the way that the steph story in showcase '95 #5 is a steph story written by not dixon in the 90s & has some of the best character work that *includes* a lot of the negative traits she was given by dixon && ends up having some absolutely excellent parallels with bruce in gotham knights #1 and yet the only thing people want to use out of it is that she was on the gymnastics team.
okay. seriously, though. the story is that steph is on her school gymnastics team & her mom comes to a meet (much to steph's chagrin) & her mom immediately clocks that her coach is a junkie & steph refuses to believe her at first because to her her coach is a responsible adult (and the safest one she knows) who wouldn't do that & then does some investigating after a kid dies from a car accident after meeting with the coach due to driving under the influence & finds out that not only was he dealing drugs, he didn't think he was doing anything wrong with his double life & steph has to grapple with the idea of how anyone could lead such a double life *while* keeping her own double life a secret. like it has the all the highlights of peak steph characterization to me:
inability to fully divest herself from her biases meaning she refuses to acknowledge at first what's clear to others (see also: unintentional but fantastic parallels to bruce in gotham knights #1)
her shame over her own life circumstances--having an addict mother & criminal father--that she wants to divest herself from completely and pretend they don't exist so she is made completely uncomfortable when people see them because reminders of their existence goes against the narrative of 'being able to fit in with her peers and that she'e not like 'those' people' that steph is desperately trying to hold onto (see also: her immediate backing down on her suspicions when her friends tell her she's overreacting)
steph being a child of an addict while probably logically knowing that addiction is complicated thing, but being a child affected by a parent with addition has a lot of trouble seeing addiction as anything but a poor choice her mother makes and that people she deems good wouldn't be so weak as to make those same choices. steph being a character who is biased and thinks that people can choose their circumstances because she is someone who's just going to choose to be a better person and raise herself above her circumstances unlike her parents who hurt her is chefskiss. to me.
steph's motivations trending towards selfish--she goes after her coach because a kid died, but the crux of her conflict with her coach is about the personal betrayal she felt after her suspicions are confirmed and he was involved, it's more about her versus the death of someone. which is why her double life is juxtaposed against that of her coach/the villain. because steph's decision to be the spoiler isn't about the victims or a duty to them, it's about her. the tendency in her stories to compare and contrast her choice to be a vigilante vs. a criminal choosing to do crime (usually her father) is often used in interesting ways--hidden beneath her steadfast refusal to be anything like them is an uneasy similarity in that she's doing this for her own self-satisfaction more than anything else, much like her father. and her lies being shown in comparison to her coach's lies & steph's lack of internal conflict over her lies in comparison to her coach thinking he did no wrong...it's soo intriguing.
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drives me nuts when people treat jin guangyao or wei wuxian like they're socialist revolutionaries like no! they're not!! in fact their respective roles in society and complacency regarding its hierarchies is why ANY of the story even happens to begin with!!!
jin guangyao doesn't hold bitterness just because he was born lower class. he is bitter because others deride him and his prostitute mother in spite of both their intelligence, skills, and efforts to climb the ladder.
why do you think we were shown scenes of other prostitutes in the brothel deriding meng shi for being literate, for "trying" so hard? why do you think we were shown scenes of anxin taunting meng yao and throwing shit at him because he was trying to learn cultivation at his mother's behest?
why do you think jin guangyao arranged for the arson of that brothel, burned to the ground with everyone except sisi inside? that's not the behavior of someone who believes in true equality and the inherent worth of sex workers as human beings!
that's the behavior of someone who thinks he's better than them. the behavior of a man who already came up on top through political games and war crimes, backstabbing and spying for the sake of the "greater good".
i won't rehash his argument to nie mingjue that he didn't have a choice-- he had some choice, but no matter what he does his class will come up and people will always assume the worst and try to hurt him for it, which forces his hand to do whatever will protect him best (hence 'no choice').
jin guangyao did everything he could to secure his own safety and a place among those already higher up. and by that point, he'd won it.
the fact that the temple rebuilt on the brothel site is to guanyin, the goddess of mercy, is even more ironic! the fact that jin guangyao has the goddess's statue carved to look like his own mother is proof that he viewed both her and himself as higher than them. more worthy than them.
of course he cared about the general welfare of others (read: the watchtowers). but consider also that there is no watchtower near yi city, which ended up being one of xue yang's playgrounds. jin guangyao can and will turn a blind eye to certain sufferings if it is convenient to him.
sure, jin guangyao made undeniable contributions to cultivation society and accessibility, but he is not at any point trying to topple existing class structures. his adherence to them is in fact integral to his own downfall in the end.
it brings with it the inevitability of society conveniently ignoring his triumphs and genuine moments of humanity to deride him once more as an evil, disgusting son of a whore once his crimes come to light.
now for wei wuxian. he's the righteous protagonist of the story and he doesn't give a fuck what society thinks, yes, but he wasn't out there trying to cause an uprising so that all the poor servant classes and lower could become cultivators. he wasn't trying to redistribute wealth or insinuate that those who are lower deserve to be viewed as equal to the gentry.
the most critical and non-explicitly stated fact of mo dao zu shi is that wei wuxian has always been resigned to his position in the social hierarchy.
his unreliable narration, especially regarding his own past and thoughts, is so damn important. he doesn't EVER tell the reader directly that people treated him any which way at their leisure because of his parents' differing social classes.
no. instead we are shown how much prestige he is afforded as cangse-sanren's son-- reputation as a talented and charming young cultivator, made head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang-- and how little respect he is given in the same breath, as the son of servant wei changze.
the way he is treated by others is as fickle as the wind. if he obeys and does as told, there is no reward. of course he did that, that was the expectation to start with! if he does anything even slightly inconvenient, there is a punishment. of course he has no manners, what else would you expect from an ungrateful son of a servant?
wei wuxian's righteousness is not a matter of adhering to principles he was explicitly taught, the way nie mingjue values honor or the way jiang cheng always tries to prove himself. wei wuxian does the right thing regardless of what the consequences are to him because his good deeds are always downplayed and his bad deeds are always singled out, no matter who or how many people were doing it with him.
he has faced this double standard since childhood. there are points in the novel where it's clear that this sticks out to wei wuxian, but does he ever fight back against that view of himself? does he EVER, at any point in the story, explain his actions and choices to jianghu society and try to debate or appeal to their sense of reason?
no. because he knows, at his very core, that any explicit deviation from their interests whatsoever will be punished.
slaughtering thousands of people is fine when they want him to do it, and when the alternative is unjust torture, re-education camps, and encroachment upon other sects' lands.
slaughtering thousands of people who are trying to paint him as evil for not going along with their genocidal plans, however, is punished.
wei wuxian knows his acceptance among the higher classes is superficial and unsteady. from the age of 10, when jiang fengmian took him in, he knew subconsciously that he could be kicked out at any time.
he knows that cultivation society doesn't care about war crimes and concentration camps and mistreatment of the remaining wen survivors of the sunshot campaign. but the right thing to do now that they aren't at wartime is to help them, plus they'd punish him either way for it, so he will.
in this regard wei wuxian is more self-aware of his position than jin guangyao. he does care about common people and he does try his best to help them as an individual. even if that ends up with him disabled, arrested, targeted in sieges, or dead.
but is he revolutionary? in the full equality, fight the establishment, rewrite laws, change social structures and people's perceptions of class sense?
no. no. he isn't.
now my knowledge of chinese society and history is fairly limited to my hindu diaspora upbringing and our shared cultural similarities ... but speaking to what i absolutely know us true, adherence to one's social class is expected.
this is rigid. efforts and merits might bring you some level of mobility, but in the end, the circumstances of your birth will always be scrutinized first, and your behavior compared to the stereotypes of where and how you originate.
mdzs is not about revolution, and none of its characters are able to truly change its society. there is no grand "maybe cutsleeves aren't inherently bad" or "i'm sorry for persecuting you and believing hearsay, you were truly a good person all along!" at the finale.
people ignore history and repeat it again with the next batch of ugly gossip and rumors.
wei wuxian, lan wangji, and luo qingyang find peace only by distancing themselves from cultivation society and its opinions.
jin guangyao and wei wuxian both cannot ever escape from others' perception of their origins and actions. regardless of their personal beliefs, they are not revolutionaries.
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Good morning.
I would like to ask were will Emergence (on its first release) be displayed and how might us random idiots find it. Or am I just blind and the answer is right in front of me?
Thank you for your indulgence.
That is honestly an amazing question- for now it's only on my tumblr and twitter (when I remember to use it) and as much as I love the idea of trying to figure out where i'd upload the comic I've actually started considering making small animatic episodes to tell the story instead!
However idk if I'd need to find someone to make music and voice actors and that'd be tedious or if I'd have it just silent- or maybe you'd all prefer the comics
I haven't fully decided yet but the next comic update is on the back burner <3
I'm also working on an animatic as it is so we'll see which work flow I like more for storytelling
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I was looking back through your character analysis stuff bc you are great(!) at this kinda thing and you said a sentence that has me curious in so many different ways.
"and what better scenario for this than one where 1) everyone he truly loved is already dead, and 2) there's a brand new unethical system of power ready to be taken advantage of now that he's got nothing left to lose."
In the best possible way, what the hell does this mean? What *could* this mean? I'd it referring to the obvious answer of "He starts getting LV"? Is it referring to him working up the underground's political system (becoming King for some reason)? Is it some secret third option???
Even if this is obvious or meant to be left to suggestion, I would love an expansion and/or exploration of this idea further because it is so captivating.
(Anyway, love your work! Keep it up)
BAHAHAHA, nothing that drastic, don't worry! but... sorta the second option there? not all the way to king though
king mtt ending: dystopian, celebrity king with zero leading experience and dubious mental stability (he is one stage of grief away from killing himself at any moment), takes power in his own hands, sets off a countrywide brainwashing campaign, ignores the kingdom's multiple crisis and if anyone opposes him too much they "disappear". what does sans do? why, he climbs up the social ladder (either by kissing his ass or making himself useful) and secures himself a place as his agent. he neither fights or miss l nor survives the system, he exploits it to cover his own ass, and rip bozo to the poor bastards underneath. now, with papyrus still around he'd obviously have something else left to care about and dedicate himself to after securing their own safety in the system, but if papyrus is gone, well. i don't see why he should give a fuck and not go along with whatever plans mtt has
empress undyne ending: undyne seizes power, declares war (again), expands the royal guard massively, and turns the underground into a massive military state hoping to crush humanity. what does sans do? ...well, we don't know for sure. he ends the phonecall on a rather vague threat
lots of people take this to mean that he's really, REALLY hoping undyne will kick your ass, but still acts as a passive observer. which i think is a perfectly good reading. now, i wouldn't say what I'm about to propose is canon, more like a personal theory/hc of mine... but there's another line in the phonecall I'd like to call attention to. and well. when you connect the two? considering sans' background as a scientist?
...i think they have some REALLY fun implications :]
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