#also will facing the same way in wildly different contexts

[patron-saints]

on morality & madeleine: interview with the vampire meta (written after s2e6)

so far, i’ve found that trying to process my thoughts on madeleine feels really difficult when everyone online has their own opinions and their own biases. this post is kind of my attempt to sort out how i feel about her, and to refute and explore some arguments i’ve seen pop up in her tag.

i think the people who are pointing out that first and foremost these are fictional characters have it right: they’re not real people, their relative morality is only relevant as it pertains to the story itself. and in a story like interview with the vampire, your baseline is that every main character is a killer. in terms of morality, evaluating whether or not a character is a good person is pretty useless and also just… isn’t the point of the story. all characters are functions of a narrative, all characters are tools that you use to tell a story. their morality should not be judged in the same way as you would a real person’s! now. all that being said, let’s have some fun judging* madeleine anyway!

*doing some of my own biased character analysis on

what we know comes to us from a few sources: claudia’s diary, which daniel can read, (decent primary source, but filtered with her biases), louis’s recollection of madeleine’s memories (secondary source that relies on both of their ability to remember clearly) and presumably, louis and armand’s recollections of their interactions as well, which isn’t a whole lot to begin with.

part 1: the nazi fucking

when madeleine talks about sleeping with a nazi to claudia, she’s extremely casual about it. while she notes he brought her food, and cigarettes, she says in a way that invokes a courtship ritual, rather than a direct bribe. it’s impossible to divorce this from the context though: her neighbors are starving, and she was brought food. it likely was a bribe, but what’s important is that she doesn’t relay it as one. her focus when she starts talking about him is on the connection: “it was the comfort, the proof of life,” as she says. if she had been coerced, or if she felt like she had no choice in the matter, i think she would have presented it a little differently. but her affection for the guy is clear, and she even mocks him a little to claudia. in her own words, “i wasn’t inviting hitler to stay in france, i was inviting a frightened boy to cradle my tits.” 

which. let’s be real here: to claudia, she is downplaying it. she slept with an occupying soldier during an occupation. watching this scene for the first time, you could even reasonably assume she doesn’t get how serious that is. but once you see the degree of punishment she faced, and continues to face for her actions, you realize her framing here is a learned defense against genuine violence. she feels she has to downplay it to herself and to claudia because there is an imbalance here. it becomes harder to admit to your wrongdoings when the punishments you face for them feel wildly disproportionate.

madeleine did something she never should have done, something she doesn’t feel remorse for, but something that she’s being punished for in a way that far exceeds what any person deserves.

when she talks about it to armand, her framing changes again. she calls it a love, still, so the affection is still present, but she places a greater emphasis on doing what it takes to survive, implying more so that sleeping with a nazi was an act of self-preservation. regardless of whether this is more true than how she presents things to claudia, she has a motivation here too.

when she shares her experiences with claudia, she’s flirting, trying to make her laugh, trying to make a connection, and this part might be subconsciously, but she is certainly trying to get claudia to like her. when she talks to armand, however, she’s actively trying to convince him to grant her the dark gift. she has to portray herself as capable, as self-sufficient, and discerning, and it works! even though he denies her based on his own biases, armand is visibly impressed by all of madeleine’s answers to his questions.

and all we get from louis was that the experience was sweet. and let’s be real, it did look pretty sweet.

i don’t believe madeleine has any hatred for the boy she slept with. i don’t think there’s any evidence she has any hatred for jewish people either, or for her country, which her neighbors believe she betrayed. i think she chose to prioritize a moment of human connection (and possibly food) over the greater consequences of her actions.

i have been looking for the post again since i saw it, so if anyone sees it lmk! but! the op talked about the fact that madeleine as a collaborator isn’t changing her behavior in any meaningful way now: she watched claudia kill in front of her, and instead of running, she once again invited the danger in, joined up with it. i believe the post said something like: once a collaborator, always a collaborator.

this has really stuck with me and i really wish i could reference it properly.

cuz i think there is something there—i think madeleine’s self-preservation instinct is a little screwed on wrong, i think she is acting similarly with claudia as she did with the nazi, but i think it’s not just about the danger. portraying her choice to follow claudia as a cold moment of choosing survival takes away from her complexity, and from the veracity of her feelings for claudia. so, not just the danger. i think it’s about the connection again.

the connection she has with claudia is real, the love she has for claudia is incredibly real. but madeleine is once again prioritizing an interpersonal connection over anything else, and that is the pattern she’s repeating here.

part 2: the apparent age gap issues

every single person who says their relationship is problematic because claudia is a child owes me and claudia fifty bucks.

i don’t really even want to get into that because i don’t think it’s worth my time. the show has put a lot of effort into demonstrating that claudia is an adult trapped in the body of a teenager, and that experience is hard enough on her without all you people insisting she’s still a kid anyway.

however, there’s a secondary argument i’ve seen which i do want to address, which is madeleine’s perception of her.

in their first meeting in the shop, it’s clear that madeleine is seeing claudia as a teenager. she calls her one directly, and references her “body about to bloom” when they meet again two years later. however, when they do meet two years later, claudia has not grown. we know madeleine has noticed this by the dress fitting scene for certain, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume she noticed that sooner. additionally, in the same breath, madeleine also references claudia’s “mind of a sophisticate.” by the time claudia tells her that her growth was stunted due to the war, it’s extremely likely that madeleine had already reached a similar conclusion. she doesn’t look surprised at all when claudia says it, and it’s because claudia seems like an adult. even if she doesn’t look like one, she carries herself like one, she makes conversation like one, and it’s very easy for madeleine to accept the reality that she is one, because she may have suspected as much already. 

the reason i say all of this is because i’ve seen multiple people saying it’s inappropriate for her to flirt with claudia before she knows she’s an adult.

is their interaction at the shop window flirting? are they flirting outside the theatre, just after the play? both of these scenes are before claudia says her growth was stunted. i think it’s impossible to say they were definitively flirtatious, but i will certainly say there was a vibe. and i think that’s… kind of fine actually ? two people can have chemistry and it doesn’t have to mean anything about them morally. and my coworker andy said it would have been weirder if they had no chemistry and then did suddenly after madeleine realizes she’s an adult, which made me laugh, and which i think is correct. i like the way they get along before the dress fitting, i think those scenes are fun, and the ambiguity of the flavor adds to it.

i did see at least one post that said it was inappropriate for madeleine to talk about sex frankly with claudia if she thinks she’s a teenager, and to that i say. you can talk to teens about sex. even if she didn’t suspect claudia was older, it’s still fine. they are friends, and she’s sharing an experience she had because claudia asked her about it. 

additionally, it’s both a very contemporary & a very american idea that People Under 18 need to be kept from conversations about sex. frankness about sexuality is in fact, very french lol.  

i did originally think that this was after the conversation about claudia not growing, but i just watched the scene again to be sure and it was, in fact, also before, but i think my point stands. 

i don’t know for certain if she intended to come across as flirtatious in these scenes, but i know something clicked for her right around her confession. you can see it, when they lock eyes in the mirror, that whatever the vibe is, they’ve both clocked it. and she finds out claudia’s older than she looks only seconds later, because she’s the one pointing out that claudia hasn’t grown. (but, yes, i’ll add anyway: after claudia says her growth was stunted, and after that moment of connection, madeleine’s expressions do seem a lot more… Interested too, lol). 

i understand and i empathize so much with people’s criticisms of madeleine’s past. i have no intention to exonerate her in that regard (other than her previously mentioned narrative tool status) but i will jump to her defense when it comes to her relationship with claudia.

madeleine sees claudia as an adult, because claudia is an adult.

if they weren’t vampires, and if they weren’t queer in the 1940s, maybe she’d be worried about how others saw their relationship. or maybe it would be weird if she didn’t care how it looked. but given that the only people who will know they’re romantically together are other vampires, i don’t see her lack of concern for the optics being that much of an issue either.

and the reason she’s not concerned is because she knows what claudia is to her. which brings us to:

part 3: the sister stuff

once again i think the show does a pretty good job of refuting this one on its own, but i’d like to get all my arguments in the same place.

so. i see “don’t worry about the blood, it’s the blood that made you,” getting thrown around a lot as proof that madeleine is replacing claudia as her sister.

why would they have a scene that directly refutes this if they were true? when louis asks if that’s what’s going on, claudia says they already “had it out,” and madeleine clarifies that claudia is nothing like her sister, and cannot be a replacement.

“don’t worry about the blood, it’s the blood that made you,” is something that madeleine says because she loves claudia, because she loves the person and the vampire that she is. because she wants claudia to know that her past does not define her. because she wants her to know she doesn’t feel tainted by it, and that claudia doesn’t have to either.

and yeah, it’s not that there’s zero incestuous tones to it! or to the whole arrangement, certainly. but i think any that are there pretty neatly fall under the “iwtv typical wire crossings” flavor rather than the “you’re my dead sister’s replacement” flavor.

so, yeah. despite saying fictional character morality doesn’t matter, i’ve just written several paragraphs trying to figure out if madeleine is a good person or not. really, though, that’s not the question iwtv wants us to ask, or the question i really want to ask its viewers either. is madeleine a good person? eh, probably not. is madeleine a good person for claudia? absolutely.

on this, iwtv is extremely clear. madeleine is an ideal partner. she’s not scared, she’s not surrounded by friends and family she’d grieve, she’s weirdly suited to vampirism, and she loves claudia so much. they share a morbid sense of humor, they’re comfortable teasing each other, they communicate in an extremely healthy way, and every single step of their relationship is based on consent.

the entire time i was watching her scene with armand, i just kept whispering, “oh my god, she’s perfect.” she nailed absolutely every question because she’s perfect for what she’s supposed to do as character, as a function of the narrative she is a part of. madeleine is perfect because she is perfect for claudia.

[dallasgallant]

As I re-read the novel I find myself appreciative and disappointed. As it’s really damn close a lot of the time, some parts are word for word and there’s little details here and there but then it’ll loose these pretty important moments. The biggest for me being how cut down the drive in scene is. Not only because there are some funny quippy parts to it but also so much world building and character work.

The whole reason Marcia cracks her “you just burry him no sweat.” joke is because Greaser fighting is wildly complicated! It’s fascinating to how two bit explains it.

To a greaser violence becomes almost like another form of communication, blowing off steam, solving an argument- getting the anger out of the way now so there’s less grudge holding and more solidarity. They have self made rules and honor that holds them to their system of fairness. You back up your friends when they ask you but sometimes it’s their fight alone— Dally’s getting what’s coming to him for slashing those tires, they ain’t cheap and it’s a poor community. Tim will whip him and they’re back to buddies by the end of the night. Big fights, real fights - rumbles- are organized with rules and this weird sense of civility.

There’s this weird mix of “Boys will be boys” roughhouse with “got to be tough to survive” raised in violence survivalism.

Meanwhile,the Soc’s are a lot less warm with their approach to fighting its “cold and impersonal” like they handle all things. Though honestly I’d argue it’s a lot more personal— not fighting for communication but because one can or to exert power. They don’t fight fair, they hold those grudges and there’s no solidarity to that. Ponyboy describes them best as “a snarling pack”. Their violence is rooted in the same systems and misfortunes Greasers face - in that what perpetuates violence is a bit universal. The difference is a greaser will help a guy up and maybe get him an ice pack where as a Soc will just leave you in the street for the sake of appearance or dominance, it’s not enough that they beat you. Nothing is ever enough, like Cherry mentions they can never be satisfied.

“It’s not the money it’s feeling— you don’t feel anything and we feel too violently.”

I’ll keep mentioning that quote until I’m blue in the face honestly, it goes right alongside “things are rough all over” Differences stem especially from their reactions and behaviors in response to what’s rough. Some hardships are universal but don’t mishear me as a good portion of it is also class issues because the Reason a Soc might drink himself into oblivion is way different from why a Greaser might.

Beyond Two-bits explaination I’m sad we loose more of the talk between Cherry and Pony on emotions and money. How people are people and they’re all a lot more similar than one might think (despite the contrasting I’ve been doing in this post it’s very true). And talking about his brothers. In the movie it’s a little weird as he only brought up Soda once but she “feels like she knows him” and he brings up sunsets to her later in the movie and they never mentioned it here! Unless they’re trying to imply they had more of a convo on the short walk to the parking lot but I’m not buying that.

Ponyboy being resentful (not that he’s wrong for it) because how hard everyone he knows has it compared to Soc’s. How he has to learn though the novel that “things are rough all over” isn’t that everyone has the same troubles/level of trouble. As they’re certainly worse off; it’s about empathy and everyone being human. That some might be better off but that doesn’t mean they’re entirely without problems. That not everyone is out for a fight all the time.

It’s just a shame as this scene adds so much context to the world, social circles and the moral of the literal freaking novel. The compare/contrast with their lives is pretty important… I digress.

[thereminzone]

WOW!!! FINALLY FINISHED THIS ONE!!!

This work used a lot of textures! Wikimedia was my best friend, particularly for the macro shot of the wing scales used in the backdrop (H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons) and the photo layered over the barcode (Michael Hanselmann, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons). I think it lends a really nice mixed media feel to this :D

These two are the other two members of THREAT DISPLAY!!!, the fake band for my dnd character Helvia. Rambling about them below the cut for context! Warning, it's long. And probably requires the context provided by the post I made about Helvia.

As is made probably blindingly obvious by this illustration, I continued the name of naming/loosely basing the design on a bug with a threat display, in this case being the peacock butterfly, Aglais Io! It's a really neat creature, being one of the only butterflies as far as I know to have a drastically different pattern when viewed dorsally versus ventrally

Obviously I pulled this pattern as directly as possible for Aegis's (left) jacket, but it's also on the inner lining of Vanessa's (right) overskirt. It's better visible in the earlier basic ref for them:

They look awfully similar.. and that's because they are twins! That's a lie, actually, but it's what the marketing of the band wants you to think. In reality, they are the same exact model of robot, meant to look human in comparison to Helvia, styled differently. They kind of have a complex about this, as would be expected if you were created and saw someone with your exact face who you are more or less put in competition with, and also told that neither of you really matter? It's a gimmick at best. They're not meant to be the real stars here, so it's easier if the public can just lump them together and let them fade into the background. I can't stress just how unimportant these two were considered in comparison to Helvia- they didn't appear in much marketing, and when they did, they were treated more like props. They weren't given unique identities, no fake memories unlike Helvia, just set into this situation with the expectation that they should know they are not important, they are not unique, and anything they do should be to further support Helvia.

Ultimately, though, they are very different people, especially in how they felt about this.

Aegis more or less resigned himself to this, he didn't see the point in trying to fight it or change the situation. He tried to not make anyone upset, stay neutral, do what was asked of him without thinking about it too hard. Sort of dissociating king? I think he internalized the fact that he's not "supposed to be a real person", and it influenced his behavior. He can acknowledge the horror of his situation, but doesn't find the point in fighting it.

Vanessa, meanwhile, finds none of it acceptable. She hates this. She hates the fact that she is a product and a tool and not even an important enough one to be given a basic sense of identity. Giving very "malicious compliance", she can't do much, but she took every opportunity to make it clear just how much she can't stand any of this. She felt that Aegis was a coward, especially because he would always be there to condescend to her, saying it's in her best interest to give up any time she got in serious trouble.

They, predictably, had a pretty rocky relationship because of this. Indirectly pitted against eachother for any amount of minimal spotlight that wasn't going to Helvia in hopes of being given any sort of grace, they also had no one else to rely on? Certainly not any staff, and CERTAINLY not Helvia, there's no one else that understood the unique horror of their situation quite so much as each other, even if they responded in wildly different ways. They had eachother's back, unspoken. Aegis telling Vanessa to 'just give up' is equally an attempt to prevent her from getting hurt further as Vanessa telling Aegis to 'stop letting this happen to you'– they just think that their respective poor coping mechanism is the way to go, when in reality it just means they each continue to be hurt. Dude these guys suck. As much as the twins marketing thing is a sore subject, in a sick way they end up actually having a sibling-adjacent relationship, I think.

As for their relationships with Helvia? Arguably more complicated.

It's a mess. Nobody is having a good time, except maybe Helvia telling herself she's having a good time. The closer they were to her, the better shot they had at actually being treated like they were interesting or important by marketing, and it created obviously an environment that was Not Good! They each had tumultuous on-and-off relationships with her as was directly encouraged of them, regardless of how anyone actually felt. It doesn't help that Helvia herself treated them carelessly, obviously told that they were there for Her– and as someone who wholesale bought into the image she was created for, who was in denial about the fact that she was literally a product, she wasn't exactly receptive to any of their struggles. Aegis pitied her despite their similarities, while Vanessa pretty much wanted her dead. It's bad. It's sooo bad. It's messy.

As for what they're up to now? No clue yet <3 they've yet to appear and I kind of already have terminal brain illnesses about them, if the above paragraphs didn't make it already obvious. Honestly this was just me making half decent art of them to post as in introduction to them before I drop the uh. 12 page comic I made in a fugue state during finals week. So keep a look out for that, I guess!

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Have you ever felt the fanbase itself has become too crowded with people who act like they "know better" then the show?

I've noticed this, specially with artist, that while they claim they're "fixing designs", most either "over-complicate" the designs (Despite them looking good) but they also seem to have a little arrogant over it.

I don't hate redesigns, that's not what I'm saying, but seeing people claim they're "better" or are "fixing" designs while over-complicating a design that's supposed to be "simple".

This is a complex question because fan content that attempts to re-imagine some part of canon has traditionally always been called "fix it" content. The term "fix it" has also always been treated pretty neutrally in fan spaces. Traditionally speaking, saying something is a "fix it fic" just means that the fic is directly addressing canon in a way that other works don't. It's the creator saying, "I want to give you a different take on something that canon did." That take usually exists because the creator doesn't like something in canon, but at the same time, it doesn't necessarily mean that the creator thinks that canon should or even could have done the fix. It just means that they want to share their ideal take on the idea.

Because I come to fandom with that history in mind, I don't see a statement like "fixing Ladybug's design" and interpret that to mean, "This is how the show should have designed her as I've taken into account all of the concerns that one must address in animation." I interpret that to mean, "I wasn't a fan of Ladybug's design, so I did my own take on her," because that is traditionally what "fix it" was shorthand for. It's not a technical evaluation or competitive standing. It's a genre.

This history seems to be ignored in parts of the Miraculous fandom and that completely threw me off when I entered the fandom. It still throws me off! I have no idea what's going on around here!

While many Miraculous fans are using "fix it" in the traditional sense, there also seem to be groups that see "fix it" as some sort of direct letter to the writers/designers showing them what they should have done. To add further complications, one sub group of Miraculous fans is USING "fix it" in that context, which is an issue I will get to in a minute. The other sub group is INTERPRETING the words "fix it" in that context and I can't change that. I can just tell you that this is straight up bizarre to me because what are you supposed to label fix it content if we can't use the words "fix it"? Why are you ignoring decades of fandom history? You are reading way too much into those words!

I don't know if it's because Miraculous skews younger or if it's because of fandom drama that predates my entry to the fandom (I'm a COVID convert, so I didn't get here until after season 3) or if I've just been lucky in the past, but both the reverence and the hatred towards Miraculous canon is highly unusual compared to what I've seen in other fandoms. I'm more used to fanworks having a tone of loving irreverence or mild annoyance where canon is seen as a series of optional writing prompts that you can do with what you will. The reason for that tone has a lot to do with the fact that it's wildly unfair to compare canon to fanon, especially when it comes to visual media.

The fun of fandom spaces is that we can create without the limits that stifle professional productions. It doesn't matter if our stories are marketable or if the designs we come up with fit a theoretical budget or if we only produce a new chapter/drawing once a year. This means that, yes, fan works often have the ability to surpass canon! At the same time, it's rarely fair to make that comparison on a technical/competitive level. I will criticize Miraculous for many things, but here are some of really basic challenges that the show writers face that I - a fanfic writer - never will:

I can use as many sets as I want, the writers are limited to the settings that have been animated

I can make my stories as long or as short as they need to be, the writers have to make the story episodic enough to fit a 20-minute run time while also drawing things out for at least 8 seasons

I can write a story that doesn't have an akuma attack, the show has a very clear rule that every episode needs to contain a fight sequence

I can put the characters in whatever outfit I want, the writers cannot because every outfit needs to be animated

I can take my time plotting out my story from start to finish and even go back and edit things if I feel like it, the writers have hard deadlines and things get set in stone very quickly

The list goes on, but it can be summed up to: as an independent creator, I can do anything I can imagine. I am only limited by my own talent. Meanwhile, the writers of an animated show for kids have to follow very strict guidelines due to things beyond their control such as budget concerns and network rating guidelines. We are not the same. You should not compare us on a technical level.

This is where we circle back to the whole "using fix it as a way to directly criticize canon and show the creators what they should have done" thing. That's not a take that I'm ever going to be comfortable with because fix it content rarely tries to fit the same confines or deal with the same instability that canon is subjected to. If you use fix it like that, then you are taking the concept too far. You're also being quite arrogant.

If I see someone do this, I tend to assume that they're pretty young or that, at the very least, they know absolutely nothing about how TV shows work. What you see on the screen is often not what the creator would have given you under ideal circumstance. Some of the best examples of this come from times when a creator was given pretty ideal conditions only to then have less than ideal conditions when the property was revisited as that highlights that you really can't just blame the writers. The most well known examples that come to mind are Avatar the Last Airbender vs its sequel Korra and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings vs his Hobbit movies.

For a really in depth discussion of LotR vs The Hobbit, you can go watch Lindsay Ellis' fantastic documentary for free on youtube. For this post, I'll just go into the high level stuff of Avatar vs Korra.

Avatar asked for three seasons and magically got three seasons. Korra was supposed to be a 13-episode miniseries, but was expanded to four seasons after season one was done. The show then had budget cuts that messed with the last season due to poor performance. Shockingly, Avatar was the better show. I wonder why? Just imagine what Korra could have been if it had been given four seasons from the start!

At the very least, I can guarantee you that writers wouldn't have ended all of season one's plot lines in the season one finale, leaving them to start from scratch with season two which is generally considered the worst season. Once again, I wonder why?

Because of all that, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a fix it fic out there that takes all of Korra and reworks it to make everything flow better. I wouldn't even be surprised if I find that fic to be better than canon because the fic was only limited by the writer's talent. On the other hand, the actual show was massively limited by things beyond the writers' control, meaning that it's overall quality issues are less a condemnation of the writers and more a representation that even awesome writers can't perfectly adjust on the fly when networks meddle.

Of course, Korra doesn't have extremely fundamental writing flaws like Miraculous does, but the principle remains the same. I can point out Miraculous' flaws with certainty, but I cannot necessarily fix them with certainty. That's assuming too much.

But there are different types of criticism and different ways of engaging with the source material. What I do on this blog is mostly focused on high level discussion of the show's flaws and spit balling ways to fix them without really committing to anything. I'm not telling you how the show should have been written. I'm just pointing out flaws and talking about the things I think the writers could have changed or accounted for, though it is always possible that I'm wrong and this was caused by something outside of the writing circle.

That's why I rarely mention anyone by name. I cannot point a finger and say "this is the person who ruined Lila's potential and this is why they did it." I can just tell you that Lila was poorly executed when she didn't need to be. I don't want you to send this blog to the writers, but generally speaking, it is the kind of feedback that I'd be comfortable giving them if they hired me as an editor or script doctor. When I act in those roles, I'm much nicer than I am on here because I know that the writer will actually read what I say, but I am just as brutal about pointing out flaws because that's what I signed on to do. I'm not here to stroke your ego, I'm here to work with you and help you improve your story.

When I write fix it fics - and I have several - I am engaging in a very different type of criticism. I'm not discussing specific flaws in canon and telling you how to address them within the limits of the show. Instead, I'm giving you my ideal version of a given concept from the show so that you can hopefully enjoy it and maybe even use to find some catharsis for a thing that you also didn't like. I'll also change things about the show just to keep things interesting or to be highly self indulgent. For example, I avoid umbrella scenes in my stuff even though I think that the canon umbrella scenes are cute and well written. It's because they're so iconic that I do something different! Why revisit them when I have nothing to add? I'd just be copy canon! It's more fun to do something new since there are other ways to have Marinette and Adrien fall in love.

It's a very nuanced type of criticism because it's true that these stories only exists because I'm saying that canon did something wrong and I want to show you how it could have been better. But I'm also not limiting myself to the confines of canon or even just improving canon to make my argument, so it's impossible to compare them on a technical level. That's not why I write fix it fic, though. I have this blog so that I can discuss writing concepts and how to learn from Miraculous' failures. I write fix it fics to have fun and indulge my imagination. For example, I have a fic that's basically my ideal take on Chat Blanc and there's no way that would work in the context of canon. In the context of canon, I'd suggest far more minor changes or even tell them to scrap the episode all together.

Be it fix it content or more high level critical analysis like I do on this blog, it's important to remember that canon isn't going to change. Even if we could sit the writers down and convince them of everything that they did wrong and everything that they should do to fix it, they can't actually enact those changes. The story is already out there and time machines aren't a thing. But that's not what fandom content is about. Blogs like this are for people who enjoy thinking about stories critically and discussing how and why they fail. Good fix it content is all about saying, "I didn't like canon and think it would be better if X happened" or even "I liked canon, but got this idea about how it could be different" and then sharing the idea with other fans. This is because any and all fan content is for the fans (and former fans), not the creators.

So yes, I think it's valid to make fan content that "improves" canon. I even think it's valid to compare it to canon in a casual manner as that's just a natural thing that humans do. Give me two versions of something and I will automatically compare them and probably even pick a favorite. The thing that you need to be careful about, the nuance that you have to keep in mind, is that fandom is a casual space to have fun with other fans and to create whatever our talents will allow us to create. When we use terms like "fix it" or say that we like something better than canon, that context needs to be kept in mind. I will never be concerned by a reader telling me that they liked one of my stories more than they liked canon or that they wish that canon had also included a concept I've played with. That's just a statement of preference. I only get concerned when I get comments about how "the writers should read this so they can learn from you" because I didn't write it to teach them. I wrote it to have fun with my fellow fans and that is true for every bit of fandom content I produce.

I know that was long, but hopefully it answered your question? My main draw to fandom spaces is fix it content, so this is something I'm pretty passionate about. If I think that a piece of media is perfect, then I don't seek out fan content for it. I only join fandoms on those rare occasions when media hits that sweet spot of good enough to grab my attention, but bad enough/lacking something to not fully satisfy me.

[gavillain]

I was talking with @marciabrady the other night about ships and the aesthetics of our favorite couples, and it made me really want to do a break down of one of my obscure crossover OTPs:

Grimhilde/Cruella, a.k.a. EvilPuppies!

Because I feel like Grimhilde/Cruella, out of all my ships, looks the most like crack at first glance, but there is so much more to it than just sticking two random Disney Villains together.

So, first and foremost, I started shipping them because of Kingdom Keepers Book IV, Power Play:

Despite the fact that Frollo is on the cover of the book and was the heavily promoted new Overtaker before the release of the novel, the main villains of the novel are actually Grimhilde and Cruella. The premise is that after Maleficent and Chernabog were captured at the end of the previous book, the Disney Villains who are trying to take over the parks have had to take on new leadership to get Maleficent and Chernabog out of Imagineer-prison. Grimhilde is the next in the chain of command, so she's in charge and has Cruella De Vil as her companion who follows her everywhere. They are ALWAYS together in the book, and Cruella, naturally, has a very flirty and complimentary demeanor towards Grimhilde that the Queen naturally just adores. Their chemistry is great, and there is even one part where the main hero finds the two of them asleep together on an air mattress and a bundle of furs (it makes sense in context) and, well... yeah XD The novel really glued the two of them together in my head.

And that togetherness, as you can see above, blends over into the parks. Grimhilde and Cruella are the only two main Disney Villainesses who are out with some regularity as face characters in Disneyland. All of the villains in the Disney Parks have a familiarity with each other, and you can get similar gal pal dynamics with them and Maleficent (and Lady Tremaine) around Halloween time. However, because Grimhilde and Cruella are out together for so much of the year, they tend to carry the brunt of that sort of "evil besties" friendship, leading to cute photo op moments like this...

So Disney is already doing a lot of the leg work to make them come across as girlfriends and to give them chemistry and a ship dynamic. However, if that was all there was to it, I probably wouldn't love this ship as much as I do. I need that interesting and thought through layer of shipping, and thankfully, these two have it in spades.

So, despite being from different time periods and wildly different worlds, Grimhilde and Cruella are aristocrats through and through. Grimhilde is literally royalty, and Cruella an over-financed heiress to the remnants of England's aristocracy (and she's the head of a corporate fashion empire in the Glenn Close movies). The House of De Vil dates back to medieval times, and evidence of that extensive and wealthy history is littered all around Cruella's mansion.

Cruella is in essence, the remnants of an old world that no longer exists, one of royalty and station that Grimhilde herself was a part of, and though the times have changed, Cruella keeps that class and regality alive. In that way, I think it blends perfectly with her taking on a lover who is quite literally OF that time period, and it also helps tie Grimhilde in with the modern world, giving Grimhilde a sort of immortality and transcendence that I think she'd very much value with her desire to be eternally young and beautiful. And, along those same lines, they are both very strong examples of matriarchal authority and power with Cruella bemoaning the uselessness of men and the pitfalls of women losing themselves to marriage, whilst Grimhilde murdered her own husband in order to reign alone without a man over her. They fundamentally get the sort of twisted villainous feminism that they are peddling.

Next is the themes of beauty and glamor. These are two women who are fundamentally motivated by vanity - Cruella wants to design her original Dalmatian puppy coat and stun the art world with her ruthless originality whilst Grimhilde wants to kill her stepdaughter so that she can reign as the Fairest One of All. For them, beauty and aesthetics are absolute, and they share a willingness to buy their glamorous ambitions with the blood of the innocent. They would fundamentally GET each other in that regard. However, and this is important, they GET that same motivation for vanity, but they don't COMPETE with each other. Cruella is a pretty woman, but she's older and she's a chain smoker whose habits have caused her to become a bit emaciated. She's beautiful in her own way, but she's never going to rival Grimhilde as the Fairest One of All. Likewise, though Grimhilde has extravagant fashions and jewelry, she's not setting out to be at the forefront of clothing design and art. She would certainly WEAR outfits Cruella designed for her, but she wouldn't want to supplant Cruella either. They're going to make the world kneel before their beauty, but they're going to compliment each other rather than rival each other or have to set aside their vanities for each other.

Then one of the big important elements that makes this ship appeal to me so much is the motif of DUALITY. Cruella is noteworthy for her hair that is half-black and half-white. It's her signature style, she's well known for it, it ties in with the black and white dogs, and it ties in with how she has her likable and admirable public face but also her sinister and dark side that the rest of the world doesn't see. Grimhilde also has the duality motif. Hell, she has BLACK HAIR as the Queen and WHITE hair as the hag, and the whole black and white motif shows up in her potions ("Black of Night" and "To Whiten My Hair, a Scream of Fright"). Grimhilde literally has two faces and two forms. She is two villainesses in one, which is such a tasty match for the woman with infamously two-toned hair. And what I like about that too is that Cruella BLENDS with both the Queen and the Hag. With the queen, she has the aristocratic and blue blood regality and beauty that I mentioned before, but with the hag, she has the cackling maniacal bloodthirsty side that would have an absolute riot bringing death to innocents. It's so symbolic, and they're the only Disney villains who have that duality motif in that fashion.

And the fact that they have all of these interesting parallels and motifs while also being from two different worlds and two different time periods (medieval and modern) is a lot of fun purely from a crossover perspective but also as ANOTHER manifestation of their duality motif! And THAT is the type of tasty shipping fuel that I LIVE for!

So with Grimhilde and Cruella being of two different time periods, they also simultaneously coexist in one time period. Cruella in the original animated film may have been released in the 1960s, but her animator, Marc Davis, designed her to be a throwback to the old Hollywood glamor of the 1930s. Most specifically Tallulah Bankhead...

And Marlene Dietrich...

Cruella is pure Old Hollywood 1930s glamor trapped in a late 50s/early 60s modern domestic setting. And you know whose movie was made in the 1930s and has a very 1930s cultural aesthetic to it?

And Grimhilde herself is designed based on ANOTHER 1930s film villainess, She (Who Must Be Obeyed):

A movie that was famous for its Art Deco sets, and Art Deco is one of the main aesthetic motifs attributed to Cruella in the Glenn Close movies. So stylistically speaking, the two of them despite coming from different time periods and different worlds coexist in a way that is very old Hollywood. And with that combined link to the 30s, it helps the two of them to coexist peacefully and harmoniously in the same time period. They meet in this glamorous and mythologized liminal space. Heck, with Cruella's aesthetic links to the 1930s, I personally headcanon that she grew up absolutely obsessed with old Hollywood and making a concentrated effort to emulate that energy in her own style. Since Grimhilde is kind of an Old Hollywood character come to life, it's almost like Cruella can be a fangirl of something that she's admired for her whole life when she gets with Grimhilde, and you know Grimhilde is gonna LOVE that attention.

In addition, I personally like to be very cognizant about my ships with regards to what the individual character is going to look for in terms of a romantic partner and why the character that I've chosen for them suits that specific need. With Grimhilde, we know that she was married to Snow White's father and that she killed him, so we know that she didn't have any real love for that man, possibly any man. She rules over her kingdom alone and doesn't want anyone to rule beside her. In the Snow White comics and deleted scenes from the film, she showcases a sort of romantic rivalry for Prince Florian, but her affections for him are never about wanting an equal. She wants him because he is young and handsome and compliments her beauty and elevates her image in a way that helps give her more power through her beauty. So for Grimhilde, she needs a lover who can fill that niche - not someone to rival her or rule beside her, but someone who can be a perfect accessory to her beauty. Cruella being all about fashion and style is absolutely that person. She's very cognizant of appearances and what can accentuate or take away from beauty and aesthetics. That inherent utility to their relationship means that it would be something that Grimhilde would be open to indulging, and from there deeper feelings can develop under the right circumstances in a way that they wouldn't without having that utility first.

So that's Grimhilde's side of things. But what about Cruella? Well, we see Cruella's relation with love mostly revolving around this sort of one sided attraction that she has to Anita. And at first glance that seems contradictory to her getting with the queen, because Cruella is obviously going after a dainty and demure woman who she can kind of steamroll and collect as another fashion accessory. However, I think what makes this work so well is that it really showcases that Cruella has an attraction to traditional feminine beauty and women in general, and Grimhilde is of course is the fairest woman of all. The Glen Close movie adds an interesting dynamic to Cruella's attraction to Anita in that she enjoys the creative interaction that she has with Anita. Never really noticed Anita until the two of them started to collaborate creatively, and I feel like that's a big thing that Cruella needs and wants in a partner, someone who engages that creative side of her brain and understands her drive for aesthetics and beauty. And, as previously stated, who better to do that than the Queen of beauty herself? Grimhilde is a perfect model of unlimited dramatic creativity wrapped in a feminine and beautiful package that would set Cruella's heart ablaze.

Together the two of them fulfill that perfect niche for each other and foster a creative, beautiful, and bloodthirsty ruthless energy that would make them feel seen and supported. They effectively create their own little world of 1930s fantasy glamor when they come together, and that's just beautiful to me.

Those are the biggies, but some other really fun pieces of shipping fuel: *I love the aesthetic they have with them both being tall women with dramatic almost drag queen makeup and outfits that have tones of black, white, and red in their own signature styles. And Cruella has the flowing fur coat with the red liner and Grimhilde has the flowing cape with the red liner and so they can be very flouncy and twirly with their styles. *Grimhilde keeps a royal huntsman who can kill all of the animals for Cruella whenever she wants. *They both have similar structures to their stories - they start out on friendly or familial terms with the protagonists before they show their true colors, then they entrust men to kill the innocent creatures needed to enact their plan but those men fail them, forcing Grimhilde and Cruella to take matters into their own hands, and then the finales showcase them both transforming into frightening demented versions of themselves (old hag and crazy demon eyes Cruella during the car chase) madly pursuing their goals until they ultimate bring about their own defeats by the environment turning against them *Cruella has the green smoke of her cigarette which echoes the green and smoke of the Magic Mirror, and also Cruella's chain smoking being a sort of poison in and of itself links back nicely to Grimhilde's literal poisons. *OUAT gives Cruella magic powers and ties to the Author, and Grimhilde also has magic powers and is a literal storybook villain.

So, yes, at first glance, EvilPuppies may seem like just a crackship, but it's really not. There is SO much here in both their canon interactions and in their numerous parallels, and there are honestly probably even more that I'm forgetting. They are the crowning queens of femslash for me for good reason, and I adore them, darlings!

[genderkoolaid]

the whole point of that anon was saying that there is not always a study that can "prove" things but that you should listen to the female victims of trans women and the many, many examples of outed trans rapists who are female/afab compared to those who are male/amab. you posting a study saying there's no pattern doesn't prove anything because the whole point is so much of rape can't be documented legally, esp when there's social pressure not to report bc you will be called a bigot or terf

Man there have been multiple anons I've gotten from trans men talking about being sexually assaulted by trans women and how they were afraid to talk about it because they didn't want to give more ammunition to y'all. You make it harder for people to talk about this kind of interpersonal violence because they don't want to be associated with people who lie about the very real oppression trans women face. Because the rest of us would like to be able to discuss this shit without acting like trans women are privileged or especially dangerous when the truth is they are just people who can do evil shit. & the reason there are "so many cases" is because y'all are fucking obsessed with trans women being rapists. That's why there are millions of news articles foaming at the mouth every time a trans woman could have potentially sexually assaulted someone. The idea that society at large is protective over trans women is fucking laughable, especially with the amount of police brutality trans women face.

You can make this exact same shitty argument for Black men too and racists do it all the time. How many cis woman rapists are out there? Do you know how wildly underreported is that?

I don't doubt you seriously are concerned about rape victims but I also am very sure that everything you say and do is motivated far more by your need to demonize trans women than your desire for accuracy and truth. Because the only way we should be having a conversation about trans women who have sexually assaulted others is in a context which fully acknowledges their very real oppression, and does not view them as radically different from the many, many cis women who are also sexual predators. But again, you are more motivated by your bias against trans women than anything, so the vast underreporting of sexual violence done by cis women is ignorable while any single thing a trans woman does wrong is representative of a population-wide trait. Any evidence of trans women's oppression is written off while you pretend like there are people getting rich as hell off of fearmongering about trans women being rapists, because that's what people WANT TO BELIEVE.

Saying "trans women are rapists" isn't transgressive or brave, its the status quo. If you actually want to help rape victims, stop living in your fantasy world where trans women are catered to by the justice system.

[glittertism]

[Id: a three-panel comic, drawn simply. The first panel depicts a cat, standing upright in a room looking towards a speech bubble saying "Why aren't you in there?!". Next to the panel is a padlock, and under the padlock is a question mark with an arrow pointing to a key. There's a window and a few objects strewn about the floor of the room. (Continued on next line)

The second panel has a hand pointing to the right, towards a different room. Under the hand, the cat's head is shown to also be looking in that direction, a slight frown on it's face. The room is bare, and has bars in front of it. Next to the panel is the same padlock, but with an x mark pointing to the key. A speech bubble coming from the hand says "You're at a huge disadvantage, you know!". (Continued on next line)

In the third panel the cat is standing the same way as the first, just facing the opposite direction. The cat's paws are being held like "t-rex arms". The cat is still looking to the upper right, expression on it's face. Above the cat is a giant ellipses, and there are four arrows surrounding the cat, pointing to it. End id]

(realized upon further reading it might not be clear in order of events. The speech bubble in the first is not asking why the cat isn't in the first room, it's asking why he isn't in the second.)

It's not nescessarily that i don't agree [point being taken wildly out of context], just...

ko-fi

[minecraftbookshelf]

Mistakes Are Made Chapter One Dialogue Breakdown

This was hard to make it turns out. A combination of "how do i format this" and trying to comprehensively summarize the thought processes and decisions going on. I think this works though.

Honestly, this sort of thing would probably work a lot better as like, a live conversation but we work with what we've got XD

I won't be including every bit of dialogue from the chapter but it will be most of them.

Disclaimer that this isn't a "How To" or any kind of "you should do things this way" this is just an explanation of what I put into my writing, and dialogue specifically. Also that I write in limited first person most of the time, so in a way, all the narration can be considered dialogue and as examples of character voice.

This is also only the first part of a long story that is intended to a) be re-readable and b) involve a lot of discovery as the story progresses, so a lot of the decisions I made are based off of things that will come up/be revealed later in the series. I will be talking about those, sometimes with no helpful explanation, sorry XD

I'm using color coding to specify what parts I'm talking about at any given time, so hopefully that helps.

This is going to be a long, wordy post, its entire point is to be an insight into the intentionality and consideration that goes into writing dialogue for me, if this isn't something you're interested in, absolutely pass it by. It will also likely "take some of the magic out of it" for some people. But I like to think that it might also add a bit more magic to it for others. So here we go!

On with the show behind the scenes! [AO3 Link to the Chapter] if you want to follow along there with more context to the selections.

"Hello, Jimmy!" He manages to clamber out of the fountain without tripping and falling flat on his face at least. He splashes Katherine in the process, where she is hovering off to the side but he can't really be bothered to worry about that. All he can manage to do is stare at Sausage's smirking face. "Hello, Jimmy!" Katherine's greeting is much less mocking

Starting off with the very first dialogue of the chapter, which doesn't occur until a few paragraphs in and then proceeds to be the exact same line said by two different characters.

This is one of the times that I am heavily relying on the fact that I am writing fanfiction and these greetings are words that we hear the characters in question (Sausage and Katherine) say multiple times. So I don't go into much detail with dialogue tags, counting on the reader to fill that in themselves. Even if they/you aren't imagining the exact tones I had in mind its a fairly easy extrapolation that these are said in wildly different tones. The emphasis on Sausage's is to imply the more mocking/antagonistic tone, helped along by the mention of his expression, but can also just convey that its louder and more emotive (As Katherine is trying very hard to be OfficialTM in this chapter) Also describing her greeting as "less mocking" helps fill in the appropriate tone for Sausages retroactively.

"What is he doing here?" He jerks his chin at Sausage, who is still giggling like a child. He sees Jimmy looking and grins at him, all teeth. Behind the mask, Jimmy bares his own teeth and takes some comfort in the knowledge that he has more of them; and they are sharper.

This is the first instance of Jimmy's inhuman body language being used as an extension of the dialogue/conversation between the characters. The use of teeth as a threat being a hybrid trait.

Sausage's smile is also part of this, something that isn't actually said in this chapter but will be demonstrated later on is that, as the ruler of a kingdom with a heavy hybrid population, Sausage knows this and his own body language is chosen accordingly.

Sausage keeps giggling and Jimmy can barely hear it beneath the roar in his ears. He leans down to try and whisper into the faerie queen's ear. "I really need your alliance right now, Katherine." He hopes his desperation doesn't show in his voice. She gives him a reproving look that throws him right back to his brief time spent in a classroom. "I'm allied with everyone, Jimmy. You know that."

This is the first example of really incorporating distinct character voices into the dialogue. I'm a liberal user of italics and in this case I'm using them to indicate emphasis where the ccs tend to stress their words to encourage assigning that voice to the dialogue itself. These are also, if not direct quotes from canon, very similar to actual things the ccs and their cubitos have said so it isn't exactly what I would consider heavy lifting.

Jimmy at this point is still fully informal. He's surprised and he's talking privately to a friend.

This is also more natural dialogue from Katherine, whose exasperation with her friend is partly overcoming her attempts to be Formal Faerie Queen.

I'm trying to keep the early dialogue fairly simple and close to canon voices because that way I can transition slowly and naturally into slightly different voices that suit the atmosphere while also preserving their more casual voices as the way that they talk when they are more comfortable and in less official settings. Setting up the contexts for different manners of speech is a big thing in this chapter overall.

"He invaded the Swamp," Jimmy hisses, his ear-fins flaring, ignoring the shudder down his spine from her use of his Name, even in part. "He crossed our borders. Again. He's threatened war." He's no longer whispering by the end, standing to his full height, shoulders back, sword hand by his shoulder. "And according to him, you've threatened it right back!"

Another instance of emphasis on Jimmy's inhuman body language.

This bit is actually more about Katherine than Jimmy. It does show a bit of Jimmy's sensitivity to magic but more than that, it incorporates Katherine's willingness to invoke her own flavor of threats, even in casual conversation with friends.

This is the first real deviation from canon dialogue in the entire chapter. This is the blending point where I'm taking the characters voices and using them myself instead of just channeling the pre-existing ones. The emphasis for this was important to me to try and keep it Jimmy's voice saying the words.

The body language here is a physical representation of Jimmy's shift from more informal speech to a more tense and emotionally and politically fraught situation.It's also the transition of Jimmy taking this from a private conversation to a more public one, now in earshot of both Sausage and Katherine's guards and staff. He's beginning to speak more as The Codfather than Jimmy and his physical stance is the biggest indication of that.

This is Katherine's last "private conversation" line and is, again, indicative of her frustration with her friends and the situation they have put themselves and everyone else in. It's a fairly sharp statement, geared to indicate that she is not really on Jimmy's side here. ("all sides" = "no sides" and a part of Katherine knows that, even if she refuses to admit it out loud, mostly because it is a role she has trapped herself in and can't leave.)

Sausage recovers quickly and shakes out the fur lining of his coat. "Is it just me or does it smell fishy in here, now?" "Sausage," Katherine looks disapprovingly back over her shoulder. "That's rude." "Oh," Sausage blinks at them both, "I'm sorry, Jimmy, I didn't realize."

Jumping ahead a bit we're in the "polite conversation because political masks" phase of dialogue.

Sausage is Not Being Polite. This is his attempt at "polite rudeness" but he's not very subtle in general so its blatant enough for Katherine to call him out on it. It's also a continuation of Sausage speaking more informally in general. He has something of an upper hand in the situation, and an abundance of bravado, and that is reflected in the way he talks. (Sausage just also has a very distinct voice in general that is already leant towards melodrama which works very well for the au's setting as a whole)

His apology is also disingenuous. In retrospect I should have probably used some italics or some other indicator to help convey that. (I might go back and edit something in. I do that sometimes on AO3. Major edits get notes made at the chapter end but minor fixes happen a lot.) He makes the "apology" and that connects Jimmy to his original statement, even if it hadn't been blatantly obvious.

"Oh, this one is new!" Sausage immediately changes the subject, pointing at one of the skulls hanging on the wall of the hall. It's some kind of middling-sized land animal...a sheep maybe? with poppies filling the eye sockets and woven in a crown, there are delicate lines of gold painted across the surface of the bleached bone. Katherine beams, her irritation at the rudeness forgotten (or at least set aside, fae never truly forget breaches of etiquette) "It is! It's a gift from a childhood friend," she looks fondly upon the skull for a moment. "We've been reconnecting lately." Sausage nods sagely, "It is always good to spend time with your friends." "It is," Katherine's ears twitch and her wings flutter briefly before she resumes walking. "Which is why we are going to fix this."

This is a slightly better attempt from Sausage at maintaining political etiquette by complimenting the host. A distraction and a peace offering.

And this is the first mention of Scott in the chapter, in what I am now realizing (it was not intended that way but here we go) is a context that kind of foreshadows his role of peace offering. It also is an establishing line for Katherine and Scott's relationship, as well as a nod to their short-lived plushie business (my beloved) from canon.(And the adaptation of it that exists in the au, which will come up later in Katherine's backstory at the very least.)

Sausage is being ingratiating here. It's a kind of wink wink nudge nudge "we should be friends and you should do what I want" moment.

Katherine knows what he is doing. This is also an incorporation of Katherine's inhuman characteristics, though a bit more subtly, specifically because this is Jimmy's pov and he is neither familiar enough with her mannerisms to break down exactly what they mean the way his own are, or unfamiliar enough with them to register them as odd and worth commenting on.

And then we have the POV switch to Xornoth

The entirety of Xornoth's external, out-loud dialogue is one single line, but the internal dialogue is their narration of the situation at hand. Ft. "helpful" commentary from Exor.

Xornoth's voice is arguably the trickiest part of the entire chapter as it is the part with the least canon basis. Xornoth is a character I am functionally building from scratch, given that the majority of their canon appearances are arguably as much Exor as they are Xornoth. (at least in the context of this AU)

Xornoth's canon voice (on a purely literal level) is "Scott Smajor with a script and a voice changer" and, on the occasions they are on screen together, "someone else with a script and a voice changer", and then the single epilogue bit.

So I'm working with somewhat stilted, formal speech and a tendency for dramatic declarations.

For this first chapter there was actually a bit more effort put into characterizing Exor, as, despite it being in their pov, the majority of the Xornoth characterization is happening in Chapter Two. (which is also mostly from their pov)

Honestly, this is already really long, I'll probably do the dialogue in the second part of the chapter as a part two, but I do want to put a compilation of Exor's commentary down here to talk about.

I opted to make Exor's dialogue bold instead of italics both to distinguish it from Xornoth's own internal dialogue and to emphasize how unavoidable it is for Xornoth. It's not something they can truly ignore, its too loud in their head.

Meaningless frivolity.

Disparaging commentary on the priorities of the other emperors and Jimmy in particular, leaning into one that Xornoth themself is inclined to agree with.

Do not pretend such reluctance. I see the truth.

Denying Xornoth's knowledge of themself in favor of asserting their own.

You are still only a student. And you will be so long as you refuse to take what is rightfully ours.

Exor's goal is and always has been (as long as Xornoth as known them) world domination. This is his most blatant statement of it, coupled with a disparaging comment towards Xornoth's own authority.

Like a fish on a hook.

Dehumanization with a side of violent imagery.

They are going to hurt themselves, trying that hard to utilize what little intelligence they have.

General scorn towards the intelligence and competence of the other emperors.

If we pinned her wings to the wall like a butterfly and made her watch, that would phase her. If we gutted him like a fish he'd squeal so nicely.

Violence. Rather graphic, worded in a way to make Xornoth/The Reader paint a stronger visual image to accompany it. These are the ones that both Exor (in-story) and I (out of story) designed to have a stronger impact. For Exor its about sowing thoughts in Xornoth's mind and having them doubt themself, for me its about really conveying Exor's intentions.

Rip them all to pieces, give the farmer the fight she wants.

This is a half-step back into a more friendly-aligned bit. Pearl is Xornoth's friend. A war would make her happy! Pearl is not Xornoth's biggest weakness, but she is one and Exor takes as much advantage of that as he can.

Wheat fields burn so easily, all it would take is a single spark in the right place and all of Mythland would be in flames. Carefully, carefully, Xornoth sets their book down on the table beside them and places their hands in their lap. Katherine will stop allowing them to borrow her books if they start spontaneously combusting them. Hopefully she doesn't notice the slightly singed cover.

Arson yay!

With the previous comments designed to rile Xornoth up the invocation of fire is a deliberate reference on my part to Xornoth's powers (with the follow up in the next paragraph) and on Exor's part is a provocation towards losing control/making it harder to stay in control of their powers.

Why do you consistently choose to prove your incompetence.

Even gods that crave violence can be disappointed.

this was equal parts chosen to add to the overall comedy of that exact moment and as a final nod to the way that, while he spends a lot of time tearing down other people in Xornoth's head, he also puts a lot of time into tearing down Xornoth themself.

-

I'm going to leave it there for now, if just because of length. I can come back and make a part two for Xornoth and the other emperors during the second part of the chapter later.

[nickthetoony]

I've been in a prolonged Star Wars mood recently which has coincided with me getting deep into Gundam so I've been comparing and contrasting their different approaches to similar ideas a lot, and I thought I might as well lay it all out in writing to get it out of my head.

I'm specifically comparing Star Wars to UC Gundam, starting with the original Gundam which for context began airing in 1978, after A New Hope but before Empire Strikes Back. You can see a bit of A New Hope's visual influence in some aspects of Gundam.

Both series prominently feature a laser sword of some description. "Lightsabers" in SW and "Beam Sabers" in Gundam. Other than the obvious difference of Beam Sabers being in scale with 18 meter tall mechs, there's also the difference in that the lightsaber is made out to be an elegant weapon, harkening back to a nostalgic imagining of knights and samurai, before the invention of less honorable firearms with future stories ascribing a deep cultural significance of the lightsaber to the people that made them.

The Gundam Beam Saber is in comparison a very utilitarian tool in a Mobile Suit's arsenal, usually carried right alongside rifles and bazookas. It still invokes a little bit of that knightly image, but the fact that it's usually used as a last resort weapon of desperation hampers the idea of it being a weapon of elegance or honorable combat. In a way they're more like real swords in that they're sidearms you only pull out in a battlefield when all your other options are unavailable.

Another superficial similarity they share is their masked villains, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Char Aznable was inspired a little bit by Darth Vader. Of course, since Gundam was pre-Empire, when so much of Vader hadn't been established yet and his most notable trait was having a cool costume, the two ended up diverging into wildly different characters.

Char is a pretty young man who uses a mask to cover his identity and Vader is old and scarred and needs the mask to breathe. Vader is the main character's father and Char is completely unrelated to his main character until they meet face to face late in the show. In a way Char is kind of more similar to Kylo Ren being masked pretty boys with daddy issues though again their arcs end up wildly diverging. Kylo and Vader both end up "redeemed" but Char isn't really the kind of character who can or should be redeemed.

Somewhat related to the above, both Gundam and Star Wars have enemy factions who are meant to invoke Nazi Germany. Star Wars' invocation of German fascism (at least in the movies) is a lot more nebulous than Gundam's, communicating this analogy through visual reference to Nazi iconography while leaving the actions of the Empire more broadly as just general cartoon bad guy stuff.

The way Gundam compares the Principality of Zeon and the Nazis is a lot more specific and a lot more direct. The way the Zeon arms race plays out in the original is a direct parallel to the real-life Nazi wunderwaffen projects, where the Third Reich's internal friction and investments in ludicrous super weapons ended up costing them more than they gained, contributing to their eventual defeat. Gundam also takes place in our future (or atleast a future envisioned in 1978) so the real Nazis existed in this world and Hitler is brought up as a direct comparison to the original show's big bad.

(Writing this out, I had the thought that you could draw the same comparison between the Death Star and the wunderwaffen program, but idk if Star Wars itself has ever drawn that comparison.)

Another point of comparison is that both series heavily feature mystical, psychic powers inspired by the spiritualist movements of the day. The Force for Star Wars and Newtypes for Gundam. The Force is cribbing a lot aesthetically from eastern spiritualism while Gundam takes a lot more from the visual ideas of psychedelia.

The Force is far more concrete and straightforward than Newtype-ism. A magic energy field that can be used to perform great feats of power, and which has birthed two established sects of thought that are both treated as ancient. Force users are also clearly demarcated into Good and Evil camps, with specific powers and abilities locked behind a character's individual morality.

Newtypes in Gundam are very different from Sith or Jedi though. Rather than representing an ancient struggle of good vs evil, Newtypes represent a supposed evolution of the human soul, when humanity can communicate to each other psychically in an era where miscommunication is impossible. Supposedly.

Because whereas in Star Wars, the conflict of the Force is one of primordial good and evil, the conflict of the Newtype is one of heightened spiritualist ideas butting up against the mundane reality of different people operating under different and conflicting motivations. There aren't dark or light side Newtypes in the way that Force users are categorized, all of them share the core ability to bridge physical limitations to understand each other on a deep intimate level, but does that matter when their material conditions are inherently at odds? What happens when two people understand each other perfectly and they still have to fight and kill each other?

My last point of comparison is between the two "heroes" of both series. Luke Skywalker and Amuro Ray.

In a way, they're very similar characters. Both start out as young boys living relatively comfortable-if boring lives who are Called To Adventure and eventually awaken to their special powers to become great soldiers of their respective wars. Both are defined by the legacy of their fathers. Both are coming of age stories.

Where I find the comparison between them very interesting is the comparison of Luke at the end of his character arc (in The Last Jedi) and Amuro at the end of his (in Char's Counterattack). Luke in TLJ is a sad disillusioned old man who has failed in his attempt to rebuild the order that had been entrusted to him and who has stagnated into a miserable grandpa. For many longtime fans of the character this was a shock, and apparently for a lot of people felt like a disappointing betrayal. Because Luke was the Hero of The Rebellion, the Return of The Jedi. He was brave, and true, and more than just a normal man. So to see him so impotent felt wrong for many people.

I find it interesting that Amuro (subtler than Luke) also ends up in a similar spot, but in a way that feels far more appropriate to his character and to the tone of the narrative.

Because Amuro was not a hero. He was a child forced to become a soldier far younger than he should've been. Pressured by the dire, apocalyptic world surrounding him and the societal pressures of masculinity that hound him. Luke's inheritance from his father was a Lightsaber. A weapon of a great shining order which eventually was mutated by the Disney movies into a sort of Excalibur wielded only by the worthy virtuous heroes. Amuro's inheritance was the Gundam, the Devil's Machine, the first in a long line of military weapons, the image of which would haunt him for the rest of his tragically short life.

Amuro had at one point been a war hero, then a rebel fighting against the corrupt and self-interested Federation that had eagerly turned him into a human weapon. But his childhood of violence eventually left him no choice but to be subsumed into the military hierarchy he had at one point attempted to break free of. In terms of combat skill, Amuro was the best of the best by the end of his arc, but he had failed in every other regard. His Newtype abilities, once seen as a gateway to a future without misunderstandings, were now honed for violence. His final words ones of dumb confusion as he failed to understand the feelings of his enemy.

Luke gets the benefit of a Rey. The ability to once again become heroic and good and brave, to inhabit the comforting role of a gallant knight. And this step in his characterization is still met with confused hostility by most viewers. Amuro does not receive a similar luxury. He dies young and suddenly, with only the suggestion that his actions will eventually make things better, but it feels right with his character even for how unsatisfying it is.

Again, I don't know if I really have a coherent point with this post. Apologies if you've read this far and felt like I have wasted your time. For now, I think my main conclusion is that it's interesting to see how two different kinds of science fiction (heroic science-fantasy VS military sci-fi) approach similar ideas. I think the reason Luke's arc in TLJ fails for many is that the story of the original trilogy was fundamentally unfit to handle it. It's tacking on an unsatisfying tragedy onto a conventional, simple Hero's Journey rather than building on the foundation of societal critique the way Gundam does with Amuro.

Anyway. Bye.

[im-all-out-of-ideas]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds s2 ep5

our first truly comedic episode of season 2 and i think they knocked it out of the park. the idea of a character of mixed heritage experiencing a splitting of their two sides isn't a new one (look at B'elanna) but doing it with Spock is absolutely something that TOS might've done and i'm shocked it isn't already an episode from the time.

the involvement of T'pring and her family (!!!) is definitely the right choice for this kind of plot. the montages of Spock experiencing human puberty and having to readjust as best he can to his old standards were hilarious. T'pring's mother and father were great, both from a dramatic and a comedic standpoint. i especially love the opportunity we have to let Spock express his anger and frustration at being treated as horribly as he is by his own planet. it was extremely cathartic.

Chapel was also amazing in this episode as i have come to expect from Bush. she plays vulnerability so well and her unwillingness to face her emotions for Spock isn't frustrating, it's just engaging. her arc with the fellowship was also a nice addition. T'pring's frustration with how Spock continues to treat her is also extremely justified and it explains how we get to the point of them being so distant by the point of Kirk's command.

then that leads to the second ever legitimate cliffhanger in the series so far and the implications of Spock and Chapel actually being intimate with each other. i feel confident in the writers to pull us back to the cold distance they eventually have in TOS, but every step along the way just makes the original context even richer.

Peck's Spock deserves the most praise in being able to embody the same entity on two wildly different spectrums of acting. it makes me wonder how Nimoy might've done this episode, though i have no doubt he could've pulled it off just as well. it is also a great episode for recognizing Amanda as Spock's mother and human side, as well as her own person being a human on Vulcan and ostracized by vulcans.

overall, a great comedy episode and very fun for me to watch. surprisingly heartfelt in the right moments. an entry worthy of the green tunic.

[dcomposing]

Hi hi what are your thoughts on the naegi siblings??

HI i have many thoughts on the naegi siblings so... sorry if this reply takes a hot minute/is wildly disorganized

i got my masters degree in having a sibling (oldest of six) so i have a. vague idea of the kind of shenanigans that probably went on in the naegi household prior to the tragedy -- and DR:S gives us a good look at what their dynamic is like in a normal situation which i. thoroughly enjoyed LMFAO

so komaru and makoto are close enough in age that, while makoto does have the like, protective-big-brother instinct, it's kind of superficial because he's really only like two years older than her and also she canonically grows up to be taller than him (only an inch but she teases him relentlessly anyways) and stronger than him (based on their character types in DR:S)

basically what i'm getting at is that their relationship is a lot less "my sibling is my best friend and i'd do anything for them and we're super super close" and more "i love you but oh my god you're so embarrassing get away from me." some of my favorite interactions they have in DR:S are the ones where komaru's like "oh my god i cant believe you're friends with the sayaka maizono. jesus christ can i say hi" and makoto's like "oh my GOD you're EMBARRASSING me in front of my FRIENDS!!!! >:(" it's very cute and a very teenage siblings-esque interaction.

i think they probably play-fought (and real-fought) a lot growing up bc... anyone else who has siblings close to you in age knows that it's basically like growing up in the thunderdome LMFAO. so they're very comfortable being in each other's space and generally fucking with each other. i also like to imagine that makoto's demeanor re: komaru is SO different -- like he's so nice and sweet to his friends, to the point where they all make fun of him for it, and then komaru walks in and is like "oh hey idiot" and he just looks at her like "you."

it's all in good fun, ofc, and they obviously love each other tons -- but in a pre/non-despair setting they're a lot more like typical siblings in that 99% of what they say to each other is either incomprehensible nonsense or merciless teasing.

uhhh here are some random thoughts i have on their childhood/them in general:

komaru prefers sporty extracurriculars -- i see her as a track and field kind of girl -- where makoto is more involved in the community acitivism/honors society type of clubs. she beats him every time they wrestle because of this.

komaru has a much wider friend group than makoto, but almost never brings them over to her place because half of them have crushes on makoto and it icks her out. makoto has no idea if any of his friends have ever liked komaru because they're too scared it will trigger his secret big brother instinct.

they have a bad habit of crushing on the same girls. before makoto goes to hope's peak, 90% of their genuine bonding moments occur while gushing about sayaka together (another reason he's particularly embarrassed when komaru tries to talk to her -- not just because "little sister embarrassing" but because she knows about the fuck off huge crush he used to have on her)

makoto goes to every one of her track meets with a big homemade sign and cheers as loudly as possible to embarrass her.

the naegi's have TONS of home movies throughout the years of the two of them putting on little skits/messing around/otherwise doing funny little kid shit. it's the one surefire way to embarrass BOTH siblings at once

it's IMPOSSIBLE to get a good photo of them together. they've 100% resolved to make the most ridiculous faces imaginable every time someone tries.

i have MANY more thoughts on them -- particularly in the context of tokomaru and naegami -- but for now i will leave it at this:

[wheeler-things]

Mike Wheeler as a DM, and What D&D Says About Him As a Tactician and Broader Character

Okay, I need to talk about Mike Wheeler as the Party’s de facto DM because I have some thoughts.

So.

First of all, I want to point out that acting as the DM puts him in a really interesting position given that he’s also the leader of the group. Yes, the Party is a democracy, but when it really comes down to it, Mike’s word is law (which is partly why Max and Mike should be shown as friends in their own right, because Max will challenge Mike to his face without it having to be a Big Thing unless Mike makes it one/on the small stuff the others would just let go by to keep the peace, and vice versa Mike has no fear of sticking up to Max/fighting back against her, and both of them benefit from that).

We see this in s2, where on Halloween Dustin and Lucas both want Max to come, and they ask Will if he’s okay with it, and he says that he is, so Max comes along— but they don’t ask or even inform Mike. Even though they have the majority. When asked, Will says that he assumed Mike would be okay with it. Which either implies he knew Dustin and Lucas weren’t going to tell Mike and didn’t say anything himself because he thought he knew what Mike would say anyway/at least knew how Mike would feel after finding out (at least pre-s1 Mike), which then suggests that this was a plan to circumnavigate Mike specifically. Or it means that he believed Mike would be asked and would respond positively, which suggests that Mike usually gets the final say/gets asked and it’s unusual for Dustin and Lucas to go behind Mike’s back, still suggesting that Mike has the final say because Lucas and Dustin DIDN’T do that this time when they wanted it their way— and I really wish I knew which it is. But either way, the fact remains that if the Party is a democracy, and Mike is not the one calling the shots, then there was no reason not to go to Mike and let him have a vote in Max coming— with Will in agreement, the democracy has spoken. But we see later in s2 that actually, when Max wants to participate and Dustin and Lucas want her to participate, and Will is functionally abstaining from voting… Mike’s firm refusal (which, to be fair, in that moment is pretty reasonable since Mike knows involving Max would mean telling her about the UD at that point) translates into Dustin and Lucas meekly apologizing to Max, and the only reason Lucas decides to include Max later is because it comes down to following what Mike (and at that point the government) wants or losing any potential at being friends with Max. Because his relationship with Mike will survive, while his relationship with Max will not.

Also, I think is really interesting because the previous season he was the one claiming that Mike was going against the Party’s needs for some girl he just met (erroneously, we know as an audience— like, regardless of whether you believe Mike ever had feelings for El, Lucas’ belief that s1 Mike lost focus on Will/finding Will because he was mooning after El was wrong), in s2 it’s Lucas doing just that (and I’m NOT saying Lucas was necessarily wrong— I think he was in a complicated situation, and I don’t think there was a right answer, because there’s really no way to know whether Max would have been safer from the UD or not, had Lucas never told her). And then in s3, the “Mike mirrors Lucas” season (again, inarguably true that he’s doing that, whether you think he’s legitimately interested in being with El or not), he… finally puts El ahead of the Party in his order of importance until Will calls him out for it (it remains interesting to me that s1 Mike and Lucas basically have the same fight as s3 Mike and Will except that s3 Will is correct and also… the framing is so wildly different. But sure, I’m supposed to believe these are fights between Mike and two of his best friends who he feels equally platonically about). And this puts a lot of context onto why in s4, he seems to believe that Will having a girl he’s interested in means the end of their friendship (again, whether you read him as romantically jealous or not… all of this together IMPLIES that Will, in Mike’s mind, won’t care as much about Mike as soon as he gets a girlfriend, and he’s upset about it).

REGARDLESS of that tangent, my point is, Mike’s the leader. The Party’s a democracy when things are minor, but when the chips are down, Mike has final say, and we’ve seen this in practice all s1 and s2.

Which makes his role as the DM super fascinating, because the DM is not the leader in dnd. Obviously, they know where the story is going, but barring some very specific situations, any “leading” any DM does is in the form of character control— basically, either setting up situations where PCs choose to do what the DM wants them to in an organic way (a hard skill to master), or being skilled enough to work with a player’s choices to help direct them to the right place anyway, while respecting the player’s autonomy/character choices (which requires a deft touch so as not to make the players feel railroaded). Often, both of these require some level of cooperation on the players’ parts (ie. if your DM throws a plot hook your way, it’s usually polite to try and figure out a reason why your character would get involved with the plot hook/to have built a character who would get involved in plot hooks pretty reliably), but a DM leading the PCs would be bad at almost every table (though Mike also has a PC and I’m fascinated to know what the Party does with Mike’s Paladin when Mike’s DMing, so that he stays close enough to the Party’s collective levels in order that he doesn’t get totally bodied by enemies the others are strong enough to have a balanced fight against, the odd time when he’s a player and not a DM— I’m curious because there are totally multiple ways to do it).

And we know that Mike’s leadership carries over to the dnd table, because in s4, when Dustin is deciding whether to take the risk and go in to kill Vecna with Erica, he specifically turns to Mike and asks his opinion. I’ve talked before about how this illustrates the respect Dustin has for Mike as a tactician (which totally makes sense— Mike has similar respect for Dustin’s scientific findings/ideas which is why they work so well together), but I think it’s important to note that up until Dustin asks Mike’s opinions, everyone (sans Erica and Mike— yes, I do think it’s a really fun little detail in this scene that everyone was chanting “the the death”, but only the three who have ACTUALLY been involved in life or death battles/situations took the phrase literally) is arguing back, saying that it’s too much of a risk. But as soon as Dustin asks Mike’s opinion, and Mike deliberates then gives it, there are no more arguments from anyone. Even though all Mike really said was (paraphrased because I don’t remember the exact quote) “it’s risky as hell, you [and Erica] are the ones on the field/currently still active, so you guys have to make the call”. The implication of that being respected by the whole club (even those who haven’t faced death beside Mike), even though it’s not a new plan and doesn’t offer any new insight, is that the whole Hellfire Club respects Mike as a tactician enough to believe that if he thinks Erica and Dustin can do it, then it’s worth a try/there’s no further argument to be had.

Which! Says some insane things about Mike’s skills!! We talk all the time about how often Mike is right about his plans/leaps in logic about the supernatural stuff on the show, and there are a lot of reasons why that could be, but I think it’s important to note that he’s heavily implied to just be good at this stuff. Like. Will’s an artistic genius, Dustin’s a scientific genius, Robin describes her ears as “little geniuses” and backs it up so we can assume that she’s incredibly skilled as a musician, Nancy’s a savant with a gun in addition to being a genius researcher (“her shot in the dark was a bullseye”)— I could go on but my point is, all the kids/older teens have something that they’re really good at, where they excel, where they are a genius. And for Mike, that’s pretty clearly his ability as a tactician.

Which is an incredibly useful skill as a dnd player!! And it’s clear it’s something the Party is used to relying on irl! They generally listen to Mike when shit hits the fan and, more than that, we even see a hint of this in the first dnd game in s1e1. Mike’s introducing the Demogorgon, and Will asks “what is it”, looking straight at Mike, like he expects Mike to answer. Obviously as the DM Mike just smiles and looks away while the rest of the Party bickers, but the fact remains that it was Will’s first reaction, while caught up in the moment, to turn to Mike and ask his opinion… it says something about how the Party (and Will in particular) views Mike.

And frankly, we can see why in that session. Will’s tendency to freeze when under pressure is clear in that moment, and all Lucas and Dustin can do is bicker. Mike actually has to use some of his character control skills in having the Demogorgon move towards them (even though teeeechnically it’s Will’s turn and the Demogorgon shouldn’t be able to move in that turn, but I can let it slide because of what it tells us about Mike and because it could well be a house rule that if the Party is devolving into bickering, Mike can put the pressure on) in order to lead them into making a choice (Will picked Fireball when backed into a corner where he couldn’t just freeze, but Mike’s the one who technically broke the rules to put him in that corner in the first place and I’m choosing not to think of the implications of that because this is not a Mike and the Upside Down post, this is a Mike’s character post and I’m going to shove that thought aside and move on).

So, the fact that the Party allows Mike to DM most of the time implies a few things:

1) Probably nobody in the Party likes DMing all that much, or at the very least, Mike likes it enough to insist that he wants to do it. That’s actually pretty common. There’s a joke that if you DM once for your friends, you’ll be a DM for life for a reason. That’s because DMing is hard work, time consuming outside of sessions, and requires a lot of skills which are distinct from those required of regular players. It’s fun if you like it, but it’s not for everyone. However, Mike clearly enjoys DMing (we can see that in how he acts as a DM), and we can also assume that nobody else at the table LOVES doing it, because it would be very easy to set up a system where the Party members take turns DMing. This is what a lot of irl tables do. And it’s obvious that would be possible to figure out even with their extended campaign style of play, because Will seems to fill the role seamlessly in s3. And we see in s4 that Mike can and does also enjoy playing as a player, so it’s unlikely he would throw a fit if someone else wanted to DM. But this also implies…

2) Mike is a good enough DM that the Party likes his campaigns. Not just in concept (though that’s important, given that he seems to be plotting his own campaigns rather than using official/pre-made ones), but in execution as well. If they didn’t, either the Party wouldn’t have gotten into dnd as heavily as they did, or someone else would have stepped up to take over DMing at least on a rotating basis. Lucas and Dustin are unknowns, but Will, at the very least, is shown to be at least a competent DM and he seems to enjoy doing it (at least well enough to put energy into it/be willing to do it when Mike seems disinterested).

3) Mike is a good enough DM that the Party is willing to give up his skills as a tactician on their side in order to play his games regularly. Which. This is massive, because we know from everything I’ve outlined so far that he’s a good tactician.

But one other small moment that I think highlights this is the one time we see him acting as a player in s3. Firstly, he starts out acting disinterested (which we know is because of s3 Mike brain and not because he doesn’t like being a player, because he’s totally invested in Eddie’s campaign and lbr that point of that scene was “Mike’s acting weird and it’s hurting Will” not “Will’s not a very engaging DM”), and while he’s doing that, he asks Lucas what he should do. This is fun, because it parallels s1e1 Will asking the Party what he should do, except when Will asks it’s because he’s so invested in the game that he’s frozen (while Lucas has chosen the fight option and Dustin has functionally chosen the flight option— YES I think it’s significant that Dustin learns to fight instead of flee irl and then shows that growth in the final dnd battle of s1, and continues to do so in s4, yes I think this really impacts why Dustin is the Party member who has that final Moment with Eddie about choosing not to run away “this time”, yes it does add to why I’m scared for Dustin— also, YES I do think that it’s interesting that as of s1e1, Lucas fights, Will freezes, Dustin flights, and Mike… well, he certainly has a backbone/a temper, but his biggest fear is about losing people/people not wanting him anymore, and when he’s faced with that what does he do? Fawn. Yes, I do think it’s interesting that all four boys pretty clearly match to all four responses in a show about trauma, and yes I do think it’s interesting that Will’s learned how to fight at least a little bit more, Dustin’s learned to fight more, Mike clearly STARTED the show having learned to fight first— in the moments with emotional stakes which matter most to him— then fall back on fawning only after, and Lucas has grown from s1 to the point where he very rarely allows himself to have emotional/interpersonal fights anymore).

Lucas notably gives a very limp suggestion (to attack). Which Mike does, in a very straightforward and uninspired way. But as soon as Mike is motivated to end the game, he shows his hand a little too much (in a very subtle way). He instantly has a plan of action (meaning that he’s been thinking enough about the session that he knows what to do, despite his pretence of being so out of it that he’s asking stupid questions), and one that he’s SO confident will work that he feels comfortable saying that all the jujus will be killed without even trying to roll for it (despite the fact that they’re resistant to fire damage, meaning he knows where they all are on the field, and likely remembers off the top of his head— or Will supplied the info but that’s less likely— what a juju’s HP and AC are) AND that he and Lucas will also be killed. YES, I acknowledge this could also just be Mike being flippant instead of having it all thought out, and that’s definitely how he plays it, but there are easier ways, one of which I point out later in this commentary, for him to be flippant while foreshadowing the end of the season AND not killing off his and Lucas’ characters.

Which? Is fascinating? Because I highly doubt they rolled new characters for this campaign, so EITHER they have some weird house rule about deaths in one shot games/games Mike doesn’t DM not “counting”, OR, more likely, he has their HP counted out and knows how much damage the fire will do in the environment they’re in (again, irl he would most likely skip this step and just say they die forever to be flippant to Will, but this is a show and that was not necessary for foreshadowing OR for Will to get upset enough to leave, unless it implies something more significant than just Mike being uninterested in the campaign at hand— which is only true if the damage from that attack WOULD actually permakill Mike and Lucas’ characters rather than 0 them out, because you can’t come back from permadeath under most circumstances but a 0 out or dropped game can easily be overwritten if/when you play again), and he’s fully trying to kill his character and Lucas’— and Lucas agrees??!?— which REALLY explains why this is what drives Will over the edge, because it’s not just Mike saying “I don’t want to play right now”, it’s Mike saying “I never want to play again (at least not in this extended patchwork campaign we’ve been running for years, which has been a particular labour of creative love for you and I, Will, as I’ve spent hours writing for it and you’ve spent hours drawing for it)” and Lucas agreeing. Hence, this is why Lucas makes time to apologize when they have “bigger things” going on (it’s not JUST about that session, even in Lucas’ actions), and hence why Mike implicitly saying that he does want to play again, and that he does want to play again with Will IS actually an apology for what he did wrong that led to their bigger argument (though obv it doesn’t address the comment he made about Will not liking girls, and I highly suspect Mike won’t get to apologize for that until he finds out Will actually doesn’t like girls, because there’s no way Mike CAN apologize for that, with the information he currently has, without either only halfway apologizing, which would be narratively frustrating, or unintentionally hurting Will more, which would be narratively pointless— plus it adds to the drama of Will finally coming out to Mike if Mike gets to have a moment of horror over “oh GOD you’re— and I said— *oh*, oh no”). I just… the context of this fight is really interesting to me.

But the implication behind the context (assuming that it’s meant to imply something about Mike’s play style and isn’t just him saying Literally Anything to get out of the game— which I assume it is because “uh… we decide the challenge is too great and flee to regain our strength/get reinforcements” is totally an option Mike could have taken instead, and would also have foreshadowed the end of s3 with El losing her powers and having to “flee” to Cali while waiting to get her powers back— with less permanent consequences/a lower chance of hurting Will as deeply as what Mike actually did does) is that Mike was paying enough attention to the session/environmental details to know exactly how to end things the whole time, because he can pull it out the instant he really wants to. He simply didn’t, because, for all that he was complaining, he was willing to keep playing the game. This may honestly be why Will (who knows Mike well enough to know how skilled he is) seems totally willing to keep playing/keep being in character even while Mike is being performatively bored/to not be taking it seriously. Because the unspoken truth is, Mike proves to the audience that he can end the game any time he wants, if he’s willing to make ruthless sacrifices in order to do it. So if Mike is still playing before that moment, it means he’s still interested/still willing to humour Will, no matter how he’s acting outwardly.

ALL of which is to say… firstly, if Mike can just decide to end a session/campaign that confidently at the drop of a hat, when he’s at least pretending to be disengaged, he would be an INVALUABLE player as part of a team, because he could absolutely figure out a way to do that same action, or something like it, without resulting in his and Lucas’ characters’ deaths (people do crazier things in dnd all the time and their characters survive because Antics with feats, abilities, and magical items are essentially what the game is about). Secondly… the honest answer for why Mike DMs? Might legitimately be because it’s hard to DM for him when he’s on his game. He’s clearly done something to make Hellfire respect him in s4 (and he zeros out FAST which… paladins are tanks, especially when they get up around lvl 16 (iirc?), assuming Lady Applejack is representative of the group level— so while it’s not impossible that he might have just taken enough hits that beat his AC to run out his HP, it’s also possible that Eddie might have angled for taking him out/Eddie’s Vecna might have angled to take out his character so he couldn’t screw things up, much like a number of theories suspect Henry will do in s5), and he breaks/ends Will’s campaign the exact moment he wants to (also dear god— DMing for Mike and Dustin working together? That sounds like an actual nightmare and I respect Eddie so much as I’m thinking of it, like, there’s a reason he says those two are the future of Hellfire lol). That’s a hard person to DM for (it can be rewarding if you like DMing, and can totally be done, but when I think about Mike’s likely style of play, based on what we know about him, the only thing I can think is Emily Axford in Dimension 20 planning and executing Operation Slippery Puppet right under Brennan’s nose— which plays SO well in that session, where Brennan described what was happening to him as the DM as “being Oceans-11’d on [his] own show”, but would frustrate or throw off a lot of newer DMs). A player like that with a good DM (which Eddie is heavily suggested to be) is an awesome combination, but can be a Lot if you don’t know what you’re doing/aren’t yet great at figuring out what to do with curveballs on the fly.

And finally…

4) Mike, by proxy to being a good DM who is also a good tactician (not an absolute requirement for a DM who is good enough with narratives/character work/rewardingly challenging encounters) is actually a brilliant enough tactician that he can modulate his abilities in order to make sure his players feel challenged by the encounters he has set up without finding it impossible.

And, yes, part of this comes down to appropriate challenge selection which usually happens in the planning phase of campaign/session building. But a lot of things happen on the fly. And the comics, at least (iirc— I’ve only seen them in sceenshots), imply that Mike actually gives his big bads real hit points and sticks to them (which you DO NOT have to do— LOTS of DMs don’t do this because for a satisfying narrative you just have the bad guy last long enough that everyone gets to do something they can feel good about and that it feels like the battle’s gone on long enough to be challenging), and he thinks practically/tactically about how they’ll be attacked. Iirc in one of the comics, he remembers that Lucas is next in the initiative order after Will, who already took his turn against the Demogorgon, and realizes that Lucas will kill it based on HP and the items Lucas’ character has on him, and Mike does end up fudging things a little, again iirc, but only after getting stuck on how to make the battle last longer in a practical/tactical way (because no matter how brilliant you are, sometimes there’s no way out), and after Nancy makes a suggestion which gets him to consider options which technically don’t fit the rules of combat he has in his head.

Meaning, Mike is tactically skilled enough to, under most circumstances, make an appropriately levelled fight challenging to the point of being rewarding, but not so challenging as to be frustrating to the players. And to keep it that way on the fly when they pull something weird and unexpected. He can modulate his tactical skills, essentially, to what’s needed in the moment. Which is pretty impressive.

All of which… really explains why his irl plans always work out tbh.

(Shhh now I need a fic where Will and El are doing heists a la Will’s idea in s4 and Mike’s the guy drawing up the plans I’m desperate shhhh.)

But also!! I think it’s super interesting that the Party is broken up into a pair of good liars (Mike and Will— even if they don’t LIKE lying, we see in s4 that they’re good at it together, Mike’s the only even vaguely smooth liar in the Party in s1, and Will shows at the end of s1 that he’s good at it when he lies about the slug) and a pair of bad liars (Lucas and Dustin). Without saying anything about the question of how, if Mike is intended to be read as queer, this also breaks the Party up along (canonically acknowledged) queer vs cishet lines and the broader meta commentary there on queer children learning to lie convincingly from early on in ways their cishet peers often don’t (or at least don’t learn for the same reasons)… this is the divide between Party members we know to be at least decent DMs (Mike and Will) and Party members who we have never seen DM or show any interest in DMing (Dustin and Lucas). Now, obviously DMing isn’t the same thing as lying, but some of the skills are transferable. Being a good DM requires creativity, but it’s also creativity that happens on the fly/in an improvised way. At the same time, it also requires you to keep track of those things you’ve made up, to keep them internally/logically consistent, and to get you good at making things up in concert with your players also making things up on the fly (hence, Mike and Will are not only good at lying alone, but also as a tag team even when Argyle attempts to help by supplying something stupid which would have caused lesser liars than Mike and Will to trip). AND you have to develop a poker face when you’re DMing, which really helps when lying.

ALL of which is to say… god it’s fascinating how Mike as a DM plays into his broader characterization!!!

My final point? I’ve seen some confusion on this point (it was a while ago and I honestly can’t even remember if it was on Tumblr or from talking to someone I know irl, but I wanted to mention it anyway because I do have some thoughts), but— Mike in s1 saying that he spent two weeks planning his campaign? Not overkill, and not him over-prepping, especially given that he also goes to school and does clubs/hangs out with his friends outside of dnd. Honestly, one of the hallmarks of a good DM (which Mike appears to be) is that they don’t over-prepare. They HAVE things prepped, and usually have an idea how a given session will go/an overarching plan for the campaign (typically), but too much prep work can easily lead to railroading your players or being otherwise inflexible when people want to do something you didn’t think about. With that being said, what “over-preparing” looks like depends significantly on who you are as a DM, who your players are, and what sort of campaign you’re running. Personally, I’m currently prepping for a campaign that starts in February, and I have been (between other commitments) working on it since mid-December. In my case, it’s pretty long form, and very character driven, so a lot of that has been me figuring out the world and then getting info from my players about their characters and figuring out how to make sure the narrative accommodates them all equally, AND it’s in a homebrew system that I had to construct for the purposes of this game so… yeah, lots of work. A lot of that is outside the scope of what Mike would need to do, but two weeks isn’t an unreasonable amount of time to spend, especially given that there are likely days when he barely has any time to work on it, if he has the chance at all. Especially because the comics imply Mike thinks really carefully about how his players will counter what he throws at them so he can make sure they have a good fight (and as a form of character/narrative control— so the fight ends the way Mike wants it to but in an organic way where the players feel they succeeded).

What I will say is interesting about that two weeks line, though, is how Karen reacts. Because Mike says “this campaign took two weeks to plan”, and Karen responds by rolling her eyes. Which is an entirely unreasonable reaction. I get that she’s annoyed by Mike in that moment, and I can even roughly understand why she’s annoyed to hear they’ve been playing for ten hours (even though… how did she not know? She knew they were in the basement that long SURELY— at least one would hope— and dnd is not a video game so… I’m mildly confused how dnd is worse than just hanging out and talking/eating snacks which is theoretically the only other thing they could be doing down there all day)… but. When your kid says a creative project of theirs took two weeks to put together? That’s not when you roll your eyes!! Sure, you can and should be firm on the fact that they need to finish the following week, if they really do need to, but rolling your eyes in that moment heavily implies that you are rolling your eyes at their work. Which?? God, I get that Karen and Ted are not interested in dnd and do not understand how much effort actually goes into planning a good campaign. But????? I hate that response from Karen so much, and I think it’s more subtle but just as telling as Ted’s interest in the TV over Mike in that same scene.

I just. They specifically show Karen rolling her eyes at that moment, NOT when Mike asks for twenty more minutes. And then later in s1 they go out of their way to show Joyce remembering spending time with Will and asking him questions about Will the Wise with interest (despite also clearly not understanding the game), and encouraging all the time he spends drawing for/about this game, and offering to get him new crayons (which is a significant expense for the Byers, presumably hence why Will makes due with green fireballs rather than bringing up the fact that he doesn’t have any more orange) so he can do his art properly… I don’t know. I just think it goes a long way to illustrate some of the differences in Mike and Will’s home lives.

[blade-that-was-broken]

We don’t talk enough about how John Dory was the other 5 troll tribes only exposure to what a pop troll is like for years. I’m not sure if that would raise or lower their expectations and or opinions on pop trolls. Cause on one hand he’s pretty chill with things he doesn’t understand on the other hand if you tell him his music sucks he will probably fist fight you. If you tell him pop music that’s not his music sucks he’ll probably be chill with it tho. Zero chance he’s going to mention the bergan thing and if they tell him about how pop music ruined everything he’ll probably accept that face value.

That is very true! Now I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why people haven’t but that’s a really good concept to think about. I think trolls are naturally and instinctually very protective of their music so telling another troll their music sucks is like a huge insult. Telling them it’s not their thing or just pointing out small bits that they can appreciate; fine. But telling a troll their type of music is awful? They’d be mad.

I think sub genres that don’t have a lot of members like the Yodelers perhaps would be even more protective of their music and take even more offense to comments.

I think JD would care more about his music as a writer/song creator than pop music as a whole. Cause I’m sure there is even differences of opinion about music WITHIN their own tribes. Not every pop troll loves the same pop songs as another pop troll. And that goes for all tribes.

I think John’s saving grace is that he’s a good writer. Like his music is wildly popular. So even if other trolls don’t like the beat or the music, the dude can WRITE A SONG and it shows.

Funny concept - when trolls start really talking to each other again they expect pop trolls to be really good song writers cause the one guy they do know from pop is incredibly good at writing songs. Only to find out… it’s just him and not ALL pop trolls.

Assumptions go both ways you know?

I think JD mellows out when he’s on the road (I also think he’s kinda crazy in the movie cause he found out his brothers are alive and after years of thinking they were dead I’d be a little crazy too but that’s just a head canon) so in certain instances he may be a little much. As we know and love. But other times, he’s just like chill and going with what’s going on. Idk. Just a thought.

I don’t know about not ever saying anything about the Bergens. I don’t think he would go out of his way to tell people and IF he did tell anyone, it would be someone he’s more comfortable with. I think it would be extremely rare and unlikely but not entirely out of the picture. It depends on context.

He probably would accept that, whatever story someone told him, especially if he didn’t finish school. I don’t think he would feel guilty about things “his” people did who knows how long ago because he had nothing to do with it, but definitely a dang that sucks and just accepts it as kind of a part of history.

[tobiasdrake]

So, my opinion on Wanda (if you don't mind hearing it)...

If we're going to condemn Wanda and say she needs to be punished for what she did, should we not hold characters like Tony Stark to the same standard for being such a huge part of the global war machine that directly caused a significant part of Wanda's own trauma, or for accidentally causing the Ultron incident due to his own trauma motivating him to try and protect the world through his obviously-a-bad-idea technology? What of Banner, who arguably could have prevented a lot of the damage the Hulk did if he just gave himself up to the military to be experimented on instead of fighting for his right to exist freely? Or Clint's Ronin phase after the Snap? Even Wanda volunteering to be experimented on by Hydra, she was a young traumatized person who was exploited, as is typical of military and terrorist organizations to do. She most certainly had agency in that decision and killing out of revenge isn't exactly good, let alone all the collateral, but if we argue that Wanda deserves punishment for the harm she has done, then is she also not justified in wanting to punish Stark and others complicit in the atrocities she's suffered where she and her family were the collateral?

And complicating matters is that due to her powers, Wanda having a breakdown has a greater impact than say, if I went a little crazy in my grief. Her simply lashing out has huge consequences because she has reality-warping abilities that are downright instinctual for her to use. It's kinda a problem a fantastical world of super-powered people would have to deal with. How do you deal with people in crisis who normally would have a small, undirected impact when they lash out, but now have to actively restrain themselves from causing massive damage with careless use of their laser eyes or magic? Two individuals could have the exact same character, the exact same reaction, and cause vastly different amounts of harm. If Wanda didn't have her powers, she simply would not have been capable of what she did.

(And, more practically, how do you implement our current carceral justice system on someone with powers without breaking several dozen human rights laws like with the RAFT? More than ever, crime reduction, rehabilitation and restorative justice would become the only practical way of dealing with the majority of powered individuals like Wanda long-term because A) restraining them is hard, and B) the most important goal, which is or should already true of most crime but especially when you're dealing with someone who could blow up a city, is to prevent them from re-offending which punitive justice is hardly good at)

Which is basically a long way of saying Wanda did some bad things, but punishing her when she clearly wants to just heal and not hurt people doesn't make much sense, especially in the more fantastical context of the MCU. I also find a lot of the people who want her to "face consequences" to be a little... strange about it? It's one thing to complain about a character being let off the hook for what they did with only a slap on the wrist and seeing them as given undeserved sympathy, but a lot of people seem to really want her to just suffer in a way they don't with other MCU characters who've done similar stuff.

Oh, absolutely, Tony has a lot to answer for that the franchise just lets him skate for. Civil War, the movie that pointedly refuses to talk about Johannesburg, also pointedly refuses to talk about Tony's culpability in making Ultron. It never comes up.

It condemns the Avengers for being too careless with collateral damage while fighting Ultron - A wildly hollow accusation for anyone who actually saw the third act of that film. It accuses them of destroying Sokovia through their careless disregard for civilian lives. But the fact that they, and specifically Tony and Hulk, made Ultron? Never comes up.

And I would be the last person to defend Clint's Ronin phase. The fact that he's a serial mass-murderer who gets to just retire to a happy family is something I find intensely bothersome, which greatly affected my enjoyment of him moving forward. That's going to come up when we get to Hawkeye.

[horseforeplay]

i am 99% certain i know who you're talking about. we're still in mutuals because i'm afraid of her after noticing how many rumors about p***** t***** linked back to her but what the fuck happened if you don't mind sharing?

hmmmmmm yea. no comment re: p.t. but i can speak to my own experience

it's still hard to talk about but i was dazzled by a relationship with a B-list tumblr lesbian when i was seventeen and she was nineteen where she used me as her therapist and refused to let me leave when i realized the relationship was wildly unbalanced and unfulfilling. she was incredibly charming online but during her first physical visit it became clear that she did not care about who i was as a human being and we had zero chemistry. we kissed maybe twice during a nearly three-year relationship and when i attempted to get out she would threaten self-harm and suicide in retaliation. this went on (with my total compliance -- i can't think of a single way she abused me which i did not eagerly collaborate with her on and make compassionate excuses for) until, about four months after our "official" breakup (one she vetted for nearly six months before she felt comfortable going public with the news)............ i was taking a two-hour exam at college and left the classroom to find almost thirty voicemails calling me names, accusing me of cheating, telling me she hoped i was happy with whoever had poisoned me against her. four months after the breakup. and i finally blocked her phone number. and she made tumblr post after tumblr post (including one with my phone number so her followers would call me to "talk some sense into me") stating that if i did not speak to her she had a plan for killing herself. i have comprehensive screenshots of this meltdown, but they are boggling and upsetting and i don't care to share them in the context of just uhhhh LOL answering an anon on my succession blog. so i deleted the blog i'd had since i was a kid. i had enough. i cannot tell you how surreal it was to break down and call her, weeks after, just missing this person who had alienated me from my friends and family to such an extent that i believed she was one of the only people in my life who loved me, to hear zero emotion in her voice as she told me it was over because my blog was gone. the relationship was no longer a public source of clout for her and therefore not worth her attention. she immediately moved on to bullying a different cartoonist into submission. i did not realize the extent of what i endured until i was able to connect with other people who dated her and we were able to compare stories. i even apologized to her, owning up to my behavior in the relationship (after a stint in codependents anonymous and early transition anxieties made me dead-set on doing the right thing with zero regard for the reality of my situation) and then realized with horror that someone she abused soon after me also apologized around exactly the same time. all of our stories had frightening similarities -- the idyllic super-online early days, her dead-faced disinterest when she met us in person which would flip into picture-perfect happiness as soon as she pointed the camera at herself (one ex had a story about her seeming bored and even being pointedly mean to them until she insisted they take a selfie, at which point she would not stop kissing them as long as the camera was on). like i am a human being who has certainly hurt friends and partners and then made clunky choices when it came to amends, i'm not some saintly victim because i encountered this person (and neither are any of the other people i connected with who had similar stories about her), but i'm not gonna put my hands over my eyes and pretend i don't see a bloody trail of repeated behavior with her just because none of us are perfect survivors. literally no survivor ever is

and LOL i don't mind sharing. while also bearing in mind that social media is truly not the forum for understanding any of this, like this is Her Domain for a reason. survivor testimony, no matter how articulate, just does not hold a candle to practiced DARVO tactics and the tried and true appeal of being shamelessly and flippantly cruel on the internet for fun. like i can be as honest and earnest as possible Online but if i think for a second that that'll save me i'm fucked. like i am smart enough now to know this LOL. the complexities of that relationship, what it was like being on this site between 2012-2016, how much shame and fear around transness played into it, how tied up fandom behavior was in interpersonal abuse........ like. i'm gonna make comics about it because that's where my power is. like i'm grateful i am no longer so afraid of this person that i feel like i can't Share My Truth Online but also this is not the end-all-be-all for how i express myself. it's much bigger than fuckin..... posting u know

[alexcaldownapier]

KEEPER - Post-Production

Final Proof of Concept for KEEPER (This is the submission version so does not have full credits, they are in the description, it only has the assessed members credited - this will be rectified before it is made public on the film's social media and crowdfunder)

After my deep dissatisfaction with the rushes, I was over the moon with the edit. Jake managed to work his magic with the few usable parts of the footage, making something that does exactly what we had wanted it to do.

On their own, the shots seemed muddled narratively and poorly executed, however, in the context of the edit, the shots totally work! The perspective is consistent and draws us in to our main character and the stakes of the scene. The OTS shots on Graham (mainly a clean single in the final edit) really let us feel the pressure that Will is under from the coach (I'm also really happy with the effect of the moving camera in these shots). The lens gets longer and the camera pushes in constantly throughout the scene, pushing us ever closer to the moment the ball is kicked into the back of the net. While there are still some framing issues (the tracking shot of Will is very awkward) and focus issues (the tracking shot again, as well as the final shot) Jake managed to keep these to a minimum, making my work seem a lot slicker than it actually was. Really, a hell of an editor, that boy.

We had a couple rounds of feedback from the whole team and then from only Ben before the picture was locked. I got straight into the colour grade - I can't sit on footage, it must be played with.

The different lighting conditions on the filming day

My main challenge with the colour grade was matching the footage from the different weather/lighting types we had when filming. Both the contrast and the exposure changed drastically throughout the day. Strangely, the bright, direct sunlight happened twice, but both those times managed to fall on when we were shooting the dive, so in actuality, it was only a few shots that were wildly different, the rest were more or less the same. I spent half a day getting the levels to match and getting the contrast to a good place before going into the the "look". At first, Ben wanted a yellow-y tinge to the grass as we'd seen in some of the inspiration images, but after doing a full pass with this style, I wasn't satisfied. Ben gave me a specific image to grade to for the dirt:

grading reference

I managed to get a look relatively close to this, however, I wasn't a fan of how luminant the greens were. I then tried a version that had deeper, colder greens, which is the final version. I'm really happy with the way Will and Graham's red tops stand out and draw our eyes in. One issue I was having was the paleness of our main actor, a complexion I've never seen before. It was a struggle to bring out any real saturation to his skin tones, but I think this added to the cold feeling of the environment. To add to the dirty feeling, I used a 35mm film grain overlay which I like, although it is a lot less noticeable on my laptop monitor than it was in the grade or on the Mac monitor. Other little effects included the aspect ratio (5:3) which Ben had suggested which I ended up really liking as it gives a nice middle ground between framing faces and framing the width of the pitch. And finally a little vignetting to accentuate the tunnel-vision feel. Overall, I'm happy with the way the film looks and although this look is nowhere close to what the final film will be like (in terms of colour and contrast) as we will be filming at night under spotlights, I think I still managed to further develop my colour grading skills which will help next year.

And then we added the credits (Just the assessed members for this submission) and uploaded to Vimeo. The workflow was all smooth on my end and I'm really happy with how we progressed through post-production.

And then I just had my final reflection to do and a few days to work on my other project...