#i do love building meta off of other meta that i pre-established... makes me feel like im citing my own research papers
Text
the structure in mac and dennis break up
this is gonna be a short post tbh, I just rewatched the episode and I have a couple of thoughts.
if you need a refresher on what I think the structure is in general, I talk about it here.
I think Mac and Dennis Break Up shows us an example of Mac and Dennis (and Charlie and Frank) working properly in regards to the structure, let me explain why:
First... I don't think there's a need for me to describe the plot of the episode, we all know.
What I want to focus on, is that at one point Mac moves in with Frank and Charlie, and starts bringing his way of life to them.
At first, Frank is thrilled.
"I could use a little structure in my life here." he says.
This reminds me of dialogue from Carries a Corpse.
"Nobody admit this to Mac, but... I feel like he was carrying a ton of weight."
"That would be another one of his annoying identities... the man who could carry stuff."
He's been shown carrying Dennis, on top of generally being inclined to micromanage, take care of others so they're safe, and make decisions or at least demand to be consulted in them (like which movie to watch on movie night).
That's when Mac works best, so I assume that Mac generally brings structure (or is a man of action, as he describes it).
Later on, we see Mac take this too far, and Frank doesn't like it anymore. To me, this is because what this episode tells us is that Charlie and Frank don't work well with a set structure, the way that Mac provides. They're more free.
I think this reading is important because it shows me why The Gang Gets Romantic fundamentally fails in its objective (not as an episode god forbid, I mean in the narrative, especially for Mac and Dennis).
It applies the romcom structure to Charlie and Frank, while it doesn't to Mac and Dennis, when it should be the opposite. Throughout the episode we see that Mac and Dennis keep fitting the tropes to the romcom structure, but they refuse to follow it, and thus it crumbles. It can't work.
Here's another thing.
Dennis' back broke in the S15 finale.
That is funny, yes, but what does this mean when I say that Mac is the (his) structure, then?
Well... Carries a Corpse implies that Mac was carrying most of the weight of the corpse, and the corpse is meant to be the show... and most show meta is basically the same as Dennis meta (most meta lines seem to relate to him, whether the fact he left for north dakota and came back, or the fact he's a dad, being between life and death, breaking his back aka the structure, and so on), as I have discussed better in my other post.
Point being, Mac carries Dennis. That's what he's meant to do, and what he does best in their relationship.
This makes me think of another recent scene that I think is emblematic of their dynamic... but in an interesting way.
So, in 2020: a Year in Review, Mac and Dennis work together on a song.
They seem to be in harmony, but eventually start disagreeing and stop altogether to focus on something else. Why?
Because Dennis is working on the backup vocals, and Mac is working on the words. Which means their roles are reversed. Mac is supposed to be carrying the song, like the wind beneath his wings that he is, and Dennis, like the man of words that he is, should be responsible for the lyrics. They're doing each other's job, which means any harmony they reach is still bound to crack a bit the moment the song doesn't work for them.
Their seating position on their sofa reflects this.
Compare it to Mac and Dennis Break Up, which is supposed to be our ideal.
They're in each other's places, in 2020.
This isn't new, they've been sitting in each other's places ever since Break Up. Mac was sitting in Dennis' place in MFHP, Dennis was sitting in Mac's place in Gets Romantic.
So tl;dr... Mac and Dennis work well under structure, when Mac is the one to bring it and carry Dennis. They fit a proper couple structure after all. Charlie and Frank don't work as well under structure, since their relationship is more unique and doesn't quite abide by normal rules because of that.
This does bring me to one last consideration though...
They're back in their right spots, in season 16! Only problem is... couch is different. I would argue an inflatable couch doesn't offer the same amount of support (structure) that a normal one would...
Now that Dennis' structural essence broke, is he gonna feel what it's like when Mac is absent?
Perhaps this is why in Cursed we get Mac as the lucky one while the others as so unlucky they start to believe they're cursed (according to the synopsis...).
So the whole gang needs Mac?
Well...
In Goes To Hell pt2, when they build the human pyramid, it's both Mac and Dennis that end up at the bottom, as its structure.
So maybe... Dennis needs Mac as his structure, and the gang needs them to be in sync so they can both, together, support them (or shut the hell up about it, as both madbu and s15 would argue). Maybe this realization could be what brings the gang to work together in order to get them together. But that's getting into just speculation so imma end it here.
I like these thoughts though... Mac and Dennis being the foundation, the structure of the whole thing :)
#iasip#it's always sunny in philadelphia#s16 spoilers#always sunny#macdennis#macden#analysis#meta#this is as good as ''mac is the rat dennis is the cheese and together they're the trap of macdennis''#i do love building meta off of other meta that i pre-established... makes me feel like im citing my own research papers#if this only makes sense to me im so sorry my bad. it will happen again#this was born as a twitter thread while i rewatched madbu and things started making a bit too much sense so i had to write about it#i think if by the end of inflates they go back to their normal couch thats like golden sign that macden is going canon#cuz they maybe start experimenting different couches and none of them work for them. so they start blowing them all up#you know. like the stew!!! throwing it in the face instead of eating. using it wrong to get a thrill.#but by the end theyre like... no actually. our old one worked the best. for us. it worked. it supported us right#not flimsy like an inflatable couch is#so mark my words. if by the end of inflates we see macden sitting AT THEIR RIGHT SPOTS with THE RIGHT COUCH mirroring madbu...#then macdennis is gonna happen. period#dennis is gonna figure out that mac is his structure and theyre gonna go back. together. at the BOTTOM of the gang pyramid#getting pissed on together<3 like meerkats#dennis ''i aint goin down'' reynolds when hes destined to be part of the structural support and thus has to go down and stay down#dedicating this post to parker and joe they'll know what i mean#dennis reynolds#mac mcdonalds
110 notes
·
View notes
Note
Your trevor meta is making me realize how weird it is that the writers and cast were so insistent that mickey wasn't coming back, because I don't think theyve ever really known what to do with ian's story without him. They put him in these lukewarm relationships and tell us they're so much better and healthier, but then have ian straight up admit that he still loves mickey and nobody else has made him feel the same way. How do they set that up and then have him go back to trevor? They set up ian moving on with "I'm not that person anymore" and follow up with season 8. It's like okay...who he is now is gay Jesus? Lmao. He's always been the shows forgotten middle child and after they wrote mickey off "for good" they could have taken him in a million directions but they chose one so shitty it basically made cam leave lmao. Sometimes it feels like fan insistence kind of forced mickey back but in actuality, the seasons where he's gone just hammer home that he was always the inevitable end to ian's story. So bizarre how little the showrunners understand their own story sometimes.
Ok. I’m going to be a little more Doylist here than I usually am, because we’re talking about what the writers are thinking. And I’m also going to take this opportunity to share this fascinating article from the AV Club in 2016: When Fan Engagement Goes Wrong. Everyone beware, it contains significant spoilers for The 100. But it’s also largely about Gallavich, the fact that online promotion of Shameless leaned hard into the popularity of the couple, and were up against it when Noel left. I’ll quote:
“[Supervising Producer Shelia] Callaghan’s choice to be honest and straightforward when engaging with fans is admirable, and yet also on some level futile. She can’t tell them exactly why Fisher chose to leave, she is (logically) unwilling to spoil future storylines outright, and she can only speak her own mind as part of a collaborative process over which she holds only some influence. So while many fans respect her effort to maintain the connection to this now marginalized community, others attack, reinforcing that attempting to manage these situations is a full-time job that no one has been properly trained for.”
This article links some tweets and the one I find the most interesting is this one:
“But the actor left. So...what to do? Have them just break up?? Felt way less true to me than a forced separation!”
That tweet is from Krista Vernoff, who wanted to convey that they tried really hard to come up with what they do with Ian now that he’d lost Mickey. And I’m sure they did try really hard. And.... People hated it. Mostly.
Here’s what I think, based on what I’ve read and the interviews I’ve seen, on deleted tweets and Tumblr rumours and YouTube clips: The show didn’t want Mickey to leave the canvas. At all. Noel wanted more money. The show could not come up with both that money and the money they needed for everyone else. The show let him go. And hoped they could solve the creative problem their budgetary problem had dumped in their lap.
I actually think Ian’s story in season six is decent. I miss Mickey, of course. I find the last scene with him really painful -- but it’s not painful because the show is trying to diminish him. They write and then cut together a scene where Mickey is DEMONSTRATIVELY still deeply in love with Ian. He’s carved his name in his chest. He is looking at Ian like he’s the most beautiful creature ever given breath. And Ian can barely meet his gaze. They tell us Mickey is being sent away for 16 years but when we see the last of Mickey Milkovich in season six I think “God, this is so sad. They love each other so much and this is so fucked up.”
I do NOT think “We are NEVER EVER EVER getting back together.”
The show always knew what it had with Ian and Mickey. They leaned into it promotionally. They gave meaty storylines to the characters, particularly given that Ian was the fourth lead on a family dramedy built around six children. John Wells replaced Aaron Sorkin on The West Wing. He knows how hard it is to follow a phenomenon.
The more I think about it, honestly? I don’t think they tried. I think they knew that they couldn’t bring in Mickey Milkovich, the sequel in season six, so they brought in Caleb. And maybe they meant for him to be a LITTLE more viable than he was... but I think there’s a pretty good chance they were just throwing something at the wall to see if it stuck, while being fully aware that the important storyline in season six was getting Ian from despair to a fulfilling career. Caleb was just there as a catalyst.
Season seven if more interesting, because Trevor is brought on and it’s very much... “Hey, let’s do something new. Let’s bring on a transmasc character and put him into a relationship with Ian and explore those complications.”
“Great! Put it up on the board!”
“Also. Let’s call Noel Fisher’s people and see what we can work out because we can do better with Mickey’s send off and people are yelling at me on the street about it.”
Quite honestly, these are not equal tasks for his writer’s room. You have one story -- Create a whole ass new character. The only thing we know is that he’s trans. Figure out the romance from there. You have six episodes to get them together as an established couple.
Then: Bring back the well-established and beloved character for an epic romantic two-episode arc where he reunites with his true love and they run away together and then ultimately realize it cannot be, and say goodbye and it all feels like I Will Always Love You should be playing in the background. They actors worked together for five years. They have a great professional partnership. They like working together. They have a ton of history so there’s lots of juicy subtext. The longing and sexual tension comes pre-established. See what you can do.
HOW do you make both those things work out so that they are equal? You need lightening to strike. And that already happened on How I Met Your Mother. They squandered their good luck and now there is none left for Shameless. I do not disparage Elliot Fletcher at all when I say that for Trevor and Ian to really work he’d have had to have come with scorching chemistry with Cam, rich material that really gave them a good opportunity to build rapport between the characters, and A wizard standing by to cast spells in the wings. They had SIX episodes, a pretty average connection between the actors, and the “these are the LGBTQ+ people in your neighbourhood” scene.
I just can’t believe that someone with as many years of TV writing under his belt as John Wells has expected that to work. He hoped the Trevor story might be good, and was certainly going to break some ground in terms of telling trans stories. And the Mickey story was going to be the highlight, because he knew people wanted it and he also knew that they’d had something pretty special to start with. Which is why people were yelling at him at Comic-Con. I DO think he hoped it might placate fans a bit. But... he wasn’t going to completely close the door on Mickey this time, either.
So... I don’t really think the show every intended to write Mickey off “for good”. I think they wrote him off “for now, and we’ll see what happens...” -- and they did that with Karen, Shelia, Jody, Steve and Fiona, too. They only brought a few of those people back... They brought Mickey back three times. They ended Gallavich FOUR times. Noel is in ever season except eight. I don’t think they wanted Mickey gone -- but I KNOW the fans also made it pretty hard for them not to know his value, so absolutely I think that played a role. But when you create something people love and you get that lightening in a bottle like they did with this story, I think writers are always going to be excited to get that back. They like praise! They like people to be excited about their show. And Gallavich was always one of the things that got people excited about Shameless.
I think they also wanted Gay Jesus to be a great story. But that’s why the lightening in the bottle is so valuable. You can’t just get it anywhere.
#asks#I hope this answered the question#I am honestly so interested in the behind-the-scenes efforts to make season 7 work#and I do think they wanted Gay Jesus to be a great story#and instead... Cam quit#because no#writing is hard#shameless season 7#shameless season 6#shameless season 8#shameless without mickey#thanks for asking!#God I hope that was an answer#Gallavich meta
179 notes
·
View notes
Text
Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List
Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.
This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:
PROS
References
Continuity
Nate
Representation
Themes
New Characters
General Vibe
CONS
'Maker and Fixer'
Episode Twins
Sophie's Stagefright
Thiefsome
You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.
PROS
References
There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.
We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.
Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.
Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.
Continuity
Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.
It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.
Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.
There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.
Nate
Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.
Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.
Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.
That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.
Representation
Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!
Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)
Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.
Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.
Themes
I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).
New Characters
Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.
As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.
General Vibe
A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.
CONS (no, not that kind)
'Maker and Fixer'
So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.
Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.
Episode Twins
This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.
Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.
The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.
The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.
I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.
The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.
Sophie's Stagefright
Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.
This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.
Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.
I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.
Thiefsome
...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.
I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.
The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.
The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.
But then there was this.
I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.
Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.
Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.
But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.
But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.
Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.
And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.
It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.
Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.
.
That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.
#leverage#leverage redemption#leverage spoilers#leverage meta#my meta#this turned into a BIG ol ramble#i planned to write like a couple of sentences for each point but noooo
95 notes
·
View notes
Note
Thinking about Kings of the Sky and Jason's titans. Kid Devil, Beast Boy, and Danny Chase are shoo ins. Who else? Arisia Rrab would fit. Sprout? (Damn a lot of options are sexually controversial.)
LOL actually I do have the full, extended lineup of Jason's Titans in that AU all figured out:
Here's the initial post explaining the background of my fave Jason ship, JasonTom, and possible choices for Jason's teammates and my reasons for each.
And here's the post laying out the finalized list of Jason's lineup of Titans and who each one's respective mentor from Dick's lineup is.
Beast Boy is solidly a member of Dick's lineup because this AU only diverges from canon around the point where the Garzonas case happened, and despite being younger than a lot of the others, Gar was still well established as one of Dick's Titans by then. And tbh, Vic and Gar are one of my fave dynamics and I can't imagine not writing them as BFFs forever, which just works better with them in the same age range. One of my biggest RAGE, I RAGE, DC! changes to the New 52 was them aging down Gar and Raven, because I just love their friendships among the NTT so much and just look at that choice and get stuck on a loop of going yup, that was a choice that happened alright, but WHY was it a choice and does it HAVE to be a choice? Let's make it not a choice that happened.
Danny Chase floats in a kinda in between state between Dick and Jason's lineups, due to his age and established dynamics with the characters present here. This goes AU well before Titans Hunt so Danny, Joey, Arella et al don't die as they did there, so he never becomes Phantasm, so he's kinda the slightly older, more experienced confidante to Jason's generation of Titans and is like lol yeah fuck the older Titans, I heavily endorse you doing anything and everything that will make them groan in exasperation, particularly Dick.
Kid Devil I didn't make part of the lineup because I most primarily associate him with being part of Tim's lineup of Titans during the year of Countdown/52, and okay that's also clearly a total cop out since I made Amy one of Jason's lineup and she was literally a traitor on that same lineup of Tim's so what is the truth, me, hmm??
Okay, lol lbr, the reason I didn't include Eddie was total pettiness/personal reasons. I just kinda have a.....grudge, I guess you could say, against his character for the way his 100% offscreen friendship with Jason is hyped by a lot of Jason's fans while they actively ignore the ON the page moments we got between Dick and Jason back then, where Dick actively tried to build a relationship with Jason, and they just default to being like "no. Dick hated Jason. Is canon. No shut up it totally is."
And then two seconds later its like okay and now let's talk about Jason and Eddie's epic friendship which consists of two whole pages referencing them being pen pals and teaming up one time pre-Crisis (which again, was where Dick and Jason's brotherly relationship truly lived and we saw tons of at the exact same time, so its like okay so Eddie and Jason, still BFFs forever because of a couple pages, but Dick and Jason, mortal enemies because Dickhead was an asswipe to Jason all those times we didn't actually see because he wasn't actually an asswipe. Got it!)
LOL so the point is, that discrepancy, let's call it, just annoys me on principle. When its like, painfully obvious that almost an entire fandom's view of Dick and Jason's dynamic is contrived and literally just a choice Big Name Fans with a large influence over what new fans do and don't know, like, made a long time ago, and people just decided that oh okay, we can hype the hell out of two pages of bonding with a character most people don't even know exists while ignoring multiple repeated displays of genuine sibling affection between brothers just because we don't like that narrative and prefer Jason be misunderstood and resented by his brother for Reasons, I'm just like.....mmm, don't love that.
As you can see, it gets me easily worked up into a tizzy, lmao, and while I don't MIND being in a tizzy while posting meta thoughts all tizzily, I prefer not to WRITE write while in a state of being tizzified, and so I just decided to swerve around making Eddie a Titan here and putting a lot of focus on his and Jason's friendship, since I don't trust myself to be objective and nonpetty about writing it. I'm just like...eh, I don't want to write them, and I know and understand why I'm making that choice, so I'm fine with it. *Shrugs*
(Which is basically what I actually always argue for people to do more of so I try to take my own advice. Like, I truly don't think anyone should HAVE to write characters they aren't thrilled about, lol, like why would they, but I just believe its better to just be fucking honest about the why of it and own it, even if just to yourself, so that it doesn't leak into the actual writing in the form of like, resentment that you feel you HAVE to write someone you don't actually want to invest page time and effort into.)
So for the record, Eddie and Jason ARE still friends in this, they do still have that penpal relationship, just modernized, and I didn't do away with that or anything, I just keep it mostly just referenced and happening off the page while on page I focus on the lineup I outlined above and the friendships I develop there.
Arisia and Sprout just didn't come up when picking my lineup because I'm not as familiar with their characters and at this point there's already so many characters even peripherally in the mix that its unlikely I'll throw them in, but eh, you never know. Most of the people I did pick though are like, C and D list faves that I always thought had mega untapped potential DC remains committed to untapping, because I can delve the hell into characters like that, with all the gusto.
So yeah. That's the What and the Why of all that story direction!
9 notes
·
View notes
Text
OKAY TIME TO RAG ON T*M C*SSIELLO YET AGAIN.
So. Here’s the thing. The deal. The scoop. My meta complaints can basically be summed up in three sentences. One: T*m kept trying to sell us a friendship that wasn’t there, which only adds to how abrupt it falling apart is. Two: I do not trust this writing team with this plot line, and the way they handled parts of it in the comic itself only cement that distrust. Three: Why the HECK are they putting lore on TWITTER and only twitter. I won’t expand on that one because...that kind of speaks for itself, not everyone has twitter and it’s dumb that they’re confining important plot/character info to just twitter. But for more explanation of the other two, check under the cut.
Part One: T*m Stop Tweeting I’m Begging You
So, in my last post, I referenced the fact that this argument feels really contrived due to a lack of in-canon friendship between Mirage and Wraith. I’ve talked about this before, but tl;dr for those who don’t read my discourse: outside of some banter and bickering, there is little to no interaction between Mirage and Wraith pre-season 6 comics that implies a real connection. The s1 trailer comes close, but with everything else, it’s mostly just “Mirage says dumb thing while Wraith rolls her eyes in the background”, which establishes Literally Nothing.
But we all know they’re friends, right? This isn’t just wistful thinking by us Miraiths? No, we do know...because T*m said so on twitter. Think about it. He’s gleefully sold every interaction they get (or might get) as being food for the Miraith fans who ask about interactions, he’s the one who said Elliott is in her top three people she can stand (she NEVER explicitly names Mirage, only Natalie), and he also said this:
(screenshot orginally posted by @apexmirxith)
Read that description. Read it again. Think about what we’ve actually gotten in the lore, both before the twitter comic and in it.
Something does not add up here. Literally nothing he said has been reflected in the canon at any point. And I would love it to be! Nothing would make me happier! If I could think of moments that lined up with that, I’d never shut up about them because I’m a single brain cell Miraith shipper and everyone knows it! But it’s not there, T*m!!!!!
Basically, Word of Author and The Actual Text are in conflict in a BIG way. It’s like T*m KNOWS he can just fill in the plot blanks with his twitter canon, but that’s NOT GOOD WRITING, and it makes what should be really interesting character moments SUPER hollow because again, none of the building blocks are there. They’re just in T*m’s mind, and then he offhandedly mentions them while replying to fan art. I swear, this dude should not keep tweeting about the plot of the games, because if he’s not doing stuff like this, he’s actively making promises he can’t keep. It’s so frustrating.
Okay, now that we’re done with that rant...
Part Two: Y’all Don’t Know How To Handle Abelism, Is The Thing
I discussed a lot of this during headcasegate II: the quickening, but for those of you who don’t read my complaining-disguised-as-analysis, the big issues are as follows:
I don’t think the intricate character work needed to grow out of abelism is actually something you can do in Apex Legends as a means of storytelling due to time constraints, the fact that plots can and will be dropped at any time (they did this with Bangalore this season, for instance) and a large cast all vying for attention in the plot.
T*m has repeatedly proven he has blind spots wrt abelism, starting with him implying autism could be cured (he walked this one back and admitted he was wrong, but still), to using abelist language as a plot device more than once, to being dismissive of people pointing that out instead of trying to understand why people were criticizing it. I don’t see any signs he’s actively learned (except the autism thing), so I don’t expect this angle to improve.
Elliott exhibits several traits of neurodivergency, from social anxiety to several HEAVILY ADHD coded traits (chronic tardiness, rambles heavily, impulsive spending, misunderstanding instructions), and has a stutter on top of that, but so far this has been ENTIRELY played for laughs and to make him look like a dumbass, not taken seriously.
And those three points really do stand, and are the basis of a lot of my concern. But there’s another angle that became more of an issue for me as I was reading the latest comic, and it has to do with Wraith.
The game has already been really, really weird with how they’ve treated mental illness related when it comes to Wraith. They leaned heavily into the “owo scawwy mental patient! owo” imagery with banner frames and arguably her Liberator skin (I do love that skin because shaved head = chef’s kiss, but it does draw on mental illness imagery with the straight jacket look of her outfit), and she has on-and-off talked about/reacted to the voices as if they’re more a harmful influence akin to true psychosis and not helpful alternate selves. All of that leads to her being very heavily psychosis-coded, which has been noted by a lot of people.
And yet.
When the abelism is finally addressed, her breaking point, the thing the comics treat as The Thing You Shouldn’t Be Making Fun Of Her For, is...her amnesia.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s also wrong to make fun of her for having amnesia. But why is that the trait they chose to focus on? When I hear Elliott call her “brainwreck” my first thought isn’t “wow, he’s making fun of her for not remembering her past”, it’s “wow, he’s making fun of her for hearing voices.” It’s not even logical for that to be the thing that he and Bangalore are pointing out by calling her names, because like...who does that?? I don’t think even awful abelists do that. If they wanted to target her amnesia, they’d use completely different language. Brainwreck I can kinda see tying into her amnesia, but how does “headcase” relate back to that?? Literally, how??
Basically, when given the chance to address the abelism thrown at Wraith, they focus on the one thing that’s not the issue, rather than the thing that everyone points out is what makes her a mentally ill icon. And you might say, “but Screech, but it’s not a mental illness, the voices are real!” And to that I say, then why in the hell did they lean so heavily into mental illness imagery and her reacting negatively to the voices as if they are true hallucinations?? It’s just plain inconsistent, and almost feels like they don’t really want to tackle psychosis (in which case they are COWARDS, other devs have proved you can do that in a video game), so instead they focus on her amnesia and call it a day.
Dude. That’s totally not it in any way. What are you doing. What is my life. What is this GAME.
...anyways I hope all of that makes sense.
74 notes
·
View notes
Note
Can I ask about your writing process?
Huge fan of your TUA fics here - the way you just GET the characters is incredible - its almost like reading a novel written by the actual show writers!
How do you go about your characterisation and your drafting process? Any tips on nailing the complexities of the characters (specifically five)?
Thanks!!!
:') This is literally so nice I don't know how to respond, oh my goodness. I wish I had, like, life-altering writing wisdom for you here, but I honestly feel like my entire process is kind of a mess. I'll share it with you anyways, though, just in case you can glean anything helpful from it. I’ll tuck it below a cut, but here it is (ft. some of my specific characterization notes on Five, since you asked :D).
Pre-draft: Concept stage! This can be a variety of things -- sometimes it's a specific scene. For me it's usually a challenge of some sort. I like to take things that I think are unlikely for a character (under what circumstances would [x] character ever become a bad guy? How would [x] character’s secrets get revealed if they never talk willingly about their emotions?) Then I build out from there. I outline sometimes now, but I’ve been winging all my pieces for so long that it’s pretty tough for me.
Draft one: Throw things at the wall. If I let myself, I will spend way too long agonizing on making every word perfect on the first go around, and I’ll never write anything. So draft one has permission to be as bad as it needs to be: sentence fragments, OOC dialogue/actions, clunky word choice, the whole nine yards. The most important thing is getting the words/scenes on the page.
Draft two: What sticks? Everyone is different -- I find it easier to edit than to write in the first place. So here’s where I look over my work from draft one. Is my sentence structure variable enough? How are their voices? Their actions? Does the narration work with the POV I’m using for the scene?
Like, okay. I’m working on chapter two of the end of the war right now. Currently, it includes this line:
“How did you even—” Five starts, then shakes himself. Absolutely not. He isn’t entertaining this. “Luther.”
In retrospect, I’m not wild about it. It doesn’t sound in character to me. I’m not pulling out receipts right now or anything, but the more I think about it, the more that I feel certain that Five rarely expresses surprise unless really shocked. Part of this is likely the contrast between him in his siblings (all the stuff about the Apocalypse and time travel is familiar to him and new to them, so the show has a lot of “Five explains [x] to his siblings while they look flabbergasted by him.”)
Anyways, it doesn’t sit right. So maybe, instead:
Five frowns, taken off guard. He could ask, but--quite frankly--he’s starting to think that he doesn’t want to know. He does, however, know what this is a preface to -- Luther is going to meddle.
“Luther,” Five says it like a warning. Luther either doesn’t hear it or doesn’t care.
Anyways, rinse and repeat step two as much as necessary, and you basically have my entire drafting process.
Characterization, though, I have a more thorough process for!
Fanon and meta is super, super helpful, but I definitely prefer to look at canon first and foremost. I find it easiest to build characterization by asking myself questions about the character! I mean, don’t get me wrong. The first step is just to...get your own read on their personality? And there’s no trick to that. Everyone comes away from watching a show/reading a book with a slightly different interpretation of a character’s personality. But when building off of that to write them, I find questions helpful. They vary from fandom to fandom, but, like, here are some of the questions I’ve asked myself while writing Five.
What motivates them? For Five, this is a super easy one. He literally says it at multiple points throughout the show. He’s motivated by his family. To the point of wanting to save the world because they’re a part of it. Five troops through injury and pain and discomfort, but one reference from Handler about a deal to save his family is enough to coerce Five into 1 - working with her when he doesn’t want to and 2 - taking a job that he doesn’t seem like he wants to take.
How far are they willing to go to get it? For Five, he’s willing to do pretty much anything.
Are there any contradictions in their characterization? This is a weirdly specific question, but! People are inherently contradictory. Sometimes in TV or movies or books, it’s just bad writing. But sometimes it’s because people are complicated. So, in TUA, Five is consistently a big-picture thinker throughout the series. He seems to view his job at the Commission with apathy because he knows that it’s part of maintaining the timeline and necessary for him to get back home and stop the Apocalypse. He plans to kill an innocent person because he believes the butterfly effect of their death could stop the end of the world. He is, in many ways, a utilitarian -- the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The greater good sometimes requires a lesser evil. Pull the lever in the trolley problem, and kill the one to save the five. Unless that one is one of Five’s siblings.
For instance, his dialogue with the Handler in season one seems to imply that he is willing to give up fighting the Apocalypse if and only if she can guarantee his siblings’ safety (though this admittedly turns on how honest you think he was being with her -- I think he was honest, but smart enough to know she’d never follow through, but a fair argument can be made either way.) There are a million ways to read this, and the fun of playing with characterization is that you get to experiment with them! I read it as proof that Five is so driven by his desire to save his siblings that he actually places their wellbeing above his own moral compass (whether his moral compass is right or wrong is a whole other debate.)
What are they like at their best vs. at their worst? At his best, Five is strategic, driven, independent, determined, loyal, and protective. At his worst, he’s controlling, suspicious, bloodthirsty, temperamental, and obsessive. Of course, most people don’t just switch between these two extremes, and these traits frequently coexist, interact, and manifest in milder ways. Five being suspicious usually manifests as him being cautious until he’s confronted with a character (in season two, Lila) that strikes him the wrong way. Him being obsessive is often just a side product of the fact that he is determined, loyal, and protective. The fact that he can be controlling is connected to how independent he can be -- the same reason that Five tries to keep Diego in the mental hospital, never tells people that he’s injured, and hides things from them is the same reason he’s so quick and effective at getting things done. This is just a handy way of compiling a flaws/virtues list, and I like to look at it in terms of the potential extremes because I think it makes it easier to see how they interact to create the middle ground where the character actually exists.
How do they talk? Arguably the most important question for actually getting their voice, and the easiest way to nail this down is to just...look at the canon dialogue. Does the character use really big words? Do they talk in long gusts or in short, clipped sentences? Do they use contractions more or do they not shorten things? This is the hardest part of writing Five for me, because my first impulse is to make him talk like an Intellectual (tm) and Very Erudite Adult. Like, I default to that when writing him, and it’s a horrible habit (in my opinion) because...while he does speak that way sometimes (usually when explaining things to his siblings) that’s not actually how he talks most of the time. (Like, for instance, I tend to default away from Five using contractions in my first drafts of things. He actually uses contractions a lot, and frequently shortens words--”got to” is “gotta” for Five, “because” becomes “‘cause”, etc.)
Other examples:
Five: Billions of people are about to die tonight. You can change that.
The Handler: Tonight, tomorrow. So little difference in the scheme of things. Don't you remember the Commission's raison d'etre? What's meant to be is meant to be, or, as I like to say, que será, será.
Five: It's bullshit in any language.
I love this exchange so much :D. And it establishes some great things about the way Five talks! He doesn’t dance around the issue or debate her or try and prove her wrong. He just tells her he thinks that that opinion is dumb, obviously. He’s blunt, straightforward, and honest. (This seems to tie into the thing I was saying about Five and contractions -- he picks the most straightforward way of saying things unless he’s giving a technical explanation.)
Five: Okay, Luther, but be careful. I mean, I've... I've lived a long life, but you're still a young man. You got your whole life ahead of you. Don't waste it.
Five talks like an old man. Not all the time (though there’s a wonderful gif set out there somewhere of Five using old timer slang -- wait, I found it here.) He doesn’t use the old-timey slang all the time -- and I personally like the idea of mixing up Five’s slang habits and including slang from all sorts of eras because he’s a time traveler whose primary source of interaction after four decades alone was other time traveling assassins. But! He also talks in a way where he shows his age.
Regardless of where you think Five’s psychological age falls (I have my own Opinions on this), he seems to unilaterally view himself as the Big Sibling, and by a very large margin at that. That’s reflected in how he talks. Not always, since not every line of dialogue is relevant to his age. But stuff like this, or related to it, crops up a fair amount. He counsels his siblings on their problems (as when he comforted Diego post-Eudora’s death), and there are little moments like the quote above, where the point is that Five has indeed seen many more years than his siblings and has the perspective to reflect that.
Well, this is way too long now, and it’s really late where I’m at. I feel like the comprehensibility of this post has been steadily declining the whole time, but if other writers have tips that they want to add onto this, please go ahead!
#asks#writing#writing advice#which im not super qualified to give haha so! again#if anyone else has tips and tricks they want to add#esp if you're familiar with five like anon is asking!#feel free to chime in
29 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hello, I love your lucifer thoughts, and if you want to write it I would love to now your thoughts on lucifer using names/nicknames
I’ve thought about this a lot. I even touched on my personal headcanon about it in the last chapter of Taking the Fall :)
Obviously, Lucifer uses nicknames or alternative names a lot. I think he says the word “Chloe” less than a dozen times across three seasons, while he uses “Detective” or “the Detective” hundreds. She’s even saved as “the Detective” in his phone.
So, let’s start at the beginning. (In the beginning...) The show has drawn from many sources to construct Lucifer Morningstar as we know him. Obviously, we’ve got the comics. Personally, I see a bit more of Neil Gaiman’s Lucifer than Mike Carey’s (and, to be completely honest, I feel like a bit of Gaiman’s Crowley may be mixed in there as well). In Carey’s comics, Lucifer is much more able to think in the Very Long Term, for example, and is essentially always acting on a Plan of his own (which creates a neat parallel between God and Lucifer, but I digress). Gaiman’s Lucifer is the one who is Done with Hell and basically hands over the keys; he’s also the one who cuts off his wings; he’s the one who speaks the great lines the show used to such effect--about not being responsible for humanity’s sins and disliking that he’s blamed for things he’s not responsible for. He’s also the one who retires to LA, starts a nightclub called Lux, and really has a thing for sunsets. Gaiman was also the one who established that Lucifer was once called Samael. Gaiman’s Lucifer is heavily influenced by Milton’s Paradise Lost iteration of Lucifer (he of “It’s better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” fame; Milton’s Lucifer gets all the best lines). He’s not distinctly (or solely) comprised of Christian or Jewish mythologies, though both influence the character.
In his short story, “Murder Mysteries,” (which features the same Lucifer he incorporated into the Sandman comics) Gaiman establishes at length how angels are named. First, they include “el”, which means, “of God.” The other part of their name indicates their purpose. Samael, depending on the translation, can mean venom, poison, or blindness of God. I don’t know about you, but if my name was Poison, I’d probably feel like I got the short end of the naming stick. This is contrasted, of course, by the same angel carrying the name (or perhaps title), Lucifer. When Gaiman introduces him, it’s by another character saying, “He was the Creator's finest creation: the angel Samael, called Lucifer. It means ‘the bringer of light.’ Of all the angels he was the wisest, the most beautiful, the most powerful. Saving only his Creator, he is, perhaps, the most powerful being there is.”
When Lucifer Fell, he abandoned the name Samael. He rejected it. Poison or not, he was no longer “of God.” Whether out of spite or anger or truth, Lucifer rejects the name his Father gave him in favor of the title. He identifies himself as Bringer of Light; this is the name he chooses. In the show, we witness Lucifer’s reaction to Samael when Linda speaks it. It angers him. Upsets him. After all this time, he is not indifferent to it. And though he claims not to care about many things related to his past, the name is very obviously a match to very dry tinder.
Names, to Lucifer, mean something beyond just monikers to identify one individual instead of another. Names having power is pretty common in mythology. The show also indicates that angels, specifically, can be summoned by prayer--presumably invoking their names with intention; Lucifer summons both Amenadiel and Uriel this way. It’s unknown whether Lucifer can still be summoned (or hear) prayers. It’s also unknown whether that prayer would have to be directed at his of-God angel name; still, I think there are many reasons why Lucifer holds names at arm’s length.
Names are also intimate; knowing them and using them can indicate deeper relationships, connections. Even with all the growth we’ve seen in Lucifer, he is still leery (if not afraid, though he’d never put it that way) of intimacy, friendship, connection. Lucifer has, for almost the entirety of his existence, been alone. Even when he wasn’t physically alone, his relationships have been marked by power imbalances. In Heaven, he was “of God”--created for a purpose and pretty unrepentantly “part of God’s plan.” In Hell, he was Lord and Master; Maze is/was the closest thing he had to a friend, and we continue to see how unbalanced that relationship was. You can’t truly be friends with someone when you see them as an underling, an employee, as belonging to you in a manner that implies use.
This question of usefulness is a huge one, and probably deserving of its own meta, but since it also comes back to names, I’ll touch on it quickly: Again, from the beginning of his existence, Lucifer has existed to be of use--first, as God’s brightest angel; then, as Lord of Hell. This notion of usefulness as balance or quid pro quo is woven so intrinsically into Lucifer’s understanding of himself that it very nearly becomes his definition. Balance, justice, an eye for an eye--all of these things are irrevocably part of the fabric of Lucifer. When he desires something, he doesn’t just take; he trades. To be certain the trade is equal, he asks what the subject of his desire desires, essentially asking, “What can I give you that’s equal to what I wish to take from you?” It’s also the basis of his favors: “If I do this for you, you owe me in equal measure; this is non-negotiable.”
Because Samael was, in his mind, treated unfairly, Lucifer (light-bringer meaning both physical light and the light of truth) has unbreakable codes of fairness. They may not always look like a human understanding of fairness, but Lucifer’s internal morality (ironically) is pretty sacrosanct. Essentially, he may be judge and jury and punisher, but he does make sure the trial is fair. In Sandman, Hell builds itself around Lucifer. This may not be explicitly stated on the show, but the notion of hell-loops and guilt and punishment equaling the crime are all very Luciferian. Did Hell alter itself to suit his sense of justice? Or did Hell’s justice affect Lucifer? (Given that we do know at least a little about pre-Hell Samael/Lucifer, I think it’s more the former.)
So, nicknames. Lucifer uses positive nicknames and negative ones. The tone is important. Brother can be scornful, angry, frustrated, almost spiteful. And sometimes, especially as Lucifer and Amenadiel’s relationship changes over time, it can be genuine and even grateful. Brother/sister/Mum are actually really important, I think. These are family relationships that have been all but severed for an unfathomable amount of time, but Lucifer still uses them (and not always sarcastically or with derision). Tellingly, his family still uses brother/son with him, as well. Lucifer still wants connection, but he no longer trusts it; it can be taken from him. Using nicknames/epithets is a way to keep people at a distance--he makes them their job, their position (the Detective, obviously, but also Dr. Linda); in some cases, he keeps things formal (Ms. Lopez); in others, the nickname is openly scornful (Detective Douche; sneering Cain--the secret name; the murderer’s name--instead of using Pierce).
Lucifer diminutizes names when he’s lording over people or displaying superiority (Pierce becomes Piercy; Reece becomes Reecy. Reece actually has a bunch of nicknames, and you can always tell how Lucifer feels about the guy at any given moment based on how he refers to him). He calls criminals by their crimes (“Hello, murderer.”), relegating them to their crimes, their sins, their actions, and taking away the humanity of a name full-stop. Sometimes Lucifer’s nicknames are tools, sometimes they’re weapons; I think sometimes they’re even gifts, or at least an attempt to create a connection even though the most intimate or closest avenue (just using their name) is still too much for him (Dr. Linda is not the very formal Dr. Martin; Ms. Lopez is very occasionally ‘dear Ella’; he uses darling, love, lovely a lot--mostly positive, but again, tone is a factor. I’d hate to be on the wrong end of a scornful or hateful darling).
Also related to power/superiority is his insistence that people use his name--the name he chose, that he adopted. Ella swiftly changes Luce to Lucifer. Similarly, he is very open about the identity he adopted--the Devil. When things arise to question that identity or poke at it too hard, he becomes unsettled, even untethered. The wings/devil face of S3 was all about this notion of forced rather than chosen identity (at least as he saw it).
Though he is initially scornful, however, he does let his family use nicknames--again, I think that’s part of some long-buried part of him that wants to belong but just does not want to belong as Samael (that is, on his father’s terms). So, Amenadiel calls him Luci. Azrael calls him Lu. Neither gets the violent, visceral response of Linda’s Samael.
Obviously, a whole separate essay could be written on Lucifer’s use (and not use) of Chloe/the Detective. He uses her name when he’s at his most desperate and his happiest. He uses her name, in short, when he’s at his most vulnerable. Sometimes, he’s accepting of this vulnerability (when he’s praying to his father) and sometimes, I don’t think he realizes how vulnerable he is (when he’s just announced to Maze and Mum that he and Chloe are real). In essence, he treats her name as something near-holy, almost sacred. She holds power over him, whether he’s conscious of it or not; her immunity to his power is part of it--she is, in essence, unknowable because he cannot fall back on the familiar to understand her. His feelings for her, obviously, are another part of it; this is a very particular and uncomfortable kind of vulnerability that he both craves and is terrified of (caring about something that much means it can hurt you, and the last time he cared, he was hurt beyond all belief--and certainly, in his mind, in a manner committed the unforgivable crime of being unjust).
So, after all this discussion, I think the takeaway is that Lucifer uses nicknames as weapons to wield or consolidate power, shields to keep himself at a distance and defend himself from hurt, jokes to deflect, arrows to wound (and, ironically, usually those harsh nicknames are poison-tipped). And all of this is rooted in his own very complicated history with names--and with how names have been used to influence him or inflict pain, especially concerning power/powerlessness, control, and choice.
#lucifer on netflix#lucifer morningstar#lucifer meta#lucifer thoughts#lucifer analysis#asks and answers#Anonymous#long text post#if brevity is the soul of wit i'm doomed#i could've gone on for fifty more pages
225 notes
·
View notes
Note
Um, you were saying something about an essay on Lucy being submissive to women? Just asking, only if you feel like writing it (: (bc I just read your meta TED talks on Wyatt and Flynn and yesss, mooooreeee, please, this is just great)
findwhatyourefightingfor said: You’re holding out on us, Mads. Where’s TED Talk number three - AKA “Damn, Lucy’s a Domme”?
Ahahaha I was wondering if someone was going to ask me about that. Let the trilogy be complete! If anyone hasn’t read them, the Wyatt meta that started it all is here, explaining why I view/write Wyatt as submissive, and the Flynn meta about him being a ‘switch’ is here. I personally suggest you read those first, Wyatt then Flynn, since this meta builds off of them.
Without further ado, Lucy is a domme with men and a sub with women and you can’t change my mind. In this essay I will…
…explain my reasoning.
Now, before we fully begin I think I should clarify something that I realized I didn’t explain fully in the first Wyatt meta:
Dominance/submissiveness plays a huge role in your sexuality, but sexuality doesn’t always play a role in your dominance/submissiveness.
Think of it this way: all apples are fruit, but not all fruit is an apple. I touched on this a bit when I was explaining code switching and how one can be dominant in the classroom but submissive at home, but I didn’t get as explicit as I should have.
I’m bringing this up real quick because I realized that my metas didn’t fully explain that. So when I’m talking about Wyatt being submissive, I’m not necessarily talking about why I think he’s bisexual–that’s another meta for another time. Same with Flynn. I do think that Wyatt, Flynn, and Lucy are all bi (or pan or whatever term you personally prefer, and I’ve also seen people make the case for Flynn being demi which I can get behind) but their sexuality is a separate issue from why I think they’re dominant or submissive–or in Flynn’s case switching depending on his mood and the individual.
SO, if anyone wants to ask me why I think Lucy, Wyatt, and/or Flynn are attracted to genders both like and unlike their own, drop me a line, but that’s a separate discussion from this one, which is–in situations both sexual and non-sexual, Lucy is a domme with men and submissive with women.
Let’s start with the men.
Lucy’s arc, as established from our first meeting with her, is to become the leader that she was meant to be. We meet her calm and collected while delivering a lecture, establishing her as an authority figure in her field–and then immediately watch her lose the chance to get tenure. It’s not framed as “you’re a newbie who needs more time,” it’s framed as something she deserves being taken from her.
Sidenote: It is pointed out, rightfully, that Lucy is on the younger side and that being chosen for the time team project is a bit of a surprise given the older and more studied academics in her field. However, while there are academics who might have been more qualified to be chosen as historian, that doesn’t change the fact that Lucy is framed as someone who deserves more recognition in her field and isn’t getting it.
We then throughout season one see her establishing her authority with Wyatt and Rufus. Wyatt doesn’t always accept her authority, but Lucy continues to gently assert it. By the end of season one, we see Rufus and Wyatt have accepted her as their leader, especially Wyatt who goes so far as to ask Lucy for permission for all his big decisions and goes into a mental tailspin when she’s kidnapped because he’s lost his authority figure.
Lucy’s dominance really comes into play in two other areas: historical people and Flynn.
With Flynn, when Lucy first meets him she’s understandably scared. But submissive? Hardly. By their second meeting, she’s getting in his face and giving him what for. She is never once scared of Flynn and in fact tries to control their conversation. Flynn is the one stuck in a corner struggling to prove his point to her. Even when he kidnaps her, Lucy controls their conversation in the café, and she is firm in her beliefs. She’s confident that Flynn won’t hurt her, to the point where in 1x14 when Karl has her by the arm she orders Flynn to tell Karl to let her go, without a doubt that Flynn, and therefore Karl, will do as he’s told. Flynn has to literally kidnap Wyatt and hold him hostage to get Lucy to (sullenly) agree to do what Flynn tells her and even then she double crosses him. Lucy has zero, zilch, nada, goose egg, fear or submissiveness around Flynn. In fact her only fears are for those around them that she knows Flynn might hurt. The one time, one time, she shows fear of Flynn is when he drags her into the Mothership at the end of 1x10, and at that point both she and Flynn are completely emotionally strung out, they’re both crying, they’re both at the end of their ropes and spitting mad at each other. It’s not a normal situation between them.
Then in season two, once they’re on the same side? Lucy in 2x04 literally asks Flynn, “can I trust you to listen to me?” She’s not taking him on this mission if he doesn’t submit to her. Not because she thinks he’ll hurt people (unlike Rufus) but because she is in charge, and homeboy better respect that. From that point forward, what does Flynn do in literally every episode? Defer to Lucy. In 2x06, 2x07, and 2x09 he looks to her for information and knowledge. In 2x06 he also explicitly puts all the power in their relationship in her hands. Flynn bolsters and encourages Lucy when she needs it, and he points out destructive behavior like her drinking, but he never tries to assert authority over her. He knows who’s in charge.
Even before 2x04, though, Lucy’s already in charge with Flynn. When she meets him in prison in 2x02, Flynn is pissed at her and so tries to provoke her. Lucy doesn’t rise to the bait. His words do hurt her, but she stays calm and in control. She holds the reins here, not him, and she makes sure he knows it. Flynn even tries an empty threat, “this one’s free, next time it’ll cost you,” one that Lucy knows is empty because he proceeds to always give her whatever information she wants. She’s never once cowed by him. Thrown off her game in season one because of the journal? Yes. But cowed? Submissive? Not once.
Then there are the historical men they come across. I mean in 1x04 for the love of God, Wyatt’s submissive to Ian Fleming, Lucy sure as hell isn’t. Lucy challenges, rakes over the coals, chastises, and appeals to as an equal all the men they come across. It actually gets her into trouble, as we see in 2x07 when the policeman disregards her and tells Flynn to control her (a moment Flynn clearly finds amusing because, sir, you have that backwards). Lucy refuses to ever cede her authority to a man, which gets her a lot of raised eyebrows throughout history but also a lot of respect from the right people such as Washington, Robert Todd Lincoln, Ian Fleming, and others. In fact it’s her refusal to submit that often wins her the day, such as in 2x09 when she’s able to get Tubman the backup troops she needs to win the battle. Houdini clearly would walk on his hands over hot coals if she told him to. With men, there’s no question that Lucy wants to be in charge–and the narrative shows us how things backfire when she isn’t, further cementing the idea that she should be.
All of this matches Lucy’s narrative arc: she is a born leader, and she just needs to realize it. This is impeded, in part, by her Rittenhouse ‘destiny’. If we’re told by people we hate that we’re supposed to be xyz, then we do everything we can to avoid becoming that. But Lucy also has positive influences telling her she’ll be a great leader (Wyatt in season one, Flynn in seasons one and two, Denise at times, Rufus once or twice, historical people they come across). It’s her role to rise up and become the woman in the journal or a version of her: someone who is brilliant, capable, self-confident, and assured. Someone who walks into a room and people just fall silent.
Anyone who doubts Lucy’s natural dominance should just watch 1x08. While I like to think most women would rebel against the way Lucy is treated in that situation at NASA, Lucy is absolutely in control when she stands up to that man. He cowes before her. Lucy takes control and she loves it, she revels in it, because it’s her natural state of being with men and hoo boy does that guy sense it.
But then we see Lucy with women, and it’s a whole different story.
The biggest one is of course Lucy’s mother, Carol. We don’t know what Lucy’s life was like with Carol pre-pilot, but we can assume that while Carol’s negative traits were probably lessened since she was away from Rittenhouse, they were still there, since Lucy doesn’t suspect any big change in her mother’s personality all through season one. And in season one, we see that Carol is a very controlling and dominating personality. Lucy is very submissive to her mother.
This actually works to Lucy’s advantage at the beginning of season two. Carol is so used to Lucy being submissive to her that she never suspects Lucy plans to blow up the Mothership and betray them. Lucy’s submissiveness is natural and that means that Lucy has been submissive to her mother her whole life. We see even more of this when she tells Wyatt about her car crash–she was rebelling against her mother at the time, and the car crash set her straight, implying she hasn’t rebelled in any way since (and probably didn’t rebel much beforehand either). Throughout season two, Lucy struggles to stand up to her mother, at last seeing the light in 2x10 when Carol’s last words are how she wishes she’d asserted her authority and cult-mindset over Lucy even sooner, and Lucy realizes that her submissiveness to her mother worked against her all this time.
This also jumpstarts Lucy’s arc into Dark!Lucy, something I genuinely think the writers were going for (and if they weren’t they should have) in season three, where we would see Lucy try to assert her dominance in unhealthy, vengeful ways before balancing herself out and learning to assert it in healthy ways instead.
Other than Carol, however, we also see Lucy’s submissiveness in… well pretty much every woman she meets.
Lucy is genuinely excited to meet her various idols, men and women. She nearly bursts into tears when she meets President Lincoln (I mean, same girl, same). But whereas with the men she asserts her authority, with the women she asserts herself as a protege. She looks to the women for advice and guidance. Do any of the historical men they come across give Lucy a heart to heart or change Lucy’s worldview with their words? No. But Josephine Baker does, Judith does, Doc does, and so on. In fact, when the women aren’t the authority figures Lucy wants them to be, she’s upset and disappointed, she even nearly cries, such as in 2x07 when Grace Humiston won’t help her fellow women. Lucy’s devastated, because she went directly to Grace for help, and expected Grace to take charge of the situation.
Lucy is also far more flustered around the women than she ever is among the men. Her reaction to a young Denise in 2x08–well, let’s say it’s understandable why Denise thought Lucy was hitting on her. Lucy is starry-eyed over Josephine, and Lucy enthusiastically defends Judith’s right to sleep with whatever man she wants. When the men rebel against Lucy’s advice, she verbally slaps them. When the women do it, Lucy becomes upset and pleads with them. Her respect for women in authority is seen repeatedly, such as in 1x07, 2x09, and 2x03. She babbles, she trips over her words, she blushes, she stammers. The only man she gets close to doing this with is President Lincoln.
I will note that a major character flaw of Lucy’s (also her greatest strength) is her compassion. At worst, it makes her a people pleaser, someone who forgives too easily and lets people walk all over her. She does do this with Wyatt a bit. However, she does it far more with the women in her life than with the men. Lucy fights back when Wyatt tries to steamroll her, especially in season two, specifically 2x07 but at points in 2x05, 2x06, and so on. Contrast this with Lucy’s mother, who Lucy keeps trying to forgive and thinks she can reach, and Denise, who has more than once overruled Lucy while Lucy just takes it. Flynn actually notices this and contradicts it when he can, such as in 2x04 when he ignores Denise and makes it Lucy’s call on whether he’ll join them in Salem, and later on when Lucy struggles to assert her authority and Flynn, while casually eating cereal, tells her that she’s the expert and to tell them what’s what. One can be in a position of power and be too forgiving, and one can be submissive and never forgive at all. Lucy’s character flaw has nothing to do with her dom/sub attitude, but it’s easier for her to overcome it with the men in her life because of her naturally dominant attitude towards them in contrast to the women where she has to fight her natural submissive instinct.
Lucy never takes control in a situation with women unless she has to, and when she does, she’s frustrated. Out of her element. She doesn’t like it. In 2x07 she’s hurt and disappointed that she has to be the one to give the speech. As she tells Wyatt, she does it because no one else will, not because she wants to. In 2x08 she has to realize that this younger Denise is not the in charge, confident woman Lucy has come to know, and she’s upset by that and does everything she can to bring those dominant traits out in Denise. In 1x07 and 2x09 it’s all “with all due respect ma’am” and “I’m sorry to bother you ma’am” and “if you’ll just give me a moment ma’am.” With the men, Lucy demands attention, demands they listen, demands, demands, demands. With women, Lucy asks, she begs, she pleads.
And when the women do take control or take on more of a mentor role? Lucy is giddy. She’s smiling, she’s relaxed, she’s happy. Count the number of times Lucy is smiling excitedly, and the majority of the time it’s because she’s looking at a badass historical woman be their badass self. Hedy Lamarr, Katherine Johnson, Grace Humiston, Josephine Baker… the list goes on. Lucy adores watching these women do what they’re good at and take charge. Even when she’s tied to a post in 1x07 and her life is in danger, she’s stammering and smiling in glee to start out with because holy crap guys it’s Nonhelema!!!
This is also why Lucy struggles when she disagrees with Denise. She wants to trust Denise as her authority figure, but she disagrees with her and therefore has to stand up to her, and it’s not Lucy’s preferred state of being. She wants Denise to be the leader that Lucy craves, but Lucy’s arc is about becoming a leader herself, and that includes standing up to people she’d rather naturally submit to.
Sidenote: I would also argue that Lucy sees Denise as a personal mentor, both because she wants Denise to be her new mother figure (whether Lucy realizes it or not) and because - if you agree with me that Lucy is bi - Denise is a queer role model that Lucy knows personally and can look up to. But that’s a separate issue, one that ties into Lucy’s submissiveness but is more about her family issues than her dom/sub personality.
We also need to look at how Lucy reacts when she’s disrespected. When a man doesn’t listen to Lucy, she’s pissed off and offended and raring for a fight. Or she just runs roughshod right over them as she does with Bass Reeves (while Wyatt just shrugs in the background because hey, he’s not gonna try and stop her, what is he, an idiot?). When a woman doesn’t listen to Lucy, she’s genuinely hurt, she retreats into herself, she gets emotional, it’s personal.
To summarize:
1. Lucy’s arc is set up from her first introduction to be someone who is a natural leader and needs to accept that about herself and learn to assert her authority.
2. Lucy’s arc is hampered by her natural submissiveness towards women, namely her mother and Denise, and by the inability of many men to accept a woman as the dominant figure.
3. Lucy demands submissiveness from the men she deals with, both on the time team and in history, and enters all dialogue as a figure of authority.
4. This is contrasted by Lucy’s softer, pleading, stammering, unsure behavior from the women she deals with, both on the time team and in history, where she enters all dialogue as a figure of subordination.
5. Lucy’s happiest moments with men is where she’s allowed to call the shots and the man tells her so (examples include Wyatt in 2x03 and Flynn in 2x06). Her happiest moments with women are where the woman takes charge and mentors her (examples include Josephine Baker in 1x14).
7. When women fail to take on the leadership roles she wants from them such as in 2x07, Lucy is betrayed, hurt, and upset. When men fail to do what she wants, Lucy just gets pissed and declares she’ll do it herself (1x04, 1x12, 2x09).
The conclusion? Lucy is dominant with men and submissive with women.
And, since we haven’t actually seen Lucy having sex and therefore have no evidence to contrast this, we can assume she’s the same way in bed, submitting to her female sexual partner and dominating her male sexual partner. We do get glimpses of this, in fact, with Noah in season one and Wyatt in season two. With Noah, Lucy has control over the relationship, although she’s gentle and tries to think of Noah’s feelings. In 1x15/1x16 when she gets Noah to help Rufus, she doesn’t beg or plead, she orders and demands, which is part of why Noah becomes upset. She sets boundaries in her relationship with Noah and Noah doesn’t seem all that surprised that she’s doing so, suggesting that while her withdrawing from him is unusual, her calling the shots isn’t. And with Wyatt in 2x03, Lucy only initiates a sexual relationship with him after Wyatt puts the power of the relationship in her hands with his speech by the pool, and she then literally jumps him, catching Wyatt off-guard and putting him in the submissive role as she initiates the kissing and presumably the sex that follows.
Which means that I can write an entire fic based on Lucy being a dominatrix and NOBODY CAN STOP ME.
And there you have it. Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk. And if anyone has any further questions or wants me to share more of my thoughts regarding the sexual dynamics of any of our Timeless characters, drop me a line. I am the smut fairy after all. ;)
#mads answers things#mads rants#timeless#timeless meta#lucy preston#the unholy trinity is complete#join me next week as I talk about why the trash ot3 are all bi as fuck#or maybe someone will prompt me riya#who knows#not me
14 notes
·
View notes
Text
2018 is over and I feel compelled to write a retrospective of sorts, but since I don’t feel like talking about myself I’m gonna talk about Every Anime (Series) I Watched in 2018. Each one comes with a numerical rating out of 10 and a short blurb of what I thought about it.
Recovery of an MMO Junkie - 9/10 - Incredibly sweet and heartfelt, with mature adult characters who act as such. Drama and comedy both are mined from real issues rather than petty miscommunication, and is all the more compelling for it.
Land of the Lustrous - 10/10 - A delightfully unique setting with an enrapturing story and fantastically constructed characters. The moments of levity and sweetness only serve to make the deeply engrained sadness and loneliness more poignant. The CGI animation is shockingly gorgeous, and a triumph of the medium.
Kino’s Journey: The Beautiful World (2018) - 5/10 - Certainly entertaining in spots, but ultimately rings rather hollow. Not really an improvement on the original in any respect.
Princess Principal - 8/10 - An absolutely gorgeous setting brimming with atmosphere and style, and a fun ensemble cast. The series-wide arc is a little hard to follow or understand, but each individual episodic plot is really enjoyable and engaging.
The Vision of Escaflowne - 8/10 - A well-built fantasy that’s occasionally ridiculous but never not fun. The new dub is really slick and helps the series go down nice and smooth.
A Place Further Than the Universe - 10/10 - Extraordinarily sweet, earnest and heartfelt. Deftly written, smartly directed, and masterfully executed. I cried really hard, a lot.
Tsuredure Children - 8/10 - Cute, ridiculous, and eminently relatable. If you’ve ever had a crush, you’re bound to identify with at least one character in this series.
From the New World - 5/10 - Had a glimmer of potential, but mostly ended up fake deep, poorly paced, and fucking ugly to look at. The more I thought about this series the less I realized I enjoyed it.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride - 5/10 - An extraordinarily promising start that’s disappointingly squandered by wildly inconsistent tone, static plots, nonsensical character arcs, excessive cliffhangers, and hollow stakes.
Princess Tutu - 10/10 - An expertly built deconstruction of fairy tales as well as a sweeping, gorgeous love note to ballet, classical music, and romantic storybook heroism. Wonderfully intricate plotting and stunning character work, a true gem.
Kaiba - 8/10 - Brilliantly unique and emotionally engrossing, if not a bit obscure and hard to follow at times. You never have, and probably never will again, see an anime quite like this.
Girls’ Last Tour - 7/10 - Deeply atmospheric and sometimes quite poignant, but also dreadfully, awfully, agonizingly slow.
Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto - 9/10 - A smooth and even mix between laughable absurdity and actual real emotional stakes. Somehow, I feel like I learned something about myself.
Megalobox - 8/10 - Briskly paced and action-packed, but by far the biggest draw is a classic 90s aesthetic reminiscent of pre-digital legends like Cowboy Bebop. This series lives and breathes style.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These - 6/10 - Would have the potential to be interesting if it wasn’t so hollow and boring. I wanted to get more engaged in the politics of this complicated war, but the plot is held at arms length and the characters are more like walking philosophy textbooks than actual people. That said, the ship designs are pretty cool.
Hinamatsuri - 10/10 - Sweet, pure-hearted, and gut-bustingly funny. Any moment I wasn’t laughing until my sides hurt, I was near to tearing up from actually caring about these characters so much. Each episode was a joy and I loved every second of it.
Golden Kamuy (S1) - 7/10 - Absurd, charming, and goofy, with a surprising amount of gore. Seems to care more about food than plot, but I’m kind of into it.
Revolutionary Girl Utena - 9/10 - Brilliantly dense, symbolic, and metaphorical. Sometimes hard to understand, sometimes hard to watch, but always excellent.
Dragon Pilot: Hisone & Masotan - 7/10 - Gorgeously animated and undeniably charming, but still a little awkward, garbled, and uncomfortable at times. The most earnest vore anime I’ve ever watched.
Steins;Gate 0 - 4/10 - A total, utter, crushing disappointment. Follows up a spectacular prequel with a nonsensical, contrived plot, inaccurate characters, and piss-poor visuals. This series is only carried by its relationship to the original. I will never trust again.
Princess Jellyfish - 7/10 - Charming, varied characters populating an unfulfilling narrative.
The Big O - 6/10 - Plenty of goofy, stylish fun, but slowly devolves into an inscrutable, incomprehensible mess. R. Dorothy Wayneright is the best part of this series by far. Roger Smith is a louse.
Aggretsuko - 7/10 - Fun and relatable, if a bit simple.
TOP 3
3. Hinamatsuri - This series came totally out of left field for me. I usually don’t emotionally respond to comedies very well but this one somehow hit all the right buttons. None of the humor was mean-spirited or put anyone down, the situations were absurd but didn’t cripple me with secondhand embarrassment, and on top of it all I really started to care about the cast. I wish I could get surprised like this more often.
2. Land of the Lustrous - As you can tell if you’ve been following me at all recently, this series has been absolutely consuming me from the moment I watched it. The plot is gripping and excellently paced, and I don’t know if I’ve ever been invested in another main character quite as much as Phos. It’s plenty easy to get wrapped up in thinking about the plot and the character arcs and the meta, but then when I go back and watch the series again I’m shocked by how good it is on a technical level, too. The CG animation is beyond gorgeous and the technical grace of each scene, the pacing, the colors, the music, the character animation, the voice acting, are all stellar. If this anime had more of an ending it would absolutely be my number 1 pick, but for now I just have to read the manga (AS SHOULD YOU, YOU COWARDS. IT’S EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS THE ANIME).
1. Princess Tutu - I, like many people, I think, reacted with derision at the title of this series, but by the time I was done I was completely blown away, and every time I thought about it more I was even more shocked. Every inch of this series shows some of the smartest construction I’ve ever seen in fiction, every layer is filled with stylistic flourish, brilliant writing, and metatextual commentary. You can dig as deep as you want and Princess Tutu will always have something to offer you. It’s been less than a year, I’ve already watched it twice, and I’m still discovering new things about it. A story this brilliant would be a once in a lifetime experience on its own, but Tutu is fulfilling on the surface level, too. Even if you’re not diving deep into what the series means you can still be just as enraptured by the characters. Fakir probably has the best redemption arc this side of Prince Zuko, and I could sing the praises of every other major cast member. And the music, the music! I was doomed from the start the moment I heard both The Nutcracker and Pictures at an Exhibition in the score. Princess Tutu takes some of the greatest masterpieces of western art music and builds off them, creating a sense of atmosphere as deep and vast and dramatic as the finest opera or ballet could ever be. Princess Tutu is one of the greatest works of fiction I’ve ever consumed, and absolutely the best I’ve watched this year.
BOTTOM THREE
3. From the New World - Immediately after I stopped watching this series I actually sort of thought I’d liked it, and I think the reason for this is because From the New World tries its very best to engage in ideas a bit deeper and more ambiguous than a lot of other anime do. But the more I thought about it, the more I disliked this series. Everything about the plot was confusing and off-putting, I didn’t find the characters particularly charming, and perhaps most of all, this series is butt-ugly. It might have a high score of MAL. but my advice is to give this series a hard pass.
2. The Ancient Magus’ Bride - I wanted to like this series so fucking bad. I fell in love with the prequel OVA and waited anxiously for each new installment to come out. I even bought tickets to my local Artsy Fartsy Theater to see the first three episodes when the screened there. And I liked them! Finally, an anime engaged in Celtic and English mythology, some of my favorites, and a protagonist with a truly gripping internal struggle. I was certain from the very first moment that this series would sit in my Top 10 list, and that Chise would be one of my favorite protagonists ever. And then it... didn’t happen. As the episodes unfolded I was treated to a series that had no idea how to establish or maintain stakes, how to relate its two main characters to each other, or how to use the wealth of mythology it was referencing and drawing from. How am I supposed to care when Chise gets stabbed in the chest every 2 episodes and then just kind of shrugs it off for the sake of drama? How am I supposed to be interested in the mythology when it’s all just watered-down fantasy archetypes with giant boobs? Don’t even get me started on the main villain. I feel very betrayed by this series and honestly I’m still bitter.
1. Steins;Gate 0 - This series is as much a lesson in betrayal as Ancient Magus’ Bride, but I think this one stings worse because it’s preceded by Steins;Gate, and anime I love dearly. I sincerely believe that the original Steins;Gate is one of the best anime ever produced, and this sequel struggles to live up to even a single aspect of it. As it began I was hopeful- I liked the darker tone, I liked the idea of a story within a failed timeline. But as I kept watching, I realized something awful: I was bored. All of the charm and intrigue was gone. The characters were all acting different, all looked different (why are all the girls wearing skintight winter coats? Why have their chests all inflated three sizes??), and there was no impetus for the plot. Steins;Gate was driven by simple goals; in the first half, it was to build a time-leap machine. In the second half, it was to save Mayuri. In Steins;Gate 0 the impetus is to... watch Okabe be sad. Hope he gets less sad. There’s nothing to keep the plot moving, and this listlessness was so overwhelming that the random bits of unforeshadowed action and unprecedented (for this franchise) violence felt cheap and confusing after the doldrums we just sat through. By the time the plot finally, finally, picks up towards the final quarter of the series, the damage is done. I don’t care anymore, I can’t figure out what’s going on, and I’m just so done with a franchise I used to love. One day I’ll go back and rewatch the original Steins;Gate and remind myself why I cared so much, but for now I’m nursing wounds. If you say the name “Kagari” in my presence, I’ll probably blitz the fuck out.
Here’s to a good 2019!
12 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ashburn’s Arc: Meta Analysis of the Entire Season (and Predictions)
I must be insane to sit here and labor for hours over another meta, but I can’t help it. I can’t get these characters’ arcs out of my head. Like, the writing blows me away and I’m really excited (and maybe a little nervous) to see what happens next. But one thing is for sure: Michael Burnham and Ash Tyler are the two common threads throughout this entire season, and their relationship is Important To The Plot.
Buckle up, friends, cuz this one’s a loooong one.
You may see that I just said that Ash Tyler is one of two common threads through the entire season, implying he has been important from the beginning.
“But data, Ash Tyler as we know him didn’t show up until episode 5, how can that be true?”
Yes, well, much as we hate to admit it, Ash is also Voq. And Voq has been around from the beginning. While Voq and Ash aren’t entirely the same, they are connected, meaning their arcs are intrinsically intertwined together. And while this may seem counter-intuitive, that fact actually might be good news for ashburn.
Before you riot, let me explain.
This season opened with two ships, a Federation one and a Klingon one, facing off. Aboard both ships, we saw two captains interacting with two important subordinates. In the case of the Shenzhou, the pair was captain and first officer, but also surrogate mother and adopted daughter. Aboard the Sarcophagus, the relationship was between captain and chosen successor, messiah and devout follower. It isn’t hard to see the parallels. The parallels deepen further when Goergiou fights T’Kuvma and Voq fights Michael. At the end of the struggle, both captains are dead, leaving two grieving people behind to pick up the pieces. Michael is imprisoned immediately, while Voq is cast out later. Both are desperate to prove their worth and honor the memory of their fallen loved ones.
From a writer’s perspective, setting up these kinds of parallels between characters can go one of two ways:
1) The two become adversaries. Molded by similar circumstances, they diverge in response and become mortal enemies destined to fight until one of them is vanquished.
2) The two, while initially adversaries, become allies. They meet with the intention of fighting, but find common ground where they least expected it and go on to work together to overthrow the real enemy (whatever that might be). This is also fertile soil for the star-crossed/unexpected lovers arc.
Listen, everything that happens in a well-written story carries a kind of narrative momentum, a series of weights that pushes the Story Arc one way or another. I’ve taken the liberty of noting important moments in the story and their narrative weight as it pertains to ashburn. I’m using a pretty simple system, awarding points for each positive and negative instance, but tbh some of these moments carry more narrative weight than others. For now, let’s break it down like this: ones are for buildings block moments, twos are for scenes or lines carrying important themes, and threes are for Narrative Events that carry a lot of clout. I may have missed a few, or you may disagree with how I’ve weighted them, but here’s what I have presently:
For the parallels set up pre-Ash Tyler, I’m giving a weight of +3. This is a time-honored and well-established literary trope that carries a lot of narrative importance. This could have been a -3 (indicating an unhappy ashburn ending), but circumstances further down the line make me believe that it’s a positive thing.
Tyler shows up. When he meets Burnham for the first time, he doesn’t reject her immediately. Instead, he says “I prefer to assess people in the here and now”. I’ll come back to this and why I think it’ll be important in the future. So he greets her with an open mind. +2
He goes on to sympathize with her when she doesn’t know how to feel about Sarek. He accepts her duality (a human who is culturally Vulcan) and helps her realize that what she’s experiencing is “being human”. +2
Michael wants to initiate a relationship and does so by being honest about her feelings. +1
Michael nearly kills a bitch when Mudd kills Tyler and sacrifices herself (temporarily) to bring him back. +1
Tyler tells Michael he’s “not going anywhere” as they contemplate their budding relationship. +2
On Pahvo, Tyler tells Michael she deserves better than jail and that he personally puts her needs above the many. +2
Aboard the Sarcophagus, Michael tells Tyler “no one gets left behind” and promises to come back for him. +2
Tyler says that after everything that’s happened to him, he’s still happy because it led him to her. +2
Michael listens to Tyler’s experiences and doesn’t judge him, instead telling him he deserves peace, to which he responds that he found peace in her. +2
Tyler nearly suffers another breakdown. He says he can handle it, even though he’s clearly struggling. He asks Michael to trust him. -2
Tyler kills Culber. -3
Tyler pledges to protect Michael. +2/-2 depending on how you look at it
Tyler tells Michael he loves her, and she says she loves him too. +3
Tyler talks about Michael as his tether. +2/-2 depending
Tyler freaks out on Mirror!Voq. -2
Tyler tells Michael he wants to be human for her and that he’s been holding on for her. +2
But then Voq takes over and he tries to kill her. -3
Michael spares him, even though she knows he’s Voq. +1
Tyler asks about Michael with the few seconds of time he has as himself in med bay. +1
Michael refuses to see Tyler. -1
Sarek tells her there is grace in loving your enemy. +3
Sarek tells Michael not to regret loving somebody. +2
Tilly tells Michael that how she treats Tyler now says something about who she is and who they all are as people. +3
Tyler and Michael meet and argue. -2 but also +3 in the long run if my predictions are correct.
As you can see, despite some of the negative major events, there is a net positive momentum behind their arc presently.
Star Trek Discovery has been all about mirrors and echoes this entire season. Looking back at Ash and Michael’s interactions and some of the other big events so far, I can see a lot of potential to take the loose ends of their relationship and tie them back together. Here are some thoughts (that may not be organized that well, sorry!):
I think we’ll see another moment like the one with Ash accepting Michael when they first meet, except the roles may be reversed. This echo may have already been satisfied by Tilly’s intervention in the mess hall, but there might be a more significant moment where Michael assesses Ash “in the here and now”, putting his past transgressions aside and accepting him as he is.
I also think there’s something important about Tyler’s acceptance of Michael’s duality and sympathizing with her confusion around her father and her human emotions. We may see Michael begin to pivot toward accepting Tyler and his complexity like Tyler did for her. Also, Michael struggling with her emotions, specifically those around being angry, but wanting to love, have some narrative significance that I think we may see in the future. I’m seeing seeds here that I could very well see the writers planting for later use.
Ash is now the one more likely to go to prison than Michael, which is an interesting reversal of the previous situation. There may be another moment where Michael does for Ash what he did for her on Pahvo and state that there is something unjust about the situation and she doesn’t want him to be imprisoned. This could just be Ash’s arc playing out in a logical way, but it feels more like a foil of Michael’s trajectory.
Sarek explicitly telling Michael that loving “the enemy” is special and good seems like A Big Giant Plot Point. Telling her to never regret loving someone is crazy important, especially coming from a Vulcan. Michael could have gotten that talk from someone else, like Saru or Tilly. But the writers chose to have her emotionally closed-off Vulcan surrogate father deliver this information. While he may have had other reasons for saying some of the things he said, there’s no denying that he directly stated that there was grace in embracing an enemy. That wasn’t a mistake; it was designed for Maximum Impact.
Tilly also gave A Big Important Speech to Michael about Starfleet values as they apply to Tyler. We’re getting lots of cues from the writers that reconciliation, while difficult, is coming, and lots of confirmation that what Michael and Ash have is special and worthy of protecting.
Now here are my big predictions. Bear in mind that I could be crazy wrong on some of these, but I’m taking a swing at it and seeing how I do:
1) Tyler won’t die. There are a few reasons why I think this. We’ve already had a lot of deaths. There’s been a shit-ton of attrition on the show of not only primary and secondary characters, but also faceless masses of war casualties. Enough people have died in this conflict. At this point in the game, the writers need to give us big emotional wins. Losing Tyler is not an emotional win. Lorca’s death was somewhat shocking, but he was a different character than Tyler; he was unrepentant to the end while Tyler is clearly remorseful. To me, this kind of writing signals a coming redemption arc.
Now, if Ash and Michael had reconciled during their argument this last episode, I’d be more worried. A common trope used in television is the whole lovers making up shortly before one of them is killed (usually in a heroic sacrifice). The crude narrative logic behind this might be summed up like this: one partner in the relationship did something wrong but was forgiven quickly and didn’t have to suffer enough for their actions; death becomes their punishment. Also, it’s a way of giving the audience one last feel good scene before a character dies and creates character pain for the surviving partner. It’s stupid and cheap, but it’s a common enough sight in media. But that isn’t what happened here. Tyler is remorseful and wants to atone for his sins, but it’s going to be a long road. Michael didn’t let him off easy, either. His character has been set up to have to do emotional work; the writers need to show him doing that work. He needs to live to follow through on that.
So what will happen to him? I can’t be sure. I see a few more options, though.
I’ll start with the two least likely but still possible ones.
The first is that he’ll somehow remain with the Klingons. This could be either as a diplomat to build bridges between the Federation and the Klingons -or- as a traitor to the Federation. Voq was set up to be the unifier of the Klingons, and Ash has Voq’s memories; it makes sense that he might inherit his “fate”. It also might echo L’rell’s words to Voq about building bridges between her family’s houses. Of the two possibilities under this subheading, this seems the more likely. It’s possible that Tyler, feeling spurned by Michael or the Federation and disgusted with the war crimes they are threatening to commit, defects and joins the Klingons. But Tyler has thus far been unwaveringly loyal to Starfleet, and he currently has a lot of people in his corner helping him through this tough transition in his life. He knows there are good people around him, and honestly I don’t believe he’d be so petty that he’d betray the Federation because Michael won’t accept him. I do think we’ll see him speaking in defense of the Klingons when he learns of the inevitable war crimes Georgiou is pushing to commit, though.
The second scenario is that he’s incarcerated. This is entirely possible, given his unique situation. However, Starfleet may consider him an asset better left in the field, where he can be used as Klingon intelligence while still being observed in a controlled environment. Also, the Federation may feel it wrong to imprison him for circumstances outside of his control and they may think it inhumane to subject him to tests and experiments without his total consent and cooperation. If he does go to the clink, I think he’ll eventually be brought back to Discovery because, like Michael, he’s an important character and an important resource.
The third possibility is...??? Something happens that necessitates his continued presence on the Discovery or makes his exit impossible. And I’m not going to even begin to speculate how that happens, tbh.
2) Michael and Ash’s relationship will continue in one way or another (either as friends or lovers) as long as Ash is still aboard Discovery. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy for them, but there’s a lot of narrative gravity pulling them together. But a few things need to happen first:
-Tyler needs to show that he can find his way without Michael as his tether. He needs to be willing to put in the work for himself and he needs to show through his actions that he isn’t relying on Michael (even if he still looks to her as a beacon).
-Michael needs to see Tyler doing something (perhaps protecting her, as he promised he would) in such a way that she realizes the man she knew is still there. Last episode the writers specifically called attention to Tyler’s eyes; Michael said all she could see was Voq when she looked into them. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that in the season finale they’ll be in a tight spot together and Tyler will do something brave or gentle or whatever and she’ll look into his eyes and see him, the man she loves.
3) I also think there will be a moment between them where Michael has to decide to trust Ash and take his hand (figuratively or maybe even literally). Or maybe it’ll be Ash doing something dangerous or reckless and Michael rescues him by taking hold of him, who knows. But I think the “Will You Take My Hand?” of the title may have something to do with them. I actually think we may see several iterations of this question during the episode, but I’m hoping that Ash and Michael reconnecting is one of them.
Ultimately, I think it makes sense for Michael and Ash to continue to be a driving force in Discovery because their relationship is a metaphor for so many things that are key aspects of the overarching story line. They represent the different sides of the war, the possibility for respect and love between enemies, the truth that patience and understanding in the face of adversity can build bridges between people. And remember when I said two people with parallel character arcs can work together to overthrow the real enemy? The real enemy here is fear, and the violence that comes from fear and ignorance. The Klingons were afraid of losing their cultural identity. The Federation is afraid of being annihilated. Fear is the enemy. Michael is afraid of Tyler because of what he is, and Tyler is afraid of losing touch with who he was. To defeat the enemy, they’re going to need to move past their fear and differences and start again from a place of compassion. Their reconciliation would represent a larger trend, one that embodies the optimism of Star Trek and promotes the ideals of the Federation.
And that’s why I think there’s hope for Ashburn yet.
55 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Vatican
It was generous of Rome, I suppose. My very first trip to Italy’s capital, and to provide me with the most authentic experience possible, Rome felt like it was actually burning. Every moment of the three days I spent there was like walking on coals. Across the sun. Wearing aluminum foil. I mean, it was hot.
The locals nicknamed the heatwave Lucifer, after the FOX TV show about the devil partnering with a female detective to solve crimes (and maybe – fall in love!). Or perhaps it was named after the devil him or herself (#feminism) because it was absolutely the temperature of pure evil.
My Vatican excursion, and my time in Italy as a whole, was about midway through a 6-week solo trip across Europe. I had just been laid off from my job, had a small but not unexciting cancer scare and had moved back to New York to help my mother sell her house after my dad’s recent death (which is a better narrative than I moved back home because I was homeless and jobless). I took my generous severance and like the good millennial I am, decided to blow most of it on THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME.
I looked around at the state of my life: Single and in my mid-thirties, I had no real-life responsibilities other than the crippling debt I had come to know as a friend and life partner. Rebecca, the name I gave my debt monster in my late twenties, would certainly be waiting for me upon my return to keep me warm during all my most visceral debt-induced panic attacks. Plus, with no job prospects to speak of, and no real urge to start the arduous process of job hunting, it was time to Eat, Pray, Shlub through Europe. Basically, at thirty-six years old, I finally took my gap year.
My plan was simple: I’d just go to The Vatican, pay whatever I had to skip the line and zip through the whole thing in thirty minutes, forty if the gift shop had Pope Pun t-shirts (Snap, Crackle, POPE; A picture of The Pope in his Popemobile that said: My Other Ride Is Your Mom). I’d be getting yelled at for drinking espresso on the Spanish Steps by lunch.
I don’t like to brag but... being wrong about life choices, is kind of the defining characteristic of my overall personal brand. If two roads diverged in a wood, I’d somehow manage to climb the tree separating the two paths, get stuck up there and die of exposure. It’s just who I am, you guys. But in the lifetime of lefts that should’ve been rights, I’ve never been as wrong about anything as I was about The Vatican. Like all good horror stories, this was my “Let’s check out the abandoned camp” or “Let’s bone in the lake – no one’s around!” moment I would come to regret later.
By this point in my overall trip, I had achieved this odd mix of overconfidence in my ability to be a capital-T Tourist, with a nearly pathologically unreasonable disdain for tours, guides and waiting in line. Especially if that line was just a pre-line to get on line or even worse a queue before a line that led to a holding area before you could get in line. This sort of living purgatory happens a lot when you are traveling to the most touristy places on the planet. I get that. But as an Ugly American, I simply felt I should be able to get exactly what I wanted when I wanted it and if I couldn’t, throw money at the problem until I get my way. (I was not the best representation for our country during my time abroad, although I may have, sadly, been a fairly accurate one. For that I apologize. To the world.)
My smug confidence in my plan to zip in and out of The Vatican in roughly the amount of time it would take to watch the first two episodes of the new season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was bolstered by a successful trip on the Rome subway system. Well, maybe I’m being generous with the use of the word successful: As I left my hotel, I immediately walked up to a fully armed French soldier, frantically asking where the entrance to the subway was located. With a language barrier separating us he physically turned my body around to show the entrance to the train all of 15 feet away from me. From there on out, though, it was smooth sailing. I took this as a particularly good sign:
When I got out of the subway I was just a few blocks away from The Vatican, and despite that, I arrived drenched in so much sweat I could have easily been baptized where I stood. I ducked and weaved past several aggressive guides trying to recruit me for their tours; I won’t fall for your shenanigans, mio amico. I actively felt bad for the tourists, trying to navigate the fast, smooth talking tour guides, fanny packs askew, cameras strapped to their chests. This isn’t my first rodeo, you charlatans! As I got closer and closer to the The Vatican, however, the line to enter the building got longer and longer; I started to feel the first twinge of doubt about my ability to self-navigate a place visited by 20,000 people every damn day.
Seeing the disappointment crest over my face, a tour guide pounced. “You need a tour pass to get in,” he said quietly, calmly, like he didn’t need my business. He was Indian or Middle Eastern, wearing a button-down shirt and slacks, which I found comforting. I knew he must be baking in the sun, and this, along with the Vatican badge he sported, convinced me he was a bit more official.
“I just want to skip the line,” I responded, almost to myself, like a child quietly crying, trying to convince himself there are no monsters lurking under his bed.
“I can help you with that,” he shrugged. He said it in such a nonchalant way he made me think he was part of the actual Vatican team - whatever that meant - and not just another ravenous tour guide trying to make a sale. I held onto that belief as we sprinted down the block, I held onto that belief as we dodged cars as we crossed a busy intersection and I held onto that belief for the entire time I stood in a small windowless basement room getting signed up for the tour I was being sold. It’s a miracle I haven’t been murdered.
I had forty-five minutes to kill, so I grabbed a pork cheek sandwich, washed down with several beers. After being defeated, tour-wise, I was helpless against the remarkably pushy saleswoman at a nearby clothing store. Before my years of retail work could snap me out of my daze I got talked into buying a pair of shorts I didn’t need, a button-down short-sleeved shirt that didn’t fit and a pair of swim trunks so short, they appropriately left no question about my religion.
Pork cheek and Italian beer stuffed in my belly and unnecessary purchase stuffed into my backpack, I was now ready to be blessed. A crowd started to form under the six branches of shade the anemic tree outside the tour office provided. The excitement was palpable, and I could feel it split into three different categories: 1) Religious-based fervor about the holy place we were about to enter; 2) Excitement about seeing one of the most famous attractions in the world; 3) Elation about entering a room with air conditioning.
Now that it was time to start making our way back the few blocks to the Vatican, our tour guide assembled us to share a few rules, which sounded eerily similar to what you hear lawyers telling people about visiting family members in prison. I don’t recall the guide’s name, because I sweat that information out, along with my ability to do long division. I do remember that he was at least 150 years old and I kept wondering how I would go about getting my ticket off his body if he dropped dead. This trip took me to some dark places.
Just as I was about to hit send on a text message letting my family know that when I arrived back home, I’d be nothing more than a puddle of salty water, we arrived at the heavily guarded gates of The Vatican. Even though we were on the expedited line, it still took thirty minutes to cross the threshold into the room that would lead us through security and into the actual start of the tour. The lobby was stuffy and packed with people, herded like some meta interpretation of cattle-as-tourists-as-cattle. There we waited. And waited. And waited.
As you do in times of crisis, I attached myself to other survivors. In this case, a family of three - parents in their late-thirties and a three or four year-old child, sweaty and rightfully miserable in his stroller. By now it had been ninety minutes since entry, and I was trying to sow the seeds of rebellion into my compatriots: “We’ve been waiting here for a while.”
“Yeah, little man is getting tired,” the father said back to me, absently but not with the tone of annoyance I was trying to cultivate. To the kid’s credit, he wasn’t throwing a fit, just uncomfortable, and his cries were more like muffled sobs of someone resigned to their fate but not very happy about it.
“He’s just expressing how we are all feeling. I think it’s brave,” I said, almost catatonic.
“I’m sure we’ll be in soon. It’ll be worth it,” the mother said. I was stunned by her optimism and determination. I wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her: You fool! We are never going to leave this room! Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? We’re Vatican Lobby people now!
Instead, I got angry, probably for the first time in the whole experience. I had been frustrated, and impatient, and hot – dear sweet heaven, it was hot - but this made me mad. Not at the woman, trying to cool down her son with precious elixir known as bottled water. Not at her husband, steely eyed but still eager to see the wonders that awaited beyond the security. I was mad because these people were there for a beautiful, powerful experience that deeply mattered to them. I noticed, for the first time, the crosses they all wore, glistening through sweat and waves of heat. This whole time I couldn’t fathom what would possess these seemingly normal people to weather this heat to take their kid on an excursion into a big building with art and religious artifacts. As a well-established quitter, there were five times I would’ve turned around and tried another day. To me, this was something to check off a list. Going to Rome, potentially for the only time in my life, I’d need to see The Vatican to say that I had seen The Vatican. Don’t get me wrong, I was excited – at least initially. But that excitement waned pretty quickly, as I became less a tourist and more a contestant in a co-ed Spring Break wet t-shirt contest for hairy men with man boobs. These people were there for spiritual and holy reasons; this was a pilgrimage for them. As someone who spent the last ten years trying to improve user and participant experience, I was offended that these people – and the thousands with them – weren’t getting an experience they deserved.
Just as I was ready to take a torch to the place, we started moving. Our tour guide, thankfully still alive, started handing out the tickets we needed to get through security. The other members of the tour swarmed him, and in a move that proves I would not survive any kind of Zombie Apocalypse, I let the family of three go ahead of me to get their tickets, even though I wasn’t entirely confident I wouldn’t be left without tickets, stuck in God’s literal waiting room. Once they had their tickets, however, I elbowed my way to the front and got my pass. I felt like a boy of thirty-three again! I was going to make it. We were going to get through this – together.
Only the second we made it through the security, my fight or flight instincts kicked in and I ran for it. The idea of standing around for the next three hours with this group of people and this old man who looked like a half-melted statues come to life, was too much for me. I took a last glance at the family of three. Despite my urge to fight for their experience and the polite conversation we made, I’m certain my existence barely registered for them, but I felt a kinship with them in the story I was creating in my mind. I stretched out my hand, mouthed “Stay alive!” and ran up the stairs, hiding – I HID – from my tour. It had become clear to me that I had lost my mind.
Once I was sure the tour had passed, I found the closest information desk and asked: “What is the fastest way to see everything?” I was handed a map and a look of disgust, and was on my way.
The next two hours were both a blur and happened in super slow motion. There were so many people in this sarcophagus of a building that I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I abandoned the audio tour within the first 10 minutes; it could still be under the oddly attractive statue of the guy with the dog for a head. Every way I moved I bumped into people – and was it just me or was it getting even hotter? Could they have air conditioning in The Vatican? And where was the Pope? I was told there would be a Pope! How was the family of three doing? Would I ever see my mom again? Should I re-watch Veronica Mars? My mind couldn’t stop.
As I descended further into madness, a single thought snapped me out of it. I realized why this kind of oppressive human smog and sensory overload was so familiar and unsettling: It was just like being at Ikea on a Saturday afternoon. And much like Ikea, there was only one way in and one way out. “The only way was through,” I actually said out loud to no one in particular. Steeling myself, I became determined to see The Sistine Chapel and get the hell out of there.
I began walking with more purpose, following the signs to the Sistine Chapel, which was never as close as promised (just like Swedish meatballs at Ikea!). I snapped a few pictures, mostly to take a look at later. I stopped and stared at some art and looked up to appreciate a ceiling or two. Cool cool cool cool cool – where’s the exit?
Now, months after my escape, I can’t remember if I descended higher and higher or lower and lower to reach The Sistine Chapel, but I finally got there. And it was… disappointing. Or maybe it wasn’t? I’m not sure because you couldn’t actually stop and look at the ceiling, which admittedly was beautiful. You had to keep going, keep going, keep going, like Dory from Finding Nemo. I didn’t think I’d be making comparisons to an Ellen DeGeneres-voiced cartoon character to describe seeing one of the most famous sites in the world, but here we are.
That feeling of anger began to wash over me again. I am not a very religious person, nor an art or history buff (I know, I’m the worst), but I am someone who likes a well-run and well-executed event. And this was neither. I kept thinking about that family or any religious person I knew, not just going to The Vatican because they were in Rome and “they should go”, but rather as a truly holy rite of passage. I may not share those views, but I do think they deserve an experience that reflects their devotion to the church. Maybe that family had a great time, maybe this filled their bucket, but if not, I have a strongly worded letter to the head of The Vatican (The Pope? God?) about some logistical and user experience enhancements.
Once I was prodded through The Sistine Chapel, all other thoughts left my mind other than Lakeith Stanfield screaming GET OUT. I felt like a rat trying to burrow through a man’s chest to survive in Game of Thrones. Yes, maybe that heat I was feeling was the flames of hell trying to suck me in because, well, I wasn’t being my most pious self. And yes, I did make myself a rat burrowing through human flesh in that analogy, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Like any time I’ve ever been to Ikea, it was time to forget about everything that you cared about when you entered, fight the tourists and find the way out.
I began to walk faster, now only snapping pictures of things while I was physically walking by them. Everywhere I went, I bumped into a German tourist, who seemed, to be blocking me. I wanted to scream: WHY DO YOU WANT ME TO STAY HERE? WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR!?!?! It felt like days since I had seen the sun or felt the steaming hot gust of Roman air on my face. I wondered: Would I be different now? What had changed in the world? Do proper hover boards finally exist?
Thirty minutes later, I burst through doors and was free to leave… ooh the gift shop! I bought a few rosary beads for friends who would appreciate them, but alas no Pope shirt that had his face superimposed on a bunch of Emojis.
From there I walked briskly to what I knew would be doors leading to the outside. I was an inside person now, and worried that the daylight would burn on my skin after so long. When I arrived in the courtyard of St. Peter Basilica it took all my strength not to drop to my knees, arms stretched to the sky a la Andy Dufrense at the end of Shawshank Redemption.
I walked around St. Peter Basilica for a bit and headed to a pizza place I had read about. I stumbled in like a man out of the dessert begging for water. I ordered a local beer and the house special pizza. The pizza arrived perfect, beautiful, profoundly satisfying.
It was the closest I felt to God all day.
#an eddie abroad#euroed#travel#rome#roma#italy#vatican#vaticancity#wanderlust#travelitaly#lucifer#heatwave
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Why Rebooting is bad and why continuity actually matters
A noteworthy individual in the realm of comic book podcasting by the name of Michale Bailey has stated on more than one occasion that Spider-Man could use a continuity reboot.
Let me explain in a 5000+ word essay why this is so wrong.
To begin with full disclosure on Bailey.
Bailey is a DC fan. A MASSIVE DC fan. He’s a Superman expert and his fav villain is Joker.
He likes Marvel but in a very secondary way to DC. His favourite Marvel characters are Hulk and Captain America. He likes Spider-Man but is no expert on him and is nowhere near as passionate about him as he is Superman.
The problem with him and many DC fans who are so quick to advocate for a reboot for various Marvel characters is that they ignore important context.
To begin with I honestly do not think most people who are DC fans first and foremost understand the value Marvel fans place on continuity, or at least they themselves do not place as much value by it.
From ground zero of the universe it was made clear continuity mattered. If the Marvel Universe was the United States then alongside relative realism and human flaws an attempt at good continuity would be part of the Bill of Rights.
I think the reason DC fans are more quick to dismiss continuity or the value Marvel fans’ place in it is because for DC continuity means far less, far less to the point where it has honestly become meaningless.
Continuity over at DC meant only as much as any given writer cared about it for the longest time. William Moulton Marston might’ve given the Baroness a redemption arc in his Wonder Woman run. Alfred Beagle’s transformation from a tubby clean shaven guy into a lean, moustachioed gentleman might’ve been explained via him going on dietary vacation. DC might’ve been inspired by fans’ letters to explain Barry Allan reading a Jay Garrick comic book via the establishment of Earth 1/Earth 2.
But all these were loose exceptions. Marston was putting in more effort than his peers of the day. DC were mandated to change Alfred’s appearance but didn’t bother to explain his name changing from beagle to Pennyworth which happened arbitrarily. And whilst DC established Earth 1 and Earth 2 they only did so because fans kept asking them what the deal was, when Barry Allan debuted they did just casually ignore the fact that Jay Garrick had existed in the way he did.
Day-to-day though consistency and continuity, the attempt to make the stories one big narrative was arbitrary at best. Superman was suddenly Superboy in his teen years and s an adult went through dozens of new powers that showed up and got dropped just as easily. Each story didn’t matter to the next one and could be read in any order regardless, etc.
DC only started trying to get deeper with continuity pretty much as a RESPONSE to Marvel emphasising continuity from 1961 onwards.
And event his was clumsy and problematic due to their long history of NOT doing that, meaning their universe was adopting continuity and trying to pretend those rules should all of a sudden apply to a universe that up until then was anethma to it.
It’d be like if the Simpson suddenly tried to apply legitimate Marvel style continuity after all the years of Homer having a million jobs and the family going through all these zany experiences that reset by the start of the next episode.
Where continuity worked for DC it did so in tittles like Swamp Thing or Teen Titans where there was a comparatively cleaner history to work with, where continuity might not have strictly speaking existed but where it also hadn’t been as aggressively ignored either.
Unsurprisingly then when it came time to reboot the DC Universe with Crisis on Infinite Earths that the Titans history was retained mostly unchanged (though their writer Marv Wolfman also writing Crisis probably had something to do with that too).
Crisis on Infinite Earths was done EXPLICITLY to reorganize the DC Universe to better resemble the Marvel Universe and having a greater sense of continuity was a MASSIVE part of that.
Suddenly Superman’s history was streamlined and events in his life followed a greater degree of cause, effect and repercussions as opposed to the rotating door of arbitrary stories that can be read in any given order because the status quo would snap back come Hell or high water anyway. Suddenly he and Lois relationship had a flowing narrative where one event could impact the next building and building until they were dating, then in love, then engaged, then married.
The same generally held true for most of the DC universe, in fact the Universe as a whole now had a greater degree of cohesiveness as the Earth 2 heroes like the Jay Garrick Flash were established as existing in the 1930s and 1940s with the more iconic characters like Superman, batman, Wonder Woman and Barry Allan’s Flash having come in as the next generation of heroes as opposed to there being an arbitrary invisible line where everyone transitioned from Earth 2 into Earth 1.
Now the question to be begged is...WHY did DC feel the need to reorganize their universe in this way? Why did they feel the need to tear their house down and rebuild it in a style more similar to their competitor’s?
Because...their competitor was doing better than them that’s why.
Between 1961 when the Marvel Universe began and 1985/1986 when Crisis on Infinite Earths unfolded, more often than not Marvel DOMINATED DC.
And since continuity was a big part of that DC opted to hit the rest button and essentially do a second draft on their characters and their universe taking into account the lessons they’d learned from Marvel’s success, continuity being one of the biggest of those.
I believe it was Mark Gruenwald who used to joke that Marvel didn’t need to reboot their characters like DC did because they ‘got them right the first time’.
And to a large extent...he was absolutely right, and Crisis on Infinite Earths is a testament to that.
And one of the biggest reasons why is because DC DID improve their sales. And I do not just mean they improved them because of their new spat of #1s or the EVENT that was the rebirth of their characters. I mean by the late 1980s and early 1990s their characters were competing far better with Marvel than they had done before. Though still in second place more often than not.
But there were still problems with their universe, ramifications of rebooting that made things muddled and confusing in ways they hadn’t been before. Hawkman is the most talked about example of this to the point where I don’t even know how to explain what the contradictions are. Same story with Power Girl and Donna Troy who’s histories and origins became so convoluted that they were the subject of jokes in and out of the comics. Donna Troy’s history was such a mess there was even a story made to specifically try (and in my opinion failed) to resolve the clusterfuck her very existence had mutated into.
DC decided to clean things up a little with Zero Hour and do a less extensive reboot of their universe. Everything set up via Crisis on Infinite Earths mostly stayed the same apart from a few things.
That was the first warning sign though. The first sign that the universe they’d rebooted into existence was not structurally integral precisely because they’d rebooted it into existence.
Then came guys like Mark Waid, Dan Didio, Mark Millar, Goeff Johns and Grant Morrison and so many others, children of the pre-crisis DC universe (specifically the continuity toxic Silver Age) who were upset at it’s destruction and being replaced by the post-Crisis DC Universe.
In their works and under their tenures much of the Silver Age was in one form or another reintorduced into the post-crisis DC universe created very specifically to exorcise most if not all of that stuff.
Barry Allan, Kara Zor-El, Kandor, etc. Shit, Grant Morrison did the acclaimed All-Star Superman series from 2005-2008 which was flagrantly a love letter to the whacky Silver Age Superman stories of the 1950s and 1960s. That was out of continuity but Mark Waid went further by kinda sorta said that Superman hung out with the Legion of Superheroes in his teen years, something very explicitly exorcised from the post-crisis version of Superman.
Was this a case of these creators simply subconsciously drawing upon their childhoods?
Nope, not even a little bit.
They were very consciously and very deliberately trying to in some way shape or form resurrect the characters, elements and universe they had known and loved and apply it to the version of the universe that had in effect killed and replaced the one they’d known and loved.
They didn’t even try to cover this up.
I believe it was Dan Didio who once said he and Geoff Johns almost entered DC comics specifically to bring back Hal Jordan and Barry Allan.
And Mark Waid even as late as 2008 when he was interviewed about Brand New Day has stated that he felt extremely upset over losing the pre-crisis Superman who was replaced by the John Byrne post-crisis Superman.
Legend has it that not long after the post-crisis era began he even asked Byrne (or someone from DC) about ‘when the real Superman’ would come back.
Hell he did Superman Birthright a story that out of the blue gave use yet another new spin on Superman’s origin that was different to John Byrne’s post-crisis take on the character’s origin, though DC didn’t outright say one was supplanting the other.
They were not alone.
Brian Meltzer stated in regards to his Identity Crisis storyline that he loved the Silver Age of the DC universe despite people proclaiming it to be silly garbage.
Neil Gaiman in a one off Batman story he did made a meta commentary proclaiming his love for the Adam West Batman show.
And, though he didn’t work much in the post-crisis DC universe, acclaimed author Alan Moore took Image comics character Supreme, who was created essentially as a Superman rip-off, and proceeded to even more flagrantly rip-off Superman by morphing Supreme into Silver Age/pre-crisis Superman. Supreme like Superman even had a younger female family member and a super dog. They might not have been beat for beat Supergirl and Krypto, but it was obvious that those were who they were meant to be. He’s even been known to have said that the post-crisis Superman ‘ruined’ what Superman was supposed to be.
The love for the pre-crisis Silver Age had to varying degrees rubbed DC fans the wrong way but they didn’t know what they were in for because in 2006 DC unleashed Infinite Crisis.
Like Zero Hour this was a storyline that rebooted elements of the DC Universe but not as extensively as Crisis on Infite Earths had, though it was nevertheless far MORE extensively than Zero Hour.
How in love with the pre-crisis era and the Silver age was Infinite Crisis?
Well it reinstated the Multi-verse and Earth 2, two explicitly silver age concepts that were equally explicitly removed by Crisis on Infinite Earths.
It swept aside all of Power Girls various history since Crisis on Infinite Earths and just stated she was Superman’s cousin, but not the post-crisis version. She was literally the exact same pre-crisis version of Power Girl who (it was explained) had simply surived erasure during Crisis on Infinite Earths.
It brought back notable pre-crisis characters like Superboy Prime, Alexander Luthor oh and the Earth 2 Lois Lane and Superman who, I will remind you, were literally supposed to be THE Superman and Lois Lane from ACTION COMICS #1!
Then as part of the ramifications of the continuity changes instituted by Infinite Crisis Superman’s history was once more reworked to now explictely reintegrate his silver age history as Superboy and membership with the Legion of Superheroes as well as Lex Luthor knowing him in Smallville.
Yeah, it was pretty obvious what was happening. The guys in charge missed the pre-crisis days of DC and were trying to bring it back.
And this is the crux of why REBOOTING DOESN’T WORK.
The argument from people like Bailey is that if creators like this didn’t try to recreate their childhoods like this and remained committed to the rebooted universe established when they walked into their jobs the rebooted universe could work.
Except reboots by their inherent nature make that possibility extremely unlikely if not outright impossible.
Superhero comic books are a medium in which the reader pays money at least once a month for years-decades following the lives of the protagonist characters in a greater degree of detail than pretty much any other medium could muster.
Much like novels comic books go inside the characters heads forging a personal connection between them and the reader the likes of which is less likely and less frequent than with TV or film characters because that degree of intimacy is rarely present.
However unlike novels comics do this not only to multiple characters at a time but also get published more frequently.
As much emotional investment the average readers might have in Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley or Neville Longbottom, the fact is because they are not characters who’s heads we inhabit to the same degree as Harry Potter’s meaning there is less likely to be as personal connection forged.
This isn’t the case in comic books where we do, to lesser degrees, inhabit the head spaces of supporting cast members and even villains very, very frequently, meaning readers on average have (compared to the Harry Potter characters I listed) likely a greater degree of investment in characters like Foggy Nelson, Mary Jane Watson, Lois Lane, Alfred Pennyworth, Robin, etc. It even applies to villains even if the readers obviously do not feel sympathy for those characters.
And that form of intimacy between characters and readers happens across a mimimum of a month to month basis, not maybe once a year if a novel series is really on it’s game.
Consequently comic book fans moreso than in any medium, even daily shown soap operas, follow the metaphorical LIVES of these fictional characters.
And unlike soap operas they have to pay an inordinate amount of money for the pleasure of hanging out with those characters that they have that connection to.
So when a reboot comes along and essentially DELETES those characters and at best replaces them with new versions who aren’t the same in various ways it is the equivalent of taking away your beloved friend or pet and presenting you with a new friend or pet who’s sort of similar but obviously not the same thing you knew and loved, but asking you to accept them all the same.
And there are major ramifications to doing that have very long term ripple effects.
The most obvious one being that companies will LOSE the business of the old fans, which is exactly what happened with the New 52.
But more poignantly it is a veritable GUARANTEE that old fans will become VERY embittered and seek to in some way restore the characters they knew and loved, often by tearing down or warping the things that erased and replaced them.
At the same time erasing and replacing one version of the characters and universe with another sets a dangerous precedent even for creators who do NOT have an emotional connection to bygone eras.
That being that it can be okay to erase and replace things whenever they damn well please.
Or to put it another way...nothing matters.
The problem being the inherent nature of the comic book medium REQUIRES the readership to care.
It REQUIRES that emotional intimacy and connection to grow and be maintained in order for them to keep coming back and wanting to follow the lives of the characters.
And when you make it clear that whenever convenient everything you’ve spent time, money and emotional energy on can be utterly invalidated what is the point of bothering at all.
Now I know the argument would go ‘but for NEW fans that isn’t the case’
Except it is.
The halcyon days John Byrne likes to wax lyrical about when the readership would rotate every five years are DEAD and they’ve BEEN dead for decades. They died essentially the moment Marvel instituted continuity.
Because in instituting continuity it actively encourages people to CONTINUOUSLY read the series and follow the character.
Marvels’ success and DC’s greater success post-crisis have PROVED that that creative model is simply more popular and profitable than operating under the idea that the readers invest for a little while before they notice the illusion, that nothing matters and then consequently leave to be replaced by new people who’ve yet to notice that.
But in this day and age trying to maintain that illusion is not just a mountain to climb, it’s downright financially irresponsible.
We live in an age where the average audience member for any given piece of media is intrinsically more genre savvy than they were 20-80 years ago.
An age where there are countless instantly accessible websites discussing storytelling quirks and mechanics, where there is a whole website called TV tropes detailing every trope in storytelling known to man and giving vast EXAMPLES of them within popular stories.
An age where there are highly popular internet reviewers who deconstruct and point out those tropes thus training up their audience to spot them too.
And if you think they’re just over in a little corner think again.
Before his death notable film critic Roger Ebert recognized the work of the Nostalgia Critic who has won awards for his internet based awards show.
The acclaimed TV series Community actively engaged with the TVTropes website when writing it’s episodes, laying layer upon layer of meta commentary upon almost every episode and being hailed as the most genre savvy show on television.
The filmmakers of the Winter Soldier and Civil War movies took note of the internet series ‘How it Should have ended’ in order to make the resolution of their movies as watertight as possible.
The director of Kong: Skull Island went on a rant about a popular internet video series that pointed out problems in his movie and he even guest starred on another similarly popular internet series to point out further problems with the film in person.
Combine the above with the existence of trades, internet resources, info books and just discussions about comic books on social media and podcasts and the notion that most if any potential new readers are going to be fooled by the illusion that the comic books they are financially or emotionally investing in actually matter becomes less and less likely by the day.
Hell I was a kid with little internet access who wasn’t a big DC guy and who hadn’t read Crisis on Infinte Earths but I KNEW about it.
The rebooting of your universe is such a huge colossal thing that it’s something that comic book fans pick up on very quickly upon entering into the hobby just via osmosis.
That was in the days when the internet wasn’t what it is now, so the notion that you can trick new people into not realizing the stories they are investing in can be thrown out the window at any moment is ludicrous because they WILL know about reboots very quickly.
Sure, you could argue that the relative success of the post-crisis era proves that even KNOWING about reboots as a potential phenomenon doesn’t mean that they won’t be successful so why NOT do them?
Because again, I think that ignores the context of the time period.
I don’t think MOST people (even the creators involved) actually realized or had the mentality that reboots could be a recurring phenomenon.
I think fans and creators alike entered into the post-crisis era truly believing that Crisis on Infinite Earths was a one off affair and now that the DC universe had been ‘fixed’ or ‘realigned’ or whatever you want to call it, that was that. It wasn’t going to happen again. Sure there was Zero Hour but that was to clean stuff up and reinforce the new universe they’d made, not a desire to scrap what’d come before. It was a patch up not a clean slate deal.
In a sense Infinite Crisis was a testament to this. It demonstrated a desire to reboot again but also a sense that it was somehow taboo to do so thus it didn’t go all the way.
But then in 2011 we got the New 52, something that J. Michael Straczynski has stated Dan Didio had wanted to do for years. And if you pay attention to it you will see more than a few pre-crisis elements present in it. Wonder Woman’s mother being blonde haired. Superman being single and a lonely alien. Few if any legacy characters, etc.
The new 52 was the most extensive reboot SINCE crisis on infinite earths and it so colossally backfired that in 2016 DC launched Rebirth which has since then been essentially transforming the New 52 BACK into the post-crisis era.
And whilst yes a major reason for that was the overall poor quality of the universe, the fact is another major reason was that same invalidation of reader emotional investment made worse by the further erosion of the illusion that the stories matter.
If the post-crisis era that lasted almost 30 years could be swept away so casually, why give a damn about anything the new 52 had to offer? Why give a damn about this universe when Dan Didio EIC of DC STATED that he feels that there SHOULD be a reboot every so often, that the stories you have spent time, money and energy on in the here and now SHOULD be erased and invalidated.
It was demonstrable of a fundamental misunderstanding of why the modern comic book reader of the last 50 or so years picked up a book. They weren’t looking for a disposable adventure, they were LOOKING to emotionally invest. The ball game had intrinsically changed in the 1960s thanks to Marvel and largely thanks to their institution of continuity, flawed as they hemsleves might have been in applying it at times.
Again, thing is part of why we got Rebirth. It’s called REbirth for a reason. It’s because the world and universe that is coming out of it is like the one people knew and loved.
Superman is again the most poignant example of this as his history via DC Rebirth has been nce more changed but this time changed BACK into what it was more or less just before the New 52.
I think that for a lot of fans there is a HOPE with Rebirth that DC have actually now recognized reboots as destructive and that they are now endeavoring to reorganize their universe back to what it was and, as was the case post-crisis, honestly leave it that way. Hope for this recognition is corroborated by the in-universe meta-commentary by the cosmic entity Metron during the Convergence storyline, during which he more or less said the DC universe cannot survive another reboot and then sent heroes to outright prevent Crisis on Infinite earths from ever happening, literally preventing the first ever reboot from happening and thereby all the ones thereafter.
DC at the time of this writing are doing great. Depending upon who you ask they are even financially beating Marvel and DEFINITLY creatively kicking Marvel’s ass.
However throughout the ups and the downs I’ve listed with DC the fact remains that Marvel more often than not have always trumped them in sales.
There have almost always just been more people who want to read and financially and emotionally invest in Marvel’s characters and universe than DC’s. You can’t handwave that off on the success of media adaptations either. Marvel’s media dominance didn’t truly begin until 2000-2002 with X-Men and Spider-Man and prior to that DC had a larger number of higher quality cartoon shows like Batman and Superman the Animated Series, the former of which even got shown on Prime Time.
And yet Marvel continued to trounce DC most of the time and among it’s highest sellers, among the franchises which routinely beat MOST of DC was...Spider-Man.
Spider-Man who’s whole concept was for him to be relatable, that is to say his whole concept was actually BUILT around the idea of making you the reader emotionally invest in him. Whilst Batman and the Fantastic Four might’ve held that ambition generally speaking for Spider-Man it was intrinsic to who he was, he was MADE to be like (what Stan Lee believed was) the average reader (relatively speaking).
And then...you followed his life.
There is perhaps no character in Marvel’s history who’s life has been AS detailed and fleshed out as Spider-Man’s.
He has no dark mysterious past like Wolverine or Deadpool.
His story didn’t begin with him as an adult who’d lived a long life upon his debut like Reed Richards or Bruce Banner.
And he wasn’t a member of a team, but rather the lead in his own right unlike the Human Torch or any given member of the X-Men.
Consequently what we got was a character who debuted with you knowing almost everything about him. he hadn’t lived long enough to HAVE a past of mystery or life experiences you could pull out the bag for big flashy reveals. And the story was DEVOTED to his life and his journey of growth.
All of this has led Spider-Man to being both the most (relatively) realistic character in Marvel’s canon and the one who encourages the most emotional and thereby financial investment.
Because not only are you supposed to identify with him but you can honestly watch him grow up, you can watch him evolve even alongside yourself and see him hit life milestones we all are familiar with even if we have not ourselves hit them.
And just to prove that it was no fluke Marvel created a wholesale second version of Peter Parker in the form of Ultimate Spider-Man and succeeded in the same experiment AGAIN.
But following Peter’s life, his development and emotionally investing in him REQUIRES continuity to be intrinsic to his narrative. It is a REQUIRMENT that within the fictional realm he inhabits there is to a large extent a sense of cause and effect and a forward moving passage of time.
Continuity reboots DESTROY that because they rip out a character’s past and make it clear to the readers that the cause and the effects are illusionary and don’t actually matter.
Couple that with the greater degree of emotional investment Spider-Man’s story encourages and rebooting him would be positively disastrous.
And that’s not even a hypothetical.
It proved disastrous when they rebooted him IN FILM a mere five years ago and even his soft reboot from 2007 has had vast damaging ramifications for the fanbase. Not AS bad the new 52 because the fanbase still holds onto the idea that something like OMD won’t happen again. But realistically the precedent has been set now.
Now sure...you could flip the script on some of what I said. You could argue that OMD is representative of how, continuity or not, reboots or not, creators will always reinvent their childhoods come hell or high water so why NOT reboot?
The answer being that when you have a continuity driven narrative that HASN’T had the precedent of rebooting it established creators recreating their childhoods nevertheless becomes more difficult and becomes less likely and easier to fix by writers who aren’t blinded by their nostalgia goggles.
Case in point, Marv Wolfman didn’t ACTUALLY put Spider-Man back into High school.
Dan Slott didn’t LITERALLY have him date Deb Whitman again.
Joe Quesada didn’t ACTUALLY go through with resurrecting Gwen Stacy, even though he came damn close.
Shit even with One More Day Marvel tried to sort of compromise between removing the marriage and just erasing those stories outright by (falsely) claiming every story happened the same way except they happened to not be married. They TRIED to keep as much continuity as possible. They even made a point of resurrecting Harry Osborn in a way that didn’t just Crisis style reboot his history, but in-universe explained his resurrection.
Why?
Because they KNEW there would be vast negative ramifications if they did anything more extensive.
Oh...and because they KNEW continuity was an important part of storytelling and financially profitable.
Like...their whole company was testament to that.
And wider pop culture corroborates that.
Soap operas.
YA novels like Harry Potter and Hunger Games
Telenovels such as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time, the Sopranos and House of Cards
Children’s shows like Adventure Time and Steven Universe
Every manga and anime series that has on balance been more successful than most DC or Marvel comic book series...which on balance is MOST manga and anime
The Marvel Cinematic Universe
Oh and the DC Animated Universe!
All these things have intrinsically involved continuity and found varying degrees of success. Whether it’s a reliable money spinner like daytime soap operas or vast critical acclaim and billions of dollars like the MCU, continuity has been one of the vital elements to ALL those things.
Now the arguments when it comes to at least Spider-Man specifically, is that a reboot can be a good thing because you can sweep away the bad stuff right?
Except most of the time the stuff you consider bad, even if it IS bad, is beloved by SOMEBODY.
Speaking from experience her I’d love to just erase Spider-Man from 2005 onwards but I’d never do it if I had that power because I know people love what has come since then, so I’d try to mind a compromise between what I want and what they like.
And I’d do that WITHOUT erasing and supplanting anything via a crisis style reboot because, as I’ve detailed, it simply plants the seeds for long term erosion and destruction.
It’s not even necessary.
Perhaps the single biggest clusterfucks of the 90s were the Clone Saga, Avengers the Crossing/Teen Tony Stark and Heroes Reborn.
All those stories created massive, ugly confusing messes for those characters.
It would’ve been so, so, so easy to just hit reset and delete those things but Marvel didn’t do that.
Instead they found in-universe solutions to fixing the problems. They in-universe made Peter Parker Spider-Man again and explained everything about the Clone Saga. They in-universe restored the original Tony Stark and fixed what they’d broken about him. They in-universe brought the Avengers and F4 back without rewriting their histories.
So all the problems Marvel and Spider-Man might have developed CAN and SHOULD be resolved IN-Universe as opposed to employing a cosmic rest button.
Finally I’d like to quickly address the argument (another on favoured by Bailey and DC fans) that the failure of the New 52 and most reboots was that they were not ‘clean breaks’.
That is to say that the New 52 COULD have worked if only stuff like Batman and Green Lanterns’ histories had also been begun from scrtch as opposed to retaining most of their pre-rebooted stories.
This is a patently nonsense argument when one considers that y this logic, the post-crisis era was itself not a truly clean reboot either.
Batman post-crisis actually DID retain a lot of stories from his pre-crisis self including most of Denny O’Neil’s iconic work on the character. Not to mention the fact that Dick Grayson had for years and years operated as Batman’s sidekick Robin.
Gaps were left in Superman’s history that allowed readers the flexibility to image certain pre-crisis stories happened during them, including all those times Lois Lane suspected and tried to prove Clark Kent was Superman.
Barry Allan despite dying in Crisis on Infinite Earths and beginning the post-crisis era as a corpse, had SOME kind of long history as the Flash (presumably one similar to his pre-crisis self) that led to him being the inspiration for his sidekick Wally West to become the new Flash.
And as mentioned the Teen Titans/Titans histories, especially as a team, were almost entirely retained going into the post-crisis era to the point where (much like Green Lantern and Batman in the new 52) they began life in the new rebooted DC universe as essentially a continuation of the storylines and big picture narrative that had been going on before the reboot.
When you think about it, there was maybe even less of a clean break for the post-crisis era as there was for the new 52 so the notion that it’s failure as a rebooted universe owed much to it not rebooting ENOUGH is ludicrous.
So...What are my over all points in all this?
· Continuity actually IS important, it’s not just a fan concern. Continuity is intrinsic to developing characters and world building, setting up stakes and over all building emotional (and thereby financial) investment for the audience.
· Reboots are toxic to this and form short term solutions that create far worse long term problems
· DC’s near perennial second place next to Marvel owes a lot to the lesser value DC places in continuity
· A reboot would be especially toxic for Spider-Man who, more so than any other Marvel character, really does NOT need one.
#Marvel#marvel comics#dc#dc comics#Spider-Man#Batman#Peter Parker#DC animated universe#dcau#mcu#marvel cinematic universe#new 52#nu52#dc new 52#dcnu52#Superman#Clark Kent#Lois Lane#Image#image comics#supreme#Crisis on Infinite Earths#convergence#Infinite Crisis#Power Girl#DC Rebirth#the flash#flash#barry allen#Wally West
48 notes
·
View notes
Text
Nyerus’ Victuuri Fic Rec List
These are in no particular order, really, just a list of my fave Victuuri fics—some of which I think a little less well known (but idk). I’ve been sitting on this for SO LONG that some of the “lesser known” ones are huge now hahaha! I’ll probably make a page for this or something later.
I pulled the “genres” mostly from the tags, but basically winged it based on what felt right. Most fics rated as “Explicit” in this list have smut in them so keep that in mind, but I’ve made special annotations as need be. I’ve also mentioned if there are any significant side pairings.
I’ve added mini-reviews (kinda) as well, which are just my personal thoughts on a fic without getting too spoilery, but you can feel free to skip them.
Current count:
Canon:7
AU: 21
(Quite long, so under a cut).
Canonverse
1.) Heartbreaker by drowsycyborg (Status: Complete – 3.1k words) – Teen
Genres: Pre-series, Outsider PoV, Detroit Days, Humor
Katsuki Yuuri is five foot eight, shy, and one of the most gorgeous and heartbreaking humans ever seen in Detroit.
In which Yuuri is Too Beautiful and Good and no one around him knows how to be chill about it. And thus, he unwittingly breaks a lot of hearts in Detroit. Set pre-series, it’s hilarious to see people lament over the sweet, lovely Katsuki Yuuri (long before we see poor Victor fall victim in-canon). Possibly part of a future series?
2.) katsuki_fc wrote by tetsurashian (Status: Complete – 12.7k words) – Gen
Genres: Social Media, Outsider PoV
Just because Yuuri isn’t big on social media, doesn’t mean his fans aren’t.(aka a social media fic)
Basically the series seen through a social media lens. In other words, the social media reactions one would expect to see in-canon if we got a glimpse of it! It feels very realistic and even incorporates actual fandom discourse (e.g. early fan theories and shipping). A huge round of applause for the author for getting AO3’s formatting to still somehow feel like LJ threads, Tumblr posts, and so on! I’ve read this like a dozen times already and always laugh when I do because it feels sooooo meta.
3.) Distance by surverycorpsjean (Status: Complete – 5.1k words) – Explicit
Genres: Post-series, Domestic, Fluff, Smut
They just can’t stand to be apart.
Victor and Yuuri never outgrow their honeymoon phase and it’s amazing and perfect. Adorable domestic fluff with some great smut (kitchen sex!) in the middle. (It’s set post-canon.) Without a doubt I can say: A+++
4.) The Fundamentals of Caring by braveten (Status: Complete – 20.8k words ) – Explicit
Genres: Hurt/Comfort, Fluff
“Let me guess, you’re going to go take care of Yuuri while he sleeps? Just in case he sneezes or something?” Yurio rolls his eyes, folding his arms across his chest. “Viktor, you’re whipped.”
Viktor rubs the back of his neck as he leans against the wall. “What does that mean?”
“It means that if Yuuri asked you to do a little dance for him in nothing but a coconut bra and a hula skirt, you’d do it.”
Viktor pauses, confused. “And that’s a bad thing?”
Yuuri gets sick while in Russia (not post-series) and Victor tries to take care of him while simultaneously trying to be Chill about it—but a deliriously affectionate Yuuri makes that very difficult. Yurio is eventually recruited to help and he makes Victor’s job harder and easier at the same time, somehow. Very cute!
5.) Lace and Satin by whatsup_buttercup (Status: Complete – 6.2k words) – Explicit
Genres: Established Relationship, Post-series, Lingerie, Light BDSM
“I won gold.” Viktor says, smile in his voice. “Whatever does that mean, Yuuri?”
Yuuri looks down. “Are you sure you don’t want something better?”
“There’s nothing better.” Viktor insists. “Nothing.”
Hoooooo boy! This fic hits basically EVERY single one of my kink so well and honestly I’m grateful it exists. Criminally underrated because it’s so well written and even the dirty talk is A+. It’s technically part of a series but can also work as a standalone (but do yourself a favor and read the other fic in this series too!!!).
6.) Need by sub_textual (Status: Complete – 8.2k) – Explicit
Genres: Post-series, Smut, Semi-public sex
What stands before Viktor now isn’t at all the Yuuri that had stripped off his clothes in front of a hundred people. This is Yuuri, beautiful and blushing, shy in all the ways Viktor knows he isn’t, too embarrassed to express what he really wants. This is Yuuri, abandoning the clasp of Viktor’s pants, to slowly undo Viktor’s tie. This is Yuuri, desperate and needy, ripe and ready for the taking, and he’s all Viktor’s.
Takes place directly after the series, during the banquet. Victor and Yuuri sneak off to the bathroom and get frisky. This fic is hot, ok. There’s a slight dab of exhibitionism and some dom/sub which makes things more exciting!
7.) Jason's Master Plan (to dating the Cute Asian Guy) by Qwertzu (Status: Complete – 9.8k words) – Teen
Genres: Post-series, Outsider PoV, Humor, Identity Reveal
Jason Hesling, young ice hockey prodigy, rising star of Detroit Ice Tigers and part-time model, had a smile that made women and men alike weak at their knees. It’s been a while since anyone managed to catch his attention – until he met the Cute Asian Guy at Detroit Ice Castle and decided to become his next boyfriend.
Meanwhile, the actual Ice Tiger™ is having the time of his life watching the pretentious JJ-wannabe trying to charm the pants off the completely oblivious, happily married Katsudon.
Hockey jock Jason tries his hardest to woo the “cute Asian guy at Detroit Ice Castle” but isn’t it too bad that said cutie is already happily married to someone else? If only if poor Jason knew.... This fic is honestly a riot and I had such a fun time reading it (and its follow-up fic). It seems to be part of a longer series and I eagerly await more installments! I guess I have a thing for Victuuri breaking everyone’s hearts by being so smitten with each other!
Alternate Universe
1.) Healthy Impropriety by mtothedestiel (Status: Complete – 29.5k words) – Explicit
Genres: Regency AU, Historical, Courtship
Victor is the wealthy master of the Nikiforov estate. At a society party he’s swept off his feet by the mysterious, suave, and very drunk Katsuki Yuuri. Victor aims to declare his love and secure Mr. Katsuki’s hand in marriage, but first he has to find him!
A legit Regency AU in which The Banquet happens Victorian-style and Victor, as always, falls head over heels for drunk Yuuri—who he then sets out to properly court. Victor is a rich, hopeless romantic and Yuuri is a sensible, normal guy trying to live his life. There’s lots of really cute, fluffy scenes between these two with a little bit of angst thrown in there to keep things interesting. It reads like a Jane Austen novel and has a lovely happy ending topped off with some smut!
2.) don’t want to be lonely just want to be yours by Linisy (Status: Incomplete) – Explicit
Genres: Idol AU, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Social Media, Alternating PoV
This time the flesh and blood Yuuri wasn't around to distract him, and he watched the video intently, hypnotized by the swing of Yuuri’s hips, the look in his eyes that burned with intensity and the strong, confident line of his shoulders. Yuuri was, as always, breathtaking.
Victor remembered their first meeting well. Yuuri was the last member to join the group. He was soft spoken, and he stood as if he were trying to make himself smaller, shoulders drawn inward, head tilted toward the ground, glasses slipping off his nose. Victor was surprised to hear that he was the second oldest behind Victor himself.
Everything changed the first time he saw him dance.
-
Vitya, Katsu, Yura, Beka and Chu make up the top idol group SVD. They've been through hell together, living in their tiny dorm and working toward the day they'd finally hit it big.
That day has finally come, but sometime over the course of the past three years, Victor has fallen in love with Yuuri Katsuki.
An idol fic that’s full of social media shenanigans, glamour, and emotions. Based on KPop idol groups (like BTS), this fic is a such treat and I can’t even properly articulate why!!! Along with the humor, it’s also incredibly realistic regarding the hardships faced by idol groups due to the heavy restrictions placed on their personal lives by the company that “owns” them. It’s got the right mix of fun and angst and honestly I think about this fic every day. I can’t wait for more!!!!
3.) My Name on Your Lips by feelslikefire (Status: Complete – 108k words) – Explicit
Genres: Historical Fantasy, Magic, Arranged Marriage, Royalty, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics
Yuuri Katsuki has been betrothed to the High King’s son, Victor, since he was just a child; furthermore, as an omega, he’s forbidden from practicing magic in combat. For years, he’s been able to put off the former because the Prince was traveling abroad, and gotten around the latter by practicing with his mentor in secret.
Now Victor Nikiforov has finally returned home, and Yuuri is being summoned to the capital for their wedding. He needs a plan to put off marriage long enough to find a way to break the betrothal, while keeping his practicing from being discovered.
If only the Prince didn’t have other ideas.
(Or, the swords-and-sorcery arranged marriage AU. Updates weekly.)
This is one of my personal favorites, featuring all my fave things: fantasy, magic, battles, intrigue, and a slow-burn! It does have A/B/O elements but even if that’s not your cup of tea you’ll enjoy this fic for all the other wonderful things it has to offer. The world building is great and the plot keeps you interested at all times. Never a dull moment and has a great mix of tension, fluff, angst, etc. Watch these two dorks fall deeply in love while also getting a fully fleshed-out story. It’s beautifully written.
4.) Yuuri Enchanted by the__magpie (Status: Complete – 57k words) – Teen
Genres: Fantasy, Fairytale, Slow Burn
At birth, Yuuri Katsuki was given the gift of obedience, although he quickly learns as he grows up that it is a curse. He has to obey any command given to him, even if it puts him or others in danger. Too afraid to face the terrifying outside world, Yuuri stays in his home town of Hasetsu, until a chance encounter with Prince Victor urges him to venture outside of his safe bubble. Determined to break his curse, Yuuri begins on an adventure involving fairies, ogres, true love, and courage he never knew he had.
An Ella Enchanted AU (based more on the book)! A great fairytale read even if you’ve never read the book (or seen the movie). I love it to bits and that’s all I can say!
5.) Retrouvailles by persephoneggsy (Status: Complete – 32k words) – Teen*
Genres: Historical, Childhood Friends, Friends-to-Lovers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics
retrouvailles: the feeling one gets after reuniting after a long time
After he presents as an Omega, Yuuri Katsuki is sent to study abroad for ten long years. When he returns, he’s far, far different from the adorable little boy that used to follow Victor around like a puppy.
Victor is shook.
A very sweet AU that has that regency-vibe. Features confident ballet dancer Yuuri and hopeless mess Victor. The Russian skating team is all one big family here and it’s great, while all the other skaters are dancers too. It has a shifting perspective between Victor and Yuuri, so we get to see what’s going on in both their heads. The A/B/O is pretty light apart from some plot details, so if that’s not your thing this fic is still very enjoyable. [*There is smut in the final chapter, which can be standalone/ignored, hence why the rating remains T overall.]
6.) A Place Like Home by whatsup_buttercup (Status: Complete -- 7k words) -- Explicit
Genres: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Post-series, Emotional Hurt/Comfort
“Do you still skate, Yuuri?” It’s bold of Hiroshi to use his first name, but the familiarity makes sense, considering what they’re discussing.
“No,” Yuuri says, empty. “Not anymore.”
Hiroshi reaches out and puts his hand over Yuuri’s. It’s a little hot from the tea. “If you choose me, we have a rink nearby. I’ll make sure you can skate every day.”
This is a heartbreaking A/B/O in which Yuuri ended things with Victor in Barcelona and is now under pressure to find a suitable mate. Luckily, Victor hasn’t give up on them, no matter what Yuuri may think. It’s a lovely and achingly sweet story, and I was so happy by the end!!!
7.) blood is thicker than by icanhinatashouyoutheworld (Status: Incomplete) – Teen
Genres: Enemies-to-Friends-to-Lovers, Custody Battle, Angst, Fluff, Eventual Romance
“You might be Yuri’s biological parent, Mr. Nikiforov. But I’m his father. If Yuri wants to go with you, that’s one thing,” Yuuri Katsuki’s voice flows quiet and dangerous into the room “but if he doesn’t, don’t think that you’re taking my child away from home,”
Or: Victor Nikiforov finds out he has a son. He wants full custody.
Katsuki Yuuri isn’t going to give up his child that easily.
Or: Victor and Yuuri fight a custody battle for Yurio. Shit happens.
Or: Yuri Plisetsky starts with one parent, and ends up with two.
A unique fic in which Victor is Yurio’s biological father, while Yuuri is his adoptive one. Yuuri is struggling to make ends meet and support his child while Victor is a rich supermodel. The relationship between Yuuri and Yurio is so achingly sweet and it’s very easy to root for Yuuri in this fic. It’ll be great to see how Yuuri and Victor eventually become friends and then lovers—so that they all become one big happy family!
8.) Kings in Couture by slightlied (Status: Incomplete) – Teen
Genres:Slow Burn, Alternate Occupations, Fashion
a devil wears prada au in which victor is the editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine, yuuri’s his new secretary, and instead of talking about his feelings, victor just sends him on a bunch of errands
A Devil Wears Prada-esque AU which I stumbled upon and am SO grateful for. It’s funny, cute, and features the whole cast in various roles. Yuuri is adorable and Victor is glamorous as ever. It’s such a fun read!!!
9.) Assassin’s Tango by MEIXIU (Status: Incomplete) – Explicit
Genres: Assassins AU, Secret Identity
They are the world’s most greatest assassins. Their identities are a secret, even from each other. One day, however, they discover that they have been assigned to kill one another and their reality comes crashing down on them both.
This is basically a Mr. and Mrs. Smith AU and I’m super excited about it! Features Victor as a suave hitman who’s still a hopeless romantic, and Yuuri as a clever honeypot—who’s juggling his job, school, and his new whirlwind romance. Lots of hot scenes mingled with fluff. Impending angst on the horizon, but the promise of a happy ending keeps me from crying too hard!
10.) The Rules for Lovers by ADreamingSongbird (Status: Incomplete) – Teen
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Urban Magic, Arranged Marriage, Mutual Pining, Royalty, Multiple PoV
Prince Yuuri Katsuki has a duty to his country, above all else (his desires, his dreams, and his happiness included), and he knows this alliance will help to ensure the safety of his people. That’s the only reason he accepts Prince Nikiforov’s hand in marriage. The pleasant surprise, of course, is the part where they fall in love along the way. The unpleasant one, well…
That’s a long story.
It’s always a treat to watch these two dorks fall hopelessly in love with each other. They might be engaged, but the mutual pinging intense and heart-wrenching. The political intrigue is just as compelling as Yuuri and Victor’s evolving relationship. The story shifts between many character’s perspectives, keeping things interesting. (And there’s some side Mila/Sara too!)
11.) I Write Sins, Not Tragedies by cuttlemefish (Status: Incomplete) -- Explicit
Genres: Arranged Marriage, Social Media, Mutual Pining, Romantic Comedy, Fluff
Things would be a little easier if Yuuri wasn’t so in love with his husband Viktor, especially considering they have an arranged marriage. Two years after their wedding, Yuuri and Viktor are incredibly in love, but can’t seem to get over the hump of their platonic union to consummate their marriage! Good thing Yuuri is the most (in)famous erotic fanfiction author of the Love in the Streets fandom. Now, he’s got the support of the Internet to figure out how to seduce his husband, if only he can continue to keep their identities a secret. Or, the AU in which everyone thinks Yuuri and Viktor have the perfect marriage full of adventurous sex when, in fact, Viktor sleeps in the guest bedroom and Yuuri writes erotic fanfiction to quench his thirst.
This is a HILARIOUS fic and that’s all I can really even say without doing this work a grave injustice. It’s very well-written and there’s no angst like I thought there would be. Just extreme thirst!!! Can’t wait to see these two get their shit together eventually and work off all that pent-up sexual frustration.
12.) Like a Fairytale by lucyamui (Status: Complete – 73.4k words) – Teen
Genres: Historical, Fairytale, Royalty, Fluff
In which Prince Victor gets swept off his feet at a royal banquet and will go to any length to find his ‘Cinderella’ Yuuri. (And Phichit is the fairy godmother who has no idea what he’s doing)
A Cinderella story in which the Grand Prix Banquet happens, in its own fairytale way. This story features enthusiastic Prince Victor and timid baker/pâtissier Yuuri. Along with Phichit as the Fairy God Mother! It’s fluffy, cute, and has plenty of mutual pining.
13.) lie to make me like you by cityboys (Status: Complete – 80k words) – Mature
Genres:Slow Burn, Alternate Occupations
It’s become a game, of sorts, to anyone privy to the fact that the pattern exists in the first place: ask Victor out at the beginning of the month, date for however many days, and wait for the end to come and for Victor to say, always: I couldn’t fall in love with you. Let’s break up.
Or, Victor is a retired actor looking for love, and Yuuri happens to be the (un)fortunate soul to unwittingly ask him out at the beginning of the month. Except relationships don’t come with a script, and it’s much harder understanding love than roles.
This is a wonderful and sweet slow burn featuring a lost Victor who’s trying to find something he doesn’t know he’s searching for, and a Yuuri who refuses to follow the “script” Victor seems to unwittingly run his life by. Yuuri takes no shit from anyone and constantly keeps Victor on his toes with how surprising he can be. I love both of these two here and watching them fit into each other’s lives is a real treat!
14.) All Eyes on Me by Kizuna_Auri (Status: Incomplete) – Explicit
Genres: Sex Worker AU (Camming), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Fluff, Smut
Yuuri, under the username of Eros, is a size queen omega who most certainly does not have an obsession with fellow camboy and legendary silver-haired alpha Aria. Just like Phichit is not the most meddlesome roommate known to man.
In which Yuuri and Victor are both camboys who happen to be fans of each other, and get set up to share their heat/rut for their audiences by their bffs and moderators, Phichit and Chris respectively. It’s surprisingly fluffy with alpha!Victor being a total sweetheart and omega!Yuuri being a shy bean who’s trying his best to keep up his Eros persona.This fic also highlights Yuuri’s insecurities and anxiety in a very realistic way and the difficulties than can come with being a camboy. The smut is intense and there’s plenty more plot on the horizon!
15.) The Promise of the World by pilindiel (Status: Incomplete) – Teen
Genres: Fantasy
When a self-conscious young man is cursed with an old body by a spiteful wizard, his only chance of breaking the spell lies with a self-indulgent yet insecure young wizard and his companions in his legged, walking castle.
The Howl's Moving Castle AU we all secretly wanted.
This is a straight up Howl’s Moving Castle AU!!!. Yuuri fits very naturally into the role of Sophie and Victor is a perfect Howl, but I assume we all knew that was the case already! It’s a very good read and has its own deviations from the source material to keep it feeling fresh.
16.) (Don’t) Ring the Wedding Bells by cuttlemefish (Status: Complete – 45k) – Explicit
Genres: Alternate Occupations, Social Media, Modern-day Cinderella
As (loosely) inspired by real life, this is the wedding reception AU (you didn’t ask for, but will get) in which Yuuri Katsuki catches the bride’s bouquet and (shortly after) gets smashed at a wedding reception, then dirty dances with his best friend, (sort of) seduces a (hot) platinum-haired trust-fund baby named Viktor, and ends up being hounded for his identity (by said trust-fund baby and his friends and family) on social media.
In which rich!Victor ends up getting woo’d by regular-guy!Yuuri at JJ and Isabella’s wedding reception and pulls out all the stops to find Yuuri again after he disappears. And does so in classic Victor style: as dramatically as possible. Meanwhile Yuuri’s just trying to live his life and forget the whole thing happened because of how embarrassing it was, but when you’ve basically become a meme, things get a little complicated. Still, Victor tries very hard to win Yuuri’s heart and Yuuri eventually finds that he’s very much in love. Naturally, there are some bumps along the way, but these two are made to last. It’s an overall fun AU that has its touching (and sexy) moments too! (May also be a part of a future series?)
17.) Imprisioned by Linisy (Status: Incomplete) – Mature
Genres: Supernatural (Ghosts), Slow Burn
For the past two years, Yuuri has been endlessly tormented by malevolent spirits. Just as he finds himself at the end of his rope, he meets Victor, an enigmatic man who possesses the ability to relieve him.
An AU in which both Yuuri and Victor have powers they don’t quite want, but find that the other might be what they need. Yuuri is a nervous ball of anxiety in this fic because of his ability to see ghosts, and Victor’s own ability leaves him generally isolated from people out of fear of getting too close to them. The whole concept is very unique and I absolutely adore cold(but kind)!Victor gradually warming up to Yuuri. Their interactions are great to read and get me every time!!!
18.) Bottle Me Your Smile by Ncj700 (Status: Incomplete) – Teen
Genres: Magic AU, Apothecary AU
In a tiny village on the edge of the kingdom, Yuuri Katsuki – common as mud Apothecary owner – embarks on a goal to achieve a childhood goal. With the help of the world’s greatest magical, he will achieve it.
A super cute fantasy AU that features Yuuri who’s a talented witch when it comes to potionmaking among other things, but is captivated by the powerful sorcerer Victor. Inspired, Yuuri tries to pursue a path of battlemagic, only to spectacularly fail and return to his home to live a quiet, humble life in his little apothecary. However, as fate would have it, Victor and Yuuri’s paths cross unexpectedly, and I can’t wait to see what adventures will unfold! Lovely world building and characterization.
19.) His Was Gold by AL_KILLER (Status: Incomplete) – Mature
Genres: Historical AU, Harem AU, Slow Burn, Angst
There were dozens of men and women in Tsar Victor Nikiforov’s harem, all of them attractive, ravishing, and beautiful. They wore provocative clothing, sweet smelling perfumes, and sparkling jewelry designed to catch the eye. All in hopes of being chosen by the Tsar for just one night.
Yuuri was the only one in the harem who didn’t want to be chosen. Yet, Yuuri was the only one the Tsar wanted.
I don’t usually read dark fics because I’m fairly sensitive and fragile, BUT! This one is amazingly well-written and evokes such powerful imagery that grips you and doesn’t let go. There’s an air of mystery here that is partly due to Yuuri’s limited perspective and also due to his unreliable-as-always narration, which the author uses masterfully. Even if you’re not a fan of dark fics, I suggest giving this one a go—it’s worth it. (Warnings for graphic descriptions of violence.)
20.) Story About You by heartsinhay (Status: Incomplete) – Teen
Genres: FanFic, Slow Burn, Humor
After his disastrous Japanese Nationals, Yuuri turns to the only thing that can comfort him: his old fanfic. Halfway across the world, Victor does the same thing.
Just picked up this fic the other day! Yes the “self-insert fic” is super cringey, but of course that’s the point! It’s hilarious to see poor Yuuri despair at his old writing (because, well, relatable) and to be caught off guard by a sudden fan of his works. I wonder who else would be suddenly and intensely interested in the little Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov ship in the figure skating “fandom,” haha! ;)
21.) 23. M. Looking for a challenge. by alykapedia (Status: Incomplete) – Teen*
Genre: Academic AU, Tinder AU, Humor,
“A cute boy with an ass like that says he’s up for a challenge and you send him a math problem?" (Giacometti, 2017).
A (not-so) comprehensive study on the (terrible) mating habits of (beautiful) grad student, Yuuri Katsuki, and (future) Nobel Laureate Viktor Nikiforov D. Sc.
(Or: That one where two physicists fall in love and set off a nuclear reaction. Except not really.)
Another new one that was recommended to me by friends and honestly, I LOVE IT. It’s the academic au you’ve always wanted and never knew you needed! Both Yuuri and Victor are adorable (yet crazy smart) in this and its just so clever in its writing. (*The rating might go up.)
Shameless self promotion:
1.) Celestial Gravitation (Status: Incomplete) – Explicit
Genres: Space AU, Fantasy AU, Action-Adventure, Political, Slow Burn
The Rossiyan Empire controls most of the galaxy. Most, but not all--not yet. The solution to the Emperor's ambitions lies in a rumored ancient weapon hidden on a lost world. The small, peaceful planet of Yamato holds the key to unlocking and utilizing said weapon. To secure their interests, the Emperor and his talented son--Prince Victor--venture to the planet to obtain the key: Prince Yuuri of Yamato. Knowing that any resistance could mean endangering his homeworld, Prince Yuuri and his family agree to the Emperor's terms. But he has foreseen this day coming and he will not go along with their plans as quietly as the Empire may expect him to.
What he hasn't foreseen, however, is the unlikely bond he develops with Prince Victor--a man he should be destined to hate, but finds he cannot.
If only galactic politics and ancient secrets didn't get in the way of love.
(A slow-burn, space-adventure AU in which there is advanced technology as well as magic.)
2.) Tessellation (Status: Incomplete) – Teen
Genres: Retelling, Victor PoV
It started at the banquet--the day Victor's life dramatically changed course. And from there, it was all uphill.
A Victor-POV project that follows the show episodically, for the most part. In other words: the show from Victor's point of view.
58 notes
·
View notes
Note
I'm sorry my post was really aggressive. I still stand by my point that it ISN'T fair to dismiss Mor's romantic feelings (or lack thereof) towards Az, but how I acted was really awful. You don't have to post this publicly, but I hope you know I'm very sorry. My intention wasn't to try to start drama, but just receive an explanation over WHY you still ship Moriel. My way of going about it was TERRIBLE. I know sorry is just a word, but I'M SORRY.
2/2 I didn’t send you three asks. I only sent you one? Just to clear that up.3/3 I also didn’t send more than one ask. :/
Okay Anon. While I find it extremely hard to believe because of the timing (especially because for as long as I have been on here, I have RARELY gotten asks, let alone 3 in such quick succession that are so similar), as well as the fact that you clearly don’t stand behind your words because you felt the need to do this all on anon/have to make sure we know that you still think we are wrong, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt & accept your apology.In regards to your question, why I still ship Moriel, @sarahviehmann honestly said it best in her original answer to you: “ACOMAF was written in a way that intended for them to be shipped. So those people spent a year building up their fanon and meta and so forth, only to have the rug pulled out from under them.”
(For the sake of everyone, I’m putting this under a cut. It got way long.)
I hated ACOWAR. I’ve made no secret of that. I’ve also made no secret as to WHY. I’ve been writing fic for this series for over a year, & heavily focused on ACOMAF. I started when there were literally 7 fics posted to Ao3. Basically all of my free time at home & all of my breaks at work were spent either writing fic, discussing the series/meta with people here/talking my poor friends’ ears off over dinner, or planning fic for characters I wanted to explore in POV fics like Rhys, Tamlin, & Tarquin. Hell, I still have a 10 chapter Amarantha POV pre-ACOTAR through ACOTAR fic that’s over half written at 16k that I originally wanted to try as a surprise for my readers. I read ACOMAF enough times that I honestly would have said that I knew those characters as well as my own family, knew exactly what happened in which chapters, & got many comments here & on Ao3 from people who felt I’d captured the characters correctly, so I felt pretty good about what to expect going forward.
When ACOWAR spoilers came out, absolutely nothing made sense with what we knew or had been prior established canon. Most of all in regards to Mor, Rhys, Feyre, & Lucien, but I’m going to specifically focus on Mor, since she’s at the crux of the issue at hand. In Mor’s case, we took a woman who is described in ACOMAF as “a queen who owned her body, her life, her destiny, and never apologized for it” & says to Feyre, “I once lived in a place where the opinion of others mattered. It suffocated me, nearly broke me. So you’ll understand me, Feyre, when I say that I know what you feel, and I know what they tried to do to you, and that with enough courage, you can say to hell with a reputation. You do what you love, what you need”, & in ACOWAR made her a victim in circumstances that make absolutely no sense for the character we had known up until that date. Queen of the Hewn City? She wasn’t even treated with enough respect to be prepared to go into a meeting with her abusers, let alone shown that she is in charge. The first real female friend Feyre has ever had? Regulated to acting like a jealous girlfriend around Cassian whenever Nesta got too close. And speaking of Cassian, it was pointed out in another post (I’m sorry I don’t have the link right now) that the Cassian & Mor moments read like they were originally Az & Mor moments & were hastily changed when suddenly they weren’t supposed to be even friends. Nothing in this book read like it had been edited for continuity.
There are many bloggers who are far more qualified than I am to speak on Mor’s coming out scene, & while there was a divide, there were quite a few I know & follow who felt it was poorly written/bad rep, & I agree with their reasoning. Besides the fact that I don’t believe for one dang second that no one in the Inner Circle at a minimum would have picked up on something bothering Mor in 500 years or that she wouldn’t have at least told them even if she hid everything from Keir, there is the fact of Azriel. Azriel is in love with her, no disputing it. But it is mentioned by Rhys that Az has always thought himself unworthy of her, & Mor says that she could take her clothes off in front of him & he wouldn’t do anything. Does that sound like someone who is trying to avoid him because she isn’t interested, or someone who is creepily stalking her? In the Nessian short Wings & Embers, Cassian speaks on their relationship as well: “He wasn’t stupid. He knew she and Azriel were … whatever they were. Knew Azriel had been in love with Mor from the moment she’d strutted into the war-camp five centuries ago. And Cassian had been jealous—of Mor’s shy glances at Azriel in those first few weeks, and the fact that his dearest friend and brother … was looking at someone else.”
I’m not going to rehash Wings & Embers or ACOMAF for you. But as Sarah said, it was clearly written with them as a ship in mind, & this is from the POV of a character that has known them since the beginning, not just a few months like Feyre.
Why I still ship Moriel at this point? Because I ship it in any form. I love her & Az together period, even as friends. This ship was one of the ways @illyriantremors & I bonded originally, before we found out how much else we had in common & she became as good as a biological sister to me (I call her my Threadsister for a reason), because we shipped it back in the beginning before there was really any fic for it because it was overshadowed by Feysand, Nessian, & Elucien. Moriel was our Nessian; the unconfirmed side-ship with so much potential & evidence to back it up. When Sierra met SJM at San Diego Comic Con last summer, SJM dedicated Sierra’s copy of ACOMAF to Moriel. Why the af would an author do that if they planned to destroy a ship in the next book from the beginning?
We still love Moriel because it is hard to let go of something you’ve loved that much after you’ve been strung along & then had the rug pulled out from under you with no actual basis in ACOMAF to say “oh, it was there all along”; like when rereading ACOTAR through the ACOMAF filter, as I like to say to people, & seeing the clues that were left to the deeper story for Rhys. For me, those were not in ACOMAF upon reading it again after ACOWAR. I noticed you using my tags in your defense of yourself to Sarah regarding why I wanted to ignore ACOWAR &, by your interpretation, erase Mor’s sexuality. If you had read any of my blog at all after ACOWAR, you would have read that isn’t true, but I’ll spell it out for you: I want to ignore ACOWAR & what it did to my favorite characters’ personalities/their interactions with each other. I want to forget that Mor’s agency was taken away from her & that she was regulated to a plot twist. I want to forget that Az has been made out to be a creepy stalker. I want to forget Rhys treating Mor like she would be too emotional to deal with the negotiations with Kier & Eris & so he & Az didn’t tell her. I want to forget Feyre using Lucien to make Tamlin jealous in the Spring Court while she dismantled it from within & putting him in danger. And so much more.
I personally hate the book for multiple reasons, ranging everywhere from inconsistent characterization to grammar/editing issues. But I’m stuck with the facts it gave us, which is why writing fic is so hard to even consider anymore. It made everything about the series, not just Mor & Az, something I no longer can love with the intensity I once did, & the fandom diminishes that love more & more everyday with their bullying of people for not believing exactly the way they do, which is exactly what you contributed to when you sent those asks to myself & Sierra. And honestly, I couldn’t care less what you think of me. But if you had even looked at one of Sierra’s actual written posts/answers to asks—just one—you would have seen how quiet she’s been about her love for them as a ship & how determined she’s been to not to offend people while she’s been trying to come to terms with losing something that has been a lifesaver for her, to the point she has mostly stopped contributing to the fandom at all. She posted two Moriel drabbles during her birthday week because she was inspired by the Azriel candle I got her for her birthday, & as she said to you in her response to your original message, they were her way of saying farewell to Moriel. And guess what: even though it isn’t canon, people liked them.
I view Mor as bi, & if she’s given a healthy, happy female love interest in a future installment, then awesome. I want Moriel at least as close friends because I genuinely don’t think Az (at least the one from ACOMAF that actually made sense) would begrudge her if he knew the truth. Would he be sad? Sure, but I think he would support her nonetheless, just as the rest of the Inner Circle would. But I have absolutely no faith that SJM will give Mor anything good because she can milk the drama and turmoil she’s created, & I have no desire to see the characters & ships (across the board) I have loved so much destroyed any further.
I think @my-name-is-fireheart put it perfectly in her chime in on Sarah’s post: “Also, we should keep in mind that Mor expresses sexual attraction to men, she just prefers women. How she feels about men romantically is also blurred, though it’s slightly more clear. She says she doesn’t think she loves Az romantically but she doesn’t want to try it just to see.” SJM didn’t even know how to break her own ship apart properly to fit what you suggested, which is a good chunk of why we are even having this discussion right now.
I know Moriel is no longer canon. Cazigan (Cassian/Azriel/Mor) isn’t canon either, but I still love that. I have enjoyed their interactions with each other more than anything else since they were introduced in ACOMAF. The entire Inner Circle made me so happy for their closeness & how much of a family they were. I feel for a plot twist & a couple extra Benjamin Franklins, SJM destroyed everything that made one of my favorite characters in the entire series who she was (a strong, independent woman who didn’t let her circumstances break her & showed Feyre how not to let hers break her) & made her a poor caricature of herself, & made Az something he never has been before either because SJM hastily had to make her new & poorly executed addition work.
I shouldn’t be surprised though. This is the woman who attempted to retcon Eris of all characters into a decent person. And also took away any modicum of being able to read Tamlin as the multifaceted antagonist he had been & just turned him into a completely hateful ass with no loyalty to anyone to further drive home how perfect Rhys is supposed to be (which he definitely is not in ACOWAR, & I say that as someone who loved the morally grey character of Rhys).
TL;DR I ship Mor with Az in any form, even as friends, Mor being bi is not an issue, & I have lost all respect for SJM as an author after ACOWAR for giving us a poorly written/poorly edited product after the anticipation/hype this book had. Make of that what you will; I don’t care. I’m out of effs to give, & your ask & the other Az one I received, no matter who it was from or what your intentions were, pretty much tipped the scale in favor of me wanting to step back even further & have nothing to do with this fandom ever again.
I would ask that next time you think you have a problem with someone (because I doubt Sierra & I will be the last people you do this to), please think about how it comes across & think about your target. Your original ask was terribly hateful, & there is no amount of apology that can take that hurt away. And you would be amazed how far a little kindness & grace when asking a question instead of an accusatory message can go.
This explanation is more than you probably bargained for when you started this yesterday, but that’s the last I’ll say on any of this.
#kitashianswers#Anon Answers#Moriel#Mor deserved better#Az deserved better#anti-SJM#anti-acowar#long post#sorry to my followers#discourse & meta aren't my thing#but seriously#sending hateful messages to people is never the answer#especially on anon
17 notes
·
View notes
Link
My friend Emma is the lit editor for Third Coast Review, a website following Chicago-based culture. She solicited my response to a novel that I thought would be a joy to read! And sometimes it was. The below reproduces my notes and feints as I worked toward producing what became a fairly strident response for her section, which ultimately surprised me. I read what was published on the site to Daniel and he said, “Wow, it’s unmistakable that you hate the novel!” and while this didn’t perplex me, I thought, Oof, I don’t actually hate the novel, I just have opinions about its shortcomings. So the below is also, I guess, something of my softer, second consideration.
—
I read Browning's first novels, I'm Trying to Reach You (2012) and The Correspondence Artist (2011), a few winters back, at a rare juncture of poverty and exhibitionism. I had no money, no standards, and I was tired of staying indoors grousing over very cheap meals. I volunteered for a community dance project having never done anything like that before—that is, aside from drunkenly dancing my ass off in bars. I thought it would be constructive to turn a thing I loved to do, but that nevertheless filled me with deepest shame (trust me, I really broke it off at weddings), into a more mindful, more healthful and more regimented activity. It would get me out of the house, I thought, and it was free. I would be a part of making art, which is usually prohibitively expensive, as anyone with a fine arts degree can tell you. For dance, for this dance, the choreographer requested only that we show up on time. I'm a freak about punctuality. The stars had aligned.
Browning is herself a dancer (and an academic, and of course a novelist) and the narrators in her novels are same. The performing body and its capacities as a connecting medium (shamed and celebrated), this is the great inquiry of her work. If I felt, in that first month of reading her books while also dancing for the scrappy little corps, that I was conversing with her ideas—augmenting thesis with praxis—then I also responded to the novels’ meta-inquiry, the nagging suspicion that dancing for the company increased my sense of disconnection and isolation; that I had waded, in fact, into embarrassment. I might love to shake my body, I might even have the intensity and ferocity of a really expressive dancer—but that doesn’t mean I actually contributed in a meaningful way to a successful artistic enterprise. Being a part of an artistic failure, besides, is its own kind of experience, albeit one we try to avoid.
Browning’s latest novel The Gift probes the narrator’s compulsion to create “inappropriate intimacies,” while working to define what those intimacies could possibly be. Some of this work is done through dance—articulating intimacy by bringing us into proximity with a body, with the body’s hands, the body’s nakedness and movement—and a lot of this work is done through failure: failing to arrive, failing to tell the truth, failing to appear. Are we foremost bound up in bodies? When we extend ourselves across mediums—social, textual, televisual—and when we breach boundaries of cultural and creative divides, is the effect additive (increased sensorium, expanded presence) or subtractive (do we just spread ourselves too thin). How is intimacy sustained, enhanced, or encountered at all via absence?
Browning only half sustains her inquiry “novelistically” (with characters and situations), relying instead on a more academic mode of glosses, summaries, interpretations and applications of post-structural theorists and other en vogue critical discourses. A character is rarely in love without also examining that “love” through a lens of affect, queer, disability, and/or political theory. Sexual acts go through the Lacanian ringer. Emails, reproduced, irritatingly, seemingly unedited, are examined and replied back to at length. (Having a JSTOR account on hand isn’t necessarily a prerequisite, but it can really help.) On Browning’s website, she calls her works “fictocriticism,” an uglier version, I suppose, then Lance Olsen’s “critifiction,” though the fussiness of these designations could be swapped out with “auto-fiction” or “metafiction” with minimal loss in comprehension of the novel’s interest in formal innovation and authorial exposure.
I’m an advocate of Browning’s work but I want to be careful to express my unremitting frustration with this novel. Her avatar, Barbara Andersen, guides the reader through a series of low-heat, low-friction performance art encounters, recalled in (admittedly) hazy detail. The opulence of the narrator’s apologies on behalf of her faulty memory feels like the extension of a crude olive branch from the author herself, apologizing to the “real” people and their “real” projects the book describes. Some of these details are a bit off! It’s very much graduate student winking at the professor in the middle of a dissertation, or perhaps the dissertation’s acknowledgements section. I used to format edit those; that was my stipend work as a graduate student; the impulse is touching. Reproducing that impulse in fiction is, I think, meant to be a selfless corrective against critical overreach: the narrator doesn’t want to totalize or co-opt someone else’s experience or someone else’s performance: this “liminality” is ethically less suspect but makes for ponderous, slack descriptions of what would be better served by brute assertion of detail. (I just looked up “liminality” and it’s a term used in anthropology. Wikipedia says: “In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold") is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete.” Browning would probably appreciate the idea that her sometimes fuzzy reenactments mean the readers must do the collaborative work of more fully imagining the novel’s happenings, the novel’s timeline, etc.)
Browning is adept at staging intellectuals in their milieus; she’s also acute in describing their off-hours, when they’re frustrated, alone, bouncing bad rent checks, and dithering away on deadlines. The Gift’s academic, in her off-hours, makes ukulele covers of sentimental pop songs, and begins a hiccupy romance with a musical savant in Germany. Whether you find yourself engaged by this part of the book may in part have to do with whether you’ve read Browning’s other novels, and whether you’re at all stimulated by a belated discussion of “the real” at a time when most any fourteen-year-old is versed on the personas we create online and the messy ways those personas betray our offline, “RL” bodies. It might also help if you love to dance or spend long hours avoiding your actual work (that is, the work your employer expects to compensate you for) (as I often do) watching YouTube videos of people dancing. Having a love for the mores of the academy and the scruples of graduate students and the particulars of cultural reportage also helps. Jennifer Doyles’ Hold It Against Me, a study of emotions and affect in in art (Ron Athey, Aliza Shvarts, James Luna), should figure but somehow does not.
Lauren Berlant crops up in Browning’s novels, and for this I read her essay “Affect Is the New Trauma” (wasn’t paywalled!), a discussion about “work” in the academy—a truly broad designation of activity that doesn’t necessarily look like “labor,” and that doesn’t necessarily describe a “career.” A painter sitting in his studio looking at a canvas is still “painting,” is my example. And professors, Berlant writes, describing her own procedures, “we are allowed to experiment and fail, to be wrong and revise, to get distracted, to not know what we’re doing while we’re doing it, to stop in the middle, to follow our instincts and hunches, not just building on established foundations. We are allowed to demand patience for the obscure, the experimental, the political, and the pedantic.” This is The Gift to a tee.
I would argue that the mediated self is a poor substitution for the living presence in all of Browning's works, not only especially this one. The German musician in The Gift, a mysterious figure who seems to drive the plot’s engine of desire, has a literal amputation—his leg above the knee—and a more figurative one, in his autism, which affects his ability to communicate and emote. He becomes a missed connection, and, if I’m reading the novel’s ending correctly, an ultimately abandoned one. Browning’s previous novel I’m Trying to Reach You said it right in the title: her characters are stymied by missed connection, by the shortcomings of most communiques, and then they’re heartbroken. You might send a stranger a quick ukulele cover, but it doesn’t mean that stranger will thank you.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Below is an interview with Marie Louise Muscat Azzopardi, a pilgrim who walked the European Peace Walk (EWP) in 2017, and friend of guest blogger James Portelli.
Pilgrim Interview: European Peace Walk
By James Portelli
Meeting Marie Louise
Marie Louise
Have you ever crossed paths with someone who strikes you as a breath of fresh air, a person brimming with positive energy? My wife Tucc and I have known such a person—Marie Louise—for a few years now and we always look forward to meeting her on treks we join. I recently met with Marie Louise to discuss her most recent trek, the European Peace Walk.
A mother of three and a grandmother of two, Marie Louise is a Camino aficionado and a member of the Ramblers’ Association of Malta, a walking group she joined in 2005. She is often the go-to person for scouting a local trek. But since her retirement from teaching English and French three years ago, Marie Louise has taken a more active role in the Ramblers’ Association not only in Malta but also throughout Europe. She is now responsible for the association’s annual walking calendar, which includes over seventy different walks per year—some of which she leads—and she helps organize walking trips abroad, the latest starting from Sweden (Eurorando Trekking Week) and from Spain (Catalonia Trek Festival).
I ask Marie Louise what draws her to long-distance walking. She explains, “A knee injury more than a decade ago made me give up triathlons. Long-distance walking provided me with the freedom to experience new places and people and establish a rhythm of walking in constantly changing landscapes that helped me to de-stress and to unclutter my mind. Meeting people—young and old—from all walks of life is so invigorating.”
In 2008 Marie Louise completed her first Camino (Camino Francés), walking over thirty-two days from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago. This Camino for her was a solo experience and, in many respects, a character building and personal development process from which she emerged enriched. Marie Louise reflects.
“The overall experience also strengthened my faith in divine Providence. My personal experience is this: God provides what you need when you need it and sometimes when you least expect it.”
Various episodes and numerous people on the Camino Francés helped strengthen this conviction. After Marie Louise’s first Camino, there was no turning back. She asked herself, “Now, what next?” What followed was a series of Caminos.
In 2009 Marie Louise walked over 750 km from Le Puy, across the Massif Central, to Roncesvalles in Spain. She followed this trek with the Camino Primitivo. Next she embarked on a three-week trek covering part of the Arles route in France, starting in Toulouse and then linking up with the Camino Piemontese, stopping at the monastery at Tarasteix, and then on to Lourdes before crossing the Pyrenees on the Somport Pass. From there she joined the Camino Aragonés, finishing at Puente la Reina. Marie Louise’s last Camino route experience was the Norte, starting from Irun/San Sebastián and finishing in Oviedo.
The European Peace Walk
Marie Louise first heard of the European Peace Walk (EPW) through Facebook. Although similar to the Camino in many respects, the walk’s newness drew her to it initially.
The EPW is still in its infancy. “The 2017 European Peace Walk,” explains Marie Louise, “was the fourth since it was first launched, so I feel like I am one of the pioneers trailblazing this route.”
The EPW is around 570 km long starting in Sopron, Hungary, (an hour’s train ride from Vienna) passing through Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia, and finishing in Trieste, Italy. The walk follows more or less the front line of the First World War and borders segments of the Iron Curtain.
Iron Curtain Trail
“It is a very sobering experience walking beneath the now abandoned but still standing sentry towers,” explains Marie Louise.
What distinguishes EPW from the Camino Francés or other Caminos?
I ask Marie Louise what distinguishes the EPW from the Caminos and, as a veteran Camino walker, how she adapted to the differences.
Similar to the average Camino, the EPW takes approximately three weeks to cover, and just like on the Caminos, the walk fosters camaraderie and new friendships. What’s very different is the EPW registration requirement.
Registration is required and necessary because accommodations on the EPW are still relatively limited. A daily limit of ten walkers starting the EPW ensures that there are enough beds at every stage. To a great extent, this limit also regulates the daily tempo because walkers have to cover a fixed amount of kilometers per day to reach the next accommodations. Distances vary roughly between 25 km and 35 km per day.
Not surprising, a registration process necessitates a registration fee. Although nominal at € 50 ($60 approx.), the registration fee is more than a Camino credential. But there are benefits to being registered that one does not enjoy on the traditional Caminos. For example, it is easier to monitor the number of walkers per stage and—in case of emergency or distress—it is beneficial that one is already known to EPW organizers.
Another notable difference from most Camino routes (and one walkers must especially plan for) is cafés and restaurants are few and far between on most stages of the EPW.
Also, unlike the Camino routes, the EPW is not open all year round. For example, in 2017 the trail is open from May to September. In early May two organizers walk the trail refreshing the red paint on the arrows and fixing the red stickers that act as waymarks. And although the route is very well marked, because the terrain and landscape constantly change, walkers must be very careful to not miss a turn. Unlike the Camino, EPW is not a beaten trek, so one wrong turn can cost additional hours of walking.
Finally, although there is a possibility of shortening the walk by either taking a bus or taxi, one cannot just stop halfway through a day’s walk and decide to spend the night in a different albergue (hostel) as one does on the Camino. Accommodations are pre-planned and, therefore, the number of walkers starting per day is pre-planned. For better or for worse, one tends to walk with the ten persons with whom one started the EPW. However, this does not preclude walkers from adopting their own pace.
Marie Louise recalls from her earlier Caminos, “I was accustomed to and preferred waking up early, setting off at or before sunrise and walking briskly during the cooler morning hours.” She tells me she continued this practice on the EPW, then explains, “Others left later and then either our paths would cross in the afternoon or we would meet at the next accommodation in the evening where we would not only share dinner but also the day’s experience—not unlike what one would do on the Camino.”
Lake en-route
So with all its differences from the Caminos, how did Marie Louise feel about starting the EPW and walking with the same group of people?
“I invariably find the first couple of days of any long-distance walk relatively awkward. Have I packed too much? Have I packed too little? Can I manage the backpack for 25 to 30 km on a very warm day? Will I have to endure blisters? Will I be allowed to walk solo or will I have to walk at someone else’s pace making polite conversation?” But she admits, “The process grows on you and after a few days it is surprising how we bonded despite the various nationalities, backgrounds, or characters. Albert Einstein’s adage ‘Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding’ would perhaps be a befitting motto for the Peace Walk. In this respect, EPW is not dissimilar to the Camino in the spirit of camaraderie that it fosters.”
Marie Louise started the EPW on June 3, arriving in Trieste on June 21. In early June walkers endured a heat wave that hit Europe, and Marie Louise’s group was impacted. The heat wave incentivized her to start walking earlier each day. “I used to wake up at 4:30 a.m. and start walking by 5:15 a.m. in order to avoid prolonged walks in intense heat and sunshine. This meant that I savored a sunrise en route every day. Later on in the day, as the sun started beating down on us it became more a matter of mind over body. With six to eight hours of walking per day, I generally reached the next destination by early afternoon.”
But, of course, one major plus of long-distance walking, even for those who, like Marie Louise, prefer to walk solo, is the new friendships one strikes while trekking. Marie wasn’t the only one waking up early to avoid the heat. “I hit it off with a lovely Canadian couple who, like me, were early risers. We used to slip out of the house at sunrise, walk a short way together, then separate and walk at our own pace, meeting again as the day wore on. There were segments of the trek that were relatively deserted. Consequently, having some company or knowing that I am not far behind or ahead of a familiar face proved comforting then.”
Daybreak en-route
Roadside Shrine
What were the longest and shortest walking days on the EPW?
I ask Marie Louise to recall her longest and shortest walking days on the EPW.
“The longest day was from Bistra to Postojna. Although the guide book said 33 km, I walked for around 36 km because of a wrong turn that I took earlier on during the day. I walked for nine hours that day.
“The shortest walking day was just 18 km from Ocizla in Slovenia to Trieste in Italy. This being our last segment, all seven from the original ten (three had stopped earlier for various reasons) walked together. The pace was also more relaxed on this last day as we enjoyed every remaining moment knowing that we would soon be reaching our destination.”
Which EPW experiences stayed with Marie Louise?
On any walk some experiences are more memorable than others. Marie Louise tells me which ones stayed with her.
“The group consisted of a recently retired Canadian couple, an Australian couple, two Irish friends, and three ladies from Isle of Man, United Kingdom and USA, respectively. I catch myself remembering topics we discussed along the way or during evening dinners, jokes and laughter that we shared en route or over a beer. Overall,” Marie Louise reflects, “it was a personally heartening experience.
Strawberries en-route
“Then, there were all the people we met along the way who weren’t trekkers. For example, an old white-haired woman who came out to meet us and offered us cherries and strawberries just picked from her garden. She refused any payment. There was a man whom we approached to ask for the way to a café, and he invited us to his house for coffee or a homemade lemon drink.” Marie smiles. “Then there were all the warm, friendly hosts who opened their houses to lodge us and feed us. We spent hours chatting with them and getting to know each other in an environment that was more like a home.
“I also shouldn’t forget Marlis who welcomed us with basins of cold water and salt for our poor battered feet on our arrival, and then woke up at 5:00 a.m. the next morning to prepare mushroom omelets for us to have with her freshly brewed coffee. Heaven forbid that we start the day on an empty stomach!
“It doesn’t stop there! There was Branco, a schnapps connoisseur, who demonstrated to us how he makes his own schnapps and also gave us a bottle for the road to be able to have a celebratory drink in Trieste.”
Are accommodations pre-paid on the EPW?
Marie Louise explains that, although the accommodations are booked automatically at the time of registration, one pays for accommodations at every stop. (Conveniently, most accept credit cards.) She discusses the accommodations and sleeping arrangements walkers can expect.
16th Century House
“Another attraction for me was that accommodations vary significantly from one stop to the next. We slept in yurts (tent-like dwellings), on a horse-farm, a few hostels, a massive sixteenth-century house perched on a hill, an old but well-restored cottage (complete with the Flintstones’ car in the backyard). Understandably, there was a degree of anticipation among the walkers as to what to expect at our next abode for the night. All possessed their own distinctive charm.”
Flintstone car
An average day’s accommodations and subsistence costs on the EPW are comparable to the Camino. Most of the EPW accommodations cost € 24 to € 30 (approx. $28 to $35) per night, including breakfast and dinner. And what are sleeping arrangements like?
“In some cases, we were sleeping two to a room. There were nights where I had the room to myself. Then again we also made use of small dormitories, sleeping on bunks beds. For example, once in a little village in Hungary, the local youth center transformed their town hall (which also doubled up as a small theater) into a dormitory with two lines of single beds replacing the audience seats. But even when accommodations were relatively Spartan, the level of service, in terms of cleanliness, housekeeping, and so on, was generally outstanding. I only needed to use my sleeping liner twice as on all the other nights clean sheets and pillows were provided.”
A Yurt
But when I ask Marie Louise for any advice she offers this regarding the yurts: “Ask for a duvet before you settle in for the night. The general rule is that the hotter the day has been, the colder the night would get.”
Cottage Accommodation
Are there sightseeing opportunities on the EPW? Is there an equivalent of the statue hugging ritual or the Botafumeiro (censer) once one reaches Trieste?
Marie and I wrap up our discussion, talking about the sights, the historical contexts of the Caminos and the EPW, and probably the most distinguishing difference between the two walks.
One can plan to spend an extra day in, for example, Ljubljana, or visiting Lake Bled or Zagreb while on the EPW. However, this very much depends on whether one wishes to “break” the tranquility of mainly countryside walks, since cities always bring with them some crowds and chaos, particularly during the summer months—bearing in mind that central Europe is a popular summer tourist destination. Notwithstanding this, an extra day in Trieste at the end of the walk is highly recommended. In fact, upon reaching Trieste, it has become something of a tradition to take a photo in Piazza Unità d’Italia with the backdrop of the Palazzo del Municipio or the Adriatic Sea.
One would not expect to find a cathedral or religious ceremony at the end of the EPW because its rationale differs from the Camino: the EPW does not have a legacy of Christian and medieval history. (Perhaps this best explains the absence of the hugging of the statue, a religious service or the Botafumeira.) Instead, the EPW emanates from a relatively more recent and more turbulent history: the wars that ravaged Europe in the twentieth century.
The open borders enjoyed in Europe today are the result of the freedom of movement fostered by the European Union (EU). The precursor of the European Union was the European Economic Community (EEC) established by the 1957 Treaty of Rome, just a few years after the death of Stalin and at the height of the Cold War. Not only has the European Union succeeded in ending wars between major powers in Europe but it has also prevailed over the Cold War and unified more countries into one region. The Camino de Santiago de Compostela benefitted greatly from EU initiatives (particularly those from the 1980s to the present) because it was also seen as a unifying force for good within Europe with Caminos from as far afield as Poland.
The EPW is symptomatic of this unifying ethos and Trieste (once part of the Habsburg monarchy and and, at one time, an influential Austro-Hungarian city and seaport) strongly resonates (even now) three different cultures: Italian, Austrian, and Slovenian. In addition to its rich heritage, Trieste had also its dark moments. A testament to one of these moments is the Risiero (old rice mill), which was converted to a concentration camp during World War II. All of these influences, plus the Cathedral of San Giusto, the Jewish Quarter, the Miramare Castle, the Canale Grande, the James Joyce and Svevo Museums, the Trebiciano Abyss, and the Grotta Gigante, add to the magnificent chiaroscuro masterpiece that is Trieste.
Piazza Unita Trieste
“Reaching Trieste is not like reaching Santiago!” confirms Marie Louise, “but the significance of the European Peace Walk—not unlike life—is not in the destination but in the journey.
“Upon reaching the main square in Trieste, we hugged, took some photos, and—of course—shared the schnapps supplied earlier by Branco. After that, the Adriatic Sea beckoned and we followed. It was a refreshing end to a spectacular three-week experience.
“The EPW lacks the credential concept because the hosts at every accommodation are already expecting you. But this also means that there is no “Welcome Desk” at the end of the EPW similar to the Pilgrims’ Office where all the peregrinos (pilgrims) congregate to collect their Compostela. This will perhaps come as the EPW grows. Admittedly, the stamped credential and the Compostela are mementos that one tends to treasure following a Camino experience. A similar concept, if introduced on the EPW, would also serve the same purpose.”
Marie Louise highly recommends the EPW to peregrinos because of its authenticity. It is not yet commercialized, and locals still stop walkers to ask where they are walking and why. “It is as if,” Marie Louise thinks, “both hosts and travelers are still discovering and enriching the whole experience.”
James Portelli
James Portelli is an occasional guest author on this blog who wrote route reports about his experience on the Camino Inglés in 2016. Read more of James’s posts:
Santiago to Finisterre
Montserrat, A Day to Remember
La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona
Life Is a Journey: Siezenheim to Santiago
Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
Loving Myself
The Here and Now
Camino Baltica
Pilgrim Interview: European Peace Walk #EuropeanPeaceWalk #EPW #IronCurtainTrail #PeaceWalk #Camino Below is an interview with Marie Louise Muscat Azzopardi, a pilgrim who walked the European Peace Walk (EWP) in 2017, and friend of guest blogger James Portelli.
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
alteahotel-blog
El blog online de viajeros creado por Nerea
elubunny-blog
Title Incoming Soon
williamsmybeloved
© CEO of SiMP racing
myllablogs-blog
Mylla bholgary
mxgxn
i'm well aware that i change my aesthetic too much