#the audience doesn't get to see them because they're not relevant to the plot

[autumnslance]

Normally I'd agree many Final Fantasy games have rather young protagonists. It's because they're usually single-player JRPGs made with the assumption of younger players, and like most Young Adult media, create characters that cater to that, even if it ends up with teens running the world and fighting in wars. And for many players, the first time playing these games is in childhood/adolescence/very young adulthood. So it's YA anime.

Final Fantasy XIV does not fall into that same mold, despite the "Teen" rating for legal and distribution purposes.

The majority of the FF14 cast, including the bulk of the main characters, are between 20 and 40 years old (the Scion Archons, Ishgard Elf Husbands). Many other characters are between 40 and 80 (Ishgard's Counts are all late middle aged to elder dads/grandpas, Gaius is mid 50s, Jehantel and Ran'jit are elderly, all still active). The younger characters (especially with any authority or special position) like the Leveilleur twins, are actually outliers. And the youth of the characters between 16 and 20 years old tends to be plot relevant, where that inexperience and naivety causes problems and drives story (Nanamo's arc at the end of ARR into HW, Alphinaud and the Crystal Braves, Ryne's determination of self in ShB, etc).

Characters have a variety of appearances; some characters in the same age ranges look very different. Varis is only 4 years older than X'rhun but Varis's model shows the stress and disagreeableness of his life a lot more than the RDM trainer's. Cid's in his mid-30s but with the beard looks older--and without it he has a baby face (hair color doesn't matter, cuz they do keep the anime trope of "everyone's got white or silver hair"). Lalafell are designed to be anime-cute halflings so it's hard to tell their adult ages even if they've got facial hair like grandfatherly Papashan. The pad'jal of course look like kids, but the youngest main pad'jal is A-Ruhn in his late teens; all the others are adults stuck in adolescent bodies. E-Sumi is a few hundred years old. Kan-E uses various methods to look older so other leaders and people from outside Gridania will take her seriously as an adult. The padjal introduced in the StB WHM quests is a child, and that's the plot; she's not in charge of anything, or has any particularly advanced-for-her-age skills. She's just a kid having a really rough time.

This inability to determine age by looking and assuming isn't just due to limits of the game engine and character creation options; it reflects real life. I met my work team for the first time in person recently; one person looked older than I know them to be, thanks to months of stress and health issues. While all of them were shocked to remember I'm in my 40s as according to them, I "look much younger". Most people are actually pretty bad at guesstimating ages based on appearance, due to the variety of folks' lives.

Speaking of kid characters, many of the children we interact with, like the Doman Adventurers, are between 12 and 14 and act much younger. Khloe has this going on too, with her age "corrected" to 13 (when previously listed as 10), but she acts way younger to me. Most of the actual child characters are treated like children, and it's not until they get to 14-16 (Honoroit, Leveva) that we start to see them treated like maturing adolescents and having some rsponsibilities, but still young and prone to the kind of choices one expects of less experienced and more emotional youth.

As a MMO, FF14's primary audience is actually adults; teens do play the game, but also age up with it if they keep playing. If a 15 year old began playing with ARR's release, they're in their mid-20s now. Having a primarily adult cast, and treating child characters like children, and adolescents like young people figuring out how young adulthood works, makes sense for this game.

FF14's time bubble is also part of the issue; a developer tool to keep it so they don't have to worry too much about character ages, new models so often, or how long things take in game. Timelines are then intentionally left malleable for the players' benefits, to create our own stories and determine how long things take for our WoLs and their tales. Some folks have their stories pass in real time, some compress it to a year per expac, some expand it out even longer. So the ages the characters have listed in the lorebooks and rarely in game (which is then reflected in online resources), is a starting baseline. Personal headcanons as always should be applied (including changing around some character ages to fit one's own story if necessary).

Also, FF16, made by the same team, has a brief prologue/tutorial section where the main trio is between 10 and 15, guided/trained by adult characters, experience the inciting incident trauma--and then we spend the majority of the game with the main cast in their 20s and 30s. The game also has a mature rating, featuring some sexual situations, lots of violence, and stronger language than other FF games. It's made for adults, and its cast reflects that.

So it is a matter of audience expectations; for a MMO, you're going to have an older and aging player base, and the varied ages of the cast reflect that, as do their varied appearances and experiences as adults. The young characters are treated closer to how their youth should be; still with respect for those in positions like Nanamo, but also prone to errors due to inexperience that drive story. In other FF titles, which were made to be more YA-focused, a teen and young 20s cast were treated much differently. But even in the single-player FF titles, if they are made with adult players in mind, their cast and stories likewise reflect that.

#final fantasy xiv #audience #time bubble #ages #aging #cast #gang's all here #literary analysis #I agree most FF games don't have main casts outside the teens but there's reasons for that #and one can't really fit FF14 into that same mold when the cast is this large and varied #yes this is kinda in response to another post but not putting them on blast

[poryphoria]

see madcom has genuinely got to be one of my favorite ways a story, or fictional world, has ever been told. krinkels has fucking MASTERED the art of environmental storytelling- i think my favorite example is Mag Agent Torture, a character who could easily just be a big baddie for Hank to fight, but bears some pretty grim implications about their own past & existence if you're really paying attention. it goes like

•they have weird spikes stuck in their head and a cool name

•oh, wait. those spikes kind of look like the ones auditor uses to punish dissenters, seen in the background of several episodes, don't they?

•then the torture focused Incident reveals in their internal monologue that "their disharmony is my pain", implying in some way that torture carries the burden of suffering for the entire agency

•oh. dissenter spikes and that knowledge in mind, and the name Torture. did something happen to this guy. Were they always like that? is auditor punishing them in some way?

like, idk. krinkels is just very good at knowing exactly what to elaborate on and what to leave nebulous- giving hofnarr & jeb proper backstories & explanations for how they got that way in mpn doesn't really end up removing any character agency or weight of the mystery behind their actions, it just characterizes them more thoroughly & makes them more compelling overall. meanwhile refusing to elaborate in a clear cut way on whatever the fuck is going on with Hank keeps them a nebulously terrifying force, just as they're perceived in-universe- i think if we ever did get a straight answer for why Hank is the way they are without it being vital info for the conclusion of the series, it'd just kind of fall flat and kill the wiggle room your mind has for working with them

some things in worldbuilding are more fun and interesting when they have more thorough explanations, and some of them aren't. it very heavily relies on the context and level of plot relevance of the information itself- you can't just spoonfeed everything to the audience, they have to be able to make their own takeaways of course! but you can drip-feed them in small enough increments about inconsequential enough things that it still ultimately gives them a rich and fascinating array of information to work with.

idk. madcom the animated series is primarily very good at this bc of it's lack of dialogue, but mpn dodged a HUGE bullet in destroying this method with the way the story is framed- ultimately it ends up being exactly like a very long, playable version of one of the animated "incidents", because of how inconsequential it ends up being to the main story. it gives us MASSIVE insight into how the world works and what goes on in the background of it, but is far enough removed from the main plot that we don't end up sitting through the characters literally just grabbing us by the shoulders and spoiling the entire mystery of the series through soliloquy.

i think it's cool!!! i think it's really fucking cool and really masterfully done!!! and its one of the many many reasons i adore this series as much as i do. Muah

#pory turgles #madcom #madness combat

[partywithponies]

BEGGING U TO ELABORATE ABOUT THE WHIFFERDILLS

OKAY OKAY listen. listen. I'll give you the brief version.

Whifferdills, originally from the Doctor Who comics, where things can get already get really weird and conceptual, are one of the most alien alien species in the Whoniverse, even by comics standards. They're shapeshifters, right? Nothing new or strange in sci-fi. Except usually when a shapshifting character or species is plot relevant and lore-important, the writer will write in some kind of limitation to their powers. Some kind of set of rules. But when it came to Whifferdills, they just... didn't.

Whifferdills can be anything. Literally. They can be inanimate objects. They can be puddles of liquid. They can be microbes. They can be the size of mountains. They don't seem to have one set default form that they revert back to, they're supposed to be always changing. Frobisher staying in one form most of the time is established to be him just being a little freak by his own species's standards, and even then, the form he stays in is. A penguin. Because he just likes penguins. Whifferdills don't age, at least not physically, unless they actively choose to, because they have conscious control over what their own bodies do at all times. They are functionally immortal. They are almost impossible to kill. Try to throw them off a cliff and they'll shapeshift instantly into something that can fly. Try to drown them and they'll shapeshift into something with gills. Throw them into a vacuum and they'll shapeshift into something that doesn't need to breathe at all. They don't inherently need to breathe at all. Shoot them or stab them and they'll just shapeshift the wound closed. In his first story Frobisher shapeshifts into a burger and survives someone literally eating part of him and is entirely unaffected outside of being mildly annoyed.

All this to say, Whifferdills are weird as hell and OP as shit. There is literally no reason to assume they reproduce sexually or organically. Why would they even? How would pregnancy even work, in a being whose body is by design supposed to be ever-changing? And how can you spend half your existence living as insects or cash registers and still have a concept of gender? Again, why would they even?

And to bring up just a few specific moments: in one comic, Frobisher (in penguin form) mistakenly believes he's laid an egg, and The Doctor (with the air of someone who's had to explain this before) tells Frobisher that this is impossible, because he's a male penguin, and Frobisher still seems a little confused by this. And to be clear, Frobisher is supposed to be highly intelligent. Frobisher is a notorious wanted criminal. Frobisher is a professional private detective. The Doctor sees Frobisher more as an equal and a partner than a companion. Frobisher plays chess against the TARDIS for fun. And Frobisher struggles to remember the difference between male and female penguins, the species he has a vaguely autistic special interest in.

And in the Big Finish audio The Maltese Penguin, Frobisher makes an offhand comment about he finds the humanoid form particularly tricky, because they have all these "odd dangly bits" that he can't see the purpose of.

I put it to you that Whifferdills do not even have a concept of biological sex or gender, because it's just so far outside of their perception of life and the universe. The TARDIS just translates Frobisher as "he" and Francine as "she" for the benefit of us the audience and the benefit of people like Peri, who in return could not even begin to fully comprehend the lived reality of a Whifferdill.

#doctor who

[ryanthel0ser]

Care to share some stuff about Howls Moving Castle? I haven’t been able to fully comprehend Howls dynamic/style/personality yet.

FINALLY I CAN ANSWER THIS ASK (midterm season is awful)

While book and movie Howl are very different I do think they share a lot of core traits that define both as Howl instead of it being two different characters.

Both Howls have a level of mischievousness to them and like to have fun at times when everyone else is distressed. We don't get to see it as much in the movie but the two most prominent moments are when they escaped Suliman and when Howl takes down the ship in the flower garden. You can see him making fun out of the situation and causing trouble in a way that feels akin to someone who would pull pranks or tease. This is inline with his book counterpart who we see get to be a menace and constantly pester and annoy Sophie, doing various antics both plot relevant and "I just want to be a menace today."

Both Howl's also have a lot of heart and care for others, although book Howl does not show it as much like his movie counterpart. The whole reason the pact is made between Calcifer and Howl was because Howl pitied the shooting stars because they died upon impact with the ground, and we see him take in people from the street like Sophie and Markl (or Michael in the book). The movie though has Howl's affection being more open and clear to the audience because we don't get to spend time just with the characters like we do in the book, book Howl puts on the "I don't care I'm gonna go be a womanizer now" front but by the end of the book when it's revealed he is in love with Sophie and has been his actions become much more obvious.

In terms of vanity, Howl is a vain person when it comes to his own appearance. We only get to see it through his hair freak out and his fashion in the movie, but in the book we get a lot more of it especially when he's trying to be a womanizer. Book Sophie in the second book Castle in the Sky states "And he's sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can't pin him down to anything" (which she doesn't say out of malice for him in the moment, they're literally looking for Howl in this scene and her and Howl already have a kid) so in the book it's undeniable. However, in the movie, the Howl we see is much more noble (something the author even stated) and we only get that one moment when it came to Suliman that shows any level of cowardice from Howl.

Overall, the major difference between the movie and book Howl is that book Howl is very clearly a bad boy womanizer with a heart of gold while movie Howl is more of a mysterious guy who's a little bad but still has that heart of gold. I do think that we could've seen more of the Howl from the book if the movie was longer and we got those months Sophie was just living with them, but that probably would've killed the animators and Miyazaki movies don't tend to have moments like that in the film.

Both Howls are down bad for Sophie from the very early on though and I think it's safe to say he knew Sophie was the old woman in the movie from the start like he does in the book. In the movie, he's been looking for Sophie because of what she tells him when she goes back in time and I believe that not long after he starts to get to know her as old lady Sophie he falls for her (the scene where he watches her sleep literally has a track called "Unspoken Love" so he had to be falling by then). In the book, he sees her and thinks she's pretty when they first meet but it takes a bit for him to fall for her once she's old Sophie and then he falls hard and going back through the book it becomes very clear that he did when you look at his actions instead of his behavior with Sophie. Him and Sophie in the book have the "arguing is their love language" dynamic.

I hope this was sufficient, feel free to ask more, this was what I could pull from the top of my very exhausted brain but I know I could delve a little bit more into Howl himself, I just need some leading questions to get the gears going :]

#responsibilities are taking me away from what's important and that's infodumping #the people need me this exam can wait /j #hmc #howls moving castle #sorry this took so long to respond adsjlf #i am currently writing this while trying to to fall over and go to sleep #college is no joke yall it seems easy but secretly drains you askljfd #howl's moving castle #howl pendragon #howl jenkins #howl jenkins pendragon #<- nearly forgot to add these aksjdf

[gffa]

What are your thoughts on Yaddle in TotJ? Because I find it really fucking weird that she was killed via lightsaber (which is a really obvious cause of death) on Coruscant of all places and it’s literally never mentioned in any of the other canon. Is this just Filoni trying to do something cool without thinking about how it should have affected the rest of the story? Did the Jedi just assume that Yaddle left the Order entirely after she resigned from the High Council and so her body was never found? I know that Filoni probably didn’t mean for her death to be anything but Dooku’s final push to becoming Sith, but it’s gonna bother me now because Yaddle deserved better than that.

After thinking about it for a bit, I'm okay with it! This is right before all hell breaks loose and the Jedi are hit with a firehose blast of tire fires going on that they're going to be trying to put out. Between the mystery of the clones, the galaxy breaking out into war, the deaths of so many Jedi on Geonosis, I can see the Jedi being too overwhelmed to have time to look into Yaddle's disappearance. And it's not unprecedented--they know Jedi go missing at times, but when they don't have any clues and they're dealing with an entire war being set on their shoulders, there's just not much they can do, not unlike how we see the situation with Sifo-Dyas' disappearance. We see them investigate his death the minute they get any clues, but he's never really mentioned or talked about until then, primarily because it's not part of the plot that we need to be shown in a given episode. I can see the same applying to Yaddle--they know she disappeared, presumably Dooku gets rid of her body and sends her ship somewhere that looks like she was investigating something in a far off corner of the galaxy, etc., so they talk about her sometimes, but it's not relevant to the plot we the audience need to see, so it's fine that it doesn't come up later. I can see why it'd be unsatisfying to others and I'm not disagreeing with that take, but for me personally I think Yaddle's death was narratively all right. It's hard to live up to her death in Legends, which was bad ass as all hell, but I actually like that she's used as someone we're meant to find wonderful and compassionate and a badass before she goes out. She didn't die instantly, she knew what she was walking into, she put up a hell of a fight, and her death was framed as fundamentally tragic and awful, yeah, it's part of Dooku's story rather than getting Yaddle to have her own, but it was appropriately awful, because Dooku's actions should be seen as horrific and awful.

#count dooku #yaddle #meta #tales of the jedi #tales of the jedi spoilers

[puffmais]

I'm tired of all the negativity and unfairness that is happening regarding the ifylita series. The fact that this drama is undoubtedly the very best bl production we got this year, yet sh*tty things keep coming and as a fan I'm done already.

Let's start from when Bright and Nonkul said since the very beginning that they won't be doing any fanservice or sell any ship just for the sake of making the series popular. This? This was brilliant, and I totally applauded them, because great actors like them don't need to do any of those things just to be relevant or successful. But of course, there was a big part of the fandom that was upset about this, saying that they should do fanservice for the series to become even more popular and whatnot. Things here were already becoming agitated.

Then, all the solo interviews that Bright was getting, in which all the questions were about the ship, fanservice, not a single question about his future work, his upcoming projects, nothing. It all revolved around that topic to the point that he had to clarify it with his most serious expression about how he doesn't want to grow his career based on a ship. And a ship that we all know won't be ever real because we are all aware of Nonkul's real-life relationship. So, even if they sold a ship, what would be the point? Nonsensical.

And here I have to talk a little bit about Nonkul's love life. I'm happy for him, congratulations to the couple, and I wish you all the happiness in the world, but the fact that he talked about this in not one, but two events which he attended with Bright, in which his co-star had to leave just so he can keep answering all those questions about his personal relationship... that's a no from me. There is a time and place for everything, and even he said that he would answer those questions during solo events which is alright, but then he did it again and... no. I respect him as an actor, and as a person, but those actions were not right.

And even after seeing how Thai media treats Bright, as if he's not there, as if he didn't star in the series, as if he's not one of the main cast in the drama... and they just keep disrespecting him, writing awful articles about him, never putting focus on his acting career, it's like they're all plotting to go against him.

Then we got the happiest announcement which was the special episode's date we were all waiting for, finally something to celebrate, right? Well, almost. Yes, it's great, and I bet the whole fandom is partying, but the fact that after that announcement we found out that Nonkul's upcoming drama is set to be released the day after ifylita's special episode??? What is happening? As far as I know, that drama was supposed to be expected for next year, but right after the special episode, really? Nobody can't tell me that this is not all plotted, nothing here makes sense. And of course, this is not Nonkul's fault, he's not the one who decides when the series is released, but this is too much. I'm actually speechless because he has another series going on right now (The Office Games), and another one is going to be released like??? Never seen this before, it's like they are not giving time to the audience to enjoy his current projects, and we all know they want to release this drama right now because of their real-life relationship.

Another thing: the constant topic about Bright and Nonkul hating each other's guts, where did that come from? Who started this? I even talked about this with a few ifylita fans during a podcast because we couldn't believe the sh*t that people were saying. I read this here, on Twitter, on Reddit, on Instagram, on TikTok, it's everywhere. People are just writing bullsh*t everywhere, discouraging people from watching the drama, saying that the main actors can't stand each other, and can't even breathe the same air, are you all okay out there?? At which moment did the actors express rejection to the other one? When did they ever talk badly about the other? Perhaps you are all expecting them to be best friends or something, and maybe they are just co-workers and that's it. Even Bright said they only talk about work, and that's alright, they do not need to have the deepest bond out there. If you have never worked once in your life, you won't understand this: work-related relationships rarely end in friendships, maybe you keep talking with some people, but real friendship? Yes, that's pretty uncommon.

And let me tell you that if they did hate each other, then why is Nonkul always talking about a possible second season? Would you want to work once again with someone you supposedly hate? Please, start using your brains for once. These two actors respect and support each other, stop making up things, we have enough already.

I'm tired mentally, and I'm done, I'll keep spreading the ifylita love everywhere because it has become my favorite bl series, I'll keep supporting the actors, but I'll ignore all drama that will happen in the future, because it has been a month since the series ended, and we haven't had a single peaceful day, and it's too much. I've seen plenty of people on Twitter wishing and praying that bad things would stop, and they don't, so on my part I won't involve myself anymore. We don't deserve this, we all just wanted to enjoy a great drama, not be angry, sad, and frustrated every single day. That's it.

#หอมกลิ่นความรัก #i feel you linger in the air #ifylita #myedits #aboutme #personal

[kyouka-supremacy]

Good day/evening!

Sorry for the long post, but I was wondering what your opinion is on whether BSD is critical about law enforcement? I saw people on twt saying that BSD is a story that is critical abt the government, and that the Hunting Dogs (especially Jouno) proves Asagiri has criticisms of police.

But personally I disagree since BSD also has positive depictions of police, like Ranpo's friend. And a major plot point was relying on 'good officers' to turn against the 'bad ones' when it comes to believing the ADA. There's also the way the ADA is also a law enforcement agency (albeit a privately owned one). And the way Fukuchi is an antagonist not because he is a member of the military but instead secretly a terrorist. Jouno explicitly bringing up police brutality is probably the best evidence that bsd is critical of police, but it's also the same chapter where he fought against the real antagonist Fukuchi, sort of giving him a redemption (and also Tetcho saying Jouno is actually good)

I guess I'm cynical about whether BSD is really as critical as people believe. But I liked your previous posts on BSD's treatment of female characters and nationalism, so I wanted to hear your thoughts on this too

Have a great day!

Hello, thank you for your question! I need to preface this by saying that I'm not an expert on the subject, so please forgive me - and feel free to correct me - if anything I say is misguided by possible misconceptions I may have internalized.

For the most part, Anon, I must agree with you. The first time I read the take about bsd beingcritical of police brutality - if I remember correctly, it was from a screenshot from Twitter that made some rounds here when chapter 100.5 was released -, I thought it was a huge case of erroneous recontextualization. Very likely, it was coming from an usamerican person projecting a very usamerican issue to a book that is not american, nor destined to an american audience, nor intended to make of american issues its focus. Not saying police brutality is a phenomenon exclusive to the usa, but, as far as my limited knowledge goes, it definitely isn't in Japan to an extent that goes close to what it's like in the usa (it's also a phenomenon deeply rooted in a kind of racism Japan simply wouldn't have the chance to know, because Japanese society doesn't know the kind of multiethnicism that is present in the usa).

I don't think bsd is, at least intentionally, critical of any police or military structure. You already pointed all the most relevant arguments on why it isn't: most police officers are usually framed sympathetically (hell, even when they are criminals they're framed sympathetically, see chapter 6 (although there the criminal being an officer was more of a coincidence than anything) ), a good chunk of police is supporting the main cast by now, and even the part that isn't isn't doing so because they're police specifically, but rather because the whole world think they're terrorists due to reality-rewriting powers of this magic book™. About the Hunting Dogs, at first they were introduced in a mostly villainous light; but, now that we got to know them, they hardly use as critic of military police. Tetchou is undoubtedly honourable and just. Teruko has been established to always be putting civilians safety before anything (chapter 75), and it's also stated that despite her methods she helped drastically decrease criminality (can't remember where for the love of me but it's there somewhere). Tachihara has always been a character that is vastly sympathetic to the audience, and by now his loyalty doesn't even lie with the government anymore so I don't think I need to get to him. About Jouno, I think a point was made even before his redemption: Jouno is not military. I mean, he may wear the uniform, but as stated in chapter 93 he was recluted by Fukuchi appositely because he was a criminal, and he was never supposed to become a rightful paladin; the fact that he ended up being one is but a mere unintentional coincidence, and even then he isn't there to be representative of military police, nor is his sadism. I'm not counting Fukuchi as military because his loyalty clearly belongs to the cause / the doa, but let's take a moment to acknowledge how ironic it is that he's also the only character who openly crticicizes the military system, and he's the big villain.

I don't think bsd is critical of law enforcement or government (Special Division for Unusual Powers is framed positively and, as you mentioned, the ada itself is an organization affiliate to the government); if anything, I think the military and police systems in bsd are once again expressions of bsd's main core, that there's nothing completely good or completely bad, and just like people constantly oscillate between the two, law enforcement structures also have both valorous and corrupt members in their ranks.

Also like, peoples, bsd is kinda right wing, and right wing is historically very close and supportive of military circles (see, for example, how fascism goes hand in hand with military imaginary). The biggest enemy of the biggest arc in bsd so far is literally an anarchist who among other things vastly criticizes the military system, so take that as you will. I feel like the overall implicit take away of this arc will be “it's true that law enforcement agencies do horrible things, but we must accept it because it's necessary to mantain peace and stability”, but feel free to disagree with me on this.

#Defund the police now. Peace ✌️ #bsd #bungou stray dogs #people asks me stuff #It makes me so happy to hear you liked my other posts Anon you're so kind! I hope you have a great day too!!!

[kangaracha]

i tried to goad people into asking me the ao3 questions like five times this month so i'm just gonna treat myself and answer em

How many words have you written this year? 247, 190

How many works did you publish this year? four

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? nevermore! and not just for wordcount either, though maybe a little bit because i've spent so much time with it. i'm just extremely pleased with the world building i've done and the complexity and depth of the plot and how i've gotten so far into it and i don't feel like i've become wayward yet, which is what usually happens even before i reach this point. i'm so pleased. i'm so excited to reach 200k and see where i'm up to and what's ahead.

What work of yours has the most hits? linger, which is funny because just like the ghosts it was about it haunts me

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? to go beyond your borders, considering it's hard to get readers to come to something that's nearly completely original and it's just my silly little mental health fic, the audience that it gathered in the short time i was actually updating it regularly was really surprising and i love them

Favorite title you used oh lyre lyre for sure, i went to great lengths to ensure that title made a modicum of sense for that fic

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? hahahahaha stray kids all day. nevermore is skz cinematic universe so of course every chapter title is a lyric

Pairing you wrote the most for this year? so much gen fic, so little time. original fiction pairings.

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? HMMMMMMMMMMMM from my original fic, leo/nes. they're funny.

What work was the quickest to write? queenmaker is the quickest to write, takes like an hour per chapter if that. in terms of strictly ao3 fics, lyre lyre was the fever dream of a few days.

What work took you the longest to write? well i started nevermore on the 4th of march and as of the 29th it is disgustingly far from being finished at 140k so i just don't know if i can say anything else. nevermore doesn't actually take long to write though really, it's just that it's a 300k kind of project. relevant to word count though, the unpublished pirate fic is actually probably the thing that's taking the longest, and my original all that is good/holy.

How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? not counting every single novel i have sitting around, it's around 15, but a very casual 15 because i just go with the vibe to the extreme and with no intention to really finish any of them except like two of em

What’s your longest work of the year? hehe nevermore at 139, 583

What’s your shortest work of the year? apart from the cheeky 3 sentence fic the other day, overwinter at 1278

What WIP are you taking into next year with you? nevermore

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? oh. Angst.

Your favorite character to write this year? hehehehe lee minho

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? Y/N for queenmaker

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? more gen fic please, tired of romance. if i had to pick one, angie/raihan from to go beyond your borders

Which work of yours have you reread the most? to go beyond your borders, although i am about to start a full edit of nevermore which is uh no mean feat.

How many kudos in total did you get this year? 202

Which work has the most comments? nevermore by a mile

Did you do any collaborative works this year? you know what they all ditched me to collaborate on their own, and they didn't even post the fic. can you believe it.

Did you write any gifts this year? uhhhh yes, it isn't gifted on ao3 but lyre lyre was for rain and i believe overwinter was for zom mom? keeps? one of those two

Did you receive any gifts this year? yesssss i received neverwas from keeps for my birthday and it was really cool and if you read anything on this list honestly make it that one, it stands alone and it's really weird and vibey

What’s your most common category? Gen

What do you listen to while writing? liked songs or a specific fic playlist on spotify on repeat. usually kpop only these days but it depends what i'm working on.

Favorite work you wrote this year? nevermore

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year? oh my god. out of 240k? yeah no worries i'll just pull it up. um. uhhhh. uhhhhhhh.

Biggest surprise while writing this year? oh that i finished nanowrimo and that if i didn't work such a physically demanding job it would have been easy. if i had all my time spare in that month i would have done 80-100k, when before this year i couldn't get past 25k a month. realising i had that capability just sitting there was crazy.

#eeeeee #i was correct this was fun #i thought i would get bored and cut questions out but i liked all of them #just enough thought provoking without becoming boring #anyway if you have MORE questions about this stuff please leave them in my ask box #i love talking about my fics i really do #roo writes

[buckleupbrochachos]

Byler/ ST V2 Theory

Ppl are definitely going to say I'm reaching- but I really want to focus on the "black-eyed Susan" which is the most relevant out of all the flowers.

The first line states the main significance/meaning is happiness and friendship.

Now we all know that Mike Wheeler didn't pick out specifically the black-eyed Susans from research about what they meant to send El a secret message that he considers their relationship a platonic friendship because El wouldn't understand and Mike sure as hell wouldn't go out of the way to find a very specific type of flower (we all know he got them at sum airport gift shop)

But we do know that the Duffers LOVE little details, and they would totally do their research for simple flower symbolism. (it's practically the most common type of subtext there is, especially in film)

The flowers aren't meant for the characters to understand, they're meant for the audience to understand.



Now, onto my favorite part about the flower symbolism- is the origin of the name.

The name for the Black-eyed Susan flower, as stated above, is derived from an 18th Century poem by the same title, written by John Gay.

The poem (in short) is about a woman (Susan/Mike) searching for her lover (William/Will) shortly after his ship docks back from war, only for him to be sent back to battle shortly after.

But if you read the first and second to last stanza- they are both obviously paralelling Mike and Will. (Susan paralelling Will, Mike paralelling William in the first stanza- vice versa in the second and last stanza )

The flower symbolism is not only hinting at El and Mike's relationship becoming platonic, and byler eventually becoming endgame but it could also be hinting at Will's new part in the supernatural plot (and him possibly getting powers)

(Now here is the poem, parralled to Will and Mike's story so far and most likely the ending)

ALL in the Downs the fleet was moor’d,  

The streamers waving in the wind, when black-eyed Susan came aboard,

‘Oh! where shall I my true love find! Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true,

If my sweet William sails among the crew.

In the first stanze its obviously parraleling the airport scene, both William in the poem, and Will in ST, both reunite with their "lovers" (quotations for Will+Mike since it isnt established yet) Susan and Mike, after a long time apart. (In ST though, Mike flies across the country to reunite with Will, unlike the poem where the Will in the story sails back to Susan in their hometown.)

Now, in the poem Susan- is very estatic about seeing her lover William. Just as Will is seeing Mike again after almost not talking for 6 months. But compared to William in the poem, Mike doesn't show any affection besides an awkward side hug and a measly pat on the shoulder-( but not everything can be a perfect parralell so yall are gonna have to bear with me.)

‘Though battle call me from thy arms,   

 Let not my pretty Susan mourn;  

Though cannons roar, yet safe from harms,   

 William shall to his dear return.

Love turns aside the balls that round me fly,

Lest precious tears should drop from Susan’s eye.’

--

 The boatswain gave the dreadful word,   

 The sails their swelling bosom spread,  

No longer must she stay aboard:   

They kiss’d, she sigh’d, he hung his head;

Her lessening boat unwilling rows to land:

‘Adieu!’ she cries; and waved her lily hand.

The second and last stanza's, I'd like to believe is paralelling a possible confession scene from Will to Mike (a succesful one at least) - right before Will has to go and eventually battle against Vecna, since Will is obviously going to have an importance in the main plot in VOL. 2

(Hopefully it consists of the painting because how else will Will confess without a meaningfull gesture such as giving Mike a painting like he did with his drawings ever since they were little kids.)

Anyways, thanks for listening to me theorize. I hope I don't sound too insane lmao

All of this was written of the top of my head, so if you want to add onto anything, you can read the full poem here

#byler #st4 #byler s4 #stranger things #stranger things season 4 #st s4 #will byers #byler season 4 #mike wheeler #byler endgame #byler obsessed #byler is real #byler is endgame #byler is canon #byler theory #byler tumblr

[randomrabbidramblings]

Random's "The Super Mario Bros Movie" Review

My quick toughts on the fly weren't enough so his is a longer, more "serious" review.

Obviously, SPOILERS!

So let's start with the negatives since there are so few of them.

The pacing feels kind of rushed, sometimes we jump from scene to scene too quickly and the interactions between the characters are also a bit too fast (like Mario and Donkey Kong becoming friends so quickly in a "I saved you, you saved me" kind of thing). As a lot of people said: the movie really needed an extra 15 minutes.

Some of the characters are very plain, especially Toad. He is very underdeveloped compared to the others and only serves as the funny side character. There's no explanation about who he is or why he behaves that way (Nintendo fans will correctly guess he's Captain Toad, but an outside viewer might not get it). This doesn't mean I didn't like him, his comedic timing was good and never annoying and he never tried to steal the scene for a gag. Luigi comes close to having little characterization, but it's mostly because he didn't have a lot of screen time. We do get to see his relationship with his family and Mario, we get his personality quite well and he gets to be a hero by helping Mario at the end.

End of negatives. Yes just that, lol. Now the positives!

The plot. Even if very simple, it just works. It's a movie about the beginning of the Mario Bros adventures, they couldn't tell a completely different story without twisting everything. Plus it's a movie made by Illumination and we know their main target audience are kids and so they mostly focus on simpler plots and not very deep stories (unlike Dreamworks or Pixar for example). And since it's a movie about a 40 year old chracter, the movie has to appeal to more aged viewers as well. Everyone knows Mario games aren't so deep with lore (not counting the various RPGs and spinoffs, I'm only talking about the mainline games!).

The atmosphere is perfect. "Normal looking" (but never plain) in Brooklyn and "super bizarre" in the Mushroom Kingdom. There are a lot of things taken from the games, but even if they are never explained they don't feel out of place because the universe is so odd and everything feels so unnatural they make sense for themselves, even for someone not used to Mario things. The floating blocks? By themselves they would look out of place, but with everything going on, the question isn't "Why is that block floating?", but "Why wouldn't that block float?". And this goes for every "strange" thing we see.

The characters are well distinguished even if in a simple way. Mario and Luigi are the ones with the deepest characterization with their wholesome relationship and family problems. Peach is simpler, but it's ok it's that way because we don't know anything about her past, just that she came from the same place as the Bros and the Toads took her as their Princess. Bowser is quite funny: he's presented as a ruthless tyrant, but in his speech to his troops we learn that he stole the power star and they're heading to the Mushroom Kingdom because he wants to marry Peach. Even his own army can't believe it! The viewers go "What??" the same way as they do! Donkey and Cranky Kong have a simple but effective relationship as well with Cranky being embarassed by his boisterous vain son who's supposed to be the prince, but instead he just likes to show off.

References. As much as I don't like too many refences to things in movies here they work! If they aren't relevant to the plot, like the powerup blocks and Rainbow Road, they act as very good background props and they are never constantly shoved in your face. A lot of them are even very well hidden, so the movie is worth a rewatch to catch all of them.

And now some things I enjoyed!

The mario Bros sitting at the table with their family. I love how they made them so different, yet so similar. Dad being voiced by Charles Martinet is poetic.

The Blue Spiny Shell scene in general. I knew it was gonna happen, but still surprised me.

The Donkey Kong vs Mario scene was one of my favourite scenes. Animation, pacing and dialogue was perfect there!

Bowser and Kamek piano duet. "Jam with me." *underground theme* *coin sound*. It was so unexpected, lol. Also Bowser's practice wedding with Kamek. Basically all scenes with both of them.

Mario's training course was also one of my favourite scenes. Peach stuffing the mushroom in his mouth was funny. Mario throwing up in between shots of the montage was even funnier. Mario and Peach little talk after it was sweet too.

Luigi in the Dark World. Everything about this scene. The Luigi's Mansion references, the Dry Bones behaving like stock movie zombies and the surprise Shy Guys at the end. Not gonna lie, I was expecting some Boos too in the Fortress.

Bowser's ehm... passionate singing lol.

Totally unexpected, I called the swearing. But not in the Mario Kart part where I expected it. And just in the Italian dub, I suppose as I really haven't seen it mentioned for any other languages. Mario and Luigi swear once each (or Luigi swears twice, I can't remember now) with a nice placed "Are you fucking with me?". Yes the Mario Bros officialy said "fuck". Twice.

Lumalee. Dark humor at its finest. The funny thing is that he could easily fit trough the cages' bars, but he just didn't want to, lol.

And finally a couple of missed opportunities (in my opinion).

The 1-up mushrom. Maybe they could have made Mario eat one someway and then let Bowser defeat him in the final battle. Everyone is grieving the poor plumber, Bowser is gloating in his victory, but Mario comes back to life thanks to the 1-up he ate before. Too much for Illumination?

I still haven't understood why they replaced Toadsworth with a generic Toad. He could have explained something on why Peach became the Princess.

After this review, I think I'm gonna change my previous 8/10 with a 9/10 (because this time I took in account the Nintendo fan in me, lol).

#the super mario bros movie #the super mario bros movie spoilers #mario movie #mario movie spoilers #random talks

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

I've talked about this with a few people now and everyone has had the same opinion: this season's pacing is insane. And not in a good way.

This season started off great. We had the Mars arc and, in my opinion, it was amazing. We had a compelling plotline, interesting mysteries going on and the story was contained in a good way. Everything felt relevant and I was excited for each new episode. When Conner 'died' I was excited to see where the plotline was going and couldn't wait to get some answers.

And then we had four episodes of Artemis' arc and the only plotlines continued on from the Mars arc were M'gann and Gar's grief. Not exactly what I wanted to see but I like Artemis and her arc wasn't bad so I had no complaints at the time. Knowing what I know now, however, I can recognize that Artemis' plot had nothing to do with the season at large. It was a four episode side quest.

Then we had Zatanna's arc and... Oh boy.... Is there anything good to say about Zatanna's arc? Anything at all? The pacing was slow, there was an insane amount of exposition and it barely had Zatanna in it at all. It also, once again, had nothing to do with the overall plot of the season. AND IT WAS FIVE EPISODES LONG. FIVE.

And after nine episodes we got to briefly see Conner again and resume the seasons overall plot. Nine episodes. Nine. We had to wait until the midseason finale. What was the point of that? What exactly did those nine episodes add to the season? They would've been great for tie-in comics and I'm sure Zatanna and Artemis fans were happy to see them but why was this important for Phantoms? It slowed the narrative down to a crawl for no reason.

This isn't even mentioning Gar's plot this season. I'm happy that they tried to tackle PTSD and depression with Gar but I really don't think they handled it in the best way here. Gar's plotline was dragged out for far too long and they could've achieved the same narrative with WAY less screentime in my opinion.

This rant is going on for a bit too long now so I'll wrap it up by saying this: We didn't even know who the main villain of the season was until three fourths of the way through the season. Mystery and intrigue are important in a show but not giving the audience anything to work with isn't 'mystery', it's just leaving us in the dark; confused and lost.

I think I liked Rocket's arc so much because we finally got the ball rolling on the plot of the season. We finally got some information and things were happening outside of credit scenes. But even as I sing praises for Rocket's arc for finally addressing the overarching plot I cannot deny that it did her character a major disservice. It was barely about her at all and it didn't put her in the best light.

Now Dick's arc is here and it just feels rushed. We spent so much time in the first half of the season on things that really didn't matter to Phantoms and were only there for world building, and now the actual plot of the season is being crammed together into four episodes. It's rushed. It's messy. It really doesn't do the characters or the plot justice.

I don't like to judge seasons before they're over. I usually like to reserve judgement until I've seen it all but I'm having a hard time seeing how they can finish the season in two episodes in a way that fixes these concerns. I hope that they do but I have doubts.

#young justice season 4 #young justice phantoms #young justice #yjs4

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

Hot take, but I don't think making criticisms of a character strictly "as they appears in canon" and saying they's shallow or bland or in any way lacking in qualities or traits (as opposed to making judgments about qualities or traits a character DOES have or debating which specific traits or qualities a character has) - makes any sense in the context of consuming media.

Because by the sheer fact of excluding anything not said or implied in canon, you are thoroughly breaking suspension of disbelief. By suspension of disbelief, the audience sees a character and assumes that traits are there, even if there are very few onscreen. This not headcanon because the audience is not coming up with what those traits are. The audience is only assuming that traits of some kind must exist that make this character a Real Person, because in suspension of disbelief we are behaving as if this is Real Life. And if you knew a person who was bland or shallow you wouldn't say they were bland or shallow; you would say you didn't know them that well.

So. Character A is not bland or shallow, they simply haven't been shown on-screen enough. Perhaps the creators haven't come up with any such traits yet, perhaps because they're not good at their job or perhaps because this character isn't built to do anything besides exist as a plot device. But the traits still exist, because suspension of disbelief is a superpower that makes everyone a Real Person with hidden struggles and secrets and flaws that they don't let anybody see or that the audience has just so happened to never see or that the screenwriters and producers carefully edited out to be just offscreen bc they don't know what those traits are either!

Now suspension of disbelief does take effort and not everyone is willing to put out that effort to reach a place where they enjoy the character. Maybe the character has very few redeeming qualities regardless.

Saying a character is two-dimensional, bland, boring, etc. is not a valid criticism of the author. It is only a valid criticism of your ability or willingness to suspend disbelief. If you want to enjoy the content, why aren't you enjoying it? And if you enjoy it for other reasons 'but this one character - ' why are you shattering other people's suspension of disbelief for them?

(Rabbit-holey and incomplete rambling about the mechanics of suspension of disbelief and how much people are willing to suspend disbelief and how much work the authors have to put in versus how much the audience puts in, below the cut.)

Some characters do require more suspension of disbelief than others. Major characters with too few traits are a turn-off to some ppl bc they don't want to have to put in the work of assuming traits where there are none (because there aren't; the person isn't real). If someone dislikes a character already that puts them further at risk for losing their suspension of disbelief. If a character isn't compelling or doesn't evoke an emotional response? By all means. Characters who don't naturally evoke responses need more work put into them by the authors.

Author and audience meet halfway. Sometimes a character evokes a response by being compelling or emotional, and then the author can get away with less filling-in of the blanks bc the audience is invested enough already. But if the audience isn't invested, the author needs to provide more content about the character so that the facade - that this ink on paper is in any way equivalent to a real person - can be maintained.

Now the more important a character is in the story, the more work the author needs to put in. If a character has two lines in the story, the author only needs to write the two lines, and the audience assumes this is a full-fledged person with a full array of traits, without question, because those traits never become relevant or impact the story in a meaningful or compelling way that would require explanation.

But if the character is a major love interest, the audience needs more substantiation of the claim that they is a real person with traits, because this character is impacting the plot and other characters. A love interest needs more than two lines to be accepted as a valid love interest. A main character can only swoon for an unexplored love interest with two lines so many times before the audience asks, why does she like him anyway? We don't know anything about him! At least tell us what he looks like or if he's shaved today or if he's done anything swoon-worthy for her!

A character may also have traits without them being related to the impact they has on the plot; e.g. the love interest used to have a stamp collection when they was five (and this never becomes relevant and the main character who is falling for him does not herself have an interest in stamp collections). That's a trait, but it is not a helpful one insofar as understanding the impact a character has on the plot.

And in addition to giving substance to the claim that a character exists, traits enable the audience to relate to and care about a character, which is the real bread and butter of enjoying a story and being impacted by it. I won't go into that tonight bc that's a whole new topic.

My point is that of course characters need SOME traits, and relevant ones, and preferably in proportion to their role and impact on the plot. (Just as a major love interest with two lines is unsatisfying, a two-line character with pages of backstory is similarly boring.) The line can be hard to strike for an author, but we can help them out by developing a robust ability to suspend disbelief.

So an amendment to my hot take: sometimes characters CAN be criticized for their trait-to-relevance ratio. And then the question is yours: do you put out the effort to suspend disbelief or not?

If we're not willing to put that level of work in for the level of enjoyment that would generate, well, maybe find a different story or at least stop criticizing other people's fav characters for being boring. (It's a lot harder to suspend disbelief when people are actively breaking it. But! That's what unfollowing and/or blocking is for!)

Remember everyone: the secret to enjoying media is suspension of disbelief. If someone shatters that, remember you can get it back if you're willing to try again.

#I find fandom in general to br destructive of my suspension of disbelief #Bc the fandom image of a character can be so off-base to my image #Or it just clouds the air with many different interpretations #There is no longer an amorphous blob of 'Here Be Traits' that you unconsciously assume #It is filled with defined traits #It's hard to step back and see the original appeal of a character with more unknowns about them #Hard to see their original facade #Hard to assume this is a Real Person when all the unfilled hints in canon are filled by fanon #All that remains is Character. No more unknowns or questions to explore #No more suspension of disbelief #No wondering #The driving force of fiction is Big Moral Question and How Does Character Answer? #What Does Character Do In X Scenario? #Does Character's Values Extend THIS Far? #How Much Will Character Sacrifice For This Value? #WHAT Will Character Sacrifice For What Things? #Does Character See It As A Sacrifice? #What Choices Will Character Make in X Circumstances? #Without the questions there's no story #No compelling #Is bland #So fandom fills the gaps of those questions and I need to get away sometimes and ask the questions again and answer differently #But THAT just goes to show that characters can't have All The Traits #They would no longer have any capacity to be compelling in the future #Anyway I digress #Writing #Suspension of disbelief #Narrative theory #Story theory #Wow this all turned into big rambling lol

[elcorhamletlive]

Why and how The Menu is bad?

I trust you and I love your taste in movies. Please rant on. 👀🍵

Aw thank you for trusting me, anon. I'll put my opinion under the cut.

Basically I just found that the movie rung shallow in its critique, and the characters and plot just weren't fun enough to compensate for the lack of thoughtful, interesting ideas. The movie really doesn't go much beyond the idea of "eat the rich", which is fine for a movie, but at times it seemed to find itself more important and philosofical than that, which I found annoying. So many of the "critiques" felt misaimed and clumsy - a food critic is a key representative of modern capitalism? A washed up actor? Why did we need to be informed the chef sexually harrassed one of his workers at one point? And the underlying weirdness of Tyler's character - he comes across as the product of someone who once read the explanation of the concept of "mansplaining" on a twitter thread and thought that was the pinnacle of feminist theory. The "see, he's obsessed with food but he can't cook!" thing made me think of a fanboy on the internet saying "if you don't like his movies, I'd like to see you do better!".

The humor didn't fly with me either. I get that these are character mostly made up so we can laugh at them, but I think the writing lacked subtle touches of humanity that would have allowed me to enjoy laughing at them more. This is when I can't help but compare it to Glass Onion, which also works with stereotypes, but a) the stereotypes it uses are actually based on relevant figures in pop culture and politics; and b) the characters are given enough room to breathe so that even though they're all recognisable stock figures, we can, occasionally, glimpse some humanity. The Menu is just like "lol rich people" whcih is why I find it an annoying bad movie, because it's the kind of story that shields itself from criticism through its politics - like, sure, eat the rich, but you still need to tell a good story.

I also find that unlike most "eat the rich"-esque movies coming out at the moment, The Menu just isn't fun, and its ostensible main character has little agency so it's hard to root and care for her like we do in something like Glass Onion or Ready Or Not. I think withholding that she's a sex worker for such a huge chunk of the movie was a huge mistake, because it prevents you from immediately seeing her as the audience stand-in that we should root for. It also creates problems in characterization because she behaves like a bored girlfriend in most of her interactions with Tyler, not like a newly hired worker providing a service.

So basically yeah, I did not enjoy it. If you did, more power to you! But I just found it very frustrating and a chore to get through, even though I fully came into it expecting to have a good time.

#thank you for caring anon lol

[bedlamsbard]

Talk about the AoU references people aren't catching in the already-posted chapters of Horizon?

Oh, the big one is something that's in the current chapter in progress, and because that's a later-chapters reveal... *hands* People are catching some of them (sorry to the person who said "hmm, I've never seen AoU, maybe I should watch it..." I did not expect people to watch AoU, lol, I expected people to go, "ooh, maybe I should watch The Incredible Hulk" for context on Betty and Sterns.)

The biggest one is Madame B, who is kind of a tough case because she's never named onscreen in AoU -- she's the Red Room trainer who Natasha sees in her Wanda-induced vision. I didn't want to explicitly say "Madame B" in Horizon because it's just kind of an awkward title/name, so she's only referred to as "Madame," no B, but she's the same character. Since she doesn't appear or come up at all in Black Widow I'm doing some backfill on how Natasha's Red Room experience differed from what we see in BW and how Madame played in. She was planned to be the big bad from almost as soon as I started working on this story as a chaptered, plotted story, as a movie villain who had very little screen time but was not explicitly dead, and using her means I had a direct tie to Natasha. This was always going to be a story about the super soldier serum as soon as I decided not to use a Thor villain; it was "who's a character who's unaccounted for right now who could be in a position to pull in Sterns and Hammer," who are two other characters I wanted to use from very early on. Using her lets me deal with a lot of Natasha's unaddressed Red Room trauma, including the stuff from AoU that is apparently not consistent with BW. (I was a little worried people would think she's supposed to be Madame Hydra, who's a comics villain who has appeared in, I think AoS in one form, and Valentina in Phase Four is supposed to be Madame Hydra even if she hasn't used that name. She's not; she's Red Room, even if she has some as-of-yet-unrevealed backstory with HYDRA.)

(At one point I considered using a character from Thor's rogues gallery, when it was going to be more Loki-focused, but that was discarded in the planning stages; I wanted to use a movie character and I wanted to use a character who was from an Earth characters rogues gallery, because part of this story is Loki having to function as an Avenger dealing with villains who are, in all honesty, well below his weight class in terms of power.)

The Hammer-adapted Ultron-bots are explicitly mentioned; they're not identical to the ones in AoU but they're mostly a red herring for the characters as well as the audience. (You can tell they're weaker than the Ultron-bots from AoU because Steve's actually punching straight through them, which he doesn't do in AoU.)

There are a handful of dialogue references to AoU -- one of the things I really like to do as a fic writer is to bring relevance back to stories that can get swept under the rug by canon, regardless of my actual feelings for them. So Steve has the "well, maybe Ultron was right" about "maybe I don't know how to live without a war" line in 5; the Hulk-Widow Natasha fights pulls a couple of lines that are meant to invoke Natasha's vision-conversation with Madame B -- the "sloppy" and the "you have no place in the world" are both from that vision.

More explicitly there's Natasha's conversation with Bruce and Betty about her brief relationship with Bruce -- there was actually supposed to be a Bruce and Natasha conversation about that in 7 that didn't end up fitting there, so hopefully I'll get in later, maybe in 10. With Bruce, it's also -- he has not been on Earth since AoU. That is his last point of reference to...everything, and everything changed between AoU and when he returns in IW.

Thor and Selvig's trip to the Water of Sight is referenced in this last chapter -- that was one I had to do a bunch of checks on, because I couldn't remember what was from the cut extended version and what was in the actual film, and I wanted to use what was on the actual screen; they're not consistent with each other.

Madame's the biggest one. There's characterization stuff with Nat and Steve and Bruce and to a lesser extent Tony (a lot of his dialogue in his return-to-Earth scene is straight from Endgame and that calls back to AoU), because I don't not think it's consistent with them even if it's not, like, ideal in terms of my characterization for all of them, but that's what it is. I knew almost no one was going to get Madame without me saying so because she appears for like fifteen seconds in a scene that people don't like in a film that people don't like. A few people did.

The thing I was checking today was actually a setting thing, which is potentially something that readers could recognize; like, it's going to be A Reveal but it's the kind of reveal where readers can go "oh, I should have realized because XYZ," so it's fine if people recognize it, I just don't want to say it in advance. And that's from AoU; it's definitely recognizable if one remembers the physical geography of the film. It's also very lightly hinted at in previous chapters, but it's not supposed to be recognizable earlier.

#thelurkinglark #bedlam replies #horizon behind the scenes

[dolphs-world]

Doesn't Matter

Movies, movies, movies. I've watched about 75 movies since I last talked about Barbie. I still need to write a critical review of that film. I may do it tonight. We'll see. Sadly, I don't have much to say on these movies, except for a few very connected ones. The greatest non-IP film I saw was Rat Race and I can't say anything more about that film than it was really really funny and I wished that Tracy got the money. She was so hot and her outfit looked really good. I watched some Spielberg films and I can say that he hasn't made a good movie in 20 years. RE: The Fabelmans, Paul Dano was fantastic, I think the younger sister with the glasses is going places (she was also great in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), I can't believe Seth Rogan cucked Spielberg's dad, and I wished I didn't know David Lynch was in the movie but his scene was the only thing worth it. Shit ending though. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, also a bad ending. I really liked the whimsy and the discovery of the film. And that a third guy joined their adventure to climb the mountain, until he gave up which sucked. Like A.I, a more interesting film to think about but maybe not to watch as a movie. None of the character's are good, interesting, or driven besides lunacy. The music and shot where the car flies over the truck rock though.

I thinked I watched a lot of TV? I can't really remember. I rewatched Modern Family. While a real interesting premise of so many different pairings, the don't do anything with it. Storylines are primarily focused on the same pairings. How many Phil and Cam plots are there? Or jokes with Manny and Mitch together? And it has a real structure issue. Most sitcoms have an A and a B plot, split 2:1. You know which plot is more important but you need another plot to cut back to so it doesn't feel too samey. Maybe, you have a C plot which is really just a loose set of jokes for pacing issues or for character pairings that are fun but don't provide a lot of depth. I've been watching King of the Hill so that comes to mind. There's an episode where they go to Louisiana. The episode is about Hank trying to win some money in a football game but the writers need to justify having more characters go with them. So it's revealed that Bill is from Louisiana so there's more of a reason to go there. Bill's plot is the B plot and it also helps drive the A plot. Or sometimes they give all the character's on the sidelines a C plot for jokes and so the audience is left wondering why they're not involved in more of the episode. But with Modern Family, you have 3 families of supposed equal importance so each episode can only really focus 5-6 minutes on each family. It's very rushed and mainly focuses on marital issues, which again, are resolved in mere minutes. And the rest of the time the show has to focus on jokes with the non-relevant characters to the given story so it doesn't seem weird that they're not in the episode. In KotH, a lot of the side characters are adults who aren't family so it isn't weird if they don't appear in a given episode or are in only one scene. But in Modern Family, the side characters are their children so it would be weird if they didn't show up. And when the kids are grown up and given unlikeable personalities and love lifes, the show gets bogged down in seasons where no one is able to grow and each character only gets 2 episodes of actual importance on them. But that said, it's still decent television. And as you can tell, I don't really like many of the characters. I liked Cam a lot more this time but I think it's because he told a lot of puns. I do really like Phil and Claire. I think Phil is why the show got 11 seasons. I hate Alex. I'm so sick of that kind of nerdy author insert. I got bullied in high school so I'm going to make this really smart character who no one gets mean to everyone else. Fuck off.

#dear diary #steven spielberg #modern family #king of the hill

[non-operator]

okay... let me start off with "I'm sorry" because I lied and I'm bored, gave H*llavu B*ss a go because my feed is full of it and HH now and I have no impulse control and I also can't leave things unfinished. And HB is free on youtube; I can technically pirate hh but I don't want to be in that much effort for that...

And like, I think it's the same as I feel about that one song from HH. It's not that great, though I guess I can see why people like it? But in a "I don't think you people ever moved past deviant art era plot and art". Which, to be nice, isn't bad by itself but objectively speaking, there is better media and stories out there. All in all, I'm giving it a 2.5/10; I think the best way to summarize HB is that it's a show made for people who were already in love with it before watching it, not a show that tries to win over its audience.

Plot

It is episodic, so I will admit that plot isn't that big of a factor in the series. But I will say that it loses sight of its premise pretty fast. Like, it's advertised and set up as a "wacky hijinks in a found family assassination business", but after the first few episodes or so, it stops showing them doing work/killing people and how they go about that, and focuses more on what happens around or outside of work. For example, ep 6 and 7 just doesn't even show them working and skips straight to the aftermath and what they're going to do after work. The Spring Break episode does show them working, but it glosses over it; IMP is more like a plot device than a premise. Ep 2 straight up has them doing other stuff (aka bodyguarding, something that is explicitly said to be not a service IMP offers). Fuck it, even the Harvest Moon Festival ep is not work-related. For a show that is supposedly centered on IMP and the main cast killing humans on behalf of sinners with a grudge, it doesn't actually interact or play with that concept. And I think it basically drops completely out of focus in Season 2.

And like, I can understand if the show wants to make it more about character dynamics than the business, but the pilot (and ep 1 kind of) promises to explore that *through* IMP work. And that leads into the next big problem with HB

Character

I feel like everyone except Blitzo is underdeveloped, especially the women in the show. We get a lot of insight into Blitzo's motivations and emotional baggage and how he copes with that in unhealthy and asshole-y ways. But literally everyone else is kind of thrown under the bus unless it's relevant to Blitzo. The only character that kind of escapes this treatment (but not wholly) is Moxxie.

But Millie is only defined by how she's Moxxie's wife, and basically nothing else. Loona-- does have some more characterization than Millie, but her biggest-- and basically only-- role in the show is being Blitzo's difficult adopted daughter; her character arc about idk getting more in-touch with her feelings and being more expressive is centered around how she feels about Blitzo. And then the side characters: Octavia and Stella. Octavia is also about being a daughter to her father, and that's kind of it! Even though she's struggling with her parents' (incoming) divorce, she's only shown to be interacting/having an emotional connection with Stolas; Stella is never in the picture. Stella is-- just a major bitch, and that's it. That's all she has to her character.

But Octavia and Stella are side characters, so I can accept them having pretty flat personalities, but Millie and Loona? Those two are part of the main fucking cast. How are they being sidelined this hard??

I think a lot of the show revolves around Blitzo, so if the characters don't matter to him or don't bounce off well with him, they kind of get shafted by the writing. Like Millie. She is just generally so easygoing with Blitzo's antics that there's nothing for Blitzo to really react to there, so she's just essentially a background character.

Speaking of, almost all the characters and relationships are kind of built to parallel Blitzo and Stolitz (we'll get to this ship in a minute). Like, Moxxie is supposed to be a nice foil to Blitzo because they're both afraid of rejection, but they deal with that in opposite ways; Moxxie is polite, professional, no backbone because he doesn't want confrontation lest it lead to rejection whereas Blitzo is crass and a dick about everything so he can push people away before they reject/hurt him. And they both want to be loved, but Moxxie has a healthy relationship with Millie whereas Blitzo has no such thing in his life, so another contrast. And also daddy issues.

This is okay on its own. It makes a compelling dynamic between Blitzo as a boss and friend to Moxxie.

But then they do this for almost every character?? Loona (basically) has daddy issues and can't express herself that well because she's under-socialized and Trauma, Octavia is a daddy's girl and is too emo to communicate her feelings, Stolas has daddy issues and also communication issues, Fizzarolli has daddy issues (when he doesn't need to???)

And then there's the fact that it feels like the other relationships we see are supposed to work as parallels/foils to Stolitz as well? Moxxie and Millie and happy and healthy and committed, unlike Stolitz. Fizz and Asmodeus manage to work around that class disparity/power imbalance because they can communicate with each other, unlike Stoliz. They kind of just function as a "this is what Stolitz could be if they got over themselves and talked"

And generational trauma and the desire to be loved can be a major and shared theme, but there should at least be nuance between each representation of it?? These are literally all the same in that it boils down to "I don't know how to ask for proper intimacy".

Ships

There's only one main ship and it's Stolitz, and... I find it compelling?? But it's just not executed well enough. They just rush through the development, so when the show actually reveals that there's mutual attraction, it just feels like it comes out of nowhere and the audience has to do a lot of the legwork to figure out what the fuck happened from point a to point b.

It's also like, it steals a lot of attention from other aspects of the show. I feel like a lot of Season 2 episodes kind of focuses more on that relationship in favor of other characters who need screen time and development (like Millie)

I could give a really long analysis on Stolitz, but I'm just going to say that the problem kind of just boils down to the show doesn't sell that they actually feel genuine affection for each other. I can see them projecting their own emotional baggage onto the other and using each other, but there's no transition from the transactional relationship they have in the beginning to liking each other as people. In fact, I don't think they even know each other outside of sex and work. Which is bad. Because I can buy them fucking up communicating their wants and thus settling for fucking each other for "professional" reasons, but if the show really wants to sell this ship, there has to be something genuine between them that draws them to each other.

Which is to say, Stolitz is a ship for people who already love and want the ship, not for people who are just There. As in, the show seems to make the assumption that the audience wants this ship to happen and that the ship will happen, so they don't really take the time to establish a solid foundation and growth arc for it. It just feels like big emotional or romantic moments without the actual necessary context to make it work. Which is just a problem for the general show.

Pacing

It's bad. It's so bad. I can understand leaving arcs unresolved for a bit so that there's suspense or whatever, but they keep adding more arcs and problems while leaving unfinished plotlines unfinished. Only to then resolve it super quickly. Like ??????? It's all so cramped and rushed-- but then they sometimes slow it down in the worst way possible in that it just kind of ignores previous developments for a one-off episode or something (like S2 Ep 2 where they just ignore the Stolitz drama for wacky adventure in the human world and Stolas and Blitzo are just acting like nothing wrong happened). (And I Know! I know they showed details in the background that explain that this happens because both of them are ignoring the problem, but even so, they shouldn't be acting so casual with each other; it should be made more clear that they're both still uncomfortable but *acting*) (and something that changes the relationship should be shown to the audience clearly? Not just put in as "blink and you'll miss it" text messages??)

And sometimes this rushed pacing leads to info-dumps or telling, not showing. Like with Stolas' focus episode where we learn his backstory. It's not super bad, but it weakens the impact of big plot moments; we just hear Stolas saying he endured his loveless marriage for his daughter, but we. never really see that...? The times he's with her when she's a child doesn't count because Stella's not a picture in that. The one time we kind of see something related to this statement is when Stella's kind of being loud in the kitchen and he checks in on her sleeping peacefully, but like. That's not really and example of him enduring Stella's temper and insults for Octavia's sake. He hasn't even seen Stella at all before he drops by Octavia's room. The next time is when Stella is throwing an imp at him in the kitchen and Stolas is trying to be... nice? reasonable? But at this point, I think it's clear to Octavia that her parents don't love each other. And even then, we never really see him paying attention to her or expressing concern about what Octavia might think or feel during the fight, or trying to reassure her that this is just a normal spat between married couples afterwards as damage control. We can just take his word for it, but it's just not as powerful. I'd say the same goes for when we learn about Moxxie and his father/traumatic childhood. Would've been great to see how he struggles with that specifically or had more clues to that before we see him completely resolve to stand up to his father.

It just feels like the show itself expects the audience to be completely in love with it, so it doesn't really bother to develop its world or characters until Big Emotional Moments and at that point, it just gives the necessary context to pull it off real fast, so everything just feels so... compact and dense and not very natural. It's not trying to sell itself to a new audience, it's catering to an audience that's been supporting them since the pilot.

#can't say much about the character designs bc I'm going to be honest. i'm not that good at doing it #and i have low standards. my thoughts are literally 'they certainly Look' and that's it. I go 'that's an imp. that's a hellhound. okie' #they don't make me go 'wooowww amazing design' but they don't make me go 'that's horrible and lame' #best i can describe my feelings is that the designs just rank as mediocre to me. there's nothing really original or inspiring about them #but there's nothing i can say is particularly like. blasphemous or atrocious #and the songs. #they're okay? #there's some that i like and some that i don't and other where i'm like 'i guess it's good? objectively? but it's not really my taste?' #like. they fucking got a broadway singer?!?! and Jafar from aladin?????? that's fucking wild to me #but i don't actually care for the songs as much as i care about the writing #and the writing is.... bad. there's no other way to put it #I can see the potential. but on god. they need to slow things down and let things develop naturally #or take the time to put their scripts through another round or two of editing #but i can kind of see why people like it. it's like. middle school era catnip #but also so much stuff about characters and worldbuilding that's left untouched or unaddressed #it might as well be free real estate for fanfic/fanart #but for me at least. it's too poor quality that i can't even feel inspired to play around with it #there's nothing of substance there to even play with. you might as well just write your own version of hb