#the inherent romance of understanding a person's killing pattern

[cysomen]

im still debating on committing to a hannibal au but here's a snippet of a scene i've written !!

cw for blood and murder :)

“Oh, Sasha,” Amir murmured, eyes soft as met Aleksandr’s horrified gaze. His hands relaxed on the knife he had just slid into the man’s throat below him. The body gave a couple of twitches, grey and bloody hands shaking as the now-corpse attempted to shove at his murderer. Amir kneeled above it, and at the movement he shoved the knife in a further. With a quiet, vulgar tearing noise, Amir yanked it back out, studying the blood bubbling out from the wound before meeting Aleksandr's eyes once more. “I really wish you hadn't seen that.”

“A-Amir,” Aleksandr choked, still gasping out regrets that he was too late, too slow, too blind to save the victim. 

Amir stood, slowly, the liquid predator’s grace in his movements making him all the more striking. Aleksandr could see his muscles shifting under the shirt he was wearing, white sleeves rolled up but stained pink with blood. The darkest red over the front told Aleksandr enough about the wounds in the corpse would look like. He stepped forwards, the knife in his hand glinting under a layer of gore. 

Gently, Amir cupped Aleksandr’s jaw, smiling at him softly. “I knew you would find me again. I was worried you wouldn’t catch the signs I left, but you’re a smart man.”

“Why?” Aleksandr asked him weakly, locking his own hand Amir’s wrist and trying not to think about how the man’s skin was warmed by the blood. 

“Don’t ask that like you don’t know.” His voice hardened. “Don’t tell me that, Aleksandr.”

“He’s- he's the officer that found it,” Aleksandr answered, eyes flicking over Amir’s shoulder to look at the corpse, slightly out of place from where Amir had stood. “You killed him because he found your clue before I did.”

“That’s right. Good,” He praised, and Aleksandr forced himself to study the gaping wound in the corpse’s throat. “I wouldn’t have, otherwise. And then it got out to the public, and you couldn’t see it fresh,” Amir continued. “I left it for you, Sasha. I needed him to be an example.”

Aleksandr dragged Amir’s hand away from his face, the force to overcome the dried blood sticking their skin together leaving it stinging. The thought that this was his fault had him shoving away as bile crawled up his throat.

[satorugojjo]

I’m just gonna say it, but I think current kids younger than 15 are almost incapable of dissecting anything with critical nuance. Because there is a HUGE difference to the 15 year olds BEFORE lockdown, and after. I’ve seen Gen Z teenagers on tiktok and tumblr have the most empathic, kind, amazingly supportive and intelligent opinions in 2020 who have now grown up and are in college absolutely killing it - they’ve gone into lockdown already having developed their emotional skills and come out of it with a lot more depth and growth. But YOU guys were 12 and younger when the pandemic started, you spent YEARS of it online without interacting with a wide variety of people and learning to read between the lines as you HAVE to in order to navigate the real world and peoples speech patterns and behaviours. You grew up alone in your house behind your screen, without being able to bond with classmates or friends, and most importantly, without anyone to temper your thoughts, or have rational and calm discussions in person. Half the teens I see on tiktok and tumblr NOW are so full of hate, so quick to put down and dismiss peoples choices, so quick to troll and voice really bizarrely conservative and ignorant opinions as if they’re entitled to do so, and so anti-empowerment and anti-ENJOYMENT in general. And I’m gonna be real with you and say it’s because of lockdown. It’s not entirely your fault bc y’all are still kids.

Your literature programs would have been cut, you’re just reading for the assignment, you’re not engaging in seminars and debates and classroom exercises the way you would in class, and all the while you’re just being increasingly exposed to sensationalist media that boils down complex and nuanced topics to a black and white, yes or no, 7 second hook. And it’s made you incapable of approaching anything with logic and empathy, because you just didn’t HAVE that the way everyone else did during their formative middle school puberty years. So now the moment you have a singular negative opinion of something, it’s all encompassing. There is no give, no flex, everyone is guilty until innocent. And why wouldn’t you think that? That’s what people have been doing online during the whole pandemic, cancelling people for 1 comment taken out of context, or being so quick to say something negative first instead of positive. You got comfortable behind your screen instead of being taught the consequences of saying shit things, and now when it comes to exploring all angles to a situation like you should be taught how to the way EVERYONE is, you take it at the most basic, surface, face value.

And when it now comes to fandom spaces where you have older fans in the same space as younger fans, there’s so many more instances where something will get an inordinate and undeserved amount of hate or hype based on a very surface level of understanding. Inherently, this isn’t a good or bad thing, it’s just a thing. What IS bad is when people come under someone’s obviously thought out and nuanced opinion to be like “you’re wrong for liking this bc (insert a completely unrelated logical fallacy of a reason)”. “If you like this book that happens to be a straight romance, you’re homophobic” IT DOESNT WORK THAT WAY AND IM SICK AND TIRED OF ARGUING WITH PEOPLE WHO NEVER BOTHERED TO DEVELOP READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS EVEN AFTER FINDING OUT THEY DON’T HAVE ANY.

Please for the love of GOD I am begging you guys to learn how to analyze literature. Like in an enforced curriculum at a high school level way. Please. YOU will be better off for it, and in turn the rest of us. This isn’t the new wave of boomer-esque hate against the kids. Gen Z is the goddamn future!!! This is a very specific, very VALID gripe, about a very small subset of kids who spent their formative years chronically online. And please! I am BEGGING teachers to recognize this and help their kids out to fix this. There is already a lot of hate in this world and we don’t need a new wave of people spewing hate under the guise of pseudointellectual liberalism because they don’t know how to see any deeper. This is one of the main reasons puritanism in the younger generation is exponentially on the rise! We’ve taken away the ability for them to form a fully informed opinion, and it’s now a self serving spiral. BREAK OUT OF IT, I AM PLEADING.

[bookofmirth]

i really love what you said in the comments of your elucien post and agree entirely - lucien needs someone who will choose him. pick him. and i would love for their journey to have a narrative like this.

people get so caught up with elains perception of the mating bond, reasons why she struggles to accept it and if it’s something she would even be open to exploring. and forget to think about lucien - we know he feels a strong sense of longing, which makes sense as lucien has grown up in a culture where reveres the mating bond and therefore understands how special and rare it is. this doesn’t mean lucien doesn’t struggle with it also - we see his shock at the revelation that he has a mate, after so long truly believing that jessminda ( god i still fucking hate that name ) was it for him. and we know how much he loved her, he killed his brothers in anger and grief, and has not had another love since.

i don’t think the mating bond with elain was something lucien would have chosen, and I also think that more than anything he wants someone to choose him. fight for him. the way his brothers and tamlin never did.

elain ignores and runs away from her problems - we know that this is an inherent part of her character. running to azriel I feel is a sign of this. if she has approches lucien in the slightest, tested the waters of the mating bond and then decided against pursuing him - I would support elriel one hundred percent. but she hasn’t and right now her attraction to azriel just feels like another one of those times where she is running away.

elain doesn’t do well under pressure and she caves under the expectations of others, the mating bond puts so much pressure on her and lucien. they need to come together and get to know and understand each other before anything else. and eventually choose each other regardless of the mating bond or not.

i am so excited for her book, and her journey and I really really hope that lucien is a large part of that.

on top of everything ive said - wouldn’t they just be the cutest granola couple you have ever seen in your life !! taking a week away from court life to go hiking and camping in the wilderness - lucien would catch wild fish with her bare hands and elain would forage for mushrooms and wild edible plants. i just love them so much !

I agree with so many of your thoughts. Like all of them! Except for one, which is that Elain runs from her troubles. I have other thoughts about that, but I’ll discuss them elsewhere I think. I do think that she might be going to Az as a sort of running away, but I don’t think it’s part of a pattern. idk if that’s confusing and I can explain better if it is. I’ve had a lot of thoughts about who Elain is based on her comment about people worrying about how her trauma affects them, and it’s how I’m coming to a lot of these conclusions.

I think it’s funny how people who ship the other couple act like shipping elucien means taking away their choice - NOPE. That’s literally not why we ship it. I have argued that so many times over the last four years, I’m tired of saying it. 

Elucien shippers want Elain to choose Lucien because she loves him. We want Lucien to choose Elain because he loves her. 

As one of the most vocal critics of the mating bond trope in general, I cannot believe I have to say that I don’t want two characters forced together. The only thing I can assume is that people are willfully misreading our arguments. And as a person who doesn’t really like the bond as a trope, I wonder if others are also projecting their dislike of it onto elucien? But then people will turn around and love feysand and nessian’s bond. idk.

I agree that Lucien probably wouldn’t have chosen the bond, if he’d had a say. He had a woman whom he loved and was willing to sacrifice everything for. Why would he want someone he doesn’t know? Someone who was human, and was afraid of fae, and was engaged to someone else? On the surface, it’s not appealing. And he told Feyre that he wants to know if Elain is worth fighting for! He wants to be chosen. He would never force the issue (and hasn’t!) because that’s literally the opposite of what he wants. 

I love your comment about Elain and how the bond puts her under enormous pressure. Her character is so defined by what others want and expect from her, that the bond was just a step too far. It wouldn’t matter who she were mated to, she would detest the bond on principle. I mean, Nesta did too? Nesta saw being mated to Cassian as the last bit of her humanity that was gone. I’m not sure if Elain was as tied to her humanity in the same way that Nesta was. Maybe once we know more about her, we’ll know if that’s something she would reject on principle. But it could explain a lot about why Elain is shying away. It’s nothing to do with Lucien. 

My impression of Elain is that she is much more traditional than Feyre and Nesta, and so she’d be the one to read a romance novel and romanticize a mating bond. That’s pure speculation, though! 

CUTEST GRANOLA COUPLE I’M. I want to start writing headcanons in the next few days. Elain knows exactly what is edible and they could literally go out into the forest and have a picnic without having to bring anything!!!! Just relaxing in the sunshine and the grass and foraging food and then cooking for one another. asldjalsjdlasdaaaaaaaaa

[icannotreadcursive]

Sometimes, people have different--very different--sets of headcanons and sets of ships etc for a given piece of media and cast of characters because they have basically different understandings of who those characters are.

A lot of times, that’s just because every fan as their own unique life experience to apply when engaging with and interpreting a work, so they see different things reflected back.

But when it comes to what I call Legacy Characters--characters that have had their story told and retold, adapted and readapted, reinvested and reset time and again; such as comic book characters--a huge part of who a fan understands a character to be is determined by what versions of that character they’re familiar with, what aspects of different versions have coalesced in their brain to form their sense of that character in general.  Usually, the biggest influence there is which version of a character that fan encountered first.

I see both knock-down drag-out fights and casual disrespectful disparaging comments within some fandoms--especially big comics fandoms like Marvel--that on the surface of them are more of the typical dumb “my interpretation is the only right one and anyone who disagrees is wrong and Doesn’t Understand The Media” stuff, but that I am SO SURE mostly boils down to this issue of having very different but all equally legitimate senses of the characters from having familiarity with different appearances of the character, or in a different order.

For instance--using what I find to be the most glaring case as an example--the Marvel shipping wars amongst Steve/Bucky, Steve/Tony, Sam/Steve, Bucky/Natasha, and (increasingly) Sam/Bucky shippers.  Sometimes the Pepper/Tony, Pepper/Natasha, and Bruce/Tony shippers join the fray.

These conflicts get so nasty.  Even a lot of the more chill shippers, when prompted, have very ugly things to say about ships other than their own and the people who support them.  Allegations of racism, misogyny, fetishization, and general toxicity run rampant and are often talked about as though they are the only possible reasons someone could ever have for shipping or not shipping a given pair.

I want to make it clear that I personally do ship or have shipped several of the above, including ones that mutually exclude each other.  There’s a few I’m neutral on up there, and one that kinda squicks me--we’ll get to that later.

Every single one of them is a perfectly good ship.  None of them are inherently fucked up in any way and I will not hear any argument to the contrary.  

Do some supporters of these ships get overzealous and obnoxious?  Yes, that’s kinda why we’re talking about it, but that’s not a problem with any of the ships themselves.

I’ve noticed some patterns around people being into particular ones of these ships and their personal histories with various Marvel media.

Steve/Tony: mostly comics fans at this point, either were into the comics before the MCU became a thing or the early days of the MCU got them into the comics and they’re now more into the comics than the films.  Because there’s a LOT of material in the comics to support the ship!  There’s so much!  Including the fact that in one comics reality where Tony is a woman, she and Steve get married!  

Now, there was a ton of this’ere Stony fic that got churned out in the early days of the MCU, a lot of it from fans getting into this world for the first time through the phase 1 movies, at which point other potential partners for these guys either hadn’t been introduced as characters yet, or hadn’t been fleshed out.  A lot of film-main (as opposed to comics-main) Stony shippers moved away from the pairing as the MCU continued, Bucky became the counterpoint of Steve’s Character arc, Sam got brought in, Pepper and Bruce each got more screen time, and the dynamic between Steve and Tony in the films got increasingly adversarial in a way that’s less sexy more fucked up.

The battle cry against Stony from other factions, especially from the Steve/Bucky camp is usually “but they’re so toxic!” and, I mean, yeah--if your sense of these characters is primarily based on how they are in the MCU, they are.  But in my experience, even if they’re working MCU events and settings, the Steve and Tony being imagined by Stony shippers aren’t really that Steve and Tony.

Steve/Bucky: look, Stucky is an MCU thing.  Articles have been written and published about the fact that the dynamic between Steve and Bucky in the MCU follows the beats of an epic romance to a T.  The basis for this ship is all there on screen--throw in a little bit of history nerd mojo and you’re in deep.

By my observation and estimation, most new or formerly-very-casual Marvel fans who came in via the films and remained film-mains, and who are inclined to not-strictly-heteronormative shipping at all went the Stucky route.  Folks who initially shipped Stony then switched to Stucky are pretty common.  People starting with Stucky and then switching to any other ship with Steve to the exclusion of Stucky? Very rare.  And while for a lot of people Stucky is their OTP in the strictest sense, I do see a lot of Stucky shippers who are here for other ships as well, either in an alternate realities kinda way or an amicable exes/polyamory kinda way.

The only people I’ve seen who have a problem with Stucky as a ship (other than “my ship is a different ship, therefore this one is bad and wrong”) are comics-mains whose sense of Steve and Bucky is heavily informed by runs of the comics in which Bucky is significantly younger than Steve and kid sidekick type figure.  For them, the dynamic between the general forms of these characters leans mentor/student or protector/charge, so the inclination is to read the MCU relationship as fraternal, because it being romantic is squicky based on their sense of the characters.

Sam/Steve: comics-mains, film-mains with significant comics familiarity, film-mains who just aren’t into Stucky for one reason or another, or film-mains who are just really into Anthony Mackey which is a perfectly valid reason to get behind a ship.  People who know Falcon from the comics seem much more likely to be into this ship and also more invested in this ship.  I’m not qualified to say much about support for this ship from the comics themselves because my personal familiarity with Marvel comics doesn’t include much of Sam Wilson at all, but I am absolutely qualified to say there’s support from the films, especially CA:WS.

The worst vitriol against this ship tends to come from overzealous Stucky OTP shippers who really need to remember that fandom is supposed to be fun, and flat out racists.  That must be acknowledged and needs to be addressed.  Fandom racism in general, and against Sam in particular is a thing and it can absolutely be a factor in shipping.  

However it’s not inherently racist to just not ship Sam/Steve because you see them as bros, or because Stucky is your OTP, or because you ship Sam with someone else, or whatever.  Worthwhile to take a minute to examine why you don’t ship it, if you don’t, and check that for racial bias in how you view and treat Sam as a character, especially if you’re white.

Sam/Steve and Stucky are the two ships I see coexist the most!  A lot of people ship both of them separately and exclusive from one another, but a lot of people also go ether the OT3 or the “Steve and Sam were definitely a thing for while there but now they’re not” route.

Bucky/Natasha: comics-mains or film-mains with significant comics familiarity, particularly for the comics worlds in which Bucky and Natasha are a couple, which seems self explanatory as to why that correlates.  Not a lot for it in the films, Nat and Buck don’t interact much in the films that we see, and they’re kinda trying to kill each other in much of what we do see.  But, like I said, they’re a thing in some of the comics so there we have that.

This is the one that squicks me.  Clearly it’s a super valid ship; depending on the canon it’s a canon ship.  Frankly, they make sense together, canon or not--their individual backgrounds as spysassins and with brainwashing etc means they’d be able to understand one another in ways no one else around them really can.  But my personal amalgamation of these characters from the films and what comics I’m familiar with has Bucky having been Natasha’s teacher when she was a kid in Red Room.  So I cannot ship it, I can’t do it.  

The fact that I personally am squeaked by it has absolutely no impact on the fact that it’s a good ship, and the fact that it’s a good ship cannot and does not negate the fact that it squicks me.

Bucky/Sam: okay, there’s not a lot of this out there yet, but what there is seems to mostly be coming from film-mains who either don’t ship or co-ship Stucky and/or Sam/Steve, and who really liked the dynamic between these two in Civil War, and I guarantee you we’re about to get so much more of this ship with Falcon and Winter Soldier premiering.  I’ve already seen some hate directed at this ship from the same places Sam/Steve gets hate.  I predict, though, that this one will also get co-shipped alongside Stucky by the less strictly OTP of those shippers and I’m curious to see what the dynamic ends up being between Bucky/Sam shippers and Sam/Steve shippers as this camp grows.

In conclusion, I guess, note that not shipping a ship doesn’t have to mean attacking that ship (and it shouldn’tI) and not liking a ship, even being deeply uncomfortable with a ship for your own reasons doesn’t mean that ship is bad.  We’ve all got our own individual sets of experiences both in life and with the characters in our fandoms that can dramatically change how we see those characters and their relationships to one another.  This gets especially complicated and diverse with Legacy Characters like those from sprawling long-running comics multiverses.  Someone’s understanding and interpretation being different from yours does not make either of you wrong!

As long as no one is an asshole about it it, it’s actually really interesting and cool to compare interpretations and see how your understandings overlap and differ, to think about what bits of canon have been formative for you and what personal experience may have made you inclined to interpret certain things certain ways.

Fandom is supposed to be fun.  Shipping is supposed to be fun.  You can and should hype up and express love for your own ships without tearing down others.

[astralglam]

𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 .

1. What does your muse smell like?

without soap or perfume, 683 smells bizarrely sterile, chemical-ish, like a dentist’s office, bleach or cleaning supplies.  like hand sanitizer that kills 99.9% of germs.  they have that faint smell of powdery clean cosmetics, only because they wear so much foundation, face powder and setting spray.  humans like things that smell less artificial, so 683 takes to using cheap perfume (think a teenager who just learned to douse themselves with axe or bath and bodyworks spray), which is artificial in a slightly more palatable way.  their clothes (which are almost all second hand) have that mothball-musty smell of a thrifted dress that hasn’t been washed yet, like an old book.    

2. What do your muse’s hands feel like?

cold, frigid and icy, almost like a mannequin’s if you left the mannequin in the freezer. their skin is tight over their tendons and fingers, with almost waxy, plasticy skin stretched over their joints and knuckles, which makes them seem very fragile.  sometimes their palms are uncannily clammy.  their skin on their palms isn’t rough or calloused but they’re starting to get scars on their fingertips from their voyages into the realm of string instruments.  they used to have very neat, clean and unpainted nails, but nowadays, they have divots and cracks because 683 is clumsy with the strings.  

3. What does your muse usually eat in a day?

683 is often at the mercy of when their friends will decide to cook for them/buy them food.  they don’t have any cooking skills and can barely wash and cut an apple (this isn’t because they’re stupid, on atomina they were used to communal dining with a designated set of people who cooked for everyone in their unit).  683 is naturally accustomed to eating plant matter and (unlike us humans) has a way better digestive system for breaking down cellulose and gets a lot more out of their vegetarian diet than you might expect (two stomachs aint for nothin).  left to their own devices they just eat Whatever (orange? handfuls of spinach, unwashed, pesticides dont hurt them.  microwave a tomato and watch it explode.  brave cutting open an avocado and just eating it with a spoon).  dinner is when priscilla either buys him take out or sid cooks something for him (and sid is an amazing cook!!!).  sid isn’t vegetarian, but his family is, so he knows how to make all kinds of dishes perfect for 683 -- substitute the dairy for nondiary alternatives and 683′s getting matter paneer (with tofu instead), malai kofta (with coconut milk), and aloo gobi (no butter), all sorts of things !!! 

4. Does your muse have a good singing voice?

sort of.  683′s voice, by itself, is nasally and weird and a little grating, but their devotion to music lets them make the most out of their “strange” voice and almost use it to their benefit to sound unique, different, super far out !11!11111  their lyrics, instrumentals and emotion combined is what makes them a talented musician rather than just a good quality voice.  so while they might not have a very pretty voice, they’re still a skilled singer due to their delivery.  

5. Does your muse have any bad habits or nervous ticks?

im assuming this is about bad (physical) habits rather than personality deficiencies (of which 683 has many).  683 stares, like, really just stares at people with reckless abandon, they havent figured out it’s rude.  they arent good at even pretending to listen so if they’re disinterested in what you have to say, they’ll look elsewhere, pick at their nails, mumble or interrupt you.  always finds a way to make the conversation about themself.  very disorganized and messy, has a hard time taking care of objects even if they value them (ex. dropping his guitar, misplacing jewelry, yanking a belt off and breaking it).  definitely self pities and has no problem trying to guilt you for everything and anything.  is a pretty frequent smoker, but is polite enough not to smoke if you ask him not to.  

683 is always a little nervous so their nervous ticks are just their baseline state of being (wringing hands, stammering, talking really fast, making insane gestures all around you but being too afraid to touch you, etc)

6. What does your muse usually look like / wear?

683 looks very put together at all times -- not necessarily polished or professional, but very intentional, in that you can tell they definitely made a conscious choice to dress the way they do.  he wore the same dumb uniform every day for the first 20 years of his life, so he’s very excited to try new clothing options.  

more femme-ish clothing preferences go to boxy, sleeveless a-line dresses, miniskirts, bright floral patterns, big plastic earrings, headbands, scarves, etc.  they like clunky platforms and prefer to wear boots.  very 60s mod and colorblocked.  she loves bright eyeshadow but tends to go for more neutral lipstick.  can never figure out what to do with her hair so she usually leaves it down or does a half-up half-down bun kinda deal.  

more masc clothing preferences are bell bottoms, button ups with butterfly collars, paisley print, turtlenecks and fringe jackets, etc. earthy tones and weird nasty olive green.  very late 60s / early 70s. prog rock flavor or glam rock flavor.  never got into the disco style only because he cant pull it off because he’s so scrawny and twitchy and has no chest hair to impress the ladies.    

one thing about 683 is that he hates tight long sleeves and goes insane if he has to wear them.  his uniform was sleeveless, so even short sleeves feel really weird and horrible on his arms.  prefers sleeveless, can do with short sleeves, 3/4ths sleeve or loose long sleeve, really tries to avoid tight/constricting long sleeves.  

i have a pinterest board of potential fits for him although i havent updated it because i barely know how to use pinterest.

7. Is your muse affectionate?  How much?  How so?

to most people, not really, he’s kind of a weird cagey asshole.  oscillates between fascinated with physical touch (suddenly wanting to hug his friends or snuggle with them or grabbing strangers when he’s trying to talk to them) to despising contact (cringes if you touch his hand when you pass him a cup).  he didnt grown up with a culture very big on it, so he isn’t sure if he likes it or not yet.  

to people he does care about, he tends to take his friends for granted but overperform affection for those he has romantic interest in.  not that he doesnt also dearly love and adore his friends, he’s just not the best at expressing his care for them other than random bursts of kindness and dissolving back into his weird normal self.  his understanding of romance has come from a very commercial, media-influenced place (he learns about it through television, novels and commercials, it’s not really inherent to his species) so he thinks romance is about buying flowers, holding hands, staring into each other’s eyes for three hours, etc. if he has romantic interest in you, he will constantly over and over again tell you how much he likes you and your company and you are soooo funny hahahhahhfhh, and will be unusually touchy (clings to your arm, sits RIGHT next to you, drops his head on your shoulder, etc).  

8. What position does your muse sleep in?

683 didnt know what blankets were until he came to earth (or deep space nine) !!! his old room was perfectly temperature controlled and he already has a lower natural body temperature, so there was no need for blankets at all.  human beds with big pillows and blankets are THE COOLEST, so he either curls up underneath a blanket with only the top of his head poking out or he sprawls out like a starfish to take advantage of as many pillows as possible.  his special move is to roll up in the blanket like some kind of little alien lumpia.  

he’s a fitful sleeper so if you sleep in the same bed as him, he’ll punch you or kick you on accident.  he does appreciate company, though, and will also plaster himself up against you and leech your body heat with his weird cold body.

9. Could you hear your muse in the hallway from another room?

depends.  they have a very average speaking voice and aren’t necessarily very loud (plus platforms dull footsteps), but if they were excited, they might raise their voice or yell or exclaim something.  and then they’re very shrill, so yes, you would hear her.  

Tagged by:  @sampati im sorry i took like a week it was really fun i love to type letters and words on the computer Tagging: @dynaura or @pataparty (for whoever you want) / @phantombs / @ofgentleresolve (for lamon? or anyone you want, really!!) / @bystcrdust / @kyrieleisen / @baelends / @bup1957

[impalementation]

What are your official takes on each of Buffy's major love interests?

i am…really afraid to answer this. heh. so i will put the caveat that i’m indulging myself here and am basically going to drive straight into headcanon territory. these aren’t really “takes” in a textual-analysis sense, and i’m not particularly attached to them. more like descriptions of how the relationships read to me. i’ll take them in chronological order.

buffy/angel: i think…that buffy and angel deeply and sincerely loved each other. but that love was wrapped up in a lot of other stuff that makes it hard to say what exactly it means that they loved each other. i think that buffy was a beacon of light in angel’s pretty sad and lonely existence, and that a big part of his love for her was the sheer joy of finding someone to love at all. the feeling of, oh god, i’m capable of really caring about someone. that’s how i see his characterization in light of becoming especially. (because so much of angel’s unhappiness is related to guilt-driven isolation and detachment, i find something nice in the fact that his love for buffy was a stepping stone to angel being more engaged in the world and able to care for people in general. not just buffy.) meanwhile buffy was a teenage girl, and angel was this confounding, yet romantic figure. i get a vibe like, angel is the hope that something beautiful can be made out of her dark and violent life. it just makes complete sense to me that buffy would be deeply drawn to the idea of a vampire with a soul, a vampire who rejects vampirism, in view of her own fears of losing herself to her calling*. it also makes sense to me that buffy goes back and forth between keeping angel close and pushing him away all through season three, because season three is a big season for identity. and angel, like faith, is strongly linked to buffy’s sense of self. i see her reluctance to give him up not just as a matter of loving him a lot, but of not wanting to feel like nothing beautiful can be made out of a life of slaying. especially given her guilt over killing him in the early part of the season, and especially since faith is busy transforming slaying into something ugly. but of course, angel’s unattainableness is also bad for buffy, because it magnifies these guilts and fears of hers. 

*(this is also my read of her pretty intense protectiveness over spike in season seven. i don’t think her feelings towards him change because she sees him getting a soul as a big romantic gesture. buffy has never been impressed by spike making romantic gestures. i think her feelings towards him change because making something light out of something dark is very very important to her. like it’s at the fundamentals of her character. and that’s what spike did. so it’s important to her to protect it.) (this is also my read of why buffy is such a forgiving person in general. she’s desperate to make light from dark. hence why she takes it so personally when faith goes bad, and then rejects the many chances that buffy tries to give her. i think that buffy has a harder time being moved–or more like, letting herself be moved–by faith’s efforts towards redemption in sanctuary and season seven because faith made something dark out of something light first. and that initial choice, plus faith’s repeated commitment to it, scared the shit out of buffy. it’s her worst fear.)

buffy/faith: mainly doing this one because the subtext is so obvious and because faith was written in a way that has seemingly-if-not-actually-deliberate similarities with buffy’s other love interests. i see attraction on faith’s end, but in a ha-ha-just-kidding…unless? way. i see attraction on buffy’s end too, but in that way that is completely unable to register that it’s attraction, since it’s for another girl. that said. i personally think that if they had acted on an attraction during the run of the show, the plot would have still gone basically the way it does in canon. their relationship still would have blown up. because both of them have mad identity issues with each other, and that kind of thing doesn’t go away when you add sex or romance to it—it makes it worse (witness: season six spike/buffy). not to mention the fact that faith has a distinct pattern of weaponizing sex during seasons three and four. if buffy/faith were to ever happen in an actually-sustainable way, i see it happening post-series.

buffy/riley: i think one of the more unfortunate things about how this relationship was written is that it doesn’t feel like we get a ton of information about buffy’s side of things. why buffy likes riley. or even what the show is trying to say with the relationship at all. so you kind of have to read between the lines. i think that riley likes buffy because she’s different. he reminds me of an online dating message telling a girl she’s “intriguing” (“i’m sure every pretty girl has some guy telling her she’s a mystery” …yeah). i think that riley does really care for buffy, but he also wants to feel important, and an interesting girl makes him feel that way. up until it turns out that he can’t handle a girl being more interesting than him. i don’t think riley is a bad guy, but i do think that he and buffy had fundamentally incompatible needs, and he handled that realization badly. buffy, from what i can gather, seems to value his safety and loyalty. which is why the show has riley flirt with danger and disloyalty when it’s trying to introduce friction into the buffy/riley relationship (see: riley sleeping with faith, riley letting vampires bite him). i think ironically, buffy specifically wanted a boyfriend who was not stronger than her at this point in her life. but maybe gets off on the fact that riley has the aesthetic of strength. like, i think she likes having control over male strength and normalcy, likes being desired by it, after the whole drama of angel—in which she didn’t have much control. and at some point, that was always going to end up in conflict with riley’s insecurities. but riley’s insecurities blindside buffy because she never saw him as weak—i think she genuinely values safe, loyal people. she picked lovable outcasts as her friends, after all. i think she really admires those traits in riley, and is startled that they aren’t good enough for him. and maybe aren’t good enough for her, either.

buffy/spike: i think it’s a shame that people try to read a conventional romantic dynamic into this pairing as-written, because—in my opinion—it’s way more narratively and emotionally satisfying when you don’t. like i enjoy watching it, but i enjoy watching it because it’s dark and weird and ambiguous. i don’t think that they were writing a love story with these two characters. i think that they were writing a character story. it just so happens that character stories often make very compelling love stories, because of the time spent on…character. in fact, i think kind of the whole point of buffy/spike in seasons five and six is that spike thinks he’s in a love story, and the audience might be tempted to agree with him, but he isn’t*. i think the writers saw that buffy and spike were good at exploiting the vulnerabilities in the other, and leaned into it. why wouldn’t you exploit character vulnerabilities? that’s good drama. all of which is to say, questions like whether buffy loved spike romantically, or whether they could be good for each other, are sort of…uninteresting to me. they don’t feel like the point. the point is the self-knowledge that buffy and spike gain from being involved with each other. the big and uncomfortable things that they provoke each other into learning about themselves. it’s a specific kind of dynamic. one that is inherently intimate and not-incompatible with romance, but is still something other than romance. “i’ve seen the best and the worst of you”: that is the point of buffy/spike, to me. they are each other’s mortifying ordeal, and the payoff is that scene in touched. the payoff of being known is not a matter of being in a sexual or romantic relationship. the payoff is that when someone tells you they love you, you believe they love you. (this is why their final scene in chosen is supposed to be so bittersweet. both of them are trying to say that they understand and accept each other—only this time, the same history that made that understanding possible gets in their way.)

*(contrast with season seven, when he’s convinced up to his death that he’s not in a love story, but maybe accidentally is. and contrast with buffy/angel in seasons two and three when they think they’re in a love story, and they are in a love story. but that doesn’t mean they’ll be happy. and contrast with buffy/riley who aren’t in a love story, and know they aren’t in a love story. but haven’t quite accepted it. note how their attempts to pull off love story tropes in into the woods totally fail.)

[galactichoneybee92]

Thoughts on Isaac and Representation

I don’t have a point- let me just say that now. This also stands to be perhaps my most controversial post, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take in order to get my thoughts out. This will be long and rambling. You have been warned. 

With the release of Sex Education Season 2, fans have been introduced to a character named Isaac, to mixed response. He is Maeve’s new neighbor, a barrier to her relationship with Otis and potentially a new love interest. 

It’s not unusual to introduce a new love interest into a show to prolong the drama and keep the tension will-they-won’t-they romance alive. In season one we Otis in love with Maeve, thwarted by the fact that Maeve was dating Jackson, and that Otis never really believed that Maeve could like him anyway. Resigned with this fact, Otis attempted to move on with Ola who had appeared conviniently around the time that Maeve had realized her feelings for Otis and ended her own relationship. It was all very ships in the night. 

In season two we get a sort of role reversal: This time it’s Otis in the relationship and Maeve left pining, thinking that he could never love her. It makes sense that this would be the time to introduce a new love interest for Maeve, sort of HER Ola, if you will. The difference here is that Ola is sweet and wonderful and Isaac is sketchy AF. 

I hate him, and I’ve made no secret of hating him, because personally I find him sketchy and manipulative.  There are other fans who like them though and ship the two of them. That’s fine; it’s a perfectly valid opinion, and shipping wars have been around as long as fandom. That’s nothing new. There is another issue though...

Isaac is in a wheelchair. 

While that isn’t necessarily a problem in GENERAL, it is something that effects the way his character is handeled, as well as viewer interpretation. It’s my experience that in media, certain characters are usually gifted a sort of “plot armor.” While that term is most commonly directed towards characters who play too pivotal a role in the story to be written off, I find it often also applies to characters who fit into the role of “representation.”

But wait, you might say, that doesn’t sound right. POC and queer characters get killed off all the time. It’s practically a horror movie trope, and “Kill your gays” didn’t come from nowhere. To which I would reply: Exactly. We have all seen it a million times, have raised it as an issue, and I would like to think that as a society we are attempting to move past it. That gay characters are less likely to die because of the attention brought to the “kill your gays” trope.  

It’s my understanding that these common minority tropes originally stem from their initial introduction into media. At first they didn’t have any representation at all, and then gradually they were allowed to be incorporated in media in small ways that didn’t offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities. A very famous example would be the inclusion of African Americans: At first they weren’t in movies at all. Then they were(sort of?) but they were represented by white actors in blackface. Then when black actors were allowed to play their own roles, those roles were harmful stereotypes; You wouldn’t get a black actor playing a heroic lead, but he would be the brutish savage, or the “mammy” character. They were either relegated to minor side charactes, comic relief, or the villain- roles that didn’t challange the views of society. 

There was a similar experience in regards to homosexuality in films, where once gay characters started appearing they were portrayed as sexless comic relief or villinous. The general idea behind it seemed to be that there could be homosexuality in films, but it had to be shows as wrong and corrupt, or destined to end in tragedy. After all, how could anybody in such a relationship possibly be happy? Ridiculous. 

While media  (and society) are still making strides towards diversity and inclusivity, you can’t say that media isn’t in a better place now than it was even ten or twenty years ago. I was born in the 90′s and the amount of difference I see even in the twenty-seven years I’ve been alive is actually a little astounding. I can’t even imagine the difference for people who are older than I. Even just since I graduated highschool (2010) I’ve seen such a huge difference in regards to representation across the board and while we still have a ways to go we are certainly far from where we started. 

But what does any of this have to do with Isaac? He isn’t a POC, he isn’t in any way queer. No, but he is disabled which is another sort of representation and one that doesn’t get as much publicity. As such it is admittedly one that I don’t know as much about, but If I had to guess it’s probably because theres never (to my knowledge) been a big court case about whether or not disabled people deserve rights. It’s never been a hot button issue in a political debate the way that race politics or gay rights have and so I feel like it hasn’t gotten as much attention. Still disability representation is still a topic that comes up in conversation when discussing media.

So what does that have to do with anything? Why was I talking about plot armor? I had a reason, I promise. I’ve found that due to the problematic history of representation, shows (at least the socially aware ones) have been taking strides to try to avoid falling into the same harmful patterns as their predecessors. Since there was a long history of POC characters being cast as villains, evil characters to be defeated by the white protagonists, there was a stretch of time there where you wouldn’t see a single POC villain at all. It wasn’t quite true equality, but it was an effort to combat the harmful stereotypes that the media had perpetuated for so long.

Eventually we got to a place where it was generally acknowledged that you could have a POC villain as long as they weren’t the ONLY POC in your entire movie. The same goes for people of various gender and sexual identies. You can have a gay antagonist, but it’s impportant to include other gay people who ARENT evil to show that it’s the character that is evil, indepent of his sexuality. This isn’t seen as often however, probably due to the relative novelty of the inclusion of queer characters, which is why my examples for these points are POC characters who have a comparitively longer history of inclusion. That’s not to say that the history has always been positive, just that queer inclusion is a newer development and active disability rep seems even more recent. 

I apologize if I’m phrsasing any of this poorly, but I’m hoping that you’re tracking the main points. Now. I repeat: What does ANY of this have to do with Isaac? 

Isaac is, as of now, the only disabled character in Sex Education. As such, I feel like it’s kind of expected for him to be given “plot armor”, not in regards to being killed off but in his depiction. As the show’s only example of disabled representation, as well as his introduction as a love interest for Maeve, I feel like the expectation is that he would be a protagonist. At the very least he would be a good guy.  And maybe some people think he is? I don’t know, he has his fans, but I’m not one of them. 

This is the part of my post where I stop having a point and just start listing my thoughts.

When I met Isaac I expected to like him and I wonder how much of that stemmed from the fact that he was in a wheelchair and as such I expected that the show wouldn’t possibly portray him in a negative light. Even when he was rude to Maeve in the beginning I was willing to forgive it- I don’t mind my characters being prickly and Lord knows no other character on this show is perfect. And he was handsome, and snarky, which are usually traits that I love and I really REALLY expected to love him. However as the show progressed he just gave me bad vibes. I find him manipulative and untrustworthy.

I’m not going to go into my feelings about Isaac because I’ve already made one very long post duscussing his character, but instead I’d like to discuss his role in the show and how his disability factors into that role.

As I said before, it makes sense that this season would introduce a new love interest for Maeve. It’s not a terribly uncommon formula in shows like these. Considering that Maeve is considered the “bad girl” (even though we all know she’s a cinnamon role that just deserves ALL the love) who has self esteem issues and an inaccurate view of herself, I was honestly surprised that the show gave her such a cute, healthy relationship with Jackson. Were they perfect for each other? I don’t personally think so, but there wasn’t anything inherently problematic in their relationship. Jackson is a legitimately nice guy, I wish him the best and he was a pretty good boyfriend. 

It wouldn’t be unheard of though to see her fall into a more toxic relationship, and while that’s a very strong term that even I am hesitant to use toward Isaac at this point, it does look as if the groundwork might be there for that kind of subplot. It could really go either way at this point- maybe Isaac’s actions are influenced by his own personal insecurity and he would be much nicer once they were in a relationship. Or maybe he would be scared of losing her and things would get worse. It’s not just the fact that he deleted her message in the last episode, but that he’s seemed very manipulative throughout the entire season. 

It seems to me that Isaac fits the stereotype of the abusive boyfriend- He’s handsome and charming, but also very skilled at manipulation. If you watch their relationship, it also falls into a lot of the same patterns as romantic comedies. That’s not meant as a compliment however, a lot of romantic comedy relationships are built on very questionable foundations. The leading men do a variety of unethical things, but are forgiven on behalf of being handsome and funny and those actions are forgiven and even romanticized for the sake of the love story. This also reminds me of Maeve and Isaac. How often does he push himself uninvited into her life? How often does he managed to get out of facing the consequences of his actions?

It’s a fairly common trope tbh, and the only thing that isn’t common is that he’s also physically disabled. Which honestly lead me to doubt whether or not he was being sketchy or not. Like, could I be wrong? I eventually concluded that I don’t think I was, but it leads me to consider the fact of his disability on viewer perception. 

Are viewers more likely to forgive his behavior because his wheelchair paints him in a more sympathetic light? That isn’t to say that everyone who likes him only does so because of the wheelchair - I’m sure some people just legitimately like him- but I wonder how many do? And why? Is it because you feel bad for the character? Or is it because, as our only disabled character, we are programmed to view him as a protagonist? Is his disability part of an effort to be more inclusive, or to subtly subvert our expectations regarding his character? Neither? Both?

If he is indeed going to be an antagonist then that raises further questions in regards to Isaac as disability representation. On the one hand, it’s not like being in a wheelchair automatically makes someone a good person- as with any other demographic of people there are going to be nice guys and assholes.

Is it better that they’re treating him like they would anyone else? Like, he’s just a regular guy who happens to be in a wheelchair, and the guy that he is, is prone to questionable behavior. Is it better that they’re treating him the same as they would any other able bodied character in this role? Or, as their only depiction of a disabled character, should they be portraying him in a more positive light? I personally find him to be very manipulative, and often he uses his disability as a part of his manipulation. Is that just an example of Isaac being opportunistic and using the resources available to him, or is it indicitive of a larger problem with his depiction? 

Have physically disabled people faced the same issues in media as other groups, in that their depictions were historically negative? I’m going to be honest with you here, that’s not a question I know the answer to. I haven’t seen them largely portrayed as villains, but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened. 

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, and I won’t until I see where season 3 plans on taking this, but these are the thoughts that have been circling my mind since I finished season 2. Do you agree? Disagree? Did any of this even make sense? 

[yennefer-fan]

youtube comment about book Yennefer by  Chief Purrfect

“She’s not what she seems” is actually a very spot on thing to say. It really baffles me to see people who have read the books completely miss the whole point of Yennefer’s character and go on about how evil and overall terrible she is. Honestly, if that’s what you think her character is then you don’t quite get not only what her character stands for, but also what the books themselves stand for. And no, I’m not saying you have to like her, prefer her over Triss or choose her for your Geralt in TW3, what I’m saying is you have no excuse for not understanding what the character is about if you’ve read the books. TW3 is a different story, mainly due to the fact that CDPR’s adaptation of the character could have been better, but still, don’t let CDPR’s misstep predispose you to not appreciate a well-written, complex character in a different medium.

Before I get into Yennefer's character though, I should probably talk about the most common misconception people have about the Witcher as a book series first. In book reviews, I've repeatedly seen people say that they preferred the short story collections over the saga because “that’s where Sapkowski’s inability to write high fantasy shows”. Well, they couldn’t possibly be more wrong. Not because they didn’t like Sapkowski’s writing, but because this entire time they were under the impression they were reading high fantasy. The Witcher- despite clearly belonging to the fantasy genre- was never meant to be a fantasy epic. In its very core the Witcher is first and foremost a parody, a critique on the genre, THEN an epic adventure. It takes every possible cliché and trope that appears in those books and first ridicules it- by showcasing why it would never work- to later subvert it in a way that makes it work. This contrast between expectation and reality is the core idea of the Witcher. Sapkowski couldn’t possibly be any clearer when asked. He said that while reading the polish folk tale of the poor cobbler who defeated a dragon all he could think of was how silly it was, because if you had a dragon problem and you wanted the job done, you wouldn’t be sending a cobbler to take care of it. In order for this tale to work, he had to create someone who is a professional at killing such monsters- and so he created witchers because he saw them as a necessity in a world of monsters and mythical beasts. My point is, this contrast of expectation vs reality also applies to the characters. The characters of the Witcher are primarily stereotypes and archetypes, if not occasionally caricatures. At first glance Geralt is the overly manly man, Yennefer is the evil witch, Ciri is the bratty princess and Dandelion is the overly manly man’s side-kick with an inability to keep his wee-wee in his pants because he exists in the story for the sole purpose of being the comic relief.

But are they those things really? The answer is a hard no, but they are definitely and deliberately introduced that way at the beginning of their character arcs. Geralt first appears as the typical stoic, emotionally unavailable and badass dude-bro protagonist but as we keep on reading, we realize he has an impressively rich and vivid inner self that he’s simply not comfortable externalizing. Ciri first appears as the spoiled princess who threatened to execute Geralt in the first few minutes she knew him because in her opinion he did not treat her appropriately according to her status, but learned humility by losing her status along with everything and everyone else. Dandelion appears as the superficial, cowardly friend who can’t see beyond himself and yet time and time again he puts himself in danger because he refuses to let Geralt face his problems alone and displays genuine and wholesome affection towards other characters, from Essi Daven to the Hansa.

Essentially, the pattern is that each character’s first appearance is a false and misleading one. And so, as with the rest of the cast, you can bet the same thing applies to Yennefer. She was introduced as the cold and sarcastic witch, the archetypical dominatrix with ulterior motives who uses her sexuality as a weapon. As I said however, the catch with the Witcher is that appearances always deceive. In reality, her sarcasm isn’t token of her being inherently mean and evil but a defense mechanism to cope with her past trauma. So is her being initially self-centered even in her relationship with Geralt. When your whole life has been people who are designed to care for you (like your parents) abandoning you and all you’ve ever had is yourself, it’s difficult to suddenly put someone else above you and accept that said someone genuinely cares for you overnight. And it DID happen overnight. See, another trope Sapkowski wanted to poke fun at was the insta-romance. In the last chapter of the first book, Geralt and Yennefer fell head over heels for each other and rode off to the sunset to their happily ever after less than a week after their first meeting.

And then Sapkowski was like “Ha! You seriously thought this was gonna work out? WHEEZE “.

And so the first two chapters of The Sword of Destiny happen, and coincidentally, these are the two chapters people use to justify oversimplifying Yennefer’s character to “evil” and “bitch” thereafter, despite them being two of a great many chapters and extremely early in her character’s journey. Yennefer’s deepest desire was to have a family, so she sought commitment but clearly wasn’t ready for what it entails. On the other hand, Geralt was unable to give her the reassurance she needed in order to open up to him because at that point of his character arc he still had the emotional IQ of a teaspoon. In the short story collections their relationship was unhealthy because that’s what Sapkowski had to do in order to get his point across- point being insta-romances are stupid, they suck and they don’t work out. After he was done poking fun at the trope it was finally time to subvert it and find a way to make their relationship work out.

Now introducing something more aka Ciri.

Apparently, there are people who believe that Geralt and Yennefer are together only because of Ciri. I believe they are onto something, but are looking at the right things from the wrong angle. Simply put, their relationship wouldn’t work out because neither of them was willing to face their insecurities and immaturity. When Geralt ended up with Ciri at the end of The Sword of Destiny however, he had no choice but to pull his shit together and act as parent figure to her, developing and maturing through the process. On the other hand, when Ciri was send to Ellander to apprentice under Yennefer, Yennefer for the first time stopped trying to find a way to cure her infertility to think that maybe she might not need a cure because- maybe- she already has a family. Letting go of her obsession over her infertility was a huge step for her character because it helped her focus not on what she could gain, but on what she has to lose. It’s not at all random that in the saga Yennefer and Geralt do not reunite until they have individually spent alone-time with Ciri and have grown to be better people first. Only then their relationship took a turn for the better and became functional ever since their reunion in Hirundum. So it isn’t really that they are together because Ciri is in the picture, but rather because of the people they became thanks to Ciri.

Last thing that I feel is very essential to understanding Yennefer stems from the themes of her character. Destiny, infertility, humanity- the very first chapter of The Sword of Destiny features both her and Geralt as two very powerful people, powerless in front of their inability to lead normal lives. However, one theme that for some reason tends to fly under the radar with Yennefer is sacrifice. It’s ironically fitting, considering Yennefer starts off her character arc as a pretty self-centered person- albeit having her reasons. Sacrifice was relevant to her character since the very first book- in The Last Wish Nenneke pointed out that when Yennefer became a sorceress, she sacrificed one of her gifts (maternity) for another (magic). In The Sword of Destiny we see how she deals with the consequences of the sacrifice she made and most of her problems with Geralt occur because she is not willing to sacrifice anything anymore. It’s only when she matures during the saga that she was willing to sacrifice her reputation and pride when she bargained with Philippa, asking her to save Geralt’s life in exchange for her dying as a traitor in his eyes. Later she lost her freedom when she was caught by Vilgefortz but preferred being tortured half to death instead of revealing any information. Like seriously, there’s a whole chapter in The Tower of Swallows where she has this epic argument with - arguably- the skelligan goddess in Hindarsfjall who is asking her just how much of herself she is willing to sacrifice for Ciri and Geralt, how do some people miss this in her character development, the book ain’t trying to be subtle. In the end of the books she made the ultimate sacrifice and gave her life for a chance that Geralt’s might be saved.

And despite all that, somehow some people still consider her “a selfish bitch who doesn’t even love Geralt” when the whole point of her character is that she went from the textbook femme fatale to a selfless and caring mother and wife. No one is arguing against the characterization “bitch” because it's often accurate in terms of attitude. Yennefer can be mean and cold, no one denies that. It’s just that there is so much more to her than this, that the problem with people characterizing her that way is that it’s dismissive and it simplifies a well-rounded character who was meant to be viewed very differently in the beginning of her journey compared to the end. So I guess what I want to say is, don’t just read a book people, make sure to also read into it. And again, if you understand all that and still dislike her that’s perfectly fine. Just make sure to understand. Don’t dismiss and don’t simplify.?

[hamliet]

I ADORE your blog ! Just found it, and I was in desperate need of someone who still enjoys the show (all the negativity going around makes me enjoy it less, but somehow I'm incapable of staying the hell away from Tumblr). Sansa is my favorite character as well, and since all your metas make me enjoy the characters more, I wondered if you would mind detailing a bit more what you like about her and what you thought about her arc ?

Thank you, Anon! I’m glad you like my blog! Yeah, I do admittedly critique lots of things about the show, but I still love it; I don’t follow stories I don’t love.

I’m so happy to meet another Sansa fan, too. It was hard loving her from literally the very first season when everyone hated her. She’s my princess and I love her arc in the show and in the books; they’re different, but different isn’t necessarily “one is better than the other.” And now it’s just hard because my first fave is Sansa and my second fave is Dany and well. *starts sobbing*

I wrote about Sansa being a foil to Cersei and Daenerys here, but she’s also a foil to Arya, obviously. Sansa is very unabashedly feminine, dreaming of romance and a prince and a fairytale ending. She clings to that dream against all evidence at first (but being a visionary is not a bad thing inherently for the record): she lies  by omission to help Joffrey instead of Arya when Nymeria attacks him, and immediately pays a price for it: her direwolf, Lady, is executed, devastating her. She and Arya are at odds for the rest of season 1 before they’re separated because of Lady’s death, and this is a recurring theme for Sansa’s character: she does not forgive easily, and this is both a wise political move and also a character flaw, because her lack of trusting people leads to... a lot of issues, but we’ll get there.

In the books, Sansa’s next major mistake is that she winds up going to Cersei, an adult she trusts to protect her dream (because keep in mind adults have only ever been kind and favorable to her, and she’s been known essentially as a ‘Miss Perfect’), and getting a harsh awakening that adults aren’t always kind or trustworthy. Sansa told Cersei about her father’s plans in innocence; she had no intention of her father dying as a result. Her naivete is cruelly cut away with her father’s head.

Of course, then this pattern repeats with Littlefinger; he takes time to worm his way into her life proclaiming to be someone she can trust, and when she finally does, he then sends her to marry Ramsay. Sansa doesn’t ever fully forgive him, nor should she. And we see that it takes time for her to trust the others in her life too, even the kind ones: Shae, Tyrion, Brienne, whose offer she refuses at first. When Sansa trusts she trusts absolutely (hence her comment about letting Jaime stay in episode 2 of this season on Brienne’s word); when it’s betrayed, she does not forgive easily.

When Sansa meets Theon, she confronts him over what he did to Bran and Rickon, and Theon finally tells her the truth: that they’re still alive. She doesn’t forgive him then, but he helps her escape and she gets to Jon. But here’s the thing: though Jon is her brother and their reunion is one of my favorite in the show, Sansa does not trust Jon absolutely. She doesn’t tell him about the Vale, or about Ramsay’s twisted personality before the night before the battle, but that doesn’t make her selfish or stupid like I’ve seen people say. It’s because Sansa a) doesn’t want to relive what happened to her, and b) she hasn’t seen Jon in years. She’s scared, she’s been through a lot, she doesn’t want to trust and be let down. And she tells Jon she’ll kill herself if he loses the battle.

And he wins because of her and her ability to adapt and survive. To survive, she understands that you have to use good and bad tools offered to you (Littlefinger). Littlefinger lost her trust, and he never got it back. Sansa loves her brother Jon, but she's understandably suspicious when he brings back Dany--a beautiful queen who could remind her of Cersei because of their distinct parallels as well. Dany’s not Cersei, but Sansa doesn’t know that. So she’s suspicious of Dany doing just what Littlefinger tried: turning family against one another, and not to mention Sansa’s seen the horrific consequences of leaders displeasing their people (the riots in King’s Landing). She knows Jon has let the North down. He has, though it’s not wrong exactly to do what he did because what Missandei told her was correct: without Dany they’d all have died.

Theon, on the other hand, shows us that Sansa’s trust can be earned, and even earned back. He betrayed her and her entire family and Rickon still died because of actions that can be traced back to him. Still, he saved her, and he came back to fight for her and the Starks.

It just takes a lot of work to earn Sansa’s trust. Pretty words aren’t helping Dany, but saving Winterfell honestly should. Still, at the same time, Sansa’s fears for the North’s instability (for her family’s wellbeing) are a thing. Still, if Sansa’s arc can be continued at all, it should be with her learning to trust more, and explicitly trusting Dany more since that’s whom they’ve set up conflict with this season. Her journey is definitely about reconciliation this season as the scene with Tyrion told us; I’d think she’d be able to find a bridge between her and Dany and Jon too.

[wellkepteden]

Prompt 01: Questionnaire

(content warning for: suicide mention and uhhh brain washing? kind of? idk how to warn for that, and some mild like.... referenced medical gore idk)

01. Tell us about your character’s name. Was it given to them or chosen? Does it hold any special meaning? If your character has aliases or nicknames, how did they get them and what do they mean?

“What do you want to be called?”

“I don’t understand the question, sir.” 

“Well, I can’t just keep calling you Sixteen.” 

“Technically my full designation is PM-16-21A.” 

“That’s not a name, you need a name, kid. What do you want to be called?” 

The Keeper wasn’t really a man that cared for names, so he never bothered naming his charge either. It wasn’t until Eden reached the cybernetics expert, Sargo Hemmel, that she received a name. It was a long discussion, but ultimately she begged off deciding on a personal name for long enough that he gave up and named her after a dancer he’d known in his youth. 

As for surname, Eden had a stronger opinion. It’s really just a pun on the fact that she was partially raised by the Keeper. She thinks she was very well kept. Hemmel tried to convince her to pick a more common name, but she does have her stubborn moments. 

02. What is your character’s relationship to their homeworld? Do they hold fond memories of it, or do they hate it? Are they still here, and if not, do they miss it?

Eden didn’t get to see the outside very much while she was on Dromund Kaas. She remembers frequently listening to the rain, but even before she was stolen she was kept carefully away from public view. Now, it’s just a place that’s too dangerous to ever return to. A wistful dream that was never really a reality. 

03. Describe your character’s relationship with those who raised them. Was it positive? Negative? Neutral? What sorts of ideologies were they raised with, and do they still stand by them now?

Even without the extra mental programming, Eden is a pretty naturally friendly person. She got along well with the scientists that watched over her in her first few years, and she absolutely adored the Keeper no matter how hard he could be to read and reach. Even though she was almost an adult by the time she reached him, she always considered Hemmel to be just as much of a parental figure, too. Luckily, she’s allowed to keep in contact with him even if the others are now far out of reach. 

Growing up, the message was hammered into her that she should never trust anyone and that the world was a harsh place where you could never relax your guard. It never really took. Somehow, Eden remains a font of optimism almost no matter what happens. Just about everyone that helped raise her is convinced it’s going to get her killed someday (if they don’t think it already has). 

04. What is your character’s relationship with the Force? Is your character Force-sensitive? Whether or not they are, do they believe in it? Do they lean more towards the dark or the light or are they somewhere in between?

Eden is force sensitive!! Not extremely, but enough that had circumstances been different she probably would have been picked up by either of the large force sensitive organizations. Hilariously, though, despite her own sensitivity to it she’s still not completely convinced it actually exists. She has a hard time with things that she can’t quantify in a way she’s comfortable with, and the implications of the force’s existence and so on make her Very uncomfortable so she tries not to think about it. 

For the most part she only really uses it to convince people to help her, or to grab things that are out of reach. She doesn’t do much fighting, and was never really trained, so that’s about the extent of her abilities. 

If she was trained more, though, she would definitely lean towards the light side. Not necessarily because of any inherent goodness, but because she’s not near as in touch with her more unpleasant emotions as she would need to be to harness the dark. 

05. What three word would you use to describe your character? What three words would your character use to describe themself? What three words would someone close to them use?

me: bubbly, absent, brittle 

eden: tall, pale, blonde 

hemmel: never shuts up

06. Describe your character’s aesthetic. Do they tend towards fashion or function? Do they like to accessorize? How does this extend into their own personal spaces, such as their home or their workspace?

Eden tends towards whatever is going to help her complete her current job. That pretty much always comes first. Outside of that, though, she does very much like dressing up in things that make her feel good, and will often spend paychecks on nicer clothing. Textures tend to be more important to her than looks, but feeling like she looks good is important too. 

Since others are rarely welcome on her ship it’s become one big cozy nest though, honestly. She likes to keep trophies and anything, really, that catches her eye. It’s important to her that she gets to do Whatever she wants with her space, after having grown up without a real space to call her own. 

07. What are your character’s vices? Guilty pleasures? Bad habits? Weak spots?

A love for all things luxurious has followed Eden since her first time inside a rich person’s living space. Not that she ever wants to go as wild as so many of them do, but she does have a serious weak spot for the finer things in life. One of the quickest ways to her heart is well crafted gifts, whether they’re food or clothes or something else. 

Outside of that, she has a particular fondness for cybernetic modification and loves to be filled with the latest tech. (in more ways than one ;D o god what did i just say) 

Also there is her habit of sleeping with... Just..... A Lot of the people she works with. And the people she doesn’t work with. She doesn’t consider any of that a bad habit, though, so I’m not sure it belongs in this section. 

08. Tell us about your character’s relationship with food. What are their favorites? Do they enjoy cooking? Are they adventurous? Will they eat absolutely anything or are they hard to please?

Growing up, food was for nourishment exclusively. So, of course, now that she’s on her own she’s abandoned that philosophy completely. Good food, it turns out, is delicious and makes her feel good and Eden is happy to indulge whenever she can. That being said, she doesn’t have all that much experience cooking because she would much rather let others do it for her, BUT she has helped others out a good few times and she loves working in tandem with people in the kitchen. 

Also, she’s unlikely to try something new unless someone has specifically recommended it. Getting her to eat something she dislikes is very difficult, and she would much rather avoid doing it to herself. 

09. How does your character feel about engaging in relationships—romantic and / or sexual—with others? What is their history like? Do they fall in love easily? Are they constantly in and out of relationships?

Eden loves easily and lightly, and her attitudes about romance and sex are basically identical. Both are very fun! She loves people, and she loves affection, and for her sex is not much more serious than dancing (though she’s never pushy about it, either). Commitment is never on the table, though. From the start of any given encounter, it’s very clearly stated that Eden is probably going to be moving on in days or weeks, off to the next planet and the next job. 

She does have a few off and on partners that she falls into familiar patterns with when they occupy the same space, but even those fall much more into a friends with benefits area than anything more serious. If asked, Eden will say very dismissively that she’s loved many times, and it’s true that she comes to love and adore people very easily, but she’s never related to the poems and songs about romance. She’s never really missed someone when they were away from her, or had her heart ache for them. Frankly, she thinks it sounds unpleasant. 

10. What is your character’s pain tolerance like? Can they hold their own in a fight, despite injury? If someone hurts them with the aim of gaining information, how much can they take before they cave?

Don’t hurt Eden !! She hates it and will do anything in her power to avoid it. She’s not even particularly into spanking in the bedroom. 

Poor Hemmel has to like fully knock her out every time she comes in for an upgrade, too, cause she’s very.... Reactive. Horrible at staying still. 

That said, lying and disobeying direct orders already literally physically hurt her so someone wouldn’t need to torture her much to get information out of her. Although, on the other hand, she’s also physically incapable of sharing certain information. Regardless, in the event of an emergency she has several kill switches set up that she can activate to remove herself as a liability if it becomes clear that she’s not going to escape. 

11. What is your character’s weapon of choice? Are they more skilled as a melee fighter or do they have more skill with ranged weapons? What’s their fighting style like? What sort of training do they have behind them?

No weapons!! If Eden is in a fight then she’s already failed, no weapons! She keeps a knife on her but it’s a utility tool not for fighting. The Keeper and Hemmel both tried to teach her to fight so she has Some training in blaster handling and etc, but she mostly refuses to even entertain the idea. If there’s any chance of avoiding a fight she’ll take it, every time. 

12. Does your character have any words or catchphrases that they say frequently? Tell us about how they picked them up.

When on autopilot she tends towards Very Polite, so between that and her time spent with Hemmel I’m sure she has a number of stock phrases. I just don’t know what they are yet, so I’ll get back to you on that. 

Outside of that, though, she does have kind of a particular way of speaking about her. Often, when speaking to someone she'll have an air about her like she’s sharing a very special secret with them, or a joke that no one else gets to be on. A hushed, amused tone comes to her most naturally. 

EDIT: i forgot sometimes in the middle of a conversation she’ll get a strong urge to drop in a “For the good of the Empire” but usually she manages to resist...... it’s just muscle memory honestly

13. Tell us about a negative experience your character has had with either the Jedi or the Sith, and how this has affected their standing. Whether currently aligned or unaligned with either faction, if forced to choose, how would they side?

Eden was raised on horror stories about the Sith-- though he worked with them, in his private moments the Keeper was not very fond. Perhaps because he worked alongside so many. However, out in her daily life Eden hasn’t had the opportunity to meet all that many Sith or Jedi individuals, and so remains largely neutral on the subject. 

That being said... You can’t miss the destruction that a Sith leaves behind, and that is something she’s witnessed on any number of occasions. So, between the Sith and their horror, and the Jedi who she views as similar to any other authority figure, if forced to choose she would lean towards the Jedi. At least, as far as she knows, they kill people less. 

14. How would your character react to seeing a relative or friend on the opposing side of a battle or mission?

If a friend is on the opposite end of a mission, then either Eden is currently working a con with them, or she has royally screwed up. Regardless, it’s not as though she’s going to be any more willing to fight them than she is anyone else. 

15. Describe a memory that your character finds embarrassing.

Shame doesn’t actually come all that easily to Eden-- she’s not self conscious about many things. However, there were a couple of moments in which she deeply regretted not doing more research ahead of time. Though he taught her many things, there were ways in which the Keeper neglected her education, and Hemmel didn’t necessarily know that she had those gaps. 

What I’m saying is she had Absolutely no idea what she was doing the first time she had sex and was very much trying to learn on the fly, which is a terrible idea and resulted in a very embarrassed and giggly end to the evening. 

16. What goals does your character hold for themself and what steps have they taken towards achieving them? How far are they willing to go to reach them? What is their be-all and end-all?

Though she would say that survival and fun are her only goals, Eden is also fervently searching for a way to undo what the Empire did to her head. Cybernetics have proved unhelpful in that area, and it’s difficult to find any experts that don’t have pre-existing Imperial connections. At the moment, her search has stalled and she’s trying very hard not to think about it, but she would do almost anything to de-program herself, barring hurting someone she cared about. 

17. What is the one thing your character would change about their life if they were given the chance? What other lives could they have lived as a result?

Honestly, Eden doesn’t much regret the way she was born or the way she was raised, at least not in any way that she would admit to herself. But she does sometimes dream of a universe in which her head and her actions were entirely her own. 

18. Living in such a high-conflict time, how does your character feel about doing what they must to survive? Will they hurt or kill others—either directly or indirectly—to protect themself and / or those close to them? If so, do they regret it when all is said and done?

This is an area in which Eden is Highly Conflicted! Honestly, fighting is a very bottom of the list Last Resort for her, and in 99.9% of situations she’s convinced that there are alternatives and that she’ll find them. Usually, she’s right. A good stealth field can solve a lot of problems. 

19. What is the biggest problem your character is currently dealing with?

Well! Her head isn’t entirely her own! But that’s more of an ongoing issue. Right now she’s low key wrestling with the morality of continuing to stay aggressively neutral as the galactic fighting seems to be only getting worse instead of better. This may be something she solves by going Robin Hood sometime in the near future, but that’s still hugely up for debate. 

20. Give us 3+ headcanons of any length or subject matter.

1. Programming: As referenced multiple times in the questions above, before she was stolen away the Imperials did manage to fuck around with Eden’s brain a fair amount. It’s mildly experimental tech, but so far largely successful. Unfortunately, they didn’t finish in Eden’s case which actually leaves her in considerably more danger than she would be otherwise. To avoid doing damage (psychological or physical), they were moving slowly with the Watcher kids, implementing broad ideas at first and then refining them once they had really settled in. 

Eden never got to the refining stage, so she’s left with broad strokes programming like “no lying, no hurting others, no disobeying a direct order, no sharing government secrets”. Had she managed to keep going for another few years, these things would’ve been refined in scope to things like “no lying to a superior officer, no hurting others unless threatened,” and so on. But, it is what it is. 

Violating any of these rules, as it is, leaves her with a blinding headache that is very rarely worth it. Luckily, her Keeper was careful to teach her ways of talking and thinking around some of the programming, as like many things of this nature it can be finicky and there are loopholes to be found. 

2. Seams: Eden has very many scars, all of them thin and almost invisible, which she affectionately refers to as her ‘seams’. They’re almost exclusively surgery related, long thin lines down her torso and along her limbs where skin was peeled back to allow for cybernetic enhancements. They’re faint enough that it’s uncommon for anyone to notice them unless they’re in bed together, as her doctor does very subtle work. 

3. Enhancements: Speaking of the reasons for the seams, though-- having partially grown up with Hemmel, Eden is fully stocked up on high tech enhancements. There’s very little of her body that remains completely untouched, and she does have a fondness for experimental tech which has led to mild short outs in the past. Every few months she returns to Hemmel for a check up and maybe an upgrade, so her list of capabilities is ever-changing. 

Some of the things that she’s had for a very long time and will probably always keep, however, include: False eyes to allow for enhanced vision and a useful HUD, several stealth systems that range from masking body heat and vital signs to cloaking her entirely, enhanced hearing and sensors in her fingertips that allow her to collect very specific information, and a few types of ‘kill switches’ as she calls them that can either knock her out or kill her completely should the situation call for it (none of these are able to be activated by anyone but her and maybe Hemmel). None of her tech is dangerous to anyone but herself. 

bonus. Give us a list of any length telling us why our “fave is problematic.”

i’m not convinced that she is !! 

sure she steals a lot but is that really that bad? 

maybe she’s accidentally broken a few hearts but that’s not rly her fault is it?

so what if she has just decided she’s friends with a good number of people without asking for their input??

who cares if her ship is a mess and she might not be able to fight to protect the ones she loves!! 

[writingreactsandwords]

I hope you're in the mood for Angst! How would the DA:O crew (romanced and non romanced versions) react to a mage warden made tranquil against their will?

Sorry this is very late! And sorry it’s vague about when/where/why this is happening, and generally just… Isn’t what I planned? I don’t know! Sorry! Hope you enjoy! I left out the other guys because I was just going to write way too much.

Alistair:

When he looks at them, he’s reminded of Ostagar. When he first met them, just a new recruit that seemed… Different. Duncan knew it too, he thinks. When they stood, strong and resolute among the corpses of Daveth and Jory.

When they fought, so determined.

And then Alistair himself, watching them emerge from Flemeth’s hut, injured but still stood tall. Ready to take Alistair’s grief and burden him with none of their own. They lead them all. They were the Warden.

But now they… Stand there. Impassive. Serene. That weak, unfeeling smile laying on their face. Their defences stolen.

They’re nothing, now, he knows. There’s nothing there at all.

His voice cracks, shakes when they speak to them. Afraid of their replies; afraid of the lack of them. Afraid of them, in a way. Afraid of what it means, that he’s to take their mantle, that he can’t fill the shoes they left.

He’s holding himself together frantically, but pieces still fall out.

Alistair (romanced):

He was going to be in love with her forever, he knew. Even now, he still is. He had some weird idea in his head before she- before. That love disappears when the other one is dead, since… What’s the point of love, if you’re not sharing it?

Or maybe that if she died, he would die right there with her.

But she’s as good as gone- he knows that’s what everyone thinks. He can see it in their eyes. See the pity. You should let her go, Alistair. She’s… Not there anymore. It would be a mercy.

Maybe he’s a fool because he can’t. Because he still adores her, still believes she’s there- somewhere. Somewhere. He has to.

He looks at her, sat eating the charred rabbit he cooked without complaint. Even that breaks his heart a little more, the frail thing more cracks than anything now. She’d be laughing with him, teasing him for his horrendous cooking skills.

She’d kiss him and it’d taste like the rabbit and they’d make faces at each other.

She’d love him.

She’d make the air in the room disappear every time she laughed, she’d hold him and touch him and she’d do it because she wanted to, not because- not because he asked, on one of those nights when he was weak and he doesn’t know what to do and he’d either spend another night breaking under it all or spend it holding her.

She’s gone.

It feels like one of those nights.

Zevran (romanced):

The Warden had changed Zevran’s entire life.

A hand to pull him out of the festering pit that was the Crows. A pair of gloves, a set of boots, childhood fantasies long since discarded brought back. A friend. A family, in its way.

Love. So much love.

He should have expected it would end.

He was not a man who got good things, he knew. He did not deserve the Warden. Still, this seems especially cruel, he pondered. To punish them. To make him see it. To make him end it. To give him their shell. To give him no hope.

They were the most alive person he had ever met. Constantly feeling, practically burning with it, a bonfire in a world of embers. Took him gladly when he was a moment from fading away. He looks at the ashes left of them.

He used to love when they slept, how serene, how calm they looked. Now, he would gladly slit his own throat to see anything else. To see them laugh, smile. To see them cry, scream.

His fingers brush hesitantly over their cheek. His hands were not… Good, by most people’s standards. They had held too many knives, covered in too much blood, crushed too many lives. The Warden had loved them, though, and he had learned to too.

He could learn to pride himself on anything that brought the Warden happiness, pleasure, held them at night and brushed away tears. It is fitting, then, that they do this last thing for my love.

He holds them to his chest when he buries the knife into the back of their neck. He has broken into halves, and one of them is with his amor.

Zevran:

He’s silent when he finds out.

He is silent for a long time after. 

Zevran admired the Warden, before. Their goodness, their understanding, their ability to keep going when most would have fallen. All of it is gone. He appreciated their skill in battle, their ability to wield magic and staff like an extension of themselves. That is gone too.

His friend is gone.

He had thought once about how cold he had been when he was a Crow. How he made himself be cold, smothered any embers of warmth, lived in a grey world. How had I… lived, like that? He had wondered, watching the Warden and the others through the fire.

Why had I lived like that?

He remembered, now, looking into those dead glassy eyes that still moved, still saw, but never felt. Because it kept him safe. Because he couldn’t be hurt. Because it made love, death, life, everything seem like a joke from behind a barrier.

Now it hurts. It is like some cruel pain, tearing him apart but not letting him die or heal. Filling him with rage but giving him nothing to release it upon. They’re all dead already, of course- the ones who broke the Warden. He could not… Stand to be around them, and revenge was a pleasant occupier of his time.

He did not go back. He will not go back. 

He will rebuild his walls and he will never hurt like that again.

Morrigan:

She feels, absently, like her lungs and heart have been filled with the cold sludge of the Korcari swamps. It works its way around her body, beats through her veins. Even those tears that came unbidden and unwanted were stained muddy from the pigment around her eyes.

My friend.

How many times she had used those words, looked into their living eyes and said it after a friendly moment, a small joke, or simply to say it? She had marvelled at it- the concept of friendship, the concept of one belonging to her. Yet now, it felt to her she had not said it enough.

Those thoughts always broke the cold; they brought anger instead.

The rage at that Chantry mark, red and raised on their forehead. Branded like cattle. Rage that it settled down, flat and white. Rage that their magic, their basic inherent right from birth was stolen by a group of sanctimonious monsters doing the work of a god as abhorrent as them.

One day, she promises herself, she will gut the bastards that touched her friend.

One day, she does.

Morrigan (romanced):

“Are you distressed?”

Am I distressed?

She almost laughs at it. She almost cries. She almost screams.

She has done a lot of all three lately, it seems. He has always brought out the strangest of her, the parts she doesn’t understand. The ones she didn’t know were there before he touched them and brought them to life. Brought life to everything.

And now he is… a living death.

Morrigan turns back to her books, her papers. A cure for tranquillity. A cure when you don’t know the root- it’s… Difficult. Impossible, perhaps. She will not hide in pretty lies. She looks at him and-

“Does my presence upset you?”

Her hands slam down on the table. She is so angry, all the time now. Angry at injustice. Angry at him. Angry that she lets his hair grow out over the brand. Angry she asks him to hold her at night. Angry that nothing she tries is right. Angry that he’s not right. Angry, angry, angry.

Angry she hides in pretty lies.

I should kill him. It would be a mercy.

Her golden, burning eyes glance down to where her ink has spilt like some creature’s black blood around her hands.

“Do you wish me to leave?”

“No,” she whispers.

Leliana:

“Do you… remember before?” Leliana asks. The wound isn’t there, but she is still bleeding. Her heart has been torn from her chest and crushed and then placed back in, expected in its sickly broken form to keep beating.

She feels as though her body has given up. Her veins carry something cold.

She is cuts their hair because someone has to do it. The Warden can’t reach to the back, and she takes comfort in the pattern of the work.

“Before the rite? Yes, I recall most things, although many are confusing to me. I had an… Attachment to you,” they say, their voice analytical.”We were friends.”

She shuts her eyes, releases a shaking breath. She wants to bury her head into their shoulder, hug them tight and pretend, drag them back to their body. This isn’t you, come back. Come back. Please. I can’t, my friend, please- please.

“Does this upset you?”

Leliana opens her eyes, ignores them, combs through another strand, snips it and lets the dead clump fall to the ground. She did so love their hair. If, sometimes, she does press her nose into it and breathe and pretend, no one mentions it.

Leliana (romance):

She was supposed to wake up to them every morning. Sleep beside them. Hold them, be held, to share love and comfort and stories. To feel.

One day, she had planned to die with them at her side.

Death beyond death, she thinks, and it aches in her mind. Everything aches.

“Why…” She looks at them, clears her throat, ignores the hot tears spilling down her cheeks like a waterfall. Perhaps if enough came, she would be able to cross to them, bring them back. Like Alindra… Yet no longer does Alindra and her Soldier feel romantic. How could she have possibly thought… Enduring love? A bitter part of her mocks the naivete.

Enduring agony, perhaps.

“I should have been with you,” she says, feeling as though she is confessing some great sin. Their face is smooth, blank, serene.

“That was an impossibility,” the Warden says. Their voice is dead. Their emotions are dead. It would be kinder if they were. “You should not concern yourself. I am content.”

It would be kinder if she was dead herself, she thinks and feels a part of her stain and break.

[lalesath-blog]

In the post Vnc vs Pandora Hearts, you said the all the PH characters felt "whole" I'm planning on making a novel of some sort and want to know what you mean by "whole" can you give me like a long-ass paragraph of what is whole and what is not? Or what is it that made you feel the characters were "whole"? Thank you!😘

Oh dear lord, anon. Okay. Before we start, let me just tack on a disclaimer saying that… where as I believe most of what I’m about to say is generally accepted/“fact” some things may undoubtedly be or sound more subjective. So just keep in mind that this is my own perspective on the matter. Also: PANDORA HEARTS SPOILERS (since I assume you’ve read it?)

This is kind of a … tricky thing to answer. Saying “they should feel like a real person” is unhelpfully vague. Not to mention, plenty of real people are decidedly shallow;;

Achieving realistic characters starts with knowing them as the writer. Really knowing them. Knowing where they grew up. What their first pet was. What they eat as comfort food. What their “mindless” habits are. How many nicknames they’ve had. How many nicknames still remain. The feeling they get when they think of the nickname they haven’t heard spoken for 6 years because the only person who ever used it walked out of their life…. Obviously I just mean to say that you should KNOW your characters. Even seemingly trivial details. I’m not saying you have to know what color nail polish your character wears on Wednesdays, but getting a grasp on little things can shed a little light on personality quirks/habits that will make your character more nuanced.

Lots of little details tend to form tangible, meaningful results. Combine that with some original plot details and voilà~ Example: Knowing Sharon is very much into romance content gives some insight into how easily flustered and excitable she gets even regarding her interactions with Break. How she reacts to Alice’s curiosity and her kiss with Oz. She’s a romantic. In more than one sense. Which means she’s also going to be insecure about her body not developing… which ties into a plot detail about legal contracts.

—-Another really obvious thing… is that they need to grow. Develop. And despite popular belief, this development doesn’t have to be positive. There simply has to be a discernible process of getting from point A to point B. Sometimes this is more subtle (especially with secondary characters). And sometimes this is abrupt… but there always has to be meaning to it.

Example: Something I really, really loved… not to break anyone’s heart again… was Elliot’s flip. He was adamantly against self-sacrifice in the beginning of the manga. He tore into Oz, trying to communicate that that way of thinking was harmful/disrespectful to the people he cared about. And how that kind of thinking was inherently selfish/self-righteous and would only hurt the people he claimed to love… And Oz trying to claim that it would be FOR them.

Cut to Elliot choosing to sacrifice his own life to “end the nightmare” (so to speak)… and even to save Oz the burden of having to kill him.“I’m sorry, Leo.”

(I’m not crying… You’re crying).

—-In general though, I think being able to make your reader feel sympathy or EMPATHY for your characters is extremely important. ESPECIALLY when it comes to antagonists, imo. There’s nothing worse than a flat villain. If you don’t care about the source causing your protagonist to struggle, you can’t really take the story seriously, you know? And I cared about every damn character in PH. No matter which side they were leaning towards at any given time.

And characters should engage the reader. Cause them to think. Always. If you have someone questioning their own morality, you’ve hit god tier (Psycho Pass and Code Geass hit me hard with this). Make your characters convince me. All of them. Of everything. If I can’t be convinced they’re right, I at least need to understand. Which usually means delving into multiple layers of emotions. Example:–What does Vincent Want?Vince Wants to Erase His Existence For GilBecause He Wants Gil To Be HappyBecause Gil Never Abandoned Him–Why would he think Gil should abandon him?Because he was a child of misfortune born to parents who abandoned him/them and he felt he was nothing but a burden on his brother.–Why is he willing to go as far as killing himself?Because, due to the above, he never had a sense of self-worth in the first place… and the further trauma/guilt he sustained after the tragedy of sablier made it all the worse.

~~~Multiple Layers & Repeating Patterns~~~ Makes him feel super real, doesn’t it?And sure, Vincent comes across as an asshole a lot of the time… especially early on. But did I cry over his feelings for Gil and when he hugged Ada? You bet I did. Not to mention, I had Echo’s perspective of him as well. Which is another important detail. Characters adding more dimensions to each other through their various povs. 

Aaand now to the super obvious. Characters should have both negative/positive bits. Protagonists generally lean WAY TOO FAR onto the positive side (for me)… minus their one (1) hang-up. Which is usually a simple, easily explainable complex. Like the overly generic [UNDERDOG] issue…. ANYWAY.

People have flaws. People have insecurities. People have bad habits and different ways of reacting to conflict. Different reasons for acting the way they do. Make sure you know them. Example:Leo, for instance, comes across as being subdued. But he’s more volatile than Elliot. Why does he present as subdued? Because in their context, Elliot’s fire tends to put his out. How does Leo confront conflict? By literally letting someone else take control from him while he tries to ignore it. He’s been an escapist his entire life. Hair in his eyes. Glasses that block his vision. Books to distract himself with. Etc. It’s a reoccurring theme with Leo even in his day-to-day demeanor… which means it was important to know from the get-go.

And to cont. from a bit above… everyone also has bits of light. Even a sociopath. Maybe you create a sociopathic serial killer who, every Thursday, leaves a homeless boy a bag of take-out in the alley behind the restaurant the killer and his ex used to visit… before he killed them. The boy had seen him do it, yet hadn’t screamed or alerted anyone. And now your killer practices this sentimental ritual that he doesn’t understand. Maybe, by the end, he forms his own understanding.I think making the reader feel curious never hurts. Make them form questions they want answers to. Even little ones. If I never wonder about ANYTHING, there’s probably not enough detail. I’m not even saying there have to be definitive answers just… I want to notice things. Like why is break always eating candy? Does he actually like sweet things? He didn’t SEEM the type in the past? Is it just to compensate for his former personality? Is it because of Shelly? Is it a shout-out to Emily? Like with the doll? Did he used to smoke? Also he doesn’t drink??? Why? 

Really good characters? It’s like looking at them through a prism. By the end, you’ve seem them in a dozen shades of light. Example:

—-Xerxes Break:The MentorThe Loyal ServantThe Protector/The KnightThe Serial KillerThe VictimThe Wild CardThe Suicide RiskThe Comic Relief The BAMFThe Needy ChildThe Cold, Near-RecluseThe Brother FigureThe Partner  The Unhinged ClownThe [Tragic] HeroEtc.

He’s played dozens of roles on his own and through his relationships with other characters. Some of which are exceedingly different.

When you really get down to it, I think I personally also love the characters in PH so much because I can find something to relate to in all of them.Whether it be Lacie’s otherworldy dissociation, Leo’s escapist tendencies, Sharon’s drunken queen play, Oswald’s bluntness, or Vincent’s self-worth issues… I just. They feel like so much more? From their quirks & hobbies (Ada’s what… VOODOO room? hahaha/the trio of book nerds/Break and his doll… and his candy/Alice and being a massive carnivore/Gil smoking to emulate Oscar… and being afraid of cats/Elliot secretly ADORING cats but not wanting to admit it;;). To their contradictions. Their incorrect views on themselves. And on each other. The various self-realizations. The great dialogue. Just… asdfghjkl

ARGH. It’s SO hard to explain. Just. Characters are more than their goals and their easily definable trope traits. They’re more than their role in the story they’re in and that should come across.

[newtknight]

First draft of paper against anti-gay BL and Bromance.

This is the rough draft. I will likely print it out and review it later. I am sure it will need some editing. I will be interested in comments. 

Anti-Gay “Boy Love” media and Inherently Anti-Gay Bromance: Or those rotten girls really are rotten                          

                                                                                - Ed Sebesta 11/22/2019

 First thing to understand is that “Boy Love” is a term in East Asian English meaning a man attracted to a man. In American English we use “boy” in referring to male adults in such expressions as “good ole boy network.”

 “Boy love” is a term from a subculture of straight women in Japan, known as fujoshi in Japanese, translated as “rotten girls” in English. Often “Boy love” is just called “BL.” To these fujoshi, “boy love” isn’t gay love. To quote an article in an American publication Daily Beast, about this subculture, in which they interview Hana who is a fujoshi:

 “BL is not gay,” she begins, “this is the most important thing you need to know.” The cover art of most of the comics, however, depicts two males embracing, which can make it difficult for the foreign eye to separate a homosexual romance from the themes at hand. But to a rotten girl like Hana it’s all about “pure love.” In fact, the entire genre itself is squarely targeted at a straight female readership and is almost always created by female artists as well. [“The Japanese Women Who Love Gay Anime,” by Brandon Pesser, Daily Beast, 12/6/2014, https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-japanese-women-who-love-gay-anime, retried 11/22/2019]

 The article explains how BL meets with Hana’s needs for a romantic world without heterosexuality.

 The article also interviews Professor Patrick Galbraith, a visiting researcher at Sophia University, a university in Japan, who researches the BL genre. Galbraith explains the typical four sections of a BL story.

 As Galbraith explains, the first part of the story is a “seme,” who is also sometimes called “the attacker or inserter” “pushing himself” upon a weaker or softer “uke.” What “pushing” might mean is explained in the article:

 Although Galbraith cites “rape as a common motif fueled by extreme love,” the most crucial element of the narrative’s first section is the crescendo of tension between the two potential lovers.

 “Motif” is defined as a “decorative design or pattern.” [From Lexico, Oxford Univ. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/motif, retrieved 11/22/2019.] Galbraith is normalizing rape in BL as artistic and is framing it in the language of aesthetics.

 As Galbraith explains the typical second part of the story is that the two men initiate a sexual component of their affection, which the article explains “can range from a single kiss to something far more explicit.”

 As for the extent of this culture, Galbraith estimates “that there are well over a million self-titled rotten girls in Japan,” and that the sale of BL materials is “more than $120 million annually.”

 This subculture exists outside Japan. A search on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/) will show movies labeled as “BL” or “Boy Love” made in multiple East Asian localities and languages.

 Of course the idea that rape can be somehow a matter of love, or that the victim of rape could end up in love with the person who raped them, is injurious to the safety of women from rape. This whole idea of rape and love being somehow related has been denounced by feminists thoroughly and I will not discuss this aspect further except to note one thing. Though homosexual rape is usually the act of aggression of a straight man against another man, BL materials, comics, movies, etc. are consumed by some gay men. The gay community doesn’t need to have gay men thinking that rape is an expression of extreme love.

 The idea that the victim of rape might eventually love their rapist in real life is the idea of psychotics who you read in the press of having kidnaped and held a woman against her with the rapist thinking that she will eventually love him.  However, BL movies have little connection to real life.

 In the Japanese “Fujimi Orchestra” the gay orchestral conductor rapes a straight violinist, but they manage to have a relationship of sorts anyways. In the Thai “My Dream,” one male character rapes another male character, but in a later episode the person who was raped grabs and kisses his rapist. In the Japanese film, “No Touching at All,” the boss rapes his employee saying that the victim secretly wanted to have sex but couldn’t admit it. They later form a relationship.

 This idea that male-to-male love is injurious to gay men in another very dangerous way.  When men who have murdered gay men are on trial for their murder, a common tactic by their defense lawyers is to argue that the murder felt threaten that he was going to be sexually assaulted by the gay man and panicked and killed the gay man. It even has a short hand name, “panic defense.”

 It also has been asserted in defense trials where a gay man was killed that the person who killed a gay man didn’t panic and was defending himself from a rapist. That was the claim of Uber drive Michael Hancock who killed Hyun Kim June 1, 2018, who was his passenger. Kim’s account of what happened isn’t known since he was dead.  [“Denver Uber driver tells jury that his passenger made unwanted sexual advances, attacked him before fatal shooting,” Saja Hindi, The Denver Post, 10/7/2019, https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/07/denver-uber-driver-testifies-murder-trial/] Hancock was found not guilty by the jury. [https://kdvr.com/2019/10/10/uber-driver-michael-hancock-who-fatally-shot-passenger-found-not-guilty/]

 There is a risk that this very obvious problem with so-called boy love dramas will obscure other negative problems with boy love movies that are less obvious, but have the potential for much greater harm to the gay community.

 Notice that the Daily Beast article explains that the fujoshi don’t see these male-male relationships as gay and as “pure love.” This implies that gay relationships with sexual desire are not pure, that the love of gay men is impure.  The boy love world is about male-to-male bonding without gay people or recognizing the validity of gay people having relationships.

 The fujoshi mentality defends bromance movies that result from government censorship, but that will be covered in a separate section in this essay.

 The ideology of the fujoshi results in anti-gay movies.

 Feel Good to Say Goodbye

 The worst is a 2016 Thai film, “Feel Good to Say Goodbye.” A brief summary of the plot is this. Two guys had a romance and strong feelings for each other and a sexual relationship in high school. After they graduated they went separate ways. They happen to meet up going to a vacation island. They still have very strong feelings for each other. One however has a girlfriend who he is going to marry. All three spend time on the island together going to the beach, eating meals together.

 There is a long section which is a movie in a movie in which the story of high school romance is portrayed.  The guy with a girlfriend in the retrospective even saves the guy without a girlfriend from an attempted rape. It is that “motif” thing for BL movies. It isn’t clear that the guy with a girlfriend is gay, but instead it is one of those things in which he falls in love with the other guy and after saving him from a rape they have sex immediately afterwards because of their intense love.

 One night on the island, the guy with the girlfriend, after she has gone to sleep early because she drank too much, goes to see the other guy with intentions that they have sex.  

 This is where the fujoshi ideology kicks in. The guy without the girlfriend refuses the advances. That night he writes a letter which he leaves for the other guy about leaving each other forever. He leaves the island early before the letter is discovered so they won’t see each other again. The guy with a girlfriend is frantic and looks from him, but he is gone.

 The letter is an anti-gay manifesto asserting the worthlessness of gay love. From the English subtitles it reads as follows:

 The story of love between us could not possible to live together forever.

It’s just one piece of good feeling in our lives.

You have met the right person I’m happy with you and I will walk away.

Aek, I love you! From Chai.

Feel good to say good bye.

 Also, earlier the guy with the girlfriend had given an expensive wrist watch to the other guy so that he would remember their love always. The watch is left behind.

 The letter is read on a sea shore after being read is dropped and the wind blows it away symbolically representing the relationship being over. The girlfriend comes out to the beach and they walk away.

 The love letter asserts that there is no way they could live as a gay couple. It is a flat out rejection that it is possible that it is possible for gay couples to have lives in Thailand. It further trivializes their relationship as “just one piece of good feeling in our lives.”

 The guy without the girlfriend is proving how pure his love is, by sacrificing it for the other guy’s heterosexual relationship. The assumption is that the homosexual relationship is nothing compared to a heterosexual relationship and pure love is abandoning it so the other guy can get married and have a heterosexual relationship.

 The obliteration of their relationship is held up to be heroic.  What is especially poisonous about this movie is that the anti-gay message is slipped into a movie which represents itself initially as valuing their relationship. Instead it is building it up to demolish it.

 It needs to be pointed out that this movie was made in 2016 where there is a gay community in Thailand which is working to secure its rights and support itself and develop its community and show people that a gay life is possible.  It is also mostly a Buddhist country which is very accepting of gay people and one of the more favored places to have a relationship on the planet.

 Yet this movie was made in 2016 and the producers had no concern with its anti-gay message.  The reason is likely that the producers knew that the intended audience, fujoshi, wouldn’t care, in fact wouldn’t even perceive or realize the fundamentally anti-gay message in it. Their minds would just endlessly gush over what a cute couple they were and how romantic and pure there love was in endless repetition.

 SOTUS The Series

 Another anti-gay film is a 2016 Thai series, “SOTUS,” which stands for Seniority, Tradition, Unity, and Spirit. It is about hazing and the feelings of love of an underclassman for an upperclassman who is the leader of the hazing. In the final episode the upperclassman acknowledges his love for the underclassman. They wrap threads around each other’s wrist at a social function for the class. Someone asks the underclassman does that mean he loves men. He says no, he doesn’t love men, he just loves the upperclassman.

 During the episodes the fact that neither individual is gay is emphasized by having all the gay characters being visibly effeminate and fit a stereotypes of gays. In contrast the upper and lower classmen are absolutely not gay in any way.

 The anti-gay elements of this movie isn’t just that it re-emphasizes stereotypes, it promotes the idea that the love between these two is pure, because neither is gay and neither classman has any same-sex erotic desires. It is a reaffirmation that gay love is impure love. It is a denial and erasure of gay love since the producers have rejected the two classmen as having same-sex desires and coming to a recognition of their identities and forming a relationship and instead have a totally unrealistic plot line that two straight men become a loving couple and sleep together because of their fujoshi pure love.

 2 Moons The Series (Original, not the remake)

 The author wasn’t able to watch the 2017 Thai series “2Moons” through. Some of the episodes were so creepy that it was just impossible to stomach.  For this essay I watch episode 12. “Moon” is a title given to a student who is considered an attractive representative of a class, it is sort of like home coming king in America.  The story is about a freshman student selected to be a moon and a sophomore who was selected to be a moon the prior year. As persons with these titles they are to work with each other for some school events. The freshman has had a crush on the sophomore since when they were both students at the same high school. The freshman has a dozen or so pictures of the sophomore on his dresser in his college dorm room. His behavior towards the sophomore is borderline stalking if not actual stalking. The sophomore is very clearly straight. In the 12th and final episode, he purchases a car trunk full of flowers for the freshman, kisses him on the cheek, gives him a wrist bracelet while they lie in bed together and asks if he will be his boyfriend and date him and tells him that he loves him and they end up having a prolonged romantic kiss.

 It is a commonplace for young gay people to have to explain to one of their peers that having a crush on a straight guy is heart break waiting to happen and that no matter what you do to try to induce him to like you it isn’t going to lead to romance.  Sometimes the person wises up and gets over the crush, and sometimes the person learns the hard way. It is a self-destructive behavior.

 It also advances the idea that gay men are pursing straight men to the point of stalking. Gay people have enough problems with paranoid straight guys thinking that we will be stalking them.

 However, in the fujoshi world, where sexual orientations aren’t thought of, chasing after a straight guy is a thing with real prospects.

 Unfortunately a lot of gay people lacking critical thought don’t perceive these differences between gay love and “boy love.” Likely because they rather gush over a cute actor and have low self-worth and expectations of having their being respected.

 For fujoshi, it is simply that they don’t care really about the gay community despite what many might say.

 Another negative impact of fujoshi is that they view and disparage actors and dramas in how they aren’t BL drams.

 In the Hong Kong movie, “I Miss You When I See You,” is a sensitive story of gay man whose family moved to Australia separating him from his high school boyfriend. His high school boyfriend visits him later in life where he is living in a home facility for people with mental health issues. His boyfriend in Hong Kong is planning to get married. He later returns to Hong Kong for a high school reunion and he and his boyfriend get back together.  

 The guy in the facility has a long facial hair it looking like a traditional Chinese facial hair. A fujoshi comments that she finds it really repulsive and that is her comment. It might be repulsive to someone wanting a youthful shaven BL type protagonist, but the facial hair of the guy was fine.  In a gay bar or online in an app there would be gay men who would find it attractive.

 The 2015 Thai drama, “Father and Son,” in particular aroused the ire of fujoshi.  The father and son are both gay. The father has an active sex life as does the son. The comments are no longer there but fujoshi stated how they hated the drama and condemned the father.

 (Youtube videos of these dramas appear and disappear and the persons posting the videos also review for homophobic comments. So I wasn’t able to find the original comments for movies.)

 Fujoshi attack serious gay dramas and series because they don’t fit their idea of super cute guys falling in love in dramas where there is often little representation of physical affection or sex. Often Fujoshi express that some scenes are too sexual.

 This whole phenomenon of “boy love” love would have limited impact if there was only these movies and series and fujoshi viewers. It would be largely the issue of getting gay fans of BL to wise up. Though it might be good to make sure in cases where gay men have been bashed or raped that fujoshi aren’t allowed to be jurors.

 However, gay dramas on YouTube and elsewhere are listed as BL, and BL content itself spills out to the general public and the LGBT public. It isn’t contained in a sealed vessel.

 Fujoshi attack LGBT material also.

 It is the issue of Bromance movies created because of the censorship of the Chinese communist government that the fujoshi most seriously injure the gay community.

 BROMANCE

 In this section I am taking about bromances that are created in response to government censorship of LGBT content. Note that I am not using words and phrases like “work around” or “circumvent.” This implies that a bromance is somehow successful in response to government censorship. These bromances are distortions, deformations, destructions of LGBT and need to be understood as such. Their creation in which a LGBT story is stripped of LGBT content need to be understood as collusions with anti-LGBT oppression and a form of LGBT oppression.

 I am not talking about bromances where the author’s original intent was to write about a close friendship between two men. That is a legitimate subject.

 Before we can understand fully the appalling impact of these bromances born of government censorship we need to examine what LGBT video does for the LGBT community.

 LGBT series in East Asian use fiction to teach the gay community about coming out, relationships, safe sex, living with HIV, homophobia and other important issues about LGBT life. Often they come with English subtitles so other East Asians who can read English can view and understand the movie or series.

 (Bibliographic note I am not supplying any links to Mydramalist because of their refusal to accept gay productions from a set of six nationalities resulting in the exclusion of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Malaysia, and Indonesia. I don’t accept their flimsy excuse why they won’t allow these nations.)

 In the 2005 Thai film, “Right By Me,” three Thai gay high school students deal with coming out, coming out to parents, self-acknowledging gay identity, relationships and jealously. [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/right_by_me].

 The 2017 Thai series, “Bangkok G Story,” in 20 episodes deals with a variety of issues about gay relationships, gay health, online practices in the gay community, and dating issues using the apps. With humor it deals with the issues gay people will face. (There have been additional episodes added to the original series, but I am just going to mention this one.)

 The Singapore series, “People Like Us,” also discusses issues of gay life and has in its drama Chinese, Malay, and Indian gay characters. The whole reality of gay life is present. There are gay bathhouses, sex parties, and clubs in the series.  In the first episode, there is a pause in the story and the characters in everyday clothes talk to the viewers that “HIV is real and getting tested regularly is super important.” The episodes have English subtitles so they are accessible by anyone who can read English.

 FuFuKnows is a Taiwanese channel in which they report on LGBT news, go to gay pride parades in Taiwan, and produce short dramas which deal with issues of gay life.  The short dramas have English subtitles so they are accessible by anyone who can read English. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLl4XWZ9GmoRRhSb27smqPw]

 The Vietnamese two-episode “S Boys” series, “S Boys,” and “Sboys 2” is about safe sex, the “S” meaning safe. [I think it has two episodes, might be more.]

 I want to bring special attention to an Indonesian series, CONQ, a web series exploring the issues of gay life including HIV. It used to be online by the producer on YouTube but was moved to a non-profit group Viddsee based in Singapore which makes available independent producers’ video free to the public. I suspect that the series was moved because of the increasing anti-gay pressure of the Indonesian government. [https://www.viddsee.com/]  The first episode is at https://www.viddsee.com/video/conq-episode-1-unstereotype-me/y8k57

 The movie has episodes about gay apps, gay stereotypes, getting tested for HIV and also living with an HIV positive status, parental pressure to get married and rejecting that pressure, relationships, breaking up, and other real issues in gay life.

 Besides these series which aim to educate the gay community through fiction there are other gay productions which seek to reference wrongs committed against gay people.

 The short film, “Tanjong Rhu,” deals with a raid on a park by the Singapore police and the damage it does to gay lives.

 Additionally there are other dramas which though not produced by LGBT groups, nevertheless deal with real life issues of LGBT. For example there is the 2016 Vietnamese short film, “Let Love Heal,” a Lukas film, which deals with issues of a gay couple dealing with a homophobic parent.  

 Another Lukas film is “The Perfect Plan,” which has over 15 million viewers on YouTube, and deals with coming out with a parent, but also points out that your mother might already know and has been waiting for her child to talk about it. (Yes, it has over 15 million views, but Mydramalist rejects it.)

 The Hong Kong movie, “For Love, We Can,” deals with how a gay couple comes to term with becoming HIV positive and feelings of guilt of one partner. It deals with the issues of parental non-acceptance also. It is an excellent movie.

 Beyond how films educate the LGBT community, it is important to for LGBT to see themselves in film and to see that they are not out of society or out of life, but part of society and life. When there is oppression it is important to communicate that oppression exists.  

 The need for these films is a matter of life and death. The issue of practicing safe sex, getting tested are important to curb the spread of HIV and save lives. Also, the issues where gays get alienated from gay society and as a consequence are depressed, depressed because they are HIV positive, or feel alone, are important to be addressed to prevent suicide.

 To borrow Larry Kramer’s slogan, in a very real way, when gay content is censored and prevented from being accessed, “Silence = Death.”

 The Chinese government has instituted a crackdown on LGBT content on the web. There is the banning of LGBT forums, movies, media, and criticism of this ban.  The repression has been getting worse over time. In June 2017 audio-visual content was banned. [https://www.thedailybeast.com/china-keeps-trying-to-scrub-lgbt-content-from-the-web]

 Other articles.

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/china-weibo-bans-homosexual-content-protest

 https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/04/china-bans-gay-people-television-clampdown-xi-jinping-censorship

 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/26/tiktoks-local-moderation-guidelines-ban-pro-lgbt-content

https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/02/24/chinas-censors-take-another-gay-themed-web-drama-offline/

 As reported in The Guardian:

 The Chinese government has banned all depictions of gay people on television, as part of a cultural crackdown on “vulgar, immoral and unhealthy content”.

 Chinese censors have released new regulations for content that “exaggerates the dark side of society” and now deem homosexuality, extramarital affairs, one night stands and underage relationships as illegal on screen.

 Last week the Chinese government pulled a popular drama, Addicted, from being streamed on Chinese websites as it follows two men in gay relationships, causing uproar among the show’s millions of viewers.

 The government said the show contravened the new guidelines, which state that “No television drama shall show abnormal sexual relationships and behaviours, such as incest, same-sex relationships, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and so on.”

 The ban also extends to smoking, drinking, adultery, sexually suggestive clothing, even reincarnation. China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television told television producers it would constantly monitor TV channels to ensure the new rules were strictly adhered to.

 (For the censorship of Addicted see also, https://time.com/4236864/china-gay-drama-homosexuality/]

 Being LGBT is classified as “vulgar, immoral and unhealthy,” it is declared to be part of the “dark side of society,” groups with “incest,” “sexual perversion,” and rape and violence.

 This an extremely homophobic denunciation of LGBT by the mainland Chinese government in its promulgation of censorship rules. As the Lancet, the prestigious medical journal, stated:

 Such discrimination against LGBT people has wider implications for all of society. For example, social stigmatisation of LGBT minorities, together with insufficient sexual health education, can be barriers to preventing sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.

 https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lanpub/PIIS2468-2667(19)30153-7.pdf

 With a censorship policy like this you won’t be able to have series which educate LGBT people on safe sex, relationships or not see their lives in a stigmatized way, or address issues that might lead LGBT to suicide.

 This has resulted in some LGBT print content being produced as bromances on the Internet. However, if the authorities think the content is too thinly disguised even these bromances get banned. “Addicted,” (The title refers about being addicted to the love of one person), as mentioned was pulled. Though whether it would be classified as a bromance or a BL or gay could be a subject for discussion.

 The bromance disguise can’t be too thin as the producers of The Guardians found out when they produced a series based on the BL novel. Even though it had been viewed 1.8 billion times on Youku, China’s video streaming platform or maybe because. [https://www.todayonline.com/commentary/know-guardians-lucrative-chinese-galaxy]

There was quite a protest, and it was put back up and some scenes were changed. Though there have been some counter-claims about why it was banned. The author hopes to find out exactly which scenes were cut.

 So LGBT material is being produced as bromances. This is harmful to the LGBT community in multiple ways.

 First, in the production of the bromance LGBT content is destroyed and the producers of bromance in the process of making bromance from LGBT material are declaring it is acceptable to censor gay material.

 Second, it is collusion with a policy of anti-gay censorship and this censorships anti-gay views.

 Third, it is a declaration that giving into this anti-gay censorship is acceptable.

 Fourth, giving into this censorship is an encouragement to further censorship.

 Fifth, this practice states that LGBT rights are not worth fighting for. That a government policy which prevents LGBT media that would help educate against HIV and prevent suicide is acceptable.

 Sixth, it is a promotion of a closeted LGBT life. The LGBT characters are shoved into a closet to create the movie or series.

 Bromance is of no use to the LGBT community. It can’t be used to teach safe sex. It doesn’t address real issues in LGBT life like coming out to parents or self-acceptance. It doesn’t portray LGBT or their lives or normalize them. It teaches instead that LGBT is so harmful that it can’t be accepted by society.

 There is no loss to the LGBT community if the bromance isn’t produced.

 There would be a gain to the LGBT community if media producers refused to make bromance. It would be a statement that LGBT have value as human beings, that they have rights, and that it is unacceptable to crush their lives. It would be a statement of solidarity with the LGBT against government censorship.

 If production of LGBT material was moved to Taiwan it would also be a loss to the mainland Chinese media caused by homophobic policies. Each LGBT production in Taiwan would stand as a rebuke to the homophobic polices of the mainland Chinese government.

 However, there is little chance of this happening since there is a large market for these bromances born out of censorship, they are the fujoshi, the fans of BL. They find bromance is good BL, a “pure” love, instead of gay love, without any sexual scenes, and really, despite what they might say about LGBT rights, really don’t care at all.

 They come up with a series of excuses also.  

 1.       They assert that there was no other choice than to comply with the censorship despite that there are alternatives of not producing the bromance or producing a LGBT production in Taiwan.

 2.      They will say read the text of the story, but that isn’t an answer. Why was a video or movie produced at all then? The point is that video reaches different audiences. Most importantly text isn’t a substitute for video, otherwise why would any story’s text be made into a movie.

 3.      When gays complain about the lack of expressed affection in bromance fujoshi give justifications. They say things like, “All gay movie doesn’t have to be porn,” setting up as false opposites no affection versus pornography, as if there isn’t any possibilities in between. The implication also is that simply kissing or holding hands is perhaps porn. In another case a bromance defender stated, “Not all gay relationship needs to involve kissing.”

 It becomes apparent in reading the excuses that fujoshi actually like the fact that the characters will be just giving each other looks and they are safe from real gay life.

A variety of other excuses are made.

 Fujoshi don’t want to hear about any critical thoughts about BL or Bromances and try to castigate those that do as complainers, or causing trouble, or just engage in name calling regarding the arguments given without engaging them, or make personal attacks on them. They want their fantasies for their personal psychosexual reasons and can be furious when critical commentary comes up about BL.

 This isn’t limited to just fujoshi. There can be men who just want to view attractive men and don’t want to hear about the issues. One man became irate in a BL Facebook group and said that there are bigger things in the world than gay rights in defense of BL. The comment was later deleted, I suppose when the person realized that he was saying BL was more important than LGBT rights, which is likely true for him.

 WHAT IS TO BE DONE

 1.       For starters this essay is written. It lays out the issues involved.

 2.      The next thing is that LGBT and supporters need to become conscious of these issues, in particular given the statues of LGBT in China. This essay needs to be shared. Likely a better essay could be written by others and I hope others do write essays.

 Regardless of the quality of my essay, LGBT need to become aware of how BL and censorship produced bromance hurts the LGBT community.

 3.      We need to start critically thinking about what we are watching. We need to think whether the video is a BL or LGBT media production. We should ask ourselves as LGBT people whether we should be watching it.

 4.      We need to push for BL and LGBT not being lumped together. If we do, we need to express ourselves to the content provider.

 5.      We need to express disapproval of censorship produced bromance as an anti-LGBT activity.

 6.      We need to express disapproval of rape in BL media.

 7.      When we express disapproval in various venues we need to share in that venue links to essays like this. If this essay isn’t what you like, write your own essay or find another essay. But we need to get LGBT critically thinking and fujoshi thinking about what they are doing.

 We need to do these things for our own self-respect. We need to do these things in solidarity with LGBT facing repression and censorship in mainland China.

[olyer-reylo-blog]

Revenge of the Myth: A Reylo Meta

OMG I wrote 2500 words on Reylo. All errors mine as I don’t do betas. Feel free to share. Feel free to comment. Criticisms will be welcomed. Abuse will be ignored.  Disney owns Star Wars. The fans own Reylo. I own the arrangement of these words.  In a recent meta, further discussed on her podcast Fansplaining, Flourish Klink addressed "The Problem of Reylo." For Flourish, the problem is that the Star Wars universe has relied on mythic tropes, but the Sequel Trilogy's humanization of these archetypal characters has led to a somewhat unresolvable tension in Reylo fanfic. Flourish observes that "If we think about the plot of the new movies in the same mindset as we watched the original trilogy, then, Kylo Ren can’t be considered a mass murderer in any real world sense. He’s simply an embodiment of Badness, which means he can be saved by the embodiment of Goodness, which is probably Rey (because when has there ever been a Star Wars movie that didn’t feature a battle between Good and Evil?). (More on this later.) In this context, Reylo seems not just reasonable but almost required. We aren’t really talking about any action either of them has taken, any person either of them has killed. We’re talking about sweeping themes of redemption, forgiveness, and Light and Darkness in balance." The problem, Flourish notes, is that once we see these characters as humans, once we see the greater psychological complexity in them, beyond the Original Trilogy tropes of good and evil, we then have to make these characters responsible for their choices. Realism renders the characters of Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo to be pretty much un-shippable. 

Maybe. 

When confronted with an either-or proposition, my instinct is to go all Kobayashi Maru and find a third way. And so I propose a third way of looking at the Sequel Trilogy.  

No (Mono)myth 

The OT was a relatively simple tale of Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark. But the Sequel Trilogy is not retelling the monomyth so much as problematizing it. Those who live in the 21st century have seen the ways the myth of good vs evil has been leveraged against us, the way that it has been used to enact horrible crimes against humanity. One example, of course, is the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Currently we see the demonization of the "other" in all sorts of ways, from the War on Terror, anti-immigration policies, Gamergate and online misogyny.  

If we stop thinking about the ST as part of a Campbellian monomyth, as in the OT, and instead consider it as a rejection of the monomyth because monomythical thinking is inherently flawed, we may see Kylo Ren differently and thus perhaps see Reylo differently.  

The text of the ST explicitly addresses the power - and flaws - of the mythmaking surrounding the Star Wars Universe. The myth has power, of course. But how much should it have? Both Luke (the "good" guy) and Kylo Ren (the "bad" guy) want to discard the past. Rian Johnson has said that the question of how much of the past to keep and honor and how much to discard is one of the issues of the ST.  

The ST has made a conscious effort to destabilize the monomyth by creating characters that are more than tropes, by humanizing and naming a Stormtrooper, by giving emotional depth to a low-level maintenance worker, and by explicitly calling attention to the human costs of a world built around endless war. Flourish recognizes this in her meta but sees it as a problem because the monomyth cannot co-exist with realistic depictions in a story about galactic war.  

Monomyths do not talk about themselves as monomyths. They simply live their monomythic-ness. That's part of the monomyth's power. The ST is profoundly different. The language of the ST, especially TLJ, is to talk about myths *as* myths, about stories *as* stories. This is important. TFA is about trying to locate the mythical hero, Luke Skywalker. The movie ends with Rey's triumphant visit to the island where he has lived in self-exile. But TLJ begins with the rejection of Rey's quest. Luke just throws the lightsaber over his shoulder. Fuck This Shit, he seems to say. The myth of Luke is very different from the reality of Luke, much to Rey's disappointment. Lesson the first: we should not mistake myth for reality. 

At the same time, mythmaking does have power. At the end of TLJ, the myth of Luke Skywalker is shown to prevail, representing hope and the spark of the rebellion. Luke projects himself onto Crait and buys time for the Resistance to escape. Luke saves the Resistance, but it only works because Luke himself is not some immortal figure able to deflect blasters with his light saber. He works by distracting Kylo Ren into fighting a projection, a figment. If Luke Skywalker embodies the monomyth, the hero's narrative, well, it's an incorporeal, unsubstantial, ephemeral narrative that can't hold up for very long.  

But perhaps the other story that has to be destroyed is the one that people in the galaxy, like Rey and Poe Dameron and Rose Tico, have grown up to believe: that someone like Luke Skywalker will come save them from evil. The myth has power, but it cannot save everyone.

We all use these myths, these stories to try to make sense of our worlds, to give meanings to our lives, to understand our identity in the world. But these myths come with costs. They are ephemeral and cannot replace self-help, or the help members of a community give to each other.  

Another cost is ignoring the humanity of others. That was Luke's mistake when he thought about killing Ben because Ben had "the dark side" in him. For a brief moment, he turned Ben into the Bad Guy who needed to be destroyed. That dehumanized Ben at great cost.  

So, if there is no monomyth in the ST, what is left? Is it pure reality? Is Reylo doomed because, in the end, Kylo Ren is nothing more than a mass murderer? 

What's the Story, Allegory? 

Well, we can still see Rey and Kylo Ren as symbolic figures without having the story follow the pattern of a Campbellian monomyth. We don't need the Good vs. Evil tropes or the Heroic Journey tropes or the so-called romance tropes. We've got ourselves a contemporary allegory happening.  

Much to the surprise of many viewers of TFA, the backstory of Snoke was not explored. In fact, his bisection by Kylo Ren came as a bit of a shock to viewers, many of whom were pretty angry at the lost storytelling opportunity. However, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Snoke himself is not important. Snoke's *actions* were important. 

And what did Snoke do? He whispered in the ear of a young boy as he was growing to adulthood, corrupted his soul and used the boy's ability to achieve his own ends. And therein lies the heart of the allegory.  What else whispers into the ears of adolescent boys and encourages them to embrace the worst parts of themselves? As the mother of a 15 year old boy, I can tell you my greatest fear is that despite my attempt to raise him to be a feminist ally and to respect and value the rights of all, he will end up being "seduced" by the easy white supremacist misogyny of the Internet. 

Snoke isn't evil personified. He is actually a very banal evil. He is the alt-right and 4Chan and the Reddit Red Pill community and every "MRA" or "PUA" community out there. He is Steve Bannon and Milos Yiannapoulos and PewDiePie and Roosh, every toxic male that populates online communities today. They don't wear masks, but they wear pseudonyms. They hide behind these masks and they yearn for an imagined past of white supremacist patriarchy because it makes them feel stronger.  

This isn't a new idea. Kayti Burt at Den of Geek made this argument first, though her focus was mainly on Leia and Holdo schooling Poe Dameron and the delusions of heroism that motivated him to take the ill-considered step of fomenting a rebellion. Poe learned from his mistakes and earned a leadership role at the end. 

 It's clear that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo wearing a mask, trying to be like his grandfather, who lived in a world where his toxic male power was unquestioned and abused; Vader even abused (physically and emotionally) his own daughter (the torture of Leia and the destruction of Alderaan).  

Ben's adoption of the name Kylo Ren is not unlike an online gamer's adoption of a gaming name. The best ones often take from one's own name, of course (Kylo Ren pulls in Ky from Skywalker, Lo, from Solo, and Ren from Ben). He has a "posse" of "Knights" who think like him and support him. The word "Knight" suggests chivalry, a social dynamic that relies on prescribed gender roles that emphasize male heroism and female weakness and submission.  

Kylo Ren does not make sense as a trope in a monomyth. He makes the most sense as someone who *sees himself* as a trope in a monomyth, the hero of his own story.  But it's a story that has been told to him, that he has adopted in lieu of another story (his status as the crown prince of the Skywalker dynasty), and it is a story that is flawed. It's the story of white male supremacy that he holds onto because he fears he is nothing without it. 

So when he tells Rey she is nothing, he is repeating the negging of toxic misogyny, because that is the language he has been immersed in. But the whole speech he gives is telling. He has killed Snoke. He wants a new order. All the myths - Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi - none of those matter. He wants to be free of all these stories. In Rey he sees someone without all the baggage of the past, someone he can start anew with. As Dickinson might say, I'm nobody, who are you? Are you nobody too? Then there's a pair of us! 

It's not the best argument he could have made to Rey at that point, but it was the best argument he could have made to himself. Thinking he is nobody (because of abandonment issues or because all adolescents think of themselves as nobody), he has embraced an ideology that tells him he is somebody, an ideology that values his gifts. For him to destroy the source of that ideology is to say that he does not need it any longer. Rey knows him and, he thinks, accepts him for who he is. She identifies the fearful, insecure person behind the mask and still thinks he has value. 

But Rey can't save him. She thought she could, and that was the old-school romance trope Flourish disparages, that scene from Pretty Woman where Richard Gere saves Julia Roberts from Snoke, and she saves him right back by throwing a lightsaber to him. But it doesn't work, and it was never meant to. The text of TLJ has already rejected the romance-y trope of a woman saving the man with love.  

Relationships don't work that way. The existence of a "good" person in a "bad" person's life is not redemption in and of itself. But that doesn't mean that there is no role for love in redeeming another.  

What Rey has introduced into Ben's life is compassion for another, a feeling he has not felt in a long time. It's not Rey's compassion for Ben that is significant. Rey's compassion for Ben cannot save Ben.  

Rather, it is the compassion Rey brings out in Ben. Compassion, love, sentiment: these are all anathema to Snoke. They mean "weakness." It's not that different from the men and boys of the alt-right, of the GamerGate community, of these toxic internet spaces. The men and boys there lack and/or deliberately eschew empathy and compassion for someone not like themselves.  

Snoke sees that Rey has made Kylo Ren feel compassion, and Snoke thinks that by making Kylo Ren kill Rey, he can kill the compassion that has developed in Kylo Ren. But Snoke's mistake is that killing Rey cannot kill the compassion because she is not the compassion. The compassion is now in Ben himself. The Force has been awakened. 

The Real Humanizing Turn

The allegory then is an allegory of humanity. The alt-right trolls of the Internet play games for lulz, for spite, for power. They don't see that they are doxxing and bullying and hurting real humans. They hide behind their anonymous masks wielding power because they can and because they don't see their prey as human. They lack empathy. They lack compassion. They see themselves as heroes of some sort of story they are telling themselves, one that involves Good and Evil, and they are the Good and women/people of color/LGBT/"libtards"/anyone different are the Evil.  

Feeling compassion for the "other" is the first step to radical change. Black feminist theorist bell hooks speaks eloquently and often on the need for love as a condition for social change. hooks cites Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for love in the social justice movement and notes that after King's death and the black power movement's ascendance, "a misogynist approach to women became central as the equation of freedom with patriarchal manhood became a norm." This came, hooks says, from a shift away from a love ethic to an ethic of power. Sound familiar? Is the Force about power, or is it about love? 

 Love between Rey and Kylo Ren has enormous symbolic resonance. It represents the emerging compassion and love within Kylo Ren, and his acknowledgement of a woman, a "girl," as powerful as he is. A powerful woman, one without a fancy Jedi lineage, has no place in the monomyth, she has no place in misogynist ideology… but she has a place in a new story. That Kylo Ren is open to that story is a significant development. In a movie or even a trilogy we can't tell the story of a changing society by looking at every individual, but we can look at one individual as representative of that change.  

So the story of Reylo can be read as an allegory of love, the turn to humanity, the humanizing of Evil, the shift from a power conflict to a love "concord," a word that means, at its root, a coming together of hearts. This is not a bug. It's a feature. 

That there are viewers of the ST and readers of Reylo fanfic that want to explore this allegory is not a cause for despair. It is the new hope. It is the hope that love can transform society, and it's a hope that has parallels not to reductive tropes and monomyths but to social justice movements. 

[cvagent2]

Climate science and climate fiction – where data intersects with art

Earth's climate functions as its life support system. That system is under heavy threat from over seven billion people and the bleeding heat of industry: as jungle and forest are rendered into farmland; greenhouse gases belch and fume, destabilizing the environment, shrinking biodiversity, pushing the limits of the Earth's natural mechanisms.

2016 was the hottest year in the modern temperature record. Climate change is a long-term issue on a massive scale – from shrinking glaciers, changes in rainfall patterns, severe heat waves and other irreversible conditions. The worldwide scientific community has issued warnings for years about the present and future impacts of climate change linked to fossil fuel use. 

Earth faces unprecedented challenges caused by human agency, yet here we stand, like a deer in headlights, knowing something big and bad is coming, too dazzled to do anything to stop it.

Science fiction has long been the literature that speculates on scientific change while reflecting contemporary societal concerns.

Climate change is happening now, and we need a literature of now to address its issues. As glaciers melt, corals bleach, typhoons kill and forest fires rage, a new genre called climate fiction has emerged from science fiction to stand out on its own. Climate fiction focuses on anthropogenic climate change rather than natural unstoppable ecological catastrophes, such as supervolcanos, solar flares or large, Earth impacting meteorites. And most importantly, climate fiction uses real scientific data to translate climate change from the abstract to the cultural, enabling readers to vicariously experience threats and effects they might be expected to encounter across their own lifetimes.

Climate fiction highlights the hard-impacting economic and interpersonal realities of climate change. It encourages us to understand that climate change is a problem we have brought upon ourselves and that changes to our economic and energy systems are required if we are to survive it.

Climate fiction straddles genre boundaries: science fiction, utopia, dystopia, fantasy, thriller, romance, mimetic fiction, nature writing, and the literary, from fast-paced thrillers, to inward looking present day narratives.

Climate change is emerging as a set of philosophical and existentialist problems as well as physical challenges. It is yet to receive the crisis response and treatment it deserves from world leaders.

Cat Spark's Lotus Blue is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Fiction – and indeed all art -- has a role to play, by humanising the effects of climate change; by illuminating the human dimensions of technological futures; by encouraging people to challenge ingrained confirmation bias and become climate voters -- active on the issue, making their views known loudly to politicians.

Storytelling has the power to give climate change a human focus by translating complex and evolving scientific concepts into tales reimagining human interactions with the world. Non-didactic, people-centric narratives stressing the social aspects of climate change as much as the technical and scientific encourage societal long-term thinking about the power and potential of clean energy. Climate fiction's growing popularity proves that we desire narratives showing how we might adapt to a changing world as ice melts and seas rise. Stories appealing to social ethics, questioning established hierarchies, and addressing our responsibility for fashioning an ecologically sustainable future.

The coming decades will see problems of increasing complexity, such as permanent political and social instability, dangerous weather, food and water insecurity, and an increase in displaced persons as more and more land is swallowed by the sea. Climate fiction tackles these topics, detailing the practical domestic implications of carbon rationing and renewable energy, and exploring how practical changes might be implemented across ordinary lives. Some climate fiction stories investigate nascent technologies and their integration into business and culture, questioning how far our growing dependence on technology might end up detrimentally estranging us from nature. The topics are wide ranging, and use topical, political and scientific bases, ensuring that while it feels like fiction, it is applicable to current events and daily life.

While much realist and literary fiction continues to focus inwards on individual identities and challenges, climate fiction takes on the task of envisioning physical and cultural landscapes facing uncertainty through processes of transformation and adaptation. Climate fiction forms a bridge connecting scientific information with people preparing to face an uncertain future the past can no longer be relied upon to guide us through.

Art possess inherent empathetic value. Entwined with technological and social change, climate fiction functions as a universally understandable language while serving as a catalyst for forging new trans-disciplinary alliances, shifting debates and values, inspiring and motivating legal and institutional action, opening hearts and minds to new ways of thinking, encouraging resilience, resistance and resolve while continuing to imagine possible futures.

More than anything, we must learn from these possible climate fiction futures, rooted in what we scientifically know today -- if we actually believe such futures might conceivably come to pass. Based on the science, those futures are closer than we think.

Cat Sparks, author of the upcoming novel Lotus Blue, available from Talos Press, an imprint of Skyhorse, in March 2017.

[newtknight]

Partial Paper about anti-gay aspects of BL and Bromance

This paper is in progress and at this point only the first section is done. I am posting what I have written so far to share with it with others to get input for this first section. 

I will repost it again when I have more written. To give feedback message. 

Anti-Gay “Boy Love” media and Inherently Anti-Gay Bromance: Or those rotten girls really are rotten                          

                                                                                - Ed Sebesta 11/22/2019

 First thing to understand is that “Boy Love” is a term in East Asian English meaning a man attracted to a man. In American English we use “boy” in referring to male adults in such expressions as “good ole boy network.”

 “Boy love” is a term from a subculture of straight women in Japan, known as fujoshi in Japanese, translated as “rotten girls” in English. Often “Boy love” is just called “BL.” To these fujoshi, “boy love” isn’t gay love. To quote an article in an American publication Daily Beast, about this subculture, in which they interview Hana who is a fujoshi:

 “BL is not gay,” she begins, “this is the most important thing you need to know.” The cover art of most of the comics, however, depicts two males embracing, which can make it difficult for the foreign eye to separate a homosexual romance from the themes at hand. But to a rotten girl like Hana it’s all about “pure love.” In fact, the entire genre itself is squarely targeted at a straight female readership and is almost always created by female artists as well. [“The Japanese Women Who Love Gay Anime,” by Brandon Pesser, Daily Beast, 12/6/2014, https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-japanese-women-who-love-gay-anime, retried 11/22/2019]

 The article explains how BL meets with Hana’s needs for a romantic world without heterosexuality.

 The article also interviews Professor Patrick Galbraith, a visiting researcher at Sophia University, a university in Japan, who researches the BL genre. Galbraith explains the typical four sections of a BL story.

 As Galbraith explains, the first part of the story is a “seme,” who is also sometimes called “the attacker or inserter” “pushing himself” upon a weaker or softer “uke.” What “pushing” might mean is explained in the article:

 Although Galbraith cites “rape as a common motif fueled by extreme love,” the most crucial element of the narrative’s first section is the crescendo of tension between the two potential lovers.

 “Motif” is defined as a “decorative design or pattern.” [From Lexico, Oxford Univ. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/motif, retrieved 11/22/2019.] Galbraith is normalizing rape in BL as artistic and is framing it in the language of aesthetics.

 As Galbraith explains the typical second part of the story is that the two men initiate a sexual component of their affection, which the article explains “can range from a single kiss to something far more explicit.”

 As for the extent of this culture, Galbraith estimates “that there are well over a million self-titled rotten girls in Japan,” and that the sale of BL materials is “more than $120 million annually.”

 This subculture exists outside Japan. A search on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/) will show movies labeled as “BL” or “Boy Love” made in multiple East Asian localities and languages.

 Of course the idea that rape can be somehow a matter of love, or that the victim of rape could end up in love with the person who raped them, is injurious to the safety of women from rape. This whole idea of rape and love being somehow related has been denounced by feminists thoroughly and I will not discuss this aspect further except to note one thing. Though homosexual rape is usually the act of aggression of a straight man against another man, BL materials, comics, movies, etc. are consumed by some gay men. The gay community doesn’t need to have gay men thinking that rape is an expression of extreme love.

 The idea that the victim of rape might eventually love their rapist in real life is the idea of psychotics who you read in the press of having kidnaped and held a woman against her with the rapist thinking that she will eventually love him.  However, BL movies have little connection to real life.

 In the Japanese “Fujimi Orchestra” the gay orchestral conductor rapes a straight violinist, but they manage to have a relationship of sorts anyways. In the Thai “My Dream,” one male character rapes another male character, but in a later episode the person who was raped grabs and kisses his rapist. In the Japanese “No Touching at All,” the boss rapes his employee saying that the victim secretly wanted to have sex but couldn’t admit it. They later form a relationship.

 This idea that male-to-male love is injurious to gay men in another very dangerous way.  When men who have murdered gay men are on trial for their murder, a common tactic by their defense lawyers is to argue that the murder felt threaten that he was going to be sexually assaulted by the gay man and panicked and killed the gay man. It even has a short hand name, “panic defense.”

 It also has been asserted in defense trials where a gay man was killed that the person who killed a gay man didn’t panic and was defending himself from a rapist. That was the claim of Uber drive Michael Hancock who killed Hyun Kim June 1, 2018, who was his passenger. Kim’s account of what happened isn’t known since he was dead.  [“Denver Uber driver tells jury that his passenger made unwanted sexual advances, attacked him before fatal shooting,” Saja Hindi, The Denver Post, 10/7/2019, https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/07/denver-uber-driver-testifies-murder-trial/] Hancock was found not guilty by the jury. [https://kdvr.com/2019/10/10/uber-driver-michael-hancock-who-fatally-shot-passenger-found-not-guilty/]

 There is a risk that this very obvious problem with so-called boy love dramas will obscure other negative problems with boy love movies that are less obvious, but have the potential for much greater harm to the gay community.

 Notice that the Daily Beast article explains that the fujoshi don’t see these male-male relationships as gay and as “pure love.” This implies that gay relationships with sexual desire are not pure, that the love of gay men is impure.  The boy love world is about male-to-male bonding without gay people or recognizing the validity of gay people having relationships.

 The fujoshi mentality defends bromance movies that result from government censorship, but that will be covered in a separate section in this essay.

 The ideology of the fujoshi results in anti-gay movies.

 Feel Good to Say Goodbye

 The worst is a 2016 Thai film, “Feel Good to Say Goodbye.” A brief summary of the plot is this. Two guys had a romance and strong feelings for each other and a sexual relationship in high school. After they graduated they went separate ways. They happen to meet up going to a vacation island. They still have very strong feelings for each other. One however has a girlfriend who he is going to marry. All three spend time on the island together going to the beach, eating meals together.

 There is a long section which is a movie in a movie in which the story of high school romance is portrayed.  The guy with a girlfriend in the retrospective even saves the guy without a girlfriend from an attempted rape. It is that “motif” thing for BL movies. It isn’t clear that the guy with a girlfriend is gay, but instead it is one of those things in which he falls in love with the other guy and after saving him from a rape they have sex immediately afterwards because of their intense love.

 One night on the island, the guy with the girlfriend, after she has gone to sleep early because she drank too much, goes to see the other guy with intentions that they have sex.  

 This is where the fujoshi ideology kicks in. The guy without the girlfriend refuses the advances. That night he writes a letter which he leaves for the other guy about leaving each other forever. He leaves the island early before the letter is discovered so they won’t see each other again. The guy with a girlfriend is frantic and looks from him, but he is gone.

 The letter is an anti-gay manifesto asserting the worthlessness of gay love. From the English subtitles it reads as follows:

 The story of love between us could not possible to live together forever.

It’s just one piece of good feeling in our lives.

You have met the right person I’m happy with you and I will walk away.

Aek, I love you! From Chai.

Feel good to say good bye.

 Also, earlier the guy with the girlfriend had given an expensive wrist watch to the other guy so that he would remember their love always. The watch is left behind.

 The letter is read on a sea shore after being read is dropped and the wind blows it away symbolically representing the relationship being over. The girlfriend comes out to the beach and they walk away.

 The love letter asserts that there is no way they could live as a gay couple. It is a flat out rejection that it is possible that it is possible for gay couples to have lives in Thailand. It further trivializes their relationship as “just one piece of good feeling in our lives.”

 The guy without the girlfriend is proving how pure his love is, by sacrificing it for the other guy’s heterosexual relationship. The assumption is that the homosexual relationship is nothing compared to a heterosexual relationship and pure love is abandoning it so the other guy can get married and have a heterosexual relationship.

 The obliteration of their relationship is held up to be heroic.  What is especially poisonous about this movie is that the anti-gay message is slipped into a movie which represents itself initially as valuing their relationship. Instead it is building it up to demolish it.

 It needs to be pointed out that this movie was made in 2016 where there is a gay community in Thailand which is working to secure its rights and support itself and develop its community and show people that a gay life is possible.  It is also mostly a Buddhist country which is very accepting of gay people and one of the more favored places to have a relationship on the planet.

 Yet this movie was made in 2016 and the producers had no concern with its anti-gay message.  The reason is likely that the producers knew that the intended audience, fujoshi, wouldn’t care, in fact wouldn’t even perceive or realize the fundamentally anti-gay message in it. Their minds would just endlessly gush over what a cute couple they were and how romantic and pure there love was in endless repetition.

 SOTUS The Series

 Another anti-gay film is a 2016 Thai series, “SOTUS,” which stands for Seniority, Tradition, Unity, and Spirit. It is about hazing and the feelings of love of an underclassman for an upperclassman who is the leader of the hazing. In the final episode the upperclassman acknowledges his love for the underclassman. They wrap threads around each other’s wrist at a social function for the class. Someone asks the underclassman does that mean he loves men. He says no, he doesn’t love men, he just loves the upperclassman.

 During the episodes the fact that neither individual is gay is emphasized by having all the gay characters being visibly effeminate and fit a stereotypes of gays. In contrast the upper and lower classmen are absolutely not gay in any way.

 The anti-gay elements of this movie isn’t just that it re-emphasizes stereotypes, it promotes the idea that the love between these two is pure, because neither is gay and neither classman has any same-sex erotic desires. It is a reaffirmation that gay love is impure love. It is a denial and erasure of gay love since the producers have rejected the two classmen as having same-sex desires and coming to a recognition of their identities and forming a relationship and instead have a totally unrealistic plot line that two straight men become a loving couple and sleep together because of their fujoshi pure love.

 2 Moons The Series (Original, not the remake)

 The author wasn’t able to watch the 2017 Thai series “2Moons” through. Some of the episodes were so creepy that it was just impossible to stomach.  For this essay I watch episode 12. “Moon” is a title given to a student who is considered an attractive representative of a class, it is sort of like home coming king in America.  The story is about a freshman student selected to be a moon and a sophomore who was selected to be a moon the prior year. As persons with these titles they are to work with each other for some school events. The freshman has had a crush on the sophomore since when they were both students at the same high school. The freshman has a dozen or so pictures of the sophomore on his dresser in his college dorm room. His behavior towards the sophomore is borderline stalking if not actual stalking. The sophomore is very clearly straight. In the 12th and final episode, he purchases a car trunk full of flowers for the freshman, kisses him on the cheek, gives him a wrist bracelet while they lie in bed together and asks if he will be his boyfriend and date him and tells him that he loves him and they end up having a prolonged romantic kiss.

 It is a commonplace for young gay people to have to explain to one of their peers that having a crush on a straight guy is heart break waiting to happen and that no matter what you do to try to induce him to like you it isn’t going to lead to romance.  Sometimes the person wises up and gets over the crush, and sometimes the person learns the hard way. It is a self-destructive behavior.

 It also advances the idea that gay men are pursing straight men to the point of stalking. Gay people have enough problems with paranoid straight guys thinking that we will be stalking them.

 However, in the fujoshi world, where sexual orientations aren’t thought of, chasing after a straight guy is a thing with real prospects.

 Unfortunately a lot of gay people lacking critical thought don’t perceive these differences between gay love and “boy love.” Likely because they rather gush over a cute actor and have low self-worth and expectations of having their being respected.

 For fujoshi, it is simply that they don’t care really about the gay community despite what many might say.

 Another negative impact of fujoshi is that they view and disparage actors and dramas in how they aren’t BL drams.

 In the Hong Kong movie, “I Miss You When I See You,” is a sensitive story of gay man whose family moved to Australia separating him from his high school boyfriend. His high school boyfriend visits him later in life where he is living in a home facility for people with mental health issues. His boyfriend in Hong Kong is planning to get married. He later returns to Hong Kong for a high school reunion and he and his boyfriend get back together.  

 The guy in the facility has a long facial hair it looking like a traditional Chinese facial hair. A fujoshi comments that she finds it really repulsive and that is her comment. It might be repulsive to someone wanting a youthful shaven BL type protagonist, but the facial hair of the guy was fine.  In a gay bar or online in an app there would be gay men who would find it attractive.

 The 2015 Thai drama, “Father and Son,” in particular aroused the ire of fujoshi.  The father and son are both gay. The father has an active sex life as does the son. The comments are no longer there but fujoshi stated how they hated the drama and condemned the father.

 (Youtube videos of these dramas appear and disappear and the persons posting them also review for homophobic comments. So I wasn’t able to find the original comments for movies.)

 Fujoshi attack serious gay dramas and series because they don’t fit their idea of super cute guys falling in love in dramas where there is often little representation of physical affection or sex.

 This whole phenomenon of “boy love” love would have limited impact if there was only these movies and series and fujoshi viewers. It would be largely the issue of getting gay fans of BL to wise up. Though it might be good to make sure in cases where gay men have been bashed or raped that fujoshi aren’t allowed to be jurors.

 It is the issue of Bromance movies created because of the censorship of the Chinese communist government that the fujoshi seriously injure the gay community.

 BROMANCE