#today in very low-stakes drama.

[jynersq]

LOOK i'm no professional translator and by no means am i completely fluent in german but a while ago i got a bilingual eng/ger copy of das stundenbuch and some of these english translations are making me bonkers. WHY would you translate "wie ein Schiff / das mich trug / durch den tödlichsten Sturm" as "like a ship / that carried me / when the waters raged" INSTEAD of "like a ship / that carried me / through the deadliest storm" which is the literal translation?? which is comprehensible?? these translators are taking a lot of vibes-based liberties but it's like rilke is famously good at expressing himself!! that's the thing he is known for!! let him cook!!

[tobiasdrake]

hearing you call live-action sonic surprisingly conservative in your post about media moving forward felt like being shot in the heart

i mean, sonic as a character is pretty leftist. his whole deal is being free and setting people free,

beating up enemies in the game is literally breaking the shell that the animals are stuck in

Eggman was an analogy for pollution, with him destroying the environment for personal gain, and later being more of a fascist dictator

and his thing is always turning people into products, into literal machines he can control to do his labor and fight his wars, which would be every capitalist’s dream.

and so i never put the pieces together when it comes to the movie being conservative.

damn.

ouch.

could you elaborate more on it? idk, the conversation hurts but i’d like to know what your thoughts are on live-action sonic specifically

Oh, sure. We can talk about the surprisingly conservative themes and ideas of the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog films. With the caveat that this is old-school traditional conservatism, not modern nakedly fascistic conservatism. The Sonic movies are conservative in a Home Improvement sort of way, not a Lady Ballers sort of way.

What it amounts to is that Paramount approached the films not with intent to make a Sonic the Hedgehog movie but with intent to make a "relatable" story for an audience that also has Sonic the Hedgehog in it.

Have you ever seen 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters? A film which centers a broken family trying to connect with each other, while also there's a disaster movie happening around them? Like. Godzilla and Mothra and Ghidorah is all stuff that's happening, but what really matters here is whether this daughter can forgive her mother.

It's the of writing a low-stakes personal drama and then stapling the film premise to it. The kind of move that makes sense with something like The Day After Tomorrow where the premise is just "It got fucking cold" so the movie kinda needs something with some actual characters that it can be about.

But when it's an adaptation, it shows low confidence in the IP itself to carry a film. It says, "I don't think a Sonic movie would work, so instead I'm going to just make a movie and have Sonic in it."

And the a movie that they made centers some conservative values. But, like, old-school conservative values, not the hyper-fascistic transphobia and white supremacy and stuff you see around today. Things that were considered commonly recognized conservative values in the 80's and 90's, when white people were still supposed to believe that racism was over and all that jazz.

For one, Tom is a cop. Which is a wild choice for a film coming out at the height of BLM and ACAB. The film, as well as its subsequent sequels and spinoffs, play Tom's policing very sympathetically. A major theme of the first film is that Officer Wachowski is a vital and valuable part of his community.

There is no ambiguity; The cops are the good guys here. They're kind of wacky but we're meant to love both of them, Tom and Wade. They are, however, contrasted by the wickedness of the Feds.

Eggman, in the film, is reimagined from an industrialist to a federal agent. He represents the long arm of Big Government overreach coming for the sleepy town of Green Hill. Which is then further represented by G.U.N., who oppose Eggman once he goes rogue but are still the enemy nonetheless.

Even the Knux series still manages to be about fighting the Feds. The federal government has been the antagonist for 3 out of 3 entries thus far, when Eggman himself has only been the antagonist for 2.

The films leave the environmentalism of the original behind, instead centering family values. Rather than setting out to rescue woodland creatures from industry, Sonic has heart-to-heart chats with Tom about growing up and finding his calling. Knux isn't the guardian of Angel Island, but Sonic's adopted brother. Maddie can ground him for inappropriate behavior.

The first film also features the popular old-school conservative theme of Rural America vs. Urban America. Tom is a small-town cop who yearns for the glamour of the big city. He thinks his calling is there. But, over the course of the film, he learns to appreciate the value of small-town living and his importance to his community, and sets aside his foolish dreams of urbanity.

"I wanted to run away to the city but then learned that my Real 'Murica small hometown is where I truly belong" is probably the single most popular conservative story in decades of film and television.

It's worth noting that the film does feature an interracial marriage, which is something I hear brought up a lot as a way of saying "Actually it's not conservative because...."

But for as much credit as Maddie might warrant... There is the issue of Rachel. A character who exists primarily in the film to be a Sassy Black Woman who reacts with furious histrionics towards Tom for no apparent reason. She just. Hates him. From the bottom of her soul, despises "Relatable Cop Boy".

Like. So far as the film's concerned, it needs no explanation. Her relationship with Tom is just an eyeroll, sly glance at the camera, and "In-laws, amirite?" The second film at least gives her more to do, but the first concludes her subplot by having them tie her up and steal her car.

Like. That's it. That is what she amounts to. Maddie's sister yells sassily until she passes out and then the payoff is that they steal her car and leave her tied to a chair as... I guess her karmic retribution for being so sassy and mean to Tom? It's hard to really say whether this is mean-spirited because we do not know what her beef is. The film doesn't think we need to know. "In-laws are crazy, amirite!?"

When you set aside the cool action scenes of Sonic punching robots and look at what the films center as their emotional heart? You get a story about a small-town cop learning to appreciate his rural roots and build a family with his wife despite her unreasonably psychotic relatives, while the wicked federal government attempts to destroy their home, town, family, and way of life.

[physalian]

On Tournament Arcs (I want more of these in lit)

The “tournament arc” is a staple of shonen anime. I’d find it very hard to believe anyone on here hasn’t at least seen gifs of it so here’s a quick breakdown: Your core cast of characters + extras and new adversaries are all thrown together in a tournament competing for anything from the low stakes of cash or bragging rights to who lives and who dies by the hand of the nefarious god throwing the tournament.

These are extremely popular for a few reasons:

They’re fodder for a ton of episodes without a whole lot of complicated story—the story is baked into the different rounds of combat

There’s a chance for a lot of different intense character interaction that might not normally happen pitting two random names against each other

They can sometimes artificially raise the stakes—in isolation, winning the Round of 16 in a series about saving the world doesn’t mean anything, but winning any one game might give the heroes the chance to stay alive just one more day

I just rewatched the first tournament arc of My Hero Academia a few days ago (the first sports festival) and man, I do miss when this show was good.

So! While tournament arcs aren’t exclusive to shows with super powers or magical abilities like Naruto—they’re baked into a sports anime—today’s essay is all about the efficiency and shake-ups that MHA pulled off, since its pacing is something you could realistically cram into a written novel, and, well, I like this one.

Disclaimer: This show is incredibly manipulative, in a good way (at least in earlier seasons it was in a good way). Elements are way more dramatic than they should be due to the music, the animation, and the pacing, but you’re having fun right along with the characters at the edge of your seat. The excitement isn’t manufactured, you’re hyped right along with the people in the stands. This isn’t very translatable to page, unfortunately.

Second disclaimer: I DNFed this show midway through an episode in season 5 and never went back. It got so bad I literally turned it off in both disgust and sheer boredom. I am not an MHA superfan.

—

Pacing:

For a shonen anime, this first tournament arc is brutally efficient. Take a show like Naruto or DBZ, shows known for their filler, and their tournament arcs for any given season will last 50 episodes or more. MHA’s is 11 episodes, 12 if you want to include the setup in episode 1. In that time, there’s three unique stages of combat and an entire three-tiered 1v1 tournament within the tournament.

Some fights last two episodes, some last about 30 seconds, but none are too drawn out, or too rushed, based on who’s fighting and what their powers are.

Example: Todoroki kind of has “instakill” powers (or at least he does in this arc, he forgets about it 6 episodes later) and if he’s up against anyone who doesn’t have the specific kind of powers that can counteract his, the fight’s decided pretty much instantly, like when he’s up against quasi-Spiderman Sero, and manifests a whole glacier from teenage angst. When he is up against somebody who he can’t freeze immediately, well, that’s where the drama comes from. This is his arc, after all.

Character fodder:

Not only that, but it’s not 11 straight episodes of 1v1. The first leg of combat is an obstacle race, the second is a “cavalry battle” with teams, and the last, the majority, is 1v1. These different challenges require the core characters to think different ways, and as the number of competitors thin dramatically, different side characters get the chance to shine at different points in the arc as more and more are disqualified.

But the way that this arc is written leaves even some core characters in the protagonist class on the outs pretty quickly, even those who make it to the final round, usually due to bad matchups. Characters who had excelled either in power, physical ability, or intelligence just aren’t suited to face whoever they’re up against and it shocks them as much as it does the audience. Even when it forces them to get creative—and that is one thing I loved about this show in its early years, how smart some characters had to be with their niche powers to compete with the natural born powerhouses.

A surprising standout fight was Bakugo vs Uraraka, where nearly every single person in the stands, including the teachers, all professional heroes, were like “dude you can’t hit a girl, you can explode shit with your hands, she’s only got anti gravity” and Bakugo did not give a single fuck about what’s in Uraraka’s pants. It shows that he’s smart, and that he’s a dick, but he has a shit ton of respect for other people’s power and determination when they have as much as he does. Only one other character, their personal teacher, Aizawa, notices: To go easy on her would be a far greater insult than to treat her like an equal challenger.

She lost, in a heartbreaking defeat, but she absolutely made him work for it. It did so much for his character, this whole arc did, but more on that later.

Audience expectations:

But the big reason this arc worked so well was how it subverted expectations. Midoriya is (or used to be) the show’s protagonist. In this arc, he’s got two real main adversaries in his way to gold: Bakugo, a kid with extremely impressive raw talent that he’s honed with a dangerous perfectionist streak, and Todoroki, who wants to win by half-assing it to piss off his abusive hero dad. Both of these two are far more competent with their powers while Midoriya still has the training wheels on his.

Usually, in these types of shows, if the hero doesn’t win, he comes in a very close second in the big dramatic final showdown. It’s part of his arc to be not quite ready yet. But usually, he wins, and the character he’d beaten to a pulp learns some humility and joins the hero squad in the next arc out of respect to their better.

MHA doesn’t do that. Midoriya never faces Bakugo in the 1v1 and he faces Todoroki in the semis, not the finals, and he loses.

The big fight of the tournament is Midoriya vs Todoroki. I used to hear it compared to Rock Lee vs Gaara (which I actually have seen despite not liking Naruto) and it’s… not, if only because it’s missing about 300 episodes of buildup and drama between these two.

But the fight isn’t just a fistfight. Midoriya wants to win, yes, but he’s a hero, first, and he wants to save his friend in the true shonen way of punching friendship into his enemies. Their fight plus the buildup takes two episodes, littered with Todoroki’s PTSD flashbacks (to a gorgeous score) that basically boils down to:

Todoroki: Wah I hate my powers, fuck my dad, I’m gonna half-ass this out of spite and my raw power is enough to win

Midoriya: Fuck you dude, if you want to beat me, you have to give it your all, and it’s not his powers. You may have inherited them, but it’s your power.

Well, Midoriya gets what he asked for, and Todoroki does not at all hold back.

And that’s the semifinal.

With Midoriya out, there’s still the rest of the semis and the final round. This does not happen.

So why did it happen? Because our hero isn’t ready yet. He’s so new with his powers, so inexperienced in combat, that so far he’s skated by on his smarts and his sheer raw ability the few times he’s able to let it out like releasing a pressure valve, seriously injuring himself in the process. Against kids who’ve been training their whole lives, being smart only got him so far.

It was the perfect path for his character, one we’ve only known for maybe 30 episodes in total at this point in the show. If he won or even just barely lost, that would have left so much less room for growth in later tournaments. He’s hella OP, but he’s not at all a Mary Sue, and his greatest strength—his heart—is what cost him the win. In the end, he lost the medal, but he won a friend.

And then the final round comes.

Bakugo vs Todoroki, the two most well-rounded kids in the class (in their whole grade level probably), after Bakugo opens the entire tournament with “I pledge that I’m going to win”.

Thing is, with Bakugo, he’s an asshole, but he’s an asshole who continuously puts his money where his mouth is. He’s never blowing smoke. If he says he’s going to do something, by god, he will do it.

So the final round comes and Bakugo tells Todoroki that he wants to win fair and square, that Todoroki'd better not hold back, he’d better give it his all, because going easy on Bakugo would be giving him the win, and he ain’t no charity case.

That… does not happen. One does not overcome a lifetime of childhood trauma by the Power of Friendship and one speech in this show. Todoroki botches it, gets his ass handed to him, and Bakugo wins the tournament, and he is pissed.

Character Arcs:

I already talked about Midoriya above and won’t repeat myself, but like I said above, tournament arcs are a fantastic way to do many things at once, which is crucial to pacing. It won’t feel stale, no matter how long or repetitive it is, so long as the characters are still developing within that repetition. This was about showing off their powers, yes, but the pressure to perform and get their names out their in a highly saturated, cynical heroism market of capitalism is a lot for 15 year old kids.

Some are out there to make money, being a hero to their families. Some are out there to be the best. Some are out there to be the friendly neighborhood super kid. Since all but one character must lose, everybody but Bakugo failed in some way, big or small, to make the impact they wanted on tournament day. And Bakugo, though he won, feels like he still failed because he won basically by default.

Since it’s set so early in the show, one would think that it would be a fantastic foundation for where all the core characters see themselves and where they go from here. If you’re writing this into a novel and you don’t have a million characters that don’t matter, it’s a brutally efficient way to establish the major players in high-octane fashion.

I’mma gush about Bakugo for a second now: He and Todoroki are two sides of the same coin in this arc. Both are plagued by expectations because of their powers, and both suffer because of it. Todoroki’s been beaten like a dog by his dad to hone his fire and ice powers to one day usurp the number one hero.

Bakugo, though, Bakugo is “the gifted kid” who suddenly entered a world where the gap between him and everyone inferior to him is a lot smaller. He has incredible power, which has always gotten him high expectations and little margin for fucking up and looking weak—cause if you’ve got the ability to make explosions with your hands, you have to be the best all day every day. There is no falling off the wagon, there are no sick days, there is no flab or fat or cheat days.

All of this is an undercurrent in this arc. He has such high expectations for himself, such high expectations thrown on him by hero society, such critical views of his attitude and his powers—he was literally called a villain when he fought Uraraka and didn’t treat her like a “frail” little girl—that when he wins because Todoroki throws the fight, it’s the biggest insult anyone could do to him.

Nobody else cares, but Bakugo cares. In his desperate quest to always be the best or else, winning by default doesn’t prove anything to him. He doesn’t want the medal, he doesn’t want this victory by his name, he doesn’t want anything except a rematch that truly challenges him. And mad respect to this kid for it.

—

Some things to consider for your tournament arc should you choose to write one

Every character should have their own separate goals and reasons for winning, beyond simply “winning”. Why do they want to win, or what will happen to them, internally or externally, if they lose?

Would it be better for your hero to win right now, or lose so they have room to grow? Who else loses and how? Are they disqualified, do they cheat, is it a devastating defeat or a photo finish?

What do these people do to themselves in their desperation to win? Do they hurt themselves, go past their physical limit? Do they bully themselves and pick their faults apart? Are they completely different people when they’re under this kind of pressure? Who’s overconfident? Who’s exactly as competent as they say they are?

What are the best matchups, not for spectacle, but for character development? In the written medium, character work absolutely comes before how pretty it might look one day on the silver screen, and that’s what will hold audience attention long after the arc is over and done with. That’s what will have people coming back to reread over and over again.

Remember: The tournament is never just about the combat, it’s about the combatants.

[pkmnirlevents]

An updated tagging guide for the pkmnirl community. 

TL;DR

If you like using the stakes tag system and already know how they work, consider adding #heightened emotional state pokereality and #altered perception pokereality to your repertoire. A brief explanation of each below. Full explanation below the read more.

#heightened emotional state pokereality can be used with topics pertaining (but not limited) to: suicide ideation, discussions of self harm, psychosis, limerence, depressive spirals, paranoia, or high levels of anxiety.

#heightened emotional state pokereality does not necessarily include low level anxiety or depression that does not cause major disruption to everyday life. It does not include just being very angry or upset. This is for heightened emotional states often brought about by mental health crises of some kind.

#altered perception pokereality can be used with topics pertaining (but not limited) to: delusions, hallucinations, traumatic flashbacks, brainwashing, or instances of a character being gaslit.

#altered perception pokereality does not necessarily include things like unreality or benign religious beliefs. This is for aspects of a character's reality that does not reflect material reality in a way that may be distressing for the character or potential readers.

These are not meant to replace content warnings, but might allow people to filter them more quickly.

If you do not know what stakes tags is referring to, please refer to the full post below the read more for a quick explanation of these tags and how they can be used. We hope you find this guide helpful!

The Tagging Guide

Over a year and a half ago this community introduced the stakes tag system. Originally proposed by prof-hemp420, the stakes tag system gave us the navigation tags we have today. It is the system we still use here on our blog, mind you with some simplifications. It came to my attention that these tags may not be as widely known by newcomers and that the introduction of other tags could prove helpful for tagging major events, posts, and even blogs. 

First off, let's go back over the previous system, then we will propose some new additions. It should be stated preemptively none of these tags are meant to replace individual warning tags (your content warnings and trigger warnings) but instead to give people less individual tags they may want to block or search through on a moment’s notice. For when you aren’t quite sure what to tag something, this can help you. 

The Stakes Tags

#no stakes pokereality - As the name implies this is for zero stakes situations. These are your everyday posts. There is no expectation to tag your casual posts with this, it more so comes in handy for distinguishing that a larger event will have no major stakes involved. 

#low stakes pokereality - A step up from nostakes, some mundane conflict may happen, but everything is going to turn out okay. 

#drama stakes pokereality - This is the tag for drama and disturbances. The kind of tag you use when your character is getting in a screaming match with someone at a public restaurant. A plotline utilizing drama stakes may be high emotion, but no one is going to end up badly harmed. This tag may be tacked onto another tag to provide further context. i.e. these characters will argue but the conflict itself is kept relatively low stakes

#high stakes pokereality - In short, people will be hurt but everyone will survive more or less in one piece. This is for your canon compliant evil team plotlines where the protagonists lives and maybe even the entire region is at stake. 

#ultra stakes pokereality - Same as high stakes, but with the acknowledgement that death or serious lasting consequences are now on the table. A Pokemon or person may die or end up in critical condition. Proceed with caution. 

#dark fate pokereality - A rarely used tag that was proposed for Bad Ending scenarios. Extreme amounts of death or injury will be present, and people are not expected to come out of this okay in the end. This tag would most likely be tacked onto ultra stakes if it was used, though examples of this are limited. 

These tags can be used for events, individual posts, or even in more current iterations blogs themselves! It is common to label a blog your high stakes or low stakes blog to give people a general indication of what to expect. 

Now! Onto the two new tags we want to propose. With the focus on interpersonal conflicts and discussions of mental illness on a lot of blogs lately (including our own!), it felt appropriate to give general tags to use for these plotlines as well. Again, these would not replace content warnings or trigger warnings, but may offer the ability for people to filter as needed. Sometimes a person might be in a less stable place than typical, and sometimes individual content warnings can slip through the cracks due to how many variations there can be between blogs. These subjects can be triggering for individuals caught unaware.

The New Tags

#heightened emotional state pokereality - A mouthful, we know. This tag would be useful for posts or plotlines that involve characters experiencing emotional instability. It’s for things like depressive spirals, psychosis, or suicide ideation. If it is enough to impede their every day function or seems like a heavy topic to discuss, this may be applicable.

This does not necessarily include low level anxiety or depression that does not cause major disruption to everyday life. It does not include just being very angry or upset. This is for heightened emotional states often brought about by mental health crises of some kind.

#altered perception pokereality - Not to be confused with unreality, which you can find a helpful explanation of here. Altered perception can be for when your character’s beliefs do not reflect their material reality. An example of this would be your character experiencing delusions, hallucinations, or traumatic flashbacks. In a fictionalized world, it can be hard to distinguish when a character is perceiving something not truly there. 

This does not necessarily include things like unreality or benign religious beliefs. 

FAQ

Why do these tags all say pokereality? 

This is to distinguish them as part of the pkmnirl community and to prevent them from being construed as real life events. 

Do I stop using individual content warnings or trigger warning tags?

As previously mentioned please do not stop using individual warning tags! These are merely shorthand to allow people to filter things quickly. The unfortunate fact of the matter is individuals tag these things differently, meaning that if someone wants to effectively remove that content from their dash they must account for every possible variation. While well meaning, this means things inevitably slip through the cracks, we hope this may offer additional help in lessening the frequency of that.

Removing these warnings completely though would run the risk of people still being exposed to sensitive topics. In some instances an individual might be unaffected by discussions of paranoia but they are negatively affected by discussions of self harm. It's important that these tags and warnings be used in combination for them to be effective.

How do I know if my blog is high stakes or low stakes?

You do not have to label your blog as any particular stakes level. If you feel like you may dabble in higher stakes occasionally, but want to stay relatively low stakes, that is absolutely fine! Do not feel like you have to box yourself into something. You can always change your mind later. 

I have a low stakes blog. Can I interact with high stakes ones?

That is down to the individual blog, but generally speaking yes! Blogs of varying stakes can interact with one another. This does not mean your blog has to become high stakes or that their blog has to become low stakes. 

Should I tag all of my posts as unreality? I don’t want to upset anyone! 

Tagging mundane pkmnirl posts as unreality unfortunately creates the opposite problem. People who need that tag blocked but still want to interact with the pkmnirl community then have to essentially gamble on whether or not a flagged post will contain something that will actually trigger a negative response or a regular old post about a character catching a pidgey outside the pokemart. Using a pkmnirl tag is fine. Consider pkmnirl, pkmn irl, rotomblr, rotumblr, pokeblogging, real pokemon, pokereality or some other variation to distinguish these from everyday posts on someone's dash.

Do I use #heightened emotional state pokereality or #altered perception pokereality for [X]?

If you aren’t sure it might be both! The stakes tags are mutually exclusive in most cases, but these are not. A psychosis episode will often have someone believing things that are not true about their material reality while also causing them to be in an unstable emotional state. In cases like these both tags apply.

Are heightened emotional states always bad?

We are not licensed professions to speak on the topic but to put things generally using these tags does not have to come with any moral judgment. That goes for the writer(s) and the character(s) involved.

Why did you repeat stuff so much in this guide?

People might not read all of it. We wanted to make sure that even people who might skim parts of this guide still understand the most important aspects of it.

I don’t want to use these tags!/This seems like too much effort! Or some variation thereof.

Okay. These are merely suggestions. 

Original Stakes Tag Explanation | Unreality Explanation | Questions/Comments/Concerns

[revalition]

OCT 11 - AUTHORITY Intimidate the public. Assert yourself. authority!! my guy! I love *and* hate him very much! he's such a guy.

this is late because I spent too much time yesterday writing about him and not enough time drawing him. oops. that's also why it's so ugly but it's okay. someday I'll draw something good and you'll all be very impressed. we'll see if I can get EdC in today too or not!

and ty red for giving me your authority's wings haha, theyre soo cool. ough I love wings. if someone sent me an ask saying "draw [skill] with wings" I would be all over that so fasttt

anyway! lots of content under the cut as usual!

authority quotes!

anti sorry cop authority!! harry desperately needs someone to tell him to stop apologizing for existing... but in the second case, volition is right (as usual)

a wonderful classic here

gotta include these ofc

authority NO.

this line is just. how I image he is constantly. the millisecond your authority is questioned in the slightest he gets like this.

re. arresting klaasje

authority stopping you from being very embarrassing!

NO. no authority. there's SO many lines like this. sigh

authority seems to be a nearly perfect 50/50 split of good advice and bad advice. it's great. it's fascinating

authority and volition. authority and volitionnn. you are going to hear about the motor carriage story and there's no getting off.

rare sweet authority moment! (this heals morale too!)

realllly love this one too <3

authority, cmon man...

this guy. this guy... he's so... I don't know. he's sure something

authority CONFIRMED COMPROMISED. also authority being mean to soft little suggestion is always very funny to me

he is compromised though

hghhk this line from the authority fail. you get after failing *four* times. my first playthrough I had high authority - I had 6 PSY to start, and authority boosting clothes. and I just kept failing and failing. and every time I failed this check I had to dump another point into authority to try it again... so it was *really* high by the end! but I just kept failing it!! it was so painful... by the fourth fail you can finally beg kim to take over...

on the topic of awful authority fails! we need to acknowledge: - the authority check to get kim to dance - the authority check to save kim from getting shot - the authority check to make acele wear the hat

including it so we can enjoy authority making things worse and worse

alternatively, succeeding the check. eugh. (you dont have to kick the snow. but the fact that it's an option at all...)

I passed the check my first playthrough and failed it my second. there's really no good outcome to clicking it... except harry can get a good cry out of the fail, I guess

this seems like a good place to include the mandatory sad dream dialogue. that way we feel less bad for him since we got to just see him being stupid

now we know! tobacco wards off narco spirits, and alcohol discourages use of... narcohol. wonderful!

you know it's bad when it's too much even for authority haha

authority giving better advice than volition one time??? this is if you have cuno at the end, when you meet up with your posse. persisting with insisting on the phasmid isn't productive at all

live authority reaction to harry being told no to anything ever

low stakes authority fail haha

here's another one! not all authority fails are world-endingly bad

another one. sigh. authority. NO.

and there is soo much honour points dialogue I couldn't fit in here! the first time I got the honour cop thought bubble I was like, wow! I'm never listening to anything this skill says ever again!

the thought gives you -4 !!!! to drama! because lying is dishonourable. and then if you lie to kim about what you were doing he tells you it was an honourable lie. hypocrite. (and there is a dialogue where he says "Are you going to let him get away with being a hypocrite?" so that really makes auth a double hypocrite)

I love and hate authority in perfectly equal amounts. they don't cancel eachother out either, I just feel very strongly about him instead. I also feel very strongly about Volition, and their interactions are always fascinating. so I end up smushing them together, going fight! (and kiss!) and fight! like the extremely normal person I am. yep. you're welcome.

I could probably write half an essay my thoughts on their dynamic so I'm going to stop myself now before I have regrets :)

authority is in my favourite skills list for sure, but due to his serious personality issues I can't figure out where he places <3

[the-last-f2p]

Yandere promts day 12

12: “Go get the chains. you brought this upon yourself, not me”

Featuring: Furina/Focalors

TW: Implied kidnapping, Furina is kind of a sadist, humilation?

Furina really tried to uphold her status as the Archon of Justice and be her fairest self possible (though she failed most times). Furina holding make-shift trials for you whenever you so much as said anything she considered rude that day. At least she gave you two chances to beg for mercy!

Honestly, when this idea first came to her she originally wanted to hold these trials at the Opera Epiclise, though that was shot down when she tried to bring it up with Neuvillette. She swore she saw the blue part of his hair turn the slightest bit grey that day.

And that is the origin of the small courtroom in Furina's living quarters, which is of course being used at this very moment.

"Y/N L/N, you are being charged with accounts of escaping and causing damage to the Palais Mermonia; how do you plead?" Furina asked you while sitting on a particularly high chair as she kicked her feet back and forth. You couldn't tell if it was out of boredom or excitement but you really didn't think whatever she was doing was amusing.

That's just one of the many ways you contrast Furina.

Images of what had happened earlier this day started to flash through your mind at the speed of light, waiting for Furina to go attend to some quote-un-quote 'boring Hydro Archon stuff'. Breaking a window and trying to work up the courage to jump from the highest drop you've ever seen. And of course, your least favorite part, Furina catching you for the sole reason that she left her gloves at home. Today was NOT a good day.

"Furina I'm sorry I didn't-" You start but Furina cuts you off.

"Sorry won't cut it. I had to skip another trial for this so you make it worth it." Furina smiles for a second and seems to have a light bulb moment "How about this? If you give me three good reasons to not lock you in my room again I won't.~" She flashes a playful grin, yes this was her idea but it was so funny to her! She just had to make it a little bit more dramatic as well.

"Well-" This is the second time she's cut you off does Furina really want to be 'fair' with you?

"And I'll count to five, only to make it less drab." And what's drama without stakes? She has to add some stakes as well! All your thoughts that were going through your head were:

Is she messing with me on purpose? (The answer is a very clear yes by the way.)

"You see, it's been a long time since I was able to go out, and I just thought if I just went out for a couple of hours while you were out." You start explaining of course, you weren't planning on coming back but Furina wouldn't know she's the God of Justice not wisdom!

"Lying in a courtroom, low blow. ~ Oh and you're at three seconds!~" Dammit. Furina saw right through you.

"And...I Furina.. Please.."

"Times up..~ Well Y/N L/N, as you have given me one reason I've decided to let you out but.." The playful grin on Furina's face turns slightly sadistic as she continues "Go get the chains. You brought this on yourself, not me. I think it's about time we went on a date correct?"

"Yes.. Lady Furina."

Today was one of Teyvat's greatest days ever. Seeing you desperately trying to hide the chain that was around your wrist was very amusing shall we say?

Maybe she should encourage you to escape so she can do this more often?

[centrally-unplanned]

The Harvard "crisis" is a very illustrative example of collective action problems & tipping points. What is happening now - simultaneously an institutional revolt by some of its board and influential donor class and a wider cultural zeitgeist degrading its status - is a reflection of very long-simmering tensions between its stakeholders.

Harvard, like most top universities, has a dozen+ stakeholders but for our purposes today they sort into two buckets; internal & external. Internally, it has to run a university that educates students & publishes papers - it needs to make those students happy, make its staff happy, etc. Externally, it has a brand to manage as a lodestone of America's elite reproduction, and a status-holder for a set of values of US (and even wider) society, as well as being a networking organization building relationships between and for said elite. These are intertwined goals - students only care about a Harvard education because it gets them rewards in the form of jobs from outside companies & orgs, which is in part (not all) a reflection of that societal status. And that outside societal status is replenished, again in part, by the success of its students after graduation, and so on. For this system to function each side needs to 'buy in'.

Starting in ~2010 most elite universities experienced a sea change in the values of their internal stakeholders; large swathes of vocal students and huge swathes of internal staff began to push for governance & priority shifts. These changes - like many societal changes btw, this is not a unique thing - did not have the majority on their side, but internally they were close enough (and, somewhat but not wholly uniquely, employed a variety of dissent-silencing techniques to maximize impact) to carry the day. They never had anywhere close to majority buy-in from external stakeholders; but the unique structure of universities is such that, while the missions are interdependent, their day-to-day operations are quite distinct. A lot of the changes over the past decade have been looked at askance by the donor class and groups like corporate hiring partners, but never askance enough to actually bother to do anything about it. It was too low-stakes to overcome the coordination problem of fighting the internal stakeholders, these things aren't the primary concern of external stakeholders.

So you get this string of controversies throughout the decade, as high-stakes as faculty firings or the Asian applicant discrimination case, to the low stakes culture drama of things like changing the title of "Housemasters". A lot of internal stakeholders were on the other side of these issues - they could have coalitioned with the external stakeholders, but they didn't care enough to really bother. It's all sizzle in the end, they can't coordinate in the face of the unified internal stakeholder mission.

Then Israel-Palestine hits, which is an issue that has its own extremely well organized, high valence stakeholders who absolutely, 100%, care enough to bother. They will take the opposition on and go to the absolute mat. Israel is extremely popular in the United States, Jewish people are literally the most popular religion in the country on some surveys, fighting terrorism is a bit out-of-mind but the default stance for both political parties, etc. But all that really isn't enough to get what you are getting right now - this is the seeds of long dissent, not the response to a singular misstep. After all the misstep was mealy-mouthed doublespeak at a hearing, it's not that high stakes.

However, while those external stakeholders didn't care enough for the past decade, they cared! And those internal stakeholders on the losing side *really* cared. And so suddenly an extremely salient, external stakeholder (America's Israel political advocacy group) shows up and starts scoring wins, and everyone in the room senses "oh yeah this is our time". And so they rise up in coalition to express, not just condemnation of the individual event, but building grievances with the direction of the university. They were just waiting for something to give them the push to do it.

Personally btw, I think the cleavage between the internal & external stakeholder's actual interest in how the university functions is too wide, and too independent of its day-to-day governance (Harvard is in many ways just a stamp for inherent student traits, but companies need that job done in society). As such this will fizzle with minimal changes. Still a good model for how these kinds of moments come about in driving change in social structures though, you need to study the full spectrum as it were.

[reallylilyreally]

People I want to know better

been tagged in this by @swifty-fox and @anachilles so here we gooooo.

LAST SONG? - Call Your Mom by Noah Kahan, and I can tell i'm getting my period because usually it just makes me tear up a little, but today I had a FULL ON gasping chest heaving snotty sobbing fit.

FAVORITE COLOR? - Teal, or a really rich purple, or a deep honey yellow? Jewel tones, bitches.

CURRENTLY WATCHING? - A bunch of different things! New Amsterdam for low-stakes high-drama while working. Brooklyn 99 rewatch for low-stakes low-drama with my husband in the evening. Masters of the Air rewatch for high-stakes high-drama and also research.

LAST MOVIE? - I shamefully very rarely watch movies anymore, and I can't actually remember? We caught the tail end of Jurassic World on the telly the other night and it remains brilliant. But the last full movie I watched was probably Troy, because that's almost always the answer.

SWEET/SPICY/SAVORY? - Savoury. Gimme salt.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS? - in five days, it will be eleven years to the day since I met my husband :)

CURRENT OBSESSIONS? - putting dead men in gay situations, helping toddlers manage big feelings, trying to force myself to care about new formats of cricket.

LAST THING YOU GOOGLED? - "how do dongles work"

Tagging @euph0riacc @almost-a-class-act @london-cowboy and @citedkisses

[oblivionbladetd]

Let's talk about Pokemadhouse and stakes real quick.

Now, Lily's pokecomic is absolutely packed with negligence, which leads to a large variety of unfortunate implications. What better way to start than from the top as bust the crust of this septic tank of a story and hopefully learn something from this mass waste removal? So today I have the coup de grace of a problem that is *ehem*

G IS LITERALLY TOO IMPORTANT FOR THE STORY TO EVER BE LOW STAKES!

Follow me under the cut and I'll explain.

Now, if you remember her list one of her tips is that "Low stakes interpersonal conflict is always better than high stakes saving the world" which while not being untrue is also not right either. Without going on a multi-paragragh deep dive I will just shorten my reasoning and my assumptions of Lily's intent to just say that I assume she dislikes high stakes. It then becomes increasingly ironic that G is basically the pure tungsten lynch in securing the impossibly high personal stakes of the story.

What do I mean? To be low stakes implies a lack of difficult choices or that said choices are of little consequence overall. The problem immediately springs up in that G has an extreme importance all around the comic in many ways. In ways that mean just about anything involving her has high stakes.

The easy place to start is the bond. Lily and G have a powerful psychic bond that is used traditionally as a mating ritual between gardevoir to match life spans... because making beings of human intelligence act like forever mated birds isn't fucked up in any way! (It is, but I'll get to it in another post) So now G and Lily have what sounds like a psychicly enforced suicide pact. It's also directly stated to something Lily can break, so in that case, G would just drop dead being well over her natural life expectancy. This serves to automatically undermine any drama the comic will ever have, mostly because you have to call the bluff. Nothing bad will ever happen to both, and G will never be too in the wrong because it is now a threat to their very lives, and I do not perceive Lily as having the fortitude to pull the trigger. In having too high of stakes, the audience becomes uninvolved because the story becomes predictable, and the illusion is revealed as just that. Why would we invest when it's all but guaranteed to work out?

Now that the bond alone has tanked it, let's go a step beyond. Gardevoir are critically endangered. I mean not to bore, but in case you don't know, in the real world, private ownership of such species is basically super illegal without incredibly specific circumstances and a mountain of paperwork. So, seeing that they are so far the main bulk of the pokemon cast is just a tad jarring, but it also places a huge stake on their health and happiness because they are literally a dying species. This leads to not only another case of calling the bluff on drama but also serves to ripple into Bonnie's creation being a brazen act of eco-terrorism... only a slight exaggeration. I will explain further in a separate post, but long of short, it would be considered gross misuse of private property and knowing sabotage of conservation efforts. The fact that Pokemadhouse doesn't refer to it taking place in the big house is proof Silph Co is staffed exclusively by glittering golden saints.

At this point, it feels hollow to bring up that G is also a mill puppy and the actual perfect specimen of all Gardevoir. It starts feeling morally reprehensible, but that as well is something for another post.

So by the end of it, literally anything to do with God's perfect pokemon, G, is low stakes only in the meta sense that ever delivering on the unreasonably high and very personal stakes would very much be the end of the world to them. Any attempt at building up drama will inevitably be made flat to single digit nanometers by the sheer weight of importance G is shouldered with on both a personal and worldly level. Not to mention, take the wind out of plenty of the comedy at G's expense.

This is getting long, so if you take nothing else from this, know it's not only detrimental to make your character too important for the story they are in, but it can actively steal from the story you mean to tell and warp it. If your intentions are making small waves on the water, use a pebble, not a boulder.

[acepandemi]

Ten people I'd like to get to know better

Tagged by @triscribe, thank you very much!

Last song: Coeur de la Mer by the German band dArtagnan. I have a very... eclectic taste in music. That section of my alphabetical playlist also contains Clean (Taylor's Version) by Taylor Swift, Collide by Ed Sheeran, Colors of the Wind by Vanessa Williams, and Come With Me Now by The Kongos.

Fave color: Blue, any shade. Purple is also nice.

Last book: A collection of Gothic Tales by Arthur Conan Doyle. I particularly liked "The Captain of the Polestar", and "The Nightmare Room". "The Terror of Blue John Gap" was the scariest, but then I have a low resistance against monster stories.

Last movie: Little Lord Fauntleroy, with Auntie on Boxing Day. Not really the kind of movie I usually watch, but Auntie loves sappy and I love Auntie.

Last show: Murdoch Mysteries earlier today, and Die Rosenheim-Cops is playing in the background as I'm typing this. I really like crime fiction, though I prefer low stakes and not too much drama.

Sweet/spicy/savory: Definitely sweet, if I have to pick one. Sweet and spicy is a great combo though (I put sweet chili sauce on a lot of food).

Relationship status: Never been in one, not actively looking. If I meet someone that's cool, but if not that's also cool. I'm very happy single.

Last thing I googled: "Do a barrel roll". Seriously, if you're not familiar with this Google trick, just try typing that into the search bar. I do this whenever I want to laugh a little.

Current Obsession: The new long play I'm preparing for The Sims 4. I'm starting from scratch with this one, 1 Sim, small house, but I have big plans.

Looking forward to: Visiting the local historical museum, which I haven't done since they relocated after merging with another local museum. It's been on my list for ages, but I'm finally going to do it this week or next. Also, buying my first pair of noise cancelling headphones. I've finally settled on the ones I want, done the neccessary research, now I just have to go into the shop and actually buy them. Too tired to do that today though. XD

Uhhh... I only have two mutuals, and Tri already tagged me, so @lokazouniched is it okay if I tag you?

[humanoidtyphoons]

i'm genuinely so curious to watch modern day star trek, and i hope i'll get proven wrong, bc part of me genuinely thinks star trek is incredibly ill-suited for modern day tv

star trek is not a character driven show. star trek in it's seven seasons barely has character development. the writers barely know how to characterize everyone until they sort of figure it out in season 3, which is also helped by the actors being impeccable.

i wouldn't even say that star trek is a show reliant on characterization or character interplay. i don't think characters grow on the show, they're not quite characters, but i wouldn't say they're symbols either. there's continuity, they reference things from before, but they're also... people who do their job, and don't let personal problems interfere with duty for most part.

there's no real plot. each episode is shoving these characters in a new situation and wondering how they'll react, trying to figure out how they'll try and reflect society today, if there's any issues to be remarked upon. sometimes they don't have a good answer for this problem, and call it a day anyway. but there's no real overarching plotline -- yes, voyager's goal is to try and go home, cut corners, etc, but it's so threadbare; ds9 is maybe closer, but even as sisko bears witness to the cardassian-bajoran aftermath, getting pulled in bc he's chosen by the prophets, we still get 'oh something random exited the wormhole, and i still think there's an air of impersonalness about the day to day life on a station.

and like. listen, i love star trek tos-voy. i am more than happy to dip in and out and watch episodes randomly, bc there doesn't really need to be a 'last time on star trek'. i wouldn't change it for the world.

but watching s1-2 of tng, and like. in modern day? cancelled within five episodes. but i -- i love this weird meandering show, and writers doing bizarre things every five minutes, the stupid low/nonexistent stakes, because that's life on the uss enterprise, baby! hell yeah, lwaxana troi solves the assassin plot last minute, bc sometimes that's just how it goes!

and i'm just curious to watch the newer content one day, bc while i don't think it's going to be bad, just different. i still don't think tv's current format of short seasons, and character drama is necessarily... very star trek compatible.

[bekindtoyou4007]

A very low stakes day. Back to the gym for the first time in a week. Will need to build strength back up. Getting to stretch properly and foam roll again was great. Asparagus and salmon rice salad for brunch with a protein yogurt and then out to run errands and do some emails at a nice library. Only did that for just over an hour before coming home and slow cooking a bolognese. Groceries arrived so H unpacked and changed bedsheets while I sat with a hot water bottle. Sadly burnt myself and also had a series of PF cramps so took painkillers then felt quite dizzy as a result. Was very glad to finally get some food into me. I think as nice as the fancy herbal tea has been that I've ordered, I'm not sure it's remarkably better than store bought enough to justify being double the price (and harder to buy mainstream)... We've been spending a lot of money recently on small luxuries so will need to think about expenditure. In saying that I've earned something like double what I was predicted the past 3 months... but we are fixing the house up etc. I feel like I need to calm down a bit with worrying about money. I had a weird out of body moment earlier today when someone I follow on social media turned out to be closely linked to a cousin I don't follow. I don't follow any of my extended relatives, to get some distance from the drama. But still ended up seeing childhood photos and wedding photos etc. Just a bit unpleasant to not be able to escape it. Feel like I can't get close with anyone from the city I grew up in, because it's so small apparently everyone will know my extended relatives! Horrible feeling.

[physalian]

On Subversion through Failure (wasting the audience’s time?)

I want to talk about two arcs today, one pretty much everybody loves, and one most every fan complained about before the fandom died. Both have to do with having characters completely fail to accomplish an objective, something they’ve been working toward for chapters or episodes or maybe the whole season.

Honorable mention to Infinity War’s “did we just lose.” IW and Endgame had meta reasons for happening the way they did, not just in-story. Books don’t have to contend with actor contracts and box office sales. Personally I don’t think Tony had to die at all the way it happened in the movie, but they killed him because of ~symbolism~ and everyone knew it would be coming and, well, he can’t play the character forever. Don’t love Endgame.

More to the point, both movies were more concerned with the legacy of the MCU over the best choices they could have made for the characters.

Failure in fiction is tricky to pull off in the best stories with the best of intentions, too. You don’t want the audience to feel bait-and-switched, like they invested all this time and effort into your book, only to have catharsis ripped away for ~subversion~ *cough*Star Wars*cough*

What was the point of all the nonsense if it all amounted to nothing? Why should we care?

So!

—

The Sophia Arc (The Walking Dead)

Almost the entire second season of this show has the characters stuck in one location, a remote Georgia farm, looking for a missing character, Sophia. Not every single episode is spent searching, but the continued excuse to not move on and to not get kicked out by the farm’s owner is that they haven’t found her yet.

Compared to season 1, which was constantly moving, constantly giving the characters new challenges and new locations and had very high stakes, season 2 was much more character focused, with more personal, low-stakes problems. I like character drama, so I didn’t mind, but if you came to The Walking Dead expecting a repeat of season 1, you were understandably disappointed.

The arc ends rather infamously with the revelation that Sophia had died and turned a long time ago, and was right under their noses in a barn. All that searching, all their effort, all that hope of finding her, was for nothing.

This arc had many issues, but some I think about after the fact include:

Sophia was reduced to a macguffin. She was barely a character in season 1 and disappeared too early in season 2 for anyone to care about her as more than just “she’s a little girl, you should care”. So audiences can only really empathize with her mother, who herself doesn’t go searching for her daughter, and who we also don’t really care about compared to the more present characters.

Sophia’s arc itself made no impact on the plot at large. The barn full of walkers did, but Sophia herself was just a consequence. The plot would have been the same had she not been in the barn, because 'you’ve been keeping them like pets' was the big reveal of the episode, the crux of the debate between the Group and their hosts is “walkers aren’t people you need to adapt to the new world”.

The refusal to leave the farm because they were tied to the Sophia search, on top of having many more episodes than season 1, drastically reduced the pacing audiences were used to. One overarching goal that never got any closer is exhausting. They were never close to finding her, even when they thought they were.

Above all, though, I think what damned this arc the most was that it just didn’t matter. The Walking Dead suffered its entire runtime from redundancy and stagnation. The heroes were never allowed to build a community and grow and make any progress against the walker plague before the writers forced a reset, burned it down, and moved them to the next location. Sophia’s death was the start of it all (though it was good for seasons 3 through 5ish).

She didn’t plague the plot after she was gone. Carol (her mother) mentioned her a few times in passing. The only depth the arc had was “life sucks and this show is grimdark hope is for chumps”. It having no point and no resolution was the point.

—

The Day of Black Sun (ATLA)

Between seasons 2 and 3, the hype for the invasion of the Fire Nation took up a whole season’s worth of episodes. Once Sokka learned of the eclipse, beyond finding Appa, his priority one was reaching the Earth King to get the Earth Kingdom in on a massive invasion that could decide the war before Sozin’s comet.

They brought so many characters back for this, spared no expense in the budget for the rendering of the air fleet and the sub squad, had Aang finally back in his Air Nomad colors and shaved his new hair….

And they lost.

They lost so badly, only the kids could escape with their lives, everyone else got captured as prisoners of war.

And that’s not even mentioning how season 2 ended with “The Earth Kingdom has fallen”. Which I’m not talking about here because that’s not quite fitting the trope here. The threat was always there, but the heroes weren’t fighting all season to protect the Earth Kingdom, only to lose. We only knew about it because we got Azula POV working in the background.

But anyway—Day of Black Sun. Why it worked:

We knew it was doomed from the moment the Earth King told Azula, thinking she was an ally. It did not come out of nowhere. The shock just came from a kids show actually going through with it and not having them triumph despite the odds.

The cost was severe, and felt through the rest of the show (which did not go on for 8 more seasons unlike TWD), and the new stakes were felt immediately. Zuko changed sides, the last real chance to stage a rebellion just died, the Fire Nation has confirmation that the Avatar isn’t dead, and now they have a terrorism incident to propagandize, probably making it easier for Ozai to push his “Phoenix King” vision on his war council and his country.

Failure was imminent from the moment they arrived at the Gates of Azulon. The Fire Nation forces were competent and highly skilled, as they should be, so nothing came out of nowhere or felt like manipulative writing. They were simply an army prepared for their adversaries, fighting for their home, on their homeland.

But they did still fail epically. When you were a kid, you weren’t thinking “but wait the season must have more episodes after this, something must go wrong”. Even knowing what’s about to happen during rewatches, it doesn’t diminish the impact of this arc.

—

Last honorable mentions to the season 4 finale of Supernatural. Where Team Free Will's quest to stop the rise of the Devil became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Due to... a lot of things, namely cope and a CW budget that made the visualisation of the whole world ending a bit too ambitious. But honorable mention nonetheless.

—

So if you’re going to have characters blow it, and this is your plan from day one, you should have consequences, good and bad, coming out of it, otherwise it’s meaningless and the audience will feel duped.

“Did we just lose” was a fantastic twist, don’t get me wrong, but, to me, at least, the setup for Endgame and the execution of Endgame was just a little too polished in too many areas, sacrificing meaningful character development *cough*Natasha*cough* for satisfying the giant MCU machine.

Because the dusting certainly didn’t have lasting consequences equal to the impact in the moment. It was just a blip, mentioned a few times and not mattering at all in one show, and then mattering a whole lot in a different one, but largely the status quo returned. Such is the nature of comics, I guess.

Sophia, too, was a great twist, in isolation executed very well, in the grand scheme of things it just didn’t matter. Had she been a Maes Hughes type, haunting show for four more seasons as some symbol of the loss of innocence or humanity or the better days gone by, then maybe.

I like this trope not just because it's subversive, but because once you decide your hero's going to lose, you have a lot more room to write a conflict designed to fail. More competent villains, more desperate heroes, more 11th hour decisions.

Especially when the audience doesn't yet know failure is inevitable, there's something about not having polished, pre-determined victories that can feel a lot more intense, because subconciously, as a writer, you're not making plot armor for your heroes.

[kaluawoo]

Being on Tumblr is just like. Going into a fandom tag. Reading like 3 posts. Vowing to not go into that tag again.

Going back into it the next day.

[likeawildthing]

Obsessed with crafters coast to coast (HGTV, 2005) — bootcut, layers, the Rachel, pre-Pinterest, so many rubber stamps.

These people (all middle class white women so far :/) are crafting for the joy of making things. There’s no contest, no stakes. This is largely pre- social media so at most these are mommy- or crafty-bloggers, just sharing for the Love of creating.

I’m not “harkening back to a simpler time” because so far this is a very heterogenous group of middle class white women, catering to an audience of same. I would rather have todays world of social media and inclusive television which is more diverse and representative of todays amazing world of creators (best in miniature did a great job or this!).

The thing that does appeal is the love or craft for craft’s sake — no ulterior motive or unnecessary drama that we see with American reality craft contest shows today. I dont begrudge makers and artists on social media the need to monetize their content, I think that’s amazing! But this brand of tv captures the wholesome, love of creating vibe that is largely (IMO) I think the appeal of early GBBO and all of Making It.

But I do love that current crafting shows are re-capturing this vibe, saying eff you to high stakes and heck yes to both low drama and inclusivity.

[guzhuangheaven]

Guzhuang Appreciation Month: badass dialogues

(but in the novel)

legend of ruyi :: ep 5 // ep 78

This drama is so amazing, demonstrated by these two scenes. Here you have Ruyi and Hongli watching the same play at two different stages in their lives. In episode 5, they are still clearly in love and are happy watching the play together, leaning lovingly against each other and moving in unison as one. They are also being watched fondly by Aruo, who has yet to have ideas of betraying Ruyi. Many years later, in episode 78, we have Ruyi and Hongli watching the same play, but they are physically far apart and their emotional distance from each other is also clear on their faces. They are literally being divided by the presence of Ling Yunche standing between them.

I find the parallel between the closeups of Aruo and Ling Yunche the most heartbreaking, because Aruo, despite how happy she looks for them in ep 5, would eventually try to break Ruyi and Hongli apart. And yet for all her efforts, she never succeeds because Hongli never actually believes her. On the other hand, Ling Yunche never tries to get in between Ruyi and Hongli, but just the mere presence of him is enough for Hongli to drive a wedge between himself and Ruyi. The presence of Aruo and Ling Yunche in this scene drives home the stark contrast in how the relationship has deteriorated between Ruyi and Hongli, and how Hongli went from trusting Ruyi despite all evidence against her to believing the worst of her despite no real evidence. 

What is even more heartbreaking is the play they are watching. It’s not made very clear in the drama, but the plot of the play has great significance in the novel. The play they are watching is called 墙头马上 / Over the Wall and Atop a Horse. The play is based on the poem 井底引银瓶 Silver Vase at the Bottom of the Well by Bai Juyi.

The poem by Bai Juyi, writes of a broken relationship/friendship where two people once lived happily in harmony, then one person wronged the other, causing the other person to leave and never come back; the relationship is thus severed. 

When the poem was adapted into the play 墙头马上 / Over the Wall and Atop a Horse, the play tells the story of Pei Shaojun falling in love at first sight with Li Qianjin when she was standing by a wall and he was on a horse riding by her house. The two then eloped, and lived together for seven years, having two children together, before they were discovered by Pei Shaojun’s father. Upon the discovery, Li Qianjin was condemned for getting into a clandestine relationship and Pei Shaojun caved to parental pressure and divorced her. She went back to her hometown. Many years later, after having achieved political success, Pei Shaojun went looking for Li Qianjin again, and just happened to discover that the two of them were actually engaged as children. In the play, they then reunited, got remarried and lived happily ever after.

There is however a plot point in the Ruyi novel, where Qingying does not like the ending of the play, feeling that the happy ending was forced. In the novel, Hongli and Qingying only know each other in passing at first. Then on the day that Hongli chooses his wives, Qingying is made to attend by her aunt. Before the selection ceremony, everyone is invited to watch a play, and Hongli chooses Over the Wall and Atop a Horse. Qingying, because she dislikes the happy ending, asks the theatre troupe to change the ending of the play so that in the end, Li Qianjin does not actually get back together with Pei Shaojun but stays firm in her resolve to end the relationship between them. After the play ends, Qingying leaves before the selection, but Hongli becomes intrigued by her changed ending and chases after her. This conversation below ensues, in which you can see clearly how Qingying’s belief on the matter stayed constant with her through the years. In fact, she practically predicts her own fate later with her changed ending.

~*~

Qingying stepped lightly ahead, her gown fluttering in the breeze like a white butterfly in flight. Aruo’s face was robbed of all colour and she was crying in despair. “Gege, what is wrong with you? Everything was well, why did you change the ending of the play? If Huang Hou Niang Niang hears about it, what will you do?”

Qingying shrugged. “At most, Aunt will just scold me a little. I just don’t like that ending. Today, I finally got to see how it should be played out. I’m so happy!”

“Gege might be happy,” Aruo said miserably, “but today is the consort selection. If Gege you are not chosen, then what would we do?”

Qingying’s aunt had already intended her to be the Third Prince’s bride, and now that was not successful, she should be pushed to the Fourth Prince instead? If they needed this one forced marriage to prolong their family’s glory, would that mean all women of the Ulanara clan were little better than slaves? It would be better this way. Regardless of whether she succeeded at being chosen to be a prince’s consort or not, she got to see things done her way, for once.  

She only managed a few steps more when suddenly a voice called behind her. “Qingying Meimei!”

No one had ever called her that before. Everyone in the palace simply called her “Qingying Gege”. Curious, she turned her head to find that Hongli was chasing after her.

Thinking that he must wish to reprimand her, Qingying made herself as small as possible.

Hongli only laughed. “I chased after you to comfort you. Xiyue Gege was rude in speech, I feared that you would be offended.”

“Offended? About what?” Qingying asked in a low voice. “Fourth Prince, do you mean to mention the fact that I was rejected by the Third Prince?”

Hongli nodded, frowning. “I only fear such talk will destroy your reputation.”

Qingying laughed, all her teeth showing, against all rules of decorum, which seemed to astonish Hongli.

“I don’t care!” she declared. “There are many things that women can’t necessarily decide for themselves, such as marriage, or family. But at least, I can decide whether to mind those mocking talks, whether to care about them and let them hurt me.”

Hongli looked sad for a moment, whispering, “Your family…” But then he trailed off. Then, with a humourless smile, he said, “Over the Wall and Atop a Horse is the play I chose myself, why did you not like the ending and asked them to change it? I pick a plum blossom, lean against the wall. / You ride off among the bending poplars*. Is that not a lovely image?”

“Yes, it is very nice, it’s just…” Qingying thought a moment then said, “Over the wall and atop a horse we gaze at each other. / I know you, too, must be heartbroken*. From this beginning, the play is full of conflicts, ups and downs, all very compelling, yet in the end, there is a forced happy ending, everyone is forced to be happy, I really don’t like it at all.”

[* excerpts from the poem by Bai Juyi]

Hongli looked displeased, asking, “To be able to mend a broken mirror, husband and wife reunited and at peace again, is that not good?”

“When Li Qianjin was being insulted by Pei Shaojun’s parents, he did not protect her. He watched her leave in humiliation and did not stop her, as if all the love and years they shared did not matter. Such a heartless and weak man who dares not protect his woman, why would Li Qianjin want to get back together with him?”

Her voice was soft, but also full of conviction. Even though it went against Hongli’s beliefs, he wanted to keep her talking.

“To be reunited and together in harmony is the wishes of all families on earth. If Pei Shaojun is willing to start over, why would Li Qianjin not forgive him?”

“Why must a woman always forgive a man for his failings? Wouldn’t that teach the man that it doesn’t matter what hurt he causes? I don’t care, if he hurt her, she shouldn’t forgive him.”

“Women must be soft and gentle, and give into her husband. If she sacrifices a little, bears a little hurt feeling, they can be reunited, isn’t that happiness?”

“If she must be hurt, must sacrifice herself for this forced reunion, then it is already not a good marriage,” Qingying said stubbornly. “In my eyes, Li Qianjin is a woman who is willing to walk away, to severe the relationship, because all trust is gone.”

“If she walks away, wouldn’t that mean she spends the rest of her life alone? Everyone has their own difficult moments, if Li Qianjin is so stubborn, Pei Shaojun is put in a difficult position too.”

“Who isn’t in a difficult position?” Qingying asked. “If the woman can understand the man’s difficulties, can a man not understand a woman’s pain of being cast aside and humiliated?”

Hongli thought for a moment then laughed. “Qingying Meimei, you are much too unbending.”

Qingying merely nodded. “It’s better to live the rest of your life alone, rather than live to old age with someone who already betrayed you once. So it might be harmonious today, but if a conflict arises, what is to say Pei Shaojun will not just forsake Li Qianjin again? It is easy to change mountains**, that is the principle here.”

[** there is a Chinese saying that it is easier to change the course of rivers and shapes of mountains than to change the character of a person… aka old habits die hard but with more stakes.]

Hongli still did not agree with her logic. “Women should place obedience before all and be pliable. If she does not restrain herself and be more accepting for the greater good, then she would just suffer.”

“If one must accept being humiliated for a so-called happy ending, then I don’t want that kind of happy ending,” Qingying repeated.

“Then is Over the wall and atop a horse we gaze at each other so easily forgotten?” Hongli asked, astonished.

Qingyin turned and stared at Hongli. “If it is not easily forgotten, then why didn’t Pei Shaojun protect Li Qianjin? Hasn’t he too forgotten how they once loved each other when he cast her aside?”

Hongli could not argue against her, and finally admitted defeat. “Meimei, you really are something, I don’t know what else to say.”

Qingying laughed in delight.

“Meimei,” Hongli said, stepping closer to her, “you argued so animatedly, you must love Over the Wall and Atop a Horse. Why don’t we go back and hear the play again?”

Qingying hesitated, thinking that it would be a great loss of face if she were to return now. But Hongli was looking at her so earnestly, she found it hard to immediately refuse.

“I’ll go back first, and prepare good tea to wait for you.”

He said ‘wait’, as if he would not move the day along if she did not come. Her heart softened, and she suddenly stopped in her path.

…

[And then of course Qingying comes back to attend the selection. Hongli, who had originally intended to choose Langhua, changes his mind and chose Qingying to be his di fujin, but then Yongzheng interfered and put a stop to it… But the play is one massive foreshadowing plot device that doesn’t get explained much in the drama, but packs a punch when you read this scene.] -h