#there's good and bad subverting expectations and this was the former to me

[thegoatsongs]

I wanted to do a list of death flags that each Dracula character had but once I started with Jonathan it already got too long despite trimming it... So here's a list of how death-bound Jonathan is, will make a different one for all the others

J Harker's Mortality-coding

🏴 “The first [letter] should be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June 29.” I know now the span of my life. - He extends his life span beyond June 29, when he was supposed to die.

🏴 Dracula, a dead man, wears his clothes, bringing death.

🏴 I determined that if Death came he should find me ready.

🏴 Becomes the chief mourner of his father figure, later of his wife.

🏴 Dracula took lives on land and sea because of his actions.

🏴 I would sell my soul to do it.

🏴 May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me - He's the only one who asks for divine punishment for his actions.

🏴 Physically "transforms" into an old man overnight.

🏴 Vows to follow Mina to eternal undeath.

🏴 Warned of God's punishment by Mina and Van Helsing for his blasphemies.

🏴 The only one shown writing his Will, the only one whose Will we know the contents of.

🏴 Described while hunting as dark, cold, silent- while the men with him are called fervent, lively, and excited.

🏴 Declares We should stand or fall by our act - and that he is ready to face the gallows.

🏴 Mina: It took all my courage to say good-bye to my darling. We may never meet again.

🏴 Returns to the place where he was condemned to die, on a boat on a dark river.

🏴 Three times he writes goodbye, three times heading to his likely death.

[shadowvalkyrie]

There are a lot of things about Taskmaster that feel very... culturally British. That mixture of extreme silliness with occasionally very dark humour for example.

Or the particular tone of affectionate bullying and the way it's (mostly) taken in good humour. (And expected to be taken in good humour, even when it hits a nerve. Something that caused quite a bit of bad blood between the Brits and the Germans in my former workplace, because we generally don't shrug off insults that easily.)

But I think one difference is sort of... simmering under the surface in ways that aren't immediately obvious to international audiences (and makes me wish I was still writing uni papers, because it would be a GOLDMINE), is how much of the humour is based on the British class system.

I mean, the basic premise of "tyrannical taskmaster makes people jump through arbitrary hoops for his favour and then belittles them for doing so" is already something only an audience with a slightly monarchical bend would accept unquestioningly. Add to that the way the Taskmaster/Assistant relationship is set up... Let's just say it fetishises a social dynamic that doesn't exist in quite the same way elsewhere.

Which I think may partially explain why so many people seem to be oblivious to the D/s undertones. -- Of course it's often kink-blindness on the part of non-kinky people, but I strongly suspect it's helped along by the cultural perception of what constitutes an acceptable power differential acting as a buffer to seeing anything off about it. The threshold for when it becomes weird is different.

Now, I think (and since I'm not British, do correct me if I have it wrong!) a key part of what makes the basic premise funny to British audiences (and differently from how it's funny to international ones) is the way cultural expectations of power vs submission are subverted.

Purely based on accent? Alex is the posh one. By miles. And Greg -- very pointedly! -- doesn't do the matching Fauxbridge that most viewers would probably expect from someone presented in a position of authority (or even just a "neutral" BBC accent). It seems bizarre from a foreign point of view, but I've found that this kind of discrepancy immediately and viscerally registers with Brits. (It's uncanny how little it takes, too -- ask your favourite non-TM-aware English person to just listen to the different ways they say "taskmaster" and they will extrapolate things you cannot even imagine.) Instead of just the regional connotation, there are always implications of class and social status to an accent that are absolutely baffling to the unaware.

Add the fact that Greg Davies is from Wales, and a lot of English people have a weird colonial superiority complex towards Welsh people to this day... It's enough to make all these obvious gestures of devoted subservience from Alex very unexpected and therefore funny.

(Also notice how it adds interesting layers to Katherine Ryan buying Greg a fake lordship title? And makes it funnier in a way she may not even have fully been aware of herself, being Canadian? It's delightfully irreverent and pokes fun at the whole system.)

My guess is that this is also why the studio audience's reaction to linguistics-based jokes is always so strong. Lets take the recurring bit about Alex correcting Greg's grammar. To an international audience, the main joke is that Alex is a nerd and cares too much about grammar, with maybe a side of him being a smartarse towards his boss in a potentially ill-advised way. But to a British audience, the level of audacious insubordination implied there? Much stronger. Wildly offensive thing to do. (And a level of arrogance that is extra hilarious coming from someone shown to be sleeping in a dog bed.)

The same mechanism also puts Alex's snide little asides towards contestants with regional or "urban" accents into perspective. Offensive dick move on his part? Oh yes, extremely. But the audience is very much not supposed to be on his side in this. He's being a bigoted little bully, and either the contestants get to humiliate him in retaliation (it's certainly not a coincidence that the Welsh and Irish contestants are generally the ones having the most fun putting him in his place) or Greg calls him out on it in the studio. In a society in which Alex's brand of micro-aggression is still incredibly commonplace and accent discrimination a widely accepted default, it's actually very cathartic to see it openly acknowledged and condemned.

I mean Tumblr obviously loves Alex, because he's cute and funny and we love the Greg/Alex D/s thing (I'm definitely guilty of this as well), but we have to remember that -- in the context of the show's premise -- his character is supposed to be pathetic and ridiculous, so when Greg does the "next to me a man who once told me while drunk that he thinks regional accents are inversely correlated to intelligence" intro thing, we're meant to see it as an asshole opinion that is actually unacceptable to hold and no one in their right mind would openly admit to. So Greg is humiliating Alex by (supposedly) exposing him as someone who would spout that kind of opinion. (Same as the jokes about Alex's misogyny. I see people criticise these jokes all the time, but I think that's because they refuse to understand how the underlying mechanism actually works and take them at face value as the real Alex's actual opinion, rather than something deliberately assigned to his in-show character to make a point about them being terrible.)

[doomed-to-be-obsessed]

Give me your best pitch on why I should ship coppernauts.

I think Benny would be one of the most accepting people to the cops when they switched sides. Emmet of course too, but when scribble cop allowed Benny to build a spaceship I feel like that moment between them was likely more impactful on Benny then any other interaction with the others, which i feel like would strive him to befriend the cops. And Benny is a huge positive force which bad cop would (at first) not like, but gradually get use to and be fond of. The cops can also keep Benny grounded when he gets too excited, which Benny will probably need in some scenarios. With Benny’s help, the cops can feel more at ease in his new found place after Takos Tuesday, and Benny could use a friend that can keep him down to earth as well as let him be excited and build. The ship can also be a parallel (kind of) to Lucy and Emmet. Emmet fell in love at first sight while Lucy took a while to warm up to him, which can be similar to coppernauts (the best part about it is most likely they wouldn’t realize they’re in love). It kind of patches the bridge (metaphorically) between the master builders and those who worked with business, just like how emmet and Lucy’s relationship (can’t remember the ship name) bridged the gap between regular people and the master builders. It wouldn’t just be good for fun, but it can have a lot of benefits to stories lines that could’ve happened after the first movie if the second movie didn’t happen. The relationship could prevent the cops from going back to their ways (which they would never do, but still) or hiding from the others (which would be more likely to happen), and it could prevent Benny from being swept under the rug as just the 80s something spaceman who is obsessed with space ships. Not only that but, the tropes for the relationship also makes sense in the grand scheme of the Lego movie’s tropes. (ie, guy falling for a cool girl who has a douche boyfriend, who leaves her boyfriend and goes with the guy that makes her feel like she can be herself with him, the ‘veteran’ who is old and grizzled and doesn’t believe in the hero’s cause, but actually does and comes back to save him, the wise old mentor who is strange compared to what is the standard of the world, etc.) An excitable sunshine blue character who comes from the hero side, and a grumpy moon red character who is a former antagonist fits right into the “cliche but is really not a cliche because of (insert genius writing that subverts the audiences expectations)” pattern of tropes that the Lego movies commonly use.

Coppernauts (whether platonic or not) is a very good relationship that helps build on character growth, recognizement, and story development. :)

[mobumi]

So Here's my final Bucchigiri review!

Overall a fun ride, but something is missing.

I give it a 6.8/10.

First time I saw the teaser and trailer for this l was so curious because the visuals looked amazing and I couldn't wait to see it. When I finally watched it, I have to admit I was disappointed, not because I thought it was bad, but because I thought the plot would be something completely different, especially judging Utsumi's previous works. I wanted it to be my new Buddy daddies, but alas.

As I mentioned before, I noticed some problems in the pacing and writing which, in my opinion, affected the quality of the show. But what I really enjoyed was how entertaining it was. The comedy seemed just right, the running gags were okay, and just the vibe in general worked for this universe they created. The 1001 nights lore was really well used!

I liked how this anime subverted my expectations and played with the shonen genre and overused tropes, that was definitely the fun part. There were some very good parts and metaphors that I think elevated the show and gave it something special.

But with this finale, you can clearly see all the things that the show lacked, more so in the writing. Ichiya's motivations were nonsensical and it didn't justify manipulating a teenager or killing him just to fight his former bestie. Arajin has such a rocky development and seeing him the exact same at the end felt kind of useless after his face off with Matakara. Added to that, the genie lore that doesn't make sense even with the great metaphor of being a Honki person and some plot holes here and there that are hard to look past. It almost feels like the people working on this project were not fully invested in developing the world more or the characters, just enough to keep the audience guessing. For me it was like eating something good but lacking in seasoning. I wanted more SEASONING, and not just salt and pepper (ok I'll stop with this analogy 😂) but yeah something more consistent.

I didn't expect something incredible though, so in terms of ending it did do the job and overall gave us something more than satisfying for what it was.

I had fun watching Bucchigiri and getting involved in the fandom! Though I have conflicted feelings about this show, it made me watch until the end so that means they did a good job making the audience interested and see its potential.

If there is a season 2, I would probably check it out of curiosity, but I think it'd be better to just end on this note and move on...

[blackstarising]

coming back to this post i made again to elaborate - especially as the ted lasso fandom is discussing sam/rebecca and fandom racism in general. there are takes that are important to make that i had failed to previously, but there's also a growing amount of takes that i have to, As A Black Person™, respectfully disagree with.

tl;dr for the essay below sam being infantilized and the sam/rebecca relationship are not the same issue and discussing the former one doesn't mean excusing the latter. and we've reached the glen of the Dark Forest where we sit down and talk about fandom racism.

i should have elaborated this in my last post about sam/rebecca, but i didn't. i'll say it now - i personally don't support sam and rebecca getting together for real. i believe what people are saying is entirely correct, even though sam is an adult legally, he and rebecca are, at the very least, two wildly different stages of life. for americans, he's at the equivalent of being a junior in college. there are things he hasn't gotten the chance to experience and there are areas he needs to grow in. when i was younger, i didn't understand the significance of these age gaps, i just thought it would be fine if it was legal, but as someone who is now a little older than sam in universe, i understand fully. we can't downplay this. whether or not you think sam works for rebecca or not, even despite the gender inversion of the Older Man Younger Woman trope, whether or not he is a legal adult, i don't think at this point in time, their relationship would work. i think it's an interesting narrative device, but i don't want to see it play out in reality.

that being said!

what's worrying me is that two discussions are being conflated here that shouldn't be. sam having agency and being a little more grown™ than he's perceived to be does not suddenly make his relationship with rebecca justified. i had decided to bring it up because sam was being brought into the spotlight again and i was starting to realizing that his infantilization was more common than i felt comfortable with.

sam's infantilization (and i will continue to call it that), is a microaggression. it's is in the range of microaggressions that i would categorize as 'fandom overcompensation'. we have a prominent character of color that exhibits traits that aren't stereotypical, and we don't want to appear racist or stereotypical, so we lean hard in the other direction. they're not aggressive, they're a Sweet Baby, they're not world weary, they're now a little naive. they're not cold and distant, they're so nice and sweet that there's no one that wouldn't want approach them, and yeah, on their face, these new traits are a departure and, on their face, they seem they look really good.

but at a certain point, it reaches an inflection point, and, like the aftertaste of a diet coke, that alleged sweetness veers into something a lot less sweet. it veers into a lack of agency for the character. it veers into an innocence that appears to indicate that the person can't even take care of themselves. it veers into a one-dimensional characterization that doesn't allow for any depth or negative emotion.

it's not kind anymore. it's not a nice departure from negative stereotypes. it's not compensating for anything.

it's patronizing.

it is important that we emphasize that characters of color are more than the toxic stereotypes we lay on them, yes, but we make a mistake in thinking that the solution is overcorrection. for one thing, people of color can usually tell. don't get it twisted, it's actually pretty obvious. for another, it just shifts from one dimension to another. people of color are still supposed to be Only One Character Trait while white people can contain multitudes. ted, who is pretty much as pollyanna as they come, can be at once innocent and naive and deep and troubled and funny and scared. jamie can be a prick and sexy and also lonely and also a victim of abuse. sam, however, even though he was bullied (by jamie, no less), is thousands of miles away from home, and has led a protest on his team, is usually just characterized as human sunshine with much less acknowledgement of any other traits beyond that.

and that's why i cringe when fandom calls sam a Sweet Baby Boy without any sense of irony. is that all we're taking away? after all this time? even for a comedy, sam has received a substantive of screen time over two whole seasons, and we've seen a range of emotions from him. so as a black person it's hurtful that it's boiled down to Sweet Baby Boy.

that's the problem. we need to subvert stereotypes, but more importantly, we need to understand that people of color are not props, or pieces of cardboard for their white counterparts. they are full and actualized and have agency in their own right and they can have other emotions than Angry and Mean or Sweet and Bubbly without any nuance between the two. i think the show actually does a relatively good job of giving sam depth (relatively, always room for improvement, mind you), especially holding it in tension with his youth, but the fandom, i worry, does not.

it's the same reason why finn from star wars started out as the next male protagonist in the sequel trilogy but by the third movie was just running around yelling for REY!! it's the same reason why when people make Phase 4 Is the Phase For Therapy gifsets for the mcu and show wanda maximoff, loki, and bucky barnes crying and being sad but purposefully exclude sam wilson who had an entire show to tell us how difficult his life is, because people find out if pee oh sees are also complex, they'll tell the church.

and the reason why i picked up on this very early on is because i am an organic, certified fresh, 100% homegrown, non-gmo, a little ashy, indigenous sub saharan African black person. the ghanaian tribes i'm descended from have told me so, my black ass parents have told me so, and the nurses at the hospital in [insert asian country here] that started freaking out about how curly my hair was as my mother was mid pushing me out told me so!

and this stuff has real life implications. listen: being patronized as a black person sucks. do you know how many times i was patted on the back for doing quite honestly, the bare minimum in school? do you know how many times i was told how 'well spoken' or 'eloquent' i was because i just happen to have a white accent or use three syllable words? do you know how many times i've been cooed over by white women who couldn't get over how sweet i was just because i wasn't confrontational or rude like they wrongly expected me to be?

that's why they're called microaggressions. it's not a cross on your lawn or having the n-word spat in your face, but it cuts you down little by little until you're completely drained.

so that's the nuance. that's the subversion. the overcompensation is not a good thing. and people of color (and i suspect, even white people) have picked up on, in general, the different ways fandom treats sam and dani and even nate. what all of these discussions are converging on is fandom racism, which is not the diet form of racism, but another place for racism to reveal itself. and yeah, it's uncomfortable. it can seem out of left field. you may want to defend yourself. you may want to explain it away. but let me tap the sign on the proverbial bus:

if you are a white person, or a person of color who is not part of that racial group, even, you do not get to decide what is not racist for someone. full stop. there are no exceptions. there is no exit clause for you. there is no 'but, actually-'. that right wasn't even yours to cede or waive.

(it's also important to note that people of color also have the right to disagree on whether something is racist, but that doesn't necessarily negate the racism - it just means there's more to discuss and they can still leave with different interpretations)

people don't just whip out accusations of racism like a blue eyes white dragon in a yu-gi-oh duel. it's not fun for us. it's not something we like to do to muzzle people we don't want to engage with. and we're not concerned with making someone feel bad or ashamed. we're exposing something painful that we have to live with and, even worse, process literally everything we experience through. we can't turn it off. we can't be 'less sensitive' or 'less nitpicky'. we are literally the primary resources, we are the proverbial wikipedia articles with 3,000 sources when it comes to racism. who else would know more than us?

what 2020 has shown us very clearly is that racism is systemic. it's not always a bunch of Evil White Men rubbing their hands together in a dark room wondering how they're going to use the 'n-word' today. it's systemic. it's the way you call that one neighborhood 'sketchy'. it's how you use 'ratchet' and 'ghetto' when describing something bad. it's how you implicitly the assume the intelligence of your friend of color. it's the way you turned up your nose and your friend's food and bullied them for it in middle school but go to restaurants run by white people who have 'uplifted' it with inauthentic ingredients. it's telling someone how Well Spoken and Eloquent they are even though you've both gone to the same schools and work at the same workplace. it's the way you look down at some people of color for having a different body type than you because they've been redlined to neighborhoods where certain foods and resources are inaccessible, and yet mock up the racial features that appeal to you either through makeup or plastic surgery.

it's how when a person of color behaves badly, they're irredeemable, but a white person performing the same act or something similar is 'having a bad day' or 'isn't normally like this' or 'has room to grow' and we can't 'wait for their redemption arc', and yes, i'm not going to cover it in detail in this post but yes this is very much about nate. other people have also brought up the nuances in his arc and compared them to other white characters so i won't do it here.

these behaviors and reactions aren't planned. they aren't orchestrated. they're quite literally unconscious because they've been lovingly baked into western society for centuries. you can't wake up and be rid of it. whether you intended it or not, it can still be racist.

and it's actually quite hurtful and unfair to imply that concerns about racism in the TL fandom are unfounded or lacking any depth or simply meant to be sensational because you simply don't agree with it. i wish it was different, but it doesn't work that way. i'm not raising this up to 'call out' or shame people, but i'm adding to this discussion because, through how we talk about sam, and even dani and nate, i'm yet again seeing a pattern that has shortchanged people of color and made them feel unwelcome in fandom for far too long.

coach beard said it best: we need to do better.

[autisticcassandracain]

ok disclaimer I’m new here and it’s completely possible that I missed some comic that refutes all I’m saying here but like. I just really cannot get over how bad of an identity Black Bat is. I just CANNOT get over it.

It’s not that I hate the idea of Cass moving on from the Batgirl mantle and going solo or anything, far from it! I think legacy mantles like Batgirl are (generally) made to be passed on, and I think that Cass realizing that she doesn’t need it anymore and is ready to strike out and create her own identity could be a really meaningful arc. It’s just. That the way that was done in canon is. Not It. I’m not gonna get into that because that’s a whole different rant I feel even less qualified to make but it sure doesn’t help me like the Black Bat identity for her.

but even separately from the way she acquired it, the Black Bat identity is bland and says little to nothing about Cass. Like, let’s do a rundown of the other major solo batfam identities (minus Red Robin bc I know precisely nothing about Tim): 

Nightwing: as stated by Dick himself in The New Teen Titans: “What’s strange is that both name and costume are based on other people... both mentors... and friends.” Nightwing is a merging of all the people who have made Dick into who he is, most prominently Batman, who trained him and helped him get the skills he needed, and Superman, who gave him his name. While he costume has changed over the years, it’s maintained a sleek, skin-tight look that’s perfect for doing acrobatics in, which is Dick’s signature. 

Oracle: created when writers tried to fridge her and the Joker shot her, Oracle is one of the few disabled superheroes and is a perfect fit for it. ‘Oracle’ as a name immediately conjures up associations with oracles from ancient Greek myth, so it works extremely well with Oracle’s focus on technology, both in the sense that it subverts the expected aesthetic, and that it accurately describes her role as mastermind and information gatherer. It shows off Barbara’s smarts and ingenuity.

Red Hood: was created after Jason came back from the dead and decided to cause problems on purpose, and it shows. Jason took a former alias of his murderer and made it his own, both reclaiming his trauma and signaling his change from morally good to morally gray/bad (depending on writer/interpretation). His main weapon is guns, specifically chosen to signal his opposition to what Batman stands for.

Spoiler: created in opposition to Stephanie’s supervillain dad, Cluemaster. The name ‘Spoiler’ makes a lot of sense when you remember its origins in ‘spoiling’ her father’s plans, and stands out for that reason. Her costume is maximized to preserve her identity, which again, ties back to her origins. 

Signal: a name that ties back to Duke’s mother’s saying that the morning is the best time to see things clearly. As Duke said in Batman & The Signal: “She considered herself the first knight on the battlefield (...) and another word for the first knight out there is... ‘Signal’.” Duke has a unique place in the batfamily as both the first meta and the first daytime hero, and everything about his solo identity reflects that, from the name tying back to the morning light to the bright yellow in his costume. 

As you can see, all of these identities tie back to at least some aspect of the character they’re embodied by. They tell us something about their goals for their superhero persona, about the character’s personality and/or backstory, etc. Even in the event that Red Robin is a garbage identity (which tbh just going by the name I think it very well might be but again, I know nothing about Tim), that still leaves the vast majority of solo identities saying something about the person who created them.

But Black Bat? What does that tell me about Cass? Her costume design isn’t bad, but it’s pretty standard and not extremely unique (except for her cool cape, I’ll give it that). All the name tells me is that 1) she’s kinda edgy, maybe and 2) she’s part of the batfamily. That’s it. That’s literally all it does. 

Black Bat is very obviously an identity that wasn’t the result of someone sitting down and honestly thinking what solo identity would fit Cass the best; it’s the result of someone haphazardly slapping a solo identity onto Cass so that Stephanie could be Batgirl. 

so yeah TL;DR I think Black Bat is a bad identity because it’s generic and tells you little to nothing about Cass. 

[my-mt-heart]

TWD 10x21 “Diverged” Review

This episode has previously been described as TWD's version of Breaking Bad's "The Fly," and that's completely fair in the sense that we only see Daryl and Carol, plus Jerry and Dog, doing mundane activities throughout. But that comparison, basically intended to reduce "Diverged" to uninteresting filler, overlooks an emotional journey that quite frankly, you really have to be invested in Carol's and Daryl's relationship to appreciate. No, it doesn't move the needle too much (I never thought it would), and at times feels a little too light for my personal taste. Still, one who looks closely enough can find something good in an otherwise "nothing" episode and friends, I found a whole god damn treasure trove. Pirate reference intended.

If the end of Find Me subverted our expectations of how Daryl and Carol interact with each other, then the opening minutes of Diverged subvert that previous subversion. By that I mean the two aren’t starting in a place of anger or resentment coming off of their fight. There’s an emotional distance between them of course, emphasized by a literal stretch of space as they trek forward, doleful music playing in the background.

 However, for someone who seemed so adamant about letting his best friend slip away if she so chose, Daryl sure is quick to lend her a hand, or in this case a knife (that knife) when she can't open her canteen, as well as a ride back to Alexandria. And for someone who already declared their luck had "run out," Carol sounds very disappointed that Daryl isn't accompanying her back home. Then again, maybe it speaks to their maturity that no matter how many times Carol stubbornly refuses Daryl's help or that Daryl needs time alone, they both know they don't actually want to lose each other. Maybe being outside that damn cabin, where loss and hopelessness fester, makes that all the more clear, giving way to feelings of guilt, remorse, and longing. The problem is they can't seem to communicate any of it to each other, not with hurt tones, soft sighs, or glances at the ground. Not even a direct "let me help" from Daryl presents a strong enough opportunity to fix things, to fix them. All that registers is the pushback.

Thus, coming to a fork in the road, they're undoubtedly left thinking they could be permanently divided. Wishing each other good luck in lieu of apologies even sounds like parting words, that is, until you realize what luck actually symbolizes for them. Some say it's a replacement for the love they can't yet express in words, and maybe that's true. Regardless, in "Bonds" and "Find Me," luck is alluded to as an outside force that holds Daryl and Carol together, so it stands to reason the same can apply here. They hope that luck will come through for them in the end and ultimately help them find their way back to each other. Needless to say, that requires some time apart first. Absence makes the heart grow fonder right?

Dog unfortunately and hilariously gets caught in the middle, having to choose which parent to follow. After brief consideration, he goes with Carol, perhaps sensing she's the one who could use his comfort the most. She's the one who's feeling lost and without a place to belong, mirroring Daryl when Dog first met him by the river. Dog's simply acting out of an instinct to protect those who are hurting, but that still doesn't stop Daryl from muttering a salty "nice" as he watches the two of them disappear behind the trees.  

Daryl and Carol may be on their own, but to no surprise, they remain strongly connected on a spiritual level. Both are mission-oriented, relying on a shared coping mechanism that helps them take their minds off of each other, their fight, and their guilt. This causes a regression on some level because we see them taking up their former roles, Daryl the loner and Carol the homemaker. However, it isn't long before they have to come to terms with the fact that things are broken. For Daryl, it's the hose on his bike. For Carol, it's practically everything at Alexandria. They have to fix it all, and in doing so they'll get back to who they really are now and get back to each other. Along the way, they both run into walkers, having to prove to themselves that they are still capable fighters (could the army walkers be foreshadowing the Reapers?). Funnily, they also both resort to talking to themselves and their adversaries -- "later, asshole" -- which emphasizes their feelings of a lost connection...and possibly that they're going a little nuts because of it.  

Visual clues tell us they're definitely still thinking about each other, the most significant of them being that knife. It is a tool Carol makes use of frequently -- fixing the solar panel, chopping mushrooms, and demolishing the wall. Because Daryl gave it to her, he is by extension helping her complete all these tasks, reminding her how much she needs him. And because Daryl is missing the knife to fix his bike, he's reminded of Carol, an even more important piece of him that he’s missing. To paraphrase Angela Kang, the knife speaks to how well they work together. But where does Leah factor in, the knife having originally belonged to her? More on that later.

While Daryl and Carol both have something very dear at stake (each other), the emotional impact lands the hardest on Carol. She feels absolutely broken, and worse, has to see that feeling projected all across Alexandria. She knows she needs to fix something, as she even tells Jerry, but is struggling to figure out what she can do and where she's needed. The rag she picks up and hopes to remove the stains from is nothing but a distraction, hence why she later ends up throwing it away. Some things aren't worth the effort, and she needs to face what really matters.

She settles for making soup for everyone, perhaps thinking it could ease the tension between her and a lot of the residents. Something that seems so simple has its string of problems, the most frustrating of all being a rat that's wreaking havoc and making a big mess. It is a symbol of everything that’s going wrong and preventing life from going back to normal. It occupies so much of Carol's headspace that she's willing to knock out an entire wall to get to it, but to no avail. As anyone could've guessed though, the rat isn't really what matters either.  

 It always comes back to Daryl. His room is the first place she goes upon her return, subconsciously finding an alternate way to be close to him again. She picks up one of his books, "The Golden Age of Piracy." There's a hint of a smile on her face as she peruses the cover, apparently thinking back to when she asked Daryl to run away with her so they could be pirates. It seems as though Daryl started reading that after she planted the idea in his head, and if that's not the sweetest thing, I don't--

Anyways. As we know, Daryl has always been Carol's sounding board, but opening up about him has never been her strong suit. This is where Dog comes in. In an adorable exchange between my new favorite duo, Carol clarifies why she stopped Daryl from apologizing. She sees it as nothing more than a truce. "They don't fix anything, but belly rubs do." Though she may be kidding about that last part, it raises a good point that Daryl and Carol are going to need a lot more than words to mend their relationship. They have to take action to show how much they mean to each other, and for Carol that means trying to belong again, and try she does.

But in my absolute favorite scene in the entire episode, taking place in a dark bedroom, Carol tells her new canine companion about the dark thoughts looming over her. Unlike Daryl, who's strength she undoubtedly admires, who "always comes back," Carol lives in a constant state of fear that the "the fight has gone out of her," and that she should just run away.

It's only after Dog licks her face in an expression of love, that Carol is able to finally say out loud “I miss him too.” She wants Daryl in her life. She wants his love, and thus she will stay put. Her longing for him is further emphasized by the score that plays while she lays in bed and later leans against the broken wall, the wall that represents the state of their relationship, with his dog. It's the same score we hear in "A Certain Doom," after Daryl assures her that she still has him and they hug. Carol may not realize it fully, but sometimes you have to break something all the way down in order to rebuild it stronger than ever.

 Along with Dog, the always lovable Jerry is there to guide Carol. At first, in another sign to Carol that Daryl is always with her in spirit, Jerry echoes Daryl's encouragement that she "always makes it work," and later attempts to regurgitate sayings that Ezekiel would use. But this isn't helpful for Carol. Allowing herself to be vulnerable, though resorting to speaking in second person, she admits to being scared that she really is broken and that Daryl, whom she calls her best friend, finally knows it. This time, Jerry offers up something purely from his own heart. A much needed hug. At the same time, the rat she'd been trying to catch scurries out of the garage, showing Carol that things can get better after all. All she had to do was open the door and accept love. Isn't that what Daryl had been trying to convince her all along?

Sadness is in the air when Daryl and Carol finally meet up again if the song playing in the background is any indication (what is this song by the way? Someone tell me. I need to know). Things are still unresolved. They can both see the other covered in the hell they've been through, but once again communication fails them and they end up going to their respective rooms, lingering as if waiting for the other person to chase them. That's always the problem, isn't it?

One big move Daryl makes, however, is allowing Carol to keep Leah's knife. Though Carol is confused about what the gesture could mean, Daryl is trying to show her that he's ready to part with the piece of Leah he took when he was feeling lost. It's become a part of him that he now wants Carol to have as she works to find herself again, which hopefully still leads back to him.

The overall takeaway of this story is exactly what Norman Reedus says. Without each other, Daryl and Carol are "not as capable." We're given a lot of symbols, but it would  have been nice to see them make use of the ones already established and easily recognizable like the double capper. I find it kind of annoying that I always have to watch Talking Dead to pick up on things that end up being really important. Oh, well.

I don't expect to see much if any progression of Carol's and Daryl's story in the finale, which will put them right where you'd expect them to be with each other at the beginning of season 11 if these bonus episodes didn't exist. That's nothing to be too bummed about in my opinion. They still have a lot of healing to do, and when they finally do, it's not going to be sealed with just another hug.

[him-e]

what did you think of shadow and bone? have you read the books? i only read the duology

Thoughts on Shadow and Bone, now that you've probably seen it?

I think the show is alright? It lacks a real wow factor as far as I’m concerned, but it’s enjoyable. It’s especially enjoyable in those parts I didn’t anticipate to like / didn’t even know would be there. 

Whereas the main selling points leave a lot to be desired.

The good stuff: the visuals. The aesthetic. The overall concept. Production, casting and costumes are excellent, the setting is fascinating. The worldbuilding isn’t perfect and is sometimes confusing, which is probably due to the show jumping ahead of the books and introducing elements that happen much later in the book saga, but I’m loving the vague steampunk-y vibe of it mixed with more typical fantasy stuff and slavic-inspired lore, the fact that it’s set in dystopian Russia rather than your usual ye olde England.

I find it interesting that in this ‘verse the Grisha are simultaneously superstars, privileged elite, legendary creatures and despised outcasts, according to the context and the type of magic they wield. It’s A Lot, and so far it’s all a bit underdeveloped and messy, like a patchwork of different narratives and tropes sewn together without an organic worldbuilding structure. (there are hints to a past when they were hunted, but how did they go from that to being, essentially, an institutionalized asset to the government isn’t clear yet. There’s huge narrative potential in this, and I hope future seasons will delve into those aspects)

Many of the supporting characters are surprisingly solid. I appreciated that Genya and Zoya eventually sort of traded places, subverting the audience’s assumptions about them and their own character stereotypes, despite the little screentime they were given.

Breakout characters/ships for me were Nina/Matthias, and even more so the Crows, i.e. the stuff I didn’t see coming and knew nothing about (having only read the first book). (I thought the entire Crows subplot was handled in a somewhat convoluted way, at least in the first episodes; it was hard to keep track of who wanted Alina and why, but the Crows’ chemistry is so strong it carried the whole Plot B on its shoulders).

HELNIK. As an enemies to lovers dynamic, Helnik was SUPER on the nose, I’d say bordering on clichéd with the unapologetic, straight outta fanfiction use of classic tropes like “we need to team up to survive” and “there’s only one bed and we’ll freeze to death if we don’t take our conveniently damp clothes off and keep each other warm with the heat of our naked bodies” (not that I’m complaining, but i like to pine for my ships a bit before getting to the juicy tropetown part, tyvm). And then they’re suddenly on opposite sides again because of a tragic misunderstanding - does Bardugo hate high-conflict dynamics? It certainly seems so, because between Helnik and Darklina I’m starting to see a pattern where the slow burn and blossoming mutual trust is rushed and painted in broad, stereotypical strokes to get as fast as possible to the part where they *hate each other again* and that’s... huh. Something.

^That’s probably why I’m almost more interested in Kaz x Inej, because their relationship feels a bit more nuanced, a bit more mysterious, and a bit more unpredictable. (I didn’t bother spoiling myself about them, so I really don’t know where they’re going, but it’s refreshing to see a dynamic that the narrative isn’t scrambling to define in one direction or the other as quickly as possible)

-

Now, as for Darklina VS Malina... I found exactly what I expected. 

Both are ship dynamics I’m, on principle, very much into (light heroine/dark villain, pining friends to lovers) but both are also much less interesting than they claim to be, or could have been with different narrative choices. I’ll concede that the show characters are all more fleshed out and likable than their book counterparts, and the cringe parts I vaguely remembered from the books played out differently. And, well, Ben Barnes dominates the scene, he’s hot as HELL, literally every single second he’s on screen is a fuck you to Bardugo’s attempts to make his character lame and uninteresting and I’m LOVING it, lol.

But yeah, B Barnes aside, Darklina is intrinsically, deliberately made to be unshippable. 

It makes me mad, because it’s - archetypally speaking - made of shipping dynamite: yin/yang-sun and moon, opposites attract, COMPLEMENTARY POWERS AND SO ON. And what does Bardugo do with these ingredients? A FUCKING DELIBERATE DISASTER:

^ Placing the kiss so early on (season 1, episode five) effectively kills the romantic tension that was (correctly) building up until that point, and leaves the audience very little to still hope for, in terms of emotional evolution of the dynamic. 

Bardugo lays all the good stuff down as early and quickly as possible (the bonding, the conflicted attraction, the recognizing the other as one’s equal, etc) only to turn the tables and pull the rug so y’all sick creepyshippers won’t have anything to look forward to, because THEY’VE ALREADY HOOKED UP AND THAT BELONGS TO THE PAST, IT’S OVER, THEY’RE ENEMIES. This, combined to the fact that she falls for him *without* knowing who he really is, is the opposite of what I want from a heroine/villain ship (it’s basically lovers to enemies, and while that can be valid too, I wanted to see more pining and more prolonged, tormented symbolic attraction to the Shadow/Animus on Alina’s part). 

But here’s the trick: it’s not marketed as lovers to enemies - it has all the aesthetics and trappings of an enemies to lovers (the Darkling is, from the get go, villain-presenting, starting from his name), so it genuinely feels like a trollfic, or at the very least a cautionary tale *against* shipping the heroine with the tall dark brooding young villain, and I don’t think it’s cool at all. It makes the story WAY less interesting, because it humanizes the villain early on (when it’s not yet useful or poignant to the story, because it’s unearned) but it’s a red herring. The real plot twist is that the villain shouldn’t be sympathized with, just defeated: there’s a promise of nuanced storytelling, that is quickly denied and tossed aside. So is the idea of incorporating your Shadow (a notion that Bardugo must be familiar with, otherwise she wouldn’t have structured Alina and the Darkling as polar opposites who complement each other, but that she categorically refutes)

Then we have Malina. The good ship.

Look, I’m not that biased against it. I don’t want to be biased on principle against a friends to lovers dynamic that antagonizes a heroine/villain one, because every narrative is different, and for personal reasons I can deeply relate to the idea of being (unspeakably) in love with your best friend. So there are aspects of Malina that I can definitely be into, but it troubles me that in this specific context it’s framed as a regression. It’s Alina’s comfort zone, a fading dream of happiness from an idealized childhood, to sustain which the heroine systematically stunts her growth and literally repressed her own powers, something that in the books made her sickly and weak. But the narrative weirdly romanticizes this codependency, often making her tunnel vision re: going back to Mal her primary goal and centering on him her entire backstory/motivation, to the point that when she starts acting more serious re: her powers and alleged mission to destroy the Fold, it feels inorganic and unearned. 

Mal is intrinsically extraneous to Alina’s powers, he doesn’t share them, he doesn’t understand them, he has little to offer to help her with them, and so the feeling is that he’s also extraneous to her heroine’s journey, aside from being a sort of sidekick or safe harbor to eventually come back to. People have compared him to Raoul from Phantom of the Opera, and yeah, he has the same ~magic neutralizer~ vibe, tbh.

The narrative also polarizes Mal’s normalcy and relative “safety” against Aleksander’s sexy evil, framing Alina’s quasi-platonic fixation on the former as a better and purer form of love than her (much more visible and palpable) attraction to the latter. This is exacerbated by the show almost entirely relying on scenes of them as kids to convey their bond. I’m sure there are ways to depict innocent pining for your best friend that don’t involve obsessively focusing on flashbacks of two CHILDREN running in a meadow and looking exactly like brother and sister. LIKE. I get it, they’re like soulmates in every possible way, BUT DO THEY WANT TO KISS EACH OTHER?

Which brings me to a general complain: for a young adult saga centering on a young heroine and full of so many hot people, this story is weirdly unsexy? There are a lot of shippable dynamics, but they’re done in such a careless, ineffective way that makes ZERO EFFORT to work on stuff like slow burn, pining and romantic tension, and when it does it’s so heavy handed that the viewer doesn’t feel encouraged at all to fill the blanks with their imagination and start anticipating things (which is, imo, the ESSENCE of shipping). The one dynamic that got vaguely close to this is, again, Kaz and Inej, and coincidentally it’s also the one we didn’t get confirmed as romantic YET. Other than that, where’s the slow burn? What ship am I supposed to agonize over during the hiatus to season two? Has shipping become something to feel ashamed of, like an embarrassing relative you no longer want to invite in your home?

Anyway, back to Alina/Darkling/Mal, this is how the story reads to me:

girl suspects to be special, carefully pretends to be normal so she can stay with Good Boy

the girl’s powers eventually manifest; she’s forcibly separated from Good Boy

the girl’s powers attract Bad Boy who is her equal and opposite but is also a major asshole

girl initially falls for Bad Boy; has to learn a hard lesson that nobody that sexy will ever want her for who she is, he’s just trying to exploit her

also, no, there is no such thing as a Power Couple

girl is literally given a slave collar by Bad Boy through which he harnesses her power (a parody of the Twin Scars trope)

you know how the story initially suggested that the joint powers of Darkness and Light would defeat evil? LOL NO, Darkness is actually evil itself and the way you destroy evil is using Light to destroy Darkness, forget that whole Jungian bullshit of integrating your shadow, silly!

conclusion: girl realizes being special sucks. She was right all along! Hiding and suppressing her powers was the best choice! She goes back to the start, to the same Good Boy she was meekly pining for prior to the start of the story.

... there’s an uncomfortable overall subtext that reads a lot like a cautionary tale against - look, not just against darkships and villain/heroine pairings, but also *overpowered* heroines and, well... change? Growth?

Like, it’s certainly a Choice that Alina starts the story *already* in love with Mal. That she always knew it was him. The realization could have happened later (making the dynamic much more shippable, too), but no. 

[usergreenpixel]

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 1: La Seine no Hoshi (1975)

1. Introduction

Well, dear reader, here it is. My first ever official review. And, as promised, this is one of the pieces of Frev media that you have likely never heard of before.

So, without further ado, sit down, relax, grab drinks and snacks and allow me to tell you about an anime called “La Seine no Hoshi” (The Star of the Seine).

“La Seine no Hoshi” is a children’s anime series made by Studio Sunrise. It consists of 39 episodes and was originally broadcast in Japan from April 4th to December 26th of 1975.

Unlike its more famous contemporary, a manga called “Rose of Versailles” that had begun being released in 1972 and is considered a classic to this day, “La Seine no Hoshi” has stayed relatively obscure both in the world of anime and among other Frev pop culture.

Personally, the only reason why I found out about its existence was the fact that I actively seek out everything Frev-related and I just happened to stumble upon the title on an anime forum several years ago.

So far, the anime has been dubbed into Italian, French, German and Korean but there is no English or even Spanish dub so, unfortunately, people who do not speak fluent Japanese or any other aforementioned language are out of luck ( if anyone decides to make a fandub of the series, call me). That being said, the series is readily available in dubs and the original version on YouTube, which is where I ended up watching it. The French dub calls the anime “La Tulipe Noire” (The Black Tulip), which could be an homage to the movie with the same name that takes place in the same time period.

Unfortunately, while I do speak Japanese well enough to maintain a basic conversation and interact with people in casual daily situations, I’m far from fluent in the language so the version I watched was the French dub, seeing as I am majoring in French.

So, with all of this info in mind, let’s find out what the story is about and proceed to the actual review.

2. The Summary

(Note: Names of the characters in the French dub and the original version differ so I will use names from the former since that’s what I watched)

The story of “La Seine no Hoshi” revolves around a 15-year old girl called Mathilde Pasquier - a daughter of two Parisian florists who helps her parents run their flower shop and has a generally happy life.

But things begin to change when Comte de Vaudreuil, an elderly Parisian noble to whom Mathilde delivers flowers in the second episode, takes her under his wing and starts teaching her fencing for an unknown reason and generally seems to know more about her than he lets on.

Little does Mathilde know, those fencing lessons will end up coming in handy sooner than she expected. When her parents are killed by corrupt nobles, the girl teams up with Comte de Vaudreuil’s son, François, to fight against corruption as heroes of the people, all while the revolution keeps drawing near day by day and tensions in the city are at an all time high.

This is the gist of the story, dear readers, so with that out of the way, here’s the actual review:

3. The Story

Honestly, I kind of like the plot. It has a certain charm to it, like an old swashbuckling novel, of which I’ve read a lot as a kid.

The narrative of a “hero of the common folk” has been a staple in literature for centuries so some might consider the premise to be unoriginal, but I personally like this narrative more than “champion of the rich” (Looking at you, Scarlet Pimpernel) because, historically, it really was a difficult time for commoners and when times are hard people tend to need such heroes the most.

People need hope, so it’s no surprise that Mathilde and François (who already moonlights as a folk hero, The Black Tulip) become living legends thanks to their escapades.

Interestingly enough, the series also subverts a common trope of a hero seeking revenge for the death of his family. Mathilde is deeply affected by the death of her parents but she doesn’t actively seek revenge. Instead, this tragedy makes the fight and the upcoming revolution a personal matter to her and motivates her to fight corruption because she is not the only person who ended up on its receiving end.

The pacing is generally pretty good but I do wish there were less filler episodes and more of the overarching story that’s dedicated to the secret that Comte de Vaudreuil and Mathilde’s parents seem to be hiding from her and maybe it would be better if the secret in question was revealed to the audience a bit later than episode 7 or so.

However, revealing the twist early on is still an interesting narrative choice because then the main question is not what the secret itself is but rather when and how Mathilde will find out and how she will react, not to mention how it will affect the story.

That being said, even the filler episodes do drive home the point that a hero like Mathilde is needed, that nobles are generally corrupt and that something needs to change. Plus, those episodes were still enjoyable and entertaining enough for me to keep watching, which is good because usually I don’t like filler episodes much and it’s pretty easy to make them too boring.

Unfortunately, the show is affected by the common trope of the characters not growing up but I don’t usually mind that much. It also has the cliché of heroes being unrecognizable in costumes and masks, but that’s a bit of a staple in the superhero stories even today so it’s not that bothersome.

4. The Characters

It was admittedly pretty rare for a children’s show to have characters who were fleshed out enough to seem realistic and flawed, but I think this series gives its characters more development than most shows for kids did at the time.

I especially like Mathilde as a character. Sure, at first glance she seems like a typical Nice Pretty Ordinary Girl ™️ but that was a part of the appeal for me.

I am a strong believer in that a character does not need to be a blank slate or a troubled jerk to be interesting and Mathilde is neither of the above. She is essentially an ordinary girl with her own life, family, friends, personality and dreams and, unfortunately, all of that is taken away from her when her parents are killed.

Her initial reluctance to participate in the revolution is also pretty realistic as she is still trying to live her own life in peace and she made a promise to her parents to stay safe so there’s that too.

I really like the fact that the show did not give her magic powers and that she was not immediately good at fencing. François does remark that her fencing is not bad for a beginner but in those same episodes she is clearly shown making mistakes and it takes her time to upgrade from essentially François’s assistant in the heroic shenanigans to a teammate he can rely on and sees as an equal. Heck, later there’s a moment when Mathilde saves François, which is a nice tidbit of her development.

Mathilde also doesn’t have any romantic subplots, which is really rare for a female lead.

She has a childhood friend, Florent, but the two are not close romantically and they even begin to drift apart somewhat once Florent becomes invested in the revolution. François de Vaudreuil does not qualify for a love interest either - his father does take Mathilde in and adopts her after her parents are killed so François is more of an older brother than anything else.

Now, I’m not saying that romance is necessarily a bad thing but I do think that not having them is refreshing than shoehorning a romance into a story that’s not even about it. Plus most kids don’t care that much for romance to begin with so I’d say that the show only benefits from the creative decision of not setting Mathilde up with anyone.

Another interesting narrative choice I’d like to point out is the nearly complete absence of historical characters, like the revolutionaries. They do not make an appearance at all, save for Saint-Just’s cameo in one of the last episodes and, fortunately, he doesn’t get demonized. Instead, the revolutionary ideas are represented by Florent, who even joins the Jacobin Club during the story and is the one who tries to get Mathilde to become a revolutionary. Other real people, like young Napoleon and Mozart, do appear but they are also cameo characters, which does not count.

Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI are exceptions to the rule.

(Spoiler alert!)

Marie-Antoinette is portrayed as kind of spoiled and out of touch. Her spending habits get touched on too but she is not a malicious person at heart. She is simply flawed. She becomes especially important to the story later on when Mathilde finds out the secret that has been hidden from her for her entire life.

As it turns out, Marie- Antoinette, the same queen Mathilde hated so much, is the girl’s older half-sister and Mathilde is an illegitimate daughter of the Austrian king and an opera singer, given to a childless couple of florists to be raised in secret so that her identity can be protected.

The way Marie-Antoinette and Mathilde are related and their further interactions end up providing an interesting inner conflict for Mathilde as now she needs to reconcile this relationship with her sister and her hatred for the corruption filling Versailles.

The characters are not actively glorified or demonized for the most part and each side has a fair share of sympathetic characters but the anime doesn’t shy away from showing the dark sides of the revolution either, unlike some other shows that tackle history (*cough* Liberty’s Kids comes to mind *cough*).

All in all, pretty interesting characters and the way they develop is quite realistic too, even if they could’ve been more fleshed out in my opinion.

5. The Voice Acting

Pretty solid. No real complaints here. I’d say that the dub actors did a good job.

6. The Setting

I really like the pastel and simple color scheme of Paris and its contrast with the brighter palette of Versailles. It really drives home the contrast between these two worlds.

The character designs are pretty realistic, simple and pleasant to watch. No eyesores like neon colors and overly cutesy anime girls with giant tiddies here and that’s a big plus in my book.

7. The Conclusion

Like I said, the show is not available in English and those who are able to watch it might find it a bit cliché but, while it’s definitely not perfect. I actually quite like it for its interesting concept, fairly realistic characters and a complex view of the French Revolution. I can definitely recommend this show, if only to see what it’s all about.

Some people might find this show too childish and idealistic, but I’m not one of them.

I’m almost 21 but I still enjoy cartoons and I’m fairly idealistic because cynicism and nihilism do not equal maturity and, if not for the “silly” idealism, Frev itself wouldn’t happen so I think shows like that are necessary too, even if it’s just for escapism.

If you’re interested and want to check it out, more power to you.

Anyway, thank you for attending the first ever official meeting of the Jacobin Fiction Convention. Second meeting is coming soon so stay tuned for updates.

Have a good day, Citizens! I love you!

- Citizen Green Pixel

[cherishedproperty]

I’ve seen a few posts recently about ‘topping from the bottom’ and they all seem to insinuate that being told you are topping from the bottom is a bad thing. Perhaps this is because I am a switch but I’ve never really seen it that way. Why would it be considered a negative attribute/bad thing?

Topping from the bottom is an often misused and often maligned term. It can be used to manipulate submissives into complying with things they didn’t agree to and aren’t comfortable with. It can also be used to describe legitimate attempts to subvert the power dynamic. So let’s be clear...

What counts as topping from the bottom:

Topping from the bottom is when a submissive takes control of a situation or decision, either telling or pressuring a Dominant into doing what the submissive wants. It has a connotation of disrespect for the dynamic and for the Dominant. Sometimes it’s direct (“you should hit me with the flogger”) and sometimes it’s indirect and manipulative (“I didn’t even feel that...I guess you can’t hit me hard enough”). This undermines the power exchange and hinders the Dominant’s ability to lead. How can you make decisions if your submissive comes in and tells you to do it differently?

What does NOT count as topping from the bottom:

Expressing your needs. I’ve seen Dominants accuse submissives of topping from the bottom because they said they had a need for something. Submissives should be allowed and encouraged to share their needs with their Dominants. Now, there’s a time and a place. The middle of a scene is not the right time to make an ultimatum. And it also must be done respectfully, whatever that entails in your dynamic. But I once saw a submissive accused of topping from the bottom because she told her Dominant she needed aftercare. He told her that wasn’t her decision to make and that she was topping from the bottom. That is 100% not topping from the bottom. 

Holding boundaries firm. You cannot top from the bottom in areas where you haven’t agreed to give up power. I once dated a Dominant who wanted to establish a new rule when we’d only been dating a few weeks. When I told her I wasn’t ready to agree to that rule, she told me I was topping from the bottom. Topping from the bottom only applies to areas where the submissive has already agreed the Dominant is in control.

Obviously, this depends a lot on the kind of power exchange we’re talking about. A 24/7 established D/s dynamic is going to define topping from the bottom somewhat differently than casual play or a negotiated scene. But unless you’ve agreed to switch roles fluidly, I think there has to be some expectation that the Dominant will lead and the submissive will follow. When submissives try to jump in and take over, it muddies the well-defined edges of the dynamic. “You can lead me until I have a better idea than you do” isn’t really a great way to handle power exchange for most people.

I think it’s always good for couples to explicitly state the expectations for how to handle a difference of opinion, a desire or a suggested course of action. My current Dominant wants me to share all of those things in the moment, and he reserves the right to say yes or no. A former Dominant wanted these things set aside and discussed on a particular day, unless they were time sensitive. Either way, these things will come up. It’s important to have a plan for how to address them so they don’t come across as disrespectful or undermining the dynamic. 

[piracytheorist]

A ridiculously needed defense of Mia Winters

(and I say ridiculously because I don't particularly care for her as a character. But I care for Ethan, and I care that he went through so much shit to save her and never gave up or even thought to, so by extension Mia needs to make sense to me so I need to have a clear image of her in my mind to justify Ethan's ridiculously brave actions in re7, and his devotion to her in re8. But also because my experience watching the show Once Upon a Time and engaging with its fandom has taught me to not hate on characters when they're not fully fleshed out and their bad actions are not adequately explained, especially when said characters are women written by men. And considering that Ethan himself is not fully fleshed out in re7 either, it's no wonder Mia's character is suffering)

So. I'm not here to tell people they're wrong to hate or even just dislike or distrust Mia. That's not my point. But if you do continue to read after the title, you're checking in on your own accord. And my main gripe with people hating on Mia is that they seem to dislike her character when the game itself didn't give much of a good basis on her character in the first place. So yeah, being a woman myself and having seen how fandoms work, I do tend to get a little pissed when people (no matter their gender) are so ready to hate on female characters for no good reason.

Now, I'm not saying Mia is a saint, far from it. RE7 makes clear she holds a lot of the responsibility for what happened, and she even accepts that. But she's also been given redeeming qualities, if you're willing to look for them.

The first glimpse we get of Mia is of her sending a happy message to Ethan, then immediately after we see her admit her wrong and warn him to stay away from her. There's a reason we even get the second video, and that's called setting. The writers wanted Mia to be shown as protective over Ethan while also accepting responsibility from the very first moment - and it's something that repeats itself when we do find her. She apparently has no idea she asked Ethan to come, she self-harms in an effort to stop hurting him, and even through Eveline's control she manages to tell him to leave her.

(like idk why people take lightly the fact that she fucking banged her head on a wall, giving herself a concussion, all in an effort to protect Ethan from what she knew she had turned into but leave it to a fandom to underplay self-harm I guess)

But that's only from the beginning, and from the confused POV of Ethan and a first time player. In Mia's flashback, we see that she'd been given orders that should Eveline get out of control, she had to be eliminated. Now, Eveline had grown fond of Mia, and she was super powerful herself. Taking a powerful being on your side and using them to be on top? That's a super villain origin story if I ever heard one. But Mia doesn't even consider it, from the first moment that civilians are getting in danger, she's ready to eliminate Eveline.

And that's when the first holes start appearing. For what kinds of wars did Mia know that Eveline was made for? How long had she been working with The Connections? Was it before or after marrying Ethan? How did they approach her? How did they know she'd be okay with making a bioweapon to assist in wars? And as herself, how deep was she willing to go in terms of human experimentation?

That's all stuff we have no way of knowing, and frankly any answer, from one extreme to the other, can be assumed. For all we know The Connections approached her, and before she had even realized she was assisting them in creating Eveline. So in general I feel it's kinda unbased to jump on the Mia Hating Train so easily when there's so much missing from the whole story.

Though again, I’m not here to tell people what to like and what not to like. It’s just that I feel there’s a bit too much focus on how Mia is such a horrible person and the true villain of the story and like, it’s getting super tiring, entering fandoms and seeing people being so fucking pissed at some characters. Like, ok. You can’t like everything. But it feels like some people are trying to make that everyone else’s problem.

And the victim blaming is not helping, either. People say all of what happened in re8 is Mia’s fault because she didn’t tell Ethan the truth about what he is, and like. Are we fucking serious. Like I see people call Chris dumb for not explaining the story to Ethan from the beginning, and how it could’ve made things much more simpler if he had, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone call him the villain of the story (if anything because without him being cryptic we wouldn’t have had the story in the first place). He had his reasons to be cryptic, and if you pause your hate train for a moment, you’ll realize Mia had her reasons as well. We don’t know how long she knew that Ethan was all mold - she wasn’t even conscious during the moment Jack killed Ethan in the first place to see how serious the injury was. For all we knew she only noticed while being pregnant with Rose, or after she was born - so we can’t really blame her for not speaking up. If anything, considering she did realize it and still she stayed with him and knew he and his feelings mattered (”We matter, Ethan! You matter!”) is a big thing. She also seemed to want to tell him, but like, how do you even begin such a discussion? Ethan also saw that she was troubled; you can’t convince me that they were like this, with Ethan knowing she was holding something from him, and Mia knowing and knowingly having a child with him who would definitely be infected by Mold, for three fucking years.

Like at some point you start going like “They can’t have shown us such a fucking toxic relationship and expected us to feel sad for Mia at the end.” But like, people do believe that yes they intended them to be so toxic and Mia to be such a horrible person and for us to just shrug at it, so of course they would blame everything on Mia and not like, idk, Miranda, who was actually the one actively harming the entire Winters family. Or that Rose getting kidnapped was because Mia had been working with The Connections, and that’s how Miranda found out about her, and I’m like, y’all can’t separate butterfly effect from actual blame, can you? Ethan and Mia decided to have a kid two whole years after the Baker incident - when they felt they were safe, on the clear from whatever could be chasing them. They were on witness protection, the newspaper Ethan looks at in the beginning says that Ethan and Mia’s whereabouts are unknown; they were understandably feeling safe to move on with their lives, until someone from The Connections found where Mia was, and through them Miranda was able to learn about Rose. That’s an entirely different concept from Mia being careless or carrying the entire blame for Rose getting kidnapped or Ethan being self-sacrificingly determined to save her. But of course, let’s hate on Mia and then seriously ship Ethan with the villains because they have redeeming qualities and Mia doesn’t ig

I don’t know. Maybe I’m a bit too jumpy of people hating on female characters. But on the other hand, it says a lot that I don’t really care much for Mia or her character, so it’s not like I feel defensive because my fave is receiving hate. If anything, Ethan is my fave, he gets much more uncalled-for hate and I just shrug that off because who gives a fuck about them haters right. But with Ethan... I feel that the hate he receives is mostly because he subverted expectations; he’s not your average trained badass who knows what he’s doing and remains calm through anxious situations, he’s the exact opposite, and people hate on him for not being the former like... you’re missing the entire point of Ethan purposefully being clueless, panicking, saying cringy-ass quips, and honestly, your fucking loss lmao. With Mia, it feels like people choose to see the worst in her when there aren’t too many things to see. And knowing stuff about the world of gaming, it’s fucking telling. In the world of fandom, that’s just fucking annoying. I hate stuff too. But after a certain point you learn to not make your biases everybody else’s problem. Or at least you should. What would I know, being here hoping fandoms could be calmer places.

[nemesisvariant]

Willy’s Wonderland Review

look okay I don’t review movies. Sometimes I do a half assed live reaction, but this is different. I just watched the best movie I’ve seen in AWHILE and I certainly didn’t expect it to be Willy’s Wonderland.

This movie stars Nicholas Cage as ‘the Janitor’, the film’s silent protagonist (this film is art I won’t even call it a movie). He rolls through this random small town in the middle of nowhere, and runs into some definitely-not-manufactured-by-the-police car trouble. Now $1000 in debt, the Janitor must spend the night in Willy’s Wonderland, an abandoned pizzeria which was closed after a series of brutal ‘accidents’ and a dark past. His job is to restore the restaurant to its former glory before daylight, but little does he know, the animatronics inside are out for blood.

Now I know what you’re thinking; this is Five Nights at Freddie’s. This is a fnaf ripoff. And I would’ve thought that too! In fact, that’s why I watched it in the first place, in hopes of a ‘bad scary movie night’ with the boys. And while it has similar elements to this game series, I can say with certainty that Willy’s Wonderland is its own beast, and subverts the many tropes and story beats of fnaf and other media of the genre.

For example, one way it differs is by having, get this, a truly competent protagonist. To explain exactly how, I gotta get into spoiler territory, so proceed with caution.

So, competence. The Janitor has this in spades. I cannot stress this enough. When faced with these supernaturally possessed animatronic creatures that have been massacring people for the past many years, he doesn’t do what one would initially think, turning this into a typical ‘survive the night’ flick and avoiding the threat at all cost. Instead he, to put it simply, goes hog wild and dismantles them, piece by piece, often with his bare hands. Fatalities straight out of mortal combat, oil being flung through the air, metal spines being removed. It’s sincerely a joy to witness.

But even more than that, the Janitor is, at least for me, extremely compelling. We don’t get much- any, actually- background on this character, so we can only speculate why he does what he does, or why he’s so good at destroying demon robots. He keep his secrets well by not speaking at all throughout the entire film. He has a job to do- restore the restaurant- and he keeps to it, even as he’s being attacked by horrifying Freddie knockoffs. He keeps to a strict routine, taking scheduled breaks even during the midst of a battle to drink a single, specific brand of soda and only focus on restoring and playing an old pinball machine. While he is incredibly powerful in combat, he isn’t invulnerable, being overpowered by the titular Willy the Weasel via usage of loud noises and flashing stimuli.

...so my thought is that the Janitor is an autistic protagonist, but that’s not for me to decide. I do find him to be sympathetic and far easier to root for than many other horror protagonists (and I am talking about a lot of B movie horror here, I know plenty of good shit has come out in recent years), but these traits also make me really kinda relate to him. I want him to succeed, and he does! And his victories feels earned!

There are other characters, of course. Most of these fall more into typical horror genre cliches, such as a group of... high school seniors? College age kids? Hard to say. Anyway, they’re basically just the cast of Until Dawn. Not a slight on them, but they do fit nicely into pre-established horror tropes. Especially when two of them start fucking in the murder cult room. Classic.

However, that being said, these cliches almost feel intentional and acknowledged in their absurdity. They dismiss and act casually around animatronics until they get killed, even as one is staring at them having sex and inching ever closer. One kid, who I haven’t bothered to learn the name of, gets immediately tricked by one of the animatronics and dies. The police are useless and even complicit, this is all stuff we’ve seen and know. Except, with the addition of Nicholas Cage’s character to the scene, we get a whole new genre of absurdity; anti-horror.

Now, the parts of this movie played as straight horror are fantastic as well. Some of the effects might fall a little short, but the ones that do are during combat and I was distracted by the action, so I didn’t mind. The animatronic effects were incredible and legitimately unsettling at points (if yall watched this and recall the fairy girl? yeah she freaked me out a little, no lie). The cinematography might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I legitimately enjoyed it. This movie had a style and boy did it run with it.

So... anyway, go watch Willy’s Wonderland. You won’t regret it, seriously.

[skullhaver]

It's 2021, and I'm watching Buffy for the first time.

The Virgil on my Buffy journey is my long-distance girlfriend, who has loved the show for years. We just finished season 4, and I wanted to write about my favorite episodes so far. I suspect some of my faves are beloved by most fans, but others are weird, personal picks. Buffy fandom, please don't come for me.

I thought this post would be short but I was wrong.

Hono(u)rable Mentions: "Band Candy" S3E6 and "Halloween" S2E6

Both these episodes have fun premises where the Scoobies run around Sunnydale after it was upended by zany, chaotic dark forces. "Band Candy" is fun for devil-may-care teen Giles. "Halloween" is fun for 18th-century-ditz Buffy. These are both very good, and are the sorts of episode I can imagine happily rewatching in the future. I just have more to pontificate upon for the other episodes on this list.

10. "Ted" S2E11

I can’t say I enjoyed this episode, but it did take me for a wild ride. Probably nobody else has strong feelings about this weird story where Buffy's mom dates a stereotypical cheesy family man, who turns out to be a controlling abuser, who turns out to be a robot. I remember shouting at the screen, "Did Buffy just kill a human man?? Is it okay in the moral logic of this show for Buffy to kill a human if he's a direct physical threat to her??" I knew Buffy would have deeper stories than the monster of the week formula we'd seen so far, but this early in season 2, I had no idea when or how that would happen. This was the episode that finally taught me that Buffy is largely not interested in moral ambiguity, or in exploring what it means to be good or bad. Except for season-defining exceptions like Faith and Angel, evil characters are simplistically, essentially evil. But it was wild to believe for a moment that Buffy murdered her mom's abusive boyfriend and would have to live with the consequences.

9. "Helpless" S3E12

When Buffy tries to be genuinely scary, it succeeds with aplomb. The premise of this episode is dumb and contrived ("Giles has to remove Buffy's powers without her knowledge for a seeeecret test by the Watcher's Council") but the chase and fight in this episode are some of the most tense and spooky scenes of the whole series so far. Buffy's vulnerability makes the stakes feel real in a way few other episodes manage. And Buffy's victory is all the more satisfying because she can't punch her way out of this problem, she has to be smart and creative. The fridge horror, of course, is that Giles would endanger her like this in the first place, but that gets sorted out over the emotional arc of the next few episodes.

8. "I Only Have Eyes For You." S2E19

Another spooky episode, this one a classic ghost story of forbidden love ending in murder - but with the twist that the ghosts possess people's bodies to have them reenact their final moments. I love stories about breaking a doomed-to-repeat cycle. I love weird shit like the snakes manifesting in the cafeteria. And I really loved the choice to have Buffy and Angel come to understand their feelings about their own relationship by embodying these ghosts - especially how they embodied different genders than their own to better fit the "roles" of the haunting story, thus subverting the expected pattern. I found this episode clever, poignant, and effective.

7. "Who Are You?" S4E16

"Faith and Buffy switch bodies" is a wild premise, but the real joy of "Who Are You?" is watching Sarah Michelle Geller being an extremely talented actress for 45 minutes, portraying a totally different character. Watching Faith confronted by kindness and love from Buffy's mom, Riley, and her friends, then getting launched into an existential crisis over it is so great. Also, I just dig a good church fight.

6. "Hush" S4E10

As stated above, love an episode that reminds me that these people are talented actors! Featuring demons that render all of Sunnydale unable to talk, we get to watch great physical comedy right next to tense, silent fight scenes. The visual creepiness of the Gentleman and their straight-jacketed weird little helpers is hard to beat. "Hush" is such a clever episode that it ascends monster of the week status to become almost Twilight Zone-esque. Also, for the first time, Buffy sees Riley doing his Initiative thing, and Riley sees Buffy being the Slayer, but they can't talk about it?? That's good shit.

5. "The Wish" S3E9

Both "Something Blue" and "The Wish" feel like the writers decided to use fanfic premises on their own show... so obviously I like them a lot. But getting to watch a dark timeline AU with interesting world-building and attention to detail, a hilarious and horrifying Cordelia POV, AND a smirking kinky vampire Willow? Hello?? And the fact that the Wishverse comes up again in "Doppelgänger" (another truly fun episode) only improves my opinion. I imagine this is the kind of episode fans simply love coming back to.

4. "Restless" S4E22

This David Lynch-ass dream sequence was a weird choice for a season finale, but an extremely ambitious and cool episode. I should say up front that I love David Lynch-ass dream shit. There were creative and well-executed scene transitions as characters moved seamlessly from one dream room into another. Several memorably neat shots - Willow running between endless curtains as she tries to get onstage, Buffy alone in a vast desert with a weirdly high camera angle. And I got myself all excited thinking that the First Slayer would maybe become a different kind of antagonist - maybe not even fully revealed in this episode, or maybe an Id-like aspect of Buffy herself. But I forgot Whedon gonna Whedon, so the First Slayer had to be someone Buffy could punch in the end. And the First Slayer is sadly yet another primitive-themed, emotionally-stunted character of color for this show. Most of her lines in this episode are literally voiced by a white woman speaking for her, and of all the dumb quips to make, Buffy had a line about her hair being unprofessional? Also, I'm a lesbian, so the fact that the most explicit act of intimacy between Willow and Tara this show has allowed us to see occurs in Xander's horny dream sequence... it’s unforgivable, Joss. This episode was one of my favorites ever, deeply marred by some bad writing choices.

3. "Lovers Walk" S3E8

Spike, perhaps the best non-Willow character in this show, is back in Sunnydale, a hilariously heartbroken mess of a man, hell-bent on getting his former girlfriend Drusilla back. (Drusilla left him for a fungus demon.) So Spike breaks into a magic shop to get ingredients for a love spell, where he runs into Willow, who is getting ingredients for a de-lusting spell, because she is worried she and Xander will be too thirsty to behave appropriately in public with their actual partners, Oz and Cordelia. This is a hilarious moment just to exist. This is all the episode needed to do to satisfy me. But the fact that Spike then kidnaps Willow, and it ends with tragic stakes of everyone's relationships coming apart, not to mention me genuinely thinking Cordelia was dead for a minute there - wow. Chef’s kiss. The episode is balanced shockingly well between Spike being an ominous villain, and being the sort of lovable semi-evil (more gremlin-like) side character he'll become in season 4. What a wild ride.

2. "Graduation Day" S3E21-22

I'm counting this two part season finale as one because it's my list and I'll do what I want. "Graduation Day" feels like a quintessential Buffy episode executed to perfection. It has Buffy reaffirming her position as a moral heroine, sacrificing her own blood to save Angel's life even when she thought she had to kill Faith to save him. It has Buffy and Faith (or Buffy/Faith, as I prefer to think of them) getting to square off in a dramatic, tough fight. It has a lot of Mayor Wilkins, a character I truly adore for some reason. Nothing like a public administrator who plays mini golf in his office, wants you to chew with your mouth closed, and will kill a graduating class of high schoolers to gain immortality. The catharsis of the whole school getting to fight back against evil, instead of just Buffy against the world - a real joy. This episode misses the top spot for two reasons. "A special vampire poison and the only cure is the blood of a Slayer" is too contrived for me to let slide, and also I had to see Cordelia and Wesley kiss.

1. "Becoming" S2E21-22

Buffy’s season finales really do have good stories and satisfying payoff. First off, Buffy starts this episode by punching a cop and fleeing from the law. Later, Spike also punches a cop. A.k.a., Buffy said blue lives don't matter. Second - I haven't gotten a chance to comment on this yet, but all throughout season 2, evil Angel is such a joy to watch. As regular Angel, David Boreanaz makes exactly one face ("I am a kicked, angsty puppy") and bless his heart, it gets so tiresome. As evil Angel, he is so expressive, dynamic and terrifyingly creative in his badness. And I love his weird threesome energy with Spike and Drusilla. But also, it's so hard to watch Buffy suffer as she deals with her evil boyfriend doing evil things. Her ultimate choice in this episode, to kill Angel even as Willow's spell restores his soul, gave me some real big feels! Also, this episode marks the first moment of Willow doing big, plot-shifting magic on her own, solidifying her transformation from computer nerd to witch! 

Also, shout-out to the many good smaller moments in this episode: Spike making awkward small talk with Buffy's mom, Buffy constantly dunking on Principle Snyder, and Giles being tortured by visions of Miss Calendar (RIP Miss Calendar, I was your biggest fan.)

"Becoming" is an excellent season finale and the kind of Buffy episode I imagine I will want to re-watch in the future just for nostalgia's sake.

[henlp]

Most anime is bad.

It's fair to say anime's success in the West, starting in the 80s-90s but gaining mass recognition and appeal in the 2000s, mostly comes from a wide range of premises for stories told, and how emotional payoffs are (for the most part) earned by the writing, be it hype moments, shocking scenes, or the often-expected bittersweet finale.

However, in spite of these positives, it's very frequent that the story for an anime/manga/novel/game/etc. ends up being bad; and for the longest time, I couldn't figure out exactly why. Even a decade ago, when I was far more lenient and forgiving to the content I consumed (because I had yet to achieve the jaded, joyless state I find myself in <current year>), I could tell something was amiss.

Think I first took notice of this when the era of the Big Three was coming to an end, with One Piece carrying on as Fairy Tail instead took the shovel to the head. Alongside Bleach and Naruto, these three manga series all suffered major issues in their final arcs, so blatant that it became too difficult to accept. Something stank in Denmark Japan, and it made no sense why these (supposedly) good series where floundering as they neared the finish line.

A few years later, with more media under my belt, out came Black Clover. Both my weeb cousin and a good friend had spoken highly of the series, alongside many of the places I used to check for animus, so I watched the OVA... and hated it. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with the pilot for the story, mind you, at that point it was only the screeching from the protagonist that bothered me. When the series proper began, I made the conscious effort to try and power through in spite of the awful first impression, to see what the hype had been about... and I still wasn't seeing it. In fact, the story's erratic and hyperactive pacing, alongside its cheap animation, made it almost impossible for me to watch. Only by virtue of the previously aforementioned hype moments on occasion and the catchy OPs did I stick around long enough for the story to get interesting and for me to have any investment in the characters. It didn't get good, but it had at least become tolerable. Lucky for me AND it, I was still at a point where I wouldn't drop shows as easily.

It wasn't looking good for my outlook in regards to japanese entertainment. Even if I would end up consuming more anime than any western shows (at least animes don't fucking despise their audiences), my eye kept getting more critical, and I kept getting less adventurous, due to several shows disappointing. But I still couldn't figure out why this was. If anime and manga were appealing to me still, why was I less inclined to give 'em a pass, why was I more and more dissatisfied. And then I got my answer in 2021, thanks to two shows: Jujutsu Kaisen and the second anime adaptation of Shaman King.

A story's quality can generally be quantified based on three things: characters, world, and plot. Each informs the other two, and a good story never has one of these working against the others. But it can also happen that all three work in their own right, but not in tandem. A fourth, rarely-considered factor for evaluating story is EXECUTION. So when it comes to anime, manga, novels, games, etc, the problem usually is in execution. You could argue that there are different cultural sensibilities for storytelling in Japan, or corporate factors interjecting themselves in the process; but that would be an explanation, not an excuse. And nowadays, enough japanese creators quote some of their influences as not just being other japanese creators, but also creators from around the globe (past and present). There's not this magical bubble keeping the Land of the Rising Sun ignorant of other types of storytelling and development processes.

So how did I arrive at this conclusion thanks to Jujutsu Kaisen and Shaman King 2021? Both shows suffer terribly when it comes to execution of their stories, although in different ways:

-With Jujutsu Kaisen (at least the anime, I've not read the whole manga), there were several instances where I found myself asking "Did I miss an episode or something?", because you frequently had characters reacting and conducting themselves with one another as if there was a deluge of development between them off-screen. No better example than EmoBangs McGee, who becomes BFFs with the protagonist in less than 5min, later having a fight that was probably meant to be very heart-wrenching, except there was no development for their relation (and powers), so it made no sense for them to act in that fashion (if this is different in the manga, by all means let me know);

-With Shaman King 2021, meanwhile, I was well-familiarized with the characters, the world, and the plot. I knew the main elements of the story, I had in fact rewatched the show in the past decade, and in spite of filler content and Black Sabbath cameos, still remembered it strongly. But as I am watching the new show, the word that comes to mind is "cheap": cheap animation and rushed pacing. Maybe this is due to certain events, or the studio trying to rush past the initial stages of the story, but still. All it had to do was clear the filler, give each scene and character the love and care they needed to make their moments the best they could, and let it go from there. It's been twelve years since FMA Brotherhood, if you're going to be a greedy bitch and redo an anime adaptation, there's no excuse for it to be of such low quality.

As you can see, both failed in execution, with the latter in its new adaptation and the former (possibly) in its original format. When I realized this, suddenly the fog dissipated, and I could see why all those stories had failed: Bleach failed because its power creep and character conflicts were executed horribly; Naruto's atrocious pacing (in both manga and anime) was done solely to extend the story needlessly; Fairy Tail's final arcs (although not only that) dropped the ball because Hiro Mashima was actively trying to ensure there were no sad elements to the story or the end of his characters' arcs; Black Clover‘s poor execution came in how its first few arcs play out, trying to speed up through the world-building, which left most characters too anemic and underdeveloped until far later into the story.

But of course, this is an issue that exists in far more IPs than just the ones I’ve mentioned so far and others of the same caliber. It happens with the cream of the crop as well: Boku no Hero Academia's more recent decisions have been executed very poorly, when they were just a single step away from being done very well; post-timeskip One Piece has relied too heavily on characters having skills and forms that we aren't familiarized with, and fights that don't resolve in a smart fashion, but due to nakama power fueling Luffy; season fucking 2 of One-Punch Man is the poster child for terrible execution of anime adaptations, considering the original webcomic, the manga, and season 1. This issue is (almost) everywhere, and yeah, I get it: anime and manga are produced through such a hellish process, that a lot of times the authors or production staff don't have the time to go through their stories to make sure everything's on the up-and-up. Yusuke Murata is not exactly a common example, of someone that's allowed to go back to both redraw and rewrite entire chapters; and I am somewhat glad that, at least when it comes to JUMP, they seem to be getting slightly more lenient with the talent and their teams if it means better results in the long run.

However, the issue persists. I neither know nor think that anything can be resolved even if the extremely demanding workload of manga/anime production were to be alleviated (we've had plenty of examples in the West, of media that has all the time and money in the world, still imploding and salting the earth around it), but at the very least, it can be something that creators who are not under those retraints to take into account, so as not to make those same mistakes.

Do not try to subvert conversations that SHOULD be happening, just because in anime there's a stereotype of scenes where everything stops in its tracks just so characters can have a conversation, be it executed well or poorly (an aspect I'd wager stems from when the source material is manga or a novel). Don't think that because a character's power level let's them blow up the moon from orbit, that immersion can't be broken if you don't justify how they might struggle against another on the same tier. Be wary of the very common issue with 'Wanime' (Western animation using the anime style), where creators completely put aside depth for spectacle, to the point that it becomes indistinguishable from a parody show such as Megas XLR.

Always remember, execution is the be-all and end-all to every character development, emotional payoff, hype moment, world building, and plot progression. Think about every scene, and if it actually informs the audience of what should be happening. If it doesn't, then you'll have to try and fix it before, not after. And if you can't do it (which is fine, most of us are fucking dumbasses), now you understand why even a lot of shonen action series have a bunch of slice-of-life, semi-filler scenes interjected in-between big events, so that you can have context and weight to what will transpire.

[mc-critical]

Asking because I’ve seen you say it on here: What is it that you disliked about Mahifiruze and Aysë as characters (writing or otherwise?)

It's not a problem of sympathy alone, because while these characters have quite a few offputting qualities and have certainly done some heinous deeds, it would be unfair to judge them only by that. There are way worse people in the franchise, which turn me off way more, after all. (*cough* MCK Turhan *cough*) Sympathy-wise, I'm overally ambivalent towards both Ayşe and Mahfiruze and if we only take that into account, I can take or leave them. It's their writing, however, where things take a different turn. Almost everything went wrong there.

The critical problem I find with both of the characters is that they're engrained in one and the same character archetype the writers refuse to get them out of. That brings harm not only to their characterization and the way they're built up, but also to the sympathy we're supposed to feel for them, because, more often than not, it didn't have a ground to stand on. It's true that archetypes often risk to make a character bland and one-dimensional, but the way they went with it is strange and unfortunate, because this all could've been averted quickly.

Magnificent Century's character core is mostly built on archetypes of a soapy drama and Magnificent Century: Kösem seemed to be following that trend. I understand that choice, in a way, because well, it could've just been easier for them, they could've thought they would win their former MC audience once again, playing it "familiar" and "safe". Thing is, the whole franchise overally does pretty well with archetypes: they either subvert them, deconstruct them or break them entirely later, either (in the case of MCK where we saw many previously established MC archetypes) use them with some core conceptual changes and a different theme in mind, which, as far as writing goes, worked very well with many characters. (see: Dervish - Ibrahim; Dilruba - Mihrimah; Atike - Mihrimah; Davud - Rustem, etc.) The thing is though, the writers didn't give Ayşe and Mahfiruze any of that and their archetypes felt like they only were in the beggining line, going almost nowhere beyond that and making the characters feel very often as cardboard cutouts as a result. They're going with archetypes, but they somehow give only a single fraction of these archetypes to figures that play a relatively big role in the story.

Comparisons to other usages of the character archetype of Mahfiruze and Ayşe's help even less, because everything now not only turned out to be a bad concept, but and a shaky, underdeveloped attempt at something done way better before. Mahfiruze and Ayşe both fit in Mahidevran's early season 1 archetype - the rejected, jealous woman, previously valued and loved by the Sultan, which loses everything quickly, planning and ready to do anything to take the rival down, including petty sneers, irrational decisions and will for murder. But even at its worst, Mahidevran's characterization was balanced overall, having moments where we could sympathize or condemn her respectively and had character fleshing out come to the surface as often as the reducement to this one sole archetype, which was lacking severely in Ayşe and Mahfiruze. I'll talk about the similarities they share with Mahidevran only briefly when I analyze them, because I'm admittedly very biased when it comes to this (especially with the double standarts I encounter with the YT comments, where the same people judge Mahidevran and Ayşe by the exact same metric and yet, they love one and can trash the other all day, eh.) and I don't want that to take over the topic at hand so much.

Mahfiruze has the problems I listed above to a much lesser extent than Ayşe, but that doesn't mean they're not present at all. She has a very familiar character role and personality - she is a mother to the eldest heir of the throne and gives jabs and insults to her rival. And.. that's all there is. It's undeniable than Dilara Aksuek's Mahfiruze definetly had a tough act to follow, since the former Mahfiruz screamed potential and promise the latter character was expected to fulfill, but they did the barest possible minimum. (and I don't think Dilara's a bad actress by any means: she acted amazingly in the show Istambullu Gelin as Ipek, an arguably similar and much better written character.) It definitely felt as more of a regression than a progression, because Mahfiruze had no fleshing out or development at all. Her meanness to Kösem seemed central to her character, she barely had any interactions with the rest of the cast and what is worse, used her as a plot device for a plot-line with Ahmet's enemies and then when her role was fulfilled, they.. killed her off just like that without any warning or elaboration. She was the very definition of a one-dimensional obstacle to Kösem that seemed to exist only for the sake to be an obstacle to Kösem. It was as if she didn't matter. And when she did, it was only as a narrative instrument to stir the conflict between Kösem and Osman (which I find very interesting, but I feel it would've been way more impactful if Mahfiruze wasn't only... this.) It was as if the writers ran out of stuff to do with her, which is a very lazy copout for me, because she could've had interesting storylines, if only they just wished to "shake up" the traits of her archetype for a bit.

Ayşe's character is where this repetitive problem shines through the brightest. We can argue that the love triangle plot and Farya's Mary Sue stance ruined it all for her from the get go, but for me, the foundation of her character is what truly did. Ayşe wasn't used simply as a plot device as much, she wasn't even underutilized at all, she was put into an archetype which undermines how different she is as a character in practice and the greatly dissimilar circumstances she's under. They tried to fit Mahidevran's S01 archetype in an environment it would never do in the first place. It not only becomes a stagnant, more over exaggerated repetition of a concept and forces unnecessary drama to prop another character up, it way too often puts a sole angle of Ayşe's character into focus, making Farya the center of her writing. Not to mention that for long, we didn't have a cohesive reason to root for her, her early love for Murat being the thing that was the least fleshed out about her and could make her too obsessive and yandere at times. Her interactions are criminally underdeveloped, as well, and unlike Mahfiruze, that could honestly be cut shorter except for Osman, they were something Ayşe desperately needed. We got only hints of her relationship with Kösem, Silahtar and Gevherhan and that was far from enough. Most of her scenes were either with her maid or Farya. Her alliances with Gülbahar and Sinan respectively were... fine interarion-wise, to be honest, but writing-wise, they only enforced the fairly consistent endorsement of the soapy aspect of her character beyond any measure.

Now, I can't doubt the development in her later episodes, where the writing admittedly improved. I'll always love her scene before the death of Gevherhan and her message to Murat, because that's the Ayşe I wish I saw more often. The self-awareness she gained of how Murat screwed her over was amazing and something I wish happened more gradually and over the span of more episodes. But it was all somehow "too little, too late" for me and it didn't completely save her messy writing. And it's a crime, because Ayşe played a much bigger role than Mahfiruze in the narrative, she was basically a main character and she got robbed of a good, organic fleshing out and arc.

Ayşe was the most egregious example of the severe flawed writing of repetitive archetypes and catch me forever mad about it, because she could've been much more. It's a mistake that had no business being there at all. And it was anyway.

[evajellion]

Star Wars: Visions Ranking

Because I did Love, Death & Robots, I gotta do the other anthology animated series I finished just now.

Firstly, major props to all of the studios. Both my dad and I are in agreement that some of these episodes blew The Bad Batch (which has been a disappointment) out of the water.

As for my ranking, which I kind of struggled with since I only didn’t like two of these-

9. Akakiri

8. The Elder

7. The Duel

6. The Village Bride

5. The Twins

4. Tatooine Rhapsody (I think this one is underrated)

3. T0-B1

2. The Ninth Ledi

1. Lop and Ochō

I couldn’t pay attention to Akakiri because I had just come off of the high of Lop and Ocho, my ADHD was in full craze, but even with that this short is kind of boring. It has good animation and a dark tone, but that’s all I could tell you about it.

The Elder takes way too long to get to the titular character, who is the most interesting aspect about it. I just wasn’t invested in not-Obi-wan and not-Qui-Gon. Shame we couldn’t get more focus on this crazy former Sith grandpa, or I would have ranked it higher.

The Duel is a good warm-up of what’s to come with a gorgeous art-style. However, I think the other shorts do it better.

The Village Bride was pretty damn compelling, and does the dark story-telling in Akakiri correctly. Loved the Battle Droids in this too, super cute.

The Twins is the exact sort of flashy action based on the OT that I expect from Trigger. It really felt like their own alternative universe take on Star Wars. 

I only can’t rank it higher because Trigger still can’t animate mouths… like goddamn, I thought they would have learned their lesson after everyone dunked on Darling in the Franxx’s character animation. Especially with a 10-12 minute short.

Tatooine Rhapsody is genuinely underrated, most people rank it low and I don’t know why. I love the more lighthearted tone and the idea of a Jedi and a Hutt clan member being in a band. It’s so absurd, but it works here and I actually cared about Geezer! I think this is the first Hutt family member I’ve seen that isn’t an all-around repulsive piece of shit. The chibi art-style looks too weird on Boba Fett though.

T0-B1 is absolutely adorable. Gave me waves of Mega Man nostalgia. I love the titular robot. T0-B1 my absolute beloved. A breath of sweet fresh air that the franchise needed.

The Ninth Jedi is subverting your expectations, done right. Take notes, sequel trilogy directors. This is how you do it. I’m not going to spoil anything for this one because everyone should watch this one themselves if they can.

Lop and Ochō exceeded my expectations and more, I am declaring it canon no matter what Disney says. It says a lot that they put the most runtime into this and The Ninth Jedi.

This has a storyline similar to The Twins, but with more time to bake so you have more attachment to the characters. I originally made fun of this for having a cute furry anthro creature, but I was wrong about how good this short was going to be.

Lop is easily the most likable protagonist in Visions next to T0-B1, and one of the more tragic ones. Geno Studios blew it out of the park making me care about our first Lepi character in a Star Wars animation, and they did a wonderful job with the action.

So yeah, go watch Visions. Mainly the top two, but the others are great also!