#portraying her as the smarter and more capable one
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The following is not my idea; it was the original brainchild of a friend of mine named Omicron, with help from various others including EarthScorpion, TenfoldShields, @havocfett and ShintheNinja:
So, you know what I want to do one day? Run (or play in) a D&D campaign in which the Big Bad Super Dragon that is fuckoff ancient and unfathomably powerful and whose actions have shaped history and bent the course of nations and had repercussions on the whole culture and society in the region where it's set; the Bonus Special Boss for some endgame optional quest after you defeat the direct BBEG and win the campaign...
... is a white dragon.
To explain this for people not deep into 5e monster lore; D&D dragons are sapient beings, and known for their instincts and tendencies, and whenever you meet an big evil dragon that's really old it's usually this ancient creature of terrible intellect Smaug-ing it up all over the place.
Except white dragons are fucking stupid. Like, they're still capable of speech and thought! They're just… feral, hungry morons. And you almost never see them portrayed as ancient wyrms for that reason; they lack majesty. Critical Role did it, yes, but even then, Vorugal is explicitly the most bestial member of the Chroma Conclave, and the others are the more intelligent planners and long-term threats. An ancient white as a nation-defining endboss, though; not a thug for a smarter master but as the strongest and biggest threat around is just not the sort of thing you tend to see.
Adventurers: "Oh wise Therunax the Munificent, gold dragon of Law and Good, what can you tell us adventurers of the evil dragons which rule this land?"
Therunax the Munificent, 500-year old Gold Dragon: "Good adventurers, know this: this land is torn apart by the evil of Tiamat's spawn. The eastern marches are the dwelling of Furinar the Plague-Bringer, black dragoness whose hoard is a thousand sicknesses contained in the body of her tributes. The southern volcanic mountains are the roosting of Angrar the Wrathful, the fiery red dragon, who brings magmatic fury on all who do not worship him. And the northern peaks are home to Face-Biter Mike, the oldest and most powerful of all, of whom I dread to speak."
Adventurers: "F-Face-Biter Mike???"
Therunax: "Oh yes, verily indeed; two thousand years has Mike lived, and his eyes have seen the rise and fall of five empires, and a hundred and score champions have sought to slay him; and each and every one he bit their fucking face off."
Like... I want to see a campaign where Face-Biter Mike is genuinely the most powerful dragon in the region, if not the entire world. Where sometimes he descends on a city to grab himself some meatsicles and causes a localised ice age by the beat of his vast wings and the frigid wastes of his mighty breath and by the chill his mere presence brings to everything for miles around him, and everyone just has to deal with that for the next decade. An entire era of civilization comes to an end, an empire falls, tens of thousands starve in the winter, all because Mike wanted a snack. Where his hoard is an unfathomably vast mass of jewels and artefacts and precious stones frozen in an unmelting glacier, except he is a nouveau riche idiot with fuckall appraising skill, so half of his hoard is coloured glass or worthless knicknacks, and he doesn't give a shit.
"Your Draconic Majesty, this crown is… It's pyrite."
"Yeah, well, it's brighter than this dusty old thing made out of real gold, it's my new best treasure. Throw the other one away."
"…throw the Burnished Tiara of Bahamut, forged in the First Age of Man, your majesty???"
"See? I can't even remember its fucking name."
"But my lord-"
"DO YOU WANT TO BE A MEATSICLE"
"…I will fetch a trash bag, your majesty."
But at the same time, he's not stupid, he's just simple, and in some ways that makes him more dangerous than the usual kinds of scheming Big Bad you see in these things, while simultaneously justifying why Orcus remains on his throne (because he's lazy). Face-Biter Mike doesn't make convoluted plans or run labyrinthine schemes; he just has a talent for violence and a pragmatic, straightforward approach to turning any kind of problem he struggles with into a problem that can be resolved with violence. Face-Biter Mike has one talent and it's horrifying physical power, so his approach to any complicated problem is "how do I turn this into a situation where I can fly down and bite this dude's face off?" with absolutely no regard for the collateral damage or consequences of doing so, because those are also things he can turn into face-bitable problems.
"My lord, the dread necromancer Nikodemion is using his undead dragons to attempt a conquest of the eastern kingdom; his agents are everywhere, his plans are centuries in the making, what can we do against such a mastermind?"
"I'm gonna fly over the capital and eat the eastern king."
"M-my lord???"
"The kingdom will collapse without leadership, Nikodemion will win his war, he'll take the capital and crown himself king."
"And that helps us… how?"
"Once he does I'll fly over to the capital and eat him."
"…"
"This is why you advisors all suck. You're all about convoluted plans when the only thing I need to win is know where my enemy is so I can fly down there and eat him. Stop overthinking things."
And, like, yeah, it's a simplistic plan, but when you're several hundred tons of nigh invincible magical death, you don't need brilliant strategy; the smartest way to win a war is, in this case, the simplest. He's not even all that clever at figuring out the consequences of face-biting, he's just memorised the common consequences of doing so.
(If you want to go all in on Mike being the major mover and shaker in the region; Nikodemion only even has a pet zombie dragon because Mike killed the last dragon to show up and contest his turf but wasn't going to eat a whole dragon by himself. Nikodemion got to stick around and amass that much power because Mike ate the Hero of the Realm while he was adventuring because he figured the Hero would come and try to slay him at some point. Nikodemion got started because Mike ate half the leadership of the Academy of High Magic who typically keep evil wizards and necromancers in check. And then eventually this product of Mike's casual, careless actions becomes a big enough problem to bother Mike personally, at which point Mike eats him too.)
He doesn't even really fail upwards, either! He is regularly reduced to nothing but the glacier he stores his hoard in, but he's Face-Biter Mike so nobody wants to commit to actually ending him forever lest they get their faces bitten the fuck off. And his hoard's in a huge-ass magical glacier so nobody can get to it without running into the Invading Russia problem; it's hard to wage war when everything is frozen over and you're both starving and freezing to death. Once he's been beaten back to his central lair and has lost all his holdings… I mean, he's still a problem, but he's a far away problem. So he loses his assets and spends a decade in a cave brooding it up while no one dares risk trying to actually kill him, and then a generation or two later he flies down to a kobold colony and gets himself some minions, or a dragon-worshipping mage comes to offer his service against a pittance from his hoard, or a particularly stupid cult starts thinking they can get in good with him and leech off his power, and then he's (hah) snowballing again.
He's also got a very… well, the kind of weird Charisma that Grineer bosses do. Like Sargas Ruk, who's a malformed idiot, but oddly charismatic. As he's a dragon, that makes him a natural sorcerer and thus Charisma is all he needs. He's pretty relaxed when he isn't in a face-biting mood, and he's kind of infectiously optimistic, because his life has taught him that he will succeed as long as he perseveres. So he just believes it.
And sometimes that's really refreshing to work for, as an evil minion of darkness! It's like, you're coming to your Evil Dragon Lord with terrible news; you've worked for evil overlords before, you know how it goes. You fall to your knees weeping and tell him that you've failed to seize the incredibly powerful magical artifact, you think your life is forfeit. And he's just like "Eh, it's okay, these things are all over the place. Better luck next time. You remember the guy who took it, right?" and you go "Y-yes, oh great lord!" and he's like "Sweet tell me his name later and I'll grab it" and then eats a frozen adventurer he kept around as a snack.
His followers tend to quickly realise that if they fail him, bringing some temple's silver or a sack of brightly coloured beads or a couple of dead cows means he's super forgiving because at least he's got something out of the day. "Oh boy, cows? It's been forever since I had those, ever since the Orc Steppe Nomads took over it's all about goats and onions. Today is a good day." He's a master of delegation by dragon standards, in that he just tells you "Just go get it done, I don't care how" rather than micromanaging you and constantly appearing as an image in smoke or taking over your campfire.
The key part of Face-Biter Mike as a threat to players (because he exists in the context of a D&D campaign) works well in that you can rely on several known quantities:
He will not pull sneaky shit that you don't see coming
He will not make convoluted plans that you must work to unravel
He will consistently attempt to come down and wreck you personally if he finds the opportunity and you are a threat to him
You cannot fight him head-on (at least not until the last leg of the campaign, and ideally as an optional boss rather than mandatory)
So as long as you are good at staying under the radar, thwarting his minions (whom he gives broad orders to with almost zero oversight) and not putting yourself in face-biting range, you can deal with him. If you succeed, it won't be the first time Mike has lost his assets and had to go brood in his glacier for a decade or two before rebuilding. It happens; he can deal with it. And that's a win for you within the context of a single campaign, so take the win.
And if you're not going to use him as an enemy, he works pretty well as a quest-giver, too! The costs for failure are obvious and straightforward, and "do whatever, just get me mine" means that players have a lot of freedom in accomplishing their goals. As far as evil overlords go he is actually one of the least dangerous to work for; his pride is relatively subdued by draconic standards, his goals are simple and typically achievable, and he is easily pleased.
(There's also a good chance he is the forefather of any draconic sorcerer in your party, because Face Biter Mike is a deadbeat dad.)
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I’ve seen several people say that they dislike Neelix and the Neelix and Tuvok dynamic in Voyager because of the way Neelix consistently pressures Tuvok to be less Vulcan or to do things he’s not comfortable with. This perspective is really interesting to me, because I do think it’s a valid reading of their relationship, but at the same time, I personally don’t really hold that perspective. I like Neelix, and I enjoy the Tuvok and Neelix dynamic in most episodes. I want to unpack why I think that very different readings of their relationship are simultaneously valid readings of a text that often portrays characters and dynamics inconsistently.
There are definitely scenes in Voyager – especially in the first few seasons, where Neelix says things to Tuvok that can be easily interpreted as pressuring him to become less Vulcan or to abandon his cultural ideals, particularly in Neelix’s desire for Tuvok to express certain emotions toward him. I absolutely understand why scenes like these lead some people to view the Neelix and Tuvok relationship negatively.
However, I personally read the Tuvok and Neelix dynamic as significantly less one-sided. For nearly every scene in which Neelix wants Tuvok to display emotion, there is a scene in which Tuvok is dismissive of or condescending toward Neelix. Especially in early Voyager, I think Tuvok views Neelix as overly emotional and in some cases incompetent. He is reluctant to accept Neelix’s advice, which he sees as being emotionally based and therefore invalid, even when Neelix is right. Especially in early Voyager, Tuvok believes he is better and smarter than Neelix. Tuvok doesn’t really pressure Neelix to be more Vulcan and less Talaxian, but this is because he doesn’t believe Neelix is capable of becoming a more logical person. The way I see it, both Tuvok and Neelix are in different ways disrespectful toward each other and each other’s cultures. Their dynamic is a cultural clash, with both of them gradually learning over time to accept each other’s different approaches to life.
I think it’s useful here to compare the Tuvok and Neelix dynamic to the Spock and Mccoy dynamic in the Original Series. I have complicated feelings on the Spock and Mccoy dynamic personally, but I think it is absolutely worth pointing out that Spock is the only Vulcan on the Enterprise, while Mccoy is one of a vast number of humans. Spock is clearly positioned as part of a minority culture in the narrative, even if Vulcans aren’t technically a minority in the Federation, which gives their dynamic an element of inequality. Neelix, on the other hand, is the only Talaxian on Voyager. If anything, Neelix is arguably narratively more part of a minority culture on Voyager than Tuvok is. (Although I think B’Elanna is the character whose narrative treatment most closely parallels that of someone from a minority culture.)
I also think it’s worth mentioning that Neelix isn’t the only Voyager character to demand emotional responses from Tuvok. Tom Paris does this frequently too, and Tom is often more openly derisive toward Vulcan culture than Neelix is, but I haven’t seen many people mention this. At the same time, I think it’s worth mentioning that Tuvok is written inconsistently in regard to his respect for other cultures – particularly in relation to B’Elanna. There are several episodes where Tuvok is incredibly dismissive toward B’Elanna and her perspective, seeing her as being inherently more emotional and less rational because she is Klingon (a good example of this is in the episode Random Thoughts). Tuvok is far from the only character to do this to B’Elanna, and other characters such as Tom Paris do it more frequently. But I think it is absolutely worth pointing out that Tuvok is sometimes written as dismissive toward other species and cultures, measuring them by the standards of his own culture.
Fundamentally, whether you view Neelix or Tuvok or Tom Paris negatively because of the way they are written in these contexts is a complicated question. The writing of all three characters was hardly consistent across all of Voyager. I think it’s fair to argue, for example, that the writers who wrote Tuvok as saying racist things about B’Elanna were not writing Tuvok consistently with how he is portrayed in the rest of the show. Multiple readings of different characters can exist simultaneously, and sometimes multiple readings are equally supported by the text.
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you know funny enough, I feel like Jake and the neverland pirates would actually do really well as a Disney channel show for older kids (like say Gravity falls) instead of a preschool show. You’d be able to get more into lore and emotional stuff. Maybe even plot?
I don’t know, if they ever did decide to reboot the show it’s a neat idea.
*grabs your shoulders and shakes you excitedly*
THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING!!!! LIKE!!!!
Ok, I think there is something to be done with Jake and his crew and his dynamic with Peter and Hook. Like for example how do the kids feel that Peter is only here for a day or a few hours, just enough to help with their issue? I'm sure the kids have a bit of an unhealthy attachment to him as he's really the only guardian figure they know, and as shown in Peter Pan's return, they all crave his attention so bad that they fuck up the mission trying to impress him! Like sure they can call him to bring him back to Neverland, but they don't perhaps he implemented a rule that they can only call him for emergencies. Which is also kinda hm. But you know he doesn't completely neglect them.
Word vomit incoming
Now let's take this a step deeper; what about Peter's relationship with them individually, it's clear he has a favorite, and it's Jake like that isn't a contest. Even if the show tries not to portray it in that manner it's obvious (I mean for fuck sake his name is in the title lol). His item(s)? A wooden sword personally hand-carved by Peter himself. After completing the Forever Quest, a golden sword called the Destiny Sword (towards the end of season 3) turns him into Captain Jake after giving the others a rousing speech about teamwork and how they can all get together to defeat Fathom with it. So it's clear he's the chosen (I'll touch more on that pressure later) by Neverland. But what does that mean for Izzy and Cubby? I mean sure they got items from him and he does care about them, but they're not as special as Jake. And they're never going to be, I mean god, Disney didn't even bother to make them Birthday episodes yet gave Jake two, then gave Skully and a minor character one. So it could develop into them realizing that while they are well-liked they aren't loved by Peter, Cubby is in denial about this revelation as he has gotten more gifts than Izzy. Izzy, the only girl in the main cast, is grated by this knowledge, she KNOWS and she has known for a long time. Enough to the point where perhaps she deserves a villain arc (then a redeemed villain arc) with the help of Captain Hook, who sees this opportunity to manipulate her for his gain.
Ok so jumping, let's go back to that Captain Jake issue. I personally didn't like Season 4, I thought it was shit BUT this new Captain Jake in a reboot could bring up an interesting little angst point called, "The pressure of being forced to be THE responsible one when you're only still a child." You might have all these other well-established Captains around you but, they depend on you to think of ideas, and come up with solutions to save the day, if you fail then it's on you but you're only 8 or 10 years old!!! A user mentioned this before but Jake could develop an entirely new personality as a Captain to make himself seem smarter and more capable than he actually is! This can go two ways A) he burns out and he burns out REAL bad and rather fast. B) The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and the realization of how much power he holds makes him realize he can almost do whatever he wants because he IS the 2nd most powerful person after Peter. This then comes his Power-tripping arc and the consequences of Peter not dividing this power between the trio, and being gassed up everyone, which raises his ego through the roof. This can only end badly obv and it does, how? idk but just know it does.
As for Captain Hook, because this is New Disney he can't be 100% back to his OG self but he can absolutely be raised to be more of an asshole in a Disney channel show and probably a bit fucked up. But you also would have to thread carefully on how you do these things, because one wrong move and Disney will have you rewrite the whole thing and tone it down more than need be. I also think there would be more to explore with the kids and their dynamic with him, since they also would have more nuance to them. They could have more stakes with him, and could honestly do more messed up shit with them he could make them have an inner conflict, he could manipulate one to join his side temporarily. Put the kids in more life-threatening situations that they don't come out unscathed from. Hell, you know what, I want him to win some episodes and get his way with Jake and his crew being powerless to stop it. It would teach a lesson that some days, you just can't win, someone who is nasty will win and get away with it and you have to be ok with that! (if you have resourced all your options first) Life will not always go your way. As for him and Red Jessica, show a toxic relationship, I mean come on do you REALLY think she has a thing for hook lol, it was shoehorned Hetero-shipping bait and it worked now can we do something else with it? As for smee, sharky and bones? I guess they can be less friendly to the sea pups, it would be more of a loyalty thing rather than a personal thing.
Also, the show could bring back the lost boys, to make the island seem less empty than it is, and maybe a different set of kids to replace the Native Americans.
Finally, to end this word vomit, the relationship between the kids. I really beg it be explored more. Now don't get me wrong they can have a wholesome and loving bond but not everything has to be peachy-keen. Like sure Jake is their captain but do they, not envy or resent him in some way? For example, they're all bright but Izzy is shown to be the brightest she has more knowledge about Neverland and its artifacts, so why is she not captain? Is it because she isn't naive enough? She isn't as nice or forgiving as Jake? She has no issue snapping at you when she's fed up? Then there's cubby, does he even have the real guts to be cut up for this type of thing? The classic "why him and not me?" type of deal. Then there's Cubby, does he hate being just stuck as coconut boy by his peers and other pirates? Will he ever break out of his shell, does he have a breaking point with his friends? Then Jake gets annoyed that they're not as in sync as they once were, he kinda hates that they're developing on their own and steadily gaining more and more independence. They're willing to talk back to him, be rude, and do less trio activities. Which leads to more conflicting ideas, possibly fights, and less "what I say goes!". He is scared of them changing and becoming their own individuals, he's scared that they might be growing up.
Sorry this is so so so long and rambly, I just have a lot to say about a reboot for this show that I cannot help myself.
#I also think it could be a bit more horror adjacent. specifically cosmic-eldritch horror#*monster too!#but as you can see I’m v passionate about a reboot for this show#it has potential if Disney is willing to experiment and be unsafe!#will it? maaaaybe..?#jake and the neverland pirates#jatnp#ask#also I will get your other post I promise!!
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So what makes for a good deconstruction then?
No really, this ain't rhetorical. I'd like to know your thoughts.
You have to fundamentally, actually understand and analyze what you're deconstructing.
Because most "deconstructions", rather than analyzing a trope or genre conventions and addressing them, rely entirely on three things:
Plot contrivances of their own design that have nothing to do with the trope/genre in question.
Derision of the trope/genre, and often its target audience, from a position of arrogance.
More so for genre "deconstruction": oversimplification of a genre, ignoring the variance and complexity of different works in the genre.
So instead of actually deconstructing a trope/genre, many "deconstructions" simply create a strawman of said trope/genre based on their condescending and shallow attitudes towards it, then beat up said trope/genre strawman and act like they've written something that's so smart and deep.
For example, to contrast the common "deconstruction" tropes in edgy magical-girl "deconstructions":
Girls are often depicted as incapable of getting along and frequently coming into conflict with each other (which is just misogynistic stereotyping)
Girls are portrayed as incapable of understanding the severity and consequences of their circumstances (again misogyny, and basically out of the belief that teenage girls can't grasp concepts present in cartoons made for kids)
The magical-girl genre is one where fighting monsters and villains is treated as fun and carefree (when the burdens of doing so are an iconic part of the genre)
Being a magical girl is often framed as a form of exploitation and manipulation (when many magical girls understand the fight they're getting into and accepting that burden, and many magical girl works where the mascot is deceptive/manipulative already existed before PMMM)
Girls are incapable of being heroes (again, le misogyny)
...with the kind of things I'd address if I were to write a deconstruction of edgy magical-girl "deconstructions":
Addressing how the suffering and victimization of girls is used as a hook in these stories. (I had one idea where the first sentence of a story was the narrator saying how her magical-girl sister died...then the following paragraph immediately points out how screwed-up the idea of being interested in hearing about/seeing girls die really is.)
Acknowledging how these stories believe that girls are incapable of getting along and cooperating, and the contrived plot elements they often utilize in order to incite conflict between girls.
Addressing the "better than other girls" themes these stories often present with their main characters, coupled with how such main characters are often extremely privileged yet these stories shame less-privileged girls for how they suffer and want due to their circumstances.
Contrasting the portrayal and treatment of female characters with male characters in these stories—the propensity for female characters to suffer and die while male characters remain unharmed, male characters and their emotions and desires being treated as more valid and worthwhile than female characters', and even stories where male characters with no powers are treated as more competent and capable than the empowered heroines.
Frankly, a lot of the best deconstructions are things that didn't set out to be "deconstructions" or act like they were smarter than particular other stories—they just sought to tell a story, and handled a theme/trope differently than some other stories. For instance, James Ironwood from RWBY is a fantastic deconstruction of the "well-intentioned extremist" type of character, but I doubt the idea of "deconstruction" was in the writers' minds; they just decided on a character and their story, and developed that plotline based on the character they conceived rather than "tropes" or thinking they were smarter than other stories.
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Time to knock out a few more chapters for @trigunbookclub.
Stream-of-consciousness thoughts for Trigun Vol. 1, Chapters 5-6 below. (More detailed thoughts will be their own posts.)
Chapter 5: Assault
Man, I wanna get that much food for $12. Or even for $$12.
Milly is smarter than anyone (including her) thinks she is.
Vash is MORE than capable of reading people. He has TONS of experience at it. I love the little nod to this in Stampede where he comments on being able to read Wolfwood's true nature in his eyes.
Why is Vash asking such a poignant question about existence to this kid? Oh, I bet he's trying to suss out whatever cynical seeds inspired the kid to lie to him in the first place.
The kid's got something of Vash figured out, too.
I will never get over this guy's shoulder pads. They will haunt me to my grave.
I do kinda miss the Bad Lads in Stampede. I get why they might do it, though. Legato and Livio should end up being MUCH more important characters, and the orphanage is a MUCH more important setting, so it tightens things up a bit. But the Bad Lad Gang is so over the top. They were fun.
Gods, speaking of over the top, Trigun excels at crazy names.
Wait, how did Vash get on the bed? He passed out on the floor.
I love literally everything about these two pages. They're beautiful. I love the poetry of everything being so dry, including people's hearts. I love the contrast between Rem's pose and Vash's pose. And I love her calling him "so serious" when he's spent all this time in the story trying to portray the exact opposite image to those around him. She gets him.
Ah, well, so much for the dream being pleasant.
Aaaand he fell off the bed.
Oh, no. Babygirl is crying over his dream....
No time for crying. Bad Lads abound!
Dude. Don't go stabbing your maps. That just puts holes in them and makes them less functional in the future.
"And if it ain't flashy, what's the point?!" This guy should meet Tengen Uzui from Demon Slayer.
Chapter 6: Die Hards
Oh, no. They've activated Vash's Serious Face(TM).
I like that we're getting some information on plants. I also like that, at this point in the manga, they literally just sound like industrial manufacturing plants. We have yet to see one up close.
Yeah... it's generally best NOT to shoot the experts you need to do a Thing.
Nightow really likes his pointy teeth, doesn't he?
Heh. Trying to compensate for the Japanese word for "wait" being two syllables instead of one. Translation is hard.
Yeah, kid, I don't think Shinypants McGee here cares too much what you might think you're getting out of this deal.
Hahahahaha, the way Vash enters the scene is beautiful. No one suspects someone to come UPSIDE DOWN THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD.
I'm gonna be honest; I'm pretty sure the only reason I can follow the action in these panels is because I've seen the '98 anime.
Wait, did he just yeet himself and the kid out the hole in the windshield?! Hmm, that sounds familiar, actually.
Yep, there they are. The kid is appropriately terrified.
Now Vash is also freaking out. Always a good sign.
"The scent of a woman." Dude, you're wearing some sort of crazy gas mask. What kind of freak of nature are you??
Current favorite Meryl/Milly Gremlin Pose:
If you need an effective hostage, always choose a pretty young girl.
Vash has a right to be frustrated. He literally had NOTHING to do with this.
I have thoughts on the Soupy Brain panel.
There's something about Vash's expression and pose here that I really like. I want to pet his hair.
Ah, yes. I thought I remembered something about this kid being a girl. I love how she's just... draped over her dad with all the casual comfortableness of a kid with their favorite parent.
Don't say "never," kid. It's not too late, and it's hard to judge exactly what a parent wants of their child. Even if you don't meet expectations, if your parent cast you aside for that, then that's on them, not you.
Vash, coming in from Stage Left, with a head-butt, making sure the soup brains don't get too distracted.
I want to read another chapter, but that is not going to result in me going to bed before sunrise, so I guess I'll call it there.
#and they said i'd grow out of staying up all night when i became an “adult” with “responsibilities”#i call bullshit#trigunbookclub#trigun manga#pancake thoughts
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if you're still doing that ship ask the game pop-off about any spidey ship (with any spider person) maybe do one that you do ship and one you don't if you're feeling up to it <3
yes please sorry for not answering until now I spent all day doing literally anything else out of pure procrastination
something I do ship - I could do spideypool but I feel like that's too easy so I'll do petergwen
What made you ship it?
tasm is the root of all my feelings about this ship. they're also fine in the comics - not endgame by any means, but I have a lot of strong feelings about gwen in the comics in general as you very well know - but like the way she's portrayed in the webb movies??? like holy shit
What are your favorite things about the ship?
the key to the ship for me is that she's smarter than peter. like yes peter is a genius and capable and you know he created his webs and he's so witty, but gwen may not have a higher iq than he does but she's more grounded in her ability to use her intelligence without losing focus, and she's also a great scientist. and I feel like that's a great dynamic like peter needs to be humbled and he's perfectly willing to be
Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?
even if gwen wasn't fridged the way she was, it still shouldn't have been endgame in the comics, but tasm!petergwen is by far the best relationship peter's had in a live action adaptation
for something I don't ship - honestly this is hard, even if I wouldn't write or read something I don't usually hate it, like I don't have very strong feelings about peter/eddie/venom or spider gwen/harry you know? anyway I guess I'll go with the former idk
Why don't you ship it?
idk it never clicked for me. like venom's got phenomenal tentacle porn potential which is a lot of smutty fun but I prefer straight up eddie/venom. also in general while I enjoy the venom movies immensely I don't really read fics for those characters
What would have made you like it?
can't say. maybe if the venom movies as they are had crossed over with an older tasm!peter or if I'd really vibed with the black suit era in the comics. or if I liked spider man 3 lmao
Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?
yeah absolutely! the little fic that I have read for it has been really creative and I do absolutely understand the impulse behind it. in general like I said just because something doesn't work for me that doesn't mean I hate it. I think there's something very compelling about monstrous!peter/venom specifically that could work for me, or if the relationship was portrayed as really unhealthy (I loveeee unhealthy relationships have y'all read my fics I mean)
thanks so much for asking babe!!! hope the writing's going good
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According to her memoirs, Catherine the Great was regarded as a tomboy, and trained herself to master a sword. When she was a child, they used to call her “Fike”, which means “little Friedrich” for her habit of spending too much time playing with boys.
Ohhh functional illiteracy vol. 1, let's go. I said this in my reblog:
"[Female characters] don't need to act like men on a superficial level to be feminist characters. They don't need to say anachronistic shit for them to be relevant in our modern society. They just need to be portrayed as human beings, in a consistent way. I can't imagine Catherine the Great, one of the most influential female rulers in history, being like "oh I don't wanna have children I would rather ride to battle and glory lol". NO. NO. NO. She would probably be like "are u dumb girl, I got men that can do that for me, I'm smarter and more capable than any of them why should I die in battle lol let them die, I'm queen wtf".
You, after one (1) Google research of a ruler you probably didn't know anything about before I mentioned it, found this in her wiki page: "According to her memoirs, Sophie was regarded as a tomboy, and trained herself to master a sword." And because you were that desperate to prove me wrong, you also found this article that says:
Well done! I, however, didn't say that Catherine the Great was a girly girl, nor did I say that she hated swordfight. I said, specifically, that Catherine the Great to my knowledge never expressed an actual desire to exchange her role as Queen and mother for that of a warrior to battle, as opposed to teen punk Rhaenyra who despises the concept of motherhood and prefers to be a knight (which is something book! Rhaenyra didn't share btw).
Whether Catherine was a tomboy or knew how to use a sword is entirely irrelevant to this discussion because it is one thing to train with a sword as a hobby, and another to exchange dying in childbirth with dying in a battle. Like, these are two entirely different things. So, congratulations for the Google search, but next time, try understanding what is the argument you want to debunk in the first place.
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You seem to like Jonsa, but I've seen some of your posts where you don't like Jon. How does that work?
That's because book!Jon and show!Jon are two completely different characters.
As a Jonsa fan, this is probably a very unpopular opinion, but... I like book!Jon & book!Jonsa, but I hate show!Jon & show!Jonsa.
Don't get me wrong, I have no issues with Kit at all, and I definitely think the way he portrayed Jon as looking at Sansa was very romantic in nature, but ultimately, show!Jon sucked.
For starters, he literally stole Sansa's birthright. When they named him King of the North, he didn't once stop to point out that Sansa had the rightful claim. As Ned's legitimate daughter and Robb's legitimate sister, she should have inherited the crown. Robb's will was never even brought up in the show, so Jon had no reason at all to think that he was before Sansa in the line of succession.
Compare this to book!Jon, who said to Stannis:
"Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa."
That is what he should have said when the other lords started chanting about the "King in the North" instead of just going along with their misogyny. That was just shady, in my opinion.
Then, after stealing her birthright, he dismisses her opinion constantly, is patronizing towards her ("And how should I be smarter? By listening to you?"), and doesn't even keep her informed about information that directly affects her and the North. She has to find things out at public meetings just like everyone else, so she gets to be thrown off guard and have no time to discuss any of his decisions in private (where those conversations should occur). This makes her seem like she's constantly trying to undermine him, when in reality, she's trying to have a discussion with him that should have already happened before they announced anything. It really showed that he didn't see her as his partner (in ruling), value her opinions, or take her thoughts into consideration when making decisions.
Then, he gives up the North (again, her birthright) to a Targaryen queen, which he knew Sansa was against. And I'm sick of the argument that he only did this to get Daenerys' dragons for the fight against the others. Daenerys already agreed to help before he bent the knee. At that point, it was completely unnecessary, and he let his own emotions control his actions.
Then, when Daenerys goes mad and burns Kings Landing and Jon kills her, the script literally says that Jon hasn't completely forgiven Sansa for her part in the situation. Excuse me, what? She marched an army down to Kings Landing to rescue Jon. What an ungrateful brat. And Jon was the one who refused to lie to Cersei about his allegiance, because it wasn't the "right" thing to do, but he expected Sansa to lie about his better claim to the throne, even though she had every reason to distrust Daenerys (such as her actions towards the Tarly men)? That's about as hypocritical as it gets.
And the fact that Daenerys went mad "because" of Sansa's honesty doesn't mean that Sansa was wrong; it means that Jon was wrong, because clearly Daenerys was capable of madness. Normal people don't suddenly burn a city down because someone shares a secret about them (regardless of how damaging the secret is). Essentially, Jon takes a lot of the blame off of Daenerys and puts it unfairly onto Sansa. It reminds me of how a narcissist will act like the victim when you dare to call them out for their behavior. Yes, Daenerys had awful things happen to her in her life, but so did most of the characters, and that doesn't give them the right to burn Kings Landing to the ground.
This became more of a rant than I intended, but long story short, show!Jon was exactly what Catelyn always feared. Book!Jon and book!Jonsa are so much better.
#anti jon snow#but only show verse#book jonsa#book vs show#ask me#anon ask#sansa stark defence squad#sansa stark#anti daenerys targaryen#Asoiaf#game of thrones
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What are your thoughts on tua S2? Did you feel like the characters grew? What did you like? What did you not? I’m interested in your perspective. Your analysis are super thoughtful and interesting!
Aw, thanks, Anon!
Overall, I really enjoyed S2 and thought it was a solid follow-up to S1. I do have my quibbles about it, so I think (for ease of reference and because my thoughts are a little scattered today) I’ll list some of my personal highlights (in no particular order) before getting into what I didn’t like as much.
Big spoilers ahead.
Allison. I thought they handled her storyline especially well. Of all the siblings, I think she had the most difficult obstacles placed in her way (not only is she a Black woman landing in 1961 Dallas, but she’s a Black woman landing in 1961 Dallas who can’t even speak in her own defense for a year) and they sugarcoated exactly none of it. The writers pulled no punches when showing what civil rights protesters went through, which just made their nonviolent response all the more breathtaking. Allison’s fear and anger during those scenes were palpable even as she kept them hidden. But along with that horror, we see the kindness and warmth of the Dallas Black community, the women who take her in simply because she needs their help, and her love for Ray, perhaps heretofore THE most thoughtful husband ever portrayed on screen. I loved him, and I loved him and Allison together. While I understand and respect his choice to stay in 1963, I wish they’d gotten more time together. They both deserved it.
Vanya. We got to see how much the baggage from her past affected her by glimpsing what she might be like if it were taken away. It’s an interesting philosophical question, and it was explored well, in my opinion. She finds it easier to love and be loved, and she stands up for herself more readily—but she also doesn’t hesitate to use powers she can’t quite control and threatens Five without fully realizing how dire her threat is (or how it might dredge up traumatic memories she doesn’t know exist). The moment where Ben finds her curled up, fully convinced she’s a monster, was heartbreaking. I loved watching her find happiness with Sissy, even if that was fleeting (and dear god, Sissy deserved her happy ending with Vanya, dammit, I don’t care if it would fuck up the timeline). Her patience and sweetness with Harlan were just beautiful. And the way she used the confidence she gained during her amnesia to fully come into her own not to exact revenge on her siblings, but to save them, was fucking phenomenal.
The humor. There was a lot more humor this season, and it was awesome. So many iconic scenes—Olga Foroga, Luther babysitting two homicidal Fives, Elliot awkwardly lecturing his guests on the history of Jello, “NEW TIMELINE NEW ME,” “Your vagina needs glasses,” AJ the fish gobbling up the cigarette bubbles, Five getting to say “fuck”….this season was a lot funnier than the previous one, and I think that was one of its strengths.
Klaus’ cult. It was played for laughs, which I both expected and thought was the best way to handle it. He didn’t want to start a new religion with himself at the center; he just wanted to not get thrown out of any more diners, but Destiny’s Children had other ideas. The “I too am a fraud!” scene was hilarious and tickled the question of whether or not a religion founded on false pretenses can still help those within it find meaning.
Luther. Getting him away from his dad, his siblings, and the Academy was exactly what he needed to become the pure of heart and dumb of ass genius we always knew he was, but his first major step in that direction was heartbreaking. We all knew he’d be rejected once he got to the Academy. We all knew Reginald would rip his heart out and stomp on it in his admittedly fashionable shoes. It gets Luther out on his own and forces him to become his own person apart from his dad, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch. He got the positive character development he needed, but the catalyst was tragic.
Diego. We see, for the first time, exactly how Reginald kept him in line—not with meds or with PTSD-inducing torture, but with words. Even when he knows Diego as little more than a stranger, Reginald is able to rip off his skin and fling it in his face with a single diatribe; and even at 30, with years away from his dad, Diego is left unable to speak, feeling as if all of his accomplishments up to that point were the work of a dumb kid who thought he was smarter and more capable than he actually was.
Luther and Diego sharing a braincell. Luther has bad ideas. Diego has bad ideas. When they put their bad ideas together, they get terrible ideas. I loved watching them work together as a team, rather than being at each others’ throats for most of the season, even if I’m left hoping Olga Foroga had a pleasant and quiet day after that phone call.
Reginald. At first glance, it may look like the writers were trying to make him likable so they could parade him around as your average abusive-parent-with-a-soft-side. But it’s more nuanced than that. Abusive parents (and abusers in general) often fly under the radar because they fool outsiders into thinking they’re good people. They’re active in their communities. They give to charity. They have friends who attest to their virtue, significant others who think they’re the greatest. And that’s what we see with Reginald. We see him as the rest of the world did: an intelligent, eccentric man with a sharp sense of humor who cared deeply about scientific advancement. That’s how he evaded suspicion—because there were stories from years past of lively parties at his mansion, of what a gentleman he was to Grace and of how he did everything he could to save little Pogo. But those stories would all have come from people he considered his equals. When he’s with people he considers his inferiors—aka, the Umbrella kids—he’s openly condescending and demeaning. We get to see how he fooled the world, and it is chilling.
Elliot. He deserved better, and you can ship him with any one of the Hargreeves kids and get the cutest thing ever.
The Swedes. They said so much while speaking very little.
Ben. He got more personality and screen time, and it was glorious. His love of his family and resentment toward Klaus practically leapt off the screen. The way he says “I’ve missed you all…so much” once they’ve all left was one of those right-in-the-feels moments; and watching him get so much of what he’s wanted for years when he possesses Klaus was beautiful.
Now, as for things I took issue with….
Ben. I understand why they ended his arc the way they did. I get that they were probably afraid the Klaus/Ben dynamic would grow stale if they didn’t change it somehow and wanted to give him a larger role in S3. His death(???) was heartbreaking and extremely well-done. But it also wasn’t foreshadowed. We never got any sense of what ghosts in the TUA ‘verse are, so the fact they can be destroyed by a ton of sound-turned-energy or by going too far into someone’s psyche or whatever happened….it’s not that it doesn’t make sense so much as there’s not enough evidence to determine whether or not it makes sense. It feels like the writers just kinda made that up so they’d have a reason to change Ben’s relationship dynamics, but if that’s the case, couldn’t they have done it another way? Couldn’t they have made it so the immense energy or psychic woo-woo or whatever gave him a power-up instead of destroying him? Vanya transferred some of her energy into Harlan and brought him back to life. Couldn’t something similar have happened with Ben? And if it tied him to Vanya as well as to Klaus, great! More fodder for angst and humor! (”Vannyyyyyyyy, stop hogging Ben!” “You got him for 17 years, Klaus, you can part with him for 20 minutes.” “Guys, don’t I get a say in this?”) I’m glad they didn’t write him out of the series entirely, but I still wish they’d kept him and all the character development he’d gotten throughout S2.
Episode 10. It looks like they tried to cram half a season’s worth of developments into 45 minutes. Twenty minutes in, I’d already said “Wait what the fuck” half a dozen times. A lot of those moments were explained later on, and I was able to make enough inferences to fill in any lingering plot holes, but…still. Too much stuff, too little time. E9 was a perfectly satisfying ending to the season. Yes, it leaves the siblings stranded in 1963, but they could’ve tied up those loose ends in the S3 premiere.
Lila. She’s an incredibly fun character, but her arc is kind of a mess. Most of that is due to E10, and I do feel that more time to let her arc breathe would’ve worked wonders, but I’m left feeling like her turn from “Handler is the best mom ever and I lurve Diego too” to “KILL DIEGO AND HIS EVIL FAMILY” to “Handler is a bad mom and Diego is right” happened too quickly.
The Commission. Okay, so, the Handler announces the entire Board has been killed, and she’s stepping in as director even though everyone appears to know she’s been demoted (and demoted pretty severely—she went from having an office bigger than some apartments to being a case management drone). There’s suspicion and lots of it. But then, La Resistance is….ten or so people in a single room? And when she calls the temps agents to her side, thousands of them show up ready and willing to fight and die? I dunno. Just seems like there should’ve been more splintering going on there. Again, I think they needed more time to tie everything up.
Aside from those complaints, I loved the season. I set aside most of a day to binge it, and I do not regret that decision at all.
#the umbrella academy season 2 spoilers#tua s2 spoilers#umbrella academy season 2 spoilers#The Umbrella Academy#Umbrella Academy#tua#luther hargreeves#Diego hargreeves#allison hargreeves#klaus hargreeves#five hargreeves#ben hargreeves#vanya hargreeves#reginald hargreeves#grace#pogo#number one#number two#number three#number four#number five#number six#number seven#anon#answered
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The Problem with The Promised Neverland’s First Episode (Part 2 of 2)
Once again, let’s start with The Promised Neverland. This time, let’s move on from the opening scene and get further into the first episode (and chapter).
In both the anime and the manga, we get Ray asking Emma: “How old are you again? Five?”
It’s an embarrassingly obvious tactic to get Emma to reveal her age, along with the fact that she’s the same age as Ray and Norman, as she responds with: “I’m eleven! Just like the two of you!”
This is especially stupid considering the fact that the manga already has Emma narrating certain information about the ‘orphanage.’ Here’s one example in the text framed by boxes rather than speech bubbles:
Now, this is more my opinion, but I think narrating basic information in this way is far superior to the awkward dialogue that’s produced when characters are info-dumping for the audience’s sake. At least, in the case of narration like the kind seen in the manga, there’s nothing disrupting the flow of the story. We’re still told rather than shown, which should be avoided in most cases (like this one), but it’s better than blatantly forcing the exposition and ruining the believability of the story.
If the anime couldn’t have done any better, then at least just give us the narration. It wouldn’t interrupt the storytelling nearly as much, and while it’s still undesirable, I think it’s better than telling through dialogue. With narration, the writer is being upfront about his telling, while telling through dialogue is a poor attempt to hide the fact that he’s telling. And it fails. Because everyone sees through it. Whether you’ve heard “show don’t tell” before or not, know how to use it in storytelling or not, it doesn’t matter. The dialogue’s still just... bad.
And, of course, we can’t forget the testing scene:
If the test is going to tell us their ages anyway, why not just use that? It’d be a creative and effective way of showing the audience that Emma, Ray, and Norman are all eleven. All they’d have to do was have the robotic voice of the test say their names and ages while cutting to that person’s face. And, if the anime absolutely needed us to know that they were the oldest, why not have the test call out the names of the children whose character designs appear to be of a similar age? (We can merely look and see that characters like Conny or Phil aren’t as old as Emma, Norman, or Ray.) Or, at the very least, just add the narration that was a part of the manga’s first chapter? Even that would be better than what we get.
Overall, Ray’s question — or rather Emma’s response, as the question itself isn’t unnatural — is just yet another way that TPN fails to follow one of the most basic writing rules in existence. Still, this is only a little grievance I wanted to bring up, solely because it felt wrong to leave it out. Now, however, let’s get into the main point of Part 2.
…
Back to the test scene in the anime. (In the manga, what I’m about to discuss occurs after they play their game of tag, but it’s nearly word-for-word, so this argument holds true for both.)
After they take their test, and Isabella announces that Emma, Ray, and Norman had gotten perfect scores, the others express their amazement. This is all well and good — and the anime should’ve left it at that. It would demonstrate that the three were smarter than the rest, especially when highlighted by the fact that the other kids were impressed to hear Thoma say he might’ve gotten half right. (In the manga, a few of the test questions are shown, and some of them are just evil. Eleven-year-olds solving for a derived equation in 10 seconds? Getting full marks is insanely impressive when we’ve seen some of the questions, so why not show it in the anime?)
Yes, what I just mentioned would only demonstrate that they’re smart. But that’s all that this scene needs to demonstrate. It’s short enough that it doesn’t need to give us any more information, as we’ve still got plenty of time in the episode to learn other vital information necessary for understanding the plot.
It’s when this scene continues, however, that we start to see a real problem.
After they hear their scores, the kids vocalize, solely for the sake of the audience, the basic character descriptions of Emma, Ray, and Norman. They say: “Those three are different, huh? Norman is a genius who has the best brains. And Ray, an intellect who can compete against Norman’s genius. Emma has amazing athletic skills, and her learning ability allows her to stay close to the other two.”
It’s quite the way to take some of the fun out of learning about the characters, isn’t it?
It’s just… why does the anime (and manga) find it necessary to include this? Not only will we probably not remember half of it — which is for the best — but it lessens the impact of us learning about the characters ourselves.
If the characters truly are these things, we’ll see that through their actions and dialogue (which would show their deductive reasoning skills). After all, they are the ones who come up with the escape plan despite all the trials thrown at them. When we see this, we can deduce for ourselves that these kids are not only book-smart (which we learn from their perfect scores) but street-smart, able to solve issues that most eleven-year-olds would never be capable of. Through this alone, we learn most of the information that was told to us during the test scene. And Emma’s athletic skills are demonstrated reasonably well during their game of tag. (If that scene were edited slightly, it would be obvious that Emma is superior to the others in terms of athletic ability. This is a fault in the author’s scene construction.)
And we can’t forget the fact that their younger peers are saying this about them. Even if they knew these things subconsciously, what child would say something like this? They’re all smart, as they’re all high-grade meat, but they’re still kids. Kids don’t tend to break out into character analyses about their friends, especially not without any prompting.
So what’s the point of this telling?
Telling doesn’t serve any purpose, as we won’t believe it until we see it. If Emma, Ray, and Norman failed in their escape attempt because they weren’t smart enough, we wouldn’t believe the telling. But if their smarts are proven through their actions, than what point does the telling serve? Nothing. The only thing it accomplishes is forcing more unnatural dialogue that reminds the audience that they’re watching a show, not living in a story. And that sucks.
(Telling is often a sign of laziness or ineptitude, whether that ineptitude is truly there or the author simply believes they are inept at crafting a good scene. After all, it wouldn’t be needed if the author knew for certain that they had created situations to move the plot along while simultaneously demonstrating the characteristics of his three main characters. This telling could be a sign that TPN’s writer, Kaiu Shirai, didn’t trust himself to accurately portray his characters’ traits. Or maybe he just believed the audience was too unintelligent to understand his characters as he wanted them to be perceived.)
Let’s compare this scene to Attack on Titan’s first episode, where we learn quite a bit about Eren’s personality as Isayama introduces us to the story. All without telling anything about Eren, too.
Let’s use this scene:
Isayama wrote this scene for a reason, and that reason was to reveal Eren’s core beliefs, and he does this through showing. (We’ll have to ignore the telling about Eren’s father and his success as a doctor. Unfortunately, not even Isayama avoided convenient telling completely. But at least the information wasn’t particularly relevant to the story, so it didn’t ruin much other than the flow of the story.)
You see, when Hannes asks why he would ever need to be prepared for a fight, Eren responds with: “If they breached the walls and entered the city!” When Hannes brushes Eren off, Eren yells, telling him to stop calling himself a part of the Garrison and become a member of the Wall Repair Corps. And when Hannes reasons that they’re slacking off is a good thing because it means everyone is safe, Eren says: “Even if we can never leave these walls for our entire lives, as long as we eat and sleep, we’ll survive… but that just makes us like cattle!”
Not only do his words give us a little more information about what threat humanity is up against, but they also reveal so much about Eren’s personality, goals, and beliefs. We learn that he hates being caged in the walls, hates people who are satisfied with living in a cage, wants to go outside, and values living rather than just surviving. All through dialogue that flows and doesn’t slap the watcher in the face with its lack of tact.
Now, this:
A little later, we learn that Eren’s willing to fight for his freedom, as he admits to wanting to join the Survey Corps. And he’s extremely dedicated, we learn, not because the show narrates to us that he’s dedicated (like TPN might do) but because he sees the horrors of the Survey Corps when they return from their mission and yet still wants to join them. After all, when Mikasa tells his parents that he wants to join their ranks, all Eren says is: “I told you not to tell them!” Throughout the rest of the episode, he makes absolutely no indication that he no longer wants to join them. In fact, he acts like he hasn’t been swayed in the slightest.
Not a single thing I’ve just mentioned can be considered telling. No, it’s all showing through dialogue that isn’t forced in any way, shape, or form, and that’s what makes it work. From Eren’s anger to his dialogue to his attitude towards the world and people around him, we learn everything we need to know about our main character without Isayama needing to tell us. Because Isayama does tell us. He just does it through showing, unlike TPN.
And that is the problem with the first episode of The Promised Neverland— while the episode could have been constructed to show everything that the audience needs to know, it wasn’t, and therefore it must rely on unrealistic, forced dialogue that ejects the audience out of the story it’s trying to submerse us in.
#the promised neverland#tpn#tpn emma#tpn ray#tpn norman#attack on titan#shingeki no kyojin#eren yeager#anime analysis#manga analysis#tpn manga
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Women in SPN—Seasons 2 and 3
Previously on Joy Obsesses over a Show That Creatively Expired in 2010
Tessa
Introduced back when the Winchesters dodging the coffin actually qualified as an episode, she follows in Meg’s tracks by continuing to make monsters seem more approachable and less a malevolent force of nature. Starts off with a completely flat affect but gets annoyed with the Winchester bullshit real quick—a sure-fire sign of an SPN character with a brain. A powerful being capable of returning one’s memories by a smooch which is… convenient. As is the fact that bad guys keep using her for their ebul plans. Serves the typical secondary-character function of a springboard for a main guy’s development. Plants hints of the “natural order”, “destiny”, and “inevitability” which will become major themes down the road and be explored by characters with deeper writing.
Status: Alive as of s5
Importance: Minor, remembered primarily because she keeps popping up.
On her own: A nice addition to the lore.
Jo Harvelle
Originally Dean’s love interest until she got written out for the crime of having tits around the fandom’s husband. Driven by a wish to honor her dead father and become a hunter, she’s held back by the unfortunate fact of not being all that good at it. Cheerful, temperamental, and a pretty skilled hustler, she’s mortally wounded when charging in to protect Dean. Ends up sacrificing herself so that others can escape and attempt to end the Apocalypse.
Status: Dead as of s5, dragged back and disappeared again in s7
Importance: Major
On her own: A soldier going out in a blaze of glory. I bawl every time.
Ellen Harvelle
Unlike her daughter, very good at what she does. No-nonsense authority figure, she’s one of the few in the show to pull off a combination of a hand-wringing mama bear and a pro-active badass with a life outside her family. Not perceived as a threat because fans don’t know the meaning of MILF yet, and so is allowed to stick around for the season 2 finale. Dies to make Jo’s plan to obliterate Meg’s hellhounds work, though it’s strongly implied she mostly refuses to survive her kid.
Status: Dead
Importance: Major
On her own: SPN’s Molly Weasley, sullied by the implications of her death
Lenore
A head-strong leader of a nest of vegetarian vampires, she’s deliberately contrasted with Gordon’s Terminator schtick and to a lesser degree with Dean’s black-and-white monsters vs. humans kill-everything grief-cope in order to further cement SPN’s ongoing crusade of challenging who in fact is the monster around here. Has a crowning moment of awesome when she refuses to feed while covered in Sam’s blood. The entire point of her is her determination not to give up her humanity even when no longer human. Would be shame if the show decided to later abandon this essential part of her character and twist it for cheap drama…
Status: Alive as of s5, annihilated in every way in s6
Importance: Minor in the overall narrative, major in the episode and the boys’ development
On her own: An effective mirror to Dean’s stroll down the slippery slope
Diana Ballard
TheGoodCop manipulated by her professional and romantic partner, she has a surprisingly functional tension with Sam. Luckily for Linda Blair it goes unnoticed because the fandom doesn’t view older women as competition. Noteworthy mostly because she actively participates in uncovering the episode’s mystery which automatically elevates her above the standard clueless civilian, man or woman, who needs the duo to save them. Despite fewer appearances arguably more memorable than Henriksen, precisely because of her active involvement.
Status: Alive as of s5
Importance: Minor overall, a major player in the episode
On her own: Interesting take on the usual boilerplate cop
Ava Wilson
To present a very, very generous interpretation, she foreshadows Sam’s eventual turn to the dark side. Spirited, a little bit airheaded, and freaked about her Azazel-given powers, she gives enough of a damn to prevent her visions of people dying from coming true, though she clings to her intention to lead a normal civilian life. Does a complete switcheroo off-screen to become a villain because… power is awesome? Ends up the most advanced special child in season 2’s battle royale, the very concept of which is just… eh? Still gets dispatched no problem because… why not?
Status: Dead
Importance: Minor
On her own: A prime example of why the special children subplot is just…wot?
Molly McNamara
Memorable primarily because of the experimental (for SPN) narration which frames her as the duo’s partner when in fact she’s one of the things being hunted. For plot reasons spends her episode switching between being terrified, worried for her missing husband, and heartbroken. Can be somewhat tortuously argued to fit the theme of (not) overcoming grief and letting go, one of the few detectable threads in the directionless slog that’s season 2.
Status: Dead
Importance: Minor overall, major because she’s arguably the main character of her episode
On her own: Torture porny. Very torture porny.
Madison
Intelligent, educated, and with an endearing love of soaps, she’s responsible for one of the three watchable sex scenes in the entire show. Has a nice theme of personal growth and healing from trauma going on, although it’s cut short and undermined when she’s revealed as a werewolf and euthanized by none other than Sam himself. Her death is filmed as a narrative-changing tragedy before it goes on to become a joke in season 4.
Status: Dead
Importance: Major
On her own: No matter how you look at it, she’s a diseased dog that needs to be put down for her own good while the menz wallow in their manly manpain. A rare example of a storyline I don’t think can be tweaked to be even marginally less awful.
I believe maestro may have wanted to portray sadness here.
Tamara
Told to be an excellent hunter, she’s shown as needing to be saved in order not to end up like her husband who’s literally forced to gargle bleach. Introduces the notion of growing hostility against the Winchesters in the hunting community. Full of wrath to fit the episode’s one-off seven deadly sins schtick, she’s emphasized as emotional and not in control of herself to such a degree that it overshadows how she’s in fact fairly competent in the second half of the episode.
Status: Alive as of s5
Importance: Minor
On her own: Wouldn’t stand out this much if she weren’t one of the few POCs in the blinding whiteness that’s SPN’s Americana.
Ruby
Doesn’t have the most organic introduction (A cool intriguing sexy French fries loving not like other gurls sassy badass, with a superdooper special knife? How 2000s cringe can you get?) but quickly becomes one of the show’s most distinctive villains allies. She’s an ally. Totally. Don’t worry about it. A sarcastic smartass jerk who breathes lies and manipulation, she’s resourceful, thinks on her feet, and throws herself into the thick of action without hesitation—a trait that gets especially interesting in retrospect as it suggests a fanatic devotion to her real goal. Sadly, her motivation doesn’t get fleshed out beyond “she really likes Satan, I guess” (which, hey) as the writers prioritize the surprise of the revelation over her further character development. Has the second watchable sex scene in the entire show; the fandom weeps itself to sleep. Gets killed by her own weapon when the writers decide that a character who’s smarter than both protagonists combined could well do with a bit of the good ol’ lobotomizing.
Status: Dead
Importance: Supermegadoublemajor
On her own: The stupid nature of her demise and occasional wooden acting do their best but never overshadow the awesome that’s Ruby.
Lisa Braeden
Dean’s past fling who becomes a living symbol of his desire for the white-picket fence. Is implied to possess mad financial skills as she owns property on a yoga teacher’s salary while a single mom below the age of 30. A blank slate the likes of Cassie, she’s salvaged by better acting. Frequent frowning suggests the presence of an inner life though it doesn’t tend to manifest itself on screen or affect the plot. Her single established trait—blow-out assertiveness the moment things get too far—is exercised mostly in service to her son. Exists solely to give Dean something to pine for.
Status: Alive as of s5
Importance: Major
On her own: A tertiary character who so-so sustains her own episode.
Bela Talbot
The best expansion of the show’s lore after the host of heaven, she’s unequivocally a bad person who nevertheless evokes huge amounts of sympathy. A cynical self-serving dealer in supernatural objects who mirrors Dean’s cracking tough guy persona, due to her abuse and the resulting trauma she refuses to open up and rely on anyone out of principle, or be indebted to them. Her pride makes her clinically unable to ask for help until it’s too late, and even forego mentioning personal history when it’d actively benefit her by softening the horrible impression others have of her. Switching between being an antagonist and the duo’s reluctant ally, she manages to outwit them roughly 90% of time. The fact that she has sexual tension with Dean while Sam lusts after her to the point of literal drooling sends fans apoplectic.
Status: Dead
Importance: Major
On her own: A complex character brought down by her own flaws.
Casey
A demon, she’s torn between wanting to enact the Apocalypse and just chilling with her soulmate. Definitely a fanfic reader because her idea of dealing with danger is to shut herself with her enemy in a room and have a lengthy theological debate. Very outspoken about humanity’s propensity for evil. Outcomplexes Lilith and to a lesser extent Ruby as she’s allowed to openly address her life philosophy. While the dialogue format of her scenes is designed to give Dean space to talk about his feelings regarding his impending demise, it’s more or less an equal push-pull exchange. She’s smart, captivating, capable, and in love, i.e. things SPN just isn’t interested in keeping around.
Status: Dead
Importance: Minor in the overall narrative, major in the episode and Dean’s development
On her own: Could have been so good if allowed to stick around
Gertrude Case
A rich elderly creep whose gropy ways are played for laughs because she’s a woman I guess. Either can’t read social cues or doesn’t give a fuck about people’s obvious discomfort. But don’t worry, it’s hilarious. She’s a woman, you see. What harm have those ever done.
Status: I’m going to assume dead by now, otherwise alive as of s5
Importance: A major figure in Sam’s life since she sexually assaulted him. Otherwise minor.
On her own: Sexual harassment is fun, kids
Lucy
Take Molly McNamara, strip her of any pretence at thematic relevance, minimize her importance while playing up her suffering, and then remove her like a broken Christmas decoration while making sassy remarks—voilà, you’ve ended up with the exact simplistic image that pops into one’s head when the words Supernatural and women are mentioned in a sentence.
Status: Dead
Importance: Non-existent
On her own: Just… why
Astaroth
Approaches awesomehood as her demonic business operation is built around preying on bored suburban hausfraus and taking their souls in exchange for magical powers, which they then use to secure benign materialistic keeping-up-with-the-joneses crap and devour one another like a bunch of assholes whose death you can’t help but eagerly anticipate. Srsly, eff those ladies. Stands out as the only (implied) lesbian in the Kripke arc.
Status: Dead
Importance: Minor, not even the real monster of the week when compared to the coven
On her own: There’s probably another discussion about Doylist sexism hidden around somewhere that I’m not really interested in having. Go Astaroth.
Nancy Fitzgerald
Sugar and spice and every other cliché about kindness combined in a pretty sweet package. Plot demands her to be a virgin for some reason, even though this aspect of her character doesn’t amount to anything in the story and only serves to contrast Nancy’s… purity with Ruby who we’re being constantly told is a “slut” and a “whore” and I have no idea how that’s supposed to work. Then again, Nancy’s virginity is framed as a valid personal choice in a rather empowering moment so that’s good. Has standards because even after deciding to let go of her chastity vow, she won’t settle for just any loser who happens to stand around converting oxygen into CO2. Her “cause manpain out of nowhere”-type death is one of the few of this category in the show which actually work because the cruel pointless nature of it is precisely the point (and at least she’s not the only one who doesn’t survive, please ignore how the episode literally says her demise is the most tragic because she never got laid, barfs).
Status: Dead
Importance: Minor
On their own: A textbook definition of a cinnamon
Lilith
An overarching menace that doesn’t spend too much time on screen, she’s a prop rather than her own person. This gets highlighted the moment the show stops casting her as a clichéd creepy child who likes to larp as that Twilight Zone kid, and turns her into the standard hawt chick in a will-they-won’t-they episode. No interiority as she goes along with a plan which requires her obliteration, without at least allowing her to explore her religious motivation. Ruby does all the heavy lifting in this partnership.
Status: Dead
Importance: Major
On her own: For the life of me I can’t make sense of her actions in s4. But the clichéd creepy kid is adorbs so points for memorability.
Maggie Zeddmore
The straight man to the Ghostfacers’ utterly delightful douchefacery. Manages to keep up with Harry and Ed in terms of hilarity because not only is she exactly as out of place as them, she decides to role-play her childhood-friends-to-lovers fanfic in the middle of a haunted house as the best sister that she is.
Status: Alive as of s5
Importance: Minor
On her own: Love at first geek
Next, season 4 and 5 before I try to figure out what this all adds up to.
#spn#spn critical#supernatural#supernatural critical#sexist writing#tessa#jo harvelle#ellen harvelle#madison#ruby#bela talbot#lisa braeden#nancy fitzgerald#lilith
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Just read you recent think on Mitsuki, and while I agree with some things, you're forgetting a lot. Like how Mitsuki is so ready to trust UA cuz Aizawa seems to understand Katsuki. Or how, in the first ep flashback, Katsuki just got praise for his 'stupid awesome quirk' without deserving that praise. Or, you know, how Katsuki got to the point in middle school where he was telling Izuku to jump off a building? And the sports festival? Katsuki probably would have laughed if it hadn't been him.
I’m not forgetting any of that, they’re all things that have been taken into consideration and either aren’t important to the situation, or are part of what I’m talking about.
To break this down,
1)
I don’t care if she thinks that UA “understands” Katsuki, her child was kidnapped and held hostage for 2 days, and forced to fight for his life multiple times against several adult villains. The only thing that stopped the villians from murdering/torturing/turning Katsuki into a nomu/etc, was that they decided not to during that 2 day period. Even if she’s willing to forgive UA/Aizawa and understands that the situation was bad by all accounts, she could still show at least a little concern for her child’s physical and mental safety after he was kidnapped. The idea that she really believes a school “understanding” Katsuki and not praising him too much is more important then the fact he got kidnapped for and was held by villains for 2 days, speaks volumes on it’s own.
Also, it’s worth noting that Aizawa and UA do not understand Katsuki. They fail him multiple times, and call out in canon that they did so. Including; The Sports Festival, The kidnapping, & the aftermath of the kidnapping. Even going so far as to say that they neglected his mental health, in canon. They’ve messed up with him multiple times, and while it’s good that Aizawa doesn’t let him get away with bullshit, that doesn’t mean that they’ve done much to help him either.
2)
Yes, Katsuki got a lot of praise as a child. I could talk for ages about gifted child syndrome and how that built up unrealistic expectations on him such that he believes he’s not allowed to make mistakes and takes responsibility for way to much as a result. However, this isn’t something I forgot in my original post. In my original post, the point was that Mitsuki acts/talks about it in such a way that implies that just sort of happened, when in reality that is on her and Marasu for not parenting Katsuki correctly. If they had raised him better, taught him to be kinder to others, put him into anger management/therapy, taught him how to handle his emotions in a health way, etc, he would be a much different person. But they didn’t, yet she still talks about it like she had no hand in it.
Also, again, as I said in my original post, a big part of this is timing. If this was just a PTA meeting or something, I’d have a very different opinion on this entire thing. But that’s not what this is. This is a meeting right after he got kidnapped, at a point where he likely still very shaken from the experience, and where he’s likely being dealing with a lot of negative media attention online. If there is any point in his life where he needs support from his parents, this is that time. I don’t care if he’s been a shitty kid in his life, right after he just got kidnapped is a time when he needs love and support from his parents. Not them talking about how shitty he is to his teachers while he’s still trying to recover from that.
3)
That really has no baring on the conversation, at all. Was Katsuki telling Izuku to jump off a building unacceptable? Yes. However, neither Katsuki’s parents, nor Aizawa/All-Might have any idea that that event transpired. It’s called out in canon that what happened that day was unusual for Katsuki, that was not a normal interaction between him and Izuku. It was also something that happened when Katsuki was 14, ~2 ish years prior to the conversation I’m talking about.
Katsuki was an asshole, particularly to Izuku, when he was a kid. He still has a lot of those tendencies. That in no way negates the fact that after he was kidnapped is a wildly inappropriate time to start ragging on his flaws, alongside blaming him for getting kidnapped in the first place. Instead, that’s the sort of thing to be worked on through therapy and teaching over time. Or just, to be talked about at any other time besides right after he got kidnapped.
Also, it might be worth reflecting on why he was an asshole, where he learned to behave that way, and why he considers his own words/actions acceptable. Because as it turns out, kids don’t develop those habits out of thin air.
4)
Here’s the thing, you can say that Katsuki would be laughing if it was anyone but him chained up at the sports festival, but I’d argue that he wouldn’t, because nobody else would ever be chained up at the sports festival. Neither the school, nor the author, could ever get away with that for any other student in class 1-A. If Shouto had refused to use his fire on Izuku, causing Izuku to win the fight and Izuku to follow him out of bounds in frustration and reject the first place medal, we all know damn well that he would’ve been allowed to walk away from it. Hell, we actually see Ojiro resigning after round 2 because he felt like he hadn’t earned his win, and he was allowed to do that without any issue. The only one who isn’t given the right to say no, and the only one who would ever be chained up to that podium is Katsuki.
And that comes down to the fact that because Katsuki refuses a lot of things, both on a character and reader level, people stop caring about whether or not he consents to things. They get used to forcing him to do things, and so that becomes normal and acceptable. He’s seen and portrayed as inheritable violent, uncontrollable, and “bad” which means they treat him in ways that would never be acceptable for other characters, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as he sees himself that way. This happens on every level, be it touch, the sports festival, izuku following him around, etc. Katsuki is basically never respected when he tries to say no to something unless he steadfastly enforces that boundary through physical force.
That’s why Aizawa calls out what happened at the sports festival as a failure on UA’s part. Because that’s what it was.
That’s also why we see Tomura with the photo of Katsuki at the sports festival, and why Tomura thought Katsuki would join him. Tomura understands what it’s like to be seen and treated as monstrous, to be seen and treated as fundamentally destructive and dangerous, and he assumed that Katsuki would want to join him to be free of that.
When Tomura has restraints taken off Katsuki when asking him to make his choice, it’s because he understands how Katsuki’s been treated, and he’s playing to that. He explicitly says that they need to treat Katsuki as an equal, and to prove that he means that, the restraints have to come off. He also calls out that he’s not worried about Katsuki fighting back, because he believes Katsuki is smarter then that (which was a miscalculation on his part, not because Katsuki isn’t smart enough to know not to fight back, but because he underestimated Katsuki’s convictions and personal morals).
What Tomura is doing there is a very significant and important demonstration. He’s showing Katsuki through actions, that he is willing to treat him like a human being, even if the heroes aren’t. Tomura is showing basic respect for Katsuki, however undermined by the kidnapping it may be, moreso then his teachers/the heroes did, by allowing him his freedom when making a choice. Perhaps even more important, he’s showing that he sees Katsuki as capable of restraining himself, and of being non-destructive. What he’s really offering Katsuki there is proof that he is willing to treat him better then the heroes did, and that’s why he believes Katsuki will join him.
Anyways, the long and the short of it is that no, I did not forget any of that when I was making my prior post. I did consider all of those things on some level, and they don’t change my opinion that how Mitsuki behaved after the kidnapping is indicative of her being a bad parent, and that were this another character or if the gender roles of the situation were reversed, then I feel strongly that this wouldn’t even be a debate in the fandom.
That being said, who knows what direction canon will takes this. I’m hopeful that the issue will be explored more thoroughly, but we may very well never see Mitsuki in canon again. I’m also not saying that anyone else has to agree with me. My own opinions are not universal truth, and we really have very little canon interactions with Mitsuki and know so little about Katsuki’s childhood in general that nearly anything is possible. I can definitely appreciate Good Parent Mitsuki headcanons, and I’ve read some great fics with those sorts of takes. But my opinion on the matter is the above.
#katsuki bakugou#mitsuki bakugou#masaru bakugou#bnha#mha#character analysis#sif speaks#sif answers#my headcanons#mysticwolfshadows
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38.both
Chroma Lyn - She has a respect for strength and will, for people who actually think things through and question what it is they’re doing before they act and an indomitable sense of self-respect and confidence that no one can conquer. She’s also admirable of others like her who, despite their line of work, are capable of acts of kindness without feeling the need to gloat afterwards, unlike certain caped superheroes . . .
She doesn’t have any specific talents she interested in knowing - except maybe how to cook a little more in variety, than just the basics 🥣
Audrey - She admires the confidence and self-assurance others have; Vivi in particular is such an outgoing and certain young woman who inspires her to be more open and adventurous. But she also finds those with intelligence interesting, if they can portray it in a way so as to help her feel smarter and not just themselves, Arthur being her favorite person to listen to whenever he starts on in a ramble about big league mechanics, the intricacies of his metalwork for medical use, and how Surf’s Up Surprise pizza is a hallmark pizza and DOES not get enough credit for it (And the way he gets so excited that he starts gesturing with his hands is just adorable 🥰)
She would like to be a better dancer, but with a lack of depth perception and her not exactly being so graceful to begin with, it makes it hard for her to really do so without accidentally bumping into something or someone.
#oc ask game#oc asks#my ocs#FOWL Agent Chroma Lyn#audrey verdancy#Chroma Lyn#Audrey#Vivi#Arthur#my answers
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Gumball’s Intelligence (and why his school work doesn’t portray his intellect correctly.)
Hey remember that episode where Gumball, a kid with clear ADHD, was put in a quiet, calm, distraction free environment, and managed to get a grade of A+ on the test, only taking five minutes to complete it? Despite the fact that he’s known to consistently get failing or just above failing grades?
Remember the shocked look on his face when he saw that he did well? As if he never could have expected to pass? And it just made me wanna hold him because this kid clearly thinks he’s stupid- and why wouldn’t he? All his peers tell him he is. His own family tells him he is. The staff at his school think he is. Hell, Mrs. Simian had so little faith in him during that very episode that she suggested cheating on the test and told him he had ‘the IQ of a vegetable?’. But Gumball is OBVIOUSLY not stupid. He has such an intelligent way of speaking and is clearly very clever (if we ignore the jokes about him not being able to spell his own name somethings, but that’s just for the sake of comedy, and given how over the top those are, I doubt we’re supposed to use them for serious characterization). But you know what he is? A special needs child who should have accommodations! The kid clearly needs them! And it sucks that the adults around him would rather just...give up on him and call him stupid than take two seconds to realize he’s clearly ADHD.
I mean one of the commonly known accommodations for children with ADHD is to let them take tests in a quieter room that doesn’t have distractions. And that WORKED for Gumball. It worked so so so well! He did incredible and his actual intelligence really shone through! But you can bet that nobody’s ever going to realize that maybe him needing that kind of accommodation is why he has typically low grades, it’ll just be brushed off as him being lazy, and since everyone’s already given up on him, that’ll never be questioned.
Honestly, i’m afraid we may not ever really understand just how smart he is either. I mean, he aced the test. Completely correct. Every. Single. Question. In five minutes. You know who that reminds me of? Mrs. Genius herself, Anais. And high intelligence levels typically run in families. If one sibling is a genius, other’s are very likely to be geniuses too- or at least very intelligent. Honestly I know Anais is typically regarded as the smart one, and she may very well be smarter than her brother, but in my eyes, the difference between them isn’t one of Anais having higher IQ or inherent abilities, but rather her having more chances to succeed. Even ignoring the fact that Gumball needs accommodations his sister clearly doesn’t, there’s another factor at play too. Everyone believes in her and as a result she’s encouraged to work harder and do better because she’s confident in herself and thinks she can, which reaffirms other people’s belief in her being capable, which makes her more confident, which again, leads to her doing better. When other people believe in you, you tend to do better. It’s a positive feedback loop. However with Gumball, everyone seemed to have given up on him early. In fact, Mrs. Simian said literally the exact words “I know it was a good idea to give up on him early”. It seems like from day one he’s been viewed as a moron by those around him, and we know for a fact that he whole heartedly believes he’s dumb and cannot succeed, and we know from the episode The Triangle, that when he doesn’t think he can succeed, he won’t even try.
I wholeheartedly believe that if Gumball got accommodations for his ADHD and was given reason to try- hopefully from having other’s encourage and believe in him, though other motivations would work (like in The Grades where he was afraid of flunking eighth grade), he’d be able to succeed and may even be at his sister’s level. However, the adults in his life are trash, which is why he’ll never realize he can be more than some dumb loser, and why he’ll probably never get the extra help he needs for his ADHD either. Which is incredibly sad and frustrating tbh.
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Ratched: Episode 3 Reactions
Miss Osgood
Omg this house. All the Art Deco. I’m in love.
Petunia!!!
Oh fuck, she’s after Dr. Hanover? “Falsified his credentials”?? Is he a con man? A doctor who committed some kind of malpractice? What did you allow him to do, Miss Osgood?!
Love a bitch with a cigarette holder
Dr. Manuel Benaga
“Brilliant, charismatic, and insane but doesn’t know it” so he and Mildred really are two peas in a pod then, huh
Aslkdjdslfkdjfklk a severed head as a birthday gift? Original, I’ll give her that.
I see where this is going. Hanover is responsible for whatever happened to her son.
An Update on the Lesbians (+ some unfortunate heterosexual activity)
Aw, flowers! Nurse Bucket is really trying to get back on Hanover’s good side. I think she’s got a thing for him.
Lobotomies cause lesbianism now? Well, that’s a new one.
“Homosexual is what Walt Whitman was.” Why is the phrasing of this sentence so odd to me?
Ahh hydrotherapy. Another fun throwback to Asylum. Although I guess technically this is the throwback--back to when the treatment was new.
Oof Mildred and Huck are not on board with this. Even Bucket seems a bit unsure for a moment, but she’s sticking with it!
Oh no, not the cold water now. They’re going to send her into shock!
Huck is a good boy. I don’t want this to end badly for him.
Oh! Gwen at home!
Okay, her husband is clearly gay. I’ve been wondering how they were going to play her marriage.
Mmm the governor wants Edmund to fry, and Gwen’s not here for it.
This nurse (Dolly?) is kinda fun. She’s cute and sassy. Unfortunately, she’s totally going to think Edmund is hot.
Girl he is a mass murderer do not FLIRT with him
SIIIIIGH
The guard is RIGHT THERE wtf
Oh I bet Mildred is going to have some words for her brother
Ope where’s Hanover going? Anywhere interesting?
Oh fuck! That was a close one! I was not expecting the PI to catch up to him like, this episode. They made it sound like wherever Miss Osgood lived was a ways away.
I really wish this note was from Gwen but I know it’s gonna be the other dude. And yes, I did JUST realize that the other dude is the PI and not a reporter. I’m not good with men’s faces because I don’t care about them.
Good for him that he’s willing to experiment with her I guess? But also would love him to go away.
Cuz she’s gay and can’t do this :/
Ooh, Mildred backstory! I’m not surprised that she gets turned on by the memory of saving this man. Making herself a savior is kind of her whole thing.
Oh nooo she’s fantasizing about Gwen. Oh honey. I hate this for her.
Oh this douche.
Fuck, she just realized that he’s looking for Hanover. How very serendipitous! This can definitely be used to her advantage.
Okay, so how come Gwen’s husband can have sex with another man, but when Gwen wants to pursue another woman it’s too risky?
Dr. Hanover
Things really have worked out quite well for Mildred regarding Dr. Hanover. This new piece of leverage has just fallen into her lap.
So, Henry Osgood was basically a baby Dandy Mott.
Oh fuck, LSD?! I’m guessing this is the origin of his drug addiction.
Oh man, Henry poured in a LOT. I’m surprised that didn’t kill him.
HE GOT DIFFERENT ARMS
Fuuuuuuck this is intense
And then Henry’s body got infected and he lost his legs, too
This really sucks, because it really just was this one moment that he didn’t keep a sharp enough eye on this boy, and things unraveled SO quickly.
I wonder what Mildred has planned to help him. Probs gonna do something to the PI.
I also wonder like, what exactly Miss Osgood thinks happened to her son, cuz I’m guessing Hanover didn’t really stick around to explain. From what she said earlier, sounds like she thinks he’s delusional and thought that he could cure Henry by replacing his arms.
Thoughts and Theories
It was really interesting to see Mildred so upset by the hydrotherapy, and I have to say, I’m liking her characterization so far. I like that instead of being a straight sadist they’re portraying her as having more of just a very skewed sense of morality and empathy. They’re definitely building her as an Angel of Mercy, and specifically one with a savior complex. We can see this in how she gets turned on by remembering the gratitude of a man whose life she saved during the war, but now her way of “saving” people has evolved to include harming and even killing them, because she believes this will relieve their suffering. At this point, she’s still clearly capable of some differentiation and genuine empathy--killing seems to be a last resort for the truly hopeless, as we see her still actually desire to help Edmund and care for her lesbian patient who is, by every standard, suffering. Her whole “freedom from suffering” thing seems more like a way to justify harm that is otherwise necessary from her plans, but I think as time goes on, as more drastic measures are necessary and she wields more power over the asylum, we will see her slip further into this delusion.
I also really like how intelligent and manipulative she is. Like, with Hanover, killing Dario and helping him cover it up means he’s willing to listen to her both out of trust and fear, with the added bonus that it drives a wedge between him and Bucket. And after finding out about the PI, she could have gone with outright blackmail, but between trust and fear, trust is always the smarter choice to get someone to do what you want. She’s put herself on Hanover’s side and made herself indispensable to him, but also armed herself with enough knowledge that he can’t cross her if he ever wants to. And this brings me to Gwen. I think it’s definitely interesting that we see Hanover, Gwen, and Mildred all aligned with wanting to save Edmund from the electric chair. Although Hanover and Gwen simply have a moral stance against it, it clearly works in Mildred’s favor, and I do wonder if she’s going to get Gwen involved with her plans to save Edmund as well, given that she has access to the governor.
#ratched#ratched spoilers#mildred ratched#gwendolyn briggs#dr hanover#miss osgood#nurse bucket#all hail the queue of hell
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Hannibal Is Not a Psychopath: Criteria and Examples
The question of whether Hannibal is a psychopath often comes up. I'd like to start right with TL;DR: no, Hannibal is not a psychopath. It's confirmed in the show textually, with it being said that he's something that can't be defined and that doctors are confused as to what to label him with.
Evidence: E8 of S3.
ALANA: You've long been regarded by your peers in psychiatry as something entirely Other. For convenience, they term you a monster.
HANNIBAL: What do you term me?
ALANA: I don't. You defy categorization.
That's the point of the show. It happens in a heightened reality where labels don't really exist (which is why I think there is no point in such analysis as this, but like I said, it’s for people who keep calling him a psychopath). Both Will and Hannibal are deeply unique, they do have some psychopathic traits, but all in all, their profiles are entirely fictional. You can also see this thread for what Bryan Fuller and Mads Mikkelsen say about this topic. Here are some highlights.
Bryan Fuller: Hannibal Lecter is unique in his crazy. He’s not a psychopath, because he experiences regret. And he’s not a sociopath, because he experiences empathy. So he is unique in his crazy, and that gives him a higher sensibility than just a mortal man ... one of the things that we talked about in our first meeting was not so much about playing Hannibal as the cannibal psychiatrist, as previously portrayed by other actors, but more like Lucifer and how he was a dark angel who had this affinity for mankind and a fascination with the human condition.
Now, let's move on to the actual practical examples from the show as related to two most common models devised for assessing a person with a possible psychopathy.
DSM-5 Criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder
A. Significant impairments in personality functioning manifest by:
1. Impairments in self functioning (a or b):
a.Identity: Ego-centrism; self-esteem derived from personal gain, power, or pleasure.
Ego-centrism.
Standard definition of ego-centrism is an "excessive interest in oneself and concern for one's own welfare or advantage at the expense of others". From S1, Hannibal is doing what he thinks is best to help people he finds interesting at the expense of his own safety and peace. Will is the brightest example (he always is). Hannibal senses a killer in him, understands Will subdues his true self, and he does everything in his power to help him Become. Here's what he says to Bedelia about it in E12 of S1, explaining what he wants to do with Will:
Hannibal: "Madness can be a medicine for the modern world. You take it in moderation, it's beneficial. ... Side effects can be temporary. They can be a boost to our psychological immune systems to help fight the existential crises..." Translation: Hannibal is using Will's illness in S1 to blur his self-control and get him to admit who he is so that Will could free himself of his self-acceptance crisis.
He says the same to Will in E1 of S2: "Our conversations, Will, were only ever about you opening your eyes to the truth of who you are."
Bedelia confirms it to Will in E2 of S2: "It may be small comfort, but I am convinced Hannibal has done what he believes is best for you."
Finally, Will admits it's true many times. One of them happens in S3 during his conversation with Chiyoh: "I've never known myself as well as I know myself when I'm with him."
Conclusion: Hannibal is really trying to help Will be himself and he succeeds in it. Furthermore, he does it at the expense of his safety.
Hannibal endangers himself from S1 the closer he gets to Will. In E9 of S1, Will learns that he helped Abigail bury the body of Nick Boyle. Hannibal's first instinct is to protect himself, so he reaches for the scalpel. But he immediately changes his mind. He takes a risk, choosing to explain his reasoning to Will. He places himself in danger - he did it back when he helped Abigail with the body (because he wanted to help her, too, and he wanted her to be a part of his and Will's family). He protects Will to the point where Jack grows suspicious and comes to talk to Bedelia about it. When Bedelia tells Hannibal that he should take a step back because he's getting too personal and endangers himself, Hannibal downright refuses.
He risks his life in an attempt to make Will free himself, too. He nearly dies after Will sends Matthew to attack him in E5 of S2 and he doesn't press charges - on the contrary, he's happy and he frees Will from the prison for that. He makes a conscious effort not to react in E7 of S2 when Will points a gun at him (just as what he did in E13 of S1). Will could shoot him any time but Hannibal places the need to help him Become above his safety. He's ready to dismantle his good life and run away with Will in the second half of S2. He gives up his freedom literally in S3 to prove to Will that he places him above himself. He proves it again by showing that he's willing to die for him: first, he agrees to Will's plan with the Dragon, knowing Will is planning something but not caring what it results in, perfectly willing to give Will all the control. He shields Will from the bullet at the expense of his safety again, talking about sacrifice and love. He lets Will push them off the cliff.
Conclusion: All this actions show that Hannibal is not overly ego-centric. He's capable of putting other people's needs above himself. Will is far from being the only example. Abigail, Bella, Margot, and Bedelia also fit here. Some could say that Hannibal does all this for Will just because he's in love with him. Yes, he wants to be family with Will in the end of this whole process, but it means that his final goal is their mutual happiness, not something just for his benefit. He knows Will is lonely (Will admits it himself several times in all seasons). He knows Will is going to be much happier after Becoming. Will's words (including those above) prove it.
Self-esteem.
Hannibal has a high self-esteem but it's not derived from the mentioned superficial elements. He has every reason to think highly of himself: he's extremely educated, he helped many people make their lives better (from common patients to people like Randall, who accepted themselves and became happy in their way), he is talented (he plays different instruments, he's an excellent and creative cook, he's fluet in several languages), he has excellent manners, etc. So, his self-esteem does not depend on gain, power, or pleasure.
b.Self-direction: Goal-setting based on personal gratification; absence of prosocial internal standards associated with failure to conform to lawful or culturally normative ethical behavior.
Hannibal's plan are as self-motivated as every person's. For instance, he wants a family with Will. Many people want to have families. But like it was said above, Hannibal doesn't focus only on himself here. He risks to protect Will's interests and he's willing to be put away so Will could be free to make his own decision, even if it doesn't include him. That's love, not personal gratification. He works with patients not just to tell himself what a clever man he is, he's genuinely concerned about them. He shares his worries about making Franklyn feel powerless in S1 with Bedelia. He tries to protect Franklyn and asks Tobias not to kill him. So, his goals are not aimed at his own gratification excessively.
Hannibal has a complex philosophy that doesn't fit the above criteria about prosocial internal standards. He doesn't have a lack of the desire to meet them: on the contrary, he wants to make this world beautiful. As he tells Will in S2, "Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me." He doesn't kill random people. He kills rude people that ruin the norms of ethical behavior. Hannibal is very active in being prosocial in his way: for instance, he kills a politician who ruined the forest where rare birds nested to build a parking lot. He killed a homophobic doctor. Hannibal has solid prosocial principles that aim to restore beauty and harmony in this world. He's a monster for sure, but he has principles that make everyone question themselves. Even cannibalism: people act all horrified when they learn they ate other people, but everyone is so joyful about eating animals who can think, feel, and who are smarter than many actual people. Double-standards provide for endless discussions.
Conclusion: Hannibal doesn't meet any of the above two major criteria. It already means he's not a clinical psychopath. But let's move forward.
2. Impairments in interpersonal functioning (a or b):
a.Empathy. Lack of concern for feelings, needs, or suffering of others; lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another.
This doesn't fit Hannibal either. Like Bryan Fuller's quote above confirms, he does experience empathy and regret. It's obvious in the show as well: for instance, in E7 of S3, he writes formulas to reverse time (which is the embodiment of regret). He regrets hurting Will and he asks him if maybe the tea-cup can still be mended. In E8 of S2, he himself says: "A life without regret would be no life at all." He's almost crying in E11 of S2 when he and Will discuss Abigail. Will expresses his pain at the loss and Hannibal says: "I'm sorry I took that from you. I wish I could give it back." Note that he does intend to give Abigail back to Will: he left her to live because he wants them to reunite. He also tries to soothe Will's pain by hinting at the truth: "Occasionally, I drop a teacup to shatter on the floor on purpose. I'm not satisfied when it doesn't gather itself up again. Someday, perhaps, that cup will come together."
In E13 of S2, Hannibal is devastated to learn of Will's betrayal, but he understands his conflict. He gives him another chance, telling him, "I don't need a sacrifice." When he tells Will he forgives him later, he asks: "Will you forgive me?" This shows that he understands regret intimately. These (just a few out of many) examples prove that he cares about Will's feelings.
He's crying as he walks in the rain, leaving people he loved bleeding. He regrets the ruined plans and he accepts he's to blame to an extent. When in E3 of S3 Bedelia asks him whether Will betrayed him or vice versa, Hannibal replies: "I'm vague on these details." It means that after some time passed, he analyzed the situation and he's no longer sure he did the right thing. This is regret, too. Furthermore, he becomes self-destructive, which Bedelia notices and calls him out on. He doesn't fight against Jack, letting him beat him up, torture him, and almost kill him. Hannibal is an emotional wreck at that point: he agonizes over what happened with Will, he regrets what he did, and he clearly hates himself enough for it to torture himself like this.
I already described the risks Hannibal took to take care of Will's needs in the first section. In addition, he tells Will in S3 finale: "My compassion for you is inconvenient." Despite being hurt after covering him from the bullet, he tries to protect Will again and again. He cares about his suffering and he can't watch him be hurt.
Hannibal also empathizes with Bella, sometimes looking moved to tears. He gives her a chance to die as she wishes by tossing a coin, even though it could lead him to numerous problems with Jack. It's terrible for every normal therapist to have a patient who committed suicide. It's even worse when it happened right in their office, and it's 100 times worse for a serial killer who's one step away from being suspected. The fact that he even gives her a chance tells a lot. He's crying as he sends a grieving letter to Jack after Bella's death.
Hannibal understood Abigail's feelings and suffering and he cared about them, too. He tried to alleviate them. He was annoyed with her in E9 of S1 because she endangered him by digging up Nick's body. Instead of getting rid of her or protecting himself, he just gave her a warning. He tried to defend her in Will's eyes later in this episode. The only explanation for his actions is that he understood where she was coming from despite not liking it. He knew she wasn't just thoughtless or malicious - he understood her turmoil.
Hannibal also understands killers like Will, which proves he has empathy. As Will said about James Grey in E of S2, "Whoever he is, this second killer understood the Muralist well enough to find his canvas. Well enough to convince him to be part of it." Same goes to Randall and Francis, both of whom admit Hannibal understood them better than anyone else. There are many, many more other examples proving that Hannibal has empathy and cares about feelings of some people very deeply.
b.Intimacy. Incapacity for mutually intimate relationships, as exploitation is a primary means of relating to others, including by deceit and coercion; use of dominance or intimidation to control others.
I don't think much is needed to be said here since many examples were already covered. Hannibal and Will have an absolutely mutual relationship that's incredibly deep on all levels. As Will says in E4 of S3: "We have a mutually-unspoken pact to ignore the worst in one another in order to continue enjoying the best." Will chooses Hannibal every time. Hannibal's whole life revolves around Will. He's ready to go to prison for him, he;s ready to die for him, and he's ready to do all possible sacrifices.
Hannibal used deception with Will in S1 to a degree, but this had its own goal (to make WiLL feel better in the end), and the deception was gone for the majority of S2 and S3. Bedelia says in E12 of S2: "What he does is not coercion, it is persuasion." Hannibal tries to get people to see why they should be themselves instead of forcing them to do anything (and he does that since he can relate to them, which proves his empathy once again). Will had darkness in him from the start (which is proven in E2 of S1), so he did find comfort in Hannibal's words. For the majority of time, and all the time emotionally, Hannibal is honest with Will.
He doesn't try to dominate or control Will. He admires how unpredictable Will is in E8 of S2: "With all my knowledge and intrusion, I could never entirely predict you." He admits that Will has power over him in E8 of S3: "I discovered you [in my Mind Palace]... victorious." He doesn't exploitate him either as he truly wants what's best for him. He admits he's in love with him and says he loves him two different times. So Hannibal is capable of love, and his feelings are returned because Will finds his own unique equal in him. He tells Jack that he wants to run with Hannibal twice in S3, he keeps seeking him out, and he chooses him over everyone and everything. The last scene of the show with them eating Bedelia together shows that they're now in comfortable dark companionship where they hunt together.
Conclusion: Hannibal doesn't meet any of these two criteria, never mind both of them.
Now, the standard Hare Psychopathy Checklist. I'll list only those traits pointed here that have relevance (for instance, I'll ignore such points as "Previous diagnosis as psychopath", "Frequent marital relationships", "Poor probation or parole risk", etc.)
1. Glibness/superficial charm: yes. Hannibal is charming for sure and he talks very, very smoothly.
2. Egocentricity/grandiose sense of self-worth: not really. It was already discussed above. Hannibal does like to "defy God", as Will says in E2 of S3, but his beliefs are fully supported by his actions. He's also not self-absorbed and can put others above himself.
3. Proneness to boredom/low frustration tolerance: no. Hannibal enjoys life deeply, always finding something to do, and he's extremely patient even in most aggravating situations. It ranges form annoying patients like Franklyn to Will, whose hypocrisy and self-doubt Hannibal tolerates lovingly till the very end.
4. Pathological lying and deception: no. Hannibal lies when he must, for good reasons. On the contrary, he tends to be funnily honest with his cannibal puns people choose to ignore. For example, when Alana asks what's in her beer, he tells her he can answer only with "yes" or "no" questions, implying he'd tell her the truth if she guessed it. Same thing happens in E11 of S3:
ALANA: I called him. To confirm that he hasn't called you. Not since you've been declared insane.
HANNIBAL: I could have told you that.
ALANA BLOOM: If only I'd known to ask.
HANNIBAL: If only.
ALANA BLOOM: Would you have told me the truth?
HANNIBAL: In my own way, I always have.
5. Conning/lack of sincerity: yes and no. Obviously, being a murderer, Hannibal smoothly misleads many people. At the same time, both Bryan and Mads confirmed Hannibal tends to be emotionally honest, and it's evident in the show as well. He's sincere about loving Will, caring about Abigail and Margot, respecting Alana and finding her physically attractive, respecting Jack and Bella, etc.
6. Lack of remorse or guilt: no. It was already discussed.
7. Lack of affect and emotional depth: no. Many examples were given to show Hannibal's emotional depth. Also, he cries in the opera in E7 of S1. It proves that he has enough “depth” to feel moved and touched by the song. He cries when writing down the poem about loss to Jack in E5 of S3. He cries because of Will several times, falls into deep depression in S3, and so on. Psychopaths can't do all that, especially crying genuinely for such reasons.
8. Callous/lack of empathy: no. It was already discussed. Hannibal can be very cruel, true, but he does have empathy and motivation.
9. Parasitic lifestyle: no. I don't think I should explain that) Hannibal is entirely financially independent.
10. Short-tempered/poor behavioral controls: no. Hannibal can indeed be emotional and impulsive, but he's patient and in perfect control in the majority of instances. He flew into rage after Will broke his heart, but it's natural in such circumstances (of course, killing and maiming people is not normal, but I'm talking about short temper in general. Hannibal doesn't have one. Examples of his patience are above.).
11. Promiscuous sexual relations: no. He slept with Alana for a while, who he knew and respected. He flirted with Anthony and seemed ready to sleep with him, but that's it. Hannibal isn't shown as overly caring about sex and he's focused on Will entirely.
12. Early behavior problems. Difficult to say since his backstory is a mystery in the show for the most part. He did seem to start killing early, so most likely it's a yes.
13. Lack of realistic, long-term plans: no. Hannibal's plans are meticulous and realistic, and he's fighting hard to achieve them (see Hannibal's attempt to make a family with Will). Another example: he's a very prolific killer who stayed hidden for ages and gave himself up in the end only for the man he loves, not because he was caught. So he makes and executes long-term plans perfectly.
14. Impulsivity: no. Hannibal can be impulsive as any other person, it's not excessive.
15. Irresponsible behavior as parent: not really... he tried to protect Abigail at all costs. He encouraged her killing, but I'm not sure if it can be classified as irresponsible, considering who Hannibal and Abigail are and what this show is about.
16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions: no. Hannibal understands when he's wrong and he accepts the consequences. He takes pride in most of his kills, he admits to Bedelia that he made mistakes, he understands Will struggles to forgive him and apologizes for his actions, etc.
17. Many types of offense: yes.
18. Drug or alcohol abuse: no.
Out of 18 items, we have only 3 hard yes. That's a very low score.
Major conclusion: Hannibal does have some psychopathic traits. He's also cruel and he shows some sadistic tendencies, but he's not a psychopath at all. He can feel deeply and he forms extremely strong emotional bonds. I doubt such people actually exist, but that makes him even more fascinating as a character.
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