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fairydares · 2 years ago

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fuck it, new fic. let's do this.

(there's a 'keep reading' line so don't worry, this isn't too long.)

Title: Chasing Tails (AO3 Link) (Chapter 2) (Chapter 3)

Fandom: Fairy Tail

Rating: E (Explicit) because I'm almost positive there will be eventual smut. I'll be clearer about this as I actually decide what I'm going to write lol. Overarching Warning for Graphic Depictions of Violence.

Categories: 2nd gen fic; adventure, humor, romance, fluff, and angst in approximately that order. i guess.

Pairings: Nalu, Gruvia, Gajevy, Jerza, Miraxus+Fried (don't know what that ship's called sorry), Chendy, Sting/Yukino, Baccana-- next gen has pairings, too, but I don't want to reveal those yet.

Tags/TW's: The first chapter contains UFC/MMA-esque violence as well as some implied street violence. There may be more TW's I need to add later, but I honestly haven't written the whole story or decided everything, so that's all I can give you for now. I'll do my best to tag appropriately as I go.

Summary: It’s been almost 12 years since 17-year-old Layla O'Neil was found living alone on the streets and put in foster care, and she likes to think she’s done a pretty good job of forgetting the past. She doesn’t remember her birth family, the name “Nashi [*1] Dragneel,” or where she heard the absurd stories she told the police who found her. Stories about Wizard Guilds, flying cats, and–most cringey of all–her self-proclaimed status as a “Fire Dragon Slayer.”

But the past becomes pretty impossible to ignore when it confronts her in the form of some middle-aged, pink-haired stalker who won’t stop calling her the ridiculous name she’d nearly forgotten, and trying to convince her to come back to “Fairy Tale.”

Oh, and claiming to be her dad.

Like Layla doesn’t have enough problems! The last thing she needs is some delusional freak following around. Especially one who’s starting to make her want to take his hand…

Yep, this is a Second Gen (and therefore post-canon) fic. The idea took root and just would not let go. I’ll warn you ahead of time that the premise is somewhat dark. That said, I’m the kind of writer who likes (and tries to write) stories with sad beginnings, hopeful middles, and triumphant ends. I don't want to give too much away, but you shouldn't expect major character deaths or anything like that, though their may be some forms of lightly implied abuse.

Feel free to reblog, make your own additions with commentary, whatever. I'm quite lax with stuff like that. Hope this was comprehensive enough, and that you enjoy!

Chapter 1: Dragon-Slaying Aliens

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“That’s correct…a world that exists independently from the one we know. And, unfortunately, a world that’s begun losing its Magic…unlike here, in Edolas, Magic is a finite resource. Without limits on its use, it will one day disappear forever.” -from Episode 78, “Edolas”, (English dub, ~00:09), Carla’s line [*1]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------To say this mission had gone sideways was a big-ass understatement, and even Natsu had to admit it.

It had started well enough. A relatively small mission. Not even S-Class! Puny wannabe Dark Guilds like the one Shirotsume needed dealt with–what was it called? Bony Jewel or something? Anyways, they were a dime a dozen, these days. Hell, Natsu was pretty sure he and Happy took out, like, a billion of them in the past seven years by pure accident. So how the hell was he supposed to know that this time, he’d get blasted to another world–one even Team Natsu hadn’t wound up in?

And he was positive they’d never been here. He may have had a bad memory (something he’d begrudgingly been forced to actively acknowledge as he grew into a man) but he was sure he’d have remembered somewhere that made him feel this bad. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t use his Magic. If it had just been that, this might have been fun. Hell, a lot of the worlds Team Natsu had visited–even Edolas–had been fun.

This one sucked.

If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought he’d been transported to the future–one where FACE had been activated and all the Magic had been dissipated. Because it had felt, truly, like all the Magic was being sucked out of him. When he’d woken up on the forest floor, he’d felt as if he was dying. His lungs had burned with each breath (and not in the good way). His limbs had felt like lead when he tried to rise.

He’d quickly realized that couldn’t be the case, though. Even if the Dragons hadn’t destroyed FACE, if all the Magic had been sucked from Earthland he’d have Magical Deficiency Syndrome. He’d either be down or in forced into his END form.

He’d wandered around the small forest he’d woken up in alone, trying to focus through the stink and noise he was only capable of perceiving through what felt like about a hundred layers of thick blanket, and calling for his best friend as long as he could. It hadn’t been long before he gave up and left; Happy had never shouted back (something he considered fortunate, at this point; hopefully Happy was back in Earthland) his stomach was trying to eat itself, it was dark–and, worst of all–he still couldn’t use his Magic. At all.

Actually, scratch that: the absolute worst part was when a glance at his (as usual) bare shoulder showed him that his guild mark had vanished. It was just gone. So was his scarf, and so was his Mini Communication Lacrima. Obviously, his guild mark and scarf were bigger deals personally, but the Mini Comm was a bigger loss in immediate, practical terms. After That Day, seven years ago, Laxus–now Fairy Tail’s Master–had started putting Navigation Enchantments on everyone’s Comms so that anyone who went missing could be traced. There was a 3D map of Earthland and Edolas visually tracking everyone’s movements in the Master’s Office. It could even find them in Edolas.

Now, Natsu’s was nowhere to be found. No one would be able to find him, wherever he was, and any hopes of contacting them were obviously dead in the water, too.

He was gonna have to find his own way back, somehow. He only prayed his scarf was somehow back in Earthland, and that Happy had grabbed it for him.

As he hobbled down the weird, too-neat walkway he’d found, he had to believe that whatever was preventing him from using his Magic was what kept him from sensing anything beyond the general–the stink, the sound, the pain, the hunger. Normally, with his better-than-normal resilience and enhanced strength, his pain would have mostly taken care of itself by now. Usually, making himself move helped. Now, it seemed to be making things worse.

After finding the pathway, he’d kept shouting for his little buddy a whole bunch of times, but all he’d gotten were several loud verbal confrontations and one physical one. He’d expected to beat the massive brute towering next to the smaller woman beside him–and he had. But it hadn’t been as easy as he’d expected. His movements had been slower than normal. His limbs had felt like lead. His strength had been lesser. Every time he tried to call up his Magic, a wave of dizziness and lethargy had overcome him. It was like he’d feel the rushing up inside of him only to sputter to coldness at the last second; he hadn’t seen so much as a spark since he’d woken up.

In the end, it was only experience and determination which had allowed him to level the much larger man, and hard-earned wisdom which had seen him running from the screeching woman and the gun-wielding, uniform-wearing soldiers her screeching had drawn. Yet the punch he’d taken to the nose had made it bleed and the kick to the thigh had made him limp.

It wasn’t just that his Dragon senses had vanished, making him woozy, making it difficult to stand and excruciating to move. His strength was gone as well. Not even sealstone would have weakened him this much.

He’d wandered, now, for what felt like several hours. The number of Magical Vehicles around were astounding–astounding, and nauseating; just looking at them made Natsu want to vomit. The one good part of having an empty stomach was that he had nothing to give up. He meandered in a stupor, through unbelievably thick crowds, dodging Magic Vehicles and their honking, and glaring down anyone who yelled at him for not understanding something, occasionally barking back to scare them off.

He’d never been so disoriented, and the worst part was that deep down, he knew that there was no one to blame but himself.

Lucy and Happy had asked him, point-blank, if the Quest he’d chosen had anything to do with his search for their long-lost daughter and kitten.

It had. Of course it had.

However, Natsu had denied it. Because if he hadn’t, he and Happy wouldn’t have been able to leave right then. Lucy would have forced him to bring someone else along; she was busy taking care of their son, Luke; the Perve-sicle was already out on his own mission/search for Juvia, and Erza was away, which meant he’d have had to ask someone outside Team Natsu.

No thanks, he’d decided, covering up the fine print on the mission request with his fingers before holding it up to Lucy’s nose.

Now, as he snarled at yet another person yelling at him for being in the way, Natsu was starting to consider the possibility that he just maybe should’ve been more upfront, and even that he should–perhaps–have waited for the stripper to get back before taking on Bony Jewel or whatever alone.

But how the hell was he supposed to have known it would end up like this?! It had been going fine–in fact, it had been going great! A couple opponents had offered a real challenge before their Master had shown up. Natsu had been laying down brick in that fight, too. Yet when the guy had been on his last legs, he’d whipped some creepy, sparkly rainbow skull from nowhere (now that he thought about it…that might have been what the Guild was named for!) and shot one last attack. One so big, Natsu had been unable to dodge–though, of course, he’d made to both block and finish the fight with an enormously powerful Fire Dragon Wing Attack.

Based on his current predicament–he had to assume it hadn’t worked. Even though the skull had shattered in the heat of his flames at the last second, the blast had still hit him. His one consolation was that he was pretty sure his little buddy had heeded his final warning to get back. So he was almost definitely still back in Earthland.

It had taken Natsu several pathetic attempts to stand. Getting here felt like a blur. Now, he had no idea what he was doing. What he should do. Their money had been in Happy’s knapsack, and without his precious nose, finding food was basically impossible anway.

Man…Lucy’s gonna kill me, he grumbled internally, grunting at another group who shouted at him for bumping into him.

Okay, yeah, maybe he should’ve been honest. Maybe he should’ve waited. But how could he do that when the lead was so good? When there was even the smallest chance he might finally find Nashi [*]?

At the thought, his footsteps halted temporarily. He ducked his head, bangs shadowing his eyes. He balled his fists at his sides. The thought of the missing daughter he’d never stopped searching for never got easier to bear.

It was the worst thing that could happen to a parent, to lose their child. Something he wouldn’t have wished on Fairy Tail’s most vicious, evil enemy. He and Lucy understood that too intimately. Still, he didn’t let himself get bogged down, not when it might hold him back, not when it might keep him from finding her. Seven years, she’d been gone. Her, Wendy–so many of their nakama and allies. Time had neither hindered nor halted his search for any of his missing comrades, but especially his little girl. She’d be twelve, now. He’d gotten better with birthdays and anniversaries when he married Lucy. He’d woken up and started crying on April 14th this year, the same as his wife.

Still, even on that day, he’d spoken of her. When he was with Luke, Lucy, and Happy, he talked about it. He talked about how he’d find her and Harley–Happy and Carla’s kitten–how they’d be a family again. He spoke of the future to give it power, just like Igneel had taught him. Just like he’d taught his own kids. Wherever Nashi was, he was sure she must be doing the same; speaking of how she’d find them again, the same as he strove to find her.

But he couldn’t continue his search (covert or not) until he got home. So getting home was definitely at the top of the to-do list. Right after eating.

He kept walking.

Wherever he’d wound up was seedy, dark, yet strewn with lights that made paths across his newly-sucky eyes when he looked at them directly. Gross and smelly, too. The people he’d just bumped into started shouting back at him, something about bumping into someone’s girlfriend, and he huffed irritably. Normally, he’d never back down from a challenge like this, but believe it or not, he was too lost, confused, hungry, and tired to deal with another fight–not when the injuries he’d sustained from the previous one were still hurting this much.

It was humiliating. He’d always been the type of person who refused to back down from a fight, no matter how outmatched he was. These days, a lot of fights were honestly pretty boring for him. Erza would always be scary, and Gray was admittedly pretty strong (if not badass enough to stand up to him, or so he would always insist). He could proudly admit to having achieved (at least) Gildarts-level strength without the clumsiness to make him dangerous.

Now, he was balking out of fights with people who weren’t even using Magic.

There was something viscerally terrifying about how much his injuries were troubling him. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t limp without worsening whatever injury that asshole had doled out on his knee. His nose felt bigger than his head.

He stumbled on, brooding.

The guy whose girlfriend he’d bumped into got louder, closer. Obviously, the freak wasn’t gonna let it go. Cursing, he started hobbling more quickly, turning the next corner. To his relief and curiosity, bright lights, loud voices, and a huge crowd–littered with food stands he might be able to beg food from–appeared. He made his way into the thick of it, ignoring the shouts behind him, and ducked and wove between people. It took him several seconds to realize he was still trying to find food by his nose, which barely even freaking worked. Frustrated, he turned his attention to the source of the light, which seemed to focus down on whatever sat in the middle of the crowd.

Curiosity shoving past the numbness and hunger, Natsu pushed his way towards it.

“Ow!”

“Hey!”

“Watch it, freak!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Natsu grumbled. “Watch your damn selves!”

He still felt like shit, but the crowd was oddly invigorating. As he crashed through the thickest (front) lines of the crowd, more lights came on while the darkness behind him fell deeper. Natsu winced, blinking. It took him a few moments to register what he’d stumbled upon: a roundish sort of stage, elevated a few feet off the ground and bordered by some kind of chain-link cage thing. Two corners were open to be entered, but fended off by some big dudes in black suits, holding back the crowd.

“WELCOME, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” boomed a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere at once, making Natsu flinch again and the crowd start chattering loudly.

Match? Natsu wondered despite his disorientation and exhaustion, thinking of the Grand Magic Games. He shoved aside every stranger who tried to take his place at the front of the audience, looking around with wide, curious eyes, shoving his gnawing stomach to the backburner.

“FIGHT FANS! ARE YOU REAAAADDDDYYYYY??!!! ”

Fight? Natsu thought, perking up, conveniently forgetting his injuries in a burst of excitement. Several people started chattering at the crack of the loud voice that was everywhere and nowhere, making Natsu look around even more fervently.

“BECAUSE THIS LONG-WAITED MATCH-UP IS… ABOUT…TO…BEGINNNN!!!”

The cheering got louder, the shoving got more aggressive, and Natsu got more aggressive right along with it. He’d be damned if he was going to miss a good fight. Besides. He needed to see what the Magic here was like. He was being smart. So ha! How about that, Lucy?!

“INTRODUCING: OUR FIRST FIGHTER!” the voice shouted while Natsu continued to elbow and shove, anticipation rising. Music rang out, a dude’s loud, snarly voice backed up by a bunch of deep bangs and booms which had Natsu trying to decide if what he was listening to was awesome or fucking awful–nope, definitely fucking awful. For the first time, he was glad he couldn’t hear properly since he got here.

A light flashed at one corner, drawing his eye. “UNLIKE HIS OPPONENT, THIS FIGHTER IS WELL-ESTABLISHED IN THE SEMI-UNDERGROUND OCTAGON! HAD HIS PERFORMANCES BEEN FORMALLY JUDGED WHILE THE UNDERGROUND WAS STILL ACTIVE, HE WOULD LIKELY HAVE LONG-BEEN PERMANENTLY DISQUALIFIED! YET, IN SPITE OF A CONTROVERSIAL CAREER, HE HAS REMAINED A STAPLE OF THE SEMI-OCTAGON FIGHTING WORLD FOR TWO YEARS!”

“Er, feels kinda harsh?” Natsu muttered to himself, sweating slightly. Though he didn’t really get what “controversial career” meant.

“WHILE THIS IS NOT FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE, DUE TO HIS HISTORY, MANY WILL NO DOUBT VIEW HIM AS REIGNING CHAMP AND DEFENDER! INNNNTTRRROOODUUUCCCINNNG… ‘MAD BULL’ MATTHEW BRON!”

A door Natsu hadn’t even seen was slammed open as if it had been kicked, and an enormous man–even bigger than the one that had managed to tag Natsu just a little bit ago, a man built like that potato head guy from Lamia Scale, and actually bearing a similar-shaped bald head–appeared, yanking off headphones and chucking them over his massive shoulder one of the lackeys who’d followed him out. The much shorter guy jumped, barely catching them and fumbling a lot once he had. “Mad Cow” or whatever grinned maniacally as he stormed for the ring, dark eyes wild.

The response from the crowd was mixed but mostly positive, Natsu quickly noticed as he glanced around. His eyes skated quickly over the group next to him (which was booing, unlike most of the crowd) then returned his focus to the stage-circle thing. He could see well enough, he was glad to note, even if his vision was nowhere near as sharp as it was back on Earthland. Big Guy took his place at the corner of the ring and immediately started pacing, lifting tree-like arms and roaring as he did so. Meanwhile his lackey scurried for the bit of protected corner behind him, trying to shout for his attention and getting nowhere as he continued to pace.

Natsu quickly decided he didn’t like the looks of this guy, intro aside. He was the type of asshole Natsu lived to knock down a peg, and despite his injuries and exhaustion, Natsu found himself appraising the big bastard, hands twitching. Sure, he wasn’t in the best shape, but since when had he been one to turn down the chance to kick some ass? It was more a reflex than anything. For about the billionth time since he’d landed here, he tried conjuring up some fire only to curse internally as all he got for his efforts was a wave of dizziness and a wash of helplessness.

“NOW FOR OUR CONTENDER,” the voice boomed. “SHE’D ONLY BARELY ENTERED THE UNDERGROUND BEFORE IT BECAME THE SEMI-UNDER, BUT WAS ALREADY MAKING WAVES! THIS FIGHTER HAS SPARKED INTENSE DEBATE ABOUT WHETHER WOMEN SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO FIGHT MEN–IN ANY OCTAGON!” More mixed din. Natsu frowned in confusion. Was it for the other fighters’ safety or something? Because someone should ban Erza from contributing to the guild hall violence. Oh, yes. That was a great idea. He’d have to bring the idea up to Gray when he got home.

“BUT IT’S DIFFICULT TO ARGUE WITH HER HANDY VICTORIES!” the voice boomed. “THANKS TO HER NEARLY-UNBROKEN STREAK OF INSANE WINS, SHE HAS BEEN NICKNAMED THE THE ‘PHOENIX’, ‘UNDERDOG’, ‘TENMEN’...AND HER PREFERRED NICKNAME…”

A new song started, and this one was undeniably cool, in Natsu’s opinion. Something hard, fast, and catchy, punctuated by an angry-sounding woman singing something about “not giving a damn” about something or other. The door at the opposite end of the ring swung open. A girl came swaggering out, and Natsu froze.

“THE DRAGONESS, LAYLAAAAA O'NEEEILLLLL!!!!”

It wasn’t his daughter. It couldn’t be. Her name wasn’t Layla. Her name was Nashi. His Nashi would be twelve, and this girl was in her late teens–maybe even her early twenties. The fact that her fighting nickname was “The Dragoness” was a nasty coincidence, but that’s all it was. This couldn’t be Earthland’s Nashi.

But it was this world’s Nashi. Of that, there was no doubt. And Natsu couldn’t make himself take his eyes off her, couldn’t even make himself blink as he stared, ignoring the cheering and booing all around him.

A couple strands of unruly pink hair at her bangs had broken free of their tight braids, as adorable and predictably unpredictable as his little girl’s. They clung to her forehead, bouncing as she strutted towards the monster still pacing, practically frothing at the mouth, and Natsu vaguely registered the sound of several peoples’ alarmed murmuring. If he hadn’t been so distracted, he’d have understood; she was about half the guy’s size and about -50% as insane-looking.

Not scared, though.

And…she looked like Lucy. She looked so much like Lucy that it hurt. He could still remember times when he’d call his little girl’s name, she’d turn around, and he’d gasp–because it really was like an adorable, wild little pink-haired Lucy turning to look up at him, her whole face lighting up like he was the greatest thing in Earthland. The memory choked him up, a feeling he’d gotten used to over the past seven years. He swallowed hard.

But that wasn’t Lucy’s smile. Natsu felt like he had seen that smile somewhere but he wasn’t particularly interested in thinking about it all that deeply, because what mattered was that it was her smile, his little girl’s, big and toothy and unmistakable–a little lopsided, the corners of her lips characteristically curling.

It hit his chest like a shot from Zeref, making him briefly clutch at his waistcoat’s dirtied fabric.

Natsu knew, firsthand, just how similar other worlds’ versions of his loved ones could be to his. Hell, Edolas Lucy had chopped off her hair to make it a little easier to distinguish herself from Earthland Lucy.

That didn’t make it hurt any less to suddenly see another world’s Nashi– Layla, this one was called. That was Nashi’s middle name. It made sense, when you thought about it. Names were one thing that seemed to sometimes differ slightly between worlds, as he’d learned on the 100-Year-Quest [*3]. Her canines were sorta sharp, maybe, but they weren’t Dragon Slayer sharp, like his and daughter’s. Besides. Edo Nashi and Fireball’s canines were a tiny bit sharper than normal, too.

It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t be. Looking at her still felt like being punched in the chest by Erza. Yet he couldn’t stop watching as the music, cheers, and boos faded, she stripped off her sweats (to much catcalling and whistling) to reveal a black sports bra/shorts getup sort of like “Mad Bull’s�� shorts, revealing a body packed with much more muscle than any of Fairy Tail’s women would’ve allowed themselves to accumulate. She looked pretty badass, he decided.

The voice that was everywhere and nowhere boomed on:

“NOT ONLY A CHANCE AT THE UPCOMING TITLE ON THE LINE, BUT–POTENTIALLY–THE FUTURE OF MIXED SEMI-UNDERS. TWO CHALLENGERS, SQUARING OFF FOR A CHANCE AT THE SEMI-FINALS. THIS IS A GIGANTIC CULTURAL MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF THIS SPORT… ‘MAD BULL’ MATTHEW BRON VS. THE ‘DRAGONESS’ LAYLA O'NEIL!”

“‘Dragoness’ is fucking right!” Mad Cow or whatever roared while he hugged one arm across his chest, grinning ferally at his much smaller opponent. “Here hoping some man will look at you, fugly?!”

Several people in the audience laughed. Even the announcer chuckled. Meanwhile, Natsu’s blood boiled. On some level, he knew he needed to separate himself from this. From this fight, from this “Nashi.” Especially when he was this powerless to do anything about any of it. But it was impossible to listen to someone say that to another version of his daughter and not have every protective instinct in his body flare, especially when the spectators apparently thought it was fucking hilarious.

However, her grin didn’t even flicker. “Like you’re one to talk!” she cackled. “You look like Popeye fucked Bigfoot!”

Natsu didn’t flinch at the language like many people in the audience seemed to. In fact, he found the disapproving murmurs confusing. The other guy hadn’t exactly been polite, but he hadn’t gotten the same reaction. Still, a solid number of people were laughing their asses off, including the group next to him which had booed Mad Cow.

He also had no clue what the hell she’d just said even meant, but the way Mad Cow’s smile dropped off his face, a handful of people started howling with laughter, and the commentator’s chuckles cut off abruptly was enough to make Natsu grin.

Some random guy in some sort of black, collared uniform entered the arena, signaling to the loud, annoying commentator. Unlike her opponent, no one had followed This Nashi into the arena; she was all alone. So she ran back to her own bit of protected yet empty corner and threw her clothes and a water bottle over the chainlink fence, then ran back towards the middle of the arena. There, she hopped up and down, shaking out her arms. Stretched them above her head.

“OUCH!” The commentator finally seemed to recover, though he sounded somewhat vexed. “WELL, ONE THING’S FOR SURE, THE CHALLENGER CAN TALK GAME…WHETHER SHE CAN LIVE UP TO IT IS ANOTHER QUESTION.”

“God, I fucking hate when Hansis commentates,” the guy next to Natsu muttered, his friends snorting in agreement. Then he glanced at Natsu–only to double take. “Oi, are you related to the Dragoness or something?!” he asked, eyes on his hair.

“Uhhh…” Natsu chuckled nervously, feeling himself start to sweat. He may have been what Erza would (and frequently did ) call an “impulsive idiot”, but he had no clue how to explain that he was the father of her other self. “Something like that.”

“Whoa, seriously?!” The guy’s friend leaned around him to look at Natsu with wide, shining eyes, then continued, “I won’t ask anymore, ‘cause obviously you’re trying to protect your identities or something, but that’s so cool! We’re huge fans!”

“Hmm…” Natsu said, scanning their apparel–t-shirts and hats emblazoned with her face and silhouette–and what looked like homemade signs of her name, written in fiery letters. “I can see that…what is this, exactly?” He asked this while looking around at the lights, spectators, an unfamiliar kind of money being exchanged and counted between several people.

Natsu tilted his head, blinking. “No?” he said.

“The semi-underground tournament?” the only girl in the group said, eyes almost as wide as her friend’s. When Natsu only continued to look confused, she said, “What, do you live under a rock?! You’ve at least heard of MMA, right? Mixed Martial Arts?”

He perked up at this. “Like a fight?! Hell, yeah! How do I get in on this?!” He grinned, cracking his knuckles, his earlier scuffles and empty stomach completely forgotten.

“YOU DON’T!” the entire group shouted, eyes bugging.

The dude who’d first started talking to him huffed, sweating slightly. “The ‘semi-underground’ octagon used to just be called ‘the underground fights,’” he explained loudly, Natsu still having to lean in to catch what he said with his new, bad ears over the increasingly excited din. “It was illegal, but, like, illegal in the ‘everyone knows but won’t squeal’ way, you know?”

Natsu nodded, fully getting this. After all, how many times had soldiers arrested him only for Queen Hisui to let him off with a finger-wag. Of course, his luck on that front had run out seven years ago…

“The feds finally cracked down on it,” the guy continued, “but didn’t prosecute any of the fighters. Now, it’s called the ‘Semi-Underground’...it’s got no weight-classes (which is why the Dragoness can fight big dudes like Mad Bull). All genders are free to compete and fight each other. It’s a bit more for entertainment than pure fighting prowess– that was different, before,” the guy added with a wistful tone. “But still! You can’t just go waltzing into the octagon, you know? Back in the basement where this used to happen, you could’ve gotten away with that, but now you’ve gotta work for it, you know? Seriously, do you live under a rock or something?”

Irritated, Natsu opened his mouth, but his response was cut off when a loud voice–not as loud as the announcer, but still–redrew all their attention to the ring. “Alright, fighters,” the black-collar guy said into a microphone which was smaller and not as loud as the commentator’s, quieting the audience. “We’ve been over the rules. Protect yourself at all times. Follow my instructions. We’re going to have a clean fight, you hear me?” He glared at Mad Bull, but This Nashi was the only one who dipped her chin in recognition. Natsu’s eyes narrowed along with hers when her opponent refused to acknowledge the guy’s words. “Now, touch gloves at this time, and come out ready to do this!”

Both fighters instantly danced away from each other. Black collar guy scowled. Both the commentator and the audience made sounds like “ OOOOOOOH!”

“NO TOUCH!” came the commentator’s gleeful voice, “I REPEAT, NEITHER FIGHTER TOUCHED GLOVES, AND SO FAR, NEITHER ARE REALLY MOVING FOR EACH OTHER–”

“SAY YOU’RE PRAYERS, BITCH!” Mad Cow roared. “YOU’RE DEAD MEAT!”

“BRING IT!” This Nashi roared back, and Mad Cow lunged, swinging in immediately with a big, dramatic overhand hook that would have knocked her out immediately if she hadn’t skated out of its way. It took about three similar exchanges for Natsu to sag in disappointment.

“Oi!” he shouted, utterly let down, “Where the hell’s the magic?!”

“Geez!” the guy next to him laughed. “The fight’s only just started: give them a minute to warm up! Then we’ll get to see the cool stuff.”

“What, they’re not allowed to use it at first or something?” Natsu asked, still staring as This Nashi fended off huge, devastating blows raining down from above and leapt back from the powerful kicks, eyes narrowed and expression tight.

“...Er, what?” the guy asked.

“Magic–duh!” Natsu huffed, flickering wide eyes between the guy and This Nashi, who was now darting backwards around the round-ish ring, still fending Mad Cow off, weaving and ducking with a speed few could hope to match. “You know?! Fire, Ice, Celestial Magic…?

The guy stared at him for a second along with his companions, all of whom were also sweating. It was then that Natsu knew:

Something more was going on here. Something he didn’t understand. This place…wherever he was, it was like Edolas. Not now, but back when he, Lucy, and the others had gone there. Magic didn’t just not exist, here; was some kind of… taboo on it.

“Oh, sorry,” he chuckled, rubbing the back of his head. Trying to keep his voice as quiet as he could over the crowd, he continued, “I didn’t mean to say something that would get you in trouble...”

The group’s only response was to sidle away from him surreptitiously, glancing at him and sharing looks with wide eyes. Natsu was thrown for a loop once more. Ooo- kay, talk about overly-suspicious. Were there guards listening in on their conversation or something? As discreetly as possible, with his hand still at the back of his head, he looked around, eyes narrowed.

Yet…he saw nothing to warrant their suspicion. An unruly crowd…and an astonishing lack of guards. At the Grand Magic Games, there’d always been a ton of guards. Way more than he wanted to be there, honestly. Did this have something to do with the whole “underground” thing?

He looked at the group again, then realized something important: it was him they were looking at nervously. Nervously, and like…he was crazy or something.

It had taken time, but the years had made Natsu wiser–cooler–about situations like this. Even as his stomach sank with the realization that getting home was going to be a much harder task than he’d initially realized, he acknowledged that he’d need to be careful about mentioning Magic here. Dropping his hand, he forced a small smile at them then turned his attention back to the arena, where Mad Cow continued to chase This Nashi around the edge of the arena. Meanwhile, his mind continued to reel, loud to himself and no one else.

“–IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE SHE’S CAUGHT IN A CLINCH, HERE, AND THEN OUR NIGHT WILL BE OVER!” the commentator was blaring. It was sort of surprising, how easily he’d been able to tune out when Natsu’s ears were registering so little. “I HATE TO SAY IT–” (Based on the glee in his tone, Natsu doubted that.) “–BUT HOWEVER MUCH OF AN EXTRAORDINARY FIGHTER SHE IS, SHE’S STILL A FEMALE FIGHTER. HER OPPONENT HAS WELL OVER A HUNDRED POUNDS ON HER [*4]. AND, AGAIN, I HATE TO SAY THIS–BUT THERE ARE JUST PHYSICAL BARRIERS NO CHICK FIGHTER WILL EVER BE ABLE TO OVERCOME! RIGHT NOW, THIS IS A DOG FIGHT, AND NOT ONE SHE CAN KEEP SCRAPPING IN! SHE’S NOT GOING TO COME OUT AS THE ‘UNDERDOG,’ THIS TIME–”

“Man, she’s getting her ass beat!” someone from the group broke the awkward silence as This Nashi was swept aside by a blow that caught the guard at her ear.

“Maybe she’ll make a comeback!” another guy said, tremulous but hopeful, as a log-like shin crashed into her stomach.

“She definitely will!” the guy who’d first spoken to Natsu said, though there was a distant note of doubt in his voice as she barely reeled from an arrow-fast straight right.

Despite the awkwardness of their last interaction, Natsu couldn’t help appreciating these people, who were so devoted to this world’s Nashi. He decided to end their night more positively. “Is that what you think?” he asked in a somewhat bored tone, eyes on the girl still gliding backwards, dancing away from the hits and kicks or else blocking them. He felt, rather than saw, the group’s eyes jumping to him, some of them quickly leaping away only to dart back.

“What do you mean?” the first guy ventured when he said nothing else, edging a little closer once more.

Natsu crossed his arms over his broad chest, eyes thinning as Big Boy brought down a hailstorm of fists on This Nashi’s head. His eyes tracked the way a particularly big hit caught her forearm–but only barely, seeing as she’d slid out of the enormous range even as she blocked. Just like he’d thought…

His stomach churned uncomfortably. It was eerie and cruel, how much her movements and the memories aligned–

“OUCH! That hurt, Daddy!” After the exclamation, Nashi began grumbling, vigorously rubbing her forearm where his fist had just him.

“Woops!” Natsu chuckled sheepishly, “My bad!”

Despite the fact that she was still rubbing the arm he’d tapped with a light hit, the little girl who barely came up above his knees scowled.

It was midday, now. In their front lawn; his and Happy’s house, now much larger with the rooms he’d added for Lucy and their kids.

“But–” He grew serious. “–you think your enemies will take it easy on you, Nashi? You think they’ll give you a break because you say ‘ouch’?”

She dropped her arms to her sides and scowled–pouted, really. She was so cute, he couldn’t have kept his lips from quirking into a grin if he tried. Strutting forward, he planted a hand on top of her head, rubbing the unruly locks. He only grinned wider when she turned her scowl/pout up to him. “Sorry, kiddo, but they won’t!”

Lucy would have lost her mind, if she saw the interaction. Natsu could just hear her now: “NATSU, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?! SHE’S FIVE! BE CAREFUL, WOULD YOU? BLAH BLAH BLURGH BLAH– !”

He never really got Lucy, when she acted like that. Nashi was a Dragon Slayer, like him. She could take much more than a normal human, but would never learn that she could if he didn’t show her! Not to mention that Igneel had been way tougher on him, when he was five. Besides, he didn’t want his kid to be some weakling! What father did want that?

Not any good ones, that was for sure. Especially not when their kids had Nashi’s determination and drive.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he apologized again, still rubbing her head affectionately. “But you’ve got to understand…if I hurt you, it’s because I know your enemies will hurt you the same way…I don’t want it to surprise you. I want you to be able to fight back, still. You do still want to be a big-time Dragon Slayer, don’t you?”

She stared up at him dubiously, but the smile caught on quick. She’d never been able to resist smiling back at him.

“...Yeah,” she admitted finally, feigning reluctance.

He lifted his hand off her head, cupping it around his ear and leaning down towards her. “What was that?!” he shouted. “I couldn’t hear you…what was it you want?!”

“I–pfft–I WANT–” Her small smile turned to a grin–the big, corner-curled grin only his daughter ever could or would achieve. The one that always melted his heart.

“I WANNA BE A DRAGON SLAYER!” she managed to roar through her grin. “NO–I MEAN, I WANNA BE THE STRONGEST DRAGON SLAYER EVER!”

“HELL YEAH, YOU DO!” he roared back, the pride managing to make his chest burst even as he squared up again, preparing for more training. An adrenaline only teaching one’s prodigy could spark electrocuted his system. “IF THAT’S REALLY TRUE, THEN COME ON, NASHI! YOU’VE GOT MORE IN YOU! I KNOW YOU DO!”

“OH YEAH? WELL I DO! I GOT WAY MORE IN ME!” She dropped into the stance he’d taught her, grinning for everything she was worth. The sun illuminated her smile.

He somehow managed to grin even more widely. “Right, then listen up!” he commanded. “When Dragon Slayers fight, they got one big advantage: they can take a whole bunch of hits–then still get up. So that’s exactly what you’re gonna do.”

“...Huh?!” The little girl’s eyes bulged out of her head. “You’re sayin’ I’m gonna let myself get hit?!”

“Well, not too hard,” he elaborated. “And not too much…you’re just gonna play defense for a while, see?” He moved for her, throwing a fist much more slowly than he normally would have. Automatically, she wove away, eyes wide on his face. His right fist was followed by his left, then a kick–all too sluggish to be real. She easily moved around and blocked all of them. “This way,” he continued, throwing another kick. “You can learn the guy you’re fighting, how step, how they breathe…”

“How they step…how they breathe…” she repeated to herself in a murmur, eyes flickering all over his body as he continued to pantomime a real fight. Natsu couldn’t help but grin. Nashi was a distractible kid, but when it came to fighting, she was always on the ball.

Natsu didn’t mind one bit when Lucy blamed him for that.

“...how they fight,” he finished.

“...how they fight!” she whispered.

He started speeding up his movements. Let her orient before he lit up his fists. She mirrored him, flames igniting her much smaller fists. Their dance became even faster “That’s it, Nashi!” he praised as she leapt back from a kick, only letting it clip her shoulder. “Get into the flow of it! Read my movements! Remember, breathe, and–”

“She’s reading him,” he murmured, voice softer than he’d meant it to be. “Fending him off and waiting for the right moment; his hits are only clipping her.” His hunger was catching up with him again, as was his pain. He ached. He wanted to sleep. And…

…It hurt. It hurt too much. Knowing it wasn’t his Nashi…that just made it hurt more. Each hit, each block, each flash of those brown eyes…they felt like shards of glass piercing his heart.

I can’t stay here, he realized.

“What was that?” the girl in the group asked, venturing closer to him.

His heart was heavy, sinking as he watched the girl. Embarrassment washed over him as he realized that had been a stupid thing to say in the first place. This wasn’t his Nashi. She wasn’t using what he’d taught her because he hadn’t been the one to train her. Hell, she probably wasn’t even gauging her opponents’ movements; she was probably fighting for her life, here.

She would lose.

“Nothin’,” he replied thickly, dropping his arms even as he watched the girl roll away from a rather impressive and extremely long-ranged crescent kick, not even the man’s big toe catching her at all. “I was wrong…enjoy the rest of the fight, guys.” He used the ensuing beat of silence to stare–for just one more second–at the girl. This world’s version of his girl.

Without thinking, he went to heft up his backpack, only to sigh in quiet defeat–the exhale almost visible even in the warm air–as he remembered it wasn’t there; he was just a weakling in this world. That’s why his back (and whole body) felt so heavy.

“Oh, you’re leaving?” the first guy who’d spoken to him said as he turned away, pushing back through the crowd. His tone was an odd mixture of relieved and disappointed. Natsu said nothing, merely waving.

Overhead, the booming voice–which he’d tuned out during the competition–continued to sound off. “–AN ADMITTEDLY UNBELIEVABLE DODGE, BY ,” it said, clearly shocked, as Natsu pushed past a woman who was obviously excited to be moving closer to the arena. “BUT THE NEXT FLURRY OF BLOWS LANDS, ALTHOUGH IT APPEARS SHE’S BLOCKED MOST OF THEM–”

“YOU’RE DONE, BITCH!” roared Mad Cow, so loud that he managed to drown out the commentator–who went silent, anyway. This made Natsu pause, his brows knitting with fury.

It doesn’t matter, he reminded himself. She’s not your daughter. He refused to look back, forced himself to take another step, then another. She’s just some fighter from another world who’s, apparently, out of her league. She’s not–

A loud slam, like a body falling on a mat. “SHE’S DOWN! I REPEAT, ’S DOWN!”

Natsu smirked. “See, dumbass?” he murmured to himself.

“IT’S ALL OVER, FOLKS! SHE’S–”

All of a sudden, a fleshy CRACK rang through the air, followed by an enormous chorus of gasps and cries of surprise from the crowd. A deafening silence ensued.

“... HOLY– UNBELIEVABLE!” the commentator managed. “A KICK FROM THE GROUND–AND O’NEIL'S BACK ON HER FEET! THEY’VE GAINED GROUND FROM EACH OTHER, AND MAD BULL–MAD BULL IS NOW TRYING TO RECOVER!”

Despite himself, Natsu slowed even as he urged himself to keep walking. Even as he continued to force himself not to turn back. Looking back is only a distraction. It’s not Nashi. That is not Nashi. It’s not–

“Man, I really hate guys like you, you know that?”

The seething voice was what made him stop, closing his eyes. There was just…something about it. A growl. A fire. Something that punched right back into his memories:

“Remember, breathe, and keep your eyes on my chest! That way, you can see my whole body at the corners of your eyes!” A combo, one which he pumped more speed and power to than before–throwing her off on purpose.

“Oof!” she grunted as she landed on her butt.

“There, when you fall– that’s when you make your comeback! Now that you’ve watched your opponent, and tricked him into thinking you’re down– now is when you get back up and blow them away! That’s how a Dragon Slayer fights! That’s how a Fairy Tail Wizard fights!” She stared up at him with huge eyes, shining with admiration, and flushed cheeks.

He grinned.

“So?! Get up! Always get back up, Nashi! I’m not asking the impossible of you–you can do this! I know you can!”

“I–I will!” she scrambled to her feet, fists blazing with gold heat as she lunged for him. “I’ll always get back up! No matter what, I’ll–”

His chest seized. He clenched his jaw, knowing he needed to make himself keep walking, but unable to do it. Even as people churned around him, trying to push past him, he found himself shoving them off, refusing to move from exactly where he was. One foot planted in front of the other. Half-hovering. Eyes still closed.

Whatever just happened had quieted the crowd, an anticipatory sort of silence that made him clench his fists, eyes still closed.

And then, Natsu’s world flipped upside down:

“You didn’t even bother to study my previous fights, did you?” Her growl carried across the hushed crowd. “Tch, typical…if you had, you’d know: You’d know I always get back up!”

His eyes flew open.

He whirled back around and watched, wide-eyed and world rocking, as the pink haired girl rose. Rolled her shoulders against her ears, one at a time. The grin was gone, a heavy, intimidating scowl having taken its place as she recovered, getting her feet back underneath herself, her stance back in place. Her nose was wrinkled in fury. Her eyes burned.

Natsu’s lips parted on a gasp as he stared.

Mad Cow scoffed, hunched and rubbing his chin with a hand like a mitt. Natsu guessed that This Nashi must’ve caught him there–probably with a kick, given the size difference. That must have been what made the crowd react with shock. They were recovering now, though, getting louder.

“And why the fuck would I bother to do that?!” Mad Cow shouted, dropping his hand. “I don’t need to! Every guy you’ve faced could’ve beaten you easily if they’d quit acting like even more of a little bitch than you! You shouldn’t fucking be here anyway…fucking birds, knowing dudes will take it easy on you so you can take advantage of it and collect the reward…well I’M NOT ONE OF THEM!” He roared the last part. The bitter fury in his voice was a kind Natsu was familiar with.

“Studying what you can find of your opponent’s fighting style–that’s basic! And you wanna sit here and bitch about how I don’t deserve to be here, you lumpy-headed fuck?! ”

“The FUCK you just call me?!” McCow snarled back.

“YOU HEARD ME, SHITWIT!”

“THAT’S IT!” the man shouted. “I’ve had it! I was gonna take it easy on you, but–”

“THAT’S MY LINE!”

It seemed that was both their limit.

They flew at each other. But now, everything was different, and Natsu doubted that anyone without a trained eye and fighting experience like him could recognize it.

Apparently, the commentator was one such person: “THIS IS–THIS IS INCREDIBLE!” the voice boomed, full of disbelief, as the girl caught the fist rocketing towards her face with a hard elbow, making Mad Cow let out a roar of pain. She kicked away an arm flying towards her head, and launched a sidekick at his now-uncovered stomach–one that landed hard. She built on the damage, bearing down on him as he stumbled backwards, tripping over his own heels. A right roundhouse followed by a left to his head. Despite the fact he was obviously disorientated, he caught the first one– blocked it and tried, unsuccessfully to catch her foot–but not the second, which cracked into his ear and made him stagger, her chasing him and hammering him with surprisingly powerful blows. Each one of her hits accumulated speed and strength.

The commentator picked up again, saying something or other about “striking machines”, but Natsu didn’t hear. His eyes were wide, now, and glued to the girl cracking her shin into her opponent’s nose, teeth bared. The expression on her face…the fire in her eyes…the speed of her hits…her fighting style…it was like he’d begun watching the fight currently happening through one eye and a stream of memories through the other, his breath going still in his lungs–

“–No matter what, I’ll always get back up!” screamed the little girl, running forward and hammering him with fiery strikes, kicks, and even elbows. They’d only just started elbow work. Natsu staggered back with each good combo she landed. He put in the effort to make it look convincing, pride swelling within his chest.

“That’s it! Build on it! Faster…harder! C’mon!”

This Nashi slipped underneath and into one of Mad Cow’s big overhand hooks, the corrected trajectory of his fist barely skidding over her shoulder as her right fist tore up, slamming into his chin. Even as his eyes rolled and he staggered backwards, her expression was so mutinous it was almost funny.

But as good as the uppercut was, it turned out to be a set-up:

“LOOK AT THIS COMBO…CROSS, HOOK–WHOA! AN ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATING LEG KICK! CLASSIC MUAY THAI-INSPIRED COMBO FROM TURNING–”

“FUCKING BITCH–!” Mad Cow roared, but his opponent cut him off with a voice like thunder.

“I’M THE BADDEST BITCH YOU’VE EVER MET!”

“I’LL ALWAYS GET BACK UP! I WILL! I’M GONNA BE A GREAT DRAGON SLAYER, JUST LIKE YOU! NO–I’LL EVEN BEAT YOU, ONE DAY!” Nashi took a deep breath, and Natsu grinned, allowing the pause in the fight, because he knew what was coming. The catchphrase both like his and not. Inspired by him, but all her own.

Her fists blazed brighter than ever. The sun illuminated her grin.“JUST WATCH ME, DADDY! DON’T EVEN BLINK! BECAUSE I’VE–”

“–GOT A FIRE IN ME THAT YOU’LL NEVER PUT OUT!”

Mad Cow’s eyes were wild with fear as he desperately swung for another, big lead cross–one which spelled his downfall. The Dragoness leapt off her left leg–her back leg. Her right shin cracked into his already dipping head.

He fell forward and bounced off the mat, limp as a ragdoll, while the audience screamed all around him.

Even as the giant fell still, she made for his prone form, fist raised, but didn’t fight at all when the black-collared man appeared seemingly from nowhere, grabbed her around the waist, and practically threw her away. Instead, This Nashi– The Nashi skipped backwards, smirking, and raised a wrapped fist.

And that was the realization which thundered through Natsu, now gaping up at the victorious, pink-haired fighter stalking towards the edge of the cage: not This Nashi. The Nashi.

After seven, grief-filled years, Natsu Dragneel was absolutely sure he had just found his daughter.

*1. Yes, there will be quotes from the original series (the anime dub, sub, or the manga depending on whichever version I like best) at the beginning of each chapter. HOWEVER. The quotes are not spoilers and are often only tangentially related to my plotline. The one for this chapter, for instance, is specifically about Edolas, but is not actually true of the world where Natsu has landed.

*2. Yes, I know the canon Edolas Nalu child is “Nasha.” I decided on “Nashi”, instead, for reasons which will be explained later.

*3. Sorry in advance, but I pretty much kept what little I remembered/liked from 100YQ and ditched everything I didn’t. Same with the original story, but way more with 100YQ. Idk what it is but even though I’ve read the whole thing, 100YQ has this unique quality where a lot of what happens slips straight out of my mind as soon as I’ve read it. In one eye, out the other. So you’ll just have to roll with me, sorry.

*4. Real-life inspiration for Layla (/Nashi) comes mostly from Ronda Rousey, whose biography I read and happen to have on hand, along with Kaoklai Kaennorsing (especially his fighting style). Those are the two main ones. If you’ve read My Fight, Your Fight, you’ll understand how Layla (/Nashi’s) personality is inspired by her–especially as you go on. I highly recommend looking up the Thai kickboxer/Muay Thai fighter Kaoklai Kaennorsing. He has been called the Giant-Slayer because he did, in fact, defeat opponents who had over 100 pounds on him. Watching his fights is just an incredible experience. Other inspirations include Rose Namajunas, Connor McGregor, and some others. There are also several fictional inspirations including and outside Fairy Tail which I won’t bore you with (some of them I’m sure fellow anime fans will be able to guess lol).

#nalu #fairy tail #natsu dragneel #lucy heartfilia #nashi dragneel #nasha dragneel #gruvia #gajevy #jerza #fan fiction #fanfiction #2nd gen #post-canon #if this is wonky i'll fix it tomorrow. too tired now.#nalu fic

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brawltogethernow · 3 years ago

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@mirrorfalls submitted: Came across this while searching for James Bond’s scrambled-eggs recipe (long story). Your thoughts?

But did you find James Bond’s scrambled eggs recipe?

In this article, Scocca laments his inability to find accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable to read with his young son, while also demonstrating a mysterious aversion to looking at DC and Marvel’s lines of comics for children, which is where the accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable for reading with young children are. He wants his elementary schooler to be able to safely have the run of all superhero media so he doesn’t have to touch the yucky baby books.

This is not an industry-wide crisis. This is just one dude who got paid to write an article where he accidentally exposed one of his personal hangups.

The child headed toward the trade paperbacks of Marvel and D.C. superhero titles on the side wall […] a few steps in front of me. […] Is he with you? a clerk asked me. I said he was. You know, the clerk said, we have a kids’ section. The clerk gestured backward, at a few shelves near the entrance. I said, Thanks, we know and tried throwing in a little shrug, as the kid kept going.

You can’t just turn a seven-year-old child loose in a comic-book store to look at the superhero comic books. […] My seven-year-old really wanted to see that last Avengers movie […] that is, he wished it were a movie he could see, but he understood that it was, instead, a movie designed to scare and sadden him—a movie actively hostile to people like him.

They have a children’s section. Because comics are a medium suitable for stories for everybody, and they are sold in comic book shops, which have sections, like bookstores. You can use this organization to find books that you know in advance are suitable for children. What goes in that category is determined by industry professionals. This area will be bigger the bigger the shop is. These comics are not lower quality that titles from the main lines. They are actually slightly better-written on average.

Your local comic book shop has considerately wrapped Empowered in a plastic bag, so your child will not be drawn in by a colorful superhero and accidentally read a graphic scene. If you think your kid might find a memoir about internment camps upsetting, it is your job to notice them picking up They Called Us Enemy and read the blurb on the back before you let them have it. This comic adults are meant to read is in a comic book shop because that is where comics are sold. Not every public place is supposed to be Disneyland.

Movies have ratings systems. If you do not want your child to watch a PG-13 movie, you will find that most superhero cartoons are for children. They are about the same characters. Some are quite good! I really enjoyed Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Your child may like Avengers Assemble. At least I think that’s right. I’m always mixing those titles around.

This is a deeply weird bias for Scocca to casually demonstrate, because he identifies in the article that real childishness is striving for empty maturity.

He compares an old comic,

[…]a 1966 Spider-Man comic in which Spider-Man meets, fights, and defeats the Rhino; participates in a running argument between John Jameson and J. Jonah Jameson about his heroism; buys a motorcycle; breaks up with his first girlfriend, Betty Brant; flirts with Gwen Stacy; and reluctantly agrees to let Aunt May take him to meet her friend Mrs. Watson’s niece, Mary Jane.

and a new comic,

[…]a 21st century comic book in which Thor, brooding in a Katrina-destroyed New Orleans, beats up Iron Man. He also yells at Iron Man a lot about some incomprehensibly convoluted set of grievances, including involuntary cloning, that he believes Iron Man perpetrated against him while he was dead(?), and then summons some other Norse god from the beyond somehow for reasons having something to do with real estate. I think. Where the 1966 comic is zippy and fun and complete, the whole contemporary one is muddled and lugubrious and seems to constitute a tiny piece of a seemingly endless plot arc—simultaneously apocalyptic and inert.

and concludes that the edgier comic is actually less mature. This is true. (This is not news about mediocre comics.)

It also has nothing to do with either comic being child-friendly, the article’s nominal thesis, except in the sense that ASM #41 (yes, I eyeballed that from that summary, yes I am just showing off now) is better written, making it more everyone-friendly. It also has practically more space dedicated to word balloons than art and is about a college student juggling girl problems and a part-time job with a tyrannical boss. But the immature one, as Scocca points out, is dour.

These are both teenagery issues, separated only by quality. It’s true that lots of new comics published by the big 2 are bad in the specific way Scocca describes here, taking themselves too seriously and hauled down by associated stories instead of buoyed by them. Some are not! Some titles from these companies’ main continuities are zippy, contained, and child friendly. Give your child The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl! Or if you like vintage comics so much better, why don’t you…buy some?

The books on the kid’s rack are good and fun and totally suitable for parents to read with their children without wanting to scoop their eyeballs out. Scocca cites the Batman ‘66 comics as the brightly colored, tightly written all ages solution to his problem about sharing superhero stories with his son. My local comic shop stores this title in the kid’s section. I am glad that Scocca’s does not, as he seems to have a peculiar aversion to looking for comics to read with his son there.

Scocca cites Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as a superhero movie he could watch with his kids. (I was surprised when this line made it sound like he has several. I don’t want to assume the other one isn’t in this article because they’re a girl, but I very much am assuming that.) Great! Go to the kid’s section and look for Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. It’s a fun, zippy title directly inspired by ITSV where Miles, Gwen, and Peter superhero together. It’s much more tightly written than most of the various Spider-Verse comics, which are ambitiously messy ubercrossovers. You may not want to give those to children because they include murder and so on, but also you just have the choice between the two as an adult reader deciding how much continuity you want to deal with. Adventures is one of the only titles I would buy on sight before corona. The kid comic rack is a reliable place to take a break from How Comics Get Sometimes regardless of how old you are.

This article makes me feel quarrelsome. Maybe it’s that it doesn’t seem like exploration of a single idea so much as a loosely grouped bundle of things to kvetch about. Maybe it’s that the experience of getting into superheroes that Scocca describes experiencing, projects his seven-year-old son will experience, and from which he extrapolates a metaphorical microcosm of the history of the genre is completely alien to me.

Comic books [and] comic-book movies—are […] trapped in their imagined audience’s own awful passage from childhood to adolescence. A seven-year-old has a clean […] appreciation of superheroes. They like hero comics because the comics have heroes: bold, strong, vividly colored good guys to fight off the bad guys and make the world safe.

But seven-year-olds stop being seven. […] They become 13-year-olds, defensively trying to learn how to develop tastes about tastes.

The 13-year-old wants many things from comics, but the overarching one is that they want to prove that they’re not some seven-year-old baby anymore. They want gloomy heroes, miserable heroes, heroes who would make a seven-year-old feel bad. (Also boobs. They want boobs.)

Not because of the boobs line, although that does illicit an eyeroll that this gloomy thinkpiece is fretting over preserving the superhero experience of little boys who resemble the little boy the writer was while casually dismissing everyone else. I was one of those unlikable little seven-year-olds with a college reading level and the impression that maintaining it was the crux of my worth. I only read Books - distinguished media you could club someone with. I have a formative memory of pausing, enraptured, in front of a poster for Spider-Man 3, preparing to say that it looked pretty cool, and being beaten to the punch by my mother making a disparaging comment about how the movie was trash. It wasn’t out yet, but it was a superhero movie. That meant it was for loud, brainless children.

That was the total of my childhood experience with superheroes, excluding being the unwilling audience to incessant renditions of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” that left me wondering why in god’s name Batman’s sidekick was named Robin. I certainly never visited a comic book shop. I got into TvTropes, which got me into webcomics, which got me following David Willis, who got me into Ask Chris at ComicsAlliance, which led to me rewarding myself for studying like a demon for the AP tests with three volumes of Waid’s Daredevil, pitched as a return to the character being colorful and swashbuckling. I was seven…teen.

This is of the same thread as Scocca’s point that immaturity is running from childish things. It leaves me baffled that he doesn’t follow that maturity is embracing them.

I will disclose here that while I think it was dumb I had to overcome my upbringing’s deeply embedded shame associated with enjoying arbitrarily defined lowbrow media and children being childish, I think it’s fine that I was allowed largely unchecked access to technically age-inappropriate content. In my limited experience, content small children are too young for is also content they’re too young to understand, so it kind of just bounces off of them, and what actually ends up terrorizing them is unpredictable collages of impressions that strike out at them from content deemed perfectly child-friendly. I would not forbid a seven-year-old I was in charge of from seeing an MCU movie unless I had a reason to believe that specific child would not take it well. These are emotionally low-stakes bubblegum films. It will probably be easier to socialize with other kids if they have seen them.

But then, when I picture being in charge of a hypothetical child, I usually imagine this being the case because they are related to me, and the pupal stage in my family strongly resembles Wednesday Addams. ALL children love death and violence, though, right?? This isn’t a joke point. I know it looks like a joke point.

The MCU thing seems especially weird in light of the article’s particular focus on Spider-Man, which is the kiddie line of the MCU, even if they refused to waver from their usual formula enough to get a lower rating. Though I am more inclined to describe it as “preying on the young” than “child-friendly”.

(MCU movies are increasingly dubious propaganda, but I would not judge them in front of a child who wanted to watch them for that reason, just in case this led to them partaking of them without me the second they were old enough to and then they grew up to run a blog about them while our relationship suffered because they didn’t feel like it was safe to talk to me about their interests…Mom.)

I tried to overcome the philosophy of letting anyone read anything while compiling this handful of mostly-newish superhero recs for the road that anyone can read. (Handily, I have been in spitting distance of being hired as a comic shop clerk enough to have thought about it before):

For actual children:

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (the new one is reminiscent of ITSV, the old one is more like 616) any DC/Archie crossover, Archie’s Superteens The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (for bookish children who think they’re too good for comics and adults afraid of the kid’s section) Teen Titans Go (even if you hate the show) Superman Smashes the Klan

For teens:

Ms. Marvel Young Avengers (volume 2) Unbelievable Gwenpool Batman: Gotham Adventures Teen Titans Go (the tie-in comic based off the old show was also called this)

Here are a bunch of relevant C. S. Lewis quotes.

#me every time i read a comic book article by a rag not exclusively about comic books: i know more than you.#marvel #spidey #DCU #MCU critical #mirrorfalls #asks answered #submission #unearthed this and bashed it out in one sitting ... i have not been working on it since you sent it last year XD

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somebody-909 · 3 years ago

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Stalkyoo After the Formal (pt.1) - Role Reversal and Yeong-Gi's Denial of His Feelings

The black and white formal acts as a turning point in Shin-ae and Yeong-gi’s relationship, establishing their friendship and giving them moments of romantic tension.

It all leads to the emotional finale on the hospital balcony, where Yeong-gi first feels genuine romantic feelings for Shin-Ae.

This analysis looks at key moments that show how Shin-ae and Yeong-gi’s relationship changes after the formal arc — displaying emerging romantic feelings, and why their roles seemed to have reversed: it is now Yeong-gi who is hesitant to get any closer to Shin-ae, and she is the one eager to connect with him.

Ep. 75 | Elevator - Why the awkwardness and melancholy?

When Yeong-gi first sees Shin-ae after the balcony he seems quite... polite and distanced. He doesn’t act like the Yeong-gi of the past at all. He doesn't joke around with her like he used to... He doesn't smile or act friendly and he awkwardly turns away after looking at her.

He only smiles in the first panel, and his expression is… complicated. Note his soft smile, slightly closed eyes and slightly furrowed brows.

It's a soft, fond but slightly melancholic look.

This mixed expression is caused by genuine fondness for the person it’s for, with the additional tension and slight melancholy/sadness caused by the fact that this fondness is unspoken. This Look™, is the first expression he gives her after the balcony.

(But if I’m speaking more subjectively, this is the look people give those they love, but where it is unspoken. The melancholy associated with the expression makes it less likely to be purely platonic in nature — platonic friendships don’t often have this sense of something hidden and unspoken, and more often have relatively straightforward reciprocal affection. The romantic nature is also emphasized since The Look™ is being given to someone Yeong-gi has known for only a few weeks/months.)

At the least, this unspoken fondness may explain why Yeong-gi seems so awkward afterward:

He senses a difference in their feelings towards each other (he feels this because he is somewhat aware of the true nature of his, but Shin-ae is not/would not be at this stage)

He does not appreciate the nature of these feelings and does not want to entertain them (for reasons mentioned in my balcony analysis)

Shin-Ae also notices his odd demeanour and tells him she thought he'd be more excited - Yeong-gi's behaviour is purposefully shown to be different now. It's hard to imagine this is the same guy who'd joke around, easily and outwardly showing his joy to be around Shin-ae.

In Ep. 78, Yeong-gi is called by Shin-ae after she’s forced late when Dieter passes out. He has The Look™ while speaking to her. (Notably, Yeong-gi only has this look when they are not directly looking at each other). When Yeong-gi picks her up, he seems awkward once again… especially due to seeming like a third wheel in Shin-ae and Dieter's budding relationship.

He has The Look™ in images 1, 2, and 4. And in image 3, he seems very awkward being with Shin-Ae and Dieter. (I'd argue his expression also shows displeasure — he slightly, and under-the-surface, doesn't like what's happening).

Ep. 85 | A Bear and Allergies - Compassion, but only at a distance

After Shin-ae’s sister invades her home and Shin-ae calls over the bois, she is obviously quite unnerved and uneasy. Yeong-gi immediately recognizes this and in aims of comforting her, tells Dieter to give her a hug (which he is unable to do without freaking out so he gives Shin-ae a hug using a bear as proxy).

Yeong-gi understands how Shin-ae feels and wants to comfort her, but instead of doing this himself (eg. by talking to her, giving her a pat on the shoulder, etc...), he tells Dieter to. Although he's being a good wingman, there’s an interesting sense of Yeong-gi making sure to keep his distance, even if he wants to be there for her.

When Shin-ae notices Yeong-gi’s allergic reaction (which they think may be a fever), she reaches to touch his forehead to gauge his temperature — he quickly declines and moves her hand aside.

In my black and white formal analysis, I discuss the motif of distance and how it’s seen in Shin-ae and Yeong-gi’s dynamic — and how it’s represented through touch and their hands. Characters who want to connect emotionally will also show physical signs they do (like extending your hand to someone). Emotional connection often requires characters to physically be present together as well. Characters who want to avoid connection avoid touch and keep their distance.

Here, Shin-ae shows a desire to “reach” Yeong-gi by helping him, and this is reflected when she extends her hand and reaches to touch his forehead. A refusal of her touch in this case is also a refusal of her help and her attempt to connect to him. Shin-ae shows some slight discomfort at this – it was a harmless attempt to help him, but he doesn’t want her to.

Yeong-gi follows with an explicit verbal refusal:

“Again, you don’t have to worry about me… You just had your home broken into, you need to put yourself before me, alright?”

This is fitting with Yeong-gi’s overarching character arc — he has an extremely low sense of self-worth that prevents him from accepting others’ concern. Him telling Shin-ae to put herself before him also fits his thinking: that those he cares about are more important than him, Shin-ae included. And it doesn’t matter if what she actually wants is to help him.*

*This is an interesting trait of Yeong-gi's... despite caring deeply for Shin-Ae, he undermines her intelligence and wishes by not accepting her affection for him, and carefully controlling how close she gets. Although born from insecurity, it is also, fascinatingly, covertly manipulative.

Ep. 85-6 | Bills - I care about you

Yeong-gi asks Shin-ae if she is able to get to where she is staying for the night and she gives him more information than he asks for, showing new emotional vulnerability. He notices this and gives her The Look™ — he appreciates that she is now more open to him.

When Yeong-gi sees her overdue bills, he makes sure to let her know that her financial struggles do not determine her worth and anyone who tells her otherwise isn’t worth her time.

“Remember you’ve always got someone to lean on with your friends, okay?”

His spiel is incredibly heartwarming, and we can understand that he states these things from his own heart. However, he keeps it impersonal, stating "your friends" (not “me” or “us”) and instead allowing Shin-Ae to define whether he fits under that category as well. Yeong-gi is no longer trying to assert his friendship anymore.

After opening up more in response and letting the boys take her to the hospital to stay with her father, she removes the "Stalker" in Yeong-gi's contact name in her phone, showing development in their relationship since they first met and a large difference in how she sees him now — they're friends, and she thinks so too.

Ep. 89 | Insolence, but only for Shin-ae (and only in secret) & a Kousuke/Yeong-gi parallel

After learning of Shin-Ae's etiquette classes, Yeong-gi enters Kousuke’s office, specifically to start trouble with him. Yeong-gi is shown to try his best lately to obey his family members (namely his father), but once again we see how he is fine with starting trouble, even if it costs him, if it's for those he cares about — despite Kousuke reminding Yeong-gi of the repercussions of getting in trouble with their father, Yeong-gi doesn’t back down.

Kousuke: “You know you’re only going to anger father if he catches you being indolent.”

Yeong-gi: “I don’t give a crap if he finds out.”

Yeong-gi then aggressively asks him about the classes Kousuke put her in:

Kousuke: “It’s for her own good.”

Yeong-gi: “What do you mean, her own good?”

Kousuke: “... She’s the worst employee I’ve ever seen, so I signed her up for classes to fix her issues.”

Yeong-gi: “Have you ever voiced your concerns… tell her what she can improve upon? … She may have her flaws, but she’s a lot more capable than you think!”

Kousuke: “I’m preparing her for what’s to come her way in the future.”

Yeong-gi: “You don’t even know if she wants this career for her future! Everytime I see her, she’s miserable. Like she wants to leave. She’s uncomfortable!”

In my black and white formal analysis, I discuss how there are multiple instances— where Yeong-gi and Kousuke, as well as how they affect Shin-Ae, are purposefully contrasted — and this is paralleled here.

Consistently in these instances, (although Kousuke’s intentions are often good) Yeong-gi is shown to be the one who best understands Shin-Ae. At the very least, Yeong-gi is shown here to care for Shin-Ae enough to confront his brother and potentially face the wrath of his father, despite trying especially hard to be in their good graces recently.

However, it is important to note — Yeong-gi goes out of his way to ensure his intentions of helping Shin-ae are indirect and she does not know. Instead, he tries to help her in roundabout ways, secretly.

Yeong-gi does not want his good intentions to reach her.

Conclusions

Yeong-gi displays a notable difference in how he acts, especially around Shin-ae. His new emerging feelings conflict his insecurities, resulting in a standoffish Yeong-gi who is secretive in his affection, and calculatingly tries to distance himself from Shin-ae. But... this isn't what he truly wants, and is instead, another form of self-sabotage.

However, as time goes on, Yeong-gi cannot keep this facade up indefinitely... and he's occasionally caught off guard, giving us glimpses into what he truly feels.

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drwcn · 4 years ago

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@cloudyfromoobsession

Hi! :)

On the topic of talking in third person when referring to yourself, it is actually quite prevalent in cdrama, especially the historical ones, but it never shows up in translation because well... it sounds really weird in English and often there is no direct translation. So most translators just do away with it.

In modern spoken Chinese, third person speech is no longer used (in fact it would be very weird if you did), so below is only pertaining to historical or fantasy dramas.

If I could insert my personal opinion on the matter: there’s no need to use third person speech in English. Chinese third person speech is incredibly nuanced depending on context and person, and it is incredibly easy to misuse it in English. Writers end up not conveying their intentions and actually making things really awkward. As someone who is fully bilingual, I personally find that third person speech, when used in excess, makes the writing stilted. Another example is Lan Wangji’s “concise speech” which I see very often. It does not work in English. It makes him sound like he doesn’t know how to speak properly and is grammatically incorrect. Chinese is a language that is designed to be able to be shortened in certain ways and still follow all its grammatical rules. English’s syntax does not work the same way at all. Speech is a major contributor to a fictional character’s personality. Sometimes those subtleties cannot be transposed directly from Chinese to English. To still capture the character when writing in English, each writer has different ways of doing this, but personally I like to keep Lan Wangji’s speech - for the most part - simple and concise. No complex or compound sentences but all his sentences should still obey the grammatical rules of English.

Okay, onto third person speech, since I find it interesting and it’s like a cool language quirk.

NOTE: below is about referring to oneself in the third person. Referring to someone else in the third person is a whole thing on its own.

The “talking in third” person you’re probably referring to stems from the episode when LWJ got drunk with One Braincell Trio, and the next morning he went to his uncle and said 忘机知错 or 忘机有错. I can’t remember specifically which one he said, but essentially it means “Wangji knows his faults” or “Wangji is at fault”. Using one’s own name to speak in third person is actually less common than some of the other examples I will explain below. There are many ways to speak in third person depending on the situation, your position and the person you are talking to.

Before I do that, I’d that to point out that the pronoun “I” 我 is seen as rude or not following etiquette if you use it inappropriately with people who you shouldn’t be using “I” with. For example, a girl entering the palace to serve as a maid will be trained to stop using “I” when she is speaking with nobility, royalty and anyone of higher rank than he. She will in fact be verbally corrected by her supervisor (and may even be punished)�� if she used “I” inappropriately. A palace maid’s “noun” that she will use in place of “I” is nubi 奴婢. Instead of saying 我不知到 “I don’t know”, she will say 奴婢不知 “nubi does not know.”

Notice the grammar issue that we’re presented with. Because there are no verb conjugation changes in Chinese, substituting “I” with another noun doesn’t change what happens to the verb in Chinese, but in English, you have to make conjugation changes. This makes dialogues sound even more weird in English.

“I” can be used amongst friends, close siblings, family (with exceptions) individuals or colleagues of relatively equal ranking or (sometimes) strangers on the street. Children, especially civilian children, almost always use “I”. As a general rule, civilians mostly use “I” with each other, it’s only when they speak to someone of rank that they switch their pronoun to a "non-I” noun. Also! Chinese doesn’t differentiate between the subject ‘I’ and the object ‘me’. They are both 我 “wo”, so both “I” and “me” are affected in the same way when switching to a ‘non-I’ noun.

So now I will list some of the “nouns” that are used in place of “I” in c-dramas. They will be listed in categories based on people’s station in life.

It’s important to note that Chinese can and is spoken passively, especially in old speech and in dramas. You won’t get the same flack for not using “active tone” the way you do in English. In fact, using “I” or “you” in old Chinese speech actually makes it sound informal. However, this again is one of those language quirks that doesn’t translate and can’t really be transposed. When writing in English, when in doubt, always follow English’s grammatical rules and syntax practices.

I have no degree in Chinese history or even East Asian studies. These are just some of the commonly used terms I’ve seen over many, many years of drama watching. Sometimes, drama gets it wrong, and these misconceptions will get passed to the audience, but it’s not like we’re submitting manuscripts for academic publication, so does it really matter if it’s slightly inaccurate?

Citizens, when talking to Officials, Royalty or the Emperor:

1) cao min 草民 - “grass” “citizen” 2) min nv 民女 - “citizen” “woman” 3) min fu 民妇 - “citizen” “married woman”

An average jo farmer when speaking with any government official or nobility or royalty including the Emperor will use cao’min to refer to themselves. Cao’min is gender neutral, so both men and women, old or young can use it. For example: “M’lord, I didn’t kill anyone!” -> “大人，草民没有杀人!”

“min’nv” on the other hand is used exclusively by women, usually younger women, while “min’fu” is used exclusively by older married women. The context of their usage is the same as cao’min. Both married and unmarried women can use cao’min as well. (nv is a weird word isn’t it? It’s because there is literally no alphabet to make the 女 sound. The closest we can get is nu, but that’s actually another word, so pinyin uses nv to as substitution.)

Notice, all three of these nouns are actually more... “formal”, as in these are the nouns people will know to use when they are being brought before a local judiciary court, or being called to testify before the Emperor himself. In a street setting, nouns #4 and #5 are usually used.

Sidenote: da’ren 大人 is an honorific that can be used for any government official that holds some kind of public office or police status. A citizen can use “da’ren” with officials as high as the prime minister all the way down to their local mayor or even just the guards patrolling town. A lower official refers to his superior as {Last-name-da’ren}, and a higher official ALSO refers to their subordinates (who are not close friends of his) as {Last-name da’ren}. More nuances apply but generally these are the rules.

Worker/Trades person/Citizen, when talking to someone of higher class and wealth:

4) xiao de 小的 - “of little” 5) xiao ren 小人 - “little” “person”

Example: Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji walks into an inn, the busboy greets them and says: Chinese: “二位公子，[小的]是这里的小二，二位打尖还是住店？” English: “Young masters, [xiao’de] is the busboy/waiter of this place. Would you like to take your meal here or check in for the night?” or basically “Hi! I am your waiter and I’ll be helping you today. Are we eating or checking in?”

Adults of Scholar/Gentries Status/Martial Artists in Pugilist Society/Cultivators:

6) zai xia 在下 - “is here” “lower” 7) wan bei 晚辈 - “later” “generation” 8) di zi 弟子 - disciple 9) lao sheng 老身 - “old” “body”

zai xia - The thing with old Chinese speech is that it inherently is overly politely. In many many cases, you always put yourself in the lower status when speaking to a stranger of unknown status because you don’t want offend the person you don’t know. Zaixia can be used by men, women, usually not too old. If you’re a senior man or woman you usually default to 9). Example: two cultivators who’ve never met fought off a ghoul together. After the fact, they introduce themselves. One of them says: “在下云梦江氏魏无羡，多谢仙友相助。” Meaning translation: “I am Wei Wuxian of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan. Thank you so much for your help.” Literal translation： “[zai’xia] Yunmeng Jiang Clan Wei Wuxian. Much thanks cultivator friend for help.” This entire sentence contains neither ”I” nor “you”. But that’s just not... feasible to talk like that in English.

wan bei is used in CQL. Ex: A disciple of Yunmeng Jiang may refer to themselves as wan bei when speaking to a senior of another sect. When a disciple is speaking to a senior of their own sect, they will use “di zi” (disciple).

Family:

10). xiao xu 小婿 - “little” “son in law” 11). hai er 孩儿 - “child” 12). sun nv 孙女， sun er 孙儿 - “granddaughter” , “grandson” *there are more, but I’m use putting these up for examples*

In most families, there’s no need to refer to yourself in the third person. You’re family, just use “I”. But! In certain high society families, the rules are stricter and etiquette is everything. For example, places like Cloud Recesses with a stick up its collective butt would probably follow these rules. If Lan Wangji’s parents were still alive, he’d refer to himself as “hai er” to his parents. He would also refer to himself as “xiao xu” to Cangse and Wei Changze if they were alive. In Story of Minglan, Minglan refer to herself as “sun nv” when she’s speaking with her grandmother.

Government Officials

13). bei zhi 卑职 14). xia guan 下官 both of these mean the same thing “subordinate”. People use it when speaking to their superiors. Foot soldiers in the military will use 13, not 14.

15). wei chen 微臣 {wei chen} is used SOLELY with the royal family. If you are a government official of ANY rank, when speaking to the emperor, empress, dowager empress, you must use wei chen in formal settings. To a prince or princess or a royal concubine, government official can use 14 xia guan. Using “I” in front of royalty is very disrespectful. Exceptions do apply, but this is the overarching rule.

臣 - the word “chen” means subject. The term 君臣 refers to the special relationship of respect that exists between 君 the emperor, and 臣 the people who work on his behalf and whom he rules.

Royalty 16). zhen 朕 - no translation This is a special pronoun used ONLY by the Emperor and he uses zhen a lot. Like, there is no need for him to be humble or whatever and avoid using pronouns. It is his “I” and he can use it as freely as he likes.

17). ben gong 本宫 - “self” “palace” An Empress or a concubine of higher status (ie. a Noble Consort) use this to refer to themselves when they are talking to anyone of lower rank: citizens, servants, a government official, or a lower concubine. This places them in a position of power. Everyone who they’re using ben gong with should be lower than them in ranking. Remember when I said using “I” is rude, well in this case, a noble consort will not use “I” with a servant because she is more noble them, and they not “noble enough” for her to use “I” with. If it’s her close servants, her confidants, she can and often do use “I”, as a sign of familiarity.

18). pin qie 嫔妾, chen qie 臣妾 Lower concubines use “pin qie” and higher concubines use “chen qie” when speaking to the Emperor, Empress or Dowager Empress. The Empress uses “chen qie” when speaking to the Emperor or Dowager Empress. When chen qie or pin qie is used, the speaker is in a lower position than the person they’re speaking to.

19). er chen 儿臣 Princes and Princesses will use “er chen” with their fathers (the Emperor). In front of their mothers (Empress or concubine) and grandmothers, they usually use “I” or 11 “hai er”. If it’s a formal situation, they will switch to “er chen”. An Emperor will also refer to himself as “er chen” when speaking to his mother the Empress Dowager.

20). ben wang 本王 - “self” “lord/duke” An Emperor’s sons, brothers or male cousins are often qinwangs or junwangs (princes, lords, dukes). They will use “ben wang” to refer to themselves in formal settings to any one who is lower than them. In informal settings, they will use “I”. In formal setting when they’re talking to the Emperor, sons of the Emperors will use 19 “er chen”, brothers of Emperors may use “chen di” 臣弟, and cousins or more distant relatives will be simply “chen” or 15 “wei chen”.

21). ai jia 哀家 - “sad” “family” Empress Dowagers: literally the most respected and highest ranking person in any Chinese dynasty. She might not have any real power, but by rank she kneels to absolutely no one. No exceptions. Not even to her son who is the Emperor. He kneels to her. An Empress Dowager will use “ai jia” when she wants to be more formal, but to her family with whom she is close, she can and do use “I”.

Lastly, Jiang Cheng gets a special mention:

When Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen bring Wei Wuxian to Jinlintai at around ep 41, Jiang Cheng, being a total shit disturber says, “不知是那位名士大能，可否为江某引荐一番？”

Translation: “Who is this famous and talented cultivator? Could you introduce him to me?”

But lemme break that sentence down for you.

可否 = can or not 为 = for 江某 = Jiang “mou” 引荐一番 = make introduction.

He does not make use of “him” “you” or “me”. In English, when speaking in the imperative mood, aka, “put the dishes in the dish washer”, it is implied that ‘you’ are the person putting the dishes in the dish washer. Similarly, the ‘him’ and ‘you’ are implied in Jiang Cheng’s sentence, and the only “pronoun” he uses when referring to himself is “jiang mou”. If Jiang Cheng had used “you” or “him” in his sentence, it would’ve been ruder. As is, his sentence was still (albeit falsely) courteous.

The ‘third person’ speech in this context is the use of 江某 “jiang mou”. It is a fairly neutral third person noun. Unlike the above 21 examples, ‘mou’ doesn’t place a person in a position higher or lower than the person they’re talking to. They’re just saying “hey I am a person with the last name Jiang”. It is gender neutral and can be used by both men and women. It’s not limited to cultivators. Scholars can use it, nobility can use it, government officials can use it. (Your average farmer... probably doesn’t use it, because it’s just... not used.)

So that’s it.

There are definitely MORE nouns that are used in third person. These are some of the commonly seen ones. I hope it helps.

Again, this word vomit I just wrote is for general interest. It is absolutely not necessary to use it when writing fics in English. When in doubt, stick to using pronouns the way we would normally.

#language #cql #the untamed #cql reference #master list

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thelivebookproject · 3 years ago

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Talking Books With @plantpages!

[What is this and how can I participate?]

Important note: I haven’t changed or edited any of the answers. I’ve only formatted the book titles so they were clearer, but nothing else. Because I’m incapable of shutting up, my comments are between brackets and in italics, so you can distinguish them clearly.

--------------------------------------------

[Image description: a square titled “Know the blogger”. Name & pronouns: Alina, she/her; country: Finland; three adjectives to describe her: kind, ambitious & passionate /end]

1. What are your thoughts on having a literary canon (see: Harold Bloom)?

Oh I just happened to read a really nice book this spring that also touched on this topic. (Sivuhenkilö by Saara Turunen, unfortunately only available in Finnish and Swedish) The idea of having a definite list of "the greatest works" is always lacking. Sure, different books have had different amounts of significance in the world and culture that we live in nowadays and it's important that we recognise those of more significance. However, I think it's quite arrogant of one person to pick a few books and call it a complete list of the most important books ever. Also, it always just tends to be white men who make those lists and who are featured on those lists and so they just seem to presume that the white man culture is the general overarching culture. I really don't know if this was at all coherent in the end.

2. Last librarian/bookshop worker recommendation you got?

To be quite honest, I'm not sure I have ever gotten a recommendation from a bookseller or a librarian. I usually go to the library already knowing what I will get, and rarely even talk to the staff. But! My this year's reading challenge requires me to read a book recommended by a librarian so any librarians of tumblr feel free to hit me up! I think librarians are very nice people in general but I just don't want to bother them at their work to ask for recommendations.

3. Do you write book reviews?

Well, yes and no. I've never been one to write actually comprehensive and complete book reviews but for some years I basically wrote one or two paragraphs of my thoughts to Goodreads after finishing a book. They weren't really meant as reviews for others to read as much as they were meant for me to go back and read what I exactly thought about a certain book. Unfortunately I somewhat lost that habit last year when I ended up reading almost double the amount of books I expected to read and didn't really have patience or time to review that many books anymore.

4. Is there anybody that is absolutely spot-on for you when they recommend books?

No, and I really wish there was. I've been trying to get a lot of recommendations in the past year or so, because my taste in books has been changing and I need to find more books that I might not have found myself. So I enjoy getting recommendations but it's always a gamble whether I actually end up liking the books.

5. Are there any "celebrity books" (as in, books written by a celebrity) you like?

Mostly some autobiographies and memoires but one that doesn't belong into those categories is An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green. I'd been following Hank Green for some years already when the book came out and I must say I was wildly surprised how amazing it was. I hadn't taken him for a writer but AART is actually one of my very favourite books now.

Free space!

I don't think I have much else to say here but librarians hit me up with those recommendations!

You can follow her at @plantpages and on Goodreads.

------------------------------------------

Thank you, Alina! This was great.

#talking books with #thelivebookproject #booklr #june 2021

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terramythos · 4 years ago

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TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 2 of 26

Title: Authority (The Southern Reach #2) (2014) - REREAD

Author: Jeff VanderMeer

Genre/Tags: Horror, Science Fiction, Ecological Horror, Cosmic Horror, Mystery, Weird, Third-Person, Unreliable Narrator

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 1/05/2021

Date Finished: 1/10/2021

John "Control" Rodriguez, a disgraced former spy, is given an opportunity to redeem himself at the Southern Reach, the clandestine organization that oversees the mysterious and horrifying Area X. The director has gone missing following the disastrous "twelfth" expedition in Annihilation. Control is brought in to take over her job and fix the Southern Reach... and perhaps find a way to combat the insidious, paranormal effects of Area X.

But Control soon discovers just how deep Area X's corruption infects the place. Even worse, failures of the past-- both his own and those of the Southern Reach-- return to haunt him in disturbing ways. Badly outmatched within and without, Control will need to do everything he can to save not only the organization, but himself.

The last fragment of video remained in its own category: "Unassigned." Everyone was dead by then, except for an injured Lowry, already halfway back to the border.

Yet for a good twenty seconds the camera flew above the glimmering marsh reeds, the deep blue lakes, the ragged white cusp of the sea, toward the lighthouse.

Dipped and rose, fell again and soared again.

With what seemed like a horrifying enthusiasm.

An all-consuming joy.

Full review, some spoilers, and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: some body horror but way toned down compared to Annihilation. Mind control/hypnotic suggestion is still a thing. Non graphic sexual content. Disturbing images. Without spoiling the entire book, there are several scenes that come off as gaslighting, but do have an alternate explanation. As before, a pervasive sense of unreality.

While Annihilation is a deep dive into the horrors of Area X, Authority takes a step back. It examines the situation from the perspective of the Southern Reach, the organization that oversees the expeditions we got to know so intimately in the last book. Control is a newcomer, so he functions as a natural outsider perspective. However, he's far from naïve due to his past experience in what I have to assume is the CIA (just called "Central" in the book). It's clear from the get-go that the Southern Reach is falling apart with its ancient buildings, circular and helpless theories, dwindling funding, and bizarre office politics. While Annihilation frames the Southern Reach as shady and possibly complicit in Area X's existence, Authority demonstrates the government would be predictably bad at handling an unknowable cosmic horror zone over any length of time.

Though I noted in my Annihilation review that most of the mystery surrounding Area X remains just that, Authority casually drops two major revelations in the first few chapters. First is... it's definitely aliens, right? Like, that's the only explanation that tracks-- why everything about the place is anathema to humanity, why it's impossible for characters to fully understand it, why mimicry is such a major aspect, etc. If you didn't suspect this already, it explains a lot. In particular, the "colonization" terminology and imagery in Annihilation hits different in that context. I have a lot of feelings about how this series approaches the extraterrestrial, but I'll save that for my Acceptance review.

The second reveal is that Control is taking over for the former director of the Southern Reach, who is MIA following Annihilation's "twelfth" expedition. Who is the director? The psychologist-- the pseudo antagonist of the last book, who we know got Super Killed Off. Turns out she's important and probably not actually evil? The biologist is also inexplicably back, but something is off about her, and she insists on being called Ghost Bird now. Did the biologist truly return (counter to the ending of the last book) or is this one of the shells Area X sometimes spits back out into the real world? If she's the latter, Ghost Bird seems to have much more personality and self awareness than the others. It is interesting to consider an entity of Area X would willingly name herself.

So, Authority is a weird book. The horror element is still present, but toned down. Instead, there's a lot of focus on the new character Control, his past, and the workings of the Southern Reach. In some ways this is refreshing. Annihilation (and the finale Acceptance) are so deeply entwined with Area X it's hard to see what "normal" looks like, and Authority brings that perspective. Relatively speaking. Second, and this is a spoiler, much of that normalcy is a facade. Control is basically mind controlled (heh) by a faction in Central, and is unaware of it for most of the book. It comes across in little ways, like the anachronistic storytelling and Control's confusion/disorientation at times.

We also learn that Area X doesn't just contaminate things inside it, but things outside it as well... and it's been doing this for some time. As a result, there's always a sense of Area X lurking in the periphery, manifesting in strange and unexpected ways. Something I like is the background chatter Control overhears being lines from Annihilation, which he isn't aware of, but the reader sure is.

I've read this book a few times, and while there are things I really like about it, it's probably my least favorite of the trilogy. I think the slower pacing and different narrative approach have merits, but just aren't as interesting to me as the rest of the series. It's noteworthy that my favorite bits in Authority are the disturbing video of the first expedition and the sudden End of Evangelion-esque return of Area X near the end-- not the espionage and philosophical tangents that comprise most of the book. There are several ideas that seem interesting but don't go anywhere, and those feel like a waste of space. I think Authority could be pared down to half its page count and still get across the same feelings and general concept.

Control is also not the most interesting protagonist, especially compared to previous and later characters. He's not terrible, but he spends most of his time just thinking in circles and observing mundane office politics. While this is fine at first it starts to drag as the story goes on. As I said, a lot of tangents go nowhere, and there's not much going on beyond those until well over halfway into the book. Control does have a hidden tragic backstory, and it's interesting enough, but it barely factors into the overarching Area X storyline outside some symbolic comparisons. He feels out of place, perhaps intentionally.

I do like the dry humor and observations Control brings and how they contrast with the intense tone of Annihilation. I can also see the appeal of having a more ordinary character, if only to bring context to the extraordinary. But the problem is Control isn't ordinary. He's the youngest member of a dynasty of professional spies! Yet somehow I just don't find him exciting compared to an antisocial biologist. I dunno. Ultimately Control is a pawn in the story, used and manipulated by other people, and (spoilers) this doesn't change in Acceptance.

I had similar dilemmas with VanderMeer's Ambergris books, particularly book two, so perhaps it's a fact about his writing. When it's good it's GOOD, but sometimes the things I like get lost in rambling narrative fluff. The question is whether getting through the less interesting parts is worth it for the really good parts. With The Southern Reach trilogy, I'd argue the latter. I have no issues with the style or pacing in Annihilation or Acceptance, and the overarching story is fascinating.

I've mentioned many times before that I usually struggle with book twos in trilogies, and this one isn't an exception. However, I do appreciate what Authority is going for on a meta and lore level when viewing the series as a whole. It does establish a lot of things that either explain earlier stuff or pay off later; it just takes a while to get to them. The context of everything else bumps this to an 8.

#taylor reads #8/10 #2021 reading challenge #google why was this image so crisp yet i couldn't find anything good for annihilation. biphobia at its finest #i like how this review turned out :>

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ofravensandgenesis · 4 years ago

Note

I'd love to ask about '03 Rachel/Faith notes, backstory, past Faiths, Bliss Mechanics, Tracey, etc' and 'Redshift Collision', if that's okay! 👀

Oo, fun choices! :D Thank you for asking!! ♥ Putting it below the cut, also trigger warnings for mentions of child abuse, drug use, dark backstories, in line with or inspired by Far Cry 5 canonical content. Trigger warnings for Redshift Collision include mentioned fantasy religious content, topic of euthanasia mentioned, magical diseases, etc. Long post is long, I hope the read is enjoyable though!! :0

————— 03 Rachel/Faith notes, backstory, past Faiths, Bliss Mechanics, Tracey, etc ————— So this folder breaks down into a dozen docs with split up notes, we’ll touch briefly on a bit from most of if not all of them, but the list is as follows:

01 Faith Character Notes, NPC Followers

02 Rachel Jessop’s Backstory for ACABH

03 Deaths of the Former Faiths Prior to Rachel, Some Bliss Mechanics

04 Tracey Lader Backstory Notes for ACABH

05 Types of Bliss Drug

06 Bliss Dart Mechanic Notes

07 Faith NPC compilation links

08 Overarching Bliss Realm Mechanics

09 Priestess pictures for Athalia - refs, tattoos, etc

10 Jacob’s Men talking about Bliss Shipment Amounts for Various REgions, Bliss Barrel capacity

11 Faith’s character arc, [Redacted for spoilers] - Major Plot Developments for All Main Characters

12 Angels versus Lost Souls

So, fun tidbits from these various docs! Some are implicitly dark because Faith is a Seed and Seeds don’t get to have happy, fun backgrounds in cult-centric AUs like ACABH, poor souls. The first Angel that Faith ever made, and the first ever Angel of the Project, was a woman named Abigail. It was an accident. Researched the first and last (and alternate) names for both Rachel Jessop, Faith, and Tracey Lader. Fun stuff honestly, Tracey’s is very fitting in that one definition of the name is taken from the Irish word "treasach" meaning "war-like" or "fighter." Lader is from Old English and Middle English words meaning to load; draw up (water specifically.) Rachel is as far as biblical names go, the name of the favorite wife of Jacob, and means “ewe” as in a female sheep. Fitting in a metaphorical sacrificial lamb way, if one chooses to look at it like that, among other sheep-like metaphors such as following the herd, etc. Rachel’s father was a doctor who researched the biochemistry of various plant based compounds that he extracted from specimens he grew at home in controlled conditions. Her mother ran a florist shop and delivery chain, and grew orchids in the green house as a past time. Rachel was passionate about the sciences when she was young, but neither parent looked upon this favorably for various (toxic and abusive) reasons, leading Rachel to become far more withdrawn and reclusive about her passions and activities—in as much as she could manage, beneath her parents’ ironclad rule. Rachel in the present day still is passionate about biology (specifically botany) and biochemistry, but keeps that to herself unless she really happens to trust the other person. There was a brief time when she was a more rebellious and spirited young girl—but her parents quickly stamped that out through any means necessary, including force. It is a major reason as to why Rachel is so conflict avoidant: she remembers how badly it can go, how quickly it can escalate, and she is so very aware of the inherent fragility of both life and limb. There are quite a few conflicting points-of-view regarding the deaths of Rachel’s predecessors, and a great deal of misinformation. Rachel believes that the Seeds aren’t being entirely forthcoming with her about how their own abilities work and the limits of said abilities, and that there’s a lot of secrets not being told regarding the details of how the two former Faiths died. Selena was the first Faith, chosen while the Project was still in its infancy, long before they had made it to Hope County, and Joseph was so sure she’d be the prophesied fourth Herald to help shepherd the faithful through the Collapse. Lana was the second, stepping up to fill the role when Selena died—but Lana died two months later, with both Faiths’ deaths serving as markers of the dangers of the then proto-Bliss-realm. Rachel had been at the Project for half a year at that point, and was the one who took up the mantle of Faith and has served ever since for the past seven years. She was eighteen when she took up the name Faith, but despite her young age had marked accomplishments to her name that had put her forward as a candidate, namely her works with the geneticist Peter on developing the first strains of the drug that would later come to be called the Bliss. This lead to huge leaps and bounds of development with regards to the psychic network that would become the Bliss Realm, and without Rachel’s work, it would be safe to say the Bliss both in drug and psychic plane form, would likely not exist. Jessop as a name is potentially from a root name of Joseph in the form of Yosef, meaning “may God increase, or add (another son)” which ties into Rachel’s family’s thwarted desire for a son rather than a daughter very well in this AU. Thematically, Rachel does arguably share ideology from both Jacob and Joseph, so in a way that is also extremely apropos for her. Ah, Tracey. She did not come from a happy home life either—but that doesn’t surprise anyone in the slightest I think. Her father left her mother the moment he found out she was pregnant, and that’s all Tracey knows and wants to know of him. Her mother worked hard to support them but was absent most of the time, leaving Tracey with relatives to keep an eye on her. Said relatives were very shitty in their treatment of her, leading to a whole host of problems for Tracey to deal with growing up, ranging from neglect to verbal and emotional abuse. This is a cluster of reasons among others that lead to Tracey learning to look out for herself—and to stick up for those who couldn’t look after themselves. She and Rachel met in high school, and they were each other’s first real meaningful friend. It was when they were together that they first thought of the possibility of a better life than all the horror and terribleness they had to live through so far in their very young lives. They were so sure they’d be friends forever...until they weren’t. As of writing this, there are currently six major strains of the drug bliss in ACABH, including Regular Bliss, Sleeper’s Bliss, The Chosen’s Sacrement, The Angels’ Bliss, Cleanser Bliss, and Red Bliss. Variant strains within those major categories also exist as it’s an on-going series of projects for Faith and her followers, with varying levels of involvement from other Heralds, regions, etc. Red Bliss is specific to Jacob’s region and is used in both the Judgification process and the Trials. The others are all largely self explanatory for the most part, or explained or will be explained in the fic. Bliss darts! These are what John’s hunters use, same substrain of Sleeper Bliss that Jacob’s hunters and Faith’s followers use in the form of Bliss arrows and Bliss grenades (think like smoke grenades) to capture non-Project-members too, alongside their attempts to capture the Deputy. Joshua still has a nice stash of them at this point, so the whole family’s in on this. Commonly used even in the Project’s rank and file to subdue kidnapped targets. People can die permanently if they suffer sufficient psychic injury or psychic death in the Bliss in general, but that’s not a guarantee. If some form of psychic death is induced while the person is in the Bliss, it’s possible with immediate medical response to potentially resuscitate said person. Some people can “die” in the Bliss without problem though, aside from likely waking up in a panic as if from a very stressful nightmare. Most people can’t without being connected to the private Bliss network in Jacob’s region—Jacob’s is specifically split off from the rest of the Bliss Realm through the exclusive use of Red Bliss, though Faith and her priestesses could in theory cross over and connect to Jacob’s network, they generally do not. It is easier for Jacob’s people to cross over to the main Bliss network than it is for other rank and file or even Chosen that belong to other Heralds to enter the Red Bliss network if they are not induced into it through drug use. The Heralds have a much easier time of it, but it’s still difficult—Faith and Joseph have abilities that allow easier passage for it among other things, whereas John would struggle more with it sans other additional factors to help said effort along. Athalia was originally one of John’s people before she transferred to help support the previous Faiths, and Rachel retained her as Head Priestess from early on, striking up something like a friendship over time. Some of Athalia’s loyalties may still lie with her old Herald though moreso than her chosen Herald, certainly some of her outlook mirrors John’s dogma moreso than Faith’s, though Athalia keeps that underwraps more often than not. They have a SHIT TON of bliss being shipped around to the different regions. They have to have one hell of an industry for making the stuff to keep up with that scale, depending on what the chemical makeup and ratios are. The doc regarding the plotting of Faith’s arc is all spoilers, so we’re skipping any mention of it here. Angels are different from what the Project calls Lost Souls due to the fact that Angels aren’t 100% disconnected from their bodies and lost in the Bliss Realm, they’re still distantly connected to their corporeal forms in reality, just busy enjoying the Bliss high trip and for the most part uninterested in returning to the real world...for the most part. A minor part of the job for Faith’s people is to ensure that the Angels don’t wander too far in the Bliss realm, or else they’ll become Lost Souls and if gone too far for too long (average length of time spent too far required to become a Lost Soul is a little over a week), this separation can induce major multiple organ failure, including cardiac arrest. It is possible to revive a Lost Soul, much like with reviving someone who died a Bliss-plane death, but it requires that the person’s soul in the Bliss Realm be found and brought back immediately, to sustain the body without extensive external life support systems. Even then, brain death has been known to happen. What counts as “too far” varies from person to person, but the general rule of thumb is within shouting distance—namely, having the Angel’s psychic form in the Bliss Realm’s counterpart of the real world being within shouting distance of where the Angel’s physical body is in the waking world. Brief bouts of separation have not been noted to cause harm to Angels, so it’s fairly lax as duties go to shepherd their souls about and is often tasked to lower ranking Priestesses on the day to day basis. ————— Redshift Collision ————— Redshift Collision is a fun idea that spawned from a crossover fanfic idea I was considering a while ago before letting it evolve into its own original fantasy setting with sci-fi elements instead. It centers on a character named Edgar Loom, short for Loomis, which is his family name. A bit of cultural trivia about the name: The reason he’s called Loom instead of Loomis is because only the heads of a house may use the full family name, everyone else is introduced with a derivative surname. As Loom is next in line to be the head of their household, he is typically the one people refer to when using the name “Loom”, though casual use of the derivative name happens for applicable family members here and there as the situation calls for. First names are typically a much more private affair, and people typically have “use” names that they give when introducing themselves to others including but not limited to prospective business partners, strangers, distant family members, etc. Telling someone your given first name is seen as a huge sign of trust, the equivalent of saying that the other person is part of your inner circle. It is generally expected that first names not be given out prior to knowing someone for a socially acceptable amount of time (length of time not given because I’m not done working out the calendar yet.) Typically, the head(s) of house can use just the family name as their use name if desired, or if there are multiple heads of house then their own use name can be used either as a stand alone or combined with the famiy name. In Loom’s case, since he’s next in line, his use name is typically Loom by default, thus why he’s called that in the ensuing paragraphs. Loom is the only child of his parents, much beloved and happy with his lot in life, having spent his time apprenticed in order to learn how to take up his father and mother’s trade, namely overlooking the production of luxury textiles in the guild of weavers (you can imagine where their ancestors got the surname Loomis from.) Tragedy however has befallen their world in the last two decades, an unknown cataclysmic event has shorn the very fabric of reality in such alien angles, even the gods are left scrambling as they try to figure out what has happened—and what is happening. Despite the new dangers and unforeseen changes that continue to twist the fabric of their world however, life goes on. People still survive, and flourish, adapting as they can to the strangeness that has taken root upon their planet. However, one of the new shifts brought about in their world includes new diseases—plagues. One such disease is called Wraith Fade, so named for what a person becomes as the disease progresses, and how. It is unknown how Wraith Fade is transmitted, but it is widely suspected to be magical in some form, due to lack of evidence for it being transmitted through the more common corporeal means. Loom contracts Wraith Fade, and he and his family all know that it’s a death sentence—sufferers of Wraith Fade are typically observed to have a year or for the more robust two before succumbing to the disease. Typically, the course of treatment is for the afflicted persons to make good of their last days, and then to call for a doctor to help with euthanasia—most countries if not all sponsor covering costs for this procedure to varying degrees, due to the dangers that wraiths pose if left unchecked. And wraiths are very dangerous, and very hard to kill. One of the early to mid stage symptoms is what appears to be a magically-induced loss of voice—both medical professionals and thaumaturgical researchers are at a loss for the mechanics of it, as studies do not register readings of magical structures either natural or artificial that would induce a silence effect. Various treatments have been attempted, but no direct results have been observed thus far in the trials. Another symptom is what has been referred to as “greying”—specifically, a gradual fading into total translucency and loss of most forms of color in the afflicted person’s physical appearance. The silencing and greying that sufferers of Wraith Fade endure eventually comes to encompass most if not all sounds that they make towards the end of the disease’s incubation period, and coupled with the greying effect this translates into a near silent and visually obscured entity when the person loses themselves fully to wraithood. Older wraiths have been observed as occasionally being able to silence entire areas seemingly at will for brief periods of time, and some of the more markedly dangerous individual wraiths have even learned to disappear from sight completely in what appears to be true invisibility. Their hardiness and resistance to what would constitute mortal injury to many living beings also seems to be supernatural in origin, though it is yet one more area that eludes researchers and experts to a vexing degree. What makes wraiths so dangerous however is their penchant for hunting in sporadic and irregular patterns, and the predominant pattern of many wraiths taking to heavily populated areas as a preference. Why they hunt people is a mystery, as sufferers of Wraith Fade are noted as slowly losing sensations of hunger and thirst, and late stage sufferers going without either food or drink without succumbing to starvation or thirst beyond noted secondary effects. The individual modus operandi of a given wraith develops over time, to terrifying results. It is not unusual or imprudent for the public to break into mass hysteria should a murder occur in a city, with people fearing that a new wraith has taken up residence. It is for this reason that sufferers of Wraith Fade are at times persecuted and sometimes killed on sight by unruly mobs, so-called vigilantes, and at times even government-sanctioned organizations in some countries. It is dangerous to travel for both the afflicted and for others, should the afflicted’s health take a turn for the worse and their condition deteriorates faster into wraithood. There is no known cure for Wraith’s Fade—but there are rumors of one, in the strange and distant city-state of Wyrrawyr. Loom is however a soul defined by hope, in that moment of definition. He chooses to try and seek out this rumored cure, and he and his family and friends have a tearful goodbye, knowing this full well could be the last time they see each other in this life. Wyrrawyr is a strange place. It is the city of stained glass, the gateway to the Snowfeld Sea, the broken circle which once sat as the crown jewel of the mighty Hederan Empire, the land of a thousand sieges—and a land of the old ways. Wyrrawyr has been conquered many times, but no conqueror has ever met with good fortune when trying to rule that place. Ill fortune plagues any power that tries to rule that city for long, and Wyrrawyr has garnered a reputation as a place to avoid...not that everyone listens to such tales. It is known as a cursed place to many, but those brave souls who dare to call it home say otherwise. The local gods of Wyrrawyr in particular are strange in their antics when seen through the eyes of the more northern countries, but not so strange as the people—some of whom say the city itself is a divine being in its own right. It is for that reason first and foremost that the Northern Alliance calls it the city of heretics, proud and unyielding in their strange ways. But age-old feuds are reduced to mere distractions as the entire world shudders as the shifts seemingly grow more aggressive where once they were placid. The landscape of their home world seems to shift more drastically in a short span of time than ever it has before, and many are driven to terror at the thought that reality may be collapsing into an unrecognizable form of chaos as they watch the mechanics of their world come apart at the seams. Loom arrives to a sundered Wyrrawyr, as parted and torn with unknown magical phenomena as if a slip-strike earthquake had cracked the earth’s crust open. It is in a sundered Wyrrawyr that Loom meets Death. Specifically, the local Wyrrawyran incarnation of Death, who offers Loom a deal: stand as Death’s champion and agent to investigate the phenomenons, and to enact Death’s will in restoring a form of natural order back to their world—among Loom’s tasks should he accept is to find those souls spirited away by forces unknown. Gods unknown, perhaps, is Death’s suspicion. In exchange for Loom’s services, Death offers him an out that will spare him from dying from Wraith Fade—and this is the only way to avoid that fate and all the sinister after effects that come with it. But both their deal and the “cure,”—in so much as it can be called that—requires Loom to leave their home world, never to return again. Loom must go where Death cannot: into the new world that is slowly colliding with their own, the two ripping each other apart like the collision of galaxies into a new, singular galaxy. A world where magic is a foreign idea, and technology is the watchword of nearly all who live there. A world that is out of place. This collision shouldn’t have happened. These two worlds were not on a collision course—far from it, they had been moving away from each other in their shared planes of existence. That is why the gods of Loom’s world have taken to calling the matter the Redshift Collision. It is the possibility of survival and a world full of the unknown that Death offers, should Loom agree—or, as a mercy, the option of a swift, safe, and painless passing into death and the afterlife, if Loom would prefer to die in his home world while he is still himself. Loom accepts. And that’s the starting point for Redshift Collision’s story!

#chyrstis #tw: child abuse mention #tw: abuse mention #tw: drug use #tw: euthanasia mention #tw: religious themes #ACABH #FC 5 #Far Cry 5 #Far Cry 5 AU #FC 5 AU #Faith Seed #Rachel Jessop #Tracey Lader #long post #original fic talk #Redshift Collision

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saltoftheao3 · 6 years ago

Text

AO3 tags 101

So to classify its content Archive Of Our Own uses a system called “tagging”, and I’ve seen quite a lot of people puzzled as to how exactly it is used. This is going to be a long post trying to clear that up, and hopefully providing some help and orientation.

(i am going to use a lot of fanfiction terminology in this post – you can look a lot of it up in this post)

What is tagging?

To cite the AO3 FAQ: “A tag is a keyword or phrase that you add to your works to make them easier to find.“ Tags also have the, at least as important purpose, of helping readers avoid content they don’t want to read.

Some of the AO3 tags are more or less mandatory: you have to chose a fandom, a rating, an archive warning from the available options (and be it “chose not to use those options”).

Those mandatory tags have pretty detailed explanation boxes, which is why i’m focusing on the more puzzling domain of “Additional tags”, or “Freeform tags”:

(As said in its name, those tags are “freeform”, which means the author is entirely free to chose whatever keywords and catchphrase they want, be it some common tags, misspelled common tags, or new tags they’re introducing. If it’s a new tag, the AO3 tag wrangling staff then checks if it fits into a more common category, or if it stands on its own.

I’ve seen people asking the following questions:

Why do i have to use freeform tags?

Well first off you absolutely don’t have to. But it gives readers additional info on whether your fic fits their taste, and can therefore get more people to read it.

I know sometimes i look at the summary, think “meh”, but then i see in the tags that the fic uses some of my favorite tropes and end up giving it a shot.

Also, it helps people find your fic again! A former reader is wondering “Oh, dang, i don’t remember the name nor the author but it had unicorns and mutual pining”? If your fic uses those tags they can find it without any problem through the search engine.

And, and i can’t stress this enough: it helps people that absolutely loathe the kind of content you create (because sensibilities are different, so sometimes it’s bound to happen) to stay waaay clear of it. Which is good for everybody involved.

But what if it spoilers my story?

Fear not! AO3 offers the neat option to hide the freeform tags as a default (for logged-in users); so whether your readers decide to look at the tags or not is completely up to them.

Me? I very rarely look at tags. I dislike being spoilered, and i accept that i’ll probably end up reading things that don’t really float my boat as a consequence. And on the contrary i have friends who’d much rather put up with spoilers if it means they know what they’re getting into. Matter of personal taste, really!

As an author you can merely provide that option for readers who enjoy additional info beforehand. It’s a bit of a friendly courtesy.

How many tags should I use?

Again, it’s completely up to personal taste. I’m not a big fan of huge walls of tags, because i don’t think they’re read in details by most readers, so i’d recommend between 3-7 tags for shorter stories (<5k words). For longer stories, readers often want to know in more details in what journey they’re getting into, so up to twenty tags is game in my books. More than that tends to look cluttered and distracting (again, my biased opinion).

What kind of tags should I use?

*rubs hands* This is where I suggest my neat lil’ classification of freeform tags (with some minor overlaps here and there). It’s based on observations and my own fandom experiences, so obviously it has no objective value, but i think it’s still a good summary of the different types of freeform tags used for most fics. Some kind of fics (i’m thinking PWP) have slightly different tagging conventions, but the following typology applies to most stories.

You can use it as a checklist, or simply as inspiration on what kind of tags might apply to your fic.

Here’s my typology!

1. Format

These tags specify if your fic follows a particular fixed format in regard to length and style. Here’s some of the most common “format tags”:

(Double/Triple) Drabble

Epistolary

Ficlet (Collection)

Imagine

Novel/Novella

(Short) One Shot

Poetry

POV First Person

Self-Insert

Screenplay/Script Format

Songfic

Stand Alone

Vignette ...

2. Genre

This one’s already a bit more tricky because so often there’s no over-arching “genre” in which your fic might fit (which is why there’s all the other tags to help you put some kind of label on your content!). Still, genre is a pretty important descriptor for your content; hence here are some of the common “fanfic genres”:

Action/Adventure

Angst

Badfic

Character Study

Crack

Dark(-fic)

Fluff

Friendship

Humor

Horror

Kidfic

Romance

RPF/RPS

Porn Without Plot/Plot What Plot ...

3. Relationship to Canon

That’s one super cool in my books, because it’s sooo unique to fanfic. It specifies in what kind of relationship to the original content your story operates. Most common tags:

Alternate Timeline

Alternate Universe

Alternate Universe: X (e.g. werewolves)

Backstory

Canon-compliant

Canon-divergent

Crossover

Fix-It

Fusion

Missing Scene

Post-Canon

Pre-Canon/Pre-Series

Reboot ...

4. Fandom-specific tags

These tags are particularly relevant for book or movie series where the overarching fandom tag covers a really broad amount of content. Those tags give orientation in regards to which part of the canon content we’re talking about. For example, Harry Potter fandom may use terms like “Marauders’ Era” or “The Golden Trio Era” to specify what part of the original timeline the fic takes place in.

But they also apply to fandom-specific events like Big Bangs/Reverse Big Bang, or fandom-specific tropes, genres and fanfic conventions. These are different for every fandom!

5. Common Fanfic Tropes

There’s a slight overlapping with “genre”, but all in all those tropes are a bit more specific, though widespread enough to be recognizable to avid fanfic readers.

Domestic

Everyone is alive

Fuck or Die

Getting together

Hurt/Comfort

Pining

Sex Pollen

Slow Burn

Soulmates

Time Travel

UST

Whump ...

And last but not least:

6. Content Warnings

Reminder that there’s mandatory archive warnings for AO3’s big four (underage sexual content, non-con/rape, graphic depictions of violence, character death) that you have to use, or at least indicate to readers you chose not to use them.

You are not required to use further content warnings and no one can blame you for it, as long as you used the mandatory warnings properly. But there are some benefits to additional content warnings:

1. It frames the “problematic behavior XY” (e.g emotional blackmail) you depicted as a problematic behavior, which makes readers both aware that it’s Bad™ (important especially for younger audiences) and that the author knows it’s Bad™.

2. It helps people that wouldn’t enjoy that content avoid it, which, good for them, good for you

3. It helps people that are actively searching for specific dark and difficult topics, for whichever reason, to find them.

All in all i’d say it has established itself as a widespread fandom etiquette to tag content commonly viewed as squicky/triggery. Here are some of the most common ones:

(Past/Implied) (Child/Emotional) Abuse

Age Difference

Alcohol/Drugs

Body Horror

Coercion/Jealousy/Manipulation

(Very) Dubious Consent

Gore

Kinks

Mental Health Issues (Eating Disorders, PTSD, Depression etc.)

Pregnancy/Abortion/Miscarriage

(Internalized) Racism/Homophobia/Misogyny

Explicit Sexual Content

Terminal Illness

Torture

Suicide/Suicidal Thoughts ...

(and here’s a far more complete list of content warnings, but you get the gist)

Voilà!

#ao3 #tagging #ao3 tags #writing resource #writing ref #long post #fanfiction #could you believe i've wanted to write this post for almost 10 months now #content warnings

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obscure-sentimentalist · 4 years ago

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Because some interest was expressed...

Part 1: AO3 Tag At Large

Backstory in brief

I didn’t intend for this to get so detailed and comprehensive--honestly, it just started because I had a particular question and some free time to go digging for the answer. And I did get my answer, but in the process uncovered a wealth of other ways to expand my study. It’s been a ride (complete with a few anxieties thanks to some researcher part of my brain), but overall a fun one, and hopefully the resulting data-cronch will be intriguing.

As noted, this is the first part of a planned three-part data series. This installment will cover statistics for the contents of the Flommy AO3 tag as a whole, while the second part will zoom in a bit and break it down into smaller categories. The third will be a bonus post where the dataset will be narrowed to examine how it compares to the tag at large, which is how I began and previewed bits of my work before broadening the scope.

Below the cut, you’ll find a breakdown of the data collection and some information on the measures I examined, before we get into some stats. There are a number of charts included, as well as written overviews and additional facts. I’ll admit that it’s... a bit, even after being selective with the charts and data to highlight, but if you have questions (or are curious about any stats not included here), let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Methodology

The overarching goal of my study was to examine and catalogue the contents specifically within the “Tommy Merlyn/Felicity Smoak” relationship tag on Archive of Our Own. All works featured in these results are tagged as (or otherwise wrangled under) this relationship tag; though it’s doubtful that this is the case, any works featuring this relationship that are not tagged in this way (and thus do not appear) will not be counted.

As of data collection on August 5th, 2020, there are 441 works (inclusive of hidden works viewable and accessible only with an AO3 login) within the Flommy tag. Aside from the individual work name and author, each entry was catalogued with the following additional variables:

Publish Year

Year in which work was initially published

Update Year

Year in which work was most recently updated

Rating

Author-assigned content rating (G, T, M, E, or Not Rated)

Work Length

Categorized as Oneshot (single chapter with an expected chapter count of 1) or Multichap (expected chapter count does not equal 1)

i.e. Works that only have a single published chapter but more are anticipated (so the chapter count reads as 1/?, 1/3, etc.) are categorized as Multichap

Completion Status

Works marked as Complete in the AO3 system are counted as such; all others are counted as Ongoing

Additional Relationships

Works may have Flommy as the only romantically-tagged (/) relationship, or additional ships; works in the latter category also had the other ships logged

Since this study was more quantitative and centered on AO3 tagging, more audience-based measures such as kudos, comment, and hit counts were omitted from the dataset. Also would like to remind that this is something I started because I was bored and curious, and I am just one person handling this data, so please keep this in mind in terms of data validity and human error.

Publish Year and Update Year

Breaking the data down by year was, oddly enough, an afterthought for me, but one I’m glad I did eventually think to add. This provided a glimpse at various trends in Flommy works over the years.

The first two sets of charts will feature both Publish Year and Update Year, as there were a few interesting datapoints I found when comparing the two of them. Moving forward, though, yearly data will be shown in terms of Publish Year, unless noted otherwise.

I pulled together this first graph to see if there were any major differences in either curve as the years went by, and overall, they share a similar shape--to be expected, given that a number of works published in one year may also have been last updated in that same year. Either way, both show a gradual increase in Flommy-tagged works until 2017, before plummeting in 2018 and continuing with a coasting decrease as of August 2020.

However, there’s an interesting shift over time between the two yearly measures: while there are (understandably) more works first published than last updated within the same year from 2013-2015, this becomes about equal between 2016 and 2017, before reversing in 2018-onwards. This goes to show that, while fewer Flommy works are being published these days, there are still some older works that are getting updated even now. People are sticking with Flommy, in some way or another.

Below is another way to compare these two measures, in terms of share of works:

The chart on the left (Publish Year) shows that the majority of Flommy-tagged works were published between 2013 and 2016--about 55%. However, the Update Year chart gives us an exact 50/50 split between the first four years of the tag and the last four, proving that the tag activity is still going strong!

Some other Publish and Update Year Fun Facts:

Because I’m too used to examining change year-over-year (YOY) for other purposes, I pulled some of those stats to accompany the line chart, focusing on Publish Year

The smallest change YOY was from 2016 to 2017, experiencing a 7% increase in published works; the largest was the 176% increase in 2014 over 2013

The decline in published works that began in 2018 has indeed slowed in 2020. 2018 had a -55% decrease YOY from 2017, and 2019 followed suit at -52%; 2020 is only down -21% from 2019, and that number can only improve as the year goes on!

12% more Flommy-tagged works have already been posted in 2020 than were posted in 2013, the first year of the tag. As the two years with the fewest works, that’s at least something!

Rating

There are more than a few ways I could break this one down, but I think this one covers the gist of this particular measure:

As might be expected, T is the most common rating, accounting for almost half of all works. The remaining ratings (aside from Not Rated) are all within a very close range of each other, but those in the E-rated category do have the edge to take second place, which, I’ll admit, also isn’t much of a surprise.

Some other Rating Fun Facts:

Took a look at some YOY changes in Rating:

E is the only rating that experiences two consecutive massive increases: 300% in 2014 over 2013, and then another 500% in 2015 over 2014

Actually, 66% of all E-rated Flommy-tagged fics were published between 2014 and 2016

...For a rating into which I rarely-if-ever personally venture, it certainly has a wealth of stats.

Work Length and Completion Status

Combining these two under one header, as they’re pretty tied-together and didn’t yield too many significant results. About 71% of all Flommy-tagged works are Oneshots, which assures that completed works will hold at least the same share within the Completion Status measure before factoring in Multichaps (which brings it up to about 81% complete). I instead put these measures against the others in the hopes of finding some interesting call-outs; after making up a few charts, there was really only one that I felt had a story to tell.

Let’s take a look at the Work Length trend over the years:

While single-chapter works hold the significant majority share, their reign over multichapter works doesn’t fully begin until 2016. In 2013, the Oneshot count was less than half the Multichap count, and the following two years showed a less than 10 work-difference between the majority category and the other. And while the year is not yet complete, 2020 is currently tracking towards following a similar pattern to the early years of the tag.

Additional Relationships

This one is going to serve as our jumping-off point for Part 2, and get us into the motivating factor for my research. Here’s one chart to say it all:

...Yup, that’s less than a quarter of Flommy-tagged works that a) have Flommy as the sole romantically-tagged relationship, or b) have other romantic relationships tagged that are not Oliver/Felicity.

That’s an answer in-and-of-itself, but my research question was two-fold: how else does this break down? How many works tagged for both pairings are compilations, such as oneshot prompt collections where the pairing varies by chapter; how many are OT3s; how many fall into a different category, whether a platonic pairing is improperly tagged or one pairing is the endgame or any other reason that doesn’t fit in any of the other categories?

We’ll get this breakdown--and a zoomed-in look at the measures covered in this installment--in Part 2, coming soon.

#The Great Flommy Tag Analysis 2020 #flommy #this project has become a monster but it's fun but how on earth did this happen

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kinetic-elaboration · 4 years ago

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December 10: Endings

The posts that have been going around about all these bad, nonsensical, random tv endings we’ve been seeing recently (GOT, T100, SPN), have made me think about what makes a good television ending in my opinion.

I admit that concluding a series is probably quite tricky because most shows, if they’re not miniseries, are conceived without a known end point in mind. A show runner can build an idea around a 5-season arc, but he might not actually get 5 seasons. He might only get 1. Or he might get 10, if the show is popular. So unlike a movie or a novel, the first episodes need to set up a general premise, a universe, a theme, but not necessarily a specific plot with X number of specific plot points leading to a pre-ordained conclusion. There has to be a flexibility to the narrative. But when the whole thing is completed, it should feel, ideally, as if it WAS pre-ordained, as if the show was always meant to have as many seasons as it got and was working toward its conclusion the whole time.

So, roughly, I think shows that stick the landing do so because the showrunner knows what the show is, at its core, about, and crafts a finale that relates to the central theme(s) and brings the main narrative to a logical and emotionally resonant conclusion.

This is very rough and very general, and it’s a formula that applies more to some shows than others. TV is incredibly varied after all. I mean, first off, not all shows know their last season is their last season going in. You can’t judge the final episodes of, to use two examples of shows I liked that were unceremoniously axed recently, The Society or Altered Carbon as “finale episodes” because they were never meant to be finales. Then you have a show like My So-Called Life, which does have a Classic ending, despite ending all too soon--mostly because every episode of that show was classic, and it only had one season, so its season finale being a fitting ending to the season automatically means its series finale was a fitting ending to the series.

(It’s such an outlier that I can’t really compare it to anything but honestly--this is how to do an open-ended cliffhanger and still make it feel like a conclusion. But that’s a whole different post.)

My formula above also doesn’t apply well to sitcoms, because they aren’t really about anything, in terms of plot. Like the name says, they set up situations: a group of people who are family, co-workers, friends, and then lets those situations play out in a funny manner for as long as there are jokes to tell. Sitcoms to me end well if they don’t overstay their welcome, if they remain true to the characters (because it’s the characters, not the minimal narrative, that defines the show), and if they hit an appropriate ‘ending’ tone. But the biggest thing for me is if the sitcom went on for too many seasons. Even if the final episode isn’t the greatest, it’s fine. But if the last 2-4 seasons were lackluster, it tarnishes the whole legacy.

‘Procedural’ type shows are yet another category, and I’m not entirely sure how to characterize those, or what makes a strong ending for that sub-genre. I’m using ‘procedural’ broadly to include, like, Bad Guy of the Week type shows--for example, Charmed, which I thought should have ended after S7. Again, I think it’s about not letting the whole thing go on too long, and then staying true to characters and tone in the finale itself.

So looking just at dramas that have a season’s warning before their finale--which, really, are the type of shows that are most likely to make people ANGRY with shitty endings, because they lure the viewer in with the idea that a singular, coherent story is being told. Maybe it’s convoluted. Maybe it’s winding. Maybe it’s hard to tell where they’re going with this. But if it all comes together in the end, none of that matters--and if it doesn’t come together, what was the point of all the seasons that came before? It becomes, retroactively, a betrayal.

The more plot-driven the show (if it has a mystery, a conspiracy theory, a quest), the greater the betrayal if all fizzles out. But I think the same feeling can arise from shoddy conclusions in dramas more generally. The L Word is one of my comfort shows but that last season is a MESS all the way down, the finale especially. There definitely wasn’t a point to anything, and it wasn’t even entertaining as, like, a dramatic soap.

But then I think about shows whose endings I really liked. For example, Six Feet Under had a great final season and one of the best finale episodes/ending sequences ever. The show up to that point had been about death, and that theme had always been centered most particularly on Nate: his fears of the family business, his previous brushes with death because of his AVM, etc. So of course the show had to end by killing one of its mains, coming full circle with the pilot, showing real grief hitting home--and of course Nate’s personal journey as the main character had to end with his death. Everything about the conclusion was fitting, not even counting the final montage.

I also really liked the conclusion of Big Love, for similar reasons: it was thoughtful, and it successfully teased out the main strands, both of plot and theme, that had run through the show up to that point. The most important thing had always been depicting this family, their problems but also their strength and their love for each other--so, as the showrunners said, it had to conclude by showing you that the family survives. They are strong, and their bonds endure. But the ending was, and had to be, bittersweet too, because anything less would seem to sweep under the rug the real tragedies of the last seasons. Not everyone gets happy endings. And the unhappy endings relate specifically to the toxic patriarchy that’s haunted all of the characters from the pilot. Alby has a chance to turn away from his father and the compound life--but the forces arrayed against him were too strong, so there was no deus ex machina for him, and he ultimately just became fully the evil villain. And Bill is taken out not by the state or by the compound but by an aggrieved man who feels he’s been emasculated, forgotten, who is raging against being so Unseen. What a way to make clear what the common denominator in all of the threats of the past 5 seasons has been.

I also give major points to shows whose finales feel like they’re trying, even if they’re imperfect, especially if the imperfections are because of factors outside the showrunner’s control. For example, I saw someone list Dollhouse as one of their ‘worst endings’ but I have to disagree. I like the ending of Dollhouse. It wasn’t supposed to be 2 seasons. That’s well known. But that’s how many seasons it got, and I think honestly they turned that into a plus rather than a minus. Dollhouse was its best when it was rushing to a conclusion, when it was fast-paced and exciting. Did it always make complete sense? No. Were there some pretty big holes in the plot? Yeah--S2′s Big Bad was absolutely and transparently a retcon instituted between S1 and S2 and I get that, and I forgive the show for that. I thought bifurcating the epilogue as two extra episodes after each of the two seasons was genius, and I liked that it allowed the show to have its cake and eat it too: a happy ending, with the main, immediate, singular Big Bad eliminated, at the end of S2, and a more bittersweet, more complicated, post-apoc ending in the bonus episode. Yeah, I can see the seams; I know there were a lot of constructed work arounds in there because the show was intended to be longer. I think the ending was presented in good faith.

I also, perhaps controversially, liked the ending of Veronica Mars (the original 3-season show; I didn’t see the reboot). The way the season aired was weird and didn’t do it any favors: having a long break before the last couple of episodes, which existed outside of the two Big Case arcs of S3, makes those final stories feel tacked on and random. Basically impossible to have a strong finish with that kind of structure. But the very end of the last ep had the bitter, dark feel of a noir, which is what the show was, a mash up of a noir and a high school drama. I liked that they leaned on the noir rather than the high school aspect, because it was the more creative way to go imo. Also, I appreciated that S3, in general, learned from S2′s mistakes. Yes, the college years are always going to be lackluster compared to high school, in any series that starts with its characters in high school. But VM recognized that no overarching mystery was going to compare to the Lilly Kane murder, so it split the Big Mystery into two Medium Sized mysteries, and I thought that was smart. All of which makes me inclined to think fondly of the conclusion. As with Dollhouse, its weakest points seem to be compromises it had to make, not really its fault but just an inevitable imperfection of the form.

It’s pretty easy to list aspects of a bad ending: a sense that events are arbitrary, a disrespect of characters, a rushed construction, a jarring tone, and most importantly a disconnect between the finale and what came before. If the show appeared to be a narrative (as opposed to a situation), but it doesn’t feel like a complete and coherent whole at the end, then the conclusion was bad.

I didn’t watch GOT or SPN and I stopped watching T100 at the end of S4 (though I do feel confident from tumblr that the ending was Bad), so I have somewhat of a hard time thinking of shows that I thought had really bad endings. I can think of dissatisfying endings that came from shows being cancelled without warning. I can think of shows that lasted too long in general or otherwise had fallen from their greatest heights by the time they limped to a conclusion (unpopular opinion: Friends fits in this category--that show should have been 4 seasons, maybe 5 tops; Boy Meets World and Dawson’s Creek are comfort show favorites of mine but they both should have ended with high school, like, pretty objectively speaking; iZombie started a slow downturn after S2 and by the end of S4 was kinda unwatchable. I literally stopped halfway through the finale.). I can even think of shows that lost me by the end even though objectively they probably had good endings (for example, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend--I couldn’t get through S4 and the finale sounded... technically well-constructed but like it would have driven me nuts).

But then I guess most shows with shitty finales technically had shitty last seasons in general. Truly notorious crash-and-burns don’t come out of nowhere. I mean I’m sure there are counter-examples to this (what’s that one with the kid and the snow globe lol?) but unless you try for a weird last-minute twist, or unless you’ve got your audience hoping against hope that an impossibly twisty story is actually very smart instead of very ill-planned, it’s generally clear before the last episode if a narrative has lost its way. I don’t tend to watch a lot of ‘twisty-turny conspiracy’ shows, and when I do I am supremely skeptical all the way through, so it’s hard for me to think of examples I’ve personally watched of a last minute “what the fuck was that” conclusion.

#the year 2020 #2020: fandom thoughts #the entire purpose of this ramble is for me to avoid introspection rn because i'm in such a bad mood

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quillandink-tmblr · 4 years ago

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As requested by the sweet and wonderful @thechroniclebringer , it's time for the next To Breathe Again post!

Today, it's all about magic systems.

Long post ahead!!

Disclaimer! I'm still actively working on the intricacies of the TBA (oh that's a coincidental acronym 😂 maybe I stick with Saafa-verse like I did for so long...) magic system, so there will be some gaps, specifically once we get past the overarching idea.

First up! Some basic questions. You know what, why not make this interview-style, for flavor? Extra fun writing this.

First off, what are magic users called

All magic users are called witches, regardless of gender!

Who can use magic? How is magic given out or decided?

Magic isn't a genetic ability, or something gifted by a higher being. It's all learned! So anyone can use magic, but not everyone does. It's just like writing, for example; everyone can theoretically do writing, but not everyone chooses to pursue it.

What are the views on magic in this world?

Good question, Me! That largely depends on which country you're in, and who you're around. N'Gomo is entirely open to magic, while Ljosavatn (new, smoother name soon) has laws that make magic punishable by death. This is actually an important part of the plot.

Is all magic the same?

Definitely not! There are multiple types of magics a witch can focus on learning, but they arent limited to one type, either. This is the part that is actively in the works, but a few types of possible magic focuses are Necromatic magic, Healing magic, and Rift magic (ooh, mysterious). So far, there are main of supporting characters with focuses in each of these magic categories?

You mentioned focuses earlier, can you elaborate on that?

Woo, yes!! Since my magic system isn't one thing, but has different parts that make up a whole, I wanted a way to differentiate those kinds of magics and the witches who use them. The author Leigh Bardugo, for example, has different kinds of magic categories in her books, with cool conlang names for each one, Similarly to how the ATLA world has the four element types for their benders.

I wanted something like that, but also wanted to make sure my own version was unique, and focuses came to mind and fit super well! Plus, the word "focus" already has some magic connotation for us D&D nerds (a focus is an item with which a magic user channels their spells through, like a wand or a staff).

Anything else?

Yes! Focus isnt a total alternative to calling someone a Witch, as the scenarios for each would be different. If someone asks a Witch if they're a Witch, they would say they're just a Witch or that they're a [insert focus] Witch.

Ex:

"You. You're a Witch, yes?"

"Yes, ma'am, a Necromantic Witch."

If someone was asking what their focus is specifically, they would generally say they're a [insert focus] focus, since the Witch part is already heavily implied.

Ex:

"What's your focus? I never asked."

"Oh, I'm a Necromantic focus."

"Rift focus, myself. I do dabble in Healing, as well."

It's just another word to add some interest to a possibly plain term, and a way to maybe have some breaks from the word "witch," lol.

[Interview Segment Complete]

Please bear in mind, all of this is still a major work in progress! EVERYTHING is potentially subject to change. That being said, I hope y'all like this kinda long look into the TBA magic system in it's current iteration. What's next? Who knows. I don't want to give everything away! I gotta save some for the actual book!

Love y'all!!

#quillandink writes #to breathe again #to breathe again 2020 #magic system #nanowrimo 2020 #nanowrimo #writeblr #lowkey wanna just have people learn this from reading the book(s)#but they dont exist yet #and im just barely holding off on writing them before nano starts #i wanna write this so badlyyy

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joescommunityproject · 4 years ago

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r/Anticonsumption: Appealing to Outrage

The Platform

Reddit: the front page of the internet. Born in 2005, Reddit has championed itself as the cultural hub of the internet. Reddit’s “about” page states that “Reddit is home to thousands of communities, endless conversation, and authentic human connection,” (Reddit Inc., 2019) The building block of their platform, which has over 430 million active monthly users, is the subreddit (Reddit Inc., 2019). Subreddits are internet communities formed by a collective of like-minded users. Some subreddits, like r/pics, are massive, with over 26 million members (r/pics, 2020). Other subreddits, like r/pottedcats, only have a few thousand members (r/pottedcats, 2020).

There are certain subreddits that have made a name for themselves outside of Reddit, usually by way of controversy. For instance, r/the_donald gained internet fame for its racist posts in support of Donald Trump’s presidency. When the community was banned by Reddit in July of 2020, news outlets including Wired wrote about the fall of the problematic subreddit (Peck, 2020).

Yet while r/the_donald may have been an outlier in terms of its popularity and controversy, it echoed a culture war that exists across Reddit. For as many subreddits as there are devoted to cat videos, there are likely just as many that espouse political and cultural angst. R/Anticonsumption is one of these.

The Community

According to the community’s “about,” page, r/Anticonsumption is a subreddit concerned with “criticizing, questioning, and discussing consumerism and current consumption standards,” (r/Anticonsumption, 2020). It is a relatively small subreddit with a membership of over 254 thousand users (r/Anticonsumption, 2020). While there is no comprehensive breakdown of the community's membership, I believe that it’s demographics generally align with those of Reddit as a whole. Statistics reported by websitebuilder.org state that 58% of Reddit users are between the ages of 18 and 29 (WebsiteBuilder, 2020). And looking at r/Anticonsumption, this seems like an accurate reflection of the subreddit’s users, who appear to be primarily young adults in their late 20s. This conclusion is based on the content and nature of the posts featured on r/Anticonsumption, which embody a disillusionment with consumer culture. The people making these posts would have to be old enough to be conscious of consumer culture, but also young enough to be concerned with its wastefulness. People who are outside of the 18-29 demographic may be too young to be aware of consumerism or too old to be upset by it.

And upset they are. As the community’s “about,” page states, the foremost goal of r/Anticonsumption is the criticism of “consumerism and current consumption standards,” (r/Anticonsumption, 2020). The page also lists topics for discussion, which include “consumerism, planned obsoletism, economic materialism, inefficiency, advertising, sustainability, exploitation, conspicuous consumption,” and “intellectual property,” (r/Anticonsumption, 2020). However, these topics might be more succinctly categorized as a community concern for “waste,” “unnecessary consumption,” and “corporate greed.” These categories are by far the most popular topics for discussion, and are heavily represented within the top 40 most upvoted, or liked, posts of this year (r/Anticonsumption, 2020). Of those posts, I observed that 17.5% were concerned with the physical waste produced by consumerism. Another 27.5% were related to unnecessary consumption or purchasing items in excess. And 30% were specifically critical of corporations and their excessive wealth. The last 25% did not fit neatly into any of these three categories. Given the content of these posts, it’s easy to tell that the general tone of the community is one of frustration. Referring again to the top 40 posts of the year, 65% bore a negative or cynical tone. This is compared to the 20% that were clearly optimistic or the 15% that were tonally neutral.

Shared Assumptions

From these overarching sentiments, one can devise a rough outline of the community’s shared assumptions. First and foremost, the community agrees that capitalism is a flawed and in some cases immoral, system. While there are few posts that explicitly attack capitalism by name, the issues which pervade the community, including conspicuous consumption, waste, and corporate greed, are all a direct result of consumerism and, by association, capitalism. Secondly, the community agrees that these issues are important because of their impact on people and the planet. The subreddit's tagline is, after all, "Consumerism kills," (r/Anticonsumption, 2020). Some posts state this outright, referring explicitly to climate change, worker exploitation, and pollution (u/MutantAussie, 2020). Yet even on posts that are not explicit, one can find commenters who take the post to its environmental and humanitarian conclusions (u/fatnerdfromnextdoor, 2020). The subreddit also aligns itself with more explicitly environmental subreddits, including r/Environmentalism (r/Environmentalism, 2020).

A third assumption accepted by the community is that there are alternatives to consumerism. While this is hardly the main goal of the subreddit, there are those posts that provide solutions to the consumption opposed by the community. For instance, a recent post by u/Bydanielpearce showed how he had transformed old socks into couch cushions (u/Bydanielpearce, 2020). Another popular post on the subreddit pictures a painted sign, the author of which challenges viewers to grow their own produce instead of purchasing it (u/madigolightly, 2020). The community also aligns itself with other self-sufficiency subreddits, such as r/fermentation (r/fermentation, 2020).

But this assumption is in contradiction with the community’s final, and perhaps most surprising, shared understanding: that consumption is unavoidable, at least in the present moment. In a subreddit called r/Anticonsumption, one could assume that the members would be entirely opposed to consumption in all of its forms. However, this is not the case. Obviously, the community does not oppose necessary consumption of food, clothing, and housing. But besides that, there is leniency in regards to other forms of nonessential consumption. For instance, many of the community members engage in consumerist hobbies. Looking at the profile of u/SaltNext, a user responsible for one of the most upvoted posts of the year, reveals that they posted on r/Disney, linking to a sweatshirt that they had put up for sale (u/SaltNext, 2020). Other users post to r/Anticonsumption while posting elsewhere about their plant hobby, or about the shoes they ruin while skateboarding (u/S8r-Boi-Cya-L8r-Boi, 2020).

While this contradiction can contribute to a sense of performativity amongst certain users, it does not invalidate the goals of the subreddit. Members of the community must still participate in the system that they are critical of. If anything, the juxtaposition between what members post and what they engage elsewhere on the platform clarifies how the members of the community define “consumption.” For them, to be anti-consumption is not to be against any one purchase, though there are posts that focus on a single item. Rather, it is frustration with the overarching systems in which these purchases occur. A system that necessitates frivolity; engorges the wealthy; and perpetuates human suffering.

Entering the Conversation

In posting on r/Anticonsumption, I sought to emulate the rhetorical style of the community to maximize members’ engagement with my post. In doing so, I attempted to employ these assumptions and norms to varying degrees of success.

Post 1

I made my first post to r/Anticonsumption regarding the thrifting website Depop (u/Looney_Goon, 2020). In a lengthy paragraph titled “Depop and the Thrifting Industry,” I asked the community what they thought about services like Depop and the justification its sellers gave for huge markups on secondhand items.

In crafting this post I had worked hard to give evidence, develop an argument, and ask a thought-provoking question. I had assumed that this post’s academic rhetoric would catch the attention of the entire community and that I would succeed in sparking a thoughtful dialogue between users. However, this did not happen. At the time that this essay is being written, the post has only received 13 upvotes and six comments. And, of the few comments that I did receive, not a single user agreed with my suggestion that the popularization of thrifting negatively impacted low-income communities.

At first, I was disappointed with the lack of engagement. However, I came to understand that my rhetorical style did not match that of the broader community. Looking back at other discussion-based posts, I noticed that they generally received fewer upvotes and comments than their image-based counterparts. This was despite the fact that they explicitly asked a question of the community. Successful posts were, instead, short and to the point, with an image and snappy title that immediately invoked the emotions of the community. In my future posts, I sought to emulate this formula.

Post 2

However, my second post was even more of a failure than my first. In making this post, I decided to comment on an existing post rather than create my own (u/Looney_Goon, 2020). I figured that, in the comments thread, the wordy style that had failed before would find success amongst the other text-based remarks.

Once again, I crafted a long-winded comment, this time describing my own experiences with wasteful practices at my workplace. I even tried to express my anger and frustration through the comment, in the hopes of eliciting the same response from the community. But I have not received a single upvote on this comment to date.

This comment suffers from the same issues as my previous post. It is text-based and it is wordy. But I think that the bulk of its failure can be attributed to where it was posted. I made the comment on an existing post, one which had been made days earlier and had already received 45 comments before mine. Buried in the comments section of (by the internet’s standards) an already old post, my comment’s chance to be seen, let alone be engaged with, were slim to none.

Post 3

In my third post, I embraced the rhetorical strategy that I had identified during my first few weeks in the community (u/Looney_Goon, 2020). I abandoned my inclination for dense text posts and made an image post instead. I posted a picture of a cooler filled with mochi in plastic containers and captioned it “Individually packaged mochi, so many little plastic cups.” In observing the subreddit, I had seen that waste, and especially plastic waste, was a popular topic for discussion on r/Anticonsumption. Posts about wasteful packaging often evoked the frustration of the community, and in return received a great many upvotes and comments. I hoped that by touching on this topic with an image that could be immediately understood and reacted to, rather than a text post that required further reading, I could accomplish that same level of success. By now, the post has received 57 upvotes, far more than I had expected. The succinct, emotional appeal made by my post succeeded in eliciting an emotional response from the community, and therefore saw high engagement.

However, what most surprised me were two of the comments that I received on the post. On the same day that I published my post, u/Morgenjol commented “Our grocery store only did this because of covid. Before they weren't individual packages,” (u/Morgenjol, 2020). Their comment was quickly followed with another by u/kit-kat315, who said “Same here. You used to scoop your own into a take away container but now they're individually wrapped, ” (u/kit-kat312, 2020). What surprised me about these posts was their measured tone. While I had tailored my post to evoke the frustration of the community, these two users tried to explain, or at least contextualize, the issue. Compare these with the third comment by u/Lemonyclouds, who said “Let me guess...is this Whole Foods? Bougie-ass pretentious greenwashing overpriced grocery store. They charge for water now...the store workers gave me a salty-ass attitude when I asked to buy water but fill up my own bottle (marked with fl oz). Jeff Bezos can go choke on mochi,” (u/Lemonyclouds, 2020).The comments by u/kit-kat315 and u/Morgenjol conveyed a level of sympathetic understanding that is not always expressed by community. In doing so they embodied the community’s fourth assumption: that consumption is inevitable, at least in the present moment.

Post 4

In my fourth post, I tried to recreate the success of my third post. I posted a picture of pears wrapped in paper and titled it “ 68 pears, each individually wrapped in paper and packaged in a plastic-lined box. This is just one of the six or so boxes that we receive at our store every day.” (u/Looney_Goon, 2020). I also added a comment to my post which essentially recited the story that I had told in my second post. In crafting this post, I hoped that the image would elicit the frustration of the community and that the comment would give the post further context and emotional appeal.

Ultimately, this post was not as successful as my last, receiving only 30 upvotes. This could be due to the fact that it has not been in circulation as long as my last post, though I think there is more to it than that. First, I don’t think that r/Anticonsumption considers paper waste is as egregious an offense as plastic waste. Second, the paper waste that I had featured in my post had more of a function than that of my previous post and was therefore more excusable. That is to say, the paper had a purpose. This second point was echoed in the comments section. u/SeoulTezza wrote, “If they weren’t wrapped in paper you would have 68 wasted pears,” (u/SeoulTezza, 2020). Another user, u/DarthFader4205 , wrote “Youre right, but its all for safe consumption,” (u/DarthFader4205, 2020). Again, this illustrates that while the general mood of the community is one of frustration, they accept certain forms of consumption and waste as necessary.

Conclusions

I chose to explore a subreddit as my networked community because I believed that Reddit, more so than other social media platforms, facilitated discussion. Reddit is fundamentally a collection of discussion forums. Therefore, whether a post is image or text-based, the comment thread always presents a bridge between the poster and the community. For many subreddits, such as r/askreddit, the comments thread is the essence of the community discussion.

For this reason, it seemed that r/Anticonsumption would be the perfect community to analyze for this project. More so than Twitter or Instagram, the conversational format of Reddit would allow me to have a dialogue with other Redditors, helping me to drill down into the rhetoric and psychology of the community. And for this reason, I began my project by posting a question to r/Anticonsumption. Yet after the lukewarm response to both my first and second posts, I came to realize that I had overestimated the community’s propensity for conversation.

Instead, I noticed that on r/Anticonsumption, emotion, rather than discussion, garnered engagement. Reddit’s “upvote,” button, just like the “Like,” button on Instagram or Facebook, is the measure of success for any given post. This is why posts are categorized based on the number of upvotes they receive rather than the number of comments. Therefore, the posts that succeed are those which trigger the most acute emotional reaction from the audience. The upvote button becomes an immediate expression of that emotion, and the fewer steps there are between the audience and that emotional response, the more upvotes it receives. For this reason, image posts, rather than text-based posts, rise to the top of r/Anticonsumption. In fact, the top 40 posts of 2020 were all pictures that appealed to emotion. Take this post by u/SaltNext, for example (u/SaltNext, 2020):

Like most of the posts which succeed on r/Anticonsumption, there is almost no supplementary information given. The picture and its message are self contained. Even the caption refers directly back to the image. And the message that the picture delivers, that we are being manipulated by brands, is meant to frustrate the audience. R/Anticonsumption is particularly receptive to this message of manipulative advertising because it confirms what they understand about the world. And this receptiveness can be seen in the 5.7 thousand upvotes that the post received. But notice how there are only 66 comments. The emotional appeal of the post does not directly translate into a particularly robust conversation. And why should it? The community is already in agreement with what the post is telling them, and their upvotes signal their approval. And it is worth noting that this same image was shared just nine months earlier and had similar success (unknown, 2020).

This is not to say that my initial evaluation of the Reddit platform was incorrect. The comments thread is a key aspect of Reddit and is integral to the site’s functionality. However, there are a great many subreddits, including r/Anticonsumption, in which the immediate controversy of a single post is more important than the conversations it might spark. This means that posts which are quickly understood and empathized with rise to the top. In this way, much of Reddit mirrors the individualistic nature of sites like Instagram, veering away from the site’s collectivistic, community-centric ideals.

In conducting this project, I saw how a networked community can become an echo chamber for highly emotional, but not highly substantial, ideas. Seeking the approval of the community, users like myself will tailor posts to the subreddit’s rhetorical climate, paring down ideas to their most effective emotional appeals. Thus, the most controversial posts become the most widely circulated, buoyed by their upvotes while less exciting posts drift to the bottom. This results in a climate where posts amass approval not because they are thoughtful but because they match the aesthetics of the community.

Luckily, there are those community members who attempt to inject some civility and common sense into the conversation. In my own experience, users like u/SeoulTezza and u/Morgenjol saw through some of the emotions of my otherwise shallow posts and attempted to contextualize the object of frustration. In an environment where emotions run high, it is important that such people exist to make us question our gut reactions, not just on Reddit, but across the whole of the internet.

Sources

Cavanagh, Joe [u/Looney_Goon]. (2020, October 13). Depop and the Thrifting Industry [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jakj1y/depop_and_the_thrifting_industry/

Cavanagh, Joe [u/Looney_Goon]. (2020, October 19). I work in the produce department at a local grocery store and it's infuriating to see how much goes [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jcuer9/packaging_is_garbage_i_watched_a_johnny_carson/g9dnqji/?context=3

Cavanagh, Joe [u/Looney_Goon]. (2020, October 26) Individually packaged mochi, so many little plastic cups [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jiqw1n/individually_packaged_mochi_so_many_little/

Cavanagh, Joe [u/Looney_Goon]. (2020, November 4). 68 pears, each individually wrapped in paper and packaged in a plastic-lined box. This is just one of the six or so boxes that we receive at our store every day [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jocjuy/68_pears_each_individually_wrapped_in_paper_and/

Reddit Inc. (2019, December 4). About. Retrieved November 6, 2020 from https://www.redditinc.com/

r/Anticonsumption. (2009, September 25). Reddit. Retrieved November 6, 2020 from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/

r/askreddit. (2008, January 25). Reddit. Retrieved November 8, 2020 from https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/

r/Environmentalism. (2010, April 11). Reddit. Retrieved November 8, 2020 from https://www.reddit.com/r/Environmentalism/

r/fermentation. (2009, July 11). Reddit. Retrieved November 8, 2020 from https://www.reddit.com/r/fermentation/

r/pics. (2008, January 2005). Reddit. Retrieved November 6, 2020 from https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/

r/pottedcats. (2014, June 14). Reddit. Retrieved November 6, 2020 from https://www.reddit.com/r/pottedcats/

Peck, Robert. (2020, August 3). The Hate-Fueled Rise of r/The_Donald—and Its Epic Takedown. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/the-hate-fueled-rise-of-rthe-donald-and-its-epic-takedown/

[u/Bydanielpearce] (2020, November 4). Cushion covers made with my old socks (washed and whitened). Cushion stuffing made from project scraps. She was a better behaved model this time but soon had enough due to lack of treats [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jo3k7o/cushion_covers_made_with_my_old_socks_washed_and/

[u/DarthFader4205] (2020, November 4). Youre right, but its all for safe consumption [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jocjuy/68_pears_each_individually_wrapped_in_paper_and/

[u/fatnerdfromnextdoor] (2020, August 3). Shopping local, but out of season is often worse for the environment than just importing it from [Online forum post]. Retrieved November 6, 2020 from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/i2vby4/i_live_in_an_italian_region_which_produce_2/

[u/kit-kat315] (2020, October 26). Same here. You used to scoop your own into a take away container but now they're individually wrapped. [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jiqw1n/individually_packaged_mochi_so_many_little/

[u/Lemonyclouds] (2020, October 27). Let me guess… is this Whole Foods? [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jiqw1n/individually_packaged_mochi_so_many_little/

[u/madigolightly] (2020, April 1). Permanent permaculture [Online forum post]. Retrieved November 7, 2020 from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/ftblxz/permanent_permaculture/

[u/Morgeljol] (2020, October 26). Our grocery store only did this because of covid. Before they weren't individual package [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jiqw1n/individually_packaged_mochi_so_many_little/

[u/MutantAussie] (2020, November 6). God loves you. God hates the environment [Online forum post]. Retrieved November 6, 2020 from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jp0d6t/god_loves_you_god_hates_the_environment/

[u/S8r-Boi-Cya-L8r-Boi] (2020, September 1). My Travis dunks after skating them to death [Online forum post]. Retrieved November 6, 2020 from https://www.reddit.com/r/Repsneakers/comments/ikg9zb/my_travis_dunks_after_skating_them_to_death/

[u/SaltNext] (2020, October 26). Brands aren’t your friends. [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jilhpq/brands_arent_your_friends/

[u/SaltNext] (2020, October 31). Im here for the snacks [Online forum post]. Retrieve from https://www.reddit.com/r/disney/comments/jlrljm/im_here_for_the_snacks/

[u/SeoulTezza] (2020, November 4). If they weren’t wrapped in paper you would have 68 wasted pears [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/jocjuy/68_pears_each_individually_wrapped_in_paper_and/

[unknown] (2020, January 21). Brands aren’t your friends [Online forum post]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/erv8yk/brands_arent_your_friends/

WebsiteBuilder (2020, October 27). 109 Ridiculous Reddit Statistics & Facts to Know in 2020. https://websitebuilder.org/blog/reddit-statistics/

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comicteaparty · 5 years ago

Text

December 18th-December 24th, 2019 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from December 18th, 2019 to December 24th, 2019. The chat focused on the following question:

What tropes and/or clichés are you perfectly fine with seeing in the webcomics you read?

Deo101

Like all of the cutesy cheesy relationship tropes. I love them all and I always will! Plenty more, but I find myself getting caught up in the relationship tropes the most. Specifically friends to lovers, but I also really like the found family trope. I know there are more tropes that I love but I can't think of them off the top of my head, so I'll probably just agree with others as the week goes on

indogswetrust

pass me the slow burn romance please thaaaanks

Deo101

that one too. Also hurt/comfort. Pump those into my VEINS they are my lifeblood... I shamelessly put every trope I want into my work so I can't judge other people for doing the same

indogswetrust

i’m trash

I’ve become more sssssophisticated as I’ve gotten older but I know what I like in a webcomic.

And it’s Adorable Behavior (tm)

Deo101

I've gotten less sophosticated. I thought I got more sophisticated but turns out I just got less shameful about the things i like

indogswetrust

Haha

I mean I used to really be fixated on comedy and now I’m more okay with things being ambiguous and complex? Ingress is a good example. I might have put it down two years ago but now I wanna see where Spicer and Toivo’s journey takes them

Fixated isn’t the exact word. whatever

Deo101

No I get you! Realizing you like more than just one thing and expanding your horizons is really important!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I love the enemies-to-lovers trope. Any time a pair of characters goes from ‘I hate your guts’ to ‘take me now’ I’m loving it. That is, so long as one of them wasn’t being outright abusive during their ‘hate’ phase.

indogswetrust

Man that’s a delicate balance but also

Deo101

^ Fully agree. I just get a little too anxious about the "enemies" side of thing and worry they wont fully grow into lovers I guess! But if it's done well, Its an especially good one

carcarchu

i second the enemies-to-lovers thing i will never get enough of that trope

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

thirded

if I even smell a hint of it in a story, provided it's not overtly violent or abusive or otherwise horrible... I am hooked

kayotics

Fourthed... it’s a good trope

keii4ii

Now I feel like the odd one out for being neutral toward that trope. I definitely enjoy good examples of it, but otherwise completely neutral?

Evolving relationships is a good thing in general though, and enemies to lovers does fall in that category.

keii4ii

I have a soft spot for long lost superadvanced civilizations being unearthed. While it doesn't guarantee I'll fall in love with the story, it WILL grab my attention and at least get me to check it out.

renieplayerone

I dont really have any strong opinions on any tropes, but theres a really good channel on youtube that goes through and critiques tropes. I find it really useful for writing. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDb22nlVXGgcljcdyDk80bBDXGyeZjZ5e

keii4ii

(Please don't let my weirdness ruin anyone's enjoyment of the trope though, lol. I'm all for celebrating what you like! was just genuinely wondering if I'm the only one who's neutral about it!)

keii4ii

Also not an overarching story trope, but more like a type of a scene... I really like this thing (if this is a trope please tell me what it's called XD) A, B, C are friends. A and B are bffs. C is not as close. B talks to C about this while A is away. This is an honest conversation, not a malicious one. B learns to see A in a way they hadn't before, and it strengthens the B-A friendship. I'm not likely to start reading a story just because I know it contains this scene. But if a story I already like has this scene, it is likely to be my favorite scene!(edited)

I guess part of the reason why I like it so much is, it shows that the relationship (the B-A one in this case) is not insular. It's a real relationship between real people, who also have relationships outside of it, and the relationships have an influence on each other.

(And that's a lot of "relationship"s in a paragraph...)

eli [a winged tale]

Positive relationships and healthy navigations between relationship and life problems are my jam The enemies to lovers trope can be gripping because you get an additional conflict on top of tension. I thought the novel Red White & Royal Blue did a good job at that. Grant Snyder did a trope bingo for murakami and I thought it was fun to do the same for my works in progress. For reference: the murakami one https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.avclub.com/here-s-how-to-play-haruki-murakami-bingo-as-you-read-hi-1798271345/amp

keii4ii

omg

I NEED TO MAKE THIS for me/ comics I read

I mean I don't have a whole lot of stories, but it would be interesting to see what kind of common items get checked off across mine + my favorite comics combined

Capitania do Azar

wow I've been thinking about it a lot and I'm having a very hard time selecting the tropes I like best... I'm more of a "I know what I don't like and taking that aside I like being surprised"

Cronaj

All I can say is... Red Oni, Blue Oni (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedOniBlueOni). This trope is seriously so good. My favorite thing about this trope is that the "Red Oni," or the hot-headed one, and the "Blue Oni," the cold or level-headed one, can be either friends or enemies. So it makes for a beautiful dynamic no matter what type of story it is. Buddy cops, competitors in the workplace, brothers, enemies, the straight man and the fool, you name it. Typically these characters are foils of each other, and their differencesbalways make for exceedingly fun interactions. Another favorite trope of mine, which I don't really know the name of, is where the seemingly hot/handsome guy is actually a dork who has no idea what he's doing. Everyone in the story thinks he's done everything, but really he's just a dopey, niave possibly shy and definitely clumsy virgin. But the social awkwardness only makes him inexplicably more appealing to the other lead. Cute

Ah! Another trope I have to add because it's basically my crack: Androids Are People, Too (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndroidsArePeopleToo). I have loved this trope since before Detroit: Become Human, but the game certainly rekindled my love for it. Very genre-specific, but AI fascinate me to no end, whether it's in the real world, or in Sci-Fi.

eli [a winged tale]

Haha Cronaj are you me? Contrasting characters and robots who have feelings can get me hooked straight away

indogswetrust

lemme tell y’all about a trope I’ve noticed: the crazy lesbian. Like, The Favorite and Killing Eve and that Netflix movie about the violinists. Whoof. I am so tired of that

Cronaj

Hahahaha! I dunno maybe. I also have a protagonist in one of my novels named Eli.

eli [a winged tale]

The cute nerd who is fumbling but appeared to have it all together may lean towards the Mary Sue for me but if there is a true flaw (Tm) then I’m down

indogswetrust

I feel like gay men characters have been getting humanized and happy endings and that’s awesome! But lesbians have not been getting the same treatment.

bumbling and romantically inept nerds fuel me

eli [a winged tale]

What do you mean about the lesbian part, indogswetrust? I’m curious to know of the differences as I’m currently writing both

Cronaj

@eli [a winged tale] YES. I'm not gonna lie, I have definitely used more than one of these tropes XD And one of them may or may not be the fumbling hottie...

eli [a winged tale]

I wanted to link my trope bingo but thought it went against the pinned rules I can DM it to you if you’re interested and I’d love to play everyone else’s bingos

Cronaj

Oh hell yes. Lesgooooooo!

I have never made a trope bingo, but I really should

indogswetrust

Like, Love, Simon or Call Me By Your Name show gay men as people slowly falling in love and it’s tender and kind. But The Favorite literally has animal abuse in it and women sleeping with each other for power. I walked out of the theater. Same for Killing Eve, it’s about a spy and a murderer. High intrigue and drama but it’s obviously a toxic relationship from the premise

eli [a winged tale]

Oh no! You should check out Their Story by Tan Jiu)

It’s formatted like a webcomic as well though formally called manhua. It does the slow burn romance, humanizing aspect very well. I’m not well versed in the mainstream portrayal but certainly on the indie side, people are stepping up and writing very positive and healthy lesbian stories

indogswetrust

The indie side is great. Even “The Sea In You” (a webcomic) is frickin adorable

It just grinds my beans about mainstream portrayal

eli [a winged tale]

Loving the sea in you!

RebelVampire

A trope I will never get sick of is https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses , especially if https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReallyRoyaltyReveal this is what happens in the story. I just...I really love royalty. I can't help it. I love the pointless traditions, the fancy dresses, the palaces, etc.. And even if that's not part of it, I still like it when some rando girl realizes that she's a princess and now has to deal with that idea that she has subjects she has to protect or something. Bonus points if she's a magical girl. I even like it when it's a reverse situation where it's an evil princess. I will never tire of princesses ever because the concept is always fascinating to me no matter which way its spun.

eli [a winged tale]

I love the fanciness of it all. All those lovely eye candy designs

Cronaj

Same... I have also used the Really Royalty Reveal, like..... Several times

eli [a winged tale]

The royal reveal when done well can be so powerful and validating

Kelsey (Kurio)

I have a queen ant character but no princesses yet

Eightfish

ooh are we talking about tropes we like? I really like mind reading/ mind control. But consensual. It's feels like the theme of trust taken to the extreme, where a character has such belief in someone they'd trust their mind / body to them. But I've only really seen it in some kid's books I liked (Young Wizards, Animorphs), and the only webcomic I've seen with this idea is my own, and I haven't even gotten to that part yet. Anyone have any recommendations? Ooh or a tvtropes link?

Erin Ptah (BICP 🎄 Leif & Thorn)

It comes up in the Murderbot Diaries -- the main character is a construct, basically a really-advanced android, and there are times when it lets a more-powerful AI pilot its body to handle an emergency that's unfolding too fast for it to keep up with on its own.

Eightfish

I looked it up and I do like the themes of androids' humanity. And it's a series of novellae, which, wow, that's very rare. Not sure I've ever seen that before. Do you recommend the book as a whole?(edited)

Erin Ptah (BICP 🎄 Leif & Thorn)

I recommend the whole series, yes!

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #reader favorites

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

Text

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/music-black-culture-appropriation.html

I'd encourage all of you to read -- actually read -- the reported essays in the #1619project. If these ideas or facts are new to you, if they upset you or make you uncomfortable, if they challenge your idea of America, ask yourself: why?

For centuries, black music, forged in bondage, has been the sound of complete artistic freedom. No wonder everybody is always stealing it.

By Wesley Morris | August 14, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 18, 2019 7:52 PM ET |

I’ve got a friend who’s an incurable Pandora guy, and one Saturday while we were making dinner, he found a station called Yacht Rock. “A tongue-in-cheek name for the breezy sounds of late ’70s/early ’80s soft rock” is Pandora’s definition, accompanied by an exhortation to “put on your Dockers, pull up a deck chair and relax.” With a single exception, the passengers aboard the yacht were all dudes. With two exceptions, they were all white. But as the hours passed and dozens of songs accrued, the sound gravitated toward a familiar quality that I couldn’t give language to but could practically taste: an earnest Christian yearning that would reach, for a moment, into Baptist rawness, into a known warmth. I had to laugh — not because as a category Yacht Rock is absurd, but because what I tasted in that absurdity was black.

I started putting each track under investigation. Which artists would saunter up to the racial border? And which could do their sauntering without violating it? I could hear degrees of blackness in the choir-loft certitude of Doobie Brothers-era Michael McDonald on “What a Fool Believes”; in the rubber-band soul of Steely Dan’s “Do It Again”; in the malt-liquor misery of Ace’s “How Long” and the toy-boat wistfulness of Little River Band’s “Reminiscing.”

Then Kenny Loggins’s “This Is It”arrived and took things far beyond the line. “This Is It” was a hit in 1979 and has the requisite smoothness to keep the yacht rocking. But Loggins delivers the lyrics in a desperate stage whisper, like someone determined to make the kind of love that doesn’t wake the baby. What bowls you over is the intensity of his yearning — teary in the verses, snarling during the chorus. He sounds as if he’s baring it all yet begging to wring himself out even more.

Playing black-music detective that day, I laughed out of bafflement and embarrassment and exhilaration. It’s the conflation of pride and chagrin I’ve always felt anytime a white person inhabits blackness with gusto. It’s: You have to hand it to her. It’s: Go, white boy. Go, white boy. Go. But it’s also: Here we go again. The problem is rich. If blackness can draw all of this ornate literariness out of Steely Dan and all this psychotic origami out of Eminem; if it can make Teena Marie sing everything — “Square Biz,” “Revolution,”“Portuguese Love,” “Lovergirl” — like she knows her way around a pack of Newports; if it can turn the chorus of Carly Simon’s “You Belong to Me” into a gospel hymn; if it can animate the swagger in the sardonic vulnerabilities of Amy Winehouse; if it can surface as unexpectedly as it does in the angelic angst of a singer as seemingly green as Ben Platt; if it’s the reason Nu Shooz’s “I Can’t Wait”remains the whitest jam at the blackest parties, then it’s proof of how deeply it matters to the music of being alive in America, alive to America.

It’s proof, too, that American music has been fated to thrive in an elaborate tangle almost from the beginning. Americans have made a political investment in a myth of racial separateness, the idea that art forms can be either “white” or “black” in character when aspects of many are at least both. The purity that separation struggles to maintain? This country’s music is an advertisement for 400 years of the opposite: centuries of “amalgamation” and “miscegenation” as they long ago called it, of all manner of interracial collaboration conducted with dismaying ranges of consent.

“White,” “Western,” “classical” music is the overarching basis for lots of American pop songs. Chromatic-chord harmony, clean timbre of voice and instrument: These are the ingredients for some of the hugely singable harmonies of the Beatles, the Eagles, Simon and Fleetwood Mac, something choral, “pure,” largely ungrained. Black music is a completely different story. It brims with call and response, layers of syncopation and this rougher element called “noise,” unique sounds that arise from the particular hue and timbre of an instrument — Little Richard’s woos and knuckled keyboard zooms. The dusky heat of Miles Davis’s trumpeting. Patti LaBelle’s emotional police siren. DMX’s scorched-earth bark. The visceral stank of Etta James, Aretha Franklin, live-in-concert Whitney Houston and Prince on electric guitar.

But there’s something even more fundamental, too. My friend Delvyn Case, a musician who teaches at Wheaton College, explained in an email that improvisation is one of the most crucial elements in what we think of as black music: “The raising of individual creativity/expression to the highest place within the aesthetic world of a song.” Without improvisation, a listener is seduced into the composition of the song itself and not the distorting or deviating elements that noise creates. Particular to black American music is the architecture to create a means by which singers and musicians can be completely free, free in the only way that would have been possible on a plantation: through art, through music — music no one “composed” (because enslaved people were denied literacy), music born of feeling, of play, of exhaustion, of hope.

What you’re hearing in black music is a miracle of sound, an experience that can really happen only once — not just melisma, glissandi, the rasp of a sax, breakbeats or sampling but the mood or inspiration from which those moments arise. The attempt to rerecord it seems, if you think about it, like a fool’s errand. You’re not capturing the arrangement of notes, per se. You’re catching the spirit.

And the spirit travels from host to host, racially indiscriminate about where it settles, selective only about who can withstand being possessed by it. The rockin’ backwoods blues so bewitched Elvis Presley that he believed he’d been called by blackness. Chuck Berry sculpted rock ’n’ roll with uproarious guitar riffs and lascivious winks at whiteness. Mick Jagger and Robert Plant and Steve Winwood and Janis Joplin and the Beatles jumped, jived and wailed the black blues. Tina Turner wrested it all back, tripling the octane in some of their songs. Since the 1830s, the historian Ann Douglas writes in “Terrible Honesty,” her history of popular culture in the 1920s, “American entertainment, whatever the state of American society, has always been integrated, if only by theft and parody.” What we’ve been dealing with ever since is more than a catchall word like “appropriation” can approximate. The truth is more bounteous and more spiritual than that, more confused. That confusion is the DNA of the American sound.

It’s in the wink-wink costume funk of Beck’s “Midnite Vultures” from 1999, an album whose kicky nonsense deprecations circle back to the popular culture of 150 years earlier. It’s in the dead-serious, nostalgic dance-floor schmaltz of Bruno Mars. It’s in what we once called “blue-eyed soul,” a term I’ve never known what to do with, because its most convincing practitioners — the Bee-Gees, Michael McDonald, Hall & Oates, Simply Red, George Michael, Taylor Dayne, Lisa Stansfield, Adele — never winked at black people, so black people rarely batted an eyelash. Flaws and all, these are homeowners as opposed to renters. No matter what, though, a kind of gentrification tends to set in, underscoring that black people have often been rendered unnecessary to attempt blackness. Take Billboard’s Top 10 songs of 2013: It’s mostly nonblack artists strongly identified with black music, for real and for kicks: Robin Thicke, Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, the dude who made “The Harlem Shake.”

Sometimes all the inexorable mixing leaves me longing for something with roots that no one can rip all the way out. This is to say that when we’re talking about black music, we’re talking about horns, drums, keyboards and guitars doing the unthinkable together. We’re also talking about what the borrowers and collaborators don’t want to or can’t lift — centuries of weight, of atrocity we’ve never sufficiently worked through, the blackness you know is beyond theft because it’s too real, too rich, too heavy to steal.

Blackness was on the move before my ancestors were legally free to be. It was on the move before my ancestors even knew what they had. It was on the move because white people were moving it. And the white person most frequently identified as its prime mover is Thomas Dartmouth Rice, a New Yorker who performed as T.D. Rice and, in acclaim, was lusted after as “Daddy” Rice, “the negro par excellence.” Rice was a minstrel, which by the 1830s, when his stardom was at its most refulgent, meant he painted his face with burned cork to approximate those of the enslaved black people he was imitating.

In 1830, Rice was a nobody actor in his early 20s, touring with a theater company in Cincinnati (or Louisville; historians don’t know for sure), when, the story goes, he saw a decrepit, possibly disfigured old black man singing while grooming a horse on the property of a white man whose last name was Crow. On went the light bulb. Rice took in the tune and the movements but failed, it seems, to take down the old man’s name. So in his song based on the horse groomer, he renamed him: “Weel about and turn about jus so/Ebery time I weel about, I jump Jim Crow.” And just like that, Rice had invented the fellow who would become the mascot for two centuries of legalized racism.

That night, Rice made himself up to look like the old black man — or something like him, because Rice’s get-up most likely concocted skin blacker than any actual black person’s and a gibberish dialect meant to imply black speech. Rice had turned the old man’s melody and hobbled movements into a song-and-dance routine that no white audience had ever experienced before. What they saw caused a permanent sensation. He reportedly won 20 encores.

Rice repeated the act again, night after night, for audiences so profoundly rocked that he was frequently mobbed duringperformances. Across the Ohio River, not an arduous distance from all that adulation, was Boone County, Ky., whose population would have been largely enslaved Africans. As they were being worked, sometimes to death, white people, desperate with anticipation, were paying to see them depicted at play.

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Other performers came and conquered, particularly the Virginia Minstrels, who exploded in 1843, burned brightly then burned out after only months. In their wake, P.T. Barnum made a habit of booking other troupes for his American Museum; when he was short on performers, he blacked up himself. By the 1840s, minstrel acts were taking over concert halls, doing wildly clamored-for residencies in Boston, New York and Philadelphia.

A blackface minstrel would sing, dance, play music, give speeches and cut up for white audiences, almost exclusively in the North, at least initially. Blackface was used for mock operas and political monologues (they called them stump speeches), skits, gender parodies and dances. Before the minstrel show gave it a reliable home, blackface was the entertainment between acts of conventional plays. Its stars were the Elvis, the Beatles, the ’NSync of the 19th century. The performers were beloved and so, especially, were their songs.

During minstrelsy’s heyday, white songwriters like Stephen Foster wrote the tunes that minstrels sang, tunes we continue to sing. Edwin Pearce Christy’s group the Christy Minstrels formed a band — banjo, fiddle, bone castanets, tambourine — that would lay the groundwork for American popular music, from bluegrass to Motown. Some of these instruments had come from Africa; on a plantation, the banjo’s body would have been a desiccated gourd. In “Doo-Dah!” his book on Foster’s work and life, Ken Emerson writes that the fiddle and banjo were paired for the melody, while the bones “chattered” and the tambourine “thumped and jingled a beat that is still heard ’round the world.”

But the sounds made with these instruments could be only imagined as black, because the first wave of minstrels were Northerners who’d never been meaningfully South. They played Irish melodies and used Western choral harmonies, not the proto-gospel call-and-response music that would make life on a plantation that much more bearable. Black artists were on the scene, like the pioneer bandleader Frank Johnsonand the borderline-mythical Old Corn Meal, who started as a street vendor and wound up the first black man to perform, as himself, on a white New Orleans stage. His stuff was copied by George Nichols, who took up blackface after a start in plain-old clowning. Yet as often as not, blackface minstrelsy tethered black people and black life to white musical structures, like the polka, which was having a moment in 1848. The mixing was already well underway: Europe plus slavery plus the circus, times harmony, comedy and drama, equals Americana.

And the muses for so many of the songs were enslaved Americans, people the songwriters had never met, whose enslavement they rarely opposed and instead sentimentalized. Foster’s minstrel-show staple “Old Uncle Ned,” for instance, warmly if disrespectfully eulogizes the enslaved the way you might a salaried worker or an uncle:

Den lay down de shubble and de hoe,

Hang up de fiddle and de bow:

No more hard work for poor Old Ned —

He’s gone whar de good Niggas go,

No more hard work for poor Old Ned —

He’s gone whar de good Niggas go.

Such an affectionate showcase for poor old (enslaved, soon-to-be-dead) Uncle Ned was as essential as “air,” in the white critic Bayard Taylor’s 1850 assessment; songs like this were the “true expressions of the more popular side of the national character,” a force that follows “the American in all its emigrations, colonizations and conquests, as certainly as the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving Day.” He’s not wrong. Minstrelsy’s peak stretched from the 1840s to the 1870s, years when the country was as its most violently and legislatively ambivalent about slavery and Negroes; years that included the Civil War and Reconstruction, the ferocious rhetorical ascent of Frederick Douglass, John Brown’s botched instigation of a black insurrection at Harpers Ferry and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Minstrelsy’s ascent also coincided with the publication, in 1852, of “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” a polarizing landmark that minstrels adapted for the stage, arguing for and, in simply remaining faithful to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, against slavery. These adaptations, known as U.T.C.s, took over the art form until the end of the Civil War. Perhaps minstrelsy’s popularity could be (generously) read as the urge to escape a reckoning. But a good time predicated upon the presentation of other humans as stupid, docile, dangerous with lust and enamored of their bondage? It was an escape into slavery’s fun house.

What blackface minstrelsy gave the country during this period was an entertainment of skill, ribaldry and polemics. But it also lent racism a stage upon which existential fear could become jubilation, contempt could become fantasy. Paradoxically, its dehumanizing bent let white audiences feel more human. They could experience loathing as desire, contempt as adoration, repulsion as lust. They could weep for overworked Uncle Ned as surely as they could ignore his lashed back or his body as it swung from a tree.

But where did this leave a black performer? If blackface was the country’s cultural juggernaut, who would pay Negroes money to perform as themselves? When they were hired, it was only in a pinch. Once, P.T. Barnum needed a replacement for John Diamond, his star white minstrel. In a New York City dance hall, Barnum found a boy, who, it was reported at the time, could outdo Diamond (and Diamond was good). The boy, of course, was genuinely black. And his being actually black would have rendered him an outrageous blight on a white consumer’s narrow presumptions. As Thomas Low Nichols would write in his 1864 compendium, “Forty Years of American Life,” “There was not an audience in America that would not have resented, in a very energetic fashion, the insult of being asked to look at the dancing of a real negro.” So Barnum “greased the little ‘nigger’s’ face and rubbed it over with a new blacking of burned cork, painted his thick lips vermilion, put on a woolly wig over his tight curled locks and brought him out as ‘the champion nigger-dancer of the world.’ ” This child might have been William Henry Lane, whose stage name was Juba. And, as Juba, Lane was persuasive enough that Barnum could pass him off as a white person in blackface. He ceased being a real black boy in order to become Barnum’s minstrel Pinocchio.

After the Civil War, black performers had taken up minstrelsy, too, corking themselves, for both white and black audiences — with a straight face or a wink, depending on who was looking. Black troupes invented important new dances with blue-ribbon names (the buck-and-wing, the Virginia essence, the stop-time). But these were unhappy innovations. Custom obligated black performers to fulfill an audience’s expectations, expectations that white performers had established. A black minstrel was impersonating the impersonation of himself. Think, for a moment, about the talent required to pull that off. According to Henry T. Sampson’s book, “Blacks in Blackface,” there were no sets or effects, so the black blackface minstrel show was “a developer of ability because the artist was placed on his own.” How’s that for being twice as good? Yet that no-frills excellence could curdle into an entirely other, utterly degrading double consciousness, one that predates, predicts and probably informs W.E.B. DuBois’s more self-consciously dignified rendering.

American popular culture was doomed to cycles not only of questioned ownership, challenged authenticity, dubious propriety and legitimate cultural self-preservation but also to the prison of black respectability, which, with brutal irony, could itself entail a kind of appropriation. It meant comportment in a manner that seemed less black and more white. It meant the appearance of refinement and polish. It meant the cognitive dissonance of, say, Nat King Cole’s being very black and sounding — to white America, anyway, with his frictionless baritone and diction as crisp as a hospital corner — suitably white. He was perfect for radio, yet when he got a TV show of his own, it was abruptly canceled, his brown skin being too much for even the black and white of a 1955 television set. There was, perhaps, not a white audience in America, particularly in the South, that would not have resented, in a very energetic fashion, the insult of being asked to look at the majestic singing of a real Negro.

The modern conundrum of the black performer’s seeming respectable, among black people, began, in part, as a problem of white blackface minstrels’ disrespectful blackness. Frederick Douglass wrote that they were “the filthy scum of white society.” It’s that scum that’s given us pause over everybody from Bert Williams and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson to Flavor Flav and Kanye West. Is their blackness an act? Is the act under white control? Just this year, Harold E. Doley Jr., an affluent black Republican in his 70s, was quoted in The Times lamenting West and his alignment with Donald Trump as a “bad and embarrassing minstrel show” that “served to only drive black people away from the G.O.P.”

But it’s from that scum that a robust, post-minstrel black American theater sprung as a new, black audience hungered for actual, uncorked black people. Without that scum, I’m not sure we get an event as shatteringly epochal as the reign of Motown Records. Motown was a full-scale integration of Western, classical orchestral ideas (strings, horns, woodwinds) with the instincts of both the black church (rhythm sections, gospel harmonies, hand claps) and juke joint Saturday nights (rhythm sections, guitars, vigor). Pure yet “noisy.” Black men in Armani. Black women in ball gowns. Stables of black writers, producers and musicians. Backup singers solving social equations with geometric choreography. And just in time for the hegemony of the American teenager.

Even now it feels like an assault on the music made a hundred years before it. Motown specialized in love songs. But its stars, those songs and their performance of them were declarations of war on the insults of the past and present. The scratchy piccolo at the start of a Four Tops hitwas, in its way, a raised fist. Respectability wasn’t a problem with Motown; respectability was its point. How radically optimistic a feat of antiminstrelsy, for it’s as glamorous a blackness as this country has ever mass-produced and devoured.

The proliferation of black music across the planet — the proliferation, in so many senses, of being black — constitutes a magnificent joke on American racism. It also confirms the attraction that someone like Rice had to that black man grooming the horse. But something about that desire warps and perverts its source, lampoons and cheapens it even in adoration. Loving black culture has never meant loving black people, too. Loving black culture risks loving the life out of it.

And yet doesn’t that attraction make sense? This is the music of a people who have survived, who not only won't stop but also can’t be stopped. Music by a people whose major innovations — jazz, funk, hip-hop — have been about progress, about the future, about getting as far away from nostalgia as time will allow, music that’s thought deeply about the allure of outer space and robotics, music whose promise and possibility, whose rawness, humor and carnality call out to everybody — to other black people, to kids in working class England and middle-class Indonesia. If freedom's ringing, who on Earth wouldn't also want to rock the bell?

In 1845, J.K. Kennard, a critic for the newspaper The Knickerbocker, hyperventilated about the blackening of America. Except he was talking about blackface minstrels doing the blackening. Nonetheless, Kennard could see things for what they were:

“Who are our true rulers? The negro poets, to be sure! Do they not set the fashion, and give laws to the public taste? Let one of them, in the swamps of Carolina, compose a new song, and it no sooner reaches the ear of a white amateur, than it is written down, amended, (that is, almost spoilt,) printed, and then put upon a course of rapid dissemination, to cease only with the utmost bounds of Anglo-Saxondom, perhaps of the world.”

What a panicked clairvoyant! The fear of black culture — or “black culture” — was more than a fear of black people themselves. It was an anxiety over white obsolescence. Kennard’s anxiety over black influence sounds as ambivalent as Lorde’s, when, all the way from her native New Zealand, she tsk-ed rap culture’s extravagance on “Royals,”her hit from 2013, while recognizing, both in the song’s hip-hop production and its appetite for a particular sort of blackness, that maybe she’s too far gone:

Every song’s like gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’ in the bathroom

Bloodstains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room

We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams

But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece

Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash

We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair

Beneath Kennard’s warnings must have lurked an awareness that his white brethren had already fallen under this spell of blackness, that nothing would stop its spread to teenage girls in 21st-century Auckland, that the men who “infest our promenades and our concert halls like a colony of beetles” (as a contemporary of Kennard’s put it) weren’t black people at all but white people just like him — beetles and, eventually, Beatles. Our first most original art form arose from our original sin, and some white people have always been worried that the primacy of black music would be a kind of karmic punishment for that sin. The work has been to free this country from paranoia’s bondage, to truly embrace the amplitude of integration. I don’t know how we’re doing.

Last spring, “Old Town Road,” a silly, drowsy ditty by the Atlanta songwriter Lil Nas X, was essentially banished from country radio. Lil Nas sounds black, as does the trap beat he’s droning over. But there’s definitely a twang to him that goes with the opening bars of faint banjo and Lil Nas’s lil’ cowboy fantasy. The song snowballed into a phenomenon. All kinds of people — cops, soldiers, dozens of dapper black promgoers — posted dances to it on YouTube and TikTok. Then a crazy thing happened. It charted — not just on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, either. In April, it showed up on both its Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and its Hot Country Songs chart. A first. And, for now at least, a last.

The gatekeepers of country radio refused to play the song; they didn’t explain why. Then, Billboard determined that the song failed to “embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.” This doesn’t warrant translation, but let’s be thorough, anyway: The song is too black for certain white people.

But by that point it had already captured the nation’s imagination and tapped into the confused thrill of integrated culture. A black kid hadn’t really merged white music with black, he’d just taken up the American birthright of cultural synthesis. The mixing feels historical. Here, for instance, in the song’s sample of a Nine Inch Nails track is a banjo, the musical spine of the minstrel era. Perhaps Lil Nas was too American. Other country artists of the genre seemed to sense this. White singers recorded pretty tributes in support, and one, Billy Ray Cyrus, performed his on a remix with Lil Nas X himself.

The newer version lays Cyrus’s casual grit alongside Lil Nas’s lackadaisical wonder. It’s been No.1 on Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100 singles chart since April, setting a record. And the bottomless glee over the whole thing makes me laugh, too — not in a surprised, yacht-rock way but as proof of what a fine mess this place is. One person's sign of progress remains another’s symbol of encroachment. Screw the history. Get off my land.

Four hundred years ago, more than 20 kidnapped Africans arrived in Virginia. They were put to work and put through hell. Twenty became millions, and some of those people found — somehow — deliverance in the power of music. Lil Nas X has descended from those millions and appears to be a believer in deliverance. The verses of his song flirt with Western kitsch, what young black internetters branded, with adorable idiosyncrasy and a deep sense of history, the “yee-haw agenda.” But once the song reaches its chorus (“I’m gonna take my horse to the Old Town Road, and ride til I can’t no more”), I don’t hear a kid in an outfit. I hear a cry of ancestry. He’s a westward-bound refugee; he’s an Exoduster. And Cyrus is down for the ride. Musically, they both know: This land is their land.

Wesley Morris is a staff writer for the magazine, a critic at large for The New York Times and a co-host of the podcast “Still Processing.” He was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for criticism.

Source photograph of Beyoncé: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images; Holiday: Paul Hoeffler/Redferns, via Getty Images; Turner: Gai Terrell/Redferns, via Getty Images; Richards: Chris Walter/WireImage, via Getty Images; Lamar: Bennett Raglin/Getty Images

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