#George is a really complex character imo

[helaenalyst]

alternative alicole reading: they're not just lancelot and guenevere, they're also don quixote and dulcinea

if you are not familiar with the story of don quixote, it is a spanish book that parodies the typical tales of knighthood of northern europe (such as the arthurian legends or la chanson de roland) under the premise that "such a story could never be told here, because people are down to earth and don't care for honor or morals here". within this context, don quixote is an aging minor noble who sets out on a quest to embody the ideals of knighthood in a world where it is impossible to do so and as a person for whom it is impossible to do so

personally i find that criston's character as he is written in the show also explores these themes even if a lot is different. the worst parts of himself are constantly spilling through the cracks in the armor that he hopes to contain them with (plus he's dornish! dorne is based on southern spain iirc as george rr martin said). but of course criston is not only don quixote as he does have many qualities of the lancelot archetype as well such as the youth and the unmatched physical prowess

now as for don quixote's "lady", dulcinea. dulcinea is a peasant woman who has been abused and mistreated all her life, she is seen as worthless and as a "ruined woman" as a result of the abuse she has endured. but to don quixote, due to his "madness", she is a lady worth serving, worth worshipping and worth dying for. they are not in love, she thinks he's crazy, but it does move her in the end to have one person in the world who thinks of her as valuable after the way she's been treated so they have a platonic relationship that is quite special

i am an alicole shipper in the sense that i love their complex dynamic, and i love both characters very much, but i don't think alicent's view of criston is like guenevere's view of lancelot, i think her character is a mix of guenevere and dulcinea vibes and her perception of criston is deeply complex but leans more towards "dear friend i am fond of and find physically crazy attractive" than "love of my life that i would move heaven and earth to be with". he's the one who's been there for her through it all treating her like she's worthy of worship in a world that told her that she didn't matter and that she was born to be used and dismissed. but even that didn't protect him from also acting dismissive towards her in the last episode. even that didn't stop him from committing a murder in front of her "for her sake" that made her scared of what he might do next. i think they're both characters that wish they were nobler than they are but ultimately they are just extremely human and flawed no matter how hard they fight against it

i've seen a lot of disappointment over how alicole developed this season by people who expected a more noble, more romantic version of their relationship when it finally came to pass and i think that no one feels that way more strongly than alicent and criston themselves. but imo it didn't turn out that way because it couldn't turn out that way for them because of who they are and the world they live in. but i still find their attempts to live up to these standards impressive and commendable and i think that they also see that in one and another and is a reason why they love each other (even if i dont personally think that they are in love with each other). ironically it's precisely these attempts to be more than they are that often get them so much hate from the fandom and the other characters because it is percieved as them being hypocrates by believing in one thing and then doing another. which is a valid reading and something i think they are aware of and eats them up inside

tldr i like their bond for what it is even if its not the perfect ideal of romance, i still think it's beautiful in its own way and i am glad that they had each other through all these years in a situation where they did not really have any alternatives of others to turn to. i don't know if any of this makes any sense to anyone who hasn't read don quixote in spanish but it makes sense to me <3 so i hit post

[atopvisenyashill]

it's funnt grrm said he doesn't understand the "sansan thing" bc like you said sandor is made more sympathetic than drogo… maybe he was just surprised people actually wanted sansa and sandor together idk

i think his reaction to sandor v drogo is so fucking funny because he’s so clearly more invested in sandor as a complex character yet it’s dany/drogo that is his problematic fave ship lmao. i do think you’re right re: that last point and i think this is part of like “george likes to talk from the pov of the character” thing he does. dany loves drogo very much, and i think that’s a sticking point for george whereas sansa imo never approaches the rosey colored view of sandor that dany has of drogo. for all sansa romanticizes sandor in her mind (and for all i’d argue that his influence on her is not wholly negative ie once again the love is there and it matters), sansa is always very clearly aware of the danger sandor brings to her, i think she just feels that the depth of evil he is capable of is not the same as the depth of evil, for example, joffrey is capable of or the depth of paranoia lysa is capable of, etc. dany jumps headfirst into romanticizing drogo and takes a cattle prod to her own goddamn brain every time she tries to really sort through the way he traumatized her.

i think maybe george expected people to hate sandor the way most people hate drogo and he’s annoyed that very few people ship HIS toxic fave but like, that’s your own damn fault george idk what to tell you there, give us a dothraki pov then!!!!!

[werewolfetone]

As somebody who watches Bridgerton and really likes hearing your thoughts on it, I was wondering if you know about the lore reasons behind the colorblind casting and what your thoughts on it are because if I'm remembering the Queen Charlotte miniseries properly, then I'm pretty sure it's that the white king of England married Charlotte, a black German woman (who for some reason has a British accent in spite of the fact that she was apparently raised in Northern Germany), and they fell in love afterwards, which resulted in their love basically ending racism.

First of all please keep in mind that I'm white and so I would encourage you to seek out the voices of POC if you want to know more abt this + I'm definitely not the expert when it comes to representation of POC in historical fiction. However that being said I will say that I do know about the lore + the thing about it is that it's still kind of... hollow? Like, even if George III had married a Black woman and it had instantly ended racism in the UK, British regency society as it is reproduced in the show literally could not have existed as it did without 1. slavery and its legacy; & 2. the British empire colonising places in SE Asia + Africa + Ireland + the Americas etc etc. If one removed the British Empire and its atrocities from the world of the show everything would need to be different -- they would have to either straight up not set it in Regency England or create the most convoluted and complex alternate history worldbuilding imaginable to make it so that something even kind of similar could have been created without any racism. Which is possible and would have been really interesting, but they don't do that! They just stick actors of colour into the world as-is, creating the very weird situation of Black people standing in houses which historically were built with wealth brought to England from the colonies, drinking tea with sugar which at that time probably would have been made on plantations, occasionally bringing up a war which was ultimately the result of hundreds of years of tensions including conflict over colonies, and yet... declaring that racism has been ended. Unclear if the writers are unaware of the fact that racism is really still present in the world of their show due to this no matter how much they deny it or if the viewer is meant to assume that the characters just don't care about the suffering of people who one would think they would find solidarity with; neither option is good.

Secondly, and far more importantly imo, the idea that one must create an artificially diverse British upper class in the most bizarre way possible to have representation of POC in historical fiction about Regency England is deeply unserious. There were real notable Black people in Georgian England, not to mention the many communities of working class POC which existed in Europe at the time. So they really didn't need to decide that racism had been ended to tell the same story -- they could have had a fictional Black duke as the love interest anyway, because as previously stated, the idea of Regency Britain as a wholly white society is completely wrong. And the fact that Bridgerton kinda perpetuates this (racist) idea by pretending that their fictional world was necessary for diversity™️ and not just a result of lazy writing and lack of research... well. Not that you can't still enjoy Bridgerton but I'm personally not a fan

[deathlessathanasia]

Here are all the Hera-centric retellings I know of and also have read so far:

„We Goddesses: Athena, Aphrodite, Hera” by Doris Orgel - As the title suggests, there are three sections in this book, each retelling some of the myths each goddess appears in from her own perspective. The retellings are pretty short and straightforward, nothing to write home about, but fine enough for what they are especially given that the book seems targeted to a younger audience.

„Olympian Confessions: Hera” by Erin Kinsella - Hera is written very sympathetically here, in fact she is positively saintly and has done nothing even remotely questionable in her entire life - hell, she's not even involved in the Trojan War! Such characterization is certainly different than the usual, but it is also boring as hell imo.

„The Goddess Queen”, first novella in „The Goddess Legacy” by Aimee Carter. - Goddess Legacy is itself part of the Goddess Test series, which I personally hated and found utter trash. Hera's portrayal is especially atrocious and shallow throughout the other books, but in this one story she is allowed to be a more complex and interesting character.

„Hera, Queen of Gods” and „Hera, Queen of Mortals” by T.D. Thomas - Not actually a retelling, but Hera is the main character so I'm including it. This duology (I think it might be called Goddess Unbound) was so forgivable that I hardly remember anything about it. I do recall constantly questioning everything that was going on. The only notable thing about it is that Hera dumps Zeus, too bad that she does so for a high schooler.

„Wings of Fury” and „Crown of Cinders” by Emily R. King - This one sounded sooo promising. Hera during the Titanomachy? Yes please! Too bad it did not live up to my expectations. If you are interested in Hera this won't do much for you, as the character that bears her name really has nothing to do with her and is just your generic YA female protagonist.

„Hera: The Goddess and her Glory” by George O'Connor - Honestly, I feel like this one is more about Herakles than it is about Hera.

„Hera” by Julien Longo - Here we have far more of a reimagining than a retelling, and there is very little you will find recognizable beyond the names of the characters. There is also a sequel to this one, but I haven't read it.

„Ithaca” by Claire North, The first book in The Songs of Penelope series - I was very hesitant to include it because it is not actually about Hera, but she does narrate the story and that must count for something. I actually complained several times even on this blog about this series and the way the gods are portrayed in it, but there are also some aspects I enjoyed and the writing is beautiful.

„Hera” by Jennifer Saint - This is definitely my favorite on the list and has what I consider to be one of, if not the best portrayal of Hera I have ever seen. It also includes some of my favorite more or less obscure versions of myths, such as Hera as the mother of Typhon and Hera not being eaten as a baby by her father. Mind you, the book is not perfect, I found several decisions questionable and there were myths I'd have liked to see explored or explored more thoroughly, but this remains the best Hera-centric retelling so far, in my opinion.

„Queen of Heaven” by Ava McKevitt - Again we have here the first book in a series. This one, too, includes some stories I rarely see explored, such as Hera being chosen by the Argive rivers to preside over Argolis, Hera raising Thetis, Kronos and Hera conspiring for the birth of Typhon. However, Hera is such a ridiculously submissive and passive figure for the most part (even when she does something wicked she feels oh so very bad about it)! She takes care of both Athena and Dionysos as children, has Hephaistos by herself but not purposefully and then drops him from Olympos by accident, Kronos is the one who approaches her for the creation of Typhon, Angelos simply runs away after stealing from her mother and giving her stuff to Europa and Hera doesn't persecute her at all, she is nice and sympathetic to Kallisto, Hephaistos is the one who talks the gods into binding Zeus and Hera plays no active role in that conspiracy, she has no intention to take revenge for Zeus's infidelities until she gets inspiration from Medea. This leads me to how confusing the timeline is. As an example, Zeus's children by Europa are born before Apollo and Artemis and Io's adventures take place later than the voyage of the Argonauts. , And then there is the characterization of Thetis, of which the less said the better.

[bimboficationblues]

Marv Wolfman and George Perez's "New Teen Titans" Evaluated

Background

This analysis covers Marv Wolfman and George Perez's New Teen Titans (1980) #1-40, Tales of the Teen Titans #41-58, and New Teen Titans (1984) #1-5. My justification is that after #5, Perez leaves the series he helped define through his bold, detailed panels and spreads, and Wolfman self-professedly experiences writer's block and starts rehashing some plots for a while before things go off the rails in the 90s. So I kind of consider the arc "The Terror of Trigon" a good wrap-up point because it takes the character of Raven (whose motivations kick off the series) off the playing field, Perez departs, and most other plots have resolved in a satisfactory way by this point. I may make an addendum post about the post-Perez years at some point.

DC Comics' The New Teen Titans was intended to emulate the success of the Uncanny X-Men under Chris Claremont over at Marvel Comics. Wolfman took the ensemble cast and tangle of interwoven, character-driven plots of UXM and pushed them in a parallel direction.

The X-Men under Claremont's tenure centered on an internationalist group of mostly adult misfits, "hated and feared" as the old slogan goes, caught up in a complex, politically charged science-fantasy soap opera, and all the characters are haunted by death or absence in one way or another in connection to their social position. The new status quo had also cleared away most of the characters from the poorly received Stan Lee era, instead focusing on a new cast with new relationships, motives, and histories to uncover. Claremont's run is very much about the long game. God, I should really reread it and do a writeup.

By contrast, NTT is less politically pointed (and when it does attempt to be politically pointed it usually falls flat) and generally less grand in scope, but still has a very clear thematic thrust. The Titans are teenagers in the middle of discovering themselves as people, and they deal with a lot of pre-rational frustrations surrounding intimacy and emotional forthrightness. They also regularly confront institutions and authorities that have diminishing, exploitative, or degrading expectations for them because of their age or social status. This reflects Wolfman and Perez's intentions for the book, which was to get the team out from under the shadow of the Justice League and make their own unique mark.

In my own estimation, while I think UXM's highs are generally better and more bizarre or interesting, NTT has fewer valleys - at least while Wolfman and Perez are collaborating (though to be fair, Wolfman/Perez worked together for only five years while Claremont wrote his book for sixteen). I think this reflects Wolfman's stronger aptitude for characterization and Perez's guiding touch as a co-plotter, while Claremont's talent lay in worldbuilding and grand-scheme plotting.

Anyway, perhaps unsurprisingly for a book that is basically "X-Men but more immediately relatable to teenagers," NTT sold like gangbusters and kept DC Comics from bankruptcy.

The People

The ensemble cast of NTT is especially strong because it deliberately ties to the book's themes about growing up and becoming your own person.

The empathic pacifist Raven feels as though her own emotions could at any point explode and hurt everyone around her - seeing them as outlets for the aspects of her father that exist within her to emerge - so she shuts herself off from the world (kind of a transfem imo).

Starfire is a sexually liberated free spirit with a passionate rage towards injustice on account of having experienced it herself, expressed by blinding solar-powered starbolts, as well as blood-knight tendencies that place her at odds with her teammates and Earth society at large (kind of a transfem imo).

Changeling (formerly known as Beast Boy) is a young class-clown masking an inferiority complex and a disbelief in his own self-worth, linked to a feeling of being repeatedly left behind by abandonment, betrayal, or death.

Robin is self-serious, overly self-reliant, and trying to figure out what makes a good leader, as well as get out from under his mentors' shadows, which eventually shapes his evolution into Nightwing.

Cyborg's race and disability mark him as an outcast; while some of the writing around this merits criticism, it produces a character who is struggling with a fundamental loneliness, exhaustion, and anger at being treated like an object of utility by the adults in his life and a monster by society at large, which makes his budding friendships with the other Titans much sweeter.

Late introduction Jericho, a non-verbal mutant, is a sweet, sensitive artistic type, but also a bit scary, reflected in his ability to temporarily possess people by making eye contact with them; he's largely a means to ground Raven at a time when her other teammates are getting increasingly wary of her. Just don't read about what happens to him later.

Another latecomer, Terra, is sort of the problem child of the team; she's the youngest along with Beast Boy, she's got buck teeth and a bad attitude, is clearly immature and doesn't believe in other people's ability to help her. She's an insecure and angry child, which makes her highly dangerous given her control over earth and rock. We also learn fairly early after she joins the team that she's a spy, and questions start stirring about how she's gonna turn out. We'll come back to Terra, and not for good reasons, but I do actually enjoy her presence within the team as a spanner in the works.

They're all broadly relatable archetypes, but they have enough flexibility within their emotional journeys to allow for different kinds of fun superhero plots.

The casting isn't universally great, though. While Wonder Girl has a more developed personality relative to her previous appearances - serious, bright, and a bit of a romantic, basically the "Mom Friend" - she doesn't get to change much during this section of the book. A lot of her arc is tethered to an extremely boring and inappropriate relationship with college professor Terry Long, and finding her parents, which is resolved in a single issue. (Crisis on Infinite Earths later made her the victim of one of the biggest continuity snarls in DC, but that is outside the scope of this review.) Kid Flash is also there, but only to be out-of-character, annoying, conservative, and a dick to Raven, because Wolfman didn't actually want him in the book. The leap from this to something like Mark Waid's run on "The Flash" is night and day.

Throughout the series there are a number of interwoven plotlines, many of which tie into a cast of recurring villains. I don't think any of these antagonists, as characters, are especially strong, but they definitely serve as good engines for drama. You've got the Fearsome Five, the demon and Raven's father Trigon, Starfire's imperialist sister Blackfire, mysteriously immortal child-killer Brother Blood and his Church, and wily hyper-competent mercenary Deathstroke the Terminator. I'm not even listing everyone here - the number of iconic antagonists introduced or refined in this period is seriously impressive. So let's talk the plots they brought with them!

The Plots

Raven brings the Titans together initially to confront her father Trigon, making her conflict with him arguably the heart of the book. The first few issues go about establishing some villains and introducing our core cast, who are not getting along super great at this point and are largely held together by Raven's manipulation. Slowly, however, the team grows to understand and trust one another. After an initial encounter with Trigon in which they just barely contain him with the help of Raven's mother, the group gets involved in a variety of shorter and longer adventures. Some of my favorites:

The original Trigon arc is great, and I especially like the introduction of Raven's personal history with the Azarath pacifists, a civilization of passive mystics pledged to non-interference with Trigon's evil and who raised Raven to repress her emotions. It makes for really great drama and angst on Raven's part, as she doesn't understand why these wise people would turn a blind eye to cruelty and oppression.

Starfire is kidnapped by her evil sister Blackfire for a bizarre space opera costarring the rebellious Omega Men, which really lets Perez show off strange creatures and technology. The journey to rescue Starfire splinters the group into different factions operating with imperfect information at various points, as different segments of the alien civilizations jockey for supremacy, until finally the two sisters face off in a bloody showdown.

The team has several encounters with the mysterious Brother Blood and his corrupting Church of Blood, which spreads its tendrils throughout politics and the media and inflicts harsh punishments on heathens and apostates. This is perhaps the most on-the-nose example of authorities trying to use children to their own ends, and Brother Blood is quite imposing as an antagonist.

The group confronts the Brotherhood of Evil in the nation of Zandia, with Changeling looking to rescue the last vestiges of his old Doom Patrol team and exact revenge on the people that wiped out one of his families. It's pretty dark and introduces a new international Brotherhood of Evil that's surprisingly fun to watch.

There are some nice one-shot issues as well, like Robin's investigation of Wonder Girl's (pre-Crisis) origins; Cyborg's reconciliation with his father; the very weird story of Thunder and Lightning, mutant children of an alien who went to Vietnam; and "Who Killed Trident?", where the group has to put together disparate stories to figure out how a supervillain wound up dead. (Spoilers: it's multiple guys in the same costume, a conceit Wolfman would rehash with the Wildebeest Society after Perez departs.)

The only real lowlights here are a couple of blander self-contained issues, and the brief arc where Wonder Girl and Starfire have a confrontation in Themyscira, home of the Amazons, in which WG gets hypno-seduced. It's very lame. This sort of horned up 80s sexism is an unfortunately recurring facet of the book.

But barring those misses, the first volume of NTT is consistently great. We also get a miniseries focusing on the four lesser-known members of the team (Changeling, Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven) that explores their backstories in a bit more detail; it's not necessary but it's a fine read. It's after the book splits in two, the coextensive "Tales of the Teen Titans" and second volume of "New Teen Titans," that things start getting a little wobbly. First, the Brother Blood plot wraps up ambiguously, which is fine. Then we get to "The Judas Contract," the most famous and controversial Teen Titans story.

"The Judas Contract" sees the whole team undone by the viper in their garden, Terra, and exposes the cracks in their collective armor. This arc is a culmination of established plot points rather than a self-contained story, as Deathstroke's vengeance quest towards the Titans and Terra's status as a mole had already been long established. So it's really more about seeing how these things will pay off. Will Terra redeem herself, will she die? What are her motivations? Will Deathstroke complete his contract to capture or kill the Titans, and how? This remains a very popular story and it definitely has its strong points: Dick Grayson's reinvention of himself as Nightwing after a clever issue where he investigates the disappearance of his friends, the introduction of Jericho (who has a very 80s visual design but a great presence on the team), and the final action-packed confrontation. And while I'm about to say a lot of critical things about Terra's character writing, there are definitely things I like about her as a character and villain.

However, it is impossible to escape the fact that the writing of the arc's core antagonists, Deathstroke and Terra, is extremely fucked. Perez's comments about his intentions for the 15-year-old Terra's character are legitimately heinous, and Terra's "evil" is symbolically represented by her wearing eyeshadow and negligees, sleeping with a much older man, and smoking (Deathstroke even says "good superhero girls don't wear makeup"). We basically come away with a story about a victim of statutory rape who gets karmically punished for being innately crazy and evil, while the man who groomed her kind of gets let off the hook and painted as an equal victim. It's such a shallow, regressive morality play, with dashes of sexism and stigma around mental illness, and it stands out very strangely against the otherwise fairly grounded character work in NTT. It's also a severely missed opportunity to write something more meaningfully tragic. Though honestly, if it were not for the narration in The Judas Contract which proclaims Terra irredeemably evil or the follow-up mini-arc which gives Deathstroke absolution (just in time for an anti-hero rebrand and an ongoing series!), I think the story would work perfectly fine. We'd see somebody consumed by their own rage and trauma after being manipulated and used, which would be a good foil for a lot of the core cast's arcs. As is, though, the '03 cartoon's version of these events is objectively better in every conceivable way.

I would also describe The Judas Contract as the beginning of the end. Before Perez's final arc on "The Terror of Trigon," there are a few filler arcs in "Tales," several of which have guest pencilers who don't have his eye for dramatic layouts and action splashes to nearly the same degree. Worse, a lot of these stories are boring (Cyborg temporarily getting a non-mechanical look and Wonder Girl's wedding) or annoying (Changeling's vengeance quest against Deathstroke, which doubles down on Judas Contract's bad choices, and a forced romance between tertiary characters Lilith and Azrael). We get a little more Jericho which is nice, and a fun little Atlantis story that wraps up the HIVE neatly for the time being, but otherwise this is a valley.

"The Terror of Trigon," though, is legitimately a masterstroke. It's some of Perez's finest draftsmanship and neatly bookends the series with a much more brooding, terrifying take on the original Trigon arc. I honestly don't want to say much more about it - it's worth reading for yourself.

The Pages

While as mentioned, I think Wolfman is a good character writer, it's George Perez's draftsmanship that really makes New Teen Titans shine, and it's after his departure that some of the magic starts to go. However, I don't want to diminish the strength of colorists and inkers like Adrienne Roy and Romeo Tanghal, who do incredible work at making all the artist's pencils feel alive and bright. I don't have great equipment to talk about the pages, so I'll just highlight a few that I really like from across the series. (You may also notice that I have a favorite character.)

The Verdict

I definitely think NTT is worth reading up through The Judas Contract (with a critical eye) and maybe the Atlantis arc that follows it; then you can probably skip ahead to The Terror of Trigon. If you still want to stick with it after that, well, that's for another writeup! There's definitely interesting or intriguing stuff in there, even if there's an uptick in shakier stories. But that entire first volume is basically great.

[tenderlady]

(Phantom Thread anon again) Yes exactly, that's J&Y! I can see it with the Master too, that same desire or need to hand over the reigns to someone else, something that John has alluded to in pretty much all the major relationships of his life (Mimi, Stu, Paul, Yoko). I think any good Beatles film would have to focus on just a fragment and my top choice would depend on what the angle was, but PTA would be a great choice for anything delving into their psyches not just because he's a top tier director but because so many of his films deal with Fucked Up relationships seemingly without judgement. He doesn't sanitise, but his characters are allowed to come across as charming despite the focus on dysfunctional elements.

Also while there's the obvious mommy issues thread, but a lot more that could be explored and isn't much about John's relationship with power in general, especially in the 70s. How he seemed to want it less the more he had it, especially from about '67 when he appeared to make conscious efforts to be less manipulative and even assertive. His old friends say he had to be the top dog in the early days which certainly isn't the John I saw in the Get Back sessions. That thing Harry Nilsson mentioned him saying about "powerful men" wanting to "swallow the world" and how he related it to his own physical appetite was very revealing imo. And how he often talked about "fat kings" (and Elvis specifically as the "fat king" fate he feared most) - I wonder how much of his disordered eating and preference for looking what most would consider too thin was rooted in those kinds of thoughts. And well, put all that together and the appeal of submitting to Yoko is blindingly obvious to me without the need for some evil witch magic to put him under her command!

Hey, bestie, welcome back! Always a pleasure to talk shop with a fellow Understander.

I totally agree with all of this, and I think you did a better job of picking up what I was attempting to put down with The Master than I did. The Master, while often read as a film about Scientology, is at its base a film about masculinity and control and power, which I think is what PTA is alluding to with the title. There is a real homoeroticism between Philip Seymour Hoffman's character and Joaquin Phoenix's character (I haven't seen the film in a hot minute, apologies for not remembering their characters' names), and a kind of Freudian taming of the id with Phoenix's almost animalistic lust and violence being tempered (and channeled) by Hoffman's superegoistic control. The scene where Hoffman essentially does Auditing on Phoenix reminds me a bit of Janov's primal scream therapy, with the idea that you have to completely break someone down to nothing in order to remake them in a stronger image. I also totally agree that PTA does a great job of portraying characters with complex psychologies in a way that neither demonizes nor exonerates them for their behavior, which are both problems that I think a lot of Beatlemovies (particularly focusing on John) fall into.

The thread of John and power/consumption/fatness is also really fascinating to me. The "fat king" archetype obviously seemed to stick in his craw, and I think Maureen Cleave comparing him specifically to Henry VIII really bothered him. Henry VIII was fat, but he was also violent, lascivious, and myopic in his understanding of the world around him. As with a lot of contemporaneous Beatles commentary, I think that John perhaps thought this hit too close to home and decided to course correct but, being John, overcorrected HARD. Like George, I think John had a real interest in asceticism and transcendence. At a point in time, John was probably the most powerful non-political figure in the world, and I think the trauma of that experience led him to desire a place where he could relinquish some of that control. Janov in particular seemed to place a lot of stock on being controlled by your desires (didn't Yoko pitch PST as a way to stop smoking?), and I think we see that fear of desire manifest in the life John built with Yoko in New York (macrobiotic, highly restricted diet; minimalistic decor; rarely leaving the house). I think the AKOM girls did a great job of looping that fear of desire re: Janov's work back to Paul, and I think you alluded to that as well in your original ask, but I think all of that coalesced into John's disordered eating, or pulled on the thought patterns that started this behavior back in the 60s. John wanted to be cared for, but especially in the 70s, I think we can see a distrust that he felt in his own desires, and a longing to be rid of them. George attempted to do that with Krishna, and John attempted to do that with Yoko/Janov/disordered eating/etc., etc.

This answer kind of got away from me, but I do want to say that you're totally right. Yoko was not practicing evil pussy magic; I think she just correctly spotted what John was looking for and stepped in to provide it, even if it was ultimately not good or healthy for either of them.

I need to go rewatch The Master, apparently.

[ilynpilled]

speaking of usurping, do you have any thoughts on outline Jaime?

alright, i know this conversation is tired, and i dont put much weight into the outline. i dont think it revealed to me any significant information that i didnt already know in terms of the vague trajectory of this story. what i do find fascinating about jaime though is that he is one of the few characters mentioned, and would have been the major antagonist in the human/political conflict i assume, before the others become the primary threat. theres no sign of LF, cersei, etc in the outline. i dont agree with people that believe he was “replaced” by a single character (like euron or cersei etc. ive seen some names being thrown around), i think the story grew in complexity to such a degree that that claim feels a bit oversimplifying. i lean more towards aspects of big baddie jaime being split into multiple characters.

we know jaime’s name is jacob/yaakov, which means “supplanter”, so clearly grrm was playing with that pretty literally and differently than what we have now. i believe he was a more machiavellian character originally as i dont see how else that “simple expedient” would work out for him. he was always meant to be fleshed out and play a major role, hence his presence in that ancient outline, and existed as a major player when george was only at 200 unedited pages. the character just took him in a drastically new direction, and even wormed his way into his own pov that marked the beginning of an entirely different trajectory. so george always thought hed be complex and fleshed out, but he didn’t think hed become a viewpoint protagonist at the very beginning. i can honestly see jaime’s current backstory working with the original trajectory, and his disillusionment and bitterness resulting in such a route, but it would have been infinitely less interesting than what we have right now imo.

instead, and i personally believe this was decided relatively early, maybe even by the final draft of agot or early in the process of acok, jaime becomes a pov and is treated as somewhat of a paradigm shift when it comes to a lot of what we know by that point in the story.

grrm is pretty open about his process, so i don’t really understand ppl being so adamant on the inflexibility of this series and these characters in general. im not interested in desperately trying to replace names in that outline and extrapolate all that much from it. george said he was making shit up. his process isnt about strictly adhering to a plan, especially when it comes to stuff other than basic structure and very major story beats.

link

[ram-on]

Beatles asks: any of 1-4 you feel like, and 10.

I'm so very late, but anyway, thank you for asking! I intend to answer in separate posts, because otherwise it'll get too long. So, Unpopular John opinion:

I don't know how unpopular it is, but maybe to wide-spread outside of Tumblr universe it is a little. I think John is well known for being very honest, and of course I agree, he could be that, but also I think he can be very direct and unashamed at being very not honest as well. I think that actually out of all four, he was capable of the most brutal dishonesty, on occasion. Or it was the easiest for him to be not honest. And his occasional insincerity is sometimes called ''saying bullshit'' or ''John being John'' or something like that (by Paul f.e. but also by the public too I think), which I understand, but it kind of dismisses it as something random that meant nothing. And that's fine in terms of excusing him, I don't mean to be judgmental about it, but I just think that that on certain occasions he was actually literally lying, and he knew it, and that's notable about his character. Maybe more often it was because he didn't care or because he was being angry, playful or funny, but sometimes it was no less than being manipulative (or it was a complex combination of those things). And eventually it did matter because it affected the way some things happened. And this dishonesty was sometimes words, sometimes actions, I think.

One of the things I think he was not really honest about in a quite convoluted and low key manipulative way was the whole Yoko-in-the-studio-with-him-all-the-time thing he did (I mean they both did it, but he was part of it). I think John knew, at least initially why her presense would be weird, he understood very well why it would bother the others. And he created this whole situation where the rest of the band would become bad friends and uncool bandmates for not wanting her there. I think in parts, it was a way for him to assert himself, to be a leader in a situation in which maybe he felt low, by forcing them to accept Yoko&him constantly together, by showing them and himself that he could do that. Even though in their shoes he would have been no more welcoming if say Jane Asher was there all the time. And maybe it wasn't really thought-through in its purpose but it still was manipulative. It's like someone farting intentionally in a room with other people so that he could blame the others if they were inpolite to comment on it. And I guess the other Beatles (or Paul and George at least) were indeed sometimes impolite and not enough welcoming of Yoko, and that genuinely angered John, but deep within himself he expected it and prompted it. I think that in a way he created the situation where he'd have a good reason to want to be angry at them, to disconnect with them, to be morally above them in some way (cause he was ''crucified'' by the public which was indeed unfairly hard to Yoko, etc) and eventually to leave the band partly because of that.

Another instance of him being not honest in a way it mattered IMO is ''How Do You Sleep''. I think in some circles that song is still considred part of his funny and brutal honesty, but I think it's very possible that it's an example of the brutal dishonesty. I think that not only he didn't think what he said in the lyrics but he thought the very opposite -- he knew that Paul was not only a pretty face, he knew that Paul didn't only write Yesterday, he knew that Paul was annoyingly good as a musician, etc. So by saying how much Paul sucked he just plain lied, and it was of course supposed to be an angry little joke, and it was that to an extent. But it still was a lie, andI think what's dismissed about it sometimes is the manipulative side of the lie - because the anger and the joke were the excuse for him to also let that idea float in the public air - that Paul no longer could write yesterdays, that his songs were too silly and he was too ordinary. Maybe that wasn't the consious goal (and again, I don't mean to be too accusatory about it now), but in any case, I don't think that either of the other three could lie like that in lyrics or interviews like John did on this and other occasions. (maybe I'm wrong though)

And just many things John said and did in the 70s especially were imo not truly sincere, he admitted it himself. And I think just as he was smart enough to realise it in hindsight he was smart enough to often know he was doing it at the time he was doing it. In any case that's why I tend to not believe him much when there are different opinions by him and Paul about who wrote what. Not that Paul is incapable of lying and forgetting or exagerrating for his own benefit, but imo John was somewhat more capable of more fully and casually doing so. I think it's possible that in the cases of some songs, John claimed more credit for songs he respected and wanted to be associated with (Elinore Rigby) and he said he had nothing to do with those he thought at the time were more silly and disgraceful (like Yellow Sumbarine and With a Little Help of my Friends maybe) even though he co-wrote them. Not sure about that though, just thinking. (I also think it's possible that they both forgot how some of them were written. Anyway.)

Note: I don't hate John for all of that, I think his manipulative brutal side is still interesting. (But I think he's famous for being very honest, and I think that out of all four probably it was George and Ringo who were the most honest, though all four could be very much so, and often were so charming because of that in Beatles interviews.)

[scoups4lyfe]

Yeah George's arc is over. The previous ask is pretty much my thoughts on it. I think overall it was well done even with the supposed retcon of Masumi's demon being in George. They do a good job recontextualising George's earlier actions to fit into his later character development and I think a good decision was not invalidating George's feelings. The show makes it clear that the way George feels is valid but that his feelings are complex and he's clearly in denial about part of how he feels. I think it would've been easy to either make Masumi 100% a horrible neglectful father and George loving him seeming unrealistic, or on the flipside writing Masumi in a way that makes George's anger with him seem unreasunable or unfair but the show makes it clear that George is allowed to feel how he does but he needs better coping methods and needs to be honest WITH HIMSELF (which imo is the important thing) about how he really feels.

So was George having Masumi’s demon inside him a retcon,,,, or is that just speculation? 👁️

I also think they wrapped up the George stuff pretty well. I totally didn’t think about the invalidation of feelings and Lemme just say I’m 🤝🤝🤝🤝 right there with you! I’m heck’n glad they didn’t invalidate George’s feelings / emotions. Love how you explained it too.

[jaccsonhyde]

finally finished perez's wonder woman run, have a lotta feelings on it. i love it, first and foremost. perez you could tell was a writer who deeply cared about diana as a character and respected her and her ideals and i love the groundwork he set up that was set to be the basis for the character for a long long time.

diana herself i think was overall really well done, you could feel how much she cares but she also gets to be genuinely powerful and smart when she needs to.

i really like julia and vanessa kapetalis in this run, i love that wonder woman gets a concrete family and essentially base of operations and i like how relatively grounded both the characters were. vanessa sometimes was just a caricature of Every Teen Girl through the lens of an adult man which was funny but by the latter half i was surprised by the shift her character shift being about her mental health and such. julia ofc is just a really grounded, level headed parent figure for diana and it works for diana as her intro to mans world. i know the kapetalis' will be dropped shortly and im not looking forward to that

steve and etta are... pretty boring. i dont have many opinions on them one way or the other im mostly ambivalent to their story and romance but i do at least like them

hermes was one of my favorite characters of the run and i loved his relationship with diana when it wasnt romantic. a major question of the book is essentially "Are dianas gods worthy of her and everything she does for them?" and of course diana and every amazon would answer yes, so imagine my surprise when hermes comes in and says no actually, theyre not, himself included. i like the mutual respect they garner for each other and i especially like how towards the end of it, diana speaks to hermes rather bluntly. instead of in a way of reverence, more in the way of an equal. she questions him and his plans irt the dr psycho arc and he listens to her and complies which while it doesnt sound like a lot, this was someone she worshipped. to see them develop from patron/worshipper to comrades in arms was one of the highlights of the whole run for me. and it helps hes the only olympian consistently willing to stick his neck out for diana.

the amazons and themyscira themselves i overall like buuuut overall wish more was done with them and we explored more of their complexities. i like seeing how diana essentially reflects them and their ideals, how you could see where she learned specific traits from. the question of are the gods worthy of diana is briefly expanded to include the amazons as a whole instead of just diana which makes sense but didnt go far enough. thats a common complaint with perez's themyscira. when heracles was brought back and hippolyte forgives him, i wont necessarily say that was a misstep, i think it works, and i know for a fact george knows of the complexities of this topic, he brings them up more than once through the voice of my favorite of the amazons from the run, Hellene, whos shown to be a naysayer to diana and essentially her philosophical antagonist. shes rarely ever mean about it but she often voices really good opposing points to dianas sentiments. irt heracles, she asks, are they all obligated to forgive their abusers? does this mean men have a free pass to abuse women but be absolved as soon as they apologize? and to me it shows that georges heart was in the right place but its equally frustrating as these questions mostly serve to lampshade the complexities of the topic and just acknowledge them rather than actually explore them. it becomes even more frustrating when hellene herself is killed off screen right before war of the gods. a really interesting character that imo shouldnt have died especially as she filled a really important role among the amazons. the rest of the named amazons are mostly fine i dont have many major issues or opinions on them.

the bana mighdall, however, are a whole different story. an idea of georges that couldve been so so interesting and been a step further into hellene's ideas that instead becomes a vehicle of racist caricature upon racist caricature. the idea of an amazon faction that became disillusioned with the gods and the amazon's secluded ways that they go to mans world to try and enact real change, no matter what, couldve been such a good foil to themyscira as a whole which couldve made both factions incredibly well rounded. instead we get a bunch of gray skinned misandrist barbarians whos main driving force is a lust for blood. i dont wanna rant too much on them or else ill get legitimately angry, all I'll say is the bana deserved better.

as for the series other villains, lets blaze through some first. ares is barely a villain imo, hes more of an origin story and works well as one. eris was a fun villain for that one arc where diana takes a bunch of global representatives to themyscira. decays a cool concept but not much more. dr psycho. cheetahs alright but bordering on very ableist tropes and in general the cheetah isnt often an interesting villain to me. valerie beaudry's silver swan is proooobably my favorite iteration of the villain, both in story and in costume, i think shes so pretty and i wish shed show up more

CIRCE! if you know me, you know circes one of my favorite dc characters ever so seeing her completely in power here was amazing. i love everything about this character. i love her haughty, devillish personality, i love her stupidly convoluted and endlessly cruel plans. i really love her simple green robe design from this run. i love her as a complete opposite of diana in almost every single way. i love her dialog i love her motivations i love every panel shes in i just simply love love love this character and cant wait to see more of her eventually.

overall im so glad i went and started reading this era of wonder woman. i miss george perez every single day im reminded of him and i love him and the work he left in this world. i cant wait to continue the volume and i especially cant wait to eventually reread cassies first appearances

[atopvisenyashill]

9, 12, and 25?

9. worst part of canon

okay let me dig into the dothraki thing - what annoys me the most is that he compares the dothraki to is ~great plains horse riding tribes~ but there is NOTHING of them culturally in the dothraki or even in their setting!! the apache comanche navajo and other plains nations have such a rich history and i get george probably didn’t have access to that sort of information in the 90s but god he doesn’t even try!! i don’t know a lot about mongolian history but i would hazard a guess that the dothraki bear no resemblance to the actual khans that existed in the mongolian empire. there’s like an attempt to characterize dorne. there’s not even a tiny attempt to flesh out the dothraki or the lhazareen as cultures.

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

okay i think this series has been around long enough that there’s not really unpopular characters bc everyone has their own mini fandom. i think you can find like a good hundred stans of every character in the series atp and i think that’s a fun change from when i first entered the fandom and people would make metas with lines like “sansa the bitch in the north begging for scraps” and this got reblogged by ~serious people~ in this fandom without comment. i think the fandom blowing up in size made some things worse, bc sometimes the h particles in this fandom go crazyyyyy but i also do like that when i say “i think sansa and theon are gonna be in love” while at work, i get taken seriously now.

that said, obviously it’s joffrey. idk what it is about this kid that makes people unable to see his complexity, despite his death being seen through the eyes of arguably his two biggest victims in tyrion & sansa, and both of them only feel grief and anguish at his death! he was born into an awful situation and it turned him into an awful person and he is dead before he’s had two decades of life.

i think cersei also gets this treatment, this refusal to engage with her complexity, which is why you get so many people who will call her ~jaime’s abuser~ when it’s just so much more complicated than that, or the guys on reddit who think robert should have beat her more. i think they both make people uncomfortable bc a lot of people know if they were in that situation, they’d absolutely crack up under the pressure too. they would not stay good people and they don’t wanna think about it so joff & cersei must simply be born evil! i feel like in the Fandom Right Now, they’re the two that really get that the most in several places and i think it’s crazy, cersei should be winning “best character in all of history” awards man!!!!

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

don’t love the idea that brienne shouldn’t fuck jaime bc shes ~too good for him, i think this is flying too close to madonna whore stuff and the jaime/brienne/cersei triangle is RIFE with this it’s like catnip for people, and this is bc jaime himself idealizes both women as madonnas and whores BUT for brienne it’s like. her story is about learning she’s allowed to be a woman in however way she wants to be, and she can be a knight and also crave sex and romance, she’s not a freak in a dress for desiring fine things like any other woman of her station. finding a sexual and romantic partner who looks at her and feels LUST and feels LOVE is imo a very important part of her character arc and i think the idea that she has to settle for someone like connington is crazy and also like, mean 😭😭 it just forces her back into that mold of the madonna to cersei’s whore and i don’t like it!!

[mountaintop-daydreaming]

You know that my post was anti Harry Potter right???(The one about who Percy Jackson wouldn't and would be friends with)Like Regulus is literally an hp character

i'm gonna be honest, i did not lol. i just saw a percy jackson post also bashing harry potter's (canon) character and thought "yeah i'm a fan" because the actual hp series is not that good imo. and yes i know how hypocritical that sounds as a marauders fan but the writing was average at best and harry's character was so stagnant and white-savior-complex-y.

here's the thing tho (and i'm gonna go off a little, but not in a targeted or aggressive way, asker, i promise, this is just a neurodivergent thought dump lol)

as much as it pains me to admit it, harry potter was a very influential series in the juvenile fiction/fantasy genre. it was widely popular and became a staple of kid's childhoods across generations. however, like a lot of initial stories in a genre, it really isn't as good as some of the more recent JF fantasy works (like PJO, for example) because the genre has evolved and improved with time. and obviously now that the author has revealed her true colors (in a sense) we can look back and notice all these little things in the books and say "hey, that's actually really problematic and harmful. we should stop promoting this." but i don't think we can completely discount the impact the series had on kid's literature.

like, did George Orwell and Jane Austen write problematic things and include offensive themes in their stories? absolutely. but their novels are still considered literary classics and taught in schools. if we try to "cancel" every book series or literary work that has ever said anything offensive, there would be very few books left. hell, even percy jackson isn't 100% perfect in every aspect.

i grew up with harry potter, not as much as i did with PJO, but it was part of my childhood. and when, years later, i learned about what the author was now using her platform for, as a young trans kid just discovering his identity, i completely turned my back on it. refused to interact with anything relating to the fandom. it wasn't until early this year that i got into the marauders fandom. and sure, i was hesitant at first. but what i like about the marauders fandom is that it took the world that original series introduced and turned it into their own thing. at this point, it's almost a separate fanbase. and because jkr hasn't tried to capitalize on the marauders' story line (yet), she isn't necessarily gaining much from the fandom. (in fact, i feel like you could argue that marauders fans are some of her most outspoken opponents.)

going back to the original ask, i don't know what caused you to be anti-HP (whether it's because of jkr or the writing of the series or the fandom or anything else) so this is not meant to be me antagonizing you or anything. art and literature is all subjective, so you have every right to dislike the series.

this is just a general warning for everyone about the inherent complexity of literature and a little info dump on the toxic nature of modern cancel culture because it's something i'm very passionate about.

[artemisia-black]

does Sirius have a type? I’m curious because one could read his pull towards Aeliana as one that is - sorta digging into his hurt regarding his mother. I’ve read it somewhere- the idea I think is that if a guy who has had a bad past with their mother goes after someone who has key similarities to their mother (not identical, just key ones), that if they’re successful in getting underneath the surface, it’s like them saying ‘you’re wrong I can be loved for who I am’ because because he “won” (1)

2) the affection of said girl in question? Also the idea of “fixing” his relationship with his mother through girl with key similarities to her by proxy. Though the only similarity it seems Aeliana has witb Walburga is that she’s haughty. But that’s a pretty key trait Imo. (Just contemplating theories here! 😊)

OMG OMG ANON, thank you so much for this question, I have been dying to ramble about this, because Sirius’s complex relationship to his background/family really interplays with his relationship with Aeliana (and it is why she is in both my WIPs). And while I hope I’ve written her as a female character that doesn’t just exist to serve the male, she is a mirror to Sirius’s shadow self and the parts of himself he denies. 

So when I first sat down to write Pietas I decided several key things:

Leaving home wasn’t a decision he made lightly- as I’ve talked about before, Sirius is deeply wounded by his family - to the point where he’s still bitter about Regulus being the ‘much better son,’ despite Reg being dead and Sirius having endured Azkaban.

He is far more of a Black than he’d ever admit - I think I’ve said this to death, but the language he uses to dehumanise Peter, echoes Walburga (I have a whole meta pending about Sirius and unacknowledged privilege).  

I think Walburga’s portrait is a caricature of a woman in the midst of grief, that over emphasizes her worst traits. Although I don’t think she was a ‘nice’ or ‘sweet’ person, I don’t think she was shrieking at everyone (I have a meta about the sexist undertones to her portrayal). I wrote my dissertation on the mechanisms of stigma and it is entirely about social power. Often an ‘elite’ group picks a characteristic and represses those with that characteristic. And the choice is often utterly arbitrary. Also the vast majority of discrimination (the mechanisms through which stigma is enacted) operates through institutions and isn’t simply people screaming epithets.So under normal circumstances I imagine Walburga as proud, haughty, comfortable with institutions protecting her heritage, fashionable, cutting when she wants to be and generally the Regina George of the British Pureblood scene (and this does sound like Aeliana). 

Side note: Aeliana is half Egyptian/half Italian and although she and Sirius are different nationalities they are both purebloods. And within this society  it’s blood status and not race/nationality that is the qualifier for social status.  

So when coming up with her character, I did write down generic traits I think a character like Sirius would be attracted to. She’s intelligent, isn’t a pushover (a very key need when dealing with Sirius), she can be very loving and has a wild streak. Also in D&D she’s sexy/sexually confident as I imagine Sirius having a strong sexual side.

But Aeliana is  also an elitist, and while not a deatheater she is comfortable with institutional discrimination (through blocking the building of a magical school) and is comfortable within her position in society and takes pride in her name. 

And this comfort is what I imagine Sirius is describing when he says that his parent’s thought Voldemort had the right idea but weren’t keen on his methods. She is far more embedded in the pureblood world than Sirius is, but she does chafe against parts of it. 

And yes part of his attraction to her in Pietas, is the acceptance of his family if they marry. Plus the fact that she appears (at least to Sirius) to come from a traditional family where love and fondness is shown. She is friends with Slytherins and is an approved match from his family, so at least subconsciously he knows her views about things. 

In D&D, she pulls him back into the world he’s been running from and holds a mirror to the things he’s suppressed. 

IMO Sirius’s fatal flaw is his failure to recognise his privilege and how shaped by his upbringing he is. So yes his attraction to Aeliana is rooted in the part of him that is very much a Black. 

[professionalfoodstalker]

Ginevra Molly Weasley is not the badass some of yall think she is.

I have no idea what Joanne thought she was doing with Ginny but...it flopped.

I will never get what she was doing with this character. You can tell she was trying to make Ginny the perfect girl. And imo that's where she went wrong. Who the hell relates to perfect?

Ginny went from being virtually nonexistent (to the point Harry didn't even remember her half the time) to this over the top Ginny is soooo amazing BS. She's smart, she's funny, she's sassy, she's pretty, she's a brilliant fighter and Quidditch player, ALLLL the boys want her, AND she smells like flowers!!!

It was just too much too soon. And A LOT of Ginny was telling us she's these things vs showing us these things. We're told Ginny's so funny, we're told she's strong, we're told everything about Ginny without really discovering it for ourselves. How many times did we hear secondhand accounts of Ginny's supposedly amazing bat bogey hex? 😒

Ginny herself was not even likable. At least not to me. She's not funny like Fred, George and Ron (and I don't even like Ron so I'm speaking objectively there). She has no real interesting quirks or complexity like Luna Lovegood does. She's actually mean-spirited and bitchy a lot of the times, though it's played off as a "good" thing. IMO Ginny in books 6-7 is the personification of the "Cool girl" or "I'm Not Like Other Girls" trope. That whole monologue from Gone Girl 100% applies to the type of female character Ginny is.

[frenchphobic]

long fucking post on why a c!dream is a shitty person and probably should not have a redemption because it is unpog

honestly i just want to refute dream apologists thats why im making this post. i think that dream as a villain is interesting but i think that trying to make him out to be secretly a good guy is just bad ngl. also /roleplay and all

tw for abuse and mentions of suicide

dream as a villain

dream is a villain. he is chaotic evil according to wilbur, deliberately does not stream to appear less sympathetic (and yet), and is set up as an antagonist to tommy who bears the title ‘hero’. dream is not a good person, no matter how you look at it or try to justify his actions.

‘but he wants to unite everyone to be a big family :((’ the ends dont justify the means believe it or not. having a vaguely positive goal does not excuse the actions you’ve done. it also goes hand and hand with saying dream is correct for punishing tommy the way he did because he acted up. if i socked you across the face and then suddenly said ‘sorry there was a roach on ur face’ does that make it okay? probably not i still punched you, enacting an unnecessary amount of violence. thats a very simple analogy i will admit and there are more complex comparisons. another example off the top of my head is say a child just scribbled all over you walls with crayons. would hitting them be a justified answer? if u said hes thats really fucked of u go seek help u loon. violence as a punishment is very toxic, just because it gets the job done does not mean it is okay. at the end of the day, you still committed this act and the harm you caused is real, having a good motive doesnt suddenly make it okay.

‘but tommy causes all of the conflict’ the disk war wasnt even caused by tommy, it was sapnap and then tommy got involved. and the reason why tommy even caused conflict was because of the discs, because he wanted them back. and most of the time there was a level of antagonism from another party, such as schlatt exiling him, dream taking the disks in the first place, dream threatening l’manberg. and if dream wanted to end the conflict so badly, why didnt he just give tommy back his disks? tommy upfront said everything started with the disks, so he wants them back so he could end the conflict. notice how after tommy got his disks back he has been staying out of conflict, apologizing to everyone, and the only bad thing hes done is try to scam people but everyone does that. this would have been the most peaceful option, yet dream chose the path that would further antagonize tommy which then draws everyone else into conflict. why did dream need to have leverage over tommy so badly? why did he want to hold power over tommy so badly? its because of control, and that’s ultimately dreams end goal. sure he wants a big server family, but would said family have a free will?

‘but dream is sad’ the thing is dream is completely at fault for everything that happened to him. he pushed away sapnap (and george ig). he tried to take control over the server and their possessions. literally everything that happened to tommy. literally everything involving ranboo. villains can be sympathetic, i am not arguing against that. but it does not mean that they should be left off the hook. that doesnt mean u should ignore the shit theyve done because ‘oh no theyre sad’ because it doesnt make anything better. dream had this shit coming for him.

now people also skirt around calling dream an abuser. which is fair ig, its a very loaded word. its much easier to say manipulated. that being said, dream can classify as abusive. and no, tommy is not abusive. abuse is about control and a power imbalance. dream has power over tommy, but tommy does not have power over dream, at least not in the way dream does. he’s taking back power to stand up for himself, dream uses power to control.

the reasons i listed for why dream is from the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project so if u want a source on that, there you go.

using coercion or threats: dream often threatened tommy, such as the pit thing and often employed violence on him. while normally this could be attributed to Normal Minecraft Player Go Smack. minecraft mechanics cannot always translate to real world since violence is pretty normal in minecraft however we also need to consider the context of the scene. dream gave an order, tommy refused, dream applies violence, tommy submitted. thats why its a threat, it has tangible effects that can correlate to real life.

using intimidation: dream blew up logsteadshire as a punishment. dream also destroyed tommys items anytime he visited. dream also hit tommy with his axe i believe. he killed mushroom henry, one of tommys pets.

Using Emotional Abuse: dream guiltripped the shit out of tommy for just hiding things and pinning the blame on tommy for just wanting his own private items. he definitely played mind games on tommy, pretending to be his friend. honestly i probably dont even need to go as in depth because it was so obvious.

Using Isolation: putting him in exile in the first place. destroying the bether portal so no one could visit tommy anymore. i really dont think i need to expand upon that.

Minimizing, Denying, and Blaming: dream in tommys stream when he got trapped said that exile wasnt that bad. he does shift the blame onto tommy for logsteadshire being blown up, even though dreams reaction was entirely unjustified for not listening and hiding.

Using Economic Abuse: see this is where i attempt to parallel minecraft mechanics to real life. obviously, there is no monetary system in place, so when i mean economic, i will use valuables such as armor, food, etc in place of currency. the idea behind economic abuse is to limit the victim’s resources so that they are dependent on the abuser and cannot escape. dream only really allowed tommy to have the armor he gave him while not giving access to armor so he does not regain a sense of power, and in the prison stream, dream holds all the potatoes which puts him in a position of power over tommy. this argument is more ambiguous i feel cause the whole minecraft mechanics thing is kinda weird so u don’t necessarily have to take this part in.

i feel like i need to emphasize this very strongly because dream is not a good person. abuse cannot and should not be a response to someone. its an awful mentality to have. i just want to prove the point that dream is not a good person, his reasons absolutely do not justify his actions.

what makes a good redemption

redemption arcs are tricky. when done right they are great. when done poorly, its a slap in the face. rn im going to establish a formula to what makes a good redemption with an example.

the most well known example of a good redemption is zuko from atla. first, its the magnitude of what theyve done and why. zuko did commit some shitty actions, since he was in a position of power in the fire nation but its because he is a child being abused and wanted to regain honor. zukos real awful acts was season 1 and the whole betrayal thing. thats not to say that zukos actions suddenly are okay, he did shitty things. but its something that can be traced to a higher entity or seem less malicious then the other villains. the thing also about the magnitude of actions is that there is a certain point of atrocities that there is no redemption. some people simply cannot be redeemed because the actions they commit are so ingrained in their character or the action itself has serious moral issues that it would just be wrong.

the next is acknowleding what they did was wrong. a genuine reflection on the self and analyzing what they did and why it was not okay. zuko realized what he did to uncle iroh was bad for example. he turned his back on his father, realizing he didnt and shouldnt seek acknowledgment from someone as heinous as him. its pointing out your actions and going ‘hey, this wasnt right i should not have done this’ and not even excusing ur actions. its also going straight for the root of the problem and figuring out to stamp it from the source. just because a character is sad does not mean they are reflecting, sometimes they are attempting to garner pity. it has to be direct and clear acknowledgement of the injustice.

and finally, an important part about redemption arcs is the actual redemption part. its when you make amends. zuko made amends with katara by trying to help her get revenge, he fought against the fire nation and tried to make things more peaceful in his rule. he apologized to iroh. an important part of the amends section is that it does have to be a genuine desire to change and become a better person, not to change a person’s perception of you. the thing is u cant expect a person youve hurt to forgive you. you cant expect people to be sympathetic towards you nor should u attempt to make urself sympathetic. u shouldnt be expecting a pat on the back or an award. redemption is about internal and character change.

why dream should not be redeemed

ive already established the key points to a good redemption (imo) but heres where dream falls short. his actions are extremely heavy so redemption may not even really be possible. abuse is not something you can wave off so it does cross to the point of fucked up. acknowledgement of what he did was wrong? all he said was that he changed, yet never explained why he changed or was too vague. he needed to label specifically what he did and bring it up. attempting to make amends? he’s been doing the exact opposite in fact he continues to manipulate tommy and ranboo. its not a genuine change. he is still repeating the cycle and has given no indication of ceasing. at the moment he does not have any signs of redemption.

and the thing is most of the attention around a dream redemption comes from either justifying his motives (which i do want to emphasize does not make anything suddenly okay) and because he is sad in prison sad face. these are not good reasons. its gonna pain me severely to bring this up but snape from harry potter does have some form of sad character ig yet he very much abused his authority to bully children as old as 11 just because he said ‘aight gonna die’ doesnt suddenly make his general bigotry and abuse suddenly okay there is a threshold. again im so sorry for using harry potter as an example none were coming to mind and i needed a popular one i do not like harry potter please dont say i do i would pass away.

and the last thing to consider is the audience. keep in mind that the audience is composed of minors and while yes there are adults, minors are the main component of the fandom. keep in mind that there are quite a few people who can relate to tommys character because they might be in the same position or have gone through his experiences. tell me what kind of message does it send to that audience that abusers can be redeemed. this is not a narrative u should push to this audience in these situations and the writers are seemingly aware of it. remember how in exile tommy spiraled into a suicidal mentality? consider how fucked of a message it would be if he just committed suicide instead of escaping abuse and attempting to recover from his experiences. tommy did an excellent job in not going that route and having a message of ‘it will not get better’. its the same thing here. victims are not obligated to care for or forgive their abuser, and portraying an abuser as sympathetic might fuck with the message a lot, even change their perception in that ‘oh, maybe my abuser was right, maybe they had a reason for treating me the way they did’. this is not to say that every victim watching this will internalize this message, but people also look up to these characters. there can be a degree of influence from the story onto oneself and thats the dangerous part.

conclusion

all in all dream is a shitbag asshole and probably shouldnt get a redemption because it would not be pog thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[thebopkabbalah]

NOTES ON TELEVISION

thought i'd have a go at putting my thoughts down for each of the shows i've watched / finished in the last two weeks or so, otherwise it all sort of swims away into an undefined experience of consuming something and not reflecting on what it meant to you as a viewer etc. spoilers below so beware!

feel good season 2 (Netflix)

was massively excited to have mae martin back on my screen and charlotte ritchie - something very affectionate about the two of them, even independent of mae and george's relationship. it was absolutely mad !! to see someone struggling with gender onscreen and have no quick resolution for that - likewise with trauma / abuse, where in parts i felt very deeply for mae and was equally frustrated by them. interesting to see wokeboi Eliot mansplaining his way through polyamory and all, although perhaps becoming a caricature towards the end. laughed in bits, worried at others. thought that may mae and george's reunion could've taken a longer span to happen in, but feel good has always been sharp, concise and so it was. absolutely HATED the last shot that zoomed out of mae and george because it took me out of that beautiful moment they were having !!!! 

hacks season 1 (HBO)

got to fucking love jean smart. the meanness, the switch to vulnerability, the humor, the sheer flexibility of her face whereby she demands attention from a viewer is wild. loved, loved, loved her character and the way it's developed in tandem with ava's. found myself liking and disliking ava through the episodes until the end, maybe. not sure how i feel about deborah's assistant / CEO person or her casino dealer being POCs - like even as their characters are developed, they remain props to a narrative about white people. does anyone else feel that way in shows centered around white ppl but populated by some POCs? how would this show have done if the lead actresses were non-white? food for thought. the writing is very very sharp and funny, lots of laughing did happen. I RECOMMEND FOR JEAN SMART. 

we are Lady Parts (Channel 4)

having listened to a bit of taqwacore and wondered when i might see more muslim women onscreen in non-stereotypical ways, this show was fucking fantastic. i have only one or two critiques with their storytelling, but overall, really smart, really well done. there's lot of music to lose your shit over, there's musical-esque moments, there's visual references to films, there's a diversity that doesn't feel forced or just put it in for its own sake, but realistically imagined !!! can't blame me for having the HOTS for Saira, jesus christ, with her tattoos and low-voice intro “We are Lady Parts” which is just !!!!! not sure what i felt about Amina being set up with Ahsan because thats very stereotypical rom-com heteronormative shit and honestly the show could do so much better. appreciated how religiosity is included in very nuanced and interesting ways in the show, and displayed without pomposity or judgment. loved the music, maybe there should be more? not sure what another season of this would look like but im living for muslim / queer / women representation that is breaking out of old patterns and shit. LOVE THIS. PLEASE WATCH. 

elite season 4 (Netflix)

weirdly put together season that made very little sense, had no mystery, perhaps too much sex because i was seeing so many asses and breasts that i was left confused about who was seeing who and why character development was thrown for a toss. elite's always been campy, mystery-trash fun but one or two things they got right initially was their narrative grasp of queer character arcs and non stereotypical representation of muslims !!!! no such nuance here. enjoyed rebe and mencia's relationship and cayatena's growth as a woman rejecting men FINALLY in favor of herself / her career but overall there was no depth no complexity nothing. lol. thought there might be interesting complex conversations around polyamory etc but that dissolved into patriarchal piss shit. 

the pursuit of love (BBC miniseries)

i dont know why i watched this, except for andrew scott perhaps. while some of the shots are pretty i could find little else to enjoy or feel anything about in the show. the cousins ​​'relationship was definitely weirdly sexual-tension driven (couldnt they have been friends who eventually have a homosexual relationship? much better premise imo) - lily james' character kept panting and sighing in the most morose ways possible, weird to listen to - - most characters were just types, without depth or motivation. nothing about queerness just one dance segment that suggested it. straight people stuff is boring. lots of other problems with how they depicted / dealt with the politics of the time. ugh. the one time i was excited, besides andrew scott's presence, was when Sons of Kemet played in a jazz club. hope i dont associate the show with the song please please feeling ridiculous for having given 3 hours of my life to this. lol. okay. dont watch.