#Cus sometimes one of us knows a character better than the other

[smugraccoon137]

You know writing something for yourself and your partner is sometimes better than making something and putting it out there

[autumnnnsun]

Now that I’ve finished reading Hortus de Escapismo and Executor’s record, I really gotta ramble about Executor for a second and kinda talk abt how Arknights handles his lack of empathy trait that I really enjoy. This isn’t a proper analysis or anything just my thoughts I wanna vomit for a sec.

So it’s implied in Executor’s record that he just, wasn’t born having empathy despite being a sankta. Or at least he just naturally doesn’t have the same levels of understanding of emotion as other sankta. The part that I really like about it is how Executor’s Record and story in general doesn’t portray that as a necessarily bad thing.

His lack of empathy allows him to think in a way that is a lot more unique than other sankta. When his partner in his record story told him to sacrifice him, he still brought his body back to Laterano. One of the reason being because of a specific sentence in the will they were enacting (“I hope all Laterans return back to their home.” Smth that most people would assume is just smth the will writer wrote for some extra literary flare) but also because he disregarded his partner’s feelings. His lack of empathy is the reason why he did something good and that is very interesting to me especially when most people tend to demonise having low/no empathy.

I also just really like how in his record story, it’s emphasised that he knows what emotions ARE. He has developed a system with his parents to recognise and visualise emotions by drawing lines that represent them. He knows what it is, he can recognise it to a level where he can think of the next best course of action when confronted with it, he just doesn’t put much importance on it nor does he bother with understanding it for the most part. Especially if it’s something that will get in the way of his job. And I REALLY like that cus it reminds me of how people irl that have low empathy will develop systems to work around it and still be kind.

I know a lot of us joke about Executor being autistic and that’s funny and I like the jokes as much as everyone else, but low or no empathy is a trait of other mental disorders and disabilities and even as someone that hasn’t been diagnosed with anything yet it still feels kinda nice to see low empathy being portrayed in a way that isn’t villanious.

In fact, Executor having low empathy kinda makes him the best person in the room sometimes especially in Hortus de Escapismo. The part where he does a warning shot at Oren and Lemuen and essentially goes “Can ya’ll STOP I’m trying to do my JOB.” And essentially manages to stop a massacre because of it is so funny but also so fucking hype bruv. I like how in the end of the event when Executor was starting to ask more questions and have more doubts and was starting to let emotions affect his actions a bit more, it isn’t framed as like “Oh mah gerd, he’s learning empathy and being more hooman!”

Instead he’s asking questions and seeking to find solutions to them in his own unique way. Asking around and adding more variables to his thought process like a computer would (which has some implications that gets my lore brain churning but hrghrghrgh)

Top it all of with the fact that he is specifically a character that is born and raised in a society that values empathy. Being able to feel other people’s emotions is what makes you a sankta. And Executor, is one of the better sanktas because he doesn’t follow that rule.

God I love Executor, go son, thrive.

[kyuuuu]

Finally saw the GGGNK movie

Just an unhinged train of thoughts about the film. Spoilers and stuff. And additional spoilers for Exhuma (2024)

First off, the theme of the movie was hugely satisfying. Instead of brushing over the imperialism of Japan the movie says "there were no glory days, it wasn't an honorable death, this is just a bunch of creepy old men hungry for power"

It's heartwarming that this movie is a story about how Mizuki and Gegero met when this is for the 100th anniversary of the author's birth (who is also named Shigeru Mizuki). Clearly a heartfelt homage, I can feel it from the quality of the film- the story beats, the themes, and the designs all seem inspired by him.

The animation was so smooth and the style was consistent. The Gegero vs Osada scene has good sakuga and the stylistic choice of shaky lines was *French kiss*

Character designs are an odd mix of old school and modern anime, but toned down to fit the setting and mood. I'd rather have the designs align with the old school style, but the modern style is worth it with the crispiness

Sometimes the line art did seem inconsistent with some parts being thicker than the rest but it didn't show up much

Tbh I came to the theaters just to simp for Mizuki and he didn't disappoint. Quite charming lad.

His character arc was slightly unsatisfying but since this is a prequel I know parts need to be cut off to keep his character consistent...

Also he's canonically a pretty boy?? The movie mentions he looks like Sada Keiji and

Damn

He's gives so much openings for asexual interpretations. When Gegero says 'one day you'll find someone who you'll love more than yourself', he does! He finds Kitaro. It's a nice non romantic version of the 'you'll understand love someday' trope

Thank god there's no forced romance between him and Sayo. The movie acknowledges a. the age gap and b. realistically no one would fall for each other in a few days. The 'romance' is mostly a desperate attempt by Sayo to get out of her nightmare while Mizuki is half heartedly playing along. In the end even Mizuki betrayed her by only seeing her as a means for information instead of a person. However, the only thing, and the most important point that differentiates him from the rest of her abusers is that he genuinely apologizes and tries to make amends.

He's usually at his hottest when he's holding a weapon. The gun and axe did something to me. Legit I wouldn't have bothered to go see the movie if it weren't for pictures of him splattered in blood.

Sayo deserved better! I overheard some girls say "they seriously fridged her?" when the movie ended and while I disagree that she's just a fridged woman, she was neglected by the writers

I was bracing for her backstory when the family was introduced. Big, powerful clan in an isolated area? Definitely incest here. I'm not quite sure how to evaluate the handling of CSA but one point I'd give credit for is that they didn't fall into the trap of showing trauma graphically

Her story reminds me a lot of Tezuka Osamu's Ayako. Even the two works' setting (Showa era), a lot of the character roles (monstrous head of the clan, the mad man/woman, the twit sister, callous men in a power struggle) and the themes (conservative values vs new generation) match so I don't think it's a simple coincidence

What a bummer that Mizuki gets over her death so quickly. It feels unnatural how he collects himself so fast after literally having her rage on him for using her feelings and attempt to kill him, then to die in a horrific manner. At least get him a pep talk from Gegero to be able to get a grip again.

And why is there no mention of her when he confronts the head of the clan? The lack of acknowledgement of how Mizuki and the rest of the adults failed her makes the final act feel rather disconnected, to be harsher, weak.

The biggest bummer is that the perspective of other characters are lacking when they all have interesting stories

Osada was one of the characters I was curious before I saw the movie and I was surprised by how little screentime he got compared to the fanart. I was expecting him to be a main antagonist but no, he was a faithful red herring

He's the father of the head in line yet that aspect of him is underutilized. His relationship with Tokiya and Toshiko is virtually unknown, to the point I suspect he wasn't originally supposed to be Toshiko's husband during production and they quickly changed his role. Based on fanart I genuinely thought that he was going to murder Toshiko lmao

And his role as mayor would have been much more of a threat than as an exorcist. I know Mizuki is meant to be the trump card bc he's an unexpected factor, but he could have been a formidable enemy to the duo, pressuring Mizuki psychologically by turning the entire village against him while exchanging blows with Gegero

Overall the experience wasn't bad but I feel like I would have enjoyed it as equally I did in the theater as on my laptop.

It was a lot more consistent than Exhuma but fumbled the execution by an angle of three degrees to fully satisfy me- superior in the drama and mystery aspect but Exhuma's horror and occultism was more intriguing.

That being said it's an unfair comparison since GGGNK has a younger target audience so I imagine if the directors went all out it could have been really, really terrifying. The age restriction was already pushing it when they thought scenes of eyes getting gouged out were okay for children above the age of 12

Hilariously, both are occult horror mysteries that have "Fuck Japanese Imperialism" as their message, despite one being the A-list actor movie and the other being an anime movie for a series obscure outside of Japan. (I could probably make an essay of comparing and contrasting the two's criticism of imperialism, one being from an outsider/victim's perspective and the other being from an insider/perpetuator's perspective.)

Capping off this with a subjective score of 8/10 and an impersonal score of 7.5/10 ig

[eryanlainfa]

A vat7k related question

What do you think is Hugo's gender identity? Cus I want to hear what you think Hugo's gender is and the story behind it.

(I've answered a similar ask some weeks ago so I am sorry for the repeat, I hope it's okay)

With me, when it comes to label headcanons for characters, it always depends! I like to change it depending on the story I want (because sometimes it ties to the plot) and I enjoy every version of them.

◇ But I do have a main headcanon, so let's focus on that one :

I headcanon Hugo as a bigender transmasc. And I believe she is comfortable appearing feminine now BECAUSE he got to transition to a comfortable point for him. Transition he started pretty early on, even before figuring out his own gender. (Taking into account I think most pride labels doesn't really exist in-universe, like the words don't exist yet, queer people are a thing but they don't label themself the way we do now)

◇ As for the story behind it, I'll detail it a bit more than I did last time :

(I forgot if it was a "canon" thing or just widly accepted fanon) We know Hugo is an orphan, and I believe the orphanage he was in wasn't the best environnement ever and perhaps not well taken care of. So as soon as they could they would send the kids to work wherever they could and obviously the more money they made the better. My Hugo was afab and she quickly noticed being seen as a boy gave you more advantage in that regard more often than not. So she didn't want to be seen as a girl anymore and started transitioning the best he could at the time. It had nothing with how she felt about herself, it was purely about what seemed more advantageous.

When Hugo got recruited by Donella for the first time, it had been a long while since he last used a name at all so, upon deciding to take him under her wing, Don is the one who named him Hugo. She also helped him through his transition because over the years simply cutting his hair and binding wasn't enough anymore, which bothered him a lot and he was annoying about it. Thanks to Don, Hugo got to go quite far in his transition pretty quick and he's rather proud of it. Once he reached the point he's at rn he stopped because it wasn't worth doing more, plus he figured passing as a girl could be useful too and at the moment it wasn't hard to go from one gender presentation to the other. And she figured she actually didn't mind being a girl either, plus playing roles is super entertaining to him so not being limited by gender gave him even more possibilities.

Actually I don't think she sees herself as multigender, she probably thinks of it as another tool under her sleeves. He knows not everyone is at ease being anyone, so it gives him an advantage. He's everything at once, and he's very happy being his own thing. If asked he'd probably label himself as whatever feels best at the moment (or whatever's the funniest).

Maybe it does give her a crisis once she settles in Corona because she doesn't have to play a role anymore so she's confused and unsure on what is even left of her but that's another story

◇ And in case you wanted to know why I chose those labels : I simply don't see lots of characters headcanoned as bigender, or even multigender in general (genderfluid Hugo makes me SO HAPPY-), and since I am multigender myself it's something dear to me! Plus I wanted to have fun exploring different ways people view gender and go through their discovery journey, so every member of the gang has a different experience regarding theirs, and yet they all share that trans umbrella together :) in short, I am just having fun lol

[saltynsassy31]

no cus i totally understand your frustration, ive also quit splatfests for the moment until they get an overhaul

i suggest if you feel close to getting hateful to either shiver or shiver fans then maybe quit for a while for your own sake cus ive felt a lot better after doing so, im still really sensitive to negative comments towards frye or rude ones about shiver winning but taking some time for myself has made me feel infinitely better

ive been close to hating shiver before bc of how cocky and rude them and their fans can be but it doesnt really do anything but sour your enjoyment of the game more, so its really not worth it

i do have to say though, anyone who says "its just a game" reaaally needs to understand the frustration of people OTHER than them, sympathy is something a lot of people forget about when it comes to things that arent real life. just because it doesnt affect you doesnt mean everyone can shut off their attachment to the game or a character like a light switch; a lot of the time you dont know whats going on with them. i myself am really attached to frye cus i am hashtag autism creature and he brings me comfort, so anyone being rude to me about shiver winning really REALLY gets under my skin. its not entirely (if they were serious, if they werent then its not at all) their fault, but nintendo fixing the frustration of splatfests constantly keeling in one direction (which theyre supposed to do anyways but they havent) would definitely fix the issue. we need to find a way to have nintendo fix this, not attack anyone else for what bundle of pixels and text theyre attached to.

not everyone has really thick skin and if we want splatoon 3 to be more hospitable then we should try to cut down on the general splatfest bullassery in public spaces (being overly cocky and rude/blaming others in a way with no basis or truth behind it). its not something everyone can always do since we arent all perfect, but if we make steps in that direction then we could help more people enjoy the splatoon community rather than being eaten up by toxicity and spite

i didnt word all of this entirely correctly so like interpret ad best as you can cus im eepy but yeah.

a fye for u to enjoy (also ur anon is off btw)

u dont have to but for the sake of not being harrassed id appreciate if u didnt tag with public tags

👏👏 PREACH

I don't want to quit playing it, I do enjoy splatfests, to a certain extent, i like going with my friends and i made a lot of new friends through it, it's like, the online community that I'm having a problem with

I don't hate shiver, I thought I did but I can't, she is still a comfort character (tho Frye is like, my obsession besides being my comfort character cuz I am also part part the 'tism XD), in a way, I like her dynamic with the group at least, she annoys me, yes, very much so, but I don't hate her

And I don't hate people who like her either

Who I do hate is people being mean about it, I had turned off anon cuz of a stupid person who was going around every frye support account anonymously just saying mean stuff and praising shiver as the best, I just forgot to turn it on, so thanks for reminding me 😅

Saying that "It's just a game" is so annoying to, tell that to the football fans, they go just as crazy if not more so

Splatfests are ment to be fun! You should be able to enjoy the splatfest without having to worry about people fighting

I don't like fighting with people, I hate how angry I become, how mean I can sound sometimes, I usually just vent without interacting

At least she won in Japan, so that is one other win under her belt, I just wish she'd win more in the future 😔

Oh also I almost didn't participate in this splatfest either and I did only because I haven't had time to play and I haven't finished my catalogue yet 😅 I usually use splatfests to up my catalogue quicker lmao

Also, don't worry, I won't tag anything that could get you harassed, if anything does happen, please block for your health, I don't want anything happening to you, you seem very sweet ;w;

Edit: also YOUR FRYE PLUSH IS SO CUTE! I've been seeing people get her but idk where to buy her!!!! Where'd you get it? :0

[2ndstar-ontheright]

Platonic relationships, I feel like, are so underutilized in fiction and even more so in fan spaces. They're always put on the wayside in fan works, more commonly as a "last resort" when it comes to shipping. Like, romantic/sexual relationships always take first priority. Which isn't a bad thing, not at all! I just feel like they can be used more when it comes to talking about complex characters or ships that have a lot of discourse.

The whole concept of "this is someone I love and means the world to me" without the need for it to romantic is such a beautiful thing. Hell, platonic soulmates is sometimes done even better then just plain soulmates because it requires more build up. More understanding of one another beyond just attraction. You can love someone with all of your heart without having to be attracted to them. It's the companionship, the sustainability the "if I've got no one at least I have them" that makes them so special.

No characters pussyfooting around each other out of fear that they'll lose the other. They don't have to be around each other because the plot demands it or they're already dating. they just simply...enjoy it. They're there because they want to be. They fulfill a role in each other's life other than partner/husband/or wife.

In every lifetime they'll find each other. Because that's just what they do. They annoy each other, they always find each other first in a room full of people, they make their existence so much more important and their universe so much brighter. Why?

Because they're best friends. And they love each other.

Idk there's just so much you could do with that and I wish it was explored more. Like please! Write about them being buddies, write about one taking on a parental or sibling role in the others life, write about them annoying the absolute shit out of each other! Sometimes the lines blur on what is and what isn't romantic/platonic, but that's what makes it interesting! Depending on who they are, they can be comfortable with touch and still just be friends, or the opposite and still be friends. You know?

This isn't to discredit romantic/sexual ships in the slightest. It's just me wanting there to be more than just that. Cus don't get me wrong, I love them just as much as everyone else. I just thing it's a sweet dynamic to write about and check out. And for me, it simply fits better depending on the character and their relationship :3

[theyaresogay]

wasn’t sure if i should fully trust that the fluff is here to stay, BUT YOU WERE SO NOT LYING, also i definitely believe you now when you said you prefer writing fluff. CUS THAT CHAPTER WAS THE CUTEST TEETH ROTTING FLUFF.

I still am loving all the tiny lil details you add that just contribute to how much they know eachother, Jade KNOWS her favourite food, also every thought she may have about it, and that she’ll be a lil late. Just gah the lil things made it so much better.

OH AND I SO CALLED IT THAT THE THREE FOR THREE GAME WOULD BE CUTE LATER.. also like so useful for closure, with Kit thinking sorsha made jade be her friend, so glad that was addressed.

i’m so certain i had a dumb smile at the what does love feel like “it feels like home”, nah cus you’ve built Kits character so well that her being vulnerable and talking about her feelings freely hits so much harder.

i could honeslty talk about this chapter forever, but i can’t just not talk about how considerate Jade is for taking things slow, i feel like that’s almost what makes them so perfect cus Kit is used to having all these walls up to protect herself but she doesn’t necessarily need them for Jade cus she just understands. idk but the way you write them is just so perfect imma have to say this fic is for sure my no.1 fav.

Anyways glad your concert went well, and THANKYOU.

I TOLD YOU! FLUFF IS FUN TO WRITE! (sure, sometimes angst is, but teeth rotting sugary stuff is the best)

The little tiny details! I mean, they're bound to know a whole lot of crap about each other considering that they've been best friends for a million years. I love adding tiny things like that though, it really does make it feel more real.

Anna and Kit made it up and have a!ways been cute together, and I thought, you know, who's the other really cute couple? Jade and Kit. So naturally, they get to be cute with it. :)

They both really need closure about Sorsha and she's gonna get an earful, don't worry.

SEE!!! I TOLD YOU! The angst sucks, but it's got a massive point. The main reason for it in this story is that Kit wouldn't believe a lot of the things Jade said if she hadn't been through it, wouldn't believe she deserves it. But now she does!!! I'm glad it hit hard, it was supposed to, so I'm glad I accomplished that.

I love all of the comments! Ranting about Willow is amazingly fun!

Jade is very aware if the fact that it's basically lesbian culture to move too fast, and Kit's been through too much shit for her to not make sure that she doesn't hurt her. She wants Kit a lot more than she thinks they're ready for, so she's trying to make sure that neither of them get overwhelmed because they both have a lot of trauma that has not been dealt with. All of the open honestly with Jade! Kit really does trust Jade with her life at this point, but who wouldn't?

OH MY GOSH NUMBER ONE FAVORITE?!?!?!?! DUDE, YOU ARE SO KIND!!!!! YOU'RE AMAZING, AND REALLY COOL, AND SUPER NICE, AND I APPRECIATE YOU SO MUCH!!!!! (ngl i'm kind of freaking out rn 😂. Imagine me dancing around my house with a really stupid goofy looking grin, and you'll get the picture)

Oh my gosh, thank YOU! You always give such kind words and it makes my day every time. Truly wouldn't be doing this without you reading. Super fucking happy you're enjoying this!

[earl-grey-love]

Okay this is definitely one of those tinfoil hat wishful thinking theories of my own making, so take this with that in mind, but I'm half expecting them to make the undateables dateable when the new chapters drop. I have reasons for thinking this that are as follows;

They did that with the original undateables in the og game around the same time in the story. So they've done it once, why not again?

Doing so would give a massive incentive for players to return, and leave the old game in one fell swoop. There used to be no real reason to play one game over the other, cus you could get the same content either way, the new one was just "shinier". But now they made it possible to read all of the og story in the new game, it kinda killed off the first. Now adding three new dateable chars to the new game exclusively skews this balance further.

(Cont.) I get the impression they kind of want the old game to stop being as popular due to the aggressive ad campaigns for the newer one + the afformentioned devaluing of og's main story. It probably costs them a lot of resources to keep it running with concurrent events cus they need to make sure its compatible with both the new and old game system. Do they really make enough money from og to make this lucrative enough?

They've been releasing more and more teaser content of the undateables. Pretty much every event for a looong time has had cards of these characters included. I, as a player who has acquired most of these cards, can tell you that most have scenes in them of these characters that are very romance coded. Like picnic dates, dancing together, fights with already dateable characters over mc, just to name a few. While these teasers are expected to give incentives to fans of those characters, and they can easily keep doing that, it's at the point where it makes them look less like background "friend" characters and closer to how the dateable side characters operate.

These scenes more recently have had teaser lines that allude to developing feelings from these 3 characters. Sometimes it looks like a confession that is then cancelled. Additionally, teaser/promo stuff posted on social media of these characters that were recently uploaded contain lines like that too, for example:

Their bday calls from last year also imply that next year they will do more and get you a gift because they will know you better.

[Sidebar: there was a scene in the main story where Mephi talks about his disinterest in romance which prompts Thirteen to go have a private talk with him about it. This could be a hint that his feelings about not wanting a relationship might change in the future (literally cus this is set in the past!). Additionally, Nightb. says at the beginning that mc in this timeline will be more loved than before, which could imply more romance options. Tho all of this is just a theory!]

Also, this would make them MONEY. It's a gacha game. It already makes them money to have the afformentioned teaser cards, yes, but if they can add these characters to gachas, even more money. Same with the additional content like exclusive bday gifts [they gave them canon bdays last year, coincidence?], wanderers whereabouts gifts, event incentive content like outfits, etc. Not to mention merchandize opportunities! Like fuck, this would work on me.

(Cont) not to mention, having a dateable female character would bring in more female attracted players. They already love nonbinary/male attracted players so why not bring in those who love women? 13 is already appealing to them.

They also took a 6 month break from the main story, which is a LOT of development time that could have been used to write these romances.

That's all I can think of for now but there's defo more. I can of course be completely wrong like I can think of several counter arguments for my point but... some of us have to dream. I'll either look like a genius in a couple weeks or like the biggest clown in the circus. Time will tell.

[jrueships]

top 5 movies

OOOO OKAY so i actually hate doing top tens because i overthink everything and constantly switch things around SOO... im just gonna do a collection of five things bee likes SORRY FOR THE FALSE ADVERTISING 😭

1 City of God

i hate telling people this is one of my fav movies cus I don't wanna seem like that pretentious person who only watches foreign films for the sake of watching foreign films. This is literally my favorite movie because it's my favorite movie. I don't really watch a lot of movies and this just happened to be one i found and happened to like! I read the book first (dont. By the way. It kinda sucks partly because it got translated poorly so not it's fault but mainly because it's violence for the sake of violence. Like if the movie went just by book, i wouldn't like it. But it doesn't so <3 )

think of the movie and the book like No Country For Old Men. The book goes for shock and suspense and the movie goes to make it Art. It's a really pretty film and you kinda value it more knowing like. None of the actors went anywhere. They did their piece for the film then that's pretty much all. It's a good film of a bad film that made it good film? Like what happens is bad, but the bad doesn't happen just to happen and be Bad. IDK man !

Next is

YEAH SO. LMAO um 😭 let's get this clear i hate b*ll i hated him from the beginning righteous prick and i always skipped his parts in the show or used it to do homework when i was lil. I JUST REALLY LOVED THE ANIMATION!! the show and the movie is ass tho. BUT IT'S THE KINDA ASS... you Enjoy 😈. All intentions possible. I love love LOVE watching this movie with friends so we can make fun of it and point out the terrible writing, not in a 'we're better sense' but a 'LMFAO WTF WAS THAT????'

it's a very WTF WAS THAT movie and i love it 😭. Weird Harold, Rudy, and Otis (yall don't even know any of these people but especially Otis. All u gotta know is he's the best) carried. Dumb Donald has a great design cartoon wise but he got on my nerves. He's alright tho

the harder they fall's soundtrack is SO good. It's so cool, it's just a COOL movie. It's an action movie so some of the characters could've been written better (especially some of the women. They werent written horrible but they had more potential that you can feel wasnt justly reached), but the characters they spent time on, you could tell. From their stories and personalities and dialogue and interactions, very cool!!! Sometimes an almost anime-esque kind of movie? Sometimes shot like Scott pilgrim? Sometimes sphagetti western.. Sometimes action.. Sometimes comedy! It's a COOL movie that you can think about a little bit but not cramp yourself over. It's not a complete turn your brain off though. It's engaging in what it is! Which is a lot of things, so it's very engaging!!!

Blade!!!!!! The patron Saint of joth gf!! my first!!! my beloved!! my EVERYTHING!!!!! the movie's writing shows its time in only having personality in 'crazy side villain who dies' 'clever quip when someone dies' 'sad for short time when someone dies'. Maybe the new blade movie wouldn't be in such a fumbling state if i was in the writer's room with my divine, lifesaving advice of 'just make blade more babygirl'. Literally. That's all you have to do. It's not that difficult. ANYWAYS yeah he and the flash and hawkman were my 3 only childhood 'superhero' heroes. This is more of a personal childhood attachment thing like Albert than being a.. Good movie. BUT it DOES have its cinematography! You can feel the wuxia inspiration in some scenes

these two can sit in the same space because they're both childhood films as well. Boyz was better at leaning into characters as human (which i value a lot) and menace was better at showing the edge of what life can do to characters. They're both good films in their own right! Check em out! I liked menace way more than the other when i was younger but growing up im leaning more toward the other but they're AGAIN theyre both super snazzy

Some honorable mentions... to make up for the lack of a ranking system:

- New Jack City: NEWWW JACK! CIIIITYYY (NEW JACK CITYY 🎶 !!) older blaxplotation movie so cheesy, cheap, but like? Cool??? cut out the cheesy old cop crud and you get an entertaining villain with an entertaining mob. Also there's one death in the movie that's a brutal one, and it's offscreen. You just see a glimpse of the desecrated aftermath. Those are like the best deaths in a movie tbh. The imagination being our biggest friend and our biggest enemy. Love it love it!

- dead presidents: WAR IS TRAUMATIZING!!!

- mean girls: the Brutus speech about Cesar.. no essay can compare. Shakespeare shut the fuck up bitch

- clueless: 🥰

- little shop of horrors: open up here i come

- in the wood: STACY!!!!!!!

- Rocky: Apollo slayed and then he died

- sky high + high school musical: Disney peaked with these characters then never again

- FRIDAY + Friday 2: loved the 'you don't need a weapon' moral trying to be taught then using a weapon (brick) in the end. Seamless

- ratatouille: the wii game ratatouille was my red dead redemption

- baby jody: all manchilds need to watch this. It's hilarious and it's true. Don't be a manchild. Grow up. OH also the mom has a little garden and it's really cute. And she's super buff. People try to plant shit in her garden. Makes me so mad. We can never have nice things!!!

- coraline: the movie was so cool.. the video game on the wii scared me so bad i had nightmares from the bad game over screens. But the designs were great the elements the songs the using good characters abilities into their bad character abilities UGH it was SO cool!!! i hate people that like coraline though... it's like.. idk how to describe it. there's like two types of theater people... either really really nice or seems really nice, actually a huge usually passive aggressive or control freak holier than thou smart ass who thinks they're the stem of theater because their personality is loving hamilton (i fucking hate hamilto

- hot boyz: this movie is straight ass

- king of New york: this one kinda sucked too but the secondary villain was gay and awesome

- Good Burger: i watched a blossoming boy romance in a place that sells burgers. Good burgers.

- Monster House

they survived because they had sex

-Kung fu panda all of them except maybe not the 3rd: just gorgeous gorgeous movies. The animation is stunning

- Hustle & flow: Ludacris !!!!!!!!! Acts!! He gets his ass kicked but that's ok. I think in another film he also gets his ass kicked? I can't remember tho. He loves losing

- Se7en: themed kills that play with unique abilities 🥰🥰 i don't have the patience for a murder mystery so i don't remember who did it or what was in the box and i don't cool. Seven deadly sins awesome

- Barbershop: mollusk man and preppy man should've had sex. Hate sex specifically

- that one movie? 9?: i watched it when i was little and alone. The Bara fucking dies

- Johnny English Reborn aka THE MR BEAN X DANIEL KALUUYA MOVIE IM TELLING YOU THEY HAD S*X!!!!!!@ it's actually a mainly unfunny movie with some funny parts like most older comedies but it's gay so it's ok

- encanto: i don't like encanto like Some people like encanto but it was the first movie that made me upset, I can't even Identify why?? It got me in my feelings and i don't even know!! How!! Or what!!!! I wouldn't say it's my favorite movie in terms of i want to see it again because i Like it, but it IS a good movie!! Like objectively it's great

- night at the museum: gay

- white chicks: the dancing scene? Monster high wishes it could

- cars: the purple car was so hot

- mo' better blues: so much could be solved if hate sex...

- remember the titans: football polycule and mean man

- fences: father issues . The Movie.

- into the spiderverse: yes.

- the players club: her boyfriend's name was Lance who tf is called Lance who is real? Like a real person? Lance is for GTA Lance Vance who likes to Dance. He cheated because he was always fake. Like Lance armstrong.. they are not. Real people.

- NOPE: the spectacle idea is SOOOOO

- glory road: gay people gay people gay basketball people gay

- space jam: i thought this was the coolest shit when i was little but the part where Michael's manager got flattened gave me nightmares.

Let It Shine: lord of Da Bling.....

-space jam 2: robot dame is still hot

- Get Out: I liked reading the script a lot for this one!! Also gay. Loving gay couple who survived crazy white people and coparent a tiny dog very well. A well deserved happiness

- jump in: this movie is like fat albert to me

- white men can't jump: gay couple school the system (love wins)

- Jason takes manhattan: my favorite character is on watchmojo top ten best Jason kills 😭😭 Julius gaw you should've won and i stand by that. Should've donkeykicked him in the stomach ROLL CREDITS!!!!

[dany36]

well, after 36 hours, i've finished tales of symphonia once again :) and despite the many flaws in the switch remastered edition, i honestly had a blast playing through it for the umpteenth time. no matter how many times i play through this game, it just brings me joy like no other. i've already rambled about why i love this game when i beat it for the first time in the ps3 collection, so super long junk thoughts below this time about the remastered edition, playing through the hard path for the first time ever, and wow still finding new sub-events after all these years:

i cannot BELIEVE that this game, from the gamecube era!!!, runs so poorly on the switch. there was only one update downloaded when i first started playing it late february, but that didn't really do anything to improve the experience or performance of the game as far as i could tell. it becomes super noticeable when you first go to the triet desert (2 hours into the game!) and the game starts lagging, but it's even WORSE when you go into the ruins. it's super distracting and honestly annoying as you watch your field character running slowly as fuck. and sadly the lagging doesn't stop there, there was lag in other areas of the game, like in latheon gorge and the temple of lightning. like, it's honestly inexcusable to release a gamecube port with such poor performance and if i was a first-time player, it would be off-putting and make me think twice about playing through this game!

also, as i was going through vinheim, i put colette briefly in my party and i don't know what it was but as soon as i put her in there, the battle stage would start lagging too. i had lloyd/sheena/genis/raine beforehand without any noticeable issues, but i don't know what it was about adding colette that well, i just had to switch her back out after a couple of battles. some other battle scenes would also lag but that's the one i remember the most. does anyone know if the ps4 runs just as bad? cus when i played the ps3 edition, i had no problems like this at any point in the game, so it's just baffling at how bandai-namco messed up such a beloved game!!

what was also distracting was that the field enemies would be t-posing around from time to time. i first noticed it when i went to rodyle's ranch, and it became more constant in the last few levels in the game, especially derris-kharlan and vinheim. like c'mooooooonnnnn!

i also already talked about this, but the loading screens when entering and exiting the overworld (like during overworld battles) or even i think sometimes within the same dungeons/towns? it's.....frustrating when you consider that these loading screens were non-existant in the gcn/ps3 versions, but i mean....sadly, i got used to them after a while, so i stopped noticing them as much. :/

and lastly, what was annoying was that i couldn't even enjoy the beautiful staff credits ending theme because....the sound was like skipping as it was trying to play? i can't remember any other instances of the sound skipping or having blips, so it was just honestly baffling to notice it for the first time during such an impactful theme song -_-

but like i mentioned, despite all these annoyances through the game, i think i enjoyed this playthrough more than when i played it through the ps3 last year. and i think that's mostly due to having done the hard path for the first time ever! it was honestly so cool because it felt like a brand new experience: at some points i got lost as to where to go next, and it made me look forward to see how certain interactions/cutscenes would change with sheena in my party for the palmacosta section. seeing all those additional cutscenes with sheena and the luin kids, as well as her going around trying to look for a cure for pietro, really puts it in a better perspective just how much of a kind-hearted person she really is! also i mentioned it already but seeing luin before it gets destroyed and talking to the townspeople about their fear of desians has a WAY bigger impact when you come back to luin and seeing it all destroyed, and of course makes you better sympathize with sheena on wanting to rescue the townspeople. seriously the hard path makes the sylvarant arc make way more sense than by just going to palmacosta first before luin, but it helps that sheena is like my favorite character of the bunch lol.

and well, honestly if you want to get sheena as first in your list in flanoir, the hard path is the way to go. when i did my ps3 run, i did the normal route and even after choosing all the sheena-positive choices as well as doing ALL of her overworld skits, she was still behind colette and genis. but doing the hard path, she was already first in the affection list shortly after reaching tethe'alla. so i got to see her affection scene after the mana cannon ordeal without any issues. :)

i WILL say though that they don't call it the hard path for no reason. doing the tower of mana first before the balacruf mausoleum and thoda geyser was hard as fuck!! i got there as level 13-14, and the boss just kicked my ass. colette would keep saying "wow, looks REALLY strong!" to even the regular enemies, and honestly i had to grind to level 20 to even have a chance with the boss. so that was fun! it made the remaining seals super easy to do, even defeating dorr's fake daughter and magnius. so yeah, getting past the tower of mana is definitely the hard part, but once that's done, it's easy sailing to tethe'alla!

and last but not least, i STILL found new cutscenes that i had never seen before! i started doing this in the ps3 run but i didn't know that you had to get cutscenes for everyone in the party in tethe'alla regarding their choice of where they would want to live after "splitting" the worlds (i think i only saw the ones for sheena, zelos, presea, and regal, but not genis and raine, whoops!). i always thought it was weird how this wasn't something that wasn't discussed beforehand because i mean, the last pact is in sylvarant so even if there were tethe'allans that want to stay in tethe'alla, they in theory would be stuck in sylvarant after the pact! but turns out that after you visit all of the towns in tethe'alla, the entire party comes to a decision and decides that they want to help lloyd in sylvarant and stick with him no matter what. how damn sweet!! 😭

also got some new sub-events! i don't remember getting a "Free Pass" in the ps3 version, and if i did, i must have forgotten lol. but with the Free Pass you can get an additional cutscene in the altamira hotel's luxury suite with the person you picked in flanoir (i'm guessing, either that or your highest-affection character?), so that was cool to see! and also the additional cutscene where the luin townsfolk want to give the title of honorary mayor to one member of your choice (another chance to raise the affection of someone but the honorary mayor ends up being lloyd no matter what lol), and also we see that pietro, with his mission accomplished in luin, leaves the town to help more people around the world with sophia's help!! how damn cool is that?! what an amazing character pietro turned out to be! 🥰

WELL, enough talking about how much i freaking love this game. there were other things i wanted to talk about as i was playing through, such as botta's last words or my favorite main-story skit in the game, but i didn't wanna spam the tag lol. but well, if i find out that the ps4 version's performance doesn't suck ass, or if they ever release a patch for the switch version that fixes SOME of the performance issues, then i will have no choice but to play through this beautiful game yeeeeeetttt again. :)

[mushroompoisoning]

2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 14, 20, 26, 33, 37, 39, 40, 41, 47, and 54. sorry for so much im invested in my mutuals ocs. also I had to write this twice bc my phone hates me. also for Cain as Cain OC solidarity (had TWO ocs named cain)

oh wow. questions!! :D

everything is under the readmore cus wow theres a lot

2. Gender Identity:

Cain never got the chance to explore his gender or sexuality up until he meets Lee in his like. I wanna say early mid 20's to early 30's? I don't think I ever specified how old the two were

Information you didn't ask for aside, cain is a bigender man and uses he/him and she/her [: contradictory labels my beloved

3. Orientation and relationship status:

She'd gay and ends up dating Lee after a lot of drama and denial. Begrudging allies to lovers my beloved trope

5. Height and body type:

Cain is 6'2-6'3, one of those two it's hard to tell. He's fit! Like a mix between gymbro style fit and someone who actually uses their strength fit; it's for his job

8. Weapon of choice:

Gun. Don't ask me to be specific I'm not a gun person. He has a gun, multiple actually, and she will use

10. Do they have any markings, piercings or scars?

Probably a lot of scars because of the nature of her job, but other than that nope. Better to not have any identifying features y'know?

11. Do they have any notable features?

Nope 😔 Cain is fully human

14. Can they cook? Can they bake?

He knows how to cook basic meals and can bake stuff from the mix boxes. She's mostly just eating stuff profession chefs cooked or cereal

20. Clothing / Aesthetic?

While at his job he wears professional business clothes. You know the look, we all know it. Button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, no tie, slacks and boots that don't go with the professional vibe but she wears them anyway.

When not at work she dresses casually. T-shirt or hoodie and either sweatpants or loose jeans

26. Guilty pleasure?

Liking men. /j /j /j

I'd probably have to say breaking someones nose. He's a little fucked up

33. How have they changed over time?

For a lot of his life he stayed a pushover; even after getting tougher later on.

He was a nervous kid who didn't want to lose friends and ended up hanging out with a bunch of homophobes as a result of being too scared to speak up. She eventually gets the courage to drop those friends, though! Not before ruining everything with Lee.

( The two were friends when they were younger but got cut off after Cain reacted badly to Lee coming out )

In current day, Cain tries to play the silent angry stoic type, but he's secretly still anxious and has some Issues.

She's been seeing a therapist and a mandatory thing for her job, so she is getting some help, too!

37. Do they have any phobias?

I don't think I ever came up with any before, so I'm going to say no. Saying gay people is too low hanging of a fruit

39. Your character walks into a cafe. What do they order?

Either like. Eight shots of espresso or water. No in between. She's very bland sometimes ( which Lee very much let's her know )

40. What time do they go to bed, usually?

He most often goes to bed around 5 to 7am and them has to wake up at 10am. She's on a rough schedule

41. What's their morning routine like?

Get up, shower, get dressed, eat and get a coffee, brush teeth and then head to work. Basic routine, nothing special

47. What was their biggest turning point?

Meeting Lee again and getting assigned to look after him. Despite being a dumbass, Lee is actually emotionally intelligent and helped Cain out with some stuff.

Lee didn't hold a grudge years later and helped Cain through her internalized queerphobia [: happy ending!

54. What does your character want? What fo they need?

Men. /j

A shoulder to lean on and maybe even to cry on. Support, basically. He really wants someone he can be close and vulnerable with, even if he's scared of that

Woo all the questions done [:

[fadebolt]

people dont like every slugcat being male except artificer because it kind of implies some weird things

people only headcanon arti as female because they had kids. but like, noone hcs gourmand or survivor as female despite also canonically having children in their endings

it implies some weird things like arti HAS to be a mother because only a mother would be enraged by their kids deaths. it makes no sense why survivor and gourm arent seen as female in the larger community

that or it implies some real weird stuff about why gourmand is headcanoned as male (probably because fat men are widely more accepted than fat women, which is a whoole other issue)

overall its just Weird. its kind of like male is seen as the “default gender” until they do something remotely feminine

Hey, uhh, sorry for taking a while to respond to this. As you could probably tell, I was feeling rather exhausted and stressed during the week, so I thought it might be better to answer after I could catch a little break, and have a much clearer head. Moodiness can make people say and do unreasonable things, and other people refusing to even tolerate me while I'm genuinely trying my hardest to be polite is something that tends to irk me, even when I'm feeling great otherwise. But I'll promise to try and handle this stuff a little better in the future, and just not let it get to me again (or at least not make problematic ramblings in moments when I very clearly shouldn't).

Anyways, as for your points, I'd say I sort of agree. Kids cartoons have absolutely set this problematic trend of "if you see a monster/creature/animal/machine/whatever non human entity, it is male, unless it has specific female traits or features" and this is simply such a common pattern that for a lot of people, it is nigh impossible to start assessing media without it (cus humans do have a hard time ditching their patterns). And wouldn't you know it, excessively caring and overprotective parenting where the children are pretty much the character's whole world, just so happens to be one of those said 'female traits or features'.

And is this an issue? Well, kinda, yeah. There's a good reason why media has been trying to subvert this for a long while, and I always love to see these characters that possess traits which are usually associated with the opposite gender (for the overly caring parent example - think Marlin from Finding Nemo), or female creatures that straight up possess zero of the feminine traits that tend to be used to identify non humans as female (think something like Rek'Sai or Naafiri from League). I could think of many more examples for both these categories, which I'm honestly very grateful for, because I do feel like it would really suck if we would have hard-set rules for what male and female characters are allowed to be, which would not only be a problem for the future of media and art, but it would also likely end up having an extraordinarily shitty impact on society.

However, the problems start kicking in when people are beginning to demand that you never portray male and female characters with any of their common stereotypes. And to an extent, I get it, but sometimes, those things might actually work, and restricting creators from using them is going to not only create needless conflict, but will also make it more difficult for them to see their artistic visions through. I understand that people would do this to solve a problem, but the issue is that we're swinging too far to the other side. We can uplift the non conformists without belittling the conformists, especially when we're in a fandom, a place where all kinds of people can unite over their love for a piece of media, as a way to relax and have harmless fun in their free time.

And also just because some people portray their characters a certain way, it doesn't mean that they're setting universal truths that everybody must follow. Just because someone thinks "Oh, an animal getting outraged over the deaths of their kids... sounds like a mother to me!", it doesn't mean that they're trying to spread this notion that a father couldn't react in the same way, similarly to how headcanoning Gourmand as male doesn't automatically make someone hate fat women. Are there a few people where these concerns might actually be true? Absolutely, but to claim that they make up the majority, just feels like a wild over exaggeration. And making these sorts of judgemental assumptions over fictional headcanons just doesn't sit right, at least with me.

I know I've written a boatload here (sorry xd), but I really wanted to fully express my thoughts, especially after the whole fiasco. This might sound surprising, but I'm genuinely grateful that you've sent these asks, not only to get me to my senses, but also to actually engage with me on this topic in a meaningful manner. To me, it really doesn't matter if someone else's opinion differs from mine. I'm willing to hear and consider it, and it makes me very happy when the other side is also willing to hear and consider mine. This is how we learn and grow after all, and is a way better strategy than just shutting ourselves into an echo chamber with a bunch of yes-men, and being mad at everybody outside of it... which is something I hope will not be a common phenomenon in this community. This fandom is very important to me, and the last thing I would want is to see it turning into a warzone between a bunch of isolated camps that viciously hate each other (though I am very frightened that the post might be contributing to us heading towards that direction, hence why it felt so awful for me to be silenced... let's just pray that it won't have any nasty consequences, like community members getting harassed or something).

So thank you, for coming here and giving me a chance to speak. It means a lot, and you'll always be welcome here, no matter how badly we might disagree on something. I'll make sure to try and be open to what you, or anybody else might have to say, and I encourage everybody else to do the same (unless that things is a blatant unconstructive insult meant to do nothing but harass, but that's beyond the point xd)

[cloudslou]

my policeman thoughts!! under cut bc idk how long it will be. not that long though i think.

general thoughts:

-my fav characters were patrick and julia, though obvi marion remains my fav just looking at it from the movie-standpoint

-it took me some time t get out my own head analyzing the main trio and asking myself if i thought they were doing well, etc but after abt 30 minutes i was able to ease into the story. kinda same as dwd but i think dwd took less time (possibly cus i was also in a dark theater w no ability to pause and consider anything)

-the pacing felt off to me i know i complained abt the movie length but i wish things had been given more time. i get what they were doing w marion and patrick’s perspectives but i dont think it was as effective and didnt translate from the book for me

-book was better, of course

-movie did not have enough julia!!! far from it. i want endless julia

-marion was done so dirty tbh the hints at her not being straight were almost completely gone (julia was obvious, but i feel like in the book marion is also clearly read as not straight)

-i love marion and patrick being parallels to each other. not just in regards to tom, but how they’re more often allies than not. how julia points out their similar interests. in my head marion looks at patrick, sees these parallels, and wonders what else they have in common.

-even having been done dirty marion is The Most Interesting character in the movie. so many scenes it was clear there was an internal struggle going on, which im reading as her quest for heterosexuality, fighting to maintain her marriage, questioning of herself, her relationship to julia and patrick, etc. adored her.

-i did not cry. soz to everyone who did but twas not that emotion-evoking to me.

harry acting:

-fairly good i think!! awkward at parts, but for the most part it didnt distract me. again like dwd i found him best in very emotive scenes like anger, sadness, internal conflict, etc and least effective in routine or sincere scenes (like when he’s just having a conversation, or standing around, etc)

-i know ppl had words abt his accent but tbh i dont have the kind of ear for accents or to say if harry was doing well or not, or if he was talking more in his natural accent or an altered one so. it wasnt an issue for me. sometimes i thought he sounded weird but i actually think im just not used to him enunciating so much.

how i would make it shorter bc why in the hell was it 2 hours:

-sorry to the older versions of tom/marion/patrick, but Were It My Movie, i would have just eliminated the whole past vs present, retrospective aspect. i dont feel like its as effective in movie format, whereas the whole concept of letters telling their stories in the book works for me. i dont think the later scenes added much 2 the movie and if anything opened up more confusion for me.

-for example, when older tom sees nigel and (presumably) his boyfriend in the shop, is that meant to be like....his first time seeing a gay couple existing openly? after like 40 years from the younger story line? what?>??

-in the last 20 minutes where older marion is like. Explaining everything? bad ending. could have done w/o that. marion leaving to her sister’s>?? bad, try again. when its younger tom standing w older patrick so its like. a mirage idk?? Bad. hated that pls take it back.

-just cut the last 15 minutes. honestly.

[zorilleerrant]

it's really very difficult to decide which characters to submit to Do You Know This Disabled Character. especially since they're new so they probably don't have determinations about the borders of what they're doing yet

because on the one hand it's very important to me to talk about characters people don't think of as disabled when talking about disabled characters. and to make it clear the category of 'disabled' is both very broad and very contextual. because people think of disability as this thing that either just doesn't apply to someone or runs every aspect of their life. but then on the other hand that's maybe not what people are following the blog to see, and want more obviously disabled characters.

because I could submit anyone with glasses, for example. it's a disability! people can't see good! and growing up as a kid with glasses where it was really hard to find characters (especially child characters) who had glasses, I can speak to representation being important. it's a lot better now than it used to be, and, of course, having glasses isn't a super big deal for adults. so maybe people looking for disability representation don't want to see it. and I understand that! I really don't want to start a fight about "real" disability when I get the point of what people are looking for in characters and texts.

and then there's things like what do you do about, say, autistic or Deaf characters. people where the characters, creators, audiences, etc. may not think of that person as disabled, but at the same time people looking for representation, including autistic and Deaf audiences, might specifically be curious and interested in seeing that character. should that context be treated differently in this case, in a "you know what I mean" sense, even though that's counter to a lot of political discussion on the topic?

SFF disabilities are a really difficult thing, too. because while you can easily include a nonhuman character who has a disability that directly correlates to a real world disability (maybe they're missing a tentacle instead of a leg), or just has the same disability a human would have, there are confounding factors. maybe an entire species just has no eyes and only does data analysis of the visual spectrum. is that a disabled character?

in a text where the character has to navigate a human space that relies mostly on visual cuing, it certainly could be. a story from their perspective would talk a lot about dealing with what functions as a disability, and could be very relatable to disabled audiences. of course, this might be true of something totally made up as well, like lack of telepathy, or pyrokinesis that only works some of the time. and then does it depend on how well it resonates, and does it matter who it resonates with?

or maybe there's nothing from that character's perspective, they just exist in the background. but in seeing them interact, the author has built a view into accessibility accommodations, which we can use to infer things about the world and the story. does it matter what the author's intent is? maybe they're building up what the difficulties would be, for a disabled person in that society, and it's a marked absence they want to be transparent to the audience. or maybe they're creating scaffolding to introduce later disabled characters who might not otherwise be noticeable because they aren't having trouble interacting with the myriad helpful workarounds built into the system. or maybe the author forgot that disabled people exist and just accidentally added in something that's intriguing or relatable to disabled audiences. what about those characters?

the only ones I can be sure of are the ones who are so popular, and known for being intelligent, competent, helpful, successful, etc. and because of that, people don't think of them as disabled. even though mental or physical difficulties they have are mentioned, or sometimes even indelibly baked into the text. but because they're so good at what they're doing, they're the heroes, they're not pitied, they're not mistreated, they're not babied or saved, and they don't focus on the social/systemic aspects of their disability, people just don't think of them as disabled characters. that is a thing that has to change. because people can be disabled and be awesome, and claiming their disability doesn't count because they're the main character and well-rounded is completely counterproductive.

so I can be sure about Batman at least

[qqueenofhades]

The Green Knight and Medieval Metatextuality: An Essay

Right, so. Finally watched it last night, and I’ve been thinking about it literally ever since, except for the part where I was asleep. As I said to fellow medievalist and admirer of Dev Patel @oldshrewsburyian, it’s possibly the most fascinating piece of medieval-inspired media that I’ve seen in ages, and how refreshing to have something in this genre that actually rewards critical thought and deep analysis, rather than me just fulminating fruitlessly about how popular media thinks that slapping blood, filth, and misogyny onto some swords and castles is “historically accurate.” I read a review of TGK somewhere that described it as the anti-Game of Thrones, and I’m inclined to think that’s accurate. I didn’t agree with all of the film’s tonal, thematic, or interpretative choices, but I found them consistently stylish, compelling, and subversive in ways both small and large, and I’m gonna have to write about it or I’ll go crazy. So. Brace yourselves.

(Note: My PhD is in medieval history, not medieval literature, and I haven’t worked on SGGK specifically, but I am familiar with it, its general cultural context, and the historical influences, images, and debates that both the poem and the film referenced and drew upon, so that’s where this meta is coming from.)

First, obviously, while the film is not a straight-up text-to-screen version of the poem (though it is by and large relatively faithful), it is a multi-layered meta-text that comments on the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the archetypes of chivalric literature as a whole, modern expectations for medieval films, the hero’s journey, the requirements of being an “honorable knight,” and the nature of death, fate, magic, and religion, just to name a few. Given that the Arthurian legendarium, otherwise known as the Matter of Britain, was written and rewritten over several centuries by countless authors, drawing on and changing and hybridizing interpretations that sometimes challenged or outright contradicted earlier versions, it makes sense for the film to chart its own path and make its own adaptational decisions as part of this multivalent, multivocal literary canon. Sir Gawain himself is a canonically and textually inconsistent figure; in the movie, the characters merrily pronounce his name in several different ways, most notably as Sean Harris/King Arthur’s somewhat inexplicable “Garr-win.” He might be a man without a consistent identity, but that’s pointed out within the film itself. What has he done to define himself, aside from being the king’s nephew? Is his quixotic quest for the Green Knight actually going to resolve the question of his identity and his honor – and if so, is it even going to matter, given that successful completion of the “game” seemingly equates with death?

Likewise, as the anti-Game of Thrones, the film is deliberately and sometimes maddeningly non-commercial. For an adaptation coming from a studio known primarily for horror, it almost completely eschews the cliché that gory bloodshed equals authentic medievalism; the only graphic scene is the Green Knight’s original beheading. The violence is only hinted at, subtextual, suspenseful; it is kept out of sight, around the corner, never entirely played out or resolved. In other words, if anyone came in thinking that they were going to watch Dev Patel luridly swashbuckle his way through some CGI monsters like bad Beowulf adaptations of yore, they were swiftly disappointed. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time being wet, sad, and failing to meet the moment at hand (with a few important exceptions).

The film unhurriedly evokes a medieval setting that is both surreal and defiantly non-historical. We travel (in roughly chronological order) from Anglo-Saxon huts to Romanesque halls to high-Gothic cathedrals to Tudor villages and half-timbered houses, culminating in the eerie neo-Renaissance splendor of the Lord and Lady’s hall, before returning to the ancient trees of the Green Chapel and its immortal occupant: everything that has come before has now returned to dust. We have been removed even from imagined time and place and into a moment where it ceases to function altogether. We move forward, backward, and sideways, as Gawain experiences past, present, and future in unison. He is dislocated from his own sense of himself, just as we, the viewers, are dislocated from our sense of what is the “true” reality or filmic narrative; what we think is real turns out not to be the case at all. If, of course, such a thing even exists at all.

This visual evocation of the entire medieval era also creates a setting that, unlike GOT, takes pride in rejecting absolutely all political context or Machiavellian maneuvering. The film acknowledges its own cultural ubiquity and the question of whether we really need yet another King Arthur adaptation: none of the characters aside from Gawain himself are credited by name. We all know it’s Arthur, but he’s listed only as “king.” We know the spooky druid-like old man with the white beard is Merlin, but it’s never required to spell it out. The film gestures at our pre-existing understanding; it relies on us to fill in the gaps, cuing us to collaboratively produce the story with it, positioning us as listeners as if we were gathered to hear the original poem. Just like fanfiction, it knows that it doesn’t need to waste time introducing every single character or filling in ultimately unnecessary background knowledge, when the audience can be relied upon to bring their own.

As for that, the film explicitly frames itself as a “filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance” in its opening credits, and continues to play with textual referents and cues throughout: telling us where we are, what’s happening, or what’s coming next, rather like the rubrics or headings within a medieval manuscript. As noted, its historical/architectural references span the entire medieval European world, as does its costume design. I was particularly struck by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere’s crowns resemble those from illuminated monastic manuscripts or Eastern Orthodox iconography: they are both crown and halo, they confer an air of both secular kingship and religious sanctity. The question in the film’s imagined epilogue thus becomes one familiar to Shakespeare’s Henry V: heavy is the head that wears the crown. Does Gawain want to earn his uncle’s crown, take over his place as king, bear the fate of Camelot, become a great ruler, a husband and father in ways that even Arthur never did, only to see it all brought to dust by his cowardice, his reliance on unscrupulous sorcery, and his unfulfilled promise to the Green Knight? Is it better to have that entire life and then lose it, or to make the right choice now, even if it means death?

Likewise, Arthur’s kingly mantle is Byzantine in inspiration, as is the icon of the Virgin Mary-as-Theotokos painted on Gawain’s shield (which we see broken apart during the attack by the scavengers). The film only glances at its religious themes rather than harping on them explicitly; we do have the cliché scene of the male churchmen praying for Gawain’s safety, opposite Gawain’s mother and her female attendants working witchcraft to protect him. (When oh when will I get my film that treats medieval magic and medieval religion as the complementary and co-existing epistemological systems that they were, rather than portraying them as diametrically binary and disparagingly gendered opposites?) But despite the interim setbacks borne from the failure of Christian icons, the overall resolution of the film could serve as the culmination of a medieval Christian morality tale: Gawain can buy himself a great future in the short term if he relies on the protection of the enchanted green belt to avoid the Green Knight’s killing stroke, but then he will have to watch it all crumble until he is sitting alone in his own hall, his children dead and his kingdom destroyed, as a headless corpse who only now has been brave enough to accept his proper fate. By removing the belt from his person in the film’s Inception-like final scene, he relinquishes the taint of black magic and regains his religious honor, even at the likely cost of death. That, the medieval Christian morality tale would agree, is the correct course of action.

Gawain’s encounter with St. Winifred likewise presents a more subtle vision of medieval Christianity. Winifred was an eighth-century Welsh saint known for being beheaded, after which (by the power of another saint) her head was miraculously restored to her body and she went on to live a long and holy life. It doesn’t quite work that way in TGK. (St Winifred’s Well is mentioned in the original SGGK, but as far as I recall, Gawain doesn’t meet the saint in person.) In the film, Gawain encounters Winifred’s lifelike apparition, who begs him to dive into the mere and retrieve her head (despite appearances, she warns him, it is not attached to her body). This fits into the pattern of medieval ghost stories, where the dead often return to entreat the living to help them finish their business; they must be heeded, but when they are encountered in places they shouldn’t be, they must be put back into their proper physical space and reminded of their real fate. Gawain doesn’t follow William of Newburgh’s practical recommendation to just fetch some brawny young men with shovels to beat the wandering corpse back into its grave. Instead, in one of his few moments of unqualified heroism, he dives into the dark water and retrieves Winifred’s skull from the bottom of the lake. Then when he returns to the house, he finds the rest of her skeleton lying in the bed where he was earlier sleeping, and carefully reunites the skull with its body, finally allowing it to rest in peace.

However, Gawain’s involvement with Winifred doesn’t end there. The fox that he sees on the bank after emerging with her skull, who then accompanies him for the rest of the film, is strongly implied to be her spirit, or at least a companion that she has sent for him. Gawain has handled a saint’s holy bones; her relics, which were well known to grant protection in the medieval world. He has done the saint a service, and in return, she extends her favor to him. At the end of the film, the fox finally speaks in a human voice, warning him not to proceed to the fateful final encounter with the Green Knight; it will mean his death. The symbolism of having a beheaded saint serve as Gawain’s guide and protector is obvious, since it is the fate that may or may not lie in store for him. As I said, the ending is Inception-like in that it steadfastly refuses to tell you if the hero is alive (or will live) or dead (or will die). In the original SGGK, of course, the Green Knight and the Lord turn out to be the same person, Gawain survives, it was all just a test of chivalric will and honor, and a trap put together by Morgan Le Fay in an attempt to frighten Guinevere. It’s essentially able to be laughed off: a game, an adventure, not real. TGK takes this paradigm and flips it (to speak…) on its head.

Gawain’s rescue of Winifred’s head also rewards him in more immediate terms: his/the Green Knight’s axe, stolen by the scavengers, is miraculously restored to him in her cottage, immediately and concretely demonstrating the virtue of his actions. This is one of the points where the film most stubbornly resists modern storytelling conventions: it simply refuses to add in any kind of “rational” or “empirical” explanation of how else it got there, aside from the grace and intercession of the saint. This is indeed how it works in medieval hagiography: things simply reappear, are returned, reattached, repaired, made whole again, and Gawain’s lost weapon is thus restored, symbolizing that he has passed the test and is worthy to continue with the quest. The film’s narrative is not modernizing its underlying medieval logic here, and it doesn’t particularly care if a modern audience finds it “convincing” or not. As noted, the film never makes any attempt to temporalize or localize itself; it exists in a determinedly surrealist and ahistorical landscape, where naked female giants who look suspiciously like Tilda Swinton roam across the wild with no necessary explanation. While this might be frustrating for some people, I actually found it a huge relief that a clearly fantastic and fictional literary adaptation was not acting like it was qualified to teach “real history” to its audience. Nobody would come out of TGK thinking that they had seen the “actual” medieval world, and since we have enough of a problem with that sort of thing thanks to GOT, I for one welcome the creation of a medieval imaginative space that embraces its eccentric and unrealistic elements, rather than trying to fit them into the Real Life box.

This plays into the fact that the film, like a reused medieval manuscript containing more than one text, is a palimpsest: for one, it audaciously rewrites the entire Arthurian canon in the wordless vision of Gawain’s life after escaping the Green Knight (I could write another meta on that dream-epilogue alone). It moves fluidly through time and creates alternate universes in at least two major points: one, the scene where Gawain is tied up and abandoned by the scavengers and that long circling shot reveals his skeletal corpse rotting on the sward, only to return to our original universe as Gawain decides that he doesn’t want that fate, and two, Gawain as King. In this alternate ending, Arthur doesn’t die in battle with Mordred, but peaceably in bed, having anointed his worthy nephew as his heir. Gawain becomes king, has children, gets married, governs Camelot, becomes a ruler surpassing even Arthur, but then watches his son get killed in battle, his subjects turn on him, and his family vanish into the dust of his broken hall before he himself, in despair, pulls the enchanted scarf out of his clothing and succumbs to his fate.

In this version, Gawain takes on the responsibility for the fall of Camelot, not Arthur. This is the hero’s burden, but he’s obtained it dishonorably, by cheating. It is a vivid but mimetic future which Gawain (to all appearances) ultimately rejects, returning the film to the realm of traditional Arthurian canon – but not quite. After all, if Gawain does get beheaded after that final fade to black, it would represent a significant alteration from the poem and the character’s usual arc. Are we back in traditional canon or aren’t we? Did Gawain reject that future or didn’t he? Do all these alterities still exist within the visual medium of the meta-text, and have any of them been definitely foreclosed?

Furthermore, the film interrogates itself and its own tropes in explicit and overt ways. In Gawain’s conversation with the Lord, the Lord poses the question that many members of the audience might have: is Gawain going to carry out this potentially pointless and suicidal quest and then be an honorable hero, just like that? What is he actually getting by staggering through assorted Irish bogs and seeming to reject, rather than embrace, the paradigms of a proper quest and that of an honorable knight? He lies about being a knight to the scavengers, clearly out of fear, and ends up cravenly bound and robbed rather than fighting back. He denies knowing anything about love to the Lady (played by Alicia Vikander, who also plays his lover at the start of the film with a decidedly ropey Yorkshire accent, sorry to say). He seems to shrink from the responsibility thrust on him, rather than rise to meet it (his only honorable act, retrieving Winifred’s head, is discussed above) and yet here he still is, plugging away. Why is he doing this? What does he really stand to gain, other than accepting a choice and its consequences (somewhat?) The film raises these questions, but it has no plans to answer them. It’s going to leave you to think about them for yourself, and it isn’t going to spoon-feed you any ultimate moral or neat resolution. In this interchange, it’s easy to see both the echoes of a formal dialogue between two speakers (a favored medieval didactic tactic) and the broader purpose of chivalric literature: to interrogate what it actually means to be a knight, how personal honor is generated, acquired, and increased, and whether engaging in these pointless and bloody “war games” is actually any kind of real path to lasting glory.

The film’s treatment of race, gender, and queerness obviously also merits comment. By casting Dev Patel, an Indian-born actor, as an Arthurian hero, the film is… actually being quite accurate to the original legends, doubtless much to the disappointment of assorted internet racists. The thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Parzival (Percival) by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach notably features the character of Percival’s mixed-race half-brother, Feirefiz, son of their father by his first marriage to a Muslim princess. Feirefiz is just as heroic as Percival (Gawaine, for the record, also plays a major role in the story) and assists in the quest for the Holy Grail, though it takes his conversion to Christianity for him to properly behold it.

By introducing Patel (and Sarita Chowdhury as Morgause) to the visual representation of Arthuriana, the film quietly does away with the “white Middle Ages” cliché that I have complained about ad nauseam; we see background Asian and black members of Camelot, who just exist there without having to conjure up some complicated rationale to explain their presence. The Lady also uses a camera obscura to make Gawain’s portrait. Contrary to those who might howl about anachronism, this technique was known in China as early as the fourth century BCE and the tenth/eleventh century Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham was probably the best-known medieval authority to write on it extensively; Latin translations of his work inspired European scientists from Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the symbolism of an upside-down Gawain (and when he sees the portrait again during the ‘fall of Camelot’, it is right-side-up, representing that Gawain himself is in an upside-down world), this presents a subtle challenge to the prevailing Eurocentric imagination of the medieval world, and draws on other global influences.

As for gender, we have briefly touched on it above; in the original SGGK, Gawain’s entire journey is revealed to be just a cruel trick of Morgan Le Fay, simply trying to destabilize Arthur’s court and upset his queen. (Morgan is the old blindfolded woman who appears in the Lord and Lady’s castle and briefly approaches Gawain, but her identity is never explicitly spelled out.) This is, obviously, an implicitly misogynistic setup: an evil woman plays a trick on honorable men for the purpose of upsetting another woman, the honorable men overcome it, the hero survives, and everyone presumably lives happily ever after (at least until Mordred arrives).

Instead, by plunging the outcome into doubt and the hero into a much darker and more fallible moral universe, TGK shifts the blame for Gawain’s adventure and ultimate fate from Morgan to Gawain himself. Likewise, Guinevere is not the passive recipient of an evil deception but in a way, the catalyst for the whole thing. She breaks the seal on the Green Knight’s message with a weighty snap; she becomes the oracle who reads it out, she is alarming rather than alarmed, she disrupts the complacency of the court and silently shows up all the other knights who refuse to step forward and answer the Green Knight’s challenge. Gawain is not given the ontological reassurance that it’s just a practical joke and he’s going to be fine (and thanks to the unresolved ending, neither are we). The film instead takes the concept at face value in order to push the envelope and ask the simple question: if a man was going to be actually-for-real beheaded in a year, why would he set out on a suicidal quest? Would you, in Gawain’s place, make the same decision to cast aside the enchanted belt and accept your fate? Has he made his name, will he be remembered well? What is his legacy?

Indeed, if there is any hint of feminine connivance and manipulation, it arrives in the form of the implication that Gawain’s mother has deliberately summoned the Green Knight to test her son, prove his worth, and position him as his childless uncle’s heir; she gives him the protective belt to make sure he won’t actually die, and her intention all along was for the future shown in the epilogue to truly play out (minus the collapse of Camelot). Only Gawain loses the belt thanks to his cowardice in the encounter with the scavengers, regains it in a somewhat underhanded and morally questionable way when the Lady is attempting to seduce him, and by ultimately rejecting it altogether and submitting to his uncertain fate, totally mucks up his mother’s painstaking dynastic plans for his future. In this reading, Gawain could be king, and his mother’s efforts are meant to achieve that goal, rather than thwart it. He is thus required to shoulder his own responsibility for this outcome, rather than conveniently pawning it off on an “evil woman,” and by extension, the film asks the question: What would the world be like if men, especially those who make war on others as a way of life, were actually forced to face the consequences of their reckless and violent actions? Is it actually a “game” in any sense of the word, especially when chivalric literature is constantly preoccupied with the question of how much glorious violence is too much glorious violence? If you structure social prestige for the king and the noble male elite entirely around winning battles and existing in a state of perpetual war, when does that begin to backfire and devour the knightly class – and the rest of society – instead?

This leads into the central theme of Gawain’s relationships with the Lord and Lady, and how they’re treated in the film. The poem has been repeatedly studied in terms of its latent (and sometimes… less than latent) queer subtext: when the Lord asks Gawain to pay back to him whatever he should receive from his wife, does he already know what this involves; i.e. a physical and romantic encounter? When the Lady gives kisses to Gawain, which he is then obliged to return to the Lord as a condition of the agreement, is this all part of a dastardly plot to seduce him into a kinky green-themed threesome with a probably-not-human married couple looking to spice up their sex life? Why do we read the Lady’s kisses to Gawain as romantic but Gawain’s kisses to the Lord as filial, fraternal, or the standard “kiss of peace” exchanged between a liege lord and his vassal? Is Gawain simply being a dutiful guest by honoring the bargain with his host, actually just kissing the Lady again via the proxy of her husband, or somewhat more into this whole thing with the Lord than he (or the poet) would like to admit? Is the homosocial turning homoerotic, and how is Gawain going to navigate this tension and temptation?

If the question is never resolved: well, welcome to one of the central medieval anxieties about chivalry, knighthood, and male bonds! As I have written about before, medieval society needed to simultaneously exalt this as the most honored and noble form of love, and make sure it didn’t accidentally turn sexual (once again: how much male love is too much male love?). Does the poem raise the possibility of serious disruption to the dominant heteronormative paradigm, only to solve the problem by interpreting the Gawain/Lady male/female kisses as romantic and sexual and the Gawain/Lord male/male kisses as chaste and formal? In other words, acknowledging the underlying anxiety of possible homoeroticism but ultimately reasserting the heterosexual norm? The answer: Probably?!?! Maybe?!?! Hell if we know??! To say the least, this has been argued over to no end, and if you locked a lot of medieval history/literature scholars into a room and told them that they couldn’t come out until they decided on one clear answer, they would be in there for a very long time. The poem seemingly invokes the possibility of a queer reading only to reject it – but once again, as in the question of which canon we end up in at the film’s end, does it?

In some lights, the film’s treatment of this potential queer reading comes off like a cop-out: there is only one kiss between Gawain and the Lord, and it is something that the Lord has to initiate after Gawain has already fled the hall. Gawain himself appears to reject it; he tells the Lord to let go of him and runs off into the wilderness, rather than deal with or accept whatever has been suggested to him. However, this fits with film!Gawain’s pattern of rejecting that which fundamentally makes him who he is; like Peter in the Bible, he has now denied the truth three times. With the scavengers he denies being a knight; with the Lady he denies knowing about courtly love; with the Lord he denies the central bond of brotherhood with his fellows, whether homosocial or homoerotic in nature. I would go so far as to argue that if Gawain does die at the end of the film, it is this rejected kiss which truly seals his fate. In the poem, the Lord and the Green Knight are revealed to be the same person; in the film, it’s not clear if that’s the case, or they are separate characters, even if thematically interrelated. If we assume, however, that the Lord is in fact still the human form of the Green Knight, then Gawain has rejected both his kiss of peace (the standard gesture of protection offered from lord to vassal) and any deeper emotional bond that it can be read to signify. The Green Knight could decide to spare Gawain in recognition of the courage he has shown in relinquishing the enchanted belt – or he could just as easily decide to kill him, which he is legally free to do since Gawain has symbolically rejected the offer of brotherhood, vassalage, or knight-bonding by his unwise denial of the Lord’s freely given kiss. Once again, the film raises the overall thematic and moral question and then doesn’t give one straight (ahem) answer. As with the medieval anxieties and chivalric texts that it is based on, it invokes the specter of queerness and then doesn’t neatly resolve it. As a modern audience, we find this unsatisfying, but once again, the film is refusing to conform to our expectations.

As has been said before, there is so much kissing between men in medieval contexts, both ceremonial and otherwise, that we’re left to wonder: “is it gay or is it feudalism?” Is there an overtly erotic element in Gawain and the Green Knight’s mutual “beheading” of each other (especially since in the original version, this frees the Lord from his curse, functioning like a true love’s kiss in a fairytale). While it is certainly possible to argue that the film has “straightwashed” its subject material by removing the entire sequence of kisses between Gawain and the Lord and the unresolved motives for their existence, it is a fairly accurate, if condensed, representation of the anxieties around medieval knightly bonds and whether, as Carolyn Dinshaw put it, a (male/male) “kiss is just a kiss.” After all, the kiss between Gawain and the Lady is uncomplicatedly read as sexual/romantic, and that context doesn’t go away when Gawain is kissing the Lord instead. Just as with its multiple futurities, the film leaves the question open-ended. Is it that third and final denial that seals Gawain’s fate, and if so, is it asking us to reflect on why, specifically, he does so?

The film could play with both this question and its overall tone quite a bit more: it sometimes comes off as a grim, wooden, over-directed Shakespearean tragedy, rather than incorporating the lively and irreverent tone that the poem often takes. It’s almost totally devoid of humor, which is unfortunate, and the Grim Middle Ages aesthetic is in definite evidence. Nonetheless, because of the comprehensive de-historicizing and the obvious lack of effort to claim the film as any sort of authentic representation of the medieval past, it works. We are not meant to understand this as a historical document, and so we have to treat it on its terms, by its own logic, and by its own frames of reference. In some ways, its consistent opacity and its refusal to abide by modern rules and common narrative conventions is deliberately meant to challenge us: as before, when we recognize Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, and the other stock characters because we know them already and not because the film tells us so, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. We are watching the film not because it tells us a simple adventure story – there is, as noted, shockingly little action overall – but because we have to piece together the metatext independently and ponder the philosophical questions that it leaves us with. What conclusion do we reach? What canon do we settle in? What future or resolution is ultimately made real? That, the film says, it can’t decide for us. As ever, it is up to future generations to carry on the story, and decide how, if at all, it is going to survive.

(And to close, I desperately want them to make my much-coveted Bisclavret adaptation now in more or less the same style, albeit with some tweaks. Please.)

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.

[worstloki]

Okay, this is gettin’ real screwed up here.

I watch a lot of TV. Probably too much. And I’ve seen characters beaten to their knees before, sometimes even with collars. And yeah, there’s usually someone standing over them, and it’s been a woman sometimes. The kind of scene we got in episode 5 of Loki is not new ground.

But here’s the thing. In EVERY OTHER SCENE I can remember like this, the person kneeling is the hero. They’ve been brought down, fully humbled before the sneering villain, and in a few minutes something will happen to get them back on their feet again. It’s usually a tense moment, a “what if they break?” that makes you want the hero to win. You aren’t rooting for, or even liking in some cases, the person standing. You’re cheering for the person on their knees.

This doesn’t seem to be the case with the Loki show. Yes, the viewers may be rooting for Loki, but there’s no hatred for Sif there. She’s not proved herself to be a cold, heartless villain, ruthlessly pounding the hero until all he can do is kneel at her feet.

Except…she did kind of do that. But it isn’t treated as something bad. It’s treated more as something Loki deserved, in my opinion. The show wants us to feel like he deserved to get repeatedly beaten up and told horrible things, just for cutting off a lock of Sif’s hair. I’ll grant, it’s peanuts compared to what happened to him in the mythology. But it’s still bad. Especially since they had him acknowledge it, repeat her cruel words back. They’re playing it off as if Loki is still the villain by himself, and is only good because of other people- Mobius, mostly, but Sif is part of that.

That’s not the way Loki’s character is. In the comics particularly, his biggest arcs are always about reinventing the labels given to him, changing “villain” into something good, something he can use, and doing it by himself. Yes, there’s outside influence, but ultimately Loki is the one who decided to change.

The show is not letting him do that. The show is portraying him as a stubborn jackass who refuses to change until other people show him the light- either with psychological torture presented as therapy, or with beating him up a bunch of times until he gives in. The show and its characters are forcing Loki to become good- they aren’t showing him doing it by himself. He is not becoming one of the good guys, he’s being essentially enslaved by them, and the show is passing it off as somehow all that good influence finally rubbed off on Loki’s cold, villainous heart. That’s why him betraying Mobius was shown as so bad even though Loki barely knew him and had been psychologically tortured by him- Mobius is written as a character who can choose to be good, and Loki is written as a character who must be forced to be good.

And something about an entire show revolving around an independent character being treated as a villain, literally enslaved by the “good guys” (back when the show still wanted us to think the TVA weren’t shady as all hell), beaten to his knees with a collar around his neck until he accepts that he deserves to be alone because he isn’t “good” like everybody else…that doesn’t go down right for me.

The TVA being presented in not just a neutral but often reliable light is something I thought would change once Loki literally called out their propaganda and Sylvie called them fascists, but, for some reason the authoritarian genocidalists are not being presented as a bad thing and it irks me too.

It's especially weird because of the way what Loki claims to have wanted by making choices for people and what Mobius claims the TVA do ARE THE EXACT SAME THINGS, except Loki, until the show, hadn't done that of his own volition and was being tortured during the invasion and is treated terribly for something he didn't even succeed in doing, while the TVA successfully erase events on a mass scale but are presented as having a higher (or at best, - equal) moral ground.

The exact same thing was done in Ragnarok where Loki's "turning point" from a tricksy villainous scoundrel happened because Thor left him frying on the ground and gave him a pep talk filled with lies and general slander about how he could be better - and people see that as good because Thor is framed as a hero, and it's because instead of accepting Loki is a complex character they take what the narrative tells at face value and that is that Loki fights the protagonist(s) so he's bad.

I personally don't like the narrative pushing a character that is canonically an abuse victim and attempted suicide and was tortured right after as someone who needs fixing because he's lusting for power and needs it to gain a sense of control during a retcon which is occurring for the sake of calling him a complete bad guy who needs to change (probably because no actual original character development could be thought of?) after he was just confirmed as queer and colloquially (i assume) called a narcissist because of twisted love.

That he deserves to be alone was presented neutrally as a joke even as he was repeatedly getting beaten to the ground, and then both people he could call friends were removed from his immediate vicinity right after.

Loki isn't being presented as a character that has done a huge mix of good and bad in the movies, he's being presented as an oft incompetent idiot that deserves what he gets because he shouldn't have run away from captors, or he cut Sif's hair, or he killed his mother, or he dared to think he had any importance or could do something good, because the truth is he's an evil lying scourge.

"But maybe," Mobius says, "Maybe he wants to mix it up. Sometimes you get tired of playing the same part. Is that possible? He can change?" And everyone's already forgotten that moments before the mission Mobius said to Loki's face that the TVA has pruned a lot of Loki variants because he's so nice! look! he has hope in him when no one else does! It's also easy to forget the "and hey, if it doesn't work, I'll delete him myself," right after because the guy was smiling through it and the scene is followed by Loki really badly trying to explain the logic of being a trickster who everyone knows is a trickster.

A lot of people payed more attention in Ragnarok than to the other Thor movies so it's not a new retcon and people seem fine with the extremely strange take that 'loki is bad but he can do good sometimes,' because the character is more animated and acts foolish and that's generally more fun for comedy, which is fair for people to prefer imo, people find different things entertaining.

But I do solidly hope the show doesn't go that way though and takes a side with Loki on the narrative stance eventually because I've seen a lot of people who just. miss that the TVA's concept is bad. And those who think they're "reforming" Loki. As if the guy needs anything but a break at this point lmao he only got away from Thanos like 2 days ago please just let him rest for a bit he's a fail villain and it's cringe to have your supposed 1st open queer character get beaten to a pulp by Sif and then put wack sexualizing shots for it too :/

it's like the show itself is trying to sell the angle of "Loki is a villain" and I'm a clown who is still wanting that to be intentional because if it is? It could be amazing and playing with how different parties are framed would be s p e c t a cu l ar and could encourage people to reassess the hero coding in other movies including ones Loki was previously in - but we're reaching the last two episodes and I don't feel like that'll happen.

I feel like even if Loki does reach the end of the show as a transformed person it'll be done leaving the audience with "perhaps you're not so bad after all, Loki," and then also give credit to Mobius or Sylvie or whoever else was involved, simply because as even of yet Loki hasn't taken on a lead role in the show. I'd argue he hasn't really contributed anything worthwhile to plot either. As you've said, he's being shown as someone who needs to change but isn't really motivated to. Aw man they better not make romantic love the reason he wants to change.