#Like that somehow overrides the fact that both of those are like the most common allergens in existence

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Thoughts on Deltarune Chapter 2

I wasn't even intending to write a Deltarune post, but here we are!

Have some extended ramblings/theorizing about Undertale, Deltarune, and the role of the "Player" vs character agency.

[Warning: full spoilers for ALL routes in both Undertale and Deltarune!]

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Frisk’s Agency in Undertale

So I'm not sure how common this is nowadays (I haven't been following Undertale theories for a while), but I personally prefer the interpretation that there is no "Player" as an in-universe force in Undertale. I think it's a far more elegant story if the fourth wall isn't broken.

I'm also fond of the Narrator Chara and "Chara isn't pure evil until Murder Route teaches them to be" interpretations too.

And, of course, the third plank bridging those two is that I don't see Frisk as a just a pure, innocent cinnamon roll.

Because I like the story best when it's Frisk who chooses mercy or murder. It gives Frisk a much more complex character, if they are allowed to have the capacity for both immense kindness and immense cruelty. It even gives them an interesting implied character arc, if you take the natural progression path of True Pacifist > Murder Fun Times > Soulless Pacifist.

Just like Flowey, Frisk first tried to use their powers of Determination for good, but eventually they also grew curious and began to see the world as a game. And then they went too far and ultimately regretted it. Regretted it so much, in fact, that they were willing to sell their soul for just a chance to fix it.

After all, it's not you, the "Player," whose SOUL Chara wants. It's you, Frisk.

I also dislike the idea of an in-universe "Player" because that implies that "Frisk" is nothing but an empty shell - on ALL routes. All of those heartwarming moments in the True Pacifist route? All of the silly Flirt actions? Yeah, that's not Frisk, that's just as much the "Player" puppeting some poor kid's body as the events of the Bad Times.

Who knows what Frisk is truly like if their every action - good or ill - is controlled by some unseen, eldritch force? Now Frisk no longer has any characterization.

And given that said force overrides Frisk's agency, then isn't the "Player" evil no matter which route you take? It's become a story where they only "moral" choice is never to pick up the game at all. Hrm.

Anyway, but that's all Undertale. Which brings me to...

What the heck is going on in Deltarune?

Unlike Frisk=the Red SOUL in Undertale, we don't seem to control Kris=the Red SOUL in Deltarune. The game repeatedly underlines that the player only controls the Red SOUL, not Kris.

(Though, with stuff like the sound of the bathroom faucet only being audible when Kris's actual body is nearby - it seems like even when separated, the Red SOUL may still be perceiving through Kris's other senses besides sight...?)

With Spamton's dialogue and Kris's reaction after the non-Weird NEO fight, there's also a lot more emphasis in Deltarune of Kris (and the rest of the party!) being puppeted by some other force. And that's on top of all the stuff in the first chapter highlighting Kris/the Red SOUL's lack of agency.

Because of all those hints, Deltarune seems to be much more explicitly pointing toward that dark interpretation of Undertale - that the "Player"/Red SOUL is removing Kris's agency, regardless of route.

Indeed, I'm somewhat intrigued by the possibility that we/the Red SOUL might be forcing Kris to act nice just as much as we force them to act cruel. The way that Kris deliberately removes the Red SOUL in order to do some very suspicious actions might support that. As do some comments in Chapter 1, like characters in the post-Dark World walkaround noting how Kris is being less weird and more inquisitive than usual. Maybe Kris is the Knight and the Red SOUL is possessing them to undo their evil actions. Maybe the real Kris doesn't want to be friends with Susie and Ralsei at all!

But taking that interpretation to such an extreme also doesn't quite fit. Why does Kris slash the tires on Toriel's car? The only reason I can think of is that they want to keep Susie at their house. And why does Kris create the Dark World in their house? Is Kris creating the fountains because they want to have fun with friends? Especially right after the chapter emphasized how great the Dark World adventures were, that seems very likely.

There are also some smaller details too, of Kris interpreting the Red SOUL's input with their own spin (like saying things sarcastically), or of Kris chatting in a friendly way with Ralsei which the player/SOUL can't influence.

So, I'm pretty sure that even outside of the Red SOUL's control, Kris genuinely does like their friends.

Meanwhile, there were a lot of hints this chapter that Something Bad happened to Kris, Noelle, Dess, and Asriel when they went exploring in the forest by the graveyard. Most likely, they went into that ominous bunker south of the town. Is that incident related to Kris’s current strangeness?

And then, and THEN, there's the Snow Mercy route. That route seems to imply that the Red SOUL is both evil, and very much not Kris. Noelle says Kris isn't like themself, that their voice changes strangely, and she can still hear the creepy voice even when Kris is downed.

How to make sense of this all?

A Theory on Kris and the Red SOUL

One idea is that as scary and zombie-like as Kris looks without the SOUL, they're probably a nice, if lonely kid who desperately wants friends after their big brother went to college. (And possibly after something traumatic happened to them/their neighbor.) They're creating the Dark Worlds for the sake of fun and escapism.

But the Red SOUL puts an end to Kris's happy fantasies. Indeed, if the Red SOUL gives up, "the world is covered in darkness." So without the Red SOUL, would Kris simply keep creating fountains...? (What ARE the fountains, why can Kris and theoretically any Lightener create them?)

Maybe in the normal route, the Red SOUL is trying to gently help Kris move on and accept reality in some way. At the very least, I suspect Ralsei is working toward this goal.

But in that case... that's a pretty strange way for the Red SOUL to go about it, forcibly taking control of Kris to the point that the kid notices and seems to greatly resent it.

But what if the Red SOUL didn't have a choice about this arrangement either?

After all, the Red SOUL's customized vessel was discarded at the start of Chapter 1... and it was placed into Kris instead.

Here's a question: will Kris die if they're without a SOUL for too long?

Because there are an awful lot of moments in these games where characters break free of something they are bound to, but it doesn't end well: -Spamton collapses when his strings are cut. -The Darkeners can move freely outside their origin world for a while, but eventually turn to statues if they stay in another world. -Regardless of whether Berdly removes the Queen’s wires himself, he's exhausted and unable to fight any more after being under her control. -And when Kris takes the Red SOUL out of their body, their movements become slow and clumsy. Like it's a struggle for them to move at all.

Meanwhile in Undertale, post-Pacifist Asriel could maintain his form to say goodbye, but without SOUL(s), he inevitably returns to being Flowey.

So here's a theory: Kris died and/or lost their original soul. Perhaps due to some action/inaction on Noelle's part in the exploration incident. And as a last-ditch resort to keep them alive, the Red SOUL was somehow implanted in Kris.

(Also maybe Dess died/went missing at the same time...?)

And now, the Red SOUL the only thing keeping Kris around. 

But just like in Undertale, it seems like Deltarune SOULs have wills of their own.

Which means Kris's current state is similar to the Chara-Asriel fusion, or Omega Flowey, or even Frisk-Chara. Control of the body is shared. The difference is that instead of the SOUL we play representing the original owner/will of the body, this time the SOUL we're playing as is the intruder.

Essentially, this time around we are playing the role of the Chara-equivalent instead of the Frisk-equivalent!

(Though whether Kris themself is more of Chara or Frisk I’ll leave to other theorists...)

Anyway, while Kris likely wishes to be rid of the SOUL and dislikes this whole body sharing arrangement, they know they can't survive without it. And perhaps Kris being in a partially soulless state might explain why they do questionable stuff like creating Dark Worlds and slashing their mom's car tires in order to play with their friends. (Again, see also: Asriel/Flowey.)

But when the Red SOUL and Kris are in alignment, things go okay. The Red SOUL suggests commands, but Kris is willing to follow and seems to enjoy being with Susie and Ralsei.  

Let’s Talk About Snow Mercy

It's when the Red SOUL and Kris aren't in alignment... well. That seems to be what's happening in the Snow Mercy route. That kind of situation sure didn't go so hot with Frisk and Chara in Undertale, so I doubt this will end nicely for Kris and the Red SOUL either. At the very least, Kris seems to have been visibly upset after what happened with Noelle in this route.

(By the way, there are two other moments in Chapter 2 when Susie asks if Kris is okay - first after the normal Spamton NEO fight and subsequent discussion of what it meant and second after she and Kris approach the bunker.

Three different moments, but Kris appears to react similarly. Are all of these things related? The bunker, Kris being puppeted, and the events of the Snow Mercy route?)

Meanwhile, here’s a contrast. Undertale's Murder Route seemed to exist for the sake of curiosity and power - either the "Player" or Frisk's desires, whichever interpretation you subscribe to. And the changes to the world were all logical consequences of that - because of the Fallen Child's rampage, friendly NPCs disappear, major characters fight you more seriously, etc.

But the actions in Snow Mercy are... weirdly specific, weirdly unpredictable. It doesn't come across as a simple power trip. Instead, Snow Mercy is a bunch of really bizarre actions that feel even more mysterious to the player as they are to Noelle and Kris. I sure wouldn't have guessed that backtracking to the trash heap and freezing a bunch of enemies would lead to new items spontaneously appearing and then giving Noelle access to a scary new spell. It's like something straight out of a creepypasta!

The overall tone that comes across to me is that the Red SOUL seems to know what it's doing, even while the player is kept in the dark. And given Noelle's responses, it almost seems like the SOUL is trying to remind her of events/actions from her past, events which are obviously unknown to the player. All of which leads me to think that the Red SOUL has motives and goals of its own... so just like Undertale, this probably isn't a situation of the "Player" being a fourth wall-breaking force either.

The Red SOUL is its own character.

And I'm certainly curious to find out more about them!

#undertale #deltarune #deltarune chapter 2 #frisk #kris #chara #noelle #the red soul #no separate player #undertale analysis #deltarune analysis #my ramblings #read more #is this my first ever deltarune/undertale analysis post? #huh I think it is! #haha I guess I've always just been a reader until now

[whenisitenoughtrees]

infinity, and beyond

He remembers the first time he kissed Janus. He remembers the way they were curled up against each other, the lights dimmed and the television on low volume, neither of them paying attention to the images on the screen. It was messy and terrible, as far as kisses go, and Patton loved every moment of it, and when they pulled away from each other, they were both breathless, smiling, and he knew then that what he felt, Janus felt too.

He remembers, too, the moment he heard about Virgil.

It's not every day that your husband's long-lost kid breaks into your house. It's not every day that you find out your husband of four years is an alien.

Patton's just trying to roll with the punches.

Content Warnings: threats of violence, mild body horror, brief, non-graphic panic attack

Word Count: 7,168

Pairings: Moceit, parental Anxceit

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

Patton’s day begins with a teenager holding a knife to his throat.

Technically, the day has already begun; it is mid-morning, the sun inching steadily toward noon. But Patton has barely been awake an hour, has been sitting at the kitchen table with his mug of coffee, staring at all the final exams he has yet to grade as he waits for his brain to start functioning. He likes Saturday mornings; he would go so far as to say that they’re usually his favorite part of the week, because usually, Saturday mornings mean sleeping in, wrapped in his husband’s arms, and later, a big brunch and a lazy day. But today, an emergency called Janus into the office, and he has a backlog of grading to finish this weekend, so here he is. Squinting, bleary-eyed, and with a sad lack of a husband to keep him company.

That is when the teenager appears.

Appears, because there is no better word for what happens. There is no break-in, no slamming of doors or shattering of windows. One minute, he is alone, and the next, there is another person in the kitchen, a young person who can’t be any older than seventeen or eighteen, and Patton barely has time to process that before they lunge for him, knocking him from his chair and to the floor, pinning him against the cool tile.

It takes a second to process the bite of cold, sharp metal against his throat, but as soon as he does, Patton wakes up very, very quickly.

“Please—” he tries, but the teenager hisses at him, actually hisses, and through the panic that is filling his mind and drowning out all logical thought, Patton realizes that something about this isn’t right. Something beyond the fact that there is a knife against his throat and oh god oh god oh god there is a knife against his throat—

The teenager opens their mouth, their face set in a harsh, threatening glare— and it’s their face, there’s something wrong about their face but he can’t quite— but the sounds that come out are gibberish, something guttural and rasping and nothing like any language that Patton has ever heard.

“Please,” he gasps, his voice thin and high and terrified, “please, I don’t know what you’re saying, I can’t—”

He breaks off, because he thinks that if he tries to say any more, it will come out as nonsensical crying, and somehow, he doesn’t particularly think that this person will be swayed by something like that.

The teenager’s lips twist into an impressive scowl, and with the hand not holding the knife, they reach for the pocket of their— hoodie? If it’s a hoodie, it doesn’t quite look like one. It’s something about the fabric, something about the way it moves as they do, but Patton can’t spend energy on figuring that out right now. He tenses as they root around in their pocket, clearly searching for something, and muttering to themself in that same garbled speech pattern. They come up holding something, and Patton can only catch a glimpse of it— what looks like a small, silver disk— before their hand is moving, clapping it against and then inside his ear and—

There is a moment of sharp, almost blinding pain, starting with his ear and shooting through his skull, and then nothing, and he struggles to regain his breath.

“I said,” the teenager growls, “where is he?”

Patton blinks. The sounds they are making are still the same, are still strange and incomprehensible, only, they’re not exactly, because they resolve into recognizable words inside his brain, and if he hadn’t been panicked before, this would definitely be enough to do the job, because what exactly did this person just shove inside his ear?

“What—” he starts, and then the words themselves catch up to him. “Where is who?”

The teenager growls— and it is truly a growl, like an animal would make— and presses the knife in closer. Patton valiantly resists the urge to whimper.

“Don’t fucking play with me,” they snap, and somewhere, back in some hysterical portion of Patton’s mind, he is tempted to chide them for their language. “His DNA signature is all over this fucking house, so where is he? What’ve you done with him?”

Patton can only stare.

Part of his mind has devoted itself to putting the pieces together, no matter the impossible picture they form. Part of his mind is taking in the pale skin that isn’t white at all, but rather a light purple, the way their facial features are just a bit too sharp, a bit too angular to be those of a typical young adult, the way that the spots under and around their eyes aren’t makeup, but instead move, twitching to and fro in unison with their gaze, and that alone is almost enough to send him spiraling, to draw him toward a conclusion that can’t possibly be true, that he can’t possibly comprehend.

The rest of his mind devotes itself to being astonished.

“Are you talking about Janus?” he asks, and he can’t keep the incredulity from his voice.

He doesn’t know which seems more unlikely to him, that this strange, violent, maybe-probably not human person has broken into his house and is threatening him with a sharp knife, or that this strange, violent, maybe-probably not human person is looking for his husband. His husband, who makes him breakfast in bed in the mornings and tea in the afternoons, when he has too many essays to look over and a headache pounding behind his eyes. His husband, who bristles and snarks at everyone around him, who works a corporate job he dislikes and comes home exhausted and irritated at the end of the day and still smiles, that soft, sweet smile that is meant only for him, that nobody else is privileged enough to see. His husband, who he has been married to for four years now, the best four years of his life, who he fell in love with in coffee shops and movie theaters and in the rain, that one day when they were caught out in the park without their umbrellas and had to run all the way home, soaking wet but giggling, grinning and knocking into each other.

His husband, who refuses to talk about his past beyond a sentence or two, here and there, brief anecdotes that never reveal much at all. But Patton has never needed to know his past to know him, and even now, when it seems that his secrets have burst into their shared life in the most violent way possible, disrupting all sense of equilibrium and turning the world on its head, he refuses to believe that there is any secret so great as to force a divide between them.

The teenager— if that is what they are, if the appearance of youth is an accurate indication at all— bares their teeth, teeth that are too sharp, too pointed, teeth that scream predator. “Who else?” they demand. “I won’t fucking ask again. Where is he?”

“He’s not— He’s not here,” he manages. “He’s at work, I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

Please, let that satisfy them. Please, let them leave. Please, let Janus come home. Please, let Janus not come home, let him stay at the office, far away and safe. Please, let him come home and tell me what’s going on, why this is happening, who this is and how they know each other. Please, please, please.

He doesn’t know what he wants. Doesn’t know that he wants to know what he wants.

“Yeah, right,” they say, and he would be insulted by their skepticism if he had room for any emotion other than fear. “That’s likely. You could have him cut up in the basement for all I know.”

He gapes, stunned by the accusation. And for a moment, his indignation is enough to override all common sense, ignore all the impossibilities of the person holding him to the floor, ignore the knife pressing up against his skin. Because, well, first of all, he has no idea where that idea came from, but the very thought that he would do something like that at all, much less to—

“Cut—” he starts, and has to try again, because he can’t wrap his head around the notion, around the idea that that could potentially be something he would want to do, that that is the first thing this person thinks to accuse him of. “Cut up? Janus is my husband.”

Their eyes widen. “Your what?”

“My husband,” he repeats, the reaction emboldening him. “We’ve been married for four years.”

They blink at him, and it’s a motion that takes up their entire face rather than just their eyes, because those moving dots… those are eyes, too. Patton can’t deny it, can’t deny that this person, whatever they are, has eight eyes. Eight eyes, just like a spider, and his outrage fizzles out in the face of that realization, fades back into terror, into a racing pulse and breaths that come too short and quick, and he is confused now too, confused at what this person wants, because their words almost seem to suggest that they don’t want to see Janus harmed at all, that they think he is the threat. That they think he is a threat to Janus.

But Patton isn’t the one with the knife.

“Please,” he says. “Please, just, you can look around the house, there’s pictures of us. We’re together, we’re happy, and I don’t know what you want, but just please, please don’t hurt him.”

“Don’t hurt him?” they repeat, and somehow, whatever strange translation system is at work in his head manages to convey their disbelieving tone. “What the hell are you talking about?”

They seem surprised that Patton is making the insinuation at all, and Patton can’t help the incredulous noise that escapes him.

“You’re holding a knife to my throat!” he all but shrieks, the words ripping out of him at a much higher volume than he intends. “What am I supposed to think you want?”

They make a strangled sound, one that his mind doesn’t resolve into words.

“You—”

And then, they stop, tilting their head. A moment later, Patton hears it too, and dread forms a heavy weight in the pit of his stomach. There is a clattering sound, a key turning in the lock, and the unmistakable creak as the front door opens. The teenager stands, suddenly, a fluid motion, but Patton is frozen in place, barely noticing the removal of the knife and the pressure holding him down, too busy trying to think of a way out of this, or to protect Janus, if worst comes to worst. He’s trembling so hard that he’s not sure how quickly he’ll be able to get up, but once he does, he’s in the kitchen. There are weapons here. All he has to do is grab one, no matter how ill it makes him feel to use his cooking instruments in such a way.

He won’t let this person hurt Janus. Not if he has any say.

“I’m home, love!” Janus’ voice drifts through the house, smooth and unconcerned. There is a familiar thump; that will be his briefcase hitting the floor, and then a rustle of clothing as he sheds his suit jacket. His footsteps draw nearer, and even as the person’s face shifts into an expression Patton has no hope of interpreting, he readies himself to leap to his feet, to fight if need be.

“I just love when idiots call me in for an issue that it would take someone with half a brain twenty minutes to solve,” Janus says, sounding terribly exasperated, and normally, this is when Patton would go to him and give him a hug, would lean his chin on his shoulder and hold him close, or at the very least call out to respond to him. But he stays still and quiet, and the footsteps pause.

“Patton?” He sounds uncertain now, but he’s coming closer again, and Patton finds himself staring fixedly at the entryway to the kitchen, raising his head from the floor to see. Oddly enough, the teenager stands stock still, making no motion to turn to where Janus will appear in mere seconds.

And then, there he is, and Patton cannot help the instantaneous flood of relief at seeing him, at seeing Janus, his husband, poised and confident and unharmed and here. He stands on the threshold, adjusting the gloves on his hands, and Patton watches as his face transitions from calm to confusion to something between anger and fear as he takes in the scene, the toppled chair and rumpled papers, the figure standing in the midst of it all, knife clutched in one hand. And then, he locks gazes with Patton himself, and his eyes blow wide with worry even as the rest of his face schools itself.

“And just who the fuck are you?” he demands of the person. To anyone else, he would sound completely collected, but Patton knows him too well to miss the tremor in his voice.

The person doesn’t move.

“I’d appreciate an answer,” Janus continues. “I’d also appreciate it if you’d step away from my husband.” Janus gives him a tight smile, one that is probably meant to be reassuring, and he returns it as best he can.

And then, slowly, the person pivots on their heel, putting their back to Patton. He can no longer see their facial expression, blank and unhelpful though it was, but he can see Janus’ perfectly well, and as such, he can see the way he holds onto his cool anger for all of five seconds, before it shifts into undiluted shock. His face pales, his lips parting slightly, and he actually takes one stumbling, hesitant step forward, and Patton’s heart begins beating triple time because he has no idea what could make him react like this.

And then, the person speaks.

“Janus,” they say, and the noises that spill from their mouth remain strange and unfamiliar, but somehow, Patton hears the wetness in the name, the fragility, the desperate hope. The knife goes clattering to the floor.

Janus makes a sound, wounded, astonished, and Patton has never heard anything like that come from his husband’s throat, and it scares him.

“Virgil?” he rasps, and evidently, that is all this person needs, because they launch themself forward, and Patton’s instincts scream at him to try to stop them, to leap at them or grab at their hoodie or do something. But Janus’ arms open wide to receive them, and then the two of them are hugging, holding each other tightly, and from here, Patton can see the way Janus’ hands fist in the odd material of the teenager’s clothing, the way he buries his face in their shoulder, and Patton has never been more lost.

Virgil. He recognizes the name, he thinks, and it only takes a moment to summon the memory from the depths of his mind, blurred with age and the faint buzz of alcohol and the heat of the summer night. But Virgil rings out in his mind as clear as a bell, somehow bringing more questions and few answers, because none of this makes any sense at all, because one night, two and a half years ago, Janus told him that he had a son, and that he loved him, and that he lost him, and that his name was Virgil, and then he refused to say any more, and Patton let it go in favor of holding him because the look of devastation on Janus’ face was like none he had ever seen before.

So, this cannot be Virgil. But surely, Janus would know the face of his own son, would never embrace a stranger, and would never embrace… whatever this person is, because Janus is sharp and Janus is observant, and he has most certainly picked up on all their unusual features, on all the ways that they cannot possibly be human. So that means that this must be Virgil after all, and Patton can only watch as they cling to each other, like they’re both afraid the other will disappear if they let go.

And Patton doesn’t know what this means.

-----------

He remembers the first time he kissed Janus. He remembers the way they were curled up against each other, the lights dimmed and the television on low volume, neither of them paying attention to the images on the screen. They stared at each other for a long time before he leaned in, before he dared to take the initiative, and he has never felt happier than in the moment when Janus met him halfway, pressing his lips firmly against his, their noses knocking into each other, their teeth almost clacking together as they sought more, more contact, more closeness. It was messy and terrible, as far as kisses go, and Patton loved every moment of it, and when they pulled away from each other, they were both breathless, smiling, and he knew then that what he felt, Janus felt too.

He remembers, too, the moment he heard about Virgil. He remembers, because he knows only fragments of Janus’ past, a past that he is certain is dark and full of sorrow, and that is why he has never pushed for more than what Janus is willing to give, content to gather up the bits and pieces he is offered and guard them close.

Most of the surrounding conversation is hazy, blurred by one too many glasses of fine wine and a summer heat wave that permeated every inch of the apartment they rented at the time, no matter the efforts of the air conditioner to banish it. But he remembers the way Janus quieted, all of a sudden, face still and contemplative and sad in a way that made his heart clench.

“Have I ever told you,” he said, “that I have a son?”

And he could only stare and shake his head; the answer, of course, was no, the revelation so unexpected that he had no idea how to react.

Janus smiled, small and bitter, like a gash in his face, bleeding him dry. “I do,” he said. “He’s beyond my reach, now. I won’t be able to see him again.”

He remembers he made a noise, tiny and shocked, and that he stretched a hand out, placed it on his, and Janus accepted the touch readily enough.

“His name is Virgil,” Janus continued. “I think he would like you. At least, I hope he would.” He tilted his head, eyes distant. “He’s prickly, slow to trust, abrasive in general. But he’s a good kid. Was a good kid. I suppose he’s not… well. It’s been five years, now.” He closed his eyes, bowing his head. “He would like you,” he repeated, sounding more than a little broken. “He would like you.”

And he didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know what to say at all, his words failing him. So he tugged him closer with both arms, leaning him against his chest and rocking him gently, holding him close, and Janus pressed into the contact and didn’t say anything else.

He drew the conclusion that Virgil was dead, died tragically young, somehow. Looking back, he’s not sure how he arrived there, when Janus used the present tense the entire time, quite clearly speaking as though Virgil was alive and well, just somewhere he couldn’t go.

He thinks he might understand that part a bit better now, at least, though most of it refuses to sink in. But the facts are these: Virgil, if this is Virgil, cannot possibly be human. No human looks like he does. And this fact, too, leaves Patton with far more questions than answers.

-----------

“You did what?”

Janus’ voice is loud, sharp, and it brings Patton back to the present in an instant. He doesn’t know how much time has passed while he ruminated, tried to fit all the puzzle pieces together while well aware that he only has about half of them, but Janus and Virgil have drawn back from each other, Janus’ face twisted in alarm.

“We did research before I came down here!” Virgil says. “I’ve seen what humans want to do to us! For all I knew, he’d locked you up in a room and dissected you.”

Ah. So Janus isn’t pleased that his son—his son, his son, this is Janus’ son, his husband’s son— threatened Patton with a knife. Patton would feel more gratified if he weren’t stuck on us, trying desperately to ignore the voice that whispers in the back of his mind, the one that says, well, doesn’t that make sense? Virgil’s not human, that much is obvious, so doesn’t that mean that Janus is—

“You—”

And for the first time since he recognized Virgil, named him aloud, Janus looks at Patton, and Patton looks back, unsure of exactly what emotion is showing on his face. Confusion, probably; lord knows he’s feeling enough of it right now. But for whatever reason, Janus’ expression crumples, and he gently places his hand on Virgil’s shoulder, moving him to the side.

“Virgil,” he says quietly, and for the first time, Patton realizes that he isn’t speaking English at all, but rather, that same unfamiliar language that Virgil has been utilizing, the one that morphs in his head into something that makes sense. “I… need a moment.”

“But we only just—” Virgil begins, turning so that he can see both of them at once. And then, he stops, something odd passing across his face, something that Patton can’t interpret at all. “So you really are… with him.”

“Yes.”

“But he doesn’t know,” Virgil states.

Janus closes his eyes. “No,” he says.

Virgil is silent for a long moment. “Alright,” he says. “I’ll just… go in this other room, I guess. Over here.” And with that, he backs out of the kitchen and into the living room, disappearing from Patton’s line of sight.

Patton glances back to Janus, who is just standing there, still as stone, staring at him, and he opens his mouth, fully intending to chide him for talking about him, or about something tangentially related to him, at least, like he’s not sitting right here. But no sound comes out of his mouth, and suddenly, he finds himself wheezing, gasping for breath as the events of the past few minutes crash over him, and oh god, how is he supposed to process this, reconcile himself to this, because he knew his husband had secrets and he still doesn’t think he understands fully but he does understand just enough to know that everything he thought he knew is not as it seems and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with this and—

“Breathe, Patton,” Janus says, and a gloved hand appears in his vision. He grasps it thankfully, squeezing it tight, and the contact serves to ground him, allows him to calm his panic, little by little, until his mind clears enough to realize that Janus is kneeling in front of him, expression twisted into some awful combination of worry and apprehension and a hesitance that Patton has not seen in a long, long time, not since the earliest days of their relationship, when Janus seemed so uncertain that his affections were welcomed or wanted at all, and Patton had to work so hard to convince him otherwise.

But before he can do something to comfort him, Janus draws into himself, pulling his hand back and looking at the ground. “I suppose you have questions,” he says, and Patton almost laughs at the understatement, restraining himself at the last second.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and he wants to reach out, wants to take Janus’ hand again, but Janus’ body language is so closed off that he’s not sure any touch at all would be welcome. “So, uh, that’s Virgil.”

Janus nods.

“Your son, Virgil.”

Janus nods again, his eyes flickering up for a moment and then back to the floor again.

“I’m sorry he acted the way he did,” he murmurs. “He was scared for me, so he jumped to the worst possible conclusion.”

“There was no harm done,” Patton replies, matching his soft tone. “I mean, that was really scary. I was scared. I think I still am. But I’m not hurt, and everything’s turned out okay.” Even as the words leave his mouth, he has no idea whether he’s telling the truth or not. Have things turned out okay? Have they really? He feels like they’re dancing around the most important subject, the elephant in the room, and what’s more than that, they both know they’re doing it, neither of them quite willing to broach the topic.

But they need to. So Patton does.

“He’s not…” He pauses, taking a breath, marshaling all the courage he has left in him. “He’s not human.”

The statement hangs in the air between them, like a comma in a sentence, waiting for the inevitable continuation.

Janus shakes his head, just slightly, the motion so small that Patton might have missed it had he not been looking. “No,” he says, “he’s not.” And he falls silent, unwilling to elaborate, still unwilling to so much as meet Patton’s eyes, and that leaves the impetus of the conversation on him, doesn’t it? It leaves him to voice the rest, to dare to seek confirmation of a fact that half an hour ago, would have been too unbelievable to consider. Still is, to be frank.

“He’s… an alien. He’s not from earth,” he says, putting off the inevitable for as long as possible. He stares at his husband, who he loves, who he cherishes, who he treasures, who he thought he knew. And he still does, surely, because he knows what Janus is like, knows who he is if not what he is, and that has to be enough. He’s determined to make it enough. “So… are you? An alien, I mean?”

The question is out there, now. There is no taking it back. And Janus looks up at him, finally, expression pained.

“Yes,” he says simply, and Patton has to take a moment to breathe, to wrest his spiraling thoughts back under control, because what exactly is he supposed to make of this? This feels too big for him, too vast and too shocking and too incomprehensible, and nothing, nothing has ever prepared him for this possibility.

“Okay,” he says, even though he feels like it’s really not. “Okay. That’s… okay. I need a second to, um. I just need a second.”

“Of course,” Janus says, inclining his head, and then he moves as if to stand, and no, that is absolutely not what Patton wants, so he grabs at his sleeve with one hand. Janus freezes, staring at the spot where his fingers connect with his shirt.

“That doesn’t mean I want you to leave,” he says, his voice coming out somewhere between cross and petulant. “I can have a second perfectly well with you here.”

“Oh,” Janus says, settling back on the floor. He looks more than a little bit lost, as if he can’t fathom why Patton would want him to stay, and that does hurt a bit, the implication that he thinks Patton might not want him anymore, because of this. Which, he supposes it’s a rational fear; it is, after all, a rather large secret to drop on someone four years into a marriage. But Patton just needs time to process, and once he has, he thinks he’ll be alright.

So, he closes his eyes, focusing on the texture of Janus’ sleeve against his fingers, soft and silky.

What does this change, really? A lot, obviously, but how much of that actually matters? Does Janus being an alien change the fact that he always eats the last of the ice cream, or that he insists on doing the dishes by hand, or that he cried when Bambi’s mom died even though he pretended not to so that he could comfort Patton? Does it change the fact that he’s a terrible blanket hog, or that he denies loving to cuddle but instantly latches onto Patton the moment they’re both in bed together, or that he always seems to know just what to do or say when Patton is tired and sad and all the world feels gray?

Does it change that he loves him?

No. No, it can’t possibly affect any of that at all. And he’s known that all along, really, the realization lurking just under the surface, waiting for him to have it on his own time. He feels relief flood him, because alright. His husband is an alien. It’s going to take a long time for him to be used to that. But he’ll be damned before he lets that come between them.

He opens his eyes.

“I love you,” he says, and he puts all of his sincerity, all of the reassurance he can muster into those three words. And he is prepared to say more, to go on at length about all the reasons why, but Janus winces, turns his head away.

“You can’t say that,” he says. “Patton, you don’t even know what I look like.”

He frowns. Janus’ tone edges on defeat, on something uncomfortably close to despair, and he doesn’t like that at all.

“I’m looking at you right now,” he tries, but Janus just shakes his head.

“I’m a shapeshifter,” he says, cold and biting and yet, still reluctant, as if the admission is being ripped from him. “I literally hide my true appearance from you on a daily basis. I’m not human, and I don’t look like one, not when I’m not trying to.” He turns back to him then, meets his eyes, and it’s almost like a challenge, as if he’s certain in his words, certain that Patton will turn his back on him over something like appearance. And it’s true, this new admission throws him for a bit of a loop, but he thinks if he can accept the fact that he is married to an actual alien, he can accept this, too.

Janus is a very attractive man. But Patton didn’t marry him for his looks. And no matter what sort of alien he is, no matter what he’s hiding, whether it’s tentacles or feathers or extra eyes or what-have-you, Patton will love him just the same. What concerns him most is that Janus doesn’t seem to know that, seems to think that this will be the deal-breaker, will be what sends Patton running. And he is expecting Patton to run; that is becoming increasingly clear with every passing minute.

He spent a lot of time, early on in their relationship, showing Janus that he cared about him, showing Janus that he was allowed to be cared for. He didn’t expect to have to do it again, didn’t expect to have to prove his affections once more, four years into a happy marriage, but he will do whatever it takes.

“Then show me,” he says softly, and pitches his words carefully, trying to make it seem like a request and not a demand, trying to make sure Janus knows that he doesn’t have to do anything at all, not if he doesn’t want to. “Show me what you look like.”

Janus laughs, short and sharp, like a razor’s edge. He passes a hand across his face, and Patton’s fingers finally slip from his sleeve. He removes his hat, and then, to Patton’s surprise, he begins to unbutton his shirt, shrugging it from his shoulders, and then follows that with his gloves. Patton watches as the garments hit the floor, suddenly anxious, though he tries not to show it. Whatever Janus is about to show him, it is crucial that he doesn’t allow himself to have a negative knee-jerk reaction, doesn’t allow himself to recoil before his head and heart catch up to his instincts.

Even if Janus turns into… a giant spider person, or something equally scary, he’ll still love him. He knows that, knows that there is nothing that Janus could do or be to make him stop, but what is most important right now is making sure that Janus knows that.

Janus doesn’t say anything else, just settles back firmly on his haunches, bracing his hands against his thighs, shutting his eyes. And his face slides into something blank, into something impassive, but for just a moment, Patton thinks he sees a flicker of apprehension, even of fear, and he wants nothing more to reach out, to insist that everything is going to be alright. But he knows that Janus won’t believe him right now, will shrug off any touch, so he restrains himself, and watches as Janus begins to change.

It’s slow, at first, subtle. His skin almost seems to ripple in place, and then it— flips, for lack of a better word. It reminds him of Mystique from the X-Men movies, or one of those sequined pillows or shirts that has another color on the other side, revealed when you rub the sequins the other way. His skin flips, and in its place is scales, smooth and gleaming, in dappled patterns all across the left side of his face and down his chest. And as Patton stares, utterly fascinated, they move and shift across his body, curling into different designs and reflecting different colors, green and brown and yellow. And where his skin is still bare, it seems to even out, any blemishes disappearing, and it takes on a slightly yellow tint.

And Patton is so occupied by this that he almost doesn’t see the extra arms, folding out of seemingly nowhere, two extra pairs, one resting limp at his side and the other curling around his abdomen protectively. Three pairs of arms, six hands, each one now tipped with sharp claws, and Patton gapes at them, allowing himself one moment of pure surprise before turning his attention back to Janus’ face.

It looks sharper, more angular, a bit thinner, just different enough to throw him off balance a bit. But looking at Janus, his eyes screwed shut and lips pressed into a thin line, as if awaiting judgment, he can only see his husband there, not the stranger he half feared would take his place.

And the scales, well. The scales are lovely. They shimmer and shine in the light, and Patton can’t quite tell what color they’re trying to be, nor if there is any meaning to their movements across Janus’ skin, but he is captivated by them, by their twisting, shifting beauty. They almost look as if they are dancing.

So, he does the only thing he can think to do, and reaches out to caress his face.

Janus starts, eyes flying open, jerking back, but Patton pursues him, tracing his thumb across his cheekbone. The scales there are smooth and cool to the touch, just slightly bumpy, and Patton runs his fingertips across them, learning their shape and feel. Then, Janus makes a whimpering sound, and he freezes, watching him for any additional reaction.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Should I not do that? Does it hurt?”

“No,” Janus says, almost a stutter, “no. It— feels good. It’s just, I’m not used to—” He breaks off, shuddering, and he presses his face into Patton’s hand. His eyes are open wide, flitting across Patton’s face, and he realizes that his eyes have changed, too. One is the familiar, warm brown that Patton is used to, but the other is golden-yellow and slit, like a cat, or like a snake, and it’s quite possibly one of the most gorgeous things that Patton has ever seen.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he says. “You’ve been so scared, haven’t you?”

At any other time, he thinks that Janus would deny it. Janus has never been one to admit to his own vulnerabilities, has always preferred to cover everything up in a layer of sarcasm and insults and misdirection, and on the worst days, even he has trouble getting him to admit that something is wrong. But now, Janus just shakes against his hand, his whole body trembling, and says nothing at all.

“I’m so sorry you felt like you needed to hide this,” he tells him. “I think you’re beautiful.”

“I have six arms,” Janus says hoarsely, as if he thinks Patton can’t see them. “Patton, I— I have scales, I have six arms, I have—”

He cuts off with a strangled gasp as Patton grasps one of his hands, one of the new ones, one of the ones hanging at his sides, and brings it up to his lips, planting a gentle kiss on his knuckles.

“They’re very nice arms,” he tells him. “And I think it’s ridiculous that I could have been having six-armed hugs this entire time. Don’t think I’m not going to have you make up for that, mister.”

Janus laughs wetly, and this time, it’s more genuine, and laced with surprise. There are tears in his eyes, Patton realizes, tears in his eyes and beginning to streak down his cheeks, and he reaches out to wipe them away on autopilot. Janus shivers every time he makes contact with a scale, but his eyes never leave his face.

“I love you,” Patton says. “I love you, all of you, no matter what you look like or what planet you’re from. I’d love you if you were a slimy tentacle alien like in the movies. I’d love you if you had an extra head, or, or a really long neck, or if you were secretly two feet tall and bright blue. And I told you on our wedding day that I would follow you to the ends of the earth, do you remember that? But I only said that because I didn’t know that going further was an option.”

He scoots a bit closer, removing his hand from Janus’ face so that he can grab two hands at once, not paying attention to which ones. Janus’ breath hitches.

“If you honestly think,” he says seriously, “that you could ever do anything to get rid of me, you’ve got another thing coming.”

And at that, Janus lets out a sob, loud and messy, and throws himself forward, colliding with Patton’s chest. It’s an awkward angle for a hug, but Patton is too preoccupied to care, is too busy bringing his arms up to hold him, rubbing circles into his back and tracing the scales he finds there. And he’s basking in the sensation, too, drinking in the fact that there are six arms hugging him right now, clutching at him tightly, holding onto the fabric of his shirt for dear life, and he has never felt so safe, never felt so warm. So he relaxes into his husband’s embrace, embraces him in turn, lets him weep and shudder against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Janus gasps out, “I’m so sorry I doubted you, I—”

“It’s okay,” Patton murmurs. “It’s okay, I’ve got you, I’ve--” He stops, his attention suddenly distracted. “Is that a tail? Do you have a tail?”

It certainly looks like one, snaking its way out of Janus’ pants, long and thin and scaled, and how he missed that, he has no idea. Janus pulls back a bit to look him in the face. His eyes are red-rimmed, his skin flushed orange rather than pink.

“Yes,” he says. “Is that… alright?”

Curious, Patton extends a hand. The tail wraps around his wrist snugly, tugging at his arm, and he giggles a bit.

“Oh goodness,” he says, in lieu of a real response, not bothering to stop the delighted grin that spreads across his face. Janus relaxes, untensing, and slumps forward again to rest his head on his chest, releasing a long, heavy sigh.

“I’m still sorry that I kept this from you,” he murmurs, and Patton glances down at him, carding his free hand through his hair.

“You don’t have to be,” he says.

“Maybe not, but I am,” Janus replies. He shifts in place, angling himself to be able to meet his eyes. And Patton once again finds himself fascinated by his heterochromia, at the contrast between the eye he knows well and the eye that is new. It’s almost a comforting sight, once that reminds him that no matter his appearance, Janus remains the man he knows and loves.

“Did you mean it?” Janus asks. “When you said that you would go further than the earth, if given the option?”

A thrill runs through him. “Are you giving me the option?”

Janus hums. “Virgil is hardly going to be content with leaving me here,” he says, and then twists around further to stare Patton full in the face. “But I won’t leave you,” he insists, voice growing vehement. “And I won’t ask you for more than you’re willing to give. If you want to stay here, then we’ll stay here. The choice is yours.”

And Patton leans forward and kisses him on the lips, soft and short and sweet. “I’ve told you,” he says. “Where you go, I’ll follow.”

And he means it. He means it more than anything else he’s said in his life. He means it with the weight of all the years they’ve spent together, all the love he has to offer. Where Janus goes, he will follow, to the ends of the earth and beyond it, and there is a whole universe out there, waiting to be explored. He will have to make arrangements, of course, will have to contact his school and figure out something to tell his parents, and perhaps he should be dreading that, but all he can feel is exhilaration. Because his husband is an alien, has surely seen so many things that are so much bigger than their little lives here on earth, and yet, he is willing to stay here, with Patton, for Patton, and all Patton would have to do is ask.

But just as Janus has chosen him, he has chosen Janus. And for Janus, he would go anywhere.

“Because you know,” he continues, “I think you’re pretty out of this world. In fact, I’d even say that you’re a real star.”

Janus snorts, messy and undignified, and Patton smiles, pleased by the reaction.

“So, how about you introduce me to your kiddo,” he says. “Without the knives, this time. And you can tell me what I should pack.”

And Janus smiles at him, sweet and joyful, one of those expressions that no one else gets to see. Despite everything, that smile is still the same.

“Okay,” he says, and stands, pulling Patton up with him. “Let’s do that.”

And Patton clasps one of his hands, and lets Janus lead him onward.

----------

End Note: There are plenty of things that I would like to explore in this ‘verse, including putting proper focus on the anxceit, having Virgil deal with suddenly having another dad, Patton continuing to adjust himself to the new circumstances, and whatever the other sides are up to. So, I’m tentatively going to label this as a series. Future installments will be under the tag ‘it’s a space opera (and oh how the arias soar)’

General Taglist: @just-perhaps @the-real-comically-insane @jerrysicle-tree @glitchybina @psodtqueer @mrbubbajones @snek-boii@severelylackinginquality @aceawkwardunicorn @gayerplease

#sanders sides #ts sides #moceit #parental anxceit #patton sanders #ts patton #janus sanders #ts janus #virgil sanders #ts virgil #long post #my fic #it's a space opera (and oh how the arias soar)

[bluewatsons]

Steven Schneider, The Paradox of Fiction, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1995)

How is it that we can be moved by what we know does not exist, namely the situations of people in fictional stories? The so-called “paradox of emotional response to fiction” is an argument for the conclusion that our emotional response to fiction is irrational. The argument contains an inconsistent triad of premises, all of which seem initially plausible. These premises are (1) that in order for us to be moved (to tears, to anger, to horror) by what we come to learn about various people and situations, we must believe that the people and situations in question really exist or existed; (2) that such “existence beliefs” are lacking when we knowingly engage with fictional texts; and (3) that fictional characters and situations do in fact seem capable of moving us at times.

A number of conflicting solutions to this paradox have been proposed by philosophers of art. While some argue that our apparent emotional responses to fiction are only “make-believe” or pretend, others claim that existence beliefs aren’t necessary for having emotional responses (at least to fiction) in the first place. And still others hold that there is nothing especially problematic about our emotional responses to works of fiction, since what these works manage to do (when successful) is create in us the “illusion” that the characters and situations depicted therein actually exist.

1. Radford’s Initial Statement of the Paradox

In a much-discussed 1975 article, and in a series of “Replies to my Critics” written over the next two decades, Colin Radford argues that our apparent ability to respond emotionally to fictional characters and events is “irrational, incoherent, and inconsistent” (p. 75). This on the grounds that (1) existence beliefs concerning the objects of our emotions (for example, that the characters in question really exist; that the events in question have really taken place) are necessary for us to be moved by them, and (2) that such beliefs are lacking when we knowingly partake of works of fiction. Taking it pretty much as a given that (3) such works do in fact move us at times, Radford’s conclusion, refreshing in its humility, is that our capacity for emotional response to fiction is as irrational as it is familiar: “our being moved in certain ways by works of art, though very ‘natural’ to us and in that way only too intelligible, involves us in inconsistency and so incoherence” (p. 78).

The need for existence beliefs is supposedly revealed by the following sort of case. If what we at first believed was a true account of something heart-wrenching turned out to be false, a lie, a fiction, etc., and we are later made aware of this fact, then we would no longer feel the way we once did—though we might well feel something else, such as embarrassment for having been taken in to begin with. And so, Radford argues, “It would seem that I can only be moved by someone’s plight if I believe that something terrible has happened to him. If I do not believe that he has not and is not suffering or whatever, I cannot grieve or be moved to tears” (p. 68). Of course, what Radford means to say here is: “I can only be rationally moved by someone’s plight if I believe that something terrible has happened to him. If I do not believe that he has not and is not suffering or whatever, I cannot rationally grieve or be moved to tears.” Such beliefs are absent when we knowingly engage with fictions, a claim Radford supports by presenting and then rejecting a number of objections that might be raised against it.

One of the major objections to his second premise considered by Radford is that, at least while we are engaged in the fiction, we somehow “forget” that what we are reading or watching isn’t real; in other words, that we get sufficiently “caught up” in the novel, movie, etc. so as to temporarily lose our awareness of its fictional status. In response to this objection, Radford offers the following two considerations: first, if we truly forgot that what we are reading or watching isn’t real, then we most likely would not feel any of the various forms of pleasure that frequently accompany other, more “negative” emotions (such as fear, sadness, and pity) in fictional but not real-life cases; and second, the fact that we do not “try to do something, or think that we should” (p. 71) when seeing a sympathetic character being attacked or killed in a film or play, implies our continued awareness of this character’s fictional status even while we are moved by what happens to him. This second consideration—an emphasis on the behavioral disanalogies between our emotional responses to real-life and fictional characters and events—is one that crops up repeatedly in the arguments of philosophers such as Kendall Walton and Noel Carroll, whose positive accounts are nevertheless completely opposed to one another.

Finally, Radford thinks there can be no denying his third premise, that fictional characters themselves are capable of moving us—as opposed to, say, actual (or perhaps merely possible) people in similar situations, who have undergone trials and tribulations very much like those in the story. So his conclusion that our emotional responses to fiction are irrational appears valid and, however unsatisfactory, at the very least non-paradoxical. Summarizing his position in a 1977 follow-up article, with specific reference to the emotion of fear, Radford writes that existence beliefs “[are] a necessary condition of our being unpuzzlingly, rationally, or coherently frightened. I would say that our response to the appearance of the monster is a brute one that is at odds with and overrides our knowledge of what he is, and which in combination with our distancing knowledge that this is only a horror film, leads us to laugh—at the film, and at ourselves for being frightened” (p. 210).

Since the publication of Radford’s original essay, many Anglo-American philosophers of art have been preoccupied with exposing the inadequacies of his position, and with presenting alternative, more “satisfying” solutions. In fact, few issues of The British Journal of Aesthetics, Philosophy, or The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism have come out over the past 25 years which fail to contain at least one piece devoted to the so-called “paradox of emotional response to fiction.” As recently as April 2000, Richard Joyce writes in a journal article that “Radford must weary of defending his thesis that the emotional reactions we have towards fictional characters, events, and states of affairs are irrational. Yet, for all the discussion, the issue has not.been properly settled” (p. 209). It is interesting to note that while virtually all of those writing on this subject credit Radford with initiating the current debate, none of them have adopted his view as their own. At least in part, this must be because what Radford offers is less the solution to a mystery (how is it that we can be moved by what we know does not exist?) than a straightforward acceptance of something mysterious about human nature (our ability to be moved by what we know does not exist is illogical, irrational, even incoherent).

To date, three basic strategies for resolving the paradox in question have turned up again and again in the philosophical literature, each one appearing in a variety of different forms (though it should be noted, other, more idiosyncratic solutions can also be found). It is to these strategies, and some of the powerful criticisms that have been levied against them, that we now briefly turn.

2. The Pretend Theory

Pretend theorists, most notably Kendall Walton, in effect deny premise (3), arguing that it is not literally true that we fear horror film monsters or feel sad for the tragic heroes of Greek drama. As noted above, Walton’s defense of premise (2) also rests on a playing up of the behavioral disanalogies between our responses to real-life versus fictional characters and events. But unlike Radford, who looks at real-life cases of emotional response and the likelihood of their elimination when background conditions change in order to defend premise (1), Walton offers nothing more than an appeal to “common sense”: “It seems a principle of common sense, one which ought not to be abandoned if there is any reasonable alternative, that fear must be accompanied by, or must involve, a belief that one is in danger” (1978, pp. 6-7).

According to Walton, it is only “make-believedly” true that we fear horror film monsters, feel sad for the Greek tragic heroes, etc. He admits that these characters move us in various ways, both physically and psychologically—the similarities to real fear, sadness, etc. are striking—but regardless of what our bodies tell us, or what we might say, think, or believe we are feeling, what we actually experience in such cases are only “quasi-emotions” (e.g., “quasi-fear”). Quasi-emotions differ from true emotions primarily in that they are generated not by existence beliefs (such as the belief that the monster I am watching on screen really exists), but by “second-order” beliefs about what is fictionally the case according to the work in question (such as the belief that the monster I am watching on screen make-believedly exists. As Walton puts it, “Charles believes (he knows) that make-believedly the green slime [on the screen] is bearing down on him and he is in danger of being destroyed by it. His quasi-fear results from this belief” (p. 14). Thus, it is make-believedly the case that we respond emotionally to fictional characters and events due to the fact that our beliefs concerning the fictional properties of those characters and events generates in us the appropriate quasi-emotional states.

What has made the Pretend Theory in its various forms attractive to many philosophers is its apparent ability to handle a number of additional puzzles relating to audience engagement with fictions. Such puzzles include the following:

Why a reader or viewer of fictions who does not like happy endings can get so caught up in a particular story that, for example, he wants the heroine to be rescued despite his usual distaste for such a plot convention. Following Walton, there is no need to hypothesize conflicting desires on the part of the reader here, since “It is merely make-believe that the spectator sympathizes with the heroine and wants her to escape. .[H]e (really) wants it to be make-believe that she suffers a cruel end” (p. 25).

How fictional works—especially suspense stories—can withstand multiple readings or viewings without becoming less effective. According to Walton, this is possible because, on subsequent readings/viewings, we are simply playing a new game of pretend—albeit one with the same “props” as before: “The child hearing Jack and the Beanstalk knows that make-believedly Jack will escape, but make-believedly she does not know that he will. It is her make-believe uncertainty.not any actual uncertainty, that is responsible for the excitement and suspense that she feels” (p. 26).

3. Objections to the Pretend Theory

Despite its novelty, as well as Walton’s heroic attempts at defending it, the Pretend Theory continues to come under attack from numerous quarters. Many of these attacks can be organized under the following two general headings:

A. Disanalogies with Paradigmatic Cases of Make-Believe Games

Walton introduces and supports his theory with reference to the familiar games of make-believe played by young children—games in which globs of mud are taken to be pies, for example, or games in which a father, pretending to be a vicious monster, will stalk his child and lunge at him at the crucial moment: “The child flees, screaming, to the next room. But he unhesitatingly comes back for more. He is perfectly aware that his father is only ‘playing,’ that the whole thing is ‘just a game,’ and that only make-believedly is there a vicious monster after him. He is not really afraid” (1978, p. 13). Such games rely on what Walton calls “constituent principles” (e.g., that whenever there is a glob of mud in a certain orange crate, it is make-believedly true that there is a pie in the oven) which are accepted or understood to be operating. However, these principles need not be explicit, deliberate, or even public: “one might set up one’s own personal game, adopting principles that no one else recognizes. And at least some of the principles constituting a personal game of make-believe may be implicit” (p. 12). According to Walton, just as a child will experience quasi-fear as a result of believing that make-believedly a vicious monster is coming to get him, moviegoers watching a disgusting green slime make its way towards the camera will experience quasi-fear as a result of believing that, make-believedly, they are being threatened by a fearsome creature. In both cases, it is this quasi-fear which makes it the case that the respective game players are make-believedly (not really) afraid.

To the extent that one is able to identify significant disanalogies with familiar games of make-believe, then, Walton’s theory looks to be in trouble. One such disanalogy concerns our relative lack of choice when it comes to (quasi-)emotional responses to fiction films and novels. Readers and viewers of such fictions, the argument goes, don’t seem to have anything close to the ability of make-believe game-playing children to control their emotional responses. On the one hand, we can’t just turn such responses off—refuse to play and prevent ourselves from being affected—like kids can. As Noel Carroll writes in his book, The Philosophy of Horror, “if it [the fear produced by horror films] were a pretend emotion, one would think that it could be engaged at will. I could elect to remain unmoved by The Exorcist; I could refuse to make believe I was horrified. But I don’t think that that was really an option for those, like myself, who were overwhelmedly struck by it” (1990, p. 74).

On the other hand, Carroll also points out that as consumers of fiction we aren’t able to just turn our emotional responses on, either: “if the response were really a matter of whether we opt to play the game, one would think that we could work ourselves into a make-believe dither voluntarily. But there are examples [of fictional works] which are pretty inept, and which do not seem to be recuperable by making believe that we are horrified. The monsters just aren’t particularly horrifying, though they were intended to be” (p. 74). Carroll cites such forgettable pictures as The Brain from Planet Arous and Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman as evidence of his claim that some fictional texts simply fail to generate their intended emotional response.

Another proposed disanalogy between familiar examples of make-believe game-playing and our emotional engagement with fictions focuses on the phenomenology of the two cases. The objection here is that, assuming the accuracy of Walton’s account when it comes to children playing make-believe, it is simply not true to ordinary experience that consumers of fictions are in similar emotional states when watching movies, reading books, and the like. David Novitz, for one, notes that “many theatre-goers and readers believe that they are actually upset, excited, amused, afraid, and even sexually aroused by the exploits of fictional characters. It seems altogether inappropriate in such cases to maintain that our theatre-goers merely make-believe that they are in these emotional states” (1987, p. 241). Glenn Hartz makes a similar point, in stronger language:

My teenage daughter convinces me to accompany her to a “tear-jerker” movie with a fictional script. I try to keep an open mind, but find it wholly lacking in artistry. I can’t wait for it to end. Still, tears come welling up at the tragic climax, and, cursing, I brush them aside and hide in my hood on the way to the car. Phenomenologically, this description is perfectly apt. But it is completely inconsistent with the Make-Believe Theory, which says emotional flow is always causally dependent on make-believe. [H]ow can someone who forswears any imaginative involvement in a series of fictional events.respond to them with tears of sadness? (1999, p. 572)

Carroll too argues that “Walton’s theory appears to throw out the phenomenology of the state [here ‘art-horror’] for the sake of logic” (1990, p. 74), on the grounds that, as opposed to children playing make-believe, when responding to works of fiction we do not seem to be aware at all of playing any such games.

Of course, Walton’s position is that the only thing required here is the acceptance or recognition of a constituent principle underlying the game in question, and this acceptance may well be tacit rather than conscious. But Carroll thinks that it “strains credulity” to suppose that not only are we unaware of some of the rules of the game, but that “we are completely unaware of playing a game. Surely a game of make-believe requires the intention to pretend. But on the face of it, consumers of horror do not appear to have such an intention” (pp. 74-75). Although he disagrees with Walton’s Pretend Theory on other grounds, Alex Neill offers a powerful reply to objections which cite phenomenological disanalogies. In his words, what philosophers such as Novitz, Hartz, and Carroll miss “is that the fact that Charles is genuinely moved by the horror movie.is precisely what motivates Walton’s account”:

By labeling this kind of state ‘quasi-fear,’ Walton is not suggesting that it consists of feigned or pretended, rather than actual, feelings and sensations. Rather, Walton label’s Charles’s physiological/psychological state ‘quasi-fear’ to mark the fact that what his feelings and sensations are feelings and sensations of is precisely what is at issue. .On his view, we can actually be moved by works of fiction, but it is make-believe that we are moved to is fear. (1991, pp. 49-50)Suffice to say, the question whether objections to Walton’s Pretend Theory on the grounds of phenomenological difference are valid or not continues to be discussed and debated.

B. Problems with Quasi-Emotions

In arguing that Walton’s quasi-emotions are unnecessary theoretical entities, some philosophers have pointed to cases of involuntary reaction to visual stimuli—the so-called “startle effect” in film studies terminology—where the felt anxiety, repulsion, or disgust is clearly not make-believe, since these reactions do not depend at all on beliefs in the existence of what we are seeing. Simo Säätelä for example, argues that “fear is easy to confuse with being shocked, startled, anxious, etc. Here the existence or non-existence of the object can hardly be important. When we consider fear [in fictional contexts] this often seems to be a plausible analysis—it is simply a question of a mistaken identification of sensations and feelings. Thus no technical redescription in terms of make-believe is needed” (1994, p. 29). One problem with turning this objection into a full-blown theory of emotional response to fiction in its own right, as both Säätelä and Neill have suggested doing, is that there seem to be at least some cases of fearing fictions where the startle effect is not involved. Another problem is that it is not at all clear what equivalents to the startle effect are available in the case of emotions such as, say, pity and regret.

A similar objection to Walton’s quasi-emotional states has been put forward by Glenn Hartz. He argues not that our responses to fiction are independent of belief, to be understood on the model of the startle effect, but that they are pre-conscious: that real (as opposed to pretend) beliefs which are not consciously entertained are automatically generated by certain visual stimuli. These beliefs are inconsistent with what the spectator—fully aware of where he is and what he is doing—explicitly avows. As Hartz puts it, “how could anything as cerebral and out-of-the-loop as ‘make believe’ make adrenaline and cortisol flow?” (1999, p. 563).

4. The Thought Theory

Thought theories boldly deny premise (1), the old and established thesis, traceable as far back as Aristotle and central to the so-called “Cognitive Theory of emotions,” (see Theories of Emotion) that existence beliefs are a necessary condition of (at the very least rational) emotional response. At the heart of the Thought Theory lies the view that, although our emotional responses to actual characters and events may require beliefs in their existence, there is no good reason to hold up this particular type of emotional response as the model for understanding emotional response in general. What makes emotional response to fiction different from emotional response to real world characters and events is that, rather than having to believe in the actual existence of the entity or event in question, all we need do is “mentally represent” (Peter Lamarque), “entertain in thought” (Noel Carroll), or “imaginatively propose” (Murray Smith) it to ourselves. By highlighting our apparent capacity to respond emotionally to fiction—by treating this as a central case of emotional response in general—the thought theorist believes he has produced hard evidence in support of the claim that premise (1) stands in need of modification, perhaps even elimination.

Even before the first explicit statement of the Thought Theory in a 1981 article by Lamarque, a number of philosophers rejected existence beliefs as a requirement for emotional response to fictions. Instead, they argued that the only type of beliefs necessary when engaging with fictions are “evaluative” beliefs about the characters and events depicted; beliefs, for example, about whether the characters and events in question have characteristics which render them funny, frightening, pitiable, etc. Eva Schaper, for example, in an article published three years before Lamarque’s, writes that:

We need a distinction.between the kind of beliefs which are entailed by my knowing that I am dealing with fiction, and the kind of beliefs which are relevant to my being moved by what goes on in fiction. .[B]eliefs about characters and events in fiction.are alone involved in our emotional response to what goes on. (1978, p. 39, 44)

More recently, but again without reference to the Thought Theory, R.T. Allen argues that, “A novel.is not a presentation of facts. But true statements can be made about what happens in it and beliefs directed towards those events can be true or false. .Once we realize that truth is not confined to the factual, the problem disappears” (1986, p. 66).

Although the two are closely related, strictly-speaking this version of the Thought Theory should not be confused with what is often referred to as the “Counterpart Theory” of emotional response to fiction. As Gregory Currie explains, according to this latter theory, “we experience genuine emotions when we encounter fiction, but their relation to the story is causal rather than intentional; the story provokes thoughts about real people and situations, and these are the intentional objects of our emotions” (1990, p. 188). Walton himself provides an early statement of the Counterpart Theory: “If Charles is a child, the movie may make him wonder whether there might not be real slimes or other exotic horrors like the one depicted in the movie, even if he fully realizes that the movie-slime itself is not real. Charles may well fear these suspected dangers; he might have nightmares about them for days afterwards” (1978, p. 10). Some variations of this theory go so far as make their claims with reference to possible as opposed to real people and situations. Regardless, it is important to note that Counterpart theories have at least as much in common with Pretend theories as with Thought theories, since, like the former, they seem to require a modification of Radford’s third premise (it is not the fictional works themselves that move us, but their real or possible counterparts).

5. Objections to the Thought Theory

Somewhat surprisingly, the Thought Theory has generated relatively little critical discussion, a fact in virtue of which it can be said to occupy a privileged position today. In a 1982 article, however, Radford himself attacks it on the following grounds:

Lamarque claims that I am frightened by ‘the thought’ of the green slime. That is the ‘real object’ of my fear. But if it is the moving picture of the slime which frightens me (for myself), then my fear is irrational, etc., for I know that what frightens me cannot harm me. So the fact that we are frightened by fictional thoughts does not solve the problem but forms part of it. (pp. 261-62]

More recently, film-philosopher Malcolm Turvey criticizes the Thought Theory on the grounds that it appears to ignore the concrete nature of the moving image, instead hypothesizing a “mental entity as the primary causal agent of the spectator’s emotional response” (1997, p. 433). According to Turvey, because we can and frequently do respond to the concrete presentation of cinematic images in a manner that is indifferent to their actual existence in the world, and because there is nothing especially mysterious about this fact, no theory at all is needed to solve the problem of emotional response to fiction film.

Even if it is correct with respect to the medium of film, however, what we might call Turvey’s “concreteness consideration” does not stand up as a critique of the Thought Theory generally. In the case of literature, for example, the reader obviously does not respond emotionally to the words as they appear on the printed page, but rather to the mental images these words serve to conjure in his mind.

It is also debatable whether the Thought Theory cannot be revised so as to incorporate the concreteness consideration, by simply redefining the psychological attitude referred to by Carroll as “entertaining” in either neutral or negative terms. In order for us to be moved by a work of fiction, the revised theory would go, all we need do is adopt a nonassertive—though still evaluative—psychological attitude towards the images which appear before us on screen (while watching a film) or in our minds (when thinking about them later, or perhaps while reading about them in a book). Turvey himself makes a move in this direction when he writes that “the spectator’s capacity to ‘entertain’ a cinematic representation of a fictional referent does not require the postulation of an intermediate, mental entity such as a ‘thought’ or ‘imagination’ in order to be understood” (1997, p. 456).

Arguing on behalf of the Thought Theory, Murray Smith invites us to “imagine gripping the blade of a sharp knife and then having it pulled from your grip, slicing through the flesh of your hand. If you shuddered in reaction to the idea, you didn’t do so because you believed that your hand was being cut by a knife” (1995, p. 116). In part due to its intuitive plausibility, in part due to its ability to explain away certain behavioral disanalogies with real-life cases of emotional response (for example: although he frightens us, the reason we don’t run out of the theater when watching the masked killer head towards us on the movie screen is because we never stop believing for a moment that what we are watching is only a representation of someone who doesn’t really exist), few philosophers have sought to meet the challenge posed by the Thought Theory head on.

Perhaps the biggest problem for the Thought Theory lies in its difficulty justifying its own presuppositions. In his original article, Radford asks the following questions in order to highlight the mysterious nature of our emotional responses to fiction: “We are saddened, but how can we be? What are we sad about? How can we feel genuinely and involuntarily sad, and weep, as we do knowing as we do that no one has suffered or died?” (1977, p. 77). These are questions the Thought theorist will have a tough time answering to the satisfaction of anyone not already inclined to agree with him. That is to say, where the Thought theorist seems to run into trouble is in explaining just why it is the mere entertaining in thought of a fictional character or event is able to generate emotional responses in audiences.

6. The Illusion Theory

Illusion theorists, of whom there seem to be fewer and fewer these days, deny Radford’s second premise. They suggest a mechanism—whether it be some loose concept of “weak” or “partial” belief, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous “willing suspension of disbelief,” Freud’s notion of “disavowal” as adapted by psychoanalytic film theorists such as Christian Metz, or something else entirely—whereby existence beliefs are generated in the course of our engagement with works of fiction.

In Section 1, we came across one of the most powerful objections to have been levied against the Illusion Theory to date: the obvious behavioral disanalogies between our emotional responses to real-life versus fictional characters and events. Even when the existence beliefs posited by the Illusion theorist are of the weak or partial variety, Walton argues that

Charles has no doubts about the whether he is in the presence of an actual slime. If he half believed, and were half afraid, we would expect him to have some inclination to act on his fear in the normal ways. Even a hesitant belief, a mere suspicion, that the slime is real would induce any normal person seriously to consider calling the police and warning his family. Charles gives no thought whatever to such courses of action. (1978, p. 7)

The force of this and related objections has led to a state of affairs in which Gregory Currie, in a lengthy essay on the paradox of emotional response to fiction, can devote all of two sentences to his dismissal of the Illusion Theory:

Hardly anyone ever literally believes the content of a fiction when he knows it to be a fiction; if it happens at moments of forgetfulness or intense realism in the story (which I doubt), such moments are too brief to underwrite our often sustained responses to fictional events and characters. Henceforth, I shall assume the truth of [Radford’s second premise] and consider the [other] possibilities. (1990, pp. 188-89)Notice, however, that a tremendous amount of weight seems to be placed here on the word “literally.” Is it really true to the facts that when normal people—not philosophers or film theorists!—talk about the “believability” of certain books they have read and movies they have seen, the notions of belief and believable-ness they have in mind are metaphorical, or else simply confused or mistaken? And that everyday talk of being “absorbed by” fictions, “engaged in” them, “lost” in them, etc. can be explained away solely in terms of such non-belief dependent features of the fictions in question as their “vividness” and “immediacy”?

It certainly isn’t clear whether the Illusion Theory in any form can be salvaged as a possible solution to the paradox of emotional response to fiction. It isn’t even clear whether what we have here really qualifies as a “paradox” at all. As Richard Moran (1994) argues, with reference to what he takes to be non-problematic cases of emotional response to modal facts (things that might have happened to us but didn’t) and historical facts (things that happened to us in the past): “our paradigms of ordinary emotions exhibit a great deal of variety., and.the case of fictional emotions gains a misleading appearance of paradox from an inadequate survey of examples”(p. 79). What is clear, however, is that the various debates surrounding the topic of emotional response to fiction continue to rage in the philosophical literature.

7. References and Further Reading

Allen, R.T. (1986) “The Reality of Responses to Fiction.” British Journal of Aesthetics 26.1, pp. 64-68.

Carroll, N. (1990) The Philosophy of Horror; or, Paradoxes of the Heart. New York, Routledge.

Currie, G. (1990) The Nature of Fiction. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Hartz, G. (1999) “How We Can Be Moved by Anna Karenina, Green Slime, and a Red Pony.” Philosophy 74, pp. 557-78.

Joyce, R. (2000) “Rational Fear of Monsters.” British Journal of Aesthetics 40.2, pp. 209-224.

Lamarque, P. (1981) “How Can We Fear and Pity Fictions?” British Journal of Aesthetics 21.4, pp. 291-304.

Moran, R. (1994) “The Expression of Feeling in Imagination.” Philosophical Review 103.1, pp. 75-106.

Neill, A. (1991) “Fear, Fiction and Make-Believe.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49.1, pp. 47-56.

Novitz, D. (1987) Knowledge, Fiction and Imagination. Philadelphia, Temple University Press.

Radford, C. (1975) “How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplemental Vol. 49, pp. 67-80.

Radford, C. (1977) “Tears and Fiction.” Philosophy 52, pp. 208-213.

Säätelä, S. (1994) “Fiction, Make-Believe and Quasi Emotions.” British Journal of Aesthetics 34, pp. 25-34.

Schaper, E. (1978) “Fiction and the Suspension of Disbelief.” British Journal of Aesthetics 18, pp. 31-44.

Smith, M. (1995) “Film Spectatorship and the Institution of Fiction.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53.2, pp. 113-27.

Turvey, M. (1997) “Seeing Theory: On Perception and Emotional Response in Current Film Theory.” Film Theory and Philosophy, R. Allen and M. Smith (Eds.). Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 431-57.

Walton, K. (1978) “Fearing Fictions.” Journal of Philosophy 75.1, pp. 5-27.

#aesthetics #judgment #writing #paradox #fiction #reading fiction #paradox of fiction #emotional response #rationality #art and emotion #pretend #make-believe games #theories #literature #communication #quasi-emotions #thought theory #illusion theory #literary analysis

[diminuel]

Supernatural 15x01 rewatch

As a warning to send you on your way; this is a long post and it’s not clearly structured. It’s a reaction and not a proper analysis/ meta. I’d love to hear your thoughts or be pointed towards your own reactions if you’re willing to share~

Okay, here we go! All under the cut!

I am fond of the smooth transition between the “THEN” and “NOW”. The summary of last season was pretty short and I had somehow expected a montage spanning all seasons, but this is better.

First of all I am confronted with the slight vagueness of the issue at hand: the doors to hell have all been opened, so any soul that wants to is free to walk the earth again. So are they ghosts or are they demons? Since they possess bodies demons would be most likely, but then they wouldn’t be cast out of a body by iron alone. Other ghosts we see later on - any ghost that’s not in the cemetary trying to eat Sam and Dean and Cas - don’t seem to need to possess a body. Neither are they in any way restricted to a particular place or object or bound by lore (White Woman, Bloody Mary... they both just kill whoever is available, not who they would usually go for due to the “rules”).

The second remarkable thing is that we get Belphegor in Jack’s place, both masking his loss but also parading it around, depending on which character he has a scene with. Belphegor, while suspicious, is also highly entertaining and even though he has no eyes he is pretty insightful. Jack’s dead and Dean comments it with “he didn’t deserve this”, but that is the height of emotion for Dean regaring Jack’s demise, at least in this episode. Dean wanted Jack to die but ultimately decided against it, but I assume his lack of emotion (or at least the lack of expression of those emotions) are a good indication that Dean’s anger at what Jack has done still overrides his paternal feelings and any sadness that Jack's death might cause him. He wanted him dead, now he’s dead, moving on to bigger issues.

How Dean deals with his own complicated feelings regarding Jack is one thing, but how he deals with Cas’ feelings is quite another. Dean shows no compassion at all for how Cas feels about Belphegor walking around in Jack’s body. But neither does Sam, not really. They instead jump at the chance of having an ally. A demon comes, possesses Jack’s body, gives them a little speech and conveniently has all the right spells just available to himself and Dean & Sam don’t even think about second guessing it? It’s like “I need angel blood :D” and when Cas hesistates Sam urges him to give his blood anyway.

Also, Sam doesn’t have a lot of scenes with the guy, it’s mostly Dean and Cas being shown to have very different reactions and that’s pretty telling too considering Dean and Cas have been established to be Jack’s parents more than Sam has lately. 

While Dean is pretty unperturbed and cracking jokes like calling Belphegor Crowley Jr. (I’d call him Babybel but to each their own), Castiel went from anger at him possessing Jack to a heart-broken admittal that he can’t even look at Belphegor, something that doesn’t even seem to cross Dean’s mind as a possibility? He lets Cas go without berating him for it, so at least it gave him to think a bit and he didn’t default to not letting Cas have emotions about it.

Belphegor has a reaction to the Equalizer, so I assume there might be something coming featuring that kill everything suicide gun. Belphegor probably knows more than he lets on, who knows if he’s even from our version of the Sam and Dean story, but we’ll probably see. The scene showing the gun in Belphegor’s presence was there for a reason and we’re bound to see what it’ll become.

Belphegor commenting on how gorgeous Dean is (and then later on how much he admires him as an artist) is just so funny to me. Kind of uncomfortable of course because it sounds like Belphegor is flirting and the dude is possessing Dean’s kid *lol* Generally, Belphegor is our big question mark of the episode. Is he who he claims to be? What is his goal exactly? Helping the Winchesters to put things back into hell seems far-fetched but not exactly impossible. 

But, I must now comment on one of the high lights of the episode for me. Dean, Cas and Belphegor are in the impala alone. Belphegor witnesses Cas share that he cannot even look at Belphegor. I’m pretty sure Jack made the demon news too, but Belphegor still asks about his meatsuit, which then reveals an interesting, juicy bit that warms every Destiel shipper’s heart. Dean says that Jack was “our” kid. Now, imagine you’re Belphegor and you get that piece of information after having just witnessed a tense moment between Dean and Cas. Who is “our”? Considering that Belphegor knows that Sam and Dean are brothers and he has seen how Cas acts around him, he inevitably must interpret “he was our kid” to mean Dean and Castiel’s. Especially since everyone in hell seems to know that Dean and Cas are “attached”. I’m just waiting for Belphegor to comment on Dean and Cas’ failing marriage.

But hey, back to the plot! I wonder what the Equalizer wound does. In all honesty we don’t even know for sure what the Equalizer does, because it certainly wasn’t the only thing that could kill Jack. Maybe its goal was to purge Jack out of the story since he, in theory, could be a thread to the whole cardhouse structure of the multiverse that is Chuck’s AO3 profile of not beta read variations of the same story (like Metatron said, Chuck posted the first draft). When Jack was born he created rifts into different worlds - the abandoned drafts existing parallel to their own - and he had impacted other worlds, killed players from different universes (well, not that this was the first time this happened, Meta Misha anyone? Poor guy) and could destroy it all. Chuck doesn’t mind losing one story. There are countless more, but having Jack mess up all of them, especially the ones Chuck likes to observe? That would suck. So if that was something the Equalizer was meant to prevent, balacing all the other universes out there, then maybe Sam now accidentally became a portal/ door to other worlds. The fact that we saw a different Sam, heard a different Dean seems to imply this. 

Well, that’s just speculation because it could also be that Sam, having accidentally forged a connection with Chuck due to their common wound, could simply see things - the future, different versions that Chuck is currently invested in. In any case, I’m very excited about that, seeing different versions of Team Free Will is my jam.

And while I’m speaking of things that are my jam? I must mention Cas’ flat “You shot me”. So good. I always wonder why that doesn’t happen more often in close ghost combat when shotguns are involved. Luckily Cas can’t get hurt *lol* 

But... why can a ghost hurt a demon and why can a ghost get a hold of Cas? These ghosts generally do weird things but I assume that might be because they’ve been to hell for a while and are on their way to become demons? But that brings us back to the question I asked initially and I guess we’ll see more of that in the next episode.

And now, the other DeanCas scene. It doesn’t exactly qualify as a conversation but it’s there and it’s still meaningful. Why did Dean get out of the car, why did he approach Cas, why did he ask? The way he cuts any conversation short beyond the quick affirmation that Cas isn’t hurt, Dean shows that he doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t want to hear anything from Cas. Belphegor picks up on the rejection it is meant to be. It is kinda awkard, it is kind of cruel. Dean knows how Cas is struggling with the situation, at least when it gets to Belphegor but Dean is clever enough to know how much Cas is hurting because of Jack’s death. But Dean allows no grief, no expression of it, which I think is cruel... And it’s not necessary. Even if Dean is angry at Cas still (obviously) that doesn’t mean that he gets to decide to not let Cas be sad about the death of their child. (But Dean has done that before, when Charlie died and Sam apologized to her while they gave her a hunter’s funeral, Dean decided that Sam didn’t get to say anything, because he was at fault. It makes Dean seem so self-righteous, deciding who can or cannot be sad and in what shape they are allowed to express their grief.) Cas has shown in S14 and now again that he wants to talk, he wants to tackle the issue as a family. He never rejected Dean’s sadness, anger and grief - it was Sam that held him back, it was Dean who decided to cry alone in the woods even though Cas would have been there for him.

And Cas isn’t even angry at Dean, which is something that I expected. I wonder if that will continue this way; with Cas having plenty of reasons to be upset with Dean, but only ever taking the rejection Dean heaps on him, accepting that Dean doesn’t grant him the right to voice his own grief, without ever speaking up about it. Just... it’s unfair?

By the way, Sam continues to remove himself from the entire issue. He has very little to offer in terms of reactions to Jack’s death, he has nothing to offer in terms of comfort for Cas, presents no grief for either Cas or Dean to comment on and in turn get to show glimpses of their own struggling. And he too takes no responsibility at the current moment for the situation, no apology offered to Cas regarding his involvement in the “kill Jack” mission... Which is disappointing as well but not super unexpected either. Maybe it’ll come later, but as with Dean, Cas doesn’t seem to hold any anger so far.

I did like the ending. From what some interviews stated I had expected Sam and Dean to struggle with having God as the one who wrote their entire lives a lot more. But they’re doing fine so far...

All in all, a good episode. Throwing Belphegor into the mix created some very interesting situations and having him there means that he - as an outsider - gets to poke at things that interests us too, like the focus on the Dean - Cas drama. He comments on it for us, gets Cas to speak up in ways he probably wouldn’t if there was only Jack’s corpse around. So I’m pleased. :D

#Supernatural #spoilers #spn spoilers #15x01 spoilers

[hino-of-the-dawn]

Supergiant Secret Santa

Surprise @jodaaariel , I was your Secret Santa for this year! You asked for a fic about the Archjustice post-exile and the Reader doing some Rites together, and I did my best to deliver.

- The blackwagon is far quieter without a good handful of the Nightwings, but the Reader doesn't find the silence unsettling. In fact it's a comfort; each moment of precious time spent without sound a sign that their friends have made it home, back to the Commonwealth where the revolution has taken place, and the new Sahrian Empire has come into power.

"Honestly Reader, how can you stand such cramped quarters?"

Well it's quieter, but not silent. The Reader sets down the book they're tending to and slowly gets to their feet, feeling their aching bones protest as they shuffle from their chair to the sleeping quarters. There stands the Archjustice- Former Archjustice, seeing as he'd been stripped of all his titles by Volfred in the revolution before being cast downriver. He looks quite different outside of his golden robe and mask, with short blonde hair and a patchwork jumpsuit that does not suit him at all.

Calmly, the Reader comments that the quarters are not cramped, and that Brighton (a name they stress much to the annoyance of the man) must be too stuck up and pampered to deal with 'commoner quarters', relishing in the irritation that Brighton wears.

He crosses his arms. "That is not the issue," he says, although it is. Being cast down twice does not do the body any favours, and the corruption that the Downside brings to Nomads and Moontouched seems to have come back in full force, greeting Brighton with slightly sharper nails and the beginning of horns in little less than two months. "There's just too many beds packed together."

It is not the first time Brighton has stayed in the wagon, the Reader reminds him, clambering into their own little bed. There's enough room for them and for a shelf of knick-knacks left behind by their fellow Nightwings. They continue, explaining that in time, he will have to get used to such small spaces.

"It's undignified," Brighton complains. The reader informs Brighton that his mother is undignified, much to the surprise of the man.

"I'll have you know that your father is undignified, Reader!" he shouts back for lack of a better insult. The Reader has kept their name under lock and key, and it seems with the amount of Exiles the Commonwealth was turning out, Brighton has forgotten theirs. They like to use it to their advantage.

Before their argument can go any further, the blackwagon lurches to a halt. Brighton groans, having only just settled down in his quarters. "Are we there already?"

It seems so, the Reader says as they hop to their feet. It's not a smooth action, but it happens. They say they're going to feed the Imps, and go look for Barker. Brighton merely hums in acknowledgement.

The ladder to the Imps is rickety and narrow, but the Reader manages just fine. They have a small bag of feed to give them, and as they reach for it, Brighton enters the common area.

They call out to him, asking what he's doing. Above them the Imps are getting impatient, so they make sure to dish out some food while also trying to keep their attention on Brighton.

He doesn't answer them. Instead he stands by the Beyonder Orb, his hand set atop it. Whatever conversation he's having is quiet, enough so that even the Reader can't hear it, nor can they sense anything that Sandra is radiating.

As they finish feeding the Imps, Brighton finishes his conversation. "She's just as bitter as ever," he grumbles as the Reader passes them by, looking for their Raiments. Ever since the Rites had finished for good and Barker had started up his own mockery, the Reader had taken every chance they could to participate. They weren't good at it by any stretch of the word, but their attempts earned cheers from the spectators.

Pulling the Raiments off the wall, they turn to Brighton and ask if he will be participating.

Brighton scoffs. "Of course," he answers, taking another set from the wall and holding them close. "I was a champion back in my time. Earned my own freedom, even without the help of..." he trails off, the words heavy on his tongue.

As the Reader dons their robes, they look to Brighton and ask a question they have had for a long time. Did he see it happen? Did he see Erisa push Oralech from the Shimmer-pool.

He slips the robes over his head and doesn't answer, covering his face with the mask of a Nomad as he steps out into the dusty plains of the Jomuer Valley. After a moment, the Reader follows after him.

The heat that usually assaulted the valley is gone under the moonlight, but the humid, thick air is still present. Despite it, there's a decent crowd around the Cairn of Ha'ub as chairs are filled and empty spaces are taken up by those who prefer to stand. Blackwagons are parked around the area, with some exiles choosing to sit atop them for a better view of the field.

The Reader wonders what Tariq and Celeste would think of their commodification of a once-sacred place. This particular site doesn't mean much to the Reader, but they do not enjoy playing on the Ridge of Gol, nor atop Mount Alodiel.

"I can't believe that Barker defiled such a place," Brighton grumbles, startling the Reader. He's right beside them now, having somehow appeared without a sound. "Anyway Reader, I suppose we must find a third for our team, and mayhaps a Reader. Although, considering the name you chose, you might be our best fit."

It's a surprise, so much so that the Reader laughs. They state their surprise at Brighton permitting them to read for him, which makes Brighton sigh. "You were an excellent Reader, one I had thought to be my successor. If someone has to boss me around, I would prefer it be you."

That's oddly flattering of him. It's the closest thing the Reader will get to a compliment anyway. They don't say that aloud however, and instead motion for Brighton to join them as they look for two more to join their Triumvirate. There are still some Nightwings in the Downside, but they have their own lives to attend to, and the Reader doesn't try to bring them to these False Rites unless they're asked.

Finding two others for their Triumvirate is easy enough. There's a small handful of hopefuls who attend the False Rites as backup players, ready to make a team if nobody shows up, or to fill a space if someone is lacking players, much like the Nightwings are.

Soon enough, Brighton finds himself with a Wyrm and a Cur on his team. They won't be big scorers on their own, but their speed might make up for that, he supposes. "Surprised you didn't opt for a Demon, Reader."

Looking over their copy of the Book of Rites, the Reader quips that Brighton's build still falls into that of a Nomad. Just a very slow one.

He bristles at the comment. "That's rude."

The Reader raises an eyebrow, face not obscured by a mask. They say that hypocrisy isn't smiled upon in the Downside, and Brighton sighs but doesn't answer.

Their conversation has no time to continue as Barker's voice rings out over the masses. He stands atop one of Shax Six-Shoulder's many ribs, looking down on the field. "Alright kids, we're ready to go! Our teams tonight are veterans, so lemme hear you all howl!"

A cacophonous sound rises up, startling Brighton. The Reader bites their lip to hold back a laugh.

"With the blue pyre, we have our Nightwings!" Barker motioned to the pyre; a hoop with blue streamers that danced in the air, reaching up towards the Sahrian Union. Brighton stood front and center, with his two new comrades at his side. The Reader stood on one side of the field, giving them a nod of encouragement.

The crowd cheered for the Nightwings, falling silent as Barker continued his announcement. "On the other side with the pink flame, we have The Chastity!"

Once again the crowd came to life as The Chastity appeared. Their team consisted of a Nomad, a Sap, and a Harp. They played without a Reader, which in most cases meant they had a Reader on their team.

Brighton gave the opposing team a once-over, turning his gaze to the Reader a moment later. He would trust their judgment and gave them a nod, signifying that fact.

"Are we ready to go? When the Orb hits the ground, we're on!"

A cur standing on the sidelines opposite the Reader readied the Orb; a glass orb purchased from the store Bertrude had once operated, which meant it was almost impossible to shatter. The cur looked to both teams carefully before tossing it into the field.

All eyes fell on the orb as it fell in a perfect arc, hitting the dusty ground with a thump. Barker howled, and the Reader raised their voice, ready to shout their commands.

As it turns out, Brighton is rather good at the Rites. The Reader's word is law in the Rites, but without the forceful guiding of the Reader overriding the free will of the Exiles, some of the moves Brighton makes precede the Reader's own decisions.

The Nightwing's Cur passes the ball to Brighton, who catches it without any effort. His motions are fluid as he dodges the thick weighted ribbons thrown at him to represent a cast aura, and the hoops attached to the Exiles which represent presence. It's like a dance, and the Reader finds themselves invested in each of his steps.

They call out for Brighton to plunge into the flame, but before the core of their sentence can get there, he casts the orb into their Pyre, netting them twenty points. "The Nightwings score first! Just like the old days, hey boys?" Barker's voice rings out over the field and the remaining members of the Dissidents all howl in glee.

With the ball in the hoop, the Chastity and Nightwings return to their respective sides, and the Reader waves Brighton over. As he approaches, they raise their voice to shout over the howling and hollering of Barker's crew, explaining that Brighton should have leapt into the Pyre.

"What, and leave us disadvantaged for the next turn? They weren't even close!" Brighton answers with crossed arms. The Reader shakes their head, explaining that the Chastity's Sap had a Sapling nearby, and that it could have taken him out if he wasn't careful. Brighton removes his mask. "But I was careful. I'm not a bumbling idiot like your Nightwings."

Irritated, the Reader covers their face. Brighton should behave, they say, which makes Brighton scowl. "You should make better decisions with your Triumvirate," he says forcefully. "Maybe then they wouldn't feel Banishment Sickness as much as they did."

Taken aback by his bluntness, the Reader states that Brighton agreed to let them read for him, and Brighton laughs. "You didn't tell me you could play with a Reader in the team, did you?" His gaze is critical, but the Reader does not flinch under it. "Maybe if you did-"

"Excuse me mates."

Barker appears beside them, causing the Reader and Brighton to put their arguments on hold. "As much as I like a good fight, we got some Rites here t'conclude. If you wanna throw hands after, then you'd better tell me and I'll have payouts ready." There's a smile that shows Barker is genuine, which makes the Reader and Brighton sigh.

"We'll talk about this later," Brighton says, sliding his mask back on. "Don't make any stupid decisions."

The Reader nods, and kindly informs Brighton that every decision he makes is stupid, so surely hearing their advice is a step in the right direction.

Barker snickers and trots off to find his betting table.

#sggsecretsanta19 #Pyre #Supergiant Games #Jodaaariel

[nathan-meiger-blog]

• We spotted Nathan Meiger around Toledo today, just another gear in the machine of the apocalypse. I heard he is a hunter for The Saints. I guess it fits, seeing as he’s known to be perceptive & resolute, as well as unstable & eccentric. They often have Twenty Years by Placebo in their head while they work. I wonder if they’re prepared for what’s coming?

┆ Info ┆ History ┆ Family ┆ Headcanons ┆ Wanted Connections ┆

Name: Nathan Meiger Age: Twenty-four Gender: Male Orientation: Homosexual  Former profession: Freelance photographer Hometown: San Marino, California Camp: The Saints Role: Hunter +intelligent, +observant, +insightful, +creative, +open-minded -distracted, -sarcastic, -unpredictable, -guarded, -grey morality

Survival Skills:

Stubbornly refuses to die in some stupid way.

Willing to point out to others that they are doing something that will mean everyone dying in, again, some stupid way.

Very keen perception to details so finding/locating/foraging/scavenging is something he’ll do well.

Creative problem solving.

Is a native speaker/reader/writer of English and German, and has a working grasp of speaking/reading in French so he can translate for communication or read things in said languages. 

Disadvantages:

Clumsy as hell at times.

Has a fairly strong fear of deep water/lakes/oceans that stems from an incident in childhood so he doesn't function well in situations that involve that.

Confrontational towards people he thinks are wrong even if they’re in charge.

Not always the best grasp of reality when he gets emotional/dissociates.

Can’t do several seemingly normal things; barely knows how to change a tire on a car much less how to fix one, the same lack of knowledge goes for most machines but he does learn quickly when taught, doesn’t know the first thing about planting things/growing anything.

Fairly addictive personality so he's still struggling for want of cigarettes, still very much misses his cell phone and a generally far easier life with vices he used to indulge.

[History] 

┥when the world was still alive ┝

The ugliness of life is that it very rarely hands out good to people on simple faith alone, or that was at least how Nathan always saw it. Under the shadow of stark family expectations he grew up listening to harsh arguments between his mother and father, two people who could hardly seem to be in the same room for more than five minutes at a time so he never figured out how it was they managed to have four children together. The trouble of course was that his father had a rather strong determined streak that ran nearly to the level of cold-blooded and his mother found the man exhausting. While he was busy building an empire around the law firm he owned she was penning novels that climbed best seller lists and, somehow, two highly ambitious people could not have been worse for each other. Maybe they had been in love once, before children were underfoot and work hours ran late into the evenings, predating family trips dissolved into reasons to travel to opposite ends of the globe to find some space. 

The divorce was no surprise to anyone. Even Nathan, only eight at the time, understood the tension well enough to know that rupture had been a long time coming. His mother left, taking along his younger sister and promising visits that fell to excuses and then phone calls, and finally nothing at all and shared holidays that never happened. His brothers may have fared better, better adjusted, or whatever the case might have been that made them less sensitive to the amount of animosity that settled into every corner of their large home like a layer of grime. 

It didn’t ease much as time passed and growing up under his father’s scrutiny with only his older brother to serve as a damper from it and his younger, Corey, always underfoot left Nathan retreating from what felt like constant pressure. He wrapped sarcasm around himself like a wall and started to disconnect more and more from the world. Nothing much mattered because nothing was real; his friends were the sort who were fond of him because of his wallet, his interests in constant shift from a restless mind, his ambitions never measured up so he stopped trying to win the favor of a man he only saw long enough to be yelled at over whatever he had fallen short over during the day.  

He struggled with the idea of leaving the moment he turned eighteen but that meant abandoning Corey alone in that house and while his brother never earned the sort of relentless verbal abuse their father was so fond of showering on him it wasn't a chance he wanted to take so he found a compromise of sorts in attending community college and living at home. It didn't go over well though, even when he graduated and started working as a freelance photographer around the area, not nearly good enough for his father but really that came as no surprise. 

┥after the end ┝

Both he and Corey were spending a few weeks with their older brother at his Manhattan home when the world started to fall apart. During the point when communication was still active they tried to contact their father but once the virus had become more dangerous, once more began to break down, it was clear that nothing was going to remain stable for much longer. The argument over going returning to California or not became a tense one and Nathan refused, in some ways not wanting the truth and some guilty part of him knew it would have almost been a relief if the man were dead; either way he did not want to make the trip back when it was clear they would likely be stranded there once transportation finally stopped. 

He was overruled though by his brothers, their determination to reunite the family overriding any of what Nathan thought was common sense, and so off they went. It was slightly easier than for some people, those were the days when money still had value and between the three of them they had it in excess thanks to the family fortune, but everything was falling apart around them and even that advantage was short-lived.

They made it over halfway before being separated, people were panicked and there was no real structure to anything left, so it came as no surprise when the airport they had been forced to stop in outside of Texas was in a state of disaster. It was in that chaos that Nathan had his first up close and personal encounter with the sort of vile creature the virus spawned when someone apparently infected died in flight. Once the creature escaped the cargo bay where it was being held there was no real stopping the death that followed. It was during the maelstrom right out of a horror movie that he lost track of his brothers, it wasn't until after escaping the airport that he came back across Corey in the company of a few stray survivors. 

The decision shoved on him was not one Nathan wanted to make, knowing that continuing to search for his other brother meant risking being attacked but taking the option to leave with people they didn't know might mean never finding him again He did what he had to, Corey was only a kid, he had to protect him and there was safety in numbers. 

The few months after were a blur, Nathan quickly discovered how ill-suited his life of excess had made him for survival. Thankfully he did have enough to offer in the form of being sharply attentive and excellent in spotting things often overlooked to keep both of them at least on the outskirts of the group. The peace was dissolving though, he saw it more and more each day, leadership became a point of tension that wouldn't resolve and it finally came down to arguments. Rather than stick around to watch the decay he left, Corey begrudgingly following, and set out to find stability elsewhere. 

Time and again they moved from group to group, sometimes getting separated, other times being pushed out by either the group itself falling apart or Nathan's habit of questioning the actions of those in charge when their decisions seemed reckless. More often than not they spent weeks between on their own, aside from a mutt that Corey adopted along the way, never fully able to settle anywhere because Nathan was always uneasy. 

It was not long into their third year after everything had crashed down around them that Nathan made the mistake of being talked into joining a group that had made their home in the abandoned warehouse district in New Orleans. Everything almost felt too ideal, too comfortable, but Corey made friends and it felt like maybe they had a home. With that feeling Nathan began to debate returning to the search for their other brother, lured into the idea that Corey was safe within the heavily guarded community that had been built. He didn't end up having to make a choice though, as most things do even that collapsed on itself. 

The raid from another group was so unexpected that it caught everyone off guard, he had always known that it happened but still wasn't fully prepared for the idea of people killing each other rather than corpses. 

During the bloodshed Nathan himself was injured and Corey was killed, shot by one of the intruders, and it wasn't until after they had left the destruction behind that Nathan found him. He was alone then, so entirely that he refused to remain behind with the other survivors and rebuild; the thought of living with the ghosts of those memories was more than he could stomach. 

It took the better part of year of being on his own, at times barely surviving, for Nathan to come to terms with the fact that it was nearly impossible to continue to live that way. When he found The Saints he was, and still is, wary of the supposed safety promised there after seeing for himself how that can change in an instant. But, afraid he wouldn't last out much longer on his own, he volunteered as a Hunter, knowing that he had nothing useful to offer in farming or most of the other tasks around the camp, and has remained there for the better part of five months. He's still waiting for something to break, doesn't trust it to last, but for the time being it's really all he has.

[Family] 

Mother Leah Meiger

Nathan has no real memory of his mother other than before the divorced was finalized. She didn’t attempt to stay in the area and the last he heard from her she was living somewhere in the Maine area but he really has no idea. What he does remember is confusing, a mix of her affection for her children and the chaos of her constant fighting with his father. Most of the family claim that Nathan’s emotional highs and lows being so intense are inherited from her. He really was too young to have more than fuzzy recollections of her. As it stands he has no idea if either she or his sister are still alive.

Father Jason Meiger (Deceased)

It isn’t that Nathan hated him, exactly, he just found him an overbearing misery to be around. The man had built his business from the ground up and as such always had high exceptions for his children and Nathan’s tendency to disconnect always put them at odds. Being the middle child out of the boys he was usually the one his father singled out and suffered a large share of his anger and sharp comments, his seeming lack of direction was another tense point between them that never settled well. Even Nathan’s sexuality was something that would have caused friction, if he had ever bothered to tell the man that he’s gay. He hasn’t come to terms fully with the idea of him likely being dead but it’s more from the guilt of feeling a sense of relief than not wanting to accept the possibility.

Siblings Corey Meiger (Deceased)

The youngest of the family, Corey was barely in his teens when the virus spread and life went all to hell. A fairly quiet kid, he was quick to stick close to his brothers, specifically Nathan because the two of them shared a tendency to be introverted. More of an optimist by nature, he was a bright spot to most people and Nathan's entire reason to stay focused and concentrate on keeping the both of them alive. It wasn't the virus of the monsters that snatched Corey, he had only turned eighteen a few months before being killed during a raid on the camp that he and Nathan had been living in for the better part of six months. It's something that Nathan still blames himself for, even now, more than a year after his death. 

(Open connections)

Nathan has one older brothers and one younger sister still missing. His sister left his life when she was very small and likely she doesn’t remember any of them unless their mother made a point to tell her about the family. His brother he’s been on fairly good terms with even though they have different personalities. His brother specifically is the one he’s run to for support on occasion but the two tend to argue and have a difficult time seeing eye to eye on most things. As it stands he has no idea where he might be, having lost all contact with him shortly after the spread of virus when they were traveling back to meet their father and never made it that far. He assumes him to be dead but never had a chance to try to find out for himself.

┆ Info ┆ History ┆ Family ┆ Headcanons ┆ Wanted Connections ┆

#toxinintro #tw: child neglect #tw: death #tw: mention of mental illness #nathan [intro] #nathan [history] #nathan [wanted connects] #nathan [headcanons]

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Six (31.57% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Entertaining, but overrated.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Though Nebula and Gamora trade a couple of lines on a few occasions, they invariably speak about either Thanos, or Ronan. 

Female characters:

Meredith Quill.

Bereet.

Nebula.

Gamora.

Carina.

Nova Prime.

Male characters:

Mr Quill.

Peter Quill.

Yondu Udonta.

Ronan.

Korath.

Rocket.

Groot.

The Broker.

Drax.

Thanos.

The Collector.

Denarian Saal.

Denarian Dey.

OTHER NOTES:

Seatbelts on spaceships should really be mandatory.

Aahahahaha Peter has a woman on his ship whose name he can’t remember and whom he forgot was even there! Oh, it’s so funny and charming! What a classic misogynistic cliche intro! Garbage.

Rocket chastises Groot to ‘learn genders’, and I don’t think the irony of a raccoon (a species with almost no visually-evident sexual dimorphism) saying that to a tree-person (whose species - if sexually dimorphic at all - certainly has no reason to adhere to the humanoid/mammalian model) is deliberate. The other alien higher-life-forms they encounter in the film are pretty uniformly human in appearance (not much effort going on in the ‘alien’ department besides just painting people in bright colours), but lack of imagination from the creative team doesn’t mean that the binary gender system we’re accustomed to on Earth has any broad bearing on the galaxy at large. 

Aaahh, and now Peter is explaining his scars to Drax, with lovely stories of women he cheated on in the past because he’s ~such a stud~.

Thanos tells Ronan off for his dull political raging and whiny behaviour, but he’s sitting on a shiny floating throne himself, so I’m not sure he’s earned the right to criticise what other people have got going on.

Rocket suggests that Gamora trade sexual favours to get things from other prisoners, because we’re being Like That with this movie.

The Collector keeps female slave ‘assistants’, whom he evidently treats so nicely that Carina commits suicide by infinity stone at the first opportunity in order to escape him. We’re just doing so well for the ladies in this film.

As a great comedic beat, Drax calls Gamora a “green whore”. It’s both a shitty line, and nonsensical, since Drax isn’t supposed to comprehend metaphors and he has no reason to believe Gamora is a literal ‘whore’ (nor is he likely to use such a colloquial term, considering the calibre of his standard vocabulary). Basically, it’s a rubbish line from every angle, and all in service of a misogynistic joke. 

This film is a terrible waste of Djimon Hounsou.

Ronan is very theatrically over-the-top in his pronouncements, but Lee Pace does his damnedest to make it work on delivery.

Why does Ronan’s flashy purple infinity stone weapon not kill people when he shoots them with its energy blast? Obviously it would be terribly inconvenient to the story if he just casually killed all the good guys, but honestly. It doesn’t make much sense. They coulda at least pretended there was a reason.

The part of me that is susceptible to acts of heroism is affected by the guardians all joining hands to share the stone’s power. Not enough to feel that the film or the character relationships actually connected on an emotional level, but enough that this ending doesn’t feel totally unearned.

Drax patting Rocket’s head while he’s crying over Groot is a lovely touch. THAT is the strongest character interaction of the film.

So. I’ll be honest: I don’t like this movie. I don’t think it works. I think it’s essentially just a string of gimmicks, loosely attached, entertaining enough on the surface but with no meaningful depth to hold in the mind or keep the audience engaged once the credits kick in (it’s also much heavier on the sexist tropes than any other MCU film previous). I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t give me anything that I value in a viewing experience, it just happens and then ends and that’s it. And the reason it doesn’t work is, frankly, the writing is lazy as shit. It makes a sub-par effort at establishing character and thus relies heavily on cliches, it rarely bothers to incorporate relevant plot and motivations and such into the story at early points in order to generate narrative pay-off, and the world-building is hazy at best and, like the characterisation, trades predominantly on expectation of stereotypes rather than actually creating anything original.

Let’s start in the obvious place: with our lead character. I’m tempted to just say ‘Peter Quill is garbage’ and then move on, because it’s true and also, he’s just not complex or interesting at all, which is ridiculous because he’s got that whole ‘alien abduction’ origin story and there should be like, literally any layers at all to his story instead of him just being an obnoxious Lothario who makes pop culture references like that counts as having a personality. But, here we are. I’m not familiar with the comics so I don’t know if this is a common complaint from fans who can’t believe their boy got all his nuances deleted in favour of such an inane cliche, but if this is exactly what Quill is like in the comics too? That’s no excuse. Part of the magic of adaptation is the opportunity to improve upon things the source material did wrongly or badly. The Quill we’ve got here in this movie is such a bland template he’s almost functionally useless; he barely impacts the story at all, especially in any way that is relevant to his personality or skills and necessitates his presence (the dance-off distraction is the only good Quill moment, and it’s also one of the few inspired choices in the whole film). At the end of the day, Quill exists so that the story has a Main Guy, being a straight white American male (and making sure we all, excessively, know about it), because God forbid we be expected to identify with anyone else. I have heard people sing the praises of the film for ‘subverting cliche’ by not having Quill and Gamora actively hook up by the end, as if that somehow makes it better that every single other aspect of that tedious forced romance plot is still squarely in place and set to play out in future films (pro tip: if the main guy still ‘gets the girl’, only it doesn’t happen in the first film, that’s not subversive. That’s still playing the trope dead-straight). Quill not immediately being shown to be rewarded with sex is not some incredible feat of original storytelling, and it certainly doesn’t absolve him of being a dime-a-dozen pig of a character. If that’s the most ‘unexpected’ character element you can cite, you’re in dire straits. 

Now, I’m not gonna talk about every character individually, because in most cases there’s not much to talk about; Drax is the big warrior guy with the Fridged Family backstory we’ve seen so many times before it elicits zero (0) emotions now; Groot - though an interesting idea on paper - is basically just a Deus Ex Machina of whatever ability is most useful at any given moment, too ill-defined to have boundaries to his powers and conveniently not using his full potential whenever it would allow the characters to win too easily; and Rocket, well, Rocket is actually the only one of the leads who manages any meaningful nuance, which is unfortunate because most of the time he’s just used for sarcastic comic relief. The other character I am going to talk about is Gamora, and it’s because she’s a prime example of how this movie fails to establish things so that they feel like they actually matter or the character’s motivations are understandable, etc. We are introduced to Gamora when she overrides Ronan’s order for Nebula to retrieve the orb from Xandar; as it turns out, Gamora’s introductory moment (literally the first time we see her or hear her speak) is also her act of rebellion when she puts into action her plan to escape Thanos’ clutches and go her own way. The problem, obviously, is this is her introduction. We’ve never seen this character before, we’ve only just met Ronan and Nebula as well, Thanos is barely more than a concept, as is the planet Xandar and the politics around it. Nothing has been established yet about the life that Gamora occupies, so her ploy to escape it? Meaningless. We don’t even find out that Gamora was not planning to retrieve the orb for Ronan until she tells us so after she’s been arrested, and we have literally no reason to believe her because we don’t know her yet because her character has not been established at all. The traditional way to do this would be to show her in her old life, doing as she’s told and/or witnessing terrible things being done by her compatriots, and showing the audience that she has clear misgivings so that when she turns, we understand the context and can believe that’s a logical character decision based on established personality and morals (think of Finn’s introduction in The Force Awakens for a textbook example). Because no time or effort is ever invested in establishing who or how Gamora is, everything we know is delivered to us directly in dialogue, all tell, no show, and what could easily have been the film’s most dynamic character is instead hampered by having her development choked off to avoid spending time on letting her origins matter (despite the fact that those origins are essential to the plot).

On which note, lets talk bad guys. Thanos first, because there’s not much to say, and that’s not a good thing: Thanos is actually pointless to this film, the only reason he’s there is so that the MCU can use him to actual purpose in later films and his relation to Gamora and Nebula and the hunt for the Infinity Stones needs to be established first, but as with everything else this movie is terrible at establishing things effectively. Consequently, Thanos...just floats around on a chair, and then Ronan tells him to piss off and we don’t see or hear from him again in the rest of the film, and there’s no real effort made to integrate Thanos into the story so that he seems like anything other than a dead-end subplot cluttering up the movie for no reason. The closest Thanos gets to anything notable is when he chides Ronan for his boring politics, but even that is symptomatic of the wider problem with this movie’s lazy writing: Ronan’s whole character is essentially just another dull archetype - in this case, the extremist villain - and a solid nothing at all is done to establish his politics or what they mean, other than death for the people we’re told are the innocents. This is a problem with the world-building of the film as a whole, because none of the galaxy’s politics is fleshed out, there’s no context to why the Kree have a problem with Xandar or why we should care, and Xandar kinda gets treated like the centre of the universe but it also seems that’s just for convenience sake so that the plot can return to a previous location for the final act. Hell, I haven’t the faintest fucking idea where Earth is supposed to fit in to all of this, other characters talk about it so it’s clearly a known quantity to the rest of the galaxy, and yet no one knows any details about it and Quill never bothered to go back there for reasons which really SHOULD be explored and yet are not even mentioned (that would seem like some of that characterisation he doesn’t have), so I don’t know what we’re supposed to interpret from that. I’m not confident that the creative powers bothered to think about it, considering how much they didn’t think about anything else. This is a movie where ‘human, but painted’ passes for ‘alien’ and society apparently functions exactly like Earth, tedious misogyny and all, despite the absence of cultural sharing to explain the Earthlike similarities (and boy oh boy do I HATE the laziness of science fiction where everything being identical to Western culture on Earth is treated like it’s ‘just the natural order’ that should be expected to develop in any sentient species, instead of a complex system shaped by unique and varied influences over thousands of years and dependent upon environment, religion, philosophy, and a myriad of other factors not replicated in these poorly-drawn ‘alien’ cultures. I get that you’ve gotta employ at least some shorthand in order to get on and tell your story within time constraints, but come on. If you’re not gonna think about world-building at all, don’t set the story on an alien planet). Above all else, we know that Ronan is the villain because he’s painted (literally) as one; he’s the bad guy through visually-indicated othering, because we all know good guys don’t look like that (whereas most of Ronan’s enemies on Xandar are just regular-looking white folks. Curious...). Sure, Ronan is also introduced spouting rhetoric and then smashing a dude with a hammer, and that seems like villain behaviour, but that only reinforces the point: Ronan’s role is made unmistakable through age-old tropes, and it’s never explored or subverted or made dynamic from there. Like Quill as the ‘hero’, Ronan is a dime-a-dozen cliche.

So anyway. Lets talk plot. This one goes like so: Quill collects the orb from Morag, where he coincidentally runs into Korath and company who just-so-happen to be after the orb at the same time (how it is that multiple interested parties only just found out that one of the most powerful destructive forces in the universe is just chillin’ on this abandoned planet, they don’t bother to explain). Quill runs into both Gamora, and Rocket and Groot, the other parties happening to be after him for different reasons and coincidentally converging on Xandar at the same point. Everyone gets arrested and sent to prison, where they meet Drax and promptly escape and fly to Knowhere so that The Collector can exposition-dump about Infinity Stones. Drax calls Ronan up, just literally straight-up calls the bad guy to come and find them because I guess figuring out a normal plot reason for the villain to catch up with the good guys was too hard, so we had to go for extreme stupidity instead. Ronan gets the orb and goes back to Xandar to destroy it, and our main characters figure they should stop that, so they do. Roll credits. Now, you can make pretty much any story sound basic and stupid by breaking it down into its component pieces, but the important thing to note about this layout is how many convenient or just plain stupid aspects there are. There are almost no character meetings or story developments that come about logically through the sensible development of plot driven by character’s motivations springing from established narrative, etc, and part of that problem is absolutely because there’s so little established character/world-building to begin with, but it’s also because whatever there is tends to apparate when it is needed without any sign of existing beforehand; that is, very little of the story is seeded early on so that it can come to fruition later in a narratively satisfying fashion. The Nova Corps sentence the characters to the Kyln prison as if it’s a big scary concept, but we’ve never heard of it before so we have no reason to consider it trouble. Drax appears and other characters literally tell us why we should pay attention to him, instead of him being, say, pre-established (SUCH AS by having his family tragedy shown on screen as a dual-establishing event for him and Ronan, or something to which Gamora was privy in some way in order to intro her misgivings as discussed above, or even just having someone reference the legend of Drax the Destroyer BEFORE getting to the Kyln (you could also, y’know, establish the Kyln itself in talking about how Drax was sent there. Just saying)). Intro the idea of Knowhere and/or The Collector BEFORE heading there so that it’s less convenient for Gamora to just-happen to have a buyer already set up for the item we didn’t even know she had planned to steal as part of the escape plot we didn’t know she was hatching. For the love of everything, establish some actual REASON for Ronan to follow our characters to Knowhere, instead of just ‘Drax got drunk and called him’. Link the pieces of your story together with concepts and developments that build upon each other in a narrative progression. That’s the difference between having a plot, and having a string of chronological set pieces (some of which - like Morag and the Kyln - don’t even have a purpose anyway beyond providing some action-scene opportunities). 

Before I close this out, I just want to run through a little exercise to demonstrate something that you never, ever want to happen in a story. You never want to have a lead character who can be deleted from the plot without leaving a hole too big to be easily filled by the rest of the cast. But what happens if Peter Quill is removed from this story? Well, pretty much all of the misogyny disappears, so that’s a plus. Someone else is gonna have to retrieve the orb from Morag, but we could easily send Rocket and Groot to do that. Gamora can still fight with them on Xandar exactly as it happens in the actual movie, only this time it’s not just pure coincidence that they conflict. We saved vital time that the film spent on Quill’s inconsequential childhood abduction (and we could save more on trimming the pointless action on Morag), which is time that could be better spent on all that other establishing crap I was talking about earlier, tightening up the narrative. Quill doesn’t serve any important purpose in the Kyln, so we can remove him from that no problem, nor does he matter on Knowhere other than a frankly stupid and ultimately pointless moment when he saves Gamora (definitely unnecessary when we’re removing the romantic subplot bullshit along with Quill). And then what? The characters agree that not letting Ronan destroy the galaxy is probably a good call (not Quill-relevant), they head back to Xandar, fight some bad guys, hold hands, win the day. We lose Quill’s only good moment in the form of the dance-off, but it’s an acceptable loss in order to strengthen the entire rest of the film by deleting the most meaningless character: the lead. We also arguably lose the Ravagers in the process, but as much fun as Yondu is, the plot can also survive completely intact without him (the only time the Ravagers matter is for the previously-identified useless damsel contrivance with Quill saving Gamora, and then they do help out on Xandar in the end, but they aren’t necessary for that - the Nova Corps could have been expanded just a smidge and taken care of everything). On the other hand, if you remove Gamora, you lose the connection to Ronan/Thanos as well as the moral compass of the Guardians; some other character would have to be significantly altered to fill the gap. You lose major Deus Ex Machina skills without Groot, and without Rocket someone else’s narrative has to change in order for Groot to have a buddy (plus you need a new mastermind for various plans, though that’s an easier hole to fill). You skip Drax and you do lose a major plot development in the form of him drunk-dialling Ronan, but admittedly that’s one of the worst things in this whole dumb waste of a movie, so maybe it’s not such a loss. You could ditch Drax. But, that’s not important, because Drax isn’t packaged as the leading man: Quill is. If you delete Drax, you don’t really streamline or improve the story (you could fix the one big flaw in his character very easily, he doesn’t have to disappear for that). You delete Quill...I know, comic book adaptation, dropping the main character is not considered an acceptable alteration when you’re improving the story for the screen. But come on. The least they could do is make him actually matter, not just be a perfunctory inclusion for the sake of sticking this ‘weird sci-fi’ as firmly in the centre of over-done cliche as a lazy gimmick story ever could be. There are a few chuckles to be had with this film, and it’s not entirely boring, but it’s not half as endearing nor even an eighth as inspired as it thinks it is. I’m not impressed by any of it.

#Guardians of the Galaxy #Bechdel Test #female representation #Marvel Cinematic Universe #MCU

[hughshannon1994]

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