#all the other characters in this arc are from well known fictional works and then there is jack the ripper. hes just a little out of place

[visualstudiocode]

the number 1 thing that i hate in anime is when they have a character that is supposed to be jack the ripper. thats a real murderer that killed real people not victorian anime boy of the week

its especially jarring in anime that otherwise focus on fictional super natural events and then all of a sudden. BOOM fictional explanation of real murder using some character with super natural powers

[noneorother]

By far the dumbest movie reference no one caught in Good Omens is : The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse

I'm working on a theory that requires many hours of movie watching, so here we are. Many people have already mentioned that the nazi zombies/Furfur is a The League of Gentlemen comedy troupe shoutout. But I'm taking it one step crazier. Remember the opening scene from the 1941 minisode of S2E4, the one with the london bombing and the Angel statue in the bottom right corner ?

Haha sorry my bad. That's the climax intro scene of the movie The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse. Here's the opening scene of the 1941 minisode:

You can excuse the confusion after seeing both, with how they look pretty much identical (yes this is giving me The Tales of Hoffmann PTSD, thanks for asking) And it's not very coincidental when you know who helped write the minisode.

You know, just the fourth member of The League of Gentlemen and writer of the movie LG Apocalypse. So shall we tease out all the (I'm warning you) EXTREMELY dumb quotes and story beats this terrible movie has lent to the 1941 episode? There are quite a few. But there's also a potential story arc that isn't so dumb... (TW offensive comedy, including mild gore)

In order to understand this you probably have to know a bit of background on British show The League of Gentlemen. "[A] surreal British comedy horror sitcom... follows the lives of bizarre characters, most of whom are played by three of the show's four writers – Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith – who, along with Jeremy Dyson, formed the League of Gentlemen comedy troupe in 1995." You don't need to know all of the characters or backstory of the show, just that it's a fictional town with many fictional characters played by the same three writers (and an invisible fourth).

(Also known as all these people right here) Want to know who they plays a stand-in for Jeremy Dyson in LG Apocalypse and gets murdered first with black marker on his face?

Say hello, baby Sheen!

So we've seen the bombing scene, what about the car driving through fire and Aziraphale's suggestive line at the beginning?

Yup.

Do the characters make a deal with a Reece Shearsmith character to enter the real world through a church?

HECK YEAH. Bonus points for the green background.

A gag about fake lips with Steve? Sure.

Steve Pemberton seen here as a nazi zombie, and also here playing "Herr Lipp" (also known in the actual script as "the worst pun in the world" in the movie. Groan). What about Mark Gatiss Stealing binoculars from Steve to spy on two important characters? But of course.

Surely not the arm falling off too?

Oh dang. It's a big plot point in LG Apocalypse you say? Then, in the climax, does someone in dark sunglasses who doesn't know how a rifle works fire it at a main character, and the other character who he misses says fuck? Now you're pulling off my arm..

Well I'll be damned. The only difference here being Steve's head exploding, naturally.

I'll admit, I have trouble seeing where a giant 3 headed chimera beast that destroys a bunch of characters fits in at the end of the 1941 miniode, but I don't think 1941 is meant to be a stand in for the whole movie, because at that point in the movie the role of the main characters shifts to become the real versions of Shearsmith and Gatiss, not the characters. But even though the end of the movie doesn't track with 1941, I think the moral at the end is interesting : "In the church, Lipp says he will kill Gatiss. The other characters try to dissuade him, saying that once all the writers are dead, Royston Vasey will cease to exist and they will die. Lipp claims that they will in fact be better off, because as long as they're controlled by someone else they have no free will and can never change for the better. Tipps tells Lipp that because he saved the day and can therefore change, Lipp need not kill Gatiss. He persuades Lipp to hand him the gun, only for Tipps to accidentally fire it and kill Gatiss.

With all the writers now apparently dead, the residents of Royston Vasey prepare for the worst. Instead, everything calms down and The Apocalypse is averted. The characters realise they now have free will. Herr Lipp adopts some orphaned children, the vet, Mr Chinnery, finds a rabbit and is able to take care of it without killing it, and Bernice and Pauline become romantically involved. Tipps leaves the church, waving goodbye to Edward, Tubbs and Papa Lazarou. It appears that Royston Vasey can continue to exist independently of its dead creators." This struggle for free will outside of the plan originally set out by their creators, especially in the context of said creators not really caring about them anymore, really starts sending red flags up for me. Crowley's existential crisis at the beginning of S2E1 seems to be mulling over similar themes. The lack of any God narrator as in season 1 might be a change in storytelling technique, but might also point the the creator being absent, or having moved on without really letting her original creation know it gets to exist on it's own now. Funnily enough, this is the second movie with shot for shot quotes throughout, that places a specific set of characters at the center of their own deeper plot that has a meta level to the storytelling. I'm starting to think there's a pattern here...

_______________________________________ Here's my series on the Tales of Hoffmann, another movie hidden within the series.

[easternmind]

Lessons in Japanese Game Design #3

From Killer7 to Deadly Premonition, Japanese game creators have intrepidly explored the theme of mental illness in a variety of genres, often in highly stylized form. The title I wish to approach today is a lesser known reference that approached this subject matter with unusual tact and clarity - a memory, if you will, which the collective conscious has long repressed.

Maria Kimi Tachi Ga Umareta Wake (The Reason You Were Born) is a late 1997 adventure game firmly rooted in the visual novel template that earned Chunsoft great repute. It was Break studio's debut, produced over a year and half for both the PlayStation and Saturn systems. It was published by Axela, a company born out of the internal management conflicts and accumulated debt at ASCII, leading to some of its executives teaming up in 1996 to establish a new project centred around software and magazine publishing. The story of this company's origins, alone, would merit a separate post.

Foreseeably, its release was followed by moderate controversy, such that worked mostly in its favour. One of the most polemical moments is found in the introduction scene, with its tasteful yet unvarnished depiction of Maria's suicide attempt, followed by her hospital admission. The imagery and that which it depicts remains as painful to watch today as it did decades ago.

While Maria is the central character, her tragedy and arc merge with that of the actual protagonist, Jun Takano, a fledgeling surgeon who, in the quality of certified psychiatrist, is assigned to provide therapy to the French-Japanese patient the morning after her admittance.

Maria's mental illness component comes to light as the story and therapy sessions progress. The key art consists of photos of women using coloured masks to visually represent the dimensions of her multiple personality disorder.

(Note: the text above is machine translated from the original Japanese game manual.)

Break was denounced for its bid to integrate so serious a derangement as a theme in a juvenile entertainment piece. Their reaction was to highlight the research done to ensure a careful treatment of the subject and sensitization of players via a bespoke message in the manual. In retrospect, the relative popularity of this game at the time was greatly owned to this fleeting controversy, and is believed to have been a crucial factor in the obtention of budget for Maria's far less spirited sequel.

As a work of pure fiction, scenario writer Kirie Fukuda was at liberty to carry the already divisive premise into even more exotic territory by establishing a mysterious yet playful correspondence between Maria's distinct personas and Egyptian deities.

The game's structure is modelled after hirudorama, a Japanese word interchangeably used to describe daytime TV fiction or soap operas; each of its nine chapters lasting nearly thirty minutes, equipped with a plot twist, cliff-hanger ending, and followed by rolling credits.

Perhaps the single most outstanding aspect about this production results from a tireless effort to surpass the standard of authenticity in what pertains facial expressions; particularly those of the multifaceted Maria, often with stilted yet all the more fascinating results.

In this and other regards, the influence of D no Shokutaku and its character, Laura, is clear and unmistakable. Maria's director and studio head at Break, Akira Okada, was an ex-Warp employee who worked as sales director precisely at the time when Eno's game was being developed.

Following a modest success, Break released Maria 2: Jutaikokuchi no Nazo in 99, a not-so-direct sequel which did not command the same attention as the original. The studio created other noteworthy visual novels: Ouma ga Toki and its sequel, as well as the most unusual Saishuu Densha, a paranormal-themed romantic story involving two strangers who meet in a train.

Before closing, it would pay to emphasize that this is an entirely different adventure game from the similarly forgotten MA-RI-A Ningōkan no Noroi, a 1996 3D CG horror adventure designed by Osamu Tezuka's son, Makoto; and scored by Kuniaki Haishima, of Kowloon's Gate and Siren 2 fame.

Nor is it related in any way with the so-called "Maria" episode from the Yarudora visual novel game series, Sampaguita, released in 1997 for the PlayStation by Sugar & Rockets and Production I.G.

[lindstromm]

Let's talk about Reynolds.

He's so good at keeping secrets. He would have known about King George's fits since he started working as his valet. Perhaps he's known since the fits started. Reynolds is a fictional character, but the book written about the show says that Reynolds and George were playmates as children. They grew up together. Reynolds was raised to be the King's valet.

Before Charlotte joined their court, Reynolds and Brimsley became a couple. These two were already together, already comfortable with each other, yet Reynolds never gossiped about George.

Reynolds has been sworn to secrecy. He knows the reality of the King's madness. He sees it on a daily basis and more up-close than even the doctors or Augusta see it. He hides the truth, even from Brimsley, even when Brimsley finds out some details (like seeing Munro in the cellar), even when he gets angry that Brimsley told the Queen what he saw. Reynolds never breathes a word to Brimsley about the King's madness, until the King's fit in the garden and you see how devastated he is that Charlotte knows. He failed.

Reynolds' devotion and hopelessness come out strongly in 1x05. He's hiding Munro's torture, refusing to discuss anything with Brimsley even though Brimsley now knows the King is mad. Brimsley snaps at him, is visibly displeased with his passivity and reticence, and yet Reynolds still says nothing. Brimsley tries. He paints over the wall and offers to screen off the garden, and Reynolds mocks him for it. And yet. And yet when Reynolds returns to Kew after seeing Brimsley's effort, that's when he forces his way into Munro's torture chamber to try and save his King. Brimsley's hope inspires him, and that ends with Reynolds again seeing the futility of his actions, this time slumped against a wall with his ears ringing from the force of the blow and his King's screams.

When Charlotte goes to Kew and demands to see the King, even with Munro insisting that the Queen cannot see the King, Reynolds tells her where George is. Reynolds, as a servant, basically isn't allowed to have emotions, and Freddie Dennis plays all his devastation and inner conflict so subtly. Just the expression in his eyes and bit around his mouth betray how much he cares. It comes out in his conversations with the King, but in public, there's barely anything there.

Charlotte throws out Munro and takes over. Charlotte tells him the King is well. George insists he's well now. Reynolds should know better than to hope, but he allows himself to be talked into hoping that, if Charlotte and George can be together, then he and Brimsley can be together. He says the most effusive line he's got in the entire show:

And then George utterly fails to address Parliament. He can't even get out of the carriage. Charlotte wonders what happened, because he was fine when he left. And Reynolds loses his composure. "He was not fine!" he snaps at her. Reynolds has a lifetime of learning George's tells, and George was not fine. "That was merely hope." Such a damning thing to say about hope. It's no better than delusion.

Reynolds has a unique emotional arc in this show. He knows -- all the way through the show he knows the King is mad and that it won't get better, and yet he's surrounded by so much hope in the persons of Charlotte, and George, and even Brimsley, that he allows himself a few moments of hope, despite the King's madness, despite all he knows about how hope is a trick and a delusion. Reynolds hopes.

And then he disappears.

[zizz-asdf-re-r-o-u]

Kuya- Is character developmentTM necessary?

(NOTE: I have not played every event nor watched all intimacy rooms. If anyone has additional info, please let me know!)

Soooo idk if anyone in NU Carnival tumblr also follows fanartists on twitter, but there was a lil bit of drama over some character criticism amongst some midsized fanartists (I say midsized cause they're moderately known in the English-speaking fandom, but MUCH smaller than more popular anime or kpop fanartists). And 2 things- I really like all the fanartists that were involved so I hope it doesn't become a long lasting fight. I know big fandoms can get in a lot of fanwars (coff kpop), and would hate to see how relatively mature NU Carnival has handled things, turn into fanwars over small stuff. Get fights over the gacha system pricing, sure, but not over opinionsTM on fictional characters. Anyways, that's a twitter problem. Tumblr fandoms, although they can get into fights too, the NU Carnival tumblr analysis people seem more chill and I haven't seen any public fanwars yet. But also there's also fewer people active on tumblr.

AAAANYWAYS. The point of this is my response to their arguments. Basically the discussion was over whether or not Kuya had any character development. And I say- with a cast of 12 lead-ish characters and not everyone getting the spotlight all the time, there will be some screentime sacrifices made. But I would also like to propose- is it absolutely necessary for EEEVERY character to get "character development"? And is it necessary for every character to get the SAME kind of "character development"?

Let's take a side tangent at Avatar the Last Airbender. Zuko is infamous as the poster child for character development. And while that works for Zuko's character, it would not be right for EVERY character to follow his pattern. Specifically for some characters such as Uncle Iroh. Or they deserve to have smaller scale or slower character development, such as Aang or Toph. I'm not saying Aang or Toph don't have character development, but they don't have the massive 360 changes that Zuko does. And that's because they don't need it!

Now let's move over to NU: Carnival. I'll bring up Garu/Karu first. I'm not sure if everyone realizes this yet, but Karu is probably the best character who is starting at the beginning/bottom of his character development arc. He's got lots of issues and none of it is solved yet. Their role is also being a victim of the plot- stuff has happened to Garu/Karu and they've got no agency yet. We can also predict that Karu is going to eventually lower down his walls, accept or overcome his trauma, mature from his delusions of grandeur, become actually powerful, and experience ~character development~. Garu doesn't have as many problems with Eiden or the rest of the clan, but he also lacks empowerment and maturity that he's been slowly building up since Eerie Escapade. For them, because they are starting their story completely unsolved and at the bottom of the barrel, "character development" is necessary- especially now that we have hints on how much of a victim they are of the plot (essence/gemstone experiments) and how crucial they might be to solving things. And that can't happen if they've still got amnesia and blacking out from trauma.

But what about Kuya, whose the point of this whole discussion? The 2 sides of the twitter argument were- Kuya has stopped progressing and is boring and a bitch vs Kuya actually has a lot of character development. How about another perspective? Well, let's take a look at where Kuya is starting and what role he plays. Realistically, he starts out being a villain archetype, he's Huey's former right hand man and super close to the lore. Half the time Kuya is saving the day or creating the chaos, and the other half of the time, he already knows the answer and is providing the exposition or mystery/backstory reveals, or has personal experience/connections with whatever mystery they're encountering.

"Development"-wise, he's the oldest character whose gone through the most changes over time, except in the past. Yeah he's a total bitch and still emotionally constipated. But he's been like this for 200, maybe 300 or 400+ years. In fact, he was worse 100-200 years ago. So what does this mean for present-day Kuya with Eiden's clan?

a) Kuya is not at the start of his character development and he does not need major character development, like Garu/Karu or Dante or Yakumo or Edmond. He has already done the bulk of his character development in the past, and is now changing very very veeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly simply due to time and he will keep changing at his own much slower pace than everyone else.

c) Kuya's main role is also the extremely powerful being who has answers to almost all the lore. Yeah, there's still a LOOOOT of things he doesn't know or learns along the way, but 90% of the time, he's so experienced and smart, he figures it out (except for the playing cards, which kickstarts his interest in Eiden). For example, figuring out the night crane in Silver Miracle or the Tanuki in mystic banquet or the time shenanigans in Astral Duo and he already knows whats going on in Frozen Echoes. (Rusted Nations is a bit hard to compare since it's mostly flashbacks to past Kuya). He's just so bored of knowing the answers, or being able to easily figure out the answers that he fucks around with people. Heck, there's a small possibility that, if Journey to a NU World is canon, that means Kuya is so OP he's basically Jobu Tupaki from EEAAO or Monika from DDLC, and he knows the actual game developers.

If we think about it in terms of gaming, Kuya has maxed out and finished the game. He is super powerful and has nowhere upwards to go. The only thing he can do now is doing Lost Relics, filling out the pokedex, sidequests, and exploring after game content. Or playing the sequel, which would be equivalent of universe hopping to Eiden's world. Another example- you've solved over 200 puzzles and the difficulty level never changes. Your character development was in puzzles 0-150, and when you encounter puzzle 201 but it's STILL that easy, eventually most people will get bored. That's what Kuya is like.

I don't have a fancy conclusion or anything, but yeah that's my thoughts. If anyone has corrections or their own interpretation, I'd love to hear it!

[toointojoelmiller]

Update: I continue to work on all things! Nothing is abandoned! New chapters will come!

The actual, fun and exciting update: I'm going to start recommending a few AMAZING TLOU fics that you might have missed on my blog every Saturday for the next while.

I hope you find some new great reads to keep you going while we wait for season 2 - our fandom is seriously so freaking talented, and there are SO many incredibly written fics out there that I want to yell about a bunch of them! Please reblog!

These fics will vary re: how closely they stick to canon and what themes they explore, but you can expect them all to be wonderfully written and, obviously, heavily feature Joel Miller.

Some of these, including this weeks, may include mature content - make sure to read and heed the trigger warnings listed on ao3!

I have never really been interested in fan fiction with OCs, so I missed out on this week's recommendation for a long time and I bet a lot of you did too. It's both a wonderfully told Joel love story and a fic that, in my opinion, really honours the world and characters of TLOU.

Go Your Own Way by @chronicallyonlinewriter 232,575 words || 31 chapters rating: mature [see ao3 tags for full content warnings] featuring: post season/game 1 life in Jackson, angst, fluff, action, romance, smut, plenty of protective Joel and parent Joel

You can check out a review from @march-flowerr below, describing some of what makes this story so special: (vague general spoilers re: themes and mature content)

“Go Your Own Way stands, in my mind, as one of the most well written piece of fiction on Archive of Our Own. Nandorluna has such an intimate and authentic take on the existing characters that we know and love (on Joel and Ellie and all the Jackson gang) but it’s her ability to create stunning, well fleshed out original characters that drew me to her story initially. Her main character, Benny, moves across the story in such a visceral and realistic way; her arc spans not just the present canon timeline, but transports us through an entire lifetime: from childhood to outbreak, to first love, to first loss, to heartbreak and grief and then finally, to her heart’s final resting place: Joel Miller.

Zee manages to write about and embrace such difficult topics as assault, pregnancy loss, and grief without ever once making a show of it. She handles each moment with quiet dignity and intense self reflection; she draws beauty from the hollow depth of heart ache and despair without ever once losing the thread of hope that The Last of Us is known for.

At the heart of Go Your Own Way is the love story of Joel and Benny. Zee manages to create a compelling story about brokenness and connection and the raw, rare glory that is finding someone with whom you can begin to fit yourself together with again. It’s a story of family - of people who when left to wander, find their hearts drawn to each other. It’s a story about love - each relationship, from Benny and Alexei’s long friendship, to Ellie and Joel’s turbulent first years, to Benny and Joel’s steadfast devotion for each other, caters to the soul. It’s a story that I’ve found myself returning to, again and again, in all moods and places in life. If I could change anything about it, it would only be that it did have to end after all."

If you read and love this, please please show the author some love and leave a kudos and comment!! Happy fandoming y'all.

[elitehanitje]

The wrestling world is known for its creative costumes and storylines – and now two female rivals are modelling themselves on the Bette Davis/Anne Baxter classic.

Inspired by a young fan, a veteran performer takes the woman under her wing to nurture her as an understudy. But the route to the spotlight inspires cut-throat behavior, and the protégé upstages her mentor to replace her entirely. For those familiar with cinematic history, this sounds like the plot of All About Eve – but in this case, it's actually the arc of a feud between two of the best women's wrestlers of the moment. 

A quick rewind to this time last year: London played host to one of the biggest, if not the biggest, wrestling events in the country's history with All Elite Wrestling's All In, which filled out Wembley Stadium, a pretty remarkable achievement for a wrestling company that's only five years old.

For those unfamiliar, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) owned by Tony Khan, is a relatively young entrant into the world of US professional wrestling. Matches are pre-determined, and rivalries between wrestlers are scripted using long-running fictional "storylines" over months or even years. The bouts are still legitimately physically fierce, but the result is an artistic dance between narrative planning and live improvisation.

Since being founded in 2019, AEW has rocketed to prominence thanks to the strong alternative programming it offered to the behemoth World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which was at a creative low point at the time (they've since bounced back).

The standout story this year, one which has played out across months of weekly television, and will now climax at All In with a title match for the Women's World Championship, is the conflict between the wrestlers "Timeless" Toni Storm and "The Glamour" Mariah May – and in their rivalry, they have been drawing from classic Hollywood, a unique accent to their narrative.

Khan, who as well as being AEW owner is also responsible for the creative direction of many of the storylines, has directly cited Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve as inspiration, calling them "two of [his] favorites". Lyric Swinton, freelance wrestling writer/creative and host of the Maps & Graps Podcast thinks this storyline may go down as "All Elite Wrestling's best work so far". "The investment in this story from both an administrative and fan perspective has been unprecedented for a women's feud in AEW, and every risk has paid off" she continues.

For a while, Toni Storm quoted Sunset Boulevard directly, saying "Mr Khan, I'm ready for my close up!", before defeating her opponents

A lot of wrestlers use wider popular culture as a jumping-off point for their characters but usually, such direct homages are contained to ring gear and walkout looks for big matches (one of my favorite examples: Kenny Omega walking out dressed as Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, accompanied by the character's theme). As a result, even through those little nods, the shows become a fun nexus point of the other interests of wrestlers and fans alike.

It's not standard, however, for wrestlers to make cracks about Turner Classic Movies or use the infamously salacious (and mostly made-up) Kenneth Anger book Hollywood Babylon as a sight gag.

"Wrestling takes from itself just as much as it does from its current cultural moment," says Katie Stebbins, a film zine creator and co-host of the Clean Finish podcast. "But harking back to the golden age of a different medium altogether feels like its own homage, acknowledging professional wrestling as its own constructed, heightened, and totally unique form of storytelling.

How the story has developed

The storyline, which has been playing out over the past year across AEW's thrice-weekly programming, really kicked off in the lead-up to the 2023 All In, when Storm lost her title. This sent her into a spiral, her character gradually changing in a series of backstage interviews. Previously her styling leaned rockier, but now she was turning up talking like a washed-up, Golden Age Hollywood actress in the twilight of her career à la Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond (made funnier by the fact that she's only 28). The live interviews typically ended with her rambling loudly and throwing a shoe at her unsuspecting coworkers.

This developed further, as Toni's every on-camera appearance would be presented in black and white, complete with fake film grain. Now, her entrance music sounds like a classic film overture, she's billed as being "from Stage 7 of Warner Brothers Studios", her outfits have changed to silk gowns, and her in-ring gear looks like something Ingrid Bergman might wear to the beach. She got a butler. For a while she even quoted Sunset Boulevard directly, saying "Mr Khan, I'm ready for my close-up!" and pausing for a quick camera zoom before defeating her opponents. And, despite being a millennial from New Zealand, Toni speaks of Jayne Mansfield and other Hollywood icons like she spent time in the trenches with them, all in the kind of transatlantic accent that actresses from the time might have.

Stebbins highlights how the "feud playfully remixes a general 'Old Hollywood glamour' with the specificity of two stone-cold classics", Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve, while also noting that these reference points aren't required reading for fans. "If you recognize them, it's great but if not, it doesn't impact the enjoyment at all". It may even encourage people to seek out the films for the first time.

Eventually, in November 2023, entered Mariah, the doe-eyed fan, who in backstage segments claimed that she came to AEW for Toni, and to follow in her footsteps – this is where the story got its All About Eve angle, with Toni starting to seem like Bette Davis's old-school star Margo being pursued by Anne Baxter's super-fan Eve. What followed was weeks of Toni shrugging Mariah off, as she fought for her attention. She finally won it by dressing up as Toni, walking to the ring with her idol's old theme music and wearing her old ring gear – and later, her own variations on it – and then, to complete the betrayal, vanquishing her.  

Their sparring even gained a romantic subtext, not least through another rivalry between Toni and Mariah's old tag teammate from the Japanese promotion Stardom, Mina Shirakawa. It was effectively a battle for Mariah's heart (Swinton also notes how the trio has invited comparisons to film of the moment, Challengers).

The storyline is a genuinely original meeting of cultural phenomena, which has won over a lot of wrestling fans, given Mariah May some absolutely star-making time in the spotlight (Stebbins calls her "fully worthy of being the 'Eve' to Toni's 'Margo/’Norma'"), and provided an incredible revitalisation for Storm's character. As Stebbins puts it, "in real time we experienced Toni go from a placeholder women's champ indifferently received by audiences to losing the belt and gradually re-emerging as 'Timeless' Toni Storm. In real time, we experienced Toni the performer come remarkably into her own within Toni the character. It's part of what makes pro wrestling so endlessly fascinating, that the role of character and performer is always a simultaneous parallel and fusion." The same is true of Mariah, her newness to AEW adding to this immersive blend of fiction and person.  

Why the fusion works so well

When it comes to Toni Storm, the initial (and delightful) absurdity of a wrestler acting as if they're from the 1950s has developed layers, with Toni slowly but surely developing seemingly real vulnerability as her rivalry with Mariah has progressed. Stebbins posits that being able to see these incremental changes in personality has added to the fun: "So much in wrestling is about timing, and the effect that the passage of time has on both performer and audience and Toni / Mariah have utilized both in a way that doesn't often happen. We're with these performers week in and week out, watching performers evolve (or not), develop (or not), get over things (or not)."  

The narrative drama has also been helped by the fact that Toni and Mariah are so fundamentally skilled as physical performers: as Swinton notes, beyond "the clever video packages and heated [live] segments, these are still two of the best in-ring workers in any women's division worldwide". Indeed, the introduction of Mariah exemplifies how great wrestling storytelling can be built in large part through physicality – where outside of the ring she's a fawning and excitable sycophant, once she steps through the ropes she reveals her capability to be a vicious bully towards an opponent who doesn't quite know what they're in for.   

As the storyline has developed further, it has pulled in yet another Golden Age Hollywood reference. Following her (rather brutal) betrayal by Mariah, Toni returned angrier and more erratic , now seemingly nodding to another Bette Davis-starring film, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, as she channelled Davis's appearance as bitter former child star Jane Hudson, both through her gown and severe makeup.

Toni and Mariah's storyline is pretty unique, and it's unlikely to spark a "classic cinema" trend in wrestling: Stebbins sees it as having a "lightning-in-a-bottle quality". But it nevertheless underlines the appeal of professional wrestling more generally. It's a showcase of its varied potential, fusing a heap of narrative elements – shared with theatre, comic books, soap operas, and in this case, classic cinema – with combat and extraordinary feats of athleticism. And it's fun to see how the wrestling world draws on specific bits of pop culture to forge connections with audiences and create its own unique art form in the process.  

[dyemelikeasunset]

Hello! I hope life is treating you well. I wanted to ask: what's your approach to developing your characters' inner lives? Dom and Mor read so organically when it comes to their careers, friendships, and dynamic with each other, and it's really fun and engaging to read.

Thank you!!

I want to preface this saying that my method won't work for everyone, but I hope talking about it helps you discover some new things to try

When approaching my characters' inner lives and identities, I often start from a place of personal connection. Many of my characters are based on an amalgamation of myself and people I've known. I don't prioritize "writing what I know," but I start from a place of empathy, with a very nose-to-the-ground perspective. It helps remind me of their humanity. It really, really comes down to humanity. Not every writer is required to be this way, but I know that I personally can't ignore the humanity of the people I write, and I think my goal is to show nuanced experiences that reflect that well

Even in their jobs, I chose professions that are already my passion and hobbies, that I enjoy learning and know enough about so that I had a jumping off point. It made research a lot less overwhelming, and more focused on checking details, rather than learning about an entire industry I'm a newcomer to. But more importantly, I actually try to focus more on the person behind the career. In my current arc for Fashion Month, for example, I've gotten some messages and comments that implied people are expecting the glamour and fun outfits of fashion week, but I'm already 2/3 through the arc and most of the focus has continued to be on the characters' lives and humanity, identity, and struggles behind that facade. It comes back to humanity. Who are they behind all that? That's a more important question to me

Interpersonal relationships also feed back into that, as so much of our lives are defined by other people. I think through what another character means to my main character, how they affect them, what role they play in each others' lives, etc. Even family trees, even if the audience never sees the full picture, I do that work behind the scenes so I know what their childhoods were like, what their place in their families were, what kind of friends they made, their schooling, everything. It helps make sense of the person they became

And again, humanity. I'm writing a very insular story that primarily revolves around two characters so I can afford to really dig my teeth into them and do this much detail work. So I wanna say again-- my method might not be for everyone, but it is my approach, and part of what I think makes my characters feel vivid. They are human to me, they are alive because I am putting in that amount of work to make them exist outside of the fiction too

[itsabouttimex2]

Hey, OP! I'm just a random anon, but I read your new post and I'd like to tell you something:

You don't need to apologize for having your own opinions and interpretations on a character and being able to analyze and critique them. It's inevitable that someone will feel unsatisfied with your thoughts on a specific character, but then again, it's your own opinion on them, it's your blog and you shouldn't bend and break for someone else's insatisfaction. As much as it is alright for them to not agree with your views on the characters, it's just as alright for you to maintain them — opinions are subjective, and even more so in fictional stories.

If someone sees it as "ridiculous" and thinks you're "hating a character" just for talking about very valid points about such character's personality (because, let's be honest, Macaque is one of the most egregious cases of mischaracterization on the LMK fandom and, by itself, for someone to claim that you "hate him" just by critiquing him as a character and analyzing his faults is an example of the exaggerated idealization towards his character as a whole), then that is their problem alone and they should learn to accept that not everyone will hold the same opinions as them. Not everyone will find that a character's redemption arc was well made or that it felt genuine enough to be considered a redemption in the first place, and that's perfectly okay! To embrace the many views and interpretations a character can have only enriches them; it does not subtract from them.

Lastly, I'm sorry for any errors or misspellings here (English is not my first language) and you don't even have to reply to this ask, but I just want you to know that you shouldn't feel bad for having an opinion that differs from the most well-known on the fandom and whatnot. I, for one, really like reading about the Season Five Prep posts along with your usual writings (the way you write the LMK characters is very on point and very enjoyable and comforting to read), and I'm certain that your other followers do so too.

I really do appreciate everyone’s support here. It means the world to me. I was terrified that I was just being childish over nothing, or that I was massively overreacting and shouldn’t have cared at all. I mean, it’s not like they were saying slurs or making calls to harass me into changing my opinion.

But it still hurt.

I spent two entire days articulating my thoughts and feelings on every villain listed so that I could just share them with the community.

And to have someone admit to just… skimming all that hard work because they disagreed with one of my very first points, and call one of my biggest criticisms “ridiculous”? To say that I didn’t sympathize with the show’s time constraints? To say that I cared more about my own feelings than those of the writers?

It hurt.

If you disagree with me, I encourage you to explicitly say so on my “Prep” posts, which were hosted on both Tumblr and Reddit so I could get as many opinions on those pieces as possible. I’ve enjoyed seeing why people enjoy Macaque’s character arc. I’ve had lovely, civil debates. Some people think “helping out” is enough of a redemption.

That’s fine! You can feel that way! It’s totally valid! It is one-hundred percent valid to disagree with me!

But I also started that tier list with an entire paragraph dedicated to my feelings on redemption, and what I personally thought a character had to do to be “redeemed”.

My finishing paragraph was italicized and bolded in full, so that it was impossible to miss. That entire paragraph was dedicated to validating and acknowledging the contrasting opinions I knew people would have- because I know my opinions are not the end-all, be-all of the fandom.

And if someone (self-admittedly) skimmed all of that and took it as me “hating Macaque” or “being unsympathetic towards the show”? and has their rebloggers openly saying they’ve “always had a problem with that piece of content” or calling me “salty”?

I’m not going to blame myself.

Again- thank you all. ❤️

[greenhappyseed]

Very spicy salty and lengthy rant incoming. This is part 1 of 2, focusing on All Might (with Izuku and Katsuki), while part 2 will focus more on Ochako and the 1A reunion. I’m trying to help myself feel better about how deeply I dislike the “Dark Deku” and Star & Stripe arcs because I need to excise the real-life anxiety I’m feeling over this coming up in the anime. IMO, these arcs did not age well at all, and are absolutely no better in light of the ~35 subsequent chapters. It’s just that the subsequent chapters feel more cohesive and well thought-out despite Horikoshi’s physical pain and burnout.

While I’m not emotional over fictional characters, it is true that these arcs have impacted the fandom; namely, many people who were fans of All Might, Aizawa, Midnight, Mic, and the overall UA vibe dropped out. I get that sense from some LOV fans too. Overall, it means far fewer fics and art pieces with my blorbos, and it’s also meant far less interaction with my blog. (I don’t give a damn about “engagement” or followers, but I like talking about my hyperfixation with others who share it!). Obviously the story has to change as the series end draws near, but spending SO much time with Endeavor, Hawks, and Jeanist has worn me out, even if I think Horikoshi is handling Endeavor’s character growth well. (FWIW, I’m utterly disinterested in “Hawks the Optimist” who inexplicably became the expert on how OFA works, and Jeanist is…well…you know…a male model.)

Aside from everyone’s basic rant about how Horikoshi introduced two hot middle-aged women only to more or less fridge them (after killing Midnight!), my real complaint in this post is that the Dark Deku & Star arcs made a complete mess of All Might’s character arc and in-universe relationships. Don’t get me wrong — Chapter 326 with Stain seemed like something Horikoshi had planned since the early days of the manga, and that one hit HARD. But the rest felt like an improvisation. It’s horribly inconsistent on (1) when All Might speaks up and when he can’t bring himself to talk, and (2) how his relationship with 1A is handled compared to Star.

When it comes to All Might’s failure to speak up, it feels like Horikoshi was nerfing All Might and reducing what we know the former No.1 is capable of doing. I mean, in Chapter TWO he stops Izuku from overdoing his training. After Kamino, All Might helps Izuku develop Shoot Style by telling Izuku point blank that he’s trying too hard to imitate his mentor. In the Overhaul/Nighteye arc, All Might refuses to support Izuku’s desire to take on a work study because he thinks it unnecessarily exposes Izuku to villain activity AND Izuku needs to strengthen his Shoot Style first. (The awkwardness with Nighteye is his third reason.) When Izuku persuades him about getting stronger under Nighteye’s guidance, All Might carefully asks himself if Izuku is being impatient just because Izuku is his successor before agreeing to let Mirio do the introduction. When Izuku confronts All Might over Nighteye’s prophecy, All Might makes SURE Izuku is ready to hear an uncomfortable truth and then proceeds to tell him everything. In the next arc, All Might encourages Izuku to use whatever support items he needs, even though All Might always chose to fight with just his body. All Might is protective of Katsuki and Shoto too — when they want to jump out of the taxi and fight the Cider House gang, he tries to get them to slow down and “assess the situation first.” In all these situations, All Might can’t physically stop his students (and is usually on the losing end of the argument, as happens with argumentative teenagers™️), but he uses his voice to speak up and make his opinion known.

At the beginning of Dark Deku, things are looking okay. All Might gives up on the secrecy that defined him early on and tells Hawks and Jeanist everything when he realizes secrets didn’t keep people safe. That’s good, I think, but he didn’t seem to consult Izuku about it. Based on context clues, and how All Might initially wanted Izuku to stay at UA (again, he spoke up!) I think his motivation was to recruit the pro heroes to protect Izuku at the hospital and at UA. It sort of makes sense he would move fast and wouldn’t ask Izuku’s permission to do that…but in front of Inko after Izuku wakes up, All Might DOES ask Izuku’s permission to tell her. A minor inconsistency, but all right. It’s made clear All Might is worried sick about Izuku, warning him not to go overboard (once more speaking up!). Hawks even picks up on All Might’s hesitation, telling him that Izuku has the right strategy and it’s on All Might to keep the kid propped up. All Might does not look pleased about this as he looks up in the sky towards Izuku.

In helping Izuku, All Might fends off assassins and talks about how Izuku’s idolization of him weighs on him. It’s not just that he promised Inko he would live and look out for Izuku; he’s acutely aware his boy is just like him in ways good and bad.

Yet when All Might sees Izuku struggle and he begins to see why Nighteye wanted him to retire, he can’t bring himself to talk to Izuku. Even though he understands Izuku’s feelings, he just can’t say a word. You would think seeing Izuku get shot, or barely escaping AFO’s mansion explosion, would prompt a conversation. But no, he says nothing. (Then again, nobody seems to remember Izuku was shot; no mention in the bath scene either.)

At the same time, we see Nighteye pop up in All Might’s thoughts, but we don’t see All Might struggling with telling Izuku what Nighteye told him (that is, we have no idea if All Might still feels violated in some way by Nighteye’s actions). We also don’t see All Might worrying about Izuku realizing the Symbol of Peace was just a human being. All Might isn’t trying to keep up Izuku’s hope by hiding the real burden of being the symbol (besides, didn’t he pull back that curtain in, oh, CHAPTER ONE???) We aren’t given any solid motivation or thematic through line — he simply procrastinated on what he knew he had to do for an unsatisfying hodgepodge of invasive thoughts. That is inconsistent with the All Might we know.

Before anyone comes at me, All Might not telling Izuku about Nighteye’s prophecy is very different. In that situation, All Might honestly did not think Izuku needed to know because knowing would put MORE pressure on Izuku than necessary. In Dark Deku, it’s the opposite, and All Might knows talking to Izuku could help relieve pressure.

I understand this is supposed to be All Might’s low point to lead into the Stain conversation. All Might is supposed to feel like “doing his best” didn’t prevent society’s downfall and didn’t stop his boy from repeating his mistakes. But…it feels like Horikoshi tied his tongue because that’s what needed to happen for plot reasons, and Horikoshi just wanted it to happen quickly. We still don’t have a good character reason why. Would it have been so unbelievable that Izuku, in his panicked state, brushes off All Might’s advice to rest? Or would that “break” Izuku’s idolization of All Might in a way that Horikoshi is still saving for the finale, where Izuku finally becomes his own hero without imitating All Might at all? I don’t have an answer, but it feels like we still could have had the same basic story beats without the bizarre characterization.

The strangeness of All Might staying quiet also makes Katsuki’s argument to Endeavor in Chapter 319 feel funny to me. Katsuki is spot on that Izuku doesn’t take himself into account and All Might does the same thing. While Katsuki understands far better than Izuku that All Might is human, Katsuki doesn’t consider how protective All Might can be of Izuku. Katsuki doesn’t see (or understand, perhaps?) how All Might doesn’t want anyone else to be a Symbol of Peace the same way he was. Maybe that’s part of Katsuki’s idolization issues? Post-362, with Katsuki seeing All Might’s vestige and showing him the trading card, I think Katsuki never let himself appreciate that he had the former #1 in his corner, or that a person can, in fact, use their willpower to become a symbol that inspires a nation. Not to sound like Prince Harry in “Spare,” but maybe there’s also a tinge of lingering resentment over feeling left behind? There’s just something about Katsuki screaming to Endeavor, of all people, that you can’t leave Izuku and All Might alone together when Endeavor knows Izuku has already ditched All Might AND Endeavor and Hawks have already realized they’re “too slow” compared to Izuku. Of course it’s Hawks — who was saying Izuku made the right choice like Second and, uh, AFO — to announce that Izuku left All Might. There’s also Shoto yelling about how Endeavor “let them operate together,” but it’s not like Endeavor has enough credibility to control either Izuku or All Might.

How does a #2 protect their #1 when they’re too slow? Can you ever “run alongside” someone whose power vastly outpaces yours, or is idolization all you can do? I think these are fascinating thematic questions, and Dark Deku makes a mess of them.

These problems compound in the reunion chapter, 327, which is really cute when it comes to the bath scene and the 1A kids, but is inexplicably confounding when it comes to All Might + the kids. Izuku clearly calls All Might multiple times to reconnect, but the man doesn’t pick up his phone. (I think we’re supposed to assume All Might is talking to Stain when Izuku calls, but…he couldn’t use the Hercules speech-to-text feature to tell the kid he’s driving over?) Then All Might just happens to show up at UA as Izuku talks about him, and gives Izuku a deep bow while saying sorry “for being of so little help.” He says nothing aloud about how he feels towards Izuku, and nothing aloud about being proud of 1A (though he basically thinks that in this chapter and again in 335). When Mina asks for an apology because he just disappeared post-war and left 1A with the Wild Wild Pussycats, he briefly says he’s sorry for any anxiety he caused, but quickly pivots to the need to prepare for “the battle that will decide it all.”

Like the Stain conversation, I understand that this is supposed to be All Might stepping up and figuring out his place in the world post-retirement. He’s realized he passed the torch to Izuku and 1A, but that doesn’t mean he’s useless. He wants to join the fight with the kids; to catch up and run alongside them. And to do that, he….ditches them to join Tsukauchi and Endeavor. I do appreciate that All Might is open with Tsukauchi (and Sansa!!!) about his OFA experience. But he basically disappears from UA for two days to deal with Star and TomurAFO before coming back in 335 and then seemingly disappearing again before joining the UA faculty to discuss the Aoyamas. (As pictured above, Ochako and Tenya, then Katsuki, all rightfully call out All Might’s “I am not here” act in 335.) Are you really telling me that the man who cries over Aoyama’s reveal isn’t emotionally attached to the class and wouldn’t, you know, BE HERE for them?

What makes All Might’s absence from 1A even more problematic is that now he’s…Star’s mentor??? See, All Might sends out the call for help from his international super friends and Star comes riding in acting like she’s his successor. Chapter 364 later reinforces this, with Agpar’s monologue about “children observing adults and adults supporting the children as they pass it forward” showing a Prime All Might reach out out his hand to Star. It’s stupid because All Might has a direct successor already, plus two students (Katsuki and Shoto) that are direct heirs to other parts of his legacy, and another group of students that he’s been hands-on teaching for the past year. But Horikoshi decides to ignore all that setup and focus on “All Might + Star” rather than have him spend more time with 1A. Once again, if the point is to introduce thematic questions of inspiration and imitation, and how there’s a difference between someone imitating their idol based on their own interpretation vs actually receiving mentorship from the human behind the idol, it’s utterly lost in the execution. I just can’t bring myself to see Star as anything other than an interloper. I’m glad her pilot bros stayed in Japan to help out, and her sacrifice was heroic I suppose, but it suffered the same flaw as All Might. She tried to take on TomurAFO alone, and the best she could do is slow him down temporarily.

That’s all I can manage for now! In part 2, I’ll take a closer look at Ochako and the chain that leads to Izuku’s retrieval and where we are now.

[dynamic-k]

oki doki I have returned with another question >:D

I'm obsessed help-

Okay, you don't have to answer this question if you don't want to/don't know, so:

Is Madame Pop-Up going to stay a villain? Is she going to annoy Ballista like she said?

Is she even sorry about Chosen's trauma?

I swear to God if it's a no I will strangle her-

Will Primal becoming a hero change her mind? Or will Madame Pop-Up take it as betrayal and then become the antagonist of a whole Arc-

I feel like she wouldn't be one to do that though. She's more like jokey about it, if that makes sense.

Unless... Does she have any trauma? Does she really just like being the villain for fun? Are the villains actually even bad?

Have a great day! :D

-R

Finally done with this one. = w=’ Speediest answered ask in history, yep yep.

[LONG LONG RAMBLE BELOW~!!!] [shorter than the other one tho]

So. I got asked about one of my minor OC’s for Super Sticks. That is a first. A daunting first, but a challenge to respond I will not deny.

Typically, I try not to focus on my OCs, it just seems awkward sometimes. Unless, I guess, I happen to have put a lot of particular thought into the character and am happy with it. The more built the OC is, the longer that character has been created, the more comfortable I am with writing said character more frequently and offering the OC more chances to shine.

Yes, I would say that I prefer to write the main cast more than I do OCs. I feel like I know our dear and beloved sticks better than I do my own characters, which is strange to say because I technically know my own OCs better than everyone else- 

I don’t remember where I was going with this. Maybe just insight on how I think or something- I’ve forgotten-

Anyway. Madame Pop-Up, or Poppy. 

Welp, you better get your strangling hands ready then- XD She, uh. She is not very sorry and doesn’t feel bad. There was some mild sympathy and wince of genuine “Oooh, owch” when the building fell on Chosen, but- Other than that little moment there, she is generally uncaring to what she does. 

But hey! You know what could fix that? A LENGTHY CHARACTER ARC- [*is cut off*]

Uhhh, I actually didn’t know how to answer this for the longest time, and I had to think on it for a few days. As I mentioned prior, I have a habit of not including OCs into very many scenes, and sometimes they are all harder to write than the main cast!! XD

There are a few OC exceptions, in which I can write them very well. 

Jade, for example, from A Second’s Tale. He’s shown up enough times, I have enough plans for his story, it’s good.

Dune is pretty easy, as he’s a quiet stick. XD 

I also, of course, have other fandom original characters, and additionally zero fandom original Scarlett works with original characters. [Aside from “The Last Veracion”, most are unposted because I deem them really terrible in composition, or they are incompletely written. WHEN YOU HAVE THE ENTIRE STORY IN YOUR BRAIN BUT THE WORDS DON’T WANNA WORD-]

Poppy is an eccentric figure. The crazy aunt, you might say. She can be a little bit of a sadist... and, uh, not in the silly “whump angst torture suffer on this fictional character” way, that I am. 

Which does make for a good villain character! I needed that.

Poppy and Primal were really only friends because of Ballista, originally. Ballista and Poppy had known each other first, having met some time before Agent’s leg incident. Just around the time Ballista was caught and arrested for trying to fulfill Vic’s order, and Agent had already left Rocket with Hazard, Primal ended up meeting Poppy officially when the advertisement-wielding stick came wondering where her enthusiastic mini friend had gone off to.

They, Poppy and Ballista, probably had made plans for that day or something, I don’t know. I never needed to think on this too much, since it wasn’t relevant to the major plot.

Will she stay as a villain? Uhm. I... Maybe??

You know what? I do not know yet. It is definitely one of the things about Arc Two that is not fleshed out just yet, that I really should get to thinking and deliberating on soon so that I can ominously hint at it- XD

For fun of course. And also, I love it when the audience suffers from lack of information- /silly

Madame Pop-Up will definitely annoy Ballista, if a nice opportunity comes along. [I have some scenes planned already] As the plotline may have suggested, she is quite the cautious individual, an opportunist that seizes the right moment when it comes and shys away from things that hold too much risk. 

A more covert villain than most. She doesn’t have too much an interest in pillaging and robbery anyway, just... teasing. She’s more of a bully villain than a grabby one.

NOW. Primal finally embracing heroism, and going on the climax of her redemption that I haven’t finished fully planning yet- THAT. THAT is definitely the sort of thing that would affect Madame Pop-Up, as the two are much closer now than previously, having bonded during Ballista’s imprisonment.

This is exactly the thing that could help along and switch the tides over for Madame’s own character arc, whether it be a full redemption, or at least an acceptance of what her friends’, Ballista’s and Primal’s both, chosen [*COUGH-LAUGH*] paths are. 

Much of this planning still needs to be done, and some of it will inevitably end up being a spoiler, so I shouldn’t outloud plan too much on this Ask here. I SHALT PLAN IN A PRIVATE DOCUMENT THOUGH, I SHALT PLAN THE THINGS AND ALL OF THE THINGS- And maybe with my sister, or a close friend of mine, eehehehe.

Taking Primal’s decision as a betrayal, giving Madame Pop-Up the opposite of a redemption and instead, a full on RAMPAGE of villainy and anger and betraayyaaal, is also an epic idea. I may actually save that in my brain cogs for Arc Three as an emergency, uh,  I-need-a-force-against-the-protags option? [And I’ll obviously mention the idea came from you hehehe] 

:3 Currently, I have no antagonist for Arc Three, as Arc Two is going to be brought to a neat conclusion. [albeit with a big cliffhangery scene- *cough*]

[stop it, Scarlett, stop talking about Arc Three-]

But for now, yes. Arc Two is gonna tie a lot of things up at the very end, even with as chaotic and all-over-the-place as the journey may be initially, leaving us with an ending containing no extra or hidden main big-bads running amok. Sure, there will be small-time ones, of course, but not enough to be the cause of enough trouble that in turn would merit a big journey of entertainment whump-

Now, the reason Madame would not be the antagonist of Arc Two, is literally because there is a big bad(s) already. I just... haven’t yet... gotten far enough along for that to show very much. 

[IT’S THe GoVeRnMEnT- *gets cut off again*] 

...Ignore that “s”. Ignore it. There definitely is only the government and nobody else. Nothing. Shhh. I said nothing. SHHHH. Nope. Nothing. Don’t you dare look over at King, he’s not here. Sh. SHHHH. /silly

Technically, none of the villains I have made right now, are TOTALLY bad. Nobody here is like RedMenace!Dark. No one is COMPLETELY pure evil in Super Sticks. [yet-]

Rum I could ramble about. SuperSticks!Jade I could ramble about. The Alcoholic twins I could also ramble about. Mudd might be a little closer to evil than them, though- Not totally, but significantly closer-

Madame Pop-Up having trauma?? Now that’s a thought. Now that is a thought. O O

And I don’t have an answer. If I tried to answer, it might be a spoiler- Q w Q

Ehehehhehehehehe

OH I JUST NOTICED YOU SENT ME A NEW ASK!! AJHKJEHWQ

Just at the end of answering this one- XD Niceeeeee

Igoworkonthatnow, okaybye

[elusivehoney]

About Back To Earth

Ok, i've now had a number of people question what exactly my problem is with BTE, and why it's my least favourite Red Dwarf series, so let me explain:

Some works benefit from metatextual humour and forth-wall breaking, for me, Red Dwarf isn't one of them. So the choice to have the characters enter the 'real' world and discover that RD is a tv series and that they are just fictional characters does not work for me, especially given that this ultimately goes nowhere.

Outside of the cutesy scene of a fan indulging in RD trivia, there's really no point to any of it. The characters don't really dwell on the fact they're unreal, they just go 'oh well better find our creator to get more unreal life' - they don't explore what they/their lives could be outside of the 'fictional' reality they've known (see Back to Reality for how they did it right and better the first time round). The closest we get in BTE is Dave's coming to terms with his failings and the seeming worthlessness of his life but being willing to keep going. It's interesting but it's been done before and after much better.

Most of the scenes in the real world are unfunny and drawn out past the point of tolerance - The tv store, the mall, the bus, Coronation Street (dear God, Coronation Street - I hate BTE on the basis of them going to CS alone tbh) - again, RD does not benefit from fourth wall breaks and meta humour. The characters also aren't that funny here, but nor are they poignant, except Dave - which is also an issue because this is an ensemble cast not a one-man show, it's fine for an episode but not a film-length special.

Then there's the Blade Runner of it all. If I wanted to watch BR i'd watch it, I don't come to RD for BR rip offs - and they are rip offs. This is not homage, pastiche, or parody, it's taking scenes from BR and inserting the RD cast with no intent or commentary (with the sole exception of the photo zoom-in/enhance gag which actually was a parody, just not a fresh or funny one). Truly, what's the point? If you're not commentating on those scenes through parody, or paying homage by referencing BR visually/tonally in a RD style, there's no point in doing it. It's a bizarre creative choice that does not work for RD, it just wastes time they could of spent actually exploring the characters and premise.

And speaking of the premise, it's an inferior Back To Reality. In BTR they actually explored what it would mean for the characters to learn that they weren't real and had completely different lives. The episode did an amazing job at making the world created for a single episode feel real and lived-in. The revelation that the despair squid made them face their worst fears about themselves (Duane Dibbley, Rimmer no longer being able to blame anyone else for his failings) and had them act in ways that made them feel as though they couldn't live with themselves afterwards (Kryten taking a human life, Dave being an evil dictator) made perfect sense when you rewatched BTR. None of this is true for BTE.

The choice to make their 'real' reality our actually reality felt cheap and unsuited for RD's universe and tone. All the characters but Dave felt like an afterthought, they had no exploration, no arcs, no point in being there other than the fact they had to be because it's RD. The revelation that the female relative of the despair squid causes joy rather than despair makes no damn sense - Outside of the end of their fantasy when Dave gets to be with Kristine what exactly is joyous about this reality? Rimmer getting one joke about being happy he's not actually Rimmer?

Why not have them go back to an Earth where they are famous and treated with reverence for surviving in deep space and making it back home? Why not have Rimmer promoted to Admiral and become popular and loved? Why not have the Cat meet several female cats who made it back to Earth and need good loving? Why not give Kryten an upgrade and all the time in the world to clean to his heart's desire? Why not have Kristine already back on Earth and ready to commit to Dave fully; love, kids, growing old together? Have the characters get what they most desire to fill them with joy, so much that they'd never want to leave this wonderful 'reality', only to have them eventually question why everything's too good to be true and realise they need to snap out of it because their real selves are wasting away in the real world.

Nothing about their time in the 'real' world is actually joyous, or happy, or pleasant, or fun, or any other positive emotion this anti-despair squid should be making them feel. The revelation makes no damn sense and only gets sillier the more you think about it and the more times you rewatch BTE.

Look, there are things I like about BTE: Craig Charles' acting is fantastic here - arguably the best he's ever been. We have the iconic 'I'm pretty cool' final Lister speech (which you know I love). For being low budget and quickly made BTE looks great - the cgi backgrounds and effects hold up really well (mostly, we don't talk about the mini-Rimmers). And i'm always happy to have Kristine back.

Overall, I feel as though BTE was an idea with a lot of great potential but ultimately was badly executed, and i'm annoyed by it because I know RD can do this plot better (Back To Reality).

I used to give it more of a pass because it was only three episodes, so unlike Series VIII the badness had less time to linger, and because at the time of release we didn't know how much, if any, more RD we were going to get. But now we have several new series and a new special (The Promised Land) that, though very flawed, showed RD can do long-form if it wants to, i'm less inclined to give BTE some slack. There are things to like about BTE, but the sum of its parts does not make up for the whole lacking.

[norringtondeservestheworld]

Connor RK800 and Jaime Lannister: different characters with the same arc, but one work while the other don’t

It’s honestly driving me insane how similar and identical are the arcs of Connor RK800 from Detroit: Become Human and Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones so yeah, now I’m gonna do an entire post (or meta?) about it. It’s gonna be long.

A little background for people who know only one of these fandoms.

Detroit: Become Human is about a future where robots are slaves of humans who abuse and torture them, so they started to “wake up” rebelling and developing free will and emotions like living beings. So the society who sell them create Connor, a very advanced robot designed to stop them.

Game of Thrones is an epic fantasy story set in a fictional world about different powerful families that fight with each other with wars and machinations to destroy each other and gain more power and the throne. Jaime Lannister is a member of one of these families.

These are two very different stories, but so are Connor and Jaime. They have opposite characters, goals and priorities: Jaime always put romantic love above anything else, while Connor doesn’t give a fuck about romance. Jaime is good in communicating with others: he knows how to talk to certain people, can read a room (at least sometimes) and he understands when is being mocked, while Connor is socially awkward and doesn’t really understand when someone is mocking him or someone is sarcastic.

And yet.. they both:

1) have the same beggining

2) are grey characters

3) have an obsession to overcome which is needed for them to develop as character (and if they fail to it, they both gets the involution and the “negative” arc)

4) have the same evolution (or involution, it depends of which arc we are talking about) and the same ending

1) The same beggining

Both these characters start with a child falling from a considerable height, but while one is causing the downfall of the child, the other is trying to save the kid.

The fact that Jaime is trying to kill the boy while Connor is trying to save the girl doesn’t mean that Jaime is the villain and Connor is the hero. It’s more complex than that. 

Jaime is trying to kill Bran because the boy just saw him having sex with his twin and if he says to anyone what he saw Jaime and his sister would have died. He did it to protect their lives. It wasn’t really about Bran. It was about him and Cersei.

On the other hand, Connor is trying to save Emma not because he cares for her or wants her to be safe, but because it’s his mission. He is a police android who knew really well, even before his arrival on the scene, that his mission was saving the child at all costs. If his mission was killing Emma he would have done it. It wasn’t really about Emma. It was about the mission.

2) are grey characters

Being in both fandoms, I noticed that Connor is way more popular than Jaime in terms of liking a character, while Jaime is more known as a character than Connor because Game of Thrones is more famous than Detroit: Become Human. Jaime is really loved by a part of the got fandom, but the other part look at him as selfish and evil because of everything he did, while Connor is loved by 98% of the dbh fandom, but in truth Connor’s actions aren’t better than Jaime’s actions. I think this happens because:

a) Jaime’s actions are motivated by his incestual and toxic relationship with his sister, so I think some people tend to dislike him more not for the actual actions but because of their disgust about the incest part

b) Connor being socially awkward. There is this tendency to see characters who are socially awkward being always sweet and cinnamon rolls because they aren’t good at communicating with others

In the first case, Jaime’s actions aren’t worse than Connor’s, are only more disgusting which is different and for the second option, Connor isn’t socially awkward because he can’t hurt a fly. He can and he will. He is socially awkward because he is an android created to be a police officer, so they gave him good combat skills and the intelligence he needed to deal with deviants (that’s how are called the robots who developed free will and “woke up”). I assure you, he isn’t awkward when he has to deal with them. Connor was created to do this. He isn’t an android created to make friends, so why bother to give him social skills?

Let’s make a recap:

What Jaime did:

a) tried to kill Bran to protect his relationship with Cersei. But did Bran die? No.

b) threatened Edmure and his kids to return to Cersei? Okay, but did Edmure die? Again, no.

c) fucked Cersei next to their son’s corpse who just died. Disgustingly disgusting. But again, someone got hurt? Someone died?

d) killed his cousin to return to Cersei. Okay. Fair. One person died.

Let’s talk about Connor now. He:

a) Manipulated and lied to deviants to accomplish his mission 

b) can kill Daniel, the Tracis, Ortiz’s android, Rupert, Cloe, Simon, Markus, North and a lot of other androids (and humans too) to accomplish his mission

c) can kill Hank, which is the closest person he has in his life, to accomplish his mission

Connor is not a baby. He is a fucking terminator who can destroy anything that it moves to accomplish his mission. Yes, Detroit: Become Human is a game where the actions of the characters are decided by the gamer, so he can do these things or don’t, but if you decide to make him do these things you never got the feeling he’s out of character. Because he is not.

Yes Jaime is what he is and did the things we know, but Connor too did some messed up things. And I’m pretty sure he killed more and caused more pain than Jaime.

At the end of the game, when he has to locate Jericho to stop the leader of the revolution of the deviants, he is able to remove the head of one android he killed to use it against an another android (killed by Connor too) to get the location of Jericho and after that he drops the head as it was nothing.

But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who is worse between Jaime and Connor. What I am trying to say it’s that they are both grey characters. They both started as negative characters. Yes, Connor too. Because even if you choose every possible good and positive choice with Connor, he is still a negative character at the beginning. He is a very advanced robot at humans side (humans that are clearly the villains since they are the ones abusing and torturing robots) which priority is hunting androids who just want to be free. It doesn’t really matter if he isn’t the one to kill them, because he knows really well that if he succeeds (and he wants to succeed) they get killed. 

That’s why both Connor and Jaime have two paths in front of them. And what path they’ll take it depends by the next point.

3) have an obsession to overcome which is needed for them to develop as a character

Both Jaime and Connor, despite starting as negative characters, have the potential to have a redemption arc, but this is up to them and to get it they have an obstacle to overcome: their obsession.

For Jaime the obsession for Cersei, for Connor the obsession for his mission. 

This obsession is what motivated their story and all their actions. It’s there from the beggining. From the moment they tried to kill/save the child. Jaime did it for Cersei. Connor did it for his mission. Every “negative” thing they did was because of that. In the last point, where I made a list of the bad things they did, you can notice all these actions were motivated by that.

To both of them happened things during the story that could or couldn’t change them: Jaime had it with Brienne, a noble and honorable warrior who reminded him who he wanted to be and for the first time in his life he developed a romantic attraction toward someone who wasn’t his sister, and Connor had it with Hank, the human police officer he worked with who had a way more “human” approach to what they were investigating.

For both of them is really hard to overcome it because it’s all they know for most of their life (in case of Jaime) or are programmed to do it (in case of Connor) and it isn’t only something they had in their heads. Both of them got manipulated by people (Cersei for Jaime, Amanda for Connor) who did the best they could to convince them there wasn’t anything else to make sure they remained in this cage for their own interests.

To prevent them from becoming their own person and being free to be who they want to be, and not what they want them to be.

This it’s the Jaime and Connor arc. Becoming their own person. Choosing for themselves. Be free from the manipulations. And the two arcs they have in front of them are just one in which they succeed, and one in which they fail.

4) have the same evolution (or involution, it depends of which arc we are talking about) and the same ending

Both Connor and Jaime have the potential for a redemption arc because even after all those bad things they did because of their obsession, they did good things too. They aren’t monsters.

Jaime saved Brienne risking his life and saved her from being raped. He also saved milions of lives by murdering the king, even if that meant getting the nickname of Kingslayer.

Connor can save Hank. Can choose to not kill the Tracis. Can choose to not kill Cloe. Can help Markus to save North. 

They mostly did all these things when they were away from the toxic person who brings the worst of them (Amanda and Cersei) but near someone who bring the best of them (Hank, Tyrion and Brienne).

And the best part is that all these good actions they did went against their priority: for Connor saving Hank means letting the deviant go, when catching him was his mission. Jaime returning to Harrenhal to save Brienne means delay his coming back to Cersei, when Cersei is the most important thing to him. 

Despite both having all their life surrounded by this “obsession”, sometimes they decided to do the right thing even if that meant going against what mattered to them the most and their own interests.

This didn’t mean that they weren’t obsessed anymore, it means that for a moment, their desire to be their own person was stronger than their obsession.

But it was just a moment.

Connor and Jaime, for most of the story, are in a “limbo” where they pass from doing bad things because of their obsession (most of the times) to doing good things because they want to (few times). During this part of their story, it doesn’t mean that if they do a bad thing they’ll go to the negative arc and it doesn’t mean that if they do a good thing they’ll go to the positive arc, because none of these decisions are the definitive one.

It’s the decision they will take in their climax scene is the one that determines their future, their arc and their ending.

a) They decide to do the right thing which go against their obsession in their climax scene because they matured as characters for the better -> Their strenght and everything and everyone they faced was enough to overcome their obsession -> they become their own person letting go forever the obsession -> Positive Arc

Jaime: Book!Jaime is currently having this arc in the books, where is pretty done with Cersei and doesn’t even think of returning to her knowing really well she needs him. And this is also the arc Show!Jaime was supposed to have in the series.

Connor: Deviant Connor is the arc Connor will have if he overcome his obsession. He will become a deviant (meaning he outpassed his programation and became his own person) and will join the revolution of the androids, the very same revoution that he was created to stop (and he was obsessed to stop it, since it was his mission). He will infiltrate in the society that creates androids freeing all the robots who are there (and they are a lot) and helps the cause. In the end, he will help robots getting rights as living beings and he will be free to be himself with a person who actually care for him (Hank) with their relationship being stronger.

b) They decide to do the same bad things they did at the beginning being once again slaves of their obsession -> everything and everyone they faced didn’t change them showing that they didn’t matured and didn’t learn anything -> nothing will never be as important as their obsession -> Negative Arc

Jaime: Show!Jaime got this (or at least D&D thought he got this). He received an opportunity to have a better and new life, a life with Brienne who loved him and in doing so he was able to be himself, but he ruined it to return to his obsession who almost got him killed few days before because he wasn’t able to overcome it. So he returned to his obsession (Cersei) and dies.

Connor: Machine Connor is the arc Connor will have if he fails to overcome his obsession. He too received an opportunity to do the right thing, to help his people and be free, but he ruined it to continue his mission. So he will kill everyone who stands in his way (Hank too, who was the closest person of his life) to murder the leader of the deviants. If he fails, he dies. If he succeed and he is able to kill him, all the deviants will be destroyed (meaning there will be a genocide of his own people) and androids will return to be slaves for humans for ever. And Connor will die, because he accomplished his mission so he isn’t needed anymore. Connor is intended to die either way if he goes to this path.

Both Jaime and Connor, if they have a failed redemption arc, return to their old manners and how they were at the beginning, and both died. So..

Why an arc work and the other don’t?

Why an arc is appreciated and considered a sad but good storyline and plausible with no characters being ruined while the other is hated by everyone with all the characters who are involved being ruined and OOC?

For multiple reasons actually.

1) the climax scene

The scene where the character finally take a definitive decision and his path is chosen can’t be a random scene because it’s not a random scene. It’s the scene where the destiny of the character is chosen, so it has to:

- be important and people who are watching it (or reading it if it’s a book) must know it and feel it that something big is coming 

- every factor (the music, the acting, the dialogue etc) must be cured for that scene 

The climax scene they chose and wrote for Connor work perfectly because has all these requirements:

a) Connor and Markus are two of the main characters of the story but never actually met each other before this scene, so from the moment you realize they are in the same room and they actually met you know something big is gonna happen. Moreover, we know Connor is there to kill the leader of the deviants, which is Markus, so you also feel tense because you are gonna see two characters you got attached to being an enemy to each other because they are at opposite sides so again, something’s gonna happen.

b) The music is fitting for the scene, the acting of Bryan Dechart (Connor’s actor) is good as he entered sure of himself but the more Markus talked the more Connor realized he was right so he becomes less secure until he is full of doubts and all the dialogue is about him having to make a choice about who he wants to be. And as if that weren't enough, Markus ends it with “I think the time has come to you for ask yourself that question” and “it’s time to decide” making perfectly clear that this choice is gonna be definitive, and he is saying it not only to Connor but to us too.

Now let’s see the Jaime one.

a) It’s important? I have absolutely no idea. It doesn’t look or feel important. 

b) the music is fitting? There was music? I honestly don’t remember. I can’t notice the music because I’m busy to try to understand what the fuck is going on. The dialogue is fitting? What dialogue? All Jaime is saying here is a list of the bad things he did because of Cersei (including lies since some things he says didn’t happen that way just to confuse who is watching even more) and “She is hateful and so am I” like?? What does it mean? This is not a dialogue. This is putting random words together to do a sentence. The acting is fitting? Lmao of course not! Waldau’s acting is really confusing??? Why he looks sad? Why all he is saying is that he is a bad person and not a word about  who he wants to be? This isn’t a grey character who decided is path, this is someone who feels guilty for something he did in the past and wants to be reassured and or he feels like he deserves pain and death because of it. Well if this is the case, than this is a totally different topic that has nothing to do with choosing between overcome an obsession or succumb to it. Fuck, it’s been 4 years since this scene, and I still don’t understand what the fuck is going on and what they wanted to show. What the fuck I am watching?? Can someone explains it to me?? Hello???

This doesn’t look like a climax scene. And it doesn’t look like a climax scene because IT’S NOT.

Because Jaime had already his climax scene.

a) it’s important? Well yes. The time tells us it is. This is a series and this scene is happening at the end of a season so people expect it to be important.

b) The music is fitting? Very. You could feel it in your bones. The dialogue is fitting? Yes. They don’t talk directly about Jaime and him having to take a decision, but it’s related to that because we see Jaime and Cersei arguing about something and Jaime realizing he had enough (just like Connor in his climax scene is realizing who he truly is) and he decides right here not because he has to but because he is 100% sure of what he wants and decides with zero regrets.

This climax scene was setting Jaime on the positive arc, because he overcomed his obsession. His obsession is Cersei and the sexual relationship he has with her, but here he decides to leave her, and ending the conversation saying “I don’t believe you” and by the acting, the voice and the movements of Waldau, which is excellent, we know he meant “I don’t love you anymore”.

All of this is even more accentuated by this scene that happens soon after that:

Cersei and the relationship with her being the obsession of Jaime means that if he kisses, sleeps and starts a romantic relationship with a different woman (which he did) after he spent the 40+ years of his life always being loyal to Cersei is the ultimate, irrefutable prove that he got over it. It doesn’t matter how much he loves Brienne, if he still obsesses over Cersei it couldn’t never happened. Never. You can’t make him overcome an obsession and then return to that obsession in a minute. This is not how writing works.

But since Benioff and Weiss don’t know how to do their jobs, after these two scenes (the climax one and the second which accentuated the path Jaime is in) they put the scene they think it’s the climax scene, when it’s just a scene that doesn’t work narratively after the two I just mentioned. Which add another problem:

the decision the character takes in the climax scene is definitive and irreversible. You can’t just put a climax scene where the character decides and then one second later make him change his mind all of sudden. Him passing from a good action to a bad one was supposed to happen before the climax scene, when the character was still grey and still couldn’t decide and the reason both Connor and Jaime decide without doubts and regrets in their climax scene is because they both have no doubts and regrets anymore. 

In Detroit: Become Human, every action Connor did and every word he says after that scene is convinced, there is not even a shadow of a doubt, no matter which arc is in. Despite the game giving you the choices of what to do or say, you’ll never get a choice of Connor helping the deviants if he is Machine Connor, and you’ll never get a choice of Connor helping the humans if the is Deviant Connor. Because it’s irreversible. There is no going back.

So what we got was a mess and both arcs of Jaime being ruined even before they started.

2) OOC

Both Connor and Jaime being grey characters for most of the story means that is possible to write them a good written arc where they remain in character all the time without putting forced things and making them say and do something they wouldn’t, no matter if they are in a positive or negative arc.

Connor remains himself and in character for the entirely of his arc (no matter which arc is). If he is Machine Connor so he has the negative arc, his character doesn’t get reduced to a caricature and he doesn’t lose his intelligence or badass moments, and he still says and does things that Connor would have totally said or done. 

The fact that now is Machine Connor doesn’t mean he is a sociopath who doesn’t care of anything else, it does only mean that everything always comes after his obsession (the mission) because that obsession is and will always be until his death is priority, everything else is after that. That’s part of the reason his character isn’t ruined. He still cares for Hank for example, and when he dies, he looks troubled and in one case he is the one to kill him, and he does it because Hank gets in the way of his mission, which matters more, so he did it, even if he still cared about him. 

He also doesn’t become stupid all of sudden because he is intended to die. Machine Connor is smart enough to know that the best way to kill Markus is finding a sniper rifle and the right roof and he is smart enough to know that if he gets interrupted the only way for him to accomplish his mission is killing who interrupted him or killing himself after saving his memory so the next Connor will know what to do. He also doesn’t have to move to the other side of the country in two seconds with the story being set in the same city, so he is where is supposed to be without resorting to absurd and improbable teleporters. Machine Connor gets emotional and poetic scenes without getting ruined to force them.

Jaime, from the moment he left Brienne to return to Cersei (so from the moment the writers think his arc begins) becomes a totally different person. He starts to say and do things that contradict his character, the writers were able to destroy years spent to create this character and who he is with a single sentence. Everything that was important to him apart from Cersei disappears, and the things that made him an interesting character like killing the king to protect the innocents have zero value now, because “actually I never cared for them, innocents or otherwise”. Cersei isn’t his priority. Cersei is the only thing he cares about, because the writers deleted every single other part of him and at the end, he isn’t even a character anymore.

He doesn’t only lose all his intelligence, but simple common sense too, all to force scenes that could have happened in a smarter way, like him having to get unnoticed to get to Cersei and yet he shows his golden hand which is the only one to have in all Westeros, just to get caught and have the scene with Tyrion. And of course, he is able to arrive to the other part of the country even before characters who left before him in a blink of an eye because the writers decided so and fuck logic. 

3) Realistic reactions to the characters around them

Both Show!Jaime and Machine Connor have, just before the end and their death, a scene with a character they care about and who cares for them: Tyrion for Jaime and Hank for Connor. In both cases, the way they write the main character it expands to the other character too, meaning that since Jaime is OOC, Tyrion becomes OOC too to force the scene the writers wanted for them, while in the other case since Connor is in character, Hank is in character too, and it’s the scene that is written in a way to be plausible because of these characters, and not the opposite. 

Jaime got caught in his way to return to Cersei and he meets Tyrion. The last time they talked Jaime was still in a relationship with Brienne (which lasted weeks, let’s remember that) and Tyrion expressed how happy he was that Jaime was happy with Brienne because he cares for Jaime wants him to be happy while now is in front of a tormented Jaime who left Brienne, the same woman that was making Jaime happy, to return to the one that abused and tried to kill BOTH OF THEM, and he decides to.. help him to return to Cersei so he will return to be miserable and probably die (and he will)? 

The writers were so desperate to make a scene of them hugging to make watchers cry sad tears that forgot in which situation these characters are, with who they are and what we know about them and what type of relationship they have with each other and with Cersei. It would never ended with hugging. Why Tyrion should help the brother he loves to leave what made him happy and return to the one who hurted both for all their lives? Once again the characters are ruined by forcing a specific scene, a scene that because of it meant nothing to me. Yes, Jaime and Tyrion had a beautiful relationship and a great bond and I love the scenes where they show how close they are. But these aren’t Jaime and Tyrion anymore. So I feel nothing (and nope, I’m not going to create gifs of that idiotic scene from that cursed episode, if you wanna see it just go to Youtube).

Connor and Hank have a very strong relationship too, but they remain in character. Hank wanted Connor being himself and freeing himself from his obsession (just like Tyrion wanted Jaime to be happy, with Brienne) but on the contrary of Tyrion, Hank didn’t forget who he was because it was “convenient” so he has the realistic reaction he was supposed to have, and because of that this time there aren’t gonna be hugs and sweet words, but a fight.

With “fight” I don’t mean they’ll gonna scream and push each other, with “fight” I mean a real fight, that will end only with one of them killing the other. 

Machine Connor is gonna follow his mission and killing everyone who stand in his way (in this case, unfortunately it’s Hank) even if he cares for Hank and Hank is not gonna let Connor kill the leader of the androids because it’s not right and by now he knows that the only way to stop him is to kill him and he will, even if he cares for Connor. And they both know it.

And that is what makes the scene powerful and way more emotional than a fake hug between two fake characters who became the shadows of themselves. It’s real, it’s tragically beautiful and sad, poetic in a way (a robot fighting for humans and a human fighting for the robots) but it works.

Of course having Jaime and Tyrion fighting to death wouldn’t make sense. Connor and Hank are doing it because they had a different relationship from them. They knew each other for less time and even if they care for each other, they had a rocky start so them having this interaction is fitting to them. Jaime and Tyrion are siblings who cared for each other since ever, so their clash couldn’t be that violent, but they had to have a clash. Tyrion being disappointed in Jaime and refusing to free him was enough. But we all know what we got, right?

In conclusion, I’d like to say that I made this meta first to analyze Jaime and Connor as characters because I find really interesting they had so much in common and also because I’m fucking tired of people saying that “Jaime’s arc was perfect you simply didn’t get the happy ending you wanted for him” because Machine Connor arc is the prove that is possible to write a failed redemption arc which is satisfying and appreciated, and Detroit: Become Human is written by David Cage which isn’t the best screenwriter in the world, but he is in the Olympus compared to the writing of D&D.

Machine Connor and Show!Jaime have exactly the same arc (and the same ending), the only difference is that one is written well and the other isn’t, and it’s really crazy thinking of how the writing of a fucking videogame which isn’t even that famous is better than the finale of one of the most famous series in the world.

[katsu-curry835]

So you're thinking about reading A Song of Ice and Fire...

Now, it's come to my attention that there are some people out there who are contemplating reading George RR Martin's masterpiece of a series A Song of Ice and Fire, also known as the Game of Thrones books, but they haven't actually picked them up for various reasons. I'm here to convince you why you should read them, and why your concerns aren't justified (some of them are, we will get to that.)

This post is for people who have contemplated reading the books and need an extra push to actually going and buying them. This is your sign to start reading this series if you haven't already. You will not regret it, it's exquisitely written.

I've seen the show, I don't need to read the books.

Oh lord.

The show and the books do diverge quite extensively, especially as they both go on. Book 1 of ASoIaF and season 1 of GoT are pretty much scene for scene the same story, with, however, big differences in plot after that. Body counts are different, character motivations and arcs are different, and even certain major events have very noticeable changes from book to show. Needless to say you will not be getting the same experience by any means if you were to read the books.

But that's pretty obvious, right? Obviously you know the two are different; all adaptations are different. So what's better about the books?

Well, for starters, the books don't have a trash fire ending (yes I know what you're thinking, see concern 5.) The later seasons of GoT were terrible, it must be said. Yet there is not a single moment in the ASoIaF series that I would call bad, especially compared to the final two seasons of the show.

Secondly, the books and the show both have bombastic plots and intricate character arcs that are easy to get invested in. But the books have something the show doesn't: banger prose. I was one of the people who watched the show before reading the books and I was blown away by just how much better these characters that I already loved were because I got to see inside their heads with their internal monologues. This is a series that really lends itself to deep character introspection. And Martin is an excellent prose writer, make no mistake. This, I feel, is often left out when we're talking GoT. Yes, Martin's plots and characters are amazing. But the sheer quality of quotable lines from his work that aren't in the dialogue and absolute zingers from his internal monologues make this more than worth it.

The books are more than their own thing and are, in my opinion, the optimal way to experience the series. The show is easier to consume, but the books are more in depth. They stand apart from the show as the superior telling of the story, and it definitely helps that the people doing the writing of the show were incompetent. If it wasn't clear, David and Dan were not the geniuses behind seasons 1-4 of GoT, it was George RR Martin. The reason it was such good television, was because it was an adaptation of even better source material.

2. The books are really long and complicated, they feel like they'd be quite difficult to read.

There is some truth to this notion; this is not Baby's First Epic Fantasy Novel. This ain't a light read; it's pretty dense with information. That being said, I don't read to much fiction myself and I found it pretty easy to digest.

Here's the deal, if you go into this series intimidated by all the lore and the size of the books, you're almost setting yourself up for failure. My advice is to pretend that you don't know how 'complicated' it gets. Because being complicated is only a problem if you can't understand what's happening because of its complexity.

From my experience at school (this is relevant I swear), I have found that the best teachers are the people who able to explain complex concepts in a way that makes it seem obvious or simple. And I began to notice this when I started to recount what I had learned from my teachers to other people and came to the conclusion that I did not know how much I was learning. I knew more than I thought. Then I noticed a similar phenomenon when I started explaining stories I really enjoyed. I told the story to my friends, and I realized that there was way more that I needed to explain than I assumed. A good writer is a good teacher: they make the complicated seem simple, and make the long seem short. And George RR Martin is a fucking brilliant teacher.

You will fly through these books quicker than you expect, and you will pick up more information than you know you are picking up. The fact of the matter is, they're well written. If you pay attention, you won't be confused.

3. I've heard the series gets really violent and sexually explicit. There's a lot of guts and gore and scenes of assault and violence against women. How bad does it get?

Obviously I cannot tell you personally whether the series is too shocking or visceral for you, since I don't know your individual tastes. People's mileage will vary with this sort of thing. But there are two things I want to say about this.

Firstly, the show has given this series a bad rap in this regard. There are plenty of scenes in the show that have way more blood 'n' boobs than the books did in those equivalent moments. Scenes will fade to black or be referred to off screen in the books where the show takes great pains to show you everything. This is because of the marketing around the show at the time as some sort of 'this isn't you're typical fantasy for nerds, this has blood and tits. This is sexy fantasy, not like lord of the rings!!1!' The show runners relied on this sentiment to make you uncomfortable because that was part of the point. So they embellished. However, I don't want to convince you that this is a light read. There are descriptions of blood and there are some rape scenes from the perspective of the woman being raped, and that can get pretty harrowing.

But this brings me to my second point: books aren't a visual medium. Maybe this is personal thing, but reading a description of a murder, no matter how evocative and disgusting, will never be the same as someone being stabbed in front of you on your screen, it just won't. There are particularly bloody or uncomfortable scenes in the show (the Red Wedding, Oberyn Martell vs The Mountain, that Sansa scene with Ramsay and Theon) that I struggle to rewatch because every human has a tendency to get a little squeamish at moments like that. But reading them/their equivalents in the books doesn't feel as bad, because it's ink on a page, it's words. And as fans of the series will tell you, words are wind.

That being said, if you think a viscerally described sexual assault, rape or murder will be too much for you, or if you cannot handle depictions of those things in general, it's with great sadness that I should recommend you don't read these books. The violence and rape isn't gratuitous, but it does happen, and frankly these books should have a trigger warning in the front covers.

4. The series is problematic

Yeah, uh, a little bit.

No piece of media is ever going to be ideologically pure and it's unreasonable to expect that. As alluded to in the last section, there's some pretty heavy stuff in this series and the line between depiction and glorification/normalization is blurry here. But I'm going to stop you there because if we had that discussion we would be here all day. When people say 'this is problematic' what they usually mean is that the way something is done has some form of unintentional (or maybe even intentional) bigotry baked into it. And there is some of that here.

The way women's bodies are described can be a little weird. There are scenes where Martin will describe a female child as having 'small, tender breasts,' and it's like 'um... sir what is this?' Generally, though, that Martin describes the women in this is supposed to have a point. It could've been done less strangely, though.

Drogo's relationship to Daenerys is v e r y strange when you consider that Drogo is 30 something and Dany is 13 at the start of the series. Yet we as the audience appear to be asked to root for them. Very gross, George.

I'm sure I missed something, I'm not super deep into this discourse and this was just the stuff that I, someone who is not and has never been a woman, has noticed. But there is substance to this criticism, the weird misogyny in the way Martin writes women's bodies is non trivial.

BUT, I can excuse it because outside of this, ASoIaF has some of the most brilliantly written female characters in any media ever. Their motives are complex, they all embody different kinds of femininity and womanhood, and they're all strong, in their own way. Martin is excellent at writing characters regardless of gender, and this series has some excellent women in it.

5. But the series might never be finished!

This is the big one, really, and this is the concern, along with concern number 3, is the one I understand the most.

If you're unfamiliar, George RR Martin has gone on record saying that he plans to release seven books in his series, although if he thinks his characters outgrow that, he will change it to be more books. For now, though, he seems to be sticking to seven. He has released five novels so far... and the last one was released in 2011. Martin is 75 years old. At the pace he is currently writing, we probably will not get book 7 before he dies. And if we do get book 7, it likely won't be written entirely by him, and therefore will not feel like an appropriate conclusion to many.

This puts some people off and I completely understand why. All I can tell you is why I don't mind.

Currently, the five ASoIaF novels that were released are the best literature I have ever read hands down. The first three novels form a semi completed arc of their own, so some can view them as their own self contained story. For me personally, the 1,7 million total words Martin has already written are enough, because they fuck so hard.

If I didn't address a concern you have about reading these books, please just ask, I'd be more than happy to talk about it. Otherwise, thank you for reading!

[itsavgbltpta]

Should You Watch Undead Murder Farce?

(Japanese title: Undead Girl Murder Farce)

A Brief Summary

In an alternate universe where demons and monsters still exist, one half-oni is living out his days in a fight club, just waiting to die.  That is, until a genius detective manages to catch his eye.  With promises of extending his life in an exchange to end her immortal one, the two pair up - along with the detective’s maid who happens to be handy with a rifle.  The trio solves some mysteries in Japan before going global, searching for the man who wronged them both and meeting some familiar literary figures along the way.

With so many scheming people together - friend and foe - it’s a battle of who can out-think and out-detective each other in order to win the day.

So, should you watch the anime?

Yes!

To be fair, I have a predilection for media (shows, books, whatever) where geniuses keep trying to out-do each other.  I love a person with a plan that’s thinking 30 steps ahead in 5D chess.  And this show is abundant with that character type.  I also like it when a show can keep me on my toes.  Undead Murder Farce kept up a lot of mystery throughout, which also makes it kind of hard to talk about in fear of spoiling things.

The season is made up of several arcs, each 2-3 episode arc involving a specific mystery to be solved.  There is also a general mystery tying things together and giving reasons for our characters to come together.  Our detective trio often clashes with an organization made up of supernatural beings, sometime works alongside vigilantes, and tend to end up meeting a whole lot of interesting folk.

I was a bit skeptical when the show made a change from the Japanese setting to Merry Olde England, and also wary for our detective hero party to suddenly be in the realm of probably the most well known detective in all fiction, but this show managed to pull it off.  Sherlock didn’t steal the show.  Lupin may have. ;)

One of my least favorite characters in Undead Murder Farce is the maid body-guard.  She didn’t seem to have much point in the plot-line besides being sullen and getting into certain… situations… but you know what, I bet there are people who really like her and those situations, so I’m not upset, lol.

The animation is really nice and action sequences flow well.  I am a fan of the character design so that gets a win from me, but I know that’s always a subjective thing.  But if you like any of the faces you see in the image for this article, then you’ll be good to go.

I have to mention the absolute banger of an OP this anime has as well.  It gave me big K-Pop vibes (in a good way).  I did a little digging and the group that performs the OP is part of the K-Pop world, so I guess that vibe makes sense.  It’s a song I can easily recall even half a year later (which is kind of a rarity with the amount of anime I watch), and it sparked joy every week.

For me, characters are a big part of what makes me enjoy a story, so what kind of characters does Undead Murder Farce have jam-packed within each mystery-solving episode?

A slightly perverted and laid-back Rakugo-styled half-oni experiment that can put up a mean fight with a smile always on his face (Tsugaru).

An immortal genius looking for someone to end said immortality - oh and also looking for her body as she’s currently just a very intelligent head in a cage (Aya Rindou).

A military-esque maid who can keep up with the monsters around her, though she also somehow ends up in rather sapphic situations (Shizuku).

A gentleman thief that’s always a few steps ahead of his detective opponents and tends to add a dramatic flourish to all he does (Arsene Lupin).

The big detective himself, full of snark and confident that he is the alpha detective in Europe, despite the supernatural competition (Sherlock Holmes).

The epitome of a polished lady who isn’t afraid to show off her assets and also sink her teeth - quite literally - into anyone who gets in her way (Carmilla).

Plus a whole heaping of other figures from literature and supernatural origins, including the mother-fucking Phantom of the Opera.  Just because.  

I skipped on a few key spoiler characters as this anime is all about mystery, and who am I to give it away?

Where does it rate on my personal scale?

S: I will buy it at full price (unless it’s released by Aniplex USA, because fuck their pricing).

->A: I will buy it on sale sometime down the line.

B: I had fun watching it, but don’t need to own it.

C: It’s not my cup of tea, but wasn’t awful.

D: Dropped it.

X: Finished it out of spite, but did not enjoy it.

Undead Murder Farce was a lot of fun to watch, so it gets an A ranking from me.  It was probably my favorite anime of the summer 2023 season, and the show I most looked forward to watching every week.  While some mysteries were solved in the 12 episodes that aired, we’re still missing a resolution for the over-arching plot lines.  I very much hope we get a season 2!

[blorbingqls]

maybe no one wants to read this but i thought i can post here something on what i thought about the trainee after an year of hiatus since Only Friends released. i have been in touch with shows and reblogging posts i see and get on my dash. my live blogging has come to a stop and these days i usually just watch shows at one go and read meta on tumblr.

(kudos to everyone who has been posting and writing and engaging all this while - i didnt think i had the energy to write much, but today i do so bear with me)

things i liked about the trainee

the bond the interns have for the past 12 eps (even though ryan was less responsive a good amount of time when they met)

jane's character arc - i loved the growth from when he was an intern to what he is now as a director. i also love that during this, his personality evolved well

p'judy <333 (she is my love and i wanna be her and be with her)

the humor (for what it was the first few eps) (honestly this is my gripe with most GMMTV shows that they don't maintain the sense of humor throughout the later eps)

tbh, if the series was not marketed as a BL, and rather a drama in an workplace setting which had subplots in BL and GL, i would be much happier and content. because the inconsistency in romance is something you find in the world around us (like i can imagine this happening at someone's workplace, because the story felt less fiction more real), however, since most BL/GL plots are fictional, it didn't sell well.

personally i learnt a lot of new terms and parts of working in a production house as someone who is a sucker for workplace dramas. however, i felt something lacking by the time show ended.

as for number of episodes, i felt they were enough and didn't feel dragged in any sense. and i am okay with the fact that jane didnt propose. apart from the 5 years, jane and ryan have not dated and known each other a lot. i like the move-in arc way better than the proposal arc for jane-ryan.

as for bahmee-tae, i still believe they should have taken that break-up seriously at least for 4 weeks, figuring stuff out and being able to live a little by themselves before jumping back into the relationship.

i love how pie and bahmee became besties and were still besties. and as i mentioned before, the bond the ensemble cast shared together was so precious to me.