#its just a natural creative response to a sad story too it shows so much emotional investment!

[campanellamaria]

i still can't quite get my head around the fact people were actually getting snippy about that signalis fan animator making cute domestic animations of arielster like there wasn't a whole flashback scene where they dance together in the actual game. those diary entries where ariane calls elster cute and talks about watching movies together and complaining about running out of paint to her and how wonderful it is to fall in love?? they spent YEARS together. why is no one allowed to explore that? or the interactions between that one eule and star unit?? and just. considering the overall tone of the game......... man, why tf not.

[uomo-accattivante]

Great comprehensive interview with Elvira on the making of The Letter Room and filmmaking, in general. One interesting tidbit mentioned: she is currently developing a podcast about sex. 👀🤔

For most of her creative life, Elvira Lind has been behind the the lens compassionately capturing true stories as a documentary filmmaker. Her debut feature, Songs for Alexis, observes two young lovebirds navigating a long distance relationship and challenging views on gender identity in the modern age. While her sophomore feature, Bobbi Jenne, explores the life of a famous dancer fighting for her own creative and personal independence.

Despite her prolific doc work, a story that couldn't simply be told in its raw form kept circulating in her head: a dark prison comedy about the secret life of a correctional officer trying to bring humanity to the prison system. When he gets transferred to a job in the letter room, he finds himself a little too involved in the private lives of the inmates.

Far along in her second pregnancy, and with the support of an incredible team of collaborators, Elvira took on the challenge of writing and directing her first narrative short, "The Letter Room." The film stars Oscar Isaac and Alia Shawkat, and has had an all-star festival run, screening at Telluride, Tribeca, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Here, Elvira reflects on the joys and challenges of creating your first short film—putting empathy first, reshaping the tropes around pregnancy, and screening in the COVID era.

FTW: How did you become a filmmaker?

Elvira Lind: I’ve always loved film. I was very drawn to documentaries because it felt like you were entering something that was really happening. You opened a door and were already inside the film. You’re just trying to keep up with what’s being thrown at you. As opposed to fiction where you have to conjure it up from nowhere. I loved imagining and writing stories when I was little, but I didn’t have the confidence to pursue it.

I didn’t come from a family of filmmakers. And I came from a time when people had a little shitty camcorder that you borrowed from someone’s uncle, and buying film was expensive. Things opened up and changed a lot when cameras became more accessible.

I could only afford one year of film school in Cape Town, where I met some amazing people and learned about so many different ways of storytelling. I came back to Denmark and found myself working for free a lot for other filmmakers while doing a side job. The paid work was very hard to get, but I’d rather work for free with filmmakers that I loved and have more responsibilities than have access to nothing. It wasn’t easy to find my way in, but it’s so worth it. 

And now you live in New York. How does this global background affect your general filmmaking style and approach?

I definitely bring a lot of Danish documentary traditions with me and hold it very dear. There are a lot of kick ass female documentary filmmakers in Denmark that have taught me a lot. There’s a good support system for women there. It’s an incredibly privileged place in that there’s funding from the government to make films. You can make things that, in my opinion, are often far more interesting because it’s not reliant on how it’s going to make money in the box office.

You’ve shot many of your documentaries in the past. So what was it like this time to be working with a cinematographer?

I always wanted to work with a cinematographer on my documentaries; we just couldn’t afford it. Now for “The Letter Room”, I worked with Sam Chase, who has got such a brilliant eye and it was wonderful to have someone to work with on composing the look of the film because I’m usually doing it by myself. It is kind of like a marriage. I work with the same editor on all my projects as well. You enter this symbiotic sort of dance together. For me, it also means you have to fight about things and disagree and then make up and hear each other out. My editor, Adam Nielsen, is the kind of guy who just comes up with genius ideas while in the shower or on the way home from work on his bicycle. You have to find these key people in your life where you can bounce ideas back and forth with.

Where did the idea for “The Letter Room” come from?

It was a story that was brewing in my head for a long time, but I wasn’t sure how to put a narrative film together. I just started to write it down and then it kept developing.

There was a podcast that I listened to that really inspired me. It told the story of different men who were all unknowingly writing love letters to the same woman. She started to ask for money and help with rent, but the letters she wrote were so wonderful and all these men were very in love with her. These very lonely men felt like magic had entered their lives. They all eventually found out that the woman was actually a man writing to different people trying to get their money. They were all heartbroken, but one of the men said that the worst part was losing these letters and that the fantasy was gone. He wished they could just keep writing to each other. So much of life is fantasy and trying to live through other people’s lives. I’m very drawn to stories of loneliness and bottled up feelings.

And then I am firmly against the American prison system. It’s heartbreaking, frustrating, and I can’t make sense of it. How do you even begin to explain this system to a child?

It’s a society that doesn’t care about humanity. I wanted to show the monotony, the repetition, the sadness. I don’t see the bigger goal or purpose of locking people away for countless years  and taking away all the things that makes you feel human, that makes life joyous. I really believe that we can all change and this system teaches people nothing. “The Letter Room'' is the combination of these two concepts that I’m very passionate about.

And then I got pregnant for the second time and I hadn’t made a film between the two. It was a crazy feeling to be taken over again by pregnancy. A wonderful friend of mine, Sofia Sondervan-Bild, came to me and said, “I think you should make this film and I’ll make it with you.” Initially, I freaked out and thought I didn’t know how to do fiction and doubted how I could make a film in a prison, but she inspired me and told me to do it. She’s just one of these incredibly powerful people that you want to go on an adventure with. She made me feel like my pregnancy wasn’t going to stand in the way of me making this film. We ended up shooting while I was far along in my pregnancy in a prison in the middle of a summer heat wave. It was crazy, but it was the best thing that I could’ve done at the time.

When you were directing on set at that stage of pregnancy, did you feel like you were reshaping tropes of what women are capable of? 

It was insane. The funny thing was that the crew was like, “we can’t complain that we are tired because she is extremely pregnant and still running around.” I was so high off of that experience. When we finished, I collapsed. I fell straight onto the couch and then I have a two and a half year old screaming my name. That was more work for me than directing the short. I edited the film right before I gave birth actually, and then I gave birth and did sound right after. I was pumping breast milk in the corner in the darkness during the sound edit.

I’ve learned a lot from surpassing whatever I thought was physically possible with being pregnant. I learned that being in a creative process gives you so much energy that it allows you to be in whatever shape, size, form, mental space you can. People are ready to give you their support, if you choose the right people. I’m really grateful that I chose such wonderful collaborators who supported me through it all. Even when people were questioning my choice to direct a film while being pregnant in a prison. Why not? Women get pregnant and then we still need to be supported so that we can continue to make the things we want to do.

What was your experience with getting “The Letter Room” funded?

It’s really hard, let’s be honest. There aren’t a lot of people sitting around waiting to fund a short film. We ended up working with Topic, which is a part of First Look Media. They are just incredible and really support filmmakers with whatever their vision is. I’ve had great experiences and some really bad experiences with funding, so I know this was an ideal scenario.

Having a short that is over 30 minutes long seems like a feat. At what stage in the process did you know this was going to be a longer piece? And how did that decision affect the shoot in both positive and difficult ways?

It was way too long at first, and when I shortened it, it was still 32 minutes. We could only afford five days of shooting, and a lot of it is shot on active prison grounds, which have an insane amount of protocol. We almost used everything we shot.

I’m not used to being able to have different angles to choose from in my doc work, so I think I just knew exactly what I wanted. I know that my producers were worried that I wasn’t getting enough, but to me, I was like, I’m getting double of what I usually get on a documentary! Everyone was quietly concerned, but everything worked out when we got to the edit.

The short’s length hasn’t done any favors for me so far, but you need to breathe as an audience, you need to pace it out. If I cut out certain minutes, it would’ve felt rushed and you wouldn’t have believed the arcs that the characters had.

I loved the concept of placing a very empathetic character in a setting that is contrary to that personality type. You included so many details that made the world feel so three dimensional and cared for. Can you talk about those decisions to create that feeling?

It means so much to me that it made you feel that way. What frustrates me about the prison system is that it lacks any empathy or understanding of human nature and nurture and who we are. What we need to become better people. It takes all of that away.

I spoke to people who have spent a lot of time in prison and they told me that you have to hide your feelings and that showing any signs of weakness will be a disaster. It’s the worst possible scenario you can imagine yourself in. Being robbed of every privacy, anything that makes you happy, anything that makes you feel like yourself. I imagined the character of a caregiver in this setting who wants to help and finds a silly way to do so. I was very inspired by that story of the love letters that I talked about earlier. What does it mean to lie if you’re making someone else happy?

It’s the morning of your first day of the shoot — how do you feel?

I was very nervous. I had never said ‘action’ before. I’ve been on a lot of sets, but I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t know what I was doing, but it’s also okay not to know. Mistakes are going to happen, and sometimes they become gifts. At the same time, I was very excited. You come in and there are all these people there with you who are there to make this thing you’ve written come to life.

What are some things you would do on set to create a safe space and vulnerable environment?

We did everything we could to make the set a safe space. It was very difficult and stressful to shoot in an active prison, but we made sure to actively ask our crew if everyone’s feeling okay and if we can do anything to make the situation better. I’m very vulnerable and encourage all of my crew to be vulnerable with me. Mistakes are welcome.

It's a short film, people come and work on this not because they’re making a million dollars, but because they want to be there and are being incredibly generous with their time and energy. It was such a good environment that even when challenging things came up, it was still a lot of fun.

What was it like working with actors for the first time?

That was one of the biggest challenges for me. I’ve heard so many different stories in passing of the least helpful note or worst thing to say to an actor. You want to be respectful and actors have their way of working. Ultimately, they are all really talented actors and all of them came with so much energy and a lot of ideas.

I spent time with each of them talking about their character. Those 1 on 1 conversations helped me a lot in the writing process as well because you’re bouncing ideas off of each other and they’re asking you questions about how they would respond to a certain situation.

I had always imagined Alia Shawkat as Rosita and she ended up wanting to do it and came from LA to film it. I had tears in my eyes when we were filming the scene of her and Oscar. They were excited to do the scene together. It was all a dream.

What was the experience of working creatively alongside your partner like?

We were joking a lot about it before because there was already the stress of being so pregnant and we have a 2 year old at home, and now I was putting us in another highly intense and demanding situation. Either it was going to be great OR we would drive each other nuts. But we had so much fun. It was wonderful to work together. I was so happy to be on set and make my film and he’s just so talented and fun to be around. Those little moments where you know each other so well—I’d give him notes and he just kept surprising me and was so respectful of my directions.

He found this photo for him to connect to the character and it became very fundamental to me. It was this incredible black and white photo from the 70s of a prison guard. I had always imagined that he would have this inner salsa soundtrack playing in his soul and we would play Rubén Blades and 70s salsa music and Oscar just morphed that into music into everything and created this unique character. 

And he was wearing a fat suit the entire shoot and I was pregnant and Alia Shawkat had her pregnant belly on. The three of us—it was so funny.

It seems like the perfect first experience of going into narrative with people that you really trust and support you.

Definitely! Find the people that you can team up with that really believe in your vision and who will push you to do exactly what you had in mind. People who never try to push you into these conventional routes. Our creative voices are so fragile. You want to be on the same page so that they see what you’re trying to do and want to bring that out of you. Where they’re treating your film as a sacred thing that you’re creating together.

How do you know when a film is done?

Fiction is very different from documentaries. With documentaries, it never feels like it’s done because there are so many options. That’s also why I love fiction so much; It’s so much faster. It’s a whole different beast to tame a documentary with hundreds of hours of footage where you’re reinventing the wheel every day.

How have you built up your own confidence as a director and your unique voice?

Stubbornness. I’ve had many experiences working with people who didn’t believe in my project. You have to stick to your guns and trust your instincts. Once you find your voice, you find people that want to go on that ride with you and find your vision interesting. It’s a miracle when any of us gets a project made, so your confidence can’t come from how much money your movie made. It has to come from somewhere else. Did you do justice to the people you portrayed in your story? Did anyone walk away feeling like something had changed within them?

What is a good director to you?

Someone who is driven with passion without letting that passion take over and become any source of frustration that’s taken out on other people. It should feel like a collaborative effort. And having gratitude every day that you’re making something with other people who are donating their time. You’d be nowhere without them. One of the most important things is making sure that your crew is treating everyone equally. It depends on the size of the production, but having someone who can sense what’s happening in all different departments and having department heads that are there to protect everyone. Listen to each other, and make sure everyone feels safe and is in the best place to be creative.

With COVID, what has the adjustment been like to being in an online space for this festival run? 

I’m really deeply saddened by not having the human interaction aspect of it. It feels so crucial to be in the room together, to meet and see each other's projects and share the experience, to cry and laugh next to people you don’t know. I’m grieving to be honest. We just gotta get through this time. It reminds us of how sacred it is for us to gather and how that feels, and I hope that all of that will come back after this and that cinemas will survive. We really need them.

What’s next for you?

Right now I’m writing more fiction and working on a new documentary feature that I am kind of researching and shooting at the same time. I am also creating a podcast about sex, called “The List” with my friend, writer and photographer Kirra Cheers, based on a book and play she wrote. My husband and I just started a production company together, Mad Gene Media, in order to develop and produce our own material. So. lots of exciting things to continue with in the new year.

Born in 1981 in Copenhagen, Elvira Lind graduated from School of Media and Creative Arts in Cape Town in 2006 majoring in documentary film where she received two awards for her final year achievements. She has worked within that field since directing and shooting documentaries of various lengths for TV, cinema and web on 4 different continents.​In 2020 she premiered her first fiction project, a 32 min short film she wrote and directed. The film was sold to Topic and was invited to various festivals including Telluride and Tribeca FF. Elvira's feature doc BOBBI JENE premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2017 where it won all awards in its category including Best Feature documentary, best editing and best Cinematography. The film had theatrical release in US, Spain and Scandinavia.​Elvira's first documentary feature Songs for Alexis premiered at Toronto HOT DOCS in 2014 and screened and competed at a long list of international festivals. Her 8 part documentary TV series "Twiz and Tuck" was bought by VICELAND and launched in 2017. Elvira now lives and works out of New York.

###

[seriouslycromulent]

I've been holding on to this article all week, and I'm glad I finally made the time to read it. It's very enlightening, and speaks to the importance of how "Representation Matters" can be a phrase so easily co-opted by the majority (as per usual), then twisted to serve the status quo.

It's really sad because the cast clearly deserved better. I adored the show, and was happy to name it as one of my favorite binge-watch marathons of the quarantine. I hope to see everyone (especially the Dad and Kimchee) in future projects. But all in all, the final season along with this news feels even more bittersweet.

Here is the article behind the link. The bolded sections are my own emphasis.

-----

‘Kim’s Convenience’ stars decry ‘overtly racist’ storylines, lack of representation

JUNE 7, 2021 2:29 PM PT By CHRISTI CARRASSTAFF WRITER

“Kim’s Convenience” has officially closed up shop, and its stars are opening up about their frustrations with the show’s approach to Korean Canadian representation behind and in front of the camera.

After the hit CBC sitcom debuted its fifth and final season last week on Netflix, actors Simu Liu and Jean Yoon voiced their concerns regarding the series’ “overwhelmingly white” production team, “horsepoop” pay and “overtly racist” storylines, among other alleged grievances.

Based on actor and playwright Ins Choi’s stage production of the same name, “Kim’s Convenience” premiered in 2016 and centered on a Korean Canadian family operating a convenience store in Toronto. In the show, Liu — star of Marvel’s highly anticipated “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” — portrayed Yoon’s on-screen son, Jung.

“I’ve heard a lot of speculation surrounding myself — specifically, about how getting a Marvel role meant I was suddenly too ‘Hollywood’ for Canadian TV,” Liu remarked Thursday in a lengthy Facebook post reflecting on the end of the program.

“This could not be further from the truth. I love this show and everything it stood for. I saw firsthand how profoundly it impacted families and brought people together. It’s truly SO RARE for a show today to have such an impact on people, and I wanted very badly to make the schedules work.

After setting the record straight about his career trajectory, Liu expressed disappointment with the way that he and his character were treated as the series progressed.

“I WAS, however, growing increasingly frustrated with the way my character was being portrayed and, somewhat related, was also increasingly frustrated with the way I was being treated,” he said. “It was always my understanding that the lead actors were the stewards of character, and would grow to have more creative insight as the show went on.

“This was not the case on our show, which was doubly confusing because our producers were overwhelmingly white and we were a cast of Asian Canadians who had a plethora of lived experiences to draw from and offer to writers. ... there was deliberately not a lot of leeway given to us.”

Liu also sounded off on “Strays,” the forthcoming spinoff series spotlighting Jung’s work supervisor, Shannon, played by Nicole Power. The offshoot is set to premiere in September on the CBC.

“I love and am proud of Nicole, and I want the show to succeed for her... but I remain resentful of all of the circumstances that led to the one non-Asian character getting her own show,” Liu wrote. “And not that they would ever ask, but I will adamantly refuse to reprise my role in any capacity.”

In addition to creative differences, Liu accused the CBC of purposefully underpaying him and his castmates in comparison to other popular shows such as “Schitt’s Creek,” which boasted “brand-name talent” but received lower ratings than “Kim’s Convenience,” according to Liu.

“For how successful the show actually became, we were paid an absolute horsepoop rate,” he wrote. “The whole process has really opened my eyes to the relationship between those with power and those without. In the beginning, we were no-name actors who had ZERO leverage. So of course we were going to take anything we could. ...

“Basically we were locked in for the foreseeable future at a super-low rate ... But we also never banded together and demanded more — probably because we were told to be grateful to even be there, and because we were so scared to rock the boat. Maybe also because we were too busy infighting to understand that we were deliberately being pitted against each other. Meanwhile, we had to become the de facto mouthpieces for the show (our showrunners were EPICALLY reclusive), working tirelessly to promote it while never truly feeling like we had a seat at its table.”

Shortly after Liu shared his thoughts on social media, a television critic for Canada’s Globe and Mail dismissed his comments as “unfair” and “mean-spirited,” prompting Yoon to defend her costar on Twitter.

While both Liu and Yoon credited Korean Canadian artist Choi with introducing the Kim family to mainstream audiences, they also alleged that his influence over the series was eclipsed by a dearth of Korean representation behind the scenes.

“Your attack on my cast mate @SimuLiu, in the defense of my fellow Korean artist Ins Choi is neither helpful nor merited,” Yoon replied to the Globe and Mail’s rebuke of Liu’s statements. “Mr. Choi wrote the play, I was in [it]. He created the TV show, but his co-creator Mr. Kevin White was the showrunner, and clearly set the parameters.

“This is a FACT that was concealed from us as a cast. It was evident from Mr. Choi’s diminished presence on set, or in response to script questions. Between S4 and S5, this FACT became a crisis, and in S5 we were told Mr. Choi was resuming control of the show.”

The scene partners also addressed the alleged absence of diversity on the “Kim’s Convenience” writing team, which “lacked both East Asian and female representation,” as well as “a pipeline to introduce diverse talents,” according to Liu.

“Aside from Ins, there were no other Korean voices in the room,” Liu wrote. “And personally I do not think he did enough to be a champion for those voices (including ours). When he left (without so much as a goodbye note to the cast), he left no protege, no padawan learner, no Korean talent that could have replaced him.”

“As an Asian Canadian woman, a Korean-Canadian woman w more experience and knowledge of the world of my characters, the lack of Asian female, especially Korean writers in the writers room of Kims made my life VERY DIFFICULT & the experience of working on the show painful,” Yoon tweeted.

Despite trying “so hard” to make himself available as a creative resource, Liu said efforts made by him and others to improve the show from the inside were dismissed. Without adequate input from talent of Korean descent, Yoon added that the show’s authenticity suffered.

“The cast received drafts of all S5 scripts in advance of shooting BECAUSE of Covid, at which time we discovered storylines that were OVERTLY RACIST, and so extremely culturally inaccurate that the cast came together and expressed concerns collectively,” Yoon tweeted.

“My prior experience had taught me that if I just put myself out there enough, people would be naturally inclined to help,” Liu wrote. “And boy was I wrong here. I wasn’t the only one who tried. Many of us in the cast were trained screenwriters with thoughts and ideas that only grew more seasoned with time. But those doors were never opened to us in any meaningful way.”

Representatives for Choi and the CBC did not immediately respond Monday to The Times’ requests for comment.

[escapetoluna]

Writing Sibling Relationships

A sibling relationship is perhaps one of the most complicated things to realistically write about. Your character dynamics and personalities will help determine their relationships but here are some things to consider:

Building their past:

Think about how they were raised. Upbringing plays a large role in impacting a person's character, and it also helps shape relationships with siblings.

Consider their favourite memories. Good memories are important to a person, and people often seek to create new memories similar to the old good ones.  On the other side, also think about their worst memories.

Who was the oldest? Who was the baby? Birth order does have some impact on personality. It also is especially important for the earliest memories.

Think about the roles that they ended up in. Siblings do, to some extent, define themselves by how they are different from each other. They pursue different interests, take on different roles, and explore different identities. These roles can be a source of self-realisation and sometimes frustration. 

Giving siblings personalities:

Choose personality traits for each sibling. Even if the sibling is only a minor character, it's important to know their basic personality.

Think about each character's dreams, hopes, and struggles. What do they want in life? What are their goals? Every character needs something to strive for.

Figure out their insecurities. Everyone feels insecure about different things: skills, personality traits, perceived physical flaws etc.

The siblings in your story might have similar looks, qualities and characteristics. However it’s important to make them their own person too. 

Keep in mind that siblings might have the same habits, sometimes without even realising it. (Personal example- My eldest brother and I do not look the same. He has green eyes, mine are brown. I have dark hair, he’s blonde. Our faces are shaped different. He takes after our mum, I take after our dad. However, we have a lot of the same habits and mannerisms. We both carry ourselves in the same way, we both quirk our eyebrows in the same manner when confused. Little things like that, that when growing up I’ve picked up from him and vice versa.)

Things siblings do: (This is a generalisation)

Siblings know how to push each others buttons.

Usually they spend so much time with each other, they know exactly how to annoy their sibling and the best way to do it.

Whatever annoys your character, his (or her) siblings already know about it. If your character’s siblings decide to get on his nerves, it shouldn’t take them very long.

Most (if not all) siblings make fun of each other to some degree. Usually they are just messing with each other. Depending on the circumstances, the insult may be forgotten almost immediately.

But it’s important to consider how siblings react when someone else is picking on their brother or sister. A lot of siblings will get defensive in this situation.  Unless you have set up a reason otherwise, make sure your siblings know how to tease each other but also how to protect each other.

They rarely call each other “sis” or “bro” unless they’re trying to be annoying. This is seen a lot in films and TV but it’s not common. The occasional greeting like that is fine, but overusing it just sounds strange and unnatural.

Sibling conflict:

Siblings will argue other pretty much anything. Most of the time it’s just to get a reaction. Sometimes one will start an argument just because they’re bored.

The silent treatment! A lot of siblings, particularly children teenagers and young adults will give each other the silent treatment over the pettiest things. But it’s incredibly hard to ignore someone living in the same house as you for a long period of time.

The sibling on the receiving end of the silent treatment will usually do absurd and annoying things to get their brother or sister to speak. 

Common things siblings argue about:

The tv remote

Who is going to use the bathroom first

Someone is taking too long in the bathroom

Who gets to sit in the front seat of the car

Who the favourite is

Estranged siblings:

“Sibling relationships are our longest, but it’s also an accident by birth. There are no guarantees that the siblings will grow up with similar personalities, interests or like each other,”

You should be able to find plenty of conflict amongst brothers and sisters. But most of the time there is a resolution.

If you were to fall out with a friend, you can unfriend them, you can’t un-sister a sister, whether you like it or not you’re stuck with that person in some sense.

However, some siblings do fall out and never speak to each other again. It happens, but if this happens in your story there are a few things to consider: 

When asked about their family will your character acknowledge that they have siblings? Or will they claim to be an only child?

Why did they stop speaking?

Would they reconcile in times of crisis? For example, if a family member died would the siblings put aside their differences to deal with the situation?

Do they tell stories about their childhood that include the sibling? 

It’s important to remember that if someone has a sibling, a lot of their childhood memories and stories from growing up will have some reference or include that sibling. It’s hard to complete cut them out, they will be mentioned at some point. 

Given the entangled, long-lasting bond, what’s the price paid for suspending or ending it? 

Does the sibling have other brothers or sisters whose relationships are satisfying? “

“If they have no contact with a sibling, it’s losing a shared history and there can be a sense of guilt,” 

Or are your character’s relieved? Do they express a sense of relief. 

“Like the end of a marriage, sibling estrangement is always sad, even when it brings relief. It’s not what anyone hoped for, but sometimes it’s the wise and necessary choice.”

Ways of bringing together estranged siblings:

Write compassion between your characters. Show them trying to see things from the sibling’s viewpoint alongside their own.

Have them say what they want from their sibling moving forward. Don’t just have your characters vent all the time. Your reader might grow tired of that.

Confirmation of love and affection:

Are the siblings in your story the type to talk about feelings? Maybe they don’t talk about it but the feeling is still there. Consider showing the depth of their relationship through actions.  

(Personal example - When I was born my brothers were 4 and 6 years older than me. From what my mum has said they were both excited to have another sibling and would fight about who got to hold me first. When we were younger we used to cuddle on the sofa and play together, and frequently said I love you etc,  however as we got older that stopped. I can’t remember the last time I said I love you to either of them, which sounds terrible. But it doesn’t change the fact that I know they love me and that they know I love them, we just show it and say it in different ways.)

Relationships with parents:

How did parents or caregivers react to fights between siblings?

Was there parental favouritism, real or perceived? How did the non-favourite sibling(s) react?

Do your siblings stick together when arguing with their parents?

Would your characters lie in order to prevent their brother or sister being told off by their parents?

Some siblings will join forces to tease their parents. 

What if the siblings don’t have a good relationship with their parents:

If this is the case in your story, research it, google is your friend.

Try and read up on real life experiences.

Consider how the siblings view their parents. Do they stand together with the same opinion or do they have conflicting recollection of events?

Do the parents have a healthy relationship with each other? How has this impacted their children?

Writing siblings who have abusive parents:

If the siblings come from an abusive home, how has this affect their behaviour? 

Do the siblings ever talk about what happened? 

Do they have the share the same experience? Do they ever argue about the situation?

Are they over protective?

Has their own relationship become strained? Have they drifted apart?

Do the siblings ever acknowledge the past? If not, does this cause friction?

Common assumptions about sibling age order:

Oldest child: people pleasing, bossy, organised, punctual, natural leader, controlling, ambitious, expected to uphold family values, caretakers, financially intelligent, responsible

Middle child: flexible, easy going, independent, sometimes feels like life is unfair, sometimes will engage in attention-seeking behaviour, competitive.

Youngest child: silly or funny, risk-taking, creative, sometimes feels inferior, easily bores, friendly, outgoing, idealistic, the baby of the family.

Only child: close to parents, demanding, leaders, spoiled, self-absorbed, private in nature, may relate better to adults to kids their own age, independent, responsible

While these are common assumptions, they are not strictly true and it’s important to consider your characters personality before you apply any of these stereotypes because it may clash with how your character truly is.

Half siblings:

Half-siblings can run along several lines:

They might act like full siblings, depending on how long they’ve known each other.

They may view each other as space takers.

Your characters may feel “eh” about their half- sibling, they could just be someone who is there but they don’t have a relationship with. The half-sibling may even be a complete stranger.

Consider that they might be rivals. Are they friendly rivals or bitter rivals?

Don’t get caught up in trying to build their relationship based on what “should be” in accordance with society. As you establish these characters, let your own imagination lead you to what their relationship is. But remember that their relationship will be impacted on how the parents treat them too.

(@its-the-tear-in-my-heart ​ thanks for asking about sibling relationships. This post is more generalised than your question but I hope it helped in some way.)

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Life to him would be death to me.

- John Keats on John Milton

For students of literature at least, opening a book to find the margins covered in a proliferation of ink notes with salient passages underlined with an indelible pen can be an infuriating thing. But for some it depends whose writing in the margins and what insights they have jotted down in the margins.

In the 19th century such ‘marginalia’ was considered an important form of literary expression and a route to understanding literary works and sharing views about them. And when the marginalia is by the hand of a great poet like John Keats and the book in question is John Keats’ treasured copy of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the sins are forgiven and it becomes a different matter altogether.

Keats House is where the poet John Keats (1795-1821) lived from 1818 to 1820. Here he wrote some of his best known poetry, including "Ode to a Nightingale". The house is a Grade 1 listed building set in a peaceful garden in Hampstead. Keats House put on an exhibition showing off Keats’ copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost in 2019. I was fortunate to go and visit it and was thoroughly impressed.

The exhibition examined Keats’s notes to reveal patterns of thought, influential subjects and imagery which can be detected in these and other works.

Born in London in 1795, John Keats was orphaned young and, after leaving school at 14, trained as an apothecary surgeon. Though not wealthy, he gave up medicine to dedicate his life to poetry. His first sonnets appeared in 1816 and his first book of poems followed a year later. Unkind critics, the loss of his brothers and his frustrated love for Fanny Brawne were the painful background to his creativity and the outpouring of poetry he produced in 1819 is said to be among the finest in the English language. In early 1820, Keats had shown signs of consumption, and died in Rome a year later, at just 25 years old, leaving behind some of the most famous and loved poems in the English language.

The leather-bound copy of Paradise Lost owned by Keats was published in 1807 in two volumes by booksellers W. and J. Deas and it is believed Keats read the poem with his friend and neighbour Charles Wentworth Dilke. When he left London for Rome, Keats gave both volumes to Mrs Dilke and they remained with her family before being part of its eventual bequest to Keats House. And it is a treasure to behold for it stitches together the story of how some of the greatest poets Britain has ever produced related to one another in thoughtful reflection of each other’s works.

For Keats’ generation only Spenser and Shakespeare could rival Milton as ‘precursor poets’ for the English Romantics. Paradise lost was a kind of Bible to the Romantics and that most romantic of them, Keats, made no disguise of his love of the poem, riddling his copy with clues, thoughts, emotional reactions and evidence of Milton’s influence on his work. And like reading and revering the Bible, the Romantics ultimate relationship with Milton was most fraught with ideological and other tensions. From Blake’s assertion that Milton was ‘of the devil’s party without knowing it,’ to Shelley’s musings on the ‘strange and natural antithesis’ by which Milton’s poem had become an ideological prop to Church and State conservatives. So for the Romantics the relationship with Milton is arguably the most interesting,

Keats’ extensive notes in his well-thumbed copy of the great epic poem reveal an intense study of Milton at a time of his life and career when the young poet was particularly receptive to learning from the finest of their craft. Specifically, Keats is drawn to themes of loss, suffering and mortality. He highlights Eve’s sadness when leaving Paradise and notes passages about separation from loved ones – a dominant feature in Keats’s own life.

On the pages of his copy of Paradise Lost, Keats writes, “Milton in every instance pursues his imagination to the utmost…he sees Beauty on the wing, pounces upon it and gorges it to the producing his essential verse…” Elsewhere he gushes with the enthusiasm of the literature undergraduate. “The light and shade – the sort of black brightness…the thousand melancholies and Magnificences of this Page – leaves no room for anything to be said theron, but : ‘so it is’-.”

Keats seems to have absorbed some of Milton’s poetry as pure nourishment for his own work. Indeed the impact of Milton’s dense visual and rich sensuous imagery is evident in Keats’s own epic poems, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. But he also felt other aspects of the influence as a severe irritant to his identity as poet. Critics have concentrated on the period in 1819 when Keats experienced Milton’s influence as an “anxiety,” when, frustrated with the unfinished Hyperion, he wrote to his brother, “Life to him would be death to me”.

But I strongly suspect that such critics are reading too much into it. Keats had nothing but admiration for Milton but he recognised too they were both very different kind of poets. In several letters to friends, Keats certainly alludes to Milton a lot. In these private letters one can see Keats’s intelligence as he explores his identification with Milton, and creates the detachment he needed from certain aspects of Milton’s personality and work.

Keats did not adopt a single attitude to Milton and hold it. It’s surely more fair to conclude that Keats’ response to Milton changed as his concerns as poet and moral thinker changed.

Keats was more of an empiricist in his moral thought than Milton. His famous touchstone for the truth — to feel things on his pulses before judging them — was a consistent method. But, while remaining more empirical than Milton as a moralist, Keats saw Milton as his master in the expression of the sensuous imagination. In the end, Keats and the other English Romantic poets made themselves unruly disciples of Milton, self-consciously reading their master’s epic against the grain.

[amazon-me-bitches]

Made a Logan Angst story if anyone is interested.

 I'm a stitch away from making it, and a scar away from falling apart.

Pairing: Logan-centric

When Thomas decided to make YouTube videos his entire career, Roman and Patton couldn't have been happier. A job centered around creativity and passion? YES PLEASE! Logan was not so thrilled.

YouTube was no more a job to him than Vine was, it was a hobby and having hobbies was a good thing! sure absolutely…but. “Thomas what about your job applications, there’s internships pouring in.” he said holding up the papers. “sure right, I am going to get to them Logic I promise.” he said smiling and taking the paper from him. “Thomas you just got a million followers on vine! You are practically a celebrity now!” Roman gushed. Patton cheered and through confetti “Can you even imagine that many hugs?!” he gasped hugging himself in excitement. Thomas eyes lit up and he sat the paper back down running over and jumping up and down in excitement. “This is more than I ever dreamed of!” he shouted unable to keep the laugh out of his voice. Logan smiled softly and clapped his hands. He loved seeing Thomas so happy. If that many people followed him for his 6 second comedy videos just wait until they saw what he could really do. He smiled wider thinking about Thomas name at the top of news articles about how he found a way to get clean energy for the whole world. Thomas Sanders new botany technique leads to new drought resistant trees. Thomas Sanders responsible for single handedly ending global warming. Was it too early to start writing the Nobel Peace Prize speech?

“Thomas you graduated one year ago today, You said you wanted to take a year off and that year is up now, I think we should really look into a research lab in Boston because they have the best reputation and they are doing amazing things up there.” Logan informed having taken the liberty of finding the application online for him. Thomas bit his lip and rubbed the back of his head. “wow this year really flew by didn’t it? I mean thank you Logic but I have a lot going on right now, I’m writing my own musical, I have 2 million followers on Vine that are all wanting a bunch of collabs and new material heck I'm even thinking about starting a YouTube channel.” Logan cocked his head to the side utterly confused. “What does any of that have to do with your career Thomas?” “well plenty, for example I can’t just up and move to Boston that’s crazy far away and I already have so many friends here. They are in my videos and we are hanging out every week, I don’t know… I mean Chemical Engineering will always be there, but right now I just feel I need to stay around here.” he reasoned. Logan furrowed his brow, frowning. “Thomas I think you should look at this from a different angle, You could do great life changing things with-” “Hey Kiddo, what are you doing? didn’t you tell Terrence you would meet him for the video at 3 its almost 2:30 and its all the way across town. We need to head out of we are going to make it.” Thomas gasped face palming “Oh shoot, when did it get so late? where are my shoes?” he asked in a panic running off into the living room to look for them. “Thomas!…wait.” Logan tried to catch him but the host was up and out the door before he could even set the papers down.

Several months later brought about the changing of the leaves and semi cooler weather. Thomas was back home with family for the holidays and the sides LOVED it. Roman always a show man loved socializing and playing pranks with Thomas’ brothers again. Patton adored the nostalgia the house brought back and reminiscing with all the famILY as he liked to call them. Logan…liked the holidays but they were entirely too mushy for his taste, still as long as Thomas was happy he was happy, that was the goal right? He stepped away as the third song among them started up. They were indeed a very…musical bunch. This was more Roman’s scene.

He made his way down the hallway and into a room he knew all too well. He stepped in and his heart did a little leap as it did every time he came back here. So many nights in here. looking up at the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. using the telescope and recording stars in a journal Thomas kept in his drawer. They would pretend they were scientists.

“It says that some stars are called red giants and some smaller ones are called dwarfs. the hottest ones burn white and the coolest ones burn yellow. huh Logic does that mean the sun isn’t the hottest star?”

“Correct Thomas, in fact the sun is one of the less hot stars, but it is the only one in our galaxy so I think we should still appreciate all it gives us.” He smiled. Thomas grinned.

“your right, I love the sunshine, I would be sad if it wasn’t here”

“actually you would be dea…you know what, I'm glad it's here too.” he smiled.

“Logic?”

“hmm?”

“do you know everything?”

Logan smiled and turned to him. “no Thomas but we can get close to it, as long as you never stop learning I won’t either. we will help each other, deal?” Thomas beamed and hugged him.

“deal.”

He walked around the desk and sat down in the seat. He wondered how much homework was done at this table alone? Thomas was not a big fan of homework and having to do it right when he came home was not his idea of fun, but Logan could always manage to bring his spirits up. He was an expert at making up memory games and finding new ways to help give Thomas visuals in math. One of his favorites was using candy for counting in math. The candy also ended up being an after homework treat the two would enjoy.

He frowned pulling himself out of the nostalgia and wrapping his arms around himself. Fat lotta good any of that homework did him.. nothing they worked on would make him a better Youtuber. Roman could handle that all by himself. Logan didn’t hate the videos, he just didn’t know where he fit in there.

He turned and shut off the light walking back out into the room sluggishly. They were all still laughing and carrying on just the same as before. He decided to watch from the kitchen instead, just not able to get into the spirit and not wanting to bring anyone down.

New year, new asperations. It had taken some work but he had found a smaller research lab two towns over and because he knew Thomas didn’t want to be cooped up in a dark lab all day, he had even better news. They had a team that went outside and collected samples and did most of their experiments outdoors! They even went on trips to other countries to study new flora and fauna. He would be just like the nature scientists in movies. going to the deepest parts of the jungle, maybe even the rainforest. Thomas had talked about wanting to go to a rainforest since he heard the song Rainforest Rap as a kid.

“What’s got you so happy today Logan?” Patton asked smiling and drinking his morning coffee. Logan straightened his tie. “Just going to talk to Thomas today about an amazing opportunity I found.” he grinned. “Good for you Kiddo! Is it a idea for another video?” “Nope!” he replied all too cheery sinking out and into Thomas bedroom. “Thomas I come barring wonderful news!” he paused when he saw Thomas and Roman looking sullen and down trodden. “Is…everything alright? are you hurt?” he asked walking over swiftly and bending down. “Vine is gone, the whole website is shut down.” Thomas sighed resting his head on his folded arms. “Oh…I’m so sorry Thomas I know you really liked that website. There will be others though, you still have your YouTube.” “Yeah, but…doing videos that are longer than 6 seconds long just seems so intimidating, especially without Vine to fall back on, what if I cant think of enough content?”

Logan gave him a small smile. “well I have good news Thomas and a way you can fill your content too.” Thomas cocked a brow. “what are you talking about?” “Ta Da!!!” he grinned pushing the job application, all filled out into his hosts hands. “They are close to prevent home sickness but travel and explore frequently so you don’t get bored. They pay well and the work they are doing to help the environment is phenomenal.” He grinned waiting for Thomas to share in his excitement. He really had outdid himself this time. “Oh, Logic I don’t want to think about that right now, I’m sorry its just not a good time. I have a lot on my mind.” he said sighing and handing Logan back the paper. “Wait! I didn’t tell you the best part, They go on trips to the rainforest, as in real rainforests in South America. You love rainforests.” Thomas expression didn’t change. “yeah, I guess I did want to go to a rainforest when I was younger. I-I don’t know Logic there is just a lot happening right now, can’t we give it some time and think about it?” Logan's smile slipped off his face and his brows furrowed. “I’m sorry Thomas, but its been two years since you got out of school I mean…I think we have taken enough time to think things out, don’t you? I must insist we take this opportunity before someone else does.” he urged. “I’m sorry I know it’s taking some time but I just have a lot to think about right now. Now that vines dead I will have to really adjust to YouTube and find new content to make but I have a loyal fan base who will hopefully follow me over there. I’m the Storytime guy after all.” He laughed. Logan didn’t

“Thomas this has gone on long enough. You’re the ‘Storytime Guy?’ Okay that doesn’t mean anything. You are also a chemical engineer and a very smart person. Now is the time we leave all this silly Vine business behind us and move on to better and more important things. Don’t you want to get started on finding new conclusions and testing new experiments?” “I don’t know what I want to do Logic! I don’t even know if I want to be a chemical Engineer anymore! Everything about it just seems boring now, I found something that makes me happy, why can’t you just let this go?!” Thomas snapped sitting up and glairing at him. Logan stared at him like he just witnessed a murder. He couldn’t be serious…this is all Logan had looked forward to for six years “Y-You don’t mean that. You went to college for this Thomas, I know your videos are important to you but so is your education right?” Thomas rolled his eyes. “look college was fun but its over now and I found a new way to support myself. I never expected to be doing a job like this but now that I am I want to give it a real shot.” “So school was a waste then? all for nothing?!“ ”No!, I really and truly did think at the time that I wanted to do that, but I don’t know, I just did some soul searching and found out I wanted something different.“ “So you are just giving up on science and trading it in for social media?!” “Logic that has already happened, you just haven’t been ready to see it. I’m sorry but I just don’t want to do that anymore. Next to acting and collabing and making music…that other stuff just seems…boring.”

Logan sat back rocking on his heels and becoming very interested in the ceiling and trying to make the stupid lump in his throat go away. “Logic I’m sorry I-” Logan snatched the paper back up and sunk out, not letting him finish and definitely not letting them get the satisfaction of seeing the tears steaming down his face. He gritted his teeth in frustration before he began ripping up the paper into a million shreds and throwing them all over his room. Raking notebooks off the desk and ripping down his posters and degrees. His chest was heaving and he couldn’t stop his body from shaking as he finally collapsed on the carpet sobbing.

“Oh god I hope I studied enough! that test is going to be super hard!” “not to worry Thomas we went over the material thoroughly and you are well prepared” “thanks Logic!” Thomas waved before running off to Physics.

“Good job Thomas, You did so great Honey!” “I can’t believe I won the whole science fair! Everyone in the grade entered!” He said excitedly from the back seat looking at his medal. Logan sat next to him grinning like crazy. He knew Thomas would win they had spent weeks working on it. “Congratulations Thomas I knew you could do it.” Thomas put his hand over Logans. “We did it.” he clarified. Logan smiled like a maniac the whole night. Proud as ever.

Logan couldn’t breath. The tears wouldn't stop flowing and his body wouldn’t stop shaking. He curled up on the carpet and just let it all wash over him. It was his fault for getting his hopes up really. This is what comes from getting emotionally invested in things…and people.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What is up everybody! wow another year come and gone, but I did so much this year it is crazy. I guest starred in a Disney show and went to Vidcon, won a Streamy award and tons of other cool activities. You might think I would be looking to take some time off after that but you would be wrong. I have so many cool things coming up, Logan do you want to tell them about a few of them?” Thomas asked pointing to him. Since they had been introduced as part of a series on Thomas channel called Sander Sides he had been a bit more involved with the videos. Not a huge part to play and more often than not he found himself used as more of a walking talking day planner than anything else.

He plastered on his fake smile and pulled out his notebook. “On the second of next month you are going to a convention and doing a meet and greet in New York. Every other week this month you have new collabs and you are scheduled to make more content for your second channel later this week.” He said putting away his book. “Thanks buddy!” Thomas said before his attention was once again pulled away to something Roman was saying to Virgil. The audience did so love their witty banter. He remained quiet until the video was over while Patton defended Virgil telling Roman not to be so mean to his ‘favorite precious sunshine’ Logan opened his mouth to say something to Roman about a fact he was just plain wrong about, but before he could utter a sound Thomas was wrapping up the video with his Hello Fresh sponsorship. Logan sighed and bit his lip, looking around before sinking out, back to his room. Quiet, alone and not in the way. Just how everyone wanted him to be.

[ghostmartyr]

Are you still watching RWBY? What did you think of Volume 8 overall

VOLUME 9 NEVERLAND SAGA WHERE NO ONE CAN HIDE FROM THEIR TRAUMA OR THEIR FRIENDS BY TRYING TO STOP IRONWOOD FROM BLOWING UP HALF THE KINGDOM HE’S SUPPOSEDLY PROTECTING WHILE ALL THEIR OTHER FRIENDS AND ALLIES THINK THEY’RE DEAD.

POGCHAMP.

I enjoyed Volume 8, but I think it stumbles at the end enough to look back at its time management and feel not totally great about it.

Cinder’s development is solid. I’m still not very attached to her, but she has attained my interest at long last. Good for you, Cinder. Solve your emotional problems with murder. Kill Watts. Give Neo a reason to go back to trying to kill you. Make yet another mortal enemy. I support these actions.

Emerald’s flip means she won’t have sad eyes over all the atrocities she’s playing witness to while the timer goes down on her defection anymore, and that’s cool.

Ironwood’s everything is... well. Yeah. Great. Nothing like watch someone destroy themself. Oh, and everything else around them in the process. Once he got started, it was pretty clear where he was going, and that’s just sad. He goes from hugging Qrow and finding relief in his allies to shooting all of them. Shooting Jacques along the way does not even that out.

The Ace-Ops felt too cluttered for the final parts. They’re the cautionary tales, obviously, but I don’t think we get enough time detailing them for them to be on the same stage as Winter coming into her own and RWBY falling into oblivion. Qrow and Robyn get the slow burn and then the panicked call to immediate action, but for the Ace-Ops, Marrow and Harriet are the only ones who the narrative actively does something with. Marrow’s problems are obvious from the start, and Harriet’s emotional heat hints, and then reveals, a depth of trauma that this system has been crap at handling. But Vine and Elm, the critical pieces in talking her down, and centerpieces of keeping Mantle from blowing up, aren’t prominent enough in the narrative for their place in its resolution to feel quite earned. I think if we’d gotten an extra episode it would have worked a little better. As it was, I was left wanting more focus on the central cast.

Which is kind of why I’m so thrilled that RWBY+J are maybe stuck spending some quality time together. The macro plot matters, obviously, but they’ve been moving so fast. Atlas feels like a speedrun of a kingdom falling, and a little more interplay between my faves would be very welcome.

Then there’s the obvious.

Oh, Penny.

I can’t feel good about Penny’s handling in the end.

The Winter Maiden, as soon as we’re introduced, is waiting to die and offer her power to the next one in line. Winter was intended for that, but Penny interrupts.

Two days later, Winter has the power, and Penny’s dead.

This is necessary so that Winter has time to center what she actually believes before she’s upgraded to demigodhood. Winter as the Winter Maiden leading into Volume 8 would have kept her on Ironwood’s script. The disruption of expectations that leaves her vulnerable forces her to respond to what is going on, not what her side believes should be going on.

It makes sense to delay Winter’s ascension, because it gives Winter perspective that she can’t access as long as she’s in her chain of established command.

Making Penny’s value tie entirely back to supporting someone else’s story. She’s allowed to be a real girl, she’s allowed to fight for what she believes in, she’s allowed to have friends, but becoming the Winter Maiden serves Winter’s storyline more than it serves Penny’s.

Which isn’t to say they do nothing with her. Obviously, the virus making the vault look good creates a variety of opportunities. Sure, they could have filled in another domino without Penny specifically, but she’s an instrumental part of getting them inside that vault in how the story goes.

Creating a new body for her is a complicated thing. Penny’s a real girl no matter what her form is, but if you say that while cutting out the nuts and bolts -- it’s a little mixed. In the most benign way I can put my preferences, I like Penny being a robot. I’m thrilled she knows how warm a hug can feel (Pietro, patch notes, get on it), but...

Before Watts causes problems on purpose, Penny shows a little hesitance about not being your standard model of girl, but unless I’ve been worse about my watching comprehension than I thought, she doesn’t have any burning need for flesh. Changing her body is the best solution they can up with in response to her agency being violated.

It’s not my favorite thing in the world. I don’t think it’s entirely good faith to pin all of the possible unfortunate implications on it, but they exist, and they are there. And on the flip side, being granted a body that is created through nothing but who you are is a sentiment that I’m sure resonates with a lot of people. I think there’s a lot to observe in what Penny’s going through, and it’s worth discussion more than angry words.

Except before there’s a chance to collect opinion polls on that, we once again have her asking for death before she hurts her friends.

I believe there’s a post on LotR somewhere that explains why people are okay with it being a mood shift from The Hobbit. People aren’t huge fans of media they consume invalidating media they previously invested in.

Penny dies, then she comes back. Then she dies.

Penny interrupts the inevitability of Winter becoming the Winter Maiden. Then Winter becomes the Winter Maiden.

It feels like a zero sum game, but a zero sum game where our emotions were torqued around for the sake of it, and the object of said torquing is being utilized as a plot object prior to being a character.

Penny obviously has a lot of personality, and a lot of established emotional ties. She’s not just a lamp standing in a corner.

But to use the apt metaphor, you can see the strings. Penny’s trajectory seems to be moving under its own velocity -- but then that ending hits. Despite going through all of the steps to make sure that Penny doesn’t have to sacrifice herself to keep the people she loves safe, despite actually being really creative and clever about doing everything possible to keep her alive --

The plot demands her death.

It isn’t good enough to fix the pressing issue that made sacrifice look good. Sacrifice is still the ultimate answer.

Thematically, that doesn’t jive with the story we’ve been getting.

Emotionally, what the fuck, could we not.

(What’s better than the cute robot girl begging for death? Doing it twice!)

People who are in a more optimistic state about fiction at the moment have noted that Pinocchio does do a lot of dying, and I do like the read of Penny as Jiminy Cricket. Considering the full context of the world, there’s more to justify a return than a lot of characters get. It wouldn’t be the most shocking thing ever.

It’s still kind of fucked up. Penny doesn’t kill herself, but she asks others to kill her, and that’s her being a good girl.

The National Suicide Hotline gets its number placed in the summary of the episode.

Obviously there’s more to it than that, but the implications are there, and a very painful thorn when looking over the rest of her. Creating an environment where it makes sense for this character to kill themself, it’s noble, even --

I don’t think that’s a route of story that the available material handles gracefully.

It’s the “twice” that really hammers the point down into the coffin. It creates a pattern of behavior in Penny. Once, and okay. Heroic sacrifice plays are always a major source of drama, exemplifying how Good the person making the sacrifice is, and how Tragic it is that we’re losing such a good person, all because they have principles and just love these other people so much.

Only if you have a character asking someone to kill them twice in relatively quick succession, the callback isn’t to feats of heroics. It’s suicidal tendencies.

If you’re not prepared to deal with implications of that magnitude, you’ve got to make the link a lot less suggestive. Otherwise you’re telling a new story whether you like it or not, and it’s not one you’re ready for, drastically upping the odds that it’s not going to be the most polished thing ever.

What the issue becomes then, in my personal opinion, is pacing (’hey self why is the answer always pacing’ ‘because shut up’). Penny’s joy of life is a blip in between her asking for death. The heroic nature of her desire for death mixed with the awful despair of her actual death makes this endpoint of her story saturated with a darkness that sours the entire experience.

Complicating it further is the issue of trust.

The writers killed her and brought her back just to kill her again. If they do bring her back again, the faith is kind of broken. Once you show that you’re willing to move a character around like a piece on a chessboard, your audience isn’t going to trust the story enough to invest. They’re going to be looking for the strings. For a complicated special effect that takes a lot of strings, that’s a pain, because the agreement with stories is supposed to be that yes, there are strings, that’s our medium.

If you don’t trust the writers, you are not going to believe in the story.

For my personal taste, if the writers are doing something more with Penny, their presentation has made it difficult for me to see value in the journey, even if the destination happens to be something I ultimately approve of.

Anyway Robyn needs to officially adopt Qrow. He has been a bad guy bandit, now he can be a good guy bandit.

He can be the Happy Huntresses’ cute animal mascot.

That is all that matters.

That is my one, solitary thought on the entire volume.

Thanks for the ask!

[charliejrogers]

Klaus (2019) Review & Analysis

I remember recently discussing with my fiancée how, though there have undoubtedly been a number of Christmas movies released in the last twenty years, none have really risen to the level of a “classic” – something you would want to watch every year as part of a tradition. It’s true I have not seen it, but still something tells me that 2008’s Reese Witherspoon vehicle Four Christmases is not on anyone’s annual watchlist… nor 2017’s Mel Gibson-infested Daddy’s Home 2. We concluded that the last “classic” was 2003’s Elf. And, while Christmas movies don’t have to mention Jesus or religion obviously, please don’t try to tell me that Frozen is a Christmas movie… it’s not! In some ways, given how secular things are, I began to wonder if there even was a market for holiday family fun movies, but of course, I’m an idiot because you can just make a whole movie about Santa Claus. Move over, Jesus, we gotta talk about the reason for the season!

Klaus released last holiday season on Netflix and at least in Chicago I saw billboards for it everywhere. Netflix went all in on promoting this as the next big Christmas movie and had some moderate success; they even grabbed an Oscar nom for best animated picture. Unlike most animated films these days, Klaus was made by neither DreamWorks nor Disney, and it shows. It lacks the refined polish of a Disney/Pixar feature, but also has a heart unlike a DreamWorks picture. The animation style can be best described as a hybrid of 2D and 3D (yet not quite 2.5D). At times the character models look like classic hand-drawn 2D models set within a mostly computer-generated 3D environment. But at other times, they look more 3D. It’s confusing to describe, and inconsistent to watch. It often felt like I was watching a compromise between a studio that wanted a distinct animation style but didn’t have the budget to fully realize it. Still, more often the not it’s a pretty movie.

More than the raw visuals, the movie has a fantastic sense of atmosphere… perhaps even too much at the beginning. Klaus is, in one sense, the story about how a lonely woodsman becomes the legendary Santa Claus, but for such a jolly premise, much of the film is shrouded in shadows and dominated by an oppressive, cold, snowy bleakness. In retrospect, this makes sense as the true triumph of Santa and “Christmas spirit” can only be best appreciated when it brings light to the darkest of places and times. Still, upon first viewing, I was quite surprised and shocked by the dark atmosphere and downright violent imagery on display at the beginning of the film, so much so that I was wondering if this really was a Christmas movie!

The darkness stems from the fact that our woodsman Klaus lives deep within the forest on a far north island, far far from the closest village which is a town called Smeerensberg and is famous for its never ending feuding and wickedness. It’s a genuine Nineveh of the North so it seems. The town’s feud centers around two rivalling clans (the film’s equivalent of the Hatfields & McCoys) and every villager belongs to one clan or the other. The two families’ feuds go back longer than anyone can remember (cave paintings exist that depict their feud), implying an original sin of sorts with the town being more born from hatred than spawning it. Hatred is so foundational that it infects every part of society. Unwilling to allow children to interact with the rival clans in classrooms, children just don’t go to school. Instead, they roam the streets playing pranks on old people and stabbing snowmen with carrots.

For the most part, Klaus lives his life separate from and unbothered by these unruly residents of Smeerensberg. What breaks his solitude is the arrival of a new post officer to Smeerensberg. More than a trivial side character, this post officer, Jesper Johansson, is surprisingly the main character of this movie all about the origins of Santa Claus.

Much like the residents of Smeerensberg, we the audience come to the film with a primary misunderstanding, much of what makes Santa famous today (the home invasion via chimney, the responding to letters, the reindeer-pulled sleigh) were the creative inventions of a spoiler-brat-turned-postman. So despite this movie being about the origins of Santa Claus, being a Christmas movie, you should have guessed that this will be some variant on Dickens’ classic tale. Jesper isn’t a classic Scrooge in that he doesn’t abhor Christmas, but he is self-absorbed, materialistic, and all-around not a great guy. He’s the spoiled son of a successful postal worker who controls a postal empire that looks more like an army. (The true fantasy of this movie has nothing do with sleigh bells and stocking stuffers… it’s the idea that the post office is a well-organized, well-respected, successful enterprise.) Anyways, recognizing his own son’s worthlessness, Jesper’s father decides to whip him into shape, ship him off to the God-forsaken land of Smeerensberg with an ultimatum: Jesper must process 6,000 letters from the town of Smeerensberg in a year or else be cut off from his father’s wealth. The problem? With how ugly the feud is in Smeerensberg, no one needs to write a letter to express their feelings when a cold snowball to the face (or worse) will get the point across quite clearly.

So now with the spoiled postal heir longing for silk sheets as he tries to survive out in the cold boonies, the movie gets a hint of the Emperor’s New Groove flavor… sans llama. It is only by sheer “chance” (we’ll get to that) that when Jesper visits the woodsman in a last ditch effort to find one person on the island who wants to send a letter, a piece of paper falls out of Jesper’s bag as he flees in horror of the woodsman (we’ll get to that).  This piece of paper contains a drawing that a little boy made of himself locked in a high tower looking sad. In a very humorous scene, we had seen Jesper accidentally stumble across this drawing and then unsuccessfully try to scam the boy into giving him money so that Jesper could “mail” it back to him, rather than just give it back. Regardless, recognizing the little boy’s suffering, the woodsman decides to do something about it and enlists Jesper’s help. Luckily for the children of Smeerensberg, the woodsman has a barn full of toys. Yes, “a barn full of toys” is as creepy as that sounds and the films uses that creepiness to full effect when Jesper first meets the woodsman. The large, imposing, hooded, axe-bearing woodsman is far from the jolly fellow we know he is destined to become. He’s downright scary and given how violent the town of Smeerensberg is (Jesper almost dies when he first arrives because he’s tricked into ringing the war bell which sends the whole town into violent frenzy), we and Jesper are not wrong to assume the woodsman holds only ill-intentions. Essentially, the first meeting with the woodsman is supposed to be something akin to the reveal of the Beast in 1991’s Beauty & the Beast, a film so scary it sent my then two-year-old sister running out of theater in tears. Ultimately, I can’t speak for the mind of a child, but the tension for me here is certainly lessened by the fact that… well… we know the woodsman is Santa Claus. So even though Jesper is scared shitless and flees after meeting the woodsman, we know that there will be more to their story.

Still, even if not necessarily scary, the film does successfully shroud the woodsman in mystery, and his backstory is slowly and beautifully revealed throughout the film. I won’t spoil it here, but the script does a fantastic job of contextualizing the woodman’s stoic and aloof nature and explaining why that barn is so full of toys. The explanations come naturally and speak to a real human pain that I was not expecting from this film. In terms of emotion, the woodsman’s backstory almost reaches the opening montage to Up. ALMOST, I said, so put down the pitchforks!

So Jesper and the woodsman team up to deliver a present to that first child from the drawing. Or more accurately, the woodsman throws Jesper down a chimney to deliver a present while the woodsman looks on. The ensuing scene when the boy opens his present brought tears to my eyes. The woodsman (and we with him) watching the pure joy of a child receiving a present is truly nostalgic in its most literal sense. It hurts to see such joy, remembering that at one time you too could feel such joy from a hunk of plastic, and knowing you will never feel that way again. It’s a joy that few films outside of A Christmas Story with its the red rider BB gun really nail. Anyways, the little boy sees the woodsman through the window and finds his original drawing of himself locked in the tower which the woodsman leaves behind by accident. He surmises that the postman had devliered his drawing to the woodsman, and the woodsman responded with a present.

After that… well the rumor spreads wildly of the mysterious woodsman who comes down chimneys at night to give presents to children in response to letters. Now, the once dormant post office becomes a bustling hub of activity as children from all over flock to send letters to this Mr. Klaus. Kids even beg to go to school so that they can learn to write in order to get presents (much to the dismay of the disilliusioned teacher who long ago gave up on her dreams of teaching in a town where no child goes to school and had turned to being a fishmonger in order to pay the bills and one day afford to leave the town for good).

Gradually the children, who seemingly had no toys prior to Klaus and Jesper’s escapades, now joyously play together, regardless of which clan they belong to. Initially this upsets their parents greatly, but in the end it’s hard to really hate the parents of your children’s friends. The film promotes an age-appropriate and inspiring, if fanciful and naïve, notion that all the world’s problems would be solved if we all thought like children. As by spreading joy throughout the town, Jesper and Klaus inadvertently make the town a better place to live. It’s the theme of the film (not that they’re subtle about it): one act of good-will always begets another (or something like that). Still, all this doesn’t please the village elders, who abhor the change from the town’s hateful origins. They will ultimately serve as villains trying to put an end to all this gift-giving business.

Of course, there’s another villain of sorts, as well. Despite all the good he’s doing, Jesper is ultimately still motivated mostly by the notion of getting back to his old cushioned life. He is essentially using Klaus and preying on his kindness in order to launch himself back to a life of selfishness. It’s here the story feels most Dickensian, particularly in a scene where the school teacher (now love interest) acts functionally the same to the ghost of Christmas present and takes Jesper to the city center to see for himself the love and joy that he has helped bring to the world. But, still his desires to go home are strong, and, of course, he keeps them a secret. So between Jesper’s inner conflict about where he belongs in life and the external conflict of the community trying to fight back against a change in its culture, the film naturally comes to climax when the two conflicts meet and Jesper must confront both challenges at once.

What I’ve realized in writing this review … is that I am very impressed by the plot’s complexity and depth. The film weaves together at least three solid story arcs (Jesper’s coming-of-age/Scrooge-like-change-of-heart, Smeerenberg’s bubbling kindness revolution, and the woodsman’s aged hero who finds redemption and purpose after so many years alone). That all three feel fully supported and without any bloat is a testament to its absolutely solid writing, and for a kid’s film no less! Furthermore, the “origin” story genre can sometimes fall flat as it can just feel like the writers are writing more Wikipedia entries, explaining how every little aspect came to be more than just telling a good story. I call it the Han Solo trap. As for Klaus, the little tidbits about why Klaus uses reindeer and not horses, who the “elves” who work his workshop are, always clever and grow organically from the plot.

Plus, despite my opening doubts regarding whether the dark tone really fit a “Christmas” movie, the film very capably captures the joys of the Christmas season. Like Christians think about Jesus, Klaus/Jesper bring a world of light into a world of darkness. The film teaches about the importance of creating a loving community, of being selfless, and most importantly of respecting the spiritual aspect of the season. Even if this is a decidedly capitalistic/entrepreneurial movie, the film is not without a spiritual side. The previously mentioned “chance” of the woodsman seeing that initial drawing of the boy locked in the tower is no chance at all. Instead, throughout the film we see that the woodsman is “haunted” in a sense by a ghostly wind that points him in the path of righteousness. The film has its own explanation for what the force behind the wind is, but it is not too far of a stretch to point out the similarities between the wind and the Christian idea of the guiding Holy Spirit. Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that the woodsman represents God the Father and Jesper God the Son, (or is Klaus more the Christ figure?) because I think this movie is decidedly not Christian, but more I just want to highlight that I enjoyed that the film allowed for the presence of spirituality, which moves this film from the realm of secular kindness to one that recognizes the power and presence of some spiritual goodness, aligning with how many think of the “Christmas spirit.”

Now, let’s be clear, this is a fun, family classic, but it’s not a perfect film. In fact, I downright disliked the first twenty to thirty minutes, for the aforementioned tonal reasons, but also because I really disliked Jason Schwartzmann’s voice acting in the lead role of Jesper. My dislike lessened with the introduction of the woodsman, but it never went away fully. I can’t help but think this movie would be better with a different actor voicing Jesper. Everyone else does an adequate job with the voice work. J.K. Simmons as Klaus takes on an almost Batman-like stoic gruffness, and Rashida Jones as the teacher and love interest is just fine. And, again, I never really fell in love with the art style and it sometimes distracted me, and I found the soundtrack, particularly the main song to be rather lame and too much “of its time” than the typically timeless, more Broadway productions that Disney/Pixar put out. Still, director Sergio Pablos has done something I did not think possible. He and his team created a *new* Christmas classic, one that I’m sure will be played on an annual basis in many households across the world.

***1/4 (Three and a fourth stars out of four)

[bella-in-a-bag]

Not mine

Ao3 

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Day 5 - Any intense emotions your soulmate feels you will also experience 

Maybe that was worse, because he was just broken and no one was to blame, just himself. Maybe he had repressed his feelings to the limit and they were retaliating, unlike, but he wasn't human after all. Maybe he deserves this and there is no reason, it just is and he has to accept that. 

Where Logan gets someone elses feelings.

Tags and triggers under cut

Hurt/Comfort, Unsympathetic Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, more or less, he's just mean and never actually in the story, just mentioned, it's implied that he's just stressed, mention of violence, Swearing, Remus doesn't get gross, , tw panic attacks implied

Logan didn't know how his chest had suddenly gotten so tight, his eyes watery and his gut twisted in a way that made him want to throw up. Feeling such an intense array of emotions left him unable to think, let alone reason his way out of something he didn't know the cause for. Just a minute ago, he was fixing Thomas's schedule to include his meeting with Joan, an action that he deemed deeply satisfactory, when a wave crashed into his train of thought. Anger for something he didn't know the motive but knew was wrong, as well as many other things he could only identify as a mixture of pride, guilt, grief and sadness.

Well, no use in trying to get something done now.

Logan was used to these impulses, as he liked to call them, but every time he suffered them he felt like the world was figuratively trying to crush him into a pile of dust, so maybe the appropriate term should be awareness of the situation. He didn't freak out when they happened, which was good, but the unpleasantness still stuck all the way through the episodes. Surprising no one, he hated them more than he hated Thomas pursuing theater and YouTube instead of a stable career, but unlike the latter, these problems only affected him. Maybe that was worse, because he was just broken and no one was to blame, just himself. Maybe he had repressed his feelings to the limit and they were retaliating, unlike, but he wasn't human after all. Maybe he deserves this and there is no reason, it just is and he has to accept that.

Logan realized that if Janus heard that he was going to get lectured, but he didn't really mind, not when his brain was spiraling back and forth between a decision he wasn't sure he was making himself. The pros and cons, the possible outcomes, the whole problem laid out to him in a way he could only watch someone from afar look at a map he couldn't see. It reminded him of the courtroom scenario, but at the same time the problem felt more trivial and more important. The stakes were high, he guessed while trying to assume the best decision based on the pieces he could get, but then a choice was made and anxiety filled his mind to the brim.

He almost didn't answer when he heard a knock on the door, too many things happening at once, but he pushed himself up his chair and answered with the loudest voice he could manage. "Who is it?" It still sounded too emotionally charged, or maybe it didn't and his ears were playing tricks on him. "Can I come in?" Still no answer to his question, but if he ignored them maybe they would go away. The three seconds he stood in the middle of his room waiting for an answer felt like an eternity, but to his dismay, that someone finally decided to reveal their identity.

"I'm Remus, Logan" he sounded far too broken for the Duke, and Logan deduced that wasn't good. "Can I come in?" The desperation in the voice pushed Logan to open the door and let him in, trying to look collected.

"How may I assist you?" He wanted to add that he couldn't even assist himself, but the thought remained in his head.

"I need you to coach me through Virgil's breathing exercises" it still felt wrong the way his voice broke when he said Virgil and why would he need them in the first place? Remus was becoming a decent distraction from his own problems, he realized as he tried to make sense of the situation. Logan gestured at the foot of his bed before beginning to speak.

"Ok, I want you to breathe in for four, hold for seven and exhale for eight" Remus simply nodded and Logan began the exercise, counting with his fingers when he saw the creative side struggling to follow his instructions. After 15 minutes and 23 seconds, Remus seemed to look more like himself and Logan stopped counting, finding comfort in the way his mind had started to function as well. Remus was looking at the ground while biting his nail and it didn't look like he was going to speak any time soon, but Logan needed to know what happened in order to help Remus. He might be also teeny tiny bit interested, but that is besides the point.

"If you are not comfortable you do not have to answer" Remus's finger was out of his mouth, good. "But may I ask what is bothering you, you seemed troubled. And by previous experiences, I assume you do not get easily troubled." Remus snorted, Logan wasn't sure why but that is a problem for another day.

"I might have fought with good ol' Virgin again, which might not have ended so good ol' ok" That usually didn't end up well, Logan remembered trying to comfort Virgil with Patton making cookies and Roman swearing revenge on the background.

"If you were in his room that would explain your distress"

"We were on common territory, so my bullshit comes exclusively from me."

"I wouldn't consider your stress fake, but did anything he said upset you into this state or was it the whole situation in general."

"Well, there were some things said." He paused for a moment, looking down weighting if it was worth it or not. Logan was beginning to think he would just get up and leave when he resumed talking, startling him just enough to make him flinch but improbable that the other side had noticed.

"I had this extremely good idea, you see. It was good, so good I was going to show it to Thomas. Not an intrusive thought, you don't need to worry legged dictionary, but an actual real plot for an episode." Logan nodded along, listening carefully to the side's words. "I made the mistake of telling Virgil, cause he was the only one around and I needed to tell somebody. He's still pissed that jay-nus got sort of accepted, hypocrite coming from him," Logan bit the urge to correct him, shifting a bit on the spot." so he didn't take well the idea of me making something useful. Or he was afraid that I wasn't going to make anything and kill Thomathy on the spot, but hey, same difference. He also called me something a bit ugly." Remus's voice shifted into Virgil's like second nature, which would make sense given Janus's history. "Yeah, well maybe you are better off trapped in the subconscious, no one wants you around anyway. I'm sure your brother won't miss you."

This time Remus didn't continue speaking and Logan understood that he wasn't getting more info right now.

"I am sorry Remus, Virgil has been a little over the edge lately with Janus up in the primary mindscape." Bad wording Logic, now he looks more sad. "I am in no way trying to excuse his actions, perhaps I could talk to him later. Make him see the error in his thinking, possibly getting him to apologize."

"Thanks Logan." Satisfactory, he isn't even using a nickname.

"If I’m not intruding too much, why didn't you go to Janus for help?"

"Intruding is my thing logical meat bag" That one's creative "but he's busy and you seemed good at comforting V-movie, so I guessed you could comfort me too. Well fuck me gently with a chainsaw, I sound like Roman."

"I guess you do not want anything to do with chainsaws, but I appreciate that you would come to me for help. I am not in any way qualified in dealing with emotions, but I am suitable for providing physical help, techniques do not depend in whether you are very sad or mad at someone eating your last crofter jar." Remus smiled, which was good.

"Well that was fun." Remus stretched and half laid on the bed, his legs dangling on the edge. "But you seemed pretty out of it Wikipedia, when I came in" So much for looking collected, then.

"I was not doing well, but I am fine now"

"You can't just not tell me what bothered you, I need to know what to hit." That was nice, in its own way.

"I am afraid you cannot hit my problems, Remus"

"If you don't tell me I'll have to disagree, Logan”

"Well, why would I lie to you if it doesn't benefit me?" A short idea dashed through Logan's head, and he followed it. "Remus"

"Janus lies without reason, Logan"

"I am sure he has his reasons, Remus"

"You don't know that, Logan"

"You don't know that either, Remus"

"Logan?"

"Remus?"

"You're good at avoiding issues, glasses." Maybe Logan laughed a bit, not that he would admit it.

"I like you, but if you don't tell me I won't leave your room till eternity." Logan did not appreciate the idea of Remus in his room for an eternity, whatever that meant given that Thomas, and per se his sides, won't live an eternity.

"It is difficult to explain, but let's just say that nothing caused my distress." Remus launched himself forward to sit down properly, one of his hands playing with his mustache.

"I belive I am feeling and experiencing things that haven't happened to me. I am unsure of the cause but I know for certain that it is not an emotional response to something that happened to my person."

"Do you know when it started?" Serious Remus voice, that is definitely scary.

"I do not remember"

"So you had a crisis but you didn't know why it happened."

"Yes and I did not tell you anything about a crisis, how do you- nmg" A hand pressed his lips together, making him unable to speak.

"I think I figured out and I am not smarter than you, probably." The hands off now, that's good.

"Well then, what is it?"

"I do not know how this happens, but I know why it does. Still no clue?"

"No, I am afraid I do not know. Emotions are not my expertise."

"I don't think this has anything to do with emotions. Ok, I'm going to give you the data and see if you can complete the puzzle, live up to your title Sherlock." That nickname made Logic all warm inside, not because he was being called Sherlock but because Remus meant it as a compliment and not an insult.

"You were feeling bad emotions but they weren't yours. I was feeling bad emotions. At the same time." Logan could almost physically feel the click his brain made while connected the dots, every time he had seen Remus sad or angry after he had had an episode, but as they have also happened without seeing him, there was no need to make a connection before. But it was obvious, of course it was. Obvious as it was, it still left option for a lot of questions, like for example, why?

“Ah, well.” Logan had to stop talking, the realization dawning on him. If this is what Remus was feeling, maybe that wasn’t so good. Because he knew what he had gone through, and if he had a reason, it had probably been worse. “Well, that is a lot to take in. Remus, you have gone through a lot.” A pause for air, so he wouldn’t drown in all the weird feelings he was having now. It was probably Remus, or him, or both. “You don’t need to deal with this alone anymore.”

“I wouldn’t want to drag you more into hell with me.” Sadness, and this time Logan knew it wasn’t his, even if Remus’s smile tried to convince him otherwise.

“You are not dragging me anywhere, because we are sitting on my bed and you did not choose your feelings to go to me.” Another beat of silence, this time less dense.

“I think it happens both ways.”

“Oh. That would make sense.” Logan did not want to think of what that implied, had the other side felt the anger he couldn’t control when it escaped its grasp and flooded his senses, or was he safe. No, he probably knows now, think clearly Logic.

“Don't worry dicktective, I’m not going to judge you. I don’t do that, not even kink shaming! Unless that is your kink, then maybe I’d make an exception for you.” Logan figured he tried to sound suggestive, but in all honesty he just sounded tired. He was tired too, so tired he could jawn. So he did, at the same time as Remus. Remus smiled afterwards, less maniacal, more soft. Logan smiled back.

“We are soulmates, Logan.” The logical side was taken aback. He barely knew Remus and he was sure that soulmates meant a declaration of love so good it was as if it was chosen by the universe.

“No?” Yes, appropriate response Logan, five stars would recommend.

“I mean, that’s the drill right?. We share emotions, we share a soul. Isn’t that soulmate 101.”

“Soulmates aren’t real, those are just fairy tales.”

“Maybe Thomas wanted them to be real, so he made them real in his messed up mind.”

“That, that actually makes sense.”

“Look, it’s even making me intelligent. I should hang around your room more often.” An offer perhaps, to see where this goes. Logan is very dense right now, but he nods unsure of everything.

“Why me? I’m the least emotional side.”

“That might be what you think, but you don’t know everything.”

“It’s terrifying.”

“Not knowing or soulmates?”

“Both.”

“I figured. I am pretty scary.” A feeling of discomfort, but this time is his own.

“Not you, emotions. I would react the same way if it was any other side. Maybe not Patton, as he insists on calling me his kiddo and that would be uncomfortable.”

“I’m morally depraved and it would still feel weird.”

“Yes.”

“Yeah.” Silence, this time they are just lost in thought. A minute passes, maybe ten. Logan isn’t keeping track of time. It doesn’t matter anymore, not when his world just tilted a bit to the side.

“Logan?”

“Remus?”

“How the fuck are we going to tell the others?”

“We'll figure it out, let's worry about ourselves now.”

"Thanks Lolo."

"You're welcome Remus."

He wasn’t really sure of anything. But with Remus by his side, sounding so confident and yet so scared, maybe things would turn out ok. He was greeted with happiness, a feeling that wasn’t his but still belonged, somehow. And somehow, he knew Remus was receiving happiness as well.

@tsshipmonth2020

[letswritebangtan]

Brave Tender Heart 02 | What it Means to be Human...

pairing: princess!reader x knight!jungkook

A warm evening held out its hands for y/n to take. She had been planning on this visit for weeks and there was nothing that could stop her from going. At the orphanage, y/n felt most like herself. People often tended to forget that the term ‘Princess’ was merely a title. y/n was still a girl and she found joy in being one. The little smiles and loud cries of joy that she witnessed at the home made her heart swell. In the past, she never could fathom how children who had almost nothing rejoice every single day. She had so much admiration for them and felt that she could learn a thing or two on how to be happy from them. With the children, she never felt alone. Children did not discriminate, and they were more than happy to accept y/n as part of their social group. 

“Princess, please could you tell us a fairy tale?” asked Jeongsan. 

Jeongsan was seven and he had a wild imagination. He loved listening to stories as much as he loved telling them, and y/n was in awe at how his little brain could come up with such fantastic stories. 

“Fairy tales are boring, ~san! Princess, tell us again about the time you fought in battle!” Jisoo exclaimed. 

y/n laughed, “Now, now, let’s decide on a story we all like. That sounds fair, does it not?”

The children nodded in agreement, and y/n cleared her throat preparing to tell them a story she knew they all loved. 

“Father, look! I painted all of us, there’s you and ma on the big chairs. I’m over here holding Tae because he can’t walk yet.” y/n talked in her father’s lap. 

“This is beautiful, y/n. Go and show it to your mother, I’m sure she would be delighted to see it.” the king smiled fondly at his daughter. 

With no hesitation, y/n jumped out of her father’s lap and her little feet moved so fast as she ran to the garden where her mother sat, having her evening herbal tea. Just the scent of it was so nostalgic. 

“Ma, I painted a picture.” y/n said as she skipped towards her. 

“y/n, no stepping on the grass. I have reminded you endlessly to use the stone path, dear.” said the queen. 

y/n ignored her words and held the painting up to her mother for examination. The queen smiled, finding her daughter’s creative imagination adorable. y/n was talented in arts ever since she was little. Her mother made it a point to frame and hang up all of her paintings. 

“Well you have certainly captured your brother’s chubby cheeks.” she said smiling.

y/n giggled and placed her hand on her mother’s big, and perfectly round belly. 

“I drew the new baby too.” said y/n, as she used her tiny finger to point out a small human next to her. 

The queen laughed in awe, “And you have done an amazing job at that too, considering you have not seen him or her yet.”

y/n grinned and left the picture with her mother. She skipped to the pond and sat at its edge, dipping her hands into the water. Underneath, there were silhouettes of fish and frogs. Small insects roamed the top, and y/n having the curious little mind she has she dipped her hands further and further into the water until her entire body fell in with a loud splash. Her feet could not feel the ground, and her head was beneath the surface. Struggling to push herself up she inhaled a big gulp of pond water and it filled her lungs till she could not breathe. The sounds above her were muffled but she could hear the loud, worried cries of her mother and soon a blur chatter of many voices lurking above her. It was not much time before her eyes began to close and her body went rigid.

Everything else was a blur, when she woke she was sputtering large amounts of water from her mouth and she was gasping for air. They sat her up and her head felt extremely light. She felt herself being lifted and as her head hung over the arm of her helper she noticed the figure of a young boy with doe eyes and black hair. He stood alarmed and worried at the sight of the princess almost losing her life in the sacred garden. Slowly, he lifted his hand and signaled her a small thumbs up and y/n remembered his smile. The same smile she had seen not a while ago from the present, the smile that told her that she was going to be okay.

“I really thought you were going to die, princess!” one of them said. 

“I knew princess y/n would survive, she’s so strong!”

y/n laughed and made them quiet down. “The moral of this story, my dear children, is that you should never be afraid to be inquisitive. Explore, search, delve and find whatever you want only because you can find it. There is so much for you to learn, and you will not be able to do it if you just sit here. Test the waters, ignite fires, go against the wind or even dig yourselves to the bottom of this Earth, and do not be afraid.” y/n whispered the last part. 

The children grinned at her feeling passionate about this new adventure princess y/n had drawn up for them. It was time to call it a day and y/n bid goodbye to her friends and walked along the path to the palace. As she walked her mind drifted to that day she nearly lost her life. Had it been any different, she wondered if she would have survived. The queen was terribly paranoid that y/n would try something again and called upon the family’s most trusted servant, Sir Kim, and made him teach y/n how to swim. Surprisingly, after that terrible incident in the water y/n was not afraid to enter a large water body such as the ocean. She jumped in headfirst and her mother nearly fainted at the sight but y/n learned quickly enough that her mother never had to worry about any more drowning incidences in the future. 

“Princess!” she heard from behind her. 

She stopped in her tracks and turned to her side, and there emerged Sir Jeon sat on top of his horse. 

She smiled brightly at him, “Sir Jeon, delighted to see you.”

“The pleasure’s mine, princess.” he grunted as he hopped off of his trusty steed. 

He performed just as he did the last time, lifting her hand and placing a soft kiss on the back of it. 

“Do you charm every woman you meet just like this, Sir Jeon?” y/n teased. 

Sir Jeon smiled sheepishly and laughed feeling embarrassed. “Are you saying that you feel charmed as well, my princess?”

“Never answer a query with a query, defeats its purpose.” y/n said being didactic.

Sir Jeon pursed his lips and nodded in agreement, “Very well said.”

“What business did you have here?” y/n asked. 

“I was merely delivering a message that the prince wanted to get to a family at town. They are in terrible need of financial support and the prince is determined to remove that burden.” 

“Good to know that my brother is being helpful.”

“The prince is very kind to offer his support, he needn’t have to yet he makes it a point.” Sir Jeon said impressed. 

“Well, our father always told us that humans corrupt balance at most times. Just because we were born into the throne does not mean we are deserving of it. He made us understand what it is like for the less fortunate, and whatever that we can provide, we do.” y/n said as she reminisced of that moment with her father. 

“The king was a good man.” Sir Jeon agreed.

There was an inkling of sadness in y/n’s eyes, and Sir Jeon noticed it. 

“What happened was certainly not your fault.” he confirmed, looking her in the eye. 

She nodded, “Some people think otherwise.” 

Sir Jeon did not know what to say next, and y/n sensed his awkward nature. 

“I should be heading back, thank you for stopping to see me.” she said. 

“Actually, princess, I was hoping to give you a ride back to the palace.” Sir Jeon said motioning to his horse. 

“Oh, how very kind of you but I enjoy my walks back home. They give me peace of mind.” 

“It would be no trouble at all to transport you back, princess. Are you certain?” he said concerned. 

“Very much certain, Sir Jeon. You need not worry about me.” she said with a small laugh. She found it endearing how he always seemed to be concerned with her. 

“Well, would you prefer an escort on your walk?” he suggested. 

y/n thought for a moment, “No, I would not. However, I would love a companion.”

She held her arm out hoping that Sir Jeon would link it to hers, and when he caught her drift, he slowly interlocked one arm with y/n’s and his other hand guided his horse. Sir Jeon looked carefree, easy and happy to be there. y/n could not think of the last time she had been accompanied on her walk back to the palace. 

“May I ask where you have been spending your time today, princess? You had seemed excited to leave this morning.”

You smiled as you thought back to your young friends. “I had made a trip to the orphanage. I make it a point to visit every week, however I failed to visit them last month due to certain responsibilities. It has been a while since I saw them, hence my excitement.”

Sir Jeon observed as y/n’s face lit up like a star as she talked about the children. She talked about their stories and their role-playing activities. There was an incident where her foot had landed painfully on a small, sharp rock. As she groaned in pain, the children failed to hold back their laughter, and soon y/n found herself laughing with them.

“When I am with them, it is as if all my troubles fade and I finally feel like myself.” y/n sighed. 

“I understand what you mean. I have not felt like myself in what seems like ages.” Sir Jeon wondered. “It is very kind, and thoughtful of you to spend your time with them, princess. I can tell from your stories that they very much enjoy your company.”

“I can most definitely say the same for them.”

Sir Jeon admired y/n’s personality, as soon as he found out that she had one. She pursued art and was amazingly comfortable with children. There was more he wanted to know about the princess, his conscience was telling him that her traits did not end there. 

“You mentioned that you do not feel like yourself, Sir Jeon? What is it that prevents you?” y/n asks. 

Sir Jeon felt like he had so much to say, his entire heart to pour out to her. Yet when he tried to explain it, the words that he had rehearsed in his head to himself over years and years, suddenly found itself twisted and stuck. 

“Well...it is rather difficult to explain.” Sir Jeon said confusedly. 

y/n nodded, “It is not something you can quite put your finger on, isn’t it? It took me a while to figure mine out as well. My problem, Sir Jeon, is that all my life people have seen me as a princess. A girl with royal blood, a girl with power, a girl who confident and strong no matter what. Despite all that, they failed to see me as just, a girl. That is what I am, Sir Jeon, a girl, and so I try to live my life as just a girl from time to time because no matter what, I cannot throw away my title as princess. Hence, I spend my time at the orphanage with my little friends, I ride my horse on windy evenings, I pour the emotions of a girl into my art, I stare at the pond in my garden hoping to see life underneath the water, I read books because of my inquisitive nature, and I try to do what a girl would do. These things make me feel human. Most of the time, I find myself doing activities alone so that there is no space for an individual to say ‘Good morning, princess.’, ‘May I help you, princess?’, ‘Whatever you need, princess.’, none of that. The space is for me, myself, for y/n to be before anything else, an ordinary girl.”

Sir Jeon listened attentively and not only understood the words that came out of y/n’s mouth, but he understood her feelings. At such a young age, he was picked out to serve. He had scarce memories of his childhood, and what it was like to be a boy. He loved catching beetles in the garden, he enjoyed the feeling of carbon on his fingers as he sketched on paper, he relished in the warm and hearty feeling of a good lunch prepared by his mother, he missed dancing to music, singing his mother’s favourite songs, he missed laying his head in her lap and hearing her voice send him to sleep. He missed his father who told him he could achieve anything, he missed the nights he had playful sword fights with his friends and when he could dip his feet into the water and just relax. He missed being a boy.

“I must admit it is in my nature to be loyal and to guard you, princess. However, to me, you are heaps and bounds more than just a princess. I see a girl, taking her time to blossom into a beautiful woman. I see a girl with refined taste, with hobbies and interests, a girl with an enormous, brave, tender heart. No one can take that part of you away from yourself, my princess, and you must not let them. The part that makes you human is the most precious part of us all.” 

Their conversation was long enough to sustain on the entire walk home. Sir Jeon felt comfort and familiarity in y/n’s feelings, and y/n felt that there was no one in this world that understood her better than Sir Jeon. As soon as y/n stepped into the palace, her handmaids were plucking her bags and items off of her and as she made eye contact with Sir Jeon, he sent her a knowing look and the two of them smiled at each other widely. They ascended the staircase together, continuing to talk about each others’ lives and their experiences. 

“It is extremely questionable that we have not had many conversations before.” y/n said to him. 

“I was told to stay out of your way, princess, even in the short time that I remain here. That does not mean I have not paid attention to you.”

y/n felt something warm rise up to her cheeks and she pressed the back of her hand against her skin. She realised that she was flushed in pink. Sir Jeon happened to take notice and a small, proud smirk forced its way onto his face. 

“I have taken notice to you as well, mostly as a boy. I hear you were and currently are very talented in your field.” y/n said quickly trying to change the subject. 

“I did the best I could for this family, and I always will.”

“And we have have always appreciated that.” y/n looked at him with a sense of gratefulness. 

Sir Jeon stood staring at y/n for a few moments before she saw his eyes sparkle with admiration. 

“You have gorgeous eyes princess, I remember it to be exactly like your mother’s.” Sir Jeon said softly. 

y/n felt her heart melting, she looked at Sir Jeon as if she needed help because she knew not what to respond to him. She was touched, and utterly smitten. A gush of wind suddenly entered the palace blowing onto y/n’s soft face and she squinted, blinking multiple times when she realised there was something that had entered her eye. Sir Jeon looked worried and stood there not sure of how to help. A knight’s training does not prepare them for situations as such. 

“Princess, may I help?” Sir Jeon asked. 

“N-no need, do not fret about it.” y/n hesitated as she stood trying to rub that darned particle out of her eye. 

Soon she felt her hands being removed from her face with a firm, yet gentle tug. She struggled to see with one eye, and she saw Sir Jeon in close proximity to her. 

“Just try opening your eye, and when you do I am going to blow.”

“Blow?” y/n sounded confused. “Sir Jeon, really I-”

“Please listen, princess. Just do as I say.”

“I have it under control-”

“Open your eye, princess.” Sir Jeon said with a more demanding tone.

y/n faltered, and did as she was told. In a second, Sir Jeon blew quickly into her eye and the particle was carried away by his breath. y/n blinked a few times feeling a lot more comfortable. There was a tear sliding down her cheek and Sir Jeon quickly caught it with his thumb.

“You’re okay.” he mumbled as he smiled at her. 

y/n looked at him for a while trying to process the events that had just occurred. In the next moment, they were giggling at each other like idiots, still maintaining the close proximity. 

“Now that was something I had never experienced.” y/n said surprised. 

“My mother would do it for me when I had something in my eye. It always worked.” Sir Jeon said smiling. 

“Thank you, for saving my eye.” y/n laughed and Sir Jeon laughed with her. 

“It was not much time, princess, but I absolutely enjoyed spending it with you.” Sir Jeon said as he took hold of her hand for the second time that day, and left a second kiss. 

y/n bit her lip to control the colour on her cheeks and looked away. 

“We could do this more often if you wanted to, Sir Jeon.” y/n said shamelessly. 

He raised an eyebrow, amused with her proposal. y/n rolled her eyes and stomped her right foot on the ground. 

“Stop making it seem like I am the only one who wants this, Sir Jeon.” y/n complained. 

Sir Jeon’s eyebrows raised even higher at that and it elicited a grin from him. 

“No need to get upset, princess. You know very well I would love to spend more time with you, therefore, will you join me on my morning walk at dawn tomorrow?” he said with a hopeful tone.

y/n pulled a rehearsed, contemplative expression on her face for longer than Sir Jeon desired. He felt her teasing behaviour and proceeded to mimic her actions. He stomped his right foot on the ground and crossed his arms. 

“Stop making it seem like I am the only one who-alright, princess! I shall stop.” Sir Jeon laughed out loud as you playfully hit his arm. Briefly, you felt how sturdy and firm his muscles were, must have been a result from all the knight training. 

“Say you’d love to join me.” Sir Jeon insisted as he took her hands in hers. 

“You are definitely quite bold to be taking on such a tone with the princess.” y/n said teasingly, although she did quite like it when he was firm with her. 

“I am known to be the bravest knight in town.” he playfully bragged and y/n could not hold herself back from laughing at his endearing and fun behaviour. 

“What is this obstruction?” another voice questioned. 

y/n and Sir Jeon tilted their heads upward seeing the prince on the top of the stairs. 

“Brother.” y/n greeted. 

“Your majesty.” Sir Jeon bowed. 

“Have your conversation above or below, not in between. The stairs are not built as platforms for conversation.” Taehyung complained.

“My apologies, your majesty. I will be leaving soon.” Sir Jeon responded. 

“Do not worry, Sir Jeon, there is no need to apologise. My brother has just woken from his short slumber and is unsurprisingly moody.” y/n spoke. 

Taehyung sent her a small glare of disapproval and started ascending from the stairs. 

“Sir Jeon, there is work to be done. Follow me into the main room, will you?” 

“Right away, prince. My dear princess, I shall take my leave.” Sir Jeon bowed and y/n tried hard to repress her smile but it shone right through, making Sir Jeon smile back as well. 

y/n mouthed a small ‘yes’ and Sir Jeon beamed at her before taking her hand for the third time that day, planting a soft kiss, and then returning to his duties. y/n was giddy and smiling to herself as she walked to her dressing room. She had known Sir Jeon for years but just within a week of speaking to one another, she realised she had grown to like him. Was he generally this polite, fun, and easy to talk to? In that case, he must have a long line of women knocking on his door. y/n did not care about them though, what mattered was that after many years, she was not alone. At the entrance of her dressing room she ran into Sir Park, he bowed in her presence and she put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. 

“Please, Sir Park, you know I would always prefer to skip the formalities.” 

Sir Park nodded in understanding and sighed, “I know you very well indeed, princess. I also know that you have recently acquainted with Sir Jeon?”

y/n was slightly surprised, “Ah yes, he is wonderful. It is nice to have him back, I’m sure.”

“Indeed, princess, he is liked by many here. He deserves good rest back at the palace, he serves us an awful lot out there, even if it kills him. I feel sympathy for what happened to him.” Sir Park said sadly. 

“Sympathy? My god, did something terrible happen to him?”

Sir Park looked at y/n with surprise, “did Sir Kim not inform you? There was a fire in the village and Sir Jeon’s family home was subject to it. Their home burned to ashes and his family lost all their possessions, including his father’s memorabilia. It is deeply saddening. The prince has offered to help since Sir Jeon has been loyal and brave for our kingdom.”

y/n frowned upon hearing the news, and then it had occurred to her that Sir Jeon had visited town today, and he had mentioned the prince giving him some money to lessen some burden...

y/n gasped and looked at Sir Park, “But he seemed so fine-”

“A knight is supposed to be brave and strong, y/n. They should not show any sign of weakness.” Sir Park reminded her. 

“But he has a tender heart, Sir Park. He does not deserve this.” y/n said sadly.

“There is only so much we can do, princess.”

“Do you think we can restore his father’s medals? I can talk to the prince.”

“That is a thoughtful idea, princess, but it won’t contain its sentimental value.” 

y/n was thinking, she was determined to make Sir Jeon feel better. She knew not where this feeling came from and it was foreign to her, but it felt right. 

“We could make a plaque, something to commemorate his father’s service over the years, don’t you think that holds sentimental value?” y/n suggested. 

“I am sure he will be delighted. If you convince the prince, he can get it done by tomorrow.”

“Will you stand by me, Sir Park?” y/n asked hopefully. 

“Always, dear princess.”

y/n knocked on the door of the main room with Sir Park next to her. Taehyung was sitting at the table, and Sir Jeon must have left since he was nowhere to be seen. Taehyung turned around and spotted his sister with her sidekick. He sighed and returned to his original position. 

“Can I help you two?”

“Your majesty, the princess would like to have a word.” Sir Park bowed.

“Brother,” y/n started out slowly as she sat on the chair opposite him. “I have been informed about a recent fire in the village.”

The prince nodded, “Sir Jeon and his family have been affected. Not to worry, I have provided him with the funds to rebuild his home.”

“Yes, that is wonderful, Taehyung, however, the more pressing issue is that Sir Jeon lost his father’s medals and awards in the fire. Those were of sentimental value to him, Sir Park has confirmed it to be so. I would like to request a special plaque to be made in honour of the previous Sir Jeon and his contributions to the kingdom. I need your help to do that.”

Taehyung sighed, “y/n your idea is thoughtful however it is not really necessary.”

“If we only did things that were necessary the world would not be half as good as it is now, brother. I plead to you, I would like to get this done for their family to show my gratitude for their loyal service. It would not take much effort on our part, would it?” y/n persuaded.

The prince looked at her and then at Sir Park. He contemplated the idea for a while and then huffed. 

“I can request for one, it can be done by tomorrow. But know this y/n,” Taehyung said seriously. 

“I am doing this for Sir Jeon and his entire bloodline of men who have sacrificed their lives to serve us. Not at all for you.” he finished. 

y/n nodded and looked down, feeling the familiar ache in her chest she stood up quickly and regained her composure. “That is more than enough, brother. Thank you.” and with that she retreated to her bedroom hoping for an even better tomorrow. 

[reliciron]

Exploring Arcann’s Romance: Part 1

So Arcann’s romance, huh?

Kinda sucked, didn’t it?

So I’m going to throw down some ideas that might flesh it out a bit. Again, these are just some of my interpretations, and since I love thinking about his romance I would really like to hear other ideas because some of mine are getting stale from how often I’ve run through the scenarios in my head.

Strap in, it’s another long one.

Part 2 here

Like any in-game romance, there are as many different ways to introduce a romance as there are fans of that pairing. No two are going to be exactly the same, but I’ve found that fans seem to get more creative about a romance the less satisfactory the in-game scenes are. If there’s several scenes with good emotional weight that lead to a satisfying confession/kiss/sex scene then a fair number of fics will include the canon scenes in some form. I’m not saying that this is lazy fic writing, I’m saying that its a testament to how good the canon content is. If what we got is shit, then we’re more motivated to make our own; if it’s good, then then we can focus more on the unseen parts of the existing scene, like their internal dialogue, rather than creating a completely new one. Ex. Fenris from Dragon Age 2. All these years later, I still love his romance. I find the flirting and romance scenes satisfying and true to the characters. I’ve read a lot of Hawke/Fenris fanfics, and a large portion of those who addressed their getting together tend to follow the canon scenes closely. They’re not exact of course, often there’s enough of the author’s flavor to make the scenes feel new again, but I feel like this illustrates the trend.

On the other end of the spectrum are romances like Arcann’s. I understand of course, his romance is an afterthought in the game. An addition that came after the story was concluded and tacked on in a single companion alert that could easy be overlooked. Add that little scene variation before The Nathema Conspiracy flashpoint, and we’ve got two measly little scenes and one or two messages. Compare that to Theron Shan’s romance. Assuming you ran through the Prelude, Shadow of Revan, and Ziost, then you’ve been flirting with him for months if not years. (Quick note, I’ve only romanced Theron as an Imp-side character so I’m not sure how different it is Pub-side) We get to see him flustered by our interest in the Prelude. He subtly checks if we’re still interested when we first see him again on Rishi and acts more accepting of our flirtations. He’s even more confident on Yavin 4, going as far as expressing his worry and his own flirtations. We even get kisses! One on Rishi, one on Yavin. And he seems genuinely regretful that we have to part ways. We don’t get much on Ziost, which makes sense since things are happening so fast, but we get enough to know that he hasn’t forgotten us, and he still harbors interest.

In KotFE, we find that sweet, sad, nervous message waiting for us once we get to a mailbox, and once he enters the story we get plenty of opportunities for flirting, kisses, and soft emotional scenes straight through to the end of Nathema (assuming you didn’t kill him or break up).

Arcann’s content looks pretty pathetic in comparison, so it’s no surprise that the few people putting out fics for him have their work cut out for them.

The first major division we can make are: fics that assume Arcann fell for you after he joins the Alliance, and fics that assume his interest started much earlier, when he was still the villain. The second one is: fics who include the canon confession scene, and those who make their own.

Honestly, I think I speak for everyone in that the content for Arcann is so sparse that most readers don’t have a preference. Beggars can’t be choosers after all. But such categories can help us corral our ideas on his romance.

The companion alert itself is seems very heavily predisposed toward someone looking to romance him. He made you armor so you can always be protected for god’s sake! Even if you’re not looking to romance him, it still makes you think that he’s crushing on your character big time (which he actually admits in a message post-confession). Add those pre-romance messages to this scene and it makes it painfully awkward for anyone who doesn’t romance him.

But even then, the whole thing is extremely abrupt. The last we knew in the game, our character is at least on civil terms with him, but his speech is still very formal and his actions still scream nervous subservience. He still seems very unsure of his position in the Alliance, so he’s probably falling back on what he knows from his years serving Valkorian. Emphasis on serving.

I don’t think I need to tell you guys how bad that is; going into a relationship with the person you feel subservient to.

So it’s little wonder that most fics either put way more distance between the end of KotET and the confession or put more work into advancing Arcann’s headspace into a healthier place, often a little of both.

It’s important to me that I don’t fall into the trap of “love fixes everything” because I don’t personally like that kind of relationship.

Arcann’s so messed up that it would take years to get him in to a completely healthy state of mind, and most fics don’t have that sort of time, but we can at least try to get him into a more confident position before we dive into the romance.

Now, to the romance scenarios. Specifically, the ones where he started being interested in you after he joined the Alliance.

The fics I’ve read who do include the canon alert scene, tend to change it a little. It seems best to let it play out normally without picking the flirt option. That awkwardness can then be used in a more natural confession later on.

Either your character hadn’t even entertained the idea of romancing Arcann, or they had but assumed he wouldn’t return their feelings. Depending on how careful and emotionally insightful they might be, they could also worry that their interest would not be appropriate for the situation. They could worry that even if Arcann was interested he wouldn’t be ready for a relationship. At worst, if they’ve noticed his subservience, they could even worry that he wouldn’t refuse their interest out of some misguided need to appease them or because he feared for his position in the Alliance if he refused. After all, your character is the Commander and they are technically in a position of power over him. Do I think he would actually do that? No. But an overly anxious character, or one looking for any excuse not to confess, might worry about it.

Either way, Arcann gifting them armor, showing an almost desperate need to protect them, and his messages paint a pretty obvious interest. They could be too surprised or flustered to properly respond right then, but they could take the hint to start making moves on him. Whatever that means for your character, whether it’s blatant flirting looking to get a reaction out of him, or its more subtle, like little innocent touches and spending more time with him. The response is up to you.

I admit, I’m all about that pining, so I tend to assume that he has already come to the conclusion that he’s interested in your character and that there’s no way they could possibly like him back. So I figure that any flirting will be coming from your character. How long it takes for him to catch on depends on your character’s personality, what kind of flirting their doing, and how unusual it is for them to act that way.

For those who disregard the confession scene entirely, the sky’s the limit. I have a few ideas of my own but there aren’t really any guidelines here so long as you try to keep them in character (if that’s something you want to do, writing OOC characters is an option, just not one I enjoy). And if you DO need them to do something that would be out of character, then spend the time and do the work to get them to a point where it wouldn’t be. If you need Arcann to take control and push your character up against a wall you can’t go from an unsure regretful man to playful sexy man in 3.5 seconds, work on him to get him there. Throughout a reasonable amount of time and circumstances, boost his confidence, make him feel as if that action would be welcome to your character and not frightening. The actions that lead us there, however, are up to you.

As for Arcann’s falling-for-you process:

I think it was first rooted in respect and a little hero worship.

Assuming that he was honest when he said he didn’t feel anything but negative things for you pre-ritual, let’s consider what those might be.

At minimum you were an annoyance. Some little shit who didn’t have the sense to bow down, and kept foiling his plans. The longer you kept making yourself a nuisance the angrier you made him. You somehow managed to find the one ship who could stand up to the eternal fleet, effectively spitting in the face of his military might. You survived what should have been a fatal blow. You had the gall to come back to Zakuul while there was an active bounty on your head. You subverted his own subjects, showed his automated army was not immune to sabotage, stole the majority of his treasury, and came within striking distance of disabling the entire fleet. He went from being mildly amused and faintly irritated at the mention of you, letting you run around Zakuul with only an offhand warning to the people, to being so fixated that he willingly ignored that Scorpio had taken the throne just so he could attack you.

You were willful, persistent, cunning, and absolutely infuriating. A Robin Hood to his Prince John.

But now he’s on the other side. He’s part of your Merry Men. And those qualities take on another light.

With his rage pacified, his newly reemerged empathy has shown him the cost of his actions. Actions that Vaylin is now mirroring. Suddenly facing down the might of the eternal fleet with its legions of Skytroopers and Knights, the shear impossibility of the task finally hits home for him. This is what the Commander has been fighting for months. Through charisma and shear force of will, they’ve managed to convince people to band together against ridiculous odds, and through guerrilla tactics and their own considerable strength they’ve actually been able to hold their own.

If that doesn’t earn his respect nothing will.

And with their continued dogged attacks, even in the face of such adversity, I don’t know how he wouldn’t admire them.

But your character’s been through a lot by the time he joins up. They’ve been at this for months if not years, all the while toting around the ticking time bomb known as Valkorian. We don’t see it in-game, but they have to be exhausted. Mentally and physically. And now he’s in a position to see those cracks start to form. The shadows under their eyes grow darker, their movements more sluggish, and their patience thins. He watches the way their gaze goes distant or they track someone with their eyes when there’s nothing there, and knows that it’s his father haunting them. Every loss hits them harder and weighs heavier on their shoulders, and Arcann’s admiration for them grows alongside his fear.

Fear that they will break under the pressure.

But to his increasing surprise, that worry is less and less about what that would mean for the galaxy, or even the Alliance, and more what that would do to the Commander. He finds that he’s grown to actually like them. The perseverance that once enraged him now leaves him in awe. The tone he’d thought was mocking is now charming or soothing. The depths of their strength is no longer frightening, but inspiring.

There is a light in their eyes. And every day, every appearance from his father, every loss, causes it to dim a little more. And he’s become terrified that it will go out.

I agree that the scene in the throne room is the turning point for him. When admiration and fondness turned into romantic feelings.

“It was not until you defeated Valkorian and took the throne that I realized my feelings had evolved beyond admiration.” - In-game Message

Seeing his father taking control of the Commander must’ve been terrifying. I’m sure he felt it.

There must have been a surge of Valkorian’s power, and then the Commander’s presence all but disappeared.

Our character was so badly broken that they took on Valkorian’s image just to survive. [Brief side note: I loved those scenes where you have to reassemble yourself by stringing your memories together. But taking on Valkorian’s image never made sense to me. If I address this in a fanfic, I’d prefer being a formless glob of light, or maybe a walking collection of shattered glass.]

You were unconscious for so long and Arcann got so scared that we was willing to go in there after you. He even expresses his worry to Senya that he “wouldn’t be strong enough”. Whether he meant he wouldn’t be strong enough to resist falling to the dark side again, or he simply wasn’t powerful enough to defeat Valkorian is unclear, but the important thing is that he was willing to risk it for you.

I cannot emphasize this enough, he was so scared of losing you that he was willing to face down the man who abused him for decades.

And this close call made him realize how important you were to him and how deep his feelings for you actually ran.

Part 2 here

[amillioninprizes]

An entirely too long post on how to fix Veronica Mars

So, anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows: 1) What a massive Veronica Mars fan I was and 2) how distraught I’ve been over the most recent season that debuted on Hulu in July. I’ve been pretty angry about it since it dropped, but the first month after I was pretty occupied with real life stuff. Now that I’m more settled, I’ve found myself getting sadder and angrier over time with just how terrible S4 was and what an obvious fuck you to longtime fans it was. It feels dumb to be so upset over a tv show, but this show got me through a lot over the past 8 years, and I feel like it’s been taken away from me.

 It’s anyone’s guess as to whether there will be a new season. Ideally it would end here with maybe an alternate ending filmed to avoid alienating fans further. On the one hand, the botched release, overwhelmingly negative response, and silence from the creators after initial interviews don’t look good for renewal chances. On the other hand, Hulu doesn’t have a lot of streaming hits, it probably did relatively decent numbers, and there are rumors floating around that its pickup chances look good. On a personal level, I hate the idea that this is where the legacy of Veronica Mars ends, while at the same time being extremely wary of what the creators have planned. I think a big part of the disappointment with S4 was that the movie and books set up what could have been some really interesting storylines and situations, all of which RT and co. squandered for cheap drama and to apparently turn the show into an entirely new vehicle; additionally I had hope that S4 would be a chance to rectify some problems the show has long had, but again, S4 exacerbated them. At this point I don’t expect anyone higher up in the creative process or at Hulu to give a fuck about the fans or making the show better as long as they hit streaming targets, but here are some suggestions:

Fire Rob Thomas

 While he created the show, it’s become clear that not only has he lost touch with the audience and the original spirit of the character, he doesn’t seem too keen on putting much effort into writing the show (as I will discuss below). Then you have his clear misogyny: his views that women in relationships can’t be interesting, that what makes Veronica interesting as a character is her trauma and how much she can endure, and the fact that basically every female character in the history of the show has a history of sexual victimization. He thought that making the Mexican cartel hitmen “philosophical” was subverting expectations (which says a lot of what his expectations of Latinx characters are). Then this is the way he essentially exploited his long term fan base to earn a new season of the show, only to turn around and tell us that we don’t matter. From a business perspective alone keeping him doesn’t make sense; selling a streaming platform on your loyal fanbase and then proceeding to purposefully piss ~80% of them off would be pretty questionable to me as someone in charge. The sheer cruelty with which he treated not only the fans who have supported him for 15 years (I fucking used to liveblog iZombie y’all. iZombie!), as well as how he callously dismissed long time cast members in favor of celebrity guest stars should not be rewarded. He’s admitted in interviews that he would be ok with younger writers doing a reboot many years in the future; why not just let him have a producer credit and then hand the show over to someone who’s invested in making it good?

Put a woman in charge and diversify the writing staff

A big problem with a) Veronica’s characterization in S4 b) RT’s ideas about what makes female characters interesting c) the show’s long history of problematic treatment of sexual assault is that it comes from a man’s conception of the female experience. The Veronica showcased in S4 and that RT wants to write in the future is very much a male fantasy: hates marriage and children, traumatized, DTF, and is too cool for other women. RT stated in interviews that he wanted to show Veronica at a “crossroads” this season in a way he claimed had been shown for men but not women; many female viewers found this depiction to ring false (few women are spending their time fretting about how committing to marriage after five years in an established relationship will bar us from strange sex going forward). In addition to having RT at the helm, most of the show’s writing staff for the majority of its run has been white dudes, which doesn’t bode well for telling the story of a female PI in a diverse community in today’s political climate. Putting a woman in charge would hopefully help rectify these issues to make the character feel more true to life and put a damper on the misogynistic storytelling. The show has a natural candidate in RT’s second-in-command Diane Ruggiero-Wright (despite her problematic history, never forget #KeisterEggGate), who has admitted to not being able to watch the last episode. Jennifer Graham, who wrote both of the books, would also be a worthy addition to the writing staff; while the books had a mixed reception, most fans agree that she got Veronica’s character right. And with the show’s problematic historical treatment of minority characters, adding more POC writers going forward is also necessary.

Bring back Logan (alive)

You don’t have to be a LoVe shipper to recognize just how integral Logan has been since the inception of the show, not just as Veronica’s partner but as a character is his own right. Logan’s journey in many ways parallels Veronica’s, and shows a contrast in how different characters respond to similar trauma. The most critical plot line in the show’s history, the mystery of who killed Lilly Kane, simply doesn’t work without Logan’s importance to Veronica. RT and his defenders like to claim that Logan was holding her back from true growth, which is frankly bizarre as he is the only character to consistently challenge her, like when he tells her that she obviously isn’t happy this season. Additionally, Logan’s scenes this season were the lone highlight of what was otherwise a painful slog of a season. Of the people who have said they would watch a potential S5, a good portion are only interested because they believe that the ambiguity of the last 10 minutes of the season means he’s not really dead (despite what RT has said in interviews). Then there’s what Logan’s death does to Veronica’s character, effectively cutting off what would have been an interesting character arc and stagnating her forever. No matter how much they try to shove Leo the pedo creep and other milquetoast RT self-insert love interests on us, no one else can possible measure up to Logan’s level in terms of being able to match Veronica as a character, intellectually or as a result of shared history.

Plus, the fact that we haven’t had a Weevil/Logan interaction since S3 is a goddamn travesty and should be rectified immediately.

Bring back Veronica

As sad as I am about Logan’s death, for me the most upsetting aspect of S4 was the assassination of Veronica’s character. For many viewers (including myself), the character we saw Kristen Bell portray in S4 wasn’t Veronica Mars but a different character with the same name. Between her abusive behavior towards Logan, her general indifference to her father’s medical condition, her dismissal of Wallace, and her racism towards Latinx characters (using a kid’s lawyer to threaten deportation: not a good look!), she was lacking the marshmallow-y center that always balanced out the pricklier aspects of her character and made her compelling. This change in characterization was especially jarring given that she was not this way when we last saw her in the books, where she mused about having children and sent her half-brother Hunter to summer camp (side note, but does he even exist anymore?). Many of us who had grown up with Veronica were hoping to see her grow with us as a character; instead we got an extreme regression lower than we’ve ever seen her. It would be one thing if they were trying to depict a PTSD storyline, which would make sense given her background, but since her change in behavior is never addressed by the narrative, it just makes her look like a cruel asshole and makes it impossible to root for her. This is exacerbated by the fact that RT has made it clear he has no interest in portraying her inner life, as shown by his wanting to avoid showing her grief over Logan’s death because it would be a real downer compared to the entertaining but ultimately hollow banter and quips he wants to focus on. Veronica this season was also just plain dumb: you mean to tell me that the girl who nearly got killed by Aaron Echolls in her back seat wouldn’t think to check her backseat every time she gets in a car?  (And let’s not even start with RT’s bizarre assertion in an interview that she apparently votes Republican). Not helping matters was Kristen Bell’s performance, which felt very flat for me this season compared to S1-3 and the movie; I don’t know if this was due to personal limitations or a reflection of the bad writing. Writers of future installments and KB herself would be wise to revisit S1, the movie, and the books to figure out what makes sense for Veronica’s character, leading me to my next point:

Get reacquainted with canon, develop a show bible, and hire a continuity director

This show has long had a problem with dropped plots, timelines, and continuity issues. Shelly Pomroy’s party has two happened either in the summer, or the fall. Then we have the movie paradox: Veronica graduated high school in 2006, which means her 10 year reunion should have taken place in 2016. The movie was released in 2014 and the books seem to keep to 2014 dates. Then S4 states that Keith’s movie accident took place in 2013, and mysteriously ages Veronica up to 35 when she should be 32 in 2019. Logan mentions an Aunt Naomi in S4--why didn’t she take care of him after Aaron was arrested (and what happened to Trina)? How the hell is Leo working as an FBI agent when he presided over the disappearance of the Lilly/Aaron tapes? Veronica is shown to be tentatively forgiving of Weevil taking the settlement from the sheriff’s department in Mr. Kiss and Tell, but is then shown to be extremely angry towards him for it in S4. This is just a small selection of the inconsistencies within the show. Plus there is the problem of repeated plot lines: Veronica rejects Leo in favor of Logan in S1, then rejects Leo in favor of Logan in Mr. Kiss and Tell, only for her to...reject Leo in favor of Logan in S4 (and RT says he wants to leave the high school plots behind). This sloppiness doesn’t bode well for a series that is supposed to be about mysteries, which require tight plotting. It would behove TPTB going forward to once and for all determine a timeline of Veronica’s life, keep a detailed record of past plot and character points, and have at least one person on staff who thinks to remember this stuff (RT notoriously has only a “solid, not spectacular” memory of the show, no matter what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says).

Make an effort (and do your fucking research) 

Moving on from continuity issues to more general problems with the laziness of RT’s writing. He has basically admitted that he doesn’t care much about facts or characterization when writing plots--he shoehorns details to fit the plot rather than have it evolve organically from the characters and prior canon. I know that when writing it’s often impossible to make every story detail 100% accurate, but the extent of RT’s sloppiness is alarming. This excellent Reddit thread details a lot of the problems with S4 in particular, but this has been a problem since S2. Did anyone ever understand exactly why the Fitzpatricks were invested in framing Logan for Felix’s death? In the movie, it makes no sense that if Cobb and co. wanted Carrie silenced, they would add the complication of framing Logan for her murder--given her history, it would have been a lot easier just to make it look like she had accidentally overdosed. Given his previous patterns of villain writing fans were able to guess the identity of the S4 bomber based on casting alone. The mysteries in both Mr. Kiss and Tell and S4 are both ripped from the headlines, which indicates that RT wants to turn VM into the next Law and Order. Meanwhile, he complained about how hard including Logan in the story in S4 was, while Logan arguably had the best lines and most interesting scenes this season--apparently when you put an effort into things, they work out! This laziness extends past storyline issues and into factual problems that detract from the quality of the plot. Longtime fandom pals are probably tired about hearing me go on and on about how there’s no way Aaron’s lawyers could have gotten Veronica’s medical records due to HIPAA laws. Logan’s career change from naval aviator to intelligence is highly unlikely (and unnecessary, given that they changed it only to fridge him at the end of the season). Meanwhile, I know fanfic writers who have spent hours on the phone with strangers in order to research what type of firearm would cause a specific type of bullet injury. It’s very puzzling to me that RT wants to take the show in the direction of being mystery-only when apart from that one time he is piss poor at writing mysteries and puts no effort into them. I shouldn’t have to tell television writers to, you know, do their job but this is what we’ve come to in 2019.

Know your audience

A majorly annoying thing about the promo for this season is how in every single interview Rob Thomas did he was always talking about how he wanted VM to be like other shows and movies: Fargo, True Detective, Game of Thrones, Chinatown (which is apparently the only noir movie he’s ever seen). The thing is, if I wanted to watch those shows, I would; I watched Veronica Mars specifically because I enjoyed its unique qualities, and I would say most fans agree. The general perception within the fandom is that with this season Rob Thomas seems to have been aiming to dump the old, majority female, CW fanbase in order to achieve what he perceives as a cooler prestigious male fanbase; the issue is, new people aren’t going to take up a show in its fourth season if they didn’t watch or didn’t like earlier seasons. Also, trying to write a prestigious show doesn’t make your show prestigious. Considering that based on anecdotal evidence most of the people who like S4 seem to be male, he may have succeeded in the first part of his aim. However, this majority female fanbase he was so willing to cast aside are the ones who have run fansites and rewatches during fallow times (i.e. between S3 and the movie and then between the books and S4), so drumming up interest among fans (and therefore streaming views) in the future may be a challenge. Plus, women are a better advertising demographic since they are more likely to be in charge of household purchasing decisions, so maintaining us as a fanbase makes business sense as well. He may have tricked enough people into watching S4 that S5 is given a go, but I wouldn’t be surprised if streams are weak beyond that. If the show is to succeed as a commercial endeavor, better to go with appealing to a known quantity than trying to make a generic show that very few people have expressed interest in watching.

Bring back the mystery of the week

This is a more minor thing I felt was missing from S4. I think after the criticism of S3 not having a season-long arc RT overcorrected in focusing on one mystery. However, the mystery of the week had the following benefits: 1) giving chances for the characters to interact and telling us more about them 2) helping to modulate the pace of the season-long arc. With better writing a season-long standalone mystery could maybe work, but in the case of S4 specifically the mystery was kind of dull and repetitive and could have stood to include a couple of diversions in the form of a smaller case here and there.

Re-evaluate the creators’ interpretation of the word “adult”

Much of the promo and reviews for this season noted the more “adult” content to be expected this season now that Veronica’s grown. Many fans hoped that meant seeing Veronica act like, you know, an adult with adult problems rather than a teenager less mature than the actual teenager she was. Unfortunately, the show’s interpretation of the word seems to be more in keeping with a television rating sense of the word--meaning sex, drugs, and gratuitous violence (But apparently not the word “fuck.”). Look, it was expected that as the show moved to a streaming service and given the overall dramatic scope that there would be an upgrade in some of this sort of content (and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t looking forward to steamier LoVe moments, which were sorely overpromised), but the way it was included this season felt like RT and co. included this stuff just because they could and not to serve the storyline. For me, personally, the biggest example of this was Veronica’s drug use, which I know didn’t necessarily bother everyone. Given her history as the daughter of an alcoholic as well as someone who had been the victim of two roofie attacks, not to mention the fact that her character never seemed to be into partying, I found it very out of character (and book writer Jennifer Graham agrees). It felt like RT included this just bc they thought it would be funny to see Veronica on drugs without considering whether it made sense for her character. Also, were the beheadings strictly necessary? Plus there’s RT’s little temper tantrum over not being able to use curse words this season--they weren’t present in the original show, no one was going to miss them now, and the “cuss” thing was just annoying and reminiscent of The Good Place. 

Dealing with a parent who maybe has dementia--that’s an adult storyline. Too bad RT ended it with a dumb excuse about “mixing meds” (another factual error! Pharmacy software would have caught it!) rather than actually exploring what it would mean for Veronica to see her father in decline and take over the family business (and give Rico Colantoni the exit he appears to want). This is the kind of adult content I would hope to see in future seasons.

Adult is not a synonym for “unrelentingly bleak” either. The original show, while dark, always had an element of hope that was completely removed from S4 (no matter what KB might claim). And would it have killed the writers to show Veronica wearing disguises and going undercover like she used to? There was nothing fun about this season (and no, I don’t count the multiple partying scenes as fun, more like sad).

Kill your darlings

It’s cliche, but it’s true. Another issue the show has long had is the writers keeping around characters or inserting jokes and references for their own personal amusement rather than for the story. The most notable example of this is the continued presence of Dick, a highly problematic character considering he pushed Beaver into the room with Veronica the night of Shelly Pomroy’s party, among a whole host of other racist, sexist, and generally obnoxious actions over the years. But because Ryan Hansen is so widely beloved among the cast and crew, so he stays. Then there’s the matter of the infamous Keister egg in 3x08, which the writers and KB have all expressed love for, despite the fact that said Keister egg is an example of sexual assault--which, even if the victim is a douchey fraternity president, is never funny. 

Also the constant Big Lebowski references are tiring. Watch a new movie.

Improve Neptune’s gender ratio

Veronica Mars, despite having a female lead, has always been a male-dominated show; other than Veronica herself, the only consistent female character over the original show was Mac (and she didn’t even come back this season). This is unacceptable in 2019, for any show. The books introduced promising female characters in the form of Marcia Langdon and Petra Landros, but Marcia’s character was was watered down for S4 and Petra was nowhere to be found. Additionally, Veronica and Mac have always been written as “cool girls” who looked down on other women for their femininity, which isn’t a great message. Almost every other female character, even the innocuous Parker, is portrayed as somehow bad or incompetent. I would love nothing more than a season centered on the women of Neptune and their interactions with each other. While we’re at it, stop giving every woman on this show a background of sexual victimization.

Treat VM as an ensemble show, not a Kristen Bell vanity project 

A major complaint from Burnt Marshmallows and S4 defenders alike was how little time was given over to the original core cast this season. While Veronica may be the protagonist, a large part of how the show became so beloved was her relationships with the other characters. Yet RT has decided that going forward VM will be a KB solo project, with her traveling town to town quipping and sleeping with strangers. This seems strange, given Kristen’s recent interviews talking about how difficult it is to shoot VM and how she never wants to be first on a call sheet ever again, not to mention how she asked for less screen time all the way back in S2, which resulted in the Weevil-Logan storyline, which was way more interesting than Veronica’s storylines during the first half of that season. (The traveling detective thing also seems weird considering that KB is pretty insistent on shooting in LA to be near her family.) Additionally, if this is truly the last season of VM with all the original characters, then no one got a proper sendoff. 

I’m not sure how willing much of the cast will be to return for future iterations, given how uncomfortable many of them seemed during promo as well RT and KB’s treatment of them (insensitive at best, deliberately mean at worst) this season (shout out to Tina Majorino for recognizing what a shit show this was going to be), but bringing back all the original characters into the fold and giving them significant storylines would go a long way to mending fences with fans, improving the show from a character arc perspective, and would also give KB the break she apparently wants. 

Recourt the fanbase

What has VM always been renowned for above all else? It’s incredibly loyal fandom which not only got it renewed twice during its original run but also put up their own money to get the movie made--I know many people who donated when they really couldn’t afford to. RT basically owes the last 6 years of his career to VM fans--the success of the Kickstarter arguably got him the iZombie show running gig, and the fourth season likely wouldn’t have even happened if not for it. Thus, the blatant cruelty and disregard with which RT and KB have treated fans during the promotion of S4 has been incredibly insulting and hurtful; I still can’t fathom what in the world possessed RT to think that throwing away this 15-year relationship was a good idea. It’s not a good sign when the 2 fansites most active during the post-movie period (VMHQ and VM Confessions) cease operations in the wake of S4, and when at least 3 out of 8 board members of the oldest running fan group, Neptune Rising (who were dormant during the post-movie period but played a critical role during earlier fan campaigns and in the S4 promo) resign. A fandom this loyal that was betrayed will not stand idly by if the S5 RT wants to make goes ahead; given the number of tweets the official Hulu VM account has had to delete in the wake of S4 due to the overwhelmingly negative response as well as the controversy over editing out Logan from S4 promos, I imagine that S5 will be a PR nightmare. Even if future seasons are amazing the trust can probably never be fully repaired, but it would be helpful for RT (or fingers crossed, a new show runner) and KB (as star and EP) to go overboard in reaching out to fans and at least admitting they made a misstep with the entirety of S4. Back in the day, the old Mars Investigation fansite was invited to set to conduct interviews; maybe do that again. Also someone should get KB some sort of VM fandom-fluent media trainer because I don’t think she has conducted a single interview during her entire stint on the show that didn’t anger fans (it might help if she actually bothered to watch the show).

Map out an endgame

Look, this can’t go on forever. As long as RT keeps leaving every installment open ended with the hopes of maybe getting renewed again five years down the line, the story is going to keep running into the issues the movie and S4 faced with having to shoehorn the characters into nonsensical plot lines to reconcile those endings and deal with actor availability issues. Either plot another 2-3 seasons to wrap the show up with a satisfying conclusion, or map out a greater timeline of Veronica’s life with spots where a mini series or movie here and there could fit in.

[nellie-elizabeth]

His Dark Materials: The Spies (1x03)

This was a great episode, and gave me high hopes for where the rest of this season is going to go.

Cons:

I think this might be a legacy problem from the book, although it's been so long since I read it that I'm not sure. But isn't it a little odd to set Lyra up as an orphan in the first episode, and by episode three she already knows that her parents are both alive, and she knows who they are? I feel like she didn't discover the full truth until later in the narrative, in the books. Maybe I'm wrong.

The stuff with Boreal in our world is just not as exciting or atmospheric or cool as the stuff with Lyra in her world. It doesn't help that he made no real progress on his goals. He's still looking for Grumann, we don't have any new answers, and very little new information. Maybe knowing that this stuff is added and isn't in the books is making me judge it more harshly, but thus far I'm just not gripped.

Pros:

The thing that made me happiest about this episode is that it slowed down. There were multiple scenes contemplating the nature of daemons. We saw Lyra start to work out how to use the alethiometer. She learned more about her past, about the rules of the world. We got to spend time getting to know the psychology of certain characters. When you've got a show like this one, where there are so few episodes to get through the plot, there's always a tension between getting to all the important details, and letting stuff sink in and linger for a while. This was a lingering episode, and I think it came at the perfect time.

I think the actress who is playing Lyra is doing a remarkable job. I had my qualms in the first episode, but any small bumps seem to have been worked out by this point in the filming. She is carrying some heavy material, and she's doing it masterfully. She knows to give a toned down performance, to not go over the top with her emotional responses. When she needs to get worked up, she does. Lyra is more than just precocious. She's also incredibly smart, and even as young as she is, she's worked out when to keep her mouth shut.

We learn a bit about how to read the alethiometer, and learn that Lyra has a special ability to do so without consulting books to explain the complex process. There's a theme here about choice, about how Lyra doesn't want Pan to ever settle into a single form, how she likes the freedom of change. And it's her ability to think in abstracts and to be creative that allows her to understand something that much older and well-educated people cannot. But it also traps her into a destiny that will take away that very freedom that makes her who she is. These themes have already been a huge part of the story, and will continue to reverberate as we go.

Mrs. Coulter is so interesting. The script, the direction, and the acting, are all combining to tell us so much about this person with so little screen-time. We learn from Ma Costa a bit about how Lyra came to be, that Mrs. Coulter was having an affair with Asriel and that she has been branded an adulteress because of what has happened. Lyra is horrified to discover that she is related to Mrs. Coulter. Already in this world we've discovered that she's unnatural, an aberration because of her strange relationship with her daemon. I loved the moment when we see her unsteadily walking along the edge of the balcony, nearly toppling off the roof. Her daemon watches anxiously from a ways away. Mrs. Coulter clearly has some issues with depression, and it's fascinating to watch how that manifests for this character, in this world.

I really liked spending some time with the Gyptians in this episode, especially Ma Costa. She's frantic for her son Billy, and later has to worry about Tony too, but even amid all of her own fear and pain, she takes the time to tell Lyra the truth about herself, and to share her own part in her backstory. It's such an obvious contrast to Mrs. Coulter, who is single-minded about getting Lyra back, but who has none of the warmth and safety of Ma Costa.

It was obviously sad to see Benjamin die, but I did like that there was one part of this episode that felt like it had real stakes, and elevated the tension of the whole episode as a consequence. Last week, we saw a daemon killed in order to snuff out a human. This week, we see Benjamin jump to his death so as to avoid betraying the Gyptians, and his daemon vanishes into dust. The Gyptians did get some information out of Tony and Benjamin's risky plan - the names of the children taken by the Gobblers.

In many ways, this episode was transitional. It was setting up big plot points for later on, but did not contain any huge shifts in the status quo just on its own. And honestly, that's often my favorite type of episode in a show like this, a show that requires a lot of world-building. We need to take a breath and check in with Lyra, learn more about daemons and the alethiometer and what makes this story worth telling, on a thematic level. This episode accomplished that. I can't wait for more!

9/10

[gw-envs3000-2019]

One Last Breath, and Then Your First

I can honestly say, this has been one of the most challenging courses I’ve taken in the four years of my post-secondary degree. At times, the blog post prompts were the easiest thing I could do, and other times they were the last thing I wanted to think about because I had no idea how to approach it. Over the course of the past three months, the challenge to my creativity has skyrocketed. It’s hard on its own to push yourself to be creative when you’re busy or stressed with other classes, but at the peak of the semester when it feels like there’s so much going on and my mental health feels as fragile as tissue paper, doing something as simple as making a blog post which is supposed to be about my joy and excitement for nature and science communication seems like Mount Everest, especially since at times like this, I’m not really happy, or excited, or optimistic about anything, in fact I sometimes feel like I’m hardly hanging on by a thread and yet I have to either muster up some joy or, more often than not, completely fake it just to get a graded blog post out because neither my wallet nor my mental health can afford to fail a class.

Onto the prompt; moving forward in my endeavors to become a Nature Interpreter or something of the sort (or simply to use the quite helpful skills I’ve learned in this class) I’ll be eager to keep in mind, and question myself as to what type of backgrounds my audience may have (the experiences they’ve likely had, and what makes them tick) in order to effectively spark their interest and show them how our connections and relationships with nature are equally important as the relationships we hold with the people around us. 

Of course, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to reach every person in the way you intended, if at all, and that’s part of the process. Even though your audience is there because they already have an interest in what your talk/walk will be about, the ways you decide to approach the topic (influenced by your personal beliefs and experiences) may cause some in your audience to turn off their ears and try to interpret the environment for themselves. And that’s okay too, because I’ll admit there are interpretive walks where I’ve tuned out because I couldn’t really care less about what the guide was saying anymore (because I had misinterpreted what the talk/walk would be about/the stance it would take on the topic) or simply because I could tell they had a very different opinion related to the topic than I did and it was influencing everything they chose to say about the topic. Which, no shade to them, they can do as they please, I simply didn’t show up to the right tour, and I may not be lead to the revelations and discoveries that they intended for me to be lead to; but I’ll end up guiding myself to my own revelations, if any. It’s the same for audience members that I may have one day; they may not reach the revelations that I intended, but as long as the experience that they had helped them to feel some sense of clarity and peace then my job is done. 

Obviously, I’ll always hope that the intended effect is the effect experienced by all members of my audience. To give my audience an new personal understanding of their place in our world, the importance of their actions in a big world where they feel like a drop in the ocean. To illuminate to my audience the terrifying beauty of the interconnectedness of the world, and the wrongs that our world has endured at our hands, that one group of humans have experienced at the merciless hands of another group, in order to educate a new “generation” (that is becoming better educated on a topic brings them into a new realm of life and feels nearly rejuvinating; the beginning of a new life) and change the future of all of mankind. To conserve the natural beauty of the world, in order for future generations to be inspired by it, to be able to use it to understand the importance of the relationships and connections among all living organisms; sentient and not.

In every dull moment of mundane life on Earth, or every sad moment that drags on your feet like lead, we gratefully accept anything to give us that feeling of hope again. Whether through song or story, we learn new things to broaden our minds and to give us the ability to look upon this world with fresh eyes. When we were children, we’d beg our parents to tell us stories of when they were growing up, to hear that we’re not alone in the way we’re feeling and that life gets better; to learn of the bad things people have done in anger and fear, and provoke ourselves to feel inspired to never repeat those people’s mistakes; to learn of  our place in the world, through the life, full of discoveries and learning, of a fellow human being; to feel connected to another living being, and feel even if for only a moment that we’re not alone and people care to feel a connection with us, because they give us their time; the most valuable thing in any living organism’s life.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

image credit: https://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/earth/pale-blue-dot.html

If I’m to become a nature interpreter, I’ll likely only work with small groups (10 or less) because I feel more disconnected with bigger groups, like no one’s really listening to what I’m saying. Whether that’s because there are too many eyes and I can’t meet all of them for a meaningful enough time to feel like I have that person’s attention, or there are too many eyes and I can’t meet all of them and so I feel that they don’t feel that they have my attention. I like a more personal connection with people even if it’s only for a short time, giving up that connection leaves me feeling adrift and purposeless; like everything I had done previously for the tour meant nothing and wasn’t heard by anyone.

I hope to feel that I have the ability to touch the spirit of all whom I come into contact with, brighten their world, and clear their eyes in order to see their world anew for the true breathtaking beauty it offers us with every passing moment.

[ireddeadredemption2pc-blog]

Red Dead Redemption 2 PC

Red Dead Redemption2 PC

The old west feels brand new again.

Oh Jesus Christ, what have you done? “Thomaschen 978 wants to know why a dozen carcasses and a couple of horse corpses are placed on rail tracks bordering the early industrial city and are the New Orleans stand-in St. Denis.” You killed half. village.” PC Games For Free

We are on round two of the recurring corpse pile. My poses got the idea to jump in front of the train after a few rounds of Lose Your Friends and Toss Them in the Sea in the Couple Friendly Strangers. Like GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2 has its own bowling minima, we explain to Chen in a roundabout way that provokes his fear. Die in the shared open world of Red Dead Redemption 2 and you’ll react fast enough to move your corpse around. Best RPGs games pc

The boy is in line with us. We should make it bigger. As the train comes around again, another pose tries to take us out. The chain defends us but does not bring it back to the tracks. He goes away screaming. Death of a true warrior.

Red Dead Redemption 2 could be the biggest, most humble videogame ball pit for an annoying story about impulsive children, the forced disintegration of the community, or simply a quiet and reflective hiking simulator. It’s just about what you need it to be, and it’s good at it.

Just hours before the corpse-bowling, I was alone through the icy forests, stepping into the long shadow cast across the snow by the rising moon. I heard a gunshot from a distance. The tracks of some wolves marked snow in the same direction. I saw them who won. Anytime I pay attention and look closely, RDR2 is the result of my curiosity. Best Racing games on pc

The mind-numbing expanse that makes up the vast world of RDR2 speaks to the creative force of a development team with an intense, obsessive dedication to realism (and all the money and time needed to do so). Like how my friends’ characters flare up when I fire a gun at them, how animal carcasses disintegrate over time, how NPCs react according to a sloppy or bloody outfit, how to stir through a doorway. Scares everyone everywhere.

It is hard to believe that RDR2 is so deep and wide and is also a harmonious, playable thing. I was already playing it for days worth the console version. This is why I am particularly disappointed that it ended up on the PC to some extent.

For every non-taught multiplayer adventure, disconnect or crash on the desktop, desktop. The rock star’s best storyline and character so far has been filmed through Frame Hutches’ slideshow and addressed over the launch weekend.

RDR2, one of the best Western games and one of the best open-world games I have ever released with enough stability issues, is recommended for the hard way until everything is completely smooth.

Morgan trail

EVERY PRETTY VISTA IS SOMETHING TO LOSE THROUGH ARTHUR’S EYES.

The story genre of Red Dead Redemption 2 follows the dying days of the Wild West. The sprawling industrial world faced the bandits and social downtrodden of Arthur Morgan’s small band, an imperfect but loyal, loving and self-reliant community.

Capitalism is reducing its value as resources to humans. Indigenous USA America is driven from the plains to make way for ‘civilization’ and commerce. The forests are brought down for timber, the hills are cut down for coal, and Morgan’s chosen family is caught in the middle, forced to flee, assimilate, or respond with violent protests is done. They do all three.

This is Rockstar’s most serious drama, and it’s really, really long. If you are running, the story ends after 40 to 50 hours and then continues for 10 to 15. The main story missions of Red Dead 2 feature distinctly rockstar fare: ride to a destination that is talking to everyone, tightly scripting though, entertaining things, riding, and chatting to the final destination.

Missions are often thrilling action sequences or artificially mundane pictures of wrench labor and trade, full of long-winded Bespoke animations, and outstanding performances. They are only hopelessly harsh, to the point where it feels like I am following the stage directions rather than playing the role of a vagabond in the Old West.

Step out of line in these campaigns and this is a failed situation. As opposed to Red Dead Online, there are very few of them that encourage players to think for themselves, each designed to advance the story. The RDR2 show is at least a spectacle of the slow pace of life in the Old West.

This is not the death and theatricality of a lifetime; My favorite missions include shoveling, drinking wine with a friend, proposing an old romance and riding a hot air balloon. Working through a greater rut, stricter tasks are considered meaningful in the end anyway, inspired by extraordinary, ambient world-building and characterization.

Side missions, minigames, small activities, and random world events — whether they hunt great guns, capture a play, or stumble upon a woman trapped under a horse — all set Arthur’s character and setting in subtle, rich ways. Please inform.

Nested in the third act of a fully animated and voice theatrical performance, something like 10 minutes, it is possible that the response button is pressed after an artist has included a telephone. Arthur would shout, “Hell with the telephone!” It is an optional activity, a long one, and an option is to react in that short window. I think most players will remember this, but this is Canad Response 1 through 3 because this is something Arthur would say, a rageless goofy set his way in the right way.

He would write complete, real diary entries about the 50-hour campaign, sketching memorable scenes and depicting the state of affairs of his chosen family, which people once knew changed their fortunes between hope and despair. It is meant to be a completely alternative reading, but a refreshingly intimate take on a masculine figure that unsettles many doubts and hopes as to the next person.

He sings himself on a lonely ride and lowers his old body in the mirror. He will have an exciting conversation with the horseshoe woman as he gives her a ride into town, both commenting on the troubles of working for wealthy, ungrateful men as a growing necessity. I feel it all. Best horror games on pc free

Hillbillies can capture him after making the camp, a couple may try to rob him after inviting him to dinner, a man with snakebite can come out of the forest by stumbling and tell him to suck venom is. These haphazard encounters portray brutal life on the fading frontier, as nature pushes back against inner poppers who want to change it. Arthur is the perfect vessel to see it

This is because Arthur Morgan is one of the darkest human characters I have played during a great turning point in American history, playing a playful, cruel and compassionate role according to differing theories.

The game world, beautiful as it is, is made more beautiful and tragic by how it is ready to play it on every occasion. Every beautiful vista has something to lose through Arthur’s eyes, power lines and train tracks, cut through the skies, and the rest of his life is slowly filling with factory smoke. Just about everyone sees a sad end in RDR2, too. This is a story that I might not sustain every moment, but I will not forget its brutal arc or the man in the middle of it all. God damn is it sad? An apocalypse that led to this.

Ren Der Reflection

Assuming that you are able to run it at high settings, the biggest strength of RDR2 is how it exquisitely renders the Old West setting on PC, drawing more attention to the nuanced details that make it. This is one of the best looking games I’ve seen and a rare experience that justifies a new GPU or CPU.

Better draw distance and a greater range of vegetation detail were added, making some vistas look photographic. Long shadows vary from walking or roaming between places to rides, to cute nature tours. Due to animal attacks, bullet holes, rain, mud, or rapid flow of blood, the markings on the clothes are caused by very high-resolution textures, which tell a very little story about your friends.

A new photo mode makes it easy to share those moments of amazement. The way the player rides on RDR2 for just sightseeing and sounds is an important feature. I am desperately trying to get an artistic portrait of my horse’s silhouette to sit against the moon, yet another self-proclaimed goal was tolerated by this ridiculously large complex game.

With 2080, i9-9900K and 32GB of RAM, I can run RDR2 mostly on ultra settings with some resource-intensive settings completely off or switched off. But some hardware combinations are proving troublesome for RDR2, leading to random crashes in some APIs and, more recently, to a hotfix, leading to hitching problems for some 4-core CPUs.

During the first weekend, I couldn’t spend more than an hour without crashing on the desktop, though Vulcan switched from DX12 (which gives me better framerates) back to static stuff. Sometimes the UI malfunctions and I cannot select a select or purchase option, the map fails to appear, or I get paged unexpectedly from game servers.

The graphics settings are almost too much as well, and probably confusing. In our test, only a handful of settings affected performance by more than 1-2 percent. Large residuals, the mapping between MSAA, volumetric lighting, and parallax occlusion, affect performance by 5 to 25 percent. Most of them don’t make a big visual difference anyway and are best left out.

The way the settings are presented is made to feel underdeveloped: a huge list with unclear presets that require tinkering to make RDR2 run in a satisfactory framerate. It is hard. The PC should be the best place to play, not the best place to play, after all, after a few patches. It’s a shame for a game to look good. upcoming pc games

Cowboy poetry Red Dead Redemption 2 PC

Like in singleplayer mode, in Red Dead Online I can make my goals reasonable and watch them. The problem is, it is basically hamstrung by a frustrating multiplayer leveling system that locks basic equipment and cosmetics behind long XP requirements that can meet hours, perhaps days,

The option is spending gold, premium currency, items and clothing to unlock them immediately. A fishing pole is not available until level 14. A damn fishing pole in an outdoor recreation game. This is not spectacular and is a terrible way to invest players.

out a basic suite of tools (fishing rod, bow, varmint rifle, nice hat, etc.), Red Dead Online opened up widely. I have largely ignored traditional matchmaking modes such as gunfights and horse races, cheap thrills, I will play much better versions in different games, to have fun. It led to the most inventive, serene, real, and sometimes buzzing echo I’ve ever had.

I once walked into the middle of a fire in Blackwater and took the player corpses one by one to the church cemetery. Some were captured and participated in the ‘burial’ of their friends. A corpse thanked me for the gesture. Later, in an extended streak of criminal activity, my pose and I caught another player and instead of killing them on the spot, we rode into the swamp and threw them into the garter infected waters. I got the idea to act like a friend. Best pc games 2017

On a less absurd note, I set myself a constant goal of earning strictly enough money from hunting to buy cool-weather gear and a fine rifle. I am going to hike in the mountains and find the best way to hide there, a wild mountain man adorned with animal skins, which almost touches the floor.

In the meantime, I’m stopping gunmen across the city by running through the streets and calling for a parley. I am participating in an eight-player ballroom. I am living the life of a normal cowboy in the best shepherd game. I hope it clears up soon.

RDR2 PC System Requirements

OS : Windows 7 SP1 64bit

Graphics   Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 2GB / AMD Radeon R9 280

Processor:   Intel Core i5-2500K / AMD FX-6300

Memory:    8 GB RAM

DirectX:   Version 11 Or 12 Support

Storage: 150 GB

[where-fading-princesses-live]

What is your opinion on Rolf’s scenes in the movie?

((Sorry this is going to be long. I’ve been trying to finish this for the past three days.)) So just going off from what everyone else said, I agree that Rolf’s scenes could have been trimmed down some, or at least utilized in a more productive manner. He’s all geared up like some hardcore Indiana Jones, looking ready as ever to whoop some serious ass, but he never really does anything. I mentioned it before, but it’s as if the writers just didn’t know what to do with him…

(Credit for art goes to Marlushion)

That pretty much sums it up.  

Granted, I don’t hate Rolf’s scenes. Far from it, actually. I just feel like he could have been slightly more on track. His scenes not only go on for too long, but in the entirety of his screen time, all he does is… fry an egg (???), pour some ‘’Rö suk’’ on a car seat, yells at Wilfred, mutilates a perfectly good muffin, yells at Wilfred some more, milks a cow, drinks unpasteurized milk, yells at Wilfred, gets a meat grinder stuck on his head… so yeah, basically, Rolf’s scenes are, as everyone described, just the very definition of filler. Which is a shame, considering Rolf is one of the most interesting and complex side characters.

In fact, Rolf isn’t the only three-dimensional supporting character that had less to do in this finale. Jonny and Jimmy also take back seats in their subplots, and they, too, have been the most developed of all the supporting cast. Maybe it’s just because these three characters had so much character development throughout the series that there just wasn’t anything left for them to do, and so the writers decided to shift focus onto characters that had very little development, like Sarah, Kevin and Nazz. The before mentioned characters were always the least interesting and least popular among fans, so I was surprised by how much screen time they received in BPS. Not only that, but their subplots are fairly interesting, at least compared to the more popular secondary characters like Rolf. I suppose it all boiled down to time constraints. It was more important, anyhow, that the Eds had their dramatic conflicts resolved and their time to shine– the rest of the cast just had to pick up the left-overs. Still, it would have been nice if Rolf, Jonny and Jimmy had the opportunity to be as great in BPS as they normally are in the series– even if they had plenty of development prior to BPS, this was going to be the last time we would ever see these characters, so to have them do nothing due to time, well, again, it’s a shame. EEnE was one of the few shows of its era that had a very strong supporting cast, so even if we watched it for the Eds, it was still a treat to see the others, too.

I think the majority of fans dislike Rolf’s story arc mainly because it lacks comedy (or at least, the usual Rolf antics we’ve come to expect). I like @mundane-ededdneddy-headcanons theory in that Rolf has been alienating himself further from the group and becoming more and more introverted as the series progresses. This is true. Towards the end of the series, Rolf has had some more serious moments than usual, moments that reflect his more introverted nature. For example, in ‘’Too Smart For His Own Ed’’, it’s revealed that he suffers from stage fright and has a phobia of public speaking. Yes, this same kid who bravely performs in front of his friends without a hint of shyness…

… loses the Spelling Bee due to social anxiety. 

‘’No Speak Da Ed’’ is perhaps one of the darkest Rolf-centric episodes, the plot which heavily draws upon past childhood trauma. So it’s not as if Rolf was never serious before BPS. Even before Season 5-6, Rolf had some heavy material in his episodes, such as ‘’Wish You Were Ed’’ and ‘’Dueling Eds’’.  So again it’s not like Rolf can’t be serious– but because he’s more beloved and popular for his comedic timing, I guess his story in BPS fell a bit flat for some. I think the criticism mainly stems from the fact that even in his more serious episodes, the writers always made sure to pull it back to comedy. In ‘’Wish You Were Ed’’, it begins kinda sad, but then it gets pretty outrageous. 

Same goes for ‘’Dueling Eds’’, which handled a pretty serious topic of Eddy unintentionally hurting Rolf’s feelings… it begins normal enough, but then escalates into… insanely… weird… shit… 

Even ‘’No Speak Da Ed’’ ended on a comedic note. So if BPS handled serious frustrated Rolf in the same way they handled these episodes, maybe fans wouldn’t be so nitpicky about it?

Maybe the meat grinder was meant to be hilarious, but it’s actually just kinda sad. I mean, the kid loses everything… all the possessions he can carry, his pig, his shoe… I mean, he’s kind of a wreck at the end. I don’t know about anyone else, but I wasn’t laughing, and maybe I was supposed to be?

But going back for a moment, maybe fans just weren’t thrilled with the idea of Rolf being so cut off from the rest of the group. Granted, he has really always been an introvert, just not in the pure sense of the word like Jonny and Edd. Rolf’s more of an extroverted introvert, in that he enjoys the company of his friends, but he’s also not afraid to go solo. We’ve seen moments of Rolf alone before– but that’s all it was, moments. He’s revealed to be a slightly different person when he’s alone as opposed to in a group. In fact, he’s more serious when he’s alone. In ‘’Pick an Ed’’ we see him sitting alone under the bleachers, dwelling over his poor grades. His frustration here mirrors exactly how he is during the entirety of BPS: talking to himself, talking to his pig. But I think because we’re not used to seeing him alone so long, it was maybe a tad unsettling to not have him bounce off of anyone and vent his anger and frustration in other ways– such as through comedy. The same would be true for the rest of the cast. It’s interesting to see how the characters react when by themselves, but they are much more interesting when bouncing off each other. I could say the same for the Eds– they wouldn’t be nearly as interesting by themselves. So because Rolf is alone for the majority of BPS, he doesn’t have the opportunity to be as fun as he usually is.

He isn’t playing comic relief in his story at all. Like Kevin, he’s terribly frustrated and solely focused on revenge. But even though we as fans sit here and analyze these characters like we created them, we didn’t, and maybe there was a creative reason why Danny–who obviously knows his own characters better than we do–decided not to go with comedy for Rolf. Maybe he felt it would be too inappropriate for this type of setting? I mean, all the kids have pretty dramatic moments in their stories… but then again, even in their most tense situations, they still have room for comedy. I’ve seen several responses already suggesting Rolf should have at least tagged along with Jonny or acted as a third wheel in the Kevin X Nazz X Bike subplot. Either one would have been good, but maybe Danny just didn’t want him around to crack jokes? Maybe he felt as though Rolf could be more than that? Maybe he just wanted to give us something we wouldn’t expect? The way they paired up the kids was a no brainer– but again, maybe there was a reason why they wanted Rolf alone with his pig instead of with his friends. I think there were other ways to make his story work without interfering with the other kids, one of the suggestions being the previously mentioned pitch that all he needed was more comedy. He could have still bounced off Wilfred the same way he bounces off the other characters, and in a less cruel way. That’s another criticism of mine, having him be so unreasonably harsh towards Wilfred. Rolf has never been shown to be extremely abusive of his animals before. Maybe he was just taking his anger of the Eds out on Wilfred… but it was still a tad extreme and slightly out of character, even for Rolf. I’m almost glad Wilfred bit the shit out of him.  

One last thing to add. Towards the end of the series, Rolf has been taking on subtle traits of Double D by not only improving his English and expanding his vocabulary but also…

Not only does he better his English, even though he can’t excel in school despite working his ass off to little avail, but Rolf also starts to embrace science and technology, as if an excess of Double D’s annoying habits rubs off on him. Season 1-4 Rolf is behind the times, often resorting to animalistic tactics and do-it-yourself conduct, using natural resources and living off the land. The only hint of ‘’technology’’ in his antique-ridden old-world colonial-style home is a dated television set with foreign characters on the control dials and limited channels. But in BPS,  he goes full Steampunk mode while tracking the Eds, which, as cool as it seems, is a little out of Rolf’s passé character. Though Steampunk incorporates modern technology with the aesthetic of 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery, it also seems very advanced for Rolf, who in previous seasons, would use traditional, natural remedies like Carbuncle of the Flesh Stew to heal acne and other skin blemishes. Analyzing egg whites to uncover evidence of missing persons in a forensic-styled science experiment sounds more like Double D’s mojo, not Rolf’s, no matter how DIY. Oh well. He may have temporarily stolen Edd’s thunder but he looks badass, so who gives a flying cow?            

Oh, also…

It might be safe to assume that science and agriculture aren’t so different after all, so perhaps Rolf’s retrofuturistic tendencies in eventual installments isn’t so bizarre.