#the hero archetype
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inbabylontheywept · 3 months ago
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Soviet Birds.
The secret facility that I work in has holes in the ceiling. We don't know how to get them fixed.
We tried asking the government to fix it, once. We told them that the holes in the older parts of the facility had gotten large enough to fit birds through, and that birds were getting through, and that, perhaps, a Soviet Spy could fit through as well.
After all, it is well known that Soviet Spies and pigeons are approximately the same diameter.
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Our hope was that that this vague and nonsensical threat would put a little fire under Uncle Sam's feet. If the fed couldn't be bothered to give a shit about the giant gaping holes in the roof of our facility, perhaps they could be persuaded to give a shit about... Soviet Spies.
This attempt at manipulation 100% blew up in our faces.
See, the government does not need to be persuaded to give a shit about Soviet Spies. It still wakes up most nights, drenched in cold sweat, terrified and confident that a Soviet Spy is hiding in their nightstand. If it sees a rock on the ground, it flips it over, pistol drawn, ready to shoot the Soviet Spy it fully expects to slither out from underneath. Which is to say: The government is crazy. So when we dropped those two words - inflitration risk - in the repair request, they came in guns-a-blazin'.
Does that mean that they fixed the roof? Of course not. Don't be stupid. No, instead of performing basic maintenance, they installed a state of the art alarm system throughout the facility - lasers, sonar, the works - and told us to always be on the guard. Because of the roof holes.
Then they left.
So now we had an extremely good alarm system... and birds. Which have combined in incredibly obvious and predictable ways to produce an unending fountain of problems.
For Example: About once a month, someone gets called in by the local airforce dispatch because AAAAAAAAAAA a Spy is in the Rad Lab! We're all gonna die! Except every time, it's a bird. And I get why we have to check, but every time, the dispatcher is panicked and the person going out has to be like listen, listen: It's a bird. It's always a bird. It's been a bird every month for the last fifteen years. It will be a bird next month. All this stress? Bad for your heart.
Second Example: Sometimes, birds get in while we're actually working. And when it's in the morning, you know, it's a nuisance, and it stops testing (we are not going to risk irradiating a bird) but it's not an all-hands-on-deck situation because it doesn't take ten hours to get a bird out. But surprisingly often, the bird gets in riiiiight at closing time, and in that situation, everyone goes feral because nobody can leave until the alarm is set, and we cannot set the alarm while the bird is there, because the bird would immediately trigger it and then we'd have to stay another 4 hours to confirm that it was not a Soviet Bird.
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So in order to go home, everyone's top priority is Get That Bird. And we have a system for it.
Step 1: The test stands tend to be located in rooms with 30+ foot ceilings. We can't catch birds in places like that - so we have to lure the bird into the relatively low ceilinged (8 feet only) upper offices.
We do this by turning all the lights off in the test rooms, then putting floodlights by the exits. I don't know why this works - some kind of evolutionary brain fragment shared by both Bugs and Birds - but work it does. The birds almost always follow after the lights. From there, it’s just two guys moving the floodlight and a third guy to turn off the lights.
Step 2: Everyone else has been waiting for this step. There is this long stairway up from the basement level into the offices, and in the final stage, the floodlights are brought to the base of the stairwell to bring the bird up. At the top of the steps there will be a group of tennish people, waiting for the signal. The light guys will set up the final transfer, everyone will tense, and then, swish...a bird will flit up the stairs and into the offices.
It's like watching werewolves on a full moon. Before the bird cometh, we are engineers. Nerds. Pale and skinny things, trembling under the fluorescent lights. After the bird, we are beasts. Feral, gnawing things, glowing under the orange sunrise of the 70's halogen floodlights.
And like all beasts, we cannot help but give chase.
Step 3: The were-engineers begin the hunt. The goal at the start is not really to catch the bird - just exhaust it. So the pack simply does not relent. Because the stakes are going home on time, the group is basically given free reign to go anywhere in the building. If someone's door is open, and the bird goes inside, they're going to have to deal with ten sweaty panting maniacs leaping around their office. They don't get to say that they're busy, or remark on how all this movement is a terrible distraction. They are allowed to sit in silence during the chaos, and perhaps thank the war party for chasing the bird while they sat comfortably on their ass. This has been explained several times, and it will continue to be explained until cooperation is achieved.
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Anyway.
The chase can go on for quite some time. Sometimes, the bird will get tired and find a crevice to hide in, where it can then be reached through standard cornered-bird catching techniques.
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Other times, it will slow down enough that someone can actually yoink it out of the air. But this will go on until someone catches the bird and triggers Step 4.
Step 4: The Finale. This is the get-the-bird-out-of-the-building stage, and it requires someone to adopt a specific role: To Become the Sacrificial Vessel of Bird Removal.
This job is both coveted and feared. It's coveted, because holding a wild bird in one's hands is a precious thing. To feel how small, and fragile, and scared it is, only to free it from the building? That is what it's like to be a benevolent God. But the cost! Oh, the cost. The entire time the Vessel is in motion, the bird will be biting the hell out of their fingers. And I cannot emphasize enough just how painful bird bites are. Their entire face is a set of needle posed pliers, and they know tricks the even the cartels haven't figured out yet. So there's always a little hubbub about who shall be The Vessel while onlookers, stranded outside The Office of Bird Capture, can only look on. Quiet arguments and pleas are heard, little fragments of fear and pride and glory trickling out of room like the silver dust left behind in a bag of well shook quarters. The sound of concensus is silence, and the argument will go on until that's all that's left. And then, from the darkness of the final office, the chosen sacrifice will step forward: Hands gently cupped, tears streaming down their face, fingers trembling from the pain of the ongoing bird chomps.
And this scene is what organizes people. Not leadership, not truly. No one can think and coordinate a crowd while their fingers are being attacked with a combination nutcracker/ear piercer. But the crowd sees the suffering of their annointed, and it is driven to do everything poossible to make the process flow. People instinctively flair out, finding the fastest path outside. Doors are held open. Paths are cleared. Someone, somehow, always knows the way forward and can describe it to the sufferer. Left, left, forward. Corner closet. Yep, there's a hall in there. Forward. Two-hundred more feet man, you're doing great. Just hold it together a little longer. You're killing it.
Then the final door swings open, and the bird flees out into what remains of daylight. And yet, even here, the deed is not yet done. I cannot explain it in words, but the crowd that helped is never content until they can see and speak on the Bird Vessel's wounds. They all have to pull the fingers back and see what was given. Estimate the price: One day to get better - No, three - No, a week! Are you blind? Do you see that blood blister? -Yeah, that's not going away anytime soon - Damn, can you believe how feisty those things are? Like wolves without teeth.
(They cannot help but touch as they go. It has always been this way. Even Thomas was not content until he felt the wounds in Christ's hands.)
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Only when the last of the helpers has seen, and commented, and commended, will the engineers scatter. It is their return from the underworld that announces to the sun living surface dwellers that they too can go home. (@somerunner tolja it needed to be a post.)
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rottmnt-residuum · 1 month ago
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Hi, I've read the Residuum comic, and I think the characterization of the boys is really good. I was wondering if you have any tips on how to write them? Especially Mikey, please.
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I'd actually recommend re-watching the show with one character in mind. All my notes on the turtles come from doing separate re-watches for each of them. The key is to ONLY watch the character you are focusing on.
In the end, you'll probably be happier with your own personal interpretation. As we are with ours lol
TL;DR
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Massive post under the cut
To preface: we'll be contrasting (this Mikey) against the fandoms version of Mikey, as our interpretation is very different. Don't worry if you prefer the fandom version, there's nothing… wrong per se with writing him this way. We just find him flat and uninteresting. (Main author: not me, I just hate him, lol).
Every reader or fan comes into a story with their own biases and experiences. A ton of our view of Mikey is based on how our siblings acted. We see Mikey as the young sibling that got preferential treatment from the whole family, simply due to being the youngest, but is now aging out of the privilege. Which all youngest siblings do at some point or another.
The fandoms version of Mikey is empathetic, naive, vulnerable, co-dependent and quite often a door mat who cries at the drop of a hat. And as much as the fandom like to say that people love him… when this particular character archetype is in other media, they seem to attract the most criticism. Mable pines, Bolin from Korra, people rag on Aang all the fucking time, and Steven Universe is a whole other bag. These characters don't deserve it, and yet it happens anyway.
To flatten Mikey to simply 'the baby' is a disservice. We don't see or write Mikey as the fandom “baby” version (cinnamon roll uwu). Part of this comes from having multiple siblings, so we interpret the times when Mikey does the puppy dog eyes as typical younger sibling bullshit, mostly by the way that the other turtles rarely react to it, if at all.
The other turtles traits can also get projected onto Mikey. Mikey being the fandom therapist is in the same category as this. He isn't a therapist, he's a psychology nerd who likes to psychoanalyze people and meddle in their relationships. (Donnie and Shelldons relationship, Splinter and Draxums...) he's not trying to resolve your emotional issues. Of the turtles, the character that cares the most about people's feelings is Raph. And Leo is more of a consoler than Mikey ever is. It flattens all the turtle's characterizations when you start doing this because you are ripping out parts that are integral to another characters' complexity.
Co-author has told me that they've seen people become confused when going into the show after only reading fan fiction or coming from the movie. They see his characterization as inconsistent and become upset when their view of him is contradicted. This also happens when a fandomized version of him becomes the primary characterization that they use. Sometimes when this disconnect happens (or if they just don't like the character), Mikey characterization is swung in the complete opposite direction.
They make him manipulative and abusive, or someone who is hyper violent and avoids being held accountable for anything. This is an uncharitable interpretation of him and can come off as pretty racist depending on the circumstances. (like if someone considers the turtles black or not)
Every version of Mikey is a shithead (affectionate), even this one. Especially this one, really. When Mikey not doing the "baby schtick" hes mean. If you pay attention to what he's saying, and just not his tone of voice, he's consistently saying pretty mean or condescending stuff. (You could take this as simply naïveté, but he still says mean shit pretty often regardless)
The times he does say genuinely nice stuff the turtles don't exactly expect it from him, at least, in the early season. And while he is mean, and seems to find saying mean things to be funny, Mikey isn't cruel. Nor will he ever be.
This shit-headery behavior is found in both 2003 and 18 Mikey. They have a degree of social intelligence that lets them use it to annoy people into doing what they want. 18 just has the advantage of being baby faced and having better tonal control. He's good at using people's perception of him to get what he wants.
Let Mikey have his problematic traits, but don't overexaggerate them. He doesn't revel in fooling people. He loves doing character bits, and the baby faced one just happens to be one of them. However, to infantilize or to deem him incompetent is to piss him off, he wants to be viewed as a competent part of the team and competent as an individual. He's not insecure about being young, he just doesn't want to be treated like he can't do anything.
Mikey above all is an optimistic character, he sees the brighter side quite often and is conscious of the harm his actions have on people. Mostly after the fact, but he consistently attempts to rectify the harm he has personally done to peoples lives. (Todd, Bullhop, Draxum). Food and shelter seems to be a thing that he considers to be a right. He doesn't cross a boundary twice once he learns of it, and he never pushes people too far (if he likes you, that is. if he doesn't know you or doesn't like you, he doesn't give a singular shit. But that is standard to most people.). He doesn't care about people's stuff, though. He breaks things all the time.
Mikey understands boundaries, but he doesn't automatically recognize them. He needs them to verbalized or for there to be a very obvious reaction to the boundary being crossed (unfortunately, for Todd and Donnie). Sometimes people mess up (esp. younger people), and it can take a while for teens to learn where boundary is, but he fully respects the boundaries he does know about. He doesn't act petulant when he's told about boundary, he apologizes, accepts it, and moves on. He doesn't dwell.
Mikey doesn't hold on to distressing emotions. He bounces between emotions quickly, but isn't effected in the long run. One thing Iv'e seen people often conflate is the difference between sensitive and vulnerable. Mikey is sensitive, but I have never seen him vulnerable to others. To be sensitive is to be easily influenced by the current situation. To be vulnerable is to hold that influence for a long time. Characters can have one, both, or neither of these traits. But Mikey is not vulnerable. It is the difference between compressing memory foam and a piece of metal until they deform. One will pop back, the other does not.
Those who are vulnerable but not sensitive will take longer to effect, but once you do, they will hold on to that emotion for a very long time. The vulnerable, are grudge holders. (leo). But like I've said, Mikey bounces back. What a character does has an effect on his emotions, but it doesn't make a lasting impression.
Forgiveness is another thing people like to push on him. It is not that Mikey forgives people easily, it's just that he doesn't hold grudges. He neither forgives nor forgets, but he does not ruminate. He's generally affable, first impressions seem to be a big part of how he views people. He is idealistic, and doesn't assume people are unchanging and/or evil, but he's not a mark.
Mikey isn't so much as naive or overly trusting… it's just that he's inexperienced. He doesn't get fooled by anyone in the series except meat sweats, and that's because Meatsweats is on Todd drugs. Mikey just didn't notice when he started faking. He's not… actually all that aware of people's emotional states, passively. He has to tune in to notice things like that.
Mikey isn't someone who really tries to regulate others emotions, either. The fandom like to make Mikey afraid of his brothers fighting and others being upset, but Mikey doesn't actually care. The most distressed we ever see him in a fight is in the movie, and he's not SCARED, he's just concerned (and then alarmed once it turned physical). If anything, outside extenuating circumstances (like the movie), Mikey actually seems to find their fights annoying.
(Mikey actually seems to have a pretty short fuse, but his bounciness doesn't really let it linger very long, lmao)
(One pet peeve of fandom Mikey is the constant crying, crying at fights, crying at insults, crying for no reason all the time. Sure, he tears up when he gets emotional, but when Mikey is genuinely crying It's when he's desperate, like when he's hungry, or when he's trying to save Leo from certain doom. Same thing, really.)
Mikey respects no one (we love him for this). He admires people, he admires his family: April, the turtles, his dad, Lou Jitsu. He admires Rupert Swaggert, but he respects none of them. No one is sacrosanct to the Mikey.
Above all, the way we write characters is to give them a past that informs how they act now. We view Mikey and the other turtles as teenagers that were kids, and that will be adults. Yes they all have “problematic” traits, but 1) good characters need flaws, and controversial traits are one of the best to use, and 2) they're teenagers, don't expect adult behaviors from them, also don't expect them to be kids. They're minors, not toddlers.
This is getting as long enough as it is, so we'll stop here, but this is a very broad overview of how we characterize him. There's a lot we didn't cover here, but if we even started on hobbies, or the real minutia of his quirks and ticks, or even how he feels about other specific characters... we'd be here all day. So I hope this is good enough lol
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If there was something you wanted to know in particular, you'll need to get specific. Feel free to ask again ahahh
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amaranthdahlia · 2 months ago
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thee twin brothers
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whump-in-the-closet · 4 months ago
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Hi! I’d love to hear more about your Whump Archetypes concept!
sorry it took me a sec to get to this one. (referencing this post right?)
hero whumpee: sun-coded/ pride of the city/self-sacrificial -> failing to protect those they love/ their torture is videotaped and broadcasted to the city/ sacrifice everything for their friends
sidekick/apprentice whumpee: unshakingly loyal/ optimistic/ eager to prove their worth -> handed over to whumper in a trade for someone more "useful"/ disillusioned by the world/ forced to undergo training that breaks them emotionally and physically, punished if they can't complete their assignments
defiant whumpee: sarcastic/ argumentative/ never goes down without a fight -> muzzled/ publicly humiliated via flogging/ forced to lick their whumper's shoes
stoic whumpee: quiet/ steady head on their shoulders/ no one can control them, only their situations -> put on display/ used as an ashtray in party environments/ when whumper finally makes them break down and sob, its game over
vampire whumpee: threatening demeanor/ proud of their capabilities/ deep-hidden fears that no one knows about -> silver blades that make them bleed/ fangs ripped out/ manhandled and dehumanized until they no longer recognize themself
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pencap · 6 months ago
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FINAL LAMENT OF THE HERO'S HEART
i love you. doesn't that mean anything? of course it does. it means everything, don't you know?
and you love me. you know i do. it isn't a question. not even now. not from you.
you promised me forever. was that a lie? i meant it. i still mean it. my love is yours forever. for as long as my broken heart beats, and beyond.
but you're going to leave anyway. i have to. i'm sorry. i would stay if i could. but somewhere out there lies a gravestone waiting already with my name written on it and i do not have the strength to uncarve a stone.
why you? why do we have to be the tragedy? because the gods are cruel, or at least uncaring. because the earth is parched with bloodthirst. because all the other lovers who were tragedies asked the same question and received no answers.
but i love you. and you love me. my broken heart, if love were enough to change the story there would be no tragedies left in this world.
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pioneer-over-c · 1 year ago
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I like to make theme teams for Tap Battle. This time I hired a bunch of mercenaries for the job. Dancing is not really their strong suit
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ultfreakme · 9 months ago
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I just want to know what is this obsession with some ATLA fans on making Katara "The Mom"? She's 14. We start with Aang saying she is just a kid so what on Earth is this weird take?
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candyskiez · 2 months ago
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If I had a nickel for everytime an animated media ended with the titular character having a breakdown after years of repression and mistreatment by everyone around them, causing them to go into a superpowered state and rampage towards something very specific now that all their repressed desires and anger and trauma are running wild and have to be brought back by their loved ones who heavily contributed to them having this breakdown in the first place finally apologizing to them and reaching out, I'd have three nickels.
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Which isn't much, but it's weird that it's happened thrice.
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b4kuch1n · 1 year ago
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fanciful stories (you're way too good at this)
(that's not what it's about. being good at it)
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utilitycaster · 5 months ago
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I’ve long noticed and previously commented on the odd fandom antipathy towards characters like Suvi of Worlds Beyond Number and Jonas Spahr from Midst; and simultaneously a far, far more generous approach to outright villains like Will Gallows, many of the witches, and Moc Weepe.
I’ve also commented on the favor and endless forgiveness shown villains before, and to get it out of the way, yes, a lot of this is due to horny reasons, and as someone who does not identify personally as a monsterfucker this might be part of my lack of interest. But I think it would be unwise to chalk this up entirely to people wanting to fuck the villains, and given that Suvi and Jonas are both extremely attractive as well it’s certainly not the whole picture.
Suvi and Jonas are born into and achieve positions of privilege - military/political no less - in imperial societies. They are both explicitly indoctrinated. They are not, in my opinion, brainwashed; but they are driven into who they become through competition.
I think a lot of people are really uncomfortable with characters shown to be complicit in and favored within this kind of society. I think Spahr and Suvi occupy a space that they find too close to home; too close to what they themselves are. A villain validates one’s beliefs: Weepe is ruthlessly self-interested, driven by profit, and terribly violent, and so it’s easier to be comfortable with him, ironically enough, because the story tells you he’s a bastard and you can feel good about clocking him as a bastard, and even like that this character is on a meta level telling you that you’re right in your beliefs.
Suvi and Jonas and those like them don’t permit you that validation. They participate in these harmful systems while believing it to be the right thing to do. They are also young people who grew up knowing little else, with unfathomably high expectations placed upon them. They are flawed, with no shortage of harsh edges, but they are also frequently kind and generous people who are incredibly important, as they currently are, to characters one might find more sympathetic. They are deeply human. And they are both the beneficiaries and the victims of a vast and complicated system. You cannot fit them into the box of a “stripped of choice” victim even though both have found themselves backed against a wall by their respective societies. You cannot avoid that the dissolution of their society would have devastating consequences, even if it might be right (which Midst directly explores; I suspect the Citadel might not be a thing to be dissolved). And while many people do so, one cannot in good faith and intelligent analysis treat them as nothing more than a shipping doll who needs to be programmed to become a mirror of the “correct” character of one’s choosing without ignoring who they are and what they bring to the table: a political savvy, a great deal of talent and intelligence, and a desire to embody the best parts of their respective flawed societies.
As Midst reaches its denouement, one of the core messages is that a harmful society is still one comprised of people: some upholding it, some actively furthering it, and some just living within it. While Worlds Beyond Number is nowhere near its end, Brennan Lee Mulligan’s body of work upholds a similar message; that one cannot lose sight of the personhood of people, even those involved in messy and damaging systems, and that people must be judged with that in mind. Suvi and Spahr are not cogs to be wrenched free and corrected, but characters to appreciate in their complexity. It is a shame that so many reject them in favor of those who consistently choose to do harm because it is less difficult and challenging to think in terms of Good Guy/Bad Guy.
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whyoneartheven · 3 months ago
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I MADE A UQUIZ!!!
@margindoodles2407 @isasan347 @ginjusttalkaboutnothing @bluevaractyl
and anyone else can take it too ofc :D
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pynkhues · 2 months ago
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omg that analysis was everything!! thank you sm! really was a palette cleanser. would love the continuation with the parts you didn't get to - his relationship with jonah and the dynamic within the rue royal household. the housewife insult from claudia really did a number on the fandom's reading of louis. (still not over people seriously considering him the embodiment of "edwardian housewife" archetype while lestat is a classic patriarch. dunno if i wanna laugh or cry).
(x)
Thank you! And yeah, I think I've mentioned it before, but it's interesting to me that so many people take both Claudia's housewife insult and Grace's white daddy insult as effectively one-to-one attributes instead of as weapons of emasculation to not only try and hurt Louis, but to goad him into action.
The dynamic of the Rue Royale household is probably it's own entire answer, and one that might be best answered after I've finished my re-watch, but yes! Let's talk about Jonah. Or, well, about sex, haha.
Virtue and the gothic heroine
One of the key attributes of a gothic heroine is her virtue, because Gothicism as a genre is rooted intrinsically in the loss of that virtue. What that means or looks like exactly changes – in the earliest stories within the genre, that loss of virtue was a result of perversion or corruption and usually spelled doom for the heroine, and in later stories it marked a point of transformation or metamorphosis where the loss of that virtue often came to symbolise a transition from girlhood to adulthood.
Virtue was, and still is, often depicted in the genre through virginity as excellently stated in the paper Female Virtue in Gothic Literature 1780-1810 “female morality was irrevocably intertwined with a sexual code of conduct. Daughters…were reminded that their most important attribute was intact virginity and wives were constantly retold their worth relied upon their chastity and therefore their ability to bear legitimate children.”
This came to define gothic literature, and her loss of virginity became pretty vital as a character beat as it would mark this loss of agency which I talked about a bit in the last post. Significantly too though, the gothic heroine usually has men after her virtue. Which, well, - -
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As put in this paper Haunted Heroines: An Examination of the Complication of the Gothic Heroine: “She is the object of the perverted sexual desire of older men, above all representing the innocence and purity that the men are themselves negations of.”
Typically, when she did lose her virginity, she’d end up with three options: she could marry the man who took her virginity, she could “give up the idea of marriage and take holy orders” (aka become a nun), or she could die. Regardless of the decision she makes, the actual choice is a really marked moment for the gothic heroine, as it’s often the only actual moment of agency she gets in a story which is invested in her disempowerment. She has to give herself away – to a husband, to God, or to death – because the gothic, particularly the female gothic, understands that once her body has been taken by a man, it can never be her own again for better and for worse.
Claudia loses her virginity way back in season 1, but she’s robbed even of that momentary agency, because her body itself stays virginal. She does not get to make a choice. The monstrosity of Claudia’s making is that she will never not be an innocent, the virtuousness that men seek to take from her can never be taken, and thus she is never allowed transformation, she is never allowed her moment of agency, and she can never belong to another. It re-emphasises her arrested development, but it also keeps her trapped as the gothic heroine in Louis and Lestat’s house forever. There is no getting out for Claudia, she dies without transformation, she dies so that she can be mourned by the monsters in the house.
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The Byronic Hero and the Past
On the flip side of that, the Byronic Hero is, inherently, a romantic, both physically and poetically, or as Jean Ann Bates put in her excellent 1949 essay “The Byronic hero is distinguished by the clearly defined existence of sensuousness and its antithesis, sensitiveness.” After all, as an archetype, he’s based on Lord Byron who fucked his way through Venice while producing some of the most romantic poetry ever, in history.
Bates continues:
“The Byronic hero is almost always a man with a mysterious past. This past is usually surmised to be of wickedness and sin, and our hero is periodically haunted by feelings of remorse concerning it…the mood of the Byronic hero is one of intense melancholy and pessimism; yet we feel underlying this apparently static exterior, the beat of throbbing life energy. Like the Corsair, the Byronic hero is ‘warp’d by the world of disappointment. He seems to loathe himself and all mankind, and is always one apart from his fellow creatures…The Byronic hero’s  character is amoral rather than immoral…The Byronic hero is all that is characteristic of the somewhat jaded cosmopolitan man of the world.”
The whole essay’s a great read, and I think again, really encapsulates Louis’ character, but I wanted to talk a little bit about this sense of a mysterious past and one surmised to be of wickedness and sin, because I think it’s an overlooked part of Louis’ arc.
Because he tells us in such soaring, and romantic detail, this large portion of his life, it can be easy to think we know all of it, when really, there’s a lot we don’t know about Louis as a young man. We meet him when he’s 33-years-old, we know that his father is dead, that the sugar plantation his father owned went broke, that he and his brother had a chapter of their shared life where they shuffled for pennies, but we lack a lot of context beyond these glimmers of what Louis tells us.
In particular, we don’t really know that much about his sexual history before Lestat, which is actually pretty typical of the Byronic Hero. Think the reveal of Rochester’s wife in Jane Eyre or Heathcliff’s three year absence where he mysteriously returns wealthy in Wuthering Heights and soon marries Isabella, the Byronic Hero has chapters that remain unrevealed to us, and part of that is often soaked in sexual or romantic undertones.
In the first episode, Louis talks about the fact that he didn’t consider himself a homosexual, which I think can become a focus, but I’m more interested in the earlier exchange with Daniel where Louis articulates using Lily as cover for his sexuality.
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If you take this scene at face value, and look at it on its own, Louis’ saying yes, he had urges towards men, but his faith was keeping him in check, only if you look at it with the scene before it, we see him refuse to enter the church confessional after joking with Paul that Paul is wasting people's time as he has nothing to confess. An implication, perhaps, that Louis knows that he does.  
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My reading of that has always been that Louis was sleeping with men in New Orleans long before Lestat came into the picture, and probably a fair few, but the show plays with Louis’ unreliable narration and the mystery of his sexual history to shroud that really until Jonah’s introduction. Jonah, after all, not only confirms that Louis had been with other men prior to Lestat, (as does Louis’ familiarity with the bayou as a gay hook up site), and that he wasn’t keeping much of anything at bay through the threat of absolution, but that he was sleeping with boys.
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Louis’ 33 when he’s turned in 1910, and we know from the notice in this episode that we’re now in 1917, so Louis should be 40. We don’t know how old Jonah is, but given they look like contemporaries now, I think you could pretty safely gauge that if Louis was hooking up with him when Jonah was 16, he was probably in his mid-twenties. The context of the era is, of course, important, and there are a million reasons why Louis might have taken the opportunity with a teenager (although I think given Louis’ relationship with power, particularly in the NOLA era, we can assume that plays a role) but the narrative choice of the show to make Jonah a teenager when they hooked up – just like the choice to have Madeleine sleep with a Nazi teenager – is a deliberate ethical muddying of the waters to show that these elements of the monstrousness and the predator existed in him prior to his turning.
Louis is not, and has never been virtuous. He is not chaste when Lestat first has sex with him, and he is not an innocent when Lestat turns him. He can’t be corrupted, because, like a true Byronic hero, he is corrupt.
I could talk more here about the Paris park hook-ups, or the 128 boys in San Francisco (literally the most Byron thing imaginable to fuck your way through the city and then try and write a book about your ex lmao), but I think it’s worth leaving it at the New Orleans era, because I think what Jonah represents is not just Louis’ tendency to paint himself in the best light, but the mystery of his past and his inherent sexual agency which is vital to a Byronic hero. Louis is deeply feeling, and he’s capable of being in love with Lestat and having his heart dance with another man, he’s allowed sexual agency and sexual freedom even if it does lead to a bitter fight with Lestat because he's not under the thumb of the patriarch, he is one of the patriarchs. Lestat might follow after all, he might watch, but he doesn’t interrupt, he doesn’t exert control, in fact he fills the house with other men to offer Louis the deepening of depravity even through his own jealousy and, notably, empties the house when Louis tells him to.
Again, this goes back to what I was saying in the last post, but Louis doesn’t lack agency. The townhouse is not a prison to him, Lestat’s patriarchal, yes, but so’s Louis, he’s just more emotionally manipulative about how he keeps Claudia close to him. Louis' sexuality is a huge part of him, but it also doesn't define him in the way Claudia's virginity does. After all, for Claudia her sexuality is symbolic of her eternal chastity and girlhood, a gothic heroine locked in a prison of her own innocence, whereas for Louis, it gets to be so much more, because as a Byronic Hero, he gets to be so much more.
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monstergreentea · 4 months ago
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saw a post on booktok about tgcf where hua cheng was described as "the villain" and xie lian was "the hero" and i full-body laughed bc how did you read all of tgcf and come away with any character being a hero or villain???
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buckevantommy · 5 months ago
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it's so wild to look at s1!buck compared to s7!buck
#obvs he went from fuckboy to loveboy (rather quick but thats what happens when he realises he wants something bad enough)#which can be paralleled to his bisexual speedrun in 7x04 and 7x05 and also a bit of 7x06. but i'm actually#talking about how he went from the big strong selfless hero protector archetype for abby (but also as a firefighter identity) in s1#to s7 where he's being taken care of in his relationship with tommy and being prioritized by his partner (who also happens#to be a firefighter) which is new and wonderful but there's also no imbalance of care; tommy is open and honest about how he#feels and buck meets him with open honesty in return - they meet in the middle! - it's just so cathartic for buck's storyline to see#how much he opens himself up to love in s1 and yearns to be wanted as much in return but it doesn't happen (and continues not to)#but with tommy he finally has someone who wants him just as much in return- and moreover we see buck being himself (evan!)#with tommy which is so freeing that he doesn't have to put on the buck persona: he can be goofy and dumb and vulnerable + needy#and tommy wants all of it all of him. i know we haven't seen much of their relationship so far and obvs they're still in the#honeymoon phase - which is why i'm so excited for the more settled phase of their rship (we saw a bit of it in the finale)#to see continued proof of them meeting in the middle. and also more instances of tommy caring for buck and wanting all of buck#but yeh just gimme more of buck being comfortably himself and all that means bc he feels seen and safe and wanted by tommy#.txt#parallels#evan buckley
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aengelren · 8 months ago
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the way he’s desperately grabbing onto Armin knowing it’s their final time
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ladyinthebluebox · 4 months ago
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sometimes i wonder how many more people inconvenient to Zariel in some way Mizora could've possibly sicced Wyll on & how many more he could've eliminate not willing to listen to them, like he eventually listened to Karlach, all while believing he worked for the good of the Coast...
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