#properly develop bobby and christian's relationship

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Things Duggan could do/could have done with Pyro in Marauders:

This list is partially me being bitter, but it’s also just kind of a creative exercise, thinking about the development potential that Pyro has.

1. Redemption arc - This seems obvious.  Pyro is already hanging with the good guys, but is he actually undergoing a redemption arc?  Is he actually changing his views or becoming a better person?  We don’t really know because we barely see anything from his perspective, and it’s usually shallow comic relief when we do.  The groundwork is there to give Pyro a redemption arc.  He was already regretting his actions and questioning the Brotherhood’s methods when he had the Legacy Virus, leading up to him saving Senator Kelly.  Why not follow up on that?  Does he still feel the same way, or is he disillusioned because Kelly was killed right after he saved him?  Are the Marauders (all of whom are better people than Pyro) rubbing off on him a bit?  Maybe he’s starting to enjoy helping others or learning to trust humans?  (Or not?)  In today’s issue, Iceman was confronted by a Reaver that he had previously maimed, which was interesting, but that’s another storyline that I think would also fit Pyro.  Pyro has surely been maiming some people - maybe being confronted with the results of that would help him reconsider his actions.

2. Legacy Virus stuff - Pyro hasn’t said a damn thing about the way he died, and I understand him not wanting to talk about it.  But again, that sparked a semi-redemption arc for Pyro back before he died.  And now he’s on a ship that is taking medicine to humans that need it, and just built a hospital in Madripoor.  Maybe his experience being sick has given him a greater sense of empathy, and a desire to help sick people.  If Masque can find meaning using his powers to help humans, you’d think there would be space for Pyro to say something serious about his Legacy experiences while they are dedicating a new hospital.  Even just a throwaway line.  Hell, Storm was dying of some kind of nano-virus for part of Marauders (although it was never mentioned in the book at all), maybe he could have sympathized with her over that?  Maybe having Yellowjacket inside him - another case in which his body has been invaded by something microscopic that can kill him - triggered some Legacy feelings?  We could have explored that, instead we got a “funny” scene of Magneto pulling Yellowjacket out of Pyro, and Pyro wanting to kill him. 

3. Team bonding - Pyro has been accepted on the team surprisingly quickly.  Faster than I would expect, really.  And of course, he’s small-potatoes evil compared to even some people on the Council, but I’d still expect a little bit of friction between him and his team-mates, given that he used to try to kill them.  Even without that history, he’s still the odd man out on a team that already knows each other, and are friends, or at least former team-mates.  We had that kind of friction with Emma and Storm, why would we not get that friction between Pyro (the former terrorist criminal) and the others?  I would have expected at least a little bit of distrust, followed eventually by some kind of bonding issue where Pyro is more accepted by the team, and in turn accepts his place with them.  Who does he even consider a friend when he refers to them as “his friends”?  He seems to like hanging out with Bishop and Iceman, but we’ve mostly gotten that through wordless background panels and a couple of “funny” scenes.  Do any of them even like him or consider him a “friend,” or do they just tolerate his presence?   

4. Writer - One of the things I find most interesting about Pyro is that he had a whole-ass career before joining the Brotherhood.  He traveled around Southeast Asia, he was a journalist in Indonesia and Vietnam, he wrote romance novels.  And most writers don’t explore that at all, but you’d think it would come up when the Marauder is traveling around the ocean.  Maybe he speaks another language that would be helpful.  Maybe his investigative skills as a journalist come in handy.  Maybe he takes them to an old haunt or meets up with an old contact he knew in Vietnam.  Maybe he spends his spare time writing smutty historical pirate-themed romance.  I would have enjoyed that much more than the goofy “dream sequence” that Emma planted in his head, at least that would have felt like authentic character development rather than something being pushed upon him from the outside.  Most comics writers don’t really get into Pyro’s civilian career, but as a regular on a book, I’d expect it to come up at least once, even as a thowaway line.

5. Brotherhood and past history - Pyro has had absolutely no contact (that we know of) with his old Brotherhood pals.  He doesn’t even mention them.  Why is that?  Why isn’t he hanging around the bar with Blob when the Marauder’s at Krakoa?  Why isn’t he texting Avalanche?  Has he become estranged from them after saving Kelly (which would be an interesting plot point if Duggan developed it), or is he just hanging out with them off panel?  You’d think there would be some mention of his past history at some point.  Even in today’s issue, when he, Iceman and Bishop got attacked by Reavers.  Pyro has a history with Reavers!  He fought them on Muir Island as part of Freedom Force, and the team lost both Stonewall (which happened right in front of Pyro, and he seemed broken up about it) and Destiny (which completely destroyed Mystique).  The Reavers in this issue were not the same ones, they were a new breed, but you’d think Pyro might have something to say about encountering Reavers again. 

6. The gay thing - This is more my own personal preference, but Pyro WAS deliberately queer-coded in his earliest appearances, and John Byrne intended for him to be gay.  They couldn’t openly write him that way back in the day, but nowadays I think no one would bat an eye if Pyro, a fairly minor villain, was somewhere on the LGBT scale.  He wasn’t always queer-coded, but he had an ambiguous relationship with Avalanche, his sexuality was never firmly established (he was never in an open romantic relationship anyone), and he died a lingering, painful death from the virus that was intended to be an AIDS metaphor.  It would be quite interesting to see Pyro as a closeted gay (or bisexual) man resurrected in a world where different sexual orientations are far more accepted, and slowly opening up about it to Bobby and Christian (or even Shinobi).  Not to mention, it would give Bobby and Christian more to do, and Christian could talk about his own traumatic experiences without it being all swept under the rug.

7. Doubts about Krakoa - When the team first met Pyro, he was trying to steal a boat and run off, because he’d realized that his resurrection was mostly just a lab experiment to test the process.  Now he seems to be all-in, and dedicated to the Marauders’ mission.  What changed?  Does he harbor any doubts about the Quiet Council, or is he a true believer now?  Does he EVER talk to Mystique, to whom he used to be extremely loyal?  Pyro can be written as dumb at times, but more frequently he comes across as one of the more intelligent and thoughtful Brotherhood members.  Maybe he’s decided that everything on Krakoa is so new and confusing, he’s just gonna turn his brain off and enjoy his new life?  That would also be fine, if it was actually treated as character development.  

8. Divided loyalties - If I’d expect anyone to betray the team, it would be Pyro.  And that doesn’t necessarily mean I want him to do that, but I’m surprised it hasn’t come up.  You’d think Shinobi or Sebastian Shaw would approach him to act as a mole in exchange for lots and lots of money.  Hell, I half-expected him to be spying for Mystique when he first showed up.  And again, it could still happen, but there’s been no lead up or suggestion of that at all.  I would honestly find it disappointing if Pyro suddenly turned on the team or was revealed to be a spy, because he hasn’t bonded with them well enough for it to be meaningful at all. 

The thing is, any of these ideas could be explored, and still keep Pyro as the comic-relief party animal that Duggan is currently writing.  He wouldn’t even have to have significantly more focus (although some focus would be nice).  This could be accomplished through small scenes, little asides, throwaway lines.  Duggan wastes so much page time setting up “moments” and atmosphere (Kitty and Emma riding horses up to Sebastian’s castle comes to mind).  He spent a whole issue beating up Sebastian Shaw without any other significant plot advancement (then crams all his plot into the issues that feature other characters).  He spent a few pages on a goofy fantasy dream sequence that told us nothing new about Pyro, and again, turned out to a falsely manufactured dream that Emma planted in his mind.  We could have used those pages to show Pyro writing something, or show a different side of him through Yellowjacket’s spying, and it STILL could have been comic-relief.  If Duggan actually wanted to explore Pyro in a more serious way, there’s both the space and potential for it.  He just.....doesn’t. 

Anyway, this is all wishful thinking of what could be.  I’ll just have to write fanfic or something. 

[words-writ-in-starlight]

you know what also pissed me off about supernatural, though? the inability to commit to their own worldbuilding. even while clinging to a static paradigm, where The Masquerade is in full effect, they couldn't be consistent about what sort of underground magic communities do and don't exist. I know this can be blamed on multiple writers and all, but it drives me up the wall. f.ex. witches are All Evil and tend to work alone, until that episode with the familiars when you find a bunch of nice(r)

witches who go to witchbars and hardly ever poison each other’s drinks, oh and also familiars are athing. a while later spike and cordelia are witches who’ve had a tempestuousrelationship for… centuries I think, aka witches can live for a really longtime, so there’s no way the bigger/older ones don't all know each other. thereought to be SOME sort of witch ‘society’, even if it’s just loosecommunication. but no, after this you never hear of witches ever again, muchless familiars or witch

bars. then you’ve gotBela, who caters to rich people who know magical artifacts exist, but there’sno exploration of what that could MEAN – if Bela can hold down a job, thenenough of the country’s elite own and exploit magic stuff that it could –SHOULD – have at least some effect on US politics, as in who gets power.there’s never a whisper of that, but okay, this isn’t exactly the winchesterboys’ social scene. but failing that, some of these magic-obsessed rich peopleshould turn up for a

few episodes, eitherhaunted or else guilty of inflicting a monster-of-the-week on someone. heck,one of them could be a recurring vaguely-helpful character that the boys stopby and menace a bit whenever they need access to some excessively obscureartifact. you already mentioned the mess of all those Alpha Monsters who werepowerful and unkillable and stuff, and had their own dread agendas withpotentially far-reaching consequences for their respective species, and thenjust… vanished. I don’t

even remember how. andthen there’s the hunter community, which is the most inconsistent of all. firstit’s just these two and their dad, and then they start finding out their dad’sold friends were all actually hunters or oracles or whatever. so far so good;these are just Mysteries Of Our Father’s Past, and valid character/plotdevelopment stuff. but there’s Bobby, who Knows Everyone, and Ellen, whose barevery hunter in the country frequents sooner or later, and this means huntersknow each

other, know about eachother, they have a network of communication and they share intel, gossip, tradesecrets. but the moment the bar blows up there’s just no network, noconnection, nothing at all binding hunters together, even though Bobby stillknows everyone and Ellen and Jo are still around and plenty able to found a newbar if they wanted to, or at least keep in touch with at least half of thepeople who used to swing by their bar. oh and also the demons! they talk aboutcomplex politics

happening in Hell, theyhave some sort of prophesied demon queen who takes the body of a young girl andhas glowing white eyes (I don’t even remember what happened to her), they havedemon religion and spirituality to the point where Lucifer is basically DemonJesus – I’m pretty sure this is explicitly stated, Lucifer is to the demonswhat Jesus is to really devout Christians, semi-mythical status and prophesiedsecond coming and everything – and the show makes an effort to flesh out itsdemonic

characters, give thempersonality and desires and drives, and it shows distinct differences in howdifferent demons feel about humanity, and about what they do, and all that. yetdespite all this, the only demon we meet who doesn’t immediately try to murderthe boys is Ruby. no one tries to bargain honestly with the boys, no one butCrowley tries to aim the boys at their own enemies, no one begs for mercy orlies about repentance. nothing. can you imagine if those demons who told Sam totake up

his antichrist mantleand lead a demon army decided that, since their Chosen One was unwilling, theyought to convince him? what if a bunch of demons had started discreetly tailingthe boys, showing up sometimes to rescue them from really bad fights or offerup dead monsters like housecats offering dead birds? ‘hey chosen one, we caughtyou this demon who’s high up in Crowley’s hierarchy, do you want to torture himfor information yourself or do you want us to do it?’ they solemnly swear that

that they’ve stoppedkilling humans, they keep quietly growing in number, and they always scrambefore the boys are conscious enough to kill them properly. sam and dean havemany arguments about whether they were REALLY too concussed to stab theirlatest demonic rescuer and get absurdly angsty and argumentative about it. Iknow my rant has gotten pretty thoroughly disorganized and this is moving backinto must-have-a-static-paradigm territory, but I am a little bitter.

THIS IS ALSO SUCH A GOOD POINT there is just so much to be bitter about with this show, like, good god, you’d think that sooner or later they’d run out of basic narrative rules to fuck up.

Speaking of rules, I think this is a manifestation of one of Supernatural’s wider problems, which is that they just DO NOT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THE RULES OF THEIR OWN UNIVERSE.  Like, all they’ve REALLY nailed down is that demons can be exorcised, but anything that isn’t a demon is pretty much at the mercy of the plot for A) how powerful it is, B) how hard to kill it is, and C) how ‘human’ it’s considered.  Like, everything from werewolves to wendigos are stated to be at least PART human, but basically their ‘humanness’ and subsequently the amount of sympathy accorded to them is predicated on how benign (or how attractive) they look in their human form.  The magic of this universe is wildly unpredictable--the Winchesters sometimes do/dabble in magic themselves, but we never really learn how magic works.  Does it require a focus?  Does it require badly-pronounced Latin?  Is it an expression of the user’s willpower?  Is it similar to what demons do (implied when All Witches Are Wicked for the first few seasons) or not?  Does it require natural talent or can anyone learn it?  THERE ARE SO MANY QUESTIONS THAT ARE TOTALLY IGNORED.  THEN there’s the question of societies in this supernatural underworld.  Like, I think I’ve expressed in my John Wick comments how much I like functional underworld societies with rules and systems, but honestly it’s CRITICALLY necessary if you’re doing what SPN does and having the society Matter.  I cringe every time I think about how clumsy and slapdash the hunting community was in Supernatural, because it had SO MUCH POTENTIAL, don’t talk to me about it, I made it work better when I wrote my spite novel.  I’m sure I can think of fifty million more incomplete universe rules, but I can honestly feel my blood pressure rising right now so I’m going to stop.

OH MY GOD GUYS, please, if you’re a writer, let me beg you right now in person to figure out the rules of your universe and then commit.  Here are some pointers.

Magic should work in a conceptually similar way to gravity: its rules should be consistent and should be able to be broadly extrapolated from the general effect, and if you’re going to BREAK those rules you’ve got to have a damn fine reason.  

The sliding scale of ‘humannness’ should...slide less, to be completely honest, work your shit the fuck out EARLY or make working your shit the fuck out a plot point (please see Stormdancer for a good example).  

If you’re dealing with questions of what makes someone human (@SPN FOR LIKE FOUR FUCKING SEASONS) then you should actively question like “Hey, my dude, can we morally kill this person for something they have no control over” unless your character took the trait ‘Callous’ somewhere in their history (which is also fine).

If you have an underworld society--or any society tbh???--WORK YOUR SHIT OUT.  How do they work together (ex: hunters pretending to be ‘the boss’ when someone calls the number on that fake business card)?  How do they support each other (ex: safehouses? maybe? this is never discussed in SPN? and I hate it?)?  What are the things people differ on (ex: whether or not to murder the Winchesters, which, like, I know you’re supposed to be against that because they’re the protagonists, but by the time I bailed I def wanted someone to shoot them)?  Is there an assumption of free exchange of favors or is there a strict financial/bargaining system?   How much does one person vouching for another matter in the community?  ANSWER SOME BASIC QUESTIONS FFS

Finally, most crucially, for the love of all that is good, Pick A Plot.  One plot.  It can have subplots (example: an overarching plot broken up by smaller missions, a la your average TV show) or multiple acts (as in a play, where you’ve got a couple major pieces that assemble into the main plot, like Much Ado where you’ve got (roughly) the matchmaking, the wedding, the vengeance, and the resolution), but it should be One Plot and you need to tie up those motherfucking loose ends.

This has been “Hey look turns out that 6K later I have Even More Complaints about Supernatural” with Moran.