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stillness-in-green · 3 years

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MVA In Memoriam (4/5)

The Comprehensive Account of the Butchering of My Villain Academia

(Introduction and Part One, Episode 108: My Villain Academia) (Part Two, Episode 109: Revival Party) (Part Three, Episode 110: Sad Man's Parade)

Part Four, Episode 111: Origin: Shimura Tenko

Chapter 233 – Bright Future

• Twice clearly having arranged a Skeptic puppet to where its arm can be used as a pillow for Toga’s neck. A cute little character detail while also being kind of disturbing? Very on-brand for the League! A not-immediately-plot-crucial visual of a member of the League demonstrating obvious care for another member? The guillotine awaits!

• A little explanation about how clones’ physicality and memories work relative to the last time Twice saw the people the clones are based on. This is a very useful little nod of explanation to something that remained unclear from the dialogue of Mr. Clone-press last chapter. Twice’s quirk is pretty arcane in its ins and outs, frankly, and the clearer those details are, the fewer plot holes you’re leaving for later.

• The scene of Skeptic being right on the verge of confronting Twice. Skeptic has, oh, about five moments where he’s obviously a big tense neurotic who’s unpleasant to be around if things aren’t going his way, and the anime deleted or downplayed all but two of them. As ever, it’s obscenely damaging to the characterization of the MLA cast, who we have little enough time with as it is. Further, it was a particularly weird choice to make with Skeptic, who is as of this writing the only major MLA character who’ll emerge still free and active from the War Arc. Why shaft the characterization of the one of new characters who’s going to be getting the most attention out of any of them in the next arc, with yet more scenes yet to come after?[1]

• A full page’s-worth of Spinner’s rationalizations on targeting Trumpet and ordering the Twice doubles to do the same. This lays out the details on why targeting Trumpet stands to relieve some of the load on Shigaraki. It isn’t because Trumpet’s quirk makes the crowds more dangerous, though that is true. Spinner targets Trumpet because he’s seen enough to know that attacking the MLA’s leaders gets them crazy riled up; he knows that if he makes himself a threat to Trumpet, then all Trumpet’s followers’ attention will shift focus to Spinner, leaving Shigaraki with less to deal with. Spinner also knows that that is ludicrously dangerous to him personally, given his weak quirk, but he actively makes that choice anyway, because that’s how much he’s devoted himself to Shigaraki without (yet) quite articulating the nature and reasons for that devotion. Targeting Trumpet without any of that reasoning made for a perfectly sound tactical decision, but it missed the regard Spinner shows the unnamed mobs of the MLA, and it really missed the probable savage beatdown and even possible death that Spinner consciously chooses to risk for Shigaraki’s sake. Of course, a chunk of what the episode deleted is flashbacks to scenes the anime also cut, so they couldn’t figure into Anime!Spinner’s reasoning. This does not excuse yet more cuts to Spinner’s arc and characterization; it only adds to how badly the anime maimed him. Also, on a less salty but still confused note, deleting all the Twice clones from the beginning of the scene and just having Spinner running along a wall past mobs of people instead of laboriously fighting his way through the street to the van was really dumb. Why did all those MLA people just stand there and let him run by? Where did all the Twice clones that just helped save Spinner from a huge flurry of long-distance attacks disappear to? Come on.

• Trumpet’s thought that using Sevens Loud will draw every bit of strength from their warriors, but that it’s necessary. Setting aside that it looks far less necessary when there hasn’t been a crowd of Twice clones fighting Trumpet’s people this whole time, just Spinner by his lonesome, we still lost quite a bit to this cut. Firstly, a nuance on the trade-off Incite gives—that its stat-boost is temporary, and that it’s borrowing from the future to pay for the present, a stock that is limited and a bill that will come due when the effect wears off. Secondly, it’s another demonstration that the MLA leaders aren’t just thoughtlessly wasting their followers’ lives; they’re very consciously doing cost/benefit analysis on how much danger their people are in versus what stands to be gained by the potential exertion or outright deaths those people will suffer. It’s cold reasoning, yes, but that’s how the Liberation Army operates: not for the personal gain or lackadaisical ease of the people on top—Trumpet would just have been in the tower speaking through city-wide loudspeakers, if that were the case—but for the advancement of the group’s ideals. It also just grants Trumpet some interiority, but of course the anime can’t have that.

• The note in Trumpet’s meta-ability explanation that the more his voice causes the air to vibrate, the stronger Incite’s effect. This is—good god, it is literally the entire design mentality behind Sevens Loud! Sevens Loud purpose isn't to make his voice louder so more people can hear him (which I would think is the most logical assumption an anime-only person would make as to why he puts it on); it’s to make himself louder because being louder enhances the boost. It’s about the quality of the effect, not the quantity of targets. This is why Trumpet has the thought about how using Sevens Loud will drain the strength reserves of his people. There’d be no correlation there if Sevens Loud were only about boosting his range.

• When Spinner got porcupined in the anime, they did a close-up on his face, possibly to avoid the gore of showing the spines piercing through his forearm. That’s fine, but they also emphasized the reaction by having him lose his grip on the huge fuck-off knife he had clutched in his teeth. In the manga, sure, he yells in pain, but he doesn’t lose the knife. Indeed, he gets the guy off him by slashing at him with it—a shot the anime dropped. So Spinner doesn’t even get to keep displays of his pain tolerance, a trait he doubtless improved during those six weeks against Machia. Why does the anime hate Spinner so much, you guys? Why did it go out of its way to make him look lamer, when Dabi and Toga were out there getting anime-original flourishes to make them look cooler?

• Spinner’s thoughts, “When I get inspired to act, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing! I’m just a loser jumping on a bandwagon. Or at least that’s what it looks like.” A humorous bit of self-awareness from Spinner here. The anime got at the self-awareness. The humor, as we’ll see, not so much.

• Spinner’s thoughts, “Look at me. Look at me!! With all that prejudice in your eyes!” Hah hah, laughed BNHA the anime nervously, what prejudice are you talking about, Spinner? No idea what you could possibly be referring to there! This one’s particularly annoying because, while one might think that the anime was just dodging the heteromorphobia angle it eradicated all references to back at the beginning of the arc, the prejudice line isn’t even about heteromorphobia, not really. See, the Japanese line there literally translates to, “With those colored glasses!”—to see with colored glasses being a Japanese idiom for seeing something from a biased viewpoint. So aside from being a wordplay jab at Trumpet’s choice in eyewear, it’s also about Trumpet’s expressed view that Spinner, having been a shut-in with a weak quirk who decided to take his resentment out on the world, can’t possibly amount to anything much. So, what, did the people in charge of making those cuts think Trumpet was right? Why even keep the line where he disparages Spinner if you’re not going to let Spinner call it what it is? He’s not calling out fantasy racism there, anime! He’s calling out the bias against weak quirks that even the good guys in this world sometimes partake in! Possibly it’s because non-villains in the world[2] sometimes use reasoning that leads logically to quirk supremacism that the anime got gunshy with it, or it was more reluctance to give the villains—and the Too-Real Iguchi Shuuichi especially—moral ground for accusations against their society that get too close to real life. Whatever the motivation, it’s a bullshit cut.

• Shigaraki calling RD “Detnerat,” presumably because he neither knows RD’s real name nor cares to dignify him by using his code name. The anime, again, made neither the connection nor Shigaraki’s recognition explicit, so it lost the specificity and pettiness of that little snub.

• A little exchange between Giran and a Twice clone as they flee. It doesn’t give you much you wouldn’t assume just from seeing them flee, but it always feels more immediate and empathetic when the characters talk and you can see their expressions, instead of just a quick shot of them from behind as they run away in complete silence. Heck, running away in complete silence is actively out of character for Twice!

• Because the anime has some kind of aversion/restriction on showing hand-related violence, it radically changed how Shigaraki lost his fingers,[3] resulting in the loss of several important shots. To the best of my parsing, in the manga, when Re-Destro makes that first big jump to avoid Shigaraki’s decay wave, he comes back down specifically aiming for Shigaraki’s outstretched left hand, spread wide and flat on the ground. Shigaraki tries to evade (you can see the blur of his left arm in the panel where RD lands), but either RD does manage to clip the hand or he simply hits the ground with so much force that the sheer explosive burst of rock shreds Shigaraki’s hand and part of his coat sleeve. Being so much larger, RD then simply snags Shigaraki by the wrist before he can get out of range. It’s very fast, a burst of speed and violence, and very different (read: cooler) from Shigaraki flipping end over end in slow motion in a way that seemed to imply visually that he was thrown well out of RD’s grabbing range. As to the shots we lost? I counted three. First, Hana’s hand crumpling amidst all the flying debris. Second, that big dramatic panel of Shigaraki’s maimed hand ribboning blood into the air as the narration box finally drops Re-Destro’s identity and code name. Third, the shot of him catching Shigaraki, almost delicately, between one thumb and forefinger and delivering the, “Was it this hand that committed such evil acts?” line—a clear threat to what of that hand Shigaraki has remaining—as we find out what his meta-ability is. This is all hugely dramatic in the manga, because, of course, readers always assumed Shigaraki needed all five fingers to activate his quirk, and here Re-Destro nigh-effortlessly robs him of fully half his capacity to use it. It’s a shocking turn-around and instantly ups RD’s threat level by allowing him to permanently maim Shigaraki in a way that no one, hero or villain, has done before or since. Robbing Re-Destro of the immediacy of that seemingly devastating blow—inflicted within moments of meeting the real Shigaraki—did immeasurable damage to his credibility as an arc boss. The shot in the manga is also just arresting visually, with RD finally getting to properly loom over Shigaraki. Most of the shots up to this point have been framed such that, while RD is obviously bigger, he and Shigaraki have still been moving and fighting in a pretty level way. This is the first place where the viewer is situated so squarely behind Shigaraki that they can really feel how massive RD is in comparison. It’s certainly a more impressive visual than this mess—thanks, anime; thanks, whatever broadcasting standards forced overworked and uninspired animators to undertake a redraw of RD’s quirk reveal panel when every other member of the MLA brass had theirs carried over directly from the manga.

• A chapter-ending cliffhanger of Slidin’ Go helping direct traffic on the outskirts of Deika and the warning rumble as Gigantomachia approaches. Aside from being a nice little tension boost—Will Gigantomachia roll up just in time to see Re-Destro making a mess of Shigaraki? Who will he target? Will Shigaraki ever be able to win him over if he sees a scene like that?—it’s good foreshadowing for what the news reports will eventually be saying. Remember, the claim is that a bunch of villains lured Deika’s heroes away and then attacked the city while it was defenseless; that’s why we never see any of the MLA’s heroes involved with the fight once it starts. And now, here, we find out where they’ve been the whole time: making sure no outsiders get in who might be able to undermine that narrative.

Framing Shifts

• Once again had an MLA member using their Detnerat item say its name out loud, when it’s clear in the manga that they’re just thinking the names internally. Once again, it was kind of silly.

• When Spinner flashes back to watching Stain on TV and being inspired, the manga uses a shot of Stain’s face, snarling and defiant. The anime used—a shot of Stain from behind, only visible from the shoulders to the knees, hunched so that his lower back and ass were towards the camera. Bones… What exactly were you implying lit Spinner’s fire there? Or did you just not have the time or budget to go pull Stain’s reference sheets for drawing his face?

• A tone issue, but a major one: Spinner should be grinning, face alight with accusatory challenge, as he hurls his accusations of the MLA/Trumpet being the same bandwagon-jumping nobodies that he is. This is the moment in the manga where we see Spinner truly throw his hesitations and his doubts to the wind and embrace Shigaraki’s nihilistic fervor and the beauty, value and profundity of emptiness. So what if I’m empty? So what if he wants emptiness? Who cares about other peoples’ ideals if their ideals leave no room for me? It’s not a heroic triumph, but it’s a triumph all the same, and losing Spinner’s smile made the moment far too bitter.

• Meanwhile, in exactly the opposite problem, Shigaraki by this point is not smiling. In fact, he’s barely on his feet, swaying violently in place with accompanying sound effects. While his words are openly mocking, he seems to wholly lack the energy to back them up with his usual verve. The anime didn’t have him smiling, admittedly, but the whole time the ‘camera’ wasn’t directly on his face, his voice actor was reading the lines with an uneven, chuckling cadence that suggested Shigaraki was seconds away from breaking into howls of laughter. He was also, of course, impossibly clean, at a point at which his manga counterpart is muddy, bloody and tattered from the horrifically extended combat he’s been living for six weeks. It’s stuff like this that made it so impossible to take the Army or even Machia as much of a threat in the anime, when, other than the red cords on his hands being broken, Shigaraki looked absolutely no different than usual.

Additions

• Gave Spinner a tiny bit of new animation when he got mobbed by people hopped up on Incite. It was nice, but if they were going to give him a flourish, I’d rather it have come when he swipes Porcupine Dude off him with a combat knife. Or, you know, just kept the bit of him telling the Twices to attack and his reasoning on why.

• Cut inside briefly to show a ballerina girl dancing through a darkened apartment right before she sliced a neat circle out of the wall. I love it, A+, exactly the kind of expansion on the action of the manga I wanted to see. My only complaint is that her manga self looked more like Pearl from Steven Universe.[4] XD

• A quick new shot of RD when Shigaraki was hounding him about his feelings. His teeth were visibly gritted, the corners of his mouth pulled down. It stands out because there’s only one shot of RD there in the manga, and in it, he’s smiling, close-mouthed and calm. The anime copied said shot, smile and all, then cut away, and when it cut back, Re-Destro had a totally different expression on his face. Baffling. Anime!RD having a dour scowl everywhere manga!RD is smiling in a tight, controlled way was all over the fight scene, and it detracted from the sense of RD’s menace every time.

Chapter 234 – Destruction Sense

• The illustration(s) accompanying Re-Destro’s, “Let’s not judge people by their quirks,” line. The pictures are cute, but the real loss there was the note informing us that they’re excerpts from a children’s book published by Shoowaysha—Curious’s outfit—called Quirks and Us. That’s a very concrete illustration of the kinds of things the MLA is getting up to in the world, and an equally concrete thing an anime-only viewer lost. Of course, that viewer never even found out Curious was in publishing, so it wouldn’t have meant anything on that front, but there is one other thing I think is notable: the way that book implies that the only people explicitly pushing a “don’t judge other people by their quirks” message are the radical Liberationists. See, the rest of the story touches on the virtues of a nonjudgmental attitude here and there, but actually finding people willing to say it out loud is—unprecedented, I think. Deku comes across situations where he could say something like that multiple times and he never, ever does—not to Shouto, nor to Shinsou, nor to Eri, nor to the giant fox lady. And that’s not even touching on Shouji’s mask, or the discrimination Spinner faced, or the CRC “losing support” without being declared illegal. I think the manga itself is against judging people by their quirks, but it’s interesting that it doesn’t make its characters into mouthpieces to say as much. This is because its characters are thoroughly enmeshed in a society that very much does judge people by their quirks, regardless of whether or not it will say that doing so is bad or rude or prejudiced. Re-Destro and the MLA aren’t immune, of course—Re-Destro himself says that quirks are linked to personality—but they adhere to a different set of values than the larger society does. While Hero Society talks about quirks in terms of being heroic and/or useful versus villainous and/or useless, the MLA spectrums instead emphasize how capable a person’s quirk is of helping them exert their will and how ambitious the quirk’s bearer is in that exertion. That is, their ethics are less about morality and utility-to-society than they are about aspiration and utility-to-self.[5] Both worldviews have their pros and cons, but that, I think, is what the children’s book is getting at when it says not to “judge”—don’t assign an arbitrary moral value to a quirk; judge a person by their actions. And isn’t it interesting, that the only explicit verbal statement of that value comes from the leader of a radical cult descended from a famous insurrectionist quoting a children’s book published by a member of selfsame radical cult? The value is not ever stated by a member of the heroic cast, so are we to assume that the heroes don't actually believe it? Do people profess to believe it but everyone knows it’s only for courtesy’s sake, with only the MLA willing to breach that wall of “things we don’t talk about in polite society” to actually talk about it in anything other than platitudes? Obviously, you lose this entire line of discussion when the "don't judge people by their quirks" value is just never mentioned at all.

• The phrase, “In that case,” from RD’s, “You will never measure up to me.” It establishes continuity to what RD was saying before. He’s not taking breaks from talking while Shigaraki has flashbacks; the two are happening concurrently.

• RD’s, “Cracking apart…?” reaction to his Decayed fingertip, and the dripping blood from the injury. I’m not hugely fussed about the former, but I like the latter as indicative of what Re-Destro’s Stress powers actually do. That is to say, he isn’t covering himself in a thick shell of Stress power or something; his Stress powers make him physically larger, infusing his body and swelling his size. That’s why he bleeds when Shigaraki touches his fingertip. Admittedly, the size distinction was more obvious in the anime, where the audience watched RD’s shoulders inflate like balloons last episode, compared to the manga, where you don’t get in-between animation. Still, given that RD still has that wound even when he goes back down to normal size, and is still wearing bandages for his speech a week later,[6] it’d be nice to mark the severity of the wound with a bit of blood. Oddly, the anime did keep the wound for the crater scene, visible red slices opened in the flesh along the length of his finger, very obviously the sort of injury that would have bled upon being first sustained. Maybe RD ran afoul of whatever the studio mandate is on when Decay has a dust effect and when it leaves gore? (More of that later.)

• Shigaraki’s, “Mother!” for the first panel we see of her. It’s obvious enough who she probably is, but odd that we got a whole bunch of narration for Hana, and likewise an acknowledgment of his grandparents, but not even a single word for Nao.

• Very significantly drops the grandfather’s, “Eating yummy things helps make the sadness go away.” Grandpa’s not just randomly handing Tenko his favorite snack in that memory—he’s trying to treat some kind of grief or wrong without actually addressing the wrong, opting to just put a flavorful band-aid on it. That could be fine if it were something outside Grandpa’s control, but we’ve already gotten some early hints from Hana’s phrasing that things are not okay in the household, and thus the grandfather’s attempt to bribe Tenko with sweets is just as ominous a sign of what’s to come as the grandmother’s attempt to guilt him into not crying lest he make her cry too.

• A little shot of Shigaraki stirring in the rubble when RD answers the phone. It’s a nice demonstration of their size difference, especially comparing both of them to Machia, who we just saw tearing through buildings like the kaiju his theme music declares him to be.

Framing Shifts

• When Shigaraki narrates that Hana always took him by the hand when he got weepy, she actually does take his hand in the manga, her fingers wrapped around his, his clasped over hers. It emphasizes that this is what he can’t do anymore, simply hold hands with people, the innocence lost aspect, and it suggests the closeness he once had with his sister. In the anime, she reached out a hand but wound up taking him by the wrist instead, his hand splayed open beneath hers. This suggested, albeit very implicitly, that maybe that innocence was something he never had from the beginning; it also suggested less reciprocity in his relationship with Hana. Even though Tomura said in narration that their hands were joined, what we saw was that Hana just pulled him where she wanted him and he didn’t fight her on it, not that he held her hand in return. Alternatively, the anime could have been drawing a parallel to how her hand would eventually be gripping his wrist in a much different context (a more necrotic one, for starters) later in life, though if that's what they were going for, they could have stood to tweak the dialogue so it actually matched the onscreen action. (Credit to @robotlesbianjavert and @aysall respectively for these two theories!)

• Shigaraki still having his fingers when Re-Destro squeezed his hand made RD look like a real moron. I assume the intention was that he assumed he’d done enough damage—broken bones, torn ligaments, etc—to prevent Shigaraki from being able to move his hand in more than spastic twitches, but like, if all it takes is a hard enough spasmodic clench to dust you, you are playing much riskier games than the MLA is generally portrayed as favoring. (Not that the anime kept many of the scenes that demonstrated all the planning and prep that the MLA did as groundwork for their attack, as I have complained about at length.) In the same sequence, Anime!RD turned and bodily hurled Shigaraki away from him, while Manga!RD threw him a similar distance with nothing more than a flick of a finger. Anime, why you gotta make Re-Destro look so lame all the time?

Additions

• Just one episode prior, the anime managed to turn in an entirely reasonable assemblage of swiping and dodging between Shigaraki and Re-Destro while RD was rambling on about the Mother of Quirks. What the hell was the excuse for this episode’s ridiculous shot of Shigaraki literally running circles—big, broad circles—around RD multiple times in the time it took RD to finish one (1) thought? For heaven’s sake, if you don’t have the budget for flashy, just use slow motion or more flashback animation or something. I know there’s more leeway for long thoughts in manga, where the reader understands that thoughts are moving far faster than action, and that it can be hard to bridge that gap for anime, where motion is motion but voice acting still has to rattle its way to the end of a sentence. I understand that measures have to be taken to account for that. Still, I promise, something that just looks a bit padded is much preferable to something that looks outright dumb.

• I admit to having found huge Stress monster RD pulling out a teeeeeny-tiny cellphone very funny—even more so the distinct cracking sound it made when Skeptic reported in bad news and RD’s fingers tightened infinitesimally—but the manga suggests fairly strongly that RD’s just answering on some kind of earpiece or micro-receiver, the same kind of thing Ujiko hands out and that Skeptic is associated with on multiple occasions. It’d be nice if RD could have kept more of the jokes he actually makes, the ones that stem from his native good humor, rather than the anime making up new ones based entirely in the contrast of Re-Destro and the viewer’s expectations of Re-Destro.

Chapter 235 – Shimura Tenko: Origin

• The man at the door, whom Nao is apologizing to at the beginning of the Tenko flashback and the apparent reason Tenko got busted for playing hero. I don’t love the way deleting this obscured that Tenko, in some fashion, troubled someone to lead to Kotarou dragging him down the hall (the anime also dropped Kotarou’s subsequent line, “Causing trouble?!” that’s supposed to supplement his, “Playing hero again?”), but it’s not like the manga doesn’t imply that the same thing would happen for any hero-based rules infraction, regardless of whether it troubled strangers or not. No, the much, much funnier thing to me is how it just fuckin’ torpedoed the most obvious thing people point to when they posit that All For One gave Tenko Decay, kicking off the entire tragedy: the man at the door with the conspicuously shadowed face and the even more conspicuously AFO-like suit and dress shirt with the top button unfastened. Listen, I hate that theory and what it would do to the narrative of Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko as Hero Society’s long-overdue reckoning, the villain they can’t put down and the victim they can’t silence, so watching the anime summarily cut out the scene that really kicked the theory into overdrive was very validating! Conversely, I still can't deny that it's a plausible theory, so if it does turn out to be true, that means the anime shot itself in the foot on the most obvious bit of foreshadowing this side of AFO addressing Tenko by name when he finds him in the alley. The schadenfreude of that would also be very funny. Really, unlike every other cut this season, I regard this one as win-win for my personal experience with the anime. Incidentally, I was very prepared to complain about the anime dropping all the changes of clothes the Shimura family goes through over the course of the flashback—I regard the timelapse as one of the major points against the AFO Gave Tenko Decay theory, since it’s never taken a quirk bestowed by AFO multiple days, maybe even multiple weeks, to kick in before—but it turns out I’m a lot less bothered about them not taking the time to change the side characters’ clothes when the anime also deletes the dude at the door who is the only reason I care about clarity re: how much time the flashback covers! But just for the record, while they had more outfits than I was expecting them to, the family did go through fewer changes of clothes in the anime than in the manga.

• The full echo of the line about kids being sneaky and simple in favor of Narrator!Shigaraki just letting out this exhausted, rueful, “Ahhh, kids are…” I actually rather like it. It’s a clear reference back to the earlier line without having to restate the whole thing, and Uchiyama Kouki’s delivery is really excellent.

• Kotaro’s first slap of Tenko, the only one directly portrayed on-panel, and Mon-chan’s barking in response. On the one hand, I think there’s an argument to be made for the scene flowing a bit better like this—why wouldn’t Grandpa try to stop him from going for that second slap; why wouldn’t Nao pass Hana off to Grandma and do something instead of just standing there yelling for the entire scene? It makes a bit more sense if they’re hesitant to intervene because Kotarou has “only” grabbed at Tenko’s collar and they don’t yet know how that it’s going to escalate to naked physical violence in a way that it never has before. On the other hand, that first slap is so visceral and shocking. Nowhere else in the manga is domestic violence portrayed more sharply and directly, in greater detail or more cruelly generous panel space than in this moment. It’s in the difference in size between Kotarou and Tenko, the force behind the hit that’s enough to knock Tenko clear off his feet, the pages upon pages of gut-churning lead-up to this moment and what we know will be following soon after. Also too, it makes the family’s failure to help Tenko much worse that no one else acts when Kotarou pulls back for a second hit. The first one, you could almost excuse because no one saw it coming; the second throws those justifications out the window and spits on them afterward. Two hits are important—not only for what they tell Tenko in the moment about his family's inaction, but because two hits speak in ways one hit doesn't to how wildly uneven the power balance is in the house, that Nao and her parents could witness something like that and not only fail to intercede, but then take who knows how long to work up the courage to confront Kotarou afterwards. I understand very well the fear of showing this in a family TV timeslot—the violence is so much more real than any big fantasy beat-‘em-up could ever be—but it’s the kind of thing that really drives home what Tenko needed to be saved from even back then, a social issue that heroes as they currently exist were in no position to address. Far from demonstrating that heroes aren't at fault for what happened to Tenko, though, what this scene truly does is vividly illustrate the flaws in All Might's social contract, in which his power and smile seem to promise that he can save absolutely everyone, only to leave children like Tenko out in the cold with no explanation as to why. It's brutal because it has to be, and the anime shying away from depicting Kotarou's physical abuse undercut that.

Framing Shifts

• There was a bizarre, nonsensical change to the scene at the beginning of the chapter where RD is figuring out how Shigaraki survived/got back up after taking a Burden attack head-on. The manga’s explanation is that Shigaraki didn’t actually take a full force hit because he was Decaying it even as it was blowing him back. This is somewhat silly, given that even a reduced-strength Burden is still strong enough to put him through multiple buildings. It is, however, less silly than the anime’s take, in which Shigaraki touched Re-Destro rather than the corporealized Stress of Burden. How Re-Destro survived a full-fingered touch from Shigaraki’s completely uninjured right hand[7] went totally unexplained; the problem was then compounded by Re-Destro delivering manga-accurate lines about Burden not being an evadable attack despite “evasion” having nothing to do with Shigaraki’s actions. Anime!Shigaraki didn’t dodge the Burden attack any more than Manga!Shigaraki did; unlike Manga!Shigaraki, however, Anime!Shigaraki also did nothing to reduce the impact of the attack. So not only was how Shigaraki survived the Burden attack not explained, the change to the material also opened up the plot hole of how Re-Destro survived a direct touch attack that Shigaraki in the manga never lands.

• There was also an extremely weird decision made to give Tenko dark, gray-blue eyes, obviously reminiscent of Nana’s, and suggest that they became red at the same time as his hair was changing to white. But in the manga, other than the size, there’s no difference between young Tenko’s eyes and how Shigaraki’s eyes have always been drawn—an unshaded iris with a visible pupil and a relatively thick line delineating the iris from the white of the sclera. Tenko’s eyes never matched those of anyone else in his family, least of all his dark-eyed grandmother. His hair changed color because of a trauma response,[8] but his eyes were always red.

• Relocated Shigaraki’s first, “Little kids…are sneakier than you’d expect. And simpler,” to underscore Hana showing him Nana’s picture in the study, squarely centering the line on her. And like, yes, that line does get its bitter echo later when Hana panics in the face of her father’s fury and throws the blame onto Tenko—but that line isn’t just about her; it’s also about what Tenko wanted to hear from the other adults in his life. It didn’t matter that his father didn’t approve; if he could get at least one adult to say he could be a hero, to take his side, then he could feel vindicated. It’s a child’s sneaky, simple reasoning: if an adult’s words are absolute, you just have to get one (1) adult to agree with you. It’s asking Dad if you can do something you don’t think Mom will agree to, and then going to Mom with Dad’s permission held defensively in-hand. Laying the line over Hana obscures that it’s as much about Tenko’s craving for external validation as it is Hana’s (entirely understandable) deceitful streak.

• After half a season full of internal monologue being voiced aloud even when it made little sense to do so, the anime decided to render clearly talk-bubbled dialogue—Tenko’s chatting at Mon about how he feels like he could take on the world—as internal monologue instead. Who talks to their animals in their heads when they could be talking at them directly like pet owners the world over?

Additions

• Added a few extra stills of Kotarou rebuking Tenko and dragging him around. I don’t think they’re inaccurate to the situation, though I wonder if it really needed to be underlined two more times than the manga did. Maybe they were trying to make up in advance for deleting the first slap?

• Added a few new stills of Nana and child!Kotarou. They hurt my soul and I love them without reservation.

Chapter 236 – Shimura Tenko: Origin, Part 2

• Hana’s second apology. What needs to get across was communicated with her first apology, but I do think the second one adds some naturalism to the dialogue. It feels very normal for a child feeling extremely guilty to apologize multiple times, like the more times they say it, the more true/convincing it will become.

• A bit of Tenko’s internal monologue—thinking Hana’s name, and Mon’s, and that he can’t talk. The anime slipped some attempts at verbalizing “Mon” into the dialogue, and it was painfully obvious just from listening to him gag and choke that he was too horror-struck to get words out, in ways that would be a little harder to convey on the page. Also, he thinks again that he can’t talk just as Hana runs away, so it gets across regardless. No real complaints here.

• Some thoughts about how he’s itchy, which, given what his itch represents (or at least what he thinks it does), they probably should have kept for continuity’s sake.

• Tenko’s last, “Hana-chan!” just as he grabs for her. I can imagine it having just that little bit more desperate impact, especially given Sekine Arisa’s great delivery of the first “Hana-chan!” but his delivery of the first one was great—weeks later, I can still remember it clearly—so it’s not a snip I’m inclined to doomsay about.

• Hana’s verbalization as the Decay hits her. Given that they kept Mon-chan’s last whimper, it’s kind of inconsistent not to keep this. It’s grueling, sure, but no more so than the rest of the horror show shortly to follow.

• An echo of Nao’s defense of Kotarou’s anti-hero stance. Frankly, I think anime already over-indulges in echoing dialogue we’ve heard not ten minutes prior, so I don’t mind losing this—in the manga, the moments would have fallen in different chapters, so it makes more sense to squeeze in the little reminder, but that wasn’t necessary for the anime, in which the original moment and the callback happened barely more than five minutes apart. It was obvious what the mental image was meant to draw attention to, since Tomura was narrating about exactly what his grievance was, and the image was followed by the two equivalent moments with the grandparents. (Admittedly, it hurt that correlation a bit that Grandpa’s line about the ohagi being intended to make the sadness go away got cut, but the sentiment was pretty clear from the man’s expression of nervy, abashed guilt regardless.)

• The line of Decay that splits Nao’s eye, one of the more vividly horrific little grace notes in the chapter. It undercut the grotesquerie just the tiniest bit, but the scene’s grotesque as-is, so I can understand that slight edit for TV standards. The discrepancy between Decay-to-dust and Decay-to-gore, discussed below in Framing Shifts, was much more damaging.

• A shot of Kotarou just after he hits Tenko with the tree pruning shears in which he looks, briefly, incredibly distraught, like he’s just realized what a monster he’s become. The anime didn’t make the slightest of attempts to keep that spasm of horror, grief, and regret, and thus lost that last moment of sympathy for a man deeply traumatized by a heroic character’s actions. It’s my only complaint about Anime!Kotarou, who I was otherwise far more pleased with than I was afraid might be the case, but it’s a complaint I must register nonetheless.

• A bit of inarticulate yelling before Tenko screams, “You... Die!!” It helps get across Tenko’s rage overflowing, to have that wordless garble before he can actually wrap words around it. He was still having trouble talking, too, so it makes sense that his first vocalization would just be a long, incomprehensible screech. That said, with the music there to supplement the mood in a way the manga would lack, I don’t think the anime’s rendition of the scene suffered overmuch from its absence.

Framing Shifts

• The anime, of course, has always gone the dust route for Decay because Decay is a little too gruesome for family hour TV, and anyway, when Tomura gets as fast with Decay as he is in Deika, he really is just insta-dusting people, such that not even blood remains. But he wasn’t that fast or that thorough as a child, hence why it’s all so much gorier—and it needs to be, because it’s hard to imagine Hana freaking out like she does if all she sees is a pile of dust instead of, well, dog gobbets. (Also, if his family had gone the dust route, it would have been very hard to convince the audience that Tomura’s hands are his family hands and not fakes provided to AFO by Ujiko.) This obviously put the anime in a difficult spot, but apparently the decision they settled on was—to not decide? Everyone we saw in the active process of decaying decayed into dust as usual, but then once they were done decaying, once that transition from person to ruin was complete, there were all these heaps of gore everywhere. It was a very strange and distracting inconsistency that hurt the scene much more than any of the nearly invisible cuts, and I hope the blu-rays will change it.

• Added Grandpa catching Grandma as she staggered at the sight of things in the yard. Since his body language in the manga (the only non-Decayed shot of him in the sequence) has him leaned more forward, like he’s still halfway through running towards the kids, I thought this was a nice little touch on why he stopped, for reasons other than just the obvious.

---

Episode 111 was about half of a really strong episode. Most of my complaints about the Shimura Family flashback are very minor, and most of the ones that are less minor are still easy to overlook when the rest of the presentation was so strong. Unfortunately, the non-flashback half of the episode had as many problems as ever, and those aren't over yet.

Come back next time for Part Five, Episode 112: Origin: Shigaraki Tomura. Assuming my complaining about the finalized gutting of Spinner's arc doesn't get too out of hand—which it may; if so, I'll tack on one final part to wrap things up—I'll also be running down a quick overview of the Paranormal Liberation Front scenes in the Endeavor Agency arc and some various odds & ends.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Yes, I know the Skeptic Confronts Twice scene goes nowhere, but maybe, instead of deleting it, they could have patched it up by showing Skeptic turning away from the confrontation when the tower went down? You know, actually made an effort to improve on the material?

[2] Bakugou, of course, but also Inko, Kotarou, and, very prominently, even All Might. Deku circa MVA has an entire arc lying in wait for him about how much he’s internalized All Might’s paternalism re: having the strongest quirk.

[3] Indeed, as of the scene in the crater, he still hadn’t lost them at all! He had his prosthetic by the time of the speech, so I guess we’re meant to assume that Ujiko or some MLA doctor declared them past saving and amputated them. I hope I don’t need to tell you how unbelievably lame it is to have a shounen manga character sustain a permanent injury like that off-panel.

[4] It’s the pointy nose.

[5] That, at least, is the best way I’ve found to reconcile all the related-but-distinct values professed by the various members of the MLA brass, from Re-Destro’s focus on liberation and purpose, what exactly Trumpet chooses to cite when he’s talking about Spinner not “amounting” to anything much, Geten’s open extolling of quirk supremacy, and so on.

[6] In the first big double-page spread. Oddly, no bandaging is visible in the other panel that has a good shot of that hand, possibly because Horikoshi was more focused on drawing RD’s empty pant leg. The anime kept the obvious wound during the crater scene, but not the bandages during the speech.

[7] I assume, anyway, that Re-Destro only survives Shigaraki’s first touch because it’s a weaker Decay, coming as it does from only from two fingers rather than five.

[8] The fabled Marie Antoinette Syndrome. Never been scientifically documented as such (hair can whiten because of extreme stress, but not overnight) but it endures in fiction because it’s pleasingly dramatic. Trauma-based eye-color changes, not so much.

#my villain academia #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #bnha meta #my writing #stillness has salt

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twistedapple · 4 years

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On Pomefiore

[Note: Tumblr being Tumblr, I’ll put the links and due credits in a reblog; also, partially under the cut because it’s a bit long]

This post is something that has been brewing for a while now – my more observant followers will know when it started based on a certain tag. To preface this write up, I’d like to precise that I have been motivated in working on it because of the way Pomefiore was being received when I joined the fandom. Since then it has been followed by certain beliefs that – while being qualified as headcanons, which is perfectly fair and fine in itself – tend to be treated as actual gospel. It’s not a thing specific to the Twst fandom mind you, it happens in most fandoms – heck I still keep an eye on the KHR fandom and there are still people regularly making posts about mischaracterisation, and that fandom has been around for at least ten years. So I’m not here to preach, but to clarify a few things regarding what Pomefiore represents as a dorm, as well as provide a comprehensive commentary on its associated characters.

First belief: Pomefiore is the shallow dorm of pretty people.

But is it? The very first thing we learn about Pomefiore is that it’s the dorm of Hard Workers and other Overachievers, right in the prologue. This dorm is presented as built on the hard work of the Fair Queen, and she’s regularly taken as an example of how one should conduct oneself – especially by Vil, who expresses a lot of admiration and respect in his lesson chats, and clearly treats her as a model to follow in order to reach perfection.

Now you may think “but Crow, the very first thing we learn about the students is that they look impeccable and polish their appearance”. And you would be right; it is indeed how the students of that dorm are presented. However, let me expand a bit on this thought by making something clear: there’s what the dorm is defined as, and then there’s the path each dorm leader decides to follow. To give a few examples, we see Riddle follow the rules of the Queen of Heart to the letter, and dole out punishment whenever these rules are broken – to the point it impedes the students, who can’t use their magic in an environment where it is required. We see Leona applying the Might is Right type of thinking, which leads to Savanaclaw students being often depicted as bullies (and let’s not talk about the Magift tournament...). Azul, under the pretence of benevolence, is actually ruthless in the way he binds people to his contracts – it’s also shown that the Leech brothers act as his enforcers, either by forcing people into deals (during exam periods, as shown at the start of Episode 3) or by reclaiming the due payment of the contract in more or less pleasant ways (Jade being the local master manipulator, while Floyd canonically states that he finds the breaking of bones a more efficient method). Are you seeing where this is going? As a dorm leader, Vil applies his own views on his fellow Pomefiore students; his views happen to include appearances because he aims to be perfect in every way and has a professional background that justifies it. Is it fair to go as far as he is going when it comes to pressuring other students? Of course it isn’t, it’s the whole point of showing him slapping Epel for what he deems an inappropriate behaviour (see Epel’s Ceremonial Card). It sets the conflict of the dorm – and I personally dig how this major narrative bit is hidden in a story... Which brings us to the other point, the meta aspect of Pomefiore. It’s based on Snow White, a story that relies heavily... On appearances. Now let me ask you: is it really surprising to have a dorm based on such story have a focus on appearances as well? And we even get to see different aspects of it: Vil focuses on the tiniest details to be as polished as possible, Rook has a deep love for change and fleeting moments, Epel can turn something nobody wants into something highly desirable (carving damaged apples to sell them better). Pomefiore is the dorm of transformations – both literal and metaphorical -, a fascinating concept in my opinion and a brilliant idea for a solid narrative arc.

Second belief: Vil is a horrible, narcissistic person, but he will also play dress-up/makeup

Let’s sit for a second there, because there are many things to unpack. Now, what do we know about the fairest of all dorm leaders? Well, quite a lot, for someone who has yet to properly appear in the main story! The very first thing we learn about him is that he has a whooping 5 million followers on Magicam – which is massive and not a number you reach while sitting on your hands and waiting for something to happen. This is such an impressive number that we even get to see various reactions to it, from being very impressed to trying to use that fame for personal purposes. Through reading the stories in which he appears, we get to learn some interesting things about Vil: generally speaking, he fits perfectly the image of the consummate professional. In Jade’s SSR story, we get a solid peek into his life and the man has a busy schedule. He juggles daily with his duties as a student, a dorm leader, an influencer and a professional model – these things take time and he manages to go from one duty to the other with both the ease of someone who’s used to it and the precise organisation of someone with a solid head on his shoulders as well as an incredibly strong work ethic and drive. Speaking from personal experience with the modelling part and an informed opinion on the influencer part, these two fields alone aren’t easy to handle at all. Being an influencer can be very cutthroat (as a certain beauty community has been demonstrating since last year...), and being a professional model requires a lot of drive and dedication, as well as major self-care in regard to both your body and your mental health, because those are the tools of your trade as a model. In consequence, Vil as a dorm leader focuses on appearances as a result of heavy intellectual work to honour the Fair Queen he so highly respects (he says so in his voicelines: “True beauty is determined by strong intellect. You can always doctor your looks, but your true colors will still shine through right away.”), but Vil as a person is also extremely focused on his appearance because he’s doing his job. It’s not narcissism, it’s professionalism. And with his Ceremonial Robes story, we even get to learn that he was ostracised in his hometown for being a performer, yet he kept going and working to reach his goals. For someone who’s only 18 years old, this is an exceptional display of drive, discipline and maturity.

Vil has the highest standards for himself, but because he comes from pretty damn far, he also expects other people to be capable of showing the same degree of determination to achieve their goals. He expresses that in various ways, from being openly displeased with Leona’s general negligence (with Ruggie doing all the work in the background – see Leona’s school uniform story and Ruggie’s lab coat story), to being unimpressed by the new Pomefiore students and getting ready to whip them in a shape he’ll deem desirable as soon as he lays his eyes on them. He’s also highly critical of people going for the easy way out: in his school uniform story, he not only criticises Cater for trying to use him for his own five seconds of fame by buttering him up, but he also emphasises the fact that his services aren’t free. Emphasis on that: Vil isn’t a charity. He isn’t the sort of person with whom you’ll mutually brush your hair while sharing smoothie recipes. Rook is more likely to be the one up to that sort of thing, because Rook is nice and a good senior (see: Rook’s ceremonial robes story). Vil, on the other hand, encourages a lot to try and learn on your own, to use your own head in order to create your own brand (see his lab coat voicelines). He’ll be more enclined to help only after you started doing a part of the job independently and showed you can think and act for yourself. And even then, he’ll likely kick your ass to push you to keep up, because behind all the sparkles and lustre Vil is very much depicted as an overbearing Drill Sergeant. Like I pointed out earlier, it’s heavily hinted that he didn’t get where he is by waiting for good fortune to come by. He works for his success daily and expects other people to do the same. Does it seem like a rather unfair treatment? Sure, but at the same time it provides a great learning opportunity for those willing to put up with it, and Vil offers it in a surprisingly selfless manner: there is an open concern about the way people present themselves, and how they can do it to be their best self at all time.

Interestingly, it creates a peculiar dynamic with his vice dorm leader, Rook. There’s a constant sway between them, with Vil bluntly telling him he can be easily replaced if he fails in his duties, while still relying on him more than Rook relies on him in return – in fact, Rook pretty much follows his own path, and Vil happens to be a very nice view along that path so Rook decided to stop and hang out for a bit, but he still checks his surroundings for other nice views. So while Rook puts up with Vil’s tight requirements (see Rook’s ceremonial robes story, where Floyd cleverly observes that he doesn’t seem that fond of the perfume Vil created for him and forces him to wear during ceremonies), he’s also the one taking actual charge of the new students (see when he checks on Epel in his ceremonial robes story, or when he offers his support during the Ghost Marriage event) and trying to smooth things out when Vil is being too rough (see Vil’s ceremonial robes story). Interestingly, it leads to a communication issue between these two, fueled by what looks very much like a unilateral dependant relationship on Vil’s part, no matter how much he denies it. He rejects Rook through threats of replacing him, yet fully trusts his eyes and sincerity, yet this very sincerity is the reason why Vil doesn’t fully open up to Rook (see Vil’s lab coat story, he goes to Trey to vent about Rook’s lack of consideration) and uses a Harsh Commanding Queen attitude to hide his own insecurities from the eyes of the person who can see them best. It’s likely not helped by the fact that Vil is aware that he needs Rook more than Rook needs him – it’s obvious when reading the latter’s profile: Rook likes his privacy, and while he keeps putting his nose in other people’s business (not out of malice, but genuine curiosity), he’s notoriously deemed annoying by characters like Leona and Malleus because of his overly curious yet inconsiderate nature. There’s a selfishness in Rook which protects him from getting fully controlled by Vil, I’ll repeat myself here but I’d rather insist on that: Rook willingly decided to follow Vil, it means he has the power to refuse him as well (which is very much like... Oh, the Huntsman in Snow White – though in his case specifically, there’s also variations in which his family is held hostage and all, while Rook makes his own decisions).

This entire situation is heavily fueled by Vil’s need for control. As aforementioned, he focuses on the tiniest details and holds complete control over everything that makes his life what it is: from the type of makeup he picks to every single component used in the meals he prepares himself, Vil has a clear need for full control, and it’s reflected in the way he interacts with other students, as well as in the way he handles even his club activities. Vil isn’t just a model, influencer and even actor, in the film study club he works as a director and in one of his stories (lab coat), he’s even shown to create the special effects himself, because only he can provide for his own desires in the most exact fashion. This is where his little “I can replace you easily” becomes funny, because it translates his need for control without really holding since Rook is the one with the most agency in the relationship. In comparison, in Silver’s PE uniform story, Silver is treated like a pawn and Vil even berates Malleus in front of him because Silver dares deny him (how dare he have his own agency instead of being a nice prop who should feel honoured to be selected). Interestingly, Silver also compares Vil’s way of doing things to something martial. AhemDrillSergeantVilahem. In this story, the interesting point is that things finally start working well when Vil stops considering his own vision and decides to look beyond it a bit: taking Silver’s actual abilities into consideration, he finally has a scene that works. It works because he loosened the control a bit – while Silver went along with it but remained vocal the whole time about where his own skills lie.

While the relationship between Vil and Rook, as well as Vil and the rest of the Pomefiore dorm, have been holding through a quietly tense status quo, there is one pebble - dare I say, one potato - who is more than willing to challenge the whole situation through open defiance and a strong will: Epel. He has been set by the narration to be the catalyst to an incoming breaking point, because he wants to live his life to the beat of his own drum, yet remains a teen still in need of a journey of self-discovery. It’s illustrated in how he misunderstands the point of Pomefiore by only looking at the surface - something Vil reproaches, which is why he even talks about his need for more self-awareness in the lesson chats. Of course, Vil uses his own language (beauty) to get his point across, but the underlying point is that Epel has yet to reach a certain degree of self-realisation - such as the fact he is free to try and work hard to become beefier (Vil wouldn’t object as long as he puts in the necessary efforts), or that he is a good fit in Pomefiore because he has the drive to reach his goals and gives himself the means to do so (high awareness, anyone?). Basically, he’s the example of Vil’s communication issues: Vil’s martial nature tends to drown the actual meaning of his motivational speeches. Paradoxically, when dealing with someone like Epel, it actually fuels the teen through spite, which is both comical and quite impressive given Epel’s results (reminder of his own lab coat story, in which he manages to impress Crewel, a man made from the same fabric as Vil, with his formidable results through hard work). However, this form of motivation isn’t healthy, and just like with Rook, a good, long talk is needed to create a better understanding - instead of forcing his Tyranny of Beauty on others.

Bonus point, because I really want to address it

For some time now, I’ve been vocal about my personal feelings regarding the reception of Pomefiore and its characters. While it became more positive since June, it still tends to miss the point for a reason I’d like to address: the Not Like The Other Girls mentality and how it specifically affects the way Vil and his own femininity are perceived.

While I am not invalidating this thinking as part of a larger growth process, I think it has been unfairly used against Pomefiore. In a way, it’s very much the way Epel reacts: it’s just a Pretty People Dorm led by an Annoying Pretty Boy, and Savanaclaw is cooler. However, this is not only superficial, it puts a judgement of value that means that one has to be put down for the other to shine. In other words, Vil as a character is undervalued because his way of life - which matches traditionally feminine occupations, hell he’s even using a feminine pronoun - has been associated with vanity, narcissism, and superficiality by the fandom. To get my point across, let me provide you with quotes from some of our most brilliant minds:

“Woman wants to be independent […] this is one of the worst developments in the general uglification of Europe. Woman has so much reason for shame; in woman there is concealed so much superficiality, petty presumption and petty immodesty – one needs only to study her behaviour with children!” - Nietzsche

“What is truth to a woman? From the very first nothing has been more alien, repugnant, inimical to woman than truth - her great art is the lie, her supreme concern is appearance and beauty” - Nietzsche (again)

“A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.” - Oscar Wilde

“All the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man.” - Plato

“As regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject” - Aristotle

Do you see where I’m going with that? Because he has an occupation focused on appearance, something historically associated with women, Vil should be… Less? Should be negative? Even though he is quite vocal about it being a mere result of a much deeper work on himself, throughout his voicelines, lesson chats and personal stories? It’s not vanity, it’s not narcissism. It’s Vil expressing himself through the age old art forms of fashion, skincare and makeup. How, and why it being focused on something external should be less? It’s especially obvious when you stop and consider Vil’s own testimony: he has been ostracized by his own community for being a performer. His appearance is as much a mask as it is a proof of everything that preceded it – him saving himself with his own means and work. It’s both a protection and a result that he proudly brandishes – and he absolutely can afford the arrogance to do so, considering his achievements at such a young age (reminder, again, that he’s 18 years old, despite being very disillusioned with life already). Why should it be less that? Vil’s inclination towards appearances is both his truth and his fiction, that’s what the narrative tells us - and there’s nothing bad about that.

I guess I’m especially tired of this point because I’ve had to deal with that thinking pattern myself irl, for evolving in similar fields/similar hobbies, and it’s frustrating to see that sort of close mindedness. It’s infuriating. So, that’s a more personal aspect of my rant... But here we are.

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #pomefiore #vil schoenheit #rook hunt #epel felmier #now that pomefiore is deemed a fashionable dorm by the fandom lol

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zeta-in-de-walls · 3 years

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Hey guys, I was having thoughts on the meta-side of the Dream SMP. Okay, so we know that Technoblade has done much of the scripting for this present arc, Tommy, Dream and Quackity have also done some in collaboration, presumably doing each of their own characters and motivations, and Tubbo and Fundy have also been involved too. Uh, this will be rambly as it’s a lot of unsorted observations.

Obviously these are my thoughts, and ideas purely based on my observations as a viewer but you can definitely tell that they’re all very aware of the fanbase and are likely very influenced by them. I could see this even in the Pogtopia arc where Tommy started reusing phrases before when debating ethics with Wilbur, eg ‘let’s lose as winners, not win as losers.’ or something along those lines and how Techno made a callback to his only universal language is violence speech in his wither monologue.

But wow, the scripting is definitely becoming a lot more obvious in this new season of the SMP. Not a bad thing at all, by the way, it’s just a difference. Clearly they’ve gotten more detailed plans and are more ambitious with what they convey in minecraft, with more players taking inspiration from Wilbur after how well he executed it. It’s also the difference in how the various people write, I’m sure.

Tommy and Tubbo have streamed the SMP for the longest and have very gradually evolved into the roleplaying and their respective approaches to it are very interesting. Tubbo’s streams are typically chill and usually involve him working on some sort of project - he’s very chaotic when with other people but is usually very reactionary when it comes to the roleplaying - doing most of his best stuff when bouncing off Tommy, or occasionally Quackity. On his own he doesn’t like to lead bits but is among the best at making other people’s bits work. Same with the RP! His character’s in a weird spot right now as the other writer’s seem to be writing him in quite an unflattering way and he doesn’t do solo, emotional performances all that much meaning he’s less sympathetic right now then he really should be. Like, Tommy garnered loads of sympathy during his exile as he gave a very expressive performance where Tubbo’s character also presumably feels very isolated and alone and he’s being manipulated by the people around him but he gives a lot less. This has made it easier for the audience to start siding more with Technoblade, the literal mass-murderer, over the traumatised kid who was manipulated into exiling his best friend and continues to face terrible choices with no good options.

While I can of course make less meta theories on why Tubbo should be appreciated more and what it says he’s got no real support and is compartmentalising his problems, in the end it’s how his streams work. Tubbo does plot related streams, and he does streams where he simply vibes - and even in the serious streams, he can joke around and cheerfully lampshade the goofiness by doing things like joking about wanting a good review from Techno while kidnapping him - that stuff is priceless and does not fit into the melodramtic scripts but it adds so much to the SMP and why it is so much fun to watch. Tubbo’s really good at making content better! He’s not afraid to look ridiculous, he will also unapologetically avoid engaging in too much melodrama himself when he doesn’t feel like it. I consider his character highly underrated in the plot right now.

Tommy knows what he’s doing. Even before the roleplaying really took off, Tommy liked to play a character and lead bits and the SMP shifting in a more scripted direction suited him exceptionally well. Tommy focuses heavily on streams with lots of content, only rarely doing more chill stuff - especially more recently. He has always approached streams with a plan - but usually their extremely loose and he has said that he’d sometimes just come up with an idea 10 minutes before the stream and improvise from there. Tommy’s good at improvising and seems to work best with a very loose plan. Where I think Techno likely came up with the plan for Tommy to get exiled from L’Manburg and then join forces with him, Tommy likely filled in how to play his character and - wow.

Tommy’s writing seems to be incredibly simple - each exile stream had no major plot points or anything and the plans that are there don’t even make logical sense (let’s throw a party in one day and let’s invite everyone but have Dream not send out the invitations so no one shows up - and I’m going to do this even with Philza and Fundy literally in the call.) but Tommy pulled every one of them off very well and proved to be compelling enough that no one cared at all whether the plot made sense nor did Tommy make much effort to justify that sort of thing - ‘cause he knows how the SMP works and how much the audience will go along with it. And instead, Tommy focused entirely on his characterisation and spent all his time exploring it. That’s how Tommy works - very simple plans, then improv in character into an engaging bit. He’s managed to pull off the most ridiculous things like that, and has confidence that the other streamers will support it - that’s how he’s prepared to try insane things like pretending to be Clarencio the llama. And, like Tubbo, he’s always willing to throw for content.

Then there’s Technoblade. He’s streamed the SMP a lot less - though he’s done so much more recently - but he’s spent a lot more time playing on the SMP, doing tons of grinding. He here for the RP but is also committed to playing the game itself very optimally. He seems to have a much larger view, taking in the bigger picture, of the story where Tommy has a very personal view. His approach to content is all about the fanservice.

He’s always trying to create big epic, moments, that both look and sound awesome. Like the butcher’s army plotline which let him both seem like an underdog, a victim against a mean group, and also an incredible badass figure who outplayed them all and came out as victorious. The butcher’s army were really given an antagonists role there, and were really made to seem unlikeable. Then he met up with fan-favourite Tommy and suggested a team-up with him. (This is also leading to the ultimate fanservice that is the Sleepybois team-up.) Techno’s got a very, dry self-aware sens of humour too and he’ll often make simple meta observations about the SMP - like noting that the pacing’s fast or teasing in the chat in the middle of wars. He’s also made himself into a bit of a meme what with logging just to say his name and leave.

I don’t know how much it’s just Techno of course, but the plot really seems to be heading in a direction that suggesting that Technoblade was Right. L’Manburg’s seeming corrupt, and Tommy is being seen as Theseus. At the time Techno first made the Theseus speech, I felt like the comparison seemed unfair - but now it’s like the plot itself has bent over to make the comparison make sense, and Techno’s one of the writers of the script. Techno also of course, prepared a vault to show Tommy so he could say ‘welcome home Theseus dramatically - total fanservice as fans were indeed talking about how cool saying a line would be, and then he absolutely did. The way Techno calls his viewers chatting as the voices in his head is also fanservice. It’s not like actually true, as Techno ignores the chat if they tell him information his character doesn’t know and meanwhile all the streamers interact with their chat too - so all chats have always been a part of the story and calling them canon is absolutely meaningless. Not a bad thing though - it is nice and makes the fans happy and makes them feel included. I don’t know if this sounds critical by the way - it’s not meant as such at all - all the streamers love engaging with the fandom, and Techno’s approach to giving lots of fanservice by providing so many epic moments is great. I just wanted to highlight it.

And those were some meta thoughts on the SMP right now and its writing. I don’t really think I had a point or argument. I just wanting to make some observations and my impressions. If you’re curious I am course a Tommy fan first. I love how he’s evolved with the SMP most of all and I appreciate his character-driven storytelling. His main weakness is probably getting too into bits and going too far and it’s so nice that the SMP is a place where even his weaker ideas are supported rather than shut down. I like how he’s able to improv so well and simply how he streams. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I love Tubbo best when he’s with Tommy as they bring the best performances out of each other. I find Techno interesting as a contrast to both of them, as he approaches so many things in such a different way.

#dream smp #tommyinnit #tubbo #technoblade #meta #analysis #long post #i don't know what this was #i should just ask for asks #so i can ramble with more direction #like i have a lot of thoughts #but they're not all as coherent as i'd like

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oumakokichi · 3 years

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Hello This is kinda weird put I remember reading a good write-up on Miu that like Toko and Mikan she has low self esteem and never really had any friends so she literally doesn't know how to interact with people Plus she's in a situation were she can get killed in any SECOND so add these factors and I think that somewhat explains her lack of empathy and her just constantly being on edge She's in a situation were anyone she gets close to can end her life What do you think about this? Thanks

Hi anon, I don’t think it’s weird at all! Miu is actually one of my favorite ndrv3 characters; I love her to pieces and I agree with this analysis a lot! I believe she gets a lot of flack for being a female character who’s crass and rude and not very empathetic, despite people often idolizing or making excuses for male characters with many of the same traits.

To this day I still somehow see misinformation spread about Miu and used to call her things she isn’t, including blatantly untrue claims like “she forced herself on Kiibo” (which, I cannot make it more explicitly clear how much she does not do this). I’m not saying anyone has to love Miu or consider her their favorite character, I just think she gets an unfair deal sometimes.

It’s been a long time since I got to write a more in-depth analysis of her, so I’ll share more of my thoughts under the cut! Watch out for spoilers as always.

Miu having low self-esteem isn’t just a headcanon or a fan theory; it’s pretty much canon. Despite constantly acting arrogant, loud, and abrasive, Miu is absolutely desperate for validation and attention from others. For as haughty as she likes to act, she backs down almost immediately whenever someone so much as snaps or glares at her, clearly afraid that she’s somehow said the wrong thing or made someone mad at her.

In my opinion, she’s completely unaware of how she comes across to others. She wears her emotions on her sleeve and has no filter whatsoever, and this combined with her desire to be respected and praised for her talents means she’s very difficult to get along with.

I’m not making excuses for her actions; I still think some of the things she says about other members of the group are pretty terrible, and I do, to some extent, simply think she’s not really the type to empathize with others. But I do think part of it is that she’s just completely unaware of how she sounds or comes across to others. She has no understanding of social cues, or what it means to “tone it down” in order to better fit in with other people.

Obviously, it’s not like the other characters are at fault for getting fed up with Miu sometimes or not wanting to spend time with her. Like I said, she’s incredibly loud and abrasive and nearly impossible to please, especially as she’s quick to make fun of others or get mad if she thinks they’re wasting her time. But it’s somewhat… sad, in a way, to see how desperately she does want someone to spend time with her and acknowledge all her positive traits, like being an “amazing gorgeous girl-genius.” She really does strike me as someone who has probably been alone most of her life, and her inability to understand social cues or realize how she sounds to other people means that she never learns from her mistakes or gets any better.

This is part of the reason I actually really love her interactions with both Kiibo and Kaede.

I find it touching that she and Kiibo have such a consistently good dynamic even in the middle of the killing game. In the same way that Kiibo is one of the only characters openly sad after Miu’s death in chapter 4, Miu is perhaps the only character who doesn’t really look down on Kiibo for being a robot; instead, she thinks he’s the coolest person she’s ever met precisely because he’s a robot. And I think there’s a lot to be said too about how both of them are characters that really struggle with understanding social cues or fitting in with a group.

Meanwhile, Miu’s FTEs with Kaede are perhaps the closest we ever really see her get to making a friend or getting included with the rest of the group. I absolutely love how much Kaede refuses to back down whenever Miu is saying something horrible or mean or gross, and how she always puts her foot down whenever she crosses a line. When Miu tries to “compare chest sizes,” Kaede just flat-out punches her for it, leaving Miu baffled and confused, but also with a better understanding of personal boundaries.

Kaede always feels like she’s trying her hardest not so much to put up with Miu, but to understand why she acts the way she does, and puts a lot of thought into what she could do or say that would make Miu want to become more of a team player or open up to people more. The rare moments where Kaede praises Miu and Miu becomes genuinely flustered and taken aback are further proof of how much Miu really wants validation and has no idea how to go about asking for it without coming across like a total weirdo, so I have a big soft spot both for those first few FTEs with Miu, as well as some of their interactions together in the Talent Development Plan.

It’s also interesting that you should mention Miu’s fear of being killed at any point in the killing game as a big reason for why she acts the way she does. I bring up the fact that Ouma has very clear signs of paranoia and a fundamental inability to trust others a lot in my meta—and Miu is no different. In fact, the biggest reason chapter 4 plays out the way it does is because both of them are incredibly paranoid and mistrustful, terrified of getting killed, and this causes what could have been (and was, for a time) a very powerful alliance between them to completely fall apart into pieces.

If I had to draw parallels between Miu and another character, it wouldn’t be any of the other “pervert” characters in DR, or even any of the other inventors/programmers. It would be with Maizono.

Chapter 4 of ndrv3 is, in my opinion, actually incredibly similar to dr1 chapter 1: both Miu and Maizono ultimately make the decision to try and kill someone out of sheer desperation to confirm the state of the outside world with their own two eyes, and both of them ultimately have their own plan turned against them and are killed in the end. Where Maizono’s strongest driving force for wanting to get out no matter the cost is sparked by the sight of her own motive video, Miu’s is sparked by the fear that the outside world may be a total wasteland, and the knowledge that she could actually do a considerable amount of good with her talent.

It’s absolutely correct to say that Miu didn’t trust anyone else. She and Ouma both collaborated together for a time—we don’t know how long exactly, but it’s clear that they were at least working together for a while given the sheer number of inventions that Ouma commissioned from her and provided designs for. The fact remains that the two of them were this close to putting together a plan to take down the exisals so they could escape with everyone else… but again, sadly, both of them were far too paranoid for this plan to ever actually work.

Miu’s biggest problem with the plan as Ouma proposes it is that she simply doesn’t trust anyone else. All the clever inventions and plans in the world won’t pull through if even one person decides to double-cross them or simply put self-interest first. And it’s worth noting that she’s kind of right here, considering Tsumugi was very much still part of the group at this point in time and absolutely would’ve sabotaged their plan using any means possible. So in an interesting turn of events, Miu decides to put her self-interests first and commit a murder in order to escape, because she suspects everyone else of wanting to do exactly the same thing.

Overall, Miu is a deeply flawed individual. She’s loud and rude, demanding and hostile, incapable of recognizing her own mistakes, and deeply paranoid and mistrustful of others. But all of these things are very much the reason I love her. Again, she’s not for everyone. No one has to like her.

But I find it interesting that other male characters who have the same or arguably worse flaws (flaws usually stemming from misogyny, including Souda stalking and harassing Sonia for the entirety of sdr2 with no change in his behavior, or Teruteru who straight up threatens sexual assault both in sdr2 and dr3) often have tons of people willing to defend them and somehow justify their actions, while Miu gets painted as irredeemably bad or has her moments with Kiibo completely skewed out of context.

In any case, these are my thoughts on Miu’s character. I hope I was able to make myself clear! I don’t think that she’s a “poor misunderstood baby” or anything like that by any means, but I do think she’s incredibly interesting and complex, both because of her flaws and because of how undeniably useful her talent was to the group. For someone who was so adamantly against being a team player, it’s amazing how much Miu’s inventions are vital to saving everyone’s lives in most of the game’s trials. Thank you for the fun question, anon!

#danganronpa #miu iruma #iruma miu #ndrv3 #new danganronpa v3 #my meta #ask #anonymous #ndrv3 spoilers //#okay to reblog

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spockandawe · 3 years

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Writing meta asks: 3, 7, 10, 17, and 20? (I'm so sorry for sending so many, this was an interesting ask set!)

Hahaha, no worries at all! Since I just covered 3, let’s see about these others :D

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

Oh man, this one always stumps me. The easy answer is that my writing is characterized by being in second person, unless I am dragged kicking and screaming to another pov XD But more in the spirit of the original question, I have... heard that a thing about my writing that stands out to people is good dialog exchanges. It’s kind of wild to me, because I feel like I spend a lot of time struggling to exit characters’ heads and advance the story, lmao. I would be curious to hear from anyone with opinions on this, what’s distinctive about my writing from an outside pov, because from the inside, I cannot tell at all XD

10. How would you describe your writing process?

I think usually when I start, I’ve got some scene that stands out very clearly in my head, either as a visual, or as an audible conversation (sometimes it’s more than one scene, and you get something like the tianlang-jun verse, or the diet bingge, and scope spirals out of my control). But most of the writing is an attempt to get to that scene that hit me really hard, and to make it hit the reader strongly too. But the actual writing process... mostly I write short fics, so I start at a plausible onboarding point, and go until it stops. If it’s longer, I start at the beginning and go until my attention span fails me, then organize my notes into something semi-coherent, and start writing at whatever point catches my eye, until I edit the whole together :V

(somewhere I’ve got a draft saved for an ask meme about specific fics, and things like inspiration/process/favorite moment/etc. I need to dig that out at some point, because I have a tough time talking in generalities, but I love talking in specifics XD I’ll try to find that, but honestly, my inbox is always open to people asking about my stories)

17. 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?

Ooh, wow. Hm. This is a really interesting question. Man, I want to give this a really thoughtful, well-thought-out answer, but I am absolutely terrible at gauging how other people perceive anything ever XD I occasionally get comments that seem to think I’m dunking on a less-than-sympathetic character who I actually love deeply, but those are pretty rare. My writing and motivations.... I don’t know! I think there aren’t that many unplumbed depths there. I’m not a terribly symbolic writer, I can maybe noodle for longer than people expect about characters’ inner worlds and what they were thinking/feeling in my fics, but I don’t think that’s much of a surprise to anyone who’s followed me for long, haha

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?)

Oh boy, I did not read ahead XDDD Uhmmm, let me see. I guess a major part of most of my longer wips right now is... Shen Jiu. I’ve rambled about him before, but I just want to scream about him all the time, because he’s absolutely terrible to Luo Binghe. He does awful, unnecessary, cruel things to him. I want to get Luo Binghe out of his hands asap, in any given setting (except the diet bingge verse, lmao), and then I want to devote lots and lots of energy to exploring his emotional world and damage and giving him something better. Because this man is miserable! Some of it is self-inflicted, some of it isn’t, and even if he’s not in a downward emotional spiral, he’s like.... an emotional ouroboros, hovering at a pretty miserable place. He’s not going to break free on his own, and he’s not going to let anybody break him free if he can help it, and it sucks, it’s terrible, it’s miserable for both him and the people around him! And. AND. I don’t want to just tell people all about how tragic his life is (though I will absolutely do that too), I want to show them the trapped feeling, the suffocating unhappiness, all of it. I feel like it’s a lot more compelling to read through that kind of situation than to just be told about it, and I really, really do want to (over the course of multiple fics and verses) communicate the... tragedy of his existence, while also finding ways to reach down into that pit and lift him up. It’s important to me.

adfasgd that’s a mildly incoherent note to end on. Here’s a different favorite thing! In the diet bingge verse, even after shen jiu becomes binghe’s second husband, they both insist (and believe) that they hate each other, and that the other one is the worst. however, in a drugged-up haze, sha yuan (third husband) is going to insist, within hearing of both of them, that shen qingqiu is the love of binghe’s life. This will mortify and horrify both of them, they will both be appalled, and mutually decide never to speak of this again. However, he’s also.......... not exactly wrong. Nobody is ever going to admit this out loud, but in a crisis, Binghe’s first instinct is to seek out Shizun before anyone else. This has the bonus effect that Shen Qingqiu will immediately start hunting for ANY OTHER HUSBAND to take a panicking Binghe off his hands, which is Binghe’s excuse if anyone ever calls him out on it, but... he never really stopped thinking that Shizun was the most clever, most capable person alive, and his first instinct in a real crisis is to look to Shen Qingqiu as a dependable waypoint to orient himself on. ‘Love’ isn’t exactly the right word, but I’m not sure there’s a better word, and sha yuan is just muttering to himself like ‘i fucking told you so’

#svsss #ask memes #long post/#solluxisms

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inanna-arianna · 4 years

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The overlooked villain of Mo Dao Zu Shi

Lan Qiren. Yes, I am going there. Please bear with me. I will explain why I believe he is a villain.

Lan Qiren was born to the main branch of the GusuLan sect. While the sect does have none blood related members, a distinction between blood relatives, as in those descended from the founder and first patriarch and leader Lan An and other disciples does exist. Noted in the fact that it took effort from both Lan XiChen and Lan Wangji to have Sizhui adopted as an inner sect blood relative and given the forehead ribbon embroidered with clouds. This is well established in the canon among cultivators outside of Gusu, as Wei WuXian immediately surmises that Lan JingYi is a blood descendant because of his embroidered forehead ribbon.

Lan Qiren was born the younger brother of the next sect leader. Through a series of foul choices and missteps, and I could write a whole meta on the older brother here, his immensely talented brother with tremendous potential and social status ended up being somewhat of a disgrace of the family. His shame being hidden from other sects and the world in general. So Lan Qiren found himself as acting sect leader in the place of his brother. His brother who held the title only in name. Not only did the responsibly and glory of leading a sect fall onto the younger brother. But care and education of the two upcoming heirs. And heir and a spare. That meta on my visceral detest for the older of the two brothers of that generation is ever approaching.

Naturally, Lan Qiren did not raise the two boys. No, they were handed over to others and once they were old enough he had them brought to him to be trained, thought, regimented.

A while later, Lan XiChen whispered, “It could be said that my father did this without a care for anything else. All of the seniors of the clan were enraged, but they had all watched him grow up. They could not do anything except guard the secret, hint to the outside world that the wife of the GusuLan Sect’s sect leader had an unspeakable disease and could not see others. After WangJi and I were born, we were immediately taken out to be cared for by other people. When we grew older, we were brought to Uncle to be taught.

“My uncle… has always had a frank personality to begin with. Because of how my mother caused my father to destroy his own life, he began to hate those who behaved improperly even more. Thus, he poured his heart into teaching WangJi and me. He was especially harsh as well. Every month, we could only see Mother once, inside of this cottage.”

They way he dismissed the obvious anguish and turmoil Lan XiChen was clearly going through after the events of the final confrontation with Meng Yao is one of the minor instances where Lan Qiren showed how heartless he was even to his closest kin. Scolding his nephew instead of inquiring about his well being or offering comfort.

Lan Qiren is not someone who nurtured them or even comforted or cared for them. He was their teacher, instructor and warden.

And how well that turned out? Let’s see. One born to inherit the sect is dangerously naïve, passive, submissive on a level that he does not even speak in his own tone of voice, which is described as sonorous and booming, but rather a soft and delicate voice of the façade he puts on. He is so passive that he refuses to even ask why his mother whom he describes as gentle and kind would kill someone. His demeanor, gentle smile and voice are there to defuse aggression. He avoids confrontation and puts on a submissive stance. Allowing his brother to be brutally punished, not questioning his mother’s motives, allowing the siege at Burial mounds despite not being part of them himself.

You have to ask yourself why the teacher, the instructor, the mentor of his own nephew and incoming heir and leader would train, teach and raise the said boy to be submissive, naïve. Lan Qiren himself is none of those things. That is a fact. He is very dominant, dismissive, vain, arrogant and prideful. Not bad traits for a sect leader, right? But everything he instilled in Lan XiChen are bad traits to be found in a leader of a militaristic sect, a patriarch of a clan with vast economical resources and power and standing. Lan Xichen is not just submissive and naïve. He lacks coping skills as well as emotionally maturity.

A leader must not be submissive. A leader must not be passive. A leader must not be naïve. Lan Qiren knows all of that. But that is the crux of the matter. Lan XiChen is not the sect leader. Lan Qiren is. Lan XiChen is just a pretty doll, empty and passive. Trained and raised to bend to the will of his uncle. As much a leader as his father was. Only in name. Example, this was the first time one of them opposed or disobeyed him:

Wei WuXian’s throat was dry. His eyes were red as well. He couldn’t say a single thing. Lan XiChen continued, “My uncle suddenly appeared before him and scolded him, asking for him to explain things. As if he knew all along he would be discovered by us, he said that there was nothing to explain, that this was it. Growing up, he had never talked back to Uncle and me even once. But for you, not only did WangJi talk back to him, he even met with his sword the cultivators from the GusuLan Sect. He heavily injured all thirty-three of the seniors we asked to come…”

Lan Qiren presents himself as someone who is strict in maintaining tradition. Yet his actions prove the opposite. Adding over a thousand rules in less than two decades, that is not tradition. That is innovation. Adding a rule about people not being allowed to speak to one individual? Individual that has been absolved, even if only partially. That was pure vanity and spite on Lan Qiren’s behalf. Vindictive and petty, and very much in opposition to many of the fundamental rules of the GusuLan sect.

§ Do not disrespect the younger.

§ Do not be haughty and complacent.

§ Arrogance is forbidden.

§ Do not praise yourself and slander others.

§ Do not take advantage of your position to oppress others.

§ Do not mix public and private interests.

§ Do not make assumptions about others.

§ Do not form a clique and exclude others.

§ Do not insult people.

§ Be careful with your words.

§ Be respectful and humble.

§ Be amicable and unedited.

§ Be easy on others.

§ Do not hold grudges.

§ Love all beings

There is more, but I digress. He is a cruel and unrepentant hypocrite. Lan Qiren’s arrogance and vanity are such that even after nearly causing the death of a sect leader he refused to apologize.

Ironically, Lan Qiren is the one who will be the downfall of The GusuLan sect. He is so blinded by his self importance that he does not even recognize that by adding such insane amounts of rules in such a short span of time he is opening up the possibility that future generations will simply see some rules as absurd and meaningless. And that is a slippery slope. How long before they grow resilient to the fundamental rules? Add to that how empty, passive and incompetent Lan XiChen is as a leader and there is no one to stop Lan Qiren’s tyranny and vanity. And it is a short span of time, before the sect had about 3000 rules accumulated over centuries. But one thousand was added in less than two decades.

And please don’t think I am bashing on Lan XiChen. He is one of my favorite characters in the novel. I will write that meta on his father and further explain just how much the previous generation ruined that poor boy. I really do have tremendous sympathy for him.

sorry for the grammatical errors

#lan qiren #lan xichen #lan wangji #lan huan #lan zhan #gusu lan #Cloud Recesses #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #lan an

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camerinhell · 4 years

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[Hazbin Hotel Meta] Hazbin MBTIs~! Get your fresh Hazbin Hotel MBTIs here~!

I feel pretty…happy and confident about these ;w; I tried to use best judgement, the canonical info we have so far (even if a bit vague, gotta take what we can get!), and took into consideration like…that I’m really trying to be as realistic as possible. I really enjoy keeping to canon and building off realistic expressions of the characters even with a lot of the interactions between them being so bombastic or humorous. This is how I like to go about my writing for them too :)

Alastor: ESTP - Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving

Al is driven and motivated (on a base level, from what it seems) by pure stimulus. Regarding stimuli in his environment, he’s not looking to gain any philosophical or emotional insight, development or further connection to others from it; he wants to enjoy the experience in and of itself, even more so with the ability to manipulate it or those involved. Alastor wants action, entertainment, and the ability to make decisions, watch others make decisions, and watch the pieces fall where they may (long as that doesn’t lead to actual stability, peace or resolution). He enjoys engaging with others on his own terms/working a room, shaking things up and not just thinking about ‘what ifs?’, but actively creating those situations. He doesn’t want to be restricted, controlled or bored. ESTPs can tend to be impatient, self-important and prideful, have a habit of turning their noses up at others, and can be selfish. All these things definitely pertain or easily could pertain to Al.

Angel (and Cherri): ESFP - Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving

Angel and Cherri revel in dramatics and energy! They are bright, relatively warm (given…where they are, lol), sociable and like to have the spotlight on them. They take pleasure in the things around them and engaging with their surroundings. They’re enthusiastic, loud, active and want to be seen and heard. Real lives of the party that are generally supportive of their friends and unafraid to speak their minds. All this taken into account, some downfalls of their personalities are that they can react aggressively towards critique or inquiry, get bored easier than (most) other types and are easily distracted. Their empathy can also come off as superficial or insincere because of their playful, non-serious attitudes (remember, we even got to see Angel struggle with empathy and support when he was attempting to console Charlie).

Charlie: ENFJ - Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging

Charlie is the definition of an ENFJ. She is a benevolent idealist who wants to see the best in people, and honestly believes in the best in people (as we see with her dream/goal for the Happy Hazbin Hotel. She wants to inspire and be inspired. Her type is actually pretty intrinsic to the plot at large). Charlie is unbelievably selfless; her motivations and what she wishes to contribute to those and the world around her are for their betterment. She is infatuated with the thought of things but needs the assistance in executing those thoughts and dreams into reality. Weaknesses that accompany this type and definitely Charlie herself are: not thinking things through, stubbornness/lack of flexibility (particularly for themselves), and being prone to burning themselves out. From the onset of the pilot all the way until the end she’s pushing herself, having difficulty really taking advice/direction and isn’t willing to see beyond her own scope of things.

Husk: ISTP - Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving

Coming up with a likely MBTI for Husk was an enjoyable challenge! It definitely put my critical interpreting to the test and also helped me more critically assess the MBTIs for the other characters (though most of those wrote themselves/were much more apparent imo).

Husk is an avid gambler and alcoholic drinker, and these two things guided me in understanding his type. He appreciates tactile interaction and socialization on his own terms (as is required by most gambling), easily comes to decisions/conclusions from changes/information in his environment and is sensitive, for better or worse, to stimuli in his environment as many SPs are, and likely craves it actively or on a base level. Husk seems to be quietly dependable and competent/effective based off of Alastor’s (albeit humorously manipulative) words to him, which is a hallmark for ISTPs. He’s operationally a loner, but not misanthropic, just reserved/internalized unless caused to act. Some obvious issues that can arise with this MBTI and clearly would apply to Husk are: being distant or closed off, potentially risky or self-destructive behavior (yuuup~), and lacking compassion or emotional sensitivity.

Sir Pentious: ENTJ - Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging

Pentious is goal-oriented (as are most other NJs), rational, intelligent and clever (despite his loud personality and Saturday morning villain aesthetic lol). He desires order and values exacting organized, calculated plans. He’s rather assertive and craves a high degree of control in his surroundings (I mean he’s a mechanical mastermind hellbent on ruling Hell and attaining more recognition and influence, after all). Being an EN type, he has a natural charisma, and much like many charismatic types, he wants to be noticed and valued. ENTJs have a tendency to desire legacy and recognition for their accomplishments since they are born leaders who enjoy setting all the dominoes in place, this is no truer than for Sir Pen. If he is to set up a lengthy, complex far-reaching plan to exact his visions, he wants to be noted, and noted well for that. Weaknesses that tend to hinder ENTJs are being overly confident and condescending, bossy, inflexible and prone to outbursts/meltdowns. If that’s not our snek idk what is tbh.

Vaggie: ISTJ - Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging

Vaggie is logical (if fiery; which should not be confused for Feeling), perceptive (which should not be confused for Perceiving), reliable, detail-oriented and hard-working. She is incredibly dedicated and forward with her intents and expects no nonsense. ISTJs like to keep a keen eye on those in their surroundings and expect those around them to abide by the standards they set as they truly do value the tasks at hand and the well-being of those around them/those they’re in charge of or aiding. If we look at her interactions with Angel in the limo, and Alastor back at the hotel, it is super clear that she is protective personally and professionally of those under her care but also the hotel/Charlie’s endeavors. ISTJs aren’t typically noted as being the guardians and protectors, and that’s usually because others are only viewing those roles from a purely emotional standpoint. Though ISTJs still have feelings like any other human-being, they approach protecting and guarding as a matter of duty first and foremost (that they wouldn’t undertake if they didn’t care in the first place). Very Vaggie. Weaknesses that can befall people of this MBTI are: being stuck in their ways/stubborn, brash and indelicate, and being unable to compromise for/with others.

I hope I did justice to these wonderful characters and helped extrapolate on them some more! With any luck, ya’ll enjoy this and it serves as a great resource for writing these characters and their interpersonal interactions ;w;/ I know there’s no way to confirm any of this as canon, but I’d like to think it’s hopefully not too far off lol Thanks for reading~!!

#alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #sir pentious #angel dust hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel #charlie hazbin hotel #husk hazbin hotel #vaggie hazbin hotel #cherri bomb hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel meta #camerins metas #hazbin hotel theories

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ailuronymy · 4 years

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Book Club: Tallstar’s Revenge, chpt. 28-36 overview.

A definitive diagnosis, courtesy of two famed armchair psychiatrists:

“Basically, this cat needs CBT.” -- S.

“YEP.” -- K.

This week we’re discussing this chapter through these nine questions. Please feel welcome to do the same and @ailuronymy + use the tag #ailuronymy writing challenge. Don’t forget: next time is the last section, but it’s never too late to jump on board if you want to! Happy reading and I’m looking forward to seeing your feelings about this book.

1. First impressions?

K. Exhausting to read - like, genuinely, it was a slog. Jake is the only light in all of this badness, and even then. S. Bad! We've hit Bluestar's Prophecy level and I don't see things turning around. Regrettable.

2. How did you feel reading this section?

S. Hm. I would say one-part anger, to two-parts bored, with a dash of Love Jake. K. I'd say betrayed if I didn't fully expect this kind of pedantic shit from the Erins already. But like... yeah. I somehow didn't think it could get worse, and yet.

3. What chapter did you find most interesting/moving/effective, and why?

S. The one with Jake and Talltail inside the house as Jake tries to explain things to Talltail and convince him that to get what he wants he has to not be a jerk. K. Chapter Thirty-One was fun just to see Jake/Talltail hijinks in play. Everything else was mind-numbing.

4. What chapter did you find least interesting/effective/most frustrating, and why?

S. Uhhh, all of them but especially the huge chunks of description while he was travelling and running around doing whatever the hell. In every way but physically, I was asleep. K. Yeah, same. The first chapter of this section has everything I hate: swaths of dry, meaningless descriptions, Shadowclan being vaguely mean, and Sandgorse Coming Back To Menace Me Personally. All bad.

5. Is there a passage that stuck in your mind–for good, or not-so-good reasons? What is it, and why did it stand out? Try breaking it down and analysing what this passage does and how.

S. For me, it was a specific line: “I just say yes to everything, he likes that” -- I LOVE Jake. S. It was so cute, and it captured such a nice relationship between Jake and his person. It also reminded me a lot of talking with the old boy, because probably we're just saying, "that's really interesting" to each other back and forth.

K. I agree. The line just before that is: “He is like kin,” Jake snapped back. “I’ve known him my whole life. He makes sure I’m warm and fed. And I sit with him and keep him company when he’s alone. We talk to each other.” K. It's just? Sweet?? K. Like, there's SO MUCH hate on Twolegs in Warriors for some level of understandable reasoning, but it felt so good to see Jake actively defending his owner's role in his life.

S. Yeah, I was like, okay Erin Hunter, so sometimes you get it. And then they turn around and go straight back to self-wedgietown and I'm like, really. S. On that note: S. I guess for not-good reasons, it has to be the kitty litter scene. S. Erin Hunter wins the gold in the "what the fuck are you doing" event, yet again.

6. The story has taken a major shift in setting and location. Do you like this new space more, or do you miss the clan? Why do you think you feel this way?

K. Bad! I want to be back with the Clans, please! It was terrible there but at least it wasn't whatever the fuck is happening here! K. That said, I did enjoy the house scenes. Just as a treat.

S. I was very curious to see how they were going to explore the outer world, but it was a huge let down. They either drowned it in empty, boring description, or just kind of overlooked it. They didn't go for the nice medium of interesting vignettes the way I (foolishly) had hoped for. S. More for me, I guess.

7. Last week we talked about what lessons we could learn from the text. This week, think about what lesson you would most want to teach Talltail at this junction in his life. What advice does he most need to hear?

K. PLEASE STOP BEING THE WORST K. But for real: hm. I guess like. You need to learn to let go of shit, my man. Sometimes bad things happen and you have to put them aside or else those feelings take over your life.

S. Yeah, I'm thinking along the same lines. I think Talltail really needs to learn how to separate his thoughts from his self, because he's clearly very invested in the narrative he's telling himself. He's had a history of negative self-view (encouraged by his environment) and it's going to be really beneficial for him to practice genuine mindfulness and recognise that a feeling is a feeling, not a command to be followed. A thought isn't you, it's a thought. You're allowed to have both--in fact, can't stop yourself from having both--but you don't have to believe in them or be controlled by them. S. What's motivating him is guilt, which often comes from shame and feelings of powerlessness. He's trying to take control and he feels this narrative he's telling himself is the solution. S. So my advice would be basically that: you're not your thoughts or your feelings. Those just happen to you. Imagine them like weather, always changing, coming and going. S. And when you practice that enough, you'll become aware of how constructed it all is. You'll realise when you're acting through your emotions without being aware of them. For example, like this whole quest.

K. Oh, also as an add-on: obviously a lot of self-care and putting yourself on the path towards bettering yourself comes from choices only you can make, but listening to your support system and truly hearing what they have to say is also important! K. Talltail has had a lot of people around him trying to vouch for better options he could take to better himself, offering to listen and support him, and he's been too in his emotions or too angry to listen to them.

S. Basically, this cat needs CBT.

K. YEP.

S. I'd also like to offer advice to Jake. S. I want to tell him that he's right to stand up for himself. I want him to know that if someone he likes denigrates him or mocks him or views him as inferior, they are not being a good friend or partner and he deserves to have someone who builds him up, supports him, and respects him. S. That feels important to me, given how fast he seems to have fallen for someone behaving so poorly towards him. S. Like, not to be meta, but that's a Big issue in queer community in the real world.

K. It's true! K. People get so desparate for connection that it's easy to let a lot of red flags go unnoticed for the sake of keeping something going.

S. Queer folk believing that they're unlovable, so they settle for anyone who gives them attention or insinuates that maybe they're okay. Queer folk feels so desperately, deeply isolated and lonely, that they decide to get with someone inappropriate or even toxic because they're terrified that they'll never find anyone else, that it's their only chance at finding a romantic partner. S. Exactly. I want Jake to know that he's loveable and valuable, and that having high standards and expectations and healthy boundaries for a partner and romantic relationship is good and important for finding the right relationship and achieving the kind of happiness he's looking for.

8. Think back over the book so far (including this section). Out of all the characters, who do you relate to the most? Is this because the character is similar to you in personality, or because their experiences are familiar to you–or a bit of both?

K. In its own way, I think I can find aspects of Tallpaw relatable. Wanting to direct your anger at people over things you can't change or take back is something that's pretty human. K. But on the flipside: I would like to think that I could relate to someone like Dawnstripe, too? In being able to look back on those moments with an adult's perspective and be able to go "Hey, listen, I've got your back, but also: have some advice that you really need to hear."

S. Same hat! S. I was also going to say Dawnstripe. Out of all the characters, I relate most to her--probably because she's a teacher! I also got wildly mad at that stunt Sandgorse pulled with the tunnel, and Shrewpaw in that fight, so I feel like Dawnstripe is definitely a character that speaks to my experience of this book. S. We can make our first Book Club merch: we are all Dawnstripe.

K. YES. I’m okay with this. K. The back of the shirt says "heatherstar please call me back" in tiny font.

S. GOD. Iconic.

9. We’re on the second last section of this novel. Next week, we read the end! But before we get there, what do you think will happen? If you’ve already read this novel before, use this space to write what you remember feeling at the end last time–did you feel happy, sad, disappointed, angry? Do you think you’ll feel differently this time?

K. Sandgorse is going to personally come into my home and destroy me on the spot with bad characterization, and that's a threat from Erin Hunter herself.

S. Yeah, you were very right when you predicted that he'd be giving Tallstar one of his lives, I think.

K. Talltail hasn't even had an apprentice yet! We're just gonna fast-track his entire warrior-hood and go straight to leadership once he gets back to Windclan, I think.

S. Yep! Just like they did for Bluestar. S. Everyone knows being a deputy is a boring, worthless job and the only thing that matters is being leader.

K. Sigh.

S. Obviously, Talltail isn't going to kill Sparrow, and Jake and Talltail will have some kind of sad goodbye, and then Talltail will go back to Windclan like, "sorry I left, I had a crisis."

K. Yeah, and they'll all go "Oh hey dude, thanks for showing back up, we weren't too worried"

S. "We barely noticed you were gone." [zoom in to Talltail's dead eyes as he looks at the camera] S. Also, what's the bet that they're going to manifest some drama over Talltail with Reena and Jake?

K. Oh, I'd say the chances of that are relatively high. K. It'll happen for like 1.5 chapters. K. And then be ignored.

S. Like, what's the bet they're going to try to shove a heterosexual plot in there and have Reena be all over him and mad that Jake's even there?

K. Yep yep yep. K. And then Talltail will snap out of it to brood more.

S. Which is going to be wild given that the last time Reena saw Talltail, he was a huge prick. S. But she's a woman, he's a man, can Erin Hunter make it any more obvious?

Final notes:

K. Please. Unleash thy rage. S. From my notes: S. "Erin Hunter is fucking wild, we don’t NEED the level of realism “taking a dump in front of my soon-to-be boyfriend,” holy fuck, great first date, you fucking crazy people" K. IT'S BAD!!!!!!!! IT'S SO BAD!!!!!!!!!! S. I literally had to stop reading to laugh for a full minute. S. I was like, you've got to be kidding me, you've got to be kidding me. Just a desperate chant. S. But they were not kidding me! S. And what makes it so egregious is that it's in such fucking detail. S. If this was Watership Down, a scene would not be ruined by: "He passed hraka by some ragwort before hopping over to him. "All right," said Pine. "What do you need?"" Like, it's not disruptive and doesn't ping to change the tone or like, emotional calibre of the story. S. Jake giving Talltail step-by-step instructions on how to relieve himself while watching was absolutely way off.

K. I am taking a fucking screenshot because look at this. Look at how horrendous this looks. This is the visual, writing equivalent of staring at a desert wasteland full of nothing. K. [screenshot of several pages of description] K. Pictured above: NOTHING IS FUCKING HAPPENING S. I KNOW S. It was just barren expanses of running around that did nothing, achieved nothing, moved the story forward no amount. K. It is just. So monotonous. It's dry, and boring, and it feels so lifeless. K. It's the equivalent of fucking... fourth grade bullshit. "Talltail walked to the log. He jumped on it and used it to cross the river. He leaped off and continued on through the grass. Then he saw a moth." S. But yeah, it was unbearable. My eyes glazed over and I skimmed just about all of it. S. Other notes: S. “I’m just skimming all this description, I don’t care, I’ve got teacher-brain on and all I’m thinking is, this could have been summary [...] and there’s so much description again, it’s just not interesting! I don’t know why people think “action” is interesting. It’s barely interesting for more than two minutes in an action FILM, why do you think a book is going to be somehow more successful at being an impressive spectacle than a film, my god, learn your goddamn medium”

K. SANDGORSE STAY DEAD 2K20 S. Note: "I fucking hate this bullshit ghost of Sandgorse thing. I can’t believe they killed off the character I loathed just to bring him back for reasons of cryptic bullshit" K. The fact that his ghost keeps fucking showing up is killing ME K. ESPECIALLY because he's gonna come back like "Son...... this is not the way...... Im proud of you.........." K. And Talltail will go "oh shit oh fuck you're right" S. "Daddy loved me all along. It's my fault for not realising that.” S. Literally all I can think about when Sandgorse shows up in these chapters is that bit in Twilight where Edward Cullen's force ghost or whatever is like, lie.

S. Because of how Talltail's behaving, I actually really do not vibe Jake and Talltail's relationship at all. K. Oh?? Go off, my good bitch. S. It pings badly for me that Jake meets this guy, who's an arsehole, and then he helps this guy, who's still being a racist dick. Then he gets feelings about this guy in a really short period of time, despite minimal changes in his behaviour towards him. K. Oh boy, yeah, that's all true. S. Not to be like Twilight again about it but like: this is not a great start to a relationship. This is actually a red flag. Someone who doesn't respect you and is just a prick and is using you as a means to an end, is not someone you should be attracted to. The fact that Jake is says something about how he's doing emotionally, and it really conflicts for me that someone with such a certain sense of self and value would find Talltail even remotely attractive. I don't believe it.

K. Jake’s superpower is just Being Kind & Having Reasonable Thoughts. “Aren’t you tired of going ape shit, Talltail? Don’t you just wanna be nice?” S. God, you're so right. S. I am super looking forward to writing Jake and Talltail's Hot Girl Summer, though. K. Which like, if Talltail had better things to be frustrated about, I would love Jake to fill his role of like... the complimentary half to Talltail, in that regard. K. Talltail is just SO in his head about EVERYTHING and Jake is just living in the moment! S. He’s vibing! K. Lmao also from the notes: Jake shifted his paws. “I know I’m a kittypet. I’m happy with that.” He began to head down the slope that led into the valley. “It doesn’t mean I can’t walk a different path for a while.” — Talltail, recently shoved back into the closet, randomly befriending a comfortably out bisexual otter… who’d have thought S. Canon Talltail is a hot mess and that's Erin's fault, but these two are good. K. more highlights: The hunting scene… sharing together… “Only if it’s offered.” “I’m offering.” How the fuck did the Erins stumble into speaking in tongues and the translation coming out as Gay Rights S. "It's rotten work." "Not if I'M OFFERING." K. Talltail’s mew trailed away. He didn’t want Jake to go. He searched the kittypet’s green gaze. “You don’t have to come.” “I want to!” Jake shifted his paws, adding quietly, “If you don’t mind, that is.” Talltail glanced at the ground, feeling hot. “I don’t mind,” he murmured. “It’s good to have company.” — LIKE THEY REALLY ARE JUST LIKE THIS K. Oh man I have some other good notes: I can’t believe that Talltail is SO edgy and in his feelings that he can’t even stomach simulated affection to this random human. “Pretend it’s a tree” DUDE just let yourself GO, release your inhibitions K. God can you just imagine K. Talltail finding Jake who gets him to calm down by getting so fucking cat high S. Just like, "here dude fucking chew this plant and maybe you’ll calm down." K. Talltail: I want revenge :'( Jake: bro. shut up and eat this leaf

K. “Please can I go outside?” he mewed in his most plaintive voice.” — Talltail just sounds like a sad little Victorian orphan. I can’t believe all the Miette goofs are canon and real. You kick Talltail like the football? Oh! Oh! Jail for Starclan! Jail for Starclan for one-thousand years! S. I know. I was losing it that we basically predicted the whole scene with Jake and his person. S. "I taught him how to say food but he's very bad at it." S. That was probably the most enjoyable moment in the entire section for me. S. Makes you really wonder why the fuck pet cats have human-given names, though. K. FUCK IT DIDN'T EVEN HIT ME THAT UHHH K. THAT'S WACK HUH ISNT IT S. It's so wack.

K. I want us to just break something down for a hot moment S. I love to break it down with you. K. Talltail's plan is... bad S. Oh, it's dumb as hell. K. Like I'm imagining all of this from Sparrow's perspective K. Like it's one of those podcast horror stories S. I have that note too: this dude has no idea. K. "So one summer I accidentally got into a bad accident, and the guy I was with didn't make it out. His kid is really broken up about it and is pretty pissed at me, and straight up ignores me or glares at me the rest of the summer. Fast forward a few months and suddenly he shows up again out of the blue, and now says he wants to stay with me and my family. Says he's changed and that he wants to spend more time with us. THEN HE PLANS MY MURDER" S. It's really funny to imagine Talltail staring into the distance like, "my nemesis, you killed my father, prepare to die." And then smash cut to a completely oblivious Sparrow like, taking a nap. Having a snack with his friends. Smelling a flower.

S. Note: "I’m so unbelievably bored of Talltail having the same three stupid thoughts over and over and over" S. “The heartless rogue was going to pay for destroying his life” GOD SKIP S. “Twolegs are rabbit-brains.” get some new material for fuck’s sake S. His internal monologue is now entirely on par with Bluefur's I feel like? K. it is!!!! it is!!!!!! K. It's the same quality! It's just so disappointing that a book that started off like. K. SOMEHOW better than BP. K. Just swiftly dunked us back in the can. S. They just beat you to death over and over with the same inane conversations, the same unconvincing internal monologue. You could have a better book by literally just cutting this one in half. Just edit out all the repetitive bullshit. S. But they need to reach word count, so they don't. They shove more in, because there has to be 45 chapters, because it's a super edition. K. It's disgusting. I know y'all have a business to run but also If It Weren't For The Laws Of This Land, S. It really reframes for me all the people who were like, "it's the best super edition!" doesn’t it? K. YEAH S. Like, yikes. K. Like it's better than a lot of super editions and by a lot I mean Surprise, They're All The Same Fucking Book, K. How do you write the same book like forty times and never get it right, like, once.

#ailuronymy book club #hope you're all having a good time reading along and/or reading our overviews!

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blackjack-15 · 4 years

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The Force of Nature and the Cackling Madman: What Hux Should Be (and What ROS Won’t Be)

Warning: two mentions of the leaked/newish pictures. They will have spoiler warnings bracketing it, along with the appropriate tags connected to the post. You’ve been warned.

INTRODUCTION

With RoS mere months away, this meta really can’t be delayed any longer before it becomes moot, so here we go!

TLJ was a lot of things — some good, some bad — but what it wasn’t was surprising (unless you count just how shockingly bad 90% of Finn’s storyline was). This is generally a good thing in movies nowadays, where surprises come not from clever writing, but from enormous missteps in the writing or the desire to feel clever by putting in a twist that isn’t foreshadowed, or even just by breaking the rules of your universe.

Ignoring all but the main storyline — which is about Rey and Kylo Ren and their obstacles/conflicts — TLJ didn’t bring any surprises, but instead followed on the lines that TFA set up. As this is obviously the storyline that’s been hashed out from the start and is the point they’re building to, it’s thus safe to say that RoS is simply going to do the same, and follow the lines that TLJ set up.

SPOILER WARNING BEGINS

(Side note: this is why, when the absurdly stupid tuning-fork-lightsaber of Rey’s showed up in the first looks at RoS, it was immediately obvious that she was going to be able to “break” off half of it to give to Kylo when his saber is ultimately gone/self-destructs. Not only does the spoiler picture all but confirm this, but it’s also the obvious trajectory from the two fighting over a lightsaber in TLJ and breaking it in half.)

SPOILER WARNING ENDS

Anyway, with this framework in mind, and with the knowledge that every Star Wars media since the OG trilogy is in some way an adaptation of the OG trilogy, let’s examine what this means for the villain.

TERROR AND STAR WARS VILLAINS

There’s really no getting around the fact that one of the weakest facets of any Star Wars movie — yes, the OG trilogy is included here — is the villains that accompany them. A few SW video games fare a bit better in this, but most follow the movies’ path. This isn’t shocking — Star Wars is a Hero’s Journey, and in a Hero’s Journey it’s the presence of a villain, not the nature of the villain itself, that’s the important part — but it is crucial to understand.

Darth Vader is by far the most iconic and scariest villain that Star Wars movies can boast of, and for those born after 4/5/6 came out, he’s not really that scary, because those viewers go in knowing who Vader is and that he’s (at least partially) redeemed through his sacrifice. The greatest contribution that Rogue One made to that viewership is the scene with Vader at the end, where he is legitimately an object of terror as he was when 4/5/6 were first out.

This leads to a discussion of Palpatine-as-villain in RotJ, where the best that can be said for his status as terror-inducing villain is that at least he has Vader to do most of the heavy lifting for him. As a villain, Palpatine is just not scary. Maybe it’s the makeup, maybe it’s the fact that he gets thrown out like a sack of garbage to his death, maybe it’s the cold ham delivery he gives to what should be properly menacing lines.

Darth Maul’s visuals in TPM alone are scarier than all of Palpatine in RotJ, and, before it’s brought up, Palpatine is even less scary than that in the prequels, so I’m not even considering that part.

The thing that most Star Wars villains have in common (aside from Tarkin, who is my person favorite movie-verse villain) is that they’re forces of nature; they have the force and/or use lightsabers, they’re larger than life and beings of immense power and reputation, and they’re there to sort of loom over movie, causing overwhelming-yet-non-specifc terror to motivate the plot in a “avoid the bad guys” sort of way.

This is especially obvious in the prequel movies, where Darth Maul (ignoring his awesome visual effect), General Grievous, and Count Dooku are all basically meant to Stand There And Look Menacing, rather than having anything about them that’s actually interesting.

And here’s where the interesting things in the sequel trilogy begin.

WHY SMOKE SNOKE?

There was never any way that Snoke was going to live past TLJ, just like there was no way that Hux wasn’t going to survive TLJ. Remembering that the sequel trilogy is in a lot of ways an adaptation of the OG trilogy (as all Star Wars movies are), TFA was trying to get you to think of Snoke as Palpatine — an overlord that survives until the last bit of the last movie and Hux as Tarkin — the non-Force user who is Evil and all but dies b/c he’s too smug and petty.

But neither one of those things were actually true. Because that would position Kylo Ren as the Vader analogue, and all of TFA is dedicated to showing just how wrong that assumption is.

Because Kylo’s not Vader, Hux isn’t Tarkin, and Snoke isn’t Palpatine. Thus, Snoke has to die, because we can’t go into the last third of the trilogy with competing big bads (and no, Kylo and Hux don’t count there, either — Kylo isn’t a big bad at all, unless you think that the Big Bad Villain’s job is to fall for a British honeypot with a lightsaber).

I’ll admit, I was a bit smug when Snoke died and left only Hux alive and kicking out of the Three Bad Guys (as Kylo/Ben isn’t even pretending to be a bad guy anymore), because that’s what I had predicted — a fake-out with a Palpatine-style, force-of-nature villain only to reveal that the real Big Bad was with us all along — a mortal; a cackling madman: General Hux.

PLOTTING WITH PALPATINE

When spoilers first indicated that Palpatine would instead make yet another appearance in a Star Wars film, I was optimistic. Optimistic not in the “hey the Rebels will totally win” sort of way; no, optimistic in the “these kind Jedi will definitely free the slaves and not just take the kid because They Must Deal Kindly With Illegal Slavers”. AKA misplaced optimism rather than genre-savvy faith in the heroes to prevail.

Because actually bringing back Palpatine would be a stupid move all the way around, I tried to figure out why they’d advertise it and not try to hide the bad idea in a Secret Twist.

So here’s where we get the interplay between the Force of Nature and the Cackling Madman.

In a world where the Force exists, it’s easy to imagine that those without it feel rather powerless — or at least overshadowed — when near those who do wield it. Certainly, that’s true for most of Tarkin’s council, and true of Hux.

Over and over again in TFA and TLJ, we see Hux trying to prove that he’s every inch Kylo’s Equal. Even after Snoke’s death, he uses no deference to the new Supreme Leader and repeats his commands so he can believe that the First Order soldiers are following him.

Hux’s scene in TFA where he’s commanding the troops shows Hux at his finest (and most evil); apart from any Jedi/Sith/Force influence, he is himself to a glorious extreme: the Cackling Madman.

THE CACKLING MADMAN

I don’t use this title to say that Hux is insane (though he’s clearly a bit off) but rather to show the difference between a villain like Hux and a villain like Palpatine. Unlike the Force of Nature villain, a Cackling Madman is usually present over the entire story, seen as a person rather than as a shadowy figure, and is allowed to fail and succeed at multiple times during the trajectory of the story, rather than only failing at the very end when the heroes triumph.

In short, Star Wars has never had, in the movie-verse, a Cackling Madman as the main villain. The prequels play at it for about .5 seconds with Senator Palpatine, but he’s still the Force of Nature, ultimately, just pretending to be a Good Guy.

As the sequel trilogy, is, once again, and like any other SW media, an adaptation of the OG trilogy, I was really excited for this shift in formula — it would play on audience expectation that Snoke would just be Palpatine 2.0, only to reveal — with the proper set up, as shown in TFA and TLJ — that the true villain was there all along, just unnoticed for what he was.

THE FACADE OF THE FORCE

So where would the intervention of Palpatine go in this shift from the formula?

Hux as the ultimate Big Bad would know that he would need the support of a powerful force user — or, at least, the appearance of support of a powerful force user.

And, in the Star Wars universe, you could do worse than to claim the support of (in the EU) the eternally clone-happy Emperor. Hux’s only problem is that the Emperor is dead, and thus not really up to supporting a ginger with dreams of Ultimate Power.

So any support would have to be a facade. And how is Star Wars uniquely equipped to handle facades?

We’re talking holograms, baby.

Holograms of a weakened yet still powerful Emperor — maybe missing a hand or something, a few attacks “directed” by the Emperor meeting wild success, manipulation of the Holograms to say Hux’s name and offer support of him as his Preeminent General or whatever, and Hux has the galaxy at his feet.

IMAGINE MY DISAPPOINTMENT (SPOILERS HERE AGAIN)

And then the spoiler pictures of Palpatine came out and — disappointment was prevalent, but I wasn’t surprised.

The big problem with the Sequel Trilogy is that it has one well-plotted plot line — the main plot line with Rey and Kylo/Ben — and then every other plot line is pretty much left up to the whims of the moment. It’s especially evident in Finn’s TLJ plot line, but it’s present to some extent in every other plot line throughout the two movies currently out.

What Hux should be is the danger lurking in plain sight; the villain seen but not understood, and the evil present but not accounted for. That alone would add a dimension to the Sequel Trilogy that it’s lacking right now — and lacking even more with the advent of Palpatine’s return. Not only would it acknowledge its freedom as an adaptation to play with audience expectation, but it would demonstrate something that both it and the Prequel Trilogy lack: trust in its audience.

THE ULTIMATE CONCLUSION

What RoS should be is a movie that delivers something new but still authentic to the Star Wars universe. Ultimately, that’s all it would take to please the majority of its audience, because those who are watching the ST without having seen any other Star Wars media are few and far between.

The shame is that what RoS will be is a movie that (wrongly) doesn’t trust its audience to consume nuanced media, and instead tries to placate them with false advertising (trying to give off the air that RoS will be a trio movie with Finn, Rey, and Poe when everyone knows it won’t be) and with the return of old characters and the descendants of old characters. It’s like adding blue flashing lights to an old snow globe and declaring that you’re recaptured lightning in a bottle.

#star wars #star wars spoilers #rise of skywalker #SWROS #SWTLJ #SWTFA #star wars meta #my meta

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hexenmeisterer · 5 years

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Comparing “The Ladies’ Man” to “A Likely Story”

Some collaborative due South meta

Here’s what happens when two friends separated by lots of geography watch due South together over Skype, read ALL of truepenny’s meta, and then start jamming in a google doc about two episodes-- which differ drastically in tone but share a bunch of themes! (crossposted here on DW, which is a better place to comment if you wanna have an actual back-and-forth discussion.)

H is me and T is the inimitable @touchmycoat.

H: In “A Likely Story,” Ray is trapped in his ideas about his love interest (what’s her name again?). He cannot for the life of him tell when she’s lying, he can’t see her true motivations, he can’t know her. He’s just using her as a blank screen to project his internal conflicts onto. This is, as truepenny points out, a theme that due South returns to almost every single time it explores romance. How many episodes philosophize on the possibility of “love at first sight?” Off the top of my head, I’ve got “You Must Remember This,” “Victoria’s Secret,” “An Invitation To Romance,” and “Say Amen”…

As Huey and Dewey say in “Say Amen,”

“Well, you know the thing is, you can't really love someone until you know them.” “Sure you can. The hard thing is to love them after you know them.”

T: The love interest’s name is Luann— Frannie’s actually the first person to name her, well into the episode. Luann’s not introduced to us, to Ray, to Fraser by name, relation, or even profession. We’re just left to assume she has a caretaking role for Mrs. Tucci based on her age and actions. The dialogue even (intentionally?) suffers from this unknowing; Ray says, “Look Fraser, I am very sorry for Mrs. Tucci’s loss, and I will make every effort to find the killer of her husband, but the fact remains she is a very beautiful woman.” The pronoun confusion just further highlights how much it doesn’t matter who Luann is, just that she is “a beautiful woman.” This issue goes from highlight to glaring headlights when the cut from EXT. CAR, EVENING to IN. STATION, DAY is done by their conversation just rolling over, and guess what they’re talking about? Well, Ray’s talking about sex, and how little of it they’re both getting.

H: The Lou Skagnetti story and Sword of Desire, which both show up multiple times throughout the episode, explore the (gendered) stories people build around romance. The ending scene specifically juxtaposes these two stories about love by putting their endings right next to each other. Ray and Luann have retreated from each other after a failed attempt at connection, and they both soothe their disappointment by turning to fantastical love stories.

This one, told between two men, out in the “wilderness” by a campfire:

“Lou Skagnetti looked at the princess who sat across the stone table in the stone cabin high atop Sulfur Mountain, and the princess smiled at him. And for a brief second, Lou Skagnetti could hear his own inner bell ring as though it were rung by a thousand angels. And he took his hand and he placed it over his heart, and Lou Skagnetti vowed that never again would he kill and eat another princess as long as he lived. . . unless, of course, she were covered in choke cherries and brown lichen and a sprinkling of dust -”

vs. this one, read in a comfortable bedroom (with the most floral bedspread ever invented), a story that one woman read aloud to another to help her sleep:

“Gabriella's chest heaved at the sight of him. His boldness made her feel like a true princess. As he came near her, she could feel the trembling of the deep inside her most secret place…”

Notice how they could almost be the same story told from different perspectives.

Fraser’s story, though, does not offer the same easy comfort Luann’s does. His story is a funny distraction, but it's also a dark mirror held up to romance. Fraser's status as an outsider means he knows different stories than Ray and Luann. This story shows the blood and guts of love. In the context of the episode, it gestures at how the theater of "love" often leads people to act in deeply un-loving ways towards each other; how it can get in the way of people even knowing each other. (“That's one dark story.” “Yes. It is.”)

Fraser has seen Ray use his position as a police officer to stalk his ex and now he’s seen him try to date a suspect. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s telling Ray a story where the protagonist has been “eating princesses.” The story’s not just an accusation, though; it’s a hopeful story, a humorous story; it’s told playfully and as an act of care, and it points to the possibility of true love in the future that is not based on violence.

T: I almost wish the show had the continuity to also let this moment comment explicitly on what Fraser couldn't get from Victoria. His love for her is so mired in guilt that he thinks himself deserving of all the violences she visits on his person. It's like, Ray is pre-Lou Skagnetti and Fraser is post-Lou Skagnetti; Ray needs to stop his violence and Fraser needs to pay for his violence. The same problem of failed recognition occurs on both sides of the story.

H: I love your point about Fraser being like Ray but somewhere further along in the accountability process.

In the "love-at-first-sight vs. true knowledge of a person" saga that is this show, there is one unexpected pair of people who know and love each other deeply after very little time spent together: Beth Botrelle and Ray Kowalski. They can see right through each other. They understand each other’s motivations— so not only can they tell when the other’s lying, but they can tell you exactly why. They are bound together through shared experience. And while their story is obviously not romantic, it is shockingly loving. Beth is willing to falsely confess to a murder she is unjustly accused of just to make Ray feel better, just to give him a real shot at moving on with his life after she dies. Ray is obviously willing to risk his job and his life to exonerate her, but he is also uniquely willing to admit his mistakes to her; he tells the truth exactly as it happened, and therefore sacrifices the easy self-justifications that have kept him functioning as a cop and as a person all these years.

(and, side note— how interesting is it that Beth of all people calls Ray “queer,” and his response is to laugh and nod?)

Beth does need to be saved from a death sentence, but she is emphatically not a damsel in distress (or a "princess"). She needs to save Ray as much as he needs to save her. Both of them know that their freedom is bound up in the other's.

T: So maybe in some ways this is Ray's post-Lou Skagnetti (I'm laughing as I write these words but bear with me). This is his Victoria, but antithetically; this is where he pays for the violence. Victoria was guilty and Fraser arrested her, Beth was innocent and Ray arrested her—but they both know, to some extent, that the arrests seemed immoral (Fraser in particular, where if they did actually sleep together, he’s fully abused his power as an officer of the law). Where Victoria wanted to destroy Fraser for it, Beth wanted to save Ray from it (she sought to alleviate his conscience by telling him she was guilty). But both Fraser and Ray had to be willing to destroy themselves and the roles they occupied for Victoria and Beth. The Fraser who is whole and the Victoria who seeks his destruction cannot coexist. And, to continue your reading of "Ladies' Man" as the keystone episode where Ray just really should not be a cop anymore, the Ray who is a cop and the Beth who is innocent/alive cannot coexist. There's something very interesting about these relationships between men and women that fail due to one or both of their placement in some kind of institution, because of one or both of their duties/supposed loyalties. Fraser's commitment to duty catalyzes the break between him and Victoria. Ray's abuse of his authority is no fucking good for Stella or Luann, and even when he succumbs to the ease of police authority he fucks over Beth.

Tying Ray and Fraser and Victoria back to “A Likely Story,” everybody, particularly Ray, speaks in projections; throughout the episode, Fraser is the mirror while Ray is the puppy, as in Ray doesn’t know the other puppy isn’t real, so he’s snarling and barking at the mirror, who is merely the medium through which the reflection is transposed.

H: “FRASER IS THE MIRROR AND RAY IS THE PUPPY” WHAT THE FUCK I LOVE THIS IMAGE. IT IS ABSURD AND TRUE. YOU ARE BRILLIANT. Please, expand upon this point.

T: This one particular projection:

Ray: “Let me see if I got this right, Fraser. Luann is a beautiful woman, therefore she must be bad. And since she's a really beautiful woman, that means she's got to be really bad. Is that how it goes inside your brain?”

Of all the projections, Fraser most clearly calls this one out for what it is: “Are you sure it is my brain we are talking about?” Funny, since this is the one projection that fully echoes Fraser’s hangups about Victoria. Vecchio’s line from “Letting Go” seems resonant: “Not every woman with long dark hair tries to kill their lover.” But this is clearly about Ray: his low sense of self-worth makes him look for flaws in women he believes are “beautiful” and out of his league.

H: Yes!! They're both backed into these low-self-esteem corners with regards to romantic relationships: they’re both thinking, "there's something wrong with me." Ray projects that outwards (“what’s wrong with this woman?”), but Fraser does a slightly different thing with it: “if she's into me, she must be operating on an incomplete set of data.” Fraser knows that people think he's attractive, but also thinks that they can't see/know him enough to love him in a real way. I think that's why he was so INTO Victoria-- she knew he did bad things and wanted him anyways! And she, to his mind at the time, was clear-headed about what kind of punishment he deserved for his wrongdoing. There's something more comforting about that than waiting for the other shoe to drop.

T: Both “A Likely Story” and “Ladies’ Man” are about women that Ray Kowalski has wronged, and both end with Ray apologizing—very sincerely—to the women. Fundamentally, I love that as a narrative choice.

H: Yes. Apologize, man. (Apologize and quit your job. I think these two episodes lay out a really compelling case for exactly why Ray does not go back to being a cop post-COTW.)

To summarize:

Ray is a human-shaped projector. He can’t readily name his feelings, but they do warp his perceptions of reality and he does act them out. "I don't know what I want till I see what I do." -Ray Kowalski in The Teeth of the Hydra by Resonant.

This is terrible news for everyone involved when you're a cop!

These episodes both deal with the nature of love-- its relationship to truth and to police work. “A Likely Story” shows the burdensome trappings of heterosexual, romantic love, which in this case serve to obfuscate the truth; “The Ladies’ Man” shows an intense kind of "true love" between a man and a woman that has nothing to do with romance or sex and everything to do with solidarity and truth-telling.

T: And 4, we can absolutely implicate Fraser, at least thematically, in something every step of the way, el oh el.

#due south #meta #victoria metcalf #ray kowalski #police violence cw #stalking cw #let me know if there's other stuff i should be tagging for!#benton fraser #it's a post-Lou Skagnetti world #puppies vs mirrors #emotional gymnastics #acab #beth botrelle #Luann From That Episode

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storiesbeyondthestars · 6 years

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Season 8 Predictions and Speculation

Buckle in boys and girls, because this ended up being over 7000 words long (with no pictures, sorry, I’m tired), and consists of wild speculation of many different theories and storylines, and how I see them playing out. There’s a huge focus on Allura, Keith, Lance, Lotor, Acxa, and Honerva over anyone else, but with explanations as to why.

We have a combinations of theory, meta, and, well, most likely fanfiction ideas (also typos and me ignoring plot holes or things I can’t think of RIGHT NOW). I’m fine with that. This was fun to write. I really apologize to anyone if the link doesn’t work.

Also, yes. I am a klance shipper and that does colour things at one point, BUT I tried to leave it so where their relationship could largely still be seen as platonic too. Let’s do this!

I’ve said a few times that VLD, instead of being a straight-up adaptation of the 80s Voltron, is both adaptation and a sort-of prequel for it, as well as original twists and things thrown in. I think that this is a great way to make something new while still respecting the original material.

We’re seeing how Keith becomes the leader he was shown to be. We’re seeing how Lance becomes his best friend and right-hand man. We’re seeing how Allura became a Paladin. We’re seeing why their armour colours don’t match their lion colours (except for Hunk, since in the 80s he had orange armour, not yellow, and technically only Pidge matched).

In the 80s Voltron, the Galaxy Garrison was one of the main headquarters for the ‘Galaxy Alliance’. I think we’re seeing the Garrison building up to this, especially since aliens came to Earth and seem to be staying. Instead of the galaxy alliance though, we have the Voltron Coalition. It’s going to be like their headquarters.

The MFE fighters and Atlas, I think, are going to be like Vehicle Voltron, where they stay closer to Earth and defend things there while Voltron deals with farther away. (Edit: after writing this, I see that Fictional Crystals made a video saying something similar.) It should be noted that Atlas, in Greek mythology, holds the world on his shoulders.

So where does the story start in S8?

They’re working on cleaning up Earth, the coalition seems to be largely coming there as a home base. Things, all things considered, as probably very peaceful for the Paladins. Hell, they’re heroes there. They get Earth food. They get to be with their families. For most of them, they’re probably getting comfortable there again.

However, there is the fact that an Altean was found inside of the robot that tried to kill them. I don’t think she was just a power source. I think she was actively controlling it. I think she was still conscious when she activated the self-destruct in it.

That’s something that they should be very worried about. In fact, I think that this is going to be consuming Allura especially. Romelle, I think, will be used at first to identify who the Altean is and confirm that she was from the missing colony.

Sam mentions that they were looking for months though, so unless she was somehow in a stasis of sorts, the Altean should be dead. If she is, that’s going to leave a lot of wondering about what’s going on, and I think if she somehow is alive, they’re going to learn that Honerva sent her.

Fact: Romelle was the only Altean in the colony that knew what Lotor was up to. As far as anyone else knows, he just left and never once came back for them. The rest would still be loyal, nay, devout to him.

Theory: I think Honerva went to them and manipulated them. She’s presented herself as Lotor’s mother, and told them that Voltron killed Lotor. So now they’re loyal to her. In fact, Honerva may have told something similar to the Druids when she left, since the one Keith fought said that, “Haggar has forsaken us because of your treachery”, which, honestly, is an oddly specific thing to say and super strange.

Let’s focus on Allura first.

Taking a step back from that for a moment, I think at the beginning of the season, we’re going to see Allura and Lance already in a relationship. This is fine. This might even be healthy for both of them in the long run. However, I don’t think we’re going to see anything like a kiss or any super specific romantic stuff between them.

Time and time again, this show has gone with ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’, which isn’t great for a story in general, let alone an animated show. It’s not a writing practice I agree with, but I get it. They have to cut things in order to fit everything in. I believe one of the writers said that if they could have used all of the cut material, they might have been able to fill up another 26 episodes. We’ll never get to see those.

Anyway, with that in mind, they have 13 episodes left to wrap up everything with these characters. In fact, I’d dare say that we’ve largely seen the wrap up of the individual stories for Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro (In fact, you’ll notice I focus a lot less on them, because their personal stories are mostly done). So we need to see the wrap-up for Allura, Lance, and Keith (as well as everyone as a Team).

The reason I don’t think they’re going to show us any real romance between Allura and Lance, and just tell us that they’re together, is partially because they have 13 episodes left, and partially because it’s not a show about romance. The only reason that the romance will be included in a small way is for specific character arcs that were always going to end that way.

It’s why, after some thought, I’m sure they’re not shoehorning random ships in. The writers aren’t perfect and make decisions that I don’t completely agree with, but they do know what they’re doing. If they couldn’t write, no one would have been interested in the first place.

I think we’re going to be seeing the end of Allura and Lance’s relationship, and like I mentioned before going off on 100 tangents, I think this is going to be healthy for them both in the long run. There won’t be any wondering if they made the right choices in the long run, or any huge ‘what ifs’.

What’s going to lead to this tension very early on is the Altean. Allura is going to want to go to Haggar. She’s going to want to help the Alteans, to show them that Honerva is wrong about them and is using them.

I’ve said before that Allura’s story is not one about romantic love. Yes, she experienced it along the way, but it wasn’t the point. Allura’s identity has largely been tied to being ‘Princess Allura, daughter of King Alfor of Altea’. Think about it. Allura chose Pidge to leave because she and her family were the ones most likely to be able to complete her father’s work. Lotor grew up her so quickly, because he kept comparing her to her father, and clearly held him in high regards, and his more studious nature probably reminded Allura a lot of Alfor.

Shipping Sidenote

I think even her attraction to Lance is based on this in a sense. She genuinely liked Lotor. That was not a lie, and she didn’t get any kind of proper closure on that. Lance though, he’s been compared to Alfor a lot, including by Allura herself. I think she’s leaning more towards Lance not only because he’s a good friend, but because she seems some of her father in him, and she misplacing her admiration due to the heartbreak and hurt she’s feeling. Lance is her friend. Lance likes her already (thanks mice). Lance is a good person of her father and she sees other qualities that are the same that she always admired. Lance is safe.

I don’t at all mean this is a creepy way. Allura does not love her father that way. What I’m saying is that in her hurting, she’s misinterpreting her feelings for Lance. It’s why they came out of nowhere. Allura, before Lotor, has never had to seriously deal with romantic love as far as we know. Meaning she’s just as much as disaster as everyone else in that regard.

In S6, the castleship was destroyed, and in S7, Allura was treated less as a Princess and more as just another Paladin. This is shown by the fact that she’s very rarely referred to as a Princess, and the fact that she was wearing the same uniforms as the Paladins at the Garrison. If that’s not enough for you, she gave up her tiara to help Shiro (something she’s been shown to have almost all her life). This is the most stripped of her titles that she’s ever been. The most herself and not just a Princess.

Allura’s endgame is going to be all about building her own identity outside of her father. Not just that, but it’s going to be about surpassing him. Going from ‘Allura, daughter of the Alfor’ to ‘Alfor, father of the Allura’.

As I said before, Allura is going to want to go after the Alteans, and this is what’s going to be part of the end of her relationship with Lance. Why? Well…

Let’s take a look at Lance next.

Themes surrounding Lance can be largely boiled down to two things: self-worth, and romantic love.

People complain a lot about ‘they’re not addressing Lance’ or ‘he’s being overlooked’. Well, in this case, they actually do ‘show’ us instead of ‘tell’ us. There’s really no rhyme or reason to things like that.

Lance’s confidence is arguably at its highest in S7 in regards to his place on the team, and his usefulness. We don’t see him wavering like we did when Kuron was Black’s pilot. Lance knows how he fits into the team. Of course, there are still a few more things in regards to that that need to be addressed.

I think those insecurities are largely going to involve Keith, which makes sense. We were introduced to Lance being compared to him pretty much out the gate. Keith has been both a huge source of motivation, inspiration, but also insecurities for Lance.

I think we’re going to see Acxa hanging around Keith a lot. I don’t think it’s going to actually be portrayed as romantic between them, but Lance is going to think it is, just like he questioned Allura and Keith’s relationship when they ran off together. It’s going to make him insecure despite his relationship with Allura, because she’s never been able to help him emotionally in quite the same way that he could help her.

Lance is going to become insecure again due to this, and he’s going to want to stay on Earth. I think that this is going to be the thing that finally leads him and Allura to separate from one another. I don’t mean ‘finally’ as in ‘thank god finally’, I mean as in they could both kind of see it coming. Allura never got her closure with Lotor. Lance has all those ‘what ifs’ involving Keith. She wants to go to space. He wants to stay on Earth.

I think we’ll see Hunk and Pidge wanting to stay on Earth with their families too.

Keith though, he’s going to agree with Allura. Though they have their differences, the two of them are a lot alike. They do things differently, but often times have the bigger picture in mind.

Of course Lance will be a bit hurt by Allura at the time, and vice versa, and I think he’ll lash out at Keith like he did in the past during moments of high stress. He’ll accuse Keith of wanting to run away again. Maybe Hunk tries to keep things calm like before, but this time, Keith is going to end up storming away from them.

It’s not like they’re in deep space. Nothing can happen this time, right?

Well, in space, they were tricked into thinking that a predator that wanted to eat them was the safety of Earth. This time around, the safety of a friend turns out to be not-so-safe.

Time to talk about Keith.

I genuinely think that Keith’s gay, and that he was coded that way on purpose. I do not think he has romantic feelings for Acxa, and I do not think she has romantic feelings for him either. Him going back to save her at the time makes sense, because Keith started as the person that would suggest leaving someone behind for the bigger picture (Allura in S1), then grow as a team player to the point where he’ll run back for others when he’s told not to (Regris in S4, to stop the bombs in S5), to someone who in theory understands the concept of leaving someone behind but only when that person is him (flying at the shield in S4, telling Krolia to leave him in S5, saying he understands why she left him for the mission in S6). Keith would have gone back anyone that was on their side as it was, let alone the person that keeps saving him or letting him go. (Sidenote: this should not be surprising, because look at Shiro. Shiro who would go back and fight for anyone else, but takes shit care of himself. You know, the dude that raised Keith in his teenage years? Yeah.)

I think that Acxa was looking for the Paladins, specifically Keith. Maybe it’s on a personal level where she thinks that he could be a good leader, sees a little bit of Lotor in him, and she wants to be his sort-of right hand in the way she was with Lotor. I don’t think so though. He already has a ‘right hand’ he trusts without hesitation (as shown time and time again in S7 alone).

I really don’t think this is where this is going though.

Keith has always been the ‘special snowflake’ of the bunch, but he’s written in a way that, unless you hate him anyway, it doesn’t make him a bad character. For every one thing that makes him ‘special’ he has a downside that balances it out.

It’s not even that he’s part-Galra that actually makes him ‘special’ though. There are plenty of part-Galra characters. It’s whatever he has going on with quintessence, which was shown in S1, then shoved aside for everything else, and brought back slightly in S6, and then in full-force in S7. That wasn’t a mistake. They’re taking his connection to quintessence somewhere.

Not just that. Thematically, it would have made more sense for Shiro to land the killing blow on Sendak. I thought that was where it was going to go. But instead they chose Keith to kill him on-screen in a way that is framed very similarly to Zarkon defeating Alfor.

Given that Keith’s the leader of Voltron, and that he killed Sendak, I think perhaps the blade is encouraging him to take up a leadership role with the Galra. Maybe others are too, and this is another factor about why he wants to go back to space.

Keith would not at all want to be an Emperor. I don’t think he’d want to be any kind of political leader. He can be more of a military one like with Voltron, in charge of a small team, but politics? Nah. He’s not going to want that, but he’s going to feel pressure from a lot of sides to do it.

After his fight with Lance, he goes to talk to Acxa, who he’s been close to lately. Maybe he decides to apologize to Lance, to tell him he’s not going to be this Galra leader, but as a team they need to go after Haggar.

Then Acxa is going to lure him into a trap.

I think that Acxa is still working with Honerva, but only as a means to an end. I think they have a common goal: they both want Lotor back.

Now time to talk more about Acxa and Honerva to show I’m not taking a female character and making her bad for the sake of a ship because, ew. Also, we’re going to talk a lot about Lotor too.

So yeah, the Lotor stuff first.

First and foremost, we’re not done with Lotor. One of the first things you should realize is, unless they’re actually shown as dead, assume they’re not dead. Sometimes they are (side-eyes Shiro), and sometimes they’re shown as dead and still come back, but you know what I mean.

The Paladins are assuming that Lotor could not survive in the rift. Keep in mind, both Allura and Keith wanted to go back and get him, to bring him back out, but then the other three said no, and Keith sided with the majority instead of fighting, so they left him.

Lotor is not a normal Galra. I don’t mean in the sense that he’s part Altean, or seemed to value intelligence over brute force. I’m talking about the fact that Honerva was pregnant with him when Lotor brought her into the void. Maybe part of the reason (not the whole reason), she became so obsessed with Quintessence and the rift was trying to find a way to save her sick unborn baby or something. Given that she had notes and stuff, Lotor would see that love towards him, and it would make him value her more.

Keep in mind, he hated Zarkon. He also knew who Haggar was all along, you can tell, he just separates them into two different people, because Haggar didn’t know who he was and was a witch and monster that probably worked against him time and time again, but Honerva was the mother that loved him and wanted to save him.

Lotor values loyalty almost above all else. That shit matters.

Anyway, Honerva was pregnant when she went into the rift, and those creatures took over both Zarkon and Honerva, twisting them into the corrupted form of Zarkon that lived for 10,000 years as a monster, and Haggar.

When Zarkon died, the black bayard changed back into the non-corrupted form, showing that, for that split second before he died, he was free of those monsters. He died as himself. Honerva went to Oriande, and I think that perhaps it expelled the creatures from her body, hence the shift even in the subtitles from the name Haggar to Honerva. Like Lotor, she too separates herself into two different people.

My point is though, these rift creatures took over two adult minds. What do you think they did to an unborn child that’s essentially a blank slate? When Lotor used the black bayard, it was in its corrupted form, and I think that they showed us that to show that something isn’t right with him on that level.

That’s why Oriande didn’t ‘cure’ him like it did Haggar. That corruption is the reason he’s alive, it’s a part of him in a way like non-other. Or, perhaps, Haggar knew how to handle the white lion, and if Lotor would have done that properly, the creatures would have left him. Who knows?

We do know that there was something wrong with Lotor at birth. Zarkon asks if he can be saved. We also see little Lotor with glowing eyes. Yet, he’s been alive for 10,000 years and looks like a young adult.

Yeah, he can survive the rift for a long period of time. In fact, he’s probably the only thing that physically can.

What does all this have to do with Acxa though?

She has been loyal to him through everything. He killed Narti, and that had Ezor and Zethrid wanting to run for the hills. Acxa seemed to agree, but we later find out that she was playing everyone right alongside Lotor. He had to go on his own with the Paladins, and she was the oen that suggested going to Zarkon. Who do you think gave her that idea?

I don’t think she knew that Haggar would seek them out after Zarkon was gone, but she rolled with it, keeping eyes and ears with the Galra while Lotor did his thing.

I cannot stress that again. Lotor killed Narti, and she was still loyal to him. Unwaveringly loyal and willing to shoot Honerva for his sake. Lotor knew this. He trusted Acxa above all others.

Then she saw him unhinging during the fight with Voltron. She says ‘separate ties with Lotor for good’, but then she tries to plead with him later and looks genuinely heartbroken over what’s happening.

I think she’s still loyal to Lotor, and she wants to help get him out of the rift, which is exactly what Honerva’s planning on doing.

We know from interviews that Honerva actually does feel love towards Lotor. It’s what motivated her from being all ‘yes Zarkon kill the bitch’ to ‘ohfuckno activate babysitter-Kuron, give him black bayard’ probably knowing that Zarkon wasn’t going to come out of it alive.

Instant switch when she remembered. We have no idea what she wanted to use Sendak for. No idea what her plan was for capturing Lotor.

Neither Haggar nor Honerva are necessarily leaders. She has almost cult-like control over the druids, and now probably the Alteans, but she’s not an overall leader.

Honerva and Acxa are working together to bring Lotor back, and then they’re going to make him Emperor of a proper Empire this time. At first, Honerva wanted to use Sendak to bring together the Empire, and then probably off him for Lotor to take over (and proving some kind of loyalty).

I think that’s still her plan. Put her child in power, and be able to run her experiments and do as she pleases since she’s his mother and helped him.

Okay but what does this have to do with Keith?

I’ve said this in other posts, but it’s almost like a double-whammy. They need to get control over the factions of the Galra Empire for her plans to work. We know it’s in shambles with warlords running amok, and Haggar needs a new puppet.

Who is someone many people are likely going to follow? Perhaps a half-Galra that happens to be the current Black Paladin? The Black Lion seems to be almost a symbol towards the Galra too. Lotor presented himself as bringing Black back to the Galra, and Black showed Shiro Daizabaal as her home.

Not only that though. Lotor probably had the greatest collective forces in the shambles of the Galra Empire, and Keith just fucking shanked him. Came flying down from the heavens and delivered a holy ass whoopin’, skewering him in half. On screen.

The coalition, in this theory, already wants him as the leader, so she’s going to sink her claws into him and control him. Keith isn’t at all going to do this willingly. Perhaps this leads to some answers about Narti and Kova, since Narti’s the only character that was shown to be able to control minds directly of people that she didn’t create, and it’s still suspicious that she had Haggar’s fucking 10,000 year old cat as her seeing-eye animal (also, Haggar looking through Narti’s eyes in S4? Not to be insensitive, but she literally didn’t have eyes, so how was Haggar watching them? Oh, right. Through the fucking cat.)

(Kova is secretly the one that controls minds, Narti was just a puppet.)

She doesn’t want to keep Keith around permanently though.

NOTE: this Galra Emperor stuff might mean nothing at all. In fact, you can take that part out of the theory all together and it can still work as long as you just focus on getting Lotor back.

Honerva had zero interest in Keith as of S6. She wanted Kuron to get rid of him. However, I think she was also watching that fight through his eyes. Keith, if he would have been fighting as offensively and aggressively as he used to, would have beaten Shiro. We saw this in the fight, because the times he did go on the offensive, he was close to overpowering him (“There’s the Keith I remember”).

The only things that might have caught her attention were Keith’s strength (he did win in the end), summoning the black bayard from Shiro (which, yes, I do think is what happened despite some others not thinking so), and when his eyes changed.

Shapeshifting is not something associated with Galra. Not at all. We’ve seen half-Galra with strange abilities (Narti with mind control, and Ezor with turning herself invisible that was never really used properly again), but that doesn’t explain Keith’s eyes changing. Galra have never been shown to do that. It would have been easy to show. It wasn’t though, because it’s not a Galra trait.

Also, Galra haven’t been shown to have a connection to Quintessence.

Humans certainly don’t shapeshift. Humans don’t seem to have a stronger than normal connection to Quintessence, otherwise we would have seen more of the other Paladins doing stuff with it like Keith was shown to do in S7.

Originally, with him, it seemed more like a slight ability that may have been slightly watered down from human or Galra genetics over time. A part of me thinks that Krolia herself isn’t all Galra. A parent or grandparent could have been Altean, the only species shown to be shapeshifters at this point. Krolia doesn’t look like any other Galra we’ve seen, outside of Lotor and Acxa.

That might not at all be the case though. Or maybe someone even farther in the past wasn’t entirely Galra but far enough back where Krolia doesn’t even know about it. Genetics sometimes keep things around like that, and they randomly pop up every once and a while. Hell, maybe it’s just because he was born and grew up in his young years so close to Blue.

Doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that he then got doused with a vat of raw quintessence.

Honerva said a small amount of it could power things for a long period of time. She used it to keep Kova alive for over 10,000 years. Not just Kova, but Zarkon, herself, potentially Zarkon’s closest generals (Sendak seemed to imply that he was around when Altea fell), and then there’s Lotor, or course. Keith took a fucking shower in it.

It’s not like she has any way of knowing that, right? It’s not like someone loyal to her would have pointed it out, ri—

Oh.

Honerva went looking for answers, and the druid brought up what happened. I don’t think she knew about that beforehand though, because, again, she never seemed interested in Keith before.

Through all her observations, she knows Keith probably is a walking quintessence hotspot. It was Lotor’s idea to take the quintessence from the Alteans themselves, and she said that she was impressed with it. She definitely took it further, making a robot that can be powered by a single Altean that’s strong enough to technically defeat Voltron by sapping away it’s quintessence, and also doing a lot of other weird shit while fighting Atlas.

Honerva wants Keith for his Quintessence, most likely to open the rift to get Lotor back. This is exactly why Acxa’s working with her, because though she has a connection to Keith, Lotor means so much more to her.

Acxa was looking for Voltron, and Keith specifically. We literally have no idea where she went after she separated from Voltron, but she definitely didn’t tell the coalition that they were back. So where did she go?

I think she went back to Haggar and told them that Voltron was heading to Earth. That was how Haggar knew to watch Earth. She waited until Keith killed Sendak to make her move. She was absolutely keeping track of this somehow. Maybe she was already paying attention to Earth, but given everything else she seems to have been doing, she was probably tipped off about where they were going.

Also, I find it suspicious that Haggar was the one that gave the orders to target the Blade of Marmora, and then later all the Voltron Coalition.

Maybe other groups were hunting the Coalition down, but we know that Haggar gave the druids the job of hunting the Blade. The Blade, that also wasn’t on her radar until she was watching Keith through Kuron’s eyes, saw him dressed in that uniform, and introduced his Galra mother to Kuron as a part of the Blade of Marmora.

Yes, they were more out of the shadows since teaming up with Voltron, so she probably heard about them before, but that was the first time she’d shown true interest in the entire group specifically. I think she was trying to find Keith too.

That druid singled out Keith. Yes, Kosmo was the one that teleported Keith away, but still, the druid (who I know has a name but I’m lazy). Krolia was a higher ranking Blade with more experience. She’s arguably more dangerous than Keith. Then there was Allura, who is a walking power house. But he went for Keith.

This all leads up to…

Acxa gets close to Keith to trick him, and brings him to Haggar. Perhaps to use as a puppet for a while, but definitely to use to bring Lotor back (in this theory). Except, maybe she didn’t tell Acxa that Keith would most likely die doing this.

Loyal to Lotor or not, Acxa has a connection to Keith. She still wants Lotor back, but she doesn’t want him to die in the process.

So she’s going to go back to Voltron somehow to get their help. She’s a morally grey character, and that’s fine. It doesn’t make her demonic or anything like that. She’s allowed to make mistakes and be played herself.

Meanwhile on Earth…

The other Paladins do notice that Keith is gone. However, they think he left with the other Galra. Lance is probably going to be shown as the angriest about this, but also acting like he doesn’t care.

Then Keith’s mother and Kolivan show up and they’re all confused. Then Acxa shows up and tells them what’s up.

Side point

I don’t think that Atlas is made to replace the castleship, though there’s definitely the parallels of Shiro taking Allura’s place in that respect with it. I think that Atlas will be staying close to Earth to protect it and act as the new Vehicle Voltron.

I think that they’re going to work on creating a second castleship that Voltron can use to get around. Maybe it won’t be a castle, but another ship at least so the lions can recharge. It’s why they brought the whole fucking Balmera at the end of S7. So Shay could come back, and so they can get a crystal to power it. Maybe the Alteans end up living there as the explorers and peacekeepers they always were in the end. (With Romelle flying it in Allura’s old position).

This is what prompts all of the Paladins into going after Keith. Perhaps Haggar tries to keep them busy on Earth by sending other Altean-robots to fight them. That’s where Atlas comes in. Atlas and the MFE fighters are going to protect Earth, keep it safe so that the Paladins don’t have to worry. I’m not entirely sure if Shiro’s going to go with them or not.

If there’s a replacement castleship by this point, I don’t think it’s done, so they have to take the lions.

They realize that they’re going to need Voltron for this. They can’t leave Black behind. So once again, they need a temporary Paladin.

At this point, they’re not going to do a permanent lion switch again.

Just like Keith didn’t want to go into Black, Lance isn’t going to want to either, because he’s going to be blaming himself. It’s what Lance does. I think this is where he’s going to have a one-on-one talk with Shiro about everything. Shiro’s going to be the one to urge him to try, to go save Keith. I could see him encouraging Lance to go after Keith, to not give up, because he’s still there (unlike Adam).

I think that Lance will be the one that Black accepts, because he’ll be the one that wants to get Keith back the most out of all the current Paladins.

As for who temporarily flies Red? There are two options and I’m open for either of them. One is Coran finally getting the chance he’s wanted since before. The other is Romelle, explaining why she was shown in with Lance in Red several times during S7. She’s familiar with Red.

I’m leaning a little more towards Romelle, because of how they need to get to Keith. Allura can create wormholes again, and we know that Coran knows how to open them as well as long as Allura powers the teleduv beforehand. Plus, Coran helps pilot Atlas, so he’d be more useful on Earth, and Romelle going with them helps too.

No matter if Keith is being used as a pawn, or just basically a sacrifice, Honerva is going to use him to fight the others. Maybe he’ll be in a weakened state that she can take over (OR THE CAT CAN CONTROL…yeah I’m done with that) while also opening the rift to get Lotor back. Kind of like the last bit of energy he has left.

Allura is going to face Honerva, Altean vs. Altean. Since she’s there in this theory, Romelle tries to get through to the Alteans, because she’s a familiar face. They know her. She’d pump up Allura and rip both Lotor and Honerva down.

I haven’t focused much on Hunk or Pidge, and it’s not because they’re not important. Like I said before, their personal arcs are pretty much over as of S7. Here, they’re going to function in much more a team aspect. Planning together, being the ones to break in and fight sentries and stuff like that.

Lance is going to be the one to face Keith alone. I’ve gone through this theory before, even used it in a writing prompt. It’ll be the last Black Paladin vs. Red Paladin fight. Corrupted Zarkon vs. Alfor. Clone Shiro vs. Keith. Mind controlled Keith vs. Lance.

This is a secondary reason Lance has been compared to Alfor before. Why he was given the sword. It’s not a fair fight gun to sword, and not interesting visually. Lance could snipe Keith without much trouble.

Sword fights though are close up and much more intimate. We saw this in the Shiro vs. Keith fight, which was probably the BEST and most intense fight of the series to me.

There’s a reason why it’s important that Lance and Keith left off on seemingly bad terms. Keith’s been putting walls up again when it comes to Lance, having been rejected and having had time to dwell on that.

Haggar is going to use this to help control Keith, to get in his head. In this theory, Keith has had feelings for Lance for a long time, but Lance was with Allura. Haggar’s going to use that too. Hell, she’s going to use the fact that everyone seems to be using him for their own agendas when he doesn’t want to be a Galra leader. It’s a strong way to break through his stubborn defenses (plus she’d be sapping the quintessence from him).

Normally in a sword fight, Keith would destroy Lance. That’s the truth. No matter how much Lance has been practicing, Keith has been doing it for years and it’s his specialty (along with hand-to-hand).

Keith being weaker, and maybe a part of him still fighting back against the control, will allow Lance to put up a bit more of a fight, but ultimately, it’s going to be his words that get through to Keith.

It’s like how we saw Kuron react to Keith saying he loves him, except this time, Keith’s going to react strongly enough to either break through the control, or give Lance the chance to knock him out. Alternatively, it’ll give Lance the chance to quickly change bayards and maybe shoot something close by that’s controlling him (if there’s someone like Narti around).

(IF IT’S THE CAT KOSMO TAKES IT OUT. HENCE WHY HE WAS INTRODUCED. OKAY THIS TIME I’M DONE WITH THE STUPID CAT THAT PROBABLy MEANS NOTHING BUT LET ME LIVE)

There’s not going to be a romantic, love confession here. Maybe friendship and love. Definitely more personal stuff.

Then we get Lance getting Keith out of there, and ideally, we get a flashback of the actual bonding moment, because it’s being mirrored here.

Meanwhile, Allura ends up defeating Honerva, but she says something like she’s too late, and the rift opens again. Romelle’s words and Allura’s actions prompted many of the Alteans to agree to go with them, so they’re all bailing out.

The creatures are coming back out, but in a few form, because the Lotor that went in is not going to be the Lotor that comes out.

The Sincline ships didn’t quite function like the lions. They were ships that could combine together, but showed no sentience of their own. That’s going to change now, because the rift creatures (which were shown as being quadrupeds like the lions) gave them sentience.

Maybe Lotor lets Honerva and Acxa pilot two of the ships now, maybe he doesn’t need to. Maybe he looks the same, maybe he’s completely different, I’m not entirely sure.

If Lotor doesn’t let Honerva help him, I think he’s going to be the one to kill her, just like he killed Zarkon. As for Acxa, either she helps Lotor and goes back to him, she was back on Earth the entire time, or she goes back with them. I don’t want her to die, though that’d definitely make it super obvious that this Lotor isn’t right.

The Lotor that went into the rift was misguided, had a bad moral compass, but he wasn’t pure evil. This Lotor though is exactly the monster that Allura claimed he was.

The Paladins are going to retreat. Probably back to Earth.

What now?

There are many ways this can go. If it’s a mid-season kind of thing (which is…a lot but this show has been going full-tilt for a while now), there’s time to plan, to show the destruction the rift creatures can cause, to perhaps come up with an idea to save Lotor like neither of his parents could be saved.

Allura needs to have closure with Lotor in some form. She needs that.

Like Romelle was a Princess in the original, I could see her becoming something of a Leader with the surviving Alteans. The one to guide them into this new world with both Coran and Allura helping. This leaves Allura open to continue being the Blue Paladin.

Allura, however, will focus on alchemy. Somehow, she’ll figure out a way to make the lions stronger, to give them an upgrade.

Both Allura and Lotor were following in the footsteps of a parent. For Lotor, it was Honerva. For Allura, it was Alfor. Lotor did improve on Honerva’s work and took it to places she couldn’t imagine (but then later used herself). Allura is going to surpass her father too by somehow improving the lions, making them stronger.

Allura’s future is going to involve a combination of being an alchemist, helping the Alteans, and being a Paladin of Voltron, and kicking ass at all of them as the strong, confident woman she truly is. Alteans definitely age differently than humans, so in the distant future, I could see her eventually being the Black Paladin. But we won’t see that in the show.

There were some toys released a while ago with the lions looking different, perhaps that was done for a reason. Toys sometimes do spoil things amongst many franchises.

They all know Lotor’s going to come for them, so they’re getting ready for it. I don’t think the final fight will be by Earth though, they’ve already done that. The battle with Lotor technically took place by the ruins of Daizabaal were if I remember correctly (that’s where the rift originally was). Where would be a significant place though that we haven’t seen at all?

Who were the ‘bad guys’ during the first part of this season?

The fight with Lotor will be by the ruins of Altea, which we have yet to actually see. Allura said Altea and the entire star system was destroyed. Sendak said that Altea was the only world to fight back against the Galra, the only one to be completely destroyed.

We saw Daizabaal. We saw Earth. We have yet to actually see Altea, or what’s left of it. If there’s something left of Zarkon’s home that was destroyed first, there’s something left of that too.

Maybe Lotor offers them a challenge. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done something like that. It’d give him the upper hand luring them in. Maybe they go there first, knowing that there won’t be anyone else there that can get hurt in the process.

Of course, it depends on when this type of things happens and who’s on his side. There’s a lot that can happen in half a season. Either that, or this is going to be towards the very end and we’ll have a couple episodes with a single intense and emotionally draining battle in it.

Before they go, we’re going to see a lot of intensely emotional moments between characters and families. We’ll see Allura and Lance reconciling and agreeing to be friends. We’ll see Lance with his family. We’ll see Hunk with his. Pidge with hers. We’ll see Allura with Coran and Romelle, as well as the other Alteans.

Three important ones will happen though.

We’ll see Krolia with Keith. All of this happening doesn’t change the fact that the Galra need some kind of leader to get their shit together (even if it’s not an Empire). Everyone else will finally listen to Keith when he says he doesn’t want that. In fact, going off of him killing Sendak is just keeping those old ways alive. Instead, we’ll see Krolia as the leader (no, not Kolivan, Krolia). Maybe she needs to be an Empress for a bit before changing things. (Keith would be a pretty princess in this case, wouldn’t he, AJ?)

We’ll see Shiro with everyone else too. Some hugely emotional moments where they’re all talking about how far they’ve come.

We’ll see a moment between Lance and Keith too, where they get their shit together and are honest with one another. Keith is going to ask if Lance wants to fly Black, insisting he could go to Red (Romelle does NOT want a second time of that), but Lance is going to say no, because he’s confident in himself now. He knows where he belongs and that he’s good enough.

IF there’s any direct romantic implications, which I think there will be, this is where it’s going to be MOST obvious. We’ll see a hug no matter what, but if they want to do it, this is the right place to frame a kiss too where the judgemental assholes can still say ‘no they’re just HUGGING’ even though they’re definitely not.

Honestly, I’m not sure how whatever big final fight they have is going to pan out. I THINK it’s going to be with the rift creatures/Lotor, but there’s always the slightest chance it’ll involve Honerva as well, all things depending.

Of course they win in the end. Maybe people get scarred and injured, but no one is going to die from the main group.

Over 7000 words and I’m not even sure if they save Lotor to help him, or just defeat him. I’d like to think they help him this time around though. Or at least try to.

What I do know is that a show called Voltron is going to end with an epic battle involving Voltron.

I also think that, at the end, everyone will have lives on Earth/with Alteans/other aliens, but our current team of Paladins will also be shown to be going back into space in the end. They’ll be excited, ready to go as a team, and they’ll go together and by their own choice. The Galra Empire did do a lot of damage, after all, and there are plenty of worlds that need help anyway.

And that is how the show will end.

Things I did not address: What’s going on with the MFE fighters? I genuinely don’t know. Their inclusion threw me off. It really felt like they were setting up a spin-off series with them, and S7 was used to introduce them. They’re defending Earth while Voltron is off in space I guess?

I didn’t really address Hunk and Pidge, because like I said, their personal story arcs are either finished or almost there. We even saw Hunk reuniting with Shay, which is something that tends to happen at the end of a story arc, especially since she, more than anything else, was what really started his growth as a person.

Pidge, as well, was shown surrounded by her family. Her mom was there. Her dad was there. Matt was there. Matt has a masked girlfriend. Hell, Beezer was there along with Nyma (though Rolo was suspiciously absent…which I don’t know what to make of that at all). The goals she set out to accomplish have been accomplished. She now has friends, is part of a team, is less selfish. Again, what prompted her to grow and change has largely been accomplished and shown.

Shiro is another character who has found his place and where he belongs now. He’s not a Paladin anymore, but that’s okay. Shiro has had the amazingly unique story of being both The Mentor and being an active character in his own right. That’s incredibly rare in stories, since the mentors are normally shrugged aside or killed (which…yeah…was supposed to happen). He’s found a place as a bridge between the Garrison and Voltron more than anyone else.

I didn’t talk about the rebels or coalition really, or the rest of the blade, or even Krolia for that matter, cause I’m not entirely sure where that fits in with this. That can be worked out later.

SO, this is some wild speculation mixed with meta, mixed with theories, mixed with fanfiction ideas. I just pretty much planned out an entire story here that I do not want to write myself.

Hit me up if you’re interested.

…Also if even ONE thing ends up happening, I’m going to lose my shit. And I accidentally predicted a ton of stuff that ended up going down in S6 once. Maybe I’ll get lucky again?

#voltron #vld #klance #laith #theorytime #my thoughts #commentary #long post #seriously this is a very long post #be warned #I am SO sorry if mobile isn't work right and this doesn't show up as a link

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bakedpieceofchicken · 5 years

Text

5am long personal vent

dont interact with this

note: this post mentions endeavor a lot.

context (very important!): I pretty much binge-read an entire tumblr user’s meta posts and I found them interesting and very informative.

I also read through their salt tag and now I’m compelled to gather my thoughts together considering the literal title I’ve held for months now is “Hawks is a lov member already”. I’m extremely socially awkward, even on this online platform, so I’m not going to mention the aforementioned tumblr user’s name because I’m too anxiety-ridden to try to contact them. This is in no way shape or form an attack on the person’s opinions nor their character. It’s me... rambling about my thoughts about their opinions at 4 am.

Is it defending myself? Well, not really, because I don’t feel personally attacked. Just because we have a difference of opinion doesn’t mean we have to resort to attacking each other. I found their opinions thought-provoking and wanted to pick my own brain... I picked this time purposely so nobody would see this post :eyes: so like uhm yeah

note 2: “you” refers to unnamed tumblr user. sorry about weird point of view...

anyways let’s get into the meat

villain hawks

yay or... nay...?

Well, in fanon it would be such a fun idea to play around with. Personally I think there’s potential for League of Villain interactions with Hawks. I would LOVE to see Hawks interacting with the other pro heroes, but the only pro-to-pro interaction we get with Hawks is between Hawks and Endeavor. Because the atmosphere between the pro-heroes feels... disconnected.

Now, hear me out.

Let’s contrast it with the idealized version of hero society provided in future fics. Or hell, comparing the top ten pro heroes to Class 1-A itself. We want to think all the heroes are friendly with each other and have some sort of camaraderie with each other

But Horikoshi doesn’t present it like that.

The closest thing to that we get is Endeavor and Hawks. Other than that, the atmosphere between hawks and the other heroes seem more strained or tense (the whole miruko hawks thing is fanon). And even then, it’s... well... Endeavor and Hawks don’t truly know each other. Hawks only knows the public perception and image of Endeavor, which is the only thing he’s been given while Endeavor doesn’t truly knows Hawks either. I’m not saying the interactions are fake, but... would Hawks be acting the way he was if he knew about Endeavor’s past?

No. I don’t have any predictor to how differently Hawks would act, but I definitely sense there’d be a lot of disappointment and loss of respect for the man he was rooting for. To what extent? Would Hawks just be in complete disbelief? Or would he react with immediate anger? There are parallels to Hawks and Todoroki Rei--both were picked from the crowd and had their lives controlled because of their “value” determined by Endeavor/The Hero Commission respectively.

But honestly from an objective standpoint, I have nothing to go off of other than the fact that Hawks deeply respects and idolizes Endeavor the most out of anyone in the manga we’ve seen and the fallout of that would be of an equally shattering magnitude...

Ahh i went off on a tangent. the point is... do we really know Hawks? Does Hawks ever get a chance to just.. be himself? Maybe we see a bit of that shine when he’s alone with Endeavor, but as we saw clearly in chapter 186 he puts on a care-free facade for his fans. But in reality... he’s always working because he’s one of the hero commission’s greatest assets.

and... here’s where our opinions clash. I truly, in the depths of my heart, believe that Hawks is building a reality where heroes have more free time comes from a more selfish desire for himself. Don’t get me wrong--I don’t want to disservice what Hawks has done for society. But also it feels like he’s the type who overworks himself because he feels moral obligation to society when... technically he doesn’t owe anything to society.

Yes, in superhero shows and whatnot, it’s usually a positive trait that “hey this person’s been born with an amazing power and they’ve chosen to use it for the greater good! Look what they’re sacrificing!!!” But let’s say theoretically that person decides “hey i don’t want to be a hero i just want to be a writer!” Are they morally wrong for deciding not to be a hero even though they would theoretically be good at it? Even though it’s not something they want for themselves?

Because I don’t think Hawks wants to be a hero. But he also doesn’t want people to die. He’s tied himself with these moral obligations to the point where he can’t leave now because he feels it would be selfish of him to. And that is speculation, but Horikoshi isn’t exactly spelling it out for us! So, that’s how I interpret Hawks’ character. Yes, he is a true hero in that he wants to save as many people as he can, even at the cost of his pride his dignity his fucking freedom...

but also, he never wished for that. he never asked to be one who has to deal with all of this. But now that he is, what choice does he have?

So, yes, we agree on that. But I also feel that his personal desire plays as big of a part. Because we, as humans, naturally want things for ourselves. Our personal desire for ourselves shouldn’t be downplayed at all! That’s why I believe his inner thoughts are worded “more free time” rather than “make society more safe”. Because he has his priorities! He wants the best of both worlds-- it’s a form of negotiation. He can still play the hero and less lives would be taken but he can also having some breathing room for himself like he’s always wanted.

To free himself just a little bit from the stressful life of being a hero.

There is nothing wrong with being motivated by personal desires. Hawks is one of the most grounded heroes we’ve seen--I think he’s cynical enough that he’s self aware of this selfish desire for a freer life. And it’s selfish to him only because he knows that it would never happen without the expense of a few lives-- lives that he knew he would never forgive himself for letting slip.

I think it’s a toxic mindset.

Because as heroic as placing others above yourself... that attitude is completely unhealthy and I don’t think it should be celebrated. What I want to see from Hawks’ natural progression as a character is recognizing that it’s okay to prioritize yourself. Hell, Midoriya learned this during the summer training arc and failed to retain that lesson during the Overhaul arc! THESE HEROES DON’T TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES!!! (ok i get midoriya’s trying).

And if it’s selfish to desire more free time for yourself off from work, is it really that wrong of someone to do so? To want more control over your life? To want to do things you want to do rather than what others want you to do?

What does this have to do with villain Hawks? Well, I think a large desire for villain hawks is because it shows the departure of that mindset! Hawks doesn’t need to be confined to his hero persona anymore, he can finally do things he wants to do and be the free bird he’s always wanted to be.

But him becoming a complete villain is... far-fetched. This myself I recognize. I’ve only written villain!hawks once and that was because he snapped after the hero commission executed shigaraki and dabi as a show of power rather than going through the effort of trying to re-integrate the men back into hero society. I don’t want to go too deep because this isn’t the point I’m trying to make, but Hawks realizes how power-obsessed society is to the point where he doubts the legitimacy of the hero commission itself and what they do for society and its people.

But, again, that’s not going to ever happen in canon so I won’t bring it up another time. The point I was trying to make is yeah, you’re right that Hawks would never become a villain. He wouldn’t become a murderer- if he does, he definitely needs more incentive than what we can go off from canon.

And ohhh boy here we go, reaching the erm elephant in the room.

(These are the points made in the salt tag btw)

Is Villain!Hawks just an excuse to write hotwings? And what is the plausibility of Hawks turning to villainy? Would Endeavor being exposed as a child abuser be the trigger if Hawks were to turn villain at some point in the story?

Eh...

I don’t know if I even want to go into the whole “this is just an excuse to make hawks and dabi evil boyfriends” because I’ve never used villain!hawks as justification for that personally. And I’m actually not as attached to hotwings as I am to something like shigahawks... I don’t have any points to counteract this other than my desire to see Hawks interact with the entire league. Because it would be fun to see him interact in an environment he’s not wholly familiar with. With Endeavor or the other heroes or even the hero commission, he has some semblance of control or understanding so he thinks/acts like he knows what’s going on.

Meanwhile, the League is a huge mess and they don’t have their shit together and wouldn’t it be funny to see Hawks as a part of their crew suffering with them!!! Well, that’s bias. My bias. For fanon. And for the jokes. So sad :(

So... I don’t just want to see more Dabi and Hawks interaction. I want to see more Hawks and League interaction. or just more hawks and anyone interactions overall. maybe thats all i crave

Actually going through the points one by one, let’s talk plausibility.

I already talked about villain!hawks being a... departure from Hawks’ faults in his own character. But it is pretty extreme, I’ll admit. If Hawks were ever to join the League of Villains, he’d probably never use killing as first resort. As we’ve seen in chapter 220, it’s not like the League targets only heroes... but i get the salt tag was made like 5 months ago so it’s not like new information hasn’t been released at the time of posting.

Reminds me of domestichobgoblins’ shigadabihawks fic where shigaraki even acknowledges “Whatever bullshit you’ve been telling Dabi, you aren’t a killer either, are you? So what, exactly, am I supposed to do with you?” And you know? The both are you are right. Hawks isn’t a killer and he wouldn’t become a killer willingly... unless he was pushed by some other greater force but I’m not here to address any of that. He could still provide support to the league in other ways, arguably, or just joining the league could be some kind of message to the heroes or supporters of hero society.

You are right to a degree. Hawks’ sole motivator to become a villain wouldn’t be because “OH ENDEAVOR IS AN ABUSER GUESS I GOTTA TURN EVIL NOW”.

Okay pushing past that, so why would Hawks be motivated to become a villain? In canon? I’ve already warped a lot of this post with my own fanon but I’m trying to keep within the realm of canon for this point specifically since you could take a second to push Hawks over the edge in fanon and be done with it. But why would Horikoshi specificially do it?

The fact is hero society sucks. A lot. And I think Hawks recognizes that fact being the most “grounded” and cynical of the bunch. His views and visions of hero society aren’t warped by fantasies and such (which is probably why he doesn’t like All Might...) so he understands what’s happening around him. He understands the mechanisms of hero society and how “valuable” quirks are viewed as in their capitalist society.

But also, he doesn’t have that much of an option other than trying to lessen the burden placed upon him. Because he’s a single man, and even with his influence, he can’t change society. He’s powerless to do so, even considering who he is. He’s seen as a role model to those in society, but it’s because of his ranking that ironically fuels why people even look up to him: denouncing that would be kind of silly considering it’s the reason why people would listen in the first place.

And this is the point where I say... Shigaraki had a point. Hero society is flawed. It shouldn’t be so reliant on one person to carry it all.

But also hero society itself is bullshit. The ranking system? Horrible. The fact that the hero commission views them as tools for their own disposal? Horrible. The mere fact they basically bribe Hawks into becoming a hero? Like? “Hey kid you’re the best at being a hero so that’s what you should do. we’re only going to give you financial support if you become a hero so you might as well” like what is Hawks supposed to do in that sort of situation? Of course he’s going to succumb to the pressure.

I don’t believe in this whole “sacrifice for the greater good” bullshit. If Hawks wants to be a hero, that’s a whole another story, but if Hawks doesn’t, then he shouldn’t have been forced into that role. It’s about agency--it’s about letting him decide for himself if it’s what he wants to do. And it’s... a gray area for morality. “It’d be selfish for him to let people die!” Who is in the right to say whether or not he should use his “powers” for others’ sake? Me? You? The Hero commission?

So if Horikoshi goes down the path of “hey hero society is extremely bad and needs to change” and Hawks recognizes the League as a proponent for that change, then with a lot of development, it’s plausible in the future. I understand that Hawks, as of what we currently see, is too upheld by his own morals to ever even think about crossing that line, but people change. Hell, you recognized how the High End arc changed Endeavor and made miles of metas about it.

So, is it really far-fetched to say villain!Hawks is just a dream?

Maybe I’m a fool or an optimist, but I’d love to see Horikoshi take that path. Not because I’m horny for evil boyfriends, but it’d be a nice change of pace and we’d get to see a complete contrast of Hawks’ experiences. And it wouldn’t be easy-it’d had to be done right. Just like Endeavor’s redemption arc--if Horikoshi is still planning it. (Let’s be honest: High End Arc was not a formal redemption. I think it was Horikoshi letting the readers know “there might be something worth saving in Endeavor!” but i digress because i don’t care enough about endeavor (his character and redemption has 0 appeal to me and thats FINE. YOU DO YOU AND I DO ME, I only talk about him when it’s essential to talk about the influence he has on characters I DO care about).

As to why people like to characterize the moment Hawks decides to quit being a villain being attributed to Hawks learning Endeavor is an abuser...

The fallout, as mentioned earlier, could vary. A lot. Hawks really looked up to Endeavor when he was young. Again, shattering to find out something so nasty about the one you idolized.

To know that the one Hawks looked up used his wife just like how the hero commission used Hawks. Like an object or tool at their disposal.

Would he be vengeful or spiteful towards Endeavor personally? To others, probably yes. To me? I’m kind of in the “eh” skeptical ballpark so I guess we somewhat agree on that. To me, Endeavor being exposed as an abuser would crush that small slither of childish hope that hero society represents something bigger than themselves. Did Hawks ever get to have the childhood Deku had where he was still cheering on the heroes from behind the screen, or did it get crushed just as quickly when he realized how hero society truly works?

Because hero society isn’t bigger than themselves. It shouldn’t be idolized so heavily as it is presented in BNHA.

At least, not in its current state. And people who don’t fit in that group or agree with its ideals suffer the consequences. Like Shigaraki. Like Twice and Spinner. Like Gentle.

These are all villains that are products of society that promised to stamp out villains. And when Hawks realizes that it’s just a never ending cycle where the people left in between the cracks are the ones who perpetuate the system itself...

Like you said, Hawks sees the bigger picture. And his goal is to lessen the burden of the workload for heroes. There will never be a shortage of everyday criminals using their quirks for petty crimes but what about the bigger picture organizations? How are they going to be stopped? What about examining the root core of the problem and going from there? No more short-term solutions to problems... What can Hawks, mighty number two hero, do even at the expense of himself? Hmm...

I don’t know, just some food for thought. Something I’ve seen done for villain!hawks is the hero commission throwing Hawks under the bus for some reason and Hawks either a) joins the league to gleam more information but finds himself willing to stay or b) has nowhere else to go and it’s more of a push for Hawks to orbit towards the League.

I am really thankful for your thoughts! Even though we don’t agree on things, I think discussion is still possible (whenever my anxiety stops bashing me in the head) and I’m always willing to accept I may be wrong about something. At this point in time (3/27/2019), we have less than 10 chapters released that centers around Hawks, but he’s certainly intrigued a lot of people considering he’s already #4 in popularity from so little chapters released! I think he and his introduction to BNHA represent the more cynical side of hero society that we haven’t been able to properly see from Deku’s perspective!

And I’m interested in what direction Horikoshi is going to take Hawks’ character in! The one thing I’m truly against is Hawks staying the “good little hero” in the end--whether he dies, becomes a villain, or hell even just stops being a hero is good enough for me. Free the bird or kill him off is what I’d want to see. That’d be enough of a character arc for me. Characters change, and it’d be silly to expect Hawks to stay the same especially since he has a lot of baggage on his shoulders and his current situation as a double agent for the League is precarious--despite him stating that he was willing to sacrifice his own reputation for the good of everyone, there’s no guarantee that he wouldn’t feel at least some degree of hurt over losing the respect of everyone and his colleagues.

My thoughts are pretty clunky but maybe someone was able to gleam something from my stupid 5 am vent...

I love Dabihawks, even though I’m not as invested in it as say Shigahawks or ShigaDabiHawks (which I’m sure you’d definitely have objections to considering your other salt posts... but not something I want to address here), and I still think DabiHawks is a great ship more so because of the dynamic than the aesthetic. But hey, you ship what you ship, you are allowed to express your disdain for the ship--I’ve certainly expressed my own disdain for the your ship in the past--and your salt posts which probably took like 10 minutes to type out provoked me to type out my own thoughts which took like 2 hours to fully process. Like I said earlier: you do you, I do me.

And again-- I’m not trying to “defend” here nor am I trying to “attack”. I just had things I wanted to say and I hope I DON’T have the attitude of someone looking down on you, because I think you have very valid opinions and thoughts and sometimes discourse can just be healthy discussions about how we interpret different characters. We are literally squeezing everything we can out of one character we love and there’s enough room for different interpretations of the same character ^^ If anything, I actually look up to you, which is why I’m too much of a coward to send this to you because oh my god i am so embarrassed about a lot of the shit that comes out of my mouth and i constantly worry about if im saying wrong things even though im open to people telling me why im wrong about said things.

tdlr; villains hawks very good. has nothing to do with dabihawks. villain hawks very good on its own. I agree with tumblr user on a lot of things, yet we see differently on other things. The world keeps spinning--I think it’s more interesting to address differences in opinions rather than ignore them.

(the person this post was meant for will probably never see this unless i send it to them to whcih im like oh my god what if they roast me to hell and back despite me claiming yes i amn ot trying to destroy them or their reputation i just want to talk about this because i had fun trying to think about why i love villain hawks so much aaaaa maybe i am just a delusional fangirl but im also a delusional fangirl who wrote multiple paragraphs about this so... /shrug)

end. again please dont interact. if you want to talk to me about it, inbox/dm me but i dont want this post to get notes. thank you. hides what have I done...

this has been sorta meta but not really just chicken fucking around at 6 am and good night. maybe sometime in the next... month... ill have the courage to send this to the tumblr user. maybe when i have confidence... or maybe when i make mel look this over. that was a joke- she couldnt even finish my other meta piece which was shorter than this. :)

#dont rb #i dont think anyone was going to #but i put it in case #indirect discourse #but this is actually an 18 year old idiot rambling on about fictional characters and ships and sounding like a crazy person by the end

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writeforsoreeyes · 5 years

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BL LookBack - Gerard & Jacques

Welcome to BL LookBack, where I’m rereading some of the oldest BL series still on my shelves to see how well they hold up for me today!

[image description: the covers of Gerard & Jacques volumes 1 and 2. On the first, an older man with an eyepatch and facial scar embraces a disgruntled teenage boy from behind. On the second, the two characters, both older, stare at each other tenderly.]

story & art by Fumi Yoshinaga originally serialized 2000 - 2001 (Biblos) English edition: 2006 (Tokyopop)

CW: rape, age gap

Fumi Yoshinaga is one of my favorite mangaka. Her diverse body of work includes award-winning alternate history (Ooku: The Inner Chambers), self-deprecating autobio comics (Not Love But Delicious Foods), and bittersweet school life drama (Flower of Life). But what she’s perhaps best known for are her many BL titles.

As a big fan, I’ve read pretty much all her manga and I usually recommend her titles quite enthusiastically. Gerard & Jacques, however, is one Yoshinaga manga that I generally do not recommend. My content warnings on this post probably give you a good idea of why, but let’s dive into it.

Set roundabouts the French Revolution, Gerard & Jacques follows the relationship of two men over the course of nine years. Jacques is the younger of the pair at just 16 when the story begins. He hails from an aristocratic family, but experiences a severe reversal of fortune: his family has sunken deep into debt and his father sold Jacques to a brothel in attempt to save the family’s wealth.

Gerard, meanwhile, is a commoner-- albeit a very wealthy one. He frequents brothels and is a favorite patron of many of the workers since he is younger and more attentive than most of the clientele. Since it’s Jacques’ first night on the job, the brothel owner decides that Gerard will be the best way to ease him into it.

Jacques, however, is understandably in shock about his new reality. He reveals to Gerard that he is an aristocrat and Gerard in turn reveals that he hates aristocrats, stating that they do nothing to earn their wealth. Furthermore, Jacques’ defense of his family’s actions angers Gerard. He makes Jacques face the facts of his situation and Jacques finally tells Gerard to do whatever he wants.

[image description: Gerard hold Jacques by the chin and tells him, “Think about it! What are you now? Do you have any means to pay off your debt other than selling your own body?” He lets Jacques go and continues, “And even in this state, a first-rate prostitute like you is blessed with a feather pillows, three meals a day and silk bed clothes. Younger children than you sell their bodies in places no better than a public toilet!”]’

Although consent is given on paper, it’s hard to call what occurs in chapter 1 anything besides rape.

Usually, this is where I’d drop a BL. However, the saving grace of Gerard & Jacques is that chapter 1 doesn’t end there. Instead, it ends with Gerard taking pity on Jacques. He buys out Jacques’ contract and challenges him to find a way to earn a living as a commoner, stating “If I see you back here [at the brothel] when I next return, I’ll scorn you from the bottom of my heart.”

Not long after, Jacques turns up at Gerard’s mansion looking for work, not realizing who lives there. Although he’s taken aback upon seeing Gerard, Jacques is still eager to prove himself. Gerard openly doubts that Jacques will be useful, but hires him regardless.

Here is the crux of Gerard & Jacques: the story’s setup is deeply problematic. But where a less talented mangaka would slip into weak character development and tired tropes in favor of exploiting the scenario’s raciness, Yoshinaga works hard to prove there is a story worth reading here. As for how successful she ultimately is… your mileage may vary.

Let’s talk about what’s done well first.

Yoshinaga excels at writing characters with complex emotions and motivations. Jacques is naive and repressed when it comes to sexual matters. However, he is also an intelligent, hard-working, and prideful person who isn’t afraid to tackle tasks that other people think are below him. After being turned out by his family, what he wants most is to prove his worth.

[image description: a maid praises Jacques for working hard and finding tasks to do without being told, ending with “That’s the sign of a good servant.” Jacques is pleased.]

Jacques, for obvious reasons, got a poor first impression of Gerard, so he’s surprised to learn that Gerard treats his servants very kindly and is well-liked by therm. As a self-made man, Gerard has enough reason to dislike pampered, frivolous aristocrats. (Note: Gerard made his fortune by penning erotica. There’s certainly some meta going on here, as that is also how Yoshinaga built her career.)

However, it doesn’t take long for Yoshinaga to divulge Gerard’s past and reveal the real reason behind his ire. I won’t go into the details because it’s all obviously spoilers. But, in short, Gerard was hurt badly by someone he loved and has never forgiven them-- nor has he forgiven himself for being blinded by his love.

[image description: Jacques asks Gerard, “Is this love?” Gerard is surprised by the question, then he looks down and responds, “How should I know?”]

As someone who primarily reads to experience other people’s emotions, I appreciate the care that Yoshinaga takes in crafting believable personalities and depicting the characters’ emotions clearly on the page. She isn’t afraid to use several panels to simply show a small shift in a character’s expression. In relatively few chapters, she covers a lot of emotional ground while showing how the two main characters’ feelings for each other change.

[image description: Jacques lays on Gerard’s chest and pets his hair, saying “I like you...” Unseen by Jacques, Gerard moves as if to put his arm around Jacques and return his embrace, but pulls away.]

Yoshinaga also manages to pack an awful lot of plot into just two volumes without the story feeling too rushed. Nearly a decade goes by! There’s the events that shift Gerard and Jacques relationship, story lines that reveal backstory, and, of course, plots driven by Revolutionary France politics. There’s so much political and legal talk at some parts, in fact, that you might momentarily forget you’re reading a BL. While some readers may be uninterested in such plots, I personally enjoy romance stories that have something else going on within them besides romance.

Finally, I greatly appreciate that Yoshinaga steered clear of the Bury Your Gays trope. It’s a spoiler to even say so, but I think it’s important to know, especially for queer readers: neither Gerard nor Jacques die. I won’t say anything more about the ending than that.

[image description: Gerard and Jacques are arguing whether Jacques should flee the country alone or if Gerard should come with. Jacques stands his ground, saying “I won’t go unless you do!”]

Now let’s talk about the bad stuff.

The number one issue I take with Gerard & Jacques is its double standard surrounding sexual consent. In essence, the reader is meant to presume that since Jacques ultimately enjoys the sexual pleasure he receives from Gerard, that means that his consent is good and golden-- and thus it’s not rape. By contrast, when another character forces sexual attention on people, it’s plainly depicted as sexual assault and rape. Obviously, that’s not how it works in real life.

There’s also a weird, pseudo-incestuous vibe. Gerard is quite a lot older than Jacques (roughly twice his age when they first meet, I think). Furthermore, Jacques’ background and kind-heartedness remind Gerard of a girl who he considered his daughter. Gerard even tells Jacques when he is older, “I loved you like my own child, but that’s not all now. I love you like my lover.” While no actual incest occurs, I’m sure this alone will turn off plenty of readers.

[image description: Gerard comments to the maid that Jacques looked cute dressed up in aristocratic attire. She remarks, “What a fond father you are.” He thinks on this, then repeats, “A fond father. I see.”]

Finally, there’s some unfortunate Man in a Dress style transphobia. Gerard disguises himself as a woman briefly for plot reasons and, in short, some characters note that the look doesn’t suit him. The way it’s executed is much gentler than most other Man in a Dress joking I’ve seen, but it’s still bothersome.

Overall, Gerard & Jacques isn’t bad. In fact, I’d say that Yoshinaga pulls off the story rather well within the confines of the problematic scenario. However, I think the story would’ve been far better without the rape between the two leads.

[image description: Jacques frowns at a manuscript and says, “No matter how many times I read this, it’s still just a crappy, erotic trash novel.” Gerard replies, “It sells. What’s the problem?”]

If this review has made you curious despite the warnings, I do think it’s a worthwhile read so long as you are prepared for objectionable content. But for people put off by the various warnings, I’d encourage you to check out something else by Fumi Yoshinaga. My two personal favorite series from her are Antique Bakery (workplace slow burn drama) and What Did You Eat Yesterday? (half cookbook, half slice of life about a middle aged gay couple.) Neither of these are actually BL in the proper sense, but both prominently feature gay main characters.

*final verdict: I was put off by its premise when I first read it and my feelings on it haven’t much changed. It’s well-done, but the creator has other works I’d recommend more.*

#gerard & jacques #fumi yoshinaga #bl lookback

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madefate-a · 5 years

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the big headspace meta. | shiro & trauma psychopathology.

> the big character meta.

> quick & dirty key points guide.

okay ! after the better part of a year, it’s here: the Big Meta on what, exactly*, is going on in shiro’s head. asterisk on exactly for a few reasons, the largest being that psychology is not so black and white as to have a simple plug and play causality chain. there are certainly touchstones in terms of diagnoses, and it can be incredibly helpful to have these guideposts in terms of understanding why and how changes in the body and mind occur, but the way those diagnoses present are different in every single person, and no one label ( or multiple labels ) is a definitive way to understand or categorize someone. with comorbidity at play, there are multiple axes at work in the human response to any trauma. and, well, it’s a show about space magic. so we need a little wiggle room.

and, of course, I am in no way a professional. this meta is merely meant to more fully flesh out some of the whys and whats of shiro’s mental state, behavior, and reactions to things. some of these I do try to weave into my portrayal, for the sake of healing and realism, while many others might be true but not a facet of what we see under most circumstances. I will attempt to source my information wherever I can, but please know that psychology is not my area of academia and don’t have access to scholarly / peer reviewed sources, nor necessarily the ability to understand denser medical material. I will be avoiding the DSM, though, because fuck the DSM.

time for some trigger warnings. below the cut, there’s going to be discussion of the arena, which includes captivity / enslavement, death, injury, medical experimentation, memory loss, loss of agency / consent, and everything that goes along with that setting and time period. I don’t intend to be gratuitous, extremely vivid, nor darker or more brutal than what we can reasonably extrapolate from the s1 / s2 show, with a few things cherry picked from seasons 3 & 6. ( where we cultivated a better understanding of haggar’s abilities and motivations. sort of. ) there will also be discussion of trauma psychology, including PTSD and CPTSD, sensory deprivation / isolation ( as in: the void ), body dysphoria, disordered self images, and mourning. what there will not be is condoning of using mental illness as a way of othering or dehumanizing people, or otherwise proving some kind of inability / incapability.

ultimately, my goal is to simply better understand shiro -- not to create and in and out box of if this, then that, but simply to understand how circumstance and trauma inform behavior, and then how to use this knowledge for a character arc full of Healing and the reclamation of agency.

so, here we go !!

PTSD & CPTSD: a brief overview

the easiest place to start is the most salient: PTSD. it is not necessarily textual to the show canon* ( *which, of course, I always take very lightly ) as in, it is not said out loud. however, it is clearly portrayed in the visual narrative with some of the more recognizable symptoms: flashbacks, freezing ( ep o2 ) and frightening thoughts ( ep o9 ). tellingly, without the ability to avoid reminders of traumatic sites, these symptoms are often triggered under those conditions ( galra battleships, fights that mimic arena experiences ).

newer then PTSD in the field of trauma psychology ( originating in 1992 ) is the idea of Complex PTSD, or CPTSD. CPTSD is a way to explore the changes that occur in individuals in situations of captivity, prolonged trauma ( as opposed to single-event ), or otherwise loss of agency. at the current time, CPTSD is diagnosed with a cluster of symptoms, and is often associated with abuse in childhood. still, there are some symptoms within these clusters that affect shiro, both on their own and as they overlap with PTSD.

which we’ll get into, right after we figure out where this all starts ! so --

the traumas.

it starts with the galra.

sort of. but we’ll touch briefly on that later. for all intents and purposes, shiro’s trauma is courtesy of the galra. thanks, sendak. I’ve done some work fleshing out the arena between HCs and writing, so you can check out some of that:

the arena, pt 1.

gotta lose that arm.

the champion.

nightmares after the resurrection.

aftermath of that arm.

the black lion.

body basics.

as a fighter, and a leader, you bring hope.

the big character meta

the shorter character meta

but we do need to run down a few of the things that are relevant to symptom presentation. during shiro’s time there, he experienced both single and repeated instances of trauma, and while they both contributed to the overall environment of that year, it’s important to understand that while some things were chronic, others were not.

single-instance experiences

separation from the holts

loss of his arm

chronic / repeated experiences

loss of freedom of movement

untreated injuries

restraints

physical / life threatening danger

need for self protection

forced performance ( both in the arena and as an act of self preservation around guards )

semi repeated experiences

helplessness to touch ( haggar, most saliently )

interrogation ( initial, as well as a few sessions of haggar’s memory extraction )

killing ( many fights, but not all, end in victory or death )

nonconsensual anesthetization ( with the galra, and at the garrison upon his return )

medical experimentation & examination ( most of it for information gathering purposes )

conditioning to believe that he would become a weapon / attempts to sway him to the galra without brainwashing ( see fic linked above )

this is where the overlap between PTSD and CPTSD comes largely into play -- it would be impossible, and unnecessary, to try to draw direct lines between experiences and the consequences of those experiences. rather, it’s far better to look at how all of these contributed to a certain environment or mentality:

everpresent danger / no one to trust

loss of choice and agency

conditioning to use power in a specific, and deadly, way

we know that shiro did not lose himself entirely. from the flashbacks to his escape, we know that o1. ) shiro fought for his freedom until the very end, and was never swayed to compliance by haggar or any druid / galra, and o2. ) that he exhibited qualities that made him a symbol of hope. this cannot be accomplished if he behaved in accordance to haggar’s designs and lost himself to rage or following orders. this is important! because resistance and a desire to retain a sense of self and purpose are through lines that follow him long past the arena, and are what allowed him to keep as much clarity and focus as possible. this quality, in fact, is what allows him to hold any semblance of trust in others after he escapes -- trust that he gives to allura, keith, and the black lion. which brings us to the other major event that we need to consider --

let’s talk about death. briefly.

here’s a perfect example of where the lines of mental health blur and overlap: some of the reactions he has are a result of the combination between putting his faith in the black lion and team voltron, and dying in the process. this is going to be a brief section -- mostly because there’s a more Descriptive and Creative and Prettily Worded fic coming dealing with the specifics of Life in V*ltron’s Void. but we do need to touch on the mental and physical trauma of losing his body and existing in the void and -- yes, yes it can spiral into a much larger, longer topic. I’ll try my best to compress!

part one: the reckoning.

there’s really no getting around how scarring it is to know that your body has been destroyed. that single instance, though, is processed much, much later than it occurs. that’s because in the void, he couldn’t physically react to the knowledge -- with no heart or nervous system, shiro could not properly process nor react to the loss of his body. it was more learned and known than felt, which in and of itself makes the process more difficult than it might be otherwise. ( might be -- we’ll never know for sure. ) the loss of his body will come into larger play down the line when he is dealing with issues of his body, as well as understanding and mourning kuron.

part two: the physical.

shiro spends the better part of the year with no physical body, and no sensations. none of this registers in the void, because that is the nature of the void, but as strange as time feels there, he absolutely feels this when he is brought back. this will get touched on in the latter half of the meta, but it’s important to know that everything is delayed, distorted, and simply not felt in the void.

part three: the mental.

as the forbidden season tells us, every moment in the void was a struggle to stay conscious. this fluctuated, depending on shiro’s mental strength, as well as what was happening around himself. he spent every conscious moment trying to reach any of the paladins -- keith or kuron particularly, as they were the ones piloting black and, thus, had a better chance of hearing or sensing him. his best opportunities for someone to hear him came when v*ltron was formed and all the paladins occupied the same physical and mental space. losing the connection he almost formed with lance informs much of shiro’s actions after he is restored. it was proof that his emotional isolation might have been the reason that he was unable to connect with the others, and spurs him to be more open down the road, lest the consequences turn deadly again.

the smaller instances: fighting with haggar, his family, illness

another important thing to note that there are other contributing factors at play. his fight with haggar after rescuing allura provides a visual motif that he cannot unsee: himself, irrevocably stained in the darkness of her magic, looking ruthless and deadly. it is a large contributing factor to the shape his self image issues take.

also, let’s talk about the few things that began to shape his mental landscape before the galra: the loss of his parents at age 18 and the diagnosis of his illness at 19*. I go more in depth into the illness in the big character meta, so check it out if you like, and both of these are my own, personal headcanons since we received no ages on either from the Powers That Be. ( truth be told, I wasn’t expecting him to deal with so much shit -- I placed these timeline events when he was older to try to mitigate the angst. incredible. ) both of these contributed to being confronted with helplessness or loss of control over his life, as well as a heightened sense of responsibility that found an opportunity to fester when he began to blame himself for the holts’ capture, in any attempt to restore agency*. ( *but we’ll get to that. )

the symptoms.

getting back to PTSD and CPTSD.

oh yes, that good, good full circle-ness. so we’ve arrived back at the start, but knowing that all of this is less than a line of dominoes than it is a spiderweb, with different strands sometimes tugging the same things. let’s lay out the symptoms that shiro is dealing, all to different degrees and at different frequencies:

PTSD

Intrusive Memories, which include:

Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event

Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks)

Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event

Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event

Avoidance, which includes:

Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event

Negative Changes in Thinking and Mood, which includes:

Negative thoughts about yourself

Memory problems, including not remembering important aspects of the traumatic event

Feeling detached from family and friends

Changes in Physical and Emotional Reactions, which include:

Always being on guard for danger

Trouble sleeping

Trouble concentrating

Irritability, angry outbursts or aggressive behavior

Overwhelming guilt or shame

Misc. / Specific

Difficulty being physically vulnerable -- ie, without armor or unable to see where exits might be

The trigger of being restrained / someone unexpectedly grabbing or holding his chin / face in place -- this is something haggar would do

Symptom list courtesy of mayoclinic -- if you peruse, you’ll notice that he does not exhibit every symptom of PTSD.

CPTSD

CPTSD is less extensive than PTSD, and, in shiro’s case, secondary to PTSD, as many CPTSD symptoms are fostered in childhood, as the direct result of the violation of trust in guardians or authority figures. Shiro’s symptoms include clusters:

alterations in attention or consciousness

alterations in self-perception

and specifics:

Changes in emotional regulation, such as dysphoria, as well as changing expressions of anger ( inhibited, and explosive )

Episodes of depersonalization

A sense of being different from all other human beings

A sense of defilement or stigma ( irrevocably stained )

A belief that no one can understand ( “they don’t know what you know” )

A feeling of a non-human identity ( sometimes slips and thinks of himself as a robeast or weapon )

*** An inflated sense of responsibility. Shiro uses responsibility as a way to feel that he has some semblance of control over himself and the world around him.

for this one, I did reference the wiki -- apologies, the more trustworthy sources are behind paywalls!

Sensory Issues

The sensory issues largely come from his time in the void. I break it down a little more thoroughly >> here << so if you want to, check that out. Essentially, he has phases after his restoration to a body, immediate issues and lasting ones.

immediate issues ( the roadtrip home timeline )

a lack of energy, which manifests as inability to participate in longer conversations / conversations with more than one or two other people, frequent naps, and listlessness that comes with feeling heavy in a physical body

attention issues, which manifest in difficulty holding long conversations

overstimulation, which manifests in shiro being very physically sensitive to all senses: touch, sight / light, sound, smell, and taste.

lack of appetite, which is mostly due to the fact that he has to get used to eating again.

lasting issues

intermittent tiredness -- he naps much less frequently the stronger he gets, but he never quite gets to where he used to be in that regard.

openness -- shiro gets a lot more emotionally open with people; terrified by being stuck in a realm with no exit and how he failed to connect with any of the paladins, he is less likely to be closed off entirely the way he was previously

a fear of being lost / not being heard -- both in waking hours and in sleep, shiro gains a persistent fear of no one knowing where he is, or otherwise not being heard or seen

dysphoria -- shiro struggles greatly with being in kuron’s body

his nightmares change after the void -- they become a combination of scattered memories from kuron, as well as nightmares of drowning or not being heard when he yells. he also wakes up from them differently; before the void, he used to wake silently. now he might physically roll out of bed, choke, or touch himself in some way ( press a hand to his chest, or splay his hand around his throat )

What Doesn’t Change

everything, basically.

yes !! I just wrote up an embarrassingly long meta on shiro’s trauma and how it affects him. but at the end of the day, shiro is still shiro. he loses none of his ambition, drive, humor, optimism, hopefulness, compassion, or sense of fun and adventure. he is not afraid of space, the front lines, or giving his all to keep the earth safe. no matter the severity of his symptoms on any given day, he is still a decisive leader, empathetic and supportive, and still holds seeing the world, and the universe, as his dream.

none of what he has gone through or deals with now defines him. it merely explains some of his behaviors and gives him a tangible place to start on his journey to healing.

#( shiro. )#( shiro hc. )#( the big metas. )#do not reblog /#trigger list above the cut #holy shit guys!!!! holy SHIT !!!!!!!!#ive been working on this for MONTHS !!!! ITS DONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#honestly i SHOULD be embarrassed at the sheer amt of content ive produced but like ..... im not .....#en ee way pray i get into my phd program so i can take all this energy & direct it elsewhere skdjgh

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