#we should be capable of criticizing fictional characters while still enjoying them but that seems impossible for the most fandoms

[avichor]

yeah

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Dark”

Welcome back, everyone! Can you believe it's been six weeks already? I can't. Something something the uncomfortable passage of time during a pandemic as emphasized by a web-series.

But we're here to talk about RWBY the fictional story, not RWBY the cultural icon. At least, we will in a moment. First, I'd like to acknowledge that shaky line between the two, growing blurrier with every volume. A sort of good news, bad news situation.

The bad news — to get that out of the way — is that we cannot easily separate RWBY from its authors and those authors have, sadly, been drawing a lot of negative attention as of late. This isn't anything new, not at all, but I think the unexpectedly long hiatus gave a lot of fans (myself included) the chance to think about Rooster Teeth's failings without getting distracted by their biggest and brightest production. There's a laundry list of problems here — everything from the behavior of voice actors to the quality of their merch — but as a sort of summary issue, I'd like to highlight the reviews that continue to pop up on websites like Glassdoor, detailing the toxic, sexist, crunch-obsessed environment that RT employees are forced to work in. A lot of these websites requires a login to read more than a page of reviews, but you can check out a Twitter thread about it here. 

Now, I want to be clear: I'm not bringing this up as a way to shame anyone enjoying RWBY. This isn't a simplistic claim of, "The authors are Problematic™ and therefore you can't like the stuff they produce." Nor is this meant to be a catch-all excuse for RWBY's problems. If it were, I'd have dropped these recaps years ago. I'm of the belief that audiences maintain the right to both praise and criticize the work they're given, regardless of the context in which that work was produced. At the end of the day, RT has presented RWBY as a finished product and, more than that, presents it as an excellent product, one worth both our emotional investment and our money (whether in the form of paying for a First account, or encouraging us to buy merch, attend cons, etc.) I'll continue to critique RWBY as needed, but I a) wanted fans to be at least peripherally aware of these issues and b) clarify that my use of "RT" in statements like, "I can't believe RT is screwing up this badly" is meant to be a broad, nebulas acknowledgement that someone in the company is screwing up, either creatively (doesn't have the skill to write a good scene) or morally (hasn't created an environment in which other creators are capable of crafting a good scene). The real, inner workings of such companies are mostly a secret to their audiences and thus it's near impossible for someone like me — random fan writing these for fun as a casual side hobby — to accurately point fingers. Hence, broad "RT." I just wanted to clarify that when I use this it's as a necessary placeholder for whoever is actually responsible, not a damnation of the overworked animator breaking down in a bathroom. Heavy stuff, but I thought it was necessary (or at least worthwhile) to acknowledge this issue as we head into the second half of the volume.

Now for the good news: RWBY has reached 100 episodes! For any who may not know, 100 is a pretty significant number in the TV world because, when talking about prime time programming, it guarantees syndicated reruns. Basically, networks don't want audiences to get burned out with a show — changing the channel when it comes on because ugh, I've seen this already, recently too — and 100 episodes allows for a roughly five month run without any repeats, making it very profitable. RWBY is obviously not a television show and doesn't benefit from any of this (hell, modern television doesn't benefit from this as much as it used to, not in the age of streaming), but the 100 episode threshold is still ingrained in American culture. Beyond just being a nice, rounded number, it is historically a measure of huge success and I can't imagine that RT isn't aware of that. Regardless of what we think of RWBY's current quality, this is one hell of a milestone and should be applauded.

All that being said... RWBY's quality is definitely still lacking lol.

Our 100th episode is titled "Dark" — keeping with the one word titles, then — and I'd like to emphasize that, as a 100th episode, it definitely delivers in terms of plot. There's plenty of action, important character beats, and at least one major reveal, everything we'd expect from a milestone and a Part II premiere. The animation also continues to be noteworthy for its beauty, as I found myself admiring many of the screenshots I took for this recap. There are certainly things to praise. The only problem (one we're all familiar with by now) is that these small successes are situated within a narrative that's otherwise falling apart. It's all good stuff... provided you ignore literally everything else surrounding it.

But let's dive into some examples. We open on Qrow starting, awoken by the thunder outside. Robyn has been watching him and makes a peppy comment about how none of them will be sleeping tonight, followed by a more serious, "Sounds bad out there." Yeah, it does sound bad, especially when they all know — thanks to Ruby's message back in Volume 7 — that this is due to Salem's arrival. I think a lot of the fandom has forgotten that little detail because people often discuss Qrow as if he is entirely ignorant of what is going on outside his cell. Even if we were to assume that he's forgotten all about the pesky Salem issue (the horror of Clover's death overriding everything else, perhaps) he still knows that Tyrian is running loose in a heat-less city with a creepy storm going on and, from his perspective, the Very Evil Ironwood is still running the show. So it's bad, which begs the question of why Qrow (and Robyn, for that matter) hasn't displayed an ounce of legitimate worry for everyone he knows out there. Thus far, their interactions have centered entirely around Qrow's misplaced blame and Robyn's terrible attempts to lighten the mood, despite the fact that a war is raging right beyond that wall. It's another example of RWBY's inability to manage tone properly, to say nothing of balancing the multiple concerns any one character should be trying to juggle. Just as it rankles that Ruby and Yang don't seem to care about what has happened to their uncle, Qrow likewise doesn't seem to care about what might be happening to his nieces. When did we reach a point where these relationships are so broken that someone can be arrested/chucked into a deadly battle and the others just... ignore that?

So Robyn's otherwise innocuous comment immediately reminds me of how badly the narrative has treated these conflicts and, sadly, things don't improve much from here. We are thankfully spared more of Robyn's jokes when Qrow realizes that what he's hearing can't be thunder. A second later, Cinder blasts through the wall — called it! — and Qrow instinctively transforms. 

The only downside to this moment is that the whole ceiling falls down on Qrow and the others because APPARENTLY these cells don't have tops on them. Seriously. As far as I can recall we don't see the stone breaking through the forcefield somehow and this looks pretty open to me.

If it is... you're telling me these crazy powerful fighters who practice landing strategies and leap tall buildings in a single bound —

— can't just hop over this mildly high electric fence to get out? Qrow can't just fly away?

We're, like, two minutes in, folks.

We transfer to Nora's perspective as she wakes up, seeing Klein giving her the IV. He tells her not to worry, that "you and your friend are going to be just fine." What friend? Penny? Klein went upstairs prior to Weiss hugging Whitley or Penny crash landing outside. I had thought them bursting through the door with another unconscious friend was the first time he learned what the big bang outside was, but apparently not.

Penny is, obviously, a mess. While I now understand the choice to make her blood such an eye-catching color when that's crucial to the Hound's hunt, I still think it looks strange visually. Like someone has taken a copy of RWBY and painted over it. It doesn't look like it fits the art style. More than that, it implies some rather complicated things about Penny's humanity, especially in a volume focused around her being a "real girl." Real enough for Maiden powers, but with obviously inhuman blood that isn't even referred to as "bleeding." Penny "leaks" instead.

Toss in the fact that she's literally an android who is made up of tech — recall the running gags about her being heavy, or it hurts to fist-bump her, to say nothing of keeping things like multiple blades inside her body — yet Klein says that her "basic anatomy" is the same and he can "stitch up that wound."

I'm sorry, what? Whatever Penny looks like on the inside, it's not going to resemble a human woman's anatomy, and Klein might be able to stitch the outer layer of skin she's got, but that won't do anything to fix whatever metal bits have been broken underneath. Penny isn't a human-robot hybrid, she's a robot with an aura. Penny has knives in her back, rockets in her feet, and a super computer behind her eyes. When our clip introduced that Klein would be the one to help Penny, my initial reaction was, "Seriously? He's a butler and a doctor and an engineer?" But RWBY didn't even try to get away with a Super Klein explanation, they just waved away Penny's very obvious, inhuman anatomy. Yeah, I'm sure "stitching up" an android wound is just like giving Nora her IV. I hope the surgical sutures he used are extra strong!

In an effort to not entirely drag this episode, I do appreciate that Whitley is allowed an "ugh" moment about the non-blood covering his shirt without anyone calling him out on it. That felt like the sort of thing the show would usually try to make a character feel guilty about and I'm glad that, for once, he was just allowed to be frustrated without comment.

Then the power goes out and May calls, which raises questions about what state the CCTS is in and when scrolls are available to our protagonists vs. when they're not. But whatever. She's checking in because she just "saw another bombing run light up the Kingdom" and —

Wait. Bombing? Salem is bombing the city? I know we've seen explosions in the sky, but I'd always just attributed that to evil aesthetic. Why does this dialogue sound like it's from a World War II film and not a fantasy sci-fi show about literal monsters launching a ground attack?

May looks pretty against the sky though. I like her hair color against that purple.

I'm admittedly grasping at positives here because we finally return to her "You have to choose" ultimatum and — surprise! — May has pulled back completely. Ruby says that once they've helped Penny, "We'll...we'll do something!" which is once again her avoiding making a decision. Ruby still refuses to choose, instead falling back on generic, optimistic pep talks. They'll figure out how to stop Salem later. They'll think about the impact of telling the world later. They'll choose who to help later. Ruby keeps pushing these problems into the future where, she hopes, a perfect, magical solution will have appeared for her to latch onto. When that continues to not happen, others pressuring her to actually do something and stop waiting for perfection — Ironwood, Yang, May — she panics and continues stalling for time. Wait an episode and the narrative supports her in this.

Because initially May was forcing Ruby to decide. Now, May enables her desire to keep putting things off. "Don't beat yourself up, kid. At this point, I don't know how much is left to be done." That's the exact opposite of what May believed last episode, that there was still so much work and good to do for the people of Mantle. This is precisely what the show did with Yang and Ren's scenes too, having people call Ruby out... but then return to a message of, 'Don't worry, you're actually doing just fine' before Ruby is forced to actually change.

None of which even touches on May calling her "kid" in this moment. That continues to be a convenient way of absolving Ruby of any responsibility. When she wants to steal airships or Amity Tower, she's an adult everyone should listen to, the leader of this war. When the story wants to absolve her of previously mentioned flaws, she becomes a kid who shouldn't "beat herself up." I said years ago that RWBY couldn't continue to let the group be both children and adults simultaneously, yet here we are.

So that was a thoroughly disappointing scene. Ruby gets her moment to look sad and defeated, listing "the grimm, the crater, Nora, Penny" as problems she doesn't know how to solve. Note that 'Immortal witch attacking the city I've helped trap here' isn't included in that list. Ruby is still ignoring Salem herself and no one in the group is picking up where May left off, challenging her to do more than wring her hands over things others are already trying to take care of: Ironwood is fighting the grimm, May has gone off to help the crater, Klein is patching up Nora and Penny. Ruby, as one flawed individual, should not be expected to come up with a solution to everything, but she does need to stop acting like she can come up with a solution to everything when it matters most (office scene) and rejecting others' solutions when they ask for her help (Ironwood, May).

If it feels like I'm dragging the flawed, traumatized teenager too much, it's not in an effort to ignore those aspects of her identity. Rather, it's because she's also the licensed huntress who wrested control from a world leader and violently demanded she be put in charge of this battle. Ruby, by her own actions, is now responsible for dealing with these problems, or admitting she was wrong and letting others take the lead, without purposefully derailing their plans. She doesn't get to suddenly go, "I don't know," cry a little, and get sympathetic pats.

But of course that's precisely what happens, courtesy of Weiss.

During this whole scene I kept wondering why no one was celebrating Nora waking up, especially when Ruby outright mentions her. Have they just not noticed given all the Penny drama? Because Nora absolutely woke up.

Aaaand went back to sleep, I guess. What was the point of that POV shot? No worries though, she'll wake up again in a minute.

Willow arrives and announces that they can fix the power (and Penny) using the generator at the edge of the property. I'm convinced RT doesn't actually know what a generator is because the characters are acting like it's some super special device that only richy-rich could possibly have. Whitley says that it's the SDC executives who have their "own power supply" and that it's "extremely unfair." Now, don't get me wrong, a good generator powering large portions of your house can run you 30k+, but you can also get one that plugs into your extension cord and powers your fridge for a couple hundred. There's absolutely a class issue here, just not the one Whitley and Weiss seem to be commenting on. They make a generator sound like the sort of device that only a politician-CEO could possible have and it's weird.

Likely, it sounds weird because it's a choppy way of getting Whitley to bring up the wealth disparity so he can then go, 'That's right! We're crazy rich with a company housing tons of ships! We can use those to evacuate Mantle.' Awkwardness aside, I do like that the Schnee wealth is being used for good purposes, but... evacuate where? To the city currently under attack by a giant whale? In a RWBY that wasn't determined to demonize Ironwood, this would have been a great plot point during the office scene instead, with Weiss offering her services to Ironwood, even if the group decides that a continued evacuation still isn't possible.

Instead, we get it here from Whitley. Do I need to point out the obvious? That Whitley is the MVP of this episode? He's done more good in an HOUR than the group has managed in a year. Give this kid some training and make him a huntsmen instead.

We're given a (very pretty!) shot of the shattered moon because it wouldn't be RWBY if we weren't continually reminded that gods once wiped out humanity before destroying part of a celestial body... and absolutely no one talks about that lol.

Blake's coat might not make any sense for her color scheme, but it does make her easy to spot as she and Ruby run across the grounds. Oh my god, they're actually doing something together! It only took eight years. They even get a lovely talk where Blake admits how much she looks up to Ruby, despite her being younger, and once again I'm struck at how much more I would have loved this scene if it had appeared elsewhere in the series. It is, indeed, as sweet and emotional as all the RWBY GIF-ers are claiming... provided you overlook that this is the exact opposite of what Ruby needs to hear right now. She doesn't need to hear that she's more mature and reliable than her elders when she's functioning under a "We don't need adults" mentality. She doesn't need to hear that not knowing what to do is totally fine, not when that led to her turning on Ironwood, despite not knowing how to stop Salem. She doesn't need to hear that "doing something" — doing anything — is a strength, because Ruby keeps avoiding the big problems for smaller ones she's comfortable with, like standing by Penny's bedside instead of deciding between Mantle and Atlas. Blake's speech is heartfelt, but it's a speech that suits a Beacon days Ruby who is having some doubts about her leadership skills, not the girl whose impulsive — and now lack of — actions is having world-wide repercussions. Everyone is babying Ruby to a staggering degree. It's like if we had a med show where the doctor is standing by the bedside of a coding patient, fretting between two treatments. 'Don't worry,' their colleague says, patting their shoulder. 'I've always looked up to you. You'll do something when you're ready' and then they continue to watch the patient, you know, die.

Also: who does Ruby look up to? Everyone talks about how much they depend on and trust Ruby, but who does Ruby look to for guidance? A number of her problems stem from the fact that she has rejected the advice of everyone who has tried to help her improve: Qrow, Ozpin, Ironwood, even Yang. Ruby is presented as the pinnacle of what to strive for in a leader, rather than a leader who has only been doing this for two years and still has a great deal to learn.

Anyway, they get the generator on and the Hound shows up.

I am begging RT to just make RWBY a horror story. All their best scenes the last three years have been horror I am bEGGING —

Anyway, while Ruby waits to be eaten we cut to Willow and Klein, the former of which is reaching for her bottle, pulling back, reaching again, all while her hand shakes. This is good. This is what we should have gotten with Qrow. Which isn't to say that their (or anyone's) addiction should be identical, but rather that this is a far more engaging and complex look at addiction than what our birb got. Willow tells us that she doesn't drink in the dark despite bringing the bottle with her; tries to resist drinking when she's scared and ultimately fails. Qrow just decided to stop drinking after decades of addiction, seemingly for no reason, and that was that. Why is a side character we only met this volume written better than one of the main cast?

Blake manages to call Weiss about the Hound and she asks if Whitley can handle the airships without her. I mean, I assume so given that Weiss is looking at the bookshelves while Whitley does all the work lol. He makes a teasing comment about how he can if she can handle that grimm and she comments that they still need to work on his "attitude."

No they don't. Weiss stuck a weapon in her kid brother's face. Whitley made a joke. Even if Weiss' comment is likewise meant to be read as teasing, it's clear that we've bypassed any meaningful conversation between them. That hug was supposed to be a Fix Everything moment even though, as I've laid out elsewhere, it didn't even come close.

We cut back to Ruby getting thrown through a wall into the backyard and the Hound creepily coming after her. She's freaked out by this clearly abnormal grimm and Blake is weirdly... not? "It's just a grimm. Just focus!" Uh, it's obviously not. Have we reached the traumatized, sleep-deprived point where the group is sinking into full-blown denial? I wouldn't be surprised. They've been awake for like... 40+ hours.

Because the Hound knocks Ruby out with a single hit. Just, bam, she's down. "Focusing" is not the solution here.

Weiss calls to warn the others about the grimm, telling them to stick together. Willow (understandably) starts freaking out and flees the room (classic horror trope!). Klein is left alone when Penny wakes up with red eyes. Oh no!

Don't worry. You know nothing meaningful happens.

She shoves Klein before (somehow?) resisting the hack, her Maiden powers going wild in the process. Just when it looks as if Penny might cause some serious damage, Nora wakes up, takes her hand, and says, I kid you not:

"Hey... no one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do... It's just a part of you. Don't forget about the rest."

Okay. I want to re-emphasize that I love hopeful, uplifting, victory-won-through-the-power-of-love stories. Istg I'm not dead inside, it's just that RWBY does this so badly. I mean, what is this? It has similarities to the character shouting, 'No! Resist!' to their mind-controlled ally, but this is not presented as a desperate, last-ditch effort by Nora. She just speaks like this is the most obvious truth in the world. If you don't want to have your mind taken over... just don't! It's that simple. The problem definitely isn't that Watts has changed her coding and has implemented a command she can't override, it's that Penny has forgotten about the "rest" of her personhood.

And this works. Granted, not for long, but we leave Nora having successfully calmed Penny down and until her eyes unexpectedly go red again scenes later, we're left assuming that this is a permanent solution. That, imo anyway, is taking the Power of Love too far, overriding the basic reality of Penny being hacked. It’s not a personal failing she must overcome, it’s an external attack. I would have rather had Nora react to the scars she saw on her arm, or have a moment with Klein, or get some love from the group. Not a wakes up, falls asleep, wakes up again to save Penny with a Ruby level 'Just ignore reality' pep-talk, then back to sleep again.

So Penny isn't attacking her allies, or mistakenly hurting her allies with wild Maiden powers. Not that the group doesn't have enough to deal with, but still. Weiss arrives to help with the Hound and attempts a new summon, only to fail when two minor grimm burrow up into her glyphs. I really enjoyed that moment, both for the wing visual and the knowledge that Weiss' glyphs can fail if you break them somehow (which makes sense). Also, I just like that she failed in general? Weiss is, as per usual now, about to demonstrate just how OP she is compared to the rest of the team, so it was nice to see her faltering here.

The Hound tries to make off with Ruby and Blake does an excellent job of keeping it tethered. Ruby finally wakes, only to realize that the grimm is actually after Penny since it's staring at her power up through the window, no longer trying to escape. Moments like this remind me that there's someone on RT's writing team that knows what they're doing, at least some of the time. The assumption that the Hound is after Ruby as a SEW, the surprise that it's actually Penny, realizing it holds up because Ruby is covered in Penny's blood and Blake is not... that's all nice, tight plotting. More of that please!

The Hound drops her and Ruby's aura shatters when she hits the ground. I want everyone to remember this moment as an example of how strong the Hound is. The group may be tired, but unlike YJR they've been sitting around in the Schnee manor for a number of hours, regaining strength. We saw the Hound hit Ruby twice — once through the wall and once to knock her out — and then she falls from a not very high distance for a huntress, yet her aura is toast. That's the level of power and skill the Hound possesses. Decimating YJR, knocking Oscar out, same for Ruby, avoiding Blake and Weiss' hits, soon to treat Penny like a ragdoll. Just remember all this for the episode's end.

Blake tells Weiss she'll take care of Ruby, you go help the others. Yay breaking up the duos more! Bad timing though as the new acid-spitting grimm pops out of the ground and Blake is now left alone to face it.

Weiss re-enters the mansion, knowing the Hound is somewhere nearby, but not where. Suddenly, Willow's voice sounds through her scroll with an, "Above you!" which... doesn't keep Weiss from getting hit lol. But it's the thought that counts! Willow has accessed the cameras she's set up throughout the manor, watching the Hound's movements, and I have to say, that is a WAY better use of her separation from Klein than I thought we were getting. I legit thought they'd have Willow run away in a panic, meet the Hound, die, and then Weiss could be sad about losing her mom.

It does say something about RWBY's writing that this was my knee-jerk theory, as well as my surprise when we got something way better.

The Hound runs off, uninterested in Weiss, and she asks Willow to keep tabs on it. It heads for Whitley next (also covered in Penny's blood) and very creepily stalks him in the office with a, "I know you're here." Whitley is seconds away from being Hound chow before one of Weiss' boars pin it against the wall. He runs, then runs BACK to finish deploying the airships, before finally escaping assumed death. Goddamn this boy is pulling his weight.

I assume all these ships are automated then? I hope someone takes a moment to call May. Otherwise it's going to be super weird for the Mantle citizens if a fleet of SDC ships just show up and hover there...

I don't entirely understand how Weiss saved him though. She's nowhere to be seen when Whitley leaves and he runs a fair distance before he and Willow encounter Weiss again. We know her summons don't have to keep right next to her, but are they capable of rudimentary thought, attacking an enemy — and an enemy only — despite Weiss being a couple corridors down and unable to see the current battlefield? I don't know. In another series I'd theorize that this was a deliberate hint, a way to clue us into the fact that Willow, someone who we currently know almost nothing about, had training in the past and summoned the boar herself. Weiss and Winter certainly didn't get that hereditary skill from Jacques. Hell, we might still get that, Weiss reacting with confusion next episode when Whitley thanks her for the boar, but I doubt it. That scene with Ruby and the Hound aside, the show isn't this good at laying groundwork and then following up on it.

Case in point: Weiss says, "I didn't forget you" to Whitley after he gets away from the Hound, the moment trying to harken back to her promise to Willow. Key word is "trying." Because she absolutely forgot him! Weiss threatened and ignored Whitley until he proved his usefulness. I also shouldn't need to point out that, "Don't forget your brother" does not mean, "Don't let your brother die a horrible death by abnormal grimm." Weiss acts like her saving him is a fulfillment of her promise, rather than just the most basic of human decency. And also, you know, her job.

So that part is frustrating. The entire Schnee dynamic is a mess, from Weiss making a joke of her father's arrest, to Willow (presumably) fixing their relationship by putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder. Okay.

Then Weiss cuts off the Hound by summoning a giant wall of ice. My brain, every time this happens:

YOU COULD HAVE FIXED THE HOLE IN MANTLE'S WALL.

Moving on, Blake's fight against the acid... thing has some great choreography, including Blake using her semblance which we haven't seen in AGES. 

I really like the fight itself, just not what Blake is shouting the whole time. "I need you, Ruby! We all need you!" This has really gotten ridiculous. Ruby is presented as everyone's sole savior despite failing time and time again. It's not that I don't think Blake as a character should have faith in her leader, it's that I don't think the writers should be crafting a story where everyone puts their unshakable hopes in an untrained, disloyal, impulsive 17 year old. I mean, Ruby is currently unconscious, yet Blake is acting like if she doesn't wake up — she, as an individual, if Ruby Rose does not re-join this fight — then all is lost. If Ruby doesn't save them, no one can. Which is, of course, absurd on numerous levels. Blake doesn't need the passed out, aura-less Ruby right now, she needs the still very healthy Weiss pulling out multiple summons and an ice wall! Use your scroll and call for backup again.

But of course, Ruby wakes up and kills the new, terrifying grimm with a single hit. It's a preview of what's to come with the Hound and it's just as ridiculous here as it will be there.

Speaking of the Hound, am I the only one who thought this was... cute?

I can't possibly be the only one. That head-tilt is exactly what my dogs do and my brain instinctively went, "Aww, puppy!"

Murderous puppy.

The Hound realizes none of the Schnees are who it's looking for and runs off. Penny, meanwhile, has been fully taken over because, well, that's just what's convenient now. She resists long enough keep Amity up, then succumbs, then resists to apologize to Ruby, then succumbs, then resists because Nora asked her to, then succumbs once it's time to knock her out. If RWBY was willing to commit to consequences, Penny would have been taken over and that was that. The characters would need to deal with whatever outcome happens as a result. Instead, the show very carefully avoids any of those pesky consequences by having Penny successfully resisting at key moments, despite no explanation of how she's managing that.

She shoves Klein again (Klein is having a Bad Time) and starts walking down the main steps. When Whitley wants to know where the hell she's going, Penny mechanically responds that she must "Open the vault, then self-destruct." I suppose the change Watts made was the self-destruct order? Ironwood obviously wants the vault open, though not necessarily Penny's death. Think what you will of his moral compass, she's a damn powerful ally — a research project, perhaps — and a Maiden to boot. At the very least, her death may give the powers to someone even worse.

God, please don't let them have brought Penny back and made her a Maiden just to kill her again.

The Hound arrives though and, as said, knocks Penny out. We're back to square one with her, then. Note though that this attack is near instantaneous. She grabs its hands one second, is hanging limply the next. Wow, the Hound sure is a terrifying antagonist!

Not for long.

"That's enough," Ruby says and one-shots it with her eyes.

Now, I want to talk for a moment about the implications of that line. "That's enough." Obviously Ruby is #done with this situation and emotionally unwilling to let the Hound kidnap Penny (congratulations, Nuts and Dolts shippers), but there's a meta reading here as well. Not intentional, but glaring to me nonetheless. Basically, the idea that the Hound has, from a plot perspective, done enough. It has served its singular purpose. It kidnapped Oscar and now it dies. Never-mind how insanely powerful we've established the Hound to be, never-mind how Ruby's eyes also work or don't work according to whether anything of actual import is on the line. From a plot perspective "that's enough" and the Hound can be disposed of instantly. It got Oscar and gave us an episode of filler creepiness. Move along now.

The idea behind Ruby's eyes isn't bad, but the execution absolutely is. RT has undermined a huge portion of the stakes by giving their protagonist an instant kill-shot that always works precisely when she needs it to. Starting with the Apathy, we have yet to get a moment where Ruby's eyes fail to save the day when she really needs them to, no matter how incredible the challenge. The Hound was very intentionally written to be a grimm outside of the group's current power level. It thinks, it talks, they literally can't touch it. This creates the expectation that the group will need to grow stronger — or at least become smarter — in order to surmount this new obstacle, yet Ruby's eyes undermine all of that. The group hasn't grown in years, the show just makes enemies weaker as needed (Ace Ops), or has Ruby pull out her eyes as a trump card. It wouldn't be that bad if we'd at least gotten a good battle out of it, one where the group gets close to defeating the Hound on their own, but needs Ruby's eyes to finish it off. Instead, she literally walks up without any aura, announces to the audience that this antagonist's time is up, and blasts it out a window.

Granted, Ruby's eyes don't completely finish it. The Hound pulls itself to its feet and we see this.

Yup, that's a guy and yup, those are silver eyes.

I would like to issue a formal apology to the "It's secretly Summer!" theorists in the fandom. I mean, I still think it would be ridiculous (and at this point highly improbable) that Ruby's dead mother has actually been a grimm mutant this whole time, just hanging out in Salem's realm while she waits for the plot to start before attacking the world, and then sends some no-name faunus dude after the group instead of their leader's mother for extra, emotional torture... but you all were definitely right about the “It's a person” part! I... don't know how I feel about this. Admittedly, it seems to be a logical continuation of the other grimm-human hybrids we've seen — namely Cinder and Salem herself — and it finally explains why Salem wants Ruby alive (even though it actually doesn't because WHY did she want more SEWs for Hound grimm when she wasn't even attacking back then? And already has all these other insanely powerful tools??), but at the same time, it feels like it's complicating a story that doesn't need further complications. The group fights monsters and has an immortal enemy. You don't need to add 'Some of those monsters are secretly human' to the mix.

It doesn't hurt that this twist is giving me Attack on Titan vibes, which, ew. A dark time in my fandom life, folks.

The Hound staggers a few steps before Whitley and Willow dump a suit of armor on it. That's all it takes to kill the most dangerous grimm we've ever seen: a single flash of silver eyes and some heavy metal. This also wreaks havoc with the implication that Salem wants SEWs alive because they create such powerful grimm. Obviously not. I mean yeah, normal huntsmen are going to have serious  problems, we’ve seen that this volume, but any other SEWs nearby will take a Hound out instantaneously. For a villain with so many other powerful abilities — immortality, magic, endless normal grimm, her nifty soup — Salem would be much better served just killing SEWs straight out. Clearly, creating Hounds isn't worth the effort.

The Hound leaves some bones behind and Ruby collapses to her knees, overcome with the knowledge that this was once a person. Again, uncomfortable Attack on Titan parallels.

We finish our premiere with Cinder clearing away rubble to reveal Watts. Honestly, I like that we ended on this because her rescue is hilarious. She just slings him over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes and blasts off with her magic fire feet. Fantastic.

Note though that with this scene we've seen almost everything from the clip and the trailer. What's to come in the rest of Volume 8? No idea. Outside of Winter leading the charge with the bomb, we got it all here.

Time to update the bingo board!

I'm crossing off "Introducing new grimm that are quickly abandoned." Between the Hound and acid-dude both falling to a single blast/cut from Ruby, we've more than earned this square.

It doesn't look as if we'll get another Watts-Jacques team-up now that he's left, but you never know.

Maria's got me worried. I feel like her Yoda fight against Neo is the one thing she'll be allowed to do this volume, but given that we didn't see anyone except Ruby's group this episode, we don't yet know whether the story is now ignoring her and Pietro, or if they'll re-appear in another episode like YJR.  

Qrow is free. Will he get a drink before trying to murder Ironwood? Perhaps.

Still no bingo :(

All in all, the episode was by no means horrible. I think there were lots of horrible parts, but also some legitimately well executed moments, fun action, and scenes that I can easily imagine as squee worthy if you lean back and squint. Everything is comparative and in the growing collection of bad RWBY episodes, this one isn't securing a top slot. Which doesn't mean I think it's good, just... not as bad as it could have been and primarily only bad due to long-running problems, not things this specific episode has done. That's my bar then, so low it has officially entered the underworld.

Still, RWBY is back and a part of me is eager to see where this volume takes us, for better or for worse.

Until next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

[thechangeling]

I was reading your co-signing the narrative post- great post btw- and your thoughts on Kit Lightwood helped me figure out exactly what bothers me about the way other characters talk about and treat him.

So, there’s this kind of this running “joke” in TLH that Christopher’s interests are boring, that everyone else puts up with it him as though it’s this big nuisance, that everyone zones out hearing him talk… and on and on and on.*** And then there’s this scene where Grace is genuinely interested or at least not bringing him down about his self-expression and the things that bring him joy, and that’s romanticized as special when it’s really kind of the bare fuckin minimum. Like, I’m not saying James/Matthew/Thomas had to immerse themselves completely in every sciency detail but the constant “jokes” implying that Christopher’s work is boring or incomprehensible or not worth their time is just so tiring. There’s always an undercurrent of “Christopher’s just playing around uselessly” (which is not true and even when he’s having fun with his work then it’s still automatically WORTHY and VALUABLE because it makes him happy!) Not to mention this recurring problem directly contradicts the value that Christopher’s work has (beyond its inherent value) when he sends it into the world to literally save lives: the poison antidote, the fire messages that will probably come about in CoT.

And the thing is, the merry thieves’ disinterest is directly meant to foil grace’s interest in order to lend the Grace/Kit relationship a certain significance, as CC assigns to it. I’m not saying shared excitement over an interest/hobby/career/field/etc isn’t sweet platonically or romantically. I just really dislike how the idea CC is using is “no one else can bear to tolerate Kit’s ‘quirks’ but Grace, and that is Endearing, and so they are Soulmates (TM)” rather than the much healthier and positive idea that “Kit does cool sciencey stuff which his family and friends generally don’t share as strong a passion for but still don’t huff about it like it’s somehow a chore or a burden on them, and then Grace comes along and she does happen to share a similar passion and that’s the beginning of their ties to one another.” That second reasoning is what could make their friendship really refreshing; we don’t need ableism poorly twined into romance to enjoy that relationship.

I haven’t read TDA in a while but I’m thinking we could also find touches of this with Ty partly because so much of when we see him is from Kit’s POV? Not that Kit means harm or thinks himself heroic but CC on the other hand is a repeat offender in “abled/white/straight/cis character is ultimately and completely responsible for the salvation of disabled/POC/queer character in this aspect.” And I’m kind of half dreading the wicked powers for that reason among others …

I apologize if all this seems obvious or rambly. I do sometimes have trouble articulating things exactly but when I read your post i had a lightbulb moment and I wanted to note it down.

Have a great day!

***Side Note: this is why I really enjoy fan-created content that explores Christopher’s relationships with people (even people he didn’t interact with on-page in the canon) without that annoying and problematic aspect built into the framework of the relationship.

^^^^^^^^^THIS ALL OF THIS!!!!!!

Full disclosure this is gonna be kind of long sorry. But you have stumbled across my favourite topic to rant about. Allistic saviorism. Basically the name is pretty self explanatory. It's when an allistic person fictional or otherwise has the desire to or actively attempts to essentially "save" the autistic person from the horrors of the world or their life, or even themselves because they think that the autistic person isn't strong or capable enough to fix/handle it on their own. All of this is usually done for very self serving reasons. Part of this is also allistic people being praised as heroes for being nice to autistic people or asking them out, or loving them.

I don't neccesarily think that kitty is an allistic savior ship on it's own. I think that there are definitely peices of those beliefs scattered throughout the books and it might get worse in TWP. That's honestly something that I'm worried about too tbh. But honestly I think that the fandom made it a billion times worse.

This mainly allistic fandom wanted to romanticize the idea of Kit taking care of Ty and shouldering the burden of his "unpredictability." Kit is the only one who can get through to Ty. The only one who understands the mystery that is Ty 🙄. Some of this is canon too. For example, Ty can look Kit in the eye, he lets him touch him. He doesn't wear the headphones when Kit's around right? And Kit was able to calm him down during his meltdown.

And while some of this is really cute from a romantic perspective, it's also kinda problematic because it reeks of allistic saviorism. It promotes the idea that Kit is like Ty's "cure." And that's just impossible.

And honestly I know I've contributed to this in some ways. Because if I'm being perfectly honest with you, there's a part of me that enjoys that. The romantization of autism.

The idea of being taken care of.

The idea that someone could love an autistic person and see them as "beautiful" and "extraordinary" and all the things Kit calls Ty, was incredibly moving and appealing to me as a kid. It still is. Because I grew up on stories of charity cases and allistic saviorism making headlines with prom dates. I was super secretive about it, but I was always a romantic growing up. But I thought that it was impossible for me to have a real love story because people like me don't get that. (Not to get all sob story on you sorry. I overshare. It's an autistic thing.)

And there are some really compelling things about kitty that really do work. And I'm not trying to suggest that Kit learning to help Ty with the ...shall we say more colourful traits of his disability is a bad thing always. It's not. But I think the issue is with Ty's lack of pov and Ty's lack of a narrative in the books. It makes him seem like less of a completely developed character and more like, "Kit's" you know?

And because we don't have Ty's pov we don't really get what makes Kit have this sort of calming effect on him or why it's different. And more importantly we don't get why Ty's letting him in, we only get Kit pushing past his boundries. The entire thing becomes about Kit essentially and that's at the root of all allistic saviorism.

Also like you mentioned before, Kit is seen as special to a certain extent because he can handle Ty. That's not neccesarily something the character believes obviously, but again with CC co-signing the damn narrative with the way she makes the impact Kit has on Ty such a big deal in everyone's eyes and in QOAAD she really emphasizes the drain Ty's necromancy plan is taking on Kit, suddenly Ty's grief becomes all about Kit and with no pov from Ty, it's more allistic savior bs.

Honestly most of this isnt actually THAT bad it's just when you throw it all together and look at the ugly history and let's be honest present, of autistic people being silenced and spoken over by our caregivers and loved ones and we are treated like burdens on them, and how those people are praised for loving us, it kinda looks bad. But the fandom definitely made it worse.

I always get criticized for criticizing kitty by allistic people with, " well if you think they're so toxic then why do you even ship them?" Which is a piss poor take lacking in any nuance. An autistic person has the right to critique a dynamic involving an autistic character. More to the point, you can love something and be critical of it. I swear when this fandom finally figures that one out... we could accomplish so much.

I'm really hoping this is making sense it's like 2 in the morning. As for Grace and Christopher's dynamic I agree with you. I basically have nothing to add. Bare minimum. Should not be idolized. The way the others treat him should not just be brushed off as no big deal. It's ableism.

Basically it's just a bunch of classic mistakes that come from a neurotypical abled writer writing nd characters. Some mistakes are more damning then others. But it does make me scared for TWP.

I can only hope.

[inawickedlittletown]

The Dresden Files - an overall review

(There are very very minor spoilers, but I mostly wanted to write something non-spoilery about the series as a whole.)

-

The Dresden Files. I knew a few things about this series before I went into reading it in part because I had watched Daniel Greene’s YouTube video about why people should read it and I won’t lie and say that I didn’t go on Goodreads, look at how long the series is and then question if I actually wanted to read it and wanted to spend months and months going through the books. But, I had nothing else that was pressing on my TBR list and my library had Storm Front on ebook available. So, I gave it a chance. I am so glad I did. I think I finished that first book in two days and I rolled right into reading Fool Moon pretty much as soon as I finished Storm Front. 

I didn’t expect to like it as much as I ended up liking it. I didn’t expect to read the series as quickly as I did. But here we are. The thing about Dresden Files is that it’s the type of story that starts off small and then evolves into something much bigger. After all, the first few books can almost be read as standalones because while there is consistency of character, largely the events of each really remain within the scopes of each book aside from a few minor details. This is why at first glance Dresden to me seemed like a procedural leaning towards a pulp-fiction style of storytelling which I was okay with even though from the aforementioned YouTube video, I was aware that that would change as the series went on. 

Back when I was a kid, one of my favorite shows was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And Dresden has been one of the few things that reminds me of BTVS, although I’d wager that Dresden more closely resembles the BTVS spin-off Angel more. I think it’s this resemblance that made me eager to keep reading. That and knowing that the books weren’t as simple as first presented. 

The things I love about it:

I love how simple and yet complicated it is all at once. It’s simple because the concept can be summed up in two words: wizard detective. You really don’t need a whole lot more to describe it. And yet as the books go on the world is expanded and suddenly things are more connected than you once thought and there are different levels of power at play as well as factions and magical creatures and politics in the middle of all of it. This just makes the world so much richer and interesting and fantastical while still keeping the roots of the human world. 

I love the characters. There is no character in this series that isn’t complex and flawed. They are very very human even when they’re not actually human and it is very easy to relate to one or more of them. Not every character is likable, but many — even the villains — are. And to go off of that, it is the relationships between the characters and the growth of that over the course of the books that makes this series worth reading. 

The mythology that is weaved into the story is great too. There is so much that comes right out of myth and adapted to fit into the world of Dresden and I am just in awe of how well Butcher manages to fit all the different things into one world from characters to artifacts and story and then also weave it into his own additions and his own changes to fit with his story. I’m aware that Fool Moon has a lot of criticism, but one cannot ignore the work that went into depicting all the different werewolf myths in one book. Then you also have the three courts of Vampires, the Sidhe, and characters like Odin, as well as archangels, and so much more. 

The writing is also good. I think one of the best parts about it is that Butcher has gotten better and better with every book. His descriptions are vivid and he does so well when it comes to magical battles and action. And it’s very easy to read and get just sucked into the world in part because the books are written in first person POV. 

As far as representation goes, it isn’t amazing, but there is some and specifically, there are a lot of women in positions of power which is always enjoyable to read. 

All of this does not mean the books aren’t without their flaws. No one thing can be perfect (except Black Sails…), there is always some problematic aspect to a work or something that doesn’t appeal to everyone. Some might say that Dresden Files has a lot of problematic things going on. 

The number one glaring thing is the way that Harry talks about women. It’s not that he doesn’t respect women or think that women can be strong and capable — I mean, he literally has Murphy there to remind him — it’s that the male gaze is so very very prevalent throughout the entire series. It’s like Butcher and Harry through him, cannot help but notice how beautiful or sensual or sexy any woman that crosses his path is. It’s understandable because we are reading the first person POV of an adult man, and even more so when we realize that sex is a big part of the supernatural world. I mean, we literally have vampires that are essentially succubi and get their “food” from sexual energy rather than drinking blood. The Sidhe all seem to be attractive and in multiple instances we see these fairies use their bodies and sensuality and like weapons to entice and seduce and overpower Harry and others. 

And yet, there is a clear choice that Butcher has made here to have Harry notice every woman and describe them nipples first and then describe them again on a next encounter in the same way. Even Murphy who does get described by her stubbornness and her strength and her accomplishments and her prowess also has the attached description of how short and how cute she is and Harry does also sexualize her in his head. Susan gets similar treatment and in the first book we even get to see her throwing herself at Harry due to the imbibing of a mis-intended potion. 

So, yes, this is very much the male fantasy/male gaze in action. Harry has women — mostly supernatural women — throwing themselves at him and in-book context there are reasons for this, but we’re supposed to praise Harry for how much his male libido is telling him “yes” and how he manages to somehow rise above that and not take the temptation — there’s even a scene where he literally pours ice water down his pants. And to be honest, I see the problems, but I also think it fits his character and Butcher describes the series as “Dirty Harry Potter” so what can you do. 

The moment that it became truly a big problem for me was when Molly came into the picture. The first time that Harry has a scene with Molly she’s fourteen and I can’t quite remember the exact words used but I’m sure that he manages to notice her body.

Molly doesn’t return for a few more books, but when she does she’s seventeen and Harry definitely notices Molly then and while it is one thing to take notice once, he constantly goes back to noticing Molly throughout the book. Molly’s feelings during all of this is one thing in part because Molly is young and impressionable and I think most young women have crushes on older men they admire and look up to, but to continually make a point of having Harry notice Molly and be attracted to Molly is icky. It doesn’t even matter that Harry doesn’t intend to act on it and that he actively puts a stop to it when Molly tries to turn things in that direction, mostly because in books following this one Harry still always takes a moment to appreciate Molly’s appearance and not just him but other male characters. 

So, yes, the sexulization aspect of the books is not the best, but I did appreciate that at least earlier on Harry is a bit demure when he is with women. His sexual acts are not described in detail. I was a bit surprised, then, when we did get slightly more graphic descriptions when it came to Harry and Murphy. It’s nothing like what you’ll find in fanfic, but it was a surprise. 

And the thing that also gets me about this is how easily Harry being this way could be explained because of his past and because of how Harry relates to sex, but instead Butcher explains it by saying that Harry is repressed because he isn’t getting any so that’s why he notices every woman that comes into his life. 

I will also point out that there aren’t just women supernatural beings, and that aside from Thomas who is described as the perfect man — strong and attractive and young, a lot of the male characters are a bit rougher and older and monstrous. 

Now, I’m not the best person to speak on this, but religion is a bit strange in Dresden. Mostly because while we have characters like Odin and Hades show up we also have fallen angels and archangels and characters that believe in God and have faith. But we have Christian artifacts in play so I do feel like there is a bias towards Christianity. 

Overall, I did enjoy these books. I think it’s a really good immersive story and that the world is interesting and ever expanding and that as a fantasy series — in particular an urban fantasy series — it is one of the best out there and I can’t wait to see where the rest of the series takes us. So I do recommend it with the caveat that it isn’t perfect and that some books are better than others but that as a whole it is an enjoyable read. 

--

Other Meta/Reviews 

[princeescaluswords]

Fanon!Stiles so often has me wondering why he's oh so surprised when his friends/pack ~ditch~ him. This is a guy who casually thinks how utterly stupid his ~friends~ but especially Scott are, that it almost seems like a chore just to be around them, he insults them freely. But I'm supposed to feel bad when they kick him out? It's.... so funny. Fanon!Stiles talks about how unfit Scott is as leader but is heartbroken when he can't be in his pack

This is where you get me in trouble.  

One of the ways that people deflect criticism of the way Stiles Stilinski is written – both in the show and in fan fiction – is by claiming that any attempt by a reader or a critic of holding Stiles to a level of behavior that one would expect of a character who is a secondary protagonist is ableism.  Consequently, that word appears a lot in my inbox.  

Stiles is neurodivergent.   While its portrayal in the production was sketchy at best – during the entire series of medical scenes in 3B, the only reference to his ADHD was Stiles saying “No, the Adderall’s not working.”   One would think that – especially when Noah talked to Melissa or Noah and Melissa talked to the doctor -- it would come up at least tangentially in a discussion of his symptoms or his diagnosis. But there is more enough evidence to say that Stiles has ADHD and probably some form of anxiety.   

What does that mean for my criticism of him?  I have to be careful about how I describe the sources of his behavior.  Luckily, I feel confident that I can still criticize Stiles for his behavior, because even if neurodivergence is one source of some of his behavior, I can still discern other motives for other instances of behavior.  

Because, beyond missing social cues, beyond impulsivity, and beyond lack of emotional control, Stiles is mean.  He’s mean to Scott, he’s mean to Derek, he’s mean to Jackson, he’s mean to Matt, he’s mean to Isaac, he’s mean to Lydia, he’s mean to Ashley, he’s mean to Jared, he’s mean to Liam, and he’s even mean to Theo.  (Yes, two of those people are villains, but they were not revealed as villains to the characters when Stiles interacted with them).  Beyond those things, he’s still consciously rude.  He’s deliberately rude to Boyd, Ethan, Danny, and Deaton.    He deliberately insults people in ways that demonstrate that he’s fully aware of what is going on.  He deliberately disregards other people’s needs in order to fulfill his own.  Note, because for some reason this needs to be said, he’s not always mean or rude to these individuals; it’s never an all-or-nothing thing.  You can love a person and still be mean to them.  

And again, this isn’t speaking to underlying factors, such as he’s a sixteen-year-old boy or that he’s in the middle of supernatural clusterfuck.  As has been pointed out to me, we only get to see Stiles in crisis mode throughout the series. We don’t see pre-Scott-Bite Stiles.  We don’t get to see Summer-of-2011 Stiles.   We don’t get to see Six-Months-of-No-One-Trying-to-Kill-Us Stiles. We don’t get to see Post-Canon Stiles.   Probably, when he’s not being pursued by murderous alphas or mad scientists, he’s a lot more pleasant to be around.  

But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s still mean, and that the fandom enjoys the power fantasy that Stiles can be mean (can lie, can violate boundaries, can break the law with impunity) and no one should ever hold it against him.  In both the production and the fanfiction, there’s often the premise that people are in the wrong if they hold this behavior against him.

Take Season 1.  As much as the anti-Scott brigade might love making hay out of Scott’s comment “Well, then they had a reason,” as the height of depravity, they consciously and steadfastly ignore the cruel things that Stiles says to Derek throughout the seasons, such as “Hey, try not to bleed out on my seats, okay?”  (As an aside, it’s amazing to me how fanon creates Stiles as this brilliant thinker who is so much smarter and better than Scott in every way, except Stiles spends the entirety of Magic Bullet (1x04) and The Tell (1x05) screaming at Scott on the phone because he doesn’t know what to do.  But I digress.)

Or Take Season 5.  In the rain argument in Lies of Omission (5x09), Stiles famous speech is one of the meanest, cruelest manipulations I’ve ever seen a television character deliver to another television character they supposedly cared about.  And, of course, most of fandom focuses exclusively on the idea that Scott didn’t behave perfectly in that scene, and cannot entertain for one moment the idea that Stiles provoked that response.   After all, it’s part of the fantasy.

Stiles being pushed out of the pack serves another type of fantasy: the oppression fantasy.  It doesn’t matter why Stiles is pushed out of the pack or who is pushing Stiles out of the pack, it’s about Stiles’s right to be in the pack without having to account for his own behavior.   Look at some these stories.   One common variation is that Stiles is reckless in battle and constantly gets injured, and the alpha, whether Derek or Scott, determines that it’s better for him and the pack that he not be involved.  This is often – and strangely enough – paired with Scott not recognizing that Stiles is human and not capable of what a werewolf can do.   (Derek is left out of these, because they chose to forget that the only person to actually reject Stiles’s help, to call him ‘skinny and defenseless’ and ‘a hyperactive spaz’ is Derek.)  They ignore the inherent contradictions in this position, and there is seldom if ever valid recognition that the alpha has a responsibility to more than just Stiles.  Only Stiles is important here.  Hilariously, a common resolution is that Stiles goes somewhere and does something to become powerful and instead of saying “I’m okay now to help” decides to rub it in people’s faces.  It had nothing to do with powerlessness – it had to do with Stiles’s feelings and motivations.

And that’s the point – Only Stiles is Important and Damn Scott/Derek/Noah/Other Character for having motivations that don’t revolve around Stiles.   The pack exists not to serve all its members, but to validate Stiles.   Because, after all, that’s what the writers want for themselves – validation in the face of shortcomings and bad behavior.  

[autumnblogs]

Day 38: Death of the Author

https://homestuck.com/story/4771

While on the one hand I think we should regard what Aranea has to say with a bit of suspicion - she’s an unreliable narrator, and all of her hubris suggests that her body metaphor for Reality probably has her seeing herself as an eye, or a brain, or a head. But I think that what she says about individuality is pretty spot on, especially since we know that she’s a God - she speaks with authority on that sort of thing.

In Paradox Space, it isn’t so much that your choices determine who you are as that who you are, intrinsically, determine what your choices will be - but you’re always capable of multiple choices, unless you’re very closed-minded! It’s what makes people like Jake so hard to predict!

https://homestuck.com/story/4813

The Author is Dead.

Anyone who is actually in my audience is probably familiar with the concept of the Death of the Author.

But just in case you aren’t, here it is in a nutshell; You can never know what the Author means, because words convey our intentions imperfectly always, and more often misrepresent us horribly than not, so when we read a work of fiction, our interpretation should not attempt to bring into account what the Author was trying to say.

This is not an excuse to divorce ourselves from egregious behavior by certain authors, enjoying their work while disavowing them is more often than not an excuse not to critically examine problematic ideas in their work.

https://homestuck.com/story/4816

Like this whole thing. This whole thing right here. I’ve been increasingly frustrated with the way that Homestuck engages with sex and minors, and there’s nowhere that it does so more troublingly than with Andrew’s (the character’s (admittedly tongue-in-cheek)) pursuit of Vriska. It’s just kind of irresponsible and gross.

https://homestuck.com/story/4839

Tavros’ takeaway from his deadly encounter with Vriska does not, at least, seem to be that he should just roll back over - he has still managed to retain some of his pluck, and now that he doesn’t have anything to fear from her, he is noticeably a lot sassier with her.

https://homestuck.com/story/4840

That said, he’s still kind of a pushover.

https://homestuck.com/story/4850

It occurred to me while I was reading this that Vriska and Tavros are juxtaposed with Jake and Dirk - strengthening their parallels - and I think I can retroject this onto Jane - Gamzee becomes her “guide” even if only tongue and cheek, and only for a moment, because she’s the Heiress, and she’ll need a nice juggalo enforcer to help her out once she comes into her own.

https://homestuck.com/story/4857

I feel like, given their shared interests, Jake and Aradia would really get along quite well, at least as friends - they have a lot of shared interests, and there are a lot of ways he’s quite similar to Tavros.

Poor kid. I really don’t blame Jake for being maladjusted. Some of the ways that he’s a great big fuckup are legitimately his own fault, and he’s definitely resistant to confronting his emotional issues.

But like, he still had to live alone for most of his childhood on this island full of deadly monsters. At least Dirk and Roxy don’t have to put up with the daily terror of monstrous beasts whenever they want to leave their houses.

https://homestuck.com/story/4864

I wish that this didn’t sound so depressingly familiar.

https://homestuck.com/story/4865

A quick note that Dirk repeats the phrase Western Civilization multiple times throughout this whole conversation; this specific interest in Western Civilization is just this really specifically white nationalist thing that has kind of percolated into American Culture as part of the right-wing melange, and is one of the whole bunch of Ur-Fascist things about Dirk as a person.

https://homestuck.com/story/4875

Like I said, when Jake isn’t being a big doofus, he is scarily intelligent and perceptive. He’s just willfully oblivious.

https://homestuck.com/story/4877

We’ll pause here for the night.

It’s easy to forget how arbitrarily powerful Jake is underneath the hood. He’s just a great big doofus, but he’s aware of all kinds of things on the narrative layer.

In any case, tomorrow we’ll come back and watch Jack Noir faff about a bunch on Propsit.

Cam signing off for the night, Alive, and cozy with pet cats. It is seriously kitty city up in here.

[thejustmaiden]

Oh no, I’m not the same anon from the VA! 😅 I also dislike that they tell antis not to watch it or to blacklist it. Why should I have to blacklist something that I enjoyed as a child just because I disagree with them? Why should I listen to them and not watch it? It irks me how they have the audacity to say that just because we don’t like their ship. I don’t think they understand how harmful this could be for people.

Oh then, my bad!! Hi again anyway! 🤗

You said it, nonnie. I can't tell you how many times I've seen certain Sessrin supporters tell us "if you don't like it, then stop watching." Hmmm I can't help but wonder if the tables were turned how they'd like it if fans were telling them the same. I mean, Sessrin may very well not go canon and I doubt some will take kindly to it.

I recently brought this same issue up in another answered ask of mine (maybe your last one? I'm losing track! lol), because it also irks me beyond belief. Why aren't we as viewers allowed to be critical of our entertainment? Take movie critics for example. They may give a movie they're reviewing an overall positive rating, but that doesn't mean that all of them enjoyed every single minute of the film. It's their job to praise the parts they liked, but it's also their job to discuss the parts they didn't like as much and point out areas that could be improved.

A lot of us fans who identify as anti-Sessrin are obviously invested in Inuyasha as much as the next fan. For many of us, it was our first-ever anime or maybe it's just that it brings back some really fond childhood memories. Whatever the case may be, it's clear that Inuyasha isn't just some show. It means a great deal to many of us in this fandom, and a lot of us (antis at least) feel that it would be a completely out of character move for Sessrin to go canon. It just wouldn't make one ounce of sense.

Even Sessrin shippers themselves will claim that there wasn't any foreshadowing while Rin was young, which is why you'd think they'd understand why we're so perplexed by the sheer possibility of a romantic future between the two. Then again I've seen conflicting reports, because there are times I'm not so sure I can take some of those shippers' word for it. That is when they make comments like "props to Rin for bagging the most handsome and powerful demon just by flashing a smile" because then it really makes you wonder. Granted, that's not verbatim but you get the gist. The takeaway message here is that she was just a girl and they're making inappropriate comments to imply Sessrin in fact started a lot earlier than they themselves claim would've been allowed.

Nowhere should Sesshomaru's opinion of Rin as a child factor into this ship's potential for going canon. What I think is happening is that they want us to think they don't believe there are any hints at a romantic future already planted in Rin's childhood, but it's evident that's not true at all. Admitting to that out loud would of course prove them wrong and they just can't have that, hence why you'll rarely see them make these kind of remarks in an openly public space. That's the case for Tumblr, at least, however Twitter and Reddit are a whole other kind of beast.

These stories we invest so much time and energy into are more than capable of impacting real people, believe it or not. I'm not gonna lie, since this sequel was announced I've been on Inuyasha mode pretty much every damn day. It's like I've gone back in time and I'm 13 all over again! Except this time around I'm not able to fully embrace it as I once did. That reason being because I'm an adult now who can understand the profound and far-reaching effects fiction can have on our lives. Why else do you think so many of us on here are as passionate and involved as we are? Our fictional stories are important to us because they reflect our real life stories. That's how they resonate with us!

So it really kills to me see that actual adult fans still don't seem to understand by now the strong links between real life and fiction. They will refuse to accept the truth even if it slapped them in the face.

In case some of you reading misinterpret my words and suggest I'm telling you shipping Sessrin is wrong, you're mistaken. I'm not sure how many more times I need to repeat myself, but I suppose once more wouldn't hurt? (Here we go- wish me luck!):

LIKE SOME OF YOUR VERY OWN SHIPPERS HAVE ADMITTED THEMSELVES, Sessrin wouldn't be appropriate in a real life situation. Because of that reason alone, it shouldn't be appropriate on a show aimed at a young audience either. That's it, that's literally it! Ship away if it pleases you, but just agree that it'd be safer to keep a ship with this particular dynamic to mature and/or adult-themed entertainment AKA not Inuyasha. So can we shake on that? Fist pump?? Blood oath?! (Too far? Lol)

Alrighty, nonnie, appreciate you stopping by again. Hoping I answered your ask the way you wanted and that this finds you well, dear!

[leguin]

on the magicians, mental illness, and media criticism

CW for extended discussion of suicide, suicidal ideation, hospitalization, and syfy’s the magicians.

(crossposted to dreamwidth for readability)

recently i’ve had a lot of time on my hands, and so obviously i’ve been thinking about a comment i saw a few months ago on a magicians instagram post. the comment, which was left in response to an ongoing debate about the season 4 finale of the magicians (and liked by executive producer of the show chris fisher), argued that mentally ill people shouldn’t watch shows in which bad things happen to mentally ill characters because they might confuse it with real life and be triggered by it. the implication of this comment was that criticism of the show by mentally ill people is not worth listening and responding to because it’s unreasonable - because we have, in some way, confused the show with real life, and taken to heart the events that happened in it too deeply. furthermore, it implies that the solution to this is for mentally ill people to avoid being a part of the audience of the magicians.

this is an interesting argument to make given that quentin, one of the main characters in the show, is canonically depressed - very seriously so, at points. if we assume that the comment’s argument is correct, the question has to be asked: who is quentin for, and who is meant to relate to him, if not mentally ill viewers? of course, we also have to ask if this argument is correct in the first place. the answer is that it clearly isn’t, but it seemed to me to be worth some consideration - after all, i spent two or three days after watching the season 4 finale deeply depressed and barely functional, and that’s a reaction i’m eager to avoid having ever again.

so, some thoughts on the magicians, portrayals of mental illness and suicide in media, and criticism of those portrayals:

while thinking about this, i’ve realized that an awful lot of the media most important to me (e.g. flowers, the fall, please like me, wolf in white van, the goldfinch) involves bad things happening to mentally ill characters - including said characters trying or even succeeding in killing themselves. one of the assumptions that the comment’s argument makes is that all approaches to depicting mental illness are equal. but i’d be remiss if i didn’t note that none of these books, shows, or movies sent me spiraling into a depressive episode when i first encountered them, and that they all remain dear to me. i have rewatched/read and enjoyed all them several times, and often felt gratified to see my experiences with mental illness and suicidal ideation reflected in them. to me, this proves that there are responsible, non-triggering ways to portray these difficult, horrible, isolating experiences. (which is not to say that my experience with any of this is universal, but the fallout from the magicians‘ handling of suicide has been much more widespread and longlasting than i’ve seen with any other media concerning similar topics).

up until the season 4 finale, i counted the magicians as one of those shows i could watch to feel less alone. i was especially grateful to see a depressed character who has a difficult history with hospitalization and medication, something i strongly relate to. quentin is a character who makes it through almost four seasons of television by the skin of his teeth, without ever Solving The Problem of his depression, because on some levels it’s unsolvable, but learning and growing and loving all the same. i watched all of this, and thought it was good, and right, and important.

and then the season finale happened, and the magicians amply and unexpectedly demonstrated that there are also terrible, irresponsible ways to write about mental illness and suicide. the morning after the s4 finale i wrote:

i think i’m so upset because every part of quentin’s struggle with depression has been deeply resonant with my own experiences, up to and including his death, and that is not how i want to feel about someone who kills himself! i would like to see differences. i would like to see noticeable and appreciable differences!

and i keep thinking about that comment. wondering if along the way i did confuse something fictional with real life, if i made the same mistake quentin makes in relying too heavily on stories that let him down and make him try to be things he’s not.

but then i think, yknow, quentin is meant to be a character you see yourself in. the magicians was a show that purposefully appealed to people like q - people like me. he’s the audience surrogate, the depressed everyman, the person whose relationship with fiction is meant to reflect our own. he’s the guy who starts the show in a mental hospital. who in the world was meant to relate to quentin if not the people who have also sat on the other side of a desk from a doctor and told lies to try and get out of a hospital ward?

and the writers must’ve been aware of that. i say that not out of optimism, which i absolutely don’t have when it comes to this show, but because as late as the episode prior to the finale, they acknowledged that quentin was a character who was representative of a kind of relationship with fiction that is somewhat maladaptive, but also sometimes absolutely vital to survival. quentin says, in episode 4x12,

the idea of fillory is what saved my life. this promise that people like me, people like me, can somehow find an escape.

it should go without saying that you don’t make that kind of character kill himself  - or, if you prefer, ‘sacrifice himself in a premeditated act that guaranteed his death, after ensuring he wouldn’t be rescued, and after spending a season with serious ongoing trauma he was unable to process.’ you don’t spin his death into something heroic. and you don’t spend a season afterwards having everyone he cared about talk about how trying to save him would be disrespecting how much his death meant for them, as though his life meant less. as though his life didn’t mean anything to him. it feels really obvious, as i type this, that you shouldn’t do that. and i don’t mean that in a moralizing way - we have studies that suggest portraying suicides like this can lead to a spike in copycat suicides. writers discussing these topics have a very real duty to doing so responsibly, carefully, and preferably in consultation with organizations or people who can provide feedback. to the best of my knowledge, the writers of the magicians did not do this.

i’ve become very aware in the last year that there are right ways and wrong ways to write about these topics. and so i find it hard to buy the argument that i’m still so deeply unhappy about the magicians because i’m someone who can’t be trusted to decide something as simple as what media to engage with. i’m capable of being discerning, and i go out of my way to avoid things i think i can’t handle. the magicians didn’t slip through because i thought it’d be fun to add ‘suicidally depressed’ back onto my resume. it slipped through because it started out telling a story in a way that felt right, and then it took an abrupt, awful turn.

likewise, i find it hard to believe that i should be barred from criticizing the magicians because i was hurt too deeply by it - or that my criticism, my unreasonable, illegitimate criticism, is the reason why the show was canceled. there are people who can reasonably be blamed for how and why the magicians ended, and people who can’t be. something else that should go without saying: the actors and the audience are not in that first category. my recognition that the show’s treatment of quentin’s death is a seriously cautionary tale on a number of levels is not a problem. writing that story in the first place, and continuing to defend it in the face of any and all criticism is.

[microsuedemouse]

hhhhhhhhhhhhhwoof I hate fandom/ship drama

anyway I’ve been thinking about how. there is nothing, inherently wrong,, with being interested in exploring ships (or even non-romantic/non-sexual character dynamics!) that are unhealthy in-universe.

here’s something: there is value in recognising that a ship is unhealthy or toxic or abusive or whichever other descriptor you feel fits best. (I am going to be using ‘unhealthy’ as my umbrella word in this post; obviously it’s an understatement to call an abusive relationship ‘unhealthy’ but it’s still accurate and it encompasses the variety of things I’m talking about.) there is value in taking that as fact and acknowledging such in whatever exploratory work you may choose to create or engage in.

I wanna take a second here to clarify part of what I mean: it is not inherently wrong to enjoy an unhealthy ship, and you are not required to defend a ship as healthy/‘not abusive’ in order to justify your interest in it. this is a very weird result, imo, of purity culture and virtue signalling. when you have a healthy understanding of the difference between fiction and reality, and a recognition of what’s acceptable in reality and what’s compelling in fiction, it’s actually very worth exploring what interests and engages you about Fictional Bad Things.

you know that phenomenon where people love villains? a lot of discourse around purity culture naturally leads to the conclusion: “it is wrong to like villains.” most of us are capable of recognising that this... doesn’t make sense. because obviously, we aren’t - or at least, the great majority of us aren’t - claiming that we would like and support this person in reality, or that we would be entirely comfortable with the deeds they commit if those deeds took place in reality. we’re saying that the character appeals to and compels us for some reason, within fiction. that’s a different thing - and it’s usually a sign of good writing! it’s very worth exploring that experience: what about this villain makes you like them so much? what about them makes them relatable to you, or sympathetic to you, or perhaps even cathartic to you? these kinds of questions can offer both entertainment value and, possibly, some new insights into yourself as a person. those insights might turn out to be interesting and meaningless, or they might provide you with new ways to express yourself, or they might even offer you a new avenue for growth.

(moral purity often also extends to the conclusion ‘you shouldn’t enjoy stories in which the main character suffers, because it’s wrong to enjoy someone’s pain.’ we all know this makes no sense, because that includes most stories. a major reason human beings tell stories is to share in the emotional journey of a protagonist ultimately overcoming great obstacles. but anyway, this is a whole other issue, really.)

what I’m getting at is - the same can apply to ships. there are a few approaches to unhealthy ships, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say they stand on equal moral ground, but there are a variety of ways you might be able to explore them without it making you an inherently evil person, or whatever. it’s also worth noting that while, obviously, I’m expressing here what aligns with my moral position and encouraging you to think similarly - but, I also encourage you to think critically about your own moral positions. decide what is comfortable for you, and what feels right to engage with. it’s fine and it’s normal to draw your own lines in the sand and say, this is where the range of acceptable ends for me. I won’t support or engage with what’s on the other side.

to give a quick overview of some approaches I’m not as comfortable with: sometimes you’ll find a writer/artist/other fan who likes to depict a ship as totally healthy in a way that can only be described as out-of-character. sometimes this seems to be a denial of the actuality of the ship; I don’t like that so much because it’s often a refusal to acknowledge that their canonical behaviour/dynamic is bad. other times this is depicted as a sort of AU; this doesn’t bother me quite as much personally (often depending on what the writer’s overall attitudes seem to be) but it’s also often less interesting to me. in my experience, this is usually very self-indulgent work and has a lot more to do with the writer’s own experiences than with canon itself. which is fair, honestly. sometimes that’s cathartic for the writer and that’s enough - I don’t have to be into it personally to respect it.

another thing that crops up that’s kind of worrisome, imo, is when a writer/artist/etc. depicts the ship as in-character but denies that it’s unhealthy. now, in fairness, if you’re simply reading a fic or looking at a piece of fanart or something, you cannot always tell exactly how the creator thinks the ship actually operates. not everyone is always going to include a disclaimer that says ‘hey I don’t think this is actually Good.’ so try not to immediately ascribe intent to the writer/etc. unless you’ve seen them state outright somewhere: this isn’t abuse, it’s just cute! (or whatever it is they’re seeing.) at that point it is worth being concerned about what this person thinks constitutes a healthy relationship, and if you don’t feel good about supporting their work that’s entirely fair.

HOWEVER. there are also other approaches. two in particular stand out to me that I think are worth discussing. one is simply exploring the possibilities of an unhealthy relationship, with total acknowledgement of its flaws. one unhealthy dynamic that I admittedly find really engaging a lot of the time? ‘these two characters are Very obsessed with each other, and it sure ain’t healthy psychologically, but it’s definitely mutual.’ I love that shit. gimme a couple of unhinged, incredibly codependent pieces of shit, and you have my full attention. particularly if they’re on equal footing - if they’re damaging one another, it’s reciprocal, or at very least they’re both getting exactly what they want out of the relationship. obviously this would not be a dynamic I could support in real life! that’s terrible and I don’t want anyone to go through it! but in fictional characters it can be fascinating to explore. and if the content is going to upset or trigger certain fans: that’s why we use tags and warnings. AO3, where many of us go for a huge amount of our fan content, literally has a whole system in place for precisely this purpose: so we can let each other know what’s inside, and make informed choices about what we want to consume.

the other common approach is the redemption arc. it’s always gonna be up to you which characters you consider redeemable and which ones you don’t - that’s okay. again, it’s your choice what content to engage and what to pass over. but as people we’re traditionally very fond of the redemption arc story, and as fans we love to create the redemption arcs our favourite characters don’t get to live out in canon. because we love something about the character and want to explore them further. like I said earlier, that in itself is worth giving some thought to. sometimes we’ll even end up writing partial redemptions: this character goes from totally reprehensible to kind of appealingly awful. the ship goes from abusive to a much more regular level of fucked up. that can definitely be an interesting story in itself, and it’s okay if you want to explore it.

the main thing is that you always exercise your ability to think critically about what you’re consuming and why you like it - which, honestly, you should be trying to do all of the time, anyway. be clear about what you do and don’t endorse, about what your actual values are, about where you draw the line. (as both an example and a disclaimer, since I know I still have followers from A Certain Fandom where this cropped up a lot before I mostly dipped: one line that I personally draw, and always will, is at ships involving an adult and a literal child. I am not comfortable with exploring this even in the hypothetical space of fan content. it is too objectionable to be compelling.)

go forth. explore your unhealthy ships and shitty favourite characters. experiment and learn why they compel you. write properly-labelled fanfic about them hurting each other and loving it. just remember that everyone has different boundaries, and that fiction and reality are very separate spaces. acknowledge that what you’re enjoying is not inherently right or acceptable in real life just because you enjoy it in a story, and it doesn’t have to be. if you’re a content creator, consider portraying these things in such a way that your audience is well aware of your position on the matter, in order to help them also understand what is and isn’t healthy. be a ruthless writer and a kind person, and you’ll do just fine.

[spacecadetal]

New Blood (a Kakashi Hatake x OC fic) - Chapter One

Warnings: Use of violence, violence, use of knives, swearing, drinking, death mention, death

Read on AO3 or below the line

As the sun began to rise, Kakashi swung his legs over his bed. Stretching his bare body high in preparation for what the day would bring. Whether that was a mission or battle. Grateful for the previous day of rest, Kakashi couldn’t deny he was beginning to feel the pressures of being shinobi.

Orochimaru had caused devastation around the village. Buildings destroyed, lives taken, and the Third Hokage gone. Because of this, manpower was scarce and in an attempt to assure the village appeared just as strong as before to outside eyes, missions continued to be carried out. Despite shinobi in the village being stretched thinner than rice paper.

To make matters worse, Sasuke Uchiha left the village in pursuit of power and revenge. A squad being sent after him to recover him only ended in disastrous results. The village was lucky not to lose anyone but still two members of the squad were left in critical condition while the rest were in need of proper rest. Unfortunately, this left Kakashi to fill in any gap that was in need of filling.

With a book in hand, Kakashi quickly ate breakfast before he prepared himself for the day. Flak vest on, knives packed, headband fastened around his head, Icha Icha packed in the breast pocket of his vest. Ready for what the day may bring.

“Kakashi, you're needed on an A Grade mission. Intel for a client I’m unable to name at this time. You’ll be leaving tomorrow at dawn” Tsunade had said as soon as he arrived at her office, surrounded by paperwork.

“Who is on this squad?”

“It’s a two person squad. You and Gai”

Ah yes. Another Gai and Kakashi adventure. He had been wondering when he would have another one of those. At least this mission should be amusing with Gai tagging along.

“I see. Is that all?”

“No, actually I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I’ve decided because this village is in need of manpower, we need more genin trained to be prepared for anything Orochimaru or anyone else may throw at us. So I’ve outsourced some chunin from across the country to come to Konoha and help prepare the genin for the chunin examinations. We’ll be holding them earlier than usual”

“So where does this leave me?”

“You’re one of the best we have right now. I need you focused on missions. Because Naruto is under Jiraiya now and Sasuke has gone to Orochimaru, Sakura will be trained by someone else”

“Then who will continue her training?”

“Maia Setsudan,” Tsunade said as she slid the folder over to Kakashi.

Kakashi opened it. A picture of a young woman stared back at him. Long brown hair, dark brown eyes, light skin. A serious look on her face. The record itself was thin. No missions, no history of her training, no rank. Just her basic details and stats.

“I don’t mean to question your judgment but this woman has not been trained in any type of jutsu, by anyone”

Despite all of that, her record appeared clean. Nothing sticking out at him, her stats however pointed to her abilities being of a jonin level and this confuses him greatly.

“Not officially no but I’ve seen her skills and she owes me a favour” Tsunade smiled. “The others are at least chunin, yes they did not continue their training but I’m assured they’ll assist the students in any way they can”

“My decision is final. This is only temporary Kakashi”

Kakashi accepted the decision, walking out of the office. He would never doubt Hokage, never disobey Hokage. They were Hokage for a reason but Tsunade had to have lost her mind.

__________________________________________________

In a little clearing, surrounded by trees stood two out of three of Mais Setsudan’s students.

“Hello, I’m glad to meet you both. And I’m sure it will be good to meet Sakura when she gets back. Nevermind that. I’m Maia, just Maia. No need to call me sensei or anything else. I’m just here to help you guys out”

“Now my speciality is knives. Knives are dangerous weapons if you use them right. You can hit your opponents chakra points if you aim them precisely, with agility and speed you can slice your opponent to ribbons.”

“But it would be foolish of me not to have other stances to fall back on. My belief is that ninja should always have a form that acts as both offence and defence”

Kakashi sat hidden in the trees, legs firmly planted on a branch, watching as this woman gave her students a lecture. Stances that enabled both defence and offence of course was a good idea in theory, but realistically sometimes you weren’t able to do so.

“Ma’am-Maia I’m not really skilled in defence” a student, Moto, quietly spoke.

Nodding to himself, Kakashi understood that this wasn’t realistic for every student. Some were just not capable of performing such jutsu, mostly countering this with other stances to make up for it. Knowing your weakness was as important as knowing your strengths. He would give this Maia Setsudan the benefit of the doubt, maybe she would prove to be a capable mentor after all.

“And that’s okay. At your age I was only learning offence but I also learnt how to defend too eventually”

At your age? So she did have training. Nothing formal that Kakashi could see on her record so the question was: who trained her?

Konoha was in a compromising situation as it was these days. Last thing they needed was someone coming into the village and turning out to be a spy for someone that did not have Konoha’s best intentions at heart.

“Look I’ll show you” Maia said, getting herself into stance.

She began running in circles slowly, a wall of wind slowly forming at her feet and growing towards the treetops, forming to incase her in a dome.

“When I say so, throw your kunai at me” Maia ordered.

As she continued to run in circles, increasing her speed, the dome began to form fully. To Kakashi this was a basic wind wall, nothing special or out of the ordinary.

“Now!”

Moto threw his kunai at the dome but on impact the kunai bounced off the dome, flying back towards the student. Kakashi was ready to move and catch it if necessary, getting into position but as he moved to leap, something stopped him. It was Maia leaving her wind dome, running to the kunai and grabbing it before it was inches away from the student’s eye.

“Why didn’t you block or dodge?” she simply asked, no anger in her tone.

“I-I don’t know it’s like my brain froze”

“Well...just don’t do that on the battlefield…”

She was fast, sure but that was dangerously close and maybe Tsunade should be informed that a student almost got seriously injured during the first day of training.

“With the wall, I generate enough speed to defend myself and if my wall is attacked then my wall deflects my opponents attacks back onto them. This includes attacks involving chakra too”

Attacks involving chakra? How could this be? It only stunned Kakashi because it was a basic move weaponised into something more. His suspicions lead him to the conclusion that the dome was infused with low levels of chakra.

“I can also move with my wall meaning my opponents will be knocked over or caught in the wind trap. A basic form can be transformed and with enough training you can use these basic forms as weapons. My wall works for me because of how comfortable I am with speed but we will find where your skills lie and match your forms to that”

Kakashi had watched the rest of the lesson. Waiting for Maia to slip up, give him a reason to run to Tsunade and tell her she’s made a massive mistake but the almost kanui to the eye was the only slip up Maia had made.

She was attentive to the students. Focusing on their strengths and their weaknesses, giving them small adjustments to help chakra flow. It was a very basic lesson but Maia was becoming familiar with the students and this was the best way to do it.

“Next time I want you two to fight each other. Friendly clean match. I just want to see how you do your thing”

That was lesson over, Maia and her students parting ways into the forest and back to the village.

Shadowing her through the forest, Kakashi watched as she walked on her own. For someone so fast she sure enjoyed dawdling along, taking in the trees and the flowers along her path. Maia was an attractive young woman, Kakashi wouldn’t deny that. Her method, from first impression, seemed fine despite the almost injury but Kakashi wasn’t always going to be hidden in the treetops waiting for her to slip up. Despite all of this, a bigger question remained. Who was she? Because if she was a spy or collecting intel for someone then this put Konoha in jeopardy. Even if she knew Tsunade, doesn’t mean others close to the village hadn’t betrayed it before.

Kakashi decided to continue shadowing her through the village. Figure out what kind of character she truly was. Maybe she would prove him right, meet with some contact in the shadows and show him that her intentions were not so pure as they appeared.

Instead of some thrilling spy chase, Kakashi found Maia’s time in the village quite uneventful. She had taken quite some time picking out ingredients at the food stalls, Kakashi could feel himself yawning as she weighed up two carrots. Maia continued to walk around the market, stopping at a bookstore. A copy of some smutty romance novel in hand as she walked out of the store. Kakashi’s eyebrow rose, he himself was a lover of erotic fiction. Perhaps she was as big a pervert as he was, not that he’d openly admit he was a pervert or anything.

He had been shadowing her for a while before he lost her in the crowd. In the streets now instead of the rooftops. Kakashi frowned for a moment as he scanned the crowd, no sign of her anywhere. Still he continued to walk through the crowd, pretending to be minding his own business.

“Can I help you with something?” A voice said to his right, almost making him jump in the air.

Looking to its owner, he found Maia Setsudan. Height wise she came up to his neck, a little shorter than him but she had glared at him as if she was seven inches taller than him. Brown onion in hand ready to pelt him.

“You were up in the trees during my lesson and now you’re following me through the streets. What do you want?”

She knew he was there? How? Kakashi frowned. He’s not detected by just anyone, let alone a ‘shinobi’ with no formal training and Maia was starting to catch on to that.

“Your hair was sticking out from the tree you were watching me from” she laid it out plainly. “Then I saw you on the rooftop at the market”

Kakashi still was yet to say anything, he just couldn’t believe he had picked a terrible hiding spot to begin with.

“No need to frown. If anything I should be the one frowning. I don’t appreciate being followed”

“I’m Kakashi Hatake, Sakura’s mentor” Kakashi finally spoke.

“Ah… I see. You were just making sure your student was in good hands and I can assure you she is” Maia seemed to be beginning to warm up to him despite him shadowing her. Understanding the concern a past mentor may have for his student.

“Can I ask who trained you?”

There it was, the question Maia hated being asked the most. Her smile has started off as genuine but now she started to smile sweetly, a way to hide her frustration. She told Tsunade she would be well behaved. It was a shame he had to ask, she really was warming up to him.

“A shinobi who left his village”

“A missing-nin?”

“Yes. Is that all?” Maia said directly, her patience fading rather quickly. What is this? Interrogation hour?

“What gave you the idea to allow Moto to throw a knife at your shield if you knew it would rebound back at him?”

“Well… I guess my expectations for formally trained ninja of his level were too high” she said, a puff of air leaving her nose in the form of laugh, “but I’m sure you would have stepped in if I had neglected to do so”

Kakashi swallowed hard. She was trying to playing games with him, something he didn’t care too much for. He could stand around all day, taking her quips but he truly had better things to do.

“If that’s all, it was good to meet you Kakashi Hatake.” she said as she walked by, refusing to look back at Kakashi as she left him standing in the crowd alone.

Maia’s happy place was always in the kitchen. No matter how busy her mother was, working two jobs to support them, she always had time to cook dinner. Maia would watch, standing on a wooden crate, helping peel vegetables and wash rice. It’s no wonder she became a chef.

Cooking was second nature, so was holding a knife. She had cooked her mee goreng, sat herself on the couch shovelling it into her mouth as she dived into the new novel she had bought that day.

Descriptions of lust and sensual touching filled Maia’s focus. It had been a very long time since she let a man into her life, let alone in her bed. But it was okay, she lived vicariously through characters in fictional worlds getting their rocks off instead.

As she turned the page, throwing a noodle into her mouth, her attention wandered to the man following her today. Kakashi Hatake.

One day long ago, her master had told her the story of the child prodigy of Konoha. The kid that made his own jutsu, a jutsu so powerful it could cut a lightning bolt in half. Maia remembered how her master told her that one man should not be capable of all that power and destruction and now Maia had stood face to face with him.

Though she felt as if she stood her ground, she still couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the man. For him to question her abilities and asking questions about her training just showed Maia that he was someone she had something to prove to. To prove she was a capable mentor and a capable shinobi. Not only to him but to the whole village, possibly even the world.

__________________________________________________

Maia ran through the forest, searching for the man she saw wander through earlier. Everyday this man would disappear into the forest and Maia would watch the village gates, waiting for him to return. This day, with her mother working a double shift, she bunked off school, instead she would follow him.

She came to a halt when she heard a sound, like a knife scraping on wood. Creeping slowly, Maia approached a shrub to hide, taking notice of the sound of her footsteps. There she crouched, her heartbeat flooding her ears. She thought she had gone unnoticed until-

“I can hear you” the man said, sitting alone in the forest on a rock, sharpening a stick with his kunai.

A young Maia popped her head out behind the large shrub, shy but curious.

“Are you a shinobi sir?”

“I used to be” the man said, unbothered.

“I thought they killed shinobi that ran away”

“They do but they haven’t found me yet”

Maia took a moment to absorb what the man truly said. He was on the run, jumping from town to town till he would eventually die.

“Can you teach me?”

“No way, the last thing I need is something kid exposing me to the whole village”

“But sir, I think I’m meant to be a shinobi”

“Yeah and? Every kid does”

“No, look”

Maia had begun running, running and running in circles. Her speed was unusual for her age, not as great as it would be when she grew older but still impressive. Maia had practised this for months, hoping to impress him so he’d take her on as his student. He began to stroke his chin in thought. Maybe this kid could be shinobi after all, however the shinobi way had the potential to be isolating, trapping. Once that was your path you could never leave and if you did, you’d be on the run for the rest of your life.

“What's the name kid?” the old man asked.

“I’m Maia!”

Next Chapter

[quietdaysco]

The Process: Research

Ever wanted to make something, but didn’t know where to start? We too. In this second installment of The Process, we’ve finished forming our idea and now it’s time to inform it. 

2. Research 

Mind you, this isn’t a “step two” per se. Here’s the big kicker on what we soon discovered about this part of development:

Research is an active, ongoing process, whose goals change throughout pre- to post-production.

We may have created the idea of Primrose Path but our research didn’t stop at the end of pre-production, as if to say we’ve got everything we need and now it’s time to dive into making it. During production, we still had questions. Research is the only reason that, if you stopped us on the side of the street, the topics of future biomaterials and methods, dynamic UI design, and historic architectural eras could all pop up in the same conversation.  

And all of that is valuable information to us, because researching is relevant in every area of the process! But what kind of information did we look for? 

Our five categories are Community Canvassing, Story & Character Development, Team Management, Game Design, and Marketing. 

Let’s break it down:

A. Community Canvassing

Identifying and learning our target audience.

Identify personal wants from our game.

We have to stop and think: what kind of game do we want to play? If you want something, chances are, there’s a group of people out there who want the same thing. They are our audience.

Identify the type of media and genres relevant to our game.

Our video game is a visual novel, and its market genres are predominantly adult, drama, and romance. Because the medium of visual novels originated and is popular in Japan, we use the term otome (Japanese for “maiden” or “girl”) or otoge (portmanteau of “otome” and “game”) in our genre list. So, our game is an adult, drama, romance, otome—or focused on a female main character who deals with a cast of potential male partners.

Case any census data and statistics on target and related communities’ research blogs.

This one was important to us because we like considering quantifiable data that gives us the bigger picture. Statistics blogs and databases helped us get a clearer view of different demographic subsets of the visual novel community. It’s also important that we read material about sister media like the general interactive fiction community, as both deal with reader input and resultant story-branching.

Inquire fans in those genres for game recommendations and any opinions.

Community hubs are a click away. We connected with others via forums like Reddit and instant messenger servers like Discord that specifically revolve around fans and game developers of the visual novel medium.

Read game reviews in those genres by other fans and critics.

The most interesting thing for us when we read these reviews is not so much what someone did or didn’t like, but what aspects of the game they focused on, and what other topics they decided to connect to their original answer. You may be surprised how people decide to expand on their answer and where tangents lead, which is very telling, valuable associations.

Connect with other developers for support and networking.

The Western visual novel community is a small community, but commercial success is not confined to said community. Building a rapport with other hardworking devs is important, as it follows us in such a small space—for better or worse. There’s a lot to learn from the wider indie development community, too.

B. Story & Character Development

Creating an organic experience.

Real-world parallels to inspire for or reference in game direction.

Whether we take a trip to the city with a camera and sketchbook, rent and buy books from libraries and bookstores, or visit Google Maps in satellite view, we are pulling up everything we need to inform our game’s locations, people, and events.

Observe and converse with people.

The behaviors, quirks, appearances, opinions, and feelings of people are abundant, and it’s not until we observe and sometimes familiarize ourselves with others that we catch some of the concerted expressions that create a nuanced individual. 

Interacting with others is first-hand experience, and listening to or reading others’ experiences is second-hand. If we can't write from first or second-hand experience, we must inform ourselves with other sources, as it’s crucial in writing characters with whom we may not directly or easily identify. We often defer to interviews and documentaries to start.

Psychology and sociology research.

Sometimes reading from experts about general trends and triggers of the human condition makes it easier for us to understand, verify, and better portray things like addictions, behavioral disorders and mental illnesses, fetishes, and cultural stigmas for our character development and world-building. Though this isn’t limited to negative or abnormal things we cannot identify. It can also be in what ways the values of a person or society evolve, or how players interact with video game avatars!

Read and deconstruct critically-acclaimed novels in our genres

It’s understood that if people want to become better writers, they have to become better readers. Being able to settle down with some traditionally-published, well-received books relevant to our interests will help us build on our knowledge of suitable writing conventions, as well as analyzing broader narrative elements, like plot pacing. We even have a list of writing resources saved to help us break it all down!

C. Team Management

Standardizing ways to increase workflow efficiency.

Pipeline development.

Know a general end-date to keep in mind for the finished product. Setting a scope for our project and a timeline for production challenges us to keep on task as we work towards that date. We’ve set ours up by month and refer to that document for phase estimation.

Time management, task delegation, task tracking, and work logs.

Whether your team is me, myself, and I, or made of employees and contractors, it’s important to stay synchronized and keep record of that progress. Quiet Days has our own GitScrum board to help us with assigning tasks, timing how long a task takes us versus the amount of time we expected it to take, and streamlining the process from start to finish. It also keeps track of percentage of overall project completion and key performance indicators (KIP), or the metrics of a user’s personal contribution and work ethic over a period of time. There are a plethora of other task management sites and apps available to use too.

Style guides to standardize writing and art.

Between the two of us at Quiet Days, we both work on the 2D art and writing, and we both default to different visual and writing styles. So, we’ve set up and continue to add to our respective guides, keeping the art style and narration and character portrayals consistent. This is especially helpful should we take up other artists or writers, so that they can easily assimilate into our workflow. 

Account delegation for social media and company correspondence.

Understanding who does what for cohesion under a company brand is important for its image. We share all accounts under the company name, so technically both of us have access, which works well for our team of two. It’s early, but so far “delegation” seems to have taken on a natural division between Coda and Elm—the former taking to micro-blogging, and the latter to streaming and forum correspondence. While this dynamic may change in the future, we both refer back to each other under the Quiet Days brand.

Potential for contracting help.

We’ve considered that there may be a time in production where a helping hand is needed. Additional considerations like the freelancing market and pricing are kept in mind for the future. 

D. Game design 

Scrutinizing game elements from a developer’s lens.

Consider for which platform to design.

PC? Mobile? Console? Cross-platform? While we are primarily designing our game to be played on PC, should we want to capitalize on popular handheld consoles like the Nintendo Switch, for example, things like game engines and builds, game optimization, resolution, encryption, touch capabilities, and content guidelines for their private company platform all need to be considered. These things change between platforms.

Consider designing globally.

There are people different from us who would like to enjoy our game too. We consider the user experience (UX) for things like the possibility of game translations and using fonts types that read well for different language characters like Chinese or Russian. We also consider how to customize the experience to accommodate for players with different cognitive abilities, which falls under accessibility features.

Play what’s commercially un/successful and community-recommended.

We can learn a lot from both good and bad game design, and what the community mostly consumes. We engage with these games and take notes on graphics, accessibility features, user interface (UI) designs, game mechanics, soundtracks, and overall presentation and aesthetic. What did we like and what would we have preferred?

Stay updated on game design development tips from industry heads

There are people who have been doing it much longer than we have, and a number of them are setting industry standards. We can learn a thing or two in how they handle a problem and find solutions.

E. Marketing 

Methods for optimizing outreach and return of investment.

Social media strategies for engaging and involving our audience.

We’ve laid the groundwork for character accounts on social media to launch as a way for our audience to interact with characters from our game. While role-playing is a fun marketing and meta world-building device, we’re exploring other cool avenues like exploitable images and audience challenges to drum up future participation. 

Types of advertising and promotional materials.

There may come a time when word-of-mouth may not be enough. Would we consider purchasing ad space on different sites for greater visibility, or spend money on “promoting” features on social media? Would we commission or create and sell promotional merchandising for our audience?

Crowdfunding platforms and prospects.

Popular ones like Patreon, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo all have their draws and their drawbacks for creators and supporters alike. For what expenses would we crowdfund? What additional rewards would we provide for the financial support, if any? Do we want financial support for our project, or continual financial support as a company creating content? Some developers don’t actually use these platforms to request funding, but as another way of advertising their game. Would we do that?

Cross-exposure with other devs.

Interviews, public events, and collaborations with other game developers is a win-win situation with everyone involved. We want to be able to not just network, but allow each other to introduce our products and skills to a greater audience, creating and sharing a unique, dedicated fanbase in the overlap.

The Takeaway

At the time of this post, we’re still in the production phase, so some of this information isn’t applicable right now, but no knowledge is wasted: these things will always be handy to know and consider for later. We’re making our decisions in lieu of—and even despite some of—our research, in order to create a game that we’ll love and hope others will too. It’s important that as a game developer, you too keep yourself informed!

Speaking of ongoing research, Western otome is a largely indie market with many small, tenacious teams and hardly any corporate studios. If you are a Western otome developer, please contact us! We’d love to interview you in a Q&A, get your input on your process, and feature your story on our blog! 

[thehappyspaceman]

Assorted Thoughts on The Dragon Prince Season Two

Hey, guys. Spaceman here, and… *sigh* …fine.

Since I reviewed season one of Netflix’s The Dragon Prince last week, I suppose I should talk about season two, which premiered last Friday. But I thought I already told you guys, The Dragon Prince… just doesn’t do much do much for me. Don’t get me wrong; season one wasn’t bad or anything, but it just kind of felt standard and a bit meh, so it was hard to get too excited for the second season, and I’m not going in expecting much—

HOLY SH—okay, wow, um… so, The Dragon Prince season two is actually kind of awesome, so… just… completely disregard everything I said in that last paragraph, because jeezus, I was wrong as hell. Seriously, this season is legit! Nearly every problem I had with season one is rectified in season two, all while still remaining subversive to my expectations. Let’s get into it!

The Animation

Okay, the first big, kind of obvious thing I have to talk about is the animation. That was one of the most criticized aspects of season one, the CGI, semi-2D look that just felt choppy in a lot of places, and I was super critical of it myself. Well, I have to hand it to Wonderstorm, because they really pull through on season two. It looks much smoother and more professional and doesn’t pull me out of the moment as it did in season one. Series creator Aaron Ehasz said in interviews that the animation would be more smoothed out, and I’m glad to hear that those words weren’t just hollow. It seems that the crew behind this show are willing to listen to criticism.

The Characters

I already talked about the main characters in my review of season one, so I don’t feel the need to talk much about them, since I don’t want to go into major spoiler territory just yet. With maybe one exception: Ezran. I criticized his character as feeling flat in season one, but he actually improves quite a great deal in season two. It’s nice seeing him form a bond with the baby dragon, Azymondias, and how it takes a toll on Bait, his animal companion from season one, who feels neglected. Also, his reaction when he discovers that his father had died seems… very believable. With little time dedicated to it and few words spoken, he goes through the entire spectrum of emotions upon discovering this: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then acceptance. His acceptance ties in with a very important decision he makes in the last episode of the series, though I’ll get to that in the spoiler section.

Among the characters from season one I neglected to talk about are Ellis and her pet wolf, Ava. They only appear for the first three episodes of season two, but I liked them well enough and they do help out our main characters a great deal. I also like Lujanne, the Guardian of the Moon Nexus. It’s nice to see other elf characters, since we have yet to actually arrive in Xadia, and she’s funny in the kooky kind of way; it’s pretty clear that spending years alone protecting the Moon Nexus has made her go a bit off the deep end.

Some of the more notable characters include Gren, who always seems to maintain a cheerful attitude even when things are going wrong—I remember him saying, “Why see myself as chained down, when I can see my self as chained up?” which was a pretty funny moment—and Captain Villads, the blind narcoleptic pirate who Rayla and the princes hitch a ride with.

Hey, I just realized, I’ve been talking about the characters in The Dragon Prince and somehow neglected to mention the dragon prince himself! Azymondias, nicknamed Zym, is the hatchling from the dragon egg last season and he is adorable. Even Claudia seems to think so!

But okay, time for a full review of the plot. It goes without saying that there will be spoilers, so unless you have seen the new season, read at your own risk.

Spoiler Discussion

I was a little shocked, first off, that this show only takes place a day or so after the first season’s finale. I figured there would be a time skip or something, but no. That said, the story in season two is executed amazingly. First off, the big question from last season was how Ezran and Callum would react when finding out that the elves offed King Harrow. Well, surprisingly, neither one went with the reaction I was expecting. I was afraid that we would go through the clichéd path of “Oh no, what if Callum and Ezran got angry at Rayla because of what the other elves did?” which we all knew would end with them forgiving her, of course. But no, they avoided that trope altogether. Callum’s big struggle was how he was going to tell Ezran the truth without breaking him. Similarly, Ezran’s first thought was whether Callum knew, which was followed by him going on a long walk by himself and talking to Claudia about it. This is when he makes the decision to leave Ezran, Callum, and Zym—yes, leave the Dragon Prince whom he has developed a connection with—and return to Katolis to take over the throne for his late father. This is a major twist and something that nobody was expecting, but I honestly quite enjoy how it was handled.

It was great seeing all the new locations and characters. Possibly the most interesting one was Duren, led by its young ruler, Queen Aanya. This girl delivers some serious verbal blows to Viren and it’s just amazing to see. But also, finding out about her kingdom was really damn cool. We learn about her parents, the Queens of Duren—you heard right—and how Katolis assisted them in a quest to bring food for both kingdoms when they were starving during the winter.

I’m glad to see more LGBT+ characters in animated shows, and while a lot of people criticized it for the Queens’ death, it doesn’t seem too bad to me. They’re treated like heroes, and we knew of their fate beforehand, so it’s not like it was playing their deaths for shock value—hell, they died in the same battle that took the life of Queen Sarai, Callum and Ezran’s mother. Besides, the creators promised before that there would be more LGBT+ characters as the series progresses… and hey, they promised that season two would have better animation, which it did, so I don’t see any reason not to trust them.

Viren was also a nice touch. Like the first season, he comes off as an antagonist but still has his human moments, where he doesn’t seem like he was simply manipulating people for his own benefit. One of the best moments in the show is when Viren tells Aanya the story of her parents’ heroism; this is contrasted with a scene of Callum reading a letter from Harrow telling about his mother. In many of the flashbacks, we see Viren helping Katolis and standing by Harrow’s side, and it shows that he and Harrow truly were friends before Viren’s love of dark magic took over. It’s also revealed later that Viren had a wife, the mother of Soren and Claudia, but she left him. That was another interesting tidbit. You don’t often see divorce in a fantasy environment.

Speaking of baddies, let’s talk about Aaravos, the elf in the mirror. Now, I was immediately impressed with this character for his cool design, mysterious ways, and booming voice, and it seems that a lot of the Internet shares my enthusiasm! Maybe a little too much, in fact… Yes, Tumblr in particular has taken a… ahem… liking to this character, and I’ll be honest, I don’t get it. He’s cool, sure, but come on, guys. Don’t you think you’re letting your love of this fictional character go too far?

Oh, Amaya, you can crush my head between your thighs any day… what were we talking about again?

Yes, we do actually find out some stuff about Sarai here! She and Harrow had a really beautiful relationship. For one thing, it seemed like while she was alive, they ruled together, not that Harrow was the ruler and Sarai just sat around. She was a friend and top consultant to him as much as she was his wife, one half of his whole. I distinctly remember a scene where she basically tells him off, that an idea he and Viren had was a bad one, and both verbally and physically kicks his ass in the process. That was really telling of their relationship and made it all the more heart-wrenching when it shows how she died.

Another major part of this season is Callum’s quest for magic. In season one, he was using sky magic with the primal stone, but he destroyed it in an act of selflessness to hatch Zym. Here, he has once again found himself lost without any clear role in the group: he had noted before that he wasn’t a capable swordfighter and that when he was doing magic, it felt like his true calling more than anything else. He tries multiple times to connect to the primal source, even though he wasn’t born with it. However, possibly the biggest shocker was this moment:

…Oh my god. Callum, what are you doing? Callum, no! Don’t use dark magic! That’s not the way! Oh god, he’s using dark magic. We’re all screwed.

Nearly as much of a shocker moment as this is when, during a battle, Soren gets flung and lands in such a way that we hear a cracking sound. You may not think too much of this, until it becomes increasingly clear that he’s not getting back up again. However, the saddest part is when he reveals that he is actually relieved that he was injured, because it means that he wouldn’t have to go through with Viren’s order for him to kill the young princes.

This scene, man. This damn scene was hard to watch. It really shows the humanity that every character has, exposed as they go through the story and have to be put through so much.

And then… well, no more beating around the bush. Callum and Rayla: It’s gonna happen. Like, as usual, I won’t know for certain until/unless it does actually happen, but it’s looking more and more like it. But so far, it’s been handled really well. Rayla is first angry at Callum for using dark magic in the earlier scene, but it took a physical toll on him and he becomes very ill from it. While she first tries to hide it, over the scene it looks more and more like he won’t make it and she becomes seriously concerned for him and shows that she really does care about him. It looks as though she’s about to say something to him—a confession, maybe?—right before he recovers. To be honest, the way they’re building it up, it could either turn out to be a romance or a great friendship, but it feels very natural and I’m all for it either way. And if it is the former, I’m glad they aren’t pulling the typical romance clichés in cartoons, like having Callum crush heavily on Rayla (hell, he was crushing on Claudia up until she betrayed him this season) or having Rayla act in the tsundere, “I don’t like you, idiot” kind of way. But yeah, I’d love to see where this goes.

(Don’t worry about Callum, by the way. He’s not in danger, he’s just going through a really trippy fever dream that allows him access to sky magic.)

Other Stuff

As much as I’ve talked about everything else, the humor in this season is also really on-point, much more so than the last season! I found myself laughing out loud at a lot of points. That said, some of the more reference-based humor… doesn’t exactly hold up. Like, there’s a scene where Rayla pulls an extended Sailor Moon gag, and another where Callum literally says, “One does not simply walk into Xadia,” and… this Simple Minds reference:

Because in a medieval fantasy environment, everybody has seen The Breakfast Club, right? Perhaps the only one I can get behind is this credits gag with Aaravos imitating the Gatsby pose:

Which seems much more fitting there than in the show itself, since the credits are just filled with little gags like that.

As for questions about season three, most of my questions in my last post have been answered, but it did open up a few new questions. Who is Aaravos and what is his motivation? I’m assuming he’s an antagonist, but he could easily subvert our expectations. Will returning Zym back to the dragon queen really bring an end to the war? We’re only two seasons in out of a presumed six or seven, and I figured it would take a lot longer to get to Xadia than it did, but they’re already there, so it’s going to have to be stretched out a lot further, I figure. Finally, there’s a fan theory going around that King Harrow swapped bodies with Pip, Harrow’s bird. Is there any truth to that? We saw Pip escape in this season, so it could have been, but I don’t know.

Conclusion

Season two of The Dragon Prince was an improvement on season one in every way. The show really came into its own with this season, much more so than with the first one. I loved the characters, the animation, the worldbuilding, the soundtrack, and unlike the first season, which just left me feeling meh, this one actually makes me want to see a lot more, and… yeah, I’m a fan now. Congratulations, show. As Leonardo DiCaprio put it, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.

Once again, I implore you: don’t screw it up. But this time, I trust that you won’t.

~Spaceman

[pruzan]

hello liv !! i hope you’re doing wonderfully and, if not, i hope things get much better for you going forward 💗

i’m in need of some advice, if you’re comfortable sharing !! i saw your recent post abt how you’re greyaro, and i was wondering how you came to that conclusion? i’ve always thought i was aro/ace (like ... since i was 11, and i’m almost 18 now), but was always brushed off because i was too young, i simply haven’t met the right person, etc., all valid criticisms of course, so i waited ... and i know i’m still very young and haven’t even seen a fraction of what life has to offer, but it seems like nothing has changed. i’ve never had a crush (at least, on a real person ... fictional characters are another story lol), and in fact, i’m very in love with romance as a CONCEPT, when it’s a story/poem/movie/etc., but the idea of actually practicing it is ... gross, ngl. even the idea of KISSING someone (let alone all the other stuff) grosses me out, i cringe whenever i see a couple kiss, whether that’s fictional or irl, simply because it doesn’t appeal to me.

i’ve had many guy friends have feelings for me and all it does is make me uncomfortable, because ... i want to just have friends, i’m not interested in anyone, platonic relationships in practice mean a lot more to me than romantic relationships. but then again, i also do crave falling in love and finding my soulmate, tho i don’t know if that’s because i WANT to or because that’s what’s expected of me, if that makes sense?

i don’t know if i worded myself correctly, and you’re completely free to not respond, of course !! if anything, i’m just grateful to get all this off my chest, lol, you’re quite a safe space for people to just ... speak and know they’re not going to be met with judgment, you’re amazing that way 💗

!!! hello my sweet anon !!!!! 💗  i’m doing alright today!!! thank you for checking in!!!!!

and thank you for trusting me enough to share your thoughts and ask for some advice!!! i don’t mind sharing at all!!! especially if there’s a chance it might help somehow!!! i’m putting it under a ‘read more’ because it ended up getting a little long (sorry about that)!!! 💗

honestly!!! i felt really similarly to how you’re feeling now!!!  i never really dated in middle and high school.  a part of me wanted to! i had crushes on people, and i loved the idea of being in a romantic relationship, but i got asked out several times and i got anxious about it every single time. there was once or twice when i was younger when i said yes to being somebody’s girlfriend, but i just ended up panicking about it for several days until i broke it off. 

i didn’t really think about it a whole lot! each time i said yes to someone asking me out, i hadn’t had a crush on them for very long before that, and i thought maybe i was just moving into things too fast and that’s why i was uncomfortable. or they just weren’t right for me. also! i have an anxiety disorder! and i was sure that played into things too. dating was new to me, and new things make me nervous. i figured i’d get older and come into my own and things would settle down.

but it kept happening!  every time i got asked out, it would fill me with an overwhelming sense of dread. it would reduce me to tears. i hated it. and it didn’t matter who asked! there were times where i was sure i had a crush on someone, but then they made a move on me, and it was like a switch flipped. the attraction was gone, just like that. i didn’t understand it. i thought maybe that’s just what relationships were like. that they all started out uncomfortable, and if i pushed through it, i’d come out on the other side and i’d actually enjoy them. but i really didn’t want to do that!

i ended up browsing the arospec tags more and more. i came across the term ‘lithromantic’ and kept that in the back of my mind for a long time.  i’ve always developed crushes on people! but when it came to the people around me that i crushed on, it never felt good when it was acted on. and when it came to unattainable people that i crushed on, like celebrities and fictional characters, i started to think that i liked them because they were unattainable, which meant they were safe.

and honestly, i might have stuck with ‘lithromantic’ as a label, but i started leaning towards grey aro / grey ace because i ended up having two positive experiences with romance and affection! they’re a little long so i won’t include them and make this response any longer than it already is but! if you’re curious to hear about them just lemme know! all that really matters is! they helped me realize that you’re supposed to enjoy romantic relationships. when it’s right, it will feel right. and yeah, it might make you nervous! but it’ll be a different kind of nervous. when i had these positive experiences, i wasn’t filled with dread like i had been previously. i was happy! i was excited! i realized that all my previous experiences weren’t just me being anxious, or me being too picky, or me trying to self sabotage my romantic relationships by making a big deal out of things that weren’t a big deal, they really were not right for me. my positive experiences helped me realize that i am capable of romantic attraction, but it’s few and far between. it’s the exception, not the rule.

so. everything you’re saying makes PERFECT sense.  i get it. i get it!!! 

it can be a process to figure out, but i wanna share a few things that have helped me on my journey. and hopefully they will help you too !!!

1. i said this before, but i wanna reiterate it !!! romantic relationships are supposed to be enjoyable for you. they’re supposed to bring something to your life. they’re supposed to be fun! you’re supposed to like the person that you’re with, and look forward to being with them! and obviously relationships will have rough patches, things won’t be perfect all the time, but at the very core of it, you should feel good. if you don’t, then there is no reason to be in one. i used to think that i was missing out because i wasn’t dating when everyone else was, but you’re not missing out if you don’t want it in the first place!

2. you can adore romance and still be arospec !!! it really is a spectrum, and there are so many places to fall on it. like! i love romance SO MUCH. i talk about it. i write about it. i read about it. i watch movies and tv shows about it. i crave it for myself !!! and i’m still arospec!!! some arospec people love it, some hate it, some want it, some are repulsed by it !!! some are all of the above, just depends on the day! and there is no wrong way to be. if you like it, if you want it too, that’s okay. if you’re not sure if you want it, that’s okay too! it’s okay to explore that !!! regardless of what answer you come to, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be arospec. 

3. i think if i waited until i was 100% sure that i was arospec before identifying as grey aro, i wouldn’t ever. there was a very long period of time where i held off on using the label because i thought maybe in a year, two years, three years, i’d date more and i’d have good experiences and i’d realize that i was wrong. but there will always be the possibility that i’ll date more and i’ll decide that i’m not arospec. and that’s okay. i’ve been using the label for about 6 months now and it feels right to me. it feels like it makes sense. but ultimately! it’s okay if one day i feel like it doesn’t! it’s okay if i do change my mind one day! it’s okay if i decide that i was wrong! it’s okay if i decide that maybe i was arospec for a while but i’m not anymore! our identities are fluid. we grow and we adapt and we change, and there is nothing wrong with that. it does not invalidate who we are or who we think we are or who we were or who we thought we were. 

this has been a very long way of me saying !!!  my journey was long, and it is ongoing! and it is okay if you are in the same boat! it is okay if you’re not sure, it is okay if you are never sure! the most important thing is trusting yourself and doing what you feel is right. sometimes that looks like talking things out. sometimes that looks like trying labels on. sometimes that looks like not dating. there is no wrong answer here !!! 

i’m sorry again that this got so long, my friend !!!  but i wish you luck as you explore who you are and what you want, and i hope that you know i will always be here to offer advice or support whenever you need it!!! 💗

[chasholidays]

Time travel bellarke. For some reason one or both travel to the past and it was not good. Or anything you want but with timetravel

I couldn’t come up with a historical era for them to go to, so I just made this a Star Trek AU with them coming back to now oops

If and when Bellamy gets back to his own time, he’s going to petition Starfleet to add some mandatory classes on what to do if you’re thrown back in time and/or into a parallel universe, because he thinks generic guidelines and word-of-mouth tips just aren’t cutting it. They need to stop acting like this doesn’t happen all the fucking time.

“At least we’re on Earth,” says Clarke, looking around with a frown.

“I don’t know, Vulcan might be better. If we told Vulcans we were time travelers from the future, they’d probably roll with it and help. This doesn’t look like an advanced enough Earth to give us any help.”

“I think the Prime Directive forbids talking about being a time traveler.”

“Yeah, and we never ignore the Prime Directive.”

Clarke huffs a laugh, and he smiles too. He wouldn’t admit it without some serious interrogation, but Clarke is probably his first choice for a companion in any tight spot. She’s smart and capable and practical, idealistic without being stupid. Which is kind of a problem with Starfleet, in his experience.

“Never,” she agrees, and when the computer finishes its analysis with a ping, she’s the one to go check it. “You want the bad news?”

“No, I like going into potentially hostile situations blind.”

“It could be worse. Early twenty-first century. Pollution levels are near critical, so I’d say between 2015 and 2020.”

“Fuck, we probably landed in the Trump administration,” he says, rubbing his face. “Just our fucking luck.”

“We just need to survive long enough to repair the ship.”

“Yeah, because if there’s one thing we’re great at, it’s ship repairs.”

“You know what doesn’t help? This shit,” says Clarke, mild, but with just enough of an edge to snap him out of it.

“You’re the optimist here,” he says. “But I’ll go with it. So—what’s the plan?”

She looks around the ship, thoughtful. “First step is figuring out if the replicators work and if we have anything we can sell without compromising the timeline.”

It’s as good a place to start as any.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

*

The replicator works long enough to make them some period-appropriate clothing and breakfast, but given the overall shaky state of the ship’s systems, they don’t want to make anything they don’t have to. They have better things to do with their power; they’re going to have to try to get by on their own.

Unfortunately, they’ve landed smack in the middle of late capitalism with no identification papers, in a country that thinks poverty should be a death sentence.

So that’s good.

And then, of course, there’s the much larger issue, which is that they have to get home, and even if they repair the ship, they have no idea how to do that. They set up a beacon that Starfleet will be able to detect, in case Raven figures out where they went and how to get to them, but Bellamy has no fucking clue how they got here, let alone how to reverse it and get back.

Which is the downside of being stuck with Clarke. It would really help if they had an engineer with them. As it is, all they have is the computer and time.

“And this,” says Clarke, tossing him something.

It’s so small, he barely sees it, but he still manages to catch it, blinks down at the ring in his hands. “Antique?”

“Yeah, a family heirloom. There’s some sentimental value, but I think my mother would understand why I sold it. It won’t be enough money to go far, but we can sleep on the ship, so all we need is food and supplies.”

“Supplies for a ship from two-hundred years in the future,” Bellamy points out. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that whatever parts we might need are probably going to be expensive and hard to access. We should maybe be trying to settle in for the long haul.”

Clarke’s shoulders slump. “I know.”

“So–we’re a young couple who fell on hard times,” he says, slow. “You’re selling your wedding ring to help us make ends meet. We should replicate papers now, before we’re worried about power. If we have to, we can probably find jobs, get a post office box–what?”

She’s staring at him, slack-jawed, but at the question, she smiles, shakes her head. “You have an amazingly detailed plan ready for how to survive in the collapsing United States.”

He shrugs. “Have you ever looked into Starfleet records? People get sent back in time a lot. This one works for most capitalist societies.”

“So, you think we might have to stay?”

It’s a staggering thought. The country is on its way to a much needed and ultimately successful revolution, but Bellamy doesn’t really want to witness it.

“I think we need to make sure we can survive here first,” he says. “And once we’ve done that, we can work on getting home. But unless you have an idea for what to do right now to fix the ship and get back–”

“You’re right.” She sighs. “So we’re going native for a while.”

“At least they speak English,” he says. “Come on, let’s go pawn the wedding ring.”

*

There is something academically fascinating about traveling into the past. Bellamy’s done it before, to an extent, the same way everyone has: in the holodeck, as a curiosity. He never went to this exact year, but he’s been to places like this, in recreation. He knows how it’s supposed to be, and it’s interesting to see the differences.

If he knew he could just end the program and go back whenever he wanted to, he’d probably enjoy it. As it is, he’s too aware of the dangers they’re facing, of how close they are to being found out and detained as illegal immigrants or terrorists or whatever else this regime is afraid of.

It’s not all bad, of course. Most of the time, they’re just living their new lives, taking advantage of their fictitious histories and credentials. Bellamy gets a job at a university, working in the library, and Clarke finds one at a hospital. He never stops being worried every time he sees a police officer, but he learns the routine of it, the same way Clarke learns to keep her head down and not respond when men tell her to smile or whistle as she walks past.

They can’t afford to make waves. They can’t afford to be caught.

“I do like seeing the television programs,” Clarke says, with false cheer. It’s been a month, and she saw her third person die of an injury she could have cured in a matter of seconds at home, and had to turn away someone else because they couldn’t pay for their own treatment. She crawled onto their lumpy couch next to him and curled into his side, and he wishes he had something better to do than just hold her. “They’re interesting.”

“Yeah, it’s amazing how much of this stuff didn’t survive. Apparently they’re in a golden age of television, but I missed most of them.”

“For a golden age, there are a lot of white men,” Clarke grumbles.

Bellamy has to smile. “Most golden ages in history have just been for white men, yeah.” He leans back. “I wonder which of our proudest accomplishments will seem barbaric in three hundred years.”

“It’s not like plenty of people don’t know it’s bad now. And we have an advantage, at least.”

“We might get out of here someday?”

Clarke snuggles closer, which feels like an advantage all by itself. He knew how much he cared about her before, but it’s different now. He thinks she might care about him just as much, for a start. “We know it’s going to get better,” she says.

That makes him smile. “We do, yeah.”

*

After six months, Clarke starts a countdown to the revolution that they both know is coming.

“We should really get out before that,” she says, and he snorts.

“Yeah, I figured. I still don’t know a fucking thing about time anomalies, though. If you have any ideas, I’m all ears.”

“Honestly? I was thinking we could start looking at science fiction.” He snorts, and she elbows him. “I’m serious! I’m not saying we’re going to find the answer we’re looking for, but we might get some ideas. Something we could run by the computer for projections. I’m not coming up with anything on my own, so–”

“So let’s start seeing what other people have thought of.” He shakes his head. “I guess you’re right, it couldn’t hurt. I think you just want to interact with more media,” he teases.

“I don’t just want to interact with more media,” she shoots back, and he laughs.

But somehow, it works. They nearly turn off Back to the Future once it becomes clear that it’s not actually going to help, but the whole thing is fun and amusing, and it’s not like they don’t have time to just enjoy themselves.

And then, in the second movie, the main character gets a letter from the past, the distant past, and Bellamy thinks, well, why not.

“We could do that,” he says.

“Which part?” Clarke asks. She’s already half asleep; her hours are longer than his, most days. And the healthcare system is slowly killing her, he’s sure.

They have to get out of here.

“We could leave a message for Raven. There are some companies that are still in operation, we just have to find one. Tell her where we are and when. Set a delivery date. You remember when we got lost, right? It can’t hurt.”

Clarke’s awake now, and laughing. “I can’t believe you actually got a plan from Back to the Future II.”

“It was your idea,” he shoots back.

“Teamwork.”

He has to smile. “Teamwork.”

*

They get a zipcar out to the park where they hid the ship, have the computer find a list of local attorneys or delivery companies that are still operating under the same ownership. The computer comes up with more options than Bellamy was expecting, which turns out to be a good thing, because none of the first few work out. Some think it’s a prank and refuse outright, and others agree, but with the kind of patronizing expression that made Bellamy think they weren’t really going to follow through.

At the fifth place, Clarke takes a different approach.

“I know this is a little strange,” she says, “but–we wanted to leave a time capsule. For our descendants, if we have any.” She holds up the package, neat, and wrapped in brown paper. “To be opened on the three-hundredth anniversary of our daughter’s birth.”

The man smiles, indulgent, but not opposed. “So, this is the date we, as caretakers, should open the package?”

“And then follow the instructions to find any surviving relatives of ours.”

“Like she said, we know it’s unconventional, but we had a time capsule from my grandparents, and we wanted to give something to that to future generations,” Bellamy adds.

“Well, I can’t promise anything, of course,” says the man. “No one can see the future, and that’s a long time for the business to survive. But we have performed similar services for others, so if you’re willing to risk it–”

“We understand,” says Clarke. “Thank you.”

They leave a few others, just to be safe, and then it’s suddenly–awkward. That’s the thing about time travel; if it works, they should find out soon. They don’t have to wait for Raven to get it, because sometime in the future, Raven will have gotten it as soon as they left, and even if it takes her months or years to solve the problem, they shouldn’t feel that delay.

All they told her was the day she couldn’t come before, to avoid a paradox; everything else is up in the air, and all they can do is hope.

“I wonder if she can even hit an exact day,” says Clarke. “Or if she’ll accidentally show up three years early or something.”

��If anyone can figure it out, it’s Raven. And she has all the time she needs.”

“Let’s hope she doesn’t waste her life trying to figure out how to come get us.”

“We did tell her we’d be fine if she didn’t make it back,” he reminds her. “She knows that.”

“I know.” To his surprise, she takes his hand and squeezes it. “We will be fine, Bellamy.”

“Yeah,” he says. “We will.”

*

Raven doesn’t make them wait long; they check the ship two days after they deposit the messages, and there she is, repairing the engine like she’s been there forever.

“Seriously, you two had to land here?” she demands, by way of greeting. “There’s so much air pollution I can barely breathe.”

“We’ve been here for six months,” says Bellamy, and then they both break into smiles and hold on to each other together. He passes her onto Clarke, and then it’s all business, Raven getting the repairs done while Bellamy and Clarke have the strange responsibility of putting their affairs in order, quitting jobs and leaving apartments with no notice, only a few steps above vanishing without a trace.

It’s hard to care that much. They’re going home.

Raven brought another ship and more crew to help, and it only takes a day, all told, for them to be redoing whatever she did to get back the first time. After all that waiting, it’s almost anticlimactic. All that worry, all that stress, and then they’re just–home. No money to worry about, no police watching him with wary eyes, just their ship and their people, like it’s supposed to be.

There’s only one thing missing: he and Clarke barely see each other, the first week. They’re together at meals, and sometimes throughout the day, but their duties have never brought them together very much, and after six months of cohabitation, it feels like nothing.

She must feel the same, because at the end of that week, she shows up at the door to his quarters. “I thought we could watch something,” she says, with a small smile. “Maybe some golden age television.”

He laughs and tugs her in. “Can I kiss you?” he asks. “Because I’ve been wanting to kiss you, and if I can’t, I want to know now.”

“I’ve been wanting that too,” she murmurs, and tugs him down.

And just like that, Bellamy’s finally home.

[robedisimo]

Black Panther [SPOILER-FREE REVIEW]

[Disclaimer: this review is based on the Italian dub of the film. As such, all opinions on the quality of dialogues and acting are subjective and partial.]

So, it’s been a while since my last review and, to be completely honest, I didn’t expect Marvel’s Black Panther to be a hard one to come back on. I went into this movie expecting to enjoy it thoroughly, and in many respects I did, just... not as much as I thought I would. To cut a long story short, I spent the better part of a week trying to make up my mind about whether I walked away from this movie impressed or disappointed. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

First of all, let’s address the mini-skirted elephant in the room: in more than just a few coincidental ways, Black Panther is a retread of last year’s Wonder Woman. Both films star characters who were introduced as supporting players in a previous movie, in both cases big tentpole cross-over films – Batman v Superman and Captain America: Civil War, respectively – revolving around a conflict between the two main figures within the respective mega-franchise universes. Both act as more self-contained tales, in terms of cross-franchise elements, than previous movies in their narrative universes, and both feature different but thematically contiguous settings in the shape of secluded, secretive, mythology-laden kingdoms ruled in utopian perfection by a fictional society reflective of one of America’s mistreated social minorities.

On the production side of things, both were surprisingly helmed by directors known for poignant, socially-involved projects – Monster’s Patty Jenkins and Fruitvale Station’s Ryan Coogler – and, on the promotional side, both sailed towards theatres on a wave of sheer hype, being hailed as the beginning of a new era for Hollywood blockbusters and propelled forwards by baffling headlines – born, I assume, either out of stunningly poor memory or else a frankly understandable wish to forget that Steel, Supergirl and Catwoman ever happened – about how they were the first female-led, or black-led, superhero movie ever made.

Neither film, it goes without saying, rises to meet those unrealistic expectations. Though entirely enjoyable in its own right, Wonder Woman was an uneven and ultimately formulaic film that tried to juggle too many things and be too many different movies at once, and Black Panther certainly falls into the same category to a lesser degree. Part James Bond instalment, part Lion King and in part also Thor rerun, what we got on our hands in the end was a fairly mundane genre flick with a number of highs but also a handful of lows.

The good: the film looks amazing. Where its DC equivalent was content with just a few opening minutes of generic pseudo-Greek utopia, Black Panther instead realises its fictional setting to a much deeper, richer degree, to often impressive results. The mythical kingdom of Wakanda is most definitely a kind of spectacle not before seen in theatres, a bold vision of African futurism that meshes hi-tech sci-fi with tribal spiritualism in oftern stunning fashion. Its setting is easily the film’s best aspect, brought to life on the shoulders of the great conceptual design work done by Marvel’s art team.

On top of that, Black Panther is energetic and well-acted, perhaps with less overt humour than most recent Marvel projects but certainly fast and action-y enough to satisfy genre fans. The story is emotional and poignant, and Michael B. Jordan definitely shines – although I feel a pang of white guilt in reporting that Andy Serkis, for once appearing with his own tribal mask of a face, steals away the trophy for most enjoyable performance in the film – as one of the MCU’s most complex theatrical villains to date... if not, like Cate Blanchett’s Hela before him, one that truly and definitively manages to buckle well-established Marvel villain trends.

The soundtrack – if a touch obtrusive at times – is another of the movie’s high points, way less hip-hop-heavy than trailers suggested and much more genuinely African in its tones and beats. For a film that’s obstensibly about identity, the fact that its visuals and acoustics come together to form such an original, easily-identifiable cinematic brand is certainly Coogler’s, and everyone behind him, greatest achievement here.

The bad: the film looks amazing, except when it doesn’t. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is definitely developing an overreliance on CGI lately, and even Black Panther’s rather sizeable budget can’t do much to distract from some of the film’s worst effects – no spoilers, but you’ll know when you see it – and its general overabundance of green-screen shenanigans, especially in the cliché-laden climax.

The action itself isn’t especially praise-worthy either, despite a couple brief highlights: much like in Creed, Coogler blows his best action scene midway through the film and it’s all downhill from there, with a few missed opportunities along the way. The film’s focus on hi-tech gadgets, for example, sort of fizzles out without much fanfare after a while, with the same two or three tricks being repeated throughout the movie.

Other issues may be found in certain aspects of pacing, although in that area your mileage may vary. Black Panther starts off a tad slow, and then unfolds as a series of self-contained vignettes that take too long to develop a coherent throughline. When the plot finally kicks in it works in fairly satisfactory fashion, but there’s one big twist that honestly could’ve been dropped earlier in the film’s generous runtime and, generally speaking, I feel that the script could’ve stood one more round of polishing.

So make no mistake: on my personal scale, as far as enjoyment of my theatrical experience is concerned, the verdict at the bottom of this review should not rise above “MOSTLY POSITIVE”. It gets knocked up a peg for two specific reasons:

Black Panther’s impact on the American public is undeniable. In the United States, the film’s themes resonate in a way they simply can’t anywhere else, and as such this is the one Marvel movie that is perhaps the least designed for, and the least accessible to, foreign audiences... even if it is frankly quite mystifying that Wakanda’s core values would end up being framed in the context of the plight and struggle of people of colour in America, rather than pretty much anywhere in the surrounding African continent. Ultimately, I think, it’s not even a matter of said themes being satisfactorily addressed or resolved, and indeed Coogler’s film presents challenging ideas that are entirely unexpected from a superhero movie, but – partly because the script starts dealing with them too far into its runtime, as I mentioned – there’s not really the proper time for them to breather. Other critics have written that Black Panther is more interesting to think about than it is to actually watch, and I tend to agree: the ideas behind this movie are impressive, but their execution is not always the best. Despite that, Black Panther most definitely is an important film, at least in the here and now. Its missteps are easily overlooked in light of that, just as I imagine Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historical speeches would’ve still be commended for their convention-buckling message even if the reverend himself had been saddled with a comical stutter. This movie’s heart is in the right place, and it’s easy to see why that is being rewarded above all else.

From a purely technical standpoint, my viewing of this film was crippled by an adequate, and just adequate, Italian dub. I’m perfectly capable of recognising when a mediocre localisation gets in the way of a film’s original underlying richness and this was most certainly the case, with the whole English-language cast providing an array of diverse – and, I’m sure, memorable – performances, many of them in fictional African accents, that got “flattened” to an unvarying standard inflection in the version I got to see. At least in that respect, I expect a second home-video viewing in the original language to elevate my opinion of the performers’ work.

So in the end we’re left with a pretty tough question on our hands: is Black Panther a movie that exploits the genre to draw attention to relevant political themes, or one that exploits those political themes to justify its run-of-the-mill script? It is perhaps both, and that becomes a rather large problem when the film can’t make up its mind as to which of its two identities deserves its full commitment. Nonetheless, I’m eager to see how this franchise, and the larger Marvel machine whose gears grind around it, carry forward what’s been put in motion here. For the time being, Black Panther is perhaps not as good as it could’ve been... but even then, it seems to be good enough.

[Verdict: POSITIVE]

[filmista]

Out Of The Past (1947)

“Nothing in the world is any good unless you can share it.”

French director, Jacques Tourneur's ‘Out Of The Past’ has over the years become what’s considered the best Film Noir ever made, though it somewhat disputes over that title with ‘Double Indemnity’, a lot of people find one of the two the best. 

I have however during the time that I’ve been participating in Noirvember (there’s more to cover), obviously quite a few films in the genre, and I can instantly say without hesitation that ‘Out Of The Past’ has been my favorite one that I’ve watched so far.

It’s also save to say that outside the context of Noir and Noirvember, it’s simply one of the best films I’ve had the pleasure of watching, just one of those films that quite simply put leaves you feeling like you’ve just watched something spectacular and well crafted.

it makes me regret that I didn’t take the decision to participate in Noirvember earlier, anyhow it’s wonderful to immerse yourself fully in a genre, discover and learn about it and obviously watch a few films of it.

And Out Of The Past was along with Double Indemnity one of the films that my Cinema History book kept mentioning (probably one of the first books I’d try to save in a fire) and various corners of the internet kept recommending to me. By now I was immensely curious about the film, even so much as its film poster somehow exuded a certain cool.

So later I sat down to watch it. And I think it speaks very positively of the film, that I watched it with someone who’s absolutely not a fan of anything that’s not in color and so-called Classics, but she claims to have had as much fun with this one as I did.

When we were about ten minutes into the film, and the picture starts to craft an air of mystery and intrigue and you already know something’s wrong, she said “I love this”, “It’s already so suspenseful, it’s like one of those cheap detective books”.

And with that, she pretty much hit the nail on the head. I found out that Noir works closely with pulp fiction, which is actually nowadays usually considered quite cheap entertainment, the thing that’s considered a guilty pleasure to read; but they did sometimes have interesting themes in them, and filmmakers saw that and could work with it.

Noir’s a dark and pessimistic genre, it literally means black in French, that its name is European also has its reason, it’s what French critics started to call the genre, but it fits perfectly.

It originated in a pessimistic period, before and until after World war two, many of its directors and stars, we’re Europeans that fled Europe, so while it’s an American genre, it’s safe to say that it’s a genre in which both continents held each other’s hands.

War doesn’t bring out good qualities in humans generally, but even during wartime, people have been known to undertake courageous and goodhearted actions. And the genre, some films more than others reflect that.

Most of them very clearly seem to say the world is rotten and the people, even the ones that don’t know it are bad, sometimes they become forcedly so; but it very has the idea that everyone has the potential to become a bad person, a person capable of double-crossing and murder, murder seems to be written in capital letter M all over the genre.

Yet under all that seeming bleakness, pessimism, hopelessness and darkness, there are glints of hope and hints at the possibility of a happy ending, the tragic thing about the genre is that it’s acknowledged but it doesn’t go there, sometimes because it’s characters just can’t take that route, they just aren’t able to connect, and chose to either save their own skin or will take a route that’s going to going to endanger them.

And what I loved so much about ‘Out Of The Past’ is that it very much has those elements, and becomes in a way almost a retelling of a tragic, doomed to fail love story, only it shouldn’t have been doomed, the characters made it so themselves.

It very much plays with what other  films in the genre also play with, ambiguity between good and bad, and it has as I’ve mentioned all the elements of the genre, a troubled protagonist whose past comes back to haunt him, character’s smoking like chimneys, a femme fatale, pretty night scenes, and a large part of the story taking place in an urban environment.

But still something about this one is unique; as many people have recognized, out of all the Noir I’ve seen in November this is the one that’s really engraved in my memory. Some people say it doesn’t even seemingly look like Noir, at first sight.

It’s too bright and too sunlit, too much of it takes place in sunlight and in pretty surroundings, that have nothing to do with seedy, crime-filled streets of some films in the genre.

Still agreed it’s agreed that it is Noir, as it has in its storyline and in its cinematography typical elements.

But when I myself thought about it more deeply (and I’m not the only one) you can almost say that the film has two parts, one that looks less typically Noir and one that’s more typically so, night scenes, fights, double-crossing, playing with shadows. But amazingly it watches like one cohesive whole.

It might be somewhat of a lighter one in its genre, literally in its lightning, but also as in that it really builds your hope up and for a moment when you’re watching for the first.

You think everything even after the characters has been double-crossing each other like crazy, you still think it’s two lovers have a chance of being together, but then the film makes sure to remind you what kind of film you’re watching.

And that’s what I found so great about it, that it’s two lovers have moments of happiness and you see what could be there, and because of their own doing, it doesn’t happen, and it’s tragically and sublimely sad.

What I truly loved about this one is watching the relationships between characters, and watching Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer act opposite each other, there’s a ton of other actors in there (amongst them Kirk Douglas) but Mitchum and Greer compliment each other perfectly and it’s a joy to watch. Its storyline doesn’t even really matter too much, and it’s a challenge, to sum up...

Mitchum Bailey is a private detective who tries to say goodbye to his job after a few nasty experiences. As a garage owner, he tries to start a new life with his girlfriend Ann (Virginia Huston). His anonymity, however, is short-lived when thug looking Joe Stephanos (Paul Valentine) manages to trace him on behalf of professional gambler Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas).

Whit was shot some time ago by his beloved Kathie (Jane Greer). Since then, she has disappeared from his life, as well as $ 40,000. Whit wants her and his money back and asks Jeff to go and investigate. Somewhat cautiously, Jeff takes the job, old habits die hard I guess.

He meets Kathie in Mexico. She tells him exactly what’s going on but nothing about the disappeared money. Jeff believes her, falls for the charms of this femme fatale and tells Whit that he was unable to find her. Soon, however, Kathie doesn’t seem as sweet as she looks anymore...

Does Kathie really care about Jeff? Does she love him despite her inability to endure difficult situations for him and despite her fatalistic attitude towards love? 

And how sincere is Jeff towards her? Has he succumbed to her again? These questions haunt your mind while seeing 'Out of the Past'. 

As traditionally in this genre, the riddles around a fateful love remain unclear. Who is lying, who is honest? Nobody can be trusted and that makes watching a film noir of this level is so irresistible.

And as it should be; you don’t get clear answers to all of these questions, and thus as I’ve seen in a lot of reviews, people speculate and come to their own conclusions when watching the film.

You see two interesting directions: In some Jeff is the victim. An innocent man, forced to make bad choices but who didn’t enjoy them, but who fell victim to the whims and seduction of a femme fatale, to them Kathie’s a monster, that tormented an innocent man, and there’s no real effort to look any further.

No one in the genre is entirely innocent, Jeff’s aware he’s being played but still consciously chooses for the woman he knows is no good, he still acted out of free will, no one really forced him into anything.

And then the femme fatale herself, a monster? Or just a flawed human being that made mistakes? As I mentioned when it comes to that, you see people mostly veering in one of these two directions.

Personally I think she’s one of the most brilliant characters in the film; Greer portrays her in a subtle yet confident way, that’s almost dizzyingly exciting to watch, she infuses her role with confidence (the kind of confidence of a woman who knows how beautiful she is) but at other times also a deep vulnerability and even fear.

Throughout the film she’s in a world that surrounds her with violent men she’s afraid of the man that she stole the money from, she believes he’d never leave her alone and would almost certainly come after her, and she turns out to be right. 

You can understand why she stole the money even, she hated the guy's guts and wanted to get away from him, and if you’re running away from a dude with anger issues, why not do it in a place with an agreeable climate? I certainly wouldn’t like hearing this: 

“You're gonna take the rap and play along. You're gonna make every exact move I tell you. If you don't, I'll kill you. And I'll promise you one thing: it won't be quick. I'll break you first. You won't be able to answer a telephone or open a door without thinking, 'This is it.' And it when it comes, it still won't be quick. And it won't be pretty. You can take your choice.”

The exciting element in Greer’s performance comes from, how composed seemingly even cold she seems throughout much of the film, but when you look closer there’s intense emotion, and she remains a riddle, a mystery.

I spent much of the film trying to read her, and she very much has both bad and good at her, she doesn’t regret shooting a man, and when Jeff fights another man, after she speaks the words “why don’t you break his head, Jeff?” she seems almost aroused watching the two men fight, which certainly indicates some twisted personality trait.

But then she also ultimately seems to really love him, as she later in the film goes back to Jeff and gives herself fully over to him, as she chooses to trust him fully, but he is at this point deceiving, maybe still in love with her, but certainly not willing to die for her, and he’s posing himself as more in love than he really is.

But at this time; Jeff has already decided she can’t be trusted, as he told her:  “You can never help anything, can you? You're like a leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to another.” and he’s unwilling to give her a second chance or to forgive, and on that tragic note, both their loveless fates are sealed. So it can also be regarded in my eyes as a tragic love story, maybe Jeff could even be seen as a coward in his inability to forgive in love. 

The big joy in the film, however, is how good Mitchum and Greer are (that and how beautifully filmed it is), while Greer seems to do not much else than bat her big doe eyes with their luscious lashes at Mitchum and make him fall head over heels with her, she has as I said a subtle emotionality, there’s depth to this femme fatale if it isn’t clear, I loved her performance.

And Mitchum’s Jeff has an air of indifferent, unforced cool, and seems to come across almost as if he doesn’t give a damn about anything or anyone that surrounds him, as if he’s somehow outside of present events, he only seems to care about either Kathie or ultimately himself.

Mitchum portrays this figure almost perfectly. Like Humphrey Bogart (who was considered for the role, but not even Bogie could be at two places at once ...), he has a certain inner peace about him, which gives him independence and self-confidence.

The man behind this film is French director Jacques Tourneur, who made his name in the United States in 1942 with both the artistically and commercially successful 'Cat People' (which is noted on my list of stuff I want to see). Tourneur was a master in creating the right mood and atmosphere and that skill came in handy when he made 'Out of the Past'.

The typical film noir look - with striking use of shadows and contrast - is certainly present here (the fight scene is a beautiful playing around with shadows as well as the scenes on the beach) but less dominant than in, for example, 'Double Indemnity' (1944). It makes 'Out of the Past' a film that looks pleasant and easy and literally and figuratively is somewhat lighter than its genre and contemporaries. 

Out of the past is a dark, cynical treat with an intelligent script, razor-sharp dialogues and a finale that stays with you. Highly recommended!

“If you're thinking of anyone else, don't. It wouldn't work. You're no good for anyone but me. You're no good and neither am I. That's why we deserve each other.”