When I used to be in uni, my psychology professor talked about identification, love and hate-

And I wonder, what does it mean to always be in the wrong team-

I always like the wrong and evil character, the anti-hero, always, like a plague, I don't care about the protagonist, they tend to be too much, naive, glorified, blind, coward - but not it's bad counterpart, no, this sad bad meow meow person is 10x better and complex, the good and bad, as every person is.

When we like them, it only means that we see and recognize the injustice they suffer, and more than that, we also know and accept their flaws, we accept and recognize their growth and loss of innocence.

I mean, Alicent? Little girl being hated because she is what women in her time are suppose to be? Obedient to her father's wishes, submissive, passive... but no, vilified as the friend who wanted (I'm cackling who would want to marry him, she wouldn't want to marry no dragon in fact, she clearly is terrified of them) to marry an old and sick man, the father of her best friend, forced to birth child after child as was expected of her because of course she wants to strip her once best friend from her title of heir, yes, it is written on her face. This girl wasn't having a day of peace ever - two children when she was seventeen*, four when she wasn't even near her thirties. A girl, sold, raped, judged and denied justice.

But her good counterpart? Oh, how glorious and modern of her to lie, throw tantrums and rage around, hide behind her weak father's judgements and run away from facing her problems and faults.

Don't even get me started on others... Like Hurrem.

A girl, enslaved, probably saw her family and people die before her eyes, sold from one palace to another, denied to practice her religious beliefs, denied her own language, letters, freedom. Condemn to serve.

But you see, look how pretty she became. Let's gift her to the sultan

Who knows the things they threatened her with, she was, before being a concubine, a slave, property of the sultan, not a woman, a thing.

The inferno she had to endure before having a son, before getting her freedom and a legal marriage.

But yes, she is evil, she wants to kill a child, the child of the woman she hates, a child that won't hesitate to kill her sons.

Because it is the fraticide law. Even her own children would kill each other the moment their father died.

Even to this day, Hurrem isn't remembered as a girl - who suffered and raise up to have the best life she could fight for - she is remembered as the evil mother, playing her children to be against their brother, the wolf among sheep.

Both of them, done dirty by the narrative. Two women called monsters, when they are but two humans, two women who suffered and had to reinvent themselves in order to survive and continue. I doubt it was completely for their own selves, but for those who depended on them.

I could go on and on about so many others, but I'll just talk about this two blorbos.

Fixing MCU Spider-Man (4/6)

I loved No Way Home and decided to watch all three of Tobey’s movies and both of Andrew’s movies as well as all of Tom’s MCU appearances after watching No Way Home and I have come to the conclusion that I really don’t like the MCU’s portrayal of Spider-Man/Peter Parker

This is because they decided to write him as a T/ony S/tark fanboy which goes against a lot of his characterization from the comics and previous film versions of him

So I decided that I am going to fix MCU Spider-Man and next up is Avengers Endgame

Fixing MCU Spider-Man (4/6): Avengers Endgame

I know that Peter isn't in the first half of this movie but I can't not make some changes to it, so I'm going to lol. The first change is that when T/ony brings up that whole "suit of armour around the world" bullshit, everyone else is going to get mad at him and remind him that a) Ultron was not going to stop Thanos and what would have stopped Thanos or at least had more of a chance of stopping Thanos was if you didn't sign The Accords and the Avengers had actually been together when all this shit went down and b) your shitty idea was what literally turned into a murderbot and nearly killed everyone on Earth so please stop bringing it up every chance you get MY GOD /end rant

Like I said in my Avengers Infinity War rewrite, Aunt May does not get dusted and she gets a scene where she slaps the shit out of T/ony for everything he did to Peter (taking him out of the country, blackmailing him, not giving him the full story about The Accords, ghosting him, taking away his suit, berating him, etc.) that all culminated in Peter getting dusted

Instead of T/ony seeing a photo of him and Peter that gets him to decide to help the team with the time heist, he sees something else (maybe the pen he used to try to get Steve to sign The Accords) and flashes back to Peter in my Avengers Infinity War rewrite telling him the part he played in the Avengers breaking up due to all of the bullshit with The Accords and them not being together to stop Thanos and this makes T/ony realize he needs to change and help save everyone

Pretty much everything else stays the same except that Peter stops outing his identity to literally everyone like his whole thing is "OMG NO ONE CAN KNOW THAT I'M SPIDER-MAN" yet he tells everyone and their mom "HI I'M PETER PARKER" like no lol

Oh and there’s no scene of Peter crying over T/ony’s dead body because a) it was really shitty how to see her husband/father of her child, Pepper literally had to move Peter out of the way herself and b) there is no I/rondad and S/piderson in this version of the MCU. Instead, Peter can say something like “T/ony, I’m sorry you had to die so all of us could live but you truly redeemed yourself. Thank you for your sacrifice” and then move out of the way on his own so Pepper can grieve because that way it acknowledges the sacrifice T/ony made while not making it seem like T/ony is the only important thing in Peter’s life the way the original movie did

My final change is that I am adding Michelle/MJ to the scene where Peter and Ned reunite at the school because that way, we can do little hint of a spark between Peter and Michelle/MJ because as much as I love Spideychelle and Tom and Zendaya's chemistry, it's literally so out of the left field in Spider-Man Far From Home that they're like so in love with each other with literally no lead up lol

Next up will be fixing Spider-Man Far From Home!

Tagged by @generallkenobi Rules: name ten favorite characters from ten things, then tag ten people. 1. Star Wars - Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker - mmffffmmmfffff, no, you can’t make me choose!  I know it seems like I’m probably a bigger fan of Obi-Wan’s, but honestly as much time as I spend thinking about and yelling about Anakin Skywalker, I’m pretty sure they’re tied.  I LOVE THEM SO MUCH, sobs.  I love Obi-Wan because he’s what I aspire to be, someone who is reserved but shows a depth of feeling at the same time, who has his shit together even when the worst happens, he still finds a way to keep getting back up, and still is kind to the galaxy, finds the good in people. Meanwhile, Anakin Skywalker is someone I see so much of myself in, all that messy noise in my head, the anxiety and depression that I read into his character, the fear of rejection that I’ve experienced on a bone-deep level, the disastrous choices he makes are ones that I feel come from a place where I understand what led him to them, and the fear of how hard it is to look within myself and really face myself, that I avoided it for a lot of years because it was too terrifying.  I trash talk him a lot and I yell about the shitty choices he made, but it’s never without the understanding that I feel I understand why he made them and why they resonate so powerfully with me. 2. Sailor Moon - Tsukino Usagi - My forever girl!  Usagi’s journey, especially in the manga, as someone who was emotionally fragile and would rather die than live without her special people, to someone who stands up and says, no, this time I’ll be the one to save them!  That her journey being told, from that fragile person to that strong person, was worth the telling, that her starting point was worthwhile, not something to be derided, that the journey itself, the back and forth progress of it, that it wasn’t just a straight line, is one that has incredible meaning to me, as someone who has struggled with similar things. 3.  Tolkien’s Legendarium - Thranduil - I was totally won over by Lee Pace’s portrayal in the movies, despite my frustration with the way he was written.  Part of it is that I’ve always loved the Elves (let me yell about how much I love Thingol, it’s ridiculous) and I love the connections he has to my favorite groups (I love the Sindarin Elves so muuuuuuch, I cry, even as I love the Noldor and Vanyar, too, like, I will fight a man for Finrod, okay, oh, and Fingolfin deserves the world!! and my problematic fave Maedhros ;__;) and I love his relationship with Legolas (or the potential of it that fandom runs with much better than the movies did), but mostly it’s that he’s a king who loves his people and chose them and they loved him in return for it. 4. Bleach - Inoue Orihime - I have a weakness for characters who doubt themselves, but find a core of strength in being kind and loving.  That Orihime has this tremendous power, that she could have been the most OP of the entire cast, but thoroughly rejected the idea of using it for violence, and instead only for healing, for kindness, cemented her as one of my forever loves.  She can be so silly and loopy and ridiculous, she can be “weak” in the way she cries and reaches out for people, she has trouble letting other people see the truth of her sometimes, but when it counted, she refused to break and instead chose to be kind.  I love her so very much. 5. Marvel - Thor - Thor is one of my favorites because the galaxy dumped a whole lot of shit on him and he refused to let it make him be less than he was.  Well, at least until Endgame, but we don’t talk about that movie.  (And even then it wasn’t that he stumbled, it was how they treated his depression, as one long joke, that makes me RRrrhhhaaggghh about it.)  He grieved for everything he lost, including his brother, but he also refused to let Loki walk all over him, that he missed his brother, wished he could trust him, but wouldn’t let Loki’s pain rewrite what actually happened.  The conversation on the skiff in Svartalfheim alone is why The Dark World is a movie I will always defend, “Who put me there [in the cell]!?”  "You damn well know who!”  YOU TELL HIM, THOR.  That care + refusing to be budged on what was right, yes, that’s my guy right there. 6. Gravitation - Yuki Eiri - As dumb as this show was (and the manga even more so, but I enjoy the show more), as much as it was a silly BL show, I loved this character for being there for me when I needed him.  Someone who had all this anger and hurt inside him, this depression that constantly ate at him, that he pushed people away because he couldn’t stand to let go of it, and it didn’t matter that there were people who loved him who wanted to help him, that a simple hug didn’t fix him, that it could help, but it couldn’t make him magically better--that was something I really needed when I watched the show.  That depression and the rage it could cause wasn’t something a hug could fix.  That he had to be willing to start opening up to people again, to risking more hurt, and that it wouldn’t be easy--I really, really needed that message at the time I got it, and I will always be thankful to that dumb show for giving it to me. 7. Steven Universe - Pink Diamond - Did you know that one of my favorite things in the world is hot mess lady characters?  I love them sooooooo much, like, you give me a lady who did questionable things but we’re still meant to find her sympathetic and her story worth telling?  I AM THERE.  And Pink just slammed her way into my heart with everything she’d faced, the terrible things the other Diamonds put her through, that she had to change on her own, that she never had a Steven there to help her, she had to realize everything by herself, and that she wasn’t perfect at it, that she hurt people in the way she stumbled forward, yet there was a person there who loved and cared deeply?  I love her forever. 8. Adventure Time - Princess Bubblegum - Nerdy science princess who is the sole possessor of a single braincell on the show and yet is just as batshit as the rest of them?  The one character who looked at all the wild shit that happened in Ooo and said, sometimes you gotta prepare for the worst or do things that aren’t nice because otherwise we’ll all die?  But never stopped caring about her people or the rest of the world and listened to others and tried her best to help?  And had this complicated, fraught relationship with Marceline which is one of the best “f/f doesn’t always have to be nice” relationships that I’ve gotten to consume?  I LOVE HERRRRR. 9. Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed - Lan Wangji - I am weak to his character type, okay!  Reserved, talented, driven up the wall by the genius brat that bugs the shit out of him but also he loves them the most in the world, and utterly devoted to them?  YEAH THAT SOUNDS LIKE MY TYPE.  Also, Wang Yibo is so good-looking in the drama, oh my god. 10. Fruits Basket - Honda Tohru - Another character who refused to let the crap piled on her make her any less kind to the world.  She goes through so much and yet never stops loving people and finding sympathy for them, she never stops reaching out her hand.  While she’s never expected to do this, she’s never obligated to do so, there are plenty of characters in the series that are understandably angry and closed off that aren’t judged for being that way, that Tohru chooses to be open and loving, no matter how much she’s hurt for it, is a wonderful counterbalance.  And I am forever grateful that she got the family she wanted, she got the guy she wanted to fall in love with, she got to meet all these people she cared about and they cared about her in return, and she was stronger in her love than any of them were in their fear, anger, or hate.  I LOVE HER FOREVER. Tagging:  DON’T MAKE ME CHOOSE sobs

How to make Be More Chill a good musical

Be More Chill is a show I have a huge soft spot for- it’s a fantastic premise (both the idea of the Squip and the elements of parodying all the shitty tropes we have in stories about youth) and there’s some pretty clever and fun music.

However, in the transition to Broadway, the producers of the show compounded on the flaws of the original, while moving farther away from what made the Two River version likable- most notably, trying to pander to the fans of the show that boosted it into popularity on social media. Not even a bad idea, but they did it really poorly. The way they ought to have gone was to rewrite the leading characters, among other stuff.

But first, I’ll quickly go over what works about Be More Chill that spoke to me when I first stumbled upon it- defining the paradigm of the concept makes it easier to understand why I’d change what I’d change.

Be More Chill, in a lot of ways, is/was a deconstruction of the School Musical- think Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Dear Evan Hansen, and, to an extent, Heathers. That deconstruction is pretty half baked because it focuses too hard on being funny, but all of the pieces are there. For example, Jeremy being the stooge that he is allows for some commentary about the nature of the milquetoast, inherently relatable protagonists we’ve gotten too used to. Michael, the stereotypical best friend who would do anything for the protagonist, is a vessel for the show to ask us to think about the plot-devicey nature of these characters- are they people with feelings, or do they exist for the protagonist to bounce off of? The ever-present trio of popular girls seem to be bratty queen bees, but we get to peek into the dysfunction and insecurities that drive that behavior. (This is the pretty much the only aspect the Broadway show nailed almost perfectly.) You get the idea for the other archetypes- the immaculate Love Interest, Dorky Dad, Jock, Bully, etc.

Keeping that in mind, the way to make this a good show is to reframe Be More Chill as a revision of the cultural staple of those tropes into a modern context. Those rewrites I mentioned start to really fit into a more cohesive and satisfying narrative when you do so.

Character rewrites: Michael and Christine, as they are now, exist as characters that enable Jeremy to develop- realistically, yes, that is the job of every supporting character, but that doesn’t exclude them from having their own arcs and development.

Michael: Michael in The Bathroom is so effective- not only is it a punch in the gut, but it’s a big moment where the archetype is ripped open and the audience realizes that Michael actually matters and how harmful Jeremy’s actions are. However, the show does nothing with that- Michael goes right back to existing solely for Jeremy. For Michael, I’d suggest that his ending isn’t just straight up forgiving Jeremy unconditionally- Michael is willing to take the shot, to come in and save the day, perhaps in a reprise of MITB where he decides that he’ll be brave enough to confront his friend’s stupid actions. After working with Jeremy in the Play, he is reassured that he and Jeremy are good friends who work well, but he makes it clear to Jeremy how hurt he was by his treatment and that Jeremy needs to be a better friend. As such, Michael learns that he is worth being treated well by others and most importantly himself. That gives him an arc- he starts dependent on Jeremy, anxious, and using his love for his friend as an excuse to ignore his own issues, and ends having learned how to healthily give and take in a relationship and to respect himself.

Christine: Christine, on the other hand, is an object on a pedestal for Jeremy to attain and literally almost nothing else. There’s a little bit to her- Christine is afraid of life skipping her by, and wants “things to be easy”. So, instead of being the cardboard cutout she is, Christine should be motivated by finding the easiest way to meet her self-imposed standards of being fulfilled- successful at Theater and in a happy relationship. This characterization displays the problematic nature of the generic love interest for love interest’s sake. Christine dates Jake not because Jeremy needs a motivator to embrace the squip, but because she’s afraid and lonely. “A Guy I’d Be Into” and “Upgrade” would feel disingenuous and artificial, which both explores how wrong Christine’s forcing a relationship is, and the trope-y teeny bopper song. At the end of the show, she fights to break put of the trance, which leads the Squip to bring up Jake, offering Christine the chance to become that fulfilled person she dreams of. Christine refuses, and she becomes the one to deactivate the Squips. That way, both Christine and Michael’s decisions to do the best thing allow them to be heroes alongside Jeremy. (Jeremy’s moment of redemption comes anyway, when he decides to try and break the Squips hold on the school, but fails because of his previous surrendering of control to the machine.) When Jeremy finally gathers the strength to ask her out, she declines, saying that she doesn’t really know Jeremy all that well and that she just isn’t ready for a relationship- but she won’t close the door. So, her arc goes from feeling helpless and needing to meet arbitrary standards to finding the independence she wants for the rest of the world in herself.

Jeremy: Christine and Michael’s new arcs, of course, both define the growth Jeremy needs to undergo perfectly. Jeremy needs to learn how to expect respect from others and for himself, and he needs to learn that dating Christine and being popular aren’t the keys to his happiness. As a result, the supporting cast enables Jeremy’s development by teaching him by example while still being relevant and alive characters. However, Jeremy doesn’t deserve the happy ending he gets. I addressed that he shouldn’t magically become all chummy with Michael and Chrstine already, but Jeremy’s decision to decline the Squip only earns him the chance for redemption. It makes no sense that everything is perfect with his dad and the rest of the school all declaring themselves his unconditional friends. Brooke should be rightfully upset at being used by Jeremy, Mr Heere should be furious at Jeremy for his misbehavior, and so on. Jeremy made the mess, and it will be a lot harder for him to earn forgiveness. At the end of the story, Jeremy should instead come to the conclusion that he has a long way to go to become happy, and begin the climb to self improvement- the current resolution is only half of that. (“Of all the voices in my head, the loudest one is mine/So I guess I’ll start the uphill climb/It might be hard but that’s just fine! [Im no lyricist, but you get the idea.]) So, the story ends on a high note, with the people who did the right thing succeeding, and Jeremy repairing the damage he’s done and to earn his happiness- a modern refinement of the ending of these kinds of stories, thus completing the deconstruction.

Other stuff:

Transitioning away from character fixes, the show has an awful flow from song to song- numbers like Halloween and the Smartphone Hour are vestigial little criticisms of youth culture that jack up the pacing of the thing and rip you out of the story. You know something is wrong when someone burning down a house is irrelevant to the plot. The way I’d fix that is to more closely involve Jeremy in those parts of the plot. Jeremy should immerse himself fully in the party, singing his own lyrics about his transition into the lifestyle the Squip wants for him. The audience can be aware of how dangerous this is- the drugs and alcohol at the party, the gossip loop about rich, Jeremy’s awful treatment of Brooke, and so on, but Jeremy is invested in it and loving it. That makes his decision to fight the Squip after seeing Christine’s disgust at him taking one that much more impactful- it’s the turning point of the show, and yet it is irrelevant in the plot compared to the Play.

The show tries to be too much to be liked by its younger fans- Loser, Geek, Whatever is the worst example of this. Just because a line  makes someone go “SKDKSDSKDJSKDS MICHAEL IS SO GAY I CANT” or “JEREMY IS SUCH A GOOD PORTRAYAL OF G.A.D. OMG” online doesn’t mean it’s good writing. Some other examples where pandering ruins stuff: the “Do you love him?” joke in the Pants Song, “My mothers would be thrilled!”, that god awful ADD joke in Play Rehearsal, Rich coming out as bisexual.

I love the idea that the squip adopts the persona of someone it knows the victim will trust and idolize- it’s great worldbuilding that lets the viewer participate in the story by thinking about who theirs would be. However, that doesn’t mean you go all in on the Keanu Reeves joke! Jason Tam’s quip is so bad! Stop the stupid Keanu/Surfer voice! Please!