#[ the meta answer is. plot armour. ]

[total-drama-brainrot]

What do you think of the Heather was kept in the game by the producers for ratings/drama theory?

What do you mean, theory? That's literally canon.

In World Tour, at least. Heather's contunied "survival" through Island is mostly happenstance and, from a meta standpoint, plot armour, but in-universe it's mostly a lot of coincidences resulting in her not being voted out from her team.

In World Tour? The only thing keeping Heather around was the fact that her team always seemed to miraculously lose when that episode's challenge was a rewards challenge.

Alejandro's sabotaging of Team Victory helped out with that a bit, but a lot of Heather's "luck" in World Tour fell solely on the shoulders of the producers wanting to keep her around. She's a conflict generator, the conflict generator, and that paired with her looks and her entertaining personality make her a "rating's jewel". Of course they want to keep her around for as long as possible, and it just so happens that Chris already established that rewards challenges won't be disclosed until after the losers were determined. Ergo, should Heather's team lose and inevitably vote her off, Chris can just claim it was a rewards challenge the whole time.

It's not just that though. There's other, smaller instances of favouritism towards Heather in World Tour that lend credence to this.

Her team got lost in the Amazon? The "zing-zings" worship her as a goddess and, oh, give her a golden tooth to replace the one Leshawna knocked out of her mouth the previous episode - convenient that they would go out of their way to "fix" Heather's appearence, it's almost as if her looks are a big part of her appeal (in-universe) and therefore the show's viewership.

Chris outright tells Alejandro that he's not allowed to have DJ join their team, but has no qualms about Heather cozying up to him throughout Newfoundland - implying he was more than happy for Heather to recruit DJ (a known strong contestant) to her side, making her elimination more unlikely.

This isn't so much a theory as it is just looking deeper at the source material itself; the dots areall there, and it takes very little effort to connect them. The producers wanted to keep Heather around because she's good for ratings and good at causing drama - the show's whole brand. In doing so enabled her antagonist-to-antihero arc against Alejandro which only generated more audience engagement (and consequently avenue) and incentivisined them to keep pulling strings to ensure she stayed on the show for as long as possible.

[griefbringers]

"You didn't get unmade."

he knows what the corinthian is looking for, what questions it's really asking.

why me and not you? didn't you do horrible shit in the waking too? why was my predecessor punished and you weren't?

the gravedigger shrugs its massive shoulders.

"skill issue."

[lensman-arms-race]

6 for the Camera Titan?

Anything you think of?

6. Worst personality trait

I think they absolutely have a martyr complex and won't allow themself to back down even when it would make the most sense to do so. We've seen in recent episodes that TCam recklessly keeps fighting even though they should have hauled ass to a repair bay ages ago!

It's also getting bad from a meta perspective: I wrote in an earlier post that Dual Plunger Cam being able to apparently shrug off bisection and the Scientist Toilet's laser strips the narrative impact from any further damage they sustain - because we'll be expecting them to just shrug it off again.

We saw TCam struggling after their used up all their core flame attack to destroy the G-Coy, then they got their shit packed in by the kamikaze toilets (haa, I love that we can use phrases such as 'kamikaze toilet' when discussing this series). They're surely at death's door! This is tense! Then - oh, they're still flying around. At the end of episode 67 when TCam is still standing (despite missing 3 out of 5 camera lenses, an arm and having taken a buzzsaw to the neck) I was thinking 'oh come on' a bit. I don't want TCam to die, of course, but after going through all that they shouldn't be standing; they should be lying weakly in TSpeaker's arms. If we see them get decked again, it won't be heart-wrenching any more; we'll expect them to just shrug it off again.

So, I guess, TCam's worst trait is that they know they have plot armour.

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(All answers from the question list)

(Original post with list of questions)

[r-biter]

1) i think sy!lbh is like an inbetween draft between the original outline and the actual book. A version that kept a lot of the theming and intent of the outline but dtarted including stuff like wives and fanservice.

2) i like the idea of him getting memories slowly overtime and thats how he figures it out. SQH helps him because hes like hey wait i like. Remember writing something like that but it never got to the final draft. Hold on??

(The fact thay theres more then one universe based on sqh's writing makes him crash out internally but its fine its fineeeee this totally isnt gonna make him paranoid)

3) The bingge extra probably does happen and id like the idea that at some point sqq casually mentions that theyre the same person in different ways and lbg internally is like '???' And tries to dubtly figure out what the hell he means and once he gets to the answer hes ejected like canon and instead of trying to find a 'nize shizun' hes just tryna find a Nice Him which is really really hard for obvious reasons. In this au binggeyuan takes the form of him managing to find a version of shen yuan that still actually HAS his memories as lbh and its just the weirdest shit possible. Local Man Projecting Daddy Issues on guy who is mentally Just Him But Older.

4) also i have this meta idea abt how protagonist halos work in this which is that in this universe sqq and lbh are actually kind of sharing the halo because the universe recognises sqq as a Luo Binghe of some sort which is actively why canon is so messy because theyre sharing their plot armour

*selfcest enjoyer voice* have we considered a sy-is-(a)-lbh-reborn! au? Specifically with him not knowing that?

[lesbianwyllravengard]

Bro, why nobody closed and blocked the transmission room door while taking the hostages in the Stratford Tower chapter?

Bro...

BRO 🤡

LMFAO literally they just left it wide fucking open basically.

The funny answer could be that they all have no object permanence and so when they no longer see the door it ceases to exist to them.

The meta answer is that they wanted Simon to die so bad so they had to take every chance at getting him injured at Stratford tower to the point where the only way to get him out with the group is to both ruse the guards and shoot the runaway newsboy. Which of course they have to kill the newsboy, we've talked about it previously where violence always = immediate death to the innocents in this game🙄 And of course, if Simon gets injured here they're relying on fans to be so distracted by Connor they just go up to the roof and get Simon shot. I'm sure I could give plenty of theories as to why Simon had less plot armour than the statuette they found in Carlos Ortiz's house, but I'll just leave that open for now

[robotlesbianjavert]

MVA is a Matryoshka Doll of Character Development & Framing: Yes This is About How the Anime Failed. Whatever.

Breaking it down, the My Villain Academia arc serves two (2) main purposes in the overall narrative.

→ Put the League of Villains back in a position where they can be a credible threat to the heroes after losing All for One and their potential partnership with Overhaul falling through. Obviously accomplished by upgrading Shigaraki / Twice / Toga, giving Shigaraki the Meta Liberation Army, Ujiko’s assistance, Gigantomachia’s loyalty, etc. 

Of course the anime undercuts all of this by letting the heroes know what the League is planning before the League can take advantage of their new position (ergo narratively giving heroes the advantage, as seen in the manga’s war arc) before we even get to see HOW they got all these cool new toys. So why bother. That’s a different sin that the anime has committed, we can put this on the backburner.

→ Pseudo-reboot the direction of the story so that villains are characters on equal standing with the heroes, rather than being obstacles to beat up. This involves a lot more factors, but it’s all rooted in how the arc and characters are framed, and how the characters are developed.

I talked a bit about my concern about the sympathetic framing of the League in MVA way back when we first learned about the anime arcs being shuffle here (my triumph of objectivity). The gist of it is that the arc switch undermines the way the League are portrayed as underdogs—broke, aimless, and relatively weak compared to the heroes and the army coming for their heads—and I was right! Worse, they didn’t just undermine that underdog framing, they straight up didn’t bother. There is zero context for the League’s situation post-Overhaul, pre-Gigantomachia. No explanation for how they have to rob other villain groups to get by, that their equipment is breaking down, that they have no solid end goal or means to achieve anything of note. Just a challenge from Ujiko and Gigantomachia that loses a lot of pressure without understanding the sorry situation the League is in.

Tellingly, they don’t even let the League kill the fantasy racists. Who doesn’t want to see the fantasy racists get murdered! Outside of the existence of the CRC being an interesting bit of worldbuilding that confirmed the existence of heteromorphic discrimination, which is likely to continue playing a role in the manga, it’s an easy way to let the villains be villains while allowing the readers to go with the flow into this villain-focused arc, without having to be outraged by their actions.

From the get go, we’ve lost the framing that made MVA an arc worth paying attention to when it was first released, which indicates a) that the anime doesn’t care about the actual purpose of this arc outside of setting up a flashy hero vs. villain fight for season six and b) that we shouldn’t expect much from the rest of the anime arc. Even if they get the technical aspects of it right, we’ve already lost the weight of the narrative.

MVA is also obviously known as being the big push to develop the villains as characters. We’ve gotten some character development for them before (Twice and Toga’s adventures with Overhaul, Shigaraki’s consistent growth from “brat” to a capable villain and leader in his own right), but MVA is the first arc solely dedicated to their stories and humanization. However, there are “tiers” of character development and focus here, nested within each other, that are tied into the arc’s narrative structure.

Getting them out of the way: Dabi and Compress didn’t get to do much, though we do get to see their relationships with the League in action, plus stuff like Dabi’s quirk limits which come up later. Otherwise, their actual storylines only come into fruition or start with the PLF Raid arc (which in itself is dependent on MVA but that’s another argument). 

More memorable and meaty is the development for Toga and Twice. We learn more about their backstories, we get to see them push themselves to the breaking point for the sake of survival, Toga gets to evolve her quirk while Twice finally uses his to its full potential. We also get to understand their personal philosophies, relationships with society, how they view the world around them, and their loyalty to Shigaraki and the League. And with the manga’s underdog framing and the life-threatening situations they were thrust into (plus at the time they didn’t have guaranteed plot armour the way the students and heroes did), the audience wants to root for them, even if they’re the bad guys!

Toga and Twice’s development are undeniable highlights of the arc, contribute strongly to the story as a whole, and justifiably receive a lot of attention. However, they are also primarily moments nested within the arc, tying into their personal ongoing storylines (Twice’s starting with the Overhaul arc and ending tragically with the PLF Raid; Toga’s storyline carries on into the PLF Raid with the loss of Twice and her confrontation with Uraraka). But they aren’t the primary storylines of the arc.

A primary storyline of MVA is in Shigaraki being able to identify the direction he wants to take the League in and make that a reality, as well as answering the questions of his past. MVA starts with the League’s aimlessness and with him revealing how little he remembers of his origins; the arc climaxes with him regaining his memories and having the confidence and strength to earn the Ujiko, Gigantomachia, and Redestro’s loyalty and resources, giving him the means to finally enact his dreams of destroying hero society. Toga and Twice’s development is encased within Shigaraki’s storyline, and that storyline provides a concisive beginning and endpoint structure of My Villain Academia—

Except Shigaraki’s narrative structure is encompassed by a layer even beyond that: Spinner’s story. When the arc begins, before Shigaraki can discuss his dream of a destroyed horizon, Spinner is the one challenging him about the League’s lack of direction and purpose. When the arc ends and Shigaraki stands victorious, Spinner is the witness who now understands that the destroyed horizon can be their reality. Spinner is the one watching Shigaraki throughout the arc, Spinner’s gaze is emphasized at the beginning and end of Shigaraki’s MVA storyline, and Spinner is the one who undergoes the most radical change from frustrated Stain flunky to Shigaraki’s devoted follower.

To paraphrase from @stillness-in-green, My Villain Academia is “about what Shigaraki coming into his own looks like to the people watching him”.  To Re-Destro, to Ujiko and Machia, and most importantly to Spinner.

It’s been frustrating enough over the past two years to see people who have read the manga discard Spinner’s role in the arc just because he isn’t a basic easy pretty boy didn’t get an elaborate flashback sequence the same way that Toga, Twice, and Shigaraki did. Seeing the anime not even bother emphasizes that lack of comprehension. But why does it specifically matter that the anime screwed over the Spinner & Shigaraki premise of MVA?

Aside from the anime’s decisions taking all the weight out of the story: In the current manga, Spinner is the only one left at Shigaraki’s side who is specifically loyal to and cares for him.

Barring executive meddling, Horikoshi changing his mind on plot points that he set up, and straight up bad writing (which can all very well happen): You don’t go through the effort of developing a character like Spinner, explicitly in conjunction with your main villain, as the framing perspective of an arc that is so vital to your story, without having a plan for that character. With the way Spinner is positioned right now, there’s a lot that can be done with him! And if that potential does get utilized, then the anime lost out their chance to give that potential its due.

Between the immediate loss of set up and context, tossing the pseudo-protagonist framing of the League, and gutting the emotional core of Spinner’s developing regard for Shigaraki, the anime adaptation has already lost. The rest of the episodes could be perfectly competent, but without the actual base of the arc it all falls flat. Hell, they could stick Spinner’s confrontation with Shigaraki in as a flashback in his fight against Trumpet and it won’t matter; that just nests Spinner’s story within Shigaraki’s the same way Toga and Twice’s is, when it should be the other way around.

Of course there are other reasons why MVA anime arc is set up to fail without reany spect for the source material (I know that the MLA got screwed over in the PLF Raid arc but that’s no reason to not even TRY with introducing them into the show properly just LET Rikiya be his fun, threatening, and engaging self!), but the fact of the matter is that I’m not going to get my Spinaraki AMVs and I want to fucking die about it.

[w-40-k]

Looking forward to the servo skull then!

--

The first time I saw that was in a pretty depressing book I had to read for an assignment, but it also kind of amazed me at the characters connection, however subtle.

--

On the matter of my posts;

Ideally you want to look for the 'Growth in Duty' and 'oc: Graia', as well as 'storge mania' taggs on mine here blog, as that covers most of it.

I would pherhaps also reccomend you look for a fic named 'Growth in Duty' , as well as onother one called 'Storge Mania' on ao3 (contains some additional bits, and is were I and @mellennia upload everything, as well as we intend to continue it, should tumblr actually shut down [it *is* archive locked, so you'd need an ao3 account to read it there])

--

Plot armour you say?

Hm. I'll wager that, pherhaps some warp entity or another finds him amusing enough to want to keep around (if we want to get *really* meta. In a sense, you as his *creator* like him and want him to stay. Author's favorite is certainly the best plot armor he can possibly have.

Though admittedly that doesn't *nessecarily* correlate to him going to be hale or healthy.)

Maby the laughing god? Keeping him around to unintentionally foil smb scheme sounds like right up that guy's ally.

Also Horus knows? Ok I'm beat, though I think I'll stick to the 'keeping a simpleton around having it's uses' theory.

OK upon further consideration, I'll say he might be really good at taking punches. That in addition to smb obviously taking an interest in him, might make him a *literal* punching bag.

That's to say, in a comedic, loony toons like fashion. He might get injured (metaphorically or otherwise), but he isn't *truly* wounded, and the next moment he goes back to whatever he was doing before.

And horus as a primarch can actually sense the mark of whoever laid their on Jaros, but since it isn't actually malicious or harmful, he is alright with letting things be.

(The one story of yours i read, which had both horus and Jaros in it, also certainly seemed to imply that horus is rather bemused by Jaros antics)

--

Good to know then.

Just had to be sure though, I'm occasionally a *touch* paranoid about my intentions not being as clear as I'd like them to be (more reasons why i tend to include side tangents, as they allow me to explain myself further)

--

Looking forward to the Primarch names post(s? Hopefully) then.

--

The more the merrier!

The discussions I have with @mellennia very much hinge on the both of us noticing things (occasionally even details the other didn't) and considering the implications there off. The insights of a third person would be more then appreciated.

Any ernest commentary and questions are welcome, so long as you are willing to acknowledge that it might take a moment before either of us actually get's to composing an answer to you (though I'll try my best to make it worth your while).

[Edit: got ahead of myself here. That's to say, I'll be more then happy if you decide you that what we discuss is to your liking and you want to participate. No pressure on anything though, this is supposed to be fun for all who participate (even just lurking is fine, though any contributions *are* very much appropriated)]

--

Great to hear that and I'm genuinely happy that you have smb in your live who shares that interest with you.

Shadows Within Shadows

Seventeen | part 1 part 2 part 3

@w-40-k @ghrgrsfdesfrfg

Cassian¹ withdrew deeper into the shadow of the maintenance alcove, his midnight blue armor adjusted to absorb rather than reflect the dim light of the corridor. His breathing slowed to an imperceptible rhythm, a technique learned from his youth on Nostramo.

The Word Bearer had noticed something. Not him specifically but something.

Interesting.

The chaplain had changed his path, chosen an unexpected corridor. A test? A coincidence? Either way Cassian had nearly been caught flat footed which was an unforgivable error for one trained in the art of terror.

He watched Erebus disappear around a corner then waited seventeen heartbeats before moving. Seventeen. A number of ill-omen on Nostramo.² Appropriate given how many days remained until the Word Bearers departed.

The soft hiss of his armor's joints was dampened by the modifications his Legion's tech-marines had implemented before this self-assigned mission. The sound suppression wasn't perfect, nothing was, but it was sufficient to fool most ears. Even transhuman ones.

But the First Chaplain wasn't most ears. That was becoming increasingly apparent.

Cassian slipped between maintenance shafts, following a route that bypassed the main corridors. His knowledge of the Vengeful Spirit's layout had become intimate over the months of his stay. It was probably better, he suspected, than many who had served on her for years.

"Sixteen junctions," he whispered to himself, counting down as he moved. "Fifteen. Fourteen." The habit kept his mind focused, prevented the whispers that sometimes came when he was too long in darkness.

His purpose here had evolved since its inception. What began as a challenge, could a Night Lord remain undetected aboard the flagship of the Emperor's favored son?, had become something more complex. He'd gathered intelligence as expected of him but he'd also found something unexpectedly satisfying in becoming the ship's ghost.

Cassian always watches. The phrase brought a cold smile to his lips. The mortal crew's fear was a soft thing, not the sharp terror his Legion typically cultivated. A ghost story rather than a horror.

Until now it had been merely amusing to watch how the myth spread. Now it might prove problematic.

He paused at a junction, head tilted, listening for the faint sounds of ship's operations. His helm's autosenses picked up the elevated heartbeats of a maintenance crew three corridors over, nothing unusual. But something else lingered in the air. A scent that didn't belong.

Incense.

Faint but distinctive. The kind used in Word Bearer rituals.

Cassian's eyes narrowed behind his helm. Erebus was laying groundwork already. Marking territories perhaps. Or simply creating sensory traps to detect intruders.

Clever.

He backtracked, choosing an alternate route. Tonight called for observation, not confrontation. The First Chaplain was up to something beyond the official reasons for his visit. Cassian had witnessed enough meetings and secretive data transfers to be certain of that.

And now Erebus was aware that someone was watching. This complicated matters.

Cassian reached a maintenance shaft that would take him to the lower decks where he'd established one of several hidden niches. As he climbed down, his thoughts turned tactical.

The Word Bearer would seek information first. Logical. Methodical. He would mine the human crew for rumors, perhaps seek access to security logs. Cassian had measures in place to counter the latter, phantom data trails, false sightings in impossible sequences. The confusion would buy time.

But the former... The humans talked. Always talked. Their fear of 'Cassian' was controlled, predictable. They used it to police themselves. If Erebus began asking questions...

A cold spark of anticipation ignited in Cassian's chest. This could be the true test he'd been seeking.

He reached his hidden alcove, a maintenance bay supposedly decommissioned due to radiation leakage. The warning runes kept the curious away and his own modifications ensured no actual radiation signatures registered on scans.

Inside he removed his helm and set it on the small workbench. The recycled air felt stale against his pale skin. His eyes, naturally adapted to Nostramo's eternal night, had no need for the dim illumination he permitted himself but light helped organize thoughts.

"Seventeen days," he murmured, voice hoarse from disuse.

He began cataloging what he knew of Erebus, both from observation and Legion intelligence. The Word Bearer was more than it appeared to the casual viewers. Cassian wasn't sure if it was danger or something else but since the specifics of that possible danger remained elusive. He operated through layers of meaning and suggestion. Even his words of friendship carried hidden barbs.

A worthy opponent, then.

Cassian felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward. He wouldn't just hide from the First Chaplain. That would be... inefficient. Better to control what Erebus discovered. Feed him half-truths. Lead him down carefully constructed paths.

After all sometimes the best way to stay hidden was to be seen exactly where and when you chose.

He began preparing for tomorrow. The hunt had begun.

And night was his domain.

Note: I admit that a Night Lord is probably a bit way too predictable, however his reasons to be there shouldn't be outlandish. Or probably it is. I kind of liked the idea and had to go through with it.

¹His real name is unknown to you. For now. He is an oc, of course, so it is perhaps irrelevant.

²I just made it up to fit the title and everything. Erebus is of the XVIIth legion, seventeen days... I had to.

[erikthesnipermain]

A TF2 Gameworld Theory

This is a theory about why Respawn and multiples of people is canon in the world of TF2

First off, let me state that when I talk about the "world of TF2", what I'm really talking about is the universe in which the games and the meet the videos are set. There is evidence to believe that the game and comic take place in entirely different canons, but that is a post for another day. This theory (as with all of my TF2 content) will be focused on the universe in which the game is set.

Respawn

In the game universe, it’s very likely that respawn is canonical. There are voice lines that suggest this, for example:

These voice lines are from my boy the Sniper, and I'm sure there are more from him and other classes. They clearly reference dying multiple times. They also give an insight into how the Mercs view their job, with them being sort of viewing it like a game.

Respawn being a canon thing in the universe fits very well into the tone of the game and it’s light-hearted but somewhat dark sense of humour. The Mercs behave like people who are repeatedly killing each other for fun or competition, and I think that respawn is an integral part of the TF2 universe, even if it’s never explicitly stated that it is a thing in the universe.

Now comes the question of how exactly respawn works. This I cannot say for sure, but my guess is that it's linked to souls and science. We know that people in the TF2 universe have souls, as on certain Scream Fortress maps dying causes the player to turn into a ghost and stay that way until they are able to respawn. My theory is that Mann Co built respawn machines, that collect a person's soul upon their death and spawn a new body for them to inhabit.

Also, I think it makes meta sense for respawn to be canon. The comic cast cannot die due to the universe not letting them since Medic took their souls, but from a meta perspective they cannot die because they are plot-armoured characters in a linear comic story. Meanwhile, the game cast cannot permanently die to to a machine bringing them back, and from a meta level because they are characters in a game.

Multiples

A harder thing to explain is why there are multiples of each Merc. This goes beyond there being a BLU and a RED version of the Mercs, as we can see that there are multiples of people who are on the same team. Some could dismiss this as just a gameplay thing, but we clearly see a crap ton of BLU soldiers in Meet The Medic.

Admittedly, this is a weirder one to explain since there is hardly any mention of this in the game's canon. I do think that there is ground, however, to believe that the "multiple versions of the same people" gameplay feature is canonical in the universe. For example, there are voice lines in which the Mercs are talking to their double, so it's safe to assume there are at the very least multiples of each class.

I've also seen people interpret this a different way, stating that while there are multiple Snipers, Soldiers, Medics etc, they aren't all the same person. This isn't a necessarily bad way to interpret it, however I chose to view this as there literally being multiples of the same person since the different versions of the Mercs all have the same voice lines and accents and appearance (aside from things like hats). I think them being all the same people creates some potential for really interesting interactions.

Now the question arises of how there are multiples. Once again, I can't answer this for certain, so this is more of a guess or "my take". I've seen people say that they're clones, and I think that's definitely possible. I like to think that Mann Co either "copy pasted" or "split up" their souls into multiples, and then spawned separate bodies for each.

A really great theory about respawn and multiples of the Mercs can be found here:

https://www.timdenee.com/Respawn-Hypothesis

It doesn't 100 percent line up with my interpretation but I think it's really good as well, go check it out.

And finally, do I think that the devs specifically put these clues here for us to find and theorise about? Not really. But I do think this interpretation has some truth to it, especially the respawn part. While the devs probably just wanted to make a fun game and didn't think people would go too deep into it, I think viewing the world of Team Fortress Two from this perspective makes it all the more fascinating.

[thewinterraven]

Do you have any ideas as to why Meta Knight would be immune to Kirby’s inhale power?

They never really give an answer In the show do they. It’s probably plot armour from the shows perspective, I’m not too sure how he manages it, I do head cannon that he can control some magic so perhaps that’s the reason?

Anyone have any HCs for this?

[inqorporeal]

Okay, I'm gonna do a separate post since I don't want to hijack @dad-plo-koon‘s post.

Here's my theory about why Mandalore is the way it is in TCW. Even better, the canon isn't saying I'm wrong. 

Cut for length:

HOkay. SO.

719 years before the rise of the Empire: The Mandalorian Excision. 

Mandalore is doing well -- great, actually, they've never been more productive and they've just opened a few new beskar mines. The settlements on the moon -- Concordia -- and on Concord Dawn (not to be confused with Concordia) have proven to be self-sufficient. Things are looking up!

Except not quite. Mandalore's nearest neighbor is Kalevala. They're absolutely terrified of Mandalore going on the warpath again; Kalevala's likely sent spies to investigate Mandalore's status. What they find is deeply concerning.

Kalevala goes to the Republic -- specifically the Jedi -- for assistance. If Mandalore starts conquering again, Kalevala thinks it'll be the first target on the list. They’re probably not wrong, either. The Jedi and the Mando'ade do not have a fantastic history between them; the Jedi's response is to nip Mandalorian growth in the bud.

The Republic invades Mandalorian space. Technically illegally, but history is written by the victors.

Parts of Concord Dawn and other Mandalorian-held worlds suffer catastrophic bombardment during the fighting, but Mandalore is hit the hardest: half the planet is literally glassed before the end. What's left when the surface cools is a scintillating crystal desert on the southern half of Mandalore, the sand utterly useless for industrial applications without extensive processing. Even the untouched northern half of the planet suffers ecologically as the seas boil off. The planet spends months wracked by deadly weather systems caused by the complete disruption of the existing balance.

The Republic then blockades the sector and occupies it, installing their own government to manage things. The Mando’ade are forced to conceal all outward connections to the Resol’nare: no armour, no weapons, no overt training.

Beskar being as resilient as it is, the southern mines have been sealed at ground level, but below the surface are relatively intact. The Mando’ade try to rebuild, but it's a tough process when you have no outside trade coming in and a hostile power literally controlling what you can and cannot do with your own planet. It’s also physically dangerous -- inhaling glass dust can lead to silicosis and other diseases, as well as any of the compounds in the dust which might be carcinogenic. A huge portion of the southern continent had been used for industry, after all. And with half the planet's lush farmland slagged, they can't locally support the work.

Maybe it started as altruism; maybe it was always the plan.

Kalevala offers assistance in rebuilding. The Republic lets them, because hey, Kalevala was the one that lit this off in the first place. Maybe they feel a little regret? The glass-dust sand is bad for everything -- machines, droids, and people alike -- so they start with force fields and then transparisteel domes that also regulate their internal climate. Kalevala starts by building on top of the southern beskar mine access points and drilling through the melted bedrock, so the material to rebuild can be collected without risking going out on the desert. They bring in extra help from Kalevala. It takes a couple decades to get the dome cities to the point where they can operate without direct assistance from offworld.

The Republic offers no direct assistance during the Reconstruction, but it’s pretty clear who they’re favoring. When they finally back out of Mandalorian space, it’s a Kalevalan regent they leave in charge.

By this point, the Kalevalans who arrived to assist in the reconstruction have settled. Families have been started. The domes are designed for comfort, and with the beskar mines now functioning as commercial sources, there's a financial boom that promises to have the population living well.

Somehow, those proceeds never make it to the northern half of Mandalore. Some of the survivors warned against cooperating with the Kalevalans, and others kept reminding the people set on restoring the south that the Mando'ade don't need a planet in order to have a home: they can have the Resol'nare again, for which these outsiders have no understanding nor respect.

The largest dome in the south, Sundari, schisms from Keldabe. The northerners have a Mand'alor -- or choose a new one, if the previous perished in the Excision (there’s no information either way) -- but they don't understand what it was like to suffer in the desert trying to rebuild -- maybe there was a disagreement during the process on how things should be done. Sundari picks its own Mand'alor -- one of the Kalevalans who had gained a good reputation during the Reconstruction, someone who at least appreciates the local culture.

They set up a local government that's similar to what they're accustomed to on Kalevala -- and why shouldn't they? Their advisors are Kalevalan, and it's not like the southern population is going to resist the policies of a Mand'alor they elected.

Diplomatic discussions open up with Kalevala. See, they didn't just provide assistance out of the goodness of their hearts: they expected repayment. Through a combination of politics and trade deals, Mandalore becomes subject to Kalevala; to take the sting off, it's declared an extension of Kalevalan territory -- rather than a colony, which would have much lower political standing -- and declared a duchy so the planet has self-determination. The southern Mand'alor gains the title of Duke/Duchess. They're still elected, but somehow the role never strays far from the hands of Kalevalan political elites.

Again: maybe this was the plan all along, or maybe it was a bunch of rich people being opportunistic. The end result is the same.

Here’s the thing about the Resol’nare: one of the tenets is answering to the Mand’alor. If you don’t follow the Mand’alor, you’re considered dar’manda -- no longer Mandalorian. If there’s more than one group with their own Mand’alor, things get... sticky.

Tensions are high between south and north -- the New Mandalorians and the True Mandalorians. It's not really surprising the True Mandalorians would be upset: who are these outsiders to come in here, claim our titles, and then sell our world? In an effort to boost the New Mandalorian population, Kalevala offers opportunities to its citizens to help their Mandalorian territories, and to show the Mando'ade that there's a better way to live than constant warfare.

If this looks like a classic example of colonization, that's because it is.

Attempts by the New Mandalorians to subtly colonize the north have only limited success -- they can't prove it was sabotage, but they suspect. The Mando'ade who do go south for whatever reason -- extending friendship, joining family, seeking work, accepting offers from the New Mandalorians, whatever -- find that their appearance sets them apart. The New Mandalorians are nice about it, but enough social pressure happens that those Mando’ade who can't afford to leave feel stifled. Dark hair is bleached to fit in, accents are adopted, Mando'a is only spoken at home and isn't taught in the schools. Mando’ade who aren’t human -- and there are many -- have a particularly difficult time among the New Mandalorians. The Resol'nare is still kept, but only in the privacy of the home.

AND THEN. 

A few hundred years down the line, Mand’alor Jaster Mereel of the True Mandalorians attempts to enact some (overdue and widely demanded) cultural reform. Resistant splinter groups form, most notably Death Watch under the command of Tor Viszla, sparking off the Mandalorian Civil War. Viszla kills Mereel during a battle on Korda Six, leaving Mereel’s adopted son, Jango Fett, to pick up the reins. Death Watch arranges for an ambush on Galidraan that pits True Mandalorians against a detachment of Jedi and ends with Fett being sold into slavery for several years. 

With the True Mandalorians scattered, Death Watch turns their attention on the New Mandalorians, who had remained neutral throughout the conflict.

The Duke is assassinated. His teenage daughter, barely old enough to accept the title the New Mandalorians offer her, goes into hiding from Death Watch’s assassins for a year with her Jedi protectors. Traumatized and blaming anything that could be considered a warlike nature, she completely abolishes part of the Resol'nare. No armour, no weapons, no training at all. Those who protest are offered a shuttle to Concordia or Concord Dawn -- not sending them back north to bolster the decimated ranks of the True Mandalorians. She would clear the True Mandalorians off the north entirely if she could, but achieving that would require the type of violence she abhors. 

Dipping into the meta for a moment: any visual designs are a deliberate choice by the creators. Even in other cultures in TCW where there’s a level of uniformity, there are defined genetic differences in hair colour (not going to get into how everyone’s clothes always use the same palette, because that’s done for a different reason). Satine’s blond hair is noticeably a more natural shade; the bright yellow or “brassy” colour seen on a lot of civilians is the result of a bleach job that hasn’t removed all the natural tint, either by choice or by accident. This is a deliberate artistic choice and the creators are trying to tell the audience something about the culture. There’s no reason for that to be the case unless there’s social pressure behind it to maintain a certain appearance. Particularly since -- one would assume -- Death Watch still maintains the acceptance of non-human species into their ranks, conformity of appearance both expresses the New Mandalorians’ passive resistance to their enemy and internal support for their culture. 

It’s worth noting that the Excision itself was a plot device introduced to the IP in 2010 specifically as backstory for the show.

Mandalore’s implied recent history is one of colonization and cultural genocide, and you can fight me over it.

[hikaru9]

Shadowhunters 3x16 - The Malec infirmary scene and the importance of marriage

Like everyone else out there, I really enjoyed Malec this second half of season 3: the domesticity, the small gestures, the brave “I love you”’s exchanges. However, the infirmary/hospital scene in episode 16, immediately after Magnus woke up, got me right in the feels. This is a Magnus fangirling meta.

I’ve been an advocate for Magnus’s feelings since forever (lol) and I was so proud of the show during the exchange between Alec and Magnus at the Institute’s infirmary, when Alec tries to convince Magnus to get rid of Lorenzo’s magic. The whole exchange is pure gold. It’s full of details and it shows how the writers did actually put a lot of effort in the portraying of Magnus Bane. Harry Shum Jr is perfect, once again.

People need to understand that it’s not that easy for Magnus to live without his magic. It’s actually like asking a Shadowhunter to stop being one. It hurts for many reasons, but the main one is that being a warlock - or being a Shadowhunter - is what they’ve been all of their lives. It’s what and who they are. They worked hard for it, they studied, they fought, they failed, they succeeded. All of their lives evolved around it. To lose all that, means losing part of themselves.

This is one of the reasons why Magnus can’t accept it. He has been a warlock almost all of his life. And being a warlock is the greatest part of him, he thinks. People love him because he’s powerful, because his magic can help them. People call him because they need something from him (season 1!); people love him because they can use him or they are fascinated by him.

When Alec lists all his qualities, Magnus’s only normal reaction is to shake is head. Alec doesn’t understand. The adjectives he associates Magnus with are a consequence of being a warlock: according to Magnus, he is wise because he was immortal so he learnt what is wrong and what is right; he is generous because he could use magic to make things appear and he could be useful to anyone at anytime; he is brave because of his magic and his abilities to use it; he is incredible because he was the High Warlock of Brooklyn, because he was eccentric and he liked to turn heads. Magnus doesn’t think he is all that because of who he is, but of what he was: he is convinced he was special because he was a warlock. Alec tries to persuade him but he is not succeeding: Magnus turns around but Alec stops him and continues his explanation. Magnus, however, doesn’t even notice that there is a “sparkle” in him that “lights up everything”. He thinks that that was the case just because he was a warlock, the High Warlock, and because people needed him to be that.

I already said this but Magnus doesn’t particularly like himself. And I’m not talking about Magnus Bane, the High Warlock, I’m talking about the little boy who discovered his mother killed herself because of him. I’m talking about the man we don’t know the real name of (because he renamed himself Magnus Bane, mind you), the human one, not the part of himself with demonic powers he displays to everyone to see. That part, the powerful and magical one, is his armour, the part he uses to defend himself from being hurt by people. it’s the part that prevents people to become attached to him, the part that, no matter what happens, can save him. Magnus used to reveal to humans that he was a warlock. However, a lot of people left him way before that, because they got bored of his “sparkle”, because he was too much to handle. Those who stayed with him till that point either left him because they were scared, or stuck with him for different reasons. One of them was power and fun (see Camille); the other was love. In the books, only one unnamed girl stayed with Magnus until she died, and it was in the 18th century. No one else did.

Nobody actually knows the real Magnus. People may love or hate what they see and what they think they know about him, but probably only Catarina and Ragnor know him better than anyone else. However, they didn’t meet the young, lost human boy, and they probably glimpsed him once in a while. Yet, they don’t know him. No one does. How can Alec even think that the qualities he is listing are part of the human part of Magnus? How can Alec love the weak, small, shameful boy who couldn’t save his mother, his family, and his human life? Alec doesn’t know, so he doesn’t understand. That’s why Magnus just shakes his head, and not a word of what Alec is saying seems right to Magnus. That is why he answers that maybe he would actually die for his magic. How can he live without it? It would mean going back to be what he was when he was 9. He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like being like that. He associates being without magic to being powerless, small, alone, irrelevant and a burden to others. Of course he would actually think of dying for his magic. He wants things to go back to normal, and his normality is being a warlock. His life means being Magnus Bane, not the nameless and weak 9 year old boy.

That is why he asks Alec how can he like him “like this”. Notice the use of like, not love. Magnus doesn’t even think that Alec can like him being human; but Alec is ready and he immediately says he loves him anyway. That detail was amazing. As it is amazing how Magnus points to himself, saying “Look at me!”, and all he sees is the weakness and the lack of armour, the fact that he is not strong enough to live on his own, with his fears and his vulnerabilities; and he continues, by saying “Can you honestly say you like this?”. The “like this” part seems almost derogatory, and it perfectly shows that Magnus doesn’t love himself, not like that at least.

Alec is the best boyfriend one could possibly imagine during that scene. Of course he showers Magnus with love. But how can he change Magnus’s mind in two minutes, when Magnus has hated his vulnerable self for 400 years? It’s nearly impossible.

That is why I love the marriage plot. I was one of those who, at first, didn’t like the idea much. I respected it but I thought it was way too early. I loved that they were getting to know each other little by little, that they finally accepted each other, and that they were discovering each other by living together. I didn’t need to rush things. However, the show made me love the idea of their marriage with the only plot I always adore: Magnus winning over his insecurities.

Alec is well aware he didn’t convince Magnus of how worthy he is. He knows he didn’t change his mind, thus he wants to prove that Magnus is everything he said: wise, generous, brave, incredible, a sparkle of light. What better way to do it than to propose to him? Marriage is a promise, a celebration, a new beginning. By proposing, Alec is saying to Magnus that no matter what happens, no matter their insecurities and vulnerabilities, no matter what they are, warlock, humans or Shadowhunters, Alec will always love Magnus. He is saying that no matter what will happen, there won’t be anyone else for Alec; that Magnus is the most important person in his life; that he loves no one more than him; that they will go through the good and bad of life together. It’s a promise. But it’s also a way to celebrate their love: Alec is trying to show to Magnus that their love is amazing, and that they didn’t start to love each other because of their roles in the Shadow World. It’s also a new beginning: it’s a way for Magnus to start his life anew, to embrace a well deserved healing process so that he can love himself.

There is no better way for Alec to help Magnus. They know they are perfect to each other, that their love is stronger than anything and anyone else. So, what better way to convince Magnus?

[toaarcan]

RvB 15-17 Condensed

The working title for this was “RvB 15-17 but not crap”.

Now, this might seem a little presumptuous to include Season 17 in this, which, at time of writing, has yet to be released, buuuut I’m basically mashing S15 and S16 into a single block which would make S17 actually the sixteenth season in this version. So the rewrite is that Season 17 happens a year earlier.

Now, I have my problems with RvB 15-16.

I don’t want to start off on such a negative tone, but I feel like I need to establish that before we go ahead.

While Season 15 was at worst, a mediocre RvB Season with tonal problems and inconsistent characterisation for our leads, Season 16 is all of those problems made worse. Like, it’s not Season 9 bad, but it’s still bad, and while I’ve mostly covered those issues in past posts, I haven’t really covered how much the setup for the climax is just plain stupid.

Like the setup for the finale, and thus Season 17, is as follows:

Atlus: Don’t do the thing.

Wash: Don’t do the thing.

Huggins: Don’t do the thing.

Carolina: ... Alright guys let’s do the thing.

[Time breaks because they did the thing]

It’s a little more complex than that, but not by much.

Now, I ummed and ahhhed over how to make this work for a while, but ultimately, I came to the conclusion that this is how I would do it.

For starters, 90% of Season 16’s plot is getting dumped. If not all of it. Legitimately all I’m keeping is the ending. Sorry, it’s not exactly a big loss.

Second off, I’m not heavily altering Season 15. While there’s definitely a good Season 5-13 tier plot that could be told with a fake BGC, this isn’t it, and attempting to alter that leads into a completely different set of stories. So Season 15 is mostly unchanged, just assume Temple is actually a competent villain and the plot isn’t driven entirely by the BGC being dumber than usual for a week.

So the timeline is now Season 15 -> Paradox -> Season 17.

We’re also scrubbing Wash’s injury from Season 15. It’s going to be an unnecessary complication for the lead-in to the next season anyway. If we’re going straight for the time paradox, then having Wash be injured is kinda pointless. Given that Season 16 ended on a warped Blood Gulch way before Wash ever showed up, there’s nothing to gain by having him out of action. He’s already imperilled enough by time being fucked.

“But wait,” I hear you say. “If Wash and Locus are with the heroes when they take on the Blues and Reds, surely they catch up to Temple quickly enough that the time machine doesn’t get turned on!”

Ah, but that’s the beauty of it. Whether the time machine is turned on or not is not the focus of the paradox here. And because that’s not a vital plot point, we’re free to have the characters just Travel At The Speed Of Plot, and arrive precisely in time for the actual climax.

You see, rather than changing history around Wash’s injury and thus fucking the timeline up, the key to the paradox is Church. Specifically, what happens when Church is removed from their history because someone pulled him into the present before the events of Blood Gulch really happened.

In the actual show, when Church appears in the portal, Tucker tells Caboose to pull him through, and Caboose refuses, instead bidding farewell to an extremely confused Alpha and allowing the portal to close. It’s a big moment for Caboose’s character, and it’s one of the parts of Season 15 which is pretty well-executed.

Obviously, I’m not going to overturn that and have him not have the growth. So, how does Church end up being pulled through?

“Tucker did it!”

Now, I’m not a big fan of Joe’s Tucker. In fact, that’s an understatement. I hate the way Joe writes Tucker, and I’d rather not fall into that same trap, so I’m going to explain in detail why Tucker would make this mistake.

 1) Tucker just had Epsilon die on him. Inside his head. And at the same time, the other remaining pieces of Epsilon all faded away too. And Tucker didn’t even notice it was happening, by the time he realised what was going in, the fragments were gone and he was left in a very empty and very non-functioning suit of power armour. Given how heavy this armour is, with it non-functioning, Tucker was probably unable to move until his friends removed most of the suit, so he was trapped in a coffin that was emptier than it should’ve been.

2) Struggling to cope with his grief, Tucker does something frankly stupid and activates the Temple of Procreation.

3) A while later, Tucker is starting to recover from his friend’s death, when Dylan shows up and he finds out in short order that A) Someone is committing terrorist acts while disguised as him and his friends, B) The planet he sacrificed so much, and Church gave his life for, is being blamed and might be invaded, and C) Church might be alive. This effectively halts Tucker’s recovery.

4) The consequences of his fuckup with the Temple of Procreation come back to haunt him, and suddenly, something Tucker has always been proud of- that he’s a great father to Junior- is called into question because he’s now an absentee dad to a fuckton of Chorus babies, which deals a blow to the poor man’s ego.

5) Shortly after that, the fiasco where Temple manages to manipulate him happens, and it makes things even worse for him. He should’ve seen through it after Felix, but he didn’t. And now, Wash and Carolina are hurt because of him, and the message from Church was a fake.

6) Finally, after all of this, he’s face to face with Church, and he has the chance to save him, and while maybe he could follow Caboose’s example… there’s one key problem. This isn’t Epsilon, it’s Alpha.

Y’see, there’s a big difference between those two. As has been pointed out before, Epsilon was always kind of a total prick to Tucker. A lot of this can be chalked up to Epsilon’s knowledge of the BGC coming entirely from Caboose, who purposefully left Tucker out of his recounts of their many adventures.

But this isn’t Epsilon. It’s Alpha. Tucker’s best friend, Alpha. Alpha, who went off and died without Tucker being there. Without Tucker ever getting a chance to see him once again. They got separated and one year later, Alpha died, in denial about a fact that Tucker had figured out long ago. Maybe Tucker could’ve helped save Alpha if he’d been there. Maybe Alpha wouldn’t have had to leave the safety of Wash’s suit and end up vulnerable to the emp if someone else had been there to hold the Meta’s attention.

 Tucker decides to save his friend. He’s at the end of his rope and after all the crap he’s been through on this journey, which he set out on because he wanted to save Church, he’s going to damn well save Church.

Additionally, by tying Tucker into the portal scene properly, there’s now a proper narrative throughline from the characters receiving Church’s message to the portal. Caboose has been covered, but Tucker hasn’t.

 Time paradox.

Despite his best intentions and hopefully understandable motives, Tucker has just pulled Alpha-Church out of their history before it even got started. And given how much of Seasons 1-13 was motivated by Church in some form or another… well, they��ve just unmade themselves.

The final twist is that time isn’t rewound to Season 1. We don’t need to see that. Season 1 retreads aren’t needed. If they want to remake Season 1, they should just bite the bullet and do a full remaster of the early Seasons to clean up the audio, rather than forcing new Seasons of the show to ape it.

Instead, we see a Blood Gulch wherein the same amount of time has passed since S1E01, but with none of the elements that Church brought in having happened.

Tex never goes to Blood Gulch. She spends her time hiding from Freelancer and desperately trying to find her other half, whom she was ripped away from and now will never be able to reunite with.

Tucker loses his friend, and is left with Caboose, who already doesn’t like him.

Caboose, for his part, doesn’t get brain damaged by Omega, but he still has his air shut off and Church still convinces him to drink Scorpion fuel, so he’s not doing much better.

Kai probably gets deployed to Blood Gulch faster, since Blue team is undermanned. She’s stuck in an empty box canyon with the rest of them.

York lives on, not getting recruited by Tex, until the Meta comes for him. The Meta takes Delta and leaves York to die alone.

Wyoming is not sent after Tucker, and doesn’t get the chance to formulate the plan with Omega.

Junior is never born.

Because Wyoming’s plan doesn’t happen, Wash is left to try and combat the Meta without the aid of the Reds and Blues. He fails.

The Meta remains free to hunt down and murder its former comrades. Like Tex, it ends up searching endlessly for the Alpha, which it will not find.

Without the Project’s downfall, and without Epsilon’s activation, Carolina remains in hiding.

The Director remains in hiding, endlessly repeating his attempts to perfect his remake of Allison. He never finds the answer.

Chorus is destroyed by perpetual civil war, all according to Hargrove’s design.

And as the galaxy darkens, people who would’ve been friends die or are left alone to rot, and the Project that put them there tears itself apart until only Tex, the Meta, Carolina, and the Director remain, scattered to the winds and pursuing impossible tasks, Blood Gulch remains. Its purpose is lost without Alpha, and the Project is gone, but with no new orders, VIC perpetuates the “war” between Red and Blue teams, and so it goes on. Static. Unchanging.

Cue the ending, and the setup for the next season. A Blood Gulch without Church.

[whopooh]

Knights in shining armours – or shining dresses. The MFMM August trope challenge

“I’m not sure, Sir. How do we know if she actually wants to be rescued?”

The August trope for MFMM turned out -- just like the earlier ones -- to instigate a lot of really good fic, and also very different fic. August’s trope was “the Dulcinea effect”, which means “the compulsion many male heroes have to champion, quest for, or die for girls they met five minutes ago”; the name is taken from the woman Don Quixote in Cervantes’s novel strives to be a champion for (more here).

This is a fun trope, but it’s also very ironic – making fun of these self-appointed and not seldom selfish and self-aggrandizing male champions. This poses specific problems for a fictional universe like Miss Fisher’s, where most men aren’t depicted as stupid like that, and where the male lead is behaving in what could be said to be the opposite of the dulcinea effect: very rational, not seldom actually saving people, but also hardly ever managing to save the leading lady, because the lady is so good at saving herself -- which he accepts. 

This means that just like the soulmate trope of January, the idea and the fictional universe collide in interesting ways, asking for twists and tweaks and thorough considerations. The imagination of the fanfic writers of course found ways to use the trope, and it is turned around and peaked at from different angles (here is the full collection). 

I’m trying to follow some kind of logic in this post by following who is the dulcineaing person, and who is being dulcinead – not that these words exist, but I hope you catch my drift.

“She was not in distress – she had climbed up here for the view.” Art by @kidnthehall​.

First there are fics that use well-known story templates to completely subvert the idea of the dulcinea trope -- a subversion that fits perfectly with the fictional universe of Miss Fisher.

Here we find @ollyjayonline, @kidnthehall & @solitarycyclistadventures, “Love and Other Fairy Tales”. This is a short, beautifully crafted fic, with few words and with images, rather like a picture book – a picture book for adults. It explores who Phryne is and what she stands for, and shows this as a contrast to the common fairy tale idea of a woman needing a man to come to her rescue. The fic is very succinct, and has one-liners about Phryne like "She could do everything herself – but good company was always welcome" and "She was not in distress – she had climbed up here for the view." 

A second fairy tale to the trope is @loopyhoopyfrood, “The Prince Who Said No”, where Phryne tells a lovely bedtime story about a woman who dances with everyone except one prince, who all the time tells her no, and he’s the one she falls for. The prince is so far from dulcineaing that he doesn’t even pay her much attention, which triggers her curiosity. It’s a sweet and well narrated fairy tale, with lovely reactions from Dot and Hugh’s daughter, and in the end Jack peeks into the room and helps out with the telling at just the right time:

“Did they have a big wedding?” “They didn’t have any wedding.” “They didn’t get married?” “No.” “But why not?” “Because they didn’t need to.” A familiar voice spoke up from across the room, and both storyteller and audience turned to see Jack, leaning against the doorway with a soft smile on his face.

A third fic that also stays on this meta level is @longlineoftvdetectives, “A Hero’s Journey", an amusing scene where a man is pitching a movie to Phryne in the hopes of her financing it. Both Phryne and Dot find some fault in the story’s depiction of the hero, that after an absence of three days is coming to rescue a woman he doesn't even know:

“But three days,” Dot repeated, her voice lowered this time as she leaned closer to Phryne to speak to her directly. “I think the damsel may have saved herself by now.” “In that case, the hero will be quite disappointed,” Phryne answered wryly. (...) “I don’t think so, Miss,” Dot replied, her voice now barely above a whisper. “I've seen quite a lot of movies. I’m certain the hero will find a more agreeable damsel in the next town.” 

Another fic that is primarily resisting the dulcinea trope is @longlineoftvdetectives, “Of Mothers and Men and Rescues”. This fic gives us two scenes where Phryne doesn’t need to be rescued, and also isn’t, although the set up and the conversations touch on the possibility of it -- and rather like in the first fairy tale mentioned, she doesn’t need to be rescued, but she doesn't mind company either. It’s lovely done, with a lot of mirroring between the two scenes, and both of them including Phryne hiding away from her mother, one time right before and one time right after the show’s time frame. 

In some fics, the person going into dulcinea mode is Phryne herself. 

Quailitea, “Rain and Whiskey”, is a lovely and very poignant drabble of Phryne’s introspection about her need to save people, ever since Janey: “And all the rescuing she’d done since, proof that she had always tried, dammit, that it had only been because she was too small and too weak then, and now that she was strong, it would never happen again.” It is beautiful, and in all its shortness it captures a lot.

Also in @whopooh, “Separate Spheres”, it is Phryne that has an urge to be the saviour, in this case in a more light-hearted situation – she wants to save Jack from social embarrassment. But it turns out that Jack doesn’t need her knight in shiny dress-stint, since he already has a date to the event they’re invited to, which instead causes Phryne embarrassment. On a gala night for Raymond’s film, she has to navigate the insight that Jack has friends, friends she had no idea existed, and even female friends. Much as it rattles her, it also piques her interest and of course she befriends this unexpected woman. 

Finally, Phryne in the dulcinea role is also in @zannadubs23, “Axiom Tilt”, where Phryne wants to play saviour to a young nurse. The fic has only started so I can’t predict where it’s going, but it has several very interesting parts: Phryne trying to cope with a case she starts to feel very personal about, wanting very much to help out, and Phryne being unhappy about Jack’s too thorough adjustability. I know there will be plot twists coming, but I can’t predict in what way.

The next type of fic is where someone wants to save Phryne. 

In @rithebard, “Interference”, a random, stuck up man at a party wants to rescue Phryne – from the social disaster of being with Jack. This does not end well for the unsuspecting man, whom Phryne sets straight on the matter, and in quite a physical way. In @longlineoftvdetectives, “Locked Up”, we instead see an aftermath of a similar event: a random man did try to save (well, “save”), Phryne and the result of this is that Phryne has been arrested for assault. The way Jack gets to know about this, from Dot not really breaking any confidences but hinting very thoroughly, is much fun, as is the way Jack reacts to the fact that he gets news via Dot:

“But you’ve heard from her?” “Yes.” “Of course,” he stated, a slight edge of jealously joining his tone as he leaped to a certain conclusion from Dot’s evasiveness. “As long as she’s well.” Jack pivoted to duck back into his office before Dot’s voice stopped him again. “Did you have plans with Miss Fisher, Inspector?” “No,” he answered. “Not as such.”

Jack does not in his turn try to save Phryne per se, but he sure makes her arrest more comfortable and social.

In @ollyjayonline’s, “Evil in the Shadows”, the dulcinea trope is even more surprisingly developed, by the use of a crossover with another fictional universe. Here it is Spike, the vampire from Buffy the vampire slayer, who wants to get to Phryne – he wants to understand, threaten, in a way devour her. Phryne is holding her fort beautifully, and her strength here is her bravery and loyalty. The layers of the trope are several -- Phryne rejects the idea of a man coming for her rescue: “This statement made her angry. “There most assuredly is a Jack but I don’t need him to rescue me.” and finally, in the end, Spike turns around from threat to instead wanting to save her.

In @firesign23, “One Night In Berlin”, set during WWII, Jack seems to randomly want to save a woman, which means he seems to have become a dulcinea man. But it turns out that he knows what he’s doing, as the woman might not be a stranger after all, and might also count on him being there:

“I wasn’t aware you were in town,” he said conversationally. “Just arrived,” the woman replied. “I do hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

And then, interestingly enough, finally a fic actually managed to turn Jack into a proper dulcinea knight! This happens in @firesign23's short fic “In An Instant”. We’re here not talking about the world-weary, experienced Jack we know, but about young Jack, wanting to save Rosie. This is a lovely fic about young constable Jack who is in love with Rosie, but socially below her, and so they will never be – until she is in need of help and he offers. It’s a tale about how life can change in an instant -- as the title says -- and this choice is followed up by another similar one, to go to war. Knowing how their marriage turned out later gives the fic an extra twinge of melancholy, and it’s a beautiful exploration of one way their relationship could have started.

Two fics that put the dulcinea reaction on other characters completely are Quailitea, “Hero in Love”, a very sweet short fic where Hugh wants to take on the whole world for his newborn daughter, and @flashofthefuse “About a Girl” that dives into Jane’s school life seen through one of her school mates, Fin, who has a crush on her. It’s a great exploration into both the boy’s mind and into how school could be for Jane, with mean classmates and a tendency to get swallowed up by reading. There are so many lovely details here, of Fin finding out a way to help Jane against bullies without her even noticing, of Fin seeing two grown up men assaulting Jane and trying to help her – but it turns out they are Bert and Cec and only joking with her. And there’s a lovely scene where Cec really sees and understands the boy, and also gives him some really good advice about how to treat a girl.

I’ll round up this overview with three fics that are leaning heavily towards the lighthearted and fun in their use of the trope.

In Sassasam/@phrynesboudoir, “Save Me”, there really is a rescue, Jack saving Phryne – although it turns out to be more of a sartorial rescue, and mostly being about her dignity:

“Oh come on Miss Fisher. Are you saying you need me to save you?” he chuckled. “I thought there was no problem you couldn’t overcome.” “Jack,” she said a little more forcefully. “I need your help.” “You could ask nicely,” he replied. “Do you want me to beg?” she asked sharply. “This may never happen again,” he replied.

Also in @geenee27, “In Over Her Head”, set at the beach, there is an amusing play with the trope. A girl very much wishing for Jack, who is out in the water swimming, to rescue her decides to feign distress in the water. But when she does get rescued it is from someone else’s strong arms instead -- and that is someone who completely sees through her act. Perhaps Phryne can also be said to be overly protective of Jack in relation to other women, which would be another version of the knightly persuasion, this time in a bathing suit.

Finally, @scruggzi, “Braving the Storm”, is a very fulfilling fluffy story about Jack, at City South on a Christmas eve in full storm, facing the realisation he needs to take care of two kittens. There is such powerful adorableness in Jack trying to keep up his dignity although the kittens totally melt his heart:

The assembled day shift was therefore treated to the sight of their DI handing out assignments and issuing orders with his usual taciturn efficiency, but with one fluffy kitten in hand -- which had rolled on his back in order to have his tummy tickled -- and another perched on the Inspector’s shoulder, staring the junior officers down with all the ferocity of a warrior queen. It was a sight no-one at City South who saw it would ever forget, and yet no-one could quite bring themselves to question it.

There are also lovely parallels to when he himself, one year earlier, was let in by Phryne from a similar storm. Jack decides to call them Cleopatra and Marc Antony and bring them back to Wardlow, to a surprised and sleepy Phryne. The next day, as the kittens meet the household, the poking at his dignity continues: "Apparently realising quite suddenly that he had in fact been talking out loud to a kitten in a room full of people, the Inspector’s ears turned a beautifully festive shade of red and he cleared his throat, glowering at Phryne in the futile hope that she would let his pre-caffeinated comment go unremarked.”

As we can see, the explorations of the trope has really gone in all directions, and I am extra pleased with that this month, as I thought it might perhaps be a bit of a difficult trope -- but it turned out to be just as good at generating fics as the others have been. 

That was all about the August trope. These overviews can also be found here on AO3. And I am very much looking forward to the September trope challenge -- “Rumours and Gossip”.

[bigyack-com]

Afsos Review: We Regret to Inform You That This Amazon Series Is Not Worth Your Time

Stop (me) if you think you've heard this one before. (We realise you can't but just bear with us. And no, it's not a Smiths reference.) A suicidal protagonist wants to die but they can't begin to kill themselves. Unsure of how to proceed, they are introduced to a novel idea: hire a hitman to do it for them. This is a popular conceit in filmmaking, so much so that it has its own page on both pop culture database IMDb, and plot conventions catalogue TV Tropes. Stand-up comic Anirban Dasgupta and newcomer Dibya Chatterjee, the two creators of the new Amazon Prime Video miniseries Afsos — Hindi for “regret” — likely know this, which is why they add a new ingredient to the mix: an elixir of life. On the surface, Afsos — based on the little-known Bengali novel “Golper Goru Chaande” — comes across as a black comedy that wants to engage with morbid questions, including the value of life, the spectre of death, and the price of immortality. But the Amazon series — written by creators Dasgupta and Chatterjee with another newcomer in Sourav Ghosh — is never clear on what the tone is supposed to be. All too often, Afsos finds itself in a much different comedy subgenre, an absurdist one, one where the laughs are dependent on the audience leaving its brains behind. That in itself may be generous, as Dasgupta largely fails to channel his comic talent on screen with few exceptions. Unfortunately, the failure of its comedic tag is hardly the only problem for Afsos — and its creative team. The Amazon series suffers from an incoherent narrative, where things simply happen because the writers have predetermined for them to happen, not because they should. Characters appear and disappear out of nowhere in Afsos, which either treats them as plot fodder or terminates them when it runs out of ideas for their character arcs. To add to that, the direction by Anubhuti Kashyap (Moi Marjaani) is amateurish in parts, which in turn affects the performances of the actors. That leaves behind a show that doesn't have the requisite finesse to ever really pull you in. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Good Newwz, Mardaani 2, and More on Prime Video in February Afsos opens with our suicidal protagonist Nakul (Gulshan Devaiah), a failed Mumbai-based writer who's preparing to kill himself on the train tracks. This isn't his first attempt — there have been a dozen previously — as we're told in the opening 10 minutes that other people sometimes die when Nakul tries to commit suicide. Unlucky in every part of his life, Nakul laments to the therapist Shloka Sreenivasan (Anjali Patil) about his misfortune — what everyone else would instead call luck. On his way back home, as Nakul again fails to kill himself by jaywalking, he's handed a pamphlet that points him in the direction of a company that offers assisted suicide services. Except Nakul doesn't really want to die, as his therapist easily deduces, and which he later admits after a near-death experience. The problem is his contract has been handed to Upadhyay (Heeba Shah), who always completes a job and doesn't take no for an answer. Meanwhile, a parallel subplot in Afsos stretching from London, United Kingdom to Harsil, Uttarakhand involves an elderly sage called Fokatiya Baba (Lalit Tiwari), a driven police Inspector Bir Singh (Aakash Dahiya), and the scheming scientist Dr. Goldfish (Jamie Alter), all of whom get mixed up in a multiple murder case that centres on an elixir of life, which — thanks to coincidences — ties into our protagonist's life. Though Nakul has a half-deathwish, his character is never really in danger since the Amazon series would fall apart without him. For what it's worth, Afsos toys with the idea of killing its protagonist in a brief meta-moment — Nakul's therapist essentially breaks the fourth wall — but it then immediately chickens out. It's the closest it comes to commenting on the genre it's based in, and its unwillingness to push further is a disappointment. And in not doing so, Afsos gives up the option of venturing into surreal humour. Had it been comfortable in embracing its obscured identity, it could then use that to justify any number of events, including the repeated defiance of the laws of physics that it indulges in. From Brooklyn Nine-Nine to Narcos: Mexico, TV Shows to Watch in February

Anjali Patil as Shloka Sreenivasan in Afsos Photo Credit: Amazon India Sure, some of it is meaningless in big picture terms but it's all part of the writers' toolkit to keep Nakul alive on Afsos, which reads like plot armour responsible for his continued existence as the show goes on. It's shoddy writing, and far from the only instance of it. Nakul and Shloka have known each other for six months when we first see them and yet, he narrates his entire pitiful backstory like it's their first meeting. Exposition is noticeably poor in general, with characters literally prodding each other to talk about themselves, or launching into (unprompted) monologues that either reveal their motivations or expound on the show's themes. Writing is ultimately an endless bane for Afsos. Its characters, most of whom are largely wasted, forget or become foolish as suits the plot. The narrative, which progresses in a lacklustre and meandering fashion, depends on coincidences to drive itself forward at times. Unable to craft genuine thrills, the Amazon series draws shock value from killing innocent people — including children — around Nakul, which makes the black comedy a lot harder to digest. And in a lone case, it turns into a Bollywood musical out of the blue. All that comes together to make a contrived and unbelievable series of events, especially in the finale — there are eight episodes; we've seen all. Just like Nakul regretted hiring a hitman, we regret to inform you that the Amazon series isn't deserving of your time. (Sorry, not sorry) it was too fitting a title — Afsos — not to be used as a punchline. Afsos is out now on Amazon Prime Video worldwide. Read the full article

[empiregalaxy]

Jon is very dumb in the show and even though Kit Harington has improved over the years, he's still lacking as an actor. I'm really tired of seeing Emilia and Kit's same facial expression and these two are the weakest links in the acting chain imo. Their characters are also heroic and boring, it takes the realism away how strong their plot armour is. I'd be glad to watch one struggle from them that's not solved in 10 mins or so. I'll never get the hype about them both together or apart.

Agree. 

I can’t stand them in the show, and I only really like Jon when he interacts with his family, Ygritte, Sam, Tormund and Edd. Out of that? He’s a grumpy zombie who hanged a child and then had the nerve to say he ‘had’ to. I understand alot of people on tumblr here love Jon in the show, but if I am going to be honest- I don’t hate him, I just don’t care for him.

I don’t think the showrunners actively try to make Jon ‘heroic’ or ‘smart’- they just assume the viewers already view him as those things. This meta highlights my problems with Show! Jon. Both Jon & Dany have so, so much plot armour- why didn’t the Whitewalker in Hardhome, when duelling Jon stab him immediately? I’ll never get an answer to that question. There struggles- as you put it well, are just solved in 10 minutes.‘Battle Of The Bastards’- Daenerys just burns her way out of the issues in Meereen.

Jon is just grumpy, and Daenerys is just pissed and has a deadpan emotion. It’s fun to make memes out of... not so fun to actually watch them. I think Kit and Emilia are just up against so many good actors like Maisie, Lena, Peter, etc. So there lack of acting becomes more obvious. 

[taiblogcomics]

Hack’s Back, and That’s Whack

Hey there, regional dialect terms for "soft drink". Don't worry, I've had a word with my supplier, and as you might imagine, he just didn't want to go out and mail comics during that whole polar vortex thing. So hopefully by next week, we should have some actual pony comics to review finally. In the meantime, here's one more whack at the backlog~

Here's one more cover:

This cover must be from the artist's blue period. Oh, and hey, Hack. You're looking good for a dead person who is also digital. Unfortunately, it seems the rest of the Squad doesn't know that red tape keeps out internet ghosts, so they'll just be slowly digitised. Like that guy in Tron, presumably. Is "And their dead shall come from them" the natural follow-up to "and a child shall lead them"?

Oh hey, do you guys like political allegory? Because, oh boy, here comes some. Okay, picture Captain America. Now modernise him: big chest armour, bare arms with tribal tattoos, a holographic visor, a really big gun with five barrels. He's a new super soldier funded by the government to "make America safe again", and his name is The Wall. Do you get it? Do you get it, comic reader?? The announcer also uses "huge" as a descriptor, just in case it wasn't subtle enough. The Wall, also known as Captain David Prohaska of the US Navy, further demonstrates his new powers (i.e. a big gun) by destroying a tank. It is then shown this is all on a TV commercial that Amanda Waller is watching. Because of course it is~

Rick Flag, who we can finally stop identifying as "Jr" now, enters Waller's office and says that this pretty much makes the Suicide Squad defunct. He further adds that naming their hero "The Wall" might be a personal dig at Waller specifically. He's here to pick up his transfer notice. Yep, he's quitting the Squad--totally and for real, you guys--to work on this The Wall project. They need someone experienced in metas, and he's sick of the stink of Waller's shit. She tells him he's a pansy who just doesn't want to face Harley Quinn post-breakup. He walks out, and Waller turns back to her TV just in time to miss the suspicious energy crackle behind her~

Waller checks in on her Squad, and Harley answers the signal because Katana is occupied. They're out fighting Damage, one of the new books DC had just put out. So you know, this is basically in-house advertising. The old pre-New 52 Damage was kind of cool and nuanced, particularly after he joined the JSA. This new Damage is literally just the Hulk. He gets super-strong when he's angry and smashes the place up. Anyway, I guess this comic isn't the place for a "every one of the new books DC introduced post-Rebirth is a ripoff of Marvel" rant, as true as it is. We're busy fighting Damage, and he's such a tough customer that they've brought Solomon Grundy, Parasite, and Giganta along with the rest of the Squad. And Parasite's already dead, so thanks for that, comic.

Waller reiterates that their goal is to capture Damage, which should have been pretty obvious. Captain Boomerang, as usual, refuses to help because the enemy is "bigger than me Aunt Mabel and almost as angry". Either way, he probably wouldn't be much help, because Damage buries Grundy in the ground with one punch. A sneak attack by Giganta also fails, because Damage throws a car in her face. He then continues to punch out the rest of the Squad, and as they each fail, Waller gets up and goes for a walk, putting Boomerang on silent. Would that we all could do so~

Waller takes a stroll around to her other charges. Killer Croc has regressed to a bestial state, and thus is kind of useless. June Moone is mourning for the man Croc once was, and thus is too catatonic to become Enchantress. And King Faraday is still possessed by the Red Wave, and also is kind of a smartass. Waller then just keeps walking, boards a helicopter, and goes to Chicago. She tells the guards to put the place under emergency lockdown while she's out. They comply, while those mysterious electric crackles go off unnoticed again. So where's Waller going? Well, you remember that plotline about her estranged children~?

Waller arrives at Sacred Heart Hospital, and her two sons confront her. Martin is angry, and tells his mother to go away before she disturbs the peace with another supervillain attack or something. The other brother, I forget his name, leads Waller over to a viewing window, where her daughter can be seen in the hospital bed. She's cradling her newborn daughter. Congrats, Waller: you're a grandmother. Now get out, your daughter doesn't want to see you. Waller complies, though she's angry, and retreats to her private car. Before she can return home, though, suddenly her smartphone comes to life--and it's not Siri or anything~

No, of course, it's Hack. Hey guess what, she's not dead. Well, she's dead, yeah, but not gone. She's an electricity ghost, and like many ghosts, she wants her murder solved. Having possessed her phone, Waller can't call Belle Reve for help or anything. And as an electricity ghost, Hack can be a lot of places at once, and so at the same time she's taunting Waller through the phone, she's also disabling the electronic locks in the prison. In fact, she's disabling everything in the prison. In bloody fact, she is the prison now. All your base are belong to Hack~

Oh boy, if you thought the whole Hack plot was done, well, here’s some more! And man, if it wasn’t for that electricity crackle (and the cover, I guess), you wouldn’t know where it was going. Is it about Rick Flag leaving and this big tease over The Wall, and his profoundly ham-fisted real-world political allegory? Is it a clumsy tie-in for some Hulk ripoff book? But no, it’s about Hack again. Because apparently someone demanded it. Sure wasn’t me~