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him-e · 3 years

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what did you think of shadow and bone? have you read the books? i only read the duology

Thoughts on Shadow and Bone, now that you've probably seen it?

I think the show is alright? It lacks a real wow factor as far as I’m concerned, but it’s enjoyable. It’s especially enjoyable in those parts I didn’t anticipate to like / didn’t even know would be there.

Whereas the main selling points leave a lot to be desired.

The good stuff: the visuals. The aesthetic. The overall concept. Production, casting and costumes are excellent, the setting is fascinating. The worldbuilding isn’t perfect and is sometimes confusing, which is probably due to the show jumping ahead of the books and introducing elements that happen much later in the book saga, but I’m loving the vague steampunk-y vibe of it mixed with more typical fantasy stuff and slavic-inspired lore, the fact that it’s set in dystopian Russia rather than your usual ye olde England.

I find it interesting that in this ‘verse the Grisha are simultaneously superstars, privileged elite, legendary creatures and despised outcasts, according to the context and the type of magic they wield. It’s A Lot, and so far it’s all a bit underdeveloped and messy, like a patchwork of different narratives and tropes sewn together without an organic worldbuilding structure. (there are hints to a past when they were hunted, but how did they go from that to being, essentially, an institutionalized asset to the government isn’t clear yet. There’s huge narrative potential in this, and I hope future seasons will delve into those aspects)

Many of the supporting characters are surprisingly solid. I appreciated that Genya and Zoya eventually sort of traded places, subverting the audience’s assumptions about them and their own character stereotypes, despite the little screentime they were given.

Breakout characters/ships for me were Nina/Matthias, and even more so the Crows, i.e. the stuff I didn’t see coming and knew nothing about (having only read the first book). (I thought the entire Crows subplot was handled in a somewhat convoluted way, at least in the first episodes; it was hard to keep track of who wanted Alina and why, but the Crows’ chemistry is so strong it carried the whole Plot B on its shoulders).

HELNIK. As an enemies to lovers dynamic, Helnik was SUPER on the nose, I’d say bordering on clichéd with the unapologetic, straight outta fanfiction use of classic tropes like “we need to team up to survive” and “there’s only one bed and we’ll freeze to death if we don’t take our conveniently damp clothes off and keep each other warm with the heat of our naked bodies” (not that I’m complaining, but i like to pine for my ships a bit before getting to the juicy tropetown part, tyvm). And then they’re suddenly on opposite sides again because of a tragic misunderstanding - does Bardugo hate high-conflict dynamics? It certainly seems so, because between Helnik and Darklina I’m starting to see a pattern where the slow burn and blossoming mutual trust is rushed and painted in broad, stereotypical strokes to get as fast as possible to the part where they *hate each other again* and that’s... huh. Something.

^That’s probably why I’m almost more interested in Kaz x Inej, because their relationship feels a bit more nuanced, a bit more mysterious, and a bit more unpredictable. (I didn’t bother spoiling myself about them, so I really don’t know where they’re going, but it’s refreshing to see a dynamic that the narrative isn’t scrambling to define in one direction or the other as quickly as possible)

Now, as for Darklina VS Malina... I found exactly what I expected.

Both are ship dynamics I’m, on principle, very much into (light heroine/dark villain, pining friends to lovers) but both are also much less interesting than they claim to be, or could have been with different narrative choices. I’ll concede that the show characters are all more fleshed out and likable than their book counterparts, and the cringe parts I vaguely remembered from the books played out differently. And, well, Ben Barnes dominates the scene, he’s hot as HELL, literally every single second he’s on screen is a fuck you to Bardugo’s attempts to make his character lame and uninteresting and I’m LOVING it, lol.

But yeah, B Barnes aside, Darklina is intrinsically, deliberately made to be unshippable.

It makes me mad, because it’s - archetypally speaking - made of shipping dynamite: yin/yang-sun and moon, opposites attract, COMPLEMENTARY POWERS AND SO ON. And what does Bardugo do with these ingredients? A FUCKING DELIBERATE DISASTER:

^ Placing the kiss so early on (season 1, episode five) effectively kills the romantic tension that was (correctly) building up until that point, and leaves the audience very little to still hope for, in terms of emotional evolution of the dynamic.

Bardugo lays all the good stuff down as early and quickly as possible (the bonding, the conflicted attraction, the recognizing the other as one’s equal, etc) only to turn the tables and pull the rug so y’all sick creepyshippers won’t have anything to look forward to, because THEY’VE ALREADY HOOKED UP AND THAT BELONGS TO THE PAST, IT’S OVER, THEY’RE ENEMIES. This, combined to the fact that she falls for him *without* knowing who he really is, is the opposite of what I want from a heroine/villain ship (it’s basically lovers to enemies, and while that can be valid too, I wanted to see more pining and more prolonged, tormented symbolic attraction to the Shadow/Animus on Alina’s part).

But here’s the trick: it’s not marketed as lovers to enemies - it has all the aesthetics and trappings of an enemies to lovers (the Darkling is, from the get go, villain-presenting, starting from his name), so it genuinely feels like a trollfic, or at the very least a cautionary tale *against* shipping the heroine with the tall dark brooding young villain, and I don’t think it’s cool at all. It makes the story WAY less interesting, because it humanizes the villain early on (when it’s not yet useful or poignant to the story, because it’s unearned) but it’s a red herring. The real plot twist is that the villain shouldn’t be sympathized with, just defeated: there’s a promise of nuanced storytelling, that is quickly denied and tossed aside. So is the idea of incorporating your Shadow (a notion that Bardugo must be familiar with, otherwise she wouldn’t have structured Alina and the Darkling as polar opposites who complement each other, but that she categorically refutes)

Then we have Malina. The good ship.

Look, I’m not that biased against it. I don’t want to be biased on principle against a friends to lovers dynamic that antagonizes a heroine/villain one, because every narrative is different, and for personal reasons I can deeply relate to the idea of being (unspeakably) in love with your best friend. So there are aspects of Malina that I can definitely be into, but it troubles me that in this specific context it’s framed as a regression. It’s Alina’s comfort zone, a fading dream of happiness from an idealized childhood, to sustain which the heroine systematically stunts her growth and literally repressed her own powers, something that in the books made her sickly and weak. But the narrative weirdly romanticizes this codependency, often making her tunnel vision re: going back to Mal her primary goal and centering on him her entire backstory/motivation, to the point that when she starts acting more serious re: her powers and alleged mission to destroy the Fold, it feels inorganic and unearned.

Mal is intrinsically extraneous to Alina’s powers, he doesn’t share them, he doesn’t understand them, he has little to offer to help her with them, and so the feeling is that he’s also extraneous to her heroine’s journey, aside from being a sort of sidekick or safe harbor to eventually come back to. People have compared him to Raoul from Phantom of the Opera, and yeah, he has the same ~magic neutralizer~ vibe, tbh.

The narrative also polarizes Mal’s normalcy and relative “safety” against Aleksander’s sexy evil, framing Alina’s quasi-platonic fixation on the former as a better and purer form of love than her (much more visible and palpable) attraction to the latter. This is exacerbated by the show almost entirely relying on scenes of them as kids to convey their bond. I’m sure there are ways to depict innocent pining for your best friend that don’t involve obsessively focusing on flashbacks of two CHILDREN running in a meadow and looking exactly like brother and sister. LIKE. I get it, they’re like soulmates in every possible way, BUT DO THEY WANT TO KISS EACH OTHER?

Which brings me to a general complain: for a young adult saga centering on a young heroine and full of so many hot people, this story is weirdly unsexy? There are a lot of shippable dynamics, but they’re done in such a careless, ineffective way that makes ZERO EFFORT to work on stuff like slow burn, pining and romantic tension, and when it does it’s so heavy handed that the viewer doesn’t feel encouraged at all to fill the blanks with their imagination and start anticipating things (which is, imo, the ESSENCE of shipping). The one dynamic that got vaguely close to this is, again, Kaz and Inej, and coincidentally it’s also the one we didn’t get confirmed as romantic YET. Other than that, where’s the slow burn? What ship am I supposed to agonize over during the hiatus to season two? Has shipping become something to feel ashamed of, like an embarrassing relative you no longer want to invite in your home?

Anyway, back to Alina/Darkling/Mal, this is how the story reads to me:

girl suspects to be special, carefully pretends to be normal so she can stay with Good Boy

the girl’s powers eventually manifest; she’s forcibly separated from Good Boy

the girl’s powers attract Bad Boy who is her equal and opposite but is also a major asshole

girl initially falls for Bad Boy; has to learn a hard lesson that nobody that sexy will ever want her for who she is, he’s just trying to exploit her

also, no, there is no such thing as a Power Couple

girl is literally given a slave collar by Bad Boy through which he harnesses her power (a parody of the Twin Scars trope)

you know how the story initially suggested that the joint powers of Darkness and Light would defeat evil? LOL NO, Darkness is actually evil itself and the way you destroy evil is using Light to destroy Darkness, forget that whole Jungian bullshit of integrating your shadow, silly!

conclusion: girl realizes being special sucks. She was right all along! Hiding and suppressing her powers was the best choice! She goes back to the start, to the same Good Boy she was meekly pining for prior to the start of the story.

... there’s an uncomfortable overall subtext that reads a lot like a cautionary tale against - look, not just against darkships and villain/heroine pairings, but also *overpowered* heroines and, well... change? Growth?

Like, it’s certainly a Choice that Alina starts the story *already* in love with Mal. That she always knew it was him. The realization could have happened later (making the dynamic much more shippable, too), but no.

#anon #asks #*#sab for ts #long post #darklina for ts #malina for ts #sorry it took me a while but i wanted to see the whole season first

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svarmodiig · 5 years

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SVARMODIIG’S 200 FOLLOWERS CELEBRATION.

Logging onto Inigo this morning, I had mostly planned to celebrate his birthday. What I didn’t expect to see was that, on this already special day, he had hit 200 followers. I’ve roleplayed Inigo for around 5 years now, and though I’ve reset his blog countless times, I never hit a milestone as grand as this before. I wanted to say thank you to everyone who came for Inigo and has stayed for my writing, for the countless headcanons and love I have poured into him, and despite my sporadic activity, continue to support not only me but Inigo, too.

Obviously I need to celebrate this, but what could I offer you all that I haven’t already? This blog is full of writing, and you all write your own characters so beautifully, I couldn’t offer a drabble, not for 200 followers. My art has hit a serious wall and it would be unfair to promise a drawing that may never be completed (ask Savvy her birthday was nearly a month ago and I still haven’t presented a final piece) so then I thought about what makes this blog special. And that’s all of you.

I couldn’t be here if it wasn’t for all of you! I’d just be some madman yelling about Inigo while no one else cared ― writing with all of you has helped me learn new things about Inigo (and my own writing) and the inquiries and discussions about his character has helped him to grow. I wouldn’t have been able to develop him so well on my own.

So rather than celebrating myself, I want to celebrate you. I know that this is going to look like a biased post and I truly hate the concept of mains. Naturally, everyone is going to appreciate their friends first and foremost and want to support them by hyping them up, but we’re all real people on here, and the last thing I want to make myself out to be is exclusive. If it were possible, I’d love to be able to befriend ALL of you, and of course if you consider that within those 200 followers are archived blogs and several blogs from the same people, this looks a little less special. But even then, there’s at least a hundred of you out there, supporting me and that means there are so many of you supporting me.

So before I start ranting about the friends I have made on this blog, even if I don’t name you specifically, even if we haven’t interacted, I truly value your support and want to thank you for being here with me. I hope one day we can speak ― I know I’ve tried to make my blog look fancy but it’s to cover up my insecurities and shyness so if you can see past that, please reach out! I don’t bite, I promise. I’ll be just as scared as you.

TO MY CLOSE FRIENDS...

I dedicate this section to those of you whom I speak to nearly everyday, even outside of RP antics. A special shoutout to Orange @fatestouched who isn’t active anymore but you know how special you are to me already and how much I adore your Owain.

Lauren. @exaltblooded / @insignc / @brigidbcrn

We’re coming up to 2 years of friendship in the coming months and that’s honestly so wild to me. You were one of the first friends I made at Uni and I’m so glad we kept in touch outside of gaming society. I’m thankful that you dared to ask if any of us roleplayed on that fateful day. Not only have we grown closer because of that, but your introduction into the FERPC has truly changed the dashboard for me ― not only because of all the crack you begin with Savvy ― but because of the new people I’ve met because of you, which has in turn meant I met new people through them and found myself a little community on the dashboard. Orange and I always kept our little verse to ourselves, but with you we’ve been able to expand it all, and there’s no other Lucina I would ask to join our little family. Thank you for all the memories and rp antics we’ve shared together.

Savvy. @ofconvocation / @ofnifl / @ofgaspard

I normally like to put names in alphabetical order, but here I have an actual plan. Through Lauren I met you, and through you I met the others below. So before even beginning I have that to thank you for. Savvy ― we speak literally every day, you’ve been there for me through so much and I couldn’t be more grateful. At least once a week you get a little rant from me about how much I love you, but this time it’s public, and that means others will be able to see just how amazing you are (and they’re definitely going to agree with me!) The effort you put into each and every one of your blogs is inspiring, there’s so much love poured into them all and it really shows with their beautiful themes, their icons that more than leave an impression, and most importantly the writing. I think we can all agree you are incredibly talented as a writer and it’s thoroughly enjoyable to write with you when you aren’t starting crack on dash with Lauren. You’re easily one of my biggest supporters and it’s so very rare that I find myself doubting myself with you ready to launch yourself at me if I dare to think I’m anything less than amazing ― I just hope you know I am always ready to return the favour and truly admire you. Thank you for not only the memories but all the beautiful art you’ve gifted to me (and I promise Aurora will be finished by the end of the year.)

Momgan. @askrisms / @faerghusiisms

I don’t care if your name isn’t actually Momgan you will always be just that to me. A lot of our conversations revolve around how amazing I think you are ― and that will never change. All the love and effort you put into Chateau will never be forgotten, and even though it didn’t end in the best light, you never gave up on it. All of your ideas are wonderful, and it’s an honour that I get to write some of my favourite ships with you ― heck, you’re the first person I’ve ever shipped an OC of mine with, because I know I can trust her in your hands and you will show her the same love you show your own muses. I absolutely adore your writing and I could easily read an entire book you wrote if I were able to. I hope that you and I can be friends for a long time, and we can write with one another often. You’re someone I genuinely look up to and I hold nothing but admiration for you. You will always be my Mom.

Ches. @unquiixotic

I want to start off by saying that while we may not have spoken huge amounts, I absolutely adore you Ches. If you were to ask Savvy or Lauren how much we hype you up, I don’t think between even the three of us we could explain to you just how much admiration there is for you. As a person you are wonderful, always so kind and supportive and a genuine delight to converse with ― and I hope that over time we’ll be able to speak a lot more! I remember from Chateau your struggle to find a muse to write among the many you have, and I honestly at the time wondered how it was possible that you could write so many muses. I understand now that you harbour so much love, and that is put into your many beloved characters. All of them are equally loved, equally developed, and none written worse than the others. With Felix and Sylvain, I believe it will be our first time writing with one another outside of Chateau and I am genuinely excited to see more of your writing style, how you format your posts to convey your characterisations.

To those whom I wish I spoke to more often.

Shine. @beautiilance / @panic--ploy

Confession Time: I honestly was terrified of you for such a long time. Lauren and Savvy hyped you up for a LONG time before we actually got to talk and because of that you were already embedded in my mind as someone who was so cool that I was intimidated to speak to you. I know now you’re a big sinful softy and I had nothing to worry about ― bar your sin ― and I’m glad that we are friends. I’ve been trying to get Lauren and Savvy to add you to servers for a while so that we might get to speak and I’m glad it’s through Three Houses we got that chance to talk, since a new game provides a lot to talk about with all the new content. Like it or not, your Ingrid is attached to my Sylvain (as well as Ches and Mom’s Felix and Dimitri) so you’re stuck with me and we’re going to speak more! I hope in the future we can write with one another more and create some truly special memories.

Boo. @ofhoshido / @fxrmer / @nowithedragon / @misssummoningelizabeth

As one of Savvy’s real life friends, you hold a lot of respect in my heart for dealing with her antics ― I kid of course, that respect is for being there for her. She spoke of you often to me and I’m genuinely glad we got to meet and talk with one another. You’re a lot of fun to talk to and even though I’m shy and afraid to strike up conversations I do genuinely enjoy speaking with you. I hope that we can write more with one another in the future!

Pandora. @shamir-nevrand / (for the life of me I can’t find your other blog I’m sorry!)

We really really really haven’t spoken all that much but I know that Savvy and Lauren absolutely adore you and have sung your praises to the heavens above and it has me really hoping to one day speak to you for when I can stop being such a cuck and not be afraid to strike up a conversation!

...from Tumblr.

to clarify quickly, the three above are all people I’m in servers with on Discord whereas those below I am not and know only really on Tumblr but still want to talk to more!

Jessica. @i-nsubordination / @nonpareiltactician / @f-ortuity

Jessica ― I hope you already know how much I adore you. Naeva is so very special to Inigo and that puts you close to my heart. Their bond is so wonderful to explore, it’s something I’ve always wanted and you make those dreams a reality and I cannot thank you enough for that. When first I returned after my little hiatus you were so enthusiastic about my return and that has stayed with me, and every so often I’ll remember it and smile to myself that someone remembered me and was so happy for my return ― and I never said it but I truly hoped that you would still be here. There are so many things I can say about you ― the way you developed Naeva is genuinely admirable and it’s so lovely to see how much love you poured into her. She feels like a real character and is one I won’t ever forget, even when I’m off thinking about Inigo’s family away from Tumblr Naeva always comes to mind. She’s an unforgettable part of his life now and that means we are bound together. The way you write too is incredible and every post is crafted in such a way that I could read more even when I finish. It’s an honour that I get to write with you and you inspire me to be better. Part of what makes her so special is you, the person behind the screen. You’re genuinely so lovely and supportive and that makes your blog more appealing. I’ve always enjoyed speaking to you and can only hope in the future we get to talk more!

Volty. @i--gnis / @d--evotio

Volty I hope you know how much I adore your Robin ― I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to use my main verse tag with a Robin, there are so many out there that terrify me and I still remember admiring you from afar. Now, I’ll happily slap that tag onto any post with you involved. I know I vanished so the old thread didn’t get to continue but I would be more than happy to dig it up from beneath the dust piled upon this blog just to see how your Robin gets to father Inigo in his youth. That thread alone so genuinely excites me and I absolutely want to do so much more with you to explore their dynamics. I can’t put into the words the admiration I hold for you and Robin and truly wish we can speak more one day. As for Validar? Bad man, evil keep him away from Inigo he’ll CRY.

Faty. @convxction / @sentofight

FATY I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU! Lauren is your biggest hypeman. For a LONG time she hyped you and your Chrom up to me ― and I had honestly been admiring you from afar for so long before then. You seem like a really genuinely nice person and I want to try and interact with you more to be able to hype you up as well! Importantly, since Lauren considers your Chrom her main and Lucina is part of my main verse, that pulls you in, so like it or not you’re coming down with us into Awakening development hell.

Carol. @heroismdreams

I know we’ve spoken a little before but I’m putting my foot down and saying it’s not enough. I absolutely adore your Cynthia and all the love you’ve poured into her. Her portrayal is wonderfully accurate and I can read all of your posts in her voice. The development you’ve gifted her is an absolute blessing and I really want to see more interactions between her and Inigo!

To those I admire from afar.

Rey. @reycursed

Aegis. @poregida / @azelfire

Pigeon. @valflame / @cicholic

@exalted--zealotry

To each and every one of you, I want to say that I adore each and every one of you. I think your blogs are so hecking amazing and you all seem like such nice people and whenever I see you on dash I’m waving a little banner of support in your name. ― Aegis, I want to apologise for going inactive and our thread dropping with Inigo and Laurent but know that I’ll be bothering you again soon. ― and to the grandfather-in-law from hell I want to highlight how much fun it has been interacting with you in small doses on dash and to say thank you for the fun.

And to those untagged.

I’ve been away from this blog for so long that I know many of those I called friends are no longer here ― and in the same vein those I admired are long gone. Whatsmore, life has been hectic, well and truly hectic and I can only remember so much from my past times on here. There are so many of you that I would love to personally message but this post took 2 hours alone to throw together because I’m so slow and I do want to celebrate Inigo’s birthday.

#❥▸ ‹ ᵒʰ ᶠᵃᶰᵗᵃˢʸ'ˢ ᵗᵃᵏᶦᶰᵍ ᵒᵛᵉʳ ᵃʷᵃᵏᵉᶰ ᵐᵉ › out of character #TW: long post #( this took ages to write up #and I still can't help but feel it's not enough )

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anneapocalypse · 5 years

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Chorus Rewatch: Season 12: Story & Characters

Crossposted from dreamwidth. Back in March, I started a full rewatch of the Chorus Trilogy with the purpose of studying its worldbuilding more closely. This series of posts is from that rewatch.

Season 12 is one of those that always held up better on the rewatch than week-to-week. While undeniably enjoyable, episodically it comes off a bit repetitive before you can see the whole arc. I remember at the time having complaints to the tune of multiple episodes in the first half in which the Reds and Blues try to train their soldiers and fail, and multiple episodes in the back half in which they try to evade the pirates, get found, escape, and so forth.

But my biggest beef with season 12 the first time around was definitely how it treats Carolina. I’m not really going to get into that here, because much was said about it and Miles heard the disappointment and he very much rectified things in season 13, and I forgave him! And since then I have only looked more kindly on season 12, appreciating it more and more not just for what comes later, but for what it accomplishes in its own right.

There is so much to talk about in this season that I’m splitting it up—the worldbuilding stuff, which was my primary purpose for this rewatch, will be its own post. In this one, I’m just going to talk about character stuff and general storytelling observations.

I like the way the helmet cam is planted early in the New Republic portion of the season, and paid off at the end when Tucker uses it to outsmart Felix.

I will always remember @farfromdaylight’s theory about Dr. Grey being Control rather fondly, even though in the end I’m glad she turned out not to be, both because Hargrove was a fantastic villain and because the Fed side of things desperately needed some sympathetic characters. I notice how genuinely scared Dr. Grey seems when the pirates attack her base; she sounds equally terrified when the pirates catch up to them at the jungle temple in season 13. Given how rarely her cheerful demeanor breaks, this comes across as sincere.

Yet there is also an odd moment with Dr. Grey, and for me this moment really fed the theory about her being Control. When the mercs offer the Reds and Blues safe passage off the planet, Dr. Grey seems to believe them, and actually encourages the Reds and Blues to take the deal and go home. This seems particularly strange given that she’s witnessed the mercs’ brutality firsthand and seems genuinely afraid of them in other scenes. I still don’t really know what to make of that, or why she would believe the offer to be genuine, other than the fact that narratively it’s useful to have a Chorus character tell them it’s okay to leave so as to increase the impact when they choose to stay.

Dr. Grey also drops a couple of odd worldbuilding elements in dialogue that aren’t really corroborated anywhere else in the text and yet we have no reason to doubt her on them. But we’ll get to those in another post.

This is not quite a new observation, but I am convinced Doyle has never actually been in combat himself. He faints at the sight of a weapon pointed at him, and when he confronts Kimball in downtown Armonia he says, “Don’t make me use this!” and I’m pretty sure his hands shake. It speaks to not simply cowardice but a lack of experience; how that reflects on Doyle’s character honestly depends a lot on how long he’s been the General. If he’s been in the position for a long time, sending a lot of other people to fight and die, the fact that unlike Kimball he’s never seen combat himself just isn’t a cute look.

I think Miles did make a real effort to smooth over the weirdness of the season 10 epilogue, letting Carolina and Epsilon talk a bit about what motivated them to go off alone. It’s still rocky, and I still don’t totally think the epilogue holds up as canon, but I can much more clearly picture how it would happen—Carolina and Church searching the wreck of the Merope for supplies, spotting some pirates boosting cargo, picking up radio chatter about selling a cloaking device, and setting off to investigate. Maybe they don't intend to be gone long, and then one thing leads to another and they travel farther and farther from the crash site, and then when they try to radio back they can’t get through. I tend to think Carolina was not at all sure the others even wanted her around at that point. It’s still weird on both ends, both that Wash seems to know they ran off on purpose (and aren’t, you know, injured or dead) and that it doesn’t occur to Carolina that Wash might not know that. But you know. It helps. An effort was made.

I was always disappointed Carolina and Wash never really talked during the Chorus Trilogy. While I don’t primarily ship them romantically (I enjoy other people’s portrayals of the ship but it’s not one I’m drawn to write myself), their relationship is important to me, in fact one of my favorite relationships in RvB; if you look at my AO3 stats from a few posts back, Agent Carolina & Agent Washington sits just below my two OTPs as my third most commonly-used relationship tag. They are important to me, with their shared history, their sometimes rocky relationship and the understanding they eventually reach. And I’ll admit, I’m partial to seeing characters actually talk things out, especially characters who don’t often open up, as that makes it all the more meaningful.

However, as a long time Rooster Teeth fan I’ve come to recognize that in RT shows, action sequences often serve the same purpose that conversation would for showing character dynamics and relationship growth. “Great Destroyers” served that purpose for Wash and Carolina in season 13, and I’ve come to appreciate that for what it is. But I’ve also come to appreciate some of the small things in season 12 that show their bond. There is a moment, for example, when Epsilon is a massive dick, acts like everyone but him is the problem, and goes offline. Carolina wearily announces she’s going to go check the perimeter. And Wash? Immediately volunteers to go with her. They both sound tired and stressed out. We don’t see them go patrol together, and maybe they don’t even talk. But they go together, for a moment away from the Reds and Blues, and I think that says something.

Much has been said and much will be said about Wash’s writing across RvB’s many arcs; that’s Another Post and one I’ve been working on for some time. But I will say that for me, most of his Chorus writing really does hold up these days. Perhaps I have more appreciation now for any proactive Wash at all, after the crash dummy seasons 15 and 16 made of him. But I like Chorus Wash, even when he’s wrong. I like that he still (consistent with past seasons) has trouble with unfamiliar weapons and prefers a trusty battle rifle. I even like that he’s the one who most conspicuously refuses to take sides in the Chorus conflict, where Donut and Sarge show at least a bit of an affinity for the Feds, and the Captains are pretty invested in the New Republic. Wash has been there, done that, and served the prison sentence when it comes to believing in the wrong cause, and he is not about to throw his allegiance behind either of this planet’s factions. The Reds and Blues are his people now, full stop.

So we come back to that Locus-Wash parallel. And I have to say—this time around, it almost works for me. It works a lot better when I set aside its narrative utility and the way it’s framed, and look at it from both characters’ perspectives mostly independent of one another. I have @hokuton-punch to thank for some of this, as our conversations on my season 11 post have sparked some further thought for me. I’d like to expand my present Locus thoughts into their own post, so I’ll keep it brief here—only say that I think Locus wants to see himself in Wash, wants to see something in Wash that probably isn’t there, while Wash sees in Locus what he doesn’t want to be and lets that drive him to some self-reflection he’s long been avoiding. And that reading mostly works for me, for both characters.

Wash’s fever dream is the stickiest part of it for me, but I think I’ve worked out a reading of that I can live with as well, which will also be another post.

Something else I notice about Locus is that he does not like the plan to use the Reds and Blues to fuel the civil war—pretty much from the minute go. It’s not just a season 11 anomaly that Locus thinks killing the prisoners on the Fed side is a better idea. He does a very poor job of gaining Wash and Donut and Sarge’s sympathy for the Federal Army—to the point that it really doesn’t feel like he’s trying. He repeatedly points out that everything will be fucked if they make contact; even Felix acknowledges Locus’s concerns on that front.

Notably, none of this is Locus having misgivings about the overall mission or about killing. No one can tell me that Locus’s “Like sheep to the pen” and his insisting to Wash repeatedly that he completes his missions at all costs doesn’t sound self-satisfied. Locus is against the plan to divide and use the Reds and Blues, specifically, because he thinks it’s too risky, and he ends up being pretty much right about that.

“They were underestimated,” he says tersely, which might as well be an “I told you so.” I think if it was just Felix he would just say “I told you so” outright, but given Hargrove’s prior history with the Reds and Blues I’m pretty sure this was at least partially his plan—finish off the Chorusans and tie up some of Freelancer’s loose ends in one fell swoop.

I watched all the special features, including the character journals. The Reds and Blues’ journals aren’t super illuminating but they are really entertaining. (Simmons writes BSG fanfic!) Locus’s journal is, in hindsight, really funny. But I’ll have more to say about that in a future post on Locus. For now I will just say: “Could I have been a Freelancer? Or would they have feared me?” is hilarious and Maine would have stuffed this nerd in a locker on day two.

#avian dentistry #chorus trilogy #red vs blue

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