#stuff with this much emotion and that you cared enough to critique media“ since she doesn't usually tell me about what shes watching | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

0poole · 4 years

Text

The Thing about Furries

This is literally me thinking to myself and putting it online under the guise someone else might care enough to read it, so really there’s no actual point to this, feel free to ignore.

Also obviously I just gotta say people can do whatever the hell they want as long as it isn’t hurting someone else in some way. Also, this is pretty much exclusively about the character design aspects of furry-ism and not the IRL aspects anyways.

So my brother just introduced me to Beastars (even though I’ve known about it for a long time because internet) and after being super insanely into Animal Crossing and other junk, it feels like I have to piece together my thoughts about “furry” characters because it’s funky. Like, insanely funky. Everyone agrees that it’s funky too, which is weird. Usually some people are just making it funky for laughs/dismissiveness but no, here it’s pretty universally funky.

First of all, the definition for the purpose of talking about it. Let’s just say a “furry” character is an animal character with distinctly human traits and talks. For the sake of scope, since the term “funky” made me think of it, Donkey Kong is a furry character. Thumper from Bambi is a furry character. Obviously all the characters from Beastars, Animal Crossing (non-humans), Zootopia, and pretty much all Disney properties where the main character is an animal is a furry character all involve furry characters. One thing I won’t say is a furry character are animal sidekicks that don’t talk, even though they emote like human beings, like Moana’s pig or something. Pokemon aren’t either, outside of Mystery Dungeon stuff obviously. Anything can be turned into a furry character via fanart, but canonically, let’s just say they’re not. This is probably the funkiest part of furry-ness but yeah, I honestly think the one threshold that separates “furry” from “non-furry” is whether or not they talk. I don’t know what it is, it just feels like characters that talk cross the line. It’s basically a nonsense term that can be whatever you make it anyway so who cares, but that’s how I’ll be thinking about it. Also, I’ll never use the term “furry” in a derogatory sense. I’ve never really thought of it as being anything other than a descriptor, not anything with inherent goodness or badness to it, like calling someone a “construction worker” or something. Also “scalies” are just “furries” under another name. Reptiles are still furry as far as I care.

So the age-old question, am I a “furry?” Honestly I think I’m not, because even though I do obviously like furry characters, it’s not like a super big part of my likes. I basically just like good character design and appealing characters, some of which are furry. If I became a “furry” just for that, millions of other people would then become “furry,” basically making the term useless.

Doesn’t really matter though, I just wanna talk about furry character design, because it’s a seriously mixed bag. It’s like a bag filled with lettuce, marbles, and volcanic rock. That’s probably the reason why so many people are into it, since it gives characters a relatable anchor (animals) but can shoot them off in so many different directions that there’s inevitably something for everyone. You can either choose to make them basically humans with animal heads, like in Beastars, super magical and cute like in My Little Pony, or… whatever’s going on with Sonic characters.

I feel like the over-under of “good” furry character design is tweaking the biology of the animal in question without straying too far, and if you do go far, then it’s either relevant to the story of the character or just a thing with all furry characters in the world. For example, horses aren’t pink. But, in My Little Pony, they are, because horses can be any color, and so on. And, ya know, apart from that, just the usual character design stuff, like good color use and whatnot. Frankly the stuff I hate most about “bad” furry design is just “bad” character design, and not really relevant to the furry-ness of the character. It’s just cherry-picked correlation, not actual causation. Human characters can be just as bad as furry characters, there’s just a lot less to change in humans, so some people think the openness of furry design causes bad design when there’s just a lot more left up to the creator.

To be honest I think the pinnacle of furry character design is Zootopia. I feel like one of the big things people like to do is associate people/character traits with animals, like thinking someone’s a weasel for being super cunning and witty, or if someone’s a lion for being super powerful-feeling and proud. Zootopia, I think, manages to not only represent that in the structure and stature of its characters, but really implant a human face on to an animal. When you look at a Zootopia character, you can almost see someone you know in that face. Maybe that’s just standard in most cases, but it feels really present here. As for the character traits of animals, obviously it’s kinda rich pointing that stuff out in a story explicitly going against all that, but in terms of visual design I think we should think of the associated traits of an animal and pair that with their actual biology to an extent. For example, the ungulate characters have pretty thick bodies with thin legs with really pronounced knees. You know, like ungulates. They don’t have human proportions because they’re basically just animals with the stature and culture of humans. I think Nick is one of the big examples of a really easy and good trait to have in furry characters, that being having pretty short legs relative to a long body.

Humans have really, really long legs compared to everything else. That’s why no one walks on all fours on the soles of their feet, because our arms are so much smaller than our legs, meaning we have to shuffle along on our knees. Animal legs are different. Also, just basic things like size difference and such are basically a given. Rabbits are small. Water buffalo are big. Shrews are even smaller than rabbits. For the most part, you shouldn’t stray too far from basic size differences. Obviously Nick probably would be a bit taller than he is in that case, but since he’s a protagonist he kinda gets a more limited pallet for the sake of wider appeal.

Also, one of the big things about Zootopia that really makes it the best is how society adapts to different biologies. Zootopia itself is so goddamn colorful and diverse, because even the most diverse cities in the real world are only gathering up people of different skin colors, ethnicities, locations, etc. Zootopia has to account for so many different biologies, and the designers really didn’t limit themselves there. Even little things like food stands having a little elevator to get drinks up to giraffe-height really make the world. Obviously they would separate the different biomes, but each biome still having bizarre little bits of technologies in it makes it amazing.

So with that all said, I must hate Beastars, right? I mean, they’re just humans with fur and animal heads. Well, I’m just as surprised as you are, because I actually kinda didn’t mind it as much as I thought. Obviously I’d take a Zootopia over a Beastars any day, but it wasn’t really that bad for character design purposes. Other critiques aside. I mean, the one big thing of size difference is still there, so it doesn’t feel completely lost that these are all animals with different biologies. Plus, I think the big thing is that their animal parts are still very animalistic, and not the usual “furry” design liberties, and that they at least extend well downward into their human parts. For example, in the first episode, that one parrot girl really caught my eye because she still looked like a parrot. What we could see of her arm still looked parrot-like. But, then, what about everyone else who basically is just a furry human with an animal head?

One of the big, BIG things that turns me off with most furry media is how serious things are. They’re talking animals, Jim. I get you want them to have a super edgy backstory with tons of death and trauma but they’re animals. My brain can’t just shake that thought, and since a lot of my least favorite stuff is super edgy and etc I just get turned off to the idea. Movies like Zootopia fix that by being like “Haha, talking animals am I right guys? Oh by the way there’s a government-funded drug cartel trying to frame carnivores as monsters in order for herbivores to rise above them in power.” If the makers toy with the idea of talking animals being funny/cute/fantastical/etc, then they can implant the serious seeds that make a good story. Things like the Warrior Cats series (my sister’s brand) don’t feel like they strike that chord before they go on to tell a super serious story, so I get lost in the mess (Or at least that’s how fan works seem to go, I’ll probably never read the original books, let’s be real. If they’re not like that then just imagine that as being a critique of fan works). So, what about Beastars? I feel like making the animals so human is absolutely necessary in telling their serious story. Plus, since the animal parts are so much like actual animals, it feels much more like “this is a character represented by an animal” instead of “this is a talking animal” sort of thing. By not making things so cartoonish, they can tell a less cartoonish story. I’m still not super into it but it does work. I’m into cartoons as a whole tho, so I’ll always take cartoons over basically anything else.

Now, I want to talk about hands. Choosing whether to give a furry character hands is the turning point in design philosophy. Obviously mammals are probably going to have hands no matter what, because we associate most with them, and they kinda-sorta have fingers, but what about fish? Finding Nemo characters… sort of have hands? They will definitely try to pick things up as much as possible (i.e. Marlin caressing Nemo’s egg) but they don’t actually “grab” things. But, sure, their fins can feel like hands to a human because they’re sorta-kinda in the same location.

What about wings? Guardians of Ga'hoole has probably the greatest furry bird character design of all time. I HATE it when character designers try to turn feathers into fingers. Probably exclusively because of this movie, but still. I can’t praise this movie enough for sticking to its guns in not only keeping an owl’s actual claws as its hands, and wings only staying something secondary for gestures and stuff, but also for designing WEAPONS for OWLS. Again, they are talking animals, but like… They transcended the thought of it being funny and cute and instead led us into thinking they’re totally badass, because, let’s be honest, birds are probably the most badass of all animals. They fly, have sharp hunting skills, a piercing gaze… and, ya know, are descendents of dinosaurs. They can even be super cute if need be. Did I mention they can fly? That’s like their main thing that mostly only they can do. Not sure if you’ve heard, but flying’s pretty cool. But, yeah, whatever, keeping a bird’s hands to its claws is basically necessary I’d say, unless you want to go the Sonic route and not even give them wings in the first place.

What about something that doesn’t even have limbs? Snakes are even more bonkers than birds. If an alien came to Earth and the first thing they saw was a snake slithering around they’d probably pack up and leave because their petty minds weren’t vast enough to imagine a thing moving so elegantly and so, like clandestine-ly? Like, just by looking at them, you really can’t imagine how the hell they move. Anyways, this is starting to turn into me gushing about animals… We all have seen that one tweet of that one rattlesnake character from Rango being called one of the coolest character designs, and by golly they’re totally right. Snakes are a place for character designers to flex their imaginary muscles because of how weird they are. What if we get a snake, but… instead of a rattle (which is already a crazy biological feature let’s be real) let’s give him a prosthetic GATLING GUN instead. And also like a gigantic-rimmed hat. That is unreasonably cool. Again, snakes are badass, so instead of having to convince us that it’s all fun and games they can very easily be like “Don’t mess with that guy, he’s a snake” and pull out some seriousness from that. But, as the internet will surely convince you, snakes are also weirdly cute sometimes. Sometimes so cute you have a crisis of faith. Back to Ga'hoole, the nursery mother snake character there might just be one of the cutest snake characters ever. I still hold true that adults can be as cute as children/young people in the right circumstances, and she is a prime example of that. Also, can we just talk about Viper from Kung Fu Panda? Good God, what a character. I can imagine the board meeting: “Okay so we want a lovable cast of characters that do Kung Fu. We got the main Panda, a Tiger, a Crane, a Snake, a Praying Mantis, a…” “Wait, a SNAKE? How the hell are we supposed to make a snake do Kung Fu?” and then they fucking NAILED it. Not only is she a total cutie pie, but she has some of the best design direction of that entire, amazing franchise. Really, AAA western animation studio furry design is almost always killer.

Now I want to talk about Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic is easily the Chaotic Evil of furry character design. What the fuck even are they? Imagine starting up a video game company and hearing this one guy come up to you like “I’ve got this game about a blue hedgehog with super speed and one weird inter-connected eyeball and gloves and he collects golden rings and turns Super Saiyan if he picks gets some magical gems” and suddenly he becomes the face of your entire company. I have no idea where all that came from. But, guess what? I still love it. I have no idea why, but it’s great. I mean, even apart from the usual things people say about him, like having a good silhouette and junk. Maybe he’s just been so ingrained in our society that it’s basically Stockholm syndrome, but I do like Sonic characters. I think the only issue I have with the character designs is that some are a little too similar in the face/body (I think Espio and Charmy should look a little stranger imo), but for the most part they’re great. It’s even really refreshing when you do get some character that strays from the normal body type, like Big the Cat, Vector, or that one grey hawk guy from Sonic Riders. My favorite of the games is Cream and Cheese, mainly because she’s a cute rabbit with a Chao (the best part of the Sonic franchise hands-down) but I think the “best” from all forms of media is Tangle from the comics. She has the necessary gumption and sportiness you’d expect from a sonic character, while still looking interesting, but not looking too out of left-field, and also having a super iconic and relevant trait (a giant, fluffy tail. Gotta love those) that has a unique use. One day they will make a game using the comic characters and that day shall be a glorious day. I seriously think the art of the comics is amazing, even though I haven’t actually read much of it myself. I’d definitely give it a shot if given the chance though.

Although, you really can’t talk about furry characters without mentioning porn at least a little bit. At this point it kinda forgoes design and is just a personal preference sort of thing, as you’d probably expect. Porn’s like that. But really, for me, I think any kind of non-human genitalia is actually disgusting. Literally, any excuse to put human dicks on something is a good one. I’m not gonna go into detail, but wouldn'tcha believe some people genuinely are into the idea of having large, human-sized breasts in the same areas as a normal animal’s nipples, i.e. around their hind legs? I mean, anything’s possible, but it’s just… yeah… No. I don’t even want to talk about the various shapes of animal “anatomy.” It’s not fun, and the less I have to think about it the better I am. Obviously if a character’s human enough it’s fine, but I just can’t stand the biology of some of it. Like, how would you fuck a snake? How do they even do it in the first place? My brain just doesn’t conceive of it, and as such it’s not in my purview. But, one things for sure, you are NOT a zoophile for liking furry porn (even if the characters in question don’t stand up on two legs). That’s an entirely different beast, and it’d be nice if people stop pretending like it’s at all relevant here.

The last thing that’s sort of a preferential thing for me is toe beans. I just can’t stand them. It’s like one step below nauseating for me, and I have no idea why. It makes it infinitely harder to enjoy furry stuff because of it, because it seems people are universally for them, both in a weirdly pornographic sense, and in just a cuteness sense. Even the cutest possible depictions of toe beans still make me want to shrivel up inside. Maybe that’s why I like rabbits so much… They’re too fluffy to show them, whether or not they actually have them in the first place.

But yeah, furries. Of course I have a fursona. He’s been in the works for ages because I never feel like I can get him exactly right. Chances are he’ll break off into a separate character like my last attempt.

#furry #furries #rant #rambling #opinion #character design #zootopia #beastars #sonic the hedgehog #poole #guardians of gahoole

10 notes · View notes

fantroll-purgatory · 6 years

Text

Parisa Marcon

(Here She Is… Troll Paris Hilton…)

I would die for troll Paris Hilton.

Universe: Beforus!

Name: Parisa Marcon

“Parisa” is just me messing with “Paris” because I’m really trying to nail this “Socialite celebrity” parallel. “Richie” is technically a valid troll name but… that’s in Poor Taste. “Marcon” comes from Guglielmo Marconi, the first person to use radio waves for communication! (Albeit experimentally)

Parisa’s also teeechnically a Persian given name, but that’s never stopped Homestuck before. It also means “Fairy-like” which fits the socialite aesthetic well.

Age: Roughly 7 Sweeps

Theme/Story: Parisa has more followers on Trollstagram than you will ever have. She has teal blooded reporters donning dive suits to try and get a glimpse of her in her hive for the tabloids. She has it all: Money, Power, Fame, Legions of Adoring Fans. And yet, only a few people really know the real Parisa who comes out when she’s in her hive. That’s exactly how she wants it.

I love this character concept so much.

Strife Specibus: Knucklekind

Parisa might be beautiful, but delicate she is not. She’s a well known quantity on the “people you don’t wanna start a fight with” list. More than one Beforan boutique has been ransacked by an angry violet blood and her desire for the latest style of shoes.

I love her and her violent streak. Mind is a lot about body & mind, action over feeling, so her being someone who speaks with her fists is beautiful. Though I DO think she could utilize shoekind too, as an alternate option. Just grab a shoe off the shelf and go ham.

Fetch Modus: Intonation

Parisa’s relatively simple modus is as such. It has two dials that tune the pitch wave of an object, which shows up on her interface. She’s gotta make the sample wave as close as possible or else the item will end up damaged. Parisa’s been known to spend HOURS trying to get something out in mint condition.

I love her…….. I love this like, neurotic tendency. Cares so much about those radio waves.

Blood color: Violet

Parisa’s certainly an eccentric. Whether she’s a Genius or Maniac depends on who you ask. She oscillates between being larger than life, incredibly aggressive and a reclusive hermit depending on how the tides go out. If she was more people oriented and in a system that was overall more overtly awful to people, she might have a bit more sympathy and desire to actively help out, but for the moment she considers her social media profiles enough of a gift to the masses to tide her over.

Symbol and meaning: Well-

AQUAZA, THE POLITIC

Trolltag: [AA] aestheticAbusion

“Aesthetic” is well, aesthetic. The overall look of something, often used to refer to a surface kind of interpretation when it comes to social media.“Abusion” literally means “Abuse of the truth”, as in “Deception”. And what is a false persona created to fool the masses into thinking you’re more image focused than you are if not that? She abuses the truth for the aesthetic. She did it for the vine.

I know I just keep complimenting everything, but godd this is so good. Her Facades.

Quirk: W// Likeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Parisa loves to hold you the word likeeeeeeeee because it lets her think about what she’s gonna say? With a bit of uptalk? And, like, bracketed by her symbol? //W

I love the idea of a mind character who uses the like quirk, since it’s so often portrayed as like a vapid and stupid thing when it really shouldn’t be.

Special Abilities (if any): As a seadweller, Parisa has all the requisite “I live in the ocean” powers, which culminate in a completely amphibious biology, unlike many trolls. She uses this to escape the paparazzi when they get too pushy for their own good.

Lusus: Parisa’s long suffering Lusus is a giant pufferfish that has been trying to get her not, like, pick fights right outside her hive for years now. She’s only just starting to learn her lesson now. But, now the Troll Paparazzi know where she lives, which is horrible. But they can’t really swim to the bottom of the ocean, which is nice.

I love the idea of Parisa’s lusus functioning a little bit like one of those big proximity mines. Get too close to Parisa and she’ll bounce you away. Bodyguard Balloonfish.

Interests: Social Media, Being Rich and Amazing, The Latest Shade of Violet Foundation, Waterproof Mascara, Brand Recognition, Antique Radio Repair, Astronomy and Telescope Specs, Opera,

V….violet foundation? This is a minor critique but reading that alarmed me. Ma’am, don’t cover your whole face in violet. LOL. But these are all good. Maybe on the note of brand recognition you could have her like merch design? Like, runs an online store where people can buy images of Her, the Perfect Idol. But that’s so exhaustiiiing so she doesn’t manage it herself in her downtime.

Maybe you could have her be interested in amateur radio? Like, her running a radio show on the side where she gets to talk about stuff as her Genuine Self while not revealing that it’s Her, Famous Star Parisa Marcon. Let her ramble about the stars and wiring and all the fun fiddly things she’s into.

Appearance: Parisa wears her hair long and wavy, in a way that flows just the right way both completely submerged and in dry air. Nobody knows what she puts in it. Nobody but herself, of course, and that’s a secret she’s taking to her grave. She does like to wear what’s IN, but she’s also SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER, and she’s trying to bring back this… retro chic look? Like, dresses with jeans underneath and converse were SO IN when she was a wriggler, why did they go out of style? So all her posts the past few months have been her trying to make it happen!

Oh god this is going to be terrible and fun.

Personality: Parisa is a shrewd, calculating businesswoman. She just doesn’t make the best decisions with all the information she’s gathered. The person she pretends to be isn’t really her- while she does love being shallow and frivolous and really can’t keep a lid on her anger when someone gets in her face- it’s a pretense, a decoy. While the public’s attention is on that girl who looks like her, the real her is busy getting what she really wants: some peace and damn quiet. She’ll look into her specially calibrated telescopes at the stars above and she sees a multitude of worlds just out there, waiting to be conquered. Waiting for someone like her, someone who knows exactly how to use her public image to her best benefit.

Parisa can be obsessive and single-minded, which drives her closest friends nuts. When a problem presents itself to her, she has to think of all possible ways to solve it, even if the most obvious solution is staring her right in the face. It’s not about the problem at all, it’s about the process, it’s about principle! She’ll take a hundred selfies adjusting minor levels of light, her expression, and the objects in the room around her until it resembles exactly what she’s looking for. She won’t do anything with the other ones. The pursuit of the correct solution is all that matters. She just doesn’t know what it is until she’s tried absolutely EVERYTHING.

I love this so much hjbjbh the just like, level of desire for that little nuanced control echoing both in herself and her efforts to manipulate mass media.

Title: Thief of Mind

Active Classes That Remain: Maid, Thief,

Passive Classes That Remain: Sylph

Parisa is an odd kind of Mind player. Mind players tend to be overtly brainy, or at least openly logic oriented. Parisa doesn’t appear to be one at first glance- she seems to go on pure emotion. She gets into fistfights over shoes for godsakes! But that kind of emotional flow is created and guided by an irrigation system of ruthless logic. She acts this way because that’s what the camera wants, it’s what the public wants to see and read in their magazines. She’s got a new girl to date every other week because the DRAMA of it all is exactly what they want to see. Who she is does not matter, all that matters is the image.

As a bonafide celebrity with the ability to basically do whatever she wants, Parisa acts as a Thief of Mind by stealing the public’s ability to reason through her many social media angles. She’s a classic force of personality- and that’s how she likes it. She takes their thoughts and views and makes them her own, and then uses those to create a simulacrum to better hide behind.

Thief inverts to Page of Heart, and Parisa certainly struggles with emotions all around her. As a celebrity, she’s passive exploiting the public’s love and adoration of her and her exploits to her own benefit. Given her choice of company, it’s no wonder she’s struggling to contain her more destructive emotions- Breath and Rage are quite the combination.

Thief of Mind is great for her. I’ve said it before, when we chatted about this character prior, but just the… actively stealing away people’s rationality and leaving behind only raw emotions to be exploited is such a Clever Celebrity thing.

Land: The Land of Idols and Censors

Parisa lands on a cyberpunk hellscape. Consorts huddle in churches dedicated to their favorite celebrities and artists, desperate for even a shred of recognition from these borderline gods. She sees an uncomfortable amount of herself in them, and she hates every second of seeing their too perfect faces, hearing their too perfect voices, and watching them perform every ineffable action. Are they even people?!

Any act of dissent against them is handled swiftly and violently. The Censors, agents of the Denizen, who created the Idols remove anyone who dares do anything but worship at the altars of popularity. Any information, any innovation is squashed immediately. This is a world of technological and ideological stagnation.

Parisa never thought she’d become an anti-hero, but when in Hellscape, you do as the Hellscape requires.

Good as always.

Dream Planet: Derse

Parisa is concerned with very few things: keeping her fanbase, keeping her power base, her best selfie angles, and keeping her real cards as close to her chest as possible. She struggles with letting people into her guarded psyche because she doesn’t want anyone there. She doesn’t want romance, she doesn’t really want friends, and she certainly doesn’t wanna have to rely on anyone to get what she wants.

Design:

Horns/hair: I wanted to keep her horns relatively simple. I wanted them to be close-ish-kindof to Peixes horns, mostly because of the headcanon that those are the beauty standard. Hers are a little off, but just enough to be unique and beautiful. And her hair is a nice swoopy look, of course.

Face: I edited both the eyes and mouth from fan-troll’s spritesheet, complete with violet makeup.

Dress/belt: When I was looking p early 2000s fashion, no sleeve dresses over jeans were really popular, so here’s a no-sleeve black dress with a gold belt.

Pants/shoes: The pants are edited from Karkat’s, and they’ve got a rip because that was also a common feature of early 2000s fashion. And, of course, there’s some really simple converse.

I Love Her!

-CD

#persephoneanmystery #parisa marcon #parisa #marcon #violetblood #review #redesign #cd review #submission

5 notes · View notes

hellacre13 · 6 years

Text

It’s been brought to my notice a clois shipper is taking my comments on CBR without my permission, screen grabbing and pasting in his tumblr to talk trash . So glad you think my comments so worthy that you need to pull out your straw man arguments instead of being honest enough to reply to me there. But I won’t give any credence to your cowardice. You know, some people have been making a habit of this. Taking what I and other posters have said on public forums and going on twitter and tumblr and trying to act all smug and smart and trying...TRYING...to ridicule us. But you know I tend to ignore these cowards. I don’t like wasting my time on shipping wars which is why I rarely get into to and fros with these folks here. Fact, I have most of them blocked. But this I decided has given me a great opportunity to share with my fellow comic fans.

In retrospect, my post my post must have been thought provoking . 😉 😚 Glad to see it got him reacting. So I thought why waste it on CBR alone? I MEAN I DON’T HAVE TO ASK MYSELF PERMISSION. Let me share what it was about. Here was my thoughts on that debacle Batman #39 before it was released based on the Bleeding Cool article that it seemed to have ripped from that notorious Action 571 by Joe Kelly 18 years ago. Now some people, usually clois fans, love Action because it, in their eyes, hold their pairing up as some great love because of this issue. But then there is another side to it and I ask people to sincerely think about this given the fact we have moved on in terms of how we view relationships and dynamics. I am not talking about political correctedness gone mad. Not at all. And no way I would be so disrespectful to call Joe Kelly the man a sexist or anything like that the way some clois fans attack Superman/Wonder Woman fans and writers because they so “hurt” fiction simply paired up two single people in one story line ie the new 52 despite them having tons of stuff in other books and media. Some writers just do stories using outdated troupes that have evolved into sexist plots because times change and they at times miss their mark with a section of the fandom or can be a hit depending which side of the fence you are on. And they should never be personally attacked for it. You can critique them but don’t for the love of god try to label people you don’t know anything about other than you read a comic that you don’t like.

I hate Action #761. Not because of the premise that two people who have been attracted to each other, who have a long history of closeness in BOTH their comics...ie they actually have been shown in the narrative...it's not just dragged in left field... that they can end up closer or intimate. It's actually pretty normal I'd think if two friends with some unresolved tension, after they lose their spouses etc find solace or love again. It's morbid to be so guilt ridden that a dead partner you cannot recall and who you think is dead makes you close your self off to love, when it's clear you really really tempted. But this was never the point of Action #761 to explore love and loss. How can you as a writer if you want to sincerely tackle it when you full well KNOW you cannot shake the boat? It's not AU. It's not an altered timeline where you can follow through without messing up canon. You obviously, in such a scenario, will set up one character to be humiliated by doing something so absurd and heavy handed to try to prop a relationship that supposed to great because it's human etc etc...and being human is supposed to encompass the highs and lows of love, including tragedy and honoring a love by living etc. It tries so hard to beat you over the head Clark would rather be a monk for the rest of his life to honor one dead woman's memory. I did not come away and go aww that's love. I thought sheesh, what a dysfunctional love . Superman is actually crippled by Lois memory or lack thereof. Diana seemed pretty normal to me. And SHE never crossed boundaries or propositioned him. HE was the one raising it. And she backed off and never made him feel at all as if he did anything wrong by rejecting her. She was selfless in one vein and just a prop in another with no pov about how she dealt with it as a woman and someone who left behind friends and loved ones too. It was all about Superman and Lois to prop them at her expense. She comes off as the reject when in fact it's a story that used her in a cheap way knowing all the time that was the only outcome. Can't we all just assume Superman would be faithful to Lois while they together simply because he is that kind of a dude? Why did Joe Kelly need to drag Diana in as some temptation? Just like Superman fans hate when they use Superman as the punching bag to show the strongest character can take a beating by all and sundry, am I to assume Diana has to be used as the apple because she happens to be beautiful and THE premiere female? So, if you refuse Wonder Woman of all people...wow...you gotta love Lois so much. That's pretty sexist crap right there by Kelly. It was a poorly thought out story. But it was 18 years ago and we have moved forward in terms of the way women are used. So color me totally unimpressed King takes this lame troupe and play with it again.Because you can do nothing good with it. Neither Batman or Diana are single. It is not AU. Unless there is a plan to make them dump Selina and Steve. I hardly think this likely since why would DC make such a big deal of the Batcat stuff only to dump on it in this manner. BOTH are with their "love interests". Bruce has made a huge step in his canon. Love with commitment and pending marriage. Diana is shacked up with Steve Trevor. I am not fan of Rebirth. But she is with Steve cureently so why is there this need to muddy the waters at this stage? They could have done this easily when both were single. People might not like or might like it depending on your shipping preferences but at least they free, single and disengaged. They can kiss or date who they please as single people. Batman sure as hell has umpteen women in his books. Wanting a beautiful woman is not exactly strange for him. And King is cheating by trying to say they have some deep, great friendship based on one lame two parter? Because they spend some time in a pocket universe where time passes but is only two issues we to assume their friendship has the same magnitude as say Clark and Bruce's which has had so many books devoted to it? Diana pre new 52 and new 52 could never be seen to be Bruce's close friend and boast of a friendship to equal Superman and Batman or even a romantic dynamic as her other canonical love interests because they had limited stories together. King premises this as some great deep friendship because he wants to retroactively in a paltry two issues cement something they never earned? That's how lazy and arrogant DC and Batman writers are. It was done by Joe Kelly in the JLA run where Batman sucked Diana's face with no build up. It was done by Rucka in Black Night. Seems King is doing it again. Pushing something that just has not been earned. And using the cheapest way to try to claim it. It is baffling he uses Superman and Lois is positive ways and supportive of Selina and chooses to put Diana, a symbol of sisterhood in a story where you have to dredge up sex and intimacy to show how good friends they are. I don't get it. This arc is supposed to be about Batman's friends response to his pending marriage . So he and Diana couldn't spend some time bonding in any other way? What is the purpose? It does not sound at all good to me. So this is why I think that him even borrowing the premise or homaging or whatever he's done a poor choice. Diana will come off looking bad again and a prop or mouthpiece because it is a Batman book and about his issues.

Then Batman 39 hit and I said this.

I'm sorry to say I told you so. But yeah. Whenever batman fan boy writers handle Wonder Woman this is what you get. Lazy ooc plots to claim her as hooked on Batman's irresistible charms. They don't build anything over time. They just slap it in your face. Bruce Timm. Joe Kelly. Greg Rucka, Now Tom King and no doubt soon Liam Sharp. Like I say it doesn't bug me two friends who are close and attracted to each other if they are single try a relationship. But Action wasn't about that. It could not any way explore anything in canon. And no one I know who liked smww or ww cared for it. It was one sided to ensure smll came out smelling rosy and Diana ...oh poor Diana...just rejected because if you turn down Wonder Woman...wow, what a man. What a love! So dumb. Like he couldn't just be seen as faithful because he's a loyal guy in a normal situation. They just needed to go all heavy handed to make a pointless point at WW expense.

Batman 39. Worse. The pacing in Action at least tried to show a bond already there knitting tighter...they did not need this issue to show they are friends. They already were close etc. Diana did not proposition Clark. They maintained boundaries and yadda yadda for a moment looked at each other and then Clark pulled back and Diana is fine with it blah blah. This shows a Wonder Woman in terms of the art, flirting heavily in her body language from the get go. Batman as you clearly see is still trying to be faithful in his body language. She even suggests they get it on knowing he will go back to Selina. I just don't how to take that. No Diana I know would openly suggest that. It's so out of character. She's the apple/ temptress. She has no pov or remembers she has her own lover and life. He's a non issue. Poor Steve prob sitting in their apartment waiting for her.

Now if this is based on Rucka's Diana...then this is not the way I want my Wonder Woman. Not so lacking in empathy, emotional intelligence and wisdom . I don't understand how any one as old as she is with so much relationships under her belt as suggested by Rucka, cannot understand and respect the nuances and boundaries in relationships at this stage. That she views all that she has "loved" as not able to teach her anything. It is baffling to me this Rucka Diana with all this delusion and madness nonsense. She's not a naive here but comes across as very self centered and stiff for a character who is about sisterhood and compassion. You'd think as she has her own lover she would empathize how much Bruce misses Selina...is bizarre what we have here. So whether they kiss or not is not the point. It's the set up and Diana's poor characterization. [/SPOIL]

DC dropped the ball on Diana with Rebirth. Badly and this is where she is now. Batman writers are getting to dictate her motivations, character, personality in throw away arcs and they just don't feel right at all. No matter how people say they hate the new 52...Diana maintained her core personality under the pens of Azzarello, and Soule and hell even Finch and Johns wasn't all bad.

For those who never read either books...you’re missing nothing but Action is the lesser of two evils. You can go read them to at least keep make your own minds up but context is important in everything and timing. Personally I say don’t give DC $ for nonsense. I’m pretty sure you can get it online free to read or see many spoilers around. As much as I don’t like Wonderbat, if it had been done when both were single...(and to be fair it had been back in JLA in 2002 by Joe Kelly and went nowhere)...it would have not been so bad as to raise so much ire. Pissed off fandoms, sure, but I am not so into shipping wars that I would be writing about any issue on this blog. Same way I ignore clois in Rebirth because they are not my new 52 Superman or Wonder Woman. So not sure why in God’s name DC wants to force it now when they did a Batcat engagement and choose to put Diana with Steve. I mean, are they crazy to be playing with that kind of fire when people are so sensitive the way women are used? And then that mini coming up by Liam Sharp is hinting at the same kind of crap trying to write retroactive wonderbat stuff just to have his own shipping preference. After Batman 39, I’d say, he needs to thread carefully. I mean come on, DC. Treat Diana better. It’s no skin of Batman’s nose. He sells no matter his status quo. He can have a harem his fan boys don’t care. But DC chose to go a very important step and make Bruce take a huge decision to tell the woman he loves he wants to commit to her and her be a part of his life. This is not something you sully with this kind of thing at this time. And let’s just say Bruce and Selina break up someway along the line does DC really want it to be because people blame Diana for it? Now is not the time for it. God, DC, you had your chance and never took it. Don’t mess about now. Now maybe King might have a better part two to subvert what we are seeing here but I still think using Wonder Woman imagery as the temptress was ill advised.

And those trying to drag SuperWonder into this. Please. Our New 52 couple is dead. They are not part of this. Try reaching somewhere else. The clois shipper using my CBR comments, your example is so silly of trying to use DC Presents #32 as the same as Batman #39. That story was set in the Silver Age where there was an innocent whimsy and silliness in stories. Eros shot SM and WW with arrows and they kissy kissy for a bit while trying to find a cure. Both were dating Steve and Lois but most pointedly neither had told Steve and Lois they were Clark Kent and Diana Prince in those stories. Both Steve and Lois use to treat Diana and Clark like shit in favor of Wonder Woman and Superman back then. So let’s not even start with the faux outrage. It was just a different time and the Batman Brave and the Bold kids comic replicated it because again, it’s the context and kind of story. No one batted an eye lid nor cared Bats and Wondy kissed under a love spell. The innocence is there unless you’re reaching big time.

Here is that lovely thread people. http://community.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?106190-Batman-39-Could-Be-Borrowing-A-Plot-From-An-Issue-of-Action-Comics

And here is Bleeding Cool’s pov.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/01/17/batman-39-action-comics-761-temptations-wonder-woman-spoilers/

Oh and since I am an admin on Hellyeahsupermanandwonderwoman...it has permission to reblog me.

#superman #wonder woman #action comics #batman #catwoman

37 notes · View notes

mild-lunacy · 7 years

Text

The Continuity Axiom Strikes Back

For what it's worth, even though I admit I was wrong, it seems a bit ironic that the main arguments people have against TJLC still ring false to me. Possibly because they haven't evolved with the times. Quite the opposite: there's many signs of the same old fannish polarization we see in society at large in response to divisive social or political issues. I guess saying 'well, that wasn't what they were going for after all, but good points!' doesn't quite give people that certain... schadenfreude. So the arguments I do hear are, 1) Moffat and Gatiss are bad writers; 2) Moffat and Gatiss should simply always have been taken at their word. There's also 3) we're reading too much into things and indulging in confirmation bias. One is perhaps a little subjective but largely obviously incorrect (look at the awards, if nothing else), and two is objectively ill-advised, since they've said they lie and cannot be trusted multiple times. Personally, I've always had a particular sore spot for the argument that boils down to 'Moffat and Gatiss are bad writers', and I take issue with those who argue against or otherwise mock the idea of canon Johnlock without both understanding and loving the show first. Even so, I realize it can be difficult to understand both perspectives at once. I just think it's important to integrate if there's any desire to engage with the different sides of the Johnlock fandom, and honestly the Sherlockians at large at this point.

The core of the issue cognitively might be summarized by the TJLC interpretation of this quote by Moffat: he initially said they wanted to do the show not just to update it but to correct everyone else, to say 'Now this is the way it should be done'. This ties in with all the hype-- and the hope-- about the BBC LGBT report and the way the BBC hyped Series 4 as 'making history', though I personally was taking a break from fandom at the time and in any case, always take such things with a grain of salt (at best). My point is that there's certainly been circumstances aside from 'confirmation bias' that lead people to think something a bit bigger and more exciting than... Sherlock's origin story and journey to being a 'good man' was going on, which culminated in TFP, as @ivyblossom described. That is (more or less) what I currently think Mofftiss were *going for* with that quote, but the fact is that Gatiss admitted he's interested in 'flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock', and they certainly followed through with that on a large scale. I think that it's a bit of a case of po-tay-to/po-tah-to, honestly. When you build a character growth arc where the main character is being 'humanized' by his relationship with his colleague/best friend/conductor of light/family, *and* you add many classic romantic tropes and rampant queer coding and subtextual homoeroticism... what you have is a love story, pure and simple.

Regardless of intent, it exists and is valid at least as much as an accented pronunciation of the same word would be equally 'valid'. In Sherlock's case, I would argue they'd gone far enough (too far) with the subtext and tropes, and indeed the romantic reading became the primary, most fully correct textual reading. At this point, I imagine this situation got out of Moffat and Gatiss's control... which is a huge challenge for any writer, and one that they didn't really address (in part because of a penchant for self-indulgence, I think), but this still doesn't make them *bad writers*, per se.

Obviously, I'm not saying this in self-defense or to 'prove' explicitly romantic canon Johnlock at this point. Besides, I do think that critique number three makes a good point, in that plenty of meta *was* reading too much into things, but you can say that about any type of meta, of any flavor. For example, I realize I tried way too hard to deny the surface reading of HLV, which... I clearly should have integrated more closely instead, if the Mary storyline resolution in TST is any indication. And many, many people enjoy speculation and pattern-matching and playing with metaphors or symbolism, but don't make a hobby of analyzing either their own thinking or other people's, perhaps understandably. Many fans who had donned the 'conspiracist hat' haven't been as vigilant as we could be about other people's analyses, never mind our own work. Anyway, overall, I still think any truly competent literary/media critic of BBC Sherlock I've ever seen would have to acknowledge the queer/romantic subtext in it at some point, even if they disagreed or simply wouldn't care about it becoming explicitly textual. So just as a total lit nerd, it's unfortunate that people can now continue to think that being dismissive and heteronormative is somehow a superior mode in analysis. And it's also unfortunate that 'bad writing' continues to be a one-size-fits-all approach to excusing one's lack of understanding of the show's deeper layers, more or less.

Basically, my point is that I still believe that Moffat and Gatiss are good-- or at least intelligent, often complex and certainly fundamentally competent-- writers in many ways. They do have their own preset ideas about what they want and don't always communicate those ideas to the broader audience effectively. And I have to further qualify that by saying that the thing I object to is dismissive thinking and 'explaining' stuff that doesn't make sense in the text with the offhand response that 'the writers suck'; I don't mean you can't simply have that as a subjective opinion, obviously, or critique the lack of follow-through in the writing. I definitely need to admit that they can be sloppy and leave plot holes when they lose interest in following up on the details, or introduce significant plot elements that they try to build and build without slowing down and integrating properly. I think @girlofthemirror's postmortem on what went wrong in Series 4 definitely speaks to this issue of too many 'spinning plates' in the plot and no room to breathe, particularly starting with Series 3. Just like Sherlock, they can get arrogant and try to be too clever for their own good. Worse than simple plot holes fixed by mild retcons, like Eurus shooting John with a tranquilizer, or the genre-related writing choices that @plaidadder took issue with in TFP, there's the truly unfortunately executed stuff like Mary's arc or that baby. Including a baby as a plot device to keep John and Mary together and then basically doing nothing else with it is inexcusable. Even with all those caveats, Moffat and Gatiss are so good in other ways that I really don't think you can hand-wave all analysis with 'it's just incompetence', surely.

Even if that has gotten much more battered after Series 4 and TFP, I haven't given up or decided TFP means the old continuity is destroyed, really. I think it's important to read for assumed continuity even when it's hard; perhaps *especially* when it's hard. If you have difficulties finding the textual pattern in characterization or the plot arcs that makes sense, it doesn't necessarily make sense to assume that it's automatically the writers' fault, basically. Even if there's problems in the writing (as there almost always will be), the chances are that there are more preconceived ideas and more incorrect conclusions to prune in one's own analysis. If you're invested and interested, then the best thing to do next would be working to dismantle your own preconceptions of the show. I've already done it once when I accepted canon Johnlock, but that doesn't mean it's the only time. There may well be multiple times. It does get easier, once you gain some emotional distance, assuming you're still interested at that point (granted, most people aren't). If you agree insofar that Authorial Intent matters in analysis (not an automatic thing by any means), then it makes sense to assume that the writers have some kind of *goal* or purpose to the characterization, especially given that it progresses in an apparent growth arc.

This is basic stuff. One should always assume that the writers have something to say in literary/media analysis, no matter the quality of the text. This is necessary in order to then be able to say anything coherent about 'real' or 'apparent' interpretation of the text in the first place. Further, one needs an understanding of the goals if one wants to judge the work as artistically successful or fundamentally 'well-done' or consistent on the larger scale or not.

That has always been the best claim to fame for TJLC: that frame exposed the logic in the show, while other types of analysis focused on their favorite bits of characters and dismissed everything that didn't fit as plot holes and pointless fluffery. For example, this definitely applied to Mary Morstan fans: she was seen as already redeemed and her marriage with John was unproblematic because Sherlock said so (and while she was more or less redeemed, it was only in TST, and their marriage continued to be plainly portrayed as quite troubled until the end). Anyway, in order to make sense of the show, we all picked at bits and pieces and disregarded what's inconvenient to some extent, but canon Johnlock did that the *least*.

Essentially, I'm saying I have a bone to pick with people who take this opportunity to accuse TJLCers of sloppy thinking, denialism, projection, fetishizing queer ships and so on, while offering only sloppy thinking themselves in return. The fact is, many TJLC-friendly meta writers have long challenged people to challenge *us* on our own terms, but of course no one did. It has definitely long been difficult to integrate this show for most viewers, from Series 3 on into TAB (which confused many), and finally into Series 4. Many non-TJLCers (including critics in the media) have said Series 4 jumped the shark and/or disregarded internal plot and character continuity, same as what happened with Series 3 except worse. In general, TJLC-friendly analyses are really the only ones I've seen that have presented a unified view that offered a cohesive and understandable reading of the entire show after Series 3. Here I'd also include many implicit or platonic Johnlock readings like Ivy's or stuff like this old meta of Skara's on TSoT, for example. The tricky thing is that (to the best of my current understanding), Mofftiss were essentially trying to write a near-classic love story without making it about sex, as Moffat once said. So a lot of people (rightfully) found that romantic and expected an explicitly textual romance. Regardless of whether it's actually *become* a genre romance, though, the romantic frame is inherent in the intensity and drama of John and Sherlock's relationship.

It builds up, too. Taken separately, there are platonic explanations for most Johnlocky things, but together these things create a sense of continuity, to the point where I can easily read an implicit romantic resolution after the end of TLD simply because of all this context. For example, think of Sherlock leaving the wedding early in TSoT. You *can* interpret that non-romantically and have it work for quite a while, so you'd still understand the show and Sherlock's feelings, as Skara once demonstrated. Even then, this only works if you essentially still fully accept that John is the most intense, most important, most passionate relationship of Sherlock's life. But then there's HLV, and the classic, epically romantic trope of Sherlock coming back to life for John, which would be 'just' epic friendship, except this is after his friend's wife shoots him again... in her wedding dress. If you have any understanding of narrative tropes in fiction, it's hard to miss the romantic tropes at work here, and we know Steven Moffat does. Except that's not enough, and we have Sherlock's heartbroken expression when he tells John he's 'abnormally attracted' to dangerous people (like himself and John's wife, naturally). And this kind of paralleling between John's obviously romantic love for his wife and his feelings for Sherlock goes on repeatedly in Series 3, and all this mirroring and subtext and acting simply... goes on and on. It would take a real and ongoing mental effort-- and/or a personal commitment to implicit or open-ended romantic relationships in stories-- to be aware of all this and resist the natural conclusion.

At a certain point, 'romantic' or 'platonic' becomes a question partially of your own internal definitions for interpersonal relationships and partly of your judgment of Moffat and Gatiss as show-runners and/or 'old white men', both of which have nothing to do with the show. The important thing for predictions would probably be determining Moffat and Gatiss's own definitions, and that was always going to be a difficult endeavor. We made some guesses, like using Moffat's interest in The Princess Bride and the fact that he wrote the most romantic episodes, such as ASiB, but there's only so far one can go with that. I'd say most people made the choice initially based on their own preferences for where they wanted the show to go, given they understood the text as it stood in S3. But the people who just said 'they're bad writers' simply didn't do any of this work; they dismissed the importance of the underlying question itself. Fundamentally, I think thinking critically about the text and reading it closely is always positive and to be supported, particularly in an environment that *exists* to celebrate and focus deeply on said text, such as fandom. A lot of people in fandom project onto the characters or use them for their own purposes, within or without the TJLC community. That's just how fandom is. But that's certainly not *all* we were doing, and thank god for that.

#fandom meta #sherlock meta #the great divergence #series 4 #writing #narrative #sherlock feels #tjlc #analysis kink #reader response #sherlock spoilers

17 notes · View notes

wessonba · 5 years

Text

I didn’t write a reflection after season’s 4 finale. It is true that I was sick and really couldn’t think clearly enough to write, but if I’m truthful with myself…a part of me really didn’t want to. Then because so much time had gone by and so many had written exhaustively about this season, I really thought I would just pass. But, in the last few days, I’ve had readers asking me where my review is and I guess I owe them at least an explanation. I love this show and it hurts me to have to say negative things. I really am rooting for them. I was holding out hope that my patience this season would be rewarded. It wasn’t. My overall initial feeling after watching the Outlander season 4 finale was one of dissatisfaction. I wasn’t angry just sad. My thoughts wandered to previous finales and I particularly remembered how I felt after season 1. As I watched Jamie and Claire sail away on that ship to France I was tearfully smiling. I can remember thinking that I would miss this couple and overall pleased with the adaptation. I was proud to be a fan. I’m still proud to be a fan, but with a few exceptions, I struggled to write about this season. I would find myself sitting with my thoughts for far too long. I wasn’t inspired. And, I think my writing this season reflects that.

It is telling that my most popular blog posts this season have been when I felt the need to negatively critique an episode. I hate that. I’ve had some time to think and to read other fan’s reactions and I find myself agreeing with bloggers and fans that I usually don’t. I hate that. But, I can’t write this blog if I’m not genuine. My readers trust me to be honest and my conscience would bother me if I was wasn’t. I really love this show and want it to succeed. Let’s be clear, there is still a lot to love about this show. It is beautiful and transportive and I have always believed it was made with obvious love for the story they were telling. It is a remarkable tv experience. What it isn’t …is …the same show.

I’m still not buying into some fans’ intricate conspiracy theories and need to denigrate cast and crew for not giving “fans” what they want. But, something HAS changed. None of us on the outside really know, but there are a lot of theories out there and at least a few make some sense. There were a lot of changes to the TPTB and I have no idea if that resulted in different work relationships and expectations and maybe changes to budgets as well. There were new writers, bad weather, and some really concerning comments from the cast about their characters and the amount of input they would like to have in the writers’ room. I THINK that might be a good idea, but what if their ideas about their characters aren’t what we think they think, lol. I still haven’t forgiven Sam for not letting Jamie “quietly fall to pieces”. Then this week some fans were sent questionnaires. I guess that would indicate that they are trying to listen, but why not just say we hear you? Why send surveys to select fans? What was the criteria? I’ve always felt that the majority of fans are happy with the show, but not as vocal as those who seem to be invested in finding fault. Was this questionnaire sent to a true representative sample of fans?

I’ve been here since the beginning and I don’t think PR has EVER really known who their audience is for this show or how to market it. Can anyone say “the kilt drops”? Are these surveys going to insure that PR and the TPTB will get an accurate picture of what fans want? I think they might offer some insight, but shouldn’t be taken as gospel or as a definitive barometer of fan opinion. Quite frankly, if some fans actually get what they think they want they still wouldn’t be satisfied. I’m afraid it is the nature of the beast that is fandom. As much as fans like to think they know how to adapt Diana Gabaldon’s bible sized tomes, they don’t. Nevertheless, there are some consistent and legitimate concerns played on many of the broken records. Sorting those out from the irritating scratches would not be an envivable job. This questionnaire thing feels like a mistake, one that is undermining the creators. If I was them I’d be looking for another job. And, some folks NEED to stay.

I believe something happened this season that impacted what we saw on our screens. The show has taken a turn and is on a path that is far from the show I love to love. It is a feeling, a change in attitude, and focus. In my humble opinion, Outlander shines when it focuses on relationships. And, that held true for this season as well. Blood of my Blood and The Birds and the Bees were two of this season’s most well received episodes for that very reason. I agree with fans who say that to in order to care about what happens to the characters we have to care about the characters. As wonderful as the Cherokee village and Roger’s rescue were it was far less important than bridging differences and mending relationships in this story. For example, just because you can write an episode of someone trekking wordlessly through a jungle doesn’t mean you should.

Character development just wasn’t up to par this season. The Claire of the Ridge has always been my favorite Claire and after watching this season, I’ll have to reread Drums to remember why. She seemed a faded version of the woman who finally becomes who she was meant to be. She wasn’t the only character that was less than they should have been. Watching Fergus and Marsali I wondered why in the few minutes they were on screen their relationship was so much more dynamic and their persona so much clearer than Bree and Roger. These two are so important to the rest of the story and they just don’t seem to be as clearly developed and/or portrayed in a way to make us care about them as major players. I’ve written before about some choices that I felt were a few “fatal” mistakes that have reverberated throughout the seasons: Loghaire at the witch trial and not allowing Claire to fight Jamie’s demons. I read the explanations, but in truth Roger isn’t the beloved character he should be. I’m hoping Roger’s leaving Bree and not choosing to come directly to River Run will not be one of those fatal mistakes that reverberate throughout the rest of the seasons. I think they dealt with those two previous mistakes as best they could and I’m hopeful that Roger and his relationship with Bree will be righted too.

I’m completely aware that I am just one more fan voice and one more opinion in the ocean that has been written about this season. It feels ironic to find myself saying, I’m criticizing, but I truly just want the show to be better, having criticized that type of critique previously, but I truly just want the show to do better. It isn’t too late to fix what was wrong this season. I just want to write about a show that inspires me, I want the Outlander I wrote this about:

CHARACTER COUNTS … A REFLECTION ON

OUTLANDER EPISODE 1. 11

I was perusing Twitter on Saturday before watching Outlander episode 11 the Devil’s Mark when I came across a tweet from someone who had already watched the episode. Aside from being a little pissed that I hadn’t gotten to watch yet, I found the statement intriguing. The author said,

Because the tweet intrigued me, I re-tweeted it. I felt my excitement to watch the episode heighten. Had they really done it? Had they really shown Claire in all her wonderful nerve-wracken-ly principled glory? I sure hoped so.

The episode was exciting and full of all kinds of wonderful, but per usual there was a theme that stood out for me. Character. In a real-world and TV world full of characters with ambiguous moral character, Outlander has the potential to be something different. Saturday night, I saw some of that potential realized. Our main characters had moral and ethical dilemmas that they solved in ways that have sadly become a-typical. They made selfless decisions. They did the right thing despite knowing the price they would pay would be dear.

I enjoy watching Game of Thrones, a show Outlander has been compared to. In my opinion, this comparison by journalists is weak at best and most often used by writers too lazy to look any deeper. There seems to be a tendency among these types to latch on to what is the most “pop culture” popular thing to repeat. I have nothing against R.R. Martin or the show based on his works. They are what they are, but what they are is a far cry from what Outlander is or tries to be.

Last years’ GOT season was full of characters acting out of warped emotions, values and needs. I don’t expect anything different this year. Lots of titillating stuff to discuss around the water cooler, but I must admit the most shocking thing about this show is how hard it is to find a redeeming character. I wish I could say this trend toward pushing the moral and ethical envelope was the exception rather than the rule on TV, but I can’t. It is all too common.

My reaction to the GOT characters and their actions is very different from what I feel when I watch Outlander. Folks on social media said they used a box of tissues watching this episode. This is very understandable, there is some tear-jerking stuff! I cried some tears myself, but I came to examine my feelings a bit closer and realized there was something deeper going on here. When I watched Claire and Jamie and Ned and even Gellis make their choices, I felt a real connection. My eyes filled with tears for the human compassion I was witnessing. Our characters made unselfish choices. They made me feel proud to be human.

My Twitter author Lady Jane commented that Claire was principled to a fault. I think I understand what she means, if she meant that Claire puts herself in danger by stubbornly remaining a person who cares about others ..then yes…I agree, she does. It’s the “to a fault” part that I find myself still thinking about today. The kind of choices Claire has to make come with risk to herself and others, to say the least. But…I resist the idea that her ethical and moral center is somehow flawed because she chose to be unselfish. I’m pretty sure Lady Jane agrees with me because she loves Claire for it. These are the character traits of the everyday hero who saves a child from drowning, pulls people from a burning car or donates an organ to a stranger. These are the kind of people we should be admiring and celebrating.

Claire would not give false witness, even against a woman who admitted to killing her husband and even if it would save her own life. I cried bittersweet tears for Claire. Under extreme distress and pressure, betrayed by those who should have represented innocence and mercy (Leery and Father Bain) , surrounded by a sea of faces that desired to see her burn, she stayed true to herself.

Sad, but wonderful too.

She is saved at the last-minute by the zealot murderess Gellis who sets aside her own desires to help another. I cried for Gellis’ courage, for her self-sacrifice and for her wasted life. She will not be the last person to give over her thinking and decision-making to a cause nor the last to step over a moral and ethical line for that cause. Once again, it’s all too common.

The evening’s monumental plot twists weren’t over and neither was Claire’s decision-making. In fact, a much harder decision awaits her upon her escape from Cranes Muir in the arms of her 18th century husband Jamie. I’m thankful that the decisions were made back to back. It helped the viewer understand who Claire is and that is a person who will do the right thing despite the pressure to do otherwise. It makes her decision at the stones that much more poignant and meaningful. She did not take the decision to leave or stay lightly. In fact, given her moral center the agonizing choice would have left her shattered. She is married to Frank and finally has an opportunity to return to him and yet,….Jamie.

The other person in this triangle made a few difficult choices of his own. First, he decides to suspend his disbelief for her sake. If I had any disappointment in this episode it was the fact that they chose to let the audience believe that Jamie never doubted her story. He was human, of course he did and maybe part of the reason he took her to the stones was to shatter Claire’s delusions. In the book, when he grabs her back from the rock it’s because she starts to go right before his eyes. I wish they would have kept that part. Despite his extraordinary emotional intelligence this would have seemed the more reasonable reaction to me.

And… then, the audience learns that Jamie has chosen to let Claire go. What this choice reveals about him is nothing short of staggering. This is a man of integrity. Everything he feels tells him to beg her to stay, but he chooses to let her go…why?

He now knows the truth and it cannot be ignored. There is a man…a husband … with a prior claim. Claire is the wife of another man and as a man who honors the vows spoken between two people, he must acknowledge Frank’s claim on Claire. She isn’t his wife because she is still wed to another. He must acknowledge that Claire doesn’t belong here. Her being here and with him is an unfortunate accident. She had no choice. She did what she needed to do to survive. And, after the witch trial, he knows she is a women out of her time and it will place her in danger again. She will be safer if she goes. He knows she has tried to get back to her husband and life over and over again. He will not add himself and his need of her to the equation. He loves her, so he will let her go.

I know I cried at every agonizing staggering step he took down that hill; my heart was breaking with his.

It’s a wonderful story full of redeeming characters who don’t always have to be right or have their own way. My husband is a big fan of old TV Westerns and I think I know why. Even though I complain about their predictability the plots usually center around someone making a moral choice and often those character’s choose the self-sacrificing or ethical/moral high road. The characters learn lessons about doing the right thing for your fellow-man and having honor …like the characters in Outlander.

Somewhere, in TV and maybe our real-life culture, the idea of self-sacrifice as being a noble action has fallen away to the need for self-fulfillment at any cost. Maybe it is because people don’t believe there is anything more to life. If that is so then I guess fulfilling your own desires at whatever the cost to others would make sense. But, “I have to inform you, I am no of that opinion myself”. I’m happy there is a production on TV that isn’t afraid to tell a story of people who wrestle with choices and choose kindness, honor, truth and self-sacrifice.

Looking for the show I loved…a reflection on Outlander season 4 I didn't write a reflection after season's 4 finale. It is true that I was sick and really couldn't think clearly enough to write, but if I'm truthful with myself...a part of me really didn't want to.

0 notes

recentanimenews · 7 years

Text

Bookshelf Briefs 10/2/17

Days, Vol. 5 | By Tsuyoshi Yasuda | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Coming off the intense emotions of the fourth volume, in which Seiseki loses at the Inter-High Tournament, volume five at first feels like generic, episodic summer filler. The guys cram for finals so they can avoid remedial classes, then there’s a chapter at the beach, and one at a festival, and then it’s training camp time. But in each of these chapters, something important happens character-wise. In the beach chapter, we learn more about Kurusu and his relationship with his grandfather; at the festival we check in with Sayuri, who laments that soccer has stolen Tsukushi away from her; and at the training camp we get to know Haibara, an upperclassman whose rowdy behavior is just an act to cover his lack of self-confidence. And meanwhile, Tsukushi continues to make incremental improvement. Although not as exciting as its predecessor, this is still definitely a solid volume. – Michelle Smith

Dreamin’ Sun, Vol. 3 | By Ichigo Takano | Seven Seas Entertainment – There’s no better way to make me hate a shoujo heroine than to have her melodramatically run out of the house after an outburst (in the rain, naturally), crying over lightning and internally wailing, “Someone! Please come and get me!!” Zen’s critiques used to seem overly harsh, but I was cheering him on this time when he said, “You should be thanking me for coming after your sorry ass.” Things don’t improve much as Shimana takes forever to realize that she has feelings for Taiga the landlord, though I did like Zen’s tearful confession to her. It’s intriguing, too, that princely Asahi, originally the supposed love interest, has faded so far into the background. Some of the subplots are picking up, as well, so despite my irritation at Shimana I’ll probably be back next time. – Michelle Smith

Genshiken: Second Season, Vol. 11 | By Shimoku Kio | Kodansha Comics – Again, the best moments are when this series treats things a bit more seriously. The scenes between Madarame and Hato are excellent, as they both try to figure out what is going on here, how Hato identifies, what attracts Madarame, and can either of them even try to make this work for real? The answer is probably no, but the tension is real here, and I greatly enjoyed it. Sue’s stuff is done well too—it’s very clear that we’re stuck between Hato, Sue, or no one, and you suspect Kio will go for the easy third choice. And then there’s Hato and Yajima, which is mostly trying to get past Yajima’s self-hatred and Hato’s inability to see her a a woman. Better than it should be. – Sean Gaffney

Honey So Sweet, Vol. 8 | By Amu Meguro | Viz Media – I had actually forgotten that this was the final volume of Honey So Sweet, though the cover should have tipped me off. Much of the book is devoted to Nao’s uncle, who has been putting his life on hold until Nao grows up and is ready to take care of herself… which reminds Nao that she’s still not all that great at that sort of thing. I did appreciate that the old flame who arrived stayed mostly old, though there are hints that may eventually change. On a lighter note, I’ve liked Yashiro best in this cast, and seeing her struggle with direct communication is fun. This was a sweet and cute shoujo fluff series, and just about the right length. You’ll enjoy it. – Sean Gaffney

Plum Crazy! Tales of a Tiger-Striped Cat, Vol. 2 | By Natsumi Hoshino | Seven Seas Entertainment – If you liked the first volume of Plum Crazy!, you’ll probably like this one, which is more of the same. I do wonder if readers reacted negatively to the Nakarai family not doing anything to stop new kitten Snowball from repeatedly attacking incumbent resident Plum, because there’s more emphasis on her bad behavior this time around, including a chapter in which Taku’s friend attempts to distract Snowball with other toys, only to make her aggression toward Plum worse. I can only assume we’re supposed to find these kitten antics cute (and I’m sure I’m taking this too seriously), but as a cat owner, they actually kind of stress me out. I very much look forward to Snowball growing out of this phase. Maybe then I’ll be able to relax and just enjoy the kittehs. – Michelle Smith

Skip Beat!, Vol. 39 | By Yoshiki Nakamura | Viz Media – I avoided reading this book for a while. Kyoko’s mother was the one part of her life I was dreading the confrontation with, and I had worried it would be too sympathetic. I should have trusted Nakamura more, as I think she strikes an excellent balance between explaining Saena’s behavior without downplaying the horrible abuse Kyoko suffered growing up. Kyoko can’t hate Saena, but also doesn’t quite forgive her. Instead she throws herself into a possible new role, finally working alongside Moko. That said, I have a feeling the role will prove to be a lot more trouble than it’s worth. These volumes were good, but I’ll be happy to get back to acting. – Sean Gaffney

Species Domain, Vol. 3 | By Shunsuke Noro | Seven Seas – I knew at some point we were going to see Dowa without her beard, so I wasn’t too surprised here. That said, kudos to the author for having her grow it back pretty quickly, showing that the character’s own desires are more important than looking “cute” for the audience. A more important detail here is Ohki’s “science” abilities, and how much of it is explained by genuine scientific principles. In a world like this, where there is literal magic, it’s hard to tell what is really going on—though Ohki seems very upset at the idea. There’s still lighthearted stuff, of course, with the constant fun that is Kazamori, as well as big sisters and little sisters. If you want a non-skeezy monster girls title, Species Domain is a good choice. – Sean Gaffney

Waiting for Spring, Vol. 2 | By Anashin | Kodansha Comics – The childhood friend who was thought to be a boy being a girl is fairly common in manga and anime, but seeing the reverse is a lot less common. The author sensibly keeps the attention on Mitsuki’s reaction to the whole thing, with her realization that this makes a number of childhood conversations very embarrassing. On the bright side, she’s getting closer to Towa, though he seems to be taking things a lot more seriously than she is at this stage. This is very much a ‘warmup’ volume, continuing to develop the characters and introducing a rival without moving things forward too much. It’s not fantastic, but it’s enough to make you want to read more. – Sean Gaffney

The Water Dragon��s Bride, Vol. 3 | By Rei Toma | Viz Media – This continues to be a lot darker than I was really expecting—a couple of villagers are straight up murdered in front of us, not to mention the war that ensues. It’s well done, but there’s no denying that the main reason this holds up well is because of the relationship between Asahi and the two men in her life—especially now that one of them actually IS a man. Getting her voice back is also unsurprising, as now that she’s grown up it will help the storytelling, both in terms of potential romance and in terms of Asahi’s status as a priestess. And of course she still wants to go home, even after so many years. There’s a lot going on in this series, and I’m grateful it’s so well told. – Sean Gaffney

Welcome to the Ballroom, Vol. 7 | By Tomo Takeuchi | Kodansha Comics – Tatara Fujita and his partner Chinatsu are trying to meld together as a pair, but it isn’t going very well, particularly due to Tatara’s uncommanding lead and Chinatsu’s inability to follow. They decide to get help from Hyodo Social Dance Academy, and though Tatara does learn more of the basics there than he had at Sengoku’s studio, he’s still impatient to compete, leading to a humiliating forfeit at the Grand Prix. Summer rolls around and, in true sports manga fashion, it’s time for a training camp in the mountains. This volume’s theme seems to be “strife and striving.” Until recently, this series had been on hiatus in Japan and I was worried we might not get to see the outcome to all of this, but I’m happy to see a new volume has come out since I last looked. A bit on the melodramatic side sometimes, but totally addictive.– Michelle Smith

By: Michelle Smith

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

0 notes