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curedeity · 3 years ago

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Women and Interpersonal Relationships: Beyblade and Yugioh Arc V

So uhh… I have seen the recent critiques of female characters in beyblade, the metatextual ones and the ones trying to justify their characterization within universe. Hell, i think I've been a part of that, only i did my critique in narrative form. In the end though, while there are some nuances to each critiqued character, I’ve never felt the need to fully break down each aspect of their characters and try to identify the good and bad, and I probably wouldn’t do that good a job of it, as I do tend to miss and forget character details sometimes.

However, there is one aspect of the women of beyblade that I dont think I've seen brought up yet (if someone has please send me the post i love reading them). That is their interpersonal relationships.

Or to be more specific, the lack of them.

So, today I will be discussing how dynamic interpersonal relationships play an important role in game anime and how it relates to female characters. And I’ll warn you now, I will be comparing beyblade unfavorably to yugioh arc v. I hope the writers of beyblade are ashamed that I’m actually able to do that, it should be impossible.

First off, lets look at some of the other base relationship types that are often in game anime, and specifically beyblade.

There are rivals. This is a hallmark of the genre, as it is of many others. This normally consists of two homoerotically charged men repressing their feelings by saying they’d rather want to beat the other up. Its the most common and dynamic relationship in many of these shows, and serves to allow either character of the rivalry to develop, while also lending them importance in the other character’s arc and plot. Some examples of this in beyblade would be Gingka with Kyoya or Ryuga, Masamune with Zeo or Chao Xin, etc. Beyblade, unlike some other shows, actually does not normally have long running rivalries, with the exemption of Gingka. It does have a spade of short-lived rivalries though.

There are partners and teams. These are characters that work together to make one another better, whether for a short or long period of time. Whats most important about a good partner pair is that they should develop the characters. So no Sophie and Wales do not count, name one lick of character development they had and I will give you that point. Actually, I think Tsubasa and Yu are the ones in this category.

There are also friends, mentors, kids to protect, etc.

But the most important part of these relationships is that their supposed to push both characters through their arcs. Characters should impact each other and change through interaction with others. They should both be focused on at some level.

By creating relationships like this, giving them history and weight and letting characters challenge and change each other through them, it brings importance to both of them and invests the audience in them. But more importantly, it brings importance to their *battles*

That’s the thing about game anime, right? It often is just a series of battles, normally tournament arcs, where characters are paired or teamed up, and its those existing relationships or rivalries that drive investment in watching the clash.

So now that I’ve set that up, lets discuss how beyblade utterly disappoints its female characters.

So. Madoka. Oh god, Madoka. First, to be clear, Madoka is already hampered in terms of the relationships shes allowed to form and their impact because, of course, she isn’t allowed to battle! With that, her relationships utterly lose all meaning on her end, because why should she have to change or challenge someone? Shes not battling! She isnt participating in the framing device!

Madoka has the blandest relationships with the cast. Like, sure she has them, and theyre consistent. But what can you say about them, really? She kinda seems to be annoyed at Kyoya a lot? She doesnt like it when they get into trouble? She supports them? In the end, her relationships rarely change or undergo any development. She begins by being supportive, ends by being supportive, doesn’t change at all and changes nobody else. This takes away any options for importance from her, and makes her a nonentity.

Hikaru, on the other hand, has some relationships! She has some! Clap! The beyblade writers have fed us crumbs! She technically has three rivals, Gingka, Kyoya and Kenta. Lets go through them. She battles Gingka once and he makes her realize she needs to enjoy battling or something, they continue being rivals but never get another one on one battle. How helpful. Truly, a good rivalry. They barely change each other, and theres no buildup to either improving or facing the other again. She does change Kenta a lot tho, winning against him in her introductory episode before quickly losing to him in the next. And then they never battle again. And then theres Kyoya! What can you say about the two? Well, they respect each other, they get two battles, but they don’t seem to change the other.

I had to look up Hikaru’s wiki page to check all this information. I cannot remember what happens in any of her battles except Kenta. They were unimportant. If I cannot remember them, then what impact did they really have? None. While Hikaru is allowed more relationships, in the end none of them are that well done, and all are weak.

I could list the other female characters, but I think you already know they had none. Sophie has Wales. They work well together. What else can I say about them? They challenge the main cast, I suppose (their teamwork encourages gan gan galaxy to work as a team). Mei-Mei also challenges the main cast, too bad she never gets a solo battle against any of them! Lera. Lera I’m so sorry.

Now, you may be asking, why is this important? Why do these relationships matter? How do they impact the viewer?

So now, we get to talk about Yuzu from Yugioh Arc V (only season 1 though I havent seen the rest). And how the depth of her relationships destroys Beyblade immediately.

Yuzu is the leading female character, like Madoka, but she’s actually allowed to fight (did beyblade know you could do that?) so I’ll be comparing her to both of their strengths. Trust me, it won’t put her at a disadvantage.

Yuzu’s first duel is her beating our male lead. Yes, that’s right, she beat the male main character in her first duel. Now, this is mostly to show how far he has to go, so it impacts his character more than hers, but it immediately lends credence to the fact she is a strong member of the cast and can be a threat. Rather than saying she can be a threat, they let her show it.

Now, she never rebattles Yuya (our male main character) in season 1, or as far as I remember, but that doesn’t mean their relationship stops developing. Yuzu’s arc in the first season is about her learning to believe in herself and her own abilities, gaining self-confidence. And to do so, she also has to learn to put confidence in Yuya. She regularly questions herself on who Yuya is, and if she thinks he’s capable of causing harm. Those fears feed in to her self-doubt, and deepen the relationship between them by adding depth to it. Not only are they friends, but they are friends who are growing and changing and trying to discover themselves together. In fact, this relationship is allowed to characterize Yuzu even more than Yuya, with her confidence issues. Her arc is therefore granted importance through its relation to him, and it allows for the tension of her arc to appear in character scenes between the two.

Madoka is never given this level of depth with Gingka, his failures or flaws never impact her character or lead to her own personal growth.

Though Yuya isn’t her rival, that doesn’t mean Yuzu doesn’t challenge anyone. In fact, Yuzu is so important that the show gives her a rival to call her own (and have homoromantic tension with, the girls can do it too). Julia is created specifically to rival Yuzu, she is not some transferred rival from a male character, she is Yuzu’s Rival, as much as Kyoya is Gingka’s. In episode 10, Yuzu and Julia have their first duel, which Yuzu spectacularly loses due to her self-confidence issues. Julia effectively calls out all the ways Yuzu is lying to herself and challenges her on a personal level. Yuzu is allowed a depth of character that allows for personal insults that expose her flaws and how she needs to improve! This duel not only sets up a rivalry between the two, but demonstrates how Yuzu will have to grow over the season.

Tell me, did Hikaru and Kyoya have such a set-up in their duel?

After losing to Julia, Yuzu proceeds to ask another character, Sora, to teach her fusion summoning. She distances herself from the rest of the cast as she learns to be stronger, now interacting with Sora a lot as he tries to teach her. While their relationship isn’t focused on, its referenced a lot, and you can see that their comfortable with each other. Other characters will even reference their relationship. Yuzu’s loss to Julia changes her relationship with the entire cast, her relationships are allowed to develop and thereby bring importance to their duel. That duel genuinely *changed* her.

And not only that, Julia will continuously show up and run into Yuzu for the next few episodes for plot reasons, and the tension between them will grow as you wonder if Yuzu will get strong enough to beat her.

Then, at episode 29, Yuzu and Julia finally have a rematch. In this duel, Yuzu is much more confident, powerful, and has to think on her feet and act to beat Julia. She successfully performs her first fusion summon to beat Julia, the person who inspired her to get stronger. She wins the duel, and all that tension that built up from her loss, the constant run ins, and her character growth is given resolution and meaning when she beats her.

Yuzu isnt well-written, but her relationships are dynamic and allowed to change, thereby giving her credence in the plot, in other characters, and in battle.

I don’t sense that same tension and resolution from watching Hikaru and Kyoya’s second battle. In fact, I can barely remember it. Did it change Hikaru? Did it change Kyoya?

Without relationships, characters are only allowed so much importance, especially in a show where tension between characters drives investment in the battles. Hikaru and Madoka arent really allowed to build up relationships, to change other people and change because of them in significant ways, or have battles that the viewer can become invested in because of long-running relationships.

Because of this, they will never be fully-formed and dynamic characters within the cast, they’ll just be a support character that fills up time and can spout explanations, and death fodder.

I feel slightly bad because i do think beyblade in general could do better with long running rivalries among its supporting cast, but i think the girls in specific are shortchanged, and yknow, this isnt a unique problem. If you have any counterpoints or additions to this id love to hear them, and mostly i hope i added something interesting to the discussion.

#beyblade #beyblade metal fight #yugioh arc v #hello yes heres my essay on The Girls #can you tell im not an essay writer #ive just been having Some Thoughts and wanted to get them out there #uhhhhhh kinda anxious about posting this modtly because i worry that ive forgotten a really good relationship in beyblade #but if i did forget then i can only be pleasantly surprised #also dont worry yuzu isnt a well written character either shes a Yugioh Girl the standards are so low #i just recently got to watch the first season and so have been on a yugioh kick #id compare it to zexal but zexals girls are............. you know what i dont think theres a word for how lacking they are #i really love beyblade just damn i wish the girls were better written #was this an excuse to talk about how yuzu and julia own my soul now? yeah probably #my end point is uhhhhhh give girls rivalries

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sanstropfremir · 4 years ago

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episode 9 baby!!! dear lord that was a lot!!

frankly, i'm still in shock that i full on manifested an opera stage, AND it was a rock opera stage at that! plus i got a jazz stage AND a taemin stage??? if they’re pulling out all my favourites now then what on earth are they gonna do in the finale??? this was a very overwhelming crop of stages, i thought i was going to be prepared, but oh no i was not prepared. i'm just going to get right into it because this one is gonna be long and i have many words. i'll discuss in airing order first, and then put my personal rankings for this round at the end.

btob

costume

changsub, you absolute king. spectacular. stunning. incredible. zoot suit riot playing in my brain on repeat. will i finally get the zoot suit revival of my fucking dreams instead of this current drab ill-fitting suit trend? for those who are wondering why in the fuck changsub is dressed like that and what on earth i’m talking about, the specific cut of suit that he’s wearing is called a zoot suit, which were popular in mexican, black and italian american communities in the 30s and 40s, until they were outlawed by the united states war production board as a fabric rationing method as part of the war effort in 1942. there was a huge amount of mob violence surrrounding the wearing of them (there were actual zoot suit riots) as they were direct counter culture fashion to the predominant drab trends of white americans at the time. i'm actually very impressed they got a proper (modernized) cut of zoot suit instead of just putting him in an oversized one; there are actually specific structural differences. the pegged trouser legs, large should pads, and knee length single breasted jacket are key features, and they were often in much more flashy fabrics than a pinstripe, but they get points for effort. i wish they had put all of them in zoot suits but he’s playing the ‘lead’ actor so i will begrudgingly forgive them.

eunkwang those are the stupidest sleeve garters ive ever seen i love them never take them off. they’re like someone decided to repurpose a suspender in the worst way. excellent. i do love that they’ve got three of them in oxford saddle shoes, another great touch.

love the three piece and the fedora* on peniel. it's also in a relatively close period cut; waistcoasts (vests) were generally cut much higher in the neck pre-war, we only start seeing the neckline slide down in the 60s (i think? i don’t remember when exactly). also love to see a proper sleeve and jacket length, it's good practice to have at least a finger’s width of sleeve cuff visible ahead of the jacket sleeve when hanging at rest. also looks like there’s french cuffs on everyone, which is also great.

minhyuk in his slutty lowneck shirt....thank you. in addition to the zoot suit revival i would also like a revival of those ultra low necklines on mens’ shirts from like 2010-2011. i don’t think those are the same boots from the backdoor stage but those are some beautifully cut boots. i also loved the little details of his crewmember look, especially the chunky watch and the string bracelets; those are super realistic, i know so many crew with them and i had several for many years. and who doesn’t love a visible button fly?

none of any of the other costumes are period in any way shape or form but i’m forgiving it because there’s several layers of meta in this stage, and they explicitly based it on la la land, even though we don’t respect la la land in this house. do i wish they had gone more strictly period with at least the jazz club ‘actors’ a little more? absolutely, but i'm not mad about it.

set

again we’ve got a good delineation of the two different ‘stages,’ there’s the club itself in the smaller stage and the soundstage set in the larger space. you can pretty clearly see all the ‘pieces’ of the set on the soundstage, especially the obvious set painting techniques on false prosc frame and the window facade from that first little scene. also the you can see the castors (wheels) on all the setpieces too, which is another nice little versimilitudinous** (triple word score!) touch, as old hollywood movies were made still using theatre stagecraft techniques.

i love how the visual shorthand for ‘this is a set wink wonk’ is just...leaving a ladder on stage. i see it all the time and it's so funny. it doesn’t always make sense because as soon as there’s actors on set the ladders are the first thing cleared because actors cannot be trusted, but yes there are always ladders, so. also psa ladder safety is no joke, please be careful on ladders.

nice streamline of the mnet deco into the club. i’m consistently surprised at how well the designers have been able to mask it or use it to their advantage, because in the normal kingdom stage lighting it is SO obvious and stylistic that it always sticks out.

i'm going to ignore the fact that they implied changsub and miyeon were drinking wine out of martini glasses.

lighting

no complaints, it does its job. everything is visible and super clear. love that the ‘scene’ changes are made through the lighting, it's a really simple and effective device to change atmosphere. purple/blue/amber are the most flattering colours on human skin and that’s why you see it so commonly in stage lighting. also blue/lavendar is the best way to show nighttime/moonlight.

really nice and subtle projection work, especially with the billboard bit and the blue moon sign in the club. despite being obviously meta/’world breaking’ it’s actually very seamless and fits well into the flow of the stage.

sound

i love love love the big band feel in the intro, combined with the piano lead. very duke ellington, as all things should be.

no complaints. i love big band. i love eunkwang’s voice. i have nothing else to say.

staging

i LOVE this movie within a movie within a performance meta nonsense! it's such a fun concept and it is exactly what i wanted ikon’s first round stage to be! i also love to see btob consistently coming up with concepts that are inventive and fun and allow them to showcase their technical performance skills without the aerobics the younger groups are putting themselves through. it provides a really lovely variety and it just goes to show that you can make impressive, dramatic stages without having to be serious or ‘dark.’

i do wish they had leaned into the band director/lead singer with eunkwang a bit more; this could have been a really excellent place for a tap number a la the nicholas brothers or an homage to cab calloway. i know i know this was meant to be la la land themed but la la land is a cheap and whitewashed version of jazz and look me right in the eyes and tell me this isn’t the greatest tap routine of all time. i know i’ve typed this out somewhere before but la la land is just a conglomeration of old hollywood tropes and so stylistically cheap that this would have such a better visual core if they had actually looked back at the real old hollywood musicals like stormy weather. even singing in the rain and an american in paris have such phenomenal visuals and are really beautiful examples of the scope you can pull off with a limited technical capacity and sticking to these old techniques.

now that i'm thinking about it, oh my GOD i would DIE for a lindy hop routine in kpop PLEASE. i know it would never happen because kpop doesn’t like partner dancing and not a single kpop boy has the chops but oh you think fourth gen has too many acrobatics?

this got off track but i think you see my point.

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ateez

costume

these are really sharply cut suits. and the detail work on the beading??? so beautiful. i'm disappointed that they gave me a rock opera stage without the true ridiculousness of rock opera costuming, because they could have pushed this a lot farther if they really wanted. a tragic lack of gay little outfits, seonghwa’s lace choker is just not enough! two favourite suits: hongjoong’s and yunho’s.

that being said i do actually really like these. this stage is actually very modern opera with a kpop twist and i'm a little surprised by that? i continue to be impressed by the ateez team who are clearly doing their research.

i'm absolutely not going back through their stages to check all the choreography but i wonder if you can track all the ‘wound’ placements to places they’ve been ‘hit.’ i wouldn’t put it past them to have put that thought in but also i’m not expecting that much either.

who is this white grim reaper bdsm executioner chain arm man. where did he come from. i have no idea and i love it.

why is honjoong blindfolded. it was such a fast beat, if youre gonna blindfold someone give it a little longer and some more obvious narrative weight!

seonghwa does that quickchange, runs across that massive stage to the smaller set, and gets into places in like 45 seconds. it's not the hardest quickchange in the world but still, under a minute is fast for any quickchange, especially when there’s travel time involved. i think the fastest, most complex quickchange i ever did was in university which was a 50s cocktail dress into a flannel and culottes with a shoe, hair, and jewelry change in 35 seconds. and that took three dressers. quickchanges are always impressive. the added bonus of this review being later is that i can specifically reference that you can see him book it the fuck off stage in the full cam!

cute moment with the backup dancers dressed in costumes from the previous stages. i'm assuming this is a time travel reference? i'll get more into my thoughts on this in the staging section. regardless, love to see that iconic seonghwa moment again.

set

this is such a restricted space! they really pared down their dancing space with those staircases and ....arms? honestly i have NO clue what these are supposed to be. the only thing i can maybe think of is flying buttresses??? but why?? i mean, i'm 90% sure theyre just there for drama and i agree but i do still have questions.

there’s a lot of moving parts in this set? the buttresses, and the upstage centre staircase. i don’t think the staircase is totally automated because i spotted some dancers securing it in place, but it’s still a moving part. i do really like that we get that expanding upwards energy, because it's really tough to get functional level movement in this kind of a performance, mostly because of its length and because it moves so quickly. so seeing the downward vertical movement and then the upward movement was actually a really nice visual contrast that made use of how tall those fucking ceilings are, and the fact that they had less horizontal space. in sort of similar way to sf9’s jealousy stage, using long, narrow vertical lines really makes it feel like a castle space. the interiors of castles, especially the really old ones, are a lot smaller than you think they would be.

i’ve actually seen that type of small house/tent/thing several times in various types of performances before, but i think this is the first time i’ve seen it used as a time travel device (other than in the say my name mv). aesthetically it's a bit incongruent but i dont really mind because i'm used to watching rock operas that look a lot weirder than this.

lighting

there is so much happening. i have NO clue what the projections are doing. i dont hate it though, so that’s a plus? there’s a clear-ish colour arc even if it does get a bit funky in the middle, which is why the projections dont feel as insanely distracting as some of the other stages we’ve seen.

the climax is a perfect example of how to light a busy stage with primarily red but still maintain clarity on the performers. a little bit of red goes a long way; the spark stage from last week would have looked so much better if they had done what the ateez designers did here.

sound

i know it's only ode to joy, but answer already gets my motor running and then i get so gassed by the guitars and then by the time those vocals come in i'm inconsolable. i don’t know why i wasn’t expecting a rock opera stage but i'm so glad i got that surprise because i genuinely love rock operas so much. it's two of the most dramatic genres in music, what more could you possibly want?

staging

the choreo for answer is so goofy that I'm kinda glad this was mostly terrible mnet boom shots. i love it, but you can't deny that it's goofy. i spotted a couple of moves from their other choreos as well?

choreographing dance fights is just as difficult as choreographing real fights and i think they did a fairly good job here. i think it was a solid mix of dance and conflict that erred on the side of dramatic rather than accurate and i prefer that over trying to be ‘realistic.’ i’ve only ever seen one truly realistic fight scene on stage and that was for a deeply naturalist play (boring and a waste of the medium), but the best fight scene i’ve ever seen was in the prague national ballet’s adaptation of kafka’s the trial where three ballet dancers beat the absolute snot out of the main character with the most beautiful leg extensions. that whole show was probably one of the best pieces of dance i’ve ever seen, holy fuck it was so good.

despite how insane the music and the visuals were going, i actually really liked how sedate this was, on the part of ateez’s performance. there was a really sophisticated and resigned energy from them that is very different from what we’ve previously seen and i think that was a pretty admirable risk to take. reaching the top and then throwing away the crown? especially in a competition where every other stage has involved stealing crowns or royalty and there’s a group competing that got here through that very concept? that shows a real maturity, peace of mind, and foresight that i did not at all expect from a bunch of 22 year olds.

here we come to a very interesting comparison. both ateez and tbz are very heavily leaning on previously established group lore. we all know my thoughts on why it isn’t working for tbz, but here’s why i think it is working for ateez: it's because it doesn’t matter to the audience’s understanding of the stage. i had absolutely no fucking clue what was going on the first time i watched this, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the music and all the weird shit they were doing. i totally believed that they understood what was going on. there’s a loose enough established conflict right at the beginning that draws us in, and really it doesn’t matter who they're fighting because they win in the end. the key here is that they’re so earnest. they believe 100% in every move they make on that stage. there’s no winks to camera, there’s not a drop of irony. they really deeply care about the ridiculousness of it all and that’s what makes it work. i sure as fuck dont know what’s going on, but i can see that they do, and i trust that. this is what i meant when i talked about convincing the audience you belong on stage in my stage presence post. i’ve never once believed that juyeon was anything other than an idol. he’s talented and very beautiful and he may occasionally stand on that stage like he owns it but it's always as juyeon. as an idol. but when hongjoong flaps around in that gigantic fur coat i 100% believe he’s a pirate captain. I believe he’s a punk rebel leader. i believe him a resigned king. there’s always a level of irony you have to fight as a performer because we all start from a place of disbelief. acting is not just lying to the audience, it's lying to yourself too. and if you succeed in convincing yourself? well, you’re already halfway to convincing us.

i checked it out because i wanted to see if they did the blindfold how i expected them to and was genuinely surprised by hongjoong’s fancam. the boy is EMOTING even when he knew the camera wasn’t on him; that’s a real dedication to craft.

ok i'm finished talking about this stage, this is over two pages in my document, there’s so many things i have not covered here but that’s fine, i'm quite sure any further thoughts will end up out there at some point.

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sf9

costume

let’s get it out of the way......crop top. crop top? crop top. crop top.

ok, besides the crop top, i think i might actually like the backup dancer outfits more...? i find mannequin adjacent looks really fascinating and i thought there was a lot more they could have done here in connecting the two thematically. i actually think a change of costume on the boys would have been very interesting, especially because there was a lot of inference and direct reference to changes of colour.

ALL the backup dancers are wearing the same wig and i LOVE that.

special mention zuho’s.....jacket? the right idea but it absolutely should have been one of those extreme french cut bodysuits, you COWARDS. don’t come at me with this ‘male version of venus’ if you don’t have your whole torso out! come on!

set

not sure if this is meant to be a department store, a factory, or a white cube gallery. honestly you could make the case that they’re all the same place anyways. more on this later.

i loved the movator and wish they had used it more! that sequence was so good and they could have done some more interesting repetition sequences to further highlight the ‘sameness’/the breaking of that sameness.

i feel like the set could have been used more as a whole? i would have loved to see some mannequin interactions with those boxes, because all they did was dump colour everywhere.

....why did they feel the need to include the rain bit? i know it's likely because it's in the mv and at the 2018 dream concert taemin does perform move in the rain, but with the standing still and the box walls with the words it just looks like a department store ad. which i...dont think is what they were intending?

lighting

nothing really to say here. it has a similar feel to the mayfly rap stage, which is fine because the lighting for that was good. i could tell what was going on all the time and that’s the most important part. notable standouts are the lips sequence, that's fun use of pop iconography and very effective, and the scanning lasers at the beginning.

the repeating sequence in the edm dance break is actually done pretty simply, it's just what happens when you point a camera that’s livestreaming to a monitor directly at that monitor. it's a very cool effect and it was neat to see it used intentionally, especially with the handheld leds.

actually i also really liked the lightbox tables, those were cool.

sound

the remix was fine for the most part, it was about what i expected it to sound like. i did however greatly dislike that unnecessary edm break in the middle. what was the point of that? it didn’t add anything to the overall sound or arc of the stage because it was SO out of place. there was no connective tissue around it.

oh i was also not a fan of the effect on zuho’s mic. no one else had a discernible vocal effect so it felt a little out of place. also for some reason his cadence and tone right at the end made me think of some of the voices that bo burnam uses for his vocal masque sketches/songs, especially repeat stuff, weirdly? took me right the fuck out of it. i listened to it again after i slept and i’m still getting it, so maybe i’m just going insane so best ignore this part.

staging

loved the mannequin tree, not a clue why it was there.

do actually think this is a successful cover because it does what i was hoping it would, which is take move completely out of the taemin context and put it into an entirely new one. however, i’m really struggling to figure out what exactly that new context is? and what theyre trying to say with it?

obviously they went for a ‘show your own colours/individuality’ vibe, like i said in the set section, where exactly is this supposed to be? from the start i get factory/mechanized environment, which is fine and grand because mannequins and making repetitive motions and products and all that, makes sense. but then there’s stacked shelving type units happening and curtains and that combined with the mannequins give me pretty big department store vibes, which is also fine, because that’s still a comment on commercialization and the mass production of product. but then we get to the movator and the repetitive movements of the dancers say pretty clearly factory, but the lighting and projections are very pop art referential, plus combining that with the white set, just makes me think of an art gallery. so now is this a comment on the commercialization and commidification of contemporary art? are they making a statement about being ‘real’ artists among the others who have lost the critical understanding of why pop art was even a thing in the first place? and then the rain bit at the end literally looks like a department store ad, so are they then making another statement that they still are that packaged product? maybe the episode has more clarity in it but i’m genuinely a bit baffled by what the underlying statement is here.

i suspect it is not as deep as i'm making it, but i did say that i was likely to be hyper critical of this stage AND i am a grad student, so here we are.

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tbz

costume

ok of all the ‘fourth gen’ style costumes we’ve seen, i actually like these ones more than most. i'm not entirely clear on the theme but i'm assuming it's meant to be post apocalyptic, and i'll take that.

backup dancers in black!!! we’re beyond this!!!

this will be a running theme with this stage, but i’m disappointed these don’t have more depth.

set

compared to every other stage, the set here seems especially plain. there’s so little set dec that it's disappointing. i do like the movement of the pieces themselves combined with the blocking; that first slide underneath the arches was slick and i would have liked to have seen more of that.

yea ok the big snake was cool and also a fairly complex build, but the transitions around it were a bit awkward for my tastes. especially the turn around, why did they even show that at all? you have control over what the audience sees, you can totally not show scenic transitions. skz were super smart about hiding theirs in last week’s episode.

also if you have a bigass puppet like that, i wanna see some more movement from it! it doesn’t have to be complex, we literally just saw a kraken balloon arm wave around aimlessly, but at least there was movement! that snake had a long ass body, why didn’t they at least take a pseudo dragon dance movement with it, that would have been such fun to watch with the iridescent scales. there was a lot of opportunity here!

lighting

i don’t hate it but also.... not a lot to say about it on the whole.

there were two really smart ideas here, the first being the front projection section, which i was SO glad to see! i explained in a previous review, but the projections in kingdom are not actually projections per se, because they’re actually massive led screens. there are two common types of projections in performance, rear projection and front projection. rear projection is when the projector is behind the screen, and front projection is ‘normal’ projection. rear projection can produce a crisper image because you have full control of the light values, because the projector is in a separate room from the performance space. but the downsides are that the projector has to be in a separate room from the performance space. so if you’re short on real estate, it's not ideal. front projection is much more common, because the tech is a lot cheaper and easier to access, especially now, and it requires less real estate because you can ceiling mount about the audience (you can move a projector wherever, this is just the most common spot in commercial theatres). but! in order to get an actually crisp image, you have to be really careful with your light bounce. it’s exactly the same principle as how you kinda can't see a projected screen when you have all the lights turned on, but when you turn them off it's a lot clearer. front projection works best in pitch dark, so when you use it in a theatre you gotta be smart about it. i use front projection a lot in my personal art practice as a singular light source, and that’s what tbz did here in that traveling/snake intro sequence. it’s a really fun technique that they used as a good gimmick because it’s not something we’ve seen before, and you get some great shadow effects because the projector is throwing light directionally at the performers (they have it set up close to the floor, it’s probably on a wheeled cart of some kind). however i did not like the snake intro. a bit too cheesy and out of place, especially because the asset quality didn’t match the rest of landscapes that we have been seeing.

the second smart idea, which is partially also a set and blocking thing but whatever, was that final image of the eclipse within the circle architecture with all the members standing in front of it. it was a great shot and a great ending pose, but it felt like a concept photo. like someone had that image as the idea that they then built the stage around, instead of a narrative first and then imagery after.

sound

this remix had SO much promise! those first two minutes were SO GOOD. i love that dirty discordant strings bit, it's gross and right up my alley. but it really fell off in the back half and i'm sad about that.

staging

i'm sorry tbz but.....what did you actually do differently than exo here? with the exception of the continual game of thrones references? nothing here felt transcendentally different from the original monster. and especially coming RIGHT after sf9’s move, which did go beyond its original context. this feels more like an awards show stage cover than a stage at the level of the others we’ve seen just this episode.

again like with the skz stage, there’s no conflict here. no tension. yes they do a great job covering the dance but it just isn’t enough! this is obviously personal preference and i'm sure lots of people liked the fact that it was uncomplicated, but even just a hint of narrative tension could have pushed this into more engaging territory. and if they didn’t want to do that, i would have loved to see them make up for that with extra visual spectacle. this is the no limits round! ikon is putting a full jungle on stage and these are grey cubes!

i think this is a perfect example of what i talked about at the end of my tbz section in my episode four review; this is a good performance, there are good elements at play and good ideas at their genesis, but the core of the issue is that nothing about this is transformative. all of the ideas here are just exaggerations of the original song. fuck, the snake was even IN the mv! and they didn’t even include the best part which is the lip chains! ive said before and i'll say it again; being a good artist has two steps, the first is understanding the material and its context, and the second is elevating the material from that context and synthesizing something new. tbz are really good at the first step, but terrible at the second.

---

ranking

btob - the cleanest and the most fun of the round. everything i wanted.

sf9 - fun and a good cover, despite being conceptually baffling.

ateez - very extra dramatic nonsense with an unexpected dose of sincerity. and it’s rock opera, of course i love it.

skz - fun, with some good thematic devices but generally lacking in arc. also australian accents, that’s an automatic ding.

tbz - honestly the first two minutes of the remix and the costume are holding this above 6th. it just wasn’t fully formed.

ikon - aesthetically this is a great set design and although i do love the opening and closing moments, everything else scrapes me the wrong way. super personal preference here, i’m not expecting anyone else to agree with me.

i feel like my rankings were probably pretty easy to guess if you’ve been around reading the reviews for long enough. i do have very specific tastes after all. i know sf9 ranked first in the episode but i have no idea what the other slots are. i’ll find out when i watch the episode in a couple of days, but i think yea a first for sf9 is fair. i do think its mostly because it’s a taemin song and you have to do something horrendous in order to fuck up a taemin song, but there is a lot of thought and work that went into that stage.

ok i'm done now, sorry this was later than usual, but i was busier and there were four stages that i had to review. also technical difficulties because tumblr is a garbage platform and nothing works properly. comments/questions/opinions always welcome, i know i didn't expand on a couple of points that i could have so hopefully y'all have some thoughts too!

* the type of hat that ~society~ has told you is a fedora is actually a trilby. what peniel is wearing is a real fedora, i felt the need to correct this unjust hat malignment.

** meaning ‘the appearance of being true or real.’ you do sometimes hear it used by normal people, but it’s more commonly used as a descriptor in film and theatre. it’s also one of the five rules of neoclassical theatre, which are: versimilitude, purity of form, five act structure, decorum, and purpose. the most prominent playwrights from that era are moliere and racine if youre interested in what those look like in an actual text.

#kingdom #kingdom review #btob #ateez #stray kids #the boyz #sf9 #tumblr is so broken it would NOT let me save this as a draft #does my constant hyperlinking make you angry tumblr? too bad im gonna keep doing it #i played in a jazz band in school for seven years #which is another indicator as to why i am like this #one of the first songs i remember learning was zoot suit riot #i have very strong memories of yelling RIOT during performances #i will however forever question the logic of our band teacher making us learn a song written by 'the cherry poppin daddies'#christ on a bicycle this is TEN pages #and it took a full eight hours last night and then i did like two hours of editing after i woke up #maybe i should go back to bed #ah i forgot to tag ikon again lmao #ikon #kpop analysis #text #if there are any spelling errrors do not tell me im tired of reading this #im pretty sure this is my longest review so far i decided to hate myself and did a wordcount #its 5.2K you're welcome you better get a snack for this one #i hope this is an interesting read for people ive lost all objectivity at this point #pls enjoy my semi-comprehensible word vomit!

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dawnblade · 3 years ago

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ive been having a lot of destiny dreams lately O_O

so the dream i had last night featured oberon, it started out where he was in college? and really depressed over a couple of days. then one day he came into a class and he was really sick, so the professor told him to go home, but he fainted so the professor and some other folks helped take him to the hospital.

then the professor took him to some sort of, like, idk how to describe it. a botanical divination doctor who lived in the lab where oberon's human self used to work. there were like, holographic projections of his conversations with other scientists there. it wasnt actually the lab i usually picture though, this one in my dream was small and capsule-shaped and partially covered in vines and flowers. im assuming the overgrowth was there from the lab being left abandoned but when the diviner moved in she sorta just tended to it and kept it under control to make it decorative. it was also surrounded by gardens

so, the professor got a call from osiris wanting to know what was going on so i guess she filled him in. and then she talked to the diviner and the diviner said he was like probably fine or something but she would still check him out. so professor let diviner do her thing. the diviner took oberon to a stall surrounded by lattice that had plants weaved between it and on the floor of it the soil was framed by brick in a spiraling diamond pattern and surrounded by plants. she placed him in it while he was half conscious and couldnt move and watched where he fell LMFAO. then she said whatever happened he was "with the garden" ?

so the professor takes oberon to some uhhh facility? it wasnt made clear what it was at this point. when hes finally recovered he starts going on these rampages using light and dark powers to try to escape the facility. my brain made up pure white taken energy as one of the darkness subclasses so thats what he was wielding

eventually he breaks out of the facility and falls into the ocean, where the professor starts chasing after him. he swims away and eventually reaches land somewhere? the professor is still following him and they see this huge ancient-looking tower, and oberon seems to know exactly what it is cause he heads straight for it.

so they run to the very top and theres this orb that has some spiky bits on it and oberon says something like he finally found his artifact

kinda vague where they go next, i think it might be a room in that same tower. but him and the professor are there and he slots the orb into a device, and the orb shoots a beam of energy through a window into an adjacent structure, specifically onto a patterned brick that pulls a small bridge of stone toward the beam and into their tower. oberon pulls a tile from the brick and on the other side is a yellow symbol and some ancient illustration of, i guess combat?

oberon is extremely emotional about finally getting this "power" and explains its energy comes from the cancelling out of light and dark when theyre crossed. he had a couple new abilities but the ones i remember are teleportation, super-strength, and invulnerability.

hes not going on a rampage anymore so him and the professor and some other folks set out to go home, but they are attacked by various enemies so oberon uses his new powers to fight them. they get to this abandoned warehouse or antique shop or something and theres this like, evil and huge version of my dog???? and when he defeats my dog i wake up

#fucking batshit dream what the hell.#long post /

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kendrixtermina · 5 years ago

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Further reactions to "The book of lost tales":

I appreciate that Idril canonically wears armor and does swordfighting.

I feel like I can actually imagine adult!Idril much better now like in armor and with open hair, distraught but ready to fight while babby Earendil does not yet realize the danger...

My first thought is that Earendil was probably cute in that baby chainmail. My second thought is OUCH, Idril and Tuor always made sure their growing baby had fitting chainmail cause they felt the apocalypse might get them at any moment. Imagine that, imagine them having the baby armor fitted every year or so :(

Its fun how much of the basic structure already exists but most of what you'd consider the main characters doesn't exist or is scattered across various minor roles The only Prince anywhere in sight is Turgon - Except for Team Doriath, theyre all accounted for. I suppose Maeglin is kinda there in name only with vaguely the same role & motivation, but looks personality and background all did a 180 since. Luthien is still pretty much "princesd classic" at this point, not quite the fearless go-getter from the final version - markedly this version tells Beren that she doesnt want to wander in the wilderness with him whereas the final one says she doesnt care and its Beren still wants to get the shiny so as not to ask this of her and also for his honor.

I mean in the finished version Id consider the 3rd and 4th gen royals to be the main characters (well, alobgside Team Doriath and the varioud human heroes) and theyre hardly here. Imagine the silm with no Finrod!

Feanor had no affiliation with the royal family whatsoever, and is also generally less super. He's just the guy who won the jewelsmithing competition, not the inventor of the whole discipline. Still seems to have been envisionad as a respected member of the community who gets called to the palace for crisis meetings and is listened to when he stsrts giving speeches. From the first he already has the backstory of going off the deep end (or at least growing disillusioned with Valinor) after a family member is killed by Melkor and theyre still the first to die, but its just some other rando unrelated to the royals

The situation regarding the humans is different - instead of Melkor leaking their existence, its Manwe who explains that the other continents were supposed to be for them eventually. So Feanor goes off on a tirade about weak puny mortals comes off as a more of a jerk unlike in the final version where Melkor barely knew about the humans and described them to the Noldor as a threat. On the other hand in this one, also very much unlike in the finished product, Melkor dupes even Manwe into being unfair to the elves as a whole. In this the final version is a definite improvement, both Feanor and the Valar come off as a lot more sympathetic and though still deceived he's partially right in some things at least, so you have more of a genuine tragedy rather than a simple feud

There is something to the idea of Commoner!Feanor tho. I guess some of this survived in his nomadic explorer lifestyle and how both his wife and mother (who arent mentioned here) eventually were the ones to get that background of being not especially pretty ladies who are not from the nobility but got renown, respect and acclaim for their unique talent and contribution to society, with each having invented things and Nerdanel also being renowed for her wisdom. Hes sort of an odysseus-like Figure in that sense. I suppose later developements necesitated that Maedhros & co. have an army not just a band of thieves, which means they needed to be nobles/lords. That said this being a society where artisans are very respected and half the lords have scholarly/artistic pursuits going, the gap was probably not as big to begin with as it might have been in say, medieval England. Esoecially since Nerdanel's father had been given special honor by one of the local deities and that the social order might have been a very recent thing in Miriel's time. One might speculate that the first generation of Lords started out as warriors during the great journey, or perhaps just Finwe's friend group.

Also found that bit intetesting where the Valar have to deal with the remaining political tensions and effects of Melkor's lies on the remaining population in Valinor... - i guess with the change of framing device it was less likely for news of something like this to reach Beleriand. That, or the existence of Finarfin and his repentance made this go smoother this over in later cannon

Turgon's go-down-with-the-ship moment reaaly got to me. Im half tempted to write a fic where his wife, siblings and dad glomp him on arrival in Mandos. I dont care that none of them exists yet in this continuity i want Turgon to get hugs

I love all the additional Detail that got compressed out in the shift from fairytale-ish to pseudohistoric style especially all the various Valinor magic insofofar as it is compatible with the final version - particularly love the idea of the connection between the lamps and the trees that is now integrated into my headcanon forever

Its actually explained what the doors of night are

If I had not already read unfinished tales or volumes X to XII where this is also apparent, this is where I would say: Ah so the Valar were supposed to be flawed characters. Manwe has an actual arc; by the time he sends Gandalf he finally "got" it. I think in the published silm the little arcs of Ulmo and Manwe are mostly just lost in compression/ less apparent when only some of the relevant scenes got in but not all

It occurred to me way too late that the "BG" chars are the most consistent because theyre at the start and most stories are written from beginning to end. Finwe doesnt get a dedicated paragraph of explicit description until HoME X but my takeaway was that he's described pretty much like I always imagined him anyways/ same vibe I always got from him... charismatic, thoughtful, enthusiastic, sanguine temperament, brave in a pinch but at times lets his judgement be clouded by personal sentiment (though that last bit is more apparent/salient as a character flaw once he became the father of a certain Problem Child) ...i guess this would be a result of jrrt having had a consistent idea of him in his head for a long time.

This means Finwe's still alive at the time of the exodus which is just fun to see/interesting to know... Interestingly he sort of gets what later would be Finarfin's part of ineffectually telling everxone to please chill and think it over first while Feanor simply shouts louder (which is consistent with his actions before the sword incident in later canon where he initially spoke out against the suspiciozs regarding the Valar) - but its not exactly the same, he's more active than Finarfin later in that when "chillax" availed nothing he said that then at least they should talk with the other Kings and Manwe to leave with their blessing and get help leaving (This seems like it would have been the clusterfuck preventing million dollar suggestion in the universe where Feanor is related to him and values him) but when even that falls on death ears he decides that he "would not be parted from his people" and went to run the preparations. I find it interesting that the motivation is sentiment/attachment (even phrased as "he would not be parted from [his people]" same words/ expression as is later used for the formenos situation), not explicitly obligation as it later is for Fingolfin (who had promised to follow Feanor and didnt want to leave his subjects at the mercy of Feanor's recklessness )

Speaking of problem children. It seems the sons of Feanor were the Kaworu Nagisa of the Silmarillion in that originally all they do is show up at some point and kill Dior as an episodic villain-of-the-week. And then, it seems their role got bigger in each continuity/rewrite... probably has something to do with the Silmarils ending up in the title later making it in the sense their story that ends and begins with them. They have zero characterization beyond "fierce and wild" at this point, though in what teetsy bits there is we already have the idea that Maedhros is the leader and Curufin is the smart one/shemer/sweet-talker, though not the bit where Maedhros (or Maglor, or anyone really) is "the nice one". Which I guess explains why "Maglor" sounds like such a stereotypical villain name.

"The Ruin of Doriath" was purportedly the patchworkiest bit of the finished product, but I never noticed and it actually left quite an impression of me upon first reading, the visual of Melian sitting there with Thingol's corpse in her arms contemplating everything thinking back to how they met... she had the knowledge to warn him not to doom himself but couldnt get him to understand it because he doesnt see the world as she does.... After reading this though I wish there was a 'dynamic' rendition that combined all the best bits like, youd have to adapt it to the later canon's rendition of the dwarves, have Nargothrond exist etc. But i mean that just makes Finrod another dead/doomed relative of Thingol's whom bling cannot truly replace, like Luthien and Turin. In the Silmarillion you could easily read it as just an "honoured guest treatment" but here and in unfinished tales I get the impression that Thingol actually did see Turin as a son.

Already you see the idea of trying to make the stories all interconnected but there is less than there will be (the human heroes aren't related yet and there is basically no Nargothrond, which is later a common thread for many of the stories - a prototype shows up in the 'Tale of Turambar' tho complete with half baked prototypes of Orodreth and Finduillas

O boi im not even through yet

#silmarillion #the book of lost tales #history of middle earth #baby reads HoMe

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tfw-no-tennis · 4 years ago

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mtmte liveblog issue 22

oooh man, its time to feel some EMOTIONS!

I'm BACK after a hiatus, which was due in part to me getting my 1st dose of the covid vaccine! woohoo!

anyways, starting here w/issue 22....we have a great cover w/thunderclash, the legend himself

oof. the covers made me forget how much I don't like the art this issue...I hate to be mean to the artists but this art style just isn't doin it for me chief

god I love this issue though. the framing device of rewind’s movie is so so fantastic

tailgate listing off all his fake awards/accomplishments....ily

rodimus my boy, you're a prime in my heart

the ‘not a decepticon’ label for cyclonus is so much hvbhkjfbskjf

I literally wanna comment on every single panel bc I love all the characters so much but then id be here forever...that being said whirl ily sm

hvbjdfbhsfjhdfshja BRAINSTORM ‘according to perceptor - ships genius’ hvhdkjhbfhjs ily dumb gay idiot

and then the cut to perceptor after brainstorm like, blew up his lab vjbkdsfnbksjf dude

GODDDDDD drift ‘your name...defines you. it’s your soul expressed in syllables. hm? oh, yes, sorry. it’s drift.’ GOD he’s so fucking funny. I love early story hippy drift

god I cant stop thinking about how good this whole issue would be as an animated show...like, specifically rewinds film, it would be SO FUCKING GOOOOOOD mtmte show WHEN

rewiiiiind ;_; I fuckgin love rewind god. fellow video editing enthusiast....

ohhhh rodimus being embarrassed about his big speech at the beginning of mtmte....my boy I love u so much

gjhnbgehjsrkfbjksf magnus being suspicious of rewind oh my god. magnus ily but please, look at the lil guy, he’s a good boy, most of the time

the fuckgin footage that magnus removed hbvhakjbfhskf god. wasn't that intended to be footage of magnus dancing? I love him

minibot squad.....

and here it begins, the mystery stick rung question...

poor rung oh my god he’s just trying to polish his lil spaceship and people r throwing shit at him. taking Ls as per usual it seems

hand grenade tag hvbfjksdnfbkjdf love that callback

noooo rungs ship :(

magnus’s censorship vhbhadkjfhdbhjsakjhfn

oh man I forgot about how they met that race of Transformers But More

the one-upsmanship hbvkajsbehfjks

whirrrrrl lmao I love whirl sm

goddddd whirl just killing that other alien and ending the 16 million yr long civil war bvkjsdbfhjjkafs so fucking much

oh god oh god the ‘are you happy’ page, I'm not emotionally equipped to handle this like, ever

but I will say I feel like it would be EVEN MORE oof if it were milne or someone drawing it bc I feel like this art style takes away from some of the impact bc the expressions aren't really that...expressive? idk how to put it

anyways. every single answer destroys me!!! like even the happy ones, like chromedome and rewind and tailgate - well, in present time, none of those three are doing so hot, so that makes this just hurt

and rung....that is so fucking depressing. jesus. this guy is so fuckng sad, somebody get him a friend stat

and swerve...ouch. this readthru I've really noticed how much early-mtmte swerve is not-so-subtly like, crying out for help bc he’s so alone and shit. jesus

also brainstorms response is just plain ole sad w/context, but at this point in the story without context, it just seems very foreboding lmao. I'm realizing this readthru that brainstorm is very sketchy and ominous in a particular ‘is he evil?’ mad scientist sorta way in early mtmte

and then everyone else is also just so OOF in their own unique sad ways, but I think the worst out of everyone is drift....GODDDDDD. especially considering that at this point in the story, drift is this kinda goofy hippy guy, so seeing him just sit there with his face in his hand, not even answering the question...AND knowing that shortly after this he’ll end up banished...IT FUCKING HURTS M8!

meanwhile, the more upbeat ‘quest to see rungs alt mode’ continues...with an ‘alt mode party’ vhbadkjsdfnabskjf it looks so silly with a bunch of cars just sitting around a table lmao

I cant even tell who everyone is bc they so rarely turn into cars n shit lmaoooooo

rodimus with the bucket on his head hbvhakjbfskjf I CANT

everyone’s reactions to thunderclash...i fucking love it

the fact that TAILGATE doesn't hate him, even though we’ve seen that tailgate tends to dislike people who are universally liked/who have achieved a lot of impressive things

rodimus you petty thot vbdkjbfdjhsakjdf ily

RODIMUS IS SO FUNNYYYYYY ‘I'm not making all these sacrifices and leading these guys into battle and being inspirational - I'm not doing that because it makes me look good’ RODIMUS VBHSKJDFNBKSJF

thunderclash talking about magnus’s article on typefaces....hdbksjfsdbkjgfb bro

AND THEN MAGNUS HUGS HIM....HGBSKJFDSHFKD I CANT

POOR DRIFT bvhajkdfbhjkjsfd rodimus saying he ‘rehabilitated him’ oh my god

the whole spectralism thing...im sorry I cant get over how funny all this is vbakdjfbksjf thunderclash rlly b out here charming rodimus’s entire crew

and then ratchet comes in, calling tc ‘thunders,’ and tc immediately notices ratchets new hands (somehow) hvbkjfhbskjf truly amazing

it cracks me up that rodimus is all 😒😒 at thunderclash, even though as we come to find out, tc really IS That Perfect, and him complimenting rodimus isn't sarcasm at all lmao

AND THEYRE LOOKING FOR THE KNIGHTS OF CYBERTRON TOO HVSDHFJBSHKHDFJS OF COURSE

the vis vitalis being a life support machine spaceship is a really cool concept tho

‘rescuing some orphans from an exploding sun’ I fucking cant

evil guy: [holds a gun to thunderclash’s head]

rodimus: :D finally something doesn't go his way!

he’s so petty I’m..........dkdjhfdabhduifadijgl

and its the aliens from earlier! oooh

GODDD I forgot that swerve used rung in mystery stick mode to SCHWACK the guy

rung casually dropping the fact that the functionists like, experimented on him...there's a lot of implications there, and that'll certainly be explored more later...

the fact that his ID card says ‘rong’ hvbhjakhdsbfakhsjfn

oughufadkfujbsfk the circle of light throwing wrenches n shit at skids...guys cmon vbhsdjkfnslfd

the circle of light is like ‘wtf you all have trauma and a bunch of weird unhealthy coping mechanisms this is wack byeeeee’ lmao

skids calling the lost light his home is rlly sweet tho

cant believe the religious space hippy cult is being so rude about a film made by a guy who died like a week ago. unreal

cd finally figured out how to make the pffft sound, good for him

AUGHHHHH the fact that rewind used ‘little victories’ as the title of the film and that's something that chromedome said in the video ;_; I'm fucking inconsolable

rodimus, despite his obvious posturing for the camera during the whole issue, comes off as surprisingly genuine when he says that he hasn't thought about his own future much, but wants the crew to have a happy ending....im gonna cry

‘who knows what's around the corner?’ tailgate, PLEASE don't say that, oh my god,

OUGHHHH GROUP SHOT

OHHH mannnnNNNNN i love this issue SO MUCH. what a good fun emotional rollercoaster wrap-up to mtmte s1. god.

like, this issue has it all - humor, drama, crippling sadness, intrigue, worldbuilding...it’s so excellent

and getting to see rewind again hurts so bad but also I love him

ok quick mtmte s1 retrospective...god s1 is so fucking good. I'm gonna have to read more to say which chunk of mtmte I liked best but s1 is so fucking excellent that it might be my favorite. though its hard to pick bc there's so much good stuff later on too...whatever, the point is s1 is so so good

the plotlines and characters are fucking stellar. like I cant even believe how well Everything works, its very impressive. I cant really think of anything major that made me go ‘yeah could've done without that plotline/character’

I love how dedicated jro is to connecting everything. I've mentioned it before but basically every single moment in the series has payoff - what you initially think is just a funny moment, or a fluffy character establishment bit, ends up ALSO being an important plot point later, in some way

an example would be here w/rung and his alt mode - it just seems like a fun little B-plot for this issue, and seems to pretty neatly conclude with the reveal that rung was eventually classified as an ‘ornament’ (lmao)...but we later on get to see a lot more about this, both here and in the functionist universe

and like, stuff like tailgate’s autobot lessons w/magnus - at first that can be seen as purely character establishment stuff, showing that magnus is a strict rule-lover and tg is a loveable try-hard good boy - but that becomes plot relevant in remain in light, with tailgate saving the day due to his knowledge of the autobot code (and its also character relevant, with magnus’s arc in remain in light).

and I know this is like. a normal regular thing in writing, but I'm just very impressed about how cleanly jro pulls it off, and how many things he’s juggling at once, especially in early mtmte - it’s very ambitious!

and we gotta remember, this is a comic book. I've read a lot of comic books, and the quality is all over the place. a lot of writers bite off more than they can chew, and the story ends up kinda scattered as a result.

another thing I see a lot in franchise writing like this is a lack of strong early character establishing due to the author assuming the readers are at least somewhat familiar with the characters already - which can be totally fair depending on where it is in the continuity, but other times it can come off as lazy

in mtmte, the cast is extremely well fleshed out, and not only that, the cast itself is unique in that there are a lot of relative unknowns (franchise-wise) - which I think was an absolutely brilliant move, because then jro was able to essentially create The Definitive Version of these characters - characters like swerve, brainstorm, chromedome, rewind, tailgate...mtmte is their baseline characterization, because they haven't really appeared in much else

this also allows for deviation from the franchise norms - again, a comic book classic is good writing being stifled by a need to stick to a certain status quo regard the characters, the world, the powers, relationships, etc

(I've mostly read DC comics, and some marvel, so I'm thinking superheroes w/all these comic comparisons)

so mtmte had a good recipe for genuine creativity in that the characters were relative unknowns, the plot was basically ‘space road trip,’ the status quo of ‘autobot vs decepticon war’ had been demolished throughout the entire franchise...so jro was able to take all that and run, and it turned out so fantastic

and luckily it isn't over yet! so many comics suffer from premature cancellation...and sadly mtmte/ll isn't exempt from this, as we’ll see later, but I've seen some awful ones, where comics are forced to wrap up in like 2 issues while in the middle of an arc. yikes.

but another comic staple...one of my least favorite things about comics books in general...something that was basically responsible for driving me away from comics after reading a bunch...the dreaded crossover event

yep, even mtmte isn't immune to this unfortunate plague on the comic industry. crossover events are the absolute worst, and I'm saying this as somebody who adores crossovers (in concept more than execution usually). they SHOULD be my favorite, but unfortunately they p much always completely suck

they're essentially a ploy to get you to read the other ongoing titles, but they usually only serve to bog down whatever story you're reading to the point where you don't even wanna read that one anymore, let alone read all the other ongoings. at least, that’s been my experience

it doesn't help that reading orders tend to be hard to find/keep track of, and that you need to go read the other series to know what's going on. I just hate it, like, I came here to read THIS series, I don't want a bunch of other series showing up too - even if I was reading two series, I wouldn't want them crossed over, because they're separate stories! augh!

I'm totally losing my focus here but my point is...crossover events suck, and mtmte unfortunately is involved in one. I have not read dark cybertron, and I'm not about to. I've heard nothing but bad things so I have no desire to inflict that upon myself

soooo ill be reading through the tfwiki articles for those issues to give myself a better understanding of what went on - which is more than I've ever done in the past - and maybe ill even make a single post summarizing my thoughts on what I read in the wiki, lmao

but yea ill be skipping to the mtmte s2 stuff next

phew ok I'm super tired, my vision keeps blurring out and stuff lmao. its time for bed, I probably have more thoughts but ill save them for later. for now...peace out!

#lj rereads mtmte

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mmmmalo · 5 years ago

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This is a (meandering, non-exhaustive) overview of Homestuck’s use of

by which I do not mean examples of psychological realism in a character’s words and deeds, but rather the various means by which characters’ psyches are expressed outside of themselves. I wish to elaborate on how thoughts, feelings, and desires may find expression in the environment, in the medium of the story itself, and in the form of other characters.

That’s perhaps a little vague, so here’s a ready example of what I mean: brainghost!Dirk. He talks with Jake, but since he is a construct of Jake’s mind, Jake is essentially talking to himself. Brainghost!Dirk is an alienated medium for voicing Jake’s own thoughts, irretrievably distorted through its intermingling with what Jake thinks/wishes Dirk would say (not unlike a puppet). I am claiming that this mode of characterization is not a unique to Jake; the blurring of inner and outer voices is omnipresent throughout the story.

Or, rephrased: what I hope to show is that a great deal of Homestuck is haunted with brain-ghosts, of one kind or other.

An early example of this kind of storytelling in science fiction would be the film Forbidden Planet (1956). The film contains a pair of conflicts which eventually reveal themselves to be one: the scientist Morbius wants some space explorers to get off his planet, and an immense monster (pictured above) appears during the night to attack the explorers. Morbius, it turns out, has been experimenting with a machine capable of turning thought into reality. So when Morbius sleeps, his dream of driving off the trespassers materializes in the form of beast that forcefully enacts the wish.

The beast is declared a “monster from the id”, the “id” being a concept borrowed from Freudian psychology, indicating the part of the mind responsible for the unfiltered generation of impulses, of urges. In the film, this passing mention of psychoanalysis precedes the revelation of Morbius’s link to the beast.

Homestuck hints towards its own mixing of thought and reality with a device similar to Morbius’s dream machine: Sburb.

A snapshot of Dave’s Sburb client (1519) shows that the final subprograms launched during the games installation make reference to terminology associated with Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. The terms suggest that Sburb interacts with the ideas in the kids’ subconscious minds (archetypes) and brings symbolic representations of these ideas into conscious reality (manifests the ideas). The game alters the means by which reality is constructed. As with Forbidden Planet, a major result of this is id monsters.

When John slips on a staircase, he flips out (left, 560). And when he nearly launches himself into the abyss with the Pogo Hammer, he has to take a nap before he has calmed down enough to continue (center, 637). Immediately following both moments of vertigo, massive ogres appear. The eventual fight with the ogres begins after John looks over the edge of the platform above his house, into the abyss (right, 662).

All of this suggests that Sburb is reacting to John’s emotional state (fear) to produce in-game content. The game functions as a waking dream.

It should also be noted that Sburb provokes the reactions it elicits. Karkat once mentioned a nagging feeling that the game was mocking him by giving him a planet covered in the candy red blood he had spent a lifetime attempting to hide (2301). Karkat’s paranoia seems to be correct here, and moreover applicable to the cast in general -- John’s house was likely placed atop an immense spire /in order to/ bring John’s dread of falling into sharp relief. The suspicion can be substantiated with a few related motifs.

The story provides two likely origins for John’s fear of heights: his own fall from the slime pogo as a child (2626) and the death of Nanna, which John believed resulted from her falling from a ladder and being crushed by a book (52). What’s more, Sburb’s invocation of the Fall of Man (Adam and Eve being cast from the Garden of Eden) via biting into an apple hints that there is an allegorical significance to John’s more literal fear of heights.

We can apply these patterns to other characters in an attempt to learn more about them. LOLAR being covered in ocean suggests that Rose is afraid of water, with the likely cause of Rose finding Jaspers dead and washed up on a riverbank (presumed drowned). Dave speaks openly about how his sword fights with Bro left him anxious of metal sounds (7749), meaning the grinding gears of LOHAC were a personalized hell for Dave. Jade’s first imp manifests in response to the sight of a yellow aurora (2998), inviting the reader to investigate why that image invokes a fear response.

But we won’t get to into all of that, not for now at least. Let’s take a step back.

For my reading of the imps as manifestations I’ve been leaning heavily on a piece of film theory devoted to the effects of sequential images. The sequence above constitutes two observations. One, that by this arrangement the viewer will infer the old man sees and reacts to the middle figure. Two, that the viewer’s impression of the old man will change based on the content of the central image, even if his expression is the same. Is he smiling at Nepeta or warm embrace Marvus’s armpit? The answer may influence your interpretation of the little smile.

The neat thing about montage is that the interrupting frame need not bear any obvious relation to what precedes or follows in order to be subject to a causal reading. Moments that occur sequentially can be read as triggering one another, even if what follows any particular moment appears to be a break rather than a continuation.

Example: There’s a moment where Aranea walks into Jake’s dream, and brainghost!Dirk immediately starts razzing Jake about his attraction to the alien girl and threatening to give him a boner. The scene is interrupted by Jack committing a series of gratuitous murders. We then cut back to Jake, and bg!Dirk is now teasing him about his dirty thoughts.

DIRK: You have got to be kidding. Did you seriously just think something THAT dirty? DIRK: You must be doing this on purpose to spite me now. I mean, just wow dude. That was x-rated as fuck.

JAKE: (No no stop. See youre talking about it and now i cant help it!) JAKE: (You are psyching me into having dirty thoughts get fucking lost you interloping brain douche!!!)

DIRK: Don't worry, I'm gone. It's like a goddamn peep show in here and I feel like a sleazy piece of shit watching this from a dark corner of your mind. DIRK: You have a graphic imagination, English. I'm kind of impressed.

JAKE: (Shut up theyre just thoughts its not even like im trying to have them THEY DONT MEAN ANYTHING!)

The ostensible joke is that bg!Dirk is exaggerating or outright fabricating his account of Jake’s thoughts in order to hassle him. But by way of montage, one can infer that we /have/ seen Jake’s dirty thoughts, in the form of Jack’s display of overwhelming bloodlust. Violence is superimposed over the sexually explicit.

Whether the scene literally takes place in Jake’s mind is secondary (though such a reading would explain why Jake’s brain ghost is even aware of Jack) -- the use of montage allows Jack’s actions to function as a /metaphor/ for Jake’s thought.

Another example of Jack functioning as a murderous/libidinous avatar would be the death of Mom and Dad. At their little tea party, Dad spills some wine on Mom’s clothes and declares that she must disrobe immediately (so that Dad might launder the garment). Mom calls the aromas wafting from his pipe sensuous. The two clasp hands and declare that all they need is eachother. Then they die! The joke is that while Bec Noir is ostensibly an interruption to date night, he also functions as its culmination, with murder acting as substitute for the sex act.

The link between violence and sexuality is perhaps a hard sell, but I hope to convince you that the reading holds merit. Let me emphasize that the very act of Mom and Dad holding hands was itself sexually loaded.

I owe to HS liveblogger elfstuck the insight that John’s linear 3 card sylladex is a reflection of his short attention span. Consider how John’s role as a game character means he is thrown all around his room, back and forth, as the player figures out what to make of the situation. If you ignore the fourth wall, you’re left with an extremely distracted person, who attention flows easily from one object to another. Accepting the object-in, object-out nature of John’s sylladex and the resulting shenanigans as a metaphor for this, it would follow that the sylladex in general can offer an abstract representation of thought.

In passing, I can mention how the enormity of Jake’s sylladex (it cannot even fit on the page, and contains an object that exceed most players’ size limits) would imply that despite evidence to the contrary, the boy likely has a big brain (and perhaps its being offscreen suggests Jakes own unawareness of much of his own thought). Dirk’s comment about avoiding items that are difficult to shoehorn into his mnemonic schema (4535) could be read as a difficulty maintaining information that doesn’t fit into his personal mental models. The sylladex becomes a metaphor for the mind that requires interpretation.

Under this mode of thought, the moments when Jade’s pictionary modus fails to correctly interpret her drawing become akin to a mental slip-of-the-tongue. For the Tanglebuddies to be misread as enmeshed hands implies an association, in Jade’s mind, of horny Squiddles and clasped hands. John affirms the association much later by miming Tanglebuddies as he attempts to grapple with the question of whether Jade and Davesprite are sexually compatible (5294):

JOHN: how do things even work if you marry a sprite?

JADE: what do you mean

JOHN: i mean... JOHN: ok, he has a ghost butt, for one thing.

JADE: uh JADE: so

JOHN: a GHOST BUTT, jade!

JADE: SO WHAT IF HE HAS A GHOST BUTT!!!!!

JOHN: i'm just saying...

JADE: WHATEVER YOURE JUST SAYING, JUST STOP SAYING IT! JADE: and whatever youre trying to gesture with your hands there, stop doing that too!

It should also be noted that before launching into her “daring dream”, waxing poetic on the miraculous union of the human and the animal with her hands clasped in wonder, Jade successfully captchalogued the Tanglebuddies (796). And more to the point, Jade’s pose in reproduced during discussions of cherub (5961) and leprechaun (6007) reproduction. Hand-holding becomes representative of an (oft-sexualized) union, underlining the euphemistic nature of Mom and Dad’s post-contact demise.

The next example of using montage to communicate thought requires a little more buildup.

There’s a gag in Rose’s introduction where the reader tells Rose to play with her writing journals, and scoots the journals under the bed and retorts that she would only do that if no one were watching (220). At first glance, the moment scans as a minor meta joke in a story filled with meta jokes -- but the trick is that Rose does not /know/ herself to be a video game character, her every movement controlled and observed. Rather, she /believes/ this to be true -- the joke about being watched establishes that Rose is paranoid, as will become apparent in the hostility she assigns to Mom’s every action.

The command prompt and narration are themselves brain ghosts of a sort: the voice deployed in them is always linked to the present point-of-view character. The insults that precede character introductions ( “Zoosmell Pooplord”, etc) become marks of anxiety, an intrusive proclamation of what the kids at times think of themselves (and/or what they think others think of them). “Nice time management skills, sweetheart!” becomes a bit of self-deprecation Rose as she procrastinates, which Rose experiences as having been voiced by some objective observer who judges her deficiencies.

A blurred line divides characters from the voice at the back of their head, belonging to the (presumed) omniscient, omnipotent author-god. This is why avatar!Hussie is dressed as Calliope when he is killed by Lord English. Both Calliope and Hussie are a voice in Caliborn’s head, and thus both present apparent obstacles to an unmediated self.

The left panel (3219) foreshadows the right (3358). Gamzee is not being declared the objectively most important character in Homestuck. Rather, Gamzee is declaring himself /to have been declared/ the most important character in the story. The line establishes that Gamzee believes himself to be in a story (with an author!) and that this author has declared him paramount. Furthermore, “fondly regarding creation” is an modus operandi of Problem Sleuth’s Godhead Pickle Inspector. Applying that turn of phrase to Gamzee’s actions further establishes that Gamzee believes himself to /be/ the god-author declaring his own importance. So it should come as no surprise that 137 pages later, Gamzee outright proclaims himself to be the god(s) he worships.

Going back to montage, it becomes interesting that this snapshot of Gamzee’s megalomania is inter-cut with the creation of Jadesprite -- the moment that dead!dream!Jade merges with Bec, forming a unity with a deity not unlike the unity Gamzee claims with his mirthful messiahs. The interweaving would suggest that Jade and/or Jadesprite experienced analogous thoughts of megalomania upon the moment of ascension.

This would be a good point to mention that not only imps and ogres, but trolls also function as manifestations for the people they impose upon. Karkat is not only an interruption here, but also a continuation. He points out that Jade’s self-loathing, that she cannot safely distance herself from the qualities of Jadesprite she finds distasteful. This is precisely why Karkat ends the conversation by telling Jade to turn off the fourth wall (which divides the self!), as well as the reason he imagines Jade making out with herself: Karkat is on every front presenting the prospect of union with oneself.

The notion of trolls as manifestations first emerges clearly when Rose and Dave receive their packages from John. As they finish reading John’s letter, each is suddenly contacted by a troll and greeted with the command “Answer.” Critically, by word alone it is ambiguous as to whether the command refers to answering the troll or the letter. And as it turns out, these answer occur simultaneously: Rose and Dave’s responses to the letters are embedded in the subsequent conversations.

Rose receives a letter poking fun at her pretensions, claiming that her attempts to hide her affections for people are futile. In response we get Kanaya, who imperiously proclaims her disdain for Rose, only to suddenly change tact and explicitly seek Rose’s friendship, an entreaty which the oft paranoid Rose accepts. Dave receives a letter imploring him to let go of his insecurities and express himself. In response we get Tavros, the very picture of insecurity, who is fixated on the idea of making Dave shit himself (as part of an ‘emotional constipation’ motif that follows Dave). And Dave complies, in a sense, by way of the quasi-ironic gay treatise that compels Tavros to block him. Each conversation addresses the issues laid out in John’s letter.

Examples can be found throughout the comic. Equius remarking that he talks to Gamzee every day (2220) establishes that Gamzee is regularly haunted by the thoughts of domination that Equius voices -- both in the literal and metaphorical sense. Erisolsprite referring to Dirk as a rock 2oliid piiece of a22 and then calling himself 2ociiopathiic for even thinking something so callous (5516) expresses a conflict already present in Jake’s own mind, echoing the frustration with his own dirty thoughts expressed by the argument with brainghost!Dirk. Feferi’s pronounced enthusiasm for the imminent apocalypse should cause you to question Kanaya’s seemingly neutral resignation towards the end of the world, since Feferi manifests for Kanaya (2328). And so on.

The person being trolled is always being confronted with thoughts or feelings or memories already present within themself. Alien contact always doubles as a brain ghost haunting.

Another example, with some buildup: Karkat invokes the phrase “PERFORATE MY BONE BULGE WITH A CULLING FORK” to express his contempt for Vriska, and on subsequent pages we see Feferi pointing her culling fork at a cuttlefish (2181), as if to suggest that the creature symbolizes the bone bulge. Fast forward to Kanaya, who has just gotten through a conversation with Vriska and finds herself haunted by Eridan, who keeps going on about his romantic desperations and insisting (correctly) that Kanaya’s crush on Vriska is itself romantic. That his notification erupts from an image of cuttlefish held at Kanaya’s waist adds to the air of yearning, as though her own bulge is rumbling. The scene is capped off with a double entendre: “its hard and nobody understands” is playfully poignant jab at an inability to understand one’s own desires (among other things).

And Homestuck devotes a lot of attention to desire.

It’s long been acknowledged by the fandom at large that Kanaya’s attraction to Light players functions as a joke on the proverbial moth-to-the-flame. As reconciliation with the fire destroys the moth, there’s a morbid tinge to the attraction, as though it doubles as a death wish. And the wish is granted -- when Kanaya dies in Homestuck, she dies to light, either from Eridan’s wand or the laser blasts unleashed by HIC. Even the death of Kanaya’s lusus pertains to light -- the matriorb ripped from her innards is shaped like a miniature sun, as if to establish some loose link between the notion of motherhood and the incandescence Kanaya eventually achieves.

This can be generalized into a principle wherein lusii (and the circumstances of their deaths!) can functions as analogies for the desire of the wards.

Vriska, for example, desires execution. When offering Terezi a flimsy apology for crippling Tavros and proxy-murdering Aradia, Vriska offers to slam her head against her desk in penitence. This moment should be read against Vriska’s addiction to breaking 8 balls, and leaving the broken shards lying around as though she’s inviting the “bad luck” of stepping on them. It /is/ an invitation. Vriska seeks love via violent retribution against herself. This is why in the right panel, Vriska’s blood-spattered head is juxtaposed with a broken 8 ball: the blood came from Spidermom’s execution (which characterizes Vriska’s desire), and motif of 8R8K H34DS connects the moment to Vriska’s idea of apology.

Like Kanaya, Vriska (to a degree) seems to structure her love life along these lines. In the words of @azdoine:

like ppl are actually out here writing Vriska as the top as if her entire Act 5 character arc isn’t about bratting out until Terezi has no choice but to punish her

“oh noo, I, the thief of light, stole all of your luck, and made the coin land on the scratched side! now you have to kill me! but I’m probably going to get away with everything, because you don’t have the guts to stab me with that sword of yours!!!!!!!! if only there was somebody, like you, who could prove me wrong!”

EXTREMELY SUBTLE THERE, VRISKA

Vriska’s approach to wooing Tavros also revolves around baiting execution:

The scene: Tavros leads a horde of imps and ogres into a mystery cave, the top of which is adorned with kissing lizards and an alchemical symbol. Tavros is putting a puzzle of a frog together, but Vriska has already pieced together the puzzle: making a frog universe is, in part, a cipher for personal reproduction. The Ultimate Alchemy is making a baby! And as Vriska says, “real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold.” So she brings Tavros to LOMAT and makes the moves on him.

Tavros is equated to a treasure chest by the repeated use of framing and Vriska is GOING FOR THE GOLD, like a WINNER. Tavros later reaches into the same chest for his lance before heading off to attempt to kill Vriska -- affirming that the treasure Vriska seeks here is Tavros’s “lance”.

This setup was suggested by the conversation accompanying the kissing salamanders: Vriska gives Tavros a map with a big red X, saying he should take his legion of imps through the gate and go defeat his denizen. The gate actually leads to Vriska, but she isn’t lying. She is positioning herself to be Tavros’s final boss. The imps are manifestations of Tavros’s pent up rage (much of which was generated by Vriska’s harassment), and Vriska wants Tavros to take that anger out on her. Hence the later panel which uses Vriska’s boots to place a big red X directly over her groin, making explicit the implicit goal of Tavros’s trip to the windmill X-gate.

This pursuit of love through violent comeuppance may have something to do with Vriska’s bitter disappointment that ghost!Aradia did not seem to hate her.

An intermission/introduction of sorts, as we bridge from one discussion of desire to another: did you know that Michael Bay’s Armageddon (1998) structures itself in part around Freud’s Oedipus complex? I say this in total sincerity.

The plot: a meteor the size of Texas bears down upon the Earth, threatening armageddon. Luckily, a crew of rough-and-tumble oil drillers are ready to fly into space and split that mother in two. Oh HELL yeah.

Except, wait, the movie’s actually about family drama: Bruce Willis finds Ben Affleck sleeping with his daughter Liv Tyler; Willis proceeds to chase Affleck around the oil rig with a shotgun, bang bang bang. Not Allowed. The Protective-Father-Hates-Your-Boyfriend dynamic is presented as an Oedipal triad of sorts: although Tyler is not literally Affleck’s mother, she performs the mom-function of “forbidden object of desire” -- and Willis opening fire is equivalent to the castration said to await trespassers onto maternal soil.

The above reading is buttressed by jokes: Armageddon appears to function within an implicit dream machine, such that the characters’ thoughts and fears can become manifest in their environment. So when it comes to pass that whenever Affleck climbs into a hole (heehee), a pipe breaks (hoohoo), and suddenly everything goes boom, I read that as Affleck reliving the consequences of boning Tyler, packaged in such a way that the Freudian fear of castration is more explicit. (The relevance of Oedipus to the proceedings adds some humor to Steve Buscemi declaring the entire disastrous situation a “Greek tragedy”)

At any rate, after some shenanigans, Willis comes to accept Affleck’s claim to his daughter and confers the deed, as it were. Willis gives the young couple his blessing and they get married. Hooray!

Except, wait, the movie’s actually about the perpetuation of the oil industry: the dream machine was declared at the beginning of the movie when a petty street-side argument triggered the first barrage of meteors. The meteor the size of Texas (aka Dotty) is triggered by conflicts that haunt the central cast -- namely Willis, who enters the film hitting golf balls at a Green Peace boat. On a metaphorical level, Dotty is a golf ball the size of Texas, striking directly at the Earth instead its self-declared representatives. There’s a certain irony here: the film lampshades that the men who are destroying the world have been tasked with saving it.

The family drama folds into the environmentalist angle: Liv Tyler is a symbol of the earth (which gets drilled). This is the joke when Affleck is bouncing animal crackers around on her belly like she’s host to the Savannah: she kind of is! It’s no coincidence that Willis confers ownership of the oil rig at the same moment that he offers his daughter’s hand in marriage: the motifs are being discussed simultaneously.

But enough of all of that: back to Homestuck.

Armageddon’s simultaneous casting of Liv Tyler into the roles of earth and mother offers a glimpse at the interpretive possibilities made available by Hussie’s statement that Homestuck is in a way a synonym for Earthbound (an RPG in which “homesickness” is a status ailment which can be cured by calling your mom). Stuckness or boundness can be deployed to communicate a sense of longing for “home”.

A good chunk of Homestuck is built upon feelings of nostalgia, taken to mean a sort of intense separation anxiety with the past. John speaks about this when he watches Con Air with Jade – John wants the movie to feel like it did when he watched it with his Dad long ago, but the feeling from when he was a kid is gone. This upsets him. Moreover, John’s freakout starts at the moment Cyrus puts a gun to the bunny’s head (5286): Con Air itself is partly about Nic Cage trying to return to the life he lost when he went to jail, and ‘putting the bunny back in the box’ is a metaphor for the attempt. Cyrus, in threatening the bunny, is highlighting his role as a force preventing things from going back to how they were. Thus, if we are to believe that John is responding to the movie thematically, Cyrus confronts John with his own inability to go back to a happier past – his inability to go home -- and this recognition is met with anger.

In making the leap to the psychoanalytic motifs, it helps to recall the part where baby!Dirk responds to being born by cracking open his ectotube and crawling back inside. Dirk, who aspires towards his “ultimate self”, illustrates here that he envisions his ascension as a return to the ‘essence’ of Dirk from which he (and all other iterations of himself) arose, as represented by the ectoslime. Baby!Dirk gestures at unity with his ectoslime/essence by crawling back into the place from which he was born, which I’m basically claiming is a “return to the womb” on a symbolic level, or at least that this is a useful parallel to draw. (A related motif to think about: Dirk decapitates himself by sticking his head inside a box, which as per Con Air symbolizes the place you wish to return to)

[Hella Jeff sez: “i took (my pants) off because i was banging your mom for a minute there..... AND NOW YOU ARE BANGING HER”]

Castration becomes unavoidable as you try to relate all of this to Dave, whose occasional references to banging hot moms are part of an ongoing reference to the Oedipus Complex. Critically, the complex is not /just/ about wanting to bone your mom, but also fear that your dad will chop your junk off if you do. The breaking of Dave’s sword on the rooftop is a realization of this fear (yes, we’re doing the “swords are phallic” thing). But Dave has no mom that he knows of, so what gives?

The answer is in the way Bro inexplicably breaks the record emblem on Dave’s t-shirt, as though he has introduced a fissure into Dave’s very identity. Life with Bro has made it very difficult for Dave to be honest with himself, which is to say, Dave pictures Bro’s abuse as having divided him from an ideal “true self”, which can feel emotions without all the anxious ironic detachment. I mentioned before that seeking unity with that from which you came is a “return to the womb”. This is the sense in which the Oedipal mom attraction becomes relevant: the return to the past is sexualized. The ‘home’ Dave wishes to return to is /himself/, and in this sense Dave is his own hot mom (which is related to how often Dave compliments his own looks, as well as the above gif suggesting Dave’s boner – he is literally/metaphorically “attracted” to himself).

(Incidentally: this model of desire, in which a broken subject attempt to become whole again by seeking out its lost half, is basically the concept of the soulmate, as laid out by Plato. Cherub reproduction turns the metaphysical pursuit of one’s lost half into a plot-level objective)

John’s entry item (apple) was linked to fear embodied in a childhood trauma (the Fall), and the same can be said of Dave. Hatching from the shell that contained your primordial goop (Dirk) is analogous to being violently separated from yourself (Dave), which is why Dave’s entry item (an egg) hatching coincided with Bro slicing the meteor in half: the abuse that divided Dave from himself, his “castration” by Bro, is simultaneously the “birth” that separated Dave from his “mother” (which is also Dave).

The general idea is that birth = self-alienation = castration, insofar as all are depicted as modes of being separated from oneself.

The broad motif of ‘being separated from oneself’ can be very useful for identifying brain ghosts in unexpected places. Take for example, Roxy’s fenestrated planes: when they are introduced the narrative is quick to tell us that if someone were caught half in/out of one of the windows when the power cuts out, they would be sliced in half. By the rule of Chekhov’s gun, this introduction should mean we should eventually see someone get gorily bisected by the window, but alas we never do.

Instead, when Gcat warped the panel away, trapping Roxy between the windows, we were shown the image of a bisected horse puppet in Dirk’s apartment, This signals that Chekhov’s gun has indeed gone off. But rather than splitting a body, it split a soul: Meenah’s introduction follows the sequence because Roxy has generated a shadow of herself, a doppelganger. This is not without precedent: an earlier portion of this post was devoted to exploring the fourth wall as a mode of self-alienation. Roxy’s panel mishap can be considered part of that pattern.

If Meenah functions as an extension of Roxy, all of her actions can be read as bearing some relations to Roxy’s own latent thoughts and desires. Prior to the epilogues, for example, Meenah imploring John not to give her the ring seemed to be yet another Fuck You to the late Chekov: the issue never comes up again. But a psychic link between Meenah and Roxy would suggest that John broke his promise to Meenah by giving the ring to Roxy, and that whatever motivations compelled Meenah to make her request in the first place would also apply to Roxy.

Decapitation is yet another mode of self-alienation, and thus can be construed as a mode of birth. Hence the image of Lil Sebastian hatching from his shell of taxidermied man meat. That’s a motif unto itself, but what I wish to call attention to is the match-cut from John’s broke body to Jake’s broken tower. The juxtaposition collapses the images into metaphor, such that Jake’s loose dome in the woods becomes a decapitated head -- an appropriate addition to the pumpkin patch it rests in, given all the Headless Horseman jokes. We can look to Dirk for for another example of a headless horse-man of the house echoing the head: for a guy who idealizes decapitation to such a degree, it is striking that Sburb aims to provoke him by reattaching his beheaded apartment to its underlying units.

Houses act as metaphors for heads, then “Homestuck” could also interpreted as “head trapped” -- like the title emphasizes confinement within one’s own mind. Such a reading offers up Failure to Launch and Arrested Development (posters on John and Jane’s walls) as alternate synonyms for Homestuck, as each satirizes (or outright mocks) potential failure states in the process of inter-personal and mental development (ie “growing up”). Like Earthbound, both lean on a sense of homesickness in characterizing despondency, as though characters are haunted by the needs that defined their childhood -- or else find themselves needing that childhood itself.

But collapsing nostalgia into infantile regression is far from the only way to approach the house/heads equation. One might read the transformation and growth of houses with Sburb as metaphors for expanding the mind. One might infer that the choreography of events within houses can map out thoughts like dancing bees. One might take the metaphor as a foothold for interpreting the significance of the Sburb logo being at once a house and a window. \I have my own thoughts about Homestuck’s brain-ghost haunted house-minds, but for now, I only hope that this document has raised some interesting questions -- and ideally, that the interpretive approaches I’ve described might be useful in seeking answers.

#homestuck #homestuck meta #this is basically the contents of the stream #movies #john #rose #dave #jade #jake #dirk #roxy #gamzee #vriska #4th wall #psychoanalysis #house as head #plato

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jeonjagia · 5 years ago

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Dancing For Yoongi- Chapter 20 Broken Hearts Make Broken Bodies

I have been trying to contact Chandry for 10 minutes now, and there is no reply. "Guys, let's head back, something's wrong," I tell the boys. We gather our supplies, load the van, and head back. I bite my lip as I drive, wondering why she isn't answering. Pulling up to the building, I see the door is open. It was closed when I left. Panic setting in, I open the door to the van before it's stopped, and head inside. I come to a sudden stop. There's Jin, on the floor, pale as a ghost, a pool of blood near him. Rushing toward him, I kneel and see where he is injured. Sighing I see it's just a flesh wound, but a bad one at that. The rest of the boys enter now. "What the hell happened?" Jimin asks looking around. Everything seems in order. Until I notice the food. Food uneaten to be precise. Standing I walk to jungkooks desk and see a bowl of spaghetti and a glass of milk. The glass has condensation on the outside. Touching the bowl, it's slightly warm. "She left 30 minutes ago," I say judging by the heat of the bowl. "What do you mean?" "What? You think she shot jin and made a run for it? No ass she was taken!" I say rounding on Jimin. He backs away. "Suga, get ahold of yourself," Jhope orders. Sighing, I see if my gun is loaded, then head over to the weapons table. Grabbing four throwing knives, another gun, and bullets, I pack up. "Where are you going? We dont even know where she is?" RM chastises. "Yes we do, that building was a fake, and the only person who knew that was her father," I inform. "We need to find her," Sighing, the boys get to work. Jungkook in his computer, RM pulling information from books, and me, thinking logically. I need to find her, I don't know what he will do to her. I think to myself.

"I DONT KNOW WHERE IT IS!!!" I scream as he cuts me once again. "Lier," He says glaring at me positioning his knife again. "No, no, I'm serious, I don't know," I pant begging for him to stop. He keeps going as he cuts, slice after slice into my stomach. "You'll be scarred for life, and no one will have you," he muses. My arms ache as they are tied above my head. I'm stretched out on a metal table, hands and feet tied. My shirt pushed up to my chest, exposing my stomach, which he is making his art upon. The next few hours, if they are, I can't tell time, are spent screaming for him to stop. They think I have the location to one of the bases, which I don't, but they do not believe me. "Stop," my father orders as he reappears from the dark corner. "I've had enough, she doesn't know where it is, pity," he says looking at my stomach, "well just wait till they make a move," he says gesturing for the man to leave with him. I'm left, skin burning and blood dripping. Please yoongi, don't do anything stupid. Please. I pray.

We are ready to go. And I already know where we're going: the mansion. The real one. Jungkook found it after an hour of work. Bastard. I think to myself. I know he's hurting her, trying to squeeze information from her. As I imagine it, my fists clench. He's going to get what's coming to him.

Getting into the van, I plug the location into the GPS, and start the car. "Hyung, don't kill us in your quest for vengeance," Jimin says buckling himself in. Smirking at his statement, I drive away from the building, and head off in the direction.

We've arrived at the place, and parked a few blocks down. I didn't think I would find it so fast. But yes, this is the place. Cocking my gun, I slip out of the van, walking around to the other side. "Alright," I say after everyone groups, "we're going in, go silent and try to find Chandry. We know where the storage is, so if you find it, and if you can try to take some, take some. If not, don't try to," The nod, understanding. "Our main focus is Chandry, get her, get out." Nods again. Loading up, we sneak around the perimeter of the fence, looking for an easy way in, undetected. Jimin finds it, a small section of the fence unguarded by cameras or people.Pulling out my laser, I cut a hole for each of us to fit through. Once we're inside, I hurry toward the house in the blind spot of the cameras. The next patrol is in 10 minutes. We have to be inside the house in 10 minutes. "Jimin, find an opening," I command backing up to the wall of the house, gun at the ready. Moving along the wall, I slowly peer around the corner. A guard is coming along way above schedule. Shit. I curse. "Jimin, hurry it up, we have incoming," Jimin pauses understanding what I mean. He hurried faster, trying to get the glass of the window out of its frame. Watching the shadows, I can see the guard will be coming in 5..4..3..2..1.. "What the-," his sentence is silenced as I jam my hand to his throat, knocking him back. Grabbing into his jacket, i pull him forward, not wanting to alert other guards. He struggles against me, successfully jamming his elbow into my jaw. It'll bruise. Growling I throw him into the wall, his head coming in contact with a lump in the decor of the structure. He's out cold. "Jimin," I urge, wiping away blood from a cut on my lip. "Got it!" He announces, holding the glass piece Placing it on the ground, we enter into the building, the dining room to be exact. Lush carpet adorns the floor, and a huge chestnut dining table centers in the room. Beautiful flower print table cloth and dishes decorate the table, making it seem like a rich family lives here. Looks can be deceiving I guess. Moving across the room, I press up against the wall along with the door, and quietly turn the handle of the ornate entrance. Peering out, I see to the left is the entrance into the house, a chandelier hangs stating the wealth of the place, a half wrap staircase runs along the furthest wall. Right in front of me, is a hallway. Painted white with ornate decor built into it. Another lush carpet lines the hardwood floor. Now I need to figure out where the downstairs is. That's where all their dirty work is. Like I said, looks can be deceiving. Watching the guards to the left, I figure out a time where we can exit the room and enter the hallway. "On three, run quietly to the hallway," I say over my shoulder to the boys as I still watch the guards. "One...two...three!" I exit the room, and make a run for the hallway. The boys follow and line up behind me in the hallway. "Well done boys. Now we need to find the downstairs," "Here boss," Jungkook says quietly opening a door, which leads to stairs to a lower level. "Go go," I urge as they file down. Entering the stairs, I close the door behind me. It's dark, so my eyes have to adjust to the light. The staircase is metal, so there's no hiding out coming. Circling around the structure there is a hallway to the right, and I head for it. Metal doors line the hallway on either side. I have no idea where to go. "Jungkook, where was she?" I ask keeping an eye out for guards. We are right out in the open. "I didn't have it boss," "What? Well pull it up!" I urge knowing we don't have time. "There's no wifi down here," he protests trying on his phone. Where is she?! Loosing it I yell, "Chandry!" "Yoongi, what the hell are you doing?!" RM yells through clenched teeth. "Chandry!" I yell starting to try the doors in a panic. "Jungkook find her!" I yell pulling on the metal handles.

"Chandry!" I hear from my sleep and I start awake. Theyre here. No. Yoongi, you didn't. "Yoongi!" I yell, struggling against my bonds. "Yoongi its a trap! ITS A TRAP!" I scream, my voice raw and hoarse. Please let him hear me! I think to myself as I look at the gun aimed at his height, rigged to fire if the door is opened. A tear falls.

"It's a trap!" I hear from the end of the hallway. I head toward it, still yelling her name. "Yoongi, ITS A TRAP!" I hear again. The last door on the left. Trap my ass. Trying the door gently, I can tell it's unlocked, but has some resistance. It's rigged. Cursing, I back track. I have no idea what the trap will do. "Jhope, the doors rigged, I don't know if it will hurt me or her," I say checking my gun. "Here," he hands me a scanner type device. "What the hell do I do with this?" I ask pressed for time. "Scan the room, it will come up with a picture on jungkooks phone," he informs. Handy. Heading back to the door, I scan it up and down, left and right. "Got it?" I ask looking back at them. "Hyung, there's a rifle rigged toward the door if you open it," Jungkook says examining the screen. Nodding I know what to do. Sinking down, I open the door from below. And then come the bullets. The gun fires fill its out. "YOONGI!!!" I hear her scream. Once it's done, I stand up, brushing casings off my shirt. Entering, I see her tied to a metal table, cuts adorn her stomach. Bastard. I curse. Unsheathing my knife, I cut her loose. She hugs me instantly. I hug her back. It's like she's clinging to me for life. I pause, thinking of the mission. It's too easy. It was all too easy. Pulling her off the table and carrying her,I hurry out of the room. "Guys we need to go," I say approaching them. "Why?" "It's a trap." "Yes we know," "No, not here." "Where?" Sudden realization plays in their faces, and they start backtracking. Up the stairs, into the hallway, and into the dining room. A guard catches us, and starts firing. With one shot he's down, but he's alerted others. Into the dining room we go, back out of the window, and to the side of the house. Quickly eyeing if there are any guards, I run with Chandry in my arms, back down the hill and through the fence. "Here," I say setting her down against the van. I then help the boys get through. "Into the van!" I yell, picking Chandry up and placing her in the back seat. "Jungkook now is not the time, but try to work on her," I order getting into the drivers seat. He nods knowing how serious this is. Once everyone's in, I kick the gas, screeching tires in our getaway. As we are on our way back, I keep checking the rear view mirror to make sure no ones coming. No ones coming. It was a trap. "Hyung, this is so disgusting what he did," Jungkook states from the backseat. "Why? What do you mean?" I ask concerned for Chandry. "He's cut her, the bastard sewed her up, only to cut her again. She's going to have giant scars on her stomach," he says picking at the bloodied gauze as she lays across his lap. Jungkook was right. He still loves her. I can see it. However cruel and twisted, he loves her. Shaking my head, I say, "Jungkook, just try to heal her as best you can without Jin,"

We pull up to the house and start to get out of the car. I take Chandry in my arms. She's already passed out. "There's something bad in here," I tell the boys. Entering the mission room, I don't see anything abnormal, except for the blood still on the floor from Jin. Still need to clean that up. Placing Chandry gently down on the floor, I take my gun out and cock it. Going from room to room, I make sure that the doors weren't broken into. Everything's fine, until I come to taehyungs room. It's ajar. Shit. Entering slowly, the smell comes first. Closing my eyes, I already know what to expect. Coming around the corner, there she is. Hardly recognizeable from the blood and broken face bones. Grimacing I look at her, or what's left of her. Taes going to be heartbroken. He actually started to love her. Backing out I head back to the room. "Everything's clear," I say staring at taehyung. He looks at me for a long while before he realizes what I can't say. "No," his voice sounds so heartbroken. Putting his gun away, he starts out of the room. "Wait, what happened?" Jimin asks from the floor where him and Jungkook are working on Chandry. A few seconds later we hear it. The roar of a heart broken man. Closing my eyes, I can't imagine what he's feeling. Another yell. "Boss?" Jimin inquires. "They got Celeste," I whisper. Jimin realizes and with a pause, continues working on Chandry. And another yell. I wait for him to come back. He soon returns, hands covered in blood, knees of his pants too, he must have kneeled by her. He's crying, in a rage, furious. I can relate. "No!" He yells knocking over a chair. "Tae," I say calmly. He doesn't stop. He takes the metal table, throwing everything off, papers, pens, and paper clips, all flying in one smooth motion. "Tae," I repeat more firmly. He stops and glares at me, eyes red, tears pouring. "I'm going to kill him," he says lowly at me, almost growling. Anyone who makes an enemy of Taehyung, doesn't live very long after they've wronged him.

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stripesquadsideblog · 7 years ago

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Everyone lives au: Kisame’s deal

There are so many things that could have been done to stop kisame . killer bee had samehada, a sword that can slice through an itachi uchiha fireball in one swoop. Yamato has woodstyle, strong against water and strong enough to suppress nine tails chakra. Hell, even Guy still had a few good strong kicks in him. But kisame was fast, even before they managed to pull him free from the water prison the sharks he had summoned managed to give him a few good bites; the largest of which took his right arm clean off.

Haemorrhaging, as it turns out can really put a dampener on any escape attempts . it takes a good couple of tugs and a fair bit of swearing but eventually they pull kisame from his water prison . he thrashes , oddly enough, like a fish out of water. He bites and claws like an animal as guy and yamato wrestle him to the ground and pin his remaining arm behind his back.

naruto uses his new 9-tails chakra mode to staunch the bleeding but it wont bring his arm back, hes only been doing it for like an hour at this point anyway. Aoba is in no hurry to go rooting around in the mind of someone who would willing bite off their own tongue and then commit suicide by shark. They decide to take Kisame back to Konoha; this shit is a job for the actual interrogators.

The walk back is hard; theres a war going on after all. Each of them takes it in turns to try and get kisame to spill it. It eventually takes an exasperated Motoi to explain that you idiots do realise he literally cant talk he has no tongue for them all to shut the hell up and leave poor kisame in peace.

Ibiki is waiting for them when they arrive. A face full of bloody spit from kisame wipes what the others think is a smirk from Ibikis face. They are less than gentle ushering kisame underground, but to his surprise the room they take him to is just a table 2 chairs and a pad of paper. No torture devices, no backup , not even any 2 way glass. If he wasn’t so light headed from blood loss kisame might have mustered the coherence to be insulted at this paltry display. Do they really see him a so little a threat? Hes been defanged so to speak; no sword and no way to form hand seals . he still got ACTUAL fangs though and he wont let them forget it . He bares his teeth at a medic nin who comes to treat him . a quick glance in Ibikis direction apparently reminds the poor sod who theyre more afraid of, Kisame begrudgingly allows her to give him stitiches. The taste of his own blood is not a pleasant one.

The medic finishes quickly and leaves ( read as : flees the room) and he is left alone with Ibiki.“summer 78, Wave country , the cipher division no?” Ibiki is floating around in his blindspot while kisame sucks on ice chips, mouth packed full with cotton. Surely Ibiki doesn’t expect him to respond, not in words anyway . but unfortunately for Kisame, hes the one that can’t speak, not Ibiki.

The interrogation nin breaks it down for him: you have information. We have someone you want. Kisame scoffs and scribbles down on the paper “nothing i want” because its true. They don’t have anything he wants. He gave up wanting when he killed his first kiri nin. It would be selfish, foolish to want anything out of life after that . “not something. “ Ibiki repeats “someone” kisame’s jaw clenches visibly. He twitches the pen in his hand. He wants to ask who. Who could possibly be important enough to hold over his head like a life reserver to a drowning man? He has an idea – but thats just foolishness. Itachi was dead.. There was enough blood in the ruins to kill both itachi and sasuke. And if that wasn’t enough Madara had told him so.

“itachi is dead.” Kisame scrawls throwing down the pen in anger. Its one thing to bring him here and bore him to death but dragging Itachi in to this is just low, even by Konoha standards.

“you don’t believe me?” Ibiki feigns hurt “ do you want to see him?” Kisame resists the urge to lunge at him. This is just cruel mockery. He almost wishes he would just torture him . Ibiki shrugs and moves to open the door . he stands in the frame and motions “ are you coming or what?”

They do things differently in Konoha, kisame muses. Hes made it all the way up 4 flights of stairs and no one has stabbed, flayed or whipped him yet. If this were Kiri he’d be strung up in the Mizukages garden before his ass left the chair. They’re still deep underground but the settings have changed from “depressing underground bunker” to “depressing underground hospital” there are so few rooms and people here he wonders why they bother; surely this space would be better used as a munitions dump or some sort of storage area.

Its then that kisame realises it technically is a storage area. Just for people. Every room emits the subtle but steady beat of a heart monitor. Rooms filled with comatose shinobi being kept alive by machines .

The really DO do things differently in Konoha....

Ibiki stops beside a dark room at the end of the hall. He jerks his head towards the darkness “you have 5 minutes.” Kisame doesn’t hesitate to enter. If they were going to kill him they’d have done it before now.

The pulse of the heart monitor fills the room and makes the silence soothing .at the far side a small figure lies on a simple bed, breathing softly, rhythmically. Kisame approaches with caution; he gently grasps the small hand of the man before him. Even in darkness he knows itachi; its sad but he thinks the uchiha has never looked better in all the time hes known him. Theres a paleness to his skin and his dead empty eyes are bandaged across but he’s well fed and dare he say it....almost healthy looking. His hair is a lot longer but neatly kept. They were looking after him.

He hears Ibiki enter the room and snaps his hand away.

“so even the monster of the hidden mist has a soft spot. A lesser man might have held that over you. But we have no such interest, Kisame.” the casual way Ibiki says his name makes him bitter but this is no place for a fight. “ help us and we will help him, help you.” Kisame swallows hard. A tempting offer but is one man really worth it? Kisame doesn’t trust often . he knows Ibiki by reputation, he gets what he wants one way or another. What Ibiki might do to him doesn’t scare him

But to itachi?

“all of our best medics are out at war. Hes stable, for now. But if you ever want him to wake up your best chance is to get out best people home as fast as possible. “ would itachi even want his help? He’d been slowly dying for years. Maybe he was ready, maybe keeping him alive in the village he abandoned was just adding insult to injury , literally.

“what do you say kisame?”

A world without lies was his ideal. The whole reason he had joined the akatsuki. But along the way he had found something else he wanted to fight for.

Kisame reached up and pulled the cotton from his mouth . a thin trail of blood worked its way down his mouth as he spoke, slurred but stern

“what do you want to know?”

wana read the first part? go read itachis story to find out how he got to konoha>>>

https://stripesquadsideblog.tumblr.com/post/167747213536/everyone-lives-au-itachi-survives

#kisame #itachi #kisaita #itakisa #ship them whatever way you want #i dont care as long as THEY BOTH LIVE #ibiki morino #ibiki #kisame hoshigaki #itachi uchiha #everyone lives au #headcanons #drabble #Caxy had a thought #naruto

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