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toaster-trash · 11 months

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I see people claim that we hype up Henry over Elizabeth because she's a woman and I disagree. The reasons why we're focusing on Victor's relationship with him and not his romance with Elizabeth has nothing to do with misogyny.

Oh absolutely, and for one I absolutely adore Elizabeth. The thing with Elizabeth though is,

1) She objectively gets far less “screen time” than Henry does, so it makes sense audiences would be a bit more attached to Henry than Elizabeth initially. It actually really did take reading more interpretations of her character from different people for her role in the story to actually click into place and for me to start really liking her, because a lot of her characterisation is done through subtext.

2) For the romance aspect, forgive me for not cheering on an arranged marriage between two cousins/adopted siblings who have no chemistry with joy

Although I do KIND OF agree that we should totally give Elizabeth more credit (fanartists, let’s get on it), we just don’t get as much information on her as we do Henry, and that’s intentional! Because it’s Victor telling us this story, and despite the fact I don’t doubt they do somewhat care for eachother, it does kind of seem like Victor himself doesn’t really know that much about Elizabeth compared to Henry? Which makes sense, if Henry is who Victor might’ve been if he was mentally stable and took the right path, the Creature is the embodiment of Victor’s regrets and downfalls, and Elizabeth is the consequences of Victor’s actions and how they hurt the people he’s close to.

Elizabeth is kind of a bit of a punching bag for the Frankenstein family, unfortunately, in a lot of ways – she’s brought in after she’s orphaned, betrothed to Victor as a “gift”, expected to take over as the mother figure after Caroline passes away, and is constantly brushed off and pushed to the side by Victor again and again, and no doubt that puts immeasurable strain on her. Victor’s actions effect and hurt so many people throughout the course of the narrative, but Elizabeth is representative of that hurt.

We don’t know a lot about Elizabeth because Victor avoids Elizabeth. Whether to spare her feelings, because he thinks he’s protecting her, because he doesn’t like her, whatever interpretation you have, Victor and Elizabeth are fundamentally, (even if for some reason you can get past them being, again, cousins), not a healthy couple. They don’t talk, they aren’t honest, they don’t communicate, and throughout the course of the narrative it’s just more avoidance and buildup (to the point where Elizabeth writes to Victor specifically asking if he even likes her to begin with), and it doesn’t get resolved. The resolution to Elizabeth’s growing hurt is Elizabeth‘s ultimate death, which should tell you a lot about the symbolism there.

Conversely, Victor and Henry are one of the most healthy couples in classic literature (Jonmina and clervalstein double date when?) and whether you read their relationship as romantic or as platonic, it’s unarguable that they are extremely close. And, as a result, we know a very very good deal about Henry, because Victor talks about Henry very very often. They adore eachother and support eachother unconditionally, and it’s completely natural and fair for most readers to be more attached to Henry’s relationship with Victor as a result, than Victor’s relationship to Elizabeth.

Again, I absolutely love Elizabeth, and I think she’s a very important character who deserves more of a spotlight. But her relationship to Victor isn’t healthy and not something to be idealised or promoted. She is important on her own, and despite what so many adaptations try to push, she isn’t “Frankenstein’s beloved” and her character means so much more than her engagement to Victor. She’s a very strong character who had a very good deal come her way and took it on with very little complaint, and didn’t deserve the pain she went through as a result. And personally, I find that to be far more fascinating than a character who’s only personality trait is to pine after her cousin. Although I do genuinely believe that Elizabeth definitely cared about Victor, and conversely that Victor genuinely cared about Elizabeth, personally I didn’t read either of them as being romantically interested in the other. Especially Elizabeth in Victor.

#classic literature #gothic lit #gothic literature #goth lit #classic lit #frankenstein #frankenstein weekly #elizabeth lavenza #henry clerval #victor frankenstein #clervalstein #(kind of)

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miss0atae · 22 days

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Random thoughts about Jazz for two episode 5-6:

Everyone has already seen all episodes but since I'm still following the schedule of Gagaoolala I'm clearly falling behind. I don't mind because it gives me something to watch on Tuesday.

What I liked in these episodes:

▪️ Everything about Do Yoon: his looks, his personality, his tragic and terrible crush to Joo Ha (What a curse to fancy someone who can't like you back) and his smile. He is remaining my favorite character. I understand why people would feel close to him easily because he is effortlessly sociable. I found very endearing how he always call Se Heon as "Honey". This character deserves happiness. I'm glad he stood up himself to Joo Ha. He backed down because he had to protect himself before getting more hurt. I do believe he did enough.

▪️ Se Heon is finding the courage to go after what he really wants: playing jazz despite all the obstacles. He was bold also to add Tae Yi's name on the paper for his exams. He is still staying positive despite being told he is not good enough. I appreciate how he stays resolute to improve and keep playing jazz because he find "freedom" in this type of music. I believe he has the right set of mind to do better in the future and reach his goal.

▪️ Tae Yi is finally opening up a little bit and it was a breath of fresh air. I was a bit wary they would keep his character being cold and unfriendly. We all know he still has the trauma of losing his brother which keep him from opening up, but it's nice that Se Heon could make him to lower his walls. Behind them Tae Yi is kind of softy and very protective too.

Things I didn’t like in these two episodes:

▪️ Se Heon's father has a problem! I don't know if he just couldn't accept his wife leaving him or if it's something else but this man needs to seek a therapist because he has to know how to manage his temper. It's infuriating how he treats his son. He is always so controlling and guild-tripping him. Also, why he is so stuck on having his younger son playing classical music?! He already has a son who is doing it. Let the younger one do something he likes as long as it's music.

▪️ The first kiss under the umbrella was really cute but it just came out of nowhere. Okay, Tae Yi was friendlier but I didn't expect them to kiss at this moment. I think a hug would have been more pertinent. Especially has they never really talked about it again after it happened. The second kiss came at the right time but it's just so bad. I think the problem comes from the fact they are both idols in the same group. That's why their kisses can't look great. I guess I have to accept that at least, they had one.

▪️ Joo Ha's arc was a bit confusing for me. I think I missed the moment things got out of hand for him. I didn't understand why he was acting this way. He also has some anger management needed. I also believes he is having internalized homophobia. He acted frustrated by Do Yoon because he wasn't paying attention to him as he was used to. He lashed on Se Heon because things wouldn't go his way anymore. I think he needs help too. Most characters need a serious help in this series.

Next week, I’ll see the last episodes.

#my thoughts #random thoughts #bl series #bl drama #korean bl #jazz for two #jazz for two the series #episode 5 #episode 6 #It's not my favorite series of the moment but it's interesting.#I believe I don't like it more because it feels a bit less when you compare it to Love for Love's Shake that had such an impact on me

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td-frog · 3 months

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okay i'm not done talking about this. i want to highlight again the all stars couples from previous seasons and what direction they seem to be heading in (and why i think it's a good narrative choice)

jaiden:

they had a whole arc throughout their season with loads of conflict. it went back and forth a little bit, but in a way that made sense for the characters, and it felt like it resolved really nicely by the end.

because of that, it would be really disappointing if they just brought the conflict back now that they're on a new season. they put in the work on the show and all signs pointed to strong, healthy relationship when they left off (having already had the experience of working through problems).

and so far, that's exactly what they are. the drama of the past season is resolved, they're still super close, and the conflict now is not within their relationship, but who they are outside of it. first with being on different teams, and now with james being out so early.

i really really like that james immediately shut jake down with the accusations of cheating. it was very much an opportunity to reintroduce relationship conflict, but the show said "no, they're happy together."

i also like the choice to have james leave and aiden stay: first, james is a stronger competitor (explicitly why he got to go for the win in s2), second because aiden is less confident about being on his own and we get to see that, and third because of what's going on with tom/jake

i think at this point jaiden seems super solid and it doesn't look like they're planning to change that. which they shouldn't, these guys have had their drama and deserve to be happy.

tomjake

they also had a lot of back and forth in their season, but the key difference is that nothing was really ever fully resolved? there were mini resolutions, where they agreed to communicate better (and then failed immediately) but it didn't have the finality of "we've worked through the misunderstandings and are stronger for it" that jaiden had.

like, their issue has always been being Terrible at communication. tom because of the secretiveness of his spy background, and jake because of his gullibility and tendency to jump to the worst conclusions. so the fact that their plot this season seems to be Bad Communication turned up to 11 is perfectly in line with what we've seen before.

it's also a nice contrast to jaiden- they both have the "on separate teams" problem, but while jaiden have the trust and strength in their relationship to handle it, jake's insecurities cause him to fall back on old patterns with almost no prompting at all (and tom's not entirely innocent here either- i fully believe his friendship with aiden is just friendship and there's nothing wrong with that, but his avoidance of jake is absolutely feeding the problem and he should know that)

based on s1, it really doesn't seem like they'll make the relationship work unless some major conflict forces them to actually deal with their problems (and then they have to Actually deal with them), so i'm expecting it to get worse before it gets better. they both need to grow as people before the relationship can work, and until then they can suffer.

(also: removing miriam from the picture by putting her on the third team is key- she's the voice of reason for jake that he desperately needs, so taking that away rapidly accelerates the Problems)

hunterally

they're kind of an in-between case. we saw a little bit of conflict on the show, but they didn't actually get together until the very end (counting them resolving their friendship problems in the finale) or after (start of the actual relationship). so we haven't actually gotten to see how they work as a couple.

similar to miriam, tess seems like she is a key part of keeping the relationship together (given that the problems seem to have started after she left, and she seems to be the most chill and rational at this point), so distancing her is good for seeing how the relationship plays out.

as far as hunter and ally's conflict, it's interesting how it follows from their characters in s2. hunter seems like more of a jerk, but not in an ooc way- literally the first thing we learn about him is he's not big on socializing, so it's not surprising that he might not put much effort into a relationship. meanwhile ally always seemed a bit more invested in their relationship on the show (partly because she had a crush on him), so it tracks that she could be putting more into the relationship and get frustrated with him when he didn't.

like from what little we've seen so far, the conflict they're having feels very realistic for "we became friends on a reality tv show and started a relationship after"- they don't really know each other that well by the end, and they might not be as compatible as they thought (and regardless, need to work to make the relationship succeed)

also, another note on tess: while i am a little disappointed that it's not the poly throuple i expected, i don't hate it. tess's relationship to the other two was more "the first people to try to help her out of a very dark place" which can be romantic (and especially at first is likely to feel that way) but it doesn't have to be. i would be very disappointed if they weren't still friends, but that's not the case.

i also think there's a possibility that the resolution is their relationship doesn't work without tess. i don't know if this is the direction they'll take (and i don't need it) but i think it'd be super cool if it ends in a poly relationship that isn't romantic on tess's end but is no less important (possibly more important).

gabellie

shoutout to these two. i don't have much to say, mostly because their relationship has never been the source of drama in the same way as the other three.

i do like how they've almost kind of switched roles since s1? at the start of s1 everyone hated gabby, and ellie wasn't super popular but liked well-enough. now ellie's the one everyone hates and gabby's still not the favorite but is doing fine.

i think they're really cute together and i love how they support each other. and it's really nice to have a relationship that's almost fully outside of the drama of the show, like it's formed in response to individual drama (ellie being the only person to stand up for gabby) and it affects the drama (gabby saving ellie even though it could (and did) cost her a chance at immunity later on) but it's not dramatic itself. i hope that lasts.

as for other couples: i have some thoughts on connoriya but they're kind of separate from this. yulgrett is new this season so that's also a different thing. there isn't really anything to say about ashwill given that he was out first and didn't return. and i think that's it for all star couples so far.

#frog.txt #disventure camp #disventure camp spoilers #meta #long post

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wellntruly · 8 months

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M*A*S*H (not that one)

I went to Manderley again--rewatched the Altman M*A*S*H. Completely worrying pattern, being nearly exactly one year after the first time I saw it. If I end up watching M*A*S*H (1970) in the last weeks of August every year that’s going to wind me up on some sort of list. By women. And they’ll be right.

I hadn’t known at first, but the eventual realization was as inevitable as anything in the movie, a sort of regrettable slide of “no, I’m gonna.” Why does anyone do the things they do in M*A*S*H. Why does anyone do M*A*S*H. Both of these questions don’t have question marks because it’s just already happening.

There are some attenuating circumstances, sure. War, weather, Robert Altman, a friend, a kind of numb seeking for the sword of time that will pierce your skin. Elliott Gould, probably, also.

If you embark on a Hot ‘70s Summer, you don’t actually leave it. Winter just falls, and you go into that mode of the ‘70s, bundling up in inadequate materials against the cold, and still somehow, feel cozy. But before that turn, those still, hot weeks hanging hazy at the top of the year, the most Hot ‘70s Summer, 1970, the most ‘70 movie to ever exist: Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H.

I was an hour and thirty minutes into it before I remembered with a little twitch that at some point, in the beginning, this was set in the 1950s. Hilarious to recall. Maybe it’s the 1950s in Richard Hooker’s book about his time in a Korean War field hospital, also titled M*A*S*H; I do not know. I simply know it is not the 1950s here, it is well 1969 precisely, at filming, and America has just achieved its dismal high water mark for the number of troops currently deployed in Vietnam. This is Vietnam. It’s not Korea, it’s not Japan, it’s the crest of the Vietnam War in a mountain park in California, and a nation knew that immediately, knew that with everything they had, which was mostly nihilism.

M*A*S*H (1970) dir. Robert Altman is probably the most historically specific film object I have ever seen. You cannot navigate, valuably, anything this movie is doing outwith its historical and cultural context. Some works of art are timeless, and on the other end there is M*A*S*H, made OF time, yanked out of the fabric of it with film cameras rolling and a sound mix that says: all of it, and that act winds up changing what will happen--historically, culturally--as time continues on.

M*A*S*H is its time. It meets America head-on, and leers. It’s not that it breaks something in the culture, it just reflects back something that was already broken, the people already scarring over. M*A*S*H only works if you’re watching it knowing that. Not to be didactic. Something the movie resolutely refuses to be, at any moment, which causes audiences today, removed from the milieu, to question, alarmed, do they know? Do they know that they're awful? Oh yes. Do they also take delight in their being awful? Oho yes. We are all broken. :).

The tagline of this movie, still on a lot of the posters you’ll see, was “M*A*S*H gives a D*A*M*N.” This is so curious to me. It is either a straight up lie, or a key. This would appear a movie predominately peopled with characters who seem, in kind of post-modern incongruity with their surroundings, almost implacably non-committal. Removed, irreverent, careless. Sure it turns callous, sure in trying to deflect the stupid brutality of war they often just end up turning brutal stupidity onto others. A catalog of non-definite acts, something to mask the desperation.

I think a lot about this one Chris Fleming video where he said something like, “ever since my parents grasped that a movie can still be good even if it doesn’t make you feel good, they’ve been going absolutely ham at the independent theater.” Realizing this really does open up your world, and also gets you on lists (I deserve to be there!!). This is how lightly sweating in a slowly turning fan at the end of summer you think, mm, gonna watch M*A*S*H…

Why? Vibes. But the vibes are bad. Yeah I know. But they’re also….I think the phrase I used in a message to the friend I first watched this movie with, as soon as those opening credits started playing over me again, was “badly enchanting.” There’s something about the way it looks, the way it sounds. Khaki-colored sunlight and dirt and those Japanese covers of old standards playing through a PA system. That Altman calling card layered up dialogue where they somehow arrange it just-so so that you still hear the parts you’re supposed to, god.

This is how you end up saying, oh this movie is not like, a nice time, I occasionally quite dislike the sensation of watching it, and yet also, sometimes it's just what I want to watch. I don’t know, it’s AltM*A*S*H. One minute I’m thinking, incredible that you thought this was funny, and then the next I’m like, you are the only people who understand this particular thing I think is funny. Primarily in that though it’s three things: 1. unhinged heavily metatextual opening and closing pacing & especially this narrating voice at the end just being like “welp, that was that” and rapidly rehashing clips of the cast at ever increasing speed, 2. two Bud Cort moments, 3. GaryBurghoffRadarO’Reilly.

This is the juncture where I get off actually, because if I keep going in this mode about the completely insane thing that somehow happened next, to M*A*S*H and to me, M*A*S*H (1972-1983), we'd be here 10 years and I would die, whichever comes first.

But I will tell you one thing! Just one thing!!! If I’m in what, 1972, much like I was 2022, and they’re like, there’s gonna be a M*A*S*H TV show, and the one person who will be the same is that kid Radar, I’m like oh, of course, the most character who can travel between worlds performance of all time.

#here is a thousand words on the film “M*A*S*H”#M*A*S*H (1970)#Robert Altman #M*A*S*H hours #Wellntruly's Watch Log

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bethanythebogwitch · 6 months

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So I have some thoughts about Digimon Adventure 02 The Beginning. There will be spoilers.

Overall I enjoyed myself, though it wasn't nearly as good as Last Evolution Kizuna. And that's kind of my first gripe about the movie. The new Adventure universe entries all feel disconnected from each other. 02 was very obviously a sequel to Adventure, as was Tri, but you don't need to watch Tri to understand Kizuna and you don't need to watch Tri or Kizuna to understand The Beginning. I would like more consistency and following up on plot points. The whole central plot of Kizuna, that Digimon partnerships are temporary and will eventually end, was not present in this movie at all. This movie also brings up several concepts without following through on them. It also felt rushed compared to Kizuna. I think expanding the run time to 2 hours instead of the 1.5 hrs we got would have benefitted the movie greatly by fleshing out the characters of Lui and Ukkamon, giving their story more of a resolution, and addressing the unanswered questions. Specifically I want to know who the great being Ukkamon gets his powers from is and what's up with that very disturbing giant form it took. The movie also didn't really give a lot of the 02 cast much to do. This is very much the Lui and Ukkamon movie, guest-starring the 02 cast. I think what I want out of a 02 follow up is resolution on some of the hanging plot threads (the dark ocean in particular) and more character development to see how the kids we see in 02 will become the adults we see in the epilogue. And evolutions for SIlphymon and Shakkoumon.

I am definitely enjoying the continuation of the Adventure universe, but I am annoyed by the fact that each new entry ends with sequel hooks and dangling plot threads that the next entry does not address. Things we still don't know include (from Tri) who evil Gennai was and what his goals are, what happened to the original chosen children besides Daigo and Maki, and what are all the resurrected villains from the reboot doing, and (from Kizuna) how the partners that vanished will come back in time for the 02 epilogue. I think these are all great points that can be followed up on for good stories. Have a confrontation with evil Gennai, tell a story about Taichi/Tai and Yamato/Matt bringing back Agumon and Gabumon. I'm also not sure how Ukkamon trying to give everyone in the world a Digimon partner to make them happy squares with Kizuna saying that all Digimon partnerships will eventually end. That's another great opportunity to tell a story connecting the two. Maybe Ukkamon isn't as powerful as he thinks and can't make permanent bonds, maybe Ukkamon is too short-sighted to see the consequences of his actions, maybe someone else (evil Gennai or the dark ocean perhaps) is manipulating Ukkamon for their own goals. Maybe you could tie Tri and 02 together ore by letting the reboot from Tri bring back characters like BlackWarGreymon and Oikawa.

Ukkamon's power to grant wishes is another thing I think deserves more attention. The most obvious answer I think is that Ukkamon's power comes from the world of dreams seen in the end of 02. However the very dark (though seemingly innocent) way he grants Lui's wishes and the very Lovecraftian transformation he goes through gives me dark ocean vibes. My personal theory is that Ukkamon is an innocent creature related to the world of dreams that is being corrupted by the dark ocean or that he is some halfway point between the two worlds (they are implied to be counterparts, the world of dreams representing good dreams and the dark ocean representing nightmares). Again, this is very good potential for storytelling. I guess what I'm saying is: fanfic writers, start your engines.

I saw some people saying that this movie retconned Tri and the 02 epilogue. I did not get that impression at all. I think the only thing that would have to change about Tri is that the adventures of Daigo, Maki and co would have to take places closer to the original series than what was shone in that series. The epilogue is still perfectly viable as a conclusion to what we see in the movie. We even see the characters beginning to work toward the careers they have in the epilogue and a tease to the start of the Miyako/Yolei x Ken relationship. I'm in favor of this. I can definitely see why a lot of people want Tri and the epilogue decanonized, but I think that 9 times out of 10 it's better to take something that didn't work and build new, better stories on it than to just retcon it away.

Stuff I like about this movie. The action is visually impressive and the animation in general is excellent. I like Miyako/Yolei getting more to do since she was definitely the most underutilized in 02 (though Iori/Cody got the shaft this time around). I like the movie showing more of how the characters got to where they were in the epilogue. I like the cameos from the international chosen children and shots showing the beginning of a new generation of chosen. The emotional core of the story, though a bit rushed, was strong. The ending showing that even without digivices, the bond between human and Digimon is strong enough to stay was heartwarming and a very nice aversion to this franchise always trying to cram in a tragic ending to its stories. And that one scene (if you saw the movie you know which one I'm talking about) was scarier then anything we got in the entirety of Ghost Game and Survive. Overall, it was a good movie, I just wish it could have done just a bit more.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 the beginning #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #film analysis #personal thoughts #fanfiction ideas #spoilers

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deliverance-guy · 10 months

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Imagine being such a lazy and incompetent writer, that you not only forget to give one character closure but at least two.

Rant incoming:

You can do so much with Narek's character and I would have loved seeing him getting a redemption ark, exploring the cult of the Zhat Vash and interacting with other people than his sister. Dang, let him realise that he has been brainwashed since his childhood, allow him to overcome his prejudice and trauma with the help of Laris or even Elnor and make him a powerful ally through the plot, which could have been so strong and interesting to watch. But no. They literally forgot about him and Chabon’s clarification, or better his planned fate doesn't make sense. Why should he be brought into federation custody?

A) What he did was horrible, yet inside of romulan space and under romulan laws dedicated towards a then illegal life form who has most likely signed a contract agreeing to said laws and possible consequences of conflict with the police/ the Tal Shiar. As a result, they shouldn’t be able to arrest him for anything since he was also way too young to be involved into the destruction of Mars.

B) Moreover, he recognised his mistakes and showed a will to work on himself. Prison will only make him loose that short window of change of mind and harden his believes, since he spends the whole time with himself and we all know how thoughts can spiral into hate and frustration rather than understanding and reflection. His whole world collapsed around him and instead of taking the shot to work with him, they leave him alone with his thoughts and the urge to find someone to blame for his misery?

Even though I am heartbroken to what they did to the La Sirena crew, I felt like they had some sort of resolution inside the seasons and their arcs, not perfect or satisfying but still (we don’t talk about how the writers ripped everything apart in season 3, that is another essay worth of rant). I deeply mourn for what could have been and are beyond mad they threw out Soji and Elnor so fast. It just felt cheap. I can understand why they did it with Elnor, to give Raffi a motive to work through her guilt for manipulating him (which kind of got brushed off and came out of nowhere so idk why you couldn’t leave him in there and work through it alive and together).

For Soji, why give us Core when you don’t plan on doing something more with here than give the actor and Spinner something to do. How great would have been it, if Soji met her look alike and got to understand the origin of her “bloodline” and the reason behind her creation, something she desperately longed for. Let her find acceptance for herself and the confidence in her skin she deserves. Let her be more than some diplomate and a tool to portray the conflict between Agnes and Rios. The money I would give to see both of them coming up the agreement to work together and Soji’s decision to change her job from an anthropologist or doctor (I am not sure what her profession fell under) to an ambassador. SHOW US, please. To be honest, I can’t see Paramount doing a show with the watchers and Core, so why waste that time with a plot you could have given to a character already established in the season before, a whole audience was thrilled for?

And Laris... Cutting her off for nostalgia porn and claiming it was out of budget? How cheap is this please?! She deserved way better and not being tossed in the trash so carelessly by so called fans! If you don’t want her in the main storyline, fine. Just give her an ending. A sentence or brief interaction. She and Picard were literally a couple, so why deny her the interaction with Beverly and her stepson?

You can say what you want about star trek Picard but I think we all can agree on one statement: Picard has been such a massive mess in terms of carrying the plotline, characters and ideas throughout the seasons to a point were it almost felt like they have been completely different series from the beginning. Every season had such an unique idea and character developments, which got tossed aside and completely ignored in later episodes.

I know enough people have talked about this already but I needed to get it out of my system.

#star trek picard #romulans #narek #laris #if you can't cry laugh #can you tell I am mad?#rant #soji asha #this got out of hand

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rollercoasterwords · 1 year

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Any tips for writing great angst?

had 2 think abt this for a bit bc as i've said before my writing process is largely intuitive but!! here's what i've come up with:

1 - read angst <3

this might seem like basic advice but! i would be remiss if i did not mention that part of the way i learned how to come up with angsty situations was simply by reading a lot of angsty stories. now when i write if i'm trying to come up with angst i'll often find myself thinking about what stories have stuck with me in the past and what made them so heart-wrenching.

2 - muddy the waters

i find that when i'm trying to write a heartbreaking story, including a clear Wrong and Right character often diminishes the angst. for example--if two characters are fighting, but one is clearly framed as The Bad Guy and the other is clearly framed as The Victim, the story can of course be sad, but it sort of falls into an easy emotional logic to follow of sympathy for the victim and anger at the bad guy. the stories that i find stick with me much more are ones that include conflict with no clear right and wrong side, where you can understand where both characters are coming from and sympathize with both while also understanding that they are hurting each other. i also prefer these types of stories because i think they tend to be in conversation with the reader more, whereas stories with a clear Good versus Bad setup are kind of just feeding you a script of what you're supposed to feel much of the time. so even if you do have a clear antagonist in your story, i find it more compelling if there is more to the antagonization than just some Inherent Evil.

3 - make it unfair

when something bad happens, most people's first instinct is to look for a clear reason or for someone to blame. additionally, i think a lot of people will instinctively try to find ways to sort of "lessen the blow"--to make the Bad Thing that happened hold some greater meaning, or to say things like "they're in a better place now," etc. that is all perfectly understandable when seeking comfort in the wake of a tragedy--but if you're trying to write angst, take that comfort away! if you want to kill a character, make it abundantly clear to the reader that that character does not want to die, that they have so much to live for, etc etc. make bad things happen randomly, for no reason. make bad things happen to people who don't deserve it. make bad things happen that don't lead to any greater good, that perhaps even make things worse. make bad things happen that were so easily avoidable, but for whatever reason just could not be avoided in this instance. if you really want to twist the knife, a good way to do it is by leaving the reader going, "it's just so unfair!"

4 - leave problems unresolved

this ties into the last point, because again, what is goes back to is taking away the comfort that we seek when something bad happens. if your goal is to write really intense angst, then one of the best ways to do that is to leave whatever problem is causing strife unresolved, or at least to avoid giving a clear resolution/happily-ever-after.

anyway! hope that's helpful :) i'm happy to give like. more concrete examples of any of these points if anything wasn't clear or to try and elaborate more, but...yeah. i feel like these are just some overarching things to consider when you're trying to decide how angsty you wanna make something!

#ask #writing tips

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benicebefunny · 11 months

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3.11 ends just after 9:30am on Monday. A half hour before Nathan returns to Richmond at 10am, Monday.

I can't imagine I'm the only one who assumed 3.12 would pick up right where 3.11 left off. We would see Ted tell Rebecca he's leaving. We would see Nathan arrive at 10am for his first day back in a fraught work environment. We would see him and Ted finally talk.

We don't see any of those things.

Instead, 3.12 jumps to ahead to a morning some time later.

The show skips the central conversations the season has been leading up to in favor of teasing Tedbecca one last time.

The writing prioritized being a petty little asshole to Tedbecca shippers over providing a meaningful (ONSCREEN) resolution to the Nathan-Ted conflict.

I get the appeal of being a petty little asshole. It's a rewarding experience. But look at what was sacrificed. At who was once again sacrificed.

The opening of 3.12 was not a particularly kind parting gift for the Tedbecca shippers. I can see why they would be upset.

Even though I don't ship Ted and Rebecca together (or with anyone, really), I'm upset, too. I resent the scene for what it replaced (an important moment for Nathan) and what it enabled (Nathan being assistant to the kitman).

To show rather than tell would have required an actual in-character, earned, and sensical reason for Nathan to return as anything other than a coach (the thing 3.11 was teasing).

Showing would have required someone to believably say, "I know Nathan is more than qualified to be an assistant coach. I know that he has the skills, experience, and insight into West Ham (as their former manager) that would enable us to win the whole fucking thing. But I think it would be best if he served in the lowest-ranking position in the locker room instead. Rather than use Nathan's coaching genius, Richmond should invent a new position that will allow Nathan to serve under someone with vastly less kitman experience. That is a thing that should happen."

Someone (possibly even Nathan) would have to say that, and other people would have to agree.

Showing would require multiple characters to agree, "Yes, the best place for the only Brown coach on this show is to serve and clean up after the people he once supervised and who once bullied him. This is the right thing, because this Brown man needs to practice humility, be punished with manual labor, prove his devotion to a two billion pound club, and/or take comfort in repetitive tasks. This is an incredibly generous offer."

The Tedbecca fake-out allowed the show to avoid

Explaining a non-sensical plot twist/reversal

Justifying one of the most racist writing choices on an already racist show

Showing beloved white characters putting Nathan in his place--one final racist act that may (finally) tarnish their benevolent white reputations

The Tedbecca fake-out was a distraction. It demonstrated tremendous contempt for the fans, and it denied both Nathan and Nick Mohammed a well-deserved opportunity to shine.

#ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #nathan shelley #meta

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stillness-in-green · 1 year

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On Giving AFO the Chainsaw Man Treatment

Below the cut, find a pair of asks about the chances of AFO's threat being resolved in a similar way as Chainsaw Man deals with its Act I villain. I'm not planning to actually discuss that CSM resolution, but even a passing description of it represents a major spoiler to anyone who's only following the anime, so hit the jump only if that's not an issue for you.

I gotta say, anons, if anyone in this series has to get age-reversed for a do-over, my first choice would be AFO.

Forgive me; I'm going to talk a lot about the widespread Age-Reversed Shigaraki prediction below. I know you didn't bring up Shigaraki at all—for all I know, you hate that theory just as much as I do!—but most of my familiarity with Baby!AFO is through that filter, so it's through that filter my answer comes. But I don't think either character should get age-reversed, which I'll get to in the latter half of this post. Please just skip to the next bold header if you don't want to read me comparing the two.

Better AFO Than Shigaraki:

So like, as far as I'm aware, the general assumption is that if Shigaraki (the only other candidate for whom reversion to infancy is ever proposed) is rewound to an infant, he’ll truly be an infant, with his memories wiped clean. And this, it's implied, will give him some kind of moral clean slate whereby the person who committed all the many, many crimes Shigaraki has committed will have “died” and therefore be beyond punishment.

If that would be morally acceptable for Shigaraki Tomura—arguing that the person who caused all that harm and death doesn’t exist anymore—why would it not be morally acceptable for AFO? If the people who lost homes and loved ones to Shigaraki would be expected to just let bygones be bygones because That Is A Child, why would the same not be true of those AFO hurt?

Of course, the easy answer is that Shigaraki is himself a victim of AFO, whereas AFO is not—so far as we know—the victim of anyone. Thus, Shigaraki is perceived to be deserving of a second chance, while AFO is not. But if the karma gets wiped clean regardless—if you can make AFO a better person instead of killing him, give him a chance to grow up as a person who will put good into the world instead of bad—I don’t see the two as being all that different.

If anything, I think it’s a better answer for AFO than it is for Shigaraki. Narratively speaking, Shigaraki is a product of Hero Society’s failures as much as he is AFO’s upbringing, so addressing those failures is every bit as important as saving him from AFO for the challenge he presents to feel adequately resolved. AFO, conversely, isn’t challenging a bunch of societal mores,[1] so I feel like the story giving him a do-over wouldn’t feel like it was trying to sneakily evade answering that challenge by raising him up as a good little law-abiding, paradigm-accepting citizen.

Also, the heroes having to deal with Baby!AFO is much, much funnier than them having to deal with Sweet Blameless Tenko. As someone who staunchly believes that All Might has done sweet fuck-all to earn some kind of saccharine Dad Might Raises Baby Tenko ending, I would far rather see him having to navigate the fraught waters of raising the innocent child version of his lineage’s archenemy.

It Won't Be Either of Them, Though:

All that said, I think it’s going to be a moot point regardless because Ujiko’s little Rewind serum is clearly not working on AFO’s memories, nor was the raw version, so to speak, ever shown to affect Deku or Mirio’s. Baby!AFO with his memories intact doesn’t solve the problem AFO presents at all, any more than it would for Baby!Shigaraki. At best, it might reduce the raw physical threat they pose, but if their mentality is unchanged, it’s just kicking the problem down the line for a decade or two.

Even setting the memory issue aside, though, AFO has been pretty clear that the serum has put him on a timer. He’s fretting about getting to Shigaraki because there’s something he needs to do before he, like Eri’s father,[2] gets Rewound to nonexistence. I suppose there are ways around this—having Erasure work on the serum’s ongoing effect, having the serum just run out of efficacy before it can eat through AFO’s prodigious lifespan, etc.—but from the current setup, I don’t think a Nayuta-style resolution to AFO is on the table.

And It Shouldn't Be:

And that's just as well. While I think Baby!AFO would be funny, I can really only say that because AFO as we have him here in the endgame is so two-dimensional that he barely registers as having an identity to lose to the ego death of reversion to infancy.

That ego death is why I don't much care for resolutions that involve returning a villain to infancy. Usually, when I see that plot, the unspoken reasoning runs that the affected character had their life and innocence stolen from them, and thus they deserve a second chance at being happy and having a normal childhood. Maybe that's a comforting thought for some people, and I wish those people well of it.

To me, though, it smacks unpleasantly of rhetoric that says that once someone has been hurt enough, scarred enough, changed enough by their suffering, they might as well just die and start over because they're too damaged to ever find happiness again, so why bother trying? I am Extremely Not Here for that message.[3]

Now, there's probably a whole different discussion to be had about how that plot reads symbolically when the author/readers believe in reincarnation. I have no idea where Horikoshi falls on that in the Shinto/Buddhism spectrum most of Japan occupies. Still, I don't know that it can rightly be called reincarnation, if the person has to grow up with the exact same name they had before and is probably being raised by someone who remembers everything they did under that name previously and is always going to have half an eye on making sure they don't grow up the same way again. That's a pretty lousy "new life," isn't it?

IRL subtext aside, I'm also against the idea because, as I mentioned earlier, Magically A Baby Again is too easily used as an end run around having to meaningfully address a character's anger, trauma, wickedness, or whatever motivation is so insurmountable that it can only be defeated by completely obliviating it. That definitely shouldn't happen to Shigaraki, but even with AFO, it feels like it would serve the same function as a Disney Falling Death: remove the villain's menace without dirtying your heroes' sparkling clean hands with the moral responsibility for a death.

Thanks for the asks, anons, and your patience.

------------------ FOOTNOTES ------------------ 1: Narratively speaking, I mean. Obviously, as The Supervillain Of All Time, AFO challenges all kinds of societal mores! But the reader isn’t encouraged to think of those challenges as legitimate the way they are with Shigaraki.

2: And it only just occurred to me in writing this, if Eri’s quirk requires the consumption of her horn to power the Rewind effect, and we saw it go from Very Large to Tiny Nub just in taking six months off Mirio, what on earth is the explanation for her Rewinding her father out of existence?

3: This is also why I've got zero time for the whole idea that "Shigaraki Tomura" has no meaningful existence of his own; that the thing going by that name is just fifteen years of AFO's Grooming caked on top of an inner perfectly innocent, perfectly preserved, Shimura Tenko.

#bnha #bnha afo #bnha endgame #shigaraki tomura #stillness answers #real talk in the tags:#people getting angrily moralistic about the hypothetical saving or redemption of afo is a factor in why I think it would be funny #but that's the orneriness of spending years being an omni-villain appreciator #in a fandom that was determined that the League were the only villains anyone was Morally Allowed to appreciate #at least Ujiko would still love AFO as an innocent child #All Might would have to adopt BabyAFO because Ujiko is the only other person who'd volunteer

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yujeong · 4 months

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Fanfic Writing - New Year's Resolutions

Hey fellow fic writers <3 I know it's still not the end of the year, but it's December and I'm impatient, so I would like to share with you my writing plans for 2024 and ask you to do so too, if you want to. My Ao3 for convenience is Yuujeong, where you can check out all the things I'll be referencing below. So, in my case, I *hope* that in 2024, I will be able to: - write at least one more chapter for "Little House on the Hill" (I make no promises though, I've kind of moved on from that fic, even though it holds such a special place in my heart) - write and post the third installment of my "Heroes and Villains" series (I have neglected this one for months but I hadn't figured out this fic completely up until last month, when the full picture of it came to me and I managed to get unstuck. Hopefully, next year you'll be reading it) - finish and post the sequel to "Broken Vows" (istg I haven't forgotten it, on the contrary, it haunts my dreams, it's just such a tricky little shit that I ended up asking for help about it. It'll be in such capable hands now, and I hope people will enjoy reading it) - continue my Kim&Pete fic series (the second installment won't be too difficult to write - she says, as if she doesn't need at least a month for a fic to be written and edited before posting - but the one after that will be multi-chaptered and looong, so I'll need time and a lot of effort to pull it off. 2024 *will* see this series written and concluded though, I swear) - ARMPETE!! (I have a fic I've been meaning to work on for months now and it'll probably end up not being multi-chaptered as I intended at first. Unfortunately the inspiration for more than that has run out BUT I will enrich the fandom with this rarepair or so help me-) - write at least one BostonNick fic (there's one that's the most likely to be written, which is about Boston getting a haircut and I think it's cute and would love to explore the idea. Also, a Nick character study fic because my boy deserves the world) - write smut! Yep, in 2024 we're getting horny baby (prepare for some VP somno shenanigans, because there's not nearly enough of it in the fandom and that's a huge shame) - participate in at least one fandom event (the kpts Big Bang, while stressful for multiple reasons, was incredibly fun and I would love to do something like that again - same goes for things like Secret Santa events which are cool too) - try writing fics for some of my other favorite shows besides kpts (kpts was unique in the way only TMNT has been for me before, which was it giving me so many brainworms I needed to express my self artistically in the only way I was capable. In 2024, I would like to revisit some of my favorite shows and figure out if the same can happen with them too) I probably have more to share but I'll leave it here. Now, for the tags, I'd love to see the plans of @wisteria-daydreamer @wretchedamaranth @xxhappy-chickenxx @coleslaww @raksh-writes @mightymightygnomepriest @lu-sn @suzteel @fleet-off @justanothervariant @theoldastronomer @dual-desires @emberfaye @tsttoain @thisautistic and ALL the other people who are escaping my mind rn but their works are equally important! Please, if you want to share your writing plans, do so and tag me, I'd love to see them <3

#decided to make a post like this because I really want us all to talk about what we're planning writing-wise #I find it exciting and super interesting #sorry to those who have never interacted with me but still got tagged I come in peace #I'm just interested to know what beautiful stories you will be preparing and posting next year <3 #kinnporsche the series #fanfic writing #writers asks

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justashamwithwastedpotential · 1 year

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Stardew Mod Ideas I'm Working On

(And a few I'm thinking about)

1. Skylar NPC (WIP)

This is just me adding my farmer OC into Stardew as a friendable NPC. I started it as a personal thing for fun, but then people convinced me to actually share it so

Completed Things

Ridgeside Village Compatability

Generic Dialogue

A basic schedule

Gift Tastes

Festival Additions

Festival Dialogue

Dynamic Outfits (Seasonal/Location Based)

Sprite Animations

Things I need to add

Movie and Concession Tastes

Movie Dialogue

Dynamic Dialogue

Dynamic Schedule (don't want them hanging out in their friends' houses if you married their friends)

Schedule/Animation Dialogue

Heart Events (Still working on backstory/storyline details)

A map for their farm house (Sky just lives with Victor right now)

Compatability with East Scarp?

Compatability without Ridgeside Village (I made it to work with both Expanded and Ridgeside Village. Expanded is necessary, but RSV shouldn't have to be)

Future Plans

Adding Rhys the Fruit Bat as an NPC (I see many of you are fond of him)

Adding an event with Abby post her family event

Dynamic Festival Dialogue

Compatability with following mods

2. Foods I really want rn

(Call it a working title if you will.)

This mod is me adding foods that I like to the game. Most of it being Asian dishes + a few drinks I like.

Featuring

Foods

Spring Rolls

Summer Rolls

Pho

Bánh Mi

Bao Buns

Tofu (not sure if this is part of another mod already or not)

Green Bean Cassrole

Lychee Jelly

Chocolate

Potato Soup

Drinks

Hot Chocolate

Mocha

Peppermint Hot Chocolate

Peppermint Mocha

Peppermint Tea

Crops I'll probably need to add

Soybeans (Maybe? Might also be in another mod)

Mint

Carrots

Cucumber

Lychee

Persimmon

Cocoa Bean

That's all I've got for that one. It will take me a lot of research so it's very much on the back burner for now.

3. Rival Heart Events

I've gotten kind of fond of these for other characters so I figured it would be fun to do it for mine.

Featuring

Sam and Sky

Lance and Sky (Don't expect anyone to use this. I mean why wouldn't you want to date him yourself)

Sam, Lance and Sky (don't expect this to be used for the same reason as above)

Victor and Sky (but Queerplatonically)

Each of these contains a few events and schedule/dialogue changes for the characters involved, eventually resulting in them moving into Sky's farmhouse.

4. Add Lance to Festivals (WIP)

I know Lance joins festivals when you're married, but since I'm making rival heart events, I think it would be cool to add him in once he reaches 6 hearts like some of the other NPCS.

This also leaves him open for more dynamic dialogue.

Featuring

Generic Dialogue

Dating Dialogue

Engaged Dialogue

Married Dialogue

Rival Heart Dialogue

Addition to Resolution of Embers Festival

Commentary from Skylar

Here are some images from when I was testing. (Please ignore their incorrect positions and the fact they Skylar's sprite is wrong lmao)

Skylar's Spirit's Eve Dialogue

Lance at Festivals Dialogue

5. Skylar to NPC Adventures (Almost Complete)

I know I've talked about this one before, but adding Skylar as a companion for the NPC Adventures mod!

Featuring dialogue for multiple locations including Vanilla Areas and Expanded.

Currently working on adding dialogue for Ridgeside and East Scarp, and determining if Skylar should be a spiritual pacifist (keeps monsters from attacking for a period of time) or a warrior to help with combat.

6. Kent to NPC Adventures (low-key abandoned wip, but I might pick it back up)

Same thing as above tbh, but for Kent because he's a member of the Adventurer's Guild and my dad and I want to go on expeditions and fish, and he deserves it! [End rant]

Things I still need to do

Write dialogue for more locations (difficult because I don't see Kent as someone who talks a lot)

Add a fishing animation (idk how to do this, someone please help if you know)

That's all I have going right now. I hope this was enlightening for anyone who was curious.

#farmer skylar #custom npc #rhys the fruit bat dog #stardew valley #stardew #stardew valley expanded #ridgeside village #ridgeside #rsv #sdv #sve #sdv kent #stardew kent #stardew valley kent

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medicallymercury · 5 months

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And Another One - Casualty Hiatus Thoughts - 2/?

I'm still ill but I went into uni anyway like the brave little soldier that I am! (Every night, I decide that all the work that I need to do can be done “tomorrow” but we’re rapidly running out of those until the deadlines. I have lost my train pass and student ID. All I’ve listened to all day is the demo version of Geyser by Mitski. Vague sense of doom.) I got myself some Tesco Finest cookies on the way home. I’m just complaining here.

I'm back for more already, seems like I've opened the floodgates but this one won't be as lengthy as the other one was. Genuinely sorry I can’t shut up. I thought I was done for a while but I put an episode from series 36 on in the background thinking that I'd be able to do stuff while it played but got distracted by my opinions.

Potentially all over the place again, though this one does manage to be mostly about the series 36 mother-hell storylines. So there's a theme. Warning - I started going off about Dark Room which has a lot of transphobia in it and that’s part of what I talked about.

I really don’t know how I feel about the resolutions of Sah and Teddy’s storylines with their mums. Okay, we already know I'm about to be going on about Sah and Teddy's mother problems storylines but I'm sure there are other characters who this is/isn't applicable to - feel free to let me know about it. As a recap: it’s kind of hard for me to figure out how to describe exactly what happens at the end of Friends Like These, but if anyone has ever seen that quote that’s like “I tried to ask my parents to leave the room, but not my life”, Teddy asks Gaynor to leave the room and she leaves his life. A couple months later a patient situation causes Teddy to call his mum (and that is not brought up again when he gets trapped in a mine in the next episode) and also we are left to assume that all is fine now. Pretty simplistically, in Enough, Sah and Jools talk it out after Kevin has another stroke and then they are also just portrayed as being okay forever by the end of that episode.

I can absolutely believe that these characters, sad and work-stressed and not always the most emotionally mature, would forgive their mothers. I don’t even disagree with it happening on a story level because I think it could make for a really good development in those stories, or even just a less-than-happy ending. What I don’t enjoy is how these endings are presented as being happily-ever-afters and that everything is supposed to be fine now because they’ve forgiven/reconciled with their mothers who haven’t really done anything to deserve it. Jools is objectively neglectful, and telling Sah they were always enough does not make up for that. I think Gaynor’s behaviour is emotionally abusive; she’s controlling his life, emotionally manipulating him, she’s trying to even limit his contact with people other than her (and she has been doing this, he “wasn’t allowed friends”). Unless I'm wrong, we don’t see or hear from Gaynor at all between Friends Like These and We Need To Talk About Ollie. I don’t doubt they love their kids but that doesn’t make them good parents, and it’s not on their kids to be doing the work to improve the relationships. If we’re getting these forgiveness endings then Jools and Gaynor need to put more effort into proving they’ve changed. Or (and I'd probably find this more interesting cause I'm mean). Forgiveness needs to be presented as something that isn’t this simple happy ending because it doesn't feel like that in these circumstances. I respect the potential misery of the undeserved forgiveness, I love misery for them, especially when they’re both in mother-hell together, I am mean. But if you want to give them a happily-ever-after, keep them away from their mothers or make their mothers do the work.

They make Sah be the bigger person way too much, actually. In Dark Room, why does Sah have to be nice to Scott when Scott deserves to get re-beaten to a pulp? I don’t care that his mum is also terrible. Not only did he bully them when they were teenagers, he tried to ruin their whole life as a fully grown adult. Their mum is terrible as well and you don’t see them acting like that. They don’t need to be the bigger person and try to help Scott and his also terrible mother, they need a weapon of mass destruction. Also, why is Sah’s deadname used so excessively in series 36? Or at all? Ever? I’m sure there were ways around the audience ever needing to actually know what it was, even if they felt like the story required the implication of characters using it. Another potential Casualty hot take, maybe? I don't think Sah's dad is all that great of a parent either. Obviously it is entirely Jools' fault that Sah has to be his carer at such a young age, he had no control over that and Jools is definitely the worse parent, but getting back with Jools without telling Sah, cancelling plans with Sah to go on dates with Jools, excusing Jools’ pretty transphobic remarks and acting like Sah has to forgive Jools because he has really isn’t great. They were right when they said “it’s not just you she left”. IT’S! NOT! JUST! KEVIN! SHE! LEFT! It annoys me that Casualty is like ‘this action will have consequences’ about that scene because Sah is right. The only person I truly like from Sah’s pre-joining-Casualty life is Bill Phillipsen (and his dead wife) and he died. I knew you very briefly/not at all but I miss you Bill and Jean <\3

This post is absolutely the post for me to start getting into the connections between the mother-hell storylines but I won’t in full. They are kind of this pair of opposites, not just on this wider level of overinvolved mother vs uninvolved mother, there are a lot of patterns I’ve noticed in the episodes and the dialogue. I’d find them all now but it's 2am and I need to be awake at 8am at the latest so I’m putting off compiling that list for another day. Some faves that I can remember off the top of my head: opposite Jan advice scenes, Gaynor really struggling to say she’s proud of Teddy even though he really wants her to while one of the first things Jools tries to say to Sah is that she’s proud of them and they tell her not to, “you won’t see me back if I go” vs “I’m back now if it’s not too late”. I really like these connections, that's why I'm so passionate about what I don't agree with in these storylines.

I didn't mention this in my last post but I got my hands on a bootleg of The Play That Goes Wrong with Milo Clarke as Max and it's very enjoyable. I've been meaning to watch TPTGW at least since I watched both series of the show, probably longer, and I succumbed to the Casualty brainrot and and had to see his version. All I'll say: He really knows how to play aunt based nepotism and situations that could be solved with polyamory.

Based on when one of the episodes is set to air, I don’t think we’ll see Casualty back until about December 30th, unless we are gonna have another break between episodes once it comes back. I don’t really care that much and also, Christmas/New Years episode? The most recent Christmas episode was that one where they were like “what if it was last year?” back in 2021 and that’s always been a weird choice to me. I just want a silly little festive one, normal Casualty episode featuring carol singing and tinsel and the implication of a really intense staff party (we will never get the Sah/Teddy Christmas party of my dreams, not this year cause they’re in the current situation, not last year cause no Christmas episode and also the stuff with Jan was happening then, not the year before…). The only thing that bothers me about the hiatus is the inevitable time skip, so much time will have elapsed in universe by the time it comes back so I feel like we will have missed a lot of the immediate aftermath of stuff that happened at the end of Driving Force.

#mitski may not know it but her music is about the questionable relationships in the pretend hospital #you're my number one. you're the one i want. and i've turned down every hand that has beckoned me to come. so true mitski #geyser is such a good song. I WILL BE THE ONE YOU NEED THE WAY I CAN'T BE WITHOUT YOU.#shilling for mitski cause my love mine all mine got popular and i want people to listen to her other songs thanks for noticing #bbc casualty #casualty #shoelace fandom #teddy gowan #sah brockner

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dragonsoftheeast · 6 months

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i was tagged by @stannisfactions! You're so cool, thanks for thinking of me.

How many works do you have on AO3?

29. I really wanna bring it up to an even 30 tho.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

220,728

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Hotd right now, though sometimes I think about adding more to Glory and Gore, my vikings AU

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Fire Made Flesh, Colors in the Night Sky, Millenia, second son, not born but raised

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to! Sometimes I take a while, but I'm always ready to talk about my stories! And I love to hide loads of internal references and wordplay in what I write, so when people pick up on them, I get so excited! I also like to hear how people are thinking about characters and if anything's affected them!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Definitely Heart Strings gah. Fire Made Flesh may rival it when it's done tho, since it still is the story of the Dance.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

deserving has a pretty happy ending, I think- more satisfying than the canon one, if I do say so myself.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

A couple times, all on Helaemond fics. But that's what you get in such a big fandom, I'd never written for such a conflict heavy fandom before.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Not really. I'm not really comfortable doing that.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I've not written a crossover yet- however, I do have a Pacific Rim HoTD fusion somewhere in drafts.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Honestly not sure. This relates to the next question, but I once got asked about a translation and then never heard back so I ended up wondering if it got stolen.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Hopefully, I got Glory and Gore translated into Russian! From the question above.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No- tbh I'm not sure I would be good at it. I'm open to trying, though, and I'm always willing to share ideas.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I've never written for them, only a poem in high school, but Hector and Andromache from the Iliad. I've just read the Emily Wilson translation and...they hurt me but I've always loved them.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Probably Millennia. I had such plans for them, but TVD burned bright and fast as a fandom for me.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I love my writing voice, I think I change my style up a lot depending on the piece itself, but I always have to like the rhythm of it in my head before I'm good with it. I think I'm fairly good at worldbuilding too, though of course with that some things are weighed with more interest than others.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Probably increasing tension. I always wanna jump into the resolution and the confrontation! But then I'm like, noooo I gotta provide context and I have to work backwards. ugh.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Anyone who's read me probably knows I love to do it! Only conlangs though, with a natural language that's a little beyond me since there is an actual sense of what "feels right." But I love me some HV dialogue, it gives me such a cool

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Percy Jackson!

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Right now it's a tie between dropping glasses just to hear them break and delicate in every way but one. They're not my epics but I think I just wrote some of my most beautiful language in them.

Some of you guys might have done this already but I'll tag @emilykaldwen, @carladuquette (I think you've returned to fic!), @volvaaslaug, @lavandorhaze, @qyburnsghost, @appletreeduty

#fic

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maxwell-grant · 2 years

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Jojo bingo: Father Pucci

And that brings us our second bingo

If Jonathan and Dio are my favorite characters sharing a kind of number one position together, Pucci is in a bloody contest with Jolyne and Jotaro for number two. I would even argue that he's the best JoJo villain. Even with his significantly more nuanced and calmer personality compared to them, he’s just as gloriously over-the-top and ridiculously funny at points as the other main JoJo baddies. He has two of my absolute favorite Stands in the series (Whitesnake alone deserves a separate post for how much it’s personality and powers add to Pucci, who is already complex and fascinating and horrifying even without a Stand that has an entirely separate personality), he’s pro-active and vicious as a main villain to an extent the series hadn't seen since Phantom Blood Dio, he grows in power and scope and personality over the part, he’s psychologically disturbing and fucked up to an extent I'd argue surpasses Kira (y’know, the fetish-based serial killer), he adds a ton to Dio's character and his story culminates in him growing into a bigger, badder and better villain than DIO and, just, Pucci is incredible. There couldn't be a better villain to wrap up the original JoJo saga. One of the greatest villains of all time ever.

I feel like out of all the main JoJo villains, Pucci is the only one who does pull off being morally grey (Valentine really isn’t, he’s a silver-tongued imperialist torturer and J.Geil-tier disgusting creep who’s just good enough at appropriating heroic imagery that he’s convinced himself and a good chunk of the readership (and the Eyes of Heaven writers apparently) that his deeply selfish and unfathomably monstrous plan is noble and selfless and patriotic. He’s a good and layered villain, but morally grey he isn’t). Having significantly lesser crimes compared to the others, more human reasons and more concrete goals, all of which doesn’t do that much to make him sympathetic, quite the opposite. Pucci is horrifying for a myriad of reasons, some of which have to do with the fact that we’re allowed to understand him and his backstory and his goals, and get in his headspace in a way that’s only really reserved for protagonists. Pucci is one of the best examples of how audience sympathy can be used to make villains more resonating and even more horrifying. Pucci is horrible, awful, even described as “the evil that doesn’t know that it’s evil, the worst evil there is”. And we walk through his journey every step of the way.

Sometimes this moral greyness gives way to people arguing Pucci wasn’t so bad or that he was the only JoJo villain not motivated by selfishness, which I kinda disagree with. Because while it’s true Pucci doesn’t think of himself as selfish and genuinely believes he’s doing everyone a favor, Pucci’s plan is monstrous, and to pull it off he commits the most unfathomably selfish deed in the entire series. He quite literally breaks the universe and rebuilds it again in order to strip agency from everyone, HIMSELF INCLUDED (even if he does have more power over it than everyone else), so that everyone will accept the fate that’s decided for them and never try to defy fate. This, he argues, is born of “resolution eradicating despair”, which further cements Pucci as a Joestar-gone-wrong, in that he quite literally turns the driving ethos of the series against itself, against the universe and the Joestars. And he wins.

No one has any agency, no one's decisions matter, no one’s at fault for anything. Pucci rewrote the universe so that he’d fundamentally never be responsible for his sister's death, by making it so that she not only never really existed to begin with (since the dead do not carry over with their souls and personalities intact), but even if she did, she would have just learned it’s inevitability ahead of schedule and accepted it and be happy for it, just like everyone else, nothing anyone (certainly not him) could have ever done about it. And this? I find this to be a level of ghastly selfishness somehow scarier than anything DIO did, because it’s so much more human, so much more tragic, and so much more fucked up existentially.

(People have argued a bit over whether or not this goal fits DIO’s character and there’s room to argue both ways, but even putting aside Eyes of Heaven (which is thankfully non-canon, but it’s take on Heaven DIO was designed with input from Araki himself, which counts for something), the plan outlined in DIO’s Diary was always meant to be fulfilled by a friend and not DIO himself)

And I think this is part of why I’m so strongly in that “Everyone is wrong about them” camp because, people consistently mischaracterize Pucci as only a couple of steps above the average DIO flunky, or someone motivated by a romantic love towards DIO (putting aside the age thing, DIO’s Diary quite literally states that Pucci would have been the wrong person if this was the case), or even non-canon spin-offs that depict Pucci as someone who’d immediately abandon Heaven if DIO was still around to boss him. I fundamentaly disagree with this because Pucci adheres to the same theme of legacy that defines Jolyne. And much like Jolyne, who has to battle for the sake of her lineage and the universe, needs to be better than Jotaro, needs to succeed where Jotaro failed (which she does through rescuing Emporio), Pucci has to be better than DIO. Stone Ocean is the glorious apocalyptic book-end to Phantom Blood, with Jolyne, at the end of the world, forcing herself into becoming the final Ultimate JoJo and wrangling along whatever reality-warping weirdos she can, as she desperately tries to catch up to the new Ultimate Evil who's running away with the plot so fast nobody can catch him until the end.

Pucci surpasses DIO, in terms of power (he attains a Stand that surpasses all other time-based Stands, including the one that defeated The World), scope and accomplishment (he single-handedly disabilitates DIO’s arch-enemy with relative ease and then kills him by turning his time stopping power against him, as well as the current JoJo and the entire supporting cast that accompanied her, and recreates the world into one where the Joestars cannot do anything against him, and only loses because he, like Dio, goes too far and targets an outsider ally to the Joestars). Pucci isn’t DIO’s 2nd in command or partner or flunky, or DIO-lite, Pucci is superior to DIO, he’s DIO’s ultimate accomplishment, the supreme power he attains over Destiny and the Joestars, within the text. When they do JoJo mega crossovers like Jorge Joestar and Eyes of Heaven, they downplay Pucci’s agency and beef up DIO’s powers to be some multiversal world-challenging menace, just so he won’t be lagging behind Pucci, who already is that in-canon.

Pucci is horrible because he makes use of every resource at his disposal, everything that the protagonists have, everything that the Joestar bloodline has used over the centuries, Pucci turns against them. Enrico Pucci’s endgame is to rewrite the history and ethos of JJBA itself so he may wrench defeat from the jaws of victory forever, and he succeeds, and I love that this is not at all an exaggeration of what he does.

Pucci is horrible because everything he does stem from his complete inability to analze himself and admit wrongdoing, to even recognize his cruelty and malice as such, he has such a gargantuan moral and personal blind spot that even his Stand, the rageful melting spectre he bosses around to corrupt and kill people and strip away their memories or give them dangerous powers, is shown to be more introspective and reflective and humorous than the human who wields it, who has to yell at it occasionally to get things done.

He compartmentalizes everything that comes his way and interprets everything so that he never has to have his worldview challenged, never has to question himself, never has to regret anything that ever happened to him or that he ever did. Everything was fated to be. Everything is a test that everyone, including him, must pass, ergo, he’s on even odds with everyone else. If he fails or fucks up, he’s being tested, ergo, he will eventually succeed. If others fail or fuck up, they’re to be disposed of, such is the order of things. If he succeeds or something goes his way, it was fated to be. If others get the upperhand, he’s being tested by fate, and since fate demands him to survive and complete his mission, he’s got permission to destroy and kill whoever’s holding him back.

If he does horrible things, well, what’s a few corpses, or a hundred thousand, for the good of the entire world? Would you make their sacrifices meaningless by stopping him? Everything is fated to be, and fate is on his side, not yours. He’s DIO’s God’s chosen. If The Lord wanted him to stop, he’d have chosen someone else, he’d have died by now, but he didn’t, so it falls on him to drag mankind kicking and screaming into the better tomorrow his friend showed him. He barrels through the story with this mindset and even dies screaming it, screaming at Emporio and the vengeful power of the brother he murdered that they just don’t understand anything.

His backstory is so fucked up because we see how he was wronged by fate and circumstance time and time again, how he was just confused and looking for answers, but for all intents and purposes he was a good kid trying to do what was best for everyone. He went to a seminary to find answers, to alleviate his guilt over his (at the time) dead twin brother, to learn about how to find happiness for himself and others. A horrid situation was thrust into his lap by no fault of his own, and he tried to handle it with the least amount of harm to all parties, and he fucked up catastrophically. And that moment, that awful moment, where he finds Pearla’s body and has a moment of self-realization, where he briefly understands he is to blame and, is on the cusp of kickstarting the path that should have lead him to becoming a better person, a morally responsible person, and then

fucking

DIO

who immediately provides Pucci with the escape hatch out of the Painful Moral Growth path, who fills his head with poison and stunts his growth by giving Pucci absolution on the terms that Pucci wanted, not the terms that Pucci needed. What started as seemingly the most benign thing DIO had ever done for anyone (healed a young priest’s malformed foot and left him some parting words) spiraled into the actual end of the universe as said priest, well, no longer needed God, once he figured that DIO could play the part for him, could provide him the answers the church wasn’t giving him, could alleviate his guilt and teach him what brings people together and alleviate his guilt and teach what makes someone happy and alleviate his guilt and alleviate his guilt and alleviate his guilt and alleviate his guilt and

As much as I stand by the idea that Pucci is DIO’s superior and his ultimate legacy, because this is DIO we’re talking about and all evil in-universe springs from him (Araki said as much in the post-scriptum for Vento Aureo that DIO embodies Destiny and Fate), Pucci is also, to an extent, a victim of DIO. This is also part why I fundamentally disagree with the idea that Stone Ocean softened DIO. I don’t agree with the idea that his pursuit of Heaven was out of character either (it was essentially what he’d always been looking for, trying to attain happiness by taking control over his destiny in increasing bids for power and self-transformation), and I don’t agree with the idea that this was out-of-character. I’d argue DIO’s much-vaunted manipulative charisma, while always present, had never once been depicted as horrifyingly thoroughly as it is here, when he truly lives up to the dark messiah image his followers in Part 3 described and when we see how thoroughly he was able to corrupt Pucci, even while doing seemingly nothing but being the priest’s friend at a time of need. Stone Ocean, I’d argue, makes DIO scarier and more godlike in a way no other part (and certainly not those crossovers that did push Dio into actual godhood) did.

I think Pucci is one of the few religious villains I’ve seen that I like because he’s much more interesting than just a condemnation of particular priests or the church as an institution, and he doesn’t go the obvious route of being an old white bigot (quite the opposite, since those types killed his family to begin with). Rather, he embodies so many kinds of thinking you see within religious circles or mindsets. “He works in mysterious ways”, “He saves all of us in the end”, “only His will matters”, “humans cannot possibly claim to understand His design”, “there is a point to the suffering”, “the suffering will be worth it if you trust Him”, “look out for His signs even if you don’t understand what they are for”, “your suffering on Earth will be nothing compared to how much better your life will be in Heaven”, “trust those that He sends your way to guide you”, “trust not those who fall into the path of evil, the path that is not His”, “your enemies deserve salvation as well even if they don’t know it”, there’s just, so much you could dissect here, in terms of how Pucci speaks to the experience of religious thinking, or even just believing in the existence of God even if you’re not specifically christian or religious (...see why I put up there why I’m a little scared to admit I relate to, or at least kind of get, Pucci? Sometimes I think of Pucci as almost a big Mr.Hyde to the collective experience of everyone who grew up religious and had that shape their worldview whether they wanted or not.).

Pucci, a man every bit driven by the same unsatiable black hole that DIO has (just replace “ambition” with “guilt”), takes all of these, and drives them to an unfathomably horrifying, yet entirely plausible, conclusion. Spearheaded by tangible proof that yes, Fate is real, Heaven is real, and he can make it happen, no, he’s the one assigned by higher powers to make it happen, so long as he just does this and that and gets rid of some vile enemies of his that would rather have all of mankind suffer before letting him win. But, no matter, the sinners always get their due, in the end.

I hate that Netflix’s release schedule killed the Stone Ocean hype but, no matter, nothing can take away from how great it is and how great Pucci is. Not quite my favorite but one I’d easily argue is the best villain in the series, the perfect apocalyptic pilgrim JoJo needed to bring the end of all things and the birth of countless new ones.

Also, I always read Stone Ocean and applied DIO’s OVA theme to Pucci’s scenes. I love his anime theme, but I will always think of this as Pucci’s theme first and foremost.

#replies tag #character opinion bingo #jjba #jjba part 6 #stone ocean #jojo's bizarre adventure #enrico pucci #dio brando #whitesnake #made in heaven #that scene where he finds the body is so fucked up man #he comes SO CLOSE to getting the epiphany he needed #he was just a lost and confused 15 year old #Dio ruins everything even when he doesn't really do anything #I love Pucci but he fucks me up

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starmanbyler · 1 year

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not every relationship has to be romantic for it to be deep and profound. mike and el have the potential to have a beautiful friendship, i say this because although they get along well and clearly have a lot of love for each other, there just isn’t a romantic attraction between them (at least how i see it).

the difference between a platonic and romantic relationship isn’t necessarily a deep spiritual understanding, it’s as simple as just being attracted to each other romantically and wanting a more emotional intimacy with them. i hate when people act like there’s some kind of hierarchy of relationships with romantic ones on the top. familial, platonic, romantic or mentor sort of relationships are all equally important to have.

i don’t see people undermining dustin’s relationship with steve or eddie to say that suzie is above all of them, or that jonathan’s love for nancy is so much more important than the love he has for joyce and will.

admittedly, a lot of bylers may act like will and mike’s romantic relationship is the most important thing, but that doesn’t make it true. there’s room for disagreement even on one side of things. i personally think that their relationship should be romantic, not because it’s a necessity, but just because it makes sense narratively and they are romantically attracted to each other, simple as that. that is what the characters want and deserve so i would like to see that.

and in saying this, yes some fans may neglect to care about a lot of will’s other relationships with his friends and family in favor of byler, BUT that doesn’t represent everyone’s beliefs.

what i see A LOT of is people acting like el needs a romantic relationship. i know it’s been said again and again, but seriously, i think the reason she shouldn’t be in a relationship with mike is just because they don’t like each other like that and their relationship causes insecurities for both of them, and i think a lot of the reason why people push the idea of romance onto her is because of misogyny and ableism. a lot of midlevens would argue the opposite. apparently, it’s misogynistic to suggest that she can’t be in a relationship with mike and be independent. and it’s ableist to assume that she can’t be in a relationship in general. i disagree.

the reason we don’t want her in a relationship isn’t because we want her to be an ‘independent girlboss who doesn’t need a man’. although this is somewhat true, we’re genuinely just criticising the nature of their relationship, looking at it from a nuanced perspective. if you truly go in and analyse what’s going on in their relationship instead of just crying misogyny that people don’t like it then you would realise the flaws it actually has. her relationship is bad because of the way that it is, not what it is. there isn’t a problem with el having a romantic relationship, if she wants that, then great! but i do not want her to have a relationship that causes insecurities for her, and one that she is not independent in! it’s been said many times mike and el’s relationship is very codependent. she could be independent in a relationship with mike. that would be great, but it’s not the case, so maybe it’s best to accept that the relationship doesn’t work instead of forcing a potential situation that just isn’t really possible (at least not in the resolution of s5, i think it would take a few years to be able to develop and fix this).

what i truly think is misogynistic (although they may not realise it) is pushing her into this relationship that doesn’t make her happy. it’s the whole idea of amatonormativity that is certainly forced more onto women than it is onto men. the fact people are so oblivious to how upset el is in the relationship and just look past it seems very… off. and it seems to me like internalised misogyny that’s being projected onto el.

and on the ableism thing: us suggesting that el shouldn’t have gotten in a relationship with mike so young is not ableism. it’s about the fact that at that time, she was very traumatised and did not understand much at all about relationships, what healthy relationships look like etc. she has the autonomy to start a relationship if she wants (which clearly she did) but that doesn’t make it any less odd that she got into a relationship not even really knowing what that means for her. her only interpretation of romance is tv shows - highly unrealistic ones. she doesn’t even have hopper as an example of relationships because he’s divorced. the way that she’s performing as someone else to mike in s4 just goes to show how romance to her is almost like fiction and she doesn’t know how to healthily express her feelings and communicate with mike. nobody is saying she can never be in a relationship because she’s disabled. people need to look deeper into why we think that she isn’t ready for that.

what i do find ableist is the implication that she has to be in a relationship to ‘prove wrong’ the idea that she can’t. people focus too much on trying to prove points and less on what el ACTUALLY WANTS. and people also disregard what mike wants a lot, centering the whole ship around el’s feelings that to me aren’t even really there. that’s also what seems sexist to me.

#byler #anti mileven #platonic elmike #byler analysis #this was gonna be short originally but it ended up long so i guess it deserves the analysis tag

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