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forzaferraris · 2 months

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NOTHING MATTERS — op81

pairing: oscar piastri x fem! engineering intern! reader

summary: the best way to get over someone who broke your heart is to get under someone else and (unintentionally) break theirs. / inspired by nothing matters by the last dinner party, listen on spotify here !

style: primarily written with a single smau element at the end.

warnings: 18+, minors do not interact, smut, unprotected sex ((p in v) please wrap it before you tap it)), oral (m! receiving) finger sucking, sub/don undertones but nothing serious, i swear on my life oscar piastri is a grunt and groaner but simultaneously considerably vocal during sex (i will die on that rock), afab! reader, readers kinda uncaring about who she hurts because she’s hurt, reader is referred to as she/her, miscommunication trope, oscar piastri has been in love with reader since the beginning of the season and just assumed one-sided pining. authors refusal to write with capitals, you can pry them out of her cold dead hands.

faceclaim: sofia dirado, although feel free to imagine reader as anyone else.

word count: 4.1k +

YOU WERE NO STRANGER TO HEARTACHE.

you fear it followed you around more often than not, like a dark cloud that covered your entire existence in this bubble of heartbreak that nothing ever felt good to you, nothing was ever worth it. from your parents divorcing after years of suffering in a loveless marriage to every single relationship you’d ever been in never making past the first time you sleep together — you’ve genuinely felt about giving up on life, going so far as to consider a life as a celibate nun or maybe not, perhaps just the life of a girl who burns through multiple packs of AA batteries using her rose toy.

however, when you’d met levi, your first year of finally being allowed to leave the mclaren technology centre to shadow tom stalland during the 2023 f1 season. you genuinely thought this man had reshaped your entire perspective of love, he made love easy, made loving him feel less like a sport and more like a hobby you could never get sick of, being with hom felt like you’d been going through all the “firsts” all over again, like a cheesy romance movie monologue.

and yet, here you are, sat in your hotel room after the japan gp, suzuka has always been your favourite gp to watch and unfortunately for some reason, instead of standing in the mclaren garage doing your job, you’re sat clad in your team clothes (a stark contrast to the white bed linen) and sobbing over a text message paragraph explicitly telling you that levi has decided to break up with you after he fell in love with someone else during the summer break, someone who “rewired his brain chemistry in a ways you could never do.” you want to get angry, you wish you were an angry person, instead when you got angry you cried, when you got too happy or even just laughed too hard you cried, you were a crier.

your heart is heavy, as you scroll through the other woman’s posts, she’s gorgeous, and that’s where you begin your myriad of self deprecating comparisons of you to her. you doom scroll for what feels like forever until you spiral even further down the heartbreak rabbit hole, your attention drawn to the fact that levi had both unfollowed and removed you as a follower at some point between when he said goodnight and then broke up with you the next day. you watch as stories of their summer break spent together is shared and your jealousy sends you into a blind rage that you block the both of them; because ultimately you knew that he will hold her life he used to hold you — for levi was boring, a one trick pony you’re only just now coming to terms with.

your disheveled appearance and self imposed seclusion from the events of the day were not left unnoticed, you’d resigned yourself to just stand on the outskirts, occasionally moving to sit down and watch the screens as the friday practice begun, you’re uninterested, unmotivated and trying your dandiest to not cry, for the sole reason of simultaneously not wanting to draw unwanted attention to yourself and the fact that the mascara you’re bought at the duty free at the airport was most definitely not waterproof.

the good thing was that you’d be in japan for the rest of the weekend, the worse thing was you knew not s language lick of the language — sure you could probably call someone an idiot in japanese thanks to the sheer amount of one piece you’d watched eith levi during days he didn’t want to do anything you had planned or suggested; however, the single knowledge of know the word idiot in japanese will not get her very far. you’re almost too zoned out to notice the first free practice had finished, oscar’s team engineer tom standall dismisses you, tells you that whatever happened before you came to track is to be sorted out before it potentially jeopardises a race and without a word or argument against hai decision you shuffle out of the garage and into the paddock.

“name, hey wait — wait up” a voice you’ve only heard considerable muffled by a racing helmet and through large oversized noise cancelling team gear headphones when you got to play pretend engineer whenever it was during his practice laps and his qualifying laps, it sends a shiver up your spine, always has and you’re unknowing if it always will.

“oscar? hey! you did so good today, from what i say, p3 is so awesome how are you not more elated about that!” you’d found yourself smiling, wide across your face and sinking into the gentle rhythm of the conversation with oscar. the smile he returns is equally as wide as if his whole face were smiling, you want to punch him — the cuteness aggression playing devil on your shoulder.

“oh nah, i am actually it just hasn’t like kicked in gully yet, i’m waiting for the full body visceral reaction i’m about to have,” he pauses for a brief moment, hands itchy to fiddling with something snd find solitude in dragging one hand after the other through his tangled and sweaty hair. “like just, honestly, jesus christ and in japan of all places fuckin’ hell” he seems both simultaneously out of breath and ready to compete in a marathon.

had it not been a considerably formal setting you swore you can picture him jumping up and down on the spot whilst trying to contain all of his excitement, you allow him to be excited not wanting your own mood and misery to overshadow his complete and utter elation at his podium win. it’s the first time in the few days you’d been moping about that the smile you give off reaches your eyes and oscar’s always paying attention to these things, unbeknownst to you of course.

“your excitement is infectious, surely the team have planned something celebratory for you! you’ve gotta celebrate this i’m sure lando is!” you can’t help but practically beam, you’re mesmerised by the excitement the unashamed amount of happiness this boy is oozing and the bitter feeling in your stomach over it all is just barely going by unnoticed.

oscar shakes his head, overs a tiny shrugs and barely gets another word into the conversation you teo ate having before he’s whisked away by the team to be dragged off towards the podium, you watch as he shakes the bottle of champagne onto lando and max. any and all brief untouched moments of happiness are immediately replaced when your phones buzzes, a notification alert from your ring door bell and the video supplied of your now ex boyfriend grabbing whatever stuff he’d left at your apartment. the situation just breaks your heart even further than when with the whole of the mclaren team being called upon for s group shot with both the boys and their podium wins you ignore it and decided you’d had enough of it all.

the hotel’s quiet as you tap your keycard against the inside of your hand waiting for the elevator to come back down, the traffic from the track back to the designated hotel meant you’d wound up leaving just as all the other drivers had and whilst you weren’t in the mood to face anymore interactions you were lucky to bypass the small group of fans loitering in the hotel lobby. the elevator itself is slow, like most and the way your stomach drops at the incline is almost akin to how you felt when you’d first received that break up text at the start of the week.

if there was one thing you were thankful for, it was the fact the hotel had a bar just off the lobby, which is where you’d found yourself, skirt a little too short, shoes a little too high and too the perfect amount of booby that you won’t get in too much trouble but also attract someone willing to take away the ache in your chest for the night.

you’d been sat at the bar for just under an hour, occasionally chatting to some of the other patrons but mostly the bartender herself; the paper straw mushy and impossible to drink out of sits on a napkin as you sip on the glass uncaring or the lipstick mark on the rim or the smudging it does to your own lipstick — in fact you’re hoping something else smudges the lipstick further if the night doesn’t continue to progress as slowly as it is.

“can i get a beer, whatever you’ve got in the bottle and another one of what she’s drinking” there it is again, the chill on your spine and the heightened sense of the hand that brushes past your ear to give the bartender a bank card. every single nerve ending in your body is on fire when the stool beside you in moved and a body now begins to occupy it, perhaps you’re a bit drunk, you’d already had two of these and what if the different alcohol consumption laws you’re unsure how much alcohol is actually in the fruity little cocktail you’d ordered.

“oscar piastri, i thought i told you to go celebrate your podium with lando, why are you still at the hotel?” there is is, a tone you’d never thought you’d use with someone who wass essentially your bosses boss, which therefore makes him your boss, and yet here you are — sultry tone and lips loosened by the alcohol in your system, shamelessly flirting with him.

“well, you see, i’m more of a pub person than i am someone who prefers nightclubs and being touched and bumped into by random strangers, i fear that’s more of a lando thing than my own” oscar laughs, the way he’s relaxed and carefree shows signs he did however, get roped into pregaming with lando beforehand, the neck of the beer bottle sits between his index and middle fingers, a comfortable position one you're sure would feel weird if you so much as tried to mimic.

you fear you're done for when it comes to watching the way his throat bobs as he takes a swig of the larger, it's a japanese brand one you've never heard of nor tried and you can tell oscar hasn't by the way his nose scrunches at the taste, he still continues to drink it though. time seems to float by, growing continually more comfortable with one another to the point you'd sauntered away from the bar stools and are sat perhaps not even an inch apart in a booth in the corner.

"favourite race destination, so far?" "monaco. most definitely, melbournes a close second, but that's just because of a personal bias" "personal bias?" "yeah. . . you."

you'd never thought to combine the flavours of japanese beer and strawberry liqueur, and yet here you were, back-pressed and arched up against the wall beside a hotel room that not yours, the elevator ride was one stop too long to have it be that you'd gone back to your hotel room, hands, not your own, are roaming places never thought to be touched, the bluntness of their nails digging into the soft flesh of your thighs has your separating from the kiss to lean your head back and full indulge in the simple pleasures received in this moment. arousal builds when soft lips find the pulse point in your neck, your choice signature scent perfume the most aromatic in that area brings a subconscious reaction from oscar, the thigh between your legs juts up and you also convulse right then and there, your own hands ove from holding the back of his neck to drag through his soft, product-free hair, tugging on the last few strands that slip through your fingers.

the beep of the room door unlocking pulls you to your senses, and a hand tight around your waist drags you inside, you cling onto him in the worst way possible, you can see the smudges of lipstick on the corners of his mouth and god, does he look beautiful. you're unsure for a moment, even if the alcohol had loosened you up a little, you still didn't know how to react around oscar, he's looking at you in a way you can't describe, it makes your stomach flip and you're eager, thighs clenching to distribute the friction of your building arousal. you want his lips on yours again, there's zero space between you, you're simply sharing each other's breath.

his hand finds the back of your neck, tangled in your darkened locks and pulls you back in for a kis, is soft, he must moisturise your brain supplies before it fizzes out, the kiss is messy, all teeth, tongues and spit. you whimper into the kiss, knees buckling, your own hands are on a mission sliding under the hem of his shirt to perfectly feel the warmth that radiates off his skin against your cold hands, you can feel the exact moment your cold touch makes him hiss into the kiss and it finally ignites the fire in your stomach. this is what you want.

you two remain lip-locked until your chest hurts and you've traded the same breath back and forth that it's completely died, when you pull away, you finally take notice of the blown-out pupils staring down at you. his a look entirely of lust, desire, arousal and it shows, especially with the bulge in his pants. your bottom lip finds sanctuary in between your teeth when you raise an eyebrow and one of your hands slips out from under his shirt to palm him through the cargo shorts he'd donned to wear.

if oscar's voice sent a shiver down your spine, the way he groaned at your touch against his bulge chilled you from the inside out, the noise rough and gravelly like he'd not uttered a word in weeks, it's deep and low in his chest that you wouldn't have heard it if you weren't practically flush against him. your hand continues to palm him, making riskier moves as your other hand moves to dip your fingers into the waistband of his pants, you don't wait, you don't even need to ask for permission when his own hands are practically shucking off his own clothes for you.

he looks so gorgeous standing right in front of you, the wet patch you can only assume of precum on the front of his boxers has you licking your lips involuntarily, you try to ignore the voices, fight the urgers but you're but a simple girl, eager to please, that you're flicking your gaze up at him as your sink to your knees, the carpet is soft enough against you but you know better and are already seeing the red marks you'll have the next morning.

oscar looks confused for you in the briefest of moments, your nails dragging along his thighs, soft blonde hairs tickle your finger tips and you bite back the sweet giggle you want to let out as you're finally tugging his underwear down. a moment of shock halts your movement, eyes flicking up and down between oscar's gaze and his cock, tip pink, throbbing and leaking — it's a sight to be seen and you're the one who gets to gaze upon it.

your hand wraps around him, fingers barely meeting at the girth and you moan, can feel the saliva pooling in your mouth, your oral fixation working into overdrive, a single flick of your wrist has a louder groan rolling out of oscar's mouth, a quick "fuck" followed after it that as you once again clenching your thighs. your hand sets an easy rhythm, tried and true, one that allows for long strokes at a steady pace and your thumb to swipe between the slit on his tip that has his stomach clenching. his own hand grabs at your hair, both for something to hold onto and to keep it out of our face when you inch closer and allow your tongue to tease his tip with small kitten licks.

"fuck, fuck, name, fuck suck my cock"

the verbalised plea is all you need to finally wrap your lips around the swollen head, the saltiness of his precum mixing with your spit as you moan around him, your tongue swirls around his tip every time you pull back, only to resume bobbing your head and matching the movement of your hand to the pace you set as you take more of him in your mouth, your mouth feels so full and you can practically feel his dick pulse against your tongue when your other hand moves to squeeze his balls.

"holy shit — where did you learn that, fucking hell"

you smile when you pull away, uncaring of the drool that rolls down your chin, oscar seems not to mind either when he's pulling you back up to kiss him, your hand still stroking him slowly. he can taste his pre cum still on your tongue and as someone who'd assumed he wouldn't be fond of the idea, seems more or less enjoying it solely because it's coming from your mouth. his tongue overpowers your own and he's licking in your mouth with such severity that you can feel your own wetness pooling in your panties, had you been horny before you were now basically unbearably horny at this point.

your clothes feel bothersome, and your top and bra come off rather quick once your legs meet the edge of the bed you'd been pushed back against. the cool air of the hotel room meets your nipples and you gasp out once oscar's hot mouth chooses to settle on one and his hand favours the other. it's magic, that's what you can choose to blame it on, with the way oscar's fingers tug and twist one nipple all whilst his mouth and suck away on the other, your back arches up against him when his teeth graze the sensitive bud and you swear you could achieve your first orgasm of the night just from that alone.

his mouth switches to give the same treatment to the other nipple and yours that tug and pull on his hair only urge him on more, whining and desperate and what you want to happen is not happening. you need him, you crave him, you desire him.

"please oscar, fuck me"

there is it, the words oscar had been waiting to hear since you'd kissed him, and who would oscar be if not someone who listened when he was asked to do something. he sits up on his knees, jerks himself a couple of times as he watches you, skirt rugged up to your hips, a perfect picture, a sight for sore eyes, so beautiful, all for him to bare witness too. you back arches, your eager and needy and positively soaked you don't even need to touch yourself to know, your panties are finally pulled off and you hiss at the air that hits your center. you're clenching around nothing, sticky and sweet, eager, he looks up as your and you nods a final confirmation before you supply a weak "please" before his tip is aligning with your entrance and he's sliding in.

the stretch is everything to you, he is perfect, your hand stretching splayed out against the pillow as the tiniest whine falls from your lips, oscar grunts, face and chest flushed, you can hear exactly how we you are just from the squelch when he finally bottoms out and you moan loud enough that if anyone had been walking past the room they would have heard. oscar doesn't move, allowing for your pussy to stretch and get comfortable around him before you nod, rolling your hips to signal him to move and move he does.

"you're so tight, holy shit."

his hips rock back and forth into you, it's slow and sensual something you hadn't expected, your legs shift and wrap around his hips and your body rocks back against his thrusts willing him to move faster. unlike past partners, oscar seems to get the hint almost instantly as he pulls out and shifts slightly, hand holding onto your hips before he's sheathed himself back into you entirely in a singular thrust.

you moan out, toes curling and your legs wrapping around him so tight as if you'd practically become some sex-fueled boa constrictor. you swear his muscles are working overtime as his abdomen flexes with every deep thrust inside you, your body abuzz with electricity, the fire in your stomach scorching as a particular thrust has him hitting your g-spot and your back arching receptively.

in a world where you'd thought this was ever possible, all imaginations and scenarios have proven wrong already as oscar's thumb finds solace on drawing circles on your clit, causing your pussy to clench around him and a hiss to drag itself from his lips. to oscar you feel amazing and the flush on your face perfect evidence of his inability to be shy about telling you so and all you can do is ooh and ahh in return. something pulls in your stomach when he bottoms out in you again, your leg twitches and you're hyperaware that you'd just orgasmed around him, vocalising how it feels and your back arching however, his hips remain relentless only to come to a halt as he pulls out; your words are stopped as you're flipped over with a gentle tap against your thigh.

arms stretched out in front of you and your back arched, give oscar the perfect view to just take a moment to stare at your fluttering pussy, clenching around nothing as you suffer through a partially stunted orgasm. fingers drag through your folds and your body jerks at the sensitivity, the dip between them, pumping in and out similar to the rhythm he kept previous, his middle finger hooks and your face is thrown forward into the pillow as it hits the spongey feel of your g-spot, you gasp out hand white-knuckling the pillow as he focusses his fingers on that one particular spot

"fuck osc – fuck want you back inside me"

you don't bother with caring much about how whiney and desperate you'd begun to sound, throat dry from the gasping and the continuous noises he pulls from you, your tempting him, ass swaying as he chuckles, pulling his fingers out, he coo's at you as you whine to mourn the loss of the feeling, teases you as he slips the tip of his dick through your flushed red folds and bottom out with a quick hard thrust. you scream out, the pleasure perfectly combining with the sudden stretch to make the sweetest mixture of pain and pleasure you'd ever felt and to silence you, the fingers he'd just fucked you with had found the way into your mouth and if there was one thing you were, it was a good girl.

the sounds reverberating around the walls of the hotel room are borderline pornographic, the new pace oscar has set, deep and hard, skin slapping against skin as he practically bounces off you, his free holding your hip steady as your own knees buckle and you can feel the way his dick pulses inside you, the way his movements become sloppy yet still hitting your pleasure spot every time. the fingers in your mouth licked clean of your own arousal now replaced to be covered in your own drool. oscar grunts, his hips snapping against you in a final thurst as he slumps forward to press the most delicate of kisses to the nape of your neck as he feels you up and you cum around him for a second time.

it's messy, whatever hadn't spilt inside you now jerked off onto your back as your knees give out and you slump against the bed. worn out and woozy you're hardly paying attention to oscar cleaning up, the warm washcloth drags along your hot, sticky and sweaty skin in a way that twists your brain and brings out the regret that seeps into your stomach, had your legs not been feeling like they weren't attached to your body you would have scrambled to get dressed and done the walk of shame back to your own hotel room; however, you stay, regretfully.

you don't cuddle, oscar tries not to act hurt about it as you roll over and away from him when he finally climbs in himself. to you this didn't matter, you fucked him, like nothing matters. come the morning you'll be gone before he wakes. because this didn't mean a thing. to you as least.

yourusername just posted . . . ♫ nothing matters . the last dinner party

liked by lando.jpg, yourbestfrienduser, lolatung and 11,219 others yourusername and i will fuck you, like nothing matters. load more comments

oscarpiastri oh.

authors note: please excuse my smut skills, i'm rusty a lil ngl. i love a bittersweet ambiguous ending. if this gets enough recognition and asks, i'll definitely more than likely make a part two or even multiple parts. reminder, if you weren't tagged it means i couldn't find your account.

add yourself to the taglist here !

taglist: @iluminaya @therealcap @marshmummy @@im-an-overthinker @a1leexxa @chasing-liberosis @marauderssworld @nesssywrites @valntynebaby @larastark3107 @justtprachisblog

#𐙚 paige’s works #oscar piastri x you #oscar piastri #oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri fic #oscar piastri imagine #oscar piastri smau #oscar piastri smut #f1 x reader #f1 x you #f1 imagines #formula one x reader #formula one x you #formula one imagines

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fishyyyyy99 · 4 months

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Hello! Do you have a top 5 moments for benvi?

Hi! This is a difficult question, and I'm not sure I have an unchanging answer. But I'll try to answer based on what I currently think. Also, I'm sorry - I've chosen 7 moments instead of 5 (narrowing it down that much was hard enough).

1. I have two moments that are tied for first position. These are also probably my two favourite Never Have I Ever moments, not just my two favourite Benvi moments:

1. 3 x 10

When Ben finally tells Devi how much he'll miss her, and Devi is surprised by how she suddenly feels knots in her stomach - it's a chef's kiss moment. It made me incredibly emotional. There was something so triumphant (it's an important character development moment for Devi plus my Benvi shipping heart was happy) , yet subtle and real about that moment. The song that plays during that scene - Car Keys by Jaguar Sun will forever represent to me, the quiet realisation that someone is your person.

4 x 04

I love, love how Devi finds Ben near the lockers, and rescues him by giving him her shirt. First of all, it's Devi doing something super meaningful for Ben after so long. I also like that despite not being on talking terms, she still understands him really well and cares for him. I also like that the trope of the girl wearing the guy's shirt gets reversed, and she gives him the shirt that she's wearing, instead. Their eye contact is SO intense, and I really like how he shakes his head as if to clear it because just looking at her puts him under a spell. And then, there's their banter, and his tiny smile even though they're not friends at that point. I also like how she understands what he wants to say before he says it out loud, and accepts it. I just love their repressed longing in this scene!

2. 4 x 05

It was so beautiful to see Ben and Devi act so maturely in this scene and know exactly how to comfort each other. I also liked that their conflict got resolved without much drama in this scene, and that they went back to being best friends. I loved Devi's smile - she was so happy that she had helped Ben feel "oddly inspired".

3. 3 x 02

I actually really like the scene in which Aneesa sees Ben and Devi just having fun, because to me, it captures the essence of Benvi - they're best friends first, and lovers next. It shows just how much they enjoy spending time together. I also really like the scene in which Ben is texting Devi during Aneesa's game, their scenes in 1 x 05 and 1 x 06, their scenes in 3 x 05, and the scene in 3 x 09 after Devi apologises to him. TBH, Benvi as a whole is an enemies to lovers arc, but in season 3 specifically, it was a best friends to lovers arc, in my opinion. And this scene in 3 x 02 shows very clearly from an outsider's perspective just how they seem to have a world of their own. TBH, I think all of their other friendship moments together, form rank number 3 on this list (I think they're the reason the scene in 3 x 10 was so meaningful to me). But I'm choosing 3 x 02 to represent their friendship, because it shows someone within the show recognising how Ben and Devi have fun together.

4. There are three scenes here at position number 5.

1 x 10

Devi realises that Ben waited for her, and then she kisses him. I love how he kisses her back, then pulls back to see if this is really happening before leaning in for a much deeper and longer kiss. This is undoubtedly my favourite kissing scene on the show. What a perfect end to a great first season.

3 x 10

Devi deciding to have sex on her own terms, and not out of peer pressure is also a great character development moment for her. I really liked how she surprised herself like Dr. Ryan said she might. And this was such a satisfying and triumphant end to season 3. The use of the "boink card" was such a cute way to execute this.

4 x 10

The very, very last Benvi moment during which we see them hanging out together at Princeton. This moment just felt so very real to me. I'd say it was the realest moment in the series for me. Something about it felt so natural, and they looked like a real couple. I almost forgot that I was watching a TV show.

#never have i ever #ben gross #devi vishwakumar #benvi #nhie #maitreyi ramakrishnan #jaren lewison #ben x devi

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mundanemoongirl · 4 months

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I’ve read 32 books this year. Some were mysteries, some were thrillers, some were realistic fiction, and most were fantasy. So here’s my top 5 out of every book I’ve read!

But first, my honorable mentions

This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi has some of the most beautiful descriptions and wordings that I have read. I also love the Persian culture in it. I'm always fascinated when reading about different cultures and this is one I don’t know much about. It felt unique and authentic. The reason this one isn’t in my top 5 is because I felt it relied too much on tropes and the plot was a bit cliche. The second book especially suffers from this.

Going Dark by Melissa De La Cruz is a mystery I thought was so good it helped to inspire my own. It touches on important topics like racism and mental illnesses. I love how social media is used to find clues and I was so invested in the story that I stayed up late every night to know more. The only thing keeping this book from being perfect to me is that about halfway through, the backstory is told to the reader. I would have rather the characters find it out for themselves.

When I tell you I loved Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao so much I wrote a three page paper on it and submitted it for my communications final (I got an A). I love character driven stories and Xifeng is one of my favorite characters of all time. Her arc progresses at a perfect pace and I love seeing her use the few skills she possesses to get what she wants. As a dark fantasy writer, I appreciate that the book doesn’t shy away from gruesome aspects. The reason this book isn’t in my top five is because I wanted to see Xifeng’s rule as empress. That’s it. I just wanted more Xifeng.

And now my top 5 under the cut

5. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This is not the type of book I’d normally read, but it blew away all of my expectations and I absolutely adored it. At first, I didn’t really like Monique’s character. I wasn’t interested in her failed marriage and I was pretty annoyed every time she didn’t understand what was being said to her (which happens way too often), but as she learned from Evelyn I was really rooting for her.

It was Evelyn’s story that wouldn’t let me stop reading. It was similar to Xifeng in a way where she started as a girl who was pretty, but had nothing, and manipulated her way to becoming a superstar. I was especially gripped by Evelyn’s insistence that Monique will hate her. I just needed to keep going to find out why.

There were a lot of unique aspects that I liked, such as the chapter titles. They were so fun and I kept repeated them in my head. I also like how parts of the story are told through forums and news articles. Other than the fact this this is a unique aspect, I liked it because we got to hear a different perspective than the person telling the story.

Also, yay for a bisexual main character! It was done so well and respectful, and not the stereotypical cheater character. I have been waiting my whole life for this type of representation.

The last thing I want to say about this one is that Reid really makes an art of writing. There are so many quotable lines and you can tell so much thought was put into every word.

4. The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

It’s a pretty cliche story: a princess must reclaim her throne. But The Queen of the Tearling works so well because of its main character, Kelsea. She’s such a beautifully complex character. On one hand, she wants to prove herself as queen. But on the other, she wants to be free to be a teenage girl. She rules with compassion for her people. But she also has an underlying ruthlessness and short temper. She looks to the future by examining the past, and how can you not root for a character so strong that she demanded her throne with a knife in her shoulder?

I appreciate that this book didn’t go the trope route and have the ruler of the rival kingdom become Kelsea’s lover. It’s fine one time, but it’s way overdone, and Kelsee’s strengths shine through more without this trope.

I like how each chapter opens up with a quote. Like the articles in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, this gives the reader insight into what other characters think.

I have to say that even though this book blew me away, the last book has the worst ending I have ever read in my life. It was lazy, dismissive of the themes throughout the series, and just exasperating because it erases the growth of the characters and kingdom. I have no idea why Johansen would write it into existence and it somewhat tarnished my view on the series.

3. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Is it really surprising that a Hunger Games book is in my top 5? I was hesitant at first to read it because I thought it would be a sympathy story or a cash grab, but I'm so glad that I gave it a try because it was so much more than I thought.

I feel like it's a theme on my list that I like to see stories where something small slowly evolves into something big. That's a big part of why I love this book. We get to see how the games went from something no one liked to the sporting event we know it as. It was a bonus to see that Snow's impact on the games as well.

I loved getting back into the Hunger Games universe, especially now that we get more of what the capitol is like. I have to admit that I haven't read the original trilogy in almost a decade so my memory is a little shaky, but I don't remember anything about the capitol being poor at one point. I liked this detail and getting to know capitol kids like Clemensia because it makes the capitol more complex. Before, I only knew it as a completely evil, selfish, privileged group of people, but now we can understand it better.

I love Lucy Gray's character. As a former musician, I appreciate that her power is through song and I enjoyed reading the meaning in her lyrics. I was kicking my feet reading about the Hanging Tree song and her teaching Snow about katniss roots because they live on to haunt him 60 years later. As always, Collins knows how to incorporate so much meaning into her writing.

The only thing I disliked is that it started to drag in Part III.

2. I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

This one was heavy, but I'm thankful to McCurdy for being vulnerable and sharing this raw story. As someone who grew up on iCarly, she was an important part of my childhood. I listened to the audiobook version, which just made it all the more personal.

You can tell from the writing that McCurdy was meant to be a writer. She somehow manages to make such a sad story humorous, and I found myself getting lost in her the way she describes background information that I didn't even notice that she deviated from the main topic until she brought us back. Not to mention, the writing sounds like she is telling a story directly to you. It reminds me of experts like Bell Hooks, someone who I have described as having a style like talking to a close friend.

McCurdy also has a deep understanding of herself and her emotions, even during times in which she didn't understand nor want to understand the harm that was done to her and how she copes with it. It's obvious to the audience what's going on, but not to her, and she writes it in a way where we can understand the truth of her circumstances while also understanding her point of view from when she was experiencing trauma. I doubt many people can understand themselves this well.

Each chapter had me hooked. I kept telling myself that her life couldn't get worse, but then it did. There were times when I nearly cried, and once when I was so shocked that I involuntarily covered my mouth with my hand and couldn't move it back for a minute. This book will make you feel everything.

I hate how some people are shaming the book just because of the title because this is such an important story, and if you just read it you would understand the title completely.

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury

Fantasy, sci-fi, and mystery all in one? So much diversity that you can swim in it? Quite possibly the cutest romance to ever exist? I didn't know the perfect book existed and yet here it is.

I knew this book would be a favorite of mine from the moment I saw it. You have a beautiful, colorful cover on one side, and a description on the other saying a girl has to destroy her first love in order to get magic. I still can't believe that this is Sambury's debut book.

One thing I love about Blood Like Magic (and its sequel) is that despite all the fantastical elements, the books feel so real. Voya's family feels so real because they aren't rich, they aren't powerful in a social aspect, and they aren't perfect. The cast of characters feel real because POCs, gay, and trans people are going to exist no matter what. The romance feels real because they don't instantly fall in love. The plot feels real because sometimes everything will go wrong, no matter how hard you try to make it right. And of course there's the realest aspect of them all: all Black grandmas are going to have attitude.

Ok, I have to talk more about the romance because Luc and Voya are so stinking cute. I was actually squealing and kicking my feet while reading because it's so obvious that they adore each other and can't even tell. I didn't even like the enemies to lovers trope before I read this book, but Sambury does it perfectly. I also like that she makes a distinction between physical and romantic attraction because I think it gets muddled in a lot of popular books these days.

Voya's such a relatable character. We all struggle to make decisions sometimes. We never want to be left out or hurt the people we care about. Also, her name is so pretty and it doesn't even mean anything?!

Do I even have to mention that all the different types of magic are so fun and creative? Do I even have to mention that all the advanced technology seems like it could really happen? Everyone go read Blood Like Magic and Blood Like Fate right now.

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aimmyarrowshigh · 2 years

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I think I might have asked this already so feel free to just ignore if you didn't feel like answering but how is Finnick feminized by the narrative? Apart from the obvious.

DISCLAIMER: I haven't reread THG in a LONG time.

Oooh man, that's a deep cut from the blog, lol! I mean, from what I remember of my line of thinking -- mostly the obvious, insofar as Finnick is largely defined by outsiders' perspectives of his physical appearance; is a story of sexual trauma that is not about reclaiming power through retribution (which would be a more stereotypically 'masculine' trauma-recovery story, not that male victims of sexual violence are get their stories told all that often); and the climax of his story is marriage and having a child.

To whit: I am not saying any of those are FEMININE THINGS in the real world. I am saying that in Western storytelling, those things are generally reserved for female CHARACTERS and are framed in THG in a way that INTENTIONALLY SUBVERTS GENDER EXPECTATIONS, much like many of the THG characters do. Most notably, ofc, Katniss and Peeta. (I wrote a whole chapter on Panem & Gender in The Panem Companion if I rememberrrr correctlyyy? where I go into Katniss and Peeta's gender subversions, so you can check that out for them!)

I think I also touched on Finnick in there, too, but since writing TPC, I've um. improved. as a writer. and also tightened my focus a lot on analysis, so what ISN'T touched on in TPC re: Finnick and gender, and also Katniss and gender, is on the actual sentence-level language used to talk about Finnick. Since THG is told in Katniss' first-person POV at a fairly close psychic distance and without any explicit narrative unreliability, we can take Katniss' judgments of Finnick to be her personal truth (and that is why, when Katniss learns that Finnick isn't a playboy, he's a trafficked sex slave, it's such a shock for the reader, too -- because we have been going through three books taking Katniss' POV on Panem as the truth, and that's one of the moments when we remember that she is just one traumatized and very sheltered 17-year-old girl, and she's not omniscient).

Katniss views Finnick, in CF, with the same disdain that she mostly reserves for people of the Capitol and for other girls and women. Katniss? Does not like Other Girls and Katniss does not like Women. She has a mile-wide Not Like Other Girls streak going. She tends to introduce and view male characters in terms of their potential danger to her, and she introduces and views female characters -- and Finnick -- by rejecting the idea of their interiority and/or commenting on their appearance in some way, depending on how she will be interacting with them. (Caveat: that's only true for the characters who Katniss actually introduces with any detail at all, which is NOT that many.)

Finnick inspires in Katniss a very similar reaction as Effie or the Prep Team, which I think was *intended* to compare him to the Capitol since Katniss thinks at that point that he is a willing Capitol citizen and ~lover~, but functions metanarratively as Katniss falling into the same trap OF THE CAPITOLITES THEMSELVES by viewing Finnick as a sexual object rather than a person with a private inner life.

Also, Finnick fulfills the trope of the courtesan-spy. He is let into the beds of the wealthy and powerful because he's beautiful and seen as simple or less-than, and he uses it to bring down the wealthy and powerful by exposing their depravity. He's word-for-word the courtesan-spy trope, except he's a man. It's ARGUABLE that his maleness is undercut by how young he was when he started being trafficked and therefore he's functioning in this trope as a child rather than as a man, but like, he's 24 when he finally gets to air all the dirty laundry, so I think it counts. This is probably the most The Obvious(TM) answer, but it's still true.

Also, Finnick's story is a rape recovery story. While obviously rape does happen to men (and people outside the binary), the Western canon basically says that rape recovery stories are the provenance of women. This is the other most The Obvious(TM) answer, so I'm not going to go into it (also because I'd want to pull specific examples from Mockingjay that take place during his breakdown and I'm not going to go to the other room and get my book womp womp).

And also also: Finnick's story is a love story. It's a Fairytale Romance. "𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐥𝐲, 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐨, 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞, 𝐞𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲. 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞." The centerpiece of Finnick's existence is his romance, his love, his WEDDING. Again, obviously men get married, but in storytelling, romance stories are generally The Woman's Story (And A Man Is There) and not The Man's Story. (Except in fanfiction, which is a whole other essay.)

#the hunger games #books #ya lit #**thg

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minetteskvareninova · 10 months

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Minette watches Medici, part 15 (Betrayal)

- This is probably going to be a short one, because I don’t have much to complain about this episode? Like, the whole thing is questionable from the historical perspective and has a lot of problems carried over from the previous episodes, but overall the buildup to the Pazzi plot kinda slaps? Who knows, maybe I’ll fill this one with compliments instead.

- First off, one thing I forgot to mention in the previous entry: the decision to tie Galeazzo’s murder to the Pazzi conspiracy. And I mean, those two things were related, in that they were both attempts to remove an autocratic ruler and reinstate the old semi-oligarchical order, but they weren’t literally perpetuated by the same people. With that said, as far as deviations from history go, this is one of the better ones, because it fits very well into the main plot. Like, if they are going to disregard the history completely, they might as well give us something this good.

- Look, I hate to say this, because she was a great gal and shit, but... They should’ve killed Simonetta sooner. I don’t hate some of the things they were trying to do with Giuliano here, like him being distracted by women, wine and general fucking around, untill he falls in love with a girl who inspires him to take his responsibilities more seriously even after she dies. But like... The whole thing was too little too late. Instead we spend most of Simonetta and Giuliano’s time together with their dumb courtship and even dumber drama with her husband and Sandro.

- Also, the whole “Sandro loves her as an object of artistic adoration, while Giuliano loves her as an actual person” would be a great angle to take if it wasn’t for the fact that a) again, too little too late; b) if Giuliano really loved or at least respected her as an actual person, he would’ve left her alone at the first “get lost” and none of this drama would happen. These two had no fucking chemistry, but honestly that’s to be expected, I’ve yet to see a tsundere girl x presumptuous fuckboy pairing that isn’t pure trash. This is the kind of couple that gives enemies to lovers trope a bad name.

- Another thing that was too little too late? The whole thing with Giuliano finding his place as the hard first of the bank, while Lorenzo is the brain and friendly face. I don’t love either of them as characters, but they have a solid dynamic this show refuses to play on for some reason.

- Also let me clown a little on the whitewashing of Sixtus IV., like, I get that The Borgias did the whole “morally ambiguous pope” thing sooner and better, but come the fuck on. Also was his cardinal nephew supposed to be part of the conspiracy, because IRL he very much was...

- Whitewashing of the Medici family is bearing some really nasty fruits here in the form of tragic flattening of the Pazzi conspiracy. Like, where are my liberatores vibes? The Caesar references?! Halooo??? THIS SHIT COULD’VE BEEN SO POIGNANT ASFJG...

- The flashback was... Eh? Contessina’s death had me rolling my eyes, which - you know you’ve fucked up when a best girl is literally dying and my reacting is a fucking eyeroll. At the same time, we finally got some glimpses of an alternate timeline where Francesco de’ Pazzi had a decent characterization. His pride, his penchant for violence, his contentious relationship with his uncle... This dude could’ve been so interesting with some better writing! As it is, my interest in him as a character lives off of scraps and his mighty cheekbones. Ugh.

- But, I cannot emphasize this enough, despite all of my minor complaints, this was a fucking great episode! The plot was well-thought out, fast paced, the chase at the beginning kicked ass, the twists and turns of the plot were exciting, yet made perfect sense, and Carlo, oh my poor sweet Carlo, my heart goes out to you... Also my girls Clarice and Mamma Lucrezia, god how I love them. Like, so much for my conviction that I’ll end this show without any new blorbos. It’s just that I am better at complaining than praising, sorry about that.

#medici: the magnificent #minette watches medici

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hamliet · 3 years

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The Girl Who Gets to Have It All: Buffy Summers

So with @linkspooky‘s encouragement, I have binged Buffy the Vampire Slayer and relived my childhood culture. And, it's a 10/10 for me. Not that it doesn't have flaws, but it's genuinely one of the best stories I've seen, with consistent character arcs, powerful themes, and a beautiful message. It's also like... purportedly about vampires and demons and superpowered chosen ones, but it's actually all about humanity.

Buffy was able to be a teenage girl, allowed to like the things teen girls are scorned for (boys, shopping, etc), to be insecure about the thing teenage girls are insecure about (future careers, dating, school, parents), and to be a superhero with its good and its bad aspects. The story wasn’t afraid to call Buffy on her flaws (sometimes she got in a very ‘I am the righteous chosen one’ mode) and to respect and honor each of her desires (to be a good person, to be loved, and more). The story listened to what she wanted and respected her desires, giving her the challenges needed to overcome her flaws while also never teaching her a lesson about wanting bad boys or romance is silly or any manner of dark warnings stories like to throw at teenage girls.

It respected teenage girls--nerdy girls like Willow, jocks like Buffy, lonely wallflowers with trauma like Dawn, and popular/snobby ones like Cordelia, girls gone wild like Faith. It never once reduced them to the stereotypes that were lurking right there: each character was fully rounded, human, flawed and yet with respected interests and goals. This is so rare for a story that I’m still in awe.

The story as a whole follows Buffy from 15 to 21, of her as she grows from teenager to adult. She acts like a teenager and grows to act like a young adult, wrestling with loneliness and duty. The adults, like Giles, Joyce, and Jenny, are not perfect either, but neither are they “bad parents” or “bad mentors” necessarily. Joyce in particular says something terrible to Buffy, but she tries to do better, and it’s rare to see a parent in YA stories shown with such nuance. Basically, it wrote the long-lasting adult characters as human beings, too.

Speaking of growing up, I appreciated how Buffy’s love interests mirrored this. Angel was someone Buffy loved and admired, wanted to be like, but who was always either extreme good or extreme bad, and combined with Buffy’s own tendencies towards black-white thinking, made for a beautiful relationship to help her grow, but didn’t necessarily form a foundation for a long-term partner. Spike, on the other hand... they both saw each other at their worst and were drawn to each other even then, and were inspired to become better because they couldn’t bear to be a person who treated the other person so wrongly. They pushed each other to become the best them they could be, and believed in each other. Also, Spuffy is an enemies to lovers ship for the ages.

(Also, most of the other ships were well-done or at least can be understood. Riley was very obviously wrong for Buffy which paralleled Harmony and Spike in being 100% wrong for each other. Cordelia and Xander were a fun ship even if we all knew it would never last, and Willow and Oz were beautiful and cute. But Xander and Anya and Willow and Tara? OTPs. As were Giles and Jenny, the librarian and the computer teacher.)

That said, it’s not a perfect series. No story is. All of the characters and ships had problematic aspects to them worthy of critique, and the writing is very 90s in a lot of ways. It’s a product of its time, and in many ways it’s good society has progressed beyond some of the tropes/metaphors used in the show. In other way, though, the show was ahead of its time, and in a good way it wasn’t bound by the fear of purity policing with its takes on redemption (many characters would never fly today).

So, in order of seasons ranked from my very favorite to my “still enjoyed it very much” (no season was actually bad, imo), here’s my review. I’ll also review my top 10 villains in the show, because Buffy does villains very well in terms of the redeemable and irredeemable.

Season 7: Yep, the final season was my favorite.

Overall Opinion: Buffy's finale is literally "f*ck them men, our power is ours" and while it seems cheesy it actually works (also, f*ck in both a literal and figurative sense). The series strongly hit all the themes: love as strength, and redemption. Buffy consistently shows love as her strength--*all* kinds of love. Friendship w Willow/Xander, familial with Joyce/Dawn, romantic with Spike/Angel. These types of love are also never pitted against each other as is so often the case in current-day media. It's beautiful. Also, Spike’s confrontation with Wood was so powerful in terms of exploring forgiveness, redemption, and reconciliation: where they overlap and where they don't, and what it means to move forward.

Unpopular Opinion: I have seen a lot didn’t like the inclusion of Potential Slayers, and while I agree they could have been better incorporated/characterized, it was a great way to show Buffy’s final stage of growing up to be ending her chosen one status and projecting/multiplying her powers over the world.

Biggest Critique: Kennedy was female Riley--the anti-Tara to Riley’s anti-Angel (by ‘anti’ I mean opposite in every way). Kennedy was annoying and immature. Her role, like Riley’s, was less about exploring her as a character and more about her just being stamped as “love interest: lesbian.”

Favorite Episodes: Beneath You, Lies My Parents Told Me, Touched, Chosen

Season 6:

Overall Opinion: I said this on Twitter, but I felt like this was Buffy’s The Last Jedi or Empire Strikes Back moment. It is polarizing and dark, deconstructing the tropes it stands on--but by digging to the core of these tropes, it actually makes what’s good about them shine brighter. Everyone’s enemy was the worst versions of themselves. Giles left Buffy, Willow's struggle to relate to the world led to her trying to destroy it, Buffy hurt everyone through her anger, Xander abandoned Anya at the altar, Spike... yeah. It ages well as an integral part of the story, and the Trio were eerily prophetic.

Unpopular Opinion: Dawn is a great character with a good arc. A traumatized teen acting out and struggling to come to terms with loss and identity? She wasn’t whiny; she was realistic.

Biggest Critique: Willow’s addiction coding (I’ll discuss this below) and Seeing Red as an episode. I see the argument for both of its controversial scenes from a narrative perspective: Willow starts the season not grieving Buffy but instead being determined to fix it with magic and needs to learn to grieve, but. Still. Bury your gays is not a good look. For the Spike scene... he conflates sex/passion and violence (”love is blood, children” is something he said way back in season 3), but like Tara’s death, it had more to do with Spike (as Tara’s death did for Willow) than with Buffy’s arc, and as for the actual execution... they really botched that. Did it like... have to go on that long or go that far? No. Also, the framing was good, but inconsistent with the rest of the series (Xander to Buffy in the hyena episode, Faith to Xander and to Riley, etc.)

Favorite Episodes: Once More With Feeling, Smashed, Grave

Season 3 (tied with Season 5):

Overall Opinion: The opening continuity of Buffy meeting Lily/Anne after saving her life in Season 2 was sweet. The Witchhunt episode had really powerful subtext: stories of deaths that aren’t even true are actually demons that possess the town and convince them to turn against their children in the name of protecting the children. It’s a good commentary on, oh, everything in society. Faith’s character arc was fantastic, and her chemistry with Buffy was off the charts (look, I may be Spuffy all the way, but Fuffy has rights). The finale was satisfying in so many ways, seeing the entire graduating class unite to destroy the Mayor and the school with it, symbolizing Buffy et al’s readiness to move on to college. Oz's relationship with Willow was very sweet and meaningful for a first romance for Willow.

Unpopular Opinion: I actually don’t really have one. Maybe that the miracle in Amends was earned? I think you can make a decent case that Season 3 is the best written of the seasons, but can only truly be thematically appreciated to its full potential in the light of subsequent seasons (which finish Faith’s arc and deconstruct Buffy’s).

Biggest Critique: It forgot Buffy killed the hyena guy in Season 1, making her continual insistence that she can’t kill people very ?????

Favorite Episodes: Lovers Walk, Amends, Graduation Day Part 2

Season 5, which ties with Season 3:

Overall Opinion: The entire season is about family and what it means, from Tara’s to Buffy’s to the Scoobies. I loved Glory aka Enoshima Junko as the Big Bad, I loved Dawn’s interesting meta commentary on retconning (like, the fact that she’s retconned in matters), and most of my ships are still alive. Joyce’s relationship with Spike is one of the most heartwarming aspects, and Spike’s arc’s desire is clearly highlighted: he wants to be seen as a person. The episodes after Joyce’s death are the most honest portrayals of grief I’ve ever seen, and absolutely brutal to watch.

Unpopular Opinion: Buffy’s choice at the end seems a deliberate inversion of her choice at the end of Season 2 (sacrifice a loved one to save the world), but it actually isn’t: much like at the end of Season 2 where Buffy skips town because she’s devastated after killing Angel and doesn’t want to sort out being expelled, her mom knowing she’s the slayer, and her own trauma, Buffy’s sacrifice here was as much about her wanting the easy way out of relationships, family, college, etc. as it was about saving Dawn. Buffy’s death is coded as a suicide, which Season 6 emphasizes as well.

Biggest Critique: Like Season 3, I don’t have a lot to critique here. I wish the suicidal coding had been a little more obvious in Season 5 itself, but also I’m not sure it could have been more obvious; it’s pretty apparent if you pay attention. Maybe also that Buffy and Riley’s relationship failing should have been more squarely blamed on Riley, you know, being insecure and cheating.

Favorite Episodes: Family, Fool for Love, Intervention.

Season 2:

Overall Opinion: Heartbreakingly tragic but exciting and revealing at the same time. It asked the viewer interesting questions about redemption and forgiveness and atonement through Angel being honest about his past, and then decided to show us his past now reenacted, challenging us. And still, we saw them save him in a parallel to saving Willow in Season 6 (but Season 2 was tragic because it wasn’t enough, while Season 6 was not). Jenny’s death was agonizing, and the scene were Angel watches Buffy, Willow, and Joyce get the news through the window was powerful. We didn’t have to hear them to get the grief.

Unpopular Opinion: Jenny’s death isn’t a fridging; it works for her arc too when you consider her history. She worked to save the person whose life she was tasked to ruin, and it cost her her own--yet she still succeeded, because Jenny brought joy and wisdom to the show. Kendra’s death, on the other hand... was because they needed the stakes to be high--but we already knew that before she died. So, her death was useless.

Biggest Critique: The subtext was Not It. It was essentially “do not have sex. Your older boyfriend will lose his soul, kill your friends, you’ll lose your family, your school, your home, and have to kill your true love or else hell will literally swallow earth.”

Favorite Episodes: School Hard, Passion, Becoming Part 2.

Season 1:

Overall Opinion: I really liked it; it’s just lower on this list because the others are just better. It’s a great introduction to the series and to its characters, from Giles to Buffy to Willow to Jenny to Cordelia. It has great subtext a lot of the time (for example, Natalie French as She-Mantis is a literal predatory bug who engages in predatory behavior with students). Additionally, it subverts the typical YA trope of two guys and a girl, in which the girl is usually the least interesting character. Buffy and Willow were both fully fledged characters from the beginning with distinct strengths (even before Willow became a witch, as she wasn’t one in season 1 yet), while Xander was the more ordinary of the group.

Unpopular Opinion/Biggest Critique: Xander’s arc showed its first flaws that unfortunately continued throughout the series: his writing was either very good or very indulgent in ways it never was for other characters. (cough, the hyena episode, cough, in which he gets to skirt responsibility--and acknowledges that he is skirting it--for something the show will later hold others to account for). Xander’s just kind of inconsistent, which weakened his character over all. (Which is why both his love interests--Cordelia and then ultimately Anya--were good for him: they did not indulge him.)

Favorite Episode: Witch, Nightmares.

Season 4:

Overall Opinion: it’s still a good season. It’s a good portrayal of college and the growing pains of branching out, the strains of college growth on relationships (romantic and platonic). It shows us the first hints of Spuffy, giving us some serious Jungian symbolism between Spike and Buffy early on, and does well in establishing Xander/Anya and Willow/Tara as beautiful OTPs. Faith and Buffy’s foiling is fantastic. The Halloween episode was very fun as well. However, it suffers because its Big Bad, Adam, is not all that compelling thematically--yet, he could have been. See, the final battle pulls off the Power of Friendship in a really strong way but notably the season does not end there. Instead, it ends on dreams of each character’s worst fears, continuing what we saw in Nightmares in Season 1. Why? Because it shows us that the characters’ wars aren’t against monsters, but monsters of their own making: their flaws. Adam, as a literal Frankenstein, exemplifies this, but it wasn’t capitalized on as well as it could have been.

Unpopular Opinion: Beer Bad isn’t a bad episode, at the very least because Buffy gets to punch Parker. It’s not one of the series’ best, obviously, but it does give Buffy an arc in that she gets her daydream of Parker begging her to come back, but she has overcome that desire and her desire for revenge. If we wanna talk about bad subtext in Season 4, Season 2′s Not It sex subtext continues in the Where the Wild Things Are episode in this season; it’s a powerful callout of abusive purity-culture churches, until the fact that the shame creates a literal curse undermines the progressive message it’s supposed to send. Also, the Thanksgiving episode (Pangs) is a nightmare of white guilt and Oh God Shut Up White People.

Biggest Critique: Riley is awful. Like Kennedy, he had “love interest:normal” stamped on him and that was it. The thing is, he could have worked as an Angel foil, representative of the normal-life aspect of Buffy to Angel’s vampire/supernatural aspect, but the writers never explore this and seemed to even try to back away from that later on. They threw all the romantic cliches at the wall to see what sticks, from klutzy “I dropped my schoolbooks, that’s how we met” to cliché lines that had me rolling my eyes. Do you know how bad a romance has to be to make me dislike romantic tropes?

Favorite Episodes: Fear Itself, Hush, Restless

Villain rankings:

Dark Willow, the only villain to be truly sympathetic. While the addiction coding was insensitive and, while unsurprising for its time, aged extremely poorly. That said, Willow’s turn to the dark side after Tara’s death worked well for her character and the story: it was believable and paid off what had been building since Season 1's “Nightmares” episode (Willow’s inferiority complex).

Glory managed to be genuinely terrifying, and humorous/enjoyable too. Her minions and their numerous nicknames for Glorificus were hilarious, as was her intense vanity. Her merging with Ben--a human being who genuinely wanted to be kind and good--added complexity and tragedy to her role.

The First. A really good take on Satan. The seventh season as well as the First’s first appearance in season 3′s “Amends” had kind of blatant Christian symbolism, and so the First being essentially Satan works. Their disguising themselves as dead loved ones and the subtle manipulation they used to alienate people was really disturbing and well done.

The Mayor, who was a terrible person but a truly good father. He provided an interesting contrast to the normal ‘bad dad’ bad guy character, in that he provided Faith exactly what the other characters refused to: he saw the best in her and offered her parental support, while the heroes didn’t and wound up pushing her away.

The Trio, who were villains ahead of their time: whiny fanboy reddit dudebros, basically. The stakes seemed so much lower than fighting Glory, a literal god, the previous season. But that’s why they worked so well for Season 6′s human themes, and were especially disturbing because we all know people like them. I also appreciated the surprisingly sensitive takes on Jonathan and Andrew, who got to redeem themselves, but Warren did not, and I don’t think he should have either.

Angelus + Drusilla. I’m ranking them below the Trio because Angelus was just sooooo different from Angel that it was difficult for me to feel the same way for him. He was still Angel, so it wasn’t possible to enjoy his villainy, but he also wasn’t nearly as sympathetic as Dark Willow, had no redeeming qualities like the Mayor, and wasn’t as disturbingly realistic as the Trio. However, the emotional stakes were excellently executed with him as the Big Bad, in that you were never quite sure how to feel and it just plain hurt. Also, Drusilla was a favorite recurring character. She was sympathetic and yet batsh*t enough to be enjoyable as a villain at the same time.

The Master, who was just completely camp and really worked as an introductory villain. He was scary enough to believe he was a threat, and was funny enough to introduce the series’ humor as well. He was, like Glory, an enjoyable Big Bad.

The Gentlemen, the one-off villains of Season 4′s Hush who were genuinely terrifying. It’s not as if they got a lot of explanation or any backstory, but they didn’t need it.

Caleb, the misogynist priest. Fitting with the First’s Christian symbolism, Caleb serving as a spokesperson of all bad religious beliefs felt appropriate. He was also a good foil to Warren--being actually supernaturally powered instead of a wannabe--and to Tara’s family in being full-out evil. I despised him.

Snyder. Okay Snyder is not a Big Bad like Adam is, but let’s face it: Adam is lame compared to the other villains. But Snyder as a principal? He was so irritating and yet really well used in the series to critique overly strict, hypocritical teachers. Like, we all know teachers like him. I loved to hate him, and his ending was so satisfying.

#buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #spuffy #buffy summers #dawn summers #spike #angel #cordelia chase #btvs giles #willow rosenberg #tillow #tara maclay #anya jenkins #xanya #xander harris #jenny calendar #kendra young #faith lehane #hamliet reviews

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tibby · 3 years

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tibby do you have any fun riverdale takes, i'm already dying in the hiatus and need to hear you talk about serial killer genes and milfs again

this isn’t really fun or about milfs and it’s mainly just rambly feelings, but hopefully it’s something. anyway i’ve been thinking a lot about how each main character in riverdale can be seen as representing specific genres in film/tv/books, and betty is meant to represent thriller/psychological horror, if you subscribe to that theory. and i think in a lot of ways that betty is sort of...a reinvention of the final girl. long time followers of mine know how much it annoys me when people call every female character in horror a final girl, and i think the trope itself has been completely twisted away from its original meaning, but i think betty DOES represent a lot of the core elements, even if she strays from some of the others (hence why she’s a reinvention of one, as opposed to a classic final girl).

to borrow quotes from carol clover, who coined the term:

"she is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the preceding horror and of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise, and scream again. she is abject terror personified...she alone looks death in the face, but she alone also finds the strength either to stay the killer long enough to be rescued (ending a) or kill him herself (ending b).”

“she is intelligent, watchful, levelheaded; the first character to sense something amiss and the only one to deduce from the accumulating evidence the pattern and extent of the threat; the only one, in other words, whose perspective approaches our own privileged understanding of the situation. when she downs the killer, we are triumphant. “

““tortured survivor” might be a better term than “hero”...or, as i call her, “victim-hero,” with an emphasis on “victim.” it’s a great moment when she stops the killer, but to imagine that her, and our, experience of the film reduces her to that last-minute reversal is to truly miss the point.”

betty is repeatedly shown to be inspired by iconic final girls: she dresses like laurie strode on halloween, she lives on elm street like nancy thompson, she played sue snell, and she’s constantly being a parallel to clarice starling. betty may not be a nice person, but she was originally sold as the good girl. she didn’t party, she was a virgin, she was your classic 1980s slasher survivor with her ponytail and jeans and sweaters. she was intelligent, watchful, and levelheaded. until things started to go wrong, and the people she loved started to get hurt, and suddenly she wasn’t so levelheaded anymore. betty will hunt down killers, threaten lives, manipulate others - but always breaks down at the moment when she actually has to pull the trigger. she’s the equal to the black hood, to charles, to the gargoyle king, etc etc. she knows how to make it to the end, but she also knows how slippery the slope from Horror Survivor to Insane and Dangerous can be. she’s both alice and mrs voorhees: a victim hero, but also a woman who’ll go to insane lengths to get vengeance.

and i think betty is sort of where the trope was always headed. final girls no longer run and hide and only kill the killer when there’s no other options left and no friends to turn to (if they’re even the one to pull the hypothetical trigger). sidney prescott gives them hell every single time, grace le domas quickly learns how to beat her husband’s fucked up family at their brutal little game, tree gelbman gets tough and gets even, dana polk decides that if you can’t beat them, destroy us all. betty is struggling with her inner demons, but that doesn’t stop her from fighting dirty in her attempts to get justice or solve the case or outsmart the bad guys.

betty is riverdale’s representation of horror and thriller, she’s abject terror personified, she’s the girl that emerges in the end, covered in blood that isn’t entirely her own. if betty is a hero, then she’s a victim hero, a tortured survivor hardened by her experiences, and the genre she’s constrained by.

#i don't think this makes sense. sorry it's 1am.#meta #not really but i can't find any of my old rambling asks so i need to start tagging them with something #ask #Anonymous

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hexalt · 4 years

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CW for discussion of suicide

- She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - What? No, I'm not. - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - That's a sexist term! - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - Can you guys stop singing for just a second? - She's so broken insiiiiiide! - The situation's a lot more nuanced than that!

There’s the essay! You get it now. JK.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the culmination of Rachel Bloom’s YouTube channel (and the song “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” in particular where she combined her lifelong obsession with musical theatre and sketch comedy and Aline Brosh McKenna stumbling onto Bloom’s channel one night while having an idea for a television show that subverted the tropes in scripts she’d been writing like The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses.

The show begins with a flashback to teenage Rebecca Bunch (played by Bloom) at summer camp performing in South Pacific. She leaves summer camp gushing about the performance, holding hands with the guy she spent all summer with, Josh Chan. He says it was fun for the time, but it’s time to get back to real life. We flash forward to the present in New York, Rebecca’s world muted in greys and blues with clothing as conservative as her hair.

She’s become a top tier lawyer, a career that she doesn’t enjoy but was pushed into by her overprotective, controlling mother. She’s just found out she’s being promoted to junior partner, and that’s just objectively, on paper fantastic, right?! ...So why isn’t she happy? She goes out onto the streets in the midst of a panic attack, spilling her pills all over the ground, and suddenly sees an ad for butter asking, “When was the last time you were truly happy?” A literal arrow and beam of sunlight then point to none other than Josh Chan. She strikes up a conversation with him where he tells her he’s been trying to make it in New York but doesn’t like it, so he’s moving back to his hometown, West Covina, California, where everyone is just...happy.

The word echoes in her mind, and she absorbs it like a pill. She decides to break free of the hold others have had over her life and turns down the promotion of her mother’s dreams. I didn’t realize the show was a musical when I started it, and it’s at this point that Rebecca is breaking out into its first song, “West Covina”. It’s a parody of the extravagant, classic Broadway numbers filled with a children’s marching band whose funding gets cut, locals joining Rebecca in synchronized song and dance, and finishing with her being lifted into the sky while sitting on a giant pretzel. This was the moment I realized there was something special here.

With this introduction, the stage has been set for the premise of the show. Each season was planned with an overall theme. Season one is all about denial, season two is about being obsessed with love and losing yourself in it, season three is about the spiral and hitting rock bottom, and season four is about renewal and starting from scratch. You can see this from how the theme songs change every year, each being the musical thesis for that season.

We start the show with a bunch of cliché characters: the crazy ex-girlfriend; her quirky sidekick; the hot love interest; his bitchy girlfriend; and his sarcastic best friend who’s clearly a much better match for the heroine. The magic of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is that no one in West Covina is the sum of their tropes. As Rachel says herself, “People aren’t badly written, people are made of specificities.”

The show is revolutionary for the authenticity with which it explores various topics but for the sake of this piece, we’ll discuss mental health, gender, Jewish identity, and sexuality. All topics that Bloom has dug into in her previous works but none better than here.

Simply from the title, many may be put off, but this is a story that has always been about deconstructing stereotypes. Rather than being called The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, where the story would be from an outsider’s perspective, this story is from that woman’s point of view because the point isn’t to demonize Rebecca, it’s to understand her. Even if you hate her for all the awful things she’s doing.

The musical numbers are shown to be in Rebecca’s imagination, and she tells us they’re how she processes the world, but as she starts healing in the final season, she isn’t the lead singer so often anymore and other characters get to have their own problems and starring roles. When she does have a song, it’s because she’s backsliding into her former patterns.

While a lot of media will have characters that seem to have some sort of vague disorder, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend goes a step further and actually diagnoses Rebecca with Borderline Personality Disorder, while giving her an earnest, soaring anthem. She’s excited and relieved to finally have words for what’s plagued her whole life.

When diagnosing Rebecca, the show’s team consulted with doctors and psychiatrists to give her a proper diagnosis that ended up resonating with many who share it. BPD is a demonized and misunderstood disorder, and I’ve heard that for many, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the first honest and kind depiction they’ve seen of it in media. Where the taboo of mental illness often leads people to not get any help, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend says there is freedom and healing in identifying and sharing these parts of yourself with others.

Media often uses suicide for comedy or romanticizes it, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend explored what’s going through someone’s mind to reach that bottomless pit. Its climactic episode is written by Jack Dolgen (Bloom’s long-time musical collaborator, co-songwriter and writer for the show) who’s dealt with suicidal ideation. Many misunderstood suicide as the person simply wanting to die for no reason, but Rebecca tells her best friend, “I didn’t even want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop. It’s like I was out of stories to tell myself that things would be okay.”

Bloom has never shied away from heavy topics. The show discusses in song the horrors of what women do to their bodies and self-esteem to conform to beauty standards, the contradiction of girl power songs that tell you to “Put Yourself First” but make sure you look good for men while doing it, and the importance of women bonding over how terrible straight men are are near and dear to her heart. This is a show that centers marginalized women, pokes fun at the misogyny they go through, and ultimately tells us the love story we thought was going to happen wasn’t between a woman and some guy but between her and her best friend.

I probably haven’t watched enough Jewish TV or film, but to me, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the most unapologetic and relatable Jewish portrayal I’ve seen overall. From Rebecca’s relationship with her toxic, controlling mother (if anyone ever wants to know what my mother’s like, I send them “Where’s the Bathroom”) to Patti Lupone’s Rabbi Shari answering a Rebecca that doesn’t believe in God, “Always questioning! That is the true spirit of the Jewish people,” the Jewish voices behind the show are clear.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend continues to challenge our perceptions when a middle-aged man with an ex-wife and daughter realizes he’s bisexual and comes out in a Huey Lewis saxophone reverie. The hyper-feminine mean girl breaks up with her boyfriend and realizes the reason she was so obsessed with getting him to commit to her is the same reason she’s so scared to have female friends. She was suffering under the weight of compulsory heterosexuality, but thanks to Rebecca, she eventually finds love and friendship with women.

This thread is woven throughout the show. Many of the characters tell Rebecca when she’s at her lowest of how their lives would’ve never changed for the better if it wasn’t for her. She was a tornado that blew through West Covina, but instead of leaving destruction in her wake, she blew apart their façades, forcing true introspection into what made them happy too.

Rebecca’s story is that of a woman who felt hopeless, who felt no love or happiness in her life, when that’s all she’s ever wanted. She tried desperately to fill that void through validation from her parents and random men, things romantic comedies had taught her matter most but came up empty. She tried on a multitude of identities through the musical numbers in her mind, seeing herself as the hero and villain of the story, and eventually realized she’s neither because life doesn’t make narrative sense.

It takes her a long time but eventually she sees that all the things she thought would solve her problems can’t actually bring her happiness. What does is the real family she finds in West Covina, the town she moved to on a whim, and finally having agency over herself to use her own voice and tell her story through music.

The first words spoken by Rebecca are, “When I sang my solo, I felt, like, a really palpable connection with the audience.” Her last words are, “This is a song I wrote.” This connection with the audience that brought her such joy is something she finally gets when she gets to perform her story not to us, the TV audience, but to her loved ones in West Covina. Rebecca (and Rachel) always felt like an outcast, West Covina (and creating the show) showed her how cathartic it is to find others who understand you.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the prologue to Rebecca’s life and the radical story of someone getting better. She didn’t need to change her entire being to find acceptance and happiness, she needed to embrace herself and accept love and help from others who truly cared for her. Community is what she always needed and community is what ultimately saved her.

P.S. If you have Spotify... I also process life through music, so I made some playlists related to the show because what better way to express my deep affection for it than through song?

CXG parodies, references, and is inspired by a lot of music from all kinds of genres, musicals, and musicians. Same goes for the videos themselves. I gathered all of them into one giant playlist along with the show’s songs.

A Rebecca Bunch mix that goes through her character arc from season 1 to 4.

I’m shamelessly a fan of Greg x Rebecca, so this is a mega mix of themselves and their relationship throughout the show.

I’m in a TV group where we wrote essays on our favorite shows of the 2010s, so here is mine on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I realized I forgot to ever post it. Also wrote one for Schitt’s Creek.

#crazy ex girlfriend #crazyexedit #cxg #ceg #crazy ex gf #writing #mine #mental illness #bpd #mental health #spotify #music #playlist #essay #*

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kingswriting · 3 years

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30 Day Writing Challenge

hey everyone! i’m trying to challenge myself to get back into writing, and i’d like to challenge everyone to do it with me! you don’t have to start on a certain day - just jump in whenever you want!

Day 1: Write for the duration of one song. Do that again for another song. Or don’t. Or do it again for a whole playlist. It’s totally up to you! Don’t think or plan what you’re going to write. Just write. Stop the second the song ends.

Day 2: Find an image that really speaks to you. Write something based on it. It can be an image of anything, whether it be fanart for a specific fandom or just a picture of scenery.

Day 3: Find a one sentence prompt from tumblr or pinterest and write a piece about it. Length doesn’t matter.

Day 4: Find a book in your home and flip to one of the following pages: 28, 106, 242. Find one of the following sentences: 10th, 23rd, 38th. Use that sentence to write a piece.

Day 5: I read somewhere that Elvis Presley still gets hundreds of Valentines sent to his address every year. I don’t know how true it is, but it’s kind of cute. Write about someone who wrote one of those Valentines.

Day 6: Find this year’s Inktober list. (Hint: It’s right here.) Randomly generate a number. Write something based on that numbered prompt.

Day 7: For today’s prompt, you’re gonna reach way back in your head and remember something you wrote way back in the day, when you first started writing. Whether that be a year ago or 10 years ago, write a scene that you think you could improve upon. If you can’t think of anything, rewrite a scene in some piece of media you’ve consumed recently that you think you could improve upon.

Day 8: Use this generator to create a random character. Write about them. For an extra challenge, write about two random characters.

Day 9: Think of a movie, book, tv trope that you really hate. Do you hate when a big, dramatic scene ends and turns out to just be a dream? Do you hate the manic pixie dream girl? Do you, like all of us, hate ‘kill your gays?’ Flip it on its head. Instead of the queer coded fashionable villain trope, write about a straight coded, khaki-wearing villain. If you need help check out tvtropes.com.

Day 10: Freewrite. Set yourself a timer, whether it be for a minute, two minutes, five, or fifteen, freewrite. Don’t plan anything ahead of time. Let the words flow and see what happens.

Day 11: Find five things in your room that seem really unimportant, like a pencil, a dog bowl, or an empty cardboard box. Choose one of those things. Write a piece about that thing being the emotional centerpoint.

Day 12: Have you ever seen a music video that just makes you wanna create something? You can’t tell exactly what it is about it, but it just makes you wanna do something? Find that music video and watch it. During the duration of the music video, think. Let your brain be creative. After you watch it, write for 5 minutes. If you don’t have a music video in mind, challenge yourself to choose a music video outside of the genre you usually listen to and let it inspire you.

Day 13: Write a little something about your favorite OC. This can be a character from a WIP you’re already working on, or an OC you shelved a while back. Just have fun with it! For an extra challenge, try to write something over 1000 words.

Day 14: What if two main characters from two different stories got switched? What if Harry Potter and Percy Jackson switched places? Write about a main character ending up in a different story - whether the story be your own original WIP or an already existing story. Don’t be afraid to go wild with this one! Put Jon Snow in your own WIP. Have fun!

Day 15: Sometimes, it’s nice to just read about domesticity- no drama, no angst, just people doing things like grocery shopping or home renovations. Write about someone doing one of those domestic things that just makes you feel all fuzzy inside. This doesn’t have to be romantic - just write about people living their normal lives in a really cute way.

Day 16: Everyone has a strength as a writer, whether they know it or not. What’s your strength? What do you think you’re best at? Write a piece that really plays into those strengths. Are you really good at writing gripping dialogue? Do you make scenes come to life with your flowery descriptions? Can you make just about anyone cry when you write sad scenes? Do it. Just do it.

Day 17: Write a piece in which your character has a secret. But here’s the twist - you don’t know the secret yet. Let it come to you as your character is challenged by the people around them.

Day 18: Have you heard that every birthmark you have signifies somewhere that your soulmate has kissed you the most amount of times? Write about one of your birthmarks. Or someone else’s. Or one of your OC’s.

Day 19: Look up your name on pinterest - it might help to add the word ‘aesthetic’ afterwards. Write a piece based on one of the boards that comes up. If your name doesn’t work (like mine - all I get is chairs??), use your middle name, your last name, or if none of those work, use an OC’s name.

Day 20: Think of a place in the world that makes you feel a certain type of way. Do you feel small when you look at the stars at the beach? Do you feel at home when you walk through the woods? Write about a character in that specific place and how they might feel.

Day 21: We all have things that we want to write about our OCs that we know, deep down, will never make it into the final cut. They may be self indulgent, they may be unnecessary, but everyone knows that self indulgent writing is the best writing. Write that scene you’ve been dying to write, regardless of whether or not you’re going to use it in the future.

Day 22: Time to take it back a few days to the trope question. What’s a trope that you really just love? The pink haired/black haired ship? Platonic soulmates? Take this trope and flip it. See it from a different perspective. Do you love the fake relationship trope? Twist it and make it a fake enemy-ship. Do you love the best friends to lovers trope? Flip it and make it lovers to best friends.

Day 23: Choose one of these playlists. They’re all catered after certain moods - but try your best to write a piece that is opposite of the intended mood, while still taking the playlist into consideration. Listening to a daydreamy playlist? Write something gritty and realistic. Listening to a love playlist? Write about a breakup.

Day 24: Write a scene in a genre that is way out of your comfort zone. Are you a romance writer who has never taken a crack at horror before? Write something that’ll scare your own socks off. Are you a sci-fi writer who avoids romance like the plague? Write a good smooch. If you need a little help, here’s some prompts.

Day 25: Imagine that a tattoo signifies something significant that happened to you in a past life. Write about one of your tattoos, someone else’s, or one of your OC’s. Or just make something up. Write about what happened to this person in their past life, and what the tattoo is.

Day 26: Choose a scene from something you’ve watched/played/read recently. It doesn’t matter what the scene is. But write it in a completely different timeline. You can change the characters if you’d like. But if the story is a fantasy set in medieval times, write it as a modern piece. If it’s set in modern day, set it in the future. Who knows? You might end up changing the scene completely.

Day 27: Take this test to find out what animal you are. Write about a chance encounter with this animal and what that might mean for your character.

Day 28: Check out someone that you follow on tumblr. Find out about one of their WIPs, choose a character from one of them, and write about them with one of your OCs. If you don’t currently use tumblr, ask a friend about one of their characters. Challenge yourself to write someone else’s character as accurately as you can.

Day 29: This is going to be an easy one - you’ve worked hard this month. Write 1000 words on your current WIP. If you don’t have a current WIP, or you can’t choose one to write on, write 1000 words. Whatever you want.

Day 30: Take one of the pieces you wrote on Day 1 and rewrite it. Do whatever you want with it- but definitely listen to the song while you do! Make it as long or short as you want to.

#writeblr #writing challenge #30 day writing challenge #original writing

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letusmeetagain · 3 years

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First i wanna say i really like all your analysis and theories because you put so much effort into them and im really gratful we have someone like you who like i said again have wonderful theories that make so much sense so please i have a question for you regarding a certain well...very dragged topic so if you wouldnt like to awswer i will totally understand it just i wanted to hear YOUR opinion because i really do appreciate your analysis of snk anyway my question is regarding erehisu...not i dislike it but its just im so tired can isayama make em or eh canon already so this clownery end...BUT i really do believe eremika will be the endgame because of all the proof that we have in the manga but people tend to make it as if its a crack ship ugh...what do you think hisu's final role will be? What do you think eren awswered her? Though i dont believe hisu's question meant any romantic undertones what do you make out of her question to eren?

Hi anon!!

Thank you for your kind words T.T

Well... the question focuses on my opinion on which ship has more chances to become canon, right?

I’ve spent some time thinking about my answer to this question, how I could go direct to the point while giving enough arguments to defend my opinion. Prepare yourself because I couldn’t and this will be very long. Sorry...

1. Eren’s characterization + romance

First of all, there is a very important point about Eren that shipers (even me sometimes) forget. A friend that loves and understand Eren the most pointed this many times when I was starting to forget about it... I dare to say that nobody surpasses her understanding of his characterization.

Eren isn’t a romantic person. We all have to keep in mind that his priorities aren’t the priorities a normal person would have. He is like Rick from Casablanca. There’s the duty and then dreams and then, maybe, romantic love (If we take for granted that he knows what it is). Erwin loved Marie but he had a priority. (There’s me finding more similarities between Erwin and Eren). Eren’s current development is more about his mission than a romantic one. Although he plays with romance, he does it while being blatantly blind about it.

Eren got caught in the middle of his normal development from a child that gets annoyed by romance and has some kind of allergy against cheesy moments (for ex. in ch. 3 with Franz and Hannah) to a teenager that blooms to feel romantic love as something important and unavoidable. It’s normal for kids. But Eren hasn’t a normal life. There was always something more important than learning how to love, be loved and express it openly. It’s not that he isn’t able to love, more likely the opposite. He knows how to love and he has his own ways to do it... but the way the world is restricted his possibilities to live a different life. Even in the way EMA never got to communicate properly most of the times. Communication runs sometimes as a question, a statement and no back question (for ex. ch. 3). Eren asked about Mikasa’s reasons to follow him, about Armin’s reasons, where he threw that line about his death being meaningless. Nobody said anything, neither Mikasa nor Eren reacted stating the opposite. They usually don’t have the time nor oportunity to talk or even think about essential topics as feelings of love or labeling their feelings.

Given Eren’s lack of experience and maturity that we could see until Marley arc. Is it even possible that he developed a carnal relationship with Historia before going to Marley? No. No, because it would contradict somehow his characterization. Eren is depicted exactly as someone that took this decision because he lost every single deep bond that would have stopped him. This lack of understanding brought him to this point. The lack of value he places on life and a comfortable life with friends and family.

2. The baby

The whole baby plot point is from my perspective just about the curse and a new generation (maybe) free from being SoY but just normal human beings.

Historia choosing this way was also the safest way to oppose her destiny... strategically speaking. She could trick everyone without being called openly a traitor. So I’m agree with you. Her question wasn’t romantic.

3. The father and his meaning

The father is, as I pointed out once in my Twitter acc., the farmer. My reasons are that there is a meaning behind his existence. He was a boy that dared Historia to break the rules and stop being submissive. He is aligned with Historia’s current role as someone who stopped being the good girl that follows stupid and detrimental rules in disregard of her own life. He is also a man that decided to redeem himself by helping her with the orphanage without trying to get her attention at all. Being a normal person who enjoys a normal life and also redemption. I’m not saying necessarily that it’s about love, but he isn’t just a nobody. He holds a deep, positive meaning for the story. Isayama pairs usually a sinner and an “innocent”: Annie and Armin, Eren and Mikasa, Erwin and Levi, Ymir and Krista, Historia and the Farmer. Eren and Historia are the current sinners on the matter that both chose the rumbling... let’s say.

Why this kind of pairing? Because one has to contribute to the improvement of the other. Two sinners (with the same crime and perspective) can’t help each other. It’s opposition what will bring them to overcome their weaknesses.

4. Development of the couples

That being said, Eren and Mikasa as pair are in the focus. Isayama went through 10 years of development of most of the pairs to build up a support for EreMika. He build parallels with YumiHisu and Falbi and gave us hints to understand EM better. The vow he made to her was probably one of those moments when he started to be romantic without noticing.

5. Eren and Historia: their moments

EH interactions are, conversely, of other nature. Both feel related about the point of carrying a big burden. While Eren has to save humanity fighting, Historia has the role of a founder who has to assure humanity’s survival by having children and keeping the royal family alive. Both want to be free from that burden and end up being “partners in crime” by betraying everyone. I’m missing the romantic interactions to be very honest. It’s because Eren is so self-focused that he anchors here when someone who is alone and having the same problems and feelings appears. But... where did the fandom start to see something between them?

Two moments. The moment when he said “she is admirable” and the moment when he insisted to spare her life. That obsession that is so tricky to even be explained.

The first one made a difference between how Eren acknowledges Historia’s attributes and disregards Mikasa’s. The fandom uses this to point out that Eren likes Historia more. Well, no. His relationship towards Mikasa was characterized by jealousy. He won’t admit anything.

Regarding his “obsession” to save her... this started when he knew the existence of Eren Krüger, his thoughts and the whole story about Dina. It wasn’t before that. We must also admit that Historia’s safety was related to more characters than just Eren. Since the very beginning, her safety was conveniently displayed by Frieda, Ymir and Reiner, what makes me believe that her destiny was to give birth to this baby (aka. plot armor). Her role is to avoid becoming a titan by her own choice, that’s her arc. With Krüger we also knew the importance of a royal: they can give birth to more convenient instruments for war. Knowing that he was devoted to the mission, I believe that Eren is being influenced by him (I want to highlight the word “influenced” as something different to manipulated). So this is all related to the mission and the final outcome about Ymir, the curse, the power and the baby. Eren partly wants to grant her the chance to choose, but he also pushes her to do so based on part of her desires because of the mission as he did with Grisha.

Add here the fact that Historia was prepared to sacrifice his life at the cave if it was needed. That shows her priorities.

A lot of EH shippers claim that she saved him. Regarding her role as savior, I’m more objective and skeptical. She spared his life, but emotionally speaking, she didn’t really save him. The proof is that he was still low, thinking that he was a nobody. Carla’s words were the message with enough impact to relieve him and make him open himself to Armin and Mikasa and tell them about his sorrows. This shows the difference on the impact on him when it comes to Historia and when it comes to Carla... this happens again in ch. 131. He thinks about his mother instead of Historia who was the one reproving his plan. To me, Historia is his friend and inspired him to fight just for his sake against the system and rebel those who are over him and oppressing him. But his soft side is related to Carla, Armin and Mikasa: his family and those, who appreciate his life over his fate and urge of freedom and to be acknowledged.

Bonus: when Eren told Historia that she saved him was more like “You chose this path once and I’m sorry. I’ll be starting the rumbling and you contributed”. Historia’s face to that looks like this: “Oh no...I fucked up”. It doesn’t look like “Oh no... I don’t regret saving you because I love you and I can’t live without you”. On the contrary, that’s when she realizes that she was part of this since the beginning and that by saving him, she chose to let the rumbling happen once in the past. Then she goes along with the plan for her own reasons and because she hasn’t better options to choose either.

Summary:

Eren didn’t develop as a romantic person yet nor prioritized romantic love over his mission. It goes against a previous explicit development of EH before the trip to Marley. The farmer has a positive meaning as the father. EM is more developed and shows romantic undertones and common tropes. EH hasn’t romantic undertones and it’s more related to the mission to save the eldians.

So... that was it. Sorry again for the length and thank you for the ask!

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serpentsapple · 4 years

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(Due to the topics discussed, this post includes general spoilers for: the Shades of Magic series, the Grisha Trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, Deathless, The Bear and the Nightingale, The Priory of the Orange Tree, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell as well as the Yukibana no Tora manga.)

Book after book, especially in fantasy, one might come across a similar situation: daring plots, grandiose characters, extensive worldbuilding… until it concerns women. Then, all creativity goes to the drain, reusing the same tropes, the same caricatures of how a woman behaves and where her rightful place is – a supportive aside to the main characters’ journey, absent, if not outright dead. Such criticism is often levelled at male writers, their lack of effort, their fetishes obvious. Yet what of female authors?

Women, it is said, do not fall into the same traps as men and create complex male characters with more passion than any man will spare for a female one. Do they, thus, honour their fictional counterparts in kind? Would reading women be the solution to the neverending waves of stereotyped heroines and love interests?

Unfortunately, we found ourselves confronted to the same rancid ideas in books authored by women. Too often, their characters oscillate between virginity and depravity, eternal victimhood and stupidity. Vapid and vain, or weeping and weak, or sweet and pure, all to better "defile" them later; their personality barely sketched in the sidelines, their existence hardly worth a mention, their life trivial, sacrificed. Thus appears a string of familiar figures: the dead idealised mother, the living but children-fixated mother, weak, crying; the shallow, beauty obsessed queens and girls, stupid and selfish to the core; the beloved sisters and relatives, abused and killed to distress the male half of their family; the missing female friends and aunts and grandmothers and passersby, the women whose very presence is omitted, repeatedly.

This listing may have triggered a few memories, especially to readers familiar with young adult literature, but let’s be specific: do you recall the few appearing girls derided by Lila Bard, in Schwab’s Shades of Magic series? The queen, always afraid and weeping, having no life outside of her fears and her son? Perhaps, if you persisted until the last volume, you also assisted, powerless, to the systematic abuse and slaughter of every other female character while men mourned?

Or maybe have you picked up Bardugo’s first fantasy series, The Grisha Trilogy, with its vain and unnamed Ravkan queen, its most beautiful woman punished with ugliness, its villain’s mother sacrificing herself for her son and disdaining her daughter? Or were you more interested in her later additions to her universe, Six of Crows, with its dead or mad mothers, its silly and grating young wife to a much older man, its manipulated girl-assassin finding no common grounds with her female rival, only death?

Have you opened Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale and felt dismayed at the lack of care towards Vasya’s sister, sent away at a young age to marry and breed? At the upsetting and unending sexual suffering of a not that much older stepmother, turned bitter and cruel, demeaned despite her resemblance to the heroine, worthy of no compassion?

Perhaps you might have perused Valente’s Deathless where Baba Yaga is portrayed as a bitter old crone expressing sexual jealousy of Marya, espousing views such as a wife’s role is to be a “good mount for her husband”? Her enslavement of the previous Yelenas who were used up and cast aside as Koschei’s sexual playthings (and even more swiftly discarded by the narrative) with Marya giving only a fleeting thought to their plight?

Or Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell wherein a female perspective is conspicuously absent, existing only to be dutiful wives or hapless victims caught in a powerplay between magical men and maleficent fairies?

It would seem only a few chosen women and girls can be in the spotlight. These, usually, take the mantle of "heroines", though, as we noticed, female authors will still not allow them the same latitude as men. Stuck in a man-made world, they must submit to their gazes still, solely rely on them for friendship, love, knowledge and general plot advancement; with their every interaction tied to them, they, too, see their development denied in favour of the men’s. They must shrink themselves, give up on their ambitions, their ambiguity, accept a society designed entirely against them and feel grateful for the scraps of freedom graciously ceded to them. In that sense, they resemble very much the other girls they often strive to detach themselves from.

You may have noticed, in The Bear and the Nightingale, how Vasya, a young girl of fourteen, cannot escape the gaze of a lustful priest, the very narration also espousing his point of view, decentering her. Magic may allow her a way out of forced unions and pregnancies, yet still misogyny weights her down, isolating her from other girls and women, like her stepmother.

You may also have come across the various threats of rape Lila Bard must endure, her cross-dressing to prevent this, her loneliness and contempt for the members of her own sex. You may have noted her ambition and recklessness, only to see it crumble before a male character’s tragic backstory, while her very own desires and excessiveness were handwaved amidst a plot focusing on temptation.

Or you may have seen, in the pages of the manga Yukibana no Tora, a bold female warlord overcome her discomfort with men by ordering a friend to "take" her, turning herself into a passive recipient for men’s sexuality. Her life experience and thus, her differing point of view and confidence in herself is completely swept away. Even in a fictionalised account of her life, she must yield to men’s degrading view of her body.

In fact, despite the infinite possibilities offered by fantasy, many women still build cultures infused with conservatism. Traditional gender roles remain enforced in appearances: makeup, dresses, thinness and not a hint of masculinity, which would prove a stain, an assumed hatred against femininity and its unlucky subjects. Society, in such worlds, favours harmless and nurturing soon-to-be mothers, emotional and lesser girls whose value lies in the marriage they will be able to secure. Bloodlines, powers, knowledge and divinity itself all belong to men in an unquestioned misogynistic realm. Female characters must struggle against the chains of sexism before undergoing any other kind of development, if they benefit from such an arc at all. Rape, pregnancy and misery is their lot.

Take a look, then, at the rulers as well as the extras populating these worlds: men, in Schwab’s, as king, guards or nameless sailors, dressed as such, that is, without dresses; men as rulers again in Bardugo’s, as merchants, as mobsters, while women obsess over their appearances.

Samantha Shannon’s Priory of the Orange Tree presents a striking example of a world still conceived by men: in a country ruled by women for over a millennium, producing a blood-related heiress remains such a primordial task that even a queen becomes a broodmare. Forced into marriage, her character endures unwanted sexual unions until she finally assumes her goal as a woman – a mother, through and through. Reverse the roles, parse history: royal men annulled their marriages, kept mistresses, adopted heirs… and yet, and yet. Fictional women are kept on a tight leash. What a waste of creativity!

Disappointing and frustrating, yes. Even moreso as many reviewers – including women – will gloss over such issues, when they do not misconstruct a lone strong heroine as feminist-worthy, or qualify a superficially egalitarian world as "matriarchal". Yet what bothers us further is the way these authors receive a constantly harsher treatment than their male peers, their works immediately ridiculed and their intents disregarded, however flawed they could be. Despite their failings, men’s works are still deserving of an analysis, of some doubts and nebulous improvements; women’s should be denounced and go back to the garbage bin.

The books evoked in this post aren’t to be thrown out and dismissed. They, too, had commentaries and themes that we may disagree with, that we may believe unfortunate, or short-sighted; they had their stylistic failures beyond sexism, their convoluted plots, their lacking arcs; their moments of brilliance and artistry, their moving scenes, their heroines still shining, despite it all. Hence this blog: a space focusing on women in women’s works, neither absolving them of criticism nor disregarding them completely. We want to inspire discussions, not irredeemably condemn… and, hopefully, spark a few ideas.

#writeblr #booklr #shades of magic #the grisha trilogy #six of crows #the bear and the nightingale #the priory of the orange tree #deathless #jonathan strange and mr norrell #yukibana no tora #our posts

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ranma-rewatch · 4 years

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Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Hey, it’s Ranma Rewatch, I’m on episode 7, and I don’t want to waste too much time with the preamble. I am super excited for this episode, my boi is here, I really hope it holds up, see you after I watch it again!

That wasn’t exactly how I remembered it, but not in a bad way. The episode starts with a short scene that has become pretty freaking iconic, and has been sampled in dozens, if not hundreds, of AMV’s: A man cloaked from head to toe, walking through a desert, his eyes barely visible under goggles. It is a really cool shot that catches the eye right away.

We cut from that to that same person approaching a small village, deciding to throw off his concealing clothes to reveal his typical yellow and green outfit, with a bandanna around his head and an umbrella on his back, which he takes out to slow down his descent when he jumps off a cliff. This village happens to be being attacked by a huge wild boar, wrecking everything in its way, but this fellow is able to stop the animal with little effort and send it flying. When the grateful villagers approach, he only has one question for them: where is Furinkan High School?

At first they don’t understand the question, until they look at what he has for a map and realize it’s of Tokyo. The problem is, this young man is on Shikoku, a completely different island in the archipelago. They point him in the right general direction, and he reveals before the scene ends that he is specifically trying to find Ranma Saotome.

Speaking of the show’s titular character, we get a small scene of him in his cursed form being blackmailed by Nabiki into wearing women’s clothes because all of his stuff is in the wash. After that, we get another scene of the mysterious umbrella-wielding stranger asking someone for directions to Furinkan High School, but this time he’s in Hokkaido. Once again a completely different island, only this time on the opposite end. Fun fact: Hokkaido was the inspiration for Sinnoh in Pokemon!

We get another small cut-away to Ranma in various outfits, then another of our new character somehow ending up back in that village he was in earlier. The point is being made clear to us: he is terrible at getting where he wants to go, but is also so inhumanly strong and resilient that he has no trouble surviving in the wilderness in the process.

What seems to be the next day, he finally gets to where he’s going, just as school is letting out for the day. Ranma is being chased by Akane for something, though we don’t know exactly what. (Of course, we know their dynamic well enough by now to know it’s almost certainly something Ranma did to annoy her.) The newcomer slams into the ground where Ranma is landing at the same time, leaving a crater in the cement from the force of his landing, all while screaming how Ranma has to die.

The problem is, Ranma has no clue who this guy is, which pisses him off to know end. Even after he brings up that his vendetta has something to do with Ranma never showing up for a duel, Ranma still struggles (and fails) to remember this guys name, but luckily he gives it to Ranma anyway: Ryoga Hibiki. They went to Junior High together, and they’d agreed upon a duel, but it never happened because Ranma wasn’t there when Ryoga arrived.

Now, Ranma protests that he waited in the agreed upon empty lot for three days before taking off for China with his dad, which is honestly more time than most people would have waited. As we already know though, Ryoga can’t seem to get anywhere quickly, so he got there on the fourth day. Oh, and the lot was right behind his house.

The crowd of students who only moments before considered him with awe over his fantastic martial arts abilities are now looking at him like a buffoon, and Ryoga is ready to get his revenge on Ranma already. But Ranma puts a pause on that, runs out, and comes back with a bunch of different kinds of bread. Why? Because bread was the reason for their duel in the first place. Their school was only for boys, and getting food at lunch was a nightmare. Ranma ended up snatching the last piece of bread just before Ryoga could get it time and time again, and all the bread he brought was one of each type he’d taken years before.

But Ryoga doesn’t care about that, making it clear that the bread isn’t something he cares about anymore, that Ranma has put him through hell, even if Ranma has no clue what he’s talking about. But before they can get a proper fight going, Ranma runs away, losing Ryoga enough that when he starts busting up the school looking for him, he ends up going the wrong way and out of the area entirely, leaving Ranma and Akane to wonder where he went. We do get to see where before the episode ends: once again back in that village that had the boar problem, where he gets a meal before running out into the evening to find Ranma once more.

Like I said before, this episode wasn’t entirely how I remembered it. Namely, there was a lot more humor than I remembered. For the most part, that’s not a bad thing, there was actually some really good comedy, and I don’t feel like it trampled over the more serious parts of the episode.

If it isn’t clear, I am going to say right now that I did still love this episode. The animation was really on-point, some of the visuals of Ranma darting around people or the brief combat he gets with Ryoga just looks beautiful. Also, even though we don’t get a fight between the two just yet, it’s already solidly communicated, through Ryoga easily beating the boar, barreling through steel barriers, and hitting the ground so hard it destroys concrete, that he is strong as hell.

As much as I love the opening desert shot, I actually think my favorite part of the episode is some of the conversation between Ranma, Akane, and Ryoga. Ranma straining his brain to remember who Ryoga is killed me. It was weirdly relatable too, I’m sure many of us have run into someone who obviously knows us, while we can’t even remember how we know them, let alone their name. The fact Ranma actually specifically bought one of each bread he’d taken from Ryoga before was kind of cute, more than I expected of the usually flippant martial artist.

There’s also an exchange I’ve seen on Tumblr a few times in screencaps and gifs, and there’s a reason people love to share it. When Ryoga says he’s going to destroy Ranma’s happiness, there’s this shot of him freaking out, only to turn to Akane and blankly ask if he is happy, to which Akane doesn’t understand why he’s asking her. They take such a trope-y line from a character seeking revenge and turn it around into a really good joke.

There was also a really interesting thing I noted in terms of translation. After hearing about the string of times Ranma stole bread from Ryoga, Akane makes an analogy to why it mattered so much, but it’s different from dub to sub. In the English Dub, she says the straws broke the camel’s back, a common phrase that seems to fit the situation. But in the English Sub, she says (loosely remembering) “enough dust can make a mountain”, and I think that actually fits much better. After all, we soon learned that the bread isn’t really why Ryoga is angry, but once you do know everything that happened that led to Ryoga’s rage, that analogy fits perfect: it isn’t so much one specific event, as a collection of small events that collected into an enormous vendetta.

All my compliments aside, I did have some issues with the episode. Some of the comedy didn’t really work for me, and that was most true with the early scenes of the Tendo girls trying to dress Ranma in Akane’s clothes. Some parts did make me chuckle, but on the whole the mini-plot made me uncomfortable. Primarily because, as I’ve said before, I feel like the best way to look at Ranma’s cursed form is as a trans man. Even though his body has changed, his gender hasn’t, he’s still a man. The scene has Ranma protesting again and again that he is a man, even as they try to dress him as a woman. The idea of some cisgender folks trying to force a trans man into women’s clothes just...isn’t very funny to me. It’s kind of terrible, at least from a more queer perspective. That complaint done, let’s do the character spotlight.

Oh come on, who else did you think I was going to do? If it isn’t clear yet, Ryoga Hibiki is my favorite character in the series, and he has been since I was a teenager. Who knows if that will remain true this entire watch-through, but so far I’m not liking him any less. I’ll get into why, but first let’s talk about his voice actors.

The voice actor I’m more familiar with, his English one, is Michael Donovan. Like most of the actors for this dub, he’s someone who worked with the Ocean Group for a lot of series around this time period. That said, if you’re a fan of the Fate franchise, he has done some voices in Ufotable’s recent anime adaptations, playing Risei Kotomine and Zouken Matou. In Japanese, his voice actor is one Kōichi Yamadera, and he continued the pattern of voice actors who are well-known in Japan for dubbing English works. He’s most well-known for dubbing over Jim Carrey in a lot of movies, but he’s done a ton of others as well. In anime, some of his notable roles include Spike Spiegel, Beerus in all the recent Dragon Ball movies and anime, and Gentle Criminal in My Hero Academia. Seriously, diving into this guy’s list of roles is like swimming in an ocean of great roles.

So, how do they do? Well, so far I’d say I like both of them a lot, but they do play Ryoga differently. At his core, Ryoga is actually kind of a perfect microcosm of the tone of the series itself. Ranma 1/2 is simultaneously a shonen battle anime, a romantic harem series, and a wacky comedy. Ryoga is someone who takes himself very, very seriously. His desire for vengeance against Ranma isn’t a joke, and neither is his ability as a martial artist. But he’s also a doofus who ends up crossing the length of Japan several times because he can’t follow directions properly and the reasons (so far) for his hatred of Ranma are completely laughable.

I wouldn’t say that Michael Donovan’s performance lacks seriousness, in fact when he wants Ryoga to sound menacing I think he does it well, but on the whole he leans more heavily towards the comedic parts of the character. Meanwhile, Yamadera’s Ryoga hasn’t really sounded silly once to me. He plays the character dead straight, and let’s the comedy come through in the contrast between that demeanor and the circumstances around him. We’ll have to see as we go, but I actually might be preferring the Japanese performance so far, a rarity for me.

Okay, so, why do I love Ryoga so much? There are SO many reasons, many of which I won’t go into just yet because I’ll save them for when they appear in-series. But there is still a lot shown in this episode that I feel I can discuss. To start with, I adore his design. I don’t mean the cloak and goggles, though those are absolutely awesome, I’m referring to his standard mode of dress. The yellow and green as a color scheme, with accents of black to top it off, is something really unique. I don’t know enough about art to really articulate why, but I just love every touch of his design. My favorite small touch has to be the yellow strands wrapping around his lower legs, clashing with his otherwise dark green lower half. I have no clue what they’re supposed to be for, but they just add something, almost making him look more rooted to the spot of wherever he’s standing, more solid.

That is a good word to use for Ryoga in general. Even though we haven’t gotten to see him in a proper fight just yet, we’ve seen quite a lot of evidence of his main attributes. In Dungeons & Dragons terms, Ryoga is making out his Strength and Constitution. He hits like a truck and he can be hit by a truck without slowing down. I love that because it contrasts so perfectly with Ranma’s strength: his speed and precision. I adore it when rival characters actually have qualities that make the fights between them more interesting from the contrast, and Ryoga fits the bill there quite well. He’s also a good foil in terms of personality: Ranma is easy going, likes screwing with people, and is quite quick-witted; Ryoga has a hot temper and a long memory for grudges, hates it when people trick him, and tends to let his emotions do the thinking for him.

I will say it feels like his character has some classic Early Installment Weirdness, as he uses his umbrella quite a bit in this episode. If I remember correctly, after his introductory arc, he doesn’t use his umbrella much at all for the rest of the show, preferring to rely on his fists. It definitely feels like they hadn’t quite nailed the character completely yet, if that makes any sense.

Ryoga is also doing that thing where he’s seeking revenge and really angry, but refuses to talk about why, drawing out the mystery as long as possible. While that trope can become annoying, I don’t really mind it in this case. This isn’t a situation like Godot from Ace Attorney, where Ryoga is purposefully hiding it for some grand plan or something, or to teach a lesson. Ryoga doesn’t go into specifics because A) he thinks Ranma should already know; B) Ryoga is very mad; and C) he doesn’t want anyone else to know his secret. I’m not saying it isn’t stupid that he doesn’t tell Ranma why he’s mad, but I am saying that it’s in-character.

Are you surprised that I adore this episode? You shouldn’t be, I’ve been gushing about it this whole time. Even with the parts I found more rough to watch, this is still my favorite episode of the series thus far, putting the rankings at:

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

The big question is: will the next episode of this four episode Ryoga arc be even better? We’ll find out next time with Episode 8: “School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga”. See you then!

#episode 7 #Enter Ryoga the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’#ranma 1/2 #ranma saotome #ryoga hibiki #anime analysis #anime rewatch

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savvyblunders · 4 years

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Personal Post: Imposter Syndrome, Reading Traditional Books, and thoughts about my own writing

{Just rambles regarding books, fanfiction and some of my thoughts therein.}

It’s been a terribly long time since I read any published books--aside from those written by fellow fanfiction authors. It has reached the point that I find them entirely too cringey. The plots are tame, the characters stiff, the language rote. I especially have a hard time caring if there is a supposed ‘romance’ involved. Forget about het romances, they’re so formulaic that they leave me cold. It isn’t that I have no interest in the portrayal of a relationship between a woman and man, it’s that by and large they might as well have been churned off of a factory production line.

Part of my objection is to the tired old tropes and gender roles which authors (and readers) don’t seem to realize they’re not only falling prey to, but encouraging with their work. The world doesn’t have to be turned on its head to be interesting, but you shouldn’t know from the first few scenes between characters how it will play out--and further more, not care.

I did read a rather good psychological mystery a few days ago, however. I think perhaps it was successful in part because it was so different from the usual run of stories that people publish, but also because there wasn’t a romance shoe-horned into the storyline. The narrator wasn’t particularly sympathetic, but nor were they entirely unredeemed. I don’t want to give too much away, but it explored the themes of bullying, memory, redemption and revenge, with an enjoyable twist that I didn’t see coming--I was successfully led astray by red herrings, which isn’t always the case when I’m reading mysteries. The book, should anyone be interested, was Girl Gone Mad by Avery Bishop.

{I keep on rambling after the break ;)}

I also read another which was such a stinker I deleted it from my Kindle history and couldn’t tell you the title or author. This beauty had a somewhat interesting premise of a woman who wakes from a six month coma with full amnesia and throughout the book has to struggle with not remembering anything and depending on her husband, children and neighbors for the details of her life. Frustratingly, she finds parts of her personality and tastes have changed--at least as far as they all tell her. She begins to doubt that she is who they say--an issue further compounded when certain facets of her life pre-coma are revealed. Then when the ending arrives, there is a twist and a reveal which could have been pretty neat, only it arrived at the end of such a rote story, with such clunky storytelling and unimaginative language that I kind of didn’t care. It was clear, I might add, that the female protagonist was written by a man. Although blessedly he didn’t go into raptures over her perky breasts, long hair, or other physical attributes [insert vomiting]

My reading resulted in a two-fold feeling. One, traditionally published books are by and large crap. A few months ago I tried reading a book from a famous author whom I used to be quite a fan of. It was part of a series with which I used to be enamored. I settled in, expecting a very enjoyable read. After slogging through three chapters I gave it up. The writing was generic, the characters shallow and the ‘bad guy’ was so sketchily written as to be bewildering, not mysterious.

That book left me frustrated and annoyed. But it also revealed something to me which I had somewhat accepted and understood prior to that, but not entirely absorbed. Just because a book is traditionally published doesn’t mean it’s any good. Just because an author is well known--or even on the best seller list--doesn’t mean they can write. There are more places to find interesting, funny, heartbreaking, sexy, fun, amazingly written, daring and wonderful stories than at a bookstore or through Kindle.

The second part of my two-fold feeling was that while, as a writer, I may have much room to grow, I still have valuable skills to offer. My four years of writing fanfiction have honed my talent, refined my style, and influenced my voice, perspective and ability. A good beta, or editor, is invaluable. While I used to write solo and not show it to anyone, simply edit and post, I’ve come to understand the inherent value of feedback. It can be a tricky road, as you might find yourself influenced too much by a reader into trying to suit their tastes rather than your own, but a good beta (eternal thanks to @paialovespie & @hoomhum)--that is to say, a great beta, will not only see the nuts and bolts which might need tightening, but will offer insights which blow your story from ordinary to inspired. The same goes for a ‘personal cheerleader’ (the highest of praise to @mottlemoth) or someone who reminds you at your dark times that you are capable of far more than you can conceive of in that moment. Forget nasty comments online, most of us are our own worst enemies--after all, we know our weakest spots and can zero in on them mercilessly.

Even without a beta, I believe in myself as a writer enough these days (most days) to hope that one day, with hard work, skill, great editing, and some luck, I too could be published. Not a NYT best seller, perhaps, but then, I’m not entirely certain I’d like that. I don’t say this out of any sort of pretentiousness, but because, in essence, these days, I want to write the kind of things that appeal to a more niche audience. I’d like to point with pride at my small book, nestled there on a bookshelf, or available with one click of a button, as something that helps give a voice to a community which has, and still continues to be, marginalized, ignored, fetishized and pandered to, in equal measure. Perhaps it would be for the best if what I wrote wasn’t palatable to the greater reading public.

Of course, those days when I’m full of zest and confidence don’t always last. Like any creator, I fall prey to Imposter Syndrome. Lord, I can’t believe that a time used to exist when I didn’t know what that was! I knew the feeling (oh, how I did), but had no clue that a term existed to encapsulate it. The concept that I wasn’t alone in having days (weeks, months, years) of being cast into doubt that I had anything worth saying--a voice worth listening to--isn’t a new one, but to find out that I’m not alone was unutterably comforting.

Since, like so many people, I’ve been suffering from a lack of ambition and ability to focus during this global pandemic, I haven’t written much at all, that inner voice rang loud and clear. I’m a fraud, a fake. Any ability I had was used up, clearly as shallow as a mud puddle if a little adversity was enough to dry it out. The struggle to get myself past that was, and is, one that swings from good to bad almost day by day. I had to finally give myself permission to be sad, scared, worried, tired, uninspired. Eventually I decided it was enough that I could find comfort and solace in other’s writing. And oh, how I have! Even though days and days would pass when I couldn’t even muster the interest to read, other times I would consume fanfiction fervently, feverishly.

And there was so much out there! Adventure, sex, romance, comedy, crack, fluff, hurt/comfort. It seems funny that I can rail against the ‘formulaic’ writing of published books and then turn to ‘tags’ and ‘tropes’ for comfort. But I think the difference lies in the heart that is written into those fanfiction stories. Most of us, while being somewhat influenced by friends, mutuals and fans into writing for a hungry public, are, by and large, writing for ourselves. The old tried and true ‘write what you know’ advice seemed empty and meaningless to me for years. If we only ever write what we know, then how do sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, etc., get written? My brain went to the obvious and ignored the heart of the matter--it isn’t so much what you ‘know’ as writing what you need. What makes you passionate. Even if you’ve never been on a space ship, or been part of a polyamorous, platonic communal family group, if you write it with that yearning and spirit in your heart, it will reach out to someone else.

Fanfiction, at it’s core, is self-comfort.

In my estimation, looking at traditionally published books, it seems that what most of them lack is that heart. The writers aren’t writing because they need the story, or because they are compelled to tell it. It isn’t that they had a hell of a good time writing it, or that they made themselves laugh while doing so. They had a publishing deal to fulfil, a publisher to make happy, a reading public who had certain expectations. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but if it’s your only motivation...then the writing suffers the neglect and a percerptive reader will note the difference.

By and large, the fandom, the ship, even the trope, aren’t what captivates me most. I’m a pretty eclectic reader. I enjoy a good story more than I do the fact that it is a particular pairing. The draw is how well it is written, any chances the author took, the indulgence into style, formatting, etc. that they allowed themselves. So why should published books be any different? I’ve heard (non-fandom) people dismiss fanfiction as niche. Perhaps it is. But it is also broad, vast, uncharted territory where we’re all having a lot of fun and enjoying the hell out of ourselves.

Maybe those published authors need to spend a little time with us.

#personal stuff #savvy ponders #writing #traditional publishing #fanfiction #pandemic #depression #anxiety #self comfort #introspection

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taconotatsujin · 3 years

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Vol 8 Post-Hiatus Theory

I caught up with the first half of RWBY volume 8 recently after ignoring it since the frankly devastating end of volume 7 and figured I'd just put out some thoughts I had about where this might go.

The end of volume 7 had Ironwood really digging into his fairy tale allusion, albeit in a reversal of the source material (like Lionheart despite saying he wasn't anything like Lionheart lol), so I've been thinking a lot about the development of major characters in relation to their fairy tale inspiration. With only a little bit of hiatus left, I'd like to share my thoughts on Penny.

At the beginning of volume 8, Penny is grappling with trying to make a bunch of decisions for herself and coming into her own as a person, but gets interrupted by the whole hacking schtick. We know this is going to be a major point of the next half of the season, and I propose that a hacked Penny is going to eventually open the vault and, after some emotional scenes of Penny trying to fight it off, as one does in this trope, someone (I think Pietro with some consequences connected to the warning about his aura last season if the staff has restrictions like the lamp) is going to use the staff of creation to stop the hacking by turning android girl into human girl (just like the story *shocked pikachu face*).

I don't think this is a particularly original idea. One could even argue that the 'real girl' thing was already covered in Penny becoming a maiden in the first place and this is just overkill, but this scenario would be an interesting parallel to Ironwood's development at the end of volume 7.

Ironwood loses a limb ("take my hand~" I see you Hero lyrics) that later is replaced with metal and becomes essentially a military dictator. He no longer trusts others to make decisions, so he takes over and is willing to sacrifice any and everything to win including his morals. On the other hand, Penny's arc based on this theory would end the volume with her having to trust someone else to save her and losing the metal. However, the metal in this case is nothing as cliche as a symbol of a lack of trust or emotion, but is instead a metaphor for their relationship with their identities. Even though it's a gain vs loss of metal, they would both mean the same thing: a loss of identity, abstractly in Ironwood's case since he is giving up his beliefs for the slim chance of a pyrrhic *wink* victory and literally for Penny cause it's literally her body, as a consequence of two opposite approaches to trust.

Then 'what's the point?' you might say. You trust people, you get burned. You don't trust people, you also get burned. I would argue that is exactly the point. Trust is a heavy thing, as we know from Oz keeping secrets, but whether it fails or even succeeds ("fear that we might fail, fear that we'll succeed" - I really love this show's soundtracks) the important thing is how you deal with the fallout. This also extends to Ruby's decision to hide things from the Atlas crew all the way at the beginning of volume 7; if all this goes down (presumably with the giant whale being repelled somewhere in the background), the final volume of the Atlas arc (or maybe the first of the Vacuo arc cause I'm not too certain if this is going to be resolved with the current pacing) is probably going to have to grapple with the uncertainty of where do the heroes go from here after dealing with the crisis (the "succeed"-ing), how do they cope with the consequences (from a "fail" that we have yet to discover or simply the mistakes they made from the start), and exactly who will our characters be at the end of it all. We are looking at another round of character introspection similar to after Beacon, and Oz will be leading the pack since he's got a bit of a head start on the whole "my relationship with trust has come back to haunt me, what do?" to the point where he literally hits all these beats in his speech at the end of volume 7.

This theme could be applied in more detail with the other main characters in the midst of identity crises (Nora pls wake up soon) plus any possible Salem deserters planning to join the team *wink* *wink*, but I liked the idea of connecting this to Ironwood and Penny cause of the parallels and my theories for the rest of the volume. This overarching stuff still applies even if my theory is wrong since we still have examples of characters misplacing trust and thus putting into question their entire identity, eg. the new Ace-Ops (thanks Ren) re:Ironwood, but nothing as concrete and dripping in symbolism as the whole metal body parts metaphor reversal.

(I could go on and reconnect this to the imagery and the lyrics of the opening and more on the connections between the trust/fear/identity/consequences themes but this is becoming an essay and it may not even be halfway coherent lol)

Tldr: a post about Penny possibly becoming a real girl via magic staff and how it would fit the themes of the show from the perspective of Ironwood's descent to tragic antagonist

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hello--mrs · 5 years

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Steven Universe Podcast: Battle of Heart and Mind

I don’t usually do this but I said I would for the server, so here we are.

This episode included Rebecca Sugar, Kat Morris, Joe Johnston, Matt Burnett, Ben Levin, and Ian Jones-Quartey.

· The episode starts with the rainbow worm in Steven’s dream, who is voiced by Deedee. This is the last homage to the princess references in the arc. The worm is from the Kyanite colony and was brought to Homeworld by Pink, which Blue allowed, but then Pink released all worms in the ballroom. Rebecca mentions this links with Pink’s desire to be free by releasing animals from their colonies.

· This specific princess reference was to Jasmine (in Aladdin) opening the cage and allowing the birds to fly free. It was also a reference to Pink’s love of animals and wanting to set them free, which isn’t out of character for Steven either.

· For Diamond Days, they picked the most common princess tropes for Steven’s time on Homeworld and made this experience alienating for him.

· Rebecca states that the Diamonds are meant to exist as a body- the inspiration for the ship. Pink is the Id, Blue and Yellow are the Ego, and White is the Super Ego. This is represented in Change Your Mind where the collective mind experiences embarrassment when the Id demands they enjoy something.

· Kat admits that they came up with the new outfits by continuously emailing each other with ideas. Rebecca said they considered everything but there were some concepts that they really wanted, for example, Rainbow 2.0 would have a scarf and a jacket. It was important either way that the fusions would notably have Steven’s clothes and the gems. However, the fusions would hint at the new forms and Pearl didn’t end up having a scarf, but she did have the jacket. Later, McKenzie asked if the jacket was a throwback to Bad Pearl and Rebecca confirmed that it represented her independence.

· One of Garnet’s new designs included transparent glasses and Peridot’s glasses in the shape of a star. Kat came up with the idea for the shredded shorts and star pockets for Amethyst.

· All of the new outfits represent how the gems have changed and learned from Steven.

· Rebecca mentioned that Pearl has been ‘playing the field’ and ‘exploring who she is’, which started in Last One Out of Beach City.

· Lapis has gold accents on her new outfit to match the real-life gem stone. Kat said that Rebecca really wanted the sandals for Lapis and it makes for comfortable cosplay.

· Joe said that he enjoyed a lot of Garnet’s new designs. Most ideas were based off superheroes and had a more ‘knightly’ aspect.

· They confirmed that they tried Peridot’s new design with star hair but it was too much. Rebecca said that the glasses already change her silhouette and expose her gem more.

· Peridot also has boots this time. Before, she had socks because she used to wear limb enhancers.

· Mary Poppins and Bert were the inspiration for Rainbow 2.0. These concepts were made by Joe around 2-3 years ago. Sunstone was a newer concept.

· Rebecca said that all Garnet fusions can break the fourth wall, but with Steven, it would break it to give advice to children. The suction cups are also a combination of Steven’s shield and Garnet’s gauntlets. When creating Sunstone, Rebecca wanted her to look like a toy that you could stick in the back window of a car with suction cups.

· Alistair James auditioned for Rainbow 2.0 by doing an impression of his grandmother with a British accent. Rebecca said that Shoniqua was perfect and she knew immediately that she wanted her for Sunstone. She sounded exactly like how Miki Brewster pitched her.

· For Obsidian, they’d had her concept from the very beginning since she was shown as the temple. It was a hidden in sight visual that would eventually pay off.

· Obsidian’s sword is in the ocean, which is a part of the temple. It’s first seen in Bubble Buddies and seen again in Ocean Gem when the ocean is cleared. The sword design changed over time to ensure that all the Crystal Gem’s weapons could fit into the design.

· The earliest inspiration for White Diamond is traced back to the beginning of the show. She was inspired by the film ‘A Story of Menstruation’, which was made in 1946. It was a film by Disney played in schools to teach children what to expect in menstruation, and the narrator’s voice was a kindly older woman. Rebecca said that she found the designs really interesting and cute.

· From the film, the inspiration came from a scene where a woman cried into her arms but in the reflection of her mirror, she straightens up and starts smiling before going out dancing. The narrator says: “Don’t forget that people are around you and you’ll have to be more pleasant if you want people to like you”. The scene passes by and it ignores that fact that the woman was crying earlier, because she’s now seen being ‘correct’. This is the voice and the feeling that she went for with White Diamond and Homeworld.

· Homeworld is inspired by Busby Berkeley, and White is inspired by Hedy Lamarr in Ziegfeld Girl and Nell Brinkley drawings, all within an era where women were seen as beautiful pieces of furniture. Rebecca states: Women are like lamps, smiling and there, part of the scenery. It all originates from the idea that people thought it was lovely and seen as an escape from reality.

· Those early inspirations were also used for the wall gems- the idea that people are in the background as if turned to stone and function solely as architecture. These faces we see in the architecture are gems and that’s their function.

· White has always been associated as a mother, especially in terms of her storyline with Steven in this arc, and how gems are viewed as her children. This arc wanted to begin to explore her relationship with them.

· Rebecca says that White’s way of thinking is that she is everyone and everyone is her. She considers herself the default white light that passes through other gems, so when she sees gems absorb other colours from that light, she considers it a variation of her but lesser. In that way, she has no identity at all because she considers herself just light. She feels that people can be turned into her because they are all the same.

· Rebecca also stated that White is wrong about how she views the world and herself. It’s an antithesis to Rose’s journey- expression and repression. She lives in a delusion that everything is fine but it isn’t.

· Matt and Ben said that the whole episode was balanced by ensuring that every single character got their moment. It was an accumulation of ideas from over the years that they tried to fit into one episode, such as Amethyst greeting Jasper after she was uncorrupted. They felt they did everything they wanted to do before they left.

· All past episodes, especially for Diamond Days, were made to build up to the scene with White and Steven where she pulled out his gem. Mirror Gem is the first time they introduce the concept that a sentient gem can be trapped inside an object and that object is Steven. They’ve been planting hints that Pink may be trapped inside him ever since.

· From the beginning, they’ve wanted there to be doubt that Steven was his own person and have the audience question if Pink/Rose could still be alive. Even when the gem was pulled out, they still wanted the viewer to doubt if he was Steven. They planted enough hints that the viewer would think it could go either way.

· Between the crew, the hottest debates were about the storyline between Steven and Rose/Pink, about who Steven would be if they were separated. One of the most recent arguments was about Steven’s gem self and the fact he was devoid of any feeling, that there was none at all. That emotion came from Steven.

· Rebecca had planned the split perspective scene since the start of development and storyboarded it early in the process. It’s still from Steven’s point of view. Ian noted that if the show wasn’t completely from his perspective, it wouldn’t work. The split perspective was to also represent how torn and disoriented Steven was in that moment.

· Pink Steven is him as a default. If you take away his personality and emotion, he is empty. He’s been separated from his humanity and all that’s left is power. There have been nods to this in the past by showing how his power is greater because of his humanity and his capacity to love.

· Ian said that Rebecca has always had the idea of the final confrontation being about Steven’s relationship with his powers and that connection showing who he really is. Steven wants that human side of him, even if it slows him down, because it’s what makes him who he is.

· The scene of Steven returning to himself was originally written for episode 10. It was going to be a part of Giant Woman where they establish fusion.

· Rebecca confirms that James Baxter animated the scene where Steven reunites with Pink Steven. She met him by doing a drawing for his daughter’s birthday.

· The fusion sequence with the two Stevens was the ultimate princess trope- a rotating dancing scene specifically boarded by James Baxter. He completed the whole sequence himself apart from the inking.

· Ian mentioned that he wanted the uncorrupted gems scene for a long time. He said they always knew the arc would come back to the corrupted gems as that was the original conflict of the series, but now they finally get to see it through.

· On top of that, Ian went through every single episode that had a corrupted gem and designed their healed versions, while Rebecca added some of the quartz designs. He mentioned that the longer they were in their ‘monster’ form, the more they will look like that form, even when they’re healed. That’s why several of the healed gems look more like their original designs.

· Rebecca added that Ian helped with the fusion designs and their sequence, as that was a wishlist moment for him. He wanted Steven to fuse with all the gems in a row.

· Ian said that he had been most excited about Rainbow 2.0 and that Colin Howard had done most of the groundwork already.

· Rainbow is they/them and he/him, and Sunstone is they/them and she/her.

· Rainbow 2.0 is mixed with Pearl’s properness and Steven’s penchant for making jokes. Rainbow 2.0 loves to make puns and is a throwback to Steven’s puns in the earlier series. In the episode, Ian also came up with the idea that RQ 2.0 could ride their umbrella and have a rainbow shoot out of the end- a reference to Pearl being able to shoot lasers out of her spear.

· With Sunstone and Rainbow 2.0, they wanted to be able to show common traits in Sardonyx. The break in the fourth wall comes from Garnet, but loving to hear themselves talk comes from Pearl. Steven enables the both of them to embrace their silly sides.

· The ship foot falling on them was a slight reference to Monty Python but also a reference to the giant foot mentioned in Arcade Mania.

· Rebecca stated that the song Change Your Mind was not written for the show, but a personal song she wrote while fighting for the wedding arc. She was hesitant at first to include it.

· Change Your Mind isn’t for the end of the Steven Universe franchise but for this arc, Ian mentions. He adds that even though it was written for the process of including the wedding, it perfectly captures the theme of the show. As a coming of age story, Rebecca notes that this is something that had to happen for Steven to start making decisions for himself.

· Rebecca also admits it has been hard to write for Steven because he always puts others before himself. It’s always about what others want and what he thinks they want. However, he finally comes to a realisation in this arc that he doesn’t have to be anyone else other than himself or pamper to other’s expectations.

· Ian states that this arc was incredibly important for Steven’s development, in terms of who he is, who he thinks he is, and who others believe him to be. Moving forward, everything will be different from Steven’s perspective. There’s going to be more but it will have changed, because Steven has changed.

If I’ve missed anything out, let me know. Hope you guys enjoy!

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