#so obviously the show writers meant to show how horrible it can be to not take mentally ill people seriously

[suncaptor]

The episode where everyone gaslights Deluca because he's has a few symptoms of mania (that are uhhhh not more severe than many of the nonpathological moods other characters on the show have had at different points) is SO upsetting like he tries so hard to protect this victim of human trafficking and no one believes him so she never gets help and then later on he literally gets killed too because of it 👁👄👁

[korkorali]

The Misogyny of It All

So a lot of Della Duck Discourse is rehashed all the time, points are made again and again, but one thing that I almost never see people defend -and conversely, see people attack all the time- is The Line.

You know what I'm talking about. The Line from Glomtales.

"Your plans, your schemes, they only lead to bad things for your family. If you want to be a part of this family, you've gotta stop."

That one.

Now, what exactly Della was trying to get across with that line is a whole other can of worms that deserves its own post (basically she -and also the writers- horribly failed her Speech check).

What we're going over here is how that mimics a certain line from the last season, said by a parental figure to a child, that gets so much less flack. That, in fact, often gets paraded around as 'an interesting twist on a character.'

"You are not family!"

I have never seen people attack this line with the same amount of vitriol as they attack Della's, which is funny when they're the exact same line.

Actually, not even that- Scrooge's is worse.

It's more direct, it's literally yelled at Webby, it doesn't even attempt to address the issue Scrooge had (Webby blaming him for what happened to Della) and instead just straight-up attacks her as a person.

Now, to be fully honest- I like this line! I do genuinely think it's an interesting route for Scrooge to take, and is quite realistic to the grumpy old bastard. It's just funny that nobody ever comes to Webby's defense the same way they do for Louie.

Because the thing is- between Webby and Louie, one of these two has genuine, canonical issues with feeling like they're not a part of the family, like they're an outsider amongst those they love the most, like they don't belong.

And it's not Louie.

It is a consistent part of Webby's characterization that she feels like she doesn't belong. This gets touched on in all three seasons (and honestly, it could be argued that it gets worse after this moment).

Conversely, that just is not a part of Louie's canonical characterization. Even in the first episode of season 2, the one where Louie gets the closest to an 'I don't belong in this family' moment, it's less 'I don't belong here' and more 'fuck me I am terrible at adventuring'. And! It gets resolved in that episode!

(Of course, there is absolutely something to be said for how it's resolved- specifically by Scrooge encouraging him to be a scheming little bastard, which then thusly becomes the thing that threatens his family the most. Which would, logically, be a pretty big blow to his self-esteem. This isn't what I'm here to discuss right now but it is genuinely interesting.)

Louie never really shows an issue with feeling like he doesn't belong in his family. He shows a disconnect with his family at times, but in canon that never really evolves into a full-blown feeling of displacement. It does get close in Glomtales, but never quite reaches it.

So it's 'interesting' (read: not interesting) that Scrooge's fuckup here gets brushed away pretty easily. A lot of the time the line just straight-up isn't addressed, and when it is, often times it's about how "Oh he apologized to Webby offscreen, obviously."

Which.

Not he did not.

I mean, let me be clear: I don't mind it when that's the answer. It works for me to just brush it away if it's not meant to be the focus...

But Scrooge almost certainly didn't apologize for it.

As 'New Gods on the Block!' Showed us, Scrooge is downright awful at realizing when his actions have hurt people.

More likely than not, Scrooge would just assume that everything is fine and would avoid bringing it up at all costs because he'd feel awkward about it. Because he is, very importantly, not good at talking about things he doesn't want to talk about.

So why is it that Louie is always the one feeling like he doesn't belong? Why is it Della who is always a terrible parent for what she's said? Why are Webby's feelings of disconnect never really given the same gravity as Louie's? Why is Scrooge's blunder let off the hook super easily?

It just feels silly to me.

And, well.

Kinda like the fact that, since Scrooge is a guy and Webby's a girl, and Della is a woman and Louie's a boy, has something to do with it.

I'll happily give the benefit of the doubt and assume it's not deliberate, but quite frankly it is a double standard.

I think that people would be less upset with the Della Duck Discourse if Scrooge was held in a similarly critical position over what he's said and done. If it was acknowledged that Della isn't uniquely awful in what she says and does, and that a lot of the others have fucked up in extremely similar ways.

(I mean for fuck's sake, everybody goes on and on about how Della left her kids for ten years -which, for the record, wasn't what she wanted to do- but nobody ever criticizes Donald for taking the kids away from their family and never talking to them about Della- which is something he actively and deliberately chose to do)

TL;DR: The fact that Della gets intensely criticized for what she's said and done, but Donald and Scrooge are conversely celebrated as 'interesting' and 'complex' for what they've said and done, even when it brings harm to the kids, is a blatant double-standard. And if you don't think that this double-standard is bad or wrong for existing (or even that it Doesn't Actually Exist), instead of immediately claiming that it's a non-issue, maybe try to look inward and figure out why you really think that is.

[locuas642]

Okay so. I think the whole "Bethesda does not GET Fallout 1" is sometimes a bit exaggerated, but this was a bit that is hard not to read as "missing the point so hard"

so in short. the creative lead for Fallout 4, in response to the positive buzz the tv show was getting, decided to share what he thought was a neat tidbit of information that was not mentioned in the final product. Which was to reveal a certain unnamed background character was the Male Protagonist/Husband from Fallout 4, Nate.

This in and of itself is not uncommon. all sorts of big multimedia franchise have the writers pick up random background characters and say "okay, but what if...?" or use them to try to make the world feel connected as it grows bigger. Star wars did it, Star Trek has done it. It's nothing new, weird nor necessarily bad.

so... what's the issue?

here is the intro for the original Fallout game

In this, we see a depiction of post-annexed Canada as a soldier in POwer Armor executes someone while his companion looks. this is all through the framing device of being american military propaganda.

That companion, according to the Emil Pagliarulo, is Nate, one of the two protagonists you play in Fallout 4. he clarifies Nate did not shoot, seemingly aware of what a bad look that would be, but he obviously missed it only meant Nate was laughing his ass at the dead Canadian.

The whole scene is "Starship Troopers" levels of Satire. it is a depiction and criticism of the American militarism and authoritarianism, before showing the audience how that lead to the present day america being a shithole destroyed because of armageddon.

And look, nobody cares about Nate or his wife. they are nothing characters who you forget what their life before was the second the game stops handholding you and you can stop pretending you give a rat's ass about their missing child. But it is something weird that Pagliarulo thought this was some neat bit of continuity he was sharing with people, then was surprised when everyone took it to mean Nate was a War Criminal.

He quickly backpedalled from that one, explaining he did not mean Canon canon. and something about how everyone makes their own character. but the interesting bit, again, for me was that him further explaining that their idea was that Nate's life during the war was Hell. with that being another day.

Except, again, what we see in the scene he points out is a (theoretical) Nate who is explicitly complicit with the american military complex, celebrating and laughing when commiting horrible acts to their fellow men.

And is like, it's a minor thing really, but it's odd that the writer for that game missed the point of that scene so hard, he did not realize he was making Nate a war criminal until right after he wrote that tweet.

[alfredsolos]

So I finally got the break I needed to read Batman vs Robin #5. And I have... mixed feelings about it.

For context (and to summarize what happened), at the end of issue 4 Nezha posesses Batman and kidnaps Damian:

Nezha demands Damian to tell him where King Fire Bull (his son) is, since he was the last one to see him. Damian, however, does not know where King Fire Bull is. But Damian acts like he does and tells Nezha to release him so that he can take him to his son. Nezha let's him go, and Damian gets his chance to escape.

Damian gets on a motorbike and drives away as Nezha chases him. Which then Monkey Prince shows up to help him. They manage to get away together.

But then, Monkey Prince reveals that the only way to beat Nezha is to get him back to his human body. But this would, in the end, cause Batman to die.

Damian has a strong will, though. And he tells Monkey Prince that he is ready.

And at this point, I knew that Batman would die and get revived by some magical bullshit as a 'plot twist'. However there were a few things that I hadn't expected, happen.

Anyways, Damian informs his family that they needed to put Nezha back to his own body and then contain him. He doesn't tell them that Batman would die, though.

'They don't need to know who has to die tonight'

Sounds very omnious, and will probably end up bad. That's what we can all gather.

Anyways, the final fight against Nezha happens and Damian -with the help of Monkey Prince and his siblings- manages to restrain Batman for Enchantress to work her magic.

The spell is succesful, Nezha returns to his body and Batman dies.

At this point, I'm waiting for the magical plot twist to happen and bring Batman back to life. But then we get this:

Remember the quote I wrote a few panels back.

'They don't need to know who has to die tonight'

I realized that Damian meant himself. He had been planning all along to sacrifice himself for his father. I don't know why I was surprised. Maybe because most DC writers write and treat him so horribly that it's surprising when he does things like this.

Anyways, everyone is shocked obviously. But Damian does not back down and tells them to hurry up before his father's soul dissappears. He tells them that the world needs Batman more than it needs him:

But then Enchantress tells him that it's not enough. The magic had destroyed Batman's body so that he'd need more than one soul.

And so we get the magical 'plot twist' that I've been telling you about. Damian and Oracle make a broadcast and tells the people of Gotham that Batman needed their help.

He tells them to look at the Bat Signal and basically say 'We Are Batman' to transport a part of their soul to Batman.

A bit cheesy, in my opinion. But it works. Batman wakes up and looks for Damian. In the end we get this sweet panel:

Honestly, it was pretty obvious that something like this would happen (after we learned that Batman needed to die). So I wouldn't call it a plot twist, really.

But other than that, I liked how they characterized Damian. It was a good read in contrast to the previous issues where he was the 'Evil Batman'.

I liked Damian's relationship with Monkey Prince and his weird little querrals with Nezha.

I guess he is back to being Robin (?) Because in the last panel, it shows them patrolling Gotham together. But Tim is also Robin, so I don't know where they are going with this.

Anyways, did you guys like it or not?

[soaps-mohawk]

I know I’ve sent you something before but i genuinely can not get your fic out of my mind and now need to say something else. It irks my soul (in a good way I promise😭) that the reader won’t just tell them what she needs. But it’s also so understandable bc why would she? No matter if they’re her pack or not she doesn’t fully trust them.

But also seeing the vision fo her finally asking for what she wants. Seeing her finally kneel (in a non-sexual way) is going to be something that I will eat up immediately. Like everytime it’s mentioned I cross my fingers for it to be in the chapter.

Also (I’m so sorry for the ramble) Ghost finally warming up to her???? The absolute best part, like okay go girl you get that man. I think the only thing that made me want to strangle them was the fact that Price didn’t even tell her anything.

Like i would be so mad😭 even if it wasn’t meant that way like her feet are hurting horribly (the blisters show that) she was obviously tired and didn’t know what was happening and was being used as bait? Bro I hope Soap and Gaz told Price about the blisters and he felt bad bc wtf😭

so if you can’t tell i love your story. HAVE A GOOD DAY🫶🏻🫶🏻

Aah don't ever apologize for rambling 🥺 I love it when people have thoughts about my writing 🫶 (no but I've literally gotten inspiration from people's rambles before so...don't ever feel bad for doing it)

Ugh reader and her issue with feeling like she shouldn't want things hits me so hard like...part of me just wants to scream at her to ask but also part of me gets it 😭 (ik I'm the writer but sometimes these things have a mind of their own). But I get it, I wouldn't fully trust them either. Not after just a week.

Yaass Ghost is finally starting to see the light...kind of. He's a tough nut to crack and it's gonna take a lot more work but he can't deny those instincts 🤭

Nah I'd be so mad too lol. I originally had an idea for a scene where Price decides to use the reader for hostage retrieval training, but he doesn't tell her it's training because he wants it to be as real as possible just to see how badly it would effect their ability to save her if it ever came to that. It felt a bit too mean and out of character for Price in this fic though. Cause that would stress reader out so badly and that could be dangerous. I don't think he'd risk that.

Aah thank you so much. Always feel free to come in here and ramble with your thoughts. I will read them and eat them up like a delicious meal 💚 y'all are feeding me with this kindness and support for this story fr

[entriprises]

NEAL & KATE : the long con

i want to preface this whole post by saying i love kate and her character a lot. i think she’s so interesting as a person and her relationship with neal is really interesting. i think the show did both a lot and very little with her but mostly what we saw of her was very influenced by neal and those around him. it’s hard to really understand her and the relationship when we didn’t get to see much of her or her side of events. i’m also not a kate writer, and this post will be mostly focusing on neal’s relationship with her and my interpretation of events.

when neal gets to new york, he’s 18, barely. he leaves behind his entire life, exiting witsec, changing his name, and without graduating high school. he’s not the world’s greatest con artist neal caffrey by a long shot yet. he’s a little lonely, confused, and entirely fueled by an adolescent need to rebel against every single thing he’s ever known. that’s the neal that meets kate when he starts his first long con.

kate, going by the actresses age (and general assumptions as she’s the assistant? executive assistant? to adler) is in her early 20s. she’s smart, incredibly so, and when she first meets neal she clocks exactly what he’s after and tells him how to go about getting what he wants. 

to him, kate is confident and funny and incredibly beautiful and she is wishing him luck. it’s a challenge, as she puts it, but it’s really her cracking the door open for him with this opportunity. he finds her attractive and she represents something closer to the man he kind of wants to be. she gives him the time of day and humors him by letting him show off his little tricks. he’s young, and of course he wants to chase it, even if she has a boyfriend at the time. 

he doesn’t press her. he certainly asks her out, but really he just has a terribly large crush on her that he knows can’t go anywhere, until it does and she shows up at his door the night she’s meant to be leaving for chicago. 

at that moment, he has it all. he’s not neal caffrey, the guy struggling to wrap his head around the fact his dad isn’t who he thought he was, and he’s not conning just to get by on rent. as he puts it: he was eating the best foods, wearing the best suits, drinking the best wine. it was the perfect life. 

but it’s a con, and neal is so full of worry for how it’s going to end because a large part of him doesn’t want it to end. he wants to see how long it can go on for, and finishing the job means potentially losing out on kate. after all, she’s known him for nearly six months not as neal, but as nick, his alias. they’ve only recently gotten together, a point that has taken him the whole span of the con to get to, and it has to end with heart break. once he successfully steals from adler, it’s not like he can go back. it’s not like he can take kate wherever he runs off to. 

prior to this, neal mostly had short lived relationships, and a whole lot of flirting. even then, every relationship prior to his 18th birthday wasn’t with the version of himself he seems himself as now. he was still danny brooks, he was still the guy who wanted to be a hero and law enforcement. 

kate, while only being with neal for maybe a month or two, and knowing him as nick, really is his first serious relationship. she seems to truly love him, she cares, and it’s lasted as long as it has and she assures of him of that. she provides for neal a lot of assurance and comfort, so much so that he throws the whole con for her. because he’s 18/19 and when you’re that young and in love you kind of think this stuff is everything and the rest of your life.

and then adler takes off, and as horrible as it is… it opens the door for neal to have an actual chance with kate, as neal, the con artist. it’s obviously a major fail, it leaves them all without any money and six months of work down the drain, but at the same time it really opens the door for neal to start doing whatever he wants and to have fun, this time with kate, and of course mozzie too. he can be neal, he can sort of try and figure out who he is, but up until this point he hasn’t a clue and a dollar to his name. he has kate, and it’s no wonder that she is the love of his life in his eyes. everything becomes about her because she is tied directly to the creation of neal caffrey

[redrum-sketches]

the thing i hate about mapleshade discourse these days is that despite people being aware that warriors is very sexist in its writing, no one applies that to mapleshade's entire novella which is dripping with warriors sexism from the very premise alone. it is entirely about a she-cat who had a forbidden romance much like every she-cat in the main series, and yet shes punished WAY harsher than any of those she-cats who did the exact same thing so the author can have mapleshade "go crazy" and show the readers that this is the tragic yet wrong way to react to sexist injustice. how dare you lash out at the people who unfairly screwed you over instead of suffering in silence like the noble leafpool or yellowfang. sure maple is kind of a brat but being a bit of a brat doesnt mean shes gotta be punished for wanting a happy family. its strange because warriors actively pushes she-cats to have forbidden romances, but only as long as they feel guilty for it i guess? because from the way its written, maple is brutally punished by the author for the crime of hoping and expecting that her life will be good despite her supposed crime that shouldnt even be a crime. but a lot of people who dont like maple kind of seem to accept the fact that she fucked up on the basis having a forbidden mate, despite these people also saying that the rule about forbidden mates is stupid. or they dont like her because she killed people for the wrong reasons or something, when in reality its the author who is making maple commit murder to push this awful trope of a woman being hurt in some horrible unfair way and then becoming a villain and hurting everyone because the writers are misogynists who think traumatic experience = mass murder. especially considering maple hallucinates her kits telling her to kill other cats, which is a pretty disgusting portrayal of mental illness even if they likely didn’t intend it to be read as mental illness. its also telling given how warriors writes male villains, who are never really given any sort of tragic backstory for why they have to murder everyone and if they are given a backstory, it is usually incredibly flimsy and obviously meant for the reader to roll their eyes at, like ashfur for example. also unlike a lot of the male villains, maple showed basically zero signs of murderous intent before her punishment, the only thing she did was be somewhat rude and lie to people about her kits BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE WOULD THATS WHAT EVERY SHE-CAT DOES. im not saying maple is a good character because shes not, but she wasnt written to be a good character. her entire premise is a sexist trope. if maple was written by authors who didnt have so much internalized misogyny, she wouldnt be a murderer, she'd be a victim

[lesbiankrem]

Watched Ep. 1 of Dragon Age Absolution

of course I'm generally excited to see something dragon age, to see different places and people

the animation style is usually pretty fun, especially the way they do magic effects, and there is a good amount of detail in the look of buildings, clothes, expressions. their intro sequence is nice.

i am not sure why they chose that blocky weirdly modern/characterless sans serif font for the location overlays. I liked the use of the inquisition map to show they were traveling... why not use that font?

i wish they drew some actual strap or other staff-holding mechanism for the mage characters. this isn't the damn video game you can make it make sense. if the mages really are doing some continual spell to float their staff an inch away from their backs, you would think they would talk about it sometimes, so I don't really accept that's the explanation. it would also be great characterization through costuming! have poorer mages using cumbersome, rough and ready straps and fancy mages having a whole garment with a click-in attachment for it that they can use magic to operate, but don't have to continually expend magic for.

i am usually someone who gets most irritated over time with plot that is written for the convenience of the writers and not with edits done to make sure it makes sense. like if you have your characters get into a fight with a mage and his crew in a bar that mage should use magic to fight!! You should have to deal with a fireball or telekinetic weapons or something. If you defeat him anyway it better be because you had some effective counter, not because he conveniently and inexplicably only uses magic for theatrics (burning the bartop to scare someone) and nothing else (idk fighting for real).

Also why bring the plans to a public place!?!?!?! Don't do it! Just say no to reading your heist plans at the bar in Tevinter as an elf who escaped slavery!!! the writers did not NEED to make her that dumb (and the rest of the team implicated too). They could have just had that guy recognize her or pick her out for harassment because of course you can harass any elf with the claim they "must be a runaway" in Tevinter.

on the positive note with Qwydion pretending to be a slave for a magister, it seems they are explaining how bull (as a qunari) got to walk around Tevinter without being attacked -- they have some qunari slaves and servants and possibly even other free travelers and citizens, which provides a cover. I can see why Tevene society/government would opt to not ban them, either because tbh the Qun can just send elven, human, or dwarven converts or pay off people to get spies. It's not like it would slow them down too much for Qunari/kossith to be banned from Tevinter. Meanwhile all the labor from captured or defected qunari would be valuable, and so is all the time and resources they save not trying to enforce a ban.

other plot & character thoughts....

I don't remember Fairbanks being that competent or confident in DA:I. Maybe they will explain that with what happened to him from when the Inquisitor first meets him until now.

I don' think we actually met a mage named Hira in DA:I -- which is fine it makes sense, no problem... just if someone wants to contradict that and say we did, I do want to know

as I suspected even in context the "people like us can't change the world!!!" "people like you never try" exchange just seems......... bad. though this may be showing a flaw in their dynamic together or like, character flaws on both parts, but wow what a both obviously false statement and horrible way to try to motivate someone. of course people from rough backgrounds try to make things better. of course lack of trying isn't the big, main reason why formerly enslaved elves and other people like that don't tend to effect lasting changes in society that everyone knows to credit them for. but to be fair the writers, it's believable to me that Hira might think and say that... and i can't say they meant for the line to be taken as truth.

i don't think people usually call it a "cheese farm".... there are dairy farms... and cheesemakers. may b wrong i'm not a cheese farm expert. very cute anyway for Hira and Miriam to want to farm cheese <3

they really are relying on Miriam having moodswings to explain her choices. not yet sure that is a problem, makes sense that she might have moodswings, but if they keep it up for when their plot asks for it even if she has Character Development to manage them I am going to complain about it

i kind of don't get why the mages couldn't bust down a grate or two or clear the rubble the "blocked" tunnels. i guess we can imagine they are REALLY filled in with rubble and the ones with metal grates are also enchanted and trapped to hell and back but if it were me i would have written that in with a line to make it clear

[kritischetheologie]

🔬 and 🎢 please :)

writing asks for saltwater and gasoline

🔬- Was there one scene you were building up to/knew you had to get just right?

This is a very fun question, because it allows me to say a bit about the writing and revising process as well. One of the things I've been trying to work on as a writer is editing; I'm fairly good at grammatical line-edits, but it's much harder for me to take a fic and make real structural changes to it. @grideon gave me the suggestion of working through an ask game on my own, and I actually worked through this specific ask game, and this was the question that led to the most dramatic changes and the strongest improvements to the fic.

The fic is a slow burn. That much is obvious. And a slow burn builds to a climax. But what I realized, answering this question about the first draft of the fic, was that the climax was coming during the garage scene, which then made the entire sex scene feel tacked-on somehow.

Now, the garage scene is probably my favorite scene I've ever written, and definitely the scene that I have [car crash noises]... Anyway. I needed the reader not to, ahem, blow their load too early-- which meant that if that scene was going to be the initial climax of the sexual tension, I needed to up the ante on the emotional tension.

I ended up adding almost a thousand extra words of Charles pining about how unaffected Bono seems by it all, Charles feeling uncertain about what the nature of their relationship really is, Charles seeing Seb and Lewis together and wanting that (and also realizing that he's had it)... in short, I turned the garage scene from the climax of a sexual slow burn into a step along the way, maybe even a setback, of a romantic one. The fic was always meant to be a romance; Bono's entire "in my bed" monologue in the garage sets that up. But in order to actually make the romance hit, I had to torture Charles a little more. Which was hard for me, because I had been wanting to give him everything he wanted, especially at that point in the story.

This is all to say that the thing the whole fic is building towards is actually Charles finally showing up on Bono's doorstep, and the getting-together-sex they have once he does. Which also ties into some incredible advice that @elementalmoments gave me when I was first writing it: Charles can't just be a passive participant in his life. He needs to have agency. That's what the fic is about, in a real way. He makes the decision to leave Ferrari, and then he makes the decision to go after Bono, and the narrative rewards him for both.

🎢- Were there any scenes you were nervous about? For audience reception or otherwise?

This might be the fic that I have thought the least about audience reception while writing, because I was entirely free from fanon interpretation-- the beauty of writing a ship who have literally never actually interacted, one half of whom barely ever appears in fic, is that you can make their dynamic whatever you want it to be, and nobody is going to be annoyed about how you did it.

I was writing for a prompt, so I tried to keep in mind what OP wanted. In particular, I wanted to make sure I gave Lewis a happily-ever-after, which is part of where Lewis and Seb's relationship came from. But OP had also said they were ride-or-die for Lewis and Bono, so I did worry about how they'd appreciate my twist on Lewis and Bono's relationship, and the fact that Lewis is endgame with someone else. In the end, I just went for it, because Seb's post-Ferrari thriving is part of what gives Charles the courage to leave, and that angle was very important to me.

I also really worried about how to depict what Charles goes through at Ferrari. I wanted to capture the way that abuse can feel like you're living in a haunted house-- are there really ghosts, or is it all in your head? I didn't want to make anything Too Obviously Horrible happen to Charles, and I didn't want to spend too much time lingering on Ferrari, because this fic is about leaving and healing, but I did worry that I hadn't put enough of it, and that I'd get a reception along the lines of "I don't see what the problem was with Ferrari lol." Subtle and insidious is really fucking hard to depict.

[kitkatopinions]

One of the most frustrating fandom trends that I've seen over and over in just about every fandom I have been in is people seeming to view characters as threats to their favorite characters, ships, or the perception of the show itself and therefore deciding that no one should like the character and going out of their way to read the character's every action as evil and intended maliciously. This is also usually paired with doing whatever they can to put the actions of the characters or ships they do like in a favorable spin and getting angry at even the knowledge that there are people out there with a different opinion. This happens all the time and it's so annoying. I'll see it in fandoms I'm literally not even part of lol.

People ship Character A and Character B together, but Character B has had romantic moments with Character C? No worries! They can just find a way to twist all of Character C's actions into something ill intended and harmful even if it makes no sense and goes against canon, insist that Character B actually dislikes Character C or was just tricked into it, repeat over and over that Character C and Character B would be horrible for each other, and then say that anyone who ships Character C with Character B is ignoring Character B's 'choice' or is an abuse apologist or something. Oh, and don't forget that they can excuse and defend anything bad that Character A ever did, but if you so much as condemn the bad thing Character C did but headcanon that it never happened, you're disregarding canon, hate the writers, and people lie about you and say that you like that the bad thing happened.

People really like Character A, but Character A and Character B have a history and Character A did something wrong to Character B or did something wrong and was called out by Character B? No worries! They can just find a way to 'explain' how Character A never even did that thing or any other even sort of vaguely bad thing despite the fact that it's canon that they did, because they can just say that people were biased, or misremembering! They can just say 'Character A wouldn't do that,' and accuse you of not knowing canon or of hating Character A or of being a toxic hatedom fake critic making up lies. And if Character B seems to have ever done something good, they can just say they were pretending because they're evil and were just trying to use people. And then obviously, if you like Character B - even if you acknowledge their flaws and mistakes - then you're an evil apologist who deserves to be harassed. And you can point out that other characters they like do the same things they condemn as completely evil in Character B and use as reasons why no one should like Character B, but you're told that that person actually meant well and Character B is just clearly too badly intentioned at all times.

People really a show, but some people are criticizing the handling of Character A and saying their arc was bad, so because that character is now a threat to the show, they'll act like everyone who likes them is immoral, despite the fact that they have nothing to say about the fans of terrible evil villains - sometimes they'll even defend terrible evil villains in order to try and make Character A look worse. They decide to start out and out attacking people who like Character A, they decide everyone who likes Character A must secretly not only love every action the character was written to take, but must also probably be secretly bad in tones of others that they can't prove at all, so that they can defend how much they hate them. Character A gets put on a blacklist where either you talk about how much they're a horrible awful piece of crap every time they come up, or you're not even allowed to be considered part of the fandom anymore. People will just make up whatever they can about Character A in order to defend the writing, and take it as a personal slight towards the writers and/or themselves if you so much as say that you think they could be handled better.

It really reads as insecurity. It reads as them not being able to understand that the character does not exist and them having fans is not actually hurting the other character or ship or the whole show. People liking a character or ship or disliking aspects of how a character was handled isn't hurting other people's blorbos, or 'ruining the experience' and it isn't automatically bashing of the character, ship, or show they like either. There's so much defensiveness, and I honestly think part of it comes from a place of not wanting to admit that the character they like, the ship they like, or the show they like has flaws, or is not just officially The Best. They act like seeing opinions they don't agree with or facts they don't like about what's actually canon is going to prevent them from liking the character or ship or show they like. They act like they have to fight back against personal slights to themselves, or have to fight for the honor of fictional people who don't exist.

To be honest, I feel like if people need everyone to like the character, ship, or show they like and can only ever hear good things about them and need to only hear bad things about any character that poses the slightest threat to them... Then they're not mature enough to consume media. And they actually legitimately might not like the character or ship or show as much as they want to like the character or ship or show, because when I at least actually like something, I can hear criticism or bashing - even if I don't agree with it - without it 'ruining it' for me and without feeling the need to hate on other characters in order to fuel me. I like Spider-Man, I don't need to hate on Harry Osborn or Gwen Stacey's dad for threatening Peter's happiness, and I don't have to make it my business to try to convince everyone they must hate Harry Osborn or are secretly a murder apologist. I love the ship between Merlin and Arthur, but you won't see me acting like Gwen is some stupid jerk Arthur probably never liked in order to convince myself and others that the ship I like is good. I like Tangled the Series, but I'm not going to wage wars against fans of Cassandra because the way that she was handled puts the show runners in a bad light. Because I can see criticism without it making me insecure. The defensiveness in fandoms that leads to picking some characters and deciding that no one should be allowed to like them is off the charts and I am so sick of seeing it.

[quirrelli]

So, I finished Killing Eve S4 and I'm...

...just gonna pretend I do not see it. S3 wasn't amazing but its ending still works way better as the ending of the show than the actual ending, so I think I'll just be having that, thank you.

No, but seriously, how did they manage to have this much lesbian activity for four seasons and still end up with bury your gays lite?? Did literally no one in that writer's room have even a cursory look at tvtropes.com or talk to like one gay person??? Make no mistake, I was fully expecting one or both of them to die, especially since I was aware – without knowing any details – of the finale's negative reception. There are always going to be people who hate an ending and by extension the whole show simply because it killed off their favorite character, irrespective of context or execution. I am not one of those people, so I want to be crystal clear here when I say there were ways to make a tragic ending work for Killing Eve, a few fairly obvious ones even, and so I thought surely there was no way they would fall into that specific trap again.

The most generous interpretation of this (non-)ending I can come up with is to apply Hanlon's razor, in which case it might be be seen as a symptom of the general loss of focus the series suffered beginning with S3 and exponentially more so in S4. By which I mean they let the emotional core (the V/E dynamic) diverge wildly from the plot (finding the 12).

Never lose sight of the emotional core. I find you can get away with almost anything; technical faults, dodgy performances, plot holes (especially plot holes), even a meh ending, as long as the emotional core stays exactly where its name says it should stay.

Helene is an easy means of illustration for this point. Helene in S4 is basically less chaotic Villanelle, both in her function to the plot (murderous fancy bitch whomst is important as the key to a bigger bad) and in her relationship with Eve (gay, aggressive, lethally hot), which makes me wonder why they didn't just let Villanelle play that part??? It's driving me mad bc it's the most obvious thing and would have fixed so many problems in an instant.

By which I don't mean get rid of Helene btw, just make better use of her, as an actual member and face of the 12 or a double agent or sth. Give V the quest to hunt down the 12, it's already perfectly aligned with her motivations and capabilities at the end of S3! I mean she wants to impress Eve by showing her she's trying to be better and to start a new life, right? Cool, ok, therefore, in Villanelle's moderately disturbed mind it makes perfect sense to do this by violently hunting down a bunch of bad ppl ~ for Eve ~ . (The fact that she's also high key horny for murder is just a bonus, don't worry about it, baby.) If not that, then do sth else entirely with her, do the church thing (properly this time, not squeezed into two episodes and then entirely forgotten) but don't give hunting down the 12 to Helene, a character that already feels vaguely like a replacement for Villanelle while she's off doing character growth or whatever.

If they had done the thing that makes sense, it would have also meant that for once V and E's goals would have aligned, (though they might not have realized it immediately, you know, for spice,) which would have given us an opportunity to delve into a new dynamic: Partners in crime. Not S2 V tenuously working for E bc horny but actual challenging "we want the same thing except oh no, all this history and unresolved tension" cooperation. Obviously it would have gone horribly wrong in some fashion (I'm thinking Carolyn shenanigans), but at least it would have gone wrong for a reason that actually involved them bc the plot would have actually been their plot again. Incidentally, if you're going to have them hook up, this would be a great time for that, so it doesn't feel quite so backhanded if/when one/both die at the end.

The only reason I can imagine for not going down this route is that it would be too obvious, to which I can only say: [Insert tired comparison to Game of Thrones here.]

Seriously, hunting down the 12 is a natural conclusion to the story. It makes sense, was built to from the beginning and should have been a slam dunk in terms of plotting. Thus I am flummoxed as to how the writers managed to drop the ball so spectacularly that it hit every single one of their teammates square in the tits.

Well, I say that, the show does maintain a few of its strengths, first and foremost the cast of course, consequently some of the dialogue (Carolyn and V's interactions are delightful) and I do like the idea of both Gunn and Pam and also V getting shot by an arrow. Just wish the cupid/angel motif hadn't been so muddled and included Gunn more (who shouldn't have been called Gunn. It's a bad joke.)

Speaking of, many have rightly decried the lackluster supporting cast but as I see it, that is largely a holdover from S3, which killed off/wrote out basically everyone but the core four and failed to introduce any new characters that stayed past the season finale (besides Helene) bc it was too busy not moving the plot forward. You gotta have side characters in your show, so they made some new ones for S4 and gathered together whatever scraps they could (Hugo prettyboy and Martin the therapist). Idk if there was a good way to solve this problem exactly, but they could have certainly woven the new lot into the story better. Especially Pam. Pam could have been so much more. Oh and fuck the way they wrapped up Irina's story too. Complete waste.

With bad plotting comes shitty pacing. Again, that already started in S3. However, I will say in defense of S3 that it being a bit slower and introspective is very much the sort of thing that could have felt kinda ok, even needed in retrospect, if S4 had Risky Businessed into the room champagne in one hand, gun in the other, ready to party. Instead it made S3 look worse by turning it into a prelude to an even more plodding experience, now with bad editing!

For real, there's some really poorly constructed scenes; shots that feel disjointed, unfocused, repetitive. No idea what that's about, could it be the lingering effects of Covid-restrictions? Or maybe they just needed a better editor. Regardless, while not super dire it is absolutely noticeable and contributes to the general lack of cohesion, not to mention the tonal dissonance.

What am I saying, that's an excellent thing to mention. An ideal candidate to put the show and this too long note on my phone out of its misery in fact.

Killing Eve is supposed to be fun, you guys, remember that? S1 was at all times like two smash cuts away from becoming a full on comedy and it was amazing for that. It was the show's most unique feature, what took it from very good to transcendent as far as I'm concerned. Walking that line is hard, no doubt about it, and I get that different show runners have different visions and of course you can take on a more serious tone between seasons but then you actually need to make everything else match that shift. Integrate the absurdity into your writing or discard it, the way I've discarded the idea of ever writing a proper conclusion for anything. If you really want a dramatic, played entirely straight spy thriller conclusion with conspiracies upon conspiracies and doomed passions, that's fine. I mean, it’s not really bc you're losing what made Killing Eve great et cetera and so forth but my point is that you can't have your imaginary drag king Jesus and eat him too.

tl;dr: S4 is bad. There are several reasons for this.

[riverstardis]

sweet child of mine:

poor ethannnn😫😫

cal asks ethan where he’s been, saying his phones been off and he’s been worried sick, but does that mean that cal hadn’t seen him since the end of the previous ep and if so does that mean that this is set only the day after or what??

charlie thinks ethan’s upset because of emilie’s death

lmaoo jacob grabbing connie by the waist and trying to kiss her while she’s on the phone to henrik

okay jacob just implied that it’s been a week since the last ep so did ethan disappear for a whole week???

max talking about something being zoe’s favourite film to jez who just looks at him blankly and max goes “right, you’re new” and explains who she is lmao i love seeing new characters getting caught up on things

lofty sent a gift of cupcakes he baked himself… yeahh you might wanna be careful eating that louise. there you go, he used salt instead of sugar sjskfkfk

lol big mac and noel speaking via louise even though they’re right next to each other

lmaoo zoe asks dylan how he’s getting on and he starts talking about lofty and about how he doesn’t understand why he had to quit and zoe’s like what are you talking about and he goes “well, ben” and she says she meant how he’s getting on with a report😭😭

cal apologises to iain for “grand theft ambo” so i guess this is his first day back after the time off. iain says it’s forgotten and says “sorry to hear about your mum” see iain’s another one who like connie 100% knew that emilie had huntington’s and presumably knows its inherited. now i’m not saying he should be asking them about whether they’ve been tested or whatever obviously that would be weird but it would be nice if the present day writers were aware that iain’s the only character (out of the ones who don’t know) who is at least somewhat aware that ethan could possibly have it. not that it really matters since it’s looking like ethan’s not even getting an exit storyline🙄 (unless how little the show’s been on means that his last ep’s been pushed back a long way after the usual 4 months since it was filmed🤞🏼)

“are you my mummy?” “i am” “is your job in a prison?” “yes it is” “you just said yes!” “urgh you are like the best at the yes no game ever” well that’s one way to quickly introduce a guest character isn’t it💀💀

oh i used to have one of those cheap ass tesco tablets that that girl’s got lol

ah this is the guy who kidnaps connie

connie says she didn’t expect ethan to be in today and puts him on minors. what about cal? she can just tell that ethan’s not okay

ethan’s sudden outburst when dylan asks him if he knows where the magnet lofty gave him is but then when he realises who he’s speaking to he says he heard the news and “she died with dignity, i suppose that’s something isn’t it” “dying with dignity? what does that even mean? we come into this world alone. we all leave it alone. at some stage our bodies fall apart, they let us down, and whether we’re 32 or 92 it’s always a sad, lonely process. dying is horrible, dylan. there’s no way to dress it up. you of all people know that.”😥😥😥 and then he walks out and then doubles back to say that the magnet’s in the bottom drawer and dylan’s just like🧍🏼‍♂️

i wonder if dylan remembered this when charlie told him ethan had found out when his birth mum died and thought well that explains that😭😭

also dylan seems extra autistic in this episode for some reason. maybe he just had a vaccine🤔 /j

grace and jack prank calling noel skskdkfk

ethan’s looking up huntington’s again :(

charlie finds ethan in the staff room and goes “it’s a tough hand, no doubt about it” and ethan goes “thank you charlie but i’m not my brother, i don’t need therapy sessions” well that’s a LIE

i can’t tell whether charlie knows ethan’s tested positive at this point or not because “tough hand” sounds like he does but then he could just be talking about the situation in general and he definitely didn’t seem to know at the start of ep so when did he find out? but then if he doesn’t know at this point then when, in all the time between here and the 2021 parts of begin again, does he find out because we sure as hell don’t see it on screen? basically we have no idea how or when he found out. typical🙄

ethan saying “some people make all the wrong decisions when it comes to their children” to jacob. hmm last time i watched this was during the time he’d given bodhi up soooo yes indeed

lmaoo grace asks jack what’s up with big mac and noel and he says “lovers tiff” and she goes “what, they’re gay?”

jack and louise lock big mac and noel in a store cupboard until they talk it out shskdkfk

jacob literally ripping a whole pipe off the wall with his bare hands for connie😭😭😭

aw lily asking ethan to look at an x-ray and you can practically see her psyching herself up before saying “i’m sorry about your mother. even if you didn’t have a particularly good relationship with your parent, it still hurts” he’s busy watching cal flirt with someone and goes “sorry what?” and she goes “i know what your going through” she only just lost her dad so she thinks she does know but obviously she doesn’t know what he’s actually upset about and he just tells her to leave him alone

i love lily sm because you can see that she’s not really comfortable with this kind of thing but she’s still trying so hard to be there for him🥺

aww connie :(

lmao cal trying to get ethan to talk to him by saying he can cope with him blaming him but he’s still his brother and right now all he’s got and ethan goes “you know, when you fail at being a doctor, or give up, you should go into counselling”

then cal pushes him a few times and tries to get him to hit back but he just walks off :(

aww grace sees connie and jacob kissing and runs off :(

lmaoo max tells robyn he’s found them a new housemate because jez asked him earlier and she goes “his bed isn’t even cold yet!” and max is like “lofty’s not dead robyn” 😭😭

okay both zoe and dylan were watching max and robyn talk then and then they look at each other! don’t tell me they’re not trying to parallel how dylan feels about lofty with how zoe feels about max🤡

grace says connie promised it would just be the two of them and the reason she went to new york in the first place was because connie was prioritising work over her so she knows she can’t fit everyone in and something has to give and she doesn’t want it to be her again :(

she tells connie to break up with jacob or she’ll go back to her dad

okay cue the begin again flashbacks! between this ep and the next is the only possible place for them to be set because it’s after noel and big mac make up and before “be more cal”. but as i said before it still doesn’t really fit because ethan is not speaking to cal at all at this point but in begin again he was upset about the huntington’s but wasn’t avoiding cal. also it’s kinda funny that he was going to resign again when it had only been a few weeks since he last tried to😭 another thing is how stevie said it was emma’s birthday a few months ago but it was her birthday in begin again so they got that date COMPLETELY wrong

[goombasa]

Writing Fanfic is Important

When I was a kid, I really, really hated writing. I felt it was boring and tedious, and I always felt like it was quicker and easier to convey what I was trying to say via just talking compared to writing. I didn't have the best vocabulary or spelling comprehension either, and writing felt very slow. Hell, reading wasn't far behind in terms of my not being a big fan of it. I just had a hard time reading in general, I was slow at it, I had a hard time getting through multi-syllabic words, and most folk were not exactly chomping at the bit to help me overcome these issues.

I can't count the number of times that I was told to just ‘try harder’ or ‘practice’ when it came to reading and writing. It was advice that really didn't help considering that I already didn't feel the incentives to take either activity seriously.

And then I got easy access to the internet. And then I discovered webrings, personal web shrines, and most importantly of all, fanfiction on those sites. I'd always thought of these silly, little stories featuring characters made by others in established universes, but it had never really clicked in my head that I could write my own stories starring characters I already knew.

“I can do that?!”

Yes, yes I can.

I was a kid with autism who had a hard time realizing the blatantly obvious, get off my back.

And then something just sort of clicked for me. I'm not saying I wrote any sort of grand epics or anything, but suddenly both reading and writing seemed a lot more exciting to me, and I actually wanted to read these stories. I consumed a lot of Sonic cutefics during this time, it was basically my introduction to shipping. Believe it or not, Sonic and Inuyasha fanfiction was actually my introduction to the existence of things like homosexuality. I didn't grow up in a household that was against that sort of thing or anything, it was just something that never came up in our house, and it was through fanfiction that I started to question and experiment with my own sexual and gender identity. And it wasn't long after that that I started to write my own stories, and I indulged in all the weird and wonderful tropes that comes with an ameture writer attempting to write something deep and meaningful using characters from franchises meant for teenagers and children.

I loved it, though most of what I wrote obviously wasn't good. But the fact of the matter was, I WAS writing. Fanfiction showed me how fun it can be to come up with and execute my own ideas, explore ‘what if’ scenarios with characters that I knew. And slowly, eventually, I would start to introduce my own ideas, my own worlds, my own characters, and ideas that really started to deviate from what you'd expect to see in the franchises I was writing stories about (this was around the time when I thought more swears made something more mature and adult).

It was a long process, but it was thanks to fanfiction that I was exposed to the idea of a normalized gay and lesbian relationship. It was thanks to fanfiction that I wanted to become a writer. It was thanks to fanfiction that I have any sort of interest in actually reading and books at all nowadays. I was that kind of kid.

It wasn't all sunshine and roses of course; I definitely read and wrote a lot of inappropriate stuff that I should not have been looking at or known about at the time, and of course most of the ‘sexy’ stuff was just horribly written. I think back on some of the stuff that I wrote and I cringe horribly, but I think that's a common feeling among anyone who starts writing young. Don't bother hunting for any of it, I pretty much scrubbed as much of my early work from the old archives as possible, something that I generally don't do nowadays because I do feel like it's important to keep a record of your old work so that you can more easily see your progress as you improve, but at the time, I just felt embarrassed by my old work, despite their importance in my journey as a writer, or even the journey of just learning to appreciate a good story.

Nowadays, I don't indulge in fanfic nearly as often as I did, mostly due to a lack of time and a mind that is constantly flitting from one focus to the next, be it different personal projects, but every now and then, I will open up a word doc and bang out something or other, if only just to get a silly idea down on paper, and even if y'all don't plan on sharing them with anyone else, I would highly recommend you all do the same. It's good fun to just bang out a short little fic based around a franchise that you enjoy, and it's a good way to practice and keep yourself sharp, or try out different styles or perspectives that you don't feel comfortable or confident using in your original writing. It's just plain fun, no matter your age or experience. Choose a game, or movie, or series, or book that you love, and think about the sort of stories you want to tell in that universe, and just go for it.

Write what makes you happy above all. Cringe is dead. Indulge yourself.

Fanfiction is important, at least to me, because it was the start of my own creative journey. And I hope you all feel something for it too!

[stormxpadme]

🍓🐇🔪 for the fanfic ask game

Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game

🍓 How did you get into writing fanfiction?

I am quite literally a fandom dinosaur, a Xennial born 1982 who first came online when internet went widely public in 1998. I've been writing fanfiction long before that, never knowing it was called that or I wasn't the only one doing it. I'd always been kind of the typical star pupil in my native language in school, especially regarding creative writing, and had no friends, so I spent most of my time reading and writing. After writing a few stories that had nothing to do with fanfiction in my spare time, too, I started with fanfiction when I was around 9 and one of my favorite TV series was the old S.W.A.T. series. I just felt I wanted to have another few stories for my favorite characters and wrote some loosely connected scenes down in school notebooks that my mother couldn't buy new ones fast enough at some point. Sadly, the oldest stuff of my writing was thrown away but what I later came up with for og She-Ra still existed when I came online then and from that time on, I transcribed everything I still had handwritten and saved it on my computer; some of it is even online on my fanfiktion.de account. And then I just never stopped and never will.

🐇 Do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both?

I don't like reader inserts neither as an author nor as a reader, it's just not my thing. I've written OCs from the start and I'm a huge OC advocate as anyone knowing my blog and my fanfiction accounts can tell. I did a Mary Sue or two in those more than 30 years of writing and had at least two characters close enough to me to be considered self-inserts. But most of my OCs are independent figures with their own story and history.

🔪 What’s the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I've written a whole American Idol season (or rather the German version of the show) as a fanfiction series around 15 years ago. Originally, that project was meant to be an original novel about a fictional casting show that I wanted to publish, but since that never took off, I turned it into an actual fanfic, mostly with original characters, naturally, only some of the German TV judges and the whole media circus being real. Since I always liked watching casting shows anyway and did some singing in my youth too (I suck at it tho and have no illusions about that), I decided to take a look at the whole circus up close. I informed myself beforehand, talking to some ex candidates and reading editorial books that some of those ex candidates published about the whole thing, and then I basically did a very calculated TV casting tour. I made myself interesting with the right flashy clothes and background stories and indeed made it to the TV juries of two big German and Austrian casting shows. Of one of those castings, a few minutes were on TV then, but the audience ratings at that point for such shows were so horrible already that no one who knew me in person ever even saw that thing or at least talked to me about it. I wasn't good, obviously, but I wasn't ridiculed, and it was overall a very average, unspectacular casting candidate titbit that I could live with well in the end. And it helped a lot, learning about the whole process, seeing all these things up close, not only for the stories I wrote in the end but to be a part of the whole media circus myself for a while.

[lonesomedreamer]

SNW Liveblog: “Ghosts of Ilyria”

In which the dialogue is both the best and worst part of the episode.

Episode 1: “I’m gonna mess with your genome. […] We’ll have to make a few alterations if you want to blend in.”

Episode 3: “…a humanoid species known for modifying their genes… However…genetic modification is forbidden in the Federation.”

MAKE. THAT. MAKE. SENSE. I know what they did in Episode 1 was just temporary, but Chapel’s whole purpose on the ship is genetic research, which she used to alter (temporarily or otherwise) the genetic code of certain crew members??? Do the writers actually read their own scripts?!

An ion storm, you say? Is this going to be a mirror episode? Seems a little early in the show’s run to be pulling that rabbit out of the hat.

“Whatever tweaks your freak, pal.” Thanks, I hate it.

The design of Engineering is a little busy for my taste, and the lighting is still too low for a functional working environment, but it looks pretty cool!

Oh shit, I completely forgot about the Eugenics Wars (which are such a huge piece of Trek lore—that’s my brain after eight days of work in a row, ig)…of COURSE genetic modification is forbidden! Which makes what they did in Episode 1 even more ridiculous!!! I’m sure having La’an discuss this with Number One is meant to be a wink and a nod to the audience, since presumably she’s related to Khan in some way.

Just kidding, they’re just going to openly acknowledge that she’s related to Khan, lol. But in all seriousness: why is she? Why couldn’t La’an just be an OC???

Good Spock dialogue!

He said “records” the way Nimoy would have, and it made me smile.

Uhura, a xenolinguist and polyglot from Kenya, saying “y’all”…hmmm.

“Nonessential personnel.” “Contact tracing.” “Lockdown.” Obviously, this language could apply to any pandemic, but you can just tell that writers were still waist-deep in the experience of covid while they worked on this script.

Spock’s sass! We love to see it.

Okay, it’s pretty badass that Number One can carry a full-grown man (alien or not) over her shoulder.

“How in the exact hell are you carrying him?” a. Christine and I are on the same wavelength, but b. that’s a truly awful line of dialogue.

I’m annoyed by Number One’s convenient backstory, but I guess to be totally fair to these writers, the character effectively has no backstory, so what’s stopping them?

“You know what will happen if that containment field goes down.” Yeah, we’ve seen it happen to Spock, and we’ve cried about it.

Ethan’s delivery could use some work. I’m a mumbler myself, so I do get it, but especially since he’s playing Spock, he really needs to enunciate!

Ah…this show’s fantasy elements in a science fiction package strike again.

I know she wasn’t a major, well-developed character, but I still feel comfortable in saying that “Don’t thank me, I know I’m good at my job” is an egregiously uncharacteristic thing for Christine Chapel to say. Yikes. (Christine IS good at her job, but TOS got that across by showing it—like when she found a creative way to get a crewman to stop refusing food.)

An amazing shot with nods to the mod/retrofuturistic aesthetic of TOS (finally!)...more of this, please.

If they hadn’t invented a medical transporter out of whole cloth, none of this would be a problem.

“No spoilers.” They really had to slip THAT line in there as a capstone to M’Benga’s tragic story about his daughter? Good thing his daughter is super cute. I do wonder about consent here, though: did M’Benga’s partner/his daughter’s mother agree to this arrangement? What about his daughter herself?

Overall, this episode felt more like classic Trek than any of them have so far, right down to Spock being stranded planetside with his captain. While I question some of the writing/plot choices, I have no big complaints EXCEPT FOR the horrible continuity/logic error wrt this episode and the “gene therapy” shown in the pilot. I was even pretty neutral on Pike in this episode. He’s no Jim Kirk, but he was Fine. (But speaking of Kirk, what happened to Sam??? They just forgot he existed and almost died in the previous episode…?) And I like the moral of this episode’s story—I just feel like the way they got there was a little clumsy.

The Good: Several really authentic-sounding Spock moments; Jess Bush is gorgeous; M’Benga’s absolutely adorable daughter; they kept the whistle sound on the Bridge from TOS!

The Bad: Is “gene therapy” okay, or isn’t it?! Consistency, people! Other dialogue choices…were made—some are OOC, some are just cringe, which is par for the course on SNW; La’an conveniently being Khan’s descendant; this show continues to be more fantasy than scifi

I am once again hoping for more S/C in the next episode!

[sepublic]

Luz, the Audience, and Belos’ Main Character Syndrome

I really love how meta the show is with the audience’s perception of Belos. Luz openly asks at the beginning of this episode what anyone could see in him, and at first we the viewer agree... And yet like Luz, we realize we’ve been dumbfounded by Belos this entire time, in a horrifically crushing realization;

Just like Luz and the audience falling for Philip’s subtle manipulations in Elsewhere and Elsewhen, something only a victim with experience with this particular person can pick up on (Lilith), we’re also fooled in a larger, meta sense... Because even after seeing how horrible Philip was, there was still that belief via his childlike inner self that there must be some sympathy and nuance to Belos, right?

And that’s how it’s been from the start; The Emperor is an EVIL man, but maybe he comes from a place of understandable tragedy? Particularly with the reveal in Eclipse Lake, which suddenly makes everyone ask how much does Belos care, consider that maybe he DOES... In spite of all the horrid things we’ve seen; And so we’re fooled like Hunter into thinking maybe he’s not all bad. The scene is even from Hunter’s perspective, tellingly.

This of course makes the betrayal all the more personal, not just of Philip, who could’ve been a ‘good’ Belos, but even of the Emperor himself; We’re continuously disappointed (in the good way) by the revelation that there is no hidden side of sympathetic tragedy to this man, he came in fully, eagerly prepared from the start to commit mass genocide and enjoyed it. And yet even after this latest reveal of both Philip as he was AND Belos now, discarding Hunter; We still get surprised!

To humbly offer myself as an example, I saw this memory painting of Belos after watching Hollow Mind. In spite of my preparation to view him as unapologetically evil from here on out, I couldn’t help myself; Was this Belos feeling pain and remorse for his actions? Regret and mourning over his lost brother? Maybe it was just my wishful thinking, but I think it shows how compelling Belos is, that he can still keep us guessing looking for something redeemable in that man, as Hunter does when he looks at his uncle one last time;

And he doesn’t find a thing. Just apathetic annoyance at yet another failed clone. Hunter might feel like the most important clone as the most recent, as himself; But so did the clone before him, who tutored Darius. And the one before him... And before him; They all must’ve thought they meant the world to Belos and maybe could’ve escaped the fate of their predecessors, but no, they were just another addition in a continuing line of tragedies. So by this point, why should Belos be invested in the current Grimwalker, when every Grimwalker he killed and didn’t mourn was the current at that point, even his brother? 

And he doesn’t really mourn nor regret his actions; Because if you look even more closely, you realize; Belos’ memory isn’t him feeling emotional pain. It’s him in physical pain over the ears of his that he clipped; He’s only feeling sorry for himself, for something he fully chose to bring upon himself, all for the sake of power... Power he wants to use to commit genocide. It’s so cleverly meta how the writers weaponized our own desire, that hope that there’s more to Belos than that, that he can’t BE that awful, to make us feel with Hunter and even fall for Belos like him, and understand how it happens.

Ultimately, realizing we’re just as easy to fool makes us understand, appreciate, and sympathize more with victims. And I feel in Luz’s case, after wondering in frustration how anyone could fall for such an obviously evil man, she realizes how; And now she can’t judge, just understand. Which lends to her understanding of Hunter and kindness towards him. And also makes Luz a much more cautious and critical individual from here on out;

After all, Philip fooled her, and Belos fooled her into thinking he wasn’t Philip. Understanding how people believe and fall for the lie is important to get them to stop doing so, hence a survivor like Lilith. It means Luz is much more wary and defensive against this type of threat, when originally she wasn’t; And she’s avoided most of the damage of Belos’ manipulations thanks to her friends.

And since Luz is the main character, the one the audience might usually feel compelled to relate the most to, especially as a human outsider to the isles... We realize how this reflects upon us, too. The thing is, we have the luxury of watching from afar in a safe place, as a detached observer; It’s easy to dismiss victims for being so dumb in falling for that, both in real life and fiction. Because we’re smarter than that, we’re main characters, aren’t we?

Yes and no. Obviously someone IS the hero of their story and there is a validity to that in a sense... But as Luz learns in the second episode of the show, a lesson that continues to shadow and borderline haunt her for the rest of the series as far; She’s not a main protagonist. From our perspective she IS technically, that’s the thing about stories that deconstruct stories, they’re nevertheless still stories themselves and that’s okay.

But Luz has learned and is still trying to apply that she’s not the clever, main protagonist in-universe. Even as a human outsider she isn’t as detached and objective as she might think she is; She still gets emotionally invested and thus fooled. People don’t exist in relation to her as part of a narrative, because in-universe there is no narrative; At most the trappings of a time loop, but that’s really it.

Not only is the audience omnipotent and free to rewatch and analyze and deliberate at our own free time without REAL problems from this world to plague us as they do the characters; But we have the benefit and power of knowing this is a narrative. And that there are certain things that go along with narratives, and recognizing and guessing where they might apply. Hence people speculating our main antagonist as human even before Philip was established, simply on the basis of narrative tropes like parallels and foils.

But in-universe, Luz is not a part of the narrative. She has no reason to believe Belos might thematically reflect and contrast with her, because she’s not the main character. She’s just another person in HIS life, from HIS point of view; And not even the main threat, most of the time. She’s not going to assume Belos is Philip because that fits narratively, because there is no narrative, this is chaotic real life that doesn’t care for these rules.

Luz has applied (even if not fully finished, hence her frustration with Belos’ believers) her lesson from Witches before Wizards; She’s not part of a story. There is no ‘story’. There are people who might try to apply a narrative in hindsight, but people aren’t existing for a narrative purpose as part of a neatly planned and thematic conflict. Philip can’t be Belos despite the similarities because he’s human and can’t have lived that long; Maybe Belos learned from his notes!

Or maybe Philip didn’t invent these spells, he just rediscovered how to achieve them via glyphs; He’s ultimately catching up to what witches naturally do with bile, and Luz hadn’t realized that Belos is a natural witch yet. She didn’t know nor consider he has glyphs. Philip did not invent magic; He just rediscovered a different methodology to do the same things. So it’s fully feasible that the connection means nothing, like how Luz learned a plant spell, but this doesn’t mean she’s secretly connected to Willow in some fundamental manner.

So yeah, Luz is actively avoiding trying to see this as a narrative and with good reason, hence why she doesn’t recognize Belos and Philip as aligning to narrative roles in HER story, because people don’t exist for her like that. But as I mentioned, she’s applying the lesson but still learning it, even if she’s made plenty of progress; So Luz still makes that arrogant “I wouldn’t fall for that” assumption typical to people who think they’re the hero of the story too clever for that, unlike these sorry sods who serve as a warning to them. And like a main protagonist, Luz sees herself as a more objective, rational, outside observer; It doesn’t help that she’s a human who offers a different perspective to this society, so maybe she can show these jokers what life is ACTUALLY supposed to be like!

She doesn’t truly think that; But Belos definitely does. Hence his takeover, all for the sake of telling these witches their existence is inherently an abomination (some literally I suppose) that must be wiped out for humanity’s good. And he’s making assumptions of his brother and Luz that they ‘fell’ for the propaganda of witches, that he’s much too clever for that; He’s smart enough to be above it all as a decisive, outside, objective observer. And only a human can be, even if they make the mistake; Only a human has the capacity to know better or at least learn to be that way! Because only humans are ‘real’ and their validation meaningful because they can think for themselves, are actual people capable of change and self-awareness, unlike the demons and witches;

It really is just a lack of self-awareness and critical thinking, as well as empathy for others, that leads to this kind of misunderstanding. And that misunderstanding can become arrogance if people don’t know what’s really going on or what they’re really capable of. Belos is the main character of his fantasy story where he kills all the evil witches, as he always did as a child! And Luz is the isekai savior who realizes what’s wrong and saves people...!

Luckily, Luz is a compassionate and respectful person, and not truly arrogant. So she’s not approaching this new world like she’s the hero who has to tell everyone what to do, while they exist for her; Other people’s lives and choices are just as meaningful as hers as fellow ‘main protagonists’ so Luz respects their ideas and takes them into account, while still asserting her own in a reasonable way. Some things she MUST take a stand on and some things she SHOULD judge, like the cruelty of Belos; But ultimately Luz is self-aware of her own shortcomings and that she always has something to learn, as a kid who always wanted to learn. And that self-awareness enables Luz to accept new ideas but also be more than a blind follower to whatever someone else says, fittingly.

Belos... Isn’t a critical thinker. Not really; He refuses to open his mind to new information and adapt, instead stubbornly adheres to his outdated and silly beliefs, centuries later. He might be very clever when it comes to schemes and manipulation and especially other people; But he doesn’t really know himself. He’s still a dumb kid following what his parents told him without question, blind faith; He’s no better, no more clever than his victims he secretly jeers at being so stupid, unlike him. He’s one of them too, regardless of being a human outsider.

He just... Chooses not to have empathy which is the problem; And again, really means it IS purely his own fault if it always was a choice and not just a bad hand dealt to him by life. The Collector, an immature ageless kid, is still able to call out Belos on his enjoyment of killing his brother’s clones, and he denies it smugly; He knows himself, he’s not like that, he’s too good to be the villain who does villain things, he’s the main hero after all! Perhaps Belos’ smile alludes to him knowing that he actually does and he’s just playing around in his denial, but who knows? Again, with how Belos repeatedly disappoints us...

Luz and Belos both have main protagonist syndrome, and since the former is the human outsider like us, so does the audience. But while Belos doesn’t have that self awareness and refuses to learn, Luz and the audience learn together, thus making the shock and shame and revelation all the more compelling, that they’re just as flawed and vulnerable as the ‘side characters’ in their lives.

And it’s a humbling realization that teaches and encourages an empathy that recognizes the validity of victims and doesn’t blame them, while also being open to different ideas, while still defending one’s own if necessary. We all believe we’re critical thinkers if we’re the hero, and everyone thinks they are at some point; So it’s a reminder to appreciate how easy it is to fall for propaganda, and thus why it’s important to be extra diligent against it, and exercise actual critical thinking and humility that leaves us more prepared in the long run. 

TL;DR The meta buildup of Luz and the audience’s thought process and discovery, hand-in-hand, of who Belos and Philip really are, after hopeful assumptions and beliefs that we get the dude more than others, only to have been fools ourselves; It’s all very compelling. And the way we experience this and think with Luz, LIKE Luz, because we see ourselves in her, just makes us all the more sympathetic to her own pain when she realizes it, because we have a similar pain (albeit different realizations; We learn Philip was always that bad, while Luz learns Belos is Philip; Our understanding of him is still shattered). 

And of course, we relate even more to Hunter, who also thinks he gets his uncle more than anyone else. These characters inevitably think of themselves as the main protagonist, it’s just human nature; And because we see ourselves in them in so many other ways, the audience realizes their own folly in a sense as well... It sinks in even more, that we aren’t THE main character, after the initial lesson in Witches before Wizards.

We are just as guilty of Main Character syndrome as the cast, and we’re not even fictional characters part of a narrative, like they are! And that’s okay, as long as we admit that and improve; We’ve all learned and applied and we can take pride in that, while recognizing that we’re also still learning and applying, and always will for the rest of our lives, because no one human can truly understand and comprehend the entirety of that vast, diverse, and multi-person enigma that is the human condition.