#But it's a genuine factor in the dynamic here | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

seyaryminamoto · 2 months

Text

Azula's most overlooked characterization element

Why, hello there.

It is I.

And I'm back on my bullshit.

I didn't WANT to be. But a bunch of factors pulled me back in.

For the record: I'm not here to start any fights or light the fuse of arguments that I most likely won't have time or interest in responding to. What I AM here for... is to prove that there's something out there a bunch of people are delighted to sleep on because acknowledging it would render maaaany simplistic interpretations entirely invalid...

That group of people includes the fandom, of course. And the original show's staff. And the liveaction's staff, to a fault. Surely the TTRPG ones too. And absolutely, the comic book writers.

Hell, I'll even include MYSELF in that group, even though I'm making this post right now.

I found it really curious that I very recently saw this element mentioned in a pretty neat blog I follow, @atla-lore-archive, I absolutely advise anyone who hasn't checked out said archive to do it if you wish to understand a lot of the "extra lore" the fandom had access to, back in the old days when the turbonick ATLA site still existed and used to be the only source of deeper knowledge about the fandom besides the occasional interview that most people didn't even know where to track down.

But the funny thing is that the post I'm talking about proved that even Turbonick forgot about the people this post is about :')

And that would beeeeeeee...

*cue drumroll*

Lo and Li!

What makes Lo and Li an important subject to discuss?

Why, a lot of things. Among them, the fact that almost nobody brings them into the core focus of any analysis made about Azula's character. I've personally mentioned them once or twice I believe, mostly as negatives, there's but ONE positive aspect I've ever found of them: them being non-benders MIGHT be a reason why Azula isn't shown as being quite so obsessive with firebending supremacy as Zuko was supposed to be.

But that's very much the sole good thing I can think to say about them and it's completely subjective, as good as a headcanon, because we don't even KNOW if they influenced Azula in that sense!

Why do they seem to get overlooked quite as much? Why... let's start thinking about it, shall we?

Lo and Li are Azula's firebending teachers. As far as anyone can tell, they're also her advisors. These two people should be an essential part of Azula's life... but ironically, we seldom see them with her. Most times, Azula isn't around these two. Whenever she is? It doesn't usually look like she's having a good time.

And that's no surprise, considering her first scene with those two very much puts forward a dynamic of cold distance between Azula and her mentors: Azula is bending LIGHTNING. We have not heard of other lightningbenders until that point, and once the full show wraps up, there's only THREE (Azula, Ozai, Iroh). Out of those three? Only one is a fourteen-year-old girl. It's very easy to assume Azula's lightning is actually a skill she mastered unusually early in life, perhaps relatively recently, hence the practicing... but she's pulling it off. She's succeeding. She's doing something that genuinely catches a first-time viewer off-guard!

And Lo and Li's entire opinion of what she did is: "Almost perfect. One hair out of place."

This tells you the Fire Nation's idea of "imperfection" is... insane. Strict. Imposing. Unyielding. Unforgiving. Azula's reaction isn't to get angry at Lo and Li for saying what they did: it's to get angry at herself and try again.

But... that's not the only instance where we see Azula getting angry around Lo and Li.

The next few times Azula is around them, she doesn't seem to have much of an emotional reaction (one is when they tell her to find other allies, the other when they herald her as a great hero who returned home from Ba Sing Se). In the second of these scenes, Lo and Li are praising Azula as incredible, beautiful, all sorts of grand things...! And Azula smiles. She smiles at the crowd. She's not smiling at the old ladies who are praising her... she's mostly just happy to know her people are welcoming her as a hero indeed! Most the fandom would go "true! what an ungrateful bitch! She should've been happy that Lo and Li complimented her that way!!" Me? I wouldn't say that at all. Not just because I love Azula to pieces? But because the only information we have of Azula's dynamics with these two... doesn't seem compatible with the idea that what Lo and Li are saying here is for AZULA'S benefit.

Anyone who's had a hypocritical parent/caretaker/teacher must have endured awkward, horrible, unpleasant moments where this adult figure treats you like shit in private but in public holds you as this grand example, and a perfect child, and they never seem to stop saying they're soooo proud of you even though you NEVER felt that what they're saying is true. Maybe the first few times, you're naive enough to believe it. By the tenth time of incongruent messages? You start to realize they're talking you up as a way to make themselves look better. They're trying to show they're doing their job at raising you/training you, be it whatever it may. The praises are not FOR you... they're for a third person to hear and think "Oh, this adult's so cool, saying nice things about this kid they're responsible for! Nice!"

... You're starting to get the picture now, I'm sure.

Lo and Li reappear in the Beach. Azula is notably chill, enjoying the ride, talking casually with Ty Lee, telling Zuko to lighten up and to stop taking Ozai's choices personally, right? She seems... content. Relaxed.

Then, everything changed when Lo and Li attacked.

We don't even see why Azula is making this face at first. But she does it AT ONCE when their ship reaches the dock.

Who is there indeed...?

The stars of our post! :') if it isn't our elderly twin ladies... who brought Azula to a very disappoting beach house. And when Azula sees the house in question, she makes THIS face.

Judge however you may... even Ty Lee is weirded out by the beach house, going by that expression. Zuko and Mai aren't impressed either. But Azula? The look on her face isn't merely disappointment if you ask me... part of it looks a bit like embarrassment too? This isn't at all what she was expecting when she arrived (she has her old beach house for standards, which makes this extra underwhelming, I'm sure). She counts on Lo and Li to provide them with a place to stay, it goes implicit... and then this is what they do. It most likely isn't what she promised the other three in terms of where they'd stay, hence, I'd dare say there's a component of embarrassment here.

Shortly afterwards, we have our well known scene with Azula being utterly unconcerned with Lo and Li's apparent wisdom to the point of yawning over it. This, too, tells you she's just not interested in whatever those two have to say or bring to the table. Then, they show up again at mealtime and I think Azula just ignores them the whole scene.

After this? Lo and Li vanish until the finale. And what do they do in the finale? Why... it's the first time anyone expresses a verbal concern over Azula's wellbeing! Ah! A sign that Lo and Li have SOME affection for Azula! This time, you pesky Azula fans, you CAN'T twist this into a bad thing! For sure!

... Can't we, tho? :')

What IS Azula's reaction to: "We are concerned for your wellbeing"?

"My father asked you to come here and talk to me, didn't he‌? He thinks I can't handle the responsibility of being Fire Lord. But I will be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history."

And here, my friends, is when we have finally hit the jackpot.

Lo and Li could have been Azula's Irohs. She could've had TWO of him! Then you'd say: "hey! Ozai is such a dick he let Azula have two elderly wise ladies guiding her but only gave one old wise dude to Zuko! Rude!" and it would be further proof of Ozai's favoritism of Azula, right?

... But actually?

Lo and Li are no such thing. Lo and Li aren't moral compasses for Azula in the least. Lo and Li are not beacons of wisdom that genuinely help her sort her way through life. Worth noting: THEY COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN THAT WAY. They're not. They're not part of mysterious secret societies, they don't help Azula in any objective, significant, tangible way... there's very much nothing to say they EVER fulfilled the role Iroh did for Zuko. What role, then, were they fulfilling instead?

Why... I think we ought to listen to Azula, shouldn't we?

My take: Lo and Li are OZAI'S STAND-INS.

Someone's going to say "hey why would you assume that when Azula said this in the middle of a breakdown?? Surely she was just DELUSIONAL and PARANOID and ashdgkadhsgkjgh...!"

... Let me counter that one with a fun little analysis excercise:

WHY are Lo and Li Azula's firebending teachers and advisors?

The finale very directly tells us these two are not benders. We could've assumed they were! They're not: Azula's teachers are non-benders.

Has a single person out there ever asked themselves WHY this is the case?

How the hell is Azula, prodigy of the blue fire, epic lightning, cruel and powerful and precise and deadly bending... training under two elderly nonbenders?

Bringing this to a real-life example: do you remember what it was like when you were in P.E. classes and your teacher told you to spend 20 minutes jogging, and if you ever stopped you had to do 20 crunches and then get back to the jogging, and every time you stopped he'd tell you the same thing and you'd want that guy to vanish from the face of the planet? I don't know if that was only my experience, but I rather doubt it.

What did kids typically think/say when that happened?

"I wanna see that old fart doing the same shit he's making us do..."

It's a headcanon indeed to say that this is how Azula must have felt over Lo and Li, but it's VERY likely to be the case. But I'd dare say, in Azula's case, it's even worse because, to put it in another way? It's like taking programming lessons from someone who's never learned a programming language. They'll tell you you're getting things wrong without knowing how to help you get them right because they just DON'T KNOW what you're doing, and are outright INCAPABLE of what you're trying to achieve. They can't offer good guidance based on experience because they have ZERO experience on that subject! And yet they want PERFECTION from you! They expect it!

Lo and Li are these teachers for Azula. We only see them in one scene? And yet everything in the rest of the show suggests that they bring nothing important to the table for Azula, be it professionally, be it personally, be it emotionally... not in any aspect of life.

And this, if you ask me, is why the OG show barely ever brings them into scenes. Why the comics flat-out forgot they existed and even featured people like Sozin and Azulon in Azula's beach hallucinations but NOT the two ladies who looked after her and trained her. Why the live-action didn't even FEATURE them.

And us? The fandom? The fic writers?

I HAVE NO IDEA WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I READ A FIC THAT HAD LO AND LI INVOLVED IN IT.

I'm not even saying as main characters, I don't even know if that exists, frankly: I mean as minor, or background characters. I have NOT seen those two be used in basically ANY fics I've read. I've scarcely used them in mine! In fact, I PURPOSEFULLY got rid of them early on in Gladiator because I didn't want them to sabotage and get in the way of Azula's progress as a character and I believed they'd do exactly that. They were an obstacle rather than anything useful, so I did away with them and then realized they could still occasionally serve some purpose in certain situations: I even had Azula visit them once and they were actually helpful! Fancy that! But... that's it. That's as far as I could go with them. I can't do MORE with those two because they're not characters one particularly feels compelled to work with.

And from what I've seen? That's the case for everyone.

So, I ask again:

WHY ARE THEY THERE?

WHAT IS THEIR ROLE?

WHAT IS THE POINT OF AZULA HAVING NON-BENDING TEACHERS?

Let's go further and further into logical thinking here, shall we?

Azula is a child. Fourteen years of age at the time she's introduced in the OG show.

Azula has no power over many things around her, particularly, her upbringing. That's in the hands of the adults around her. Her mother, up until she vanished, had some hand in it, then, it all falls to Ozai.

Ozai has been Azula's sole parental figure since Ursa left.

Ozai is the one who would reasonably call the shots regarding Azula's education, as all parents are wont to do... ESPECIALLY when he's a king with absolute power over his children.

... so, Lo and Li? Ozai either gave them the position as Azula's teachers personally, or someone else (Ursa) did, and Ozai either didn't WANT to remove them from the role (cue "Ozai being sentimental over Ursa" theories), or Ozai didn't give a flying fuck about who was training his daughter (cue "Ozai is an abusive dick without a heart or a brain" theories).

Anyone, of course, would likely interject here to say surely Ozai ALSO trained Azula himself because that's what he'd do with his favorite kid, right? See. I don't even disagree with that notion.

BUT IT'S A HEADCANON.

We have zero evidence that Ozai trained her! None! I totally will write that into Azula's backstory in many of my stories, but there's NOTHING in canon to suggest this actually happened and that Ozai was genuinely, actively, frequently involved in her progress as a firebender. Assuming he HAD to be is, still, a headcanon. You can't say that with any more certainty than mine when I say I believe Azula loves spicy foods. Does it seem to be something that would fit with her character? I think so! But if eventually canon goes "AZULA CAN'T STAND SPICY FOODS LOL JOKE'S ON YOU!" I... can't even say a thing about it. People's food tastes aren't reflective of their personalities. They really could do whatever they want in that respect. And that's the case for ANYTHING that isn't part of the show's storytelling or the character backgrounds or any texts we consider canon!

POINT BEING: Ozai, regardless of what you want to headcanon, had Lo and Li as Azula's teachers. HIS FAVORITE CHILD... and her only official instructors are two non-benders. Yang added Kunyo as an old instructor of Azula's when she was young, sure! But Kunyo was sooooo qualified that baby Azula was already kicking his ass. So, for that matter? He doesn't really seem to have been a cornerstone of her firebending development and the only other known teachers for Azula are Lo and Li.

For the last time: Azula's teachers are NON-BENDERS. AS CHOSEN, SANCTIONED, APPROVED AND ACCEPTED BY OZAI.

And with those two remarking on absolutely STUPID stuff like "one hair out of place"? Azula still became the incredible firebender she was.

Cue, now, the irony where Zuko was stuck in the basics 3 years after setting out of the Fire Nation... WITH IROH ACTIVELY SERVING AS HIS MENTOR.

You're not gonna tell me that Lo and Li would EVER be better instructors than Iroh, or are you? Because that makes no sense. Full-stop. Iroh is supposed to be the most profound and complete firebender thorughout the show because he's spiritually enlightened even though I admit I think that's bullshit and he doesn't just teach Zuko how to set things on fire, he actually makes him learn theory and spirituality and his teachings are more profound than just "ONE HAIR OUT OF PLACE".

So.

Banished as he is, disgraced and seen as trash by Ozai, Zuko STILL has a better teacher than Azula does.

... Is this LOGICAL? Is this NORMAL? Does this make SENSE?

If you think Ozai's favoritism of Azula takes the shape of "I'll give you every little thing you ask for, sweetheart, I love you very much, here, have ten million doll houses so you can set them on fire, and all the ponies you ask for and on your next birthday I'll buy you a baby dragon and you'll get your own region of the Fire Nation to govern and a fancy title..."?

Then Lo and Li, unfortunately, are right here to be a HUGE contradiction with your interpretation of Ozai and Azula's relationship.

Azula should have THE BEST teachers. Azula does not. Azula doesn't even LIKE them. Azula is openly shown to dislike them! To be annoyed around them, ANGRY when they're teaching her, she feels they're here to keep tabs on her for her father! In a sense, they're Ozai's SPIES on her! :')

Hence? Ozai's favoritism of Azula MIGHT not be what everyone keeps pretending it is. Maybe Ozai didn't do everything to make Azula get things EASILY... and to be fair? That's not what Zuko said anyway. People interpreted it that way... but that's not REALLY what he says:

"Everything always came easy to her. She's a firebending prodigy, and everyone adores her. My father says she was born lucky. "

Every line in this statement is absolutely questionable and all of it sounds like buuuuullshit to me. This is ZUKO'S perspective. And sorry not sorry, but it's tell-don't-show. People swear by his opinion of Azula and pretend he's absolutely objective about it. He's not.

But "Everything always came easy to her," does not mean "EVERYTHING WAS ALWAYS HANDED OVER TO HER ON A SILVER PLATTER." And yet this is what the fandom has constantly interpreted it as.

Azula might just be a prodigy. Maybe she started out ten steps ahead of her brother: this does not mean she needs no guidance, no training, no help. She's seen training herself over perfectionism in her very second scene of Book 2. And the guidance she gets in order to achieve perfection is actually, objectively, stupid.

This is what Ozai chose for her. This is an OBSTACLE for her growth, just as much as Lo and Li were obstacles for me when I was starting with Gladiator! Azula doesn't have it EASY: she just works herself so damn hard that even shit that should HINDER her does NOT do that. And even when her brother objectively has spent THREE YEARS with an advantage in the shape of being trained by one of the VERY BEST firebenders out there? Azula is still beating Zuko at it. With two non-benders as her teachers.

Where am I going with all this?

To the fact that Lo and Li are overlooked in just about every instance of the fandom.

To the fact that nobody includes them, and their influence on Azula, in their analyses of who Azula is.

I've seen a shitstorm rising over the Netflix characterization of Azula: SHE'S TOO ANGRY, they say. Non-stop. She's sooooo hysterical, all the time! She's just pissed perpetually!

Well. I haven't finished the show yet. But the scenes I've seen Azula in so far? They don't fit the fandom's view of Azula because...

... they're not taking Lo and Li into account.

As usual.

:')

Azula's reactions around Lo and Li being frustration, anger, irritation EVEN in scenes like The Beach, where Azula was FINE until she sees them? That shit is storytelling that went over sooooooo many heads, EVEN MINE! When I saw people going on about how canon Azula is... not insecure? Not angry? Has no frustrations and was only ever smirking 24/7? I... didn't feel that was right. I knew it wasn't right. And when I thought about it hard enough? I realized that one reason why this interpretation of Azula is IMMEDIATELY dismissable is because of Lo and Li: those two constantly made Azula angry. Even if that wasn't their intent, it's nonetheless the effect they'd have on her. And Azula didn't like having them around. She CLEARLY didn't appreciate them the way Zuko does Iroh, for instance! And this could be taken as a flaw on Azula's part... if we EVER saw evidence that these two ladies actually love Azula as a grandchild, or so. If we had any evidence that they actually have cared for her in ways nobody else ever did. If maybe the ones Zuko talks about, upon saying "EVERYONE LOVES AZULA" were these two! And maybe he was jealous of them! Maybe he wanted two old ladies to watch his every move and tell him his every flaw!

... Clearly I'm joking about that last thing, but anyway...

There's nothing to tell us Lo and Li were anything but Ozai's assigned watchdogs to keep control and tabs over Azula. That Azula's immediate reaction upon hearing that someone cares about her is "Oh fuck off, my dad sent you here because he doesn't trust me!" is... telling. It's not just paranoia speaking, even if it sure can be read that way! It's actually Azula's perception of those two, which is 100% supported by what we saw of the twins throughout the show, WHENEVER we did see them: their roles in Azula's life are indeed to keep tabs on her, to keep her under control, to pressure her into perfection, AS OZAI'S AGENTS! Seen this way, it MAKES SENSE for Azula to disregard their concern and immediately assume it's FAKE. She isn't even shown to doubt it, never questions that MAYBE they did care about her! She assumes they don't...

... And considering that, as far as I know, the official concept is that they BOTH LEFT when Azula banished one of them only? That they didn't contest her command, staying to look after her even if she only wanted one? I mean, clearly Azula can't tell them apart, so they could've taken turns: one watches over Azula for 12 hours and the other for the next 12 hours, I don't goddamn know! But they didn't do that. They LEFT. And if they left? It means they don't care remotely as much as they say they do. Not to the point where they'd challenge Azula's orders and help her when they KNOW she's not okay.

And all of this further supports my point.

When we see Azula in the liveaction being angry, bitter, irritable at Ozai's choices?

I see a reflection of the same dynamics that the OG too subtly weaved into Azula's relationship with Lo and Li. I see Azula reacting against Ozai's control over her because she feels it's DISTRUST. She feels it means her father STILL needs to be convinced that she's competent, powerful, ready to do his bidding. It isn't a case where Azula's irritation comes from wanting to rebel against her father... it's Azula wanting her father to UNDERSTAND that she's 100% his supporter and will put everything on the line to serve him and the Fire Nation.

And it's very damn easy to read that exact same thing into Azula's dynamics with Lo and Li as it is to see it EXPLICITLY STATED in the liveaction.

My point?

What the liveaction did is not nearly as much of a distant characterization choice as people think it is.

Ozai is Azula's Achilles' Heel. Everything she became, everything she grew up to be, was for his sake. He molded her to become those things and simply didn't give a shit about raising a daughter, he treated her as a weapon, and absolutely pitted his children against each other, just as much as OTHER adults in their lives did. But the impact of Ozai on Azula in the OG is easy to ignore. Why? Because we SELDOM see them interacting. Because we don't get that side of Azula's character fully explored. Because they didn't want to explore Ozai's character either! They were as cheap as they could be with all these aspects and so, only the people who really got into analyzing things on a deeper level would be able to say, without a doubt, that Ozai abused Azula emotionally with all the expectations and demands he put on his own child. Through the golden child-scapegoat dynamic that people have been bringing up non-stop in the past years.

So, proving herself to her father is what Azula wants to do, more than anything. Proving worthy of his favor, of his approval, is the closest thing she can get to feeling loved. Which is depressing as fuck. Azula gets zero affection: it's not even conditional affection, there's NOTHING for her besides approving words if she gets anything right. And this show's work with Azula's character? It was meant to make these things less invisible to all the fans who like to pretend none of it exists. And yes, I've seen them, crawling all over Twitter shitting themselves in fits of rage because how dare that show pretend Azula EVER had a bad time in her perfect flawless life!!

Well, the irony is that the OG gives you a smidge of evidence -- and yet that's enough -- to show that Ozai was doing very similar things to Azula in ATLA, and her reactions to it?

Huh. No smirks for Lo and Li.

No smirks for the symbols of Ozai's control over her life.

It's almost like the confidence, the smirks, the apparent ease with which she handles everything? Is a front that crumbles easily whenever it concerns the ONE PERSON with power over her life.

I don't believe, worth noting, that Azula's power comes from rage. I've seen people say that in fandom in the past and I find it a completely absurd take when Iroh himself spells out that her bending is about control, about precision, and it's Azula's FURY that makes her a sloppy mess in the finale. It's even INTENTIONAL that when she shoots lightning a second time, in her second establishing scene, THAT SAME HAIR FALLS OUT OF PLACE. She's still angry. She didn't get it "right" this time either. She's imperfect and she's trying NOT to be, but she cannot succeed. And upon bending lightning with emotions (rage/frustration)? That hair falls YET AGAIN out of place. Proof that she's not going to achieve the perfection she's being FORCED (indeed, by her father and the people who are here to represent him, Lo and Li) to strive for.

The liveaction had Ozai pushing Azula for a perfection she couldn't attain either. She's perfectly content in her cruelty at Ozai's side, right until she hears the Avatar was found and that Zuko has a shot at taking away the privileges she's been basking in so far. That she WASN'T nervous about this in canon is pretty damn obvious: OZAI SENT HER TO HUNT ZUKO DOWN FOR BEING A FAILURE. We never saw her reaction to learning that the Avatar was out and about. We have noooo idea what was canonically going on with her back then. The first time we see her besides the flashback is Azula receiving a mission that tells her she's STILL #1 and Zuko is no threat to her because Ozai thinks he's a failure. Thus? She had nothing to fear. Here? Ozai is actively using Zuko as bait to pressure Azula further. And if you're so confident in Ozai's good parenting skills as to believe he somehow WOULDN'T do that? Sounds like you don't understand the very basic and simplistic Fire Lod Ozai from ATLA, and that's not something to be proud of. So probably stop screaming your bad takes at the top of your lungs, because being incapable of understanding Ozai in canon is not a badge of pride, just saying...

FINAL POINT...

This post is not written expressly in the defense of the liveaction and its characterization of Azula. To this point, what I've seen of it doesn't feel WRONG or OFF unless you're the kind of person who thinks Azula is only capable of smirking and if she stops doing that she stops existing or something. Only people who cannot understand the depth, nuance, subtleties in Azula's story would ever be claiming that Azula's relationship with Ozai COUDLN'T be like this, or that Azula couldn't possibly be frustrated with her father or his choices when it's soooo clear what Ozai is going for, and why it's working. But in order to read Azula as a character capable of this range of emotion, frustration and ambition, all at once? You have to be able to treat this character, be it in the liveaction or the OG show, as a human being.

And that's what most the people criticizing this specific change are determined not to do. It's what makes them uncomfy. It's what rustles their jimmies.

Yes. I'm saying it in this very demeaning way because I actually find it quite ridiculous to be this insecure over the portrayal of a fictional 14yo in two TV shows. Whether the liveaction sticks the landing or fails catastrophically, I do not know... but I do know that if it's forcing a bunch of people to rethink Azula's character, and making them panic at the idea that she could EVER have human emotions, even if they're AWFUL human emotions?

Then I'm afraid you're only convincing me that, as bad as that show could ever get? It's getting SOMETHING right. I do love to see misinterpretations of Azula getting slammed in the face by the reality that all those beliefs, headcanons and takes in bad faith are actively, categorically untrue: none of which makes Azula a fundamentally good person, worth noting! But it makes it very clear that reading her as a one-dimensional basic villain, which is what the anti-Azula-redemption crowd actively does, is literally only possible if you overlook, ignore and fail to understand her character and her complexities, be it in the liveaction or in the original show.

There. I said my piece.

Another post, regarding the rest of the liveaction, is bound to come later. I'd say stay tuned but it might take me a while to write it at all. So... wait around and maybe you'll see it someday!

#azula #atla #natla #yep :')#I'm doing it #because I know the bad takes are everywhere so #let's see if mine actually gets any visibility this way #can of worms here we goooooooooo #(this is a bad idea I know it is I'm having a leave of my senses)#(but sometimes you just gotta watch the world burn and this has been... a complicated sad day)#also sorry if anyone saw it without the read more oops I thought I'd put it there #so either tumblr ate it or I forgot yikes #but now it's theeeere #sorryyyyyyyy

172 notes · View notes

chapinii · 6 months

Text

Bagi made some excellent points about the nature of lore and character expectations on the qsmp today, and I have some thoughts:

You can tell that straight-to-streaming shows have rotted ppls brains when it comes to media literacy, people don't give themselves time to think about what's going on in regards to lore and just jump to immediately wanting to know all of the answers. The characters don't work like that! People don't work like that, there are so many factors on the qsmp that require a lot of thorough investigating whenever something happens, and it's especially valuable to remember that canonically, a lot of the members have been here a lot less than others, they don't know everything about every character, every event that has shaped dynamics on the server. Metagaming is the most annoying thing for a chat to do; you may think you're helping speed things along, but it just ruins so much, particularly in roleplay where genuine reactions are SO key to shaping where a story goes.

Theories are so fun to have whilst we wait for an arc to play out, because there's so much fun in not knowing, and finding things out along with the character you choose to watch, even if you know certain aspects from other qsmp streamers. However, a character, or worse, the person playing them shouldn't be berated for simply not knowing everything. It is a privilege that our qsmp cc's are so dedicated to doing lore for us, it's not something they're obligated to do at all, and some people take it far too much for granted.

(it's also a given to not expect lore all the time!! the dynamics of the cc's on the server have become so strong bc of the meetups, etc, you are not entitled to receive lore all the time, just let your cc's be silly sometimes!)

#in the good old days we used to wait weeks for a full season to air #some thoughts #bagi was spitting so many facts today #so many streamers have left bc the pressure was so much #let ppl have fun!#qsmp

169 notes · View notes

jacevelaryonswife · 1 year

Text

As a good wife should

It all started with an innocent hand just above the knee.

∴pairing: Jacaerys Velaryon x fem!reader

∴warnings and a note: male receiving, also, english is not my first language

jacaerys velaryon masterlist

It all started with an innocent hand just above the knee. It was your first time being together with your husband's family in full, you were nervous but not as nervous as he was. The Targaryen drama was very dull and unfortunately your husband was involved in the dispute between the queen and princess's retinues, after all he was the next in line of succession after his mother, Rhaenyra Targaryen, and for someone as dedicated and obstinate as Jace, every minute should be well spent. And for him, by his nature, the duty to prove himself a worthy heir to the crown was even more challenging. Because of these factors, it was to be expected that returning to King's Landing would have left him on edge, even though he had fond memories of the place.

However, it was not like you to leave your good husband in such conditions.

Soon, the once comforting touch that reassured him became bold as your hand gradually moved up his leg, making him tense and a little red in the cheeks.

"Why are you nervous? There's no reason for that,” you asked quietly, keeping your touch discreet. "Just stay calm." Your breathy voice coupled with the grip very close to his intimate area made him breathe harder.

You knew exactly what and with whom you were doing it. Jace was a polite and perfectly well-mannered man, overly polite at times, which always led him to behave properly. But you were you after all, and he could scold you all he wanted, in the end, he loved your average recklessness in contrast to his rigidity.

“Not here, my love,” he chided, as low as your tone.

Again, you are you, so, discreetly lowering your hand, you quietly whispered:

"It's curious the way Prince Aemond looks obsessively at you, it's as if he wants to be in my place."

“Or stick a sword in me,” he replied sourly.

“Looks like we came to an agreement.”

He rolled his eyes, refusing to laugh at the double feeling raised by you. He always loved your cheeky sense of humor.

“Or maybe he's just jealous that no lady will ever touch him the way I touch you, the way I kiss you, the way I love you.” Your hand stopped mid-thigh and squeezed sensually.

And then he noticed the look you were directing him. That look. He knew perfectly well what it meant.

“We mustn't discuss such matters at the table, my pretty wife,” he teased, a smile daring to appear as he relaxed again — although your hand was still in an unsuitable region for the moment.

“Don't worry, we have plenty of time after dinner.”

You loved your husband's sweetness and politeness, especially in private. While ever firm, Jace had no problem giving up his seat for you to take over, which was genuinely great. Then, walking down the hall with your hand on his arm, you placed a sweet kiss on his temple and played with the soft dark strands, smiling passionately. A genuinely caring act, but once you entered your chambers the dynamic changed considerably. You grabbed him by the back of the neck, pulling him into a demanding, sensual kiss that was returned immediately, one heavy hand holding your waist and the other encircling your back. He was tense, frustrated, as if he carried the weight of a thousand swords on his shoulders and the only way to lighten that burden was to be in your arms, and particularly, you were more than happy to help. So when Jace pulled away from your lips to kiss your soft neck, you let out a long sigh, stopping yourself from enjoying yourself too much by saying:

“Today is about you, my love, not about me.”

“What do you mean?" He asked confused, eyes confused and lips red and swollen.

A sly smile was his response as you guided him until the back of his back legs hit the bed. What you did next utterly shocked him, eyes almost wide as he saw his wife on her knees with her hands resting on both thighs.

“That's what I mean,” your hand massaged his groin and made him groan, opening his pants to expose your husband's manhood.

“My love, are you sure?” He sighed heavily.

You had never done this before, but you asked one of your maids who had a considerable background on the silk street for directions. The thought of pleasing Jacaerys like that was too delicious not to try, so you looked at him with mock innocence as you said:

“Absolute. Let me satisfy you, husband, as a good wife should.”

And so, you took the warm member in your hand and began to move it up and down, seeing and feeling it stiffen as your touch continued. It was experimental, but the positive sounds from him were encouraging for what came next. When the length of him was erect and proud, you licked your lips and leaned in to take the bulbous, swollen part in your mouth, making him moan loudly and cup the sides of your head involuntarily. All of his noises, from the loudest to the most guttural, made your flower tingle with heat. When you sucked and ran your tongue over the tiny opening he was sure he went to the seven heavens and back, letting an even louder sound escape.

A rare curse was said by him, closing his eyes to lose himself in the wonder you provided him. Your mouth grew bolder and you reached for more of him with every rise and fall, removing the hand that was masturbating him and gripping his thighs for support. It looked profane, a real sin that should horrify him, but how could it be wrong if it felt so good? So hot and wet, like your delicate womanhood. The sight alone brought him closer to the edge, with all the praise of her mouth warming and enveloping him and the look in her eyes shamelessly confronting him.

You sucked and licked him calmly, still reluctant to hurt him with your teeth, keeping a steady pace to satisfy and relax your beautiful Jacaerys.

He held and massaged your hair, making every effort to stay upright as you made him feel so good, so fucking good. But whatever composure he held was broken when your hand groped and teased with his jewelry, bringing him to the climax so unexpectedly fast that his breath hitched and he almost fell forward, letting out the hottest moan he'd ever had before. The whole situation was exciting enough, but watching you take his seed on your tongue was surreal and left him in pure bliss, all tension and previous resentment pushed aside to emerge in the hot pleasure you had provided.

Smiling at your good work, you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and rose to face him, "do you like it, husband?"

"Where did you learn this?" Was all he said before grabbing your waist and flipping you over on the bed, laying on top of you, still panting and sweaty through your clothes.

"With a friend."

May the seven bless her, he thought.

“I guess now it's my turn to give back to my beautiful wife.”

jacelist: @howyouloveyourdragon @damatheirin @valeskafics (kyle’s pride!)

#jacaerys velaryon #Jace velaryon #jacaerys x reader #jacaerys x you #jacaerys velaryon x you #jacaerys velaryon x reader #jace velaryon x reader #prince jacaerys #smut #jacaerys velaryon smut

914 notes · View notes

max1461 · 2 months

Text

I have this notion of "horror", by which I mean something like "badness which is inscrutable or not quite explicable; wrongness which can be experienced but not truly articulated, even in principle". In a horror movie, what do you think happens when a character is dragged away by the ghost? I think most of us do not just feel that they are killed. If we did, movies about ghost would not be much scarier than actuarial tables. I think we feel, on some level, that something worse happens. Something worse than any particular thing we can imagine. It's not death, it's not torture, it's something else. Something inexplicable whose badness cannot even be spoken or imagined. This is "horror".

One of my very core beliefs is the non-existence of true horror. I believe that all actually existing harms can, with enough thought, be put straightforwardly and mundanely. I believe that whenever something bad really happens, we can speak it, we can imagine it, and we can denounce it in plain terms, if we really try.

I don't like horror because I think it robs us of our power and of our basic dignity in the face of struggle. If we are suffering, we must be able if absolutely nothing else to say "here is what is hurting me, and setting aside all other factors, that fact qua that fact is an injustice". The existence of true horrors would, on a metaphysical level, rob us of the ability to do that.

I imagine this discussion will seem like pure navel gazing (in the derogatory sense) to some, but to me it's quite important. People invoke horrors all the time. I think it's a pretty frequent throughline in gender/relationship discourse. People see a bit of horror in sex, romance, gender dynamics and so on.

If faced with a true horror, very few lines of recourse (practical or metaphysical) are available to you. You must run and keep running forever or you must kill it. I think large swaths of gender discourse are mediated by this principle; I think both incels and radfems (wrong as they are about many particular issues of fact) are at some level both motivated by the belief in horrors, the belief that the injustices they have genuinely been faced with are horrors and not plain things, and therefore that they have only the options to run or to kill. Why this is bad for them and bad for the rest of us is clear enough.

I say: horrors do not exist. All harms are mundane harms, even the most heinous. All harms can be spoken, named, laid bare for any sober mind to see. We may be vulnerable to physical attack, but we are invulnerable to metaphysical attack.

#navel gazing

89 notes · View notes

eldstunga · 7 months

Note

Hi! I really love your art! The lines are so bold but the colours so natural that it feels distinct but grounded?? I'm obsessed with the shapes in your work

I was wondering if you had any advice for drawing bodies? Whenever I try it either my proportions are off or an arm ends up looking like a calf or something.

First of all, thank you <3 That's so nice and I think "lines bold, colours natural" is some truly aspirational words to say about my art, I'll strive to be what you say I am <3 I do not, unfortunately, have any great tips on drawing bodies - it's a very wide topic and fundamentally just really bloody hard. I fail horribly 9 times out of 10. How to approach it I think varies a lot with like...HOW you are struggling, and who you are as a person. For proportions and anatomy there are definitely books to look at, and some rules of thumb that can help you - anything from "the shoulders are about 2.5-3 heads wide" through "feet are the same length as the forearm", "elbows are in line with the navel and the navel is two sternums down" etc etc. For me, realising just how big the ribcage actually is and learning how to use that as a unit of measure was a big event (the torso is about two ribcages long). Look at references, Draw over low opacity references and try to look for patterns that help YOU. Like... "Hm, do the shoulders line up with something useful?"

Having a good ref model to double check things helps too. The pen is pointing to about the bottom of the ribcage. But there's also stuff like maybe you're getting too hung up on construction and then it might help more to try to draw from references by ONLY blocking in a silhouette first. This helps me sometimes still:

Or you could be like me, struggle with all of the above and then some - like how to make poses look natural and/or dynamic? Weight distribution is a whole other topic.. gah, it never ends, but it's fun to learn.

Lastly, this took me way too long to realise and I think it should be said: Do not fret too much about STUDYING. The unfair thing is that the better you are at something, the better you will be at actually learning from doing studies and exercises or reading books. We accept this with many other disciplines and sports but rarely art. Mileage is king, and mileage is best gained from having fun and enjoying what you do. If you find studies suffering and frustrating you're probably better off just drawing what you enjoy and fuck it if it isn't "pushing your boundaries" or whatever. Eventually you'll get to the point where studies start to give more than they take, and then you're home free. I'm not gonna recommend a billion resources you likely won't enjoy but here are some things I genuinely found helpful lately: * a physical anatomy model, they're pricy and not necessary but being able to just look at it every now and then, turn it over etc helps. * The "Morpho" series of books, they do not teach anatomy, but they are very useful quick reference books and much more easily digested than most anatomy material. Just try to find a real anatomy book to read once your appetite is up as well.

The zig-zag/Lightning bolt method for arms and legs, fuckin' thing revolutionised how I sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCkmB030GpQ

Gottfried Bammes "The Complete guide to Anatomy for Artists and Illustrators" This thing is insane, it's from the 50's and like 600 pages long. You could absolutely kill someone with it, but a lot of the pages are more philosophical or art history you can skip and despite its age and fear factor this dude writes in a witty, clever and just wonderful way that I've seen nowhere else. Fantastic photos. By far, FAR the best anatomy book I've ever seen. It's not a book I'd recommend for someone starting out, I would not have been able to digest it like four years ago, but once you get to a certain point it's amazing.

That's a lot, uhhh, feel free to ask me for more specific tips this was a bit of a rant. Hope some of it was useful!

#art tips #.txt #asks #sorry its such a wide topic I dunno where to start

168 notes · View notes

diosapate · 1 month

Note

sorry this became an essay but on the topic of john as misogynist, i know there are obviously more blatant examples in htn and ntn (and admittedly i'm only halfway through htn) but at least to me, i felt the misogyny was there even in gtn with the way he describes his relationship with / treatment of cytherea during the epilogue?

it's a different form of misogyny than the open disdain and degradation leveraged at mercy, but to me “She was the very best of all of us. The most loyal, the most humane, the most resilient. The one with the most capacity for kindness. I made her live ten thousand years in pain, because I was selfish and she let me" reads as a classic example of female objectification in the direction of the mother / martyr figure.

cytherea is defined here by her goodness and how she benevolently and selflessly served others. even though john fully names and takes blame for the pain he forced her to endure, he also places the blame on her for letting him do it. he denies her boundaries, complexity, and autonomy except where it would absolve him of guilt (see also, the scene in htn where john insists the murders at canaan house only happened because boe corrupted her). i know ableism definitely factors in to this attitude and treatment, but i don't think her being a woman was a small part of it either.

never apologize for writing me asks i LIVE for this. but you are absolutely correct in that this also falls back on Cytherea; admittedly it has been a hot minute since i read GtN so i appreciate a fresher take on this!

but yeah you're hitting my personal nail right on the head. from the way the other lyctors talk about Cytherea it really does look like she was subject at least some of the boys' club that the Mithraeum seems to be—(once again, the women began outnumbered and ended outnumbered; i'd love to know more about Cassiopeia and what her dynamic with the rest of the group is, although we get a glimpse from how John talks about her when he admits that she called his shit out for being "appallingly vindictive." would love to know how this translated over after her resurrection? hoping and praying we get more about her in AtN.) though it is, as you say, different from what is leveled at Mercy, and we know these dynamics can absolutely manifest in different ways.

where Mercy is shrill and "unlovable," Cyth is "gorgeous" and she "loved them all" which... isn't exactly degrading on its face but subsequent "poor little Cyth" by Augustine is definitely condescending!! (as much as it is endearing, in a way. they contain multitudes.) but i think most blatantly this behavior comes from John almost... victim blaming her? we can talk in circles for hours and hours about whether or not he could actually cure her cancer but it still stands that whatever he was enabling in her, she was (heavy quotation marks) "letting him do it."

John's insistence that Cyth was corrupted and denying her agency in genuinely hating him is really where i started to doubt that he just fundamentally doesn't misunderstand everyone he considers a close confidant. we already know he's completely fumbled Mercy & Augustine and that's how he ended up the object of two nefarious threesomes and also, like, exploded, but he's misunderstanding that everyone wants him dead because they want him dead. his actions are all the fault of other people and he cannot fathom not being adored, needed, and liked.

#thank you for sending this to me it is very juicy <3 #anonymous #answered #cytherea the first #john gaius #the locked tomb #tlt meta #aust.txt

80 notes · View notes

chelemlem · 3 months

Note

scouring your blog for more characterisation on lando/oscar dynamic.... the not correcting mispronunciations blew my mind wide open. do you have any other wise takes

hello anon :3 pretty sure i've mentioned all of this in some capacity b4 and much has been covered in depth by greater scholars than myself but here are some 814 charactization quirks i'm fond of ↓

oscar resignedly accepting his own attraction to lando but choosing not to act on it because well..... it is what it is. in his mind being 4 tenths off his teammate is a more immediately pressing matter than lando fake moaning from an icebath 2 feet away [clenched fists]

lando subtly looking out for oscar, especially march-may of last year because he distinctly remembers his own rookie season (see: the "it's a lot, isn't it" exchange in the melbourne unboxed, giving oscar endless opportunities to redeem himself in challenges etc). i think part of it was him not knowing how much of oscar's quietness was a factor of the explosive feeder series to f1 jump and how much is his actual personality but wanting him to feel comfortable either way. also just lando being endlessly curious about this guy who is just a guy... because oscar is lowkey a lot funnier (to lando) than the general public's flat/boring diagnosis gives him credit for

a sort of blase level of comfort and wordless communication (see: virgin radio with zak brown) and also in general communicating via just. noises (the yes/no challenge is an esp egregious example of this like why are u bleating at each other. nvm) to borrow an oscar term here: they're low-frequency! bc while lando has a tendency to match the energy of whoever he's with (vs oscar who's pretty much always the same lol) imo at their core 814 are both different flavours of introverts so when they're together it's just kinda. chill

oscar being deeply tolerant of all of lando's idiosyncrasies and even assimilating to his rhythm... eating the same pre-race meal as lando/changing his answer's to match lando's in the who's most likely to vid/listening to lando's music through their shared wall/"are you ready oscar piastri" "i'm ready lando norris"... insanity

a measurable give and take because as indulgent as oscar can be he will rib lando and give him if not a hard time certainly A Time. basically oscar having a spine... but also bending to lando's whims... it's a fine balance

rating each other as drivers...... sure oscar is a well-socialized young man who can (occasionally) pretend net competence has a lot of moving parts and lando genuinely likes a lot of people he doesn't rate (real) but when it boils down to it the fact that they both think v highly of the others' skill as drivers (oscar constantly calling lando one of the quickest guys on the grid, lando saying his recent run of form is in part due to oscar being good enough in his own right to push him, "i mean, he already is") adds a whole new layer of intrigue. bc even when they get along there's that undercurrent of caution/what's he gonna do next/etc and who kneowsss how this aspect of their relationahip is going to evolve over the next three (3!!!) years together as teammates but i for one can't wait to watch :')

they barely (if ever) touch. compelling 2 Me

#sorry if none of this makes sense i typed it on my phone half-delirious waiting for the train #landoscar #when writing fic i try not to overthink characterization choices and just go w what instinctively feels right #but imo there's merit to having it all consolidated in one place for a refresher should i need it so thank u for this ask <33 #ln4 #op81 #answered

90 notes · View notes

jazzyblusnowflake · 2 months

Text

im gonna ship J and Tessa and theres nothing anyone could do to stop me-

i already got my heart broke from not getting Jenny x Brad from my life as a teenage robot so im making my human x robot ships a reality everyone jump off-

and its gonna have so much angst cuz bro.

BRO.

fucking sncjskfjJDNGKE //RUNS

honestly Karen and Plankton from spongebob are the only ones doing the whole living being x sentiant machine thing right smh..... well.... maybe..... idk.... never mind.

actually wait, this is all mostly experimental at best- i thought of it as a crackship- but like-

i wanna know yalls opinions-

like if J and Tessa used to be "younger" or "teens" in the flashbacks, and then both of them are now "adults" in the current timeline-

would this ship be problematic? 🤔

the only factors going on here would be that Tessa still sees them and servants and J is obsessed with following orders lmao- and i could see how some people would see them as friends or even sibling dynamics but like genuinely tho-

aside from it being a little unlikely as a crackship or something im not sure if it has any... problems? 🤔

what do yall think?

#snow rambles #murder drones #serial designation j #tessa james elliot #i wonder what kind of ship name they would have....

68 notes · View notes

wynought · 5 months

Text

The Horror in Burrow's End

I have been having Thoughts (TM) about the horror aspect of Burrow's End for a while now, and I think I can put at least some of those Thoughts (TM) into words now. Spoilers for Burrow's End (up to, and including episode 8) and Neverafter below.

Many people have pointed out that Burrow's End has been more horrifying (or at least felt more horrifying) than Neverafter, Dimension 20's proclaimed Horror Season. There has been a lot of terrifying body horror and gruesome gore, and with the latest episode (episode 8, as of writing this) we've also seemingly risen to another level with the absolutely stunning Wenabocker tapes (kudos again to Carlos Luna, the acting and sound design were legitimately masterful).

But we've also had that with Neverafter; the opening scene with Rosamund waking up is a perfect example of body horror, the Stepmother is an advanced lesson in eldritch horror, there are powerful and unknowable antagonists all throughout the Neverafter. So why is it that so many (if not all of us) feel that Burrow's End is so much scarier than Neverafter? I think there's a multitude of factors at play here.

Of course, we have the difference in the cast - the Intrepid Heroes are a well-oiled machine of tight comedy at this point, they know each other, their strengths, their comedic timing, they know what they can get away with in terms of shenanigans. The Stupendous Stoats are all incredible performers and have obviously worked together before in various constellations. However, they don't have an Established Dynamic in the way the Intrepid Heroes do. It is also the first time that Aabria is DMing a full-on D&D game in the dome, with battlesets and minis, and everything that entails, and she has said herself that she usually does theatre of the mind - there's a good possibility she wasn't even aware herself, how exactly this would influence her own style and the atmosphere she would create. All of this contributes to a vastly different feel of Burrow's End compared to Neverafter.

Additionally, both players and their characters in Neverafter were genre savvy, as was the audience. Neverafter was marketed as a horror season. We knew the tone going in, the Intrepid Heroes knew it going in, their characters were conceived as being horror versions of commonly known fairy tale characters. The marketing for Burrow's End was different; sure, we all immediately made the connection to Watership Down and The Secret of NIMH, and those aren't exactly known for their easy and happy themes, but I don't think any of us from the audience, or even the players were expecting the bear. This also ties into the player characters themselves. The Intrepid Heroes' characters didn't know each other beforehand; they grow together and they have/develop familial vibes, but they aren't family with all the added baggage that entails. Rosamund and Gerard may be cousins, but they're 100 years apart in age and have never met before. Pib and Pinocchio are successfully running scams together and do care for each other, but they don't quite have that long-time sibling dynamic. Mother Goose and Ylfa are arguably the closest to each other before the events of Neverafter, with Goose taking on a parental role, but they are stuck in their own recent traumas and seem to have gravitated towards each other more out of the need to fill the respective holes in their lives than out of a genuine, pre-established bond. Destiny's Children do grow and go on to become important people in each others' lives, but there's a difference between bonds forged by danger and choice, and bonds forced by necessity. The Stupendous Stoats were conceived as a family. Viola is Ava's daughter, and also Tula's sister, and also Thorn's wife, and also the kids' aunt, and also the co-leader of a cult. She has so many roles to fulfill already that 'horror protagonist' isn't even on anybody's list, least of all her own - and that goes for all the player characters. Their established dynamics mean that, for a bit, they don't, no they can't even realise what kind of story they are in. Thorn is living in a story where he is the tragic hero destined to save his people, Tula lives in a story about grief and loss and acceptance, Viola lives in a story of political intrigue, the kids live in a YA adventure novel a la Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Ava lives in Encanto (but don't tell her, she'd hate that). Then they encounter the bear and there's a slight record scratch, but, after having dealt with that mess, they go right back to their established roles. They react to the horror in a very, for lack of a better word, human way, they treat it as incidental to the reality they live in. They feel like a real family, slowly finding out just how scary their world truly is. The horror's impact on their lives is very different from the way Neverafter impacted the protagonists. We get to see the stoats' realisation that they're horror protagonists, but Destiny's Children had already gotten that message by the time they come together.

Another huge factor is the season length. Neverafter ran for 20 episodes, while Burrow's End is half as long. A lot of horror hinges on the audience and the protagonists being unaware of how exactly the antagonist/monster/spooky thing works. The audience usually knows on some level that there have to be some rules the horror has to abide by, the protagonists may or may not; but especially in something like an actual play TTRPG show there have to be some rules because this is a game, after all, and it would be incredibly unfun for the players, the DM, and the audience to have a fully unsolvable mystery. The problem with this is that the actual terror goes away once the rules are solved - sure, you can still do gore and disturbing stuff, and you can scare the protagonists, but your audience will expect an action-based story now, instead of a reaction-based story (e.g. the protagonist figures out that a silver bullet can hurt the werewolf, so now the audience expects them to stop running and make/find silver bullets in order to protect themselves, and either succeed in killing the monster or die trying). The longer your story is, the harder it is to keep up this level of suspense. You will either start to tread ground and the story will begin to feel stale, or you will reveal too much too early and lose that sweet sweet terror of the unknown. I think Neverafter was too long for an effective horror season; I don't think it is bad how many episodes we got, I enjoyed every single one of them. But I do believe that much of the horror aspect was lost around the halfway point - one of the worst things to happen to a D&D party, the TPK, happened in episode 2 and was "solved" (in the sense I talked about above) in episode 3. The Lines Between and the Authors were introduced in episode 8. The world's rules were established by then, and the Intrepid Heroes could start acting on them. Of course, there were still scary elements (the fact that Death itself had been imprisoned and was being tortured, the undead Dwarven army, Rapunzel's trickery and unsettling personality, etc. etc.), but to me this felt more like a very dark fantasy story, instead of a tale of horror. Burrow's End is so much shorter than Neverafter, and I think this works to its advantage as a horror story. The protagonist stoats' limited perspective on what is going on in the Blue Forest, in Last Bast, with the Blue in general, their general lack of knowledge on all things human make for so many different vectors of horror, and the abundance of mysteries means that even after 8 episodes there are still aspects of the world we are unaware of.

This neatly brings me to my last point: There is a unique dynamic at play in Burrow's End that contributes a lot to the uncanniness of the story. Namely, that the protagonists are stoats with no/minimal knowledge of humanity, while the players and the audience know so much more than the protagonists. TTRPGs oftentimes make it hard not to metagame, not to let your prior knowledge influence your character's decisions, and Burrow's End takes this to an extreme level. There is a difference between the "my husband was killed by the thunder on a cloudless day" kind of horror, and the "this stoat was shot by a gun, but his body wasn't collected immediately, meaning that probably wasn't a hunter, so why are people shooting stoats?" kind of horror; a difference between "humans are faceless monsters with hairless, yellow, smooth skin" kind of horror, and the "that's a person in a hazmat suit, why are they wearing hazmat suits?" kind of horror. The beauty of this is that we as the audience (and also the players, because the fun thing about TTRPGs is that you can be both audience and protagonist at the same time) get to experience double the horror. We can feel for the protagonists and their struggles in this dangerous, deadly world, where everything seems out to get them, and we get to understand things that they don't or even can't grasp. We get to put the clues together, painting by numbers in the negative space left by the stoats' explanations, while still reeling from trying to understand why the world works the way it does. We can piece the kind of environmental disaster together that caused the Blue, while being surprised by a horde of carnivorous chipmunks piloting a dying bear. We get to feel twice as afraid of this world by virtue of hearing the words "loss of coolant accident in reactor charlie" spoken by a human, but understood by stoats, and understanding what those words imply.

All in all, I am very happy with Burrow's End. I have previously stated that as a horror fan I was disappointed by Neverafter; I did enjoy it a lot, but it just didn't scratch that itch (not trying to badmouth Neverafter here, just stating my personal experience). Burrow's End is more than making up for that, especially since I didn't expect it going in. I am extremely impressed by Aabria's ability to first create, and then hand us the tools to unravel a mystery on this scale where every new piece of information makes the whole picture seem more terrifying, and her nerves of steel to not reveal too much information, even this late in the game (reminds me a lot of how long it took to figure out everything about Kalina in Fantasy High Sophomore Year, to the point of only fully understanding her in the finale episodes, while she had been a mystery for almost all of the season). It takes a lot to not spill all your very cool lore as soon as you get the chance, and the organic way things have been revealed to the stoats and to us is really something else. I'm just really looking forward to episodes 9 and 10 of Burrow's End, and also all of Aabria's future projects with D20. Thank you @quiddie for this beautiful season, I'm enjoying myself so much!

#burrow's end #d20 #d20 burrow's end #stupendous stoats #aabria iyengar #burrow's end spoilers #d20 spoilers #f: burrow's end #f: d20 #horror in burrow's end

80 notes · View notes

carulenes · 1 year

Text

an analysis of wolfwood’s characterization in trigun stampede as well as his connection to vash (+ why i believe he’s likely much older than we think)

okay i’ve been thinking abt this since eps 10 or 11 were released (this show became my special interest the second it dropped if i'm being completely honest) but its been scratching at my brain ever since i read the sakuracon radio interview and since i haven’t seen anyone talking abt this yet i figured i may as well because it’s clear they really did pull very extensively from the manga and i really am loving how they adapted his character. also i occasionally keep seeing the “tristamp wolfwood is a kid/is 14-15” takes which i need to at least try to help put to rest bc they make no sense given his other iterations and would actively make the story worse.

a quick tldr of my main points before i get on my very long winded soapbox:

wolfwood in trigun stampede has been used as an undying, unkillable soldier by the eye of michael for decades.

rollo as a character, as opposed to monev the gale, was designed specifically as a metaphor for wolfwood’s backstory.

wolfwood and vash are written to be literal complements to one another.

I literally don’t think I have the space to talk abt all my thoughts, and ofc these are all my personal thoughts so any and all of what i’m saying could be wrong, but direct analysis of eps 4-7 (as I think they’re the most important) and discussion of his trajectory in general under the cut (obvious spoilers for the show but also the manga as well as tw: discussions of suicide/suicidal ideation as well as the general tw list for the show's graphic content):

Starting first with a side point that Wolfwood was never a child at any point he was with Vash during thecourse of the story, including the manga. He has always been a man in his 20s, with trimax ww having the appearance of being in his 30s or 40s. It is absolutely crucial to his and Vash’s characterizations, as well as their entire dynamic together, that Wolfwood is an adult. Could make an entire separate post about this, but I feel like starting here is important.

Onto the sakuracon japan radio interview. The team gave a LOT of interesting insight into the development of the show, but one specific point stood out to me:

This is important, because I definitely missed it during the show’s initial run, but I think it’s REALLY obvious once you know what you’re looking for, and is a big factor in why I think he’s likely older than we realized.

————

EP 4: These are the very first lines that are said about him in the show, and the very first time we see him, he is absolutely exhausted:

We know that at this point, Wolfwood is likely on his way to Jeneora Rock to meet up with Vash to fulfill his contract...until Vash and co. quite literally slam into him (and his life) unexpectedly, nearly killing him with their van. He probably should’ve died except… he’s on his feet almost instantly, able to walk perfectly fine and being a jackass as though he didn’t get launched halfway across the desert by a moving vehicle. Which is… odd, naturally.

When they try to find help and instead find the dead couple, he specifically mentions that he isn't a priest like he's been in other iterations. He's now an undertaker, someone meant to guide others through their deaths:

His personality is hard to tap down. He's goofy and childish and downright unlikeable, and there's a hint of something lurking deeper, something menacing and potentially dangerous. So much so that Roberto is on edge the entire time their group is together after being swallowed by the Grand Worm, and flat out tells Vash that Wolfwood is untrustworthy and likely an assassin, "a man who can kill with a smile on his face". And Vash’s response is… really fucking weird, given how long the two have known each other:

not to mention he's wearing sunglasses Wolfwood is rightfully very ??? in response because, what the fuck is he talking about, and why is he so genuine about it, they just met???

Fast forward to a bit later, when Wolfwood is like "hey man, you really shouldn't be so trusting. I could've shot you in the back several times now." To which Vash is like "but you didn't, though." And Wolfwood is even more confused because is this guy stupid???

And then it's time for the final act: Wolfwood reveals his Punisher, destroying the Grand Worm while giving the illusion of taking out Zazie as well. Meryl was informed by someone that Wolfwood had been the one to save them all, but when she tries to thank him, he immediately shifts the subject, being annoying and arguably completely unlikeable. Roberto points out that Wolfwood had lied about who he was, trying to get Vash to realize that he still can't be trusted, and again Vash shoots it down: "We're alive because of him."

Wolfwood showed his role as the Punisher without hesitation, and not only was Vash not really phased by it, but he actually seemed to be inspired by him, stopping his self-destructive tendencies and even repeating his own words back to him. And that's the moment we finally learn his name in the show:

But then, almost immediately, we have a complete reversal of his scene with Vash in the Worm. It’s also of note that Zazie always specifically says human lives:

————

EP 5: One of the most important episodes in this discussion, and it starts with the name alone, "Child of Blessing". Here’s a very general summary:

A young boy in a much less than ideal living situation is chosen to be 'a blessing upon the world through his sacrifice', which turns out to secretly be mutilative experimentation on children in search of a subject compatible with a mysterious medicine that can heal any injury. The meds warp him, morph him into something that doesn't even appear to be human. He tries to return home, but his mother, the only family he knows and loves, is terrified of him. She calls him a monster, and the boy finds himself struggling to articulate who he is. Then, he wanders alone alone without purpose in that unchanging altered body, a body that can withstand lethal amounts of damage directly because of the meds, for at least 20 years. All he has is a single name: Vash the Stampede, the person who promised to save him, and the one person who managed to bring back his consciousness in the end, if only for a moment.

The moment Nicholas sees Rollo regenerate is the second the switch flips. He instantly demands to know what the fuck is up with him, and when Vash responds telling him that he was too late to give him the medicine he needed, Wolfwood shuts down, because he recognizes himself. From this moment until the rest of the episode, we are no longer seeing Nicholas D. Wolfwood; we're seeing Nicholas the Punisher.

Vash continues to push Rollo to remember who he is, while Nicholas continuously says that there's no way to save him, that he's already a monster now. In the final moments, Nicholas inevitably feels tasked with Rollo's death like the undertaker he is, and when Vash angrily demands to know why he took the shot, his response is:

When discussing Rollo's killer, Elendira refers to Nicholas by name, but Conrad specifically states that no, he is the Punisher.

In vol 10 of the manga, Vash thinks to himself: “I met a strange man. Just as I thought we had come to an understanding, I found that our core beliefs were opposed to each other. I was used to such situations, but I wonder how he felt.”

————

EP 6: This episode builds directly upon the foundations set by the episode prior. Child of Blessing ended with Rollo being referred to repeatedly as a monster, and this episode begins with Nicholas in the middle of completing a kill. Right before he does, his victim gets one final glance at his assailant, an inhuman looking executioner, and calls him a monster… directly because he will not die. He’s also been shown knocking back meds like tequila shots in tristamp, which we all know was NOT possible in the manga. During the flashback scene, Nicholas is literally called the Child of Blessing.

We see a very similar sequence with Nicholas that we saw with Rollo; the horrific torture, the bodily mutilation (during which Conrad specifically mentions that the drug will heal all damage done the body, as well as rebuild and strengthen the cells), and the attempt to return home:

Something different happens with Nicholas, though. Nicholas can't go home; he’s literally yanked away from his chance at freedom by Legato. Nicholas can’t go home, likely ever again in his mind, because Hopeland Orphanage and the Eye of Michael represent two fundamentally different ideals.

Hopeland (and thus Livio) is exactly like its name for Nicholas: it is is land of hope, the only place in the world where Wolfwood was allowed to exist freely. When Nicholas was taken by EoM, Wolfwood began to die.

The entirety of the EoM is shrouded in imagery of death and rebirth, specifically in regards to humanity. Humanity in this case has a dual meaning: humanity as a species, and humanity as a concept. Their philosophy is that the end justifies the means in that humans in this form will be preserved and would likely live exceedingly longer lives but, as repeatedly mentioned, there are side effects.

Aging and death are integral parts of the human experience, the two aspects of life that we ALL experience regardless of circumstance. Can you be human without humanity?

The message behind these two episodes is to show that the process of becoming part of the EoM is a metaphorical crucifixion symbolizing the death of one’s humanity. And Nicholas is interesting, because he’s almost the perfect specimen in their eyes and is treated as such. Almost. The only thing holding him back are the two strands of humanity he has left, both which are nearly destroyed in the very next episode.

————

EP 7: In the previous episode, during the animated flashback of Nicholas and Livio, we see a few scattered scenes of other people living at the orphanage. Interestingly, while almost all of the children are seen with very sparse detail (or even none really at all), there is one person, the caretaker, whose face we get a pretty clear picture of. At the very beginning of this episode, we have the first and only shot of the inside of the orphanage in the usual style. While none of the children are familiar and actually aren’t incredibly distinguishable from one another, there is one figure in the room with recognizable hair, but looks considerably older than in the flashback:

During the majority of their interactions, you don’t see Nicholas and Livio interacting with any of the other children. They are simply a background, a set piece to the story and a representation of just how other they were forced to become.

This episode features them fighting each other, dealing each other what should be mortal wounds, but somehow remain standing, as though they’re perfectly fine. As if on cue, the soldiers stationed call them both monsters and run away in fear.

But Vash doesn’t run from the danger. He runs towards it.

Nicholas tries to stop him, and all he gets in return is “he’s important to you, isn’t he?” as though that’s enough. But it is enough for Vash. And Nicholas doesn’t know what to do with that.

Nicholas comes dangerously close to giving up, to giving into his role as the Punisher and killing the last bit of Wolfwood to do so, but it’s Vash who stops him. He diverts his shot and, instead of hurting Livio, literally frees Nicholas from Legato and Zazie’s trap. Vash tells him to make him remember, and Nicholas thinks it’s bullshit… until he doesn’t.

And when he finally relents, when he tries to emulate what the silly blonde idiot keeps screaming at him about… It works. For a moment, but Livio does wake up for a moment. Nicholas hadn’t been able to see Rollo, but he did see this. And he really doesn’t know what to do about it.

To drive the point home, Livio drives a bullet into his own head and falls to the ground in a scene very reminiscent of Rollo’s death… but is implied to still be alive. With him saved, now it’s time for Hopeland. And this is when the narrative really turns a focus to the balance between Nicholas and Vash.

The group is half convinced that they’re about to die snd that the town will be destroyed when, all of a sudden, it’s Nicholas who’s yelling that they have to do something. Because despite all the noise Nicholas makes about self-sacrifice and calling Vash a weirdo, he’s directly inspired by his energy, which is proven correct when Vash is the first one to side with him.

Then, somehow despite the odds, the two of them manage to work together to stop the ion cannon. Which should have been impossible. And because of this, Nicholas is finally willing to give Vash the chance to take the lead on things.

When Vash and Wolfwood discuss their plan to save Hopeland, and after they argue about which method is the correct one, the conversation they have is probably the clearest depiction of Nicholas’ inner struggle:

Nicholas: Have it your way. Just for today. I do owe you one… but if the orphanage doesn’t survive this, I’ll hurt you so bad you’ll wish you were dead before I kill you.

Vash: Wolfwood…

Nicholas: Shut up! I’m the Punisher! I’m not like you… I’m Nicholas the Punisher…

He murmurs the last line as though he’s trying to convince himself. He uses his persona as the Punisher almost like a mask, like a cat puffing up and hissing to deter predators. It’s a defense mechanism, and a trauma response. Except.. it still doesn’t work, because the entire time Vash is simply not listening. Regardless of what Nicholas says, Vash does not stop fighting Nicholas on the title that was forced on him by the EoM and, in fact, blatantly rejects it. And the moment Nicholas finishes speaking, when he declares himself to be the Punisher, the episode’s title card finally appears: Wolfwood.

It's a direct representation of this panel of Nicholas' inner monologue from the manga:

——

Nicholas and Vash’s roles as each other’s complements is emphasized very deliberately when the two work to stop the sand steamer from smashing into Hopeland. These screenshots occur one directly after the other:

Another detail the team mentioned often during the interview was attention to use of color. In color theory, blue and orange are complementary colors: hues that are opposite each other on the color wheel but, when used together, come together to create harmony and balance. Additionally, Vash is the character typically associated with warm hues, while Nicholas is paired with colder ones; with the colors flipped, it’s almost as if they are literally mirror images of each other.

The two are in the same position, in the middle of similar actions, both drawing strength from that which makes them “other” in order to work together to protect a common goal. And once again, miraculously, they succeed, able to do together what neither could ever have done together.

This mirror motif is even clearer when comparing these respective scenes from each of their respective backstory episodes:

For Nicholas and Vash, on top of sharing such a crucial common thread in their backstories, often in the show they are seen together, either side by side or back to back. Often they’re shown doing the same thing at the same time, almost as though they’re moving as one. And they consistently save each other over and over again, with Nicholas acting to save Vash physically, and Vash working to protect Nicholas’ psyche. Vash refuses to let anyone continue to see themselves as a monster, as lesser than, in much the same way Nicholas refuses to let anyone else be used as one.

They are a pair, a unit working together to create a force that is stronger than the sum of its parts.

They are both “other”, they are both different, and they both seek to protect the things they love and care about despite the excruciating pain it can put them through.

Nicholas and Vash’s entite dynamic is basically “I don’t understand you, but I recognize you. I recognize myself in you. And somehow, that’s enough for me to trust you.”

————

So with all this in mind, here is how I’ve come to understand Nicholas’ arc throughout tristamp:

When we first meet Nicholas D. Wolfwood we meet a weary man longing for death to save him, longing to be free from the purposelessness of his life but knowing the hope is futile. He works for the Eye of Michael as an assassin against his will and has for God knows how long. Not only is he no longer a priest, but he’s no longer religious at all, having no belief in God at all and a particular disdain for the false promises and hopes of salvation that are portrayed by it. He doesn’t care about the clothes he wears, whether he looks messy, whether it’s suited for the desert, because he literally doesn’t care about anything, really. He has no home, and can never go back to the orphanage— there’s likely no one left there that he knows anyway, and even of there were, they wouldn’t recognize the monster he’s become. Nicholas is tired, he’s angry, he’s potentially depressed. He fights impractically, sometimes leaving himself open to attacks he could probably block with his Punisher, but he just doesn’t care. He’s just here to do his job, which is to escort his piece of shit CEO’s assumedly equally piece of shit brother to him so they can destroy the world together and he can hopefully die off in peace.

Until he actually meets Vash, and he’s… really fucking weird. He’s dumb and naive and acts like he knows Nicholas on some deep level after they’ve just met, but… he’s not a bad guy. Just another crybaby who doesn’t understand the world. He can see the Punisher and not be frightened by it. That means something, means enough that he feels that he can introduce himself now. He still doesn’t know how to handle kindness, so he deflects whenever it’s shown to him, making irreverent jokes and being annoying in order push people away. But then he meets Rollo and has a flashback to himself. He learns that Vash is no stranger to false promises, has sold the same thing to the kid who ended up just like him, and yeah, Vash is no better than the EoM. He talks a big game but doesn’t actually know anything. Nicholas kills Rollo out of mercy because it’s what he wishes could be done to him; every day of living his life is torture.

But then his hometown and childhood best friend are suddenly in danger. He’d completely forgotten what it felt like to have something to lose, to protect. And without planning for it, Vash also becomes something to protect, because even if he doesn’t act like it, Nicholas desperately wants to believe in him. He doesn’t want the EoM to be right. But the feeling of having something to protect is terrifying, because it means you have something to lose. Nicholas gets incredibly stressed out by this, because it’s been so long that he doesn’t even remember what it feels like. But it’s enough to get him, for likely the first time in a very long time, to hope. And it’s Vash who helps him so that he’s able to hang on to that hope for a little while longer.

He still can’t get too excited, because he hasn’t actually finished his job yet. Before he does, though, he sees Vash’s scars (which was a deliberate choice, as in both the manga AND the og anime this scene went to the girls) and wow, if it weren’t for the regenerative properties of the drug, he would likely look the same. He drops Vash off with Knives and knows that Vash will likely be killed, but he’s also expecting to die himself in the fallout, so it doesn’t matter, really. Except for some reason, it does a bit. And then, yet again, Vash miraculously doesn’t die, and in fact changes the game and actually looks like he might stand a chance against Knives, and is clearly willing to die to do it.

And then July is destroyed. But, miraculously, Nicholas isn’t dead. He still finished the contract, but now… now what?

The show began with Nicholas at his lowest, and ends with Vash at his lowest point. And Nicholas owes him one.

————

INCREDIBLY long story short, it really is clear that they weren’t kidding, the team really drew SO MUCH inspiration from the themes trimax it’s unbelievable and I really really think we’re in for something incredible during the second phase. I also think it’s gonna hurt like a bitch.

#trigun stampede #trigun #trigun 2023 #nicholas d. wolfwood #nicholas the punisher #tristamp #tristamp wolfwood #vash the stampede #tristamp vash #this had no reason being this long but fuck it we ball and i was off work and had the time anyway #neurodivergency go brrr ig idk but like i really haven’t seen anyone mention any of this #and like it really is entirely possible someone did but like i Need to discuss it

263 notes · View notes

glossglamour · 27 days

Text

The Doctor is in the House: A 2011 Article on House M.D.

BY SHERI LEVINE, POSTMEDIA NEWS NOVEMBER 17, 2011

LOS ANGELES - Paging Dr. House. After eight years, Hugh Laurie is still keeping House's heart beating. And while the medical mysteries may serve as plots for the long-running medical drama, it's Laurie's alter ego, the man himself, Dr. Gregory House, who keeps people tuning in for their weekly fix.

Laurie, who made a name for himself as a comedic actor in his native England, was relatively unknown to North American audiences when House first aired. Of course, that's no longer the case. The multi-talented Laurie -- who recently released a fine album of New Orleans-inspired blues music -- has become a huge star across the pond, as well as one of the highest-paid actors on TV.

"I highly doubt that," says a modest Laurie, who actually seems embarrassed by the very notion that he would rank so high on the actors' payroll. Clearly, he doesn't take his good fortune for granted. Laurie calls himself "a lottery winner" with the great success he's achieved on House.

Dressed casually in a blue, button-down shirt, black pants and black and white sneakers, or trainers (as the Brits would say), Laurie rests his cappuccino cup and saucer on the table in front of him. The charismatic Englishman playfully takes on the group of international journalists who have invaded his turf.

In person, the affable Laurie smiles easily, laughs frequently and seems to never be at a loss for a witty response or anecdote. He is adorably charming, with piercing, blue eyes -- an intense blue not picked up on camera.

It's oddly amusing to see the man -- who plays such a cynical, depressive, perpetually grumpy person, week in and week out -- so happy. Of course, that's the mark of any good actor. But as creator and executive producer, Canadian David Shore, says: "He didn't become House, he WAS House."

Laurie's strong comedic roots may have been what resonated so strongly with Shore upon seeing Laurie's audition tape.

"I venture to guess that, actually, that's part of the reason that I'm here," says Laurie. "Unless this character had a sort of grace and a wit about him, he would be just too much of a pain in the ass, really. The elegance of the way his mind works, and the speed at which it works, is part of his charm, if he has any. Now, lots of people would say he doesn't have any. I disagree. I find him immensely charming.

"I'm not sure I would put up with him as a best friend, but I do find him endlessly entertaining. And I find . . . the references he draws on, the way he seeks out people's weaknesses in such a cruel and horrible way, I find he does at least do it with wit."

House has become an iconic character, largely due to Laurie's flawless portrayal of a brilliant doctor with a horrible bedside manner whose asinine qualities are overshadowed by his brilliance. He's not really an ass, he just acts like one . . . a lot.

The antithesis of House is his best friend, Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard). One might even go so far as to say it's their friendship that humanizes House, and is a big part in sustaining the show's success.

"One of the things I'm proudest of in the show is that relationship," says Shore. "I think that it's something you don't see on TV very often -- the male friendship explored," he says.

Leonard weighs in: "His actions are what count. It's the only relationship on the show that's not tied to any employment. I don't work for him and he doesn't work for me, and it's not true of any other character on the show. So we're the only two characters that have actually chosen to be together."

The onscreen pals are also good friends off-screen, a likely contributing factor to the genuine House-Wilson dynamic.

"Well, now that we've stopped sleeping together, it's a lot more comfortable in every way, physically, as well," jokes Leonard. "I don't know. He's very complicated. He's a very strange guy. He's very funny. He's like most of the people I like in my life: tortured, miserable, and just a pain in the ass," Leonard says (referring to Laurie, not House, just in case you were confused).

As to whether this is the show's last season, David Shore says he's undecided.

"I'm not being coy, I'm just honestly not that well ordered," admits Shore. "I would love to and I would hate to (continue the show). It's been a wonderful opportunity for me. It's just been amazing on so many different levels, and I'm continuing to find new and interesting things to do with it. But it's been eight years. It's a long time to do a show. And so I really am not sure what's going to happen."

In the end, Shore says the show is ultimately about "trying to change, but we inevitably fail."

"But if we don't keep trying to change, we're just going to slide completely backwards. I think House would like to be the type of person who could do things differently. But he's not, and he will never (be)."

What does this mean for the fate of Dr. Gregory House?

"I'm not going to change his character for the end of the show," says Shore. "It may not be a miserable ending, but (House) is not going to ride off into the sunset with love."

--- (source) ---

this one surprisingly only took me like twenty minutes to find. my favourite part is when shore says that house is not going to ride off into the sunset with love and yet .

#house md #hatecrimes md #robert sean leonard #rsl #hugh laurie #interview #james wilson #gg.txt #muted

38 notes · View notes

dontmixpaintinyourcoffee · 5 months

Text

Reason number 2636185372 I love Nerdy Prudes Must Die-

Max is humanized without being absolved of his actions. Maxwell Jägerman was undoubtedly a piece of shit. He was a controlling prick that refused to let anyone have control over their own life, abusing his "friends" and his enemies alike. He took real joy from punishing the people around him when they tried to sidestep his arbitrary rules, enforcing them with the threat of violence. He knows he's physically stronger than everyone around him, and he takes advantage of that. He's 100% eager to fight before considering other options. Even the other jocks are scared of him, because he defaults to beating the hell out of people. (Also note that he's stronger than all of them too. When they do the chest bump Jason falls backwards and has to catch himself, and he knocks Kyle senseless with just one hit, to the point that he has to be carried out by his friends.)

I feel all of that very strongly. But at the same time? He's like... A full person. Big things can be revealed when a character thinks they're alone, and although him going through the Waylan place shows him being a prick as expected, it also shows him being scared. It seems to me like he's a very fearful person. Scared of ghosts, skeletons, judgement from his dad, even those cheap costumes seem to genuinely freak him out before he forces himself to get a grip (which just means getting aggressive). Or look at how he interacts with Grace. It's easy to assume he's just being manipulative, but there's never a point where it seems like Max is particularly skilled at emotional manipulation. It seems to me like he actually, genuinely likes her in a weird way. He's an ass, but he totally brightens up when he talks to her. He thinks she's funny, he seems a little bit awkward during conversation with her, he doesn't like people picking on her.

"She's such a prude!"

"Yeah, isn't she great?"

I'm sure part of it is that he just wants to get in her pants, but that doesn't seem to be the only factor here. He wants to carry her books, he wants to cuddle, he doesn't see her prudiness as an obstacle the way you would expect an asshole like him would. It seems to be part of the reason he likes her at all. It's not a healthy or respectful dynamic, but it is bizarrely genuine.

The characterization in this show is just so good y'all

#npmd #nerdy prudes must die #maxwell jagerman #max jagerman #grace chastity #wow there was a lot of jazz hands during that murder

120 notes · View notes

utilitycaster · 5 months

Note

but you do have to admit that you write your 2k meta's mostly because you want (negative) attention? otherwise I don't understand why you are not writing more of your faves instead?

Sure! I can explain why I wrote this piece, which I assume is the reason you're asking this now.

I wrote it because I naturally had thoughts about the group dynamics of Bells Hells after the episode and started thinking about why this group is so disconnected this far into the campaign when, for example, the Mighty Nein, who had far more friction and conflict early on in the campaign, were positively ride or die by this point. I also really did genuinely find the degree of pressure that Imogen and Laudna have been putting on Fearne to be excessive and had been quietly thinking about it since episode 75 - they were the ones to initially make a big deal about "Emperor and Empress" (the fact that Ashton mentioned the party's positive reinforcement of the shard's retrieval being a factor in their choice is relevant here), I was reminded by someone else regarding Laudna's immediate shutdown of Fearne's attempt to tell the truth in episode 77, and then they called her out in front of everyone after she had expressed that she didn't want it to Morri. It made a clear pattern that I felt was interesting to explore, and in doing so I started asking myself if there were other patterns of behavior. I linked to someone else's post as well in there that talked about how Imogen and Laudna pretty much always act together in group discussions in my post because that was also an inspiration, and I've also talked a lot in the past about how Imogen and Laudna rarely bring up their own sources of conflict with each other, so the fact that their accusations towards Fearne are in the same scene where Imogen expresses disgust about Delilah's presence also is very relevant to their general group dynamics, since their own relationship with each other is very central to how they interact with the group.

I do write about my favorite characters as well. I wrote pretty extensively about Ashton after episode 78, as well as a bit about their conversation with Orym, but Ashton just had their big moment of explosion and I need to let that simmer or something else to happen before I have any longer posts. I've also, if not written anything myself, reblogged a lot of great posts about Chetney's fantastic reveal which I think tied up that whole exercise beautifully with a truth that was not a passive-aggressive accusation of others nor a self-flagellation but a realization of his own behaviors as well as an explanation to the group without expecting anything in return. In talking about the shard I did touch on my main feelings about Fearne in this situation but again I think I need to see how she actually reacts to the information she received here to actually have meta of substance, rather than "oh, interesting." And you can go through my archives if you'd like to see more; I'm usually pretty good about tagging by character.

But also: I like writing criticism, specifically. It is fun for me. I find that writing helps me arrange my ideas and understand them better, and sometimes I even change my opinion when I revisit the text or find my argument doesn't hold together on an intellectual level, even if I feel something emotionally. I've changed my mind about characters before through writing meta! Sometimes more positively, sometimes more negatively, but it happens, because the act of writing meta, if you do so well, is an act of interrogating your own pre-existing opinions and making sure they make sense to people who aren't you.

I also think there's value in writing things that aren't universally positive. Again, it forces you to actually think through what isn't working for you or what you dislike or what traits characters have that you think are causing problems for people around them rather than just saying UGH THIS SUCKS. But also, writing up how you'd fix a plot you don't like or how you'd resolve a conflict requires you have empathy for the creators or for the characters. Sometimes, even if a piece isn't, in your opinion, good, writing criticism of it helps you understand why a creator may have made that choice you didn't like. You can disagree or dislike something while still respecting it, and making yourself explain it to other people is a really good way to process your own feelings rather than stewing in them. I find people who never express any negativity openly are often deeply resentful and unpleasant and passive-aggressive. Indeed, that's arguably the whole point of that honesty exercise! This party keeps trying to smooth things over and so a lot of valid concerns or complaints they have about each other have since metastasized into something far more hurtful.

I can't speak for everyone, but a lot of meta writers write meta because it's genuinely a fun hobby for them. When I was writing my piece about Dimension 20's genre experiments I stayed up later than I should have several times because it was interesting and I wanted to make sure I didn't forget how I was planning out the piece. I like writing a lot, and I've always preferred to write essays and criticism to fiction - I like to think I have a knack for the former that doesn't come as naturally for the latter. My brain jumps to analysis more easily than the invention of plot.

If you don't like the things I chose to write about, that's completely valid. But I'm not doing it for negative attention. I'm doing it because it's enjoyable for me. How you respond to it and how it makes you, specifically, feel, doesn't enter into my consideration. It's 2k words because that's how long it took me to say what I was thinking and it's about Imogen and Laudna's effect on the group dynamic as I understand it because that's what I was thinking about since it was very present in this episode, and I wrote it because I like writing.

Hopefully that explains it!

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag

56 notes · View notes