#maybe it’s the complete lack of subtext
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Finally getting around to reading The Goose Girl and oh my GOSH Ani is the female protagonist I needed please let her stay a bit shy and awkward please and thank you
#I’m living for the fact that she is socially awkward but she isn’t not feminine??? heck yeah!!!#also this is me completely giving up on stellarlune ladies and gents I cannot do it#no joke I skipped half of it on a whim and after a couple sentences for context was not lost at all. yikes.#I don’t know if I’ve just grown out of them or if the quality has actually gotten worse? I don’t know#because typically I’m capable of shutting my brain off and reading something not meant for my age group#I do that all the time no problem#I don’t know what it is with KOTLC all of a sudden??#maybe it’s the complete lack of subtext#EVERYTHING is spelled out for the reader#even if another character does something with a little bit of subtext (like Keefe flirting) the narration or Sophie explicitly calls it out#and goes ‘now WHAT could he mean by that?? could he be talking about HER???’ and therefore it is no longer subtext#I feel like this wasn’t an issue earlier on? I don’t know#also the one-sentence paragraphs for emphasis irk me to no end#but wait hold on that was a complete detour all of this to say the goose girl is a breath of fresh air (and giving me a lot of ideas for#how to spell eternity!)
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SVSSS AU where Shen Yuan's younger sister does a villainess transmigration.
The world she ends up in was originally a dating game and visual novel with some light RPG and crafting elements. Playing as purehearted main girl Qiu Haitang, one could choose any number of routes to pursue, from dashing Liu Qingge, to scholarly Mu Qingfang, sexy ice demon Linguang Jun, cute-but-domineering younger half-demon Luo Binghe, and so on. It was an interesting game, though it notoriously inspired some frustration when some of the more interesting side characters (like Yue Qingyuan) were completely unavailable as romantic options, and inspired at lot of rumors about hidden content and demands on future DLC expansions.-
Shen Meimei hadn't particularly liked the game. Sure, she played every route to 100% completion, bought all the extras, the official soundtrack, and the merch (fanmade as well as what slim-pickings existed officially), but that shouldn't be mistaken for approval. Much of that was in fact a desperate quest to figure out what the hell was even going on! Ignore the play time listed for this scathing Steam review, everyone! It shouldn't be factored into any assessments!
The game had several problems, in Shen Meimei's opinion.
The main issue was the lack of follow-through on the buildup of the backstory. Qiu Haitang's whole family was killed one night, maybe-probably by her sketchy as fuck ex-fiancee, who was also a hostage being kept by the Qiu family as leverage against a rival family. Which begged so many questions! Shen Meimei had suspected all along that there was more to it than met the eye (not just because the evil family shared her surname) but it was never deeply delved into. The whole thing only even got resolution in some of the routes, and the most thorough was Luo Binghe's. Luo Binghe had a huge vendetta against Shen Qingqiu, Haitang's sketchy former fiance, which left a lot of room for doubt about his investigating the issue. Was Shen Qingqiu really to blame? Or was Luo Binghe just taking advantage of an opportunity to pin SOME crime on him, since he couldn't really get him for the shit he actually did to Luo Binghe himself? What about the hints regarding that Wu Yanzi guy? Why did those never seem to amount to much? Were the Qiu family really stupid enough to betroth their only daughter to a hostage, or was something else going on? And what about Xiao Qi, the slave boy servant of the Qiu who was mentioned a few times as another possible survivor or witness, but who never comes up again?
Shen Meimei played through everything, certain that there had to be some way to actually solve or gain clarity on the Mystery of the Qiu Family Murders, but even after completing the main routes and unlocking and completing the hidden ones -- nothing! It was all just swept aside in favor of tepid romance arcs, made all the more insufferable because of the compelling subtext between the male love interests. Like, why were any of these guys even interested in Haitang when they so clearly had more going on with each other?
Annoyance over a game Shen Meimei lost too many hours of her life to was one thing, of course.
Transmigrating into the younger sister of notoriously sketchy ex-fiance Shen Qingqiu was another!
Bad news: in the routes where Shen Qingqiu is prosecuted for his crimes, his whole family goes down with him. So if this goes poorly, not only will he be punished, but so will Shen Meimei!
Worse news: this fictional version of her family is almost identical to her actual real family. To the point where she would be checking everyone else for transmigration, except that no one but her seems aware that anything is odd. Shen Qingqiu acts exactly like her older brother, right down to his particular flavor of prickly social behavior and cynicism. And their middle brother is a chronically ill nerd who hate-reads trash novels and is completely fascinated by weird monsters (a much more worrisome trait in a world that actually has a lot of those...)
In short, her life is on the line, and so is her family's!
Damn you, Veiled Heroine Games! If you hadn't abandoned so many plot threats, Shen Meimei might actually know what was going on and be able to neatly circumvent everything! But now she has to figure out how to win the protagonist back over, rescue her brothers, and solve (and possibly further cover up...) the mysterious Qiu family murders, all while keeping Luo Binghe away from Shen Jiu, and preventing Qiu Haitang from completing any of the romance plotlines that will cause troubles for them! Which is most of them!
#svsss#scum villain's self saving system#scum villain#shen meimei can take after shen yuan#as a treat#also i think it would be funny if sj's siblings just kept accidentally seducing the antagonists who strung him up in pidw
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@cryptidblues tumblr ate this one too, maybe drop tumblr support a line to check if you’ve been erroneously shadowbanned
Oscar is dying! He’s dying! We’re getting the full weight and crisis of the merge in volume 10 I NEED IT. The image of him collapsed on the sand as the sunrises with his back to the long memory OOUGH just like Ruby and crescent rose after she drank the tea, before the tree took her. The reversal on “I don’t want to be me anymore” / please let me stay myself. The lad is being eaten alive! From the inside out! By an unstoppable brain parasite that will kill him! And Replace Him! I Need the slow build up of horror from Oscar and everyone involved. “And Oscar…just isn’t himself” they’re place setting. Getting the table ready. Ooh yknow he’s hiding those merge episodes/attacks from his friends. I NEED the existential terror and dread! BUT I NEED THE CATHARSIS OF OSCAR BEING KNOWN, SEEN & SAVED TOO ;-;
NOT to make a post oscar about ozma instead but the thing that is really, really pulling the hinges off for me is the implication that this is happening because oz started actively fighting the merge. as long as oscar resisted and oz kept up the drumbeat of “this is inevitable, there is nothing either of us can do,” the curse kept on quietly eroding oscar as the boundary became thinner and thinner between them. it was, for lack of a better term, stable.
the moment oz tries to resist, the curse starts trying to rip him forward. to force him to take over, inflicting what seems to be torturous amounts of pain on both of them. the subtle, silent, invisible violence that was inflicted on oscar before explodes outward to attack both of them.
how many times have i said this curse is specifically designed to make it impossible for ozma to change? that the whole point is to prevent ozma from ever changing his mind or defying the god of light? never doubt me. the literal fucking instant ozma tries to break free, the curse becomes YOU DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE.
the curse had a failsafe the whole time.
/ozma tangent
oscar though. this poor kid. like the greatest burden on his shoulders in the last four volumes has always been that no one wants to openly acknowledge what’s happening to him and the nature of the merge’s violence being so completely internal means that no one has to look at it except him. and he’s been so isolated in that existential dread but he’s also grown so accustomed to being treated like just. the next ozpin. that when the violence abruptly becomes externalized in reaction to oz’s resistance, oscar… hides it. keeps it to himself. somewhere deep down the idea that it doesn’t matter to anyone what happens to him got lodged in his brain so deeply that he keeps it hidden!!
and i’m obsessed with the emotional complexity the layers of what he’s feeling with regard to ruby, because it’s not as simple as that he misses her and aspires to her optimism; there’s also some underlying resentment there (“you were always so sure that everything would work out…right up until the moment it didn’t” <- paraphrasing) because she was wrong and he wishes he could borrow her certainty but she was wrong. she fell. she was wrong.
BUT AT THE SAME TIME, everyone else believes that they’re gone forever. that they’re dead. oscar doesn’t. he’s thinking about it in terms of where they might have gone, what might have happened to them, he’s doing research because deep down, there’s a teeny tiny spark of hope that hasn’t been extinguished yet. so there’s this subtext of i wish i had your certainty. even though you were wrong. i’m still trying to find you. we’re still fighting this. you always saw me for who i really was. i don’t know who i am anymore.—there’s this tension throughout the monologue between bitterness and hope, and i don’t know if oscar is even capable of seeing that he is still hopeful or that he does have, if not ruby’s kind of certainty, something of his own that rhymes. he’s feeling this bleak about everything and still trying to figure out where they are because he doesn’t believe they’re dead.
it was oscar’s idea to put the memorial where the portal had been. it’s taller than a person and shaped like a door. it’s a memorial but it’s also a symbol; the portal is gone, but they were inside it still, we should build our own door so they can find their way home. and then they do, according to the context given. the blacksmith gave them a doorway that went right through their memorial. ETA: never mind, misremembered
ruby confronting and facing his mortality after running away from it for three volumes to galvanize her to really try to save him vs oscar doing whatever he can think of to somehow save her while roiling in all these complicated painful feelings about how no one cares to know how he’s suffering because it isn’t like there’s any real hope for him. tasty!
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A Summary of The OFMD Meta (Part III)
Thank you for all of the likes and comments! I’ve never really had anything noticed on tumblr and it’s very cool. And scary. Thank you!
This is part three of an incomplete summary of A Meta-Discussion Of The Subtext by meratrishoslee (Mera) on AO3 (linked to, as the author requests). I’m trying to stay impartial and keep all of the important bits in.
This chunk includes chapters sixteen through eighteen, which are an analysis of the final episode of season two. The overarching thesis of the first two chapters is, as it was in the previous part, this: “Ed’s the face, head/mind and body of Blackbeard, Izzy is Blackbeard’s heart/soul -- as well as the heart of the show itself.”
I can’t recommend not commenting on this meta on AO3 enough. Replies that aren’t completely positive will just fuel more “defending myself from the haters” chapters. If you’re inspired, maybe write your own tumblr meta with these takes as a jumping-off point? That way, there’s a chance that someone who’s willing to listen to what you say will read it.
Other posts
Part I
Part II
Chapter 16: The Sacred Heart (Part 5)
Episode eight opens on Ed and his girlblogger nature journey, where “we get to see the real people who are having to do the real actual labor to prop up Ed’s navel gazing. Edward does an incredibly colonizery prayer at the dinner table until [Pop-Pop] sets him straight with a smack across the face. [...] The truth comes out about Ed’s lack of skills and experience, and [Pop-Pop] goes into (what I feel is) a justified rage again. But it’s not about Ed’s lies or laziness or self-absorption. It’s again about ‘we are not simple! We’re not simple!’”
We’re not that simple doesn’t make a lot of textual sense because we need to look at the subtext. “Both the skilled labor of fishing for survival and income, as well as this entire show and specifically this episode, are not nearly as clear cut as they initially appear. Perception is NOT reality, so question the logic of what you’re being told and shown.” It’s not that simple.
Pop-Pop is subtextually telling Ed that he’s not his father -- he’s a textual good father figure (a mirror of Izzy) “trying to instruct/correct Edward while reminding him: we absolutely do not have a father/child relationship.” Ed goes into another non-apology, fucks up dinner, and “gets thrashed not simply for that but *gestures expansively at the previous three minutes of broadcast*.”
(It’s telling that Ed leaves both Stede and Izzy behind and immediately seeks out a replacement for Izzy instead of Stede.)
Ed yells that ‘it’s just a fish,’ but “it’s not just a fish -- it’s dinner, it’s livelihood, it’s disrespect, it’s dealing with this bullshit after a full day of physical labor,” and this is only “our first example in this episode of Ed minimizing a loss that he should in no way be minimizing.”
The fish is also Izzy: “here we have one loss of a creature of water dumped into the fire, as mirrored to the later, greater loss of Izzy -- a creature of water and air, who belongs on or in the ocean -- inexplicably buried in the earth.” (Don’t forget: Stede and Ed are ALSO fish.)
The next scene is Ricky at the Republic of Pirates. He’s polishing his small hidden pistol -- the one that will be so deadly later in the episode. Ricky’s uniform is tailored to make him look smaller. He’s now a mirror to Izzy: “often underrated, underacknowledged, and treated as a joke by the people around him.” His outfit details mirror Izzy’s: ” the ruffled shirt cuffs, the saber on his left side, the cravat at his throat with its own gold accent -- a pearl for purity instead of an emerald for grief. Lots of white/cream/gold in contrast to Izzy's unrelieved and unornamented black.”
At Spanish Jackie’s, Ricky makes Jackie fish his nose out from the nose jar, or “reach into a grave to retrieve something he’s lost,” and “we don’t see Jackie locate the object of her search, exhume it from the grave the jar and show it to him…”
We see Zheng Yi Sao devastated by the loss of her fleet and, she thinks, Auntie. She’s not sobbing; she’s numb, shocked, unable to so much as cry. Stede’s being an insensitive idiot. “Stede’s heard of empathizing, but has no idea how it actually works -- and has also never had a failure as awful as this one. He’s mansplaining struggle and loss to a woman of color.”
The closeup on Ed’s face as he sees what has become of the Republic of Pirates mirrors the closeup at the wedding in S2E1. “I want you to drink it in: We have been here before. We are doing it all again. You don’t have to be afraid of it; the same road just looks different in the dark.” We’re also watching Ed go into shock (Mera is “feeling a few motes of compassion here”).
“Edward doesn’t actually need the Blackbeard kit to be a warrior. He just killed two soldiers with his bare hands, [...]. But in this moment of shock and grief, Edward craves the invisible mantle of something more powerful than mere knives or guns: the image he and Izzy created between the two of them, the incredible and indestructible myth that deals death and cannot itself die. An Izzy mirror [Pop-Pop] told Edward something he could construe as ‘become Blackbeard again’ – and, alone in this instant of world-shattering shock [...], he clings to the thing he trusts the most, at the instruction” of a character who mirrors Izzy.
We see Ricky descend into a basement. He tells the jailed crew that they will be hung and their stories will be lost. “I hereby re-invoke my personal prohibition against Season 3 speculation, other than the certainty that we will see the text bear up and explain what the currently available subtext so fulsomely insists: that Izzy is alive in the last frame of this episode.”
Izzy is sitting in the middle of the room, primed to make himself the best target to protect the crew, given a position of respect on what might be the only chair. Either Izzy has had a chance to rest (he was exhausted and in pain the previous day) OR “our Sacred Heart, determined to watch over and protect everyone else in the room, has not fucking slept a wink all night. That’s two nights and a day of effort, for a disabled man (who, if you believe the HIV/AIDS coding, is also in a constant battle of autoimmune illness).”
“And now: our beautiful, hurting, self-sacrificing Sacred Heart is drawn into the dance of death -- one that, because it happens almost entirely in silences of the mind, can be and is ignored by people who only see the pretty pictures flashing in front of their eyes.”
Izzy baits Ricky so thoroughly that “Ricky will put off having them all hanged just so he can get Izzy’s full and undivided attention -- as well as keep Izzy’s family as functional hostages to Izzy’s good behavior.”
Izzy and Ricky sit down to chat. “Izzy’s defense of his loved ones is like chess, and he’s his own most useful (and yet sacrificial) game piece. Izzy does change his tactics whenever he realizes something isn’t gaining him ground -- but he’s got Ricky fairly well figured out.” Izzy knows he needs to keep Ricky occupied until Ed, Stede, and Yi Sao show up. He needs to keep him interested.
Ricky is projecting when he calls Izzy the brains of the Blackbeard operation. “He’s his own ‘brain’ with no heart. We have it proven by his plan to immediately double-cross Zheng [...]; that’s devious and clever on a level Izzy (who doesn’t even carry a pistol so that all his violent power remains connected to his body so he can control every bit of it -- and you can’t redirect a bullet or change what it’ll hit once it’s in flight) would not have gone to on his own.”
Izzy stops playing with the candle flame (recall that both he and Ed toy with flames when they’re lying). This is his ‘it’s about belonging to something’ speech.
“The Sacred Heart is level, unmoving, and intense when he delivers his raison d'être into Prince Ricky’s hearing. What response does he get, upon confessing his all? The worst possible one, unfortunately. Ricky can’t resonate with Izzy’s essential truth spoken blatantly into the text: Ricky has never once done anything in his life simply for the love of another person, much less a whole group of them.”
But it’s fine, because “Izzy is subtextually confessing, via the text, to us as the Unseen Crew. The Sacred Heart put into the text the reason for everything he’s done this season, and everything he will do before the end of the episode: not for glory, gold, public acclaim, or even the satisfaction of personal desire or the pursuit of romantic love. It’s for the crew, and the crew alone. It is utterly selfless, having let go of the ego-self. It is agape love.”
Zheng Yi Sao, Stede, and Ed are all at the beach. Ed and Stede reunite and Stede gets an actual, real apology from Ed. Stede responds to Ed’s love confession with an ‘I know,’ and maybe that’s supposed to feel a bit off. (When something feels off, look at the subtext.)
Ed and Stede run off to battle with their two battlecries: ‘Die, motherfuckers!’ ‘For love!’ And guess what? “...We will get to see someone do just that: die for love.”
“Now the center of the mirror episode, held between its textual and subtextual midpoints: Archie and Fang trying to create a literal ‘narrow escape’ by twisting fabric around the bars until they bend.”
Olu finds Auntie, “who is such a capable person that she’s already decided she’s dead and went off to a quiet spot to finish dying where it wouldn’t bother anyone else,” and calls Jim over to help her.
Why Jim? “...While Buttons bit Lucius and the wound got infected and he nearly died from sepsis -- Jim’s Nana said that they once bit a priest's finger off and the priest swore that he'd die of rabies, but he didn’t. [...] Jim’s assistance also contributed to Izzy surviving an unsurvivable amputation and healing up afterward; we can go ahead and say that Jim’s hands are canonically (and magically) healing.”
To recap: “an Izzy mirror character [Auntie] thinks they’re dead and all’s lost so they ‘bury’ themselves as best they could… and then they resurrect with a beam of holy white light. It’s possible that the addition of a dove in the scene was rejected as being ‘too on the nose.’”
Back to Izzy. Ricky calls himself the ultimate pirate, but of course “Izzy's the ultimate pirate: not because he's loud and brags and destroys things, but because every other real pirate knows him and follows his orders when he gives them.”
Izzy plays RIcky and “...we see Prince Ricky absolutely stunned and captivated by Izzy’s all-encompassing conviction.” Izzy continues: ‘Our spirit will last throughout your entire fuckin’ empire because we’re good. And you are a rancid, syphilitic cunt.’ Izzy looks on Ricky with pity and “Ricky’s damn near openly weeping, because the Sacred Heart’s speaking of the unspoken truth has always and without fail been fucking devastating.”
Why does that hurt him? “Ricky’s presenting with a ‘saddle nose’ deformity/infection due to raging untreated syphilis,” and “Izzy’s just told Prince Ricky: Jackie only took what you were probably going to eventually lose anyway, and you and I both know it.” As you can see, “...these two mirrored characters are both infected with STI’s that can cause pain and dementia, prevent safe intimacy with others, and eventually result in death.”
Chapter 17: The Sacred Heart (Part 6)
We pick up with Zheng Yi Sao, Stede, and Ed arriving on the scene a bit too late. “As the soldiers begin dying all around them, the rage on Ricky’s face is turned -- not toward our sword-wielding heroes or to Jackie’s crew who have so deftly distributed their poison -- but to the Sacred Heart, who played an immaculate game that no one else spotted until it was too late.”
Speaking of poison, there’s a Bible passage about that: ‘And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons [Ed and Auntie referring to demons]; they will speak with new tongues [Buttons reading the magic scroll]; they will take up serpents [Lucius roasting snake on a stick]; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them [Jackie’s household is poisoned trained]; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover [Jim healing Auntie].’
Is this too much of a reach? Nah. “For myself… I’ve never seen we queer folk portrayed as holy in mainstream western media to such a loving, complete, and human extent before. I have never seen us be both the divine and the disciples before, so textually and overtly.”
Mera continues:
Last night the Universe gave me a quote, from an unexpected source: “Hell is not what you expect it to be.” That part, I been knew. [...]
I’m pleased to confess: ‘Jesus was not what we expected him to be!’
And that feels like it’s given that ideal back to me: Jesus doesn’t have to be conventionally pretty, conventionally young. He doesn’t have to be spotless and pure and inoffensive to the point of being bland, untouchable and unsexed, in order to represent God and reunite us with the divine power of the Universe.
He can be a small, aging, angry, bitter, disabled, leather-clad, lust-filled queer man with a filthy mouth and AIDS in his arteries -- as long as he carries God’s agape love for his chosen family.
And that means any of us can be Jesus, too -- as long as we truly love.
That’s the only part that matters. [...] It makes me better understand the Christ that bad Christians have tried to make all of us forget: the one that loves the whole world, no matter what. No exceptions, because he can love them and they need to be loved, and so he does.
I can love that Christ in return, because he’s the real one.
Auntie and Zheng Yi Sao reunite. The blocking in this scene emphasizes the mirroring of Auntie and Izzy: “Auntie [is] in the center of the shot (because she’s a badass) [with] Izzy occupying the far left frame [...]. The candle’s brilliant flame is equidistant between these two mirrored characters (as if Auntie removed Ricky from the scene only to step into his place again as Izzy’s mirror); its light shines on Izzy’s family in the space on the other side of the table that they bracket. And here, too: Izzy’s one deadly, naked hand, clenched in a loose fist on the table’s surface. The cross he always bears. The living death he cannot escape.”
Auntie’s wound is on her left side.
“But moving on: Stede says we need a plan. And… we the Unseen Crew don’t get to hear the plan but from the looks of everyone who was present, it’s probably not a totally great one.”
Closeup on Stede’s face. Cut immediately to Alex Sherman’s ass. “THIS. IS. NOT. AN. ACCIDENT. So I’m not saying that Stede’s an ass. I’m saying that the show is subtextually showing you that Stede’s an ass.”
It’s time for the “Roads To Moscow” by Al Stewart montage. Every line of this is analyzed in the meta, but let’s cut right to the end: “It jumps to the last and most tragic verse of the song, that describes how a triumphant soldier returning home is instead assumed by Russian command to be a traitor, and sent to die a horrible lonely death in the gulags and never see his home again.” During this verse, “Ricky glances down to prompt the camera to glance down from the soldier’s POV, spotting Izzy’s golden hoof behind Ricky’s boots. Ricky draws his hidden gun from his left side and shoves Izzy back from him --”
“The song’s mostly about a soldier going home after a victory against a truly evil enemy: the Nazis. However, someone (mistakenly) thinks he’s a traitor and therefore he’s sent to die alone in a gulag in the freezing cold of Siberia and never see his home again. A traitor's death. Traitors die like that. Judases die like that.”
Izzy is the one holding Ricky at knifepoint. Significantly, the hand that he’s holding his dagger with -- his right -- is initially ungloved. “Izzy’s not just threatening Ricky with the tiniest knife I’ve ever seen anyone on this show use for something that wasn’t eating a meal. Izzy is threatening Ricky into compliance with his own blood.”
They turn a corner and “Izzy’s put his glove back on – but Ricky doesn’t know this. That’s why he shoves Izzy back before taking the shot. He can’t risk getting cut with a blade also contaminated with Izzy’s blood.” Ricky could have shot Izzy then if that was his intention, but…
Ed is centered in the shot, gun drawn. “Ricky wasn’t aiming for the Sacred Heart.The traitor Edward Teach, sometimes and most famously known as Blackbeard -- traitor to the British Crown and traitor to Izzy Hands -- was his intended target. Ricky was aiming for Ed, and Izzy took the bullet meant for him.”
Izzy positioned himself as he did because “...he's done the next five or six chess moves in his head already, then planted himself without comment or drama wherever it is he needs to be in order to best respond to it.” He intentionally placed himself between the threat and his family. “He's sacrificed himself to save them, and specifically the one among them he has loved the longest: Edward.”
Mera compares this to a scene to one in the 2005 adaptation of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. In this scene, the White Witch demands that Aslan give her the traitor (Edmund). Aslan protects him.
“Here’s the important part that I do recall from the story: that there is nothing the traitor can do to save themselves, or to deserve or earn the sacrifice that is given in their stead. (So it’s not that Edward deserved to be saved or somehow deserved to live more than Izzy does.) It’s something that only Aslan, the Christ-figure, can give through his divine grace and agape love.”
In The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, two sisters see the lion Aslan tortured and sacrificed. He’s completely dead, but the following morning, he is resurrected. When one of the sisters asks how this happened, Aslan says, “...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”
Anyway.
The crew makes their escape. Ed finally notices that something’s wrong with Izzy; he and Frenchie help him to the ship. No one else has been injured. “No one else has blood on themselves at all except Edward. Not even Frenchie, who was closest to Izzy's wounded side.” Ed is “practically washed in Izzy’s blood.”
“No one else but Edward interacts with Izzy’s bloody clothes and body. At least half the crew that was in the boat with them now knows not to touch Izzy’s flesh or blood.”
Going off of the blood on Ed’s vest, he held Izzy and they were both brought up to the ship using the barnacle-scraping swing. Ed may have even held Izzy on the ride to the Revenge, trying to minimize the amount of blood that the rest of the crew was exposed to.
Once on the ship, Roach and Stede run off. “Why? Bandages? Sure. But also: Stede’s brown leather gauntlets from S2x05. We’ve seen he has them. If he can find them and they’re not too damaged from the rope work, Roach can help bandage Izzy up.”
Izzy weakly fights Ed off and Ed pokes at the injury; he’s worried about Ed examining the wound without the protection of gloves. “Even now, he carefully keeps his hands separate from Edward’s. If I was dying in the arms of someone I loved… oh, I’d cling to them. I’d grip their hands and I’d touch their face; I’d knot my fingers in their shirt. I would cling to them as I’d cling to life itself, for their sake if not my own. Izzy does none of this. His physical love is death, and he knows it. The last of his emotional love he can demonstrate is to still try to keep Ed safe.”
Izzy apologies, and Ed says that no, he’s sorry. Izzy says no -- not in response to what Ed said, but because Ed’s drenched with his dangerous blood.
Izzy tells Ed that he fed his darkness -- that he needed Blackbeard. “It was their partnership, a closeness not shared with any other person. It was their marriage of mind and heart. Was there a supernatural element in this intimacy? I’ll wager there was and is, even though we've not seen it in the text and it's barely hinted at in the subtext. But even if there wasn’t… it was intimacy nonetheless. They never could leave each other for long. And when they couldn’t touch each other at all, they still at least had the Blackbeard union.”
Ed tells Izzy that he can’t go, he’s his only family. “Thing is? Ed’s absolutely correct, here -- and he has no one to blame but himself. He’s figuring things out with Stede, but that’s barely hours old… this time around. He hardly got to know Fang before he was brought back from the dead; he’s only spent a few hours with him. He alienated the rest of the crew and hasn’t bothered investing in them since.”
“Thing is? Before Edward lashed out as the Kraken, the crew really did like him. He was charming. He was interesting and cool. And if he really tried again, he could win their hearts again.”
Jim is standing behind them, watching, not trying to help even though “...they did fine during the amputation that Izzy otherwise shouldn’t have survived or thrived after, and they healed Auntie enough she came back from what she thought was going to be certain death.” Someone must have told Jim the rules about touching Izzy (the HIV/AIDS victim).
Jim can’t help. “But we see Jim twitch and fidget in the front line of the crew now, their eyes filled with unshed tears, shaking their head in negation. They want to try to help, no matter what. Even if the bullet from Ricky's textual gun carries Ricky's subtextual syphilis into Izzy's bloodstream, making his blood even more dangerous.”
Izzy tells Ed that the crew loves him. Remember that Izzy’s flaw is projection. “This is the last projection, and it is half-conscious, and it is entirely a gift since it is from the Sacred Heart in the last moments of his self-sacrifice: Izzy’s last gift to Edward.”
Izzy realizes unconsciously that the crew loves him. In Mera’s words:
And he’s not ready to be able to accept their love on a personal basis. His reception of it in the form of his new unicorn leg prosthetic resulted in obligation: they gave to him, and he had to give back in order to earn it, to feel himself in any way worthy of that affection and acceptance.
What would he give?
Everything he’s ever had: his entire life, all of his heart, his very last breath.
Izzy gives it now.
Something in him does know that the crew loves him… and in his last dying seconds he knows he’s going to leave a gap in their lives. They need a protector. They need someone to love them and take care of them like he did.
And if Edward decides to, he could step right into that empty place and fill it, and become a loving heart of his own to the entire crew -- beyond simply loving Stede.
If Edward had made the decision to try… the end of this episode would be very different indeed.
‘There he is,’ Izzy tells Ed. “Not Blackbeard, if Ed’s ready to let go. He could just be Ed now. His heart told him so.”
The crew stay back for two reasons: 1) AIDS; 2) “The Christ-figure reason: they are dressed as the modern Roman empire; they are garbed in the enemy’s clothing who crucified Christ and stood around and callously watched him die. They are also prevented from approaching and interacting with his dying body as Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and the other disciples were all prevented from doing.”
Why aren’t they crying? Now “… the much beloved new unicorn of the crew [is] dying in front of all their eyes and no one can take his hand or hold his arm or touch his face to comfort him in any way as he dies, because it will kill them. These. People. Are. All. In. Emotional. Shock. And people who are deeply in shock often don’t cry!”
“The next scene is the burial. But we’re not there yet. There’s a timeskip where we the Unseen Crew have not seen the things that would have had to happen.” They have to return to land with Izzy’s body, “which is a beloved relic now, and also a biohazard on an incredible scale.”
Ed is covered in Izzy’s blood. Did he prepare Izzy’s body for burial? That task was once considered women’s work (we had a song about that when a man was coming back to life). Ed may also clean the deck, since he’s already covered in blood.
“Then he has to bathe his own body before anyone else can touch him, probably in the ocean so as not to contaminate Stede's tub. He’ll have to scrub clean, and scrub again, and again, and again. What’s finally safe? Does he know? Can he trust, when it’s now Stede’s life at stake? [...] (Edward might not be safe to lay in Stede’s bed, in Stede’s arms, anymore. He might never be again.)”
Why was Izzy given a simple burial by the shack? “Any other supernatural speculation aside: the simplest reason is because Ed’s not ready to let Izzy go, just as Izzy wasn’t ready to let go of Ed’s body in S2x03. Where Izzy is, Edward wants and needs to be. If he put Izzy’s body into the ocean -- the simplest and most hygienic means of burial, and appropriate for a pirate, yet one that Izzy too also rebelled against for Ed… it would separate them too far.”
At the funeral, Ed’s back in the Blackbeard leathers that used to protect him.
The burial itself is “fucky” because “the creators of OFMD have, apparently rightfully so, been concerned that they didn’t give enough previous subtextual clues to the viewers that Izzy Hands will rise out of his grave (again), this time to fully conquer HIV/AIDS and his own queer grief.”
The song is too different from the other songs in the show. It’s not semi-contemporary, and information about it is hard to track down. “What if it's the right title... but not quite the right song? What if it's text that covers up or obscures the subtext? What else comes up if you search ‘that's alright lyrics’?” You get Fleetwood Mac’s That’s Alright. “...It's not quite the correct tone for a death scene, of course. But for a long-term relationship that's about to be changed or left behind between two people who do still love each other in some way…”
Izzy’s prosthetic leg is used as the gravemarker. “It’s not going to last in any sort of weather. And for another reason: imagine that it was a taupe plastic prosthetic shaped like a naked human foot and leg and perhaps that helps you visualize why IT’S WEIRD. IT’S GROSS ON A SPIRITUAL LEVEL. YOU DO NOT DO THIS THING.”
Additionally: “They’re using IZZY’S FUCKING SWORD AS THE SPIKE FOR THE MARKER. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.” Izzy was a legendary swordsman. “You’re taking his saber and, instead of laying it to rest honorably at his side, ARE STICKING IT BLADE FIRST INTO THE DIRT ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!”
“They took his cravat and ring off and laid it over the top of the makeshift driftwood/leg cross. NO. Just... no. It [...] was so important and significant to him that he has worn every moment we’ve ever seen him except removing it one time for exercise and sweaty exertion. No, just like his sword: they didn’t lay it to rest with him, leaving it on his throat so that it goes with him into his grave. They hung it out where the elements will visibly rot it eventually.”
Why?
1) “The OFMD creative crew wants you to be reminded of Pet Sematary… and of what happens in it.” In this movie, there is a pet cemetery on land where anything buried will come back. Now the ground is “sour,” and when things come back, “they Come Back Wrong: they’re strange, overly aggressive, and most tellingly? They smell bad.”
It’s also “gross and fucky” that they’re burying Izzy in a way that, at least superficially, gives ‘pet burial,’ “visually [coding] Izzy as something like Ed's pet.”
“The other reason the cravat and its mourning ring is on the grave marker? It’s the symbol for queer grief -- not only for living under the specter of HIV/AIDS but of everyone we’ve lost to it and queer/transphobic violence since the dawn of time.”
Con O’Neill said that he wanted the stone to be set in Izzy’s ring to be emerald, in honor of his recently deceased mother. He wanted a reminder of one of the “freshest and most present griefs. [...] The most queer-coded character of the show, who is also HIV/AIDS coded, has carried around his overwhelming grief constantly with him, usually tied so tight to his throat it nearly chokes him [...]. The crew part this grief from his dead body to hang it on the cross.”
In Protestant churches, you hear about “sin or grief or some other unwanted thing being ‘nailed to the cross.’ If Izzy’s grief is now visibly left behind on Izzy’s cross, he will rise again without it.”
The crew leaves without getting to “perform any of the other socially acceptable parts of the mourning rituals that help the living internalize their loss and let go of the dead. Blackbeard’s heart has been put into the ground to keep it close to where Blackbeard’s mind is determined to wait for… whatever happens next. But it couldn’t lay in state like Edward’s own body did; unlike Ed, Izzy’s body is just as dangerous dead as alive. These people are still in deep emotional shock -- and the Sacred Heart of the show lies dead in its grave, leaving everyone feeling listless and directionless.”
Ed and Stede stand alone, touching:
That’s the strained and sad expression of a man trying to figure out how to have an honest, mature conversation with the man he loves about the fact that he might now be carrying a deadly disease and so they can’t fuck anymore, and probably shouldn’t even be touching that much.
Because look at that: Ed’s hand not on Stede’s bare skin but on his shirt over his shoulder. It may look like a caress but to me it also looks like a restraining gesture; it stops Stede from getting closer. Stede’s hand on Ed’s elbow, because Stede doesn’t Get It yet.
The curse continues: the mind of Blackbeard loves what it will lose the ability to touch. (And, once the Sacred Heart of Blackbeard and the show is dead, this is the most we see these two ever touch again.)
Ed is apathetic about going after Ricky. Why? “With Blackbeard’s heart dead, Blackbeard’s mind will soon die also. It might be a matter of hours.” Alternatively, “with Edward now infected with Izzy’s ‘curse’, he may die in a decade or so… or much sooner. Average lifespan of HIV/AIS without treatment is 8-10 years but there’s many different factors involved.”
We head to the Revenge for a rushed wedding, and “during this matelotage ceremony, Edward gives Stede a Look – definitely seeming like he’s thinking about Stede in a marriage sort of way himself. But we don’t see them kiss or even touch again. We can’t even be sure they’re holding hands or touching at all during this ceremony...”
We get one final shot of the Revenge and its crew. What’s the last we see of the ship? “The damaged unicorn figurehead, still protecting its crew.”
“I said it before and I’ll say it again: I believe that every time we see a shot of that unicorn sailing with the Revenge, it means Izzy’s alive and present in the universe.”
There’s a lot to analyze in the final shot of Ed and Stede:
First off: omfg, this is a horror movie “creature about to jump out at you” camera POV. Why would we get this shot during what we’re told by everything else is supposed to be a triumphant romantic ending? What the fuck would be in the house to be looking out at our two heroes? [...]
But also… that’s Stede and Edward, our two new lovebirds… standing pretty far apart for two guys supposed to be hot for each other’s bodies and totally alone with one another. (See that long leather sleeve? That was the side best armored because that’s where Izzy stood most often. That’s what’s between Edward and Stede now.)
And look at that blocking/framing; Stede’s in the center, and it looks like that left arm of his is menaced/sliced at by the broken glass. Being alone in the center of the frame means Stede is therefore the most important thing and not their romantic partnership; Edward is shoved all the way into the right third of the frame.
And subtextually? ‘Izzy’s Revenge’ has now come between Stede and Edward. It’s keeping them separate.
Ed’s smile is “fake tight tense.”
“...Stede and Edward stranded themselves on this beach with no supplies or food or tools that we can see -- and the crew of the Revenge just… fucking… let them do that, too. Without even a sammie. (Their Heart is dead and their immense grief at that fact is not even a full day old. Have you ever had anyone very close to you die suddenly? How soon was it before you were back to anything like normal on the inside, even if you still had to fake it?)”
Ed asks Stede if he’s having second thoughts. “Ed might be (is) having second thoughts and has no idea how to begin to talk or even think about them, much less the massive horrible thing he needs to share with his lover… before he shares anything ELSE with him.” (The “horrible thing,” remember, is HIV/AIDS.)
The shack is small and shitty. “This is only 384 sq ft of floor space at best.”
Stede and Ed stand far apart. This is the closest that Ed gets to a real smile. There’s a bad smell.
“(How long was the rest of the crew back aboard the Revenge for the LuPete wedding? Could say maybe two hours or so? Long enough for something dead to grope its way back toward life (because the crew's unicorn can't rest in peace if Blackbeard's mind won't be taking up the mantle of crew's protector!), crawl out of its shallow grave, drag itself up the hill toward shelter… and not quite make it up the ramp stairs to the porch to be spotted immediately?)”
Seagull Buttons lands on the cross that marks Izzy’s grave.
Mera references The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. “Our boy… our beautiful and much beloved boy Izzy Hands… is, I believe, under the floorboards awaiting discovery. He couldn't make it up the stairs with as weak as he was, so he crawled under the house.”
We’re here in this new reeking pit (Izzy survived his first death in this season, remember? He got over it, just like Con said) and you and I both have hold of Izzy’s warm bare hands, because we have no fear and we know that he left his living death behind him in the grave, along with the queer grief nailed to hung up on his cross.
We have hold of his hands because that’s what the lovers do to call someone back into life; Stede showed us how it works in this fairy-tale realm of OFMD.
Izzy doesn’t have lovers in the text yet. But we can be that for him, because we love him just as much as the Visible Crew does. We will sit here however long it takes.
Chapter 18: Mirror, Mirror: S2x08
“Our Flag Means Death Season 2 Episode 8 is an intense internal mirror to itself, in that most of the emotional beats and plot points of the first half of the episode are repeated in reverse order for the second half. In addition to that, TWO midpoints are made visible when examining the thirds and quarters timestamps -- that hold between them a THIRD midpoint scene that is the key to understanding the stinger after the end credits... and the episode in its entirety.”
I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here because I am not serious enough in my media analysis. Here’s the chapter if you want to read!
And here’s the super-short version:
In their initial timestamp calculation, Mera finds that, “In this textual reading, Izzy's sacrifice and death are fucking ABSENT from the major beats.” The Gentlebeard reunion kiss is at the midpoint. That couldn’t be, “so I did it again, the other way, with end credits and stinger included in the overall run time... and got something WAY different.”
The quarters: face closeups of the two halves of Blackbeard, talking about or actually becoming Blackbeard. [Closeup on Ed’s face when he thinks Stede may be dead, Izzy’s face as he talks about feeding Ed’s darkness.]
The act transitions: Izzy and Ricky in a dance of death; first Ricky appears triumphant, then Izzy.
The midpoint: Oluwande, Petra to Izzy’s Jesus throughout the last half of S2, unshrouding an Izzy mirror (Auntie) in a beam of holy light; this moment leads to Auntie being [sic] restored healed by Jim’s hands. [...]
So now we’ve discovered a textual midpoint (the Gentlebeard kiss) and a subtextual midpoint (Oluwande and Jim “resurrecting” Auntie from the dead).
Season 2 Episode 8 is an internal mirror to itself, with not one but TWO midpoints -- and a THIRD midpoint centered between them that appears irrelevant on first watching, but is actually key to the episode’s message!
The center of this entire “mirror” is “Archie and Fang trying to bend the cell bars while Olu, somewhat undressed Lucius, Wee John, and Frenchie watch.” Why? “The way out is the way through! This one otherwise apparently useless scene, centerpiece of the mirror, aims us at the stinger of the episode after the credits.”
Okay, but why is that really the center? Why is the stinger Frenchie squeezing through the cell bars? “Because it’s literally a narrow escape that happened during the episode but is only explained after the credits -- achieved by Izzy’s closest mirror this season [Frenchie]. Frenchie squeezed through a very tight spot that several others thought might be impossible to get through.
“With everything else I’ve just showed you that were mirrored events/beats in this episode… it’s highly suggestive of a possibility that there’s a second narrow escape that happened during the episode that will only be explained after the credits: in Season 3.”
There are a ton of mirrored events, but here’s the most important one: “Ed has attempted a bucolic life twice; first one failed miserably. Is that second attempt looking any more well prepared, well thought-out, or in line with his textual skillsets?”
On to the next!
#ofmd#ofmd meta#but like ofmd meta summary#izzy critical#not really but it's for that crowd tbh#this is the episode analysis that almost made me lose it#the contempt for our main characters#(ed and stede)#ed is not a traitor fight me
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i apologize in advance if this ask sounds kinda weird, but i'm kinda curious to hear your thoughts on how the narrative treats qi rong, mostly because i think interacting only with the eng version/fandom might take some context from his character. i've seen people complaining that some fans woobify him too much, others complaining that some people treat him as a pure hate-sink when he's more than that. while i do think he's a multi-layered character, i do sometimes get the feeling that mxtx did not go easy on him, with the revised version being even crazier than before (some even say he was given a bit of onesided incestuous subtext with xl, but i wonder if that interpretation isn't just the result of weirdly translated lines in eng). i think this might be because he strikes me as a meta personification of sorts for toxic fans who place their identity and self-worth on just one person they completely idolize, and when that person is shown to be imperfect they immediately turn against them, and we know mxtx has had experience with those kinds of people.
i do think he's largely meant to be seen as unsympathetic overall, though i think there's strong nuances with his character as well. since his childhood he always lacked something and never really had a well formed identity, his prince name being symbolic of his life. he projected himself onto xl in life, and he kept on absorving the worst traits of the people around his life without really understanding them in order to feel powerful and important, from the xianle nobles to the signature traits of the other calamities. he also strikes me as very... "little brother"-coded, in the sense that he keeps looking for any sort of recognition and seems unable to mature. even when he hates xl i think he still somewhat craves his attention, and qr only developed a bit when he was forced to let go of this role by accidentally becoming a father instead. i think it's also interesting that he started out a lot like his father, but ended up sharing the fate of his mother.
i do wonder how the cn fandom views him and if he's nearly as divisive as he is here. i'd also be pretty interested in seeing some meta about him from cn fans. again, it feels like some context is missing by not speaking the language the book was originally written in...
Hi! I think the narrative basically takes the same stance as Xie Lian in its attitude towards Qi Rong, which is the sort of "I can't love you but I don't want to hate you, the best I could give you is indifference". I agree that Qi Rong isn't meant to be lovable, but MXTX isn't dismissive of him as a character either - she devoted almost an entire chapter to Qi Rong's death, let him speak his mind, and gave him some form of closure.
Qi Rong having onesided incestuous subtext with XL (!!) in the revised version is...very interesting haha, I haven't read the revised version so I can't know (someone please tell me where to get the revised version ><). Although I want to speculate that even if there is some incestuous vibes, it's not truly sexual - it's probably libido directed the wrong way when you're lusting over someone else's identity, but not over that person per se. Qi Rong lusts over XL's identity in the sense that he wants to be XL - or rather he wants to be perfect, worshipped, all-powerful etc. (bit of digression, there's an underrated psychological thriller called Cracks starring Eva Green, if you watch it you'll know what I mean)
I don't have the impression that he's truly divisive in the Chinese fandom, but then I don't engage with the Chinese fandom that much so I could totally be wrong. And I don't think any context is missing for English readers either (except maybe the humour of QR's obscene language might be lost in translation?) because human nature is the same everywhere, and Qi Rong's distorted psyche is more a matter of human nature than cultural context.
As for Chinese fandom's view of QR, there's this great meta I translated and posted a few days ago, and I found some other opinion pieces about Qi Rong on Zhihu (Chinese equivalent of Reddit), as you'll see they're quite diverse.
A lot of Chinese readers say that what stands out most about Qi Rong is his comedic role in the story because his cursing and name-calling are really funny; a lot of people also mention being really touched by his self-sacrifice to save Guzi. I found this one post that has a similar view to yours, which is QR represents MXTX's toxic fans:
"I always felt it's the author admonishing her fans in an implicit way not to be as crazy as Qi Rong [...] My guess is that the author can't ask her fans outright not to act in this way because that would hurt people who support her but are immature, however she can't turn a blind eye to these people going around provoking more resentment, so she creates QR to remind her fans not to be like QR, or they'd appear as unlikable as QR to the public. But the author still feels symathy for thse fans, so she didn't depict their representation in the novel as totally incorrigible - QR retains some humanity and is a little adorable when he starts to care about people."
I also saw opinions about the narrative (or rather Xie Lian) not going easy on Qi Rong, like this one:
"Xie Lian is clearly a very good person but why is he so heartless to QR? He eventually treated QR as a joke and a burden, but QR was once a true follower of his. At first I thought XL was perfect and cares about everyone, but he never really cared for his cousin. When I read that XL felt neither joy nor sorrow when QR died saving Guzi, my heart chilled. If XL could forgive the masses who betrayed and reviled him, why can't he forgive his cousin who once followed him whole-heartedly?"
There're also people saying that Qi Rong's potential divisiveness is what makes him a great villain, like this post:
"What MXTX's well-received villains have in common is a tragic childhood and not being loved growing up, and they only have a soft spot for one person. Although these villains did horrible deeds and are unrepentant, they all reserve some kindness in their heart for the only person who's good to them. This contrast is striking and touching, yet most likely to cause controversy. Therefore, MXTX knows very clearly how to create a memorable villain, and I admire that."
Someone else says when they read about Qi Rong they "don't know whether to laugh or cry" (XL's signature emotion hehe). They add that "this is where MXTX is successful in writing a villain - you both hate and pity him; he's infuriating, but you don't really want to see him die either."
Another view is that since Qi Rong has no filter, he sometimes serves as the truth-telling voice. For example, when XL wanted to keep Lang Qianqiu in the dark about the truth of the Gilded Banquet Massacre, Qi Rong blurted out the truth.
There's also a question posted on Zhihu that asks why people like Qi Rong, and there're some interesting answers. There's one post that says "I find him attractive because he's depicted as alluringly ghostly in a lot of fan art like vampires in Twilight" haha
Another post says they like Qi Rong "because he's guilelessly wicked, while XL and Hua Cheng are hypocrites" emmmmm
Another one says they like Qi Rong because "being Xie Lian is exhausting, he's so wronged but he just endures it all, while Qi Rong just launches verbal assults whenever someone rubs him the wrong way, it's so cathartic. The most difficult thing in the world is to be a good person, because as soon as you do one thing wrong, everyone criticises you; but if you're a bad person, even if you did just one good thing, everyone praises you for it and shows you pity".
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As an extension of your post about epithets, I'm wondering if you can help me pin down what it is about the use of phrases like "those eyes" or "that mouth" that have started to just drive me bonkers when I read some fanfic. At times I come across it and it feels completely natural, and other times it feels like a somewhat lazy shorthand for expressing a character's admiration. Thank you!
I can't speak with certainty, because this isn't a problem that's come up enough in my own fandoms for me to really analyze it in context, but I'll give it my best guess.
Phrases like "those eyes" and "that mouth" work most effectively for me when they're a reference back to a previous description. Maybe those eyes are really exceptional. For instance, Sir Damien in The Penumbra Podcast goes on at length about Lord Arum's violet eyes to the point that "those violet eyes..." are already a recurring motif inside the work, so the fics that use the phrase are all calling back to that.
Sometimes, though, you'll get writers refer to features that don't make any sense in the situation. I've seen lots of complaints brought up about prose describing a character's "plush lips" and "fine ass" when the actor portraying that character very decidedly has neither of those things-- often completely ignoring the qualities that the character actually does have in favor of the generic "sexy" ones.
Often, "that [body part]" carries a very strong sexual connotation, particularly about what the POV character would very much like to be doing to "that mouth/those thighs/those arms/that neck/whatever". They tend to work best in my opinion when the point-of-view character has very specific fantasies/memories that are described, or at least implied, on the page. But sometimes you'll get that phrasing from a character where it doesn't make sense for them to be thinking of the other person in those terms. Maybe they're sexually inexperienced in a way where specific fantasies seem out of character, or their preferences within the narration veer very sharply in one direction but the designated body part implies otherwise (for example, the writer's gone on at length about them exclusively liking to bottom but describing the other person as if their intention is to top them-- not out of irony or subtext, but because that's a generic "attractive feature").
I think it also ought to be said that which features are emphasized, and the adjectives used to emphasize them, work best when they're deliberately chosen to build a specific effect-- is the other person's vibe elegant, or brutal, or delicate, or whatever? Picking qualities and features that reinforce that vibe can be super evocative and feel much more personal than sticking to the standards. In a recent fandom I'm in, one character is singled out as being exceptionally strong in the canon, and specifically noteworthy to the character that he's frequently shipped with. Consequently, a lot is done with his love interest thirsting over the breadth and power of the character's shoulders. Shoulders weren't sexy before, but they sure as hell are now.
TL;DR: if I had to guess at what makes that phrase fall flat, it would be a lack of specificity to the actual character, or an inconsistency with the way the people in the scene are characterized.
#writing#it's late and I've had a long day so this isn't as organized as I would hope#but it's better than my previous draft#which is saying something
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I always got the impression Illyria was a he/him in their original god king form but defaulted to she/her when taking Fred as a vessel. In general though I don’t think pronouns actually matter to Illyria. I think he/him was assigned by followers and she/her is assigned by ats crew.
Valid! Canon doesn't dive too deeply into it, so I think a lot of it is up for interpretation. AFAIK all we get in canon is that Knox and Drogyn refer to Illyria (the original god-king) with it pronouns (as do the ATS crew), and it's only when it's in Fred's body that the crew start using she/her. Which is to say that I think that you're correct that it's other people projecting a gender onto it and struggling to disentangle Illyria from Fred.
But also! What I've always found interesting is that Knox (basically the only character on the show with an emotional connection to the original Illyria) entwines a... crush? For lack of a better word? on Fred with his worship of Illyria, and I can't make up my mind, personal headcanon-wise, if he's just projecting or if there's historical precedent for this. Like, what's the thought process behind, "yeah sure I'll resurrect my epic god-king (gender neutral) in the body of my beautiful co-worker"? Also there's this adolescent crush/obsession vibe when he says:
And when I first saw this, I thought this was going to lead into a parable about how some dudes will 'worship' women and make them into god-like figures in their heads, but in doing so, also infantilize them and want to control them? Like I legit thought this was going to evolve into an "I Was Made to Love You" type lesson about objectifying women, where Knox both worships Illyria and feels "owed" for resurrecting her, and when he throws a tantrum about her not being appropriate grateful, she kills him. And this would mirror the condescension that Fred experiences throughout the show -- that ultimately what kills Fred is Knox putting her up on this pedestal as a "perfect woman" rather than seeing her as a complete person:
Like, Knox says this to Wesley just before Wes pulls his gun on him, and I thought this would be about Wes being forced to confront the ways in which HE could also flatten Fred into a symbol of goodness and not see her as a whole person at times. Which would then mimic the ways that nearly every member of the Angel crew harbors feelings of guilt over what happened to Fred.
(Alternatively in my AU where Wes gets Illyria'd, I think it's ultimately about Wes CHOOSING to die in Fred's place, against her wishes, in a way that's heroic/tragic but also intertwined with the complicated feelings Fred has about being patronized by the others and being perceived as the one who needs to 'protecting.' Like, how do you grapple with that grief alongside that resentment? *Wesley voice* "I think I hate her a little for that." But this is getting way off topic.)
ANYWAYS. Obviously none of that happened, so maybe I'm reading subtext where there isn't any or I just missed something. This is all a long way of saying that much of Illyria's arc feels very gendered in my interpretation, not just in the god-king-beyond-human-comprehension way but in the conflict surrounding it. To get back to your ask, I do agree that Illyria doesn't care about pronouns. I do think it's funny in the Wes!Illyria AU if the only person who DOES care is Fred, who's out there pulling (in the most well-intentioned way) the "its pronouns are she/her" move
#i receive: 1 ask#you receive: a vague answer and 7 paragraphs about something marginally related#hope this doesn't come across as anti wes by the way. it's not meant to be#i just think these are underexplored facets of their relationship i would've liked to have seen developed#ask#wes!illyria#fred burkle#angel the series
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I swear anyone who says Hannibal and Will aren't canon just didn't watch the show. It's not implied, it's not hinted, it's not subtext. It's incredibly romantic and is explicitly said so. The moment and embrace they shared at the end of season 3 was so powerful to me. Just because they didn't kiss or say "hehe want to be my boyfriend?" like they're in some teen romcom doesn't mean they aren't a canonical pairing. They got together at the END of the show after it being stated several times that they love each other and can't live without each other and want each other more than anyone. Lines like wanting to run away together and hungering for each other and "is Hannibal in love with me" are, apparently, completely platonic in some people's eyes or just wishful thinking or, christ, queerbaiting (a point I hope no one has made because it's ridiculously stupid). I'm quite happy with the end of season 3, but I'd hope for a 4th season if only, so they can be a couple on screen and people can stop being dumb about the canon of their relationship
I am so sorry that I have taken forever to reply to this, I lowkey forgot that my inbox was a thing 😅
You are completely right. I want to call it a lack of media literacy, but I'm not sure that's the best phrase. As an autistic person, I completely understand struggling with subtext and needing to have things presented in a straightforward, blunt way. However, with Hannigram, you don't even need to rely solely on subtext. Like you pointed out, Will flat out says, "Is Hannibal in love with me?" And then you've got the entire cast, the showrunner, writer, producers, etc, all saying that they are canonically in love.
And because of that, I really struggle to give people the benefit of the doubt when they say that Hannigram isn't canon or that their relationship is "open to interpretation." Because if you were solely confused due to issues with understanding subtext, then you wouldn't get all up in arms about people pointing out that Hannigram IS CANON.
This honestly leads me to believe that the very vast majority of people who will fight tooth and nail to convince everyone that Hannibal and Will aren't in love is because of homophobia.
We are not used to seeing queer relationships in media. There is maybe a handful of movies and TV shows that revolve around queer relationships. So it is people's knee-jerk reaction to assume that every character is straight and that only heterosexual relationships are canon, and it's because of this bias that they will fight against all queer representation and only accept it when the characters are physically affectionate, and even then they will find reasons to claim it's not valid.
Cishet people are a lot like white people, and men, and basically every other majority, in the way that they feel the need to relate to every single main character, otherwise they can't enjoy the show/book/movie etc. Hannibal and Will have been confirmed as canon, in and out of the show. But these people will fight against it because, whether consciously or unconsciously, the second that their characters are confirmed as queer, they immediately can't relate to them and therefore can't enjoy the show.
They see queer people and queer relationships as so *other* that queer representation literally ruins it for them. Maybe this is an extreme analogy, but it's like watching a movie about humans, and then halfway through finding out that they're robots, and all of a sudden, these aren't people that you're familiar with, they are something other. The knowledge that a character is queer is genuinely so incomprehensible to them that they will do anything to deny it.
And I think that kind of thinking is the biggest problem. It's not always done with bad intention, and it's not always conscious, but it's there. You can see actors and actresses who do the same thing. They have such a visceral reaction to the idea that their character might be queer, that they immediately shut it down. Because if the character is queer, the character isn't relatable, and if the character isn't relatable somehow, the show isn't enjoyable.
By relatable, I don't just mean, "They're straight, and I'm straight." I mean that they genuinely see queer people as completely other from them, and they just cannot grasp the existence of queer relationships as actual relationships and not just vague ideas. Yes, they know that queer relationships are real, but they genuinely can not look at a queer relationship or a queer person and actually have any level of deeper empathy and understanding. They see queer relationships are something completely different then cishet relationship, so the second that a queer relationship becomes the focus, they disengage.
This all relates back to people refusing to acknowledge any kind of queer relationship as canon unless physical affection is apparent.
Obviously, not all straight people do this, but it's an issue that's a lot more prominent than what most people think. As soon as you start looking for it, you see it everywhere. I'm not saying these people hate queer people or don't want queer representation, but this kind of homophobia is just so widely accepted and normalized that it's a knee-jerk reaction, and unfortunately, it's so normalized that people don't even realize they have these biases that they need to get rid of.
Sorry this reply is so long and late coming! I appreciate the ask and love hearing your opinions ❤️
#ask#anon#ask anon#hannibal#nbc hannibal#hannibal lecter#will graham#hannibal nbc#hannigram#hannibal and will#mads mikkelsen#hannibal headcanons#hugh dancy#queer#queer ships#queer media#queer characters#gay#gay representation#lgbt#lgtbq+
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jt (finally) watches warrior nun - s1 e3 (pt 2)
First off, thanks to everyone who's been following along, especially reblogs - it's nice to know I'm not talking (too) crazy lol
Now onto the hug™ and the hallway scene! The more I look into these scenes, the more I love them and the more intrigued I am with the characters (especially Beatrice, of course).
For the hug™ scene, the thing that stood out to me was this idea of instincts in the body, and how sometimes our consciousness gets in the way. There's an interesting parallel between Ava stuck in the wall and the embrace: Ava gets stuck in the wall when her consciousness catches up with her, Bea pauses in the embrace when her consciousness catches up with her. Both were running (Ava literally) on instinct until those moments hit.
What I didn't know going into this episode - again because I've only seen clips and fanvids prior to this - was how Ava was Beatrice's singular focus in this scene. From the moment we see Beatrice and Vincent enter, she's locked onto Ava:
She glances once at Mother Superion but it's very quick; she sees nothing but Ava. Then as soon they have some semblance of privacy, she reaches out to Ava - and actually initiates contact. Additionally, it looks like she was ready for the embrace - when Ava turns towards her, her left arm comes up to receive her:
These actions all make me think that Beatrice was running on instinct here. Curious as to what made her brain catch up (or rather, her subconscious conditioning of shame et al to catch up) - maybe it was how completely trusting Ava was? How it wasn't just a lean but a full embrace? Or maybe it was that her touch was reciprocated in general? Huh maybe that's it - for someone who's been taught to hate herself, to have someone who not only accepts but trusts so completely, that definitely would have been a brain-glitching experience.
Also, can we talk about how Ava just completely trusts Beatrice here? Just moments before this, Mother Superion was rebuking Ava about her lack of trust. And yet here in this moment of pain and vulnerability, she allows herself to break down, not just in front of Beatrice but in her arms. I just - that's mindblowing to me.
This also reinforces to me the importance of the cafeteria scene - I don't think this would have been possible without it. This moment builds on top of that foundation (and then the hallway scene cements it or whatever the term is - why did I choose this analogy lol) and the fact that it's non-verbal is deeply meaningful as well, for both of them as they've not experienced a lot of gentleness.
SO MANY FEELSSSSS
Okay finally made it to the hallway scene - though side note: Does anyone else wonder how they separated from that embrace? Like, did Ava run, embarrassed? Did Bea try to comfort her? Maybe it was the former because Bea is the one who comes looking for her, and gosh how tentative she was in approaching, giving space literally and physically. And then when Ava speaks, immediately freezing, one foot on that step.
But what I really love here is how Bea's response is belief, trust. "Okay," she says, then goes into a sort of investigative mode, which is both a sign of "hey I'm on your side" and also Beatrice legitimately wanting to know, to help. As in, she doesn't ask, "what makes you think that" or try to convince Ava to think differently. "I believe you" is the subtext throughout this whole scene, and it feels like this whole scene is Beatrice trying so hard to make Ava believe that - this time in words.
And what's one of the ways she tries to get Ava to believe that she believes her? Through humor. Bea knows that Ava uses humor as a way to cope, but hasn't actually witnessed much of Ava's jokes. The only instance was, again, that scene in the cafeteria. (I wonder though if Lilith talked about Ava’s irreverence. In the cafeteria scene, you can see that there's conversation taking place all around Beatrice but she's not actually part in any of it - but I'm willing to bet she's someone who is listening to everything)
The thing with humor though, is that it's risky. Especially with someone new. From what we've seen of her so far, Beatrice doesn't seem like someone who takes risks unnecessarily (I say "seem" because my thoughts on that started to change in the next episode, which I'll talk about in the next post), so my thought here is that she's letting herself run on instinct here. And really, it's an extension again of the cafeteria scene. Yes, she started out cold there but when Ava got down on herself and says “I’m not her, you know,” Bea's immediate reaction was to reassure. The same here: She reassures with Ava with that initial "okay," again with her quiet, "perhaps the medical report was wrong" - and then that gentle, "don't let her get to you." She then follows that up with not only the sharing of Cruella DeJesus but also "I may have started it."
It's the last admission that really gets me. She didn't have to share that, and yet she did - as a moment of levity, of solidarity, and dare I say, pride. And I feel like it also is binds them with another connection: being able to find some bit of joy in a shitty situation, and through something not exactly appropriate. We see here a sort of hint of Beatrice's ability to be mean, to be angry, which I feel like the next episodes start to tap into more.
Also can I say just how young Beatrice seems here? Not just the giving of a mean nickname, but the way she smiles and leans in - like a little kid who's too eager to tell you a secret.
And then we get the reward of Ava laughing despite herself - but not only that, we get Ava who feels safe enough to be vulnerable, to ask, "Do you believe me?" And gosh, again this is just after Mother Superion was admonishing Ava about trust, here we have Ava trusting Beatrice again, trusting her enough to ask that question. I've always thought this was a lovely scene but it's incredibly gentle in context with everything else.
Can we also take a moment to appreciate how entranced Beatrice is by Ava's small smile? I found myself smiling alongside Beatrice while also being entranced by her at the same time:
(First: Ava's "thank you," Second: Bea noticing her expression, Third: Bea's "what?")
The thing with Beatrice here, she didn't have to go into any of her past with Ava. She could've dropped it. In fact, she takes a breath and holds it for a brief moment before talking about her parents (2:04 here) - it's different from the breath she takes before talking about how she took her vows young (1:55 here). There's a definite moment of hesitance, as if she started to speak then was going to take it back, then continues on. Again very small but a very nice touch, brilliantly acted by KTY.
The next moment that I love is the "I guess it kind of stuck" line - for me, this reminds me of the "I had a feeling she’d be a handful" line in ep 2. In that write up, I noted that line because of her making light of a shitty situation while also subtly kinda putting her own self down. She does the exact same thing here. And in her own way, she's also being vulnerable - and Ava, observant, smart Ava, notices. And yknow, I think it's because they have that similar joking coping mechanism that Ava knew to look closely, to be ... not "suspicious" because there's no danger, but rather to care, because she knows that kind of humor is there to hide pain.
(Ooh, maybe that's also part of why Bea chided her in the cafeteria scene? Because she recognized it in her own self?? Man, everything just goes back to that cafeteria scene)
I'll close this rambling post with a note about the small smiles Beatrice has - I mentioned it in the part 1 write up but KTY seems to have this habit of giving this little small pursed lips sort of smile when Ava seems to lose faith in herself. We saw it in the cafeteria when Ava says "It just isn't me," then in the hallway when she says "no one believes me anyway." Oh and actually, she does one before Ava speaks too (very hard to capture but it's there):
A part of me thinks that last one was just a tick, not a conscious choice on KTY's part, but it's interesting to note nonetheless - something of sympathy, of wanting to reassure.
Oh I lied I have one more thing - Bea's last line of "There's always more." I've always loved it because of the inherent truth in it and how it sounds like not just an admission but also a promise - a promise that she'll explain it eventually, if Ava gives her time. But what's added an extra layer is again the context of this scene with the cafeteria scene. Bea says in the cafeteria, "We all have a past, Ava; secrets that are ours alone." This line, "There's always more," is both an extension of it and yet a prophetic contradiction: Bea will eventually share her secret with Ava, and she won't be alone.
Alright this is a good enough place to stop - lots to think about for the next couple episodes, plus an attempt to "rewrite" 5 and 6, similar to my rewrite ponderings for episode 3. Let me know what you think if you'd like, otherwise, stay tuned for more rambling lol
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Isn't Ike gay coded tho?
you've activated my trap card, I could talk about Ike's queer coding for hours so TLDR for those who don't want to read a text wall about some jrpg character they don't know, Ike is queer-coded, and both gay and aro Ike are perfectly valid readings of the text.
Ike's pretty universally agreed to be queer-coded. most of his coding falls into the "complete lack of attraction (to women)" area. (for instance, completely rejecting Aimee's advances and being generally uncomfortable with her seeing him in that light, or his utter disinterest in admiring pretty ladies with Gatrie.)
because its coding (ie subtext) and not canon (ie textually stated) there's a level of interpretation required.
there's a number of queer men that fit the specific divergence from heteronormativity that is "not interested in relationships with women." mostly gay men and aspec men.
one can easily read his relationship with Soren, for instance, as being romantic, because of some tropes present that are usually reserved for romance only in fiction. (for instance, his ending where he runs away with Soren is usually cited as being the closest Ike gets to a fire emblem protagonist's typical marriage ending.)
but a stated-platonic relationship that's more important and committed than friendships are usually depicted as also pretty easily maps onto aromantic experiences of anti-amatonormative friendships and queerplatonic relationships, which leads his dynamic with Soren to be an extra check on the aro-coding list as well.
actually, his relationship with Soren has less romantic framing than his relationship with Elincia, (which has similar amounts of More Committed Than Friendships (are usually depicted as) as well as multiple instances of characters commenting on its romantic subtext (shinon "you fell in love with a pretty little princess" and Ranulf "oh what a romantic atmosphere") which Ike doesn't respond to, and doesn't clarify on.) despite this, Ike and Elincia are pretty widely regarded as textually platonic, since they never do anything expressly romantic like kiss or confess attraction or get married or something, and if it was meant to be romantic they would've because there wouldn't have been any reason to encode a M/F romance.
in my opinion, his relationship with Elincia kind of sets a bar for how committed, close and romance-adjacent his platonic relationships get, and none of his relationships with men really exceed that besides maybe Soren, who he's closer to but not more romantically framed than.
all in all, his coding leans heavily into the "confirmed bachelor" kind of queer, without giving much clarification on his attraction or lack thereof to men. what's important is that he's not interested in women romantically.
so he's definitely queer-coded, but not down to a specific label. just a general vibe that gay and aromantic men share. both readings are supported by the texts, both groups have been known to relate to and project upon him, and there's room for both interpretations in fandom spaces.
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La Pluie: Maybe we will get a 'happy ending' after all
Now that I have slept on episode 7, read some amazing meta, and tossed my thoughts around in my head for a few days, I want to add my two cents.
I've previously written about my fear that this show might not give us a satisfying ending. I followed that train of thought and realised that my main concern before episode 7 was that since the show is so good at arguing against its own soulmate trope, in order to give us a happy ending, it would have to either compromise on the characters' journey (Lomfon doing a 180 all of a sudden with no convincing explanation) or the narrative (maybe soulmates are meant for each other, sike!).
(do these insane projections say more about my own insecurities than the show's cracks in the writing? Yes, yes it does)
Episode 7 felt tangibly different than the previous La Pluie episodes because, while the show has subverted tropes before, this is the first time it has fully and deliberately sidestepped the audience's expectations. We were all braced for a Lomfon-shaped ticking bomb to blow up Patts and Tai's relationship, and yet all we got was a meek temper tantrum at the breakfast table that was promptly ignored by Patts and Tai. We also saw Lomfon talk about soulmates with Tien. It was something Tien said to Lomfon here that made me wonder if the show was bringing yet another condition of modern romance into its soulmates subtext: Loneliness and Self-Isolation.
(Read more about trope subversion in La Pluie episode 7 here, by @lurkingshan)
For a show that completely hinges on the soulmate trope, it does very little to actually engage in the specifics of it. The lack of details around the concept of soulmates in Rainverse is pretty nifty, as many subtexts can be layered on top of one another like a decadant cake. I've previously explored the subtext of boundaries and shared experiences in a romantic relationship. @sunshinechay has wondered how platonic love, romantic love, and sexual desire can fit into the Rainverse and its possible combinations of soulmate pairs. @bengiyo has put forth the theory that the reason for Tai's parents' separation and eventual divorce might be his sexuality/queerness.
Allow me to add another layer to the subtext cake: insecurities around romance, fuelled by societal expectations.
What do people who do not have rain-induced hearing loss really think about soulmates? Does it create a hierarchy, as some love is "more destined" than others, and is therefore more special? Not all who have hearing loss end up having a soulmate, so does that mean that they might feel not "worthy enough" for a love that is destined, written in the stars? What happens when someone with hearing loss chooses to defy destiny and date someone without hearing loss? Will their partner always feel like the second best, comparing themselves to phantom perfection?
Even after we remove the soulmate trope from the above questions, the sentiment is still eerily familiar. These are the same questions those of us who have had the misfortune of experiencing the modern dating culture have tortured ourselves with, time and again. Am I worthy of love? Is my love special, or is it too replacable? Will I ever measure up to their ex, who everybody thinks was the "love of their life"?
Dealing with these insecurities and building up the courage to take a leap of faith in the hopes that you will land in a happy relationship is a universal experience. Sometimes we have the strength to do it, but oftentimes we don't. And when we don't, self-isolation is the answer. Lock ourselves up away from every and all human beings, and live life with the least human contact possible.
In Rainverse, this loneliness is taken from real-life abstraction and elevated to something concrete and observable: the isolation of people who have hearing loss but don't have a soulmate.
Tai was self-isolating himself after his parents' divorce, and his friends and family know it. Whenever we see a character implore Saengtai to reconsider talking to his soulmate, they never directly tell him that the soulmate connection is perfect and he is guaranteed to find happiness if he reaches out.
Here's Tien doing it all the way back in episode 1
And here's Bow in episode 2
If we tie in Lomfon's argument that the concept of soulmates is simply a coincidence, then this process of "opening his heart" and "talking to him first" sounds an awful lot like... dating. Just plain old dating someone after a chance encounter, with all the insecurities, arguments, and compromises. Well, ain't that a neat little trick?
Another reason why episode 7 felt so different from the previous episodes was the misunderstanding trope at the end, and how out of place it felt in a show that was setting itself apart from other BLs with sharp and smart writing. I also instinctively thought that this was a bad writing choice, but @ginnymoonbeam's excellent theory on how the show might subvert the misunderstanding trope and rather explore Tai's insecurities around his relationship with Patts has convinced me. It also allows me to segue into Tai's potential big bad question: What if it doesn't work out?
Tai is a romantic at heart, and his attitude around his parents' divorce has shown us that he is also an all-or-nothing romantic. He believes that a love that has the possibility of ending is not love at all. This sentiment is evident in episode 6, when Tai is talking to Patts about Doi Mae Plieng and about his dad proposing to his mom at the top of the mountain
I believe this will be the main arc for Patts and Tai, moving forward. Tai has to learn that there's absolutely no certainty that Patts and Tai will be together forever, till death do them part, but that does not mean that it's not beautiful and meaningful enough to try. The show has gone to great lengths to establish a clear timeline of events, to show us that Patts has an additional 5 years of life and relationship experience than Tai, and he needs every help he can get to convince Tai to believe in love again. And this is the happy ending I believe we will get: not a happily-ever-after, but a happy-right-now, and that's not so bad.
As I finish up this post, I realize that this is all pure speculation and the show might still do something completely different, and if they do, well, GMMTV is gonna make their money back for all those Micellar Water product placements, as I would need a bucketful of it to remove my many, many layers of clown makeup.
tagging @respectthepetty, look, RTP, I worked through my La Pluie fears, I'm not afraid of Lomfon anymore!
and tagging @absolutebl, we might get a HRN instead of a HEA, and maybe that'll be okay?
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I feel like a lot of people talking about TOH, specifically the Collector are severely overlooking a lot of the subtext that has been shown. Describing him as "chaotic evil", "sadistic" or comparing him to Bill Cipher.
A lot of these statements really bug me. And for several reasons.
First one being that Dana herself described the Collector as a morally GREY & chaotic NEUTRAL character. Which, given certain moments we've gotten with them makes a lot more sense than him just being a sadistic, childish god who just wants to destroy things.
I'm not saying they're perfect, certainly not so. He's fairly inconsiderate and at times completely unaware of other people's feelings or how his powers/games affect them, but they don't strike me as genuinely cruel or sadistic. Just very... Out of touch, in a way.
Which honestly, I wouldn't blame them for. Considering that he has the mentality and physical appearance of a very young child, it makes a lot more sense for them to be so unaware. Not to mention how being stuck in an isolated, creepy in-between dimension for HUNDREADS OF YEARS must've affected him. Emotionally and psychologically.
Also taking into account how being betrayed by their (then) only friend for all those years must've felt. Which also explains why he seems very attached to King. They trust King and don't want him leaving or tricking them so he clings onto him because they feel safe around him.
This is also why I'm hopeful that maybe through King (and possibly Luz's) help, the Collector will learn to be (at least slightly) less destructive after opening up and trusting people again.
A large reason why I feel so passionate about this is because I relate to the Collector a lot and understand where he could be coming from when it comes to the subtext that certain scenes and voice lines have implied.
Conclusion: I feel like calling the Collector "evil" isn't really fitting or appropriate and like, if anything he's extremely irresponsible with their powers and lacks understanding for other people's (that of which they don't really care about) well being.
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Sucker Punch was the feminine equal to Fight Club's masculine
They're not similar, I even think Sucker Punch takes inspiration from Fight Club as the older film by a decade.
They are both psychological, thematically about fighting the system through their perspectives, and speaking of, both have supposed unreliable narrators or are structured to tell us a sort of flashback. But the flashback story isn't quite as straightforward.
They're both from the weary, exhausted and common, perhaps invisible, voices.
Fight Club may have "Tyler Durden" who is an upper-middleclass man, but he's not particularly significant in his job. The club he establishes invites common men, some may have been white collar, but mostly of blue collar jobs. They want to escape, as escape rather, and violence was there means of that.
Sucker Punch is much crueler. The asylum houses mentally-disturbed women, their backgrounds unimportant. The Brothel World leaves a very important subtext of what is being done to the women in the asylum. Their only escape is literally and figuratively their wits, their imagination.
Both definitely delve into how their psychosis copes and helps them adapt with their problems, but their problems aren't the same.
Fight Club deals with a transgressive thought of how men are both restricted and neglected with their expected tasks, norms, roles, etc. They are not to sway away from this path, which is disheartening for those who want and need financial and social mobility. The story showcases so many men who need help, but the therapy groups feel lacking. It's as if the society that has given them so much may not be what could complete them all along. And yet there lingers a "Tyler Durden", who opposes these expectations, especially as it's seen as a way that it was handed to them, not really earned. But "Tyler Durden" is destructive in his ways, especially to himself. He had given to his urges and was going to bring a lot of people with him down. The ending has him accept the consequences and even accept "Marla Singer" herself, instead. He wanted freedom from being just another revenant common man passing by, who's mental illness and perhaps implied physical illness, a cancer maybe, was neglected. He finally frees himself by "killing" that part of him that wasn't going to help him.
Sucker Punch deals to us a meta-narrative of women, in real life and in fictional media. The actual events of what happened is unimportant, though lore theorists are welcome to try. The significance of the events that had been "presented", as it opens with a theater curtain being pulled apart, to us are all metaphor, implied, subtext, to create a more cinematic show to present a grim reality of how some suffering is invisible to the public. And even more so how the most important type of strength is also invisible. There's a dichotomy of a battle of wits and quiet, versus the cinematic "imagination" of how a battle is supposed to be presented to us. It's not important if "Babydoll" did exist through Sweet Pea's survivor's account, but her conclusion tells us there's lots of "Babydolls" out there in real life fighting for their lives, even if nobody will ever know. And knowing that, their fight is worthy after all.
#fight club#sucker punch#film analysis#there's so much to say#PLUS both have the soundtrack Where Is My Mind and Emily Browning sang it as a cover for Sucker Punch
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The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady Quick Review
The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady or as we'll be calling it for the rest of this review, Magirevo is an amazing yuri anime series. It made a lot of interesting choices in it's adaptation to make the 12 episodes very punchy, fast paced and really get to the heart of the series without spending a lot of time pondering. I do wish the series was longer and we had more time for getting into people's feelings, the lives of the side characters, etc but the 12 episodes we did get are superub. The anime starts a little slow and it's jokes don't land nearly as well as the manga but the comedy in this series is mostly pushed away for action.
It was a really smart choice to turn Magirevo into more of an action yuri in terms of having it reach a wider audience. The action looks very cool and it makes a lot of sense with the ending they were building to with a dramatic fight that decides what will happen with the future of the kingdom. Everything is very intentionally building to the ending and it makes a lot of the choices make a ton of sense.
Our Protagonist Anis is charming, she is funny, she's very relatable to me even as a dumb ass because she feels very real to a lesbian who is living in a fantasy world. Euphy is very much tied into the royalty, nobility, the sense of duty but the show is also super empathic to her plight and her feeling like she had a role and it was taken form her and the grief she felt about it. The side characters Tilty, Lainie and Ilia are both really good side characters whom I really wish got much more attention but at the very least every scene with them in it was a banger, when they get to talk, it's good. A lot of the other characters I found more annoying or like they were serving their role in the story.
I think the show's politics were lacking in the detail and care they needed and it is something I really hope we could see that expanded if the show were to magically gain a second season. As for the first season I think the politics were at play were all there to serve the plot and more important to serve directly as an oppressive structure for Anis who feels like she can escape it only to be dragged in again more and more. We see that system slowly killing her soul and I think that is an effective way to show the problems with the system. The main issue is that our main villain does wish to tear down the system but we aren't given a really appropriate counter weight till like epilogue scenes wrapping up the anime.
I think another place I would have loved just a bit more care in is the queer politics of the show. The anime is explicitly gay, like we get 3 gay kisses in the 12 episode run which I mean I can't say about most other shows ever. Yet, Magirevo kinda plays off Anis's dad's homophobia is a bit, a little joke and it was upsetting to like humanize him without resolving that. We jut kinda hand waved it completely. There is some implication that maybe he is bisexual later but it's all like subtext, there is no exploring that, there is no slow moment of like understanding or whatever. We understand that the politics by the elders is like very heteronormative and we show that as like a traumatic instrument but we don't get a lot of time to really explore the queerness even just on it's own merit.
All that critical stuff said OMG I love it, the animation is so good, it's very gay, the girls are super cute, I do wish Tilly and Anis got together but like that is shipper shit [in a poly waym not in a replacing Euphie way], I the pacing is great, the action scenes are so cool, I love this anime. This is for sure going in my list of favorite animes of all time, for sure.
#Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei#The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady#Anime review#yuri review#GL review#lesbian review#lesbian#lesbian anime#gl#yuri#転生王女と天才令嬢の魔法革命#tenten kakumei#Magirevo
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I’m just gonna say it… I really enjoyed Legend of the Sea Devils (LotSD). I wish it was longer, or that it wasn’t the only Sea Devil episode in the 13th era, but I would say they are positive criticisms not negative ones. This is because I enjoyed the Sea Devils, I enjoyed Thasmin, I enjoyed Dans ridiculous pirate costume, probably more then I should have, lol. I like the guest cast, and really enjoyed the look and feel of this episode, who doesn’t love pirate stories? And of course 13s and Yazs costumes, *chefs kiss* I like the whole episode. Maybe I’m far too basic for the scholars of Doctor Who Fandom on Twitter and that’s why I like this episode when dwtwt (Doctor Who Twitter) clearly doesn’t and can’t help but harp on with their negative opinions. I get it some old Sea Devils episode was released today but why can’t you say how much you loved that with out bringing down LotSD?
Maybe someone should let them know 13s era is over and they have 2 shiny new doctors to play with, so just move on from everything you hate about 13 like a normal person would do who didn’t like something. Considering it’s done and none of them have to rewatch any of the episodes again, like maybe let it go so the people who liked it don’t have to avoid posts not even about 13s era because you have to make sure you get in your quota of negative 13 tweets for the day on all posts about Doctor Who.
For me it was a great episode because I felt like I could read between the lines. To me the Doctor was trying to work through her thoughts about Yazs feelings, her feelings and the situation they were in. She was clearly interested, again to me that’s what the flirting, or attempt at flirting, lol, was about, she was exploring her thoughts and feelings. It is hard when your head and your heart want different things. By the time we get to the end she’s decided to follow her head instead of her heart because she knows she doesn’t have time to work through this with Yaz, her time is limited and she’s trying to minimise harm. Sometimes following your head instead of your heart is the most selfless thing you can do. But she still lets Yaz know her feelings which is huge for her because let’s be real she’s told Yaz very little of the things that haunt her. Making this quite a big deal that she not only acknowledges yazs feelings, she acknowledges her own feelings, she acknowledges what she wants, and she acknowledges why they can’t have it.
Now this episode may hit different for me because I come from a time of Xena, Warrior Princess, where everything was subtext, and granted more subtext then we got from Yaz and 13, but being sapphic at that time you had to develop the skill of reading between the lines. I think people are far more use to people being super out and proud in shows these days and so this episode may have been lacking in comparison for some people. But Yaz was 19 when she boarded the TARDIS and she’s been through a lot, her feelings changing from idolising the Doctor to loving the Doctor, it’s not surprising she doesn’t know when that transition actually happen because it probably wasn’t a light bulb moment. And you know what? That’s ok and that’s valid, you don’t have to be out and proud and confident at 19 or 22 or 25 or however old Yaz is at that point she can acknowledge how she feels. So going into the Sea Devils to me were just a fun background story to the main event which was the Doctor working through her feelings and Yaz finding the courage to ask why they couldn’t be together.
And you know what Jodie and Mandip were fantastic in this episode, I was completely sucked in by their performances, the way they looked at each other during that underwater date/non date, they both said so much without a single word. it felt honest and believable, gut wrenching and because I didn’t feel lost in understanding this episode I felt like a lot of things were put into place and resolved. Even if I personally would have like them to have chosen to be together, I get the logic as to why they can’t. It’s heart breaking but when is a Doctor Who love story not heart breaking?
You may have a different opinion of this episode and that’s completely fair, but the people on dwtwt being snarky and crappy just make the dw fandom not a fun place to be because you’re not really welcome there if you don’t have the group think of 13 bad. And since this is a family show where Jodie might be a kids first doctor and they might love her, it’s really a crappy place for a kid to come if the want to be apart of the doctor who fandom.
It’s ok not to like something, but once it’s gone and you have your fav doctor, companion, and show runner coming back why not concentrate on that instead of bringing down something you never have to watch again.
If you have reach the end of my ridiculous verboseness thank you and if you like LotSD don’t listen to the critics cos I don’t think that episode was made for them.
#13th doctor#thasmin#thirteen x yaz#yasmin kahn#thirteen#thirteenth doctor#lotsd#13th era#chibnall era
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I hope the series will focus on Lucas's personal traumas in the next season bc he got the worst situations, especially in S4. The writers gave him struggle with bullying and made him join the basketball team and sort of isolating him. They killed Lucas's only (black fellow) friend, Patrick. They made him be assaulted by Jason, his other peer from the basketball club and Lucas had to fight him and he also lost Jason (whether or not Jason was a jerk is irrelevant bc it was still a massive traumatic experience). They made Lucas watch his little sister get tackled. They killed MAX, and made Lucas watch that as well. He basically suffered from isolation, having lost his 2 close ppl to him and his (ex)girlfriend and made him also get assaulted. Thats way too much imho and i hope they get addressed in the next season.
I hope too!! I honestly think Lucas & Erica should also have a big role in defeating Vecna in the physical world... and I hope Lucas and Mike have a talk about the game and all that happened and obviously that Max comes back and is okay and they have the happy ending... I also hope they pay more attention to how they portray certain things relating to them because I think they lacked care in season 4 seeing that they put them in triggering situations for the viewers that were at least very distasteful seeing all that happens there in the States with the police brutality and all... I think they should adress things more openly for the racism that Lucas experienced all his life...
but I know they have this style of addressing the heavy stuff only as a sort of subtext and it's their style of storytelling in a way so I don't have much hope that they will if I have to be completely honest, they lack on that part as writers
I hope I'm wrong though and that maybe when they talked about learning from the feedback on the show they listened to all the people that rightly complained about Lucas and Erica's treatment this season (and in the past ones too)
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