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bookshelfdreams · 6 months

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Hey I like a lot of the takes you have regarding the pirate show so I wanted to ask for your opinion on smth that's been bothering me for a while:

I have a deep seated dislike for Hamilton. Twinkifying the fucking founding fathers, romanticizing slave abusers and overall villainizing the wrong people while others (Hamilton at the front naturally) gets sung at. Speaking of singing - I really hate it. Shipping (i want to repeat) the founding fathers, the blatant white washing bla bla bla. Anyway those are all known problems and better people have said it smarter before and that isn't really my point

It's the fact that a friend of mine recently brought up that Ofmd pretty much is the same and I shouldn't scream so loud in my glass house. Inaccurate historically speaking, the blatant ignoring of the slave owning that the real Stede and Edward did and so on and so forth. Minus the singing perhaps if we ignore Frenchies and Izzys

So. Does it make me a hypocrite to like ofmd so much but despise the mere mention of Hamilton? It's a thing I'm really stressed about lately and that kind of ruined my joy about finally getting season 2. I would love to hear your opinion. or that of your followers for that matter.

Thank you 😊

oh thank YOU because I do feel that this is an interesting thing to examine and we do not talk about it enough.

I have never seen Hamilton, or listened to the songs (except some snippets). I have never been involved in the fandom. I really, really can't speak to what the musical itself did wrong and right. But I will say this: There was a reason it got as popular and received the critical acclaim that it did. I can't speak to how it addresses the systemic injustice baked into the USA from the very beginning, and I do have a suspicion that it glosses over a lot of uncomfortable truths. But I also feel it is important that we divorce the source material from the fandom it spawns because ultimately, Miranda isn't responsible for Hatsune Miku Binder Jefferson, or the whole hivliving debacle.

Just as David Jenkins isn't responsible for the handwaving of slavery in fanworks, or the great Izzy Hands Debate, or whitewashing in fanart, or shitty, racist headcanons of the characters of colour, or whatever deranged scandal is yet to come to light. This is true for all fandoms; criticizing fandom dynamics is a very different conversation from criticizing the canon.

Let's focus on the canon here, though, because defending the fandom is pointless, and not something I want to do. Curate your experience.

The first thing to say is: If you like ofmd but don't like Hamilton, that's not hypocritical at all, that's first and foremost a matter of taste. Things are good when we like them and bad when we don't. We don't have to find objective reasons for it.

If the fact that the historical Stede Bonnet was a slaveowner, and the historical Blackbeard also participated in the slave trade, are dealbreakers for someone, that's valid. People have every right to be uncomfortable with that. The conversation could end at this point, if we want it to (I don't because I love to hear myself talk).

If we look at the historical figures a little closer the first stark difference is the cultural context in which they exist. The founding fathers seem to be extremely mythologized in the american consciousness but also, are understood to be real historical people. The founding myth is fundamental to the way in which the USA perceives itself (that is, as a beacon of freedom and democracy), and it's pretty hard to reconcile that with the bloodshed and human misery it was founded on. It's uncomfortable; and it's not just an American problem. Every western nation/former colonial power has quite literal corpses in their closets they'd rather not talk about (just so you don't think I'm getting on a high horse about the famed Erinnerungskultur here; go ask a german person about Lothar von Trotha and what he did to the Nama and Herero to receive a blank stare). The difference is, that the founding fathers are too prominent and too important to just not talk about, so instead, they are sanitized to a degree that can be straight up historical revisionism.

That's not Miranda's fault. Nor is it the fault of any one particular piece of historical fiction, biography, documentary, or what have you. But it is the context in which Hamilton exists and, from what I understand, a culture to which it contributes. Especially since it's based on a biography of the real Alexander Hamilton, and (again, to my understanding) claims to tell a more or less accurate story.

Pirates, on the other hand, are perceived completely differently. They are mythologized, but not for ideological reasons, not as state-building propaganda. Pirates are more like folk heroes; cultural icons (near) completely divorced from whatever historical figure once lived. They are "real" in the sense that they are based on real people, but engaging with them, from the start, has a layer of removal from reality that engaging with figures like the founding fathers hasn't. Blackbeard is from a saga. George Washington is from history.

ofmd, specifically, makes clear at every turn that what we are told is a fictional story that has very little to do with any real events. It's openly anachronistic, it has absurd internal logic. Life-threatening injuries are walked off. There's actual magic. Dinghies are treated like spawn points in a video game. Everything, from the costumes to the vernacular to the story beats, tells the audience that none of this is real.

You wouldn't accuse, idk, A Knight's Tale, or Mel Brooks's Men In Tights of whitewashing history. I feel like ofmd plays in a similar league; it's a comedy very vaguely based on history, and it makes sure the audience knows we are not about to be told anything true. If you watch ofmd, you know this isn't about the real, historical Stede Bonnet or Edward Teach.

So. Let's examine the actual story, yes? The story that is told here is anticolonialist, antiracist, and challenges oppressive power structures as much as is possible for a production like this. It addresses these things and condemns them, both explicitly and in its underlying message. (I'm not gonna explain all of this, enough ink has been spilled about it by people smarter than me)

I do not know what Hamilton is about at its core. I know Our Flag Means Death is about authenticity in the face of the whole world telling you there's something wrong with you. It's about resisting dehumanization and reclaiming your personhood. It's about love, in a radical, system-destroying way, about breaking the cycle of abuse, about healing, and finding joy.

Yes, the real historical figures it's based on were all horrible people. Again, if that's a dealbreaker, that's fine. I'm not trying to convince anyone who is deeply uncomfortable with that fact; it's perfectly understandable.

However, for me, personally, the story as a whole is so far removed from reality, and so firm in its message, that I feel this is forgivable.

(Oh, and a lat aside, I also feel like likening ofmd to Hamilton seldom seems to come from a place of genuine criticism. Often it seems to be more along the lines of "Hamilton is cringe, and if I say ofmd=Hamilton ppl will be too embarrassed to defend it" which yk. feels kinda disingenuous to me.)

#oh also im a white european so yk limited perspective here #i do encourage people with different perspectives to join in the conversation!#or like link the things youve already written on this because i know people have talked about this before #i just kindly ask you to leave your 'ew cringe' arguments at the door. thanks.#our flag means death #anonymaus #message #thoughts

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hotdogdynamitezzz · 2 years

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Lilith's Dark Secrets

Black Moon Lilith is a calculated point in the birth chart that is along the Moon's orbit and farthest away from the earth. This point isn’t a planet or asteroid but instead a point symbolizing vengeance, destructiveness, ostracization, deep jealousy, and sexual promiscuity. Black Moon Lilith in our charts is what we are, how we act as it is self-destructive in nature. The house placement of BML determines where we experience the mistreatment mentioned below.

⚠️TW: mentions of physical/emotional cruelty, bullying, and substance abuse. This is a dark post read with caution. This doesn't mean you will experience it yourself.

Plug in h12 on astro.com under extended chart selection.

To be clear, I am explaining the mistreatment, misfortune, deception, and manipulation that comes with each lilith placement. I explain the mistreatment in correlation with the zodiac sign/houses area of life. Therefore, this isn't a beginner post as it's expected you understand each house.

🦋 Lilith in Aries/First House: There's usually a theme for being outcasted from other people, especially during first impressions due to your diversity. People end up becoming unwilling to accept your individuality and differences as your presence stirs the pot and leaves them uneasy. Often times you experience hate and unjust jealousy for wearing clothes that express yourself, voicing opinions, or just being in the room. Your presence is enough to piss people off as they paint you to be rude, aggressive, and manipulative when you’re sweet and soft on the inside. They’re criticized for going against the mainstream flow which can result in slut-shaming and bullying.

🦋 Lilith in Taurus/2nd House: Your beauty, voice, glamour, and body are seen as a powerhouse and force to be reckoned with like many rappers and female beauty icons who have this placement. Yet, this destroys your confidence as you’re only seen as an object of desire. People only want to use you to climb the ladder and get ahead, people treat you like an asset and tool for fame and money. You’re want to be recognized for who you are as a person, not flaunted around for your looks. Being the victim of monetary or material blackmail was how others controlled you.

🦋 Lilith in Gemini/3rd House: Early school years may have been a traumatizing period in your life. Insecurity involving how you speak and think results from being criticized for having a unique voice, different perceptive skills, and overall an individualistic way of communicating with others. You end up feeling shut down and afraid to voice your opinion on any topic, creating a false meekly shy persona that doesn’t reflect your real personality. You could be a chatterbox on the inside and voice brilliant ideas yet no one accepts this. Your ideas are highly likely to be copied or you’re accused of copying people’s projects.

🦋 Lilith in Cancer/4th House: Emotional codependency was forced onto you in a toxic manner. This involves blackmail, withholding love and affection, and deceptiveness expressed within the family. Whether it's you who is codependent on your family's attachment or your family relies on you to the point of exhaustion, there's an emotionally constrictive theme present. Your relationship with females and parents might be strained, as you often experience malice or resentment from those who possess feminine or motherly energy. You've experienced manipulation frequently and are aware of the tactics people use to control those they love, therefore you can end up becoming manipulative yourself but most of the time it's used for your own survival and emotional protection. ⚠️TW: there are patterns of this placement falling victim to emotional or physical cruelty from the family.

🦋 Lilith in Leo/5th House: Your childhood may have been lost, often you were told not to express your childish personality and joyful expressions or you were forced to put it on display and fake being happy to put on a "show" others approved of. Many wounds come from the hindrance of creativity and hobbies you got to experience or the fear of letting others' expectations down. This has to do with performing, stage fright, and the inability to openly go after your passions. Others' judgement and ridicule bogged your free spirit down and made you develop an ordinary minuscule persona. Being bullied or having deep wounds from past relationships and crushes are common, you want to feel special and worthy of love but you are usually left as the side piece or fun fling people make fun of.

🦋 Lilith in Virgo/6th house: health problems, medical misconduct, the wounds from pets dying, and your overachiever mindset has plagued your life more times than you can count. Working part-time jobs while for many can be fun and exciting, however for you it brings some left behind trauma with co-workers and scheduling that left you in the dark and used. You probably felt like a robot as you were raised, being told to do nothing but work and study yet still never being good enough. You could have taken the same judgemental attitude towards others by ridiculing and belittling other people if they aren't seen as good enough in your eyes due to the expectant and condescending environment of your jobs or parents.

🦋 Lilith in Libra/7th house: Falling victim to being the hidden sidepiece or unrequited love is something you're accustomed to and weary of. Most of the time when you get into a relationship there is a third party pining after them or a crazy ex involved. You are seen as innocent and sweet, people assume you'd do no harm. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. Your toxic side reveals itself from the shadows in relationships and where you showcase manipulative, over-controlling, and overly jealous behaviors stemming from past relationship traumas or intimacy issues. A lot of women distrust you, think you are secretive and fake, criticize your appearance, and most definitely spread rumours and gossip surrounding your promiscuity. More often than not you have male or masculine friends and most of your relationships are based on exchanges like clout = love, or money = love, because your relationships focus on compromising or losing your self identity. This is the epitome of the best friend who steals boyfriend arc from what I've witnessed as you may experience your partner cheating or being taken away from you.

🦋 Lilith in Scorpio/8th house: The fear of letting go, you may have been exposed to your fears or generally inappropriate behaviour from an early age that most kids wouldn't comprehend at that age. There's a theme of exposure and patterns in your life because this is the sign and house of regeneration and transformation. that means, old toxic habits can be passed down and reoccur in your life frequently. You may constantly deal with the same types of toxic people or constantly go through periods of debts and loans. often times people will pray on your downfall, purposely trying to sabotage you in the shadows as you just go about your day. There's a big sense of unfairness, you were always getting the short end of the stick in your family while others inherited more desirable things or gifts from your parents. You are the shadow, your emotions get pushed to the side and you are forced to solve many problems thrown at you by other people. these problems are usually financial as well as emotional baggage. You're very protective of your energy for this very reason as the closest people to you tend to be energy vampires and you find it hard to escape a difficult life. This placement craves stability the most.

🦋 Lilith in Sagittarius/9th House: Education has been a longhaul for you, it feels like a trainwreck and you don't feel free to study the subjects you want. that, or professors constantly try to undermine you and mistreatment occurs within educational and religious institutions. This is the archetype that reminds me of the priest using his authority to misbehave. Or, professors using their knowledge and power to do what they want while you the student are thrown under the bus constantly. Beliefs are usually forced from the family or community which result in feeling outcasted within those environments as you want to explore new areas of religion or studies. There's deception between what you're told to believe vs what is actually right. People use knowledge to control you which you're often aware of and despise. I do see purity culture common here as it ties into what you're told to religiously follow and what is deemed as acceptable in order to control you. Transportation can be dangerous as you probably have less than stellar interactions with people on there. Sometimes this placement can attract potential stalkers as people who are lost in life constantly seek you out to guide them and could even worship you to an extent (vice versa too). There's a dehumanizing theme that occurs with the house of the divine and higher knowledge involved with your mistreatment.

🦋 Lilith in Capricorn/10th House: You're feared in the workspace and hold the ultimate authority, but often fell victim to bosses misusing power to control you before gaining respect. There's a threat seen with your presence as you are skilled and intelligent, specifically with business and management. Others assume you're the favourite out of jealousy but you've been pushed beyond your limits by your family's expectant attitudes which usually ends in a damaged relationship with the father who possessed most power, control, and the means to destroy your family. People will try to take you down in the workplace, blame you for mistakes, and sabotage you through flase accusations or monetary blackmail. However, after experiencing the downfall period, you end up gaining mass amounts of respect and power as well as misusing your power to gatekeep it from others.

🦋 Lilith in Aquarius/11th House: cancelled, always being cancelled. This placement is the archetype of cancel and stan culture turning toxic and unjust. You were either the victim or user of these tactics because you believed in one ideal only or you went against popular beliefs. Celebrities and fandoms may mistreat you, the internet is kind of a scary place for you. There's this fear about standing up for what's right because you often got cut off in friend groups after expressing your concerns. There was definitely gossip, rumours, and backstabbing that surrounded your life and people didn't want to give you a chance as this was your reputation in communities and you feared being persecuted for speaking the truth.

🦋 Lilith in Pisces/12th house: ⚠️TW: but every time I see this placement in someone they've always been through drug addiction or had/have parents struggling with drug addiction, this can go for alcohol or any substance as well. These individuals have experienced the misfortune sides of life too many times to count, often hidden enemies appearing as your friends or emotional support systems, knowing people in hospitals and prisons, and often become used to those environments. Your own dark emotions feel hidden to you and others, you may use escapism in any form to cope or feel swallowed whole by these dark emotions. It's hard for you to rationalize what you're feeling or sense in others but you possess a radar that can pinpoint others' vibes or intentions, you just struggle to pinpoint the reasonings. Sometimes sudden deaths within the family or close ones can appear here, there's such a big theme of hidden and misfortunate events that take you by storm whether it being randomly evicted, or suddenly your best friend of 10 years burns your house down. Whatever it may be you can sense but don't see it coming. People here are skilled at pretending or lying but, this it's used for protecting themselves from the world. Sadly you end up hiding too much, never feeling free enough to comfortably express yourself.

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thegeminisage · 7 months

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star trek: the motion picture rewrite

star trek the motion picture was bad so i'm fixing it. here's how

problem #1: everybody got interesting setups and nobody got any payoffs.

problem #2: ilia and decker were just not that interesting (sorry ilia and decker) and they either needed to be more interesting or have less screen time or both.

problem #3: it took more than half the film for the enterprise to even leave earth. this seems like poor pacing, which the overall film also suffers from.

problem #4: those damn 20-minute cgi scenery sequences. enough is enough.

sorry in advance but this post won't make much sense if you haven't seen the first star trek movie, "star trek: the motion picture." i don't have the time or patience to re-explain the entire plot! the novelization also ties into this but i do explain some of that.

MAIN PLOT

it wasn't a GREAT plot but i'm keeping it mostly the same, except a few changes:

the enterprise leaves much earlier in the film. all the interpersonal drama can happen ON THE WAY to v'ger and it would make very little difference to the main script and series of events, but the reminds that they're only x hours away from interception would help keep things tense and moving along. also, it would get spock in here earlier. we went a LONG time without seeing him.

the engines can still fail at the outset and get fixed by spock, but it's kind of weird that he shows up out of nowhere. i would change this to kirk leaving him messages - and spock finally answering at the exact right moment (more on this in spock's section)

less of those long cgi sequences, obviously. the enterprise deserves all the fanfare in the world but we do have other stuff to do. maybe we can learn a little about v'ger through the ilia-probe in bits and pieces before we get there rather than learning all at once at the end - the book sort of did that and it was better. but i think we just need to cut them to allow time for a LITTLE more interpersonal drama - the balance of interpersonal stuff to plot stuff was WAY off, even after you consider how the tos episodes are somtimes

i don't think decker should fuck the probe.

the book and movie seem to disagree on whether the ilia-probe really "is" ilia or a very convincing copy. i think we would do better to leave it open, as scifi so often is, because both answers feel slightly wrong to me

kirk just taking the ship at the end and going "ok thattaway" was heartwarming but lacks any semblance of logic. rather than beaming down to debrief, though - in case they don't let him go back up - i'd like to see him doing a power move where the required personnel for his debrief come to HIM. and THEN when the dust clears he can go "thattaway"

CHARACTER ARC: KIRK

there's a lot more on this in the book than the movie, but kirk begins this story three years post his five year journey. in the movie he's framed as "washed up" but the book sometimes implies he's "damaged." starfleet offered him the promotion to admiral to keep him out of space because his was the first ship to come back relatively intact after a five-year and they're using him as a poster boy for their pro-space propaganda. (kirk wholly disagrees with "intact"; he lost a total of 94 crew members over those five years and objects strongly to his new legendary fame.) it's worth noting that bones begged him NOT to take the promotion and he and some other officers actually RESIGNED over it.

also, for the first year back on earth, starfleet totally just SENT HIM A WOMAN? to like keep him distracted and "happy." he got honeypotted into not going back out into space. how many planets have tried to trap people by making them happy? how many times has kirk refused to stay in such a place because it leaves him nothing to strive for? and then, irony of horrific ironies, he was trapped on earth. he doesn't realize this woman was basically sent to pacify him until the very beginning of the film/book. anyway, this woman's name is lori, she's gonna matter just a little bit later. after she left, kirk got pushed into a desk job he was utterly fucking miserable in. he notes that it was the only time he ever ignored bones's advice and he suffered greatly for it.

when the "intruder" (v'ger, obvs) is revealed to be approaching earth (via brain implants? stupid, let's just switch to everyone seeing it on TV), kirk, for totally normal reasons, jumps at the chance to take the enterprise away from decker ostensibly because he's got more experience but also because (the book gets into this) he feels like he's been jerked around on a string for the last three years by the admirals (specifically he names nogura to give us a face but they were all in on it) and also that he's totally dead inside. he has to guilt trip bordering on BLACKMAIL nogura into letting him back aboard (ie bringing up the fact that he placated kirk with a woman and sweet promises instead of like...actually caring about his PTSD). we're keeping that part because it's sexy and fun.

the question the movie seems to be asking is, "is jim kirk too old and feeble to captain the enterprise again?" i would like to posit instead we go with "is jim kirk too DAMAGED to captain the enterprise again?" they really put him through the wringer in season 3 in particular and that total nervous breakdown from the romulan espionage episode was supposed to have been REAL before they changed it, so i'm sticking it in that three year timeskip instead. in the book, jim fucks up several times - can't figure out his seatbelt, gets lost, and notably fails to be able to save his former honeypot lori and his new vulcan first officer (off-brand spock) during a transport malfunction - they get rearranged horrifically and then die right in front of him. rather than frame this as jim being old and out of practice i'd like to frame it around the totally untreated PTSD of space and his five-year finally catching up to him.

the book ALSO gets into how jim feels more at home in space, how being away from it gives him physical symptoms almost like withdrawal, and how he felt he has been brought back from the dead and out of a miserable, meaningless life when stepping aboard for the first time. IMPORTANT FOR LATER.

at the same time though i think we might greatly benefit from mixed feelings - perhaps JIM HIMSELF has wondered if he was too damaged to get back out there - if, after everything, part of him wasn't a little hesitant to go back out into the unknown and risk putting himself through the kind of hell he got put through in some of those later tos episodes. maybe he wanted the captaincy to prove it to himself, yes, but also it was something he was determined to do (even though part of him was a little worried about doing it) because he thought he was the only one that COULD. there's a hidden element in this film of facing one's fears to benefit emotionally, so it would be important to squeeze something like this in, even if it's only in hints or light implications.

the ultimate answer to jim's question of course is that he ISN'T too damaged to be back out in space, especially not if spock and bones and the others are out there with him. but to get into that we have to move to...

CHARACTER ARC: DECKER AND ILIA

i'm putting these 2 together because (sorry) i don't care very much. side characters in trek are always supposed to just highlight the main characters anyway, right? again, i'm so sorry. anyway so. in the movie and especially the book, ilia is pretty constantly sexualized - deltan females and their pheromones or whatever - and she has very little personality. decker is mostly just mad (justifiably) that kirk stole his job after 18 months of prep and sad that ilia got zapped, but we feel neither of these things very strongly. the movie doesn't even MENTION decker's father killing himself in space* which is a huge waste of potential when you consider the name of the game re: kirk's arc, at least in the book, is PTSD.

*matt decker, will decker's father, is the captain from doomsday machine (consider this a spoiler warning): when a giant machine showed up and engaged in battle with his ship, the constellation, he evacuated his crew to a nearby planet and stayed behind, planning to go down with the ship. unfortunately the machine was a planet-eater, and ate the planet his crew was on, so his crew all died while he listened to them beg him for help, and he later tried to suicide bomb the machine with the enterprise and then later one of its shuttles, which tragically ended in his mostly-pointless death. kirk did at least use the idea to suicide bomb the machine with the damaged constellation and have himself beamed out just in time though, and he had the record made that matt decker died in the line of duty, omitting some of his shadier actions so as not to stain his memory or whatever.

ANYWAY, i think the only way to make decker and ilia interesting is to foil them with kirk and spock. decker is who kirk was before his five-year: smart, capable, ready to take on anything and chomping at the bit to get out there and bite off as much as he can chew and then some. also, he's emotionally distant from women because of his status as captain/his need to not be tied down so he can explore space.

ILIA on the other hand is more like spock - she has limited telepathic abilities, she is othered and sometimes sexualized by the people around her because of her VULCAN BIOLOGY sorry because of her race, and she has a passion for learning and pursuits of intellect. and also a semi-formal telepathic link with decker - they had met before, and were preparing to bond (the way a vulcan might), and then decker more or less got cold feet and left her at the altar because his own passion for being in space left him unable to commit. but she WENT AFTER HIM (important for later) and wound up as the enterprise navigator.

for decker, instead of showing kirk up once near the beginning, apologizing, and gradually learning to get along with him, i think i'd like him to be showing kirk up a lot - being subtly snide when kirk can't work his seatbelt, for example. this film has no real antagonist aside from an incomprehensible alien entity, but we could bring a little humanity to it by having decker justifiably resent not only being confronted with ilia again but also having his captaincy snatched away from him after EIGHTEEN. MONTHS. of prep. that's some serious bullshit.

but, while decker IS younger and more familiar with the enterprise's redesign, while he's had more recent space hours and suffers from none of kirk's PTSD, what he lacks is experience - this was the whole basis of kirk taking the fucking ship to begin with, and the movie as it is kind of totally invalidates that plot point. to that end, near the end of the film when they're in v'ger, i would make a bigger deal out of kirk knowing better than to perform the scan - because that's what got the klingons killed (when v'ger interpreted their scan as hostile). decker, shaken, realizes his own hasty decision would have resulted in all of them dying horrifically, and rather than kirk grudgingly respecting decker first, we get it the other way around - decker grudgingly respecting kirk, and kirk returning that respect after decker stops being an asshole. this does the job of helping the AUDIENCE respect kirk after spending so much time wondering if he was indeed too washed up and damaged to do the job, and it helps to begin to warm us up to decker too.

also, it would be fun to have decker overhear bones arguing with kirk or spock or even talking to chapel or something, to know that kirk was thought too washed up EVEN BY THE ADMIRALS (who decker does respect bc he doesn't know better yet), and then for decker to realize later kirk got jerked around - and maybe realize, once he begins to see kirk as a person instead of an obstacle, that something like that might be in his own future even if he succeeds in almost every possible way, as kirk had. we might even use this to get into decker's dad basically killing himself after losing his crew - it can go other ways than right for captains. it can also go so, so, so wrong. (this would require some exposition, though, since we can't expect everyone to have both seen the episode and remember the details.)

another moment that wasn't used to its full potential is when decker basically has to honeypot the ilia probe - this is extremely difficult on him emotionally, and kirk knows all about the perils of emotionally difficult honeypot missions (sorry that i'm linking to this twice). i think decker realizing kirk has done this same kind of thing like a zillion times and that's part of what led to his breakdown gives him respect not just for KIRK but for the position of captain itself - he would have no choice but to do this to protect 500 lives, if it were him. you don't get to tap out when you're captain. and this is good for kirk too, because in sympathizing with decker (and the horrific situation of having to honeypot the image of his dead lover) he can learn to sympathize with himself, and forgive himself for being at less than his best during his own worst moments - some of them during the five-year, some of them after, when he felt weak and without purpose. it also gives him the job of connecting the audience to decker - through him, through thinking of decker as a younger version of him, we can forgive decker for being an asshole earlier and sympathize with his pain. and he becomes someone we root for.

as for ilia - i think she should have gotten to yell at decker rather than passively act like he wasn't even there and hide her pain. her pain at being left behind and betrayed and having to find her own way could mirror spock's (more on this in a sec) but it could also mirror v'ger and its abandonment issues, even though she was abandoned by a boyfriend and not god. there's only so much you can do with truly misogynistic writing but she could've been likable!! her sitch and spock's are the same and she gets to complain while he refuses! even one iota of a personality would have helped so much.

ALSO, on that point, at least one conversation between her and spock would have done a lot to make her more interesting too, because then she would be adjacent to him. spock, too, left his home planet to chase after a space captain he was in um a relationship with, and that bit of kinship ("your answers are not here") could lead to a bonding moment - i think spock would respect what she's doing and that would lend her a lot of credit in the eyes of the audience. much like v'ger, much like spock, ilia has left her home to find out who she is, and part of that answer lies within emotion, within the people she loves: in this case, decker. i would also, if we HAVE to fridge her (DO WE?? more on this in the ending section), choose to have her take a blow meant for decker - her last act being one of love, because the film IS ultimately about love's importance, even in spite of all the pain it also causes (see: decker in his grief).

which leads us to...

CHARACTER ARC: BONES

we have to have a brief interlude here for bones. unfortunately, bones in this movie is little more than an extremely loveable afterthought. while fixing his ENTIRE deal is out of the scope of this tumblr post, what i WOULD do is give him more screentime by having both his AND spock's lives upended by the same event: kirk, the Main Character(tm), choosing to take the admiral stripes and "abandon" them.

i think theres enough evidence in tos to argue the case that bones places a lot of importance on jim and spock's lives - he claims to hate space, but he never resigns, and he finds meaning in taking care of them, even if (to my own interpretation), he can sometimes feel like a third wheel to their legendary "friendship" (so legendary that it's historically important both in-universe and in real life). when kirk agrees to "retire" and let starfleet make him their poster boy because he has PTSD and burnout, bones CANONICALLY objects to what starfleet is trying to do to him so strongly that he literally resigns. again, kirk notes in the book that "retiring" is the only time he ever ignored bones's advice and he came regret it deeply. so kirk needs bones back - in the book, he says outright he needs bones back because he, gaslit, cannot trust himself to be making solid calls emotionally, and he wants bones to call him out if he steps out of line.

for fun, i think bones should be a little more pissed about being "drafted" and like genuinely grumpy rather than fond and gruff - at least, until kirk apologizes. he tells bones all about being yanked around by the admirals and being honeypotted and how much he regretted not listening to his advice...and the gaslighting, not bones's medical expertise, is why kirk feels he needs bones now - why all of earth needs him, because this is a mission to save the entire planet. i think bones LOVES to be needed and especially by jim and/or spock, and he of course has a natural desire to caretake, so after the apology he could soften up to "gruff." he found meaning in what he was doing on earth, but he finds meaning in this too, and kirk telling him that of COURSE he can leave if he wants solidifies his decision to stay, even at the end of the film when the immediate threat has passed. put simply: he loves kirk and spock, and, like them, he wants the three of them to stay together, even though they previously broke his heart.

i think also that once spock comes aboard this gives bones a second job, which is to poke holes in spock's outward unemotional demeanor, which he genuinely is doing from a place of love (since it was bones who said the release of emotions is healthy). instead of standing around and being a lovable and nostalgic set piece, this would give him an actual purpose and an arc, even if his arc (healing spock via negging, healing jim via not gaslighting people) is holding up the other characters.

and speaking of spock...

CHARACTER ARC: SPOCK

post five-year, spock goes back to vulcan to undergo the kolinahr, a ritual meant to purge all remaining emotion from vulcans. he does this because he detests his human half and the many weaknesses and challenges it brings him etc etc but i also would like it if he does this because kirk retires - he has no logical, ready-made excuse to be around kirk and bones anymore, and just like kirk, he truly felt at home on the enterprise, where people valued him for his skill and what he could do rather than what he was (or wasn't). (this sentiment from spock is semi-canonical - it's in william shatner's tarsus iv novel, collision course.) kirk and bones are both an important part of his support system and it is crumbling without any way to save it - of COURSE he chooses not to feel emotion rather than face that pain. every human being ever has wished at some point or another they could numb themselves rather than hurt, and spock is half human, too. (that said, i would also not complain if kohlinahr was spock's way to escape the trauma of what the five-year did to HIM, making him feel emotions differently than what he believed was acceptable, changing him fundamentally as a person, and kirk only agreed to resign because space wasn't worth it without spock aka because he got dumped, but this is a minor detail.)

while on vulcan, kirk, equally adrift, sends him messages (this does admittedly make more sense if kirk only resigned because spock did) - but spock is potentially kind of mad at him (if kirk resigned first) and also trying not to feel anything, so he ignores those and goes out into the desert to get rid of all his gross icky feelings. when the masters read his mind and see that jim accidentally contacted him telepathically (which...girl WHAT was that all about did they bond fr during amok time) and that "his answer is not here," he reads or listens to all the messages at once (maybe including the deleted one spock prime had from aos...ouch), gets emotional (or resists, but it's a near thing), and realizes that if he can't purge kirk from his mind he has to at least find out why. the last message can be about the intruder (v'ger) and their fucked up engines, spock can feel reluctant concern and race to the rescue.

spock is initially very very cold to his old shipmates because he is trying to hold onto his logic and not allow the emotion back in his mind, but absolutely nobody is having this. like in the movie, kirk and bones drag him away to the lounge to interrogate him (he should admit to feeling kirk telepathically here just as he did in the book - i don't know that i'd go into the whole bond business in this movie because that's just writing fanfiction and is also a lot of exposition but i would never deny fanfic writers their fodder).

later, after talking with ilia, who did a brave thing (in spock's eyes, anyway, because he is terrified of what HE'S doing) by chasing down her man to give him an earful, spock is troubled, which prompts bones to start going IS THAT AN EMOTION I SEE MR SPOCK? (and make him more troubled). i think spock grieves ilia's death in his own way because of how much like him she is, or was. all of this culminates in his choice to attempt to mind-meld with v'ger, in the end - if he isn't a human and isn't a vulcan, WHAT is he? if he can't live with the emotion and he can't purge it, what is he supposed to do? if he dies in the mindmeld so be it, but at least he will have been useful - iirc, i think it was roddenberry or leonard nimoy who said that was always a primary motivation of his.

of course, AFTER the mindmeld, he does indeed realize that logic is pointless without emotion, and that he's been adrift not BECAUSE of his emotions but because of his refusal to deal with them and his refusal to feel. so spock, too, will decide to stay at the end of the film.

side bar on the scene where spock cries for v'ger: it's kind of dumb because v'ger is so unknowable. i think spock crying could be a bigger deal - maybe with happiness, as he holds jim's hand, or maybe when he thinks they're all gonna die (kirk says when he sees spock crying "it's not for us" but like what if it was though). i'd prefer him to cry after he finishes laughing post mindmeld of course but either instance could work.

and finally...

THE ENDING

i don't mind the ending in its plot - that v'ger really was just looking for its creator, as a child looks for its parent - but i really want the question of whether or not the probe IS ILIA to remain open. if you make an exact copy of a person that truly believes it is the original, is it? if it's indistinguishable from who ilia used to be even to itself, is it ilia? i like leaving this open because i DON'T like fridging her, but i also think it stretches believability to have this machine magically extract a consciousness and put it in a robot when we had a whole episode of s1 revolve around this exact same plot twist (is chapel's now-android fiance really still her fiance just because he thinks he is?)

it should be spock's idea to have a human join with v'ger - it was the joining with humans that ultimately led to HIS feeling emotions he was unable to ignore, which ultimately led to his understanding and acceptance of emotion and its value in general. spock would see the ilia probe as still being ilia, but in distress, as he was when he came aboard the enterprise, as v'ger is now. and he knows what fixed him (holding jim's hand lol sorry i mean accepting his emotions) and what would fix her.

and then of course decker does join with her - volunteers, insists even. i think he takes the chance on optimism and hope - something kirk lost along the way due to various traumas - but also because this film is about the importance of love, and he can't bear to live without his, even in facsimile. it's partially a sacrifice too though - decker's life and body as he knows it in exchange for the earth's safety - because that's what kirk would have done, what he HAS done. he did learn from kirk after all.

and kirk learns from him too - decker, who by now will know about the awful years the brass put kirk through prior to the start of the film, would tell kirk to give 'em hell, like it's something that can actually be done, because at his heart he's an optimist, and that's something kirk sorely needs emotionally at this low point in his life. a very gen-z-saving0the-millennials moment. (apologies to both gen z and millennials.)

so after the dust has settled, kirk, who has just saved earth, can basically ask for anything he wants, and what he wants is not to get sent out to pasture again. so that leads into him refusing to leave the ship and letting the admirals and everyone else who wants to debrief him come to HIM instead of him going down - he finally has back what he needed, which was simply control and agency over his own life, and his loved ones - since spock and bones decided to stay aboard. i would have liked some challenging action moment prior to the ending with the ilia-probe and decker included, a moment to highlight that kirk has still got it (kind of like his badass moment in the deadly years where he saves the ship in .2 seconds once they cure his dementia). but insisting that they see v'ger directly and not deal with its probe is okay too.

FINALLY, after we've established that kirk is In Control again and not just like, stealing a starship, we can do his scene where he begins a new five-year mission, and when directing sulu, says, "out there - thattaway."

THEMES

HOPEFULLY this ties together the various themes and foils in everybody's arc - the main ones being the importance of dealing with emotions, even painful ones, the importance of love, and the question "who am i?" - the theme of seeking answers

kirk wants to know who he is - is he still a starship captain who braved the unknown and returned alive? he tried to numb himself (or rather starfleet tried to numb him) after his five-year mission with a woman and a desk job and it didn't help - he had to risk getting back out there to do himself any good at all.

spock asks if he is a vulcan or a human, and seeks to answer the question by purging emotion, but must answer it by accepting the emotion instead - and he learns this from v'ger, who is asking the same question and cannot answer it without emotion anymore than spock could. spock is and always will be both vulcan AND human and no amount of resistance on his part can change that.

bones feels adrift without loved ones to take care of - who is HE if kirk won't even listen to his advice not to "retire" - and of course he is someone who takes care of others. which is a little sad because it's not a deeper arc, but it sort of rhymes with his whole deal in tos and there ARE five other movies. there's also a little bit in there about being willing to try again after your heart's been broken, which is also something kirk and spock are struggling with, to have the trio's arc rhyming with each other.

decker asking who he is - is he a real captain or a psycho case like his dad and kirk, is he someone who could have been ilia's husband - and ilia wondering if she is someone who could have been his wife, and later the PROBE wondering if it's truly ilia or not. MORE questions that have to be answered by overcoming fear of emotional pain - decker takes the chance and joins with her to answer both his own question, and the probe's - and, of course, v'ger's.

THIS CONCLUDES. my movie rewrite. i am so glad to have gotten it off my chest, which is the main reason i wrote it, but i don't think it's terribly popular...so if you actually read this whole thing you're a rock star. okay BYE!!!

#liz makes stuff #liz's star trek stuff #liz's meta #star trek #star trek the motion picture #star trek: the motion picture #star trek tmp #personal #star trek blogging #WHEW. that too so long. barely finished in time. wrath of khan SOON!!!#tmp lb #tmp #st ep edits

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cantsomeoneelsedoit · 2 months

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Ch 9: United We Negate

Fuuko and Andy are seated at the Round Table with The Union members led by Juiz, who seems to have an ability that can keep all the others in line.

All at once, both the readers and Fuuko are taken by surprise by a talking book!

What the hell? Shouldn't they go around the table and introduce themselves? Shouldn't Juiz explain what the book is about? They're just going to bombard Fuuko and Andy (and us) with information like that?

Well, yes, actually.

The fact that Juiz just moved forward with the meeting--no comments from her about Gina, no introductions, just "Welcome to The Union," tells us that:

She's in a hurry to get started.

This is not a big deal to her. She's lost and gained members before. She doesn't even feel the need to give them an orientation at this point.

The book, named Apocalypse, details the new quests:

The UMA are Burn, Eat, Language, Call, Past, and Spoil.

In the Undead Unluck universe, UMA represent and embody certain rules that God has put on earth. In our universe, we might call these ideas and phenomena "aspects of existence" or "laws of nature."

Rules are the substance that makes up the framework of the universe; they're the ingredients for our setting in Undead Unluck. God seems to sprinkle them randomly just out of curiosity, and most of the time, they cause a lot of suffering for our characters.

So how does that jive with my theory that UU is about writing?

When writing a story, the author has to decide what parts of the universe will affect the characters. For example, there may be an enormous and fascinating unknown land in the universe, but if our characters are never going to go there, never going to speak of it or be inspired by it, etc., then there's little reason for the author to mention it.

Until the author needs it, there's no need to mention random aspects of the universe. Accordingly, the author literally brings these concepts into existence when they introduce them. They do not exist until the author says so.

That being said, some authors follow the rule of Chekov's Gun to a T. Once a concept is mentioned, there's a good chance it will be part of the character's journey. (Thinking of the intro to One Piece here... "Wealth. Fame. Power.")

However, in Undead Unluck, (slight spoiler-->) there are some UMA who are introduced and we never hear about them again. It's almost as if God were trying out different combinations of UMA and rules to test our characters. There are some ideas that don't get used, but they still exist, as if they're in the author's rough drafts. If this sounds crazy, please keep reading anyway.

It will make sense, I promise.

Apocalypse is an Artifact, which are mysterious objects that have been placed on earth. And if that sounds like a cop-out explanation, that's because it is. As far as I understand it, Artifacts are placed by God for reasons. There will be a lot more about this much later. For now, just enjoy the funny talking book.

Fuuko tries to take a stand, but gets shut down by Juiz, who tells her that 98 rules have already been added and that it's crunch time. Poor, idealistic Fuuko, amirite? Hold onto that thought.

Now here's where things get interesting:

What in the Neverending Story?! She's looking right at the readers when she says it too, so spooky! Does Juiz know she's in a story? Is she a self-aware character? Who is God? How can they kill God? So many questions!

Here's what I think (current as of Ch 197):

Undead Unluck is a story within a story. A play within a play. A fic-ception. Most of the people on Earth are simple NPCs, including the Negators' beloved friends and family, except for characters like Mui and the muggle researchers working for The Union, of course.

Even the most astute characters who seem to know an awful lot about the workings of the world, like Juiz, don't fully realize that they're in a book. Instead, they believe they are victims of a cruel God who punishes them for fun.

The being they refer to as "God" is, in reality, an author who is creating an entertaining story. That doesn't mean it's Tozuka himself, but it could be.

It's like a cargo cult. It's like the aliens in the claw machine from Toy Story.

They've convinced themselves that this God is also accessible to them (somehow) and can be killed by them (somehow, maybe. Eventually.)

"God," however, is either oblivious to the fact that their creations are self-aware or they know and just don't care. I'm not even sure the author realizes that the characters are capable of suffering. (Which explains the emphasis in the past few chapters regarding Andy's ability to feel pain and the fact that he never mentions it--that's how much he's suffered!)

The author is playing with tropes and archetypes, shipping and reshipping, and generally screwing around with the characters' lives as they write and edit, with no regard for how it affects the characters' existence. They're writing a shoujo/battle shonen, and they haven't quite decided on the final plot yet. It's probably Kubo

Soooo, that's all I can tell you about my theory at this point in the story without spoiling some things for you. Speaking of Spoil, Andy jumps at the chance to take on the strongest UMA, which begins our new arc.

Masterpost

#overreading undead unluck #undead unluck #undead unluck spoilers

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mlle-misery · 6 months

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in defense of gale-

coin orchestrated prim’s death, not gale. coin killed prim, not gale. yes, he came up with the bombs, but he had capitol victims in mind as his target. in his mind, he was not expecting innocent life to be taken—just capitol life. the same capitol that has kept him and his family poor and starving, who caused the death of his father due to their greed which left behind a young family with no means of supporting themselves because hazel couldn’t find work, not with so many young children at home and no access to childcare (thanks again to what oppressive force). while it was the capitol government who was to blame for all of this, in his eyes the people were still complicit and were uplifting their government. he noted how sick their love of the hunger games was when to any normal person it was such a horrific thing. it’s like how i view all rich people as evil members of the bourgeoisie. while from an outside perspective we can recognize the capitol people have been brainwashed to think everything is perfect, because of how he’s grown up he doesn’t approach the situation with the same objective view the reader has.

idk i feel like gale is always quickly written off as prim’s killer but i think we should acknowledge him as the victim he is. just this once. i see him as a foil to the career characters we encounter in the first novel. they’re all victims of the system to be completely honest. the capitol has a way to keep them all under it’s authoritarian thumb, just different methods. for district 12, it’s keeping them poor. who needs to worry about what the government does behind the scenes when you are always worrying about if you can afford your next meal. for the career districts, why worry about the sins of the government when you can just win the games and coast the rest of your life off fame and glory (like you’ve been told allll your life) instead.

so yeah. gale is a dick. his bombs killed prim. but at the end of the day you can clearly see the path that led him to his extremist actions.

#gale hawthorne #the hunger games #character analysis #character study

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jabbage · 5 months

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#Letters from Watson #lettersfromwatson

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blueteller · 2 years

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"To eat your cake and still have it" – Mary Sues VS Misunderstood MCs

I started wondering about something recently. Namely, why isn't Cale Henituse a Mary Sue?

"Gasp! But Blue Teller!" – you say. "How could you possibly accuse Cale of being a Mary Sue?! No one would dare say such a thing!" Just, hear me out for a moment.

While people's opinions vary on what exactly a "Mary Sue" is, I think most of use have the basics down: it's basically the type of protagonist you see in badly written fiction (commonly fanfiction specifically) – usually female, but can be male as well (although it's rarer to see male characters openly condemned by the audience for being Over-Powered and One-Dimensional due to stereotypes). Male counterpart is sometimes called "Gary Stue", but I'll keep using MS for simplicity.

MS is perfect, doesn't have flaws – or at least any "real" flaws, for example she's allowed to be "clumsy" or have "low self-esteem" because those traits still make her attractive. She is gifted, talented, beautiful (although she's mostly unaware of it) and everything goes right for her. Everybody adores her and she is objectively The Best. Anyone who disagrees with her is the Bag Guy. Often the object of romantic interest for many, MANY people around her, because of course everybody is attracted to Mary Sue! She's allowed to have a tragic backstory, but within the story itself she rarely experiences any hardships or failures. The world itself seems to be only interested in her alone, even reality bends in order for her to be successful.

You know, that type of character.

So now you might be thinking: doesn't that sound suspiciously close to a certain favorite red-head of ours??

So we go back to the main question – how is Cale not a MS?? Because most of the typical MS traits I pointed out seem to be true for him! Even how he has very few "real" flaws, but those usually make him only more attractive!

Not all of the things I described MS with line up with Cale, obviously; he experiences failure, both past and present, and he suffers a lot. More importantly, Cale is by no means a badly-written character.

MS is a typical Good Protagonist. Her intentions are pure, or at least mostly. We take it at face value that she's In The Right, or at least we're supposed to. Cale is more morally complex than a typical Good Protagonist from the get go, but that's not what makes him different: it's the fact that he acknowledges the complexities of morality. He doesn't simply seperate people by them being "good" and "bad". Everybody has their own goals and interests, including Cale. Just because other people's opinions don't align with him 100% doesn't make them his enemies. He is also often biased, or even wrong.

We are set up to root for him, obviously, but he's not Unquestionably in the Right. However, he still receives the same amount of glory and attention that a MS gets for being the Perfect Protagonist.

But just what is it about him that makes him work, though? What makes him different? Why is a typical MS considered "shallow" and "badly written", while Cale is one of the best and most compelling characters I've seen in a while?

Well, most of the answers to those questions can be summed up in a single word: misunderstandings.

Let's face it – having a character we root for receive fame and attention can be very gratifying. But it's exactly that feeling which some (usually amateur) authors get drunk on, and eventually go too far with it, creating an Unrealistically Perfect Objects of Admiration – which in turn makes them too feel too fake to make them relatable, especially if they are too pretty and OP on the top of everything. They stop being a fun character, and become One-Dimensional like a stock image, a statue; basically a caricature of the very good protagonist they're supposed to be.

However, there is a solution to that: to make a character receive all the glory while not being a MS. And that's the Power of Misunderstandings!

Yes, the way to eat your cake and still have it in your possession… Have a character who is in fact flawed and commits errors. But due to circumstances and wacky hijinks, as well as some seriously thick Rose Glasses on, the MC's companions constantly misunderstand the situation! Now the MC still gets all the credit without sacrificing their character for the sake of fanservice!

It's the perfect solution!

It's not the only story where I've seen this trope, but TCF excels at it. The story thrives on the comedy of misuderstandings, creating fabulous scenarios. Cale gets misunderstood by countless people in countless ways throughout the novel. All of these accidentally create the image of a MS-worthy hero, except he's not like that at all! Furthermore, he hates it! He hates being percieved as something he is NOT! And it's hilarious!

That is how it is done in modern era, my friends. We no longer need to deprive ourselves of cake in order to still have it. After all… now CTRL+C exists, hahaha! 🎂🎂🎂

#tcf #trash of the count's family #lcf #lout of the count’s family #mary sues #cale henituse #analysis #character analysis #misunderstandings #the power of misuderstandings #tcf humor #writing

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bookishjules · 2 years

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Puzzle Pieces and Associated Identities

(if you're confused, go read @strungoutheart. now. go. then come back and agree with me 😌)

If each of these puzzle pieces found in the middle of the Strung Out Heart, Angel Eyes title card represent Percy and Annabeth, which one represents whom?*

Now, you may be thinking, Jules, why does this matter? Why should I give a flying flip about a couple of puzzle pieces? Well, I'm so glad you asked. I believe the answer lies in the vibes.

Yes, vibes.**

The vibes of the left puzzle piece align with Percy, while those of the right puzzle piece align with Annabeth. How do we know this? Well, let's analyze the vibes:

A. The Placement

When we refer to the couple in question, many of us will automatically place Percy's name first and Annabeth's second. Even when using their ship name, percabeth, Percy's portion come first. Given that this comic is in English, and English reads left to right, it is natural that when looking at those puzzle pieces and thinking about percabeth, we would subconsciously associate the left piece with Percy and the right piece, that follows the left, with Annabeth.

B. The Structure

Unless I'm crazy (please ignore for now what this essay's existence says about my sanity levels), the lines that make up the puzzle pieces are weighted differently. At least on the bottom half, the left piece is made of slightly thicker/heavier/darker lines than that of the right piece. We know all of these comparative adjectives could also be used to describe Percy in relation to Annabeth. Subliminal messaging and subconscious associations here could all contribute to what we refer to as "vibes".

C. The Shape

First, we must address the biological symbolism, which I will not explicitly discuss, but I'll give you a second to interpret . . . 👀

Second, the puzzle piece on the left is a much more imposing figure. It objectively takes up more space than the second piece, which is physically true of Percy in comparison to Annabeth, as well. Where the size difference is most noticeable is in the extra/missing nob where they fit together. The way the left piece is able to take up more space feels like the way a lesser known band might be able to have more control over their music and over their lives. The right piece, on the other hand, is concave on that mirrored side, which could represent the amount of consideration that Annabeth has to give to both her label and the public sphere, simply given the nature of her level of fame.

The way this concave vs. convex image is mirrored could also represent the way that, for most of the comic, Percy has been the one reaching out, while Annabeth pulls back, pulls into herself. She is also more controlled and more hesitant to make big moves, just as a person, than Percy is. I like to imagine that Annabeth puts up a controlled front, often letting her super-ego manage the id, which is why the side facing Percy's piece is the one that is concave, or controlled.

When discussing the shapes, my last point is in character appearance, specifically their hair. Percy's hair often has three points, like an upside-down W, while Annabeth's, especially when she's in pop-star hair, falls to one side, with the other being pinned back. Both of these images reflect nicely in their respective puzzle pieces, but only if their respective pieces are Percy on the left an Annabeth on the right.

So, why should you give a flying flip? Because if we allow these pieces to be assigned to Percy and Annabeth, it says an awful lot about their characters. I can't imagine what the vibes of the left piece would look like on Annabeth in the SOHAE-verse, because they simply don't line up with her character, and the same goes for Percy, which is why I must conclude that Annabeth is and always will be the right puzzle piece.

If for some reason you need more proof, here's a word from on high.

*For the purposes of this (joke) argument, we are assuming there would be an equal opportunity for each puzzle piece to represent either Percy or Annabeth. **The word "vibes" is a nondescript word for the feeling that a certain person, situation, or thing, gives off. The thing is, these feelings don't just happen. We don't live in a vacuum and so therefore neither does the thing giving off vibes. It is my theory that there has always been a subconscious draw to labelling these pieces by their respective characters, even as Ames was drawing them (literally this is such bs i have no idea what was going on in ames' head but we're just gonna go with it for the argument okay?), which is how they ended up picking the one they did for the Ch. 38 title card. But the subconscious looks at the details and interprets them in ways we aren't aware of that lead to associations and labeling things as, well, vibes.

#i need you all to know i did not come up with these thoughts for this post lol this has been a constant convo in my head for weeks #this was unnecessarily long but also it wasn't remotely necessary in the first place so #sohae #percabeth puzzle pieces

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justzawe · 2 years

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ZAWE ASHTON

Through writing, actor Zawe Ashton is slowly shifting her role from object to subject.

Words by Hettie O’Brien. Photography by Pelle Crépin. Styling by Holly White. Hair by Bjorn Krischker. Makeup by James O’Riley.

FILMS ISSUE 45

The work of a convincing performer is to make a practice of disjunction, blurring fact and fiction until it’s no longer clear where the performance ends. Zawe Ashton, an actor and writer from East London, has been performing for so long that she sometimes feels as though she has “just woken up.” “There has been this eye, this gaze, that has followed me since birth,” she says. This is what it is to have grown up as a child actor, an experience that would be strange, were Ashton to have ever known anything different.

It’s only now, at the age of 37, that Ashton feels she has managed to “reshuffle the cards,” as she puts it. We’re speaking over Zoom: Ashton from the northwest London home she shares with her fiancé, the actor Tom Hiddleston, and me from an office room that I describe, when she asks, as a “Zoom booth.” “Are they the new thing? They sound sexy,” Ashton says with characteristic provocation. “They sound like the new location for a fresh scandal to me. It happened in a Zoom booth!”

There is a sense that runs through Ashton’s work of someone chafing at the limits of their discipline. She is best known in the US for her role in Velvet Buzzsaw, a satirical horror film set in the Los Angeles art world in which she starred alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. She grew up in Hackney, East London (her parents were both schoolteachers; her mother is Ugandan, her father English) and attended Anna Scher, a theater school in Islington that banned the words “star” and “fame” from the classroom: Stars burn out, Scher taught them, but the career of an actor persists regardless of fame.

Ashton’s first notable role was in the British kids’ TV show The Demon Headmaster. In her early 20s, she took bit parts in crime dramas and hospital soaps; her break came when she was cast, at 27, as the chaotic, drug-taking, straight-talking student Vod in the series Fresh Meat. One article from the time suggested Ashton was “the coolest thing on TV right now.” But Ashton felt herself growing increasingly frustrated. “I hit a wall in my life—whether it was burnout, or [an] existential crisis, where I was like, Hold on a minute . . . . I’ve spent the past 30-something years performing, and I have no idea who for.”

What Ashton really wanted to do, she tells me, was to be a writer. In the basement, her mother still keeps a box of the stories Ashton wrote as a child, including one, from when she was six, about a dinosaur having breakfast with Elizabeth Taylor. “I think language, and how surreal and expressive language is, has always been part of my wanting to be in this world.” So, alongside her acting jobs, Ashton wrote a play. For All the Women Who Thought They Were Mad centered on the experiences of Black women in the corporate workplace and was praised for its darkly comic study of prejudice when it was staged at the Hackney Showroom in 2019.1 She also wrote a pilot for a TV drama about a woman having an early midlife crisis. “I was treated extremely badly at the hands of television executives,” she says. The pilot was passed over, and Ashton “put it in a drawer because it was just too traumatic.”

A book agent read that defunct script, and asked if Ashton would consider authoring something longer. “It’s one of the hardest, best things I’ve done,” she says of the resulting book, Character Breakdown, a playful, tragicomic account of an unnamed protagonist’s acting career. “So much of my life has been scripted; so much commitment has been to saying other people’s words and inhabiting other women,” she explains. “I thought . . . I can sit down and write this without anyone giving me permission.” Writing was an opportunity to stop acting—for a while. Ashton spent some time living in Margate, a blustery seaside town popular with people priced out of London. She nicknamed the book, which took two years to finish, “the cockroach in the nuclear disaster of my life.” For a while, it felt like the only continuity she could grasp at.

Character Breakdown defies the very definition of the word order—it is composed of fragmentary conversations retold in a weaving chronology. The protagonist receives different character synopses that are irritatingly sexist (a silent woman in a civil rights protest, a sexy spy, a dead body on a mortuary slab). She takes calls from her agent, sips lukewarm wine, changes her hair to appease casting directors and remembers being bullied at school after first appearing on TV. It is loosely fictionalized: Ashton says that if the book seems like an “actor’s memoir,” she has “done something very wrong.” “It was an attempt, or an opportunity, to try and crack open the difference between fact and fiction before slamming them wholeheartedly back together again,” she explains.

Although magnified in the acting industry, the banal occurrences of casual misogyny and racism that Ashton’s protagonist endures resonate far beyond the book. “Thinking about acting became like a blueprint for a way that I could look at my experience as a woman in the world,” she says. She missed her publisher’s first deadline, a misstep that turned into a gift. By the time Ashton submitted the manuscript, revelations of sexual violence in the film industry had started to break. “Me Too really reframed my writing completely, because I thought, No one is going to want to hear from an actress about stuff that’s gone down and how it might relate to the wider world. And suddenly it was all anyone wanted to hear.”

We’re speaking a month before the release of Mr. Malcolm’s List, a sugar-frosted Regency rom-com in which Ashton plays a lead role. The film revolves around the wayward schemes of Ashton’s character, Miss Julia Thistlewaite, and will please anyone who enjoyed Bridgerton.2 In period-drama obsessed Britain, it would have been unthinkable for a mixed-heritage British woman to land this role even five years ago. The multiracial elite portrayed in Mr. Malcolm’s List is a fantasy that omits the reality of colonial racism in Regency Britain, casting actors of color as dukes and duchesses. “There is a lucrative market . . . . for the depiction of racial difference in the absence of racial inequality,” the British author and journalist Gary Younge recently wrote of Bridgerton, taking issue with the genre. Ashton is critical of this argument. “What’s crazy is there’s only a handful of [similar] shows,” she says. “When you get real diversity is when there are so many . . . . that some can show one aspect [of history], some can show another aspect, and this is a spectrum.”

The protagonist of Character Breakdown reflects that “nothing good comes of being visible.” Together with this film, and her forthcoming role as a Marvel villain, Ashton seems poised to become the kind of highly visible celebrity who occupies a different plane of existence: rich, distant and chauffeured.3 Yet that’s not how she comes across in person. She is open and disarming, throwing back bigger questions to those I ask. I wonder if she enjoys the control of writing in her own words, as opposed to speaking those of others. “It doesn’t even feel like control,” she says. Ashton tells me about the American visual artist Lorraine O’Grady (about whom she made a film for the Tate). “She wanted to play with the idea of being subject and object,” Ashton says. “You want to shift the lens, shift the perspective on your work and life as much as you can. And that’s how I feel.”

#zawe ashton #kinfolk magazine #interview #article

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supreme-leader-stoat · 1 year

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Six Shooter Universal RPG System

I've been thinking a bit recently, and it feels like the right time to dig my old prototype rules-light game out of its box and release it on the world. If anybody's interested, please feel free to take it for a spin, I'd love to know what you and your friends think of it.

I've also got a separate blog set up where I'll post any new/revised versions, should I continue development on it.

The Basics:

Playing Equipment:

A 52 card deck, jokers optional

A six-sided die (backup dice in case it is lost are also a good idea)

Paper for each player

Pencils for each player

Operators:

Player characters are “Operators,” adventurers, explorers, criminals, mercenaries, and other people who live on the edge. Each Operator starts with a Descriptor, an Archetype, and a Lucky Number.

There are four Descriptors to choose from, each of which correlates to both a specific card suit and a way of solving problems, and which helps give an idea of what an Operator is best at. What Descriptor your Operator has influences how you can use cards (see below, under Playing the Game). The Descriptors are as follows:

Dangerous (Clubs) – Weathering extreme environments, fighting with fists, weapons, or powers, moving heavy objects, and resisting damage. The best fighters are Dangerous.

Sharp (Diamonds) – Solving riddles and academic problems, carefully observing the world around you, having just the right bit of knowledge, or breaking through digital security systems. The best thinkers are Sharp.

Sly (Spades) – Going unnoticed, disguising yourself, unlocking physical security systems, and picking pockets. The best sneaks are Sly.

Charming (Hearts) – Persuading, deceiving, intimidating, negotiating, and networking. The best talkers are Charming.

An Operator’s Archetype has no direct bearing on game mechanics, but it is very important for helping make sense of how that Operator interacts with the world around them. An Archetype is a word or short phrase that you use to get across the most important parts of who your character is, what they can do, and how they fit into the world around them. For example, a medieval Knight and a wild-west Gunslinger will probably both be Dangerous and specialize in fighting, but the actions their rolls represent will probably be very different. Likewise, even within the same game, a medieval Knight and a medieval Famed Archer will approach the same situation in different ways and make the same rolls with different descriptions of their actions.

Your Operator’s Archetype should slot in nicely with the genre and tone of the game you’re playing. If you and your friends are playing a standard heroic fantasy game, you probably shouldn’t pick Noir Detective as your Archetype. In a gothic horror game, a Superhero will be similarly out of place.

Each player should pick a Lucky Number for their Operator from 2 to 10. No two Operators at the same table should start with the same Lucky Number.

Setting up the game:

Working clockwise around the table, have each player introduce their Operator, including their Descriptor, Archetype, Lucky Number, and whatever other information they’d like to share.

Shuffle the deck of cards. Clockwise around the table, have the Game Master (GM) deal six cards to each player, then place the rest of the deck in the middle of the table. Each player should place their six cards face-down in a line going from left to right in front of them. This line of cards is the player’s hand. Each card in the player’s hand represents a number from 1 to 6, with 1 being the leftmost card, and each subsequent card’s value increasing by 1, with 6 being the rightmost card.

Have each player turn one card of their choice from their hand face-up and begin the game.

Playing the game:

Deciding Turn Order: Whenever multiple players want to tackle the same challenge, have them draw from the center deck and immediately discard the cards they drew. The higher the value of the card a player draws, the higher they are in turn order. If two or more players tie, have them draw again, with the one with the higher card going before the other in the turn order.

It’s recommended that the GM keep a piece of scratch paper around to keep track of the current turn order.

If, at any point during the game, the deck runs out of cards, shuffle the discard pile and use it as the deck.

Overcoming Challenges:

Throughout the course of play, the characters will have to roll to try to complete certain objectives. However, the primary purpose of Six Shooter games is for a group of people to improvise and tell a story together, so the GM should only ask for rolls and introduce that degree of randomness in certain situations; when there is a real possibility for characters to fail or have their fortunes change. Rolls are made with a six-sided die, and the outcome of the die roll is measured against something called the Critical Number.

The Critical Number represents the difficulty of the task the character is attempting, and has different effects on the game based on whether the outcome of a character’s die roll is lower than, greater than, or equal to the Critical Number.

If the result of the roll is greater than the Critical Number, the Operator overcomes the challenge they are facing.

If the result of the roll is equal to the Critical Number, the Operator overcomes the challenge, but the player must Roll Their Hand (see below).

If the result of the roll is less than the Critical Number, the Operator does not overcome the challenge (and may have to deal with the in-story consequences of failure), and the player must Roll Their Hand.

A challenge’s Critical Number gives a rough idea of how difficult the challenge in question should be for the Operators. You don’t have to tell your players the exact Critical Numbers for challenges before they roll, but it’s generally polite to give them a rough idea of how difficult a certain challenge will be (or at least, how difficult it might seem to their Operators). Here’s some guidelines to give the GM a rough idea of how to assign Critical Numbers for challenges:

0 or lower – The Operator overcomes the challenge without having to roll. Challenges should not naturally have this Critical Number, but it can happen if the player uses a card (see below) to reduce the Critical Number of a challenge.

1 – The Operator is sure to succeed, but it might take a little effort and luck on their part to do so.

2 – There is a slight chance for the Operator to fail, but they’re still almost certain to succeed. This is a good ‘standard’ Critical Number for challenges, enemies, and obstacles that should wear Operators down but that they should be able to overcome just fine.

3 – The Operator will most likely succeed, but the chance of them failing is not insignificant.

4 – The Operator is as likely to fail as they are to succeed.

5 – There’s a slight chance for the Operator to succeed, but they’re far more likely to fail without rigging the odds in their favor.

6 – The Operator is almost certain to fail, and even succeeding will bring them a little closer to the day their luck runs out.

7 – The Operator will fail unless they use a card or the All Or Nothing rules (see below), and even then, their success is likely still far from assured. Multiple Strikes (see below) will never increase a Critical Number above 7.

Impossible – There’s no point in the character rolling because what they’re trying is completely impossible within the bounds of the story you are telling, so they don’t roll and need to search for a different solution to the problem. For example, unless your game is set in a fairy tale world where people can climb moonbeams, a character attempting to climb moonbeams would result in this.

A single challenge might have multiple Critical Numbers, one each for trying to overcome a challenge through Danger, Sharpness, Slyness, or Charm. For example, a locked door challenge might have a Critical Number of 4 if an Operator uses Slyness to pick the lock, 5 if they try to break the door down, 7 to try to find some hidden weakness in the door with Sharpness, and be Impossible to overcome with Charm (of course, if there’s a guard with keys on the other side of the door, then that’s a different challenge altogether).

A character failing to overcome a challenge does not necessarily mean that they can’t try again. If there’s no time limit or imminent danger, then the only immediate consequence of failure might be the player having to Roll Their Hand. Of course, after a certain number of failures, the GM might decide to move the story along without the Operator having succeeded, with any consequences that follow being yet more challenges for the Operators to deal with.

Rolling Your Hand:

As mentioned above, when the result of your roll is equal to or less than a challenge’s Critical Number, you must Roll Your Hand. What this means is that you roll the die another time, then find the card in your hand that matches the number you rolled. What happens next depends on whether that card is face-down, face-up, or has already been discarded.

If the card is face-down, flip it face-up.

If the card is face-up, discard it without gaining any benefits.

If the card has already been discarded and is missing, you gain a Strike.

Strikes:

Strikes are used to abstractly represent your Operator’s luck slowly but surely running out, as well as accumulating disadvantages like serious injuries or running lower on resources. For each Strike you have, the Critical Number of all challenges is increased by 1 (but never above 7) for your Operator and your Operator only. Once you get your third Strike, your Operator’s luck runs out completely and they are removed from play. This could be used to represent authorities catching them and taking them into custody, old enemies catching up to them, being too injured to continue with the adventure, or even dying.

Using Cards:

Throughout the game, you can use face-up cards from your hand to increase your Operator’s odds of success. You must declare your use of a card and discard it before you make a roll. The Critical Number for your roll is then reduced by a certain value based on the card you used:

2-10 – The Critical Number is reduced by 1.

Jack – The Critical Number is reduced by 2.

Queen – The Critical Number is reduced by 3.

King – The Critical Number is reduced by 4.

Ace – The Critical Number is reduced by 5.

Normally, you can only use a card if its suit matches up with the method you are using to try to overcome a challenge (clubs for Danger, diamonds for Sharpness, spades for Slyness, and hearts for Charm). The one exception is when the method you are using matches your Operator’s Descriptor, in which case you can use a card of any suit to reduce the Critical Number. For example, a Dangerous Operator has no clubs with which to improve his odds when trying to overcome a challenge in a Dangerous way, but he does have a face-up three of spades, which he uses instead.

You can also use a card to improve another Operator’s odds, but only if the suit of the card you are using, your Operator’s Descriptor, and the method they are using all match up. For example, if a Charming Operator is trying to sneak unnoticed past a guard with Slyness, the player of a Sly Operator can use her face-up jack of spades to reduce the Critical Number of the challenge by 2 for the Charming Operator. As above, the card must be used before the roll takes place.

Only 1 card can be used on any given roll.

Beyond the raw mechanical benefits, the use of cards is an excellent time for players to have an influence on the flow of the plot and let their Descriptor and Archetype shine. The reduction of the Critical Number of a challenge might be the result of an Operator using a special hidden ability or piece of technology, or a non-player-character ally showing up in the nick of time to help out. Essentially, the GM should let payers suggest plot twists or give their character a shining moment whenever they use a card, with face cards and Aces allowing for bigger twists and brighter moments.

All Or Nothing:

Certain high-tension situations, where an Operator takes a huge risk or puts everything on the line (a showdown at high noon is a good example) fall into All Or Nothing territory. If an Operator takes an All Or Nothing approach to overcome a challenge, they can wager any number of Strikes (though the Strikes wagered and the Strikes a player already has can total no more than 3) before making their roll. For each Strike wagered, the Critical Number of the roll is reduced by 1. If the Operator overcomes the challenge, the wagered Strikes do not take effect. If the Operator fails, then that player immediately gains a number of Strikes equal to the ones wagered, possibly enough to remove their Operator from the game.

Cards cannot be used on the same roll as All Or Nothing.

Both the GM and the players should be judicious about the use of All Or Nothing moments. This mechanic is especially designed to represent climactic scenes.

Lucky Numbers:

An Operator’s Lucky Number comes into play whenever their player discards a card with the matching value, whether it was the result of Rolling Their Hand or using that card. As soon as the card is discarded, the player can replace it by drawing a new card from the central deck and placing it face-up in their hand in the place of the old card.

Combat:

Combat can be modeled two ways. The first is to treat each enemy as its own challenge, and the second is to treat a large group of weak enemies as a single challenge with a higher Critical Number. Both are valid options, and the GM should use whichever one serves a better role in the story at them current moment. Almost all combat is solved with Danger, though the GM can choose to reward creative players if they come up with a reasonable way to solve a combat encounter with a different method.

In Six Shooter games, the accumulation of damage and running out of an Operator’s luck go hand and hand, so there’s no damage mechanic; instead, damage is folded into Rolling Your Hand and Strikes. If a GM wants to introduce more immediate effects of damage, such as a character being momentarily knocked out, they can simply make that the cost of failing to overcome the challenge a certain number of times.

Multi-stage Challenges:

Some obstacles are too big to overcome with a single roll. For example, it would feel rather anti-climactic if the dragon that the Operatives have been tracking for the entire adventure goes down in the first turn of combat because the Dangerous Knight had a really lucky roll.

To represent these advanced enemies, security systems, and other obstacles, use multi-stage challenges. In these cases, the Operatives must collectively succeed on a certain number of rolls before the challenge is overcome. Keep in mind that this exponentially increases the difficulty of challenges with high Critical Numbers.

Player Versus Player Rules:

Since the characters are all on the same team in most games, inner-group conflict should hopefully be rare and able to be solved through communication. Still, some groups may want to have contests between Operators at certain points in the game. To do so, use this rule:

The players of both Operators roll the die once. The player with the lower roll must then Roll Their Hand. If the rolls are equal, then both players must Roll Their Hand. Continue as necessary until one player either concedes defeat or gains a Strike, at which point their Operator loses the contest.

Strikes, using cards, and All Or Nothing all affect the outcome of your opponent player’s die roll the same way they would the Critical Number of a challenge.

Character Progression: Six Shooter is a good system for pick-up games, but if the GM and players want to create a series of adventures for their characters, they can easily do so with these rules.

At the end of an adventure, if a player has at least one unused face card or Ace face-up in their hand, they can give one Operator at the table (including their own) an extra Lucky Number, chosen by that Operator’s player.

An Operator can have up to two Lucky Numbers at any given time with no restrictions. Past that point, an Operator cannot gain more Lucky Numbers unless all other Operators have at least as many Lucky Numbers as they do (all Operators must have at least two Lucky Numbers for an Operator to upgrade from two to three, all must have at least three for an Operator to upgrade from three to four, etc.) This is to help prevent large power disparities within a group. Lucky Numbers must be from two to ten, and an Operator cannot have more than one of the same Lucky Number, so by default the absolute cap for lucky numbers is nine. If the GM wishes, they may set the cap lower to better fit the game.

If a player gains three Strikes over the course of an adventure, their Operator is still removed from the current adventure, but can choose to lose a Lucky Number rather than being retired permanently, letting them rejoin the group at the start of the next adventure. Maybe their buddies bailed them out of jail, or their injuries were serious but not lethal. All Strikes are reset at the start of each adventure. If a character has three Strikes and no Lucky Number, they are still retired permanently.

Playing With Jokers:

As mentioned at the start of the manual, jokers can optionally be included in the card deck. In this case, they use the following rules:

A joker can never be discarded from your hand. You cannot use it, and if you would normally lose it through Rolling Your Hand, you instead hang onto it.

A joker has a value of 0 for determining turn order.

#tabeltop rpgs #tabletop rpg #roleplaying game #six shooter rpg system #homebrew rpg #homebrew

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themegachessatron · 1 month

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A Review of my time in Skyrim's Prisons (Featuring some followers): Dawnstar Jail

This is the third part to my Skyrim Prison Review series. In this entry we discuss Dawnstar, a city plagued by nightmares caused by evil. I'm here to figure out if said evil is the result of having a shit prison system or not.

Arriving in my cell I'm greeted by a familiar sight. The amount of space afforded to prisoners in Dawnstar is practically identical to that of Morthal's cell. Could they have had the same interior designer? Whatever the case it makes Dawnstar's cell feel very indistinct (which is definitely not because the devs didn't feel like designing unique interiors that day. Definitely not). Included in the cell is very little beyond a trio of bed rolls for Sofia, Inigo and I to rest in. Inigo had been involved in our arrest this time (though not by choice). When we had arrived in Dawnstar we had checked in at the local inn, Windpeak Inn, and encountered much of the resident populace engaged in a drinks party. Apparently this party was to distract the people from the unending nightmares that has plagued them for many a night by this point. Sofia had insisted we join in this event and we did so. Inigo was reluctant at first but caved to peer pressure eventually. Rather worryingly that's as far as our collective memory goes. None of us remember what happened that night and no guards or residents told us. The only things we have as evidence of what happened are numerous splats of blood on the Dawnstar roads and a Giant's Club that was apparently confiscated from Sofia sometime after the guards caught us. Perhaps some stories are best left unknown.

Aside from the bed rolls for sleeping in, the only non-living thing in the cell was an old book tucked away in the corner. "The Wolf Queen - Book 1" was nestled in the gap between the wall and a wooden pillar. The first in a series of books concerning Potema, the famed wolf queen of the third era. Without any other objects of note and with Inigo's continued berating of Sofia growing more irritating to listen to I started to read. Included within the story is a detailed explanation of a lockpicking scenario, which offered valuable insight on the art and improved my lockpicking proficiency. This, I remember thinking, had to be a joke. They put nothing in the cell except some old bed rolls and a book detailing how to pick the cell lock and escape? Either they had put the book inside to entertain bored prisoners not knowing its helpful contents or it had been discreetly left behind by a thief who had previously resided in this very cell. Either way, the stark lack of pretty much anything in the cell at all spoke volumes for the management of Dawnstar Jail. Either they cannot afford to place things in the cell, or they cannot care to.

It was while I read the secret literature in my cell that a guardsman approached our cell. He told us that he was sick of listening to my associates argue between themselves and that if they did not cease their debate he would stop them by using Sofia to warm the guard barracks and Inigo to make a forth bed roll. It was clear the man was restless (what with the nightmares and all) and was beyond fed up with the noise. Personally I couldn't blame him, rude as he was. After Inigo and Sofia gave their word to becoming and remaining silent the guardsman left up into the guard barracks, presumably to get some food, drink, or a fool hearty attempt at rest. We in the cell took this as our moment to explore beyond our cell.

The vicinity outside our cell bore some strong similarities to that of its Morthal equivalent, but also some drastic differences. Like Morthal there was a writer's desk for legal documents which was equipped with the familiar writing quill, paper rolls and wine. Interestingly though next to this was what appeared to be a large barrel not too dissimilar to ones used to hold mead or other such alcoholic beverages. One would assume that this would drive Sofia to forcefully chain herself to the desk and not be taken away from it as if protesting against the at-the-time Stormcloak occupation of the Pale, and yet she did not. Likely because she was still recovering from the hangover brought about by the events of last night (Thank Ebornarm for these visual illustrations. I doubt I'd have remembered anything without them). Additionally worth noting is the placement of the prisoner belonging chests. Unlike the Dragonsreach Dungeons and Morthal Jail, the chests here are kept close by to where a guard is expected to frequent and out of the direct accessibility of a prisoner. This makes it much harder for the overly-ambitious prisoner to access their belongings and storm aggressively out of the prison using a steel battle-axe of fiery souls or the like.

Directly opposite the guard desk was a food table. Keen followers of formal logical reasoning will note that this means the table has food on it. Food which I don't understand. Surely if a peckish guard wants to eat something they can go upstairs to the guard barracks and get something in a short time or, better yet, bring something down when they start their shift. That is unless this food was meant to be given to prisoners but considering that a) we were not offered any food while in our cells and b) the guards were clearly not interested in giving us anything at all I seriously doubt the food was meant for us. Either way, Inigo helped himself to some bread.

Proceeding upstairs to the guard barracks we were greeted with a dual-level affair. The base level felt very... well... base, for lack of a better term. It remined me much of the Riverwood trader, and indeed the nearby Mortar and Pestle shop. The furniture and decoration was just as drab as the building layout on this floor. A guardsman had been sitting enjoying a late breakfast when we entered and we briefly exchanged words with the tired old goat wherein he expressed his extreme tiredness (which probably explains why he didn't attack us on the spot) when Sofia suddenly suggested a solution. Before he could respond she knocked him on his back and left him out cold. In her defence, he did get some sleep then, so it really was for the best.

The guards upstairs were not so weak from a lack of rest. No sooner had I arisen the stairs had their weapons been drawn and their fury let loose. Even the brief second trying to commit the visual of the room to memory let a guard get off a lucky swing of their blade. Not wanting to incur further injuries and fearing the captain's large weapon we bid a swift retreat. These guards were more alert than I expected. Perhaps the lack of rest had made them ore irritable and better at sensing shifts in atmosphere. Either way, it is to be commended. Such swift action is admirable in guards and other holds can learn a thing or two from these alert men and women.

To conclude this review, I felt conflicted leaving my experience with Dawnstar Jail. The guards here show clear skill and aptitude in their roles, but the bland design and complete emptiness of the cell bar some bed-rolls and a book probably not even meant to be there to begin with leave much to be desired and unlike Morthal, Dawnstar is not quite a nowhere shithole in the middle of a boggy, sweaty swamp next to a vampire den so there is far less room to justify certain shortcomings.

Final score: Four Steel Battle-axes of Fiery Souls out of Ten Steel Battle-axes of Fiery Souls

Thank you for reading this review. Next time We discuss Falkreath and see if its jail is as dead as the absurdly large cemetery and all the people that resides there.

#skyrim #tes v #tes v skyrim #dawnstar #Dawnstar Jail #Skyrim Prison Review #inigo the brave #inigo #sofia skyrim #part three #Everyone here is tired #I can see why place is mid af #I mean seriously it's so dull #But hey #at least they have that one Dark Elf priest people on this site like

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