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arkiwii · 2 months

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Oh! iirc you mentioned liking Eyja/Ifrit as a ship so... 2 and 4 for them?

YIPPEE Eyjafrit!! the barbecue gang!

2. Why I do or don't ship them.

in this essay I will

alright so, you may know that I am, in fact, rarely into crackships. but what's fun about Eyjafrit is that it might be the number one ship for both characters! I guess it mostly started as a joke and because they seem roughly the same age, barbecue and fire, you know the thing. so far they've interacted like once in canon, and it's in Ifrit's operator record;

it's not much but it's yuri. there's also the implication that they seem to know each other or be close, because Ifrit doesn't know the names of Mint or Beeswax, instead calling them "black ears" or "sand girl",

but she knows Eyjafjalla, which is probably one of the hardest names to remember!! and for Ifrit, to remember a name this hard to spell, it means a lot

BUT outside of these little interactions, the reason why I really love them together is because I think they would help each other to shine as a characters

Ifrit is shown as a really dynamic girl, but most of all, as a caring and careful person. Adele pretty much counts as disabled at this point, her ears and eyes getting gradually worse. the idea that Ifrit, who is usually mistaken as impulsive, would be ready to help out and take care of Adele, is extremely cute to me. it would also show how much she had grown up, and how the way Silence and Saria took care of her when she was herself weak influenced her. we also know she takes courses at the medical department, she really wants to help others! and her little silly side would definitely be great to help bring a smile on Adele's face and give her a break from studying and work

on Eyjafjalla's side, the concept of family is equally really important, and that she lost her parents had changed who she is and forced her to "grow up" too fast. I like the idea that having Ifrit would be like a new family to her, especially that I'm sure that Silence and Saria would love to know her (and since Eyjafjalla is a research herself, I'm a hundred percent sure they'd go along!). it can be a really nice family substitute, and help Adele to take less on herself and focus on her happiness

the last dramatic point I really like is how both have really bad case of Oripathy, meaning they probably won't live long. that they decide to spend these last years together, knowing their fate, gives a really sad dimension, but also comfort

also please please look at this fanart it's everything to me

4. How many other characters would see the chimestry of the couple before themselves do.

ooh boy I'm sure that if Silence saw them being close she'd tear up proudly and absolutely support this. Saria would not really notice anything, but Silence got this and would probably tell her that she thinks their precious daughter might have got a crush. on Eyjafjalla's side, she doesn't seem very close to anyone in particular at Rhodes Island, but maybe Earthspirit would notice something!

#expending lesbian lore #also shout-out to many ADORABLE fanarts of them together #it just convinced me to get into the ship #arknights #askiwi #thanks for the ask!!

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racharii · 9 days

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coming from an enby whos tme (tho i myself am not transmasc), i feel like a lot of transmasc people are doing this "have their cake and eat it too" thing where they want to be perceived as men or men adjacent, in our society a part of the oppressor class, while also still wanting to benefit from structures meant to protect against said class. specifically ones that have been set up in queer spaces. ive met quite a few trans men who were just as vehemently misogynysitic as your average dude bro. and (this is speculation based on convos ive had with trans men im not in every transmascs head) a lot of transmascs have a lot of internalized misogyny that they project onto trans women. ive had an irl ex friend of mine say something that i think encapsulates this particular issue fairly well. this was like 8 years ago, we were talking about trans rep in media (specifically orange is the new black iirc) so im paraphrasing; 'its messed up that we (afabs in this context) are sidelined for people who used to be men, we cant escape the patriarchy.' that was horribly transmisogynistic, so lets unpack it.

it assumes that trans women are just men

it assumes sex essentialism, that they and i were just women. that we were just poor Females having 'our space' encroached on by mean 'former men.'

im not saying that all transmascs think like this ofc. #notallmen. im saying that some do, and enough transmascs have internalized misogyny and not enough self reflection.

just because you are trans doesnt mean you are immune to bigotry and recouping oppressive structures. none of us are free of Sin™️. you as an individual have to make an effort to reflect on your thoughts and actions and how they might affect yourself and others, so that you are not a willing participant of our communities oppression.

for example, ive talked a lot privately about my journey to being a better person, (and pobodies nerfect, its always a learning process, you always will have things you can improve on. and thats okay, were all just human) i initially hated it/its pronouns. 'it' gave me the ick. i was called 'it' as a kid incessantly to make fun of my gender presentation, i couldnt fathom someone else finding peace and even euphoria in using it/its. i bought into the conservative talking points about neopronouns and it/its being detrimental to the trans community. they were "the bad transes" and me? well i use they/them but shakespeare used the singular they so im fine :), im one of the good ones. then one day, i was listening to some video essay idr what or who, but something they said stuck with me, "if it/its makes me happy, why do you care? how does 'it' hurt you really?" my trauma is not everyones trauma, people will find comfort in things that i wont, and thats okay. 'it' hurt me when i was young, by cruel kids and uncaring adults. why am i hurting my community, my fellow transes, by continuing to deny them their autonomy to identify how they like? so i got over 'it.' i saw the real harm was the fucking wedge being driven between us by conservative grifters trying to pick off the weakest in the herd before they go in for the rest of us.

visibility isnt necessarily a good thing for marginalized people. transfemmes are the biggest target of hate in our community atm. they unfortunately serve as the canary. global fascism is on the rise and to be frank, a targeted hate campaign against a trans woman is asking for her to be killed. outed, paraded as a freak, doxxed, swatted, killed. protect trans women, fascism doesnt stop with one group nor will you be saved by being "one of the good ones." trans solidarity, even the people you dont like, even if you think theyre icky or gross or whatever the fuck else you do Not give up trans solidarity. you dont make callout posts, you dont send death threats, you dont send hate mail, if you dont like someone Block Them and move on.

we stand together or we will be eradicated.

#sorry this turned into a rant about impending fascism #but its all connected #rach rants #real cut a liberal a fascist bleeds vibes here recently #also im not proof reading this so sorry for typos #trans

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unclefathersantateddy · 3 months

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what are your thoughts on teddy's relationship with his family and how they were abusive? what about his younger sister?? and his relationship with his ex wife where he was also abused by her 🤔 how do you think these affected his personality and relationships. sorry this is an English essay ass prompt but im genuinely curious lmao i love analyzing family history (obvs)

Light coming in with the big gun from the get-go!!! Hahaha thank you for a great question!!!

So from what we know about Teddy's mom, she's a bit of a Wild Card™. Likes to do what she wants, when she wants, isn't exactly your traditional grandma.

But given the majority of people become docile with age (rather than more adventurous), it stands to reason /why/ she waited until retirement to do all the things she enjoyed? Could that be why her and Teddy's dad always used to argue?

Teddy's age places his parents as either dating or hooking up around the 70s/80s. Assuming they've never left the US, this wasn't exactly a pinnacle time for women's rights.

So we have an oppressive timestamp, a turbulent relationship, and then an extinction burst (Teddy's mom doing ALL her interests in retirement) post-breakup.

These factors together connote that teddy's father may have been restrictive/disapproving of teddy's mother's interests, hobbies, passions - or may be indicative of teddy's father's disdain/nonchalance towards his wife in general. (I'm assuming they were married because 'merica). Which would be an apt representation of Boomer relationships, the whole "can't live with them, can't live without them" (totally healthy /s).

But on the flipside to a potentially controlling father, his mom IS a wild card lol. If she's still up to mad shit in retirement, WHAT was she into in her prime?? Was she Fully Unhinged™? Given her, "muchness" (for lack of better words), it stands to reason it may transfer as "feisty" or "fiery" during arguments with teddy's dad, so whilst his dad may have been authoritarian, his mom may have been inflammatory and antagonistic.

As for his sister GIVE HER SOME GD SCREEN TIME!!!!!!! WHO ARE DANA AND DAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanna see if she's exactly like Teddy or if she's his antithesis, are they both so interested in learning about the lives of every stranger they meet? That's beautiful bro. I hope so. I both want her to be an almost identical twin to teddy, and to look exactly like her bf Dan (like the Van Houtens in the Simpsons). I think I want Dana to have the spunkiness that teddy lacks. I love the "anxious older sibling, feral younger sibling" dynamics, like what Tina and Louise have. I want an episode where Teddy's in therapy talking to Dr Marjorie about his childhood whilst Dana's out back wrestling a bar fly for his teeth or smn. Same trauma but dealt with in VERY different ways. I need it!!!!!!!!! I deserve this!!!!!!!!! LOL.

Moving onto Denise, FUCK Denise. Fuck any single individual that makes you feel like you have to change your core sense of self in order to feel accepted and/or loved. You KNOW she's that slimy level of manipulative that easily gets her own way in every situation. The type that rarely gets called up but if you call them up everyone else around will take their side. The GOOD manipulators. Real piece of shit types. The type to push you so far into a corner you come out crazy. So crazy noone believes you and they all side with the charismatic one. (These people boil my soul into an angry black jus, I become one of the 4 biles). IIRC we don't even get a full line from her, I'm pretty sure she only says "teddy?" (But please correct me if that's false), but that's still enough to solidify her as a shithouse in my mind. Questioning his name like don't pretend you don't know or recognise him you shitcunt, he gave you so much of his life. Eat a dick.

As negative as all these experiences are, I do think they shaped teddy for the better! I mean, he is a lil anxious and awkward and doesn't have the best self-esteem/confidence. BUT, he's incredibly emotionally intelligent for an old white guy. He's SO full of love, for EVERYONE. Every single person he comes across or meets (as exampled by S12E4 Driving Big Dummy), he fundamentally enjoys experiencing. They're not just people to chat to, they are experiences to be had. They are characters you've never heard of to stories you've never read. His approach to people is polar opposite to how most of us perceive other people, most of us are like Bob, he doesn't /hate/ people, but he doesn't /like/ them either. Teddy DOES like other people, he REALLY likes other people, he put the work into his trauma so it didn't taint the rest of him. I'm not gonna speak on behalf of everyone with PTSD but I know for a lot of us we fester on our trauma and victimise ourselves, often resulting in self- alienation and isolation, teddy shows no sign of that. S8E5 Thanks-Hoarding picks up on teddy being a handyman so he can "fix" his parents relationship (simplifying), but it doesn't address the fact he is CONSTANTLY putting himself out there. Handymen are a word-of-mouth trade, to be a successful handyman you HAVE to put yourself out there. To meet new people is to be vulnerable, and to be vulnerable with PTSD is like a rabbit exposing its belly to an owl yknow? Throughout the entire show we see teddy consistently putting the work in. Into every part of his life, he's making the effort to improve his life. I know healthcare in the US is a privilege that only the capitalists can afford, but it is so refreshing to see an American go to therapy instead of just complaining about how much they need therapy lol (no judgment, again I appreciate it's a nigh impossible situation to escape).

Thank you for the incredibly stimulating question, light!! (Sorry if I didn't answer all the questions fully! Will edit or update later!🤍)

#bobs burgers #bob's burgers #teddy the handyman #uncle father santa teddy #bobs burgers headcanons #burger headcanons #burger analysis

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bettsfic · 1 year

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craft essay a day #6

a good craft essay is hard to find.

(this one is less a summary as it is me using the essay as an example of a specific craft term i like to teach.)

"The King of the Birds" by Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners

beginner | intermediate | advanced | masterclass

filed under: cnf, prompts, objective correlative/magical objects

content warning for discussions of cancer, death, and abuse.

summary & my thoughts

this one is not actually a craft essay, but i didn't know that until i read it, and it's in a craft book, and i've got some Thoughts, so here we go.

Mystery and Manners is Flannery O'Connor's book of collected essays and lectures. i've taught some of these essays in intro to cw, not because i agree with them, but because i disagree with them, and generally like students to disagree with them also, to introduce what it means to have a dialogue with what you're reading. to be an active participant in what you're reading and not a passive recipient of it.

don't get me wrong; i love Flannery O'Connor. my thesis was largely inspired by her. her short stories are some of my favorites ever written. but, uh. she's got some bad writing opinions. generally speaking, the better the writer, the worse the teacher, and vice versa. O'Connor is a great writer and iirc was never really a teacher, only a guest speaker/visiting writer, and so we cannot really judge her on the sanctity of her pedagogy. no matter how infuriating i sometimes find it, i do try to listen to bad writing opinions, because they better inform my own (awesome and totally correct) opinions. hence the point of teaching O'Connor's essays.

this book starts off with a relatively dry foreword in which the editors admit they had a heck of a time putting the thing together. a very similar foreword exists in O'Connor's complete story collection. apparently, O'Connor had hundreds of manuscripts of essays and lectures, many with overlapping content, and so the editors had to face whether they wanted to publish all of the content, redundancies included, or none of it.

they decided, thankfully and with the permission of the estate, to do some cutting and pasting to pare out the redundant information and still try to get a complete recording of O'Connor's essays.

the first essay is not about writing. it's about peacocks.

"The peacock I had bought had nothing whatsoever in the way of a tail, but he carried himself as if he not only had a train behind him but a retinue to attend it."

because this is not a craft essay, i'm going to use it as an example of a craft concept: the objective correlative.

The objective correlative was coined by T.S. Eliot in 1919. He defined it as "a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion." this concept is more relevant to poetry, and more of an analytical tool than a craft tool, and honestly i probably take the term too literally for what it actually is (and potentially flatten it in the process [sorry, poets]), but i use it as a prompt in a lesson plan i call "magical objects."

for this class, i host show & tell. yes, show & tell, from kindergarten. one thing i've learned about teaching college is that college students--being overworked, underpaid, and blasted with constant brain-changing information--generally love elementary school activities. they also love talking about themselves, which is great considering i am a better listener than i am a speaker.

so i have everyone bring in an object that holds meaning for them, and we go around the room and talk about what the thing is, how it was acquired, its history and why it's important to them. (i also bring something, usually my dad's briefcase, and tell the story of how my dad taught me how to nail job interviews because he himself had so many of them, and quit the jobs almost as soon as he got them.)

my favorite thing is when students forget to bring something, and they have to take a turn anyway, at which point they pull out a highlighter or their shoe or something and have to wing a response. (and they get credit for it, because they're still being creative thinking things up on the fly, and being creative is the point of the class.)

the second half of the class is freewriting time. i ask them to write their magical object as an objective correlative. the goal is to tell the story of the object to invoke a particular emotion. for example, the story of my dad's briefcase, for me, invokes an emotion i can't otherwise define: the bizarre grief-regret-empathy-anger of losing someone close to you, who treated you poorly and neglected your needs and whom you loved anyway, and miss.

a simpler example is bringing in an old video game, and conjuring childhood nostalgia. or a piece of jewelry your partner bought you on your anniversary, and conjuring love.

students are often confused by this. i tell them not to think too hard about it. write about the object and the emotion will naturally come with it, because the object itself holds meaning. describe what the object looks like, how you acquired it, and memories that involve it. for example, i have a memory of being maybe four or five, and i was playing with the combination locking mechanism on my dad's briefcase, and he went, "what are you doing? i don't know the combination! i'll never be able to open it again!"

naturally i burst into tears. my dad laughed, and apologized, and told me he was just kidding. the combination was 000 because he hadn't changed it from when he bought it and didn't know how.

when i took the briefcase after he died, it had in it old road maps, a clipboard with a legal pad on it and a coffee stain on the legal pad, a union dues register, and some kind of millwright apprenticeship licensure.

it's worth noting that working at a steel mill in the 70s is what gave him cancer 35 years later.

i've spent hours inspecting the road maps. he had routes highlighted all through ohio, indiana, and kentucky. after being a millwright, he was a salesman, and he sold truck beds, apparently driving all over to do so. he was a great salesman but a bad employee. he couldn't stand having a boss, and tended to quit jobs the second anyone tried to tell him what to do. this trait always annoyed me--why couldn't he just buckle down and deal with it, so we could eat more than campbell's soup and toast? and yet, here i am twenty years later in the exact same boat, genetically predisposed to finding authority of any kind unbearable, quitting everything because of it, and wondering how the hell i'm going to keep making enough money to live. i wish i could say i have new sympathy for him, but i don't. it's a trait i hated in him; it's a trait i hate in me. it's something i had to accept then, and continue having to accept now.

that was one objective correlative. now back to the other: peacocks.

i felt this essay was a great example of the objective correlative because as i was reading it, i had absolutely no idea why it existed or what i was supposed to get out of it. it's written factually, in some parts like a research paper, describing the behavior and needs of peacocks, but the only evidence or citation is O'Connor's personal experience.

and yet, i was still feeling something as i was reading it. some undercurrent that elevated it from "Flannery O'Connor talking about peacocks" to an essay, a creative work with artistic merit.

"Those [peacocks] that withstand illnesses and predators (the hawk, the fox, and the opossum) over the winter seem impossible to destroy, except by violence."

what i get out of this essay, given the context of its placement in a book on the craft of writing, is another example of the obsessive tendencies of writers. i'm reminded of a lecture i attended during which Jamaica Kincaid spoke for an hour in intimate detail about her garden. she showed us pictures and went over each individual plant. i enjoyed it, even though it took me a while to figure out what she was saying.

that too was an objective correlative. what she was trying to invoke, and which she made clear at the end, is that a writer cannot only write. a writer must have something to write about. and so a writer must be obsessive, and love something so much they can speak to it in myopic detail. an object of fixation, a magical object, must always anchor the work.

craft essay a day tag | cross-posted on AO3 | ask me something

#cead #magical objects #prompts #note that if you write fanfic #canon is your magical object

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2hoothoots · 1 year

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I was wondering what if anything you thought of B-mask's P2 analysis on youtube! he brings up points of thematic dissonance about the way the maliks were handed (as well as wishing the interns/the P1 gang were better included which I think we all concur on)

ooh, LOVE a good video essay! i hadn't seen this one before but it was great to have on while i was sculpting this morning. i'm gonna link it here for anyone who hasn't seen it, if you've got the time it's a good watch:

youtube

i'd say i broadly agree with it, although i think the analysis loses me at the end. imo he tries to read in much too literally to the parallels between the Maliks and the real-life case of Tsar Nicholas II/the Romanov family. to me that's always been a much more allegorical reference, and i'd actually specifically point to '60s-era Cold War tensions between the USA and the USSR as a much closer thematic parallel to the whole Maligula thing, which is mentioned but not really dug into properly in the video. (in fact, i think that comparison makes the themes of propaganda in the game much clearer, especially given how the Psychonauts are so clearly American in all but name.) it's a shame, because i think everything else is pretty good stuff, but the last 20-or-so minutes feel pretty weak to me.

the video kind of pulls double-duty as an analysis of PN2's themes, and also a comparison and in some ways a critique of it versus the first game. that's something that i've been chewing over since... basically the moment it came out, haha, because i'm in the exact same boat of someone who's absolutely in love with the first game and doesn't quite feel like the sequel was as good (although it's a fantastic game in its own right and i love it a whole lot). so i'm gonna take this as an opportunity to dump my own thoughts on it! this is gonna get long so i'm putting it under a cut: tl;dr, the conclusion that i've basically come to on the game is that while it's not perfect, Psychonauts 2 is, in my opinion, probably the best possible version of what it is, given the circumstances around it and the nature of it as a crowdfunded sequel to a 2000s cult classic and a clear passion project by everyone involved.

the video brings up three main points of comparison/critique: the visuals, the structure/novelty of the gameplay, and the depth of the ensemble cast. i'm gonna borrow that structure, and then go into a little more of why i think certain decisions and compromises were made. overall, i think there were a lot of difficult decisions that had to be made during the development of PN2, and the more i dig into each one the more it seems like a lot of these decisions were made the only way they could be.

in terms of visuals: i can't disagree that the new game looks absolutely great, although i personally wish they'd gone just a little weirder with it. the stylized ugliness of the first game is one of my favourite things about it, and i know that part of that was due to the low poly count... but i dunno, i think there was still the opportunity to make the designs in PN2 a little less cute and a little more grotesque. it feels like the edge has been filed off, pun intended, and a little of the gloomy gothic feel of the first game is gone. i do love the look of the second game, but i can't help but feel that a little something was lost from moving from the deliberate asymmetry and exaggeration of the first game to something a little more... i guess i'd say 'clean' and palatable.

i can't lie, i think that's kind of a shame! but i also definitely get it, especially from a marketing standpoint. the style of PN1 is deeply mid-2000s, calling to mind properties like The Nightmare Before Christmas (which was cited by Tim as a direct inspiration for the game's artstyle) or Invader Zim (iirc, Jhonen Vasquez is a friend of the studio). there's definitely an argument to be made that that kind of angularity would feel dated in a modern game, and certainly similar games that have recently gotten refreshes (take Spyro, or Ratchet and Clank) have also moved towards a cleaner, cuter, more doe-eyed look. maybe that's just the aesthetic upgrade needed to make the game more appealing to a modern audience. (similarly, i think a lot of the tone shift between the games also has to do with being a product of their time. the first game feels a lot meaner, and the second more sincere, in a way that i think is in service to the shifting conversation around mental health. i think it's appropriate, but i do also miss some of the zingers from PN1, hahaha.)

gameplay: yeah, the lack of innovation in the structure of the mental levels is something i absolutely agree with. PN1 did a fantastic job of making every level feel deeply unique, and tying that into the themes of each level as well (ludonarrative!). even when these levels were a little frustrating to actually play, it always felt in service to what the game was trying to do. take how the Milkman Conspiracy is confusing and convoluted and even a little nauseating to navigate, all deliberately designed to create that uneasy atmosphere; or how Black Velvetopia literally traps players in a loop, constantly being forced backwards and only able to make forward progress in little steps before it all comes crashing back down again, as a reflection of Edgar's anger issues. in comparison, other than the noteworthy exception of Compton's Cookoff, most of the PN2 levels are just 'big platforming area that branches off from a hub'.

but i think the video stops short of diving into what i feel is the reason why some of these levels are less innovative. imo it comes down to the shifting market. 3D collect-a-thon platformers aren't really a thing any more, not like they used to be. the genre feels like it's stagnated in a lot of ways; it's not being innovated upon or moved forward, and it's also not something players are really used to any more. again, i think there's an argument to be made that designing a level that's unique but a little obtuse and clunky (take Gloria's Theater - which is great, but by god does it seriously suck to play the first time round) would be a huge turn-off to a lot of players. i sympathise with the devs feeling like they needed to prioritise a smoother platforming gameplay experience, rather than getting a little weirder with it.

story and ensemble cast - yeah, it probably won't surprise anyone to hear that i really wish the interns had gotten more screentime and depth hahaha. i know not everyone loved them, but also, anyone who didn't love them is wrong. they're the best. give me one million new intern voice lines please now

anyway, i think my biggest critique of PN2 (esp. storywise) has always been that it feels like it has one more cast of characters than it knows what to do with. it introduces the interns and the Aquato family and the psychic 6, and between everything it feels like no individual group is given quite enough focus and screentime and room to breathe to really make them shine. so the obvious answer becomes, hey, why not just cut some of the characters?

but on the other hand, like... think about what this game is. this is a sequel from a studio that really doesn't do sequels (and afaik is never planning on doing another one, certainly not a PN3). this is a passion project 16 years in the making. it's a follow-up to a beloved cult classic, and it's something Tim and the others were only going to get the chance to do once, and from that perspective i absolutely can't blame them for wanting to put everything in it. it's clear the team were bursting with ideas and themes they wanted to touch on and plot threads to resolve and cool new characters to introduce, and this was their only opportunity to do so. in their position? i would've done the exact same thing every single time.

a related point that i see brought up a lot, and that i also agree with, is depth - something that's there in spades in PN1, but feels a little lacking in PN2. i think comparing the interns to the campers from PN1 is a pretty obvious way to compare the two games, and yeah, i'll wholly admit that they're one of my favourite things about the first game. they just make the whole summer camp setting feel so alive. there's a huge amount of depth and care given to them; each one has their own little drama that plays out, and while i think there are a few obvious standouts each of them is still interesting and compelling in their own way. that's the kind of depth that has fans coming back a decade after the came first came out. Tim famously got super sidetracked making MySpace pages for all the campers over the space of a few days so that he could really get into their heads and understand their characters. it's great.

most people who play the first game casually will never see any of that. heck, i barely saw anything from the campers on my first playthrough. it was only on subsequent plays, when i went digging and started diving into the fandom and the discussions, that i realised how much there was. i still find new cutscenes and bits of dialogue and interactions every time i play. hell, the fandom is still digging up cutting-room-floor stuff that suggests there was going to be even more interaction with them. i love that depth, i really do. but is it worth putting that much dev time into something that most players will never see? especially in a game when something as fundamental as the boss fights was nearly cut for lack of time and budget?

actually, cut content is something that's pretty interesting to talk about in itself. there's a ton of stuff that's been discovered through datamining: sidequests (like finding Nona in the forest), stuff from early story beats (like the whole Mentathlon - an early version of Hollis' mind?), a whole Gruloky minigame (which presumably would have helped flesh out the Aquato family), and new mechanics (like Otto's bottled emotions - the lines related to which give what is, to me, vitally important insight into some of the characters. i'm not kidding when i say that Norma's bottled sadness line is load-bearing for like 80% of the way i characterise her, it drives me nuts i swear.) in this cutting-room floor content are glimpses of a game that was even more ambitious - dare i say overambitious - than the final product ended up being. we'll never know how much of it actually had a chance of ending up in the game, and how much was cut early due to various reasons, but...

games are made differently now than they were in the 2000s. an AA title like Psychonauts 2 takes more hours, more manpower, and a lot more money than the original. (this isn't adjusted for inflation, but PN1's budget ended up being $11.5mil; in 2012 a projected Psychonauts sequel was ball-parked at $18mil, and i can only imagine that number's gone up.) like i said, i deeply love the depth of interactivity in PN1. but is something like that really feasible, or worthwhile, in the current climate? PN1 was made on some pretty serious crunch. it was a passion project from a small, dedicated team who worked themselves to the bone on it, and due to a number of factors it ended up being a commercial flop that almost ruined them. for PN2, the team were committed to eliminating crunch, which i think is really laudable, especially given the wider state of the industry. in terms of the scope and the cast, PN2 is broader in just about every way than its predecessor. if that was the decision made in favour of added depth to character interactions that only a small number of players would see, was that the right decision to make?

when i look at PN2, what i see, above everything else, is a series of compromises that were made in order to bring a game that a lot of people really cared about to life as best they could. in a lot of ways, it's nothing short of a marvel that the game exists at all. seriously, before the whole campaign dropped if you'd asked me whether i thought Psychonauts could ever get a sequel, i'd have thought you were playing a practical joke. it was a one-in-a-million shot, and they made it, and i kind of think that given everything Psychonauts 2 is actually a hell of a lot better than it has any right to be. there's a lot of factors to the story of its development - it's a sequel, it's a collect-a-thon platformer that released in 2021, it was crowdfunded, it's a passion project through and through, oh yeah and there was a global pandemic midway through development - and i don't think any of those things necessarily hold it back, but they definitely shape it in ways that i don't think can be ignored if you're talking about the game as a whole.

i don't think it's a perfect game. i don't think there is such a thing as a perfect game. but the more time passes and the more i think about it, i think this is... maybe the only version of Psychonauts 2 we could have gotten? i dunno if it's the best game it could have been, but i do think it's the best Psychonauts 2 it could have been, if that makes sense. and the game that it is is, in my opinion, really damn good.

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #we had a power cut while i was trying to post this but it's back now #so everybody gets to see my essay on my favourite video game and its sequel! unsurprisingly i have Thoughts #but yeah the video essay's definitely good. i might make a separate post that goes into more of what i see as the Themes of PN2 #because i agree w a lot of the video's points but i also think it misses the mark a few times #also would love to hear other peoples' thoughts on this!

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flowers-of-io · 2 years

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I'm so confused, could you explain please, why does everyone post about the traveler being the gardener as if it's a big revelation? haven't we known about it for a pretty long time?

It’s a tricky topic actually, because we’ve never had a clear and unambiguous confirmation of this in the lore. Unveiling got as close with the Gardener saying she would make herself a rule in the game, but some people (including me, actually!) are reading this as the rule being the Light—which you could argue is sort of like a force of nature/rule akin to those of physics—not the Traveler as a physical entity. Alpha Lupi (and Lumina’s!!! I so often forget how important this is!!!) lore is so much more helpful here because the Traveler seems to speak as someone Gardener-adjacent and ancient/primordial and knowing the Darkness personally and whatnot, and most importantly being equated with the alpha lupi from Clovis’ Logbook who is without a doubt the Gardener. I guess the dilemma could stem from entries like Books of Sorrow calling the Traveler iirc an agent of the Sky or whatever, and never really stating that the Traveler is the personalisation of the Light (and rather saying it gives the Light).

The question, as I see it, is whether the Traveler is an agent of the Gardener similar to the likes of the Leviathan (there’s barely any lore to support this), the Gardener herself—meaning the Gardener doesn’t exist simultaneously anywhere else (MK 44. Stand-Asides’ lore disproves this), or something like the physical embodiment of the Gardener in the material world. I personally agree with the third option the most, because the Gardener does still act in other ways beyond what the Traveler does, but it’s impossible to support the claim of those two being two completely separate entities. However I do believe (and hope to argue it in an essay longer than this hasty answer, when I’ve got my life & thoughts more sorted out) that the Gardener = the Light. I’m not sure as to whether the Sky is the Light/Gardener herself, or the Traveler, because Savathun says she “turned to the Sky” and I don’t know if she meant the Light generally or the glowing orb over the horizon itself, and Immaru tells her later “[the Light] is a paracausal force of the Sky”. But AGAIN, in Books of Sorrow the Traveler is not equated with the Sky, rather being its liaison/proxy/emanation/????.

#reply #anon #i am sorry if this is incoherent but i hope it at least cleared thing up a bit for you!#and not like. created more questions lmao #i like my lore with coffee #traveler #the light #destiny 2

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besidesitstoowarm · 1 year

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"School Reunion" thoughts

liz sladen milf moments. liz sladen milf moments. liz sladen MILF. MOMENTS.

i remembered this episode being kind of cat-fight-y. it definitely isn't. i think last time i watched this episode i was partially or fully unfamiliar w classic who, and while i still haven't reached the sarah jane era, i've now seen enough to GET it

it's just. so respectful and good, to me. i'm not very familiar w toby whithouse as a writer, i think most of his episodes (upon googling) are kind of mid. huge fan of "town called mercy" tho

does anthony head remind anyone else of anthony hopkins? clariceeeeeee. i love to see him in a show better than buffy, he's a talented actor but also so good at ridiculous hamminess, perfect for a show like doctor who

do you think rose as a dinner lady is later deliberately referenced later by bill's introduction? anyway

i think this is a fantastic story for straddling the line between classic and new. it references sarah jane's time with the doctor without getting too bogged down in old history (only one episode after we referenced the other longest running companion in the show's history; now that new who seemed to have its sea legs, maybe kindly referencing the old era?). k9 is fun and i like to see him. mickey-as-tin-dog could be an essay on its own. sarah jane is able to say "i loved my time with you, you showed me wonders beyond my comprehension" but also "you ditched me quick and never talk about me anymore, i'm one of many" like. it acknowledges the roles of previous companions while also saying that everyone's time ends eventually

rose and sarah jane laughing their asses off at the doctor while he asks what's going on is amazing

like, i think in hindsight the function of this episode (bc the real plot is severely weaksauce, no shade) is priming the audience for rose's departure. it says "the doctor has had many companions throughout the years, and even the ones he loved will someday be a distant memory" cause that's what's gonna happen, right? the audience has to be prepared to accept martha, and while rose is extraordinarily important to ten (more so than maybe any one companion has been to any one doctor historically), the show/the doctor will have to carry on after she's gone

and of course it was a huge love letter to classic who. iirc davies would have grown up watching four/sarah jane, this would've been his own dream come true. also why some of his stories will reference the macra and the celestial toymaker. insane man. moffat openly admits to being a deranged fanboy but let's be clear, davies is just slightly more subtle about it, he's no less a massive nerd. we like to see it

liz sladen milf moments.

#School Reunion #Doctor Who #DW s2 #besides its too rewatch

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thekaijudude · 6 months

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Alright, seeing as you told me that I should make an art blog (which I already basically have, just not on Tumblr) in my last qn, this qn will be about a different topic from the previous one, though it’s still a topic pertaining to Milave.

Basically, after you told me Milave’s base form design looked more like a Orb/Geed/Z type fusion rather than a pure fusion, I tried to come up with reasons I could give for why his design looks that way. But, then I realized that, with the plan I’ve had for his nature since ages ago, he really isn’t either of those types of fusions: he’s more or less both types at the same time.

Long story short, like the Orb/Geed/Z type fusions, he is a character completely unrelated to his components, yet he’s also like the pure fusions because his components need to all be present to fuse in order to form him. Also, before you say he’s just the same type of Fusion as Taiga Tri-Strium… I disagree:

—On one hand, Taiga Tri-Strium is very clearly a form of Taiga. Titas and Fuma seem to just be there to empower Taiga and thus Taiga is in complete control of the fusion.

—On the other hand, Milave has a mind of his own, and is in control of his own actions: his components are only there to give him advice and guide him, and while they may be empowering Milave, the empowerment gained would be more like that which other Ultras receive from the bonds with their hosts than the empowerment Taiga gets from Titas and Fuma in Tri-Strium.

And that’s all without mentioning that one of Milave’s forms, Milave Perfection, is the result of Milave 1) creating temporary copies of his components, 2) separating from the original copies of his components, and 3) fusing with the entirety of the rest of Team MLV, including both sets of his components. Btw, considering Milave would fall apart without his components supporting his power, Milave Perfection is only possible because of the first step.

Anyway, onto the actual question: is there any fusion Ultra in official media that you can think of that seems to have the same nature as Milave? If not, what would you call the type of fusion that Milave is? (Something like ‘pure fusion’ or ‘impure fusion’.)

Btw, I used ‘official media’ instead of ‘canon’, because I want you to include both media that is a known part of the mainstream canon and media that is considered non-canon but is still officially licensed as Ultraman (such as Ultraman Story 0, Another Genesis, the 2011 Ultraman Manga, etc.)

Technically that's still TS/TSR since Fuma and Titus were still able to communicate seperately from Taiga even as TS (See Taiga Movie), dude literally also has Quattro Squad Blaster, which is basically weaponizing their bond with Hiroyuki iirc. And as I've mentioned before that the Taiga Spark is a seperate line of fusion technology of the LoL seemingly to mimic the Orb Ring, with this branch following the idea of Ultra Overlapping rather than the Riser line. Because pure fusions require a great deal of synchronisation from all the components as pointed out by Zero back in the Ginga S Movie. In fact, I think the idea behind the Taiga Spark in general was bascially to "weaponize" bonds which was elaborated more in detail in the Blue Phantom Novel which I also detailed out back in 2019 but I can't find the post anymore, u can just read the novel online to see what I mean.

Beyond this would be going into unconfirmed territory, but by interpolation, pure fusions based on Ultra Overlapping seems to also count (made a whole essay post on this before iirc), which includes Super Taro and Mebius Infinity, due to the fusion forms resembling the Ultra who the other components all "pour" their power into. But of course as mentioned, we don't even see them communicating with anyone at all, much less himself, so this remains unconfirmed.

I also brought up the same point for Reiga back in 2020 as we see the same sequence for Ultra Overlapping and the Taiga Spark seems to also facilitate this process (as is literally still attached to Reiga even after fusion, which should technically not be possible if it were a pure fusion, Ultimate Bracelet otherwise for Saga since its a Legendary Ultra's item) but due to the same reasons as mentioned above, its not confirmed.

Tho I just recall that Mebius PB might also be something like this since in both of his appearances, he also fuses with the GUYS members. Actually come to think of it, Glitter Tiga kinda works the same way too based on what we saw in the final episode, but he isn't a fusion.

I know someone is gonna mention Fused Camerra cause I believe someone sent an ask about this some time back and it generated quite abit of discussion, but iirc it was never confirmed if whatever the sphere was that they left behind were simply their power or their actual spirits. But even if they were fused, they were still unconscious and can't communicate either way so this point is kinda neither here nor there

(We'd most definitely get a confirmation if Dargon/Hudram comes back in UGF4 or sth)

Speaking of which, I actually answered something very similar to this, but it was more geared towards kaiju-fusions here:

Othwrwise, can't speak for Another Genesis tho since I've never been able to read it, and I don't there's anything like this in the other sub-franchises (that I can rmb off the top of my head anyways)

Thanks for the question!

#ultraman #asks

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thegeminisage · 3 years

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john abused both dean AND sam, just differently. in this essay i will

prove that the abuse manifested in different ways for each of them because that’s how abuse works in real life. this is based on the fact that john saw dean as mary’s surrogate but once he found out about the deal and sam having demon blood he blamed sam for her death. ok let’s fucking go

dean as mary’s surrogate

there are loads of parallels made between dean and mary in early season spn and late season spn. in season 12 dean directly calls himself sam’s mother, but even earlier than that we see him doing the cooking and child rearing. compare that to all the parallels made between sam and john (both of them losing their blonde woman significant others in a ceiling fire) and it’s clear that dean was meant to more resemble mary. it’s not a stretch to say that if we can see it as viewers this is how john saw it in his actual life. i do think john loves dean for being dean but he loves him more for being mary.

sam as the reason behind mary’s death

i think once john learned that sam had demon blood, some part of him must have always been waiting for the other shoe to drop with sam, not ever fully believing this kid was human, and maybe not even knowing if this kid was HIS. a popular theory back in the day was that YED fathered sam (something they had to actually address in season 4 to stop the speculation), and if WE speculated that hard, surely john must have too. i’m sure he loves sam as an extension of mary, and keeps and raises and protects him BECAUSE he’s mary’s, but similarly (or maybe inverse) to dean, i don’t know if he ever fully gave himself permission to love sam for being sam. in fact, i imagine john harbors a lot of self-loathing for failing to save mary. if we directly parallel john and sam, that means by some extent he would also hate sam.

john trusted dean with far too much, and sam with far too little

dean knew about monsters; sam didn’t. dean had memories of their mother and the night she died, and shared that trauma of watching her die with john; sam didn’t. dean knew when john was supposed to be home and who to call if he wasn’t; sam didn’t. dean was given the money and the guns and the CAR ITSELF; sam wasn’t. dean was taught to drive; SAM WASN’T.

dean was expected to do everything john was supposed to have been doing in his absence - he was to be a mother and father to sam, he was supposed to protect sam from evil, he was supposed to see to sam’s meals and homework and getting to school on time. and he was put under an EXTRAORDINARY amount of pressure not to screw this up even a little bit, despite the fact that he was only a kid. sam on the other hand was kept on a strict need-to-know basis for his entire life, right up until season 1 when they reunite at last. john didn’t trust sam with ANYTHING, and sam knew it. this contributed to his lifelong anger issues because he didn’t DO anything to warrant that kind of mistrust and probably got gaslit about it a lot of times either by john himself or dean (unknowingly, by parroting/believing the things john said). even in the pilot sam says very casually of his mother “she’s gone,” because her memory doesn’t hold the same place of reverence for him - best guess is that john didn’t talk about her much to sam because he didn’t trust sam with emotional stuff either. in s14 we learn that dean was the one who told sam stories about mary, including her terrible casserole - and their attempt at recreating it infuriated john to the point of him throwing the entire concoction in the trash.

john relied on dean for everything, and refused to rely on sam for anything

canonically dean was the one who comforted john after a bad hunt, looked after and fed his brother when john wasn’t around. dean knew how to use a shotgun; sam didn’t. dean knew who to call in an emergency; sam didn’t. dean knew about monsters; sam didn’t. this was done under the guise of “protection for sammy” but turn it around and it’s also protection FROM sammy. think of how angry john gets when he learns sam has been having psychic visions. he’s not just angry that dean didn’t report it to him, he’s angry that the demon’s plans for sam are coming to pass, and that sam is becoming less human. again, he can’t TRUST sam if sam’s not human, and it proves to john that he was right all along to keep sam in the dark as much as possible.

john gave dean too much freedom, and sam no freedom at all

“watch out for sammy.” sam was under constant supervision by either dean or john; john made sure of it. again, it’s protection FOR sam but also protection FROM him, in case he did something inhuman or evil. dean on the other hand was left alone without any supervision at all for days or even weeks at a time - he resorts to stealing bread and peanut butter and (according to jackles) turning tricks for money. he had to make it work and got up to whatever the fuck he wanted when john wasn’t looking. sam had to LITERALLY run away from home before he got the simple pleasure of eating pizza and having a dog by himself, independently. dean was given too much independence and freedom but sam was kept on such a short leash he had none at all.

john made dean feel unworthy, and he made sam feel unclean

when dean fails to protect sam from the shtriga in the season 1 flashbacks, he says his dad looked at him differently after. he also implies that john physically beat him when sam ran away in flagstaff. whether he meant to or not, john made it abundantly clear that his love for dean was not unconditional; it depended very much on how well dean performed the multitude of tasks john assigned him. dean grew up believing that his only worth was in what he could do for other people. he demonstrates this an an adult over and over and over, from letting his possessed family members beat him up to refusing to take care of his own needs, emotional and otherwise, and snapping at people who try to talk to him about his own feelings.

on the other hand, sam talks in season 8 about how even at a very young age he felt impure and unclean, even before he knew that he had demon blood, even before he knew that there was any such thing as monsters. kids aren’t stupid, and sam picked up on the vibes john was putting off - that john didn’t trust him, might not have loved him, and might not have considered him human or even his own child. without even knowing why, he spent his entire life feeling unclean and inhuman, not worth of being loved by his own family. even dean, who we all know loves sam unconditionally, admits in season 14 that he often took dad’s side on arguments because he had “his own stuff,” further leading to the alienation that was sam’s constant companion growing up.

AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY:

JOHN’S ABUSE PITTED SAM AND DEAN AGAINST EACH OTHER

john saved dean after their shared trauma of mary’s death. dean says in season 1 that the reason he stopped talking was that he was scared. iirc john’s journal implies he was mute for over a year, and dean in season 2 says that when he was 6 or 7 his dad took him shooting for the first time. if mary died just before dean’s fifth birthday, the timeline works out to dean talking again because john took him shooting. i believe that dean hero worships his father because after mary’s death, and dealing with the terror that something like that could come in and take his family away by killing them horribly at any time without any warning, john learning to fight back against the darkness - and teaching dean to do the same - is what gave dean his voice again. BOTH of them saw and carried the memory of mary burning on the ceiling for the rest of their lives. “watch out for sammy” and “get the thing that killed mom” were dean’s reasons to get up in the morning, because they were john’s reasons to get up in the morning. these things were LITERALLY his reasons for living. john gave dean a way to fight back against fear and gave him a cause to keep him going. abuse or not, dean never stopped being grateful for that, and he was the only other person in the whole world who understood the unique horror of what john went through that night. even all the way into season 10, he tells other people that john did right by him. it’s borderline brainwashing. part of dean’s self-worth will always be based on how good of a son he was to john.

on the other hand, knowingly or not, john did everything possible to alienate sam. he kept him on a short leash while also keeping him at arm’s distance. he didn’t trust sam with emotional things like the memory of mary, he didn’t trust sam with the truth about monsters and what they did for a living, he didn’t trust sam with his plans, he didn’t trust sam with the truth about demon blood. canon STRONGLY suggests john knew YED bled in sam’s mouth as a baby, but instead of telling sam or even dean about that, sam had to learn about it in a horrible flashback recreated by YED himself. when sam wanted to go to school, john told him no, and when he left anyway, john told him not to come back.

this is an equal but opposite kind of abuse. john totally fucked up BOTH his kids in complete inversions to each other.

which means that, no matter what john did, it caused sam and dean to fight. this isn’t an interpretation. this is straight up canon.

again, dean says in s14 that he frequently took dad’s side in arguments because he had his own stuff to deal with, and he was trying to keep the peace. dean, a victim of emotional (and implied sometimes physical) abuse himself, was not able to shield sam from all of john’s bullshit. he could stop sam from getting hit and having to see john during the worst of his drunken rages, but he couldn’t trick sam into thinking john loved him unconditionally, because john didn’t love either of his kids unconditionally.

when john acted in a way that was not befitting of a parent, sam rightfully took exception, which forced dean (who was ALSO BEING ABUSED, almost brainwashed) to jump to his defense. that led to john getting to do whatever the hell he wanted and sam and dean arguing about the effects. when sam ran away in flagstaff, DEAN was punished, leading dean to resenting sam for that incursion, even though sam was perfectly right to want to get away from an abusive household. when sam did a normal thing wanting to leave for college at age 18, he left, and dean resented him for that because that meant he was alone to bear the brunt of john’s anger.

sam repeatedly made logical, emotionally healthy choices in attempting to break the family dynamic, but because of JOHN’S BEHAVIOR, not sam’s, those choices wound up causing dean harm. JOHN HIMSELF was the ultimate wedge between sam and dean growing up and beyond.

and let’s not forget the biggest sin - john spent 22 years impressing upon dean that taking care of sammy was EVERYTHING, and then without any explanation at all, he asked dean to kill him, and then he DIED, which meant dean had to carry that weight by himself (because again, he’s been trained not to trust sam with things). like of COURSE sam got angry when he found out - that’s fucking fucked up! once again sam is being treated like a ticking time bomb for absolutely no reason - he didn’t ask to have demon blood or psychic visions or a dead mom or an abusive father. nor did dean ask to be saddled with the upbringing of an entire human at four years old who he then might have to kill. because dean will always feel gratitude towards john, and sam will always feel resentment, and because based on john’s treatment of them BOTH OF THESE FEELINGS ARE JUSTIFIED, john continues to cause fights between sam and dean long after he’s dead and gone, and that will never change.

on a final note: i’d like to bring this around to season 13.

after cas, mary, kelly, and crowley all die (or are presumed dead in mary’s case) in the season 12 finale, season 13 opens with nobody but sam and dean and jack. dean directly blames jack for these deaths. he says so multiple times. he says where jack can hear him that he knows jack is evil and impure and cannot be saved and calls jack a freak. when jack tries repeatedly to kill himself dean says to jack’s face not to bother, because WHEN jack does go bad, dean will be the one to kill him. dean does NOT see jack as castiel’s child - he sees jack as someone who brainwashed cas and kelly both and got them killed. dean does not even see jack as a human person worthy of life. from the get-go, all he wants is to put jack down. jack is born into a world shaped by pain and grief and anger, where people hate him simply for what he is and who died to get him here.

and again, sam identifies hard with jack. he justifiably protests dean’s treatment of him. jack is a kid and didn’t ask for any of this. jack is terrified of dean. sam reminds dean that john said all these things about sam that dean is saying about jack. john is still causing a rift between his sons over a decade after his death.

eventually, after jack uses his powers and brings back cas from the empty, dean pulls his head out of his ass and admits that he was wrong. he calls jack his kid more than once, and jack refers to dean as one of his dads. but the damage has already been done. jack struggles multiple times with his powers, accidentally hurting people and then wishing himself dead after. he also struggles without them; even when using his powers means using up pieces of his soul, he does it, because dean taught him that he’s only worthy of being loved and trusted if he’s “good.” even when he has NO SOUL, when jack does something bad he panics about it and seeks to undo it at any cost. that’s how deep the damage runs.

i see a lot of people remarking that in the arc of 13.01-13.05, dean became john, and i agree that he did. but dean didn’t do to jack what john did to him. dean did to jack what john did to SAM.

[spn masterpost]

#supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #john winchester #jack kline #liz watches spn #liz's meta #liz's spn stuff #YES YOU CAN REBLOG THIS PLS DO I WORKED HARD ON IT.#WHEW. glad i got that off my chest #this is why u can't call it the widow arc #sam revisited a WHOLE childhood of trauma here #the arc is about all of them!!!!!#backtagging to add #broken road #brcu

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adurna0 · 2 years

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Why Egwene was a better target for Lanfear’s machinations: The Essay

By popular demand, here we are.

WARNING BOOK SPOILERS

So let’s examine, first of all, Lanfear’s usual MO. She goes up to 1 of the 3 EF boys. She tries to seduce him. (Note here that said seduction doesn’t always actually include actual seduction. Mostly it focuses on promises of power, knowledge and what have you.)

Now let’s have a look at her targets and their motivations/desires:

Rand al’Thor: This man is a shepherd. All he wants is to be a shepherd and a househusband. He doesn’t want power. He doesn’t want fame. He wants sheep, a wife (or three) and children. He’s had his fill of fame and power and he would like no more, thank you very much!

Mat Cauthon: Although one might think that Mat would make a good target, in reality Mat has had a taste of fame. And what did he get for it? Now everyone expects him to be the hero! Blood and ashes!

Perrin Aybara: Perhaps Lanfear’s least bright moment. Perrin’s only ever wanted to keep the people around him safe. Sure, power came to him and he eventually accepted it but it’s never been his goal!

So basically we’ve established that Lanfear has chosen the 3 most unambitious youths out there to try to corrupt.

Hang on a moment, though. You know which youth IS ambitious? That’s right! Egwene al’Vere! Egwene, whose world has always felt too small for her, who always wanted something more out of life, who wants knowledge, all the knowledge and she wants it now, who wants power, to keep her and her loved ones safe, to right the wrongs in the world as she perceives them, to avoid being a slave to anybody else’s will ever again and maybe, just maybe, some power just for herself.

If Lanfear had stopped being thirsty for men for one second? Well, Egwene’s right there and you absolutely cannot convince me she wouldn’t be at least tempted. That she wouldn’t be immediately intrigued by this mysterious woman offering her everything she’s ever wanted.

Now, Egwene’s a smart girl. She’d probably see through it better than the boys (minus Mat perhaps, because IIRC he was suspicious of her from the start), but would it stop her? Probably not, at least not for a while.

But how would this go down? Well, simple. Egwene would clearly think she’s manipulating Lanfear. And Lanfear, of course, would believe she’s manipulating Egwene. Think kind of like a Verin situation, but instead it’s the Dragon’s ex girlfriends squad.

Moving on to the when and where, this one is also not hard to work out. Lanfear is already at the Tower, masquerading as Else Grinwell. She meets Egwene again in a dream in the Heart of the Stone. She had plenty of chances there to make some... interesting proposals.

I think it’s a fascinating plotline that never happened, because

How far could (would) Egwene have gone before she pulled herself back? (And I do believe she would pull herself back, this is the woman who gave her own life in the end for the Light.)

How long would she keep it a secret from the others? How hard would Nynaeve box her ears when she inevitably found out? How would Elayne, ever the politician who knows what a good deal is, react?

How much would they bond over stupid people being in charge of the world (see: Lanfear calling Ishamael a fool, Egwene despairing at the state of Aes Sedai politics) and their ex-boyfriend being an absolute woolhead?

What sort of forever unacknowledged feelings would they both walk away from this with? And would this end with Egwene following a path closer to Lews Therin perhaps? Thinking that she’s the only one who can save the world? How would Rand react? Or would she see that potential in herself and find more common ground with Rand instead?

Would Lanfear, on the other hand, be unchained from the Shadow, assuming she doesn’t fall into the doorway Ter’angreal because she had other plots instead? What would she do if Moridin hadn’t gotten a hold of her?

This is why, if you are reading this (you, yes, you, showrunner Rafe Judkins), I think it a smart move to not sleep on this potential. And yeah, maybe it’s best for the integrity of the story that this doesn’t go too far. But it’s such an interesting “what if” scenario that it would be fascinating if it was acknowledged in the narrative...

#wheel of time #the wheel of time #lanfear #egwene al'vere #unreasonably attractive fandom #wot book spoilers #wheel of time book spoilers #wheel of time books spoilers #a memory of light spoilers #amol spoilers #my meta

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galadhremmin · 3 years

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We have derived Caranthir liking the Dwarves (and vice versa) because apparently, Finrod succeeds in every field Caranthir fails, and at this point it's clear this derives from the in-universe writer of the Silm and his own biases. Think about it: "Dark Finwë" , a grumpy, prejudiced lordling, and "Hair Champion", most handsome, noble king, have met with the same people!! Yet the king of the first secret kingdom is everyone's friend, but the prince that trades with them regularly is not... seems sus.

Hence, Caranthir is friends with the Dwarves. (But that is just an interpretation, so you're free to think what you wish, I just have several opinions on in-universe prejudice and the almighty narrative.)

I think that 'we' might actually have been Dawn Felagund years ago. Maybe this reading existed even before that, but I doubt that-- she's been very influential in silm fandom and was long before tumblr was much of a thing. https://dawnfelagund.com/caranthir-the-slandered

I wouldn't say it's 'clear' that what amounts to Caranthir's entire documented personality derives from the bias of the in-universe narrator, though as you can see from Dawn's writing it's a reading you can argue for. There are a number of different approaches you can take to the Silm and its biases anyway. One of the few times when it's absolutely clear the text isn't telling the entire story is when it talks about the Easterlings. I've posted about this before but the recorded names are, uhh.... the ones to betray the elves are unlikely to actually have been named things like 'ugly lord' and 'ugly beard.' 'Dark Finwe' on the other hand is a documented reference to his haircolour being dark like Finwe's own; hardly a negative judgement!

I personally think Caranthir can be exactly as ill-tempered and prejudiced as the Silm paints him without becoming an unsympathetic character. If a writer cannot make a moody, deeply prejudiced man an interesting character that is a failure as a writer; there are after all enough books who manage exactly that. That is not to say choosing not to write him that way is a failure (obviously not), but it's not necessary in order to make a reader feel for him at all.

Just going by the text, I think it actually might make for a more interesting narrative to explore in fic to me. Because he does change his mind about something, and at a very specific moment; when he meets the Haladin. That is much less dramatic if he secretly been as nice and popular as Finrod, and got along with everyone all the time already. He's been raised by Fëanor, who said things like 'No other race shall oust us!' and rallied the Noldor not motivated enough by vengeance for Finwë alone by playing on their deep-seated fear of being replaced by the Secondborn. Very unlikely that had no impact. At best it has made him uninterested in humans in his area (while they're not much of a threat to ruling instead of the elves anyway). The text says they paid them no heed.

And yet! Caranthir sees how brave Haleth and her people are. He 'does her great honour.' He changes his mind and offers them lands. His tragedy to me is not that of a slandered figure, but of this deeply, deeply prejudiced person raised to distrust the motivations of human beings -- who overcomes those beliefs, offers friendship, is rejected! then extends that same trust to the Easterlings anyway... and it's those specific Easterlings, not the ones who ally with his brothers-- who betray them all. And cause the disastrous ending of the Nirnaeth. It's the 'to evil end shall all things turn that they begin well' part of the curse hitting him in the least fair way possible. Someone finally changes for the better, and the outcome is treason and destruction.

That is a very good character arc to me, actually. His aesthetics-based scorn for the Dwarves is reprehensible but strikes me as deeply Elvish, and part of his prejudices. Naugrim is too unflattering a name for them for it not to be common. His temper-- well why can't he have one? Sure there's only one recorded instance -- but that's imo because there are hardly any conversations in the Silm! Anyway I like some people with tempers well enough. Personally I think people are missing out on opiniated grouches.

Obviously the biased anti-Feanorian Pengolodh reading is a nice one, and I have enjoyed a lot of stories written based it. But it's not at all a reading that is necessary for me to read Caranthir as a flawed but sympathetic character. He can have serious faults and still, ultimately, be someone I feel for.

What I was asking though was if I overlooked any canon evidence of Caranthir being particularly, personally fond of the Dwarves; and it seems I did not. Also; there is room for Caranthir growing to like the Dwarves over centuries without an anti-Feanorian bias reading this strong, there is simply no evidence for friendship in the rather barebones narrative (I'm not interested atm because it's wildly overdone to me & I like variety).

That said, in my opinion making Caranthir the hidden, slandered Feanorian Finrod equivalent with a dash of Curufin's Dwarf affection is not as enjoyable as simply working with what little canon character is actually there. Because there is one (and it's not the greedy tax collector of some fanon depictions either imo)

1. To start with, wrt Caranthir as the anti-Finrod, I don't think it works that well. Sure sure dark/light, open/prejudiced, repressed/shouty, but different motivations, different locations, plus they meet very different peoples even if both are Edain-- besides, Caranthir's own older brothers do successfully ally with the Easterlings without betrayal, while Curufin (much more so than Finrod! no Khuzdul for Finrod!) is the Dwarves' Friend(tm). Also, a flawed Finrod already exists. That's just the regular edition. He has his own faults and (very different) tragic arc.

If Finrod never seems to have strong prejudices to overcome, and if he's not confrontational (which... look he's a diplomat. Make of that what you will. Pretty awkward there in Doriath, buddy!) he does have trouble facing his own complicity (he wanted to sail those ships despite the murders) until Sauron beats him to death with it. He leaves Valinor with the idea of ruling but he has to give up the crown. He's ambitious, he seems emotionally repressed, he's.. possibly paying the greater Dwarves to drive the Petty Dwarves out of their ancestral home to build a city? Oops. Depending on the version you go with in that case, of course; there's also ones where he's free of the blame of that one. Not of wanting to sail those ships and being uneasy with the guilt wrt wanting to do so despite their being stolen and murdered for though. No he doesn't kill; but he wants to use the result of it anyway, and to make it worse he is actually half Telerin.

There's also (to be fair, only for sure after the disaster of the Sudden Flame because that's the recorded instance) his guards killing random innocent trespassers to keep his kingdom hidden -- yes, that's right there in Silm, yes he's still King at the time. Beren has to wave that ring. People just seem to miss that he'd be killed without it somehow.

I think it's just too easy to reduce him to the golden perfect opposite of Caranthir. Yes he's described more positively; he's also just mentioned more because unlike Caranthir he rules an actual kingdom, the greatest and richest in Beleriand in fact; and does things that have a lot of very longterm effects, like helping B&L steal a Silmaril. They don't 'meet the same people' anyway -- the Haladin have a different culture from the Beorians which contributes to their reaction to Caranthir (and iirc their later fate).

Sidenote: Dawn's essay attributes the Green Elves helping the Feanorians at Amon Ereb to Caranthir's diplomatic skills; but why not to those of Amras or Amrod? This is the quote; 'Caranthir fled and joined the remnant of his people to the scattered folk of the hunters, Amrod and Amras, and they retreated and passed Ramdal in the south. Upon Amon Ereb they maintained a watch and some strength of war, and they had aid of the Green-elves' -- nothing here indicates it was Caranthir who got them that aid. In fact A&A are the hunters, i.e. more likely to have roamed in various forests where they would have encountered Green Elves, imo.

There's also the very desperate times to consider in which this aid takes place. This is just post Sudden Flame, and even if the Green Elves didn't like Caranthir they probably liked him better than Morgoth. Also, speaking of cosmopolitans, Maedhros allies with, yes, Dwarves (Azaghal), Grey elves, Easterlings (and you might say: Fingolfinians); even part of the remaining people of Dorthonion rally to Himring post sudden flame (that means Edain and Arafinwean followers in Himring, at least for a time), and he manages to be friendly with Felagund despite calling him a badger. ;)

Finrod is not the only other leader to forge diverse alliances, and though B&L ends happily his people mostly do not. Caranthir's not much like Finrod in any way. Not in motivations, temperament, tragic arc. That's fine. No hidden kingdom for a dragon to eat either. Finrod could probably do with being a little less like Finrod sometimes, though he's well-intentioned and likable. Caranthir loves to shout and isn't sneaky. Good for him.

2. Curufin also already exists. His love for Dwarves is one of his defining and redeeming characteristics and boy does he need them. He's daddy's favourite, a sneaky overambitious bitchy bastard who is also a talented smith and linguist, and truly considered a Dwarf friend, which is apparently exceptional. He's quite flawed; tries to help Celegorm force a political marriage, laughs with a bruised mouth, seeming to lose his mind while attempting and failing murder after first losing his own stronghold and then the city he tried to take from his cousin. He's just... a personality. Mostly a bad one! You can feel for him though, because he seems like an utter mess. Many 'i would love to study you' feelings on my part. Would hate for him to be real but also I'd pay to be his therapist.

3. And then finally there's Canon Caranthir. A difficult, prejudiced person who despite that (which doesn't at all have to mean there is no despite, the despite is what makes it juicy)

- seems to be responsible for re-establishing (large scale?) trade with the Dwarves, whatever he might think of them (and they of him) to their mutual benefit. I don't think he's greedy either. It seems like a mutually profitable situation. Access to Dwarvish goods seems pretty vital to Beleriand, and facilitating trade is a real service.

As someone pointed out in the replies, the Silm does mention Dwarvish companies travelling east to Nan Elmoth and menegroth various times, but quote wrt Caranthir says 'Caranthir’s people came upon the Dwarves, who after the onslaught of Morgoth and the coming of the Noldor had ceased their traffic into Beleriand' and 'when the Dwarves began again to journey into Beleriand.'

They stopped at some point and Caranthir's people made it happen again.

- which means he's practical. He seems like he's good at organising, and setting his own feelings aside if necessary despite his prejudice and temper (which is an achievement it wouldn't be without his, hm, everything). Also he and his people as well as the Dwarves work together well because ''either people loved skill and were eager to learn,' despite their (initial?) mutual dislike. Those aren't bad characteristics; seems like it was an exchange of skill as well as goods and possibly providing safe travel opportunities.

I don't like the 'greedy Caranthir' fanon and don't think it is even that easy support entirely with canon. 'They had of it great profit,' the text says-- both Caranthir and the Dwarves. They exchanged skills and knowledge and Caranthir seems to have helped them start trading in Beleriand again. That's hardly Scrooge Mcduck.

- Another thing we can say about canonthir (lol) is that he apparently attaches a lot of value to aesthetics (was he a visual artist? is a he a sculptor like Nerdanel? WORSE: AN ART CRITIC?! Feanorian art critic is truly nightmare fuel) and that's why he dislikes Dwarves (of all things...). Either way points to 'aesthetics' as something apparently important to Caranthir. Which makes sense given who his parents are. What is interesting to me is that this apparently DOESN'T matter to Curufin, who is a lot like Feanor in most things. That's interesting!

I've never, never seen this but I think it would be very funny to attribute his aesthetic prejudices to Nerdanel. I love her; but why should her opinions be perfect? I know she wasn't considered beautiful herself, but she's an artist. She's got to have had some strong opinions on aesthetics anyway. I doubt it's the beards; Mahtan had one as well. And 'stunted'...at least some of this comes down to the Elvish obsession with height yet again. Hm.

- eventually Caranthir overcomes what have to be some very deeply held beliefs about human beings and their place in the world, and offers what for all intents and purposes looks like real friendship, not the ruling over Men Feanor seems to have had in mind at best. He's capable of real change!

Anyway his character works just fine to me from canon, and what he achieves and the ways in which he fails are more interesting that way rather-- neither slandered Feanorian Finrod 2.0 nor Curufin 'Dwarf Fan' Feanorion without the sneakiness and murder attempts pack the same punch as a stupidly prejudiced grouchy man doing his best anyway for centuries in this stupid ugly cursed land, eventually changing for the better, opening up-- and being brutally punished for it by the Doom.

Dammit. I hope there's therapy in the Everlasting Darkness.

hm a bit long but that's what I get for trying to gather my thoughts wrt why after considering it a bit transferring Curufin's love for Dwarves to Caranthir is a bit boring to me personally. Though there are still stories that still do it very well.

#no one asked including me but there you go anyway #that's what you get when i wake up at nearly 3 in the morning and thnk. FUCK i can't sleep #caranthir

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dancedance-resolution · 3 years

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andi mack friendom, are you interested in some more thoughts about my andi mack / american girl crossover (which is actually just a thinly veiled info dump about american girl history and drama)? if so, you're in the right place!

the andi / buffy / cyrus doll set i designed would be a contemporary line.

CONTEXT (forewarning, this is basically just an ag info dump about the 2017 contemporary line) (also, tagging @kirstensleepey because i think this write up might be useful for the ag project you're working on <3):

so in 2017, american girl did a brand new thing. they released 3 dolls who were contemporary characters but not girls of the year. (prior to these dolls' release, which are called "the contemporary line" by the ag fandom, the only categories of ag dolls were historicals, girls of the year, and just like yous.)

the contemporary line was controversial for many reasons.

first, we have our main character, tenney grant. (tenney is basically taylor swift as a doll, if taylor were uncool and a r*publican lol.)

one of the reasons why tenney is so controversial is that she overshadowed the girl of the year (henceforth abbreviated as goty) 2017, gabriella mcbride.

tenney was released only one month after gabriella's release. ag's social media gave much more focus to tenney than gabriella. upon tenney's release, gabriella's store displays were downsized (which is unheard of for a goty). tenney even had a larger collection than gabriella!

why are we mad about tenney overshadowing gabriella? well, gabriella was ag's first (and as of 2021, ONLY) black goty. also, gabriella was ag's first doll to have an explicity confirmed disability - her stutter.

BRIEF INTERMESSION - SOME STATISTICS ABOUT DIVERSITY IN CHARACTER DOLLS:

only 7 out of the 22 total historical characters have been dolls of color. only 3 out of 22 historicals have been black (one of which is now retired). only 2 out of 22 have been aapi (one of these dolls, ivy, was just a best friend doll and is now retired; and the other doll, nanea, has a problematic face mold. i wrote an essay about why her facemold is problematic here!). only 1 historical doll, josefina, is hispanic, and ag has actually misspelled her name as "josephina" on their social media before.

only 1 doll EVER has been native american, kaya'aton'my, who is a historical character from 1764. (not even any of the just like you dolls have had kaya's face mold! kaya is truly the only indigenous doll!) in fact, ag has had more colonizer characters than indigenous characters. felicity and elizabeth are white character dolls from 1776, and their books fail to address the issues surrounding colonization and treatment of native americans. and kirsten is a swedeish immigrant to wisconsin in 1854. her book does acknowledge the existence of native americans, and kirsten has an indigenous friend named singing bird. (i haven't read kirsten's books and i'm not indigenous, so i can't comment on this storyline.) ag actually had a controversy about kirsten just this year - in 2021, the t-shirt design for kirsten said "settlers gonna settle", and ag actually ended up changing the design to "cabin sweet cabin" after backlash.

moving on to the girl of the year line - out of 21 goty dolls, gabriella is the ONLY black goty. only 6 out of 21 gotys have been dolls of color. there have been 2 hispanic characters (luciana, who is generally regarded as an excellent doll; and marisol, who is controversial because her book talks about how her family moved from pilsen chicago - a real area of chicago that is home to many hispanic immigrants - to a white suburb due to crime. this storyline involves racist stereotypes.) also, goty 2016 lea clark (slightly tan skin, blonde hair, light green eyes) is 1/8th brazilian, and some brazilian ag fans consider the emphasis on lea being 1/8th brazilian racial feticization. next, there have been 3 aapi gotys. one of these dolls, sonali, was one of two best friend dolls for chrissa (goty 2009) - yep, you heard that right, yet another doll of color that is a side character! sonali is the bully in chrissa's books, but she gets a redemption arc. to this day, sonali is ag's only south asian character doll. [additionally, there has been some criticism that all of the aapi gotys are mixed race - jess mcconell (goty 2006) has a japanese mother and an irish/scottish father, kanani akina (goty 2011) has a french/german mother and a japanese/hawaiian father, and sonali matthews has an indian mother and a father of unknown race/ethincity. perhaps notably, the only aapi historical doll who is not currently retired (nanea) is also mixed race (hawaiian mother and scottish father).]

as for the disability thing i mentioned - ag also has a disappointing track record regarding disability representation, lol. it was very lightly implied that mckenna (goty 2012) had a learning disability, but that was never confirmed. mckenna's tutor, who used a wheelchair, was ag's first big disability rep, but she was just a side character in mckenna's story. then, many ag fans were disappointed when mary ellen, a historical character released in 2015, was able-bodied (in canon, she had polio as a child, so it would make sense for mary ellen to be disabled and use mobility aids). finally, in 2020, goty joss gave us some disability rep - she has a hearing aid.

ag's lack of disability rep is very frustrating, especially considering that doll companies, like our generation, have made some really cool disabled dolls. and ag has been doing this ad campaign with the paralympics that feels performative to me - like, they want to seem inclusive by featuring dolls with prostetic legs, but they don't even sell dolls like that!!!

lastly, religious diversity - iirc, there are three jewish dolls (rebecca, goty 2001/2002 lindsey, and goty 2009 chrissa). the rest of the dolls are either christian or of unspecified religion. there has never been an explicitly muslim, hindu, or buddhist doll, or a doll who is a member of any religion other than judaism/christianity/unspecified. (there is some hope that we might get a muslim doll, though, since an outfit with a hijab was leaked, and ag trademarked a persian name that i can't recall off the top of the head at my moment. but take these with a grain of salt - ag trademarks a ton of stuff that they don't use, and the leak could be false or just a truly me outfit.)

END OF INTERMISSION - BACK TO THE TENNEY/GABRIELLA CONTROVERSY:

so, we get our first black goty, and she's being totally overshadowed by tenney.

here's where a conspiracy comes in:

we can track when ag trademarks their character names. goty names are usually trademarked early in the year prior to their release (by may). but gabriella mcbride wasn't trademarked until october, iirc.

and gabriella is a very underdeveloped character in comparison to most gotys. one of her main hobbies - dancing - was the same main hobby as both marisol (goty 2005) and isabelle (goty 2014). her store displays were underemphasized in comparison to tenney's, as i mentioned before. she was the first goty who didn't get a movie in six years (since kanani, goty 2011). and gabriella didn't even have a big ticket accessory item available until summer!

so, we get our first black goty, and she's underdeveloped, underemphasized, seems to have been rushed (due to her trademark date), and overshadowed by tenney just one month after her release. why is that?

well, some people think that tenney was actually supposed to be goty 2017! (i agree)

tenney was trademarked earlier, had more development, had a bigger collection, etc. we think that tenney was supposed to be goty 2017, but ag decided to do a doll of color (gabriella) at the last minute. (keep in mind the climate of 2015/2016 - ag probably wanted some clout for doing a black goty, and they also probably heard the ag fandom's demands for more dolls of color.)

so that's tenney.

next we have logan everett. logan was ag's first boy character doll. i'm glad that ag had a boy character doll, but logan kinda missed the mark for me. the main source of controversy surrounding logan is his face mold: he, a white boy, uses the kaya face mold. !! it kinda felt like a slap in the face to many indigenous ag fans - kaya is literally The Only Doll with the kaya face mold, and when we finally get another doll with her face mold, he's not even indigenous.

lastly, we have z yang my beloved <3. z yang was done dirty - she is yet another doll of color who is a mere side character, and also, she was available for only a total of 20 months before being retired!

so, that's everything i have to say about the 2017 contemporary line.

now i'm going to talk about the 2021 contemporary line :3

so, it's summer 2020. the black lives matter is becoming more mainstream. brands are now getting clout for appearing "woke."

so, admist this climate, ag is (as always) facing demands from its fandom/collectors to diversify its doll line. so they announce that they're going to be doing a new contemporary line, to be released in "the second half of 2021"!!!! and they promise that the contemporary line will have a black lead character

fast forward to modern day. thanks to ag's trademarks, we can safely assume that the new contemporary line will be called "world by us." we can safely assume that the line will have 3 characters. the 3 characters all live in washington dc and are best friends :) we can safely assume that the characters will be maritza ochoa, evette peeters, and makena williams. i talked about makena and maritza on that ask regrettable-username sent me about my andi mack/ag headcanons! personally, i'm excited for world by us, and i think it has a lot of potential!

alright sawyer, that's the end of the ag info dump fhjhdhfskf.

now for my andi mack friends:

i think the andi/buffy/cyrus line would be structured similar to world by us: andi is the main character, and buffy and cyrus are her best friend dolls :) all 3 dolls would be released at the same time. andi would have 3 books that have buffy and cyrus as side characters, and buffy and cyrus would have one book each.

the big ticket item for this collection would be andi's andi shack. i'm imagining its design sort of like kira's tent mixed with lanie's camper mixed with blaire's farm. andi the walls of andi shack would open up so that when it's fully opened, the four walls are on an even plane with the back wall and extended out like wings. you remove the roof before opening up the walls. the shack is tall enough that the doll can comfortably stand up even with the roof still attached, and wide enough that all three dolls (andi, buffy, and cyrus) can comfortably stand next to each other inside of andi shack.

andi shack would come with a ton of craft supplies inside of it. it would also come with a little flower box that has cece's african violets, like blaire's flower box. (thanks to regrettable-username for coming up with the african violets idea fdjfsj.)

alright i have to go now, so these are all my andi mack/ag thoughts for now, but i might be back later with more thoughts fhdfjs (hopefully not though, since typing this out took me over three hours [sweating emoji]).

sorry for any typos and sorry for how scatterbrained this is! also this may have some forgotten things/mildly incorrect things bc my only source is my brain (and a photo of all the dolls so i can count how many dolls for the statistics portion) and my brain is not the most reliable thing on earth lol.

#long post #american girl dolls #i feel kinda bad about putting this in the andi mack tag since it's mostly ag related; but it does include info about my andi mack/ag au #and the friendom has seemed to be really enjoying the andi mack/ag au (nostalgia i guess) so uhhh hopefully you guys will enjoy this? lol #andi mack

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themarinaalexis · 2 years

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One of the funniest things on PLL is Ali insisting she’s changed and she’s different now, but every person in their group can fully believes she’s capable of committing murder. They thought she killed Mona and then literally all of them thought she killed Charlotte, with even Emily getting on the train after she visits Ali. They might say they believe she’s changed, and maybe they consciously do believe her, but it’s pretty clear that they all, subconsciously at least, consider her the same girl she was when she left. I get it, Ali’s behavior was way beyond that of a normal bully, because I don’t know a single person who blinded a person and then had that person’s victim take the fall for it, and I doubt any person capable of empathy or remorse would ever do that because what the actual hell, so she was practically a borderline psychopath pre-A, I totally understand why they’d all think that Ali would lose her cool and kill someone, especially somebody she’d hated like with Mona or someone who she might’ve perceived as betraying her like Charlotte turning out to be someone she’d trusted and called friend but was A the whole time, but it is hysterical that they all think she’s capable of cold blooded murder even after she says she’s changed. I’m not sure when Ali learned about the Jenna Toby situation, but the fact remains that lying about seeing someone watching (which has the implication that Ali simply wanted to hurt Jenna or Toby since we never get a reason for why she lied about seeing Toby, but we know that she didn’t do the “prank” to teach Toby a lesson about not spying) and then blinding a girl is a bit of a reach for a character that is supposed to be redeemed later.

I've always felt this way too, and iirc I made a similar point in one of my earlier video essays. It's just so true. We're supposed to believe that Alison has been fully redeemed and accepted into the sacred "Liar bond," and yet half a season later they're accusing her of murder like it's nothing. Despite their arguments, there was a deep sense of trust between the four main Liars that Ali was just simply never a part of. If this had been acknowledged, it would have made it easier for me to buy into her supposed redemption. But I just couldn't accept them trying to convince us that Alison was the "fifth Liar" when the girls clearly didn't hold that unyielding trust in her.

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sineala · 3 years

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Your meta on 616 Tony's political affiliation was very well thought out and insightful! I was wondering if marvel ever did a comic storyline that was supposed to be an allegory for the iraq/afghanistan wars and if so, what positions tony and steve took? Like how the nixon alien thing was an allegory for watergate. Have the comics ever touched on the middle east wars? Do we know steve or tony's thoughts on those wars? Thanks!

The thing about modern Marvel comics is that they really, really don’t like to touch real-world politics.

The Secret Empire/Nomad thing was exceptional precisely because it is clearly supposed to be a take on Watergate -- and, IIRC, in the letters column Marvel tried to assert that it was not Nixon. They did publish it, yeah, but also they immediately disavowed it.

Sure, sometimes comics can’t not deal with major events -- JMS has a (as far as I know) very well-regarded Spider-Man issue about 9/11, but Marvel Comics are set in New York and they kind of had to say something about that one.

But for the most part, they just... don’t. I know this might be hard to believe given that Captain America Comics #1 has Captain America slugging Hitler right on the cover, published back before the US entered WWII and explicit anti-fascism was actually still a controversial position. But that was then and this is now, and as far as I can tell, mostly they just try to avoid telling stories that would explicitly interact with real-world politics in controversial ways.

And yeah, I know that Tony’s origin story was originally set during the Vietnam War and that he was an arms manufacturer during the Vietnam War. But in 1964 or so, this was not the controversial position that it became later. As the war became more and more unpopular, fans wrote in basically begging them to make Tony change. And, yes, they eventually did. In Iron Man #78, Tony leaves the weapons business. He reflects on how some of the terrible, terrible things he saw in Vietnam have made him commit to peace. It’s a lovely issue. It’s very moving. I recommend it a lot. But do you know when it was published? November 1975. Do you know when the US pulled out of Vietnam? I didn’t, so I just checked. The US officially withdrew in January 1973 and they weren’t all the way out until Saigon fell in April 1975. Marvel Comics did not make Tony stop manufacturing weapons until the Vietnam War was actually, completely over in terms of US involvement.

That’s not really what I would call being unafraid to take a bold, controversial anti-war stance. I’m just saying.

And, sure, once it was over Marvel felt free to tell stories about the war. In 1979, they retconned Rhodey into existence, as a Marine whom Tony met in Vietnam. And in 1986 they introduced Frank Simpson (Nuke), whose entire theme as a character is basically “what if the Vietnam War had really, really fucked Captain America up?” And there’s of course Frank Castle (The Punisher), who, like Tony, has a backstory that was originally tied to Vietnam. Of course, it isn’t anymore, either.

So because of the way the Sliding Timescale works, pretty much every character who has a war-related backstory other than World War II has had their backstory reworked several times to incorporate whatever war would make the most sense for them to have been in if the modern comics happened right now. As I’m sure you know. So both Tony and Frank Castle have had their backstories altered to various places in the Middle East; off the top of my head, I know it was Afghanistan by the time of Extremis, but it may also have been Afghanistan before then. And as far as I know, they also avoided having characters take a stand on that war, either. Nothing is coming to mind, but if anyone else knows something, feel free to chime in.

Currently, both Tony and Frank Castle have their canonical war origin in a completely fictional war in the completely fictional country of “Siancong.”

(For what it’s worth, Marvel has also been known to publish Armed Forces Editions of their comics, and the PR for the Empyre: Captain America miniseries made a big deal out of the fact that the writer was also active-duty military.)

And, yes, Captain America, because of who the character is, does have more of an opportunity to deal with situations that are political but these days he doesn’t usually get to go very far beyond, like, “Nazis are bad and so is racism and sexism (and sometimes if you’re really lucky, homophobia is also bad).” And if you’ll recall, Mark Waid got in trouble for writing an essay for Marvel Comics #1000 in which Captain America described America as “deeply flawed” and they had him replace it with a different, less controversial essay, and this was, what, two weeks after they told Art Spiegelman that his introduction for a book of Golden Age comics could not compare Trump to the Red Skull? (Still not really sure why they asked Art Spiegelman to write that introduction at all since I would kind of assume they knew what they were getting with him in particular. But apparently not!)

But anyway, yeah, Marvel Comics’ attitude toward explicitly putting politics in comics these days seems to lean toward “just say no.”

#chocolatementalityenemy #replies

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flodaya · 4 years

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Hi flora! I was wondering, why not call fatou a wlw? Genuinely asking!! As a lesbian myself I've grown accustomed to using wlw as an umbrella term (like mlm?) but as english is not my 1st language I am now wondering if I am using it incorrectly. Don't want to harm my own group of people 😅 thanks!

here is the thing, if you are a lesbian and want to keep calling fatou a wlw go ahead! wlw is an umbrella term for women who love women

I take issue with the refusal to acknowledge that fatou is in fact by the very definition a lesbian, if people refuse to call her a lesbian when she described and fits the textbook definition of a lesbian I get low-key triggered and sad because it’s an easy way to avoid saying lesbian. it’s still often considered a “dirty word” - even within the community - it took me forever to accept it as my label (tbh I’m still working on it) because there are so many prejudices and stigmata attached to the term. we need to reclaim the word and we can start by not using umbrella terms for lesbian characters

Lexa on the 100 is widely accepted as a lesbian and as far as I can recall she has never outright stated she uses the label lesbian (nor has she ever clearly stated she isn’t into men iirc) but why is it an issue for some of you to “label” fatou who has come out in a way that can not in any way be interpreted as being interested in men and women as a lesbian? and think about it: what would we call a male character that said he doesnt do girlfriends and is into men? would anyone hesitate to call him gay? actually, we don’t have to think in hypotheticals here because isak himself has never said “I am gay” when he came out, he only ever said he likes a boy/not a girl* yet we all agree he is gay

btw, not to get too much into queer media theory but a similar thing happens with bisexual characters in tv/movies/books where these characters never actually use their label or only ever say they don’t label themselves. media isn’t real life, there can’t be the same rules for real life and media, whereas in real life it is absolutely valid if you don’t want to label yourself and/or you don’t feel comfortable with the label that most closely represents you (yet or ever) that is absolutely fine, keep using umbrella terms or no label at all! but in media this is often done to avoid using “dirty words”, words that have too many negative connotations and instead of reclaiming and re-normalizing these terms the writers decide to be “über-liberal” and say the character doesn’t label themselves. the erasure of labels isn’t as revolutionary as some people seem to think

tl;dr you, anon, and any other lesbian who is comfortable calling fatou (and other clearly lesbian characters) a wlw can go ahead! but others avoiding labels such as lesbian for fictional female characters who are exclusively interested in women feels iffy. this isn’t real life where we need to respect people’s boundaries and wishes, this is fictional representation and you need to respect people who this representation is for

anyway, it’s not that deep (she says after having a small meltdown and it triggered her internalized lesbiphobia and was only saved by ranting to her friends about it last night and she has now written a whole essay about the issue lol) I won’t crucify anyone for using umbrella terms for fatou, I will just side-eye you really hard**

* “maybe a little” isn’t confirming his label

** again unless you are a lesbian yourself in which case feel free to use umbrella terms for fatou

#ask #druck #this is the end of me discussing this #I will also turn off anon option for the time being because it is triggering me I’m sorry #my posts #fatou jallow

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