#this critique is mostly from a narrative perspective | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wardevilwins · 8 months ago

Text

What is the point of a hero?

Anticlimax in Chainsaw Man Part 2

Part 2 is garnering more and more criticism as it extends its excruciating middle portion towards the inevitable collapse. There are talks of Fujimoto losing the plot, skipping over important details, the story not making sense, Asa being flattened into a supporting character for Denji, and more.

To my mind, these criticisms center on the same thing: anticlimax.

The Falling Arc ends with the first major anticlimax of the entire Chainsaw Man series. That moment turned out to be a sendoff of many aspects of the series which had defined its identity in part one: the breakneck pacing, the grotesque monsters, the ultraviolence, the detailed rendering, and most significantly, the cycles of catharsis.

Part One was a face up rendition of the heroes journey: the cathartic cycle. This cycle was paralleled with the hedonistic cycle of consumerism. From the very origins of the series, Fujimoto was critiquing the heroic narrative by exploring a different perspective on the hero’s existence. In the lineage of Devil Man, Evangelion, Utena, etc. Fujimoto considers the harm that heroism does to the hero.

However, in part one, we don’t understand this dynamic until the final arcs of the series. The hero’s journey is played mostly straight, with exciting adventures, a lovable cast, a host of creepy monsters, despicable villains, cosmic fantasy. On the surface, this is normal Shonen Jump. The walls are closing in behind the scenes.

This is the mechanic behind the Makima turn. It is a reveal, but not a twist. We are well aware that Makima is not human, is suspicious, and has some malicious intent surrounding Denji. The reveal is what those intentions are, and what makes it so compelling is the nature of her intentions.

We learn that all the events of this story — the job, the romance, the organization, the friends, the family, the adventure — were being manipulated with the express purpose of destroying Denji. His cycle of catharsis was always leading him to his doom. It was made to destroy him. His tragic flaw is ignorance: he didn’t stop to think about what was going on.

Part 2 picks up on Denji in this same state. He is still chasing the cycle. He goes out, defeats the monster, everyone praises him. It’s great. However, we see the same lingering signs that something is off. The people he abandons in his fight against Cockroach. Corrupt government institutions using him as a popular spectacle.

But in the first Asa-focused section of the story, we the readers are also locked into the cycle. Asa follows the same journey — literally the same, from bat devil, to the eternity devil, to a final climactic battle where she faces her childhood trauma and arises an actualized hero. Or did she?

Because that isn’t what happened to Denji. The cycle of catharsis was not a journey of self discovery; it was a trap. A distraction. A cover for the underlying intentions of the state as embodied by Makima. Even the idea of Chainsaw Man as a hero was a part of the plot to destroy Denji’s life.

But with Asa, as we approach the apex of her story, right as she has asked Chainsaw Man to save her, and she herself is using her own powers to save him as well, overcoming her fear of the other to risk her own life, plummeting towards certain doom! How will they escape!

They don’t. They get eaten. And somehow Nayuta is there and she just saved them. ??????????????????????????????????????????

It’s like their powers didn’t even matter! What about all that character development? They just lose? And then it doesn’t even matter that they lost? Then what was the point?

What is the point of a hero?

Asa’s introduction ends with the series’s first anticlimax, but that will not be the last. In fact, it is only the beginning. Because for the rest of the series, it will be constant. Every single tension will be diffused. Every single horror will be dodged. Every build will break.

Let’s go down the list:

Denji is forbidden from being Chainsaw Man, and his identity is stolen. He isn’t Chainsaw Man anymore.

Denji thinks about rejecting Fumiko’s advances, but can’t.

It appears Fumiko and Denji will fight, but then they don’t.

Asa becomes a minor celebrity and cult figurehead, but we never see any of it.

It seems like Miri will be Denji’s friend, but he’s an insane cultist.

It seems like Miri and the other hybrids will go on a spree, but Quanxi stops them.

It seems like Denji, Nayuta, and Fumiko will have to fight a mob of monsters, but Quanxi saves them.

It seems like Yoru will fight Yoshida, but he runs away.

Denji fights and defeats the hybrids, but is attacked and captured by a random mob.

Nayuta is in danger, but we cut away.

Denji gets chopped into pieces, and is quickly put back together.

Quanxi appears again, defeats everyone, but immediately surrenders.

Asa’s time as a hero is explained away as a passing fad.

As a reader, I can’t lie, it is annoying. And aggravating. And it is so blatantly intentional that it pisses you off. Fujimoto is refusing to give catharsis. Even the climactic moment of Denji’s arc — facing down Barem in front of his burning home — is not catharsis. It is torture. More building trauma and tension. Never any satisfaction.

Basically, he’s narratively edging his audience. And face up telling you that this is what is going on too. He even does it as a gag during Fumiko’s introduction. He gives a little peek at the catharsis that he knows we all want to see, but he won’t do it. He can do it — he was doing it all through Asa’s development — but he is deciding not to, and showing you that he’s deciding. He’s playing with his cards face up, but folding every hand.

Asa’s celebrity being totally sidelined is by far the most controversial of these instances. Her introduction fully engages us in her hero’s journey — a true hero’s journey. She isn’t a hedonist like Denji; she has ideals. She is fighting to save people. She actualizes. She becomes a real hero of the city.

But we don’t see it. Instead, we leave her story and look at Denji, who explicitly can’t be a hero. And through Denji’s story, we see the other side. Asa’s heroism is Denji’s downfall. She is getting everything that he was after. We understand what Asa has by what Denji lacks.

Asa’s catharsis is hidden. Or rather, her heroic catharsis is hidden. We got to see her journey to becoming a hero — to taking Chainsaw Man’s place — but not what happens when she is living that life. The same kind of life Denji lived under Makima.

Denji had Makima rooting for Pochita, manipulating and deceiving him. Asa has Fami rooting for Yoru, manipulating and deceiving her. Makima made Denji a hero to manipulate the public. Fami made Asa a hero to manipulate the public.

So in some sense, there’s no need to show it because we’ve seen it all before. But you still could. And it would be fun. Everyone would like it. It’s fine to, right?

Right?

Running parallel to the anticlimax is a long winded critique of popular culture. Particularly fandom culture. That is to say, hero worship.

The members of the Church worship Chainsaw Man because he saved them. The media uses Chainsaw Man and Asa as distractions from the horrors of life under threat of devils. Fans of a certain idol are driven to stress and conspiracy by a scandal. Meanwhile, wars are breaking out, government facilities are being invaded, people are turning into monsters.

Their love of Chainsaw Man turns them into monsters.

Barem and Fumiko are a notable skewering of the real-world Chainsaw Man fanbase. Fujimoto roots his critique of hero stories in a critique of his own hero story. While it is a reckoning for his fans, it is more so a reckoning for himself and the impact that his story had on the world. What was the point of what he did? What did it accomplish?

As of writing, the story isn’t finished, so the ideas aren’t complete, but at least at this point (chapter 164) it doesn’t look good. We see Fumiko is lost in her sexual obsession, abusing her target. We see Barem is completely insane, overwhelmed by a glorification of violence. We see a vast mass of fans whose obsession is harnessed to turn them into mindless killers.

You cannot help but think about the Chainsaw Man fandom in the wake of the anime. Harrassing the series director, constant asinine opinions all over the internet, the discourse around MAPPA — not around Chainsaw Man at all. Egregiously horny art. Legitimately disturbing sexualization. Popular response focused on the action and violence, not on the meaning of the story.

Is this what he wanted? Is this what heroes inspire? Is this what happens when you give people catharsis?

Is this what heroes are?

So, for Asa, he doesn’t do it. He won’t do it. He won’t create a cycle of catharsis. He won’t make a heroic tragedy. Instead, he will divert, avoid, hide, pause, deny. When she follows the path, we look away. When we want the hero, we get nothing instead.

Fame — heroism — isn’t a triumph. It’s a flash in the pan. An illusion. A tool of distraction. A vector of misogyny — society. A corruption of the self. For the hero and the fans.

Denji’s long arc is the positive exploration of the negative space Asa’s story leaves. Look away from the hero at hand and look at the hero that was. Look at what it did to him, what it does to him. Think about what this story does to you. Think about what it does to the world.

We are done with the spectacle. We’ve left catharsis behind. We’re living beyond the high. So, what is there? What can there be? What other story can you tell? How do we relate, exist, outside of saved and savior? If the hero is a lie, who will save the world? Can the world be saved?

We’ll have to find out.

#chainsaw man #csm analysis #long post #anticlimactic

49 notes · View notes

milevenstancyendgame · 2 months ago

Text

Warning: A little bit anti? Mostly critique of Jonathan's role in the narrative, but I don't like him, so take it with a grain of salt (or not).

While rewatching s1, I realised that the lack of understanding/conflict between Joyce and Jonathan is paralleled in the lack of understanding/conflict between Nancy and Jonathan.

In both cases, the other person is coming from a place of deep emotionality and intuition (Joyce being upset because Will went missing and sensing/perceiving that something weird is going on and that Will is trying to talk to her; whereas Nancy was upset because of the bullying she had to endure at work and she intuited that Mrs Driscoll's weird story had a deeper, important meaning).

But Jonathan is emotionally so closed down, he can't perceive what Joyce/Nancy perceive, and he can't open up to their experience, because he's barely keeping it together himself and is using all of his energy to suppress his emotions and just do what is expected of him/endure things (as a result of his childhood trauma).

Frankly I'm no fan of Jonathan, but the fact that all other characters have had life-changing experiences that led to varying amounts of personal growth, often centered around the theme of opening up, and Jonathan alone seems to remain completely stuck behind his emotional walls, is very disappointing.

From a storytelling perspective, his arc from s1 - s4 doesn't seem much like an arc, more like a depressing pattern. He bonded with Nancy, but it didn't work out (from the way s4 set up Stancy again, it just really doesn't look Jancy will be endgame). And yes, he made a new friend, but now he's smoking weed instead of growing up. His sole purpose in the story seems to be a catalyst for other characters. It's just very dissatisfying and such a waste of potential.

And I'd be honestly angry if he sacrifices himself for someone in s5, because that would really be bad storytelling. Not putting enough effort into a character's development, and then trying to "solve" that issue by getting rid of them/turning them into a martyr, because eh, they can't overcome their issues. That would be a horrible, harmful message to people with similar issues.

#stranger things #My meta #Meta #Pro Stancy #Nancy #Joyce #Jonathan #S1 #S3

11 notes · View notes

quibbs126 · 4 months ago

Text

I can finally post this, after weeks!

But yeah, this here is something I made to celebrate the 9th anniversary of Evoland 2

Some people may remember this work in progress from weeks ago, but now I can finally show the finished product. Which I finished 2 weeks ago

It’s based on the 3D picture you get when you finish the game, specially the 100% completion, and more specifically, my screenshot that I took when I first completed the game and got 100%

Though I should probably also note that this was the only picture I had of the beach scene until I was mostly done with the picture, so there are some inaccuracies between it and the original. Except for Reno in place of the Prophet, that was completely intentional

This game was I think the first (and will probably be the only) game I’ve ever 100% completed, and when I did it the first time, it was just because I knew that games would have extra things for those who 100% it, and I wanted to see what the game would give me. It’s the only time I was so invested in a game that I had to know what I’d get if I got everything. It’s also the only game where losing nearly 10 hours of progress due to a (maybe) glitch does not make me give up the game in frustration, but instead complete the entire thing within a single school week

I may gripe about my issues with the game, but I absolutely love it, and I have a lot of fun playing it. Well, aside from the parts I’m bad at, but that’s just because I’m bad at them. I feel like I have next to nothing to complain about from a gameplay perspective (which is in part because I don’t know how to critique gameplay, but also because I think any issues I have are my own fault), it’s just narrative stuff. And even then, I wouldn’t nitpick it so much if I wasn’t so invested in the world, story and characters

Maybe today I’ll start replaying it again, seeing how I’m pretty sure I’m free today from any schoolwork

I’m still holding on to some admittedly delusional hope that a 3rd game could release one day, even if I know it’ll almost certainly have nothing to do with this one, but even if it never does, I’ll still have this game to play over and over again, so I can accept it

I was disappointed that I missed the last two, since I first played the game in 2022, but not this year, I remembered!

Now to just talk about the art itself, the reason there’s two versions is because I originally made the background lineless, but after finishing the characters I thought it maybe clashed a bit too much, so I made a duplicate of the picture to do a lined version. But I also spent so long on the lineless version that I didn’t want to just leave it in the void, so I’m showing it too

Admittedly now I think I can say the lined version probably is the better one, but I can still show off both

I used the card colors for the characters, since all of them have cards for reference, but now I’m looking at the colors and thinking they look somewhat wrong. At least on Menos

Also as mentioned prior, I switched out the Prophet for Reno. I know I’m biased but I really think he’d fit in this picture of all the main characters far more than the Prophet, considering he’s kind of the reason the plot started, the second half happened, and he’s the main motivation for one of our party members. I mean, I see why the Prophet’s there in the original. He’s really the only other semi-important character with a 3D model, and Reno never had one, so they’d have to make an entirely new one just for this extra thing. Also it doesn’t make sense for him to have a 3D model in the first place, especially not of his Present era self. But not only is this now a drawing where I have the power to do what I want, this scene isn’t canon in the first place, so put Reno in the background there!

Overall though, I’m honestly surprised the piece turned out as good as it did. Those who follow me know that I was really struggling with drawing during the summer, more specifically drawing people and the Evoland 2 cast. But despite all that, I think the characters turned out pretty well. Certainly not the best, but better than I was expecting. And not only that, but the background turned out so much better than I thought it would, especially since I don’t usually do backgrounds. Though I suppose it does help to have a reference for all this though. But yeah, there was a reason I was so proud of how the sketch turned out, and while the final product may not have entirely been what I was hoping for after the sketch, it still turned out pretty good

As long as I can remember it next year (which I really hope I can, considering that’s the 10th anniversary), I’ll try to make something there too, hopefully with much improved drawing skills, since I’m still trying to figure all that out again still

Not sure what I’ll draw then. Maybe I could redraw the beach scene, or make an entirely new beach scene concocted by my brain. But it’s also the 10th anniversary next year, so maybe it should be something more special

Ah well, that’s next year’s problem. For now, have this to celebrate the game’s anniversary. For the minuscule amount of people who actually play this game, I guess

#I’ve slightly started to doubt if today is the actual anniversary #that’s what Google tells me the original release date was #but if I’m wrong I will never know peace #probably the incorrect phrase but I can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be otherwise #but yeah Evoland 2 anniversary #for all 5 of us who care #evoland 2 #my art #anniversary art #evoland kuro #evoland fina #evoland menos #evoland velvet #evoland ceres #evoland reno

11 notes · View notes

vitos-ordination-song · 1 year ago

Text

I’m trying to put into words why I feel so defensive over Thorfinn’s pacifism. Plenty of fans who like the non-violent direction still say things about it which make me cringe. Like “he’s gone too far with his beliefs” or “he needs to be realistic” or “he’ll have to figure out when violence is okay and when it isn’t.”

I have agreed with critiques of pacifism before. I don’t like it when people living privileged lives start to preach to oppressed groups, telling them not to fight for freedom. I don’t think moralizing is the right response to violence in general. Whether or not violence is “right” isn’t the question. We never know what’s right from wrong with certainty. The only thing we can do is look at the circumstances surrounding violence and decide how to proceed. I’m also not immune to enjoying, even celebrating, liberatory violence, which I believe exists.

However, in real life, what percentage of the time is violence positive in any way? For violence to be liberatory or justified, violence must already have been done. This non-justified, aggressive violence is far more common than violence done in self-defense, as not everyone has the ability to stand up for themselves. For the people who can fight back, being forced to commit violence is usually traumatizing. But in fiction, violence is more often portrayed in a positive light; heroes commit justified or “badass” violence, and those who act in self-defense come out on top. With Vinland Saga, Yukimura wanted to create one, just one story where violence isn’t justified, where the characters look for another way instead of making excuses.

Since Thorfinn is a former warrior who has no right to judge others, his character sidesteps being preachy. Additionally, his main foil is Canute, who uses violence to try to reach the same ends and is framed as understandable and pragmatic by the narrative. The work presents multiple perspectives on violence, enriching its themes, but I strongly believe that to the end, Thorfinn will never compromise his beliefs. Not everyone in the world has to believe the same way that he does, but it is right and good that he maintain his pacifism. Readers looking for complexity in a work often want characters to reach a middle ground, like this automatically means they’ve grown, but some of my favorite stories focus on protagonists who cling to ideals and resist change. Through being forced to test out their ideals in real life, they become wiser, better people, more able to live in accordance with their values. That is what I believe Yukimura is going for with Thorfinn’s character.

In my heart of hearts, I believe that Thorfinn is right. He’s never once said that violence is always wrong, only that it should be a last resort. He hasn’t killed anyone since his vow of non-violence, but he’s had to bust some heads. In a recent chapter, he said there’s no such thing as righteous violence; that’s not the same thing as necessary violence. He can do it—but he hates it. If you’ve ever felt a thrill of enjoyment in hurting someone, you know how seductive it is. Developing a disgust for violence is healthy antidote to this tendency.

Reading the Vinland arc, I fully agree with other readers that Thorfinn is naive. I just disagree on whether his pacifism is a part of that naivety. When I examine the story so far, Thorfinn’s failures as a leader mostly stem from his lack of experience. He spent 10 years of his life fighting, then he became a slave, and then he became a merchant. Technically, he has a lot more life experience than most readers. But there’s plenty of things he doesn’t understand because he’s never been exposed to them, like the settlers’ investment in private property. Further, Thorfinn has a kind of simplicity to him, maybe caused by his rebirth, the way he was emptied out and then filled back up. He’s surrounded himself with like-minded individuals, true and honest friends seeking the same goal as him. He also knows how to deal with enemies, warriors who make their intentions clear. Where Thorfinn has failed is in dealing with manipulators and opportunists, paranoids and backstabbers. He isn’t good at understanding people who might cooperate with him while harboring ill intentions or irrational beliefs. It was very naive of him, and the rest of his people, that they didn’t check new members for weapons before leaving for Vinland. I’ve felt from the start that Thorfinn shouldn’t have allowed Ivar and his group to come at all, and he hasn’t been able to handle them very well, not recognizing the threat they pose.

But I’ve seen people equate these failures with his pacifism. That’s where I disagree. If the settlement wasn’t peaceful, it would have already failed, like the one that Leif’s brother started. If Thorfinn wasn’t constantly reigning in the violence of others and trying to communicate peaceful intentions to the natives, war would have broken out a long time ago. It is a simple fact that if you approach people with mistrust, superiority, and violence, you will create an enemy, while if you approach them with openness, humility, and generosity, you will create a friend. It’s interesting how quickly people jump to calling pacifism unrealistic or immature, when violence is usually the true example of those things.

Regardless of whether Thorfinn is right or wrong, naive or wise, it is possible that Vinland will fail. He may not be able to hold it together. But is this because of his non-violent ways? After all, Canute’s violence will ultimately fail as well—historically, his stable kingdom collapsed after his death. Vinland Saga portrays human beings who long for something better while remaining trapped in their failures and misfortunes. Yet the story still praises the efforts of those who try. Following their ideals, foolish as they may be, they attempt to shape the world. This theme is introduced all the way at the beginning with Thors, hurting his family’s livelihood to save a dying slave. There is a nobility and strength in continuing to pursue what you believe is right, regardless of the outcome. That is the only way for us to live fulfilled lives.

#Vinland saga

56 notes · View notes

absolutebl · 2 years ago

Text

BL & Critical Analysis

Pop culture critique & a how to do it... or something

This meaty question came from the lovely @huachengeye Thank you!

Codicil: I do not get paid for pop culture critique (although I once wrote book reviews professionally, long story). So I’m entirely a dilettante.

The Question!

Q1: Can you can shed some light on your process (of critical analysis)

This is a little like training your eye to edit a document (I bet you can tell that's not one my strong points). Or training your mind to look at data and data collection in terms of the results it may yield and what the initial survey says about the questioner's bias (or can bias results).

First, I have to ask...

Do you really want to train your eye to critique?

Because it will become a lot harder to immerse yourself in a piece of media if you constantly feel obligated to step back mentally and think about it from various perspectives.

In other words, you may enjoy BL, or all live action dramas, LESS if you try to think about them critically.

I have an intimate who is a pretty well known writer. She mostly writes humorous fiction. She's open about the fact that this means every time she laughs, she stops and thinks about why that happened and whether is could be used in her prose. She never gets to be fully absorbed by narrative ever anymore because her critical eye is always turned on, especially for the written word.

What you may sacrifice for critique, is a certain level of childish wonder.

I’m not sure i would necessarily advise doing this.

My Process

My process is essentially now visible in this blog. As I watch a show I take a few notes on it (which show up in the weeklies) and then at the end I go through those notes, consolidate, try to be witty about it, and write up a review.

The review usually has something about:

characters, tropes, plot

narrative & story structure & pace

how this BL fits in with the greater BL genre & history

any thoughts I have on the quality of the production, acting, and/or directing

my own personal feelings about the show

Thus my reviews tend to take into account several criteria.

For #1-2 I have a background in lit crit as an undergrad (and, like I said, I did once review books for a living) so these are kinda ingrained in me. I’m working on seeing the influence of soap operas, fan fic, and non-western story structures as critically valid, so these are the things I’m actively learning more about the most these days.

For #3: How does this fit into the history of BL? Since I’ve made it point to watch pretty much all BLs, I feel like I’m set up to think and talk about this. AKA the spreadsheet made me do it. But since I also have anthropology in my academic history, I’m very interested in how a BL represents for its country’s BL oeuvre. I try to judge KBLs against other KBLs (and Kdramas) and look for patterns and trends in how that country’s interpretation of what it “means to be BL” shift over time.

For #4: my IRL job is tangential to the entertainment industry so that’s accidentally trained my eye for film. I don’t know that I like this part about myself, but it’s happened whether I like it or not. And I don’t have a proper background in film critique.

Final #5: will discuss further in a bit.

Suggestion? Establish A Rating System

Come up with your own personal 10 star (or 5 star) rating system.

Write it down. Don’t be afraid to modify or adjust it. It’s yours, your tastes change, nothing is set in stone.

Pick one ideal example BL for each category that you’re very familiar with for your reference point. Then you can ask yourself, after you’ve watched a new one, whether you liked it more, less, or about the same as that show. (relative rating, similar to grading on a curve)

I change my examples regularly as my taste changes and as new BLs are added. The bar gets shifted, so to speak.

My Rating System

Your reasoning for rating a BL will be different from mine, but here’s mine as an example.

(Also I never feel bound by this, sometimes I give a show a 8/10 just because it feels like that’s what it deserves.)

10/10 - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - my favorite precious squee!, faithful to tropes, happy ending, good chemistry, few flaws, high rewatch potential, makes me happy, examples: Semantic Error, Until We Meet Again

9/10 ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED - loved it and good rewatch potential but probably a few pacing issues or one big flaw, still made me feel good/comforted, examples: Cherry Magic, Bad Buddy

8/10 - RECOMMENDED - some concerns around tropes (like dub con) or story structure/filming but still satisfies as BL, moved me emotionally, rewatchable in parts or not rewatchable but important, examples: Love By Chance, Between Us

7/10 - RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS - i.e. isn’t quite BL, convoluted, not strictly HEA, too short/long, and/or chemistry issues, may have impact on other BL fans but not me (or on me but not others) examples: Make it Right, KinnPorsche

6/10 - WORTH WATCHING BUT FLAWED - probably around the ending or in narrative structure/cohesion or censorship, disappointed expectations, unlikely to rewatch, examples: My Gear and Your Gown, Love Mechanics

5/10 - WATCH IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO - but don’t expect much, it’s a total hot mess interesting only because it's BL and I'm probubly pretty conflicted about it, examples: Advance Bravely, Even Sun

4/10 - FATALLY FLAWED - but still basically BL, however... do we want to support this kind of behaviour? examples: Precise Shot, Work from Heart

3/10 - I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM WATCHING AND NEITHER DOES IT, just seriously why did this get made? examples: Blue of Winter, Physical Therapy

2/10 - IT'S DEPRESSING - they killed/tortured/etc the gay, save yourself, examples: The Effect, HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count

1/10 - IT'S AWFUL, I WATCHED IT SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO, has all the flaws of 4-3 plus something even more egregious, personally triggering, example: My Bromance series, Round Trip to Love

dnf - self explanatory, but usually I drop because I feel like the narrative is already a #3 and/or headed for a #2 or #1 and then I’m told later that is went there, example: My Tempo

I hand out the fewest 1s & 10s. The most 8s and 7s. Everything else is pretty much on the bell curve you’d expect.

Q2: What resources do you use to build your reviews?

I listen to a lot of pop culture review critiques in podcast form, often about stuff I'd never watch. But I like the way professionals talk about these things, even if they aren't MY things or don't jive with my personal opinions.

Mark Kermode is my favorite film critic and we like the opposite stuff, but the way he talks about film is very interesting to me. His podcast mini series on the "business of film" is probably one of my must listens. For his main podcast (Kermode & May’s Take), I always skip over all the interviews, people talking about their own films bore me to death (especially if they are actors on the promo junket, save me please). His rants are some of my favorites of all time (try Pirates 3 or Iron Man 2). Someone else’s list.

I also like Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR because it brings in multiple perspectives and varied cast of critics who often disagree and the "things making me happy" is a grab bag of fun.

The Bechdel Cast is a feminist critique podcast from Hollywood insiders and they do recaps as well as critique, and it's always fascinating to me to hear what people latch onto in a narrative. However, I only listen if I am already familiar with the film they are discussing.

My background is in anthropology and I've lived all over the world so that helps train me to think in terms on culture's impact on narrative as well as linguistics and so forth. As a personality I’m also quite reserved and deadpan, grumpy, stiff, strict, and kinda cold. I think I gravitate to being an observer and an outsider which helps if you want to analysis stuff. Which is not a claim to objectivity, I don't think there can be objective analysis of pop culture.

But it does make me pause to think, "that made me FEEEL something" why? What am I feeling? How did the actor do that? The script? The direction?

These shows are meant to entertain, whether they are successful or not, for me (and what "successful entertainment" means to me) and how they are doing it is the first question I always ask myself.

Q3: What are the things you look out for when watching a BL?

I ask myself a lot of things I would when looking at any piece of art. Or even when shopping for clothing or a new car or reading a book.

Did I like it? Why did I like it?

Did it move me? Why did it move me?

Did I react? How did I react? To which bits? Why?

What tropes and narrative beats was it using to manipulate me and my expectations? Did it meet those expectations? The promises it set up at the start? Did it fulfill the watcher-contract during the course of the narrative?

Did the filming successfully telegraphy the journey I was meant to take? Did the actors?

But also... would I rewatch it? Am I tempted to do so the moment it ends? For which bits?

The statistician in me wants to point out that these questions say a lot more about me and my relationship to art than it does about the art itself.

For example

Did I like it? Means... I'm motivated by pure taste and personal preference and complete subjectivity. This is in part formed by a person's background, life state, whole experience with culture and pop culture and society, family, friends. Taste is also just "that" bit. You know, that bit? Likes lemon deserts over chocolate ones, gravities to spicy food, favorite color is green, decorates with potted plants. Just my taste is my taste. I like what I like.

Yes I have some criteria that subconsciously come into play: I look for clever story structure, subversion or manipulation of tropes, parody, not hitting any of my dislikes (like dub con). But also I have other biases impacting whether I like it (like physical appearance) which I can try to check but usually can't fix. (For example GMMTV's Gawin/Fluke looks so much like an ex of mine I really struggle with his screen presence.)

Did I like it?

The fact that this is the first question I ask myself also should tell you I'm motivated by the emotion these narratives engender. I want them to transport me and move me. I my case I want to feel comforted and satisfied and happy. The ones the make me feel discomfort, especially for too long in the narrative, I am simply going to like less. Sometimes less than I feel like I should (see my struggles with masterworks like ITSAY, YNEH, or The 8th Sense). The very BLs that most professional critics would tout as the best examples of the genre for a wider audience often turn out to be the ones I struggle with the most. (They are also, fortunately for me, the least representative of the bulk of the genre.)

In other words there is ALSO a part of me that genuinely likes and enjoys the trashy stuff. Even the trash I trash watch.

So I would advise you to come up with your own questions. Ask yourself what you want from these shows when you watch them.

What motivates you?

Why are you watching them at all?

What brings you joy from an art or entertainment experience?

What do you want them to do for you? To you?

You are going to experience them (and therefore analyze them) from this perspective whether you like it or not. So understand yourself is paramount. It's about your relationship to the art, not the art itself.

If I were to give you an assignment I would say start with one BL you really enjoyed, perhaps not your favorite but one level down. And then do one you really did not enjoy. And think about why...

Happy analyzing!

(source)

118 notes · View notes

broodwolf221 · 1 year ago

Text

brood's (ongoing) meta masterpost

note: i almost always approach meta from a watsonian, in-verse perspective - there are only a few exceptions to this <- just adding this for additional context

most (not all!) are also on ao3, -> here <-

ghilan'nain codex entries and possible timelines involved

fen'harel/andruil/ghilan'nain - exploration of them as a ship, but also character explorations in general

mythal as abused and abuser, a sympathetic examination of her dynamic with her family and elgar'nan in particular

solas' pov upon waking in the new world

solas' jawbone

leliana in dai about her death if you killed her in dao

examination of the "mental stability" of da2 characters, based on a poll

small point about codexes having in-world biases

cole - spirit or human? and personal preference for the spirit route

mosaic order and meaning in fen'harel's sanctuary

theories following the corypheus battle (clarifying ask/new theory)

mythal & andruil | flemeth & morrigan - comparing these two duos and examining some elements that are repeated

orlesian culture

exploration of each divine's rule well after the ending slides

morrigan, anders, and solas, and their different narrative roles and priorities

mythal, flemeth, or flemythal - who she is, what is she like; opinions on her

mostly vivienne meta exploring her pro-circle views; touches on anders and sera as well: no character hate since i love them all

which companions (from all games) would join solas

dragon age and germ theory

solas and varric and how they interrelate

solas seeing others as full people earlier than he wishes to admit, and solas + sunk cost fallacy

calpernia and solas as another set of narrative foils

hypothetical da4 directions (add-on/extrapolation of one of the directions)

personal characterizations of the evanuris

impact of the breach in-universe

softened!leliana as divine and religious assimilation/schisms with elves

arlathan and germ theory, post 1; + a messy rambling exploration of arlathan's culture, including what kinds of power they valued, & a brief exploration of ghilan'nain and her role/inclusion in the evanuris

what "as this world burned in the raw chaos" means

the three divine options and their relationship to faith

solas tearing down the veil: why i think it was necessary, and how it relates to the in hushed whispers quest

sera & solas as narrative foils of each other

sera meta - positive bc i fucking love her

evanuris musings/frustration

da4 theories & hopes re: solas and mythal - post dec DA trailer drop

dalish & red vallaslin dalish history/divergent origins

qunari & dragon blood musings

the vallaslin removal

technically not meta but sorta related: visual representation of solas' duality - critique : alternative

forgotten ones as titans, in-depth (mini add-on)

vivienne de fer pt 1/?

morrigan - dao and dai

solas' sleep

cullen rutherford, positive

forgotten ones as titans, vague

the iron bull & solas

inky & solas - conversation in the fade & implications

solas' actions

theories on solas' distant past

solas' personality/behavior

theories abt solas as a spirit+demon & forgotten one (note: I got confused with mythal and flemeth's backstory)

my first meta of solas as one of the forgotten ones

#just wanted smth to link to my pinned that i can keep adding to

44 notes · View notes

iridescentoracle · 6 months ago

Text

So, I talked the other day a Whole Bunch about how I’d rewrite Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney to make it actually good. Obviously, I’ve thought about the subsequent games too. It took me a lot longer to figure out what I’d do with Dual Destinies, and I’m still not sure about Spirit of Justice, but one thing that made a lot of stuff click into place was thinking about the original trilogy, and how it ultimately can be boiled down to three main themes/plotlines:

Satire/Critique of the Japanese legal system

Generational Trauma Surrounding the Kurain Channeling Legacy

[gestures at Phoenix and Edgeworth’s relationship]

There’s a lot of reasons the so-called “Apollo Justice trilogy” games all feel wildly disconnected from each other and also mostly the original trilogy, but I think a lot of it comes down to how the themes/plotlines from the original games get lost or are irrelevant because we’ve got a new cast of characters, but there’s nothing tying the new games together but a shared (and much more dramatically expanding) cast of characters.

So for this proposed rewrite project, I’m fixing that. The Apollo Justice trilogy is going to be a trilogy, and that means shared/extended themes and plots that tie all three games together, and tie this trilogy back to the original even though most of the original cast, in this version, have even smaller roles (see: Apollo’s shitty mentor in my rewrite of AA4 being a separate person from Phoenix, who we barely see, etc).

So:

The legal system satire/critique stays consistent in rewritten DD & SOJ, instead of getting completely forgotten about/undermined in DD and doubled down to the point of losing all meaning in SOJ.

Generational Trauma Surrounding the Troupe Gramarye Legacy

honestly i haven’t figured this part out yet but it involves apollo somehow. this rewrite project is a work-in-progress and i’m mostly figuring it out as i go

I’m going to get to each of these in turn, starting (more or less) with the legal system critique, although it’s about to look like I’m mostly complaining about bad writing (in the form of character actions that seem to have been written without any thought actually put into making them make sense from the perspective of the characters in question), which is fair because I kind of am; bear with me, though, I promise it’ll be relevant and I think it’s a pretty solid illustration of how the thematic issues are inherently also narrative/characterization issues and vice versa.

So, let’s talk about Edgeworth and Blackquill’s plan and why the hell they thought that was a good idea. I swear to god, I cannot figure out how that entire plotline makes any sense, unless Edgeworth worked out that Blackquill thought he was covering for Athena and also that the real murderer was probably the Phantom purely via considering the parallels to his own life.

Because, like, the thing is. “this convicted murderer is allowed to be a prosecutor in the last few months before his execution (for murder), thanks to the machinations of a man who has dedicated the last like eight years of his life to being Staunchly Anti-Prosecutorial-Corruption” is just. completely nonsensical. So Edgeworth has to have some reason to think he wasn’t actually the murderer. But the canon trial makes it pretty clear Blackquill was the only suspect thanks to #1 nobody checking the security footage carefully #2 Blackquill making sure Athena wasn’t one, so why would Edgeworth think that? But for that matter, how did Edgeworth even know Blackquill, like, existed, let alone learn about the Phantom? Like, maybe he heard about Blackquill from a third party and got curious and looked into things, or was, like, looking through records of Prosecutors Found Guilty Of Crimes for some reason and found a case he and Phoenix hadn’t been involved in (for once) and had Questions, okay, but he wouldn’t have found out about the Phantom either of those ways, so even if he also somehow learned about him separately, why would he think to connect the two? So he has to have learned about Blackquill’s information on the Phantom from Blackquill, but why would Blackquill confide in someone else like that?

The only way I can make any of those pieces fit together in my head is if Edgeworth figured out Blackquill was attempting to cover for a kid who set off all of the Parallels To DL-6 alarm bells in Edgeworth’s head, and Edgeworth’s two mental options are “just fucking leave. run for it now. never think about this again” and “okay but what if neither the kid nor the other adult in the room was actually the person who murdered the kid’s parent. maybe there was a secret third adult who killed them for mysterious reasons” and he picks metaphorical door #2 (rather than leaving through literal door #1 and going home) and man do i want to see what that conversation/logic chess sequence looked like. At what point did Edgeworth contemplate the possibility of watching Phoenix cross-examine the defendant’s pet hawk

Also, crucially when i say Edgeworth picks #2, I mean he says that out loud, bc I really don’t buy that Blackquill would have just casually confided in him (or anyone) about the Phantom, but Edgeworth working out that Blackquill was trying to protect Athena (who he thinks really did it) and immediately going “okay i see why you assumed it was her but have you considered: what if there was secretly a third party who was the real murderer all along” does seem like the one thing that would actually get him to talk.

And tbh? I think everything makes more sense and is even more compelling if Edgeworth and Blackquill’s plan isn’t just to lure out the Phantom bc he’s a ~super spy with nefarious motives etc, but to lure out the real murderer, now that they’ve realized he probably exists.

To be clear, i don’t think that’s what was intended to have happened in canon, but i think it’s what would have to be true for Edgeworth’s involvement not to be hopelessly stupid and counterproductive.

And this is what I mean about the problems with the characterization/narrative choices being intimately intertwined with the thematic issues, because Edgeworth’s whole deal is fundamentally tied up in the legal system satire of the first three games (and Investigations 1 & 2, for that matter) and so it’s incoherent/inconsistent/nonsensical on a character/narrative level and a thematic level both at the same time. If we’re supposed to believe he did something as stupid as “letting a convicted murderer be a prosecutor without a reason to believe he had not, in fact, committed any crimes” then it undercuts his entire arc up to this point. Still, even that proposed backstory/context, while it would at least provide an understandable motivation/train of reasoning that would actually be in keeping with what we know about Edgeworth up to this point, is ultimately rooted in the Phantom plotline as it exists in canon, which I think is fundamentally flawed on three different levels, and genuinely fixing Dual Destinies requires completely rewriting it.

The three central problems with the Phantom plot, IMO, are actually pretty simple:

The legal system critique that ultimately was part of the heart of the first four games gets completely forgotten about.

Ableism

The stakes are too high and not personal enough, which undercuts the emotional impact and weakens the audience’s emotional investment.

To elaborate, because I’m not sure all of those are equally evident at a glance:

One of our main antagonists is a prosecutor who’s also a convicted murderer and… the worst thing he actually does is be mean to people. No evidence tampering, no forgery, no witness suppression, no actual murder. He’s just kinda scary-looking. The ultimate main villain of the game is a cop! He spends most of the game being nice and friendly and helpful but at the end of the day he committed a whole bunch of crimes, Dual Destinies says ACAB oh wait no never mind he’s actually an imposter and the real police detective he’s impersonating was probably genuinely a really good guy.

The whole “the Phantom has no emotions and therefore doesn’t really count as a person I guess so it’s okay to prove his identity even though the very explicitly established consequences are He Will Be Assassinated Right There in The Courtroom, Which Is Exactly What Happens but everyone’s pretty okay with that because hey, he didn’t have emotions, it’s fine, he’s exempted from, like, deserving basic human rights I guess???” is uh. you know. sure a choice they made

It sounds ridiculous to call the original games “grounded” or “realistic,” but like… at the end of the day, the culprits in the first four games are all just… people? The most powerful people who turned out to be murderers were, like, the CEO of a company, a chief of police, a popular actor, etc. Those are real kinds of people who do normal crimes in real life. The characters are ridiculous and over-the-top but at the end of the day the stakes mostly felt high because they were personal. Even when there’s magic involved, the actual crimes are ultimately things that could have happened for mundane reasons too! All the drama with spirit channeling and at the end of the day, half the spirit channeling-related crimes in the original trilogy come down to someone trying to kill or disgrace her sister and niece so that her own kid will inherit, or a teenage girl dealing with emotional abuse/neglect trying to escape and then trying to cover her tracks or get revenge on people she felt had personally hurt her. But now our stakes involve international espionage and a super-spy who can look like anyone? Absurd as it is to say, Dual Destinies doesn’t feel grounded the way the original trilogy did, and outside Athena’s trial, the personal aspects of the cases mostly come down to “the victim and/or suspect are cared about by the characters we care about,” which isn’t enough to bring the absurdly high stakes back down to something it’s easy to genuinely be invested in.

So. Let’s fix all of those. Conveniently, they all have the same solution: Bobby Fulbright is genuinely a cop. He’s exactly who he seems like up until the canon reveal. He is good-natured and cheerful and energetic and mostly pretty helpful to our protagonists. He’s also the man who murdered Metis Cykes and Clay Terran.

Instead of international espionage, he was engaged in corporate espionage. He was a security guard at GYAXA who got bribed to steal some of Metis Cykes’ research, but got caught and panicked and stabbed her. Even after Simon Blackquill was found guilty, he still felt too nervous to keep working at more or less the scene of the crime, and quit the private security guard gig in favor of becoming a cop. Seven years later, new Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth continued his whole signature anti-corruption deal, going through records of convictions of past prosecutors & law enforcement officers, and something about Blackquill’s conviction didn’t sit right, so he arranged to meet the guy in person. Hearing the story from Blackquill’s own mouth, Edgeworth saw some parallels between UR-1 and DL-6, figured out out that Blackquill had falsely confessed under the belief Athena Cykes had accidentally killed her own mother, and (mostly for DL-6 reasons) theorized that there could have been a third person on the scene who managed to escape undetected. Investigating the evidence, he found the security footage of someone in a security guard uniform and Metis Cykes’ jacket leaving the scene of the crime, and met with Blackquill again with that information and a record of Athena testifying at Blackquill’s trial that she’d seen a stranger in her mother’s lab before Simon arrived. At the time she’d been written off as lying or confused due to the trauma, but with the security footage proving her right, Edgeworth and Blackquill realize that she (unlike the security camera) likely saw the security guard’s face, and so would be the only person who could potentially identify him as Metis Cykes’ real killer—thus putting Athena in danger, if they ever happened to meet.

Without actual evidence linking the unknown security guard to the crime, though—no unidentified fingerprints had ever been found, and the footage didn’t show his face, so there was no way to figure out which of the security guards employed at the time was the real killer, if any records even still existed seven years later given that none of the security guards had been seriously considered as suspects at the time—the new evidence wouldn’t be enough to re-open Blackquill’s case, let alone overturn his conviction. (I have no idea if that would be true IRL, in the US or Japan, but this is Japanifornia, it’s fine, that’s how it works here because I say so. The burden of proof is on the defense and defendants are guilty until proven innocent.) Worse news: this whole discovery happened right after Blackquill’s execution date was finally set, severely curtailing their ability to investigate in any kind of normal sane way because Oh Boy That Time Limit, so: time for an absolutely terrible insane plan that would absolutely ruin the anti-corruption reputation Edgeworth has spent the last ten years working very hard to develop if it didn’t pay off. Also fuck it, Edgeworth says: let’s get Phoenix Wright involved, this is exactly the kind of batshit gamble he thrives on.

(Note: this game rewrite is set post–my Apollo Justice rewrite, in which Phoenix was never disbarred, and he and Edgeworth got together within a year of T&T. See here for elaboration and, like, a lot of complaining about how AJ should have been amazing and wasn’t.)

As in canon, the plan in question is, essentially:

Let Blackquill return to prosecuting crimes again while still a convicted murderer on death row

?????

The real murderer of Metis Cykes is caught and Blackquill is proven innocent after all

Profit

I have no idea what step two is supposed to be but given that step three of the canon plan seemed to be “the Phantom turns up to steal back the psych profile which he somehow finds out Blackquill had all along” and I didn’t understand step two there either, I don’t super care.

Blackquill agrees to the whole crazy plan, but only on the condition that both Edgeworth and Phoenix swear they won’t tell anyone about the real plan without his permission, and in particular they absolutely will not tell Athena specifically.

Phoenix, who just hired Athena like a week ago, and has definitely connected the dots to figure out she became a lawyer to save Blackquill and is seeing some parallels of his own:

…But Blackquill’s life is the one in imminent danger (his execution date has just been set) and the whole plan relies on his cooperation, so ultimately (after a lot of arguing), Blackquill wins and they agree.

It’s not easy; after 1-5 and 3-5, Edgeworth and Phoenix were not going to be easily convinced not to tell Athena. They have seen how Complicated Scheming With The Goal Of Protecting A Young Woman But Without, Like, Telling Her Anything goes before (not to mention the more general Bad Associations with the possibility that someone out there might be plotting the death of a kid for the crime of being inconvenient in some way, see 1-4 and 2-2 and arguably 3-1), but I absolutely do believe that Blackquill would listen to all their arguments and still be like “my only priority is Athena’s safety; if she finds out about any of this she will try to investigate and will not prioritize her own safety, I don’t care what you think, if you tell her anything I’m out,” so ultimately they’re stuck.

On a side note, Trucy (when she does turn up in Dual Destinies) is a delight, but her role is bizarrely tiny for someone who’s hands-down the best new character of the trilogy, so in this rewrite she actually spends most of the game investigating with Apollo and Athena. She’s not actually super happy about it, though, because she wants to be investigating with Phoenix but he won’t let her, or even tell her about what his current case is. She feels like he doesn’t trust her and she’s pretty hurt though she doesn’t want to talk about it, etc, and in general there are canon-typical levels of hinting at deeper issues without actually directly addressing them.

In the end, things get more or less wrapped up by Phoenix (and Edgeworth) being like “look we wanted to tell all three of you what was going on but we were sworn to secrecy, and it was Blackquill’s life on the line so we couldn’t risk breaking his trust,” with the implication of further discussions to be had off-screen/post-game abt the deeper insecurities and anything that still feels insufficiently well justified, but just like that, here’s Trucy in a larger role with a new emotional conflict/interestingly complicated relationship that nevertheless doesn’t require/get much screen time bc Phoenix isn’t there for her to be actively having this conflict with.

There’s also a whole new case added between 5-3 and 5-4 that revolves around the Gramarye family legacy, in which Trucy, Apollo, and Lamiroir all learn who they are to each other, but I’ll get to that later.

In the meantime, back to the Fulbright thing! As in canon, he’s both Blackquill’s assigned police detective and his parole officer, which definitely secretly kind of terrifies Fulbright because oh god oh fuck he was a suspect specifically because he used to hang around the space center with his sister & mentor back when I worked there, what if he recognizes me, but hey, keep your enemies close, right? Especially when they’re definitely planning something, and also the only person who knows they didn’t actually commit the murder they were convicted for that was actually your doing. So.

(If Athena notices that despite his cheerful demeanor and attempt to be casual about the whole thing, he actually sounds terrified of Blackquill, it’s ironically very easy to brush off bc like. Look he tries to be cheerful and good-natured but Blackquill’s a scary guy, okay, just look at him, etc.)

So, with Fulbright secretly there all along, not in on the investigation/unaware there’s new evidence that could help point at his guilt but still close enough to keep an eye on things, no further progress is actually made in the luring-out-Metis-Cykes’-real-killer project, and time starts growing short.

Meanwhile, GYAXA is preparing for a manned rocket launch. Time to rewrite some more backstory.

A bit more than seven years ago, Solomon Starbuck worked for a private sector rival of GYAXA, but their secret use of sub-standard materials nearly proved deadly for him, and upon returning to Earth, he quit and joined GYAXA instead. The rival company’s reputation took multiple massive hits (from the near-failure of the mission, the subsequent exposé about cost-cutting measures at the expense of employee safety up to and including materials used in rocket ships, and the newly-famous Starbuck’s resultant departure for GYAXA), and they promptly resorted to attempting corporate espionage (via bribing security guard Bobby Fulbright), leading to Metis Cykes’ death.

Seven years later, when GYAXA starts gearing up for Starbuck’s next trip into space, their rival company attempts to cause the launch to be canceled via phone calls claiming the rocket will be sabotaged otherwise. The hoax partially works: the director secretly arranges for the launch to be faked bc he believes better safe than sorry but he doesn’t have the authority to just straight-up officially cancel it, and meanwhile the police are also alerted of the claimed bomb threat, and a team is sent to ensure everything goes fine, which would’ve been fine, except Fulbright is on the team.

That would also be fine, except Fulbright is already concerned because Blackquill’s execution date is closing in so there must be something big going on that he doesn’t know about but even being Blackquill’s parole officer/detective hasn’t let him figure out what. (Ironically, he’s probably wrong; Edgeworth and Phoenix and Blackquill are all getting pretty stressed about things getting down to the wire, but don’t actually have any more concrete way to lure out the real killer or they already would’ve arranged it, and mostly what’s going on behind-the-scenes is arguments about getting more people (including Athena) involved in the investigation.) When he then learns about the bomb threat to GYAXA and (correctly) guesses that it’s likely the doing of GYAXA’s rival company who’d bribed him all those years ago, Fulbright is super paranoid about the possibility that the bomb threat might be real, and if it is that it might be the work of a new security guard, and if it is and they get caught, that the already-raised suspicions regarding Blackquill’s innocence will be basically confirmed, and Fulbright himself will finally be suspected of the murder of Metis Cykes.

As a result of his paranoia, Fulbright goes poking around in areas he wasn’t actually supposed to be, accidentally runs into Clay Terran, and (in a panic) kills him. Solomon Starbuck is deemed the primary suspect, Apollo takes the case, and a bomb squad specialist (disappointed the threat to GYAXA turned out to be a hoax) gets bored. The Cosmic Turnabout and Turnabout Countdown commence.

Things actually mostly go as in canon, just following on from the differences I’ve already established. The final major change is that while the hostage situation still happens, we’re lowering the stakes and making them more personal: it’s not a dozen people conveniently-for-Aura including Trucy, and there’s no fake robot uprising. Trucy is the hostage and Aura’s pretty open about it being her doing from the start.

Again, this is a sequel to my alternate version of AA4. Phoenix never got disbarred and he and Edgeworth have been together for years. It is common knowledge that Trucy is the daughter of Phoenix Wright + the new chief prosecutor. Since she’s Blackquill’s sister, Aura might even be one of the few people who knows Edgeworth found new information about the UR-1 incident (although she either doesn’t know about or doesn’t buy the security guard theory), and that this whole weird letting-Blackquill-prosecute-cases arrangement is part of some sort of plan to prove his innocence, so hey, win-win, right? Phoenix and Edgeworth try Athena for her mother’s murder, they prove Blackquill innocent just like Edgeworth was already trying to do anyway, and their daughter doesn’t get hurt.

Also there’s still room for an “oh no the robot uprising!” joke in there, potentially. The robots all start acting weird, someone’s like OH NO THE ROBOT UPRISING! CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL, I GLADLY SURRENDER TO OUR NEW ROBOT OVERLORDS etc and then via the nearest robot Aura is like “oh my god shut up” and it turns out all the robots are acting weird bc they’re all looking for Phoenix or one of his associates to let him know his daughter’s being held hostage and he better listen up.

Aaaand that’s about all I’ve got on that front. I know the culprit not being a super-spy and there not being actual bombs at the HAT-2 fake launch creates some plot holes but while I’m a life-long mystery fan, I’m not a mystery writer and that’s not really the part of this that I’m good at coming up with solutions to, although if anyone’s got ideas I am All Ears.

It’s not the most hard-hitting critique of the legal system, and I’m still working on figuring out how to improve it more; in particular, I’m honestly torn about Blackquill even turning out to have been completely innocent because it very much was a Whole Thing that all the prosecutors used to start out as corrupt and the ones we like had to become better, or, you know. go to jail for the crimes they very much did in fact commit. So it actually feels like a real step down, having the prosecutor in this one be a straight-up convicted felon who… turns out to have done nothing wrong and been a good guy all along actually, surprise! But I can’t figure out how to change that without undermining the whole resolution of the game and turning him into a fundamentally different character, so for now that part is what it is.

Meanwhile, at the end of the day: ACAB, including Bobby Fulbright who is actually genuinely a cop, and used his position to avoid being found guilty for crimes he’d committed (up to and including forging evidence to frame someone else). Which is to say, what the game almost said, without the haha nope nvm he was an imposter and the real Bobby Fulbright was probably a great guy actually of it all. Also in this version Fulbright casually tazing Blackquill is like. actually treated as fucked up and a reminder that oh right cops still suck and even if one seems friendly he will probably absolutely abuse his power over others given the slightest excuse, and also no one deserves to be subjected to police brutality. And while Edgeworth winds up being ethically in the clear in that he didn’t actually pull strings to let a murderer prosecute other people’s crimes bc he did know Blackquill was innocent all along, at the end of the day someone was in fact able to pull strings to let a convicted murderer etc. Which on the one hand requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, but on the other hand, like I just said about Blackquill: idk man I had to change this much just to make Fulbright work, I’ve only got so much to work with here and I’m not actually good at coming up with grand sweeping changes.

Also it occurs to me I haven’t actually established this yet but “the Dark Age of the Law” is stupid and we’re completely dropping that whole concept because if two relatively new lawyers apparently turning out to be bad people was enough to kick off a whole ~Dark Age~ and make the general public lose faith then where the hell was everybody during the reign of Demon Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, Chief of Police Damon Gant and Chief Prosecutor Lana Skye, and the forty-year win streak of Manfred von Karma. And so forth. There’s probably room for something interesting to be done with like, the ways in which public perception of a situation doesn’t always reflect reality and large populations can be slow to consciously react to major trends and sometimes one small incident can be turned into a symbol of something it isn’t really even an example of anyway or whatever but like… I have no idea how to do that in the format of an Ace Attorney game so personally I am simply ditching that plotline wholesale.

So that’s that. Now let’s talk about Troupe Gramarye. In canon, Apollo Justice sets the Troupe Gramarye rights up to be a major plotline, but then it gets completely forgotten about in Dual Destinies, and sort of half-heartedly continued but not really resolved in Spirit of Justice. In this rewrite, the Troupe Gramarye legacy is more or less what the Kurain Spirit Channeling legacy was to the original trilogy: a nominally magical element that at the end of the day is mostly the catalyst for a story about greed and complicated families and the trauma and destruction they create.

So, the Gramarye-related cases in my rewritten Apollo Justice go as established (i.e. actually basically like canon except Phoenix escapes unscathed), except with a couple more tweaks: Lamiroir’s face is hidden way better, and neither she nor the audience learn who she is to Apollo and Trucy yet.

That gets saved for Dual Destinies’ brand new Gramarye rights-centric case.

While it could probably go earlier, I think it would fit best between Turnabout Academy and The Cosmic Turnabout. I’ve already covered the latter, so some notes about the former: plot-wise it remains unchanged, but a lot of the dialogue is different because I would have thought it was unbearably preachy and condescending at age nine and this game was rated M. We Do Not Need The Lecture, Thanks. Also Aristotle Means looks slightly more human/less like an actual straight-up marble statue because that was so unbelievably distracting. There’s weird character designs and then there’s By The Way, This Literal Marble Statue Is Sentient I Guess.

The rest of the difference is that (following on from my proposed Apollo Justice rewrite) Klavier Gavin gets to be an actual human being with feelings and not 60% of a lovingly-painted cardboard cutout of a person. He shows up with a re-design—possibly a slightly different outfit in general, I don’t have strong feelings about that, but the important thing is that he’s gotten a haircut. In my head he’s got roughly the same style from the flashback portions of 4-4, but that’s partially just because I’m not good at picturing things like that. What matters is that his hair looks nothing like Kristoph’s anymore. Also it’s established in passing that he and Trucy and Apollo have had a whole bunch of conversations in the last year and are all on good terms now, despite [gestures at 4-1 and 4-3 and 4-4], and that Klavier is doing more or less okay. Emphasis on “or less” once his beloved mentor gets murdered, but in this version he actually gets to be part of the post-case denoument conversations and establishes that he’s pretty devastated (despite the return of his professional facade) but Apollo and Trucy and Athena are all well aware of that and are, so to speak, on the case, and with their support eventually he’ll be okay.

So. With that out of the way, here’s a new case about the legacy of Troupe Gramarye.

We start off by learning that Lamiroir is in town again and Trucy wants to go see her, because last time they saw her perform live things went pretty badly and it kind of soured the whole experience in retrospect, but she really did have such a beautiful voice that Trucy wants to see her again (hopefully with nobody getting murdered this time). She talks Apollo into going with her pretty easily; he might put up a token resistance, but he’s actually not really opposed since she’s performing solo this time and he likes her music a lot when the Gavinners aren’t involved. They go to the show, and it’s everything they could have hoped for and more, including that as it turns out, she’s working with Valant Gramarye again, and the effects are, again, super impressive.

But gasp, betrayal, after the show (possibly the next day, at the Wright & Co. Offices?) it turns out that Valant sucks even more than we thought (though, you know, framing his friend/in-my-version-brother for murder and abandoning the child of the woman he loved who had just also been abandoned by her father wasn’t exactly a great start): he’s suing Trucy for the Gramarye rights, based on the premise that she inherited them under false pretenses, because he’s discovered evidence that suggests Thalassa’s death was due to active negligence on Zak’s part, and he’s arguing that while Zak was the better/more talented magician, and thus Magnifi liked him better than Valant, Thalassa was Magnifi’s beloved daughter, and there’s no way Zak would’ve been given the first shot (so to speak) at earning the Gramarye rights if Magnifi hadn’t been blinded enough by grief to believe it was an accident, and while Trucy inherited the rights fair and square from Zak, he should never have had the rights in the first place, and Valant is the rightful inheritor.

I have no idea where the rest of the plot goes because I’m not a mystery writer and I don’t know how to come up with actual plots and red herrings and clues, but eventually there’s a dramatic reveal that there was active negligence involved, which Valant knew all along bc it was his fault.

…but that reveal is ultimately secondary to the one either shortly before or shortly after, that [drumroll] Thalassa wasn’t actually dead anyway

Which, again, I’m not a mystery writer, I don’t know if or how this would actually fit, but in my head there’s a great dramatic moment where the reveal happens for the audience—Valant, Trucy, Apollo, any Troupe Gramarye fans in the gallery, and the players—but not, for the first few moments, Lamiroir herself.

For whatever reason, she removes her veil/scarf, or they slip somehow, and so she’s there on the witness stand with her face visible around other people for the first time in years. The whole gallery (and Apollo) kind of collectively draw in a breath, while Valant says her name, genuinely stunned

And in almost the same moment, Trucy (who would sound five years old, if this bit was a cutscene) says “…Mommy?”

Cue discussion, Lamiroir learns who she is, the realization that Magnifi must have known she wasn’t really dead and the real cover-up was his doing all along etc, everything gets resolved, and Valant gives up on suing Trucy for the rights.

(The “hey that’s an awfully familiar-looking bracelet” reveal probably doesn’t happen until after the rest of the case is resolved, but I don’t have particularly strong feelings about that one way or the other.)

Everything winds up reasonably happy—Apollo and Trucy find out they’re half-siblings and their mother’s alive, Lamiroir resolves to get the surgery to restore her eyesight (and in the end credits we find out it helped restore her memory too), and Trucy gets to keep the Gramarye rights bc Valant’s suit was built on two different fundamental lies (that Thalassa’s death was Zak’s fault/that it wasn’t Valant’s, and that she was, you know, actually dead), and relatedly, in a shocking twist for the series, no one actually gets murdered, and there isn’t even an accidental death!

…but any hope of Trucy and Valant reconnecting/Valant becoming a positive figure in Trucy’s life again is pretty solidly destroyed, and there’s another two blows struck against the Troupe Gramarye legacy, bc not only was Thalassa’s accident actually Valant’s fault all along, Magnifi knew she wasn’t dead and abandoned her.

In a very direct parallel to Maya at the end of 3-5, Trucy spends most of the case uncertain whether she even wants these rights anymore—she ultimately decides the answer is yes, but it’s in question from basically the moment she learns Valant’s argument for why the rights should belong to him, and even him admitting the whole thing was based in lies and the rights are hers fair and square doesn’t convince her entirely right away.

Aaaaand then The Cosmic Turnabout kicks off and we’re back to the previously-established plot!

#aa tag #ace attorney #AA5 #LONG POST WARNING oh my god i cannot overstate how long this post turned out to be #this was supposed to be like. half the length of the klavier post which was about 70% the length of the main AA4 rewrite post #instead it is. just shy of the length of both of those combined #how did this happen #also yes there is a spirit of justice post in progress but that one actually IS pretty short #because most of it comes down to ''yeah i have no idea how to fix this sorry''#so at least there's that?#aa posts #aj rewrite tag

10 notes · View notes

mihai-florescu · 1 year ago

Note

Can u explain to me the significance of anzu. If u wanna

Signed, someone that only knows of her as the self insert protag and wasn t aware she s somehow very important (i dont go here but i like hearin u talk about it)

Yes! Anzu is a character in her own right with a full backstory that expands beyond enstars actually, in ensemble girls, to the point where it makes me wonder at what point they decided to make enstars to show what she's been up to after leaving kimisaki (the school in engirls. There she is called angie, both angie and anzu are references to the pronounciation of the game titles themselves). She's also the older sister of the protagonist of engirls, a male transfer student from yumenosaki into kimisaki (the plot of engirls takes place in enstars 2 era, so her brother is actually still at yumenosaki during the first year of enstars, he's in the general course though, not the idol one).

The reason Anzu transfered is after a failed revolution she was part of in kimisaki. In that game she is a sort of ghost haunting the narrative, where a lot of characters still mention her (and compare iirc?) to her younger brother. I cant speak much of how this impacts him, ive only read a limited number of engirls stories, mostly ones from before he transferred. Heard the game ends with a timeloop he has to break, so im very curious to one day find a translation for That. So while that's happening over at kimisaki, but let's get back to enstars, where anzu gets another chance at a successful revolution and falls in love with idols in the process. Her presence and trickstars revolution solidifies that things are changing from the war into a hopeful future, the student council arent undefeatable, and there are still new characters that can appear and impact the flow of the story.

When trickstar were broken up by fine she stays and helps in the DDD in a way where, without her, trickstars revolution wouldnt have succeeded. She puts on a mask and joins on stage when the only other member left in the unit was subaru, and the minimum number of people to be qualified to perform is 2. She calls people from her old school in the crowd, amd her brother calls general course students, whose support for her trickstar lead to winning the first live against knights and make way for them to progress to the finals. In the end during the DDD finale it's her vote that makes the difference, going into overtime and making trickstar win. She's a regular person, not a genius, not even an idol, who had impacted the course of events time and time again until the end. She supported Trickstar's revolution, joined them on stage as support, i'd say she is the glue of the unit that helped keep it floating, made it a place to return to. On a grander scale, Anzu is a character who gets a second chance at a successful revolution that ends in happiness, something she had failed at kimisaki. Trickstar are the miracle that changes yumenosaki, but that wouldnt have been possible without anzu's support. Their 5th member.

A critique i see sometimes is that everyone ends up liking her for no reason but...thats not true? Many characters welcome her as a breath of fresh air and a needed new perspective, but others are aprehensive and untrusting in the beginning, it's not like her presence alone magically fixes everything as a deus ex machina or anything, she's actively working hard, to the point where she jeopardizes her own health in the process. And it's also not like she acts the same with all idols either, or doesnt have her own personality and input, she directly impacts their character arcs through her treatment, like in kaoru's case comes to mind first.

This is for ! era at least. I feel more confident talking about that one than !!, where she is part of the P association and experiences hardships and is undermined there, but i am not the person to talk about that as i dont feel like my knowledge of her role there is nearly good enough.

#ask #anon #enstars

15 notes · View notes

cageyworld · 11 months ago

Text

A nuanced recommendation for "Unchained Love" (浮图缘 – fútúyuán)

“Nuanced” meaning a lot of disclaimers, probably. First one being: I’m a U.S. American viewer. I’ve been studying Mandarin at my university since 2021 and I watch a lot of Chinese shows, but I am not of the culture of the source material. Inevitably, my perspective of the show is colored by my own Western upbringing. I can’t pick up on the finer details of language, clothing, history, etc. that may rankle other viewers, nor will I be fully conscious of all the ways my cultural viewpoint impacts my perception of the show.

With that said: I’ve been so charmed by “Unchained Love” that I thought others—perhaps especially my fellow Western watchers of these lovely Chinese-made shows—might enjoy it, too. There’s a lot to love.

I will keep spoilers to a minimum.

Some highlights of why I love this show:

Women voicing their rage and grief about patriarchal systems

A romance of respect and clear communication

Badass Dylan Wang (looking incredible in his costumes)

Found family

Cute dog

Angst with a happy ending

Read on to allow me to persuade you even more…

CRITIQUES—A.K.A. “THE JANK.”

THE TONE

I’ve read the criticism that the tone can be uneven, especially if you come to this (like I did) right after watching 苍兰决 “Love Between Fairy and Devil”. I agree. The tone is super uneven throughout the series.

The storyline contains some truly horrific and dramatic elements (see the list of content warnings at the end of this post), and yet tries to maintain an overall soft, romantic dramedy feel. It’s not successful in this and does create some dissonance. This dissonance is only amplified by…

THE MUSIC

The opening theme is a banger, but the scoring choices throughout the show itself are distracting. Sometimes we get plinky, Mickey Mouse comedy music when the dialogue and acting convey drama and high stakes—and occasionally, vice versa. From my experience, this isn’t unique to “Unchained Love,” but oh boy, is it striking in this series. The music seems to work against the narrative at times. I found myself saying, “I don’t feel like laughing right now!” at the screen. There can be emotional whiplash, from the very serious to scenes suddenly meant to be effortlessly light-hearted. It is not effortless.

WHAT GOT CENSORED

This show got chopped for sure. From what I can tell, it was largely the scenes of more overt sexual content between Xiao Duo and Bu Yinlou. This couple becomes respectfully, mutually horny for each other and it’s a bummer that so much of that got trimmed. That said, what remains is still lovely (and quite sexy at times).

The ending is also rushed in a way that feels like aggressive editing. It ends happily for the characters I loved most, and leaves lots of room for fanfiction expansion or extension, but it’s still a little unsatisfying as a viewer.

WHY THESE DIDN’T PUT ME OFF, PERSONALLY

I was able to make peace with the uneven tone mostly because of where the unevenness struck. The most serious elements of the show nearly all revolve around some aspect of violence against women. While this violence was not always treated with the gravity it warrants, it also wasn’t played for laughs. The choice to include each of these incidents is questionable, but I never felt the show was downplaying the seriousness of that violence itself.

Also, I appreciated that the women were in the forefront of those moments. We were expected to empathize with their situation.

For example, the opening episode’s plot of the deceased emperor’s brides being hanged as tribute to him wasn’t shown entirely as the horrific nightmare that is—but it also didn’t make all the women nameless, weeping beauties who existed only as tragic figures. Our heroine comes from within that group, and we see each of the women find their own way to deal. Some (understandably) weep, others negotiate their way out or flaunt their privilege to do so, others accept their fate. And then you have our Yinlou who is always eyeing an escape or a new foothold to a better situation.

We’re invited, tacitly or actively, to identify with the women being murdered. The violence against them isn’t set dressing. It’s very much an implied motivator for everything Yinlou does—she is a woman who fears the “cages” in which society can trap women, so she’s repeatedly calling attention to all those various cages.

There’s a later scene that’s not of much consequence overall where Yinlou comes upon a concubines’ graveyard. There are no markers with their names. She comments upon this and identifies with them, as a woman in their same situation. I deeply valued moments like this in “Unchained Love”—a character acknowledging how men in power are so often surrounded by “nameless” women whose own hopes and lives are forgotten.

One of the show’s major themes is: It is dangerous when powerless women catch the eye of powerful men.

THE GOOD – A.K.A. WHAT MAKES EVERYTHING ELSE WORTH IT

DYLAN WANG as Xiao Duo

I mean, he’s why I’m here, so we gotta start with him. I adored his performance as Dongfang Qingcang in 苍兰决 and he’s even more impressive as Xiao Duo, the head eunuch of the feared Zhaoding Bureau (FYI: in episode 2, we learn he’s not actually a eunuch—he’s pretending). This is an Earth-bound tale, so don’t expect the wild range of body-swapping or high drama of Hellfire power. Instead, he gives a far subtler performance where the harshness of the character blends smoothly with his softer moments.

He makes excellent use of his ability to look cold and cruel, and even the fact that he’s very handsome is relevant to the plot (because he, too, catches the eye of someone dangerous and powerful). For me, he disappeared into Xiao Duo in this performance. His mannerisms, body language, and tightly controlled expressions all felt so consistent with this man’s lived experience. He felt thoroughly three-dimensional and authentic.

Xiao Duo judges him. You. Xiao Duo judges everyone. CHEN YUQI as Bu Yinlou

I left “Ashes of Love” having most enjoyed Chen YuQi’s performance, so I was thrilled to see her in this. I like her energy on screen, and her goofy little smiles. She’s an uncouth mess as Bu Yinlou, and yet can believably play the perfect imperial concubine when she needs to. My fellow Eowyn “I fear a cage” and Beatrice “if I were man, I’d eat his heart in the marketplace” girlies will love Yinlou. Her fear of that patriarchal cage is one of her primary motivations throughout the series, and Xiao Duo is often the Benedick to her Beatrice in a “name the heart and the marketplace, baby” kind of way. Yinlou’s go-to problem-solving strategies are: gamble, lie, or set it on fire (literally).

Yinlou shares her secret fourth method of problem solving. SUPPORTING CHARACTERS

Not a dud in the bunch as far as I’m concerned. Everyone’s acting is strong and all the major characters are given the opportunity to be three-dimensional, to have their own perspectives and hopes. I found one of the side love stories a bit silly and cringey, but even that couple won me over by the end. Yinlou’s closest companion is her servant (played by Nan He – Duo Er La from “Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty.” I was thrilled to see her!). Xiao Duo has his own devoted right-hand man, and even a himbo of a general. There’s manly devotion everywhere, women being friends, bonding with sex workers, and hierarchies dissolving to become “family.”

The four pillars of the found family.

A braincells trio.

XIAO DUO and BU YINLOU TOGETHER

This is very much a “the man falls first” story and it seems likely that some of the early scenes got chopped, which is unfortunate, but I will say, it didn’t bother me. Perhaps it’s my years of writing and reading fanfiction, but I could find the threads easily.

Bu Yinlou catches Xiao Duo’s eye first by being clever. He’s initially wrong about what she’s scheming—but he’s right that she’s a schemer who is smarter than she pretends to be. For her own survival, she tries to stay on his good side and he's used to people praising him (or paying him) to get his favor by flattering his power, his strength, his ambition. Bu Yinlou starts praising his kindness, his mercy, his intelligence. For his own reasons (no spoilers!), he’s deliberately made himself a terror. Bu Yinlou starts talking to the real person he is inside.

Xiao Duo gets the thumbs up from Yinlou.

We do get the delightful Chinese drama tropes like slow-motion gazing with the love theme playing, but I didn’t see it as a normal “oh, she’s so beautiful” sort of moment. She’s being ridiculous, and Xiao Duo is struck that this woman is being ridiculous for him. He’s the scariest man in the Imperial Palace! People literally drop to the ground or run when they see him! And here’s this woman trying to make him smile, or grabbing his sleeves, or heckling him. What a strange creature she is…and you know, she’s rather pretty, too…

Pretty (and drunk at the mo')

After only a few meetings, Xiao Duo and Bu Yinlou instinctively understand one another, even if they don’t fully realize it. They’ve met the other person who plays 4-D chess and who never wanted to be here in the first place. I find it truly a joy to watch them—two people who barely trust anyone—maneuver around one another and learn to believe each other.

The actors seemed very comfortable with one another, so there’s lots of casual intimacy and affection in their body language together. With Xiao Duo, Yinlou feels safe enough to experience attraction and express her own desires for the first time. Her giddiness and girlishness about him are so heartwarming to watch.

Something has been awakened in her...

We also get the fantastic subversion of some classic romantic tropes. I admit: I’m a viewer who is frustrated by major conflicts erupting from simple misunderstandings, characters deliberately withholding information from each other—or worse—not having the five-minute conversation necessary to clear the air. Xiao Duo and Bu Yinlou COMMUNICATE. They truly treat each other as equals.

Avoiding spoilers, there’s one moment where a bad guy captures Bu Yinlou to bait Xiao Duo into a trap. A man in love, Xiao Duo storms out to go rescue her—and then pauses. “This is a trap,” he realizes, and he goes back home. He trusts that Bu Yinlou can get herself out of the scrape—and she does. Bu Yinlou does the same for him a few times. They profoundly trust one another and it shows on screen through their actions, not just their words. I found that unbelievably refreshing, even if it means we don’t get the HIGH DRAMA of so many other romantic dramas.

It made for a subtler experience that is perhaps just for me (but I write this in the hopes that it’s not). All the pain of the later episodes comes from truly understanding that Xiao Duo and Bu Yinlou would be happy together. Not in a soft-focus, dreamy-eyed, picture-perfect way, but in a real and tangible way. They could live together with their friends and their dog, raise some goats, and have wonderful life with one another. But there are powerful, dangerous, unpredictable forces in the way, and that hurts beautifully to watch.

THE PLOT

“Nirvana in Fire” this ain’t. The imperial palace intrigues are broad and only rarely more than 2-dimensional, but I still found myself delighted by some of the unexpected twists. There are characters I loathed in episode 1, and then grieved in episode 36. That’s the good stuff.

Bu Yinlou is the emotional center of the series. She wants to be free. The primary conflict of the show, then, is built around two suitors: One who will help her fulfill her dreams, even if it hurts him, and the other who will make her dreams match his, even if it hurts her.

This is all happening within larger maneuvers of outside forces trying to take down the empire. To them, Yinlou is a pawn in a larger game to control the emperor and Xiao Duo. (And Yinlou does not appreciate being treated like a pawn.)

THE VILLAIN

I have complex feelings about the primary antagonist for the show. I think that’s a good thing. He feels, in many ways, like an Incel given imperial power—he is both a sad, awkward, lonely man, and an entitled, spiteful monster. He’s played so deftly by Peter Ho, it took several episodes for me to realize he was the antagonist. On rewatch, it can be heartbreaking to follow his story, too, because there were moments of intervention where it could have gone differently. That, to me, makes for a richly imagined antagonist—who goes full “scenery chewing” villain toward the end. That, too, is compelling to watch. Peter Ho was clearly having a good time.

A PERSONAL CONCLUSION (and maybe a plea for fanworks)

“Unchained Love” is not perfect, but there’s such clear heart in the performances that it more than makes up for the show’s weaknesses. They explore storylines and themes and especially gives Yinlou some moments that I’ve longed for in a show maybe all my life. I like that Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings movies talked about fearing “a cage.” I wish she’d gotten to talk more. Yinlou gave voice to so much of what I wanted to hear her say.

“Unchained Love” quickly joined the tops of my favorite Chinese media, alongside “The Untamed” and “Yin Yang Master: Dream of Eternity.” I will probably end up writing some fanfiction for it, and I hope others will too. The gifsets on Tumblr have been so excellent that I can only hope for more. More fanworks, I guess that’s what I’m saying. There’s such great fanworks potential in this series. It’s in that sweet spot of having compelling characters, beautiful costumes and settings, and juuuuussst enough left on the cutting-room floor that we fans have all the room in the world to play.

HOW TO WATCH

The first two episodes are up for free on YouTube with English subtitles. It’s also streaming on both Viki and iQiyi. I liked it so much, I bought it on DVD from AustinDVDStore on ebay. The subtitles move too fast sometimes, but hey, I’m practicing my Mandarin anyway…

CONTENT WARNINGS

For the show overall:

The entire show deals with the idea of women as objects—which means there are often people treating women like objects. This is depicted as a bad thing, but it’s still hard to watch.

Some gender essentialist nonsense is spewed in relation to eunuchs and what it means to be “a man.” Later in the series, the villain becomes particularly fixated on this concept.

For specific storylines:

Opening episodes revolve around concubines of the deceased emperor being killed in tribute to him.

Accidental death of a child in episode 4.

A man in charge of the Imperial Mausoleum targets and sexually threatens, harasses, and assaults a woman forced to live there.

Yinlou’s father is verbally abusive to the women in his family.

Yinlou’s sister is forced to marry an enemy prince; this enemy prince is violent and threatening to her. The emperor is also violent and cruel to this character. (Yinlou’s sister is essentially a “what if Yinlou did what she was told” character, so her storyline highlights that going along with these powerful men won’t save you… It’s rough.)

The emperor’s dissent into tyrannical behavior is paired with a physical disability he develops. He also becomes fixated on his inability to bear children.

#unchained love #chinese drama #cdrama #recommendation #wang hedi #dylan wang #please watch with me #I love this show so much

16 notes · View notes

princesssterek · 2 years ago

Text

Anne Rice, Gay Vampires and the Mistreatment of Claudia in Interview with the Vampire

This was my senior thesis so enjoy.

Intro

Anne Rice’s debut novel Interview with the Vampire (1976) was not well received at the time of its publishing. One reviewer for the New York Times, Leo Braudy, even went so far as to say “there is no story here, only a series of sometimes effective but always essentially static tableaus out of Roger Corman films, and some self‐conscious soliloquizing out of Spiderman comics, all wrapped in a ballooning, pompous language” (Braudy 1976). However, it is now widely considered to be one of the best-selling novels of all time, having been made into a film 12 years after its release and maintaining enough popularity to be turned into a television series in 2022, some 46 years later. While not well received by critics, audiences loved it then and still love it now. Interview is the first novel to allow the vampire to tell their own story; along with the erotic overtones of the novel is what captured the attention of audiences around the world and what kept their attention. Currently, on GoodReads.com the novel has an overall 4.01-star rating with one reviewer writing “Dark and enthralling. This book asks readers to reflect on the constitutions of love and loneliness” while another comments on the writing style, “Anne Rice really makes you feel the depth of emotion that The Vampire goes through.” Both reviews are from 2023. Not only is Interview still relevant because of its content but the impact it’s had on the vampire genre as a whole. It’s opened the door to allowing vampires to not only tell their own stories but to allow them to feel deeply.

Throughout the novel, there is a heavy overtone of erotic desire, often homoerotic desire, mostly between the main character Louis and his vampire father/husband Lestat but also with his later lover Armand. There are also instances of erotic desire with other characters as well; desire is often associated with the act of feeding. Many see the overall desire within the book as being gay, which is one of the reasons its popularity has persisted. While Anne Rice would later write openly gay vampires, this was not the time for that; instead, we are given subtle hints and overtones. After a conversation with Rice, Katherine Ramsland her biographer would write that “The new vampire is brought over into a dramatically changed existence with a gender-free perspective” (Ramsland 148), which confirms the homoerotic overtones within the book. Rice also claims to have attempted to write her vampires as androgynous and without male or female distinctions or as Ramsland said ‘gender-free’. The reality is that Rice has placed Louis and Lestat in traditional gender roles as parents while also feminizing their vampire daughter/lover Claudia. Claudia is also read as feminist through the way she is treated by those around her, in particular their failure to fully acknowledge her as a woman, not a child.

What the people say past and present

Vampires have always been seen as metaphors for various things from the hidden sexuality or desires of the author to a critique of society's values. As William Hughes, a Professor at the University of Macau, put it in his contribution to the book A Companion to American Gothic (2013), “The vampire, an enduring consensus suggests, is the perfect vehicle with which to express the myriad and conflicting cultural implications of human sexual activity and identity” (Hughes 340); vampire lit makes for a good space to explore sexual activity and identity. This idea can be further narrowed but adding gender into the equation. As Melissa Ames says in her chapter of the book Bitten by Twilight (2010), “The fact that the same gender critiques appear in both Dracula and in more contemporary texts suggests that the vampire narrative is a productive space to tease out problems of gender and sexuality, but that it is not a space that necessarily resolves such issues since they recycle decade after decade and text after text in similar fictional constructs”(Ames 44-45); seeing gender critiques within vampire literature has always been common and will continue to be. This idea was echoed in 2016 in the book Women and the Gothic, specifically by contributor Gina Wisker who points out that “female vampires destabilise such comfortable, culturally inflected investments and complacencies and reveal them as aspects of constructed gender identity resulting from social and cultural hierarchies” (Wisker 150), taking the idea of vampire literature critiquing gender a step further by focusing on the role of the female vampire.

Interview with the Vampire has been no exception to analysis or critiques of the portrayal of gender and sexuality within vampire literature. Many cite how Rice shows gender roles in the relationship between Louis and Lestat but most importantly they turn to Claudia and her mistreatment. Many see the way she is treated by those around her, including her vampire fathers, as placing her in a traditional female gender role, often through their lack of acknowledging that she is a woman trapped in a child’s body. Nina Auerbach notes in her book Our Vampires, Ourselves (1996) that Rice’s vampires are compulsive storytellers but Claudia never gets to tell her own story; only men tell her story (Auerbach 154-55). This is a starting point for the way many read Claudia as being placed in a gender role. Auerbach also points out how “Claudia is an adult male construction, a stunted woman who has no identity apart from the obsessions of the fatherly lovers who made her” (Auerbach 158), something that in 2013 Hughes similarly pointed out stating that “Louis’s narration, and his coda,[he] silently deflects the agency from her to him.” (Hughes 345). Claudia is placed in a gender role has persisted through time. The relationship between Louis and Lestat is no exception to a critique or analysis of gender within the novel. Most notably their gender roles are seen in the way they parent Claudia, but these roles can also be seen within their relationship and the way Rice has characterised them. Ken Gelder points out in his book Reading the Vampire (1994), stating that “Rice emphasises the differences between these two male vampires, with Louis as delicate and sensitive (i.e. feminised) and Lestat as aggressive and impetuous (i.e. masculinised)” (Gelder 112). Rice shows gender roles throughout the relationship between Louis and Lestat often feminising one and masculinising the other.

Pre-child Love

In order to establish a foundation of gender roles within the novel you must first look at the relationship between Louis and Lestat before they created/birthed Claudia. In particular, you must look at how their relationship can be seen as queer or as having homoerotic overtones. Iulia Pintilie¹ points out in her article for the Journal of Romanian Literary Studies that “a passionate tension between the male vampires is clearly suggested in the writing” (Pintilie 642), something that can be seen throughout the novel but most notably early in their relationship. When we first meet Lestat in the novel it is at Louis’s bedside where he thinks him a possible doctor or angel. We, like Louis, quickly learn that Lestat is not normal or human, he is some kind of creature. One that wants Louis to be like him so that he may take control of Louis's plantation (16).

Louis gives their relationship a homoerotic overtone when he, in response to being asked to describe his turning, tells the reporter “I can’t tell you exactly, any more than I could tell you exactly what is the experience of sex if you have never had it” (15); comparing the loss of virginity to his turning implying a sexual overtone. Their relationship and the turning itself are given further erotic overtones when Louis says “I remember that the movement of his lips raised the hair all over my body, sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion” (19); again equating sex and being turned. After his turning Louis spends time staring at things like the buttons on Lestats coat or the trees and cobblestones, here Lestat breaks the erotic tone created in the turning scene. Lestats sends Louis to relieve his body of waste and upon Louis's return, he finds him already working on the plantation papers–cementing the idea that Lestat only wants him for his money. This is an aspect of their relationship that Pintilie describes as resembling “an eighteen-century aristocratic union in which the two husbands increase their family fortunes through their marriage” (Pintilie 647), though at this moment it's not yet a marriage.

In the five years that make up their relationship–some sixty pages of the novel–before Claudia’s birth/turning, Louis struggles to come to terms with what Lestat has made him. Louis often refers to how violent and unfeeling Lesast could be, noting early in their relationship how Lestat could go from one emotion to the opposite. Louis notes in Lestat's treatment of his father that “he’d been gracious to the old man, almost to the point of sickening, but now he became a bully” (23); Lestat goes quickly from one emotion to another. Louis also notes how easily Lestat is set off when he says that in response to Louis wishing to sleep alone, “he became furious” (34) before Lestat sets off in a small tirade over why they should be bunking together. Lestat’s repeated instances of enjoying violence or being unfeeling are what give him his masculised gender role whereas Louis is often repulsed by violence and feels deeply thus femisising him. Louis even notes Lestats lack of emotions when after describing his own deep feelings about being a vampire he tells the reporter “Lestat felt the opposite. Or he felt nothing” (31). Driving home the idea that Lestat is different from Louis.

In the five years prior to Claudia joining them, Louis experiences many things with Lestat from his own turning to learning to kill but never embracing it to his home being burned to the ground. Throughout it all Lestat remains a violent, emotionally unpredictable manipulator in Louis’s life, not unlike one would see in an abusive intimate partner. Louis even tells the reporter that “I had to stay with him” (35), going on to explain that Lestat was keeping information from him about his vampire existence as a way to force him into staying. Something Lestat continues to do even after turning Claudia. Eventually, towards the end of their five years, Louis finally decides he must leave Lestat when they flee to New Orleans city proper after an incident at the Freniere plantation. Louis tells the reporter “I have to leave him or die” (71), this decision comes only hours before he meets Claudia for the first time and days before they would turn her.

Post-child Love

When Rice chooses to have Louis and Lestat become fathers, she also makes them husbands cementing their “marriage” when they turn Claudia. While Lestat is the one to complete Claudia’s turning by feeding her his blood, Louis participates by having been the one to drain her thus making them both her vampire fathers. Louis is at first a reluctant ‘mother.’ He did not want to turn Claudia but Lestat forces him into it, using her as a way to trap Louis into staying with him. Candace Benefiel explains this scene best telling readers in her article for the Journal of Popular Culture² that “The whole scene reads like a couple having a child in an attempt to make a failing relationship once more viable” (Benefiel 267). In this case, it’s Lestat attempting to keep the relationship viable, he explains to Claudia after her turning that “ ‘Louis was going to leave us,’ (...) ‘He was going to go away. But now he’s not. Because he wants to stay and take care of you and make you happy.’ (...) ‘You’re not going, are you, Louis?’ ” (94). At this moment he is also revealing the truth of her turning to Louis as well. This plan of Lestat’s works, Louis tells the reporter that “Afraid of fleeing alone, I would not conceive of risking it with Claudia. She was a child. She needed care” (97), cementing his need to stay with the ‘family.’ As if Louis was a mother staying with an abuser to protect a child.

In making them parents Rice masculinizes Lestat–he is only ever the ‘father’ and feminizes Louis–he is called ‘father’ but acts as a ‘mother.’ Lestat takes on a more traditional masculine father role when Louis tells us that he “was loving to her, proud of her beauty, anxious to teach her that we must kill to live and that we ourselves could not die” (97). He is excited to teach her to kill, to be aggressive–traits that can be seen as more masculine. Louis takes on a more feminine or motherly role in that he is the one to educate her on things like “mortal creations”, poetry, music, and books (100), teaching her softer life skills that are seen as more feminine. While Louis’s dedication and attachment to Claudia can be viewed as ‘motherly instinct,’ you could also argue that it is simply parental the way he wants to protect her and keep her close throughout the novel, though it’s the juxtaposition of Lestat's masculine traits that give Louis’s a more ‘motherly’ feel. Louis even tells the reporter “At first, I thought only of protecting her from Lestat. I gathered her into my coffin every morning and would not let her out of my sight with him if possible. This was what Lestat wanted, and he gave little suggestions that he might do her harm” (97), implying Louis is a ‘mother’ protecting their child from an abusive ‘father’–Lestat. The three spend some sixty-five years living together as a family before tensions arise. Before their family comes apart, Louis continues to try to keep himself isolated from Lestat, now having Claudia join him when she is not off-killing with Lestat. Louis explains to the reporter that “there was no quarreling. We kept to ourselves (...) Claudia and I pursued our natural tastes and Lestat went about his lavish acquisitions” (104).

When tensions between Claudia and Lestat begin to rise so do tensions with Louis and Lestat. Lestat is frustrated with Claudia ignoring him or as Louis tells the reporter “she grew cold to Lestat” (105). This leads to Lestat lashing out at Louis after Louis attempts to stop him from lashing out at Claudia and later to another argument. An argument where Louis cements seeing himself as Claudia’s mother telling the reporter “ ‘What’s the matter with her!’ he [Lestat] flared at me, as though I’d given birth to her and must know” (105). It’s in the issues or tensions that we can once again see the relationship between Louis and Lestat as abusive. Particularly with Louis as the victim and Lestat as the abuser; this is one of the main ways that Rice has applied gender roles to their relationship. She makes the relationship reminiscent of a heterosexual one by making Louis the ‘mother’ figure to Claudia. This is shown subtly when after Claudia tells Louis they must leave Lestat they begin to plan their escape (118-119). Louis explains to the reporter that before now he’d “grown accustomed to him, as if he were a condition of life itself” (118). Louis had grown complacent in the relationship content to keep himself and Claudia from Lestat but never leaving. Louis goes on to explain that while he planned to buy their freedom (119) he “did not believe it would be possible to escape him [Lestat]” (119); reminiscent of the emotions a victim planning their own escape may feel.

Louis’s ‘motherly’ instinct is seen again towards the end of the novel when the Theater Des Vampires come to collect Louis, Claudia, and Madeliene for trial. Louis tells the reporter that “the instinct to protect Madeleine and Claudia was overpowering” (294), he also attempts to bargain with Lestat for her life saying to him “ ‘You let her go, you free her…and I will…I’ll return to you’ ”(296). In both of these cases, Louis is attempting to protect Claudia the way a mother or parent would. In the second instance, Louis even attempts to stand up to Lestat as a means to protect Claudia or at the very least justify her actions against him by telling the others “how you treated us, that we didn’t know the laws, that she didn’t know of other vampires’ (296); he is attempting to get Lestat to own to his part in Claudia’s attempting to kill him, to admit to abusing his power over them.

Claudia as treated by her ‘fathers’

It’s not until Claudia has lived with Louis and Lestat for over sixty-five years that Loius begins to acknowledge that she is in fact not a child but a woman trapped in the body of a child remarking to Lestat that “She’s not a child any longer,[...] I don’t know what it is she’s a woman” (105). Louis only begins to realize this after she has been ignoring Lestat, resenting him for being her “father.” Both men realize that she is grown again only after she begins to question her origins and subsequently wants to leave Lestat to free them from him saying to Louis “And we’ve been his puppets, you and I; [...]. Now’s time to end it, Louis. Now’s time to leave him”(118). Claudia tells Louis that she will kill Lestat to free them of him. Not because she believes it’s the only way to free them but because she wants to, she repeatedly tells Louis “ ‘I can kill him. (...) I want to kill him. I will enjoy it!’ ” and “ ‘I want him dead and will have him dead. I shall enjoy it’ ” (124). They proceed to argue over if Lestat even can be killed and after she comments she may inherit Lestats power after killing him, Louis becomes angry. He tells the reporter “ ‘I was enraged now. I rose suddenly and turned away from her’ ” (124) but he quickly reverts back to seeing her as childlike in her innocence, seeing her wanting to be free of Lestat like a child throwing a tantrum and making idle threats. It's not until she attempts to kill Lestat that he again sees her as a woman though it is at the expense of also being repulsed by her. After Claudia kills Lestat, Louis tells the reporter “I turned away from her. I was unable to look at her (...) I would not look at her (...) I couldn’t stand the sight of her” (139-140). Though once Claudia shows distress at Louis's reaction he reverts back to treating her like a child rocking her as she cries in his arms.

Lestat never sees Claudia as a woman or an adult; to him, she is simply a means to keep Louis with him, and as a toy or as Lestat calls her a “doll” for him and Louis to play with. Lorna Jowett points this out in her article “ ‘Mute and Beautiful’: The Representation of the female vampire in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire”, telling readers that “In neither case is Claudia of importance for herself; rather she is simply an object to be used in the struggle/relationship between two male vampires” (Jowett 56). Lestat eventually comes to see Claudia as a child, his and Louis, but by the end of the novel he sees her as the enemy and never does he view her as a woman.

Throughout the novel both Louis and Lesta refer to Claudia as a doll; Louis often refers to her by material things as well. After first presenting the idea of turning Claudia Lestat even tells Louis to “think of all the pretty dresses we could buy for her” (75). Louis even goes as far as explaining that after her turning Lestat hired dress and shoemakers to outfit Claudia; that he “played with her as if she were a magnificent doll, and I played with her as if she were a magnificent doll (99). Both men also treat her like a doll up until she begins to ask questions often dressing her and doing her hair. Katherine Ramsland notes in the book The Vampire Companion⁴ that “Lestat and Louis treat Claudia like a doll, despite the fact that her mind matures into that of an intelligent, assertive, and seductive woman” (Ramsland 69); even after her maturing they continue to treat her as a doll. Louis further feminizes Claudia by placing emphasis on more material items like her clothes and hair. Gabriella Jonsson says this well when in her article for the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts³ she claims “Claudia’s “feminity” is expressed only through clothes and hair, making her gender identity fluid, easily disruptible” (42). Louis often refers to Claudia's dresses, hair ribbons, or even her blonde hair as a way to not only give her physical description but to emphasize her femininity and adolescence. As we know from Louis she is often dressed in colorful puffed sleeves, hair ribbons, and slippers like you might see a doll wearing. Even in her death, Claudia is defined by material things, Louis knows she is dead after seeing not only Lestat holding her yellow dress and her golden hair.

Claudia as perceived by others

Other vampires aside from Louis and Lestat tend to overlook Claudia, something Louis notes when telling the story of his and Caludia’s first night with the Theater Vampires, stating to the interviewer “Knowing what I also knew and what they [the female vampires] seemed unable to grasp: that a woman’s mind as sharp and distinct as their own lived within that small body” (243).The other female vampires Estelle and Celeste– the only two to get named– take an interest in Claudia’s beauty, having her flaunt her looks the first night they meet. Though they quickly reveal their true feelings towards Claudia, Estelle tells her in front of the other vampires that “black was the color for a vampire’s clothes, that Claudia’s lovely pastel dress was beautiful but tasteless” (244) causing everyone to laugh at her. Louis also notes that Celeste appears to not like Claudia early on when in response to a question she asks he claims “her [Celeste’s] eyes reflected a certain contained hostility” (244) only further cementing the notion that these two vampires do not like Claudia. The other vampires like Santiago see her as neither child nor vampire. To them, she is simply a toy, something they can play with to soothe their boredom and allows them to indulge in their cruel nature. They do not see her as an equal which could be because she appears as a child but they feel the same lack of intellectual interest in Louis, who is only saved from being their target by Armand's interest in him. Armand overlooks her simply because he has no interest; he is more concerned with getting Louis to leave Paris with him, to become his companion. Ultimately Armand has no personal feelings about Claudia only seeing her as an obstacle to getting Louis, something Claudia is aware of. She tells Louis after their first meeting with him, “Do you know what he said….that I should die'' (249), explaining to Louis after that “He would have you, and he would not have me stand in the way” (250). Armand notes to Louis that it was cruel of them to turn Claudia seeing as she will never be a full woman, that is a woman who has reached physical maturity, telling Louis that if he were in a position that required him to turn his human child-blood-slave he would not, “because he is too young, his limbs not strong enough, his mortal cup barely tasted”(252). It would be a disservice to turn him, a “flaw” as he calls it. He notes the problem with turning a child, the disservice that her creators did in making her, saying to Louis “And then there is this mysterious child: a child who can never grow, never be self-sufficient” (252), telling him that most other vampires wouldn’t turn anyone who could not be self-sufficient. Having this vampire child with him is part of the reason the other vampires have taken an interest in them, it's quite unusual. Also, Louis and Claudia are not unfeeling vampires (he still holds onto his humanity), making them stand out in a way that makes them easy targets for a group like the Theatre Vampires.

Alternatively, Madeleine only sees Claudia one way, as an immortal child. As we know Madeleine is grieving the loss of her own daughter so that's what she sees in Claudia. When Louis is asking Madeliene if she will care for Claudia he also asks “Is that what you believe her to be, a doll?” (267), though she responds with “ ‘A child who can’t die! That’s what she is,’ ” (267). This interaction tells us that while Madeliene may not see Claudia in the same doll-like way Louis and Lestat once do she still does not recognize her for what she is–a grown woman trapped in the body of a child. After her turning Madeliene becomes obsessed with Claudia, making her clothes and furniture that are proportionate to her size. Beyond Madeliene's grief-induced obsession with Claudia being an immortal child that she must provide for, we know nothing else of their relationship or Madeliene’s perception of her.

Claudia on her situation

Claudia is not ignorant of her position within her family and in the world, understanding that she will always appear as a child so no one will treat her as a woman, a point of great frustration and struggle for her. Before her demise in the novel, she has come to terms with her situation and has chosen a new caregiver for herself so that Louis may be free. Though she must beg him to do so. Louis only concedes after speaking with Madeliene–an adult–emphasizing that Louis does not see Claudia as an equal (adult). It's in the turning of Madeliene that we can see Claudia as other or less womanly in the eyes of men; it brings Louis great pain to turn Madeline causing him to see Claudia as absurd or monstrous. She must ask Louis to do this because while she is a vampire she can never turn another, that is create children, due to her size. Lestat points this out, stating “You don’t have the power. Either of you” (Rice 132) after Claudia makes a comment about the three of them filling the world with vampires. She must beg Louis to do it for her, once again emphasizing her child and womanly-like helplessness, telling Louis in response to his hesitance at turning Madeliene “ ‘Because I cannot do it.’ Her voice was painfully calm, all the emotion under the hard, measured tone. “I haven’t the size, I haven’t the strength! You saw to that when you made me! Do it!’ ” (260). It's in this instance, of Claudia begging Louis to turn Madeliene, that we can see her awareness and frustration with her situation. She tells Louis that had he waited “six more mortal years, seven, eight…I might have had that shape! … I might have known what it was to walk at your side.” (261-62). This is also where we can see her acceptance of her situation as she explains to Louis that he must “Give her [Madeliene] to me so she can care for me, complete the guise I must have to live! And he can have you then! I am fighting for my life!” (265). She points out how she will not survive this world alone; she must be forever tied to another. We can also see her anger in having been immortally bound to a child's body when she calls Louis a “monster” and in her killing of Lestat after discovering he was the one to turn her. This anger can be seen in how his initial “murder” is not one of passion but is intricately planned with Claudia poisoning him to make him an easier target though his later “murder” is one of self-defense seeing as Claudia is attempting to protect herself and Louis from Lestat’s attack that final night in New Orleans.

The other women

Women are not often seen–that is given speaking roles or even names– in the novel. There are a few like Babbette Freniere–a human that Loius and Lestat knew before Claudia’s creation, Celeste & Estelle–the only other female vampires noted in the novel, Madeliene the doll maker turned vampire, and of course, our main female figure Claudia the vampire child created in an attempt to save her ‘father’ relationship.

Babette takes up little space in the novel only being initially significant because of Lestat’s interest in killing her brother and Louis's concern for their family plantation. Before Louis and Lestat must flee to the Feniere plantation for aid Babette is only mentioned when Louis advises her to keep the plantation after her brother's death. Louis shows his respect for Babette not only in advising her to keep the plantation but before then when he describes her to the reporter as “not only as smart as her brother, but far wiser” (43). We see the downfall of Babette when after Louis and Lestat go to her for aid, she attacks Louis attempting to kill him because she believes him to be “from the devil” (65). The last time Babette is mentioned is when Lestat mentions that now some sixty-five years later the Freniere plantation is meant to be haunted. This causes Louis to remember Babette, he tells the reporter that she “died young, insane, (...) insisting she had seen the devil” (130); an insanity caused by discovering that Louis is not human. Babette is also used in the novel as a tool to further Louis’s self-loathing. She acts as a symbol of him holding onto his humanity and what was left of his human life. She even validates his thoughts that he is from the devil when she tells him such and calls him a “monster.” Overall we only know Babette as the human Louis saw his humanity in, a human who descends into madness.

In contrast, there are the two notable female vampires Celeste & Estelle who are often characterized as what you could call ‘mean girls.’ They are initially introduced as part of the Theater des Vampires, women who at first seem to take to Claudia fondling her and having her turn about for them (243). Louis is quick to note that Celeste's eyes “reflected a certain contained hostility” (244) and that Estelle is condescending to Claudia when she points out that “black was the color for the vampire’s clothes, that Claudia’s lovely pastel dress was beautiful but tasteless” (244) causing everyone to laugh at her. We also know from Armand that Celeste is jealous of Claudia, he notes “She is jealous of the child’s beauty” (254); another reason they can be characterized as ‘mean girls.’ Overall they can both be viewed as catty ‘mean girls’ who are jealous of Claudia and only wish to play games with both her and Louis. In the end, they are killed, in fact, no female vampire survives the novel.

Madeleine is the last woman in the novel to be named. Not only does Madeliene die by the end she is only in forty-five pages of it. While she is used only as someone to replace Louis as Claudia’s caretaker we do get to see the beginnings of her descent into madness. When we first meet Madeleine it is after Claudia has brought her home to have Louis turn her; her only significance is in replacing Louis. We quickly learn though that while Claudia intends to have her as a guardian, Madeleine only wishes to relieve the guilt of having lost her own daughter by replacing her with an immortal one; Madeleine notes this to Louis “A child who can’t die! That’s what she is” (267). Her madness starts quickly after her turning when Louis notes that she burned her dead child's belongings and that he “had to lead her away from men and women she could no longer drain dry” (273). He even outright calls her mad when talking about those few nights before her death. Louis also notes that Madeleine had become “accustomed to dreaming; and that she would not cry out for reality, rather would fee reality to her dreams, a demon elf feeding her spinning wheel with the reeds of the world so she might make her own weblike universe” (273); he gives his explanation for what was happening to Madeleine. In the end, Madeliene is only remembered by Louis not only for her madness but for her cries as the Theater Vampires took them away.

Conclusion

The claim that Anne Rice has made of writing vampires as being without male or female distinctions or as being “gender-free” (Ramsland 148) is disproved through a close reading of Interview with the Vampire. The main characters within the novel Louis, Lestat, and Claudia present to readers the gender roles which Rice claims to have not made. Through the relationship that Louis and Lestat share–both pre and post-Claudia–you can see how she has made Lestat masculine in a way that gives Louis a femininity. Through Claudia and her mistreatment Rice once again shows that she has given her vampires' gender distinctions. One can also see Rice’s gender distinctions in her treatment of women in the novel as a whole but it is most notable in Claudia. Claudia the immortal woman-child whose story is only told by a male vampire in relation to a male vampire.

End notes

¹ “GENDER CONVENTIONS: HOMOSEXUAL EROTICISM AND FAMILY LIAISONS IN ANNE RICE AND NEIL JORDAN’S INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.”

² “Blood Relations: The Gothic Perversion of the Nuclear Family in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.”

³ “The Second Vampire: ‘Filles Fatales’ in J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ and Anne Rice’s ‘Interview with the Vampire.’”

⁴ The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's "The Vampire Chronicles"

Works Cited

Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Benefiel, Candace R. “Blood Relations: The Gothic Perversion of the Nuclear Family in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 38, no. 2, 2004, pp. 261–273.

Braudy, Leo. “Queer Monsters.” The New York Times, 2 May 1976. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/02/archives/queer-monsters-interview-with-the-vampire-vampire.html.

Click, Melissa A., and Melissa Ames. “Twilight Follows Tradition: Analyzing ‘Biting’ Critiques of Vampire Narratives for Their Portrayals of Gender and Sexuality.” Bitten by Twilight Youth Culture, Media, & the Vampire Franchise, Lang, New York, NY, 2010, pp. 37–53.

Gelder, Kenneth. “Vampires in the (Old) New World: Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.” Reading the Vampire, Routledge, London, 1994, pp. 108–123.

Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43763.Interview_with_the_Vampire. Accessed 3 Apr. 2023.

Jönsson, Gabriella. “The Second Vampire: ‘Filles Fatales’ in J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ and Anne Rice’s ‘Interview with the Vampire.’” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 17, no. 1 (65), 2006, pp. 33–48.

Jowett, Lorna. "Mute and Beautiful": The Representation of the Female in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire." Femspec, vol. 4, no. 1, 2002, pp. 59

Pintilie, Iulia-Mădălina. “GENDER CONVENTIONS: HOMOSEXUAL EROTICISM AND FAMILY LIAISONS IN ANNE RICE AND NEIL JORDAN’S INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.” Journal of Romanian Literary Studies, no. 07, 2015, pp. 642–53.

Ramsland, Katherine. Prism of the Night: A Biography of Anne Rice. Penguin, 1994.

Ramsland, Katherine. The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's "The Vampire Chronicles". Ballantine Books, 1995.

Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. Ballantine Books, 1976.

Wisker, Gina. “Female Vampirism.” Women and the Gothic, edited by Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik, Edinburgh University Press, 2016, pp. 150–66. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1bgzdfx.14.

A Companion to American Gothic, edited by Charles L. Crow, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/stedwards/detail.action?docID=1388810

44 notes · View notes

reflections-in-a-critical-eye · 1 year ago

Text

I can understand the argument that someone's background influences their views on politics/social issues, everything and how that transpires in the art they're making, but only using that frame of analysis is reductive. More often working class directors get the recognition for their working class stories, whilst anything above it that gets into privileged teritory will most likely be criticized. Especially in this era in cinema and economic/political climate in which "eat the rich" is now a theme/meme in pop culture.

But I do stand on my opinion that it can be reductive sometimes. I could never look at Visconti's work only thinking that a rich count made all those films. When the entire argument is based on that it might ignore not only elements that are actually working in the film, but also other legitimate frames of criticizing the piece if it lacks in other areas.

I think this applies to Saltburn as well. I've seen the classism critique everywhere. And on one hand it does apply. Yes, the director is this posh woman and it might be argued that the film is a posh perspective on what's the middle class fantasy. Which apparently is one in which pretending to be working class and having parents with addiction might garantee you a spot in a circle of rich friends (and then you can exert all your destructive fantasies on them). At the same time, it's not like the upper class gets unscathed from all this. Yes, they're fun and amusing to watch, but I wasn't laughing with them, but at them. They were portrayed as being ridiculous and utterly sad in their inability of showing emotion, seen here as the typical upper class behavior.

Perhaps a more legitimate criticism coming from me (and others) would be that all explained above would have come across more clearly if the execution would have been done right. I do believe there's some issues with the script. The over explaining of motive through a monologue and going back in time was not necessary and it's more like a gimmick, an easy way to close all the narrative ends. It's not technically a bad idea, but perhaps it is too cliche at this point.

I believe Oliver needed a bit more work in terms of motivation and how that comes across. I felt as if there's more to know. Not in a way that justifies his action, but what is underneath there? This is where I'm reminded of some comparisons to The Talented Mr. Ripley, Teorema or Brideshead Revisited. The stranger who comes in and disrupts the status quo. Who changes the lives of those he "befriends", either for personal gain, for them to get out of their "comfort zone" or both. The methods of infiltration are subtle, but most importantly, the way in which they are portrayed in film or written are what makes them so powerful. Emerald Fennell is no Evelyn Waugh, that's obvious. So I think that mostly here lies that criticism on my part. That at times, the story is told too simplistically, it doesn't go too deep into the relationship between characters (especially Oliver and Felix) and there's a superficiality that comes with a focus on aestheticism.

At the same time, this exact latter criticism can actually be its forte. It's what makes it fun. It's the wanted shock value of a few scenes that definitely makes the audience gasp (particularly those in the young adult range nowadays used to comic book adaptions and other Hollywood garbage). It looks beautiful and it makes us nostalgic of summers in the late 2000s which don't look that bad through rose-tinted glasses. It's how we look at ridiculous behavior and also love watching those people bask in the sun and wear dinner jackets while playing tennis. It's the music! I loved the music and the sparkly kitschy clothes us millenials used to think it were the height of fashion.

The film wants to be outrageous, to make people talk, to bring valid criticism while also looking really good. If its problem is that it has too much style over lack of substance, at least they nailed the style.

My watching experience was a really fun one. It doesn't take away from noticing its shortcomings and that also doesn't make me want to only see its fault and not also the elements that work. Saltburn is somewhere in the middle and I do think we need these types of films as well and it's not hard for it to find its appropriate audience.

#m thoughts #saltburn #emerald fennell #film talk

10 notes · View notes

glasshalftrue-deprecated · 2 years ago

Text

Just watched the “Joan is Awful” episode of Black Mirror and have some (spoiler-y) thoughts:

In "Fifteen Million Merits", the second episode of the entire series, "Black Mirror" grapples with the fact that capitalism can subsume and profit off of critiques of itself. In an incredibly biting and effective moment at the end of the episode, we see one of the bike riders in the dystopian society watching and nodding along to the protagonist's televised rant against the system, whose rage has been reduced to mere opiate for the masses. Bafflingly, "Joan is Awful" presents that televised rant for us, the viewers, without a hint of self-awareness. It is a critique of Netflix, on Netflix, served with a wink and a nudge, giving us permission to safely laugh about - and then quietly accept - all the terrible things that streaming services, "the algorithm", and the corporate drive for engagement and profit have done to us.Also, perhaps more crucially, it's just not a very good episode of television. The premise is a good one: it's "The Truman Show" for the modern era. And the first third of the episode or so is a decent setup for that premise: we go through a typical day in Joan's life, as she commits a few questionable but mundane sins, and then sees those actions amplified for all to see. From there, though, it just kind of goes off the rails. You would think the point of an episode like this would be to explore the consequences of having one's life publicized in this way, to see the reactions of both her close friends and family, as well as strangers who only know her parasocially through a distorted lens. But we only get a little bit of that before it devolves into a cartoonish caper with Salma Hayek, as they team up to destroy the "quamputer", an all-powerful black box of a machine that is responsible for generating the titular show. To reduce the problem of an entire system down to a singular physical machine that can be easily broken into and destroyed is pure nonsense, a child's idea of how the world works, and it turns the episode into a cringy heist that thinks making its characters say celebrity names over and over is the height of comedy. (Seriously, did they have a "Salma Hayek" quota for the script?) The episode gestures at some bigger themes about how we're driven by negative engagement, how machine learning algorithms have become inscrutable even to their creators, how we commodify and exploit people's real lives for our entertainment, and I actually broadly agree with a lot of what it's trying to say. But these themes are mostly left to be stated directly in the dialogue, as the actual plot of the episode does a horrible job of conveying and synthesizing these ideas. To take a look at just one angle of this: the idea that Streamberry can completely invade your privacy and lay your life bare for the world to see is what makes the show so existentially horrifying. But corporations are amoral, not immoral; they don't do bad things just for the sake of it, they just don't care if what they do is good or bad as long as it makes them money. Yet looking at it from a profit-motive perspective, it doesn't make any sense that they would do this. Beyond the novelty of the first few versions of this, are people really going to be interested in watching a bunch of shows about the lives of random people they don't know? The episode itself doesn't even seem to think so, because the CEO of Streamberry later states that the endgame of all this is to create "X is Awful" type shows for everyone. But how can it possibly be cost-effective to generate millions of shows, each tailored for literally one individual and using expensive celebrity likenesses? Wouldn't it just be better to have the AI generate fewer, more broadly appealing shows? The technology in this episode is clearly far ahead of what we currently have, and ChatGPT is already more than capable of coming up with coherent (if incredibly cliche and unimaginative) narratives, so it would not at all be a stretch to imagine that the "quamputer" is capable of churning out endless 6/10 shows for any demographic that they want to capture. But then, that wouldn't fit the episode's message about the invasion of privacy. It reeks of the show deciding what it wants to say and then forcing its story to say it, rather than letting the story organically reveal what it wants to say. I know this is satire, which means it will exaggerate things to make a point. But I think it exaggerates things in a way that make the creators seem ignorant of how the things that they're critiquing actually work. It's ineffective in the way that the whole "incoming asteroid as climate change" metaphor in "Don't Look Up" was ineffective; the metaphor is simply too qualitatively different from the real thing to offer any real insight into the situation. The obligatory twist, which is that everything we've been seeing is actually itself a fictional portrayal of what has been happening in the "real" real world, does do a good job of recontextualizing the episode, and it makes the noticeably cheesier tone and more polished presentation of this episode pretty amusing in retrospect. But it's ultimately a pretty shallow reveal; as we later see confirmed in the post-credits tag of the real Joan shitting in the church, the broad strokes of the plot probably still happened the way that it was portrayed, so all of my critiques about the overall shape of the story still stand. Obviously, I was not expecting this episode to somehow single-handedly Take Down Capitalism through the Power of Art. But I at least expected something like "Fifteen Million Merits" - something a bit smarter, more self-aware, and something which isn't afraid to acknowledge its own limitations, and in doing so perhaps encourage the viewer to genuinely self-reflect - rather than the watered-down, toothless, pacifying "satire" that we got.

#black mirror #joan is awful #the only redeeming qualities were that annie murphy is very charismatic and salma hayek is entertaining in a so-bad-it's-good-way #unfortunately it seems like black mirror has become a shell of itself and charlie brooker has completely run out of creative steam

17 notes · View notes

shivasdarknight · 1 year ago

Note

Hi, sorry for this but you are a writer, so umm.. I was hoping you could give me some tips/advice on how to write?

tbh the way I got into writing is a bit insane, but I do have some advice that can help. gonna put it under a cut just because it got kinda long

honest to god, one of the best pieces of advice is something you're already doing because reading can genuinely help you with becoming a better writer. stepping outside of your usual genres or authors can help expand your viewpoint and introduce you to more narrative styles so you can play around and see what works for you. eg. if you mostly read first person, give second person a shot. or if you're an omniscient third person, try limited third person. or even retrospective first person, because i often see people complain about first person pov when it's married with a present tense story. if you have a first person narrator talking about events in the past as if talking to you, or a journal it often takes an entirely different angle and it's something I've played with in Homestuck fics because that fandom tends to be more open to narrative experimentation. Writing is honestly a lot of looking at stuff you like (much like art) and smooshing it all together. Personally, I've gotten a lot of my writing style from stuff like The Locked Tomb, admittedly Lovecraft was foundational (but this is a great example of why to always remain critical considering his bullshit), so was Homestuck and Rick Riordan's stuff. I'm never trying to copy them wholesale, but I am looking at aspects I like - such as Riordan's humor intertwining with the narrative and narration, or the deeply unreliable narrators that Muir writes, or even how Homestuck balances purple prose with gut wrenching conciseness when it counts. A lot of modern day fast food fiction takes out a lot of the stuff that actually builds a story - pacing, playing with narration and technical writing - so you need to be conscious of what you're looking for in things. Often more established authors get to do weirder stuff than new authors, but don't discredit new ones because that would be leaving out folks like Xiran Jay Zhao and their phenomenal prose.

Another thing that helps greatly is reading writing critique. Video essays on books or even more critical thought pieces on writing, tropes, etc. can help you learn more about why something works. Lots of different channels on YouTube dedicated to dissecting media, absolutely recommend stuff like Hello Future Me, Overly Sarcastic Productions (real world ties + mythology, great basis to build things on), Zoe Bee (writer + commentary), Nerdwriter1 (media analysis + commentary), Just Write, and Tale Foundry. For adjacent suggestions that can help build up alternate perspectives that aren't directly about writing but are about critical thinking with stories (which is frankly an important skill to have), I definitely recommend Princess Weekes, Accented Cinema, Now You See It, Dominic Noble, The Storyteller, and Pop Culture Detective. A lot of this is discussing film (save Dominic Noble, who also talks about books a Lot), but the core essence of storytelling is helpful regardless of what angle it comes in - be it video game, movie, tv, or book reviews and analyses.

Actual writing. Varies on the person on if they do outlines or not and how, but I still recommend trying to do an outline when you're first starting out. One habit to immediately knock yourself out of is writing things chronologically. If you're working on a big piece and have more energy to write something in the middle? Put that in a new doc and leave a placeholder for where you're at. Legitimately, getting words on the paper is more important than those words being good. Because you can always come back and edit things to make sense.

Always edit what you write. I hate the "no beta we die like real men" attitude because people will dunk on editing but then praise stories for having "firm and satisfying" connections which can only really be built through editing. Your first draft is your rough idea. Your second one is when you read through and have it make sense. Three is making that make sense, and maybe 4 is more just grammar and spelling errors. Edit as many times necessary to make sure you like it.

Always work in broad strokes, then move in finer like with anything. Do a general idea for a story, then your main story beats, then how you connect them together, and then the nitty gritty of each. Keep lots of notes - do not rely on your head solely for everything - and just also be willing to let things go if they change.

What I tend to do when I write is I want a good flow. I often get that from reading my writing out loud to hear how it sounds, but I'm looking for a good beat to read along. Because even if the sentence is grammatically correct and structurally sound, it may not be very interesting to read. Like you could say someone feigned a polite expression to not let the other person know that they didn't feel comfortable with a topic, or you could go the angle I went with recently of "she painted herself an interested expression to wear as dread began to gnaw at her gut." Sometimes the more colorful or out there the language is, the better it sounds when you read it. Like instead of saying "that's just how things go for them" you could say, "but Fate had a funny way of making her disdain known for (X character)". And this is where reading other peoples' work comes in real handy because you can get a lot of examples of how people write things.

I also try and reflect themes of the story into the writing itself, like this section of a draft:

Still nothing. Seemed he wasn’t going to bother with a glass, instead just ripping the top off of some bottle of gin and tipping it back with little regard for himself. Still that chronometer ticked on; still that taught tension like another arrow had been drawn. A million and more things flooded Ysayle’s mind, itching to loose them at Estinien, yet found herself stuck in indecision as she stared daggers into him - ever her opposite as he just seemed despondent. The gin bottle hit the extended shelf loudly; one hand a fist around the bottle, the other balled up on the surface - knuckles as white as bone. Still, Estinien said naught. Still, the chronometer ticked on. Still, Ysayle’s heart roared in her ears - poisonous words damming up her throat.

The theme of this story is avoiding the mistakes of the past. How things often can wind up cyclical, and the goal is to break from those cycles and repeats. So naturally, several points of the narration itself repeat itself. This isn't standard writing style, but it gets that point across by repeating "Still" as the scene crawls on. I also use a lot of alliteration in my writing because I personally find it fun? So "a maddening matter made most malign", for example.

It also helps to change up how you write or what descriptors you use based on the character whose head you're in, even if it's third person. Third person can have a voice and I often use it to speak aloud a character's thoughts instead of relying on italicized dialogue-thoughts. It makes the dialogue-thoughts appearing hit more when they do instead of just having to be subjected to internal ramblings constantly. Like in this fic I just published:

“...Can we talk about it on the morn?” “What for?” You don’t know what it is you ask of me. “Tired,” Estinien said with a shrug. “We’ve morning patrol, remember?”

Compared to this fic:

“Yes, confusingly.” Her tone was flat as she leaned once again on Surkukteni’s shoulder, thankfully on the uninjured side. “I fear I may have been wrong, though I truly doubt it. To deny me twice, then throw a fit? I wonder — why didn’t you go through with it?” Not even Surkukteni had that answer. For the umpteenth time during that conversation, she refused to look at Her Darkness. That desire — twisted and poisoned as it was — was one that still surfaced from time to time, yet like clockwork made her ill and was banished from her thoughts. Why was that? She felt scorned back then, wishing the universe would correct this error in sparing him but taking Ysayle — but was she not the one who helped save him? Who helped tear those eyes from his armor? She easily could — and had previously — bluffed that it was to destroy the eyes and be rid of the threat, but given her hesitancy now? Why?

All of Surkukteni's thoughts are condensed into the narration so that I can separate out her thought dialogue from idle musings since she - specifically - has a connection with something that can talk telepathically. This thing comments on the literal narration of the story, so when she's directly addressing this thing it's thought-dialogue. But her actual thoughts become narration to avoid spending too much time with that, as I find it's better used sparingly.

Motivation for writing is probably the hardest thing, and best I can advise is to get really into critiquing the stuff you like because you wind up finding a lot of material in fix-it stuff, or just wanting to see more of stuff like you. It's part of what drives my xiv stuff due to how they treat female characters, and I really just wanna see more sapphic bi4bi. So considering it's something I've been stuck in for a very long time now and really like the ambient lore and wish it would do better, it's fueling my desire to write. And from there, there are so many other angles to take - like building ocs, building lore. Finding a sandbox is genuinely one of the best ways to do it. Again, like. You'd be surprised at how much is there because of spite. LOTR has Eowyn because Tolkien didn't like that the "can be killed by no man" thing in Macbeth was resolved with a character born by c-section, so he instead wrote Eowyn, the woman who killed the Witch-King of Angmar. C.S. Lewis didn't like the fact that Tolkien believed that modern technology - or slightly less modern technology - didn't believe in fantasy and he explicitly cited lampposts. And this is why there's just a random light post in the middle of nowhere in the Narnia books.

Critique is good and healthy. I'm critical with the stuff I like and my own things so I can work on them and myself. It's fine to like something that you don't wholly agree with, especially if you're using it to inform how you build on it or build your own things. Like I dunno, I looked at Dante from Devil May Cry and went "what if he was trans" and now I've got Rhombi, a character who has stepped really far away from the OG Dante mould, but you can still see hints of it as I used what I wanted to see out of DMC to build this bisexual disaster of a guy. I was disappointed by Elsword not really committing to some of their character concepts, so I kinda just took Eve (and admittedly Add) and made them into Celes and Neilos and took them to their logical conclusions. All three of them were originally fantrolls at some point, so most of the heavy lifting was done when I was back in Homestuck and all I had to do was scrub the barcodes off of them to build them up in an original verse.

Chemistry is also crucial. If characters aren't vibing, move on. Do not force it. Good chemistry can save a bad story (eg. FFXV) and bad chemistry can ruin a good story. Often it's the characters that drive a story so you need to do a lot of plotting and planning. Most writing is honestly just planning before putting the words down.

And I'm very much so rambling by now but my main points are these (+ others I'm realizing while typing):

Plot a Lot and keep lots of notes, and also organize those notes. The contents don't have to be pretty, but you'll thank yourself in advance if you at least sort them by core idea

Getting words down is more important than getting them down correctly. You can always come back and edit it when you have an idea of how to make it work

You can always place a [insert scene here] tag so you can keep your flow and don't get caught on something.

You also don't have to write chronologically - you wanna write the big confession scene before the intro? do it! just jump right into it!

also don't be afraid to delete stuff or remove it from your draft. save things for later to see if they work elsewhere, because maybe it could be a better spinoff.

dont listen to the advice of "if it really matters, you'll remember it in the morning" that advice was given by neurotypicals who don't have memory issues. make notes of EVERYTHING and then delete the ones that don't work

sometimes writing by hand vs computer can really make a difference in how you think. handwriting is slower and makes you think about stuff, so you may want to keep journals for random snippets or ideas like how doodling is good for building up your habit of drawing

Outlines can help but how you outline is up to you. Try a few styles out and go with what works best.

I cannot stress enough that having something like a marker board to write out your broad stroke story ideas is really really nice

Broad strokes first, then narrow it further and further down. Don't get wrapped up in the nitty gritty details

Chemistry is crucial and can often save a piece you're not fully feeling.

Read your stuff out loud while editing because it can help point out stuff that's not jiving! I find it helps a lot with dialogue

Read a lot. Listen to critique. Be more critical. Also don't limit your idea of stories to just books - expand the media you consume and you'll find really interesting stories that can help with yours

Don't be afraid to use tropes, but also don't super rely on them to where you're just checking off boxes instead of coming up with natural scenarios built on chemistry (eg. having the nerdy goth girl is fine, but the way the trope ends in most media ("fixing" her or just having her be a quirky cynical critic) may not fit with your story and it may be better to see how the story plays out rather than forcing it into something it's not)

Iron Widow is a good example here: the relationship between Zetian and Yizhi is pre-established and comes off as sort of "boy next door" vibes, or at least the very dedicated childhood friend. It quickly becomes apparent that he's as much a co-conspirator in her plans as Shimin is. The guy can be ruthless when given the chance, and that's how Yizhi goes beyond the initial trope and defines himself outside of it. Same with the contextualization of Shimin's seeming "aggression" as the "bad boy" and figuring out where that problem/persona actually stems from, and then the shift of viewing it as less aggression and more retaliation and self preservation.

Find something you do really want to write about, like filling a void in a piece of media you like or doing a take on media that made you mad or disappointed. Jane Eyre is technically fanfiction because the author wanted to see more of Jane and didn't get that. The Divine Comedy is self insert fanfiction of Dante Alighieri as he does worldbuilding with Christian mythos regarding heaven and hell. The Riordan verse is his interest in mythology crossed with a desire to give his son a protag that was like him (specifically ADHD and dyslexic), which then became wanting to let kids see themselves in the different halfbloods in the series.

There's a lot of ways you can get started writing, but the best way is to just write goofy stuff for yourself. Get out stuff that may look bad at first, but you go back and read it and critique it. Just getting yourself into the habit of writing helps a lot, because again: it matters less about the quality, and more getting it on the page and actually having something. You can always fine-tune writing, after all.

My first FFXIV fic isn't actually even published. It was just me writing something rambly about my Warrior of Light when I was starting to figure her character out. It looks nothing like what I'm doing now in part because that fanfiction became a launching point for me to work on others. I've got a lot of drafts that will never see the light of day because these were proto-concepts that became the stuff I wound up publishing. It's fine to have drafts that remain drafts because you can take that as practice, and practice is good. Anything that you write has value because you can use it to let your technical writing skills mature.

Also, don't be afraid to look for help. There are beta services on tumblr (or at least used to be when I was a teenager), plenty of writing guides or places set up to ask questions, plenty of youtubers that give prompts for you to work with. The hardest part is always getting started. But once you get past the awkwardness of the start, everything just falls into place and gets easier the longer you go at it.

You definitely have the desire for it because I've seen your very deep love of literature through the Bi-Library, so you can definitely become a strong writer if you put your mind to it 🫶 Find something to fix or address, and that usually is what gets the ball rolling. Worldbuilding is fun and can lead to something, but you can't have a well built world without a story to explore it.

Characters drive story, story is how you explore themes and the world itself, and the world itself is built on your experiences and interests. Embrace the fact that this is coming from your lens and experiences, because no media is truly void of the author and its other creators. Embrace that fact and use it as an extension of yourself. But really, just write. Literally anything. Just get into the habit of writing, and it'll progress from there!

#original #asks #answered #bisexual-coala #writing tips #long post #this is very rambly but getting into writing isnt the most straightforward thing #a lot of the time it really is just finding something that clicks and not caring about what goes on the page for the first draft #ive been writing fanfiction for...over a decade now? + a lot of rp (also over a decade) and now some p serious original stuff #my fanfiction has also gotten way more involved than it used to be #genuinely i got started writing by keeping a lot of journals and writing every idea i had even if im now embarrassed by it #what matters is just getting into the habit first and then looking at your stuff more critically once the habit is formed #it's hard to build a habit if you're immediately critical #but it's hard to maintain a habit or hobby if you're not - especially if you feel you can build on something #if you do feel it you oughta pursue it and see where it takes you #perfectly fine to not be critical with hobbies but being Constructively critical is how you improve and mature #constructive is key here. because being down on your own writing or being self deprecating is how you lose a hobby #like let's say you don't like your dialogue #go read scripts or books of stuff you like the dialogue from. analyze why they work in contrast to why you feel like yours doesnt work #maybe someone else has a solution for why it feels off #sometimes it's just as simple as taking a step back and looking at it as a whole or even just sleeping on it and coming back w fresh eyes #always approach something you don't like about your work with the attitude of ''how can i improve so i do like it''#like ''i need to be better at fight scenes. ill be sure to include more in my next piece to focus on it and maybe read some action books''#lotta ways to do it!! theres no one right way just a way that fits best for you!!!#just absolutely ignore the ''if it's a good idea you'll remember it in the morning'' stuff.#it doesn't account for people w memory issues and will screw you over #you do not have to wait until you're good at writing to start working on something. you need something to work on to improve #you can always come back to an idea as many times as you need as you grow as a writer #so just write until you build a habit and base style then analyze and move from there #fanfic is honestly really good for practicing style and technique - the characters and world are already ther so why not use em?

8 notes · View notes