#which is a huge contributing factor to why she's canon. just from a narrative perspective...

[my-current-obsession]

To be fair, the whole, “I’ll come back to you even if you don’t promise to wait,” is a line pulled directly from OG FFVII. It’s mentioned late game by Cid (who hilariously went to see a showing of loveless in Midgar but fell asleep then woke up just in time to view this ending scene 😂). But if you wanna deep dive on the meaning of this line, it’s worth noting that a version of the line is used in FFVIII in reference to the main ship of that installment — Rinoa and Squall — who also happen to be another mage/swordsman pair. And if you wanna go big brain square enix energy, there’s also the famous, “I’ll come back to you; I promise…I know you will,” between Sora and Kairi in Kingdom Hearts when he goes off on another journey while she awaits his return. If you go down those rabbit holes, it seems square really has a type for their main pairs, no?

I don't remember that line in OG FF7, but it's been years since I played it so I'll take your word for it. But you're right that similar lines/sentiments pop up frequently in other FF and KH games, so yeah, Square has a type. I still think the conversation between Cloud and Aerith in KH2 is the quickest and easiest parallel to make here though, considering the same pair can have basically the same interaction, in an entirely different game. Yes, Cloud could also have this conversation in the play with T or Y. But only Aerith's would have the added depth of being a potential callback/reference to another moment the pair shared.

And considering this game liked to callback to several moments between Cloud and Aerith in the previous game (him remembering their first meeting being what snaps him out of Sephiroth's control, the "will you be okay getting back", "if I said I wasn't" in the ending...) I think it's totally reasonable to assume that Square might have subtly referenced at least one Clerith moment from outside the compilation.

[scripttorture]

I was wanting to write an Avatar the Last Airbender fanfiction and in one of the scenes, Azula (who has fire powers) will torture someone by using her powers to touch and burn them. She has a lot of control over her powers but I’m not sure how to pull it without killing the victim. I thought it could feel like touching something hot more than touching an actual flame.

(Firetorture 2) Would this seem high tech (if a lot of people in theuniverse have elemental powers) and would possibly too much liketorturers have a lot of control/skill? I also wanted to show Azula ashaving either Anti-social Personality Disorder or Borderline. Wouldit be problematic for a torturer to have a Personality Disorder(instead of only mental problems as a result of torture)? Azulaalready seems like she canonly has a personality disorder. Do youthink certain problems(3) like memory trouble would show updifferently in someone with a personality disorder? Lastly, wouldhaving other torturers who don’t have disorders before torturinghelp with avoiding the ‘mentally ill people are violent’ idea?Thank you for your help! If you have suggestions on how to avoidproblematic stuff, let me know. The torture is mostly out of hate butshe could ask questions and receive flippant answers/lies. I’llhave to see which the victims ends up doing when I write the scene.(Azula ask 4) I wanted to add, I’m also aware that Azula, at 14,isn’t able to be diagnosed with a personally disorder yet. She’llbe 21 in this AU story.

Ihave actually watched this show! Which helps an awful lot with thisparticular question because I think a lot of it is heavily rooted inboth the cultures the story created and the characters themselves.

I’llbe honest I know next to nothingabout personality disorders. So while I know Azula’s behaviour andpersonality I don’t feel I can say whether it fits with apersonality disorder. I can give you my opinion on using mentally illcharacters as torturers and my opinion on how being a torturer mighteffect someone who is already mentally ill (this would be an educatedguess as no studies on the subject exist, so far as I know).

Butlet’s start with the fire.

BecauseI know the setting I feel pretty confident that this isn’t hightech. It’s using an ability that a lot of people in this world arejust born with. Yes Azula is shown throughout the show as beingparticularly skilled with that ability but I don’t see any reasonwhy that means the torture scene itself should be written as‘skilled’.

Someonecan be an Olympic runner and trip over their own feet. Someone can bea martial artist and get into a drunken brawl.

Justbecause someone hasparticular skill with some sort of physical ability doesn’t meanthey’re using it all the time.

Ithink the key with this would probably be to highlight during thescene just how unskilled what Azula is doing is. She’s prettyarrogant so I think if the scene is from her perspective a good wayto do it would be highlighting how ‘easy’ this is compared to hernormal firebending. That these tricks are things she could do sinceshe was 5 (or similar).

Historicallysome burning tortures have used flames directly but using a heatedobject of some kind seems to have been more common globally. I’munsure if there’s a specific reason for that. It could be down topracticality (ie it’s probably easier to handle a heated piece ofmetal with tongs then it is to keep hold of a flaming piece of wood).It could also be down to cultural preference in some cases (ieEuropean historical branding tortures were partly about creating aphysical mark on the victim identifying their crime).

Iimagine the closest sensation to that whirling flame the canon showswould be steam or hot air.

Asfor how to do it without killing her victim- I think the main thingto worry about is how much of the body is burnt.

Theskin is an organ and like any other organ it can fail. Burns,especially deeper burns, to larger areas of the body are more likelyto be fatal.

Concentratingthe attacks to smaller areas is a good first step.

Thereare also areas of the body that are best avoided if you want thevictim character to (realistically) survive. The mouth, nose, neckand anus are the main ones. I don’t think anything directlyto/capable of blocking the urethra is a good idea. I’d also suggestavoiding concerted attacks on the scalp. And, as I said, keeping theoverall burnt area to a minimum.

Attackson other areas may not kill the character but have the potential tocause lasting disability. Which you may or may not want in yourstory. Burns to the hands and feet can rend them unusable. Burns onor too near the joints can restrict movement in that joint. Burns around the eyes can blind.

Thesetting also has a form of magical healing if I remember correctly.You may want to think about how that affects lasting injuries and howmuch of this could be treated in the setting.

I’dsuggesting keeping any individual burns smaller than the size of thevictim’s hand and keeping them spaced out. You may also want totake a look at the archive for ScriptMedic’s blog as she wrotequite a lot on burns and their treatment.

Asfor the way you’re planning to tackle Azula-

Ithink it’s important to remember that mental health problems can beco-morbid. Having one condition doesn’t necessarily protect someonefrom another.

Idon’t personally know anyone with a personality disorder but I doknow people with other forms of neurodiversity and some havedeveloped memory problems following traumatic events.

Ithink unless a condition directly effects memory it’s probablysafest to assume that memory problems would manifest the same way asin a neurotypical character. A neurodiverse character may reactto those problems differently but I think that’s a slightlydifferent subject.

ActuallyI think that’s probably the best way to think about ‘differences’in symptoms between neurotypical and neurodiverse characters:concentrate less on whether a character ‘could’ have particularsymptoms and more on whether they’d naturally respond to thosesymptoms differently.

Ifyou’re unsure of how a particular symptom would interact with acharacter’s preexisting mental health problems it might be best tochoose another symptom. Or do further research on the original mentalhealth problems the character has.

AndI think that leaves me with the question of mentally ill characterstorturing.

Ithink a lot of canons leave fanfic writers in a tough spot herebecause so many villains are either coded mentally ill or explicitlymentally ill. And the canon often links that to the bad things theydo.

Thatleaves fanfiction writers with a problem because writing away eitherthe villain’s bad actions or their mental illness is a huge changeto the character. It takes away from what they were and often rendersthem unrecognisable.

Iwould definitely encourage writers to stop creating so manycharacters like this but when it’s a character from another canonthat a writer is using- I think that’s a more difficult question.

Inthis particular case I think the fact Azula is in a rare position ofpower also contributes to the problem. Because regardless of othertorturers/baddies around her sheis the ring leader and the one in control. She has a greater degreeof responsibility because she is probably orderingothers to act as well as acting directly herself.

Sothis isn’t a mentally ill person committing a violent act underorders, she’s inciting and orchestrating the violence. Everythingis under her control.  

Includingcharacters who were not mentally ill before they started torturingseems like a good step: it should help tie at least some of themental health problems these characters have to torture rather thanthe characters themselves. But this doesn’t really change thepotential implication that Azula is evil because she’s mentallyill.

Inan original story I’d suggest including ‘good’ characters withthe same mental illness. I’m not sure how much scope you have forthat here. If you have room for original characters to play a largepart in the story (or think that similar symptoms apply to one of theheroes) then I think that’s definitely a good idea to explore.

Thisis where knowing the source material comes in handy.

BecauseAzula is also the favoured aristocratic child of an absolute monarch.Azula’s environment hasactively contributed to her becoming the villain she is. Everybit of bad behaviour she displays in actively encouraged. Her bloodthirsty tendencies were taught.

Andon top of that the canon shows that her worst instincts areconstantly indulged, no one is allowed to say no to her. Even whenshe is obviously in the middle of a mental break down.

Showthat environment and how toxic it must have been. Emphasise it. Worklittle bits of it in throughout the story in as many ways as you can.

Showhow much she’s thrown when things don’t go her way (becauseobviously everyone follows her orders, they always have before). Showthe roots of her pettiness and violence, remind your readers of thepeople who encouraged and nurtured it. Show your readers that this isa woman who was taught from childhood that her value is in hercapacity for violence.

She’sreally hurt the enemy this time. Daddy will be so proud.

Mentallyill or not this is a big part of Azula’s motivation for violence.She has always previously met with approvalfrom the people who matter to her when she displayed violenttendencies. She has gone through her entire life being rewarded forbrutality. Of course she’s brutal.

Includingthat background in your story as clearly and as consistently as hermental illness should help give a more nuanced narrative. Lessmentally ill + BAD and more… a discussion of how environment and inborn factors can warp someone.

Weall have a capacity for violence and aggression. Most of us aren’tencouraged to act on it.

Showall the factors that went into creating Azula andthat should break the neat progression of mental illness to violence.

Ihope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

[porcileorg]

Why Unrealism Now? – On the book ‘Unrealism: New Figurative Painting’

Author: The Bensplainer – Munich, February, 2020.

Book details: Introduction by Jeffrey Deitch; Contribution by Alison Gingeras and Aria Dean and Johanna Fateman; Featuring artists Nina Chanel Abney, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Sascha Braunig, Jordan Casteel, Mathew Cerletty, Eliza Douglas, Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Janiva Ellis, Jana Euler, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Cheyenne Julien, Sanya Kantarovsky, Ella Kruglanskaya, Austin Lee, Tala Madani, Sam McKinniss, Ebecho Muslimova, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Jennifer Packer, Nicolas Party, Christina Quarles, Tschabalala Self, Amy Sherald, Avery Singer, Emily Mae Smith, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Published by Rizzoli Electa, New York, 2019.

‘Unrealism: New Figurative Painting’—edited by Jeffrey Deitch for Rizzoli New York—has just been released in October 2019. It is a huge volume featuring the work of 26 international artists and deals with the general notion of the ‘figurative’ in contemporary painting.

As a survey, ‘Unrealism: New Figurative Painting’ is a courageous enterprise. At the beginning of the 20th century, the so-called ‘avant garde’ proposed a fundamental turning point in European visual culture, shifting the pictorial concept from imitation to transformation. Since then, a long tradition of modernist art writing has more or less privileged an abstract and superficially formalist canon in criticism and art history. Of course, this does not mean that all artists in the last century have worked in this way - or even within their own practice. Modernist writing on art was—and maybe still is, to borrow from Lyotard—its own ‘grand narrative,’ which frankly can become overkill.

Deitch’s Take on New Figurative Painting

The historical fact⁠ that ‘figurative painting’ continued to exist and be relevant even after the avant-garde break with representation⁠ is often recognized in Deitch’s and Alison M. Gingeras's essays. This is obviously a good starting point. Artistic practice should be here the case study. Deitch presents a visual essay about a ‘counter-history of figuration’ in the 20th-21st century, which features most of the usual suspects. So, yes, there is Francis Picabia and his very weird paintings after Dada; Giorgio De Chirico, who never gave a shit and always did what he wanted; and the German masters of New Objectivity as well as Balthus. I must add however (and sorry for bensplaining) that both of the authors seem to have forgotten the most obvious example of ‘contradiction in the modernist canon.’ This would be, of course, Kazimir Malevich, the discoverer of the ‘Black Square’ (1915), who is also responsible for the still mysterious and indefinable post-1927 parodying figurative painting. At least a few women artists get a mention, some of them key figures in the development of figuration, such as Florine Stettheimer, Tarsila do Amaral and pre-WWII Frida Kahlo, but the list, of course, is longer and tries indeed to cover the whole century with a non-gender biased approach. It's all good and we all agree with the spirit of the enterprise.

However, there are still concerns about the narrative that is put forward by the authors rather than the individual artistic practices that they discuss. For instance, Deitch's introductory essay on contemporary ‘Unrealism’ deals with some heated issues. He affirms that figurative painting is now “back in the vanguard.” My first question would be: figuration is back because of what? The artists featured in ‘Unrealism’ are all celebrities working with internationally recognized and powerful institutions and galleries. Is figuration back because of the market that establishes what is the vanguard, or is it merely fashionable at this very moment? Or what else?

Deitch offers the following as explanation:

First of all, as we are all living in a ‘post truth’ epoch, artists deal with the ‘unreal,’ thus the label: ‘Unrealism.’

If I may speak figuratively - ha!

As is common in today's art jargon, Deitch's contextualization is sociologically determined. He lists: the loss of hierarchies; borrowing from low brow or vernacular culture; hybridization; post truth politics; heteroformity; and finally, the pervasive use of social media. But aside perhaps from social media, haven’t most of these factors been in play since the beginning of modernism? Hasn't “vernacular” culture already played a fundamental role in the most heroic phase of modernist narrative, this damned avant-garde? Technology has changed of course⁠—but the artistic approach to technology has always been more skeptical than enthusiastic. An artist does whatever he or she wants with technology, this action/potential reveals an exchange of interests, an ‘indirect interaction of objects,’ as Graham Harman would put it.

The book's reasoning is still biased I think, by the old-fashioned art historical idea of ‘influence.’ An influence in itself doesn't really exist, unless one insists on a formalist-psychological approach à la Harold Bloom. But influence still seems to be appealing as the lazy option. Especially as it fits the capitalist narrative of the ‘new’ and is thus easily absorbed by the market. So is ‘influence’ really at stake here? All the essays included in ‘Unrealism’ insist on the idea that figurative painting today refers to, or is influenced by, a disconnected canon. Are we still insisting on an old-fashioned art historical approach?

Gingeras’ Take on Wrongness and Black Sheeps

Gingeras' essay has an art historical approach that is more refined, even if it concentrates on sociological issues to focus on the notion of ‘wrongness,’ that is, on being eccentric and not of your own time, to the point of being blatantly misunderstood or even censored. Her case studies are: William N. Copley (CPLY), Bjarne Melgaard, and the feminist pleiad of ‘black sheep,’ Joan Semmel, Anita Steckel, Betty Tompkins, Evelyne Axell, and Christine Ramberg. It’s all very interesting from the art historical point of view, but not really from the theoretical one.

Fateman’s Feminist Take

Perhaps not by coincidence, the more interesting essays are the ones by artists/writers, even though these also insist on a sociological point of view. The very well written—finally!—essay by Johanna Fateman begins with a fascinating theory by LeRoy McDermott, who claims that the Venus of Willendorf is not a synthetic view of prehistoric female body, but rather is a depiction by an ur-female artist of her own body seen from her actual perspective. I love this interpretation! But then, Fateman starts another grand discourse about patriarchy, gender, and white male perspective in relation to the artists of her choice. These issues could well play a role in art practice, no one would disagree. Yet it leaves one with the question: why are the paintings that Fateman picks so relevant now? Because of the issues they address? Fateman quotes artist Christina Quarles: “If you're using a medium or a language that has existed before you, people who identify similarly to you,” can “totally change what it looks like and how it's received by people.” That's right and it gets to the point—a point already mentioned by Ortega y Gasset in 1925: figurative painting is not ‘dehumanized,’ i.e. it is not detached from speaking to actual people. And again a quote by Tschabalala Self: “My work does not comment on stereotypes and generalizations about the Black female body, […] my practice absorbs these fantasies.” Again, a powerful statement, but what artists-critics hear, as Fateman does in a Schillerian way, is—yeah, what your practice really addresses are the sociological questions of race, gender, class and sexuality. How could the artists' words be so misinterpreted?

Dean’s Take on Polarity Real-Virtual

Aria Dean's essay takes a more challenging and formal approach, i.e. investigating the interactive relation between painting and internet visual culture as a means of defining them both. She asks a very fundamental question: “What does representational, figurative painting ‘do’ in a world that is so aggressively structured by the Internet—more specifically, in a world characterized by widespread image circulation paired with an accelerated fragmentation of a cohesive public and subsequent fragmentation of a shared reality?” Explicitly borrowing from Brian Massumi, Dean doesn't see reality and virtuality as a duality, rather a polar play between the ‘sensuous’ and the ‘nonsensuous,’ i.e. if I do not misunderstand, the analog and the digital. But she doesn't really follow through this powerful statement and prefers to finish her essay with some psychological jargon about Caravaggio and Narcissus.

Impressions, in random order

(1) So many words are used for contextualizing a painting, because there is no need anymore today to find the specific words appropriate to a particular painting;

(2) everything is hyper-ideologized, as long as the artists themselves do a visual essay on ‘something else,’ shifting from narrative to personal narrative;

(3) this whole need to ‘explain’ the reasons behind a painting makes me think if this is also an inherent vice of contemporary efficiency. A painting as a refinished product, ready to be exchanged;

(4) I mean, obviously in figurative painting the subject matter—‘that’ reason behind the painting—plays a more prominent role than in abstract painting, but does it really?

(5) the poor state of criticism: even Aria Dean failed to address the consequences of her own words!

The ‘bensplaining’ impression:

Maurice Denis’s words still resound strongly: “Remember that a picture, before being a battle horse, a female nude or some sort of anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order.“ Which is relevant for all painting.