive hobby that required a great deal of practice to master.  Besides that, the flame tip had to be both intricate - woven of several different colors of glass - and strong enough to withstand whatever abuse it would get at the Con.  Alice’s initial price had been far too steep for Meg to afford, so Meg had offered to clean Alice’s apartment in addition to paying what cash she could.  No deal. Meg had added a week of cat sitting, but still the price was more than she could pay.  In the end, Alice had agreed to accept the price Meg offered, along with the apartment cleaning and cat sitting, plus one more, hideous cost.  

Alice had a cousin named Harold.  Harold’s mother, Alice’s aunt, was very concerned that Harold, who was going on twenty, hadn’t met the right girl yet.  Alice’s aunt kept pressuring Alice to set Harold up.  So Meg had ended up having to accept a date with Harold.  

There was a reason Harold hadn’t met the right girl.  Several, in fact.  First and foremost, Harold had the worst breath Meg had ever experienced.  He was also extremely shy, but only at first. Once the lights had gone down in the movie theater, suddenly he was all hormones and hands, and Meg had spent the next two hours ignoring the movie in favor of fending off almost-continual frontal assaults.  

In the end, the guy behind them in the theater had actually leaned forward and hissed to Harold, “Dude, even I can see you’re not gonna get there with her.  Give it up and let’s all leave with what little dignity we have left.”

After the movie, Harold had taken Meg to a bar he said he frequented.  Meg was completely uninterested in Harold, but after what she’d been through, she was very interested in a drink, so she’d agreed.  “They know me here,” Harold said proudly.  

They didn’t know him there. And, apparently, he didn’t know them, either, because the bar’s clientele, while sparse, was mostly female, and entirely gay.  When they had their drinks (Meg didn’t usually do shots, but it was an emergency), Harold had once again begun relentlessly trying to grope her.  Meg was usually a very nice person, but she’d had enough. So she said, quite loudly, “Listen, I have asked you more than once to stop trying to touch me like that.  No means no.  Knock it off.”

Harold was very unceremoniously escorted from the bar by a lovely woman named Bud.  Meg had enjoyed getting to know Bud over a few drinks, and they’d had a few laughs at Harold’s expense, but Meg was honest about her preferences when Bud handed over her phone number.  Bud didn’t seem to mind that Meg wasn’t planning to call, which Meg actually found pretty attractive.  She kept Bud’s number.  She didn’t even mind having to pay for the cab home.

Brian liked that story a lot.  He had really appreciated the opportunity to simply stand there, listening to Meg and appreciating the way her green eyes sparkled when she smiled, and the cute way her nose wrinkled when she laughed.  Meg was funny, and Brian especially liked that the story indicated quite clearly that she wasn’t seeing anyone.  Which, of course, was part of Meg’s reason for telling it, in addition to introducing the topic of lesbians in hopes that Brian would share something that would let her know which team he played for.  

“Now it’s your turn to tell me an embarrassing story about you,” Meg invited.  

“The problem with that is there are so many choices,” Brian mused.  “Stuff seems to… happen to me.”  He hemmed and hawed for a few moments.  He needed to find a story that would let her know that he, too, was single, and preferably one that also reminded her (in case she’d missed it the first time) that he was a firefighter.  Women loved firefighters.  

“Well, there was this one time on a fire – did I mention I’m a firefighter? – when this really, really huge guy was stuck in a hammock.  We never did learn why he had a hammock in his living room, but…”  

Brian told a very funny story that ended with the man being rescued (if not very gracefully) and the man wanting to reward Brian with a date with his sister.  He had tried valiantly to get out of the “reward”, explaining to the man that it wasn’t necessary, and that it was really a little frowned upon for firefighters to be rewarded for just doing their jobs.  Baked goods or something, sure, but…  Brian had been entirely unable to talk the man out of it. The entire firehouse had given him endless shit about it, because all of them imagined the sister as, basically, the brother in drag.  

Until she showed up at the firehouse for their date and was one of the most beautiful women any of them had ever seen.  

“So?  Did you marry her and live happily ever after?”  Meg asked, laughing (on the outside, at least – she was finding that she cared more by the moment whether he liked girls).  

“I’m afraid not,” Brian answered with a cute twist of his lips.  “She was about two feet taller than I am, and she was, um…  let’s just say we should set her up with your friend’s cousin.  They’d never be heard from again.”

“I thought guys liked women with, um, an appetite.”  

“Well, sure, to a point.  But that one… I don’t think I want to marry a woman if I’d be afraid to fall asleep around her.”

They both enjoyed a long moment of laughter.  Hmmm. So he’s single and apparently straight. Well, well.  

The conversation moved on to the Planetary Saviors.  For quite some time, Brian and Meg enjoyed talking about what they liked – and didn’t like – about the Sumendi movies thus far and what they hoped to see in the new movie that would include all of the Planetary Saviors.  The fun of that conversation was that they didn’t always agree – Brian thought Sumendi’s look in the movies was nowhere near as good as in the original comics, while Meg had to admit to not having read the comics themselves.  Somehow, whether because they were intentionally trying to humor one another due to their mutual attraction, or because they really didn’t mind, they found that their differences actually made them see the Planetary Saviors universe just a bit differently than they had.  Rather than being annoyed, they were each favorably impressed with the other’s slightly different take on the franchise.    

“Sumendi’s made of fire, right?  I mean, he’s basically the son of a volcano, so why doesn’t he have any glow to him? In the comics, he does.  He has a sort of inner light that makes him look sort of… molten inside, you know?”

Since Meg hadn’t seen the comics, they borrowed some comic books and a couple of artists’ renderings that people around them in line had purchased at the Con.  She saw Brian’s point.  He liked that she was interested in his thoughts, and was especially impressed when she began to think out loud about ways he could make his costume have that same lit-from-within quality.  

“That’s genius!”  He cried.  “I would never have thought of that.  I’m going to-“

The crowd noise, which had been fairly deafening, suddenly ceased entirely as the air was split by a scream.  All eyes turned in the direction it had come from, behind and to the left of the booth at which Brian and Meg were waiting for Anthony Lang.  A knot of people were standing around a woman on the floor, but the thick crowd had parted so that there was a few feet between the people with the woman and the staring mass just beyond.  The woman on the ground was jerking violently and appeared to be very pregnant.  

“She’s seizing,” Meg cried as she slipped quickly under the ropes that demarcated the line she and Brian had been in.  Running over to the woman, Meg dropped her belongings as she knelt on the floor beside her.  She reached out and took the woman by the shoulders, helping her to turn onto her side, and was surprised to find Brian kneeling next to her, bending one of the woman’s legs so that she rolled smoothly and easily.  

Meg whipped off her Tabiti headpiece and set it on the floor next to her, beginning to assess the woman quickly.  She determined that she was breathing shallowly and irregularly as she seized, and had a strong pulse.

“Who’s with her?” Brian asked loudly, using a tone that instantly commanded attention.  

“We are – she’s my sister. This is her husband,” a thin, terrified-looking woman in a pretty bad SuperGirl costume answered, pointing out the blank-faced teenager next to her.

While Meg commandeered a sweatshirt from a bystander to put under the woman’s head, Brian continued to ask the right questions.  

“What happened?”

“She just…  fell down.  She started jerking like this and she won’t wake up!”  

“How far along is she?”

“She’s thirty two weeks,” the sister answered.  “What’s wrong with her?  What’s happening?”

Brian looked at Meg, who almost imperceptibly shook her head.  

“We’re going to figure that out.  Who has a phone?”

Brian pointed to the first person whose brandishing of a cell phone caught his attention.  “OK, you.  Call 911.  Stand right here next to me, and when you get them on the line, put them on speaker. You-“ he pointed to a spray-tanned Superman.  “Go get help. Security, anyone with a walkie-talkie. Tell them what’s happening and get us whatever medical equipment they have here.”

The woman appeared to have stopped seizing for the moment.  Meg looked at the teenager who had been identified as the woman’s husband. “Talk to me, Dad.  What medical problems does she have?”

“N-n-nothing.  She’s been fine.”

“Has she ever had a seizure before?”

“No!  What’s wrong with her?”

“What medications does she take?”

“Nothing.  Prenatal vitamins.”

Meg took her pulse at her wrist again, and then felt for her pulse at her throat.  She leaned toward Brian and muttered quietly, “Her pulse is bounding – we’ll know more when we can get a BP, but I’m thinking eclampsia.”

“That woulda been my guess. Pregnant, seizing…  You a doctor?”

“RN.  We need help.”

“It’s on its way.  For the moment, it’s you and me.”  He looked up at the person he’d asked to call 911. “What’s the holdup?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t have much of a signal in here…”

Sharply exhaling in exasperation, Brian looked up at another person who was holding a phone and appeared to be filming the incident.  “You. Call 911.  And nobody else better be filming.  This woman has the right to privacy, same as you.”  

The second person got through immediately and handed Brian the phone.  He put it on speaker and, as Meg fed him information, he relayed it to the 911 operator.  They worked smoothly together, and Brian had time to notice the expertise with which Meg worked with the woman, who was beginning to regain consciousness.  They were both experienced first responders, so their teamwork was not entirely surprising, but there was also an element of natural communication between them.  They’d gravitated to their roles in this situation without thought or discussion.

Meg reached up and unclasped her cape.  Brian caught the movement and immediately understood.  He helped her remove it and cover the woman with it, then removed his own (which was a little more difficult due to the wings) and put that over her, too.  For the next five minutes, they did what they could to make the woman comfortable while Meg got as much medical history as possible and monitored her vital signs.  Then the woman began to seize again, and they kept her safe while she thrashed and jerked, making sure she didn’t hit her head and getting people to give them extra clothing so that they could keep something soft between her spasming limbs and the hard floor.  

Brian leaned in to Meg. “This is lasting too long.”

“Yeah.  And she’s stopped breathing.  As soon as she stops seizing, we need to be ready to do CPR.”

“Got it.”  

At that moment, three people came running through the crowd, pushing their way into the circle around the woman with cases of emergency equipment.  They were all EMTs stationed at the facility for the event, so Meg moved aside and reported to them that she was an RN and Brian was a firefighter, and told them what they knew so that the EMTs could take over.  She wondered what was taking the ambulance so long, since there were two hospitals within minutes of the facility, but she thought she was probably just dealing with the distorted sense of time that comes with an emergency.

“Do you have any medications in your kits?” She asked the EMT who appeared to be leading the team.

“No.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, don’t get me started.”  

“She seems to be coming out of it, and I think she’s breathing again.  Want me to get a BP?”

“Nah, I got it.  But thanks.”  

Not long afterward, the sound of a siren was clearly heard, even over the sound of the mob that was now getting back into the swing of the Con.  A fair number of people were still huddled around the scene, watching, but the circle around them was only a few people deep now, since beyond that, no one could really see anything.  The rest had decided to go back to their shopping.  As the ambulance crew hurried through the Hall, Brian could follow their progress fairly accurately by the disturbance in the throng.  He began to back people up so that the paramedics could get through with the gurney.  

The ambulance crew was one he didn’t know.  Their arrival caused quite a bit of excitement and hubbub in the area, and Brian lost track of Meg in the group of milling, pushing people.  He wasn’t needed to help lift the woman onto the gurney, so he stepped back a bit and tried to control the crowd, to give the paramedics as much room as he could get them in the press of curious gawkers.  Soon, the woman had been given some medication to stop her seizures, and the gurney carrying her was rushed from the scene, her sister and teenage husband in tow.  

The crowd flowed back together as though they had never been there, except for Meg’s Tabiti headpiece, which Brian saw on the floor and picked up.  He found himself unable to resist the tide of movement, and was swept closer to the booth where he was supposed to be having his picture taken with Anthony Lang.  He didn’t see Meg anywhere.  Without her Tabiti headpiece on, it was impossible to identify her head among the seeming thousands around him.  

He thought she would probably make for the booth again, though, so he fought his way over to it, only to see a large sign:

Anthony Lang Appearance Cancelled For Today.

The sign gave a website people could go to in order to try to reschedule or get refunds.  Meg wasn’t there.  

Brian carried Meg’s headpiece under his arm as he looked everywhere in the huge Exhibition Hall over the next hour.  There were simply too many people, moving in too many directions, and the Hall was just too big.  Meg was nowhere to be found.  All he had to prove she had been real was the papier-mâché headpiece she’d worn as part of her costume.

[armageddon-generation]

Making an arc out of series 11 (and other fixes)

I DON’T MEAN TO HATE - I genuinely really liked this TARDIS team, Jodie has completely won me over and the episodes not written by Chibnall were great - but this series does have several frustrating Issues.

One recurring problem I see people having is that the finale didn't feel climactic because there was little build up.

A few ways to fix this :

The Woman Who Fell to Earth

Just improve Tim Shaw - alter his design so he’s not just a black robot-man - take the tooth idea and do something like the Sycorax?

Change the ball of electricity into an actual creature - then establish Tim Shaw’s abusive relationship with it, taking out his viciousness on this helpless slave, because he’s a coward

This mster/beasty relationship would give Tim more character and make him easier to hate

It also establishes the running theme of the Stenza altering/controlling other creatures - it gives them a distinctive ‘gimmick’ like Dalek extermination and Cyberman conversion, which we can expand on in The Ghost Monument, The Tsuranga Conundrum and The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

The Ghost Monument

Establish the threat of the Stenza - ravaged worlds better (show us the flesh eating water instead of telling us about it and have more time with the Remnants instead of those boring robots)

Do this by giving Desolation (which is out of orbit) short, irregular days (5 hours, 3 hours) so the threat of the Remnants is always there - build tension and character at day (the “Mum told me to jump” speech) and have scary chase sequences during the two night sections

The Stenza using Desolation to create weapons of mass destruction reminds the Doctor of the Time Lords' tactics in the Time War, (that's why she's so interested in the planet) and establish that Yaz wants to know what happened to the Doctor's people/family

One of the racers should've had their planet stolen, not just enslaved, to establish the mystery of the planets Tim Shaw is stealing

Show their desperation by having the racers actually compete and fight with each other, with Team TARDIS stuck in the middle. Both characters believe they deserve the prize because they've suffered and lost more.

Yaz separates them, directly paralleling her intro scene in episode 1 - from parking disputes to this.

GIVE 13 HER BIG MOMENT because I waited until literally the last line of the series to understand where she's coming from. 13 is the joyous explorer, she doesn't have time for wallowing in angst, there's too much universe out there to see.

Something like: "It's not about what you've lost, that doesn't make you better than him! All that matters now is what's ahead. What are you going to do if you win, where will it take you? Have you even thought about it? Because maybe, just maybe, if you stopped pitying yourself you could make something good from this. Yes, you're family is gone and I'm sorry. But just because they're dead doesn't mean your life should stop too. Move forward."

This helps Chibnall's 'Fresh Start' mandate because it establishes 13 as completely different from RTD and Moffat's Doctors (especially 10 and 12) who felt a sense of superiority because of their past pain. It also ties into Ryan and Graham letting go of Grace.

The TARDIS went to Desolation in the first place because it wanted to help the planet (remember she has personality) - 13 realises this once they reunite.

We've previously established the TARDIS can change the weather, and it's had thousands of years on Desolation to prepare calculations etc, so have a sequence at the end where they show off to the new conpanions and terraform the planet, reversing the Stenza's damage

Post - credits scene / stinger - while the companions explore the TARDIS, show 13 viewing the footage the TARDIS collected over thousands of years of the Stenza violating the planet - she doesn't look happy, but then Yaz calls her for a tour and she puts on the bright smile again.

Yaz

I think Team TARDIS in series 11 was meant to be split between the familial relationship between Ryan and Graham, with the standard swept-off-her-feet almost-romance between the Doctor and Yaz in the background. They didn't focus on Thasmin much because I think Chibnall assumed 'oh, we've seen this before'

SHOW THE GROWTH OF YAZ AND THE DOCTOR'S RELATIONSHIP. IT SHOULDN'T BE ROMANTIC (YET) BUT JUSTIFY THEIR DEVOTION TO EACH OTHER

Because Yaz is a police officer have her 'investigate' the Doctor's past - especially her family, as that's an important part of her character and theme in the series as a whole. Since Chibnall loves Classic they could mention Susan

This makes 13 telling Yaz about her Granny in It Takes You Away an important milestone in their relationship

Yaz to Ryan about the Doctor's family:

Thirteen's character

People complaining Jodie isn't unique enough kind of have a point, but the seeds are there:

I like the idea of 13 being easily distracted and careless ("I'm almost going to miss you." / "Hi Yaz, forgot you were there."). Her being slow to trust contrasts nicely with Jodie's infectious enthusiasm. Have Yaz's role be keeping 13 focused, grounded and on-track when she needs to be.

Also! I've seen the idea thrown around 13 is only acting all bright and chipper. It'd be really interesting if she prioritises Team TARDIS' emotional wellbeing over her own

This way we have parallel arcs - Yaz gets the Doctor to open up as Ryan gets closer to Graham

13 and her Sonic

13 is meant to be a tinkerer, but we don’t see much evidence of this outside building the Sonic

So she wears a tool belt

The belt is TARDIS-like (bigger on the inside) and 13 pulls things out of it like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag

13 pulls bits of scrap out of the belt and cobbles things together when she’s excited / nervous / talking (pipe cleaner helicopters! Catapults! Wind-up mice!)

This distinguishes her from 11, who also did a lot of hand-flapping and is already superficially similar personality-wise

More floofy/fly-away haired 13! It makes her seem more energetic, constantly in motion, which really suits her.

The popular headcanon is that the Sonic works randomly (one episode it can do things, the next it can’t) because over the years the Doctor has added so many features they’ve overloaded it. So now she’s got a new Sonic, 13 is constantly fiddling with it/adding new features

Address the NuWho Doctors’ over-reliance on the Sonic - 13 keeps expecting the Sonic to do things but because it’s new hardware, it can’t, and she has to solve problems on her own

A running gag where 13 goes ‘watch this, gang’ and the Sonic does something completely opposite what she wanted and now they have to improvise

In the finale the Sonic finally works properly and 13 uses it to beat Tim Shaw

Occasionally (in an episode opening) 13 makes weird machines without knowing what the fuck they do:

13: [holding up a small device] Does this look familiar? Do you know what it is? Neither do I. I made it last night in my sleep. Apparently I used Gindrogac. Highly unstable.

Yaz: Doctor…

13 : I put at button on it. Yes. I want to press it, but I’m not sure what will happen if I do.

Ryan: [runs for cover]

13 and Graham

In Series 11, 13 always seemed annoyed by Graham (“Don’t kill the vibe”) and never seemed to grow past it.

Suggest 13 is living vicariously by helping Graham reconnect with Ryan – the Doctor first started travelling in the TARDIS to connect with their grandchild, so this is 13 coming full-circle

13 notices how good and Granddad Graham is trying to be for Ryan, and as he grows braver she comes to really respect him.

Graham becomes her confidant – he’s the only one 13 shows her age to, and she helps Graham begin again: They talk about how the Doctor has had to reinvent and regenerate themselves again and again because the universe needs them – much as Ryan needs Graham. 13 has lots of experience moving past loss, and they support each other through the pressure of being responsible (for Ryan and Yaz respectively)

Ryan

Have the Doctor and Ryan's relationship develop - in The Woman Who Fell to Earth they suggested 13 would take a nurturing parental role for him ("That's the kind of thing Grace would've said") but it's not really built on. All the pieces are there (him being immature and using weapons in the beginning)

Ryan and 13 have a sibling-like relationship - she teaches him about life and the universe - have 13′s use of slang (skillz with a z) come from Ryan having fun teaching slang to a socially inept alien

also maybe a reccuring joke about Ryan going for a fist-bump and 13 patting his fist, that pays off by the finale

Does anyone remember Ryan and Yaz went to Primary school together? Capitalise on that. When Ryan talks about how his Dad left him in Tsuranga and It Takes You Away, make it explicit that she understands because she saw Ryan go through it as a kid, and remembers what it did to him emotionally

A common complaint about Ryan is that he rarely actually does anything - he just stands there and says "they're gone!" or "it's a spaceship!". So have this be part of his character. In the early episodes have Yaz be the most active companion (allowing her to develop!), with Ryan (nervous about his dyspraxia) in the background, and have him become more and more active and competent as the series goes on.

Episode Order

For this to work I suggest shuffling the episodes - 1, 2, 8, 4, 6, 5, 7, 3, 9, 10

10 60-minute episodes to fit the new stuff in and give the large cast more room. The Woman Who Fell to Earth (60 minutes) was Chibnall's best script.

This way series 11 gets the same screen time as the 12 episode Capaldi series

Instead of 2 trailers for the next episode (one pre and one post credits) insert a post-credits stinger hinting at arcy things

The Witchfinders (We’re Going on a Witch-Hunt)

Swap Rosa and The Witchfinders around. We can get the 'female discrimination' thing out of the way faster (it felt weird they didn't explicitly address it until episode 8). Yaz and 13 can bond over their shared oppression (this is the first time the Doctor realises what history is like for her female companions - for the first time, they are of equal status and must work as a team).

Also have Yaz, the POLICE OFFICER, be personally offended by the miscarriage of Justice in the Witch Trials, and defend the victims - relate it to her experience on the job (maybe touch on domestic abuse?) instead of the cliche bullying story

The villains being escaped convicts from a prison also links to Yaz's character and job - contrast her applying police protocol to the Morax (she never had a case this big at home!) with 13's "fuck it, time to wave the glowy science stick' attitude - Yaz forces 13 to be disciplined, 13 forces Yaz to think outside the box and bend the rules

Arachnids in the UK (Spiders in Sheffield)

Still episode 4 - this needs a complete rewrite IMO, but for starters make the Trump parallel less explicit and cringey

Address Yaz has left her job as a police officer behind - she goes into work (with 13 as her ‘consultant’) and learns about people disappearing - we meet the spider expert at the Police Station, (because Yaz’s  neighbour being the only victim AND working in that spider lab was too big a coincidence) 

The expert is being ignored because the disappearances are higher priority, so low-ranking Yaz gets stuck with her

The spiders have spread all over Sheffield, not just the one flat and all around Yaz’s building

Have Ryan, Yaz and the Doctor go to meet Yaz’s mum at the hotel while Graham is mourning Grace in their nearby flat

When the spreading spiders reach Yaz’s family, Graham goes to help them, showing how brave 13 has helped him become.

We now have two tension-filled scenarios:

A home invasion subplot where Graham helps Yaz’s family keep the spiders out of their flat. Use this to flesh out and make her sister and Dad likeable - Graham comforts them when they’re scared, calling back to Grace's last line "promise you won't be scared without me" - 13 has helped him!

13 and Co being chased around the hotel (PROPERLY chased - the spiders use webs to cut off corridors and herd them around like rats in a maze)

YAZ GETS TAKEN BY THE SPIDERS - this is the moment 13 realises how attached she is to her new friends. She and Mrs Kahn work together to go and save Yaz from the Spiders’ nest (eliminating that annoying Jackie Tyler “you’re endangering my kid” trope) while Ryan uses his music to draw the spiders away

13 gets to see Mrs Kahn’s maternal affection and we see her desire for family. Ryan’s music draws the Spiders back and saves Graham and Yaz’s family

When Ryan and Graham reunite it’s very emotional - Ryan saved Graham’s life - ‘looking out for each other’

Finally have the Doctor save the Spiders by using the TARDIS as an Ark, instead of leaving them to die - call back to Planet of the Spiders and drop them off there

Since she's at home, once they’ve saved everyone have Yaz do girly things with the Doctor (because they haven't been able to rest since episode 1) - maybe nail painting? Only 13 starts using the varnish as finger paint. Also! I like the idea of them choosing 13's earring together bc 13 has no clue about jewelry

Demons of the Punjab

This should be episode 5, because it's connected to 4 by Yaz's family and together they provide a nice rounding-off of the half of the series more focused on her

The Thijarians have had their planet stolen, not just destroyed (it would still kill everyone)

That way when we see the hologram of what happened to their planet we establish the threat of what will happen to the Earth if Tim Shaw wins in the finale

(the powder they have can still be the stuff left over afterwards)

Also it's weird that Yaz goes to see her Grandmother, who she discovers remarried, and Ryan doesn't react at all.

Ryan has nothing to do in this episode, and because we're putting Punjab earlier in the series, Grace's loss is fresher. Give him a moral dilemma: He wants to go back and see her when she was young (and with her first husband - implicitly rejecting Graham) like Yaz is seeing her Gran

After seeing what happens to Yaz's family, and seeing Graham's caring reaction to Prem, he follows 13's advice and gives up on seeing Grace again - he's content with Graham

He bonds with Yaz over the episode and warns her not to take family for granted. At the end Yaz takes him to meet her Gran in the present day ("I was lucky enough to know yours")

The Tsuranga Conundrum (The Good Doctors)

Have the medical ship be a war ambulance helping victims of the Stenza's conquest

The general on board has fought the Stenza

Cut her brother and the 2nd nurse, they're unnecessary - have the ship be understaffed because of the strain the Stenza are putting on the medical service, give the engineering role to 13

The asteroid field they have to fly through (which we should ACTUALLY SEE) is not just an asteroid field but the wreckage left behind by another missing planet.

Replace the P'ting. It may be cute but the vast majority of people thought it was ridiculous. Instead have it be a Stenza weapon left over as the ship is flying through an old battleground - it can still be small and destroy the ship from the inside out, but its design can be more threatening and it can be more sympathetic (it was experimented on/created to kill, it isn't evil)

13 tries to pilot the ship first but can't because she's wounded. She has to rely on Team TARDIS and delegate the usual ‘Doctor’ roles. She faces off against the tactical P’ting, trying to fix the ship as fast as it disassembles it, while Yaz runs around trying to catch the thing, and Ryan and Graham take care of the passengers

The sonic STAYS BROKEN so 13 has to do this all by hand

Once 13 is told the Stenza are still out there hurting people, introduce a subplot over the next 3 episodes before the finale where she's sneaking off at night to go and help fight them (without the others knowing, because they're too emotionally biased)

The next episodes (Kerblam!, Rosa) gradually shift the focus onto Ryan's growth as he becomes more active

It Takes You Away

Add 13 and Graham - now close friends - talking about grandkids, and put more emphasis on 13′s reaction to the abandoned girl

This sets up the Solitract turning into Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter, instead of the frog at the end

You don’t require previous NuWho knowledge to know about Susan - she has barely been mentioned.

Have her be played by the actress from An Adventure in Space and Time, like David Bradley as the First Doctor 

This way we directly address the theme of grandchildren and family

The Solitract is a link to 13's childhood and family. It's also another omnipotent consciousness she can relate to (think 9 and Bad Wolf - "That's what I feel, all the time!"). Finding that and immediately letting it go must be traumatising

Have a quick scene of Yaz catching 13 crying, but she quickly covers up because Graham just saw Grace and he's distraught

Finale (Battle Phantoms)

When they arrive on the battlefield 13 accidentally reveals she's been helping fight the Stenza offscreen (which is how she knows about this battle - one of the ones she was too late for)

This lie infuriates Graham - she's been blocking his revenge for ages

BIG EMOTIONAL MOMENT

13: Maybe I am a liar, and I promised I wouldn't be, but that's because I know what it's like, Graham. To want to hurt the people who hurt you. How that anger burns like fire, like a supernova. And it took me so long to get over it, so long to move on. Whole lifetimes wasted hurting and hating. I didn't want that to happen to you. No one deserves to be broken twice.

This gives Graham a legitimate reason to go against 13 without announcing his intention to kill Tim Shaw like an idiot. It also plays up 13's hypocrisy, which was touched on in the original script

What was the point of 9 distress calls if they're all in the same place?? Use this pportunity to split team TARDIS up and showcase how they've grown as individuals before bringing them back together (Ryan and Graham, Yaz and 13) for the 3rd Act

Graham being on his own drives up the tension over whether he'll kill Tim Shaw - Ryan gets there just in time

Explicitly call back to the moment in The Ghost Monument when Ryan used a gun - highlight how far he's come because of 13, talking Graham down

Get rid of the robots, because they weren't in The Ghost Monument now, and they turned the intimate story into an action movie.

Over the series we've established the Stenza genetically engineer other creatures into weapons (the Remnants, the P'ting, the cable ball in The Woman Who Fell to Earth). Replace the robots with scary leftovers from the Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos (because that title was irrelevant to the original episode) - Think the Hand Mines from The Magician's Apprentice

Have each of the missing planets throughout the series be named - that way when we discover the stolen planets in the finale there is emotional impact because their being stolen has caused so much suffering.

This way not only are the Stenza a lot more threatening because they are present throughout the series, there is more build up to seeing Tim Shaw again

Also, the subplot about returning the planets is more emotionally impactful - the Doctor is retroactively providing closure to lots of the side characters from the series

Finally the threat to Earth is much greater - the companions have seen what losing your planet does to a person emotionally, and they fear that

WHEN THE EARTH IS THREATENED CALL BACK TO YAZ'S FAMILY SO WE FEEL SOMETHING

Also the continuing thread of missing /lost planets could link to Galifrey, raising 13's emotional stakes

Multiple people have complained the plot thread about the planet attacking you psychically and erasing your memories went nowhere - when 13 and Yaz take those devices off they get slight headaches

Instead have the planet actually attack them - 13 and Yaz have to remind each other of their memories and their families - exposing Yaz to a rare snapshot of the Doctor’s lonely childhood on Galifrey

This gives Jodie the opportunity to do some SERIOUS DRAMATIC ACTING, and finally opening up about Galifrey to the whole TARDIS team at the end gives an emotional climax to her relationship with them, as well as the relationship between Ryan and Graham

The Fam line is cute, but we need ACTION to evidence this growth - this way throughout the series we’ve established how much family means to 13, how much she wants that, and Yaz saying “I’ve always liked fam” means so much because it means she understands 13 as a person

Resolution

Change how the Dalek got split.

Medieval humans killing a Dalek on their own is ridiculous and makes itr less threatening. Instead, have the Dalek be a scout from the Time War, looking to attack Earth to distract the War Doctor. The Doctor, furious, rushes over and helps the human armies divide it, to stop the Time War spreading to his second home.

We’re told this legend by the archaeologists, positioning the Doctor as a vengeful wizard. We can get a flashback with the War Doctor as a dark silhouette on a hill or something.

This makes the “it’s personal” stuff even truer

Use the archaeologists and dig site to expand on the Dalek race’s impact on humanity, because they’ve visited Earth dozens of times. I’m thinking wall paintings depicting the Dalek Shell as a Divine war chariot, and the mutant as a Cthulhu-like God

This way we’re really throwing Team TARDIS in the deep end - they are immediately aware of the number of times the Doctor has fought the Daleks, which is completely different to the rest of series 11, where 13 was encountering everything for the first time

Change the junkyard Dalek shell.

The Scout goes to a storage facility where pieces of its shell are stored. Now this place is owned by the modern incarnation of the cult we’ve set up who worshipped the Dalek in ancient times (their logo is the same symbol found on the wall paintings)

Instead of killing the gay (AGAIN), have the company staff welcome and exult the Dalek - only for it to turn around and kill them all, establishing its racial superiority complex. (This is something Chibnall glossed over - his Dalek wanted to conquer like anyone else, not exterminate)

The company has collected the remains of dozens of different Dalek models from invasions across the show’s history (we still have the parallel to 13 making her Screwdriver)

The Dalek reassembles itself not using Earth metal, but into a Frankenstein’s monster welded together from different Dalek designs (classic 60s, Imperial, Special Weapons, Time War, Supreme, Progenitor)

When the Dalek and 13 face each other this one Scout now represents the entire Dalek race, every type the Doctor has ever fought. The idea of it stitching itself together is also a nice parallel to Regeneration

Destroy the Dalek by separating all the different sections - use Ryan’s dad’s technical skills but don’t have all of Team TARDIS rush the Dalek without getting killed - them pushing it around immediately removed any threat.

Emotional Impact

Seeing the remains of all the Daleks the Doctor has killed at the storage facility and hearing the stories of the War Doctor makes Team TARDIS reconsider 13

Police officer Yaz realises she is devoted to a murderer, and considers whether she wants to get closer to such a person

To make the Dalek more impactful to both Team TARDIS and the new audience that has only watched Series 11, when Graham asks why it’s so dangerous have 13 say something along the lines of “the Daleks are my Stenza”

Graham realises why 13 stopped him killing Tim Shaw in series 11, and (considering his Dad must’ve fought in WW2) gains a new level of respect for her

Don’t have Ryan immediately forgive his Dad and declare that he loves him - set up that he’s willing to give his Dad a second chance as an arc for series 12 - the push and pull between Graham and Ryan reconnecting with his Dad

The Scout is trying to complete its original mission, bringing the Tile War to Earth - 13 has to  literally defend her freinds from the ghost of the War and finally let go of her violent past (personified by the War Doctor). She’s also letting go of the deified, Messiah-like version of herself (represented by the wall paintings of the Doctor’s battle with the Dalek) that RTD and Moffat loved

13’s arc is worrying learning about the Daleks and their toxic relationship will change the way her friends look at her, because she’s been trying to protect them from this side of her life (it’s revealed she’s been deliberately avoiding places she’s been before because she’s looking for a fresh start)

By now Ryan and Graham are getting along fine, they’ve avenged Grace’s murder and Ryan is now talking to his Dad. 13 worries everyone has outgrown her, and they’ll leave

Have a scene at the end where Yaz comforts 13 and assures her she won’t abandon her - 13 doesn’t need to save their lives for them to want to travel with her - it’s their job to save her. They are here because they care about her. 

This way we get a new emotional climax of 13′s emotional arc and reaffirm the status-quo for Series 12

Improving Matt Smith’s era here

[tangent101]

Thoughts on Life is Strange 2

Okay. First, I should do a full disclosure on me and LiS. If you don’t care, you probably should skip the next couple of paragraphs where I get into LiS 2 itself. Also, I’ve only gotten partway into the game... but I still have fallen very much in love with the characters and the dynamic.

I love the first game. I am a huge Pricefield fangirl and also am an Amberprice fangirl even if I do think Rachel Amber had moved on from Chloe before her death. I mean, not all relationships last. I once had a rather intense and fun relationship with another girl that lasted all but a month... but was still full of ups and downs and while I might do a few things differently, I’d never chose not to have dated her. That’s how I see Rachel and Chloe - Rachel had a lot of fun with Chloe... but realized after a year or two that they wanted different things in life. That doesn’t lessen what Chloe and Rachel had together, though, or for that matter what Max and Chloe have.

My enjoyment of Life is Strange: Before the Storm is more... problematic. I had issues with their portrayal of Joyce and David, and feel that there could have been a far better portrayal of Chloe’s issues if they had shifted it to the fall of 2009 and had Chloe having to cope with her mother getting ready to marry David (especially as in-game, Joyce started seeing David within two months of William’s death). The story should have been about Rachel helping Chloe cope with her life going upside down, not Chloe trying unsuccessfully to be Rachel’s hero and solve her problems. We should have seen how Rachel was Chloe’s angel, not this idiocy that the plot became.

All things aside? Max and Chloe’s story is ended. Whether you tossed Chloe into the metaphorical volcano to save Arcadia Bay or chose to let things happen and accept you can’t save everyone, you can’t effectively create a sequel without undoing everything of the first game. Seriously, you need to use Time Travel to undo the entire week, possibly up to the start of September, and maybe even all the way to March when Rachel died. Why not just move on with all new characters and a new setting? And Sean and Daniel’s story is one worth seeing.

Now, I have to admit when I first heard things about LiS 2, I groused over the fact we had an 18-year-old guy as the protagonist. As a woman, I kind of prefer playing female characters. We don’t get a lot of them. Often when we do, the character is generic and either a round peg put in a square hole (Mass Effect) or the story is so bare-bones that it doesn’t matter what gender or race you are (Elder Scrolls). Even after having played what I have with LiS 2? I still feel that Sean could easily have been Shawna and it could have worked equally well - only it’s a Hispanic teenage girl protecting her younger brother even against snide white trailer trash who upgraded to a real house. And yes, we need more minority protagonists... but there are a lot of Hispanic girls out there who likely would have loved to be the heroine of a tale.

Despite my desire for more strong female protagonists... I love Sean. I love how he is protective of his kid brother. There is a true sibling bond there and their dynamic reminds me of my cousins, and maybe even how I was with my older brother when I was younger. (Being a young brat transcends gender. We girls can be as bratty as boys.) Further, I love the dynamic between him and Lyla, and I can understand why @lylapark is so in love with the character. Even though we only see her for the first part of LiS 2, between those interactions and the texts between the two after Sean’s world turns upside down... you sense these two are also family - but the family one chooses rather than being born with.

That is the thing about Life is Strange 2. It is a story about family. The original Life is Strange was a coming-of-age story of a young woman realizing she isn’t straight (I mean, you can have her literally come out of the closet to protect Chloe from David) and seeking to do everything in her power to keep her best friend safe. It was a story of young love, and of learning who you are. It was a story about realizing you are strong - and one interesting thing is that Max never truly loses agency... even when tied down with David Madsen rushing to stop Mark Jefferson, it takes Max’s direct action of distracting Mark Jefferson in order for David to succeed. But that’s not what Sean’s story is about.

Sean is a teenage boy. He is just coming into adulthood. He has a loving relationship with his father, he loves his brother more than anything, and he realizes the world isn’t his friend. Bad things will happen and as a Hispanic teenage boy he has to be extra careful, as unfair as that is. What’s more, there is no free “rewind” to fix the story. He can’t afford to be reckless. But then, as I said already... Life is Strange 2 is a story about family. It is a story about a young man being tossed into the deep end and having to become an adult. It is about someone trying desperately to keep family safe.

So... if you loved Max and Chloe’s story... give Sean and Daniel’s story a shot. It is not the same type of story. It isn’t a love story, or a story of a young woman realizing she’s gay, or anything of the sort. Instead, it is a more personal story. Because family is important to most of us. And sometimes we don’t get along with our siblings or parents... but just as Lyla is as much family to Sean as Daniel and their dad, so too do we have friends who are family to us. So I think most of us can find something to relate to with this tale.

I’ve tried to avoid too many spoilers (for LiS 2 anyway) in this commentary. But even if you know all about the story... still, give it a try. Don’t think of it as a direct sequel, like the Two Towers following the Fellowship of the Ring. Instead, it is more akin to other sequels. Think of the Twilight Zone, where each episode is separate from the others but is linked by being Twilight Zone... or the early Nightmare on Elm Street in which different teenagers have to face down Freddy in the first couple of movies. Sometimes, sequels can just be set in the same world rather than follow a set cast of characters. And they can still be truly worth seeing even without a favorite cast to draw you back in.

[ganymedesclock]

I don't understand the permanent lion switch theory. Why do the characters need to grow into roles other teammates can already fullfill perfectly? and why are Pidge and Hunk excluded from such "important development"?

Honestly I’m not surprised Pidge and Hunk are left out?

Again, I feel like it’s less a support of the first switch formation and more this sort of… elevating Shiro’s importance to the team, but also not accepting that Shiro is also if anything ludicrously overqualified to be Black Paladin.

With regards to Keith: people want him to be black paladin because they want to view him as “the main hero”, and the idea is that Black is the “most special”

I feel like there’s some irony to the mentality because it basically frames Shiro and Black the same way- their actual qualities don’t matter. What matters is that Keith (or Lance) are good, have good qualities, and deserve recognition, and that recognition should be given to them no matter how Black or Shiro would feel about it, or even what Keith / Lance are shown in-universe to want.

With Lance, and Blue, there’s a particular angle to it that tangles in with Blue’s role as the Heart. Even within Voltron itself as a franchise, most continuities put Allura in the Blue Lion. And as much as I’ve heard many people complain that Lance “deserves better” than the Blue Lion, it’s comparatively almost unheard of for people to gripe about Allura being “shackled” to the Blue Lion even though they frame Lance deserving better as Blue being dead-end worthless drudgery.

Because the Heart- characters similar to VLD Lance- are often sorted into two categories. Both are looked down upon- emotional labor, empathy, and supporting the team are not seen as valuable heroic exertions, and they’re virtually always framed as coming at the cost of the person themselves- because obviously you’d never want to support other people if you could put your all-important self first, even when that self is being adequately tended to.

A female character in the role of the Heart is just seen as this is where she ought to be. It’s effectively considered a pink-collar job, and you can look at in the real world what’s considered “women’s work”. Of course she’s tirelessly going to tend to her team, of course she’s never going to pursue anything important for herself (when that sacrifice of self is not actually remotely necessary) of course she’s going to be the doe-eyed loving supportive figure, she’s a girl, that’s what girls do, live for all of the men around them, right?

Conversely a male character in the role of the Heart? Is seen as an absolute joke for the most part. Isn’t it funny he’s so weak-willed and sympathetic, isn’t it funny he’s not aggressive and macho, god he’s so pathetic. But don’t worry, though, since he’s supposed to want better than this lame old Heart job, he’ll inevitably “grow up” to be tough in a stereotypically macho way, even if this character development is completely at odds with everything else about who he is as a person.

At best, getting the character development that actually befits him as the Heart, you can count on him to be unaccepted until he proves he gained something from it in a sufficiently “manly” proactive manner.

The thing is, a lot of the tropes around the Heart aren’t remotely actually necessary to the role, and a well-written Heart character either deconstructs them or simply does entirely without them. There is no rule that emotional labor is the level that people stoop to when they aren’t man enough to chase their personal objectives. The role of the Heart is where we, as a society, dump our garbage- all of the hangups about this womanish kind of heroism- and the misogyny that says “well if WOMEN do it, it can’t be valuable!” and “real men don’t cry, what are you, a GIRL?”

It’s worth noting that the cry to take Lance away from the Blue Lion is probably the loudest and most passionate- Shiro, Pidge and Hunk are completely ignored for this (there’s basically no discussion where Shiro should go except “not in the Black Lion, because we need that for Lance!”) because their roles are very standard. 

Here’s the brainy one, here’s the brawny one, here’s the Leader, and there’s his Right Hand, we don’t complain about these things. Because we’ve already been conditioned through just about any five-man team show to consider those four the important ones, and Shiro the most important of all. When canon already can be viewed as “tempting” us with the possibility of Keith “surpassing” Shiro and stealing his important leader spotlight, it’s just understandable people salivate over that possibility- because we all know only the Leader will actually get the biggest slice of heroism at the end.

But the heart? There’s a reason TVTropes dismissively calls that role “The Chick”. Just look at that name for it- “oh, the designated girl, they threw her in there just because they had to have a girl so people wouldn’t complain about their sexism, so she can, y’know, stand out of the way and look pretty. Maybe we can give her a dainty little weapon and let her do some fighting but not that much. When the Leader is having his real, manly problems she’ll drop all of her petty girl issues to run over and support him.”

This is not what’s in VLD. But it’s in the cultural lens that we’ve been led to look to these kind of shows. It’s why, even in absence of canon support, people assume Shiro asserts so much more control and influence over the team- to the point of how many fanfics assume if Shiro disliked Lance, that Shiro could turn the whole team against Lance rather than the team would kick him to the curb, as we literally saw happen in motion with our secondary Voltron team, Sincline, and how Lotor vs. Narti ultimately ended. The generals gathered around the fallen Narti, and Lotor was simply cut from the team, without particular effort or fanfare. The hardest thing for the generals was feeling bad about it.

But Shiro and Lotor, they’re Leaders, so they have to be inherently stronger than their whole team, inherently in charge- except they aren’t.

People likewise assume that just pointing out Keith’s strength and intelligence mean that he should be the Leader- the idea is that he’s too competent to be a Right Hand, because every position besides the head is perceived as settling for less. (And Hunk- a fat black man, and Pidge- a young quite-possibly-written-as-trans girl with choppy hair, outside of occasional token “no, THEY should be the special one! I’m so revolutionary in praising them without thinking about them instead of insulting them without thinking about them!” largely are simply accepted that of course they’re settling, they’re lesser people)

Here’s the thing about Lance in VLD. None of that applies to him.

Lance has never been characterized as a weak-willed doormat. Nor has he been characterized as settling for less, or less thought of than his peers.

In fact, the roles that are shown to diminish Lance and leave him unhappy… are the stereotypically “manly” roles people would logically propose as a “fix” for Lance being “stuck” as the Heart.

Lance’s attempted James Bond impression is what makes Allura frustrated at him- while in s3, when, with growing confidence, Lance is his sincere, sweet self- that’s when Allura starts responding positively, starts telling him that he has “greatness” within him. That’s when he unlocks the Altean sword (sword from a planet of diplomats, awakened in a flare of blue light)

Lance taking Keith’s position at the Garrison features him being reminded he’s only here because Keith couldn’t be, and him blowing off the importance of the job, him acting at his pettiest. In contrast, in the same episode with no time for character development, Blue is framed as, from the start, choosing him first, ignoring everyone else there to stare only at Lance when nobody else is “taken” much less knowing there’s a Lion fitting for them… and Lance immediately settles comfortably into place.

Lance’s response to being chosen for Red is to first refuse it, try to pass it off to someone else, and then, when he does go for it, he comes back to grieve his connection with Blue. And Black? We see Lance uncomfortable and stiff in Black’s cockpit, trying to tell himself to feel good, because isn’t this what he wanted? Isn’t it?

People who are fitting where they were always meant to be don’t respond to it by grieving their previous niche, usually. Especially not there’s no particular ‘sweetness’ of “but I have Red now” or “but I wanted Red.” Lance wanted to give up the Red Lion back to Keith with no guarantee Blue would even be waiting for him. That’s a hell of a contrast to Lance yelling at Keith in s2e4 because Keith even said something about the Blue Lion.

Yeah, the wrong-colored armors is a continuity joke, but I can’t believe it’s just a mythology joke. VLD made a genuine commitment to base the characters off of specific colors, meaning that Lance in Red looks awkward. Our inner kindergartener goes “ha ha, no VLD, blue guy doesn’t go in red cat! Blue guy goes in BLUE cat!”

And proponents of Lance in somewhere else are aware of this- they’re very quick to change that armor color. Except canon has in every conceivable way tried to show us that’s not the case. They keep setting up material to frame it, more and more and more, as Lance belongs to Blue. Allura doesn’t have much in common with Blaytz or Ezor… but both of them have an awful lot in common with Lance.

And what are Lance’s good qualities, the things he really excels in?

Lance understands the team, and several times he’s singlehandedly pulled them back from disaster by his ability to read people’s emotions. Kuron? Going to be solved by Lance, is the framing we’ve gotten here. Team needs to connect emotionally? Everybody follow Lance’s lead. Shiro as Black Paladin? Acknowledged first by Lance before they even knew Black existed. Team needs to act out roles that aren’t theirs? Gape in awe of Lance’s absolute mastery of emotions. His nature is putty in his hands.

Compared to other incarnations of Lance that genuinely did write this character as Red Paladin, VLD Lance is noticeably more sober-minded, clearheaded and perceptive. He’ll never actually sacrifice something important for the benefit of a petty grudge. If anything, this is what we see framed as an absolutely jawdropping tactical asset for Lance- VLD is the first one to actually make Lance a sniper, with the clarity and precision of intent that make that useful. He can sweep an entire battlefield, check on all his friends, pick off targets and bottleneck enemies as needed.

Even his success with the Red Lion frames his Blue Paladin cooperation and malleability. Because Lance in Red isn’t driven really by ironclad loyalty the way Keith, Acxa, and Sendak are- Lance hooks onto Keith with “Right now, I’m in your corner, and that means I’m gonna be what you need me. If you need loyal support, I’m there, but if what you actually need is someone loudly reminding you that you left Allura behind, I’m doing that too.”

On the one hand, I’m touched by how much VLD really adores Lance, and loves depicting him as the Heart, and loves emphasizing the Heart’s importance to the team. On the other? I am frankly beyond pissed that I have to aggressively defend Lance in the Blue Lion by emphasizing that he can still do violence onto things in a fight. Yeah, it’s important to let all your characters have a piece of the pie and if your series is an action series that’s gonna mean action scenes, but rather than examine some of our deeply flawed relationship with gender and how much that serves as background radiation to anything we see as “womanish” and why, exactly, do we see Lance’s job as less valuable if it “seems feminine”, it feels too much like we’re wasting time trying to prove Lance is enough of a real man he can rock this “girly” job.

I think the whole “Lion swap should stick / they should push it further and never go back to original formation” if anything sets itself up to be breathtakingly meta because I feel like it’s ultimately rooted in not thinking through any of the roles very much. Because if you just look at them shallowly, Blue and Yellow sound the least “Cool” the way our culture frames things (again, the whole devaluing of support / prioritizing individual victory- if you’re not actively selfishly taking for yourself, you must not be doing anything for yourself).

Green sounds a little better, and Red sounds cooler (“Right Hand!” plus the self-satisfying narrative of “well, when Zarkon went bad, Alfor was the one who Defied Him” ignoring that all four paladins did, and Alfor was merely the more visible thanks to his connection with Allura and with Voltron- ignoring that it was almost definitely one of the other three, and likely Blaytz, that gave Zarkon that scar), but Black Lion, oh, that’s the best one, right?

So just grab whatever character you like best and stuff them into the Black Lion. This is how you appreciate a character! You want best character to get best lion. Now nobody can question how much you love them, even if you would be hard-pressed to actively identify what are their good qualities and how they align with Black’s explicitly stated qualities.

I’m not saying nobody who supports Black Paladin Lance thinks about it that much, but that the premise feels so congratulatory when it’s actually quite patronizing (it basically hinges on the idea that the Blue Lion can’t have recognized and mirrored any of Lance’s good qualities and the Lion that chose him first was basically putting up with him because he wasn’t her best fit and if Lance really belonged to Blue that’d make him a total loser) can help explain why its appeal is so widespread.

Especially when it feels like every time Lance says something in an authoritative tone people go “oh my gosh, Black Paladin Lance!” like… I was not aware that being Black Paladin hinged on only one virtue and that was your ability to angrily yell things. Last time I checked fandom was quite cross with Shiro’s authoritative yelling.

[angstymarshmallow]

About Diamond Choices Part ?

On and off I’ve been thinking about the parameters of diamond choices. What makes it so different? Why does it matter? Why are they sometimes so many in one chapter let alone an entire book? Could there be another system to replace it?

The answer to most of these should be straight cut and dry, but very little things in life are. Instead it becomes complicated when we consider several factors and the mixed opinions of the general public.

First and foremost diamond choices are in nature exclusive content that a player has to be willing to purchase. Whether it’s for clothes to stick out among their peers and be showered in compliments, for approval from other characters, steamy diamond scenes that arguably makes you more compelled to love a character or to further the impact of a plot. These are only some of the most noticeable notions I have given some thought to after playing the mobile app for about a year (and a little bite). Mostly diamond choices work under the idea that there is some reward worth buying into. Its again – exclusive but should be exclusive for a reason. In no way do I believe that diamond content if they are to be what I’ve defined – supposed to be included in regular content.

The problem is this becomes frustrating for people for a numerous amount of reason. A common phrase pay to be gay when for the better half of certain books; female love interests are sidelined and creates an unfair dynamic and ratio for men to women. In some cases, I try to think of it as plot related reasons but other times I’m not convinced that placing any LI under the eye of a lot of diamond choices won’t encourage the everyday player to stick to them. Before I get off topic here; it isn’t the only thing ‘wrong’ with the system. While I understand the relevance of diamond choices (and often prefer them because hey I want to support the developers of the game, its writers etc), I do understand the frustration with other options.

Clothes Clothes!

Diamond choices in choosing clothes for instance. I tend to like that certain diamond choiced clothing impact and influence the story (because why else have the clothing option to begin with?) For instance, in the royal romance; the way your MC dresses does matter. Granted the free choices aren’t very appealing, it matters because it involves MC’s standing at court – the way the Corodnian media views her and honestly shows her ‘embracing’ a sort of cultural relevance in Corodnian society. To them it matters that MC dresses in the proper attire during the apple ceremony, or more recently having the Corodnian pin on her outfit from last week’s chapter in a show of support. There are other instances when this isn’t as important (which by all means skip) but I do see the importance of it.

This isn’t the same for all stories however. Smaller books such as Home for the Holiday, the Haunting of Braidwood Manor has little importance to the storyline (except for that santa dress) and It Lives in The Woods has nearly no emphasis on clothes (it’s too busy coercing me to buy a whole bunch of little animals and weapons); where choosing the diamond options have little effect.

And some books fall in between.

In Endless Summer, arguably there are a few of the diamond choices presented through clothing that unlocks an extra scene or leads to another clue for the player to uncover. The most extremely useful is that andromeda armor (because it lets you exploit approval from MC’s friends), but for the most part a lot of the clothes serves for a purpose.

In the Sophmore for the first half of the book; as MC throws parties, it is encouraged if not highly implied for MC from her friends and the game itself to change her clothes and choose a diamond option in order to throw a more successful party. It’s avoidable to be honest, because the parties doesn’t seem to have a lasting impact – but does this mean this is a case where the diamond choices don’t matter?

And then there are books where it’s apparent that the diamond option for clothes serves no other purpose than just to be aesthetically pleasing. I don’t think that’s necessarily bad – if a player has the money to spend it on more frivolous decisions than by all means. It is apart of the reason why the free options are never as glamourous. Ultimately why would it be when the non-free choices are trying to entice you the entire time you’re reading?

Plot

I spoke about this a little earlier but not in great length. In a lot of cases, I am totally for spending diamonds on uncovering more about a character, the plot or something deeper that doesn’t necessarily have too much of an impact on the overall plot. Players that don’t spend money on diamond choices, shouldn’t have a bad experience playing a book because of it. However, their experience shouldn’t be the same as someone that’s paying for those extra choices to begin with. I think there has to be some sort of balance (and while people will never be truly happy with that), I do think again the reward has to be worth it for the diamond scene to be enticing to begin with.

For example, Endless Summer has a mountain of diamond scenes. Especially in book 2 with all the idols and certain parts of book 1 (collecting all the dossiers). These two specifically served a purpose. They gave extra scenes to players who were fortunate enough to spend (that much) on diamonds to begin with. I like this. It makes sense, and despite how expensive it made it for me (I literally stopped playing Endless Summer until I could afford to dump a whole bunch of diamonds into it lol), it made my experience that much better. Granted, I don’t think I understand everything that’s going on in that book (does anyone?) it would have probably given me a different experience if I had played the entire thing without spending any money on diamonds.

Approval

Without a doubt diamond scenes allow approval ratings with most characters to go up. Whether it’s just a conversation about their feelings or current predicament, or some one-on-one time in private; they do allow an opportunity to grow even closer to someone that would have otherwise not been as transparent. For fans of Drake Walker and Hana Lee for instance – I can tell you from personally spending money on their diamond scenes that I’ve come to appreciate them a lot more that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t pursue them. This doesn’t mean that I think it’s fair. It is nice, but I think some of their development relies too heavily on diamond scenes and prevents people that don’t want to spend diamonds on such things harder to enjoy the way their characters are. It’s sad that there isn’t much of a build up in relationships without paying.

Other characters have it worse.

Arguably Victoria Fontaine has been on the cruel end of this stick after last week’s Red Carpet Diaries update. The player has the free choice to meet up with Teja and Matt; explaining their side of the story as well as apologizing to one another. This isn’t even a choice for Victoria who is literally about to leave the country and when MC catches wind of this; you’re presented with the option of running after her as a diamond choice otherwise she’s completely out of the movie (and probably out of the story for at least a chapter). This was bold, really bold. It’s pushing the boundaries of making diamond choices matter more and maybe even placing the player in a situation where they’re realizing that while this is technically a free game – microtransactions are apart of what makes this company so successful (I could talk about microtransactions forever really). The even stranger part is that this intentionally apart of the plot, apart of Victoria Fontaine’s character that doesn’t only feel out of the player’s hand…but feels forced? Is this a case again of only understanding certain characters and only seeing their development through diamond scenes? As someone that’s spent most of my diamonds in Red Carpet Diaries on Seth and Teja (a little of Matt), I don’t get to see a softer and more understanding side of Victoria much but that doesn’t mean her character development should be reduced to something so simple.

The Pay to be gay term comes to mind and the more I think about it, the more I realize that there is indeed an undisputable pattern. It isn’t a fair playing field for both biological sexes and the more I think about it – the more I realize it hasn’t been for a long while. But how do we fix this problem? Why are we sacrificing one for the other? And doing the opposite doesn’t solve the problem either. Should diamond choices prevent the play from getting to know the characters, specifically love interests better?

The Choices that Aren’t Really Choices?

Nothing is more apparent than realizing specific choices you’ve made in the past doesn’t matter in a series of books like Zack and Brandon’s relationship. If you were like me and had no idea what the future had in store for them, you may have funnelled money into their relationship and several others such as Tyler and Abbie or the rest of the gang in this most recent The Sophomore book (I didn’t this time around because I’m stingy now). Zack and Brandon’s relationship doesn’t last, which makes the player question rendering them an option to date and helping them to date is useless? I’m not sure how much influence the player really has outside of those diamond scenes from The Freshman series because I spent a lot of time trying to get them to work – but I assume that they were always destined to break up; just as likely as I assume they would have gotten together anyway without your help. A lot of people were annoyed by this (myself included), but at the same time I understand. If we’re going to pour interest in a story app, the characters have to feel real. And people break up. People drift apart. It happens – but should it happen if we’re paying for it? The answer to that I think is complicated at best because it depends on how much we’re willing to compromise for the sake of story vs our own amusement.

Other examples are MC’s own career in #Love Hacks, when choosing to take Leah on that lunch date/hangout while they were still at Click It in order to win her over really doesn’t matter. At the end of the book, your MC chooses to quit anyway and so does Leah – rendering that choice useless. I’m mentioning it because I was very bitter over it but again I’m faced with the same burning questions of how much am I willing to sacrifice for the sake of the story and characters? If everything worked out the way I as the player wanted to – would I really be happy, or actually disappointed?

TLDR: This started off as series of thoughts that I’ve been having over the course of months, after seeing the amount of dislike, like and hate towards diamond choices. I began writing this as a way to figure out where I fit on that line, only to realize I’m probably somewhere in the middle. This isn’t to say I’m nowhere near done thinking and writing about this in length because honestly, there is a lot of factors to consider when you think about what makes a diamond choice a diamond choice – and why should it matter. I’m going to make a return to this but I just thought giving some of my very brief thoughts was a start.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end if you’ve read this. 😊

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen’s Rambling about Tokyo Ghoul (Again)

Alright, it’s time I stopped lazing around, I really should finish giving my final thoughts on Tokyo Ghoul. I finished the manga last month and... well, my job kind of got in the way of me giving my closing thoughts on the series. Originally, I had every intention of just ripping this manga apart, letting out all my rage against it, saying how bad it was to read, how stupid some of the plot points were, how empty the last few chapters felt, and just tear into how much of a waste of time this manga was.

However... at the time of me wanting to do that I had a bad work week and wanted to take my anger out on something since working the holidays is kind of a pain. I’ve calmed down since then, and a step back, rethought things, and... well.

I don’t hate Tokyo Ghoul, but I don’t like it either. 

A few months back I made a post call the Seinen Adventure, where I talked about some of the seinen manga I bought/read and initial gave my thoughts on them. I talked about a manga called Tsugumomo and how it felt like a shounen manga forcing in seinen elements for the sake of seeming mature, but only being seen as even more childish and just downright perverted. I consider Tokyo Ghoul to be the reverse, a seinen manga adding shounen elements to seem more engaging, but coming off badly written due to... well, most shounen manga being badly written. It would explain some of my main issues with the series. The bloated cast, interesting female characters being pushed aside, the slow presence of power creep, Kaneki’s... issues as a character. They’re all elements and flaws of shounen, but when put into a manga made for a more mature audience these issues become so damning. Not to say I expect the pinnacle of storytelling in my Seinen manga, but I do expect not see the issues of most shounen pop up then... blantantly. I can forgive shounen for this because I’m no longer in the age group where shounen would appeal to me, and nowadays I mostly read shounen for the action and spectacle. With Tokyo Ghoul, a seinen manga (or at least more mature one) , I was reading for its story as well as the action, and that story had many issues that irked me as a reader. 

A quick list of my issues would be Kaneki’s growth as a character, the cast growing to the point of feeling bloated, new characters getting more attention and spotlight than older ones I was more invested in, the world building dragging the manga’s pacing at times, and so on. Some of the issues got fixed near the end, namely the world building and pacing (at least by my standards), but most of my issues involving the characters still remained. 

Much like when I talked about Persona 5 for a second time, I don’t think my opinions have changed much after finishing this manga, but I do want to talk a little (or a lot) about some of the characters of Tokyo Ghoul. The ones that made a decent impression on me anyway.

Kaneki

I... don’t know how to feel about Kaneki. I don’t know if he’s a bad character, or just a badly written one. I think my main issue is how he has no main goal throughout the series. The closest thing I can think of to a goal of his is to get enough strength to protect his friends and those close to him, but... that’s an ambiguous goal. I’ve said it before, but Kaneki’s actions feel like the actions of a 13-year-old shounen anime protagonist, but Kaneki is roughly 18 or 19, so him having these vague goals for someone his age feels annoyingly childish to me. Hell, Touka even calls him out on this, and she’s a few years younger than him. The fact that someone younger than him has a better grounding of reality just... makes Kaneki seem all the weaker as a character. And even then, many shounen protagonists around that pre-teen age have solid, definable goals.  Naruto wants to become Hokage, Luffy wants to find One Piece, Rokuro from Twin Star Exorcists wants to eliminate all Kegare, Negi from Negima wants to find his dad, the list goes on, but you see my point. All of these characters have a drive to protect their loved ones, but also a clear goal that guides them through the story. And even then, manga series like A Certain Scientific Railgun and Tokyo ESP had a sort of “Threat of the Arc” situation going on, where our main character is just dealing with the craziness of whatever big thing is happening in their vicinity. I think that was were Tokyo Ghoul was heading up until Kaneki’s kidnapping, and I could argue that’s still the kind of story being told, but... I don’t know, something about it feels off to me an-

Ah shoot, sorry. Went on a tangent there. 

To get back on topic, I think a good comparison of characters like Kaneki would be Durarara’s Mikado Ryugamine, and High Rise Invasion’s Yuri Honjo. Now, the plot of both these manga are convoluted and I could honestly spend this whole post just explaining them, but I’ll skip to what’s important. 

Mikado, like Kaneki, was a shy and reclusive person, but through surfing the net and messing around on some forums he had accidentally created his own street gang in Ikebukuro that worked as a sort of anti-crime/community service force in the area. While things were going well at first, they slowly started to spiral out of his control, and while he didn’t ask for things to get as wild as they had gotten, he made due with what had happened, took charge, and tried to fix his mistake. Kaneki is in a similar situation where he’s forced into becoming a ghoul without consent, and while he does accept his ghoul half during and after his kidnapping, he regresses every now and again when the pressure’s on him. 

I mean... it makes sense, I’ll admit that much. The life of a man-eating cannibal is probably not a fun one, even if you’ve accepted it. However, as a reader, his flip-flopping between accepting that half of him and regretting it is annoying, especially as he chooses to go deeper into the shadier side of the ghoul life. Again, most of my annoyance with this comes from the fact that his goal of getting strength to protect is so vague. I know at the end of the day he just wants to know why he was turned into a ghoul and why everyone and their grandma want a piece of him, but... until he understands that’s what he wants and makes efforts to figuring those things out, I just... ugh... 

Moving to the second character, Yuri Honjo was a normal (if a tad co-dependent) high school girl thrown into a world of towering buildings and mask-wearing superhumans trying to kill her. At first she was understandably terrified by this, but soon manned up and took charge almost instantly, and moved along her own plot as things got crazier and crazier. Kaneki, again, does indeed make due with his own situation, but his back pedaling, while realistic and understandable, is very annoying to read through. 

Okay, I’m getting angrier the more I talk about Kaneki, so I’m moving onto Hide now. 

Hide

I wanted to see more of Hide in this manga. I’m serious, for as important as Hide is to the plot, we didn’t see enough of him. I know so little about him and that’s so irritating. I know that he’s cheerful, upbeat, but is a lot smarter than he leads on. I know he’s the kind of person to put an obsessive amount of time and energy into something when he’s invested into something. These two points alone are probably why Hide isn’t too present in the manga, he’s smart enough to figure out how to solve just about every problem Kaneki is in. He’s also bright and optimistic, which would make him a breath of fresh air compared to all the... angst of Kaneki’s character arc. I wish Kaneki just brushed off Touka’s threat and told Hide was a ghoul so he’d have a decent balance between Touka’s realism and Hide’s optimism guiding him. 

As a character, Hide needed to have a solid presence in this story, and the lack of him makes all of Kaneki’s angst and rash decisions so annoying when there’s a smarter, nicer, and (frankly) prettier character that could move him in a better direction. I like the idea of Hide working in the CCG, slowly figuring out Kaneki’s movements, steering investigators in just the wrong the direction to seem competent and trustworthy, but fallible, seeing him play every side just for Kaneki’s sake, to be that perfect friend Kaneki needs. I just... want more of Hide, if only so I don’t have to deal with Kaneki’s bullshit. He has points that should make him a character to look out for every damn time he’s in a panel, but... he doesn’t, not to the extent I wished for anyway, and I’m livid about this. 

I had often thought to myself before reading this manga that Hide was just around to be Kaneki’s potential romance to attract Yaoi shippers. The anime basically confirmed that, but, oh Lord, how I wanted to be wrong when reading the manga. I wanted to see more Hide outside of when he needed to make eyes at Kaneki or remind us that he existed and was (maybe) important, but... I didn’t see enough of him to feel safe in saying that. Hide has potential to really shake up the plot, but... he doesn’t, and that saddens and enrages me.

Touka

I said it before, and I’ll say it again. Touka Kirishima is Best Girl. She is literally 90% of what I look for in my female characters. She’s tomboyish, she’s a fighter, she doesn’t take Kaneki’s crap, she’s got a cute hairstyle, she’s got a soft side behind her rash exterior, her flaws are noticeable but not forced, she just... feels human. It’s such a shame that she doesn’t get the spotlight after Kaneki’s rescue. I said it before, I understand why she basically got shafted in the second half. The plot was moving away from Anteiku and more toward the CCG and Aogiri, but... damn was it a shame. I wish she would had split from Anteiku as well to become some kind of Ghoul Avenger/Batman after all that stuff went down. She could had went off trying to truly avenge Hinami’s mother, and any ghoul that she saw was wronged, becoming one hell of a wildcard in the powerplays that were happening. I mean really I just want a manga starring Touka like how Akame Ga Kill!Zero actually focuses on Akame, but

Moving on, like I said when talking about Hide, I think Touka makes for a good realist to balance out Hide’s optimism in terms of dealing with Kaneki. She’s cold, but not without meaning or reason. She’s rash, but that’s because she has her own baggage. And... well, her brother is one of the leading members in Aogiri, so I was hoping they’d bring their relationship into more light, maybe having her duke it out with Ayato again and winning to prove his beliefs and ideals wrong. Speaking of, Ayato was really underused as well considering how big of a threat Aogiri seemed. Aogiri as a whole sort of took a backseat after Kaneki’s rescue... eh, another plot point dismissed that irks me, but... whatever. 

Another thing that Touka does for the story of Tokyo Ghoul is give us an idea of what a “typical” ghoul is. Touka is basically the same as Kaneki in terms of social status, only a ghoul. As such, through we get to see how a normal ghoul behaves in the human world. They’re no different than humans really outside of getting into the occasional fight in turf wars, being a bit more violent than humans, and hunting for food every now and then. I could go on about why I like Touka, but I’ve got other characters to discuss.

Amon

I honestly didn’t think I’d like Amon as much as I do now. I would consider Amon something of a foil to Kaneki, or at least in a similar place mentally. After his run in with Kaneki he starts to wonder about ghouls having a human sense of morality, especially after learning that Kaneki was once a human. I’m not going to go too in-depth with his character (hopefully), but I like him at the end. I think he’s a nice addition to the CCG cast. He’s tough, but he’s got his flaws. He’s too professional and stoic with his team mates for his own good at times, he has the goofiest ways of trying to make amends for things, and holy shit that Arata Armor was the hypest thing in the manga oh my god. I let out an audible gasp at that panel, I lost it. I’ve said it before when I made my first essay, but if there’s anything I like about this manga, it’s the badass, cool as shit action shots. It’s the main reason I wish this manga was more action focused.

But anyway, Amon is a good man, he’s a good man that I’m glad we get to see throughout the series, as it really humanizes the CCG as something more than ghoul killer with weapon-fetishes. Him and Shinohara both do this really well.

Other Characters

Okay, just going to do a quick little lightning round of my thoughts on some of the other characters that made an impression on me for the sake of time and my own personal interest in the what I consider the secondary cast waning.

Juzo 

I have never cared much for the resident psychopath in any series, and Juzo is no exception. He was written a little better than some and his backstory explains his actions well. but... I’m still apathetic to him. If anything, it looks like he’s going to be in for some character development in :Re. 

Ayato

I already talked about him when talking about Touka, but I still wish he had more presence in the manga as a main villain and foil for Touka.

Tsukiyama

I also wish Tsukiyami remained a villain instead of teaming up with Kaneki. He represent the depravity that ghouls could have in terms of morals. I know some people like the more gentlemanly side of him, but I love seeing him go crazy and just chew the scenery while screaming foreign words.

Renji

Just another character I wish had more screen presence since it looks like he has a lot of connections to other characters. 

In the End

At the end of it all, I’m... honestly not going to bother with :Re, I hate the fact that is manga left so many open ends and didn’t bother answering some of the bigger questions. Like, when and how did Hide learn Kaneki was a ghoul? What’s the deal with Rize? Who the hell is this Insane Clown Posse that keeps popping up at the end of arcs to say that they’ll get the last laugh? And most important, who the hell is Eto really? The back of the manga may say this is the last volume, but it clearly isn’t. Even Naruto answered most of the bigger questions of Part 1 before moving onto Shippuden, and when Naruto does something better... that says a lot. 

The Insane Clown Posse (and other Issues)

Okay, I lied, I need to bitch about this real quick before I end this essay. Seriously, who the hell are these damn clowns? Why make Eto/Taktsuki the One-Eyed King and not explain that further? When exactly did Hide put two and two together? The fact that all of these are just carrots being dangled in front of me to buy :Re infuriates me.

Look, I’m no fool, I know that there are scans of the :Re out that I can read for free, but I really do prefer to paid for my manga and read official translations, plus I read enough off this computer screen, my eyes need a break from that at times. I know that :Re doesn’t fix a lot of the issues I have with this series, I remember seeing people post :Re stuffl nonstop a few months after the anime ended. The cast only gets more bloated with more characters, Hide is still only utilized for shipping and as something to dangle in front of the fandom, Haise is basically just a way of narrative-ly resetting Kaneki’s character because it was so shot by the end of volume 14, and if what I’ve seen of Dragon!Kaneki is true, that issue of small power creep I had will be skyrocketing to Dragonball Z proportions very soon.

I know... I haven’t really been saying nice things about this manga, and I really don’t hate it, but... this manga isn’t for me, not me personally. I like shounen action, cute girls in cute outfits, ninjas, and fancy strategies being used to outsmart powerful enemiesenemies. Tokyo Ghoul has... 3 of those things. If the fandom wants to at least explain to me the Insane Clown Posse and Eto, I’d appreciate it as a semi-causal fan of this series, but... I’m done, for now. Maybe I’ll check out the :Re anime, but nothing further than that.

In any case, I like that idea of Touka become Ghoul Avenger, so maybe I’ll write a fanfic about it. Until then folks, feel free to give me your thoughts on this series and opinions about my opinions. I’m... gonna’ go do some laundry and then play some Darkest Dungeon the my PS4.

[notanicequeen-blog]

Greetings, And Controversy

I think it'd be best to just start by saying, "Hello." I'm Elsa, and I am not an ice queen. I'm a 24 year old freelance writer--primarily ghostwriting--and if that didn't clue you in, I enjoy writing. In various different forms, really. Original fiction, text-based role-playing, fanfiction, I write all of them whenever it strikes my fancy.

And I also enjoy writing about…well, writing. That's what the point of all this is. In my adventures to write what I'm paid to write and to get my brain to calm down long enough to write what I'm not being paid to write, I like to take time out and jot down my observations on the writing process and everything around it. No matter how tenuous the connection sometimes is.

A lot of these blog entries were posted on a different blog a few years back, but they've been re-written and I'm re-posting them here, on a platform that doesn't require me to jump through quite as many hoops to stay ~*~relevant.~*~

That's all the introductory stuff out of the way, so I guess now it's time to move onto the meat of this baby. To kick things off, let's look at a…slightly controversial topic among a lot of writers.

I'm going to talk about Mary Sues, because why shouldn't I? It's the first entry and it sounds like fun.

Is there anyone here who doesn't know what a Mary Sue is? I'm going to assume you've all at least heard the term, but let's get into a bit more detail than just that.

Despite the name, a Mary Sue doesn't have to be a female, though for males the term is frequently changed to Gary Stu, Gary Sue, Marty Stu, you get the point. Cute, isn't it? However! Because of the hoops female characters need to jump through to be considered good characters, people tend to fixate more on Mary Sues than they do on Gary Stus.

Assuming they aren't just using it as a catch-all term to describe a character they don't like, a lot of people bastardize the definition to 'a character that is overly perfect,' but that's not quite right. A closer definition would be more along the lines of 'a character whose existence bends the world so that everything centers around them.' Like I said, gender doesn't particularly matter, but people are more likely to flip the table and scream, "That's so unrealistic!" about female characters doing this.

(As for where the term actually came from, I regret to inform you that it did not just fall out of the aether to give all of us nerds some shared terminology. Instead, allow me to direct you towards the Star Trek fandom. A satirical fanfiction--a very old fanfiction--was poking fun at the concept with a teenage ship captain named Mary Sue.)

Unfortunately for anyone looking to identify a Sue out in the wild, there is no one set of traits or characteristics that makes up a Mary Sue. There are some made of sweetness, rainbows, and turtledove shit, and they fix all conflicts just by walking into a room. There are some who are completely unrepentant jerks to everyone around them (especially a love interest) and they chew everyone out for the slightest mistake, but of course everyone loves them for their spunk and their ~*~attitude.~*~ Or maybe they're miserable and every tragedy in the world finds them, and the entire population is divided evenly into people who want to hurt them or protect them (have you read Oliver Twist? then you know what I'm talking about).

They can be everyday people, famous people, warriors of distant lands, beautiful but tragic broken birds, or anything else you can think of, so long as the world revolves around them in a way that strains suspension of disbelief.

But why are Mary Sues problematic?

…You wanna know a secret? It's a doozy. You might not be able to take it.

You see, they aren't problematic. Or at least not always. While it's true that some writers are going to start pulling their pigtails and throwing a tanty at the mere mention of a Mary Sue, in reality everything has a place. If someone is truly writing just because it's what they want to write, then you're free to simply not read it and no one is any the worse for wear.

As with many things, it also depends on the audience and the type of writing.

For instance, let's look at original fiction. Here, it depends entirely upon the audience. Sometimes it can just be nice to feel like the world revolves around you for a change. Oh, sure, that's not everyone's cup of tea, but if someone doesn't want that sort of story, I would like to know when it became their business to tell other people what they should or shouldn't like to read.

In fanfiction, the line is a little clearer. More often than not, a Mary Sue in a fanfic is an original character that the author has made up and injected into the world of the story, and the lives of the characters from the source material revolve around the author's original character. In general, that's frowned upon. People are free to write it, and more power to them, but most people who seek out fanfiction are looking for the characters of the source material, not a new character they've never heard of and thus are not pre-invested in. (Especially in cases where the source characters wind up warped and twisted out of their original shape so they can accommodate the new character.)

However! I can think of fanfic right off the top of my head where the source material's main character was written as a raging Gary Stu, but the writing itself and the characterization were brilliant and I loved the fic. So it would be disingenuous to say there's no ambiguity here. 

(Besides, if the author is having fun, then there’s no harm coming out of it anyway.)

There is one situation, though, where there is very little ambiguity, and that is role-playing. For those that don't know what it is (or those who are perpetually stuck in the gutter), I'm talking about a collaborative story telling game (my preferred form is text-based, but there are various types). Each person has a character (or several) and they're in charge of the thoughts, words, and actions only for the characters that belong to them.

In a role-playing game, Mary Sues are very frequently obnoxious. Because the game is collaborative, most players want to get their own time in the spotlight. Everyone wants to feel important to the story. What this means is that one player constantly trying to make the story focus around their character is going to be incredibly annoying, whether it comes in the form of constantly fixing everyone's problems, constantly being dumped on by the world, or something else. Odds are the player of a Mary Sue is either going to get a stern talking to or kicked out of the group, because no role-player wants every conflict solved immediately or for their own character's drama to be stolen or overshadowed.

However, I did say very little ambiguity, not no ambiguity. Because you know what can be fun sometimes? Complete and utter over the top, self-indulgent bullshittery where every character is equally as ludicrously special and amazing. Where nothing makes sense, nothing is remotely plausible, ‘down to earth’ is a foreign phrase, and everything is explosions, be they literal or metaphorical. Because when you get down to it, it’s about having fun. (Side note: you should all go look up The Ballad of Edgardo.)

But what about me? What do I, personally, think of Mary Sues?

Frankly, I tend to prefer more realistic characters, but I'm not going to pretend I've never read and enjoyed stories about Mary Sues. It's fun to be the center of the universe now and then.

Beyond that, I think they're a phase that every writer goes through. I certainly did. If you're a writer and you're reading this, you did, too. Every writer wants their characters to be awesome, and it can take time to refine your personal definition of awesome. Criticism and advice are fine--maybe even encouraged, depending on the writer--but being a jerk about it just makes you a hypocrite. After all, you've done it, too.