#to show how unreliable his narration is and how good the narrative is at keeping his true thoughts and feelings buried

[mhaynoot]

so i went into orv with full shades on, didn’t even read the blurb or anything, I just saw the cover art, the bridge scene and some high school au art and was oh they’re so cute! tbh i literally saw images of the bridge scene so i don’t know how i completely missed the fact that there was a webtoon but i did and so i downloaded the epub version first and started reading with 0 expectations except maybe a shounen rivalry

ahh this is a power fantasy, first person, game cliches and all the action tropes of dungeons. i think this is similar to the other thing I was reading (solo levelling) oh huh so he’s a lazy office worker guy who only reads and is about to be laid off? not the worst backstory, i wonder what op power he’s going to get!

i was very very unquestioning of the story, i didn’t really think about much beyond trying to puzzle out surface level power stuff. like i was just fully trusting everything kdj's said in his internal narration. the protagonist is always right, yeah? he’s the omniscient reader’s viewpoint after all. just look at him explaining his acts of good with ulterior motives, look at him being cut throat and saying he's a villian.

"what a self aware protagonist!" i say obliviously.

hyprocrite he calls himself and i cheer.

orv plays into the genre tropes and cliches so well, i was completely blindsided by the gradual build up to all the revelations i just never expect for it to ever answer.

so in the beginning i’m casually rooting for him on as he beats up and outwits his abusive boss, his old bully, as every adversery bows before him in a very power fantasy way. his first death is a brush off, it is inconsiquential, he brushes it off, i say “ah this type of protagonist!”

actually lets talk about his first death for a bit. like kdj literally dies, but his own narration treats it as an inconsequential, small death. ignore it. don’t worry about it, look kdj isn’t worrying about it either! his fourth wall skill is negating the effects that’s why he’s so blase about it and that’s not totally concerning at all, don’t think too hard about it. this is just a power fantasy remember?

until the gaps between his actions and words started appearing even in my very guillable eyes.

I ask, “why do you want to save shin yoosung so much? wasn’t it just hypocrisy?”

kdj narrates:

The omniscience was a curse. Knowing someone's heart meant always deceiving someone.

my worldview starts shattering bit by bit and then the characters around him mourn each death and i startling start mourning too, grieving in a way i wasn’t able to understand for each death and each time he starts this painful cycle of violence and survival and salvation.

it takes a whole month to finish reading the novel. i laughed, cheered, smiled and cried so hard at so many different points reading. orv has become a part of me in a way i never expected.

i love this story.

#orv spoiler #orv #ha rants #i love this novel. it loves me too. it loves you too. #i wanted to analyse some joongdok scenes especially the beginning train scene and the dark castle revelation as well as the 1863rd worldlin #to show how unreliable his narration is and how good the narrative is at keeping his true thoughts and feelings buried #but this post is long enough honestly #i'll keep it in mind for another joongdok analysis #and keep this as a little rant about how much i love this story for ripping my sunglusses off

[where-dreams-dwell]

Roderick Usher is such a good bait and switch of a villain! You spend most of the show watching his ‘downfall’ and corruption, knowing that he’s going to become the monster Dupin knows him as. But you still want to believe he can’t be all that bad, and he somehow knows this and plays right into it until the very end

Roderick is telling his story and peppers it with all these asides and moments that make the audience feel some sympathy for him. That make us believe he either has good intentions beneath everything else, or originally had them and was corrupted by power.

He implies he truly didn’t know Ligodone was addictive: he tells Dupin ‘you belive the chemist when he you tells you the drug they made isn’t addictive, you trust your company not to abuse the use of that drug’. He reminds Dupin (and by extension the audience) that he ‘didn’t make the damn thing, I just sold it’. And then it cuts to show that the drug company was originally acquired by Roderick’s predecessor as CEO, who took his pitch for a pain free world and ran with it. This makes the audience feel some small sympathy for Roderick: not enough to think he’s a victim in anyway but it worms in there and makes him not as monstrous as he was a moment ago. It implies he is not solely to blame.

The audience see’s (we think) Roderick getting corrupted and swayed to the dark side of corporate greed. Brilliantly they show Roderick in present day acting in ways that seem in character for what we have learnt about him, and then flash back to the 70’s to reveal that those lines or attitudes where originally those of the old CEO who Roderick *hated*. It appears as if pure innocent and trusting Roderick who runs straight at injustice has been corrupted by the old CEO, has become the monster or villain that he once hated. It’s a small tragedy mixed in with a busy narrative but it impacts the audiences view of who Roderick once was. We interpret this as an originally good if naive man corrupted by power and wealth. Coupled with all those scenes in the 70’s of Madeline being more emotionless and pragmatic, pushing Roderick to be more manipulative and strategic, it appears as if he has been ‘forced’ or ‘groomed’ into his role against his original intentions. Part of the scenes we then spent in the 70’s is spent quietly mourning this version of Roderick, as we know it doesn’t survive his ascension.

But there are enough moments to imply that Roderick is still being an unreliable narrator. When Dupin first apologised for faking an informant, saying he feels that his lie had some role in the death of his children, Roderick’s first response is to run with that false impression. The way he responds to Dupin’s apology sounds like he’s gearing up to lay into him about his role in Roderick a children’s death, to double down and agree that Dupin does bear some blame for how they died.

And then one of his dead children appear to him. They make him pause, collect himself, and acknowledge what Roderik knows to be true: Dupin’s lie had no bearing on their death (his deal with Verna is the reason they’re dead) and any impact of that lie on their final fate is solely due to Roderick believing it and then placing a bounty on the supposed informants head. He turned his kids against one another, Dupin’s lie was just the vehicle. Roderik only voices this when he is forced to by his literal ghosts.

There are several moments when it appears his dead children are ‘keeping him honest’. When he’s getting off topic Perry or Leo appear to shock him and remind him to keep telling their stories. When he tries to downplay his part in the creation of Ligodone and argue that the horrors of its addiction are actually due to a street derivative which ‘hasn’t been FDA approved’ Camille’s appears behind him to force him to reconsider and eventually interrupts him so abruptly he trows a glass at her. When he’s lamenting Frederiks death and remembering him as a child not an adult (the last time Roderick was any kind of father to him) Fredrick takes over child/Frederick’s body to remind him of how he died and to get back to the story. It’s almost like he’s saying ‘you don’t get to remember me like this, you don’t get to miss remember and pick and chose: this is how I died and it’s because of you so keep going’. It’s only in hindsight so we realise this was Roderick trying to subconsciously control the narrative and change this confession, to reframe his actions and those deaths. And the kids didn’t let him get away with it.

Even Juno as a narrative device helps to hide Roderik’s rotten centre: she is such a bluntly honest and sincere person, she lends a little credence of honesty to Roderick. We think he must have some small good in him (albeit wrapped up in all the ‘old enough to be Juno’s father, makes the opioid she’s addicted to, doesn’t defend her from family cruelty’ BS of his ‘love’) as she is devoted to and loves him. Plus when we first meet her he states he loves her, he is always shown to be gently affectionate towards her, and even claims she is one of his ‘two favourite ladies’ along with his granddaughter who we know he dotes upon. But then at the very end his twisted horror show of devotion is revealed: anything close to love he holds for Juno is warped by her being a living totem of his product, something he can point to and use to further his cause. Juno is an object to him, one he enjoys complete control over. He has never seen her as a person in her own right, just a doll/puppet to prop up his drug empire, and he can’t separate her or his feelings for her from the drug she is dependant upon.

Added to this, towards the end of the show we discover that this ‘unburdening’ of Roderiks sins, this confession to a litany of crimes, which will give Dupin closure for both his life’s work and answers to Roderick’s betrayal of him in the 70’s… that isn’t even Roderick’s idea! Verna told him to confess. Even at the end Roderick isn’t mending bridges of his own volition.

And then his final revelation: he’s been lying the whole time, maybe his whole life, to everyone. He had always know people would die to ensure his success, that he would have to climb over ‘a mountain of bodies’ to get to the top and it never once made him pause. He wasn’t corrupted, he didn’t get poisoned by the old CEO and his views, he didn’t change to take on more of Madeleine’s views. He just noticed the best way to get work done and adapted.

Dupin had it right from the start: the only good that he ever saw in Roderik was a reflection of Annabelle lee’s. Like the moon has no inherent light of its own, Roderik hid his darkness behind the strength of Annabelle’s goodness until the time came when she couldn’t shine on him anymore. And he was revealed for the empty dead husk he had always been.

And Annabelle even said it herself, when then kids chose Roderick over her. They were starving and he told them to gorge themselves but he could never actually feed them, because he had nothing real to offer. Empty through and through, and just. So. Small.

#the fall of the house of usher #mike flanagan #fuck Roderik usher #spoilers #tfothou #roderick usher #unreliable narrators #character analysis #media analysis

[makethosenarratorsfight]

UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SIDE B

Yoon Jongwoo Propaganda:

So technically not a narrator but he's the main char/protagonist who we follow from majority of the show. But, he is slowly losing his mind due to: fear, paranoia, ptsd, being drugged, and lack of sleep. Big big spoiler for the last episode but we originally see him only killing in self defense and the main villian being the one to kill off/brutally murder the henchpeople BUT later on after the fight it comes out that HE was the one who killed them and he actually was even talking to himself at one point. It throws the whole episode into a new light and then makes u wo der how much of the rest of the show may have also been different than what we originally saw. How innocent is he??

Kim Dokja Propaganda:

I haven't read orv but he's fucking gotta be from what I've osmosised

He tries to remove his emotions out of the narrative soooo much, literally the most repressed guy ever. Okay so for context orv is about how this guy, Kim Dokja, has been the only reader of an obscure post-apocalyptic webnovel for years and the novel suddenly becomes reality. And at first you'll probably get the weird impression that his behavior is pretty strange for, you know, a literal apocalypse happening in his world - like yes, he is concerned with survival but he doesn't seem all that scared and he kinda treats it like a video game where he has to grind to make himself stronger and he also treats his companions like a party in an rpg. Then there's also the way he approaches the protagonist of the webnovel, from the start he just kind of describes him as a ruthless psychopath and jerk that is unfortunately a pretty useful ally. And also there's the fact that he carefully omits any mention of his past and when somebody asks if he's worried about his family when the apocalypse starts he just kinda... brushes it off? Anyway so yeah, this bastard is definitely traumatized, although I don't know how much of spoiler territory that would be, considering the fact that literally when he first reveals his trauma he's also unreliable about it. And turns out he does indeed, care A LOT about this world and the people around him. Because well, he kinda didn't care to mention that this webnovel that has become reality was like... literally his whole world before it literally became his whole world. Like, it was the only thing keeping him going for 10+ years and the protagonist that he likes to call a stupid jerk was his comfort character who he pretended to be when he felt like he couldn't handle something in his life by being himself. The protagonist is also canonically the person he loves the most according to a prophecy and he literally can't fathom the thought of him dying, even the timeline versions of him that directly oppose him. And I haven't even mentioned the Fourth Wall yet but I feel like this propaganda is a little long already

misreading the intentions of his companion (yoo joonghyuk) so many time.

YOU DON'T UNDERSTANDDD DOKJA IS SUCH A UNRELIABLE NARRATORRRRRR GOD I COULD WRITE AN ESSAY BUT I KNOW YOU LOVE DOKJA TOO BUT OMG HE'S JUST SO AAAAAAAAAAAH

he is the worst like actually. he starts the story talking about how normal and average he is. he is not. he is constantly mischaracterizing his friends and he's so good at lying to the readers that you don't even realize it at first. almost every single time he cries we have to be told by other characters because he never says it himself. there is literally a scene where his narration says "i wasn't crying" and then the in-universe entity that narrates the actions of people (orv is really weird and meta) says that he was, in fact, crying. honestly genuinely anything he says about himself (or doesn't say) cannot be trusted. he is just so frustrating. he drives me mad. i love him dearly. but he drives me so mad.

Rest of Propaganda under cut!

Dictionary definition of unreliable narrator. Does not tell the reader anything and then things happen and he's like oh yeah btw there was also this and this earlier but i just didn't feel like mentioning it. There's even a thing called the "Fourth Wall" that is able to see through kdj's bs so occasionally you get gems like, Kim Dokja: I didn't cry The Fourth Wall: [Kim Dokja was crying] Imagine being so unreliable as a narrator you need a more powerful narrator to call out the actual narrator.

This goes into spoiler territory, but; Kim Dokja is in possession of a skill called the Fourth Wall, which on the surface seems like it appears because he read the book that reverse-isekai’d into his own. However, as the story goes on it becomes clear that it’s pretty much a souped up version of his pre-existing dissociation. You cannot trust him to be honest about his feelings, his past traumas or his feelings about his past traumas, not to mention his tendency to just outright omit information that only gets revealed later on either when it becomes relevant or when an outsider POV reveals what’s actually happening. Exhibit A: he says (in 1st person POV) that he’s not crying. The Fourth Wall immediately contradicts this (as it is literally words of the novel) by saying (in 3rd person POV) ‘Kim Dokja was crying’. Exhibit B: Fails to mention entire actions when it shows him emotionally honest even in the slightest; we had to read from another character entirely when Kim Dokja was being physically affectionate with his companion. It’s so bad that there’s this entire paragraph about Kim Dokja describing himself hiding his eyes in his hands in jerky, weirdly specific detail and just AVOIDING EVERY WORD THAT MIGHT SHOW HE’S CRYING. The brilliance of ORV is that when you re-read the entire thing you get hints that ‘yes, this WAS hinted at the entire time’ but you have to dig it out of Kim Dokja’s repressed, depressed self-hating internal dialogue with your own two hands.

i am a simple man (not a man). i see a tumblr text post with the words “unreliable narrator in it”. i read nothing else. i reblog & tag #kim dokja okay but in all seriousness i’m just going with the musty basic example: so there’s this moment where he sacrifices himself to save this guy. as he lays on the ground bleeding out, he says “hey, you don’t like me, right? you should kill me to get some money” the guy says “no kim dokja i cant do that (going through the five stages of grief except there’s only one and it’s anger)” the constellations (twitch viewers irl) are like omg he (the guy) doesn’t want to kill his companion (kim dokja) and shower him (the guy) with money kim dokja: oh, he’s not killing me for the money. smart! as i quote a brilliant youtube video (all of omniscient reader’s viewpoint in 6 minutes) “yoo joonghyuk sees kim dokja as a c_____” yoo joonghyuk: companion kim dokja: cunt

Hides his true feelings, tells the readers what he thinks is convenient for the plot and that his own personal feelings don’t matter or are not so significant. Has unreliable thoughts abt his companion and is a liar. And is also an omniscient reader.

Kim Dokja always perceived his companions in this like nonchalant way like “oh yeah we get along but really we’re just fighting to survive (apocalypse setting) it doesn’t run that deep” when they all do genuinely care for him and he does in turn. He just, doesn’t think of it as an equal relationship? Dokja’ll sacrifice a lot for them but will get seriously flabbergasted if they do the same thing, so fricking problematic. Not to mention Yoo Joonghyuk, his “Life and Death Companion” (read: husband). Kim Dokja always seems to think that Joonghyuk has it out for him, which is kinda true, but he is literally blind to the fact that he’s attached to him. Like, it’s so obvious??? Also they have hella sexual tension but that’s another thing entirely

se get some many pov changes where kdj in his pov just assumed things based on what he knew the characters would do. however because of his interference the characters have changed and he wouldn’t know that if it hit him in the face

He's an unreliable narrator because he lies to himself and thus the audience. He literally rewrote his own childhood core memory. If someone says, "this guy is my friend!" He will go through so many hoola hoops in his mind just to rationalize it. Because he fundamentally believe that no one could love him and even if they did they couldn't know him and he's just gonna hurt them. He cries sometimes in canon but a lot of those times it's not even mentioned as crying he's that unreliable of a narrator. No joke, one time this guys he has a gay thing with called him his "companion" to someone who had just killed him (long story) and this bitch thought "oh wow he's doing it for the coins (another long story) he's so smart i wish I'd thought to that. He's terrible. He literally has an exchange with something called the Fourth Wall (an even longer story) where it said "you're crying" and he said "no I'm not" but he was crying. He makes me insane because the reader is supposed to project onto him. He made me see how much of an unreliable narrator I WAS. ORV is just like that tho.

#I DID NOT MEAN TO ACCIDENTALLY MAKE A COUGHING BABY VS HYDROGEN BOMB I SWEAR #i thought hell is other people/strangers from hell was a really popular show im REALLY SORRY #unreliable narrator battle #unreliable narrators #polls #side b #kdj #kim dokja #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #yoon jongwoo #strangers from hell #hell is other people

[the3rddenialist]

The Unreliable Narrators of

The Somewhat Incredible Jackie-Boy Man & Void Silver

And their capacity to deceive us in the future.

Dramatic Youtube Thumbnail lol

Major #0 spoilers

Gotta say, I really love when a story comes with a sister story with it, this being the two Altrverse comics. As I personally love having two texts to compare and contrast, as it can really help highlight what they share, what's different, and what's missing.

And wow there is some things in each story that look a lot more suspicious due to their sister text existing.

While Sister Stories do many things, in this case it highlights the unreliable narrators of each text. I hope after this look into these aspect, and if these aspects continue into the next comics, will implore you to keep an eyebrow raise in regards to Marvin and Jackie.

But first, what is an unreliable narrator? At the most basic, an unreliable narrator is a storyteller whose perspective isn't totally reliable if we want to get the full picture. They can be intentional, unintentional, aim to wrongfully mislead or give a happier story. But even unreliable narrators with good intention still can alter the story to its viewers in a way that will lead us to the wrong conclusions.

Now do I think the Volume #0 are unreliable? Not really, but it had the capacity to be, which means in future comics, they may become more and more unreliable.

I will explore how each comic is unreliable by the perspective of each story and what we are shown (or more importantly not shown).

First we'll start with

Perspective: Who is their story being told by?

From the first page of The Somewhat Incredible Jackie-Boy Man, and by the second page of Void Silver, it is already establish that these narratives will be unreliable.

First we have Jackie. Who straight out of the gate acknowledges the viewer.

SO LET'S JUST GET OUT THERE--

And continues to narrate the rest of his story.

Now this probably doesn't seem important at first, don't a lot of comics do that? Spiderman does it! Which TSIJBM draws inspiration from. But remember what I said about Sister Stories? While this doesn't seem strange when by itself, it's strange when you look at VS.

Unlike TSIJBM, who has Jackie address the viewer, we instead have a completely different character, Higgins the Cat, introduce Marvin to us. And boy does Higgins know we're watching.

So while in TSIJBM, Jackie introduces himself to us, in VS, Higgins introduced Marvin to us.

Giving us two different protagonists, Jackie, who knows he's telling a story, and in the role of storyteller, and Marvin, unaware his story is being told and the role of storyteller belongs to Higgins.

This shows that these stories have unreliable narrators.

Shown: What do we get see?

This is also evident in the structure of the comics.

In TSIJBM, the entire story we are following Jackie, as we get his input and thoughts. The only exception being the first couple pages and the final couple panels. This also limits what we see of Jackie. As we only see what he sees/cares about, having an entire page dedicated to his thought process, because he decided that to be of most important than what else is going on around him. His story is heavily skewed by his perspective of things. Which seems to be a theme in TSIJBM, as he mistakes CyberMass' demo to be a Robot Apocalypse. We even have a minor time skip in the comic with a flashback, as we see why JBM was late to an order, but this flashback is used to bring out sympathy. It's why we only see him come out of the dumpster, not into it, it's what is more important to recall to him.

This is oppose to VS, where we don't follow Marvin the entire time, he's not even in his first page. And have an entire section dedicated to the Twins. You could say it's still Marvin's perspective because he learns of what the Twins do, but we don't learn it at the same time as Marvin. We see what happens and he learns afterwards. If we saw him go home, pick up the mask, and then see what the twins did, that would be more accurate to Marvin's experience. But Marvin, while the protagonist of his comic, is not the narrator, which belongs to Higgins. And so we see in the order of how Higgins wants us to see.

Higgins controls the perspective in Marvin's narrative. Jackie controls his own.

This means Jackie has the capacity to deceive the viewer in TSIJBM. Will he? Well we don't know him well enough in this version to know for sure. But we need to know he does have that card at his disposal.

But Higgins has the capacity to decisive the viewer in VS, and a part of me feels like he wouldn't be above that. What is especially interesting though is that it makes Marvin's story appear a lot more authentic, due to his lack of knowledge of his story being told, as we need to worry more of what Higgins shows us of Marvin.

All of this shows how Jackie is the narrator of his story, whilst Higgins is the narrator of Marvin's, both storytellers having the ability to mislead us in the future. We've already touch on a bit about what is shown in each narrative due to their narrators. But Great Sister stories highlight what they don't show.

Shown: Marvin doesn't think

There is almost 0 thought bubbles in VS. I implore you to look yourself. The only thing resembling a thought bubble is Marvin recalling what was mention in the previous pages and the statement that "Everything this masks sees, it records", which doesn't seem to be his own thoughts but just recalling statements said to him.

There are pages in VS, where if Jackie was in the situation, would be scattered with thought bubbles, like the two pages of Jackie moving while he comments on social aspects that dehumanises people. But there is none in VS. This makes sense of course, Higgins is the narrator, not Marvin, why would Higgins know what Marvin is thinking? He at best can show us what he's doing, or doesn't want us to know what Marvin's thinking.

This does highlight that Jackie is his own narrator with the lack of though bubbles in VS, if thought bubbles are a tool only for the storyteller. I mean look at these pages and tell me it wouldn't have thought bubbles if Marvin was the narrator.

If this was in TSIJBM, we would probably see Marvin's thoughts of frustration, not just his face.

This page especially.

We didn't know why Marvin recognised the insignia until later, when Higgins showed us a flashback. Because we don't know Marvin's thoughts.

So while Marvin is more authentic than JBM, he's more secretive, not of his own volition, but because he's not his own narrator.

While they aren't both unreliable narrators, since Marvin isn't his own, they are both unreliable protagonist. One which can alter his own story, the other which has his thoughts concealed.

Similar to how there is a theme for Jackie of his perspective being skewed to what he deems reality is, there is a theme of Marvin just not knowing what's actually happening, having to rely on others to inform him (Sunday, his mask, Ramesses). Marvin is a lot less aware that he's in a story and his role in his own story.

The viewer can only trust what Jackie decided is more important for us, and the viewer has to be informed by Higgins what is important for us. This makes both comics of TSIJBM and VS have unreliable narrators, and that we should be careful at taking everything at face value in the future.

I have no clue if these aspect will continue in #1, perhaps these things only a apply to #0. But is they do continue in the next comics, I hope this has help you approach the next comic with more suspicion.

Thanks for reading. And remember that you can't always trust what is shown.

#jacksepticeye #altrverse #altrverse spoilers #the somewhat incredible jackie-boy man #void silver #jackieboy man #marvin the magnificent #tell me if i missed something

[aroaceleovaldez]

One of the both interesting and annoying things with Trials of Apollo is Apollo is an unreliable narrator who will entirely straight up lie to the audience.

Like, on one hand, yes technically that is what an unreliable narrator is, but generally with unreliable narrators you are able to parse that they’re being unreliable entirely within the contexts of the narrative and also parse the truth. A good example is actually Magnus Chase - he’s also an unreliable narrator. But he doesn’t wholly outright lie ever about random details. Magnus is somewhat coy when it comes to details about himself or his feelings, but its also generally very easy to see through his pretenses. When we’re introduced to him, he talks a lot insisting that he’s some type of tough loner guy on the streets, and isn’t super into touchy-feely stuff. Then we’re immediately introduced to his found family and spend the next two books seeing his found family grow and finally him literally win a fight with the power of friendship. He claims he’s totally independent, but then also talks about how he keeps sneaking into his uncle’s house and again, has two adoptive dads. We’re presented this information almost side-by-side, so while Magnus is an unreliable narrator, we as the audience are still receiving valid information. And then comparatively Percy is just almost entirely a truthful narrator. There’s never really a question of having to dispute the information he gives us.

Meanwhile, Apollo will exposition at the audience and we genuinely have no way of confirming or denying it, and we do know that he is blatantly lying about at least some of it, which makes basically all of the information entirely useless. The most notable example of this is Apollo spending three whole books referring to Artemis as his younger twin sister. Without contextual knowledge of Greek Mythology, specifically relating to the myth of Artemis and Apollo’s births, there is no reason for the audience to dispute this or not take this as fact when Apollo is presenting it as such. Then, in Tyrant’s Tomb when Artemis actually shows up, Apollo completely 180s into being truthful and referring to Artemis as his older twin. It honestly almost reads as just narrative inconsistency or textual error if you aren’t aware that Apollo is intentionally supposed to be lying to the audience.

And it’s annoying! Because we can’t take anything he says as fact most of the time! Like, we can presume it’s true, because we have nothing saying it’s not true until we do. But also, sometimes we do! Like with Artemis! So there’s a ton of little instances of having to go “Is this a retcon, new information, consistency error, or is Apollo just straight up lying and it will never get addressed?” We don’t know.

#pjo #riordanverse #trials of apollo #toa #TODAY ON: RANDOM GRIEVANCES I HAVE #tbh that one detail was one of the things that made it extremely difficult for me to get through reading TOA #because it just KEPT COMING UP and it was pissing me off SO MUCH #there was at least one time i went ''If he says she's the younger twin one more time i am putting down this book'' #and it's extra annoying because WE KNOW RICK CAN WRITE BETTER UNRELIABLE NARRATORS #HE WAS LITERALLY WRITING MAGNUS AT THE EXACT SAME TIME #he's just shitty on purpose and i hate it

[all-pacas]

What, exactly, went wrong with How I Met Your Mother?

On January 28th 2023, Neil Patrick Harris reprised his role as Barney Stinson for the spin off show How I Met Your Father. After the episode aired, one of the show’s creators, Isaac Apator, was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly about getting Harris on board:

Hilary [Duff] was so excited to work with Neil. […] They have so much in common — they both were these giant TV stars when they were still in middle school and now they've both fronted the How I Met series.

Hang on. What?

-

How I Met Your Mother, or HIMYM, was a sitcom that ran from 2005 to 2013. While it never reached the beloved status, or ratings, of its similar precursor Friends, it was well-liked and respected, receiving decent praise, viewers, the occasional Emmy nominee — especially during its earlier seasons. It had a solid cast with great chemistry, and, with the premise of the show being that the main character, Ted, was retelling the story to his children decades later, HIMYM had the freedom to play around with its narrative, playing with non-linearity, flash backs and flash forwards, and unreliable narration, all while keeping exceptionally strong continuity from season to season. HIMYM had a solid and devoted fanbase, active fandom, and seemed primed to live a comfortable life in syndication after it came to an end in March 2014.

And then the finale aired, and things all fell apart so thoroughly, and so horribly, that it wasn’t until Game of Thrones that any show’s finale came close to betraying expectations and thumbing the eye of the majority of the viewers as HIMYM’s ending did.

The wedding of fan-favorites Barney and Robin, the focal point of much of the show, led immediately to a quick and brushed passed divorce. The friendships of ‘the gang,’ said repeatedly to be that of family and all-important, fall apart, with Robin leaving for decades and Barney quietly vanishing halfway through. The mother, perfectly cast and played by Cristin Milioti, is killed via voice over. Characters are shoved into position, relationships waved away, and in the final moments Ted and Robin, a relationship the viewers were told again and again was both impossible and would never happen… happened. And that’s a wrap.

Backlash was huge. A relatively-thriving fandom died overnight. Complaints were innumerable: The finale ruined the entire show. It came out of nowhere. It made no sense. The series creators admitted to having written it, in part, in the show’s second season, long before many of the show’s pivotal relationships and character arcs; it no longer worked in the show’s ninth. An alternative ending was cobbled together from existing footage and intentionally leaked. Carter Bays and Craig Thomas’s other projects were repeatedly rejected.

The finale had defenders, but was nearly universally panned, with even those who liked the premise finding fault in the execution. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and slap the viewers and fans in the face. It contradicted episodes and seasons before. How could anyone think it was a good idea!?

Where did the show go wrong?

#himym #how i met your mother #longform #don't be alarmed by the patreon link; none of this shit will ever be locked #it's just a convenient way to post things in one place

[descendant-of-truth]

Well guys I did say in one of my tags that the Prime!Shadow analysis would be for another time and that time is now because I'm mentally shaking him around like a ragdoll trying to figure out his secrets

What I want to highlight is just, the sheer number of ways he's been set up as the odd one out in the first third of the season alone, and why I find that so interesting. So let's break that down for a minute:

The first thing we learn about him is that he's not Sonic's friend or enemy, but a secret third thing - his rival, as specified later

But despite having a clear label for it in episode 2, Sonic finds this particular dynamic "complicated." Shadow is the only person in his life that falls under that category, and it shows in how he describes him.

"He's a real buzzkill" (negative), "and he rollerskates!" (said with admiration). Sonic complains about Shadow and compliments him in the same breath, which is hilarious but also good for character building

In that same scene though, Shadow momentarily breaks into Sonic's narration to tell him that they're air shoes, not roller skates, which is ALSO funny but once again, he's the only character to do this. Even if it's for the sake of humor, Shadow is given a sort of... protagonist privilege, if you will. He's the only one to break the "Sonic POV," something he does not just this once, but multiple times over the course of a few episodes.

Now, there are other scenes that are from the perspectives of characters that aren't Sonic, but what makes Shadow's scenes different from theirs is that his are used specifically to show that Sonic can be an unreliable narrator.

The very first scene in the show after Sonic happily describes his status quo is the event with the Paradox Prism. A moment that Shadow was 100% there for, albeit towards the end, but who is conveniently left out until we return to the scene in later episodes.

And the framing is just. so deliberate on a rewatch that it hurts, because this is one of the very first shots we see of the show:

...and it takes place directly after Sonic knocks Shadow into a wall and runs away.

Literally the INSTANT Sonic takes his eyes off of Shadow is when the show's story begins, and it starts with Sonic narrating and completely glossing over Shadow's existence

(Is anyone else going insane over this. is it just me. does the implied mental gymnastics happening here make anyone else feel like they're vibrating)

Anyway as I was saying, removing Shadow from the scene with the Prism (even cutting out his voice when he shouts "Chaos Control") keeps us in Sonic's perspective just enough to share in his confusion when he starts to remember the incident more clearly.

(It also implies that he didn't consider Shadow to be important enough to take note of in the first moment we watch the scene, which. oof, sorry Shadow)

He's also missing in the scene where Sonic is first traveling through the void, despite showing up like two seconds after him - another instance where we're kept in Sonic's perspective just enough to miss the bigger picture that has Shadow in it.

Meanwhile, scenes from Shadow's point of view give us all sorts of information; the fact that Chaos Emeralds exist, more detailed effects of Sonic's speed-amplified explosion (it gave him a vision of some sort, which I'm convinced is implying something important about it beyond "it blew up part of a mountain"), how exactly he ended up in the void, why Sonic was late to the fight with Eggman, all that good stuff

It's a pretty consistent theme with Shadow, actually. He's always there to represent the bigger picture that Sonic isn't seeing.

...partly because Sonic keeps forgetting about him, in contrast to Shadow being the only other person to remember who Sonic is.

(I didn't know where else to fit this point in, but Shadow's lost in the void while Sonic is bouncing back and forth between worlds like it's a professional sport. Narrative foils and all that, we love to see it)

But there's another way that Shadow is made distinct from everyone else Sonic knows from the original world, that I think is going to have a big effect on his character development: Shadow doesn't care about sparing Sonic's feelings.

A lot of the conflict between Sonic and his friends is based on the fact that Sonic doesn't listen well, but another thing to consider is that his friends don't really... tell him when he's made a mistake, or what their point of view was, or what exactly he was doing wrong.

Tails? He could have explained that telling Sonic there was a trap was supposed to be a cue not to attack Eggman, and that he thought Sonic knew that, and so him attacking anyway felt like blatantly disregarding his warnings.

Instead, he brushes it off with an "it's fine."

Amy tries to explain that the palm tree gift has a lot of sentimental value to everyone, and yeah that whole situation went poorly, but it doesn't seem like she ever communicated to Sonic that him disregarding it hurt their feelings.

If he was just told that he messed up and explained how he did, you know he would have tried to make it up to them, like how earnestly he apologized to Tails. He could have been working on these problems a lot sooner, but because the others want to preserve their friendship with him and don't like getting into arguments, they don't communicate with him.

Shadow has no such hangups about their relationship. He tells Sonic exactly what his problem is.

...even if Sonic doesn't seem to hear him, and Shadow should really work on the whole "punching to get his attention" thing.

There's a lot of room for improvement here, but my point is that Sonic needs someone to be this upfront and honest with him. Straightforward communication is clearly what he understands the most - Thorn simply asking him (albeit rudely) what he knew about togetherness was all it took for him to really start thinking about that, though admittedly the circumstances around the question probably helped.

And because Shadow has been set up as the only person who still knows and remembers Sonic, the one who has a wider perspective on things than he does, and cares enough about him as a person to try to get through to him in the first place without being held back by a need to maintain a friendly stance with him... he's the perfect person to help accelerate Sonic's character arc.

And, y'know, hopefully Sonic can do the same for him - though it's hard to say what exactly Shadow needs help with (beyond Not Punching People) that Sonic could contribute to, given his little screen time so far.

Case in point: this show is setting up Shadow to be Important in a way that only Shadow can be and I for one am hyped to see it all play out

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic prime #sonic prime spoilers #shadow the hedgehog #analysis #meta #Also yes this is more 'Sonic is clearly neurodivergent' content #I'm not saying he's the only one but like. it's important #This was kind of all over the place but I think it still turned out coherent

[glade-constellation]

It might also have something to do with old Moon. Old Moon was Lunar’s first real brother, the first sibling who didn’t hit him, etc. He was with Lunar for Lunar’s whole life.

And New Moon just met Lunar. He isn’t the person who gave Lunar his first real taste of family. He isn’t the person Lunar shared a body with for months. He isn’t the person who took the time to remember exactly what level of Kingdom Hearts he was on before October. That person is dead.

And, more importantly, new Moon actively hates that person, and even exaggerates old Moon’s bad traits by going so far as to say he wouldn’t have cared about seeing Lunar die. Lunar has plenty of reason to hate new Moon.

These are all really good points. I especially like the last one, as it also rubbed me the wrong way when Moon said the old him wouldn’t have cared. Old Moon may have been a bad brother at times, but he didn’t hate his family. It’s shown many times over that he just wanted his family safe, no matter the cost. Old Moon would have been just as devastated of Lunar’s death as the New Moon would have been, had he known Lunar when it happened. He simply would have acted on that grief in a different way.

One thing I’ve learned from watching this show is that everyone is an unreliable narrator. Everyone has their own version of how the narrative goes, and they often don’t align with everyone else’s narrative. Hearing the story from word of mouth alone would never give you the full or correct story. You’re probably going to get a different story from each person, even if just slightly different.

If someone had never met Moon before his amnesia, but heard about him from Moon now, they would think he was a terrible person. We know that’s not entirely true because we’ve watched the show, we’ve seen how Moon was like, but just imagine someone’s first introduction to Old Moon being “he wouldn’t care if his brother died a horrific death by his abuser”. You would think he was a bad person, because that is a terrible thing to not care about.

If this truly is the reason why Lunar said he hates Moon, Lunar is in the same place a lot of the viewers are in right now. I recently saw a TikTok of someone complaining, saying the show was telling us stuff about the characters that was inaccurate. It’s not that these characters are trying to be inconsistent, it’s just that they all have different viewpoints as explained above.

Lunar is currently going through a lot right now. He was retraumatized, gained new traumas, died horrifically, and then learned he lost his brother during the months it took to return. It doesn’t matter Moon is still technically there, that wasn’t who Lunar met. He may not realize it, but he’s probably grieving. It’s totally valid in this situation. Sun grieved, is most likely still grieving, but we all know Sun pushes away any negative emotion he has. (I also feel Moon isn’t really allowing anyone to grieve, but that’s for later.) Lunar doesn’t. Even if he can’t currently feel or understand the emotions he’s feeling, he tends to feel his emotions wholeheartedly. That grief could definitely turn into anger at Moon for hating someone they called a brother. Especially because, as we all know, Moon hasn’t actually changed all that much. He’s definitely better in certain ways, but he’s not a complete new person. Lunar trying to grieve while being reminded of the person they’re grieving about could just make the situation worse.

The biggest thing I’m concerned of is that Lunar is going to turn all of his negative emotion on Moon. As someone who personally deals with emotional dissociation I can kind of understand why Lunar is acting the way he is. Not being able to really feel your own emotions will make you do crazy shit just to feel something. If they are able to feel that anger, even if they doesn’t realize they’re feeling it, they will latch onto it and keep doing things that make them angry just to feel something. That potentially means tensions between Lunar and Moon are about to get real bad.

Going to the comment I made earlier, I don’t feel Moon is allowing for anyone to grieve for his old self. Any time he’s brought up, Moon follows it up with a negative comment and turns the conversation. I get it. I really do. I understand why Moon is so upset in this situation. Everyone looks at you and sees something you personally hate and it just fuels the hatred. But Moon needs to step back and let the grief happen. If he starts pushing Lunar to try and see his old self as negative while Lunar is already so emotionally unstable, there will be push back. And it won’t be pretty if Lunar is still as emotionally attached to Old Moon as we think he is.

If Lunar’s comment about hating Moon is as serious as the fandom seems to think, we might have some pretty big family drama around the corner.

#Glade Gossip #tsams spoilers #tsams #sams #the sun and moon show #sun and moon show #tsams lunar #tsams moon #sorry if this was a long post or went on a tangent #I have a lot of feeling on this situation if it is as bad as it appears

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Too many Binghe haters jumping into the askbox so I'm here to represent Binghe lovers.

Luo Binghe is a fun, interesting character who suffers a lot from shallow readings. Which is ironic considering the main source of tension in his relationship with Shen Qingqiu, the MC - who is originally a reader of the novel in which Luo Binghe is the protagonist - is that Shen Qingqiu keeps reading him shallowly / expecting him to act according to some or other character archetype, and thus misses that Binghe is a complex person with his own rich inner world. Basically it's meta-commentary on how readers do a disservice to characters by oversimplifying them to just a few traits and/or their role in the story (SVSSS in general is super meta) but unfortunately not a few ppl read the novel and fell into those same trappings ^^"

It also doesn't help that Shen Qingqiu is an unreliable af narrator, which leads to some people insisting that Luo Binghe forced him into a relationship or is manipulating him or w/e... This is about a guy who waxes poetics about Luo Binghe's unparalleled beauty every time he lays eyes on him. Like cmon, he just has a lot of internalized homophobia and shame to work through, give him a break!! And the so-called 'manipulation' is half the time Luo Binghe looking vaguely disappointed and Shen Qingqiu going "wow! I cannot believe the most beautiful man in the world whom i love so much that i died for him twice and whom im dating is making me have sex with him! Luo Binghe sure is a master of emotional manipulation!" and other half the time Luo Binghe super obviously whining for attention which - canonically, its in the text - makes it easier for Shen Qingqiu to be honest with him.

But enough salt; reasons why Binghe is a top blorbo go:

The narrative (which btw is a real force in this world) is trying to make him into an iron-fist Ruler Of Everything but his greatest aspiration in life is to be a househusband.

Was supposed to be a protagonist of an uber-straight harem novel but threw heterosexuality out the window within 3 interactions with MC. 

His love language is cooking! It's adorable but it'll also hurt u. (Binghe kept making three meals a day for Shen Qingqiu during the five years the latter was dead :) )

A big part of his arc is about learning to be vulnerable and show his sensitive side. (In general, one of the novel's major themes is toxic masculinity and how it harms ppl; I just particularly like how its explored with Binghe.)

A Good Boy (has been going through a corruption arc for 2/3rds of the novel yet it still took a cursed sword controlling his mind for him to start acting like the OG) 

Lotsa delicious fridge horror around him being the narrative's favorite chew toy. Things only ever get worse for him and reality will warp itself to deny him a chance to heal while the story is in progress, because he has a Role and that role is ‘a villainous protagonist’.

But also u get to cry about how he was saved in the end by the power of just one reader loving him and wanting better for him. (SVSSS is also a love letter to fandom/fanworks okay :] ) 

Very powerful but also a nervous wreck. Tripped and fell flat on his face when proposing to his boyfriend.

Just in general him being clingy and whiny and a mess is mega cute (me 🤝 Shen Qingqiu) 

This makes for a great contrast with him being a super OP nigh-unkillable demon lord btw. He could drown the world in blood but he's too busy crying Ghibli tears in his man’s lap. 

Also I need to mention he's extremely funny about being nigh-unkillable too. Like, *gets injured* Shen Qingqiu: "We can have sex once u r better 😔" Luo Binghe: *popping broken limbs back into place*: "I'm better! :D" 

Has a praise kink AND a masochistic streak. Apparently when Shen Qingqiu praises him and pats his head it's exciting, but when Shen Qingqiu scolds him and hits him that's also exciting. 

Has the peak character design detail in the form of a demon mark on his forehead. Built-in kissies target 🥰 Also when fanartists draw it in different shapes to represent his mood? Absolutely delightful 100/10 no notes <3

Why do I feel like this man has Kenergy

#I could be totally off here but I’m getting the Vibes #not a poll #ask #luo binghe #propaganda #verycharismaticdragon

[ariaste]

Hello Alexandra!

Been keeping up with your page since reading your meta (an impressive and engaging piece!) and I've found it interesting how you've been addressing other theories of the past.

As much as I LOVE myself some Steven Moffat slander, your dismissal of the JohnLock theory as totally unlike yours kind of struck me as odd? You go on to give a brief lesson on how to write a good theory, namely in not cherry picking.

This is genuinely confusing to me, as all of your theory is essentially cherry-picked, decontextualised facts.

Firstly, you take a bunch of evidence and remove it from the context of being a comedy. Sure, Nazi Zombies and a bullet catch seem a bit silly in that phrasing, but they're the LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, and Good Omens is so deeply a culmination of fantastic British comedy (this also wasn't even written by Neil).

You use Gabriel's weird behaviour as evidence of an unreliable narrative when most of it has context. You say that he never actually has anything to give Aziraphale - but he does, the fly is in the box - and he needs the memories so they don't get to erase him and demote him. You cite his ramblings about a tempest as unresolved and never mentioned again, as if there isn't a whole trial scene about Gabriel's desire to not have Armageddon pt 2 (electric boogaloo) and as if the Metatron doesn't explicitly mention the second coming.

You are very prescriptive in your stance that Maggie and Nina's relationship doesn't go anywhere - despite them being entirely responsible for Crowley actions in the final scene. They may have another purpose yet to be seen, but to say their relationship goes nowhere isn't true.

Also Crowley's actions aren't what triggers the separation at the end, that was going to happen even if he'd left straight away. If anything, what he does makes Aziraphale more hesitant to go, as he becomes quite resistant to the metatron afterwards.

You criticise the minisodes and say that the characters don't actually go back in time to look for clues. While I do understand a bit more why you would say this - the minisodes happen because they are triggered by things in the running narrative and they DO provide clues. Not all of them are regarding the Gabriel mystery as there are VERY strong clues towards Aziraphale's character development. The Job minisode especially shows Aziraphale's want to do good almost to the point of self flagellation. This is a clue about the end of the series, just not the way we thought. Also, they do provide clues for the Gabriel mystery, anyway. For example, the passage Gabriel cites that triggers the Job flashback is what God says to Job when he questions why he is being punished. This is a clue to the audience that Gabriel has been punished for questioning too, which actually IS the case.

The bit about the narrator? The plot of GO2 (unlike 1) isn't based around the idea of what 'God's plan' is, so there's no real narrative explanation for God to narrate. Also a massive joke in season 1 is that God ISNT reliable ("God doesn't play games with the fate of the universe" - "Where've you been?").

You take facts and remove them from biblical context. The former prince of heaven cast out is Lucifer, and the reference to a 'story' is because the bible exists, and works like Paradise Lost and even Good Omens itself. We have passed that story down for millennia.

The Crow Road is a great book, that yes! does feature elements of fragmented memory! So sure, sure, cherry pick and and use it for your theory - but also the catalyst of s2 is GABRIEL'S fragmented memory. It isn't a red herring to randomly reference the book.

You can continue like that for the bulk of the theory's content, as well as also question the actual foundation and what Neil actually seeks to benefit by intentionally bombing a season's writing in a situation where another season isn't promised.

There's also the fact you ignored that s2 was Gaiman's creation to set up the second novel point. If the plot of s3 is correcting false memories of s2, how could this still be true if Pratchett only had a hand in the latter?

You are free to make whatever conclusion you want and have as much fun with guessing, and you are clearly very talented in writing. But to act as if you haven’t cherry picked to suit your own agenda while criticising other works that tonally ARE similar to yours (regardless of whether you personally think Steven Moffat could pull it off like Neil, the whole 'I think this is bad writing, it must be intentional', is reminiscent of Sherlock s4) comes across as very 'holier-than-thou'. You say that you should look for evidence that disproves your theory, but it seems that at points you've genuinely just missed whole plot details.

I don't mean to say you shouldn't publish your theory, please do! Just don't act as if it isn't a culmination of subjective evidence that does already have plot explanations that you’ve then blamed on Neil.

It's also okay to not enjoy something as much as you thought you would, even if it is created by someone you admire. To paraphrase you, we are humans and we make mistakes.

I know this may come across as cruel and dismissive, but that is not my intention and I respect you. I just think you would benefit from this perspective.

ok

[garbagequeer]

Can you help me im so confused how archie (and everyone listening to him) had those memories for his poem i thought everyone but betty and jughead forgot 😭

bobbyjean asked: Wait a second were those the good memories. the serial killer gene and jason’s corpse. and archie playing football in leopold and loeb juvenile detention center……

well imo you can work with different theories so like

they dont remember these things as things they lived themselves but they remember them as things tabitha showed them the first time they saw the riverdale memories (so like if they'd watched themselves go through these things in tv but not as if they happened irl for them)

goodbye riverdale is back to jughead's narration and jughead is unreliable he's just making shit up (this also goes with the theory that what jughead showed betty was not real but was a fabrication he made up for her as her dying wish was to relive those days with everyone as they were + the fake reality had plot holes because to be fair jughead was like 86 when he died he cant keep track of who remembers the serial killer genes and who doesn't he's busy)

narrator jughead seems to be in control of this episode more than he was before (we see him corporeally and there's 2 jugheads in the end) so the characters' lives have been rewritten to fit the narrative jughead wanted to tell so they remember because he does too and the story belongs to him and not to them (to me jughead is always afraid of abandonment and change so he keeps his stories ones where his friends don't leave or grow + he has been shown to find it hard to come up with anything other than stories about his friends in riverdale in s5 and as bunker/god jughead). for me this also fits with the idea of the characters and angel tabitha trying to break free and narrator/god jughead(s) not allowing it -> town won

they loved these memories they love cults and killing and corpses and gay juvie. the bad memories were like archie not getting his high school diploma or something

from a doylist pov (boring) this meant nothing about the story and was just an homage to their most iconic moments in the show for the audience and the crew. you could twist this a bit to be meta and make something up about the characters behaving as characters and talking willingly to an audience because they exist only in our eyes if you wanted

which are all fun ideas to consider and theyre not mutually exclusive (like it could be jughead taking over the narrative but it could be in a world he makes up just for betty so all the other characters are in the real sweet hereafter but betty went to purgatory pop's because she does remember it all and this prevented her from being able to leave it behind. also archie for sure would remember some of gay juvie he loved the gay parts of gay juvie he told me. and fangs probably had god times at the cult i mean he dated human kevin maybe a love for cults is what they had in common)

to me it stood out as a moment where i was like oh jughead is lying to us for sure. awesome. one last jughead lying to us and trapping us in the cycle forever for the road yippee

#riverdale #'' '''stuck up riverdale punks... think they're too good for me''' - homer simpson'' #- narrator jughead when he gets mad that his friends are not following the script so he sends them to pop's in the sky forever #answered

[chuplayswithfire]

Hi, I just read your post about Izzy and how his actions are rooted in homophobia in relation to his motives for informing the English of the location of the revenge.

I think it's difficult, because Stede is a man, Ed and Stede are both gay, and figuring things out about yourself is a big theme of the show, and I think to separate these facts from it do it an injustice.

However that being said, I think Izzy's reaction would have been the same if Stede was a woman. If Stede and Ed's relationship was exactly the same but Ed was a man and Stede was woman, I think that it would have played out exactly the same, but with accusations of misogyny thrown in instead of homophobia towards Izzy, even if not a single line of dialogue changed. I think he's just being an asshole and not necessarily targeting the queerness of the relationship itself or people in that relationship.

Definitely the "bonnet has done something to my bosses brain" can be read as homophobic, but I also think it can relate to the show's repeated insistence that pirates don't have friends, pirates don't fall in love, pirates don't trust each other. Even when they first meet Stede, Izzy talks to Ed about his increasingly erratic moods and his lack of direction, and to me that line indicates that Stede is just stopping Ed from being the "real pirate" that Izzy wants him to be because he indulges and promotes these moods and whims.

I think, if it wasn't Stede, but a different more traditionally piratey man (like CJ) then Izzy would be fine with it, as long as Ed kept being Blackbeard. Or, if Stede was a woman, but exactly the same in every other way, then Izzy would be equally NOT fine with it.

Obviously, at present, we can't know. Because they are both men. But I'm just not sure I see evidence that Izzy is particularly motivated by homophobia - which is not to say he's a good and perfect uwu smol bean or whatever lol, but I'm just not sure we see anything from him that's like "I hate this explicitly because it's gay."

Genuinely interested in your thoughts if you have the time to give them! I hope it's clear I'm not looking to fight, and just to discuss!

i'm gonna be real, i genuinely don't enjoy playing in this sort of "what if" scenario discussion, because once you move into the grounds of "well if i just changed this actually essential element to the show and its narrative and story i think things would play out the same" we move out of the realm of analysis and into the even more subjective realm of pure conjecture and wishful thinking.

that said, i do not think izzy would react the same way if stede was a woman (and i assume you mean, if stede was born a cis woman with this) and ed was involved in a romance with a woman, for the very specific reason that if stede were a woman, everything he's been mocked and tormented and abused for his entire life would be suddenly appropriate behaviors rewarded by society, and a stede born a cis woman may have never felt the need to literally run away to the sea to find freedom and acceptance. izzy's aggression towards stede (and lucius, to an even greater degree) are because neither of them lives in the man box that izzy sees as true masculinity. he would not hold stede to that standard or carry the same resentment against stede as a woman because stede's behavior would entirely fit into the woman box.

and by the way? the hatred of "womanly"/"feminine" traits in gay men is grounded in homophobia. a lot of people keep trying to separate that into some idea of no no its different if you hate feminine gays - no its not. it's just homophobia. there is nothing new or spicy about it.

and like.

look.

when izzy talks about ed's erratic moods and lack of direction, we have to remember that 1) izzy is an unreliable narrator who likes to tell people ed is half-insane even though that's demonstrably not true and 2) we can see that the problem that izzy has is much less to do with ed being gay and much more to do with the fact that ed is interested in being openly vulnerable, expressing his emotions, dressing in colorful clothes that don't live in the hypermasculine man box, and in general being a "namby-pamby pining for his boyfriend". these are all about hating feminine gay man traits. this is about izzy thinking that ed is less than a man and less than a human for dressing "gay" for lack of better phrasing.

this is homophobia. this is not just being an asshole, this is homophobia.

and because this is a written show, that's ALSO why they have izzy being explicitly homophobic with lucius and approaching their dynamic with his unhinged oooh daddy moment and his contemptuous feminizing language that he uses with lucius (proper little seductress, bitch), is to show that izzy has a problem with gay men who aren't masculine to HIS preferences, which is, again, say it with me, homophobia.

that scene shows that izzy is across the board, with lucius, with stede, and then with ed, contemptuous of feminine gay men. the idea that maybe in some alternate universe he would be just as contemptuous if this were a straight dynamic and a woman was involved is irrelevant, but also utterly ignores that what izzy hates and derides is when these gay men deviate from the man box.

not all homophobia is going to look like someone spitting modern slurs (because izzy is absolutely using old-fashioned insults for gay men), it's not always going to look like someone beating down gay men while shouting slurs.

but sometimes it will absolutely look like someone wanting to have a man killed for "corrupting" his acquaintance into being an effeminate "thing" as izzy clearly sees ed in episode 10. sometimes it will look like *telling* a gay man that he should have been murdered rather than be free to express himself openly.

this is not just regular degular asshole behavior. it's homophobia and it's part of the show because homophobia is part of the toxic masculinity coil that tries to warp men into monsters.

(also, let's not mince words! calico jack isn't just some more traditionally piratey man, he's a traditionally masculine queer man who's contemptuous of stede for being a more feminine gay man and not fitting into the hypermasculine world of piracy. he's got his own homophobic issues. izzy preferring calico jack to stede to him once more about the disdain he has for feminine gay men)

i think the resistance to seeing izzy as homophobic in general comes from a place of deep discomfort that people have with the idea of liking a character who could be "like that". i think people should get over that and not let it cloud their perception of characters.

#ofmd #ofmd meta #asked and answered #homophobia #izzy hands #izzy critical

[definitelynotshouting]

Hello :DD I had sm Thoughts about this chapter, if your intent was to leave all your readers laying in a pool of tears u have succeeded 👍

-☀️

"He'd assumed, by virtue, that Mumbo was keeping himself out of the loop. Apparently not."

- GRIAN. HE TRIED TO TALK TO YOU TWO CHAPTERS AGO AND YOU IGNORED HIM.

- Also like how when we circle back to this point at the end of the chapter- Mumbo brings it up, Mumbo apologises- Grian lies and goes through the conversation "on autopilot", forcing himself to register absolutely NONE of the emotion so that when he goes through with his plan he can have this degree of separation- (if that's what you call it?). Just like how right here he's ignoring/selectively forgetting the fact that Mumbo did try to talk to him

-☀️

"some of the wariness clouding around them begins to clear, burning down into an ashen, sickly relief."

- I chose this one because of the "burning" metaphor. It creates this imagery of something akin to a wildfire when Grian's actions were first revealed. Emotions were blazing with fury, grief, confusion, horror and betrayal. It's all still there, but muted. For Mumbo specifically and how he initially reacted when G woke up the metaphor makes it feel like Mumbo completely burnt himself out with how he felt about everything. What's left behind in an ashen log, a carcass ready to collapse into dust at the next breeze.

-☀️

"A relieved Mumbo is a Mumbo protected against someone he can't save."

- "Someone he can't save", meaning mumbo being unable to save grian, but dually meaning that Grian doesnt believe he can be saved- not by himself, not even by his best friend. He's tried, tried to stop making the games, tried to live off of MCC. It didn't work; he's stopped trying to save himself.

-☀️

First batch!! Also, u mentioned this a while ago now but have u ended up going to that cafe you mentioned?

incredibly excited to receive your thoughts sun anon!!!! :D im so glad you liked this chapter and yes i was maybe banking on a LOT of tears over it ngl >:]

Grian's deeply unreliable narrator-ness makes me SO insane tbh, im so obsessed with how he very deliberately ignores things that dont fit into his personal narrative. Like ur objectively right Mumbo DID try to talk to him!!!!! But in Grian's head, that doesnt support his "i am doing this for everyone's greater good" agenda, so he dismisses it. Same as the gold farm-- Scar actually mentioned it to him all the way back in chapter 5, but when Mumbo asks if he knew, he insinuates that he wasnt told, without actually confirming or denying. Its a fun little tidbit that i enjoyed adding-- i really like highlighting just how unreliable Grian's perspective is rn wrt reality :]

I am SO happy you enjoyed that burning metaphor-- its definitely attached to that wildfire imagery, but its also attached to the concept of cooking for me too!!! The idea of letting something simmer down and thicken, except its burning, was very integral to that snippet ^.^

And yep!!! That was 100% what i was going for with the saving comment :] im so happy you enjoyed those, and i cant wait to see the other stuff you liked!!! Your inbox comments are a highlight of my day, truly❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

(also i did get to go to my cafe a few weeks ago!!! i was supposed to again yesterday, but alas i woke up with some bad allergy symptoms so i ended up laid up in bed instead 😭😭😭😭 hopefully i can go again next week, especially bc i have a very good friend visiting and i'd love to show it to them :] thanks for asking :D )

#shouting speaks #asks #compliments #hunger au #EXCITEMENT.... I LOVE UR COMMENTARY SUN ANON ITS TRULY ONE OF MY FAVE THINGS #txt

[halfelven]

love random not even logged in readers just dropping their 'constructive criticism' on your 100k+ story that you're putting online entirely for free. this is just a rant btw

"You obviously have a great talent and I think you should work on honing it some. As much as I’ve enjoyed the story, there are a few things that stand out that you might consider looking at. I feel like the story isn’t sure what it wants to be at times; is it character driven or plot driven? It doesn’t flow smoothly because sometimes we have these wonderful character vignettes, like Illumi and Kalluto on a road trip or Kite/Leorio/Gon/Killua in an apartment where plot doesn’t really feel important, followed by what feels like heavily plot driven beats, like Kalluto and the spiders. In addition, it contributes to confusion because sometimes we see established characterization turned on its head. Especially the weird way everyone all of a sudden just sort of was OK with Kalluto being a spider and then working with Illumi when they just went to all that trouble to escape him? It all kind of feels forced and not natural. You know?

Anyway, I’ll definitely keep reading and look forward to seeing what happens."

first: love you trying to sound legitimate with your "in addition" like this is some kind of writer's workshop. second: in what way would I, the writer, think that an incomplete part of my story in which the reader does not yet know most of the main motivations (they are only hinted at so far) feels forced and not natural when I know what's happening, where it is going (and where I haven't had other readers comment with confusion about that part)

and moving on. don't do this. also like i said this is a wip in and no, no one is cool with Kalluto being a spider and no they're not cool working with Illumi, really. it was already established that some of them /have/ been working with Illumi before this~ he's someone that they know. like have you never been in a seriously dangerous situation that you just have to get through before you get back to what you want?*** also at this point Chrollo's real motive hasn't been entirely revealed.

Killua keeps changing his mind about what he's doing because he's a scared kid whose self-hatred is destroying him from the inside out. the POV is so tight that I have to keep dropping reminders that what is stated in the narrative is often not true! Illumi's POV, for example, keeps showing Killua as really loving him and being happy he's around but struggling with a desire for freedom, while with Killua's POV he's terrified of Illumi most of the time. like how is that not obviously a distorted POV where you can't trust the narrator?

"where plot doesn’t really feel important, followed by what feels like heavily plot driven beats"

this part is especially irritating because it's like yeah that's how I want to write it? this isn't a published novel. I don't have to commit to making sure every scene is important to the plot. I can spend time writing a full scene about someone drinking a glass of water and then 13 chapters in a row that are for moving the plot forward. I didn't even tag it as a novel... I did tag it for unreliable narration and I keep getting annoyed that people keep ignoring that.

"I feel like the story isn’t sure what it wants to be at times; is it character driven or plot driven?"

it's both??? it's neither??? it's a fanfic??? why do I keep getting comments lately where people are expecting me to adhere to like fucking publishing standards. this keeps up and I will write a chapter which is entirely about a minor character drinking a glass of water. watch me. I'll write one about phinks drinking a glass of water and you'll like it*

"Overall, the story is good and presented a compelling alternative to CA. Look, each fan has their own opinion on CA and I know I didn’t like it. I think it was a product of what Togashi was going through as he began to experience health issues and then finding himself right back where he said he wasn’t going to be mentally after he ended his earlier manga. We can never know for sure, but it certainly had a “watch it all burn vibe” to it near the end. I honestly believe he wanted it to end with the finality of Gon’s suicide as a capstone statement, but was probably convinced to go a different route, which kinda of left a jarring feel in the narrative and culminated in a rather unsatisfying end to Gon and Killua’s journey. Despite that, I am very reluctant to read fics where the events of CA are erased or grossly modified and honestly yours is really the first long AU/alternate timeline I’ve enjoyed"

okay first of all, I love the CA arc. but I had to split a point off where Kite was going to survive. why do you have to leave this whole paragraph about how you think Togashi was or wasn't going to go with the CA on my fanfic? I didn't even write this as 'oh look at my alternative to CA bc I hated CA' I don't really look forward to hearing comments about how random people didn't like so and so aspect of the story that I'm basing my story off of. I've never written fanfic for a story that I didn't like (except for some things that I don't have published I wrote at a request for friends for a fandom they were into that I wasn't really) and yeah I've wanted to 'fix' aspects (like tolkien's treatment of women for example) but I am not looking for your 'this is what I hated about the source material' comments on my stories

tired of getting comments with little 'oh I didn't like your style at first but now I do' or 'here's how to fix your story!' unsolicited advice from people who aren't better writers than me (I don't even want it from people who would be better writers than me on stuff I'm just doing for fun and for free)

when did stuff like this become normal? at least don't be a coward and be not logged in so you can't even get a response notification. like girl they aren't cool with it! why do you think everyone is on guard standing around like they're in a fucking hostage situation? how do you see such wildly different interpretations from different character's POVs and think it's not intentional? what part about Kite watching Killua like a fucking hawk makes you think he's going to let Illumi take him after this?

like if you've never had to smile and pretend to be cool with your abuser (pretend to love them) or someone who was threatening you to keep someone else safe then good for you! it fucking sucks! also don't know how to explain to you what a child who is growing up in an extremely isolated abusive situation goes through (though I keep writing about it in this story you should catch on...) but it's a million back and forths with emotion and feelings--especially if their abuser does (to in some way or to some degree) love them. and it is often blaming themselves. I'm not letting my years of studying human psychology and child development go to waste here**

is this story perfect? no but I'm not gonna hire an editor for a fanfic. and everyone's interpretations of characters will be different. especially with child characters who are going through huge changes in the world around them and their personal lives. part of the appeal of fanfiction is 'who would they become if this happened instead?' *sorry I keep writing about starving and not having clean drinking water but I will never stop because that's what I grew up with and it's hell. also phinks drinking water would be compelling since I assume he'd have harder access to clean drinking water

**hunter x hunter is also one of the only stories I have encountered with characters who have backgrounds as fucked up as mine and Togashi's interest in human psychology really stands out.

***like good for you but that was most of my life and you sometimes just have to shut up and get through it. and no I will not put my notes in the right order bc I'm not being paid enough****

****I'm being paid nothing

#sorry i got one too many comments that irritated me #feel free to chime in if you're getting comments like this too #it's been really getting on my nerves lately #and making me not want to post anything #you're not my teacher or editor #and i don't use a beta reader bc i'd never post anything #if i had to think of it as work and not just for me #i already do writing for work where i have to really consider the reader #i also didn't like one commenter pointing out typos #i'll catch them at some point #they were like great chapter! here's all the mistakes i saw #so download the story and fix them yourself if they bother you so much you have to run through and do line edits #if you don't want typos i'd have to wait two to three months so the story looked fresh #to catch them before posting and i'm not doing that #you can think this sounds bitchy but writing is hours and hours of work #i could jot down five sentences just for myself and have a story for years just remembering what i was thinking when i wrote those #you want a perfectly edited story? then go read a professionally published book #oh i guess that's not good enough for you either #okay now i am being bitchy but in my defense #i'm not forcing them to read it

[symphonyofmalice]

Episode 10 (2.3)

Reactions to "No Pain" It's the one episode with my muse in it so I'm probably going to be extra exacting about it.

I'm going to be honest I don't really care about the Great Conversion plot.

Also is it just me or is David's(?) accent inconsistent.

"Raglan James", more using canon for easter eggs.

Yeah, yeah. I get Daniel doesn't like power plays but why chase off someone giving him info?

Blender joke. Please do more than easter eggs AMC.

The caged person isn't even Nicolas? Damn

Also the dead of Robespierre is just slightly too late again, why are they messing with Lestat's timeline when they don't need to?

Armand is complaining about Lestat showing off, but he isn't even doing anything inhuman? What is "words flowed like canaries" supposed to mean?

Ok so they're making "come to me" (Lestat's phrase for Louis) Armand's to Lestat now.

Nicolas- drinking, worried about being caught, but smiles at the idea. Ok. ok.

I'm into this vamp fight but Armand looks a little silly when he bares his fangs.

That's it? That's fucking it? That's the whole kidnapping? No stalking, no taunting? He just kind of...throws Lestat once and it's over?

I know the reason Lestat suddenly knows about their cross phobia is Armand is editing the tale and skipping over parts but it's still really abrupt. This is one of the most climactic scenes in the book. I don't really get the point of showing it in an abridged, watered-down way first just to have the "better" version in a later season presumably.

Also, sure Armand, they destroyed themselves. uh huh.

Love how Armand and Lestat talk abot Nicolas' fragility when the audience has seen literally 0 of his mental health struggles. Great storytelling, y'all. /sarcasm

And, there it is, Lestat coming up with the theater idea. Hate it hate it, hate it, stop giving him credit.

The violence just looks silly! Also is that Nicki at the end?

Just making out in front of Nicolas, huh?

Also, the story Armand is going with is really "Lestat just left" with no mention of Marius or even Lestat's fight with Nicki? To say nothing of Gabrielle.

"Keep you under floorboards for a week"? That's very different from the assault implied in season 1.

Why is Louis just...fine with Armand not letting Claudia look him in the eye? Armand outright calls it abuse.

I should be so excited to see Louis and Armand debating the nature of good and evil, that is so much their thing. But having not seen it from Louis much before this, it feels kind of out of place or tacked on.

'I've known the whole time and was just waiting for you to admit it' is a hell of a red flag that i'm sure Louis will ignore.

So is...Louis making out with a halluciation? Imagining gentle touches or hearing Lestat's voice is one thing but what is the point of this?

Why are they faking like Armand's going to kill Louis when w know he doesn't?

In the books, Armand kills Claudia because he's possessive of Lou's love, and uses the laws as an excuse. Here, they haven't real;y established that jealousy? Claudia gets on well with the coven and Louis and Armand get their romantic walks. Just having them kill Claudia for the laws will feel kind of like a waste. They need a lot more setup to justify this.

Eh. my overall opinion is very similar to m complaints of the first season. One, that they keep using easter eggs as adaptation bonus points. Two, that while a story can play with perspective and unreliable narrators and be good, it undercuts the effect if the narrative is 'here's a bad version of the story, aren't you excited for the better one later'.

#Vyt watches AMC #ooc #amciwtv #amc iwtv #amc interview with the vampire

[technoturian]

I just watched three seasons of HBO’s Barry and I can’t help but feel like it’s the mirror image of Netflix’s You; similar in idea but also the complete opposite in execution.

You starts off pretty blatantly telling the audience that Joe’s the bad guy. Joe is explicitly a villain protagonist. Joe is not meant to be rooted for. Joe is not a reliable narrator and here are all of the ways he is trying to manipulate you into relating to him spelled out for you, by him, in his own words.

And then somewhere after the first season... something happened. The writers seemed to fall in love with their creature. Joe keeps getting into these situations that don’t just blur the line or make him into a more nuanced person but straight up muddy the message and narrative of the show. You begins by telling us that Joe is a selfish, obsessed, amoral person who will do anything, anything to get what he wants. But more and more the narrative tries to ‘aww gosh’ him into being some kind of unlucky underdog and at times they even go so far as to make him out like some kind of unlikely hero. It no longer felt (at least, to me) like his narration was the only unreliable one here, instead it seemed like we were supposed to root for him, just a little. I began You wanting to watch Joe burn himself to the ground, as it seemed the show wanted me to want that. I wanted to revel in his downfall. I stopped watching You because more and more it seemed like we were supposed to be happy when he scraped by yet again, and that wasn’t the show I signed up for.

Now Barry is a whole different animal. Yeah, he’s a killer! Yeah, he hurts people! But it’s funny! It’s a funny show! And look at how earnest he is. He feels bad about it, you guys. And look at how manipulative and abusive the authority figure in his life is. He’s being gaslit and browbeaten into doing these things and he just needs someone to put him on the straight and narrow. He keeps trying to get out but they pull him back in. You want him to turn it all around. When he is triggered by his past memories and experiences pain and vulnerability and when people like Fuches (or even his fellow actors) prey on his trauma you feel bad for him. You want him to earn forgiveness and redemption, even as he does awful things.

Then the show takes a turn... A planned turn.

I honestly don’t know how I feel yet about season three. I don’t know if I feel lied to, exactly. It’s more like Barry didn’t spoon feed me what I was supposed to feel about all of it the way You did. I chose the interpretation that made me root for Barry, and then it became clear that he wasn’t going to get better, he was going to get worse and that made me feel gut-wrenchingly disappointed. When I thought about it, I realized that Barry is a lot like Joe in terms of internal monologue. A lot of excuses for what he does. A lot of desire to be a “good person” and imagining this great life he could have where he leaves it all behind, but not a lot of effort in making actual changes or amends for his actions. His effort goes into minimizing his own culpability and into achieving what he desires most. Barry wants to be good but he doesn’t want to make sacrifices. He fights against every sacrifice he’s forced to make with anger and frustration and fear. And when he’s kicked down and desperate, he will revert to his worst impulses.

And yet I didn’t relate Barry at all to the idea of a villain protagonist in the beginning. I genuinely liked him. But why did I trust Barry? Is it because the actor just made him more likable? More relatable? Is it because he has really good excuses in his backstory and they show you how those things traumatized him? Because his people-pleasing personality masqueraded so conveniently as actual care and respect?

And the conclusion I came to was that I was supposed to feel that way. I wasn’t supposed to like Joe so I felt manipulated when the show attempted to finagle some sort of investment in him from me. But I was supposed to like Barry, I was supposed to be disgusted by him, I was supposed to feel conflicted, I was supposed to make up my own mind.

You presented me with a monster and then kept trying to tease how human he is underneath it all. Barry presented me with a deeply human character and forced me to reckon with his monstrous actions.

#HBO Barry #Barry HBO