#does everything need a plot twist or to subvert expectations is it not enough that it looks cool

[francy-sketches]

I'm gonna have to work on my final project non stop for like a month straight bc I procrastinated on it too much fuck my stupid baka life

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Hey guys, I’m afraid I’m going to continue critiquing the DSMP finale. 

So, with the first two streams I don’t think there were any major issues. I dislike the Dream and Punz friendship personally as staged disc finale was my least favourite plot twist so seeing that actually cropping up in canon isn’t fun. Another arc where Tommy and Tubbo decide to go and kill Dream is a little dull too but theyre good at making it feel fresh enough. 

It’s with the third stream that issues really start making themselves known. Dream and Punz’s plan is not all that good or interesting, certainly not when none of these are going to be explored at all given that it’s the penultimate stream. Like, what does people’s limbos being determined on how they die mean? What did it matter? It doesn’t even fit with past canon! And why did the revive book allow Dream to mind control Ranboo? What even...? 

More importantly though, Tommy is forced to give up all his possessions in his enderchest. Then he has to sacrifice his discs. I am incensed by this plot point. It’s once again reminding us that Tommy’s made to lose everything again and again thanks to Dream and these sacrifices are portrayed as a positive thing? Loving things isn’t a problem and he shouldn’t have to learn again and again to give up all he has without being seen as selfish. Its not fun seeing this character beaten down again and again. I was hoping that the finale would subvert this idea once more and remind us that it was cruel and wrong and that Tommy deserves to be happy and live. 

Going into the final stream, I again hated that Tommy’s plan involved killing himself. Tommy’s character has low self-worth and has had suicidal thoughts so this is not a good plot! He should learn he has worth, not the opposite. He shouldn’t need to die for his friends and he certainly shouldn’t apologise for existing. His story was all about how it’s okay to be yourself. It was always thrilling to see him standing up and moving forward unafraid to stand for what he believes him no matter how much he was crushed. 

Sadly the finale exceeded my expectations for how bad it could be. 

All those ideas I mentioned? Discarded. Tommy plans to die... and does die. Tubbo dies as well, so the sacrifice meant nothing in the end. Everything was lost. All the memories and stuff that made the Dream SMP the special place that it was, gone in an instant. None of it mattered in the end. No one stepped in this time to save anyone. 

And yet, that’s not the worst thing. Because this stream doesn’t really focus on Tommy. It’s Dream’s story. Tommy in the prison realises that Dream is just a person in the end, who had reasons for what he was doing. His reasons were his friends except Tommy joining the server got in the way of that. According to Dream’s narrative, Tommy provoked him into becoming what he was and Dream has always secretly longed for those simpler times. 

Tommy finds understanding when he sees a memory of Dream before Tommy had joined being happy. And this causes Dream to have doubt and he makes it clear that he wants those times back, that he might give up on all his evil plans just like that. Tommy apologises to Dream for hurting him that first day and that’s apparently a sign of Tommy’s growth in finally learning to see the other perspective.

This plot is rancid. Dream makes no attempt to understand Tommy, not even a little. Despite Tommy repeatedly pointing out how much it all hurt and how much he’d suffered, Dream doesn’t show the slightest sympathy. Yet the narrative paints Tommy trying to understand him as this special thing? Like it was the solution all along. Dream can abuse people and cause immense suffering but its up to his victims to try and understand him? Why is the story telling us Tommy, an incredibly thoughtful character anyway, needed to learn understanding? Why is it hinting that Tommy and Dream were not so different and their stories mirrored each other, both secretly desiring the same things? 

Dreams motives are so flimsy and it makes so little sense that he’d question his plan now. Yet he asks whether its too late and you can see Tommy’s regret for the nuke plan. His whole sacrifice thing, is everyone’s doom. How cruel. Dream can ruin everyone’s happiness but the question we should be asking is ‘what about Dream’s happiness?’ apparently. 

And finally, we end u with the characters on a new world with amnesia. Though they’ve forgotten everything, we still see Tommy and Dream becoming friends and this is some sort of triumph, implying with what came before that yes Dream and Tommy could’ve been friends had Tommy not ruined Dream’s world by causing trouble on that first day. 

Annoyingly, so many of these points don’t even make much sense. Tommy has tried to understand Dream before. He visited in the prison for instance. Tommy wanting to kill Dream is framed as a bad thing, like it was wrong to have this fixation but this fails to recall how dangerous Dream is to Tommy and how he’s promised to kill him repeatedly in the past. Tommy had been living alone drinking invisibility potions in fear! 

Each element taken on their own is a problem, but the whole is so much worse than the sum of its parts. The bigger picture is that Tommy dies learning that his abuser was a person with feelings too that he screwed up and he ought to have been more understanding but his plan got himself and everyone he cared about killed. He is the monster that killed the server and everyone he loved.

[cupidsbower]

Jawan: non-spoiler review

A more thoughtful review, now I've had a bit of time to think about it.

Shah Rukh Khan is the heart of the movie, so if you don't like his work, you probably won't like the movie.

Fortunately his performance is strong, and he easily carries it. The plot requires him to flex his range, which he does with confidence and charisma. He's rarely been in better form.

It might be billed as an Atlee film, but it's pretty obvious that this was SRK's dream project, and he put together his dream team to make it. I don't say that to dismiss what Atlee brings to the table, just that this project was clearly being driven by SRK's desire to tick off some of the things remaining on his bucket list. That pays off in a lot of ways, because SRK can afford the best, and that really shows on the screen.

SRK worked hard in Jawan to consolidate that he's an action star now, and he succeeded - I don't think anyone would argue it anymore. However, he didn't throw out all the old hooks. His scenes with Deepika Padukone are classic SRK, and so are the dance numbers. Zinda Banda in particular was a highlight. The song is an earworm, and the dance itself is both a spectacle given the number of dancers, and yet simple enough that even I could do it, with a bit of practice. The perfect crowdpleaser.

I don't want to spoil the biggest twist for you if you haven't seen the film yet, so I can't talk about my favourite aspect of SRK's performance in detail. I'll just say that for the last few years, he's been at his best when playing his real age, and that's true in Jawan as well.

There are good things other than SRK. Atlee's direction has all the kineticism of southern Indian cinema, and it's a spectacle that's a joy to watch on an aesthetic level. The soundtrack is fantastic. The special effects are world class.

I also like that this is mass entertainment that's not pretending to be anything else, but that it still touches on themes that are timely in India at the moment. I watched Raees just a few weeks ago, and there are obvious parallels. It's obvious that not everything along those lines comes from Atlee, even if the southern didacticism is on full display.

I do have one criticism. The plot was ambitious, and I give it points for that. I much prefer an ambitious plot that doesn't always work to a plot-by-numbers like Pathaan. However, Jawan's plotting sprawls all over the screen. That's sometimes a feature rather than a bug. It helped the film avoid some of the more obvious cliches. For example, I liked that the bad-guy's Evil Habit ended up not playing out in the way you'd expect. Anything that subverts a cliche is good with me. On the other hand, the plot was weaker than it needed to be. For instance, in a movie with so many women characters, I wanted more of them in the final act. There was still enough momentum to carry me to the end, but the ending was weaker than the rest of the film. Just a bit more cleverness in that final fight, tying it more effectively to the larger plot strands, would have made a big difference.

It was still a really great time, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. I hope they do make a sequel. I would happily watch more of SRK in this 'verse.

[roseofcards90]

For the ask meme: 7/8/25 mob, lu guang? ^^

YAYYY THANK U FOR THE ASK MUN!!! Also oooh interesting! :0

Mob

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

I love every single fan art I've seen of this little guy FKJDNDLFK I don't think there's one that I didn't enjoy, so props to the fandom for being able to put him in so many different fan arts and crossovers with other series

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I can't exactly think of anything specific, but I think just not looking beyond Mob's character and only focusing on shipping him with Teruki (which goes for Teruki as well and reducing his character to only being gay for Mob) not saying the majority of terumob shippers do this btw, I just think it's a common phenomenon that's also present with Serirei too

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

Damn I'm trying to think back to when I first watched mp100...iirc I don't think I understood Mob well as a character? Like more of his flaws I mean, I didn't understand the Mogami arc well enough at the time to comprehend what it meant for Mob and his character, so my first impressions were very much surface level at the time. But now that I'm older, I can understand him a lot better

Lu Guang

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

THEY GIVE HIM DARKER SKIN IN FAN ARTS SOMETIMES AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH WE NEED MORE DARKER SKINNED LU GUANG!!!

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Hmmm...I think only seeing Lu Guang's character as just the plot twist/reveal at the end of season 2? If that makes sense 😭 more along the lines of erasing his complexity with just being like "oh he fucked up the timeline/he's so gay for Cheng Xiaoshi" when I think there's a lot more to his actions and his character than those two things. The fact that his character subverts expectations and him being a hypocrite of his own rules, his subtle kindness and consideration for others, and his foils with Li Tianchen being a really cool aspect that I wish people analyzed more during that arc.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

Tbh my first impression of him was that he was going to be the stereotypical stoic, level-headed white haired guy 😭 that I wasn't going to gleam anything interesting from him, but he really did turn out to be my fave in the end because of everything I mentioned above! I hope we get season 3 soon and see more of how he handles the consequences of his actions + more interactions with Qiao Ling because I NEED THEM TO INTERACT AUGHHH

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - “Rapunzel Knows Best!” ( A first half of S3 Recap)

So I decided to place the recap after Be Very Afraid for several reasons. For starters it’s where the season three hiatus took place. It’s also framed like a cliffhanger episode the same as The Great Tree and Queen for a Day; so while Cassandra’s Revenge is technically the midseason finale, Be Very Afraid functionally servers this narrative purpose better. Finally I want to keep the Cassandra heavy stuff contained in it’s own recap later same as I did for Varian’s arc in season one. 

Also keep in mind, everything I discussed in previous recaps still apply here. Nothings changed and you could argue that the issues I bring up now could have also apply to past seasons; they just happen to be at their worst here. 

Here are the past recaps 

To Filler or Not to Filler

Hey, What Ever Happened to That Varitas, Guy?

What Is the Point?

‘Whatta Twist’

And here are the episodes that’s covered in this recap

Rapunzel’s Return Part 1

Rapunzel’s Return Part 2

Return of the King 

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

The Lost Treasure of Herz Der Sonne

No Time Like the Past

Beginnings 

The King and Queen of Hearts

Day of the Animals 

Be Very Afraid 

Poorly Defined Conflicts 

I’m not just talking about Cassandra’s lack of goals here either, though that is a part of it. I mean in several episodes the central conflict isn’t laid out clearly enough before being resolved.  We flip from one set up to the next without ever resolving the first; like in Rapunzel’s Return when Cass and Varian fight for screen time or whenever Rapunzel is suppose to learn one lesson only for someone else to learn a completely different lesson in every other episode. And to this day I don’t know what Rapunzel and Feldspar’s subplot in Lost Treasure was suppose to be about. 

There’s also of course the ill-defined overall conflict; which at this point has become convoluted and nonsensical to the extreme, and will only grow more aggravatingly stupid as the season progresses. The main villains lack clear goals, their motivations don’t align with previously stated facts, and the actual interesting conflict involving the threat of the rocks and their destruction of people’s lives and homes is just shoved under the rug and forgotten about.  

There is no story without conflict. Having the conflict be all over the place is not only confusing but makes it harder for the audience to invest in what’s going on. 

Failed Narrative Promises 

Tying in with the above statement regarding conflicts, we have failed narrative promises. Rapunzel is repeatedly told to that she needs to learn something in several episodes only for her not to learn it at all. She either learns some unrelated ‘lesson’ that wasn’t established, (like in Rapunzel’s Return with her pervious goal about ‘opening up to others’ being switched out for a generic ‘responsibility’ lesson that at the last minute, where she doesn’t even do anything responsible,) or she winds up ‘teaching’ the opposite lesson to a different character thereby rewarding her for her bad behavior.   

And that’s just within the induvial episodes themselves; there’s also broken narrative promises through out the overall story arc; like...

no justice/redemption for Lady Caine, 

no acknowledgment that the Saporians are the victims of colonization

no conclusion regarding Corona’s murky past

no satisfying ending to Varian’s plot that sees everyone in involve grow

a poor copout of an explanation for Cassandra’s face/heel turn

The Dark Prince reveal going nowhere 

The Brotherhood being put on a bus 

King Frederic, or any royal, not being held accountable for their past actions 

Lance’s new found responsibilities just being thrown away for the tenth time 

The Disciples plot being being dropped 

next to nothing in season two winds up being relevant 

And Rapunzel, the protagonist of a coming of age story, fails to learn anything at all 

I could probably go on but you get the gist. Tangled is incredibly frustrating show to watch because doesn’t deliver what it promises. You’re not being clever by ‘subverting audiences expectations’ unless you can justify your narrative decisions with previous set up. Tangled is too lazy to build proper set ups so it’s ‘twists’ leave you wanting to punch things rather then impressing you. 

Character Assassinations 

Every single character in Tangled the Series gets thrown under a bus, driven off a cliff, and then allowed to drown in the ocean of their completely unaware self-congratulatory smugness.  

Rapunzel is turned into a bully

Cassandra is given the idiot ball to hold permanently 

The King and Queen are lobotomized

Quinin gets replaced by a robot  

The rest of the Brotherhood are pale shadows of what they could have been 

Edmund is transformed from tragic complex figure into a dumb jerkoff who abuses his kid for a laugh 

Zhan Tiri, once an ancient demon warlock, is reduced to a floating impotent ghost girl 

The Saporians become poor hipster parodies

Cap is put on a bus

Any villain who isn’t Cass is gets ignored

Lance is infantilized to the point of absurdity

Eugene becomes a doormat 

and poor Varian is forced to become a complacent victim to his abusers as oppose to being allowed to keeping his dignity 

I think the only person who escapes this mass murder of characterization is freaking Calliope, and she’s hasn’t even appeared yet! (Well okay her and Trevor, maybe) 

This all ties back into the poorly defined conflict and failed narrative promises. Rather than let the characters drive the story, they’ve become puppets to the plot, and plot is really stupid and forced, and circles back in on itself and is full of contradictions. 

Manipulating the Audience’s Empathy to Do the Work for the Writers  

The reason why the creators believe they can get away with such poor characterization and lazy writing is because they expect the audience to do all the heavy lifting for them.  

Cass isn’t given an on screen reason for what she does because they’re hoping her fans will just automatically excuse her because they like her/relate to her and not, you know, get mad at the writers for dumbing her down. And after all who doesn’t love the creator’s pet? Meanies! That’s who! 

No one calls out Rapunzel’s bullshit on screen, because if everyone likes her, then you, viewing audience, should too. Because if you have any sort of independent critical thinking abilities and a sense of right and wrong then clearly you’re ‘just a hater’. 

Everyone should just shut up and be satisfied that Varian is even on screen now and be grateful for the scraps that they get cause he’s not the real point of the show and according to Chris ‘Varian fans aren’t real fans’. Even though they make up most of his viewing audience. 

I could go on, but it’s just variations of the above. The writing in this series is very fond of gaslighting the audience and trying to trick them into justifying the absolute worst behaviors while desperately hoping they doesn’t noticed the continued downgrading and dismissal of characters they do like or once liked.  

And the sad thing is, it’s worked. There are people to this day that still try to justify this show’s shitty morals and bend over backwards to excuse the likes of Rapunzel, Frederic, Cassandra, and Edmund.  Worst, there are loud sections of the fandom, (usually on twitter) who think bullying is okay and follow in Chris and his characters footsteps. Most of them young impressionable girls who are now ripe for TREFS to indoctrinate because they use the same bullying tactics and excuses for authoritarianism. 

Media does effect reality, but not in the way purists and antis would have you believe. No one is going to become a violent manic from playing a video game nor a sex offender because they read a smut fic. But they very much will conform to toxic beliefs if it’s repeated enough at them by authorities they ‘trust’; like say the world wide leading company known for family entertainment and children’s media, and the ‘friends’ they find within the fandom for said company... 

I’m not saying you can’t enjoy Tangled the series or that you’re some how wrong for liking it’s characters, nor do you have to engage with every or any criticism thrown it’s way. But yes you need to think about the media you consume on some level and valid criticism is very much important to the fandom experience for precisely the above reasons. 

Conclusion    

This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg of what’s wrong with this show, but it is most of its biggest problems laid bare. Anything that haven’t covered here or in the past recaps will be explored in the final recap. Cause this is it folks; the last leg of the journey for this retrospective. When come back, hopefully next week, we’ll tackle Pascal’s Dragon.  

[usergreenpixel]

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 1: La Seine no Hoshi (1975)

1. Introduction

Well, dear reader, here it is. My first ever official review. And, as promised, this is one of the pieces of Frev media that you have likely never heard of before.

So, without further ado, sit down, relax, grab drinks and snacks and allow me to tell you about an anime called “La Seine no Hoshi” (The Star of the Seine).

“La Seine no Hoshi” is a children’s anime series made by Studio Sunrise. It consists of 39 episodes and was originally broadcast in Japan from April 4th to December 26th of 1975.

Unlike its more famous contemporary, a manga called “Rose of Versailles” that had begun being released in 1972 and is considered a classic to this day, “La Seine no Hoshi” has stayed relatively obscure both in the world of anime and among other Frev pop culture.

Personally, the only reason why I found out about its existence was the fact that I actively seek out everything Frev-related and I just happened to stumble upon the title on an anime forum several years ago.

So far, the anime has been dubbed into Italian, French, German and Korean but there is no English or even Spanish dub so, unfortunately, people who do not speak fluent Japanese or any other aforementioned language are out of luck ( if anyone decides to make a fandub of the series, call me). That being said, the series is readily available in dubs and the original version on YouTube, which is where I ended up watching it. The French dub calls the anime “La Tulipe Noire” (The Black Tulip), which could be an homage to the movie with the same name that takes place in the same time period.

Unfortunately, while I do speak Japanese well enough to maintain a basic conversation and interact with people in casual daily situations, I’m far from fluent in the language so the version I watched was the French dub, seeing as I am majoring in French.

So, with all of this info in mind, let’s find out what the story is about and proceed to the actual review.

2. The Summary

(Note: Names of the characters in the French dub and the original version differ so I will use names from the former since that’s what I watched)

The story of “La Seine no Hoshi” revolves around a 15-year old girl called Mathilde Pasquier - a daughter of two Parisian florists who helps her parents run their flower shop and has a generally happy life.

But things begin to change when Comte de Vaudreuil, an elderly Parisian noble to whom Mathilde delivers flowers in the second episode, takes her under his wing and starts teaching her fencing for an unknown reason and generally seems to know more about her than he lets on.

Little does Mathilde know, those fencing lessons will end up coming in handy sooner than she expected. When her parents are killed by corrupt nobles, the girl teams up with Comte de Vaudreuil’s son, François, to fight against corruption as heroes of the people, all while the revolution keeps drawing near day by day and tensions in the city are at an all time high.

This is the gist of the story, dear readers, so with that out of the way, here’s the actual review:

3. The Story

Honestly, I kind of like the plot. It has a certain charm to it, like an old swashbuckling novel, of which I’ve read a lot as a kid.

The narrative of a “hero of the common folk” has been a staple in literature for centuries so some might consider the premise to be unoriginal, but I personally like this narrative more than “champion of the rich” (Looking at you, Scarlet Pimpernel) because, historically, it really was a difficult time for commoners and when times are hard people tend to need such heroes the most.

People need hope, so it’s no surprise that Mathilde and François (who already moonlights as a folk hero, The Black Tulip) become living legends thanks to their escapades.

Interestingly enough, the series also subverts a common trope of a hero seeking revenge for the death of his family. Mathilde is deeply affected by the death of her parents but she doesn’t actively seek revenge. Instead, this tragedy makes the fight and the upcoming revolution a personal matter to her and motivates her to fight corruption because she is not the only person who ended up on its receiving end.

The pacing is generally pretty good but I do wish there were less filler episodes and more of the overarching story that’s dedicated to the secret that Comte de Vaudreuil and Mathilde’s parents seem to be hiding from her and maybe it would be better if the secret in question was revealed to the audience a bit later than episode 7 or so.

However, revealing the twist early on is still an interesting narrative choice because then the main question is not what the secret itself is but rather when and how Mathilde will find out and how she will react, not to mention how it will affect the story.

That being said, even the filler episodes do drive home the point that a hero like Mathilde is needed, that nobles are generally corrupt and that something needs to change. Plus, those episodes were still enjoyable and entertaining enough for me to keep watching, which is good because usually I don’t like filler episodes much and it’s pretty easy to make them too boring.

Unfortunately, the show is affected by the common trope of the characters not growing up but I don’t usually mind that much. It also has the cliché of heroes being unrecognizable in costumes and masks, but that’s a bit of a staple in the superhero stories even today so it’s not that bothersome.

4. The Characters

It was admittedly pretty rare for a children’s show to have characters who were fleshed out enough to seem realistic and flawed, but I think this series gives its characters more development than most shows for kids did at the time.

I especially like Mathilde as a character. Sure, at first glance she seems like a typical Nice Pretty Ordinary Girl ™️ but that was a part of the appeal for me.

I am a strong believer in that a character does not need to be a blank slate or a troubled jerk to be interesting and Mathilde is neither of the above. She is essentially an ordinary girl with her own life, family, friends, personality and dreams and, unfortunately, all of that is taken away from her when her parents are killed.

Her initial reluctance to participate in the revolution is also pretty realistic as she is still trying to live her own life in peace and she made a promise to her parents to stay safe so there’s that too.

I really like the fact that the show did not give her magic powers and that she was not immediately good at fencing. François does remark that her fencing is not bad for a beginner but in those same episodes she is clearly shown making mistakes and it takes her time to upgrade from essentially François’s assistant in the heroic shenanigans to a teammate he can rely on and sees as an equal. Heck, later there’s a moment when Mathilde saves François, which is a nice tidbit of her development.

Mathilde also doesn’t have any romantic subplots, which is really rare for a female lead.

She has a childhood friend, Florent, but the two are not close romantically and they even begin to drift apart somewhat once Florent becomes invested in the revolution. François de Vaudreuil does not qualify for a love interest either - his father does take Mathilde in and adopts her after her parents are killed so François is more of an older brother than anything else.

Now, I’m not saying that romance is necessarily a bad thing but I do think that not having them is refreshing than shoehorning a romance into a story that’s not even about it. Plus most kids don’t care that much for romance to begin with so I’d say that the show only benefits from the creative decision of not setting Mathilde up with anyone.

Another interesting narrative choice I’d like to point out is the nearly complete absence of historical characters, like the revolutionaries. They do not make an appearance at all, save for Saint-Just’s cameo in one of the last episodes and, fortunately, he doesn’t get demonized. Instead, the revolutionary ideas are represented by Florent, who even joins the Jacobin Club during the story and is the one who tries to get Mathilde to become a revolutionary. Other real people, like young Napoleon and Mozart, do appear but they are also cameo characters, which does not count.

Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI are exceptions to the rule.

(Spoiler alert!)

Marie-Antoinette is portrayed as kind of spoiled and out of touch. Her spending habits get touched on too but she is not a malicious person at heart. She is simply flawed. She becomes especially important to the story later on when Mathilde finds out the secret that has been hidden from her for her entire life.

As it turns out, Marie- Antoinette, the same queen Mathilde hated so much, is the girl’s older half-sister and Mathilde is an illegitimate daughter of the Austrian king and an opera singer, given to a childless couple of florists to be raised in secret so that her identity can be protected.

The way Marie-Antoinette and Mathilde are related and their further interactions end up providing an interesting inner conflict for Mathilde as now she needs to reconcile this relationship with her sister and her hatred for the corruption filling Versailles.

The characters are not actively glorified or demonized for the most part and each side has a fair share of sympathetic characters but the anime doesn’t shy away from showing the dark sides of the revolution either, unlike some other shows that tackle history (*cough* Liberty’s Kids comes to mind *cough*).

All in all, pretty interesting characters and the way they develop is quite realistic too, even if they could’ve been more fleshed out in my opinion.

5. The Voice Acting

Pretty solid. No real complaints here. I’d say that the dub actors did a good job.

6. The Setting

I really like the pastel and simple color scheme of Paris and its contrast with the brighter palette of Versailles. It really drives home the contrast between these two worlds.

The character designs are pretty realistic, simple and pleasant to watch. No eyesores like neon colors and overly cutesy anime girls with giant tiddies here and that’s a big plus in my book.

7. The Conclusion

Like I said, the show is not available in English and those who are able to watch it might find it a bit cliché but, while it’s definitely not perfect. I actually quite like it for its interesting concept, fairly realistic characters and a complex view of the French Revolution. I can definitely recommend this show, if only to see what it’s all about.

Some people might find this show too childish and idealistic, but I’m not one of them.

I’m almost 21 but I still enjoy cartoons and I’m fairly idealistic because cynicism and nihilism do not equal maturity and, if not for the “silly” idealism, Frev itself wouldn’t happen so I think shows like that are necessary too, even if it’s just for escapism.

If you’re interested and want to check it out, more power to you.

Anyway, thank you for attending the first ever official meeting of the Jacobin Fiction Convention. Second meeting is coming soon so stay tuned for updates.

Have a good day, Citizens! I love you!

- Citizen Green Pixel

[deltaengineering]

Spring Anime 2021: Embarrassment of Riches

So this current anime season absolutely stinks, which just makes the last one look even more impressive. Well, maybe not all of it...

Zombieland Saga Revenge

First off, you don't need to tell me that the following is a severe outlier opinion. We good? Ok. ZLSR is, in a word, subpar. I liked S1 back in the day, but it was already in the process of getting lazy towards the end. S2 continues this trend and is basically just another idol show. And as someone who actually does watch other idol shows I have to say that it's not a particularly good one of those either. The zombie gimmick has mostly stopped mattering and we're just doing what every idol show does, only with the odd occasional sight gag. The alleged subversive qualities mostly amount to a flashback for Yuugiri, which is admittedly the best part of the show but feels like it barely has anything to do with anything. Apart from that, it's a bunch of generic idol plots, rehashed character beats, shoddy attempts at twists (while not connecting to any setups from S1), and the obligatory "idols give us hope" ending, which is terribly hackneyed and flat out bad. Tae gets further memed into the ground, because of course she does. And there's stuff that was simply never good to begin with, like Kotarou and his comedy schtick, which gets truly insufferable now that there's no qualities to distract from it. It really makes me think that S1 wasn't even all that good to begin with and seems like an attempt to turn this surprise success into an easy money longrunner with no edge and no ambitions. "The idol show for people who don't watch idol shows" indeed, but not the way you mean it. 4/10

Bakuten

But not to dwell on the failures, with the second show we're already above the cut — barely. This one got my attention with its really impressive performance scenes early on and it totally sticks to that, which is even more impressive. But besides that? Well, this is by far the most predictable show in a season where I watched an unambitious Kiraralike and put ZLS on blast for having no ideas. The characters are a mixed bag, some are cool (Shida, Asawo), some are very annoying (Mashiro), but those are the supports. The main cast is extremely one-dimensional, which is fine until they try to heap a ton of pathos on their lead, which doesn't go well. But I guess execution matters, and Bakuten is slick enough to get by. Writing this down in stark daylight I feel like I overrated this show somewhat (I actually put it over the next one originally, which definitely doesn't hold up when thinking about it), but I was indeed mostly entertained. 6/10

Yakunara Mug Cup mo

Yeah. Of course Mug Cup definitely doesn't invent or subvert anything either, but it's a pretty good Kiraralike that's always entertaining to watch. Explaining the qualities of such a nothing genre is as difficult as ever, but it mostly comes down to me liking the characters and it having nothing to annoy me. It's shorter than normal, which is a plus for slim shows like this. And yeah, you can make an excessive amount of dick jokes with the clay fondling. That helps too. Looks are just fine, pleasant but nothing out of the ordinary. Comfy low-effort anime. 6/10

Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song

This one is decent, but sadly still a major letdown. Because the first few episodes of Vivy were excellent and kicked ass, but then it became increasingly clear that the writing can't cash the checks the ideas wrote while the action starts running into severely diminishing returns. Vivy just keeps slowly getting worse and worse as it goes on, not by a huge amount each episode but by the end there's a pretty sizeable gulf between potential and result. Going into detail would probably be a little much for this venue because there's a lot, but from the top level view the issue is that while Vivy has good fundamental ideas and steals at the right places, it just isn't a smart show — it's schlock, and by the end, poorly thought out schlock that tries to smooth out every problem with liberal application of the big feels hammer and le epic twist at that. Yeah, couldn't tell that the Re:Zero dude was aboard here, for sure. That said, it still works pretty well as entertaining schlock that is not to be taken too seriously, and the characters are generally just very fun to watch even when they're doing stupid things. Still, I can't in good conscience rate this higher than Beatless, a show that looks like butt but properly executes on its ideas. 6/10

Super Cub

So this is 100% a Honda commercial, and I got really mad a Yuru Camp last season for being a blatant shill. Yet I'm feeling this, what gives? I think the main difference is that Super Cub is specifically a commercial for one product (and a very iconic product at that), while Yuru Camp is so all over the place that it ends up mostly a commercial for consumerism in general. And when Super Cub goes too hard on the product (which it does), it's at least pretty entertaining. That's something about Super Cub in general: It goes hard. Your regular Kiraralike this is not, because it's uncommonly slow, focused and moody - yes, it almost measures up to Yuru Camp at its best and demolishes it at its worst. Also, it's just extremely amusing to see sadblob Koguma grow a huge grizzly biker beard and become a badass outlaw dad to her goofy wife and cute daughter, all thanks to the power of afforable personal transportation. Needless to say, that can get unintentionally silly, but Super Cub has so much charm that it doesn't matter — it's great when it's good and still funny when it's not. 7/10

Shadows House

Shadows House turned up with a lot of potential, and I have to say it at least delivered on most of it. It has some problems; notably I'm not a fan of how the entire middle turned out to be a tournament arc of sorts that seems curiously inspired by Resident Evil memes, crest-shaped intentations and boulder punching included. I also think that this is a show that would be perfectly fine without explaining much, but I guess it is a shounen manga after all so we got dumped on eventually anyway. At least that came late - close relative Promised Neverland didn't show that much restraint. Shadows House is generally well written though, with great characters, interesting interactions and a great hook. But what really makes it memorable is that it's exceptionally good at the cute/creepy contrast, something that is often tried but rarely works as well as here, with great character designs and very appropriate production. I hope this gets a sequel, because it seems like it's just getting started. 7/10

SSSS.Dynazenon

Coming in with a fondness for Gridman, Dynazenon didn't have to do much to convince me. The surprise though is that it's not a rehash even if it's basically the same show, a character drama where occasionally huge and goofy fights break out. Dynazenon is Gridman done better, and the interesting part is how it accomplishes this - mainly by being far more conventional. I do appreciate that Gridman went for something weird and almost experimental, but that only really paid off towards the end while most of the show was a distraction/holding pattern. It just didn't feel like there was enough material for a full series there, more like a movie maybe, if even that. Dynazenon fixes this by just being a TV show, with an actual cast of characters that each have their own arc. And by spreading the material this way, Dynazenon ends up having a lot more nuance than its intensely focused predecessor, while having the same themes and not actually being any deeper. In a way, Gridman ends up looking like the spinoff in retrospect, while Dynazenon is the full package. 8/10

Thunderbolt Fantasy S3

So how good was this season? So good that Thunderbolt Fantasy doesn't end up at the top, that's how. And all the elements that made Tbolt such a sure thing are still there, big hammy puppets doing stunts and scheming never gets old. However, I do have to note that at this point, the writing appears to have gotten too comfortable. I don't expect it to ever top the amazing S1 ending, but at this point it's like Tbolt has stopped trying to deliver on endings at all and seems in the process of retooling itself into a longrunner instead. Barely anything gets resolved in S3 (the climax is that the climax of S2 is resolved again, for good this time... maybe), and everything else is just setting up plotpoints for the next season. Tbolt is truly lucky that it doesn't actually need to resolve anything to be a great time, but at this point I have to say that I'd appreciate it if they wrapped it up with S4. 8/10

Nomad: Megalobox 2

Speaking of sequels to shows I liked, Nomad doesn't so much improve upon its predecessor but steamrolls right over it. This is a tall order, since Megalobox was surprisingly good for a sports shounen and had a real nice, heartwarming ending that Nomad instantly negates for purposes of drama and everyone being extremely miserable. That sounds like a pretty terrible idea - and it would be, if Nomad wasn't as excellent as it is. To call it not the same show would be an understatement, because it's a true sequel, not just the same characters doing their thing some more, or new characters doing the same thing as the old ones did. Indeed my biggest problem with Megalobox was that it still closely adhered to its genre template and was very predictable; Nomad fixes this issue thoroughly. Nomad is about questioning what being a hotblooded shounen protagonist eventually leads you to, and how to fix everything you screwed up by being one. You could call it a deconstruction, but that term has been so abused for cynical, edgy "thing you like actually sucks" takes that I feel like it doesn't really fit here. Nomad isn't cynical at all, it's just a character drama about some boxers past their prime, and it being a sequel to a show that is indeed rather formulaic just enhances the experience. My biggest issue with it was that I really like what they did with Joe in this story, so the big focus on Mac's backstory felt like a distraction for a long time. But in the end that turned out to be absolutely necessary to make the ending work. The ending's just great, by the way, and I shall say not more about it. 9/10

Odd Taxi

Yeah boy, here's the show that has apparently become somewhat of a "greatest show you didn't watch" meme, which I can feel smug about because I don't need YouTubers to tell me what's good and followed this from day one. Anyway, Odd Taxi is indeed great, the greatest show in a few years even. What starts out as seemingly a relaxed hangout show in the vein of Midnight Diners quickly turns into a psychological murder mystery while never losing its quirky humor. The character writing is outstanding, with even small bit players being on a level that the average anime wishes it could have for leads. And the rollout of the mystery is exemplary, with answers given and new questions raised every episode with a satisfying and logical payoff in the end. This is also the rare anime that has rock solid production from the first to the last second; it's never really flashy but excellently done and highly consistent nonetheless. And the music just owns. I have a few complaints, mainly that there's a few logical weaknesses in the story (which wouldn't even register in a lesser show, but sticks out here since the rest is so immaculately constructed) and that the ending overextends on the emotions when the rest of the show is so reserved and dry in comparison. But those are only the reasons why I didn't give it perfect marks, and I almost did that anyway. 9/10

[ellanainthetardis]

Alright, this will be my review for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes so obviously spoilers under the cut.

Also obviously, this is my opinion, I force no one to share it and I’m happy to discuss the book with anyone who wants to. 

First off, I won’t go into all the deep themes in the books. It seems obvious to me there’s a very clever allegory for a contrat social at work here but since I am not very much interested in that, I will leave it aside. It’s well done, I think, but I am more a character driven sort of reader than theme driven and the debate over “are we the product of our environment or is man a beast at heart” is a bit null here. Surely enough, as one of the quotes at the beginning implies, the whole book more or less struggles to show Dr Gaul somehow turns Coryo into a monster to her Frankenstein… Sure, he seems to hesitate between right and wrong, the nature of the two etc etc. But, really, I have troubles relating to a character questioning the nature of man when that character is so plainly a psychopath himself.

I’m sorry. I said it.

Did I love Snow in this book? Sure. Even when he was being bad, I loved him. What’s not to love? He’s completely over-dramatic. All the time. He’s a complex character with Draco Malfoy vibes and who tries to do well by his family. But he is also sick in the head and that predates Dr Gaul’s little mind games. Can we argue it’s because of his traumatic childhood? Maybe. It doesn’t change the fact he equals love with possession, does not seem to experience remorse nor guilt – or at least not very long and he’s  very quick to rationalize it – and has a natural ability to mimic or force himself to act as is expected in any given situation. He doesn’t react  to things, you will notice, he behaves the way he thinks people expects him to.

So, he is sick. And since he is sick, the whole debate through his head about the nature of violence, men being beasts without laws, freedom versus enforcement, right and wrong, etc seems void.

Let’s leave that aside for now.

The question you will probably ask me is: did you like the book? And the answer I will give is yes I did. I did enjoy the book. At least the first two third of it.

It’s fast paced, it’s engaging, it’s easy to read…

What I like most is the worldbuilding. What a difference a 3rd pov makes… I mean we finally got all the world building we deserved. And the names. Actually, there were so many names in there I’m pretty sure she threw them as a joke. But, yeah. Everything I reproach Thg was fixed here: we have a more consistent idea of how the Games work out of the arena, we know the currency used is dollars (which we didn’t up until now), we have a  better idea of how the Capitol works as a society, about the working of Peacekeepers and Districts… I quite enjoyed learning more about the 1st war and the post war world too.

I also enjoyed the Capitol families Cameos – and I was very wary about them if you read some of my posts pre-released. They were nice nods, it wasn’t too on the nose…  I am relieved beyond measure not to have seen a mention of an Abernathy or a Trinket – or an Everdeen or a Mellark, I guess – mostly because that means we are still free to stick to our own hcs. (it’s not that important but still).

The cast of characters were all great – with two notable exceptions but I will come back to that.

I loved Snow’s family. What a surprise to find out Tigris is a Snow? But what joy she is. I really enjoyed her character but I have to say I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t get to see (or at least were told in the epilogue) how they grow apart or how she comes to have whiskers. The Grandma’am was an awesome addition too. Lucy Gray, the Coveys, the Peacekeepers, Sejanus, the other mentors…  They were great.

I will argue that maybe Lucy Gray, as a main character (second main character? She’s the yin to his yang in this book) could have been more fleshed out because when it comes down to it, she seems to float around in the story only in relation to Snow. This being said and the pov being mostly Snow’s, it’s coherent with his egocentric view of the world. And I’m sure a lot of people will argue the case that her only purpose being to die so he can get over love is a bit problematic better than I could.

The two characters that I think were disappointing were the “villains” of the tale: Dr Gaul and Highbottom. They were actually so disappointing that I spent a good portion of the book convinced that here was some kind of secret plot, that there would be a conspiracy or something. But no, they were just that… flat.

Highbottom first: the creator of the Hunger Games who, obviously, didn’t mean to and ends up doctoring himself with morphling to forget. And seems to hate Coryo (yes that’s Snow’s nickname) for no obvious reason. I was sure there must be some twist but no, it just turned out he hates Snow because his father stole his Hunger Games idea to pitch it to Gaul for a grade and now he’s responsible for the death of kids. Which, I mean, is valid. But since it’s only here to bring into contrast the “is Snow really bad or have the circumstances make him bad” when, really, he’s a psycho, it ends up being very disappointing on discovery – never mind as the final reveal of the epilogue.  

As for Gaul. Is she terrifying? I mean, for a young adult book, sure, I guess. She’s too obviously mean and crazy scientist for me though. I like my villains a little more subtle. She spent her times torturing her pet rabbit and various animals ffs. All she needed was a mustache to twirl. She’s cliché and, again, I’m sure it was like that for rhetoric purposes but… She’s Frankenstein and Snow is her creature, we get it. Why though? She takes a shine to him and proceeds to groom him so he can deliver the world she wants? So he’s her legacy? Because she’s a psycho too and she needs an apprentice? I thought that part was a little fishy because, at the end of the day… I don’t know, it seems a bit random.

But, I suppose, yet again, everything has to revolve around Snow in the book and in Panem.

And we’re touching to the part that annoyed me to death, that really really angered me and that, right now as we speak, I am a little disgusted by.

A short word first about the fan service. And there was plenty of that to go around. All the little wink wink, nudge nudge made me smile at first (like the grandma saying it only takes a spark for fire to catch, that sort of things), it was subtle so it worked. But as the book goes on, all the references built to the point I was sort of terrified Katniss would end up being related to Snow. And while she is not, I am fairly convinced she’s descended from the Coveys, it makes a lot of sense.

Ok… Where to start with that part and be coherent…

The less offensive (yes, I am using that word because it was offending to me) thing was Snow’s recurring reflection about the mockingjays. On hindsight, of course, it has so much more meaning than what is going on on paper, so it made sense and while it was a bit sold too thick, it was also interesting. That’s something I’m willing to grant was good.

I also liked the “it’s not over until the Mockingjay sings” saying. To be honest, I was 100% confident the epilogue would be a flashforward to the end of MJ and that quote would somehow come back into play but apparently not, that’s for us to fanfic instead.  

Now, as for the rest… I am going to speak as someone who loves Haymitch Abernathy an unhealthy amount, and while I speak as someone who loves Haymitch, I also feel it is only minorly about Haymitch and a lot about Katniss, Peeta and the rest of the victors. But Haymitch is my favorite character in the series, Haymitch is a big part of why I have dedicated so much time writing fanfics and contributing to the fandom, I am very protective of Haymitch. And, on his behalf, I am so deeply, deeply offended.

In this book, Suzanne Collins makes Snow a victor.

We can argue the semantics. Naturally, he didn’t actually win the Hunger Games.

Or does he?

Because there are no winners, only survivors and by that very definition Coriolanus Snow is a victor.

Coriolanus Snow walked into an arena, was forced into the arena.

Coriolanus Snow fought in the arena.

Coriolanus Snow killed someone in the arena.

Coriolanus Snow walked back out of the arena.

He survived.

It makes him a de facto victor. He is actually literally called that a couple of times throughout the book. It’s reinforced by the idea that mentor and tribute are a team, even.

And this very idea that Snow is a victor, has been a victor all along, is so deeply, deeply upsetting to me. The bond between victors, it’s something very special, I feel. Victors share something nobody else can understand – my very favorite part of the whole series is in Catching Fire when they hold hands, it is such a strong emotional moment, it always moves me, always. And Snow being a part of that defiles it. Worse, that means a victor was actually the one imposing such horrors on other victors all along.

And that’s… I mean, probably in terms of themes and the story as an independent object, it’s all very ironic and dark and full of great meaning about man and it’s condition. But for someone who loves Haymitch, it is very deeply offending to learn the man who has taken everything from him went through the same experience he did, that they share that bond, that they have so many similarities.

Too many similarities actually. And here we are going to branch out on TBOSAS in relation to Katniss more specifically.

That’s another thing I am not sure I liked: how similar Snow’s conditions were to our beloved characters. The starvation, the very similar experience they had growing up.

At first, I didn’t mind it. I thought, even, that it was quite fitting. But the problem came when so much of Katniss’ story was being… stolen, turned around. It started feeling like this book was subverting the powerful story in THG, not just the main plot, but everlark, and the character building. So, of course, here again, it’s probably a matter of questioning if, stemming from the same conditions, you become a hero or a villain. Nature or nurture. That sort of things. And, again, it depends if you look at the big picture and analyze it calmly or if you react with your guts as a fan, I guess. Yeah, no surprise, I’m going the fan route.

So there were a lot of parallels to Katniss.

The starvation. The strong sense of family. Lucy and the singing…

And it wasn’t limited to Katniss, it touched to everlark too.

The star-crossed lovers thing comes to mind obviously (and I want to talk about the ship too but after). Then, there was the bread thing that was both Snow’s and Lucy’s favorite and the fact that Snow brings her food all the time.  The poison in the arena we can land at snow’s door since it’s his weapon of choice, but still poison in the arena, my mind goes straight to the berries… (I will tackle the hanging tree song after)

At this point (before she goes in the arena), I was still mostly okay with it because I thought it would somehow have a reason later. Like either Katniss would turn out to be related to Lucy or it would remain light enough to turn out to be foreshadowing for THG.

Then came part 3. And that’s where the book mostly lost me.

There are eleven other Districts in Panem. So why Twelve? And if it had to be Twelve why pollute everything Katniss loves? How are we supposed to see those things the same way again when we know what we now know?

The meadow? The meadow where the toastbabies are dancing and running? Where so many people are laid to rest? Snow has been there, kissed his girl there. And let me tell you, as a Haymitch fan, knowing that Haymitch never gets to reunite with his girl in the meadow because of Snow, it’s a special kind of pain to read Coryo frolicking there in the grass “with his girl”.

And then, of course, I don’t know what is worse… The lake or the song?

Let’s start with the lake. Where do I begin? The lake that is so special to Katniss? The little shack where she stocks everything? The lake that features into so many fanfictions and that, if some people feel the same way I do, can never be used again the same way? So, that lake was where Snow murdered (possibly) his “love”. The lake, thus, becomes a part of Snow’s narrative.

It’s stolen away from Katniss.

And to better stress that point? The scene with the Mockingjays taking up the hanging tree when Lucy is about to get murdered. (let’s make a digression to say oh boy how fun it must have been for Snow during mj, I’m very tempted to fanfic THAT). It’s all very full of symbolism, of course, but with the hindsight? It’s another great important moment stolen away from Katniss. Highjacked. Not unlike a mutt, actually. This book is a mutt XD

Which brings me to what really, really made me angry: the hanging tree song.

That song is so symbolic of MJ and everlark. I mean, there’s one thing I will give MJ the movie and that’s this scene with the song. The people attacking the dam and getting butchered while humming that song? Iconic. But more prosaically, book based, that song is such such a powerful moment. It’s special. And not only because of all the thing with everlark and the tree and midnight.

And suuuuure there might be a lot of symbolism in that song being not strictly about but still intimately related to Snow. Sure. But you know? It’s also another thing that now is about Snow. So even as Katniss was singing that song, getting the Districts to rebel, showing Peeta that District 12 was gone, letting the Mockingjays by the lake take up the chorus… It isn’t just about hope or freedom anymore. Now, it’s about Snow and about how terribly ironic it is this particular song comes to be his demise, how it’s fate or karma or whatever you want to call it. Because now, we can’t unread this book, we can’t unknown what we know.

And I hate that.

Because Katniss’ journey in THG? It’s now so deeply linked to Snow’s story that if you take a step back and think, it’s more all about Snow than it is about her, or her sister or the Districts. Snow lands on top, right?

And you know what really irks me?

The book is actually good as a character study book (not really so much as dystopia because in terms of actual plot, I feel there was really little) but it didn’t have to taint so many elements of THG the way it does.

Let’s say for a moment Snow isn’t Snow. Let’s say he is a wealthy Capitol fallen from grace and that character who is not going to be the President of Panem has the same journey Coryo does. Let’s say at the end of the story, he moves on to become a famous Head Gamemaker or a close advisor to the President?

Well, the themes explored then remained the same, the conclusions remained the same. We lose the visceral signification of his connection to the mockingjays but is that really important? The Hanging Tree now has a resonance for another character in that world, the meadow has probably seen countless lovers reunions and someone killed someone else at the lake, those things happen. The problem is they happen to Coriolanus Snow.

And baring that, let’s say we keep Snow as a main, why did it have to be Twelve? Again, there are eleven other Districts in Panem. He could have come to the very same conclusions in any other place.

Twelve is only relevant in relation to what happens in THG, to Katniss, to Peeta, to Haymitch.

Lucy and the Covey could have ended up stuck in any other Districts. It didn’t have to be Twelve. It didn’t have to spoil the Meadow, or the lake or even the Hanging Tree song.

Is that why Snow hates Twelve so much? Is that why he kills Haymitch’s family even if it’s completely stupid and leaves him without a leash around a Quell’s victor’s neck? Is that why he bombs the Districts into complete oblivion ? Not to punish its victors but because he so intimately hates the place? Because he walked in their very shoes? Because, for a brief time, from his Frankenstein’s experiment, he played in the mud?

For that matter, is that why he has this weird relationship with Katniss? Because she reminds him of Lucy? The similarities are there if you look…  Is Katniss a sort of ghost to him? Come back to haunt him after all those decades? Is that why it feels so personal between them?

I will say a quick word about the ship: I was into it at first. Then there was this scene at the zoo after the snake attack on Clemmie and I felt everything started going downhill from there. The ship is rushed. They go from attraction to love in ten seconds FLAT. I know it’s YA and concessions have to be made (although I will argue I read plenty of YA and some ships don’t seem this juvenile), I made them on account of the fact they’re both young and prone to being drama queens.

(I’m making a brief parenthesis because, rereading this, I realized I did say when the book announcement came out and we all very obviously predicted the romance, that as a hayffie fan I hated the thought Snow would have a Capitol/District romance, but on that account, I have to say after reading I don’t even care because it felt so immature and so not actual love, that I don’t feel it really counts? But at the same time, it’s definitely something I have to think upon in terms of hayffie and Snow because would his own experience play in the way he sees them/manipulates/threatens them?)

All in all, though, that ship didn’t convince me. I couldn’t believe it was real. On either part. On Snow’s part because I’m  not certain he’s capable of love. He equals love with possession,  “his” girl, she “belongs” to him, he liked her better locked in the zoo because he knew where to find her, he constantly questions Lucy’s loyalties… Every  time she sings something, he’s like “is it about me? Is it about me? It’s not about me? Who is it about? I hate her. She’s dead to me. Oh but now she’s singing she’s over him. So I love her again”. Being in his head is a journey, let me tell you.

As for Lucy, it’s frustrating. But with Collins, I learned long ago to be frustrated (hey, hayffie fan here XD. You know the two characters you need to build your own hc about if you want to use them with some depths). You can feel there’s this whole backstory about her but we never get to really touch that and so we’re treated to this very strange scene with the ex-lover but we don’t really care because there is  no passion, nowhere… In fact, as a character, outside of her singing, her being a show girl, and her little discourse about how man should be free, live and let live yada yada yada, Lucy’s character is very flat in the third part of the book. She’s here only to allow Coryo’s character development.

I would argue that Sejanus actually makes more of an impact on Snow and the general plot than she does in part 3 – or, if you think about it, in the book in general. Lucy is the trigger that gets Coryo’s reflection starting about the hunger games but it’s really Sejanus that challenges it and keeps it going. Sejanus is, in fact, the District character since Snow keeps telling himself the Covey aren’t really Twelve.

I  also want to say, on a completely unrelated note, that the constant mansplaying of songs by Snow was unbearable. And that’s not his fault. So, Mrs Collins, I know how to interpret a text thank you. And I’m sure everyone else does to. It broke the pace and the emotion so much for me when he started randomly explaining. The Lucy Gray ballad was the worst. “she’s dead.” NO KIDDING SHERLOCK.

And while we’re in that Lucy Gray thing: very subtle foreshadowing here, btw. Didn’t see it coming at all.

Ah and also something that made me cringe and that I felt was very out of place: the livestock cars and the cages at the zoo. Not to go all social justice warrior but when I read, it immediately hit home and not in the right way. It felt like a prop to stress how inhumane and racist the Capitol was being, they were easy references to loaded terrible horrifying history events and I truly, truly thought it was borderline because, like I said, it was used as a prop.

To conclude.

Is this book great? Yes and No.

I think if you take it independently of THG, it’s a very good book. It’s interesting, the characters are compelling, there is a moral for you to reflect on… It’s not the best dystopian book I’ve read in recent years, it’s not the best young adult book I’ve read in this lockdown (Hi, do yourself a facor, check out the Shadow of the Fox trilogy and then come shout at me in my ask box) but it was still a good read. And I forgot to say but the first half of the novel is actual crack. It was hillarious. Might not have been the intent but come on. It was funny. (and I’m satly they sent him in the arena but they sent him with a can of pepper spray and that will make me laugh forever) I had  a good time and, at the end of the day, that’s what you ask of novels.

However, in the general context of the series, loving thg as much as I do, it tainted some of the iconic things, twisted them, insulted some of my most favorites characters, and that really dampened my joy and made me angry. So as a fan… I’m not sure I can say it was great, no.

It certainly didn’t let me indifferent though and that’s already something.

And, I mean, it is so much better than the cursed child I feel I cannot complain too much.

 It also does leave the door rather open to a sequel, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another announcement soon.  

[roc-thoughtblog]

Sense and Sensibility Readthrough Part 6

Chapter 9, Pages 34-39

Previously, I spent a whole hour on Chapter 8 because Marianne has a most amusing inability to understand anybody with the barest smidgen of emotional reserve, or anybody older than 27 in general.

In the end I spent my whole hour on chapter 9 too; this time it was "animating gales" that set me off on a tangent. I have no regrets though, I feel like I understand Austen's writing style just a bit better out of that.

I am starting to think my reading pace for Idoru just doesn’t translate to S&S though. Asides from tangents, maybe also for the relative density of the language in S&S, so maybe 5page/hour is just my Austen rate. We’ll see.

I did used to also spend 2 or more, uncounted hours, but part of this blog is that I also want to learn to pace myself and be aware of my time, so I’ll be sticking to one hour reading sessions and optionally an extra hour on something else.

Readthrough below.

Chapter 9 Dashwoods getting used to their new home; especially being able to be themselves again without worrying about Fanny, I bet. Relatable. Apparently they're consistently busy with hobbies at home (apparently Sir Middleton has none at home). And they're enjoying long, lushly described walks around the local area. Declined to do as much socialising as Sir M, but really who does as much socialising as Sir M?

GASP! Margaret still exists! :D

She's gone out to the hill to play with Marianne! I forgot that they're both kids, tween and teenager. They have that rare opportunity to simply be carefree.

when they caught in their faces the animating gales of a high south-westerly wind, [...] they pursued their way against the wind, resisting it with laughing delight for about twenty minutes longer, when suddenly the clouds united over their heads, and a driving rain set full in their face.

Haha, hubris! This section gives me pause to make a few observations though:

Firstly, this entire section is perhaps the most vivid and alive I can remember Austen describing anything: "exquisite enjoyment of air on the summits, "partial sunshine of a showery sky", "animating gales", and more. She can seriously paint a picture when she feels the narrative need; very rapid-fire showers of imagery, some of it even in-motion! The whole animating gales lines I really love, it has so much cool and vivid energy that I can really feel. Ah! I suppose that tactile element of the wind really lends it that extra, beautifully immersive dimension too. Note to self: settings do not have to be still, and even though it's often said, it bears reminding that it really pays to complement visuals with other senses. Oh! The animating gales line is also very Gibson-esque; it artfully combines all of the movement, tactile and emotional qualities of a refreshing wind to the face into a single wholistic, elegant feeling.

Secondly, I feel like this line illustrates really well one technique that Austen uses a lot, that gives part of the cheeky and sardonic feel of her narration. The one where she sets up or builds an expectation that might be positive, and then very abruptly and dryly (with no fanfare) subverts it and lets it completely bottom out without warning, turning all the positives upside-down. I've observed her previously using it to "compliment" her own characters, and I referred to it as "backhanded", but here with the scenery I'm starting to pick up the actual mechanism behind it. Is there a name for this? I'm going to call it an Austenism, for something to refer to it as, until I find out if it has a proper name. Either way I'm going to be more conscious of it from here on out.

Lastly, will Margaret ever talk? Poor girl finally had a chance to speak and all she got was "Margaret agreed." :'D

Anyway they try to run back home, because driving rains. Aww yess, running down a grassy hill in a heavy rain, I genuinely love that feeling. Marianne trips and twists her ankle. Oops, thats always a risk, I admit.

A rainswept stranger with a gun and two dogs stops to princess-carry her all the way down the hill home and into a comfy seat. Wow, she might love that. HAHA Elinor and Mama Dashwood both secretly think he's attractive. Does he leave without a word? Not as such, but the scene has no dialogue, so we are left quite deliberately to admire an "uncommonly handsome" and charming stranger in full air of mystery. Might also be because this chapter has so far been from Marianne's perspective, and being picked up by a romantic stranger out of the rain has probably destroyed her ability to remain situationally aware.

Mama Dashwood is so pleased. This guy's name is Willoughby apparently, he's too polite to stay and sit his rainy butt down on a fancy couch, and he's going to come again tomorrow to check that Marianne is okay.

and then he departed, to make himself still more interesting, in the midst of an heavy rain.

HAHA- Austen knows what she's doing here. I wonder how commonly she read such tropes in her time, to skewer them so much right now? "His manly beauty" HAHAHA it keeps going.

Marianne's completely flushed and totally overwhelmed by everything. He comes straight out of Marianne's favourite romance novels! She's definitely about to be completely infatuated if she's anything like some of my friends were back then. Yep, she's already decided that his shooting jacket is the most attractive jacket.

I have a feeling he's so perfect for Marianne in a such a completely cliched way that he's probably gonna get hella subverted before the end.

They find out from Sir Middleton the social butterfly that Willoughby comes down every year and is generally a nice bloke. HAHA Marianne wants to know everything about him in full infatuation mode, and Sir M is just like, "What? Iunno girl, but hey did you see his really awesome dog? What a good pupper."

Elinor asks better questions, as Elinor do. Reminds me of D&D when only one player remembers to ask the DM actual plot questions (usually me... ;>.>). Willoughby's related to that old lady nearby with the big estate and due to inherit it. Well, that sure is conventionally eligible.

Sir Middleton still seems convinced that Marianne and Colonel Brandon have an attraction and that Marianne is setting about on a new "conquest." Rude. Marianne (”warmly”) gives him a real piece of her mind about that. I would too. Sadly it's all wasted on Sir M's somewhat limited comprehension.

Only a few pages again today before I ran overtime. I'm starting to suspect I'm just not going to pick up any pace until I get familiar enough with Austen's writing that I'm not encountering something new to ruminate on the middle of every chapter.

[hjertetssunnegalskap1]

HOW TO PLAY WITH TROPES AND CLICHÉ CHARACTERS/ STEREOTYPES

One of the ways I get ideas to write, is that I take some characters I love and mix them with a trope I want to try out. Tropes are common expected plot devices. Some typical fanfic examples are Friends To Lovers, Fake Dating, Bed Sharing, Enemies to Lovers, Aliens Made Them Do It, Fuck or Die, sex pollen, etc. Tropes don’t always have to be cliched like these examples. But that’s how the term is used most often, I believe.

Trope inversion occurs when an existing trope is used in a story, but flipped on its head, defying the audience's expectations. Trope subversion is when the elements of the original trope might all still be present, but deconstructed. I haven’t really subverted or inverted many of tropes , and I would love to know more about how to do that. So I have picked up some tips and tricks. To be honest, I will probably mix the terms here. 

Now, I’m going to rant a bit about different terms, attempts at definitions and examples, so jump to my pretty awesome list of tips below if you don’t want to read all of this. 

Tropes are often based in archetypes - very broad, typical examples of a certain person or thing. Can be found in all cultures. Western descriptions of archetypes are King, Queen, Witch, Wise man, Joker, Hero/ Prince etc. More general descriptions are Sage, Innocent, Explorer, Ruler, Creator, Caregiver, Magician, Hero, Outlaw, Lover, Jester, and Regular Person. I have also seen the term used to describe elements/ roles in the hero’s journey. We have a Hero, a Mentor, an Ally, a Herald, a Trickster, Shapeshifter, Guardian and Shadow. I suspect that the suggestion that we only have 7 types of stories to tell, like Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Rebirth, Comedy  and Tragedy, implies that these story types also are archetypical. We all use them, all the time.

Tropes often end up as stereotypes, that are very typical oversimplified ideas of a particular type of character/ thing. Clichés, basically. So when I talk about tropes I suppose I mostly talk about stereotypical tropes. Since the term tropes often are used to describe typical plots and storylines, I’ll sometimes talk about stereotypes when I describe commonly expected or cliched characters. Like The Chosen One, Damsel in distress, Manic Pixie Dream Girl. All of these things are basically tropes. Hell, I will probably throw around these terms and mix them horribly. Sorry about that.

Example: The Geek meets the Manic Pixie Dream, falls hard, and grows to appreciate more in life

Let’s say you have a character who is based in the Thinker/Scholar archetype, a person who is constantly in search of knowledge, who meets a Creator, a person who wants to make things. 

The thinker can easily become a Geek, and that’s a typical western trope. And we have stereotypes about the Geek having poor social skills, being serious and wise etc. and these ideas can become cliched, boring and overdone. Just like the Creator stereotype often can become the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. The stereotypical trope would be that the Geek meets the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, falls for this person against his best intentions and grows to see more to life than facts. 

Example: Isak and Even from Skam

You can write Isak from Skam as this Geek meeting this brighter than life Even, falling for him against his will and growing from that. In a way, Skam starts out a bit like that. Isak has expressed prejudices as “hipster wannabe movie makers” like Even before, but then he sees this gorgeous Even and falls hard. However, in Skam, Isak was never written as a pure Geek role. He was more a Geek/Hero/Jester with internalised toxic masculinity, forced independence and abandonment issues based in his Christian upbringing, friend group, being left by his father etc etc. 

While Even appeared at first glance as a Lover/Creator/ Hero or Manic Pixie Dream Girl, he gradually showed more and more cracks in the facade, tricking the viewers to think he was more a Shadow/Trickster character, or a possible Fuckboy, until it was revealed that he  was a more rounded character with a troubling background, mental health issues, fears and insecurities. To be fair, Skam did follow a trope of Isak growing as a person because he met Even. They got their romantic happy ending and the viewers got what they wanted. 

It was everything but boring, though.

When trope subversions or inversions don’t work

There’s a price to pay if you subvert a trope, especially if you do it at all costs - like when they they subverted 5 years of character building in the last season of Game of Thrones. The first season has an example of excellent trope subversion (Stark). However, to pull out the rug at the end like they did in the last season, and disappoint the viewers’ trust, is probably not the best way to do this. 

Twists and turns can fail if they seem to come out of the blue. It can be smart to add some small hints of novelty from early on in the story, especially if you’re writing tropes that people find a bit boring. You won’t lose bored readers and you will prepare them that something is going on. Also, it can be good to do the subversion early enough in the story to be able to make interesting changes. 

If you choose to subvert a trope it can sometimes be wise to show why you do something differently. Like, if you write a female character who turns out to not fit the norm in the Victorian era, for instance, it could be smart to explain how this character has become who she is. If she’s this badass character fighting for equality, where do these ideas come from? Or if you have this character surviving traumas, abuse and lack of love, how does he turn into an empathic, more or less likable hero?

A lot of disappointment with trope subversions, like in Avengers Endgame or the last season of GoT, feel worse because the the characters act out of character. If you try to write something true, with characters that seem real, consistent and believable, that helps.  

If you play with a trope it helps if you manage not to make it too pretentious. I can’t think of any examples right now, but I know I have experienced it. Trope subversions often have a hint of nod to the trope itself, and humour can help making the subversion work. Like if the villain comments on how villains typically loses, before actually killing the hero. Or kissing the hero, lol, but that’s another trope.

A lot of build up that fizzles out can be disappointing. If our Victorian badass character has, say, superpowers, she also should have a reason (a way to use them). The readers expect that. So if you play with that and she fails using them, they probably should end up important in the story in some other, surprising way. Same goes with a romance where there’s a lot of pining, tension, heartache and misunderstandings and these are not addressed. If you choose to subvert this trope, it’s probably smart to address these things in a new way. 

All in all, when you subvert a trope you often will have to tread carefully to balance between meeting the readers’ expectations and not meeting them. Remember that the story always needs a satisfying conclusion.  

Then again, some say even trope subversions are becoming new tropes, and that there’s no reason to subvert them. Could be.

No matter what, I like to play with stuff like this. So. Here are some ways you can play with tropes and archetypes and maybe get some story ideas. 

MY PRETTY AWESOME LIST OF HOW TO PLAY WITH TROPES

1 Subvert clichéd characters

You can keep some parts of the wise man archetype, for instance, and change other parts of it. Instead of writing a “wise old wizard” (like Merlin, Gandalf or Dumbledore) you can make the old wizard into a cowardly old idiot. Instead of writing the love interest as a hot hero-type, you can make him more of a charming dork who is impulsive but also smart, intuitive, caring and with insecurities (Even from Skam). Another typical example from fanworks is to subvert typical gender norm characterisation or typical top/bottom or dom/sub characterisation.   

2 Parody the clichéd character

Write the typical “Hero/Warrior” character and take it almost too far - like with Thor in the Avengers, or even better, Thor in the Sandman series. In Skam, several characters are taken almost too far like this - up until a certain point. Eskild is written as the “funny gay” until he gives Isak some serious advice, Magnus is basically written as a typical horny idiot until he tells Isak some truths about bipolar disorder. Vilde becomes a parody at times, as well, as several of the other characters. 

3 Deconstruct the cliché/ stereotype

Why is the villain a villain? Why is the comic relief a comic relief? Identify the attributes of a character type - say, the likable and frivolous Comic Relief character. For instance Chris Berg in Skam. Explain her in a surprising way - perhaps she’s not just a clown or a funny sidekick, but uses humor as a coping mechanism. Reveal something deeper and true about the character (Chris wants to be a good friend but doesn’t know how to do this because of reasons, clowns are often sad behind the joker mask, etc). Make readers wonder if they’ve misjudged the stereotype. This can sometimes work with typical fandom clichés as well. 

4 Lampshading a character or a trope

“Hanging a lampshade” is the technique of countering your reader’s disbelief in a character’s ‘reality’ by acknowledging how blatantly they fit a cliché. The would-be victim in a horror story trips while running away (as they always seem to do) but the would-be killer stops and comments it. Perhaps they say, “Oh, you’re going to trip and make this boring?” Another typical one is when the villain has captured the hero and the hero finds a way to escape while the villain has his big speech. I love subversions of that trope, like in Black Orchid where the villain comments it and shoots the hero without a speech (if I remember correctly). In a way, season 3 in Skam does something similar to lampshading. The season is written as an epic love story, but the characters comment this in different ways, talking about epic love stories, movie references etc. 

5 Turn the plot trope upside down

You can hint about a trope, than turn things around. Sometimes this is called baiting, or showing that the expectation was a red herring. For example, you can write a story where you set up a typical hero story but the hero befriends the dragon instead of killing it. Or maybe the dragon wins. Bed sharing and it leads to nothing. Fake dating where they stop lying.  A setup for a possessive jealous partner who doesn’t get possessive at all. Soulmate story where the heroes aren’t soulmates. An ugly duckling story where the makeover doesn’t really change anything. 

6 Parody the plot trope

Write the plot trope but amp it up and make it extreme. Fake dating going too far (whatever that means), or soulmate story where all the brutal implications are clear. Ending in disaster, most likely. I can’t think of good examples here but I suppose crack fics are a bit like this. Oh, and parodic horror movies. Parodic movies in general, probably.

7 Deconstruct the trope

Somehow make it believable that the story builds as it does, based in the background of this world, or the characters. If I use Skam as an example again, the plot in season 3 is a quite typical boy meets boy trope, strangers to lovers, and it includes tropes like personal growth, miscommunication to communication, but it doesn’t feel forced because the characters feel true and real and their actions make sense based on their backgrounds. We get the feeling that there’s something deep and true behind it all. Isak’s difficulties makes sense, and so do Even’s and it also makes sense that they get each other.  

8 Changing the point of view

This is a neat trick. You can pick any fairytale and make something new if you write it in the pov of the villain, or the jealous hindrance character, or one of the helpers. You can write fake dating viewed from the outside. Or a coffee shop story where you’re the guy washing the dishes, or perhaps the owner of the coffee shop, getting annoyed at the baristas flirting with the guests? Or a cute meeting where you’re a bystander watching someone crash into each other, and you almost piss yourself laughing. 

9 Switch a story element

You can put the whole trope into a new location, like a new time or place, and make a new type of story. For instance, a love story in space can give an interesting twist. You can write a fairytale set in modern time. Most AUs are switched story elements like these. The trope is still being as it is, so this isn’t really a subversion, but the trope is dressed up in a way that's unique.

10 Averting the trope

This isn’t really playing with the trope at all, since it’s just avoiding it. Like, writing an action movie with cars but without a car chase (oh puhlease that’s like a dream, I hate car chases). It is when you would very much expect the trope but despite there being plenty of opportunity for it, it is never used.  

That’s it. I probably mixed a lot of terms and ideas. I still hope you found some interesting ways to play with characters and plots. There are so many more ways to do this, but these are my tips, I sure had a lot of fun writing this. 

[tlbodine]

Twisty Turns and Horror

“Every story ever told can be broken down into three parts. The beginning. The middle. And the twist.”  — Jack Black as RL Stine in Goosebumps

I want to talk about twists. 

Specifically, I want to talk about two primary types of twists in the horror genre, and how and when each can be employed -- and the pitfalls of both. 

But first, a caveat: What do I mean when I say “twist”? 

A plot twist occurs when the audience’s expectations are subverted. 

Based on the existing information in a storyline, a reader or viewer expects a certain outcome. A twist occurs when something unexpected happens instead. But a twist is not a mystery. A mystery presents a question -- who did it? how? what happened? -- and then challenges the audience to figure it out before the characters involved. A good mystery requires you to lay down foreshadowing and set up all of the clues, providing red herrings as necessary to distract the audience, before tying it all up at the end with a neat bow. 

A twist, on the other hand, does not necessarily require such setup and foreshadowing. And, indeed, some of the very best twists in the genre do away with such things entirely. 

So with that out of the way, let’s talk about the two types of horror twists -- what I’ll refer to as The Hitchcock Twist and The Shyamalan Twist. 

By nature of the subject matter, this will be spoiler-heavy, so follow under the cut!

Alfred Hitchcock and M. Night Shyamlan are two directors who made their careers from creating movies with a twist. Although plenty of other horror directors employ the same techniques, the careers of Hitchcock and Shyamalan are defined by twists in a way others are not. 

But -- however much he may try to emulate him with his signature on-screen cameos -- Shyamalan trades in a very different type of twist than Hitchcock. Taken at a plot level, the two approaches to storytelling are actually completely opposite. 

A Shyamalan Twist Occurs at the End, Reinterpreting Everything That Came Before 

Let’s briefly review Shyamalan’s twists to see what they have in common, shall we? 

The most famous -- in The Sixth Sense, we discover at the end that the character played by Bruce Willis has actually been dead the entire time, and that he is just another of the ghosts the little boy can see. 

In The Village, we learn that what appears to be a rural pioneer settlement is in fact a modern commune that’s been lost to history for a couple generations, and the monsters are manufactured as a way to keep the inhabitants in line (and from escaping). 

In Unbreakable, we discover that the story isn’t just the hero origin story for Bruce Willis’s character, but the origin story for the villain Mr. Glass -- who was responsible for the accident that set the hero on his journey in the first place. 

In The Visit, we find out that the kids haven’t been staying with their grandparents at all, but rather with a pair of escaped and murderous mental patients. 

What do all of these have in common? The twist is revealed at the climax of the film, and it acts to completely reinterpret the events that came before it. You’re left leaving the theater to think about everything that came before the twist, and try to find a way to piece it all together. All of your expectations up to the climax have been subverted, and you’re left to do the work of figuring out how to make sense of what you’ve seen (or not, of course - perhaps you leave the theater without ever thinking about it again). 

Done well, this twist can be incredibly powerful because it invites interaction from the audience even after the story is finished. The twist introduces new questions that it doesn’t answer, and conversation can spring up around finding solutions for it -- either within the text itself, or contemplating it in a larger context. Done well, a Shyamalan twist can lead the audience toward introspection and create a haunting effect. 

Done poorly, of course, it can feel cheap, cheesy, unearned, or just downright stupid. That’s the greatest risk of the Shyamalan twist -- it can leave the audience thinking, “Who cares?” 

Of course, Shyamalan didn’t invent this sort of twist -- it’s just what he’s best known for -- and there are tons of other examples out in the wild. Here are a few to consider: 

The Twilight Zone -- When I’ve delivered this talk before (if you can call “rambling about movies to my coworker” a talk), it’s been pointed out that this twist was really codified first by The Twilight Zone, and I should really call it a Serling twist. Well, I’m not doing that for two reasons. One, because Serling never tried to draw a direct parallel between himself and Hitchcock, so Shyamalan is really inviting himself to this discussion. Two, because The Twilight Zone uses the formula a little bit differently. 

First, not every Twilight Zone episode had a twist ending (although the most famous ones did, probably for the reason I mention above -- people like to talk about surprise endings, and they stick in the memory). But more importantly, the twists were the story. The sci-fi/horror shorts were structured like jokes where the twist was the punchline, often crafted to deliver a particular message or parable. Most of the episode existed to set up the twist, with little time spent on extraneous plot and character development. Thus, Twilight Zone stories are more clever than shocking. Still, they are a treasure trove of storytelling to study, and they make for a wonderful compare/contrast with Shyamalan’s films. 

Other notable Shyamalan-style twists: 

Fight Club, where we learn that Tyler Durden is not real, but rather the alter-ego of the seemingly meek and unnamed narrator. 

Memento, where we learn that the film’s core mystery has been solved numerous times, only to be forgotten -- and that the main character is being manipulated every step of the way. 

Orphan, where we learn that the titular orphan with homicidal tendencies is in fact a grown woman with a peculiar form of dwarfism who is manipulating the families who adopt her. (the movie is better than that plot synopsis makes it sound, I promise)

In Hide and Seek, we learn that the little girl’s evil imaginary friend (at times implied to be a ghost) is in fact her father’s alternate personality. 

There are, of course, lots more. There are also some near-misses. For example, despite its bleak “gotcha”, the ending of The Mist -- where the main character mercifully kills his fellow survivors before running out of bullets to use on himself, only to find that help was just around the corner -- doesn’t quite count. It’s a shocking and heart-wrenching twist, but it doesn’t fully redefine the film that came before it. 

Pros to the Shyamalan Twist: 

Gives your audience something to think about long after they walk away, generating discussion and hopefully that haunted “I need a minute” feeling to process the story.

Invites a second watch/read in order to pick up the clues and pieces and see how the story unfolds differently after you know the ending.

Cons to the Shyamalan Twist: 

Can feel cheap or un-earned if the twist makes the events of the film no longer seem to matter (eg, “it was all a dream!”) 

Often ends up relying on ableist mental health tropes (split personality, escaped lunatic, etc etc.), so please do something new with it 

Can completely fall apart if the ending is spoiled ahead of time, making it difficult to succeed in a post-internet environment. 

All in all, the Shyamalan Twist can be a powerful storytelling tool, but it can also fall flat on its face. The thing that will make it succeed is if the other elements of the story, especially the characters, are compelling enough on their own to make the reader want to know more. 

A Hitchcock Twist occurs early in the film and changes the rules of what you’re watching

A primary characteristic of the Hitchcock twist is that it happens early in the story -- about 1/3rd to 1/2 of the of the way through. It sets up a premise, invites you to get invested in the characters and their situation, and then pulls the rug out from under you by dramatically changing the movie into a different type of story altogether. 

For example: 

In Psycho, the first 47 minutes of the 109-minute movie are all about Marion Crane, a woman who steals money from her job and skips town before ending up at a seedy roadside motel. These 47 minutes spend a lot of time building Marion’s character and setting up what could be a crime thriller...until she is abruptly and violently murdered, and the narrative shifts over to the killer. 

In The Birds, a socialite and a lawyer spend almost half the movie developing a relationship, from their meet-cute to the ensuing quasi-romantic stalking, the weekend getaway, meeting the locals, befriending the family, attending a party. It honestly feels like a romance (with a few creepy details) right up until a flock of birds starts attacking party-goers. 

In Vertigo, the main character is a retired police officer turned private investigator who is hired to spy on a man’s wife, only to fall in love with her, a situation made complicated by her apparent madness and/or possession by a dead ancestor. This madness drives her to commit suicide. Except then the movie keeps going, and we discover that everything up to that point (2/3rds of the film) was actually a complex setup to disguise a murder...a revelation that honestly takes a backseat to Scottie’s newfangled, creepy obsession with the not-actually-dead girl of his dreams, which then ends in a new murder. It’s a convoluted story that’s much easier to watch than to explain, but it’s a wild ride from beginning to end. 

What do all of these Hitchcock films have in common? They set up one storyline, spending lots of time developing the characters and progressing the plot, only to take an extremely sharp turn. Some might argue that Hitchcock thrillers are just very slow burn, taking their time to luxuriously build up to a crescendo, but I think it goes deeper than that -- some of these movies abruptly change genre. 

In no instance is this as self-evident as in The Birds. The effect of watching it is akin to what might happen if you made a Lifetime movie and then halfway through the zombie apocalypse just happened to take place. It’s brilliant, and it replicates the feeling of real life horror -- where bad things happen suddenly and unexpectedly to ruin your everyday life -- better than any other storytelling device. 

Hitchcock is the master of this type of plot, but there are other stories that employ a similar technique: 

Gone Girl introduces us to a man whose wife has gone missing, and spends a lot of time building up their relationship history and casting doubt on him, so that we begin to suspect that he’s a murderer...only to learn, quite abruptly, that not only is his wife still alive, but she’s the one who set this whole thing up. It’s masterfully done, and the twist occurs about halfway through, giving us plenty of opportunity to see the marriage turn into a real cat-and-mouse game between two equally awful people. 

You’re Next sets up a pretty standard home invasion premise, but it goes sideways when one of the guests begins to fight back. Brilliantly, this is a twist not just for us but for the people in the film -- it’s a turn of events that ruins the evil scheme, where the whole invasion was a setup and many fewer people were meant to die. 

Hereditary lays down all the foundation for the little girl to be supernaturally creepy, the driver of whatever badness the film has in store...right up to the moment of her death. (The film then double-helixes with a Shyamalan twist ending, just for good measure) 

Million Dollar Baby seems at the outset to be an underdog sports film, right up to the point where it actually becomes a treatise on assisted suicide (among other things). 

Interestingly, the Hitchcock Twist finds a home in dramas as much or perhaps more often than in mainstream horror. The reason for this is probably because the twist demands strong characterization, and that sort of lengthy, nuanced character study isn’t as common in genre fiction. This, by extension, means that genre stories that do successfully deliver this kind of twist are often better received by mainstream critics. 

For example, look at Game of Thrones. Ned Stark’s death is absolutely a Hitchcock Twist. At the outset, an audience has certain expectations for how an epic fantasy is supposed to play out -- and brutally killing the main character and ripping apart his family as a “reward” for acting noble is definitely not it. This subversion of expectations is one of many reasons the story resonates so far beyond the usual bounds of fantasy fandom. 

Pros to the Hitchcock Twist: 

Done well, it can make your story feel more literary and/or transgressive, providing cross-genre appeal for audiences who might not normally see or respect your type of work. 

It keeps the audience on their toes by subverting their most crucial expectations; once you pull the rug out from under them, anything can happen! 

Cons to the Hitchcock Twist: 

It can lose the trust of your audience, who may not want to follow you around the bend and might feel betrayed or confused by the sudden shift in expectations. 

It’s tough to market because there is almost nothing you can say about the story that will appeal to the target audience without also giving away the twist. 

It requires a lot of skill with characterization to make up for the slower pace of the plot. 

If there’s one thing that both Hitchcock and Shyamalan twists have in common -- and one take-away I want you to keep -- it’s that successful twists rely on strong characterization. You absolutely must write good, believable, compelling characters first and foremost, or the audience isn’t going to care what happens to them, no matter how twisty those events may be. 

And one final caveat: You can really only afford a couple of major twists per story. You can double up, offering both a Hitchcock and a Shyamalan twist in a single story (see above re: Hereditary), but it’s extremely tough to pull off and can make your audience confused and even downright angry if you fail. 

What are your favorite movie twists? Reblog and tell me all about them! 

And if you enjoy this content, please consider leaving a tip in my tip jar:  Ko-fi.com/A57355UN

[orionsangel86]

Some honest thoughts...

As many of you know, I have tried to remain very positive lately about the show and the current direction. I have always tried to speak my mind and not mislead my followers especially regarding a topic that we are all so very passionate about. This is why I want to write down some things that have played on my mind lately. 

Long post under the cut

I have always been honest about my analysis of the show, and what I interpret as I watch. What I don’t think is made clear enough by many of us meta writers is that sometimes the direction of the show changes, sometimes the change is slow, sometimes it happens abruptly. All we can do is let the show guide us. We let the meta guide US, rather than force it to fit our preferred reading.

The one thing I have always tried to avoid, regardless of what idiots on Twitter might claim, is confirmation bias. I will not let my desire for canonically romantic Destiel endgame affect my meta reading of the show. I ALWAYS force myself to see other perspectives and usually, the show still pleasantly surprises me by loading the subtext with Destiel themes.

I have written several posts on the topic lately to remind you all of my current stance:

My view on canon endgame Destiel (plus additions by others)

My view on the business side of things

My last meta piece on endgame themes in Season 14

Since the announcement that Season 15 was the last, I have suffered a whole range of emotions, and many of those were relating to my fear over Destiel. My desire for it to be brought to text is shared by so many of you, I am just another fan like any of you who desperately wants this love story honoured and done RIGHT. My optimism has constantly jumped up and down from episode to episode, from one PR release to another. I can’t make up my bloody mind. 

I’m scared. 

I’ll probably be mocked for saying that. I half expect the assholes to grab hold of this post when I’m done and use it to twist my words and attack Destiel shippers with. The one thing you can always count on with absolute certainty is the predictability of the bronlies and *others* who have recently aligned themselves with them. I’ll blow them a kiss now and be done with it.

This isn’t a post to announce a *change* of heart as such, but like @tinkdw wrote this morning my optimism on endgame romantic Destiel is currently at a low point.

Ever since the end of the S12/13 escalation after 13x06, I have had this horrible voice in the back of my head telling me that such an abrupt change of pace probably came from higher up. Suddenly jumping from a heavily romantic Destiel arc to zero Destiel focus was extremely jarring and confusing enough even for the general audience to be confused with.

Since then, whilst we HAVE had quite a nice helping of Destiel elements in the show to keep us going, the lack of follow up on that escalation at THIS point is starting to concern me. There is still definitely intentional subtext being laid down for us to enjoy, but in my opinion it has fallen back into the realm of plausible deniability and the characters can easily be viewed as platonic friends/brothers.

Instead, there has been a drastic increase in the focus on found family and the Winchester family unit lately - centering around TFW being the parents of Jack. Sam, Dean, and Cas have all been presented as three equal father figures to their son, the majority of PR has treated the three show leads very equal, and this in itself is amazing for a show that has so often side lined Cas in previous years. This is still a hug win for anyone who sits in camp “Cas is a lead and this show is more than the brothers”.

I always used to say when Dabb took over, that this was a good thing for Cas fans. I still maintain this stance. Cas is more present than ever as an equal to Sam and Dean, and sure they have their disagreements, but his character journey is integral to the brothers journey now. There is absolutely no way that this show will end without the three of them together - whether in life or in death. If it does, then I will be flinging my laptop into the wall in utter despair. 

The latest episode was a heavily emotional send off for Mary Winchester. I was expecting her death, though for a short time there I hoped that perhaps it would  be subverted. I feel like she was honoured well, but at the same time I am upset that she was given no choice in the matter, and I will never fully be satisfied with her death as on a very basic level, it was yet another fridging. I also recoiled at the idea that her heaven included John Winchester - after an early season build of a potential new relationship with Bobby (one that was heavily DeanCas coded) this is another change of direction that left me blinking in the headlights. It is another element that has shaken my faith in the show’s ability to logically plot story direction. The one comfort I can take here, is that the John from Mary’s heaven was NOT the actual soul of John Winchester, but a happy memory of him. Mary’s heaven’s front door clearly only states her own name. Her and John have never been actual soulmates - just forced soulmates for heavens purposes. I can’t berate Mary on her happy memories of her marriage, but from a narrative perspective it feels like a regression of sorts, put there purely for sentimental purposes. Had it been clear that it was John’s soul, it would have been far worse and I would be in a far worse frame of mind right now.

I have seen some really great meta on this latest episode talking about how Mary’s death has shown once again the difference between Dean and Cas, and Sam and Cas, and how Dean’s extreme emotional reaction to Cas’s desperate attempt to shelter Jack and the brothers from further pain indicates an emotional bond between them beyond the realm of platonic friendship and brotherhood. I really want to agree with this reading. I do. I can see it, and I agree that this could potentially lead to a discussion between them that is desperately overdue. 

But I can also easily see this being overlooked. I can see Bucklemming stomping into the story next episode with their gigantic clumsy boots and crushing all of Bobo’s delicately weaved plot full of call backs, mirrors and poetic symmetry. I can see the DeanCas *conversation* that we have been eagerly awaiting now for nearly 2 whole seasons being once again left behind. 

After the series end announcement, I looked back at several episodes that aired recently, and I speculated that the writers have known this since at least episode 300. Too much of what has been said in the scripts since is obviously a message to the fans. Therefore, everything we are currently watching is also already “the endgame” because the writers at this point should start wrapping up loose plot threads and focusing on finalising the character stories. Setting things up for the big finale.

This is why I believe 14x14′s shock end with Michael being destroyed so easily by Jack happened. I seriously doubt that is how it was originally supposed to go. They needed to clear the path for Jack rather than having various different plots running simultaneously like they usually do. 

This is also why I am slightly anxious about Cas’s Empty deal. If this becomes a thread picked up for season 15 great, but I can also see them easily resolving it in some outlandish way to instead focus on whatever big final story will be the focus in season 15. I would love Cas’s deal TO be the focal story, and if this happens, I will also regain faith in a romantic Destiel subplot, but I am wavering. 

Since the writers knew when writing the current run of episodes in season 14 that the season would wind up and prepare for the endgame, if they intended Destiel to be brought to text, I was expecting something more than what we have got. Perhaps I’m just finally burnt out, but frankly I don’t think that the way Dean treated Cas in this latest episode read as a lovers spat, I don’t see intentional romance being coded into their scenes together, and I certainly don’t see any indication from Jensen Ackles in his acting choices that Dean is struggling with a deep love for Cas vs his grief over the loss of his mum. I see loss, and anger, and an outstanding performance yes, but his treatment of Cas was far too cold. In fact, when I look purely at Jensen and Dean over the past season, his interactions with Cas have all been rather cold in my mind. I’m sorry to say this, and I would welcome anyone reaching out to me to point out examples where this view is incorrect. But compare his interactions with Cas to any interactions with Sam, and the difference is obvious, and not in a good way. 

Misha, on the other hand, as always, has spectacularly portrayed Cas’s love for Dean in such an outstanding and heartbreaking way. Throughout this episode his anguish was so evident. He took my breath away, and that final scene when he tries to go to Dean, but Sam stops him, that really made me want to cry. 

So I am still confused, and concerned, because where I see Misha continuing to act his heart out in favour of the love story, I see nothing of the same from Jensen - not since early season 13 anyway. If Destiel was truly on the cards, shouldn’t there be more in the way of early season 13? Are my expectations really so high to want something more than mere one sided scraps?

I need to stress here that I understand the many excuses given towards Dean’s sometimes offish behaviour. He represses his emotions, he hides his feelings, he comes across angry when he is worried. He gets aggressive and violent when scared. I know all of this and will accept this IF the next two episodes SHOW me that he is ALSO capable of apology, of the kind of care and feeling towards Cas that he always gives to Sam. 

Because we HAVE seen that softer, more loving Dean regularly in Season 14. We have seen outstanding performances from Jensen in that respect - but only ever towards Sam, or Mary, or occasionally Jack. He has never shown Cas that same treatment. Again, I appeal to you, especially to other meta writers, to point out clear examples of where I am wrong. Because I really really want you to change my mind. Show me where Dean is obviously looking at Cas with clear romantic love, where the music sweeps and his face betrays his emotion the way it does for Misha whenever Cas is with Dean. 

Of course, there is a rational argument here. That this is all done purposely specifically for the Destiel drama. If this is the case then GREAT. I want it. Believe me I do. But we have two episodes left of this season and one of them will be a huge mess of pacing, action, clunky plot and terrible dialogue, and the other will be the finale which appears to be mostly taken up by Chuck’s return IMO. I can’t see any DeanCas outstanding drama being resolved in the next two episodes. I really REALLY want to be wrong. But if they don’t resolve that DeanCas drama by season end, then IMO the story between them will remain familial. Because a Dean Winchester coming out story in the final season alone just isn’t plausible. 

Again, I stress that I want to be wrong here, but the writers knew the end was coming when they wrote these last few episodes, and if Destiel was something they were doing, then they would have written it into the end of this season. I’m not saying I need a canon reveal, but I do need something more than the scraps we have been given if I am to have my faith rekindled. 

Don’t get me wrong, I adore all the focus on found family, and I fully expect season 15 to further push the Winchesters to finally show to Cas how much he is part of their family. I even think there is a good chance that we could get his name carved on the table by final season end - following that heartbreaking shot of Mary’s initials next to her son’s in 14x18. But I don’t see it being romantic, if there is no romantic push coming up. It is far too easy right now for the show to reinforce the notion that Cas is another brother. I do love that the story is developing down a clear path where Cas will likely choose to be human and live a human life with his brothers, but brothers is all they will be.

I really hope I am wrong, but in amongst all the speculation of this big Destiel reunion and conversation that is long overdue, I can’t help but remember that we have been waiting for this conversation for nearly two years. Just because fandom remembers and holds on to the overtly romantic S12/13 escalation doesn’t mean a general audience will remember this. They will only see the present, and in the present Dean and Cas do not act like a romantic couple. If another long hiatus goes by without that conversation having occurred, it is yet another gap in which the general audience will forget, and the writers will be able to drop it as they have always dropped it previously. 

This is endgame, we can’t afford to have the deancas important plot points dropped anymore. We can’t afford to have their conversations, and apologies, and moments of making up, left in the subtext. We NEED to have that stuff shown the way they show it if it is Sam and Dean. 

If they aren’t planning on doing that, then I doubt there will even be a “Destiel” plot to meta about. It will remain in subtext, as scraps, and maybe something ambiguous right at the end as a saving grace in order to not completely destroy the shows legacy once complete. 

The further we move away from any substantial Destiel elements, the more and more likely it is that a CW exec already pulled the plug on it. As much as I love Bobo, and still enjoyed this episode for its melancholic poetic beauty, his own bitterness over Wayward Sisters still shows clearly in his writing (in my opinion) and I don’t believe he truly has his heart in it the way Steve Yokey does. I sometimes wonder if his lack of passion for his episodes recently is to do with more than just the loss of Wayward Sisters. Could Bobo also be upset about a “no” on Destiel?

The saving grace here being that Yokey still fills his episode with passion and plenty of queer coding. Yokey is the other person on the writing team who I focus on in terms of accusations of queerbaiting. Yokey certainly wouldn’t queerbait his own community, but unlike Bobo where there appears to be a certain bitterness over his place on the show, Yokey still embraces his role and seems very happy with it. If they had truly been given a red light from the execs, then wouldn’t Yokey also be feeling kinda pissed off that he is working on a show that is potentially going to go down in history as the biggest queerbait since TV began?

Aside from Bobo, which can be explained by Wayward Sisters, there is still passion and joy from the writing team, and if they were truly aware that Destiel wasn’t happening, I don’t think they would be so proud. So maybe there is still hope after all? They aren’t the kind of people to intentionally queerbait their fanbase. Yet Destiel has definitely been an intentional part of their storytelling for years. 

I truly hope that the next two episodes rekindle my faith, but right now I have very little hope for textual romance. I am still 100% on board with the found family, Cas is definitely a Winchester and third lead focus that the show has been pushing. It brings me a lot of joy. But yeah, I need a lot more than we are currently getting if Destiel is really still on track. 

Sorry guys. Perhaps I am just not quite out of my rough patch this week. I am fickle enough that by next week I could have totally changed my mind again, but as always. These are my opinions, not to be inflicted on anyone else. You are responsible for managing your own expectations. This is how I manage mine.

xxx

[takerfoxx]

She Ra: Princess of Power, Season 1 FINALE, First Impressions!

And it all came down to this.

You know, I noted earlier in this season that I really hoped that they stepped away from the formulaic plots and started to subvert our expectations a little. But now that I’ve watched the first season in its entirety, I can really appreciate what the writers pulled off.

First we got the first half of the season, which were entertaining but otherwise pretty standard episodes, where one could figure out the whole plot of each episode in the first few minutes and not be surprised by much. Like I said earlier, it got the job done, but that’s about it. All the appeal was watching the characters bounce off of each other.

However, that was just the set-up, a way to get us to like all these people and care about what happens to them. Because from Princess Prom onwards, they flipped the script and delivered wham episode after wham episode, giving us big moments, major game-changing exposition, major character reveals, and plenty of jaw-dropping twists. So by the time that the big fight for Brightmoon finally rolled around, the audience is now fully invested in the plot as much as we are in the characters and hanging onto every moment.

As such, even though the finale itself snaps back to standard formula, it...doesn’t feel like it.

I mean, it’s basically Helm’s Deep. Our heroes are cooped up in their castle/fortress, massive army is coming, no one is coming, have to prepare, army gets there, big fighties happen, showdown with rival, back and forth, bad guys get upper hand, darkest hour, suddenly HERE COMES THE CALVARY, they really were coming to save them all along, squad pose, and then kick ass with the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!

We’ve seen it a gazillion times. I’ve seen it a gazillion times! And had I been watching this episode in vacuum, then sure, I’d find the jokes entertaining and been impressed by the fight choreography, but that’s about it.

But because I’ve been on this ride, because I’ve spent so much time with these characters and gotten fully invested in the plot, I felt every moment. I was on the edge of my seat during the whole She Ra/Catra battle, was biting my nails as Angella struggled to keep the Moonstone alive, was begging for Adora to get up when she had fallen to her knees, and straight up started cheering when the other princesses arrived. Sure, part of me was going, “Oh, of course. We know these tropes, so of course that’s what they’re going to do.” But that part was largely drowned out by the part going, “HOLY SHIT, IT’S MERMISTA! AND YAY, PERFUMA! AND OH MY GOD, FROSTA’S WITH THEM! GLIMMER’S HEALED, EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE OKAY!”

Basically what I’m saying is that sometimes it’s okay to go back to formula, because those things became formula for a reason. They work. They just require you to do the work and make them mean something.

Anyway, can we talk about that She Ra/Catra battle? Because damn, they both went all out! I mean, sure, She Ra didn’t have her sword, but Catra was unarmed as well, and she had She Ra on the ropes plenty of times! Hell, it could be argued that she kinda won until the cavalry arrived. That’s...not something I see often. I’m so used to the whole Team Rocket of the most persistent foe also constantly failing. But no, Catra has consistently gotten more dangerous with every episode. It’s like what she said to Hordak at the end: she has gotten closer to taking down Brightmoon than anyone, and she wiped out the Whispering Wood as well. Sure, getting the Princess Rebellion back together with the addition of Frosta was kind of an oopsie, but she also massively set Brightmoon back and took out their biggest line of defense. And Hordak recognizes that. Props to both of them for actually exhibiting good management skills. Like, an evil Overlord and a personal rival that actually know what they’re doing? What universe am I living in?

Okay, I gush about their competence a little too much, so let’s talk about another aspect that I’m...well, something I’ve been feeling a little divided on about Catra. See, I went in knowing that she was Adora’s former best friend and now her rival and that they have conflicting feelings about each other and that would lead to a redemption arc or whatever. But the more I watch this show the more I wonder: does Catra even want to be redeemed? Because she kind of seems all in on the whole Horde thing. Sure, she was hurt by Adora’s betrayal and clearly has some feelings toward her that she needs to sort out, but that hasn’t slowed her down much, and she hasn’t exactly shown any empathy toward...basically anyone. Even Scorpia and Entrapta, her most consistent companions, seem to come off as people she tolerates because of their usefulness. And given how she treats Kyle and the others, well...

What I’m saying I’m starting to see that cycle of abuse sending her down the path of becoming the new Shadow Weaver. I mean, maybe not as despicable, and definitely a lot more cunning, but even so. 

Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s awesome and I am probably invested in her story most of all, but it is going to take a whole lot of character development and moments of empathy for me to be able to buy a redemption arc. Hell, at this point I’d actually see Scorpia make that leap before Catra. At least with Scorpia you have a genuinely sweet girl that was just unfortunate enough to be born into a bad system and doesn’t seem to know better. I’m not getting that feeling of innate goodness from Catra, even with her abusive upbringing. 

It’s like I said in the past: sympathetic backstories only go so far, and shitty lives don’t excuse terrible behavior. Basically every Batman villain has some kind of terrible childhood, and they’re almost all monsters. So...basically I’m really curious to see how they pull this off. 

Okay, now that I got that off my chest, let’s tackle a few other points.

First, glad that Netossa and Spinnerella finally got to actually show up and do something! About freaking time too. And yeah, they were adorable together. I mean, given the people behind the show, it’s probably not an accident that a legitimate gay couple gets involved and the battle ends with the heroes washing away the evil with a giant freaking rainbow. FOR THE HONOR OF GAYSKULL!

Ahem.

Though speaking of which, I’ve been doing some thinking.

Okay, so Glimmer and Angella have the Moonstone, Scorpia had the Black Garnet until her family gave it to Hordak, Mermista has that big honkin’ pearl, Perfuma has the rock in the tree, Frosta has her giant Christmas tree ornament doo-dad, and I hear that there was a Fire Stone owned by a fire princess I guess who got corrupted or something? Also, Entrapta doesn’t have her own Runestone for some reason (though what happened to that First Ones disc she was repairing?)

So, uh, do Netossa and Spinnerella have their own Runestones, or are stoneless princesses like...some kind of lesser rank of princess, or how does the whole princessing thing work? Do you need an actual kingdom to qualify? I know they’re working with concept established in an 80′s toy commercial show aimed toward girls, so you can only do so much, but I’m curious!

Anyway, season two coming up. I basically watch these things when I’m on break at work, and my schedule’s going to be weird in the next few days, so things are going to get a little random.

[canadian-riddler]

How to Improve as a Writer When You Can’t Get Feedback

(or how I do it, anyway)

1a) Read stuff by people you look up to

Chances are when you look up to someone else as a writer, you have a general idea of what it is about them that you like so much.  You really like the way they build sentences, you admire their vocabulary, they’re really good at plot twists.  Surprise!  You can do all that too.  Take note of what they do and how they do it and then put your own spin on it.  If you DON’T know what it is, put some time to figuring it out.

1b) Read stuff you absolutely hate

Now why on earth would I tell you to torture yourself like that?  Simple: it teaches you how to identify mistakes.  Go through stuff you don’t like, think about why you don’t like it, and then do the exact opposite.

2) Stop posting stuff when you know it’s not ready

I’ve done it, you’ve done it, we’ve all done it.  You’ve got a story or a chapter or whathaveyou and you KNOW it’s not done.  And you know exactly WHERE it’s not done and you know exactly WHY, but you can’t be bothered to fix it.  You’re done, you’ve been working on it way too long, and you’re sick of it and just want to dump it so you can move on.  Stop doing that.  Grinding through the boring stuff is part of life.  Buff it until it shines even if buffing it takes you eighteen months.  Unless you’re going pro, the time it takes doesn’t really matter.  It’s done when it’s done.

3) Avoid using the same word multiple times in the same paragraph, or even on the same page if at all possible

This is a little bit of a stylistic rule I have, which I invented so that when I reread my own stuff fifteen thousand times I won’t feel like I’m having deja vu.  However.  Following this as a rule means that you MUST expand your vocabulary.  It forces you to stop using basic words and to start looking into creating nuance.  It also makes you sound smarter, which is always a bonus.  Use a thesaurus.  That’s what they’re for.

4) Create a dialogue with other writers

What I see a lot is people getting sad about people not talking to them about their stuff... but they never talk to anyone ELSE about THEIR stuff.  This happens SO OFTEN.  We’re all in the same boat here.  Stop getting salty over who’s getting to use the oars.  Chances are that person is someone who engages with their readers and other writers a lot more than you do.  You’re right, sometimes it doesn’t work.  But guess what?  While you’re attempting this step, you’re completing step 1) at the same time!  Net win for you!

5) Write characters how they are, not how you wish they were (that comes later)

There are a lot of posts on Tumblr telling you to project your heart out and make your favs do whatever the heck you want just because you want them to.  And if that’s your gig, then you do that.  But it won’t really make you better at writing, because you’re just writing yourself.  You know how you think and you know how you work.  As a writer your job is to tell the audience how someone ELSE thinks and how someone ELSE works.  Will there be some overlap between your fav and you?  Possibly.  But having them react to things in ways that you would or ways that you think would be good for drama isn’t you writing them.  It’s you writing a version of them you wish they were.  You can GET them to that place, but you have to build the bridge first, and the foundations of that bridge are the core character traits.

6) You need to have characters do things that you don’t like or don’t want them to do

It’s tempting, very tempting, to have your characters cry at all the right times or make up the next day after a blowout fight or do the morally right thing because it’ll give you a feelgood ending.  And you can write like that if you want to.  But it’s retracing a path you already know.  To become better at writing you need to brush aside that initial inclination to do something really obvious or cliche or angsty and think of some other direction you can go with it.  And then possibly do that again a few more times until you come up with something really special.  If you’re just going for one-and-done, banging out a whatever, go with whatever you think of first.  But if you want to improve you cannot take your first thought.  That’s the easy thought.  You don’t want that.  You think you do, but you don’t.

7) Tropes are not your friends (but they are also not your enemies)

Tropes are fun.  Tropes are easy.  Tropes sometimes get you a lot of pageviews really fast.  Because people know them, they’re familiar with them.  They know what to expect out of them.  Tropes are also a route a thousand people have already taken before you.  They don’t teach you anything.  Now, you might think I’m leading into ‘if you must use a trope, subvert expectations a la Episode VIII’.  I’m not.  There are so many tropes nowadays it’s hard to avoid them all, and subverting them all can be almost as bad as just plain using them.  So use them, but be mindful about it.  Resist writing them because they’re easy, but also resist subverting them as a convenient plot twist.

8) Read a little bit of everything

I don’t mean fiction.  I mean just plain articles.  Read a little bit about basketball, read a little bit about the Prime Minster of Australia, read a little bit about the greenhouses in Iceland.  You can do videos too or podcasts, but reading articles is generally a lot faster.  This creates a cache of knowledge that you can use later.  If you’re a writer who only writes about things they know very well, your stuff is going to end up very narrow in scope.  If you write a lot, it’s going to end up very repetitive.  You don’t need to become an expert, but if you only put pencils in your pencil case all you can draw with are pencils.  It’s good to have fineliners and oil pastels and copics when you need them, even if you only know how to use them a little bit.

9) Make personality psychology your new best friend

Personality psychology is a massive key to understanding how people work and, subsequently, a roadmap to strong characterisation.  Get familiar with the Big Five personality traits.  Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is also a good thing to keep in mind for character arcs, especially long ones.  There are several different classifications for personality (Myers-Briggs is another popular one, for example) but I like to use the Big Five (which is honestly really the Big Ten because each trait includes the opposite) because I find it easier to understand and remember.

10) Don’t take advice you don’t like as a personal insult

It’s not a personal insult.  Get mad over it if you want, but then think about WHY you got upset.  It’s probably because it pointed out something you already knew you were weak on.  Getting mad helps nothing, but doing something about what made you mad does.  And no, I don’t mean writing a really long rant about how the person who said something you didn’t like is stupid and doesn’t know what they’re talking about.  I won’t pretend I’ve never done it, but I also won’t pretend doing that accomplished anything other than making me look really bad.

11) Pay close attention to your character voice

A mistake you see a lot, especially from younger writers, is characters that all sound like exactly the same person.  Usually that person is the writer.  They only really know how to write in their own voice, with a bit of flavour from whatever characters they’re trying to do.  If you write some lines of dialogue without indicators (pronouns, names, epithets, etc) and the reader cannot tell who is supposed to be talking, your writing lacks character voice.  And the solution is NOT (ABSOLUTELY NOT) to give characters accents/overemphasise accents they already have.  That does NOT solve the character voice problem, it just hides it.  And that does not help you improve at all.  If you have five characters in your story you should be able to write them all a plain dialogue cycle and the reader should be able to figure out who is who without having to count the order of who was talking in the beginning.  You should also be able to lift one character from a story and transplant them in another where they have never been mentioned and the reader should still be able to follow who they are because of their distinct character voice.  This gets a lot harder in stories with large quantities of characters.  Struggle with it anyway.  It’s important.

12) You’re going to have to write more, probably way more than you ever wanted to

Yeah.  Getting better as a writer involves a metric ton of actual writing.  Sucks eh?  Staring at the keyboard doesn’t count.  Neither does refreshing your fav website eighty-nine times or staring out the window waiting for a spark of inspiration.  Just get to it.  The theory goes that if you want to get good at something, you have to spend at least ten thousand hours doing it.  That’s a lot of hours.  More hours than anybody really wants to comprehend or put themselves through.  But you’re going to have to do it and the best time to get started is now.

13) Remember who you’re writing for...

... and that person is yourself!  Writing for your readers?  Often an exercise in futility.  They love you, but they’re too shy to tell you so.  Sometimes too shy to let you know they even exist.  So you have to love yourself twice as much.  I mean your writing.  Love your writing twice as much.  It’s gonna be on your computer forever, after all.  Make sure you put as much love and care into it as possible so that when you accidentally open one of your documents five years from now, you can read it without cringing and ‘accidentally’ flinging your computer out the window.

14) Don’t skip editing (and editing once is not enough)

There are so many stories out there with an author’s note that includes something along the lines of ‘oh yeah I just wrote all this in an hour and didn’t read it lol’.  Dude.  If you didn’t care enough to make sure your story made sense WHY on EARTH would you expect your READER to care about it?  Have a little respect for your audience and for your own stuff.  And judicious editing is important.  You have to actually LOOK for mistakes.  You can’t just read through it without actually getting any words through your eyeballs and declare your mission a success.  I promise you those mistakes are there.  They’re still gonna be there after your ninth edit.  Should you really edit nine times?  Of course you should.  Step 2) says so.

15) Stop selling yourself short

Go ahead and look up to other writers and wish you knew how to write like them.  But stop telling yourself you’ll never get there.  That thought right there is your biggest hurdle to doing it.  You’re good at some things and bad at others.  Wonderful.  Praise yourself for the former and work on the later.  You don’t have to be all ‘tortured writer’ and shrug off compliments because someone else does something slightly better than you.  Give yourself a thumbs up and remember all the stuff you do right.  The stuff you come up short in will join it eventually.

[fedonciadale]

If the undercover lover theory is ture than what is the point of Jon saying D@ny has a good heart? Why would he lie when it is only him and Davos? Also why would Davos say to Jon I saw you staring at her good heart? Jon is clearly at least attracted to D@ny and at one point actually thought she has a good heart, that is enough for me to lose faith in Jon - yes I hate D@ny and everything she stands for that much. I wish Sansa would end up with someone else other than Jon, he does not deserve her.

Dear nonny, the thing about that conversation is, that there is a Watsonian and Doylist perspective on to interprete the scene. From a Watsonian perspective Jon is asked about Dany by Davos and he doesn't even know her that well at this point, certainly not enough to really know if she has a good heart. From his perspective she holds him detained on Dragonstone (if not in a cell), but she also allowed him to mine the dragonglass. So, if you look at what he knows about her is somewhat contradictory. Now, why does he answer like that? My explanation is the following: To me he looked quite distracted in this scene as if his mind were elsewhere and I would suggest that when asked about Da€nerys he answers with the first thing that comes to his mind and not his genuine opinion. Now what first comes to his mind is what he has been told repeatedly about Da€nerys by her people.... That she has a good heart. As for Davos : from a Watsonian perspective, what does he want? He is Jon's Hand and he has to find a solution for the awkward situation they are in. As a Hand it is his duty to point out possible solutions and I would argue that he tries to find out here what Jon's opinion would be on a marriage solution... You know the kind of obvious solution pre-parentage reveal that somehow didn't cross anybody's mind safe Littlefinger's for the whole season?I had the impression that this flippant and very ooc remark by Davos was in fact his attempt to do what a good hand does: brokering an advantageous marriage for his young unmarried king. And Jon told him there was no time for that and Davos never mentioned it again. Now as dialogue goes this could have been written more smoothly... if the Watsonian perspective would be the only one. And this is where I think the Doylist reason comes into the fold. The writers have written all Jon€rys scenes as ambiguous imho. The line by Davos is a classic 'tell, not show'. We have never seen that Jon was staring at Da€nerys least of all her boobs. (And would it not have been easy to show that at least once?). Therefore the audience needs a hint by one of the characters that something is going on, giving at the same time the impression that we as the audience should have noticed that something is going on.... TBH it reminds me of 'Much Ado about nothing' where Benedict and Beatrice are set up as a couple by everybody telling them respectively how much in love they are... Only in GoT I doubt this will have a similar happy ending. The pattern we are accustomed to see, the romantic trope, is two people pushed to come together by their friends. And since we know this trope, this is what the casual viewers see. So, from a Doylist perspective the scene with Davos and Jon tells the audience that there should be a love story, and this should make us suspicious in a season where at least the plot in Winterfell was about subverting the audience's expectation.I freely admit that I think it could have been done better, but at least the scenes are that ambiguous that you could look back at these scenes after a plot twist and see that they can be interpreted in different ways. So, to return to a Watsonian perspective, I don't think Jon said all that because he really thinks that Da€nerys has a good heart. He said the first thing that came to his mind which was not his opinion but what he had heard multiple times. Even though he doesn't know everything about Da€nerys he knows enough to doubt her motives, which is why he later asks Missandei about her. Tbh, what makes me quite sure that we won't have a Targ marriage next season is the fact that the writers failed to push a marriage alliance that would make sense pre-parentage reveal but not afterwards. If Jon and Da€nerys are destined to be together why not let them marry at a time when it makes sense and be done with it?If everything plays out, as I think it will, you will have no reason to doubt that Jon and Sansa are best suited for each other. And we don't need some random Northern young Lord, nor will we need Podrick or Gendry to make her happy. Thanks for the ask!

[emperorren]

How do you think redemption could be handled in the case that 1) Kylo has been Supreme Leader for a significant amount of time, and 2) Kylo isn’t going to be ‘reforming’ the First Order in any way? I would have a hard time accepting that redemption if there is a gap where he’s Supreme Leader for a while. I have a hard time conceptualizing what event or events could take place that would push him to leave the darkness behind and get the GA to root for him if he hasn’t begun changing after Crait.

I think you’re thinking too hard. Vader was a bad, horrible, not good guy for 20+ years before he redeemed himself—did the movies bother to show every single atrocity he committed as an enforcer of the Empire? Were those years and those crimes appropriately weighted against his chances for redemption, when the moment came for him? Did we see what Vader’s “motivations” for leaving the darkness behind were, other than wanting to save his son? No, and nobody complained. For all we know, Vader never had any conflict about the Empire or his methods, and was perfectly fine with it until he wasn’t.

Even if 1) Kylo is Supreme Leader for a significant amount of time, we’re not gonna see this period in detail during the trilogy itself. We’re just going to read a tl;dr in the opening crawl, and the fallout of it will be the set up for IX’s main plot. Whether it’s been three years or three days, it won’t really make a difference in terms of screen time. What really counts is what happens on screen, and I mean in terms of both the audience’s perception and the bulk of characterization. The star wars trilogy movies tend to condensate in broad strokes an amount of evolution and character development that would take ten episodes, or ten thousand pages to be described properly—you need to suspend your disbelief to an extent and fill the gaps with your imagination, but the gist is there and is usually perfectly encapsulated via iconic plot twists. It took less than a week for Kylo to fall for Rey and turn against his long time mentor/abuser. An equally sudden twist can be all he needs to snap out of his supreme leader shenanigans, even if those have been going on for years.

As for 2), I doubt Kylo is going to reform the First Order in any significant way. Even if he tries, he will inevitably face opposition within the FO itself (which could be part of his plot arc for IX, and what spurs him to snap out of it). But he might not feel any impulse to try at all, not until the sheer horribleness of it kicks him in the fangs. By the end of VIII, he’s clearly still okay with the methods and the purpose of the First Order, and the First Order itself can’t suddenly become a humanitarian organization, nor can Lucasfilm afford to muddle the (necessarily) simplistic political subtext of SW by introducing the VERY questionable concept of a /benevolent dictatorship/ (without subverting it in the same movie). The First Order is bad and needs to stay bad. Kylo’s time as Supreme Leader is the nadir of his arc, not his chance to do some good for the galaxy. His redemption arc will kick into high gear only when he turns his back on it, and whatever he does before getting to that point will be the necessary darkness before the dawn (which only makes the dawn look brighter). 

Now, about what could make him turn his back on it…

I have a hard time conceptualizing what event or events could take place that would push him to leave the darkness behind and get the GA to root for him if he hasn’t begun changing after Crait.

But he has begun changing, hasn’t he? Just the way he looks at Rey in their last connection, the softness, the regret, the longing on his face… But oh, you mean politically and morally… as I said earlier, Kylo needs a reality check. For all his cynicism he’s an idealist, and very good at deluding himself (I believe one of the reasons he can’t seem to let go of his Evilness is that he killed his father for it. He refuses to believe it was a false ideal, another failed purpose, another smokescreen that didn’t live up to his expectations. He can’t accept it, it would destroy him, so he prefers to live in this self-induced hallucination that the FO is actually something worth killing for). When reality kicked him in the face in TLJ and demanded him to sacrifice Rey, he killed Snoke instead. I suspect he’ll need another crisis to finally question all of his ideals, not just his loyalty to the old wrinkled turnip.

Kylo is also very self-protective. Even at his most selfless, when he chooses Rey over Snoke—he does it in a way that lowers the risks for himself as much as possible. (he lets Rey into Snoke’s room pretending he’s turning her over; he stays at a safe distance when she’s being tortured, he remains demure and quiet so that Snoke doesn’t lash out at him, he even kills Snoke via remote-control; sure, from a logical standpoint it was probably the only way Snoke would lower his guard enough to be killed, but I suspect there’s an element of self-preservation as well—which is not uncommon in abuse victims). Kylo is fiercely jealous and protective of his beliefs, his dignity, his grudges, his dreams of grandeur, his delusions, his own life—those aren’t things he’s ready to let go. (yet.) 

But maybe there’s another huge turning point coming up for him, this time so dramatic that he’ll see that nothing is as important as saving the one(s) he loves (which can only happen AFTER he acknowledges he loves anyone at all, which… he hasn’t, not really), and it will be the moment when he’s finally ready to let go, and make that one unquestionably selfless act that will be his redemption.

Like… honestly, it could be as simple as facing Rey in combat for the first time (*) after vowing to “destroy” her and finding he just. can’t. do. it.—and this sends him into a spiral that makes him finally question everything he’s worked for so far and understand his place can’t be where Rey can’t follow. Which isn’t something he necessarily realized in the throne room (he killed Snoke thinking Rey would join him—he wasn’t ready to sacrifice everything yet).

Or realizing that Rey’s happiness matters to him more than he’d ever thought, so he saves not just her life, but her friends’ as well. Add to this the probable emotional turmoil caused by his mother’s death, and Hux’s rising in popularity among the FO and antagonizing him more and more explicitly, making him feel like a lion among wolves, having to constantly guard his back, living 24/7in fear of a galactic Ides of March. He thought the only way to “become what he’s meant to be” was removing any attachment (killing them if he has to)—but the truth is he doesn’t really know how it feels, having been in a codependent relationship with Snoke for most of his adult life. Now that for the first time he’s truly alone, he’s going to realize that his no attachments policy won’t make him more powerful, it only makes him lonely and completely vulnerable to malignity and betrayals. This will make him miss Rey more excruciatingly than ever… and hopefully reevaluate what it means to have a family… what it means to love and be loved. Once he gets to this point (and to get there, he has to experience how it feels to be alone on top of a war machine), it’s all downhill to the final redemption.

Remember: for all it’s entangled with politics and riddled with *space fascism* shenanigans, Kylo’s story is not political. His “crimes”, his “darkness”—that he needs to redeem himself from—aren’t whatever political/military action he undertakes, but the emotional wounds he inflicts on himself and his loved ones. The goal is to heal those wounds, and that’s what his redemption will be: emotional healing. In this perspective, his turning point will be motivated by a new understanding of feelings and relationships, an emotional epiphany, rather than a political or even moral one.

(*) however long the time jump will be, I tend to doubt we’re gonna have significant “missing moments” between Rey and Kylo. Maybe some offscreen force skyping, but I find that unlikely too. Their relationship is just too important to occur off screen, even in part.