#and no one claims that they’re rushed and underdeveloped and that’s why one of them should be written off the show

[djungleskogs]

.

[him-e]

what did you think of shadow and bone? have you read the books? i only read the duology

Thoughts on Shadow and Bone, now that you've probably seen it?

I think the show is alright? It lacks a real wow factor as far as I’m concerned, but it’s enjoyable. It’s especially enjoyable in those parts I didn’t anticipate to like / didn’t even know would be there. 

Whereas the main selling points leave a lot to be desired.

The good stuff: the visuals. The aesthetic. The overall concept. Production, casting and costumes are excellent, the setting is fascinating. The worldbuilding isn’t perfect and is sometimes confusing, which is probably due to the show jumping ahead of the books and introducing elements that happen much later in the book saga, but I’m loving the vague steampunk-y vibe of it mixed with more typical fantasy stuff and slavic-inspired lore, the fact that it’s set in dystopian Russia rather than your usual ye olde England.

I find it interesting that in this ‘verse the Grisha are simultaneously superstars, privileged elite, legendary creatures and despised outcasts, according to the context and the type of magic they wield. It’s A Lot, and so far it’s all a bit underdeveloped and messy, like a patchwork of different narratives and tropes sewn together without an organic worldbuilding structure. (there are hints to a past when they were hunted, but how did they go from that to being, essentially, an institutionalized asset to the government isn’t clear yet. There’s huge narrative potential in this, and I hope future seasons will delve into those aspects)

Many of the supporting characters are surprisingly solid. I appreciated that Genya and Zoya eventually sort of traded places, subverting the audience’s assumptions about them and their own character stereotypes, despite the little screentime they were given.

Breakout characters/ships for me were Nina/Matthias, and even more so the Crows, i.e. the stuff I didn’t see coming and knew nothing about (having only read the first book). (I thought the entire Crows subplot was handled in a somewhat convoluted way, at least in the first episodes; it was hard to keep track of who wanted Alina and why, but the Crows’ chemistry is so strong it carried the whole Plot B on its shoulders).

HELNIK. As an enemies to lovers dynamic, Helnik was SUPER on the nose, I’d say bordering on clichéd with the unapologetic, straight outta fanfiction use of classic tropes like “we need to team up to survive” and “there’s only one bed and we’ll freeze to death if we don’t take our conveniently damp clothes off and keep each other warm with the heat of our naked bodies” (not that I’m complaining, but i like to pine for my ships a bit before getting to the juicy tropetown part, tyvm). And then they’re suddenly on opposite sides again because of a tragic misunderstanding - does Bardugo hate high-conflict dynamics? It certainly seems so, because between Helnik and Darklina I’m starting to see a pattern where the slow burn and blossoming mutual trust is rushed and painted in broad, stereotypical strokes to get as fast as possible to the part where they *hate each other again* and that’s... huh. Something.

^That’s probably why I’m almost more interested in Kaz x Inej, because their relationship feels a bit more nuanced, a bit more mysterious, and a bit more unpredictable. (I didn’t bother spoiling myself about them, so I really don’t know where they’re going, but it’s refreshing to see a dynamic that the narrative isn’t scrambling to define in one direction or the other as quickly as possible)

-

Now, as for Darklina VS Malina... I found exactly what I expected. 

Both are ship dynamics I’m, on principle, very much into (light heroine/dark villain, pining friends to lovers) but both are also much less interesting than they claim to be, or could have been with different narrative choices. I’ll concede that the show characters are all more fleshed out and likable than their book counterparts, and the cringe parts I vaguely remembered from the books played out differently. And, well, Ben Barnes dominates the scene, he’s hot as HELL, literally every single second he’s on screen is a fuck you to Bardugo’s attempts to make his character lame and uninteresting and I’m LOVING it, lol.

But yeah, B Barnes aside, Darklina is intrinsically, deliberately made to be unshippable. 

It makes me mad, because it’s - archetypally speaking - made of shipping dynamite: yin/yang-sun and moon, opposites attract, COMPLEMENTARY POWERS AND SO ON. And what does Bardugo do with these ingredients? A FUCKING DELIBERATE DISASTER:

^ Placing the kiss so early on (season 1, episode five) effectively kills the romantic tension that was (correctly) building up until that point, and leaves the audience very little to still hope for, in terms of emotional evolution of the dynamic. 

Bardugo lays all the good stuff down as early and quickly as possible (the bonding, the conflicted attraction, the recognizing the other as one’s equal, etc) only to turn the tables and pull the rug so y’all sick creepyshippers won’t have anything to look forward to, because THEY’VE ALREADY HOOKED UP AND THAT BELONGS TO THE PAST, IT’S OVER, THEY’RE ENEMIES. This, combined to the fact that she falls for him *without* knowing who he really is, is the opposite of what I want from a heroine/villain ship (it’s basically lovers to enemies, and while that can be valid too, I wanted to see more pining and more prolonged, tormented symbolic attraction to the Shadow/Animus on Alina’s part). 

But here’s the trick: it’s not marketed as lovers to enemies - it has all the aesthetics and trappings of an enemies to lovers (the Darkling is, from the get go, villain-presenting, starting from his name), so it genuinely feels like a trollfic, or at the very least a cautionary tale *against* shipping the heroine with the tall dark brooding young villain, and I don’t think it’s cool at all. It makes the story WAY less interesting, because it humanizes the villain early on (when it’s not yet useful or poignant to the story, because it’s unearned) but it’s a red herring. The real plot twist is that the villain shouldn’t be sympathized with, just defeated: there’s a promise of nuanced storytelling, that is quickly denied and tossed aside. So is the idea of incorporating your Shadow (a notion that Bardugo must be familiar with, otherwise she wouldn’t have structured Alina and the Darkling as polar opposites who complement each other, but that she categorically refutes)

Then we have Malina. The good ship.

Look, I’m not that biased against it. I don’t want to be biased on principle against a friends to lovers dynamic that antagonizes a heroine/villain one, because every narrative is different, and for personal reasons I can deeply relate to the idea of being (unspeakably) in love with your best friend. So there are aspects of Malina that I can definitely be into, but it troubles me that in this specific context it’s framed as a regression. It’s Alina’s comfort zone, a fading dream of happiness from an idealized childhood, to sustain which the heroine systematically stunts her growth and literally repressed her own powers, something that in the books made her sickly and weak. But the narrative weirdly romanticizes this codependency, often making her tunnel vision re: going back to Mal her primary goal and centering on him her entire backstory/motivation, to the point that when she starts acting more serious re: her powers and alleged mission to destroy the Fold, it feels inorganic and unearned. 

Mal is intrinsically extraneous to Alina’s powers, he doesn’t share them, he doesn’t understand them, he has little to offer to help her with them, and so the feeling is that he’s also extraneous to her heroine’s journey, aside from being a sort of sidekick or safe harbor to eventually come back to. People have compared him to Raoul from Phantom of the Opera, and yeah, he has the same ~magic neutralizer~ vibe, tbh.

The narrative also polarizes Mal’s normalcy and relative “safety” against Aleksander’s sexy evil, framing Alina’s quasi-platonic fixation on the former as a better and purer form of love than her (much more visible and palpable) attraction to the latter. This is exacerbated by the show almost entirely relying on scenes of them as kids to convey their bond. I’m sure there are ways to depict innocent pining for your best friend that don’t involve obsessively focusing on flashbacks of two CHILDREN running in a meadow and looking exactly like brother and sister. LIKE. I get it, they’re like soulmates in every possible way, BUT DO THEY WANT TO KISS EACH OTHER?

Which brings me to a general complain: for a young adult saga centering on a young heroine and full of so many hot people, this story is weirdly unsexy? There are a lot of shippable dynamics, but they’re done in such a careless, ineffective way that makes ZERO EFFORT to work on stuff like slow burn, pining and romantic tension, and when it does it’s so heavy handed that the viewer doesn’t feel encouraged at all to fill the blanks with their imagination and start anticipating things (which is, imo, the ESSENCE of shipping). The one dynamic that got vaguely close to this is, again, Kaz and Inej, and coincidentally it’s also the one we didn’t get confirmed as romantic YET. Other than that, where’s the slow burn? What ship am I supposed to agonize over during the hiatus to season two? Has shipping become something to feel ashamed of, like an embarrassing relative you no longer want to invite in your home?

Anyway, back to Alina/Darkling/Mal, this is how the story reads to me:

girl suspects to be special, carefully pretends to be normal so she can stay with Good Boy

the girl’s powers eventually manifest; she’s forcibly separated from Good Boy

the girl’s powers attract Bad Boy who is her equal and opposite but is also a major asshole

girl initially falls for Bad Boy; has to learn a hard lesson that nobody that sexy will ever want her for who she is, he’s just trying to exploit her

also, no, there is no such thing as a Power Couple

girl is literally given a slave collar by Bad Boy through which he harnesses her power (a parody of the Twin Scars trope)

you know how the story initially suggested that the joint powers of Darkness and Light would defeat evil? LOL NO, Darkness is actually evil itself and the way you destroy evil is using Light to destroy Darkness, forget that whole Jungian bullshit of integrating your shadow, silly!

conclusion: girl realizes being special sucks. She was right all along! Hiding and suppressing her powers was the best choice! She goes back to the start, to the same Good Boy she was meekly pining for prior to the start of the story.

... there’s an uncomfortable overall subtext that reads a lot like a cautionary tale against - look, not just against darkships and villain/heroine pairings, but also *overpowered* heroines and, well... change? Growth?

Like, it’s certainly a Choice that Alina starts the story *already* in love with Mal. That she always knew it was him. The realization could have happened later (making the dynamic much more shippable, too), but no. 

[condorclaw]

“Oi, Phil.”

Large blue eyes glowed in the night and turned to face the avian, who was trying to climb the tree higher. A quiet chirr emitting from the large, feathered beast. His ‘voice’ was soft, but clear. Hello Tommy. Do you need something?

As Phil’s voice echoed, the elytrian began to crawl down from the top of the tree. His wing-claws hooked along the lower branches with ease, allowing him to maneuver until he was directly in front of Tommy, hanging above the younger’s branch. His long neck craned around, allowing him to meet Tommy’s eyes with his own.

Phil was frightening in appearance, his long, pitch-black body often enwrapped in his four thick wings, making him an intimidating creature. Tommy didn’t see him as that, though. Humans saw Phil as some kind of nightmarish beast, who would swoop in and steal away their cattle and crops, leaving terrified farmers and destruction in his wake.

For Tommy, however, Phil wasn’t just some mindless predator, but his father. The avian used to run around the tall mountaintops at night, waiting for Phil to come home with a large meal. After dinner, the elytrian would wrap his wings around Tommy, holding his son close as the two were lulled to sleep by the sound of the wind.

Tommy didn’t have any friends when he was younger due to his secluded snowy home, his only companion being an imaginary friend who sometimes appeared to play, but wouldn’t stay for long. As soon as Phil caught on to Tommy’s loneliness, he decided to move, wanting his son to become more social and make friends.

The two ended up moving to where they currently were in the present, a nice, secluded forest with a big lake for drinking. Nobody appeared to be living there, but it was more accessible for potential travellers. Sometimes Tommy would see a dark creature quickly dart between the trees, but figured that it was probably a weird sheep. With this new location came new possibilities, and there was one thing Tommy wanted to do more than anything.

“Phil, will you teach me to fly?” Tommy asked, his hand moving to subconsciously rub at his small head feathers. “I know you said that I couldn’t, because I could get hurt on the mountains and all that. But we can try it here, yeah?”

Phil was silent, which wasn’t anything new since he liked to think before responding. As the elytrian thought, he shifted his body, slowly lowering himself down from the tree, to the ground. Tommy followed his movements, landing on the soft earth next to his father.

“It doesn’t have to be anything dangerous,” Tommy mumbled, hoping to convince Phil. While Tommy hated taking things slow, if it would mean learning to fly as cool as Phil could, he’d be able to wait a little longer.

However, Phil remained silent, not glancing towards Tommy at all. It frustrated the boy a bit, and he reached over to gently tug on part of Phil’s robe. “Dad?”

Tommy. The avian jumped a little, his feathers slightly ruffling in surprise. Go play for a bit, okay?

Well, that wasn’t a fair answer. Tommy huffed, letting his feathers puff up a little so Phil could see how he was feeling. His father didn’t acknowledge them though, so Tommy turned and stomped away in the opposite direction.

“That was a shit answer.” He mumbled, pulling an apple out of his pocket, and biting into it.

“I’m sure he has a reason for it.” Wilbur murmured, causing Tommy’s feathers to puff up again, making him appear like a fearful pigeon.

“Gods, Wilbur! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” The avian groaned, trying to slap at the other boy. His efforts were useless as usual, as his hand went right through Wilbur’s face.

While Tommy wouldn’t admit it, he liked Wilbur’s visits. Even though he wasn’t real, Wilbur really did feel like he was his own person, which resulted in a lot of strange conversations between Tommy and Phil. Tommy had insisted to his father for several months that Wilbur was real, but Phil had argued against that, claiming that he couldn’t see Wilbur at all. Tommy eventually learned to accept that Wilbur was just a figment of his imagination, and not some kind of ghost.

“Apologies!” Wilbur laughed, his eyes sparkling. He began to phase through the ground, with only his head visible, which always made Tommy smile a little.

“I do believe Phil has a good reason for not teaching you,” Wilbur continued, Tommy watching the man swim through the dirt. “Maybe you can’t fly?”

Tommy scoffed. “And why wouldn’t I be able to fly? Phil can fly, and I have feathers and wings just like him! Yeah, they aren’t as big, but they’re big enough to fly at least a little with!”

Wilbur emerged from the ground, brushing himself off even though he wasn’t dirty at all. “Maybe he’s just planning how to do it right now?”

“He better,” Tommy paused, flexing his small wings behind him. They were big enough to carry him, he had tried it before and was able to lift off of the ground for a few seconds.

A stabbing word shot into his mind, Tommy’s hands immediately rushing to grip his arms tightly. He hated the thought of that.

I’m not defective.

-

Phil looked up at the night sky, the stars shining brightly. He could hear Tommy talking to himself, and waited until the boy’s voice got farther and farther away. Once he was sure he couldn’t hear his son anymore, Phil turned around and cracked a nearby boulder in half, letting out a shriek of rage.

Tommy wanted to fly. Of course he wanted to fly, he loved watching Phil do it, and there was nothing else in the world that Phil wanted more than his son being able to fly next to him. When Tommy was younger, all Phil could think about was showing his boy the sights above, wanting Tommy to experience the world how he did. The boy always wanted to fly, so it seemed like everything would go well.

And then Phil learned that Tommy would never be able to fly like he could.

Tommy’s feathers would never grow long enough to carry the wind properly, and his wings would be underdeveloped, only meant for gliding. Tommy would never be able to fly.

Phil needed to tell him. Phil needed to tell Tommy more than anything, but he didn’t want to hurt the boy in any way. Knowing Tommy, he would probably mentally berate himself for something he couldn’t control, and the thought of that just killed Phil. He would love Tommy no matter what, but Tommy could see it as something completely different, and would have to endure cruel taunting from potential friends.

Letting out a groan, Phil sat down on one of the halves of the boulder, covering his face with his wings, the thoughts bringing a few tears to his eyes.

He’s not defective.

[atinytokki]

Paradise

iv. The Pearl in the Oyster  

By the time San was seated in the boat with the wind on his face and the shores of his town on the horizon, he had overcome his shock at discovering a secret pirate refuge.

Jiyong and Mr. Shim had fussed over him and grilled him with questions after he was rescued, but from a combination of the fact that he wasn’t sure whether he had imagined the whole ordeal and the fact that he was terrified, he hadn’t given them much information.

“Please don’t tell my grandparents,” he suddenly begged as the Namhae docks came into view.

“San, you were lost in the caves for nearly an hour,” Mr. Shim argued as he adjusted the sails. “It would be irresponsible of me not to tell them.”

“But I’m not hurt!” San argued back, getting to his feet and swaying slightly with the momentum of the boat. “And they’ll only be angry at me for running away!”

Mr. Shim frowned at him, but he didn’t scold him again, so San took it as a sign to continue.

“Didn’t you ever wander off as a boy? You wouldn’t have wanted your parents to know, would you?”

“I did have my mischievous days,” the man admitted. “But I matured and stayed away from dangerous places until I could handle myself.”

He delivered this last line with a pointed glance, one that told San if he could shape up, he would be off the hook.

A smile grew on his face and he nodded eagerly.

“Alright,” Mr. Shim chuckled. “I was young once too, wasn’t I?”

San greeted the now familiar shores of his island with relief and helped to unload the boat until his grandparents appeared at the docks to collect him.

The old sailor reported that they had enjoyed a refreshing and uneventful time in the markets of Dalhae, true to his word. San waved goodbye to the two and flopped around in the back of the cart on the ride home.

Warm food in his belly and a gentle breeze  blowing through his window, San told Haneul of his adventures and organised her shells into a small wooden chest until Grandmother poked her head in and told them to go to bed.

Even as he stared into the fireplace and tried to fall asleep, the eyes of the pirate lingered in the back of his mind. 

Supposing San had gotten all the adventure that he needed, Grandfather put him to work in the carpentry shop the next morning and even more frequently after.

When he was out of the room, busy selling his wares in town, or asleep at the desk, San took it as an opportunity to stretch his sore leg and practice fighting invisible pirates in the carpentry shop unsupervised.

Of course, this resulted in the destruction of some of the carving displays and plank storage, so Grandfather passed him off to Grandmother while he cleaned up after him, and San was subject to quiet reading and a picnic on the beach for the afternoon.

For a boy with an active imagination, San’s life had become rather boring. Unless it was about pirates, it wasn’t interesting enough, so Grandmother in her indulgence gifted him a few naval history books in the hopes that he would be satiated. 

He was unsuccessful in discovering the identities of the pirates in the caves no matter how hard he researched, especially when all he had to go on was the fact that one had been sporting a peg leg (apparently a common occurrence among pirates) and the other had seemed... young. 

San had all but given up hope when one rainy day in late autumn, the familiar tapping sound of a peg leg resounded from the front path. 

His head shot up from where he had been in deep focus at his little desk, whittling a wooden ship (that Grandfather had discouraged, and didn’t need to know about) and he counted two seconds before the jangle of the bell rung out and the customer was on the doorstep, silhouetted by dripping rain that blinked silver in the lightning flash.

Suddenly, the stranger stepped closer and just like that, the fantasy was shattered. San didn’t recognise this man from the caves.

“Wh-Who are you?” He croaked out weakly, standing from his chair and watching the peg leg man intently. Pirate or no pirate, San was ready to defend the house from him if need be.

The man frowned and closed the door behind him, adjusting his satchel with an unreadable look in his eye. “I was informed you’d be expecting me.”

If they were expecting him, San wasn’t aware of the fact. It had only been three days since the magistrate had been over for dinner, and San’s grandparents didn’t invite guests that frequently. 

“Who are you, exactly?” He asked, trying to be polite, catching himself with a late bow.

“Oh, hello Dr. Hong!” 

Right on cue, Grandfather rushed out from the back room and came to shake hands with the man, whose large bag made a lot more sense now. 

A doctor.

San didn’t like doctors.

“I hope San didn’t let you stand out in the rain,” Grandfather was saying with a pointed glance that told San he was in trouble if he had.

“No, not at all,” Dr. Hong laughed as he was helped out of his coat. “The lad seemed wary, but I can see why.”

The doctor tapped his peg leg on the rug and San blushed at being called out. “I’ll tell you how I got it if you ask,” the man continued with a bright smile. “But first, I have a patient to attend to!”

Grandfather and the doctor hurried upstairs and left San to his own devices, wondering why a doctor had been called and quieting his intense curiosity about the peg leg as it began to grow again.

He finished the masts by the time Dr. Hong returned to the shop. Sensing the boy’s nervousness, the doctor quickly reassured him his visit was only a routine checkup.

“Haneul is doing well, all things considered,” he told him softly. “Though, you must always protect her and keep her healthy.”

San agreed in a heartbeat, not too naïve to forget why he was here on Namhae in the first place. 

Everything was for Haneul.

“Ah, yes, the leg,” the guest remembered just before leaving. 

San perked up and scooted closer to hear the tale. 

“It was back in my Navy days, before I picked up medicine,” he explained. “I was a gunner on one of those cargo transport ships, the Royal Longtail, back when the East Colonies were just starting out and the trade routes were being established. We were attacked by pirates on the trip back and I, an inexperienced soldier, was shot in the leg and carted to the infirmary for the rest of the battle. I thought for a few harrowing moments that I was on the brink of death, but somehow I was saved.”

“How?” San nearly burst out, leaning on the edge of his seat.

Dr. Hong displayed his peg leg again. “The surgeon chopped off my leg just above the knee and managed to stop the bleeding. That miracle— the one that saved my life— convinced me to switch to the field of surgery. It’s quite new and underdeveloped but as you can see, real results are happening!”

San smiled at the satisfying conclusion of the story and bid the doctor farewell.

He still didn’t like them as a rule, but he could make an exception for this one.  

Haneul claimed to be doing fine when San brought the evening meal up to her bedroom where she lay staring at the ceiling, but her skin was pale and clammy and from the way she was breathing he could tell she was anxious about something.

“Do you... want me to sit with you?” He asked timidly, unsure how to help once he’d set the plate on her bedside table and closed the window to shut out the breeze.

“No, just leave me alone,” his half-sister muttered, rolling over to face the wall and leaving San hurt and confused.

Without another word, he crept away and into his own room, tucking himself into bed. He knew not to take it personally, that sometimes she just got into moods like this when she was discouraged about her illness.

But it made San worry that the doctor hadn’t in fact told him everything.

Haneul appeared at breakfast but refused to play with him when he returned from school, in the few hours San had before he would be herded back into the carpentry shop.

It was disappointing but San took it as an opportunity to look for new friends, something he hadn’t put much effort into since arriving.

There were a couple of teenage girls with a five year old brother playing further down the beach on the rocks, the opposite way as Mr. Shim’s house, so San strolled over and introduced himself.

“I haven’t seen you before,” he admitted shyly. “Do you usually play further up the beach?”

“Yes,” the older of the two explained. “But today we’ve come here because of the construction.”

“Construction?” San asked, confused.

The girl pointed past the rooftops to the harbour where the masts craned like birds flocking along the shoreline. “The naval garrison. They’re finally building it.”

“It’s loud!” The little boy whined, crying when a particularly large swell washed him face-down into the sand. 

San giggled and helped him up, seamlessly joining in their hunt for oysters while they told him what the garrison in town was going to look like.

He couldn’t help but glance over the hill and wonder what it would mean for Namhae. The more Navy presence, the less likely pirates would appear. And the less likely the two from the Dalhae caves would appear.

As San cracked open an oyster and, to his amazement, found a lucky pearl, he decided maybe it was for the better.

He’d had his adventure- enough adventure for a lifetime. 

...

A/N:  Guess who finished her semester!!!!! It was a rough one tbh but now I can write unhindered so expect more from me soon, but in the meantime don't forget to rb and comment <3

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[montagnarde1793]

Ribbons of Scarlet: A predictably terrible novel on the French Revolution (part 2)

In case you were wondering, that’s not actually the novel’s subtitle, which is really “A Novel of the French Revolution’s Women.” But like, only the famous ones. Ok, I’m done. Moving on...

Parts 1, 3, 4 and 5.

Structural Issues

 While the choice of characters was a red flag for me (and not in a good way), choosing to structure the book the way they did was a mistake.

 This is true for a number of reasons. (I’m sorry, btw, for all the comparisons to Marge Piercy’s novel, but the shared conceit kind of made it inevitable.) Piercy’s characters also only got an average of 80 pages each (though as the typeset was denser, they arguably had a little bit more space), but since the POVs were interspersed, they played off each other much more naturally and allowed the characters the time to develop. Even there it could feel underdeveloped, but here it seems like they’re rushing the undeserved character development so they have some kind of complete arc for each character before the next part starts.

Some chapters are clumsier at this than others. The absolute worst is Pauline Léon’s, which is unsurprising for a number of reasons, but notably because she has the fewest pages of anyone except Charlotte Corday, who doesn’t really get an arc: she shows up in the plot already wanting to assassinate Marat; she succeeds; she doesn’t regret her decision; she’s tried and executed. That’s it.

 This choice also means that the main strength of this type of anthology goes largely untapped: namely, that we get different POVs on the same events. Since each protagonist is associated with a different period in time, we can only ever get their point of view on previous events through awkward flashbacks.

 It probably also accounts for one of the worst, most artificial and amateurish aspects of the book: the way in any given section the other six point of view characters are shoehorned into the narrative, whether it makes any sense or not. The protagonists of the different sections have to have some (highly improbable) relationship with one another or be reflecting on each other’s lives in the most ham-fisted, author-soapbox way possible. We’ll circle back to that last part in a bit.

 Possibly the most ludicrous example of this is Manon Roland’s inexplicable decision to take a random trip to Caen in mid to late August 1792 just so the author can have her run into Charlotte Corday. Like, do I even need to explain how little sense this makes? Apparently so. Look, first of all, going from Paris to Caen was not a trivial trip in the 18th century. Today you could make a day-trip of it and not be missed. It’s about 2 hours each way in the TGV. But in the 18th century, you’re looking at more like 2 days each way, minimum. Not the sort of trip you tend to make without an ostensible reason. Does Manon Roland have one, even as written? No, she does not. She’s going to Caen to flee the temptation of François Buzot’s advances. Which, ok, internal motivation for leaving Paris, but they don’t bother to give her a pretext. How is she going to explain to her husband her random absence of at least 4 days (not to mention the expense)? And why Caen (other than the external reason of the author’s wanting her to come across Corday)? She has no connections there. Does the author even know that the main person Manon Roland knows from the region is Buzot and that it’s therefore the last place she should flee to stop thinking about him? And she’s supposed to be a savvy politician: does she not care about the optics, as the interim Minister of the Interior’s wife, of fleeing in the opposite direction as the Austro-Prussian troops are advancing on Paris?

 And I know what you’re thinking: I’m overthinking this. This wasn’t a book designed for specialists. But I think a reader can tell when a world they’re reading about doesn’t feel fully fleshed-out. In that sense, it’s less about accuracy than it is about how flat and artificial a reading experience it makes for. One of the most valuable things I was taught in school was that when making a presentation, you should always know more than you intend to say. I think the same goes for fiction: you should know more about the setting and the characters than appears on the page. In this book I consistently have the impression that the authors know less.

 Moreover, the authors claim to have been striving for maximum consolidation of characters in order to reduce confusion, but it ends up coming across as both artificial and condescending. Trust your readers to be smart enough to work through their confusion. Otherwise you make it feel like there were a total of about 20 people in Paris during the Revolution, which, again, makes the setting feel completely artificial.

 While I’m not sure anything but better research and writing could have salvaged it, this book would have already been 1000% better if the characters met or thought about each other only when it would actually make sense for them to do so and the narratives were interwoven.

  The Authors are Desperate to Make Sure You Feel the Way They Want You to about Key Figures. They Also Think You’re Stupid

 Don’t get me wrong. I’m not accusing them of supposing their readers to be ignorant about the French Revolution. You should always assume your reader to be ignorant of what you’re going to tell them. Ignorant, but intelligent. That’s the key. The problem is that the authors don’t trust their audience.

 So we also get characters doing things like giving you a who’s who of the most famous (and only the most famous) authors, artists and activists of the time whether it makes sense for them to do so or not, like this is a textbook and we’ve got to make sure the reader is informed of the existence of all these figures (or maybe give them the chance to pat themselves on the back if they’ve already heard of some of them).

 Or my least favorite French Revolution trope: having Robespierre ominously show up in 1789 to start plotting the “Terror” (here they have him spouting the apocryphal* quote “pity is treason” to an audience of Sophie de Grouchy, Condorcet and the Sainte-Amaranthe family sometime in May or June 1789) (p. 89).

 *Presumably, it’s a corruption of declarations such as the one in his 5 November 1789 response to Louvet’s denunciation that “La sensibilité qui gémit presque exclusivement pour les ennemis de la liberté m’est suspecte.” (“I find the sensitivity that groans almost exclusively for the enemies of liberty suspect.”) or the one in his second speech on the judgment of Louis XVI of 28 December 1792: “la sensibilité qui sacrifie l’innocence au crime est une sensibilité cruelle ; la clémence qui compose avec la tyrannie est barbare” (“sensitivity that sacrifices innocence to crime is a cruel sensivity; clemency that compromises with tyranny is barbaric”).

 Again, we see the same need for oversimplification. Robespierre is, as one of the authors’ notes puts it, one of the “dangerous men” (back matter, p. 18) that should have been prevented from ever having power so he’s not allowed to ever do or say anything sympathetic. (And yeah, I know, death of the author and all that, I shouldn’t count the authors’ notes, but they really only serve as explicit confirmation of what could be pretty transparently inferred from the text and this way no one can accuse me of reading things into it that aren’t there.)

Because of this, even real quotes are cited out of context to the same end: when Robespierre says “pity is treason” in 1789, Condorcet says his bit from the Chronique de Paris article from April 1792 to his wife — you know the one, about Robespierre’s being admired by women because he’s basically a cult leader (p. 90). There’s no reason to think Condorcet had any particular enmity toward Robespierre (or even that Robespierre would have been on his radar) just after the opening of the Estates-General, though certainly, contrary to what is portrayed here, Condorcet was not a democrat in 1789 and Robespierre was. But again, historical figures we’re not supposed to like must be set up early and often as stock villains — otherwise you run the risk of your readers thinking for themselves, I guess. Also the Chronique de Paris quote (which is from an unsigned article generally attributed to Condorcet) is pretty damn misogynistic, which given the book’s stated main theme, you would think would be addressed in some way, but nope!

 Conversely, figures the authors like are liked by the characters — or they are at least forced to begrudgingly recognize their merit — whether it makes sense or not. One of the things Manon Roland is made to number among the things going “wrong” in August 1792 is “the hero Lafayette[’s being] forced into exile” (p. 261) and while it is the author of a different section who is a self-proclaimed La Fayette stan (thanks to Hamilton, of all things…) I think it’s fair to say from his portrayal in all the sections that we’re meant to admire him. But here’s the thing. I don’t really care what you think about La Fayette. That’s not the question. To Manon Roland in August 1792, La Fayette was a traitor who attempted to march his army against the Legislative Assembly and all her friends and allies in said Assembly voted to indict him. If you’re writing from her point of view, it should reflect that.

 Likewise, they have Pauline Léon describe Olympe de Gouges like this in July of 1793: “A defender of women, of slaves, I wish I could have admired her, but having aligned herself to my enemies, I could look at her no other way.” (p. 353). Olympe de Gouges is far better known now than she ever was in her lifetime, so making sure every character has an opinion on her is, once again, pretty artificial, but even assuming Pauline Léon had heard of her, Olympe de Gouges’s brand of feminism was an elitist one that excluded women like Pauline Léon and her abolitionism went out the window when the slaves actually started to rise up, so Pauline Léon actually would have had reason to dislike her beyond the logic of ‘you’re with me or you’re my enemy’ (there is a quote where she’s made to think precisely that, but I can’t seem to find it now — or maybe it was Reine Audu; they’re characterized pretty similarly in that respect). Likewise, Pauline Léon is made to disapprove of Condorcet or the Rolands because they don’t “[get] things done,” not because of any actual ideological disagreement (p. 349).

Probably the worst bit of condescension comes once again from Manon Roland’s section, where she tells a fellow spectator in the gallery of the Convention, “‘Don’t bother trying to tell the different assemblies and conventions apart,’” which is pretty transparently just the authors directly talking (down) to the reader rather than a conversation people who were living through events (and invested enough to be attending the Convention) would plausibly have had.

If it sounds like I’m being particularly harsh on the Manon Roland section, btw, I actually think it’s one of the less poorly done, at least in terms of rendering an historical figure’s mentality, most likely because unlike for some of the other figures, we have her memoirs and correspondence. It helps that the figures she’s supposed to hate line up with the figures the authors want us to hate as well. She saw herself as a reasonable republican and her Montagnard enemies as demagogues and that’s also clearly the authors’ assessment of the situation, so there’s less of the strange cognitive dissonance you get in some of the other chapters where even what is supposedly characters’ own POV frames them as wrong.

Stay tuned for style issues and reflections on what it means to “write what you want to know”!

[arlingtonpark]

SNK 126 Review

TFW you know you’re going to die. 

Just…where to even start.

God damn this chapter.

Rushed. Rushed. Rushed. Rushed. Rushed. Everything about this chapter was rushed. I don’t know what Isayama’s final destination is, but he sure pulled out all the stops to get there as fast as possible. Every possible chance Isayama could cut a corner, he took it. In every possible way.

People are speculating that we’ll get flashbacks that’ll sooth the sting of this chapter. I doubt it.

Attack on Titan has been pretty flashback heavy this past arc, but that was an artistic decision that served the story.

There was a three year time skip and that time needed to be filled out. We jumped ahead three years and suddenly Eren is AWOL and working with Zeke.

Showing events unfolding on Paradis interspersed with flashbacks to key moments during the time skip was a storytelling device.

Firstly, it allowed Isayama to control how much we knew about our character’s motivations.

Stuff happened in those three years, and those events have shaped the character’s actions in the present. Through strategically placed flashbacks, Isayama was able to slowly reveal new, relevant information about everyone’s motivations.

Secondly, flashbacks also allowed Isayama to build suspense. Again, flashbacks are strategically placed to reveal only what’s relevant.

When it seemed Eren was working with Zeke, we only saw stuff that made it seem like he was working with Zeke. Now that we know Eren was always working against Zeke, we’re seeing stuff that more directly deals with his true motivations.

And finally, having flashbacks helped keep things interesting. There’s a lot of political maneuvering during the post-Marley Arc chapters, and while well told, it could easily have been boring. Cutting between past and present was a way to break up these sequences of people mostly just talking with each other with something most would find interesting.

Having flashbacks actively improved the story.

Now think about chapter 126. What purpose would flashbacks serve here?

The answer is none. No artistic purpose, anyway. There probably will be flashbacks, but that’d be damage control, not artistry.

My hunch is that the gaps in the story are more due to rushed pacing, or even worse, Isayama just not caring. I think this becomes clear when you look at the totality of…whatever this chapter is.

True, we don’t see when Hange and co. made contact with Armin and co. and when they hooked up with Jean and Mikasa.

And it’s true we also didn’t see important beats like why Annie decided to join up, or why Magath and Pieck joined, too.

But we also didn’t see a lot of smaller stuff that we, nevertheless, *should* have seen.

Falco said he heard Connie mention Ragako Village while they were camped out. That didn’t happen on screen, but Connie was shown talking out loud, briefly. We are apparently supposed to take it as a given he mentioned Ragako, too. At some point.

When Armin and Gabi confront Connie in Ragako, they ride in on horseback and stop when Connie threatens Falco. But towards the end of the scene, we see that Armin and Gabi are standing on the ground. At some prior point, they dismounted their horses off screen.

Falco loved his brother. Then Colt died and Falco had a role in that. He died in Falco’s transformation. Hugging him. Crying for him. Falco never knew before now. His brother was dead and he never even realized. Now he learns it.

Off. Fucking. Screen.

He’s crying with Gabi and at first it seemed he was just overwhelmed by what happened.

Then I saw his speech bubble.

Falco [sobbing]: Colt.

Are you fucking kidding me. 

Things reach peak IDGAF during Onyankopon’s execution scene. In one panel, Jean is standing to Onyankopon’s back right. Next panel, he’s teleported to the back left. Then Jean points his gun at Onyankopon, and he’s on the back right again! When Jean pulls the trigger, he’s back to being on the left.

I doubt there’ll be flashbacks to any of this shit. These moments were obviously skipped because Isayama dropped the ball.

Maybe the homebuilder will go back and add that much needed support beam, but considering they seemingly forgot to fireproof the chimney, they probably aren’t.

I call it the Principle of Brown M&Ms. Whenever Van Halen played a concert, they stipulated in their contract that their dressing room be furnished with a bowl of m&ms, no brown ones.

If there really was a bowl with no brown m&ms, they could be sure that venue management was diligent and on their game. If they cared to fulfill a small detail like that, they could be trusted to care about crew safety, etc.

Van Halen should trash Isayama’s house I will crowd fund the money.

I have little trust in Isayama to do this right. Looking at the totality of the chapter, it’s clear these are mistakes rather than decisions.

The through line of this chapter is suicide.

They’re all going to die. All of them. And they know it.

Just look at their faces in the final shot. Expressions range from stone-faced (Armin) to shitting the bed (Gabi). They all know this means death.

No one is doing this because they think they can win, except maybe Annie.

Connie’s logic was that he wanted to be a soldier his mom would be proud of. Fighting Eren is where this logic takes him. No plan for actually winning is brought up, he just decides fighting the good fight is what makes a mom proud.

Hange is doing this for the sake of not running away. They consider doing what Shadis rejected: living the rest of their days shitting on a mountain. The reason they’re not currently doing that is just what Levi said: they don’t stop.

Magath admitted last chapter that they couldn’t win, but that informing the world of the apocalypse was better than waiting to die. Fighting Eren against all hope isn’t far from that, so that’s probably their primary motivation as well.

I’m willing to bet Armin is similarly motivated. There’s a very revealing parallel between Armin and Connie in this chapter, though an underdeveloped one.

Connie wants to be a soldier his mom could be proud of. But, of course, Erwin is Armin’s idea of a soldier to be proud of. Erwin was charismatic, smart, and kept calm under fire.

Connie and Armin strive for essentially the same ideal. Being a good soldier. That means slightly different things to each of them, but broadly, it’s the same.

Mind you, Armin’s idea of Erwin is significantly more sanitized than the real Erwin was, but that’s not the point. For all his flaws, Erwin genuinely was someone to look up to. He showed true leadership, intelligence, and empathy. He was a good person all around.

Armin didn’t even want to think about fighting Eren; he had given up hope on that. Would Erwin have done that?

My guess is that Armin thinks taking down Eren is how he can truly become like Erwin Smith. Erwin never lost sight of the main objective, even if it meant long odds. Save humanity. That meant getting to that basement, so they went to that basement. 

Right now, saving humanity means stopping Eren.

Chances are slim, too, but that never stopped Erwin, either. Armin knows that. Once a goal was set on, Erwin never wavered. He pushed towards it. 

So you’ve got humanity’s fate on the line and an impossible obstacle to fight if victory is to achieved. Sounds like a classic survey corps mission. No wonder Armin is doing this.

Jean is doing this because of his conscious. Floch tempted him with a chance to peace out. Instead, he chose to peace out and kill Eren. 

He could have lived a quiet life. Not just a life he wanted before, but arguably the life he deserves after all the misery he’s endured. He said no.

He let Marco infect his brain and now he can’t not be good.

This is what happens when you huff ashes.

Levi is doing this because he made a promise to Erwin and he stands by that. Killing Zeke was the last order Erwin gave him. Levi promised he’d carry it out. If he fails, he fails Erwin. I don’t think Levi’s ever contemplated failing, but honestly, it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t take that shame to his grave.

Gabi’s already resolved to fight Eren, so she’s just sticking to what she’s already planned.

No idea why Annie is doing this, so don’t ask. >.>

They’re doing this because they refuse to roll over. They can’t respect themselves if they do. Not Hange, not Connie, not Jean.

They can’t take pride in themselves otherwise.

So they’ll march to their deaths, and they don’t care if there’s no hope. They’re throwing their lives away, but they know it’s the right thing to do.

Unfortunately, most of this, admittedly pretty cool, character work happens off screen.

God damn this chapter.

So. Much. Of this chapter was mishandled.

Connie’s subplot resolution was the most blatant example.

I already mentioned Falco hearing stuff from Connie off screen. And Armin and Gabi dismounting their horses…at some point. The BS continues afterwards.

Armin pleads for Falco’s life, but Connie claims Armin is telling him to give up on his mom, and Armin is totally shut down by this.

LOL.

This is the exact same objection Connie raised the last time they spoke. What stopping Connie would mean for his mom was specifically on Armin’s mind when he set out with Gabi.

Like, Armin, bruh, you really had nothing to say to that?

He really, really didn’t think to come up with a response. Armin. The guy who tends to overthink things.

Fine, whatever. So Connie’s objection causes Armin to spiral into self-loathing despair.

The stakes are dizzyingly high.

A child taken hostage.

A deranged man threatens to kill him.

The boy’s girlfriend is there. She’s smart, but still just a kid. And she doesn’t know this man. She doesn’t know how to talk to him, she doesn’t understand his motives, she’s not very emotionally mature herself.

But she’s desperate. Desperate.

Armin is the only one who’s kept his head. It has to be him.

He needs to calm the madman down, convince him killing the kid isn’t the right way, and maybe assure him an alternative solution exists.

Erwin probably could’ve done it. He was charismatic, smart, and calm under fire.

Armin…was not that here. It was genuinely stupid of him to not have come prepared. Like, at even a basic level.

He failed.

So fuck it, at least if the mommy titan ate him, Falco will live, the mom will be back, and Gabi can have her boyfriend.

So Armin throws himself at the titan, and it was only happenstance that everything worked out.

That’s the logic of this scene, but it’s all muddled. The stupidity Armin displayed dampened the drama. 

The speed with which he falls into despair was unnatural. Armin’s badly insecure about living up to Erwin’s image, but it’s never been shown to be this bad.

There’s no believable progression to Armin’s feelings. He tried to be a hero, he face-planted, now he wants to die. They sort of skipped a couple of beats here.

Then Connie says maybe the stupidest thing he’s ever said in the manga: that inheriting the Colossal Titan would only have made his mom suffer.

???

So giving her the Colossal Titan would be bad, but not the Jaw?

I just assumed Connie thought turning his mom into a titan was worth it in the end. Did he just now realize how bad that would have been?

The series can’t just not address this. Connie named killing Falco and Armin as the bad things he did. Is he really not going to grapple with almost turning his mom into a titan, which he only implicitly admits was a bad thing?

Next scene is Louise and Mikasa.

Louise is a very devoted person. She cares deeply for Mikasa because Mikasa saved her life, and inspired her to devote her heart. She enlisted in the military, risked her life for her country, and now she’s on her deathbed, mortally wounded in battle. Not many people would speak ill of her like I would.

…

Is there anyone in this manga as pathetic as Louise?

Really, is there anyone?

Louise was saved from a titan by Mikasa. This inspired her to fight for her country.

Ok, that’s good.

She admires Mikasa and dreams of fighting by her side.

Yeah, that’s fine. We all wish we could hang with our heroes.

Then she took the scarf Mikasa threw away for herself. Because she thought it’d bring her closer to her.

Like how a stalker rifles through their victim’s trash for keepsakes.

That’s. pathetic.

It is pathetic how much Louise pines for Mikasa.

Compare Louise x Mikasa to Mikasa x Eren all you like, it’s not the same thing.

Mikasa and Eren were family. Their love is at minimum familial. Mikasa pines for Eren, which she very annoyingly never addressed, but there’s a sense to it.

When Mikasa lost her family, she was a helpless kid who had nothing. The Jeagers, and especially Eren, helped her rebuild her life. They took her into their home and accepted her as a family member.

The scarf matters, but only because it represents the humanity Mikasa was shown when she needed it most. She is endlessly grateful for that.

So of course she’d break the law for Eren, many family members would. Her willingness to do anything to save Eren bordered on derangement, but she’s gotten better at that. And she’s reevaluating her image of Eren in light of recent…happenings, which is good.

Louise is just a goddamn fangirl.

She doesn’t know Mikasa. She doesn’t pal around with her. She just stalks her like a creep.

Maybe they could have been friends. If Louise had just approached her, explained her story, and tried to befriend her, they could’ve become good friends. Certainly, Mikasa would have been flattered to see she inspired someone so much.

But that’s not what happened. Louise chose to be a stalker instead of a friend. I don’t think she was ever really interested in Mikasa as a person, though.

This is the likely last time she and Mikasa will interact, and Mikasa was so cold to her. Louise didn’t care. She got to fight alongside her hero for a time and that was enough. That’s so childish.

She looked up to Mikasa, but never seemed to want to befriend her. She just wanted to fight alongside her. I don’t think I’ll ever understand people like Louise.

If you respect someone so much, why wouldn’t you want to get to know them?

She said she’d die with no regrets because of this.

No regrets over never befriending her hero. No regrets over Floch, who lead her movement, putting people against the wall. No self-reflection. Nothing.

What a sad life to have lived.

She never questioned herself or what she felt. Just stunningly unself-aware.

…Maybe Daz would be more pathetic, but he’s more of a caricature of a pitiable person, so he doesn’t count.

Louise was a perfect fit for the Yeagerists. Louise, Floch, Eren. These people think with their hearts instead of their brains. They act on their feelings with no thought. It’s animalistic.

Eren loves his country, so now he’s off killing everyone else. Floch feels righteous indignation, so now he’s fucking over everyone who opposes him. Louise feels admiration for Mikasa, so now she’s dead.

Floch is holding his Trump rally, and declaring ultimate victory. i swear, Floch talks like a politician giving a stump speech. It’s the same prepared remarks with the same talking points over and over and over again.

“We are persecuted. All hail Eren the Liberator. He will set us free. Make me King of Ape Mountain.”

You can just tell Floch isn’t a very creative person. He’s repetitive as hell, a real one-man act. 

Then one of the dumbest moments in the chapter happens.

Mikasa is watching Floch’s speech for some reason. Then Some Guy approaches her, and casually asks if she wants to help lead Paradis.

Who is this guy?

Why is he asking her this?

Why is this guy pointing out Jean for no reason?

Clearly the point is to establish Mikasa’s stance on helping the Jeagerists, and to hint at Jean’s coming betrayal, but, jeeeeeez, was this badly telegraphed.

Isayama’s never been all that subtle, but this is just bad. It reads like the first draft of a story than a finished product. 

Next dumb scene.

Connie, Armin, and the kids are eating their way to Reiner, and they just bump into Annie, and even though she admits she’s committed awful crimes, Connie just starts paling around with her.

Huh?

His friends betraying him and killing other friends was, like, a thing with Connie. He had major beef with Eren for this exact reason. He specifically named Annie as an example of this.

Eren, Reiner, Bertolt, Annie. He trusted these people; they betrayed that trust and he was tired of it. Good people were killed by that betrayal. Including Sasha, whom he cared for more than anyone. 

Now it’s all good?

This is terrible character writing. Connie’s character was totally shat on by this chapter. 

I doubt we’ve seen the last of Hitch. That line about not finishing the pie alone is obvious set up for her searching Annie out and helping take down Eren.

Finishing off a pie is a group effort; the more the better. Also finishing off the zombie savior thing Eren’s become. That, too.

I’ve already talked about Jean, but wow, he’s such a good kid now.

The plan was for the Cart Titan to grab Yelena, Onyankopon, and Jean, and get out. They couldn’t have accounted for everything, though, like Floch happening to be in danger of being crushed as the Cart did her thing.

Floch and Jean do not get along. They’re enemies, politically and personally.

Jean still pushed him out of the way.

That was nice, but it was a critical blunder.

If Jean had held Floch close instead, they both would have been taken. Floch could have been their prisoner along with Yelena.

But, nope, Floch will continue to solidify his power and even if everyone survives, they won’t be able to oppose him.

The future looks super bleak no matter what happens. Eren will destroy the world and Floch will rule the Earth, or Eren will be stopped and the world will destroy Paradis in retaliation.

There is no way this is some gambit by Eren to unite the world. That makes no sense.

The world hates Eldians because they fear the Wall Titans will crush them.

The exact thing Eren’s doing now.

Eren will unite the world, but only in hatred of Eldians. If Eren is stopped, the world will be more committed to eliminating Paradis than ever before.

…Did the dialogue seem worse this time around?

“Titan doctor Hange.”

“We’ll listen before we shoot.”

“You just told me not to say a word, so I’ll show you with my actions.”

“Those burned bones would never forgive me.”

Who wrote that?

This chapter in general suffers from what you could call Season 3-itis. The anime adaptation of the Uprising Arc, in season 3, had a similar problem with rushing important moments. In season 3, part 1 important stuff happens and the characters engage with these events like real people. They react to what’s happening.

In the anime, stuff just happens. There are plot beats to get through, so the characters perform their beats and then it’s off to the next beat. The characters don’t react to what’s happening, they perform the story beat given to their character. It’s a robotic form of storytelling with no humanity behind it.

There is no gravitas.

So it is here. The fast pace of this chapter is unnatural. It breaks immersion and makes the story seem unrealistic.

This chapter was so inexplicable. Isayama just…stopped caring. Some other explanation would be nice, but in a vacuum, this is the likeliest one. He just stopped caring.

Never forget, this is Attack on Titan. A story about everything good in the world getting ruined. Up to and including the quality of the story itself.

So will they succeed?

Eren is apparently doing this to protect them, so if they just stood in a line in front of him, and dared him to kill them…

It might give him pause.

……They’re dead.

[servesorlais]

RANDOM FACTS ABOUT THE MUN.

Repost, not reblog! Tag whoever you want !

NAME: Skitty NICKNAME: Skoot AGE: gonna be 23 in like 3 weeks FACE-CLAIM: nah man nah

PRONOUNS: she/her HEIGHT: 5′5″ ? BIRTHDAY: 3rd November AESTHETIC: Blazers, decks of cards, dreary castles, violins, black skinny jeans LAST SONG YOU LISTENED TO: uh the last thing I listened to was a Mozart horn concerto

FAVOURITE MUSE(S) YOU’VE WRITTEN: Michel’s definitely one of my favorites, and one of the most enduring muses I’ve had. I have happy memories of writing Fingon and Celebrimbor over in the Tolkien fandom  ( I still want to bring Tyelpe boyo back, maybe today’s game release might make me log in again? )  and I adore Urie from Tokyo Ghoul :Re, I’d be writing more with him but the fandom died so I’m at a loss for what to do with him rifp

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO TAKE ON YOUR CURRENT MUSE (THAT YOU ARE POSTING THIS ON): Part of it was a realisation while I was writing Celene that I’d need to write Michel in a lot of her interactions too, and once I started looking at his character more, I realised he was actually fascinating and had better potential for writing with other muses because of his role with the Inquisition. And ... then I noticed that the people posting in his tag bitterly hated him, including one rper who, in addition to posting a bunch of factually inaccurate “metas” about TME, had it written in their rules that any muse that interacted with theirs had to have Michel dead in their canon worldstate. It was just so extra that I felt compelled to write him out of spite and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t contribute a fair amount to my motivation to write him as the complex character that he is.  

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE ASPECTS OF YOUR CURRENT MUSE: Like I mentioned, he has the potential to write with a pretty wide circle of muses, whether it’s as Celene’s assistant or as an Inquisition soldier. I like exploring Orlais’ weird and thorny politics and investigating some of the fascinating parts of canon that the games rushed through or didn’t develop properly ( i.e. the entire civil war. )  I like that he’s very imperfect and will frequently say and do the wrong things, because conflict drives a story; I like that he struggles with his identity, I like the contrast between his inner thoughts and his outer presentation and how he worries about how they relate. Also I just really like knights

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST INSPIRATION WHEN IT COMES TO WRITING: As everyone has been saying, it’s great to write with other people and see how our characters can play off one another! That’s why I’m here rping rather than writing fanfics. That said, in addition to that, the games can be inspiring because they have so many underdeveloped details. It’s fun to have a concept introduced by the game that can then be used as the basis for a thread. 

FAVOURITE TYPES OF THREADS: Plotted ones, whatever form that takes --- doesn’t have to be anything too elaborate, just a starting concept and a setting and maybe an idea of how the characters will respond to one another. The best threads I think are the ones where both characters have a goal that they’re working towards, whether it’s one they share or they’re opposing goals. It’s a great way to keep the thread going, because then you get to decide how to stop them from reaching that goal. Instant drama right there. 

BIGGEST STRUGGLE IN REGARDS TO YOUR CURRENT MUSE: Two struggles, I guess: first, and I don’t feel this quite as much anymore, but the fact that Michel is super fuckin unpopular feels like a big setback; I’m not interested in writing with someone who only wants to use him to work through their ooc hatred of chevaliers, Orlais, Michel, humans, non-mages, male characters, etc. and I do see that more often than I’m totally happy with. The second problem is just that darp has a pretty big elf bias, which can be hard when you’re writing a character that doesn’t even want to be seen talking to one if he can help it. I’d personally love it if more people were writing minor Orlesian noble characters, like Jean-Gaspard de Lydes or Ducette Maron, but uh. Well. I know. I know.

Tagged by; @archontem