#so i can only see the finale and any post-canon hypothetical through that lens

[commsroom]

when it comes down to it, however much i think about eiffel's memory, whatever my reasoning might be, i think there's a much simpler core explanation for why i feel the way i do. i've said before that, if eiffel did regain his memory, i would want it to happen through 'an eiffel version of change of mind' i.e. a personal inner journey where the narrative he tells himself amounts to some greater reminder, self-confrontation, and self-realization. and that's just it:

eiffel regaining his memory wouldn't be a cop out to me for the same reason that lovelace not actually dying isn't a cop out: it's not just a story beat, it's a catalyst for character development & a better understanding of lovelace as a person. eiffel has spent his whole life trying not to be the person he is, and i just don't feel wolf 359 is the type of story to let him off the hook for that, when the ending is as much about accountability (to ourselves and to others and all the ways those responsibilities overlap) as it is about hope. i think there are ways you could argue that eiffel can still be eiffel without regaining his memory, but i think i've convinced myself that the symbolic resurrection / self-confrontation and acceptance of all the people he's been in the past, in order to move forward, is the more compelling option, especially for what it parallels, and the "eiffel is still eiffel" part is non-negotiable. it doesn't even feel like a question to me.

(and it makes the most sense to me in the context of eiffel's survivor's guilt - "of course i was fine. the driver's always fine." - and tendency towards a type of self-sacrifice and self-punishment that the show ultimately denies him / that doesn't address his real problem. he thinks sacrificing himself for the people he cares about will make up for something, but it won't. having him make that sacrifice and then keep living and keep being doug eiffel, with everything that means, feels like the natural extension of constructive criticism.)

in another story, or in a more theoretical context, there are all kinds of questions you could ask about whether eiffel's memory loss means he's a different person now, but in this case... i think it's better understood in narrative terms and what it represents for him as a character than any broader philosophical conclusion about the nature of the self and human consciousness. (and it is in no way as absolute as people sometimes behave like it is, considering he still has a concept of, like... everything. but that's a whole other topic of discussion.) most importantly, i just don't believe wolf 359 is a story about ideas as much as it is a story about people, these people, and in order to (hypothetically) continue to tell a story about doug eiffel, well. he has to still be doug eiffel. one way or another.

[realitachifacts]

Well that’s actually funny you said that because I was originally going to ask your thoughts on the whole Sasuke/Itachi dynamic. Like if you felt that Itachi knew he was going to be brought back after his first death to guide Sasuke etc. And if he planned on Sasuke changing his mind about Konoha...but then I thought maybe you didn’t want to get into the whole discussion so my question shifted haha

yessss okay. no don’t worry i LOVE answering character analysis stuff because (serious) writing is like My Thing so…

TL;DR:

“Thoughts on the Itachi & Sasuke dynamic?” As with most things in Naruto I like what it could have been, not what it actually was.

“Did Itachi know he was going to be brought back after his first death to guide Sasuke?” No.

“Did he plan on Sasuke changing his mind about Konoha?” I’m gonna assume you mean about planning to destroy it instead of return after Itachi’s death. In which case, no.

detailed explanations under the cut.

to answer your initial question, i don’t think that itachi knew he was going to be brought back after his first death. i mean, primarily, how would he know, and additionally, if he did, he would have worked it into his master plan for sasuke. during their final battle together at the hideout, it was relatively evident that itachi had been planning every single thing he did in advance; the only thing sasuke did that seemed to even remotely surprise him was breaking his tsukuyomi/genjutsu. itachi’s primary goal for sasuke was to have him return to the village, and although his characterization is inconsistent due to just straight up bad writing, i still think this was the most feasible desire of itachi’s for an outcome. i want to get into a hypothetical post-resurrection plan of his but i actually haven’t really gotten to edo tensei itachi yet and only know about the tail end of it up to his final apology. i’m almost there though so i might elaborate on this (and might have a changed opinion) when i do.

secondarily, i don’t think he planned on sasuke wanting to destroy konoha at all. however, i don’t think he would have particularly cared. in terms of priorities, it has always been sasuke, then the village, then anything else. i think by his resurrection he’s witnessed sasuke’s potential and seems to give him more mental autonomy and views him with more equality than through a patriarchal-fraternal lens (again like… this is from what i’ve seen of it). if it was possible that he could have stopped sasuke in a way that didn’t kill him (clearly mere harm isn’t a concern) and saved the village, he would have done it, but he’s even canonically threatened to leak village secrets if sasuke was threatened in any way, so his little brother held high priority above konoha. if sasuke was being seen more on an equal level, and stated he felt wronged by the village and was going to attack it, with itachi having no possible way of stopping him without him ending up dead, itachi probably would’ve helped. he isn’t a particularly vengeful person, especially considering he was never afflicted by the curse of hatred. causing injury, pain, or death to another individual was done by itachi on a cost-benefit analysis, with a purported preference for avoiding injury; as with most characteristics stated that one of the characters has, it is not backed strongly by any canon evidence besides severe amounts of retcon that heavily conflict with existing source material. but that’s a whole other rant lmao.

finally, i really really liked the connection the two of them had as children. i wish itachi could’ve lived instead of dying of not useful to the plot anymore let’s give sasuke more emotional pain disease. i wish itachi could’ve become hokage. it’s pretty obvious that a forehead tap and a few words isn’t anywhere close to reconciliation (huh, that might be a hereditary pattern) or even a hug, and a redemption arc mainly given via word of mouth is… agh, not great. i think sasuke’s healing would progressed faster and further if itachi stayed around, since the sort of closure he would need is so different than what, say, naruto would need. itachi’s existence would have to be prolonged. plus i wanted him to live longer in general lmao, and they really could’ve saved his character in more than just a how he is in canon way; what i mean by that is they could have made him more consistent and fleshed out his motives so that he’s both more sympathetic and human- although i find him to be a highly sympathetic character, i also have a personal habit of falling for the “good guy all along”/seeing the best in everyone narrative, which i try to remove myself from when doing source analysis. for anyone more critical of media this… is a very good example of how not to try to make a villain likable. i think they each could’ve learned from each other and gained so much by itachi living. because the writing itself seems to intrinsically categorize the characters as “good” or “evil” and act as if suddenly you can move from one box to another and gain or lose audience sympathy. i mean, it’s a shonen, sure, so these concepts are simplified. but this becomes highly difficult with characters like itachi, who it is literally incapable to just move into a good box and make compelling unless there was actual foreshadowing up until that point. it’s why so many people have issues with things like talk-no-jutsu; suddenly making a character who’s done horrible things “good” doesn’t make them good, it makes them morally gray at best, and trying to shove them cleanly into “good” categorization is messy and it doesn’t feel right. umm i’m getting really off-topic here.

yeah! hope i answered at least some of your questions. thank you for asking!!

[cooltapes]

Can I ask your opinion as a bigender person (I’m cis)? What do you think of non-fetishy genderbends? I love seeing fanart that’s a different take on a character, whether simply  a different hairstyle or a redesign of their costume or a straight-up AU, and when it isn’t for fetishy purposes some of the genderbend stuff is pretty creative in that direction. But is it something I shouldn’t support?  

I’ve reposted this from your ask just in case you didn’t want to be published, but I wanted to ask other people and also talk about it because it’s a topic I’ve been thinking on a while.

I also personally love to look at genderbends from a design perspective, because character design is really interesting to me and I see it (when it's done well) as an analysis of the conscious choices people make when gendering their characters and how society perceives certain traits to me masculine/feminine, a tool to make yourself more aware of your own biases about gender and the concept of a gender binary. Like, these things shouldn’t impact on the way we perceive a character’s personality, but they do, and those are biases worth scrutinising. Our individual and collective understanding of gender plays a HUGE part when designing both a character's visuals and personality and to suggest otherwise is to just ignore the source of many gendered problems in fiction. Sailor Neptune is a good case study. As a cis woman, she performs hyper femininity within the lens of being a lesbian in an out relationship. If she were “genderbent” (I’ll get to that term in a second) to a cis man in a gay relationship, what would convey the closest impression to her original design? An effeminate cis gay man, with the same mannerisms and style as canon Michiru, or a cis gay man performing hyper masculinity? The former may be related to the original character more but I would argue that from a design perspective the latter is actually the closer equivalent after dissecting the societal expectations Michiru is both fulfilling and subverting, even though both “genderbent” Michirus would seem COMPLETELY different to canon Michiru. But why? What implications on personality and character agency does it have for a character to perform/subvert certain behaviours when the only thing you change is their assigned gender? Is a cis man who makes the same choices as canon Michiru in his presentation expressing fundamentally different personality traits than a cis woman? Why do/don’t we perceive it that way? In short, with what we know of Michiru’s canon personality, if she had been assigned male at birth instead, would she have made the same choices for herself? What is more fitting with her personality? And why and what do we project onto her when we consider this? This is the kind of analysis I run through when I think about “genderbending” characters... But.

I’d argue that most “genderbends” aren’t done well, or done with this analysis in mind, they’re very much just a surface-level embrace of the gender binary and gendered roles/designs. “Genderbends” are one of those things I enjoy playing with myself but probably wouldn’t trust coming from other people unless I already knew where they were working from. A lot of “genderbent” art I see is interesting for me to analyse not because it’s good but because it’s a window into how the artist - and anyone identifying with it - has internalised and expresses gender. I think the very subtle ones - the ones that just barely change a character’s silhouette or facial structure to the point where they “pass” now as a different gender - are both the most fascinating to observe but also the ones that leave the worst taste in my mouth if I don’t know where the artist is coming from and what they’re trying to demonstrate. It is interesting to see just how flimsy our definition of gender is but at the same time so rigid once you are seen to cross that line. And of course, as you said for some a “genderbend” is just an excuse to create more fanservice, which I would argue is incredibly interesting to dissect for how it fits the consensus of acceptable heterosexuality (I cannot stop thinking about the One Piece figures that turn cis male characters into big tiddy anime girls for straight male fans jack off to and how many layers of heteronormativity this is buried under) but again, not a GOOD thing. An anthropological thing. That doesn’t mean that I really want those “genderbends” to exist.

Alright, now to the term “genderbend”. I think the best thing you could do, and what I do on the rare occasions where I share what I make, is to tag them as “cisswaps” instead because it acknowledges that you are working within a cisnormative, binary structure, and if you’re aware of that framing then it at least implies you don’t agree with it. There’s a post roaming around out there that suggests all “genderbends” are trans adjacent and I don’t think that’s accurate or ... good, even. As I said I don’t think cisswaps or “genderbends” are necessarily good things and to suggest an artist adhering rigidly to a binary gender system and couching everything within cissexism is somehow creating a trans narrative is a bad take IMO even if I understand why some trans people would want to perceive it that way. I think gender headcanons are completely different from cisswaps and I love and support them. I don’t know if there’s a specific tag for those, though. If anyone knows of any I’d love to hear them, but I’m afraid they’d just get gunked up with bad content anyway.

This was a long post and the final message I want you to take away is that I cannot tell you if this is something you should support or not because I’m just one person with one very specific experience wrt gender. Some people will tell you cisswaps/“genderbends” are fine and lovely and that all this is overanalysis and there will be others who will tell you they have no merit whatsoever and you should never ever engage with them, even to dissect them.

Personally I think so long as you have a nuanced understanding and approach to gender, you don’t personally ascribe to a binary/cissexism, and, as a cis person, you find and listen to trans experiences, do whatever. That’s more important than whether you reblog someone navel-gazing about hypothetical gender roles in fictional AUs. Tagging stuff like this with “cisswap” is a good place to start, and most importantly it also provides trans people with a tag to block if they don’t want to see this content. And if a trans follower tries to approach you that something you do reblog was hurtful, be open to it.

TL;DR: For me personally cisswaps/”genderbends” are “interesting” but that doesn’t mean "good” and I am very hesitant to actually interact with other people’s because they can be and generally are binarist/cisnormative, but the concept is not inherently bad.

I would love to hear from any of my other trans followers here for their experiences and opinions.

[kalinara]

So, I’ve just babbled endlessly about my hypothetical rewrite for the first half of season 2, so now to talk about the second half.

In general, I’m happier with the second half.  Mostly because my favorite character is back...so to speak, and there’s more of a sense of metaplot movement.  There are some pacing issues: it is awfully abrupt at parts, but I think some of that can be smoothed out by introducing a few key concepts earlier.

Therefore, I’d probably keep Raiders of the Lost Art through Land of the Lost as pretty much the same as is in canon, with a few caveats.

I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve decided that one big change that I would make, that I didn’t mention in my last post, is that I would jettison the whole hallucination Len bit, after all.  And I would have Leonard Snart as a member of the Legion of Doom much earlier.

I feel like this would introduce a bit more suspense in Mick’s arc.  I don’t think he’d be inclined to side with the Legion on his own without provocation, but actually seeing Len there in earlier episodes, like my hypothetical JSA/Spear episode would have a bit more of a bite.

I think I’d revamp Camelot a little and have Malcolm accompany evil!Rip to kill Charles.  I wouldn’t have Malcolm do anything, mind you.  I think it’s important storywise to have Rip be the one to kill him, but it’d give a bit of an opportunity to see how Malcolm feels about the entire evil!Rip situation.  We know from Arrow that he’s not above brainwashing, but he had an interesting little dynamic with Phil.

The other thing is that I would like to play up Sara’s rage a bit more.  Bloodlust was an important arc in season one, and all but forgotten in season two.  Sara has specifically chosen not to kill Damien Darhk at this time, out of duty.  But I’d like to see that wrestled with more.  Especially because of how I’d end the season for her.  (She’d still get the heroic moment, don’t worry.  :-))  At no point would we see her succumb to her bloodlust, but I really think it’s important to re-establish that struggle.

I think I’d keep Moonshot mostly the same too, though I think I’d want to emphasize Ray’s role a bit more.  Ray didn’t get a lot of development at all in season 2, which saddens me.  I think a lot of that might be alleviated though if we actually allow him to react to Damien a bit more.  That moment of rage in Camelot fascinated me.  Damien had imprisoned him for a year, and he just saw him mistreat a (admittedly brainwashed) friend.  I think maybe that’s a thread I’d want to develop through Moonshot and maybe Fellowship.

Here’s where we get to the big change though: Fellowship/Doomworld/Aruba.  I’d keep the original theft of the Spear, but that’s pretty much it.

Doomworld was fun, but in the end, it was a completely pointless jaunt.  The characters didn’t learn anything, because it got rewritten.  We had Mick betray the team twice, and no consequences, except bitter cynicism when the showrunners start touting the idea that Mick finally sees the team as a family.  This is Fellowship Mick, after all.  And it’s hard for me to not see him as one dickhead move by the team away from betraying them all.

But mostly I’m pissed off that the penultimate episode gave us nothing to work with in terms of character growth when a much better premise was squandered.  We know that the spear tempted the crew, but except for Mick and Amaya, we don’t even know what it SAID.

So what I’d do is expand Fellowship into two parts.  No stupid rewritten universe.  I’d go full on temptation arc.  We have eight characters at this point who have tremendous losses and issues, so let’s take two episodes and explore that for each of them.

Also, I’d have the Legion of Doom defeated soundly at the beginning of Fellowship.  Done.  The team’s real adversaries in the last three episodes are themselves.  (Though the Legion members can assist with temptation perhaps from the brig, Hannibal Lecter style.)

I kind of want to keep the idea of Mick betraying the team, but I would avoid that out of character confrontation on the bridge.  I think I’d make it entirely about Leonard.  He does care about the team, but if Len goes back, he dies.  How can he let that happen?

So maybe Mick’s hears the voices of his family, sees Len in the Brig, and just snaps and tries to use the Spear.  Which promptly ensnares each character in a personalized temptation:

Most of the characters would have pretty straight forward temptation quests but we’d actually get to see them.  Amaya’s would include Rex as well as her village.  And we’d see it all, including a vision of Mari at the end when she succeeds in defeating her temptation to manipulate fate.  Ray’s would be heavily symbolic.  Heroism, being able to make a difference grand scale, and culminate in taking the throne of Camelot and ushering in a new age, while bringing justice to his enemies.  (Eobard’s monologues from Moonshot play heavily into this.)  He passes when he realizes that he’s been a hero all along and he can work on ways to increase his positive impact on the world.  (Ideally Kendra would appear because I love Kendra).

I’ve never had a good grasp on Nate, I’ll be honest, but I think it would offer him ultimate knowledge and the power to make things better for himself and his friends.  Save Amaya’s village, bring Henry back.  A bit like Ray’s but a bit narrower scale.  Not selfish, but more self-centered.

Jax’s and Martin’s would be linked, I think.  Jax wants to be recognized as his own man, for his own accomplishments.  I think the Spear wouldn’t offer him as much direct power, but the means to achieve things on his own.  Fixing his knee.  Money for school.  A ship of his own.  Basically start up capital.  Jax of course realizes he doesn’t need any of that.  He already is a great man who can do great things, and his potential is only growing.

Martin is deathly afraid of losing more people that he loves, so his temptation would involve protecting Lily, Jax and Clarissa.  To the point of over controlling everything to keep them safe.  Of course, he’d need to let go.

Rip and Sara will have slightly different set ups though.   Rip’s avoided the temptation of using the Spear before, after all.  And Sara’s already had that lovely “I’d rather have a nightmare that’s real” speech.

So their tests will be less about using the Spear itself (though what’s offered to them should provide insight into their characters), and more about their personal flaws.  Namely, Rip’s issues with reaching out/trusting/being honest with the team, and Sara’s fear of herself.

Rip:  It’d be easy to bring back Miranda and Jonas for this, but I think that matter was put to bed in season one.  Like Sara and Laurel, this is a test that he’s already passed.  He’s also the one who has past experience with the Spear’s temptation.  The Spear's temptation of Rip is more about shame and regret. Specifically, it will offer him the chance to undo all the evils committed by evil Rip: bring back Charles, Galahad.  He can bring back Henry, who lost his family and then died because of Rip’s mission.  He can undo recruiting the team, undo Leonard’s death, and Carter’s.  He can undo falling for Miranda, and putting her in the crosshairs of the Time Masters and Savage.  He can undo himself.

Rip is tempted more than Sara is, his self-loathing is strong, but he’s too much of a Time Master to believe that he can undo his past mistakes.  Instead, he wants to take the spear and basically go, with it, into a black hole or something.  No more spear.  No more Rip.  Complete the journey he should have taken in Legendary.  This is his responsibility and his burden.  (There should be a thread of distrust in Rip’s plot.  He loves his team, but he doesn’t want to burden them and he doesn’t really trust them with the burdens.)

So of course, then, his true test is to let it go and relinquish his burden to someone else, to trust SARA to act.

Sara: I wouldn’t make Sara’s test about bringing back Laurel.  Since, as I said, she’d already resolved that in Compromised.  Sara’s test is different:  The Spear promises her wrath: the ability to destroy her enemies and eradicate anyone who has ever or will ever hurt her, her sister, and her friends.  I’d specifically highlight: her murder at Malcolm’s hands, her sister’s murder by Darhk, and Rip’s violation by Eobard, because that gives an additional temptation: they’re helpless in her brig.  She CAN deal with them now.  She can protect anyone.  “No woman should suffer at the hands of a man” can be a reality now.

But Sara doesn’t respond to this temptation by going for the Spear, but rather fleeing away from it.  Sara is terrified by this temptation and terrified that on some level she wants it.  That’s why, in the end, she’ll be the one to use it.  Because her true test is to trust herself.  When she does use the spear, she doesn’t bring back Laurel. She doesn’t obliterate her enemies as a Goddess of Rage.  She just does what needs to be done.  The Spear neutralizes itself and they’re all freed.

I’m torn when it comes to Mick, since on one hand, I want to give him the chance to undo his mistake in a heroic manner.  But on the other, who can blame him for wanting to save his friend?  But I like this betrayal better than the ones in Fellowship/Doomworld, because I think the team can accept that these sort of circumstances would not likely happen again.

That might require more thought.

In the end though, the team rejects their temptation, Rip trusts Sara, and Sara overcomes her fear of herself to use the spear.

(I admit, that I’d be inclined to throw Sara and Mick a subconscious bone.  Somewhere, hidden in time, a version of Laurel Lance and Leonard Snart wake up.  NOT because Sara couldn’t resist temptation.  She succeeded.  But more as an act of the Spear itself.)  

I suppose I’d still keep Rip leaving and the broken time at the end, but I’d make it less about having rewritten time that once and more about the team’s general carelessness along the way.  The people saved and people killed.  The zombies and stray Time Pirate.  Tokugawa and Turnbull wouldn’t have happened in this version, but I’m sure we can find a few more instances of the team trampling through history to use as a basis.  And then, go on from there.  :-)

[ETA: I admit, I probably would not include Gideon in the mass temptation, but it’s possible that she can be involved in Mick’s side of the plot.  If he does end up  choosing to help the team in the end, he may be unsnared by this whole mess, and she can help him.  That also will require more thought.]