#when my man is facing an ethical dilemma and does the bad thing but also yells about it?

[therealsinnohdawn]

yo what up it’s ya girl therealsinnohdawn and todays injustice is… *spins wheel* THE FACT THAT EUPHORIA AND OMAR EPPS’s PERFORMANCE THEREIN DID NOT WIN ANY AWARDS????

[meganwasbored]

The Dragon Prince Thoughts Season 3 Episodes 3 and 4

Episode 3

-I’m sorry I know what Rayla’s parents did is probably a huge deal in Xadia but she had the audacity to say that she wishes her parents were dead when the boys are literally orphans now

-woah Callum that’s cultural appropriation cancelled

-“have you had a change of heart”

“No, but there’s something I want to tell you that might change your heart”

You see to me this came off as a burn but then you remember it’s Ezran and he’s probably being sincere

-Ezran being half Prince Kasef’s height is funny but also Kasef is a jerk and I want him to either go home or die because I can’t stand his attitude anymore

-who’s this dude and what’s he up to

-cuties

-I was literally smiling and giggling at my phone like a 6th grade girl because of how cute that scene was but now it’s ruined because apparently she’s a ghost???

-“Soren could’ve died!”

“That doesn’t matter!”

I’d say what I think of you but as a Christian woman I don’t even feel comfortable typing the words that are in my head right now

-we’re gonna ask Runaan? Is he not the one that is inside a coin as we speak?

-well that was sad, but I saw it coming

-we already knew Amaya had guts but dangggg

-also the fire elf lady almost looked like she felt bad that the queen is going to kill Amaya

-“he’s gone because you abandoned them” she’s a CHILD what the heck was she supposed to do that the other assassins couldn’t do

-“Claudia, did you really think I would ask him to do such a thing? Surely you know your brother is… easily confused” it’s the gaslighting for me

-he’ll really take any opportunity to insult Soren that he can get

-I swear if one more person makes Soren feel stupid

-oh this dude again

-he addressed Viren with respect and called him High Mage so obviously he’s in on all this

-“my heart goes out with this one”

“I promise I will return your heart to you”

imagine your otp

-if the literal fire elves can’t look at the light how is she supposed to

-we’re just gonna ignore the fact that it is humanly impossible for her to still be able to see at all ever again after that

-runaan’s flower isn’t all the way down which means they have to be freeing him from the coin eventually, I’m holding them to that

Episode 4

-bruh it literally just started and I already had to watch the pretty message bird die (ik it’s not actually alive but it screeched in pain when it was hit and that hurt me)

-big feelings time, that’s freaking adorable but also I’d rather die than unload my thoughts on someone else that’s what tumblr is for

-Zym: “uh oh mom and dad are fighting”

Look at his FACE

-bro literally what’s stopping you from going to war on Xadia without Katolis he never tried to stop you he just said that Katolis would not be a part of it you have three armies why would you waste valuable time and resources fighting with us

-also what does that have to do with Viren

-WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK

-there isn’t any connection I just wanted to point out that Nyx is the ancient goddess and personification of night in Greek mythology

-it’s giving “hey little girl I’m your mom’s friend just get in this car and I’ll take you to her *wink wink*”

-obviously we don’t want people to die but just as many, probably more, people will die if we do what the Prince Kasef wants but then it will be doing something that we don’t even believe in, he brought other armies into your kingdom without permission and they all want to attack you right now why can’t we just attack them now?

-I just reread that and realized it makes no sense but it’s 1 am and I can’t think of another way to word it so good luck ig

-just want to acknowledge how pretty this giant giraffe/camel is

-this poor kid is going through the biggest ethical dilemma of his life because one man with the attitude of a toddler didn’t like being told no

-literally who even is this dude and what game is he playing

-I’m probably supposed to remember what the boomerang has to do with this but I’m drawing a blank

-why can’t we just let Bait be happy

-everything here is just so pretty all the time

-#1 rayllum shipper at the moment

-so like he’s still trapped in the mirror…but not? Even if this this is like a ghost of his body and the real one is still in the mirror, if his brain or soul or whatever you want to call it can go outside of the mirror, is he really trapped at all?

-now the question is, is she making this face because she thinks they’re cute, or because she’s about to do something shifty and is glad that they’re leaving

(edit: that was sarcasm but i just realized that that isn’t clear at all over text, obviously i know she’s up to something)

-y’all stop being so ominous and tell me what you’re going to do

-UHHHHHHHH

-WHAT THE HECK DID HE DO

-ARE THEY REALLY PUTTING A CHILD IN JAIL BECAUSE HE DIDNT WANT PEOPLE TO DIE

-VIREN IS JUST MAGICALLY NOT GUILTY NOW???

-IM SLOW I ACTUALLY DONT GET IT WHY ARE THEY PUTTING HIM IN JAIL

-OH GREAT NOW IM ABOUT TO GET A RAYLLUM SCENE BUT I CANT EVEN ENJOY IT BECAUSE EZRAN IS IN FREAKING PRISON FOR NO REASON???

-he really just went on a whole rant to a girl about how incredible she is and got surprised when she kissed him

-Callum you’re a freaking idiot

-you see I should be giggling at my phone like a 6th grade girl again rn but there’ll be time for that later because Ezran is in JAIL for NO REASON

-Nyx kidnapped Zym didn’t she, I feel like she’s someone who would do that

-WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME

[darthmaulification]

Feeling a little tender at the moment, what would happen after the first time Boba made you accidentally cry?

A/N: ..... ooo anon.... OOO ANON..... you come into this house and say this to me? buckle up.

my first boba request!! and LORD do i love that bounty hunter! 😍🥰💕💕 though, for as much as i adore him, it was surprisingly difficult to write him?? like i wrote and rewrote a bunch, but i just couldn’t settle on how i wanted him to act/speak in a full story. 💀 hope you don’t mind this is also in headcanon format. 🙏😭

that’s kinda sorta why it took me a bit longer to get this out for y’all. 💀

thank you, and i hope you enjoy! 💗💗

Boba’s a Big Meanie™ and makes you cry (and how he rectifies this atrocity) headcanons

Let’s be honest, in general, Boba is not a “nice” guy. That doesn’t necessarily make him a bad man, but it does mean he has the tendency to be pretty tone deaf to the feelings of others. Combined with him having a mean streak, and his propensity to sometimes laugh at the expense of others (though it does depend on who it is), Boba can play the role of “bully” a bit too well.

Boba also has a pretty intimidating temper, all too enhanced by his physically commandeering demeanor. He doesn’t get actively/visibly angry often, like genuinely furious, however if the right buttons are pressed, and the right strings pulled, he will snap. And an angry Boba is a scary, dangerous Boba. 

If we’re talking about the very first time he ever makes you cry, it definitely happens pre-relationship, when the two of you are not fully acquainted with one another. It’s during that period of time when the two of you are still “getting to know” each other, learning each other’s personalities, behaviors, and whatnot. At the time, you and Boba had a basic understanding of each other, but mostly he stayed out of your way and you stayed out of his.

Most likely, he makes you cry during an argument. Taking into account all of the factors above, you and Boba probably butt heads on some sort of issue, like safety or security or over the occasional ethical/moral dilemma, and when it doesn’t look like you’re giving up the fight anytime soon, Boba gets more irritated by the second. You’re the only person brave enough to stick it to him, to full out tell him he’s wrong, or an idiot (or both), and that really ticks him off. Boba doesn’t like to lose arguments as much as he doesn’t like to lose fights. He expects you to keel over and, however begrudgingly, suck it up all while he demands respect he thinks he’s entitled to. But you don’t let up, not this time.

So Boba kinda sorta really blows up on you. At some point in arguing, something you say probably flips the switch and Boba just says “Fuck this” and lets loose. The switch from his semi-calm demeanor to one that is absolutely terrifying is honestly kinda impressive, but very scary all the same. Boba gets full in your face, all looming and big, and just rips into you. He’s speaking in that sort of half-yell, half-growl, strained tone that really does shake you due to it’s intensity and the deadly ferocity that’s laced in it. Boba also grips your arms in an almost painful vice grip, all but forcing you to look directly at him, controlling you. 

Honestly, Boba just gets plain nasty to you. He absolutely loses most of his decorum and starts cussing you out, saying really rude, insensitive things to you. He says some pretty terrible shit, intermingling petty schoolyard insults with genuine threats, like threatening your life either indirectly or directly. And Boba seeks to cut deep, where it hurts, so he does use some of your darkest, most delicate secrets against you. And for as much as Boba’s bite hurts, his bark can be a whole lot worse.

Though it’s honestly less about what he actually says to you that makes you cry. Sure, a particular line probably is the catalyst, but it’s more so the chaotic, emotional, angry hurricane that Boba puts you through that finally does it. When you start crying, depending on the type of person you are, Boba either uses that against you and mocks you, or he lets up slightly, somewhat shocked to be seeing you cry. In the end though, your tears do eventually make his anger cool to a simmer and even though he’s still pissed, Boba lets you go, physically that is.

He sets a distance between you and him, either watching you sob in front of him or watching you run off to get away from him, all depends on you. Boba doesn’t pursue you either way, preferring to act coldly indifferent before turning on his heel and walking away. He tells himself that he doesn’t feel guilty, but he does. He feels bad and is pissed that he does.

So for a while, you don’t see him. Boba keeps a pretty wide berth from you and occupies his time either working on something or off ship hunting a bounty. The cool down period is pretty long, because Boba is stubborn and guilty, and it makes the whole dynamic between the two of you surprisingly heavy and awkward.

How it’s all resolved kinda depends. Like if you’re more stubborn than he is, and Boba approaches you, he offers you a bit of a non-apology. Like you can tell he’s sorry, but he doesn’t really say the words. It’s the best you’ll get from him if you wait it out, but there is a level of sincerity that you feel. However, if you’re the first to break the silence between you and Boba, to approach and apologize for something that you had said, he apologizes more directly. He’ll actually say sorry for making you cry, and might tell you he doesn’t enjoy seeing you in tears. Either way, his apology is clipped, awkward, and more than a bit gruff because Boba’s not much of a tender person, but he truly does mean it. Boba may not be nice, but he is honest.

In fact, a little while later and kinda out of the blue, Boba may gift you something to solidify the apology. Be it a new blaster, or your favorite perfume or cosmetic, or something you wanted that you off-handedly mentioned once, he gets it for you. Boba doesn’t give it to you directly, only leaves it in a place that you frequent, where he knows you’ll find it. He hopes it mends whatever hurt may be left over from the argument, hopes that you forgive him. Boba doesn’t expect you to thank him for the gift, in fact he kinda wants it to be a sneaky one and done type thing, but if you do, he won’t mind, he’ll just silently reply with a nod of his head.

Fortunately, the apology (however explicit or implicit) and the gift do their job, and the transgression is forgiven and healed, considering you don’t leave him for another. Boba is privately thankful for this, and for you.

[crimeronan]

Can you explain the appeal of Julian Blackthorn? This is a genuine question because I read the books and came away utterly bored by him and unconvinced of his moral greyness as opposed to like, Adam Parrish’s. He seemed so one dimensional to me but I want to know if I’m Wrong TM considering I tend to be very very biased toward my favourite characters and bored by the rest, and my favourites were Mark and Kieran. So maybe I just didn’t pay him enough attention??

it’s been a while since i wrote any earnest tsc meta but cringe culture is dead and the chance to infodump about my julian thoughts has me vibrating where i’m sitting so.  yes okay.

technical stuff

(aka: things pertaining to How The Story Is Constructed)

cassandra clare’s characterization has become much stronger just in general since she first began writing the series like twenty years ago

perhaps most importantly: the more recent stuff i’ve read from her has involved characters who actually grow, change, and learn from their past mistakes 

rather than repeating the same stupid decisions over and over again

and over and over and over some more

seriously take a shot every time someone in tmi miscommunicates or self-destructs in ways They Have Learned Not To Do for no real reason. u will die of alcohol poisoning

in tda this shines ESPECIALLY with the evolution of mark, kieran, and cristina’s relationship, but that’s a separate post

clare’s trademark is also the angsty traumatized jerkass love interest with a secret heart of gold

the woman is almost singlehandedly responsible for draco in leather pants and the proliferation of this kind of character type in fandom and teen lit. this isn’t a criticism it’s me marveling at how if you commit hard enough to a single trope you truly can change the world.  follow your dreams

sad jackass with a heart of gold isn’t an Inherently Problematic Character Type

but poorly done it can lead to relationship dynamics in which one partner is constantly being hurt by and then forgiving the other despite them making no real effort to change, because they are narratively absolved due to being sad

(there’s a lot of this with earlier jace content.  in some ways i think will was later created specifically to be a same-archetype protagonist who actually does get called on his shit and grow. that’s also another post)

also if all of your sexy male love interests are tortured jackasses with a heart of gold then people start calling you a one-trick pony

enter julian blackthorn!

from the very start everything about him is designed to be the INVERSE of the heart of gold jackass.  which immediately makes him interesting just from a meta perspective

(mark and kieran are also both alternate angles on this time-honored archetype.  mark gets the heart of gold and kieran gets the jackass and then they’re both much more deeply messy than that.  yet another post)

julian is kind, self-sacrificing, empathetic, artistic, emotionally supportive, responsible, and favored by old grannies everywhere

so a completely nonthreatening milquetoast guy, right

immediately forgettable if you’re only here for the dramatic conflicts and shithead antics of clare’s other protags

except that he is A Mess

and that he has structured his priorities very carefully, and they are as selfless as you expect from The Hero (TM) but they are also Not Heroic (TM) and they do not align with the moral framework The Hero (TM) is supposed to use

moral ambiguity in characters always exists in relation to their narratives imo. you mention adam parrish - trc’s narrative already mucks around in different ethical shades of gray, and adam falls on the canon scale about where julian does on his canon scale.  both more willing than the average pov character to do the ruthless thing or make the fucked-up choice if the ends justify the means; both with an intensely strong sense of internal priorities that they adhere to at all costs, both so unbelievably fucking down for murder; etc

i do think there are ways julian’s choices could have been pushed even further, but considering the number of readers who hate his guts already, i can see why clare opted not to go for the most controversial possible conflicts

so we’re flipping the narrative

instead of seeing this angsty bad boy and peeling back the layers of his trauma to find his heart of gold, we’re seeing the put-together selfless family man and peeling back the layers of his Responsibility Mask to expose the rotting husk underneath

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THAT IS FUN AS FUCK

then when julian DOES lash out in hurtful, uncontrolled ways, he has significantly more narrative justification for it than most of clare’s protagonists (will elaborate in characterization thoughts)

julian is also interesting as fuck because of how his struggles allow for a more in-depth look at the failings of shadowhunter society, something that’s also sorely lacking in clare’s earlier work

his apparent amorality is simply the result of him making pragmatic and impossible choices because he has been faced with fucked-up ethical dilemmas since age 12 Because Society Has Failed Him

which opens the door for narrative exploration of how and why he’s been failed so badly & what needs to change

i also love that he has such a coldly calculated way of analyzing situations and allowing harm to occur when need be, bc a lot of clare’s early protagonists have such a bad case of Rush In And Get Myself Killed Because I’ve Got Feelings About Impulsive Heroism syndrome that i wanna push them in front of a truck

probably there’s other meta narrative stuff i could say but i’m stopping myself and moving on to character analysis

characterization stuff

(aka: reasons why i’m also attached to him in a vacuum)

i don’t read him as one-dimensional at all tbh

u may feel the narrative pushes “ruthless julian blackthorn” too much without delivering enough actual ruthless julian But i don’t think that’s the same as having only one dimension

from the get-go, the big question centered on julian is always “how far are you willing to go?” and the narrative pushes the stakes slowly higher and higher to continuously test julian’s “the price is always justified” mindset

he has a far more layered and realistic response to trauma than clare’s early protagonists - trauma affects every single aspect of his personality and how he conducts himself, and the effects vary depending on the circumstances

his conviction that he has to be the perfect parent to his siblings because they will fall apart if they see him show weakness??  rooted in how he feels like he’s fallen apart since losing the stable adult support he once relied upon

his willingness to hurt semi-innocent people, commit coldblooded murder, manipulate people using political leverage, allow harm to befall any stranger if it protects his family??  rooted in how he has already had to ask himself how much he’s willing to sacrifice, and how his family is his only source of stability when the world has never done Shit for him

his conviction that he has a darker heart than anyone else because he killed his possessed father, even though intellectually he knows he was saving his brother’s life??  rooted in having no means of processing this trauma and being unable to voice his feelings for fear of backlash from a deeply non-understanding society

the way he represses every single negative emotion he ever has, to the point where emma - his actual literal magic soulmate who can feel his emotions - is startled to find him hurting or angry??  once again all about how he has to be the perfect father or he’s failed completely

the way his anger is so totally disproportionate to different situations and the way his negative emotions can only come out in completely uncontrolled breaks??  all that repression baybey.  this kid has not processed a single bad feeling in five years.  every single real grievance and petty annoyance has been festering indefinitely inside him like a slowly spreading infection

julian’s arc involves him needing to get thru being his worst self to actually start to heal

as in, he has to actually learn to acknowledge his feelings, take care of himself, lean on his family, and let other people take some responsibility

he also has to learn that in his quest to be the perfect emotionally controlled authority figure, he has not actually learned how to control or deal with his emotions. like. At Fucking All. good god

the narrative setup is also about asking “how far are you willing to go?” until the answer is finally “not this far.  not this far”

and once he reaches that point, he has to reevaluate everything about how he weighs his priorities and morals and plans, etc

(i also like that emma has a perpendicular arc in which she’s always the one tempering julian and telling him “no we can’t go that far” until she’s willing to do something horrific that he absolutely won’t and HE has to stop HER. very sexy)

it’s also just really nice to have a character who’s learned to relate so well to literally every single member of his family while still having a very detached ruthless interior consciousness. i have similar feelings about how adam teaches himself to love people, but with julian it’s spelled out more explicitly in canon & it’s a more central character theme

i’m sure i’m also forgetting stuff here but this post is long enough so i’m gonna say good enough

and like i said in the tags on my other post, there are things i’d personally write differently if it were my story - plot points i’d shift, character contrasts i’d up, themes i’d explore differently, pacing i’d adjust, etc.  i have plenty of ways i could be nitpicky and editorial about the effectiveness of julian’s arc.  but i also don’t feel like writing them out at the moment & none of my critiques on effectiveness have an impact on the core appeal of his character 2 me.  he’s so fucking good

[letterstomilen]

i discuss the classification of igneous petrology as you fall asleep during my lecture (PART 1) (ASMR)

Childe/Zhongli, Alternate Universe (read part 2 here) When Childe's younger sister tells him about the volunteer at the library, he does not make the connection between that and his new favorite ASMR YouTuber, Rex Lapis.

Childe has a very effective method of getting through college. His little sister, who’s caught him making coffee at three in the morning on more than one occasion the past week alone, would beg to differ. 

“You’re the best older brother,” she starts off, and he’s sure she’s trying to convince herself more than him at this point, “but you need to fix your sleeping habits.” Then, because she’s his little sister, she’d flash him a smile and pat his shoulder reassuringly.

(The comment is not lost on him though. He understands his sleeping situation will eventually wear him down if it hadn’t already, but he believes if he’ll drink a coffee every morning and a Monster every night, he’ll get through three days. By the third day, he’ll hardly be coherent but that doesn’t matter because he’ll conk out for the next twelve hours and then repeat.)

“Don’t worry, Tonia,” he says, trying to sound as reassuring as possible as he contemplates whether it’s worth it or not to swallow a pill of 5-hour energy with his morning coffee. “Once break ends, I’ll get back to normal.”

“You said that six seasons ago.”

Childe frowns, trying to remember if his sleeping schedule was this dysfunctional last year. “Huh?”

“The Walking Dead seasons,” Tonia clarifies, as if she’s not twelve years old and the show is for grown adults. He thinks. He hasn’t checked Commonsensemedia ever since La Signora labeled him as a “helicopter parent” and his Netflix tab has been playing How to Get Away with Murder as background noise for the past few weeks.

Isn’t it a show about zombies though? Tonia’s sheepish smile tells it all, because it’s the same exact guilty look he had when he got caught red-handed as a kid.

(Once he remembers later, Childe promises himself, he’ll check out The Walking Dead.)

“Oh. Well. I have a lot of shows to catch up on, you know. Not to mention a ton of my professors gave me reading for over the break.”

A half lie. They did give him a lot of reading because each professor assumed that their classes were his only one, and with seven days left, he still has a textbook worth of reading to go through. But there are no shows that Childe would sacrifice his precious sleep for. As a matter of fact, he would love to sleep. He’s spent the majority of his classes back in high school sleeping and faking attention, saving his grade at the last minute — it was quite the extreme sport really, if he says so himself.

Whenever he tries to sleep recently, his thoughts run at several hundred miles per hour, and he spends several hours staring at the ceiling before succumbing to the computer at his desk and watching trashy movies. At this point, he must have gone through the entire romance comedy list on Netflix. (Not a proud point in his life but if anybody ever wanted him to give a list of best to worst romance comedy movies, he now has one.)

Tonia, on the other hand, isn’t incredibly convinced.

Admittedly, the excuse was lame. Also, he can’t easily lie to his little sister, who��s far shrewder than he takes her for at times.

“You never start your reading in advance. You like to speed read it right before your class or watch a five-minute video on the chapters while your teachers take attendance. But that’s… uh, ‘a bad work ethic.’” Tonia looks immensely proud of herself as she says this, finishing it off with, “Zhongli told me that.”

“Zhongli?” he repeats, trying to remember if that’s one of her classmates or some stranger that’s hoping to kidnap his sister.

“The guy that volunteers at the library sometimes. He recommended me a loot of good books to read, but he talks like an old man.”

“How old?” Childe can tell she’s enjoying this — talking about her new friend at the library that he’ll probably have to run a background check on.

“Like he’s in his sixties or something. But he looks… actually, he looks your age! And he’s a student too. I told him all about you.”

Well, that doesn’t sound very reassuring coming from the mouth of a twelve-year-old. He’s not sure if that translates to his social security number, his current dilemma, or just that he’s her older brother.

“Like all of the stories you told me when I was a kid. And then when Lumine came to pick me up, she stayed to show him pictures of you too.”

“Of course she did,” he mumbles, ruffling her hair. One of these days he’s going to move without telling his classmates and the twins won’t enter his apartment unannounced. (But Tonia adores their company and the stories they tell her far too much for him to actually do it. But that doesn’t mean he’s above making threats when they tell his little sister about the bet he made about white-out and how it could dye hair. The jury is still out on this one.) “She’s just mad because I get away with it and she doesn’t. But don’t do it yourself. It’s a bad habit,” he adds, remembering that he should at least try to be a good influence on his younger sister when he can.

“Okaaay,” she says unconvincingly, before shaking her hair and running off to her room with lunch he prepared for her.

Watching her close the door and no doubt continue her binge of The Walking Dead, he takes out his phone and texts Lumine.

 Childe

12:35

ur a horrible influence on tonia

 Childe

12:35

and whos this ZHONGLI

 Childe

12:35

also is twd appropriate for 12 y/os

 Twin 1

12:37

a normal person would say hi

 Twin 1

12:37

also 1. me n aether watched it when we were 12 so probably and 2. some guy at the library that also goes to our school

 Well. At least he’s somebody they know. But The Walking Dead?

 Childe

12:38

thats not very convincing

 Childe

12:38

also dont ppl DIE? get BITTEN???? what if she gets nightmares

 Twin 1

12:39

isnt she 12 r u telling me u weren’t watching R rated movies at 12

 Childe

12:42

thats very different from a 10 season long show that is hailed as “one of the greatest horror shows in history” and “paved the way for post-apocalyptic horror”

 Twin 1

12:42

well if she has trouble sleeping she could always watch asmr. that helps me during midterms idk

 Childe

12:42

whats asmr

 Childe

12:43

asking for my sister btw

 Twin 1

12:44

A feeling of well-being combined with a tingling sensation in the scalp and down the back of the neck, as experienced by some people in response to a specific gentle stimulus, often a particular sound.

 Childe

12:45

wtf?

 Twin 1

12:45

people on the internet make random sounds or just talk into a mic n its supposed to be very relaxing. how have u never found out abt this?????

 Childe

12:45

idk the only thing on my youtube recommended r greatest stunts and chapter review videos

 Twin 1

12:47

… makes sense

 Twin 1

12:47

check out rex lapis’ channel he looks like ur type

 Childe

12:48

i thought we were talking about my sister????

 Twin 1

12:50

[message screenshots.jpg]

 Twin 1

12:50

ya she told me everything

 Twin 1

12:50

have fun i need to convince aether to not commit arson bc of his TA

 Childe

12:51

hope he does it

He opens his Youtube app, typing in Rex Lapis and expecting Lumine’s suggestion to be a joke. Despite them being friends for nearly two years now, she’s never made any indication of knowing his type. And he’s sure he’s never been that vocal about it either, only shooting appreciative looks at history majors and paying more attention than necessary to the TA for ‘Tradition of Justice and Law.’ (It’s unfortunate that those short-term crushes never led to anything, but maybe that’s for the better seeing that Childe has never understood the appeal of relationships.)

It is an ASMR channel, judging by the ASMR playlist he finds as he scrolls through the account. The icon shows no face — only a microphone — which leaves him skeptical. Most of the video titles belong in a petrology lecture as well, which makes him even more convinced that it’s a joke. He finds a few readings of ancient literature and decides to pick ‘I discuss the classification of igneous petrology as you fall asleep during my lecture (PART 1) (ASMR)’ because that’s exactly what he needs. (Not the very moment — but ten hours later when he’s in the bed memorizing the pattern of his ceiling wondering why he stole from his fifth grade teacher’s candy jar during lunch.)

When Childe opens the video, he damn near gasps.

The man in the video is exactly his type. His eyes are a soft amber color, framed with long lashes, and it’s almost enough for him to lose his dignity and message Lumine a long thank you text about how she is always right and he’ll pay for her coffee for the following week.  He smiles at the screen, albeit a little sheepishly, dark hair framing his face with a long ponytail that Childe can’t see the end of. On his right ear, there are a pair of earrings with a single feather that brush against his neck when he moves his head.

Even before he speaks, Childe is mesmerized, sure he’ll already memorize his features from the curve of his nose to the way he tilts his head, displaying the expanse of his neck.

Really — he reminds him of actors in historical dramas, the way he sits regally, and how he speaks. His voice is low and slow as he adopts a careful manner of speaking, leaning into the mic.

“I’m Rex Lapis, and I’ll be discussing igneous petrology today, which is part one in a three-part petrology series. I apologize in advance, seeing that my knowledge is limited compared to many petrologists out there but my friend Venti said that many of my viewers are here for my voice, so I’m very excited to start today’s video.”

Holy shit.

For the following week, Childe learns less about petrology, the philosophy of economics, and historical revisionism concerning matters of war and more about Rex Lapis, who is not in love with his voice but often finds himself in the middle of long tangents without explanations. His favorite book series is the Legend of the Lone Sword, which he says he’ll look forward to reading out loud for the channel. (Childe replays that part of the video again and again, captivated by his excitement as he mindlessly taps the mic while he speaks, his tangent cutting off mid-word — as it usually does, much to his dismay.)

His guilty obsession is not lost on Tonia, who realizes that instead of drinking Monster every night he’s been engrossed in his phone completely, often not noticing her or when the water starts bubbling. But because his sleeping schedule has been alleviated, she says nothing until Lumine comes over as she always does, not forgetting their weekly schedule of watching trashy movies while leeching off of Childe’s food.

Because he doesn’t trust the twins with the kitchen — even if they can cook — she instead spends her time sitting next to Tonia and spreading more of her anti-Childe propaganda while they wait. This usually involves Tonia occasionally calling out Childe’s name and asking, “Is that true?” or “Did you really do that?”

This time is different though.

Worried that Lumine finally decided to show Tonia a video of last semester’s presentation, he leans over, looking at the computer screen.

And he’s wrong. Unfortunately. Maybe it should’ve been his presentation because even if he botched it and accidentally projected his work process — screaming notes and all — to the class instead of his actual presentation, it would’ve been better than the two of them watching one of Rex Lapis’ videos together.

The ‘I read Erosion: Essays of Undoing to you as it rains outside’ video, to be specific, which is where Rex Lapis is embarrassed by Venti mid video when asked if this was his idea of a date with a lover. (And then it ends with Rex Lapis asking for video suggestions from the commentors, his face still flushed from the previous comments.)

Oh God — oh fuck.

“So he is your type,” Lumine says, her expression a bit too smug for his liking. Tonia looks half awake, scrolling through articles as the video plays, more interested in ‘Top 10 Glenn Rhee Moments’ than Childe’s crush. Her expression is a bit guilty as she does so — she’s biting her lip and avoiding his gaze, but he assumes that it’s just because they went through his YouTube history.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that statement,” he retorts, but the YouTube history she pulls up once Tonia hands the computer over to her says it all. (It’s quite mortifying, really — even Tonia is giving him a look, but it’s not as bad as Lumine’s shit eating grin.)

“Well… he does have a nice voice,” Childe finally says, thinking that perfectly encompasses his most recent obsession. Because he does have a nice voice — it’s soothing and speaks to him without really speaking to him directly. (The good looks are a bonus, he assures himself. A fantastic bonus, but a bonus nonetheless.)

“He does,” Tonia confirms, smiling toothily up at him, and he resists the urge to ruffle her hair with Lumine staring at him so skeptically. “But I don’t understand much of what he’s saying. He — heh — talks like an old man.”

“Don’t worry, Tonia, your brother likes him because he’s attractive,” Lumine informs her, now fast forwarding on one of Rex Lapis’ videos. “Did you know that he lives nearby?”

“Huh?”

The knife he’s holding clatters to the floor, and the two look down and back up at him with— hold on, why does it feel like they’re in on a secret he doesn’t know about?

“Yeah, he’s working on his grad thesis I think… Aether told me it was about something on history,” she muses. “That’s why I recommended his channel to you. He’s a bit of a celebrity in his department.” Childe’s sure his jaw dropped now, trying to maintain his facial expression as he takes out a new knife to chop up the onions.

“Really,” he tries to say as calmly as possible, wondering how he should accompany Aether to his lectures without trying to seem as obvious as possible. His voice is a bit shaky he realizes but he can’t quite make the connection between Rex Lapis and actual graduate student that goes to his university.

“Yeah, actually…” Lumine is definitely pretending to think now, enjoying this far too much. “He—”

“It’s Zhongli!” his little sister yells excitedly, practically jumping up and down at this point as if she won the lottery. “Zhongli runs an ASMR channel and he talks just like that in real life! Right, Lumine?”

“Yeah.”

Childe sighs, holding a hand up to his face. The realization that he’s been obsessed with the same guy that hears about every stupid thing he did secondhand is way too much — and the fact that he’s been listening to his voice every night before he went to bed the past week is way too much. He’s sure his face is redder than before judging by the amused expressions on Lumine’s and Tonia’s faces — really, they’re mirror images of each other right now.

Not for the first time, Childe swears to himself that he’ll never let her into his apartment without signing a contract ever again.

[heraldofzaun]

This is a post I’ve been thinking about making for quite some time, especially due to looking at how my own personal depiction of Viktor differs from what seems to be the general fandom interpretation - especially after the LoR cards released and gave us a few canonical acolytes.

I won’t beat around the bush here: this is going to be about why I personally believe that associating the Glorious Evolution specifically with headcanons about Viktor or his acolytes being trans, or Viktor performing gender-affirming surgeries, or things in a similar vein is a poor decision, and why I don’t include this interpretation in my writings. This isn’t meant to discourage people from writing Viktor or his acolytes as trans, of course - my Viktor is agender, although he’s not aware of it, and it would be absurd to say that his followers have to be cis - but I think it’s important to look at the implications that come from writing Viktor as explicitly someone who helps people relieve and manage their dysphoria through his work with the GE.

Firstly, no matter how you spin it: Viktor’s idea of the Glorious Evolution has always been painted in a negative light. I’ve done my work to portray it as idealistically as possible, but at the end of the day his goals have always been about removing (at the very least, negative) emotions from himself, as well as mechanizing himself and others.

“Desiring both to revolutionize his field and to eliminate the jealous human emotions which festered inside him, he engineered parts to replace and improve his own body... He saw himself as the patron and pioneer of Valoran's future, a future in which man would renounce his flesh in favor of superior hextech augmentations.” (Original lore.)

“He saw human involvement in any part of a process as a grossly inefficient aberration - a view that put him at odds with a great many of his fellow students and professors, who saw the very things Viktor sought to remove as the source of human ingenuity and creativity.” (New lore.)

“Jayce reported the incident [of Viktor creating a device that allowed someone to “effectively control” another person]  to the college masters, and Viktor was censured for violating basic human dignity - though, in his eyes, his work would have saved many lives. He was expelled from the college, and retreated to his old laboratory in Zaun, disgusted by the narrow-minded perceptions of Piltover's inhabitants. Alone in the depths, Viktor sank into a deep depression, enduring a traumatic period of introspection for many weeks. He wrestled with the ethical dilemma he now faced, finding that, once again, human emotion and weakness had stood in his way. He had been trying to help, to enhance people beyond their natural capabilities to avoid error and save lives. Revelation came when he realized that he too had succumbed to such emotions, allowing his naive belief that good intentions could overcome ingrained prejudice to blind him to human failings. Viktor knew he could not expect others to follow where he did not go first, so, in secret, he operated on himself to remove those parts of his flesh and psyche that relied upon or were inhibited by emotion.” (New lore.)

This, when combined with how Viktor has also always been intended as a more villainous character - his visual design language, voice lines, and how he leans into the “evil Russian scientist” stereotype all confirm that - mean that from an out-of-universe standpoint, we’re meant to see his ideas as wrong and misguided. Multiple other champions have lines specifically about how he’s wrong - Ekko calls him “everything wrong with Zaun”, Camille (who is morally grey at best, and a cold-blooded killer at worst) calls his work “quaint”, implying that it doesn’t go far enough for her liking, and Heimerdinger makes the point that without humans, no one will be left to appreciate Viktor’s work. It doesn’t matter if Viktor has good intentions - the narrative tells us time and time again that his path leads to a very dark place, especially in new lore where he’s comfortable with violating free will for the sake of preventing death.

It seems obvious to me that a character who auto-amputates as a way to cope with overwhelming emotions, who decides that emotions themselves are a burden, who is repeatedly described as having an obsession with the Glorious Evolution regardless of lore, who is described as who you go to when you’re desperate in new lore... is clearly someone whose surgeries (at least of himself, where they are implied to be unnecessary - again, auto-amputation) and end goals are supposed to be read as a violation of human nature and dignity. Here we pivot to talking about trans issues in specific.

I’m of the firm belief that it’s not a good idea to associate gender-affirming surgeries, HRT, or any other thing used for transitioning with a character whose surgeries are supposed to be read as a violation of the human form. This plays directly into the anti-trans idea that transitioning is, well, a violation of the human form. It is not a good idea to write the man who cuts off his own limbs to poorly cope with his emotions as a patron of trans rights. It’s drawing a direct parallel between Viktor’s auto-amputations, which we are supposed to read as not only a very bad thing and the product of obsession, but arguably self-harm, with life-saving medical care.

(There’s also the issue that some people seem to assume that transhumanism is, in any way, inherently related to being trans - but that’s a whole other topic that I don’t feel very qualified to write on. I consider myself someone interested in transhumanist concepts, when applied appropriately (i.e. not ending up in eugenicist territory), but I am far from an expert on transhumanist thought. I think it’s enough to say that no, they’re not related. They’re just two things with the same prefix. Please don’t confuse the two.)

In my opinion, Viktor should not be seen as someone whose work is a direct benefit to trans individuals. (Again, not to say that Viktor can’t have followers who are trans. But please, please consider before making him the person that they go to for help with transitioning. The man doesn’t even have a medical degree, and his canonical work is described as being all about function over form. He’s not the surgeon you want.) I don’t think that Viktor’s gender identity, whatever it may be, should be associated with his obsession with the Glorious Evolution - or at the least, it shouldn’t be portrayed as a positive association. (In the sense of Viktor using the GE/his own surgeries as a positive affirmation of his gender... I’m struggling to precisely define this at the moment, apologies.) The GE is, textually, an unhealthy coping mechanism.

(There’s maybe something to be said for a Viktor who has disassociated himself so far from humanity that he no longer considers gender applicable to himself... but please, be careful if you write this. I’m speaking as someone who’s agender: I’m tired of my identity being used as shorthand for someone or something becoming or being nonhuman. I’m tired of people treating Blitzcrank being reskinned as a they/them pronoun user as something revolutionary, if they themselves don’t use those pronouns or aren’t nonbinary. I’m not going to pretend that I’m the arbiter of what people can and can’t write, but I’m tired of seeing myself - as an autistic and agender person - represented solely by unfeeling aliens and machines and whatever else, and being told that it’s good, actually, because any representation is good representation. I’d like for people to be more mindful in what they write and promote, but I think that this is becoming a tangent.)

I guess it comes time for me to defend my own depiction, then, since as I’ve mentioned above I do write Viktor as agender. I admit that I want to see aspects of myself in the characters that I like, but I also strive to be aware of the implications that these aspects may have. My Viktor’s gender identity has absolutely nothing to do with his idea of the Glorious Evolution - he has no dysphoria that he attempts to relieve through his surgeries, he does not see roboticization as a way to move past the gender binary... he doesn’t even realize that he’s not a cis man, because he hasn’t had the time or tools to introspect on that aspect of himself. (He’d be rather confused if you told him that people generally tend to feel as if they’re a certain gender - he’s just... himself.) I’ve written him in this way to try to make it clear that he has always felt this way about himself - that the GE has nothing to do with it - and that it has no influence on his actions as the Machine Herald.

There isn’t really a good way to wrap this up. Again, I am not saying that Viktor or his acolytes shouldn’t be written as trans, nor trying to stop people from writing that - only that their transness shouldn’t be directly associated with his idea of the Glorious Evolution. I think that we need to be mindful of what kinds of tropes that our depictions can fall into, and in this case a non-mindful depiction of Viktor as trans can seen as equating being trans to what’s easily read as self-harm/a violation of human nature. I doubt that anyone genuinely intends this association, but it can be made regardless, and so I prefer to keep the two concepts wholly separate in my depiction.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I’m willing to answer any questions that arise from this.

[tcm]

The Romance of Murder...The Murder of Romance by Theresa Brown

George Stevens— director of SHANE (‘53), GIANT (‘56), GUNGA DIN (‘39) and WOMAN OF THE YEAR (‘42)—won the first of his two Best Director Academy Awards for A PLACE IN THE SUN (‘51), one of the iconic screen classics that started off the 1950’s. (His second Oscar was for the epic GIANT). A PLACE IN THE SUN is truly textbook filmmaking at its finest. The movie has six Academy Awards to its credit. Stevens takes us by the hand and masterfully lays down bread crumbs for us to follow. His filmmaking here is romantic with scenes flowing seamlessly from one into the next, using a few wipes and many super slow dissolves. Superimpositions linger onto the next scene like ghosts. His slow dissolves make me swoon.

A PLACE IN THE SUN is based on a Theodore Dreiser novel and is a remake of the 1931 film directed by Josef von Sternberg. Stevens’ version stars Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters, all three acquitting themselves very nicely in a morally ambiguous triangle. Frankly, I’m torn. I want to be a good and ethical audience member of society...but I’m swept up by the romance of the film.

Montgomery Clift gets an utterly fantastic intro into the movie. Underneath the film’s credits with great musical fanfare, the movie starts with a young man hitchhiking on a highway. Thumbing for a ride, he backs up into the camera and after George Stevens’ director title card disappears, Monty (if I may be so informal) turns to face the camera. Stevens slowly dollies into a close-up of him. My God! That beautiful face of Clift’s fills up the entire screen. Man or woman, if you’re not a goner by that point, then you need more vitamins. 

And that’s just the first five minutes of the movie! Maybe THAT’s the lure...and the danger of this film – the beauty of Montgomery Clift’s face. (Or maybe it’s just my moral code that’s a bit askew.) His character seems like an unassuming young man. He’s in town to get a promised job from his rich uncle. He’s shown to be the type to work for what he wants; willing to start at the bottom. He’s not looking for something on a silver platter. He doesn’t seem manipulative or calculating. When he meets his rich relatives, they barely hide their condescension. At one point, he’s at the front gate of the “big house” during a party of arriving guests. He wants but has no entry into this world.

It’s kind of amazing through Stevens’ direction how unseen Clift’s George Eastman is. At one point, when he is invited to a big party, in his best blue suit, the camera follows him into the mansion. The butler doesn’t acknowledge him. He’s not greeted by his cousins. No one talks to him. He wafts through conversations with nary a person turning their head. The hoi polloi doesn’t see him. He is alone amidst a crowd of people. He goes off to play pool by himself. He’s unseen until...

Look who does see him when he goes to work at the family business; all the gals on the assembly line. They make with the wolf whistles. Working class women see him. Here, Stevens introduces us to another leg in this triangle: Alice Tripp. Let me give a hand to the great Shelley Winters, who didn’t shy away from unflattering roles. Here, in a nowhere job, she lives alone in a rooming house, goes to the movies alone. A cog in the wheel of life. She’s a nice girl...a nice enough girl. She eases into a relationship, of sorts, with George. They drift together, keeping company. 

Stevens does something interesting when trouble begins for George. He keeps him in the dark: keeps him hidden. He keeps us from seeing him. When George makes his “Valentino” moves on Alice with the help of a loud radio and her living on the ground floor (easy access?), they’re both hidden in the dark and slightly out of frame when he takes her to bed. We see this motif again when George comes over to Alice’s place (finally) to celebrate his birthday after his dizzying night in the arms of an angel. We don’t see either of their faces when she has to tell him she’s in ‘trouble.’ Interesting set-up the way Stevens blocks the scene – he has Shelley’s back to the camera AND her body obscures Monty from our view. Another time he’s in darkness is when Winters goes for that god-awkward doctor’s visit (“I... cannot...help...you”). George waits in the car’s darkness to find out what the doctor can “do” for her. Why is he not seen?

Alice’s desperation is palpable. She demands he marry her. That’s understandable. So why am I not sympathetic to her? I’ve tried several viewings to suss “why” from my psyche. They would have gone on to have a pleasant and unremarkable life together. He would never know what he’d missed out on. But there is that nail in his coffin...and a most beautiful nail it is.

When George is fully and finally SEEN, it’s by an Angel.

To say Elizabeth Taylor is beautiful is quite an understatement. She plays Angela and she is absolutely a ravishing thing of beauty. We see her when George sees her earlier in the movie. He is not registering on her radar, even though she was on his. And since there’s none so blind as those who cannot see, she has not seen him, though he has seen her several times during the movie. It’s him making that pool shot that finally catches her attention. (“Wow!”) She is quite a vision floating into that billiard room in a stunning Edith Head dress (who won an Academy Award for Costume Design), as though she’s on a white chiffon cloud. It’s love at first sight. Instantaneous, magic. 

We can see they’re right for each other. She’s his passport to getting recognized. No no, he’s not using her. His own idea for a cost proposal for his uncle gets him kicked upstairs into an office and out of the factory line. Angela adores him, gives him entree into her world. She takes him by the hand and pulls him out of that lonely room into the party. As they’re embraced in a dance, Angela notes the intrusion of us, the audience in the dark: “Are they watching?” They are dreamy. They are beautiful.

But there IS an intrusion, a very real one, when Alice confronts George with her pregnancy. She stands between him and paradise. Is it murder if you merely wish someone dead? Yes, Monty should do the right thing. Make a clean breast of things. Would he be forgiven? Would he lose everything? The thought of paradise lost is unbearable. I’ve tried to put myself in Alice’s shoes. But it’s heart over head; emotion over logic. Who doesn’t want what they want? Perhaps I struggle because I wonder, how COULD I give up the thing I want most in the world, the thing just within my grasp. Could you?

A PLACE IN THE SUN is a masterpiece of filmmaking, acting and checks all the boxes. But we were set up! I think the movie is a set up for George and for us. Sound is used effectively in this. The loons...the dog’s bark permeating...the radio news of a drowning is itself drowned out by the roar of a speedboat. Franz Waxman’s Academy Award-winning music in this does me in, whether it’s romantic, foreboding or narrating Monty’s inner dilemma. Waxman’s love theme puts me in a trance. William C. Mellor’s cinematography wins him an Academy Award with breathtaking scenes. In the movie, there is a moment in the woods between Monty and a Ranger that stops me as dead in my tracks as it stops George. I can’t even describe HOW it’s lit, but it looks unlike anything else in the movie. I wait for it. William Hornbeck won an Academy Award for Film Editing and the screenplay by Michael Wilson and Harry Brown also won an Oscar.

But I put the onus and blame on George Stevens for breaking my moral code. He set us up for failure by putting the beauty of Monty and Elizabeth in our path. I’m not a bad person...I want to do the right thing by society...one should face consequences for their action. But Monty and Elizabeth together; she holds out all one can dream for and paints a picture of a loving paradise he fears will slip through his fingers.

Now I ask you: is that fair?

[hellzyeahwebwieldingreviews]

Untold Tales of Spider-Man 02: After the First Death… – by Tom DeFalco

A story that has me debating the nature of these stories.

A soggy Spidey swings through rainy Manhattan looking for crime shots for the Daily Bugle. He comes upon Kent and Wayne Weisinger on the roof of Stockbridge Jewelers, planning to rob it. Confident that he can end the fight anytime he wants to, Spidey stretches it out so that his automatic camera can take as many photos as possible. Kent and Wayne have a longstanding sibling rivalry marked by Kent's resentment of being the "muscle" to Wayne's "brains" along with feeling that his brother always cheats him. During the fight, Kent appears to charge at Spidey but when the web-slinger leaps out of the way, Kent doesn't stop, charging into Wayne and knocking him off the roof. Wayne falls five stories to his death and all the by-standers think Spidey did it. Guiltily, Spidey flees, forgetting about Kent altogether.

So, Kent goes to Wayne's estranged wife Jeannette to tell her the news. "Solid ice," Jeannette could care less about Wayne's death except that she's lost her meal ticket. When Kent blames the death on Spider-Man, Jeannette gets an idea on how to cash in.

In fact, Peter Parker seems to be the only one emotionally affected by Wayne's death. He has a sleepless night, trying to cope with the situation. Unguarded, he admits to J. Jonah Jameson that he has photos of the incident. His resolve to not sell the photos is beaten down by Jameson's arm-twisting and his own need for money. He sells the pictures and is then introduced to Jeannette, now the grieving widow of Wayne, who has come to JJJ for help in instituting a civil suit against Spider-Man. At school, Peter's conscience makes him counter Flash Thompson's avowal that "Spidey's no murderer" with "Maybe the wall-crawler didn't actually kill the man... but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable for what happened." Back in action, Spidey hesitates over stopping a purse-snatcher, fearful that he may cause another tragedy. Back home, Peter doesn't know what to do. He recalls that Uncle Ben's death made him swear, "that no innocent person would ever again be made to suffer because Spider-Man had failed to act. It had never occurred to him that anyone would suffer because of Spider-Man's acts." And while Wayne wasn't exactly innocent, "he had suffered because Peter had acted irresponsibly." He ends up having one of those vague discussions with Aunt May where he can't tell her any details because she doesn't know he's Spider-Man, yet she manages to hit the nail on the head, telling him in this case, "Everybody makes mistakes, Peter. You just try to learn from your failures as best you can, and you move on. You'll always get another chance to do better as long as you keep at it."

Meanwhile, Jeannette decides to kick Kent out of the deal and keep any anticipated profits for herself. So even as Spidey sucks it up and gets back into action, proving himself a hero, Kent decides he's not going to be kicked around anymore, buttonholes a TV reporter and gives an interview in which he reveals "that he deliberately pushed his elder brother off the roof of Stockbridge Jewelers because of numerous past frustrations." At Midtown High, Flash crows over Spidey's exoneration but Peter won't let the web-slinger off so easily. "A real hero would have found a way to save Wayne Weisinger" he says, "He would have acted smarter, reacted quicker, or behaved more responsibly... And that's something Spider-Man will have to live with for the rest of his life."

Because these are untold tales, prose stories and utilize the comic book continuity you can analyse them from several different angles and their worth changes depending upon those angles.

 Chiefly this boils down to whether I judge this as a story unto itself or within the context of comic book continuity as it existed back then? What about the fact that I’m here in 2020 evaluating a prose book written in 1990 that’s trying to synch up with comic book stories written in the 1960.

 It boggles the mind. All I can do is write about how I feel.

 I liked this story unto itself and within the context of this book. I think, kind of like the last story, that it doesn’t really integrate into Spider-Man’s comic book history.

 The emotional journey of Peter in this story involves learning that he needs to be careful about how he acts. In this regard it’s rather similar to his lesson from Gwen’s death, which is kind of my problem. This story’s title implies this is in fact the very first time Spider-Man has experienced death ‘on the job’ as it were.

Surely such a thing would weigh on his mind more, surely it’d crop up when he dwells on the list of people he’s seen die or feels guilty about dying. Or at least he’d be reminded of Wayne’s death when Gwen dies.

In the comics of course Wayne has never ever been mentioned. Duh, because he didn’t exist until DeFalco invented him for this story. Of course we could draw comparisons with Sally Avril, a character from AF #15 who died in the comic book version of Untold Tales but whose death went unacknowledged in stories from the 60s-90s.

I think the critical difference there is that (IIRC) Peter wasn’t particularly responsible for her death whereas in the case of Wayne, whilst he didn’t push him off the building, his arrogance really did directly contribute to his death. Plus seeing a man die in such a horrible way, especially if it is the first time he’s ever seen a dead body, would likely leave a bigger impression upon Peter than the nature of Sally’s death, although I must admit it’s been a long time since I read that issue so perhaps I am wrong.

From a continuity stand point this is the minefield you always walk, but at the same time it’d be difficult to generate drama if you didn’t step on those mines occasionally.

I feel DeFalco here wanted to tell a dramatic story that had Peter grapple with a genuinely emotional situation and also took advantage of the nature of this story as a flashback tale.

And frankly he succeeded. If you view this either out of continuity or essentially within an incredibly generalized canon of Spider-Man (i.e. Gwen Stacy died, whether Peter did or didn’t think about Wayne is ambiguous though) the story very much works. I doubt DeFalco or anyone else was honestly feeling any of these stories were going to strictly be canon anyway. However for the record this story happens at some point after ASM #9 because when we get a list of Spider-Man’s opponents they all appeared up to that issue.

 Looking at the story itself its flaws are incredibly minor.

 Some of the dialogue feels old fashioned, but I argue that is likely by design since this is set in an older time period. We go over exposition related to Peter’s origin again, which is more the editor’s fault since we got those details in the first story of the anthology. In fairness revisiting it does serve a greater purpose here because the story is directly ruminating upon the nature of responsibility. In that sense it would’ve been more logical to open the book up with this than the Ant-Man story and I see little reason as to why this couldn’t have in theory happened at an earlier point chronologically. Yeah the Ant-Man story claims Spider-Man’s a new figure on the scene but the passage of time in the first 10 issues of ASM is so vague it’s really not unbelievable that even by issue #9 Spidey might still be considered ‘new’.

 Not only does the story explore (and successfully at that) the theme of responsibility, approaching it from the opposite direction from the lesson Ben’s death imparted, but it also features the supporting cast more. Flash, Aunt May, Jameson, the Bugle and public distrust of Spider-Man are all given notable roles to play in the story, again proving that THIS should’ve opened the book.

 To go back to the theme of responsibility for a moment, perhaps the most nuanced bit of writing in the story is when Peter is on the phone to Jameson. Peter has a really great ethical dilemma. Would it be irresponsible to profit off of Wayne’s death or would it be irresponsible to not profit off of it and use the money to support his Aunt May?

 DeFalco more than any other writer GETS Spider-Man and his depiction of Peter’s internal debate, whilst short, rings utterly true. What gets me is that most of the time whenever I’ve seen this sort of thing done with Peter he’s actually made a different decision, but here DeFalco recognizes that in actuality Peter WOULD consider his responsibilities as the bread winner outweigh what boils down to him merely feeling bad about profiting off a man’s death. It’s not all that different to when he faked photos of Electro to help Aunt May. Yes it’s unethical, but there was a higher responsibility, a greater good at stake.*

 Kent and Jeanette’s subplot, whilst arguably wrapped up unsatisfactorily, does a neat job of evoking something of a daytime drama or even noir story, and in that light fits wonderfully into the brand of stories Lee and Ditko churned out way back at the start.

 In fact of the two opening stories this one more successfully captured that era and by extension the approach of the comic book version of UToSM. Whilst the Ant-Man story was fun, it was the prose equivalent of a typical MTU super hero yarn complete with dodgy pseudo science.

 This story though? Now this is a Spider-Man  story. It has a singular main character (Kent is ultimately a supporting player) and whether he’s in or out of the costume the story is driven by the emotional and human problems faced by the character, not the fantastical super human issues. In classic Spidey manner those two halves of his life bleed over into one another and lack a clear cut divide.

 Really in the Ant-Man story Peter’s personal life would’ve gone mostly unaffected whether he had gotten involved or not. It wasn’t about Peter Parker, it was about Spider-Man. This story is about both.

 Peter needs money to look after himself, his home and Aunt May. So he looks for trouble as Spider-Man and pads out a fight. That gets someone killed which haunts Peter and makes him hesitate to BE Spider-Man, even whilst he reluctantly profits off it as Peter Parker which in turn contributes to his being falsely accused as Spider-Man and kids as school hating on him because he will not defend Spider-Man from these accusations.

 Wham, Bam, DeFalco is the Man. THAT’S a fucking Spidey story right there!

 The only thing for me which really and truly did let this story down wasn’t the fault of the book, but the audio production.

 I’m hoping DeSantos was just off his game for this story, but between this and his prior efforts I think he’s achingly miscast as the narrator of this title. He worked better narrating Stan Lee and Busiek’s forwards than the actual stories. As Aunt May, Kent and Jeanette he wasn’t that bad (actually pretty good as Kent), but his Peter/Spider-Man fails. He can’t even sell the emotion of the non-dialogue bits. He’s not a bad narrator, but not right for this book.

 Over all taken strictly within comics canon there are a lot of contradictions. But taken as it’s own thing or (I suspect) within the context of this one book, this is a knock out story.

 *By the way DeFalco also seamlessly blends humour and tragedy in the scene. Peter’s internal debate and horror at the prospect of profiting off of Wayne’s death leaves him in silence which in turn is misinterpreted by Jameson causing him to raise his offer which in turn causes Peter more internal strife. Just brilliant!

[fatebreaking-a]

☀️

I like how this is literally indecipherable on desktop, so I had to go onto my phone (where it was still indecipherable) and then open it in safari to figure out which one this was.

☀ What’s your rp pet peeve?

It’s this one and not the other one right above it that also looks like a sun.

Emoticons, man.

Well, that was fun and all but- rp pet peeves. Stuff under the cut. Pour one out for the entire community, because I’m about to take a pound of flesh from everyone.

There’s a lot of stuff in here that boils down to just being a good writing partner and all that, trying to advance the action in a natural way, and so on… and I think a lot of it can boil down to either a lack of awareness or a lack of experience. People get better at writing by writing, so I find it hard to really be frustrated and stay frustrated by someone who falls into some of these pitfalls. So you’ll notice I don’t really target things that have to do with writing skill as much as I target ‘attitude’ and ‘conscientiousness’. There is a lot that bothers me though, so here’s a short list.

Criticizing the way other people have fun. This is a big one. What this boils down to is conversations about how “this ship isn’t realistic” or “your ideals on writing are dumb” or “you take writing too seriously/not seriously enough.” I’ve seen all of these. And I used to know someone on a forum-based RP site that would actively go out of her way to criticize that people would include a lot of introspection in scenes that were fast paced. For instance, using poetic language, or talking about how they’re feeling, what the situation was, “he felt like he was up against the tide, that his heart was being torn in two, a cut made deeper with every clash of their blades” - stuff like that. She hated it. And she made sure everyone knew that she did not approve of how much they were writing, because it was ‘not realistic’. And yes, there is definite merit to the claim that people do not have time to introspect about their entire lives and their relationship to their allies and enemies between sword swings... But so what. I don’t think it’s wrong to advocate for shorter, simpler posts with less descriptive text, and to manage in 200 words instead of 600. That’s great. Simplicity has value, being concise is great, ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, whatever. But the problem, the problem was that she would criticize others for writing in a way that they enjoyed. No one got on her case for writing less, but she was so grating on this point that eventually people just did not want to be around her.

It was something I’ve experienced even here. Finding the balance between “writing to improve your ability to write” and “writing just to have fun” are two separate matters. People forget that individuals exist from both camps, and I have known people (multiple) who say ‘this is important to me, I’m growing my skills using RP as a medium’ but fail to empathize and recognize that not everyone has the same viewpoint. Caring about things that make you feel something over technically good and well executed writing does not make you a problem.

And as a big follow up, I find that this is a big issue in life in general. I think that people often forget how much time it took them to learn a certain thing, recognize their own investment, or recognize the disparity between their own idea of ‘common knowledge’ vs actually common knowledge. When I joined the community, I did not know what private, selective, independent, mun, muse, or mutuals meant. For someone who’s brand new, these are terms that can be hard to decipher. And it’s the similar with ships - I think that people forget that not everyone who comes to RP is from a writing background. Some of them may just have enjoyed reading fanfiction, or may have enjoyed their favorite bot lane duo, or they have a main and their partner has a main and they like the aesthetic. So long as it’s not inherently problematic (incest, pedophilia), it’s cruel to degrade someone and call everything that doesn’t make perfect sense a ‘crackship’. Fanart also has a big role to play in this. Do I personally like Sona with Ka/yn, Yas, Sy/las, Jh/in, or Dra/ven? No, I don’t. I don’t, but equally, it’s not right for me to get in someone’s face for liking it. If you love MF/Sona because it’s a fuckin’ sick classic wombo combo bot lane... that’s cool, more power to you. I wish people would ease up and remember to just let people have their fun. There’s a Jh/in that follows me, who politely asked if I shipped it and I said no, and then there was no hard feelings at all. And that is ideal for me. Really.

T h e f t.

And being ultra conscious of it. I am in a very unfortunate circumstance that many of my Sona hcs are very similar to another blog in the space. I found that out by accident, and we reached similar (but also different!) conclusions. But now I am terribly terrified of ever speaking to them, because gods above I want to lift all my duplicates into the air, kiss them, and scream about them... but I don’t want anyone to feel anxious that I’m copying them. It’s also why until about a week ago, I only followed one other Sona blog ever - written by one of my very, very close friends. I never want people to feel like I’m stealing from them, but I also want my duplicates to feel comfortable on my blog! I want them to feel okay about reblogging art of their characters if they like it or talking to me about things... And I’ve put in a lot of effort to be very divergent with my portrayals, but I still ended up in this situation. I won’t name names ( and I really hope that no one bothers that other Sona, because she’s a genuine sweetheart and deserves love and appreciation ),  b ut... This is a big issue for me.

And it’s exacerbated by the fact that some people are lazy as fuck and actually just straight up steal ideas. It’s not ‘inspired by’, which I usually take care to do, giving proper credits or speaking about where I got information from or from whom or that it is on some level almost collaborative (because this is a collaborative space where we interact with each other, but that’s another topic). But I mean some people just recklessly steal and because we all have anxiety (TM), the line between coincidence, inspiration, and theft blurs. Understand that on some level, plagarism is an ethical dilemma, and I exist in the camp that says “hey man that’s cool come talk to me” - but I can exist in that camp because I insist on a very divergent interpretation that is almost ‘theft-proof’. I do not think any other Sona blog will ever have this combination of headcanons: “is a construct inspired by a house spirit, made up of one part crashed titan goddess, three parts demons, and each demon is represented by one of the strings of the instrument, which by the way shattered because bad reasons”. But if you’re not me, it’s hard to... stay loose about it.

And it’s hard to not get jealous.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. Alright I wrote down a list when I actually got this ask, so let’s run off that. ( Yuki, you fuck, you’re not done? Fuck no I’m not done. ) These next ones are big for me.

MISREPRESENTING YOUR WANTS / YOURSELF

what does that mean, you ask me. It means this. It means pretending to be interested in ideas or interactions, even if you’re not interested. I do not ever want to be in the situation where I am happily chugging along, talking about a dynamic, and then find out that the other person isn’t as interested.

It’s fine to be mellow about it dude. I would rather know that you’re like... just okay on it all. I don’t want you to be polite and ‘spare my feelings’ and force yourself.

I want you to have fun. Have fun. God just have fun, you know? Please. There are a ton of interactions I’m “just okay” with, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I can be just okay with stuff and it’s fine. Not everything needs to click instantly but like...

Only showing interest to appeal to me or spare my feelings kinda sucks. It doesn’t last forever. It feels really bad. And eventually when things fall apart, it feels even worse. Like oh you really just did not care that much. Or you didn’t enjoy writing with me? Or what is it? See: jealousy/anxiety. Just be honest.

I think you especially have seen this with me, but I have a penchant for just being sincere and honest about how I feel about things. At least a little bit.

Don’t share things people tell you in confidence.

Fucking duh but it needs to be stated. Sometimes people gotta vent. It happens. And I get that ‘talking behind someone’s back’ is not great, but expressing frustration is a real thing that has real value. And then finding out that those things were shared. If I didn’t bring it up with them myself, I didn’t want them to know. Duh. I’m not talking to be catty but because I’m upset. S h i t. Some of the drama that I’ve seen happen from others doing this (and not to me, but in various cases) was entirely unavoidable. I’ve seen so many variants of this. It’s dumb dude. It’s dumb.

Hard vs Soft statements (Stating opinions as facts)

This is another one that gets me. I come from a world where we write, ‘Sona tries to’ and so on to others. Tumblr as a whole doesn’t seem to conceptually engage with the idea of ‘interrupting actions’ and accepting that interactions are a little malleable. And it in turn reflects how others speak about characters.

I never see, “I think Sona is”, I see “Sona is.” This is such a minor little thing, and I’ve come to accept that it’s part of the culture, but it can be terribly frustrating when others speak about your characters. I often say things like “I see Sona as” or “Because of xyz, Ori/anna would probably-” etc. But that isn’t something that I see here from some people. I know that I do this a lot less these days, in part because I have acclimated to the culture.

Incidentally, there are some joke versions of this that are also frustrating. People can really think they’re being funny, but end up just shutting you out of the conversation entirely when they say ‘No’. I might be a little too sensitive to this though, in that I often disengage from conversations because “it’s not really about my interpretation, so it’s better if I not say anything because it’s not relevant and doesn’t contribute.”

Really, I’m just a weenie baby, but I know when someone’s being rude vs when it’s just my own anxieties. I don’t expect everyone to have unshakable confidence, I also don’t expect that everyone be quivering in their boots. Some people can be really, really dismissive and it’s kind of not so great because it comes along with them otherwise being pretty neat.

Last one: Misrepresentation of data / using a ‘preponderance of evidence’ when there really isn’t that much.

How do I even put this.

CONJECTURE IS NOT FACT.

CONJECTURE IS NOT FACT.

CONJECTURE IS NOT FACT.

Phew. Okay that’s done. That right there is a big problem (and in combination with the pet peeve before that, it gets worse.)

Something to understand is that sometimes there is no good reason to pipe up to correct someone. Often, people are having a visceral, gut reaction and it’s very emotional. Criticizing that ignores the intent (that they’re frustrated), so it’s often a good idea to let it be.

But that doesn’t stop me from seeing that facts are poorly stated or misrepresented. The community likes to talk about league so I see it in OOC posts, and I also see claims that are just wrong. They’re misstated, exaggerated, or phrased in such a way that you could accept them - except one fact check will prove otherwise. But again, why get in someone’s face when they’re frustrated?

But this leads to some people feeling ‘complicit acceptance’. Which is in itself another problem that I won’t get into.

I as a person tend to be pretty rigorous. If I see facts and I can check them with a quick google search, I often do - especially League. It’s so easy to check a champion’s win rate or popularity. Other people do not always exercise this rigor.

“Alright fuckface but that’s talking about league and not rp.”

Yeah okay you make a fair and valid point, except for the part where you missed bullet points 2-4. I’m more talking about the general attitude people have but let’s talk specifically more about RP.

There’s content. A lot of content. And most of it is really vague, because that’s how R I O T G A M E S does things. We still can’t get a straight answer on whether Sona’s adopted mom, Lestara, is alive or not. H u h?

And this often leads to us making connections and conclusions based on the limited data we have. We’re extrapolating, taking what we know and trying to figure out something new.

Except when we get a new data set, sometimes our extrapolations don’t work anymore.

Except we just spent three months world building around our guesses ( because that’s what they are)

Oops I’m divergent now.

That happens. A lot. My entire blog was evidence of that, where I made extreme guesses and then accidentally got validated as Demacia went full grimdark. But it even happened last year, when suddenly we gained new information! Mage registration! That’s a thing! And it changes how we perceive things.

And you may be thinking, ‘ok fine but what does that have to do with misrepresentation’ and it has this to do with it. People will make conclusions based on their own view, then solidify these conclusions as ‘fact’.

For example, I wrote a small article on how “magical sight was not a reasonable power to have” and then soon after, Mageseekers appeared. Oops. Oops.

And these extrapolations get treated as though they are really fact. The line between what is ‘real’ and what is ‘assumed’ blurs. The truth is this. Unless it’s directly and unambiguously stated, it’s basically not fact. “But we can conclude-” I know. And then we’ll get new information and that’ll change. Ideas in this fandom are like balloons, you need to tie them down with text evidence or they’ll just float away before you even know it. I can talk about how Sona is a literal genius level intellect all day, and tomorrow I can be proven wrong by one little shift or clarification in the lore. ‘Within months’ - okay how many months? Fifteen months? Three months? Unknown.

And this leads me to preponderance of ‘evidence’. This one is long because it bothers me a bunch.

‘Preponderance of evidence’ (quotes required) is basically the situation in which someone goes and tells me:

“Listen buddy, I have these seven pieces of evidence, so I can reasonably conclude that [x] is true.” And that’s solid conjecture and extrapolation and I accept that.

Except that maybe you seven pieces of evidence aren’t all solid pieces of evidence.

Oh.

Oh no.

And that’s happened. I have seen evidence pieces one, two, four, and six all be good. And pieces three, five, and seven are a stretch at best.

But because they have so many pieces of evidence, it’s hard to critique back. Because they still do have four good pieces of evidence!

But the strength of the conclusion increases with more accurate and valid data points, and if your data points aren’t-

And that’s the rub, basically. Sometimes I see people fit evidence to their conclusion without even realizing it. Some of the most intelligent, rigorous, and well-versed writers on this site I’ve seen do it.

And it sucks.

And it’s a peeve because here’s  the truth.

The truth after all this talk is this very important fact.

I don’t say anything about these things to people because I don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun or engagement.

People make mistakes and say many things because they are passionate about what they’re talking about. Often that’s the case. And harmless conjecture misunderstandings are not the end of the world because this is not academia.

except that one time I wrote a writeup on how Aphe/lios isn’t mute but whatever.

And so while I have said all these things and have a lot of these feelings, I also think there’s no point to saying most of them directly to the person that bugs me. What good will it do? To someone who is reacting with their emotions and just wants to get their frustration out, or is speaking passionately about something... Just let it go.

And so often I let it go, even if I disagree. I have an opinion, but I don’t go out and toss it back in your face. I just get mad quietly and grump about it.

And that’s why I end up being a very ‘stay in my lane’ person.

The end.

If you read all the way through this, I’ll give you a cookie tbh. Many cookies. This is almost 3000 words and 7 pages.

[plounce]

JUST READ YR DR WHO WDMK AU CONCEPT AGAIN AND IM SO EMO THANKS

THANK YOU IT IS CLASSIC ROB MOLLYGLOCK FARE………. also im still just so like. hrmmmmgh. about the fact that the third time caleb sees molly is the last time molly sees him. because Molly Dies Saving Him And Nott. and molly having to hide how used to caleb he is, and having to pretend he’s not as comfortably besotted & happy to see him as he actually is because no spoilers!

i am also so like… into caleb seeing molly again after he died for the first time on molly’s end, and on the one hand there’s excitable gung-ho jester SO excited about the carnival and the mystery and the running around the market planet that they’re doing… but also her shabby chaperone/chauffeur who just can’t stop Staring at him? and molly loves attention/being paid attention to, but it’s so much more than the gawking/ogling he’s gotten in the past, because… well. WE know why. but caleb is much better at hiding that he Knows molly than molly ever was vice versa

(more under the cut because god if i am anything but a big stupid rambling dumbass)

and then caleb pulls some heroics (although of course jester saves the day) and molly is like oh this guy is Cool! (because before that caleb was barely talking (because he was coming to terms with like. Molly Is Here And Oh God I’m Gonna Be In Love With Him/Am Falling In Love With Him n all)

and then the carnival falls apart and molly realizes that jester WASN’T stretching the truth about how caleb here has a time and space traveling machine, and caleb hesitantly (because he’s afraid of maybe doing something he’s not actually Supposed to do) volunteering to try to fix the vortex manipulator gustav gave molly before he was arrested, and molly hops at the chance to get outta here! especially because he has found out that the planet has some people who Knew him before he was molly.

caleb slowly but faithfully works on the vortex manipulator when they have downtime, trying to stop himself from working too slow but also working too fast - adds in some features he can remember molly mentioning/using that aren’t present in the original device he has in his hands - and they adventure through the cosmos.

at some point molly finds his coat in one of the closets (see the first post) and caleb was certain that he’d closed off that room to prevent paradoxes, but molly comes swanning into the console room with the tattered burnt thing, eyes alight with delight and asking hey can i have this? it’s outrageous! and caleb can do nothing but stop and stare and have gears turn in his head, until molly goes so… that’s a no? and caleb sputters for a moment and then finds himself saying ja, ja, it is all yours. it is very… you.

after that, it’s a common sight to find molly stitching and repairing the thing, filling in the holes and rips with exotic fabrics and threads he finds around the universe, making it all his (and such, exactly as it looked in caleb’s memory, but cleaner and more whole). caleb doesn’t say anything except prompted-by-jester compliments on what a great job molly is doing with it, and he wonders.

one of the “episodes” in the jester&molly companionship involves molly being Kidnapped! by the tomb takers. or some kind of thing involving lucien coming back to bite him. and caleb almost tries to just escape (because he’s trying to outrun the hurt he’s going to have when molly leaves him for the “first” time and for “later” when he leaves him by dying) and jester is like NO you fucking NUMBNUTS im gonna CRASH THIS SPACESHIP IF U DO THAT! HE’S DEPENDING ON US and caleb is like oh god of course. christ alive what was i thinking i’m the worst. and he does the right thing, because of course, he wouldn’t be caleb if he didn’t eventually do the right thing, no matter how tempted he is by selfish running

molly doesn’t leave right after that but it’s sort of the beginning of the end of the jester&molly era. there’s some more filler and then one more big adventure where molly gets to be the one who saves the day and there’s like… a moment where one of them is knocked out and the other like. strokes their cheek. U Know. or smth like that that indicates the beginning of the blossoming of Real Concrete Feelings.

i think it might be molly who does that to caleb because i think caleb has been having little moments like that throughout the season? because he already had time to see molly being great - to see molly in love with him (i think it’s kind of easier to fall in love with someone when they’re already in love with you (not in a Bad way - you get what i mean)) - while this is molly first seeing caleb and discovering all the things he likes about him. because molly always falls for caleb faster than caleb falls for molly.

oh ok here’s a sample idea - caleb falls in some fashion, molly runs to him, checks he’s still breathing - but The Plot Timer is still ticking so he consciously stops himself from fretting and mutters to himself “time for that later” and kisses caleb on the forehead So sweetly (u know.) and then runs back to the plot

after that, caleb realizes there’s nothing else he can do for the vortex manipulator, and molly is in the console room sewing or embroidering or darning socks or whatever, and caleb clears his throat and says “mr. mollymauk” and molly visibly perks up, and caleb thinks to himself, so fondly, he has never been able to hide it. and then he puts his fondness away and says “i believe i have repaired gustav’s device.”

and molly brightens, and then his face falls for a moment, and then he makes himself smile again and goes over to caleb, who shows him how to make it work, all while molly leans against him and watches.

one of the filler eps yasha appears! caleb and nott met her at some point before molly - caleb didn’t know she and molly were close until molly’s first meeting. i think she has like… uncontrollable space travelling herself. made of stardust or something. weird scifi stuff (handwave). i like the idea of her slowly starting to shimmer like on her hand or something and knowing that soon she’ll sort of dissolve into glitter like she’s being beamed up in star trek.

anyway we get to see a private conversation between them where molly talks about all these Funny Feelings he’s having and how he’s kind of scared of them and how he doesn’t think caleb would be comfortable travelling with him if he knew about them. he’s never felt like this before, and it’s… it’s weird. he doesn’t want his happiness to hinge so much on someone else. despite everything, he has a very strong instinct to flee responsibility and commitment, and that instinct is at war with his affection for his traveling companions.

so yasha offers to travel with him for awhile when caleb finishes fixing gustav’s device, as long as she can - she thinks caleb and jester get into a lot of very serious fun, and does molly even want to get into that many world-shattering ethical dilemmas a month? molly laughs, says yeah, you got me, i’m kind of thinking about splitting off on my own to… sort all this out in myself. and it wasn’t fun to have a target painted on jester and caleb’s backs because of shit lucien did. that’s not their problem.

he thinks that maybe one thing he’ll try to do - as he stumbles across it, of course, he’s not gonna devote his whole life - is stamping out lucien’s bloodstained and corrupted legacy (this is in part because he spent this season being around caleb and learning that like… you should help fix the past, doesn’t have to be atonement, but you should do what you can where you can with what you have to right wrongs). he’s kind of scared of being alone but he’s met so many people on his travels, helped them and made them smile - and he knows

there is always the tardis, somewhere in the universe, with a dear friend inside.

so anyway, yasha sends molly the coordinates of where she is, and caleb gets the tardis to that place, and the four of them hang out for a day or two, one last hurrah. and then … well, time to go! molly likes goodbyes to be easy, doesn’t like drawing them out. “and i’m sure i’ll you see you again someday,” he says, and caleb gives him a crooked smile and replies, in a rare moment of loose lips, “that is very, very likely.”

and molly brightens because he understands by now caleb’s way of talking around his own knowledge, and this goodbye feels easier because it’s not forever. they have a long way ahead of them! how exciting, to know there’s a future, to know the future has friends in it.

as jester says goodbye to yasha, molly tugs caleb away and thanks him for everything, and caleb thanks him for everything - and there’s that look in caleb’s eyes again, like he’s drinking him in like a man headed into a desert, and molly doesn’t quite understand why caleb has always looked at him that but he know it excites him, emboldens him - emboldens him so much that he darts in and kisses caleb, right on the corner of his mouth, closed and chaste but still a kiss.

then he turns to skip away, saying “i look forward to meeting up with you, mr caleb,” trying to make this not a big deal so caleb doesn’t feel pressured or uncomfortable (kind of cursing himself for being an impulsive bastard when he shouldn’t have been), when caleb catches his wrist or arm or whatever, and he says “you too, mr mollymauk,” and he leans in and kisses molly on the cheek. and molly’s giddy and caleb’s a little embarrassed and they’re both just standing there, smiling a little stupidly and just… excited about this Thing between them.

and then jester’s hollering KISS! KISS! KISS! DO A REAL KISS!!!!!! WITH TONGUE!!!!!!!!!!!! and molly’s hollering back YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR A SHOW and caleb’s laughing softly, and oh, he’ll miss this, but there’s so much he knows he hasn’t seen yet, and right now he feels like he can cope with the grief always hanging over him.

[douxreviews]

Cloak and Dagger - ‘Vikingtown Sound’ Review

"You have the face of a system that has done nothing but hold me and mine down."

Cloak and Dagger starts laying out some answers as season two heads into the home stretch.

But Ty's mom, though...

We got a few big reveals in this one, and yet none of them feel nearly as compelling as every single moment of Connors and Adina Johnson's discussion over dinner prep. That just shouldn't be possible.

Let's start with some talk about those revelations, because there's a lot to talk about and I don't want them to seem like an afterthought after I go on a good long rave about Gloria Reuben. Spoiler alert: I'm going to go on a good long rave about Gloria Reuben.

After a few notable teases of the mystery veve, most notably in all of the picture frames in Ty's family home inside Tandy's dreamworld last episode, we get the reveal of whose veve it is. It turns out to be one of those reveals that makes you think, 'I should have thought of that,' and yet is still a surprise. The answer, as is obvious in hindsight, is that it's Andre's veve. The twist here being that Andre himself didn't know that until now. That's a clever way to obfuscate the issue. Andre's lack of recognition of the symbol made it seem clear that it must belong to someone else, but of course who else would have caused it to be plastered all over the inside of the visions that Andre was causing Tandy to have. He just didn't know he was doing it.

So Andre is on the cusp of becoming a loa, and had no idea. That's an interesting development, and casts a whole new light on what he's been trying to accomplish this season. It turns out that so far all he's been after is to use the despair of kidnapped girls to make his migraine pain go away and didn't really have a bigger picture goal. Now we find out that the bigger picture had a larger goal for him.

Great use of Auntie Chantelle this week, as relates to this plotline. It made perfect logistic sense that Andre would find Chantelle in Ty's memories and immediately go to her to get some answers about this mysterious veve that he's finding everywhere. It was also satisfying that Chantelle was perfectly honest and straightforward with him, not even being ruffled by the abrupt transition into his 'record store.' Chantelle hasn't always been well used by the show, and it was nice to see her get some good material here. Particularly if she's really dead as the show seemed to indicate. It's hard to be certain; from what we saw it appears that Andre slowed her heart to a stop, trapping her spirit in her happiest memory. At least I think that's what happened, it leaned kind of heavily into visual metaphor, so it's hard to say.

That's not a flaw, buy the way. I'll take 'atmospheric, moving, and vaguely defined' over 'detailed and boring' any day of the week. And it was touching, if unsurprising, that her happiest memory was the birth of her niece Evita. The record seemed to be leading up to Chantelle giving her sister some bad news that she only specifies with 'No, not Evita...' I think we were finally just told why Evita was raised by her aunt. Goodbye Auntie Chantelle. We'll probably never get to learn where you got that 3-D printer now.

In other reveals, Tandy has finally arrived at the Viking Motel, final destination for the kidnapped girls. After weeks of speculation as to what could be going on there, it turns out to be the saddest and least surprising explanation. The girls are there to clean during the day and then get pimped out at night. Although the show is incredibly discreet and tasteful about how explicitly it states that second part. I think in this specific circumstances, that was the right call. There's certainly an argument to be made that if you're going to depict sex slavery that you have an obligation to make it as confrontationally blunt as possible in order to get across how horrific the issue really is. In this case, however, I think the decision to leave the johns as almost entirely faceless and the details of what was happening only implied was the right one because it allowed the focus to remain on the girls as the real victims of the situation. As I said, opinions may legitimately vary on that point.

One thing that didn't entirely gel this week was the way they were using the metaphor of 'losing all your hope' as the real chains that kept the girls in the motel and in slavery. I get what they were going for with that, but it gets muddy when they're also using hope as a real and tangible 'thing' that powers Tandy's light knives. And so the 'imprisoned by the absence of hope' metaphor works in the case of Del; that's absolutely what keeps her from being able to walk out the open door when it's offered to her. But that's absolutely not the case for Tandy. She's not held back by despair, she's held back by a big security guard who physically carries her back inside. They're playing the 'absence of hope' thing metaphorically in one case and literally in another, largely because that allows them to cancel Tandy's powers for a bit, and the two never really dovetail with one another. It's a minor point, but it bugged me a little bit. Not so much that I didn't grin like an idiot when the act of inspiring hope in Del caused Tandy to regrow her own hope, all of which was conveyed to the viewer by the simple device of shining a light on Olivia Holt from below at a key moment.

Meanwhile, Ty gets briefly sidetracked by a run in with Andre and appears to be going the route of despair, but is saved by Mayhem, still trapped in the dark dimension, simply changing the record being played in Andre's store. More, she saves him by using the 'Tandy's perfect life' record that we saw being played last week, which was just a really wonderful tie back to prop detail as metaphor, which is something this show really excels at.

OK, let's talk Adina Johnson and her hostage, Connors.

Everything about this series of scenes was brilliant. Well written, well acted, just note-perfect drama. From the way the dynamic is established with Adina setting the starting point for their discussion through to its resolution, this was raw and real and you could really just excise these scenes from the rest of the series entirely and do them as a one act play, because any outside info you need to understand what's happening is given to you quite naturally in the dialogue. Actually, could someone please do that?

Adina sets up an interesting dilemma for herself. She needs to determine if Ty's need to have Connors alive so that he can clear his name outweighs her need for him to pay for Billy's death. That is one hell of an ethical riddle, and addressing it through the preparation of food was a great conceit. When the meal is ready and Adina goes to the cupboard, it's absolutely crystal clear what we're waiting to be told and how we're going to be told it. If she takes out two plates, Connors lives. If she takes out one, Connors dies. It could not read clearer that that's the situation and it's never even hinted at in the dialogue. I'm not sure how much of that is good writing and how much of it is good directing, but it's amazing. I was on the edge of my seat over dinnerware.

Bits and Pieces:

-- I'm worried about how Evita is going to react to the events of this episode. Now I think of it, Evita has always been kind of a wild card.

-- It's a little odd how the records being played in Andre's dimension affect reality. For example, it was a great visual and really told the story well, but how exactly did playing 'Tandy's Perfect Life' pull a dozen child ballerinas into existence? Or the ambulances that get summoned later?

-- When Ty and Andre clasped hands, Andre read Ty, not a hint of the other way around. Is Andre stronger than Ty? Has he just had more practice? Is it because Ty's powers are so linked with Tandy's and she wasn't there? I'm curious.

-- I adore how little care Mayhem took in putting the records back after she played them.

-- Was Ty's collapse at the end because Mayhem trashed the record store? His dark dimension seemed to be bleeding out of him, and it was intercut with Mayhem trashing the place, so it feels like those are connected. Time will tell.

-- For a metaphorical despair catalog, the record store had a surprising amount of object permanence. Changes Mayhem made to it were still there when Andre came back, so it isn't just a visualization of a metaphor.

-- I didn't expect them to take down the trafficking ring this quickly. They must need to clear that plot out of the way to get to Andre's ascension. Only three episodes left.

-- Connors knows where the real Billy's body has been all this time. That makes them claiming to need 'extra evidence' a couple episodes back even more ridiculous. The actual body, with DNA matching Adina and Otis would probably have been pretty persuasive.

-- They're really building up Connors' off screen Uncle as a threat. I wonder if he's been cast yet. Will he be the villain in season three? Because we're going to get a season three... right?

-- It's a minor point, but Lea knows Tandy's mom. Melissa Bowen has been going to that same group. How is she not remotely worried about her?

-- The opening image of the missing girls flyer falling down and being taken away in a garbage truck was not subtle imagery.

Quotes:

Adina: "I’m in kind of a bind here. Stuck between two forces." Connors: "Good and Evil?" Adina: "Billy and Tyrone."

Del: "My dad was a hammer. My mom was a nail."

Connors: "I get a call from a resident, says that she saw a young man in a hoodie skulking about." Adina: "A young man, or a young black man?" Connors: "She used a different word."

Andre: "What does my symbol mean?" Chantelle: "I’m not so sure I’m keen on telling you that right now."

Chantelle: "If you can’t be merciful when you play god, what kind of god will you be when you ain’t playin’ no more?"

Another great episode, marred only slightly by a couple of small thematic metaphor things that felt a little bit unreconciled to me. Not nearly enough so to spoil the story, however.

Three and a half out of four place settings.

The 'next time' preview seemed to indicate that I was inadvertently right about something last week. That's always a nice feeling.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[italicwatches]

The Good Place, season 2 - Episode 05

Tomorrow…Is gonna be busy. But today, at least, I’ve got some time to work with. It’s The Good Place, season 2, episode 05! Here we GO!

-We begin at Eleanor’s place, with Chidi putting the trolley problem in front of the class. One of the classic head scratchers. You know how it works. Your trolley’s brakes fail. On the track ahead are five people. You can do nothing, and they die. You can switch to a side track, on which there’s one person, but that means making the active choice to kill that person. What do you do?

-Eleanor’s questioning is remarkably…pragmatic in her own way. She wants to know about the people, and if there’s a nasty ex, or a judgmental shopkeep. …You do not. Okay, then, gotta go for the least harm. Better to live with the guilt of choosing one death than the guilt of un-choice making for five.

-Tahani gets lost in her lifestyle stuff. But, she also picks saving the five.

-Right, good! That’s a pretty common answer. But the trolley problem is interesting because of how data changes it. Say the one is a good friend of yours, or a loved one. Or what if you’re not, yourself, on the trolley, but just a bystander who might be able to reach the track switch in time? Or even, skip the trolley itself, look to another metaphor. You’re a doctor facing five people with organ failures, and you’ve got one healthy organ donor. You could save all five…If you shot the donor in the head right now.

-And so that does make things different. The raw arithmetic is the same, but the framework changes the moral quandary. And through the whole thing, Michael’s been awfully quiet. But to him, the dilemma is clear.

-How do you kill all six? His plan is a long pole arm hung out the window. to catch the one while we catch the five. …He’s wrong, isn’t he. Yep! Now write “People = good” ten more times on the blackboard.

-Chapter 19!

-After all of that, Tahani and Jay are gonna tap out and take their free hour before they’re expected at a thing…I assume they’re gonna go bone down again.

-I WAS RIGHT

-And so after their boning down, or as Jay puts it, ‘pounding it out’, Tahani is all worried about people finding out…But Jay thinks she needs to talk about this with someone. Of course, Tahani doesn’t have anyone she can go to in this place, because the only two fellow humans are the ones she’s trying to keep from finding out… (Janet’s right there, guys. Not, like, literally, that would be weird and also I have to clarify given the character but you get my point)

-Back at Eleanor’s place, Chidi’s struggling to get this stuff to stick with Michael…And aside from his attempt to form it into a rap musical, the core thing Eleanor leaves him with is…time. You’ve got time, use it. Michael’s gonna be a slow burn, but they’ll get him there. And very no on the rap musical.

-Back to Tahani! She hits on the idea that she can talk it out with Janet. And Janet even gets out a notebook and some quite frankly adorable glasses to be a sounding board slash therapist.

-New day, new scene, Chidi’s chatting with Michael about his…Complete and utter failure to grasp the ethical questions in Les Miserables. He’s relying too heavily on his concrete knowledge of how the back-end of the whole system works, and thus not doing the real work, which is about questioning assumptions.

-Back with Tahani’s therapy sessions, where Janet hits on a core element of Tahani’s problem: She has no experience with someone like Jay…And if I may interject? Tahani’s whole deal, aside from seeking fame and fortune to get all eyes on her, is sticking firmly in well-charted waters so she can memorize those charts and look like the smartest person in the room for following them.

-Speaking of Jay, he stumbles on in and Janet decides she wants to hear his side of things. Tahani, though, cuts it off with, and I quote: ��He thinks I have to control everything and he has no voice in this relationship. Right? Good. Now, where were we?”

-And then she hears herself actually say it, and…Okay. Okay, she’ll step out.

-Back with Michael and Chidi, Chidi tries to get two concepts into Michael’s head: First, these things do not have concrete answers, that is their point. Second, when it comes to grappling with and explaining human ethics? Chidi knows more than you do.

-Michael’s not buying it. He’s not liking all this theoretical stuff, and so he decides they need to have a more concrete example.

-And that’s how they’re on a speeding trolley with the very real, concrete scenario in play. Five workmen on this track, one on that one! Here’s the levers! Do what you’re gonna do, Chidi!

-Chidi ends up doing nothing and hits all five. Good lesson, Chidi. What did they learn? Come on, they weren’t real people, he’d never make you kill real people. “Oh, well that’s reassuring, because some of the parts of the fake people FLEW INTO MY MOUTH!” Chidi is not having a great day.

-And, okay, back to the classroom. And fresh restart on the trolley! So, take another run at it? PULL THE LEVER, Chidi! Also this version of the problem has the one person be Henry, of the infamous boots.

-Which slap across Chidi’s face when he’s forced to run Henry the fuck over.

-The Ethics Express comes to a stop, as Chidi’s in screaming shock and Eleanor’s trying not to let her inner Michael Bay fan out too much.

-Baaack to therapy! Jay’s problem is that, fundamentally when you boil out all the jokes about his stupidity, is “I feel like Tahani’s embarrassed that I’m not some scientist who forecloses on banks.” Speaking of Tahani, cue Tahani who’s freaking out and she needs Janet. …Janet, what about couples therapy?

-She’s game! Also her upped thumb just came off, filled with helium, and floated into the air. She might be operating a bit out of protocol here and it might be making for some glitches in the physics engine.

-Let’s see how the trolley problem is going. Chidi chose to run over five Shapespeares to save one Santa Claus. Interesting! And Eleanor’s feeling like they need to call it on this trolley problem. Michael agrees.

-How about the doctor one?

-So that’s how they all find themselves in scrubs, and these five people all need organ transplants! Eleanor’s perfectly healthy! (You are so lucky that the afterlife makes that true) Slice her open and use her parts to save these patients! Wait, wait Chidi think about this, think it through man, she’s your…No, she’s your…She’s A friend!

-And Chidi takes a hardline stance. Look, in this scenario he’s a doctor, right? Right. Hippocratic oath. First, do no harm. He is not going to violate that oath. Cool, cool. …Tell the families.

-“Doctor Chidi? My daddy needed a heart transplant. Did you save his life? He was working, then a really bad man ran him over with a trolley.”

-I literally cannot outdo that. Like, my goal with these is generally to make the jokes just as punchy, to make the drama just as tasty, to get as much of the experience of the show in as possible. But I can think of no way to do better than just straight quoting that entire line right there.

-Even Chidi has to call bullshit and Eleanor realizes Michael is just torturing them. …Okay, yeah, it’s true, sorry but it was pretty fun right? …No, Michael. No, it was not. Your entire premise for why they’re working with you is that the alternative is being tortured. You have just undermined the entire justification for why you’re here, and you are no longer welcome in this class. Get the fork out!

-Chidi stomps off furiously, and Michael is legitimately confused.

-A full hour later, Eleanor checks in with Chidi…Who has been concentrating on a table of contents to help calm his nerves. It’s not working. But Chidi has decided this was all a sham from the start…But Eleanor’s got another theory she’s working on.

-Back to therapy. Where Janet tries to get Tahani to give all the things she likes about Jay. …He’s thoughtful, and kind. Deeply un-self-aware and has no reason for his confidence, but all of that confidence means he actually goes for it in the bedroom…

-But from Jay’s boiled down perspective, he tries to be nice to Tahani, and yet she’s often not very nice to him. That’s…Not okay. And all Tahani can ask for is time. …And then Janet vomits up a frog, which is very much not the plan.

-Meanwhile, Eleanor’s gone to Michael’s office and you’re doing what she used to do. You’re lashing out when you feel like you’re not good enough. You felt dumb and small, so you took it out on the teacher.

-Bullshit!

-Okay, prove her wrong. Go make it up to him, and make it right, and prove you’re better than she was. Or stay down in the mucky muck of Shellstrop conflict tactics.

-So that’s how Michael ends up back at Eleanor’s place, having done a lot of long hard thoughts to get them each something they will deeply enjoy.

-For Tahani…A diamond the size of her god damned fist, but she’s giddy. For Eleanor, you have a secret shrimp dispenser! Ohhhh yes this is good.

-For Jay? A Pikachu balloon awwww he popped it.

-And for Chidi? It took a lot of long, hard thoughts…But he figured it out. One of Immanuel Kant’s lost notebooks, plucked right from his history. Full of thoughts, and musings, and…some crude erotic doodles. Interesting guy, Kant.

-Cool, cool.

-Chidi chucks it right in the bin.

-He’s not interested in a bribe or having his forgiveness and love bought, Michael. So what DO you want? For Michael to admit that he felt lost and small and vulnerable?!

-…Well yeah.

-So, Michael does exactly that aaaand he was totally faking it if you ask me. Also, bribe or no bribe, Eleanor’s keeping the shrimp machine.

-Cut to a month later! Tahani and Jay’s relationship has become stronger, better. …And then Janet books it because an earthquake is running hard through the whole facility!

-She appears in Michael’s office because she is going wrong. Her glitches are getting worse and she can’t stop them. She is going to put this neighborhood at total risk of utter collapse. …So that’s her day, how are you doing?

-Credits!

Well SHIT

[poipoi1912]

Barba-centric thoughts on Ep 19x13

For the last time.

But first, to get it out of the way.

Sonny Thoughts

Who’s that?

No but, are we honestly expected to believe that Sonny would pass on observing Barba’s murder trial?

Sonny, who is a lawyer himself, would pass on witnessing a) any colleague’s MURDER TRIAL, b) BARBA’S murder trial, c) Randy Dworkin working his magic and d) the skills of Peter Stone, out of sheer curiosity? How does any of that make sense? Sonny as a law student was eager to shadow Barba just to observe a random trial he had no personal connection to, and he’d return to the precinct literally saying “court was AWESOME” while the others rolled their eyes, and now that he’s a lawyer, all he does is say “lol it’s a good thing I’m a cop”?

Remember when the conversation was “will Carisi join or even replace Barba at the DA’s office?” to the point where Peter was asked about it in interviews? Remember when Sonny’s law degree had a purpose? When it was building up to something, to a potential change? When Sonny actively faced a dilemma? Now it’s only good for a throwaway line.

What has Sonny done all season?

Nothing.

Which brings me to, what has Barba done this season?

A lot, and none of it’s good, unfortunately.

Barba Thoughts

Barba has messed up many times this season. Too many. Twice it’s been completely intentional (causing a mistrial with the jurors on that elevator, and this). We’ve seen him act way too emotional for someone in his position, and indeed we have seen his heart guiding him (like it did the other week, with the alt-right/antifa case, when he dropped the charges because his heart wasn’t in it). It’s a fact that Barba changed, a lot, over the years, and this season saw him going through even greater changes.

In the past, he always had his integrity. He may have misstepped before (like with Munoz, who was a very close childhood friend) and he may have held opinions which pitted him against the squad or the police in general (the Terrence Reynolds case), but he always held his positions with impressive, if firm, conviction. Just last season, he admitted to what was, at the time, his “deepest” secret, i.e. giving money for drugs to a witness who ended up OD’ing, and even then he believed he had done the right thing.

Because he did do the right thing. Then.

This season, however, Barba has been doing the wrong thing, way too often.

Part of me appreciated the focus on Barba’s decisions, and part of me was suspicious (as I mentioned recently) because I knew that, usually, when a character receives an unprecedented amount of focus, it means they’re on their way out, and all those “bigger” moments are meant to sett up their exit arc.

I was wrong.

Barba’s exit wasn’t the result of his longterm disenchantment with his work. Barba’s exit wasn’t set up previously at all. Barba’s prior mistakes were, in retrospect, simply meant to highlight the fact he has turned into Liv, i.e. he shows complete disregard for the law and just does whatever he wants wait no, I mean, he has grown a heart. also he could never fully become Liv because her actions never have consequences Because you can’t have a heart and still prosecute criminals? For some reason? Do the writers know Barba wasn’t a defense attorney?

Anyway,

This was no masterplan. Barba’s exit happened on a whim. Even though the writers have known about Raul’s desire to leave since literally before the season started, they did nothing to create an actual exit arc. They just used him as normal, and they came out with the most dramatic, far-fetched and soapy idea they could to create a single exit episode, instead. Which Barba then had to share with McCoy and his own replacement, both of whom took up valuable time which could have been spent on Barba himself, and on highlighting Barba’s importance to the entire squad.

When an actor leaves amicably, and when they graciously make themselves available for an exit “arc”, it’s customary to treat them with the analogous level of respect.

Barba deserved a tribute, and this episode was no tribute to Rafael Barba.

Case(y) Thoughts

Remember when I said a “right to die” case had some potential for an exit arc, even though it would never come close to (the actual best ADA) Casey Novak’s iconic exit in S9? Casey, of course, put her career on the line by knowingly lying about evidence (i.e. something a lawyer would conceivably do), because she wanted justice. Because she tried to help a friend and colleague (my fave, Chester Lake) who snapped and resorted to extreme actions when the system failed him and a victim.

“He deserved to pay.”

“And so do you.”

That’s how you write a morally gray exit.

You do NOT have an Assistant District Attorney literally turn off life support for a baby even though he is not a doctor or even a relative of the child. Truly no one would do what he did in real life. No one. No matter what half-assed and canonically inaccurate story the writers tried to spin about his father.

Can you imagine? Physically ending a life thus rendering yourself liable for homicide? When it’s not your place to do so? And you are fully aware of the legal ramifications? When the life in question is a child’s life, and the parents disagree on what to do? Can you imagine “siding” with one parent and taking that final (and irreversible) step, as the other parent is forced to forever live with the consequences of your actions?

Can you imagine any of us finding any of that ethical?

Can you imagine that, instead of having Barba passionately argue a case for the right to die, or find a smart, legal-yet-shady way to help the mother do the deed herself without being charged for a crime (which was what I thought was going to happen, when the episode began), the writers had him physically pull the plug?

With that one move, and with the fact Barba’s actions were attributed to (selfish) emotion, because of his father, Barba lost his moral footing, no matter what that opening eulogy tried to tell us. His position on the matter may well have been correct (it was certainly defensible), as was his instinct to help that poor mother, but his actions were wrong. And this is now how or why I wanted him to leave. Not because he was so very wrong.

Squad Thoughts

I admire Liv for personally and single-handedly manning an entire Special Victims Unit while taking the time to attend lengthy trials and also haphazardly inserting herself to any and all hostage situations in the Tri-State Area.

Stone Thoughts

Eh. That said, I did like his quip about the Class A Felony. My Barba thoughts aside, I’ve been saying it all along, SVU needs a prosecutor who does the job without being emotionally compromised every five minutes. It’s one thing if A Case hits home, but an ADA who can’t do his job because his feelings are clouding his judgment shouldn’t have a job oh wait he no longer has a job lol.

Also I can’t believe I’m saying this but I was Team Stone, not Team Liv (or Team Barba) and I kinda think that’s exactly what the showrunner intended? And I’m offended I fell for it? But Stone was right so I had no choice but to agree with him? is it because i’m a lawyer too omg

I’m conflicted. But Liv dissing him over not having children (I hate that more than I hate most things by the way) and then acting like Barba, who also has no children, “gets it”, I guess because he’s been around her long enough, and her parenting skills are so good they’ve transferred over to him? Ugh.

Seriously, Team Stone. Do you think there’s a chance the showrunner (who created the character and is clearly attached to him) will actually let Stone be his own person? And challenge Liv on equal footing? Because Liv might be Liv, and Mariska might be Mariska, but the showrunner’s love for Peter Stone might be enough to keep him from being swallowed by the Benson Vortex?

(and do I kinda like that? Are they gonna make me like Peter Stone by having him disagree with Liv every time she’s wrong i.e. all the time? Because I’m open to it 👀)

Religious Thoughts

Both Barba and Carisi have talked about their faith in the past. Carisi especially is a man of faith who regularly goes to church and has been shown to be a true believer. And yet, he had no insight to offer about what the Church might have to say about a case like this. In fact, religion was not mentioned at all. During this case, of all cases. In my opinion, that was because the writers knew that by religious standards there is no defense for Barba’s actions, and they didn’t want to give the audience a reason to think negatively of him. Still, this was a glaring omission.

Stray Thoughts

“Weasel”? They couldn’t find a better word lol?

RANDY DWORKIN. Not an obvious choice to defend Barba (oh, Rita, where art thou?), but definitely an entertaining one. I felt like I was watching the original Law & Order every time he spoke. Also, every single thing he argued was, indeed, defensible, and the writers made a decent (if schmaltzy) effort to paint Barba’s actions in a positive light, but the fact remains; having the right to die (which I personally support) is not the same thing as allowing a complete stranger to (technically) kill you “for your own good”. Even if it was the right decision, it was not Barba’s decision to make, and the trial glossed over that a bit.

Jack is still the DA? Since when? And why did they never namedrop him in all these years?

Both Peter Stone’s Class A felony quip and Jack’s quip about it being “unbecoming” to have his ADA’s killing people were great lines, but they rubbed me the wrong way because they were effectively making fun of Barba? But also they were accurate? And Barba deserved to be dragged? Again, I’m conflicted.

The new showrunner can write dialogue very well, but he cannot write season-long arcs (the Sheila mess confirmed that), he can’t write characters well or consistently, and he struggles with original episode ideas. For Season 19, I guess that’s not so bad. But for television in general, in its current thriving state, it’s pretty disappointing.

Liv, to an Assistant District Attorney: Forget the law for a minute.

me: *facepalm*

Peter Stone: lol how ‘bout I don’t?

me: u go gurl

The Barisi Corner

One last time, for old times’ sake.

The ship lives forever in our hearts. Where it’s always lived.

And also in Peter Scanavino’s heart ❤️

[news4dzhozhar]

Perhaps you know the scene: someone, usually a young person, is facing a grand dilemma. It’s something serious—dire. She’s scared to even talk about it. The stakes are just too high. Perhaps it would involve admitting something about herself she hasn’t come to terms with yet, or that even discussing the issue could have severe repercussions for someone she cares about or any other number of more or less infinite possibilities. But the dilemma isn’t going to go away on its own. She needs advice, or at the very least to talk to someone. So she ends up presenting it as a hypothetical (“say there was this person…”) or that she “has a friend” facing a tough choice. Ironically, she has to provide herself with at least the illusion of distance to take that all-important first step towards actually meeting this problem. This scenario is so typical it’s cliché, but that does not mean it lacks value. In fact, it just might hint at a strategy that could prove incredibly useful right about now. But this is all very broad, so let’s make it a little bit more specific & talk about evil. Specifically, humanizing evil. As you are probably aware, the New York Times took a crack at doing so less than a week ago & it did not go well. At all. But even though the results were a hot mess, their intentions were not off-base. “What we think is indisputable, though, is the need to shed more light, not less, on the most extreme corners of American life & the people who inhabit them,” Marc Lacey wrote in the New York Times’ response to the neo-Nazi fluff piece backlash, and he’s not wrong. There is no comfortable way to discuss the everyday humanity of people who do awful things—the “banality of evil,” as it is often called—but for a whole host of reasons that people more knowledgeable than me on the subject have elaborated, it is an extremely important that we do anyway. Not so that we can excuse their behavior, but precisely the opposite. When evil is only something other people do when evildoers are supposed to look evil—remember the backlash Rolling Stone got their “glam” “rock star” cover photo of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?—it makes for dangerous oversimplification. I agree with the arguments regarding an over-emphasis on the perpetrators as opposed to those whose lives were taken or irrevocably damaged by these horrific crimes. In the Rolling Stone controversy, there were plenty of commentators who primarily took issue with the magazine marketing Tsarnaev as a “hero” as opposed to primarily arguing that they should have highlighted the victims over the perpetrator. The issue is, of course, that evil can look like a hero, or a cool guy, be present in someone who also helps old ladies with their shopping & recycles & donates money to charity. Well duh, you might be thinking. But this still presents a huge problem in how we understand the evil that directly affects our ability to deal with it. Consider the past few weeks. How many times have friends & colleagues of men accused of sexual harassment & assault presented defenses based on the fallacy that “because X has been a good friend to me & such a nice person & done A, B, & C, there is no way X could have done this terrible thing”? From Lena Dunham defending Murray Miller to David Yates defending Johnny Depp, it’s the same argument. Based on the idea that a person who does something terrible must be so fundamentally different from “good” people that they — knowing an accused person & having not sensed this core wrong-ness from him — are sure that the accused could not have done the terrible thing. In other words, it’s based on nonsense. So yes, we should “shed more light, not less,” on why people do the terrible things they do, the many forms evil can take & how and why poisonous ideologies take root in certain people’s minds. To provide an analogy in a subject I have studied more in-depth; it’s like dealing with a disease. If you don’t understand how the pathogen in question works, attempting to come up with a treatment is like trying to hit a bulls-eye in the dark when you have no idea where the target even is. It’s theoretically possible but highly unlikely. But exploring & coming to understand what makes that pathogen tick is something that must be done carefully. And, partly due to the risks involved, such exploration is often done whenever possible through the use of non-pathogenic model organisms—a solution that serves the same basic function as a conflicted youth presenting her dilemma as that of a friend: the individual in question can take a precautionary step back while still being able to investigate underlying mechanisms. The news has no precautionary step back. It deals directly with real people in the real world & interacts directly with real events as they unfold. And when you start profiling real live neo-Nazis & name-dropping all these actual neo-Nazi leaders & organizations, you are giving them all free press. Not even the cleverest journalist can avoid that. “But it’s bad press,” you might argue. Well, late night TV didn’t emphasize the Trump campaign from its earliest days & CNN didn’t air Trump’s 2015 rallies in unprecedented excess because they thought he was the best man for the job. Their coverage contained no endorsements but it was still coverage. Of course, there’s no way of demonstrating exactly how much all this free press & airtime contributed to Trump’s success but it’s pretty safe to say it didn’t hurt his campaign. Perhaps news media isn’t always the best place to do these explorations. After all, there is an alternative, a place that allows for a step back from the real world while still enabling the exploration and investigation of incredibly important political, ethical & philosophical concerns: fiction. Perhaps we need that step back, the distance & arguably even the limitations provided by a fictional context in order to be able to discuss these matters that are so fundamentally important but incredibly volatile. Cinema, at its best, is in a sense a safe space to feel unsafe & be made uncomfortable. A means through which we can be challenged and challenge ourselves & how we understand & interact with incredibly complex ethical, philosophical & political situations. While I love movies that leave me feeling warm & fuzzy inside, I have chosen to dedicate so much of my time—and my life, really—to cinema because of films that have left me uncomfortable or unsettled, that have challenged my beliefs and ultimately broadened my understanding of both myself and the world. Films like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Get Out, American History X, and Fritz Lang’s M. Cinema, at its best, is in a sense a safe space to feel unsafe and be made uncomfortable. Movies have the ability to be one of the best, safest, and most accessible ways to foster discussion of hugely important but volatile matters. Fiction filmmakers trying to tackle huge ethical dilemmas aren’t working with real-life neo-Nazis with their own agendas. They aren’t leaving real-life victims in the dark by focusing on the story of the perpetrator. Yes, of course, these stories can still be told exceptionally well or abysmally or anything in between, and there are still stakes, they’re just somewhat lowered. But wait, you might be thinking, what about a film like Griffith’s Birth of a Nation? That one sure did a lot of harm. Well, the thing about Birth of a Nation and others of somewhat of a similar ilk like Triumph of the Will is that they are fiction masquerading as truth. Remember that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson commented that Birth of a Nation, the most successful propaganda film the KKK never paid for, was like “writing history with lightning.” This is utter bullshit, but it did hefty damage nonetheless. What I’m talking about is exclusively fiction that calls itself fiction. There are issues that need discussing and debating, and we need to figure out a way to talk about these matters far more productively than we have of late because the growing polarization that has made it nearly impossible to hold productive discourse is quickly becoming the problem to end all problems. It makes just about every other problem out there even worse. As much as I love movies, I’m not saying they have the potential to cure all the world’s ills. What I’m saying is that they can provide a context in which we can discuss the questions and concerns at the heart of various issues while also taking a step back from them, and that is something we ought to embrace wholeheartedly.

[d33-alex]

Toward a Theory of Journalistic Objectivity

Last Sunday, I received an email from a close friend telling me and others that after 60 years he was canceling his subscription to The New York Times because he was tired of its bias against U.S. President Donald Trump and, even more, its failure to cover the world except through the prism of Trump. A few weeks ago, another friend of mine said that he was no longer able to write about the world without making clear the harm that Trump was doing and the disgraceful sort of man he was.

The interesting point is that one believed that The New York Times was falsifying reality with its hostility to Trump, while the other said that describing Trump in any way other than vile was falsifying reality. Few of us hold opinions we know to be false, and therefore few of us see ourselves as falsifying reality. We think of ourselves as clarifying reality and as being the victims of others. That makes each of us a spokesperson for truth and those who disagree with us as in error. The political question is how should we treat those we think are in error? One way is to think of them as reasonable people, to be respected even in disagreement. The other is to regard them as either too stupid to realize they are in error or deliberately corrupt. If you follow the latter approach, they are unreasonable people and unworthy of respect.

Both are very intelligent, reasonable men, and in other circumstances they would like each other. The issue here is not the intellectual, moral or emotional differences between the two, but how the media should present a president about whom they disagree. This debate transcends the current national frenzy over the president. We have had many such times in American history. Rather it is a question of what is the intellectually appropriate manner for a newspaper or other media to deal with the frenzy.

Opinion vs. Fact

The New York Times is clearly hostile to Trump. The Times would argue that it is not hostile but faithfully reporting the news, which in the case of Trump happens to paint him in a bad light. Its critics say that the paper deliberately interprets Trump’s actions in the worst possible way and, even worse, spends so much time disparaging him that it either has no space for other vital global news or views all world events as affected by Trump’s actions, no matter how marginal they might be.

This raises the question of what a newspaper ought to be. Benjamin Franklin published the Pennsylvania Gazette in the 19th century. It mixed news and opinion without shame. Early newspapers were not committed to neutrality. Franklin believed he was committing himself to truth, and achieving it by stating his opinion. The difference between The New York Times and Franklin rests in the fact that Franklin did not believe providing thoughtful opinion was unethical whereas modern journalism thinks that it should be presented on editorial pages, separate from the news pages. More precisely, modern journalism draws an ethical line between opinion and fact. But in practice it is hard to distinguish what is, from what ought to be. More important, the vision of what ought to be seems to define what is important. The hidden sphere of opinion rests not in how the story is being told, but in the choice of the story that should be told. In making decisions over what is and what isn’t important, the newspaper is already painted over by opinion.

The problem is not with approaching your life’s work as a journalist with a vision of the world. It is impossible not to. The problem is pretending, particularly to yourself and then to your readers, that your selections are devoid of prior choice, that the editor and reporter are blank slates, reflecting reality without prejudice. The presentation of facts without framework is impossible.

Ben Bradlee was the editor-in-chief of The Washington Post. He was a close friend of the Kennedys and he hated Richard Nixon. It was the Post that transmitted the information provided by Deep Throat, a senior FBI official, to the public. The fact that the Post didn’t reveal for decades that its secret source was an FBI official left out a critical dimension of the story. It was not that Nixon was not guilty, but it was also true that the source and Bradlee wanted Nixon to fall. The Post wanted to get Nixon, and Nixon committed a crime. Both statements can be true. But the Post pretended to be neutral and hid the fact that its source was in the FBI. The framework of motives was hidden from the public and dismissed when Nixon supporters charged the Post with burying important details.

An Evolution

According to contemporary journalism, approaching a newsworthy subject with a personal agenda is unethical. The difference between Franklin and Bradlee is that Franklin made no claims about journalistic ethics. Bradlee did. For Franklin, having a view on fishing or justice is not incompatible with being a good journalist. The only caveat must be that the view is openly stated and held to be true by the author. Indeed, Franklin reveled in using his paper as a platform. His ethical principle, if there was one, was that he stood responsible for what he wrote.

After World War II, there was an evolution in newspaper publishing toward the idea of journalistic objectivity. Most newspapers had political leanings before the war, and while these persisted after the war, the major newspapers sought increasingly to draw a sharp distinction between the editorial and news pages. Part of this had to do with the increased power of journalism schools and the rise of technocracy. Before the war, the local news beat was frequently covered by high school graduates with street smarts and little formal journalistic education. Over time, these reporters could be promoted to covering national and even international news. H.L. Mencken, one of the great reporters in the first half of the 20th century, symbolized this. He was a high school graduate who mixed reporting with his own pungent views liberally.

With the rise of journalism schools, journalism was seen through a technocratic lens paralleling the other professions. It possessed a method taught in journalism schools that required expertise. But more importantly, and less consciously, the journalism schools taught not only how to cover the news, but what constituted the news. It is hard to encapsulate what their vision of the news was, but we can get a sense by recalling what was covered by what used to be called the “mainstream press.” The mainstream press reflected the dominant ideology following World War II. It focused on the Cold War, on the American economy and on the politics of the two political parties and the framework in which they thought. The John Birch Society and the Communist Party were observed as oddities, not as valid movements.

Writing and editing without a framework is impossible. As I have said, the mere selection and rejection of what is to be published shapes the newspaper. One of the tasks of an editor is to decide what stories make it to print. There is only so much space in a newspaper or time on television, and there are many things happening in the world. The decision on how much space to devote to a subject derives from some concept of what is important and what is not. This is the foundation of journalism and almost any field. And that decision has its roots in some model of reality, whether it’s conscious or not.

The Problem With Modern Journalism

The problem is that modern journalistic ethics insist that simplistic objectivity is possible, and it compels journalists and newspapers to pretend that their political beliefs, or support for the Redskins, does not shape the way in which the news is presented. Franklin would never hide his personal views, nor would he ever see them as prejudices. Rather, in his mind they were well-honed reflections that he provided the world as a gift, without prejudice. In this sense, reporters at Fox and CNN are better journalists and more honest than those at The New York Times or The Washington Post. They make no bones about who they are, nor do they hide how they shape the news. They don’t have what used to be called the mainstream press’s objectivity and don’t pretend to have it.

Objectivity is not impossible. But the first step of objectivity is to know yourself and to be aware of what you are doing and why. Knowing your own motive and not being ashamed of it allows your readers to choose whether to read your publication and allows you to impose the discipline of your own intentions. At any case, it can’t be hidden and, over time, becomes readily apparent to your readers, who may approve or disapprove but will read your publication nonetheless to hear another view. But without that objective evaluation of your purpose, all other objectivity is lost.

True objectivity is enormously difficult, as all great things must be. I face this dilemma every day. I solve it not by pretending not to have a view, but by practicing an idiosyncratic method, geopolitics as I understand it, that allows me – I believe – to understand the world more deeply. To use geopolitics well, you must force yourself to separate your superficial political views from your work. That is not easy; I and my staff are human. But we believe that only by abandoning the politics of our time can we actually understand the deeper structure of things. We are less interested in whether Trump is right or wrong than in the underlying forces that created his presidency, and all other presidencies.

There is the objectivity of knowing your politics and the objectivity in caring for something other than the daily political discourse. But objectivity is more than simple neutrality. It is being conscious of your ends and the methods that help you to reach those ends, and freely admitting what those ends are. Objectivity is enormously difficult, as is rigidly separating belief in method from beliefs on current affairs. The objectivity I am speaking of has more in common with Benjamin Franklin than with contemporary journalism.

True Objectivity

It is impossible to be perfectly objective, even in my terms. But then it is difficult to love, to be courageous and to be just. The difficulty of each of these things does not excuse anyone from trying. The shallow claim to objectivity of contemporary journalism is transparent. That does not mean that objectivity is impossible, as imperfect as all things human might be. But clinging to an objectivity that is both simplistic and transparent undermines the Republic. Objectivity is not pretending not to have an agenda, but showing clearly what that agenda is. You cannot live without an agenda and you cannot free yourself from the responsibility of having it. And then the world can see the degree to which your agenda is profound or trivial. The agenda does not have to be a political goal, although if it is, then that is legitimate. For me, it is a consistent method of understanding how the world works and what things are more important than others. I try to make it clear that I am working from this model, geopolitics, and that the breadth and emphasis of what my organization, Geopolitical Futures, addresses comes from there.

Franklin made no bones about the reasons he chose to write as much as he did on what he did. This I think is true objectivity. Newspapers in the United States used to be unabashedly political, and that meant they covered some topics obsessively and ignored others. But we knew who they were. Defining objectivity as possessing no preconceptions works if you really have no preconceptions, but what human is a blank slate, and what human has the discipline not to care? Journalism, like all crafts, requires a structure that defines the proportions of their craft and then the content, and that structure must be visible to those who care to understand it. The mere assertion of objectivity is not such a structure. It is merely a principle that neither constrains nor compels.

Donald Trump will pass into history, and so too will the passions of the moment. But the problem of objectivity will live on. Anyone can claim to be objective. It is not a structure that guides or constrains. It is just an intent that does not impose order. The irony and intentions of Franklin can be understood and seen in his writing. The problem is not the writing of The New York Times or the selection of stories; it is the assertion of objectivity without definition or rigor.

  by George Friedman | Geopolitical Futures | Nov. 5, 2019 | http://bit.ly/2pJ3P3y

[babblingblondegenius]

Why Prometheus is the villain Oliver needs

Happy Monday fam!  Last week was crazy busy and it cut severely into my Tumblr time.  This post is super long cause it’s a week worth’s of thoughts (but I did break it up with something nice to look at in the middle).  :)

I’ve been reading with interest the tidbits that came from interviews at Paley Fest and coupling those with some great fandom specs that I have seen.  From what I have gathered, Prometheus’ interest in Oliver is entirely personal.  He has no interest in taking over Star City or killing Oliver--he wants to destroy Oliver piece by piece.  Make Oliver believe that he is not a hero in any persona because of his past choices, as Ollie, as Oliver, as the Hood, as the Arrow, or as the Green Arrow.  He will ensure that Oliver is no longer able to compartmentalize all of his identities.  And this, I believe, will be a good thing in the long run.

The promo for the next episode shows Adrian torturing Oliver and at some point, Oliver screaming ‘what do you want from me?’  From the promo and MG interview, we know what Adrian wants revolves around a secret.  I keep trying to think what secret Oliver has that we, the audience, don’t know about yet.  One is how Oliver came to be a Bratva kapitan.  

This could tie in to Oliver’s cognitive dissonance between what he perceives as his ‘true self’ and ‘false self.’  Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term that Leon Festinger described as  “the feeling of psychological discomfort produced by the combined presence of two thoughts that do not follow from one another.” Festinger proposed that the greater the discomfort, the greater the desire to reduce the dissonance of the two cognitive elements.  

In Oliver’s case, the two cognitive elements could be his ‘true self’ and ‘false self.’  It’s also possible Oliver has taken pieces of each to form a ‘secret self.’ This is why Oliver always views himself as dark; why he can’t see his own light; why he believes he is not deserving of love; why he struggles and struggles to embrace himself as a hero (no matter how many times Felicity tells him he is one); this is why he reverts to the man on the island.

Ultimately, when Felicity gave Oliver back the ring, she didn’t specifically bring up the lie.  She talked about inclusion.  She told Oliver her fear of marrying him was that he would feel the need to go it alone and shut her out.  Felicity wants them to be true partners, she needs Oliver to be open and vulnerable and trust her with everything.  (She has to do the same but at the time, I think she was).

Oliver wasn’t able to do that--he told her he was trying--and I believe he was.  But he couldn’t be 100% honest with her because he hasn’t been able to be 100% honest with himself.   This is where Prometheus comes in.  He is going to force Oliver to face his inner demons.  Prometheus believes Oliver is a villain, same as him, and that the monster in Oliver will prevail.  Oliver has never dealt with his PTSD on the show.  He once was told he needs therapy by a medical professional but he hasn’t.  We once saw him writing in a journal...

but haven’t seen the journal since.  He was recently told (again by a medical professional) that he should talk to someone.  These are all good things he should be doing but instead of a licensed therapist, we’re getting Prometheus lol.  At this point, I’ll take it.  Oliver has to confront his biggest fear, which I think is himself, reconcile and most importantly, accept all the many facets of who he is.

Thea foreshadowed this ethical dilemma earlier in the season when she told Oliver he doesn’t see the good he does.  Felicity has given him two pep talks this season: in the first one, she reminded him that GA is a hero and she was in awe of Oliver; in the more recent one, she told him that he is a hero to Star City as mayor.  Diggle also has gotten in the action to let Oliver know that OTA make each other better and they are each other’s strength.  

The thing that will be interesting is to see how the Arrow writers resolve Oliver’s cognitive dissonance.  It would seem he needs to merge the two sides of himself and eliminate the ‘secret self’ by announcing that he is Green Arrow.  That would certainly be a slippery slope the writers are traversing by having his identity be public knowledge.  The ripples would extend far past Oliver and his psyche into Oliver potentially having to face very real consequences for his actions and the effects it would have on those associated with him. 

Ideally, for me personally, I would just like for Oliver to have time to process that the experiences he went through shaped who he is today and that person has done both good and bad things, because he has held on to his humanity, and that is part of being human.  We make mistakes, we learn our lessons, and we try to be better every day.  

As for Olicity, someone (and I can’t remember who so if you see this, please step forward so I can credit you here and lavish you with praise) came up with the idea that the season could end with Oliver and Felicity on Lian Yu and Oliver reading his journal documenting the five years he was away to her.  Can you imagine Oliver returning to Lian Yu, making peace with his past, sharing all of himself (secret self be gone) in the present, and finally able to move forward from the island to his future.  Because I can and it makes me weep with joy.  

That is where HIS legacy truly begins...