#using that experience to better herself. which is kind of the ultimate fantasy

[caustic-light]

Honestly it's such a realistic divorced kid experience. Both parents clearly lacking the counterbalance they used to have and being unable to really work it out due to suddenly having so much more shit to deal with, as well as the relationships end kind of pulling the worst of their traits to the forefront on a personal end. This would have been at its worst during the time of their separating and to her credit, Toriel is doing a lot to not let her relationship to Kris be defined through unresolved feelings about Asgore (as well as offer Asgore a neutral relationship as parents), which he is clearly not doing to the same degree.

I think a lot of Toriel's issues are partially a symptom of dealing with the fallout of the separation and trying to be a stable and reliable parent for Kris, who isn't an complete mess, which is important because Asgore is clearly not doing it, but comes at the cost of her capacity for parenting beyond providing shelter, food and stability. To engage too deeply with Kris's own emotional fallout would put that stability at risk, because it would force her to confront her own emotional fallout and put her into the same situation as Asgore, disrupting what little sense of normalcy and stability Kris has left.

They both practice avoidance through escapism into a fantasy of the stable family life they used to have and the idea that this will both fix their own issues and provide comfort for Kris, but where for Toriel this means holding an iron grip on her role of the functional parent who is actually able to provide for her child (which is not totally wrong of her, just complicated), for Asgore it means reinserting himself into their family and home life, rather than establishing his own and taking steps to be able to provide for Kris what Toriel is providing.

Ultimately I don't think their issues are of equal weight. Toriel is a better fit as a parent at the moment, which is why she is Kris's primary parent. And Asgore clearly understand this.

This makes the ending of chapter 4 really interesting, because it's Toriel being neglectful in a way that so far has been out of character for her. In one sense it's a big step forward for her. She is allowing herself to let go of the iron grip on the image of the parent she is aspiring towards and just having fun as her own, being her own person. But because of the side effects of her parenting and struggle for stability, she doesn't realize that to Kris this isn't just a "my parent has been acting kinda weird today." It's a "I had one of the most emotionally complicated experiences of my life and really need a safe place and comfort right now and my parent is not here to give me that."

There has also been some talk about Toriel possibly having a history with alcohol based on some of Kris's reactions towards her, which is it's own bed of worms to cross, but I think it would fit very neatly into the dynamic going on.

Also there is definitely some bigger and nastier sides of this to be explored. Especially on Asgore's side. With the implications of chapter 5 delving into his jealousy, chapter 4 reasserting his freeze response and inaction in the scene in Noelle's home, I feel like the big thing so far not shown from his UT iteration is his anger and I suspect that, mirroring UT, that was the catalyst to the end of his and Toriel's relationship, as well as a reason for shame and guilt he is dealing with and a major driver for the repression avoidance and escapism. (And there is what happened to Dess, but I don't think that's actually the reason for the divorce.)

toriel's and asgore's parenting (ohhh boy)

okay so are we ready to talk about how toriel and asgore are not opposite sides of the good/bad parenting dichotomy and more like. strewn across the middle in an increasingly stupid way. scratch that. strewn across the 'bad' half of it, even if it's not at its tail end. yes. Both of Them

toriel cares for kris's actual basic needs - she looks after if they're fed or going to school, the basic necessities you may not think about until they're gone. but she's not exactly perfect at the kind of responsibility that isn't just part of the routine. she doesn't let them know she's not going to be at church even though the house is locked and they don't have a key, and she doesn't notice they're out way past 1am (based on the soundtrack names) because she's having too much fun

yes yes. she deserves to wind down and breathe, make a friend, don't chase me out of town, i know; but she's also a parent with a responsibility for her kid, and as much as you can argue if kris really was uncomfortable or not, a. susie was also there and clearly uncomfortable, and we know toriel cares about her, b. even if kris was fine with what was going on, which. they're clearly not but sure. they still couldn't sleep because of the noise

asgore, on the other hand, has this distinct vibe of a divorced dad that doesn't really know how to care for the kid or just. has no idea what to do with them in general when they're at his place. the vibe of the part of his shop where he's staying has a distinct 'divorced-guy-who-doesn't-yet-know-how-to-take-care-of-his-living-space' feel, i can't underline this enough. and he clearly doesn't have the ends to provide basic comfort for a kid

but asgore, crucially, and unlike toriel, notices when kris is acting off. when they spend too much time in the bathroom at the end of chapter 2, toriel waves it off as something normal, but in the chapter 4 weird route asgore checks on them and, importantly, because he noticed the way they've been acting after snowgrave happened, gives them a hot chocolate, something we know kris associates with comfort

it feels like toriel was good at basic childcare, that is food, clothing and other basics, and asgore handled the kids' more emotional needs. which would fit them! even in UT we saw toriel's propensity for mixing doting care (at times bordering on helicopter parenting) with pathologic escapism, literally into the ruins, as well as asgore's ability to comfort people (in that case as king; just remember how people talked about him) and inability to plan and be assertive

tl;dr those two may have not been the greatest parents but at least as a unit they were able to tag team taking care of their kids. when they're separate and focused on either distancing themselves (toriel....) or trying to prove themselves to be worthy of being taken back (asgore.....), without care about how it looks like to their kid mind you, kris gets sort of lost in-between the folds of that whole feud, and there isn't even asriel to pick up their slack. they're more awful at parenting separately because no one is covering for their missteps

[coldforestnight]

I <3 how on the first viewing of stoker it's impossible to tell what India actually feels for uncle Charlie right up until she shoots him through the neck

[abarero]

Mikoto and Hanna (and Love)

(Or Abarero spent too much time thinking about the Greek Types of Love, the Color Wheel Theory of Love based on them and then wrote this in the middle of the night)

Spoilers for Magia Record Arc 2, Sayonara Storage and Memory Drops.

Mikoto and Hanna both pose a unique view into love, because prior to each other, we come to understand they really had no true experience with it. Both their family lives were severely lacking affection from parent to child, let alone between the parents who spent more time arguing than anything else. It comes to the assumption that if they did see or receive any love it would be most likely an outsider’s view of it as opposed to part of it. This may have been via movies and TV shows or even fellow students in their lives that were dating. So we can guess their understanding of love is probably lacking and perhaps a bit biased towards a fantasy view of it from fiction.

Mikoto has her false family, after becoming a magical girl and getting her parents out of her life, but that comes with the added layer that she knew any affection from them was fake. The family even mistaken calls her their actual daughter’s name at times, which would just drive home that feeling that the love isn’t real. She’s playing house, but the familial love she’s seeking is still only on the surface.

It’s interesting then to me that one of the kinds of love Mikoto has is Storge- the kind known as familial love. Storgic love often develops gradually out of friendship and Storgic lovers sometimes cannot pinpoint the moment that friendship turned to love. (Sometimes you will see this type referred to as Philia, but the color theory uses the term Storge for both friendship-based love and family-based love). Interestingly enough, I feel the umbrella term of Storge fits Mikoto better than just Storge or Philia by themselves.

Mikoto has always been about finding a place, a family, where she can be a normal girl. The closest she ever comes to that is with Hanna during Memory Drops, when they spend their days working and living together. This is Mikoto’s ideal love because it’s the one love she’s never had and yet so desperately craves. It’s when she’s the happiest too.

This leads into her other kind of love: Mania. Mania is obsessive love. Lee defines Manic love as flowing out of a desire to hold one's partner in high esteem and wanting to love and be loved in this way, seeing specialness in the interaction. This type of love tends to lead a person into a type of madness and they feel that they "need" their partner. Mikoto really shows this love in Memory Drops, where her last wish and desire is just to have Hanna back. To her, Hanna is everything and her world revolves around her completely. Her love here is intense and possessive, jealousy showing up when Hanna and Nanaka interact.

Given Mikoto’s desperation for love and affection, it’s really not surprising to see her love as Mania. Upon receiving love, she wants to hoard that feeling and person to herself, afraid to lose it. But it’s quite tragic given her background to see how her love manifests as both Storge and Mania- the ideal and the extreme.

Hanna, on the flip side, has Storge as a love but also Agape. Agape is often defined as unconditional, sacrificial love. Agape is the kind of love that is felt by a person willing to do anything for another, including sacrificing themselves, without expecting anything in return. This is Hanna, over and over again she’s willing to do anything for Mikoto. Even if it means becoming a villain. In Sayonara Storage, we see Hanna playing along but ultimately sacrificing herself in hopes it can save Mikoto. She does something similar in Memory Drops on realizing Mikoto is the reason behind the strange occurrences.

This also manifests in how Hanna is always forgiving of Mikoto’s wrongs, but resolves to die because of her own crimes. Her love of Mikoto is such that she sees herself as the tainted one while Mikoto is seen as pure.

What I find interesting in the overall picture is that aside from them both having Storge as their core ideal love, their extremes (Agape and Mania) are at almost opposite ends of each other; one self-sacrificing and the other possessive.

I think it’s what ultimately leads to their tragedy. While they share an ideal, their extremes lead them to make choices that end tragically. And I find that quite poignant. Like here’s two girls who only wanted to have a happy life together, but due to circumstances and extremes of their affection, they meet an untimely end.

But it’s why I feel their characters and story are so important. To see them go to these extremes for one another, to see them idealize the one love they never had, is just a beautifully tragic thing. It’s a very Greek Tragedy kind of story, and so I hope I’ve done even a fraction of conveying their depth in this essay.

[misscammiedawn]

What does traumaqueer mean, both in general and to you specifically? I haven’t heard that term much before, and it seems important to you, given that is the short description of Camden(‘s tag) in your pinned post.

Interesting question. Wish Camden were active enough this week to field it herself.

Within spaces we exist in there are little sub-cultures and niches that cater to a certain kind of lived experience that have an unspoken connection of commonality that encapsulates their histories and their present expressions of their gender/sexuality/identity.

It's very much a vibe based thing which in truth means little to nothing.

We wish we had better language to describe it. There are obvious markings on it. Entire little collaborative fiction universes grow in these fertile grounds and if you know, you know. We are not involved in any of the collaborative fiction niches but we recognize the words and see some friends get heavily involved in "why this is a power fantasy for trans women with PTSD" discussions.

Being completely honest, our previous description on our tagging system was "BPD Manifest" but we decided to soften the edges and switch out to the current "traumaqueer" definition.

In our own standing, we're an open attachment wound in general but Camden above all. We've typed in the past about how attachment trauma has us completely twisted out of shape. We need not cover that ground again. Suffice to say that prior to a lot of work in therapy, Camden was trapped in trauma time of our young adult years, reliving the emotional echoes of our worst experiences ages 16-23.

Think she was always like that.

When we were closeted and unable to express ourselves as we can now, we had a character named Camden. Even as early as 2001 she was our ultimate wish fulfillment character. A disaster of a woman who was allowed to be angry, allowed to get drunk, take drugs, go clubbing, smoke and be a disaster. She was wore her grief, rage and trauma on her sleeve and it was cathartic to play someone who broke. Who needed rescuing. A lesbian trainwreck.

I don't know how the whole alter formation thing works. We approach it in therapy a lot. Trying to map experiences to individual expressions. We can trace Cammie, Craig and Wynn back to our earliest lucid memories. Camden and myself it's a little harder.

Regardless the question has always been there. How did Camden end up identifying with a character who was everything she was not?

The real Camden is the wounded survivor. The one who refuses to buy lunch because we need that money to make rent. She's the one who will put in the extra overtime because we can't risk being fired. She is eternally living the first few months after we started squatting in the abandoned flat.

Why did she take the shape of a character who was the opposite of all that?

An answer I can't truly give...

But to wrap it back to the traumaqueer thing a moment.

She wants to let go. Her deepest fantasy is to let herself break. To stop carrying that weight. To let someone take care of her.

Which is the one unifying thing behind all the shared fiction in traumaqueer space. The whole backbone of those "why this is a power fantasy for trans women with PTSD" discussions mentioned earlier.

She won't. Obviously she won't. We are 100% teetotal and refuse any recreational substance other than sugar and caffeine (of which we are helplessly addicted) because she cannot allow herself (and thusly the rest of us) to go down that dark corridor.

Camden is a trans woman who has been existing in the closet for 15 years, a jumble of exposed emotional nerves and has a deep well of anger, sadness and despair. She is tired and she often refuses help. She bottles everything up until she emotionally explodes. She's a mess (affectionate).

She's getting better. The worst of second puberty is over (and heavens those years cost us a lot) and is learning to let go more often. But she's the manifestation of what we consider to be "traumaqueer".

[husbandohunter]

May I request a Childe X Reader fanfic where the reader has been pushing herself too hard lately and so Childe has to forcefully get her to rest? ty

By my side [Childe x Reader]//Genshin Impact

Synopsis: You were an artist and he was an adventurer. Two people from vast backgrounds and Childe just wants to spend some time of his busy life with you. However, things didn't really go his way...at first.

(Childe x F!reader. Its all fluff)

(A/n): Perfect request anon. I too, would like to have a Childe in my life. Been getting 5-6 hours of sleep on average 😃😁. Yeah kind tossed some extra ideas with artist s/o, its a perfect reason for anyone to be busy.

============================

Once recieving the permission to take a week off from his diplomatic duties, the first thing Childe thought of was none other than his lovely significant other.

The harbinger knew quite well what lays ahead of his ventures to Liyue. During his quest for the archon's gnosis, he encountered many interesting events, such as meeting the rumoured traveller hailing from afar and a broke yet courteous man who turned out to be the ultimate ruler of this very country he walks upon then there was the battle against a dead god until he revived it using the sigil of permission. All of them were great additions to his story as Ajax the hero, something he always wanted to pursue since childhood. In which, also gave him something nice to write about when preparing letters for his siblings living back home. But little did the harbinger know that he'll one day bump into the heroine. A little too soon. Through your little art shop, he met you, a sweet and audacious woman with plenty of humour. That was how it all began.

While he strides down the streets between Liyue's exquisite buildings, Childe suddenly stops in his tracks and looks up to the sky. There, was painted a scenery of an evening dusk, sun rays relfected across until red and orange hues cast a river stream that led to the ends of the world. He watched the birds follow that streak like it was a path made for them to fly towards. A new adventure. You would have loved to captured this in your pictures.

And then he wonders, what might you be painting right now?

"Hey babe, I'm home~"

In a sing-song voice he calls out to you by your nick-name. You knew that Childe was an active member of the Fatui and that his time was limited, hence he made sure to write to you as well. Of course long distant relationships only makes the waiting more anticipated. When he does pay a visit, you'd run straight into his open arms, leaping off your feet to engulf him in one enourmous embrace. Then his hands will hold against your waist as he spins your round and around in the air, stealing the laughter out of your lungs before planting you back on the floor. Sometimes Childe would consider that being far away wasn't be such a bad idea as long as he was able to experience this, the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory. However...

"That's great."

He was met by a response similar to the wintry grace of Snezhnaya.

Huh?

All the fantasies he had from earlier shatters in the background as he stands there frozen. You didn't even spare a glance to the entrance, eyes still glued to the large canvas displayed at your front, too busy to even care. Childe clicks his tongue between the awkward silence with an uncertain expression. When there was no signs of initiation on your part, he shuffled his way to where you were and observes from behind.

"Well you're particularly quiet today," he muses to himself, placing a hand over his hip, "I guess that painting of yours must be really important then."

It was obvious that he was trying to nudge you into his favour. Something that you've found endearing was how quickly your boyfriend can be when he's in a needy state. So you quickly twisted over to peck him on the cheek before going back to work.

"That's better," Childe satisfiedly grins, "So who is this project for?"

"It's a commission requested by a wealthy family serving the Qixing. They're really influential in terms of the market and can really give me a competitive edge. I have to get it done in five days."

His tone flactuates as he squints his eyes, "Five days you say," he disliked the news of your schedule taking over his own, Childe only managed to take a week off and after that, he'll be away for quite some time, "Why don't you take a break? From the looks of your progress, it seems to me that you've been working on it for hours. I've got plenty of interesting stories to tell and you know, nothing can compare to sharing a warm meal within your company," he leans down to your ear level, "How does that sound?"

Several seconds went by as he waits for some sort of reaction, "Oh. Right," you blurted out and the harbinger only smiles, "I made some food earlier this morning. You can go help yourself if you're hungry."

Today was not his day.

Childe pulls out the wooden chair and slumps into the seat, a defeated huff escaping his mouth as he stared at the crystal shrimp placed on the table. It was hastily wrapped by plastic, most likely cold for a while, just like the romantic evening he had planned in his head. Normally you'll be sitting on the otherside while listening to the many tales he went through along the way. Although painting was your passion, it was undeniable that you also enjoyed his kind of lifestyle if you ever had the choice. He was rather surprised on how someone ambitious like him would end up with such a simplistic person but quickly accepted it as life was meant to be unpredictable, just the way he likes it. As Childe entertains you with his stories, he'll listen to your giggles amidst eating the homecooked meals that you both prepared together.

"I wonder if she ate already," he mumbled to his lone self. You most likely did but Childe knows you well. Artists are obsessed and they can go as far as to neglecting their own health for the sake of their masterpieces. Hence, he made sure to remind you to eat properly through the letters he wrote to you.

The harbinger takes a quick glance around the kitchen. It was a mess. The cupboards were slightly opened, metal pots were still displayed on the stone stove and the stench coming from the sink....

Childe pushes himsel up to see what was the cause.

Not even the dishes were washed.

Running his fingers through his bangs, he sighs wearily, "Old habits die hard huh?" And above all else, when artists are obsessed they also forget how disorganized they can become. Childe begins to roll up his sleeves before taking off his gloves. At times like this he'll have to pitch in and take care of it for you, "Looks like I'll be here for a while."

Throughout three sunsets and three moonrises, Childe had no option but to observe you from afar, minus the few attempts he made to regain your attention again. How you would go to bed much later than him, waking up before he opens his eyes and the effort he put into making your food only left with too many leftovers. It wasn't that you were unappreciative, instead, your mind had become too focused that your body was considered a second priority. Like anyone else, Childe genuinely thought you possessed great talent and supports you wholeheartedly. He loved it when you painted pictures just for him as if they were scenes coming out of his hero story, reminded by his adventures, capturing every detail. However he also needed to learn how to deal with this stubborn side of yours.

"Hey babe, I just finished preparing our dinner. Don't you smell that? Such a rich aroma, you should go eat."

"I'm busy."

Your diet were just small bites, the rest being substituted by coffee. Childe could clearly tell that you weren't getting enough sleep either as there were dark circles forming underneath your eyes and slowly, he was starting to become a little irritated.

Three hours passed midnight but you were still awake in the same place doing the same thing. Childe leans against the doorframe with arms folded, already changed into his sleeping clothes. He clears his throat to break the silence, "Ahem."

Your wrist hangs in mid air by the sound of a strange visitor, it was your boyfriend. Gaze in a daze, you lazily turned your head, "What time is it?"

"Way passed the sleeping hours as you can see," he points with his thumb at the table clock in a half-hearted manner, "You should already be in bed by now and don't think you can coax yourself out of the situation this time," his eyes parted in slits as he added with a smile, "Otherwise I might just have to force you myself."

You shook your head, "Give me one more hour? There's some finishing touches I really want to add so," clasping your hands together, you beamed sweetly, "Pretty please? I'll finish up soon."

"Oh really?" Childe challenges, head tossed back like he was interrogating you instead, "I believe that was also what you told me yesterday. And the day before? Adding up all of those days that would be.....four in total?" He deliberately counts upon his fingers before facing you again, this time his expression was slightly more serious, "As much as I find your determination remarkable, there are moments when you need to consider a sufficient amount of rest and this just isn't going to cut it."

"Four days already?!" You exclaimed, "Jeez, I don't even know if I'm halfway done."

Pressing his lips together, Childe glares in an acutely deadpanned countenance, it was also his time too, "Can't you ask this commissioner to extend your due date to next week? In your case, mora shouldn't be the issue since, well...you're dating me anyways."

It's true. Childe was the main reason why you didn't have to live as a starving artist. He had all your expenses fully covered from the marketing aspect to your residence, you simply chose to work out of pure will.

"I don't want to always rely on you so much," you confessed, "This commissioner could turn my whole career around. If I'm able to gain his favour, maybe I'll get promoted to a court painter for the Qixing! Who knows when there will ever be a chance like this again," pumping your fists, you spoke purposefully, "I'll pull an all nighters if I have to!"

Childe brings his hand to his forehead, you looked as if you were nearly about to collapse and yet still considering the option of an all-nighters? The harbinger should've detained you days prior before.

"Hm? Childe, what's wrong?" He suddenly falls deadly quiet and you watched him walk closer towards you, "What are--"

Hooking an arm behind your knees and the other at your back, your boyfriend lifts you up in one full swoop as he tossed you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Guess we'll have to do things the hard way," he remarks cheerfully.

"W-Wait," you flailed your arms and kicked your legs but to no avail. Childe was an experienced combatant indeed, "Put me down! I have work to do."

Your protests fall upon deaf ears as the harbinger carries you to your room. You were oddly lighter than the last time he carried you, the strength less vigor than before, it was obvious that your body was in need of relaxation. He suddenly thinks there was a possibility that you would maintain this habit while he was absent.

I should probably visit more often.

Using his free leg to nudge the door open, he places you upon the shared bed in a gentle manner. You winced at the impact of the soft sheets, surprised by how much it affect you.

"There we go. All done. Man, you really are a stubborn one, aren't you. Makes me a little worried since I can't spoil you all the time."

He quickly invited himself to the empty space on your bedside and wrapped his arms around your figure, pulling you close and feeling you whole. Childe made sure there was no escape once putting his chin above your hairline so that you could feel his warmth as much as possible.

"This is--" you stuttered. His tactic was enough to make your limbs soften and you could almost hear him smirk into the distance, "This is cheating..."

"You think so?" He comments as if pledging innocence, "I don't know babe. Where I come from those who take the initiative are the ones who end up claiming the prize," pulling back, Childe takes the opportunity to observe your pouty face, "I don't make the rules. It's just how it goes."

You wanted to argue back but he suddenly took the bedsheets and covered both of your bodies with, completely trapping you with his presence. He snuggles into you further as if you were a bear made of linen and you felt the drowsiness taking over your mind. The way he gently pats down the back of your head was enough to instantly lull you into a deep sleep.

"Cheater," you mumbled.

He laughs softly, the rumbles emitting through his chest, "I love you too babe."

Even after you've let go of your resistance, Childe continues his actions until he was sure that you were resting. He had been longing to touch you like this since living a chaotic life only made peaceful moments much sweeter, "You're such a hard-worker you know that? I'm proud of you but you have to know when to call it a day," he whispers, "If not, how can I go on trips while knowing that you're still refusing to eat properly?"

You closed your eyes and said nothing in return. All your senses were too cloudy to come up with a reassuring response. Childe listens to the way your breath evens as you intake his scent during the process. It smelled like the soap you used in the showers, lotus leaves mixed with his own unique musk. You could only focus on him. His comforting embrace. His slightly accelerating heartbeat because you were together with him.

Letting out one final yawn, you succumbed to his spell and allowed your energy to drift away.

The corners of his lips tug upwards, "Sleep well princess."

Childe reaches over to your desk drawer and shuts off the alarm clock before turning over to face you again. He couldn't fall asleep immediately, not when he had to consider taking care of the commissioner who gave you an impossible deadline. But that will be saved for another day, for now, he observes in silent serenity.

If he were to quit his job for a year, what would his life be like?

Peaceful. Something opposite of what he was living right now. Something similar to the life he had back home. As you arrange the many paintings in your little home, he'll offer to help you among the places you couldn't reach. Without a doubt, Childe was far taller in comparison. Taking strolls into the streets and trying the new dishes the merchants came up with. Then in the evenings, you'll both go to dinner dates while listening to the storyteller revealing the rumours of the legendary Tianquan Qixing. Although Childe loved the adventurous life he led, he had to admit that your domesticity and family-bringing atmosphere was a tempting idea.

Maybe one day.

He lightly takes a strand that had fallen over your nose and tucked it smoothly behind your ear. The soft snores coming out of your parted lips caused his gaze to melt. And so he steals them with his own, placing a chaste goodnight kiss.

One day I'll be sure to bring my family here with us.

Closing his eyes, he joins you in your slumber, hoping to see all that he envisioned in his dreams.

[blind-rats]

The Rise & Fall of Joss Whedon; the Myth of the Hollywood Feminist Hero

By Kelly Faircloth

“I hate ‘feminist.’ Is this a good time to bring that up?” Joss Whedon asked. He paused knowingly, waiting for the laughs he knew would come at the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer making such a statement.

It was 2013, and Whedon was onstage at a fundraiser for Equality Now, a human rights organization dedicated to legal equality for women. Though Buffy had been off the air for more than a decade, its legacy still loomed large; Whedon was widely respected as a man with a predilection for making science fiction with strong women for protagonists. Whedon went on to outline why, precisely, he hated the term: “You can’t be born an ‘ist,’” he argued, therefore, “‘feminist’ includes the idea that believing men and women to be equal, believing all people to be people, is not a natural state, that we don’t emerge assuming that everybody in the human race is a human, that the idea of equality is just an idea that’s imposed on us.”

The speech was widely praised and helped cement his pop-cultural reputation as a feminist, in an era that was very keen on celebrity feminists. But it was also, in retrospect, perhaps the high water mark for Whedon’s ability to claim the title, and now, almost a decade later, that reputation is finally in tatters, prompting a reevaluation of not just Whedon’s work, but the narrative he sold about himself. 

In July 2020, actor Ray Fisher accused Whedon of being “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” on the Justice League set when Whedon took over for Zach Synder as director to finish the project. Charisma Carpenter then described her own experiences with Whedon in a long post to Twitter, hashtagged #IStandWithRayFisher.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Carpenter played Cordelia, a popular character who morphed from snob to hero—one of those strong female characters that made Whedon’s feminist reputation—before being unceremoniously written off the show in a plot that saw her thrust into a coma after getting pregnant with a demon. For years, fans have suspected that her disappearance was related to her real-life pregnancy. In her statement, Carpenter appeared to confirm the rumors. “Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working on the sets of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Angel,’” she wrote, describing Fisher’s firing as the last straw that inspired her to go public.

Buffy was a landmark of late 1990s popular culture, beloved by many a burgeoning feminist, grad student, gender studies professor, and television critic for the heroine at the heart of the show, the beautiful blonde girl who balanced monster-killing with high school homework alongside ancillary characters like the shy, geeky Willow. Buffy was very nearly one of a kind, an icon of her era who spawned a generation of leather-pants-wearing urban fantasy badasses and women action heroes.

Buffy was so beloved, in fact, that she earned Whedon a similarly privileged place in fans’ hearts and a broader reputation as a man who championed empowered women characters. In the desert of late ’90s and early 2000s popular culture, Whedon was heralded as that rarest of birds—the feminist Hollywood man. For many, he was an example of what more equitable storytelling might look like, a model for how to create compelling women protagonists who were also very, very fun to watch. But Carpenter’s accusations appear to have finally imploded that particular bit of branding, revealing a different reality behind the scenes and prompting a reevaluation of the entire arc of Whedon’s career: who he was and what he was selling all along.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered March 1997, midseason, on The WB, a two-year-old network targeting teens with shows like 7th Heaven. Its beginnings were not necessarily auspicious; it was a reboot of a not-particularly-blockbuster 1992 movie written by third-generation screenwriter Joss Whedon. (His grandfather wrote for The Donna Reed Show; his father wrote for Golden Girls.) The show followed the trials of a stereotypical teenage California girl who moved to a new town and a new school after her parents’ divorce—only, in a deliberate inversion of horror tropes, the entire town sat on top of the entrance to Hell and hence was overrun with demons. Buffy was a slayer, a young woman with the power and immense responsibility to fight them. After the movie turned out very differently than Whedon had originally envisioned, the show was a chance for a do-over, more of a Valley girl comedy than serious horror.

It was layered, it was campy, it was ironic and self-aware. It looked like it belonged on the WB rather than one of the bigger broadcast networks, unlike the slickly produced prestige TV that would follow a few years later. Buffy didn’t fixate on the gory glory of killing vampires—really, the monsters were metaphors for the entire experience of adolescence, in all its complicated misery. Almost immediately, a broad cross-section of viewers responded enthusiastically. Critics loved it, and it would be hugely influential on Whedon’s colleagues in television; many argue that it broke ground in terms of what you could do with a television show in terms of serialized storytelling, setting the stage for the modern TV era. Academics took it up, with the show attracting a tremendous amount of attention and discussion.

In 2002, the New York Times covered the first academic conference dedicated to the show. The organizer called Buffy “a tremendously rich text,” hence the flood of papers with titles like “Pain as Bright as Steel: The Monomyth and Light in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’” which only gathered speed as the years passed. And while it was never the highest-rated show on television, it attracted an ardent core of fans.

But what stood out the most was the show’s protagonist: a young woman who stereotypically would have been a monster movie victim, with the script flipped: instead of screaming and swooning, she staked the vampires. This was deliberate, the core conceit of the concept, as Whedon said in many, many interviews. The helpless horror movie girl killed in the dark alley instead walks out victorious. He told Time in 1997 that the concept was born from the thought, “I would love to see a movie in which a blond wanders into a dark alley, takes care of herself and deploys her powers.” In Whedon’s framing, it was particularly important that it was a woman who walked out of that alley. He told another publication in 2002 that “the very first mission statement of the show” was “the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it.”

In 2021, when seemingly every new streaming property with a woman as its central character makes some half-baked claim to feminism, it’s easy to forget just how much Buffy stood out among its against its contemporaries. Action movies—with exceptions like Alien’s Ripley and Terminator 2's Sarah Conner—were ruled by hulking tough guys with macho swagger. When women appeared on screen opposite vampires, their primary job was to expose long, lovely, vulnerable necks. Stories and characters that bucked these larger currents inspired intense devotion, from Angela Chase of My So-Called Life to Dana Scully of The X-Files.

The broader landscape, too, was dismal. It was the conflicted era of girl power, a concept that sprang up in the wake of the successes of the second-wave feminist movement and the backlash that followed. Young women were constantly exposed to you-can-do-it messaging that juxtaposed uneasily with the reality of the world around them. This was the era of shitty, sexist jokes about every woman who came into Bill Clinton’s orbit and the leering response to the arrival of Britney Spears; Rush Limbaugh was a fairly mainstream figure.

At one point, Buffy competed against Ally McBeal, a show that dedicated an entire episode to a dancing computer-generated baby following around its lawyer main character, her biological clock made zanily literal. Consider this line from a New York Times review of the Buffy’s 1997 premiere: “Given to hot pants and boots that should guarantee the close attention of Humbert Humberts all over America, Buffy is just your average teen-ager, poutily obsessed with clothes and boys.”

Against that background, Buffy was a landmark. Besides the simple fact of its woman protagonist, there were unique plots, like the coming-out story for her friend Willow. An ambivalent 1999 piece in Bitch magazine, even as it explored the show’s tank-top heavy marketing, ultimately concluded, “In the end, it’s precisely this contextual conflict that sets Buffy apart from the rest and makes her an appealing icon. Frustrating as her contradictions may be, annoying as her babe quotient may be, Buffy still offers up a prime-time heroine like no other.”

A 2016 Atlantic piece, adapted from a book excerpt, makes the case that Buffy is perhaps best understood as an icon of third-wave feminism: “In its examination of individual and collective empowerment, its ambiguous politics of racial representation and its willing embrace of contradiction, Buffy is a quintessentially third-wave cultural production.” The show was vested with all the era’s longing for something better than what was available, something different, a champion for a conflicted “post-feminist” era—even if she was an imperfect or somewhat incongruous vessel. It wasn’t just Sunnydale that needed a chosen Slayer, it was an entire generation of women. That fact became intricately intertwined with Whedon himself.

Seemingly every interview involved a discussion of his fondness for stories about strong women. “I’ve always found strong women interesting, because they are not overly represented in the cinema,” he told New York for a 1997 piece that notes he studied both film and “gender and feminist issues” at Wesleyan; “I seem to be the guy for strong action women,’’ he told the New York Times in 1997 with an aw-shucks sort of shrug. ‘’A lot of writers are just terrible when it comes to writing female characters. They forget that they are people.’’ He often cited the influence of his strong, “hardcore feminist” mother, and even suggested that his protagonists served feminist ends in and of themselves: “If I can make teenage boys comfortable with a girl who takes charge of a situation without their knowing that’s what’s happening, it’s better than sitting down and selling them on feminism,” he told Time in 1997.

When he was honored by the organization Equality Now in 2006 for his “outstanding contribution to equality in film and television,” Whedon made his speech an extended riff on the fact that people just kept asking him about it, concluding with the ultimate answer: “Because you’re still asking me that question.” He presented strong women as a simple no-brainer, and he was seemingly always happy to say so, at a time when the entertainment business still seemed ruled by unapologetic misogynists. The internet of the mid-2010s only intensified Whedon’s anointment as a prototypical Hollywood ally, with reporters asking him things like how men could best support the feminist movement. 

Whedon’s response: “A guy who goes around saying ‘I’m a feminist’ usually has an agenda that is not feminist. A guy who behaves like one, who actually becomes involved in the movement, generally speaking, you can trust that. And it doesn’t just apply to the action that is activist. It applies to the way they treat the women they work with and they live with and they see on the street.” This remark takes on a great deal of irony in light of Carpenter’s statement.

In recent years, Whedon’s reputation as an ally began to wane. Partly, it was because of the work itself, which revealed more and more cracks as Buffy receded in the rearview mirror. Maybe it all started to sour with Dollhouse, a TV show that imagined Eliza Dushku as a young woman rented out to the rich and powerful, her mind wiped after every assignment, a concept that sat poorly with fans. (Though Whedon, while he was publicly unhappy with how the show had turned out after much push-and-pull with the corporate bosses at Fox, still argued the conceit was “the most pure feminist and empowering statement I’d ever made—somebody building themselves from nothing,” in a 2012 interview with Wired.)

After years of loud disappointment with the TV bosses at Fox on Firefly and Dollhouse, Whedon moved into big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. He helped birth the Marvel-dominated era of movies with his work as director of The Avengers. But his second Avengers movie, Age of Ultron, was heavily criticized for a moment in which Black Widow laid out her personal reproductive history for the Hulk, suggesting her sterilization somehow made her a “monster.” In June 2017, his un-filmed script for a Wonder Woman adaptation leaked, to widespread mockery. The script’s introduction of Diana was almost leering: “To say she is beautiful is almost to miss the point. She is elemental, as natural and wild as the luminous flora surrounding. Her dark hair waterfalls to her shoulders in soft arcs and curls. Her body is curvaceous, but taut as a drawn bow.”

But Whedon’s real fall from grace began in 2017, right before MeToo spurred a cultural reckoning. His ex-wife, Kai Cole, published a piece in The Wrap accusing him of cheating off and on throughout their relationship and calling him a hypocrite:

“Despite understanding, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong, he never conceded the hypocrisy of being out in the world preaching feminist ideals, while at the same time, taking away my right to make choices for my life and my body based on the truth. He deceived me for 15 years, so he could have everything he wanted. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to fighting for women’s rights, committed to our marriage, and to the women he worked with. But I now see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.”

But his reputation was just too strong; the accusation that he didn’t practice what he preached didn’t quite stick. A spokesperson for Whedon told the Wrap: “While this account includes inaccuracies and misrepresentations which can be harmful to their family, Joss is not commenting, out of concern for his children and out of respect for his ex-wife. Many minimized the essay on the basis that adultery doesn’t necessarily make you a bad feminist or erase a legacy. Whedon similarly seemed to shrug off Ray Fisher’s accusations of creating a toxic workplace; instead, Warner Media fired Fisher.

But Carpenter’s statement—which struck right at the heart of his Buffy-based legacy for progressivism—may finally change things. Even at the time, the plotline in which Charisma Carpenter was written off Angel—carrying a demon child that turned her into “Evil Cordelia,” ending the season in a coma, and quite simply never reappearing—was unpopular. Asked about what had happened in a 2009 panel at DragonCon, she said that “my relationship with Joss became strained,” continuing: “We all go through our stuff in general [behind the scenes], and I was going through my stuff, and then I became pregnant. And I guess in his mind, he had a different way of seeing the season go… in the fourth season.”

“I think Joss was, honestly, mad. I think he was mad at me and I say that in a loving way, which is—it’s a very complicated dynamic working for somebody for so many years, and expectations, and also being on a show for eight years, you gotta live your life. And sometimes living your life gets in the way of maybe the creator’s vision for the future. And that becomes conflict, and that was my experience.”

In her statement on Twitter, Carpenter alleged that after Whedon was informed of her pregnancy, he called her into a closed-door meeting and “asked me if I was ‘going to keep it,’ and manipulatively weaponized my womanhood and faith against me.” She added that “he proceeded to attack my character, mock my religious beliefs, accuse me of sabotaging the show, and then unceremoniously fired me following the season once I gave birth.” Carpenter said that he called her fat while she was four months pregnant and scheduled her to work at 1 a.m. while six months pregnant after her doctor had recommended shortening her hours, a move she describes as retaliatory. What Carpenter describes, in other words, is an absolutely textbook case of pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, the type of bullshit the feminist movement exists to fight—at the hands of the man who was for years lauded as a Hollywood feminist for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Many of Carpenter’s colleagues from Buffy and Angel spoke out in support, including Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar. “While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon,” she said in a statement. Just shy of a decade after that 2013 speech, many of the cast members on the show that put him on that stage are cutting ties.

Whedon garnered a reputation as pop culture’s ultimate feminist man because Buffy did stand out so much, an oasis in a wasteland. But in 2021, the idea of a lone man being responsible for creating women’s stories—one who told the New York Times, “I seem to be the guy for strong action women”—seems like a relic. It’s depressing to consider how many years Hollywood’s first instinct for “strong action women” wasn’t a woman, and to think about what other people could have done with those resources. When Wonder Woman finally reached the screen, to great acclaim, it was with a woman as director.

Besides, Whedon didn’t make Buffy all by himself—many, many women contributed, from the actresses to the writers to the stunt workers, and his reputation grew so large it eclipsed their part in the show’s creation. Even as he preached feminism, Whedon benefitted from one of the oldest, most sexist stereotypes: the man who’s a benevolent, creative genius. And Buffy, too, overshadowed all the other contributors who redefined who could be a hero on television and in speculative fiction, from individual actors like Gillian Anderson to the determined, creative women who wrote science fiction and fantasy over the last several decades to—perhaps most of all—the fans who craved different, better stories. Buffy helped change what you could put on TV, but it didn’t create the desire to see a character like her. It was that desire, as much as Whedon himself, that gave Buffy the Vampire Slayer her power.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High: The Seven Ep 6

Bitches Be Shopping

What is up y’all. A little late but let’s jump in with episode six of The Seven where our girls have just received a LOT of information, Sam most of all who got put into a little vision coma that she’s just now waking up from.

She explains the vision to her friends (as she interprets it, the other Eidolons didn’t die, just became part of the natural forces of the world) and then the bear that Penny made on a whim last episode (who is Russian, named Koda, and somehow a trained circus bear) gets into a fight with Katja with their friends buffing the two to make things more interesting because these are still idiot teens, life or death situation or no. Yelle decides to be the adult and tells them to knock it off and get back on mission.

That means Katja needs to call her dad since he’s knows the guy who’s the best lead to getting to TK ( Talcidimir Tallbreeze who I’ll call Tal). She actually manages to get her dad this time who is inside a giant snake on his hell mission. Katja asks what he knows about TK and he says she’s a sorcerer but also has a spell book so maybe she’s multiclassed. Sam and Ant desperately want to know if they boned and Katja absolutely is not interested in that knowledge. Yelle decides to just ask which makes her dad a little annoyed since he’s kind of in the middle of something (literally) and that annoys Ant, Ost, and Sam who--respectively, accuse him of gaslighting Kat, cast Command on him, and cast Bane on him to aid the Command spell. 

Mr. Cleaver fails the save and Ost commands him to tell Katja the truth. He admits that he did hook up with TK and he regrets it (note: it wasn’t like he cheated. It was just a casual hookup that wasn’t fulfilling it seems). Ost demands he apologize for not being there for Kat and Sam berates him for being at the top of the world and not lifting up his daughter too. For his part, Kat’s dad seems genuinely apologetic and promises to do better. 

“You don’t need to be the best father, you just need to be there,” Katja says, making her dad break down crying. 

Yelle, who has no daddy issues, is a bit less aggro and says that everyone makes mistakes and he can start making it up right now by helping with the Tal situation. She also gives them the tip that a cold spell will probably get them out of the snake lickety split.  She is on the money with the snake tip and Mr. Cleaver gets them all invites to a masquerade ball Tal is hosting. It’s being held on the Rumbosa which is this city-sized leisure ship. Mr. Cleaver says he’ll be back as soon as he can and, in the meantime, she should take care of her friends, “even the first 2 that were terrifying to me.”

The girls give Katja the axe they took as a birthday present (it was apparently her birthday the day before which Rekha just decided and Ost/Izzy refuses to accept without a fight because she *knows* Kat’s bday) which is identified as the Axe of Sundering (it can shatter objects, people, and sometimes concepts like halving movement). The two unnamed potions Yelle found are also ID’d as a Potion of Fly and a Potion of Gaseous Form. She distributes the Heath Potions to people without heals. Ant’s new arrows bypass some resistances and let her treat whatever she hits with the first one like it’s her favored enemy. 

According to their invites, the ship they need is docking in the city of Gravalvia soon (a very old city in the Baronies) so they need to figure out a plan. They have some downtime, during which:

Zelda tries to hype up the team.

Zelda tries to see if Ost is OK wrt dad stuff and Ost has a Full Breakdown after badly pretending she’s fine. 

While Zelda, Ost, and Penny are being Emotional and Sam is trying to literally cool them down with her powers, Ant and Yelle keep watch and experience emotional stability as the Adults Of The Party 

Anyway, after a night of rest, they head to the golden city of Gravalvia which is this very cool, very pretty city with mosaics and fountains and I assume columns. They get there and there’s a dramatic fight happening in the square which is halted when one of the fighters realizes that the country he’s fighting for doesn’t exist anymore. And now, it’s time for what we’ve all been waiting for. Shopping Montage! Let’s go girl by girl.

Katja and Ost

Kat asks for help from Ost with getting fancy for this gala since she’s never really done anything dressy before (and she had no mom to help--Kaaaat) and Ost is happy to oblige, dressing them both like “Jersey trash”. Kat, of course, still wears her Khakis underneath.

Antiope

Ant decides to get a vibe for what people here wear and picks something that will blend in but be forgettable so she can be stealthy. Classy blue dress and mask.

Penny

Penny...OK, I absolutely cannot describe what happens here in any way that will do justice to the scene. I am going to tell you what matters to the plot. You have to watch this yourself if you want to see the entire table have a collective breakdown. 

While looking for a costume, Penny runs into a halfling who is a member of the Society of Shadows--Laertes. He wants to know why she hasn’t responded to their invitation yet. She says she’s really eager to join, she just wasn’t sure how to respond (and also, she’s kind of in the middle of something). He says she can join by just messaging back and then her loved ones just have to sign waivers to have their memories wiped of her and she’s good to go. Say what now? asks Penny. She didn’t realize this was like a full Men in Black situation. 

He says it’s ultimately her decision and leaves.

Of course, I left out the parts where he ate a handful of Candy Heart’s remains, became violently ill, almost projectile vomited into Penny’s mouth, and she tried to kiss him despite him being a full adult. It’s A Lot, ok?

Also, we don’t find out until later but Penny picks a sexy duck costume for reasons that make more sense if you watch the scene but not *much* more sense. She also burns one of the healing potions on this dude as he is bar

Danielle

Danielle tries to get some info on the guests at the party and gets the names Lawrence LaDuc, Princess Autumn, and Duston who is the playboy cousin of Tal. She also hears some dude saying some colonize and plunder the earth BS and casts Heat Metal on him, fully mercing the dude. Ice cold. 

She tries to play it off like it’s the Curse of the Forest and when that doesn’t work and people start coming for her, she wildshapes into a dragon wyrmling and starts roasting people, killing 1 and dropping 2 to zero. 

Unfortunately, one of her party members is a known dragon hater and uses her new arrows to snipe her right out of the sky. Ant is horrified once she realizes what she’s done but Yelle says it’s all good. It’s NOT all good, says Ant, I STABBED YOU. You’re allowed to be mad! Yelle says she’s just really good at compartmentalizing but what Ant’s getting here is that Yelle doesn’t really believe that her feelings matter which echo the fears of her moms. 

Sam

Sam uses a combination of Mantle of Inspiration, glamour magic, performance, and good old flirting to get herself some killer clothes and also start a spontaneous musical number Giselle style.  

Brennan says she looks resplendent and, honestly, when does she not?

They reconvene, Zelda in a classic hoop skirt. Yelle realizes she never got a costume and just whips out a Met Gala level, autumn themed, Queen Mab-esque costume with Druidcraft which she could have done this whole time so I guess that’s why she was cool spending her shopping time getting gossip and playing Poison Ivy. 

They get to the ship and the way this works, everyone has to make an entrance and the really rich people (including Tal) are on a dais up top watching everyone come in. They all have to give fake names for the night since it’s a masquerade and they have to do Performance or Persuasion checks to see how impressive they look going in. 

Before they go in, they plan a little. Penny wants to look for TK. Sam wants to find Dunston. Ost wants to talk to the bouncers. Yelle wants to see if there are plants she can manipulate (there are btw) and for any exits. 

A quick rundown of how these all go:

Katja aka Mere (which means both mom and horse): 16 

Ant aka Midnight Huntress: 18 

Penny aka Penny Duckstone: 13

Zelda aka Madame Goodparty: 2 (Poor Zelda)

Sam aka Songbird: 22 (but she takes a hit to entrance save Zelda from totally flaming out)

Ost aka Stanley Gucci: 13

And Danielle, who never hogs the spotlight and is embarrassed to admit that maybe she does want to be the center of attention for once in her life with a Natural 20, gets a 29, absolutely bringing down the house as Empress Anima. As she walks forward she feels a voice say to her, “You got this. I love the name. You wear it well.”

Tal seems very impressed by her and a lady in a rabbit mask (Coeliabranca who I’ll call Coel if she comes up more) comes down to bring her up to the top with the high rollers. As she leaves, Sam casts Fly on her, just in case and holds the Concentration. 

Ost and Kat go talk to the bouncers and Kat decides to pretend to be her mom to get access to the area Yelle is. She rolls low and is told, “Hey, aren’t you already up there?” Kat is like, fuck and Ost saves her by using her charm earrings to get an entourage of guards who will let them through and do what she says. Once up there, Kat doesn’t see her mom which I can imagine she has mixed feelings about. 

Sam finds Dunston who is talking about Fantasy Bitcoin and seems like a real “Step on me mommy” type you know? Like, I feel like he’s into findom. Anyway, Sam charms him and his hangers on and learns about a procedure called a Phlebectomy that involves something going into their nose and then they feel better. Sam is rightfully horrified because, as I said, she is Most Likely To Survive A Horror Movie and can sense BS when she sees is. It’s apparently all the rage with the rich people here which is, como de dice, concerning seeing as they’re surrounded by them but we’ll get to that. Sam takes advantage of Dunston’s proclivities and gets him alone, knocks him out, steals him clothes, and pretends to be him (a *very* good scene by Sephie). 

Penny sees a gnome gnome boy (Lysander Higgins) shining shoes and finds out from him that there is a copper earth genasi woman here. In a very Cinderella move, she asks what shoes she was wearing. Then, she makes out with him which like, sure. At least it’s not a grown adult man this time. Before she gets her kisses in, she does tell the group what she learned. 

Up with the rich people, Yelle is introduced to Tal’s friend who is into Eidolons because of the name she chose. Between the shoes and her knowledge, they confirm that it’s TK! Yelle asks what she knows about Eidolons and she says that 7 is a very powerful number.

We cut to Ant who is patrolling the room as the sun sets and she suddenly hears a little beeping. It’s coming from a small crystal that was in Preston’s shirt (which she still has on her because???). Guests start dripping goo from their noses and transforming into monsters. Ant realizes that some kind of spell is happening triggered by midnight and this beeping. Hope these costumes are battle ready cause it’s fight time baybee!

Superlatives 

Danielle: Most Likely to Be on The News for Murdering Fantasy Jeff Bezos

I cannot imagine what was running through Yelle’s head when she decided that, having just rolled into a foreign country, her next move was to start using lethal force on anti-environmentalist colonizing capitalists. Like, she’s not *wrong* per se but she is wild--in all senses of the word.  

Random Thoughts

Kat keeps saying yesterday was her birthday which Ost/Izzy (and the rest of the group to a less vocal degree) are simply not having because maybe her dad would forget her birthday but her girls absolutely would not.

“You’re great because you stayed,” is the other killshot Kat line to her dad.

At a certain point Sam says, “This is so unhealthy,” to I think Yelle and like, if SAM is telling you your coping mechanisms are unhealthy, get thee to therapy.

OK, so someone, presumably Anima’s spirit, talks to Yelle as she makes her grand entrance which seems like info they should get to Talura ASAP, right? Cause that’s evidence they’re not dead-dead, just changed in form. But also Anima, girl. Don’t talk to Yelle. Talk to your rampaging sister!

"That's my secret, I stay in initiative."

Just a process note, notes are taken for the next ep and I am working on getting that recap up ASAP. As a battle ep, it will be in the abbreviated style that I did for last battle ep. 

In this episode, Penny rolls a Nat 1 (which she rerolls) and one of Brennan’s NPCs rolls a Nat 1. Ant rolls 2 Nat 20s, Yelle rolls 1, and Brennan says that one of his NPCs gets a 20 which sweeps him entirely into Sam’s dance number. 

[bestworstcase]

What are your opinions on the whole Rapunzel-Varian drama in S1 post Queen For A Day, especially with the whole "Rapunzel should've checked on Varian after the snowstorm" or whose fault it was for their conflict?

tbh… if i had to pick one single representative example of the tts fandom’s general inability to handle nuance in fictional conflict, it’d be the QFAD discourse™

because! while this isn’t to rag on anyone, if you pick a random person with an opinion on this question, chances are they will fall into one of two camps. either: 1) corona’s treatment of varian was horrifically unjust and everyone involved except him is a terrible person, or 2) rapunzel did what she had to do and varian’s anger is irrational, unfounded, and fundamentally unfair.

people in camp #1 tend to believe that rapunzel was simply being selfish and acting like a sulky child when she failed to check up on varian after the storm. people in camp #2 tend to point out that rapunzel was traumatized by the events of QFAD too, and believe that this justifies her failure to check up on varian.

but the thing is imo the conflict in QFAD + the rest of s1 is just as complex and messy as the argument cassandra and rapunzel have in RATGT, in that there is no One True Right Answer and no person who is one hundred percent “at fault.” the question of blame is… honestly sort of beside the point if you ask me. to break this down:

#1: rapunzel is a sheltered teenager with minimal social skills dealing with a national emergency halfway through her first unsupervised couple days on the job.

the girl has had like eight months tops of training for the monumental task of ruling a country. she grew up in a situation where the only choice available to her was how she would wile away her free time inside her tower; gothel exerted total control over every other facet of her life. and while she has a little more wiggle room now that she’s out of the tower, she is still basically living her life with all the big, consequential choices made for her.

QFAD was intended to be her first taste of true authority, while still being ultimately inconsequential. if all had gone according to plan, corona would have ticked along more or less on autopilot—just as frederic left it—while rapunzel got in a little practice making judgment calls about minor, unimportant things, like mediating small interpersonal disputes between her subjects.

nobody expected, and rapunzel was absolutely not prepared for, a legitimate national crisis to explode in her face out of nowhere. this was supposed to be pedaling by herself for the first time with training wheels and what she got instead is careening down the freeway on a motorbike at 95mph with zero warning. it is a miracle that she held things together as well as she did.

#2: varian is a child with an emotionally distant, unsupportive father who sets him up for failure.

he’s smart but he’s also fourteen. he has little if any formal training in alchemy, he’s figuring stuff out by trial and error, and he has zero adult supervision. his efforts have caused significant levels of destruction twice in only a few months—the exploding boilers in WTH, and his invention going haywire (with a little help from st. croix) in GE—and it’s implied that this is a fairly regular occurrence with him.

and yet quirin does nothing. he shouts at varian, shuts him down, and at several points orders him point blank to stop messing with alchemy… but he makes no effort to connect with his son or understand where he’s coming from; he doesn’t try to impose reasonable restrictions (like “don’t mess with volatile chemicals unless i’m there to help”) that would allow varian to pursue his passion while minimizing the danger; and he doesn’t create an environment where varian feels able to turn to his father for help. and then with the black rocks, he lets varian come along to see the king, but refuses to explain why he “lied” (/spoke in code) to the king, destroying any credibility he had in varian’s eyes and making varian panicky and desperate because it seemed like no one else cared.

so the end result is that varian feels like he has no choice but to sneak around behind quirin’s back. he can’t rely on his dad for help if anything goes wrong, but the situation is so dire that doing nothing also isn’t an option. he tries his best to be careful (before quirin barges in on him, varian is attempting to put just one drop of the amber serum on the rock) but even if quirin hadn’t startled him, a terrible accident was bound to happen sooner or later, and the responsibility for that lays just as much if not more on quirin’s shoulders—the adult in this situation—as on varian’s. the kid is FOURTEEN.

(i think a neat argument could be made for varian as a deconstruction of the teen/YA fantasy trope of the hyper-competent teenager with absentee parents whose absence allows the teen to get on with the important work of the high-stakes fantasy plot; but that’s a whole different post)

#3: rapunzel did the right thing, but lost control over the situation due to lack of experience.

it would have been wrong to abandon everybody in corona to run off into the blizzard with varian, and frankly it wouldn’t have helped quirin anyway. he was already encased in amber by the time varian got back to old corona, and rapunzel couldn’t have done anything in the moment had she been with varian then. the only benefit to her presence would have been to comfort varian—which is not a small thing, obviously, but it’s not in any way a reasonable exchange for the hundreds or thousands of lives that would have been lost if she left corona completely without a leader in the middle of a crisis. so broadly speaking, staying in corona was the right call.

however.

rapunzel was not in control during that scene in the palace. varian bursts in, panicking, explains his situation and begs for her help—and rapunzel just says, basically, “i can’t help you, there’s an emergency.” then nigel comes in and reinforces that, which makes varian freak out; he grabs rapunzel and shakes her, nigel signals for the guards in response, and varian gets dragged out of the palace while rapunzel pleads with the guards not to hurt him.

(sidebar: the hate nigel gets for describing varian as “attacking” rapunzel is unfounded. varian grabs her and shakes her roughly back and forth and that is, in fact, assault. nigel is not wrong to describe it as such.)

anyway, notice two the things that DON’T happen here:

1) rapunzel doesn’t offer up any alternative solutions. a more experienced or better prepared leader could have responded to varian’s plea with a plan of action, like: i need to stay in corona to oversee the evacuation, so we can’t leave right this minute, but cassandra will take you to ask xavier for advice right now and the minute it’s safe to leave we’ll go together to help your father. or whatever—the point is to engage proactively with varian’s problem, make him feel heard, and give him something productive to do so he isn’t just sitting around fretting in the palace or struggling back home by himself in the middle of a blizzard.

2) raps doesn’t challenge nigel’s decision when he summons the guards to throw varian out of the palace, which is something she absolutely could have done. she could have said no, i can’t go to old corona right this minute to help him, but we are not throwing him out into the storm again, he stays here with me. this is, again, a sign of her inexperience; she’s not used to being an authority, she’s never been in a situation like this before, and she’s under a ton of pressure—so when an older adult whom she sees as an authority (he’s her father’s advisor!) makes a judgment call, it probably doesn’t even occur to her that she can challenge it.

this is why i say that rapunzel lost control over the situation—because even though she made the Right Decision, she got a kind of awful outcome, ie varian being tossed out into the blizzard to struggle home by himself to deal with his problem without any support, and rapunzel inadvertently breaking her promise from earlier.

#4: rapunzel doesn’t immediately go to check on varian after the storm because she’s traumatized, busy, and trusts her father.

painter’s block is all about how the trauma rapunzel feels as a direct result of her decisions during the storm destroys her ability to choose anything. she feels so debilitated by the fear that she will make the wrong choice—because she worries that she chose wrong when she allowed varian to be sent away—that she can’t do anything at all, let alone find the emotional strength to go to old corona and confront her mistakes. and while she tries to process and move past this trauma, mrs sugarby exploits it in an attempt to force her to free zhan tiri.

the next episode, not in the mood, involves rapunzel being put under enormous pressure to entertain an irascible ally of corona’s while he and her father negotiate a trade deal with the threat of a war breaking out if they fail. NITM is a silly episode, but it has the highest non-magical stakes of any episode in the entire series. this isn’t an event rapunzel could have reasonably skipped out on for the sake of one person, no matter how much she cares. she’s slammed. she’s still being forced to prioritize just like she was in QFAD.

and in the third episode after QFAD, rapunzel is tormented by nightmares about varian and what happened to his father, so she presses frederic for information about the rocks and varian’s safety. and frederic assures her that everything is fine. he lies to her face about the rocks having been removed, and rapunzel has no reason to doubt him, so she relaxes… until varian contacts her directly, and she immediately jumps to help him.

#5: at the same time, varian has been forced into hiding because frederic is attempting to cover up the rock problem.

what happens to varian after QFAD is plainly unfair and unjust. his father is trapped in amber, the rocks have completely destroyed old corona, most of the villagers have presumably moved to the new land frederic set aside for them, and frederic’s secret police are crawling all over the village trying to suppress information about the rocks (and fred’s role in creating them). the blame for this lies squarely at frederic’s feet, and varian is right to be angry.

i believe that varian interprets rapunzel’s absence as a sign that she’s complicit in what frederic is doing, making his anger at her justified as well. he doesn’t have access to the information we do about why rapunzel doesn’t seek varian out immediately—he doesn’t see how distraught and shattered she is after the storm, or the high-stakes political nonsense she has to deal with, and he certainly doesn’t see her trying to pursue the matter of the rocks and varian’s safety with her father and being flatly lied to to convince her to stay put in corona. all he knows is that rapunzel kicked him out and now she’s ignoring him and her father’s agents keep chasing him away from his home, and he draws the conclusion that makes the most sense to him, ie rapunzel must be okay with all of this because otherwise she would be here.

and once he has that idea in his head, the fact that rapunzel immediately jumps to help him when he contacts her isn’t enough to dislodge it. he’s a scared, lonely fourteen year old boy looking at this situation through a purely interpersonal lens while rapunzel is an overwhelmed eighteen year old doing the best she can while juggling about a million things at once and putting varian low on her priority list because she’s been told by a trusted source that varian is fine.

they both make mistakes, they’re both missing important contextual information, and neither of them handles this situation in the best possible way. but neither of them is “at fault” in the sense of being purely in the wrong, and—imo—frederic and quirin hold the lion’s share of the blame here, because they had all the information, and they refused and refused and refused to deal with the black rock problem until it overwhelmed them both. varian and rapunzel are both just kids scrambling to deal with something that should not be their problem to solve, and both of them fuck up! (and even then—the best fred and quirin could’ve done was just be honest and upfront about what the problem was. neither of them had the means to fix anything, and neither of them was responsible for the very unfortunate timing of the blizzard. so it’s not as clear cut as everything bad in s1 happens because fred and quirin stuck their heads in the sand. a lot of it honestly was just sheer bad luck.)

a n y w a y, i think by s3 and after a lot of introspection, varian has figured a lot of this out, and that’s why he’s so quick to let go of his lingering grudge against rapunzel. he’s realized that at the end of the day, rapunzel was just as unprepared and lost in that situation as he was, that she’s not responsible for (and wasn’t complicit in) her father’s decisions, etc, etc.

[anincorrectpetunia]

addressing random questions and concerns from Eps 11 & 12

I want to go back and read Fitz’s chapter to sync up. I’m feeling hopeful for Liv and their future. Excited to see where this goes. These updates are such a treat and a respite from my day to day — thank you. I’m truly grateful.--@mm2009

Yes, definitely go back and read them together. It can only enhance the experience. I wrote them to sync up, which is why it was challenging lol.

Why did Fitz feel the need to go to her apartment after she begged him to leave her alone and let her breath? And better yet, why did she feel like Fitz was suffocating her when in reality he had not seen her but once?--@Olitzloverforever

I think you're asking this about when Fitz dropped off the gardenia plant. He purposely did the drop early in the morning because he didn't want her to think he was pushing up on her. Olivia's letter to him asking to 'breathe' came well after they actually talked at her apartment.

Olivia felt suffocated by the idea of Fitz. What he represented in her life. Because she was not ready to confront it, though she harboured it deep in her fantasy life. He's always there even when he's not there. That's why she expresses in her mind 'oh to be free of this man!'

Anyway, I think a lot of the above (from Episode 12, part I) is now moot since Part II of Olivia's chapter dropped?

P .S. I do wish I hadn’t learned that they are now married with a baby on the way, only because I love the suspense when it comes to Olitz. However, with this story, I get so much into it I sometimes I forget that they are presently together.--@Olitzloverforever

I'm glad you get into the flashbacks that you forget the relative security of the present. I think other's expressed the same sentiment after Episode 10 when Liv says 'yes' to Edison.

But to the first part of your P.S. It's not a spoiler that they are married and expecting a child. It's an intentional decision to start at a turning point in the Olitz relationship. I specifically wanted to explore how these two characters would be in a marriage, and how their pasts are always shaping their present. This particular flashback is the most extensive one you will have, but it will not be the only one that will provide context and meaning for the Olitz present.

Please allow her to put in some work if she eventually see that she does want a life with him… I know this is still part of the flashbacks but it still needs to be clear. Also, during the flashbacks, I thought Eli did not like Edison? This chapter made it seem like they at least “seems” to like each other. --@dendardendan

at the bold. lol. You and a couple of others are very insistent on an active Olivia when it comes to Olitz. Just trust ya girl like you've been trusting me. I have a plan.

As for Edison and Eli. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that Eli did not like Edison. That's not part of the present storyline or flashback. Recall that in Episode 10's flashback Eli had the Smithsonian event invitation sent directly to Edison. Liv didn't even know they were going to that event until they got there. Also, in Episode 7 (present), Olivia mentions that Eli was disappointed to give up his Jack and Jill fantasy for Olivia and Edison.

Eli was chummy with Edison, definitely. There's something that will make Eli's thinking very explicit in the next episode.

But WTH is wrong with Liv who is clearly not in love with Edison and his assistant telling Liv she cannot go to Kennys and be seen with that man...DAFUQ...--@IAMASCANDALLOVER

Meena didn't tell Liv she could not go to Maroon. Liv had already been avoiding it because she didn't want to run into Fitz. Meena just approached Liv with the knowledge that she knew Liv had been playing fast and loose down there.

So Liv broke up with Edison because she realizes that she does not want a future with him not because they want different things in life but because she does not love him and was not willing to forgo love and settle for less after having felt what it means to be in love—at least that’s what she knows to be true but I suppose she couldn’t just come out and tell him the truth. --@olitzloverforever

No, to tell Edison the truth would be too much. Sometimes withholding things is just kindness. Plus, Olivia didn't know what she was going to do, at the time, about her feelings for Fitz. I think she really needed some space--free of obligation to both Cyrus and Edison to know herself and how love is going to fit into her life...or not.

There was a line here-I forget where-where Liv's inner voice muses on Edison and Eli being two-sides of the same coin in terms of planning out her life for her without her input. Nothing to add, I was just happy to see it.--@jilyandbambi

I think you mean this part?

or this one?

In either case, thank you.

Thinking of Fitz while living out her fantasies with Edison was wild. Poor dude thought it was all for him..LOL I hated it, but at least it showed where her mindset is. No more sex scenes with Edison. Thank you for spring us the sex scene with Fitz and Lillian, but I think it would have been the same for Fitz thinking of Liv while riding Lillian..LOL--@dendardndan

I knew that some people would feel a way about that hotel fantasy scene. Thanks for being a good sport. It was meant to be wild because Olivia is...wildin! But, I did my best to convey that she's physically with Edison, but she is experiencing what it might be like with Fitz because ultimately her emotional connection with Edison has been severed and she's playing house. She's on that season 2 Mellie: pretending is what's real.

Anyway, y'all won. I don't have plans for non-Olitz sex scenes...for now.

[ravnicaforgoblins]

Ravnica for Goblins

More Awesome NPCs of Ravnica

NPCs are one of the most important tools in a DM’s campaign. Your assorted guards, informants, bartenders, hench-persons, random civilians, and, of course, your quest-givers. Optimistically, you hope to have certain NPCs stick around for a while to have the party build a relationship with them, as opposed to getting murder-hobo-ed because your party doesn’t like their attitude. Which is why it’s so great that Ravnica is filled with cool NPCs who are definitely stronger than your party (for a while)!

A couple notes; I already did a list of Awesome NPCs, focusing on the Ladies of Ravnica, so this time I thought I’d try and give the boys (and Melek) some spotlight. Secondly, as I’ve by now made annoyingly apparent, I’m focusing on characters in the modern era of Ravnica, i.e. after the Decamillennial, because everything before the Decamillennial is a nightmare to figure out and you don’t need that headache.

Tajic, Blade of the Legion

You can’t have the Boros without Tajic. Well, you can, but you don’t want to. Tajic is the Legion’s Champion as well as their Mazerunner, and embodies all the ideals the Legion stands for. Unity, strength, passion; an unbreakable shield against all who would threaten Ravnica’s citizens. He is technically considered a Firefist, but special considerations should be made to give him the flavor he really deserves. Both of Tajic’s MTG cards have had some manner of protection against damage when involving other creatures. In addition, Firefists are actually primarily spellcasters, whereas Tajic is never seen without a blade in his hand or his name. So, to sum up, take a Firefist, add in some manner of damage resistance or even immunity contingent upon having allies present, throw in a weapon trick or two for his big wavy sword, and ta-da! You’ve got Tajic!

Momir Vig, Simic Visionary

I know I said no pre-Decamillennial, but Momir Vig is a special case. Technically, the former Guildmaster is dead, but the shadow of his reign still lingers over the Simic Combine. Momir Vig symbolizes everything Ravnica fears about the Combine; progress without restraint. Vig’s cytoplasts were oozes designed for personalized evolution in subjects to correct flaws and deficiencies (regrowing lost limbs, bolstering weakened immune systems, extra brain cells, etc). The only problem is that the project worked so well that Vig stopped seeing the need for consent, creating a new form of cytoplast that only needs to touch a host to bond with it. This raised some understandable concerns among Ravnican citizens, as well as the other Guilds. These concerns went to 11 when Vig’s Project Kraj, a gargantuan organism composed of thousands of cytoplasts, was activated to purge Ravnica and start over with a fresh slate. They went to a further 12 when Vig was killed, Project Kraj summoned every cytoplasm back to it (maiming, crippling, or killing a large number of hosts), and proceeded to go on a rampage that only ended after it ate Rakdos and went into a coma.

Momir Vig is exactly the kind of mad scientist to escape the grave, go underground, and continue his research unimpeded until it’s ready. A Rogue Guildmaster with no boundaries, or as we like to call it, a ready-made Big Bad.

Melek, Izzet Paragon

As with Vig, Melek is canonically dead, but that sort of “dead” that could conceivably be temporary if the story requires it. Melek is a Weird designed by Niv-Mizzet himself to be the Izzet Mazerunner. A certain sparkmage had other ideas however, so he absorbed the sentient being of pure elemental energy into himself at the start of the Maze and took its place, then tried to shock the other runners to death because, you know, winning. But following the physics principle that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed into a different form, it’s believable that Melek could return someday. Probably with a grudge against said sparkmage. Melek is a fascinating build, combining high-level spellcasting with complete elemental resistance or possibly even immunity. Basically, a wizard who can tank. Even more intriguing, any lab run by a being composed of pure energy would be calibrated to channel said energy, possibly allowing short-range teleportation within said lab. This is a brilliant exercise in lair mechanics, so don’t hold back. Lest we forget Melek is a personal project of the Firemind, aka, the single most brilliant, powerful, and egocentric fire-breathing ancient dragon wizard in Ravnican history.

Tomik Vrona, Distinguished Advokist

Given the Orzhov Syndicate’s seeming fascination with being a faceless hierarchy of priests, lawmages, ghosts, tax collectors, etc; it’s nice to have another face with a name. Tomik Vrona is a lawmage who apprenticed under Teysa Karlov herself, making him a master of Ravnican law. It also makes him uncharacteristically open to relationships with other Guilds, as he is effectively Teysa’s link to the outside world during her imprisonment. Tomik carries a strong respect for the law, but is a passionate lover of interesting & creative loopholes. In short, he’s not inherently evil/greedy like most of the Syndicate, but still has ambition in spades. He prefers to use gargoyles for transportation, treasures every book he owns, and is canonically dating/living with that hot-tempered sparkmage mentioned previously. Whether the relationship is public or not is up to you. I personally see it as a measure of trust between the NPCs and the party; it’s a pretty controversial pairing of Guilds. It could even be a Romeo & Juliet (Julio?) kind of affair, just putting that out there.

Vorel of Hull Clade

If Momir Vig represents the dark side of the Simic Combine’s experiments, Vorel represents the infinite possibility they can offer. A former Gruul shaman, he made the decision to give up a piece of his clan’s territory to a Boros Legion garrison to better fortify their home turf, and was nearly killed when they turned on him for perceived cowardice. Vorel escaped and joined the Combine, where he was given Merfolk traits and an environment that embraced his ideas & strategic thinking. Vorel is extremely grateful to his new Guild, and believes himself to be an example of how anything is possible through the Simic, no matter one’s origins. His strong passion & drive have led to great breakthroughs, but he’s definitely more emotionally-driven than most Simic researchers. Here is a Biomancer that isn’t afraid to get dirty or bloody in combat. This could be a fun experiment in crafting a Simic Melee Weapon.

Tolsimir Wolfblood, Ledev Guardian

You know that one leader elf in fantasy stories who everyone else takes orders from but never fights themselves? Yeah, this isn’t that elf. This is what you wish that elf was, a warrior archer who leads his soldiers into battle atop a giant dire wolf and kicks some serious ass. The Ledev are Selesnya’s elite mounted force, skilled fighters, archers, swordsmen, and even spellcasters. They are the cavalry, the breaking dawn on Hornburg, the “oh shit” in an enemy’s mouth. Please don’t make the mistakes of countless fantasy novels by being on bad terms with such badass warriors. Having any member of the Ledev behind you should be a boost to the party’s courage & resolve. Having Tolsimir fight alongside you should be one of the greatest honors of your life. The chance to finally recreate that “besties” relationship between Legolas & Gimli as you see who can kill the most enemies in battle.

Domri Rade, City Smasher

I hesitate to include Domri, I genuinely do. He’s a scraggly little punk who nearly brought about the destruction of the Gruul (and all of Ravnica) ultimately because he was too weak and too stupid. I include him here out of respect for the lore, but you can honestly do better. Domri Rade was considered too small & weak for any Gruul clan, so he instead bonded with the savage animals of the Rubblebelt, eventually discovering he could incite them into stampedes at will. This new power finally granted him admission into Borborygmos’ own Burning Tree Clan, but he panicked during the burial rite of passage and planeswalked away for the first time. Eventually he learned to control his powers, returned to the Rubblebelt, challenged Borborygmos for leadership of the Burning Tree clan, and won by sending wave after wave of stampeding boars to trample the cyclops Guildmaster. He was enlisted by Nicol Bolas to help destroy Ravnica, and failed to realize that meant him too as an eternal ripped out his Planeswalker Spark, killing him. Domri Rade is basically a cheap knockoff of Garruk Wildspeaker, only smaller and weaker and dumber and infinitely less dangerous. He is, however, considered by many to be an omen of the End-Raze, heralding the return of the Boar God Ilharg and the burning down of Ravnica by the Gruul who follow the Old Ways. So maybe play up that angle if you include him in your campaign.

Ral Zarek, Izzet Viceroy

If you only include one NPC from any of my lists in your Ravnica campaign, you must include Ral Zarek. Failing to do so is denying your players the opportunity to interact with the single coolest character in Ravnica. He beats out Vraska for the sole reason that he’s a much more public & accessible figure than the Gorgon Assassin, and an unexpected encounter with him is significantly less likely to end in your death/petrification. Between his good looks, cocky grin, brilliant mind, and lightning powers that put Thor to shame; Ral is certain to make any situation more interesting. He’s a great contact to have within the Izzet, a brilliant researcher, extremely talented with designing gadgets or magic items, an astonishingly powerful magic user, and a fun guy to hang around with. He can definitely have a temper on him, so understand when to back away. Hint: His hair turns from black to white when his electromancy powers are activating. You’ll also probably notice the sounds of static discharge building up around him, perhaps a faint smell of ozone, crackling energy coming from his gauntlet, and, oh yeah, his eyes glow and his smile turns into a growling grimace of death as he fills you with lightning. Whether by design or accident, Ral is basically the mascot for Ravnica, and it’s almost unthinkable for him to be absent from a campaign set there.

[gamebunny-advance]

A Story About Love (Ver. 2)

Note: This is basically a rework of version 1. I got through DJSS and Sayu and started on Zuke/DK West.

NSR has lots of different themes and ideas in it, and I don't want to discredit it by trying to boil them all down into a single point, but I think more than anything, NSR is a love story. Which is to say it's a story about love, not a romance.

Now, I realize that "love" is such a nebulous theme as to almost be all encompassing, but just because it's so broad doesn't mean that it can't be discussed in a meaningful way. Because love does come in many different shapes and forms and I really do think that most of the conflicts in the game revolve around exploring the many forms which love takes.

So for just a little while, I want to take this time to explore how each boss and the protagonists express these different loves.

Starting off we have the first boss: DJ Subatomic Supernova, and yes I'm going to be saying his full name every time I need to refer to him because it's what he would have wanted, and what he wants is to persist.

Most apparently DJSS exhibits one of the most damaging forms of self-love: narcissism. He thinks himself superior to everyone around him and deems himself the only acceptable person to be the "avatar of Earth". To reach this end he began as a college professor but found no success in being able to spread his message to his students. After some self reflection, he tries a different approach by combining his other two loves: space and melody which leads to him being successful as an artist under NSR. Although he was able to widen his reach and even gained some followers, he was still unsatisfied and during the events of the game is still seeking to immortalize himself.

Now I think that DJSS is kind of an interesting case to start off with because his "love" is essentially already resolved by the time B2J gets involved because  the narrative doesn't seem to think it's a problem that can be solved.

No, it's a problem that needs to be punished.

Unlike other artists who ultimately leave their boss fight with the tools they need to resolve their love problems, the resolution to DJSS's arc was blasting him off into space which solidifies that he himself is the problem. Although for a brief moment in the finale he does concede that maybe B2J aren't as below him as he thought they were, which I think implies that he has learned to accept that other people do have their own merits beyond his particular values. BUT his reason for making music is still firmly "self-importance". In a way, I think it's fitting that he doesn't really get resolution for this problem because it shows that what he's dealing with is totally internal. He might gain insight from his experiences, but he needs to find it in himself to begin changing for the better, and no amount of beating him over the head is going to get him to realize that unless he chooses to.

Next is team Sayu and their immature love.

Unlike the majority of the cast who are adults and have mostly settled down and have realized themselves already, team sayu are just high schoolers: kids. More than that, they're all nerds, which is to say that they're all probably greatly informed by the media they consume more than any actual experience or mentor. Sayu is clearly supposed to invoke the kind of "genki girl" archetype that you often find in shoujo anime and manga and even her transformation sequences and belief in love as an ultimate power are clearly inspired by the themes of mahou shoujo stories. Tila herself is particularly drawn to such fantasies of love if her drawings of her crush are anything to go by. This isn't to say that enjoying things like that is immature or wrong in itself, but when that's all they're using as a point of reference to what love means they're going to be horribly unprepared if they ever experience conflict in their relationships, which is exactly what happens. Although they were able to get by with just letting each member contribute their individual skills to Sayu's performance, when they're actually met with conflict they have a hard time working together and their teamwork quickly devolves into infighting making Sayu unstable until she finally becomes the monster which is reverse mermaid Sayu. Although this does come from them finally banding together as a team, which means that they eventually worked through their conflict, the end result being so unpleasant I do think represents how this fight has effected their group negatively but they did come out of it stronger by having that experience. Their fight closes with Mayday advising them that they don't really know what they're in for and to "stay in school". She recognizes that they still have a lot to learn to make their bond stronger.

The next is DK West and Zuke's exploration of the careful balance in siblingship. Although I'm sure we've all heard the phrase that "blood is thicker than water" or "brothers who fight at home, protect each other from slight", that doesn't mean that it doesn't take work to maintain a relationship with family and letting it degrade is ultimately going to cause strife between everyone involved. Really the core of their issue is a lack of communication.

[mollyscribbles]

Owl House rewatch thoughts

* Hard to say from what little we see of her, but I think Luz' mom might have been less worried about her daughter reading fantasy and more about the "multiple incidents of bringing uncontained live animals and explosives to school" thing.

* If Eda considers Luz' Azura book as being only useful as kindling, it means she's not inclined to view human books as something she can make snails on.  Considering how unique her portal to the human realm is treated, where did Amity get her Azura books?  I've seen people suggest the author travels between realms, but if that were the case, Amity would've been able to get the latest volume from a local store rather than needing to borrow Luz' copy.

* Suggestions for other species that escaped from the Boiling Isles: the platypus and peacock mantis shrimp.

* "Weak nerd arms" ok really identifying with Luz here.

* Really love this take on Chosen One stories.  Because yes, there is an appeal in being told you're special, you're unique in the best possible way, but ultimately this is a story about people who aren't "special" so much as outcasts who do their best with the situation they're in.  Which is something that a lot more people can aspire to be.

* The fact that this was a set scheme(as the multiple fake maps would indicate) rather than a trap specifically designed for Luz indicates that even people who've spent their lives on the Boiling Isles would be drawn to the idea of being a magical chosen one. I bet Amity's not the only one to have an interest in fantasy literature around here.

* Oh wow Amity's first appearance outside the credits is . . . something.  It's easy to forget just how far she grew in one season.

* Eda's not a *bad* teacher, so much as she has yet to learn that teaching requires expanding on a concept you introduce and explaining your reasoning.  "Here is what you can learn from tasting snow" instead of just "here, taste these different kinds of snow"

* Hm.  For someone who despairs at the concept of the school teaching blind obedience, her teaching style kinda relies on it.  Bit of a hypocrite there, Eda.

* Gonna be honest, the first time I watched this and King mentioned Eda sneaking a drink of elixir, I thought it was going to turn out to be a magic-looking flask.

* It seems slightly odd that King's apparently known Eda for a while but didn't have any idea of the curse.  Maybe she was just REALLY good about keeping up with her elixirs pre-series.

* Really like the metaphor for a chronic illness that's kept under control by medication.

* If the Emperor's Coven provides access to all forms of magic, you'd think others aspiring for a spot would be permitted a multi-track education at Hexside.  That might be why none of them seem to be that impressive at magic when they're supposed to be the "best of the best" -- even if they have *access* to all forms of magic, they've only had training in one specific field during the bulk of their education.

* lbr, Lilith's cheating was worse because at least Eda told Luz what she was doing.

* You'd think Willow and Gus might have caught on that Luz didn't have permission for them to come over when she told them to hide from Eda.

* It's nice that Eda realizes raising a kid with a "screw the rules" mindset will result in a kid who breaks her rules sometimes.  Cleaning up the mess she caused is really the correct punishment for Luz; directly dealing with the consequences of her actions but otherwise considering it a lesson learned.

* Reading to kids in the library is an A+ way to shift Amity from "Jerk" to "Jerk with a heart of gold" territory.

* Prediction: At some point, Luz will return to the human world (probably only briefly but Eda won't know at the time) and Eda will come across the "Coping with empty nest syndrome" book Luz got her from the library.  She'll cry.  King will cry.  Hooty will cry.  Every viewer will cry.

* Pretty sure that, given what the world is like, if any of them ended up questioned about their actions during the body swap episode, they could just say "Oh yeah I was body swapped that day. What'd I get up to?" and everyone would consider this a perfectly logical explanation for them acting out-of-character.

* HC that Hexside is fully aware some illusion-track students skip class by having an illusion of themselves attend in their place, but they figure a student maintaining a decent replica of themselves for the duration of the class period requires enough effort to count as a form of class participation, so they just let everyone think they're getting away with it.

* Gus and Willow are really ride-or-die friends.  Always nice to have.

* Probably some of the mystery appeal will be gone from the Human Appreciation Society once a legit human is just attending classes on a regular basis; being able to get definitive answers to questions rather than spending your time speculating would cut back on the draw.

* I love all the details they include on this show -- a lot of other shows would just stick in scribbles while panning past pictures instead of writing out all of Eda's incident reports.

* The pallisman is a neat concept; sort of like a mix of a wand and a familiar, a magical control that will have opinions of its own.

* Given Bat Queen apparently has enough of, um, a biological aspect to have kids, I wonder if that means Owlbert is capable of laying eggs.  Or having eggs with another owl/pallisman if the male pronouns are anything to go by.

* I mean even Phineas and Ferb didn't question Perry laying an egg when he uses male pronouns so could go either way in terms of what Disney would allow.

* Reading the book fair signs, it looks like sci-fi is a popular genre in the Boiling Isles.  Makes sense, since what we'd consider Fantasy would be more contemporary/urban fantasy to them.

* Getting the vibe that someone on staff had a less-than-amicable experience co-writing with a friend to inspire this one. And/or experience with shitty contracts.

* The Hexside requirements also required knowledge of basic runes, but given Luz apparently had no issue with that I'm guessing she just picked those up offscreen.

* "I've seen worse" is the ideal admissions response tbh.  Like . . . she pulled off the required spells and the headmaster has seen decades of students' awkward first attempts.  It probably counts as a good day when no one's admissions test resulted in needing to bring in someone from the Construction Track to repair the building.

* It's very reminiscent of D&D that the majority of the cast has the response of "This is clearly a trap.  Let's check it out!"

* You'd think that carnival fortune tellers wouldn't have the same appeal in a world where it's something you study at school.  Unless it's viewed the same way as those "magic" shows they have sometimes where the tricks all involve chemical reactions.

* Kinda surprised a school that teaches kids fire spells doesn't have some kind of fire suppression system in place.

* Hrm.  Guessing the mind guardian went back and undid their own damage offscreen; otherwise they'd have had to go re-do the repairs before leaving.

* Good they had the wifi and charging cable coming through the portal to explain why Luz' phone still has service and the battery's not long dead.

* Luz, how have you survived this long with your instinct for pushing buttons.  The same as the rest of humanity in a world full of buttons, I suppose.

* Probably if they thought about it, the best criteria for picking Grom royalty would be less who's the most skilled at magic and more who has the most low-key fears. . . . nvm, having a Stay-Puft incident would cause them to reasonably scrap that approach.  Maybe appointing someone who obsesses over grades would have better odds of producing a relatively-simple-to-combat exam paper.

* I'm thinking the letters are written by Eda, who doesn't intend anything sinister by it so much as being the type to cover her bases when pulling off a scam and realizing Luz' mother would need some evidence to indicate her daughter was safely at camp.

* The band-aids clearly have some healing spell built-in, considering they've been used to heal inanimate objects.

* someone on the writing staff has a long-standing rant about Quidditch they've been holding back on.

* I know that normally the humor in the cut from "she's finally growing up." to Luz planning the heist would be that she's doing something that sensible adults would consider to be a bad idea, but if Eda saw her just then she'd wipe away a tear of pride and go "Her first self-planned heist! They grow up so fast!"

* Eda's the one who talks about cheating at stuff, but Lilith has a habit of playing *dirty*.

* I would like to say I appreciate them going with a more serious credit sequence because it was disconcerting with Star Vs when a dark ending was followed by "I THINK EARTH'S A REALLY GREAT PLACE"

* Lilith may have made a 30-years-late attempt to redeem herself, but I really don't trust her.  I don't quite want her dead, but she DID spend decades trying to force her sister to join the Emperor's Coven as a prerequisite for curing her curse.

[sepublic]

Sorry about the double ask so here's a fun idea, Emperor Belos wrote The Good Witch Azura books. Like he wrote them in his younger years before becoming a parasitic tyrant. - Pixel Anon

           That seems like it’d be the perfect opportunity to segue into a lesson about Death of the Author, which- Given Sense and Insensitivity, and how this show already discusses how fiction affects reality and connects with it… Would be VERY refreshing to see, especially as a moral that I don’t really see other kids’ shows exploring! I do recall OK KO bringing it up with the Hero Cards not representing Kappas, but the more the merrier. It’d also be fitting to discuss Death of the Author, and separating a work from a terrible creator- Given the show’s frequent references to Harry Potter, which has a rather infamous author…

           For neurodivergent kids who really get into hyperfixations and fandoms, which Luz and Amity basically are- It’d be fascinating to see them navigate this kind of twisted revelation! And it’d also force them to really re-examine The Good Witch Azura, because sometimes a work can’tbe separated from the harmful ideas of its creator, especially if it was made to transmit them… If Azura ever talks about dealing with ‘savages’, that’d be VERY sus and make matters a lot more complex. But then again, Azura also reconciles with Hecate, so it could be a matter of recognizing a work’s more problematic areas and criticizing them, while still enjoying it.

          And, this makes sense, as The Owl House really does convey that experience of engaging with media and fiction, and how it relates to real life… And how media and fiction CAN mean a lot to people, it’s perfectly valid for one’s hyperfixations to mean the world to them! It’s treated as objectively terrible for Luz to throw away her Azura book, and bar a few social misunderstandings, the Azura books have otherwise brought nothing but happiness for her and Amity, and even functioned as something for them to bond over!

          It’s perfectly okay for fiction to mean a lot to Luz, and she’s not being childish for wanting to hold on, to keep enjoying it- So it’d be an interesting discussion when Belos’ authorship is thrown into the mix, amidst potential problematic bits here or there. Then again, Luz is an ND-coded kid who continues to find solace in these stories, which would suggest that there isn’t anything there that would bother her- At least, nothing she’d have really noticed until someone pointed it out to her.

           Then there’s the appropriateness, of Belos’ own fantasy being what could’ve led to Luz being deluded in her own right, projecting fantasies and dreams onto reality, wanting to be a chosen one… It’d be an extension of the kind of harmful delusions and ideas he puts into others, tying it back all the way of Luz herself, prior to arriving on the Boiling Isles! It’d give us insight to Belos as someone who really gets people to believe in the idea of being special, of being chosen, specifically for the Emperor’s Coven… And how this could relate to HIS character, if he himself is also a victim of these kinds of issues. If Belos is Luz, in that she never learned to differentiate fantasy from reality, and felt entitled towards bringing her stories to life.

          Perhaps Belos isn’t REALLY chosen by the Titan, he just likes to think of himself as a Chosen One- Or he was, but others can also quality for this honor, which is something that aggravates Belos because it alludes to him not being more special than others. Because to Belos, it’s not enough to be unique and valid in your own way; You must be actively better than others, and the creation of the Emperor’s Coven above all reflects this. The belief that magic is a privilege, a luxury, something you must actively earn or be more worthy of than others for…

           It’s also an interesting contrast, as if Belos has also been influenced by his works, or his works are a reflection of that- Then it’d set him apart from Luz as someone who actively deludes himself. As someone who is voluntarily blind, and willfully ignorant- Just like Lilith, who was inspired by Belos and looked to him as a role model when she was younger. Even before becoming a parasitic tyrant, Belos was a dark reflection of Luz, subjecting others to fantasies and delusions… Maybe not initially maliciously nor willingly, maybe it was just him having fun like any author. But then this innocuous action became very dark in retrospect, as Belos and his ‘hobbies’ worsened and took on a more harmful role for the people of the Boiling Isles.

          I suppose it’s worth noting that Belos’ imagery invokes a lot of white, which is also seen with Azura’s predominantly white-and-purple robes… While Belos is white-and-gold. If Belos is a dark deconstruction of Luz’s assumption of a Chosen One narrative and fantasies, then maybe he’s also a deconstruction of Azura herself; And this of course suggests that he actively emulated his own creation. He’s artistic and a writer like Luz is, but it seems Belos got TOO convinced by how good he was, and couldn’t take constructive criticism- Which could be like King as an author in Sense and Insensitivity, up until he realizes that Luz’s input helped make him so great!

           Luz and Amity can still engage in fantasy and fiction, the show always lets them find joy in this… It’s just a matter of finding the distinction between the two and recognizing it. Fully indulging into fantasy is what could’ve led Luz to accepting Adegast’s illusions… But entirely rejecting is is the path that is the Reality Camp, which would’ve sucked the fun and joy out of Luz and turned her into a hollow, soulless imitation of herself. It’s okay to find comfort and media and even be inspired by it, to even take lessons from it; And while you should always prioritize listening to real life when it says otherwise, I think it’s worth observing that Luz’s quest to be a good person like Azura… Well, influences her to be kind!

          And it’s this desire to emulate Azura that influences Luz to learn magic, which creates yet another hyperfixation that brings the girl joy, and leads to her connecting with Eda and everyone else in the Boiling Isles in the first place by staying there! Perhaps Belos will contrast with Luz in that while he recognized media’s ability to make him feel happier, he ultimately used it as a crutch, a substitute for actual meaningful interaction and connection with other people- Thus creating the monster we see today. There could be the idea of finding role models, people you want to emulate- But also recognizing their flaws, where to criticize them, and not be like them. That could tie into how Eda is a teacher to Luz, but isn’t always right and excels by taking Luz’s feedback into consideration, instead of assuming she always knows better and will never be wrong.

           All in all, this is a fascinating idea Pixel Anon! Even if Belos has no literal connection to the Azura books, I am a big fan of the idea of him being a dark reflection to Luz… A Luz as we see her start out in the series, only to be a Luz who never learns the lessons we see her go through. Belos wanted to be a hero, a main character; But he never went through the actual arc and character development of one, and instead ended up as the static villain, the main antagonist who causes problems for actualheroes. If some characters become what they despise most by trying to avoid that, then perhaps Belos is someone who avoids becoming what he wanted to be, in his attempts to be like that.

          Whether or not media has played a role in Belos’ life has yet to be seen, but there is the idea of him having lived out a traditional ‘fantasy’ without realizing it as such, because to him this IS his reality- So it’s ironic then that Belos deludes himself while Luz doesn’t. Maybe it’s because of this, because Luz has that self-awareness to consider the divide between her fantasies and what reality actually is; Because she has an actual frame of reference for what fantasy and fiction is. Suddenly I’m reminded of that joke in Lost in Language, when Gary sees “Fiction-Fiction” because the Non part, the reminder of reality, was erased; And he has an existential crisis, wondering if any of his life was real…

          Imagine this being foreshadowing to BELOS, of all people, having an epiphany- Realizing that so much of his ‘reality’ was just his own fiction, that he questions what things were real and what things never were. Belos realizing he forgot to consider reality, and now he’s questioning everything he knows, if his arcane knowledge is all for naught if he can’t even distinguish facts from fantasy… etc. What is real and objective- What if all of his ‘Non-Fiction’ was simply just Fiction, and Luz the troublemaker must reveal this to Belos? I’m just imagining Luz very awkwardly cringing and navigating around Belos’ breakdown, but also sort of relating to his dilemma and helping him recover; At least for the sake of everyone else, because a reformed Belos makes life easier than a dead one.

          Plus, Luz is very compassionate in that sort of way… And while Belos’ radiance has blinded him for so long; Now, it’s Luz’s less harsh Light, which helps open his eyes and allow Belos to properly see the world around him. Eyes DO seem to be a major motif in the Boiling Isles, and with Belos, whose eyes need to be fixed by some palisman bile… If Belos’ light has blinded all, himself the first victim; Then Luz’s more Night-time, Star-oriented Light can bring a sunset to Belos’ shining era, for now the sun sets on his empire after all these years. And with the lights dimmed, Belos can appreciate the darkness around him as a contrast, and truly recognize things for what they are… And Luz can metaphorically open his eyes and mind.

          If Luz illuminates others to the truth of their situation and what they’re doing- Then maybe her final obstacle can be Belos… Alongside her mother Camila, when Luz reunites with her and reveals just how much happier she’s been in the Boiling Isles, instead of the Reality Camp that was actually going to hurt her. THAT would be an unusual parallel, Belos and Camila, as two significant adults in Luz’s life… Potentially ones who taught Luz everything she knew prior to Eda, with Camila providing social interactions to the girl, while Belos provides lessons through his Azura fiction and media. If Azura and Camila were all Luz knew and learned from, it’d be interesting for her to teach THEM something herself- Again, a continuation of that theme of the teacher having a lot to learn from the student, and not being so infallible and all-knowing themselves. Even a teacher like Eda can still enjoy the wide-eyed opportunity and curiosity to learn as a student, once more…

[midnightactual]

As a child, before she acquired a zanpakuto, did she have an idea or fantasy of what she wanted her abilities to look like? Was she consequently excited or disappointing with the reality of how her soul manifested its power? (if she had one more or less since as long as she can remember, can you talk a little bit about the Shihoin's traditions in training their heirs and the logic or superstition behind it?)

I’m going to take the scenic route in answering this one, so you’ll have to bear with me. I’ve been (probably rather obviously) watching Cobra Kai lately (into season 3 now) and although there are lots of things to recommend it, two things that I think are very interesting about it (and that apply to this question) are the themes of generational trauma and incomplete philosophies of life. The first—the mistakes and overcorrections of one generation transferring to the next—is pretty self evident, but the second bears some more scrutiny.

Cobra Kai, the dōjō, has a simple set of three rules: “Strike first. Strike hard. No mercy.” Meanwhile, Miyagi-Do, the dōjō, has just one ethos: “First learn balance. Balance good, karate good, everything good.” A thing that I think the show strives to communicate without constantly shoving it in the viewer’s face is that both are right, actually. They’re just incomplete. Both are inflexible. Cobra Kai’s logic has ruthlessness when it counts, but lacks balance and predictably always overcommits. Miyagi-Do’s logic has balance, but lacks the ability to commit and engage decisively. Both are unsustainable. And the problem with Cobra Kai’s ethos in particular is that it can’t be readily grasped by teenagers, because it takes wisdom and experience to see its failings. (Meanwhile, Miyagi-Do’s ethos can cultivate wisdom, but it can become a trap that prevents thinking outside the box it creates.) Johnny Lawrence eventually figures this out from the Cobra Kai end through a long series of painful missteps, and sums it up with:

“This creed on the wall... follow it to the letter, it'll make you strong. It’ll make you formidable. It will also make you an asshole. ’Cause that’s just black paint on a white wall. But life’s not black and white. More often than not, it’s gray. And it’s in those gray areas where Johnny Lawrence’s Cobra Kai... sometimes shows mercy.”

So, what does all that have to do with Yoruichi? Well, my conception of the Shihōin Clan, even before I ever saw that show, is that it possessed a mindset a lot like Cobra Kai. (At the time I started here, I imagined her home life as a child as being like a more watered down version of what Azula and Zuko endured under Ozai and Ursa in Avatar: The Last Airbender, with Yoruichi’s father being ultimately rather less of an asshole than Ozai and reforming, and that still fits and correlates quite well to my current thinking, but Cobra Kai makes for a more apt comparison.)

The Shihōin are not only the masters of the martial arts within Soul Society’s nobility, but of combat, conflict, and war as a whole. That is, in a sense, their “purpose”. They’re warriors, right down to their genes, because they not only train for combat (in a grueling and regimented way from childhood, a la the SPARTAN-II program in Halo, or the one shown in Soldier) but they historically bred for it too. (And to some extent, still do, with reiatsu output and quality having been a major element of mate selection as recently as with Yoruichi’s parents, and with even Yoruichi herself sort of subconsciously looking down on the possibility of meaningful long-term intimate relationships with notably weaker partners.)

Anyway, the ultimate traditional end-product of this was Yoruichi, and she reflects the pathologies of the process as much as she does its culmination. (Her decisive defeat of her relatives in Agni Kai to become Clan Head was the ultimate proof of her superior ability and pedigree within this system.) There’s some indication (from Yoruichi herself) that Yūshirō might have an even easier time of achieving power than her, but I view him as a product of a newer, different, and superior process. (Basically: Yoruichi broke the old one, and Yūshirō’s far more playful attitude is a product of a different childhood environment after Yōsuke chilled the fuck out and stopped trying to be Kreese/Ozai; play is really how mammals learn best, after all. Someone like Yūno, @ice-cold-shihoin’s middle sibling OC, is to my mind a sort of intermediary step in this transitional process.)

In other words, Yoruichi was raised to be a complete badass. The total package. The perfect soldier. The ultimate weapon. Not just battlefield superiority, but battlefield supremacy. Strike first. Strike hard. No mercy. And so to finally come back to your actual question, she dreamed of a zanpakutō that’d help her be exactly that: a badass. I don’t think she was really too focused on the nature of how that worked, exactly, so long as it did.

The trouble is: she got it. She joined the Onmitsukidō at 100, manifested her asauchi into a zanpakutō (Kurayami) before she was 101, had her Shikai before she was 103, it became a(n actual) permanent-release type by the time she was 145, and she achieved Bankai at 152. Kurayami’s Shikai form seems rather plain and boring compared to many—unless she so chooses, the sword cannot be perceived except when its edge or point is penetrating a target, and then only visually—but that belies a simple point: it exists purely to kill. Not to duel, not to pacify, not to disarm... to kill, and with the first strike. It’s a blade purely for assassination. And this is even more true of her Bankai, Kurayami Kara Umareta Daikokutennyo, which exists for mass destruction and slaughter. She got exactly what she always dreamed of, and it completely horrified her.

Even by the time she got her Bankai, she had some inkling of what Johnny’s trying to communicate in the earlier quote. She knew that her zanpakutō was inflexible, its use was unsustainable, and that leaning into it too heavily and becoming habituated to it would make her a murderous asshole. (Think like Unohana Yachiru, but even more so, because using Kurayami doesn’t foster any sort of sense of good sportsmanship.) The reason for that is obvious: when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. It didn’t help that Kurayami, the zanpakutō spirit, was (and has always been) a kind of dark Azula-like mirror of Yoruichi herself, Yoruichi-As-She-Might-Have-Been had she not met Kaien. (Kind of like Ichigo and “Shirosaki” Zangetsu, but not nearly so extreme or directly comparable as Yoruichi has obviously [?] had no Hollowfication exposure.)

And so, just as Yoruichi had already blatantly rejected her father’s initial efforts to raise her like a boy by radically asserting her femininity, and just as she had tacitly rejected the Shihōin Clan’s focus on total efficiency by becoming far more sociable and using social engineering as much as combat ability, so too did she reject her zanpakutō by developing Shunkō.

It’s only in the present, with the aid of (bitter) wisdom and experience, that she’s gone back to it to not only try use it, but to bend it to her will rather than being afraid of it bending her to its. (To carry on with my theme here, this is actually kinda like adult Johnny going back to try and redeem the Cobra Kai dōjō of his youth and turn it into something more positive.)

Shorter answer: she wanted a badass zanpakutō, and she got rather more than she bargained for in the process. (With all that that says about the base nature of her soul and id, for lack of a better term.)

[the-everqueen]

why i disliked “the traitor baru cormorant”

so...recently i read Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant. i bought it thinking, Cool, an insightful fantasy series for me to get into while i wait to hear whether i passed my qualifying exams! i have some time before the semester starts! 

and then i absolutely hated it and spent every minute cataloguing what i thought Dickinson got wrong.

...uh, if you want to get the tl;dr of the liveblog i gave the gf, here’s the top three reasons i disliked this book:

1) not a fan of the “strong female character” trope

yes, Baru doesn’t sling around a sword or shoot arrows better than Anyone In The Whole World. but Dickinson IMMEDIATELY tells us (not shows, tells) that she’s good at math, she’s clever at picking apart strategic scenarios, she’s a savant. (tbh, i don’t love how he shows this, either, with the standard child-prodigy-who-catches-the-attention-of-a-powerful-adult trope.) in Dickinson’s crafted world, her math skills aren’t entirely unusual: women (for...some reason?) are stereotyped as being good at calculations, despite also being aligned with hysteria and too many emotions. this bothers me more than it’s probably supposed to, because the sexism in this novel doesn’t really seem to follow an internal logic. i guess it’s so we can have a woman as the protagonist? also...hoo boy...her “savant” characterization bothers me because...she’s heavily coded as South East Asian (...maaaybe Philippines or Native Hawaii, but as i’ll get to later, Dickinson doesn’t make a huge distinction). uh...model minority stereotypes anyone? yes, within the text, plenty of people associated with the Empire comment that it’s impressive someone of her background got into a position of power so young. at the same time, i’m sure that sounds familiar to so many Asian-identified people! the constant tightrope of being expected to perform to a certain (white, Western) standard while also being Othered. mostly this bothers me because Baru is also characterized as...a sellout for the Empire. sure, her stated goal is to undo the Empire from within, but [MAJOR SPOILERS] in the end it appears that her actual goal was to attain enough power that the Empire would let her be a benevolent dictator over her home island? and it’s only after a major PERSONAL betrayal that she revises this plan? [END SPOILERS] Baru also assimilates without much pain or sacrifice. she hardly ever thinks about her parents or her childhood home. she willingly strips herself of cultural signifiers and adapts to Empire norms (apart from being a closeted lesbian, which...yeah, i’ll get to that, too). and it’s not that Dickinson doesn’t TRY to make her a nuanced character, but...to me, it feels so painfully obvious that this is not his experience. it feels almost...voyeuristic. 

...much like his descriptions of wlw desire!

2) we get it, you read Foucault

the categories of sexual deviance are based entirely on a Western Victorian-era medical discourse around non-heterosexual forms of desire, but Dickinson ignores the network of sociocultural, religious, and historical contexts that contributed to that specific kind of discourse. he uses the terms “tribadism” and “sodomy” but those ideas CANNOT EXIST outside a Euro-American Christian context. yes, a huge part of the 19th century involved the pathologization of sexual and romantic desire (or lack thereof). but that in turn goes back to a history of medicine that relied on the “scientific method” as a means of studying and dissecting the human body--and that method in itself is a product of Enlightenment thinking. Theorist Sylvia Wynter (whomst everyone should read, imho) discusses how the Enlightenment attempted to make the Human (represented by a cisgender, heteronormative, white man) an agent of the State economy. every categorization of so-called deviance goes back to white supremacist attempts to define themselves as ‘human’ against a nonwhite, non-Christian Other. and IN TURN that was ultimately founded on anti-Black, anti-Indigenous racism. at this point it’s a meme in academic circles to mention Foucault, because so many scholars don’t go any further in engaging with his ideas or acknowledge their limits. but SERIOUSLY. Dickinson crafts the Masquerade as this psuedo-scientific empire that’s furthering erasure of native cultures, but...where did these ideas come from? who created them? what was the justification that gave them power? [MINOR SPOILER] blaming the Empire’s ideology on a handful of people behind the Mask who crafted this entire system makes me...uncomfortable, to say the least. part of what gives imperialism its power is that a lot of ordinary people buy in to its ideas, because it aligns with dominant belief systems or gives them some sense of advantage. 

also speaking of cultural erasure...

3) culture is more than set dressing

again, to reiterate: Baru does NOT think back to her childhood home for longer than a couple passing sentences at various points in the narrative. but even though the early chapters literally take place on her home island, i don’t get a sense of...lived experience. this is true of ALL of the fantasy analogues Dickinson has created in his Empire. i felt uncomfortably aware of the real world counterparts that Dickinson was drawing inspiration from. at the same time...there are basically no details to really breathe life into these various fantasy cultures. i HATE the trope of “fantasy Asia” or “fantasy Africa” or “fantasy Middle East” that’s rampant among white male sff writers. Dickinson does not get points from me for basically just expanding that to “fantasy South East Asia,” “fantasy Mongolia,” “fantasy South America,” and... “fantasy Africa,” plus some European cultures crammed in there. he’s VERY OBVIOUSLY drawing on those languages for names, but otherwise there’s no real sense of their religious practices, the nuances of their cultures, the differences between those cultures (besides physiological, which...oh god). part of that is probably supposed to be justified by “well, the Empire just erased it!!!” but that’s not an excuse imho. 

also...in making the Empire the ultimate signifier of the evils of imperialism...Dickinson kind of leans into the “noble savage” stereotype. Baru’s home island is portrayed as this idyllic environment where no one is shamed for who they love and gender doesn’t determine destiny and there are no major conflicts. (there is a minor nod to some infighting, but this is mostly a “weakness” that the Masquerade uses as an excuse to obliterate a whole tribe.) Dickinson justifies young Baru’s immediate assimilation as her attempt to figure out the Masquerade’s power from within, but given that the Masquerade presumably killed one of her dads and her mom maybe advocates a guerilla resistance...it’s weird that Baru basically abandons her family without a second thought. yeah, i get that she’s a kid when the Masquerade takes over the island, but...that’s still a hugely traumatic experience! the layers of trauma and conditioning and violence that go into this level of colonization are almost entirely externalized. 

(later it’s implied that Baru might qualify as a psychopath, and tbh that feels like an excuse for why we haven’t gotten any sense of her inner world, not to mention kind of offensive.) 

this isn’t exhaustive but...

it’s not that i don’t think white people shouldn’t ever address POC experiences in their books. just...if your entire trilogy is going to revolve around IMPERIALISM IS BAD, ACTUALLY, maybe you should contribute to the discourse that Black, Brown, and Indigenous authors have already done. reading this book made me so, so angry. i did not feel represented! i felt like i was being talked down to, both on a critical theory level AND on a craft level. there are SO MANY books by actual BIPOC and minority authors that have done this better. N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy and her current Cities series. Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy. Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House remains one of the more powerful novels i’ve read on how The System Is Out To Destroy You, That Is The Point. (Bardugo is non-practicing Spanish and Moroccan Jewish on one side of her family, and her character Alex is mixed and comes from a Jewish background!) 

...

there’s not really a point to this. i get a lot of people have raved about this book. good for them. if that’s you, no judgment. i’m not trying to argue IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU ARE PROBLEMATIC. i’m just kind of enraged that a white dude wrote about a Brown lesbian under a colonial empire and that THIS Brown lesbian under a colonial empire couldn’t even get behind the representation. also kind of annoyed that it’s the Empire of Masks and Dickinson either hasn’t read Fanon or didn’t see fit to slip in a Fanon reference, which like. missed opportunity. 

[bigdreamsandwildthings]

Review: The Midnight Lie (Marie Rutkoski)

Rating: ★★★★★/5

"I was anxious about the risk - to her as well as to me. And I didn't like lying. It was hard for me to tell what was real. Lies made it worse. It is a midnight lie, she said. A kind of lie told for someone else's sake, a lie that sits between goodness and wrong, just as midnight is the moment between night and morning. Or a lie that is not technically false, like a misleading truth." Do you ever read a book that is so delectable, you don't know how to convey the depth of your emotions towards it? That's me with The Midnight Lie. I don't know if I have the words to describe how beautifully written and engaging it is, but I'm sure as hell going to try. Nirrim is Half Kith and lives in the walled off Ward, in the middle of the larger island of Ethin. She works hard as a baker and forges passports in her spare time to help others find a better life outside of the Ward. But when she meets Sid, a rakish scoundrel who is so much more than they appear, she begins to open herself to the possibility of more, while also questioning why the island is the way it is. I absolutely love The Winner's Trilogy, and learning that Marie Rutkoski was writing another book felt like Christmas. I couldn't wait to see what she brought into the world, and I am so happy with what she gave us. I think I enjoyed this one more than The Winner's Curse; I know the world wouldn't exist without those books, but this one really expanded on the world and the possibilities that that first series opened up in such interesting ways. Despite being high fantasy, this one is ultimately character driven, which is part of what makes it so appealing to me. Nirrim and Sid and their relationship that evolves so much are what kept me turning pages; I absolutely ADORED the LGBTQ+ rep and how both of their feelings changed and developed. I was always rooting for them, and I found their romance believable and so charged. I wanted more the entire time, and when I got what I wanted, it just made me want even more. It was definitely the high point of the reading experience for me. But the plot is also so fascinating: there are gaps in the memories of those who live on Ethin, and everyone just says "it's always been this way", and Nirrim just doesn't question this until Sid comes from a faraway land to broaden her mindset. But the hints of magic and the way these larger plot devices are woven into the romance are just masterful, and I was curious right up until the last page about how things were going to get resolved. And then! The audacity! Of that cliffhanger ending! I need book two in my life immediately. I just enjoyed this so so much. I flew through it and felt hungry for more the entire time. Marie's writing is stunning and evocative and engaging, to such a degree that I have perfect mental images of so much of this world that I will not soon forget. I absolutely can't wait for the next instalment and more of this luscious, tragic, imaginative story.