#i think this is my longest piece of meta ever
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in the last ep of the anime, i noticed that it cut out to the ending directly before vanitas could actually take noes hand, and i wondered if that was referencing what noe said about vanitas at the beginning.
Oh that's such a good catch! You're absolutely right anon, and I think we can take your idea even further than that.
I've talked about this in a previous post, but VnC's running refrain of Noé reaching for Vanitas's hand is really symbolic. Noé has saved Vanitas from literally falling multiple times, but their entire relationship is also one big metaphorical outstretched hand. Vanitas is "falling" down toward his inevitable doom as he self destructs via his revenge, and Noé is grasping out desperately as he tries to catch him and save him from that fate.
"That day when I didn't grab your hand" (which I assume, along with killing him, is what you mean by "what Noé said about Vanitas") might refer to a future event in which Noé will literally fail to catch Vanitas. But more importantly, it's a reference to the larger truth. By Noé's definition of salvation—in terms of preventing his death, Noé is going to fail to save Vanitas. No amount of reaching out can prevent his ultimate fall.
Within this metaphor, then, the scene on the rooftop after the amusement park can be summed up simply. It's the scene where Vanitas finally lets himself reach for Noé's offered hand.
I mean this in three ways.
The first way is the literal way. The scene ends with Vanitas reaching up to take Noé's hand and be helped to his feet. And despite the sheer frequency of Noé reaching out for or trying to catch Vanitas, this is only the second time we see Vanitas actually reach up and take Noé's hand to be helped of his own accord. The only other time is in the catacombs, right before he decides to tell Noé about Doctor Moreau for the first time.
In the catacombs, Vanitas taking Noé's hand works as a symbolic gesture of trust and an acceptance of Noé's help with the Moreau case. Noé has been forcing his help on Vanitas up until this point, staying up late by the door just to follow him out, but taking his hand is the moment that Vani starts to willingly bring him into the fold. The literal is never just literal with these guys.
The second way comes when Vanitas tells Noé that he's "given up on making him do what he wants." As I said, Noé has spent the entire manga reaching out and trying to save Vanitas from his "fall." One major facet of that is his recurring refusal to let Vanitas isolate himself. He makes a willful declaration of staying by his side when Vanitas tries to dismiss him in the bell tower, and when Vanitas tries to cut Noé out of his life by the blade of a knife, Noé comes back with "I will never set you free." Vanitas wants, or at least claims he wants, Noé to leave him the hell alone, but Noé says no every time.
"Giving up on making Noé do what he wants," then, means that Vanitas has finally let himself accept that he wants Noé by his side. There's no more pretending he doesn't want his help or his presence. No more trying to shove Noé away every time he's upset. At least in this moment (though we'll have to see if he holds himself to it), Vanitas has admitted that he wants Noé and Noé's supportiveness in his life.
Mochijun even uses a flashback panel to be sure we know exactly what Vanitas means here. It's that important.
Giving up on trying to push Noé away is one very significant way in which Vanitas has accepted the metaphorical outstretched hand. He's admitting he wants Noé, and Noé's presence means the presence of love and help. It means the end of self-isolation as a maladaptive coping technique. Of course he's going to reach up and accept Noé's literal offer to help him to his feet in the same scene that he finally tells Noé he'll stop trying to get rid of him.
The third way is, of course, when Vanitas says that he wants Noé to be the one to kill him.
Now, this is not how Noé wanted Vanitas to interpret his outstretched hand. Unlike his loved ones, Noé does not see killing and being killed as a way to show love or to save someone. His offer of salvation is meant to be an offer to save Vanitas from his self-destruction. But Vanitas does not want to be saved that way. And given that the manga begins with the statement that Noé will kill him someday, we know that Vanitas cannot be saved by Noé's definition.
However, Vanitas does not share Noé's definition of salvation. I don't know if Vanitas himself could even put words to his personal idea of salvation. But we know from multiple examples that it can sometimes include the gift of a kind death to prevent a worse life. That's the kind of salvation he offers when he returns a curse bearer's True Name despite knowing that it will kill them.
I have a lot of thoughts about the kind of salvation Vanitas could find in Noé, but for the purposes of this scene, this idea of a preferable death is a big one. Vanitas would rather die than lose his humanity, and this is an extremely vulnerable thing for him. Saying that he wants Noé to kill him is, in his own way, accepting Noé's unspoken offer of salvation. He's saying "I want you to be the one to save me in the one way that I can accept."
Vanitas cannot envision a life for himself, and thanks to the way Luna's Mark is rewriting him, it's likely that a long life as his human self would be impossible even if he weren't suicidal. But though it's still not healthy behavior, his request for death is, in his own terms, taking up the hand that Noé has extended. It's a grasp for salvation by a man that cannot admit that he wants to be saved.
And that brings me back to your original point, anon. Because Vanitas reaches up for Noé's hand, and that is incredibly important, but in both the anime and the manga, we do not get to see him take it. The meaning of this depends on what definition of salvation you analyze the scene through.
By Noé's definition, we know that Vanitas cannot and will not be saved. As he says in the beginning, Noé is going to kill him someday. There will be a day when he will fail to grab his hand, and Vanitas will finally fall to the gravity of his doom. So in that way, it makes sense that even in the most optimistic of scenes, we have to cut away before Vanitas can actually take Noé's hand. He might be letting himself reach for it now, and that's a good thing, but Noé is never actually going to be able to pull him up. To show us otherwise in a scene so full of symbolism and foreshadowing would be a lie.
However, as I keep saying, Noé's definition of salvation isn't the only one at play. As much as Vanitas's death will not be prevented, the fact remains that he is still finally letting himself reach for salvation in some form. So perhaps we can cut away as soon as he starts to reach not because he'll never be saved, but because the thing that matters in this scene is the reaching itself. Noé has become a supportive constant in Vanitas's life. He's just reaffirmed that he won't change, that he'll continue to support Vanitas from beside him.
We don't need to see Noé take Vanitas's hand once he starts reaching because that is a foregone conclusion. It's Vanitas's decision to reach that needs the emphasis of being the final shot, because that's the heart of the moment.
In the manga, Vanitas reaches up, and we cut to the sunlit sky. This whole scene, in addition to the running thread of reaching hands and salvation, has an overarching symbol in the end of the rain. Vanitas and Noé's horrible fight was in the storm, the rain patters to its end as they make up, and the sun breaks through the clouds as they reaffirm their pledges to one another and Noé re-offers Vanitas his hand. It's simple but effective pathetic fallacy.
So to that end, Vanitas reaches up to take Noé's offer to help him stand (reaches up to take some version of his promise of salvation), and we cut to the sunlit sky. Noé has brought the sunlight back as he offers his hand to Vanitas. Joy and light and hope return as Noé's love for and desire to save Vanitas are reestablished. Then Vanitas reaches toward that light, and we cut to the sunbeams to make sure you know just what he's reaching toward.
This works well for the end of a story arc! The weather symbol has been a constant throughout the whole amusement park arc, so of course the chapter that marks its end has to be capped off with an image of the clouds breaking. It's a closing note that pulls together Vanitas's reaching for salvation, the weather symbolism, and 55.5's general tone of relief.
Meanwhile, the anime switches things so that we see the sunbeams first, and then Vanitas reaching for Noé's hand is the final shot of the whole entire show. And for once, I actually really like this little change! The manga's order of images works well as a resolution for its chapter and its story arc, but the anime's version works really well as a possible end for the story overall.
The VnC anime may or may not ever get another season, so for the foreseeable future, Vanitas reaching for Noé's hand is the end of the show. This gives that shot a lot of emphasis. In fact, it kind of makes it the meaning of the whole thing.
Noé spends the whole anime reaching out and trying to offer a hand of salvation to Vanitas, and the final shot of the whole thing is Vanitas letting himself reach up to take it. We don't end on the shot of their clasping hands, but the shot of the reaching, because Vanitas's decision to accept some form of salvation is the thing the whole show has been building towards. It's the decision to reach up that makes the whole story.
So though they go about it in very slightly different ways, the manga and the anime are still both making meaning out of the simple act of Vanitas reaching. That's the core of the whole thing.
And overall, though I've framed "we cut away because Noé won't actually be able to stop his fall/grab his hand" and "we cut away because the decision to reach is the important part" as two opposing interpretations, I actually think their co-existence is key. Vnc's whole story is a conflict between Noé and Vanitas's definitions of salvation. The tension of their relationship isn't "will Noé find a way to save Vanitas from death?" (He won't). The tension is "will Noé find some other way to save Vanitas before his death?" and "will he be able to recognize that alternate salvation as salvation if/once Vanitas claims it?"
VnC is a story about a doomed man who might in some way be saved. Chapter 55.5 cuts away before we see Vanitas actually take Noé's hand because he is doomed to fall someday and not reach that hand when it matters most, but also because the thing that matters in this scene is that he decides to reach up at all. Vanitas is going to die, so any hope and optimism in his story must make peace with the doom of him. His healing from his trauma and accepting love and help happens while he is hurtling rapidly toward his ending. That's the beauty and the tension of Vanoé's relationship (and the beauty and tension of VnC as a whole).
So to answer your question anon, yes. We cut away before Vanitas reaches Noé's hand because, as we're told in the beginning, he will not ultimately reach Noé's salvation. But at the same time, the whole point of the rooftop scene is that Vanitas does want to accept some kind of salvation, and he just might manage do it. It all depends on how he can be saved.
#This uh. this might be my longest ever post#anon you really lit my brain on fire with this ask (complimentary)#I don't think I've ever broken 2k words in one post before#sometimes running this blog feels like I am assembling one giant patchwork quilt of meta that will someday come#to span and link together the entire series#this post is one of those times#it feels like anon just pointed me in the direction of a key spot to add a section of quilting to#that I had somehow never quite noticed by myself before#but looking at it now. it's incredibly obvious how this piece was always going to be part of the patchwork#good god I love this series#vnc#vanitas no carte#the case study of vanitas#vanitas#noé archiviste#vanitas vnc#vnc 55.5#vanoé#vanoé tag#vanitas my beloved#ID in alt text#ask#anon
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Okay, so in doing an unofficial rewatch of Justified, I was watching 1×07 and WOW was That Scene between Boyd and Raylan gay.
I am about to go on a madman rant, so best put this under the cut.
Look, I am no expert on cinematography, so this is more of personal observation/opinion.
For context, in the seventh episode of the first season, Raylan has been trying to figure out who put a hit out on his girlfriend/witness, Ava, after they were ambushed in the middle of the night by a hired gunman. Because Ava is on bad terms with the Crowders for killing one of their family members (he abused her when they were married), Raylan assumes that the assault was planned by the Bo Crowder, the family patriarch, and goes to prison to talk with Boyd. who is also in prison.
See, Justified understood the usefulness and creativity that comes with cinematography, and that's how the director and lead cinematographer were able to elaborate on the homoerotic subtext that exists between Boyd and Raylan.
(shout-out to @dyinglikeastar for being my soundboard for this lol)
Now, in both scenes between Raylan and Boyd, there is a noticeable intimacy between the actors and the camera.
Here is where we start to dive in on the homoerotic subtext.
It is important to note that up until this point, anytime Raylan went to visit Boyd, there was always a glass partition between them. We see, especially in the pilot, how Boyd and Raylan are very physical with each other (greeting with a hug, the lingering touch on Raylan's arm in the church, Boyd touching Raylan's hand in the hospital after the shooting). The two of them have been established to have a complex and physical dynamic with each other, but since Boyd got arrested, they always had a physical barrier between them, and even when they leaned so close to each other (the blocking of their scenes when talking almost always shows the other's head in tighter shots of one of them, suggesting the actual closeness of the two), they could never touch. Now, they are left alone, in a room with no barriers between them.
It's interesting to note that there is a transition between long-shots and close-ups, and whereas the former is steady, the latter is much more flexible. The close-ups are constantly moving, never still. They cut back and forth between Boyd and Raylan because this is a game of tug-of-war. It isn't until Boyd calls into question Raylan's trust in him that the camera starts to tell a greater narrative.
The next shot cuts to Raylan, a close-up, and while it starts with his face in the center (as close-ups do lol), his face lifts out of frame, but the camera lingers on his lips for a good five seconds before lifting itself up to re-center his face. This grabs your attention, as it is the rule of thumb that when a character moves, so does the camera. But in the world of art, rules are made to be broken. Therefore, my hypothesis is that the camera is starting to dive into the POV of both men. Like many people do, when we are attracted to people, we pay attention to physical characteristics that catch our eyes.
(this is seen in another show, Gossip Girl, when two characters want to sleep together in season three, and the camera focuses on many aspects of both characters, elaborating on the tension and desire both have)
After a long shot is used to redirect the audience into a third-person perspective, it becomes even more obvious how the use of the close-ups is giving the audience a look into the visual POV of the characters.
Shots start to linger on both men as the first scene and second continue. Whereas the first scene eases into the use of close-ups, the second almost dives straight into it, focusing on Boyd's big green eyes as Raylan walks back into the room.
And just like how the first scene used the close-ups to show the cerebral tennis match between Boyd and Raylan, the second goes even farther.
Almost every shot is used to highlight certain facial features of both the men.
For Boyd, it's either his big eyes, his nose, or his lips. The camera is seen to focus on his face for a split second before moving down straight to his mouth, repeating multiple times.
For Raylan, the camera focuses much more on his lips, his lashes (the position of the low-key lighting from the sunlight providing a contrast, highlighted by the extreme close-up to his eyes), and the beauty mark under his eye.
By using the camera as a POV for both men, not only is the audience able to stay immersed in their conversation, but they are also led to appreciate and notice these certain aspects of each character, and gain a sense of tension.
In conclusion, these two middle-aged men want to fuck each other so badly.
#okay I am a little sleep deprived but hopefully this makes sense#I did in fact have to loom up cinematography terms but I think it is worth it#justified#boyd/raylan#I love my southern gothic comedy#this is the longest piece of meta I have ever written#justified meta
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Truly Yours: A Defense of "Iron Might"
"My dear,
In the midst of hate, I found within me an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found within me an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found within me an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that… In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better – pushing right back "
Disclaimer: The above quote is famously misattributed to Camus-- who seemingly only wrote the midst of winter/invincible summer portion of the original piece-- and the author of the expanded quote remains unknown. Nevertheless, it fits Toshi's character perfectly.
Iron Might remains a polarizing love-or-hate-it topic within the fandom, with many fans expressing their concerns that it ruins Toshinori's character/arc. It's no secret that I fall pretty firmly on the "love" side of camp-- and as is the case with all things I love, I can't love quietly or in moderation. So here's another really really really long post on all the reasons why I love it, and why I don't feel that this was character assassination in the slightest.
Breaking the key points down, I aim to discuss:
A) How Iron Might acts as a sort of resolution to Toshi's complex relationship with his body and injuries, and reconciles the divide between Toshinori's body and soul.
B) How Iron Might embodies MHA's definition of "love" and acts as a love letter to everything Toshinori wants to protect and everything he's ever wanted to protect. Iron Might is not meant to be read as a suicide mission, but as Toshinori weaponizing the joy of living as "Yagi Toshinori" and pitting the weight of his entire existence against AFO.
C) How Iron Might further cements MHA as "meta-fiction" through discussion of what being "quirkless" means on a narrative level + the dismantling of popular but overdone tropes that people have come to expect in comics. Toshi is also fighting for his right to exist in a battle manga against a toxic comic nerd who thinks that Toshi's role ended in Kamino and that he contributes more to the story by dying.
D) How Iron Might functions as a narrative device (i.e. It gets Toshinori to Izuku and Tomura). This is the battlefield where Toshi's character was always destined to end up because this is where all his unfinished business is at. Simple as!
"The body and mind are two halves of a whole" Iron Might as Toshinori coming to terms with his injuries and his body:
Kicking things off with this point bc I feel like... understanding how Toshi's relationship and struggles with his own body have been a major part of his character arc is something that's, like, absolutely essential when it comes to getting an accurate read on what Iron Might means to Toshi's character. Iron Might ultimately functions as a reconciliation between Toshinori's wounded body and heroic soul, so it's a bit sad to see people repeatedly dismissing it as "ruining Toshinori's character arc" without ever taking Toshi's relationship with his own body into consideration. Like, this is not some "insignificant" part of his arc that's being prioritized over everything else:
A collection of very relevant panels! Side note: Tsukauchi fumbling the toshibowl so hard that Toshi's car seems like the better romantic choice in comparison will never stop being funny.
Aiba ur the only person in that control room i respect btw.
For the longest time Toshinori has viewed his emaciated, ill body as something pathetic and shameful. His body was something he felt that he *had* to hide from the world, in order to maintain the illusion of being a hero who could never possibly succumb to evil. His injuries and the state of his body cleaved his identity/self-perception in two-- he begins the series treating his actual body as the "secret identity" instead of his authentic self. The story doesn't spoonfeed this to the readers because it expects its readers to have enough empathy to put two-and-two together on their own-- That Toshi doesn't simply struggle with the loss of OFA & "All Might/heroism" in the aftermath of Kamino, but also the loss of what he felt was his "true" body.
Toshinori is very easily read as someone who suffers from intense body dysmorphia-- and him forcibly changing himself back into his muscular form over and over again can also quite easily be read as Toshi attempting to cling to whatever time he has left with the body that doesn't make him feel like a stranger in his own skin. It's him holding onto the self he views as "actually him" for as long as he can.
Toshi's arc is something that resonates with a lot of people who have disabilities or suffer from dysphoria-- So it's frustrating when some fans decide to take the least gracious interpretation of his character and issues and run with it, instead attempting to frame Toshi as some washed up attention seeker who ~simply can't let go of his glory days~. Toshi's character has been hit with a lot of ableism both in-universe and out of it, with the fandom only really acknowledging that he's a disabled man when it conveniences them and otherwise disregarding how this aspect of him plays a major role in his arc.
Iron Might is built to specifically resemble Toshi's "ideal" body-- to the bitter cynics, this supports their idea that Toshi is unable to let go of "All Might" and hasn't learned to value himself or his life as Yagi Toshinori. To those who understand what Toshi's been going through and understand that his arc was never *just* about "living," though, it's a different story altogether. So much of Iron Might symbolizes Toshinori coming to terms with the fact that he is a disabled man, accepting that there was never anything shameful about this, accepting that it never needed to be "hidden away" for him to be a hero-- and ultimately, accepting that his body is 100% him and an undeniable aspect of what makes him a hero, no matter how injured.
"Who's that skinny guy?" KID, LET ME TELL YOU A STORY.
There is a noticeable shift in Toshi's relationship with his body during Act 3-- We go from practically begging that Toshi's true form not be exposed to the public during Kamino, to Toshi encouraging that this fight be broadcast to the world. In the aftermath of Kamino and after losing the last embers of OFA, we still see Toshi forcibly shifting into his muscle form multiple times whenever he wants to "reassure" others, even though this process obviously hurts him:
The implications behind this are obvious: Toshi is not coping with the loss of his body as well as he lets on, and all those implications finally come to a painful head during the dark hero arc.
During his meeting with Stain, Stain outright refuses to recognize Toshi's "Muscle form" as "All Might" and instead makes it clear that it was Toshi's heroic soul that earned him the right to call himself a "true hero"--and that this "soul" still exists in everyone Toshi has ever saved. It never went away. The embers of OFA might have vanished, but the flames of Toshi's own heroism remain all around him-- they keep him warm and allow him to keep shining.
Toshi begins to accept his own body for the first time after his meeting with Stain-- we see him starting to reassure his friends as his authentic self instead of scrambling to shift back into his muscle form. During his last stand against AFO, he boldly shows the world his injured back, and wordlessly asks that they still express their faith in it and feel protected by it. His injuries are a part of him and his lived reality, and they're part of what makes him a human.
"--Because a hero's back exists to reassure others!"
Toshinori's body itself is ultimately included among his blessings that he weaponizes against AFO: his bonds, his origin, and his body-- no matter how badly injured it may be-- are all what defines him as a hero. Even if his back is no longer "broad," it will always be something that reminds others that "he is here."
During this fight, Toshinori reconciles his fractured identity by finally embracing all the aspects of himself that he'd previously grown distant from. Reflecting on the life he's led as Yagi Toshinori-- the life he led before he ever became "All Might" and the life he led after receiving his injuries and losing OFA-- is what gives him the strength to laugh in AFO's face, and it's what causes the light to finally return to his eyes. In the midst of a battle between life and death, we witness Toshinori being reborn.
He fully embraces his humanity during this fight, and then weaponizes that humanity against AFO (and considering AFO's character/how AFO is constantly attempting to escape his own humanity... it's pr delightful to see him getting his shit wrecked by another "god" who fell to earth and was forced to live his as a mortal, but ultimately realized that he loved it).
The battle ends with "All Might's" iconic shading now being used for Toshi's true form-- symbolizing the reconciliation between Toshi's heroic soul and his wounded but nevertheless heroic body.
As an aside: I also feel the context surrounding Iron Might/Toshi's body touches on MHA's theme of "consent versus nonconsent" as something that separates true heroes from true villains (starting from AFO forcing a quirk on Yoichi, cumulating with Toshi offering Izuku OFA and later making it clear that the quirk requires Izuku's explicit consent to be passed on-- OFA being born from an act of utter violation and then turned into something that explicitly requires consent always been one of my favorite aspects of MHA's lore, but I digress). During Kamino, AFO forcibly exposed Toshi's body to the world in an effort to completely humiliate him and destroy the public's image of him. Now, Toshi taking his power back and exposing his true form to the world entirely on his own terms.
"All that I've been blessed with will bear its weight against you!"-- or, Iron Might as a love letter.
I've talked on this point a lot bc it's what enamored me immediately with this fight (which is really about the depth of Toshinori's love and the love others have for him and his willingness to BE loved by others -versus- a man who takes advantage of the love others have for him and is utterly unable to leave his fragile heart at the mercy of others out of fear of ppl perceiving him), so I'll try to keep it brief:
Iron Might embodies the essence of how MHA defines love (love is admiration, love is imitation, love is seeing/watching, etc) while also acting as Toshinori's love letter to everything he wants to protect (himself and his life as "Yagi Toshinori" included). It also embodies the essence of how MHA defines true heroism (those who have been blessed should use their blessings for those who have not been blessed, those who can still act must act, etc etc etc ).
Toshi would not have been able to pull off Class 1A's moves or found the best way to integrate them into a cohesive fighting style without love as imitation/watching/admiration. (again, versus AFO, who at this point just randomly fires off powerful quirks without any actual respect for how the quirks work or how they can support each other, & who doesn't admire his own student beyond his capacity for rage).
This battle is a celebration of the bonds Toshi has allowed himself to form. It's him using everything he's ever been given and everything he's ever been blessed with to fight against a man who only knows how to take things away. Toshi has learned that OFA was never what made him a hero, that he can live without OFA-- and he's pitting the weight of that life against a man who is convinced that OFA is everything, who can't move on from it, and who has built his entire existence around getting it back. AFO wins the physical battle, sure, but Toshi remains the clear winner in the war of existences.
"This story is still being written, Toshinori."
Another aside: Names are everything in MHA, and that's especially true in the final act. MHA treats names like incantations, and “Do your best, Toshinori!” is the magic spell Toshi is using to motivate himself. Hori frequently uses how a person chooses to refer to themselves during key scenes as a way of emphasizing a person's mental state. From this, we can deduce that Toshi doesn't view this fight as All Might vs. AFO-- he views this fight as Toshinori vs. AFO.
Toshinori has weaponized his blessings and bonds and is now hitting back at AFO with the full weight of his complete existence. In this fight, he carves the joy of living-- of being Yagi Toshinori-- into AFO's barren, empty soul. Every scene he flashes back to is a scene of the life he has lived as Toshinori, not as All Might. This fight, just like the rest of the war, is all about "love" in all its various forms. AFO's abuse of love (both of his own deeply hidden love and of the love others have for him) is why he cannot win in a war where love is the essential element-- love is what keeps motivating everyone in this war to keep getting up, to keep struggling, to keep reaching out, etc etc etc.
Moving on.
"I'm quirkless. Born without a role." or, Iron Might as an act of defiance against both the narrative and the expectations of the 'battle manga' genre.
MHA being an example of stealth meta-fiction is something I've talked about before, particularly so with these two posts (plus... basically any post about our favorite cringefail LARPer, AFO).
Horikoshi takes full advantage of the medium/the fact that MHA is a manga and uses every tool that's available to both tell and enhance the story, and these chapters have cemented him as someone who has mastered his craft-- The decision to draw Toshi's true self with thick/bold lines after his armor breaks, the dark shadows finally leaving his eyes, Toshi consistently referring to himself by his own name instead of his hero name, the chapter titles, the backgrounds, etc etc etc all of it. Absolutely everything has meaning.
Through Iron Might, we once again delve into how the series chooses to define "quirklessness"-- the idea that quirklessness is meant to be a disability allegory gets more or less debunked (thankfully, since MHA already has a fairly good track record with depicting ACTUAL mental and physical illnesses/disabilities), with the narrative instead framing the possession of a quirk as something that determines what "role" a person gets in life. The implication being that not having a quirk means you don't get a role, period. You don't get to shine brightly on stage, you don't even get to be an "extra." This fits into the previously established idea that society's biases against "villainous quirks" basically railroad a lot of people onto the path of villainy (plus, the treatment of heroes/villains as fictional characters by the masses instead of viewing them as actual people). But, quirks are just quirks-- they're neither good or evil, and they aren't what determine whether a person is a hero or a villain. And as such, having or not having a quirk isn't what determines whether or not someone is truly a hero.
Toshinori is now defying the narrative that states that not having a quirk means you don't get a role. At the same time, he stands up against AFO-- our resident toxic comic book fanboy who sincerely believes Toshi should have picked Kamino as the best time to "bow out" (read: die) as a character-- who spews all sorts of vile things about the state of Toshi's body and how this is the primary reason why Toshi has no place in the story. The satire practically writes itself.
Like so many other characters, Toshinori uses the "role" of All Might as a coping mechanism for much of the series. As already stated, there is a disconnect between Toshinori's body and his soul--Toshi begins to use All Might as a mask to hide his feelings, his fears, and his humanity from the rest of the world. The series draws attention to the fact that the people forgot about the heart and soul--that is, the person-- behind All Might and started treating him like a character instead of a real person, and it's made clear that Toshinori forgot, too.
AFO is still trying to hide his true self in the role of the demon king, but Toshinori is no longer trying to hide himself behind All Might. AFO thinks Toshinori should have died in Kamino because that's where his "role" as a "character" ended, but Toshinori refuses that end. Both men find their origins in fiction (AFO from captain hero, Toshinori from Anpanman) but only Toshi has managed to reconcile his identity, break free of the story, and meet AFO head on as a human instead of a character. AFO is still hiding and refusing to engage with this story as a real person.
Toshi's overshadowed eyes are also heavily implied to be a side effect of him completely losing himself in the role of "All Might," rather than merely being the result of the injury he got from AFO-- we see that his eyes were already overshadowed long before he ever received his fateful injury, and the emphasis on shadowed eyes is also a design quirk that ties him to AFO (whose eyes were constantly hidden by shadows bc he was constantly LARPing as a demon lord instead of being authentic-- To drive this bit of visual story telling home, Hori emphasizes AFO's eyes whenever the "demon king" mask starts to slip and we start seeing peeks of what an utter sad sap of a person AFO is beneath the mask). It's a clever bit of show-don't-tell and another testament to Hori's art direction. Eyes are forever the window to the heart and soul in MHA, and Toshi reconnecting with his heart and soul-- with what defines him as a person-- is what finally causes the light to return to his eyes. The mask is fully off.
"Midoriya Izuku and Yagi Toshinori ~ Midoriya Izuku and Shigaraki Tomura ~ Shigaraki Tomura and....?"-- Or, Iron Might as a Narrative Tool.
(reminds u that the pivotal/trajectory changing chapters known as 304 and 305 were titled "Midoriya Izuku and Yagi Toshinori" and "Midoriya Izuku and Tomura Shigaraki". These three are the key!)
Changing gears for a sec and speaking purely from a writer's perspective: Iron Might simply couldn't have been included at Gunga and Toshi simply couldn't have remained locked up in a surveillance room for the entirety of the final battle-- because Toshinori's final destination as a character was always supposed to be the Izuku and Tomura fight. That's where his role as a character was always supposed to reach fruition and find his resolution:
"--I want to save that little boy!"
Aura!Might shedding tears when he realizes that Izuku wants to save Tomura and that Izuku has redefined OFA as something that exists to save is one of those underrated character moments that deserves more attention, because it's like. Everything. One of the most important scenes in the series by a large margin.
Izuku's declaration tells us everything we need to know about the trajectory of the series. Aura!Might crying in response to that declaration gives us everything we need to anticipate where his character is heading and to understand why Toshi's arc isn't over until he finally reconciles his business/regrets with Tomura & OFA/Nana.
it's heavily implied that real!Toshi was crying, too, after he felt what vestige!Izuku said. His eyes are hidden, but we see him briefly wiping his tears away. (and this is one of the many things I love about MHA-- there are so many lovely little details that add so much to the story. You just gotta be willing to look for them.)
Anyway! This point really speaks for itself, so I won't get into it too much: Tomura/Izuku's battlefield is where Toshi was always supposed to end up-- it's where he obviously needs to be to wrap up the loose strings in his arc, hear Izuku's "I am here" moment, and "change fate" by Izuku's side (not necessarily just his own fate, but also Tomura's). Iron Might is just a way that gets Toshi from point A to Point B while allowing Toshinori's character to shine as brightly as possible.
TL;DR The stage is finally set, the main characters have finally assembled, and now we get to see how the grand finale plays out.
-- -- -- -- --
In summation: Iron Might is sappy, sentimental, and fueled entirely by heart rather than logic-- and it's everything I love about this series.
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Hey so I am starting to get into Jupiter Ascending fandom (a couple years late but what can I say). I was thinking of writing a fic. Do you have any resources for JA extra information?
Thanks in advance. Also I am loving your fic (it's how I started getting into the fandom lololol). can't wait to reread!!!
HOOOOOOO BOY!!!!
I'm paging @bemusedlybespectacled, @gallifreyburning, @vr-trakowski, @sorrelchestnut, @florentinequill, @fuckyeahjupiterascending, @vrabia, and honestly ANYONE ELSE who wants to chime in here, bc HOOOOOOO BOY!
(I made that sweet puppy in fucking 2015 on my dying laptop in the travel study dorm in DC, JUPITER ASCENDING HOW I LOVE THEE)
The eternal fucking tragedy of Jupiter Ascending is that the wider world doesn't love it like we do. Does it have every single thing that turns my crank, id-wise? Sure! Does it have gorgeous over-the-top sequined costumes and extravagant set pieces that remind you at every minute that this movie specially thanked Swarovski Crystal in the credits? Sure! Does it have theeeee single most pinpoint reading of MY PERSONAL FEMALE GAZE that Channing Tatum has ever done? (sorry mister Magic Mike, but you do not even come CLOSE to "may I kill him?" in terms of sexy) SURE! Was this movie a commercial or critical success? Absolutely not 😔
There isn't, as far as I'm aware, an art book. There isn't an official novelization. There isn't even an actual script posted to the usual internet databases that isn't just an automatic shitty talk-to-text rendition of the movie dialogue. There are concept art paintings and old cast interviews floating around, and this auction website where the Wachowskis auctioned off some of the props from the movie, but as far as canon resources and extra material beyond the movie itself there isn't much. A quick duckduckgo search would probably be more helpful to you than anything else, if any of the websites still have the articles up - it WAS eight years ago, and doesn't that just break my fucking heart.
My corner of tumblr LOVED this movie. In 2015, there were TONS of posts gathering interviews, posting concept art, making cosplays, all the signs of a small but healthy fandom ecosystem. However, we call this the blue hellsite for a reason - not all of those resources are still there, and the ones that survived time and incompetent archival site coding are probably difficult to find. I would definitely recommend trawling the JA tags of all the blogs I tagged at the start of this post, as JA introduced me to two of my longest and most beloved of all mutuals. ALL of their insights were key to A Fine Chain.
There is also my own jupiter ascending tag and my more specific jupiter ascending meta tag, although I don't know how bored you are lol. The general JA tag is 105 pages - I would almost recommend just starting at page 105 and working forward from there since it chronicles my descent into kinky space angel werewolf brain rot pretty nicely. There are also my ao3 bookmarks for JA.
I WILL SAY that it has been 8 years, and I have changed into a very different person than the one I was when I first saw this movie. I don't REGRET the first few chapters of A Fine Chain, or any of my breathless meta posts, but I do think that if I were to write any of them over again, I'd hope that my writing style has matured and I'd have lots more extra material to draw from. Actually graduating from law school, writing long fic in another fandom, and generally percolating more as a person has given me lots of new perspectives on JA that make it more interesting even as I still enjoy it (for example, HBO's Succession is ODDLY RELEVANT and I wish there were more JA fanwriters to take advantage of that fact).
...I hope that was helpful? I will ETERNALLY mourn the fact that this fandom wasn't isn't bigger - we haven't even broken 1k on ao3! But EYE MYSELF am here to discuss JA stuff as long as this weird spurt of creative energy sustains me, and my inbox is always open!
#jupiter ascending#fandom#my posts#jupiter ascending meta#if NO ONE WILL LOVE YOU MY GLITTERY SPACE EXTRAVAGANZA I WILL LOVE YOU#was it perfect? no. was it a bit of a hot mess at times? yes. BUT DO I LOVE IT? HELL YEAH#long post
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This year has had many ups and downs, and as of late it feels as if the whole world is a down. Real life has really smacked me down, and I've felt so isolated from all of the things and people I love. But as ever, the world is looking up, and I can see the light...and looking back brings me so much joy and fulfillment. I've accomplished so much that I don't give myself credit for. More than I'll dare type up here, but let's go through the highlight reel, shall we?
For my dear friend Beth's birthday, I finally posted some of my HP Astro work to AO3! (Speaking of which, I really should work on adding more soon...)
A_Loveunlaced (@a-loveunlaced) is an artist I very much admire, so the start of the year was super cool getting to chat with them, seeing their Snarry art, and writing a ficlet for said art, Again (and Again).
Delved into and fully embraced the controversy by running HP Chan Fest with @cindle-writes, which was such a cool and meaningful experience.
Plus I wrote some fics I'm really proud of for said fest: profane holy, Cruel Summer, The Virgin Bride.
Also my dear friend Viran (@mrviran) drew some fanart for Cruel Summer, I believe while it was still anonymous and everything! But she also totally called that it was me who wrote it, which is always fun for me when people know me in the Anon stages!
I wrote more fics for Kinkuary and Kinktober (which I always love!)
Shared more meta on AO3 with The Half-Blood History (I really do need to import more meta there!)
Finally wrote and posted chapter 3 for smile with sweet surprise (aka Stepdad Snape fic)
Started writing and sharing WIPs I've been long excited for: Wasted for Love (Golden Triad + Snarry) and A Taste for You (Sugar Daddy Harry).
I ran HP Fruit Fest solo! Which was a lot, but I had fun and I was super thrilled to not be the only one super into fruit!
I taught myself how to bind books, and now I have a growing collection of bound fics! Check out #danpuff binds to see some!
More recs, as ever, but especially the ongoing Dead Dove Diaries series of rec lists.
Speaking of recs, I'm helping mod @hprecfest, which is so fun for me! I love seeing people's recs, and I love being part of an event that is spreading so much fun and love around the community!
Also, making my own recs for the event! I've got at least one fic queued up for each day, I think! And some days have even more!
For Snarry-a-Thon I wrote a companion piece to last year's Contempt (aka my heart and soul), called Devotion, which my friend Aristi kindly beta read for me! The whole series is so deeply meaningful to me and it feels so huge to add more to it.
For Snarry Bang, I teamed up with my pal Viran (@mrviran) for The Curse of Anteros. I wiffle-waffled on what to write for the longest time, but my vacation to Orlando unlocked something in me. The whole fic hit me like a hurricane and came out in like a 2 week period. And the art Viran created for it is spectacular (I'm still obsessed). Oh, and it was such a treat having the fabulous @writcraft beta! There's nothing quite like having a creator you admire help your work be its best version!
And, of course, I had another opportunity to chat with my friend Beth for @fanficmaverickpodcast, with the episode: A Very Snarry Christmas.
And lots more, but this is plenty enough to be going with! Not half bad for the year, yeah? 😄
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I don't know where else to go to complain about fanfic comments, so I guess I'm going to do it here. Because I woke up to one today that annoyed me.
And ironically, I'm doing it on the second day of my summer vacation, which I had set aside anyway as a "day to attend to the fandom things that I need to attend to" -- of which there are several.
The first thing I need to say is that I'm desperately grateful for every single comment I receive on anything I've written -- fanfic or meta -- 99.5% of the time. This is just a vanishingly small sample of what I hear about stuff I've written.
But it's still so irritating.
Some background -- I wrote fanfic, a prodigious amount of it, in my very early 20s. For about three years I posted nearly daily. These were long WIPs and they got a fair amount of attention in that fandom, which means I also got some criticism. And I engaged the criticism fairly cheerfully. It's hard to be too insulted by someone who has still read hundreds of pages of your work, even if they are upset about something. It was also really normal, at the time, to tell a fic writer then their story was annoying you. And even an upset comment was better than no comments -- the absolute WORST thing you can experience -- so I was pretty ok with them.
But anyway -- life happened, I left that fandom and I stopped writing fic.
A good friend of mine still was and one day, in a fandom I never participated in but certainly knew a fair bit about, she had a bad experience. Her fic was nominated for a ship-centric fandom award (this is livejournal era) and some random group of fans took umbrage at the existence of these fandom awards and went through and gave snarky reviews of all the fics that had been nominated. Anonymously. My friend had not wanted this review and let it be known that she didn't like it. That violated some sort of fandom rule at the time and she got dragged for it. Authors were not supposed to object to criticism. Even if it was mean-spirited.
More years pass. It takes a good long while for a piece of media to grab me enough that I get sucked into a fandom again. But when it happens we are long into the Tumblr era. And I discover that the worm has turned and it is no longer considered good fandom behaviour to leave negative or critical comments.
As a fandom old, I find that I little curious. I don't leave negative comments personally, but it's such a shift from the livejournal era that I take note. And I'm not sure I feel all that negatively about receiving critical comments on fic. As I'm writing it for the first time in a decade, I get to test that out -- and I don't actually have a lot of opportunity to do that, because indeed, people tend not to leave negative comments. But ONE TIME, on ONE story, ONE person left perhaps the longest and most detailed comment I have ever received, all about how much she absolutely HATED the story I was telling. And I did, honestly, love that comment. Same principle as before -- I couldn't be mad when they were so passionate about it. It was flattering.
But today I was reminded of the type of comment I really don't enjoy. It is not that it's negative -- though it is. It's that it's withering. It's the type of comment designed to make you feel like this person thinks you're a vending machine that they put a dollar into and then got the wrong product. It's the "I hope you don't think that this thing you put into your fic is actually, you know, The CORRECT way to look at this."
I've only gotten a couple of these because in general I think fandom is nicer these days and certainly the corner of the Gallavich fandom that I occupy is filled with really smart, thoughtful, funny and interesting people who tend to SAY smart, thoughtful, funny and interesting things. And this is something of a void scream, because I don't think people who leave comments like that would ever bother to read this.
But. Like. Just in case.
Fic writers put thoughts and opinions into characters' mouths that are not their personal take all the time. Because they have reason to believe these pre-existing characters think that thing. You can disagree with it. But it's probably bad practice to assume anything about the fic writer because of it.
If you ARE going to leave a comment like that try to say at least one other thing about the story so that your comment isn't entirely just you being unaware of the concept of an unreliable narrator.
If you are STILL going to leave your eye-roll in comment form on someone's story and not even bother to hit the kudos button on the way out, then I will probably respond to you like you're an asshole. I just have no other context to draw from.
If you are still determined to do all these things, could you try not to do it in the middle for the night so that I don't wake up to this stuff in my inbox?
Anyway. I know I'm blessed to even get snarky comments on a two-year-old fanfic, but, you know. I have feelings to share. Happy August.
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[Queueing this a few days early because I know I'll forget the day of]
According to the depths of my archived emails, it was a year ago today when when I created this account, which wasn't my first tumblr account but even though I didn't know it yet, it was going to be the first account I ever used with any regularity. I only did it because of the stupid thing where you have to log in to actually see shit, which was something I wanted to do because I needed wanted to read OFMD meta so badly. I didn't realize it, but even creating this account was a sign that this show and its fandom were going to Mean Something New to me.
(behold: an overlong post about what OFMD and being in this fandom have meant to me, despite the horrors and The Horrors™)
I'm not a fandom rookie. I've been in and out of fandom spaces since my early teens, which means decades plural, although I'll further date myself by clarifying that those spaces were forums and, more than anything else, back-in-the-day livejournal (qepd). I've had blorbos since long before we called them that, or even called them "babygirl." As soon as we had internet access at home I was googling my shows and my characters to see what people said about them and discovering the magic of reading and writing fanfic.
I started using this account to lurk and take in people's thoughtful meta, and puzzle over what I called in my head "kylo ren disease" before I learned to call those corners of the fandom the canyon. But what got me to finally post for the first time was after reading too many fics that evoked themes in the show (and my life) that I wasn't ready to deal with until I finally granted myself a space to yell into the void about grief (general existential grief, the grief inherent in Stede and Ed finding each other relatively late in life, the grief of not being able to become who you are because society has no room for your authentic self, etc). Seriously, every original post I made for the first several weeks I was here was about grief, to the point of needing a dedicated hashtag.
It took me some time yelling into what turned out to not be a void (because people wanted to hear what I had to say?) before I realized another thing I was grieving: writing. I have tremendous baggage around writing, in ways that other "gifted" kids will immediately understand. But suddenly I could write again, hold shit! I wrote lots of meta, until the feelings I had about everything boiled over into a shortish fic because I literally couldn't find anywhere else to put them.
This was the first time I felt compelled to write my own fic in over a decade, and the first time in around that same amount of time that I could stomach writing fiction at all. Then I wrote another. And another. I often describe these shorter fics as having been written by "the poetry part of my brain," which is shorthand for being centered around an image or two that I couldn't stop thinking about, not really needing plot, and perhaps most importantly, self-contained in a way that allowed me to use them as tools to process an emotion and then put it in a box like season 2 Frenchie.
I love and value those fics, the way you can love and value something that helped you but that you no longer have a strong attachment to. That I can look at them now and see beauty in fiction I wrote without my aforementioned writing baggage causing a problem is a testament to how important they were for me. But then I started thinking I might want to write a longfic, and when the idea didn't go away after a few month I decided fuck, I guess I'm doing it? And I am doing it, and that is huge, and when (not if, when) I finish it will be the longest piece of fiction and one of the longest pieces of writing I've ever completed.
I'm actually writing longform fiction, something I've attempted to do my entire life but that never felt possible. And not only does it feel possible, it feels important (to me at least) and necessary and vital. That's the way writing used to feel before, well, *gestures at previous two decades* and being given that back is truly a kind of gift. And yeah that's a gift that the source material have me, but it was also a gift from all of you who are out there reading and writing and commenting and painting and literally ever other form of participating in a fandom that it's possible to do. It's a gift that has allowed me to reclaim huge parts of myself and my personal narrative in ways that are truly therapeutic (which is some therapist, a former art therapist, has endured me talking about at length). It's a gift I'm going to be grateful for forever, and I'm just so thankful to all of you for it. And I'll even still be thankful for it the next time I'm forced to behold whatever new cursed take has popped up in the tags.
I think. Definitely probably. It's just the cost of doing business.
#ofmd#fandom meta#thrilled to be granted entry#our flag means death#fic writing#writing process#go ahead and grieve yourself#disenfranchised loss#disenfranchised grief#ofmd meta
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fic stats game
Rules: Give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most bookmarks, fourth most comments, fifth most words, and your fic with the least amount of words.
Open tag accepted from @runawaymarbles
Being as I’m primarily a podficcer, I’ll arbitrarily use slightly different metrics for some of these.
Most hits: The MOST most hits (not counting Crown of Thorns, which I won’t, because it’s a multivoice juggernaut) is tentacular Good Omens fx-fest Pale Tendrils, by Anonymous. Understandable — come for the tentacles, stay for the witty writing and my unabashedly gleeful porn-formance. However, the secondmost hits is more interesting, because what the fuck. The hits on Only the Third Story in this Forsaken Fandom Whose Title Does Not Begin With If, by seekingferret, have been steadily climbing since I posted it — without at all a corresponding number of kudos, and no comments. It’s a highly meta If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler / 1/0 / 2666 by Robert Bolano Yuletide story, and while I like it a lot, I do not know what this unprecedented click rate means, at all. At first I thought it was bots, but I locked it down and the steady hits — sometimes ten or more per day — continued. Yeah, I dunno. Couldn’t happen to a more apt bunch of fandoms though.
Second-most kudos: What a Way to Make a Living, by attheborder, a Good Omens story in which Crowley, at a loss without his hellish assignments from Downstairs, becomes an Uber driver. Or, what if Crowley had ADHD? Includes “freelance chickens”, one of the most difficult phrases I’ve ever tried to record coherently.
Third-most words: Well, I thought I could go for “third longest,” and then realised that (because, unlike some podficcers, I don’t keep a detailed spreadsheet of my creations with word count, finished length, and a whole lot of other fascinating statistics, and AO3 doesn’t helpfully sort by podfic length tag) this was more work than I was willing to go to, especially on my phone, since I don’t feel like crossing the room and sitting in my office chair again to use the real computer.
So, third longest, ish, maybe, since Sansûkh isn’t finished yet (and anyway, I’m only counting multivoice and group projects when I feel like it, but also this is one of the times, kind of) is Once There Was, Once There Wasn’t, 2022’s Pod Together project from The Sentient Hive. This is a queer playable interactive game inspired by fairytales from around the world, with four different interlinked storylines. Hive projects are some of my favourite things to work on; most of what I did for this one was art, but I also read the Witch. This is approximately 6-7 hours of content. You can read the stories and listen to the audio on AO3, or play the complete, gamified Twine version with interactive puzzles on itch.io.
Fourth-most comments: Good Omens again (surprise surprise), equestrianstatue’s A Kind of Magic. Another very funny piece, because I have a Brand, with some of my personal favourite cover art — the idea for it made me laugh out loud when it occurred to me, and I still think it’s very funny. In a graphic design kind of way.
Fifth-most words: Hm. The sort-by-length thing just isn’t on, is it? Howbout first thing from the bottom with five comments? That might get us into some of the more obscure delights at the bottom of my catalogue… oh. ahahahaha! Not a podfic! This ancient and breathless little number, A Gamble in Darkness, is the backgrounder I wrote for my Toreador character back when I played in a vampire LARP. Well, it does have a few nice turns of phrase floating in the sea of purple prose.
The first-from-the-bottom podfic with five comments is He Who Is Made of Iron, a gently atmospheric Queen’s Thief piece mostly about tea by EternalLibrary. I recorded this very quickly during a rainstorm; it’s an unadorned and simple reading of a nice little story.
Fewest words: An obvious one — it has no words at all. (🌚🦋) 🧑🏫 is the all-emoji translation of Don Marquis’ the lesson of the moth, in collaboration with @olive2read. Includes text-to-speech audio for the full absurdist experience! This one is another personal favourite.
I’ll continue with tagging anyone who wants to do it. heck, if you do have a spreadsheet, use different stats!
#tag memes#fic stats#good omens#the queen's thief#vampire the masquerade#the sentient hive#fairy tales#tentacles#if on a winter’s night a traveller#that one podfic with all the hits; what the fuck continued#don marquis#archy and mehitabel#let me read you a story!#reccing my own podfic
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20 and 23 for the writer asks!
Oooh thanks for these!
20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)
Me, asking another author this like an hour ago: What an excellent question, can't wait to hear what they have to say!
Me, being asked this question myself: I have never had a thought about my writing in my life, apparently.
Okay. I can do this 🤣
Alex and Rafael's relationship in the actor AU was incredibly important to me, and I really wanted something that felt true to canon even though it was, by necessity, quite a different relationship to their canon one. There's a lot of stuff off page that is going to find its way into a Rafael POV companion piece at some point, but the idea of Rafael as a queer mentor for Alex is something that I really think was sadly missing from the book -- we get hints of what it could have been, and as someone who didn't have any queer role models when I was figuring out my own sexuality I have this burning need to give those to my characters, always. The discussion between Rafael and Alex in chapter seven about the O that I were a man monologue is one of the most satisfying pieces of writing I've ever done; it was really, really important to me to get it right, to have it ring true, and I think I succeeded!
What may or may not make its way into that same Rafael POV (I'll try!) is the feelings Rafael and I share on queerifying old stories as well as telling new ones. Because obviously, I love shows that are explicitly queer, but I also think there's a lot of power in taking the older shows and making them queer. We're here. We've always been here, even when our love stories weren't being told. We have just as much of a place in historical stories as we do in the modern day.
23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?
Answered here!
[Fun meta asks for writers]
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2,4,80 for fanfic writers asks <33
Thank you so much for the ask, @blitheringmcgonagall, and let's away to the answers!
2 talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said “fuck your plan, here’s what we’re actually doing.”
The closest I come to this, is in WTU2B. This one is a niche piece. It's the epitome, for me, of the adage Write the Fic you want to read. It's very, very meta as well, and involves all Original Characters. So, while five of our favorite characters from the fandom (Harry Potter) are represented, they are portrayed by OC's in the progress of the story. And, when I think over this question related to all the fic I've written, I think it's less that the character looked at me and said "Here's what we're actually doing", and more since they are OC's, and the process of developing them continued during the writing, it's more that I got to know the character better than the way the question is worded.
Which still resulted in some changes in the storyline, even if not super major ones.
4 what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?
This is something of a tougher question than first reading might indicate. I've been writing fanfic for a mere five years. There's one plot bunny I thought might be the one, however, one character involved in that bunny is in four of the fics I've published, in the manner that the plot bunny involves. So, not that one. I'm figuring the answer to this by looking in my Note-Outline-Timeline notebook (a spreadsheet, eh). Reviewing that, I highlighted four. Two of those are somewhat similar, with the second of the two a bit of a spin-off of the first. So the second is eliminated. Three, and which one did I start meditating on first? OK, here it is. Because I touched on this one in the second fic I wrote and published, Meanwhile, Back At the Burrow. Ginny and Harry both develop a means to help the other when they're dealing with PTSD nightmares. Harry's is demonstrated in Meanwhile, and again in Proposals. Ginny's is demonstrated in Meanwhile, and the plot bunny here involves, I didn't specify a detail in Meanwhile because of this plot bunny.
All very mysterious, right? Yeah, I don't want to give too much away. Ginny and Harry both developed ways to help the other cope with PTSD nightmares; Ginny's involves magic in a way she doesn't realize.
80 do you try to put themes, motifs, messages, morals, etc in your writing? if so, how do you go about it?
I don't consciously try to, and I'm sure readers can find them while they are reading.
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Writing Masterpost
Canon-Compliant Original Fiction
albatross: my longest fiction piece to date (6-7k words). link is the info post with all chapters, description can be found there.
bonus: visual profiles and notes for the original and not-quite original characters introduced in albatross
Canon-Divergent Original Fiction
burn it: not as long as albatross but still lengthy! same deal, link is the info post with all chapters and the description can be found there.
Canon-Adjacent Short Writing
the snare: technically can be read as speculative for Thrawn (2017) but accessible to those who haven’t read the book or have no familiarly with Star Wars at all
still on patrol: about a Star Wars vessel but you could probably read this without knowing any context beyond ghost ship cool.
Rebels Sequel Content
rebels sequel script: it’s in the dropbox link. ask me about the free program I used!
rebels sequel skeleton notes: more later-season plotlines and more discussion of themes
rebels sequel rogues gallery: breakdown of the thematic importance of various villains I would include given full creative control and permission from original creators + ability to adequately compensate them
more on bakokin tell: an original villain warrants more explanation
In Which I Describe the Content of a Thrawn-Adjacent Book Austistically
gender systems in Zahn’s books: long-ish brief look at fandom behaviors in relation to original text
deuteragonist meta: she’s even color-coded. I got diagnosed like a year later btw
outbound flight and survivor’s quest: I read some books in apparently the wrong order and made some themes about it
In Which I Describe the Content of a Thrawn-Adjacent Book Comedically
hand of thrawn duology: what it says on the tin
more of that but blended canon and EU this time: can you guess which books and characters I’m talking about? find out by clicking on the link!
alliances: hey it’s darth vader this time! everybody look at darth vader
alliances again: I think this one was actually the first like chronologically
Stand-Alone Content
thrawn gender rambling: approaches incoherence with astonishing speed. still, important to me
thrawn terrible childhood rambling: I’ll never pass up a chance to make him thematically better and emotionally worse
x files comparison: have you ever wondered what would happen if fox mulder had net zero swag? wonder no longer.
eli no bitches??? rambling: I think he genuinely has never had any friends. click the link to see me make my case
chess and checkers: more eli. checkers is very swagful to me
semiextragalactic force sensitivity rambling: brief speculation on support systems for parents of force sensitive children in communities detached from the Jedi Order
bonus: theoretical clone wars episode based on similar concept
hey so what’s the deal with the grafs actually: I read the whole adventures in wild space series and I’m still very skeptical of the whole everything
hey more wild space stuff: I see Lysatra and I put my looking eyes on
thoughts on modern vs classic star wars evil: on the heels of kenobishow, I had some thoughts
an interesting line construction in the Ronin novel, catalogued: also what it says on the tin
review of Shadow of the Sith: in short, there was a good bit I didn’t like
my Lesser Evil theory: so I was wrong. what about it?
the force as an overwriting pen: two small blurbs about being toyed with by something inconceivably more than you
luminous beings: a series of blurbs about non-force-sensitive acquiring force sensitivity
similarities between the Chiss and the Romans: I’ve been studying Latin for six years and I have problems about it
Hey, This Isn’t Star Wars
monsters vs aliens is a transgender allegory: you know I’m right.
you know surf’s up? the penguin movie? trans. gender. allegory: YOU KNOW I’M RIGHT. also, I know it’s not really writing. sue me
#my writing#long post#finally pulled it all together!#I didn’t think I wrote so much thrawntent so compiling this was like getting kicked in the teeth over and over.#sad!
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I posted 382 times in 2022
13 posts created (3%)
369 posts reblogged (97%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@husborth
@giantnerdsnake
@lightsaber-life
@fitzofinspiration
@princesssarcastia
I tagged 382 of my posts in 2022
#sw - 371 posts
#star wars - 366 posts
#space meme - 184 posts
#sw art - 97 posts
#darth anakin - 75 posts
#sw kenobi - 57 posts
#obi wan kenobi - 47 posts
#sw meta - 40 posts
#swtcw - 38 posts
#luke skywalker - 34 posts
Longest Tag: 140 characters
#vader throwing a birthday party where he kidnaps all of luke’s friends to in order to get them to sing happy birthday and fill in the blanks
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
i think discussion of the prequel trilogy is really hampered when you consider the pt a stand-alone piece. it’s not! it’s only half the story. anakin skywalker’s story doesn’t end on mustafar; neither does obi-wan’s, and padmé’s influence lives far beyond on her death. the original trilogy is fait accompli. the main characters' story arcs in the pt work so because it was directly reverse engineered from the ot.
most, if not all, of the questions the ot brings up both mechanical as well as thematic (what happened to the jedi order? what about the twins' mom? what was the galaxy like before the empire? what caused anakin's fall?) are answered in the pt. equally, all of what appear to be loose threads at the end of the pt (what is the future of the jedi order, who is the best of the jedi? luke. what is the cure to the dark side? love, connection, it's how luke saves anakin. will the galaxy ever get better? yes, luke and leia are leaving the galaxy better than their parents left it) are answered in the ot.
you can't divorce the prequel trilogy from the fact that it is a tragedy. nothing about rotj would be triumphant if there was nothing for luke to redeem anakin from or anything left to fix. it's also, by definition, a prequel, so the characters are never going to entirely succeed, and that's their tragedy and dramatically ironic end. padmé never gets to reform the republic (she's murdered by the republic's killer); obi-wan doesn't get to see anakin defeat the sith (anakin destroys the order and joins the sith); and anakin never gets to free the slaves (instead he becomes one, again). who's at fault, here, for the state of the galaxy at the end of rots? everyone and no one. there's more blame to be assigned to some than others (palpatine, for one; anakin, who's doing the murdering) but these characters are not real people actually on trial at the hague. all the pt characters all have to have made irreversible mistakes in someway, by demand of fate and plot, wherein every single character's decision––especially those made with the best intentions––will doom them in some horrific, completely unforeseeable manner.
and all of this would be an understandable end to a tragedy. but the last scenes of rots, like fortinbras arriving to find horatio, do provide hope and luke and leia's existence begin to transition the story to the classical hero's journey. the two trilogies are fundamentally intertwined, spiritual sisters and spiritual antitheses, and it's only the original trilogy that can provide answers and solutions to the pt's problems. parts of obi-wan, padmé, and anakin's characters fundamentally could not be resolved without the characters of the ot. and there's real beauty to it! the relief, the comfort, the hope you feel when binary sunset plays at the end of rots is what makes the ot's triumph so much more emotional in light of the pt's dark tragedy.
403 notes - Posted July 31, 2022
#4
ok but if we're going to lean into the "jedi as space catholics" as they r developed re: the prequels i want go full fucking historical catholic. i want a famous jedi who lived up on a pillar for 37 years. im goin whole hog on a jedi who bricked herself into wall in the temple to achieve spiritual enlightenment. FLAGELLANTS. litcherally all of thomas à becket, up to and including selling his blood as a souvenir. alright but jedi pilgrimage? jedi whose cloaks are covered in a million different tiny pilgrimage badges from all over the galaxy? meanwhile other jedi writing screeds about how veneration vis a vis an object is sacrilegious & bastardization of meditation? i want NOTHING more than to read a jedi summa theologica. "how many midicholrians can fit on the head of a pin?" is considered with absolutely unironic dead seriousness. it would be so, so boring and completely atrocious. i want it ALL
441 notes - Posted April 8, 2022
#3
i am a little mystified by the persistent idea that the jedi order has “mindhealers” that were, like, psychologists with magic emotional powers. i can’t find any mention of this outside fanfic? where did it come from?? why did it come from??? i mean. logically. would the jedi still be Like That ™ if they had any sort of psychology, counseling, and/or psychiatric help. really
514 notes - Posted July 27, 2022
#2
luke’s scene in rotj where he throws down his lightsaber and says, “I’ll never turn to the dark side. you failed, your highness. i am a jedi, like my father before me,” makes me more and more emotional each time i see it. it’s such a triumph and it’s such a brave stand—not only because luke is literally facing down death with no real expectations of escaping the death star ii, which on its own has such impact—but because he is more or less declaring himself a heretic. the only two jedi left alive do not believe vader can be saved. vader himself believes he is far past saving. palpatine is so poised for victory, so assured in his complete control over not only luke’s fall but also his control over vader, that he is happy to torture luke in front of vader, absolutely convinced that vader will do nothing to stop it. in light of the prequel trilogy, it’s made even more powerful: the jedi disavowed having children as an extension of attachments, a matter of course for the old jedi order. but when luke is in his moment of greatest need, he calls out to his father, and his father answers. ultimately, it’s their forbidden familial relationship that defines them as jedi—luke is becomes a jedi in honor of his father, and his father turns back from the dark side (a feat thought impossible until that very instance) and recalls the jedi knight anakin skywalker, all for his son. and that’s all in defiance of what the jedi were told to be, what obi-wan and yoda believed, what palpatine never thought possible! luke redefines what a jedi is when he throws down his weapon. he trusts in the power of his connection to his father, their attachment to each other, and when he does that? luke skywalker topples the empire.
710 notes - Posted September 30, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
vader: i am your father
luke: [screaming in horror after his arm was cut off by vader] NO!!!! NO!!!!! NO!!!!!!
vader, an empath: so im sensing that u want us to rule the galaxy as father and son
5,233 notes - Posted January 19, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
#tumblr2022#year in review#my 2022 tumblr year in review#your tumblr year in review#the top five…ur the real ones buddies 🫡
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I posted 668 times in 2022
That's 668 more posts than 2021!
203 posts created (30%)
465 posts reblogged (70%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@ap0stle
@heather-garland
@carlyraejepsans
@friskibitz
@aether-friskets
I tagged 653 of my posts in 2022
Only 2% of my posts had no tags
#fanart - 209 posts
#op's art - 188 posts
#silent hill - 149 posts
#rambles - 134 posts
#undertale - 128 posts
#heather mason - 110 posts
#silent hill 3 - 109 posts
#safeutdr - 105 posts
#silent hill fanart - 99 posts
#frisk - 91 posts
Longest Tag: 137 characters
#and honestly? op's suggestion of him having been a member of the order is way more interesting to me than just 'otherworld manifestation'
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
not the most extravagant piece I've ever made for something like this but. Here's a little drawing I made for Undertale's anniversary!! Like I said I would!
It would've been nice to get a piece with more of the characters but alas
Also I feel like Chara could be better but I always have trouble drawing them quite right >:|
Anyway uhhhh yeah!!
23 notes - Posted September 15, 2022
#4
See the full post
31 notes - Posted August 2, 2022
#3
so I recall this line in outlast 2 when you end up in St. Sybil one of the first times. Blake says somethin like "Great. Back in the Fourth Grade." meaning those the stuff he's reliving must've happened in that grade.
And we know that 4th graders are typically either 9 or 10
(assuming Jess was in the same grade she was only 9 or 10 as well which. damn.)
But we ALSO know what year this takes place in, because there's multiple instances on papers and stuff with the year 1995 (in fact it's December 1995 iirc). I don't have any screenshots on-hand but I could totally go get some at some point lol
MeaninG Blake was 9 or 10 in 1995
We also know that Outlast 2 takes place not all that long after the first game does (due to the Murkoff Account, which, admittedly I haven't read in a while so feel free to correct me there). And we know Outlast happened in 2013.
This mean that our pal Blake is most likely 28 (or 27). Which also makes him the youngest, since Miles and Waylon are both supposedly in their "early to mid 30s" (I couldn't see the cited tweet so for all I know this could be inaccurate but it sounds reasonable enough for me to believe).
Also Waylon has two kids so I'm inclined to believe he's the oldest but like they're all like a few years apart in age anyway lol
Anyway this is probably really obvious stuff but I thought it was interesting for some reason
38 notes - Posted August 6, 2022
#2
random minor thing but I always thought that while Frisk's SAVEs are like normal manual save point saving you'd expect to see, when Flowey steals back control as Omega Flowey, the whole "File x loaded/saved" thing gives the vibes of someone using an emulator. Where you have multiple interchangeable save states that you can save or load to whenever you want, even if the game isn't normally capable of that.
In particular it makes me think back to repeatedly loading a save state in Majora's Mask because of the goddamn town shooting gallery mini game AUGh
Which I guess it kind of makes sense? Omega Flowey is artificially stealing control of the game, sort of like how an emulator gives you an artificial way of accessing a game (in the sense of like I could play a PS1 game on my pc, or a N64 game on my Wii U, for example). So not only does his save system make sense from an in-game stand point, it's kinda cool from a meta standpoint too.
At least, I think it is.
63 notes - Posted June 19, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
late night posting of an old-ish drawing
Psychonauts was big on my mind for a short while there and although it's not my current focus, the games are still really great!! And I still like this little drawing I did of Raz.
It was interesting trying to translate his design to my art style, because that game has a very particular look (in a good way).
also hope y'all don't mind my random mish-mash of posting and reblogging various stuff, I cannot be consistent to save my life
Hopefully I'll have some new art to share soon though!! Assuming this funk of mine dies down, anyway.
71 notes - Posted May 16, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
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meta writing asks: all odds!
Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?
Currently editing my upcoming werewolf novel, We Are the Beast in The Woods. Progress is....fine. Editing is always the part where I'm just looking at it in pieces, adding some stuff, taking some stuff out, re-arranging stuff, and hoping I can fit it back together as a cohesive narrative. I love that I've actually finished a draft of it when I thought I would.
What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)
I have a very specific, like, the heroes are fighting against a villain who has gained the power to rewrite all of reality to fit their (terrible) vision of a utopia, and they begin the process while blaring Heaven Is A Place On Earth by Belinda Carlyle. I will never be able to come up with a good reason why the villain would be doing that, though. So.
What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?
I have been noodling around with something new recently, and the MC of that is so far the one I've put the most of myself into. By a fair amount.
What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?
Hmm... I honestly don't know. @graysongraysoff What do you think?
Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other?
Longfic. I had to look up what Pantser meant just now, but that one for sure.
What do you envy in other writers?
Their way of putting together sentences and paragraphs in such a beautiful, flowing way that it just feels satisfying to read.
Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?
Yeah, I've published one (1) novel so far, with more to come this year. It is Desert Witch by Nicholas Todd on Amazon, available as an e-book and paperback.
I have many projects that will never see the light of day, that I wrote and edited and read again and decided to shelve it forever.
Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?
Titles are so hard for me.
Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?
Maybe? I'm not sure what would surprise them? Maybe that I've never written a real outline for anything. I generally have a list of characters and important places in a doc, and then I just start writing in a separate doc.
Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)
Every story I've ever written has a really tall queer woman in it. I will never stop.
What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)
Comic books, probably. I feel like half the time I think about scenes in my head as I'm writing as comic panels and splash pages. So I think it would translate well.
What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?
An Urban Fantasy about three friends gaining powers from an eldritch monster and using them to protect the Earth while grappling with the fact that the powers originated from a thing that was pure evil.
What part of writing is the most fun?
Writing the one scene in the story that made me want to start writing said story in the first place. I love getting there.
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I posted 1,322 times in 2022
That's 363 more posts than 2021!
28 posts created (2%)
1,294 posts reblogged (98%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@blackbeardlovesstede
@snapbuttonsonadenimshirt
@forpiratereasons
@squirreltidings
@eviefrie
I tagged 810 of my posts in 2022
Only 39% of my posts had no tags
#ofmd - 362 posts
#ofmd meta - 96 posts
#blackbonnet - 73 posts
#dracula daily - 55 posts
#edward teach - 50 posts
#stede bonnet - 38 posts
#ofmd essential meta - 29 posts
#video - 25 posts
#goncharov - 20 posts
#izzy hands - 20 posts
Longest Tag: 137 characters
#or does it matter that this is a historical blackbeard and stede bonnet who have been scrubbed of the morally reprehensible bits (mostly)
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
I didn't notice this until today, but even the days of the week line up!! Today is Wednesday!!
68 notes - Posted May 11, 2022
#4
today’s OFMD thought:
So like... we have no reason to think this is untrue, and since we know how successful a pirate he is, it probably is true. That means Ed could buy nice things for himself, or keep the fine things he steals from ships, but he doesn’t. It’s probably never even occurred to him. He just keeps holding on to the old scrap of red silk. He can take fine things, but he can’t ever let himself keep them.
94 notes - Posted April 29, 2022
#3
I can’t believe with all the meta about what a psychosexual freak Izzy is for Blackbeard, no one’s mentioned this yet
117 notes - Posted April 20, 2022
#2
I promise I actually have ideas to contribute to all the great meta going on for this show, but for right now just have this:
spot the difference
465 notes - Posted April 20, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
Thinking about the two references to Lucius (or parts of him) going overboard before it actually happened
[image description: Screenshot from OFMD episode 3, of Jim saying “Can you help me throw this overboard?”, referring to a trunk containing Lucius]
[image description: Screenshot from OFMD episode 6, of Fang saying “Today... we commit a piece of our beloved Lucius to the sea.” before throwing Lucius’ infected finger overboard]
See the full post
473 notes - Posted May 16, 2022
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vincenzo & the godfather
okay okay so from someone who has watched/rewatched The Godfather multiple times for the past seven years, it is very easy to see why I loved Vincenzo so much. The Godfather has been my favorite movie ever since I watched it, so now Vincenzo is my favorite kdrama. because I literally cannot shut up about how much Park Jae-Bum drew from it, I will proceed to just write meta about this gd show. warning for an incredibly long post, where I’ve bolded the most direct parallels. listen to this while you read it.
What is The Godfather?
Well, the IMDB summary says this:
An organized crime dynasty's aging patriarch transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Which is pretty accurate. It’s a modern Greek tragedy about the son, Michael Corleone: we see his descent from a kind-hearted veteran who wants nothing to do with the family business to becoming a corrupt, cold-hearted businessman for the sake of his family and his family’s legacy. After his father, Vito, is nearly killed, a series of events leads Michael to become the new Don.
Now the main characters are:
Michael Corleone - the youngest son
Vito Corleone - the Don, or in Vincenzo terms, the Capo (both refer to the Godfather/the boss)
Sonny Corleone - the oldest son (very brash + impulsive, which is why Vito doesn’t want to hand power to him)
Fredo Corleone - the middle son (seemingly sweet + clueless, the least business-like, which is why he never gets involved in any family business)
Tom Hagen - the consigliere
The Consigliere
The first incredibly impressive characterization Vincenzo gets right is the consigliere’s ruthlessness. In the first two Godfather movies, Tom Hagen:
Cuts off the prized horse’s head to convince a man to sign a document (yes, that famous horse head scene)
Orchestrates the assassination of the head of another family and a police officer under his payroll
Convinces someone to commit suicide by indirectly threatening his family
Not only that, but Tom Hagen himself is an orphaned Irish boy, adopted into an Italian Mafia family. He’s an adopted foreigner groomed to become the capo’s/don’s right-hand-man as the consigliere.
In the first movie, Sonny (the oldest son) is angry after his father’s attack and wants to strike back at the other family who ordered the hit immediately. Because Tom is a lawyer and has advised Vito for years now, he advises Sonny not to act so impulsively. In response, Sonny yells, “Will you just do what I tell you to do? Goddamn it, if I had a wartime consigliere, a Sicilian, I wouldn’t be in this shape!” There’s a moment when Sonny cools down, tries to backtrack what he says, before apologizing. Tom isn’t having it.
Now watch Vincenzo battle racism and an impulsive, brash, violent brother. He is a lawyer, yes, but that’s most likely what they groomed him to be after he turned to the Mafia to torture and kill his foster parents’ murderer. It probably wasn’t his choice, much like it probably wasn’t Tom’s choice, to become consigliere: it was just the only option they knew, to give back to the Family that took them in. It was for their survival in a world where they’re outnumbered and ostracized for their race, and their advice (Vincenzo criticizing Paolo for killing women and children vs. Tom criticizing Sonny’s impulsiveness) is ignored by those who still see them as outsiders, even after the Don/Capo accepted them into their families.
The New Don
OKAY SO. I didn’t think Park Jae-Bum would go ALL out on the Godfather references - I thought it would end with the first episode/how they built Vincenzo’s character to become a direct mirror to how Tom Hagen was a foreigner adopted into the family. But the conversation with Park Seok-Do to get Vincenzo to call him hyung, Seok-Do calling him Michael Corleone, and the Godfather theme playing in the background - made me go absolutely insane.
So here’s the deal about Michael. First, Michael before his father’s attempted assassination:
Is a sweet, patriotic boy who just came back from the war (WWII)
Has a girlfriend named Kay who he promises he won’t get involved with the family business
The Lighter
Then his father almost dies, and Michael is pulled into the business. He protects his father when he’s healing in the hospital against hired guns from a rival family. There’s an excellent scene analysis on Youtube (1:15) about how just one simple two second frame shows that while one of his father’s friends nervous, and yet Michael — who has, arguably, fought in a war — isn’t nervous at all, which foreshadows his level-headedness and cold cruelty when he becomes the new Don. How, you ask, do we know? WELL.
The hired bodyguard can’t seem to ignite his lighter because of his nervousness. Michael, calm and collected, takes the lighter and ignites it from him.
*distant screaming*
Vincenzo’s lighter has always been his go-to tool to calm him down, to collect himself, to prepare for war. It’s the sound that makes him think. It’s poetic that it’s also Michael’s way of telling the audience that he is ready for a war between Mafia families.
The Lovelife
So after protecting his father, Tom Hagen and Sonny are discussing how to deal with the rival family. Michael himself volunteers to murder them by shooting them at point-blank range at a restaurant. He then flees the country, after taking care of his father’s business, much like how Vincenzo leaves Italy after Fabio’s death. Michael goes to Sicily, where his father was born, while Vincenzo returns to Korea.
In Sicily, Michael falls in love and gets married to a Sicilian woman named Apollonia. Like Michael, Vincenzo returns to his roots and falls in love with a woman who supports his position as a part of a Mafia Family and accepts him. (Side note, Michael’s marriage is problematic in and of itself, he literally didn’t say a word to Kay about anything, but anyway)
However, back home, there are problems in the family: Sonny is brash and arrogant, and gets killed by the rival family. Just when Michael is informed and asked to come home, Apollonia is also killed in a car bomb. You can imagine why I was concerned for Chayoung’s life at one point of the series before I realized Park Jae-Bum was too good for that.
But here’s where Vincenzo diverges from Michael, and what makes Chayoung superior to Apollonia and Kay’s characters.
Michael goes home a changed person. Apollonia’s and his brother’s deaths are the final nails in the coffin for him: there’s no going back and not taking part in the family business. He is the only option to become the new Don. When he gets back, he gives Kay empty promises about becoming the new Don to make his father’s empire clean and stop the corruption. She believes him and agrees to marry him.
Famously, the last scene of the first movie is Michael being crowned the new Don (people kissing his hand and asking for his favor) as Kay watches from the other room before the door closes in her face. His favorite line to Kay is, “Don’t ask me about my business.” (This scene always gives me chills!!!)
While Michael starts off kind-hearted and open, someone who sees his family’s business as corrupt and unapproachable, Vincenzo is already a hybrid of Michael and Tom when we meet him. It is, as SJK said in his recent interview, an opening and softening of his character: the complete opposite of Michael’s character development.
Apollonia barely has three lines in the movie and barely has any role but to be the woman Michael falls in love with and to represent the idea of him staying in Sicily and not moving back to take over the family. She is an ideal Sicilian wife who understands how the family business works. His American girlfriend Kay, on the other hand, can never accept this Sicilian part of Michael. He shuts the door on her and never lets her in on anything that he’s doing, and eventually, Kay wants no part in the marriage, either.
Chayoung is stronger than Apollonia in that she takes the center stage of Vincenzo’s masterplan. She is allowed more agency and access into Vincenzo’s world than Kay is into Michael’s world, because Vincenzo considers her his partner, while Michael considered Kay to be his subordinate.
The fact that Vincenzo begins as post-Sicily Michael makes the show so satisfying to watch if you’ve seen The Godfather. Vincenzo is a story where a woman gains power and respect from her Mafia partner, and a man forced into violence and ruthlessness finds someone who accepts that part of him wholeheartedly. The Godfather ultimately ends in heartbreak and tragedy, but Vincenzo’s ending is hopeful and fulfilling for both of our main leads. They have an accepting, powerful love that Michael does not have with anyone.
Betrayals by Brothers
Last one (for now)! In the second movie, Fredo betrays Michael to a rival business partner, which almost leads to his assassination. When he finds out it was him, Michael keeps him alive until their mother passes away before ordering his men to kill him. (Also by now Michael and Kay have two children who are close with Fredo so like rip childhood trauma when your father murders your uncle ahahahahah)
SO ANYWAY this part has haunted me for days. When Paolo betrays Vincenzo the second time, why doesn’t he kill him? Is he waiting for Fabio’s wife to pass away? Does Fabio even have a wife? Did Vincenzo respect her as he respected Fabio? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.
Or maybe it’s because he’s different from Michael: the second movie confirmed that Michael has become so cold-hearted that he doesn’t think of his family when he makes decisions, whether that’s killing his own brother or divorcing Kay. For Vincenzo, family is the most important thing in the world. For Michael, the Corleone family becomes just a business to run.
In other words, it goes to show that Vincenzo’s worst self-deprecating thought — that villains don’t deserve to love, because love is just an asset to them — is proven wrong for him through his love for Chayoung, the Geumga Plaza Family, and even the Cassano Family, while it is proven right for Michael.
OKAY that’s it for now. Thanks for listening. Literally if you have any questions about the Godfather let me know because I could talk about it for hours.
#vincenzo#i did it#vincenzo vs. the godfather#my goodness#i think this is my longest piece of meta ever#lena writes#chayenzo
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