#Tone and characterization!!!!!

[chicago-geniza]

And that's how you do Violet Crawley subtle understated antisemitism by showing not telling in prequel fanfiction!!! 😤

[bumblingbabooshka]

Oh, so we're all about 'I love my wife - I'd kill for my wife' guys here until it's Stonn?? My man Big Pebble????? [Patreon | Commissions]

[hanzajesthanza]

i feel like i just got so used to ciri and how natural ciri and geralt’s relationship left, via being introduced to the witcher via witcher 3, and then reading the middle of the saga before i finished the short stories…

that i never really innately picked up on the fact that ciri turning out to be geralt’s daughter and not his son was… uhm, part of the entire surprise, let’s put it that way :’)

geralt and ciri are just soooo natural as a father and daughter duo that i can’t imagine it any other way, if ciri had been a boy this would have been way less remarkable as a series, there would be no witcher series as we know it. so to me ciri being a girl was the normal and default, expected way things were supposed to go.

even when i read a question of price-sword of destiny-something more for the first times, i was like “ok” when ciri being a girl was a switch of expectations: geralt (and, supposedly, the reader) having expected pavetta to have a son. like… “alright, it’s a girl, so what.”

i had to be informed about how this was an intentional shock… not only because i’m not a parent, but i mean, well, ultrasounds get mixed up all the time, right… it’s not so uncommon to have a kid and be surprised by the gender…

and because of this, i was more inclined to eyeroll at blood of elves being preachy with going over ciri’s biological sex what seemed like ten million times in chapters two and three… what with the whole “daughter has her first period” subplot, ciri upset over her lack of potential strongmanship, and the witchers mostly relying on triss for guidance in raising a girl. the moral being both “just raise her like any other child” and “be sensitive to her needs that you’re blind to…”

although i still think these segments have visibly aged and date the series (not inherently a bad thing, just a quality of it)… they do make more sense when i try to empathize more with the perspective of a new father… who didn’t know he was receiving a girl… who thought she died… who only got her back through a miracle… and having to raise a girl… that’s not a young child anymore, not yet a teen, but is very shortly going to start going through puberty?! it’s like growing up in the desert, just learning what water is, and then getting thrown into the ocean.

because “having to raise a girl” still doesn’t seem that strange to me, but then i remember geralt didn’t see a woman and only had heard about them as a concept until he was an adult (because “warrior-monk” realness), he grew up with a hole in his heart that his absent mother bore, he lives in a highly gendered society, he experiences hostility from everybody of course but especially from women and girls, who take fright at him for… specific reasons explained by the old women in edge of the world…

no, geralt’s not helpless, but i forget, because he acts normal, but… (i mean, although he has issues, he could have really gone off his rocker with regards to women, a little sacrifice confirms this and vilgefortz embodies this) i forget that geralt’s inexperience with women… mostly manifesting in anxiety and both uncertain and impulsive behavior… like ghosting with a nosegay of flowers, the “dear friend” and all… would affect his view of the gender as a whole, including how he sees ciri. and it does.

in his situation, yes, having to raise a girl does intensify the element of “what the fuck am i doing”. especially as a single dad.

and although i do like it when the pov shifts from geralt in the saga but just to another person in the room, for how he becomes more of a distant and enigmatic figure, seeing him through others’ eyes always makes fills me with this uncertainty. buuuut, i would fucking adore blood of elves chapters two and three through geralt’s eyes just for how much of an emotional wreck he must have been… and trying not to show it to her :(

[hey-cringelord]

rarely do i feel like an anime with characters widely accepted as dark skinned have the source material itself to rely on for representation, so seeing things from JUMP and production i.g where aomine isn’t whitewashed is, like, the biggest unwanted flex

[demodraws0606]

"We needed more Two screentime !!!" Guys, it's almost like they're giving us a break from The Lore TM. You guys are gonna be thankful when next episode comes on and we get fucking decimated.

[heteromerous-rhyming]

i think that i've figured out why i don't like show sally.

ok like don't get me wrong, virginia kull?? she ATE with that interpretation. her acting?? amazing. like i could truly get the core of her character.

it's just that i don't like the character the writers give us.

cw: discussion of abusive relationships, of toxic family dynamics, probably a good bit of generational trauma. I don't really get into details except with stuff shown on the show and written in the books but i wanted to be safe.

as someone from an immigrant household, as someone whose mom works a part time minimum wage job, as someone whose seen and been there as my parents fought, i just really really dislike sally's portrayal in the show. and it's partly because of poseidon and partly because of gabe (mostly because of her character in general but yeah, lets get the men out of the way first)

I feel strongly about poseidon in his relationship to sally very specifically. i don't mind his relationship to percy either books or show. but it's pretty damn clear to me that this show was written by someone who's never experienced sally's situation, of being the single working parent with an absentee partner (or in gabe's case a partner who literally ahHHHHHh). because from the beginning, from sally's reaction and snark to gabe, I felt like something was wrong or off, and it was Specifically the show because i read the books and i watched (some) of the musical and i never felt that way towards either of those. i'm not saying that my family situation is sally's (don't have a god for a father for one), but. by all accounts sally knows that this is an abusive relationship, the only reason that she's with gabe is because of the protection he offers percy. i have to assume that this is true because sally jackson turning gabe to stone is something i'm assuming is staying in the show, and i remember this being mentioned by grover? or someone in the first few episodes. and the cord that struck in me was not the traditional (that is, visible, defined, i don't like this word but i don't have a better one) abusive relationship but relationships in my community, of women staying with husbands because of their children, women outright saying this, women who know the world is cruel to single women and to single mothers specifically. sally, to me has never been under any illusions that gabe is any sort of relationship material. she has never been under any illusions that poseidon would be able to help in any way.

and that crux of sally's relationships made her first scene in the show all that more jarring. but it's not anything specifically that i can put a finger on. and maybe i'm wrong for this or maybe i'm expecting too much. but. sally doesn't have the resentment or the quietness or the bitterness or even the loudness that i expected. you have been the only true caretaker for your child, the only one in the house that really puts food on the table and on top of that is expected to do emotional labor? to cook and clean or at least pick up the food?

but she treats gabe like he's an annoyance. someone to brush off. and you see the manipulation tactics from gabe, you do, but.

its not that i want sally's spirit to be crushed. my mother's spirit wasn't crushed. the women in my community, they laugh, they cry, they watch silly tv shows, they have lives that they live, and in many cases they live well.

but the women that i know are also angry. they are either on fire or they used to burn. when they banter with their partners it often turns ugly because they are tired of the same damn argument day after day, because often the trivial things that are asked are compounded and compounded and compounded because you live in the same house, there is no escape, there is no private space, not really.

it's new york and sally works a job to support an apartment and her family. they are not well-off. sally has no support network we can see, and how could she? poseidon mentions that she has no one to talk to about these things, her parents are clearly out of the picture. all this to say. there is a certain understanding of class that exists within the books that was excised, i believe unknowingly, from the show, and it is the worse for it. there is a tiredness, a worn-down-ness from being low income that sally had in the books, but in the show i only see a struggling first time single parent. i don't see the complexity of a woman who literally gave up on finding a fulfilling relationship to be with a man for her child. i don't see the complexity of a woman working fulltime and still getting demanded from at home. and i didn't realize that I wanted to see that until I saw the show. i didn't realize that that was what i loved about the books.

i hate that they tried to bring poseidon back into sally's life as this perfect man who through cosmic forces can't help. i hate that sally calls him, i hate that he says he'll listen. but most of all i hate that sally just accepts him, falls into him. it's really hard to be a mother when your partner doesn't seem to help you parent in any way, even if he cannot help you. he's a greek god, there's no way in hell that he can begin to understand the lengths that sally has gone through to sacrifice and survive, the very human things that she's done. sally in the books thinks of poseidon as a sweet memory, almost a fairytale, and it's clear that this story is the one that brings her comfort. poseidon is a one night stand, a sweet stranger, she understands he's not coming back. but this poseidon comes when sally calls, and that i cannot believe. i cannot believe that she still thinks of him as the fairytale man, that she accepts him so easily if there isn't that distance. i cannot believe that there is no resentment, that she still puts faith in him as her god (the first episode when she talks about him just felt so wrong to me) if he's not a memory, but a recurring figure. this is not a story of star-crossed lovers, sally feels too real as a human being for that.

sally finds trust, finds contentment, in the books after percy leaves home, after she no longer has to put up with gabe for his safety. she does not find poseidon again. she marries a human man, a very ordinary human man who cares for her. poseidon visits after she is in this relationship and its an amicable one. he is percy's father but also distant memory all in one. sally has the strength to survive a terrible relationship and still find a way to heal and live fully after that.

but the anger. the fire was there. she turned gabe to stone. she reclaimed her life with her two hands.

you don't kill a man for no reason. you don't kill a man without emotion.

but it's that reason and that emotion that i don't get from the writer's room. and it just makes me deeply sad.

[phantasmicfish]

We won but at what cost

[lemurballing]

The Tangleification of Whisper

aka a catchy title for my musings on how Whisper's characterization has changed overall across IDW - and to bring up some thoughts on what it might imply that Whisper is given this clear resemblance to Tangle herself.

If you haven't read the 2024 winter annual yet, this post does contain panels lifted from that -- read at your own risk.

First of all, let's look at where Whisper started - what she was like before the 'Tangleification' - so you can see how big a change it is from one section to the other. I do understand that 'characterization marches on' and being free to re-evaluate and adjust a character's interpretation over time can fine-tune a story into becoming something greater - but I will also try to explain why this specific character evolution is significant to my eyes, and implications it carries.

We first meet Whisper in Issue #8, where she displays pretty clear signs of avoiding people not just to keep to herself, but because of social anxiety. She trails Sonic and supports him from afar, but as soon as they notice her she gives up her immediate goal and leaps away to lose their attention:

And from Silver's comments, she was evidently this evasive for the entirety of the Forces war:

With the benefit of hindsight and retroactive application of motive, one might assume Whisper was keeping out of sight so Mimic would continue to believe she was dead and not track after her, but seeing how she acts in these and the next issues (at least, her appearances before Tangle & Whisper), that's definitely not the initial aims with her character.

Whisper shows no reservations besides her own displayed social anxiety to the idea of joining with someone else as a team, or affiliating herself with them. If Mimic was a thing in Whisper's story at this time, she wouldn't be smiling at the idea, she'd still have the same reservations she brings up later with Tangle.

Additionally, the way other characters behave around and address Whisper reinforce the idea that this aversion to company is an issue of anxiety or discomfort: that Whisper is definitively introverted and likes to operate alone (besides the wisps), instead of being forced to.

One of the bigger reasons I want to resurface this initial characterization of Whisper is because it is so interesting to have a member of the cast who IS genuinely introverted and doesn't want to deal with a large number of people. Even the more antisocial/lone wolf of Sonic's friends are that way because they simply don't connect or see a reason to become close to other people, not because it bothers them in particular.

Whisper, at this point, is a very unique example of someone shy still involving themselves in the fight, instead of the more common bombastic or loud personalities. Espio is probably the only other 'quiet' character, and that's still different because he isn't really 'shy'.

Then we see a little change in Tangle & Whisper, upon first being introduced to the idea that Whisper's current quiet personality is due to personal trauma and not simply a facet of the person she is, in seeing her pre-trauma personality be more enthusiastic. (BIG EDIT: I could elaborate more in a separate addition, but pre-T&W, Whisper is seen smiling far often than in T&W proper - so this is relegating the smiling to pre-trauma, instead of adding smiling at all - but the enthusiasm is new!)

This is every line of dialogue we see from pre-trauma Whisper in Tangle & Whisper. We can see only two panels where she's smiling; in one, with her eyes wide open, and in the other, with her eyes closed as is more typical of Whisper as she was introduced. The other three panels only contain dialogue, which does allow some inferences on Whisper's demeanor and personality.

This 2-panel sequence has the most information to speculate off - Whisper makes a statement in two parts. The particular decision to make "Tank inbound." a separate separate sentence implies it is spoken tersely, or while Whisper is in 'mission-focus', and less likely with a playful tone. This then contrasts her "Never mind!" and giggle in the next panel, building an impression that she's typically got a serious focus (at least while on a mission), but lets humor leak through when things go their way.

The other thing to note is that these panels are a very limited sample set, and the visual appearances are biased - when expressing gratitude to someone, or taking a group picture, it's only natural to put a smile on, even if you don't typically smile most of the time. We also only see Whisper around individuals she's already familiar with, so there's not necessarily any proof that at this point Whisper doesn't have any social anxiety, or that she would necessarily conflict with her earlier appearances around Sonic and Silver and everyone else.

So while Tangle & Whisper introduced the idea of Whisper being louder before losing her teammates, it's the 2024 annual that REALLY dials it up:

Whisper not whispering in the slightest, and in fact being a motormouth!

Whisper with wide eyes and/or a smile in virtually every panel she appears in, and thriving while in the thick of the group or having one of the others' attention on her, and...

...Whisper pulling this specific expression, which quite resembles the expression Tangle made while also seeing someone else display a really cool power they have.

It's almost strange to me, because we do have a good reason for Whisper to become more outgoing and outspoken... but that's in the present time period due to Tangle's influence, not necessarily her pre-trauma self!

The choice to rebuild Whisper as someone as inherently extroverted and attention-loving as Tangle also builds a comparison between the two: the idea that they started out so similarly, you can't help but wonder if the implication given is that Tangle going through Whisper's situation would result in the same personality developments, because Whisper's quiet personality is retroactively attributed to the trauma she gained, instead of being her natural personality.

Personally, I'm very fond of the characterization Whisper has closer to her introduction, and I would find it boring to effectively reduce her and Tangle to the same base personality, give or take tail powers and some trauma, instead of leaving them as distinct people at core: that even if they had gone through the same experiences, they'd still come out a little different, but they strive to understand and work with each other anyways.

...I've also got a meta-gripe in that you can write Whisper positively with Tangle's traits, but Tangle's in the thick of getting judged for having them...

[meowsticmarvels]

the concept of delta engineering the decision game so he and phi can be born is kinda funny he's like ok so i have to worsen my parents' existing ptsd so me and my Stupid ass sister I Guess will be born witj magic powers and shes also gonna have worsened ptsd as a result. this is a Necessary evil Life is Simply Unfair :/

[hydrachea]

He Would Not Fucking Say That: the author's failure to understand that lacking self-confidence is not actually universal edition.

(This is about characters revealing any kind of "true form" from just horns and a tail to a full-on monstrous body and ALWAYS asking the at this point staple "Are you not disgusted by this..?")

[camellcat]

hii idk why but the thought of fresh-faced professional scully being so scared she burst into her new extremely flirty but otherwise dismissive partner's motel room in nothing but a bathrobe and undergarments asking him to check her for strange markings before collapsing into him when he laughed at her and said they're just mosquito bites. do you think it killed her? just a bit? just enough that he was It that she realized she could never ever do this again with anyone else and now that she'd done this with him that was it? and lord help her if she ever did it again with him, nevermind anyone else. mortifying introduction. what a way to start out her new career with the fbi

anyways. just thinking about how scully wishes to be perceived and who she really is

[optiwashere]

Huh, I didn't even realize it'd been a year since BG3 came out until I opened tumblr this morning. Kinda wild. I didn't think much of the game's release: I like Larian's games, and I like the BG series. I wasn't ever going to skip the game, but I didn't think I'd play it at launch because I was busy working on a novel in 2023 and not doing well financially.

Thankfully, circumstances left me with a little bit of extra money last year just before launch and it meant I could spend on a video game. I needed a pick-me-up after said 2023 novel failed to go anywhere, and BG3 was right there. Like most CRPGs, I played it in basically every moment of free time that I had and did as much as I possibly could in one playthrough.

It's so odd how these small happenstances can snowball into coming back to fandom, finding some friends I might've never met otherwise, and writing a lot of fanfiction along the way. I'll probably have something more interesting to say/share when it's the 14th, AKA when I sat down and wrote my first fic for this fandom.

Anyways, it's been a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to more years to come 💜

[quinnblrhq]

yeah pointless tone deaf slapstick with an abuse victim and the woman they introduced into her life as a support line is so hot. it's so hot seeing harley being imagined in situations that involve her getting hurt tf is wrong with some of yall

[whatwooshkai]

18!!

Boulder taps the tips of their digits together. "I have a question."

"What do you need?" Blades asks. He's putting up a garland around the perimeter of the basement, something he's been working on for days now. There are tiny little hand made models of their alt modes, trees, rocks, and other oddities that Boulder can't identify, made out of yarn big enough to hand knit with.

They're cute, and quite nice. Really bring a homey air to the place. "I need a bit of code altered."

Blades' helm whips around so fast he nearly falls over. He searches Boulder's face, but apparently doesn't find what he's looking for, because his face sets in a panicked frown and his rotors start flicking erratically. "You can't be serious."

"I'm serious," Boulder says, clasping their hands behind their back. "You're our medic, so I assumed-"

"Boulder, I am a field medic at most," Blades stresses, and some of his loose garland starts to flutter from the breeze created by his rotors. "I have no credentials. Hell, the only reason I know as much as I do is because Heatwave gets hurt so often it's all trial and error! They would never let me into the Academy, you know, they'd probably ban me from ever practicing-"

"Blades," Boulder says gently, but Blades' talking only gets more frantic.

"But code? Boulder, I can barely understand my own code, you really want me poking around in your helm? What if I mess something up? I could completely fuck up your coding, and I couldn't live with myself if I did that, living with unfulfilled protocols is horrible I can't imagine living with something broken-"

"BLADES!" Boulder shouts, and the helicopter shuts up, but his rotors are still flapping.

"Sorry," he murmurs. "I just don't think it's a good idea."

"It's something I can do myself," Boulder starts carefully, holding their hands out placatingly. "I just need a spotter."

The flapping dies down a little. "A spotter?"

"Yes, a spotter." Boulder clasps their hands again, this time against their chest. "Just in case."

"Just in case," Blades parrots, hugging his arms around himself. "What exactly do you need done?"

Boulder chews on their lip. "I just..." they trail off, trying to figure out how to phrase this. The pressure of the air has been changing all day, the sky getting darker, little beads of condensation appearing on their frame- the telltale signs of an oncoming storm. Someone like Blades would be able to better detect the changes in the atmosphere with his sensitive rotors, but Boulder doesn't have anything like that. And well... "I want to quiet a fear response."

Blades' face changes immediately. "Oh, Boulder," he says. "You can't just shove that down, you have to-"

"That's not what I meant," Boulder gently interrupts. "It's a fear response that's useless to me now. And it's going to storm."

"Oh." Blades' field reaches out in understanding, and Boulder brushes it with reassurance from their own. "You're scared of thunder."

"Not thunder. I want to experience it."

"The noise."

"Yeah."

Blades sighs. "Alright. I'll spot."

They find themselves on the floor, sitting with their legs crossed, across from each other. Their wrist ports are open and Blades has unspooled the cable from next to his, handing it to Boulder to let them plug in.

They do without much fanfare, initiating handshake protocols, and then Boulder guides Blades to the corner of their processor where all their instincts from their past as a miner lay dormant.

Well. Dormant-ish.

Where is it? Blades' voice is nice, inside of Boulder's processor. Warm and buttery smooth, but still somehow with a nervous lilt. It's kind of cool, the way it bounces around.

Here. Boulder pulls up the protocol and with it a memory- a huge bang that rattles the cavern and sends dust and pebbles showering down over Boulder and their coworkers. They dive for their positions, curling into balls, preparing for the worst. The fear is bone deep. Blades' very presence shivers with it. I want to be outside.

I know.

Blades' presence seems to hold them steady as Boulder dips their hands into the code. It shifts like water beneath their digits, slippery as they grasp for the strands that connect to their emotional core. They pinch and tie the line with a few more lines- simple things they'd been practicing doing, just extra stimuli needed to activate the protocol itself, like falling rubble, and suppressing it when rain registered as sensory input.

Boulder sighs as they finish up, letting it slip back out of their hands. Blades' relief is palpable, and it washes comfortingly over Boulder, then nestles in their spark even as they disconnect from each other.

"That wasn't so bad," Blades hums, mostly a reassurance to himself.

"Not at all," Boulder agrees.

-----------------------

That night, Boulder faces the rain.

[flashhwing]

i always think it's funny when people are like "i don't get how anyone could dislike this character!" and then go on about how well written they are. like okay. so they are a well written character that i don't like. what now?

[scarecrowdrugs]

I really want to do something vastly different with Mad Hatter, but it's really hard to nail down exactly what defines him as a character and his motivations due to how heavily he's used as just a simple gimmick for a mind control story. Even the whole "kidnapping girls to be his Alice" isn't even part of his original motivations when he was first introduced! I don't mind it as a motivation, but I think at this point DC just uses it as a way to write the most sleazy grimdark shit imaginable and I'm honestly at the point where I want something entirely different with him. The dude barely has any backstory in anything outside of BTAS and Gotham, with the latter still pulling from the overused "Sexual Predator" angle and I'm just so tired.

Like, you can certainly do really dark and creepy content with mind-control without resorting to shock value! You can absolutely go into the inherent horror of being unable to stop yourself from being used as a simple tool for someone else to use and discard! The kidnapping girls to be his Alice angle isn't inherently bad writing, but I'm tired of it being his only motivation! Hell, you can even go really into the whole aspect of why Jervis is so focused on his Lewis Carroll fantasy and how it meshes with his mind control gimmick! You could go into a character gimmick of someone becoming so focused on their wish fulfillment fantasy that they drag others into it by force to play their part for him! If Jervis sees himself as playing the role of the Mad Hatter in his fantasy, maybe his mind control gimmick could be used as a way of making people play the part in the story if they don't act like how he wants them to. There's just so many potential ideas you could really do with Tetch as a character, but instead he's been stuck in the same old song and dance routine for the past few decades!