#it felt tonally dissonant to me

[sapphicblight]

i think i’m redeeming myself with the third chapter of eat bathe love

[a-really-bad-decision]

The fallout show isn’t NOT anticapitalist, but it’s anticapitalist in that way that a lot of recent media goes for, where it makes vague gestures towards ideas like ‘There Is Wealth Inequality, Perhaps’, or ‘maybe a few dozen people having more money than god Isn’t A Good Thing, Actually’. But ultimately it kinda just tiptoes around commenting on anything systemic by offloading the blame onto its shadowy cabal of the ultra-rich, and turning the wastelander underclass into a constant running joke that the audience is expected to laugh along at. Which like. Fine. That’s honestly more than I was expecting I guess. But bad-appling fallout feels like missing the point extra hard, given how much it absolves the US of its role in everything, up to and including literal nuclear armageddon

[fellhellion]

This part of the editorial from 2099 (pic sourced from this post) is so interesting to me because i don’t even think the idea of Miguel having these kinds of flaws is uninteresting or impossible, but I just personally would never have come to this conclusion just based on the text.

Like, when I personally look at how Miguel and Dana interact, I don’t see any indication that he emotionally condescends to having a relationship with her, when you’d think this strain of elitism should shine through in some part of their relationship at least initially in his arc.

I don’t look at Xina and Miguel’s interactions and interpret any sense him feeling threatened by her intelligence (even if we're just talking purely pre-spidermanning), when you’d think an element of that would be present, even in a flashback. He was a callous dickhead about the cheating explanation, but that alone without some corresponding behaviour to how he speaks to/treats Dana, even just as a flashback, just doesn’t offer the bridging piece to displaying what the authorial intent apparently was, at least for me.

Also, and by god we always come back to Dana’s writing being so damn lazy, but if Miguel - even if only at first - sought Dana out due to the emotional convenience she provided, what has prompted enough change that he is willing to bear and forgive actions like her seeking out the company of the man who drugged him when she wants to needle Miguel.

ALSO. PETER DAVID I AM SPEAKING DIRECTLY INTO YOUR EAR RN. ITS VERY SILLY TO ME TO POINT OUT THE MISOGYNISTIC STREAK INTENDED IN MIGUEL’S ACTIONS HERE BUT THEN LITERALLY JUST NOT BOTHER TO MAKE THE WOMAN THIS IS ABOUT MAKE LIKE. SENSE WHEN YOU WROTE HER. OFFER NO EXPLORATION INTO WHAT HER ACTIONS SPEAK TO IN HER PERSON AND DELVE INTO WHAT CONTRADICTORY ACTS MIGHT TELL US ABOUT HER.

[moonshynecybin]

you cantttt just say rosquez feminization and not elaborate…. penny for your thoughts

shout out to @lestelledreams who sent me another ask like this but tumblr ATE my response when i tried to post it. luckily i draft in notes app…okay so it would be easier to list thoughts i DONT have about rosquez feminization… under the cut bc we do in fact get a lil nasty here

so i’ve talked a bit about some of the non-racing oriented things marc does for his body like his hot girl routine (laser hair removal. skin creams. slutty workout videos) like my girl enjoys being SMOOTH he enjoys being conventionally SEXY (personally. bush til i die but whatever live your truth marc) and the first time he’s doing it as. okay i’m famous and photographed all the time AND around my hot older crush/idol who has fucked more people than i’ve ever even met in my lifetime… like a little insecure part of marc is like this is what vale wants… and one thing about my man marc is he will COMMIT. so he waxes himself hairless the entire time they are fucking the first from 2013-2015 (and beyond) and frankly vale would like him either way but MARC gets off on it so hard… making himself pretty for vale… and maybe vale says something like that in the moment, just like mindless dirty talk about how good he looks how he made himself all pretty like a girl, and marc jolts like he’s been electrocuted and whines and comes right then even though vale had like JUST got inside him… and he’s curled around vale panting eyes shining leg hitched around vale’s hip asking him to keep going and it’s SO clear he liked whatever that was a LOT.

so vale uh. catalogs that information. and starts to test some hypotheses #olditalianmeninSTEM by which i mean the next time marc is blowing him he curls his hand into marc’s hair and tugs a little until marc looks him in the eye and vale just sends it like they’re whipping 310km/hr around the track— like breathless mischievous confidence… starts feeding him a stream of dirty talk, calling him gorgeous telling him nasty stuff about his tits riding that lovely edge of complimentary and degrading and getting sooo gender about it, and he watches marc’s eyelashes flutter and his hand on vale’s hip tightens and then marc like. literally chokes himself on valentino’s dick he’s clearly so so into it and vale feels crazyyyyyyy… SORRY..

and then it’s onnnnn baby it is. using the feminine forms of italian endearments in bed. playing with his tits. losing the condom. weird roleplay where they laugh so much. it is delightfully horny and slightly goofy gender transgression that they are both SO obsessed with… like the sex whiplashes through tonal dissonance it is simultaneously the most intense thing they’ve ever felt and like. lethally campy. at one point they are BOTH the baby girls bc they love being hot and are not serious people

that being said it culminates with vale just like. buying disgustingly expensive neon yellow designer lingerie and leaving it in marc’s motorhome with a lil note that has like. a dumbass turtle doodle on it instead of his signature. like something very silly and valentino. and then they have the WORLD’S most insane sex about it where vale says all kind of nasty stuff about marc being his best girl and spits in his mouth and tries to get him pregnant. hashtag catholic weirdo moments. crucially it is never formally discussed until like. genuinely ten years later when vale is like impish nervous smile WE REALLY SHOULD HAVE TALKED ABOUT THAT EH? and marc’s like ? best sex of my life? wdym?

[2hoothoots]

Revisiting P2 since the docu epilogue dropped and your AMV (<3) popped up as a sign for me to ask something that hopefully you haven't already spoken about years ago: What did you think of the in-game psych explanation for Maligula, that she's the primitive savage part of the mind? P2 is a weird mix of sketchy Freud/Jung concepts that Tim likes meshed with modern psych, and Maligula's deal seems like something they probably wrote a lot of different versions of but never quite solved elegantly

yeah, i think you totally hit the nail on the head - it's always felt like one of the parts of the story that they couldn't quite give enough polish to before they had to finalize it and move on with development. like - i went to go get my artbook to see if it had any insight into the writing process, and did you know that Nona and Maligula being the same person was apparently added way later in development? that's wild! i didn't know that until literally right now! i may or may not have skipped straight to my favourite characters when my artbook arrived and then put it on my shelf without reading the whole thing

ANYWAY, retrospectively i think it being a twist that was added later actually makes a lot of sense in the context of everything you mentioned. the Maligula problem, to me, is the fact that they're trying to juggle a bunch of different things that she has to be in the story. there's Maligula, the ruthless big bad, and Nona, the beloved grandma, and if you suddenly have to also make them both the same person... well, it ends up being kind of a thorny writing problem to make that work, haha.

here's some art i made so this isn't just a wall of text, rest of the answer under the cut

i think one thing they could have done when they needed to rehabilitate a mass-murderer into a lovable old lady was pull back on either end of the spectrum. make your villain softer and more sympathetic, or give grandma a mean streak like she's one bad day away from a tragedy at the crochet club. and to give the story credit, i'm really glad they didn't. Nona is relentlessly sweet and endearing - and that's great! she needs to be in order to make the audience care about her, otherwise the emotional beats are never going to land. likewise, Maligula is a great villain, she's vicious and ruthless and at the culmination of her arc we see she simply does not give a shit about murdering hundreds of people. i love that for her, honestly, you go girl

but then, like - how do you connect the dots? how do you frame grandma having a violently murderous streak in a way that doesn't make the ending of "but she's over it now" feel kinda weird and hollow? and how do you do that while also being sympathetic to the game's themes around mental health? Maligula's informed by the traumatic things that happened to Lucrecia during the war, but she can't just be a manifestation of trauma, because the moral of the story being that trauma makes you a mass-murderer (until you beat up your trauma and shove it in a giant pit) would feel... really tonally dissonant!

so i think you're totally right that the sprinkling of pop-psych concepts we get ends up feeling a little bit like an awkward band-aid. Maligula's story is about how the horrors of war can shape you into a terrible person, who does terrible things - ...but there's also, like, special circumstances, so it doesn't feel weird that she goes back to being Raz's sweet grandma afterwards. special psychic circumstances! she's not just any war criminal, she's the fight or flight response gone out of control!

which - i dunno, i think that line in particular always stood out to me, because that's not really what the fight or flight (or freeze or fawn) response is, right? it's a temporary boost of adrenaline to the system to rev you up for getting out of a dangerous situation. an overactive fight or flight response is called chronic stress and anxiety. i know the games are pop-psych and not actual science, but it always stood out to me as a little awkward.

if it were me in the writer's seat - with the benefit of all the time in the world to workshop it, and no looming deadlines, and the hindsight of having a full completed game in front of me to think about - i might have tried to frame it around connection. i think you could swing the lens to instead focus on how violence, stress, trauma etc., make it harder to understand and empathise with the people around you. the tragedy of Lucrecia's story is that she came home to try and help her countrymen, the people she cared so dearly about. but the more time passed, the less she cared, the less she was able to see them as people. after Marona's death, the Maligula that remains is one who's unable to even care about killing her own sister. the alternative is too raw, too painful - instead, she sheds her last vestiges of remorse, and throws herself into the easy relief of violence. (we see this again, when Nona "awakens" as Maligula - when confronted with the baggage of her past, she chooses to wash it all away with force, unable and unwilling to care about the people she used to call friends.)

and i think shifting the focus like that ties it in thematically, too. a big theme (of both games, but especially the sequel) is how important connection is, how being able to understand and reach out to and rely on other people is a lifeline during hard times. PN2 touches on how there aren't really "good people" and "bad people" - everyone has the capacity to do wonderful or terrible things, and i think Raz's line to Maligula about how "everybody's got something like you" works. Lucrecia was never a monster, no matter how everyone tried to pretend she was. she was just a person, the same as everyone else - and just like everyone else, she could be pushed to extremes under the right circumstances. it just feels kind of odd when the implicit context is "everybody's got a mass-murderer hidden in the primal recesses of their brain", hahaha.

but like, again, that's the privilege of hindsight, right? i've definitely also been on the other side of the creative process, stuck with something i suddenly need to make work in a story and having to come up with a solution that feels like a band-aid. sometimes you just gotta call it good enough, and move on. and i think the game is overall much stronger for having Nona and Maligula be the same person - it plays into the wider themes, it sets up some great emotional beats, and i think it's overall well-executed, even if there are one or two hiccups in the writing.

anyway, great ask! thank you for the invitation to ramble, this is something that stuck out to me on my first playthrough of the game and it was fun to sit down and get my thoughts in order

[the-descolada]

Spoiler-Free Advance Review:

Exordia by Seth Dickinson

I could not put this book down, my god. Staying up super late multiple nights because I couldn’t stop reading is such a great problem to have, and Exordia gave me that problem more than any book I’ve read in a few years.

This is a very different book than Baru, but Seth’s evocative prose and dark humor is familiar from page one, and the laser focus on defamiliarizing real world injustices is again the core of the work. Despite being far more immediate (Exordia is set during the Obama administration in our world, with an alternate history beginning from the moment the book starts), the heaviness of the topics never gets overwhelming. There’s some incredible (and extremely fitting) tonal dissonance here, with every perspective character having their own sense of disaffected humor about the apocalyptic situation they’ve been thrown into.

I described this to my friend after just starting as “if the Books of Sorrow were written with Gideon the Ninth’s tone and just straight up in our world,” and I think that remains true throughout. There’s a huge amount of references peppered in, and it helps maintain that lighter tone to balance the despair of what is essentially a doomsday clock ticking down throughout the book - and it helps keep things grounded, honestly. I never felt it took away from the gravity of things, or was unnatural - after all, if I, an early 21st century sci fi nerd, was thrown into some fucked up alien bioweapon mystery, it’s hard to say my first thought wouldn’t be “oh shit, this is just like the Andromeda Strain!”

Having seven (eight?) different protagonist (or deuteragonist, I don’t know which they qualify as) PoVs is pretty wild but works perfectly here. Every character has such a unique outlook that you can instantly figure out whose head you’ve popped into even before any identifying names or things are mentioned - Seth’s mastery of the tonally cohesive PoV shifts was something I had loved in Tyrant, especially, and they’re equally impressive here. The characters are lovable, hatable, and everything in between - and each as mentioned is so distinct and compelling that I can’t say there was a single character who I was unhappy to get into their head. And that’s saying something, given who some of these characters are, but I’ll leave the specifics a surprise. Predictably, my favorites were the dysfunctional autistic butch-femme lesbians, but I really loved all of them in the end.

The base premise is almost comical in how small it starts to how much it escalates - a cynical, disillusioned Kurdish genocide survivor, Anna Sinjari, meets a terrifying (and yes…very hot. I’m a simple woman) alien in Central Park, and this seemingly chance encounter sees her roped into a small group of scientists, soldiers, and her own mother in a desperate countdown to solve an otherworldly mystery and save their world. The twists and turns of the plot are intense, so engaging that I was bouncing up and down at times (there’s plenty of sci-fi insanity that I absolutely eat up), and tightly paced.

Seth seems to really enjoy writing ethical dilemmas to great effect, and Exordia is ruthless in that area, taking the base concept of the trolley problem and the moral justification for what someone would sacrifice for the greater good and carving it apart for narrative weight. What greater good does the sacrifice serve? Is it actually good? Who gets to make the choice, and do they have a choice but to make it? There’s a lot to dig into here, and Exordia is a four course meal.

One aspect of this simply taking place in our world, rather than being an alternate universe like Baru, is that the defamiliarized commentary is even more on the nose. Whereas Baru is a commentary on empire and homophobia as a whole, transparently pulling from primarily American history of genocide and imperialism to shape a culture unlike our own in many ways to defamiliarize this moral exploration, Exordia is just literally about real world American imperialism and enabling of genocide in the MENA region, primarily the ramifications of the military industrial complex’s usage of drone warfare and the extremist regimes armed and encouraged by “counterterrorism.”

All this sets the stage for the question of what happens when a bigger fish arrives, one just as hell bent on empire building and justifying its own atrocities. The sci-fi intervention into this banal evil is at the same time a reflection of that evil, and asking if the world has the capacity for resistance to both. Exordia’s answer is profound, and far from easy, but entirely fitting for the ethical dilemma that runs throughout the book, creeping up on you slowly as you start to recognize what shape it takes in this story.

The central material conflict of the book, a locked box mystery of sorts that you piece together with the characters, is fucked up and fun and scary, a reality shifting threat that treads the line between body horror, meta-narrative, and lovecraftian math. It’s extremely cool, and I think it’ll be right up the alley of fans of The Andromeda Strain, The Locked Tomb, The Books of Sorrow and other parts of Destiny lore, and a lot of other SFF stories where ethics, horror, and mystery mix together.

I don’t want to say too much about the climax and the ending - going into this book without knowing too much was an incredible experience that had me on the edge of my proverbial seat - but the ending left me asking myself some very similar questions as I had at the end of Traitor, and I cannot wait for a reread when the physical book is in my hands to see what little foreshadowed things I can pick up on.

I don’t think people are going to be quite as completely emotionally Destroyed at the ending of this one as Traitor, but…it is very much a Seth Dickinson book, and they have quite the talent for making every thread tie together at the end to make the reader feel every emotion at once and realize that this could never have gone any other way. I cried, I laughed, sometimes simultaneously, and a book that can do that to me is entirely worth the experience - and what an experience this was.

Absolutely fucking incredible, I want more of these characters and everything they’re wrapped up in, 10/10.

I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[spacedadkronos]

Ooo, lol, looks like someone got their knickers twisted so hard they wrote a whole essay about how they're categorically correct about an ultimately subjective matter. That's always a winning approach.

Please do not try to "educate" me the difference between writers and executive producers in animation. I have an animation degree. I'm not a child.

 I follow both Brent and Alan on Twitter and have been for like 3 years now. I have been watching their updates since the announcement of the show 2 years ago. I have pics of them celebrating finishing up the writing. Here's proof that they wrote it, including screenshots of the IMDb Brent had linked on his Twitter. 

I said this is not what they consider THE sequel. Obviously it is *a* sequel. I'm saying people should not be treating it like Megamind 2 when it is a pilot for the TV show. They want a real theatrical sequel.

This is a random screenshot I felt was important

I think this person better put what I meant about not as many people would care this much if it wasn't on streaming:

Megamind was an arrogant little egomaniac for the entirety of the first movie. Not sure how you missed that. Roxanne appears dissatisfied with her place in life from her recording at the Metro Man Museum with Hal onward, and does her level best to become the hero her city needs because no one else is going to stand up and do it - not sure how you missed that, either, but her whole character arc is about stepping up to the plate to do good. Well done reducing her to a single career point and then discarding her. I wasn't surprised to see her frustrations with going right back to reporting. That was a headspace that made a ton of sense for her. It was set up incredibly well.

And Megamind himself says, "some days, it felt like it was just me and Minion against the world," so you might think I agree with you there - but in fact I'm going to point out the SOME days, it FELT LIKE. There is no reason to believe that he never had any other professional associates between the time he left the schoolhouse and the time we see him as an established supervillain. In fact, I can and will argue that there's room to interpret *he himself* saying he wasn't always flying solo. It's up to interpretation - but it's there.

And no, Roxanne and Megamind are not and should not be "quasi-dating" unless you want to look past the enormous Bernard lie. Which I can't say I'm surprised you did, since Roxanne doesn't matter as anything other than Reporter Romantic Interest, apparently. The end of the original implies they have *potential.*

But I'm not trying to convince you. At the end of the day, you didn't enjoy something you hoped to enjoy. You missed a few key points about the original, so the pilot of the show didn't line up with some of your expectations and it pissed you off. That's a shame. But instead of offering some grace and recognizing it for what it is - a movie designed for a younger demographic than the original, the first ounce of love Dreamworks has shown this IP since its initial release more than a decade ago, and as much story as could be crammed into 83 minutes because the people making it only had so much time within which to work, which is *honestly a fun ride* if somewhat tonally dissonant compared to what YOU were hoping for - you've decided instead to focus on what it wasn't: What You Personally Wanted. And you've decided to make your disappointment everyone else's problem instead of processing it like an adult and moving on.

I think you're boring, I think you're unkind, I think you're a whiny little bully who came onto MY POST to bitch and complain about how you're the god of what I'M allowed to enjoy. Block me, if I make you so miserable. I'm busy having fun.

[ncfan-1]

I’ve largely avoided news about the upcoming Star Wars movie regarding Rey. Anyone who was around when TROS comes out knows how I feel about it, and since I can’t remember if I ever said it out loud, I’ll say it now: TROS tainted my experience of the entire Sequel Trilogy. I have never watched any of the ST movies again since I watched TROS in theaters, not even TLJ, which in my frank opinion is stronger than TFA and TROS combined. I… I’m not sure how to feel about the Rey movie.

Just based on my memories of TROS, I can’t view the Sequel Trilogy as anything but Rey’s villain origin story. By the end of TROS, she is immensely powerful, most likely the most powerful Force user left alive in the galaxy, and on the same token, intensely isolated. Her relationships with Poe and Finn seem markedly strained; she doesn’t seem especially close to either of them. The one person she felt understood her is dead, and moreover, he died saving her life, which is such a can of worms where guilt and trauma is concerned. Who does she have who she can really confide her troubles in? Who does she have whom she can really lean on? She seems almost totally unmoored from the community she is ostensibly a part of, her ties to her friends superficial at best.

Moreover, she’s reverted back to a more extreme version of her getup from TFA and kept it at the end of the movie, suggesting that she’s regressed emotionally in some way. She certainly seems to be in deep denial about all of the traumatic things that have happened to her and all of the traumatic revelations she’s learned over the course of the three films. The fact that she latches on to ‘Skywalker’ as her new identity signals that she isn’t at peace with her own past and heritage, that she hasn’t addressed and resolved her own feelings about where she came from and who she is. She hasn’t addressed or resolved anything.

And then, to top it all off, we end with Rey in a spiritual wasteland, where her only companions are ghosts and a droid with the emotional maturity of a young child, and the movie leaves it extremely ambiguous as to whether Rey is only on Tatooine to visit, or if she intends to set up shop and live there. It all gives me an extremely ominous feeling about where Rey’s journey is supposed to go next. Maybe she doesn’t become a full-on villain, but unless her upcoming movie devotes a huge chunk of time in the beginning to having her actually work through everything that happened to her and everything that she learned, instead of just sinking further and further into denial about everything, Rey being remotely well-adjusted in that movie is going to come off as so tonally dissonant to me.

Like I said, she doesn’t have to be a full-on villain, but where I would naturally expect to see Rey next from TROS is to see her as a liminal figure, someone who doesn’t really seem to belong anywhere, morally ambiguous, at least somewhat perilous. I could see her as something like a trickster figure. I could see her as an antagonistic force. But as prospective grandmaster to a new Jedi Order? Nah. That makes no sense tonally, based on where we last saw her. Yeah, I know there’s supposed to be about fifteen years between TROS and this film, but the huge time skip isn’t going to be enough to make up for the tonal gap. Not for me. I’ll watch it when it comes out, but I’m not sure how well it’s going to sit with me.

[chaos0pikachu]

Ray's Alcoholism vs Revenge Porn of Boston

tldr: the show's got a tone problem like whoa, some plots are treated as Serious while others are treated as Devices when they share the same level of fucked up

I wanted to write about this a bit b/c it goes to the root of one of the main issues I have with the show: tonal dissonance

I've seen people talk about tone in shows before, some folks felt like Kinnporsche had a tone issue b/c of the comedy but I always disagreed with that. The comedy added levity, it also enabled the stakes to slowly build. The front half of the show is more comedic than the middle and back half when the tensions are highest. The tone doesn't yo-yo rapidly, it doesn't treat some things as serious and others as not. When Porsche is drugged and sleeps with Kinn it's treated as something serious, represented symbolically by the bruises Porsche is covered in after his punishment, and later Kinn apologizes and asks for forgiveness which is the turning point of their relationship.

This matches up with Pete and Vegas later, even down to the parallels of Pete's bruised body to Porsche's earlier in the series. Later, Vegas, similarly to Kinn, has to ask for Pete's forgiveness; though in a more violent way because that's built into Vegas and Pete's relationship and what sets them apart from Kinn and Porsche (this is a good thing for the narrative imo). Even so, both aspects are treated with the same weight, and seriousness within the narrative. There is no tone issue.

This is where Only Friends falters, only certain plots are treated with a level of seriousness while others aren't.

The biggest example of this is Ray's alcoholism vs the revenge porn of Boston.

Ray's alcholism is treated with weight, with a level of seriousness and respect. The narrative repeatedly makes it clear to the audience Ray's drinking is A Bad Thing, that it's Dangerous to both himself and others. Other characters comment on this, there's an implied history of Ray's friends trying to get him to stop drinking, a huge part of Ray and Sand's relationship is centered around Ray's drinking and how it negatively effects them. Ray goes to rehab, he goes to therapy, there narrative paints a pathway for betterment.

Before anyone jumps me, I'm not saying any of this is a bad thing. The tonal dissonance comes in when compared to other plots that should be treated with the same level of seriousness but isn't.

Gap records Boston during sex without his permission, Mew acknowledges this in text that this is what happened and Gap violated Boston's consent. However, when Boston discusses this he only has a moment where he gets mad, and the person he talks about it with, Nick, brushes it off (once to hide his own deception but put a pin in that) and even teases Boston that he deserves it for sleeping around.

Later, Mew uses this revenge porn as blackmail against Boston specifically as punishment. Mew knows this video was taken without Boston's consent, he says so in the text, and he still uses it and keeps a copy of the video on his phone. We never see a follow-up to this. We see Boston in that singular scene look upset, but that's it. When Cheum and Top are concerned about Mew's reckless behavior the blackmail with revenge porn is never something that is revealed to them, or others, Boston never tells anyone else about it.

It's just dropped. Completely.

The line Mew has about Boston's consent is lip service, because he uses that violation to punish Boston. Combine this with the way Nick's recording of Boston and Top (without either of their consent) is also treated. It's passed around, like candy. Sand apologies to Nick for sharing it with Ray. Top never reacts to this recording as something violating he's just upset they got caught. Boston is the only one upset, and he's upset with Nick, but the narrative frames Nick as the real victim in the following episodes - with Dan saying Nick might have been mistreated after sex previously (as the audience we know this is about Boston), with Boston saying he did awful things to Nick (which were?), with Sand offering empathy to Nick b/c Boston's actually a bad guy.

So when I talk about tonal dissonance in the show, this is what I mean. We have two plots - and there's more this is just the most glaring example - that should hold the same narrative weight: one is centered on addiction the other a literal sex crime, bit only the former is treated with any level of seriousness.

Ray's alcoholism is given empathy by the narrative, Boston's virtual assault is given none.

and this is why I say the narrative is puritanical at times lol

[greenerteacups]

Hi GT!!

I came across your post with Book 5’s list of chapter names and noticed that you changed the chapter name for 11 (from The December Rebellion to The Night Patrol).

Which leads me to my question: did the content of the chapter changed in any way so the chapter name changed as well, or is the name change something you felt was more appropriate before posting?

Can’t wait for the next chapter!! <3 much love

Yeah! So the chapter list is actually a little outdated — I ended up changing the names when they no longer suited the plot post-revision. "The December Rebellion" originally included a (somewhat tonally dissonant) caper about breaking into Umbridge's office, which didn't work because:

(1) it was a setpiece sandwiched between two setpieces, further squeezing out the slower emotional moments that worked better for the chapter (bathroom scene didn't exist in the original!).

(2) it added about 8,000 unnecessary words for a plot point that didn't contribute to any of the major plotlines, which in a fic as long as this one is just unforgivable; one of my key justifications for making my shit as Bonkers Long as it is is that for any given scene, etc., I can make a decent argument for why the fic wouldn't make sense without it;

(3) it had a different, worse version of the library fight between the Quartet, but because it was happening during a setpiece, it was disorganized and way too fast to explore the kind of character subtleties I wanted to in that conversation.

So I scrapped the chapter in the Big Demolition of 2023 and replaced it with a patrol scene, which was missing anyway, because what's the point of having your characters be prefects if you don't have at least one good patrol scene??

[hazelnut-u-out]

I think an interesting facet of the storytelling of Rick and Morty is the way that you’re intended to view Rick as a main character. It’s inarguable that both Rick and Morty are the main characters of this show (although, season 6 left Morty feeling a bit neglected, in my opinion). That being said, there are some things that I’ve found interesting regarding the way that Rick is intended to be perceived.

Generally, when you’re consuming a piece of fiction, there is a compulsion to like the main character. At the very least, you’re used to empathizing with them on most things. Now, I’m obviously not trying to say that main characters can’t be bad people. That wouldn’t exactly be a generalizable statement. In fact, I think that it is a marvelous tool in fiction to follow a protagonist who is very obviously doing the wrong thing. Main characters are allowed to be villains.

I guess what I’m getting at here is that I’m used to liking main characters as people (not just their presence on the page or screen, dialogue, or personality) even when they’re consumed by a villain arc. I really loved the tonal shift that took place in the last episode of season 6 of Rick and Morty, because they really challenged me on that. They flipped the script, in a way.

(Disclaimer: I love Rick. I'm just angry with him at the moment.)

I think the only other piece of media I’ve consumed in the genre that I’ve felt executed this same earth-shattering disappointment of being denied a main character you like was Bojack Horseman. Bojack is the main character. He’s funny, charismatic, empathetic, tormented. As the viewer, you want to like him. You’re waiting for a reason to be able to love him, but… it’s never enough. It never comes. No matter how many grand gestures he attempts or how well the groundwork is laid out for a redeemable character, as he says, “You have to be dependably good.”

That fundamental dissonance is something that I can’t help likening to Rick.

All the pieces are there, but he can't quite put them together.

I’ve even found myself waiting for the moment Morty gets to deliver a confrontational monologue to Rick with the same emotional significance of Todd’s.

“You can’t keep doing shitty things, and then feel sorry for yourself like that makes it okay. You have to be better.”

I truly felt, for the first time, that I wasn’t supposed to like Rick. I was supposed to hate him. ‘A Rick in King Mortur’s Mort’ and ‘Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation’ were both episodes told quintessentially from Morty’s perspective. This meant that, of course, I loved Rick’s screen presence, what he offered the narrative, his dialogue, and comedy; but also that I found myself hating him as a person. I was so angry with him.

These were episodes told from the perspective of a victim, but with the gift of adult/outside perspective on the situation, which Morty doesn’t have.

It was truly a brilliantly executed narrative device. As the viewer, I was begging Morty not to go down into that lab. I was urging Morty to realize that none of this is normal or acceptable or something he had to go along with.

On the other hand, Rick is a deeply tormented character that is incredibly easy to empathize with, but it’s very clear that he’s not who you’re meant to be rooting for anymore.

With all of this in context, it makes more sense to me why Morty was pushed to the background to highlight Rick’s growth as a character. It’s a lot easier to empathize with an abuser- to feel bad for them and be on their side- when you’re consuming a narrative about their healing from their warped perspective. It’s a lot easier to like them as a person when you’re not facing the direct consequences of their actions on their victim.

I think that’s why there’s something so eerie about the ending of ‘Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation’ to me. It left me feeling nauseous and anxious; consumed by this anxiety from watching an unknowing child fall victim to circumstance, manipulation, and abuse.

Rick’s drunkenness in that final scene isn’t played for laughs, like in the pilot or ‘The Rickshank Redemption,’ nor is Morty’s hesitance. There’s this harsh reality that he isn’t frantically stumbling and running away in terror, like he did in earlier seasons. Instead, he’s just uncomfortable. This is something he’s used to. His normal is dealing with his grandfather’s drunken, violent mania. His normal is accepting his role- his destiny to be a sidekick.

This shot of Morty’s face is actually what reduced me to tears while watching the finale. There is something so unsettling about this look of, ‘Nothing has changed.’ Something heartbreaking.

Rick’s role is to fuck Morty up, and Morty’s role is to forgive him for it.

And Morty is accepting his role…

For now.

It’s a harsh reality to accept that your beloved protagonist is destined to become a villain, and I can’t help but feel that we’ve rounded a corner with this series where Rick is fated to be the villain in Morty’s story.

Evil Morty and Rick Prime might be the facetious faces of the ‘big bad,’ but I have this sinking feeling that our bad guy has been hiding in plain sight for a long time- whether or not it’s his intention.

[linktoo]

the biggest tonal dissonance is hearing ccTommy say this in his offline chat:

which felt very mature! Very aware of the narrative theyve built!

and then in the finale reducing his character's differences with cdream down to "you just needed a friend" and "truly understanding" him. To say "hey, what if this isn't making you truly happy? :<" and raising a hand out to someone who has gaslighted and tortured and physically hurt him and so many other people around him. At least to me, shows the juxtaposition between him as a cc and him playing a character. Tommyinnit, the content creator, did not strive to tell a story with such dark themes; and is incredibly privileged as a person (as far as we know) to not have to go through those things himself.

He may understand, on a fundamental level, that his character is a clearly victim of abuse. He may understand how violent, disgusting, and awful that is to go through. But, through this lens, has NO clue how to deal with the aftermath.

And that's the problem: there are real abuse victims out there. And they saw themselves and resonated with his character's reactions in these situations. People have these traumatic experiences, but are left to figure out how to move on. To have it with them for the rest of their lives to deal with these situations, whether they fully escape said abuser(s) or not.

And ccTommy has in no way had to LIVE with this trauma. You cannot walk away from all of this unscathed. It's a bit awkward. The only way that ccTommy would be able to see any light from this ending is... see it in someone else's perspective! Try to find the optimism in it all, make a friend out of it, sympathize, and wipe out everyones memories and start all over. Start fresh. Real victims do not have that as an option. It's harmful and reductive and every other word in the book. THATS why so much of the community has said dsmp's narrative fits best with a path of healing, not needless angst.

What kind of message are you leaving your whole audience with this kind of ending?

[pruneunfair]

Tried to start reading For My Derelict Favorite for Diana on this list, I can't y'all, I fucking can't, the protagonist is just so viscerally unbearable that I quit really fast. I don't even remember how many chapters I lasted. Terrible. Horrible. Shallow politics and worldbuilding that make no sense (WHY WOULDN'T TAILORS BE COMMONERS?!), the story bending over backwards to glorify the MC who just thirsts over this man without any genuine connection, I can't fucking take it it's terrible. I guess I'm too aroace for this but c'mon. People thirst for fictional characters. Whatever. But the moment you live in that fictional world with the knowledge that those characters are human people???? Girl why do you keep treating him like a walking thirst trap stop it. I guess I take issue with this for similar reasons as I dislike When The Villainess Loves (for that one it was: tonal dissonance/whiplash between other characters angsting about the MC's terminal illness while both the MC and the audience know she's not actually in any danger of dying, MC treats the men like they're just made to be thirsted over, the OG villainess was much more interesting than the reincarnator, etc etc) and also super didn't like how suicidality is utilized in this manhwa. His suicidality is... severely unserious I don't know if it's just me or what but I feel like it's being used as a cheap plot device to make him “sympathetic” and give the protagonist a reason to... do anything... All the while he's being treated like a thirst object by the narrative and protagonist. A bereaved man who's suicidal. It felt so gross.

I tried so hard to stick around for Diana but... y'all. I can't do it.

I can't blame you for dropping it, when the only character worth sticking around for is treated like shit by the characters you are supposed to like. I honestly can't tell if my derelict favorite was written by an Incel who got rejected and Hestia is just his dream girl or if it was written by a pick me girl who gets upset when girls dont have the same taste in men as her.

The suicide thing too was handled in a way that always felt so iffy to me, I used to be suicidal myself so I'm glad I wasn't the only one who felt that it was a cheap excuse for Cael to murder 2 people for Diana and it's solved with the power of pussy. It makes it out as if all forms of depression and suicidal thoughts can be fixed with the power of love from a romantic partner.

Just thinking about the lost potential of Diana being an accurate version of a saint sent by God and Hestia growing as a person instead of being a total sham of a girls girl forever makes me sad.

[beevean]

I think another reason I don't like the writing in Frontiers is that it feels... egotistical? Like idk the entire air around the games just gives off "Oh here's the game that will save us from the big bad 2010's writing, so praise it!"

Also just how I feel the more dramatic parts feel trying too hard, like when Sonic is slowly being corrupted, I felt next to nothing... the game felt like it was grabbing me by the shoulders and going "See this scene??? See how much pain Sonic is in??? FEEL SOMETHING!!!"

I use the word "pretentious".

Frontiers clearly aims to have a different story than usual. Event-wise, it's pretty paper thin: Sonic rescues his friends and uncovers the mystery of these new islands he's stuck in. No big deal, Sonic games don't need a big complex plot. But unlike, say, Heroes or Generations, Frontiers has little to no levity, the music is bombastic in an attempt to inspire awe and wonder, and it's heavy, heavy on character interactions. Introspections, even. Amy, Tails, Knuckles and Eggman are supposedly eviscerated by the writing, with all their fears and doubts and desires exposed, like a drawn out character analysis and, yes, a blatant rerailment from the terrible Pontaff games. Tails and his arc that is literally "wow I sure sucked in Forces, what was up with that" is the most obvious example of this, but I have talked extensively how Frontiers feels like a huge love letter to SA1 in the worst of ways.

(and the unnecessary dig at Baldy McNosehair that is also the second time in a row from Flynn :\ let it go, man)

Like, alright. Let's be real. Games like ShTH, '06 and Forces wanted to be taken seriously too. They did not succeed at it, for various reasons. And while ShTH makes me laugh for how tonally dissonant it is, and I don't think Forces is as cringe as it was made to look like, I still think '06's story is largely boring and a bit tryhard for the series, although it has a few funny/cute moments. So yes, overly serious games are not new in the series.

But Frontiers really gives me a whole different vibe. Like it doesn't just want to be taken seriously: it wants to be praised as a pivotal moment in the series. Perhaps it's precisely because of how it solely exist to "fix" characters, how it shoves as many references as it could as candy for the old-time fans (when one of the complaints of the Pontaff games was that they felt disconnected), how everything about it, and now I'm also adding the gameplay, feels like it doesn't exist for its own sake, but to be "a step in the right direction". Like that it's the biggest accomplishment it can reach. It's a step in the right direction. It's better than what came before. We are fixing the series. Right?

(I wouldn't mind the attempt to show how Sonic was suffering from the corruption. I genuinely like the scene where Sage keeps questioning Sonic's resolve and he just keeps going with a gritted smile. I sure mind how the game was rushed into giving it a non-conclusion lmao, and Final Horizon didn't really fix things.)

[crimeronan]

i should go on the record as a known disabled hunter truther to say i'm fine with him having magic now. there are several reasons for this (such as: powerless witches are not a one-to-one disability metaphor & there are many Many different ways to tell disability stories in the first place) but the biggest one is how it's been handled thus far. it remains to be seen if i'll like how the finale explores his magic but i liked that hunter uses the teleportation spell that came very naturally to him with a staff and i liked that he didn't even realize he'd done it at first. i liked that there was no sense of "ah, finally, i have been given a Missing Piece and had my Humanity Restored and can finally be a Real Boy Who Can Meet His Full Potential instead of Suffering Abjectly" there wasn't any weird tonally-dissonant celebration or shittiness. i liked that the narrative tied the magic back into hunter's grief instead, that's the direction i Hoped they'd go if this plot point happened. i liked that hunter's magic manifested when he was saving willow and telling her not to call herself half-a-witch, while willow was losing control of her magic in a way that read VERY chronic illness (whether physical or mental) to me. i liked that hunter and willow still have their camaraderie and shared experiences with being half-a-witch even if neither is actually marginalized in this way anymore. i liked that we didn't see hunter do any magic EXCEPT the teleportation and i ESPECIALLY liked that he doesn't seem to know HOW to do any other magic. i liked that hunter was not suddenly 'cured' in a way that made him a prolific natural-talent powerhouse witch when that would make no fucking sense. i'm not even rationalizing a bad feeling here, like, if i felt icky at all about this i would be writing disappointed/fix-it meta instead. but it didn't feel like a saccharine inspiration porn story and it ALSO didn't feel like it took any of the disability vibes and experiences away from hunter's character, which is what i most worried about. i'm sure other disabled people have other opinions on this which is fine, i know it's been divisive in the weeks leading up to for the future. but yeah i was very cool with how everything went down. it was a plot point that could very easily have been yucky but the yuck factor was well avoided imo. hunter and willow disability parallels and solidarity remain some of the Best Shit In The Whole Show.

[the-owl-tree]

Also hi, tonal dissonance in S9 anon again. It really bothers me how Twilight had zero agency in becoming regent of Equestria. Like she understandably starts freaking out that her mentor AND Luna dropped this on her out of nowhere and everyone starts giggling and kicking their legs going 'Oh you're just TWILIGHTING again haha you'll wing this!!' Bro, does Lesson Zero mean nothing? The ponies learned not to brush off Twilight's concerns, and it's honestly insulting that they brushed them off for something this major too. Especially since she didn't even have a choice in the matter. Come on Luna, you just returned to the throne. I know you can at least keep ruling for a few years to help her instead of being at the club. >:(

I think it's funny Twilight had zero idea of what was happening when she got alicorn-ified. Celestia just started singing and girl was confused for a majority of it until she got hit by The Beam.

It felt weird how little choice they gave her. I get that destiny is real in the ponyverse but Celestia, my love!! You gotta ask before you start crowning people and granting them alicorn immortality!!!