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fullonfandomindulgence · 1 year

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dimple is a great fucking character and i will fight anyone who says otherwise. specifically i will fight them by making them read this masterpiece client-crashing god-tackle effortpost about dimple

ive deliberately put off watching the telepathy arc episodes so i could finish this. i like tome So Much. you have no idea how much willpower it took. but it is done and its abt dimples like whole story and purpose and life and i think its a real good thing for you to read and enjoy

im so serious about this that I'm gonna capitalize and punctuate. My sorta thesis here is that Dimple's goals of manipulation are an expression of the basic act of choice that Mob Psycho 100 defines as living, but caring for Mob freaks him out because it distracts him from that purpose, and that contradiction and desperation to choose to live through control is tragically what ends him. Dimple is a friend. Strap in, motherfuckers, we're going for a ride.

Dimple's Goals (Dimpoals)

This is kinda an easy one.

I'm gonna be using images from the show and the comics but I'm not talking about anything past season three, episode six, so no worries anime-onlys. I describe all relevant visual info for each image, though there are also extra IDs in the alt text--I try not to repeat information.

Dimple wants to be a god, "the ultimate being in all creation," "the greatest power in the whole world," and "an object of devotion for all humanity." This dovetails with ideas about superiority and idealism in other parts of the comic but this post ain't about that. It's important that he never says what he'd actually do as a god. Like what is the power for? This comes up in his final confrontation with Mob, too.

Dimple claims that Psycho Helmet leads "people onto the right path," but the second Mob interrogates that he admits he has no plan, "no codex of any kind" from the comic. I don't think that's entirely true, though. Clearly Dimple doesn't care about ruling, because he doesn't actually know what he'd do with the power. But he does want to be revered--he wants positive attention!

Dimple's LOL cult is all about people laughing, and in this panel he says he chose that so he could gain a following without violence. Dimple's attempt with the divine tree is the same, he's trying to keep people the same besides their worship of the tree, make them feel happy in togetherness, help them "find peace at heart." I think there is a reading where making people happy is just a means to an end for Dimple. He for sure tries to kill Mob the first time they meet. But he doesn't have any logic for why he's not, like, using his powers to threaten people and demand tribute. He wants to become a god by making people feel good.

All this said--he's not gonna do it by being himself.

Identifying as evil

When Dimple meets Reigen he identifies himself as an evil spirit. Obviously this is sort of a joke. Like the idea that Mob's pet/mascot is actually an ancient malevolent ghost is pretty funny. But it's meaningful for Dimple's character too, so let's talk about what "evil" looks like. First, obviously the possession thing. How good is it that among all the people trying to manipulate Mob, one of them wants to literally control his every move? Second, here's a bunch of bad stuff Dimple did that Mob thinks about right after Teru tries to exorcise him:

Bro! She's like fourteen! (Dimple makes a lecherous comment about Tsubomi in this image.) He threatens Reigen, he tells Mob the body improvement club is a waste of his time, he straight up asks Mob if he can possess him... He's vindictive, pushy, mocking, and transparently manipulative.

Now to be fair lots of Mob Psycho characters are Like That. But there are some other things more specific to Dimple. Third, he tries to possess Ritsu, taking advantage of his fear of Mob. Fourth, again, the attempting-to-kill-Mob thing. Fifth, here's a bit from a recent side story:

My god. Dimple is terrifying in this. If you haven't read it, Uu is a little dog spirit that Reigen's been keeping around as a pet. Dimple notices that it's feeding on Reigen's energy so he gets rid of it. In these panels he waits until Reigen asks him where Uu is before telling him that he ate it. He has all these lines on his face and this expression of like hostile delight. There are creepy effects blobs behind him. He burps! He does a thing he knows will hurt Reigen and then rubs it in his face, acting like he takes pleasure in it. And finally from one of my favorite scenes in season 2:

I love love love this scene, when Mob is asked to exorcise the ghost family and he refuses. It takes the existing tropes in the story and introduces this like moral complexity and thoughtfulness, it communicates a change in stakes... "They won't have to exorcise you if the clients are dead." Again Dimple is smiling maliciously. He tries to manipulate ghost dad into attacking the college assholes, which is the one hand, for the purpose of getting him exorcised by Mob, which is the other hand. Harm in both directions. There is a third hand! We'll get to it.

But I want to summarize this section first: Dimple's default tool for dealing with adversity is manipulation. He, unlike, say, Reigen, is very comfortable looking like the bad guy, and to some extent he believes he is one. He wants to reach godhood by making people feel good, and he's going to do that not through bloodshed or by being a paragon of virtue but by using other people's flaws to control them.

The Living Spirit

Sorry, I want to do some more stuff before I get to the third hand.

I'd like to think I've been helpfully analytical up to this point, though probably not too novel. But I haven't seen anyone talk about this. Dimple is the liveliest dead guy in the comic, by a wide margin. He has multiple genuine relationships with people, he gets embarrassed, he gets happy, he fears things, he fully laughs. Sure in-canon this might be a proximity thing but in a narrative context I think it's significant that he's so much more of a character than other spirits. Here, in essentially his introduction as a significant character, he says, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life as a ghost!" There's also a great pun he makes in the Dark Horse translation when Reigen questions the existence of urban legend spirits--"Look, pal, just because you're a fake, don't disrespect the lived experience of the dead!" He thinks about living a lot.

Dimple comes back from apparent evaporation more than once, first when Mob exorcises him at the LOL meeting, second when Teru exorcises him in their first encounter. He really really wants to live.

Then there's the brief conversation between him and Reigen about the woman being stalked by what appears to be a spirit, but ends up being a neighbor astral-projecting himself. In this panel Dimple denies that spirits get horny. "It's not like we can do anything about it." He doesn't even think about like romantic love. So most importantly, canon aroace Dimple. But also Dimple believes that being a ghost reduces your existence. It's not even a possibility to do certain things, whether you want to or not. There's a tension here, Dimple craves life but knows that as-is he can't have it.

And then there's this six-page omake at the end of volume five. Please please read it if you can, it's not in the anime and it's such a good little story. When Dimple is almost exorcised by Teru, he only just manages to pull together an ant-sized form, and is rescued from being eaten by a pig ghost by a tiny human spirit called Stubble. The above image is an abandoned house in the woods, with Stubble, off-screen, monologuing, "I simply don't want to perish. I don't hold any grudge against this world. Neither do I have any dreams. Years have passed, without a clear goal." Stubble lives an extremely reduced existence, figuratively and literally. He rides around on the back of the ghost of flea, i.e., he is dependent on the echo of a thing that needs to latch onto something else to exist. He has no agency at all.

It's disconcerting, how Dimple starts at Stubble's size and slowly grows--or, reframed, Stubble slowly shrinks. Here Dimple accuses Stubble, "You died, even before your death. But I on the other hand..." Stubble gets angry. "You're dead too!" Again you should read the story, the way it concludes really blows me away.

Remember in the first episode of season three the S&S crew help the bald guy out of his funk, and at one point he says, "Am I doomed to just repeat these meaningless days until my death?" And then, soon after, "Wait, is my life already over?"

This is about the desperation of agency. Because like, Stubble is right. Dimple has been dead for a long time. His goal is ridiculous. His existence is scraps, yet he's clinging to them with everything he has. What's the point? Lay down alone among the insects, shrink and fade.

Dimple doesn't have a counterargument to Stubble. He doesn't justify "why." But the last sentence he says in the omake is, "I want to stay alive." Dimple, and by extension this omake, and if I may be so bold all of Mob Psycho 100, identifies agency with life. It's not even that life is about making choices, it's that life is literally the act of choosing. You have to choose to live. And Dimple does.

He likes control. He likes choice. He may not be alive but he chooses to live every day. Why? Because he has a purpose: he's going to become a god. And he's going to take Mob there with him.

The Third Hand

Are you good? You're like 1500 words in, feel free to take a break, drink some water.

Maybe you're starting to sense where this is heading. On the third hand, Dimple manipulates ghost dad to help Mob. He attempts to take away both of their autonomy in order to ease Mob's obvious distress. Let's talk about Dimple's evolving relationship with Mob.

I say this a third time, Dimple tries to kill Mob when they meet. Then, despite a positive spin on his initial pitch to Mob, he's pretty transparently evil about it.

These frames of the show are from that introduction, the first with Dimple surrounded in stars and bright colors saying "Let's shoot for the top of the world together," the second with Dimple thinking, face lit from below and body language full of menace, "I'll just wait for my chance to possess him." To be fair again, lots of Mob Psycho characters are Like That. Compare this to the first episode of season two: when Mob tells Dimple the story about Emi, Dimple, excited, assures him that they should keep sticking together so Dimple can help him out with these things. The animators even use the same image of Dimple with the stars and colors:

"Looks like you'll always need an advisor like me!" But this time he doesn't have the sinister turn he did when they first met. This is how Dimple keeps acting throughout season two. He helps Mob, apparently so that Mob trusts him so that in turn Mob can help him reach godhood. But he goes so far above and beyond without any malice: he keeps Banshomaru safe, he possesses one of the high school kids bullying Mob, he eats the curse off Reigen's back, he tries to defend Mob against fucking Toichiro.

Here's a great couple panels: after Dimple explains the deal with urban legends becoming real, he reiterates that he wants to be a god. Then Mob asks Dimple to "make sure [Banshomaru] won't get hurt," and little surprise lines come off Dimple. He agrees but says, "You gotta do me a favor sometime too." Dimple is a little struck by Mob's trust, but maybe more importantly this is the first time in a while, and I think the last time in season two, that Dimple suggests Mob do something for him. It only comes after he reiterates exactly what his purpose is. Dimple's priorities are a little unstable.

Yeah this is just a full comic page from the encounter with Mogami but it's meaningful as shit. Dimple has just suggested taking over Mob's body to protect it. The first panel is Dimple looking away and down, deflated, ashamed. A few sweat drops come down his face. He says, "but something like that..." And to his surprise (action lines, closeup, wide eyes) Mob agrees. Dimple puts on an evil affect when he responds: a horizontally squashed panel shows his backlit face. He smiles unpleasantly and laughs a little, "Kuku..." But his heart clearly isn't in it! His eyebrows are worried, not hostile. There's no pleasure in his smile. He's covered in sweatdrops, eyes wide. When Mob assures Reigen, "It'll be okay," there's another panel of Dimple where the remnants of that affect slide off him. The backlighting is still present but not as severe, the echo of that smile is on his cheek. He's openly worried and covered in sweatdrops. Mob's speech bubble covers a large portion of his face.

Points about this. First, by now Dimple has given up on possessing Mob. This thing that seemed like the main path to his goal is not an option. Second, while both Dimple and Reigen believe that this is a bad idea for Mob, Mob disagrees. Dimple identifies as evil. Reigen identifies him as evil. Mob no longer does. This is classic Shigeo Kageyama behavior, being generous to people even when no one including themselves thinks they deserve it. And the worst part for Dimple is he's starting to agree with Mob. When the option he'd dropped is handed to him on a silver platter, he finds he doesn't want to take advantage of this kid that way. He's a different person than he was.

I don't even know how relevant this is but. Look how much fucking fun Dimple has when he's possessing Mob to protect him. He's doing all these flips and kicks. His smile when he's fighting Mogami!Asagiri is so funny. He does the wildest mid-air combo I ever did see when he attacks the Claw guy as Mob.

Mob becomes such a top priority for Dimple that in the first episode of season three he realizes he forgot that he wanted to become a god. Not only that, but when he comes to Mob to convince him to lead the cult together he's immediately distracted by Mob and what's going on in his life. Mob has to prompt him for him to remember that he's there about the cult.

All this is why Mob's mistrust of Dimple in this conversation is so tragic. Dimple has helped Mob so much, and been so much of a genuine friend, because he knew that Mob trusted him. Where did it go? What happened? Mob's parting words to him are, "Why don't you give your schemes a rest already?" What schemes?? This is the first he's had in months. The translation in the comic, though, is so much more brutal:

"Why don't you stop doing bad things?"

Dimple is

Dimple is terrified of Mob. When Mob wonders if Dimple is scared of him, he's right, of course he is. He has lots of reasons. Mob almost evaporates Dimple when they first meet, threatens him multiple times. Dimple saw him at 100% rage, Mob's first on-screen. He watched Mob hit ???% without being knocked unconscious. This is all especially threatening given Dimple's drive to live. He's terrified when Ritsu tries to fight Mob, he's terrified when Mob asks him if he had anything to do with Ritsu's kidnapping, he's terrified when he thinks Reigen is about to tell Mob that they don't know what happened to his family. But I also read his fear as a symbol of how important Mob is. Dimple attached himself to Mob as the way to achieve his goal. Dimple helps Mob out in so many ways, putting off his goal, so that eventually they can fulfill his purpose together. Then he starts caring about this kid so much that he forgets his purpose! Of course Dimple fears Mob, because their relationship threatens what drives him to live. As much as Dimple is a manipulator, Mob is the one who ultimately has power over him.

Dimple so easily reverts to an evil persona once he leaves Mob because without Mob that's all he can be. If he can't get to the top with Mob, then he has to do it the old way, by using people's flaws to manipulate them. He's able use the broccoli to become a physical presence and get around the "amazing power" problem--though the broccoli's presence and power are still kinda Mob's! But why does he need to become a god at all? Because that's all he is. If he doesn't have Mob and he doesn't have his purpose, then he has nothing.

"Don't go casually denying the thing I've been wanting so badly!" Dimple gets so angry when Mob tells him he's being fake because first, Mob is denying Dimple's manipulative tendencies, which are really important to Dimple right here because he feels his identity is so precarious. And because second, Mob is denying Dimple's purpose. Dimple is in equal danger from Mob's physical attacks and Mob's denial of what he wants. What he wants, what he chooses, is what living is. Dimple doesn't want to die.

Here's a lot of a comic page again, from the final confrontation. Dimple tells Mob that he's just been using him the whole time they've known each other. Mob says, "I'm sad... Does that mean it's time to say goodbye to Dimple?" He steps towards Dimple, who screams in fear and anticipation. I think this is basically the worst thing ever, because god, Dimple is so afraid. Mob is justified in what he's doing but Dimple's desperation is what stands out to me, how hard he's tried to cling to agency and life and how sincerely he believes Mob is about to take it all away from him anyway, to disappear forever and ever.

And then Dimple insults Mob's shirt.

Dimple insults Mob's shirt

Fucking kills me. These are two frames from episode six, Dimple sees how much Mob suddenly trusts him and his reaction is anger, "You okay with leaving me like this?" His eyes are wide, brow down in anger. And then what he says next, "I'm... a dangerous evil spirit!" Here the anger is present but has softened with worry on his brow. The lines by his nose and his pouty lower lip make him look scared and sad. This fight has made it important to Dimple's identity that Mob try to stop him, because he's evil, and Mob stops evil spirits.

Panels from the comic where Mob tells Dimple, "You weren't doing bad things. You were just doing what you wanted to do. Together with me. You trusted me before I trusted you, Dimple. Thank you." Mob doesn't think Dimple is evil, but he identifies how important Dimple acting on his wants is, and he tells him that he still values their relationship. He denies that he has to hurt dimple but affirms his power to choose.

I maybe could've skipped a lot of BS if I put this page further up but I wanted this to get felt, what Dimple's admitting to himself here. It's another section of a page. Panel one, a white splotch in darkness with Dimple's thoughts, "It felt like my ambitions would fade away. Did spending time with unselfish Shigeo cause even me to lose sight of my goals?" Panel two, Dimple is the white splotch. He's scared. "...eh? Wait, that's a problem...!! I'll lose my reason for existing!" So Dimple tells Mob, angry, "No, not yet... I'm not done yet! Even now... I've still got... plenty of things I want to do! And ambitions!" Mob agrees, with that tired, frank look. "I'll hear you out for real. As your friend." Accepting Mob's friendship like this is terrifying, because it means what it always has, forgetting about this purpose. What if Mob stops trusting him again? If he really, consciously abandons his purpose, will he still have agency? He wanted a friend, always wanted a friend. Will it be enough? Will he disappear?

Dimple takes Mob's hand anyway. This was such an amazing shot, I've reproduced its animated glory here, Mob and Dimple reach towards each other, Mob weakly, so Dimple closes the gap and grabs him. The hand grasp of all time. I'm not gonna talk about how this fits into all the other Mob Psycho hand symbolism, that's another 4000-word megapost.

It's worth it. I'm convinced that by involving yourself in a network of people and creating some sense of obligation to others you can actually give yourself an even deeper kind of agency than you could achieve alone. And this is awful, terrifying. Because it involves giving yourself up a little bit. You have to give up some control. Dimple wants to be a god, to have ultimate power and control, so much of him is his manipulation, but he has to give that up for this. Goals that may have guided you for a long time can become irrelevant--and then who are you? If you've defined your life by something for years, and at the end of the decade you realize you don't fit your definition anymore, where do you go? Dimple tells Mob, "Let's go home." But...

Panels from the comic, where Dimple carries a sleeping Mob and thinks, "I said 'let's go home,' but I don't really have any place to 'go home' to... And I don't have anything to aim for from here... I wonder what I should do now." That Dimple is allowing himself to think this is really powerful. I don't think this has to be a sad moment. Like obviously Mob thinks that Dimple's home is his house. He just asked him to stay away until he reverts to his smaller form, as in, he otherwise would've expected Dimple to stay with him. I appreciate the larger point that now Dimple feels unmoored, and deciding on a new purpose is existential. But I think Mob also has a larger point that he believes he can help moor Dimple. I think allowing yourself to wonder where to go next is so important. Dimple is where Mob was a few months back when he decided he wanted to join the body improvement club! He has a future, even if he can't see it very well.

Or, um.

I keep fucking crying while I'm writing this. I love the translation in the comic here. Dimple kneels before a prone Mob and, finger touching his forehead, says, "Listen well... I'm giving you orders for the first and last time. First, wake up. Stand up, Shigeo." Mob is still for a moment and then says, "...it's no use. I can't put any strength into my legs. I can't move my arms either." Dimple is very serious now as he relays, "Your body may complain, but still... stand up. Even if you cannot stand... you must stand." God damn it, god fucking dammit.

Sometimes it's not so easy to change. Your actions have consequences. Your history follows you. Dimple's desperate attempt to keep his old wants comes back to kill his new ones.

Dimple's final act is the same thing he always does, he manipulates Mob to protect him. And it is good and kind. Suddenly his reason for existence is paradoxical: he's going to have to die to fulfill it. Who exists to die? But that's not what it is. Because he's making a choice. He denies death, he says, no, you can swallow me whole, you can annihilate me, but even then you can't take my agency away from me. And I will use this final choice to protect someone I love.

Dimple was a friend.

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sevenyeargap · 1 year

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welcome to my very own analysis of edgeworths character and insane rambling on why i write him Like That. first of all i want to rec one of my favorite essay on political theory/legal philosophy of possibly all time aka the discourse on voluntary servitude by la boétie (which you can read here, its also a fantastic text to read in these coronation/anti-monarchy times)

anyway, if you don't want to read it (although it is quite a short and clear read), the main thesis of this essay is that basically a corrupt political system/dictatorship (here called a tyranny) doesn't stay in place because people are afraid of change and rebellion, but because people don't want anything to change, and they're satisfied with their condition, therefore complicit with the system (see also MLK's quote on white moderates "but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action'")

the tl;dr here is that a system stays in place because no one does anything to change it, and people prefer turning a blind eye to the situation but its not because they're afraid of a new system, it's because they're scared of what it will take to get this new system.

with that being said i think that edgeworths anger and resentment at the legal system post turnabout goodbyes wouldn't be directed at the system right away because he upheld the system. he loved it! (which btw is so so much worse than killing his father. he didn't kill his father but he's complicit in enforcing a terrible legal system!!!!!!!! awful)

and miles loved this system!! i think that even at the worst point of his bratworth era he still believed he was Bringing Fair And Real Justice and was doing The Right Thing. but what happens when you realize this system is deeply, incredibly flawed? when you've spent your whole life fighting for it? deliberately ignoring the ugly parts of it in favor of maintaining a perfect win record?

that's when you choose death!!!! (literally or figuratively depending on how you analyze it.)

i looooove edgeworth celebrating his not guilty verdict but he would start thinking about what he's done. which again is so much worse than simply killing his dad. like he literally says that in rfta

and thats so??? fucking sad!?!!! because how is he supposed to trust in himself now??? phoenix (no matter how good his intentions were) HAS entirely destroyed his whole worldview!!!!!!!! and thus the unnecessary feelings line but you can read more about my thoughts about that line here (tl;dr this line for me a) challenges his views (see supra) b) didn't phoenix "steal" his dream of becoming a defense attorney, in a way? phoenix had the chance to move on and change things for the better but miles... didn't.

ANYWAY edgeworth gets angry at individuals, after turnabout goodbyes, because he hasn't realized how deep the corruption runs yet - he's angry at phoenix, at misty, at everyone who either failed to protect him (misty, mvk, the mvk household, maybe even his own dad for """leaving him behind"""???) OR tried to protect him from this system (phoenix, maya - because how dare they challenge his views on this system he has oh so loved?) also you can read this post here because it really summarizes my feelings about his aa1 arc

every day there is a new media where two people are fighting together for a system. they both come to realise the system is flawed, and while one of them tries to take the system down, the other decides it is still necessary and must be protected at all costs. why is it always the first one who becomes the villain? who is deeply sympathetic but goes too far in their quest for justice? i think for once it should be the second one who is trying so hard to protect the system they believe in that they slowly slip into tyranny

i dont really have a conclusion here but i will say that i think The Note and edgeworths year off were necessary (as tragic as it was) for both edgeworth & phoenix because theyre insane they need some time to think about how much they don't know nor understand each other anymore at this point in time. anyway. thanks for reading?!! i hope this made sense. mwah!

#ace attorney #miles edgeworth #ace attorney meta #i wrote a good chunk of this the evening after i had a final sdjkdsf so hopefully this will make a bit of sense also its so LONG IM SORRY #🦔 : chatters #tw suicide mention

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gabessquishytum · 1 year

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oh i just had a dream/hob/calliope omegaverse idea and i need to share. so. dream and calliope are trying to have a baby (and this is maybe not a good thing! because they don't quite fit together, they're too intense with each other in the wrong ways, but on some level they're both hoping a baby will give them a place to direct their attention where it won't chafe the other, because they love each other and want their marriage to work, they really do). maybe female alphas have low to no fertility when it comes to carrying a child, maybe it's something else, but whatever the reason, they can't seem to get pregnant.

hob, meanwhile, is an unmated (or widowed) omega, close to finishing his phd but increasingly concerned about whether he'll manage before he burns through his savings entirely. he meets death out at a pub one evening, somehow the conversation turns to children, she happens to mention her brother and his wife are struggling to conceive. hob jokingly (but also not joking at all) says that he could be a surrogate, it's not like he's planning on using his womb anytime soon. maybe that would fix some of his money troubles.

he was decently drunk by that point, and he doesn't actually remember giving death his phone number... but he wakes up the next morning to a text asking if he'd be willing to meet her brother and his wife for lunch some time. no pressure, but they'd like to meet him -- if they get along and he'd be interested in actually being their surrogate, they'd take good care of him through the pregnancy and for a while after.

so obviously, they meet, they hit it off. they go on dates in between sorting out the surrogacy arrangement and moving hob into their house. they fuck him pregnant, of course -- both of them fuck him every night so either one of them could be the sire -- but they dote on him during the days as well. calliope helps him organize his thoughts for his phd thesis. dream distracts him when he's spiralling into frustration by pulling him into a debate on whatever comes to mind.

by the time hob's good and bred, dream and calliope are already getting along worlds better, because they have their sweet little omega to pour their devotion into. they absolutely adore him. and they're so, so excited to raise their pup with him.

-🐈‍⬛

Oh this!!! Is amazing!!!! It's already just perfect but I will add a few thoughts of my own <33

- Maybe Hob has already had Robyn (but he tragically passed away with Eleanor in an accident) so he knows for sure that he can safely carry a pup. He's the perfect surrogate, basically. And although nothing will ever replace Robyn, he wants to give the gift of a happy family to Dream and Calliope. He can tell that there's tension, but they're good people and Hob wants to help them. He firmly tells himself that he won't fall in love with them, he'll just be a friend and a fun uncle for the baby.

- As soon as he moves in with them Hob knows he's fucked (he's literally fucked, 3 times per day at least, but he expected that). He loves Dream and Calliope, together and as individuals. They're stubborn and silly and they get in the most ridiculous fights, but basically they're warm and gentle and in love with each other. Hob yearns. A lot. And enjoys living in their very expensive house and eating food from the posh farmer's market.

- Hob is pregnant, yay! And Dream and Calliope are so good to him. They literally dote on him 24/7, he's sleeping in their bed because he needs to feel them close by and they don't complain at all. He gets amazing massages from Dream, Calliope sings to him and brushes his hair. They still fuck him, which he wasn't expecting but God he needs it because the horniness is hitting different. He has to keep reminding himself that all of this is for the baby, not really for him. He won't get to keep any of this love and devotion.

- Calliope works out eventually why Hob is a little sad sometimes and she has to sit him down and explain that she and Dream consider him as their omega now??? If he'll accept them??? They just never mentioned it because alphas are dumb about communicating sometimes. After the baby comes they want to claim Hob for real and marry him. And Hob ends up crying in Dream’s arms while Calliope covers him in kisses.

- Fastforward a bit, and Hob is obsessed with his alphas (even though they can be SO stupid) and his newborn pup, and he has his PhD now!! Maybe they fuck pup number 2 into him after his graduation ceremony. Whatever happens, Dream and Calliope are a proper team, and Hob is always going to be there to set them on the right path. They're stuck with him now <3

#🐈‍⬛ anon #the sandman #immortal throuple #dream x hob x calliope #cw omegaverse

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acre-of-wheat · 1 year

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i love your theories, do you have any thoughts on kit and eloras relationship? ive been rewatching willow (aka having it as a background as i do thesis work) and i noticed they both hate themselves and each other and also envy what the other has (kit never wanting to be a princess and elora always wanting to, both of them feeling unworthy and “not enough”, etc). i think their friendship would be real interesting in a kind of insane way. like “i hate you but not as much as i hate myself, also i would kill and die for you”. like what the hell is that - barmaid anon

My theory is that Elora's season 2 arc is going to be about accepting that people are going to flock to her, fight for her, and die for her/the cause.

We've seen it with the woodcutters, and she told Graydon that she doesn't want anyone else to die for her during The Battle of the Slaughtered Lamb. She specifically tells him that, and he's the only one of the questers to actually die, very clearly and obviously for her.

We know that the Empress being revealed is supposed to gather a great army to her and I think Elora will be horrified by the magnitude of life that will need to be lost during this war. I think she'll do her absolute damndest to try to do everything on her own, to try to win the war by herself so no one else has to suffer.

But that's where Kit comes in. More than anyone else drawn to her cause, Kit is the most devoted, by choice and by fate. She is Elora's sword and shield, she has to stand between Elora and the darkness. She has to suffer, and potentially die, for Elora. The entire storyline of Elora making peace with others risking their safety for her can be condensed down into the relationship between these two girls. Kit's the only one who knows about the woodcutters, who knows the guilt Elora is bearing, and I think we all know what she'd say about it.

"Well, tough. You may be the Empress, but you don't get to tell me or anyone else what we get to fight for."

Do I think Kit is going to get real hurt on Elora's behalf to make this story beat work? Yes I do. Do I think it will drive a wedge between Jade and Elora? Yep to that as well. Am I rubbing my evil little hands together looking forward to it? Absolutely.

(also do I think that Kit and Elora's scenes are incredibly homosexual and do I think they have an obsessive love and belief in each other that makes me bonkers and do I want them to kiss about it, yes.)

#willow #kit tanthalos #elora danan #willow 2022

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virgo-dream · 1 year

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Dream’s Birth Chart 🌌

According to ✨me✨, a completely biased Morpheus TrutherTM with too much time on my pretty little hands 🫰

Alright, I want to preface this, AGAIN, by saying I’m biased in my choices here. I’ve acquired all my knowledge on astrology during the pandemic while I was writing my undergrad thesis and needed to not lose my mind. This is for fun!!!!! And also based in how I see him.

SUN - SAGITTARIUS ♐️

He might always be in the Dreaming, but it is shaped to his will and mood, ever changing and mercurial. Dream is also perceived as whatever people need him to be, being versatile when it serves him. He refuses to commit for his own sake, but when he does, he gives it his all.

MOON - CANCER ♋️

He loves strongly and hurts deeply. He can be manipulative and cruel when his emotional needs aren’t met, but is also emphatic to a fault. Always crying. If he likes you, he’ll care for you.

RISING - AQUARIUS ♒️

The Lord of Dreams and King of Nightmares has to be a forward thinker and able to shape the entire collective unconscious of the universe. He’s also perceived as eccentric, hard to understand and difficult to reason with.

MARS - CANCER ♋️

A fierce, emotional lover. Devoted, but also wants devotion in return. He fights with emotion too, covertly. If you wrong him, be ready to spend an eternity in hell. Maybe someday he’ll learn, but until then, there’s a long time between now and forever.

VENUS - CANCER ♋️

He just wants to be held man. Cherished, loved and understood. He wants to nurture and protect, and to be able to rely on his partner when things get hard.

MERCURY - CAPRICORN ♑️

He’s clear to the point of rudeness, but his communication skills are efficient if he needs it, but communicating his emotions are not his strong suit. Again, he can’t be convinced of what he doesn’t believe in.

SATURN - ARIES ♈️

Me and Dream share this one, unfortunately lol. As my Co—Star so eloquently put: Dream struggles with aggression, defensiveness, impatience, nastiness and conceit (ouch!)

NEPTUNE - AQUARIUS ♒️

Neptune rules imagination and the unconscious, so it would make sense that it would be as imaginative and groundbreaking as Aquarius. It’s also in Dream’s house of self, meaning that a lot of who he is manifests internally rather than externally.

URANUS - AQUARIUS ♒️

Uranus rules innovation, so it makes sense that Dream’s would land in Aquarius. Dream sees ahead and thinks ahead, so of course chimneys and playing cards are nothing to him.

PLUTO - ARIES ♈️

I feel like it would make sense for all of the Endless to be Aries Plutos, simply because they are the first beings to ever be in all of time and Aries is the first sign in the zodiac circle. Pluto rules power, intensity and control. In Dream’s case, it means he’s a pioneer in these fields, shaping the understanding on those things (sorry Desire).

BONUS: HOUSE 1 OF SELF IN AQUARIUS + STELLIUM

Dream has a big stellium in his house of self, in Aquarius. That means a lot of his understanding of life and all the consciousnesses he reigns over is filtered trough the lens of his own personal experiences. That can be evidenced in S01E06, both in his interactions with Death and Hob. It took him 600 years and a century imprisoned to consider changing his world view, and that means changing his understanding of himself too.

#dream of the endless #Morpheus #the sandman #the sandman meta #fictional astrology #I’m on my bullshit again #but this makes a lot of sense okay #and I swear this isn’t my chart #even though me and dream share two of the less flattering placements here lol

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bluuespring · 2 years

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I was tagged by lovelies @ughbehavior & @ipegchangbin ♡!! thank you both

rules: share ten different favorite characters from ten different pieces of media in no particular order, then send this to/tag 10 people.

ajfpasf this took me forever to decide :’) so there are actually 12 and not 10 I’m so sorry.

1. jane eyre / this novel got me into reading, writing and studying literature so I’m eternally grateful for it. jane is a badass. she will not be caged. also rochester is an asshole and doesn’t deserve her.

2. bucky barnes (marvel) / I’m not into marvel that much anymore, but bucky will always have a special place in my heart, he is such a fascinating character and I will eternally love him and devote my soul to him. even my dad knows him too well (he took me to see civil war and i cried a lot) protect him at all costs. also fuck me up long-haired red shirt civil war bucky

3. jesse pinkman (breaking bad) / have I ever cried more tears for a fictional character? i dont think so. I couldve put anyone from this show (hANK SCHRADER???? MIKE?????? GUS???!?!! SKYLER???!?!?!!!!!!) but jesse... yeah. he’s my broken little dork and I still weep for him regularly.

4. joel miller (the last of us) / that goes without saying....w tf..... joel miller has had a chokehold on me since 2015 and he will never leave me. the tears I wept. the hURT I have felt. he is so special to me and his voice, his actions, his very being has influenced me to the core. I could write an entire thesis on this man.

5. elizabeth bennett / has a more badass mf ever existed in media? no. I think not. lizzie is the mvp. her and darcy are the originals. i dont care what you say.

6. jack from marrowbone / those who haven’t seen this movie just watch it... you’ll never be the same. what the fuck. I’m still not over it. wtf.

7. violet baudelaire / my role model as a child. I wanted to be 14 so bad for so long because I wanted to be violet. she’s a star. now she’s like my child. forever in my heart.

8. fred and george weasley / they come as a pair ok fight me.... but those two. oof. their writer is a piece of shit that deserves the worst but gred and forge deserve the best. I will never forgive and I will never forget™️. they were also the objects of my first official fanfic which gave me confidence in writing so yeah. they’re my soulmates. a part of me will always live above weasley’s wizard wheezes. ♡

9. rengoku (demon slayer) / I know this must be a ~mainstream~ choice or whatever but I don’t care. the imprint that he has left on me. him and tanjiro remind me of the importance of kindness and I have embraced it fully since.

10. kaz brekker (shadow and bone) / I really hesitated with inej but kaz. that boy. that character............ I will always vividly remember reading him for the first time. like oh. OH. oh. And it was too late

11. kang sae byeok (squid game) / I saw this girl and I knew... I knew we were going to have silent conversations. her portrayal. her vulnerability. her strength. she is it.

12. opie (sons of anarchy) / I havent even finished watching sons but .... fuck.... I saw ryan hurst who plays him at comic con bc my dad was a fan and he told a story about shampoo and I was never the same since.... he tugs at my heart strings and he’s everything the universe ought to look up to and i’m soft

13. and finally matilda / if there is an origin story to who I am. it’s this.

I don’t know who to tag so... anyone who wants to do it go ahead and tag me I’d love to see <333

Honorable Mentions (bc yes I have a long list)

- Dean Winchester from Supernatural (don’t ask me about it.... don’t...) - Eun-tak from Goblin (aposfjasfasf) - Hong Du-sik from Hometown Cha Cha Cha (husband material™️) - Celine & Jesse from the Before trilogy (those movies fucked me up..... but I love them.............) - L from Death Note (my little weirdo.... never change.... Ive never looked at a phone the same...) - Susan Pevensie from Narnia (another original) - Marta from Knives Out (i lOVE HER bless her heart) - Dallas from The Outsiders (its been more than a decade since.....) - Wanda from Marvel (she deserves better) - Temperance Brennan from Bones (inspiration) - Arthur Shelby from Peaky Blinders (a puppy. a child. i want to hold him.) - Frank Castle from The Punisher (hE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the excellence of morally grey!!!!!!) - Jaime Fraser from Outlander (i can’t deal with him....) - Cha-young from Vincenzo (a bADASS) - Glenn from the Walking Dead (no i will not talk about it) - Rip and Beth from Yellowstone (those two..... i’m.... *bites lip*) - The 12th Doctor from Doctor Who (don’t be lasagna will forever be imprinted into my brain) - House from House MD (a life inspiration. dont give a shit about people) - Connell and Marianne from Normal People (i wept) - Everyone™️ in the Haunting of Hill House (masterpiece)

#I'm probably forgetting really important ones but eh #the essential is there #if you ever want to talk in length about any of them #don't be shy<3 #thanks for tagging me!!!!! it was fun and painful at the same time #ily <3 #tag game #about me

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possession1981 · 2 years

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i am supposed to report to my supervisor today on my progress with the thesis (basically just if i’ve done anything, we’re not actually writing it until next semester) and i feel so bad that i’ma have to write and tell him i’ve done exactly nothing since september because the entire month has been devoted to finding a place to live and fighting for my life to get exam papers in on time.

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feanorianethicsdepartment · 3 years

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i ain’t done anything for @tolkienocweek yet, mostly because my covid-induced neet-dom has decoupled me from any association with sidereal time and thus there’s no way i could guarantee getting something out on its specific day. still, i do have one character that could potentially qualify for day 3 (background characters) or day 4 (self-inserts), sorta. i’d like to introduce you all to the proprietor of the fëanorian ethics department, the as-yet-nameless fed elf

fed elf is a... moderately idealised self-insert of mine, though she’s taking on a life of her own

she’s also a noldo. of course she is

her Noldorin Craft™ is, as i’ve said before, arguing. she has very strong opinions about almost everything and will debate them at length

she’s moderately infamous for it in tirion

she’s especially fond of philosophy, in the ancient-greek asking-a-million-rhetorical questions style. what should we do? why do we do the things we do? why do the valar get to tell us what to do?

... you can probably tell which side of the fëanor/fingolfin debate she landed on, if it wasn’t already obvious

she’s not particularly close to any of the future capital-H House, but she is in their rough orbit. one of the miscellaneous guild trolls that form the rank-and-file of their initial expeditionary force

idk if she’s ~devoted to the cause enough to go to formenos, but when the trees get eaten and fëanor rolls up into tirion with the solution to all their spider problems, she is all for it

she’s a passing acquaintance of maedhros from those times when he’d show up in her guild hall for debate night, so she probably ends up with his crew, at least initially

... there’s a very good chance her first attempts at crafting a new noldorin ethical system happen on that horrible night aboard the blood-stained swanships of alqualondë

in any case, she gets good enough at murder to not die before the brothers hellspawn are divvying up east beleriand, and the formerly reasonably undelineated fëanorian host is splitting up into its various garrisons

most people stay with whoever they’re already riding with, but there are exceptions. she is one of them, as soon as she hears about caranthir’s Plans she immediately switches allegiance to the future lord of thargelion

he’s deliberately trying to set up on the trade routes! they’re gonna make contact with the dwarves! there are apparently trails leading over the blue mountains, links to communities of elves unlike she’s ever seen!

so many new people to argue with!!!!!!

so she heads up to lake helevorn, and helps with setting up the city. she winds up filling some middling role in east beleriand’s military bureaucracy, when she’s not on orc-killing duty

but her true passion is *~ethics~*

there is actually a practical component to this. due to Certain Events the noldor (especially the fëanorians) aren’t as-well suited to their pre-darkening moral codes as they might have once been

they need a new one, with contingencies for, like, murder, and all the other new situations they’ll encounter in this new world! the questions of what’s right and wrong have been blown right open, and fed elf is possibly the happiest she’s been in her life. they’re building everything else from first principles, why not this?

and the fëanorian host in aggregate does actually care about morality, even though outsiders never believe that. it’s what separates them from the orcs (in their minds at least); they’re doing everything for a Cause, not for destruction’s sake alone. say what you want about the fëanorians, their problem was never a lack of ideals

she gets people coming in sometimes, wanting to know what the right thing to do in a situation is. either that, or they think she’s wrong about something and want to explain why in depth, which is almost as fun

soon enough, there’s a small shop just off the main streets of lake helevorn called the fëanorian ethics department

(she’s the only one with a shop, but she’s not the only member of the host with Opinions. the guy on the other side of the market district whose system is fairly similar in the broad strokes but completely different in the details is her personal archnemesis)

for most of the first age, fed elf has it pretty good. by her standards, at least, and she’ll happily exposit at length as to why they’re the only ones that matter

the work on the system of ethics never quite stops, but it does slow down. she’s less prescriptivist than most noldor, so she does a lot of observation and interviewing and stuff, and also new things keep happening for her to cover, but she does manage to nail down the basics!

she does consultation, in varying levels of official capacity, but she’ll also just. answer anyone who comes in with a question. or asks one within earshot

it’s mostly noldorin fëanorians she has debates with, the sindar and atani generally prefer to ask her whatever they want to know with minimum fuss, but whenever she gets a real fight going they all join the crowd. watching fed elf argue with people is one of lake helevorn’s municipal spectator sports

she also has conversations with travellers! these usually start when some newcomer is staring in befuddlement at the sign outside her shop and she takes the opportunity to pounce

she asks them detailed questions about their own ethical systems, which she files away for potential future incorporation/argument ammunition. they fairly frequently ask questions of their own, most often variations on ‘you guys seriously have morals?’

sometimes this even turns into a proper ethical debate! these aren’t usually as well-argued or intense as the ones she has with other fëanorians, particularly if she’s not talking to a noldo, but when she meets someone who’s a proper match for her it is the highlight of her year

running the shop does generate a fair bit of paperwork she tends to be too emotionally invested in to deal with properly, so she hires help now and then. one recurring underling is a clumsy perpetually-ill atan who is nevertheless really good with the filing and holds fierce opinions of their own, even if they hide under the table whenever anyone so much as raises their voice

(that atan is me. much less idealised self insert)

like every other elf in the host, fed elf is still under arms. she has a unit, she’s part of the orc patrol rotas, when caranthir needs to do a battle she pulls her broadsword out from under her desk and reports for the muster. east beleriand is just a pretty violent place in general, and her most impassioned arguments frequently shade into all-out duels. east beleriand, where even especially the philosophers will knife you

but just like fëanor promised on tirion upon túna so long ago, she’s built a place where she can be the best version of herself, and she couldn’t be happier (marketplace douche notwithstanding)

like so much of the host, she has big plans for when they topple angband and reclaim the silmarils. it’s just, well

i am not entirely sure what fed elf’s fate is after the fall of thargelion. most likely she died at some point, because so do most of her peers and also because she has an aversion to cutting her losses that’s definitely gonna backfire sooner or later

it’s either that, or she abandons everything she ever worked out to flee over the blue mountains, or she sticks with the host long enough to see all their ideals and dreams burn to ash. out of all of them death is probably her kindest fate

if she does die - she’s definitely a kinslayer at least one time over, she is staying in the halls for a While. the local maiar completely stonewall her every time she tries to argue her way out, she has plenty of time to sit around and think

because yeah, the host’s century-long self-immolation has given her a lot to think about. she was wrong, it turns out, in several important ways, and from the outside she can see how much the ethical system she put her heart and soul into was bent towards destruction

if she ever gets out, it’ll be after a lot of self-reflection, a massive dose of humility, and her accepting her own small-but-not-insignificant role in the nightmare they created

the fëanorians as get let out of the halls of mandos are without fail less violent, more self-aware, and just generally more conscious of their actions than they were when they went in. fed elf is no exception to this

she’s also no exception to the rule that their time in elf afterlife therapy generally fails to lower their volume at all. soon after her rebirth, after some time spent rethinking her personal moral code, fed elf puts out a thesis as to why elwing’s refusal to give up the silmaril was perfectly justifiable under fëanorian ethical mores

this pisses off a measurable proportion of aman’s sapient population. soon the furious letters of rebuke are pouring in nightly

exactly. as. planned

#tolkienocweek #my terrible headcanons #my terrible ocs #feanorian minions #i have a lot of hcs about how they work that i tried to fit into here #in general i feel like their initial noldorin core is mostly made up of the family hellspawn's personal friends #just groups of buddies going off to war together! there's no way this can end badly!#my mental image of fed elf is way more defined than it has any right to be #i made her up to have a cool blog title and for absolutely no other reason #still it is oc week. y'all are basically asking for my ideas at their dumbest

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st-just · 3 years

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Now I’m curious what the “one work of pop philosophy and one literary essay thing” you’d recommend are

Well good news, on reflection I've thought up a couple more pieces of non-history nonfiction I'd recommend! (also for @drawnkad ) 1. Strangers Drowning, by Larissa Macfarquhar: A sort of examination of selfless/altruism/taking the idea of universal moral obligation seriously - that is, of people who actually act like they believe that strangers have something approaching the same moral worth as they and theirs do. Specifically interested in why normal people’s reaction to such an idea is often one of deep discomfort, at best. Chapters alternate between a sort of intellectual history of the western tradition of such (which doubles as an intellectual history of utilitarianism for a decent portion of it) and case studies of different people who more or less fit the model, including biographies and interviews. Absolutely lovely book, though likely to leave you feeling like a terrible person as you finish it (you probably are, relatively).

Also has some quotes that have been burned into my skull for years now. To steal a few.

The need of the world was like death, Julia thought. Everyone knew about it, but the thought was so annihilating they had to push it out of their mind or it would crush them.

This position was pure, consistent, and invigoratingly radical, but proved so universally repellent that utilitarianism quickly retreated to the safety of moderation.

Some say they're only dong their duty, they're only doing what everyone ought to, and if most people think their sense of duty is extreme or warped, then most people are wrong. They reject the idea that what they do is saintly or heroic, because to them, that's another way of saying other people needn't even try to do such things. Praise is a disguised excuse.

2-3. The Sixth Extinction and Under A White Sky, by Elizabeth Kolbert. Two books that basically form an accidental set, written seven years apart. The Sixth Extinction is more or less what it sounds like, a brief tour of the current mass extinction event and examination of some of the more notable collapsing ecosystems and rapidly vanishing species, along with some interesting (pre-) historical context of what previous mass extinction events looked like. The section on ocean acidification is honestly what stuck in my head most, though I should really reread the whole thing at some point.

Under A White Sky is something like the sequel. You might call it an introduction to the Anthropocene. The title’s obviously a reference to solar geoengineering, but that only takes up a small amount of the book - the rest is devoted to carbon sequestration, to invasive species, to gene drives, to rerouted and electrified rivers, to vanishing coastlines, to the creation of artificial habitats as part of conservation efforts, to coral breeding programs, and to a half-dozen other things I’m forgetting. The basic thesis is that Nature as popularly conceived is a dead letter - buried under the weight of all of our previous interventions spiraling out of control. The world is only going to get more artificial and synthetic and driven by the consequences of human actions, and it’s just a matter of whether further intervention will make things better or worse.

4. The Uninhabitable Earth, by David Wallace-Wells. In case the other suggestions were too light and upbeat. Essentially this New York magazine article expanded into a full book. Or, more helpfully, a pessimist’s look at climate change - if things keep going on like they are, looking at the far end of the bell curve, just how bad could things get? The answer isn’t actually humanity dying off or anything like that (except through a nuclear war breaking out as a second-order effect, I guess), but they are in fact very, very bad. There’s so many ways the biosphere can start breaking down and make everyone’s life so much worse! At the same time it also kind of gives a history/explanation of what we’re doing right now, and how inadequate it is. Though, like, it’s not as entirely bleak as that. Like, to take a couple quotes a find somewhere between depressing and oddly inspiring.

That we know global warming is our doing should be a comfort, not a cause for despair, however incomprehensibly large and complicated we find the processes which we have brought into being; that we know that we are, ourselves, responsible for all its punishing effects should be empowering, and not just perversely. Global warming is, after all, a human invention. And the flip-side of our real-time guilt is that we remain in command. No matter how out of control the climate system seems- with its roiling typhoons, unprecedented heat waves and famines, refugee crises and climate conflicts-we are still its authors. And still writing.

The fight is, definitively, not yet lost- in fact will never be lost, so long as we avoid extinction, however warm the planet grows, it will always be the case that the decade that follows could contain more suffering or less.

5. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. To provide something that’s actually, like, fun. This is the definitive book on the whole Theranos scandal, written by the journalist who broke the story and basically taking it from start to finish The main takeaway is honestly that if you want to be trusted with billions of dollars, get good at making rich old guys see you like a protege/surrogate non-disappointing-child. Also the highest ranks of American public life are just absolutely full of corrupt idiots, but that’s not really a surprise.

#reply #drawnkad #anon #book recommendations #bad blood #John Carreyrou #the uninhabitable earth #david wallace-wells #the sixth extinction #under a white sky #elizabeth kolbert #strangers drowning #Larissa Macfarquhar

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palimpsessed · 3 years

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Writerly Ephemera

I was tagged by @amywaterwings @mostlymaudlin @tea-brigade @effing-numpties @captain-aralias @bloodiedpixie . This is so cool, so thanks for sharing yours! ❤️

Per Amy: We add little bits of ourselves to our writing, scattering memories and places and phrases and things into our stories. The game is to find five examples of this, of YOU, in your writing and show everyone.

I don’t really feel like I put much of my own experiences into my fic, probably because I don’t feel like I have a lot of experiences to pull from. (That’s not me being self-deprecating; that’s me never going anywhere or doing anything.) So, let’s see what we come up with!

Going to tag here. I feel like I’ve gotten to this late so I’m not sure who has been tagged. Anyway. No pressure, loves. Just saying hi. 🥰 @theflyingpeach @bazzybelle @otherworldsivelivedin @unseelieseelie @wetheformidables @caitybug @nightimedreamersworld @foolofabookwyrm @stillmadaboutpetra

1. I have put the most of myself into A Man of Letters. I have my degree in English Lit and when I was in college, I was at the height of my Jane Austen obsession. So I sort of built my degree around the development of the English novel. My senior thesis was on a book called Evelina by Frances Burney, who was one of Austen’s greatest literary influences. Evelina is an epistolary novel—told entirely in letters. I love the epistolary form, for the same reason I love dialogue and texting fics. It’s such a fun narrative technique and can reveal so much about individual characters. It’s actually a bit like the way Rainbow Rowell uses multi POV in her books. Anyway, my love of the epistle was on full display in this fic, which is ofc told in letters. —Do I share a passage? That’s like...the whole fic 😅 So, idk. Here’s Simon being a disaster as he meditates on letter writing:

Dear Penny,

As I start this letter, I already know I'm not going to post it. I know I won't be able to bring myself to do it, because of what I have to say to you. I do feel bad. It's not that I don't want to tell you. And you know I'm so much better at writing things down than saying them out loud. It's only that I feel like this would all sound better coming from me in person. I just don't think I'll be able to make you understand in a letter. I'm still trying to understand myself. And writing all of this down helps me with that. Even if I'm only pretending to write to you, it makes me feel better, to think of you on the other end. I promise I really will tell you everything as soon as we're together again.

2. Also for A Man of Letters, my fascination with Regency fashions, in particular the dandy, was a major factor. I did an art book about this, comparing how fashion has changed over time, especially in regard to gender. (I also did an art book based on Evelina, since I’m on the subject. I minored in book art. 😁) I always fancied the look of a Regency dandy, so that was my gift to Baz.

Whoever has been working their magic on Salisbury should in fact be the person to whom I offer my eternal devotion. Alas, I am left to flounder under the burden of lusting after a man who is incapable of dressing himself.

The utter and unmitigated shame.

Salisbury wore a forest green wool frock coat that set off the golden highlights in his brown locks. This was accented with a green and aubergine striped silk waistcoat that was trimmed in white piping and felt much too daring a pattern for the man. (I don't care if he was a soldier; it takes a hardier man than him by half to choose a stripe like that.) His charcoal trousers were enticingly snug, but not so much to prove lethal. His cravat and points left much to be desired, though that likely reflected poorly on his ability to keep himself in order, rather than the ability of his valet. (Good God, maybe the man doesn't even have a valet!)

3. When it came to my countdown fic, To the Manor Borne, I had Shep make a reference to Cluedo, because Pitch Manor would be perfect for a real life game. Behind that, is the fact that my family played a lot of Clue and I watched the movie a whole bunch growing up, to the point where my sister and I used to quote it to each other. This was a way to pay homage to that. He also talks about playing the game Murder in the Dark, which was one I played at Halloween as a kid. One of my cousins was dressed as a ghoul with glow in the dark face paint and we were in my grandma’s creepy upstairs. Perfect vibes.

I’ve seen the kitchen and the dining room and the library and the study and the parlor. Walking through this house is like playing Clue. (They call it Cluedo on this side of the pond, because they like to be difficult.) (That was a whole thing. Do not get me started.)

I keep thinking Colonel Mustard’s going to pop up out of nowhere and brain me with a lead pipe.

And:

What kind of games do you play with magickal friends who don't have magic? Twister? Not with the wings and tail. Cards? Baz and Penny would cheat. Or accuse everyone else of cheating if they didn't win. Murder in the dark? With these people, in this house, I knew it would turn literal fast, and also it was like ten in the morning. Hide and seek? Simon and I would hide and everyone else would ditch. Snowball fight? World War III.

4. I’ve referenced Mozart in my fics a couple of times because when I was first getting into classical music, I was listening to a lot of Mozart. My sister had a CD of some of his early symphonies, and my local classical station does “Mozart in the Mornings” which happened to fit in the exact time slot between two morning classes I had my first year in college. I’d go sit in my car with a cup of tea, and just vibe with Mozart as my soundtrack. I’ve name dropped him in both A Man of Letters and To the Manor Borne. Also, Mozart wrote 12 variations on the melody shared by Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, which is a lovely tie in. (I also had the gang sing/cast The Holly and the Ivy, which is one of my favorite Christmas carols, and by strange coincidence was playing on the radio at the same time I wrote that scene. 🥰)

"It's a songbook," I tell him, like he can't figure that out for himself. "Did you know that Mozart wrote twelve different versions of the same song?"

He's laughing. "Mozart did not write Twinkle, twinkle, little star, Simon."

"You know what I mean."

"He composed twelve variations for solo piano on the French folk melody Ah! Vous dirai-je, maman."

"Sure. Anyway, this is for the violin. For you to play."

He's still laughing, and I'm trying to figure out what's so funny, but then he kisses me again, on the lips this time, so I figure maybe I'm still doing okay.

Only one more to go! What will it be? 👀

5. Therapy! Eheheh...😅 Look, it’s no secret the gang needs it. And tbh, so do I. Haven’t actually managed to get myself to go yet, and I think that’s where a lot of my “send them to therapy” happy endings come from. I did it in Use Your Words and To the Manor Borne. I started Chamber by Chamber with SnowBaz already in therapy, and then structured the whole thing around therapy that they give to each other and to themselves. It didn’t really fit in A Man of Letters, but if it had, I absolutely would have done it. I’ve only shared from two fics so far, and since it could kind of spoil the ending to Use Your Words (tho saying this may be spoiler anyway...), here are two snippets from It’s a Kind of Magic, Part I of Chamber by Chamber.

I've been working on articulating my needs. We both have. Ordinarily, I'd be afraid of pushing him away by making demands when he's on the verge of a spiral, but my therapist insists that I can't go on treating Simon with kid gloves. If I never ask him for anything, he'll think he doesn't have anything to give.

And

When I told that to my therapist, she said that I needed to talk it out of me and she'd help me find ways to work through it all. She said I needed to talk it out with Baz, too, so that he'd know how to help me when things got bad again—that was something else she said, that things would get bad again, and that I'd need to be prepared for that. That I couldn't expect things to be easy, and just go away.

6. BONUS! I think the biggest way I include bits of myself is in the AUs I’ve chosen to write. I have three I’m planning that say a lot about me, so I’m going to talk a bit about them here. There is ofc my Scooby Doo AU, inspired in large part by the fact that I watched it all the time growing up and also, my sister continues to be obsessed with it. When we were young, my parents were doing a lot of work on their house and we’d take family trips to the hardware store. My sister and I hated it, so we’d wait in the car with my mom and she would entertain us with “Scooby Doo stories”. Other AUs I’m planning? Troop Beverly Hills—please tell me someone else out there loved this movie the way I did when I was 5. It was very influential to baby me and I remember wishing for nothing more than being able to dress like Shelley Long. So, I’m going to let Baz do it, because I think he deserves it. 🥰 Lastly, tho it will probably be the first I write, is my Cupid and Psyche AU, from when I was heavy into mythology and religion. Since these are all forthcoming projects, I don’t really have a snippet. Instead, here’s Baz comparing Simon to Eros, which is what started my brain on that particular AU.

I am lost. I barely know anything about Salisbury, but I can't help being drawn in. At one time, I could have comforted myself that I was only so smitten with him because he looks like he was sculpted by Praxiteles. That excuse grows weaker with every encounter. He's the furthest thing from a lifeless tribute to beauty in marble as one can be. There is something deep and dark and feral inside of him and I want to claw it out. I want to see it, to let it free. To taste his wildness and his pain.

#tag game #writerly ephemera

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airgetlamhh · 3 years

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Thoughts on Lostbelt 3

So, Lostbelt 3.

Just came out, and this time I played it in good time. Hopefully that’ll continue! Spoilers ahead for Lostbelt 3, and also for Qin Shi Huang’s interlude which has yet to come to NA. I’ll mark that section specifically so people can skip over it.

You might remember that I did one of these for Lostbelt 2, and if you haven’t seen that you can find it here. These are freeform and have no real set structure, they’re just one big post for me to gather and explain all my thoughts about the story. I’ll talk about characters, themes, pacing, etc. as they occur to me, and so expect this to be fairly chonky.

Now, once again, I’m going to lay out the thesis statement ahead of time, so people can feel free to skip over or read as they please. I expect this will be somewhat more controversial than my opinion about Gotterdammerung.

Lostbelt 3, the Synchronized Intelligence Nation, is bad.

I had wondered how to start this, but over time my thoughts kept coming back to the pacing. There are sixteen chapters in the Lostbelt, and almost nothing of any consequence whatsoever happens for the first eight. We fight Akuta, she runs, we fight Akuta, she runs, we spent like eight battles fighting the beasts Koyanskaya let loose and they amount to nothing and have no plot relevance whatsoever, we fight Xiang Yu and then he runs, and then we fight Xiang Yu and Lanling and then we’re forced into a truce and then nothing happens until Spartacus leads the people of the Lostbelt to rebellion and Qin drops the meteor and the march to Xiangyang begins.

Nothing happens.

Obviously that’s an exaggeration, there some events. Qin examines the Shadow Border, we meet some of the characters, but that’s all, really. A solid half of the Lostbelt is almost entirely useless faffing about, and then it rams the accelerator so absolutely nothing has any time to land and we speedrun our way through it. To put it in perspective, it’s one chapter shorter than Gotterdammerung, which was already five chapters shorter than Anastasia, and it feels significantly shorter than Gotterdammerung too. I complained in my write-up of that that it felt like things just happened for no reason, but at least things happened. In comparison, half of Lostbelt 3 feels bereft of content, the only important events of which could be condensed into about three chapters tops.

It feels like it’s a mid-year 1 Singularity. We have detours to kill random beasts unrelated to the actual plot, we get interrupted by fights as we try to talk, we faff about for ages and then speedrun our way to the actual climax. By the end of the Lostbelt, I was left with a lingering sense of “Wait, is that it?”

Moving on from the pacing, I think I should probably address the characters next. This is likely to be the largest section, since so much of the issues in the Lostbelt come from the characters and it’s only by talking about the characters that I can really engage with the themes. I’ll start from the least relevant and work my way up, meaning that I’ll be addressing basically the entire conglomerate of characters that aren’t Qin, Yu, Xiang Yu, Spartacus, Liangyu or of course Jing Ke.

Red Hare and Chen Gong, they’re comedy, make no mistake. They’re there to add a bit of humor to scenes and it’s fine, they’re funny. It’s a mistake, in my opinion, to follow such a powerful scene as Spartacus saving the villagers and it inspiring them so much that the Lostbelt reconnects with the Throne of Heroes by having it result in nothing but comic relief, but they’re inoffensive.

Koyanskaya, she’s Koyanskaya. There’s a bit more hinting about her true nature here, but besides that she’s exactly the same. Nothing much happens besides that truly gratuitous torture scene that made me glad FGO’s story isn’t voiced, because it really was just deeply uncomfortable. I think that after two chapters and a prologue full of her being untouchable and smug and constantly ahead of everyone she did need to stumble a bit, but having her get punked by Shuwen and then gruesomely and gratuitously tortured while she screams and begs for help was completely unnecessary.

Han Xin and Li Shuwen, they’re fine. I’m not much of a fan of the whole stuff about Li Shuwen being so powerful as to stand up to four Servants, three of whom are meant to be insane powerhouses in their own right, but we’ll get to that in a bit. Han Xin when he’s allowed to just go apeshit at the end is one of the very few genuine delights about the Lostbelt, I really enjoyed him.

Lanling is a disappointment not because he’s badly written, but because he’s barely written. We start the Lostbelt to a flashback of his death and it sets us up to expect a bunch from him, but all that we really get is that he’s loyal to Yu. His only purpose in the story is to function as a connection for her outside of Xiang Yu, and boy howdy does this whole thing fail, we’ll get to that too. If he’d had more time, I expect he’d be quite good, but as it is he’s barely in the story and his only major character moment outside of Yu is when he tries assassinating Guda and admits he’s not really built for it.

Mordred and Nezha are there respectively to bounce off Spartacus and to reveal that Xiang Yu is based on her body respectively. That’s it. They vanish from the story for a good few chapters and I didn’t notice because Nezha becomes irrelevant as soon as you meet Xiang Yu and Mordred becomes irrelevant as soon as Spartacus died. You could remove both and the story would change not at all, and while I do think that Mordred’s role in giving Spartacus someone to bounce off of was nice and I enjoyed their interactions, introducing a whole character just to bounce off another means that when the other character is gone, the one you’ve introduced is just there. It’s insanely noticeable with Mordred.

Gordolf is a genuine delight. I think my honest favorite scene besides Spartacus’s in the chapter is when he and Guda have to decide who gets the only dose of antidote. Guda flat out telling them what hand they’d throw was perfectly in character but I genuinely adored Gordolf completely throwing the match and faking that it was an accident and that Guda got the antidote fair and square, after having it pointed out that he never once tried to lord it over Guda that he saved their life from the poison. When Guda forces him to drink it, Gordolf’s complete dedication to getting them the antidote and refusing to let Guda die because he’s the director and he is personally responsible for all their safety, that’s good stuff. I love Gordolf very very much, and I think that this Lostbelt really gives him some shining moments that emphasize why he’s so wonderful.

I think that is basically all the minor characters barring the village boy, who I will get to in a bit, but if you’re noticing a trend it’s that they’re mostly fine, inoffensive. Nothing stands out as truly genuinely very bad, but for the most part they’re all wasted potential. They exist to fulfil exactly one role, and then hang around long past their welcome in most cases, with Han Xin, Li Shuwen, and Lanling managing to avoid that, albeit in the first two more due to their overall lack of presence until the very end.

Now, Liangyu. Here’s where things start to break down a bit.

In this Lostbelt, Qin Liangyu is a warrior who distinguished herself enough to be frozen in Mt. Li, where Qin keeps their heroes to be used when necessary. Alongside Han Xin, she’s defrosted to handle the Chaldea threat. Her major point of focus in the chapter is engaging with the “Confucianism” that Chaldea represents. She’s the one who hears the poem first, she’s who reports it to Qin, she’s who steals the Shadow Border and who ends up confronting Chaldea first when they get to Xiangyang. When we finally get to hear her conviction, why she is so willing to fight for her home...

It’s revealed that Qin destroyed her village, her family. They had been inspired, not to rebel, but to simply seek to govern themselves and live as a nation outside of Qin’s domain. Qin’s response was to fire a meteor at their village. When the instigator escaped, he tried to do it again, and that was why Liangyu fights. To avoid the needless death and suffering that is guaranteed by opposing Qin.

No one is horrified by this. No one reacts to her blaming the victims for wanting a better life. No one points out that her loyalty comes entirely from a place of fear and loss, that Qin took away everything she held dear and then threatened to do it again and again and again. She fights because Qin would otherwise wipe out everyone, and this is heralded as splendid loyalty and honest devotion, despite the fact that it’s effectively the same logic as why someone might not resist their abusive partner. That is all Liangyu is meant to do, show us some kind of loyalty and validity to Qin’s path, and they even have Mashu lost for words when she is confronted. All to show us that true loyalty is submission, and that it’s a valid and good reason to fight, to be too scared of the tyrant above you wiping out everything if you don’t. Not something to oppose Qin for, but something to commend them for inspiring.

That reading, despite being a clearly obvious one, isn’t ever once entertained by the story. No one points out Qin’s tyranny as the starting point for Liangyu’s suffering, even though it clearly is. It’s not that it’s refuted, it just never once comes up, because the characters acknowledging it or challenging it would hurt the clumsy point it really wants to make.

As a digression, this Lostbelt is a step back for Mashu. Her climatic character moment in Part 1 is rejecting a world without suffering and having the purest conviction necessary to block Ars Almodel Salomonis, but now she’s shaken and starts thinking that maybe that was a mistake all because it was only a possible future she rejected with Goetia, instead of the actual people in front of her? I can’t see that as anything but a regression, considering it was a point that her conviction was able to overcome the most powerful attack in the series even as it destroyed her body to protect those behind her. It’s done almost entirely to make us question whether or not Qin has a point, and given that the answer to that is a resounding and obvious “no” all it ends up doing is taking a hammer to Mashu’s solidly built up character every time she responds to an obviously flawed argument with “...” to give it unearned validity.

Spartacus next. He is an honest to goodness genuine joy. There are a few bright spots in this Lostbelt and Spartacus is one of them. He is very well written, allowed to think and philosophize about the nature of rebellion and whether it’s needed, and his musings on why he rebelled and whether or not it was justified to rebel against Qin when their people smiled so innocently like he’d always hoped for was unironically fantastic character work. His sacrifice reigniting the will to ask for more inside the people to the point of connecting to the Throne once more is absolutely fantastic, and his interactions with Mordred are great too. I absolutely do not have a single bad thing to say about him, he’s just wonderful.

Jing Ke. She’s a delight. She is a constant denier of everything that Qin suggests, and she functions as a beacon of good sense in the chapter. Where others are falling prey to some nonsense writing that makes them wonder if they’re doing the right thing, Jing is constantly pointing out the horrible, horrible tyranny going on, and constantly reminding people that Qin is in fact, a monster. Her final moments, getting to trick Qin into downloading a virus, arguing against them on philosophical grounds and then mocking them when they’re surprised that she would use that as a chance to kill them, and the argument itself of humanity’s virtues being in its ability to communicate and progress even if they don’t have a certainty of peace ahead of them, all of it was great. I’m sad she died and never got a chance to see Guda again in the Lostbelt, but all in all, she was well written.

Xiang Yu and Yu Meiren. This is where things get really, truly, genuinely disappointing. As concepts, they’re really cool. Xiang Yu as a machine built from the body of a god with the ability to calculate and compute the future giving him an inhuman mindset is a really neat idea, as is Meiren being effectively a True Ancestor. Them finding love as two non-humans who understood each other where no one else did is good in theory.

In practice, Xiang Yu and Yu Meiren’s romance, the emotional core of the chapter, is without question the worst romance written in the Lostbelts thus far, and probably the worst romance in the game. It isn’t until chapter 13 of this 16 chapter game that we get any exploration of it at all beyond Meiren being devoted to Xiang Yu to the point that she completely cripples her own agency as an interesting and individual character to work entirely for Qin when they threaten Xiang Yu’s life, and the exploration we do get is just...explaining how Xiang Yu is a robot and how he lived in Panhuman History. No examination of their mutual feelings, just Meiren describing how her Xiang Yu lived.

This Lostbelt is not a reuniting of lovers long past. This is Meiren finding a man who shared an origin with her lover and devoting herself entirely to him, even though they aren’t the same person at all. This could have been an incredible hook!

Imagine if this Lostbelt looked at Meiren’s two thousand years of stagnation in mourning for Xiang Yu and her sole desire being to be reunited with him and then it gave her her wish. She betrayed her own history for the Lostbelt’s, because it gave her a chance to see her beloved again, but this Xiang Yu is not her Xiang Yu. He doesn’t even answer to the same name, doesn’t recognise her at all. Having thrown away everything that connected her to Panhuman History just to see her beloved again, she is now trapped in a world she doesn’t recognise with a man who isn’t her Xiang Yu, her sole connection being...Gao Changgong, a regular human from Panhuman History. The greatest of ironies, her only meaningful connection being one of the humans she hates, because she sacrificed everything for a man who doesn’t even know her name.

Lostbelt 3 is a story about stagnation and the dangers of easy ignorance, but Meiren’s story doesn’t engage with that central theme whatsoever. Hers is a story entirely about how she merely existed just to exist before she met Xiang Yu and after he died, and her only experience being happy was with him. A few short years in literal millennia of existence are all that she cares about, and indeed she doesn’t change even slightly over all those years. And despite this stagnation leading her to consign her own history to death, the history that her Xiang Yu is from and fought for, the story never once engages with that. She is, in fact, rewarded in the end by becoming a Heroic Spirit and getting reunited with her Xiang Yu.

And really, that’s what gets me. They have a perfect setup to tie into the theme of the Lostbelt, how an uncertain future of progression is sincerely better than a stagnant peace born of ignorance, and they don’t tie their Crypter into it nearly as well as LB1 or even LB2. Kadoc is obsessed with conflict and overcoming Guda to prove his own strength in a reflection of how Lostbelt 1 is a hellscape where might makes right, and Ophelia is stuck doing nothing but following her role without a choice in a reflection of Surtr existing only to fulfill his role, being capable only of destruction and incapable of changing that. In contrast...Meiren doesn’t engage with SIN’s theme of the worthiness of peace at the cost of stagnation at all, really.

I’m talking a lot about what she could be instead of what she is, because what she is is obsessed with Xiang Yu. Her sole concern in every single appearance besides her single moment of independent characterization with Gao on his deathbed is Xiang Yu. She sacrifices her initial independence to obey Qin for Xiang Yu’s sake, she fights for nothing more than Xiang Yu’s sake, she wants nothing more than to be with Xiang Yu forever, even if it’s not her Xiang Yu, even if it’s sacrificing the world her Xiang Yu fought for. She chooses the peace of stagnation and is never once punished or even questioned for it. She tells Lostbelt Xiang Yu about his history in her world, and then he tells her that he understands why her Xiang Yu loves her, and then decides on the spot that he loves her too. That’s it.

Every other existing romance that they play back into in Fate is one that they put effort into selling. I mean, just think about Sigurd and Bryn! Imagine if, instead of all the little touches and bits in the chapter where they go in hard on selling that Sigurd and Bryn are madly in love with each other, they just didn’t have that. Imagine if Kadoc and Anastasia barely interacted except for Kadoc telling Anastasia how her past went. It really feels like Urobuchi looked at Meiren and Xiang Yu’s existing famous romance and decided that he just didn’t need to sell it, even though it literally wasn’t the same people involved.

And to be clear, I understand the intention. Xiang Yu has an alien mindset because of his calculation of the future, and this alien mindset means that he does things that are hard to understand for us. But at the end of the day, Lostbelt Xiang Yu hears a single story about himself in Panhuman History and decides that it makes sense that, given everything he and Meiren experienced there, that they would fall in love. And then he chooses to fall in love too, in the span of a single conversation. That isn’t believable, but more to the point it isn’t satisfying. This isn’t a great reuniting of lovers, it’s Meiren telling a stranger how a hypothetical alternate timeline version of him lived and him deciding he loves her because of that one single story.

And the way this love is represented is...it’s kinda typical Urobuchi. Meiren’s tragedy is undersold and given second billing to talking about how tragic Xiang Yu’s life was and how bad it made her feel and how she wished she could have done something, while LB Xiang Yu ignores her plea to stay and to not fight anymore by declaring that he must fight for the Lostbelt because of his programming, not for her, and then after he’s defeated and Guda beats Qin he declares that he’s actually madly in love with Meiren and will ignore her stated wishes again to fight until he dies, whereupon he promptly talks about dying with regret for leaving Meiren behind and quotes the poem and everyone claps. This great romance begins by Meiren telling Xiang Yu about how sad his life was in her history, is defined solely by Xiang Yu doing anything he wants at any time while Meiren feels sad about it, and ends with Xiang Yu ignoring Meiren’s wishes to sacrifice himself for absolutely nothing and to have it later revealed he knew exactly how she would react to this and did it anyway.

It’s not that I don’t buy the romance, it’s that I can’t buy it. It’s every terrible romance you’ve seen in fiction before where there’s no chemistry to sell it but the author keeps telling you how perfect they are for each other, only in this case the author tells you how perfect Meiren and Panhistory Xiang Yu are for each other and then shrugs and decides that Lostbelt Xiang Yu is basically the same anyway so it works. And it really, really does not.

The Xiang Yu of Panhistory is somewhat interesting from what we hear in the chapter, but Lostbelt Xiang Yu is very bland and Yu Meiren is just a tragically wasted character. Instead of a story of being shaken out of stagnation and learning to grow and move forward, we get a story of stagnation being the good and right choice for her. Instead of a story of trying to make the past happen again instead of acknowledging that they are two different people who cannot simply pretend everything is as it was, we get a story where Lostbelt Xiang Yu decides it makes sense that an alternate universe version of himself would fall in love with Meiren, and then skips all the actual development to decide he’s madly in love with her too. Instead of a story of Meiren realizing that her closest connection for the longest time was a living human and that she can live for more than just the memory of a man long dead, we get Meiren’s character being solely, completely about Xiang Yu from beginning to end, and even later in Chaldea where she exists for nothing more than “haha married couple” jokes.

There is, to be clear, an attempt at relating this to the other theme of the chapter, humanity. Meiren and Xiang Yu are both discriminated against for their inhumanity, and it’s pointed out that they’re so fitting for each other because they, as non-humans, understood each other. I think this could have worked if it was given more emphasis, but as it stands it just kinda...isn’t. It, and they, take a backseat to Qin’s emphasis on this theme, so all this theme does for them is another justification as to why they are totally in love and why Urobuchi doesn’t have to write them actually being in love.

And then Xiang Yu dies, and Meiren goes crazy because her entire world and every facet of her character revolves around one man, and we have to kill her because he ignored her pleas and then died knowing he would die and knowing she would go crazy when he died. This, after spending the entire chapter from the first time we meet her being completely ineffective and failing at every turn, only becoming a threat once she devours her own Servant and even then only for a few minutes before she ceases to be relevant. Thanks, Urobuchi. Love it when you write women.

It’s a genuine disappointment, because you could do so much with Meiren and Lostbelt Xiang Yu bonding as themselves, not as Meiren from 2000 years ago and Xiang Yu from Panhistory, and with Meiren being able to honour her love without letting it chain her down to stagnation like it did in practice. But they don’t do any of that. They tell us that this great romance exists without putting in any of the work, and then expect it to work. And for me? It didn’t, at all. It is again, without a doubt the worst romance in this arc, and probably the worst romance in FGO.

Finally, Qin.

I think Qin is a fantastic villain. They are completely, utterly loathsome in every way, and the early chapters with Spartacus and Jing Ke around really highlight it. Spartacus’s musings about rebellion culminate in a reassurance that it is in fact right and just to rebel against the oppressor that is Qin despite the peace they offer, and Jing Ke consistently and constantly responds to all their justifications by pointing out what absolute drivel they are. It is a sincerely excellent setup for a Lostbelt King that isn’t a tragic case of someone trying to save what they can after a horrible accident, but one who in their arrogance created a hellscape that was pruned solely due to their own tyranny. Qin is the perfect balance of hypocritical and arrogant and cruel while being utterly convinced of their own perfection to make a fantastic villain to break out of the “tragic king after apocalypse” type we’d had for the first two Lostbelts, and has the perfect ingredients to a tie-in back to Goetia and how Goetia earned the title of “King of Humans” in their final moments.

But, unfortunately, the chapter starts softening up on them as it goes on. Where before, we had people calling them out for tyranny and obvious wrongdoing, by the end we have Holmes praising them for shouldering the difficult responsibility of humanity all by themselves and being the one we get on our Lostbelt CE, a spot reserved before for the inhabitants of the Lostbelt that we befriend. Because, ultimately, the Lostbelt doesn’t want to condemn Qin.

What Qin does is monstrous in the extreme, but by the end of the Lostbelt it feels like the game has forgotten that. Instead of pointing out the obvious problem in Liangyu’s loyalty being based on the certainty that Qin would murder everyone if she didn’t do it for them, Mashu and Guda have to just accept that it’s valid. Instead of reminding themselves of Spartacus and Jing Ke’s rejection of Qin as a tyrant, they praise them for taking over the responsibility of humanity. Instead of having the Lostbelt represented by the boy who dared to look up and dream of something more, it’s instead represented by Qin descending to live among humanity in their final days. Even Qin’s final act for Meiren has them claim without irony that they guide their people by the light of reason, when the entire chapter has been about how Qin uses threats of incredible violence to control everyone and how they had to conquer the world by force to enact this horrible regime, and no one points out the shocking hypocrisy in Qin claiming that they guide through reason instead of, you know. Giant meteors.

I didn’t name that boy, because the story doesn’t name that boy. In a story that is ostensibly about the horror of humanity being stripped of everything that makes them an individual and showing us that the spark and drive to be different and to learn and grow and change still exists even after over two thousand years of Qin trying to stamp it out, they don’t name the boy. This isn’t because names don’t exist in Qin’s empire, because explicitly the heroes are all named, and implicitly such a massive divergence would need to be highlighted in some way, so it’s not an intentional dehumanization which would actually fit.

Instead, despite this child being the first citizen who dares to enjoy a poem and who dares to step outside the boundaries of his village, despite him being proof positive that Qin’s tireless attempts at stamping out the human spirit are doomed to failure even after ruling the entire world for hundreds of years, despite him being inspired by Spartacus’s cry of rebellion against the tyranny of the world he was born in...he doesn’t have a name. And that really hurts the Lostbelt, I feel, because it just doesn’t take the time to even name our Lostbelt friend. He is, ultimately, not important. The symbol of the Lostbelt is Qin as the ultimate human, despite the entire point of the Lostbelt being that it’s a rejection of this concept, that Qin’s choice of becoming the one and only human is wrong and that the individuality of Panhistory is superior. Instead of enshrining the boy who dared to be different in the CE, pride of place is given to Qin.

That’s my biggest issue with Qin, really. We are given a perfect setup for Qin as a villain and indeed do reject their whole worldview and ideals and everything as being completely wrong, to the point that Holmes even rejects the idea that they are a human. In the final parts of the chapter, Holmes declares that the defense Qin dedicated themselves to is the domain of a god, and that despite their insistence that they did so as the only human and that they rejected becoming a god, ultimately they were deluding themselves, having simply taken on the role of a god while declaring themselves a human. This is the harshest condemnation that Qin ever gets and the final culmination of theme of humanity and what it really is that’s there throughout the Lostbelt, a complete and total rejection of the idea that one can do what Qin did and still claim to be human.

But instead of engaging with this, the story softens up on Qin by the end because it wants you to roll for them. It’s exactly what happened with Skadi, a solid character and path built up from the beginning and then swerving towards the end to make them more likeable. That Qin is the one on our Lostbelt CE and that it’s all about how Qin did their best to “shoulder the responsibility” for mankind instead of highlighting their tyranny is just kinda emblematic of how the story treats it once Jing Ke is gone, because when she’s not in the party people stop pointing out the obvious tyranny going on, and when she’s dead everyone starts acting like Qin is almost reasonable and that their path was a valid one that wasn’t so wrong, even though theirs was more right. It even completely ignores Koyanskaya pointing out that Qin loves humanity like an owner loves its pets, not as actual individuals, but this love is treated as completely valid thereafter instead of being a huge problem.

Big Big Spoilers For Qin’s Interlude Now, Skip Ahead To The Next Bolded Section If You Don’t Want To See Them

One of the reasons I’m so harsh on them for what could, in context, be seen as relatively minor softening up on Qin compared to the actual defeat we deal them is because of this Interlude. As a brief overview, Qin completely ignores the ending of their Lostbelt, which lasts for three months despite every other Lostbelt lasting a day at most before it vanishes and the implication of the final chapter being that it’s ending soon, returns to Epang Palace despite it having been destroyed and corrupted with a virus and despite having promised to live as a human on the ground with the rest of the world until the end, and then uses the data on the Shadow Border that somehow survived the virus and destruction of the palace to somehow construct a machine that allows them to create Singularities.

They then use this to create a bunch of Singularities related to “what-ifs” where they were a cruel king who ruled over Xiangyang and murdered all their subjects so they can piggyback on the Human Order instead of being destroyed with their Lostbelt and everyone in it, and then keeps the Singularities around as time bombs to destroy Panhistory like Goetia did if they ever feel like Guda might lose. When this is figured out, no one in the know bothers to tell Guda to protect their feelings, and no one intervenes in any way or challenges Qin in any regard besides telling them to believe in Guda.

This interlude turned Qin into the most loathsome character in the game for me. They declared they would put it all on the line challenging Guda and then lost and stepped aside, even helping to destroy the Tree of Fantasy, and even having Da Vinci praise their grace in stepping aside when it was clear that they had lost. But that didn’t happen.

Instead, Qin lied. Qin pulled the trigger on everyone in their entire world and then decided that they didn’t actually want to uphold their end of the bargain, so they abandoned the people they swore to live alongside until the end and constructed a scenario where they have the sole authority to destroy all of human history forever if they feel like it, something made possible only because author fiat dictated that they still had the data and the capacity to use it after the twofold destruction of the Epang Palace and only because author fiat dictated that their Lostbelt lasted for months after the Tree was destroyed when every other Lostbelt disappears after hours. And all this happens because fundamentally, they don’t want Qin to be wrong, and they don’t think Qin was wrong. They pay lip service to the idea, but the end result is that Qin is always meant to have a point, and that despite having people point out their obvious hypocrisy at ther start like Jing Ke, by the end of the Lostbelt and beyond you are meant to take them at face value as a Hard Enby Making Hard Decisions doing their best to save the entire world.

SPOILERS FOR THE INTERLUDE OVER, YOU’RE SAFE NOW

To begin the summary for Qin as a character, I’d like to point out Fate’s relationship with Great Man theory. This theory is, in brief, a suggestion that the course of history is largely influenced by exceptional individuals and leaders that exert their will on the world as a result of their own superb capabilities, such as being more intelligent, charismatic, powerful etc. than all other men around them. This is obviously a theory with a bunch of holes, but what’s interesting is that Fate has always engaged with this idea and has always refuted it conclusively.

In Fate, if you are a single human trying to save the world, you will fail. Kiritsugu’s chasing of the Grail and his ultimate failure because of his own flaws making it physically impossible for him to consider a path to salvation that didn’t involve killing is a rejection of Great Man theory. Shirou understanding that one single person cannot possibly save everyone in the world is a rejection of Great Man theory. Amakusa’s inability to save the world in any way besides erasing free will is a rejection of Great Man theory. Goetia’s decision to erase history and start again to make something better and his ultimate defeat is a massive rejection of Great Man theory. Zelretch, for all his insane power, is literally paralyzed by that selfsame power into not being able to do anything, while someone like Aoko who doesn’t think of anything but what’s right in front of her is actually able to accomplish things because she doesn’t try transcending the limits of what a human is capable of. It is one of the Nasuverse’s most consistent themes, that it is fundamentally wrong and doomed to fail if you ever attempt to impress your will on the entire world in a misguided attempt to save it.

And yet Qin simply doesn’t engage with that. Qin is Great Man theory distilled into a character, and by the end of the Lostbelt and beyond the game gives up on challenging that. They declare themselves as the ultimate human with the sole responsibility to administrate mankind and despite losing, the game respects them and their path and refuses to condemn them the same way that it condemned Ivan for doing all he could to save his people, even if it meant inflicting his own ideas on the entire human race. And that’s a consistent problem with the last two Lostbelts, but it sticks out more for Qin because Qin didn’t face an apocalypse. Qin brought the world to an end with their own two hands, but the game simply cannot keep up the condemnation as much as it should, because it wants you to like them and wants you to roll them and spend money to do so. And that’s where Qin falters for me. They’re a fantastic villain, but the game doesn’t let them be a villain, regardless of how much it clashes not just with FGO’s themes, but with one of the overarching ideas behind a lot of stuff in the Nasuverse as a whole.

I’ve basically talked about the thematics and the characters together in the last section, so this is just me talking about its construction as a story here as a short(er) final roundup.

It’s badly written, really. Like I mentioned earlier, basically nothing happens for about half the chapter and then the latter half puts the pedal to the metal and speedruns its way through everything. Nothing is given the time or dedication it needs besides Spartacus’s sacrifice in the chapter, I feel, and that works to its extreme detriment.

In terms of things that happen, it strained my sense of disbelief as bad or worse than Lostbelt 2 did. I knew it was going to be rough when Mordred, one of the Knights of the Round Table who was easily able to go toe-to-toe with Siegfried and stomp most people she fought in previous appearances, ends up firing her Noble Phantasm at Xiang Yu and doing no damage whatsoever despite being a direct hit, and then Xiang Yu ends up defeating a group of four Servants including powerhouses like Mordred and Spartacus without breaking a sweat and explicitly while holding back.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, that I’m starting to sound like some BLer who cares for nothing besides calculations and VS debates and whatnot, but that’s not what I’m about. I don’t care to argue whether my favorite Servant could beat Goku or not, partially because the answer is an obvious yes because they’re my favorite, but mostly because that’s just not really relevant for a story.

What is relevant, however, is the idea of suspension of disbelief. In telling a story, you don’t need to be realistic, but you need to be consistent. Having internal consistency is a vital part of selling your work to the audience, because if they start thinking that anything can happen at any time because the author wants it to happen, they can get pulled out of the story real quick. If you introduce someone as being Double God and being able to wipe the floor with every single one of the protagonists without breaking a sweat, you have to make sure that when or if they are defeated, their defeat is internally consistent. Either they lose their strength somehow, or the protagonists find some way to power up or change their tactics or do something different to defeat them next time they fight. When you pull a victory or defeat out of your ass without some kind of internal consistency, you had better make sure that you’ve got your themes on point, because if you’ve failed in making something internally consistent and you can’t justify the event happening because it fits perfectly with the themes of the work, then it takes people out real quick.

That’s where this Lostbelt falls down really hard in terms of story construction outside of its characters, because it has neither. Xiang Yu is introduced as an unstoppable murdermachine that we can only hold off temporarily or wait for him to retreat, even when that means devaluing our own Servants’ capabilities and making Mordred who is a Knight of the Round table look like a chump. But then later, Spartacus vaporizes a meteor with nothing but his Noble Phantasm, except Xiang Yu was just straight up too much for him, even though Xiang Yu is pretty much the greatest symbol of Qin’s oppression and its source, the incredible violence that they are willing and able to visit upon anyone at any time if they feel like it. Spartacus loses horribly to one symbol and then annihilates the other and it feels weird.

Later, we’re also introduced to Meiren being a True Ancestor with infinite mana who curses us so badly that we only survive with Koyanskaya’s aid. Even Koyanskaya is urging us to run and there’s explicitly nothing we can do to her. That’s fine! It’s a good setup for a really tough boss! But what it means is that now we have two people set up as completely unbeatable even with all the help we have, including Red Hare and Chen Gong. That’s an awkward setup that really needs a solid resolution, especially when the final battle with them is fighting both, together, while both are completely fresh and Chaldea has just fought their way through Xiangyang, defeating Liangyu, Han Xin and the royal guards, and Li Shuwen.

And the game doesn’t engage with it. We beat them both despite them both individually being able to wipe us out earlier in the chapter, and despite nothing having changed for us. If anything, they should have the advantage of conviction, or at least Xiang Yu should. But we beat them and Nezha gives some nonsense about how Xiang Yu lost because he never had any rivals to fight against, despite him having been used to conquer the world, and despite him having fought alongside the great heroes enshrined in Mt. Li during these conquests. Meiren isn’t even acknowledged, which isn’t much of a surprise, but it is disappointing. Despite her being held up as an insurmountable threat at first, she’s not even considered worth mentioning in favor of talking about Xiang Yu.

That problem continues along with Qin, who comes at us with a Grand class Saint Graph and whom we end up defeating all by ourselves, not as a battle of wills but flat out defeating them, even though we only have Mashu, Red Hare, Nezha, and Mordred who have all been exhausted fighting through all of Xiangyang. People are hyped up as insanely dangerous and then lose not because of the thematics and not because the story has constructed things so that their loss makes sense, but just because the author says it happens. All the battles are handled with in-game battles, which the game grew out of a long, long time ago. The difference between the climactic battles with Ivan and Surtr and the climactic battle with Qin in terms of actual writing is night and day, and the sole saving grace, that it is explicitly characterized as a conflict between the two philosophies and a battle of which one comes out on top, just isn’t enough to overcome the insane hype of being on par with a Grand that Qin gets for absolutely no reason. It devalues Grands and it made the victory against them feel unearned even with the idea that it’s a conflict of philosophies, which I usually eat up. To compare it to the great example of that in Fate, it feels like Shirou VS Archer, except instead of the point being that Archer cannot bring himself to fully deny Shirou’s ideals and is defeated by Shirou reminding him of their beauty even though he wields the power to crush Shirou instantly if he wanted, it’s like Shirou proved his point about ideals by beating Archer up fair and square. It just isn’t nearly as well written.

It isn’t all bad. Like I mentioned, Spartacus, Jing Ke, Gordolf, they were all genuine delights that I loved. The meteor, the assassination, those were both excellent scenes. But overall, the Lostbelt was half nothing happening and then the latter half made up of one or two cool moments with a hell of a lot of bad shit connecting them. Its theme of stagnation is indecisive and muddled because of Qin and Meiren, its theme of humanity has its conclusion ignored and conflicts with the overall idea of Great Men in the Nasuverse, its treatment of its female characters barring Jing is uncomfortable at best, and it tries to sell us a romance without putting in any of the actual legwork to make it believable.

I wish Lostbelt 3 had been better. I can see easy routes to make it better. But more than anything I wish that Meiren had been done better. She’s an immortal True Ancestor who has lived for thousands of years and seen the birth of modern humanity, living through so much of our history, and instead of having a story of learning how to break free of her stagnation she’s just obsessed with a male character who isn’t remotely as focused on her to the extent that every choice and decision she makes in the chapter is focused entirely around him. It’s just...uncomfortable.

For all the hooks she had as a character, Meiren is reduced to an accessory for her man, and I think that’s a crying shame.

#FGO #Fate/Grand Order #Fate Grand Order #cosmos in the lostbelt #Synchronized Intelligence Nation #SIN #lostbelt #FGO spoilers #Lostbelt 3 #Shi Huang Di #Qin Shi Huang #Xiang Yu

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disasterbialert · 4 years

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So, I finished The Untamed and ok ok I think I have collected most of my thoughts about it. (I’m late, so I guess these thoughts don’t really matter, but I wanted to put them somewhere and here seemed like the place.) SO here’s a post absolutely NO ONE WANTS and imma do it anyway cool cool.

Firstly: love. This entire show is about love. Obviously other things too ok I’m simplifying for the sake of my point. But importantly it is about love. The love for our families, found, made and blood. The love of soulmates, romantic and platonic. The love of humanity, of the people known and unknown, love for them purely because they are human and are therefore deserving of love. The love inherent in honour and duty, the sacrifices made for that love. Loving someone—bravely, in the face of every adversity, despite being told it’s wrong. Learning to be true to that love, learning to love faithfully, learning to love, to show love, to be loved.

Bless the tireless translators. Y’all. The work you do is often thankless but y’all are so valued. Thank you.

The music. I actually don’t have the words for this, I can only thank the composers and musicians for the gifts they have blessed us with. My heart my heart my heart.

The costumes, set, props and cinematography are all so exquisite. I’m not an expert in any of these fields but I can see the care and detail paid to each facet of this show. What an absolute visual joy. Stunning.

And now, the characters.

I’ll start with the ladies. They deserved so much more. We deserved to have more than just one by the end, but I understand this wasn’t their story (still hurts tho).

Jiang Yanli. Proof that kindness is powerful. Her heart holds entire worlds. She is not weak (don’t even try me I swear to the gods). She holds her family together. She takes care of her siblings. She feeds their bodies and their souls. WWX is right—JZX does not deserve her but that’s because nobody does. But Jiang Yanli deserves to be happy, therefore her marriage to the Flower Peacock is valid purely bc it makes her happy. She stands up for what’s right, she will not compromise her morals, she will defend her family to her last breath (and so she does💔). She does not harden herself, she does not have to. Her patience and kindness, her softness, her gentleness—things that are seen as weaknesses or inferiorities—are what put her above all around her. She is gracious, she is strong, she is loving, she is determined, she is brave. She deserved better.

Wen Qing. A queen. A powerhouse. The most brilliant mind. A lightning-quick and sharp-bladed tongue. She loves Wen Ning so much and her love is powerful, just as Jiang Yanli’s. Her dedication and devotion to her people, her true family, not just a name, is incredible, inspiring. Why? Because she’s not perfect. So she learns. She grows. She becomes herself. When she’s at the Burial Mounds, she essentially adopts WWX as another younger brother, caring for him because she knows he won’t care for himself, and she does so out of love and respect. But she never replaces Jiang Yanli. She is keenly aware of all she perceives WWX loses because he aids them. Hence the pivotal, crucial: I’m sorry and thank you. She walks to what she knows is her own death with her head held high and her hand in her brother’s, offering love and support and what protection she can to the end. She does not flinch. She does not bow. She fights with all of her and surrenders with grace not reflected by those she surrenders to. Honestly I could write an entire thesis on Wen Qing but I’ll cry too hard so I’ll just leave it here that she deserved better, she deserved to live, she deserved to be free.

Mian Mian. Mian motherfucking Mian. Here is a woman who stares injustice full in the face and says no fucking way, says over my dead body, says you and what army old man. Strips the robes of the hypocritical off her own damn body, throws them at the feet of a false god and walks out, back straight, head held high. She makes her own way in the world, carves out her own life, finds love and happiness and lives. She does not compromise. She does not bow. She fights and she wins and she is glorious. And she lives she lives she lives.

Yu ZiYuan. I may be in the minority here but that’s ok. No I don’t approve of her abuse, just gonna nip that one in the bud right out of the gate. Was she fair? No. Was she cruel? Yes. Was she an incredible fighter who fought for her family, for her home? Who showed raw courage and furious strength in the face of insurmountable odds? Who loved a man with her whole bitter heart, loved her children with that same fractured heart? Was clearly the subject of spiteful rumour and vicious gossip and did not let it defeat her? Refused to bow to anyone? I do not like her, do not like how her bitterness made her cruel. But seeing her wield her blade, take wound after wound, witness the death of her love, then take her own blade and rob the monsters invading her home of the satisfaction of taking her life, took her own life with her own hands because that’s how she did everything in her life so why the fuck wouldn’t she do it in death too, who crawled her way to the man she loved, laced their fingers together so he wouldn’t die alone, so they could both die held? How can I not respect her.

Ok. The lads.

Jiang Cheng is a man-child idiot with the emotional expression range of a loquat, an inferiority complex the size of the moon and self-worth issues going back farther than the Big Bang, and I love him, ok? He loves so hard and so much and it is heartwrenching that he cannot communicate that. Some of his best moments are actually in the background, which is both funny and terribly sad. His rage is at times ridiculous, at times frustrating, at times all he has left, his joy is bright but brief, his grief is devastating. Watching JY greet WWX after the 3 months in the Burial Mounds. The entire temple scene. Crying on his knees. We were to be the Heroes of Yunmeng. Take care. Fuck me right in my feelings ok.

Wen Ning is so fucking precious and I would die for him for all eternity. What an absolute gift his character is. I honestly can’t write much more about him because I’ll cry. But special mentions to his interactions with A-Yuan/Lan SiZhui and the incredible scene where he reveals to Jiang Cheng the truth about his/WWX’s golden core. Unparalleled emotional intensity. The equal parts tenderness and fierceness of his love is breathtaking.

And the loves.

Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen. There is a lot of tragedy in The Untamed. There is great sadness in the main plot line and even in the small side plots. The Ballad of Song Lan and Xian Xingchen (as it’s come to be known in my head) is for me the most devastating and poignant. They just wanted to do good, to wander the world together and do their part to make it a better and safer place. It’s noble, yes, but it’s also so human, so close to home. Because we all want that, to know that we can do some good before we leave this world. They do not want to be involved in the petty squabbles, the undignified and cruel vying for power and dominance. They simply want to live and be. The fact that both of their deaths are pointless, could have been avoided, are the faults of poor timing and terrible terrible luck and cruel turns fate is almost what makes it sadder. Xue Yang screams that XXC is not better than him, that his righteousness and the righteous way he has attempted to live his life is all for naught. And then he is immediately proven wrong—XXC’s heartbreak means he can’t become XY’s puppet. SL is free from XY’s control and avenges himself and XXC. Which is also somehow just as devastating. That XXC and SL were so close, so very close to being together, to living, to making it, but didn’t. Nothing grand or heroic about their deaths—just the unknown and unpredictable nature of life. There is no rhyme or reason, no big important plan, no fate or destiny. They both simply die as we all one day will. And it is their potential cut short, the love and life they could’ve had, that hurts the most. They are not Lan Zhan and Wei Ying: they do not get their second chance, their reunion, their happily ever after. The look shared between SL and LWJ—the shared grief, the recognition, the understanding—and LWJ’s brief and unelaborated-on comment to WWX ‘how fortunate’ speaks volumes. How fortunate you came back/I found you/that’s not us when it could’ve been. That final shot of SL walking away and the brief out-of-focus moment of XXC walking beside him—particularly when it’s echoed with the parallel of WWX and LWJ—chokes me every time.

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan. Soulmates in every sense of the word. Their song. Their bunnies. Their child. The years they were robbed of. The yearning. The pining. The loyalty. The growth. The love the love the love. The loss the loss the loss. Every Lan Zhan. Every Wei Ying. Every glance. Every soft breath. Every gentle touch. The tenderness. The intimacy. The quiet acceptance. Their love story is one of the ages and, on a personal note as a queer person, what a gift it is to see a queer love story like this. (even when censored as a bromance, which like I mean, they tried but the glances alone are +9000 gay pining but whatever and yes I am making a joke because I’m crying don’t look at me)

TL;DR: I am so thankful The Untamed/CQL/MDZS and all of its adaptations (the source material included obvs) exists. I am so thankful to the writers, translators, casts, crews, creators. I am thankful for the community of fans that exist that love it as I do, who share that love and passion—whether through passionate discussion, rich fanfic or mind-blowing fanart. I am thankful I live in a time where content like this exists and can be shared. I learned a whole lot and I’m so grateful there aren’t even words. Love y’all. I’m gonna go be soft now. 💙

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neighbourskid · 3 years

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2020

What a year, huh? Surely not anything anyone has expected to happen when we woke up on this day a year ago. I certainly haven’t. I’m not even sure, now, where to begin to sum up this year like I’ve done years prior. But then again... I may just as well just dive right into all the media I consumed this year, as I have done every year. I haven’t kept track as detailed as I have last year, but my year was definitely punctuated by pieces of entertainment that have come into my life.

Continuing on from 2019, my obsession with Good Omens was still going strong. Which was ideal, since I was gonna spend the first half of the year writing my Bachelor thesis on it. The intensity of the obsession may have waned a bit since, but I still love that show and book dearly and hold it close to my heart, and I don’t think that will ever stop. But while Good Omens was certainly an overall theme throughout my year, there were some other things that actually stood out.

With January came new episodes of Doctor Who, and having returned to that particular bandwagon the year prior, I was all about that. Jodie’s second season finally brought what I had longed for in her first--a darker kind of Doctor. She wasn’t quite as bubbly anymore, you could finally see some of the depths in the character that I loved so in the previous regenerations, which made me love Peter’s Doctor so incredibly much. In this season, I felt, Jodie was finally becoming the Doctor. Overall, that season catered to me personally every single episode. So many of the time periods they visited were of people I loved, and the introduction of Sacha Dhawan as the Master was absolutely....well, masterful. Sacha is brilliant in that role and I am utterly stunned by his talent. Although both John Simm and Michelle Gomez brought things to the Master that I liked, it’s Sacha’s completely unhinged take on it that made me finally like the character. He’s a madman and I love it.

The next major thing was The Good Place. I tend to have a talent of getting into shows just as they either ended their entire show, or the final season is just coming up. It’s happened quite a bit, and it was the same with this. I finally binged the show early in January and it would end its final season at the end of the month. True to form, I was completely obsessed with it for about a month, before I only occasionally thought about it again. But, thinking back now, I get this incredibly fond feeling for this show, and I remember that the finale absolutely wrecked me and I basically ugly sobbed through the entirety of it. Also very true to form, actually. I want to rewatch it again some time, but honestly preferably with someone who has never seen it before. Which, obviously, is a difficult thing to do given, well, everything.

Next up is something that surprised me a lot. In the middle of having to write my BA thesis, my procrastination thought it would be a great idea to rewatch and catch up on the entirety of Criminal Minds. And so I binged 15 seasons of that instead of writing my thesis. Which, coincidentally, had also just aired its final season not long before I started my binge in March. Rewatching this, I realised just how little I took in of the actual, like, stuff in the show when I first watched it as a teen. Although I mostly cared about the characters and their found family this time around--although I do find the cases really fascinating most of the time too--I noticed just how much I am not watching this for the fact that they are in the FBI. I was hyperaware of how often they shot at people before doing anything else, how many of the suspects died before ever being questioned or being brought in, and it made my skin crawl. I am aware how fucked up the criminal justice system is, and especially in the US, how the police functions and how incredibly glorified they are in the media. But rewatching this show, I realised how little I actually paid attention to anything when I was younger. Big yikes. Still, I remembered my love for these characters, and I really enjoyed that rewatch a whole lot. Found family will always get to me.

Once I finished writing my thesis and handed it in early in July, I then found my next momentary obsession: Community. The show had finally come to Netflix earlier in the year and a friend of mine had watched it then. I remember watching that pilot episode back then and being completely uninterested in watching it. The comedy felt like it wasn’t quite up my street, the characters were entirely unlikeable, and I especially disliked Jeff who the show was more or less centred around. I binged Criminal Minds instead, but then decided to give it another try. And, well, I watched it twice through without taking a break to watch something else in-between. Ironically, and maybe actually unsurprisingly, Jeff ended up being my favourite and I found myself relating a lot to him and his arc throughout the series. I even found myself writing some short ficlet-like things in the notes app on my phone. I made an attempt at starting a third watch, but I guess then the month was up, and my brain decided it was time for something else. My hyperfixations usually tend to die out after about a month. Which is why my complete devotion to Good Omens was a pleasant surprise. I did, however, end up watching quite a bit of Joel McHale and Ken Jeong’s The Darkest Timeline podcast throughout August.

Early in September, while already preparing for the new term at uni, and my first semester in my Master’s studies, I then turned to New Girl. Friends of mine had seen it and recommended it, and I remember watching probably the entire first season on TV while I was in San Diego the first time around back in 2016. Or at least I think it was the entire first season. Either way, I binged that whole thing, realised through Nick Miller that the go-to character I am drawn to and tend to project on in any piece of media is usually what I like to call “the garbage man,” which Nick is a prime example of. And although I spent a month watching the show in-between starting university again and volunteering at a film festival, I didn’t spend much time afterward thinking about it and moved on to other things rather quickly. I enjoyed watching it, that much I remember, and I’m pretty sure I cried at the finale because it was done wonderfully, but seeing as another month was up, my brain was probably like “okay fine that’s enough”.

I then spent most of fall and early winter watching every single bad Christmas movie available on Netflix, which was quite fun. In that moment of festivity, I also watched a movie I found absolutely brilliant and fell in love with immediately. It’s a beautiful movie called Jingle Jangle, it has a magnificent soundtrack and is absolutely incredible. I had no idea Forest Whitaker could sing and he completely blew me away. If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend it. It doesn’t matter that Christmas is already over, it’s beautiful either way.

By the time December finally rolled around, I was already over the whole Christmas thing, to be honest and I turned away from festive movies or shows, and eventually ended up finally picking up a gem I had heard much about and had been meaning to watch for a while. A show which, as it were, also aired its final season earlier this year. This little show is Schitt’s Creek. I will be going on about what this show means to me probably in another post at length, but for now just let me say: if you haven’t seen it, find some place to watch it, and put this beautiful show in your eyeballs. I am on my second run through already (although I’ve seen the second half of the show a second time already while watching it with a friend on their first run through), and it brings me so much fucking joy. It’s a gift, this show. And it will likely stay with me for a very, very long time.

That’s about it for the big things. I also watched a whole lot of other stuff, including entirely new things, or just newly released seasons of things I was already watching. Here’s what I can remember off the top of my head:

Charlie’s Angels (2020). The Night Manager. The Witcher. Dolittle (2020). The Librarians (rewatch). Harley Quinn (2020). Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). The Chef Show (S1 part 3, S2 part 1). Avenue 5. Money Heist (part 4). The Good Fight (S4). Brooklyn Nine-Nine (S7). DuckTales (2017 reboot). Frankenstein live. Staged (2020). Hamilton. Sense8. Julie and the Phantoms. The Boys in the Band. One Night in Miami. Enola Holmes. Supernova. His Dark Materials (S2). Happiest Season. The Great Canadian Baking Show.

I also got some reading done in-between what I had to read for my thesis in spring, and then for regular university courses in fall. Here’s some of what I can remember:

Anthony Horowitz, The House of Silk. Ramona Meisel, Sunblind. Donna Tartt, The Secret History. Good Omens novel and script book. Matt Forbeck, Leverage: The Con Job. Keith R.A. Decandido, Leverage: The Zoo Job. Greg Cox, Leverage: The Bestseller Job. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Lost Lamp. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Mother Goose Chase. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Pot of Gold. Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602. Christina Henry, The Lost Boy. Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology. John Green, An Abundance of Katherines. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh. Maria Konnikova, The Confidence Game.

Having mulled over all this entertainment I consumed in 2020, there are also some non-tv or book things I need to point out. As many, many other people around the globe, I have also spent a large amount of time this year on my Nintendo Switch, playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It is a game I have waited for since the Switch was first announced, and I fell in love with it from the moment the first trailer dropped. It has brought me great joy in this weird fucking year, and I have more or less consistently played it since it came out in March. I ended this year with the in-game New Year’s Eve celebration and I feel like that summed up this year quite neatly and appropriately.

This year also brought with it another game very close to my heart: Super Mario Sunshine. With their release of Super Mario 3D All-Stars in September, Nintendo finally brought my all-time favourite Mario game to my all-time favourite console, and I played the entire game through in the first week of owning it, in-between university courses and volunteering at the film festival. Also contained in that package was Super Mario Galaxy which I have also played through in its entirety since. All that’s left for me now is Super Mario 64, which I am excited to play through in the coming year.

And to round off my year of entertainment, there are two more things I would like to mention. First, David Tennant Does A Podcast With..., which released its second season this summer. It is one of the only, if not the only podcast I keep up to date with and listen to immediately whenever a new episode drops. I’ve loved the first season dearly, and David came back with some incredibly fantastic guests for the second season as well. I can’t wait for what the podcast will bring in the future, but I will wait patiently until it is time. I can highly recommend it for everyone who likes interesting conversations between lovely people who clearly adore each other a whole lot.

And finally, while this year brought a whole lot of bullshit with it, it also gave me something I never thought possible and did not even dare to imagine in my wildest dreams. My all-time favourite show announced that it would be rebooted with the same main cast (minus one), a new wonderful member, and involvement of the original creators, and even started filming already in summer. Leverage is coming back. I still cannot believe it. I hoped for a movie, always. That maybe one day, they might bring the gang back together, for one last job, just one more encore. But to get a whole new tv-show with Aldis, Christian, Gina and Beth returning? With the addition of Noah Wyle? I can’t wrap my head around it. I am so excited for this. I predict that I will ugly sob through the entirety of the pilot episode, if not the first season, and will have to rewatch every episode because of it, but I have no doubt that it will be brilliant and wonderful.

True to form, I have now gone on about tv shows and movies for far too long, and haven’t really said anything about this year at all. 2020 was fucking weird. And I don’t think 2021 will be much different quite yet. I wrote an entire BA thesis in 2020. I successfully finished by Bachelor’s degree and started my Master’s studies and even got some excellent first grades in as well. I was lucky enough to be able to see some friends and family throughout the year, and even celebrate my birthday with a small circle of friends. I’ve become closer with friends, shared experiences I wouldn’t trade for the world, and, I think, maybe also grown a bit as a person.

I started this year excited to finally be able to start taking testosterone in February, and to finish the first part of my studies by summer. Although I did both of these things, they didn’t happen quite how I imagined them, but I am glad that I could do these things nevertheless.

2020 was a hell year, for sure. But there were some moments in there that I wouldn’t want to lose.

I’ve tried very hard to not be optimistic about this upcoming year, and rather take a more realistic, even pessimistic approach. But I can’t help but be hopeful. Hopeful that this year will be kind to us, and if it isn’t, that at least, we’ll be kind to ourselves and each other. It won’t be easy, and not much will change, I think. But we have to approach the coming time with kindness and compassion. That’s where I’m at currently. And I think that’s all for now.

Be well, friends, and take care.

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secret-diary-of-an-fa · 3 years

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Grisly, Grim and a Fucking Delight: Feedback Review

TRIGGER WARNING: Torture, rape, daytime radio DJs. Don’t blame me, that’s just what’s in the movie.

Wow. Wow and a half. Wow and a half between two slices of thick white whoa. What a fucking movie. I’d say something like ‘they don’t make ‘em like that any more’, but they clearly do, because Feedback only came out a few years ago. I am astonished that I didn’t hear about it until tonight. You see, I was looking for an epic, slow-burn thriller to watch with my girlfriend and glamorous assistant, and I came across this little British movie about a radio talk-show host getting trapped in his studio when a bunch of masked psychos invade the premises. “Neat!” I thought upon reading the synopsis and watching the advert. “It’s Diehard but without schlubby, sarcastic Brits instead of overblown yanks.” As it turns out, I was wrong. Feedback is not an enjoyable but ultimately inconsequential gas pocket of a movie: it’s actually one of the most tense, conceptually horrifying and incendiary pieces of cinema- nay, Cinema with a capital C- that I’ve ever had the good fortune to witness. The more I think about it, the more impressed and enamoured I become. Unfortunately, in order to explain why, I’m going to have to spoil the whole freaking thing. For those of you who actually watch movies based on my recommendations (which would be, maybe, like two of you?) I’ll give you a nice non-spoilery recommendation right now: the acting is on-point, the plot is serpentine but not in a pretentious way, every prop and narrative element is used to maximum effect, the atmosphere gets tenser and tenser without ever letting you catch your breath and it’s exactly as long as it needs to be: there’s nothing missing and not an ounce of spare meat on it. It’s a lean, nasty predator of a movie and, if you let it, it will pin you down and rip out your jugular. I’ve only ever described one other movie as ‘transcendent’- a little psychological horror called The Perfection. Well, Feedback gets that exact same sticker but for completely different reasons. If you’re going to watch it- and you should- stop reading this review right now and go do it. It’s amazing.

And now for the spoilers. Consider this more of an analysis than a review. You see, the film reveals early on that the masked psychos invading the studio aren’t just randos with a political or philosophical axe to grind. They have beef with the radio host (whose name is Jarvis, incidentally. You don’t see enough Jarvises, either in real life or in movies. It’s a fun name and grossly underused, but I digress). You see, they think Jarvis’s friend raped a woman, killed another woman and beat the shit out of her boyfriend… and they think Jarvis knows all about it and may even have been involved. They force Jarvis to extract a confession from his friend early on and then kill him live on air, meaning that the rest of the film is devoted to a battle of wills between them and Jarvis as they try to force him to admit complicity, again live on air. Along the way, it’s also revealed that they aren’t just crusaders: they’re survivors of the incident and relatives thereof. Now, from the moment all these pieces were in place, I watched with an expectation of being disappointed. You see, I thought I knew what I was watching: Jarvis is visually and linguistically coded as am older slightly privileged but spiky elitist, so in most movies made after 2010 he’d automatically have been the bad guy (fuck me but do ageing white movie directors love to pretend they’re ‘woke’), while the people attacking him are visually and linguistically coded as youngish (except in one case) and victims, meaning that, in most movies, they would automatically be the good guys (hey, everyone loves an underdog, right?). I assumed I was watching one of those films. You know the ones I mean. One of those oh-so-clever ones that gets you to connect with and root for a character then reveals that he’s a shit-bag and punishes him and- by extension- you the viewer for taking his side. That was clever once, but I’ve now seen it on at least eight separate occasions, and it’s become trite. It’s particularly irksome because the victim-coded characters always get a free pass for their own shenanigans: they can murder, torture, brutalise and dehumanise but it’s always okay because something bad once happened to them. Frankly, I thought that’s what I was in for. Luckily. I was super wrong. That’s like regular wrong, only sexier and with sharper graphics.

You see, Feedback is way too smart to go for a black-and-white good-victims-versus-evil-central-character narrative. Instead, it’s a film about dehumanisation… or is it? You’ll see what I mean. In order to force Jarvis to admit complicity, his assailants don’t just fuck with him and his friend: they straight-up murder an innocent bystander and threaten to murder someone close to the protagonist. They hurt and do terrible things to Jarvis and the people around him, using torture methods that would make fucking ISIS throw up its hands and go ‘steady on, bruv’. They have a version of events that they’re convinced of but have only one unreliable character’s word for and Jarvis has a version of events that they refuse, point-blank, to believe. Jarvis’s story does begin to alter, but it’s never really apparent if he’s actually done something or if he’s just saying he has in order to keep the people around him (and himself) alive. Meanwhile, the ringleader of the little troop trying to extract a confession from Jarvis might be victim, but it also becomes apparent that she’s an unhinged psychopath intent on spilling as much blood as possible for her own personal sense of satisfaction and has as much interest in justice as a black hole has in the history of the stars it swallows up. Hooray! Some fucking moral ambiguity in a movie! I thought the entire industry had just forgotten how to fucking do that!

Much to my delight, Feedback doesn’t stop there. Merely by forcing the audience to make up their own minds about what they think happened and who’s actions are most justified, Feedback is already introducing a level of sophistication alien to modern cinema. But then it goes one step further by also subverting narrative expectations. You see, in a bleak, introspective, what-monsters-are-we-all flick like this, you expect the antagonists’ plan to succeed: you expect the last shot to be of the protagonist broken by the moral blankness of his reality, sitting in the wreckage of his life, unsure of whether he deserves what has happened to him or not. And that would have been a perfectly acceptable way to end this movie. But it doesn’t end like that. Because Jarvis is that rarest of things: a competent and determined dude. He’s not a superhuman. He doesn’t have special training. The flick doesn’t turn into an action movie or anything ridiculous. Jarvis just refuses to accept the bullshit happening to him and systematically works through every possible strategy to extricate himself without caving and admitting culpability that he doesn’t feel. He tries reasoned negotiation. He tries subduing one of the assailants temporarily and using them as a bargaining chip (the minimum necessary force approach), he tries escape and, finally, when all else fails, he uses a combination of psychology, surprise and familiarity with his environment to fight back with lethal force. It’s a considered, intelligent approach and, because his assailants aren’t organised terrorists just ordinary people who may (or may not) have a legit grievance with him, it succeeds and- to cut a long story short- he kills all of them in incredibly satisfying ways. There’s a bit involving a smug, I-can-be-as-evil-as-I-like-because-I’m-a-victim character getting skewered with a pair of scissors that instantly outranks anything in the Saw or Friday the 13th franchises as one of my all-time favourite movie kills (outright all-time favourite still goes to that bit in John Wick 3 with the really creative use of a library book, but that’s off topic).

During the climatic scenes of the movie, Jarvis screams his confession, but- as I said- it might only be a tool to distract his attackers and gain the upper hand while preserving the lives of the people he cares about. Equally, though, it might not. There’s a coldness to the character at the end of the film that wasn’t there at the beginning. Has he just been changed by the trauma of recent events, or are we seeing the facade drop away to reveal the true face of ruthless monster? And here lies the film’s final genius: not only doesn’t it answer this question (ambiguity for the win!) it also seems to suggest that the answer might not matter. Jarvis didn’t prevail because he was innocent- though he might be. His attackers didn’t fail because they became as bad as the thing they sought to fight (though they did). Victory and defeat aren’t defined by moral superiority. The film doesn’t assign winners and loser based on ethical or philosophical standpoint. Jarvis wins because he knows what the fuck he’s doing and his attackers are a bunch of overemotional quarter-wits with a half-baked plan that they can’t even stick to because they get too worked up. Survival, Feedback reminds us, has everything to do with being good at things, and fuck all to do with just being good. At every turn, the film tries to convince us that it has a moral point to make. Characters talk endlessly about truth and lies, justice and injustice… but in the end, it’s all smoke and mirrors. The film doesn’t have a central moral thesis (or, if it does, it’s a profoundly nihilistic one). Its real subjects are survival and will. It’s a study of what happens when two packets of brutal, remorseless determination meet eachother coming in opposite directions. It’s a dissection of the self-preservation instinct and its only real moral is ‘don’t fuck with a smart, grimly determined guy on his home turf if all you have to bring to the table is a short fuse and a big hammer’. Maybe that shouldn’t be refreshing, but in a cinematic landscape where every movie is determined to plant its flag on one side or the other of the political or ethical spectrum, it really fucking is. The fact that it gets you to think about ethical issues and who you believe on route elevates it, but the core of the film- the thing that makes it solid- is that refreshing element of nihilism. Breathe it in, folks: we don’t get many movies like this very often.

#Feedback #feedback movie #film review #movie reviw #feedback review #Secret Diary of a Fat Admirer

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script-a-world · 4 years

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Clearly there are some settings which make no sense scientifically. But how do I decide when to intentionally ignore reality, can't bother to do research, don't understand research, and thus create scientifically impossible places? When are such things considered be offensive or overused cliche or have a reader point out the impossibility and can't get into the story? I'm guessing some of this might be structural issues instead of world building?

Tex: One of the perils of attempting to write about highly technical subjects is that you run into the issue of not understanding your writing. I do raise a nominal objection as your first sentence, because sensibility is a sliding scale based on one’s familiarity with a given subject. I don’t know crap about, say, textile art (however much I might have bluffed readers in the past - no, no, this is just good googling skills on my end), but that doesn’t mean the textile arts are an inherently incomprehensible subject.

Scientifically, automobiles were once thought to be insensible. Scientifically, phones were thought to be a flight of fancy. Scientifically, 3D printing was improbable. Scientifically, quantum computing was the stuff of sci-fi nerds who just wanted to slap the “quantum” label on everything.

And yet we are now on the verge of robotic vehicles, mostly functional smartwatches, laser printing cells (PDF), and quantum computers (VentureBeat, IBM).

So I would argue that the insensibility of a setting would be due mostly to, yes, a structural issue - on the part of the author. No matter what you put into your world, internal consistency is key; nothing, no matter how ostensibly outlandish, will make sense if you contradict yourself.

I’ll volley a few questions back to you:

“[...] when to intentionally ignore reality” - Are you ignoring reality entirely, or just parts of it? Why? How does that decision benefit your world? How does it detract from your world?

“Can’t bother to do research” - Is it because you are discouraged by the breadth of your comprehension of a subject, compared to the subject’s depth? Or is it because of something else?

“Don’t understand research” - Is this because you don’t understand the academic papers that turn up in your search results, or because you have a fundamental lack of or misunderstanding of the given subject? Or is it because of something else?

“When are such things considered to be offensive or overused cliche” - As someone who intentionally arranges their studying around the plausibilities of the future, I would quite frankly be delighted to see more conceptual stretches of the imagination in this regard, as do many others on this blog, and beyond it. Why have you already passed judgement on the offensiveness or clichéd-ness of incorporating scientific things? Is this related to your other comments?

“[...] or have a reader point out the impossibility and can’t get into the story?” - If you are writing to please a specific individual or demographic, you are inevitably always going to fall short, because it’s genuinely impossible to meet every single item on a group’s wishlist without devoting your life to it (not an entirely worthy pursuit, in my opinion, but alas). What made you decide to be so concerned over the potential reaction to your stories that you worry about it before the story is even written?

I think I will put the majority of my curiosity’s weight on the last bullet point, as I’m seeing similar themes with the other portions of your question. It’s a fruitless endeavour to tie yourself into knots over a possible (not necessarily probable!) reaction - and quite likely from a stranger, to boot. Education is a relatively easy situation to fix, so long as you’re patient with yourself; dealing with anxieties over readers is… not so easy.

I can really only recommend that you take a close look at the goals of your worldbuilding, and see where you contradict yourself - once you have that in hand, it’s a relatively simple yes/no process of what concepts you want to keep. If the issue of decision comes from a lack of understanding, then make a note to yourself to seek out either the million wikis we Pylons utilize ourselves like any other worldbuilder, or to chalk it up as a genuine lack of context.

Please understand that even someone who’s dedicated their life to a certain aspect of science won’t know everything about it - that’s the point of research! We’re constantly asking ourselves questions, and pushing the envelope of known boundaries. Star Wars has lightsabers, but we don’t need to know how they work; likewise with holodecks in Star Trek. So long as an audience is reasonably entertained with the least amount of head-scratching, you can get away with handwaving quite a lot.

Lockea: On a scale between Star Trek and Star Wars, how “hard” is your science fiction?

I mention that mostly to illustrate that science fiction exists on a continuum, wherein science fiction with more “science” than “fiction” drives a story towards the harder end rather than the softer end. Also, a story’s place on the continuum will change based on what we know and understand about science.

I feel like everyone always beats me to saying all the important stuff about questions, so I’ll just give a few thoughts from my personal experience as a science fiction fan with two engineering degrees and a thesis about robots on the moon (yes really, I wrote my thesis on AI for moon robots). I really, really, love the creativity of science fiction writers. I think so often in defending the genre, we can get caught up in saying things like “science fiction predicted XYZ!” Well, sure, I may have studied Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics in my introduction to engineering ethics course, but I was also greedily reading my way through “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins at the same time. The fact that I sincerely doubt Panem will ever happen didn’t dampen my enjoyment of Katniss’s story. It was a fun read and it gave my friends and I something to talk about that wasn’t “feasibility of Battlestar Galactica” during our daily lunches.

The thing about writing science fiction is that, without a doubt, there will be someone who knows more than you about a topic who reads your story. Most of the time, I end up being that someone since everyone likes to talk about Skynet and robots taking over the world to a roboticist who sincerely refers to artificial intelligence as artificial stupidity. Y'all are seriously overestimating the field, my friends. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” even as I thought how impossible Project Insight would be. Honestly, something every READER of science fiction needs to make peace with is the fact that writers will get something wrong. Writers, despite their best efforts, are not always going to understand that a facial recognition algorithm will fail if you introduce tiny amounts of random noise and are thus going to treat The Algorithm™ as infallible in your crime drama novel.

It’s not the writer’s fault, though.

That deserves to be on its own line. It is not YOUR fault if you get something wrong. Would it be nice if science literacy was just better all around? Of course! But it’s not your fault if your science literacy isn’t up to snuff enough to parse the article I cited above. It’s also not your job. Your job as the writer is to tell the most interesting story you can and to maintain your own internal rules and logic such that the reader never breaks the willing suspension of disbelief.

I watch Star Wars and get really into the light saber fight scenes and forget that light sabers are basically impossible to make. Star Wars has the Force, which is basically magic, and that’s okay. Really. I KNOW it’s not possible, but I still have a lot of fun watching it!

So yeah, write that story about how the robots are going to take over the world. I’ll probably enjoy reading it even as I laugh off my friends telling me that I will be the first to die in the robot apocalypse (of course I will -- I have five robots in my living room alone).

Constablewrites: Tone and consistency are the biggest pieces of this for me. If it’s the kind of story where the answer to “How does this work?” is usually a detailed and plausible explanation, then getting an answer later that is implausible or slapdash will stand out more. But if it’s the kind of story where the answer to “How does this work?” is “You push that button and it goes whoosh” from the start, my expectations adjust accordingly. (It’s possible to have the latter version in a story that is mostly the former, frequently when it’s played for last. Again, tone is key.)

So yeah, a lot of this is execution and the way the story sticks to the rules it sets for itself, and also how central the implausibility is to the story. A realistic thriller that relies on cartoon logic for a background bit might be a little jarring, but not nearly as much as a realistic thriller that relies on cartoon logic to set up its main showdown. The more central it is to the story, the more consistency and accuracy matters. Learning how to balance this can take some practice and some insight from beta readers.

#pylons #research #believability #worldbuilding #Anonymous

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