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familyagrestefanblog · 5 months

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Clarification I definitely should have done ever since season 4 and the Ladynoir conflict started escalating, but hey, let's just get it out:

There are reasons why I'm harping down so badly on Miraculous' Girlboss feminism and defend Adrien as much as I do.

To get the feminist (in-universe) explaination out of the way first:

I would be lying if I said that I like the direction the show has taken Marinette's character and the story in general. But regarding her specifically I simply have to say that most of my problems with her are how she is written as Ladybug, Guardian, and especially leader & partner. Not in her civilian self. Hence why you won't find that alot on my blog, only when it contributes to the overarching double standards problem from s4 I take issue with.

I simply cant deny it, Ladybug is a kind of leader I just came to not be able to respect alot anymore in how she operates most things bc she doesn't really ever look passed how things look & stand for herself, and what SHE needs & wants. Marinette is a very low empathy person in the sense that she struggles putting herself in other people's positions, or remembers considering that at all.

But that's not the reason why I can't respect her as leader. I have ADD, that would be really hypocritical of me.

What leaves me unable to respect her as leader though (& honestly kinda even wanting Alya to take her position) is the fact that the show doesn't see much wrong with Maribug doing that.

They don't properly depict this as flawed leadership she actually NEEDS to grow out of by making up for her shortcomings by, for example, making other people her official co-leaders. Instead the show since s4 (& kinda s3) will proceed to put it's feminist foot down if Maribug isn't actually in the end 100% correct and "totally girlboss justified" in any given case - with CN & authorities specifically - no matter the context. Ergo she's barely ever truly improving her weakpoints in partnership skills for example & continues doing the same mistakes over n over.

like she genuinely would benefit from having Chat Noir as her co-leader too, not just Rena Rouge. But no. The neurodivergend low-empathy girl can't have a high-empathy boy co-leader bc apparently thats misogynistic now, huh ?

Again, I have ADD and I'm also a woman. In fact, I actually have alot in common with Maribug (hence why it hurt so much once s4 took her away from me), so forgive me when I still say: I am NOT going to lower my standards of my believe that neither of those aspects get to be an excuse on everyone else's expense regarding LEADERSHIP (which I do also am in the position of in my life).

And I repeat: LEADERSHIP. Not Marinette herself as a person necessarily & esp not her civilian life.

People always say that her critics wouldn't be so hard on her if she were a man, but I strongly disagree. In my experience, if Marinette were a boy people would actually draw a line nowadays and call out that Mariano is too stuck in his own head to be a good leader (& partner). And maybe even demand that he shouldn't be in that position anymore either at all or until he's in a better head space.

Bc with male characters people are actually drawing lines now in important factors when it comes to power & the accountability coming with it, bc in the end being in change means it ain't about you

Hence why e. g. Steve Rogers (Captain America) was then a fucking fugitive from the law when shit got real in the MCU. They had to do that bc of his leadership morality not being able to exist well within a corrupted & complex law system under fire and attack. My man's an amazing battle leader, but the MCU did VERY well leaving taking care of all kinds of social & political matters to Tony Stark. This kind of nuance ain't Steve's strength. Marinette & Steve are actually a EXTREMELY similar type of leader and it's interesting that I don't exactly vibe with him too much either in that regard, but like him as person the way I did Marinette. So for me it's definitely an issue with their type of leadership.

But the mainstream female leader characters are often still "too female" to get held to the same regular standards bc telling a female leader character in a complicated and not entirely beneficial situation & position 'yeah, it's sucks but you're not the center of the universe'' is now more often than not still "too mean/ sexist"

again, Steve was made an outlaw for a reason and you can bet if he had been a Stephanie people would have made all her struggles about sexism & called the 'outlaw leader' route after Civil War misogyny, merely bc "society doesnt respect women". This is whats happening with Maribug & it clashes with her leadership style.

Hence why there AREN'T ALOT of mainstream female leader characters. And if we get some, most of them are narratively defined by how powerful & in control they are for THEIR OWN BENEFIT and it being depicted as 100% right & just in general (like with Marinette) which goes against what a normal leader should be, so alot of people don't like them (ignoring the actual sexist people for a sec)

The first Wonder Woman movie for example was so well-received for a reason. They did it RIGHT (& may I please also recommend Wakanda Forever? Fuck, that movie was GOOD)

But yes, it's notably how Maribug treats Chat, who is supposed to be her partner and friend, that I take alot of issues with.

And yes, I would say the same if LB were male and CN female. Ladynoir is so rooted in toxic femininity that this "partnership" (or just the entire LS) the way it is could NOT exist today in gender bend. S4 and the s5 finale in particular are unthinkable in gender bend and they sold it as "justified female empowerment" & "unparalleled loving treatment" from Ladybug's side Chat Noir needed to learn to be GRATEFUL for.

All while, and I will never stop stressing this: the show has never stopped writing Marinette to treat Chat Noir as if he basically just spawns into existence once he puts on the mask. He's HALF a human being. Even once she falls in love with him in s5.

This is the fundamental and deep seeded problem of where my issues come from here. It never stands in question if Adrien views Marinette and Ladybug as full human beings, but the other way around that very much is the case. In whatever way it's depicted. Yes this is a line I draw, especially because of the whole Sentihuman thing.

I personally am alot more like Adrien regarding Friendship and partnership (or what his character initially started out). They are heavy & meaningful topics for me. So seeing Marinette being utilized to girlboss all that into the ground with Chat Noir, esp in s4, while she apparently barely ever even noticed anything wrong with how she treats him in the first place as she literally replaced him with Alya/ Rena in everything but name

cause buring him under a wall of secrets & lies meant she can still 100% benefit from his eternal devotion by letting him believe she's too alone to be a partner anymore AT ALL. (Kuro Neko onwards and then NEVER stopped letting him think she's just as alone as he is. NEVER. She's still doing it in s5 while leaving him 100% isolated which was then his demise in the s5 finale.)

and gives Alya the deluxe partnership entirely on his expense, while barely ever sparing him even the most basic thought in anything; & by "Risk" then literally having them switch status. Rena is her actual partner she fully treats that way and he's merely her favorite temp hero with no rights, which Rena was previously.

And the only reason why Chat was treated with something resembling to fairness or dignity again in season 5 (& finally wasn't a rag doll for her every little mood anymore...) was because Maribug plainly had no other choice and had her team & position of power taken away by force while Alya renounced for her own safety. And yet she's still treating him as half a human being even by the end of S5. AFTER her character development. He's Chat Noir and that's where his existence ends in her leadership & friendship. CN and Alya in s5 are literally 2 halves of ONE PARTNER.

All that was painful to watch to say the least. Bc it's imo honestly a disgrace to friendship and partnership. I can't put into words how ashamed I would be of myself if I treated someone the way Marinette treats Chat Noir (again, HALF A HUMAN BEING).

Much less a friend I claim to love dearly and don't want to loose (another thing the MCU did better regarding Steve's fall-out with Tony over Bucky... I should really make that comparison post why Steve works for me & Marinette doesnt)

Just the mere fact that Marinette in "Elation" even told Chat "It doesn't matter who's underneath your mask" is honestly outrageous.

Because thats simply what it is for me. If s4 & 5 Marinette were portrayed from a similar morality angle to Emonette in the Paris special I would have much less issues with her. Cause thats ironically an angle female characters barely get & is mostly used to redeem the broken bad boys with a hidden heart of gold™.

Double irony: s1-s3 actually DID put civilian Marinette often into that angle, hence why I really liked her, but then s4 suddenly said "well, her methods & actions really dont matter. She's wrong, but actually not really; ergo she should get rewarded in the end. Always. But with a few exceptions. Here n there she loses to claim otherwise. But actually the world just needs to learn how right & amazing she is."

She makes countless mistakes but often either doesn't really learn from them anymore or they just don't "count" bc that's 'what makes her quirky & loveable', so having any issues with her now means you hate women. And she's a very flawed leader but actually never did anything wrong. Ever. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I will be VERY blunt now: The moment you put a female character into the leader role the FEMALE aspect is supposed to be of secondary importance. And a leader, by the nature of the position, ALWAYS has to be questioned morally wise in my opinion bc of the fatal blindspots that will automatically occur in every leadership.

And it happened here too: Chat Noir's treatment. But they demanded that her being the (female) leader means she's OWED to treat him badly & gets to keep him as blindspot on HIS expense bc she doesn't like thinking about him existing as civilian person.

A leader is ALWAYS somebody who is NOT going to sit well with everybody regarding their approach. That's a normal instinct, and in fact it would be highly dangerous if that wouldnt happen at all. So if I, or other people, don't respect her as one that simply means she has an opposition the way every leader has & is being held to normal standards a leader should be held to, regardless of gender.

Sorry if you think thats sexist, but in my opinion that's a YOU problem. I personally respect female leaders too much to not acknowledge them as anything else but the potential threats they are. The same way I do with male leaders.

You're leader first, woman second. If you can't handle that get out of the leadership position (yes, oc that also applies the other way around). Feminism was about making sure that women cant be excluded from e. g. position of power just bc we're female. The goal wasn't to have yet another group of people stomp their foots, now claiming that they are OWED power once they wanna have it to feel powerful. But that's what Marinette was used to teach an entire generation of children, especially girls.

The last thing you will EVER get me to do is accept that I should be holding women - specifically for equality, female empowerment and leadership - to LOWER (moral) standards as I would the men in her position.

Buddy, I am NOT gonna fucking do that. Just the thought is pissing me tf off, and has ever since s4, cause it directly plays into the misogynistic thinking of:

"Women can't be given power, status or even too much focus as human beings because they're too irrational and immature to be able to then lay proper priorities & take rightful accountability for their shit like a man in power could; and not just scream and cry while playing the oppressed victim card the moment things don't work out & they aren't being given the special female treatment to let them mostly off the hook consequences wise.

Leading to everyone around them, especially the MEN, having to step up, do the work & basically babysit the women like children - while still having to give her the credit as person in charge - turning the women more or less into toddlers wearing a queen's crown"

Which, by all means, Adrichat in every dynamic of the love square by season 5, Gabriel at the end of "Recreation" and even Luka & Félix (& "thankfully" Alya too since s4) had to do for Maribug in alot of ways.

Pick up all of her slack in several major areas & catering to her while simultaneously having to still give most of the credit to HER or else they would be "mean to the female lead" (it's also telling that Alya is treated the best here, & goodness dont get me started on Su-Han...).

And with that out of the way, a few more meta reasons:

1) I'm NOT watching a damn documentary. Marinette is NOT a 14 year old, she doesnt exist & isnt based on a real person or story. She's a fictional main character and narrative tool, so forgive me for approaching this differently than a real life case.

and 2) in everything I watch I automatically look out for the narrative's blind spots and victims of the writings' favorites. I take it this seriously because this is career related for me.

Hence why I have barely ever liked a main character and ironically Marinette/ Ladybug was once one of the few exceptions (alongside Korra from Legend of Korra and Blitz from Helluva Boss)

Look, when I for example watch Helluva Boss or a Yugioh show I will automatically pay extra attention to how the female characters are being treated bc they are obviously treated worse by the writing and much more neglected and scapegoated than the male characters.

Meanwhile when I watch Miraculous and She-Ra, I do the opposite and pay attention to how the male characters are treated bc now they have the gender-biase against them.

And when I for example watch Avatar the last Airbender or Legend of Korra [and She-Ra, that show is great], then I actually get to be mostly fucking happy for once in my life jfc

I'm not going to elaborate too much more on this because I already named by my main point in the beginning: Chat Noir's - not even Adrien's, I mean CHAT NOIR - sometimes honestly awful treatment being the biggest moral and narrative blind spot of the entire show, and honestly where most of Maribug's problems then are also rooted in. Hence why I started focusing so much on Chat Noir since season 4. I look at the overall narrative and circumstances and look for the blind spots that needs to be solved to get to the core of the problem of this whole mess, to get effective results.

And that was and even by the end remained the fact that Adrichat is treated so badly, scapegoated in every possible way in the name of "feminism" and kicked out of the story where HE is at the core of most everything going on, just so the show can force Maribug into everything, make things about her that have no business being about her

Just so she can then be made to constandly turn around and scream, cry and stress about problems - and go about them in the least effective way - that wouldnt be there in the first place if she wasnt the main character of a story that isnt hers.

Mate, I dont know what to tell you here, but the fact that we are following Marinette Dupain-Cheng ,who has nothing to do with anything besides being the cool action girl, is and will always remain of the of core problems of this show. I WISHED that wasnt the case. But for the love of everything, Kagami would have made so much more sense as the female lead, but no.

Anyway, I will leave it at that now cause I already elaborate much further than I initially wanted to, I just wanted to finally have all this stated.

This Blog is not a full representation of how I lay priorities in (feminist) media in general, my view adjusts to the piece of media I'm watching.

And unfortunately, ever since season 4 Miraculous turned into a full blown extreme case and has only gotten better somewhat recently. So I will continue doing what I always do: focus on the fucking VICTIM whose bad treatment pulls down the whole show's quality, and here that's plain obviously Adrien Agreste/ Chat Noir.

And with all due respect: Die mad about it.

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daisymylove · 1 year

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Hide the breakables and board up the windows, my beloved Mfs, for a rant is coming your way.

I want to be done complaining about chot I really do, I hate being so negative about a book I waited and yearned for, for so long, but there’s one more thing that annoyed me greatly, and, per usual, I want to know what yall think

Today’s subject is our Blackthorn sibling duo.

I wanna preface this by saying that Grace’s povs were one of my favourite parts of Choi.Her character in itself adds grayness to a narrative of angels and demons, good vs evil, and I really enjoyed all the complexity and layers given to her.I ended Chog cursing her name to the wind swear to god, the cursing emoji was a perfect visual representation of me when she put that thing on james again, but in choi cc achieved exactly what she aimed for with grace :” an explanation, not an excuse”

However, I feel like all that information we were given in the previous book was completely wasted in Chot.The characters never find out that she was threatened into putting the bracelet back on James, or that she tried to take it off at his wedding. Her motivations, too, are never known.The way it was portrayed, it looks like Grace stayed so long by Tatiana’s side bc she truly had some sort of fetish for torturing men, when, in reality, it was all for Jesse

She could’ve begged for sanctuary in an institute, once she became old enough, she could’ve fled with Magnus when he offered to help her in TMH, but she never did.Grace never left bc leaving Tatiana would also mean leaving Jesse and what was all that for? home boy discarded her like some rancid food at the first opportunity When she went to Curzon street to demand James kissed her? That was for him. Even that train wreck she caused by the end of choi was for him, bc she couldn’t bear the thought of controlling her brother and twisting his feelings for her.To me, this is some very relevant info that should’ve become known if all the secrets were going to be revealed, AND YET NONE OF THIS IS ADRESSED IN THE GODDAMN BOOK

the only explanation I can think of is because that knowledge would require of Jesse to have at least a little bit of loyalty towards his sister, or look like an ungrateful arse which he did, but I’ll get there.

Now about jesse.I had great expectations for him in this last installment, the first one in which he’s alive, but my main take away is that he has become an extension of Lucie’s feelings and opinions, in the most symbiotic way possible, with no personality of his own.

In choi we find out that Grace withstood a lot of physical and psychological abuse from Tatiana that he didn’t know about.I was expecting them to have a true heart to heart, they would discuss everything that went down when they were kids, not just james and the bracelet, and jesse would not only feel guilty about not being able to protect his little sister, but also decide to stick by her side no matter what.

And yes, he could’ve done that while also condemning her mistakes and treatment towards James.The two are not mutually exclusive, and would do justice to his little speech about complicated stories, which, to me, is a very hypocritical spiel since he decided to become his sister’s jury, judge and executioner

I never thought I would say this in my life, but I was infuriated on Grace’s behalf reading their scene in the silent city.Everything about it was very odd, Grace conveniently for cc withholding something so important, the way she explained herself, his storming off. Jesse had never had ONE conversation with Cordelia in his life, he barely knew James, can a kind soul explain to me WHY he would be more concerned about their marriage than his actual sister? Considering his beloved had just done necromancy (YES, Thats what it was, even if it was a unconventional form of it.Bro was dead, then bro was alive again, just like that. N e c r o m a n c y) his moralism is very hypocritical and his understanding of nuance lacking

It irked something so deep inside me to see not just kit defending a girl he barely knew tooth and nail over his cousin and life long friend, but also Jesse not giving a fuck about his sister.They were talking about leaving Grace completely isolated from society (that was disgusting btw, it was up to their authorities to decide her future, not a bunch of teenagers thinking they can treat a person like a broken doll, to be put away wherever they feel like it) and Jesse looked like he couldn’t spare a visit. He seemed more than eager to put Tatiana AND grace behind him in order to start a new life with the herondales. So much for them being all each other had growing up and his so called loyalty

As some last thoughts bc this is getting way too long, Grace should’ve been the one to kill Tatiana.That wasnt Cordelia’s business and had no emotional significance. When that fight happens Grace looks the polar opposite of everything Tatiana ever groomed her to be.She is dirty, shoeless, bedraggled and feral looking, Lucie even thinks that grace’s little training would only be useful if she got close enough.Imagine, my siblings in christ, Grace slitting Tatiana’s throat, after she kills Grace’s only friend, while she is distracted with Rupert.Tatiana molded Grace into her blade, and that Blade was responsible for her end.Feel the sheer power of it, the poetic justice that could’ve been ours.

I also think Grace should’ve been sent away to the scholomance (against her wishes, hence the I didnt choose this) for intensive training both bc she’s really behind in it, and as a punishment from the clave.Its not like she had a place to go to, and staying at her ex fiance’s parent’s house is not the way to go. .

This new scenario would give her a fresh start to properly heal and eventually make friendships/ find love without the taint from the past on her heels.Her hanging out and chilling with James and his friends has no sense and is a disrespect to his abuse.James doesnt need his abuser living in his uncle and aunt’s house, Grace needs to start her life over where her past won’t haunt her everyday

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blog-of-hubris · 2 years

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Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 187 - The Battle Junkie Collision

“One of those chapters that remind you why Gege is so awesome..”

Legitimately I am always floored when Gege decides to go all in on a fight and not because of the typical “meathead” - for lack of better term- reasoning. This chapter was Gege showing off his ability to complicate his power system , within the battle without it feeling a forced moment of complexity to the power scaling (i.e Kashimo’s cursed energy having electrical properties). Don’t get me wrong, I hate power scaling - with a burning passion, like Jogo’s meteor burning.

However, this is a battle shonen and a top tier battle shonen will always have power scaling at its core. The very fundamental of it derives from a character (usually) trying to attain a goal that requires them be powerful, the strongest even. Jujutsu Kaisen is no exception- if anything it is an example of how the power scaling leads to such intriguing discussion, which sometimes cannot be fully explored without involving (accurate) lore; void of headcanon or bias. I say all that to say that the culling game has taken jujutsu kaisen to the core of this concept, making the fights we see become a form of character development, (the real meaning of development, as in learning about a character and how they tick - not character growth which is the evolution of a character’s mental disposition, actions etc) - while also entertaining the reader, even causing some to miss those little details that make jjk characters so good, but more on that in later sections.

Basically this chapter, without a doubt was one of those chapters that remind you why gege is so awesome, the sheer amount of raw action with meaningful nuance fuels this manga. The narration that Kashimo received the information for Hakari’s domain faster than he could activate Hollow Wicker basket, as well as the information that his activation is even faster than Mahito’s in Shibuya - it puts a lot of things into perspective. First - the fact that this version of simple domain was confirmed to be able to be used by Reggie and Kashimo has me wondering what exactly caused the creation of simple domain. Since Hollow Wicker Basket is a prototype or original form of simple domain, it really makes me want to see how Simple Domain’s founder (forgot his name too lazy to look up) created it and why he felt it had to be kept within his own clan.

See? I’m talking about an entirely different lore piece and that all came from Gege simply adding that narration - and not to mention the confirmation of Hakari’s activation speed.. absolutely insane on top of his other buffs.. I get why Yuta said what he said!

“To Kill an Immortal is to be...”

I love Kashimo for the simple fact that he reminds me of a story about a man who wants to become God. It sounds like I’m making a Black Star reference now that I think about it, but really thats the exact vibe I get from Kashimo. He’s talented, ruthless and clearly gifted with his cursed energy property - however what really grips me about Kashimo is his ruthless fighting style combined with his confidence. He's a scary guy, in a way that I think even Gojo would appreciate (even though he’d get obliterated by Gojo and would do so happily). I think thats what makes post gojo sealing such a phenomenal “era” for this manga, it makes characters like Kashimo feel more like a threat because we know Gojo can’t just come and show him up or guide the students to win.

It was perfect to use Charles as a means to introduce Hakari’s technique/domain then transitioning to the action packed fight - skipping out on the needed explanation for a complex ability like Hakari’s. Its really fucking cool how Gege does that so seamlessly.. I know some people hate to hear it but Gege really took Togashi’s writing style and ran with it. I love it though, he gave it his own modern and more meathead spin while keeping the core of the writing there and thats impressive.

Back to Kashimo, he really was a warrior in his day and we didn’t need to see the scene at the end of the chapter to know that. The fact he is completely unphased by this powered up Hakari is WILD. He is going toe to toe with him no problem, and in my opinion has the upper hand. The only thing (it looks like) Hakari has going for him is the immortality - but apparently that doesn't mean anything to our lightning man cause he wants to kill an immortal. To me, to kill an immortal is to be a God, thats why I get the vibe that Kashimo is really chasing God-hood. Do I mean that in a literal sense.. sure(?), but really I mean it in the spiritual sense. We know that back in the day jujutsu sorcerers were a lot more connected to the spiritual aspects of cursed energy. Just the idea of them accepting their souls being brought back hundreds of years later requires a level of spiritual awareness that I think modern sorcerers lack a bit - but to me that means Kashimo is fighting so hard because is in his spirit, he has the soul of a warrior so he consistently stayed in battle, always fighting until his body couldn’t keep up anymore. I’m head canon ranting I know, but seeing old man Kashimo really honed in to me that these sorcerers who come back are (probably) chasing after a spiritual fulfillment. I may do a different Meta on that entirely but to me Kashimo is chasing Godhood, as Ryu was chasing “fulfillment “ and Uro chasing “Recognition”. Not to mention chasing after the “King of Curses” to fight and prove who is stronger just sounds like a story out of a folk tale or mythological story of a man chasing “God”. Could be just me though-

The only thing that can confirm my head canon would be more insight on Kashimo as he is fighting Hakari, or a small flashback at the end of the battle, maybe even both. I will say, I am nervous for Hakari a bit!! (but then again not really).

“Hakari is a violent manga fan..”

All of Gojo’s students are crazy. Inumkai might be the only sane one. Maki committed genocide (in self defense, thats important), Panda is a comical Panda with multiple souls, Yuji is Yuji (need we say more?), Megumi is a psycho- the best kind of psycho, Yuta is a psychotic romantic, and Hakari is a violent manga-head. I love every single one of them and I just need one arc with them all together under Gojo.. please Gege.. I'm begging.. pleading.. I’ll pay--!!!

I mean really though, Hakari’s whole approach to fighting being based around using his luck in a skillful manner, then getting on a jackpot roll then becoming immortal while a song plays for 4 minutes and 11 seconds is hilarious. However, what it is more than hilarious is intriguing. One thing I feel like I haven’t seen anyone talk about is the core to jujutsu kaisen and thats the soul, body and cursed techniques. That has been the key things that have kept this series so interesting and adding twists and turns to what we know about the world. What I mean by saying this is that I feel like people haven’t discussed how insane it is that Hakari’s technique is a romcom manga that exists in real life combined with a pachinko game. His technique revolves around his domain activation just like Higaruma (also, notice how gege introduced the concept of rule-type domain expansions, then introduces higaruma, then shows us hakari’s domain - a character who could do it before the culling game unlike higaruma) and as explained with Higaruma he learned the concept of domain expansion and how it works due to his technique. It wouldn’t be far fetched to assume Hakari was the same!

Lets take it one step further - we know that Higaruma’s technique revolved around the motif of a suspect, judge, lawyer and executioner. This was obviously to play on his personality and occupation as a lawyer so what does it say about Hakari whose domain is a pachinko game using a romance manga as the motif? I’ll let you come up with your own personal conclusions on that but I will say, to me it makes him fucking awesome. He’s a cultured dude bro. Hakari is a warrior, he loves battle but also he’s a softy for love and romance to a large enough degree that its engrained in his body & soul, and I say that because of what Mahito and Kenjaku showed us about the body, soul and cursed techniques. Hakari is really special.. he’s a gambling addicted manga fan who likes violence at his core. I love him and seeing him confidently go at Kashimo gave me CHILLS. I hope he shows out in the next chapter , but who knows how long Gege wants this fight to last. I do hope we get to see a lot more of the action break down in the paneling like we did for this chapter, it was really cool and seeing the shirtless Hakari panel breaks were the best part. Dude is just Todo x5.

“Kenny is the cockiest bastard..”

I aspire to be the level of confident Kenjaku is. I mean truly Kenny is the cockiest bastard on earth, I think he rivals Sukuna in that regard honestly. Having the confidence to jump multiple eras and change bodies, tap into different souls and personalities, Kenjaku really is doing his absolute to accomplish his goal. He casually approached Kashimo who had just finished slaughtering people, and calmly shrugs off a taunt from Kashimo. He really is confident in himself, what if Kashimo just attacked? Kenjaku claimed the body he had wasn’t built for fighting, so what does that mean?? He is clearly a powerful barrier user, so why pick a body he couldn’t utilize his strength? A lot of questions I have for him and his motives.

What also stood out to me is the similarity with all the people Kenjaku has taken over. I might be over analyzing (per usual) but hasn't all of Kenjaku’s bodies shared the same features? Aside from just the black hair, its something about all of them that seem very very similar, kind of like victimology in profiling. What is it about the victims that caused the suspect to attack them? I feel like there is a profile to be dissected through Kenjaku’s choices for hosts as well has his movements throughout the series - can you tell I been binging Criminal Minds? Seriously though, Kenjaku seems to be showing his true nature through the scenes Gege has been choosing to show us since Shibuya ended, and I love every second of it. Give me more Gege, expose the crevices of Kenny’s mind bit by bit until his real backstory comes to life.

Random thought i had while typing - since Kenjaku has been around so long its like he is the direct foil to Tengen who was hiding and living “immortal” while Kenjaku was on the other side of the fence living for years “immortal” by jumping bodies and searching for his “truth” - the “potential” of cursed energy. Kenjaku is for sure a very very interesting character and I can’t wait to see more.

“A true Jujutsu Sorcerer ..”

I just want to point out that Kenjaku said Ryu had the most output of cursed energy during Kashimo’s era and we just seen Yuta take him head on.. with two other enemies at once and defeating someone they couldn't beat prior.. he’s a menace. A true jujutsu sorcerer.. and so is Kashimo, but maybe even more so because he has no care for others, only what he is interested in. He only cares about getting stronger and facing off against the strongest - im assuming because he simply loves the thrill of battle. This to me exemplifies what Uro was talking about to Yuta in regards to the strongest sorcerers being like calamities. That was what Uro witnessed, and Kashimo fits that perfectly. And honestly.. so does Hakari! Thats what makes this such an amazing match up because we are seeing true jujutsu sorcery! These battle junkies are going all out to wipe each other out and its that wild battle style that makes jujutsu Kaisen my favorite battle manga to follow fight wise (aside from hxh),

We’ll see how this battle unfolds but no matter what happens you can tell it will take both them to go all out and have no regrets to come out on top!

FIGHT CLUB FIGHT CLUB FIGHT CLUB!

#jjk meta #jjk spoilers #jjk headcanons #jjk fandom #jujutsu kaisen manga #jujutsu Kaisen ch 187 #jjk 187 #dh🍵

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slymewizard · 8 months

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I think its time to make a confession that I’ve been bottling up for a while now. I know that this might get me permanently exiled from the Adventure Time community but I just need to say it. And I’m sorry if I betray anyone with this opinion.

I didn’t like Obsidian.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good episode, I love the music and the flashbacks, and its still better imo than Wizard City (but to be fair that is not a high bar.) but it just didn’t really click with me for a few reasons. Before any of you get mad at me, let me make myself clear, I love Bubblegum and Marceline’s relationship. It’s one of my favorite couples in any series period. But thats precisely one of the reasons that Obsidian underwhelmed me so much. Episodes like Varmints, Sky Witch, and the Stakes arc established them as a badass duo who worked as a team. But during Obsidian, Marceline does most of the heavy lifting while Bubblegum just makes a lot of the problems worse. And I know that was a main plotpoint for the climax of the episode, but it just didn’t sit right with me to see Bubblegum so uncharacteristically inept. The team dynamic between them I had grown to really enjoy just didn’t feel like it was there.

Now this on its own wouldn’t make me not like the episode. It wouldn’t make it a favorite of mine, but I wouldn’t outright dislike it. Even at their worst Bubblegum and Marceline are still a fantastic couple and a joy to watch…

But then we have the glass kingdom.

Hooooooooo boy.

Ok I grew up with Steven Universe so I love Michaela Dietz and I mean no disrespect to her when I say this but GOD IS GLASSBOY ANNOYING.

Ok thats a bit of an overstatement, he has his moments, but unlike Y5 in BMO, he just feels kind of intrusive. And again, I get it, thats a main point of his arc, but I just never really GOT why he needed to be there. I get that theres a whole subplot but I would have enjoyed it a LOT more if Marceline and PB were the sole main characters. Heck maybe even throw a few more Simon moments in there. He just doesn’t really add much to the episode as a whole except an annoying third protagonist who really only exists to further his own subplot rather than the episode plot as a whole. (There were a lot of other ways Marceline and PB could have gotten to the glass kingdom.)

And then theres the subplot itself. I’ve come to have certain expectations for an Adventure Time plot. Call me entitled, but past the midpoint of the series it handled some pretty heavy topics with a lot of nuance, and thats part of why I loved it so much. It wasn’t afraid to talk about certain subjects that other shows tend to shy away from. And Bubblegum and Marceline were two of the most complex characters, so I had high expectations for Obsidian. And their arc, despite my problems mentioned above, delivered it well. The climax with them in the volcano and Marceline using the makeshift guitar to sing a heartfelt song that touched both PB and Larvo was genuinely beautiful and kept the episode from being a complete dud for me. But glassboy’s arc boils down to “Don’t make fun of people who are different than you are.” The second the royal advisors started making fun of him for his crack, I knew EXACTLY, what was going to end up happening. And wouldn’t you know it, by the end of the episode, everyone including the advisors reveal that they all had cracks this entire time because everyone is different and we should all learn to accept that…To quote John Mulaney, just because you’re right, doesn’t mean you’re interesting. This is a topic that any NUMBER of shows could have handled, and even then Adventure Time usually adds a bit of a twist or some nuance to even the most basic lessons, but the entire arc was just so cliche. The royal advisors talk exactly like they crawled out of a stock health class video about bullying. I may sound like a bit of an entitled asshat but am I wrong for feeling a little bit patronized?

So yeah I didn’t really like Obsidian. I’m not gonna make a sarcastic remark mocking people who would disagree I openly encourage you all to tear me asunder. There’s a non zero chance I will become the next Rick and Morty copypasta. I’m still learning about this stuff and if I missed some deeper meanings please let me know. And no matter what, always remember, I still liked this episode way more than Wizard City. That was barely anything for me.

#adventure time #distant lands #adventure time obsidian #marceline #princess bubblegum

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elpublico · 2 years

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Hello! I've been following you for a while and have been wanting to ask you: who exactly is this Federico Garcia Lorca, you seem to like him a lot and I was wondering if you might want to explain why you love him so much. Also why don't you like Salvador Dali (cause I think that has something to do with Lorca? lol) Anyway no pressure if you don't want to answer. I like your blog a lot, have a nice day! :)

first and foremost, thank you very much :-) <3

ive written an absurd amount here, so uh tldr lorca is a spanish writer whose work i enjoy very much, i dont like dalí because of his support of facist systems and because he was an asshole plain and simple, and they are related in that they shared a weird intense homoerotic bond from roughly 1924-1929

and a more in depth explanation below should you care to read! warning it is quite literally 1.5k words. sorry

okay. let us begin

a very basic bio: federico garcía lorca was a spanish creative best known for his plays and poetry, though he was also a talented musician, draftsman, and theatrical director. he was born in 1898 and is considered part of the generación del 27, a loosely defined collection of spanish creatives and intellectuals interested in modernism emerging in the 1920s and 1930s. he was assassinated at by francoist forces at the start of the spanish civil war in 1936 due to his support of and connections to the republican government, leftist politics, and his somewhat public homosexuality.

i have serious, academic answers for why i like him but also silly ones so i’ll start with the silly ones. he was a weird fucking guy. most modernists are weird guys but he’s weird in a unique and dare i say somewhat charming way. he played a game with his friends where he’d pretend to be dead and everyone would pretend to have a funeral for him. when he was a kid he play Catholic Mass and make his family cry during his sermons. he had a jesus complex and wrote a play about his jesus complex. weird guy i love studying his weird brain. also he was that fun type of 20th century homophobic homosexual that was like “guys relax im a cool homosexual i dont like drag” thats extremely easy and fun to ridicule (see: ode to walt whitman). this is especially bold of him since he has the world’s worst taste in men.

on a more serious note i do genuinely enjoy his poetry (and plays, but i’m not well-versed enough in theater to give an informed review), and i think its a particularly poignant and unique version of modernism. and it is both easy and fun to make fun of his loser ass homophobia, but i think generally his work portrays a far more nuanced and compelling depiction of struggling with internalized homophobia that what you see in “ode to walt whitman.” as i am interested in both modernism and queer art, he’s one of those touchstone creatives that forms the basis of this line of inquiry in my personal research interests. also, i think his drawings are severely underrated as examples of spanish modern art and in terms of the material culture of modernism and warrant more in depth scholarship than what currently exists, which is generally just as a coda to his written work.

this is something of a meta-reason, but something i’ve also become interested in as i learn more about lorca is the way in which he has become martyrized in historical and contemporary discussions. i mean like people really create Narratives out of this guy’s life. even as early as 1939 we have people like william carlos williams championing him as the martyr of the spanish civil war to galvanize support in the usa among the literary community (if anyone is interested in reading williams’s essay hit me up i have a pdf). ian gibson’s (lorca’s biographer and the guy who uncovered the details surrounding lorca’s assassination) biography is very much constructed as a narrative of an smoothed over and idealized character. i started thinking more seriously about this after watching the film bones of contention, where lorca is shown as patron saint of lgbt people oppressed under francos rule and of all those who killed during franco's rule. the director of the fundación lorca, who is his niece (great-niece?) expressed in this documentary that the family did not want his bones to be found and reburied, because there is such a strong symbolic connection to him amongst those still fighting for government recognition of the true devastation of facist rule. if they find his bones and rebury them with family, there is the concern that the government will use this as propaganda to suggest that they have dealt with all the repercussions of facism and will not diligently follow up with how fascist power is still a systematic issue. i don’t know if this makes sense, as i haven’t articulated this yet and i still don’t really know what to make of it. there’s just something about the loss of humanity here, that his family could not and cannot properly grieve him because in this horrific death he has become a symbol of resistance. and even as people use his image to delve into queer art and history and as facist resistance, there are also people working in the opposite direction, claiming him as like, a neutral historical presence that like, whether he would have wanted that or not, just isn’t true or even ethical when talking about him today.

and as we talk about narratives i feel this is a good time to shift to dalí who is like The Narrative Guy. as mentioned previously, lorca and dalí were doing some type of gay shit for a little while there (what kind of gay shit is still up for debate). they met in madrid at the residencia de estudiantes, then became very close around 1925, when lorca first visited the dalí summer home in cadaqués. lorca visited again in 1927. they kept a regular correspondence, of which we have relatively few letters, esp those penned by lorca to dalí, and had a particularly fruitful artistic exchange in the years they were friends. lorca drew more (and exhibited his drawings in barcelona), and dalí wrote more. they shared symbols and had this sort of theoretical artistic dialogue through the analysis of saint sebastian. lorca’s head and references to lorca can be found in many of dalí’s paintings of the period, and lorca wrote his "ode to salvador dalí" (which unfortunately kind of slaps) some scholars even go as far as calling this dalí’s lorca period and lorca’s dalinian period.

in 1928 (i think?) luis buñuel (spanish filmmaker who was friends with both of them) begins to turn against lorca, supposedly because he found lorca’s work too traditional/conservative but also probably in large part also due to the fact that he was gay and that he was being gay with dalí. buñuel goes up to dalí, goes “hey i hate lorca don’t you hate lorca haha,” dalí pens this really critical and kind of rude letter to lorca saying his freshly published gypsy ballads was too traditional/conservative and he needed to be more modern etc etc it’s all very high school. dalí pulls away from lorca, goes to paris and collaborates with buñuel on un chien andalou and l’age d’or, lorca goes to new york, and they don’t see each other again until 1935 or 1936 i don’t remember the date. i guess now is as good a time as ever to say at this point in time dalí had ostensibly communist politics and affiliations, but going into late 30s/early 40s as he becomes more successful financially, he cozies up to the fascist franco regime and catholic church and other such institutions so he can live comfortably in spain. he espouses a lot of racist shit that (in my opinion) he only said to further his own career. later on in his life he does a lot of sketchy stuff relating to prints to earn a quick buck. so you know. i dont like him LOL

anyway to bring this back to lorca and narratives, dalí is understandably a key component in understanding the development of lorca’s work but a lot of what he’s said following lorca’s death just cannot be taken at face value. he claims lorca was entirely apolitical in his 1942 autobiography (obviously to make dalí’s own horrendous politics easier to swallow), and in a later interview he presented their relationship in a way that makes lorca look like a pining fool and kind of predatory. this has very clearly influenced lorca scholarship, though i think more and more people are looking at dalí’s comments more critically. in trying to manipulate his own self-image, dalí has had an insane influence over lorca’s narrative, which. grinds my gears.

i hate to end on dalí but i have no more to say lol. but at least i am spreading the word that dalí fucking sucks. gonna cite/link some shit here in the interest of transparency:

biographical details for both mostly pulled from my recollections of ian gibson’s biographies of the two (frederico garcía lorca: a life and the shameful life of salvador dalí) i will also say my understanding of dalí’s personal motives comes pretty much exclusively from gibson’s biography and its thesis, that dalí’s entire life revolved around masking and coping with his own personal sense of shame. very biased point of view but i don’t care enough about dalí to bother reading more about him. even just writing this post bummed me way the fuck out. too much dalí. i will also say i encourage everyone to NOT read gibson’s dalí biography, there’s a really transphobic section that violates the privacy of someone in dalí’s life. she’s a public figure and i’m sure it would not be hard to find speculation elsewhere, but you know. it’s just gross and all i can do is my best to prevent more people from speculating about this woman’s genitals

read a good article a while ago that sums up dalí’s racism but i can’t find it so here are some other articles providing more details, some of which i am only learning about now lol:

el pais: https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-06/the-day-dali-invented-a-racist-religion.html

vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/8qwp9v/its-really-surreal-how-salvador-dal-was-a-fascist-who-hit-women

if you are ever looking for a painfully mediocre period drama, i suggest little ashes in which robert pattinson plays dalí, making some of the most confusing acting choices of his entire career.

if you’re gonna read a lorca biography i suggest leslie stainton’s lorca: a dream of life. i haven’t read it all the way through, but it’s written more for a general audience than gibson’s hyper detailed version, and stainton isn’t afraid to point out tomfoolery on the part of lorca.

a selection of lorca poems:

fable and round of the three friends: https://hellopoetry.com/poem/623292/fable-and-round-of-the-three-friends/

ballad of the spanish civil guard: https://www.poesi.as/index214uk.htm

the guitar: https://poets.org/poem/guitar

if you made it this far i'm sorry

#ask

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neroraven · 2 years

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I saw your tags on tbk and im glad someone said it. i waited to read tbk last because everyone kept saying its dostoivskys best work but i see now why its so popular with the right-wing, podcast boys. there were parts i enjoyed but for the most part, it sucked.

the main female characters exist to be catty and dramatic (and the women in the court room of course treat the trial like a soap opera). Lise, the only one with depth, vanishes off the page.

Dmitri goes around beating, drinking, shouting and being generally awful. He cheats on Katerina, chokes Grushenkas maid and admits he couldve have killed her and also was fully ready to kill Fyodor but!! he didnt get the chance to and someone else did therefore hes a tragic character ig. seriously am i suppose to feel bad for him? cause i dont, he very much deserved to be in prison.

Ivan and Smerdyakov are both actually fascinating and both are punished by the narrative, ivan for being a well-educated atheist and Smerdyakov for not wanting to be a servant of the man who raped his mother and having ambitions to go abroad.

And finally Alyosha. i know hes adored and hes cute and all but my god does he do shit all. his crisis of faith couldve been interesting, had it lasted longer than 5 mins. after which hes exclusively a delivery boy. we are constantly told hes angelic and everyone thinks as much but what exactly he is doing to stand out is never explained. he also doesnt really engage in zosimas 'active love' when it would have been difficult but needed. most people can be kind to children- thats easy. but what about being kind to Smerdyakov and treating him as a brother? what about addressing that Dmitri is the problem rather than just being helpful to people he has slighted?

Alyosha never has to acknowledge that being passive with Dmitri and Fyodor is at odds with supporting the people they torment. Helping Dmitri escape couldve been interesting in Alyosha having to face that he might be freeing the murderer of their father but nope. he *knows* Dmitri is innocent, so no difficult choice for him.

Anyway very sorry for the rant, i was just pretty dissapointed in this book. Its heralded as a sum of dostoivskys works but it really seemed to highlight all his flaws. Its long winded and repetitive at times, the characters seem less nuanced than he usually writes, the themes are on the nose. god is good, socialism and foreign influence bad. And again, there were parts i loved and was immeresed with but holy shit did i finish it underwhelmed.

I can’t help but completely agree with you anon, I think we are on the same page after finishing the novel.

It’s obvious that the book is far from terrible, it’s complex, it has beautiful prose and an interesting narrative, but overall it's just too many things at once. I understand that Dostoyevski knew that he wouldn’t have time to finish another book so he probably put 3 in 1, so we ended up with a mix of themes and plotlines and characters that’s too convoluted at times.

And I think Fyodor doesn’t deserve to be read superficially, I don’t want to fall into the simple interpretation of “he said orthodox christianity good and atheism bad”, because the entire part of Ivan’s and Alyosha's conversation at the tavern is a debate Fyodor is having with HIMSELF about faith and god; he puts arguments in Ivan’s mouth that he KNOWS are impossible to oppose (that’s why Alyosha is unable to counter Ivan’s stance of “God might be the creator but I don’t accept the horrendous world he has created”). However, the right-wing dudebros you mention DO interpret him in simple terms because his favoritism between the brothers is TOO obvious. If the narrative punishes one side while forgiving the other for horrible sins then we have Fyodor’s judgment on paper.

I can’t help but hate Dimitri even though Fyodor wants to portray him as a victim, a romantic and a “sentimentalist”. We get to know him through a story in which he’s about to rape a poor young girl because her family needs his money, but because he changed his mind the moment she bowed to the floor and was completely vulnerable below his thumb, we have to forgive him? He’s a hedonist obsessed with money because, as Fyodor tells us, “he has never worked for a cent”. He abuses women and people around him, he lies, etc. I wouldn’t even have cared if he had killed his father. I’d even have thought it was the only good thing he did in his life.

Ivan is punished in the most cruel way: his intellect and mind are taken away from him as he falls into madness. And for what? For rejecting a cruel god and understanding that his country needs the new ideas being born in Europe? For being an intellectual? I feel like Fyodor wanted to show us a contrast between him and Alyosha and I can’t help but laugh because at least Ivan was an ACTIVE character that had an effect on the narrative. Also blaming him for Smerdiacov’s actions? Dostoyevski's thesis through this plotline is basically: “Look at what happens! You intellectuals will write your academic papers and ideas and then stupid people will read them and cause mayhem. Therefore YOU are the gilty one.” But then he turns around and gives us religious sermons and applauds orthodox christianity, as if religion and the church are not the best example of misinterpreting ideas and causing harm and violence.

Also, how does he expect me to feel like Smerdiacov was a bad person? I don’t care that he killed his horrible father. If something, he should’ve done it sooner. Even more, he is the bravest and smartest of the Karamazov brothers because he decided to cut the cause of all their suffering from the root, and even come out rich out of it. He couldn’t choose the fate his mother and he had been given but he could choose freedom and he did so. But again, Fyodor punishes him and tells us he was a coward that would‘ve chosen death before consequence. It’s almost like he thinks that some people are really born to be a slug that lives in the mud and any desire to become something else is an unforgivable sin.

And Alyosha, he could be replaced by a plant in a pot and the plot wouldn’t change a bit. He is passive, ignorant and naive, and Fyodor applauds it because he thinks that that’s what Russian people need; if they are naive and never get in contact with DANGEROUS new ideas and follow their religious teachings everything will be fine. Which is the most idiotic thesis in my opinion. And don’t get me started on the classism and the paternalistic view of “the peasants”, it made me throw up a little. And the misogyny. Ah! Everything young right-wing men who just discovered “nihilism” would love to read and feel vindicated.

Even though I didn't like the general idea of the novel there were some parts that I truly loved, my favorite part being that conversation between Ivan and Alyosha at the tavern. And to finish, Dostoyevski is a men’s writer, he's a masculinist perspective of the worst of the worst, but nonetheless a damn good writer.

#this was a long rant but that's all i could put into it rn #i feel like i could talk about this novel for hours #it's so good and bad at the same time #the brothers karamazov #fyodor dostoyevsky #books #classic literature #russian literature #m #ask

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robbyykeene · 3 years

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I also just think it does such a disservice to Miguel as a character. And I feel like this fandom especially needs to recognize that Johnny and Miguel are the center of this show and honestly the most interesting part (in my opinion lol but that’s cause I relate to Miguel as a person of color way more than the other catchers on this show) BUT that doesn’t mean that their storylines need to always be linked together. Johnny can learn to heal and not put that on Miguel (or his mother) to do that for him, and he can repair his relationship with Robby while not sacrificing his relationship with Miguel and Carmen. And there’s so many interesting things the writers could explore with Miguel - he’s this kid who’s mother sacrificed so much to raise him, he’s a low income brown kid going to a school with predominantly wealthy white people. I want more about Miguel’s journey being explored and not using him as a prop to better serve Johnny’s growth. Like Robby and Miguel have so much in common too - wouldn’t it be interesting to explore that and how their rivalry could actually end the cycle of harm that Kreese has inflicted on Daniel and Johnny (and by the extension the entire valley as he keeps amassing all these child soldiers). I really do love this show and like so many of the characters but I keep feeling like there’s so many missed opportunities. As a poor kid of color who was bussed to a rich school, you can’t tell me that kids like Robby, Miguel, and Tory wouldn’t have had more to connect on together than these rich kids lol. And it would be so interesting to see that play out instead of the same misscommunications of Robby or Miguel walking in on something without all the details.

#i once again have nothing constructive to ass because this is so so so on point #so im just going to ramble in the tags and YES about exploring the part of Miguel who’s an immigrant and all those unique difficulties #i moved to the US in high school from the middle east so its not exactly the same thing.#but immigrating is hard. having to learn to speak english is hard. having to constantly code switch is hard #getting used to the differences in culture is hard!!#and i know miguel probably moved to the US when he was born or very very young. but growing up in a family that is culturally different from #everyone around you and experiencing rscism and xenophobia #these are all such complex things to navigate through as a kid. and they have such a great opportunity to showcase that with miguel #like i was that kid who went to a rich person school but was the odd one out. and you really really feel it. and they kind of showed that #in season 1 on the golf n stuff date which i loved #but theres so much more to talk about.#and like. i dont want them to turn miguel into the token brown kid obviously. I actually really like how the show incorporates his culture #and doesn’t shy away from him being latino while simultaneously letting him being a fully developed character #with personality and nuance and complexity while still being latino and not just completely erasing that aspect of him #i think they actually do so so so kuch better than so many other shows in that regard #but yeah sometimes i just feel like there are other avenues that could be explored. like him and robby and tory ultimately having way more #in common than any other characters. and hopefully theyll explore that later on???#none of this is coherent but thats why its in the tags so!

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darlington-v · 3 years

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I know different interpretations of a work are generally enriching and cool... but c!dream villan interpretations is like how to tell me you only watch Tommy without saying you only watch tommy.... which would be fine but its not a great place to be making statements about the whole nature of the dsmp lol

Wild speculation, but sometimes I wonder if like, because the dsmp didn't really start as a narrative, and a lot of fans don't nessecarily enter it expecting a narrative, but then there is one and the fandom is really discourse heavy and everyone is sort of excpeted to have an opinion while maybe not expecting to form one from the begining or not having a ton of experience with narrative in a way that would "expect" them to have an opinion or not take things at face value??, I don't know if I explained that well at all... and I don't really even think thats right nessecarily... but like wow sometimes some of the takes about power and government and villany...

Honestly, it makes sense!!!

I think something interesting is like.... looking at how animatics have shaped the like tone and culture of the fandom essentially. Like, an interesting fact that I didn't really fully grasp until SUPER recently is like...

c!Wilbur out the gate admits he is manipulating c!Tommy. Like his first youtube video on the Dream SMP he admits his goal is to manipulate c!Tommy and people like c!Tommy into helping him achieve a potion ("drug") empire to monopolize on potions because there were a lot of people on the server who like to min-max, which is to put all of your effort into this one specific skill essentially. so like... i know minecraft doesnt have a skill tree but if it did, it would be putting all your points into that one specific branch of a skill tree. So he wanted to exploit the labor of all the TommyInnits to.... maintain a Potion Empire.

THIS IS A LONG POST BC I GOT CARRIED AWAY SO BUCKLE UP

And I don't think a lot of the fandom who joined later on knows this. I certainly didn't until like a week or so ago? Like... I knew c!Wilbur had been manipulative from the start because I'm a mod of (shameless self promo incoming) @dsmpanalysis and we have a lot of different POVs in that mod team and discord and we talk about it really frequently. I joined the fandom as someone who was really big on L'manburg ESPECIALLY crimeboys, and have turned into.... *gestures vaguely to my blog*

And ngl I owe a lot of it to @1-michibiki-1 in terms of c!Dream "Apologism" but all of the mods there have expanded my thoughts and views on the storylines of this narrative.

My application consisted of like largely essays about like... how I think Dream was the villain but he was meant to be the villain because you don't get any insight into his character WHICH.... IS A FAIR ASSUMPTION AT FIRST GLANCE. People are easily villainized when you cannot get a glimpse into their thought process. It's easy to dwindle someone down into this flat character and starting out I knew Dream didn't stream the SMP on purpose.

And I personally came to the conclusion of "Oh! So Dream is supposed to be the villain." However as the story continued and I learned more about what Dream went through I began to realize that... it's more than likely a form of a red herring. My opinions on this were immediately solidified when I watched Ranboo's 2 MIL stream because both Ranboo AND Dream agree on enjoying red herrings.

There have been MANY times were Dream has said that c!Dream is a complex character and he's not a wholly evil guy and there have been times where the narrative has honestly just proved that.

Anyways, what's important though was that... I learned most of this from other people who were more focused on c!Dream rather than myself. Eventually I shifted from c!Tommy to c!Ranboo and c!Techno after c!Tommy betrayed c!Techno and I began to realize.... everything I learned before hopping in wasn't exactly what it seemed.

Part of this is because I'm older, I heavily identify with c!Techno's sense of loyalty and philosophies on government, but I especially identify with the anguish c!Techno voiced in... a lot of lore but especially the lore around Doomsday.

I'm not 16 anymore. I don't always feel wronged by adults, or older people in my case, whenever they absolutely have done something wrong by me, but I do feel wronged by my close friends. I also felt like c!Tommy's sense of loyalty didn't line up with mine after what felt like him constantly flip-flopping and refusing to understand c!Techno's morals on government didn't line up with his.

In short, it was easier to identify with Tommy in these animatics versus in the actual stream content because c!Tommy is played by a 16 year old. I'm not a teenager and my line of thinking doesn't entirely line up with people that age anymore. It's harder to place myself in the same shoes of someone's OC who is played closer to their actual age, because I'm not that age.

Regardless, I was still on the c!Dream is a villain train. I wasn't ever like... c!Dream is repulsive I hate him, but I was like omg hot villain lad go brrr.

Even when the first like... mellohi, panic room, Ranboo lore stream popped up I thought "Oh! c!Ranboo corruption arc?"

And I was excited because I really wanted this shy, nervous character to turn into villain buddies with his good pal c!Dream. I'm a total sucker for villains and corruption arcs and all that good shit.

SO I STARTED GETTING REALLY INTERESTED IN ENDERSMILE. I'VE BEEN ON ENDERSMILE SQUAD OUT THE GATE. NOT THE SAME WAY I AM NOW, BUT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED THEM TO TEAM UP.

So... upon not really keeping up with c!Dream and being relatively??? indifferent? I don't think I started arguments on c!Dream back then, but I might have. But I remember like... starting to participate more whenever c!Dream came up and looking more into Dream's character BUT ESPECIALLY TALKING WITH OUR SERVER'S C!DREAM SPECIALIST MICHI ABOUT DREAM A LOT MORE.

And because Michi has been a watcher since day one and was a DTeam fan rather than a SBI fan, she was able to provide me with more information on how the server worked pre-Tommy but especially pre-Wilbur.

Now, you could definitely argue well Michi probably has clear bias but it made sense to me when I looked back on how the storyline had been constructed and was going along, and everyone in the server talks a lot about our own biases and how we want people to maybe not lean so hard on them. Michi would also provide like anecdotes on what had happened and I'm sure links were probably provided at one point but the point was I felt like Michi had no reason to lie or manipulate how the story was told and if she did, eventually someone would have pointed it out because... Group of like... right now it's around 20 or more analysts but I don't remember how many at the time there were. POINT BEING, WE'VE ALL GOT POINTS TO PROVE AND IN MY EXPERIENCE NOT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SHY TO PROVE THEM.

So if anyone ever had any differing opinions they would be talked about and we literally had and still have discussions.

REGARDLESS.... I DIDN'T FACT CHECK IN DEPTH BECAUSE I THOUGHT PEER REVIEW WAS ENOUGH WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE HOURS UPON HOURS OF STREAMS TO WATCH.

Anyways. Eventually I started paying closer attention and looking more into c!Dream lore but only recently have I started to triple check before speaking about c!Wilbur lore because I know everyone has biases and while I did trust everyone's thoughts and analysis in the discord, whenever I make essays I typically like it to be largely air tight and if theres a mistake, I want it to be because I forgot not because I just trusted what was said. Plus, I wanted to get down to the specifics of how Wilbur had always started with manipulation on the mind.

SO I WATCHED HIS FIRST VIDEO ON THE DREAM SMP.

AND WHAT I WAS NOT BY ANY MEANS EXPECTING WAS WILBUR TO SAY WORD FOR WORD, VERBATIM,

"SO WHY DON'T I START AN INDUSTRY WHERE I USE THE TOMMYINNITS OF THE WORLD TO WORK FOR ME, TO CREATE THINGS THAT THE MIN-MAXERS OF THE WORLD WILL WANT."

Like... this is in no way an attempt to like hardcore villainize c!Wilbur like everyone does Dream, it's just more so to like REALLY outline how far off a lot of fandom interpretation of c!Wilbur is....

Because of SBI focused animatics.

Now, when I joined I watched A LOT of animatics that really highlighted like... Wilbur being this self-loathing JD-esque, "I destroyed it because I had to because the world was against me because no one loved us, Tommy" type of character. At least... that's what it came across as.

And it definitely highlighted the fact that Tommy was a victim, which he is. He is undoubtedly a victim and no not even any dream apologist can change my mind otherwise. Tommy, despite being an instigator sometimes, didn't deserve the abuse he received.

But these animatics never shown the fact that c!Wilbur started L'manburg as a shady ploy to exploit people like c!Tommy and vilify c!Dream so he could have power.

And that was easy because Dream and Tommy had wars before. They had spars and pranks and here's the plan to take back my disks and here's the plan to out smart the thieving little child etc etc.

And all of the animatics I watched never mentioned this. Neither did the recaps though. The recaps gave the events flat out, there didn't sound like there was bias, and honestly I don't really know if there was rather than like... a lack of nuance. And it's hard to provide a recap with that much nuance in a short period of time for a youtube video, to be perfectly fair.

However, this creates a perfect formula for entirely rewriting the history of a server. c!Wilbur quite literally fucking succeeded TO A META LEVEL. He slandered and ran smear campaigns against Dream and like he even does that with Sapnap in the beginning. But what's crazy is that it transferred over into the meta! Most of this fandom understands Wilbur as a victim of mental illness, and yeah maybe? He definitely wasn't mentally well by the end of pogtopia, but he never started out with honorable intentions. L'manburg was never a victim, only its citizens. The TommyInnits of the world.

I just think it's like... such an interesting case study. Because this is like... an opinion like shared by at least half of the fandom, but the vilifying of c!Dream is shared by MOST of the fandom I would argue. Which is like even more crazy for me because that was c!Wilbur's goal!!!

LIKE I GO INSANE WHEN I THINK OF THIS BECAUSE HIS REACH IS JUST TOO POWERFUL. HE'S NOT EVEN ENTIRELY REAL, JUST A MANIPULATIVE PERSONA OF SOME BRITISH GUY.

And I mean... maybe people who have watched Wilbur's video on the SMP still maintain this idea that Wilbur wasn't always the bad guy, but honestly... I wouldn't be surprised if their introduction was still an animatic. Like bias is hard to check and I'm not going to lie I could have sworn I watched both Wilbur's AND Tommy's video on the SMP in the beginning and yet I STILL was a ride or die for tragic yet on some level still honorable Wilbur and a resilient Tommy.

Like... upon watching Wilbur's first video... possibly again I was surprised because I thought I did watch it like right before I even started watching the streams and yet I was still so invested in c!Wilbur as this tortured anti-hero.

It took 6 months of... not being in an echo chamber, full of multiple different people of different ages, different stream POVS, and people who joined the fandom at different points in time.

IDK IF THIS WAS EVEN ENTIRELY RELEVANT IT JUST FELT TANGENTIALLY RELEVANT AND THIS WAS SOMETHING I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR A HOT MINUTE AFTER LIKE WATCHING WILBUR'S FIRST VIDEO AGAIN.

TLDR;

SBI CENTRIC ANIMATICS HAD A LASTING AFFECT ON THIS FANDOM AS IT'S HARD TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY CHECK THE NARRATIVE FOR SOLID FACTS FOR YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION BASED ON THE FACT THAT THIS NARRATIVE SPANS OVER HUNDREDS OF HOURS WORTH OF TWITCH STREAMS.

#asks #anon #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp analysis #dream smp analysis #dsmp meta #dream smp meta #my analysis #long post

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ihatebnha · 2 years

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ok ngl bc ive gone on rants twice now (once with shigaraki and once with bakugo) that were brought on by me seeing a bad tiktok take and idk.......

like the convo tonight was brought on by people disparaging themselves and thats one thing, but tiktoks r always soooooo BOLD abt it. & its the culture deffo, at least 80% of their intent is to be funny & get views so being like "pov u like toxic men" and putting popular chars on there is part of that, but it just rubs me the wrong fucking way, due to a combo of the takes usually just flat-out being a bad reading of the text and also like if they rlly were shitty in the text then why is it a crime to portray them as nicer if u wanna people go the opposite way all the time 🙄 theyre not real i can do what i wand and actually no i dont like toxic men bc i dont imagine them as being toxic. sorry to u but hes different with me :/

also im Me so im sure one of the reasons i like bkg and shiggy so much is because their characters r so complex and inherently much softer & more emotionally mature than people give them credit for/will pick up on with a shallow viewing of the show, so like maybe its my fault for my taste in 2d men but. idk anime tiktok just has rancid vibes is all ASHBFDV like no that's not the take u think it is. sit down and read the text before trying to make ur funny little gotcha ur fav is a shitty person haha video bc u look like a dumbass AND a mean person

"due to a combo of the takes usually just flat-out being a bad reading of the text and also like if they rlly were shitty in the text then why is it a crime to portray them as nicer if u wanna people go the opposite way all the time"

NO but this is exactly it!!! I was literally just thinking about how so many portrayals of the characters (again, aside from purposeful characterizations) are incorrect not because they're bad ideas, but because they literally are unrelated to the character's personality in general!

Like you say in this, people can obviously, you know... say what they want about their faves... but at the same time, it's so often that there's no basis for any of the characterizations outside of surface level depictions and "toxic = sexy" or whatever.

And it's so annoying because it seems like... people on Tik Tok feel so high and mighty about these opinions that they go around shitting on others, EVEN WHEN THEIRS DON'T MAKE SENSE, EITHER???

Anyway... I agree fully with this since it's so weird to me... that 1. people don't understand EITHER deep reading, nuance or interpretation... 2. people think making a character soft is ignoring their canon? and, 3. TWO IDEAS CAN'T EXIST AT ONCE?

Please. Not to be rude but... Bakugo is definitely holding onto us and asking why so many people are presenting false narratives of him without considering that maybe... what's outside doesn't always equal what's within.

Good post, Pluvi.

#LIKE LEARN HOW TO ANALYZE AND AT LEAST UNDERSTAND #just bc mine is different than yours means that either is bad #theres a. no one true way to depict someone... and 2. youre not right just bc u got 1000 views on. a tik tok #like shut up #its annoying too bc those are the same ppl calling fanfic writers pederphiles #like be quiet ur just mad my content is more complex than #booboo shigaraki is mean #SHUT UP!!! aint nobody ask you shit!!! i am happy!!!#(that one tik tok sound btw)#but yea #ask #caitie chats #pluvi-after-dark #pluvi🌧

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searchingforbucky · 5 years

Text

Fic Rec List (Part 9) :)

Hello! I’ve gotten MANY many requests for Mobster!Bucky, which is one of my favorite AU’s! (I say that about almost every AU, I know, I’m sorry, I cant help it) I just really like AUs obviously. ANYWAYS, on this list are some of my favorite mobster stories in no specific order! Yet again this is long, I hope you lovelies enjoy! If their are any mistakes im sorry!

Run to Me by @sgtjbuccky

I fell in love with this story immediately. The dynamic Bucky and the reader have is wonderful. She doesn’t take any nonsense, and boy is he just smitten. The way the story represents Bucky is awesome, he is cocky and full of himself, but you see the west side, the insecurities and his heart. Its not one of those fics with a whole lot of angst, its just a genuinely good read. It makes you happy, and the DRABBLES oh god the drabbles that come along with it were so cute. Also, Salina has another spectacular Mobster Bucky story called **Disbarred https://sgtjbuccky.tumblr.com/post/180246739540/disbarred which a very, very good fic as well. Makes me want to get a mobster of my own lol.

Black Serpent Universe by @invisibleanonymousmonsters

LOVE love this series. This is the first mobster AU I think I ever read, and it is literally flawless. The universe is basically on every long oneshot and accompanying drabbles/HCs. The one shot is everything I could’ve asked for in a fic, its long, well thought out, detailed, exciting, heartbreaking, fluffy, and so so realistic. I know what you’re thinking, a mobster story realistic? Okay, so maybe not the mob aspect, but the real reactions and the slow burn, its true to life, they don’t just jump into things, they live through the build up. The emotions are practical and real and I feel like they were people and not characters. Its just, really freaking good.

Petals & Bullets by @revengingbarnes

This one is really unique, and it talks about sex slave so you know that's a trigger warning. anyways it's just really well done. And like I said I've never really read anything like it and I think that's what makes it great. And when you go into reading it you really think that it's going to be dark and hard to read because it's such heavy material, but the way it's written is really good because it gives that white and makes it worth it to read. It really makes you feel a lot of emotions that I couldn't honestly pinpoint because I was angry at the situation but I loved the characters, so all in all it was just a genuinely good read, and it was really really well done. Not many people could take that subject and turn it into a really good story like that.

Stay, Gold by @the-canary

You want some angst with a side of pain? Well heres the fic for you. This one HURT. There is not a happy ending, not even close. But with all of that being said, it was beautiful. As you read, you realize whats happening and you just hurt for them, they deserve better and you want them to have better, but thats not their fate. They are a pair of lovers unfortunately a part of a tragic story, but oh sort they make the most of what time that had. I cried, a lot, but I also loved the characters. They loved each other, so much, and you could feel it in your bones. Fantastic story.

Tangier & Redux by @softlybarnes

Theres something about this one that I love, something so unique about the reader. She’s… mysterious, ethereal, and kinda sinister but most importantly damn powerful. The way she speaks, and talks, it reminds me of a witch. Its something that you don’t see a lot in stories like these, the reader being anything but ‘innocent’. She doesn’t take any less than she knows she deserves, and he fiercely wants whats best for her. Sometimes they don’t think those are the same thing. But the chemistry they have, its so nice to read. And the scene setting in this, its perfect, you can picture exactly what it would look like. And the personification of Bucky as well, he’s no wannabe mobster, he’s ruthless, and they fit together so well.

Someday by @221bshrlocked

This one is really good, it's Rough and violent but like that's the whole point he's a mobster he's ruthless Yet it's perfectly balanced with the fluff that's in there because at first you don't really see it but as time goes on you see all of the small nuances to how much he really likes her and how soft he is actually on the inside and it's one of those stories that you can tell was just written naturally like there wasn't a lot of structured to it and I think that's some of the best stories because it's like real life you know it just happens and you go with the flow and there's nothing jarring that pulls you out of reading. The smut scenes are also perfectly balanced between being sexy yet sensual and sweet. Really awesome fic.

Truth Set Free by @propertyofpoeandbucky

It was so hard picking one of Leilanis story to focus on, because they’ve done some absolutely spectacular ones such as “Missin’ My Girl”, “Soft To The Core”, “Burst Of Anger”, “Maybe This Time”, “How Unlikely”, and of course a fan favorite “Good Business”. However, I decided to focus on the first one I read of theirs. Its such a cool piece, the way its set up is super good I the way that its picking up sort of like in the middle of the story but you’re not lost, you gather details as you go that forms the whole picture in your head. I love the whole secretive thing it has in it, it makes it kinda mysterious to read. Then you get to the second part, and besides the drama, its sweet, he knew they were gonna be together from the beginning. And this sweetness isnt even like explicitly said, you can just see the nuances from his actions. Really good fic, and so are all of the others.

Lil’ Anthony by @tranquil--heart

My favorite part of the mobster Trope is the whole big bad mob boss who would do anything for those he loves. And this is a perfect example of that, because he's so hard and tough and a bad guy, but when he's with her he's soft and he just melts. the violence in this is the perfect mix of descriptive without being gory, it's realistic yet not exaggerated or too much to handle. it represents the truth well because it's not ignoring the truth to mobsters. The way they use the other characters and it is why I was awesome because you get to see the comparison between who they are in the Fic and who they are in the movies. The sexy scenes are nice too lol, and knife kink alert lol, That must be said.

World On Fire by @beckzorz

Alright so this one is super awesome, it's not done yet but what is done of it is too amazing to not include. it's like the perfect combination of two AUs: its mob boss Bucky, and 40s Bucky all in one. What else could you want honestly?The story keeps you on your toes, you know he's secretive she's in love with him oh, you don't really know what's happening next until it happens and then you think we'll of course that's the perfect way to take the story. the way she writes to is just so amazing, it feels like you're back in time and the way she uses those sensory details is just spectacular. In the reader has secrets to so it's like as your reading your findings these things out And it's just really interesting there is no boring aspect to it.

The White Wolf by @captain-ariel-barnes

Okay so this is the first like long mobster fix that I read and it was a really good introduction to that universe. The way every aspect of this story comes together is just really amazing the plot, the dynamic between the characters, the details, the emotion it makes you feel, it's just the perfect combination of pain and fluff in it just is a really good read. it was a roller coaster of emotions, but it was worth it there wasn't just any angst to have angst it was all plot driven and necessary. Also the way it circles back to the beginning at the end is just an example of really good writing it was believable and true to mobster universe is but it also really reference to the Cinematic Universe really well because it brought in those little details and twists from the movie. And I really really love the flower aspect of it, I just really like flowers, and the fact that he loved her so much from the beginning and you could just see that throughout the whole story was just beautiful.

His Favorite Gal by @mycupoffanfiction

Okay so there's probably nothing in the world I love more than tough guy and the waitress trope. and this is just a really good rendition of that, it was one of those stories that like was so good that you read it all in one go and then you get to the end and you're kind of like well damn now it's over and I don't really know what to do. He loved her so much and it was one of those stories that made you feel really powerful to be a woman because it wasn't ever demeaning and it was really empowering to see her go from being a waitress to the queen of New York like that, I really like how it represented how if you have a healthy relationship then you'll both grow to be better people (besides the whole mob aspect lol)

A Business Deal by @em-imagines

So this one was super interesting, I really loved seeing as the story went on how they were falling for each other. And honestly just like the beginning of the story that plot twist was absolutely amazing, I really like how it showed how powerful the reader can be. Because a lot of the times and fix complex where he has all the power over her, but I really like seeing them on that sort of equal plane. The dynamic between the two was also really awesome because there wasn't ever any Real damsel-in-distress moment oh, they were both really independent and capable people who came together to form that's really nice relationship. It was just a really good story to read, and there are many like it out there.

Should’ve Listened by @becs-bunker

You know as I've been saying I really like the stories where the reader isn't just completely helpless, and this is another really good example because you know like it says the reader is truly a bad ass. When you think the world that she's in the middle of and how she reacts to it it's really empowering, and the way her and Bucky interact is really nice to see. And it's really interesting to read because you can literally feel the tension between them and when is it going to happen when is it going to happen oh, and I really hope there's another part to it lol. Its really well done, and a nice funread.

Kings by @kaunis-sielu

So this one I'm going to be honest and say I didn't know if I was going to like it because I'm not a huge fan of really helpless readers but the way this was done is just really sweet. because she's not just completely helpless like she's not incapable, she just needs help because this isn't the world she's used to being in. and you know the relationship moves fast but you never get the feeling of like that went so fast, you just really feel the love in their relationship. And you see her grow into the position she got put into as his girlfriend, because you feel her gain her confidence and she becomes a real badass in the end and I love how much he loves her it was a really sweet story.

Also check out some awesome drabbles at @empyreanwritings under #Mob Monday, and at @bucky-plums-barnes under #Mobster!Bucky

Thank you guys for reading until the end, i hope you love these as much as I do!💖💖

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yeoldontknow · 4 years

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Hi! Can I ask question about the movie Paris Texas? I am not sure if youre the right personbut i have always wondered why it is so highly revered. Like I liked the movie, i thought it was good. i could feel the longing the characters are going through, i liked how it was shot(?),i can see why the 'booth' scenes are always replicated in music vids & other shows & stuffBut idk what makes it iconic- like everytime i listen to people talk about films, they bring that movie up.

my favorite actors and directors for around the world even mention that filmLike i enjoyed it and know its good, but i am not sure on what makes it great. what are your thoughts on this film?

ahh hello! lmao im so happy people are asking me to talk about film lmao this really does excite me. and im so glad you came to me with this! just in general! thank you!

trust me like...i get it. paris texas is a great film, and i did enjoy watching it, but i see where you come from. i can understand why its been so revered, so hopefully i can shed some light on that for you. but! i really do understand where you come from. if im honest, theres a lot of flaws and issues with the film. its slow, doesnt actually handle the heavy themes the script attempts to portray very well, and doesnt really actually offer any nuance to janes character. shes actually a really complex character, but shes boxed into the role of like...the manic pixie dream girl, except not that. shes not and ideology of freedom or growth or perfection the way that trope is usually portrayed. instead she exists to further a male centric narrative and the depiction of women is really shallow, so trust me i get why there is a dissenting opinion.

that said, there are a lot of things that make the film as cult and important as its become among cinephiles. they range from the use of americana as a plot device, colour theory, voyeurism, the breakdown of the american dream, etc. ill be breaking down some of the major points here under the cut, but there are even more ways to read this. and!! i stress!! it is ok to read all of this and still disagree! thats the beauty of film studies.

to really understand fundamentally why this film is so important we need to focus on two intertwining notions - that the film is a portrayal of america and this portrayal of a america is coming from a foreigner. the director of the film is win wenders, a german filmmaker, who has always claimed to be fascinated by the history and character of america. effectively, america itself becomes a character within the film. it does not matter that ‘america’ is the backdrop - it plays such an integral role in shaping the narrative of the story, one could argue it has more autonomy than jane. take for example the opening scene - it opens with the scene of a man walking aimlessly through the desert with a gallon of water - nameless and aimless. from this very first moment, we are presented with land. an endless expanses of land in which there is no real ownership; from this moment, we are meant to understand this america shapes the lives of its people as much as this perspective on america is shaped by the director of the film.

furthermore, if we consider the opening shot; the saloon; the fact that a full 26 minutes elapses before the main character says a single word, we can argue the mise en scene within each of these scenes a visual alignment to the classic genre of western cinema. here, too, in this genre is the stress on land as it relates to and symbolizes the importance of freedom, autonomy, and identity, but moreover is there a stress on the notion of the anti-hero. by cultivating this understanding of america and the western, we can immediately align travis with the failed man, the failed husband, a failed owner of land, and a failed dream.

but...did he fail? or did the notion of americana and the american dream fail him, instead? this seems to be the case as we considered the continual use of americana references. one of the fundamental aspects of americana is the nature of nostalgia - americana is traditionally idealized as the desire to return to small towns and cities from the turn of the century. the hope of creating a home, only for that essence of home to be lost; the period of exploration from 1820 to 1880, and then the comfort of being settled from 1880 to WWII. these are the fundamental aspects to understanding americana but they are foundational in the nostalgia that drives the narrative. aspects like: a barber shop, a diner, route-66, etc these small town notions are the driving pieces of nostalgia. and these are the elements of nostalgia that generate the plot device of paris texas.

im taking a moment here to really stress the following: western films and the concept of americana is inherently problematic. it exists on wester colonization, appropriation, and genocide. americana is a white-washed version of history and that, explicitly, is why all the elements of americana, nostalgia, and the american dream fail within this film because, again, it is america from the perspective of a foreigner and the perspective is profoundly unforgiving.

(also, like, i literally hate western films because they are so racist and sexist and hyper-masculine, from any historical or modern perspective, so again...me being me saying i understand why you might have had a hard time with this movie lmao but when you realize this is not speaking in favor of those things it kind of hits you like...oh, damn. like, imagine this film from the perspective of a white american male, you know? travis would be a king, someone admired rather than someone youre not even sure you like or tolerate by the end)

right! so! now that we understand how important the elements of a failed america and american dream are to this film, we can see how nostalgia continually presents itself - not for a home lost, but for the hope and the opportunity lost. consider: the colour, the wide, open expanses of land (could have been owned, but are entirely empty), the way characters gaze at their own reflections - hell, the conversation between jane and travis at the end, double sided mirrors, jane forced to look at herself in the mirror while travis looks at nothing because its his memories and his memories are presented at a visual and emotional distance. memory presents itself through illusions, reflections, and disorganized narrative structures - it is not that they cant remember, but that they want to remember without criticism. this comes to a head when they view the home movies, another example of how life was or could have been - how it was supposed to be, and the sudden confrontation that it very much is not that.

primarily for me, the thing that makes me enjoy the film (apart from realizing wenders has an extremely unforgiving view of america) was the colour theory. you cannot talk about this film without discussing the colour. the predominant tones in the film are red, white, and blue - americana and american flag. but why all the green (i.e the doctors office)? why the isolated events of solid red (i.e the strip club)? well, green and red are put perpetually at odds with one another. green, a usually soothing colour, is subverted to denote internal conflict; red, becomes regret, falsehoods. the colours in the film exist to at a sub-textual layer that speaks for the characters when they refuse to speak for themselves. and by the end, the colours return to a normal palette. black, beige, tan - travis recounting their history to jane in a room that is natural. things are finally exactly as they are meant to be, the intense colours of their emotions faded by distance and time, and forced now to confront their truth.

but still...the elements of voyuerism exist. because he can see her...if he chose to. she cannot see him. she can only see herself. and so we are left, then, understanding that there is no hope. no connection. the achievement of the american dream is a falsehood of nostalgia that exists to drive our motivations, forcing us to live in a time or a place or a hope that never once was tangible, but craved just the same.

#i hope this helps you understand WHY its considered incredible #but remember theres a large number of films #EVERYONE obsesses over that i personally despise #this is just why #doesnt have to be right for you tho!#the joy of film #and any practice really #is the ability to praise a film you love and ensure it gets a place in history #if its great to you then it is great <3 #ahgishaman

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leviathuss · 5 years

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im writing this mostly for myself because im so fuckin angry and i need to get this out and then move on…

now after episode 6 it’s clear that they didn’t give a shit about daenerys’s character, they just used her completely.. because if they did actually care about her, they would have written her either turning into a tyrant properly or written her descent into madness properly, and these things would have had actual consequences for the story… but that’s why they left her turning ”to the dark side” at the end, because her character arc had no purpose for them, they wrote her exactly they way they did just for jon snow to kill her… that was her whole purpose for her, to be killed by jon snow in a way that he doesn’t seem a horrible person for doing so…

let that sink in for a little bit… they screwed up one of their main charactes, the fire of the ice and fire, they used one of their main characters in the most disgusting way possible, to be killed as if she were nothing, as if she meant nothing for this story….

that’s why they played her decision to burn kings landing as a twist, because if they wanted to make a proper villain they should have started earlier… but they couldn’t because then it wouldn’t have made sense for her not to go for her enemies as well, and they needed jon snow and tyrion to be safe, they needed the plot to be safe from her actions unless it was for they’re purposes of shock value and tyrant bullshit rethoric and pain for jon snow…

so they blamed this decision on her so called ”madness”, but they didn’t even have the cheek to write her go mad properly, she was mad only when they needed her to be, she was good and soft when they needed her to be, she was ruthless when they needed her to be… who the fuck turns mad in a couple of days?? Have these man really no understandig of what mentall illness or even a breakdown is?? How the fuck is madness selective, burning just the right people, burning innocents but not going for the people who actually hurt her?? she was mad but not mad enough to kill jon snow, the man who actually betrayed her??

and the same goes for them trying to say that it was foreshadowed, it’s simply disgusting and insulting to the way mental illness or even a proper descent into madness in a fictional world should be portrayed.. DISGUSTING

but they did it this way specifically for jon snow to kill her and to focus on how hard it is for him… had she been truly mad or evil or even actively making cruel decisions, jon snow would not have been alive at the end, because she would have fuckin killed the only person who had a better claim than her as a ruler.. no, she was tender when she needed to be, to make jon snow feel bad when she kills her, she was mad and cruel only when other characters needed to have long ass conversations about her so that it makes them seem like the good guys…

daenerys wasn’t even a proper villain, she wasn’t mad, she was just the proper small amount of both, enough to solve some problems for the plot, enough to fool audiences into thinking this was foreshadowed and intended all along, she was just used..

if this is her arc in the books as well, if she is to descent into madness in the books, then it’s even worse because they fuckin adapted it in the worst way possible, they couldn’t commit to write her the proper way, they just didn’t care.. they had all these years to show a nuanced character develompent up to this point but no, they just used her character for cool lines and dragons and show posters.. and i know they didn’t adapt her character faithfully from the books anyway (thats actually one of the reasons i stopped watching after season 4, the growing change in her character) but even so, this season was a new low and i wasn’t expecting this bullshit writing..

this wasn’t “the blurring of the lines of good and evil, of greatness and madness” in a character, it was just a complete disregard for her integrity as a character, utter nonsense, this is not how it’s done..

i know they literally screwed up every character in this series except for the ones who died til season 4 but the way they did it to dany is just unbelievably horrible..10 years with this main character and we couldn’t even see her thoughts, her struggles and her horrible pain as she was slowly losing it, as she was slipping away..

and grief and mental illness are such complex things that they can’t be dealt with in one episode, that’s why it’s so bad what they did to her, that’s why it stands out more than making tyrion stupid or turning bran into a robot..

after the ending we got it’s obvious that they didn’t put any thought into this story and characters and they just wanted to get it over with, but i’ll never forgive them, no other character was screwed to this extent, maybe just bran...

it pains me so much that they treated her like this, im just appalled and not even by her fate but just by the way in which they treated her as a main character in a story..absolutely disgusting…

#daenerys targaryen #i want to move on from this #game of thrones

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toby-stephens · 5 years

Text

MAY 2018 : TOBY NEWS

‘LOST IN SPACE’:

By May 16th, it was pretty much confirmed there would be a Season 2 of ‘Lost in Space’, confirmed on 20th by Netflix twitter.

‘SUMMER OF ROCKETS’:

Also confirmed was a new BBC 2 cold war drama, ‘Summer of Rockets’ to star Toby alongside Keeley Hawes, Linus Roache & Timothy Spall.

This six-part series is set in the UK during the Cold War period of the late 1950s, a time when the UK, like much of the world, was dealing with the threat of international espionage and nuclear armageddon.

Filming has begun in and around London and Oxford, and it will be screened sometime in 2019.

The story will be Poliakoffs personal insight into this period and is set against the backdrop of Britain testing its first hydrogen bomb.

Executive Producer Helen Flint, a long-time collaborator with Poliakoff on productions such as Close To The Enemy, Shooting The Past and Perfect Strangers, said:

This piece set in 1958, is hinged at the pivotal point of world history where the past and future are pulling in equal strength and human beings, young and old have little control over the eventual outcome.

IN TOBY’S OWN WORDS:

On “Lost in Space”:

“I think they have been very respectful to the original series, but they smashed it out in their own way. The thing is, one cant’ be overly reverential to these things because otherwise, you’re just remaking exactly what was already made very well.”

“I think John’s just trying to find his place within this family now. The idea is that he was confronted with the situation of his family going away and him never seeing them again unless he went along. Now that he’s come along for this ride, he’s trying to find his way back into the family, how to relate to his family, how to relate to Maureen, and how to work things out.”

“In my case, why I think it is fun and why I think it works is there’s something timeless about the original idea. The Swiss Family Robinson, obviously, is the original idea of a family in jeopardy. It follows the trials of that family, but also the emotional trials of how they overcome their problems and their weaknesses, because they have to confront them and overcome them.”

“That was then taken into ‘Lost in Space’. In the first iteration of that what worked is that you’re looking at a regular family and their problems, but in this extraordinary situation. It’s hundreds of light years away from earth in a space ship and on a planet, but they’re having the same regular, everyday problems of any other family. The irony of that is that dynamic is really fun. What we’ve done is we’ve updated it, so rather than it being this pristine, apple pie, American family, its a modern family with all of its dysfunctions.”

“We know every family has dysfunctions. There is no ideal, pristine family, and the Robinsons are one of those families. Just a normal family that everybody can relate to, but it’s in this extreme situation and you still get the ironies of watching a family deal with each other and their own problems in the way every family does that you can relate to, but in this extraordinary back drop of being on a planet thousands of light years away. I think that that trend still works and its fun.”

“The only reason to do something again is if you feel that you can say something to a new generation of people and you can do it in a totally individual way. You’re just taking the kernel of the original idea and re-doing it, but for now.”

“We can’t replicate what was done in the original show. It just wouldn’t work now. The tone of it is very different although it still retains some of the fun aspects of it, the comic stuff that goes on there, the light touch. I don’t think we could repeat what that show became.”

“I think the original pilot episode is much more akin to what we’re doing. As the series went on, it became if you’ll forgive this phrase campier and campier. It was almost like a sitcom, but in space. I just don’t think that that would work now. So, we’ve made it into something that is lots more for todays generation.”

“I think it’s really great that they did a gender swap. It’s actually a genius stroke because you cannot replicate what was done with that character in the original series. But Parker Posey is such an individual performer. She brings to it her own sense of wackiness and fun.”

"That is a reflection of what the original character was, but it’s very much its own thing, and I think that’s absolutely right. If you cast a man in that part, they would feel this pressure to replicate what was done in the original series, a moustache-twirling villainous kind of thing. I think it just wouldn't hold water now and it would just seem sort of arch.”

“In other words, I think what Parker Posey does is so much her own thing, and as it goes on, you realise that it’s a much more nuanced character in that there are reasons for her being the way she is. I like that you can get the fact that she is horrible and does terrible things, but at the same time, she’s a real and complex character.”

“I don’t have any interest in doing that at all. I love earth. It’s a beautiful planet, and I think, going to Mars, although it looks amazing from aerial photographs taken from orbiting satellites and things like that, and I’ve seen documentaries about it, but I think it’s a desolate, dangerous place, filled with radiation. It would be too dangerous going there, and so arduous.”

“I think that is one of the things that we show. There is a warning to this. The idea that we can trash this planet and then move on to another planet somewhere else, that there’ll be some other Goldilocks planet that we can go to, have it and trash that one, and then just keep on moving on, its crazy. We have to look after the planet were on. I’m all for space exploration, but I wouldn’t want to do it myself because I’ve got kids and a family and the idea would be terrifying to me.”

“The planet is presented to an audience initially as, ‘Oh, it’s so great. It’s got oxygen, so they can breathe. It’s similar to the Earth.’ But then as you get further and further into the drama, you realise there are more and more hostile things about this planet that are dangerous and there are reasons that there are storms with diamonds and deserts. There are astronomic reasons why this planet is like that, which then become apparent. Then they realise that they have to get off it. This isn’t somewhere where they can just set up their colony.”

“It is aspirational to me in that it’s about people trying to be better, in the best way that American shows and films sometimes do. When it doesn’t work, its because its super sentimental and glib.”

“This is about people who find themselves in jeopardy, but also they’re in jeopardy in their personal relationships, in the way that they relate to each other, and it shows how they overcome their own problems and weaknesses. They all do that in a very real way, so I think that’s aspirational.”

“Also, one of the things in watching this, the kids are so bright and so capable, especially the girls. One of the things I would like my daughter to get from this is how strong and capable the girls are, and how intelligent they are. They’ve worked really hard to be that way.”

“It would inspire me, if I was a child, to want to work hard and to want to be like that. Look, I’m not saying that TV should be life changing. It’s entertainment, but if it, along the way, inspires kids, or reflects good qualities, aspirational qualities, without lecturing people or being sentimental, I think that’s good. I think ‘Lost in Space’ does that to a certain extent, in a way that family shows should do, in a gentle kind of encouraging nurturing way, rather than patronising.”

Source: parade.com

“When I discussed it with Zack Estrin he was like, look, this is not an apple pie family. This is a family that is full of great people, but they’re damaged here. The relationship between the mother and father is dysfunctional. They’ve padded it, and it’s in disrepair and that’s part of the drama. Are they gonna be able to figure things out? How do they relate to one another? It’s an estranged father, who’s been away fighting wars and stuff like that, and he has become disconnected from his kids.”

“It’s just not very dramatically interesting to have a family thats always kind of fine. I mean, it’s dramatic enough that they’re in this life-threatening situation, but you add to the drama by saying they don't really know how to relate to one another and there’s this whole family dysfunction that they have to work out as well. And are they gonna work that out?”

“There’s something disingenuous about them being a family that’s perfect. Not only would it be dramatically boring, but it’s also just not true. We know anybody who has a family knows that it’s not perfect and that people make mistakes. But the thing is that these people, like everyone, are just trying to do better. And I think that that is something everyone can relate to, whether you’re a kid or you’re an adult.”

“One of the things that I really love about the show is that it’s aspirational. This family, they are, they’re people who are trying to be better and do good and to survive. And so it’s very, in many ways I think its a very cognitive show. And all these relationships in the end, while they’re complicated they are part of this. And we need that kind of, I think we need the kind of show like that because theres a lot of really depressing shows out there, which are fantastic and amazing, but they’re really depressing. And this is one has a really positive message and a kind of affirming message.”

“To be able to do what they wanted to do with this show, to kind of make it as magical to kids now as it was when it originally came out in 1965 it takes an organisation like Netflix that can throw enough money at it to achieve that. The kind of wonder and the kind of adventure. The scale of the adventure that they’re going for.”

“I think what I really loved about it was the kids are really intelligent. If I was a kid watching this I would go, I want to be as intelligent and as capable as that child. Im gonna work harder in school. Im gonna really try and work hard at math. That’s great as well. So I like that, the fact that the kids, to some extent, end up helping out the adults. Its a nice dynamic.”

“The kids need that adventure and the fun. But then the grown-ups who are watching the show need to care about these people as well and enjoy the show on a different level. So we were kind of like, that part of the show is for the grown-ups. For them to relate to these people and to identify with them. To go, I know what thats like. I know how difficult that can be sometimes."

“I really love working with Molly. We actually had a lot of dialogue early on, both together and with Zack Estrin, about just figuring out exactly what their relationship was. Because when we were talking, we were both like, This marriage has to seem real to people; otherwise people just aren’t gonna care.”

Source: indiewire.com

“One of the relationships I though was really quite clever is not between Will and the robot, but between John and the robot. The fact is the son chooses the company and protection of the robot above his own father.”

Source: thetimes.co.uk

“If it’s going to be a family show, then the families have to recognise themselves through the screen. We had to present normal families, and modern families are all complicated.”

Source: dailynewsegypt.com

“There's this sort of thing of, ‘Oh, why are they together on this thing if they’re separated?’ It’s like, If you don’t take me with you, I’ll never see my family again. So theres that reason for him being there”

Source: io9.gizmodo.com

“They sent me the script and I was dubious, at first. I said, ‘Lost in Space’? They’re reviving that?! They tried to do that with the film, and it didn’t work. And then, I read the script and I actually liked it. The thing I liked most was that they were pitching it at such a great level. It was sophisticated enough for adults to watch and really get something out of it, and yet it had this fantastic adventure quality. What I really liked about it is that the kids are intelligent and its aspirational. If I were a kid watching this, I’d be like, I want to be that bright and that capable. And it doesn’t get ridiculous. They pitched it at the right level. And I felt that Maureen and John were real people. I like the way that they were written and I liked the fact that it was a relationship in trouble. They’re trying to figure out how to get along and how to deal with not only this extreme situation that they’re in, with extreme jeopardy and the terror of that, but also figuring out how to work things out between themselves. Thats what sold me on it. They seemed to be a family that people can relate to because its not some apple pie family that just doesn’t exist. They’re fallible human beings, who are trying to be better.”

“Like most kids, they’re all completely different from one another, and they have different strengths and weakness, just like normal kids in a family. It’s about how you cope with that. All of those different dynamics that happen seemed real to me, they're just in these extraordinary circumstances.”

“It’s brilliant! It’s one of the reasons that I love doing what I do. You can do something so entirely different, not only in its context, but also in its whole feel. I had done ‘Black Sails' for four years and it was a really tough journey for me. I know it sounds slightly pretentious, but I really was wrung out, by the end, by the whole experience. It was an amazing experience, but Ive never worked that hard, in my life. There were long days with extreme conditions, filming in South Africa, and you had to go from massive physical set pieces to doing intense dialogue scenes. You’d go from one extreme, of being beaten up physically, to another extreme, of being beaten up mentally. So, when this came along and I started doing it, it was a relief to me. With ‘Black Sails’, Flints journey and options were narrowing down and it was inevitable, what was going to happen to him. With ‘Lost in Space’, it seems to be opening out. Its about people trying to survive and trying to be better people and fighting to be alive. Flint had a death wish. After four years, that was really dark. It’s just a really nice juxtaposition to ‘Black Sails’, which I miss, enormously, but it felt like I was on holiday with ‘Lost in Space’. Although, like any job, ‘Lost in Space’ had its own pressures, but they weren't the same pressures that I experienced on ‘Black Sails’.

“His relationship with the kids, that was a wonderful journey for me, as an actor. I really enjoyed playing that. As the season progresses, the robot becomes this surrogate father and protector for Will, who’s physically frightened. The irony is that Will has this father who is very brave, and who’s gone off on done all of this fighting in war, and he’s very capable, himself, but he’s nervous and frightened. So, the robot becomes very protective of him, but at the same time, threatens John. His son has to go to a robot to get what he should be giving him, and thats painful for him. The realisation that he's missed out on an enormous amount of his kids childhood and not being there for them, and trying to make up for that and connect with them again, is a very moving thing to play.”

“Initially, John is very distrustful of the robot. It’s a real problem because you need the robot in this extreme situation, since he seems to be able to help you, but at the same time, what is this thing goes berserk? You just don’t know what he's going to do. And as the show goes on, you realise that there are more reasons for him to distrust this thing. The whole thing is a great journey. All of that is really fun to play.”

“The biggest learn for me, that I’ve never had to do before, was doing all of that spaceship acting, sitting in the pilots chair and knowing what all the buttons do. That was such fun. While you’re doing it, you’re going, What am I doing?!, and then you have to remember what you used the buttons for, the next time. Being on a spaceship, throwing yourself around, I had a blast. You have to pinch yourself, once in awhile, and go, What am I doing?!”

“Yeah, the spacesuit was pretty uncomfortable, I have to say. One of the things I most enjoyed about the shoot, because it was so refreshing to me, was working with the kids. One becomes a bit jaded. Its easy to fall into saying, Oh, this spacesuit is so uncomfortable! But when Max Jenkins is jumping around going, This spacesuit is so cool!, it’s so refreshing. It’s so refreshing to be around that enthusiasm. It’s infectious. It was so great having the kids around because it just made you realise how lucky we were to be doing what we were doing.”

“We had a little bit of rehearsal time, but it was just a little bit. Max is such an easy kid to get to know. He’s just so open, and his parents are adorable. We couldn’t have lucked out more with the children that we got because they’re really great kids. They’re really open, really friendly, really open to having a great time, and up for learning. That just makes things so much easier. Im assuming that things can go very differently. We were incredibly lucky. All of us just really got on well and working with them seemed very natural. There didn’t seem to be any process that we had to go through. It just happened very quickly.”

“Molly and I spent a lot of time with Zack Estrin, talking about their relationship. If this isn’t a real relationship and a real family than nobody is going to care. The relationship has to be real without being depressing or sentimental. It has to be something that people can relate to. Especially because this is a family show, grown ups have to watch this, so it has to be sophisticated, as well as incredibly fun for the kids. We need grown ups and parents to be able to relate to Maureen and John and their problems and aspirations. What made it really great fun for me was working with Molly because she’s such a great actress, and we have that back and forth, both on screen and off. Their relationship feels like these are real people. Whats kind of funny is that the romance of the whole thing is really them. They’re the romantic couple. You want them to figure it out because they’re good people. If we’re lucky enough to go again, it will be interesting to see where they take John in Season 2. The other thing that I really enjoyed was working with Max and exploring that relationship, which to me is very real. I spent a lot of time away from my family, filming in South Africa, so I knew what it was like, being away from your family for a long time and feeling slightly out of place when you come back into it and trying to figure things out. I could really relate to that relationship, between John and Will. My son is about the same age as Max, but maybe a bit younger.”

“Interestingly, I would say that he creates the strongest bond with his son. He works out a lot of stuff with Maureen, but the greatest distance he covers is with Will. The last four episodes are really lovely, for me. John is also a slow burn. You don’t really get to know him that well, for awhile. It takes awhile to figure out his agenda, and whats going on between him and Maureen. It takes a long time to figure him out, but once you see what he’s trying to do, the last four or five episodes are really nice. It really is a journey for him. He does things wrong, but it’s because he’s clumsy. He doesn’t quite get it right and he misjudges things a bit. He’s too tough because he’s used to giving orders to people. Hes an army guy, so it’s all about training and execution for him. He has to relearn what empathy is, and how to deal with these kids without being this grumpy soldier.”

“Yeah, my kids did come, a couple of times, and they got on really well with Max, Mina and Taylor. And Mollys son came to set. It was really nice. It felt like a very family-oriented show, and they all hung out together. It was a really nice feeling and very relaxed.”

“Molly and I were quite adamant that the stakes had to be real and the threats had to be real. As an actor, the only thing you have is your instinct and your imagination. Those are the two main tools that you use. I didn’t really enjoy putting myself in that situation, where you are the person and your kids are under threat, but you had to give it that intensity. Of course, if it was real, I probably would have died. I would have had a nervous breakdown within an hour, but these characters can manage it. Obviously, one has to imagine what that would be like.”

Source: collider.com

“I was seven years old when ‘Star Wars’ came out. That just kind of blew my head off. ‘2001’, ‘Blade Runner’. All of these, all of the stuff like that. This is the one genre I completely expected to be in.”

“The character of Captain Flint, who I was playing, was a very nihilistic character that was on this kind of tragic course toward death. So to get something so polar opposite was really fun. It just sort of ended up being the perfect antidote to having done something like ‘Black Sails’.”

Source: indiewire.com

"The thing I admire in John is that he is somebody who knows that he has got it wrong, and he's trying to put it right. Not only for his relationship with his wife, but individually, his relationships with his children. He's trying to not only save their lives, but he's also trying to do the right thing. And I think that's what I really like about this series, is that it's something that is aspirational without being sentimental. It's about people trying to be better people and trying to do the right thing."

"I think that that's something we kind of need right now, because the world is really depressing at the moment, and things are really frightening. You watch TV and a lot of it is really depressing--and brilliant--but pretty much depressing. And I think what's nice is you can get lost in the adventure of this, but also these are people who are trying to be better. And I think there's something uplifting about watching that."

Source: gamespot.com

"Will is quite insecure, his confidence is not great”

Source: digital spy.com

On inequality in Hollywood:

"I think the movements are great. I am a parent of two girls and I have a wife who is very passionate, and I want a change for them, my wife and for all our friends”.

"I can only sympathise with and support the movement. Change needs to happen and it is mad that it has taken so long”

"It is a correction. It is really needed at the moment. Being a parent of two young girls, I am really excited about a show that has two young girls who are represented as incredibly capable, strong, smart, and sassy.”

"It is really great that there is a show which is showing that. I am excited for my kids to watch that and excited for the whole generation of kids to watch those characters and aspire to be like that.”

"There are moments which are light. Also, what is fun is that it is taking the domestic situation essentially and putting it in space. So, there are these situations that occur and every parent or child will recognise... They have either been through that or seen them. But it is this extraordinary situation where they are million of years away from Earth which makes it different.”

Source: business-standard.com

On ‘Summer of Rockets’:

“It’s great to be working with Stephen Poliakoff again after such a long time. I loved working with him on ‘Perfect Strangers’; he’s such a unique and original voice in British television. It’s also good to be filming something back home in the UK for the BBC. It’s been a while.”

Source: deadline.com

OTHERS ON TOBY:

Maxwell: “I’ll never forget going up on top of the glacier. My scenes with Toby where we were walking in the snow, weren’t green-screen we were on a real glacier! We had to take a one-hour and 45-minute ride on a snowmobile to get there.”

“It was cold but sunny, and Toby didn’t think of getting sun protection. The following day, he had sunburn above his eyes and under his nose, and the glass of the space suit charred half his face.”

Source: entertainment.inquirer.net

#Toby Stephens #Lost in Space #Summer of Rockets #Perfect Strangers

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betweengenesisfrogs · 7 years

Text

OFF THE CUFF HOMESTUCK THOUGHTS #3: THE SELF PILE DOESN’T STOP FROM GETTING TALLER OR: THE PROBLEM OF DEAD MARIOS

DISCLAIMER

IMPORTANT THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

[CHECK THE TAG FOR MORE THOUGHTS]

So, a long-ass time ago, Rose and Dave had a conversation like this:

TT: After you go, what do you think will happen to me? TT: Will I just cease to exist? TG: i dont know TG: i mean your whole timeline will TG: maybe TT: Maybe? TT: Is there a chance it'll continue to exist, and I'll just be here alone forever? TT: I'm not sure which outcome is more unsettling. TG: the thing with time travel is TG: you cant overthink it TG: just roll with it and see what happens TG: and above all try not to do anything retarded TT: What do you think I should do? TG: try going to sleep TG: our dream selves kind of operate outside the normal time continuum i think TG: so if part of you from this timelines going to persist thats probably the way to make it happen TT: Ok. TG: and hey you might even be able to help your past dream self wake up sooner without all that fuss you went through TT: I think the true purpose of this game is to see how many qualifiers we can get to precede the word "self" and still understand what we're talking about.

This is the most important sentence in Homestuck.

I am dead serious.

Well, OK, I mean, it’s pretty important for understanding some major Homestuck themes and shit or something like that.

Also, I totally should have said: Pre-Retcon Doomed Timeline Non-Dreamself Rose but ultimately about to become Dreamself Rose who semi-merged with Pre-Retcon Alpha Timeline Rose and Doomed Timeline Dave aka Davesprite AKA future Davepetasprite^2 or as we all call them around the office, Davepeta, had that conversation.

Maybe you begin to see what I’m going to talk about here.

One of the major frustrations a lot of people had with the retcon was that the characters we ended up with at the end weren’t the ones we’d come to love and know throughout the story. Was it even worth it, to lose the characters we loved to the tyranny of Game Over? The victorious kids, with the exception of John and Roxy, were other people, with other histories, other goals, and other choices.

Allow me to submit that that may be the whole point.

SBURB is cruel. We’ve known that for a long time. It’s cruel not as Caliborn is cruel, but as the cosmos is cruel, as a supernova is cruel. It wants what it wants, and doesn’t care about how that intersects with the needs of humanity. It wants to make universes through a complex game-playing method, and drags hapless, vulnerable adolescents along for the ride. And most of the time it doesn’t even succeed, leaving its champions to rot in a doomed timeline or similar! Skaia’s victory is an amoral creation myth where individual human beings are just the carved pieces on the chessboard. (I mean, the other ones. Not the carapacians.)

Again, let’s consider the theme of VIDEO GAMES vs. REAL LIFE.

Homestuck, let’s be real, is basically some postmodern horror timey-wimey Jumanji. For a generation way more familiar with pixels than cute little tokens It’s easy for teenagers and in fact, basically everyone, to fantasize about escaping their life and slipping into some game world forever, where they get to do awesome things and be a heroic person.

Homestuck makes that literal. Congratulations, everything you ever knew is dead. You will never see it again, except your internet friends, who turn out also to be your family and other important people. I mean, from a distance, SBURB sounds like an awesome game, right? You figure out who you are and get to wear a cool costume displaying that identity. You get to make anything you want and enjoy this hyperflexible mythology tailored to YOUR CHOICES. HS fans talk all the time about how cool it would be to play a real version of SBURB. That’s a big part of the appeal of SBURB fan adventures. They put you and your friends in the story. Or your favorite characters! It sounds like a fantasy come true.

The thing is, as fantastical as it is, it’s also really fucked up, and ultimately you and your friends are being used. By a giant frog to let it have its babies. By the universe. By a smug blue cloud thing that doesn’t care about you at all.

SBURB does not care about you at all.

The funny thing, SBURB features a mythology with so many layers and nuances and seemingly human motifs about growth and self that you might search for some grand ultimate meaning behind it, but it’s not even human enough to have a personality, to be something you can argue with or fight. It just is. It’s all the cruelty and power of a god without any of the dazzling personality. It’s empty. It just wants to make universes all day long, or fail trying. It is a great, weird tadpole-making machine that eats children.

One of the big ways it doesn’t care about you is its attitude toward the self. Humans and trolls and whatnot prefer not to be relentlessly duplicated. SBURB says, oh yeah, let’s make tons of copies of the player characters and use them for a lot of different purposes.

There’s the dreamself, an essential bifurcation of identity (you are now and were always the dream moon princex) that sometimes gets merged into god tier but sometimes doesn’t. There’s doomed timeline selves, who exist ultimately to augment an Alpha timeline whose Alphaness is decided very arbitrarily and frequently by Lord English. There’s the you who exists before a scratched session and the you who exists afterward, who are two different people but started as one baby in an act of ectobaby meteor duplication, your player self and your guardian self. Dead timeline yous fill up the dreambubbles made by the horrorterrors and get endlessly confused with each other. Any one of these could be the you experience being at any given moment, and which one it is entirely arbitrary. Don’t like being Dead Nepeta #47? Tough hoofbeast leavings, kiddo.

To top it all off, in Terezi: Remember, we learn that every single time we thought someone changed from one self to another, was resurrected or something like that, it was another act of duplication. For every time someone’s died, there’s another version of them waiting in the Dream Bubbles, surprised that they’re not the main character anymore. And we have no way of knowing which is which. Even John, good old everyman John, may or may not be the person who died three or four times. It’s really impossible to say whether we’ve been following the same person throughout our story, or just the illusion of the same person, like a horrifying cosmic flipbook.

The retcon is a return to this same theme. Ultimately, there’s very little new in the changes John makes to reality except that they drive the point home.

John’s friends all died. John and his friends won the game. These things are both true at the same time, except those things may not have happened to the same people. There was a happy ending. Hooray! For, um, some folks who may or may not be the ones we care about. In fact, it’s very confusing, because from Rose’s perspective, Roxy is dead but came back to life, and from Roxy’s perspective Rose is dead but came back to life, except also she came back to life as a weird tentacle catgirl of pure id and self –indulgence. So there’s that. Um. Which Rose are we rooting for again?

Or wait: is it none of them, because the first Rose died in a doomed timeline, hundreds of panels and a number of years ago?

There’s a tension here which one experiences between saying it’s okay because it’s still the same people, and saying it’s not okay, because it’s not the same people at all. This tension is exactly what we’re meant to wrestle with. To put it another way, Homestuck asks if identity can work in aggregate. Are all Johns John, all Roses Rose, and do they all share in what they accomplish? Or are the final victors only accidents created by the whims and needs of the frog baby machine?

What I’m saying, basically, is that the retcon, in the sense that it pointed out our confused relationship with these characters, was already here.

In interviews and questions put to him over the years, Hussie constantly compares HS and SBURB to other video games, particularly Mario, which he frequently returns to as a baseline of comparison that most of his readers will know. One answer, from a recent Hiveswap interview, is particularly revelatory. To the question of “Why do you kill off all your characters?” Hussie replies:

[…]HS is supposedly a story that is also a game. In games, the characters die all the time. How many times did you let Mario fall in the pit before he saved the princess? Who weeps for these Marios. In games your characters die, but you keep trying and trying and rebooting and resetting until finally they make it. When you play a game this process is all very impersonal. Once you finally win, when all is said and done those deaths didn’t “count”, only the linear path of the final victorious version of the character is considered “real”. Mario never actually died, did he? Except the omniscient player knows better. HS seems to combine all the meaningless deaths of a trial-and-error game journey with the way death is treated dramatically in other media, where unlike our oblivious Mario, the characters are aware and afraid of the many deaths they must experience before finally winning the game.

The big man hass the answer.

Homestuck is the story of those dead Marios.

Other works, like Undertale, have engaged with this topic as well. But one of the major differences between Undertale and Homestuck is that in Undertale, between “lives,” one’s consciousness is preserved. In Homestuck, it’s discontinuous, and the value of the overall trial-error process is called into question by the fact that you, the player, may not even get to experience the victory. What meaning does victory hold if that is the case?

So, to put it in a nice thesis format:

One of the central themes of Homestuck is the challenge of reconciling an arbitrary and destructive pattern of growth and victory with the death and suffering you experienced along the way. Homestuck asks: is victory worthwhile if you’re not you anymore? And would you be able to know?

What even is the self? Is there such a thing?

If you were left feeling somewhat disconcerted by our heroes’ tidy victory and departure to their cosmic prize, or by how which Rose gets the spotlight is so deeply, deeply arbitrary, there’s a good reason for that. You’re supposed to be.

The philosophical problem of Wacky Cat Rose is insignificant next to the bullshit of SBURB.

And don’t forget—John and Roxy’s denizens helped them achieve the retcon. Ultimately, the victory they achieved was mediated by the same amoral system of SBURB, and was a victory over an enemy, Caliborn, whose power was created, perpetuated, and ended by that same system.

Okay, so here’s where it gets contentious. There’s an argument to be made, which I’m not sure how I feel about, that some of the character development that could have been in post-retcon Act 6 was left out precisely to push this feeling and play up this tension. Note that this is not the same thing as saying that they were deliberately badly written, but that they’re deliberately written to make us uneasy.That Hussie deliberately played with the balance between making these retconned characters feel familiar and making them feel eerily different to leave us feeling uneasy with the result.

I’m not sure I like that idea. It smacks a little too much of that “everything is perfect” thinking that comes sometimes from the far Metastuck camp. Some of the differences may also be the result of flawed writing. (See: Jane and Jake’s character arcs, which I might talk about later.) And I want to be able to critique those flaws. Ultimately, I think we still needed more time and development to figure out who these new people were—even if our goal was ultimately to compare them to their earlier selves. And again, more conscious acknowledgement of the problem from our heroes—especially John, the linchpin in this last and biggest act of duplication—might have helped drive this theme home.

Still, I think the Problem of Dead Marios is one of the most fundamental questions of Homestuck, maybe THE biggest question. It’s essential to understand it to understand what Hussie’s doing—or attempting to do— in the retcon and the ending.

I don’t know that Homestuck offers us a clear answer to that question. There are some confusions around the issue, too. Where do merged selves fit in, exactly? Clearly they’re a big part of the discussion, because Hussie spends some time in Act 6, especially near the end bringing the identity-merging powers of the Sprites to the forefront. (See also: the identity-merged nightmare that is Lord English.) Can we even come up with a clear answer to what it means when a dead Mario returns to life grotesquely fused with Toad? How does he beat the game? Does he tell himself that the princess is in another castle? Or what if he merges with Peach? Are they their own princess? How do they know if they’re in the right castle?

Um. Anyway—

Interestingly, it’s not all grotesque—spritesplosions suggest that personalities that are too different don’t stay together long, so a fusion might rely on some inherent compatibility between the two players. Erisol’s self-loathing, sure, but also Fefeta’s cheerfulness. Davepeta seems to be a way of bringing out the best in their players, a way of getting Davesprite past his angst and Nepeta past her fear. Honestly, I know a lot of people don’t like Davepeta as the ending of these two characters’ arcs, but I can’t help but love it. They’re the ultimate coolkid. Cool enough to know they don’t have to be cool. Regular Dave got there, too, of course. But was his retcon assist from John ultimately any different?

Then, of course, we come to Davepeta’s speech to Jade in one of the last few updates before Collide. Davepeta suggests that there is such a thing as an ultimate self beyond the many different selves one piles up throughout the cosmos. A set of principles that describes who you are that’s larger than any individual instance of you. Your inherent Mariohood. (Maybe this is comparable to your Classpect identity, which attempts to describe who you are?) Davepeta even tells Jade, strikingly, that one might learn to see beyond the barriers between selves. Be the ur-self, in practice, rather than theory. This would be incredible news for Jade, who wrestles with the issue of different selves perhaps more than any other character. (There’s a lot to say about Jade.)

Honestly, I wish this ur-self idea had been developed more, and I honestly expected it to be. It doesn’t fully come to fruition, I feel. (Same goes for Davepeta’s character. Ohhhh, ZING!) I’m not sure it entirely makes philosophical sense, especially with fusion—I mean, doesn’t Davepeta themself disprove it? Or at least complicate it? Like, are they part of the ur-Dave or the ur-Nepeta? They seem to imply they’re BOTH? Does that even work? Does that mean that Marieach is all the Peaches and Marios at once?

(In fact, Bowser/Peach/Mario are but the three manifestations of one eternal principle. Also, Bowser/Peach are the true power couple. Read my fanfiction plz.)

And what, say, of Dirk, who ultimately ends up rejecting aspects of his other selves? It feels like there’s a lot more you could say here, and I wonder if Hussie would have said more, if he’d had time. What’s weird is, none of our victorious kids never reach an ur-self (though to their descendants, they become archetypal to some degree), which one might have expected. They’re just individual selves who happened to get lucky. Does that make them representative of the whole? It feels like something’s missing here, or like something got dropped at the last minute.

Same goes for the idea of the Ultimate Riddle. You’d be forgiven for missing it, but there’s been this riddle in the background lore of SBURB that seems to have something to do with personal agency in this overwhelming, overarching system. Karkat called it predestination, saying something like “ANY HOPE YOU HAD OF DOING THINGS OTHERWISE WAS JUST A RUSE.” But others have interpreted it more positively. My favorite interpretation, from bladekindeyewear: the answer to the Riddle is that YOU shape the timeline through your existence, personality, and choices, even when it looks like it’s all predestination. Ultimately it’s your predestination, your set of events, based deeply on your nature, that you are creating. Someone like Caliborn can use his innate personality to achieve power; someone like John might be able to use it to achieve freedom.

I definitely expected something like that to be expressed more explicitly. Like, a big ah-ha moment that helps John or Jade or whoever understand how to escape Caliborn’s system. Something like that would have been very helpful for a lot of our heroes, actually, who’ve been pushed around by Skaia and SBURB together, in finding a cathartic ending. Once again, I wonder if something was dropped or rushed because there wasn’t time to put it all in. There’s places where you can see hints of that Answer being implied, maybe? But it’s kind of ambiguous.

You can see how the Answer to the Ultimate Riddle ties into some of Davepeta’s ideas. If your personality, the rules of your behavior are a fundamental archetype that goes beyond each individual self, then the answer to whether it matters if one self of yours makes it through to victory is an emphatic YES. You are all of those people, and by winning one round with Skaia, you’ve won the whole game, despite all the arbitrary challenges and deaths it heaps upon you along the way.

This may strike some as too positive for Skaia’s brutality, or again, some way of excusing flaws in many characters’ arcs, or unfair things that happen to them. To be fair, I don’t know that Davepeta’s necessarily meant to be taken as authoritative or the voice of Hussie. They may simply be offering a purrspective.

Hussie not choosing to come right out and engage with the Ultimate Riddle leaves the question of Dead Marios and what they mean for the victorious versions of our cast very open. I like that in some ways—let the reader decide—but I can’t help but wish we had more to work with in making that decision. Plus, it might have brought the thematic messages of Homestuck all the way home to tie them more closely to our characters and their experiences—character development being one of the things most people found most lacking in the ending.

NEXT TIME: All that wacky gnostic stuff probably

#homestuck #off the cuff homestuck thoughts extravaganza 2017 #homestuck meta #homestuck theory #homestuck analysis #The Ultimate Riddle #dead marios #ugh why is tumblr basically unusable #pictures and text can go together TUMBLR #GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER IT'S 2017 WE HAVE HYPERCOMICS #HOMESTUCK COULD TEACH YOU A THING OR TWO ABOUT COMBINING MEDIA

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