#So basically what I'm saying is that these are all the antagonists I can think of (that are worth any salt) in recent-ish memory
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Desperately trying to make sense of Alex's motivations in Season Two and you know, I do eventually have to wonder if maybe Alex wasn't actually lying in the majority of those tapes.
Like, we tend to assume that Alex's motivations have been a consistent throughline since the college years, but do we actually know that that's the case? Do we know for sure that Alex was acting in deliberate, calculated ways in 2006; or could it be that he's telling the Truth on those olds tapes when he says he's blacking out and can't remember what's happening to anyone? After all, if we're assuming that Season 2 Alex's motivations are the exact same as his motives in Season 3, then it doesn't make any sense at all that he spend months working with Jay to try to find Amy; Season 3 Alex would have attempted to kill Jay like, on sight just to get things over with as quickly as possible and contain the spread of contamination as best as he could.
But, maybe, if Alex really had been separated from Amy after the events of the 04-04-10 tape, and if he really doesn't know where she is, then maybe that could make things start to make more sense. Maybe he really had been watching Jay's channel, and seeing Jay start going through the same things he went through in college without things devolving into violence and disappearances, and wondered if things maybe could play out differently this time. Maybe he really did send that tape to Jay to ask him for help, maybe he really was just trying to find Amy.
But then, instead of actually being helpful, Jay makes it extremely clear that he's a lot more interested in stalking Alex than he is in finding Amy. Alex asked for help, and instead there's a bunch of masked dudes on Jay's heels that keep attacking him, Jay is breaking into his house, stealing his things, leading the Operator right to him all over again, keeps trying to get other people (namely: Jessica -- if Alex is being honest when he says that his call reassuring her that Amy had been found was an effort to make Sure she stayed away from everything that was happening) involved; and instead of anything getting better, instead of anyone finding Amy, things are just getting worse all over again.
It's not until after the incident at the tunnel that things seem to start rapidly devolving. Rather than a calculated attempt to finally follow through with his need to curb the spread of contamination, this is very clearly an outburst of rage and terror. Alex's "I told you not to follow me" line in conjunction with Jay speculating that Alex didn't know who that guy was, to me, pretty firmly seems to speak to Alex having mistaken that stranger for Jay. From his point of view, Alex knows that Jay and totheark know where he live, have broken in before, he suspects that Jay stole a key to make it easier to get into his house, and he's been followed on the daily for months -- Alex is sitting at the tunnel because he doesn't know where else he can go without being constantly surveilled, hunted, and assaulted. And instead of getting a moment by himself to breathe, Jay followed him out there all over again (it feels like Alex looks directly at the camera in Jay's footage of him from this day; he knew for a fact that Jay was there), and then to make matters worse now 'Jay' won't even keep his distance anymore.
So Alex lashes out. And it's not until afterwards that he looks down and finally recognizes that this wasn't Jay -- it was someone completely innocent. Things have finally reached the low point he was at in college all over again; maybe even worse this time. If Alex doesn't remember attacking anyone in college, but he was at least partially conscious of it this time, then things have reached an entirely new rock bottom, they've reached an absolute point of no return.
He has no idea what happened to Amy, and he's spent months trying to find her with no hint of where she could be; he doesn't know where Jay actually is or what additional trouble he could be causing at this point; he does know that now innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire (in regards to the stranger in the tunnel, and also Jessica now that Jay has her phone number, and the untold number of people Jay got involved when he started posting videos to the Marble Hornets channel); things are spiraling out of control and there's no one left to ask for help. The situation isn't getting better, it's getting worse; things aren't getting easier to handle, they're just getting more out of hand; the negative impact is spreading and who knows how much further it can still go?
So, Alex decides to go scorched earth. He disfigures the body with the rock either to hide evidence or to make sure the guy would actually stay dead and not just get back up to start his own cycle of contamination in a few years. He tries to give Jay one last chance to back off, and Jay instead admits he's been talking to Jessica, acts obstinate and lies about not having Alex's spare key, and then breaks into Alex's house a second time (minimum). If Alex doesn't stop him now, who will? Alex met with Jay planning to kill the others, and then himself, so he could put a stop to this once and for all and keep things from getting any worse than they already were.
Maybe it makes a lot more sense if, rather than being a strangely incomprehensible detour on what should have been a straight path, the events of Season Two were the breaking point that put Alex on that path to begin with.
#N posts stuff#idk!!! I've been thinking a lot lately about the tendency to take Characters at Face Value; when they tell us things we tend to#automatically believe them despite what evidence we might have to the contrary. & like when it comes to deciphering what#went down during the college film project it's mostly totheark that posits that Alex was Definitely Lying and Definitely Acting on Purpose#(even Jay is largely ambivalent - wondering which way it leans and basically saying it could go either way)#but. do we KNOW that they know that? Do we Know that they're Right when they claim that? Or are they just Assuming based off#of their own rage and animosity towards Alex due to what happened? Do we Know for Sure that Alex Was Lying in s1?#i don't know if we do!! And so without Knowing that for sure; how can we speak to Alex's motivations in season one OR season two?#now TO BE CLEAR: I am not saying this in an attempt to claim that Alex is somehow completely innocent of all guilt and that like.#Jay is the 'Real Antagonist' of the series - not at all my intention. this is just More of my usual 'look. Everyone in this series is#all kinds of Morally Grey; no recurring character in this series is free of guilt they ALL have unique fatal flaws & trends towards#antagonism that makes things worse and dooms them all' shtick - a la 'everyone Thinks they're doing the Right Thing but No One Is'#BUT i Am wondering if this Does help to like. clear up some of the ambiguity/uncertainty of Season Two - and even Season One - and#lets the series as a whole read a little bit clearer? idk i know that Jay does Claim to think that Alex was bullshitting him#the whole time & was Actually planning on tying up loose ends the whole time but AGAIN it doesn't make Sense he'd wait so long#idk - Am i making sense? does any of this track? i'm trying to figure it out; i am open to comments on the subject to help#i haven't rewatched season 3 yet today and so maybe there's stuff in there that contradicts this whole theory lmao but i'm taking a break#and just posting this anyway; we'll see what happens lol#marble hornets#mh lb
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I had the funniest dream last night that there was a new episode specifically for s2 of H2O. It was just a revamp of season 1 episode 10 the camera never lies but Rikki and Zane teamed up to film something underwater at Mako Island. Rikki was the camerawoman and Zane was the actor (as you do when mermaids are involved).
Filming went well, there were no sharks, and Zane had the money to buy a bunch of cool stuff for filming underwater including breathing tubes and air pumps to explain how the camerawoman could stay underwater for so long (the show just used their actual versions of them because I mean. They had them. At the very least they had them for the scene where Zane sinks in the Lorelei. I don't see why they wouldn't still use them for some s2 shots).
But when they finally got back and were watching the footage they were like oh shit. They can't show this because Cleo Emma and Lewis are going to realize what they did, and they're going to realize they're dating and that Zane knows about Rikki.
So it ended up becoming a hot potato game of passing the footage between each other until Nate got his hands on it and entered it into the competition for himself. So that gave Zane and Rikki a bit of an out because Zane could just say Nate was filming him, but Rikki is upset because she put a lot of work into the film and now she's not getting credit for it. Especially since last year essentially the same thing happened where she made a film and couldn't use or get credit for her work.
Zane ended up forfeiting the submission because of it and shrugs it off when Rikki is like why would you do that, you totally would have won again, it was leagues better than everyone else's. And Zane was like. Yeah. Exactly. You wouldn't have gotten the credit for it, and I don't want to win if it isn't with you.
So, totally unrelated note, I think I just came up with a new filler episode for my H2O fic.
#Cuz it IS an annual competition... I'm just saying...#The A plot being that Lewis has to work with either Charlotte or Cleo and Emma for the film this year#So it's Emma and Cleo vs Charlotte and Lewis#And while Charlotte is very artsy and Lewis has a history of winning... Charlotte can also be very bossy and controlling#So she tries to take full control of the project and tell Lewis what to do so he's basically just doing the work for her#And he has to sit her down and be like 'Charlotte. I teamed up with you because I wanted to work together. This isn't that.'#I love her but she can be very controlling. I know it because I can be that way too#So can Emma btw but the show doesn't treat Emma as terribly as it treats Charlotte 🤔🤔 it treats Emma as quirky and Charlotte as evil#Anyway I personally think Charlotte and Lewis winning the competition after they work out the issues in production would be really cute#Listen. Charlotte might spiral by the end of actual season 2. But I'm going to fix her. She's going to get a redemption arc. I'm not#Going to treat her like trash like the actual writers did solely because they needed an antagonist. It's not fair to her#H2O au#Cruddy rambles#This is going to be my replacement for Hocus Pocus because I consider Hocus Pocus to be non canon#I also think comparing Emma's actions in s1 vs her actions in s2 vs Charlotte's would be a good way to show the reader hey. Charlotte isnt#Actually a horrible terrible no good villain. She has flaws just like the other girls but she's also a decent person when they're not#Constantly being highlighted by the writers to make her out to be an irredeemable antagonist#Also every episode in H2O has to feature at least like 5 minutes of merm. Well I have that with the part I had a dream about so it's perfect#Tho I wouldn't be opposed to there being a bit in the middle where Lewis transforms and has to run off from Charlotte who freaks out#And that's what prompts their talk about her fully taking over the project and smothering all of Lewis's ideas/suggestions#It's very much a reflection of how she is when planning his birthday party but you know we are going to approach this less in the context of#'She's an irredeemable villain' and more in the context of ''she's a teenager with flaws''#Because that is way more reasonable and hey... If it ends up having a butterfly effect on how she acts later on in the season... Well... ;)
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I actually fucking hate Mr. Jägerman here's why
Mr. Jägerman is a character in the Hatchetfield universe who is never onstage and only mentioned in 1 (one) line. This was enough to ignite my rage.
It's because in this one line, so much is revealed about Max's character. So let's dissect that.
Max is mean. We know this. The very first thing established about him is how threatening he is. But I think his character often gets lost in the 'bully' identity, because just like every other Hatchetfield character, he is layered and complex.
We also find out two other things about him pretty much immediately: He has a crush on Grace (we'll come back to that) and he needs to feel in control.
There's a lot of evidence to support this. He repeatedly refers to himself as the 'god' of Hatchetfield High. He creates arbitrary rules around who his friends can date. He creates arbitrary rules around where the nerds are 'allowed' to go. And the moment someone implies he is not as powerful as he thinks he is, he retaliates violently.
This isn't just Max being a jerk. These are all signs of someone who is almost certainly deprived of control in their home life, which forces them to find it elsewhere. Max likely has little to no say in what happens to him at home. He's clinging to a sense of control wherever he can find it. And that line basically confirms that his home isn't a safe place for him.
Back to the crush on Grace, when you look objectively at the actions Max takes in the show, you'll find that he's not really a bad person, he's a mean person. He's a little shit that processes his need for control in the entirely wrong way, but people are shaped by their surroundings. The actions that come from him are different.
His crush on Grace only supports this. Every other bully in every piece of media sees the girl they like and whistle and say "yo lemme hit that." And if the girl rejects them, they resort to "tease bitch." Not Max. The first thing he does is start a conversation with her, laughs at (what he thinks is) a joke, then offers to carry her books. Like, I wish my highschool bullies were that nice to their own girlfriends.
When she rejects him, it's true that he continues to pursue her and calls her "dirty girl," but that once again comes back to his need to feel in control. But he doesn't get aggressive, he doesn't do anything that screams 'bully.'
We don't get a lot of scenes with pre-ghost Max. But when we do, they're interesting to analyze. Like, have you ever noticed that when he finds Steph in the Waylon Place, his very first instinct is to tell her, "Get behind me, I'll protect you" from, as far as he knows, actual ghosts? He feels like his life is in danger, but he's still putting Steph's safety first, despite having no interest in her romantically. That's huge.
There's even some evidence to support that Max terrorizing the nerds is, from his perspective, not so one-sided. When he finds out they were the ones who pulled the pranks, he says "I thought you guys hated me."
And he's open to change. He's not stubborn, he's not brutal. He doesn't continue hating the nerds just because it is what it is. Moments before his death, he is showing signs of opening up to them, and actually seems like he's coming around.
And none of this is meant as trying to defend Max's actions. I know he's the antagonist. I know he treats people unfairly. But all of this has to come from somewhere. I'm trying to say that there was clearly a foundation of a good person underneath all that cruelty. So what toughened his shell?
Mr. Jägerman. Max reveals in that one line that if he were to go back home from the 'party', his dad would call him a 'little cuck.' "can't even fight off one lousy skele'uhn." In this, he reveals his dad is demeaning to him. He's the kind of man who would hear that his son was in a life-or-death situation, and instead of comforting him, he would have made fun of him.
What must that do to a person? As someone who grew up in a home where Dad wasn't always a safe person to be around, I know that when I was younger, a lot of my bad bad behaviours were something I learned from him.
The prank meant to scare Max was the nicest thing anyone's ever done for him.
I think a lot of what happens in NPMD is indirectly Mr. Jägerman's fault. "Knowledge is knowing Frankenstein is the doctor, wisdom is knowing Frankenstein is the monster" type of shit. It is directly because of his actions and the way he treated his own child that any of this happened.
or maybe I'm reading too much into this. But I fucking hate Max's dad so much.
#sincerely#nerdy prudes spoilers#npmd#nerdy prudes must die#max jagerman#max jägerman#hatchetfield#hatchetverse#tgwdlm#black friday starkid#pete spankoffski#ruth fleming#richie lipschitz#grace chasity#steph lauter#character analysis
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[rolls in]
I've always, for the longest time, head-canoned that when Nightmare and Dream ate their respective apples and subsequently fused with them in the process, that they also *became* the apples in a sense?
Basically what I'm saying is that since the tree was cut down/died due to the events of Dreamtale, that they, themselves, became the two sides of the tree. While the tree was in its prime, it regulated all of the emotions and balance in the whole multiverse. However, because of the apple incident, Nightmare and Dream now take on the duty that the tree once had; regulating the emotions of the multiverse individually.
Hence they're constant struggle with one another.
As eternal, long-living beings of their respective roles, I doubt they would stay mad at each other forever- at least to the degree that it was initially after the tragedy in Dreamtale. This would make a truce somewhat inevitable- or at least a mutual understanding and respect for each other's jobs.
(I think this could, of course, vary depending on the way you depict their relationship, backstory, powers, situation, and the story at large)
Anyways, going back to what I was originally getting at before being sidetracked, they are- essentially- the tree itself.
In a weird way, I always thought that it was a little strange that eating the golden apples didn't seem to have any consequences as opposed to the negative ones (example being Nightmare violently being ripped apart and literally dying- but that can be dubious because, from my understanding, that was partially the main antagonist's influence on the apples??).
Again, not addressing canon and what the original had in mind, I think it would be interesting that slowly, over time, the tree starts to grow back through them.
Think of it as a way of aging for these immortals. After all, apples have seeds, so one would assume that they'd eventually sprout after enough time and nourishment (via the abundance of emotions and just generally taking care of themselves). Eventually, they'll have to create their own guardians to carry on their work, and the cycle continues after they die.
What I imagine is a weird mesh of hanahaki disease and the philosophy of cycles, in where when the two twins eventually pass, they will become the new trees in its place. Over time, while doing their jobs and fulfilling their roles, roots may start to sprout from their ribcage, followed by leaves. It would be cute at first, little leaves and branches that are harmless. But then, as time continues, more and more of their body gets overtaken with it.
But again, these changes would happen gradually over the course of their long, LONG lifespans. When it starts getting to the point of detriment to them, then they've probably lived hundreds of lifetimes over already.
I don't know, I just think it's an interesting idea to head-canon about, and a cool excuse to draw the twins with plant-like roots stretching out of them.
(some little examples I have of the idea I've drawn YEARS ago and as of recent. ignore the quality of my old art fosjigjiosjosgijiosg)
(also WIP jumpscare of a Shattered Dream interpretation I have been working on a little oogily boogily osgjiosgs)
#darkzyx#undertale au#undertale fandom#utmv#dreamtale#nightmare sans#dream sans#dark rambling#dark ramble#dark brain thoughts
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Okay let's talk about Reality in Welcome Home.
YES THIS IS JUST ME RAMBLING AGAIN BUT I SWEAR I HAVE A POINT TO MAKE. This is more of my collecting my thoughts and trying to make sense of what we have right now.
TLDR: The reality of Welcome Home is separated by the "fourth wall" that the characters are not aware of except for few.
So ever since the first update after the website launched I have been wondering about where the reality shift lies in Welcome Home. How can this be a haunted puppet show with no notable names for actors, production crew, puppeteers, etc. I was basically trying to figure out if this was Hello Puppets or My Friendly Neighbourhood kind of situation. Especially after Sally's Halloween Story, it came ever more clear that they are not fully aware of the fact that people are filming them.
This past update has somewhat solidified what I think is happening. The Welcome Home Puppet show exist in it's own version of reality literally separated by the fourth wall. The neighbours are completely unaware that they are puppets, being filmed, etc. The idea that a magic narrator can talk to them is normal (as it is in many children's cartoons, the Narrator from The Powerpuff Girls and The Storyteller from Into the Woods comes to mind). This really all comes together for me alongside the theory that some of the neighbours are self-aware. I'm not gonna argue who is and who isn't but I don believe the Neighbours featured in promotional material that directly speaks to the viewers or anything outside the show are aware.
(Note: It would be a big stretch to say the things like the TV and radio apprenticed were staged or faked by the Welcome Home Crew)
I think the ones most aware are Wally, Barnaby, Frank and Howdy. Everyone else is rather slowly becoming aware or going through the motions like Eddie. Wally and Barnaby are self-explanatory, they are closest to Home and the Narrator(s). Frank by the way of the Bug Theory and the fact that he "breaks script" to comfort Eddie. Howdy is because I cannot think of a way that he would participate in those commercials without knowing somehow. If Home really is antagonistic towards the Neighbours, I can believe they would act in line. Also during Eddie's panic attack, he doesn't move ever after expresses him desire to leave, because he can't move. He's a puppet. It's worth noting that everyone else has a puppeteer accept Wally and Home. Wally has a handler and Home's eyes are the only thing on it that can move via a crank on the side of it not showing to the camera.
I believe the cartoon reality is the one that the puppets see and why in all of Wally's answer videos we see it in IRL footage. He is not blind to what the show is doing. Eddie's panic attack shows up that what they see and we see are very different. This isn't like a foolproof way of thinking because it leaves a lot of holes but most of those holes have to do with things I believe will be answered later. Like:
What exactly is Home and the power Home has over the Neighbours?
Why did the show shut down?
The benefactor sending the packages
Why is Wally the one that remains? Where are the others?
Why were we able to see what Eddie and Wally sees outside of the reality they exist in?
etc.
Thats last point is still up in the air for me because that easier could of been a storyteller point but the fact that Welcome Home narrator and logo pops up at the end of the Homewarming Special alludes that everything Eddie went through we saw. Or at least it was filmed and probably cut out of the official broadcast.
I don't have any answers. What we do know now is that the show shut down, someone is still present and sending packages to the WHRP and Playfellow. This mysterious black goop has the power to influence those in contact with it, even causing loss of time. The WHRP went through an investigation internally and in the website. W is a part of the website and actively doing their own investigation after "supposedly" making contact with Wally in the post-halloween/pre-March 9th update (which you can see btw on the Wayback Machine). Wally, regardless if he is the one sending the packages, is using them to communicate. He wants someone to find him because he KNOWS we are watching and we are looking for him.
Personally I believe Home or whatever entity is controlling it, is sending the packages and trying to control others. I think Wally is a by product of all this and is trying to find his way out by any means necessary. I will never let my "Wally did nothing wrong" propaganda go.
This all btw does nothing to answer the mystery on the website. I have no idea how this reality breaking allowed Wally yo infiltrate the website. The fact that his eyes are no longer visible on the page means he's not here watching us (for now). Also the "You" character description is missing. As far as the Bug theory goes, I still believe that is Frank trying to give us more insight on what happened/happening. Same goes for W, who we know is human since they described the same events of the phone ringing and hearing Wally that the curator did. I don't believe this is Wally vs the Neighbours. I think this is the neighbours being physically or metaphorically trapped while not able to reach Wally they can reach this website and are doing the same as Wally, reaching out to us. I still believe Home/Entity has some control over them and is connected to who is sending the packages and infecting the WHRP and Playfellow. W is also apart of WHRP but has taken notice to everything going around and is choosing to document their findings since the WHRP is starting to run a tighter ship after the last slip up of W (probably) contacting Wally.
Hopefully this made sense to you guys...
#welcome home#welcome home arg#welcome home puppet show#clownillustrations#partycoffin#welcome home eddie#Eddie dear#frank frankly#welcome home frank#welcome home barnaby#welcome home wally#wally darling#welcome home w#welcome home theory
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7 (More) Things I Wish I'd Known as a Beginning Writer
Last time I shared seven things I wish I'd known as a beginning writer. Unsurprisingly, that wasn't an exhaustive list, and I've been thinking about it some more. So, I present to you, seven more things I wish I'd known as a beginning writer. . . .
1. The Central Relationship Needs an Arc and an Actual Plot
Many of us have been told we need a relationship plotline in our stories, but few of us have received any guidance on how to actually do that (unless, of course, you are writing romance).
And in my first novel attempt, back in the day, the central relationship was not romantic. I had an idea for what the relationship was like, but partway through the story, it wasn't working. And it was becoming super annoying.
What I didn't realize was that it was annoying because it was mostly static. Nothing was changing. The characters weren't growing closer together or further apart. Instead of the relationship plotline having "peaks" and "valleys," it was mostly just a straight line.
Of course, I knew it was going to change at the end.
But what I didn't understand was that it still needed a plot through the middle. 🤦♀️ Which means it still needed the basics of plot: goal, antagonist, conflict, consequences.
Not just interesting interactions and conversations. Not just banter and pastimes.
In my last post, I mentioned the three basic types of goals: obtain, avoid, maintain.
Well, in relationship plots, this translates into these three basic goals: grow closer to the person (obtain), push further away from the person (avoid), maintain the relationship as is (maintain).
The antagonistic force is whatever gets in the way of that. If your protagonist wants to draw closer to this person, then an antagonistic force should be pushing him away. If he wants to be apart from this person, then the antagonistic force should be pushing him closer. If he wants to maintain the relationship as is, then the antagonistic force is what disrupts that. This creates conflicts and should lead to consequences.
If you have a relationship plotline, it needs an actual plot.
2. Choose a Tentative Theme Early, to Better Shape and Evaluate Your Story
If you've been following me for a while, you probably know I consider these three things to be the triarchy (formerly known as "trinity") of storytelling: character, plot, and theme.
Each of these elements comes out of and influences the others.
This also means you can use each of these to help shape and evaluate the quality of the others.
It's much easier to write a solid story when you understand all three.
If you have only one or two pieces, it's harder to discern which ideas are just okay and which ideas are great. It's harder to discern what does or does not belong in your story.
The best ideas for your story are going to come from and touch each of those three things.
Most beginners are familiar with concepts of characters and plot.
Few know anything about theme.
And fewer still have the desire to learn anything about theme. It's often seen as unimportant or something that "just happens." Okay, sure, it could just happen. Maybe.
But writing your story will (in the long run) be much easier if you at least understand some basics about theme.
I have so much to say on theme, it could probably fill up a book (and maybe someday it will), but for now, if you want more information on it . . . I'd recommend starting with this article: The Secret Ingredients for Writing Theme. It breaks down the key elements of theme, which can give you a good foundation.
Even if your theme ends up changing a bit, starting with an idea in mind will help keep your story on track.
3. Your Story Needs a Counterargument
Remember when I was talking about theme, and implied I wasn't going to go into it that much more? Well . . . I guess I'm going to go into it a little more.
The thematic statement is the argument the story is making about life.
But it's not really an argument if no one is disagreeing.
This means your story needs a counterargument (I call this the "anti-theme").
This counterargument will often manifest within the protagonist (as a "flaw" or misbelief or something the character needs to cast off or overcome) and/or within the main antagonistic force.
It can technically show up in other places and in other ways, but let's keep this basic.
So if your story ultimately shows the audience that it's best to be merciful, then a counterargument for that could be that it's best to enforce justice (Les Mis).
If your story ultimately shows the audience that it's best to ask for, give, and receive help, then a counterargument for that could be that it's best to avoid, withhold, and refuse help and do everything yourself (A Man Called Otto).
If your story ultimately shows the audience that it's best to rely on faith, then a counterargument for that could be that it's best to rely on technology (Star Wars IV: A New Hope).
The two arguments are locked in a "battle" of sorts, similar to how the protagonist and antagonist are, because they are in opposition to one another (see #5 in previous article).
The arguments need to be "shown" more than "told." And the counterargument should be given fair weight, because doing so will actually make the whole theme (and plot and characters) stronger.
Here are some examples to think about:
4. Writing More isn't Enough to Take Your Work to a Professional Level
We are often told that if we want to be great writers, we need to write more. And this is true. To an extent.
I've worked with writers who had been writing for decades, but were still at a beginner level.
I have known writers who bent over backward to meet word count goals, only to end up with a pile of slush they couldn't see their way out of.
I myself have spent enormous amounts of time and words trying to write something brilliant.
But for the vast majority of people, putting in the time and word count isn't enough.
What is the point of clocking in more and more hours and typing more and more words if you don't know how professional-level stories actually work?
Don't get me wrong--you absolutely need to put in time and words, and they absolutely will help you improve! And yes, quantity can improve quality.
But also remember this: You don't know what you don't know.
And if you are practicing imperfectly, that doesn't guarantee that one day it's going to be perfect.
If I have lousy technique every time I go bowling (and frankly, I do), that doesn't guarantee I'm going to get any better if I don't know what I'm doing wrong or how to improve or what good technique looks like--no matter how much time I put in.
This is sadly usually true for writing.
I'm not saying that no one gets to the professional level by only clocking in writing hours, but just that . . . I don't think most of us do. And I think some of us could spend decades clocking in the hours, and really, just be spinning our hamster wheels because we don't know what we don't know--we don't know why professional stories are professional level, so we don't know how to improve.
Hands-on practice is vital.
But so is education.
Sometimes it's actually more beneficial to learn about the craft from someone than to complete your Xth writing sprint to meet your word count goal.
If I could speak to my past self, I would tell beginner me to spend more time studying the craft. In the long run, it would have actually helped me get better easier and much faster than clocking in another hour of writing (that would have ended up in the garbage bin anyway). I've put in a lot of hours that didn't get me very far because I didn't fully understand where I was trying to get, or how.
There is always more you can learn. And especially in the writing world, there is always another perspective to learn what you think you already know. Many writers talk about the same subjects, but come at them from different angles, and learning even those different angles can help you refine your understanding of that subject.
I'm not going to say that tomorrow you have to sign up to take a bunch of courses (though you can if you want), but make time to learn about the craft regularly. You may want to ask yourself: Is it better for me right now to write for an hour or to learn for an hour?
5. Conflict for the Sake of Conflict is Actually Filler--You Need Consequences!
There is an adage in the writing community, which is that story = conflict.
And once again, it's true. To an extent.
But adding a bunch of conflict isn't enough to make a story good.
If the conflict doesn't change anything--if it doesn't have at least the power to change any outcomes, then what is the point? It's just stuff happening.
Who cares if a bomb is going to go off, if no one or nothing significant is in danger of being blown up?
Conflicts need consequences to be meaningful.
It's really the consequences that hook and draw readers into the story. Or at least, the potential consequences. It's potential consequences that make up the stakes in the story.
And they draw the audience in because the audience wants to see if what could happen actually does happen.
Once the audience understands the potential consequences (the stakes), they care about the conflict, because how the conflict is resolved will affect what happens next. The conflict now has significance because it changes the direction of the story, it changes the future.
Consequences also improve the story by strengthening a sense of cause and effect.
As I touched on in my previous post (see #4), random bad things happening is actually less effective (and makes characters less sympathetic). And random good things happening is also less effective (and makes characters less admirable). Instead, it's better if the bad and good things that happen come as a consequence to how a conflict was resolved.
This often happens even at a scene level. Just as nearly every scene should have a goal and antagonist, nearly every scene should have conflict. How that conflict is resolved in that scene should also carry consequences and affect what's going to be happening in the near future of the story (generally speaking).
Consequences also allow the audience to experience tension, which, as counterintuitive as it sounds, can be more effective than outright conflict. Tension is the potential for problems to happen. Conflict is actual problems happening. Tension makes the audience feel suspense. But suspense often only exists because the audience understands the potential consequences (the stakes) in play.
If there are no known consequences, then the conflict often doesn't really matter to the audience, because they can't see how it will change anything significantly.
6. Starting in Medias Res is Actually Harder, not Easier
A lot of beginning writers struggle with beginnings--which makes sense, because they can be very difficult to write.
And so a lot of beginning writers are told to open their stories in medias res, which translates to "in the midst of things." This basically means you open the story up with some form of rising action (conflict)--usually it's that scene's rising action (see #2 in my previous post).
In other words, you are essentially cutting off the scene's setup.
While this can be effective, and while I may be unpopular in my opinion, I don't feel that it makes things easier. In fact, more often than not, I think it's actually harder to start in medias res.
This relates to what we just talked about above in #5.
When we start a scene in medias res, we are starting with conflict, but if the audience doesn't know why the conflict matters, then it won't hold them for very long.
When you cut off the setup of a scene, you now have to find a way to convey who is there, where is "there," what is there, when, and why we care (the why is the stakes).
--all without slowing the pacing.
This is why I think it's often (though not always) more difficult.
Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying you can't start in medias res, or that you shouldn't start in medias res.
I'm just saying it's tricky.
Instead, I would personally recommend starting just before the scene's conflict. Start early enough to give the audience context to understand what is about to go down: where and when the scene takes place, who is there, what the goal is, and what the potential consequences are. Make the setup long enough to convey the important stuff, but short enough to stay interesting.
Then get to the scene's conflict, the rising action.
You can read more than you probably want to know about in medias res here.
7. Yes, You Really Need to Do That If You Want to Write at a Professional Level
This last thing is pretty nonspecific, as it's not about one particular piece of writing advice. When I started taking writing seriously and going to conferences and listening to podcasts and what have you, I often felt skeptical of what I heard. Now, sometimes that skepticism served me well (and has led to many of my blog posts), but other times that skepticism held me back. What's the difference?
Being skeptical of "writing rules" has, in the long (long) run, served me well, because it has actually led me to better understand the rules, why they are rules, how they work, and how and when to break them.
But sometimes it wasn't that I was skeptical of the rule itself. It was that I was skeptical that I needed to do X at all. I was skeptical that professionals actually did X.
For example, I would hear about Swain's scene structureand think, Yeah, there is no way most people actually do all this and put all this thought into their scenes.
Or I would run into a breakdown of character arcs and think, Yeah, there is no way most people actually do all these things to write a great character arc.
And in the community, I have brushed up against this same mentality from others. Viewpoint is a popular subject. "Do I really need to be in one character's viewpoint at a time?" or "Is it really that big of a deal that I described the viewpoint character's face?"
And I'm like . . . on the one hand, no, and on the other hand, well yes--if you want to write at a professional level and be competing professionally.
Not that no professional ever varies from that, but just that those are exceptions that prove the point.
And it's not even that every professional is consciously doing X thing. They may be doing it subconsciously. But X thing usually still needs to be there, for the story to sound professional.
So yes, you really do need to do X thing if you want to be writing at a professional level.
If you don't care about writing at a professional level, then obviously you don't have to. It's totally valid to write for a hobby or just for fun.
Now I will echo what I said last time. If I had waited until I understood all these things to start writing, I would have been waiting forever. And some things I would have never properly understood without the actual writing process. Yes, we need to be educated on how stories work, but it's also important to sit down and write.
#writing tips#writing tips and tricks#writing help#writeblr#writing advice#writer#writing reference#writing tip#writing
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On Medusa from the PJO TV Show: A Survivor and complicated antagonist
I'm not the only one obsessed with the version of Medusa and I know it.
She's beautiful, she's eerily calm, she says, "I am a survivor," and you feel that. She is the symbol for women out there who don't want to be bullied anymore, and more recently Medusa's head has become a symbol of women fighting back with the #MeToo movement.
But I'm not writing this to talk about Medusa as the Gorgon from the Greek mythos. I'm here to talk about how she was written in the PJO TV Show. So let's get into it, shall we?
Note that some ideas from this meta are expanded on from this Variety article where the writers of the show and Rick and Rebecca Riordan, speak about the changes they made from the book to show adaptation.
A victim of an abuse of power
In the Variety article, Rick says, “There are many versions from ancient times of what happened in that temple with Medusa and Poseidon and Athena. Who’s to blame? Who’s the abuser? What’s the real story? It’s fiction, but it certainly is important to acknowledge that there is abuse involved here. Abuse of power.”
Like in all Greek myths, there is never exactly one "correct" version of a story. In many, Medusa and Poseidon basically have a one-night stand. In some, they have a mutual affair. In others, it's Poseidon who seduces Medusa into Athena's temple, and in others still, Medusa is a victim of assault.
What most versions of the myths do have in common is the fact that Medusa and Poseidon had some sort of relationship that produced at least two children (Pegasus and Chrysaor). Most versions (both Greek and Roman) also depict her as a tragic figure and a beautiful maiden.
Athena is involved in earlier myths as the goddess who put her head onto the shield that averts the gaze of enemies. In later myths, she is the one who curses Medusa to transform into what we know of her today after Athena discovers her relationship with Poseidon on her sacred ground. Poseidon, of course, gets let off scot-free.
Depending on how you read into the myths, there could be a variety of different things happening here. So, I like what the show did. They made it vague enough that this is still middle-grade level like the books, but they also expanded on what the books couldn't because they are originally written from 12-year-old Percy's POV.
They basically keep nearly all aspects of the story and original myth possible. But in the end, Medusa is indeed a victim of abuse.
Her real curse is not that she is hideous and turns people who look into her eyes into stone, but that she is made invisible by the curse and she is not heard. Not one person can look her in the eye and live to tell the tale. She can't show her beauty, so she chooses to live with what she has. Even with a slanted hat covering half her face and eyes, you can tell she's statuesque (see what I did there?) and a beauty.
She chooses elegant clothes, pretty jewelry, a neat hairstyle, a hat that accents what you can see of her features, and red lipstick that makes you think she could be desirable.
But it doesn't change the fact that Poseidon had his way with her, told her he loved her, and then she was the only one left with the punishment for what happened between them. Athena cursed her out of anger.
Medusa revered Athena who is a virgin goddess, and of course, Athena would be upset when one of her devout followers is suddenly not a virgin too. Yet, Medusa mentioned earlier in her narrative in episode 3 that Athena never answered her prayers at all and never gave an indication that she was listening. So out of all the times she pays attention, it's to curse her for something she doesn't like?
Athena paid attention to Medusa when it was convenient to her and Poseidon left her when Medusa was no longer useful to him after she was cursed.
This version of Medusa is left to the wolves to defend herself and live with herself, a victim of abuse of power from multiple ends and from gods she thought she could trust.
Medusa and Sally Jackson
What I found the most interesting in episode 3 was the fact that Medusa sprinkles the seeds of doubt into Percy's mind that maybe the loving relationship he thought his mother had with Poseidon was not what actually happened.
In the Variety article, Rebecca Riordan says, that Percy has to think ‘What has my father done? Has he changed? How do I see myself in relationship to that?' while Rick says that “Percy can only judge his father by the wreckage he has left behind."
The fact of the matter is, Percy is 12. The book series is for a middle-grade audience, and the show is too. So people out there thinking "This could've been darker!" need to calm down and take a back seat. The books always did a good job of introducing deeper, darker topics to children. The show should stick to the same strategy to keep what made the original story so good.
But, what the show does here is make you think. If Poseidon could abandon Medusa like that, use her like that, then maybe Sally Jackson was abandoned and used too.
Her show story does a good job of connecting two women who had a relationship with the same god, connecting women who thought they could trust someone but were left to fend for themselves.
Look at where Sally Jackson is now at this point in the story. Not only was she forced to marry Gabe Ugliano to use his stench to protect her son who attracts monsters, but he is an abusive man both to her and to her son at least verbally. In the books, it's not suggested until the very end of The Lightning Thief that Gabe has been hitting her outside of Percy's POV. I've seen people forget that and immediately write off that Gabe wasn't "abusive enough". C'mon people. Just because Sally fights back verbally doesn't mean he wasn't still abusive in his actions in the first two episodes. Even if they decide not to suggest that he was also physically abusive to Sally, doesn't make him sneakily using her phone, demanding to ask why she has to use his car, and demanding for her to make food for him any less abusive.
Sally chose that life because the most important person in the world to her is her son, and even though Gabe is a total jerk, she convinced herself that she could take what he gave her because what he did to her was better than having her son being hunted and maimed by a bunch of Greek monsters because of who he is. To top it all off, now Hades stole her away into the Underworld.
Medusa, in a similar way, was left to fend for herself. She chose what was best for her, and lived in her new form because she could not change what had happened. She wants to save Sally too because she sees Percy as a boy whose mom was abused the same way she was.
Medusa's brilliant role as an antagonist
Now we're here, the main reason I wanted to write this giant thing. I saw a weird take on Twitter saying that Medusa in the show should not have been beheaded like she was in the books because then that negates her whole story and what she stood for.
Well, in my opinion, that is a shallow take on what the show's Medusa is trying to portray.
Medusa is an antagonist. In the myths, she is an antagonist. In the books, she is an antagonist. In the show, she is an antagonist. She gets in the way of Percy's path for his quest, she suggests that he doesn't need Annabeth and Grover, and that only she can save his mom with him.
In both the books and the show, there are hundreds of statues of people she had turned. Sure, some of them could've been attacking her, but there were a lot of people there who were victims too. I'm sure that screaming lady didn't mean to do something to Medusa, and Grover's Uncle Ferdinand? He was the only statue who appeared calm and collected and there was nothing to suggest that he was out to get her. He was only on his journey to find Pan.
Medusa has killed people, and innocent people at that. For thousands of years. And not just people she had to, and not a small amount. Then, she suggests that Percy let her kill his two friends who are children.
To her, Annabeth and Grover are dead weight because of their loyalty to the gods. Annabeth wants to be noticed by her mother. Grover wants to make sure the world doesn't end. I mean, they all don't want the world to end but I digress.
Medusa hates the gods. She wants to save a woman who is like her. She will protect that woman's child. But she will do anything and destroy anyone to get that end result.
A victim is still a victim even if they are a villain or an antagonist. Her methods don't make her any less of a victim of abuse. But that doesn't mean they are right.
So yes, when Percy runs away from her to keep his friends alive and she takes off her hat to stalk them around the room to turn them into stone, she does indeed need to be beheaded. There is literally no other way to defeat her. They can't look at her or they die. So they have to make her stop moving.
Unfortunately, a person like her with deep and complicated motivations would never change their mind when they feel they are betrayed. So, Percy did what he could to protect himself and his friends from dying.
Still, it's a poetic death as it is in the books. He mails her head to the gods and mentions Athena specifically for her punishment of Medusa. He's impertinent.
Medusa didn't deserve to be punished. But it's been millennia and she made her choices. The abusers did not get the punishment they deserved, but maybe now they will. Medusa's head in her (temporary) death, will be a testament to her victory, but also a testament to her downfall.
#pjo meta#percy jackon and the olympians#pjo#percy jackson and the olympians#pjo tv show#pjo tv show spoilers#medusa#percy#annabeth chase#grover underwood#sally jackson#poseidon#meta
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Yapping about Belos and his ending excessively while also analysing him to the best of my ability under the cut
So given how much art of him I've reblogged by now, it really shouldn't come as a surprise that Belos is my favourite character from the Owl House.
I could talk about him for HOURSS but I just want to talk about 2 of my favourite moments of him to highlight the parts of him I love the most.
This moment in Hollow Mind, when he gets the key in his hand and you can see the light in his eyes. It's the only time his eyes have the distinct shine in them like every other character has all the time, and it's cause of the key he's holding. The key to the human realm is the only thing that gives him that shine cause it's the only thing he genuinely cares about. Everything he's doing is to go back home and revel in glory, which, while selfish, adds so much to his character. He's not doing this JUST for power, he became an Emperor just to tear his own creations down. I just find something extremely poetic about that.
And the second moment -
THIS MOMENT. THIS MOMENT IN KING'S TIDE AJDHSJSHSJS
I'm still mad these flashbacks were never brought up in any big way cause THEY REALLY SHOULD HAVE BUT AHSKSJS I'M GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF.
Belos reliving his worst memories was always a concept that was going to be interesting because it's an insight into what really gets into the head of our main antagonist. What does the guy who is everyone else's worst fear have to fear. And the answer is himself.
The 3 memories he sees are him approaching Caleb with the knife, the actual murder as pictured above, and the creation of the grimwalkers.
What really gets me is that his eyes are wide when he recalls the first memory, but they look smaller in the second memory (in the screenshot). Maybe it's just the angle but I always interpreted it as his expression shifting to be one of genuine sadness for this particular memory. Because the mere fact that his most personal crime is also his worst memory is such an interesting concept. How does he live with that sort of guilt and worse, keep doing those same crimes but WORSE?
All of Hollow Mind could just be here really and I wouldn't complain. It's THE episode for Belos fans that really allowed us to dig into him, and the mere fact that he's consciously scratched off Caleb from all the happy memories as if to justify his own fratricide is a level of desperate coping that I just find so very interesting ajdjhsjjs
Not to mention that his inner self is a child, which, while a pretence by him, could still say something about how in his head, he still has not grown up and is still playing pretend, still playing witch hunter with every version of Caleb he creates, still playing god to finally achieve a fantasy so very childish and so frankly basic that it makes anyone watching from the outside think "wait, that's it? That's all this is for?" AND THAT'S THE POINT
Cause none of this needed to happen. None of this has a greater value than Philip trying to chase after lost dreams. All the plans he made, all his great power and his great empire amounts to nothing because he himself plans to destroy all of it to chase that childhood dream. Just like Luz, he entered the Boiling Isles to find a home, only his home was Caleb and he was never willing to love new things in the Isles, while Luz loved so much she literally changed the lives of everyone she met by loving them. And unlike Luz, Philip never grew out of that mindset, only burying it in layers and layers of lies and half truths.
In general, his relationship with Caleb is for sure the most interesting part of his character to me. The fact that he both repeatedly murders and repeatedly creates new grimwalkers in an endless cycle and then hallucinates Caleb looking at him with disdain implies so much about his dependancy on Caleb and the deepest parts of himself that know what he's doing is wrong. The parts that have broken free from the layers and layers of cognitive dissonance and have accepted that he was wrong, without any more justifications.
And now, to 'briefly' rant about him in season 3
Thanks to Them was juicy for character exploration, but I wish we actually got to see him react to the human realm properly. It's everything he's wanted, it's the one thing that still brings light into his life but the world he returned to would absolutely hate him. He's done all this for nothing. I wanted so badly to see how he copes with his guilt then, but they were short on time so I get it.
For the Future's hallucination scene makes this even more interesting cause of the depiction of him actually seriously suffering from something like hallucinations. It was dark as hell, and it was really interesting.
And then... WaD. All in all, a great finale. The only real big problem I had with it was Belos' ending.
After so much buildup to his depth and his motivations and his guilt and all his lies slowly collapsing around him, after everything he did to so many people, he deserved a better death. I don't think he didn't deserve death, I just think it happened too quick. Where was the final cathartsis from all his victims shunning him (Luz staring was perfect don't get me wrong, but the whole Hexsquad deserved to be there). Where was the moment he would finally no longer be able to lie to himself and he would be forced to accept that he did EVERYTHING he did, made all those great sacrifices, tortured so many people, just to fail and be at his victims' mercy after accomplishing nothing?
I understand the finale was juggling many MANY characters and plotpoints, but that's not stopping me from wishing for a better ending.
I wish I had had the motivation to draw something for this like I'd hoped, but a brief description about what kind of ending I'd have wanted will have to do.
I wish Luz saw his memories in the place in between with Papa Titan. It would reinforce her arc of feeling like they come from the same place too, if she saw Caleb leaving Philip and Philip's original goal of just wanting to get his brother back. I wish Luz saw all his "sad" memories and really started to question herself.
And then I would have wanted Papa Titan to shoot that down regardless, and then explain that while Belos may have started out a victim of his circumstances as an orphaned child in a cult, the Isles gave him chances to change. Memories of Philip in the Isles seeing Caleb happy, being given chances by witches, being given so many chances to change, and rejecting them accompanying this scene would be ideal. Really hammer in that he aas responsible for his own suffering and that he has absolutely no excuse for what he did to all his victims.
And then, in the final death scene, as he claims that as humans they are better than witches one last time, I wish the ghosts of all his victims showed up to prove him wrong. Every witch and grimwalker who choose to be better than him before they fell. Every member of the Hexsquad who believed in him and his regime at one point. Every single one of them a reminder of how his lies can't even convince himself anymore.
And finally, his own brother, a fellow human, who appears before him. I imagine Caleb looking at him with pity, almost sympathy, before a quiet acceptance comes onto his face and he turns away from him. He walks towards the crowd and chooses their side, next to Evelyn. Neither Caleb nor Luz say a single word. There is nothing left to be said to him anymore. Every single person on the Isles, human or witch, has turned against him now.
If anything could break his will, I think this would be it. I imagine him phasing through his different forms, trying to find a way to justify himself in each one, gradually desolving into desparate screams, before the boiling rain melts him away like in canon (except without the stomping please).
Aaaand that's it, no more notes. Thanks so much to all the Wittebane fans in the community who have kept his fanbase fed when the show didn't meet our standards and who prompted the line of thought that led to this post.
There are so many of you all who inspired and made my fandom experience fun and created so much out of just Philip, Caleb, and Evelyn (and all your OCs of course!!) so I'm just going to shoutout the ones I remember off the top of my head -
@talisman975
@jess-the-vampire
@calebsrottingcorpse
@owlyhouse
@anona1-mous
@captainmera
@moonmeg
@azure-blaze92
@a-magpie-in-the-bi
@a-magpie-in-gravesfield
This is no particular order and I'm surely missing more so this is by no means exhaustive, but this is just a shoutout for those who kept this fandom going. Y'all are the real troopers for sure.
That's all I got, but I'm posting some old Belos art soon! Cheers all, and may the terrible awful no good goo babygirl keep inspiring us for all the great art <3
#toh#the owl house#belosfanstakeover#emperor belos#philip wittebane#jewel talks about stuff#character analysis#watching and dreaming
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i think his death was just shoehorned in at the end but like. i wouldn't even have minded much if they'd killed izzy in say, episode 5 and then had his death make an impact. kill him at the BEGINNING of the episode, even, and let it carry through
but killing him in the last 10 minutes and hurrying through it comes off far more as, "god, we're so scared about our budget being even LOWER if we do get renewed for s3 and this guy isn't part of our main romance but we don't know what to do with him and his salary is higher than a lot of our other cast, we have to kill him off quickly and get him out of the way"
esp bc like. killing izzy distracts from several other storybeats. ed and stede running an inn with izzy's corpse rotting in the garden. lucius and pete's matelotage is overshadowed by the grief for izzy. the big flee from the british even was about supporting izzy and then killing him off sort of pointlessly
like i'm sorry but like. as much as they can try to go "oh well, it was a mentor thing" or "oh well, it was a natural end of his arc" or whatever like. if it was about any of that they would have planned for that and written that.
if you have to give 10 interviews telling everyone what the point of your story was, you did not write a very good story. if you have to explain that, oh, izzy was meant to be ed's father or mentor, because you put in literally 0 scenes showing that, then... perhaps he wasn't that. perhaps you made that up last minute to explain what you've done.
maybe you made a choice for budgetary reasons, didn't execute it very well because you were under stress and freaked out about the aforementioned budgetary reasons, and then you had to think up an explanation. maybe for whatever reason, budget aside, your actor told you he wouldn't be able to make it back for s3 and the same thing happened. maybe you were worried that a guy you originally intended to be a two-dimensional antagonist was being played too well and was taking up too much emotional space in your tv show and you needed to get rid of him.
all of these would have been entirely understandable reasons to kill off his character, except that like. you could have also just sent him away and left it ambiguous, or had him die offscreen after being gone for a few episodes, and yes, it would have been sad enough but like. it wouldn't have taken away from the already slapdash narrative you were trying to accomplish
like that's the thing that frustrates me about the whole thing, it's just a complete lack of basic craftsmanship
there are other flaws like... i hate how ed and stede are meant to suddenly be happy together when ed hasn't been given time enough to grow and be comfortable, i hate that zheng was supposedly outsmarted by the brits and had her entire fleet abruptly blown up in one scene, i hate how oluwande and jim and zheng and archie aren't given enough screentime to play out their relationship dynamic(s), i hate lots of messy shit that doesn't do justice to the characters being given but like
izzy's death is just the biggest example
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I don't like hazbin hotel (shocker)
A lot of the problems come down to three things: 1. Viv's issue with being unable to let a concept go, 2. Her inability to maintain a consistent tone, and 3. The fact that it only has eight episodes. Look at helluva boss for example. So many villains get cliffhangers that say "oooOoOoOo I'm gonna reappear in another episode, just you wait!!" And they either just don't or the execution is completely flubbed stryker-style. And what is the show supposed to be? Is it a slice of life comedy about imps killing people on the surface? That concept was basically abandoned like five episodes in. A serialized drama about a complex relationship? Nope! the exploration of Blitz and Stolas's toxic relationship is returned to status quo for gag comedy. OOP! We've got two new characters to center the episodes around while abandoning the core cast!
Now look at Hazbin. I really liked the pilots concept! The idea of sinners being redeemed was interesting, the animation was nice, the characters were compelling, and I was really interested to see how they would develop over time and become better people! Then episode one of the new season comes out. Suddenly its about how heaven sucks actually (Off topic but can we talk about how in the opening exposition, Charlie talks about how angels kill demons to keep them from rising against them, and then in the meeting with Adam talks about overpopulation? What's up with that?) and quickly turns into a war against heaven plot.
You know the main concept of the show? Redemption of sinners? Yeah. I can count how many episodes are about that on a couple fingers. And count how many characters are actually there for redemption on two. And there are so many side characters they like to focus on rather than, I don't know, Focus on Charlie?
Thats another problem! Charlie barely has a focus. You'd think, as the main character, she'd get some sort of development, or some kind of arc, or at least more of a personality than "sunshine princess with big dreams". I don't use this word very often or very lightly, but shes very much mary-sue ish. Her obvious issues (IE seemingly weirdly fundamentalist christian ideas on redemption, constant overstepping of boundaries, the fact that she barely seems to put anything into her relationship with Vaggie while Vaggie falls over herself to make sure Charlie's happy, Very visible savior complex) are never discussed or adressed, and the fact that her hotel is based on an idea that doesn't have any evidence of actually even being possible is only ever addressed by antagonists who are supposed to be in the wrong. She doesn't change, she doesn't do much, but still manages to get everyone to sacrifice themselves for a hotel they're supposed to be super attached to. But we're never shown WHY they care.
And don't get me started on the side characters. The V's are only important in 1-2 episodes and never again, Carmilla exists as a plot device, Lucifer's... Lucifer, Adam is a one-note sexist strawman, and they just... Keep introducing characters. Pentious, Cherry, Mimsy, Cannibal town! You care about these characters! You must you must you must!!!! What do you mean you don't know who these characters are? Of course you do! They were in the plot important pilot that you have to get on youtube to watch!
These characters could have been explored so much better if there was more time in the show. Yes, thats the fault of Amazon, but when you're working with constraints, you need to learn how to work within these constraints. Keeping the "Heaven bad, hell good" thing for the second season while leaving the first season to focus on character development would have made the final battle so much more impactful. It's like an anti steven universe. People complain about how much filler steven universe has, but without that "filler" we wouldn't care about the characters as much as we do. Hazbin hotel, on the other hand, is like watching all the "intense, plot important" episodes without any context of who these characters are and why we should care about them.
At some point, when you're working in the industry, you need to learn that you need to trim the fat. Get rid of certain characters and plot points. Kill some characters off if you need. Wait to introduce a concept. If you can only work with a short amount of episodes, focus on making a good story with well developed characters first and a grand finale later. If you can wait, Wait. If you can't, don't. I know there's a second season but I genuinely don't know how it can go from here. Adam's dead, a sinner is redeemed, the hotel was rebuilt bigger and better than ever... what now?
TL;DR Hazbin Hotel reminds me of me and my friends old edgy gods and goddesses discord roleplay from when I was 13 than an actual planned story.
Sorry for the essay. Its honestly painful seeing something I looked forward too for years flop so hard on the execution. I love the concept, the songs, the animation is.... okay, Angel dust is best boy, but everything else is just eh. Mid. It tries to be so grandiose but I just felt bored and very confused throughout the whole thing, and very uncomfortable during episode 4. Its not offensively bad (hell, its barely even as offensive as people say it is) But its just. Not good in my opinion.
#long post#very long post#hazbin critical#hazbin hotel critical#vivziepop critical#vivziepop neg#hazbin hotel neg
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Ah, Sarcastic Chorus...
Let's break down the 'I'm going to fix you' argument for Katara.
First off, no one can 'fix' anyone. Going into a relationship thinking you're going to change somebody and make them different is going to make that relationship bad. It's not necessarily toxic, but bad. Why? Because it's not your job to 'fix' the other person. The only one who can do that is the other person. You can only 'fix' yourself.
A lot of relationships fail because of these expectations.
I'm going to talk about fanfiction here for a moment since I've been writing a Zutara story. Since Zutara isn't Canon (but we really wish it was) and all, I only have what does happen in Canon and what happens in fanfiction tropes I see a lot.
In the show we get these wonderful little moments where Zuko and Katara are fighting each other (book one), and it sets a nice theme of opposites attract. The motifs are there with all the color symbolism... it's nice. That does immediately set our brains to 'oh they are so going to get together'. There are a lot of nuances to that, and it's lovely.
I'm not going to lie, Katara is in that group dynamic of 'The Heart' role, and yes, it does put a little pressure on her character to care for everyone. It's my least favorite role for a character and it's a bitch to write when you want that character to be independent.
Anyway, back to Katara. She's the mother figure, the caring and nurturing one that has to help everyone else sort out their problems while she has to internalize her own. It sucks. It really does. So when we get to TSR in Book 3 and she is practically berated by everyone for not acting like herself... she gets pissed, rightfully so because she had to help everyone else with their bullshit until Zuko finally joined. This is where Zuko becomes a foil for her.
Just to be clear, a foil is basically a character that encourages change to happen within a dynamic. It can be a group or a pairing. Usually, that character had opposite goals or a different personality. Zuko started out as the antagonist, but when he joined the Gaang, he's now a foil for the entire group.
Back to what I was saying... what was I saying? Oh yes!
So Katara is rightfully pissed because she needs to deal with her trauma when everyone is suddenly 'this isn't who you are'. No, this is exactly who she is. She is very much like her element. Water is fluid, it can be calm and it can be a torrent... which is exactly the way she is written. It's always been her, she just put everyone else's problems above her own. Now that she has to deal with her problems, it's chaotic for everyone else.
And yes, she does have survivors guilt.
That is her main problem, so now she has to deal with it. And Zuko gives her that chance.
This is getting pretty long, so I'll try to wrap everything up here.
Zuko doesn't need to be 'fixed' he's already done that himself by himself. Joining the Gaang was essentially a fresh start for him (I use that term lightly) which is why he is so awkward when he goes to talk to them at the Western Air Temple (or is it Eastern? I don't remember ahhhh. Fibro brain!) And it's so cute and I just want to hug him. I digress, but it's great.
He's got a shitty past, but he is trying to change himself even further by accepting responsibility for what he did to them individually. In Katara's case, he has to work hard for her. It's lovely, and the payoff is great. I know for sure that is what I see in their relationship. He cares so much about her that he works hard to win her trust again. Why? Because she showed him compassion in CoD, and that struck a chord in him. Her strength is her compassion when he was taught by his sociopathic narcissist father that emotions like that are a weakness.
That my dear Kat*angers is why we love this ship.
It's a beautiful dynamic between them that I would have loved to see Bryke explore, but they just gave us the most vanilla bland version of a romance they could find by pulling a D&B (Game of Thrones writers) and subverting expectations. It sucks.
TLDR version.
Katara doesn't have to fix Zuko.
#dont go into a relationship thinking you can fix someone thats bad#fix yourself and it will work out fine#zuko is an awkward turtleduck#anti anti zutara#pro zutara#pro katara#zutara#anti kataang#anti bryke
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"every major baddie problem in the lmk universe is caused by SWK not dealing with his shit properly"
exept he dealt with all the shit and i'm tired of people ignoring it to paint him as an ignorant, uncaring bastard.
(very very minor s4 spoilers, so the cut)
Demon Bull King? Got his ass whooped and was sealed away for however long years it took for an entire ass megapolis to be built literally on top of him, causing absolutely no trouble to anyone whatsoever. Oh, and what sealed DBK? The staff. And if you'd care to know SWK outside of the LEGOverse, you'd realize how strong was SWK's resolve to seal DBK - keep him relatively safe, one might say - by using his trusty staff. The guy would literally die seven times over than let go of this thing.
Also people like, ignore the fact that canonically SWK stuck around the area (for the most part to stalk MK, but still), so he was literally there to deal with the DBK family if something went southwards? He didn't, because MK was able to hold the staff and the legend of the Monkie Kid then began.
(also zero antagonistic feelings towards DBK from SWK, like, whatsoever. i bet the dude actually wanted DBK to be free, cuz he felt bad abt it)
Macaque? In a morally gray manner, still very dealt with. SWK killed the dude. He was literally as dealt with as it can be. Or what, should SWK have predicted that after thousand upon thousand of years later a spirit (he dealt with too) would pull Mac out of Diyu? Yeah, I'd like to see that thought process.
SWK isn't omnipotent, he isn't even that far-thinking. Never was, actually. So holding that against him is like, very stupid. Especially because you don't do it to any other character in the show.
Spider Queen? Wouldja look at that, also pretty much dealt with. We don't really know how exactly, but we know that she lost literally every ounce of power she had and had to resort to living in the sewers, prolly never to cause troubles ever again because, well, we never even heard of her until the special. SQ was pulled onto the scene by the Lady Bone Demon.
Which is, again, something SWK couldn't predict even if he tried.
And now into the fun part.
Lady Bone Demon? Was sealed away by Tripitaka and also didn't cause any trouble until DBK decided to use this freaky coffin he knew literally zero things about for his plans.
"But he should've killed LBD!!!"
He tried. Believe him he tried. This decision just wasn't his, and if you hold it against him and not Tripitaka, shame on you.
"He should have told the crew about LBD!"
He really couldn't have.
And people thinking that are blatantly ignoring SWK's character. Not that obnoxious fan favorite uncaring bastard one.
SWK deals with things on his own. That is just how he is, how he always was and he never learned to do it the other way around. If that's a fight, he'll do it, because he's damn strong. If it's to scout the mountain, he'll do it, because Bajie is a lazy ass motherfucker. If it's to find food for Trip, he'll do it, cuz he's fast and his eyes are awesome.
Same applies here.
LBD? Tried to kill her and Trip didn't let me -> Basically I didn't do the job right -> WTF I always do my job right, I am Sun Wukong hello???
It was, dare I say, a question to his pride, and SWK will forever be prideful. And when he acts on his pride, he does it with style and flare, in the most stupid way possible.
Hence all of the s2 off-screen investigation arc.
"Well, he should've told about the Samadhi rings!"
It would've endangered Mei, questioned his at this point in time very shaky authority and ability to handle shit, and prolly would've fucked Mei up a very whole lot.
You don't go and say to a person that they are a part of the most dangerous seal in the world and could die and destroy everything they love because you fucked up long time ago (again, very much jabbing at his mentality of 'Sun Wukong can do no bad job, and if he does he'll better fucking die trying to make it right').
Was his plan a shitty one? Obviously. Like, no question asked, it was a shit show of a plan. Very in character, though (SWK handles all the shit because he thinks he can).
And this little character arc of SWK not learning a damn thing results in him, oh golly you would not believe it, running off to do things on his own because he thinks he can handle it, because he's THE Sun Wukong who already handled this in the past.
Who woulda thought.
MINOR S4 SPOILERS START HERE
And the new addition to the baddie group, Azure Lion. Won't be addressing all 'SWK is a betraying bitch' because the show refuses to give us SWK's perspective and I hate it.
But you already know what I will say, because you know the truth. He was dealt with. Got his ass whooped and sealed away in the inky scroll. To be pulled back onto the scene by a third party that Wukong literally couldn't have known about.
See a pattern?
SWK deals with the shit, some unknown variable meddles in it, suddenly SWK is an incapable asshole who left the problems for the poor lmk crew to deal with.
MINOR S4 SPOILERS END HERE
Wukong did his job. Someone fucked him over by undoing his job. He tried to deal with it again the only way he knows how, but the solo play doesn't fly anymore, so he made it kinda worse.
He's not an unbearable, incapable asshole because of it.
And I'm tired of people not seeing this.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk, I am Sun Wukong Apologist till the day I die.
Have a nice day!
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wanted to join in on that meta post by saying yeah, even if we view joker’s and akechi’s relationship as special compared to the others, akechi is still written under the constraints of p5, and an antagonist to boot. like. vanilla had his confidant as automatic bc (iirc) they thought they couldn’t fit it in properly! which is crazy, even tho the automatic rank ups have an interesting implication (such as, akechi will always be rank 10 by the end no matter what you do). i understand that ppl probably wanted someone to talk sense into the thieves for their unwittingly callous actions, but not by the guy who decided to go thru with his 11/20 plan lol
(this post)
YEAH like, I love Akechi. I adore him. But I have SO many OPINIONS about this mans. like. I'm not going berate anyone for how they write characters, that's the freedom of fandom, but I am going to stand over here with my opinions and contrary thoughts and chitchat about them in my space
I know that very often it is because people want someone to refute what canon has shown us (because canon's writing disagrees with it's desired goals as mentioned in that post). They want someone to go "Look at Joker, look at what's happened to him, don't you care? How risky this was?"
But okay I'm actually going to back up a bit!
(this got long)
What other choice was there for 11/20?
Because the answer is not "they could have taken Akechi in a fight."
The goals of the interrogation room/metaverse plan:
Escape with Joker alive
Trick Shido and the conspiracy into believing Joker has died
and you know? you know? you cannot do that latter bullet point if you just beat up Akechi
So enlighten me. How, exactly, were the thieves supposed to come up with a different plan in under 20 days? One where Joker would live, where the conspiracy would believe he had died, and importantly, one that at that point in time cannot count on Akechi being a turncoat. They have no reason to trust that he would
"Don't you care about how risky this was? There had to have been other ways."
We don't get Shido's name as Akechi's employer here until after the phonecall reporting the death, I believe. They cannot change Shido's heart in time to avert this because they do not have the information. The interrogation room plan, genuinely, was one of the smartest ideas they had. It accomplished exactly what they needed to. These are teens in a life-or-death situation, who notoriously have MANY trust issues with adults for good reason, especially since society is so corrupt that a hitman can easily walk into a police department and assassinate a high-profile criminal and get away with it with help (remember the guard at the door?) The other options are basically "change your identity and flee the country" or "literally actually die" lets be real here!
SO
Akechi, let's be honest with ourselves here, would primarily be pissed off that the thieves got one over on him! And if he is concerned about the lasting trauma of it all, or how risky the plan was, he is seeing this and approaching it from the angle of knowing it worked.
(Better options for sense-talking: Sojiro! Sojiro is right there! Takemi! Iwai! Kawakami! Yoshida! All important responsible adult figures to Joker and at least some of the thieves.)
In my opinion if Akechi wants to snark at the thieves about the plan in any way regarding how much it fucks up Joker and how it was risky, they are more than allowed to fire back shots at him for making it necessary and shooting Joker in the head in the first place.
I think people often use it as a shorthand, to show that Akechi cares about Joker, but also as a way to emphasize the importance of Akechi to Joker (compared to the rest of the thieves). It's easier to ignore the fact that he killed two of the thieves's parents when it comes to Joker being in a relationship with him, as long as it can be shown that he's the one that really cares. That he wouldn't put Joker through something so fucked up with his care (hilarious, laughable, he shot Joker in the head). It separates "Akechi and Joker" from all the phantom thieves in a way.
(Honestly sometimes it feels like ship bashing/character bashing but for ALL the phantom thieves with how intensely some people write it! beyond even the point of exploring Atlus fucking up characterization to pretend to have a blank slate silent protag)
BUT like I said in the post, it also points out a major flaw with convincing players that the rest of the thieves DO care in the game. Because the thieves are never really given a chance to show that. It's implied, and it's clear the game wants you to believe they care, but we don't get scenes addressing specific stuff like this enough.
Joker is confident, and cocky, we see that with that bastard smile in the interrogation room after getting "shot" in those cutscenes. It is genuinely a plan to be proud of, and it hails back to his original persona being Arsène. Arsène, who escaped from prison simply by disguising himself and pretending he had already escaped and put a body double in his place. Arsène, who pulled off a robbery while in jail. Arrogant and self-assured and cocky, the interrogation room plan is genuinely something the likes that would be worthy of Arsène's name.
He can be proud of the plan, and also traumatized by it. But he actively agreed to this plan, probably helped come up with it (where does everyone get the idea that it was Makoto's plan? genuine question). Joker is not a hapless victim of other's whims, he also had agency. So many of the parallels between Joker and Akechi are how they exercise what agency they have while being stripped of traditional power and victimized by society.
Honestly? Honestly? In my personal opinion, having Akechi berate the thieves for the plan is disrespectful to his rivalry with Joker, along with his own characterization.
He holds Joker as his equal. Equal in agency, in skill. If he looks at Joker and says, "why would you go along with such a foolish plan?" if he looks at the thieves and says "why would you ever put your precious leader through this?" he is taking away Joker's agency and choices. One of Akechi's focal points is agency. If he sees Joker as equal in this, and he denies Joker his agency, he is also taking it away from himself.
Akechi's cocktail of emotions regarding the assassination can manifest in so many different ways, and he can translate that to anger at the thieves rather than himself for putting Joker through that, but that would be his emotions regarding himself being misdirected more than anything.
Akechi has too much respect for Joker to deny Joker his agency in a plan that was good enough to fool him.
Respecting agency and admiring a brilliantly crafted plan also doesn't mean ignoring trauma that ocurred from actions taken under duress.
(At least, it doesn't mean that as long as you're not Atlus)
#egg speaks#egg answers#ask#answered#Anonymous#p5#persona 5 meta#persona 5#goro akechi#akira kurusu#akeshu#this also doesn't at all get into my thoughts on people making Akechi the PT leader in situations where it can't be akira#but that's another topic lol#unedited unbetaed it is 2am these are post-nap words pre-sleep words#enjoy!
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I frequently think about how challenging it must be to write convincing antagonists. It's relatively easy to justify morally driven, righteous thinking and good-hearted actions (that is, if justification of something like this is at all needed). Pulling off solid reasoning behind uncompromising, dedicated malice is harder. I think that is because benevolence comes naturally to us -- that's what our evolution as social beings taught us to be beneficial. So more often than not villains come off as cartoonish, false and awkward with their cardboard-thin beliefs and exaggerated petty grudges. And that's why it's always exciting to see characters who are objectively horrible people but still exhibit intricately nuanced and dimensional personalities you can at some extent empathize with.
I guess that is also why I like Toji as an antagonist so much. (Yes, this is a Toji Fushiguro post,, Why do I feel like I should I be sorry?) He is essentially a case study of a deeply flawed, disrespectful and inexcusably violent character with a plethora of other gruesome traits (I mean, the anime adaptation isn't even remotely subtle about showing his nastiness) who's also... just another ordinary human being. He eats take-out food. He overspends inpulsively. He watches sport and gambles. He loves and misses his wife and settles down while he's with her. Toji has harmless basic needs like entertaining himself with a hobby in his free time and having someone to keep him company while doing so. He seems to seek simple human connection (like when he suggests that he and Shiu go eat out in some fancy place after receiving their reward). He gets genuinely amused with the job's destination which is Okinawa and expresses his confusion over the cult's representative's bigoted speech in a mundane, kind of goofy way. He's curious when something goes slightly off a pre-established course of action and asks Shiu about it. He gets nervous and tries to calm himself down by strategizing. He thinks of his family in his last moments.
I'm saying all this with no intention to condone Toji's terrible actions or make them seem more forgivable. I guess it just drives home a point for me that while he destroyed the destiny of entire Jujutsu society he was really just minding his own business by going through another job. Yes, he was in some way taking out his spite on the Jujutsu world by trampling on the 'blessed talents' of both Gojo and Geto, but there was never an emphasis put on it. Defeating two Special Grade sorcerers wasn't a prime event in his life (well, up untill he died as a consequence of it, I guess). Even if there were some strings attached to this job, Toji was in it first of all for the money.
He's mundane. The extent of his cruelty and filth is sickening. He's just like those people you could pass by in the street. He's so morally corrupt it's alienating. He's both unthinkably horrible and still just an ordinary person.
Toji is a walking representation of the duality of man, really, and I find it truly admirable how Gege tied all those conflicting traits into a coherent and convincing character.
#jujutsu kaisen#jjk#jjk analysis#toji fushiguro#shiu kong#hidden inventory arc#star plasma vessel#really i don't think there's a character i don't find at least in some way appealing#so it's kind of weird for me to see people fighting over characters#and i genuinely find toji to be an amazing villain#he's immensely interesting to think about him#and the body of meaning he introduces in the narrative#he was a character who opened my eyes to the theme of cycles in jjk#all that perpetuating the cycle which he himself was a victim of stuff#all that said#i can't stand him#i hate him and everything he did SO MUCH#jjk meta
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I LOVE FICS WITH NURSES IN THEM, I AM A NURSE, MY GUILTY PLEASURE IS X NURSE!READER FICS SO YOU’VE TICKLED THAT SPECIAL PART OF MY BRAIN AHHHH
OOOO BESTUE UR GONNA LOVE THIS ONE. I will say though she's not exactly a super conventional nurse bc she's a mutant with a Healing ability so she hides it behind being a nurse so she can still help people and hopefully not get caught. She strays away from the full on nurse thing (just slightly, still same field basically) as her different lives go on. Also I know the arcs I have are very tight together on a timeline perspective and I want to let yall know, that you do not want to know why that is ☺️
Anyway, I basically have most of the major and minor plot points made decided on right now, and am going to take a minute to work on some requests before circiling back and starting on this fic. I'm gonna post it hopefully regularly throughout the summer and since it's what??? 13 chapters i think?? (3 chapters per arc/life, 1 for epilogue) But very, very heavy on plot. I'm super excited to start posting it bc I can't wait to see everyone's theories about the main antagonist, and also I really hope yall are going to pick up all the little details and things I'm putting into it.
#goofyspeaks#x men#x men comics#Wolverine#wolverine headcannons#wolverine x reader#wolverine#logan howlett headcannons#logan howlett x reader
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With all due respect, maybe people feel like they’re not allowed to post about Izzy because people have argued that sharing the opinion that Izzy was not acting benevolently in Ed’s best interests during season 1 is “spreading izzy anti rhetoric” and should not be allowed in the #Izzy Hands tag.
Look I'm way too lightheaded to answer this with my usual thoroughness, but this is a... 20 month? ...old red herring that has been clarified as such on more occasions than I can count so I'm sure I can find some examples.
So here's the short and sweet version. And here's the multiple, extensive attempts by predominantly poc bloggers to draw attention to and reduce the massive harassment campaign in this fandom with methods that did include asking people to not tag character hate.
Your hypothetical S1 meta was never the problem we were complaining about, though tbh people insisted on being absurd about those too. Yes if you put a meta in the #Izzy Hands tag then people who like Izzy are going to see it and might, gasp, respond because that's kind of what tags are for. Yes tagging negative meta as #Izzy Critical is basic politeness for fans to filter and a logically better organization system if you want people who are interested in your meta to find it and have a tag to hang out in without "the canyon" (which pre-S2 meant everyone who talked about Izzy positively / had the wrong Edward takes). This is the logic behind #OFMD Critical as well. No I cannot guarantee you will never receive a single annoying comment for posting in a public forum but you have got to be real about how big a deal that is before declaring that you are bravely risking harassment by posting a broadly popular and fairly lukewarm take about Izzy being a shithead. 🙄
Also since this is presumably coming off this... If you genuinely think "the canyon" (pre-S2 era or current near-dead state) is a boogeyman mob who hate every single aspect of OFMD except the loser antagonist who they have woobified beyond measure and think is the main character and right in all things, and will relentlessly attack anyone who dares to suggest otherwise... yes, I do think you're pretty stupid. 🤷♀️ Like that is a pretty stupid thing to believe if you have any knowledge whatsoever of "the canyon" and a pretty stupid thing to say out loud if you are just taking others' word for it.
Learn to be normal about people having different interpretations of a tv show
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