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yanderes-galore · 1 year

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Can I ask for a rivalry between transformers animated Megatron and starscream oneshot?

Oh a scenario? I haven't done a rivalry scenario before- Sorry if something seems off, I finished Season 1 and only just started Season 2.

But... the dynamic of Megatron and Starscream is pretty much the same in all incarnations from what I've seen. It should be okay regardless. Darling is a Decepticon. This also takes place in an AU before TFA. So right before the Allspark situation. Left on a cliffhanger as I didn't know where to take the story after. May have a sequel in the future?

Deception and Loyalty

Yandere! TF:A! Megatron vs Yandere! TF:A! Starscream Scenario

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Jealousy, Attempted murder, Violence, Stalking implied, Cliff hanger, Rivalry.

Starscream has always been envious of Megatron. For countless stellar cycles his goal has been to take his place. Starscream has many reasons to bring Megatron offline.

Starscream craves power. He craves respect. He's jealous of the fact Megatron can push him around but he has to take it.

However... there's something else Starscream's jealous of...

Your loyalty to Megatron.

You are one of Megatron's most loyal Decepticons, or at least close. The main Decepticons in command under Megatron included Lugnut, Blitzwing, Blackarachnia, Starscream, and you. Although... Starscream's position was being revoked due to his betrayal attempts.

When Starscream was still a somewhat loyal commander, you caught his optic. At the time he first met you, you simply tolerated Megatron like Starscream. Despite this you carried your duties in the Decepticon leader's name.

Starscream found himself attracted to you, a fellow Decepticon. He often dreamed of the day he'd take over and you'd listen to him. Since he adored you so much, he thought of you as his second-in-command.

But over time... Megatron seemed to have a similar connection to you. Based on the fact Megatron gave you Starscream's position as the years passed by was enough confirmation. Megatron has stolen yet another thing from him...

The one Decepticon he actually cares deeply for.

This only made Starscream despise his "leader" more.

Starscream's assumption was right in the end. Megatron does have a similar attraction to you. The idea surprised the Decepticon lord when he noticed it.

You often follow his orders, already much better than Starscream. You aren't obsessive about him like Lugnut, which is a refreshing change. You're even a very composed Decepticon like Blitzwing, yet less unstable.

In Megatron's eyes your promotion is simply because you are the perfect servant.

But it became more than that.

Megatron also notices Starscream's distress when around you.

Megatron finds himself treating you differently from the rest. He never finds any reason to hurt you like he does with Starscream. No... in fact Megatron treats you with care.

The idea of causing Starscream discomfort only encourages Megatron's obsession with you.

Your life as a Decepticon was not very eventful for the most part. At least, your jobs around the ship weren't. Your encounters with Megatron and Starscream are always a bit... off.

First of all, you are the one Decepticon Megatron didn't even belittle since your promotion. Every Decepticon is usually met with Megatron's taunting or degradation. To be fair... many of the others were incompetent.

Although you still found it odd.

Megatron respects you. You aren't complaining and even show him the same respect. Your mutual companionship with your leader was what made Starscream act up.

It wasn't... in fact, Starscream was never annoyed with you.

Starscream is the other strange experience that happens to you on The Nemesis. The Decepticon who used to rank above you now ranked under you. You thought that was the cause for his irritation.

The con often follows you around The Nemesis like a clingy pet. His wings are usually angled down around you, meaning he's at ease. Starscream sometimes talked with you but usually seemed too... nervous or occupied to engage too long.

Despite this you didn't find Starscream as annoying as Megatron made him out to be. Around you Starscream actually seemed... behaved compared to his usual fights with Megatron. You tried not to question the con too much.

You swore he had a bolt loose sometimes.

You always knew about the feud between Starscream and Megatron. What Decepticon didn't? Starscream never approved of Megatron's leadership....

It wasn't until you look closer into their behavior that you realize power isn't the only issue.

You're more involved in their feud than you thought.

While you worked to keep The Nemesis up and running, there's conflict behind your back. Megatron is often trying to keep Decepticons like Starscream away from you for a reason he's still trying to understand. Meanwhile Starscream is plotting another murder plot to keep you to himself as his subordinate.

You don't get the full picture until you listen to them.

Starscream is caught muttering your name at times to himself. Megatron himself is adamant on you keeping post by him in the ship. Then there's the arguments.

According to Blitzwing and chatter you've heard yourself, one of them brings you up when they fight. This usually makes the other one go off. What confuses you is why you are such a popular topic amongst them.

Trying to get the answer isn't easy. Starscream tends to lock up when you ask him, wings shooting up in alarm before he ignores the question. He doesn't seem like he ever wants to answer you.

You utilize the loyalty you have with Megatron to ask your Lord the question. Megatron grumbles towards you but you get some sort of an answer.

"I'll give you that intel another time."

It's an answer but you're still left in the dark. You have no clue the two are not only fighting over power... but their obsession over you... the efficient Decepticon simply doing their job.

Months pass and both of their obsessions solidify. Megatron has finally come to the conclusion he wants you not only as a loyal second-in-command, but a partner. A romantic partner, which is a shocker to Megatron.

Such a realization only makes Megatron more defensive about you.

Starscream has already loved you in a romantic sense for longer than Megatron. In desperation, the Decepticon has gotten bolder. You'll feel him tap your armor to get your attention, then you're met with a strangely talkative Starscream.

He never lets his plans about Megatron or his obsession slip, however.

Tension rises in The Nemesis between Starscream and Megatron. The only "good" thing that comes out of it is you finally understand.

You almost wished you didn't.

An inevitable fight between the two breaks out in one of the larger rooms of the ship. You can hear the screaming and the sound of blasters. You made your way to the room... only to catch the argument.

"Your crush on that Decepticon must be put to an end, Starscream!" Megatron bellows

"Do you think I don't know your intentions!? You love them too! I can TELL. You're so sickeningly NICE to them!"

"SILENCE."

"Make me! I'll bring you down someday and I'll have them under my command again!"

"You are such an IDIOT. I'll have you executed. I'll make sure you never see them again."

"Good luck with that when you're offline!"

It's obvious who they mean. You know deep in your spark you are causing their feuds to be worse. The worst part... you aren't sure how to stop it.

Eventually one of them will kill the other. Your bets were on Megatron, but is that a good thing? It's not like you could just ignore it.

Megatron is your boss and Starscream will follow you. On this ship you are... stuck. You begin to think the only way for them to stop fighting is to have one of them die.

You never enter the room. Once the noise died down you assume they had finished. With an uneasy feeling within you, you continue to work.

That is until you're given an alert later on in the shift.

Supposedly there was an Autobot sighting. Not only that, but it's close to the Allspark Megatron's been hunting. The news makes you vent out of relief.

A new mission... one that could hopefully stop the fighting momentarily until the Allspark could be secured.

You hope that this mission will allow the two cons to put aside their obsessive fighting to focus on the task at hand.

You had no idea that this event was only going to make your life worse....

#yandere transformers #yandere transformers animated #yandere tfa #yandere tfa starscream #yandere tfa megatron

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routeunlocked · 3 months

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A Date with Death Review

Time Played: 3.7 hours

I just finished playing (and streaming) this game, so I figured now is the best time to compile my thoughts. I only played through one ending for now, but I will play the rest off camera.

Spoiler-free review below.

Who doesn't want to date the Grim Reaper? Death Incarnate? Someone who doesn't judge you for your plushie collection?

Grim is absolutely my type. He has tsundere moments, he's incredibly kind, and he's always honest. I like that he has a balance of grumpy/edgy and sweet/innocent vibes. He's a pro at unintentionally sweeping anyone off their feet.

It's hard to resist teasing him though- his reactions are funny every time. Plus the pouty blush is priceless. It's endearing to watch him try to learn "internet lingo" to communicate with the mortals. You're doing great, babygirl.

The MC's options to tease him constantly really made this game enjoyable to me. They have the grump x sunshine trope going on, and that's one of my favorite dynamics of all time. I'd be happy reading conversations between them anytime.

That said, I'm also thrilled with the extensive customization options for the MC. Pronouns, appearance, typed biography, etc. You can even customize their bedroom! How cool is that? I loved adding little details that showed their personality, like bookshelves and plants. The addition of a pet melts my heart too. I adore my pet, so I'm glad the MC can have a pet they adore.

PROTAGONIST PRAISE

As I said before, I'm glad this game allows customization of the MC. You can pick plenty of options to shape their personality and background, so your playthrough might not be entirely the same as what I described above. I think you can easily self-insert or create your own character with the options available. Have fun making a protagonist you want to see!

OVERALL THOUGHTS

This is one of the best games I've played! I kept looking forward to playing more. I feel obsessed now that I've finished one ending and it's probably only going to get worse from here.

I appreciate this being a free game with DLC options. I hope to see more DLCs added in the future too.

If anyone's looking for a free game filled with heartwarming, bittersweet, and hilarious moments, then you should give it a try. I don't think you'll be disappointed with this lovable Grim Reaper. (Plus he's very pretty to look at.)

RATING: 10/10 RECOMMENDED: Yes!

#otome #otome review #a date with death #dwd #indie games

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frogs-in3-hills · 7 months

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11, 12, 18, 21 for the turtle asks! :)

my answer to the voice acting one got really long, so. oops adding a readmore

11. Favorite turtle (iteration specific)?

maaan this is a tough question. i think i’ve said before that my Top Favorite Turtle of All Time switches between all the 03 kids, but it’s usually Mikey or Raph. right now I think Raph is my favorite. His 03 characterization is so compelling, he just tugs at my heartstrings in a lot of different ways. I love that he starts at his lowest point early in the show and then we get to see him gradually learn to navigate his feelings and connect with the people around him. He's doing his best to figure out his place in the world, he feels like a very real depiction of what it's like being a neurodivergent teen (okay I know I'm projecting now but also I'm right). The sibling angst can hit a little close to home sometimes but I also look at him and think "oh that kid is gonna be okay. he's just figuring it out." Yknow??

Other incarnations that are very dear to me: ‘87 Raphael, bmvtmnt Mikey, 90s movies/07 Leo, and Rise Raph

ask game

12. Favorite turtle across all iterations?

It’s Mikey is anyone surprised. Like. That’s my funny little guy!!

I think he brings something new to the table with every incarnation. Like, the rest of the boys feel like they mostly have the same core traits across iterations, but I get the sense that most Mikeys are different from each other on a more fundamental level. They all have different ways of thinking and flaws and I find them all to be very compelling and entertaining to watch :]

Raph is a close second though! Again, who is surprised qwq

18. Did any of their voice actors really stand out to you?

Ahh omg I'm actually so glad you asked this one anon. I pay a lot of attention to the voice acting so just going in loose chronological order:

Obviously Rob Paulsen is a fucking gem who brought Raphael to life and p much singlehandedly made '12 Donnie likeable (sorry the writers did all that to you buddy). But man I don't see enough love for Barry Gordon as Donatello! He brings such a particular vibe to the character that's so endlessly endearing I just think it's funny that he's kinda the meanest one but he sounds like the littlest fucking guy ever

Michael Sinterniklaas as Leo is so fucking charming I just. Holds him gently. I like how confused he sounds all the time. I like his little laugh he does in the scene where they're playing with the hose. I like his "it's okay!" line in The Ultimate Ninja. I like that he's going for grinditude. I like him so bad ToT And Sam Riegel as Donny is wild because I think he sometimes has the weirdest line reads--not in a bad way, just like, why did you say it like that. I'm forever obsessed with him.

Rewatching 2007 movie was so wild I could barely focus with how many voices I recognized in there. Sarah Michelle Gellar as April was really fun. With Mako as Splinter okay I may as well just cry myself to sleep

Greg Cipes and Ashley Johnson characters are literally their own ship dynamic like whatever that is I don't care they invented it

The entire Rise cast is sooo good I adore every one of them the comedy just legitimately would not work without them. Not a bad line read in that whole show tbh. I'm particularly fond of Josh Brener as Donnie for that autistic-ass delivery. Also cannot stress enough how great Ayo Edebiri and Zelda Williams are too like the entire cast just has such a good vibe

21. Give one character a hug?

I MEAN. It's hard to choose they all deserve a hug!! But I am not much of a hugger and neither are a lot of the characters who need the most hugs. So I think... Rise Mikey or Alopex maybe? I think that they would give very good hugs.

#inbox #ask game #anon ask #surprise! i guess i feel like typing with proper punctuation today #tmnt

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strandsofgold · 2 years

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11 , 14, 20 for that fandom post

Salty Ask List – open for answering

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

i mean, mary is definitely the first that come to mind, but i feel like a lot of people are beginning to understand that she isn't actually the devil incarnate, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

instead, i'm going to say tilly. it's not that the fandom doesn't like her, it's that she's mostly ignored. like, her and lenny and charles (outside of being used as 'person number 2' in one of the most popular ships of course) are largely ignored, and when someone finally decides to write for them, their character is more often than not butchered to a point where any nuance or interesting part of them has been removed. we all no why, but i'll get to that in the next question.

but yeah, tilly especially gets the short end of the stick, and i unfortunately feel that one of the reasons she's ignored is that she doesn't fit into what a lot of people in the fandom wants her to be, which is a very common thing with non-white characters in stories written by or enjoyed by mostly white people.

tilly is an incredible character, and besides abigail, she's got the strongest characteristics and the richest history with the gang out of all the women. her relationship with susan is incredibly complicated with so many nuances, and the same can be said with her relationship with dutch, hosea, and arthur.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

i think the thing that's most jarring thing to me is the racism and sexism and just general cruelty. and no, i'm not just talking about the blatant stuff.

i'm talking about little things like stripping any characters of colour of complexities and nuance. and that is if they even get written about or have fan art made of them. a lot of loud or just interesting female characters are just straight up ignored or demonised in order for the fandom to swoon over the least dynamic and interesting female character who does literally nothing the entire game – but hey, she's pretty and docile, i guess. as for the cruelty, i really wish people would stop ridiculing characters they don't like for their looks. like, micah isn't an evil person because he isn't conventionally attractive. bill isn't racist because he's fat. we hate these characters because of their words and actions, not because of the way they look.

also, (and i might make a separate post for this, so feel free to ask for it if you want me to talk about it in depth), but i've never been in a fandom that so actively dismisses and despises it's source material. like, a lot of people in the fandom (or maybe it's just a vocal minority, idk) are obsessed with painting the world of rdr2 and it's characters in completely black and white with little to no nuance allowed, and in doing so they absolutely butcher characters to a point where they're just a bunch of oc's with character names slapped onto them.

like, i don't even want to give examples because i'd just have to write down every single character in the damn game. but the characters see butchered most often, whose nuance and complexities gets stripped from them, are charles, tilly, abigail, javier, hosea, susan, arthur, and (of course) dutch. it's reached a point where i almost never read metas or headcanons on here anymore because so much of it is just very lazy, very surface level analysis that more often than not amount to someone claiming that a character in the game acts out of character because they didn't do or say or act the way that person believe they should have acted.

unfortunately, a big part of this fandom would rather claim that the game is wrong about a character, rather than examining why a character acts the way they do – they make a conclusion and dismiss anything in canon that contradicts that conclusion as wrong.

20. What is the purest ship in the fandom?

despite me not really having any feelings on mary beth because of her mostly non-existing, if not incredibly generic, character, kieren and mary beth are absolutely adorable and endearing. between the sort of shy way in which kieran attempts to make conversation, mary-beth's seemingly immediate endearment to kieran, and the glaring difference between them with kieran not being able to read and being fine with it and mary beth swearing by it as the greatest thing, it's really wholesome. i did enjoy listening in on their conversations and mary beth's tepid anger after kieran's death were her strongest (and only) emotional moment in my opinion.

their relationship is what has made me begin to consider that my lack of engagement with mary-beth may have something to with the actress more than anything. like, i do think that mary-beth is an incredibly boring and unimportant character, but i think i may have liked her more if the actress had been able to summon a bit more emotion when speaking, because i've always found her voice very flat and just... not very expressive.

#thank you for sending this in!#these were very fun to answer <3

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petra-realsnk · 3 years

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The Logics of Sessr*n: why is it successful within women?

Hi guys! Here’s the post that I promised. I will try to present some thoughts I’ve been having around the infamous ship, and some of the dynamics I think have contributed to its success. The most logical reaction would be to think that most shippers are men, since the dynamics represented do favour them, but that’s not exactly the case. Some of you have also proposed that this could be explained through self-inserting, but I would like to expand this observation a little further.

This post will be divided in sections so you guys can read the parts you find more interesting if you don’t feel like going through it all. I thought this would make it more enjoyable since it’s going to be quite long.

DISCLAIMER: I am not claiming that this is the psychological profile of the average shipper, nor do I think that this is representative of the ideology of all of them. These are just some personal thoughts and facts around some aspects that I think have contributed to its appeal. Also I apologize in advance for the quality of my expression since English is not my first language.

TW: Mentions of p*dophilia and rape.

Finally, I would like to thank @doombull for facilitating me one of the articles that I’ve used to elaborate this thoughts, and which also served as inspiration for this post.

Grab something to drink and let’s chat...

About the thrive of “Lolicon”

We are all aware that Japan does have a problem with the permissive sexualization of children.

“Lolita complex, the sexual attraction to young, pubescent girls, is woven into the fabric of everyday life in Japan. Turn on the TV and you’ll see group after group of scantily-clad teenage and preteen girls singing or dancing to music. Peek in any bookstore and you’ll find a section of photo books featuring children in swimwear. (...) During the six months from January 2016, police turned over 1,023 cases to prosecutors, compared to 637 cases for the same period in 2011 and 831 cases for the period in 2015, according to National Police Agency statistics.”

These portrayals do have impact on reality, and have been used by real life predators. Contrary to what some shippers say, there are experts in Japan speaking against this matter:

“Masahiro Morioka, a professor of philosophy and ethics at Waseda University, has delved deep into the psychology of men with Lolita complex, widely known as lolicon in Japan. (...) He says the nation’s obsession with puberty-age girls has justified sexual exploitation and crimes against them — though, of course, not everyone with Lolita complex acts on their desires and commits sex crimes. Like many people, Morioka finds the culture that tolerates lolicon problematic and wants to change it.“

Lolicon didn’t become a recognized genre until the 1970’s when fan artists depicted their favorite female characters of the time as underage girls. The reasons behind the success of this type of content is something that’s still being discussed, but some of it probably has to do with the unhealthy relationship with sexuality that some men seem to develop due to the taboo component of sex within the japanese society. Some of it might also be derived from a mismanagement of loneliness, something some of these consumers seem to struggle with. All of this is combined by some misogynistic takes on the ideal of a woman. These men find the interactions with the opposite sex to be difficult, and even menancing to their masculinity, being easier for them to project their fantasies into young girls whom are esier to shape into their needs.

Anyway, it’s not the intention of this post to really argue the reasons behind lolicon, but there’s something important to have in mind, and it’s the fact that its accessibility has made it so that there are children consuming it. Simultaneously, popularizing Lolicon is a message to girls that they are objects for consumer consumption, and that their youth (and innocence) is especially desirable in a sexual setting. This last element has definitely gotten into the way some women want to project themselves. For that matter, it’s not a surprise that some female shippers project themselves into Rin, since she’s an ideal of femininity to them.

Sources:

https://bit.ly/39QA18d

https://bit.ly/3ixPIFn

Non-offending Pedophiles | SpringerLink

Internalized misogyny:

Following the last thread, we can conclude that some girls might desire to appeal to this ideal of woman, which is absolutely normal. Gender roles are being pushed on us ever since we are kids, and it’s natural that some of them try to appeal to the male gaze in one way or another, most times even in a subconscious way. This would also explain why some shippers seem to adhere to some beliefs that have been used to justify the control over women’s sexuality.

For example, we all have seen them argue about how teenagers are more fertile and prone to survive labor. They also tend to use the “historical accuracy” argument to justify these types of portrayals. However, the imaginary of the middle ages as a place where rape and child brides where totally justified is completely modern. Sadly, these types of tropes are perpetuated by almost every historical drama, fantasy series like Game of Thrones or books like The Pillars of The Earth. It is striking how shows whose action is located in the present are reluctant to show this type of things, while when they are located in the past, they represent them in an almost sexualized way and without any scruples. Male directors do use other cultures and past times to justify this portrayals, and is something that has to be called out. How interesting is that some far right men identify themselves as vikings right? Wonder where that came from...

But why women?

After all of what I’ve said, you may think that the majority of the shippers might be men, since all of these dynamics seem to favour them. Even so, despite being a shonen manga Inuyasha had a mostly female based audience. Romance played an important part in the story, and the way it was written seemed to cater better to the preferences of girls. This is also why Sessrin is so potentially harmful… It romanticizes a relationship between a teenager and an adult in a way that’s particularly attractive to girls. We can’t lose sight of the fact that a lot of shippers probably were fans of the og series when they were young, and probably started to ship it as underage kids themselves. When they grew old, some of them left the idea of it behind but for some others it’s already deeply rooted in them.

Next I’ll explain how Sessrin it’s appealing to girls.

The polarization of masculinity and femininity: beauty and the beast

In the anime culture (and outside it) girls are represented as passive, while the male incarnates the active. Boys are the heroes, while girls are mostly portrayed as the object of desire through whatever traits the author finds the most appealing.

In the case of Sessrin we have a typical example of a contrapposition of the hyperfemenine to the hypermasculine. I have talked about this in some other posts, but in the Inuyasha lore the masculine seems to be greatly associated with the “youkai”, that tends to fall in love with a vulnerable woman. It’s also interesting to point out that female demons tend to represent traditionally negative aspects of female sexuality; they tend to lure men to their demise by their attractiveness, and also do usually have a flirty personality.

Sessrin does adjust to this type of trope that we can define as the classical beauty and the beast, not in a sense of physical attractiveness, but in the sense that it represents an aggressive masculinity that is soothed by the passive femenine. The evil spirit is incarnated by the male, while the pure girl has the role of being accepting of this nature, often changing it. This type of trope is insanely popular within women, after all, stories like Twilight and basically every other book where a normal girl falls in love with a supernatural creature seem to adjust to this dynamic to some extent. It’s the idealization of a relationship where the man is a protective figure that holds an unbelievable amount of power over their vulnerable, and often infaltilazed, female counterpart. But on the other hand, women have the ability to tame this ferocity...

What’s the appeal of the monster?

“I think with the monsters, it’s about power and danger and exoticness amped up to the Nth degree,” says Xavier. “One of the big themes in monster erotica truly is the power dynamic. The monster is big, scary, dangerous, dominating, and uses his monsterly qualities to overpower and seduce the maiden. And I think the idea of being seduced by something so wild and animal and dangerous…it’s kind of like being forced to play with fire and finding out that you enjoy it. It’s kind of this warm, fuzzy corrupted feeling.”

Interestingly enough, there have been studies on why the monster boyfriend trope is so successful. This can be somehow linked to “Teratophilia”, a term which describes the sexual attraction towards monsters or deformed people, though in this case we’ll go with the first meaning.

Among other things, it has been suggested that monsters can function as an escapist fantasy for some women, since the monster is able to embody masculine attributes without presenting itself as a man, which may embody trauma and terror in extreme cases, or aggravating patriarchal arrangements in the least.

The monster man represents masculinity through the eyes of women: it’s aggressive, unpredictable, and dominant. These stories allow them to give in into a feeling of vulnerability, they’re in control of the beast, they can even change them… It might not be a type of relationship they would desire in real life, but through these fantasies, they can experience some aspects of their sexuality and transgress the fear of man. This is very significant from a sociological point of view, these women might have been raised to desire this type of masculinity, but are aware of the threat it signifies to them. The monster guardian does protect them from the outside world, where they feel endangered, but they also are the incarnation of an “untamed masculinity” which they don’t need to fear.

All in all, Sess*in allows shippers access to this type of relationship through self inserting into Rin. However, I hope this post has managed to bring something new to the conversation. There are in my opinion more reasons why girls want to be with Sesshomaru that go beyond his attractiveness, and that may have to do with these factors…

Feel free to comment and add your opinions :)

Sources:

https://bit.ly/3o6dERh

https://tgam.ca/39ZADIS

https://bit.ly/35YH4dO

#anti sessrin #anti rinsess #anti hanyo no yashahime #anti lolicon #personal #anti-sessrin #antisessrin #anti sesshrin #yashahime

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nealiios · 3 years

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The Supernatural 70s: Part I - Corruption of An Innocent

"We're mutants. There's something wrong with us, something very, very wrong with us. Something seriously wrong with us - we're soldiers writers."

-- with apologies to the screenwriter of "Stripes"

Dear reader, I have the darkest of revelations to make to you, a truth when fully and wholly disclosed shall most assuredly chill you to the bone, a tale that shall make you question all that you hold to be true and good and holy about my personal history. While you may have come in search of that narrative designer best known for his works of interactive high fantasy, you should know that he is also a crafter of a darker art, a scribbler of twisted tales filled with ghosts, and ghouls, and gargoyles. I am, dear innocent, a devotee of horrors! Mwahahahaha!

[cue thunderclap, lightning, pipe organ music]

Given the genre of writing for which most of you know me, I forgive you if you think of me principally as a fantasy writer. I don't object to that classification because I do enjoy mucking about with magic and dark woods and mysterious ancient civilizations. But if you are to truly know who I am as a writer, you must realize that the image I hold of myself is principally as a creator of weird tales.

To understand how and why I came to be drawn to this sub-genre of fantastic fiction, you first must understand that I come from peculiar folks. Maybe I don't have the Ipswich look, or I didn't grow up in a castle, but my pedigree for oddity has been there from the start. My mother was declared dead at birth by her doctor, and often heard voices calling to her in the dead of night that no one else could hear. Her mother would periodically ring us up to discuss events in our lives about which she couldn't possibly have known. My father's people still share ghost stories about a family homestead that burned down mysteriously in the 1960s. Even my older brother has outré memories about events he says cannot possibly be true, and as a kid was kicked off the Tulsa city bookmobile for attempting to check out books about UFOs, bigfoot, and ESP. It's fair to say I was doomed - or destined - for weirdness from the start.

If the above listed circumstances had not been enough, I grew up in an area where neighbors whispered stories about a horrifically deformed Bulldog Man who stalked kids who "parked" on the Old North Road near my house. The state in which I was raised was rife with legends of bigfoots, deer women, and devil men. Even in my childhood household there existed a pantheon of mythological entities invented explicitly to keep me in line. If I was a good boy, The Repairman would leave me little gifts of Hot Wheels cars or candy. If I was being terrible, however, my father would dress in a skeleton costume, rise from the basement and threaten to drag me down into everlasting hellfire (evidently there was a secret portal in our basement.) There were monsters, monsters EVERYWHERE I looked in my childhood world. Given that I was told as a fledgling writer to write what I knew, how could anyone have been surprised that the first stories I wrote were filled with the supernatural?

"The Nightmare" by John Henry Fuseli (1781)

My formative years during the late sixties and early seventies took place at a strange juncture in our American cultural history. At the same time that we were loudly proclaiming the supremacy of scientific thought because we'd landed men on the moon, we were also in the midst of a counter cultural explosion of interest in astrology, witchcraft, ghosts, extra sensory perception, and flying saucers. Occult-related books were flying off the shelves as sales surged by more than 100% between 1966 and 1969. Cultural historians would come to refer to this is as the "occult boom," and its aftershocks would impact popular cultural for decades to come.

My first contact with tales of the supernatural were innocuous, largely sanitized for consumption by children. I vividly remember watching Casper the Friendly Ghost and the Disney version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I read to shreds numerous copies of both Where the Wild Things Are and Gus the Ghost. Likely the most important exposure for me was to the original Scooby Doo, Where Are You? cartoon which attempted to inoculate us from our fears of ghosts and aliens by convincing us that ultimately the monster was always just a bad man in a mask. (It's fascinating to me that modern incarnations of Scooby Doo seem to have completely lost this point and instead make all the monsters real.)

ABOVE: Although the original cartoon Scooby Doo, Where Are You? ran only for one season from 1969 to 1970, it remained in heavy reruns and syndication for decades. It is notable for having been a program that perfectly embodied the conflict between reason and superstition in popular culture, and was originally intended to provide children with critical thinking skills so they would reject the idea of monsters, ghosts, and the like. Ironically, modern takes on Scooby Doo have almost entirely subverted this idea and usually present the culprits of their mysteries as real monsters.

During that same time, television also introduced me to my first onscreen crush in the form of the beautiful and charming Samantha Stevens, a witch who struggles to not to use her powers while married to a frequently intolerant mortal advertising executive in Bewitched. The Munsters and The Addams Family gave me my first taste for "goth" living even before it would become all the rage in the dance clubs of the 1980s. Late night movies on TV would bring all the important horror classics of the past in my living room as Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, the Phantom of the Opera, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Godzilla all became childhood friends. Over time the darkened castles, creaking doors, foggy graveyards, howling wolves, and ever present witches and vampires became so engrained in my psyche that today they remain the "comfort viewing" to which I retreat when I'm sick or in need of other distractions from modern life.

ABOVE: Elizabeth Montgomery starred in Bewitched (1964 - 1972) as Samantha Stephens, a witch who married "mortal" advertising executive Darren Stephens (played for the first five seasons by actor Dick York). Inspired by movies like I Married a Witch (1942) and Bell, Book and Candle (1958), it was a long running series that explored the complex relationship dynamics between those who possess magic and those who don't. Social commentators have referred to it as an allegory both for mixed marriages and also about the challenges faced by minorities, homosexuals, cultural deviants, or generally creative folks in a non heterogeneous community. It was also one of the first American television programs to portray witches not as worshippers of Satan, but simply as a group of people ostracized for their culture and their supernatural skills.

Even before I began elementary school, there was one piece of must-see gothic horror programming that I went out of my way to catch every day. Dark Shadows aired at 3:30 p.m. on our local ABC affiliate in Tulsa, Oklahoma which usually allowed me to catch most of it if I ran home from school (or even more if my mom or brother picked me up.) In theory it was a soap opera, but the show featured a regular parade of supernatural characters and themes. The lead was a 175 year old vampire named Barnabas Collins (played by Johnathan Frid), and the show revolved around his timeless pursuit of his lost love, Josette. It was also a program that regularly dealt with reincarnation, precognition, werewolves, time travel, witchcraft, and other occult themes. Though it regularly provoked criticism from religious groups about its content, it ran from June of 1966 until it's final cancellation in April of 1971. (I would discover it in the early 1970s as it ran in syndication.) Dark Shadows would spin off two feature-length movies based on the original, a series of tie-in novels, an excellent reboot series in 1991 (starring Ben Cross as Barnabas), and a positively embarrassingly awful movie directed by Tim Burton in 1991.

ABOVE: Johnathan Frid starred as Barnabas Collins, one of the leading characters of the original Dark Shadows television series. The influence of the series cannot be understated. In many ways Dark Shadows paved the way for the inclusion of supernatural elements in other soap operas of the 1970s and the 1980s, and was largely responsible for the explosion of romance novels featuring supernatural themes over the same time period.

While Dark Shadows was a favorite early television program for me, another show would prove not only to be a borderline obsession, but also a major influence on my career as a storyteller. Night Gallery (1969-1973) was a weekly anthology television show from Rod Serling, better known as the creator and host of the original Twilight Zone. Like Twilight Zone before it, Night Gallery was a deep and complex commentary on the human condition, but unlike its predecessor the outcomes for the characters almost always skewed towards the horrific and the truly outré. In "The Painted Mirror," an antiques dealer uses a magic painting to trap an enemy in the prehistoric past. Jack Cassidy plots to use astral projection to kill his romantic rival in "The Last Laurel" but accidentally ends up killing himself. In "Eyes" a young Stephen Spielberg directs Joan Crawford in a story about an entitled rich woman who plots to take the sight of a poor man. Week after week it delivered some of the best-written horror television of the early 1970s.

In retrospect I find it surprising that I was allowed to watch Night Gallery at all. I was very young while it was airing, and some of the content was dark and often quite shocking for its time. Nevertheless, I was so attached to the show that I'd throw a literal temper tantrum if I missed a single, solitary episode. If our family needed to go somewhere on an evening that Night Gallery was scheduled, either my parents would either have to wait until after it had aired before we left, or they'd make arrangements in advance with whomever we were visiting to make sure it was okay that I could watch Night Gallery there. I was, in a word, a fanatic.

ABOVE: Every segment of Night Gallery was introduced by series creator Rod Serling standing before a painting created explicitly for the series. Director Guillermo del Toro credits Serling's series as being the most important and influential show on his own work, even more so than the more famous Twilight Zone.

#horror #70s #occult #supernatural #television #writing

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monotonous-minutia · 3 years

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I don't know if you've answered this before, but what would be your top 10 Hoffmann (filmed) productions?

actually I haven't been asked this question in particular, mostly general favorite opera productions that some of these always end up on. As you all know I have a probably-unhealthy obsession with this opera, so this’ll likely get kinda long. Because I’m me, I will be including brief analysis of each one on the list.

Mostly in this order, though it might change slightly from day-to-day:

1) Met 2009/2015 I rave about this one often enough it's probably fairly obvious why. I count them as one because it's the same production (the utterly delightful and incredibly gay Sher staging) so very similar, but if I had to pick between the two of them, I'd pick the 2009 one, personally. 2) La Scala 1995 Not only is this the gayest Hoffmann I've ever seen, it's also very possibly the gayest opera production I’ve ever seen, period. Like seriously, the gay just does not stop unless Hoffmann and Nicklausse simply aren't onstage, but every second they are, holy heck. It's almost unbearable. The production itself is so-so, but the cast is fabulous: Shicoff and Mentzer bringing in the gay as Hoffmann and Nicklausse, respectively; Samuel Ramey being suitably diabolical as the villains; Natalie Dessay being the greatest Olympia ever; and Denyce Graves being my second-favorite Giulietta (drop-dead amazing). Only sad part is we don’t get the trio des yeux. I would seriously die to see this cast do that number. 3) Munich 2013 This one is just delightful in every way. The edit is odd and a bit irritating at times, but the zany production, amazing cast (Damrau! Villazón! Relyea! Brower! did I mention Damrau!), and super-gayness make up for it. There's never not something going on, and there are some really unique staging choices that make it a stand-out production overall. 4) Brussels 1985 This one breaks my heart. Diana Montague is hands-down one of the cutest and gayest Nicklausses ever and the dynamic between him and Hoffmann is really something special. Production is unremarkable but the gayness level here is off the charts which I would have thought was illegal in 1985 but I am so grateful for it. Montague’s Violin Aria is unbelievable. I watch it when I feel like crying. 5) Orange 2000 Dislike the fact that it's the Choudens (abbreviated) edit, but aside from that, I love it: the cast is excellent (Dessay as Olympia yet again! José van Dam being awesome! Angelika Kirchschlager reigning as one of the cutest, gayest and sassiest Nicklausses ever! Plus: The Hair. and he gets the Violin Aria!!) and the production is pretty straightforward which is nice. The fact that it's outside on an open-air stage lends a really cool atmosphere, especially in the Antonia act. It's surprisingly gay for being the short version, though the very end is confusing and more than a little annoying. 6) Paris 2002 The production itself is not my favorite (though certain parts of it are growing on me) but I love that we get Shicoff and Mentzer again as an incredibly gay Hoffmann/Nicklausse team. Not as gay as the La Scala one, but still one of the gayest ever. You really cannot beat these two as this dynamic duo. Not to say others aren't also great, but these two just have such intricate chemistry and wonderful interpretations of their characters and their relationship, it's really on a level of its own. Plus, they're both really adorable, though this Hoffmann isn't quite as nice as his La Scala incarnation. 7) Zurich 2021 Still talking about this one quite a bit, so I won't say too much, just the basics. No huge names in the cast, but they're all pretty great, in particular Nicklausse and Antonia. It's very gay and the production is quirky and fun. Plus, it's about as close to the Kaye edit as you're likely to find, so there's a lot of really cool material you can't find anywhere else. There are some annoying cuts (chunks of recits missing, no Septet) and I am super not a fan of the very end of it, but aside from that, I love the interpretations of the characters and the fact that the sets, costumes, and staging are fairly straightforward. 8) ROH 1981/2016 This one's fun and cute, very classic, though burdened by some unfortunate cast members. Mostly I love Powell's Nicklausse/Muse. It's the short version which is also irritating, but the interpretation of Nicklausse is surprisingly gay in spite of that. 9) Barcelona 2013 This one almost exclusively for the cast--Losier, Spryres, Naouri, Kim, and Dessay (though as Antonia this time!). It's odd to say I'm not a fan of the production itself, because usually I love anything Pelly does. The aesthetic is dark and atmospheric but there are some significant staging choices I'm not a fan of. It's kind of the Kaye edit so that's cool to see, especially because it's the dialogue version which includes lines not seen elsewhere (like the Pylades/Pollux one I so adore). The very best thing about this one is Michèle Losier's Nicklausse. Though this production doesn’t make my top 5, Losier's Nicklausse does, hands-down. Her expressions, her boundless energy, the sass, the Gay, and that ethereal voice. Just fantastic and definitely one of my favorite roles for her. I could watch her as Nicklausse forever. 10) Macerata 2005 The production is unremarkable itself, and the edit is kinda odd (we get half the trio des yeux, half of the Violin Aria, and the ending Muse monologue, but no beginning Muse monologue). BUT, I adore Maurus as Nicklausse. So gay, very adorable, cheeky, and fun. And I love that outfit.

and there you have it! Probably way more information than you wanted, but here it is XD I could talk about this opera forever so I really appreciate the ask!

#asks #Les contes d'Hoffmann #The Tales of Hoffmann #opera #opera tag #opera asks

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twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 4 years

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Star Trek: Genre and Themes

Considering the fact that Star Trek was pitched as “Wagon Train in space”, it seems almost redundant to discuss the genre of such a show.

Since the beginning, Gene Roddenberry’s show’s genre seemed pretty obvious: science fiction-western. And really, it’s hard to argue with that. Kirk’s style has been outright referred to as ‘cowboy diplomacy’ by future installations of Star Trek. The adventures and ‘exploration’ of the new territory is very reminiscent of the western television shows of the time, and the setting of outer space would seem to place it pretty firmly in the ‘science fiction’ genre as well.

But, like always, there’s a little more to it than that.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, very few pieces of media can be categorized as only one genre. Even the most seemingly obvious and one-dimensional examples have elements of other genres. No show is designed to fit into only one genre, with any individual television program carrying many characteristics of one specific genre, while sharing many elements of other genres.

And while it may be easy to look at the setting of a film or television show and use that to determine a genre (space = sci-fi, medieval = fantasy), that doesn’t mean it’s terribly accurate.

Such is the case of Star Trek.

As a matter of fact, despite Roddenberry’s initial pitch to the studios, Star Trek actually doesn’t have a whole lot in common with the westerns of the day (Besides Spectre of the Gun). Kirk’s ‘cowboy’ nature actually doesn’t come into play nearly as much as one would think. Captain Kirk’s decision making isn’t quite the same as a traditional western lead, weighing more factors than just ‘frontier justice’. For another, the setup is totally different. The Enterprise is a military exploration ship, full of people on a mission, not just of exploration, but of diplomacy. Kirk’s job is not only to defeat ‘bad guys’, but to find the best solutions for problems of other cultures.

So while Kirk’s ‘good old fisticuffs’ solutions may seem a bit more of the ‘Wild Wild West’ than later incarnations of the show would resort to, it doesn’t make it a western. In fact, Star Trek has far more in common with future versions of science fiction shows than one might think.

Star Trek, at its core, is a show about an optimistic utopia, a future where humanity has learned to straighten itself out. A future where there is no oppression, no prejudice, no poverty, but of a unified, educated, compassionate Earth, reaching out into the galaxy to explore, extending a hand of friendship. This is Kirk’s job: being the hand of friendship. Set in a distant future, a twenty-third century where Earth’s problems are solved, as such, there is no need to examine humanity’s flaws as they are.

At least, not directly.

As is done with many examples of the soft science fiction (or speculative fiction) genre, Star Trek uses its setting and set-up to examine the problems with our own society through the disguise of another. Routinely, Kirk and the gang land on a planet or meet a people that represent a part of humanity that is less than pleasant to look at. Episodes like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield take a scathing look at racism, a huge social issue in the late 1960s. Other episodes examined topics like the Vietnam war, labor, and, a science-fiction favorite, the dangers of technology.

Add this onto the ‘traveling through the stars’ plotline of Star Trek, and you’ve got yourself a pretty good argument for a solid science fiction show, with or without the western elements to it. With that said, that doesn’t mean there’s more to the show than just sci-fi.

Star Trek’s storylines typically fell into the category of action or adventure. There were gunfights (or phaserfights), fistfights, chases, daring escapes, and space-battles galore. There was typically at least one hair-raising action scene per episode (with a few exceptions, such as The Trouble with Tribbles or The Way to Eden). Even the episodes without ‘action’ per say as it would later be solidified in shows like The A-Team or Magnum P.I. turned out a decent ‘adventure’ story, with emphasis on the journey and adventure as a whole, rather than action-packed sequences that kept audiences on the edge of their seat.

Star Trek was all about the adventure, as even the opening credits will make clear. The voyage of the Enterprise is aimed at discovery and exploration. The setup of the show is, at its core, the greatest adventure: exploring the unknown. Every episode is aimed at the exploration of the human experience and curiosity. By definition, an adventure is a risky undertaking, and the exploration of deep space and discovering new civilizations and planets is nothing if not risky.

It’s pretty easy to say that Star Trek fits pretty neatly into the ‘sci-fi/adventure’ category, although it does have shades of other genres. Episodes like Shore Leave, The Trouble with Tribbles, I Mudd, and A Piece of the Action have a distinct comedic slant to them, whereas episodes like Catspaw, The Enemy Within, Wolf in the Fold, and The Man Trap have a rather sinister, horror/thriller edge. Other episodes have dabbled into courtroom dramas, tragedies, westerns, and even war, giving all three seasons a wide range of types of stories that they tell. However, one genre that Star Trek has always been the absolute master of, even more than science-fiction or adventure, has been the genre of drama.

At the heart of every Star Trek episode, no matter how cerebral or action-packed, is an overarching sense of drama. Not drama in the ‘soap opera’ sense, mind you, but drama as in real character interaction and growth. The drama in Star Trek is in McCoy and Spock’s argument in Bread and Circuses, in the death of a recently married lieutenant in Balance of Terror, in the death of Kirk’s brother in Operation: Annihilate. Star Trek’s dramatic moments are rooted in character, from Spock’s admittance and sharing of Vulcan rituals in Amok Time and his muted desperation at thinking that he’s killed his Captain in a burst of uncontrollable rage to the doomed romance between Kirk and Edith Keeler in City On the Edge of Forever. The drama in Star Trek is in people, whether human or not.

The examples of Star Trek’s use of characters, be they regular or not, is truly groundbreaking. From Spock’s mind-meld with the Horta in Devil in the Dark to Kirk’s terrifying identity crisis in The Enemy Within, Star Trek’s strength is in the people, in the personal dynamics between the characters, most notably between the main trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Even the other, more minor characters on the show received levels of characterization unheard of for the time: Sulu’s love of botany and retro weaponry, Uhura’s musical ability, Scotty’s intelligence and romantic troubles, and Chekov’s obsession with spouting totally innaccurate Russian history, possibly just to annoy the rest of the crew. Even Nurse Chapel’s flashes of snark helped her stand apart from the many nameless crew members who came and went throughout the series.

In short, Star Trek’s characters were people. Nowhere was this more evident than in Mr. Spock.

By the 1960s, most ‘alien’ characters on television were either jokes or monsters, cast as gimmicks in My Favorite Martian or as evil conquerors in shows like The Twilight Zone or The Invaders. But in Star Trek, the ‘alien’ was as ‘human’ as the rest of us, if you’ll pardon the phrase.

A Mr. Spock type character was unheard of in 1966. A half-human, half-alien, treated as a respected equal of the rest of the crew, was a completely foreign concept at the time. Spock’s development as a character, and indeed, his criticism of the human condition proved to be one of Star Trek’s best elements of its use of character and drama. Spock as a character was constantly at war with himself, torn between the outwardly emotionless Vulcan half, and his emotional, illogical human half. Spock’s internal struggle proved to be one of the most gripping elements of the show, and as his interactions with Kirk and McCoy proved, although Spock did not like to be compared to humans, in many ways, he was more ‘human’ than we are. His subtle flashes of emotion and occasional bursts of illogical behavior proved repeatedly that there was a lot more to Spock than what he tried to let on. He, along with the other members of the cast, had layers.

And Star Trek was very good at exploring those layers.

No science-fiction show would introduce characters with layers to explore if they hadn’t had every intention of making the show hang on the relationships of the characters. And the relationships of characters is the absolute core of drama.

In the end, Star Trek is a science-fiction adventure drama, a speculative look at the nature of humanity and people in general. Star Trek is a look at a better future, an improved society turned to exploration. It’s about the new frontier, about the best and worst of humanity, about friendship, adventure, and morality, full of good and memorable stories and characters. It paved the way for even more complex shows to follow, and remains one of the most thought-provoking and earnest shows of all time.

Even now, audiences remember those characters, those stories, those little moments with these people that they grew to know. They hold up, remaining just as genuine and heartfelt as they were in 1966.

And they owe that, in no small part, to those wonderful characters.

But that’s a discussion for next time.

Thank you guys so much for reading! Don’t forget that my ask box is always open for conversation, suggestions, or questions. Stay tuned for the next article, where we’ll be looking at the crew of the Enterprise and their roles in Star Trek. I hope to see you there!

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magicofthepen · 3 years

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Romana II for the character asks 👀

thank you for the ask!! <33 as you can see, I really like talking about Romana 😊

favorite thing about them: ….I’ve realized it’s quite hard to answer this question for one of your all-time favorite characters, oh wow there’s so much I could talk about. (gallifrey Romana II is exactly my Favorite Character Type, but I actually first fell for Romana II while watching the E-space stories.) but okay one thing that really Gets me about her is how deeply she loves? both in an ‘big picture’ sense and in a personal relationship sense. she genuinely cares about the people of her world and other worlds so much, and gives so much of herself to try to protect them and make their lives better….which becomes a mix of something very admirable and something very unhealthy that’s really complicated and interesting to unpack. and I’m so weak for stories of lonely characters slowly discovering friendship, and all of Romana’s friendships are such interesting and important dynamics in different ways, and she just. loves her friends so much, even when she’s struggling with how to be a friend, and the stories of these relationships (both on tv and in audio) are such a big part of my attachment to her character.

least favorite thing about them: I’ve talked a bit about this recently, but I’m very picky about Romana-as-villain arcs, and sometimes in the audios the writers have her do terrible things, and it feels more for the sake of being ~dark and edgy~ than something that has solid characterization backing it up? for example, on one hand, I really like how the Imperiatrix arc shows how she falls to the point of becoming a tyrant, shows how her intentions get twisted, and how circumstances and manipulations and her own character flaws lead her to make the choices that she does. on the other hand, the “destroyer of worlds” thing in series 4 doesn’t emotionally back up her choices and feels a bit like “we’re going to have this character do Terrible Things just so she can feel guilty over how Terrible she is.” and tbh I do side-eye the overall obsession of the EU of making her a darker and more power-hungry figure (in contrast, something like Time War 2 has some of my favorite Romana characterization, probably because she’s on the side of “stubbornly standing up for what’s right.”)

(I’ll probably skip favorite line for most of these because alas I’m absolutely terrible at picking one.)

brOTP: ….is it cheating to say Leela and Narvin if I also ship them? ….okay I’ll leave them for the otp section, but those two friendships are just so so important to Romana, and I love them as committed platonic relationships too! (especially since sometimes I get very into thinking about Romana as aromantic - this is not a consistent headcanon, obviously I do write a lot of shippy Romana fic in which she’s not aro, but I do think there’s solid backing for it, and I like exploring different headcanons and interpretations of relationships.)

but I want to use this section to ramble a bit about Romana and the Doctor! (I used to ship them a fair bit - in a “I love this dynamic as either a romantic thing or a platonic thing!” way - but lately I’ve been more into their relationship as a platonic thing, so I think they fall much more under brOTP for me.) they’re such a Team when they’re traveling together, and I love that understated fondness they have for each other, the way they genuinely enjoy each other’s company. and I love how they’re like. constantly holding hands and standing very close together and just being very softly affectionate. (and not to make everything about Skin of the Sleek/Thief Who Stole Time, but the way the Doctor both gives Romana space and looks out for her in those audios is so good?? they’re really soft together and I melt every time I listen to those audios.) And I love how they part on good terms, with a deep undercurrent of mutual respect and care….and I have a lot of painful feelings about the crumbling of their friendship later in life. it does make sense that they’d grow apart - they end up making very different choices when it comes to Gallifrey - but also that layer of sharpness/coldness in their interactions in Neverland (and Zagreus)….oof that hurts. (and going back a little further - the first time I heard their conversation at the end of Apocalypse Element where the Doctor leaves her, it was a gut punch - the way she so badly needs a friend, and he….doesn’t stay.) so my Doctor & Romana II feelings are a combination of “oh my gosh I love them” and “oh my gosh they break my heart.”

OTP: ot3 my beloved <33 so Romana/Leela is my og Gallifrey ship, the one that was so so inevitable because their dynamic is very much my ship type (wlw opposites attract)…and then their chemistry (“There will be a place for you with me, for always.” / “I need you” / “I have lost a great deal. I have lost you.” / “You never will be alone.” etc. etc. etc.) and the overt parallels between Leela’s feelings about Andred and her feelings about Romana, and the way the story uses the narrative structures of romance w/ them (dramatic breakup! pining!)……yep I was definitely going to ship this. I’m utterly in love with how they’re both so alone in different ways at the beginning of Gallifrey and yet they end up reaching out to each other and finding a home in each other. I’m endlessly interested in unpacking the messy complicated dynamics of their relationship - the ways their individual pain and grief clashes, the ways they cling to each other too tightly, the ways they fail to communicate - and the ways they get better at communicating, the ways they choose each other and keep fighting for each other and for their relationship.

(and whoops this is gonna be two paragraphs now) and Narvin/Romana is my other otp for Romana, and that was a surprise, because m/f enemies-to-friends is My Thing, that’s exactly the kind of platonic relationship that Gets Me. and I do love the entirely platonic take on their relationship so much, but I also definitely really ship them?? it’s the combination of “complicated devoted longing and messy power dynamics” in the middle seasons, and “oh my gosh they’ve figured out how to talk about feelings??” in the later ones. so it’s not so much “enemies to friends to lovers” as “enemies to one-sided pining/friendship with complicated power dynamics to more balanced, healthy friendship to lovers”? sort of? basically there’s so many different interesting shippy dynamics to explore with them, ranging from “oh god they do care about each other but this is a mess” to “they’d genuinely be so good together,” depending on when we’re talking, and I love that. I love how their relationship is always changing and growing, and how once they get close, they really share the same sense of duty and care for their world and the universe and the work they’re doing together. I love that they’re two people who have their own individual struggles with forming personal relationships, and so it seems like they shouldn’t ever work, but they do? and I do have a tremendous soft spot for them in the Time War audios in particular….they have such old married couple energy and I love exploring that kind of romance dynamic - warm and settled and really not that different from a committed friendship.

all in all: I’m very much an ot3 shipper, I love the idea of all three of them together (I’m really into exploring poly relationships and it’s super great how open this fandom is to poly shipping!) I probably ship Romana/Leela more consistently than Romana/Narvin, but those two relationships (romantic or platonic) occupy pretty equal amounts of my Gallifrey brainspace? so I’d say both fall into the “otp” category.

(the rest of this is going under a cut because this is so long oops.)

nOTP: nOTP isn’t exactly the right term for my feelings about Brax/Romana since I do read (and enjoy!) fic about them? (but with Gallifrey, I’m very open to reading whatever, I easily fall for good writing even if I’m not into a ship.) but Brax/Romana is definitely not my thing - I think I just have a personal discomfort about teacher/student relationships (and yes, she’s older in Gallifrey, but that mentor-figure dynamic still underpins their relationship, and the whole “your old teacher is romantically interested in you” thing is apparently something I personally nope out at). (obviously I’m not judging anyone who does ship them…heck I have a Romana ship that’s way more toxic. it’s just this particular romantic dynamic is Not For Me). but like I said, I do read fic about them! (It’s just a bit tricky because sometimes a fic will really hit those nope buttons, and sometimes it won’t? hard to say why….but broadly speaking I tend to be more interested in Brax/Romana fics that lean into “there are some unhealthy power dynamics here” rather than away from it - and I tend to compartmentalize even the Brax/Romana fics I like into a different universe in my head to avoid running into that I’m uncomfortable feeling).

random headcanon: ooh which one should I ramble about this time…how about this: Romana II has very particular feelings about touch. unexpected touch from people she doesn’t know/trust is uncomfortable and jarring. and it’s always been somewhat of a thing in this incarnation, but it really became a big deal post-Etra Prime - and even more so post-Pandora crisis - being touched without warning by most people brings up all these feelings of not having control over her own life and body (and mind, since touch also has links to telepathy). however, with the handful of people she does deeply trust, touch is a comforting and grounding thing (and something she really craves), a reminder that there are people who are there for her, people who care for her.

unpopular opinion: ….I told myself I wasn’t going to talk about this on Tumblr because the audio is so universally beloved, but welp it does say unpopular opinion. so, um, the short version is, I can’t reconcile Romana’s characterization in Erasure (aka the Bellescon thing) with Neverland or early Gallifrey or my general interpretation of her character (and I tried! like “wrote a fic to try to make it work for me” tried!). so after I kept running into a wall when trying to write a different Erasure-related fic, I decided, in Doctor Who tradition, to just throw out the bits of canon that don’t work for me. (in other words: Erasure’s not part of my personal canon anymore. which is really unfortunate because I do love so many other parts of it, and it’s a great Narvin audio and great performance. and I can enjoy it as a self-contained thing, but I’ve stopped trying to make it fit with Romana’s characterization elsewhere.) (although I do have an Erasure-related fic that I’ll post one of these days - it’s a section of that fic that hit a wall that I think works well on its own!)

song i associate with them: All the King’s Horses by Karmina / We Are Dragons by Karmina are my top songs for Gallifrey Romana (well, more specifically post-Apocalypse Element Romana). the two songs are variations on each other and they’re just so spot-on for her?? All the King’s Horses gives me major post-Etra Prime feelings (Free to go back on my own / But is it still a home when you’re all alone? / All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put me back together again), and We Are Dragons is such a Gallifrey Romana song in general (Do it all for the love of my kingdom / And here’s to dying for life worth living / And here’s to hoping we bleed for something / I’m not done fighting for what I believe in).

favorite picture of them: anything in her Horns of Nimon outfit or Shada outfit, I love those looks so much! And for fanart: some of my favorite Romana pieces are this three Romanas art by @aethira, and any of the Gallifrey covers by @joycieillustrations (who paints Romana II so incredibly!!)

#thanks for indulging my urge to ramble about romana ii <33 #swinging stars from satellites #ramblings #romana #asks

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today-only-happens-once · 4 years

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May we please have the detailed reasons for your atla Sides headcanons?

Yeah sure! Though fair warning: lots of spoilers and meta for AtLA below.

Also this is LONG so I put it under a cut:

Virgil’s favorite character as Zuko: I think Virgil would connect to the way Zuko, prior to the Day of Black Sun, exists on the fringes. He’s outcast from the Fire Nation, but he’s also outcast from the “good guys” until he earns his place among them in Book 3. I don’t mean to say that Virgil’s acceptance arc is in any way a direct parallel to Zuko’s redemption arc, because I think they are fundamentally different. But that idea of loneliness and trying desperately to figure out what the right thing to do is--even if that makes you a bad guy in the broader narrative--I think is something that would resonate with Virgil. (Plus, Zuko is peak Angsty Emo Angry Teen Energy that I think Virgil would vibe with.)

Logan’s favorite character as Sokka: I think Logan would appreciate Sokka and also feel a certain level of defensiveness towards him, because Sokka is brilliant tactically and strategically, but that aspect to his character is frequently overlooked (though the AtLA renaissance has definitely embraced that element to him more). I think Logan would appreciate Sokka’s understated intelligence. At 15 years old, Sokka: invents hot air balloons, invents submarines, breaks into a high security prison and comes up with not one but TWO extraction plans, plans (and eventually leads) the invasion on the day of Black Sun, not to mention the role he played in Sozin’s Comet. And he does all of this without the “magic” of bending. Sokka’s greatest strength is his mind and the way he wields it. And I think Logan would see that and immediately jump on the Sokka Defense Squad.

Patton’s favorite character as Aang: There’s a number of reasons why I think Patton’s favorite would be Aang. One of them is that as much as Patton is the “father figure”, he’s also the “inner child”. And Aang, as a character, also walks this line of being a literal child while also carrying this tremendous weight with him. Everybody--everybody’s--hope rests on this poor kid’s shoulders, and nobody lets him forget it. And few people put more pressure on Aang regarding that all than Aang himself. But he still manages to carve out time to just... be a kid. As much as he is able when he’s been tasked with saving the world. My favorite interpretation of Patton’s character involve the idea that he chooses to see good things in the world despite knowing, intimately, just how dark it can be. And Aang is an example of that in AtLA. Aang is a symbol of hope in a very dark world, but he chooses to find and seek hope himself too. ALSO, I think Patton, as Morality, would greatly and deeply appreciate the inner conflict and struggle that becomes central for Aang’s character during the Sozin Comet arc, prior to facing off with Ozai. Aang’s struggle with not wanting to kill Ozai, the complexity that is brought to that narrative through the genocide of his people and how Aang is literally the only one left that can carry on the legacy of the Air Nomads and therefore wanting to do right by their teachings even when the entire world AND his own past lives are telling him otherwise... I think Aang finding a way to strike that balance would mean a lot to Patton and resonate with him as Morality.

Roman’s favorite character as Zuko also: So, I think Roman would also resonate with Zuko but for different reasons than Virgil. Zuko, early in the series, is obsessed with this idea of honor, and of earning his father’s love and pride. That’s what he really wants when he says he wants the Avatar. And I think Roman would understand that. I think he’d relate to this idea of wanting to make the people who matter to you proud. Roman has expressed a fear in Sanders Sides canon of letting Thomas down, and Zuko’s attempt at redemption to his father in reminiscent of a similar desire. And that never really goes away as a motivator for Zuko, even if the recipient of that desire (if you will) changes from Ozai to Iroh. After Zuko confronts Ozai on the Day of Black Sun, Zuko still expresses that desire to make the people who matter to him proud of him. Zuko doesn’t truly get that conclusion to his arc until Sozin’s Comet when he is reunited with Iroh, who affirms that feeling for him. I think that moment, and that whole dynamic to Zuko’s character arc, would feel significant to Roman.

Remus’s favorite as Bumi: Okay, we know a lot less about Remus as a character so this one is admittedly not very deep or meaningful. I tried to think of the character that radiated the most chaotic energy, and Bumi was towards the top of the list. There’s a lot of complex stuff I could say about Bumi’s character, but as for why I think he’d be Remus’s favorite? Chaos incarnate.

Janus’s favorite as Kyoshi or Azula: First, I’ll talk about Kyoshi since that is a more simple answer. I don’t know much about canon lore outside of the show, so I’m only going to address what is in the AtLA canon. But I think Janus would appreciate how Kyoshi doesn’t pull any punches in her honesty about her murder of Chin. Kyoshi, every time she shows up, is painfully honest and blunt. She tells Aang he must kill Ozai because “without justice, there is no peace”. I think Janus would appreciate that, given how hard he works (especially lately in canon) to make Thomas be more honest with himself.

When it comes to Azula, it’s almost the opposite. Azula lies left, right, and center. Zuko repeats this to himself when she tells him that his father plans to kill him (which, ironically, is actually a moment of truth from her). She deadpans that she’s a purple platypus bear just to prove to Toph how good of a liar she is. She lies and she manipulates, but Azula does this for two reasons that are interrelated: she lies to improve her standing (mostly in the eyes of her father), and she lies to survive. Given who Ozai is, those two things are not independent of each other. If she is to survive as a daughter of Ozai, she must continue to prove herself and improve her standing. Her father ruled--and therefore “secured” his safety--through fear, so Azula learns to do the same through manipulation and deceit. I don’t think Janus would argue that Azula is a “good aligned” character. But I think there are areas of gray with her (to what extent is she a victim? In what ways, if any, might the fact that she is a victim of abuse as well excuse the mistreatment she directed at Zuko? In what ways might the fact that neither Ursa nor Iroh appeared to have interceded on her behalf the way they did for Zuko inform her upbringing and therefore her way of approaching the world? Is that lack of intercession the fault of Ozai for favoring her? etc.) that Janus would find fascinating to explore and discuss.

#atla #sanders sides #headcanons #in which grae gets real deep into character analysis for both sanders sides AND atla #AT THE SAME TIME

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heroes-fading · 5 years

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Why Veronica Mars Won’t Have a Season 5

My introduction to Veronica Mars came in the midst of my father’s death. I watched episodes in hospital waiting rooms before it happened, and holed up in my room afterwards. I found a lot of comfort in the strength that the characters provided. The scene of Logan at his mother’s funeral - maniac and trying to find the humor in it - is exactly what I felt at my father’s. I, like Logan, made jokes and tried shrugging it off. I was certain that this was some sort of cosmic joke, and I was on the receiving end. Veronica’s personality shaped most of who I was in high school - my dad passed away two weeks before I started. Her snark, intelligence, and resilience inspired me so much then. I found a wonderful community with fans of the show, and to this day as a semi-adult I love and adore so many people I met through the show.

When the movie was announced, I was ecstatic. I remember rushing to a bathroom stall at my high school so I could eloquently keyboard-smash about it with my friends, donating to the Kickstarter, wearing my t-shirt, going to the theater with my friend to watch it and livestreaming it the night of its release with my online friends. In a sea of horrible feelings and helplessness, Veronica Mars helped me feel empowered and supported.

That’s partly why all of this stings so badly and feels so much like a betrayal.

Logan Echolls fits into a lot of tropes I’ve grown to hate as a self-identified feminist who has zero time for bad boys. Men who “atone for their sins” to get with a leading heroine are ones I often find boring - so often they’re executed poorly and their past mistakes would be absolutely unforgivable in a real context. Chuck Bass, Damon Salvatore, Spike, et. all are characters I’m tired of seeing in fiction. Logan Echolls organized a bum fight, took out Veronica’s headlights, burned down a community pool, made a series of racist comments to Weevil, and generally had moments of being the absolute worst. But for some weird reason, I have a massive soft spot for Logan and he’s become one of my favorite fictional characters.

Maybe it’s because we’ve seen him go through much, change so much over the course of the show. Maybe it’s because the show actually held him accountable (as well as Veronica) so the redemption didn’t feel cheap or unearned. Or maybe it’s because I’m just a weak heterosexual hypnotized by Jason Dohring’s abs and my feminism only goes so far as who I think is hot. I hope it’s not the last one, but I’m sure some would argue it is! The point is -- healthy, going-to-therapy Logan feels earned after the deaths of his parents, his abusive dad killing his girlfriend, numerous beatings, and too many near death experiences to count. Logan went from being an obligatory psychotic jackass to a fairly well-adjusted boyfriend in a way that made narrative sense.

His offscreen death right after getting married to the love of his life? Not so much.

The thing that stings about Veronica Mars’ final episode is not just Logan’s death - it’s what it means for the show going forward, especially its titular character. What made Veronica lovable was not her toughness as Logan’s final voicemail details. As season 3 Logan reminds us, Veronica isn’t invincible and she isn’t always right. What made her such a compelling character was what was underneath that toughness, and the people around her that highlighted that warmth buried underneath layers of trauma. In other words, what made her a marshmallow. Burnt on the outside, but gooey on the inside, as Wallace describes her in the pilot.

When we meet Veronica in the pilot, she’s been through a litany of traumas: her best friend’s death, a breakup, sexual assault and drugging, social ostracization, her mother’s addiction and swift exit from her life, a swift drop in socioeconomic status, and routine humiliation at the hands of her peers. But in spite of all of that, she’s still the girl that cuts Wallace down from the flag because it’s the right thing to do. She’s still the girl that worries about her father, has sympathy for Logan after his mother’s death despite all of his cruelty, defends and comforts Meg Manning after she endures the same bullying Veronica did, cares (often, initially unwillingly) about the people whose cases she takes, and bakes cookies for her friend after his basketball game just because. Even as recently as the books, Veronica bakes a cake for her terrible, abandoning mother on her birthday in spite of her replacing her and Keith with another family. She looks after her half-brother Hunter, even if he’s a painful reminder of her mother’s foibles. Veronica isn’t nearly as tough as she pretends to be, and that’s a good thing. That’s what makes her interesting and stops her from being like every other cynical hardboiled detective trope.

The people around Veronica - who support her, evolve with her, and serve as contrasts to her - are what help make her story so compelling. People who can tell her when she’s wrong (Logan, Keith, Weevil, et. all), who remind her of her soft side (Keith, Wallace, Mac, Logan), who can stop her from turning into a noir stereotype and cement her as Veronica Mars. People aren’t tuning in just to see Veronica snark at random side characters. Her personal journey in moving past her trauma and her relationships with other characters are what really makes the character who she is.

Her journey, from the pilot episode to the movie, is realizing that she can’t just shove down and run away from her trauma. Over the course of her show, we see her form bonds with people in spite of her attempts not to - Wallace, Mac, Logan, and a variety of others. They help her, support her, and challenge her in ways that only serve to make her story more interesting. In the movie, we see Veronica realize she can’t keep running and she doesn’t want a cushy life as a New York lawyer with a boyfriend who doesn’t understand why she cares so much about what happens in her hometown. Neptune, as corrupt and corroded as it is, is her hometown.

That’s why it’s such a spectacular slap in the face for the end of season 4 to offer the exact opposite. Veronica loses her husband (after finally evolving from the Veronica in the pilot who swore she was never getting married because she was so cynical about relationships) immediately after marriage. She leaves behind Keith, Wallace, and everyone else to chase unknown cases with unknown people in unknown places. As Rob has said, he saw this as the only way for Veronica to continue to be interesting - roaming the world solo as if she’s Sherlock Holmes.

This is not character progression. This is not driving the plot forward. This is regressing to a character to a point even before the pilot episode - a hardened Veronica who pretends she doesn’t care, who uses her trauma as an armour, and keeps people away from her. It undermines the central message of the movie - that Neptune is her home and in spite of her problems, she’s willing to fight for it. By killing Logan, Rob wanted to kill Veronica’s ties to Neptune. This isn’t an evolution - it’s a devolution.

Rob Thomas has offered this option before - a Veronica exit vehicle sans everyone else, including only Kristen Bell snarking at a camera - in the form of the last-ditch FBI pilot. It was not well received by fans nor networks, and unsurprisingly not picked up or seen anywhere other than a reposting on YouTube. I think if he sincerely expects any other result from a similar future attempt, he’s lying to himself.

If Rob Thomas wanted the male character-centric P.I. noir he initially planned on writing rather than Veronica Mars, he should have written that rather than allowed it to take over the Veronica Mars universe. Writing a woman with the same elements of toxic masculinity as male characters (a complete disregard for their own feelings, ripping themselves away from personal connections, framing “toughness” as superior and emotional development as a waste of time) is not feminism - it’s just lazy. “Strong female characters” don’t have to be made strong by undergoing trauma after trauma and shutting down until they’re a shadow of their former selves. Their male counterparts aren’t expected to have to deal with rape, death, ostracization, and every other possible form of trauma - women sure as hell shouldn’t.

Furthermore, the way that Rob Thomas has framed his fanbase is shameful. Veronica Mars fans aren’t just deranged fangirls too obsessed with Jason Dohring’s abs to care about the health of the story. This isn’t “not what we wanted, but what we needed” - we’re not an audience too stupid to know what’s good for us. We’re an intelligent audience when we’re giving the showrunners money, but when we’re disagreeing with the writing choices we’re just too invested in romance to “get it”. Predictably, these fans (who make up most of Veronica Mars’ fanbase that the showrunners claim to adore so much) are women. For decades, women have been stereotyped as media-consumers that only care about romance and thus can’t care about depth as if the two are mutually exclusive. This stereotype is incredibly sexist, especially given what this fanbase in particular has done for this franchise, and the continued insistence that these fans just don’t know what’s good for them or the show is incredibly condescending and transparent.

This fanbase poured $6 million dollars into a Kickstarter for a money, maintained energy for a revival and actively lobbied streaming services and networks for a continuation, and kept the fandom twelve years after the finale episode of its original incarnation aired. As much as some may resent how fan energy encouraged writers to see Logan evolve, or Logan and Veronica to sort out their issues, or anything else - these were choices the writers made and stood by for years. A sudden U-Turn in storytelling to go from “the fans were right, this dynamic is wonderful and we’re going to base our advertising around it!” to “well, it was never supposed to be about that” is a kick to the teeth to a fanbase that (literally!) gave so much.

It’s not as if this is the first time the fanbase has been disappointed by a writing decision. Speaking for myself, I was heavily disappointed by the way sexual assault was handled on the original incarnation of the show. Veronica’s rape was handled by at first not framing it as a sexual assault at all in “A Trip to the Dentist” - Duncan Kane (her ex-boyfriend/potential half-brother at some point in time) having sex with her while she was unconcious was framed as just “feelings and nature taking over” because he was under the influence. In season 3, the writers decided that framing women protesting sexual assault on campus as deranged feminists who sexually assault men by inserting them with Easter eggs was a good choice. That Easter egg part was played for laughs by the show, writers, and leading cast member.

Even the inclusion of Dick Casablancas for laughs - whose GHB was intended for his girlfriend and ended up in Veronica’s cup - doesn’t feel right. Ryan Hansen’s charm explains a lot of it, but the show seems to place a lot more blame on Madison for Veronica’s rape despite the fact she narrowly escaped the same fate at Dick’s hands. I was disappointed then, and I’m still disappointed with it now - far away from any romantic concerns of the show.

And my biggest problem with the ending of season 4 isn’t just that Logan is dead. I’m incredibly crushed and disappointed to see all of that character development be met with an offscreen car-bomb, but it doesn’t bode well for Veronica’s characterization and ultimate arc either. I fell in love with Veronica’s character first, and I don’t even recognize her anymore.

If the movie was a thank you to the marshmallows (both the fans and Veronica’s inner softness), the ending of the show was a middle finger to both. If the lesson from the series and the film is that you fight for things because they’re worth it and not because they come easily (whether they be relationships or towns), then the lesson from the revival is that the best thing to do is leave and take your bags. So much of the narrative was set up around Veronica accepting who she was and where she’s from - and the revival’s Veronica has finally been traumatized so much she’s packing her bags and giving up. That’s not toughness. That’s not strength. That’s certainly not saving the show or the character.

That’s selling a grim story because you think it’s edgy. That’s trying to be subversive and failing, too focused on shock value to care about the characters. There’s a reason shows like Game of Thrones, Dexter, and How I Met Your Mother got such backlash -- they just don’t make narrative sense and the endings are far from satisfying. Making the fans happy isn’t a mark of bad storytelling, especially when the survival of your franchise has been so contingent on it. Sometimes, they actually do know what they’re talking about! And if you want a season five, maybe don’t alienate your fans to a point they don’t recognize the show anymore. Rob mentioned, “...I will have made a really bad bet if, en masse, the fans turn on the show. That would certainly be a tough lesson to learn.” -- I think he accomplished that!

I wish the Veronica Mars that got me through the toughest parts of my life was still around. But I’d rather say goodbye to her forever than be faced with a cheap imitation.

#veronica mars #veronica mars spoilers #vm spoilers #logan echolls #logan x veronica #veronica mars season 4 #tv: veronica mars

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myfandomrambles · 4 years

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Dhawan!Master Character Analysis

A look at Confused motivations, externalized anger, performance, self-destruction, boredom, and trauma

Confused Motivations:

Something I find interesting is that The Master’s motivations are not understood by himself. He professes it’s because he is angry that The Doctor is a key part of who he is and the “specialness” being The Timeless child gives her, but this is no way the whole story.

A more complete read of the motivations:

A biological concrete aspect has been added to the vacillations of feeling less than and better than The Doctor causing anger.

A compulsive need to control The Doctor and make them the same by putting them on the same “level”

Anger at being even more of a tool and creation of the Time Lords and loss of autonomy & control thereof.

Anger that they hurt The Doctor

Boredom, apathy, impulse control deficits and general control issues informed by trauma.

I doubt he is aware of all of these layers, and I believe The Doctor in the story and us as spectators will choose the one they believe is the “real” reason, but it was never just one. The Master flattens these motivations and explains it to The Doctor as almost all disdain for her, and blind rage, both actively in his emotions, and subconsciously to himself.

We know The Master has been used by the Time Lords their whole life (longer if the child in the flashbacks is Baby!Master) and has their autonomy stripped to be used as a tool of the aristocracy. He is dealing with having the Time Lords who have taken his autonomy directly on a physical level via The Doctor’s DNA. Just like the drums and resurrection during The Time War, we have direct physical meddling by the high council.

The Master has always felt that The Doctor and he are the same, that she is better than him, and that he is better than her in turn. This vacillating perception of her and their dynamic with each other is something we can see tracing through their relationship. This comes into play where they are used as foils and mirrors to each other. The Doctor Pointing this function of being the same while opposed to each other:

Twelve: “He's the only person that I've ever met who's even remotely like me.”

Bill: “So more than anything you want her to be good?

An interesting way we can see this change how they refer to each other sometimes using the present tense and past tense of the word friend.

Ten: “A friend, At first” [Ten spends most of the time focused on them being ‘the last’ over a real relationship, but offer a hand]

Thirteen: “The Master was one of my oldest friends. We went very different ways.” [Thirteen is intensely emotional about the master, more so then we have seen her at almost any other point, but shows mostly anger and exhaustion]

Twelve: “Of course she's not dead. She's a friend of mine. I may have fiddled with your wiring a little bit.” [Both Missy and Twelve focus heavily on their friendship and fall heavily on their intimate history]

The Master also changes the description of their relationship

Missy:“friendship older than your civilization, and infinitely more complex.”

Dhawan!Master: “I'm her best enemy.”

We see how the Fifth Doctor has an almost apathy to The Master, Seven takes the time to give him a proper burial, Ten and Twelve both seek out their respective Masters dreading the loss. The Master also does this being open about wanting attention, playing lower stakes dreams, being truly murderous, and abjectly cruel. The Master's self-perception shits as well; playing god on Gallifrey, making a personal army, putting her on a pedestal, dragging her down, and a suicidal streak. I think this helps illustrate the behaviour throughout the whole season.

The Doctor and The Master compulsively try and get the other’s attention. The obsession is something pointed out by multiple other characters namely; The Brig, Jo Grant, and The Rani. We can see this in him taking the time to play at being O and in how even when he yells about wanting her dead he also always knows she will live why else would he leave a note for her that would show when she got to Gallifrey. The Master will get none of the sought after catharsis and compulsion to involve The Doctor if she actually died. In their Eiffel Tower confrontation;

Doctor: “When does all this stop for you? The games, the betrayals, the killing?”

Master: “Why would it stop? I mean, how else would I get your attention”

His involvement this whole season is only about The Doctor, even the side operations of working with the baddie on earth, committing genocide and paling with the CyberMen are all about The Doctor and his need to exert control over both of their lives.

The Master is angry that The Doctor was hurt. The Master has always had a kind of “Only I can hurt The Doctor” mentality. And considering he knows how it feels to be used and manipulated, I don’t think he wants The Doctor to suffer in that manner by the Time Lords. I don’t think it’s contradictory to want to hurt everyone else and also be angry The Doctor was hurt. Because of the obsessive thoughts around The Doctor, it would alter the thought patterns, The Master is not working based on logic.

A real empathetic connection to The Doctor is present in the way someone who is in a toxic relationship will have. This goes both ways we can see this in the way they have all of these periods of differing extreme emotions, especially if you look at Simm->Missy->Dhawan. There is love there when they had a healthier relationship back when they were friends/crushes, but over time it’s been compromised through each hurting each other (whatever you pick/know of canon this still holds true) becoming toxic for most incarnations. I also don’t think this hot empathy for The Doctor would contradict not even having a cold empathy for the innocents slaughtered on Gallifrey (The at least 2.4 7 billion kids did nothing wrong)

In general, I believe after going fishing in the matrix either on a whim or not the act of burning Gallifrey was likely an impulsive act. But after this, I think planning came into it, along with building the blocks for performance. He can formulate an elaborate game to play with The Doctor, The Matrix, live on earth, and The Cybermen to stave off boredom and attempt to integrate trauma and it will fulfil his rumination on The Doctor and the high council. I’ll talk more about trauma and boredom later.

Externalized & Cyclical Anger:

When you are angry there are generally two ways people display these emotions: they put their pain into their own body and mind or put it on everyone else. Anger is healthy and The Master has every right to be angry at the high Gallifreyans who have treated him and his best friend like garbage from the very start.

Dhawan!Master is a perfect example of someone taking their own pain and putting on everyone else. He is angry at so many things, some justified, some not but is dealing with this through externalization. He displays self-destructive anger but goes about the self-harm/suicidality by causing as much damage outwards as possible. A common Master trait, but very prevalent here, taking his own hurt and making others feel it, a stated goal more than once.

He took this anger at a set number of people onto the entirety of the Gallifreyan people and stepped up the “flirting” and games he plays with The Doctor to one of the most painful versions they have. We can see The Master and The Doctor’s relationships take many different forms of the years but it has always been grounded in the need for the other's attention and anger from The Master at being left. With these added sources of anger they toss at each other it makes sense that we get different versions of tipping point moments when one of them “wins”.

Another key here is that The Master shows a long history of serious anger rage that comes out in extreme ways. He suffers outbursts regularly and it’s something that worsens over time but even The Masters who were more in control we still see how anger is an undercurrent. And while The Doctor has a similar undercurrent The Master has this pattern of explosive outbursts that have slowly become more character-defining.

Part of the cyclical anger is also the fear under there. The Master is afraid of so much, of not being enough, of being left behind, of not being who they thought they were, of dying (historically he has gone to crazy length to live), of continuing to live how he is, of being the worst of him, of being controlled and of the Time Lords. The Master runs from the Time Lords, using them yes, but never staying there.

The Timeless Child revelation might have acted as a trigger for larger displays of anger, however, I think it’s key to The Master that this anger was there way before now. And it has caused mass suffering before now, this sympathetic grief and anger The Master shows in Timeless Children is compelling but it’s best understood a part of a cycle of outbursts of those emotions severely worsened by this latest re-traumatization.

Performance:

The Master, like The Doctor, is a huge fan of performance art. This is something that has always been there with costumes, voice changes, dancing, and using this for both just plain fun and as a real tool. On a strictly meta-level, Sacha Dhawan was living for every moment and being able to meet and even surpass Whittaker for screen presence. It was his story almost anytime he was on screen.

Narratively putting on a show was key, as O he is literally playing a part for The Doctor, and even keeping in contact as this persona. When in the past he is theatrical in his introduction in the science expo, in his character reveal in Ascension of the Cybermen his dialogue starts is:

Master: “Wow! Oh! Ah! That's a good entrance, right? Be afraid, Doctor. Because everything is about to change... forever.”

He literally asks if they liked his entrance, they liked how he presented himself. Then follows this up with this big pronouncement. Begging for the people on screen and us to pay attention to him. Which is generally one of the only moments in this episode that people really remember from the latter 1/2 of the episode.

The entirety of the interactions with The Doctor on Gallifrey has a semi-planned performative aspect like he has a bit of script in his head and is using the environment as a stage, monologuing for the vast majority of the time. He critiques the performance as much as the substance of the Lone Cyberman’s plan. The body language and mannerisms are also very large and have a dancing aspect to it, or come across as severe and are trying to get a rise out of The Doctor or Cyberium.

Another aspect to the performance is how he has these set pieces, of bringing her in, then trapping her, playing with the Death Particle and more than anything is the CyberMasters. He introduces them with a big speech, does the march with them and uses them to make a point more than to actually build an army. It’s also important to think he had to make the costumes and had this macabre point of putting the Time Lords into the Cyber Armour.

The performance is more than anything just begging for attention. The Master loves to blow stuff up, watch the smoke of buildings, and fight with The Doctor, but it’s clear that they tried really hard to impact The Doctor more than anyone else. It’s clawing to be enough for The Doctor, prove himself, to win. Another way this performance is as a mask covering the fact The Master is falling apart. It's the duality of The Master always loved putting on the show but there is desperation undergirding it. We can see how The Master can start to jump in his speech mannerisms become more desperate and this facade of control drips to the anger and fear consuming him.

By putting on a show, he is in control. He fears to be out of control, and the loss of identity both the Time War and the Timeless Children gave him. Controlling how he acts, how others view him and setting out a roadmap. Control through hurting others, hurting himself, through acting and of course just basic controlling others.

Self-Destruction:

The Master is highly self-destructive here, something that is connected to a form of “anger in” and the aspects of control we talked about before. When the death particle fails to go off the first time he seems somewhat disappointed it didn’t just end right then:

Dhawan!Master: “Worried, were you? I thought if he was compressed, the Death Particle would activate and all this would be over. I would've been okay with that. I thought it was a nice little gamble. But no, here we are, all still alive.”

He is gambling with his life, I believe this to him would be a second-best ending to finishing the whole game and be face-to-face with The Doctor. More than anything though, it seems he wants to be able to end everything with The Doctor there as well. In this case that is the ultimate control he is seeking, to end the fear, grief, bitterness and pain. Suicidal thoughts don’t quite care if you complete your plan.

The ultimate version of this plan puts The Doctor in the position of if she wants to save the world she must also join The Master in an act of extreme destruction. The interesting thing is it fails to put The Doctor on his level because instead of an act of anger, control and wanting harm this one is to prevent more death. If she had been able to do it it would have succeeded in making her die as a hero which is the opposite of the stated goal. The Doctor has taken cruel and pointlessly destructive steps before but this wouldn’t have been one of them. The Doctor has also been suicidal before this point, those moments would have been a lot closer to them being the same then this actions as well.

Outside of the moral quandary, this is actually not that different from a murder-suicide in real life on a psychological level. Murder-suicide is also incidentally a highly male crime, which adds to an interesting pattern of invoking male violence. The Master wants to end his life but if this was the only goal he could have done it a million and one ways and send a note to The Doctor if he just wished her to know. But, like in real life part of it is wanting to control the other person too, he wants to control The Doctor and himself. The Master here has had his self-belief shattered, is depressed himself and feels The Doctor has become something less manageable with all this new information along with Thirteen being one of the least interested in The Master's games. This is interesting as I said before Dhawan!Master is the king of externalizing violence so even when his self-loathing drives him to suicidal urges the need to have The Doctor die with him and end anything that could possibly live on Gallifrey takes precedent.

I think this is key because, for all the talk for pointing out that he is really suicidal, the murder-suicide aspect is really key to any honest reading of the situation. Because if the death particle plan had worked he would have just committed murder-suicide, even with The Doctor pulling the triggering. This act would have come after a psychological battering via The Matrix (which even if he has a real want for her to know it was done cruelly), threats to her friends, threats of mass violence, giving her the weapon it’s hard to say he wasn’t culpable in the death particle’s usage. Even the first plan would have killed her too.

He is insistent that he broke her, she has nothing left, her world view is broken he finally brought her down. He needs The Doctor to be in the same headspace as he abjectly lost and searching for something worth living for. To feel understood and to be in control. Personally, I don’t think she has just accepted that none of this hurts and she is great because he gave her “gift of myself” and proved she “contain multitudes”, it feels more like her not wanting to give in to his control, to convince herself, but in the end, it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t win this time, and worse he dies without her. And interestingly she ends up taking the cowards route by making someone else fight her battle, this had nothing to do with ending the Cyber War it was ending a toxic relationship, a demolished culture and a Time War.

Boredom:

Something I think I've not seen talked about a lot is that if The Master is displaying a show of chronic boredom this is something associated with a lot of people who are violent towards others and themselves. I think we can see this in his agitation, body language, speech patterns and just the sheer amount of what he accomplished during The Timeless Children. This is less visible in him being O as we don’t really know how much he was messing around or doing while in character, but the moment he stops the endless need to do something, anything shows up.

If you think about it not everything he did is strictly necessary for the goals of destroying Gallifrey and then commit murder-suicide with The Doctor. But along with the need for a show, there is always something to do. And when each aspect of the plan finishes there is some joking and revealing but it also feels like “whoop that's done I'm bored again”.

He’s compulsively doing something, anything, but as he mentions this isn't actually fully fixing anything. It’s something that really lends itself to both the outward and inward destruction. When nothing will ever calm the anger, nothing will help you regulate, no amount of stimulus can keep your attention, it leads to reckless and damaging behaviour.

However, the game with The Doctor has to end, because this is the long game and now that we’re here she has to finish it too. The Doctor also has chronic boredom and he knows this, and that The Doctor has as little self-preservation as him. It tracks that when he makes the finale move he would assume The Doctor would be willing to act out too.

Trauma:

I think it’s very clear this Master is dealing with trauma and we see a lot of signs, many of which I talked about but here is a list:

Agitation

Anger & rage

Chronic Boredom

Compromised empathy

Compulsive behaviour

Depression

Destructive behaviours & suicidal actions

Dysregulated emotions

Enmeshment with The Doctor

Identity issues

Lashing out

Locus of control issues (Blaming everyone else while also needing to own it)

A need for control

Oscillating self-estimation

Preoccupation with those who traumatized them (with the timelords & The Doctor)

Reenacting trauma

Ruminating thoughts

Sensory integration issues (stimming, could be linked to other conditions)

Trying to put on a show, (A trait associated with trauma linked PDS)

Thoughts of violence

Dysregulation of Emotions and Nervous System: The erratic emotions displayed by The Master overlaid with behaviours that some have identified as looking like stimming point to dysregulation. His feelings and affect jump around and are always at high levels. A point of interest, however, is that From Spyfall to Timeless Children the issue seems to worsen as the ability to put up a facade is gone. Now we know that it wasn’t really that long of a period where he was actively keeping it as we only saw him as O for a short time. But it tracks that after being exiled on earth and then into the Kassavian dimension his dysregulation would worsen.

Preoccupation With Those who Traumatized Him: It’s so heavy in this story and even throughout the whole story The Master is locked on those who have hurt him, and the trauma thereof. The Master is used as a tool here the same way people manipulate The Doctor via their god and guilt complexes. The entire story is the Master having gone back to Gallifrey to try and enter the Matrix and then spend the whole time destroying Gallifrey and even then he can’t leave. New Who Masters specifically have their whole stories centred around the trauma Gallifrey did to them and their connection with The Doctor was changed by that event. And Dhawan!Master takes no action in this series that doesn’t involve this, even the plan with Kassavian is centred on getting the Doctor’s attention and setting up sending her to Galifrey.

Replaying Trauma: This is a commonality between the master and The Doctor. They have been reliving the Time War, the same patterns of loss of their friends, being unable to turn off the training to be a soldier. The Doctor is often taking the same actions she did before, sometimes outside of her control, all of which were made during a trauma state or resulted in traumatic experiences.

The Master replays the behaviours he learned during trauma as The Doctor does, but is a lot more likely to not only replay acts that they did that traumatized others, which The Doctor does too but also can replay what those who traumatized them did.

The speeches we get from the master in Timeless Children is slightly off version of Rassilon's speech at The End of Time pt 1.

Master: “Yes, it could! Behold your new CyberMasters, Doctor. All born from you, but led by me. How does that feel? Huh? Now, no time to lose. Don't move. Oh, that's right, you can't. Can you feel a new era dawning, Doctor? For Gallifrey.”

Cybermen: “For Gallifrey!”

Master: “For the Time Lords.”

Cybermen: “For the Time Lords!”

Master: “For the end of the universe itself!”

Cybermen: “For the end of the universe itself!”

Master: “Sweet dreams. This way, soldiers.”

Time Lords: “For Gallifrey!”

Rassilon: “For victory!”

Time Lords: “For victory!”

Rassilon: “For the end of time itself!”

Time Lords: “For the end of time itself!”

The Master who destroyed Galifrey in the name of something Tecteun, and by extension the other founding fathers of Galifrey, is playing the same game Rassilon did and views himself as a god of Time Lords the same way Rasilon did. We also know The Master isn’t directly quoting them because he was not present when Rasilon made that speech, so this dialogue shows how he is in patterns of trauma. It also is important character and theme-wise because it plays on the ideas of autonomy and how the Master has essentially made himself the destruction and death god to Gaalifry in the way The Doctor was essential in its creation. While he is goading The Doctor to be both creator and destroyer. The Master and The Doctor are in fact these forces, even though I believe the Timeless Child is a victim of abuse and exploitation, but, it’s entirely true that The Doctor and The Master are playing at being gods. Something they have done on other planets before.

This is also part of replaying trauma in the fact he has taken bodily autonomy and specifically regeneration from Time Lords to use as his own weapons. The CyberMasters are exactly what the worst version of Timeless Children are, complete manipulated weapons with no free will.

Conclusion:

The story of Dhawan!Master is one that turned hard into both the idea of The Master being in pain themselves but also showing some of the worst cruelty the master has ever done in both their extreme assault of The Doctor and genocide.

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dentalrecordsmusic · 5 years

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Tomorrow Needs You - A Look Back on Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

Words by Ari Jindracek

As everybody, their mothers, and their distressed and confused cats probably know by now, My Chemical Romance is alive again and it's not a fever dream. The new era is upon us and fans are seemingly coming out of the woodwork to experience it. We've talked about My Chemical Romance before here at Dental Records, but not as a group who collectively couldn't get tickets to their reunion show before it sold out in under ten minutes. However, I'm not here to talk about the reunion. This November of 2019 is another time of importance in the MCR calendar: the ninth birthday of Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, an album set in California 2019 (by design or not, the exact time and place of the reunion show). I got into MCR because of Danger Days. I have also, in recent months, heard from more people who hate it than I usually do. A few weeks ago, I read a very well written article that I will not name that was all about how good MCR was… until the "embarrassment" that was Danger Days. I started worrying if my favorite album of all time was actually awful and universally hated, and that liking it made me somehow a bad fan. 2019, the year I daydreamed about in 2010, is here. Does Danger Days still hold up?

Long story short: yes.

That doesn’t mean that every song is perfect. It doesn’t even mean that I love it as much as I used to. Frankly, I don’t. I will not say that Danger Days is the best album ever written because that would make me a liar. However, the important things are still the same. “Look Alive, Sunshine” still fills me with a burst of energy and affection, and its transition into “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)” is still, despite the choppiness of Spotify, smooth and perfect. The poppy repeated chorus of “Na Na Na” may ring a bit asinine now, but the fact that it comes up again later in the album justifies it, and the bridge stolen from the scrapped song “Make Room!!!” (“everybody wants to change the world but no one wants to die, wanna try?”) feels more poignant now than it did when I was fourteen and had no way of changing anything. “Bulletproof Heart” is one of the songs that doesn’t hold up as well as it could have; the bouncy guitar-and-bass riff is fun, to hear and to play (Danger Days contains many of the few songs I can play on my bass guitar), but, apart from joining up with the Killjoy theme of running away from the oppressive city, I never felt a huge amount of affection for it. Talking about “these pigs” and “this world” being on the speaker’s tail--the speaker, in my mind, is very much not Gerard Way--in a world where police brutality has been in and out of the spotlight is strange as an allegory, because in my maturity, I am aware of its reality for many members of my community. The bridge is better than I remember it, though. There’s a hope that mirrors the introductory verse of “Welcome to the Black Parade”: “are you gonna be the one to save us...are you gonna be the one left standing?” While there is a question here, there is also faith in the listener, that, if enough fans listen to the record, someone will be the one left standing.

On the note of hope, I want to spend a lot of time on “SING,” the song that got me into My Chemical Romance, and, if I can be cliche, the first song that saved my life. Musically, my love for it has waned; the only part that I really like anymore is the bridge, which has enough of an anti-corporate, anti-establishment message that it got Glenn Beck of Fox News to call it propaganda, and enough rhythmic and melodic difference from the rest of the song to really grip my interest. However, its message follows beautifully from the bridge of “Bulletproof Heart.” There is a pleading hopefulness in “SING” that had been present in a variety of My Chemical Romance songs since Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, but this is its most obvious, smack-in-the-face incarnation. Will you see what tomorrow brings, be what tomorrow needs? The song positions it as a choice, but as one where the necessary answer is yes, and the “you” is as personal as it is universal. There are two halves to the song’s hope, it seems: tomorrow needs you (so you have to stay alive), and tomorrow needs you (so you have to help make the world a better place). In words I could easily understand, at a time when I sorely needed it, an artist I respected was telling me that I could, and should, make something of myself, for the rest of the world. No wonder I have a savior complex; no wonder I peeled off my adolescent thoughts of suicide and put on a Killjoy mask. Musically, no, “SING” is not My Chemical Romance’s best song, I’ll admit that. I cannot, however, dismiss what it meant and still means to me: that I can and must improve myself and do whatever I can to help the rest of the world, because I am needed.

“Planetary (GO!)” is more bouncy-fun than it is meaningful, at least in my ears. With the spunky bassline and funky ambulance-siren synths, it’s a rave song more than it is a song that makes you change the way you change your life, which means it fulfilled its purpose as My Chemical Romance’s best try for a danceable song. It goes well with the narrative of neon-bright desert outlaws; the fact that the video for “Planetary (GO!)” is just a recut of live footage is a crime because it deserved a Killjoy smash-grab bank robbery narrative to go behind it. “The Only Hope for Me Is You” is, frankly, the most forgettable song on the album, in that, Danger Days superfan though I am, I sometimes forget it exists. It hearkens back to “Skylines and Turnstiles,” the first My Chemical Romance song, in some ways: the mentions of embers, ash, and “people burn[ing] in purifying flame” remind me, at least, of the falling of the Twin Towers that sparked the band’s creation. It does not do nearly as good a job as “Skylines and Turnstiles” if that was what it was trying to do. The theme of hope comes back--obviously, it’s in the title--but in a more romantic way, as in the later “Summertime.” It doesn’t feel like the “you” in this song can be me, like it did in “SING.” The listeners are not Gerard Way’s only hope. The bridge, especially, is weak, as it just repeats the title of the song over a basic build-up-drop-off dynamic structure.

The first “story arc” ends here, and the second, more emotionally intense, arc picks up with “Jet Star and the Kobra Kid / Traffic Report,” where Dr. Death Defying states, barely saddened under his made-up slang, that Ray Toro and Mikey Way’s Killjoy personas have been killed. In the end, a Doppler-effect synth rips into the drums intro to “Party Poison.” The Japanese dialogue over the intro here doesn’t match with anything else from the album, though I do remember live shows from this era starting with similar narration in Japanese (if my memory has failed me, I cite the nine intervening years). “Party Poison” is danceable like “Planetary (GO!)” but with bite behind it-- “this ain’t a party,” Gerard Way sings, “get off the dance floor.” Narratively, two of the people closest to him, one of them being his brother, have died, of course, it’s not a party! I love this song for its head-bopping guitars and the near-egomania of the lyrics. Titular character Party Poison is at a point in his narrative where he’s out of his mind with rage and has fallen into an adolescent sense of invulnerability. In “Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back,” that crashes down with a bitter reprise of the “na na na”s from, of course, “Na Na Na.” The joyous colorful energy from before is gone, replaced with “a heart attack in black hair dye.” I personally think “Save Yourself” is one of My Chemical Romance’s best songs. The lyrics stun me still. There’s hope in it-- “not a victim of the victim’s life” and “we can live forever if you’ve got the time.” There’s barely-concealed fear-- “the good guys die and the bad guys win / who cares?” There’s anger in how, during the bridge, Gerard Way’s terse vocals become screams. It’s a mess of emotion and it’s amazing.

Which makes it disappointing that it's followed by "S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W" and "Summertime,” which I thought, even at the time when I was creepily obsessed with Danger Days, were two of the weakest tracks. I can barely tell what kind of genre "S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W" is trying to emulate. The instrumentals (aside from the bridge) are far too simple for a band with the highly skilled Toro in its corner, there's more chorus than there is verse, and the lyrics read like a nonsensical nursery rhyme. However, I don't think "S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W" is the weakest song on the album because of how well it fits into the narrative; it's a goodbye-be-safe for the girl who features in the music videos as her guardians run off on a suicide mission. "Summertime,” in contrast, doesn't fit that narrative. It's Gerard Way's spunky, synthed-up version of the classic love song, obviously written to his wife, who he exchanged messages with by writing cryptic messages on his skin--"you can write it on your arm,” anyone? It's cute; the saccharine love is obvious, the solo gets its due time, and the bassline is fun. I like what the song is about more than I like, well, the song. I'm glad it exists, but although I'd never do so now, I used to actually skip past it in my iPod Classic days. I grew into "Summertime" when I got my first boyfriend, but as a My Chemical Romance song, it feels much too generic. "DESTROYA" pops the bubblegum idyll from its first few notes: something, represented by the drums, has come crawling up into the narrative of fun, and it's howling mad. The song is named after the robot god of the comic adaptation, but in the fandom at the time, many, myself included, assumed that Destroya was some sort of horrific, destructive force, based exclusively on the song. The fast pace of the rhythm and the vocals is furious. The verses scream out sickness and the main chorus spits the disillusionment from "Save Yourself" anew, culminating in the bridge, where "luck" and "love,” "us" and "you" are doubled on top of each other, the only constants God and The Enemy. "If what you are is just what you own / what have you become when they take from you / almost everything?" is simply put but absolutely rips through me sometimes, usually when I'm already in the throes of an identity crisis. The song feels like it's about to tear itself in half. Strange but fitting, then, that it segues into what would be, for nine years, My Chemical Romance's final credits.

I didn't get what "Kids From Yesterday" meant in 2010, but "this could be the last of all the rides we take" is, in retrospect, as subtle as a brick to the eye (I remember reading people theorizing that this could, in fact, be the last of My Chemical Romance’s albums on the MCRmy forums in 2010 or 2011 -- we all laughed it off). Acclaimed by several of the band members as among their favorite songs, “Kids From Yesterday” isn’t necessarily my cup of tea, but I can see why people love it so much. The rhythm is steady and easy, with the synths and guitars floating over it like puffy clouds over the sprawling desert, and the vocals soar even above that; it’s a song you pan out for. The lyrics, beyond the obvious farewells, are easy to pick out and easy to like. “You only hear the music when your heart begins to break” meant something indescribable to me in my teens, and I routinely wore one of those slim rubbery bracelets with the lyric on it. “Does the television make you feel the pills you ate / or every person that you need to be?” wraps up the themes of Danger Days neatly--the Better Living Industries medication and the necessity of being someone for somebody. “Goodnight, Dr. Death” wraps up the actual narrative by taking the one speaking character from the Killjoy universe and pulling him off the air with one last message and a glitched-out version of the national anthem (again: how did we miss that?). The final song of My Chemical Romance’s final full, complete album, “Vampire Money,” is a middle finger to the Twilight movies, a break from the Killjoy personas--the band members speak under their own names, no more pseudonyms--and a high-power, over-caffeinated, airport-bar-fight beat with a shrieking guitar solo, pointed pop cultural references, and a breakdown like someone actually broke the drum kit. If a song makes you want to simultaneously dance on the street and light up Molotov cocktails, it’s a good song. At the end of an era, it’s a good song, and the clatter at the end a fitting way to go out: with a bang, or a series of them. I don’t know if My Chemical Romance knew, at the time, that this would be the last album they would record--possibly ever, if the reunion does not come with a new album. If they did, hey, they picked a good song to play during the final straightaway.

Besides the messages of hope and fun, my favorite thing about Danger Days was the story. My Chemical Romance is a band of concept albums, and if you use the music videos for “Na Na Na” and “SING” as jumping-off points, the concept of Danger Days is the easiest to follow--no wonder, since it was based on a comic Gerard Way wanted to, and later did, write. Before the comic came out, though, it was still a great source of creativity for me. The world of the Killjoys was just fleshed out enough to give me, and others like me, a starting point to build the world on our own, but just bare-bones enough to give its fans room to add to the story however we wanted. I have written things on and off since I was about six, but once I started working within the Danger Days universe, supplementing the canon story with my own characters and ideas, I feel as though I became a writer. About half of the characters I work with today were originally Killjoys or Draculoids. I believe that Danger Days specifically stimulated the creative process as well, because the meta-text to the album was all about creativity. The slogans “art is the weapon against life as a symptom” and “would you destroy something perfect to make it beautiful?” were and still are influential in how I feel about the importance of artistic expression in the world. I was in a bad place when I first heard Danger Days; the hopefulness gave me a glimpse of better feelings, and the encouragement to create gave me a method to get the feelings I was having out of my head.

When I was fourteen, when Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys came out, I would daydream about what life would be like in 2019. It got me through a lot of bumps in my life, cliche as it is. I am glad that I am able to look back on it, in 2019, and see it past the fog of nostalgia, and still love it, even though I can tell that the legs it stands on are somewhat wobblier than I remember. Is it a perfect album? No. I’m not going to make that decision. However, it’s not an embarrassment, and it doesn’t deserve the hate it gets just because it’s more colorful than the rest of the My Chemical Romance canon. I truly think that the real beauty of Danger Days doesn’t necessarily lie in every song individually but in the narrative as a whole and in its message: be loud and angry when faced with injustice, be loud and joyous when faced with love, and, most importantly, be loudly yourself as you face down a future that needs, specifically, you.

Please direct all tweets about how much “SING” means to you to Ari Jindracek on Twitter. Please direct all tweets about how much “SING” sucks to anybody else.

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#my chemical romance #mcr #my chem #danger days #ari jindracek #feature #gerard way #frank iero #mikey way #ray toro

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kalinara · 4 years

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So Valentine’s Day seemed like the perfect day to post some meta about Geralt and sex, from the Netflix incarnation of the Witcher.

This is only applicable to the tv show, I have to admit. I haven’t played the games or read the books yet, so I have no idea how much of this, if any, would translate across versions. Maybe I’ll get to write a sequel post once I do finish the other parts.

This will not be my most coherent meta post. It’s basically just a compilation of thoughts and observations.

The first observation is that Geralt has a LOT of sex scenes in the Witcher. And water is wet, I know. But even granted that the character’s tendency toward ahem promiscuity is fairly well known across the different versions, four sex scenes in eight episodes is a LOT when you think about it. That’s half of the episodes.

I mean sure, there were a lot of sex scenes in the first season of Game of Thrones, but that was spread across characters. Tudors’s first season had a lot as well, I remember, but that was a tawdry soap opera disguised as a historical drama, and involved characters who had their libidos as their defining trait.

The fact that Geralt gets so many sex scenes is interesting because he’s not portrayed as someone who is remotely obsessed with sex. He’s never predatory. Hell, he never really even comes across as sexually aggressive, not in the same way that Yennefer or even Jaskier (...in a kind of labrador retriever humping your leg way) do.

I keep trying to think of a word for how I perceive Geralt’s attitude toward sex in general during the show, and I stall out every time I try. “Transactional” is absolutely not the word I’m thinking of, but I feel like it’s a distant cousin of the concept.

I think maybe it’s just that sex to Geralt seems to be less about an overwhelming passion (except with Yen, of course) and more about a means of connecting with people. If you think about it, it’s possibly the only way we’ve seen Geralt successfully interact with adults without violence being involved. At least with a reasonable confidence, and without getting rocks thrown at him.

And it’s depressing to realize, but all of his genuinely intimate conversations take place after sex. It’s possibly the only time we actually see the man unguarded enough to SPEAK.

Every so often, I find myself thinking about Yennefer’s description in episode five: “fleeting, but highly effective.” That’s high praise from someone like Yen, admittedly. But it makes me wonder if Geralt isn’t more comfortable with sex because, unlike other forms of social interaction, there’s a implicit goal attached. He can follow instruction or muscle memory built from experience and achieve his partner’s pleasure.

I can imagine Geralt approaching sex like he approaches a monster hunt: with the knowledge of this is what his partner likes and these are the steps to follow to get the end result. That also may be another reason that Yennefer is different: when Yennefer is involved, SHE takes control. And then there’s far less room to get stuck in one’s head.

Because as much as we joke about Geralt’s grunts and “hmms”, we can still sense those lines that Henry Cavill decided to replace. The words are STILL THERE, in that irritatingly attractive head. They just don’t come out. They never come out.

Except with Yennefer. “Every time I’m near you, I say more in five minutes . . .” and so on. Yennefer is just that overwhelming.

It’s also an interesting element to his dynamic with Jaskier. I’ve heard it’s a lot more easy going and friendly in the books. And I think that episode five in particular makes it clear that Geralt IS fond of the man. (I also think his explosion in 6 was more about driving Jaskier away, so the bard wouldn’t follow him into a potential warzone). But this version of Geralt may be physically incapable of actually expressing it. At least not yet.

(Heh. Maybe Jaskier should try his hand at domming too.)

It will be interesting to see what season 2 brings. Especially Ciri. Because Ciri’s a traumatized child, and she’s going to need more from him than the kind of friendly grunts and mutterings that Jaskier accepts. He’s going to need to learn better ways to communicate.

It’ll also be interesting to see how Geralt interacts with his fellow Witchers. Geralt is a character who generally seems to be more comfortable around women than men. But it could simply be that women tend to react more with a little more appreciation than hostility. The Witchers are all men though. More than that, they’re the closest thing he has to family. I'm looking forward to seeing how he interacts with them as opposed to the strangers he meets along the way.

#the witcher (netflix)#geralt of rivia #beautiful of face dumb of ass

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eveninglottie · 4 years

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write what you want regardless of the genders. it's better to spit the story out and then go back and revise then get hung up on whether or not every interaction or plot point could be part of an 800 word call-out tweet-longer that briefly trends on fanfic twitter. everyone comes at fiction from their own distinct background. you could write the most 'pure' romance ever, regardless of the genders, and it could still inadvertently trigger someone or raise concerns. comfort can be misleading.

so I don’t want you to think I’m disagreeing with you here, because you’re right. people spend way too much time thinking out the possible doomsday scenarios of what they might do instead of just doing it to see what happens. I am one of those people, for sure, it’s stopped me from doing pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted to do my whole life, so we’re on the same page here with both the concept of not worrying about what other people will think and also how no one holds the magic gatekeeping key which dictates what is problematic or not. every person is different and some things will upset people in a way that doesn’t upset you. that’s just a given.

but I think that’s not really helpful when you’re trying to figure out your own motivations for doing something.

like, yes, is a lot of this affected by how I think other people will react to things I create? of course. everything i do will be affected by how I think other people will react. that’s just how my brain works, and it’s my job to keep growing more confident in myself to counteract that (because the older you get you really do give less of a fuck and boy it’s so nice!!) what I was trying to bring up in that post was my own reasons for feeling more comfortable writing one thing than another.

because I just think it’s fascinating and complicated and I’ve mentioned more than once to friends that it really just surprised me how freeing writing m/m has been vs m/f. it’s like my descent into sk was this moment of enlightenment when I realized “hey this is a hell of a lot easier to talk about when there are two boys involved!” like I realize that the majority of my writing the past two years has been on my own, and even though I can tell you’ve I’ve written well over 500k words and only posted maybe a fifth of that I can’t prove what I’m about to say so you’re just going to have to take my word for it, BUT I’ve included so much more discussion about sexuality and how characters express it and grow with it and figure out for themselves what they are. like it was never a thing I thought about a lot when I was writing my m/f fics (even tho all the women were still bi but that’s a whole other barrel of monkeys). it was never me sitting down and interrogating my choice for writing that pairing the way I did. I just did it. (I didn’t stop to consider the gender is what I mean, I thought about literally all the other things but gender and sexuality were not included in that) but now there’s a whole other sphere of characterization that I keep finding myself drawn to, and even without realizing it, it becomes a big part of how I write certain characters. (like deciding to write keith as demi while still being sexually and physically attracted to shiro has been really eye opening for me as someone on the asexual spectrum.)

because like, for example, I wrote a fem!bilbo fic, right? so clearly I was thinking about gender a bit, but most of that had to do with me having always reimagined that story (and lotr) with female protagonists. that’s what I did with a lot of childhood faves, actually, eragon, harry potter being two of the most prominent, and thinking about fem!bilbo and how that would change the story especially if she was in a relationship with thorin and the shire was maybe a bit more stifling for a woman, etc. - BUT that was one of those pairings that I’d never been drawn to when it was m/m. I couldn’t really get into it, and I was not a fan of the hobbit movies at all, honestly, and I tried, and it was only when I switched things around did that fic click for me, but I wonder a lot if I were to have come to hobbit fic later, after I’d gotten over my aversion to m/m (not in general, just me writing it, because reasons), would I have written it with bilbo as a boy? would I have been less likely to imagine bilbo as a woman? or was it a number of factors that led me to write that fic which really couldn’t have existed in any other incarnation, and would it have been a different fic entirely?

(the hp thing in particular is SO WEIRD to think about now because a lot of what I’ve been grappling with in my drarry fic is very male-centric? not like in a bad way, just thinking about the rivalry and bonds between boys and how boys look up to their male mentors and authority figures in very different ways than they do their female counterparts and also what does being interested in other boys do to one’s internalized and very misogynistic/homophobic ideas of Legacy and Family and Proper Gender Expression specifically when it comes to sex with other men like it’s Very Gendered in my head and it’s hard to separate that from what I used to be interested in which has expressed itself in other ways, specifically roslyn as chosen one in ascendant which I’ve said before was the result of a decade of rewriting those boy heroes as girls because I felt so connected to them and wanted girls to be every bit as important as boys, like I could draw a straight line from me writing bits and bobs of girl!harry as a fourteen year old and me writing roslyn in ascendant and wow I kind of want to punch myself in the face for how long I’ve rambled on about my own stuff but you know what no this is my tumblr and I get to obsessively and exhaustively talk about my own fictional worlds if I want to)

so it’s been a bit of a mindfuck trying to reconcile this shift in my own interests with the fact that I am a woman who identifies as largely asexual. and I think it’s important to sit down with yourself every once in a while and really look at the things you produce and do some self-examination. because I do wonder a lot if my comfort writing m/m now is because of this lack of pressure I normally feel when writing female characters or if it’s because I don’t have to interact with Me As Author so much when I write about boys because I am not a boy or if it’s because I feel a lot more comfortable identifying as queer when for the majority of my life I’d forced myself to be straight even though it didn’t feel right.

then there’s the whole conversation about women writing m/m and how a lot of queer men feel they’re being fetishized or that their stories are being appropriated by women, in the same way that white people writing stories about people of color can be appropriative, men writing about women, straights writing about lgbtq+, cis people writing about trans or genderqueer people, et cetera with literally any minority being written by someone not from that minority, right?

and I think it’s a bit reductive to say that it doesn’t matter. because it does matter. you’re right in saying that it matters to someone and I think the job of anyone who creates any kind of content is to think about that and be mindful that you don’t create in a vacuum. your art has power even if you don’t think it does, if you don’t want it to, and that’s something no one should take for granted.

now, I am not saying that certain people do not have the right to write certain stories. no one has the right to write anything, just as no one is forbidden from writing anything. and no one writing anything should be harassed for writing something that people perceive is out of their wheelhouse (because a lot of marginalizations are not visible! abuse, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, whether you’re neurotypical or not! and there’s no requirement that you make public your trauma/identity to provide cred! in fact it’s kind of horrific that anyone thinks this!) it’s a complicated dynamic but the more we talk about these things the easier it is when a marginalized person says, “hey this thing you wrote is kind of bad,” the writer can go “oh man I’m sorry, let me think about it and see what I did wrong so I can do better in the future” OR “oh wow I see what you mean, but this is important to me” and the reader can go “I respect your right to write what you want and in the future I’ll do more to shield myself from this kind of content” instead of Cancelling someone because they didn’t effectively prostrate themselves before the ultimate judges of problematic content, a bunch of randos on the internet.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, yes, I agree with you that it’s not necessary to worry about this stuff, and that a lot of it is energy wasted especially when you’re worrying about theoretical responses from people who read your stuff, but that’s not helpful to me, because I think that’s disregarding the fact that we live in a society with weird power dynamics that are constantly shifting. I think it’s my job as someone who is mentally capable of dealing with this kind of self-examination to push back on some of these things when I can. because if I didn’t challenge myself every once in a while, I wouldn’t grow as a person or a writer and if there was one mantra I would live my life by besides the assertion that I would be blissfully happy if I downloaded my consciousness into a robot body, it would be that You Have To Be Okay With Critique and It’s Good When People Call You Out In A Safe Setting, like everyone is a dick and an asshole and a Bad Person and pretending you’re not is the most useless battle you could ever fight. we contain multitudes and some of those tudes are downright ugly.

quick sidebar: I would not have been able to have this kind of conversation with myself four years ago, and something I have not even talked about is how my shift toward more m/m content began at the same time as I was getting used to getting medical treatment for my grab bag of mental illnesses, like it’s pretty obvious that I got into sk right about the time I settled into my meds so what does That even mean?? so many THINGS to consider!!

idk. I know when I write stuff like this people think I’m beating myself up over it, but I’m really not. I just like talking about it sometimes and this tumblr is where all my neuroses go to live forever more in the annals of this blue hell until I chicken out and delete them the next day. I guess I know that when I read other people talking about things I’ve also been thinking about, it’s nice to hear. and as this is something that is still new to me, fandom in general is still bonkers to a part of my brain because I came into it as an adult, the whole conversation (if there even is a conversation because there might not be but there’s one going on in my brain) about women writing m/m is interesting complicated and something I think about a lot. clearly without any real focus or conclusions to be drawn, because I dropped out of college and never learned how to make my point in a concise and understandable manner.

anyway I hope you don’t read this as me arguing with you nonny, I just wanted to clarify what I mean in the original post

#oh boy this got very long #anonymous

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