#they're completely seduced by the narrative

[crazykuroneko]

listening to this podcast done by TV show enthusiasts, whose knowledge of IWTV comes from the movie and the book they watched/read probably a century ago, so they already know OG Louis is a plantation owner and Claudia will die, then the hosts said something like, "Watching the last three episodes of IWTV was hard, but the last scene gave me hope. I could handle another season of this, I could handle Lestat coming back, because I have seen Louis is in a better place now, he's happy with someone who is (healthily, heavily implied) loves him, and understands him"

And i'm just sitting here just thinking, "well, it's obvious they forget why Claudia died then"

[hallucinatinghalos]

I wonder how the show is going to approach Marius. Will we see his actions as that of a controlling ancient all too willing to muck around in lesser vamps minds and manipulate their emotions, their free-will? Someone that uses the vulnerable, those at their lowest and takes advantage. A predator by most any definition. But also the compellingly dutiful, reclusive old man chained to his obligations, burdened by time and the weight of his responsibilities. Will we see him through Lestat's eyes? A desperately wanted father figure that is always justified. A wise and charming elder sitting on his pedestal. A savior. Lestat is an admiring child around him and I read it as clouding every perception he has of him, but will that translate to the show's narrative? And Armand, the fledgling that he's discarded, he's ignored, that he's abandoned after wronging him so completely and in so many ways, yet who seems to still long for the familiarity of his maker, to love him. To mourn him. I wonder how that will look, and I dread it for Armand. How will the other characters approach him? Louis? Daniel? I can imagine so many scenarios I'd like to see but I know they're nothing compared to what we'll actually witness. Anyway, not a fan of Marius but they're all monsters and they've all done awful things to each other, yet we love them (even when we love to hate them.) I'm excited to see where they go with him. We've been seduced by the tale before, and I can't wait for more.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 伪装者/The Disguiser.

The Disguiser is a 2015 spy drama set in Shanghai, 1940. It follows the adventures of four wealthy siblings, all of whom are to some degree engaging in coordinated espionage, subterfuge, and other general acts of sabotage against the brutal occupying Japanese force.

I need to mention the Nirvana in Fire connection up front, because yeah, if you've seen that, you've probably noticed some familiar faces already. And the comparison isn't unwarranted! The stories are completely different, but they're both character-driven, complex, subtly cheeky adventures that manage to keep that tense intrigue going throughout the narrative. Like Nirvana in Fire, the Disguiser's on the heftier side -- 48 episodes -- but they go by at an incredible clip, so that it never feels long.

I have done a rec post for this before, and I stand by everything I said there. However, I figured it deserved its own for-real rec post, so here we go with five specific reasons I think you should give it a try.

1. We're all comrades in horny jail

This is an intensely horny show, starting from -- but absolutely not stopping with -- the main quartet.

These are the four Ming siblings. Only the elder pair of them, Ming Jing and Ming Lou (both on the passenger side of the car), are blood-related to one another. Ming Tai (also in the back seat) got adopted into the family when he was young enough that Ming Jing's relationship to him is very maternal.

Meanwhile, Ah Cheng (driving) was somewhat less thoroughly adopted when he was around ten, meaning that he's always weirdly marginal when it comes to who actually counts as part of the Ming family. He's a brother, but also he's a servant. Sometimes he's in the family photos, and sometimes he's left out of them. His name is legally "Ming Cheng," but basically no one ever calls him that.

What this means is that you've got four incredibly attractive people who are all legally but mostly not genetically related to one another, keeping secrets both with and from one another, yelling at one another, running headlong into danger for one another, sleeping in one another's beds, and occasionally demanding some members of the family spank the others. Is it hot in here, or is it just them?

And it's not just that these are pretty people up in each other's business. Nearly every interpersonal interaction among all the main characters is at least background levels of horny, because of how high the stakes are. The tension running throughout the show is intense -- and of course it is, because these are spies in life-or-death situations, trying to keep their cool so they don't get killed. So many of the relationships are built on lies meant to charm and seduce their targets, which is of course going to be sexy. But when they're built on honesty, they're all the more intimate for that disclosure, because being open with someone about your real identity and allegiances is putting your entire life into their hands.

To be clear: When I say the show is horny, I don't mean that it's erotic or salacious, or that you're going to get a peep of anyone's naughty little comrade, or anything like that. This is the horniness of lingering glances and shouting matches and power imbalances and guns pointed at chests. It's a combo platter of smouldering Victorian yearning mixed with action-movie adrenaline. It's the delicious, redirected horniness you get when sex isn't on the (canonical) table, so all that fraught energy has to go somewhere.

Get to the part in Episode 6 where Ming Jing gets out the short whip. You'll be glad you did.

2. Bad, bad bitches

Some of the baddest bad guys in the show are ladies. In fact, I can't even tell you about all of them here because of spoiler reasons. There are two, however, who deserve special mention.

The first and most prominent is Wang Manchun, member of the Japanese-controlled government's intelligence service, who is one of the best antagonists I've seen in anything. Perfectly coiffed and devastatingly intelligent, she's a member of a powerful Chinese family who has chosen to work for the Japanese-controlled intelligence bureau. She can be genuinely warm and sweet, almost girlish even, when she's around someone she likes. She can also torture a dude to death without smudging her eyeliner.

Her fatal flaw is that she's so in love with Ming Lou -- and so mistakenly convinced that Ming Lou is in love with her -- that it makes her make some extremely bad decisions. When was the last time you saw the handsome gentleman be a honeypot?

I feel okay spoiling you about the fact that these two do not end up together. Ming Lou does not see the error of his ways and start returning her feelings -- which is what I was damn near certain was going to happen for almost two-thirds of the show. I was braced for the show to come in singing the praises of the redeeming power of heteronormativity! NOPE. She's crazy and she needs to go down.

(I do have some issues with how she goes down, but ... well, you'll understand when you get there.)

The other baddie, Nantian/Minamida, is a stark contrast to Wang Manchun. There is nothing delicate or femme about her. She gets given the worst hairstyle and the most unflattering outfits. The actor's features are already strong, and the way the show makes her up doesn't allow a single inch of softness to slip out. There is one point where she gets to dance with Ah Cheng, and she's painfully wooden. It'd be funny if she weren't so dangerous.

As the section chief of the Japanese forces in Shanghai, Minamida is a formidable foe. She's smart. She's mean. She's incredibly suspicious of all these smiling Chinese people who surround her, because she doesn't know which ones are legitimately sucking up to her and which are just waiting to drive a knife into her back. Just plain killing her would be easy. Killing her and getting away with it? That's what's going to need a plan.

The actor is also Japanese! In fact, they've gotten a fair number of Japanese actors to play the Japanese characters, but she's the only one who also speaks Mandarin competently and doesn't need to be overdubbed by a native speaker. She's scary and intense and kinda makes your skin crawl. It's great. She's great.

And while we're talking about bad girls, I'm also going to shout out Yu Manli in here, because while she's not a villain, she's absolutely a morally grey character -- and I love her to itty bitty bits. She's about three inches high and weighs about five pounds soaking wet, and she will murder the heck out of you. Baby girl.

3. It's queer in here

The original novel is not danmei. No boy-kissing has been censored, because there wasn't any in the first place. The author/screenwriter is a lady, but not one who dabbles in BL. This does not merit the "Censored Adaptation of a Same-Sex Work" tag on MyDramaList. Censorship didn't do anything to this one. It was never gay.

That said, the show is massively queer, in that it lauds textually the normative experience of getting married relatively young and having lots of children -- and then gives you so many characters, both heroes and villains, who don't do that.

I mean, we've got:

Adult unmarried siblings living together

A grown woman who has intentionally remained unmarried in order to manage her business and family interests

Two adult brothers, both bachelors, who basically live in one another's back pockets

In fact, plenty of people who seem to have forsaken marriage and children in favor of their various active patriotisms

"Life and death partners" who have to fake-date their way through a couple spy missions

A teenage girl sold into sex work who offers to marry the man who saves her and is politely turned down for her own good

The same teenage girl pulling a black-widow routine and using multiple other marriages as a pretense to murder dudes

A couple whose marriage is forbidden by their families, except they do not end up together

A guy who has to break up with his real girlfriend so he can pretend to be with the spy colleague he lives with

A single woman who adopts a child

Two orphaned young adult siblings who adopt two children not that much younger than they are

A heterosexual relationship between people who are functionally equals in their various underground organizations (which don't want their members having romantic relationships with anyone)

A note on that last one: There is a cishet normie love story that runs the length of the show. A lot of people dislike it; I think it's cute and fine! But no matter what you think of it, you have to note the sharp contrast between this prescriptive tale of young love and everything else that's going on around them. There's a lot of lip service paid to how their marriage and the children they will presumably have someday are the ideal, but it's certainly not the only way people live, or even live well. In fact, everybody else treats their romance a little bit like oh, thank goodness he's doing this so we don't have to.

Other aspects of heterosexuality are similarly praised in concept, but not really shown in the best light. There is a lot of filial devotion involved here, but overwhelmingly toward parents who are dead. Living parents, by and large, either are absentee or just plain fucking suck. The show even has very few married characters anywhere in its principal cast, and most marriages that even get so much as mentioned either are portrayed as scummy (because the husband sucks ass) or ended because one of the partners died. Even the very idea of marriage, while praised in theory, doesn't thrill most of the characters. At one point, when Ming Jing brings up the idea of Ah Cheng's getting married, Ah Cheng cannot extract himself from that conversation fast enough.

What this really does mean is, when it comes to heteronormative ideals, the show frequently says one thing and does another.

Do I think the show is queering things on purpose? Absolutely not. This is instead one of those situations where there's such an underlying assumption that heterosexual desire and family unit construction are universal constants ... that the show barely actually gets around to portraying those things as good.

What you get instead, then, are a lot of powerful interpersonal ties that cannot be satisfied by marriage. The most intense loyalties in the show are between people for whom heterosexual pair bonding is not a social or narrative option. Therefore, those intimacies form along different pathways, many of which fall way outside the socially acceptable parameters of marital respectability and reproductive obligation. People love one another fiercely in sometimes unconventional ways. It doesn't get much queerer than that.

I'm also going to put the phrase "the inherent eroticism of letting someone who loves you shoot you with a sniper rifle" right here and walk away. Perhaps it will intrigue you. Perhaps it will intrigue you extra to know this happens more than once.

4. Jin Dong in menswear

That's it, that's the selling point.

Okay, wait, I do have something to add: In a sea of strong performances, his is arguably the best. He absolutely nails this tone of quiet, competent exhaustion the whole way through, making his Ming Lou this perfect gentleman on the verge of collapse.

You learn (somewhat confusingly) in the very first episode that Ming Lou is an important minister for the economy under the new (Japanese-controlled) government in Shanghai -- except, no! He's actually secretly the captain (codename Viper) of the local KMT division, working to undermine the occupying Japanese forces -- except, no again! He's actually -- and this is the real one this time -- head of intel (codename Cobra) for the Shanghai CCP underground.

(I bring up the codenames because my first time through, I didn't fully realize that they were attached to his different identities, and I just thought the occasionally spotty translation couldn't agree on which English word to use for the same snake.)

Living this three-identities-deep life is taking its toll on Ming Lou, but you know what? He's also a damn professional. He comports himself in exactly the manner he's supposed to behave at all times. And Jin Dong sells it beautifully, this carefully restrained exterior that houses a passionate heart.

This to me is the reason his relationship with Ah Cheng is so precious: Ah Cheng is the only one who understands, because Ah Cheng is living the same life of nesting-doll secrets. It's easier on Ah Cheng, though, because he doesn't have to be the face of it all; he just gets to smile and do whatever his da ge tells him to. They are each tasked with taking care of the other in ways great and small. I'm not going to spoil its context, but one of the most powerful moments in the show is when Ah Cheng says matter-of-factly that he knows his life is worth less to Ming Lou than other people's are, and Ming Lou, to put it mildly, pointedly disagrees.

So yeah, this is The Ship.

If you consider their relationship entirely fraternal, theirs is an incredible dynamic of trust, dependence, vulnerability, and sacrifice. If you consider it fraternal and spicy, well, it's still all that, but also enjoy picturing them tenderly removing each other's really nice suits piece by expensive piece.

5. You gotta spy hard!

Imagine the spy media spectrum where at one end you've got James Bond and Mission: Impossible movies (sexy, glamorous, high-tech), and at the other end you've got the Rebel and John LeCarre novels (grueling, well-reserched, realistic). The Disguiser is well toward the latter end of that continuum. It's got a bit of a Hollywood gloss on the whole mechanics of spywork, but man, not much of one.

Despite what the title suggests, most of the spies in this show are exactly who they say they are. Ming Tai is the only one of the siblings who assumes temporary false identities as part of his spycraft, and even he really can't do that anymore once he's back in his native Shanghai, where he's the recognizable youngest son of a prominent family. They all have to be spies in plain sight, which is equal parts a hindrance and an asset. You've got to see Ming Jing do-you-know-who-I-am her way out of some shit. It's great.

There are some legitimately tense scenes and escapes, and I like that most of the threats are overcome by quick thinking and very good acting. The schemes that our heroes pull off work because our heroes understand what makes certain people tick, and other people can't pull that shit on our heroes because our heroes have one another. It's smart spywork that stops short of being grandiose. Even the big plans that involve several steps rely less on supernatural feats of timing, and more on just trusting human nature.

The show is definitely spinning a propaganda yarn about how the noble Communists saved the day during the '40s, and in doing so it takes some pretty entertaining liberties with history. Even so, the particulars of the political philosophies are absolutely secondary to the conflict. You're never going to get a scene where two guys excitedly detail just how much Mao rules. At best there's some blah-blah about freedom and love of country that could be transposed onto any nationalist ideology without a lot of work. If you asked me, based only on information provided by this show, to explain the difference between the KMT and the CCP, my main answer would be, one group uses a code name that's one kind of snake, while the other uses a code name that's a different kind of snake.

And honestly, it's kind of nice. All you really need to know is that the Communists are cool, the KMT are okay but definitely less cool, and the Japanese and anyone who works with them fucking suck. I can do that! I grew up in a sports-watching family. I'm used to being sat down in front of the television and told, we want the guys in the blue uniforms to beat the guys in the white uniforms. No sweat.

The plot does fall down more than a little bit in the final act, due to a combination of intentional obfuscation on the drama's part, a couple things that probably should have happened onscreen instead of off, and a sudden rash of stupid-ass decisions made by one character in particular. But by that point, you're invested enough that you might as well see it through to the end, right? The dismount's a bit shaky but ultimately satisfying, as the genre goes.

I'm going to say the same thing here I said in the Nirvana in Fire rec post: This show is not for everybody, but if this is the kind of thing you like, it is a fantastic example of that thing.

bonus: And speaking of Nirvana in Fire...

Here's the full set.

Basically, if you watched Nirvana in Fire, you owe it to yourself to see the Disguiser. It’s another smart, character-driven drama, and you get to see a lot of your favorite actors in radically different roles, costumes, and relationships. (And speaking of costumes, both shows apparently have the same costume designer? That's range.)

Going to give this one a shot?

It's unfortunately a little hard to find. In my region (i.e., the US), KissAsian and YouTube are as good as it gets, both of which have their drawbacks. Some others among you may be lucky enough to be in a region where Viki will show it to you (which is where the KissAsian subs come from in the first place). There's a horrible set of machine translations running around out there, so beware of those; you'll know immediately you've tripped over those when they don't translate any of the onscreen text crawl at the start.

And speaking of the subtitles: Both extant sets, to put it politely, leave something to be desired. You can generally tell what's going on, but there are times you'll have to work for it. This is definitely more annoying when you're trying to follow a smart spy drama than it is when you're breezing through a low-intensity fuzzy xianxia mess. You actually have to pay attention to this one.

As a bonus, pretty much the whole thing was filmed in Shanghai Film Park, so if you're missing Dragon City, well, here it is! This was in fact the first Republican-era show I saw after watching Guardian, and I spent a lot of time going, hey, I know that street! ...like a nerd.

You can feel the brotherly love.

[linkspooky]

Hi! I saw your tags about Tara in Teen Titans comics--I'm only familiar with the cartoon series. How do your feelings about Tara compare in the show vs. the comics? I ask since I noticed you mentioned that Tara never really cared about BB, which I think is obviously changed in the show, and I wonder how you feel about that.

They're both good? They're both good! I think one thing people forget about comic book characters vs. adaptations of comic book characters, is that comic books were always intended to be a collaborative medium that builds on itself through the work of multiple authors and interpretations. Thus, you can have multiple versions of the same character who have the same core but don't really have to be exactly the same. This is why it is kind of silly when people get upset animated adaptations make changes from the original source material because that's kind of the point, in a collaborative medium, you're going to get another author's take on the same character.

Since you asked I can give you an analysis on the core ideas of Teen Cartoon Terra vs. Comics Terra, and also her relationship with Beast Boy in both versions.

1. GWEN STACY

So, I once talked about how Terra was always intended by her creators to die, but that's not necessarily offensive or fridging her character because Terra's still a character with a lot of narrative agency. Terra is the main character of her story, it's just her story happens to be a tragedy. That is true for both versions.

Before the start of the story her fate is sealed. This is what you call doomed by the narrative. George Wolfram and Glen Murakami have both given interviews explaining as such. Albeit, for different reasons.

Comics Terra was essentially made to deconstruct a lot of comic book tropes. I lovingly call her "Asshole Kitty Pryde." From conception she was going to be the spunky new kid with mutant powers who joined the titans at fifteen and immediately became friends with everyone... except she was evil all along.

George’s strength was he also understood the characters 100 percent as I did so there was never any question. He knew. We had talked enough about the characters to know we were exactly on the same page with them. So I said, “Everyone keeps complaining that we’re like the X-Men” and the X-Men had just gotten Kitty Pryde. I said, “Why don’t we really screw around with them completely?” — this is the fans — “…and make them think we’re stealing Kitty Pryde only she’s gonna be bad from Day One.”

Of course this is where authorial intent differs from like, what actually ended up happening in the story. Worlfram's intent was to always make Terra have no reason for her actions, the tragic backstory she feeds the teen titans is kind of embellished and made up, she decided to become a mercenary all on her own, she wants to work with Slade and is even trying to seduce him. However, Terra still comes off as horribly tragic despite their intentions and other authors have since then picked up on their subtext.

Like, I genuienly think the intention was to just write her as pure evil, but instead what they got was writing her as a bad victim. That is, the kind of victim that presents incredibly unsavory and unlikable reactions to their abuse instead of either being kinder than their abusers, remaining pure and chaste like Cinderella or just waiting to be saved. Terra's not a passive victim nor is she waiting for sympathy, she hurts people the way she has been hurt, she maipulates the way she has been manipulated. Terra's been beaten down and now her goal is to come out on top. I believe the reason why she came out this way has a lot to do with Perez and Wolfram sticking to their guns and never giving her a redemption arc.

The very first time we see her, she’s trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty. It’s just that all the fans assumed because we went out of our way to make her cute — but not too cute, with the buck teeth and everything — everyone would assume that she was gonna become good by the end and that was never the case.

First thing, we made a promise that day that we would never renege on our view that she’d never become good. It’s sometimes hard to do that with characters you like. You want them to become good or something like that. But we never liked the character enough—because we knew what we were doing with her—we never allowed ourselves to fall for the character. Because that’s bad. That’s bad storytelling. You’re doing what you want as a fan at that particular point, not as the creators. The fans had to accept what we were doing and not do the same stories that they had read 14,000 times before. You know, at Marvel, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were villains who became good guys and I could go through a whole list of ’em.

Their commitment to the bit meant that Terra’s story became what was essentially Greek tragedy at that point. Terra was always fall and because of that, Wolfram and Perez dedicate a lot of time in the story showing the audience exactly what all of her flaws are and why those flaws are the reason for that fall. They committed to their creative decisions when writing this character, which is why Terra ends up being such a strong character, especially for the time. Of course there were female villains, but they weren’t really allowed to be complex victims to the degree that Terra is, have her entire range of negative traits, have her flaws fully on display and then still have it be a tragic ending when she does not get saved. 

Gwen Stacy was always going to die, and Terra was never going to be redeemed. I do not believe either of those cases are fridging because sometimes characters die in fiction, and sometimes they contribute more ot the story dead than they do alive. Terra’s the first real loss for the Teen Titans, it also came on the cusp of a time in DC where teenage superheroes and sidekicks started to die (Cough, Cough, Jason Todd). Under the Red Hood and Judas Contract are such effective and lasting comic book storylines because they are such tightly written tragedies  yes... both of them depict a bad victim who does not get saved (even though that is the whole point of both arcs). 

Terra is in fact, probably more comparable to Under the Red Hood Jason than she is Gwen Stacy because she is number one a teenager with problems who probably should not have been made a superhero in the first place, and two a trauma victim who copes by manipulation and violence to try to reclaim control of their lives. But, to bring the Gwen Stacy comparison back. Gwen Stacy was always going to die, Terra was always going to die, but unlike Gwen Stacy Terra is not anyone’s love interest she is the protagonist. Peter Parker fails to save Gwen because the Green Goblin attacked her, she was killed to hurt Peter Parker. Terra pulls the arena down on herself and buries herself alive in Samson and Delilah-esque fashion at the end of her own personal tragic arc. 

To get to the real differences between the two characters though, characterization wise, I think both versions start with the same central concept, this is a troubled teenager who should never have been made a hero. 

Terra is a deeply troubled teen, however the way she copes in both versions are wildly different, almost opposite. I like to say cartoon Terra has like, at any moment five different personalities, while comics Terra has no personality. 

2. Runaway Girl

To elaborate on this, cartoon Terra’s entire character revolves around how unstable her sense of self is, due to never having any stability in her life. The cartoon is actually very purposeful in showing in both imagery and metaphor Terra’s splintered sense of self. The first few lines of dialogue introducing her are this. 

“She’s not in trouble, she was leading it into a trap.”  “Question is, who is she?” Slade: “Don’t get too attached my young friend, I saw her first.” 

Said by the Titans and then Slade. Even in the first lines introducing her, not only is the question of who she is asked, but Slade immediately tries to claim her from the titans. Later on in the show, the way Terra acts around the Teen Titans as a group, the way Terra acts when she is with Slade, the way Terra acts when alone with Beast Boy, the way Terra acts when alone with Raven are all wildly different versions of herself, to the point where it’s hard to believe she’s the same girl sometimes. 

This is even apparent in the first episode before Slade even gets to her. Terra insists that she enjoys sleeping outside, she enjoys running from place to place, she doesn’t really want a place to stay for the night, she’s presenting herself as some sort of self-reliant and worldly traveler instead of what she really is, a homeless runaway kid. Terra is attempting to appear calm, cool, and responsible and she is absolutely none of these things, and she’s pretty transparent about it too. She cool girls herself so people will like her. The second she is alone in Beast Boy and loses control of her powers for 30 seconds, she immediately crashes, starts berating herself and her self esteem sinks to the bottom of the ocean. 

Trust, is something constantly brought up again and again with Terra’s character though I would say Terra despite literally being the main character of an arc called the Judas Contract, despite betrayal being the one thing she is known for... always sees herself as getting betrayed first. Which is why she overreacts to the perception that Beast Boy broke a promise to keep her powers safe in the first episode. Terra doesn’t trust people at all. Though, to trust people and form healthy relationships with them, you actually have to be a fully developed and well-rounded person which Terra is not. Terra is basically a foster kid who has been through several families before this, waiting for her current one to dump her. She has interanlized the idea that there is something wrong with her that makes this rejection happen, but she doesn’t know how to fix it, or how to be better the kind of person that can have those healthy friendships so she dedicates herself into hiding those flaws instead. 

Terra: You don’t belong with the Titans. Terra: You don’t know anything about you. Slade: On the contrary Terra, I know everything about you. I’ve been watching you for some time. I know why you’re always running away. I know your secret, little girl.

This is also why she runs from the Titans to Slade. It’s a question I see commonly asked about cartoon Terra, if she’s meant to be more sympathetic than comic books Terra why does she willingly go to Slade instead of staying with the Titans? Which is a silly question, because you might as well be asking why do grooming victims get groomed? Why don’t they just know that groomers are bad people?

Teenagers are not grownups. Especially not Terra, a bastard child rejected by her parents who has been on the run for however many years. Terra is a teenager and a severely underdeveloped teenager at that, and she has learned to survive on the streets yes, but that’s not really the same as learning to be a functional person, who can have healthy relationships with people, and control their emotions. Children actually require parents to nurture and teach them and raise them up to be more functional adults, and they also require the stability adults in their lives provide them. 

Terra goes to Slade because he is an adult who is promising to be there for her, and give her control and stability which are things adults in her life have failed to give her. She can’t trust the Titans to give her these things because they are children one as Slade needles her into believing they cannot understand or help her, and two the way Terra has lived her life up to this point a transactional relationship with Slade makes more sense to her head than the found family the Teen Titans have based on love and trust because Terra is a stranger to both of those concepts. 

Terra is also someone who has little control over her life in general, which is why cartoon Terra is so passive in comparison to comic book Terra. In the episode Betrayal itself, Terra keeps her foot in the door about the actual betrayal the whole way, and seems to change her mind on what she wants several time. Because Terra has five different personalities. Ginger Terra, Sporty Terra, Posh Terra, Scary Terra, and Baby Terra. Terra doesn't have a cohesive sense of self so she's entirely reactive, she just does what she thinks will keep her safe in the moment. Terra wants safety and control of her powers so she goes to Slade. Terra feels guilty about what she does for the Titans so she tries to run away from Slade for the moment. Beast Boy asks her out on a date, but because Terra's betraying the Titans that night Terra says no. Five minutes later, Terra says yes. She is constantly changing her mind and contradicting herself like this.

Which is where we get to the greatest contradiction this episode, Terra betrays the titans and clearly feels guilty about it,b ut instead of say telling the Titans what she did or coming clean she just runs away. Which is where we get to the extremely subtle imagery of Terra in a house of mirrors.

Terra can't face her reflection over and over again, because she can't face herself, because she has no sense of self. She doesn't know why she does these things, but she's done them now, and she's stuck with those choices.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember?

This is also Terra's most honest display of remorse, and the exact moment Terra gets rejected, crying and begging for forgiveness for what she's done and after that is the point where she goes full villain. Terra goes from baby Terra, to Scary Terra. A lot of who cartoon Terra is born from fear of moments like this where she is rejected. Terra was the one who tricked Beast Boy and Beast Boy is rightfully upset of course, but in Terra's mind only able to see her own hurt feelings Beast Boy is the one who broke the promise to her. Terra internalizes the fact she cannot be forgiven at that point and seeing no other recourse goes full villain and insists she feels no guilt, she wanted to destroy the titans to begin with, it was all a lie. The complete inversion of how she acted in the betrayal episode. Terra is manipulative, spiteful, hungry for power and yes she's capable of being all of those things but one important thing is.

The second, the second Slade starts mistreating her and beating her Terra immediately wants out. It turns out it's not power or control Terra wanted at all with Slade, but the idea of safety he provided her. The moment it becomes unsafe for her she tries to leave again, because Terra is a child desperately seeking safety in a world that feels unsafe for her, and she'll find it by crushing people she perceives to be a threat if she has to.

That is Terra in a nutshell, she doesn't feel safe anywhere, or with anybody. She has no stable foundation. She is the human embodiment of the tower card in Tarot. No matter how hard she tries to trust others and trust in return, because those are basic human urges we all have, she ends up falling down. It's interesting for a character who is so famous for betrayal, how much of her arc shows she clearly wants to be accepted and trusted by others, and gets hurt at the idea of their rejection. Even the day she literally betrayed Beast Boy before taking him out on a date she asks him this.

Terra: Do you trust me? Beast Boy: More than anyone I've ever met.

I would say Terra's inability to trust doesn't come from the fact she's a bad person or a bad victim, but because she doesn't have the tools to form healthy relationships because of how seriously neglected a child she is. A part of the tragedy of Terra is because Terra cannot save herself, because she is a child. Just like how the Titans have such difficulty saving her, because they are children too and they're not really emotionally prepared to save a person as morally grey and as in need as Terra, and the only adult in the situation is Slade who is there to take advantage.

Transitioning too. Comics Terra, while cartoon Terra has too much personality, Comics Terra has too little. She was written to be a sociopath, and that's not really my term that's how the writers describe her though I can dig up evidence she shows clear signs of being capable of having attachment to people. I'd say rather than a sociopath she's more written as an enigma. Terra's motives are spurious, her actions are inconsistent, she seems to be driven by spite. She is an incredibly angry kid with a chip on her shoulder who seems to be capable of anything.

Cartoon Terra is trying to play along with other peopel's expectations to her, while comics Terra rejects everyone's expectations. She loathes cute teenage girl superheroes. She finds dressing up in costumes and fighting crime to be ridiculous in the first place. Though, I would say despite saying she clearly hates the titans, literally the next panel she displays some affection for Kid Flash.

Comics Terra isn't completely unfeeling, she's capable of forming connections to people, she has a fondness for Geo-Force her brother, Kid Flash, and sort of for Beast Boy she just never fully forms relationships with them.

Terra's not really even maintaining much of a cover with the Titans, because both with Slade and the Titans she is a rude, belligerent raunchy kid who is trying to constantly get into other people's faces. Terra is all of those things, she just when she is alone with Slade also pretends she is an adult, in an adult relationship with him. (Cough, cough, grooming victim. A victim of sexual grooming in this sense too).

Terra's written to be a sociopath yeah, or at least her writers tried too but I'd say she's more a character who the audience has little to no idea what is going on in her head. A lot of her is left ambiguous. Considering her backstory though, the rejected bastard of a king, someone who is working as a mercenary at fifteen, she clearly has not had a good life. Just like cartoon Terra she is lacking a sense of self.

However, instead of eschewing her agency, Terra takes her agency from other people. Cartoon Terra is good at manipulating when she wants to be, but Comics Terra sees the world in terms of every relatonship is transactional and based on manipulation, the world is winners and losers, the world is about who is on top and who is on the bottom. Terra lacks no real goal, or purpose, no friend, no home no loved ones she really only wants to crawl up on top of others if she has to.

Which is exactly why she gets into a relationship with Slade. Comics Terra seems to think her and Slade are equals, and that she is manipulating and using him as much as he is using her. The tragedy in this case arises from the fact that you know, Terra is a fifteen year old girl and Slade is three times her age.

There's an entire chapter where we follow around Terra montiofring people with contacts, and she's going about the titans daily lives just, telling Slade how much she hates them the whole time, but then she stops to ask Garfield why he's constantly being rude to other people and seems genuinely interested in listening to him talk about his feelings.

Terra's only out for herself, she is out to define herself and not let anyone else tell her who she is and who she should be. Terra's selfishness makes sense though considering the situation she is, she's either made to feel nothing like how she was with her family, or she is being sexually groomed by a guy three times her age. Her response to that, her extreme self interest and only caring about her own survival really is her way of fighting back against a world that she sees as trying to wear her down.

And that's a key part of her character Terra is a grooming victim who is also a bad victim. She's being groomed and her way of reclaiming her agency is to insist she wants sex, she wants to hurt people, that actually she's the one manipulating Slade. It's all Terra trying to assert control in a situation where she has none. I don't know if you know this, but a fifteen year old can't manipulate a guy in his fifties who has been doing this for years. Terra also, projects a lot of her hate for her situation and her lot at life at the Titans.

They did not do anything wrong to her, but at the same time she's pretty cosntantly unhappy with them, she complains none of them like her, she complains about their lack of trust, I believe that's less Terra trying to infiltrate them and more Terra herself either believing she cannot fit in anyhwere or as a person who only believes in transactional relationships and manipulation just not understanding how family works.

Terra also acts like dangerously unstable at all times, there's a point in the comics where Beast Boy gets way too aggressive with his flriting, that he full on triggers what resembles a PTSD response in her and she tries to bury him alive.

At times like this when Terra is made to feel she's either not the one with the power here, or being looked down upon she asserts herself with violence to desperately try to regain control. It is not healthy by any means, but it is still the behavior of someone who is coping incredibly poorly. Terra relies on fear and control to make herself feel safe at times like this, because she's not been shown love early on in her life and by this point she genuinely does not understand it. And also I cannot emphasize this enough as a victim of sexual grooming, Terra is pretty much not ever safe, or in a situation where she has bodily agency or control.

Terra in the cartoon dies in a heroic sacrifice, whereas Terra in the comics dies because she loses control of her power and essentially suicides. If anything the tragedy here is that Terra is someone who never learned to be a girl properly, nor was she appreciated as a human being and because of that she formed her entire sense of self around her powers. She is a child, and never having been allowed to be one, and not knowing how to live in this world, form relationships with people, trust and be trusted she dies as a child. Terra once again has nothing solid to build herself on, and because of that the tower falls down.

3. Terra and Beast Boy

In the cartoon Terra and Beast Boy are clearly meant to be in a relatoinship, in the comics Terra claims to have hated him all along, but arguably she could have been fond of him.

In both versions the relationship is entirely wrong headed from the start. A lot of it has to do with Beast Boy's flaws as a character. I wrote on and on how immature of an individual Terra is, and Beast Boy as the youngest on the team shares many of those immature and selfish traits. IN the comic itself that seems to be the reason why Beast Boy and Terra are paired together, they are the closest in age, she is the new girl and the trope Terra is made to deconstruct is the cute comic book love interest.

Comic book Garfield is almost more immature than cartoon Garfield, and on top of that is a full blown male chauvinist. A lot of people do not like Wolfram/Perez Beast Boy, I kind of love him because he doesn't understand woman's boundaries and thinks he desperately needs to get into a relationship and makes them uncomfortable because he sees his flriting as harmless to them... you know like a teenage boy. Unlike most characters like this that appear in media, this quality of Beast Boy's is something that gets called out on all the time.

Terra and Beast Boy do have something in common in that they are both outsiders to the group, they are the youngest so no one takes them seriously, they are almost always stuck together, there's a scene where they're both getting tutored by a tutor Garfield's rich father hired and they're both such ADD kids no one wants to be there. She does have at least one genuine moment of connection like this one.

Their immaturity is what makes them the most similiar, but they go about the inferiority they feel towards other people in opposite ways, Terra sets out to try to prove that she is better than other people by asserting herself, while Beast Boy tries to bend over backwards to win their love.

Terra sympathizes with Beast Boy because they share the same root cause of the issue, but they cope in opposite ways and because of that she looks down on him as just another kid. Which is something Terra is desperately trying to prove she is not. Terra genuinely does go out of her way to kiss him which shows this conversation at least affected her, she has moments of being genuine around Beast Boy, but I think this and every version of Beast Boy is too immature to ever reach her. Because to return to the male chauvinist aspect of Beast Boy's character, not long after this scene he full on triggers Terra by coming on way too hard to her.

Beast Boy wants a girlfriend, to validate his feelings, to make him feel special when he feels like he is the only kid, and the one most often left behind in a group of adults. He tries to make Terra into his love interest and Terra does not want to play that role at all. There are moments where Terra is genuine with Beast Boy, and he might have been able to reach her, but Beast Boy is so obssessed with the image of Terra he has built in his head and the idea of having her he's never able to even come close to her.

Beast Boy cannot understand Terra with any sort of nuance whatsoever, because she's a woman who doesn't really want to play along with any image of her in his mind.

Their cartoon relationship is much less destructive, but really suffers from the same fundamental problem. Both the episode "Terra" and the episode "Betrayal" feature Beast Boy trying to make Terra a promise that he cannot keep. The first time he promises to keep her powers a secret, he actually keeps that one but the perception that he's betrayed her is what makes Terra run. The second time Beast Boy promises to accept her no matter what she does, only to reject her when she is openly weeping and apologizing at his feet out of remorse.

Like, if you wanted to save Terra. To convince her to turn back to the side of good there was never a time more ideal than that but Beast Boy spits in her face. Because while he's a hero he's also a fifteen year old boy feeling hurt and betrayed. This is Beast Boy's Orpheus turning back to look at Eurydice moment.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember? Beast Boy: Slade was right, you don't have any friends.

Beast Boy's attraction to Terra is sort of instant and a kiddie crush, but any relationship they might have had is broken by the time Terra runs away at the end of their first episode together. Afterwards Terra has already betrayed the Titans, and Beast Boy is clinging to the girl Terra appeared to be the first time they met.

Beast Boy doesn't really fully comprehend Terra, which is why the literal last episode of the series is Beast Boy stalking Terra all day long and insisting that he knows her best, and he knows certain things about her and acting confused when she tells him that she was never that way, she never liked sleeping outside, she wasn't the girl he thought she was.

I went to great length to show how Terra's emotional immaturity results in her constant flip-flopping and contradiction, but Beast Boy shows the exact same behavior. Beast Boy in the cartoon tries to play roles to Terra that he is not emotionally mature enough to play. While at the same time. The first is he tries to be the one protecting her, the one guaranteeing her stability. In the first episode he is the one who stays with Terra and calms her down after Slade triggers her into nearly causing an earthquake.

At the same time by the end of that episode he's unable to make Terra stay because she's so hurt at the idea he betrayed one secret. Beast Boy is also the same person who one episode ago told Terra that she didn't have any friends to her face when she was crying and apologizing and just left her there, and the very next episode gets angry when the titans say Terra is irredeemable. Beast Boy that was you. You said that, to her face.

Beast Boy: Terra, you're our friend. Terra: I don't have any friends, remember?

Beast Boy wants to act like a hero saving Terra, but he's not that great of a hero, nor is he emotionally mature enough to do that. Which is why we get this behavior of Beast Boy, first reaching out to save her, and then resorting to victim blaming when he feels like he can't save her. He jumps between I am Terra's best friend, I know she was there all along, to just Terra doesn't have any friends. Terra you wanted to do these things, it was your choice. There's no consistency in Beast Boy's actions, because Beast Boy doesn't really know what to do he is vulnerable and desperate, because a person who he cares about has hurt him, and is also hurting.

Beast Boy is once again trying to put Terra into a simple and easy to understand box. He is acting like the hero of the story, and she flips between his villain and his love interest when that's not the case. Terra's more focused on Terra herself, she cares about Beast Boy but she's also just trying to survive. Beast Boy is a little bit too focused on his relationship with Terra, and like the validation he wants to get from her that he can't look at Terra as a whole person, or realize from an outsider's perspective she's a kid in dire need of saving. Well he does at times, but like I said he flips between advocating for never giving up on her, and victim blaming her because Terra is not easy to understand and he cannot make up his mind.

Terra is the main character of her own story and Beast Boy doesn't know how to comprehend her that way, or set himself aside to look at things from Terra's perspective because he's fifteen and stuck inside his own head with all those adolescent feelings and hormones.

In both versions, I think Beast Boy mistakes what could have been a strong friendship for romance because he is obsessed with getting into a relationship without really understanding what that entails. Beast Boy not being a good boyfriend at fifteen is actually perfectly understandable, the whole tragedy of the Judas Contract in general is that just like Terra is too immature to save herself from her situation, the Titans also just being kids are too young to save her.

They also both try to jump into a relationship without building a solid friendship first, because they both need love and stability and have no idea how relationships are supposed to work. It's like they both fell in love with the people they were when they first met and the relationship never evolved. They are similar and there is a connection, but rather than the things they have in common bringing them together, it drives them apart.

[thebearemoji]

My thoughts on the astarion romance (spoiler: they're not good)

Hoo boy going right from the wonderful bliss of karlach's romance to this.... dark mess of despair was a hell of a whiplash.

So I'm gonna assume if you clicked on that read more that you don't care about spoilers. If that's not true then dont read this. To be clear we're on the same page, astarion has two potential outcomes. You let him complete cazador's ritual and ascend to big boy vampire or you stop him from completing it.

The game made the choice to make a statement with the outcome of astarion's quest. If you don't break the cycle of abuse, then you're perpetuating it. Astarion after completing the ritual is much more cazador than himself. The romance takes this one step further, the only way to continue it if the ritual is completed is to willingly become astarion's spawn. The game implies in no uncertain terms that you will meet the same terrible fate he was so recently trapped in. Cazador's master tortured him. Cazador tortured astarion. One way or another Astarion will torture you.

He even has a line of dialogue after you reject him along the lines of "Of course I'm familiar with love. I would've tormented it out of you until you had nothing left if you'd let me." That's just the start. Just about every line to come out of a romanced evil astarion is stunningly toxic, he pretends to love you, threatens to leave you, all to get you to agree to become his spawn. You can even read his mind to find out he thinks you're degrading yourself by staying with him. It's stunningly dark, and part of me respects the writing for sticking so hard to their guns.

Speaking as a fan of roleplay focused games, this did take me off guard. I'm accustomed to games treating evil choices as options to explore your characters and develop a sense of gray morality. Because... it's a video game for fun and sometimes its fun to do silly pretend evil things and twirl my pretend evil mustache. But bg3 will occasionally treat evil choices as sins that the narrative will punish you for, sometimes immediately, sometimes later down the line. And astarion is undeniably one of these choices. A non romanced evil astarion is fine, i guess. but i know i'm not the only one out there who fell into the trap of thinking astarion could be the other half of my evil power couple.

I don't think this is necessarily inherently bad on its own. It severely reduces any desire I have to ever play an evil character again in this game, which sucks because I love minthara. HOWEVER

I got a bone to pick with the good boy astarion romance too.

So of course after the gut punch of evil astarion romance, I reloaded and made him the same good boy i did on my first play through. The subsequent romance scene is nice, and he gets the same beautiful heart-wrenching catharsis that made me sure he was the one I wanted to romance second in the first place.

But throughout all the later conversations, he keeps returning to this idea that he "seduced" my tav. ??? Where. From where I was standing, act 1 he propositions me for casual sex, my tav says yes. Afterwards he proposes continuing to have casual sex, my tav says yes.

And yet he keeps saying these words "I seduced you, manipulated you, used you." And the fact that he's admitting it is meant to show character growth.

But why is the game so determined to make my tav his victim??? Why are those my only two options? The dialogue choices didn't give me a way to say "you didn't manipulate me, I chose to be with you of my own free will, knowing what you are." There's nothing i can do to flip this narrative that my character was used and wronged, even though i dont believe she was. And that left the romance feeling very polarized, like there are only two lenses with which to view romancing astarion.

You are either his victim that he lies to for a grand majority of the game. he doesn't even like by his own admission, he claims he used you for protection. But he grows to appreciate all you did for him and even love you.

Or his helpless thrall, equal parts a victim but hell at least at that point you're embracing the kink of the whole thing.

Tbh, neither of those really do it for me.

In conclusion, astarion is an amazing character, I'm never romancing him again, and finally,

that is all

[utilitymonstergirl]

Apologies if this is too personal, please ignore this ask if it is or you're otherwise not interested in responding. Broadly, I am wondering about how your experience with gender transition may feel connected to your kinks.

More specifically though, I am wondering how the experience of transition may feel connected to age regression kink for you.

The reason I am curious is because other trans femmes I know have described the feeling of going through transition as like being a kid or teenager again, either because they are relearning how to live their lives or because they've felt like as of a result of they're increased sense of self from undergoing transition that they're for the first time really living their lives.

Additionally, the broader narratives of HRT as a "second puberty" and more theoretically the idea of "queer time" can be connected to those experiences.

Anyway, to reiterate the question maybe more clearly, has gender transition ever felt like being a younger person again? And if so, was it from that feeling that your appreciation for age regression began to take form or does that feeling otherwise feel connected to your experiences with age regression?

Honestly I’m not into the sort of “playacting a stylized young childhood” sorts of age regression, it’s just too goofy in unsexy ways for me, but I do like the thought of being cared for (in an erotic queer context) by an older person who has their shit together much more than me or most of my friends

And it’s a pretty on-the-nose cocktail of psychological factors, I think - wanting to be courted and seduced as a Cute Girl, wanting to receive erotic affection (read: “be a pillow princess”) when I’m sometimes anxious about giving it, wanting parental figures I don’t feel I have to hold at arm’s length from the messy psychosexual parts of my identity

And I’d say transition absolutely feels like being a younger person at times, it can be jarring to handle adult responsibilities and physical limitations while rebooting puberty. I find that it’s easier to treat myself well if I conceptualize myself as the guardian of some younger, more vulnerable version of myself (who may also be a dog), and I like letting someone else take over that guardian role for a bit

About a year ago I found Act My Age, an album about the healing, redemptive power of ageplay. I highly recommend it as a good-ass piece of art across the board, but it was also useful for defining my desires both in agreement and contrast (along with The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe). These albums were also a key step in learning to appreciate art that takes very weird emotional palettes completely seriously, something I’ve tried cultivating more ever since.

In sum: while I have a weird and ambiguous relationship with age regression per se, I value having good diplomatic relations with the community and appreciate their artistic output, and sometimes all I want is a father figure to soothe me after a tiring day and then fuck me senseless

[snobgoblin]

It's not your responsibility to be worried about people being offended by non-existent issues. You shouldn't have to private your own post because people candy read or understand narratives tbh

yeah, true, still ill private that post and explain AGAIN and better this time why I think it would be cool for Sedusa to be asexual

-asexual people are often infantalized. it's always refreshing to see asexual characters that are legitimately competent and dangerous, it's awesome! theyre always either seen, especially in fandom spaces, as "uwu soft smol innocent beans" or "completely cold and unfeeling" so it would be refreshing for Sedusa to be asexual. as she is neither of those things (kind of like how in fandom spaces the aggressive woman is usually a lesbian or the bisexual is also hypersexual- I think it's really stupid to assume someone's sexuality based on personality traits instead of you know, their attraction. your sexuality says NOTHING about your personality)

-against purity culture. on the other side of this, sometimes asexual people are seen as just pure, because they're celibate, and for whatever reason many people seem to think that sex has a moral implication, so someone that doesn't have sex must be good. Sedusa would subvert this, she is asexual, celibate, and she ISNT pure

-it didn't come out of nowhere. when looking at a characters sexuality, I pay special attention to any time that they might have shown attraction to someone (like with Ace, I said he could be attracted to women bc he called Sedusa hot (plus more) and also men because he grabbed a man's butt) but with SEDUSA... she's really cool bc she's kinda like Wario (which I love) in that her first priority? first and foremost- it's money and power. once she's reformed and doesn't steal anymore, she doesn't make any attempt to seduce ANYONE. she doesn't care about it! all she cares about is running her beauty shop. she doesn't need anyone else... the point here being, she doesn't have people fall in love with her because she likes love, she does it because she likes money

-it's subversive. it's much too easy to look at a character like Sedusa and go "she's hypersexual" but if you really look into it... she doesn't seem to care about it at all. she just uses it to manipulate people WHICH, ANON, does not mean I think asexuals are manipulative. just that Sedusa herself is manipulative, and her mode of manipulation is, usually, her sex appeal. she's just using what she's got to her advantage, like any villain. she just doesn't have guns and lasers

-it's in the spirit of the show. the whole show is just, subverting your expectations. the superheros? not even graduated kindergarten yet! the mayor? incompetent! the scientist in any other story would have been uncaring or maniacal toward his creations, but Professor Utonium never was. it only makes sense for the character built on seducing others is completely not attracted to anyone

so yeah there's my case 💪

[house-of-mirrors]

Writing a critique of mask as if it was something I was critiquing for grad school lol. Some plot spoilers under the cut

Strengths

Always start with the positives. What did I like? I think the setting and music were immersive. Since I've been playing skies lately I was so excited any time something from it was mentioned. In games I love to make auditory connections, and I was excited that the audio for the sunlight in the parliament ending matches the intro of The Forge Timespace track on the skies OST! And on the topic of audio, of course the curator cries from skies. Hello Veils

There were a few parts, especially in a certain ending, where the writing really shone through. There are genuinely funny and compelling moments which has always been a strength of the devs, that dark comedy tone. My most recent playthrough, I basically just hooked up with monsters and that was the most fun I've had in the game.

Buckle your seat belt. Now onto:

Weaknesses

We've already discussed pacing to hell and back so I'm gonna skip that. Besides pacing, the biggest flaw in MOTR is that the game has identity issues. It doesn't know what it is or what it's trying to be. Mask fails as a dating sim, as a mystery game, and as a visual novel because it's trying to be everything at once and thus failing to be anything. If I played it like a dating sim, well. Pressing flirt repeatedly and seeing some of the same scenes play out every time you seduce a character with little new text doesn't immerse the player. If I played it like a mystery game, the pacing is prohibitive when it comes to solving it. I haven't actually played other visual novels so don't have a reference for that but I don't think they are as rushed as this

Either you can go into a little bit of detail about a lot of things, you can go into a lot of detail about a few things, or you widen the parameters so you can go into more detail about more things. Within the framework mask exists in (and I don't thing slowing the pacing will fix this beyond making it easier to finish some quests), the scope is too small to do justice to the scale of content they're trying to convey. I'd tell the author they had too much going on at once and to narrow their focus. Decide which characters should be focused on and which aren't so necessary. Some of them definitely were included in a way that felt last minute just to get a reaction from fans, and not because they had something to offer the narrative. Those characters either needed a plot with more depth or weren't necessary.

Mechanics

Mechanically speaking, I... didn't see a point to most of the new features. I was never in a situation where I needed certain clothes to progress, which made collecting them kinda pointless. You can complete any number of different playthroughs without touching story crafting at all. I got the feeling from marketing that story crafting would be used to help matchmake with other characters, but it very much does not do that unless I'm completely missing a big chunk of the game, which is possible given how nigh impossible it is to progress.

The engine is innovative and stunning from the perspective of someone with experience in code. But then you can't DO anything in it. Sure it may be super responsive to different paths, but if the variables change, the dialogue/written consequences don't.

Diversity and Inclusion

Finally, these notes. It's seldom comfortable to bring it up but it's important. I almost called this nitpicking compared to everything else but no, it's not! These issues are just as important and deserve to take up space. I see fellow players sort of expressing "yeah I didn't expect them to improve these areas" but that still doesn't minimize the issue.

I'm just puzzled. They took effort to research writing Jewish and Sikh NPCs but then go and keep assuming the player is Anglican. (In an ending after failing in the trial, I got a random bit mentioning how they used to hang Catholic dissenters and I was like... was that really necessary.) Idk like, especially with all the research they did you figure something would have changed, that someone somewhere would have pointed it out

The line saying the player spoke the Queen's English REALLY bugged me. First of all I have a working class accent, and I'm American not British, but accent is still a touchy topic and was even more significant in the 1860s than it is now. Same point as above, there are a lot of characters that do not have high British accents. Phoebe, Archie, Ferret, Ivy. Why assume with the player? The thing is they already have a mechanic in place with the backstories! Sure, a society player would speak Queens English but a dockworker would not! Go by that!

And body diversity. Can we please get more characters that aren't the same thin body type. It being the Age of Malnutrition isn't an excuse. (To get specific. You Know Who was from Mesopotamia where the culture had beards. The one option in late railway uses the silhouette from the cheery man which has a beard so I had misplaced hope but alas)

Summary

While the game posed tidbits of interesting horror lore, the classic dark comedy tone, and spicy monsters (before the encounters became repetitive, that is), Mask fell flat in so many ways. I had an ending after seducing Milton where he remarked that the player rarely talks about themself and I laughed because yeah, that's how the game was designed. The player has no opportunity to gain a personality through flashbacks or dialogue choices. The NPCs are stiff and very rarely have unique reactions to your character. Conversation changes topic with no clear thread or motivation.

I'm honestly flummoxed how this got through development with these glaring problems. Everyone in the playerbase noticed them right away. Ugh. Little is more frustrating than things that had so much potential that isn't realized.

It felt like a long ES, with all the pros and cons of an ES lol. Certain paths blow your mind and you might walk into hot moments with ur favs. But then no time to realize why you should care about characters, story that abruptly ends, new mechanic that is shiny and interesting but can only carry it so far, yada yada yada

[zalrb]

do you agree with what initiumseries said here?

https://www.tumblr.com/initiumseries/717417386813358080/the-post-im-referencing?

I agree with what she's saying in terms of scale

Klaus feels like a petty baby vampire, and the actor doesn't have the gravitas to land a vampire that's over a thousand years old. Because they're just sort of...feeding and causing mischief for a summer, there's no plan, the level of destruction feels very contained. They say, oh they're killing people across state lines, but we don't see the cops, who are also supposed to be vampire killers, tracking this, maybe having a network that's hunting them, we don't see the magnitude of the impact, it's all just contained to a few bodies in a house each time.

TVD has always had a problem with scale even within Mystic Falls. When Maryann gets control of Bon Temps, it's complete chaos, like people are ripping out their own intestines, there are orgies and there's cannibalism and of course they can't do on The CW what they do on HBO but they can show impact and TVD sucks at that.

I do feel differently when it comes to the personal stakes for Stefan and for Stelena, though.

In the season 2 finale, we get that desperation and anger and resentment at what Klaus is forcing him to do

we also get the switch to something primal

and I understand her desire to want more of this throughout his time with Klaus in season 3 but for me, I think we see him check out in these scenes, like the disassociation has happened; him ignoring a call from Elena with that blank stare after which he kills a human is an indication of him repressing his humanity

so him being his attack dog in 3x01 works for me

and I do think we see him drowning and how much he hates what he's doing

even in 3x02 because Paul is expressive so we see the desperation is in his eyes

and Klaus giving him a lot of freedom because he wants a brother and he wanted Stefan's allegiance without resorting to compulsion, while in the bigger narrative is ridiculous and lacks stakes, for Stefan I think the fact that Klaus is actively trying to seduce him to the dark side as it were

while Stefan has to reconcile the things he's done in the past,

as well as his ripper nature which he keeps feeding

and protecting Elena, which includes getting her to stop looking for him

works for me because it's about will there ever come a line where Elena really does mean nothing to him anymore or will there ever come a line where Elena will actually be done?

Which also leads to the emotional stakes for something like the closet scene is more whether or not Stefan and Elena can survive this, she's standing in a closet with a list of his victims etched into the wall

I also personally enjoy the fact that when he's with Elena, the emotions he's kept in comes out because how could it not come out with Elena?

So Klaus works for me specifically related to Stefan and Stelena. Much like how Katherine works for me specifically related to how she fucked up Stefan's life.

[hrodvitnon]

Underrated aspect of Shamhat I really like but don't see mentioned at all really is how the Titans approach sex and how it delivers additional characterization about them. I think too often smut is kinda just two or more characters banged together like action figures with no additional characterization and the authors' kinks/fetishes projected onto them. This is why I really like Shamhat because (barring some exceptions) it doesn't do those things and ends being a really good character-driven narrative at the same time as being a smut-fest.

Prime example: I didn't like Shamhat Godzilla for a while. He seemed to me like this way overconfident alpha caricature that everyone was head over heels for just because he's, y'know, Godzilla. Every woman he breathed in the direction of turned to putty, when he realizes he's being peeped on with Mothra he opts to show off his mating prowess instead of stopping immediately for his wife's sake, and the implication that he got to tell Rodan who he was and wasn't allowed to get with and him immediately shouting commands at him when they first meet in the story really rubbed me the wrong way on him (I should probably qualify this was literally at the time of like, Chapter 7 being released- so still early and I was reading it on release and none of the supplemental material on this Tumblr. I hadn't even read Abraxas at this point lol). However, I think after I really looked into some of the scenes involving him as well as his general behavior- I do think I now have a much better perspective on him.

I feel like the fact that he is King weighs on him a little more than he lets show and that often trickles down into everything he does. Everyone knows him and has expectations of him, which he feels he has to rise to and meet. He feels like he has to play a role, put on a performance. This gets established in literally the first sex scene with him and Mothra when he realizes they're being watched. My headcanon here is that he actually thought this was Rodan peeping on them at first before he actually realizes it's Vivienne. My reasoning being that his pre-conceived notion would assume that Vivienne would be curt enough to just turn away and leave if she stumbled on them- but Rodan would absolutely stay and watch. Nonetheless, once he does realize he's being watched he almost completely unfocuses from Mothra and focuses on putting on a show- making sure to emphasize (as it says verbatim in the story) what he is capable of doing to a lover. Another subtle detail I really like is how he goes from vocalizing his pleasure with growls that seem to shake the ground to being as dead silent as he can manage (he does let out a 'quiet roar' when he cums, but I like to think that he was really trying hard to be quiet here, to sell that he's the dominant one in control and fulfilling his kingly duty to satisfy his queen, or at least to present himself as so to not lose face in front of Rodan or whoever else could've been watching). Even past all the sex- he usually acts overly theatrical to impress/seduce people (and it usually works. Case in point: Vivienne and Maia). When he does this- I think he acts in a way that he suspects humans might believe he would act. Like- he knows he's incredibly important to Vivienne and that she's definitely hoisted him up onto a lofty pedestal of some god she wants to win the favor of; and so he acts exactly like that for her sake as to not disappoint her (cue callback to the line "I would take it slowly, let her set the pace. And if I nick her in my passions, I'll tend to her." I think when he says 'passions', he means in both the more obvious physical way and the less obvious mental way that he worries he may not live up to be what Vivienne sees him as). Also interesting that this seems to permeate everywhere- even when he's with his wife of 200 million-ish years who you'd expect he trusts with his life, he still sometimes acts like this because he thinks he has to (however I will say that in many ways he might literally have to, and Mothra knows and acknowledges that). Another line I think is super telling is when Ling arrives and the royal couple needs to go meet them, "You're knot-deep in your needy, fertile wife and yet the outside world is what concerns you more? Since when were you so good at multitasking?". His kingly duties are at the forefront of his mind 24/7 and he needs to keep up appearances as often as humanely possible.

My favorite scene with Goji in the entire story is probably simultaneously the most overlooked one, as it's supposed to play side-fiddle to the scene the chapter is named after, is the one with Rodan in Chapter 8. Besides the obvious reasons that it could be assumed why this is my favorite, I'm really a fan of how Godzilla and Rodan sort of mutually see through one another's bullshit but neither are willing to admit it at first, so they kinda just dance around it and half-heartedly roleplay the punishing dom/bratty sub. I feel like despite Goji's best efforts to maintain the Kingly front in everything he does- Rodan can always see right through it because he does exactly the same thing himself with his own bad-boy bravado. He definitely knows that Godzilla's not actually planning to punish him after their bout with Vivi and Mothra but is still sorta playing along with it because he realizes Goji's doing the same thing. Once he's done with it, however, he actually calls Goji out on it- and he responds that Rodan would be confused if he didn't do anything to acknowledge what he did, so he basically admits to him that it was to keep up appearances. But I'm also pretty sure this is the only time someone actually calls him out for acting this way- every other time people just seem to let it slide. However, after he gets the message that Rodan can see right through the King act, he has genuine sex with him that he actually lets himself enjoy rather than trying to appear like he's in control or something like that. I also really like that Rodan does the same here; subtle, but it does show they do trust and enjoy each other's company despite constantly giving each other grief.

I actually think that Goji sort of improves on this in later chapters as he starts acting less like his kingly persona and more like his real self (letting himself get emotionally worked up in front of the group, allowing Tiamat to be all frisky with him, deciding to rely on Rodan and Vivienne to help with his rut instead of thuging it out). But- there is one wrench that gets thrown into his path multiple times and recently came to a head in the last chapter- San. I'm gonna skip a recap because god this is already so fucking long and go straight to the point. I know you got some flak for the stuff with Maia and Goji; but I do think it's totally in character for him to attempt to appear as the dominant force on Infant Island by screwing San's mate. It was very obviously pretty manipulate on his part to basically use Maia as a status symbol to lord his superiority over San- even if San had agreed to getting with different partners, Godzilla knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it. However, it totally lines up that he either feels like he'd be weak for not establishing a dominance hierarchy- or he feels threatened by San's presence and thinks that getting San to submit to him would bring a sense of security (like that snake in the nest thing with Vivienne and Rodan). However- one thing I will say on this front is I hope that this isn't just brushed to the side and excused like some other instances of his behavior are (or San's, they're both at fault). I feel like it'd be really unhealthy if say Mothra or Vivienne or even Rodan give him no flak for this and let it slide with no repercussions; or worse, find a way to spin it that paints it in a positive light, like- 'Yeah Godzilla's super-hot for trying to start beef and fight another guy we're supposed to be welcoming to the island. Really sexy alpha energy he's got going on there'. I think it would be a great time for Goji to actually get confronted by someone on his more toxic behaviors, and give him an opportunity to grow out of them by actually making up with San.

All that being said- I could just be overanalyzing smut again, so- yeah- lol. Cant wait for chapter 17!

If I may be totally honest here, I love discussions and analysis of Abraxas (it is my Super Serious Fic Baby that took Two Gyat Dang Years from start to finish), but I'd ADORE to see such in-depth analysis of Shamhat (the middle child, with my SIGNALIS fic series Liebchen, Komm zu Mir being the youngest baby). Also, was there any whiplash going from Shamhat's smutty shenanigans to Abraxas being... Abraxas?

This is already giving me ideas to tackle for future chapters, especially the upcoming one (which has been started but is on the back burner while I work on the latest and probably last installment of Liebchen, Komm zu Mir, soooo... maybe check those out if you want some fluff and sesbian lex? No spoilers in there, I promise. Beware comment sections.); because Goji has issues he needs to bring out to the open which will lead to a more serious and probably less smutty "intermission" chapter where he and San need to basically have a therapy session. Appreciate the critique of Goji's character writing!

Ozzy: Now I am become HORNY, the Destroyer of Worlds.

Well, if it's any consolation, the side-fic/spinoff Shamhat and Enkidu at the Watering Hole is meant to be for snippets that don't really fit in the ongoing events of Shamhat, so who knows, maybe such a threesome set in the past will appear there?

[rescue-ram]

I did a double feature of MASH (1970) and The Hurt Locker (2008) last night and let me tell ya, that is an interesting back-to-back experience.

I mean fundamentally the genres completely change the way the movies scan, but there are some striking similarities.

Both are shot in this "realistic" way that is both very striking and technically impressive. The Hurt Locker uses slow-mo to capture real explosions in great detail, and roaming documentarian filmwork to capture action in a more naturalistic way, and Altman's use of overlapping soundtracks was both very naturalistic and revolutionary and influential. His frequent use of busy unfocused framing is very important to the visual language of the film.

Shallow comparison, but I was struck that both films open with "thesis statement" quotes, The Hurt Locker with "War is a Drug" and MASH with excerpts from MacArthur's "Old soldiers never die" and Eisenhower's "I shall go to Korea" speeches. Because THL is a straight up drama, it's quote is more of a tone setter, while MASH's quotes are more sarcastic contrasted with the satire that follows.

Both eschew a traditional narrative, and are more of a sequence of thematically linked vignettes. I don't want to belabor the comparison too much, because they're very different films, and the thematic links, rising tension, and character arcs are much more clearly drawn in THL. The descent into madness is terrifying, and then the contrast with the banality of the real world does paint why James has been seduced by war. But MASH makes a lot more sense if you watch the movie knowing each scene is an escalation in absurdity running from the genuinely beautiful, eerie, and realistic opening sequence of casualties being flown into the unit, through a relatively grounded first act, an increasingly outrageous second, culminating in the almost nonsensical football bit at the end. (Uncontroversial opinion, I don't fucking like the football bit, but I do get what they're going for here.)

Both render the "meat" of their characters' work in loving gory detail. The surgery scenes in MASH are very realistic compared to the broad comedy scenes, and were genuinely shocking at the time. They provide a good contrast to the silly scenes, and I think a lot of the bite of the anti-war message comes from the contrast between their bloodiness and the pointless absurdism of the military around them. The attention to detail in the defusing scenes, the realism of the detonations, and the bloody aftermath provides the tension and horror in THL. Also striking neither film is about infantry, and feature little to no direct combat sequences- the characters are mopping up the damages after battles, either in bodies (MASH) or in munitions (THL).

James and Hawkeye are similar in their devil-may-care attitudes and lack of respect for military protocol and hierarchy. Both are hyper competent "wildmen" who will do whatever the have to do to do what they do very well. But this leads into the biggest contrast between the two films- Hawkeye was drafted and James has volunteered, repeatedly, to be here.

One last similarity- the theme of suicide runs through both movies. I think it's most overt in THL- James repeatedly rolls the dice with his own life and is called out for it, implied to be passively suicidal, or at the very least to be incapable of enjoying life without a metaphorical gun to his head, and it's not coincidental that the last two bombs are suicide bombers, neither of which are defused. The theme is more subliminal in MASH because again, comedy, but the notion that war is suicidally stupid is not hard to read.

Okay, getting into the contrasts, of which I'm going to highlight just a few:

The biggest biggest difference is in the make up of the army. In MASH the conflict is between draftees and Regular Army, and the Regular Army is given zero (0) dignity or respect. "How did that man get an officer's commission?" Hot Lips asks indignantly, to which Mulcahy replies "He was drafted." Thesis statement of the film baby! In order to go to war, you either have to be crazy and stupid (Regular Army) or dragged there against your will and driven crazy by your desire to do literally anything except be there (the draftees). THL is an all volunteer army, and the three main characters give a nice little range of "why are they there." Eldridge is a kid implied to have been seduced by unrealistic patriotic propaganda, and is now having a bit of a breakdown realizing he's going to kill and die for nothing. Sanborn is a career soldier, "ten years military intelligence", who ends the film breaking down realizing he wants a real life away from war. James is already broken at the start of the film.

Maybe this should really go under similarities, but the way commanding officers are handled is interesting. In MASH, to reiterate, they appear and are depicted as universally incompetent, stupid, and/or delusional. They are absent in THL, the EOD team acting mostly independently, and I can only think of two who appear on screen- the guy who is impressed by James' cowboy bullshit at the embassy bombing, and the ineffectual psychologist Colonel Cambridge who gets killed because his attempts to be nice allow an insurgent to plant an IED within their perimeter. Not sure if the absence of superiors is a comment on the remove of the brass from on the ground action, the result of focused filmmaking, or something else.

I think the final and biggest difference is the role of fear in the movies. THL is both a tense movie to watch, and one in which characters feeling fear tells you important data about them. I was struck by how reactive most of the American soldiers are, repeatedly screaming orders, ducking for cover, and frequently freaking out. The biggest contrast between Sanborn and James are their reactions- Sanborn openly emoting and freaking out when things go wrong, contrasted with James excitement, focused competence, or quiet and internalized breakdowns. James honestly comes across as better than most of the other soldiers who are more reactive, but the film is explicit that that's a symptom of his pathology and addiction. I saw current day reviews of MASH that criticize it for being a movie about the horrors of war with very little horrors- to which I thought "Yeah babes, it's a comedy, and if there's one thing the horrors of war are not it's funny"- but I think what a lot of people are picking up on it that at no point do the characters seem afraid. While war is immediate and threatening in THL, in MASH, although the 4077th is just 3 miles from the front, no one is particularly concerned. The Regular Army are delusional and more concerned with spreading American values through fucking football and other bullshit, and the draftees are more focused on distracting themselves and making their own fun. I think this is commentary on how pointless the American interventions in Korea and Vietnam were- literally no one cares- but as the audience correctly points out it directly detracts from the horrors it opposes. The film originally had a subplot where Ho-Jon is drafted by the Korean army, injured on the front lines, and dies on the operating table on the 4077th that Altman cut for being too much of a downer, but I kind of wish had been retained. I think there's an alternate universe where a slightly less funny version of the film was made, and the last fifteen minutes replace the football bit with Hawkeye being sent to the front lines to provide medical assistance as he did on the show, and we get 15 minutes of absolutely brutal and horrifying combat, then he returns, gets his discharge papers, and steals a jeep and bugs out of there with Forrest. I do think a little fear would've heightened a lot of the themes in MASH, but it's also psychologically interesting to me that the anti-Vietnam movies appeals mostly to anger and outright nonconforming rebellion, while the anti-Iraq movie is both less anti-military in its messaging and it's characters are fearful or dissociative under stress rather than angry.

[alicelufenia]

musings on FFXVI story based on the demo (tl;dr not feeling so hype anymore)

So yeah obviously it's going to be a well written and competently made story that will make you feel many things. What I'm unhype about is, much like 14's story, it's looking to be very uncritical with the way it portrays women.

The first inkling of it was that interview where YoshiP answered a question about in-universe diversity by falling back on an appeal to "reality" as many Western fantasy authors do when they want to excuse why their fantasy worlds seem to always be populated by white people. So "mature fantasy" for this team already means borrowing some of the uglier sides of Western fantasy uncritically.

So it's no surprise that apparently the "narrative boundaries" demand a story where the very first female character we see uses sex appeal in a military negotiation, then has what I can only describe as "bad guy sex" in the hallway immediately after. Very empowering, much girlboss.

But okay, she's a villain and villain sexy. What about the other women so far?

Well, one's completely helpless and is MIA at the end of the demo (though apparently survives) and the other is the main villain of the first chapter, who tries to seduce the Extremely Based dad but is rebuked because her feminity exists in the story as a weapon, and at the end has both her (set dressing, non-character) hand maidens executed for shock value and to show how irredeemable she is, but in a Evil Noble Woman way.

I swear it is like the game is looking at you the player and giving you permission to shout "YOU BITCH" at the screen. Literally every stream I've watched you can predict when the chat will be full of that down to the second.

Also, no women in the Shields. Gee I wonder why. Will we see the in-universe sexism confronted at any point? Or is it just part of the western fantasy aesthetic? Who can say, time will tell.

But what it's telling me so far is that the writers see feminity in two shades. Weak and Helpless, or Manipulating [insert gendered slur here]. And I mean it when I say it's horribly gendered. Men are badass in a variety of ways--strength of arms, noble blood, royal authority, dying from Cool Explosions or dying on their feet weapons drawn. Women's options for power are so far, being nobles and wielding political power, or having to flee or get cut down unawares by random soldiers (can you tell I hate that scene?)

Even Beneditka is only a badass because she's a Dominant--y'know one of the singularly most powerful individuals in the setting--and throws the most embarrassing tantrum I've ever seen on screen after being defeated, and she is supposed to be a person in a position of command. Like you look me in the eye and tell me you could see ANY of the male characters acting that way, even if they're characterized as horribly unhinged?

So yeah, after an initial spike of excitement I think I'm gonna pass on XVI until much later, and hearing how the story and characters shake out. But I don't have faith in these writers when THIS was their tone setter.

tl;dr - more fantasy sexism, but a mature rating means they can be so much worse with it now. At least it plays well.

[emileesaurus]

So here's a list of some of the major contradictions or weird gaps I noticed in the first two episodes. I'm not being nitpicky or a book purist here -- I'm trying to take this show on its own merits and go along with its own narrative logic and characterization, so let's go.

First of all, Lestat says "I bring death to those deserving" in the church and never elaborates. So far we haven't seen him kill anyone even a little bit evil, though. He killed a random lamplighter, he killed Lily, he almost certainly mind-controlled Paul to his death (it's obviously the subtext! this is my OJ), he killed the two priests who by the way were also Louis's family friends, the first man that they kill seems like a really nice guy, and the tenor's only crime was being slightly off key.

So what does "deserving" mean? Because without anything else to contextualize it, the only thing those people could have done to deserve it was to get between Lestat and Louis.

Notably, Lestat doesn’t lay a finger on the racist businessmen who insult and degrade Louis for six years, and when Louis actually does finally stand up for himself (which Lestat told him he should do! that was his whole vampire pitch! oh my god!) Lestat yells at him and tells him he overreacted. When they "make up," Lestat says that he would have killed the man himself if he had actually brought offense. Only this never actually happens. He never defends Louis himself to anyone at any time. So the one time someone bad is killed on screen, it's by Louis, and he gets in trouble for it.

-

Lestat talks to Louis with the Mind Gift when they're seducing the man in the bar, and then a few scenes later he explains that makers and fledglings can't hear each other's thoughts. SO WHICH IS IT? I could explain this away by saying that the transformation wasn't fully complete, but that's not the kind of thing I should have to fix myself as a viewer.

-

Modern day Louis takes the little drink from his pet Russian man, who just looks bored and not into it? He’s having a whole conversation in his non-native language while Louis sucks his blood from his neck. So is the vampire bite irresistible or not? It throws the whole premise of how they take their victims right into the trash. And for what? A cheap joke at an awkward situation?

-

After Louis's first kill, he says he didn't take to killing easily. But we never actually see him struggling with it at all. In fact, the only other kill we do see is the racist businessman, and it goes just fine and he feels perfectly justified about it. So what does this alleged struggle look like? How does he feel about having to kill every night? We don't know! It's not like this is the central struggle of the character he's based on and the main thing about being a vampire, let's not waste time on boring things like that.

-

After Louis doesn't eat his sister's baby, he cries about how he'll never be able to control himself. Except he totally just did control himself, and also we never previously saw him even attempting to control himself, much less failing at it, so it just feels completely out of left field.

-

Lestat and Louis fight about the alderman because Lestat thinks it was an overreaction, and too close to home for safety. But when Louis goes to Lestat in distress because he almost impulsively ate his sister's baby right in her living room, Lestat tells him he's being silly and his only actual advice is to cut ties with his family. Then he takes him on the most fucked up degrading powerplay date of all time.

So... he berates Louis for taking victims close to home, and then when Louis is worried because he almost ate his own nephew, Lestat ignores it as if it couldn’t possibly be a real problem to worry about. Is Lestat supposed to look like a completely unhelpful asshole in this version? Does he think Louis has more control than Louis believes he does? If so, why does he think that? Whose version of events is accurate? Is it ambiguous on purpose? Is it just bad writing?

We can’t know, because we don’t get to see what Louis’s experience with killing was really like for these six years to form our own conclusions.

-

AND THEN THE MUSICIAN THING. FUCK.

Lestat: “buy the entire saloon band a round of drinks :)”

Lestat: “oh, you have a banjo band in your front yard :)”

Louis voiceover: “Lestat revered music and anyone who had a hand in its creation.”

[less than one minute later]

Lestat : [has a hissy fit and psychologically demolishes and tortures a man for hours for being mildly off key]

WHAT????? You can't tell me the saloon band and the banjos were more talented than an opera singer who no one else even noticed was bad. This is just a weird thing for Louis’s voiceover to tell us literally right before Lestat ruins their date by having an hours-long murder tantrum over one performer being slightly flat. And Louis said that line in literally the exact same scene! If the contradiction is intentional, I don’t know what purpose it serves. It seems more likely to be shoddy script work.

(This is also awful Lestat characterization, but I promised I would take this show as if it were the only canon. I just. I can’t keep it in about this.)

-

And why does Lestat have that meltdown when he's killing the tenor? It feels like it’s referencing a vaguely similar scene from the book and movie, but the context for it is entirely different, and it’s not fair to use that as a crutch. All that’s happened is Louis told Lestat he was worried because he almost ate his nephew, and then very mildly complained about Lestat torturing a man for a half an hour, on the date that was supposed to be cheering Louis up after the almost-baby eating.

WHY IS HE SO ANGRY? It's abrupt and out of nowhere and it comes off as completely unhinged, and then Louis just gives in and drinks from the man (which is very much coded as vampire sex) for hours, while his voiceover admits that he was only pretending to enjoy it so that Lestat wouldn't be disappointed. It’s incredibly dark, and it doesn’t make Lestat look complicated or deep or like he’s hiding painful secrets, he just seems depraved and manipulative.

-

WHY DID HE GET NAKED BEFORE HE GOT IN THE COFFIN? WHY DID HE MAKE LOUIS GET IN THE COFFIN AT ALL??? There’s no in-universe reason for them to need to be in there -- the room is sunproofed and they can be awake during the day -- so it’s just sexual assault in this version. Rad.

-

Most of all, is Louis an unreliable narrator, or is this an honest recounting of events? Because the premise of the show as they advertised it is that this is the “true story,” and Louis is ready to honestly account for things that he couldn’t in the past. So these massive discrepancies between what we’re seeing and what Louis is saying don’t feel intentionally ambiguous, they feel narratively murky.

It doesn’t help that the 1974 book simply can’t be the original interview they’re referring to -- there’s just nothing at all that’s the same between them. In fact, they say they didn’t even get to finish their original interview. Maybe the 70s flashback (I hear it’s in episode six?) will clear up what the original one was like in this universe, but in the meantime, if the show doesn’t tell us what Louis originally omitted or was ambiguous about, the fact that this is a second “more honest” interview means almost nothing at all. Will this framing device pay off eventually?

This show is frustrating to watch. It handholds the audience through the most obvious information like it doesn’t trust that we aren’t stupid, but then doesn’t bother to show critical emotional and narrative beats.

[fideidefenswhore]

I find Jane Seymour interesting and all but her fans sometimes just ruin her for me lol.

Instagram is particularly exhausting in this regard, they want to completely separate her from both her marriage to Henry (he forced her, or her family forced her, or something to that effect), everything that happened to her predecessor/s (she didn't want that, she didn't dance on their graves, but if she had, they would have deserved it!), and her family (THEY were ambitious, SHE wasn't!). They essentially treat her like she was an angel that lived in a vacuum, and her (relative) silence is taken as virtue and filled in with benefit of the doubt that is beyond speculative (she didn't do anything for her sister elizabeth or her stepdaughter elizabeth, BUT i'm sure she wanted to). Not to mention the insistence that she was a great beauty (it doesn't matter that she was BUT it's deathly important to me that you ADMIT she was)... a popular Tudor account recently posted her portrait and the comment section was overtaken by their meltdowns that it was 'slander' and the original Holbein portrait proves that she was 'beautiful' (the portrait in question is a copy from Holbein's workshop that is almost identical, obviously his students would have attempted to ape it as much as possible...? One wonders if they were thinking of a different, 19c portrait)

But honestly, I find most of the stans of any of Henry's queens exhausting. They're not unique in insisting that Jane was ontologically good, but I do find them to be the ones that most insist that she was 'innocent' and pushed into a tyrant's lap by a blackguard (this was common in AB stans more when Lissa Bryan was the most active/popular Tudor blog on here); pretending that she possessed some moral high ground in loyalty by constructing a narrative that she didn't entertain Henry's courtship while his 'true wife' (Catherine) was alive, and only did so once she was dead (for what...all of a week? Less than that? Before that, quite possibly, if Anne knew of it by early February, "loved others"), or she did 'seduce' Henry but only for his eldest daughter's benefit. The yarns they spin are unreal in their reach.

[a-nybodys]

Idk about the other stuff, but isn't Izzy's whole thing is he's gay and homophobic? Like, not like a Bible thumping homophobe, and this show is meant to be positive so they aren't going to make him like call people slurs and he's gonna respect pronouns, but Izzy in the narrative represents toxic masculinity, and there is homophobia in toxic masculinity. He may not even hate like men sleeping together cuz pirates are desperate, but he hates softness and effeminacy and caring/attachment in men, and that is a major part of homophobia and toxic masculinity. The people he has the most beef with are the most flamboyant gay men on the ship. He tries to make Lucius do hard labor, but he also taunts Lucius over sleeping with men, and then he tries to his sexuality against him before Lucius reveals it doesn't matter to him. He hates Stede for making him look bad, but he also hates what Stede is doing to Ed, and says that thinks Stede is seducing Ed and that its breaking Ed's brain by making him "soft" and caring, and is also horrified when he thinks they're having sex. And then he insults and threatens Ed over, going soft and heartbroken over his pining after his "namby pamby boyfriend." To me, that is homophobia and it's a part of Izzy's general toxic masculinity stance. And I say this while saying that I love Izzy. He's funny and an interesting character and I wanna study him under a microscope, and I wanna see where his character will go from here, if he'll get redeemed or get more evil or just hang out on the ship still minding his own business. There is absolutely nothing wrong with liking him, and I'm not saying this as a reason to make people hate him, and no way are fans of Izzy homophobic for liking him. That literally makes no sense. But I don't understand him not atleast representing homophobia in a subtextual way, as the Badmintons do, since toxic masculinity and homophobia (among other things) are intertwined together and the stuff he uses to jab at Ed and Lucius and Stede is their presentation and even sexuality. As the antagonist, his goal is separating the gay romantic leads and keeping toxic masculinity the same as it was before Stede. I might be completely missing something here or misunderstanding something, I dont know. I do not mean for this to sound rude at all, I'm just genuinely curious about your thoughts.

i think its possible to uphold toxic masculine standards while not being homophobic. but, honestly, he doesnt even really read toxic masculinity to me tbh.

he had to have known ed was gay, he was close to the man for years if not decades, and i really dont think izzys issues with stede or lucius stem from homophobia but maybe more of a general aversion to how they pirate. he views piracy as a tough, dog eat dog world (as do the rest of the pirates in the show other than the crew), one that cant be solved by kindness or caring or anything stede tries to uphold. he is angry that stede is trying to get by like this, without any hard work on his part, without any blood sweat or tears and, worst of all, without failing miserably. we dont know anything abt izzys backstory but i think it genuinely burns him up that the crew of the revenge doesnt even have to work particularly hard to get by and even thrive, because thats not his experience at all. i think he got to where he rests, at the top of the top, second only to the best pirate ever, through pain and death and hard work. i think his problems with stede arise from more of a place of ‘he has the money and resources and luck to get by without any hard work’ and less of ‘hes effeminate and i hate that about him.’ same with the whole ‘daddy’ scene, hes not mad at lucius for having sex with a man, hes mad at lucius for not working and slacking off. he brings up fang and pete as a threat, not because he finds it gross, but because its a way to blackmail lucius into following izzys orders.

and by him being disgusted by his thinking of ed and stede having sex, i def think it has way more to do with ed having sex with stede than ed having sex with a man. he just genuinely hates the guy lmao. he knew jack was “close with” (read:had fucked) ed before, otherwise he wouldnt have sent jack to play with ed’s emotions and trick him into leaving the revenge.

idk i think my view of it all comes down to theres no way izzy could idolize ed and work on a crew consisting entirely of leather daddies if he was homophobic lmao, and i dont think ed wouldve kept him around if he were either.

[awed-frog]

hey! i wanted to let you know that i think your cas/stages of grief meta was absolutely amazing. cas's story never really made sense to me, it always seemed so inconsistent, like they had no idea where they were going with it, and your meta is the first i've read that made me see some central theme in it after all. so kudos for that :) just out of curiosity, you have any idea where they're going with crowley? bc his story is another one that always felt the opposite of straightforward to me.

Whats your hope for Crowleys arc on this season?

Hi! Thank you so much for all that! I am the most awful person, because not only I’m like, two months late in answering this but I’m also going to bundle it up with an anon ask. Sorry, @andallthewildthingsroared!

(I did write the overly long thing I promised you, though, so there’s that.)

I understand where you’re coming from - Crowley’s arc is sort of zigzaggy, but if you take away what was clearly bad characterization (such as that one-off threat to Sam complete with red eyes which never went anywhere), I sort of feel like we can know who Crowley is, and what he wants.

Background

So, just as a summary - we know he was a bastard, and that he had a stable enough relationship with his mother that he remembers her (not fondly), and that she up and left soon enough that it felt like she was abandoning him (eight is a bit soon to fend for yourself, even in the seventeenth century). We know he had a son, and since Gavin’s mother is never mentioned, I want to say unremarkable entity who died in childbirth? Because if this had been his great love, and if she’d survived long enough to be remembered by Gavin, I hope to God that would have been brought up in the narrative (come on). So, either Crowley didn’t give a damn about her, and got saddled with the kid for some reason, or he cared a lot and she died pretty early on and that’s possibly the reason he started being so awful to everybody (hello, John Winchester’s parallels). We also know he was a tailor, which, in those times, and for an orphan, implies either that Rowena used magic to help him out (unlikely for a number of reasons) or that he was actually a very smart, very talented kid who had to work his ass off during his apprenticeship, as was usual for the times. In this case, we’ve got someone whose life was out of his control from a very young age, and who knows what it’s like to be at a master’s whim. 

Demon deal

Now, what doesn’t fit with this picture is the idea a kid like that would sell his soul for a longer dick, as Crowley boasted to have done (also, as amusing as it is, this would be a moot point by now, since Crowley’s in a different body). What I consider more likely is that Crowley’s current vessel - the literary agent in his late forties possibly all work and all play as that job often entails - tried to make a similar deal (and that would be a reason for Crowley to stick with the body afterwards; after all, we know he’s vain and likes to sleep around, so, vessel for vessel, why not go for a bigger dong?); as for Crowley himself, I really can’t guess what happened. Gavin remembers him as a useless drunkard, and he certainly had no riches to pass on - so much so, Gavin was forced to emigrate to the Colonies. What did Crowley gain, exactly, in exchange for his soul? An intriguing possibility is that, like Dean, he took the deal to save someone else - perhaps Gavin himself from some childhood fever - and became a drunk asshole out of blind panic the closer he got to the deadline. I like this explanation, because there was always this weird pull between Crowley and Dean, and this would go a long way towards explaining it; but, really, this is one of those things it’s useless to speculate about - either the show will tell us, or it won’t.

(Another possibility I like, but which would have come up by now, is that Rowena sold her kid’s soul to pay for her own magic - a plot bunny I explored here.)

Whatever his reasons, Crowley’s time in hell took this primal lack of control over his own life and made it a thousand times worse. We still don’t know, exactly, how demons are created, how long it takes, and who decides which eyes you’ll get, and which job you’ll do. This is, like, one of the 2000 things the show could get into instead of inventing new lore (I’m not complaining, though - S11 was magnificent, and S12 has been very good so far). What we do know is that the entire process is excruciatingly painful; that it distorts, or takes away, your human soul. If we think about other soulless creatures we’ve encountered, what Crowley is makes a lot of sense. It’s not about being evil, exactly; it’s more about a lack of caring and empathy. There are moments where Crowley actually reminds me of soulless!Sam - like when he pushed Dean into Cain’s arms just because it was convenient on the short term. 

Crowley the crossroads demon

Becoming a demon is also the worst kind of punishment, we should assume, because it completely takes away your free will.

(This is not exactly true, since we’ve seen a lot of demons doing stuff on the side and betraying their masters left, right and centre - but I want to think those demons breaking ranks parallel the mess that’s going on in Heaven - that these are creatures that, under normal circumstances, ie, pre-Winchesters and pre-Apocalypse, functioned as mindless servants under a king. Like angels, demons can, theoretically, think for themselves, but I feel like they’re not designed to? Although, where the angels craved order - and orders - Crowley was hoping to get support by promising other demons ‘a say, a virgin and all the entrails they can eat’ - which means demons are perhaps not as happy as angels to give up their agency. And, well, it would make sense: they do not belong to a different species, after all. They used to be human.)

And so we’ve got the transformation from human!Crowley, indentured to some abusive master as a boy, to demon!Crowley, who’s got no choice but to follow his torturers around. Except, well, Crowley’s smart (too smart for his own good, probably) and ballsy and free will is something he cares about, very fucking much (and this is another tie to Dean). From what we know, it looks like Crowley schemed and schmoozed his way into acquiring enough weapons, knowledge, powers and secrets that he was almost part of the inner circle which was preparing for Lucifer’s return. And here is where his story gets interesting, because, to get Roman about it, “We rob the world, but he will rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, Lucifer will be rapacious; if he be poor, Lucifer will lust for dominion; he will make a desert and call it peace.”

Crowley and the Winchesters

I don’t remember if it’s ever explained why Crowley chose to bet on the Winchesters, of all people, to go against Lucifer. I think we’re meant to not question this - to assume that they’re our main characters and fierce hunters and yadda yadda, but it’s still interesting that Crowley would know them - and well, at that. I like to think they’d been on his radar from the very beginning (or, at least, that Sam was) because of Azazel’s demented scheme, and it’s certainly possible Crowley knew everything about their dealings with Hell, including Sam’s death, Dean’s self-sacrifice, and how and why he was saved. He’s been shown, after all, to be one of the most knowledgeable characters on the board, and if he’s been keeping track of the Winchesters for years and years, that would go a long way in explaining his fond exasperation for their antics. 

Now, Crowley is, of course, fascinating and interesting in himself, but what is also worth noting is that his character, like Cas’ (and perhaps even more than Cas’), is relevant in light of his relation to Dean - and Dean’s sexuality.

The first thing here is - unlike Cas, who, inevitably, had a very strong relationship with Dean from the start which made perfect narrative sense, Crowley could always go either way. It can even be argued that logically, it would have made more sense to pair him off with Sam. First of all, there’s the symmetry (Dean and his angel, Sam and his demon); then there’s the fact Crowley’s got more in common with Sam than he does with Dean - the books, the art, the interest in weird languages and weirder mythology, a general ‘the end justifies the means’ attitude - I know we now have years of backstory to influence how we view those characters, but if we take them in isolation - sure, Dean and Crowley would have fun on a night out (and we’ve seen what they do together: play pool, get drunk, sleep it off with a various number of partners of unspecified gender), but Sam and Crowley - now, that had the potential of a real friendship of the minds (as I said, forget about their history and put aside Crowley’s shady morals for a second - can’t you see how much fun they would have had to explore the Bunker’s library together? how they could have planned thefts, Leverage-style, to recover some painting stolen by an oil magnate - how they would have fought at the end, because, of course, Sam wanted to donate it to a museum and Crowley, well, was planning on keeping it, because he0d bloody well earned it?). Sam becoming friends with a demon after the whole Ruby ordeal would have been a huge bout of character growth, in line with his ‘forgive and don’t judge people by their birth’ personality. And as for Crowley, it would have made sense for him to bond with Sam rather than Dean - if only for the obvious reason: Sam could still be (potentially) his future boss. The boy with the demon blood; the only vessel that can hold Lucifer. Honestly, since Crowley never wanted to be king in the first place, it would have made perfect sense for him to seduce Sam (platonically) and then guide him to the throne - there, problem solved. He would have been chief advisor of The One Who Was Foretold, right there at Sam’s right hand to keep an eye on his every decision, and he would have known, because he would have taken the time to get to know Sam, that Sam (even as a demon king) would be a fair ruler - and, more importantly, a ruler loyal to his old friends.

It was, really, the perfect scheme - and yet the idea never came up at all. In fact, Sam and Crowley lost another momentous occasion to get closer to each other - even after Sam fed Crowley his own blood, the relationship between them remained distant at best, and hostile at worst. That always struck me as really, really weird. Sam saw Crowley at his most vulnerable, and despite being Mr Forgiveness, he continues to hate Crowley with a vengeance and the whole thing never comes up at all. Uh.

I mostly think the main reason for this is very simple: Sam ‘I desperately need my own plotline’ Winchester is straight. Very straight. Pairing him with a man would have been weird. Mirroring the relationship Dean has with Cas - weirder. The thing worked until Ruby was around, but with Crowley they would have missed a lot of juicy subtext. And so, once again and despite all odds, Dean got yet another character to add to his court, and Sam was left with nothing more than Lucifer’s mild interest in him (or, as Sam himself put it in entaglednow’s side-splitting series, “Great, you get the epic love story and I get the creepy sadomasochistic non-con.”).

(This is another reason, by the way, why their refusal to be clearer on the whole ‘Dean is bi’ issue is hurting the show: it is partly, or mostly, because they’re desperate to keep that subtext going that Dean gets all the characters - people like Charlie, or Benny, or even Jody offering him to talk in her most suave mom voice - all of these things make sense in the narrative because they’re feeding the underlying subtext. And since this is, objectively, a Big Story and the core of who Dean is, and Sam’s only stake in it would be a tragic ‘I know I said I’d die for him, but I’ll now reject my gay brother out of moral virtue’ nonsense which clearly doesn’t apply to the character, he’s left with literally nothing to do. Really - most of the story seems to gravitate around these two open secrets - Dean’s sexuality, and Dean’s love for Cas; and since, as I said, Sam’s got nothing to do with either, and no reason to be mad about either, he’s left with no narrative role. Only yesterday @tinkdw was saying how the entire myth arc of S11 doesn’t make any sense without Destiel, and she’s perfectly right; most things, for a lot of time, have been about Dean’s heart.

And I want to add that I’m not okay, or happy, with any of this. First, I think it’s dishonest to include so much subtext that it basically props up your whole narrative while denying anything’s going on; and second, Sam’s a fantastic character and there’s a lot he could do - it defies logic and reason that they’re not using him better. Like, I still can’t believe the entire God reveal was only about Dean, that we still haven’t heard how Sam feels about Lucifer being around, that he’s barely had one conversation with his mother, and that he basically has zero relationships with other characters. Come on - there’s so many awesome things you could do with someone like Sam, why aren’t they doing them? On a show that’s supposedly all about the two of them, and only the two of them?)

Crowley’s arc

By having Crowley’s represent Dean’s eros to Cas’ agape (and I want to say this is a learned reference, but I’m really just thinking about YOI right now), the main mirror for Crowley, and therefore his character arc, was firmly established. Crowley would parallel Cas - and viceversa. The journey, for both of them, is to get closer to humanity (and ‘humanity’), and what’s been fascinating is that, of course, they start off in two very different places.

As I said in the beginning, Crowley’s all about control. He’s very Scarlett O’Hara about things, and he’s got good reason to be. In this, he’s heavily paralleled with Cas, but where Cas focuses his newfound (?) free will on everything but himself - hence the Jesus-like characterization - Crowley’s most consistent character trait is his selfishness. All of his schemes, and most of his ambitions, are ultimately directed at saving himself and avoid pain and death, which, to be honest, would be sensible from anyone’s point of view but is particularly understandable if we consider we’re dealing with a soulless creature who’s got no capacity to love and has endured decades, if not centures, of torture. What is most significant about Crowley, therefore, is the same thing that makes Cas stands out: how Crowley is learning about himself, and how to become who he truly is, through his love for Dean. This is something that we discuss every other day, so I won’t get into it (see for instance the ‘drowley’ tag on my blog, or read here, here or here), but it’s clearly become a major part of his character arc. 

(His decision to sacrifice that spear to save Cas, for instance, was a huge step in this direction - selfishness to selflessness - so huge I still can’t believe I watched it with my own two eyes. It will probably be mirrored, quite soon, by Cas making a step of his own - in his case, towards selfishness, ie, the Winchesters’ happiness, and therefore his own, and away from yet another idiotic heavenly battle plan.) 

As for what will come of it - the problem with this kind of Are you truly my enemy? characters - or, well, the trouble with everything - is that there is a limited number pf ways their story can end. And, again, the problem with Crowley and where his story is going is the same problem we have with everything else - Dean, Sam, Destiel and so on: it all depends on which kind of story this is, and what they’re trying to say with it. So, let’s have a look at it.

A) Crowley could remain his slightly evil self and die because of it - this would place Supernatural in a kind of ‘moralistic’ narrative: the good guys triumph, and the bad guys pay the price.

B) Or, he could try to do the right thing and get killed in the process: that’s the definition of tragedy, which somehow works even better when a character was despicable to start with - think Last of the Mohicans, or Severus Snape. In this case, his death would likely be the first (or the last) of many other significant characters.

C) Another possibility is that Crowley could become human, and that would be both interesting and heartbreaking to watch, because we know Crowley is very ambitious, but, as I said, my headcanon is that he became wary and power-hungry because of what was done to him in Hell. After all, Dean did get a kind of special treatment, but what he went through was also the standard procedure to destroy someone’s soul - so drunken tailor Fergus was probably on the rack for decades, until the last shred of humanity left inside him burned and withered, and it’s likely that at some point he had his O'Hara moment and that’s why he always puts himself first: because he’s bloody scared shitless to be vulnerable again. In this sense, a human Crowley would be resentful and terrified - and therefore, a beautiful character to watch.

(Not that there would be anyone left to watch, since if they go there, I think they’ll do it at the last possible moment.)

D) Or, Crowley could remain a demon but shift his priorities so completely as to work with the Winchesters full-time, sort of like Cas did. Now, this would be quite something because Cas and Crowley are often paralleled, but at the same time it would put Crowley in a difficult position: I am sure Sam and Dean would fully accept him as a member of TFW only if Crowley repented and behaved like an unpstanding citizen from then on, and how is all that compatible with being the king of Hell? Plus, what would happen to the other demons? Was Crowley making more demons when he had complete control of Hell? We know he turned Hell more bureaucratic and 'punishment fits the crime’ and whatever, but his demons were still eating human flesh, and I’m not sure they can even survive without? So, well, however noble Crowley’s intentions, that would be an uneasy alliance. If Crowley remains his lovable and snarky demon self, I see more of an Eric Northman ending for him: sure, he gets his throne and all sort of pretty distractions, but he loses his Sookie forever.

E) And finally: Crowley could be killed in a freak ‘accident’, maybe by an ally of the Winchesters who didn’t know he was sort of a friend (Mary is a prime candidate), or by Cas or Sam because of the greater good, or maybe even by Dean himself - but not by choice - and that would be a sort of fridging because it would shift the meaning of his death to the damage it’d do to his killer.

Which hypothesis is more likely? 

Well: first of all, we need to bear in mind a few RL factors. They’ll probably want to keep Mark around because he’s awesome, the fans generally like him so that’s another plus, and I firmly believe they still don’t know how they want Supernatural to end (or even what the next season’s theme is going to be) so a character like Crowley is a godsend, because when weird shit needs to happen or you suddenly need drama or whatever, you can always count on someone like that to make it happen (and that’s another reason why I don’t think Crowley will become human any time soon: it would severely limit the weird shit they can pull off) - which means, it’s likely they’ll keep him around for a while. And also: his death would bring nothing, narratively, to the table. For instance, John’s death and Bobby’s death sort of made sense, because the boys had some growing up to do, and killing someone like Cain or defeating Lucifer was important because it told us our boys are on the Good side even when it’s difficult, but now we know all this. 

To me - if we’re looking at the very end, there are only two ways this makes sense: either Crowley is killed off, or sacrifices himself, in some heartwrenching scenario so that his death will mean Cas or Dean or even Sam lives, or he becomes human - my headcanon is that he’ll still know how to do magic, because I’m a sucker for magician!Crowley - and walks away from the boys entirely. If Supernatural ends in tragedy, then it’s the first option all the way; but if its end is more like, there are no more monsters and you’re now free to open a car repair shop, then it only makes sense that both Cas and Crowley become human. Cas will be the sort of human who still stares up at the sky from time to time and will lie to Dean when Dean asks and say it’s okay (hopefully, Dean won’t believe a word of it and kiss him extra hard that night), and Crowley - Crowley likes to be the centre of attention, so I’m thinking politics. Or maybe he’ll hoodwink his way to the very top of a renowned auction house and meet some wealthy widow at his local golf club, and that will be it - a sort of happy ending, and the occasional drunk call to Dean to reminisce about that happy, happy summer they once had.