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beauty-and-passion · 3 years

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Hey! How are you? Just came across your blog recently, and I gotta say I absolutely love your theories!! I’m still catching up, but they’re so well thought out and deeply analyzed. It’s an absolute joy to read through, so thank you for all your interesting ideas!

I love theorizing myself too, and I’ve been wondering a bit about what the upcoming season finale of Sanders Sides will look like. Do you have any thoughts/theories on that?

I believe Joan mentioned we will have another 1/2 Asides before the finale of the current 2nd season. After FWSA (which apparently is playing an important part in the overall storyline according to the team), I feel like we might get an intense 2-vs-2 situation that could revolve around Thomas and Nico. Virgil and Roman on one side arguing Thomas is ready to start a relationship with Nico, and Patton and Janus on the other side arguing against it. Don’t know whether Nico would make a return so soon though, as it also feels Roman’s arc might become a vocal point in upcoming episodes (then again, the two could intertwine).

Anyway, do you have any ideas on how the finale would play out? Could we potentially get some Orange hints? (I am freaking out about him lately so would LOVE some more hints in next episodes lol.) Sorry if this is too long for an Ask Me Anything, still figuring out how to Tumblr. Would love to hear your thoughts!

First of all: thank you, I’m glad you like my theories! And I hope you will keep hanging around, because more will come in the future ;)

Second: don’t worry, this wasn’t a long ask :) it was nice to read your thoughts on the matter, because that’s not an easy one!

Third: o-oooh, what a question! I really love it! But I will also need some time to properly answer it, so I apologize in advance for my late reply.

Before starting, a premise. As you said, there will be two Asides, then a two-parts episode that will end season two. During every two-parts episode we visited the room of a new Core Side and considering we’re into Roman’s arc now, it’s pretty clear Roman’s room will be the next one. That also means this two-parts episode will be focused on Roman.

But Roman’s plot isn’t the only one we have now. There’s also:

The whole “Dark Sides relationship” (yes, I’m talking about you, Virgil and Janus)

Remus (his relationship with Roman, his functions, his future role in the creative process)

Logan and his issues

Considering that those are pretty big themes, I would develop them all in season three and just give some hints for now. There will be time to properly address them all later.

The only other plot I would keep is the one about Nico. During the first livesteam after FWSA, Thomas said he wanted to show how character!Thomas deals with a relationship. So yes, Nico IS a big deal, he will come back and the next big theme will probably be about him.

Having said that, here we are:

My Theories On The Next Two Asides And The Possible Ending Of Season Two.

_______________________________________

THE ASIDES

So we have three Asides and six Sides. Two of them were in the first Aside, so I would take them out for the other two.

We have now four Sides to see. Leaving one or two behind would have no sense, so I think we should see them all, two at a time.

Second Aside: Remus and Logan

Why the next Aside should be about them? Because we need to start talking about the creative process and how it isn’t just a purely “Roman” process, but something that requires Remus’ constant stream of ideas on one side and Logan’s realistic approach on the other.

However, it’s still a bit too early to talk about that: Thomas needs to grow, Roman needs to grow. For now, I would start by showing little by little how Remus’ suggestions can potentially be useful, if properly developed and tamed.

And we can do it thanks to Nico.

Some time passes between the first and the second Aside. Thomas and Nico starts to date, everything is good.

But Thomas is still insecure, because of what Virgil said to him in FWSA: “Will deceit continue to be the answer to all of your problems? Is that fair to (Nico)?”. So he tries to be as much honest as possible with Nico, to the point of ending up being brutally honest sometimes. Nico would be a bit weirded out by this behaviour, but accept it with a shrug.

So, since things are going so well, Thomas wants to make it official. To finally be boyfriends and not just two-people-who-see-each-other-and-kinda-like-each-other.

And that’s where Logan and Remus would come into play. Thomas’ thoughts about Nico would get Remus’ attention and the sudden brainstorming session would get Logan’s. The first would poke Thomas for his less chaste thoughts, all while suggesting weird, inappropriate ways Thomas can ask Nico to be boyfriends. The second wouldn’t tear down Remus’ suggestions, but work around them, show their flaws and how they cannot work.

This back and forth will lead to Thomas realizing what he can do and how. And this solution wil be the good one: Thomas would ask Nico to be boyfriends and Nico would accept.

Third Aside: Janus and Patton

Until now, we saw two kind of cooperations: Roman and Virgil’s is based on feelings and “pushing” each other through their emotions. Logan and Remus’ is a cooperation “in power”: they work well together and we just got a glimpse of how fruitful this cooperation will be in the future.

In this Aside we will see a third kind of cooperation: the most stable and balanced one. We would see how well Janus and Patton would steer Thomas together, how they’re able to talk and compromise, how they’re gradually smoothing their most extreme points of view for Thomas’ sake. And we would see them getting along well, despite their differences.

But why showing it now? Because this would be the perfect moment in time to show it. Because now Thomas is in an official relationship: things are getting real and there are A LOT of decisions that should be taken every day. Janus and Patton’s guidance would shine and prove how a cooperation between Sides isn’t just possible, but it leads to big, better results.

And it would also prove that Roman and Virgil’s fear in FWSA (that Thomas was using deceit to solve all his problems) was without merit. Janus’ power isn’t as uncontrollable as they thought. On the contrary, with Patton’s morals balancing it and when properly used, lying help Thomas achieve more. His relationship with Nico grows stronger.

Things are going well.

_______________________________________

SANDERS SIDES - ENDING OF SEASON 2 PART 1

I’ve got an idea in the back of my mind for a while about how things can get worse and it’s something like this:

As we saw in the Asides, Thomas and Nico’s relationship is going well. Things moved very fast, yes, but they really like each other, so it’s okay.

One day, Nico says he wants to introduce Thomas to his family. Despite an initial peak in anxiety (a subtle way to show us that Virgil has problems with change in general), Thomas accepts to meet them.

Thomas is getting ready with Roman and Virgil. Virgil is - guess what - anxious about this meeting, but he’s also all butterflies in the stomach. Roman is absolutely delighted and keeps circling around Thomas, suggesting him what to wear, what to say, how to move: in other words, the whole “Himbo hopelessly in love” starter pack.

For a while, the meeting is going smoothly. Then Roman and Virgil notice how, once in a while, Thomas drops a lie. Something like “The food is delicious” when it’s not or “what a beautiful dress” even if it’s hideous. And the two Sides get worried. Once again, they try to force Thomas to stop lying, because Lying Is Always Bad and there can’t be true love with lies.

Still insecure and pushed by them, Thomas stops lying. He inevitably ends up saying something offensive/extremely mean and/or he ends up acting so badly the meeting has to end. Nico finds an excuse to justify Thomas’ behaviour with his parents (something on the line of “Thomas is very tired”) and Thomas is forced to leave.

When he comes back home, the discussion is inevitable. Roman and Virgil straight up blame Thomas for lying in the first place, because he wouldn’t have messed up so much, if he was honest from start.

But when Janus appears to defend Thomas and tells them lying IS useful in some circumstances, the situation escalates quickly. The two Sides attack Janus, blaming him for everything and making heavy statements on how deeply he corrupted Thomas/Patton or something similar. On the other hand, Janus attacks them back. They throw words at each other, things are starting to get pretty serious...

And just when the situation reaches its climax, Patton appears. He takes Janus’ side, he explains why lying is useful - especially during formal circumstances like meeting your boyfriend’s family because you want to be accepted, not to be seen as a complete jerk - and he bluntly tells Morality is HIS job, not Virgil’s nor Roman’s.

In this standstill, Thomas’ phone rings. It’s Nico. He wants to talk with Thomas about the evening. Janus suggests a simple lie (I was tired/long day at work), but Nico tells Thomas this isn’t the first time something similar happened - thus reminding us about all of Thomas’ “bursts of honesty” we saw in the second Aside. Honesty that wasn’t seen as such by Nico, but as weird, mean behaviours from the guy he likes.

So when Thomas tries to justify himself with some lie, Nico stops him. He tells Thomas he thought about a lot of stuff, after the meeting ended. He thought about their relationship. He thought about Thomas’ behaviour. Maybe they should’ve dated more, before becoming boyfriends. Maybe they moved too fast. Maybe introducing Thomas to his parents was the wrong choice. Maybe they should think a bit more. And maybe they should take some time for themselves to think about what they want to do, before going further with this relationship.

Nico hangs up. Janus is speechless. Thomas is on the verge of crying. Patton is heartbroken. Virgil is shocked.

And Roman is absolutely devastated. The love he wanted so badly, this happiness he desperately needed, is now in danger. Instead of strengthening the relationship, everything he did only managed to worsen it.

Roman sinks down and locks himself in his room.

_______________________________________

SANDERS SIDES - ENDING OF SEASON 2 PART 2

We already had a Side ducking out and a Side welcoming the others in his room so, for this third time, we should try something different. And what’s better than Thomas & his Sides trying to break into Roman’s room?

Remus might appear for a while, just to help them get inside and leave. There are already a lot of issues Roman has to face now: his relationship with Remus can wait season 3.

So we have Thomas, Virgil, Patton and Janus all in Roman’s room. And the confrontation can finally take place.

Roman will talk about his issues, his low self-esteem and how he feels constrained by Patton’s morals. He will finally admit how he desperately wanted to go to the callback and how confused he was by morals, when he first sided with Janus, only to be blamed for not siding with him in the following episode. He would start seeing the problem with his black/white mentality and we would have a nice, mature moment with Patton apologizing for giving Roman this mentality - while promising he will grow to be a better Morality. We would also have Roman and Janus properly apologize to each other for everything they said and finally work things out.

And we can end it like this. It could be a nice ending, with some conflicts solved, others still to solve and a lot of hope for the future. Patton would feel even more motivated to keep up with his growth, because he’s not doing it just for himself but for Roman too. Roman would feel better, because now he knows no one will blame or mock him for his insecurities - on the contrary, they would still be by his side no matter what. Janus would learn that cooperation is necessary and that he should keep doing it, because this is the right choice.

And Virgil... well, Virgil would drop hints everywhere about his upcoming “second arc”.

In the first livestream after FWSA, Thomas hinted at a possible “second arc” for Virgil. So, since we have a whole season to fill, I would move Virgil’s arc, his confrontation with Janus and all the dark sides’ dynamics into the beginning of the third season. For now, Virgil may hint at a future confrontation with Janus that should happen in the first episode of season 3.

And what about Thomas?

Thomas would accept Nico’s decision and write him that he will take this time to become a better man. We may even close the episode with Nico smiling for this message, proving that he’s not mad at Thomas, he still loves him and that their relationship isn’t ended at all.

Then, we would have the end card.

And the end card would feature the Side I purposely took away from the whole season two finale. Logan.

After starring in the second Aside, Logan should completely disappear for the following two episodes and for the finale. No one should mention him or even think about him. He wouldn’t appear at all. Until now.

We would see him in a room, looking at the last episode of season 2 on Youtube. His face would be completely expressionless and he wouldn’t say a word, because the only voices would be the ones coming from the pc. The camera would slightly move to show a figure behind him. A small refocus of the camera on a little orange accent on this figure’s clothes.

And bam, the end. No explanations, no voices, nothing else. Just this. Because this would drive the fandom insane. Did Logan know Orange was behind him? Were they watching the episode together? Was Orange trying to kill him or what? What would happen? All questions that would accompany us while waiting for season three.

_______________________________________

And this is how I think the next Asides and the ending of season two will play out. Of course this is pure speculation and the next Aside might be about something completely new that makes my whole plot useless - but hey, that would mean a whole new theory to elaborate :D

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed my thoughts! And for all the readers, well, feel free to add your own thoughts here about how the events will play out! Maybe one of us will get them right, who knows?

#sanders sides #ask #patton sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #logan sanders #orange side #thank you SO MUCH for this ask #I had a lot of fun writing this down #I've had some ideas for a while #and now I got the chance to babble about them :P #can't wait to read about your ideas #It'll be fun #sanders sides theory

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radramblog · 3 years

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Eldritch Moon my beloved

I think most Magic players are going to have a favourite set. Often that’s going to be one they started playing with, or one that really got them into the game, or one that had a limited or standard format they really enjoyed. A lot of people won’t, and that’s okay, they’re allowed, it’s hard to pick favourites sometimes.

But for me, it’s Eldritch Moon, aka the last time we went to Innistrad, and things got a bit more tentacular.

Eldritch Moon had a lot working against it from the get-go.

The Shadows block immediately followed the Battle for Zendikar block, one which a lot of people Didn’t Like. Whether it be for some of the more questionable art direction, for the relatively weak cards and boring parasitic mechanics, and for arguably some of the lamest story the game has had to date. More relevantly, though, it was a pair of sets where a fan-favourite plane was essentially dominated by squid monsters and lost a lot of its unique identity in the process- gone was the fun D&D-esque adventure world, replaced by stark wastelands and a war story with like one good story article. It’s the Tazri one.

And then the next set was Shadows over Innistrad. Another return to a fan-favourite plane, with a huge mystery being built up as to why everything was going to shit again. Why Avacyn and her angels were turning on humanity, why there are all these funky stones everywhere, what exactly Nahiri was doing fucking around on the plane of someone she apparently doesn’t like very much.

There were cryptic hints in the set itself. Its title is a reference to the Lovecraft story, Shadows over Innsmouth, with a fair few cards alluding to the story itself. A few cards did have subtle tentacles in the art, as well as subtle warping of flesh and world. The most damning clue came in the form of a puzzle regarding different flavour texts for the card Tamiyo’s Journal, which gave a particular phrase- “Remember this: they came as three”- flavour text from a Battle for Zendikar card referring to the three Eldrazi Titans, only two of which had been dealt with in that story.

Despite this, people still denied that this was the plot-to-be. There were still rumours that it was somehow Marit Lage again after all this time, or that the threat was a new one, or that it was somehow the Gitrog Monster’s fault. Personally, I wanted to believe this, and desperately didn’t want the next set to be Eldrazi-themed- I’d gotten pretty sick of them from BfZ and OGW and was very much enjoying all the new Werewolves and Madness cards and Delirium mechanic. This was at the point where I was drafting at FNM weekly, and the fun differential between the two blocks was stark.

But of course, the mystery was revealed. It was old god Emrakul the whoooole time! Quelle fucking surprise. And yet it ended up being significantly better than the previous block, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the story is just kind of better. We get to see distinctly through the cards and the plot how the influence of Emrakul has affected the regular citizens of Innistrad, and how all its various factions- the Church, the vampire manors, the packs of werewolves, et cetera- were all twisted in her visage. We get to see the desperate fight against them, with all these gothic horrors warring against eldritch horrors, and against themselves. And we get both Jace doing some surreal journey-to-the-centre-of-the-mind shit while Liliana gets to be the hero and Tamiyo gives us an ending that raises more questions than it answers.

Also, Sorin gets stuck in a rock. Fuck that guy, Nahiri was always cooler, and fuck War of the Spark for apparently just having them make up off screen.

Secondly, the cards. Flavourwise, the three Eldrazi Titans’ corrupting influence manifests differently for each- Ulamog consumes and drains the world, Kozilek corrupts the mind and wreaks havoc on space, and Emrakul? As we see, Emrakul twists flesh into new and horrifying shapes, that the set’s cards display in loving and disgusting detail. While Ulamog and Kozilek’s drones were clearly a part of themselves, the Eldrazi of Innistrad all used to be something much more reasonable before Emrakul made it to the plane.

There are three types of Eldrazi in this set. Firstly- the transform mechanic from Innistrads previous has been played with to suit the needs of the flavour. With the exception of Ulrich, every single double-faced card represents a creature from the world, be it Human or Werewolf or otherwise, that is touched by Emrakul and makes a permanent transformation into something else. There’re masses of limbs, shapes echoing Emrakul herself, and flesh in configurations that Should Not Be. The shift on every card is stark, and in every case, you have to actively put in effort to push them over the edge- and off a cliff which they cannot come back from. This is especially true with the Meld mechanic, with the cards fusing into this giant monstrosity that literally dwarfs every other card on the table.

The next type of EMN-drazi is the Emerge creatures. The mechanic was extremely fun, almost all the cards were eminently playable in at least one format (mostly just limited), and the art is spooky. The flavour of some guy on your table getting fucking chestbursted and having fucking Elder Deep-Fiend pop out is incredible, and each is a great way of showing how the regular fauna of the plane (and flora, like, I think Lashweed Lurker is a plant or something) are mutating in response to the creature’s presence.

Finally, there’s the cards that make 3/2 Eldrazi Horror tokens. There’s less of these and they’re less intense, but by and large they’re a representation of the regular people being affected by the whole thing. Just about every card that makes one of these involves a creature dying in some way (Desperate Sentry, Otherworldly Outburst) or being spawned by an existing mass of flesh (Hanweir, Howling Chorus), and it gives this sense that everybody is affected by this effect.

Of course, that was also a thing in Battle for Zendikar block. The whole thing was Eldrazi, Eldrazi, Eldrazi, with even vanilla 4/3 worms having something to say about fighting them. They key difference of Eldritch Moon is that the flavour of the world is still preserved outside of this Eldrazi presence.

What I’m saying is- the gothic horror of Innistrad is still present despite the eldritch horror of the set’s antagonist. There’s still a corrupt and violent church (albeit with a few more tentacles now), there are still cults and Frankenstein zombies and vampires and werewolves. Innistrad’s tone is compatible enough with the Eldrazi’s that the combination enhances the two rather than diminishes them.

The final thing I want to say is just- the set’s really fun. It has a bunch of my favourite classic limited cards- Thermo-Alchemist, Ulvenwald Captive, and Boon of Emrakul- along with multi-format all-stars like Grim Flayer and Collective Brutality. It has big potential get-there moments with the Meld cards and some of the flip Eldrazi, and splashy interesting cards like Emrakul herself and Harmless Offering. The set drips with flavour that enhances the gameplay, with very little wasted space.

It’s a set I only really have two complaints about. Firstly- lol Ulrich isn’t good and wasn’t what basically any werewolf fan was after. And two- it suffers from an eternal issue that Magic only recently solved, in that it’s a Small Set with a pile of mechanics that it cannot possibly fully explore in its 200 or so cards. The biggest victim of this is Meld, as they could only fit 3 pairs in under the restraints of the set size. And that’s a real shame, considering that it’s a mechanic that we’re probably never seeing again, especially considering the recent Midnight Hunt. I really think there was a missed opportunity to not have a few leftover Eldrazi in that set- whatever happened to the Dronepack? Or the corrupted vampire houses? I suppose, though, that “I want more!” can be the best complaint a creator can get.

Eldritch Moon had big shoes to fill. However, in my eyes, it didn’t just fill those shoes. It filled them and kept filling them until its distended toes burst out the front and sides of the shoes and just kept growing, and bending in really weird ways, and I think I’ve lost the plot of this metaphor. It’s my favourite Magic set, and I don’t see that changing for a while.

#ramble #mtg #mtgemn #eldritch moon #this was the first storyline where jace actually got to be interesting

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newbornwhumperfly · 4 years

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it started out as a feeling...

CW: stress position, wrist trauma, blood, cigarette burns, modern slavery, slave-soldiers, discussion of war, references to abuse

tagging: @haro-whumps, @whumping-every-day, @whumpthisway, @lave-e, @stoic-whumpee, @swordkallya, @whumpster-draganies @liliability

so. i Finally wrapped up my first installment of a whump series i’ve planned for ages after enormous support from fellow whomp-bloggers, many brainstorm sessions, amazing people drawing amazing art, & kind questions from people asking about original content <3<3<3

this wouldn’t happen w/to @haro-whumps cause they’ve been utterly invaluable <3<3<3 not only have i gained an enthusiastic cheerleader and beta but a good friend. thank you from the bottom of my heart :))))

title from “the call” by regina spektor

it’s Quite Long & exposition heavy but i promise - it gets angstier :)))

July. 13.

Author: Captain Abraxas Hutchins.

Confidential Situation Report: cc; TATT Commander’s Guild

In this ninth official year in the conflict between New Athens and Upper Tyrus, I agree with general assessments that the cold war has heated significantly. In the past three years in particular, we have seen a sharp increase in subterfuge and sabotage towards essential operations.

Though skirmishes at both borders have become more frequent, our greatest concern regarding national security appears to be increasing levels of assination and data theft from New Athenian agents against the state of Tyrus (in both Upper and Lower Regions).

I understand that several commanding officers at TATT (Tyrus Anti-Terrorism Taskforce) are concerned about several bombings in the past three years as they are believed to be the efforts of New Athenian covert agents (unverified but probable). Despite the violent nature of these bombings, it is my opinion that the theft of data (as well as targeted assassinations) be considered PRIORITY. I consider it New Athenian strategy to cripple our operations.

(NOTED OBJECTION: My team sniper and fellow threat-analyst Cdr. Jorah Cuthbert’s assessment considers these bombings PRIORITY due to initial attacks causing military casualties, and some civilian, casualties.)

Though we have strengthened forces along our borders, even maintaining several “watchtower” outposts in the “Wasteland” region between Tyrus and New Athens, such security measures have failed to prevent the aforementioned acts of aggression.

Despite intense vigilance and dogged pursuit, no New Athenian covert agents have ever been successfully interrogated for high-value information and those few we have managed to apprehend committed suicide (or were assassinated) in custody and, since, before capture.

OPINION: A renewed focus on the apprehension, detainment, and interrogation (NOT “ENHANCED INTERROGATION”) of a New Athenian covert agent would reap invaluable rewards in data-gathering, threat-analysis, and contributing to a stalemate in this crisis.

Though neither government has declared an official state of war, the political tensions of the past two decades have culminated in acts of aggression that might soon bring negotiation and diplomacy to their breaking points. The Tyrus Parliament’s recent statement is that they intend to “aggressively protect” mineral mining expansions into the borders of South “Wasteland” territory “with Legion support if necessary (Senator Gilroy, Parliamentary Address, June 22). Such mineral expansions will certainly extend to Raetean coastal territory, which would inevitably result in clashes with Athenian security forces protecting land development projects conducted by New Athenian government).

In my assessment, this will exacerbate tensions further between our nations. The Islands of Raetea off the coast of New Athens continue to suffer, with recent blockades and Tyrus sanctions increasing Raetea’s economic crisis, which has only worsened over the past four years. It is very likely that there will be a new wave of refugees into the state of New Athens as a result of tensions between Tyrus and Athenian operations, similar to what we observed at the unofficial start of this conflict over a decade ago. Consequent economic burdens and the optics of this influx of refugees will contribute to pro-war sentiment in New Athens.

It is my view that if the Legion must communicate with Parliament that if state negotiators do not increase their efforts--

Brax paused in their writing as another pang shot through their wrist.

Blinking against the blue dots which hovered in their periphery, they set down their stylus to stretch the kinks out of their aching fingers. They really needed to finish their sit-rep before noon tomorrow but there was no harm in pausing for some tea. Oh, and they still needed to get Jorah’s electronic signature before they sent off the document…

Allowing a groan to break through the stifling silence, Brax glared balefully at the slow-spinning ceiling fan.

It is an inanimate object.

It cannot feel your recrimination and will not go faster.

Rational, reasonable facts which didn’t stop them from glaring harder at the offending blades, languidly batting the warm air from corner to corner. Sweat began to dampen Brax’s robe a mere minute after they slipped it on, clinging to their back as they rose from the bed and strode to pour themself another cup of Darjeeling. It was a sign of how oppressive summer had become that the heat bothered them enough to glare at a goddamn ceiling fan.

Or maybe it was just this report.

Brax’s eyes throbbed to match their hands as their gaze tracked the bubbles rolling in the coffee-maker and thinking, suddenly, how they would rather do this than spend another minute on this report.

A report they had written before, in fewer, less urgent words. Perhaps they would come to write it so often that they could pen it with their eyes closed.

Brax was not born for...this.

Analyzing data for larger patterns, working with people to coalesce them into workable teams, untangling the knots of complex problems - it was all Brax’s bread and butter.

They just never thought they’d be doing it in service of a war.

Especially not such a war as this, which stretched on, cold and quiet as perpetual winter, for years upon years with no official frontline, no certain death toll, and no end in sight. It crept like frost through even the most iron structures of their society, the bite of corruption and desperation corroding from within, unrelenting attacks from without. A conflict that Brax had seen steal the best of their generation, silently and suddenly, into the night.

Alright, that decided it. Melatonin with their tea it was. Brax reminded themself not to make this a habit as they tapped two pills into their palm before they carried a steaming mug back to their bedside.

A fair and direct fight was more their speed.

Well, technically their speed was to avoid fights if at all possible but the past few years with the Legion had taught Brax that the thin line between caution and cowardice was easily crossed - regardless of intent.

They were not so foolish to hope to keep their innocence but they intended to keep their worldview intact, despite how determined the world seemed to shatter their views. They would not allow their intelligence to be broken into shards of cynicism and brutal practicality.

But in such a war as this, intelligence was never undervalued and Brax’s reputation for swift, sure judgement had left their opinion heavily in demand. They had heard the call and gone from analyzing political conflict behind a desk to the field with surprising ease, mirrored in their meteoric ascent through the ranks.

Though they often wished for their cramped desk and stale coffee, they knew they were needed here and could not now resent being so pressed for their help.

Which is why they didn’t have much of a right to be surprised when a knock, heavy and booming, rapped against the door of their quarters.

Brax allowed themself a regretful blink at their unswallowed pills and undrunk tea before setting them down delicately, not at all with a disgruntled thud, before striding to the door.

Cobi had the decency to look a little rueful when faced with his commanding officer, haggard and bleary, clad in only a robe.

“This had better be damn important, Lt. Pfeffer,” Brax attempts to be wry but the strain in their voice rather diminishes the humor. “My Darjeeling has melatonin in it.”

“Yeah, uh, yes, Captain. Ok, uh…”

Cobi hesitated, chewed his lip as his mighty hands flexed, clenched white-knuckled, and suddenly Brax knew that shit was about to go down.

“Captain, someone...an Athens agent crossed the border. Like, just fuckin’ walked right into an outpost and, uh, gave themself up. This morning. So, uh. Yeah. Guessing that’s important, Captain.”

Well.

It seemed that report was going to have to wait.

The government car felt too small and too hot as it rocketed through the thick, buggy dark and Brax once again resisted the urge to adjust their shirt collar.

Putting the heat, and the thought that they really should have changed their undershirt, to the side, they glanced at the car’s digital clock.

02:45

They didn’t think the driver would notice if they fixed their appearance but Brax preferred not to bring undue attention to the sloppy adjustment of their hastily donned uniform. Repressing a sigh, Brax scrolled through their data-pad, sweaty fingers slipping on the screen as they skimmed through the electronic sit-rep.

At approx. 22:10, a New Athens covert agent approached a Wasteland outpost.

The agent was bound and searched. The agent was unarmed and scans revealed no explosive devices or any other weapons. The uniform was confiscated to search for bugs. Upon interrogation, the agent would only state name, serial number, and desire to speak to someone in the command structure. The agent has been restrained securely to prevent possible suicide.

Stated name: Morja (Serial #:13308)

Approx. 5’, 5-6”

Approx. late 20’s to early 30’s

Brown skin (possible Raetean descent - known to be typical for covert agents)

Health Status: no diseases, no medical conditions known

No current, major injuries noted.

Once again, Brax’s eyes drifted inexorably towards the clock’s bright glare.

02:47

Shit.

Time crept like the dark fields beyond the tinted window, too slow and yet too quick, as Brax struggled to grasp their prided equilibrium. Yet they felt like it was slipping from their grip like the datapad through sweaty hands.

The security bureau likely felt they were already lagging too far behind this development. This interview ought to have happened hours ago. Brax needed more time, more information, to interrogate this agent. They needed to know if this agent had previous contact with Tyrus forces.

They need more time.

The truth was that, despite the considerable efforts of Tyrus' intelligence agents, they had very little notion of how covert assassins were trained on the other side. Even the recruitment process was shrouded in mystery and misinformation, but many analysts suspected that service was..less than voluntary. They knew that impressment targeted Raetean refugees, third-class citizens, and often poor prisoners, all conscripted with grand offers of security - or, as Brax recalled with a gag from a propaganda newsclip, “the service of the lesser so the great will prosper”.

These agents started young and desperate, understandably - easy to break into desirable moulds. New Athenian agents fought with fervent loyalty on par with religious devotion, with most Tyrus citizens considering these agents devout to their nation like cultists to their faith.

Brax did not entirely buy that.

Being trained (likely brutally) and indoctrinated with nationalist gratitude since youth, plucked from a miserable existence. Especially where the third-tier citizens and refugees often died of untreated illness, ration shortage, and climate poisoning.

Choice was all well and good to praise when one has never had...no choice.

There was also the fact that treason, dissension, any sort of breaking ranks - all punished with a proud severity typical to an authoritarian state. Add these all together and a nation gets a loyal stock of “servants”, bound for life to die for a state which did not seem to care how many they lost as long as they achieved their goals: the prosperity of the great.

They need to focus on the details at hand.

They need beads of sweat to stop rolling off the dome of their head, trickling to the wire-rimmed lens and clinging to the glasses, refusing to fall.

Ignore it.

One thing was quite certain - Brax had no idea what to expect.

The atmosphere in the outpost bunker buzzed with anticipation, goosebumps rising along Brax’s arms even in the sweltering air, as they stepped down into the building. Two fresh-faced lieutenants stood at restless attention and once Brax stepped into the room the fidgeting figures snapped out their salutes, hand to forehead, with a nervous, jerky speed.

A reedy blonde, the sergeant in charge, seemed to barely keep herself from crossing her arms across her body, hands making abortive gestures towards her torso as she briefed Brax on the situation. She was sweating dark stains through her uniform and her mouth ticked sporadically, twisting into a small, hard shape.

Brax knew all the information given but they allowed her the extra minute to grit the story through her teeth. She clearly needed this.

Nodding sharply at her conclusion, Brax inquired and was led to where the agent was being held, a small soundproof room with a heavy steel door.

“Under no circumstances am I to be interrupted - is that clear?”

Satisfied by the brisk nods of their wide-eyed subordinates, Brax gripped the cell’s door handle harder than necessary as they input the code with slow, steady presses of a slippery finger. Taking a moment to cycle through all known factors in their head, they allowed their shoulders to drop and slipped on the politely inquisitive neutrality of their game-face.

As they stepped, resolutely, over the threshold of the cell, their eyes adjusted to the dark room and they finally laid eyes on the agent in question.

A stocky figure, likely short in stature, thickly muscled limbs, dressed in a Tyrus Legion issue slacks and teeshirt. Even in the low light, Brax could see the agent was dark in complexion, with the brown skin and black hair typical of Raetean citizens.

“Likely” short, Brax noted, since no real gauge could be made of the figure’s height since said figure was on their knees, shackled.

Their ankles and shins had been tightly bound together, leaving the figure to balance in an uneven kneel, straining the broad shoulders where their arms had been drawn back and up to the wall, where their clenched hands were bound in thick, steel cuffs.

Shit. That was just wonderful, wasn’t it? They knew the agent would surely be cuffed - they had been handed keys after all - but nobody had mentioned...stress positions.

Just as well. Brax’s opinion on the outpost’s flirtation with torture was well-known amongst superiors and subordinates alike. They didn’t need their blood up. Ir would have been nice if these soldiers hadn’t played fast and loose with protocol. But the reprimand can wait, Brax sternly reminded themself. Focus on the task at hand.

As the door swung heavily shut behind Brax, the figure raised their head slowly.

A dim glow from the one dangling bulb threw shifting shadows onto a rugged face - thinly bearded, a wide brow, chin and nose, the broad bridge crooked from an old break. Their mouth was pressed into a thin, hard line. Their thick, jet-black hair gleamed with perspiration, the sweat-drenched locks watermarking the pale green of their shirt-shoulders.

The low light accented thick scars ridging the bronze flesh: a wide mark swooping over his nose, slashing through a thick right brow, curving below the left cheekbone, and a jagged mark splitting the tender skin below one of their dark, deep-set eyes.

Those eyes glinted for a moment, alighting on Brax’s face before flicking away, settling blankly somewhere around the fourth button of Brax’s uniform.

No further movement, not even a change in breathing, from the agent. No flicker of expression disturbed the blankness of their face. Only steady blinking and a cadenced swell of the broad chest indicated that they were even alive.

Well, they were a stoic one, that was certain.

If they were as smart as they must be, they were either suppressing terror at their predicament (likely) or smug certainty in some nefarious ploy (plausible but less certain).

Brax let the air simmer for a few more moments before striding with purpose towards the figure, ready to undo their bonds. At their first certain step, every line in the agent’s body tautened, rigid as a sail in the wind, as their rhythmic breaths quickened - shallowly, shortly out, deeply, swiftly in.

So - the former.

Reassured by a confirmation of their assessment, though less pleased to be a source of distress, Brax made quick work of the restraints.

They stepped back, giving the agent a moment to straighten up and rub their wrists. The figure’s gaze flicked to Brax’s face, brow nearly creasing into a furrow before smoothing once more. They allowed their arms to fall and settle stiffly on their lap, settling on their knees and settling their gaze once more upon Brax’s waist.

Alright then - no aggression, no combative expression, nothing but complete submission so far.

Good cop it is then - good.

Sinking to one knee, Brax tried to seek out the agent’s eyes but that dark gaze remained lowered, so Brax focused on keeping their voice low and soft.

“Hello, Morja, my name is Captain Abraxas Hutchins. I was told you wanted to talk to someone higher in the ranks, so, you got me. Can you tell me what it is you want?”

An intake of breath, sharp and sudden.

Brax would almost call it a gasp and their close observance caught the figure’s eyes flickering with something like shock. If the agent was bewildered or shocked, however, they recovered swiftly, their soft burr revealing no more emotion than their stony face.

“Anóteros, I came to...offer my service to Tyrus.”

....Well. Alright. Well.

Brax allowed themself a blink. Taking a moment to process this statement.

“Are you...are you telling me that you’re surrendering?”

“...Yes, anóteros.”

The agent opened their mouth, paused, spoke once their gaze flickered over Brax’s nod of encouragement.

“I am… deserting New Athens. I… offer my service to this nation. I will offer information. I will fight. I will….do whatever you want.”

The way that the agent spoke, measuring each word as some fragile and heavy thing, sat uneasily with Brax. So did being called “master” or “superior” or whatever that word meant.

As the agent’s palms stiffened, flexing upon their thighs, their close proximity allowing Brax to note the copious scars and burns (some little and disturbingly round) littered upon those wide hands. Brax kept noting that too, the broadness of the figure before them and how often they forgot the size in light of the demeanor. Their shoulders did not hunch, their head did not hang low, but they projected absolute submission.

I am not a threat. I am small and harmless. You do not need to hurt me.

Brax did not need psych-profile terminology at the moment. They could almost hear Sarai’s murmurous meandering on abuse survivors and body language, atypical trauma symptoms, and all the things Brax knew too much about for a lifetime. This agent’s possible history with abuse was an issue for the aforementioned team medic and therapist to ponder if she wished.

Brax was here to assess potential threats.

They were not at all influenced by how the shift of movement drew their eyes to the cruel grooves in the agent’s wrists, deep and ugly crimson, the clear marks of viciously fastened zip-ties.

Not in the least.

Skin on the left wrist had broken and blood sluggishly trickled from the cruel, red circle.

“Do your wrists hurt?”

The agent’s eyes snapped up, fixing Brax with another brief flicker of astonishment. It lasted a mere moment before the agent lowered their gaze. They shifted, their lips parted, shut, parted again.

“Don’t lie - are you in any pain?”

The agent visibly twitched this time, nodding quickly.

Brax would not be accused of being soft by most people. Secretive, observant, strict - usual adjectives whispered regarding the taciturn leader. But for all Brax had purposefully cultivated their reputation of principled sternness, they hoped to be accused of compassion just as often.

What was the use of incisive insight, being able to read people fairly, assess their intentions accurately, and deal with them rightfully if they could not extend it to someone right in front of them?

Well, they would rather be damned for humanity anyhow.

Rising from their haunches, Brax strode to the door and rapped sharply, demanding a first-aid kit from the blinking officer. After some fumbling in cabinets beneath the open stares from frozen compatriots, the officer handed over the item.

Brax traded their crouch for a kneel, mirroring the pose of the rigid agent while they fished some analgesic ointment out of the kit.

“Hold out your hands for me?”

The figure obeyed without a moment of hesitation, palms spread and forearms balanced in tandem.

Brax hummed in approval, cleaning their own hands with alcohol before hovering a fresh wipe over the maimed flesh.

“This is going to sting but the ointment will help with that in a minute.”

The agent did not so much as wince, palms perfectly still as Brax swiped at the gashes as swiftly as they could. Despite the lack of reaction, the agent’s wrists likely felt aflame at the disinfectant.

“So, stop me if I’m wrong. As I understand it, you’re…”

Brax balanced two words on their tongue. Defecting? The alcohol swab snagged a pucker of scar. Round. Diverted. Still pink, a few years old.

“...fleeing. And you want to cooperate, work with us willingly, yes?”

A nod.

“Have any of your anótero ordered you to surrender yourself?”

The agent twitched but their mouth pulled down in another flash of bewilderment.

“No, sir,...New Athens does not infiltrate. I am...committing treason by being here. Even...even by speaking to you, anoóteros, I would be...executed.”

Dry tracks of crimson had eked down the agent’s forearms from their downward angle.

“Then why are you here? What do you want?”

Peeling the wrapper off another wipe, Brax began cleaning those trails, smothering a frown as the stale air thickened with the sharp, metal scent of blood and alcohol.

“I...believe that there is a better way. For my people. A better way that those at the head will not see, will never see. It is not…their way. The only way to save...to have this better way is to end the conflict. To dismantle central operations in New Athens until there is no choice but to change things.”

“So you want to use y-their own tactics against them?”

“They are effective, anóteros.”

A fair point.

“And…”

Brax hummed in question and after a strained beat of silence, the agent continued.

“In e-exchange...for an active policy of recruitment of Athenian agents, taken in alive.”

Well.

“You, you think other agents will defect.”

“...I do.”

Well.

“I see.”

Brax focuses their attention on a crusted clump of blood at the agent’s pulse point, dabbing wetly and turning the information over, the blunt shock of the agent’s words tumbling through their mind. The heat pressed against Brax’s skin, thickened like a cap against their skull, they needed to think.

They need to let their instincts guide them.

“So those are your, uh, conditions for cooperating with us?”

“And I will not execute civilian targets - on either side.”

For the first time, steel edged the tone, the words all weight and no hesitation.

Brax had no counter to this so they merely hummed.

Crumpling bloodied wipes into the kit, Brax dolloped ointment onto their fingertips and began rubbing it into the cuts, grateful for the waft of peppermint which broke up the morbid odor and finally fully gazing up at their patient.

The agent regarded Brax openly, eyes glinting with a bright mixture of caution, bewilderment, and something very much like awe. That look pinned Brax. It seemed that those eyes were shocked into aching vulnerability from an act of simple kindness and it made Brax...unsettled.

“Better?”

“...Y-yes, anóteros.”

“Ah. You don’t need to call me that.”

That little furrow deepened between the agent’s brows.

“Anoóteros. If it makes you more comfortable, I don’t object to it. But I’m not requiring you to call me ‘superior’, ok?”

Now the corners of the agent’s mouth creased downwards as their lips parted, pressed together, and their sharp nod followed suit.

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me Captain. Sir’s a bit, ah, inaccurate anyway.”

Brax quirked their lips softly, trying to assuage any potential tension at the correction. They did this with any new subordinate, awkwardly hovering between honorifics in the face of Brax’s...ambiguity. It usually worked well - usually. The agent, however, had ceased to breathe and their fingers stiffened within Brax’s hold.

“I...apologize, s--, Captain.”

“No need.”

Brax dabbed ointment generously into a welt, a rare unbroken patch of wrist-skin rubbed to blister, as they elaborated in the same low, steady tone.

“I have to inform almost everyone that I am genderfluid, since I present as pretty masculine. I go by ‘they’. Being referred to as ‘he’ is fine, it only bothers me if those are the only pronouns someone calls me.”

Satisfied that infection had been successfully belayed, Brax wiped the ointment off their hands and began

tilting their head as they scrutinized the agent’s flat demeanor for cracks, shadows, flickers - searching for any hint of what was going on in their head.

“What about you?”

There was the bewilderment again, the agent pausing, likely weighing their response, stiffening as they finally spoke, somehow quieter and more measured than before.

“...I apologize, Captain. I...I...don’t understand.”

“I’m asking what pronouns you prefer for yourself.”

The agent’s chest rose, fell, rose and fell quicker as their proffered arms quivered, the creases flattened and deepening across their face in a waning struggle for neutrality. The body warred with itself before Brax’s eyes, some invisible cord of tension winding tighter as the agent seemed to scramble for an answer.

Brax quickly thought of the agent’s name as they tried to belay any possible swell of panic by offering up solid bases - affirmation, instruction, guidance.

“Hey, Morja? It’s alright. There is no wrong answer here - just tell me your gender identity, alright.”

“...Yes, Captain. I...am a man.”

“Alright. So you prefer ‘he/him’?”

A quick nod.

“Alright.”

Plucking a bundle of gauze from the kit, Brax ignored the weight of the agent’s gaze on them as they unwound strips of material.

They had watched Morja. Now it was his turn to watch them.

“I understand that agents on your side are trained to be perfect. Perfectly obedient. Perfect killers. I’m sure you understand why I can’t be certain of what you say.”

Only once they began binding Morja’s wrists did they glance up from the softly trembling hands and catch those dark eyes head-on. They were sharp, affixed to Brax’s throat like lodestones, as his brow crinkled in thought. As Brax began tucking the edges of the bandages into the bindings, Morja spoke.

“Tyrus has been searching for a hidden data farm in New Athenian territory. It shows grids of border weaknesses here and to the West and it’s a high-value storage. It is low-security to disguise its importance. I can offer its location and optimal invasion strategy, Captain. I can offer this as proof.”

As Brax stood, gazing down at the agent, their senses were attuned to the utter submission of Morja’s posture, how his eyes were bright with caution, and though his hands still bore the faintest tremor, there was not a hint of deception.

Either he was telling the truth or Brax had never met a better liar.

“Alright. You can lower your arms, Morja.”

The man obeyed and the faint light showed his flat mask slip a fraction.

Brax barely had time to blink before Morja folded at the waist. Spreading his open palms flat, shuffling forward to press his head upon the ground. With his broad back bowed, his dark head brushing Brax’s boots, gauze-swathed hands unfurled as though in prayer, Morja was the perfect picture of supplication.

“Thank you...for your mercy, a-- Captain. Thank you.”

Well...alright.

Brax can process this: rituals of deference, kneeling, no eye contact.

Superior.

Still, a groveling enemy was not their idea of a good Saturday morning.

A wounded, terrified person at Brax’s feet, throwing away all he’d ever known for a change in heart.

A man who Brax had bandaged, thanking them for the mercy.

“That’s, uh, alright. You’re alright. You can get up.”

Without looking to see how he responded, Brax strode to the door of the cell, rapping to be let out. When the blonde sergeant swung the door wide, her gaze slid balefully to the shadows behind Brax, eyes like icy chips in her clammy face. Her mouth was a small knot of fury.

And just like that, Brax made their decision.

“I need a pair of cuffs and the car. He’s coming back to Base Forthill with me.”

Brax swung back to Morja, catching his dark head snap up suddenly, the neon light glinting at the whites of his widened eyes and limning his parted lips in the most blatant show of emotion Brax had yet seen.

Shadows of shock, relief, fear all flitted, swift and pale as moths across Morja’s face before fading away, leaving only the level mask settled staunchly in place.

Brax really hoped they wouldn’t regret this.

And yet, somehow, they didn’t think they would.

i crave validation so tell me what you thought!!!

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octerminal · 3 years

Text

I’ve talked before about how Nadia being Earthborn is the central reason she’s renegade leaning, but I really want to get into it again because I’ve been listening to Hadestown a lot recently and that always makes me think of Nadia because the musical touches on how traumatizing poverty is. And also just because, well, I always want to talk about Nadia.

But before I can do that, I have to talk about a few other things first.

(This is going to be niche and also super self-indulgent, but it’s my blog, so who cares. Note that because of what both Hadestown and the Earthborn background entail, this is going to get slightly political. But again, it’s my blog, so who cares.)

Generally speaking, Mass Effect has an issue with downplaying trauma. Ashley, Tali, Garrus, and James all go through the traumatic experience of being sole (or almost sole) survivors. Tali goes through this twice, because the comics show that before she even met Shepard she lost the team she’d been traveling with. (And that’s not even counting the fact she also loses a chunk of her team on Freedom’s Progress. They use this trope with her a lot.) Liara loses her mother in the first game and she has almost no reaction. Shepard dies in the beginning of the second game and spends the rest joking about it, with very few opportunities to express anything but humor over the situation.

People respond to trauma differently, and the game is also told primarily from Shepard’s point of view, so consequently we only see what Shepard sees. All of these characters likely grieved in private, and they definitely do carry scars (literal and figurative) from what they’ve gone through. But I also think that Mass Effect likes making characters go through objectively traumatic things without fully considering how someone might act coming out of it. In fairness, that’s the fun of fanfic, and I also do think everyone on the Normandy has some degree of experience in compartmentalizing because they simply don’t have the time to sit down with their feelings. (A lot of them are also just averse to doing this.)

But exploring that trauma is what I’m interested in the most, and that’s how I approached Nadia. Earthborn is my favorite background for that reason. It’s not a single event that’s shaped their life thereafter, but a sustained stressful environment they endure for years and only escape once they sign up with the Alliance. And in that regard, Nadia rather sees it as trading one cage for another, but that’s neither here nor there.

Like, to go back to Hadestown (I swear I’m not going to write Hadestown meta on this blog), “When the Chips are Down” is one of my favorite numbers because it so accurately describes Nadia’s response to poverty. “How can you expect me to care about another person and put their wellbeing above my own, when doing that will result in my own death? How can you expect me to trust another person, when that could result in my own death? How are you going to lecture me on having no morals when if I had prioritized morality, I never would have survived?” (This is something I love bouncing off Kaidan, but I’ll get to that later.)

In other words, and this is an incredibly obvious thing to say, poverty is traumatizing and violent. It is an incredibly violent thing to put another human being through, to make them worry for their basic safety, to live their day to day in a constant limbo of uncertainty that permeates every facet of their life. Will you be able to eat today? Will you be able to sleep in a safe environment? Can you trust this person you’ve never met? Will trusting them endanger what little safety you’ve managed to achieve? How much money do you have? How long can you make that money last? Where will you be tomorrow? How about the day after?

This is something that leaves its mark on anyone it touches. It’s hard enough for an adult to plan for the future when they don’t have the luxury of knowing how they’ll even survive the week; when you’re a child, and that sort of stress is all that you’ve known, how do you even imagine a better life when you’ve known nothing different?

Before I get any further, I want to pause for a moment. Something that’s always been curious to me are the codex entries for Earth. Here’s a portion of ME1′s codex:

Here’s a portion of ME3′s codex:

(Written transcripts of the complete codex entries at the links.)

In both of them, they talk about how humanity is in a new golden age. A lot of pollution and common diseases have been eliminated. The colonies have brought in more resources. There's even been some correction to the damage early climate change caused. Then the Fire Nation—I mean, Reapers, attacked and ruined all of this. Except, take a closer look at ME1′s codex:

“While every human enjoys longer and better life than ever, the gap between rich and poor widens daily. [...] Less fortunate regions have not progressed beyond 20th century technology, and are often smog-choked, overpopulated slums.”

This seems incompatible with the idea of Earth being in a golden age. How can Earth be thriving if the class disparity is growing, not narrowing? How can Earth be thriving if entire swaths are still "smog-choked” and using centuries old outdated technology?

It’s not incompatible if the idea is that Earth has entered a golden age only for the ones who can afford it. And this is the reality Earthborn Shepards were raised in: the idea that their suffering is an unimportant, insignificant underbelly to an otherwise “prospering” homeworld.

So, resuming with that in mind: the way Nadia sees it is that to allow poverty to exist is an inherent societal failure that reflects on the government. This is why Nadia has no loyalty to the Alliance, and why she doesn’t trust them. This is why she subsequently has no loyalty to the Council, and why she doesn’t trust them, either. It doesn’t matter that the Alliance and the Council weren’t personally responsible for her childhood, because they’re still governments. She knows that governments will lie and exploit and allow for people like her to fall through the cracks if it will benefit them. She knows they will broadcast only the best of what they have to offer while conveniently pretending people like her don’t exist.

Like, personal politics aside, as shown above with the codex entries, this is just...canon. And Thane’s loyalty highlights poverty on the Citadel through Mouse and the concept of “duct rats,” so we know that it exists there, too. How the Council presumably feels about poverty on their station is outlined if you speak to Avina on the Citadel in the second game:

AVINA: Asari futurists believe poverty cannot be eliminated without “cornucopia” technology, which will create anything the user desires. Such technology is unknown outside science fiction.

Essentially: yeah, unfortunately, poverty exists on the station, but what can you do? Believing poverty is avoidable is actually utopian and therefore unrealistic, sorry!

But when you meet Anoleis on Noveria as Earthborn, he can literally tell you poverty doesn’t exist on Sur’Kesh. (And sure, he could be lying, and we have no proof either way. It doesn’t erase the fact that, at the very least, the existence of widespread poverty is something that even a corrupt and money embezzling salarian thinks is an easy jab.)

ANOLEIS: My homeworld is clean. Poverty is non-existent. If you take some perverse pride in that overheated, acid-washed slum, that is your business.

There’s nothing about the Alliance and poverty that I know of¹, which makes sense considering the main branch of the Alliance we see throughout the games is its military branch. There are still plenty of instances in the trilogy where the Alliance does exploit the vulnerable, or attempts to cover up their self-inflicted shortcomings. An obvious one is with Kaidan and Conatix; Kaidan literally tells you the Alliance is the one who “made mistakes.” That in their haste, they allowed a man to brutalize children for the sake of research. And when it backfired, they sealed the documents and pretended it never happened.

UNC: The Negotiation is one of my favorite ME1 missions for this reason, too—it highlights a part of the Alliance the series doesn’t really focus on otherwise. Darius tells you that the entire reason he’s operating in the region at all is because the Alliance is the one who set him up there.

DARIUS: You see this gun? This is your gun. Your military set me up here, and now it wants to pretend it doesn’t know me! But I know the truth. The Alliance needed me here! So treat me with the respect I deserve!

SHEPARD: You said we set you up. Did the Alliance give you weapons?

DARIUS: After the batarians were driven out of the Verge, the Alliance wanted to stabilize the region. I had the strongest syndicate in the area. They gave me the weapons and money I needed to take over.

After the mission, Hackett implies the entire reason he sent renegade Shepard to cover a diplomatic negotiation is because he expected and wanted them to kill Darius, because he was now more trouble than he was worth.

HACKETT: I’m sorry that you were unable to negotiate with Darius peacefully. His death is regrettable. Nevertheless, the resulting chaos will create a power vacuum that makes future raids upon our miners unlikely.

SHEPARD: You didn’t think I’d negotiate with him. You wanted me to kill him.

HACKETT: Sometimes extreme measures must be taken to ensure humanity’s safety. Or did you think you were the only one willing to break the rules to get the job done?

(Link, so you can watch the mission yourself.)

None of this is me saying the Council and the Alliance have no redeemable features whatsoever, or that they have never contributed positively to galactic wellbeing. It’s just me citing instances in canon that support why Nadia has the opinion she does of them, and why she’s not exactly incorrect in having them.

So, to loop this back around to Kaidan? As I said, he’s not a stranger to government-level negligence. But Kaidan had a much different reaction than Nadia did, and this is something that absolutely fascinates her once she finds out.

Before that, though: the two of them don’t really hit it off in the beginning—though they’re both still professional—and this is mainly due to Nadia being, well, Nadia. She is not a people person and she never tries to be, which consequently makes her off-putting to most people. On her end, she’s generally unimpressed and uninterested in the people around her. She sees a lot of them as puzzles to be solved and then to move on from, or threats to assess.² The rare times someone does pique her interest enough to act on it, she still prefers to not linger around for long. So, you know, just general unhealthy behavior.

So, Eden Prime is illuminating for them both. Like, on Kaidan’s end: Nadia comes off as callous. She doesn’t care about the colonists, she doesn’t care about Jenkins’ death. On Nadia’s end: Kaidan comes off as naive. How has he been a marine for this long and she has to tell him to suck it up after someone dies? (This is one of the reasons why she didn’t want to work with regular marines again; in my canon, Anderson had to needle her³ into accepting the Normandy position.)

But the truth of it is that the reason Nadia comes off as callous is because she’s thoroughly desensitized. Like, when you grow up poor, on the streets, and in a gang? You’re both witnessing and being put through a lot of traumatizing situations. Akuze, of course, only adds onto this. There’s this one dialogue option in the beginning of the second game when Miranda and Jacob are assessing Shepard’s memory, and while Nadia doesn’t take this option in canon, it is how she feels:

JACOB: You enlisted, and you survived a thresher maw attack that wiped out the rest of your team. Do you remember that?

SHEPARD: Yeah, I remember it. Everyone screaming, gunfire, blood everywhere. I was the only one focused on survival.

Paragon Shepard focuses entirely on the other marines: how they were their friends, how something like that can destroy you if you let it.

Renegade Shepard barely thinks of anyone else at all. There were fifty other marines on Akuze, and renegade Shepard thinks they survived simply because they were the only one focused on it. For Nadia, that’s because that’s what her entire life has already been until that point.

Look, there are a lot of different ways to play renegade; it runs a much larger gamut than paragon, in my opinion. Nadia is more of a neutral renegade. She’s not particularly bigoted, just dispassionate and apathetic⁴. She resorts to violence and intimidation because it’s the easiest way to control her surroundings, not because she thinks what she’s doing is particularly righteous⁵. This can get brought up in Samara’s loyalty when talking with Morinth:

MORINTH: Violence is the surest expression of power.

SHEPARD: Violence is a means to an end. Power is that end.

Like, Nadia is a person who’s had to live a life surrounded by violence, not because it’s what she initially chose, but because it was repeatedly inflicted on her. She didn’t have the luxury of nursing her compassion and generosity, or of prioritizing morality. Those things would’ve gotten her killed. What she focused on instead was survival: the best way to survive, the easiest way to survive, the way that consistently ensured her own safety. This meant violence, and in order to survive, she became very good at inflicting violence.

That’s what I meant when I said Nadia thinks she traded one cage for another: the Alliance wasn’t freedom in the truest sense; she’s still doing what she ultimately would’ve done if she had remained with the Reds⁶. She’s just doing it with government approval and a steadier paycheck. She knows she’s still being used, and it’s only who’s using her that’s changed. All that’s to say, she isn’t an N7 ranked infiltrator because she feels strongly about protecting Alliance space and dirtying her hands to do it. She’s an N7 ranked infiltrator because it’s simply what she’s good at.

One of my favorite renegade lines in the entire trilogy is during Thane’s loyalty because it perfectly highlights Nadia’s philosophy on her situation:

SHEPARD: Your father and I have killed a lot of people. You haven’t. There’s no reason you should start.

To Nadia, her life is what it is because of the circumstances she was raised in and the decisions she made in response to that. She doesn’t deflect blame for the sort of person she’s become; she holds herself the correct amount of responsible.

She kills people for the Alliance, she kills people for the Council, she kills people for Cerberus. Other Shepards might dress it up differently when death is unavoidable: “it’s a shame, but it was necessary,” said along with the appropriate amount of guilt. Or: they were a terrorist, they were a mercenary, they forced my hand. To Nadia, it’s all death, and there’s no inherent difference between killing someone “to protect humanity” (read: protect the Alliance’s interests) or killing someone “to protect the galaxy” (read: protect the Council’s interests) and simply killing someone in a situation paragon Shepards would deem unnecessary. And to Nadia, if you haven’t had to live a life like this—why start? You still have other options. Use them.

One thing I love about Hadestown is how it discusses the simple accessibility of being able to live your life, let alone live it virtuously. Like whether or not I agree with that, it’s an interesting thing to explore, and it gets brought up multiple times:

“When you’re hungry and there ain’t enough to go round / ain’t no length to which a girl won’t go / [...] and sometimes you think / you would do anything / just to fill your belly full of food”

“See how the vipers and vultures surround you / and they’ll take you down, they’ll pick you clean / if you stick around such a desperate scene / see, people get mean when the chips are down”

“Aim for the heart / shoot to kill / if you don’t do it, then the other one will / [...] nobody’s righteous / nobody’s proud / nobody’s innocent / now that the chips are down”

“Go ahead and lay the blame / talk of virtue / talk of sin / wouldn’t you have done the same? / in her shoes / in her skin / you can have your principles when you’ve got a belly full”

“I did what I had to do / that’s what they did too”

“Some flowers bloom / where the green grass grows / our praise is not for them / but the ones who bloom in the bitter snow”

Again, I’m not going to meta about Hadestown⁷ and the precise context for these verses are different in that canon (for starters, Eurydice never kills anyone), but the concept is similar: when you’re poor, you’re often driven to desperate measures to survive. Sometimes that means stepping over other people, or otherwise ignoring how your actions will affect them. Often, this is to your own detriment. And it’s really, really easy to cast judgment on the poor people driven to these decisions when you were never in their position. It’s really easy to just live when you’re not in a situation where you had to worry about your survival on a day-by-day basis.

I bring up Hadestown because it’s a nice conduit to explain Nadia’s issues. She’s not renegade because she thinks she’s on a crusade and anyone who gets in her way is acceptable collateral damage. She’s renegade because her survival depended on it, and as Sha’ira points out, it’s what has allowed her continual survival:

“I see your skin, tough as the scales of any turian. Unyielding. A wall between you and everyone else. But it protects you, makes you strong. That strength is what kept you alive when everyone else around you was dying. You alone survived. You will continue to survive.”

For her to survive her childhood, she had to step over other people and put herself first. This meant not allowing herself to get close to other people, and to not care about them beyond what they can give her to ensure her own survival.

And this is why Kaidan interests her. Kaidan’s response to brain camp wasn’t to minimize the importance of his morality, it was to double down on it. (Yes, partially to his own detriment, but that’s a different post.) His response wasn’t to distrust others, because after all, one of his defining characteristics is his compassion. It’s just that Kaidan’s inclined to troubleshoot everything, even his interactions with other people. He might be “once burned, twice shy” but he’s not going to be “once burned, byedon’tfollowmeI’mgoingtorelyonlyonmyselfforever.”

Like, he still wants to help...

SHEPARD: So why are you telling me this? Are you saying I’m cutting corners somewhere?

KAIDAN: I’m saying...it’s probably inevitable that we’ll have to. And when that happens, I want to help you. When someone important to you is up on a ledge, you help them. Keep them from mistakes better made by a kid.

SHEPARD: I’m a big girl, Alenko. I don’t need your help.

KAIDAN: I didn’t say you needed it, I said I’m offering it.⁸

...even though his desire to help (because he cares, because he thinks it’s the right thing to do) is precisely what led to the culmination of his trauma.

KAIDAN: He hurt Rahna. Broke her arm. She reached for a glass of water instead of pulling it biotically. She just wanted a drink without getting a nosebleed, you know? Like an idiot, I stood up. Didn’t know what I was gonna do...just, something.

He figures out what went wrong and tries to avoid repeating that mistake. He doesn’t just stop trying at all. He doesn’t lose his faith in having faith.

It’s antithetical to how Nadia responded to her own circumstances, and she can’t quite process the logic behind...why you would be this way. It’s not that she expects everyone to be like her. She’s seen a lot of different people traumatized, and consequently a lot of different ways people have reacted to trauma. It’s more like: “fool me once” is enough for Nadia. There are no second chances after that. She sees no point in ruminating over why something went wrong. Just accept that it did. (Or don’t, but never think about it, anyway.) She thinks living any other way is akin to, I don’t know, laying down in a snake pit right after one just bit you. Stupid, in other words.

(I should also clarify: this is mainly when it concerns people. She will troubleshoot when it comes to things like tech.)

Like, I’ve joked about this to a friend, but when Nadia first reads Kaidan’s file⁹ her impression is: alright, boy scout. Then she actually meets him and she thinks her assessment was more or less spot on, and she loses whatever vestiges of interest his file did manage to leave despite its otherwise boy-scouty-ness.

But the thing is, Kaidan isn’t naive. He chooses to have the faith he has in the Alliance despite what they’ve put him through. He’s acutely aware that the Alliance is capable of mistakes, because he’s been on the receiving end of it—yet he still wants to help and feels that as a biotic, the Alliance is his best avenue to do that:

KAIDAN: I’m not looking for “the dream.” I just want to do some good. See what’s out here.

KAIDAN: Commander, I thought real hard about how to use my talents. When I swore the oath to defend the Alliance, it wasn’t on a whim.

Like, Nadia thinks Kaidan giving his loyalty to the Alliance is a stupid reaction, yes (in fairness, Nadia thinks loyalty to organizations in general is stupid), but it still fascinates her precisely because Kaidan has some semblance of an idea of what the Alliance’s negligence can and has caused, and yet he still continues to put his faith in them. Kaidan hasn’t had the easiest life¹⁰, but instead of closing himself off, his reaction was to give the Alliance a second chance, to still place his faith in others, all because he still wanted to do some good.

It’s not what Nadia has done, and she can’t say she understands it, but realizing that Kaidan isn’t the ignorant boy scout she pegged him as goes a long way when it comes to the development of their relationship. (For instance: it allows the relationship to develop at all, lmao.) And the development of their relationship is one of the early domino pieces in a long line of dominoes that sets Nadia down a much healthier path.¹¹

¹ We do know, however, that the Alliance does offer to pay college/university tuition in exchange for serving with them in some capacity, thanks to conversations with Traynor and Ashley.

² You know that one Iron Bull banter with Cole where he talks about how one of the first things he does when he meets a new person is to figure out the best way to kill them? Yeah, that’s Nadia.

³ This is because Anderson’s brain is huge, and he understood no one can forever live life the way Nadia was living hers unless they’re a death seeker.

⁴ One of the most in character renegade lines in the trilogy is, once again, during Thane’s loyalty (a big reason why it’s one of my favorites: it’s really, really good Nadia content) when you choose the first renegade check during the interrogation. Shepard sounds so bored, so matter-of-fact. That’s the kind of renegade Nadia is.

⁵ This is probably worse to some people compared to “hard” renegade, since at least “hard” renegade can genuinely believe in what they’re doing, even if others consider it evil. Fortunately, I don’t care.

⁶ I don’t really think she killed anyone during her time with the Reds. (Or, if she did, it was only one person and it would’ve been near the end of her time with them.) I think they primarily used her for cybercrime. She still would’ve witnessed and been expected to participate in a lot of beatings, etc. And, as previously said, had she stayed with the Reds I do think this would’ve ultimately progressed into her killing for them, too.

⁷ Though if you enjoy criticisms of capitalism, an exploration into the traumatizing effects of poverty, and an ultimately hopeful message that meaningful change is possible even when everyone is conditioned to believe it’s not, I recommend giving it a listen. It’s easy to follow along through audio alone, but you can find a low quality bootleg pretty easily, too. (Be warned that some of the songs will differ from the official album recording, though.)

⁸ If the remaster brings better lighting to Kaidan’s little hub area and doesn’t hideously whitewash him like in ME3, this is absolutely one of the first things I’m going to gif because it’s one of my favorite moments in the entire romance.

⁹ Nadia reads the files of everyone she’s going to work with, not because she’s particularly interested in them, but because she wants to know what level of incompetency to expect.

¹⁰ Unrelatedly: ask me about my headcanon about how disgustingly rich Kaidan’s family is, and how much Nadia wants to kill him when she finds this out.

¹¹ This is absolutely not saying love, romantic or otherwise, cures her lifetime worth of unpacked trauma.

#ch: nadia shepard #this post brought to you by: my very desperate need #not to look at the fic i've been trying to work on all month #this post also brought to you by: my obsession with nadia and hadestown overlapping #this post also-also brought to you by: my desire to simply talk about hadestown #and finally #this post also-also-also brought to you by:#my desire to regain the ability to string sentences together again #(see point 1)#i'm going to go farm balloons in acnh now

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jcmorgenstern · 5 years

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@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)

okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so I’ll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.

so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and it’s definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and it’ll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and you’ve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.

to be fair, I’d argue the romanticization of the police isn’t as aggressive as it could be—they are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (it’s been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized “good few” (and often or almost always white cis/het men), that’s on pretty shaky ground. I don’t have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so I’ll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.

I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violence—just play the Arkham games for more than an hour and you’ll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes “psychiatric treatment” and “nonviolence,” the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someone’s back or neck magically without killing them because you’re a “good guy.” while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they don’t always do a fantastic job living up to them.

and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisons—if anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like there’s just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)

not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batman’s ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and it’s always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jason’s “”street”” origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasn’t white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batman’s no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other rogues—is it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?

moreover, batman’s ““blind”” faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elided—the story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s the main focus. and again, I get it’s not nearly as cinematic).

overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what I’ve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as “just how life is” or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by “eliminating the dirty cops,” completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isn’t realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything it’s just all cinematized into the “good few” triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.

this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/”insanity” or “madness” is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:“madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.” yikes, if by ‘push’ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences, then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his “””insanity””” and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).

anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like I’d sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole “fuck batman” ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesn’t understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).

Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jason’s over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZ—seen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zucco’s hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so he’s returning the favor. he doesn’t have the focused “righteous” rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the system—framed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.

on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethos—on the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps it’s a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply don’t want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jason’s characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but I’d argue that’s literally just bc he’s a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writer’s room turns on him.

anyway i don’t really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasn’t dealt with dick’s heritage afaik). also, there’s something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I don’t really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other people’s takes!!

tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions

#wow this was a hot fucking mess #i tried to be organized but my thoughts weren't coming out super well #again anyone interested please feel free to jump in or correct me at any place you feel like #i die on the ''jason todd would be treated horribly by fandom if he were a character of color' hill tho #i could go on about 1x06 until im blue in the face but that's the uhh overview. the executive summary.#dc titans #i need meta tags and shit for this show #god help me in too deep #finding the meta side of fandom was a GIFT tho i love this shit #so excited

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thepapergirlandthespiegelman · 5 years

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I kind of hate Stella now.

I’m on Day 7 and I just experienced this conversation, which was...bleh. Is Stella just literally a corporate shill?

And I hate the way that everyone acts like Stella is not only winning the argument but somehow the more mature, appropriately behaving participant.

Gillian introduces the conversation like this: “Everything was okay until the girl mentioned Zaibatsu Corp offhand. After that, the guy got riled up and started badmouthing it. Oddly enough, he was the only one. She just carried on like it was a normal conversation.”

So from the start we’re presented with the idea that Art is probably overreacting to a minor comment and is arguing in an emotionally overwrought state, while Stella is able to stay calm and rational.

Art tends to use colorful language and express a lot of emotion, while Stella gives measured responses, focusing on facts and numbers.

When Stella brings up job creation, Art doesn’t know how to respond. He flounders and tries to distract from his lack of response by ordering a drink, to which Jill thinks to herself, “Let's make a Zen Star for the sore baby.”

Stella concludes by acknowledging Art’s point that most technological advances have only been made available to a few, as well as that they are only a part of the larger picture, but maintains that Zaibatsu Corp (ZC) should be given credit for their positive contributions. Jill says, “That’s a...pretty mature answer.”

Stella then wisely remarks, “Discussions are a way for two parties to understand each other. The only people afraid of discussion are the ones whose points are too fragile to defend against someone,” while Art, bitter at being bested, mutters, “Yeah, mature. Whatever.”

Except that this is entirely the wrong way to read this conversation.

Art is wrong to assume that Stella won’t understand based solely on the fact that she’s a rich kid, but Stella shows repeatedly throughout the conversation that she hasn’t actually expanded her perspective outside of her personal experience. Stella argues that ZC has improved life for AIs and helped to promote a move toward citizenship, but when Art counters that ZC has worsened life for AIs by imprisoning their consciousnesses in delivery drones, Stella basically shrugs, saying that the program works to reform rogue AIs. In other words, Stella doesn’t really care about AI wellbeing. When push comes to shove, she only cares about them to the extent that they affect her, and a brutal reformation program keeps her safe from rogue AIs. She knows that she’s not in danger of having her consciousness put in a delivery drone. The fact that she considers this treatment compatible with a move toward AI citizenship, moreover, is pretty appalling. I wouldn’t be surprised if she would go so far as to permit the same treatment toward a human being, because what protects her isn’t her humanness, it’s her wealth (or, in her eyes, her status as a “good person” or “law-abiding citizen”).

Stella superficially acknowledges Art’s points, but she never demonstrates that she actually understands them. Her concluding remarks are revealing: “You do bring up something I always fail to remember. All the benefits we've gained over time are limited to a few.”

For her, the fact that the positive impact of Zaibatsu is limited to a tiny group of individuals is basically a footnote. To word it a little more clearly, the fact that the impact of Zaibatsu is overwhelmingly negative for the vast majority of people is basically irrelevant to her because she doesn’t happen to be among that majority.

Stella speaks in a way that makes her sound reasonable, but it’s worth noting that reasonableness is not equivalent to correctness. Sometimes a radical response is the correct response.

And it is such a cruel misfortune that the people most hurt by unjust systems and corrupt authorities will then be mocked or ignored because they have the gall to get emotional about things that have a huge impact on their life: their livelihoods, their health, their freedom. Stella is the epitome of that middle-to-upper-class person for whom politics is just a matter of casual conversation. It’s easy for her to be measured and reasonable; she doesn’t have anything at stake.

One last point. I especially hate the part where Stella brings up job creation and “stumps” Art. People in leftist circles tend not to prioritize job creation. They generally feel that fair labor conditions, or environmental preservation, or whatever is more important. But not all of them have actually made the jump to saying that jobs (i.e. working to pay for the minimum necessities of life, i.e. capitalism) are not actually good at all. They’re less important than other things, sure, but still important and needed, right? What I suspect is going on here is that either Art has not admitted to himself or is not willing to admit to Stella that he has a problem with the nature of capitalism itself. And who can blame him? If most people see the world the way that Stella does, it’s probably not a super welcoming environment for budding socialists.

So for Jill to stand there and call him a sore baby for being unable to express the fact that he wants a basic quality of life for all sentient, sapient beings without them having to “earn” it is...kind of disgusting.

So. Boo Stella and boo Jill.

But props to Sukeban Games for creating a genuinely thought-provoking conversation. I think that it really illustrates a lot of the communication breakdown that we’re seeing between the left and the right, as well as how those conversations can be perceived by moderates.

#video games #indie #simulation #visual novel #cyberpunk #VA-11 HALL-A #Valhalla #politics #economics #capitalism #class #criminal justice #healthcare #discussion #argument

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userseokkie · 5 years

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Daenerys only killed people who deserved it. Xaros stole her dragons and she was going to be held hostage for all eternity. She only crucified ppl who did the same to children to prove a point to the other slaves. And the Dothraki were going to take turns raping her and the Tarlys betrayed their leige.

Listen. i’m not gonna pretend that Daenerys killing people, be it her enemies or not, is the vilest thing that could ever happen because I’m not kidding myself. This is war, and death is a part of war. Everyone in the show has done heinous things at one point or another and I don’t hold them to a different standard than her. War means doing stuff that you’re less than comfortable with, and killing is part of that.

But your argument seems to very conveniently forget other examples of Daenerys killing people, and if you’re going to ignore canon, then I won’t. Canon can’t be something you choose and pick from in order to sustain your analysis because lmao as one wise woman said recently, the bravest thing we can do is look TRUTH in the face

Daenerys has ALWAYS been comfortable with murder. Since season 1, i believe she’s reacted distinctly to the death of other people, including but not exclusive to her enemies. And that has set a precedent. She gradually becomes comfortable with death as the means to an end. She didn’t burn alive A MILLION CIVILIANS in Kings lading last episode as an act out of the blue. This has been in the making for a long time, and you seem to list these killings because they’re the ones that make more sense in a war setting, but you KNOW damn well she’s killed more than that:

She burned Mirri maz duur alive in order to light the pyre that gave her the dragons. did the witch cross her? absolutely. still, she was murdered with needless cruelty in order to fulfill one of Daenerys’ goals after having been repeatedly raped and beaten by Daenerys’ husband

She locked up her servant Doreah in a vault and left her to die, much as Cersei left the Sand snakes and Ellaria to starve and rot chained in a dungeon. I’m not saying you give a pat on the back to the people who conspire against you, but she was the one who always talked about mercy for someone who is her personal slave. you don’t lock them up to have them eat each other and then rot to death

She crucifies the slave masters in Meereen as retaliation for the child slaves, but she literally doesn’t give a fuck who is responsible for that and why, which is evidenced when Hizdahr zo Loraq tells her his father opposed the slaves being brutalized like that, and asks to bury his father properly. I would argue this isn’t so much an act of cruelty from her part as much as it’s a demonstration of how performative her brand of justice is. Doesn’t matter who pays for injustice, so long as it is paid. She doesn’t have mercy for the innocent and the ones who could repent, she just wants to send a message of “don’t fuck with me”

She cuts the head off Mossador, a slave she freed and became part of the Meereen small council, when a Son of the Harpy is brought to them to stand trial. Mossador, rightly believing Dany is only pretending to have a trial, kills the accused because fuck me Daenerys had NOT once given a “fair trial” to any of the enemies who wronged her before. She litcherally murdered every single person in Meereen who had something to do with slave trade, the same as she did in Yunkai, the same as she did in Qarth. So Mossador kills the traitor, and what the fuck does she do? She CHAINS HIM, A FORMER SLAVE SHE HAD SAVED. the “breaker of chains” brings him in front of the public in chains and CUTS HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF. even after he begs for mercy. he killed a SON OF THE HARPY who was plotting to murder daenerys. he didn’t rape a child. he didn’t murder an innocent peasant. but fuck that right?

She burnt one of the noble leaders of the Meereen council alive after she couldn’t fucking control her dragons. This council that SHE set up was to have the Meereenese have a SAY on what’s going on in the city, because she came here to free the slaves and then stayed as queen, but as a foreginer she didn’t know the costumes, the culture or the identity of Meereen. She brings them down to the catacombs where Viserion and Rhaegal are locked up, and forces them forward until one of them is BURNED ALIVE and then brutally torn apart. That’s so fucked up considering afterwards she admits her mistake of refusing to open the fighting pits again despite advise from the council.

She burns down the fucking temple of Dosh Kaleen, with all the dothraki inside of it, INCLUDING women and children. How hypocritical to ally herself and care for the dothraki when they could serve her for her army, but when she’s captured by a Khal who promises no harm will come to her for being the widow of Khal Drogo, she demands to be taken back to Meereen. That doesn’t happen obviously, because that’s dothraki law, but when they take her to their temple, THE ONLY PERMANENT STRUCTURE the dothraki culture has, instead of using dialogue to convince them to join her, or even killing the Khals who oppose her but freeing the rest of the people the same way she used to do w slaves, she just fucking burns them all down. They NEVER did anything to her. She could’ve just fled out of there, but noooo she had to make sure all was fucking destroyed because they wouldn’t SERVE HER.

During the battle of the Goldroad, she takes prisoners of war, after the extermination of the Lannister and Tarly armies at hands of Drogon. And she tortures these prisoners of war to death. She gives them a choice to bend the knee to her or die. Remember, as much as you don’t like it these are the facts: The Lannisters have never been sworn to the Targaryens in something other than name, the targ dynasty was effectively ENDED by a Lannister. The Tarlys were sworn to the Tyrells, NOT the Targs. if the tyrells suddenly decide to switch allegiance bc it’s convenient for them, then that’s on them. They were always fucking weak, Olenna knew that. Randyll Tarly rightly refuses to trade his honor for his life, claiming he owes no loyalty to a Targaryen. FACT. Tyrion suggests she sends them to the Wall then, but the law states that she cannot bc she is not his queen. FACT. The battle was won by Dany, she had hold of Highgarden and did not need to kill the men because the territory was already hers. FACT. What does she do? instead of imprisoning them or even giving them a quick execution, SHE FUCKING BURNS THEM ALIVE. PRISONERS OF WAR. i don’t care what your fictional tastes are, i don’t give a FUCK who you stan in this show. Prisoners of war are ALWAYS held captive and given HUMANE treatment, OR they are executed in a QUICK manner. they ARE NOT BURNT ALIVE WITH DRAGON FIRE. that only happens during a battle, not afterwards. it’s like rounding up the survivors after an armed conflict and THEN nuking them. it does not deserve an explanation, it doesn’t get better with “context”. it just doesn’t go. she’s the “queen” SHE HAS THE CHOICE. and she chose fire and blood.

So yeah anon, “she only kills people who deserve it” is a factual lie. i call bullshit. i think you blindly justify whatever you don’t agree with about her because the thrill of having your fave riding dragons and being the only one with that much unchecked power gives you a rush. I think when you say she only kills people who deserve it, you’re trying to convince yourself a leader who has made themselves in this manner CAN be anything other than authoritarian, and that she won’t go crazy or that once she sits on the iron throne, she will rule with mercy as her highest principle. SHE WON’T. You can stan her all you want, but recognize the fact that she is not the kind hero she’s been telling you and herself that she is. A kingdom built on the fire of the dragon and the blood of her enemies is corrupt to the marrow, because unchecked power always leads to unchecked violence.

#got #got meta #anti dany stans #but coincidentally pro villain dark dany #got wank #got s8 #Anonymous

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

Text

The Death of the Reader

by Wardog

Tuesday, 14 August 2007

Wardog joins the Harry Potter free-for-all~

I shall begin, like every other Harry Potter article on Ferretbrain, by saying that Harry Potter 1-3 are above average children's books. They're well edited, tightly plotted, action-packed children's books with just enough depth and darkness to appeal to adults as well but their primary audience is definitely children. The world presented is a child's world in which school is the most important place in the universe and the Headmaster of a school is unquestioned in his role as one of its most politically powerful figures. Defeating evil is, essentially, equivalent or, in fact slightly less important, than winning the house cup. For the first three books, Draco Malfoy - socially powerful bully that he is - has a far greater impact on Harry's world than Voldemort.

From an adult's perspective, of course, this is all complete madness. Why does Voldemort, Dark Lord of the Sith...err..., why does he never go to war during the school holidays? And why does his plan for taking over the galaxy involve becoming Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Yes yes, I know, so he can recruit a juvenile army of dark wizards but seriously, aren't there grown up people he'd be better off corrupting? And if somebody told you that your son's Head of English had decided not to be Prime Minister and instead came to work at Scumville Comp, you'd laugh in their face. But the point is, these are children's books and they were marketed as children's books. They're even delightfully short. Books 4 onwards, however, are a very matter indeed.

It can be argued that this has been the point all along and that the power of the later books derives from the brutal overturning of the all sources of adult authority Harry previously thought he could trust - in essence, that the process of growing up must mirror a parallel process that amounts to the loss of innocence. Thus all the people Harry idolised are revealed to be flawed (Sirius, Dumbledore, James, Remus), the people in power turn out to be corrupt (Fudge, Umbridge etc.), places of sanctuary rapidly become places of restriction (Hogwarts, in Book V) and so on. Intelligent readers (aka my friend David) have occasionally tried to argue me out of my frustrations with the later books by claiming that much of my resentment springs from their failure to deliver what I was looking for i.e. a jolly romp with comically named characters and cool magical items.

But, ultimately, attempts to argue for darkness, depth and disillusionment in the Harry Potter universe always ring hollow to me because they never quite fit within the established terms of the books. If a text suddenly demands that you start questioning the assumptions of the world and the characters in it, then the text has to be strong enough to withstand such questioning. As Dan is fond of pointing out, this is one the weaknesses of Season Six Buffy; the show seems to forget, suddenly, that Buffy is a metaphor for growing up and instead asks the viewer to treat her like she's a real person with real concerns such as how she's going to pay the rent on her house. This is not only much less interesting than watching her kick vampire ass it just draws attention to trivia you might otherwise not have questioned, for example if the Watcher's Council has a fund for over the hill watchers, why doesn't it also have a fund so that the Chosen One can get on with saving the world instead of having to get a job in fast food.

In Harry Potter, by asking its readership to start questioning the world established in the first three books, JK again only draws attention to how actually stupid it is when you stop and think about it for a moment. If we're expected to cringe and shudder at Umbridge's methods, are we also meant to question what the hell Dumbledore was doing employing a complete incompetent to teach Divination and didn't the Board of Governors have anything to say about it? I know she made one prophecy once but the fact of the matter is that I can't imagine any of the Hogwarts teachers getting onto a PGCE course without difficulty. And if, in fact, we are meant to view Dumbledore's repeated failures as a headmaster as foreshadowing the fact that he was once a little bit tempted by the pleasures of world domination then it is only fair that we also question why the hell he got the job and wasn't there somebody on the interview panel who thought being a powerful wizard and being a decent headmaster were perhaps not similar skills. Again, Umbridge's "I will not tell lies detention" is genuinely terrifying but the fact she can get away with it leads one to wonder why previous detentions involved jolly romps in the hilarious named forbidden forest full of monsters with an irresponsible half-giant and was that, in fact, any more appropriate.

Perhaps it has as much to with the changing nature of the media, increasing communication between authors and fans, the immense power of the internet to foster fandoms and bring obsessive compulsives together, and Jk's forthcoming, teasing style of interacting with her (vast) public but I think she must be of the most talked to and talked about authors I have ever encountered. And, by encountered you understand, I mean read about on the internet. But it's not like people were chasing James Joyce down the street asking to know about the lanky galoot in the brown mackintosh at Paddy Dingam's funeral and was he, perhaps, Ron from the future. The endless alternate worlds of fandom aside, JK's communicativeness and her public's willingness to listen to her and ask her for her arbitration on matters of no consequence seems to have granted her an unheard of amount of authority in her position, not so much as author, but as creator and even as God.

JK has always encouraged fan speculation but speculation and interpretation are very different indeed. Speculation, like guessing the murderer in an Agatha Christi novel, is an intellectual exercise with a "right" and unquestionable answer. You can't turn round and say "no, Poiret got that wrong, it was actually this guy who did it." Similarly, you can't turn round and say RAB is Rupert Addlepate Bungstock, once the text has established RAB is Regalus A-whatever Black. Speculation can always be controlled and, like a particularly inflexible GM, JK has always carefully directed her audience towards the questions they should be asking of the text. Who is RAB? Why does Petunia flush? What's the deal with the Half-Blood Prince (and was a disappointing deal that was). But, ultimately, the succession of tantalising small mysteries are there to distract the reader's attention from other things they might be thinking about, specifically their own interpretations of the text.

To take an example at random, some time last August, JK and some other less rich, less famous people attended a charity event at Radio City Music Hall in New York. During the course of the evening, an audience member brought up a matter of trivial detail ("Aunt Petunia is said to be oddly flushed when Dumbledore announces that Harry will be returning only once more to Privet Drive") which JK praised as an excellent question. Later Salman Rushdie introduced himself and his family, explaining on behalf on his young son that they did not believe Dumbledore was truly dead, citing quite specific textual "evidence" from the 6th book: "Our theory is that Snape is in fact still a good guy from which it follows that Dumbledore can't really be dead, and that the death is a ruse..." Now, looking specifically at the events of the 6th book this seems at least plausible to me, especially if you decide that Snape's moral hokey-cokey will ultimately put him on the side of the good guys and we know, from book 4, that killing curses require a certain amount of conviction.

I don't actually subscribe to the theory but then I'm not a young child and I don't care if the irritating, sherbet-lemon sucking coot is dead. However, most of the "evidence" that Dumbledore is probably very definitely dead comes from knowledge and assumptions drawn from outside the text. I know, for example, that JK likes to think she's dark and, therefore, she's likely to make a point of death being final. I also know that, even though in these sorts of genres death isn't quite the handicap it used to be in the olden days, having an actual corpse is generally considered proof of lasting deaditude. And, finally, I know that JK is all about her seven book arc and that it is an important part of the hero's journey to lose the mentor figure. It's, like, the rules.

But, as it turns out, the clash of titans represented by Kyra Versus Random Kid, was irrelevant because JK's response was this: "But I see that I need to be a little more explicit... and say that Dumbledore is definitely dead." It's a slightly awkward example because whether Dumbledore is dead or not is very much something that can be true or false within JK's imagined world (it is, essentially, a fact) but until the its veracity has been thoroughly established by the text itself then it is certainly not JK's place to explain, justify and interpret her own books for her readership. I would even go so far as to say that, perhaps for a young child fond of Dumbledore, part of the experience of reading book seven is hoping for a miracle that will bring him back or hat his death was nothing but a clever ploy all along. That very personal experience of hope, resignation and, finally, a sense of loss akin to grief can teach someone far more about death than JK's constant over-written references to the cold, unfeeling stars looking down on the arbitrarily massacred secondary characters lying below them. In fact, one of my (many) frustrations with the final book is that being "definitely dead" didn't in any way prevent Dumbledore turning up an giving one of his interminable plot explanations. Talk about the worst of all possible worlds.

In the flurry of interviews (

this

is a good example) JK has given following the release of the seventh book she has repeatedly been called upon to explain, not only the events of the book but the actions of the characters within it. Does Neville end up with Luna, clamour the fans. Was Snape redeemed? No and yes, replies JK Rowling, saving everybody the trouble of actually having to think about it for a second. I'm not a rabid deconstructionist, I don't believe there is nothing outside the text but I certainly do believe that JK Rowling shouldn't be standing there on the text's doorstep, telling her readers precisely how to interpret and respond to it. In bald terms: it is the writer's job to write. It is the reader's task, and the reader's pleasure, to interpret what is written. If you can dig up enough textual evidence to support a Neville/Luna tendre then it has the potential to be there. Although why you'd want it to be eludes me.

Similarly, in the epilogue of the seventh book, Harry offers us Rowling's final evaluation of the characters of Snape and Dumbledore. Snape is the "bravest man" Harry ever knew and, despite having essentially raised him to be a sacrificial lamb, Dumbledore has been re-instated as a beloved mentor figure. This is not explicitly stated in the text but if Harry had really come to a mature understanding as Dumbledore as a flawed control freak capable of sending a seventeen year old boy to his death he wouldn't be naming his child after him. Readers usually think what protagonists think, it's the way it works, especially in books where there is relatively little deviation from the protagonist's point of view so Harry's attitude to both Snape and Dumbledore in the epilogue becomes a statement of authorial authority.

The rather-late-in-the-day revelation of Dumbledore's moral ambiguity is irritating in a book that should have been concentrating on the final climatic battle between good and evil and love and death. On the other hand if you take it to its logical conclusion, not, in fact, that Dumbledore raised a hero but that Dumbledore deliberately and callously created a martyr then it becomes rather interesting. Or it would be if the epilogue, and the book in general, allowed the reader any such space in which to manoeuvre. Dumbledore is not, actually, open to interpretation because Harry's love and admiration for him remain unchanged, as demonstrated by the fact he named his child Albus. And I don't think at that stage we're meant to be questioning Harry's psychological health.

Snape, also, suffers a fatal loss of complexity. Although the fact that Harry stiles him brave probably suggests he has not entirely forgotten how entirely horrid Snape was to him for seven books but, in JK's world view, being mean and petty and traitorous and selfish is less important than having been in love when you were sixteen. Changing sides because the bad guy suddenly threatens a girl you want to boink is significantly less morally sophisticated than changing sides because you suddenly realise you've joined the Nazis With Superpowers but, regardless, I could tolerate the Snape Loved Lily revelation because, as far as I was concerned, it didn't make Snape one jot more sympathetic. This isn't to say I don't like Snape (he and Gilderoy Lockhart are my two favourite characters) but I have always liked him because he is unattractive and unsympathetic and petty. The disaster at the end The Order of the Phoenix occurs not because Kreacher betrayed Sirius for treating him like shit but because Snape couldn't get over himself for five minutes to teach Harry occulemcy and because Snape always seemed so untrustworthy a spy that Harry dares not trust him to alert the Order when he blurts out his fears about Sirius. However, the idea that love can be selfish is not a possibility in JK Rowling's world and Snape's infatuation with Lily Potter redeems him so completely that even the boy he ruthlessly bullied for seven years is willing to immortalise him in the naming of his children.

JK herself admits that Snape is, basically, kind of horrible (not her words) but she insists that he is brave and, in her rather simplistic worldview, bravery - that irritating Gryffindor virtue - is an attribute so overwhelmingly laudable that it eclipses all others. It is depressing beyond belief that it essentially transforms Snape - the only remotely admirable Slytherin - into a Gryffindor-at-heart. Furthermore, although acting as a double agent for a half-mad, unpredictable mass murdering psychopath is quite brave, it strikes me as being rather less brave to do it because you've been manoeuvred into it for the price of saving someone you happen to fancy. On the other hand, acting as a double agent for a half-mad, unpredictable, mass murdering psychopath because you decide that your conscience can't countenance working for him any more is bloody brave. It's a very personal decision with only nebulous and general benefits, whereas doing it for an individualis directly related to your own desires.

The Harry Potter books are not written to be read in any sense that I would understand it. They're there to be passively received and carefully cross-checked against the author's (externally established) intent. It's like a hundred and fifty years of literary theory never happened. I'm unsurprised that JKR's next work is to be an encyclopaedia because it's obviously what she wanted to be writing all along. I'm not, by any means, saying she's deliberately being sinister and trying to oppress her readership but as the books have progressed there's been an increasing preoccupation in establishing a set of approved readings. An encyclopaedia, even of one relating to an imaginary world, is still a way of introducing sources of absolute truth into something that should be as fluid and incalculable as the differences between my imagination and yours. What astonishes and horrifies me is not that JK is trying to do it but that everyone keen for her to do so.

I think this is the major reason the epilogue of the seventh book offends me as much as it does. I mean, there are others, of course, most related to the fact it stinks. But by establishing her characters, precisely as she wants them, nineteen years on from the events of the book, JK pins them down in perpetuity. I would like to think that the characters went on to pursue lives not entirely and absolutely determined by what they did (and who they did) at school. Oh foolish me. Also it strikes me as particularly low thing to do for a writer who owes so much to her fandom. It's the equivalent of those girly posters on Sirius's wall (he was never even the slightest bit gay ever!); a rather petty attempt to establish enduring canon relationships exactly the way she wants them: Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione. And Scorpius and Albus-Severus. Obviously.Themes:

J.K. Rowling

Books

Young Adult / Children

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Wendy B

at 22:02 on 2007-08-15Excellent points. Bravo.

In my opinion, Jo wasted a tremendous opportunity. She should have written the 7th tale from both Harry and Snape's perspective. After six years of a Harry-filtered world, it would have been so illuminating if she had allowed Snape a real voice so we could understand what drove him, besides the fact that his boss offed his fantasy girlfriend. I believe Jo dislikes the character of Snape as she certainly begrudges fandom's interest in him. Instead she gives us a confusing answer to the question of whether Snape was good or evil. Answer: he was good, evil, AND in it for himself. If she hopped off her precious Harry filter and just let go of the narrative misdirection writing techinque (which had limited value in the final book) it could of been a great tale. Instead...blech.

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Arthur B

at 22:23 on 2007-08-15Rowling is never going to give up narrative misdirection. It's her one and only trick, and ever since she was able to steamroller her editors into publishing whatever she writes she's even got sloppy at that. The next two books she's got planned after the Potter encyclopedia - the new children's book and her project for grown-ups - are going to be terrible.

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Wardog

at 10:32 on 2007-08-16Many thanks, Wendy - I think there's my original review knocking around in the archives somewhere, but Dan's is much better because I was still in a weird state of denial that the book was as bad as I suspected it was.

I didn't realise JKR begrudged fandom their interest in Snape; I thought she certainly hated the popularity of Lupin because books 5 onwards are basically a character-assassination piece on the poor guy, which is a shame because I always rather liked Lupin and I thought his flaws (his desperation to be liked, his inability to stand up to his more confident friends, his general sense of divided-identity) were rather cool. I sometimes wonder if interest perhaps peaked when it became impossible in everyone's minds for him to look like anybody other than Alan Rickman :)

But the books have *always* been about Harry so I suspect offering a new perspective and point of view in the final book would be massively jarring, not that I wouldn't have welcomed anything that stage! I think one of the reasons that Snape worked so well was because he was elusive and, therefore, seemed infinitely more complex than JKR actually thought he was. I quite liked the fact he was in love with Lily Potter but I wish he'd been allowed at least one other character trait.

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Wardog

at 10:34 on 2007-08-16Hmmm...Arthur...your reference to narrative misdirection now has me imagining some kind of bastard-monster consisting of bits of JK and bits of Joss Whedon. The pain!

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Arthur B

at 12:32 on 2007-08-16As far as Lupin goes, it's pretty clear to me that he was meant to show up in

Prisoner of Azkaban

, be a red herring ("It's always the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher!"), and go away again. Then the collective howling of fandom when he didn't have a bigger role in book 4 prompted Rowling to drag him out in book 5, only to commence running him down and emphasising his essential irrelevance.

It's strange how the Harry Potter books seem to have been shaped in some places by JK's response to her fans - even when she doesn't give the fans what they want, she ends up doing things precisely

because

it's not what the fans want (witness Sirius's girly posters). It'd be interesting to see how the series would have turned out if Rowling had been completely isolated from the fandom.

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Wardog

at 14:19 on 2007-08-16Dan pointed out a while back that since JKR wrote the prologue eighty years ago (or whatever) and Teddy Lupin is in it, Lupin's arc was probably always pretty much the same. Although I think in interviews she talks about how important it was to her to kill parents so ... who knows the hell is going on? Also, is it me, but do you think he dies at the battle of Hogwarts just so he can show up with the Suicide Club?

But then I suppose books have always been shaped to *some* extent by fans and fan demands - look at Sherlock Holmes.

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Arthur B

at 14:33 on 2007-08-16I'm not convinced that the epilogue we got is, in fact, the epilogue she wrote way back when and put in a safe in case she died before writing book 7 or something, simply because there's a nigh-total lack of exposition: I suspect she scrapped or heavily rewrote the old one since it was no longer necessary.

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lessofthat

at 01:14 on 2007-08-28"What astonishes and horrifies me is not that JK is trying to do it but that everyone keen for her to do so."

You're right to be horrified, but not to be astonished. Look at the screechy, barely sane arguments in the various fandoms about what is and is not canon. Or the existence of Star Trek and Star Wars technical manuals. Fans (I mean the word in the geeky, semi-stalkery sense, not the generic one) don't want literature, they want an alternative universe they can buy maps of.

"bravery[..]is an attribute so overwhelmingly laudable that it eclipses all others"

Susan Sontag said, correctly, that courage was a morally neutral virtue. She was talking about the 9/11 hijackers at the time.

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Wardog

at 15:03 on 2007-08-28I know I shouldn't be astonished but it's necessary for me not degenerating in a pile of embittered, contemptuous goo that I am.

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Whenmarshmallowssnap

at 20:47 on 2007-08-28I didn't appreciate all the 'fluff' Rowling put in that should have been good narrative. I thought most of the Dumbledore backplot was kind useless and didn't really add to the story. Also, it was so unlike for Team Potter (as Dan likes to call them) to sit in a tent twiddling their thumbs, that I wondered vaguely if JK Rowling didn't have anything remotely interesting to write and settled for the trio wasting their time pointlessly. Plus, I fell through so many plot holes, I broke both my ankles.

"...a rather petty attempt to establish enduring canon relationships exactly the way she wants them..." Thank you for that. I did not like the fact that she controlled every single aspect of the characters' lives so that nothing is left to the readers' imagination. I wish Harry ended up with Cho Chang, and became an ex-convict. It would have added spontaneity to an otherwise boring and disappointing finish of the epic (read:really long and ingratiating) Harry Potter series.

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Arthur B

at 14:29 on 2007-10-20Have you seen

this

? Not content to pull the rug out of the "Sirius is gay" crowd, Rowling has now declared that Dumbledore was gay all along, and was dating Grindlewald until that whole "Wizard-Hitler" thing caused them to split up.

Now, let's see what's objectionable about this...

- Author assigning attributes to a character which they never even hinted at during the actual books? Check.

- The one canonical gay relationship in the entire series being a terrible mistake on Dumbledore's part? Check.

- A homosexual, who was previously evil (or at best a collaborator) and in a relationship, is now unquestionably good and rigorously asexual. Implications that gays are better off living a celibate life? Check.

- Rowling jerking the fans around like puppets, and them applauding her for it anyhow like Winston Smith at the end of

1984

knuckling under and loving Big Brother like all the rest of the beaten-down herds?

Check.

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M Harris

at 06:09 on 2007-10-21Also this:

The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think ti's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that's it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.

[Loud applause.]

This entire interview is quite... freaky/weird.

The website it is on is this (I don't know how to make it into a link like Arthur B did):

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/10/20/j-k-rowling-at-carnegie-hall-reveals-dumbledore-is-gay-neville-marries-hannah-abbott-and-scores-more

[Linkified by webmaster]

You might want to read the answer to the question about Nazi parallels.

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M Harris

at 10:30 on 2007-10-21Oh no, I'm reading comments about this on Mugglenet and I want to kill people.

"anyway i think you choose to be gay or straight. i don't think ur born gay. and since ppl. are judged by their actions/choices, i don't think gay ppl. are all that great. don't jump on me now, just sayin wat i think."

"It has to be a joke. The Harry Potter fandom would have been much smaller otherwise. Personally, I would not have read and loved the series if one of the main characters had been gay. What kind of "children's book" would that be? That type of "lifestyle" may be acceptable in Britain, but its not viewed so favorably everywhere (like the entire Southern United States). While there are exceptions here, they are the extreme minority."

And then these idiots:

"JKR is genius! A gay Harry Potter character....wow. That takes true guts. This proves JKR is God. :D"

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Arthur B

at 13:35 on 2007-10-21So, Rowling says

...I think that's it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.

which I agree with, and I think it's a shame that that message doesn't actually come through in Harry Potter. The most frequently-appearing authority figure in the books is Dumbledore, who is basically 100% right all the time. True, he isn't actually massively important in the grand scheme of things, but he's the supreme authority in Harry's world, and it turns out that all of his plans are for the best even when they involve convincing Harry to go get himself killed. The bad guys in the establishment and the press, meanwhile, are always quite obviously bad guys, and Harry usually finds what they have to say objectionable from the get-go.

The lesson seems to be "Trust your instincts: if the person in authority seems nice and trustworthy and is saying things you want to hear, they're probably good. If they seem harsh and unfair and are saying things you don't want to hear, they're bad." That's not exactly a helpful anti-authoritarian message.

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Wardog

at 09:47 on 2007-10-22God, I genuinely tried to rise above this and not think about it. But, no, I'm pissed off. I'm fucking pissed off.

"If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"

If it was in any way relevant or important you should have included in the goddamn books!

I was re-reading my Roland Barthes for school the other day and I found myself asking myself whether he was really still relevant or his conception of the Author-God actually exsisted - and JKR has proven the answer to both questions is a resounding yes. I genuinely can't quite believe this. It's not the way books work. It's not like Dickens turned up at his famous lecturers and started giving extra information about the life of Tiny Tim after the end of A Christmas Carol.

Also Dumbledore's sexuality is completely irrelevant, just like his brief flirtation with nazi-ism is completely irrelevant. He's presented as a 2D mentor figure and all the backplot in th world can't change that.

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Dan H

at 18:54 on 2007-10-23

"JKR is genius! A gay Harry Potter character....wow. That takes true guts. This proves JKR is God. :D"

If the internet hadn't destroyed my faith in humanity many years ago, I'd actually assume that one was a joke.

I find it utterly hilarious the way that JKR's "prolonged argument for tolerance" is so hidebound by her middle-class value-system that she genuinely can't see how - well - completely intolerant it is for, for example, the one canonical homosexual relationship in the entire series to have been a colossal mistake that wound up causing the wizarding equivalent of the second world war.

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Melissa G.

at 18:51 on 2009-12-08This is a really late comment, but I've been HP-obsessed the past few weeks. And I just want to say that what bothered me most about the "plea for tolerance" aspect was actually that she had a slave race that actually enjoyed being slaves and if we took that away from them, they'd turn into sobbing drunks. The idea that slaves like being slaves and they'd have nothing without slavery is so archaic and horrific an idea that it pains me to see it played for laughs with Winky.

#Ferretbrain #J.K. Rowling #Harry Potter #Wardog #Death of the Author

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celticmess · 6 years

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Dystopian Descendants City Au or smth idk they’re taken from their hosts and trapped in a city

Starring:

Antisepticeye

Darkiishu

Dorkiplier Darkiplier

Peevils

Infelix

Madzia

Including:

Sanders Sides

JSE Egos

Iplier Egos

Madpat

Blankgameplays (Corrupted Crank, Ethan’s one)

Apocalypse (Tyler’s one)

Now for the details!

Location

they’re held in a small, secluded + abandoned city by humans

they’re given free rein within the city

egos like Dark + Anti call other egos that they share a host with “siblings”

there’s no government

no law

the place is run by violence

everyone is short on temper for different reasons

all of the egos and their host were taken by special services

no one knows where they are now

two rules: do not attempt to escape + no killing

once a month the humans gather them in the city centre and one figment is taken

for now they’ve only taken a few minor figments + characters (Paultin, Pluck, Heathen + the Author)

no one knows where they go

or why

but they don’t come back.

Anti

like our Anti, but edgier.

hangs around with Darkiishu, Dark, Peevils, Infelix + Madzia

fights with Dark regularly

basically daily

and it never surprises anyone at this point

he’s from a large ego group (they call each other siblings)

he’s the oldest ego but they alienate him the most

he terrifies his “siblings” when he’s angry and/or drunk

usually stays out of the house messing about with his group

by messing about I mean tearing up the area

he comes home when his “siblings” are asleep and leaves before they wake up

whenever he’s home before they go to sleep, they end up being really hostile

never physically, but it’s implied

they know they can’t beat him in a fight

everyone can tell when to stop pushing his temper

his glitches get more uncontrollable as his heart rate heightens

you can hear him before you see him, the sound of static follows him everywhere

Darkiishu

has everyone on strings

you need something? You have 2-3 choices depending on what you need: Darkiishu, Phantom + Darkiplier

only hangs out with Anti, Dark + Infelix because they work as bodyguards without knowing it

bc as if you’re gonna attack a lady who hangs with the power trio

only likes two people: Peevils + Madzia

and she even ends up arguing with the sometimes

they’re usually able to talk it out tho

unlike Dark + Anti who’ll beat the shit out of each other anywhere anytime

can never be in photos bc her ability blurs them

the blurriness of he photo changes with her mood

if she’s happy, it’s not too bad, but photograph her pissed and it’s a blurry mess

she stays in a random old broken apartment she fixed up herself

sometimes Anti crashes on her sofa

she’s always the one who hosts Ladies Nights on Saturdays

she controls illusions

Do̴rk͢ip͜l̶ier Darkiplier

a lot more reckless than our Dark

wears a lot of hoodies

he has a ornate little silver bracelet to keep his powers in check

the googles made it for him

he probably turns it into the top of his cane later on

his hobby is pissing off Anti

starts the fights on purpose

sometimes to vent, sometimes for entertainment

either way, Anti is happy to fight

he’s the third oldest out of his ego group

the host and Wilford are older than him. There was the Author...

he argues with Wilford a lot and Host too when he comes out of his library

he scares the younger ones (Bim, Ed, Silver, King, etc.)

he also doesn’t control his aura very well (hence why he has the bracelet)

so his shell cracks a lot more frequently than it does in our universe

Peevils

lives with Darkiishu most of the time

can manipulate reflections

if you’ve pissed her off avoid any and all reflective surfaces

she can and will summon your reflection from said surface and have it murder you brutally

she’s very close with Darkiishu

if you mess with one you mess with both

and both are scary

she could not care less about Dark, Anti or Infelix even if she tries

has nearly gotten into a fight with Anti on many occasions

will most likely leave the apartment if Anti is crashing for the night

her and Anti avoid each other as much as possible

is dangerously close to strangling Infelix with his own reflection

Infelix

lives with Madzia in an isolated apartment in a place no one knows about

none of the others have ever been there

he has eyes everywhere

quite literally

can create semi-sentient ink monsters

he’s the most powerful entity

and everyone knows it

even if he doesn’t fight

the other figments and entities can fight over a subject

but Infelix says something about it? that thing is always considered

low-key cares about the people he hangs out with

he pretends he doesn’t tho

he finds Anti + Dark’s fights highly entertaining

makes it his mission to try and start a fight between Anti and Peevils

Madzia

the sclera of her eyes are a faint pastel colour (she can change whenever she wants)

when she uses her powers, her whole eye goes the colour of her sclera

she’s part siren

so she can charm anyone except sirens

she doesn’t need to sing

she lives with Infelix

they get along really well

she enjoys her Ladies Night with Peevils and Darkiishu on Saturdays tho

she gets really fed up with the fights

she herself is actually pretty docile

doesn’t mean she’s harmless though

her, Peevils and Darkiishu are always there for each other

they all love each other’s company

they’re so close because they’re basically the only females

Sanders Sides

by far the most harmless figments

Logan spends a lot of time with Dr. Iplier and Dr. Schneeplestein in the makeshift infirmary

he makes a lot of the cures with what they have

if it weren’t for these three, the no killing rule would’ve been broken ten billion times

Patton runs a safehouse for the smaller, peaceful egos (King, Bim, Silver, Ed, Robbie as well as Heathen and Pluck occasionally) and was one of the most emotional when Heathen and Pluck got taken

Sometimes Virgil hangs out with Patton’s group, sometimes he joins Darkiishu, Peevils + Madzia for Ladies Night

his best friend was Heathen

losing Heathen hit him really hard

now he hangs out with Robbie, JJ and sometimes Marvin when he’s not running around with JB and Roman

Roman loves playing hero with JB and sometimes Marvin

occasionally Silver will join in

the group break up fights before the no kill rule gets broken

Deceit doesn’t “hang out” with anyone

but he’s a good source of information

his top clients are Dark, Peevils and Phantom

NWTB Egos

there’s a lack of entertainment in the city

so Mare performs in the city centre regularly

sometimes he’ll have Anti drum for him

it usually attracts a crowd

there isn’t really anything in the city to do except fight

so most of the population turns up

he’s also had a fair share of fights

Sharper is the one who fixed up the place that the battle egos stay in

so the place is full of tools and random machines

he always patches up Mare and Phantom when they get into fights

he doesn’t trust them not to kill the doctors

Phantom isn’t home very often

usually when he comes home it’s because he’s hurt

the rest of the time he’s in his office

he won the place in a bet

and traded info for interior decoration

it doubles as a bar and it’s pretty popular because it is the only bar

Mare and Phantom were livid when Heathen was taken

fortunately Sharper built a saferoom when he fixed up the place

he had to lock them in for several days

JSE Egos

none of them trust Anti

JB goes into protective mode if Anti turns up while they’re awake

the only one who goes near him is Robbie and sometimes JJ

the others all tend to keep their distance

JB loves spending time with Roman when he’s not protecting his siblings

stopping fights make him feel like a real hero

it also boosts his confidence and every time he goes home he feels more prepared to defend against Anti

he’s convinced Anti is planning something and is determined to keep his siblings safe

on the rare occasion JB isn’t home when Anti is, Marvin steps up

he’s not as confident or as hostile as JB

or as powerful

but he’s just as protective

on the nights he knows Anti is staying with Darkiishu he joins Roman and JB

he loves those nights

JJ is very curious

him and Robbie are the only JSE Egos who have willingly and peacefully approached Anti

When JJ first walked up to Anti, it surprised Anti so much he dropped his croissant

a croissant he stole from Peevils

then he tried to scare him away

but JJ just smiled at him

they don’t interact often at all but JJ will always try and calm JB and Marvin down before they attack

Anti is always hella grateful but never gets a chance to show it

Robbie shocked Anti by straight up walking into his room and sitting down

he finds the static noise that follows Anti really comforting

and Robbie didn’t seem like a threat so Anti let him stay

Robbie always leaves to go back to his room before Anti wakes up

it stops the other egos from jumping to conclusions

Chase is hardly home

but when he is he’s usually a tad drunk after a night out drinking with Paultin, Pluck and occasionally Warfstache

when Paultin and Pluck got taken his mental health took a nose dive

he began to stay out longer

he got drunker

and it got out of hand and he became increasingly depressed

his brothers love him but it gets extremely tense whenever he comes home drunk

he usually starts a fight with Anti on purpose

the nights he comes home sober are the best in the eyes of the other egos

they’re fun and Anti stays away

and it takes Chase’s mind off Paultin, Pluck, Stacy and his kids

one time Chase and Anti both came home drunk

JB ended up fighting both of them to get them to stop while Marvin got the others out of there

they went to Patton and the other sides for safety

the fight lasted all night

the end result was an injured, unconscious Chase with an empty gun, a passed out Anti (sleep deprivation) and a seriously injured JB

Anti avoided them for weeks after

Chase stayed with them while he recovered

Dr. Shneeplestein was the one who saved JB and Chase Brody from dying of their wounds

when he’s not with his siblings, he’s with Dr. Iplier and Logan in the infirmary

the three of them get along incredibly well

but as much as he likes work, he also likes his family

he gets incredibly nervous around Anti

when it was just him and Anti, Anti took great pleasure in messing with the Doctor before he met his current friends

by “messing with” I mean bringing him to the brink of death but stopping at the last second

so Schneep is real wary of Anti

Iplier Egos

They’re more organised than other groups

King, Silver, Ed + Bim spend all their time with Patton in the safehouse that he built

When Dark isn’t home, he’s out on the streets tearing it up with Anti, Infelix, Darkiishu, Peevils + Madzia

he lives for thrill

it’s why he fights Anti

they both love it

the Googles run the place

the place being a several storey building

the second floor is the Google’s lab

sometimes they work with Madpat

Blue thinks he’s too unpredictable, Ollie think’s he’s scary, Green considers him a risk

Red gets along with him just fine

most of the time though the googles work alone

they’ve banned Anti from the building

Wilford is avoided by everyone

he’s unstable, volatile and unpredictable

Anti has tried to goad him into a fight but Dark stopped him

when Wilford’s bored he spends time with Chase

it surprises everyone

but it’s Wilford Warfstache, he always surprises

The Host used to stay on his library floor with the Author

he stopped coming out of the library after the Author was taken

Oliver tried to get him to come out but he gave up eventually

Lesser Known Egos

Madpat

he’s a crazed scientist

he hangs with Natemare a lot

The pair cause trouble but don’t really get into fights

he also enjoy dragging Google Red into his projects

Blank

Blank doesn’t have friends

he walks the streets aimlessly

just shivering

he’s cold to the touch

don’t test that fact

touch him and you slowly freeze from the outside in

Apocalypse

he’s a brute

he’s big, strong and scary

he’s also the subject of many fights

him and JB always end up in a fight

they don’t get along

he starts most of the fights on the streets

The rest of the population are egos that we don’t even know exist yet.

#jacksepticeye #markiplier #natewantstobattle #Thomas sanders #sanders sides #antisepticeye #darkiplier #natemare #virgil sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #nwtb phantom #nwtb sharper #markiplier egos

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xellychan040 · 5 years

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DBZ Fic Saiyan History: An Overview by Daokin, 3rd Class

Fandom: Dragon Ball (Z, GT, Super) Characters: Yamoshi (mentioned), The Vegeta Lineage (mentioned), Bardock (mentioned) Word Count: 5704 Warnings: Character death. Referenced violence and warfare, Massively AU, Canon vs Fanon, Akira Toriyama Has No Sense Of Scale (And I foolishly try to fix it)

Summary: May Rutaba and Yamoshi guide our race to glory among the stars.

Notes: I wrote this in around three days motivated solely by spite. Did you know Saiyans only ruled planet Vegeta for, like, half a decade? And the Vegeta line only stretches back TWO generations? I did. And now I'm filled with nerdish anger.

I always felt slighted that DBZ never really had a space traveling arc outside of the Frieza saga and maybe GT, and any time space was talked about in show the scale was ridiculous. You could reach the edge of the universe in a day, in one of the movies.

Anyway, this whole silly endeavor started because I wanted to write a Planet Vegeta never explodes/The Saiyans don't work for the PTO AU. And when I went to research the Tuffles and Yamoshi's legend I stumbled upon the official Daizenshuu timeline and had my very delicate suspension of disbelief shattered utterly. And thus...... This. It's all fanon and conjecture on my part, with a dash of abusing sub/dub inconsistencies (like yamoshi appearing either 1000yrs ago or 3000yrs ago), but for my purposes, it works. Take it all with a grain of salt.

Final note. I'm ignoring all the time patroller stuff for the most part. So Xenoverse and Heroes don't apply to this au. Read it here or on ao3 for better formatting

Salada Golden Period(circa. 3000 years ago)BCA 2240

Modern, pre-space faring period.

In terms of advancement, it’d probably be half a century or so more advanced than humanity’s current society on Seeded Planet 359, colloquially known as Earth. Incidentally, there are some similarities with Earth’s ancient pre-space faring cultures, namely Roman and Greek city-states in terms of infrastructure and politics.

At this point, there's no central government. Large clans absorb smaller clans in a complex fiefdom of constantly rearranging territories.

BCA 1840

Some 400 centuries after, Overlord Yasai conquered and unified most other clans and their territories after a prolonged period of infighting. It pacified the infighting for several decades, but Yasai’s brutal, totalitarian policies caused their own internal problems.

BCA 1790

An upstart Warlord named Rutaba challenged Yasai for change. It’s not clear if he won, but his actions contributed to a unified central government in which Saiyan citizens could participate.

Salada and Saiyans

Brief overview

Modern evolved Saiyans have been on Salada 400,000 years. Civilization, as it was known before their mass exodus of the planet, was around for an estimated 12,000 years.

Salada native, pre-Dark Age Saiyans had long life spans, with particularly powerful, healthy Saiyan’s living to at least 800. Loss of information and vital data archives makes it unknown if lifespan estimate can be lengthened.

It was during the last 3,000 years of Salada’s existence that many advancements and cultural shifts took place.

In the Saiyan home solar system, Salada was the perfect distance from its parent star to reflect a perfect amount of Blutz waves from the moon. Adding to the rarity of full moons, coming once or twice every century, Saiyans transformed into Great Apes retain all sense of self. Though naturally and culturally conditioned to seek improvement and challenge through battle, the balanced intake of Blutz waves made Salada Saiyans less aggressive overall than compared to their Planet Vegeta and post-Dark Age descendants.

Planet Salada itself was naturally abundant with resources and wildlife. Its large size supported a plethora of climates, regions, and a diverse terrain. Even during population and technology booms, along with massive Saiyan appetites, Salada remained able to support its occupants.

Birth of Yamoshi

BCA 1540

Not enough information remains in Data Archive to accurately confirm, but Yamoshi seems to have come from a distant branch of the Yasai Clan tree. Possibly related to Overlord Yasai.

A hypothesis from historians posits Yamoshi’s lineage also includes a link to the Rutaba Clan

Separating Fact from FictionAccounts of a Golden Warrior from the post-Golden AgeFrom the files of Daokin, 3rd Class Historian. Age 729

Little is known about Yamoshi, despite his long, varied life. In the chaos of Salada’s last few decades, not all historical accounts made it into the Saiyan Ark’s data bank. Time, distance, and outside influences have corrupted certain data files and entirely lost others.

What data has survived bolsters certain empirical evidence from witness accounts, though possibly somewhat embellished with folklore elements.

Considering his possible lineage, Yamoshi is hypothesized to be the son of lesser royalty. Though there are many accounts of his varied travels, it’s impossible to determine if he was an Ambassador of sorts or merely a renegade aristocrat looking for adventure.

What is known, however, is Yamoshi’s actions gained him five companions, each powerful Saiyans of note. Much of their backgrounds are lost to time, but what survives suggests they were all from varying clans and castes, but extremely respected in their endeavors.

There are many testaments to Yamoshi having an honorable disposition, yet a few accounts hint at a mischievous and determined personality.

During Salada’s most turbulent years, Yamoshi and the five other Saiyans are the ones responsible for managing to suppress the initial aggressive outbursts from Blutz wave infected Saiyans.

Space EraTechnological Boom (200 years later)BCA 1590

Evidence of an Advanced Race is found. Further investigation reveals Advanced Race as possible Seeders, releasing their DNA on viable worlds in hope distant descendants will evolve there.

Saiyan spacefaring begins to close-by neighboring planets in the solar system and star system. Scientists work to learn more about their Seeder Precursors.

Cosmic Disturbance Looms

Renewed civil unrest

BCA 1240

A neighboring sister sun in the closest solar system begins to give off an unprecedented amount of energy. Solar flares and emissions begin to have disastrous effects on Salada’s home solar system, shorting out technology and disturbing the delicate Blutz wave output.

Any plans to colonize planets in the current solar system and star cluster is put on hold.

The unpredictable surge of Blutz waves creates an uptick in aggressiveness. Pockets of infighting begin away from capitals. Fear for the future spreads.

A massive lash of solar energy during a rare lunar event sends the 1/4 of the population into a berserker state. Mass casualties. Panic and anger sew the seeds of a civil war.

Attempts to pacify populous is met with mixed results.

Exoplanet colonization plans are reopened when scientists discover a star map left behind by Advanced Seeder Race. Locations of viable, possibly genetically compatible, evolutionary similar life-supporting planets are found. As the civil unrest grows and star system situation worsens, a new plan for a large, race saving Ark is drawn up.

The scramble for resources to construct an unprecedentedly large starship capable of voyaging through unexplored dark space begins just as war breaks out.

Certain individuals of strength from various walks of life band together to stifle the fighting. As the Blutz wave influx gets stronger, their efforts become less effective.

The Saiyan Ark is finished just at the peak of fighting, which is beginning to have a disastrous impact on the planet. Scientists estimate the neighboring sun’s next massive energy outburst will have dire consequences for the entire cluster, Salada will not be spared, even if it survives the fighting.

The rush to fill the Ark with a varied populace begins. Resources and gear to survive the long voyage and subsequent landing on Seeded planets are loaded.

A direct Yasai clan successor is among those chosen to go into cryo.

Ascension in DeathYamoshi Becomes LegendBCA 1190

Yamoshi, leader of the pacifying group is nearly overtaken by Blutz wave affected Saiyans. To protect the Saiyan Ark while finishing preparations, he had led a full assault on the devolved, berserker state Saiyans infected by overexposure to Blutz waves. By now, most of the population not protected by Salada’s capital were afflicted by Blutz waves, the odds Yamoshi was up against were astronomical.

Many of Yamoshi’s pacifying group were killed in the conflict, but he and his five companions managed to lead their soldiers into pinning back the aggressive Saiyans far from the capital’s borders, holding the line far away from the Ark.

The standstill did not last long, a break is formed in the protective circle as several Saiyans reach an unnatural Great Ape transformation through the Blutz waves despite no full moon. With no other alternative, Yamoshi and his five companions return to the Ark and warn the remaining unaffected Saiyans to take off while they launch another assault with no hope for survival.

Determined and set on course for what is almost assuredly a suicide mission, Yamoshi and his companions band once more together to buy as much time as they are able.

Just before take off, Blutz wave infected berserker Saiyans nearly destroy all hope of take off for the Ark. It is saved only when Yamoshi unlocked an unprecedented level of power, ascending forms into a Golden Warrior that the Ark can safely leave Salada.

A 787 Year Long Voyage BeginsUncharted Dark Space, Salada Home System Destruction, and Near ExtinctionBCA 1180 - BCA 403

Though Saiyans had been beginning to explore their solar system and star system with a fair degree in success, they were nonetheless ill-prepared for a venture such as this. Even with revamped FTL engine designs based on Seeder Precursor technology found and the translated star maps, without any warp gates or reliable knowledge of what lied in wait in the darkness of the stars, there was slim hope they’d all survive the centuries-long drift.

Harsh galactic elements, dwindling resources, and other obstacles make space travel fraught with chances of utter failure. Even running on revolving skeleton crews while the rest of the population sleeps, there was little that could be done in the event of a disaster.

Even with lengthy lifespans and hearty physiologies, Saiyans skeleton crews were not mentally or emotionally equipped for prolonged, comparatively slow space travel. With much trepidation, they eventually set the Ark on autopilot, following the preprogrammed charted path towards the nearest seeded planet. The Ark’s population monitoring programs were also adjusted; in the event of critically low supplies, life support will cut off non-critical persons and redirect resources to both younger civilians and important crew.

This turned out to be a wise choice when several centuries in the Ark collided with space debris and lost valuable resources along with a batch of sleepers.

Anomalous Energy Detected Est. BCA 975

About 200 years into the voyage, the Ark’s sensors pick up a massive explosion of energy originating from Salada. The cause of the energy is unknown, but consensus says the unstable neighboring sun wasn't the culprit.

Point of No Return, Saiyan Home System is Destroyed Est. BCA 844

Unstable Sun gives off another dangerous flare, the energy readings far eclipsing previous outputs, triggering a chain reaction. Entire star system takes massive damage. In the unlikely event Salada managed to survive the infighting and previous energy emissions, there was little hope the planet would survive that final pulse.

Planet Fall on Planet Plant10 years after reaching Tuffle Home SystemBCA 393

Destination reached at last. The Saiyan Ark has finally made it to a Seeded world, there was hope for survival after centuries of strife.

However, the landing had its own complications. The Ark had sustained massive damage on it way into the system, losing several hundred sleeper pods, some housing leaders and Saiyans in positions of authority or holding critical knowledge. Though pre-take off designs had implemented each sleeper pod with its own nav system towards the Ark’s destination and its own limited resources, there was no guaranteed chance of survival. Of the pods lost, only 34% made it to Planet Plant intact. Of that number, only 28% of their passengers survived.

Upon atmospheric entry, the Saiyan Ark collided with the in-progress Tuffle orbiting Dyson band, inflicting damages and casualties to both races. The collision veered the Ark off course causing the massive starship to crashland in the arid red deserts of Plant, several Kilometers from a large Tuffle metropolis.

Saiyan Dark Age400 years of lost culture, costs of acclimatization.BCA 394 - BCA 3

The journey through Dark Space had taken its toll on the Saiyan Ark and its inhabitants.

Not only was a sizable percentage of the limited population lost, but electrical storms and the rough landing had damaged many of the starship’s computers, losing large chunks of valuable information. What resources were left that didn’t get used or lost en route was wouldn’t support the surviving population, even small as it now was.

Another unforeseen, problem was the effects of the latent Blutz wave overexposure. Combined with the prolonged cryo sleep and depleted nutrients meant generations of unprecedented Saiyan health problems that would linger at a genetic level.

Increased aggression, mental and hormonal imbalances, drastically shortened lifespans, and reduced fertility were among the most prevalent ramifications.

From a cultural perspective, many things were lost as well. A majority of lives lost en route to Plant had been older Saiyans through a combination of resource rerouting and other factors. 67% of the sleepers that awoke on Planet Plant were Saiyans in their early adolescence to early adulthood.

On top of the changes brought on by unbalanced hormones on a new planet, young Saiyans were left without enough elders in authority who could offer guidance through this turbulent period of settlement. Few of the survivors were mature enough to help the younger or new generations cope with natural biological and emotional changes, let alone the unnatural changes brought on Blutz wave overexposure and prolonged cryo sleep.

An even greater detriment would be insufficient technically skilled Saiyans. While on Salada, many Saiyan’s had lived partly on the fat of the land, yet modern, technological convenience still played a major part in even the most simple aspects of society. The rough reentry had damaged part of the Ark hull where Saiyan’s most suited to help the population settle had been sleeping.

Though they had brought along DNA banks of viable food sources like livestock and produce, they had little means to produce them, even if they had landed in a more fertile area

While the surviving Ark crew attempted to salvage what they could, there was little to do for the star ship’s damaged computers and archive banks. Art, sciences, family trees and bloodlines, key documents, and various more would be lost for years to come.

Stripped of the advantage of several millennia's worths of knowledge, the Saiyan survivors would have to make do with word of mouth instruction, hard work, instinct, and the goodwill of their new world-mates.

Settling In and Continued Losses

Planet Plant was not kind to its new residents. For the Saiyans of Salada, who were used to an abundance of natural resources brought by plentiful jungles, the harsh, barren deserts of Plant could provide little.

Already weakened from the prolonged sleep, it didn’t take long for several Saiyans to go into critical condition due to starvation and malnutrition.

And still, others had begun having unexplained, violent outbursts. It was quickly discovered those with more moderate to severe cases of latent Blutz wave overexposure were susceptible to heightened ambient Blutz waves generated by Plant’s twin suns. Already pumping out an imbalance of aggressive hormones from the increased exposure back home, the surviving Saiyan’s biology had no time to slowly acclimatize to Plant’s sudden assault on their endocrine system. Over time, the increased Blutz waves would affect every Saiyan on Plant, continuing on to affect subsequent generations as well. It was an unideal outcome, but one they could do little about.

From insufficient food, shelter, and medical care, Saiyan numbers began to falter. Lifespan estimates soon followed.

However, Saiyans are resilient. They pushed on through by whatever means necessary, yet it would be generations before they could truly make Planet Plant a hospitable home.

First ContactForging RelationsBCA 394 - BCA 3

Tuffles were not unmoved by the plight of their new neighbors, yet they were still cautious. The average Saiyan stood a full head and shoulders above most Tuffles, possessed large predatory fangs, and were several times stronger, even weakened. Still, the Tuffles sent out aid in the form of food, water, and supplies.

Eventually, due to the Saiyan’s current inability to repair their Ark, the Tuffles negotiated a trade: Ark components in exchange for Tuffle technology (namely food processors, agriculture and livestock based genetic modification, and small-scale terraforming tech).

While the Tuffles had already mastered limited space flight, they’d yet to perfect FTL engines. The Ark along with recovered Seeder Precursor data would launch their technology decades ahead. So much so, that their ambitious Dyson band was completed in half the time of their previous best estimate. Within this time period, Tuffles would advance even beyond their own expectations, converting the singular energy harnessing Dyson band into two gigantic scale orbiting stations. If Planet Plant was viewed from their moon, it would appear to have two planetary rings.

In a show of good will, the Tuffles had used a combination of replication and cloning technology to salvage, and in some cases cross breed DNA of Salada life forms, slowly introducing it to Plant’s ecosystems. Several species of Salada livestock and plant life were once again made available to Saiyans, genetically improved to support Saiyan metabolism even while on emergency rationing. The Saiyan starvation epidemic was drawn to a slow halt now that they had a limited, but nutrition and calorie-packed food source.

It not only gave Saiyans a chance to be self-sufficient, but it allowed the two races to maintain a respectable distance from each other. There was much to do before either side would regain some semblance of normal.

Tuffle ExpansionReaching the StarsAge 217

While combing through the Ark’s recovered databanks, Tuffle scientists restored as information as they could. By orders of their King, they were to especially be on the lookout for references to The Seeder Precursors, seeing as they were possibly the Tuffles’ ancestors as well as the Saiyans’.

Seeing as their Technology Age was already far eclipsed many other sapient species around their current age, the Tuffles decided to combine the wealth of information they received with their advanced capabilities and literally reach for the stars. While certain aspects of the Saiyan technology were less advanced, the fact that only several generations ago Saiyans were once seasoned star voyagers and colonizers put the Tuffles behind several centuries.

It was a gap they were most eager to close, for various reasons.

With the completion of their two orbiting stations and the harnessing of near limitless renewable, clean energy, the Tuffles set their sights high. Close by, just beyond the solar system they had surveyed and marked several exoplanets with habitable atmospheres; each an excellent opportunity to expand.

Starships when under construction, routes were charted and teams underwent exceedingly difficult training all in preparation for the upcoming journey. It wasn’t long until the first fleets and Exploration teams left the safety of Plant in search of an expanded frontier. Every Tuffle left on Planet waited with bated breath as the Exploration team sent back data compiled from the journey as well as each individual landing.

While given longer to prepare under favorable circumstances, along with a much smaller distance between destinations, the Tuffles found colonizing new planets to be more of a challenge than previously expected.

Some planets had climates and terrains that, while technically livable, would be difficult to settle. When scientists back home got word of the slow progress settling, they got together with politicians, financial backers, and the Exploration teams to come up with a plan of action to speed things up.

The answer came in the form of the Saiyans.

Upliftment or ServitudeAge 224

Despite the unbelievable strife the Saiyans had gone through, they showed marked improvement. With Plant as their new home, both pre and post-Salada born Saiyans would never quite be the same as their ancestors, yet their eventual adaptation to their surroundings was nothing short of phenomenal. Due to the extreme climates of Plant’s vast desert areas and dangers associated, Tuffles never bothered to settle far beyond the natural borders of their plentiful oases, and yet Saiyans, once the starvation crisis was addressed, had managed to nearly adapt overnight. Blutz wave overexposure or no, all Saiyans were sturdy and survivalist, taming the harsh lands and building small if low-tech, villages that were meant to last.

That adaptability, along with their immense strength gave one Tuffle scientist an idea.

After the initial first contact and aid given in return for valuable data, Tuffles and Saiyans seemed to have come to a mutual, somewhat unspoken agreement of indifference towards one another. It was somewhat exacerbated by the races’ first shared full moon, many Tuffles made wary by the Saiyan’s large, imposing transformations. But it seemed it was time to once again open up methods of communication. Another deal was struck, the rerelease of reconstructed Archive Data from the Saiyan Ark in return for help on the expansion of the Tuffle Frontier.

With their powerful bodies and quick ability to adapt to various environments, the Saiyans would act as the heavy movers and shakers in paving the way to settle more unruly landscapes. As if controlled by muscle memory from another time, Saiyans seemed to slide right back into the motions of space travel and territory expansion despite most Saiyans having never even set foot on a starship before.

It was an exciting time for all parties involved. Once again, progress marched forward at a speed Tuffle scientists never dared dream of. As for the Saiyans, the chance to test themselves against new challenges and return to their place beyond the stars beckoned them forward with little hesitation.

Things were moving for the Saiyans who stayed in the desert as well. Even with the Saiyan Dark Age officially ending just over 200 years ago, the release of data files was the most effective balm on Saiyan culture. From technical blueprints and scientific dissertations to a surprising amount of literature and history texts, the Saiyans were awash with the rediscovery of their culture. In fact, the emergence of the Cultivar Historia— a data drive containing notable lineages and bloodlines or cultivars — would soon play a major role in the future of Planet Plant.

And yet, what goes up must come back down. Back on the expanding frontiers, the Tuffle exploration teams were being urged to speed up their already incredible progress. Much of their speed in settling frontier worlds depended on the skill and effort of their Saiyan counterparts once Tuffle teams finished time extensive terrain scanning to ensure the safest route of action. But at the behest of their superiors, the exploration team slowly began to lessen the amount of preliminary scanning on new worlds, sending out Saiyan teams without extensive knowledge of potential dangers or obstacles. In the end, Tuffle superiors got the numbers they wished for, exoplanets settled and viable at an exponential rate, but at the cost of dozens of Saiyan teams.

While Planet Plant, and in particular Tuffle cities, were being flooded with resources and myriad of cosmic treasures, the Saiyan death toll began to quietly rise.

A New LineageThe Rise of the First VegetaAge 276

Since their landing on Plant, Saiyans had adopted a more tribalistic way of life, with descending from a combination of modified military ranks and individual skill level. The higher in rank you were on the Saiyan Ark, the more likely you were to assume a leadership position after landing, with a similar outcome if you were equipped with skills that would help the population survive various obstacles during difficult periods. It was a lifestyle that more or less remained unchanged as the centuries rolled by on Plant, however, the appearance of the Cultivar Historia brought another, more obscure facet to leadership:

Bloodlines.

It was revealed that, barring a few cases, most of the Saiyans currently holding positions of authority were able to trace their family history to cultivars listed in the Historia. However, none would hold so impressive an ancestor to their name other than Vegeta the First, an off-world team leader on a particularly treacherous exoplanet. An exoplanet that had claimed the lives of at least half a dozen Saiyan teams in the process of settling it. When Vegeta returned home to Plant bearing the news of more losses, he was informed of his connection to Salada Royalty. Fitting, as his name was a modern translation of Overlord Yasai’s.

Burdened by the loss of many strong Saiyan lives and now in possession of this new information, Vegeta would formulate a plan for the future of his race.

Not even half a year later would Vegeta set his plan into motion, rallying both on-world and off-world Saiyans together under one goal: Saiyan Dominance.

Saiyan RevoltClaiming the PlanetAge 277 - Age 287

When news of a Saiyan in the frontier had been killed by a Tuffle after an unexpected complication during a routine mineral site survey, Vegeta used the resulting outrage to spark a mass protest against the Tuffles’ continued disregard for the Saiyans.

Leaving the deserts to march into the Tuffle metropolis where the Royal Tuffle family ruled, Vegeta, backed by the flames of Saiyan discontent from his large group, challenged the king to a formal audience to listen to their grievances. However, the Tuffles took this as an act of aggression and stopped their advancement with a large cadre of guards. Vegeta, out of patience and taking this as a refusal to hear his people out, decided there was no possible avenue for diplomacy and signaled his group for a preemptive strike.

That was the start of a war that would last ten years. Both sides would take heavy casualties, however, Tuffle cities and civilians would take the brunt of the carnage as the entire planet became a battleground. While the Saiyans had sheer power and increased durability to their advantage, the Tuffles compensated with their far greater numbers and technology.

Particularly detrimental to Saiyans were the Scouters, which the Tuffles used to avoid and prepare for sneak attacks or ambushes. Another crucial tool on the battle feild was Energy Siphons, technology that absorbed Saiyan battle energy in a limited radius and converted it to power barriers and heavy artillery.

Saiyans fought back with scorched earth tactics, targeting manufacturing facilities that weren't yet protected by the Tuffle military, either ceasing or slowing down production of arms and materials. They also employed pack hunting strategies to corral and guide Tuffle squads into pinned positions, after which they placed the Tuffles under continued fire, systematically destroying their Energy Siphons until they were stripped of all protection.

When word reached those who were stationed off-world of what was happening on Plant, there was an immediate divide between Saiyan teams and Tuffle Explorers, smaller scale battles ensued over the control of the outposts. There was a mixed bag of wins and losses on both sides, with the resulting winners taking command of the starships stationed on the exoplanets, loading it with resources and materials, before returning to Plant to aid their people.

The war waged on, both sides in a deadlock with contested territory constantly falling in and out of hands.

However, the stalemate wasn't long to last. Nearly 8 years into the conflict a major tide would turn as the moon reached its zenith, rising full in the sky and unleashing its full force of magnified Blutz waves, triggering transformations for Saiyans everywhere on the field. In a strange echo, Vegeta was once again en route to the Tuffle King’s encampment when the moon broke cloud cover. Breaking through the King’s protections, Vegeta slaughtered the guard station there, eradicated the royal line and took the crown. A decisive victory for the Saiyans and a death knell for the Tuffles.

Tuffle resistance became scattered and thinned out. With their king dead and a majority of their cities devastated, the Tuffle army began to lose all sense of cohesion as they were picked off. Finally, in another ironic echo, having lost all ground, the Tuffles scraped together as many survivors as they were able and made their escape off the planet in a fleet of starships. They ran to the far edge of the star cluster, to a small planet they had surveyed with long distance scan but were years away from any settlement plans.

Planet Plant now belonged to the Saiyans. Vegeta was hailed as the new King for his strength and roll in their victory and Plant was renamed in his honor.

It was now time to rebuild.

Neo Saiyan RenesainceA new culture is born from the ashesAge 337

From the day of the Saiyans’ victory, there came a 50-year long renesaince. As they rebuilt the planet and moved into abandoned Tuffle metropolises, the Saiyans also worked to blend rediscovered culture with their current culture.

First order was establishing the royal court with the newly crowned King Vegeta at its head. Those that proved themselves in battle were made generals and commanders of the newly made official Saiyan Army. Those with impressive Cultivars were also given impressive titles, such as advisors or councilors with wide jurisdiction. Still, more Saiyan individuals would make names for themselves as they repurposed Tuffle technology or updated designs on Salada blueprints.

Outside of the court, many common Saiyans began to explore a wealth of new opportunities.

Even with the long war, the material and resource surplus from off-world remained in decent condition, and Saiyans from all walks of life took advantage. The newly named Planet Vegeta was once again flooded with unceasing progress.

As the skylines rose higher, quality of life became comparable to Salada during its Space Age. Birthrates and life expectancies were also on the rise. It wasn't long into his rule that the next Vegeta was born, thus setting the stage for the new Saiyan royal line.

War on the Frontier The Start of 200 Years of Conflict Age 339

Of course, the animosity between the Saiyans and the Tuffles would not be so easily forgotten. Far off in the edges of the star cluster where the Tuffles had been forced to run, they came into contact with roving bands of unaffiliated space mercenaries. Trading what they could spare for new technology and expendable men, the Tuffles began a slow campaign to reclaim their lost exoplanets and the resources there. The aim was to build a stockpile of material in hopes of sieging Planet Vegeta to reclaim it in the future.

During the time spent rebuilding on Planet Vegeta, the Saiyans hadn’t paid much attention to their claimed exoplanets, only sparing a handful of soldiers to be stationed on each outpost to continue mining for resources. But as the Tuffles began to make their way back to their home system, the lightly guarded outpost turned out to be excellent listening posts. The stationed Saiyans sent back word of incoming hostiles, after which generals sent back reinforcement towards the various outposts.

This would be one of the first opening volleys of a series of prolonged skirmishes. The Tuffles and their occasional mercenary allies would keep the Saiyans on high guard but would fail to make any decisive wins against them. Any and all plans to launch an orbital bombardment, while occasionally working on an outpost, failed when it came to Planet Vegeta. Vegeta the Second, now a decorated general himself, had commissioned the retrofitting of the Tuffle Dyson Band into serving as the Saiyan Space Fleet’s barracks and deploy station, but also an anti-orbital defense turret.

Once again, Saiyans and Tuffles came to a deadlock in the form of a series of back and forth ground wars on various exoplanets. The Saiyans growing stronger with each battle as the Tuffles raced to make their technology more devastating, building prefab military bases with ginormous Energy Siphons that stifled battle power in large, kilometer-wide radiuses.

Though the less bloody than the first Saiyan-Tuffle war, it was no doubt costly.

ArmisticeBrokered PeaceAge 709

During the birth of Vegeta the Fifth, the intergalactic community could no longer allow things to continue as they were. Merchant and civilian class starships were being caught in the crossfire, dealing millions of credits in damages and loss of uninvolved lives. The fighting was beginning to seep outside of the star cluster, causing major disturbances in the progress in construction of a warp gate.

After an unfortunate incident in which a cruiser class starship carrying an important figure was blasted over the atmosphere of a Tuffle controlled exoplanet, the Galactic Patrol was called in to negotiate a ceasefire.

Though several generals and advisors called to show the full force of Saiyan might against the Galactic community at large, the King and his moderate members of court worried over an extented war theater while they were already locked into a conflict. Finally, after months of tense negotiation, an Armistice was declared.

At least in an official capacity. Unofficially, the Tuffles and Saiyans still fought small, undeclared skirmishes, but only on exoplanets not belonging to either side or isolated dogfights between starships.

Current Era

Age 710 - ongoing

On Planet Vegeta, progress still marches forward but at a much slower, organic rate. School and military training are heavily linked, with young Saiyans receiving a general education until their 12th year, after which from the onset of puberty onwards far into adulthood, most continue on into the military.

Birth castes factor into a Saiyan’s individual projected career path within the military, with 3rd classes typically filling in as infantry or leading small infiltration squads. 2nd class Saiyans are usually promoted to officer rank fairly soon, with the 1st class and Elite typically groomed and trained to become generals and councilmen from birth.

Should a Saiyan decide not to follow a military career, there’s some light stigma against the individual not being “Saiyan enough”, but as time lowers the genetic aggression brought on by Blutz wave overexposure, the stigma has lessened into generally light-hearted teasing. There’s also a practical reasoning in that a society would function very long with no other infrastructure beyond a military arm. And thus various other careers and academic ventures are offered elsewhere.

As our Saiyan society stands now, we are at a precipice of joining the galactic community at large. Though some argue for continued isolation from the Intergalactic Government, other say it’s only a matter of time.

Author Notes and Dedications

Daokin, 3rd Class Historian. Age 716

Well, this textbook has been a long time in the making. Since before the birth of my son Bardock, even. He’s five now, and a handful, just as brutal as his mother ( haha ). Not a day goes by that I don’t need my mate to rescue me from his roughhousing.

Speaking of my mate, thank you Commander Parsni for putting up with me as I whined more than our toddler when my deadlines loomed. I know more than once you were tempted to ( and nearly did ) frag me out my misery. Yes, but even this un-Saiyan recluse has something to live for, and my passion has always been our lost history. I hope it serves our next generations well.

May Rutaba and Yamoshi guide our race to glory among the stars.

Resources

The Salada Canticles, Vol. 3

Conflict Chronicles: An overview of notable wars in the cosmos, Argus Nox

Tracking the Past: Ancient Civilizations, Dar Ech

Cultivar Historia, Potaro, 2nd Class

Beyond Our Reach, Straba, Tuffle Scientist

#xelly writes #dragon ball z #dbz #saiyans #yamoshi dbz #saiyan culture #meta or reverse meta #please read it on ao3 or gingko

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bahamutgames · 3 years

Text

Afterthoughts S: Definitive Edition

Game: DRAGON QUEST XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition (September 27, 2019)

Console: Xbox One (Via Xbox Game Pass)

Hey, it’s me again! It feels like it’s been forever since I last beat a big game with a lot of stuff to talk about. But the last time was actually only a month ago with New Super Lucky’s Tale. In the mean time I’ve been playing a couple of smaller games, tiny indie titles, a few fighting games. But nothing that I couldn’t summarize in a small twitter thread (which you can follow my twitter here if you want to see my art or just support me shilling my other accounts.)

Anyway! Just got done with another major RPG! After Nier Automata, I knew this was a game I really wanted to play before my Game Pass subscription expired. And after toiling away at it for the past month, I’m finally ready to give you all my thoughts on Dragon Quest 11! As always, this isn’t meant to be review. But just a general throw up of my thoughts and feelings after beating the game, because I love talking so much. As such, this shouldn’t be taken as a serious critique of the game, and shouldn’t be expected to be well written or thought out. Please do check out the game if it interests you at all!

SPOIL WARNING FOR DRAGON QUEST 11 AHEAD! GONNA TALK ABOUT THE WHOLE PACKAGE HERE, AS A FAIR WARNING

Opening

Prior to this, the only Dragon Quest game I had played was DQ 8: Journey of the Cursed King on Nintendo 3DS. I liked it, and thought it was pretty good. But wasn’t perfect and felt a little unnecessarily tedious to get through. But when 11 came out, I saw a ton of people saying it was an amazing RPG. People I followed who weren’t really into RPGs (as far as I knew) were raving about it. So I was really interested to give it a shot myself, but didn’t have the chance until I got game pass.

Stuff I liked

Where to begin? This is a 60 hour game so there’s a lot to talk about. I think first and foremost I just wanna gush about how pretty this game is! The graphics are amazing, I love how the environments are realistic but super brightly colored and saturated, making for ton of gorgeous areas that I couldn’t stop myself from taking pictures of. And Akira Toriyama’s just being placed in these beautiful worlds look so good and amazing. Without a doubt, especially considering its more on the realistic side, this is one of the nicest looking RPGs I’ve played.

Speaking of which, I really loved the character designs. Toriyama does fantastic work that I really like with pretty much everything, but his work on RPGs always tend to be my favorites. The designs for all the main teammates looked super good and all the monsters were really cool looking too. He really knows how to design cool looking dragons, this guy just gets it. On the same not of characters, the characters are fantastic. I really love everyone on the main team (my favorite was probably Serena.) They’re all super fun and I love the way they interact and really seem like a group of good friends. It was great to see how they all interact and work together. A scene that particularly sticks out is when they all forge a new sword of light together, which was fantastic.

I also thought the story and world was cool. Similar to my thoughts on DQ8, the story is pretty simple and easy to follow, but that doesn’t take away from it. It kind of feels like a fairy tale told on a grand scale. I love the idea of the Luminary, and Serenica being reborn into twins is awesome, Erdwin’s Lantern was a cool idea. And of course, Yggdrasil being a huge ass tree flying in the sky is absolutely the best thing ever, that’s so cool. ALSO, I have to give special shoutouts to Mordegon’s Sword of Darkness, coolest thing on the entire planet, I love swords with freaky giant eyes frantically looking around on them.

Lastly, I really liked the gameplay and combat of this game. I thought the way battles are set up as still being traditional turnbased combat but with the ability to freely walk around the field and look at the arenas was awesome. And getting to walk up to teammates to see their thoughts mid battle is super cool. Of course I loved all the different spells you can learn, and all the abilities you get through level ups. A new feature in this one (at least it’s new to me) is the Pep Up state, which is also cool. Particularly because it allows for Crossover Attacks between teammates, which is always the best thing an RPG can include, but most RPGs just choose not to. But DQ11 has it in spades and it ROCKS, there’s so much cool and genuinely useful crossover moves I didn’t even get to see all of them. And a final cool piece of the battle system was the ability to actually change equipment and teammates mid battle. I’m unsure if I’ve ever played a game that allowed for this (though I know they exist) but I thought it really made it feel like you could make use of your whole team and all your equipment. Being able to change teammates and what weapons they use for appropriate strategies was super fun.

Stuff I didn’t like

And, I did really like DQ11. I think I might even like it more than 8. There’s a ton of improvements. I feel like it’s less stingy with EXP, I feel like it was all around just easier to navigate and handle. But I still had a fair amount of issues with the game. Particularly in the- say it with me if you know what’s coming- post Yggdrasil content!! Prior to Yggdrasil, the game was buttery smooth. I flew through the whole thing and loved every second of it with minimal roadblocks (as opposed to DQ8 which roadblocked me at every boss.) And by the time I reached Yggdrasil, I realized I had been playing for 30 hours and didn’t even realize it! That’s awesome and pretty impressive considering I’ve played shorter games that felt like double that.

So, the game starts to crawl a little bit before Yggdrasil in my opinion. Once you have to start looking for the orbs, the game just kinda teeters for a bit there randomly. Like, the orbs are meant to be kind of a big deal, and yet the purple and whichever one you find in the bird dungeon thing (lol) basically get no fanfare. It felt like they were forgotten about and just had to be thrown in at the last second. Now, you could argue that the whole mural thing and the bird boss were those orbs’ fanfare. But it still felt so odd to me. Then, Yggdrasil falls.

I liked the post Yggdrasil stuff, I really did. I thought it was all pretty great from a story and character point of view. And getting to see the world that was so beautiful be corrupted and filled with powerful monsters was neat. I loved Sylvando’s whole parade thing, and every one else’s was cool too. But that’s kinda it. The whole section just drags along as you play with most of your team just gone and it goes so slow. And a lot of it really felt like it could have been condensed down a bit, I mean they don’t even show you what happened to Serena. Which I guess was because of what happened to Veronica but, still?

Again, it’s good story content and I don’t necessarily want any of it removed. But damn man, it really grinds to halt. And I also felt like it got really brutal during this part for no reason, kind of out of nowhere. The skeleton spectral sentinel, Gloomivore, and Booga were MASSIVE hurdles for me to get over randomly. And it got so bad I genuinely considered dropping the game because I just didn’t have the patience. It felt like an NES game again out of nowhere. Now, I do want to blame this on maybe not use the character builder right, or something. But still it was just so annoying out of nowhere. Thankfully I found the perfect strategy of Oomphle on Hendrick, Sap on the enemy, then have Hendrick spam Unbridled Blade, which was foolproof and beat every boss after that.

Thankfully once Serena joins your team again, and everyone is there (minus one aha) the game really picks up steam again. Everything after that was a breeze and went by without any issues. I think I hit one roadblock afterwards and it was pretty easy to just grind past. So I don’t know what happened there. The only other part I have a problem with is I do feel like the game ends rather abruptly. Like, not majorly. But I wouldn’t have minded seeing more about what happens between Eleven and Gemma or something. But that’s what the post game content is for I guess!

Some other nitpicks are that, I didn’t care about the music again. I think I liked more music in this one than DQ8, but still I’d be hard pressed to actually remember any songs from this game. I’m listening to the OST as we speak and other than the battle theme, I feel like I don’t remember what they sound like at all. And that’s probably cause I hate the composer but hey what can you do? I also wish it was easier to find Metal Slimes. I know they’re meant to be rare but I would’ve appreciated some appearing in the overworld just anywhere outside of the dragon chase scene? Weird to me you have randomly encounter them on the side of other enemeis.

Outside of that, uh. I think the Tockles were SUPER tick-tocked onto the game? It seemed like they were going to be massively important, but they just weren’t? I felt like you could’ve removed them and it would have made no change. I also thought there was gonna be WAY more time travel stuff. The scenes where you see the past are some of the best imo. Meeting Chalky from the past, playing as Rab in his kingdom, helping Eleven’s dad pass on. But these don’t feel enough to name the game “Echoes of an Illusive Age” if that makes sense? It just felt like there was supposed to be way more stuff with the Tockles and Time Travel stuff that just didn’t happen.

Now that I’m remembering it, it felt like there was TONS of stuff built up that just didn’t really go anywhere. Another big one is the whole deal with Erdwin’s lanter? Who was the guy who cut it in half? What was the deal with the lantern? Why did it fall? What was up with the dark Tockle? Wanna give any information on that? No? Okay. But if I had to guess, these all are explored heavily in the post game content, which is cool but sadly I did not have the time to play it. Maybe one day I’ll pick up a copy of the game and play through it fully.

Final Thoughts

Yeah it was good.

I am a huge fan of RPGs, but Dragon Quest just hadn’t fully clicked with me. I played 8 and liked it, but wasn’t blown away. I wouldn’t say I was blown away by this one either, but I am certainly very impressed and am eagerly anticipating whatever Dragon Quest 12 ends up being. This series is super founded in tradition (even if that tradition is detrimental to the gameplay imo?) but this game felt like a true evolution of that tradition while still holding onto it in the right ways. Are there ways to improve the game? Oh yeah, tons! But this is already a good step in the right direction. I will certainly be visiting the series more eventually (particularly 3, 4, and 5 are ones I’m curious about.) But I will probably emulate them to cheat when I run into roadblocks again.

After playing this, I also went back to play as Hero in Smash. They are still one of the best, if not my favorite character in the game. I think they are so fun and I love the randomness element that comes with them. Their stage is great too!

Also, seeing this gorgeous RPG with Akira Toriyama art in it made me REALLY want a new Blue Dragon. Like, REALLY bad. Please Microsoft if you’re listening PLEASE give us a new Blue Dragon. I don’t care what genre of RPG it is just give us a new one please I’m begging. Make it look like DQ11 and it will be the best game of all time.

Okay but enough of that. Thanks for skimming through or just letting me talk for a bit. For some reason the longer I held this one off, the less and less I felt like talking about it? Which is strange cause it’s a big game and I felt like I had tons to say during it. The only reason I even finished this and decided to post it was cause I already started it. Basically what I’m saying is that don’t be surprised if I just start making REALLY teeny tiny posts here instead of big rambles like this one.

But until then, I have work to do. I played through the Ty 2 HD remake on Switch recently and loved it all over again. I will maybe talk about that later. At the moment I’m playing Tales of Vesperia. Thanks again for putting up with me ramble about games, see you next time! Play something you love that puts you in an adventurous mood!

#2021 #Thoughts

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fullmoonfireball · 6 years

Note

Okay so, I remember your mirror Adeleine, but which other characters you have mirror versions of and what they are like? (Also, if you've written on canonical mirrorers such as Shadow Kirby or Dark Taranza, that counts too!)

Oh boy, this is gonna be a long one, so I’m putting it under the cut.

OCs

Lace: Mirror World Ribbon

Edgy, kind of a jerk, but in that way little kids are.

Goth™

Has never even heard of Shadow Kirby

Not very fleshed out, tbh

Shadeleine: Mirror World Adeleine

Mostly summed up in this post.

Also I apparently write her with a Texan accent? Oops

Her name was Shado when she was younger, and she hated it

Shadow Marx: Guess Who

Kinda grumpy, but is nice at heart

A very tired insomniac

Just Let Him Sleep

Dating Mirror Magolor

lots of incomprehensible late-night rambles

Syzzle: Mirror World Gryll

The nerd to Gryll’s jock

Probably owns a library or something

Also not very fleshed out

Theatra: Mirror World Claycia

An actress

Overdramatic, very flamboyant

Has a coloured redesign I still need to post

Overprotective of Shadow Elline, who she loves very much

Shadow Elline: Guess Who (2)

An author. Writes a lot of what Theatra performs

An inkbrush fairy, as opposed to her counterpart being a paintbrush fairy

Much more reserved than her girlfriend or her other world counterpart, doesn’t talk too much

the ‘straight man’ of the duo

Very easily flustered

Mirror Magolor: Guess Who (3)

Mostly summed up here

Myrdinia: Mirror World Drawcia

A robot made by Wiz, meant to be their assistant before Shadeleine took that role.

Bitter about the disappearance of her little sister Muse (a robotic dancer, MW!Paintra, who is waddledab’s character). Muse was made as a response to Myrdinia’s requests for a sister, and was loved dearly by her.

Even if Muse was kidnapped by some Floralian fuckwad, Myrdi still blames Wiz for what happened

Absolutely has at least five throwing knives on her at all times, even if she never uses them

More or less a magically animated automaton. She needs Wiz to ‘recharge’ her magical energy every now and then.

Shadow Sectonia: Guess Who (4)

Actually really nice, despite being a parasitic wasp. Hasn’t stolen anyones body

Was friends with Other World Sectonia, unfortunately leading to her corruption

Dead™

Shadow Taranza: Guess Who (5)

Nervous as heck

Unhealthily loyal to Shadow Sectonia

Definitely not doing so well after her death

Vivian: Mirror World Cordelia

Wiz’s (adopted) mom

Specializes in water magic, despite being a simirror

Supports her weird kid’s career wholeheartedly

Tea Person™

HeadCANON

Before starting off, here’s some general headcanons

Dark Meta Knight

An edgy jackass

Likes terrorizing people

Doesn’t like SDDD that much but works with him anyways

More headcanons here. they’re kinda old, though

Shadow Kirby

Nervous lil orb

Trying his best

Needs to hang out with better people

The Mom Friend™

Wiz (Mirror World Paint Roller)

Wiz is just their stage name. Their actual name is Shadow Nuru. Most people know them as just Wiz, and they’re fine with that

Physically, they’re just a pair of eyes and invisible hands. The clothes are levitated.

Probably a Madoo? but has no clue what a Madoo is

They do Real™ magic tricks. Their powers could probably be considered reality-bending, but they seem to think it’s “not much”.

Has anxiety issues, but they’re surprisingly good at hiding them… Most of the time.

They’re actually a really bad teacher, being the main reason Shadeleine hasn’t actually learned anything from them. The other reason is that Shaddy has no magical abilities whatsoever.

They’re surprisingly good with machinery, especially when it comes to clockwork and the like.

Probably sells some of the smaller devices they pull together. If not for their passion for prestidigitation, this could easily be their main job.

Really worried about Myrdinia and how resentful she’s become. They hope she’ll get past this 'bitter’ phase at some point.

Copes with Muse’s kidnapping by trying to pretend she never existed. They’re quite distressed by Myrdinia blaming them for it, as Muse was similarly dear to them.

A complete pushover to authority, no matter how questionable it is. They don’t even like Dark Mind (in fact, they’re quite scared of him), but would follow his rule unquestioningly. This is how they ended up guarding one of the Dimensional Mirror’s shards during KatAM.

Dark Mind (Mirror World Nightmare + Mirror World 0)

No one knows who put them together, but it wasn’t much before the events of KatAM

Mirror World Nightmare wasn’t even That bad, but most of his personality seems absent from Dark Mind

Despite The existence of a MW!0, no other members of the Dark Matter species seem to have counterparts. Presumably, MW!0 lacks the ability to produce them.

Pretty Dang clearly corrupted, as is usual for shard fusions. This is most apparent in his ego.

Shadow Dedede

Pretty apathetic

Not King in any way, shape, or form.

Would be capable of restraining DMK’s rage, but couldn’t care less

I’m not super sure of what to think of him

Dark Taranza (Shadow Sectonia + Shadow Taranza, only exists in the TKCD universe)

Unstable disaster

Ridiculously bitter

Floralia’s new regnant after Sectonia’s ‘passing’ (though they technically are her)

They’re fair to their subjects, but should anyone else wrong them, they would not hesitate to brutally punish them

Notably bigger than Other World Taranza

King D-Mind (Shadow Dedede + Dark Mind, only exists in the TKCD universe)

A DDDisaster. Possibly more so than DarTar.

Barely-functional, mentally speaking. Being a three person shard fusion is incredibly difficult.

Ridiculously corrupted

Not actually a King in any way, shape, or form. DarTar easily outranks them.

I also don’t know what to do with him, either

#long post #headcans #not gonna bother tagging everyone #but yeah! im deep in the fuck #and this probably isnt everything but Yknow #katyahina #ask

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jezfletcher · 6 years

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Oscars 2018

Can you believe that this year I managed to see every single Oscar-nominated film? I'm actually kind of impressed with myself. It's no small undertaking, especially because due to schedules of a toddler-related nature, in 2017 I had much less opportunity to watch films regularly. I did get out every now and again, and I took time off work to attend the Sydney Film Festival, which was a helpful event, in the end, with regards to my Oscars viewing. But mostly, these 44 feature films and 15 shorts were watched in the past month or so. Anyway, for the first time ever, here's my writeup of all the Oscar-nominated films of the past year, in order from my favourite to least favourite:

1. On Body & Soul (A Teströl és Lélekröl)

Directed by Ildikó Enyedi

Leading the pack this Oscars year is perhaps something of an unexpected entry. This is Hungary's submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, which I happened to see at the Sydney Film Festival earlier in the year. At that festival, it both took out my own personal Film Of The Festival, and was awarded the top competition award, the Sydney Film Prize. And there's a strong reason for that, because this is a wonderful, haunting film. It tells the story of two emotionally lost, and perhaps incomplete individuals, who connect when they discover that they've been sharing dreams at night. It's an odd premise, made odder by the unconventional nature of the characters, but it's utterly endearing and compelling at the same time. A lot of this is to do with director Ildikó Enyedi's style. She manages to make the film seem both ephemeral and engaging—I was drawn into the world with a kind of unforgiving compulsion, and yet when I was there it was alien, pushing me away. And so I revelled in it. The cinematography helps here too, with DP Máté Herbai finding beauty in both the dreamscape of the snowy forests where the two protagonists meet, and in the industrial brutalism of the slaughterhouse where they work. Overall, I found it a truly quite brilliant film, and it holds a very worth place at the top of this list. It might be a bit outside the tastes of the Academy voters, but for me I think it would be an excellent winner of the Foreign Language Oscar.

2. Lady Bird

Directed by Greta Gerwig

This had so many promising elements to me, and it was with something of a sigh of relief that I finally saw it and enjoyed it as much as I did. This is indeed a great film made of great parts, and there's much to be said about how good it is in its depth. The eponymous Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan, an actress I always love on screen), is a high school senior, looking to escape from Sacramento when she goes to college next year. But she faces the fact that this is a less financially viable option than going to nearby UC Davis, and incredible pressure from her borderline abusive mother (Laurie Metcalf). There's so much to unpack in what could easily be a mediocre coming-of-age story. The layers in the family dynamics are rich, as is the development of the school world around Lady Bird. Her on-screen relationships, with first Danny (Lucas Hedges) and then Kyle (Timothée Chalamet) are achingly real, and touched with nostalgic regret. It feels like Greta Gerwig has put something really personal up on screen. Whether or not that's true is beside the point—she has managed to craft something that feels so real anyway. Nothing is out of place, and the characterisation is so believable that you feel following any one of these people would result in a fine film. That's honestly such a sign of quality for me. So yeah: I loved it. I'm aware it's the kind of film (black comic family drama, anyone?) that I'm kind of destined to love. But the fact that it ended up so good is wonderful—it really beat my expectations.

3. Get Out

Directed by Jordan Peele

I was so pleased when this got a nod for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. It's the kind of cult hit that could very easily be overlooked. Perhaps not without some consternation from fans; but it's the kind of thing that could happen and it would fit neatly into the Academy's narrative. If you don't know the story, I won't say much except that it starts off with a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) travelling to meet his girlfriend's parents for the first time (played brilliantly by Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener). It's a satire of race relations in a really quite astoundingly way, unpredictable to some extent because, oh yes, it's a horror movie too. This is the kind of film that you feel breaks down some kind of invisible barrier in filmmaking—something that's been there and has stopped films like this being made before, just because you didn't realise there could be a film like this. Now to be fair, what I probably call an "invisible" barrier is probably very apparent to someone with a different cultural background. Which is why we need films from diverse directors, and Jordan Peele's first effort here is genuinely, genuinely brilliant. (Just as an aside, I notice that my top three films this year are from two women and a person of colour—so it's not just that I feel like diversity should be improved for its own sake, although it should, it's just that I really, really like films like these. What else are we missing out on for the sake of another reboot of King Kong?) Anyway, long story short: this is a fabulous film, and one that you really just need to see to experience. It was probably one of the most clever things I've seen on screen this year, or in several years, and it's well worth your time.

4. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Directed by Martin McDonagh

I feel like the top four films have each been brilliant in their own inimitable way—like they're very much the top contender each in a different category. The way that they've ended up sorted is more about the intrinsic value in each category than comparing like-for-like films. Three Billboards probably falls into something like the "fun" category, which to anyone who's seen the film might consider an odd choice, since it deals with the aftermath of a murder, and explores themes of racism, grief and anger. But there's so much to enjoy here in Martin McDonagh's brilliant screenplay, which I feel is easily the equal to his previous hit In Bruges, a film that was one of my very favourite films the year it came out. It not only establishes a complex interaction of characters in this small town, but it provides a brilliant vessel for his stars to shine. Frances McDormand is rightly considered the frontrunner for Best Actress this year, and she gives an uncompromising performance as a woman driven by grief-fuelled vengeance. Sam Rockwell is also extremely good, oozing into his character with a charm that's compelling and disturbing. It feels like he's having a really good time with this character, which is equally enjoyable and worrying. This is not to mention amusing digressions from the likes of Peter Dinklage, John Hawkes and Caleb Landry Jones. Most importantly though, there's an arc to the tale here which manages to swing around the attitudes and motivations of these characters, while never letting them be anything other than anti-heroes. The character development is undeniable, but even as you empathise with them onscreen, you're constantly aware that they are still at heart horrible people. Compelling, undoubtedly, which is what makes the film so enjoyable, but morally corrupt in some way or another. This is true almost up until the very end of the film, when just a sliver of something human is tantalised. Yeah, I really, loved this film. Apparently, it's seen a fair bit of backlash since its release—I've read some of the critiques of it, and I just have to say I disagree. But that's the good thing about movies right? I'm going to love some, you're going to love others. For me, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was a treat.

5. The Insult (L'insulte)

Directed by Ziad Doueiri

It was a good year for the Foreign Language oscar this year, and in another iteration, a film like this could well be on top. It tells the tale of two men, one a Lebanese Christian, deeply into fundamentalist and nationalistic politics, and the other a Palestinian refugee living in Beirut. After a minor incident involving one of them splashing water on the other, a series of escalating encounters pushes them into the courts, and finally onto the national stage. It's almost a comic film. It's certainly some kind of dark satire at least, which allows you to forgive the almost ridiculous ways in which it progresses, eventually becoming a lightning rod for simmering racial tensions in Lebanon. It's almost requisite of films coming out of the Middle East that they deal with tensions such as these, but often they are not done nearly as well as in Doueiri's work here. Moreover, for a film that's mostly set in a courtroom, it manages to plumb great emotional and narrative depths. It launches into politics, history and racism. It feels like an educational as well as an entertaining experience. This is only possible because it's always grounded in a kind of empathetic portrayal. While one of our players is clearly the Good Guy, and the other the Bad Guy—there's always enough light let in to the performances such that you can at least see the Bad Guy's point of view, which makes the redemption of sorts towards the end seem like a possibility. Overall, this was a really well crafted and very engaging film. As I said, it's up against some stiff competition this year, but overall, it was a thoroughly worthwhile experience, even if it's not going to get my nod in its category.

6. The Big Sick

Directed by Michael Showalter

A fine film, with a really sparkling script taken right out of the lives of the two screenwriters, Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani (who stars, effectively, as himself in the film). Kumail is a stand-up comedian who meets Emily (Zoe Kazan) after a set, and the two embark on a torrid relationship. But when Emily is forced into a medically-induced coma, Kumail has to deal with his emotions regarding what could have just been a fling. Add to the mix Kumail's efforts in avoiding his traditional Pakistani family's attempt to find him an arranged bride, and his wavering relationship with Emily's parents and you have a fine film. Emily's parents, by the way, who he meets for the first time at Emily's hospital bedside while she's comatose, are genuinely wonderfully portrayed on screen by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano. It's an unusual kind of romantic comedy, which is stronger for the fact that it's based in such a true and fertile emotional place. They can layer on the comedy as much as they like, because there's such a perfect tragic core at its heart. It's never going to be seen as flippant. And this allows for those wonderful moments where scenes turn on a dime—one minute you're laughing uproariously, the next you're wincing in pain. It's a fine film to be able to do all of this, and I very much appreciate the skill with which this is executed. This is one of the films that I'd be very happy to get a surprise nod for screenplay, notwithstanding I probably have other films above it that I liked more overall.

7. Blade Runner 2049

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

I was extremely impressed with this film. It's a fine film in its own right, but more impressively, it was a film that managed to survive the weight of expectations from being the sequel to a science fiction classic. This is undoubtedly due, at least in part, to the work of the always fine Denis Villeneuve, who is a director I will follow into battle nowadays. He's doing such interesting work, and conducting an ensemble like this is no mean feat. He has excellent assistance, of course, and there's a reason why this is nominated in categories like Production Design and Cinematography. It manages to be both a coherent part of the original film's ethos, but also a bolkd new step. In many ways, I actually found this to be a more enjoyable film than the original. And this is despite the fact that close to three hours in length, this film is undoubtedly slow in places. But you forgive it. You wallow in this world. You wallow in the characters and the andante-paced story. This is a better filmn for its world-building than for its plot (much, I might add, like the Phillip K. Dick source material). I enjoyed it a great deal in any case, and I was perhaps a little awed at how they managed to so pull off something like this. I feel like I'm deeply skeptical of the recent Hollywood tradition of launching remakes, reboots, sequels and spin-offs. But a film like this shows that occasionally, maybe it works. I just hope that they see that as a testament to the crew involved in this film, and not the intrinsic quality of just reheating the old.

8. Coco

Directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina

I think this is the best Pixar film in some time, and as always when a Pixar film is good, it's due to its emotional depth. This tells the story of a young boy who wants to be a musician, and is accidentally sent to the land of the dead right before Diá de los Muertos. He has to find a way to return to the land of the living before the celebration. It's a fine film, and one that feels like it respects and embraces the Mexican traditions of the festival. Indeed, it has a depth that, to me as an outsider, felt like it was honouring these traditions, in a way that allowed me to understand them better. It manages to do this with a family-friendly story, and plenty of style, drawing on the skeletal folk traditions of the festival. It's also an emotional film, and by the end, you feel as though it's been building up everything for the emotional sucker punch. This is something that Pixar can do extremely well when the elements are right. A fine return to form after a few films that I don't think I even saw, and by all accounts were not very good. Pixar is a long way from the time when everything they produced was a hit, but with films like Coco, they show that they've still got it in them when they want it.

9. I, Tonya

Directed by Craig Gillespie

The story of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan is one that I vaguely remember from my childhood. It was a big news story at the time, but one that just got morphed and twisted over time. I, Tonya is the film that plays very much on the mythology of the attack on Nancy Kerrigan, providing a fractured but painfully sympathetic portrayal of its title character. I honestly found this film quite distressing in a bunch of ways. This is the second film on this list with an abusive mother-daughter relationship, but this is significantly more challenging, especially thanks to the powerhouse performance of Allison Janney as Harding's mother. This relationship is brutal, but so is Harding's co-dependent relationship on her violent husband Jeff (played by an unrecognisable Sebastian Stan). Margot Robbie too is extremely good in the lead role, although she makes the (perfectly valid) choice to make Harding less than ideally sympathetic. It's the right choice for the film, but it does add more of a grind to watching it. But it's a better portrayal, you feel, for who Harding was. When I first came out of this film, I wasn't actually sure if I'd liked it or hated it. But it's stuck with me to such a degree that I can't help but elevate it to a position like this in the list. I think, in the end, it's a very clever film, and manages to portray Tonya Harding in a way that might be very difficult to do in a more traditional milieu.

10. A Fantastic Woman

Directed by Sebastián Lelio

A really quite wonderful film, A Fantastic Woman tells the story of an aspiring singer (Daniela Vega), who struggles with the death of her partner, 30 years her senior, and the suspicion with which she is viewed by her partner's family after his death. In many ways, it's a fairly straight down the line drama. It uses the conflict between Marina and her partner's family as the backdrop to explore some issues, especially around transgender identity, but it's not shoving messages down your throat. Instead, it takes Vega's performance as Daniela in a very staid and understated way. This is all very intentional of course. It emphasises the fact that all Marina wants to do is to live her life. To be able to grieve over the death of her partner. To be not treated with suspicion, or subjected to brutality and degradation. She's just normal, but that makes her fantastic. Overall, I very much enjoyed this film. It was extremely well made, and fills out the field in an already packed and genuinely very good Foreign Language category this year. Again, this could have done well in another year.

11. The Florida Project

Directed by Sean Baker

I quite enjoyed Sean Baker's debut film Tangerine, but this film is a broadening of his artistic style, and ends up being a much better film for it. It once again focuses on a group on the edges of society, this time a community of people who live in gaudy motels on a highway strip just outside of Disneyworld in Florida. It's largely told through the eyes of the children who live here, in particular Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), who are left to explore their surroundings without much in the way of supervision—providing a surprisingly raw look at where a child's imagination will take them without boundaries. Supporting are the characters of Moonee's mother (Bria Vinai) and the manager of the motel in which they live (Willem Dafoe, who rightly earned his Oscar nomination for this film). It's in turns depressing and uplifting, as we see the struggle of the parents (who are by no means the sugar-coated ideal of noble poverty), and the ways in which the children learn to survive and to flourish. It does have the same kind of jerky cinematography that characterised Tangerine, although that was filmed on iPhones, but here there's still a sense of weird, garish beauty to the uber-kitsch motels and strip-malls of Florida. Somehow it works. It's a really interesting film, and certainly one that I feel as though I can recommend wholeheartedly—something I couldn't necessarily do with Tangerine. Sean Baker has certainly shown with this film at least that he's a director to watch in the future, and I'll certainly be doing that.

12. Loveless

Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

This was the very last film I saw for the Oscars this year, so had the honour if wrapping up all the feature films. Like Zvyagintsev's other films, it's a chilly, minimalist affair, but like all of his previous ones it has an emotional impact that you'd not expect from its spare production. In this film, a family is undergoing a divorce. Both husband and wife have new partners waiting for them—one pregnant, one rich, aloof and used to their life as it is right now. Custody of their son would be a burden on either of them, and neither of them wants to accept him. Then, the son disappears. What follows is a typically emotionally bare and brutal undertaking from the director. It's almost merciless in its depiction of characters without warmth of spirit, and the consequences this eventually brings upon them. It's eerily beautiful too, set in the starkness of Moscow highrises and long snowy banks. Like the emotions it conjures, there's a bleakness to it, ably assisted by a minimalist soundtrack. I think this is maybe not as good as Zvyagintsev's pervious film Leviathan, because I enjoyed the more overt political overtones there. This is still a political film, without a doubt, but its politics are more cached in the environment that creates characters like this. That is, it's one level removed from an explicit exploration of societal corruption. But it's still an excellent film, and a film which shows the Foreign Language award this year as an extremely strong category. Whichever film ends up winning, it's had to take on some impressive competition.

13. The Post

Directed by Steven Spielberg

I won't spend a lot of time on this film, but suffice it to say that I found it an enjoyable, by-the-numbers outing from Spielberg, helped by the always competent performances from Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. I feel like Meryl Streep has a common thread running through her performances, and yet in every one I've seen she seems unlike all the others. Here, her performance as the insecure publisher of a major newspaper manages to tap into that sense of inner strength she always has, but layers it with a timorous quality which is surprisingly engaging on screen. It helps as well that there's a good story to tell here—it's not the story of the breaking news of the Pentagon papers, but more how it was specifically dealt with within the Washington Post. This is more entertaining than it would have been to see how the story was originally broken open (the Post was not the paper to originally get the story). But yeah, it's a fine film, very enjoyable and very by the numbers. With a cast of such established actors, and an old-hand director like Spielberg at the reins, it was unlikely to be anything else.

14. Call Me By Your Name

Directed by Luca Guadagnino

This was a fine, very stylistic film, which used its setting to great effect, and tells a tentative love story in an oblique way. Timothée Chalamet is Elio, the son of a classics professor (Michael Stuhlbarg). Over the summer, a student of his (Armie Hammer) comes to work at their Italian villa, and a romance ensues between Elio and the much older student. It's set as a love story, and it mostly manages to avoid the questionable nature of the relationship by showing it in a very sympathetic and delicate light. Elio pursues Oliver, not the other way around. Oliver and Elio embrace consent at every step of the way. And they have the tacit approval of Elio's parents. Indeed, the absolute highlight of the film is Stuhlbarg's speech to his son towards the end of the film, where he shows wisdom and compassion that made me hope that I could one day be as good a father as he is. The fact that Stuhlbarg is not nominated for an Oscar for supporting actor, for that speech alone, is a travesty. Overall, it's a fine film, if not one that rocketed to the top of my list, which I feel a very similar film in style, tone and content could have. But a very worthy film nonetheless.

15. Mudbound

Directed by Dee Rees

This was a quite beautiful film, surrounding two families, one white, one black, in rural Mississippi after World War II. It's a well-crafted portrayal of racial segragation, but also of surprising friendship in the younger generation. This is, of course, contrasted with the older tensions, especially the savage portrayal of the elderly patriarch of the McAllan family from Jonathan Banks. The film doesn't shy away from the harsh truths of this world. It's also exquisitely shot, with broad vistas of the rural landscape, and claustrophobic interiors, used to great thematic purpose. It's no wonder that this managed a nomination for Best Cinematography. Overall, I enjoyed it a great deal. It was a very skillfully crafted piece of cinema that is very much worth your time.

16. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Directed by Rian Johnson

Undoubtedly more divisive that the film that came before it, The Last Jedi is also a film that I found myself embracing less wholeheartedly than I did The Force Awakens. But it's one of those films that you most likely have to let percolate. A film that you should probably watch a second time and appreciate more than the first. Like its predecessor, it does follow a lot of the same storyline as the original trilogy. Rey, separated from her friends, and seeking the ways of the Jedi with an old master. But also like The Empire Strikes Back, this seeks to break new ground, and it certainly manages to do that. Much has been said about the humour in this film, especially about whether it detracts from the mood of the franchise. But this is just one of the ways in which this film succeeds. More than anything, it needed to break from The Force Awakens. TFA was the film it needed to be. It needed to soothe nerves after the prequels. It needed to get back to the traditional lore. And it did this in a very safe way—too safe in some ways, in that it almost copied the exact storyline of A New Hope. The Last Jedi manages to avoid that. It is at least the first steps into doing something different, and that is what was needed from this film. Rian Johnson may be facing some backlash now, but I think in the course of history, this will be seen as a necessary and pivotal film in the franchise.

17. Marshall

Directed by Reginald Hudlin

This was just good old-fashioned filmmaking, and I genuinely enjoyed it a good deal. A courtroom drama, set in the civil rights era, it focuses on one of the early cases of Thurgood Marshall, who goes on to become the first African-American Supreme Court Judge. It's a serviceable but predictable kind of plot, but it's told with style and charm, and pulled off with good performances from Chadwick Boseman and Josh Gad. The production design is also quite lush—it pulls together a sense of period in a kind of effortless way, more like the films released in the 90s and 00s than the fussier style of today. I enjoyed it a good deal. It's not a truly great film, but it's certainly one which entertained me for its length. And honestly, there are a great number of films, like many of these below, which fail to do that.

18. The Shape Of Water

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

This is a very odd film to be getting the kind of reception it has. Let me say straight off the bad that it's an exceptionally well-crafted film. It has an amazing ensemble cast. del Toro has an excellent sense of style, and an undeniable eye for the unusual. But I did find myself equivocal about the film overall. To some extent, this comes down to the plot, which is a little like a cross between a 50's sci-fi B-movie and Oh No, Willy Didn't Make It And He Crushed Our Boy. But this is hidden behind layers and layers of production design, and of del Toro's sense of fantastical whimsy. Disappointingly, I like all of the actors who are up for Oscar nominations for this film, but I didn't particularly like them all that much in this particular film. Sally Hawkins is perhaps more of the exception, as she manages to put together a remarkable performance without speaking a word. Still, I think that if this film does take out Best Picture, I'll be scratching my head a bit. It's not only that it's not the pick that I would have chosen, I feel as though it's really not the pick that the Academy would have chosen. So, who knows, maybe that's a good thing.

19. Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Directed by Dan Gilroy

OK, speaking of odd films, here's a corker. Directed by Dan Gilroy as a follow to his excellent debut Nightcrawler, this is something of a vessel for Denzel Washington to show his range. He plays the titular Israel, a socially awkward man, but a brilliant lawyer, who struggles to find a place for himself after the death of his legal partner. It's a weird film, but one that I found myself enjoying in spite of myself. Partially, this is due to watching Denzel Washington. He's a fine actor in any role, but in one with such neuroses to play with, it's something of a master class. But the film surrounding this performance is in some senses not worthy of it. You get the feeling that without Denzel Washington, this film would have just been a stinker. Plot-wise it's somewhat pedestrian, and it kind of meanders only as much as it needs to to create new situations for this character to react to. It's nowhere near as plot driven or engaging as Gilroy's previous outing. But that's what it's here at the Oscars for, right? For Denzel Washington, as always. And here, at least, I'm very happy to see him. This is indeed a fine performance from him—indeed, despite everything, it might be one of his better performances. And he does carry this film enough to get it this high in my list. Despite its flaws, I did like it.

20. Strong Island

Directed by Yance Ford

So here, finally, we have the first documentary feature. And it's a fine film, and a deeply personal one, surrounding the investigation of the murder of a young black man, who, it turns out, was the filmmaker's brother. Usually, I'm less likely to enjoy documentaries that don't have a sense of journalistic detachment to them. But here, the pain and the intimacy with which we are told this story through Ford's eyes, and the eyes of his family, more than makes up for the lack of perspective. This is an emotional journey, but it's one that's told with a firm hand on the tiller. Ford never relinquishes that sense of objective filmmaking in order to editorialise. He's well aware that the story itself is evocative enough. In the end, it's a good documentary. It's not one of the best documentaries I've seen in recent years, but it's certainly the best of this year's bunch.

21. Victoria & Abdul

Directed by Stephen Frears

I enjoyed this film a great deal. It's a surprisingly charming film about the relationship between an elderly Queen Victoria and a young Indian Muslim whom she takes on to teach her Urdu and about Islam. It's a sweet film in many ways, and lavishly produced, with good performances from Judi Dench and Ali Fazal in the title roles. It paints a rather sympathetic portrayal of Victoria as well—as someone who is fascinated by the Indian subcontinent, which she is Empress of, but of which she is largely ignorant. In this, there's a touch of cultural imperialism though. We see the favour with which Victoria treats her Indian friend without seeing the implications of the British Raj on the people of India. It's very much a film for a white audience, that chooses not to engage very much with the more difficult topic. But as a piece of fluff disconnected with these things, it's quite enjoyable. It was a film I saw on a plane, and it's just the right kind of film for me in that situation. It doesn't require a lot of attention, and it's somewhere between light-hearted and truly emotional. In the end, it is what it is, and that was fine.

22. Dunkirk

Directed by Christopher Nolan

It's undeniable that this was a fairly impressive outing from Nolan. But to me this was a technical achievement more than it was a great film. Telling a sequence of only peripherally related tales surrounding the British evacuation of Dunkirk, it very much manages to illustrate the epic scope of the operation. But that's pretty much all it is. I really didn't much at all get the sense of compelling narrative in this. I mean, it's there, in each of the individual threads, and to some extent you do care about these characters. But it's all done with such an eye for the broader scope that none of the individual stories seem to matter all that much. To some extent, that's probably the idea, or at least the inevitable end result of such a film. It is about the larger picture much more than it is about the individual stories, even though the tapestry is woven from those stories. Sadly, it failed a little as an engaging picture for me, even though the visuals and the technical expertise required to put a film like this on the screen is quite extraordinary. So I'll continue to respect Nolan as a director. He definitely has the skills to pull off difficult things. But I'm kind of hopeful that this trend of his to the wider and wider epic won't mean that he's given up on the more engaging, intimate and plot-driven films of his early career. We'll wait and see.

23. The Square

Directed by Ruben Östlund

An interesting but ultimately overly precious film, about the curator of a major Swedish art museum as he prepares for a new installation, while also trying to track down his stolen wallet and phone. It has a number of different threads, and there's a bunch of rather bombastic pretention thrown into the mix, including an extended scene at an art fundraiser where a man acting like a Bonobo ape is let loose on the crowd as a piece of performance art. These are all stylistic choices that Östland makes which imbue the film with a sense of added pretense. All of this makes the film less immediately engaging than it might be. It deliberately obfuscates at times, becoming more like the art you feel it's satirising than it does a coherent picture itself. But there's still things to enjoy in it. Overall, I found it relatively engaging. I feel some of the choices were made for the wrong reasons though, and it ended up being a worse film than it might have been.

24. Loving Vincent (animated)

Directed by Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman

Another impressive technical achievement, this is a gorgeous film, with every frame of animation a separate oil painting, painted by one of a massive team of artists. It tells the aftermath of Vincent Van Gogh's death, as investigated by the son of one of Van Gogh's friends. The narrative is pretty much not the point of the film—they do manage to craft something that is enough to keep things plodding along, but really you can enjoy this film just by looking at it. Interestingly, the film had to be produced pretty much twice, because the action is performed first by live actors (the likes of Douglas Booth, Saoirse Ronan, Aidan Turner and Chris O'Dowd), was then printed on canvas, and overpainted with oils, all in the style of Van Gogh. It's a mind-boggling effort. In some respects it's not a film that should ever have been made—the fact that it has been, no matter what the half-baked plot was, is the really interesting story here.

25. The Breadwinner

Directed by Nora Twomey

This was another quite beautiful film, traditionally animated in beautiful form from the same studio that did The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, both of which were also nominated in the Best Animated Feature category. This film is set in Afghanistan, between the war with Russia and the US invasion, when the country is under Taliban control. Parvana is a young girl who has a gift for telling stories, one of which runs through the film in pieces. When her father is arrested by the Taliban, she disguises herself as a boy so as to be able to perform work and support her family. It's a sad film in many ways, but it shows a great deal of what's good in life as well, even in pretty dark circumstances. Parvana's gift of story is an illustration of the way such tales can invigorate, and sooth. The animation is good, as it has been in all this studios films, traditionally animated, or at least animated in a 2D style. And the story here is both more mature and engaging than in their previous efforts that I've seen. Overall a good film. My limited engagement with animated films drops this as low as it is, but honestly, there are many animated films that would not do nearly as well as this has.

26. Phantom Thread

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

I was quite disappointed with how low this has ended up, but it's a position that it warrants, despite the fact that it has much of Paul Thomas Anderson's charm and craft all over it. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a prominent but eccentric fashion designer who lives in a difficult co-dependent relationship with his sister (Lesley Manville). When he begins a relationship with a waitress, Alma (Vicky Krieps), she has to adapt to his eccentricies, the rancour of his sister, and life in the tortured world of fashion. It's an elaborately crafted film, and to some extent feels like an academic exercise that PTA has given himself. It's fussy in its production, in a way that matches well the personality of its leading man. The music is a highlight from Johnny Greenwood, and stands apart as one of the films greatest strengths. The other strength of course is the presence of Daniel Day-Lewis. He's a chameleonic actor, to the extent that I honestly don't at all know what a base-level Daniel Day-Lewis performance is like. He completely reinvents himself for every role, and this one—a difficult one, no doubt—is performed with that same complexity and grace. It's disappointing in some ways that it so failed to connect with me. There were lots of good elements, but they did not combine into something holistically interesting. It was, altogether, too particular, too pleased with itself, or too exacting of its audience for me to embrace.

27. Wonder

Directed by Stephen Chbosky

Wonder tells the tale of a young boy with facial deformities (Jacob Tremblay) as he makes the transition from home schooling to being integrated into a traditional middle school. It looked like absolute shchmaltz. But in fact, there was a surprising amount of depth and heart to the film, and a sophistication of thought that made it rise above its shonky premise. There's something surprisingly human about the whole thing, not due to the pathos, but due to the combination of pathos and humour. It is rather optimistic throughout, but it steers away from melodrama and sentimentality. In some senses it rides above its premise, to provide more of a straight family drama. This is accentuated by good performances from Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson, and in particular from Jacob Tremblay and Izabela Vidovic as his sister. The focus on other members of the family, and the wider ensemble helps to promote this. Indeed, the film ends up bearing some resemblance to Chbosky's previous film, the excellent The Perks of Being A Wallflower. It doesn't have the same depth, or the same fluency of character, but Chbosky obviously knows what he's doing in this domain. So it's a surprising effort for a film I expected to dislike a great deal. It's a better outing than it sounds, and ends up, while still not an excellent film, quite good at delivering on its premise.

28. Icarus

Directed by Bryan Fogel

This is a very, very odd film. It's a documentary that starts out with the filmmaker, Bryan Fogel, trying a social experiment to see if he can get away with using performance enhancing drugs for an amateur road cycling race. In pursuit of this, he meets Grigory Rodchenkov, a Russian scientist in charge of his country's anti-doping agency, and the two devise a doping schedule for the director. But the director doesn't know what he's found, because in the middle of filming, Russia's anti-doping scheme is revealed, and Rodchenkov is unveiled as the mastermind behind it. From that point, the documentary pivots and becomes the first-hand story of Rodchenkov turning whistle-blower against his former colleagues, and the revelations of the conspiracy which seem to go to the very top of the Russian government. Fogel is thrown in the deep end to this one. This is not the documentary he was going to make, and neither is he the right director for it—he's hanging on for dear life as the story unravels in front of him. To his credit, he manages to ride it out, and we get a credible and quite engaging story out of it. But there are places where it's quite dicey. He does have the unfortunate habit of trying to put himself too squarely into the middle of the action, a fault that seems common in mediocre documentarians, but given the initial premise of the film, we can at least see why he does it. In the end, there's a really very compelling story in this documentary. The fact that it's told the way it is is the result of luck more than skill on the part of the filmmakers. But it's also luck for us—we get to see the story unfold in a way that we would have missed otherwise. And that's worth something.

29. The Disaster Artist

Directed by James Franco

I'd seen The Room several years ago, and if you haven't it's worth the hype. It is truly a masterpiece of appallingly bad cinema. So I was quite intrigued to see the story behind it, however it was filtered by James Franco. And it is a rather interesting, if quite silly story. The main event here is the characterisation of the star of The Room, Tommy Wiseau. He's a man steeped in mystery—somehow exceptionally wealthy, destined to be an actor, but with very little talent, and zero sense of self-awareness. Somehow though, Franco manages to make him a sympathetic character—the central figure in a tragedy perhaps. It's a soft touch, and easily the best thing about the film. The rest, however, is serviceable but never inspired. The script is only mediocre as far as I'm concerned, despite its nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and only manages to provide the main beats of the plot without a great deal of humour or panache. In the end, it's an okay film. I certainly had some fun with it, but it's hard to recognise it as much of a sterling piece of cinematic history. That honour remains solely with The Room.

30. The Boss Baby

Directed by Tom McGrath

By any account, this should have been the worst film of the Oscars. This is surely one of the most awful premises for a movie ever, right? Secretly, our protagonist Tim's new baby brother is a business executive, sent on a secret mission to infiltrate his family, and steal secret plans on a new kind of puppy. Can you hear me gagging already? So how does this manages to twist itself into a heartwarming parable about family, and in particular brotherly love? I suspect this is because it draws on the source material, a picture book by Marla Frazee, a medium not suited to convoluted backstory of the kind that sickened me in this film. But the emotions it evokes are relatable. A new child is brought into the family, which disrupts the status quo in a way that the existing child resists and resents. But over time, almost without realising it, they grow to love one another. The way this tale is framed within the film is almost inconsequential. Yeah, there's some silly plot involving stealing secret plans from PuppyCo. And there are a number of set pieces surrounding the chase and execution of this plot. But that's certainly not what got me. In the end, admittedly, this is still something of a silly film, and its position here isn't great. But for a film that should have been a Giant Novelty Shoe-in for worst film of the Oscars, it endeared itself to me in a way I really wasn't prepared for.

31. Faces Places (Visages, Villages)

Directed by Agnès Varda & JR

A fairly interesting but also perplexing documentary about the surprising friendship that arises between veteran French director Agnès Varda and young photographer JR, whose shtick is pasting massive versions of his photography on forgotten architecture. Together, the two of them travel around France, finding unusual places to exhibit JRs next piece of artwork, which Varda muses on her life, and reflects on her many triumphs and regrets. Largely the film revolves around the friendship that blooms between the two co-directors. But it's a very understated piece, with little in the way of conflict, or even much that's revelatory. The only real human emotion which sneaks in is saved until near the end of the piece, when Varda takes JR to meet her old friend Jean-Luc Godard. The rest is staid, and a little perplexing, but never unbeautiful. It's more a pictorial of JR's art though than anything really resembling a story. And that makes it a harder film to swallow than it really should be. As a result, this is languishing towards the back end of the list, and honestly, that's a bit of a shame.

32. Logan

Directed by James Mangold

People kind of raved about this film, calling it an impressive departure from the regular superhero storyline. While it's true that it is a departure from the regular superhero fare, it doesn't necessarily follow that it hence deserves a rave. The world has changed from the X-Men universe we know. The mutations which caused superhero powers have seemingly stopped, Professor Xavier is now crippled by his mental powers, and is cared for in a bunker by a bitter, resentful Wolverine. But of course, their life is not destined to just peter out without a sound, and they get dragged into a conspiracy that requires their intervention once again. Don't get me wrong: this is significantly more interesting than most of the superhero films that are trotted out year after year. But after the unusual set-up, and some bleaker than normal cinematography, this really does become a lot like another superhero film. At its core, it can't escape that, and when it devolves into long tracts of choreographed fight sequences, I'm much less interested. So yeah, I can perhaps see why this was regarded with critical interest. But at the same time, it didn't do much for me.

33. Beauty and the Beast

Directed by

Not a great film, admittedly, and to some extent warranted some of the criticism thrown at it. It is, after all, not far from a shot-for-shot live-action remake of Disney's classic animated version—a version which is rightfully regarded as a triumph. But because it's based on such solid material, there is a good deal of charm to it. Emma Watson's Belle is engaging in her role, although as people have said, she's not an incredible singer, meaning that her songs are only so good. The rest of the cast (which is surprisingly good), do a serviceable job, but at every moment you're comparing them to the animated versions of themselves, and the comparison is rarely favorable. Perhaps the exception is Luke Evans as Gaston, who manages to be suitably and consistently smarmy, and Josh Gad as LeFou, who manages to elicit some sympathy from the audience. In the end, it was better than it might have been. And it's not as good as the original. While you might look at it and say "it didn't fail in its attempt", you might equally ask "why was the attempt made in the first place?".

34. Darkest Hour

Directed by Joe Wright

I had a bunch of problems with this film. Telling the days of the early turbulent reign of Winston Churchill's prime-ministership, it focuses on the difficult future facing Britain in WWII, when victory was so far from assured that a Nazi invasion seemed inevitable. Notwithstanding Gary Oldman's believable mimickry of Churchill, the film concerned me in a bunch of different ways. It sought to give insight into the difficult decisions of government—which in this case involved outright lying to the people of the country, and nationalist propaganda designed to help the war effort at the cost of transparency. But in so doing, the film seemed to canonise such efforts. This is the cost of winning a war, it stated, and the ends justify the means. Worse is the fact that the seeming pivotal moment when Churchill seeks the approval of the common man (a sappy sequence set on the London Underground) is played off as the moral basis of the film. Everyone, it seems, approves of the job Churchill is doing. They support the war effort. They support the need for austerity. They are optimistic about Britain's chances, because Britons have the backbone to win a fight, jolly what. The film portrays Churchill as buoyed by this, despite the fact that in the narrative of the film these people only think this due to the propaganda Churchil himself is spouting. The whole sequence made me very cynical, and it underlined all of the thematic issues with the film elsewhere. If it were a better made film overall, I'd perhaps even consider it dangerous to some extent. But I think that it might only be remembered as a vessel for Gary Oldman, who's apparently one of the favourites to take out the Best Actor nod. And maybe that's fine as its legacy.

35. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail

Directed by Steve James

This wasn't a terrible documentary, but it was one that was drawn out for too long. It tells the story of the Abacus bank, a small American operation set up to appeal to the Chinese community in that country. Unlike any of the other banks which were caught up in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, Abacus was the only bank whose directors and management were charged with crimes. The documentary follows the trials, and tells the story of the how they ended up in the situation they did. It focuses less on the impact of the GFC on all the other banks, and I think misses an opportunity to take more of a swing at the big players. Instead, it focuses on how unfair it is that Abacus was targeted, rather than how unfair it is that Abacus was the only bank targeted. The other issue I have with the film is that the middle section is severely over-extended. To be fair, if it were not, the film itself would be much shorter—and it's not an overly long film as it is, so it may have not even been classified as a feature film if it were not extended in this way. But there's a great deal of time spent focusing on the family's and directors musing on what's going to happen in the trial, without much in the way of narrative thrust. In the end, it's only so good. I liked the concept behind it, but the delivery and execution meant that this fell a long way down the list.

36. Baby Driver

Directed by Edgar Wright

A rather silly film, directed with panache and a sense of style, but ultimately one which really just had me giving a bunch of sideeye. Let's talk about the good bits. The music, which provides almost the rhythmic thrust of the film, is universally excellent. It's an eclectic mix of any number of pieces, usually drawn from the lesser-known back catalogues. And there's a kind of anti-establishment style to the film, especially the driving sequences, which are, in turn aided by the pumping soundtrack. But the story is weak, and the characterisation is even more so. These folks are comic-book cutouts—which, you feel, would fit the style of the movie—but instead it just creates a sense of detachment which means that I personally never felt involved in the world. I just didn't care about anyone. It's also not aided by the performances of the leads. Kevin Spacey phones in a "look, I'm Kevin Spacey" doddle, and Ansel Elgort is just numbingly bland in the title role. Some pleasingly uncharacteristic menace comes from John Hamm and Jamie Foxx, but they're not the main focus of the film, so their presence is only sporadically helpful. I ended up just feeling alienated from the film. It didn't do anything to really draw me in at all, and as a result, I ended up not caring. Worse, the stylistic embellishments ended up feeling a bit like an ego trip for Edgar Wright—the film hadn't earnt them, and given it had fundamental problems, it came across as wank.

37. Last Men in Aleppo (doc)

Directed by Feras Fayyad

This film suffered a lot from the fact that I'd seen The White Helmets the year before, which covered the same group of Syrian volunteers whose job is to rescue survivors from bombed buildings. The two films were produced by different people, so there's not necessarily the sense that one is just a richer adaptation of the other. This one, however, does have the advantage of being able to delve more deeply into the lives of the people around the White Helmets. In particular, there's a fair amount of time spent looking at the children who are rescued, often finding themselves orphaned, and their ongoing relationship with the people who rescued them. But I'll admit my attention was wavering at points through the film, largely because I felt like I'd heard about this before. This probably means that I was missing out on a deeper experience than I got from The White Helmets. That's probably a shame.

38. War for the Planet of the Apes

Directed by Matt Reeves

I've really enjoyed this film series. I particularly liked the original, which had a really wonderful exploration of the worldbuilding in the first Planet of the Apes film. And I was then very pleasantly surprised by the follow up Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, for adding an interesting moral ambiguity into the inevitable conflict between the apes and the humans. But this film I found to be easily the weakest of the lot. In some ways, that's not unsurprising. The trilogy needed a cap at the end of it, and it was trying to wrap things up in a way that was meaningful. But that, to some extent, came at the expense of this particular film—it may have helped the series as a whole, but not this specific episode in it. It's also much less a film that's interested in exploring the ethos of the world, or even necessarily the development of the relationship between the humans and the apes. It's a war film, by necessity, and that has a limited appeal to me. There are good parts, as there have been throughout the series, including the visual effects, and Serkis's performance as Caesar. But there's only so much that can help. This is not one of the big picks for me.

39. The Greatest Showman

Directed by Michael Gracey

This is this year's La La Land, the high concept musical (with songs from the La La Land team, no less), that ends up being very silly at times. And while it would be very easy to eviscerate this for all that's wrong with it, there were enough good parts to it that I'm infiriatingly feeling the need to defend it. Really, in broad strokes, this is not good. The concept and script are very poor, and so obvious in places that I thought I was going to do damage to my optic nerve by rolling my eyes so much. Hugh Jackman is predictable, and Michelle Williams is actively bad in this. But whereas La La Land rode or fell (it definitely fell) on the performances of its two leads, this is much more of an ensemble piece, and parts of the ensemble save it. In particular in this film, the subplot surrounding the romance between Zac Efron and Zendaya is told with an emotion and subtlety that has no place in a film like this. These two actors are easily the best thing about the film, and they really provide some heart to a film that's otherwise lacking it. It's also true that the set pieces and the musical numbers are put on the screen with a style that other recent musicals have severely lacked. That's not to say it survives its overall crumminess, but there are a lot of people (not including the leads) who are working very hard to make this film a success. And apparently, it is indeed a success. This has been a surprising hit at the box office, despite the panning it's got critically. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. There's definitely a place for films like this, and musicals in general. And who knows, perhaps if they keep making them, eventually we'll get one that's actually good.

40. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Directed by James Gunn

I really don't much see the appeal of this film franchise. I think partially it's due to missing the appeal of the now blandly handsome Chris Pratt. He used to have a kind of schlubby charm in the days of Parks & Recreation and Her. But now he's just conformed to the mould of vague action-hero leading man. This is particularly true in this volume of Guardians of the Galaxy, which I found much more lacking in the humour that at least set the first episode apart. It's possible that this is just due to the fact that the first episode was different from the other standard comic-book films being churned out, and this is not significantly different from Vol. 1. But still, it matters because our expectations were somewhere for this film, and the end result is something that's just not that innovative any more. I still think that the best part of both of these films is Dave Bautista's Drax, who this time has an amusing relationship with an empathic alien. The dynamics between the rest of the group is less interesting this time—there's manufactured tension, but very little of the natural friction you got when this rag tag bunch were thrown together. And the story? Was there much of a story? Yes and no. Yes, there was a story. No, I didn't care about it, and to be honest, the story is not what this film franchise's strength is. The fact that they tried to ratchet up the plot to impossible levels with excessively high stakes is testament to the fact that they kind of know it too. So yeah, I didn't much like this, and to be honest, I'm actually going to groan if I have to watch the third instalment. There's definitely going to be a third instalment, but if possible, I'm going to give it a miss.

41. Ferdinand

Directed by Carlos Saldanha

You know what was bad? Ferdinand was bad. It's also the kind of film that I'm really skeptical about. Despite the fact that it's built on an apparently beloved children's book, it has all the hallmarks of a film that was designed by a committee. It tells the tale of a bull who decides he doesn't want to fight in the arena, despite the fact that that's what he's been bred to do. Yeah. And it kind of does that. I guess. But it's really quite bad in everything perhaps that kind of idea. There are just so many parts that stand out as the handiwork of some producer who said "we haven't had anything funny in a while, could we maybe add a dance competition for no reason at all?". The animation is also halfway between the beautiful and the comic, but it's neither one nor the other. As a result, it feels as though it's just half-baked. I understand the desire to have a slightly less realistic vibe to a cartoon, but it gels poorly with the backgrounds, for instance. The best part of the film is the characterisation and performance from Kate McKinnon's neurotic goat Lupe, who is genuinely quite amusing and endearing in equal measures. But having a bright spot like this just kind of makes things like the trio of stereotyped Swedish horses stick out as awkward all the more. Yeah, not a big film. This is the kind of animated film that for quite a while made the entire category my least anticipated section to sit through. But films like Coco, Loving Vincent and even god-forbid The Boss Baby have shown that the kind of film like Ferdinand really shouldn't cut it any more.

42. All the Money in the World

Directed by Ridley Scott

What a disappointing film. It's a disappointing film because it's so unconscionably dull. Telling the story of the kidnapping of the grandson of J.P. Getty (Christopher Plummer, taking over the role that had been completed by Kevin Spacey), and Getty's refusal to pay the ransom, I'm kind of bored just thinking back on it, to be honest. Once again, we have Michelle Williams in a role that's just yawningly pedestrian. She fails to breathe any life into it at all aside from doing her vague stony-faced monologuing. And across from her is Mark Wahlberg who at least inhabits his role—but it's a role he's done so many times before that we don't really care about seeing him do it again. But mostly, I just found this film chilly, cold and overly boring. It's unpleasant in other ways too—it has that feeling of ennui that envelops me when watching the excessively wealthy. I just don't care. Moreover, it's the kind of indulgent thing that people like Ridley Scott probably thinks people like me want to watch. Which I think just means the producers of films like this are out of touch. Mostly, this feels like it only even got a nod for an Oscar as a giant Fuck You to Kevin Spacy. Plummer is fine in the role that earns him his Best Supporting Actor nomination, but not better than a bunch of other people that could have taken his place (Michael Stuhlbarg in Call Me By Your Name should be kicking some walls watching this performance). And had it not been for that I probably never would have watched this. I suspect I would have been the better for it.

43. Kong: Skull Island

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Now we're into the serious garbage. Second bottom film of this year's Oscars is this mess from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. You know him, right? He's exhibit 12 on Hollywood's parade of let's give a major Hollywood franchise to some white male director who's had one successful indie film, while women with illustrious careers are still seen as too much of a risk. He's the next version of Colin Trevorrow in other words, which should strike fear into your heart. Also stacked against this is the fact that it's a(nother) reboot of King Kong, just focusing on the attempts to investigate his home of Skull Island. Like many reboots of classic action films, it misses all of the moral questions of the original, and instead puts on screen a story which is a loosely connected selection of Things Blowing Up Sampler Pack, Vol. 12. The plot? It almost doesn't matter. A bunch of shit happens on Skull Island. Kong is an enemy, but then not an enemy. John C. Reilly pulls out an inappropriate Dewey Cox impersonation, while the story devolves into worse than B-movie territory. OK, to be fair, this is only nominated for visual effects. And these are indeed good. But that's like saying that this is a beautifully decorated cake made of dogshit. All of the pretty piping work in the world doesn't make you want to consume it. Worst is that this was apparently both a commercial and critical success, and is feted to launch yet another shared-universe franchise. That's kind of awful, because I don't want to have to watch another film like Kong: Skull Island.

44. Molly's Game

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Bottom of the pile this year is a film that's probably not technically the worst film I've seen (Kong: Skull Island owns that), but the one that just pissed me off the most. And it was Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut Molly's Game. It was awful. In fact, it got more awful the more I thought about it. It is almost completely, 100%, unrelatable in any way shape or form. Telling the true story of a young woman (Molly Bloom, played by a lacklustre Jessica Chastain), who starts a high-stakes poker game for the rich and famous, and is subsequently indicted for it. I mean, are we meant to have sympathy for this character? Are we meant to identify with the group of soulless people she surrounds herself with, in particular the callous movie star played by Michael Cera, who's supposedly based on Tobey Maguire. They're all completely unpleasant in one way or another. But the worst part of this train wreck of a film is the fact that you can sense Sorkin's fawning admiration for Molly Bloom. Sorkin has shown himself to be kind of a nasty character in real life, and the fact that he picked this as his directorial debut is telling. And the way he puts in on screen just emphasises all of the ways in which I found the story deeply unpleasant. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if in real life, a slimed-up Sorkin found himself a regular at Molly's table. It would then make this whole films something of an ego-trip (or moreso than it is already), and that very much fits in with my impression of Sorkin nowadays. Yeah: I hated this film. It's the kind of hatred that can only really mature and develop over time. It's a rich and full-bodied kind of hatred, that has had the benefit of reflection and deep thought. It's the kind of hatred that easily beats out the kind of knee-jerk hate I have for films like Kong: Skull Island. It's kind of beautiful in a way. Well, there you have it. A full rundown of all the feature films at the Oscars. But we're not done yet. We also have the truly wonderful short films to look at. I'm not going to write these up individually, but here they are in order from my favourite to least favourite:

DeKalb Elementary (live action)

The Silent Child (live action)

Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (documentary)

Watu Wote (live action)

The 11 O'Clock (live action)

Garden Party (animated)

Traffic Stop (documentary)

Revolting Rhymes (animated)

Lou (animated)

Heroin(e) (documentary)

My Nephew Emmett (live action)

Negative Space (animated)

Knife Skills (documentary)

Edith & Eddie (documentary)

Dear Basketball (animated)

As always, these were excellent, and a set of films which are honestly worthy of as much time as the Best Picture nominees. I highly recommend watching the Short Film categories at the Oscars every year, but this year's were particularly good. The top film, DeKalb Elementary, is honestly the most affecting piece of cinema I've seen at this year's Oscars, in either the short or long form. And of course, it wouldn't be my write-up without me giving my hot tips for the winners. I say hot tips, but don't rely on these for predictions. These are how I would vote if the Academy would answer my damn phonecalls and give me a ballot for the awards. As always, I've limited my votes to just the nominees in each category, so while I would like to vote for Ferdinand for Best Foreign Language Film, I can't. Best Picture: Lady Bird Best Director: Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) Best Actress: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards) Best Actor: Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney (I, Tonya) Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards) Best Original Screenplay: Lady Bird Best Adapted Screenplay: Mudbound Best Animated Feature: Coco Best Foreign Language Film: On Body and Soul Best Documentary Feature: Strong Island Best Documentary Short: Heaven Is A Traffic Jam on the 405 Best Live Action Short: Best Animated Short: Garden Party Best Original Score: Phantom Thread Best Original Song: "Mystery of Love" (Call Me By Your Name) Best Sound Editing: Blade Runner 2049 Best Sound Mixing: Dunkirk Best Production Design: The Shape of Water Best Cinematography: Blade Runner 2049 Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Wonder Best Costume Design: Phantom Thread Best Film Editing: Dunkirk Best Visual Effects: Blade Runner 2049

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