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familyagrestefanblog · 3 years

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Image-analysis: Adriens childhood dream drawing

Finally, at long last I managed to get something done again

Adriens childhood dream drawing in "Wishmaker" has caused quite the reaction from both the Fandom as well as the ml crew and I've stated my personal opinion on this matter too.

I don't think the Fandom overreacted at all, at the very least initially where reactions where purely caused by first impressions instinct and lack of time to possess what we just saw, but even afterwards it's more the case of fans analysing a suspicious image and try to work with it. Because that's how this stuff normally WORKS (Other shows WISHED they had a Fandom as dedicated as Miraculous'...)

The Agreste drawing is the only one where the characters in it are decipted with major character design changes whereas all the other drawings show the character in the way we know them so the viewer can quickly identify who we are looking at (which is important because the drawings aren't that long on screen). The Agreste drawing NOT following this pattern for no apparent reason led to Fans immediately interpreting it as a hint to be taken literal (because that's how the other drawings work), which from then on things indeed quickly led to buckle wild fan theories, throwing everything we knew about the Agreste around in every angle imaginable. It was a wild mess, but that doesn't make it an overreaction from the fans side. People hadn't reacted like this if whoever designed and greenlighted this had properly checked if the images visual Story telling actually comes across the way it was supposed to. Because it DOESN'T.

That's how I see the case: visual Story telling gone extremely wrong because the way the image was included in the episode led up to wrong conclusions about its artistic choices. Immensely unfortunate and misleading, but in the end that doesn't mean the drawing held no meaning in the first place. After all, the Agreste drawing is by far the most detailed and structured one of them all, there IS meaning behind it. It just got lost and overshadowed.

And this is what I wanna do now. Take a closer look at Adriens childhood dream drawing and find the actual hidden intention behind its artistic choices.

For this I will also talk about the other childhood dream illustrations as well and the episode "Wishmaker" in general. Also, as always, I talk in depth about the Agreste family members again. This time our cat son in particular. Keep in mind though that I'm primarily writing down interpretations the drawing simply opened up as a possibility, I'm not only explicitly writing down what I to 100% BELIEVE is 100% canon. Art is subjective and SO much fun to theorize with, so please don't go "it's not that deep Bro" on me in the comments, I don't care for your killjoy salt.

So without further ado, in this analysis essay I'll talk about the following topics:

1) Dream pov

1.2) Development stages

2) Visual Story telling

2.1) Symbols

2.2) Color schemes of the Agreste family members

2.3) Switched eye colors and "perfection"

1.) Dream pov

Adriens drawing is unique because of its particular usage of Pov. The other drawing either depict a 4th wall pov, like Marinettes for example:

It's clear that we aren't looking through anyones eyes, it's just little Marinette at some point in her childhood drawing an image of herself as the Knitting fairy. All by herself. The lack of somebodys elses pov (her parents for example) has the affect that the entire characterization is purely on Marinette. It's HER dream and she wanted it for HERSELF. Nobody else is involved and therefore it also doesn't convey a bigger picture than that (which btw is completely fine. Simplistic is allowed and not everything has to be part of a larger backstory picture. Although not gonna lie, Marinettes Knitting Fairy design was so detailed and well designed I wouldn't be surprised if it came up again at some point for a bigger purpose but that's a topic for another post)

In comparison to this we have Alec, for who at first we get a 4th wall pov like Marinettes, but then it changes to the pov of the people who mocked him.

Showing us how initially Alec loved his hair and wore them the way he wanted to because it made him happy, without any regard of what the people around him thought. But once people made him feel bad about it our pov shifts to the eyes of the mockers, because that's where Alec's focus laid from then on. The people through whose eyes we are looking do not matter individually, hence why we get no faces, leaving all the charactertization for us to only projet onto Alec. This conveys the bigger picture of "Alec once based his decision for his appearance purely on his own opinion, but then people made him feel self conscious causing him to prioritize what other people think he should look/be like over his own opinion" (which deadass explains EVERYTHING about his entire character. Personality, job, behavior etc this episode did AMAZING in this regard!)

Most of the episodes childhood dreams are like Marinettes, because that's how children dream. They don't think about how other people will persive their dream and just go for it because it makes them happy.

This is healthy for a child. A child around the age the dreams show shouldn't care yet for what the world thinks about them, their dreams and what makes them happy. This awareness if other peoples perspectives and the task to find balance between the two is a burden that comes while growing up. But first the own identity has to develop freely to grow up into a self-confident and healthy person. Alec is the only 4th wall pov child who had this development interrupted by the people who mocked him, which is fitting for the role as the akuma victim, because through being confronted with André, who found his true calling later in life, he was able to overcome his childhood trauma and become the person his child-self was so confident to be.

So. Why am I talking to extensively about everybody else's dream povs (besides me just really having fun doing so)? Because, as I said, Adriens childhood dream really is the unique exception here for 2 reasons:

1) Adrien is not in the same age range as the childhood dreams selves of the others.

And 2) Unlike everyone else Adrien didn't even "start out" with the 4th wall pov and then had reality crush him to shift his perspective to the ones from the people around him like Alec.

Adriens childhood dream illustration is the only image that is shown from the persons point of view, in every other one the person having the dream is in focus because that's what the dreams where about. The person themselve. But in Adriens case his "dream" was to be what his parents wanted him to be, so here Adriens PARENTS are the ones in focus. It is THEIR expectations and validation he tries to reach all his life and the image conveys the sad reality that from Adriens point of view he never was able to actually GET there.

He's reaching out, trying to reach his parents who he wants to make proud and want to be with but they aren't reaching back for him making HIM do the work of closing the distance.

Marinette, Alec and every other child is shown at what? Around 5? A normal age for the wild dreams we see people getting turned into, that are still untouched by the responsibilites and reality of real life (besides Alec, dude learned it young).

Adrien on the other hand is shown as a BABY. It is buckle wild that Wishmakers powers had to dig THIS deep into his memories to find a childhood dream of what Adrien wanted to be. I really have to say that the episode made appropriately a big deal out of Adrien being so desperate and clueless for his own dreams and I'm not going to give this the Sentimonster treatment. If Adrien turns out to be one that's one things but you'll never catch me saying that Wishmaker having to dig this deep and only finding the dream to please his parents is a proof that Adrien is a Sentimonster, because it simply means that the isolation and control Adrien is raised under affected him strongly right since toddlerhood and forced his inexperienced and impressionable mind to adjust to impossible standards/expectations and that this stressful situation has never actually stopped til now. Which is ACCURATE to what we have seen in the show.

Besides that, there is one detail I haven't seen anyone bring up yet that I think is a solid argument for why it isn't odd at all that Adriens childhood "dream" turned out to be what we saw.

When Adrien is hit by Wishmakers powers to reveal his childhood dream notice that Chat Noir is noticeably LESS rainbow-colored than everyone else.

So if everybody turned rainbow-colored while remembering their childhood dream to then TURN into said legit dream, then it says quite alot about Adriens "dream" that the same didn't happen for him. It's like Wishmakers powers legitimately didn't find a childhood dream at all within Adrien and because of that they latched onto the next best thing, which is the natural instinct of every toddler to adjust themselves to what their parents/care takers want them to be so they love them.

So in my opinion it isn't accurate nor fair to judge Adriens "dream" entirely the same way we view the others, because we are simply not talking about the same type of psychological manifestation. Sure, it still counts as a wish because every toddler has that desire to be loveable, hence why Wishmaker was able to latch onto it and reveal it. But in no way would I categorize it as a legit childhood dream like the others.

So I will rather call it Adriens instinctive dream as a toddler, because that's what the episode actually portrays in my opinion. I will still compare it to the other dreams but only in the sense of that this IS simply the defining childhood "dream" of Adrien and what all of this and the comparisons can tell us about Adrien himself.

Remember how I said that children around the age Marinette and the other people were shown forming their dreams and their view of themselves is completely normal and healthy? Yeah, so what does this tell you about Adrien?

1.2) Development stages

It's not even like Alec who got to have a normal child psyche til the age of 5, Adriens drawing outright tells us that Adrien NEVER even really entered this important stage of forming his own identity and personhood as a child. He NOW has to make up for it from teenager age on til... well, forever.

I know some of you may ask how that's even possible, a child just not entering a development stage they are supposed to already engulf in at the age of 5, but believe me it's definitely possible and DOES happen to many people out there. And yes, these people sometimes have some serious psychological damages to overcome when they grow older, the development stages of toddlerhood and childhood are THIS unspeakably important.

Since this is a family cartoon Adriens drawing is of course a visualisation of the obvious extreme, children like him (let's take the children of celebrities or from Toddlers & Tiaras and Dance moms for example) can of course still enter the development stage in different kind of degrees. Some are lucky and somehow get to somewhat independently develop themselves whereas others were unlucky like Adrien and had to prioritize developing other psychological abilities to survive their environment. More on that later.

Though I have to correct myself, Adriens pov is not entirely unique there is one more occasion where we see this particular pov:

Adriens drawing is like Andrés where he gives out the ice cream.

The pov of that drawing is through Andrés own eyes because it's supposed to convey that the act of GIVING the ice cream to people and how it affects THEM is what brings him joy. That's what HE loves about his dream job and therefore functions brilliantly as characterisation.

Adriens drawing is done in the same pov so the very same characterisation also applies to him, telling us WHY Adrien didn't get to enter that development stage and WHY it didn't came more naturally to him to prioritize himself anyway the way it happenes with other children in his situation:

Adrien was not only forced to never let go of his natural instict of adjusting himself the best he can to his parents wishes out of self-protection it also just simply makes/made him legitimately HAPPY to make THEM happy the same way we see now that Adrien tends to put his own comfort second place to let thers be happy, which in return makes him happy again. It's an incredibly sympathic trait Adrien developed very early on which normally starts to bloom in pre-teen age (maybe a bit younger) because of the self-centric stage Marinette and the other kids went through before that. But in Adriens case he basically switched out these two development stages which made him the way we see him now in the show. A fascinatingly strange mix of being emotionally over-developed for his age in some aspects and under-developed in other aspects peers his age normally don't struggle with anymore. Abuse can REALLY mess a person up guys.

Abuse victims mixing up development stages because their environment demanded other qualities first for their survival is not rare at all and these mix-ups come in all sorts of combinations.

The drawing even provides us with visual clues to understand in more detail why Adrien developed this sympathetic trait in particular. In general no part of Adriens childhood drawing stands entirely on its own, its clearly visible that unlike the other drawings Adriens is supposed to convey an entire detailed life situation (including his parents) so there is no easy way for me to find the "right order" to properly explain that big picture. So in my opinion, to start breaking down the visual Story telling of why Adrien became so overly sympathic and lacking in self-preservation is by starting with

2) Visual Story telling

2.1 Symbols

Each Agreste member has one Symbol assigned to them from Baby Adriens point of view and this is how I interpret them:

1) Adriens star

Adrien has the star symbol right in the middle and the symbol speaks quite for itself. It represents the enormous expectations layed on Adrien and that he always had to strive to uphold the standard of the Agrestes being a celebrity/upper class family and the only child of his parents marriage. We all have heard horrible stories of children being their parents "star" and being pushed too extreme limits out of parental love. Yeah, that is 100% Adriens position in his family.

Emilie and Gabriel sure as hell made sure that Adrien has access to only the best teaching, training and interests. I have no doubt that Adriens parents really thought they did him a favor here (as its very often the case in such situations), especially because we actually learn through the way Gabriel ALWAYS talks about Adrien to other people, that Adrien is successfully reaching his parents standards.

Just unfortunate that Gabriel hardly lets Adrien KNOW that (I'm pretty sure Gabriel thinks it should be so obvious he doesn't need to mention it, but that's not how parenting works Gabe :/), which results in Adrien having painfully deep self-esteem issues.

He doesn't think he's ever enough and that every little mistake he does is an unforgivable disappointment towards the person who had such high hopes in him.

The golden star is actually used in one more childhood drawing, also as symbol of the current state of self-esteem.

Back when Alec was a child full of confidence and pride he was standing on a big golden star. It's an implication that Alec wanted to be famous every since childhood and the star glasses he is wearing show that he was confidently looking into a future of stardom. He saw himself as a glorious upcoming superstar.

But when the people around him started mocking him his star glasses shatter to the floor and the golden star underneath him begins to fade until eventually its completely gone in the third drawing. Child Alec is left horribly self-conscious and with the broken remainings of his outlook into stardom. The glasses aren't gone showing that his dream of becoming famous in TV is still what he wants, but his view was permanently changed and even BROKEN so of course he ended up the way Alecs was from s1 til now. The dream stayed the same but his approach changed greatly.

How to connect all of that to Adriens drawing should be easy. Not only does it symbolize that Adriens has always been his parents "Star" and had to uphold all of those impossible expectations ever since he can remember, it also shows that confidence in himself, his talents and his place in the world is another enormous expectation his parents had for him. Which ironically put so much pressure and one hell of a lack of granted individuality on Adrien that OF COURSE it had the complete opposite effect! Just LOOK at that damn star dangling over Baby Adrien, that shit’s disgusting and I DIG IT.

Another noteworthy detail is that the star has the same color as baby Adriens nursery, which is symbolizing the golden cage Adrien has always been locked up in. The Star and the cage come hand in hand in the circumstances his parents put him in, this is literally so depressing. Adrien was a BABY and we get thing kind of imagery, damn...

And if you wanna take it one step further let's talk about Emilie for a second, because Mama Agrestes hair has the same color as Adriens star and his "cage".

One of the most obvious things on how the drawing manages to convey the family dynamic is that Chat Noir is placed underneath his mothers face between the golden cage on the one side and his own toddler-self on the other one.

Back when Adrien was a toddler the possibility was still THERE that Adrien gets to grow up forming a legitimate bond with BOTH of his parents, hence why Baby Adrien is placed right between his parents. He could still reach both of them at that point. But as we can now painfully clear see through Chat Noirs placement Gabriel was not at all present enough in his son's life which caused Adrien to be pulled entirely to his mothers side over time.

This doesn't sound so bad at first, even relieving to know that Adrien at least had his mother when he was already denied a father. But as many will agree with me I don't think things were this "easy".

I'm not saying in any way that Emilie deliberately hindered her husband and son from connecting with another so she can have both of them for herself, this is honestly not how I see Emilie at all. But what I think is that Emilie definitely unintentionally enabled Gabriels distant parenting and maybe even made things worse by always being there for Adrien and taking over for Gabriel whenever her husband struggled or became overwhelmed (which is 100% what Gabriel is characterized as when it comes to having to parent his son, that man has no idea what the fuck he's doing and he KNOWS it).

Ironically enough teenage Adrien in this drawing seems to be locked up in his MOTHERS grasp, no, Chat Noir seems to be locked up in his mothers grasp. NOT his fathers the way we know it.

Even Adriens golden nursery is also higher on Emilies side to have Chat Noir fully in the "cage" as well. If Chat Noir where placed on Gabriels side it would seem less cage- like.

This fits VERY well to the fan observation that even though Gabriel is incredibly controlling, Adrien was only able to actually get some freedom AFTER Emilie was out of the picture. So Emilie may have been a more affectionate and chiller person, but it was precisely that close connection between them that made it impossible for Adrien to escape home pre-show. Whereas Gabriels negligence ironically leaves Adrien with more opportunities to made a life of his own because even the most intense prison security can be escaped from when the prison guard simply doesn't pay as much attention as they SHOULD to keep the prisoner inside.

And you know what I just noticed? That's exactly what this very episode has shown to us what Adrien is truly escaping from now.

Adrien has made it pretty clear that he doesn't want to work for his father in the future, which is why he was so upset that he couldn't get a grasp on his own future outlooks. Gabriel may have been the prison guard on the last remaining wall of Adriens golden cage, but unlike Emilie Gabriel is not able to actually keep his son inside. Without Emilie and her engulfing presence as Adriens main reason to stay Adrien has now managed to break loose from the very childhood family image that has defined Adrien all his life. And he did so by moving on from his mothers former presence now for good, just like he left his fathers family expectations for him behind and accepted his fear as truth that Ladybug will one day just not need him with her anymore (not that its true of course).

There is one more thing I wanna talk about regarding how Emilie may have unintentionally come between Adrien and Gabriel and how she personally affected Adrien, but I will come back to this point once I'm talking about the color schemes of each Agreste member in the drawing in more detail.

Keep it in mind and now moving on to...

2. Gabriels symbol: the cloud

The cloud has the same color as the clothing of Emilie and baby Adrien, showing that Adrien was always under the subconscious self-pressure that if only he proofs himself to be good enough Gabriel will stop alienating himself. Sure he is wearing blue as well, but it's much darker than what his wife and son are wearing. Gabriel is not as present and connected with his role as a father as he should be. In addition to this, notice how the dream-cloud sky is opening up behind Gabriel. Adrien noticed VERY early on that his father won't be present at times, making him a worrisome uncertainty in Adriens young mind.

The light blue cloud symbolizes the pressure Adrien put on himself too be good enough for his father to make him stay. Closing the open cloud-sky Gabriel can just vanish through any moment and fully taking on the (light blue) role as father Adrien wants/needs him to be.

Interestingly enough we actually SEE Gabriel one time in the blue clothing more fitting to his family.

In the Agreste family portrait where we see them as the "formerly happy family" Gabriel wants to get back.

How fortunate for me and my sanity now that I already did a whole analysis post on this very portrait, meaning I can only focus on the details here that I actually need without sacrificing necessary context.

In the analysis post I concluded that Gabriel honestly thought they were a legitimately happy family back then because HE had everything he needed, felt loved, save and secure. He was blind to the discomforts of his other two family members, because he didn't wanted to see it and because they also tried to not make him unhappy and basically didn't twell on it for his sake.

Meaning in short: Gabriel was the ONLY one who was actually legitimately happy back then and the portrait showcases that Gabriel saw himself as a family father in light blue, the way he should be, but we all know that this doesn't represent the actual reality. In the analysis post I point out just how many details in the portrait hint at the dysfunctionality of the Agreste family and now we can add Gabriels blue suit as one hint more.

Alright, this brings us to Mama Agreste.

3. Emilies red crescent

Though not gonna lie, Emilies symbol kinda leaves me guessing. It's red color fits to the clouds behind it making it the symbol that seems to fit the best into the "environment". As if it's the "normal" and "subtle" one. But besides that the red of her symbol isn't used to make a visual connection between the moon and other things in the drawing the way the symbols of her son and husband work.

The closest things to resemble her red color are Baby Adriens hands, her lips and glow under her eyes.

A logical meaning of the crescent is of course Emilies magical coma/death, Emilie in her state of being "put to sleep" is literally all we have ever met her in. So a "forshadowing" of her future fate was my first assumption, but I don't see how this would in any way fit into Adriens pov the way his own and Gabriels symbols work. I just can't quite grasp a logical narrative behind the meaning so I'll leave it like this and move on (do leave your interpretations of Emilies symbol in the comments/replies though, maybe you guys see a connection I overlooked!)

2.2) Color schemes of the Agreste family members

Okay, now this is probably just a "me" thing but I cannot ignore it once that thought popped up in my head: because of Gabriel being colored completely different from his normal civilian form

and Emilie not having her green eyes, here open kinda messy hair instead of the neat braid we are used from her character model and also a different outfit as well. These two simply do not look enough like Adrien Agrestes parents, but oh MY, they sure do look like Chat Noirs parents!

If we didn't know Chat Noirs secret identitiy or anything about his civilian life and THIS was the first image we had gotten of his parents I would 100% believe it. Hence why Emilie and Gabriel being depicted like this may feel off putting, but at the same time it doesn't feel wrong either when you only look at the drawing. Because Chat Noir is right THERE and he looks like the child of these two people. It only feels off putting once you remember that Chat Noir is Adrien Agreste and how his parents actually look like, since we know these people, but this frame on its own?

Actually nothing weird about it. It's just Chat Noir and his parents.

Emilie shears her color pallet with Adriens baby form (at least the glimpses we get here). Same light blue clothing, which is also her eye color and the color of Adriens jeans in his today's civilian outfit, and her skin color is also in the same, warmer tone as Adriens (please just take my word for it I forgot to include it here). Additionally to this we have current day-Chat Noir right underneath her head to give us the visual connection of both their blond, messier hair to show us "yup, that's his mother".

With the depiction of the future self of her son she now only shears the same hair since Gabriel now has Adriens/Chats green eyes. It almost feels like the baby boy she once had grew out of their connection, but remember that thats not quite accurate either. Hes still wearing the light blue of his mother in his civilian clothing and “Adrien” is just as legit of a part of him as “Chat Noir”.

In comparison to Emilie it's actually striking just how much Gabriel doesn't look like ADRIENS father at all here but is 100% the father of Chat Noir.

Gabriels dark blue suit is much closer to Chats black one than Emilies and Baby Adriens light blue, and his white shirt reminds of Chats bell. Additional to that we have Gabriels black glasses that remind of Chats black mask, his hair has the same curve as Chats cat ears (yo, a visual resemblence is a visual resemblence. Subconsciously your mind notices shit like this and makes the connection) and of course, last but not least, now it's Gabriel who Adrien/Chat shears his green eyes with not Emilie anymore.

From a visual standpoint it's pretty clear that "Adrien" reflects Emilie whereas "Chat Noir" reflects Gabriel. But it's especially the eyes which make a huge impact on how the viewer reads the family connections, so now having EMILIE as the only family member in the drawing with a different eye color (Normally that's always Gabriel) immediately alienates her from her husband and son but I'll get to this in a bit.

Remember when I said that I wanted to talk about another thing on how Emilie may have unintentionally come between Adrien and Gabriel and directly affected Adrien through it? Yeah let's come back to that for a sec before I continue with the topic of EMILIE being the one visually alienated by her husband and future son.

Please remember for this that these analyse posts are primarily thought exercises of what the visual plus already given context can open up as possibilities as interpretation. I don't know how much I BELIEVE the following topic to be true in Canon but it's definitely an interesting angle to put into consideration.

And now we just talked about that "Adrien Agreste" visually reflects Emilie herself while "Chat Noir" reflects Gabriel out of all people. Are we on the same page again? Wonderful. Because now I wanna quickly talk about how I mentioned that I concluded in my analysis post of the family Agreste portrait that only GABRIEL was actually happy back then and that THIS also means Emilie wasn't exactly picture-book happy with her husband and that the portrait actually quite suspiciously HIDES how she truly feels about Gabriel.

I'll just say it because this post has already become another essay monster without me beating about the bush. In my opinion the drawing allows the interpretation that maybe Emilie (possibly even unknown to herself) came between Adrien and Gabriel and tended so much to Adrien because Gabriel wasn't actually too great of a husband either and because of that she, over time, wanted Adrien to become the way she WISHED Gabriel was.

I think I've talked about how Adrien/Chat Noir shears quite alot of mannerisms, body language and way of speaking with his father Gabriel/Hawkmoth. It's one thing I always legitimately LIKED because alot of abuse victims struggle hard with noticing similarities to their abusers in themselves and yet that doesn't mean we are JUST like our abusers. But now let's put a little spin on that.

We know by now that Emilie was isolated and lonely as well, just like her son, and I don't mean this in any condemning way at all, but what if she unintentionally saw and treated Adrien as some sort of replacement-Gabriel the way Gabriel sees Adrien as a reminder of Emilie?

Take another look, how it is CHAT NOIR (who reflects GABRIEL) who is now shown to be locked up in his mothers grasp. That initially Adrien as a toddler started out between his parents, but more like his mother simply by nature, but as time went on Emilie became unhappier with Gabriel (which is a solid possibility, the man now turned out to be a sadistic terrorist. That shit doesn't come from nowhere) and ended up projecting her feelings onto Adrien. Making her pull her son from his place in between his parents as their CHILD only to HER side, now functioning as the actual link between her and her husband to make their mariage work.

Can you imagine that? Because somehow I kinda can. Emilie as a copying mechanisms making Adrien into the version of Gabriel she wished her husband was. Which is only made worse by Gabriel seeing so much of Emilie and Adrien

So in kinda the same way that Emilie tried to raise Adrien to NOT get the same shortcomings as Gabriel, GABRIEL tries to polish out the imperfections of his wife he also sees in his son. My GOODNESS no wonder Adriens responisbilities and expectations sky-rocket to such an awful extend.

There are quite alot of solid indications in the show that Emilie and Gabriel didn't lead the “perfect, happy marriage” we are kinda told they had. But now I legitimately kinda fear that instead of really TALKING with each other and working out their problems to help their marriage (which is normal. Stuff happens that gives even the happiest relationships/marriage rocky times but people you need to TALK IT OUT) Gabriel and Emilie rather pretend everything is fine (the way Adrien tends to do it) while completely taking their unhappiness with each other out on Adrien by "meaning well".

Unintentionally or on purpose doesn't matter right now, what IS important is that I find it scarily probable that Adrien might have been put in the awful and incredibly damaging position of being the only child of a dysfunctional marriage who is burdened with literally holding the entire family together on their own expense, having to make up for everyones faults and behavior by having to be perfect and "reasonable" all the time or else all hell breaks loose. For which THEY will be blamed for because "everything was manageable until THEY acted out". Adrien is even now literally the only sanity left in the entire Agreste family (probably a solid reason why he's left in the dark) and non of this seems to be anything new to these dynamics. But of course though we have reached a point now where everyone is straining their anchor so much that not only are they letting go of him, he's also reaching his limits.

Holy DAMN am I concerned for Adrien right now because the Ladynoir situation also relies entirely on Chat Noir just putting up with everything Ladybug throws at him. He doesn't get to break because she basically already has that privilege now and if he does HE has to get over it and be reasonable.

Adrien as the anchor is straight up being pulled apart to his limits and then left as an afterthought in BOTH situations of his life right now, he's going to fucking explode in the s4 finale and it will be UGLY.

I apologize for digressing so much again, the last section wasn't planned I simply was in a flow. Anyway, from one depressing option of why Gabriel looks like Chat Noir in the drawing to the next. Are you ready? I promise you're not.

So, before I digressed like hell we left off with the question of why Emilie is now the one being visually alienated from her husband and future son when normally it's always GABRIEL in that position.

These visual connections are simply beyond fascinating to me. Adrien in his civilian Form has always been compared alot more to Emilie and this drawing reflects that (besides the eye colors), whereas Gabriel is the one alienated because of his aloofness. But now, good 14 years later, the same color scheme that singled Gabriel out in the past is the one Adrien adapted for his Chat Noir persona. And remember, as Chat Noir Adrien wants to purposely NOT be Adrien Agreste anymore so it's almost like Adrien actively/subconsciously took an example of his fathers aloofness he always noticed to channel it into recreating the very same distance towards "Adrien Agreste" as Chat Noir.

In that case Gabriel SERIOUSLY must have been distant (which, to be fair, the drawings properly depicts) because we all know that sometimes Chat Noir and Adrien do NOT seem to be the same person AT AL! It's almost infuriating how much sense that would make in terms of Adriens characterisation and now I hate Gabriel even more :/

And while this thought already legitimately breaks my heart, put it in perspective with the fact that Adrien, when he is turned into his childhood dream of "being what his parents wanted him to be", then straight up turns into the civilian Adrien we have always known

It's jarring to see what Gabriels and Emilies parenting did to their son. That Adrien for so long (successfully actually) tried to embody the vision his parents had/have for him because he doesn't want to disappoint them, but in actuality they pressured him so much that at this point Adrien longed for an outlet where he can literally do the exact opposite.

It shows just how big of a deal being Chat Noir actually IS/WAS for Adrien. Every time he transforms he knows/thinks that his parents wouldn't agree with what he's doing and how he is behaving and that they would be disappointed if they'd ever find out. Think about it, it's messed up that Adrien is aware/thinks that he's actively disappointing his loved ones very time he's Chat Noir and yet transforming into the anonymous hero was for a long time really the only option in Adriens mind to TRULY get to live out any individuality. No wonder he never tried too much as Adrien :/

But the episode fortunately also show us just how far Adrien has come from this childhood dream and that he's ready to not NEED Chat Noirs outlet to avoid disappointing people anymore. Don't get me wrong, it's happening the most painful way possible and you'll never get me to say that Adrien not needing Chat Noirs savety anymore because he accepted that he cannot avoid disappointing his loved ones since he thinks that Ladybug is just ready to leave him behind and nothing will ever be enough for Gabriel anyway is in any kind of reality a "necessary" step. There is no lesson, no development that cannot be teached in a nice way. MARINETTE literally gets to learn all of her lessons this seasons in ways NOT damaging her, she gets to heal. So no, Adrien getting his first "positive" outlook at the end of the episode by soldering through accepting that he just IS a failure, IS not wanted or needed the way he is and just ISN'T good enough, never has been and never WILL be is in no god damn way "necessary". Especially because it's clearly shown to NOT be true (especially him thinking that Ladybug is perfectly fine with leaving him behind one day) I hate it when people make this heartbreaking step Adrien has to take to somehow move on from his horrible, HORRIBLE situation right now out to be "right" and "just what he needs".

No, what Adriens desperately needs is a solid support system, understanding and patience and the fucking informations on what the hell is going on around him transformed AND detransformed! NOT this cruelty forcing him to literally accept the exact opposite of the truth that he is a failure who isn't enough for everyone he loves so its better for him and everyone to just make peace with it and move on to something else. What the fuck people? How is this something GOOD??

What it perfectly shows though is just how much of a SURVIVOR Adrien is and how he managed to go through his awful life as well as he did so far. Honestly I'll repeat it until the day I die, Adriens emotional resilience is off the damn hooks, but at this point it's also drastically affected by just how MUCH Adrien had to emotionally deal with in his young life without ever actually getting a legit break.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from damaging or even traumatizing events without much lasting impact. Some people simply CAN do that, which is why I also dislike it when people say it's unrealistic that Adrien is able to cope so well and even quickly move on under his awful circumstances because, buddy, I have a resilience level pretty close to Adriens and already had it when I was around Adriens age or even younger.

But even a resilience on Adrien level can only get you through so much. Bouncing back from so many hurtful events and environments/situations will eventually lead to you one day accepting another hurtful situation to move on from it and bounce back even though it wasn't necessary at all! That's what Adrien is literally doing with Ladybug right now. He's so used to having to accept and bounce back from so many hopeless and painful situations for so long now that he starts to see it everywhere and reacts accordingly.

I don't wanna digress so much again so I will make another post at one point explaining just how massive the ending of "Wishmaker" was and that Marinette is unknowingly LEGITIMATELY loosing Chat Noir to the current situation. Once I've posted it I'll link it HERE.

Which brings me FINALLY back to the last two topics:

2.3) Switched eye colors and “Perfection”

Because it's weird isn't it? That the drawing is from Adriens pov and yet Emilie somehow is the one family member who has the different eye color (instead of Gabriel). The color scheme connections I just explained make sense when you look at it through Baby Adriens pov.

His mother is wearing the same color as him because they are so close (which normally matching outfits represent) and Gabriel looks like Chat Noir because Adrien later on uses the distance he always felt/feels from his father to recreate his distance between Adrien Agreste and Chat Noir. But why the eyes?

Normally Emilies green eyes are the most important visual key to convey that she and Adrien were/are alike. So with that logic it would mean that, yes, Baby Adrien very much noticed how close he and his mother are (therefore he sees them in matching clothing colors) but he didn't actually saw HIMSELF in her. He saw himself more in GABRIEL.

Which is.. so fascinating to think about. What does that mean for Adrien himself? And how he views his parents and others?

For this we have to remember what Adriens symbol was:

The Star.

As I already said before, Adriens star symbol represents the impossible expectations layed upon him ever since birth, which also reflect themselves in the literal golden cage he is in. It's an awfully huge burden his parents put on him,to basically reach "perfection" for their sake. And yet, like every child would, he still tries to live up to it. But like every human being Adrien of course struggled reaching this "perfection" all his life and its IN the struggle to reach perfection in which he relates the most to other people.

Adrien doesn't see himself as the "perfection" he manages to uphold. Do other people see him as such? Definitely. Ironically Adrien actually manages to uphold his parents ridiculous expectations so well til now that for other people it just seems effortless. They just see him as his accomplishments and turn a blind eye towards his struggle to REACH this perfection that Adrien tries to hide because Adrien was teached that its expected of him to NOT struggle in the first place.

But instead of growing up with the mindset of "Okay that's just how it is in general, EVERYBODY is supposed to strive to improve themselves until they don't struggle with their expectations anymore. Therefore everybody who DOES is either not good enough (yet) or a lazy, talentless slacker who doesn't even TRY." Adrien instead grew incredibly sympathic towards others and their struggles because he KNOWS what that feels like.

So Adrien sees himself as the struggles and mistakes that "hinder" him from finally becoming "good enough", even though he does NOT hold other to the same standards since he knows how much it hurts. He never gave himself the same sympathy as he gave others and he also never entirely let go of this mindset in the first place. Because he uses the mindset more in the way of "Yes people SHOULD strive to become the best version of themselves they can become and good for those who actually MANAGE that, but I'll not condemn those who struggle on their way because I know how hard it is. With support and patience they will one day get there and hopefully so will I."

Meaning the moment anyone shows the sign of legit potential he's not gonna write that person off,unless they either show themselves to be unwilling to get better or hurt other people so bad he draws the line.

THIS is what Adrien relates to: Struggling people who still try to do their best despite their shortcomings. But he only developed to become this sympathic because he also believes that people can ACTUALLY reach "perfection" in the first place.

THIS is in my opinion actually how Adrien tends to view Ladybug. People say that Adrien puts Ladybug on a pedestal all together and thinks she is 100% perfection, which dehumanizes her. But that just never felt accurate to me, because Adrien is more than aware that Ladybug isn't a flawless person and very much needs support and help.

No, in my opinion Adrien sees Ladybug as one of those people who actually MANAGE to reach perfection through improvement, the right support and sheer talent. In his eyes she IS what he hoped to be, she CAN close the gab he just can't overcome.There is a subtle but very important difference here, but it's the only explanation that makes sense in my opinion on how exactly Adrien views Ladybug as "perfect". Because he certainly DOES but definitely not in the way Marinette views Adrien as perfect. These two dynamics never felt the same and THIS is why.

Unfortunately though, it's exactly when people manage to "reach perfection" in Adriens eyes that thats where they tend to kinda loose him. Not in the sense of him despising perfect people, but simply because he can't RELATE to them anymore.

Adrien ironically becomes almost like the people around him who can't see HIS struggle behind his perfection. Because he feels and sees his own struggles, mistakes and need for help so evidently that when he can't see or feel the same obvious signs of struggle in other "perfect" people he tends to think they have officially reached their peak potential in this regard and don't need support or help anymore. Of course he still has the kindness to always give the "perfect" people his support when he sees that they obviously need it but in general he thinks that they now reached what he can't managed so they are fine.

Thats where a huge chunk of Adriens self-esteem problems steem from. In comparison to these people, who he thinks reached their specific kind of "perfect", he sees himself as worthless and not good enough to reach his perfect and not struggle as well. As long as Adriens struggles with literally anything whatsoever (especially in regards to his responsibilities, their expectations or just straight up things that are important to him) he will forever beat himself up and see himself as lesser than others.

It's especially heartbreaking because Adrien is this close, THIS CLOSE to understanding that this unreachable state of "perfection" doesn't exist and that this way of thinking actually (probably mostly) steems from Gabriels self-entiteled world view that everything has to reach HIS standards and if not they're a pathetic, useless heathen not worth his time and presence. These two may share the same idea of "reaching perfection" as a mindset to judge themselves and other people by, but they honestly couldn't go about it any more different.

Gabriel sees himself and his own standards as ultimate and "perfect" so he sees it as the job of the other people to live up to it. He also won't help others to understand and reach his standards, he just demands it and will also not reward them when they finally do it. For him making the effort of reaching his standards is the default of being a "worthy" person.

Adrien on the other hand sees "Perfection" as the goal to strive forwards to that hangs above everyones head but not everyones life circumstances demand perfection on the same degree and in the same time. Adrien sees perfection much more individually depending on the potential and life somebody has and he relates to and has deep and genuine sympathy for people who can not live up to their potential for some reason. He already views others as worthy people even if they are FAR away from their "perfect" and he's always ready to give more chances and support to help someone on their way. Unlike Gabriel he doesn't actively SET standards for others but he tends to judge HIMSELF by the ones others set (because of his deeply rooted insecurities and self-esteem issues)

These two point of views towards "perfection" basically explain most of their father-son relationship.

Gabriel sees Adrien as

Because his son genuinely manages to uphold every damn expectation Gabriel puts on him and he demands that Adrien continues to do so until Gabriel managed to suffocate even the tiniest "imperfection" out Adrien with an iron fist. THIS is what normally makes Adrien the ideal son and worth loving in Gabriels eyes: how much Adrien can embody Gabriels standard of "perfection".

In contrast to that it's literally so god damn funny (and DEPRESSING) that Adrien is like "look, I know the man's a jackass but he's my father and I still love him and want him in my life. I know that Father has the potential to become a much better version of himself again with the right support and patience, we only need to GET there together."

I know you may ask why the HELL I just digressed so much again when I actually wanted to talk about why Baby Adrien sees himself more in Gabriel than Emilie in the childhood drawing, even though we know the narrative always suggests the opposite.

To that I say, first of all: Welcome to my Familyagrestefanblog, get used to it.

But most importantly: everything I just said is EXACTLY the reason why Baby Adrien sees himself more in his father despite Gabriel being distant and quite different from his son (and Emilie being RIGHT THERE for Adrien to relate to)

The expectations and pressure put on Adrien had him struggling to feel "good enough" so incredibly early on in his life, but already back then was Adrien able to pick up the same vibes of struggling in others to relate to as he does now. That's also probably where this sympathetic instinct of Adrien took roots for the first time and then developed: with his father.

Adrien has always seen Gabriel as a man who genuinely struggles with his role as a father but still tries in his own way.

That's literally what we saw almost the entirety of s1-s3, how Adrien deals with the questionable parenting style Gabriel deems appropriate for the situation (putting aside the entire Hawkmoth thing that's not what this is about).

So when we see how Baby Adrien sees more of himself in his father than his mother than that's because Adrien related to Gabriels obvious struggle with handling Fatherhood. Because that was Gabriels ONE JOB in Baby Adriens eyes (because that's all that matters for a baby, duh), just like he himself had the ONE JOB to become his parents perfect star. Emilie too only had one job in Baby Adriens eyes but unlike with himself and Gabriel Adrien saw his mother not struggling at all with her motherhood, forming a strong bond with her son right away with loads of affection and closeness.

For Adrien EMILIE was the only one of the three of them who actually managed to uphold the expectations her job as his mother demanded of her. She reached this specific kind of "perfection" in his eyes which then ironically made her LESS relatable to him in this regard. His mother wasn't a failure, but he knew that he (or so he thinks) and his father were failing their jobs despite trying and THIS is why Gabriel has Adriens green eyes in the drawing and Emilie the eye color that alienates her from her family the way it normally does for Gabriel.

Adrien SHOULD see himself in Emilie (the way these two are visually present in the actual "reality" of the show) but he doesn't. He grew up so overwhelmed that he simply got used to seeing himself in and relating to Gabriels incompetence as a parent and then undeservedly projected that back onto himself and his own efforts.

Alright, that's all I have for now. Sorry for the abrupt ending I legitimately don't know how to wrap this up x3 Again it's primarily thought exercise so its really difficult to find a beginning, a logical order to present this big picture with and an ending for all these points.

I'm really excited to read your takes on all of this, who knows what we amazing theories we can come up with this time? :D

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narutakijune · 3 years

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About ATLA Relationship Arcs

So, this is me, finally trying to write some meta after lurking in my little tumblr corner for months! Hi!

Although I’ve tried to tag properly, if you are a Kat*anger and just want to enjoy your favourite couple in peace, this might not be the post for you. I am not trying to bash characters but I do have a lot of critical stuff to say about the writing.

Anyway, you have been warned and here is my story about my personal first Atla experience: I watched the show this year for the first time, and after the end of Book 1 I decided to look up spoilers, because after what happened to Yue, I wanted to make sure that Zuko and Iroh would be ok. So I knew what was going to happen: Kat*ang endgame and absolutely no Zutara at all. Still, by the end of Book 3, I was convinced that I had read wrong - that there would be an epilogue with a different ending or at least that Aang would only get together with Katara post-show- in that Korra series or something - because anything else wouldn’t make sense- right?

….

After I got over my shock and surprise, I went online and found out about that decade-long aggressive passionate ship war and how even the showrunners got involved.

And then I really worried that I might have missed a few points. Apparently ”Aang and Katara were the DNA of the show”, according to the creators themselves, and “Zutara could never have happened”.

Another popular anti-ZK argument I found was: Why do you always go on about Katara and Zuko? Just look at Zuko and Aang! They are the hero/ anti-hero and each other’s foils, their relationship is much more meaningful!”

So I tried to find out what it was that I apparently couldn’t see.

(Another disclaimer: I love analysing stories (like many Zutarians apparently) and this will get long and rambly. If you get bored to tears when people start talking about “narrative structure” you will probably not like this.)

Talking about narrative structure, I do believe that, in order to let your story, your characters and their relationships really shine, a good basic structure is important. There should be a recognizable development and individual parts of the story that build upon each other and lead to consequences and change, until there is a completed arc - because it is all about the journey that takes you to a satisfying ending, right? So that’s what I tried to do, with my personal Kat*ang vs. Zutara take, I tried to look at the structure and development of their relationship arcs.

The argument that threw me off track for a while is that compared to Aang and Zuko, Zuko and Katara’s relationship is not supposed to be that relevant for the plot. After all, Zuko is the foil, the anti-hero, the deuteragonist to Aang, who is the hero protagonist.

This is all true of course. But then why is it that in every finale, Zuko’s main opponent (and later ally) is not Aang but Katara? Why is it that their sun/moon, red/blue, fire/water dichotomy is so obviously highlighted?

I think one reason why Zuko and Katara are paired off so frequently in the story - as opposite elements, as opponents and as allies - is that they BOTH are Aang’s deuteragonists. While Zuko also acts as antagonist and Aang’s foil/mirror, Katara takes over the more traditional deuteragonist role of confidant / best friend/ narrator.

Protagonist Aang is what connects them, although they are on opposite sides: Both need Aang because he represents their hope to save their world. Very simply put, Katara protects him, so he can make the world a safer place again, and Zuko wants to capture him, so he can go home and be safe again. That rivalry between them is already established in the first episode, even before they meet each other: Katara, who hopes that the Avatar will return (as she tells everyone in the intro), and Zuko, who seems to be obsessed with finding him for more sinister reasons.

And just to make sure, I am not talking here about the characters’ feelings and emotions! This is just about the abstract roles they have been assigned within the narrative.

When regarding Zutara’s special connection to Aang and their rivalry with each other, it makes absolute sense to stress their “same but different”ness as well, visually and metaphorically: Red and blue, fire and water, sun and moon, arguably Painted Lady/Blue Spirit, and, when you put into account their story arc, also Oma and Shu.

With this basis, which puts them together and sets them apart simultaneously, their relationship already becomes very dynamic and interesting, even before you consider any romantic potential.

And here’s another thing, Zuko and Katara also have their own story arc within the main plot. Although they don’t have many scenes together before Zuko joins the Gaang, when they do meet there is always a new shift in their relationship and in quite a few cases their interactions are important for the main plot as well. If you just look at their “end fights” at each book’s finale, there is an obvious and consequential build-up, like any decent story arc should have:

Book 1 starts with Zuko as the powered-up enemy and Katara as the weak newbie waterbender. Both are battling over Aang. At the end of Book 1, they are finally established as equally powerful fighters but still fundamentally different (You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun!)

In CoD at the end of Book 2 happens the next step: they realize that they are not different at all! But Aang still doesn’t represent the same for them and they end up on opposing sides of the war again.

In the Book 3 finale, when Zuko has completed his own (anti-) hero's journey and Aang represents the same “hope” for both of them, they do not only join forces: Their “same but different”- traits make them such a uniquely suited match that they are even able to save each other’s lives during their fight with Azula (who in turn happens to be Katara and Zuko’s antagonist/mirror/foil).

And in addition to their own story arc they even get an individual recurring theme, which also appears in every book whenever their relationship status changes: The lost mothers, especially Katara’s mother.

In Book 1, Katara’s necklace (the symbol of Kiya) plays not only a major part in two of Zuko’s capture attempts, it is the reason for their very first one-one one encounter in the story.

Their first friendly connection in COD in Book 2 happens because they start talking about their mothers. And in Book 3, their final reconciliation (sealed with a very cathartic hug) happens after their life-changing trip which is, of course, all about Katara’s mother.

Again, I am not even trying to analyse their characters and motivations within the story - there are many metas that have already done that much better, more detailed and with screenshots. This is just dry structure and tropes and themes. But I think people recognize and connect with a well-structured arc, even subconsciously, which is one of the reasons that makes Zutara such a compelling couple. They complete and contrast each other, their relationship dynamic constantly changes, builds up, falls apart, reconnects. Such a setup is the perfect playground for a lot of creative takes on what-ifs and alternative scenarios and of course, shipping them romantically is extremely tempting - think of all the possibilities! It’s no wonder that the Zutara fandom is still so active decades after the end of the show. And it’s also no wonder that the Zutarians are known for “over-analysing everything”. You can only over-analyse if there is anything that gives you enough food to analyse to begin with. Which brings me to

KAT*ANG

I just go right to the top and take the quote from Br*yke themselves:

Kata*ng was in the DNA of the thing from the start…. [Zutara] was just dark and intriguing.

If you read this quote and then start watching the show, I would (grudgingly) agree that:

Aang and Katara understand and complement each other really well. Aang gives her the chance to have fun and go on adventures and in turn, Katara is his fiercest supporter from the very beginning, something that he really needs after he lost all his people AND has to find out that the world thinks the war is sort of his fault. In turn, the journey to the North Pole is as important to Katara as it is to Aang, because it is her dream to learn waterbending properly. That’s what she literally says when Sokka & Co try to banish Aang: (Sokka: Where do you think you’re going? Katara: To find a waterbender. Aang is taking me to the North Pole.) In that way, they are friends who give and take equally and are equally taken care of. They even have the last Airbender/ last Southern Waterbender status that connects them. The few times they have a fight, Aang does something in the end to redeem himself (perform some heroic feat) and Katara sees that she is right to believe in him.

Aang has this very sweet crush on her and it will be very sweet and wholesome when Katara will return his feelings at the end of their adventure after he has hit puberty. On the other side, there is also some heavy shipbaiting with Zuko: I save you from the pirates. The betrothal necklace. June and her excellent shipping taste. But in the end they are enemies, they barely know each other and, come on, it would be too dark and intriguing! There is no real threat against friends to lovers Kat*ang, the soft heart of the story. It’s very straightforward and there are a lot of simple “the hero saves the day” scenes for Aang but that’s fine! It’s not really my kind of ship but that’s not the point, it works for the story they want to tell.

End of Book 1.

In my - probably harsh- opinion, everything you really need to know about the Kat*ang relationship has been told by this point. If you want to be really mean, already by Book 1, episode 3.

That explains maybe why many (not all! but many) pro-KA arguments sound as if their shippers have not watched Book 2 and 3 at all. The Book 1 synopsis also perfectly sums up Bry*ke’s quote above. But then Book 2 and 3 are still there and I don’t know what happened but it seems as if they somehow decided that the Kat*ang story does not need any new and lasting input. Maybe because they were afraid that too much new development and change would stray too far away from their original Kat*ang vision. But there are still 2 more books and more adventures and Kat*ang somehow has to be kept apart until the finale.

So the tension in their potential romance is based largely on the question whether or not Katara will return Aang’s feelings. In general I don’t have a problem with that will-she-won’t she-technique. It works well in books where the love interest is not a POV or in shows/ movies where the love interest is not one of the main characters. But Katara is not only the female lead but also arguably the narrative voice of the whole story! As a result, this kind of writing makes Katara look as if she doesn’t have any agency in their relationship, which is not surprisingly a very popular anti-KA criticism.

Additionally, since her dream - learning waterbending - has been fulfilled by the end of Book 1, the relationship work becomes a bit one-sided. Of course Aang is the hero and his journey is the heart of the story. But in order to highlight their special connection it would have helped to give Katara another personal agenda, which Aang could have supported in some way. She is still the last Southern Waterbender and he the Last Airbender but this is not really explored in the Kat*ang relationship. And her other personal agenda, her mother, is already reserved for the Zutara arc.

Instead, in Book 2 and 3 the Kat*ang story is somehow all over the place. Of course there is new conflict and a few romantic scenes as well. But obstacles are either introduced too late or just dropped when not needed anymore, conflict is not resolved and their flirty, romantic moments never lead anywhere- and if they do, they lead to more conflict that is not resolved (yes, I am looking at you, EIP Kiss!).

Take for example Katara’s very sudden argument that they cannot be together now because there is a war going on. We hear her saying that for the first time in the very last episode (EIP) before the 4-part finale. That is too late to have any impact! That she has these kinds of thoughts was never even alluded to before. Not once.

Or the pattern Aang runs away/ is flaky - Katara is upset - Aang comes back and does his hero thing - Katara is relieved. In regards to their relationship arc, nothing changes here between Book 1 and the finale, only the stakes for Aang’s heroic performances get higher.

Or Katara being the one who is able to calm Aang down when he cannot control the Avatar state (which, in my personal opinion, is neither romantic nor healthy). This is also connected to the problem with the seventh Chakra, that Aang needs to let go of his attachment for her. I will be angry forever with how they wasted this for a possible relationship development! That Aang has to decide to either do his duty or save his forever girl (because let’s be fair, he did try to let go and only ran when he had the vision of Katara in danger) - that’s a fantastic setup!

But no, it doesn’t have any real consequences for Kat*ang at all. Instead there were only half-baked attempts – Aang does lie about his failed practice with Guru Pathik but the ultimate reason why his chakra is blocked is Azula, not his decision to run. Aang does try to let go of Katara for a little bit but then Azula shoots him. Nothing in Book 3 shows any change in his feelings that could have been a result of his instant let-it-go. If anything, he gets weirdly obsessive - which could have been used as a side effect of his blocked chakra but – again, no, nothing happens.

I suspect the whole thing was just introduced to create temporary drama for poor Aang, but it is never explained why Katara holds him back, what aspect of the attachment is blocking him or what would happen if he did let her go. Maybe they tried to make a statement about how love is more important than Avatar rules – which would have been fine but it’s also never properly explored. Instead, as soon as that plot point becomes inconvenient it’s simply dropped like a random rock™.

Compare all that to the Zutara arc, where both characters’ feelings about each other are always very much in the open, and where every interaction causes lasting effects in their relationship. Yes, it is unfair to compare that to Kat*ang, because up to the end of Book 3, Zuko and Katara almost never meet, while Aang and Katara spend almost every episode together – of course they cannot do meaningful things all the time. But on the other side, with Kat*ang, there would have been a great chance to show a subtle, gradual build-up instead.

It also doesn’t help that the Zutara arc seems hellbent on sabotaging every romantic moment Aang is allowed to enjoy:

There is Kat*angs first maybe-kiss in the dark before the background of the Oma and Shu legend. But it does not lead anywhere. Instead, Zuko and Katara almost reenact the legend itself in the Book 2 finale as two real enemies to almost-friends, including a glowy rocks-backdrop and the right costume colours, just so nobody misses the message.

In Footloose The Headband, Aang and Katara have a really sweet dance together, and everybody can see how they almost intuitively know each other's moves. This could be a great hint on how well they will fight together in the finale. But is it plot-relevant? No, because the final tag team is Katara and Zuko! While Aang gets paired off with random rock™.

Then there is Aang’s riding off to battle- kiss in DotBS, which Katara is not even allowed to enjoy, because keeping her feelings vague is apparently more important than character development at this point. It is the only romantic moment that gets mentioned again, but in a way that sinks the former cute and wholesome ship into the deep ocean, and the reason is - Aang is jealous of Zuko!

If all of this was only done for the sake of shipbaiting, then it really went out of control at some point.

In the end, the showrunners still had their reasons to choose Kat*ang, maybe because that corresponded more to their own vision, and there are still enough people out there who agree with them. Which is absolutely fine! In the end, what matters most is how you personally connect to the characters and nobody needs to defend their personal taste. But the typical anti-ZK claim, that all the Zutarians with their crazy analysis and rambling meta essays are reaching and delusional and that they desperately try to construct something that isn’t there, is not only a very lazy argument but simply not true.

And I’d claim that in spite of the canon choice, Zutara is technically the better written relationship. By far.

#zutara #antikataang #anti kataang #anti-kataang #atla critical #atla writing critical #long post #atla meta

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life-rewritten · 3 years

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Lovely Writer Ep 1; An Introduction to Ambition, Masks and Secret Goals

We did it, guys! After trying hard to get back into this writing groove thing, I think I have found it, the show that will make me want to write. And we all say What?? Oh, my word was the first episode of Lovely writer so great. From the first moment the show starts, you can tell there's meta, it's calling out the BL industry; sarcastically, with comedy, shallowness, and yet there's this air of secrecy and depth to it. It's funny because the industry's problems made fun of are essentially going to be our big villain of the show, the thing that's going to try and rip our couple apart. So to see the first episode already lay a foundation for us to start realising the disconnect with what's being done on the surface vs what's being truly displayed secretly shows us already this show is playing with the ideas of masks and the lengths it would take to actually survive in this world/industry portrayed in the show. The thing as well is we are watching this show through the lens of Gene; he's also someone who's become very disconnected with how he feels about the problematic elements of this industry vs how people want him to think about it; they want him to thrive off it, to use it for his ambition, to use it to make himself known. So already, we are also introduced to the theme of ambition and the theme of secrets. The characters are acting in a way to get something done for them, and yet they're hiding their truths to please something; the industry, a person of power, or just something they want. And that's fascinating already to start with. That's already going to be fun to unpack and write about.

I just really love how deep this show is already becoming; hidden with comedy and romance, we see depth, we see realism and calling out issues that we face in the real world concerning the BL genre, and still, we see yet, a love story brewing as well, it's a perfect combination. Or is it? And not to be so fully surprised, I did say that Tee is a great director, he made TharnType mean something to me, and that's because he hides his themes and his actual message behind layers and layers of subtext, he focuses on flaws of characters, but he makes them feel real, yet he also tackles real conversations about things that happen in real life and hides it behind a passionate romance and comedy. That's why this is so great for me. In already episode 1, Tee has shown up and done everything I knew he could do with Lovely Writer, and I am so freaking excited. The words are pouring out of me. Once the show started, I wanted to write, analyse and talk about this show. I wanted to bring to the surface the meta, the subtext, the foreshadowings and the character depth. I am truly ready for this show, and I hope you all are too. So episode 1, how were we introduced to the themes of the show so far; well, let's find out.

An Introduction to Ambition, Masks and Secrets

So the show starts off as a typical romantic comedy Bl; at first, you are like, it's funny they keep mentioning these little truths about the genre and the industry. It makes sense; we're seeing the story through the eye of a frustrated writer in the industry who has to do a lot to be part of it, so it is funny but also surreal to see the issues being brought up about the industry. Because of this, you know this show is meta. It's taking its self not seriously, but it's actually serious below the surface. So immediately, my sensors start to ping, could there be more depth to this story, are there hints showing us what to look out for, is there more to what Tee wants to say with this show. And actually, the first thing is the introduction to Aey. They mention him at first during the casting call discussion; the way they introduce him is interesting to me because I know he's an obstacle to our story. He's a love rival, and he's sneaky.

Aey is an interesting villain if you wanna call him that. He's obviously going to be a barrier, and you know, his smile on his face seems like a mask, not particularly for evil, just something he has to use to get his way. Just like Nubsib, he's faking an image, and we see his real face in the bathroom, this episode. Especially when he looks through some comments and tweets, which I don't know what it's about because there were no subs, but I'm guessing either mentioned his sexuality or how cute how he and Nubsib will be together or something else that pokes at his insecurity. Right now, he's ambitious, his thoughts are on succeeding, and so he acts docile, nice and friendly to get what he wants; however, we can see that the reason why he's right now trying to get Nubsib's attention isn't because of love; it's because of the job, of wanting to keep appearances, of knowing this would make him more successful, this will make them famous and please their growing shipping fandom.

That's the exciting thing; the question is, does he really like Nubsib or is he just faking it. Is there more to his connection with Nubsib? Also, just the fact that he's not a one-note character but he already seems to have layers is so exciting for me; this show is already doing what I hope it would do for me, it's being meta, secretive, smart, structured and still having comedy and romance on the surface. These characters all seem to have layers, truths hidden and interesting reasons for why they do what they do. That's fascinating to me. So because of that one scene where we see Aey almost break his mask and then go back to putting it on to please people and write on his social media, I'm already seeing the theme of ambition in this series. I see it in Gene, Nubsib (for Gene mostly), Aey, even Hin, who's a bit interesting with his own want to write and need to be noticed. Interesting.

The lengths our characters have to go through to achieve their ambitions might make them take on masks that they aren't particularly comfortable with, and also isn't an accurate display of their own values and truths but never the less they have to do this to achieve their ambition.

Gene: The Mask Of A Writer

We can see Gene isn't really a fan of BL writing and the tropes associated with it. In fact, he deplores it, he finds it hard to write about, and he doesn't think there's any substance to them. His focus is that what they portray is shallow, unimportant and toxic, just like how he sees the industry promoting them. It's why he's fine being an introvert; he feels safer in the confines of his home doing what he loves to do; writing, but he's decided, letting people in is not worth it. Mostly people from his industry who seem callous at times, greedy at best, and just corruptive. He disagrees with that and tends to want to distance himself from that. But what can he do? He wants to write, he wants to survive by doing what he loves to do, he wants to thrive in his job; however, he has to make sacrifices to get to that goal where he can comfortably write what he wants.

He's not really comfortable there, he wants to write something else (something with more depth, something with more understanding, something that makes him feel like him), but he can't, so he takes on a mask to keep on doing whatever he can for his ambition. Writing is all Gene seems to have, from constantly being tired, irritated, and too focused on it to even take care of the state of his house, of himself, and of his relationships. Nothing is more important than writing. That's his ambition, what makes him happy, what makes him safe, what makes him comfortable. And that's very relatable; as an introverted writer my self, Gene finds an escape from the real world when he puts his mind at work, and he creates however slowly, the love and excitement he has for writing are being shadowed by the lack of belonging he feels for the genre he has to write about. The moral conflicts, the uncomfortable topics and just overall the shallow results of his stories. They don't mean anything to him, just a way for ends meet. And that must be incredibly frustrating and tiring. Yet Gene has to do it to get his ambitions done.

That's why it's funny/important that Nubsib is invading his space. Nubsib's presence is showing up and unravelling Gene's masks, his truths, his reality. Nubsib is pushing Gene out of his act and making him question his ambition and truth. But also, in a way, Nubsib is providing depth for Gene for this genre as he starts to be truly inspired by his unknown attraction and connection to Nubsib.

The more the love becomes authentic, the more Gene starts to understand maybe why BLs might be written and why it might be loved by many fans because of that meaning of love that is portrayed when done correctly. So perhaps, Nubsib is making Gene realise more about the other side of things; maybe he offers a different perspective, especially since he's going to be one of those tropey BL characters.

Nubsib: The Mask Of A Lover

Nubsib is very much ambitious, he takes levels to make sure he gets to Gene, but also he hides his true self and wears a mask of two faces. Even his manager knows his real personality and says it; he's faking an image. He hides who he really is to Gene to come of nicer and sweeter, but also he does all of this to get his goal of making Gene trust him. Making Gene first think he's a good boy. Now, of course, immediately, I notice his two-faced behaviour. I see red flags; this isn't a healthy way to pursue a lover; it's full of lies, secrets and not truly knowing the real person's character. So are we going to unveil more about his intentions, why he's so invested in Gene and what he gains from doing all this, this way? Why is he so ready to ensure this time, Gene doesn't escape or that he doesn't lose his chance to finally be with Gene.

Acting doesn't seem to be his agenda; Gene is, you know, which is why you can feel already from the bat that he knows Gene before. He's pretending they haven't met before/, or he's seen something in him that's made him want to be near him; that's fascinating and interesting, that's the lengths he's taking; to wear a mask to get what he wants. It's interesting because, in a way, his lying, manipulation and secrecy is the opposite of what his presence is going to be for Gene in the show. Remember, he's meant to add authenticity to Gene's life, and love, and vulnerability, and so it's worrying because it's almost like Gene is falling in someone who he doesn't even honestly know. But this is just episode 1; as much as yes Nubsib is manipulative and secretive, I think there are things we'll get to see about him that's still authentic, at least for now; one of the things that stay true is his feelings for Gene, that's what's driving him, and Gene who has been so devoid of that connection maybe that's why Nubsib has to find a way to break down his walls in that way. We can see it's not easy for people to see Gene's vulnerable side. Nubsib makes him vulnerable, and maybe Nubsib knows this about Gene if they have met before; maybe he knows this is the only he can maybe try to make Gene notice him since Gene is so quick to run back home and throw himself into his world of writing. But is it okay? No, it's still manipulative and deceitful, but I think it's going to have consequences. And I can't wait to see how that unfolds. You also see some parts of when his masks fall, and that's concerning Aey, which is funny because I think they're the same type of people. This is why I'm intrigued by this show; they both will do whatever it is to get what they want.

Aey: The Mask Of An Actor

And then we have Aey; he's even more fascinating; he's pretending to like Nubsib for his own agenda. Even Nubsib can feel it. They've known each other for a while. They can read through each other's masks. That's why they have an interesting plot arc coming. The show does start by making note that he rarely would get a role this big because of his queer identity. Apparently, that's an issue/ problem with the industry (both in fiction and in reality, sadly). They think LGBTQ actors don't attract money if they're too 'queer', so Aey is determined to get success, notice and fame. He's already found ways to get to this point by overhearing Nubsib when he finds out about the audition. Nubsib is already known and supported by people. Aey may be different. Maybe he's had to struggle to be noticed.

In a way, he's doing all he can to ensure this works for him, but in order to do so, he also wears a mask and hides who he really is to everyone. In fact, the reason why he's chosen for the role is because even though he is queer, he doesn't seem like it. This is what was said in the show. The only person who seems to see him truly is Mhok, and that's an exciting development being hinted at. There's someone again who is connected to unravelling his mask and knowing his genuine authenticity. I think this is a big theme surrounding romance in this show. So Aey is going to be an interesting obstacle, just like Sib, everything that comes out from his mouth are lies to get what he wants, maybe even his smiles and fake niceties aren't truly his character; he seems devious (not in a negative way), he seems cunning, like he knows how to be one step ahead. This is probably what he's made himself become to be chosen, noticed and taken seriously. To get what he wants. This makes him a fascinating antagonist; I don't think he's a villain, just someone who has a fascinating character arc in the show. I can't wait to explore it.

Hin: The Mask Of A Follower

And then there's Hin. As much as he's chirpy and nice and friendly to Gene, he seems quite, I won't say jealous, but he does show he wants the chance and opportunities Gene has with writing. He asks the manager by text as the audition happens, to read his book and let him know if it's possible for publishing. It seems he tends to be overlooked; he's curious, wide-eyed, always looking positive, but what if this is also just a mask? What if we're gonna see more to this arc too. It'd be interesting to see if he'll feel annoyed at Gene complaining about having the opportunity he has to write BLs, when others may not be chosen the same way. But that's just a theory about Hin. If all the other characters are just as ambitious in getting what they want, what's to say, Hin wouldn't be later. What role would he play during the show's ending, perhaps just a supportive friend, a guide to help Gene deal with whatever comes, but it is interesting to know he also wants to write. My first thoughts always point to negative with that because it suggests rivalry. And I think rivalry is also an interesting theme, an occurrence that happens in the industry. So maybe there's more to him, or perhaps not.

So yeh ambition and masks and the lengths the characters would go to fulfil what's important to them in this show have been built up already. Most of our characters all share similarities of having to become or do something that doesn't pertain to the truth of who they really are. They see no choice in the matter; they have to do this to survive or to be happy. This industry is a competition, it's harsh, and you need adaptability, tough skin and methods to survive and get what you want. Especially since Lovely Writer is about the Acting industry as well. These characters all have to be actors somehow, Gene has to pretend he cares about BL, so he sells and makes it big, Nubsib has to pretend he doesn't know Gene, so he can win Gene's heart, Aey has to pretend he cares about Nubsib, so he becomes famous and supported by his fandom, and maybe even Hin has to pretend he's okay with following after Gene, so he can find opportunities to learn more about the industry and also find ways to publish his book. An interesting theme that occurs in real life. Obviously, as Gene and Sib fall for each other, those ambitions come out to the surface, become obstacles in the making, and they have to choose to sacrifice some of it for their love and happiness. One way or another, there's a consequence to not being who you are; somehow, the truth always comes out. Okay, let's do this show. Let's get to know these characters. I certainly can't wait.

#lovely writer #lovely writer the series #thai bl #bl series #bl drama #nubsib #cwg #nubsibgene #march #fvete

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thelovelyghostwriter · 3 years

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Some of my favourite female characters in fiction

This list is not exhaustive and while I do have other characters that I find charming and that I love, I have noted these characters because in my opinion, they have struggled and/or there is a certain analysis to their personalities.

Please take note that some of the characters are not morally good or have done questionable actions. This is not to discuss or say they are role models, but rather to write up what they represented, their role in the story or simply their personalities. I’m not here to justify the character’s actions.

Remember that a well-written characters do not have to be morally good.

Also, a lot of them are from memory and the analysis aren’t well-structured.

Let’s dive in:

1. Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby

Daisy, in my opinion, is incredibly misunderstood and unjustifiably hated among the readers. Her betrayal to Gatsby is indeed vile and it did upset me, I definitely think that she is materialistic, shallow and hurtful.

“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

Daisy did shit on Gatsby [trying to avoid spoilers here].

However, I do like to note that I think part of her materialism and shallowness is because of how women were in the 1920s. They did not have any freedom or agency. To Tom, she seems to be a trophy wife for him to keep; and to Gatsby, he only liked the idea of her, he wasn’t in love with her. To everyone around her, she was an item, a beautiful doll to be possessed, rather than a person. I think that’s why she turned out like that.

She's materialistic because men around her sees her as an object. Nonetheless, Daisy is still “careless” and hurtful; and I think this stemmed from the life she had led that were a compilation of choices that were made for her. Her betrayal towards Gatsby is what makes her character rather disappointing to most readers. The whiteness in her dress as described in her first appearance? It’s not innocence, but rather a void and jadedness.

2. Neon Nostrade from Hunter x Hunter

Yet, another girl in our list that loves to be hated by the fandom. Though honestly, most of her haters are Chrollo and Kurapika stans who gets jealous because Chrollo got to hang out with her and Kurapika works under her. Also her repulsive hobby - although this is actually what makes me like her.

I have addressed this in my other posts before, but let me just copy and paste them (and modify a bit): Her upbringing and exploitation by her dad makes her materialistic and emotionally detached. This materialism and detachment is manifested in the form of her hobby as a dead body parts collector. But other than that, she’s really a normal girl, just sheltered and spoilt. The money she spends are even from her talent Lovely Ghostwriter, her father will be nothing without her. So I don’t see an issue with her spending them on shopping etc.

In fact, I would argue that she bathes in materialism to fill the emptiness that she has. Her father is more concerned with her ability and power, she has no friends and is guarded 24/7 by employees.

All the times she threw tantrums and the way she talks… it’s a different speech pattern altogether when she interacts with Chrollo - which may suggest that the whole spoilt attitude is exaggerated to gain attention from a father who is indulgent in terms of material gifts, but not in terms of affection and time for her.

When Eliza cried, she was willing to forgo bidding the auction physically. Yes she did not care about the bodyguards because she is more focused on the living and the present (Eliza) than the dead.

The reason why she didn’t seem fazed when Dalzollene and the others died is because a) they were her bodyguards, it’s their job to put their life on the line to protect her, b) she mentioned to Chrollo that her fortune-telling is for the living, she likes to live in the present and doesn’t believe in the afterlife.

Neon is more focused on who is alive, rather than the dead (which also represented by her hobby of dead body parts collecting). She focuses on the present, unlike her clients who likes to know their future or people who dwell in the past. Kurapika on the other hand, is the complete opposite. He dwells on the past and likes to focus on his dead clan rather than the present times with his friends (which is completely understandable).

Another significance is that her fortune-telling ability is very useful and helpful, she says that she wanted to make people happy with it; but however, it is commercialized and used as a means of power (knowledge of the future = power) by her father and pretty much everyone around her. Just like how she objectifies dead people by collecting their parts, the people around her sees her as a tool due to her fortune-telling abilities, rather than see her as a person. Even Kurapika chose to get employed under her, for his own agenda (he is bound to meet dead body parts collectors at some point).

She treats people like objects because people see her as one.

Of course, collecting dead body parts is a pretty fucked hobby; but what she represents and her role as a minor character is what makes her an outstanding minor female character in the show.

Yes. She has traits that are not your typical role model, but neither are other hxh characters. She’s not independent, naive, can’t fight, in need of saving, uncaring at times and spoilt. She is far from so-called “strong female character” that we often look up to. She is a character with bad traits which is a result of being a victim. But that’s what makes me love her as a character in hxh. It reminds us that there are girls out there who has lack of freedom and control over their own fate; and their only way out is through materialism and detaching themselves from people.

In fact, she might be even relateable to some people more than other female characters because there is vulnerability in her character.

3. Hua Mulan (Mostly the Chinese 2009 film, though the most well-known is the Disney 1998 animated film)

There has been various adaptations for this character, with the Disney Animated version being the most prominent.

However, my favourite one is definitely the Chinese film Hua Mulan: Rise of A Warrior (2009). It portrays the horrors of war and the suffering it brings, nationalism, camaraderie among the army - all while giving us the admirable Mulan climbing up to the ranks of being a war general.

I highly recommend this adaptation. I know the Disney Live Action 2020 version did not receive good reception, and we honestly did not need one because this 2009 Chinese film does the job well (I like their soundtrack though). It's not really well-known because it's a Chinese film (which is hella ironic because Hua Mulan is a Chinese character? Lmao).

"Today we will stain the battlefield with our blood. Behind us is our homeland. If we have to bleed out our last drop of blood, if we have to become bleached bones in this desert, we must defend it to the death! We must let the Rourans know we Wei warriors will never surrender and will never compromise! Soldiers may rebel against me, generals may leave me for dead, but I, Hua Mulan, will never betray my country!"

Generally, I either have an issue with strong female characters because they are just shallow (meaning they are only physically strong, often viewing rudeness, misandry and independence as strength). I like female characters who are so much more to that.

Mulan, in this film, not only showed her badassery in fighting the war for more than a decade, but we also see how much she struggled. Everytime her comrades die, her heart gets broken. Yet she has to learn how to pick herself up and become the leader that they need. She dislikes war, she dislikes the bloodshed; yet she fights for her country.

To me, a strong female character is not just a feminist icon or someone who can fight. In fact, a female character doesn't need to be someone capable of fighting, what makes her strong is to be able to overcome turbulence with determination.

I think this is something that is lacking in recent "strong female characters" - showing us their strength through perseverance.

As for the Disney's counterpart (talking about the 1998 film here), it is less morbid but we also see her trying her best to make her family proud and protect her country. Like the song Reflection and Loyal, Brave and True, she struggles with finding her purpose and her role in her family.

"The greatest gift of honour, is having you for a daughter."

4. Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire

It's been years since I had analysed Blanche, but among all the 6 books that I had to study for English Literature, A Streetcar Named Desire has been my absolute favourite.

I think what struck me in this book is not just the style, but Blanche's vulnerability. Her actions are definitely not morally good: she misrepresents things, she lies, she even had sex with an underage student. She's paranoid, mentally unstable and prissy. Which was why, her polar opposite character, Stanley, is so annoyed with her.

After her husband's suicide, we see Blanche relying on the company of men to fill the void of her loneliness and misery. She is also concerned about her beauty fading with age - I find that highly reliable. It sounds incredibly "vain", but beauty does play a part.

Based on Evolutionary and Mating Theories among humans, appearance in women are especially important (also for men but not as much as women). Of course, there are other factors and traits that people find attractive, but Blanche's concern is valid here. She needs to find a husband to escape from her financial troubles; and her age, beauty and chastity plays a huge factor in her search for getting a man in the setting she was in (which was Mitch in this case). Ironically, these are the very traits that she has "lost" and so desperately tries to hide it.

Her ending is truly a devastating and upsetting one. [Will not talk about it due to spoilers]

"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers."

5. Haibara Ai/Shiho Miyano from Detective Conan

Perhaps one of the girls that is a wasted potential. In a series where the characters are mostly flat, she's arguably the most multi-faceted (but somehow I had heard that she no longer has the same complexity as she used to have - it's been a while since I followed this series).

But I remember absolutely loving this character.

Her background story is really unique in the show and one that is embedded within the Black Organisation plotline (why her character was dropped... Forever frustrating for me).

From the moment she was first introduced, we see Conan taking an immediate distrust towards her. A guy who is a detective who had been catching criminals - yet one ex-syndicate member stands before him. The one that actually helped to develop the APTX4869 that changed his life.

Yet, we see that it wasn't entirely within her control. Both her parents were syndicate members and when her sister tries to get both of them to leave, her sister dies.

Ai starts off as seemingly cold, pessimistic and avoidant. But as her arc goes on, the iceberg around her melts. We see her quirky sarcastic replies, her taste for fashion and she genuinely desires to be happy. Her relationship with Conan developed into a beautiful one - to the point where Conan trusts her with anything and they would risk their lives for one another.

Yet, we also empathies with her impending jealousy and heartache. The boy she has fallen for already has someone else. What's more, the girl is genuinely kind and is a splitting image of her sister. After Ran saved her from Vermouth, she quickly warms up to Ran as well.

She's also the key to developing the antidote for Shinichi to be back with Ran - an almost painful metaphor for her to give him away (he never belonged to her in the first place). Yet, she doesn't really stop them from being together (even though in some cases she appears jealous or phrase ShinRan's reunion as a word of caution).

I definitely think she is the most compelling character in Detective Conan because of her character development and the struggles she faces. It's definitely upsetting that her character has been neglected.

“Don’t judge people from the outside. Like any rose has thorns, the more the person appears nice on the outside, the more you should doubt the inside.”

6. Misato Katsuragi from Neon Genesis Evangelion

Who is the best female character in Eva? Asuka or Rei? My answer will always be Misato, Risato is a close second (I wanted to analyse Risato, but I’m trying to keep it to one person per series). Misato is one of the 90s anime babes. She definitely captivated many people’s heart.

I must say though, I have a soft spot towards female characters who has some sort of daddy issues (why I like Neon Nostrade). It’s been a while since I had watched Eva, but I’m going to try to remember why I like her.

I think the concept of Hedgehog’s Dilemma has been echoed throughout the series, and all the characters seem to struggle with emotional attachment towards people. I actually like to phrase the Hedgehog Dilemma as “Avoidant-Fearful Attachment Style” - wanting connection with people, yet not being able to do so out of fear of being hurt.

For Misato, when I initially first watched Eva, I compared her a little to Blanche Dubois in how they cope with loneliness - their sexuality. I remember being confused with her interactions with Shinji, who was half her age. At times, she serves as his guardian/mother figure; but at some moments (I think it was sometimes after Kaji’s death), she tried to seek comfort with Shinji by attempting to initiate sex (which Shinji rejects). I remember coming across a comment somewhere that Shinji and Misato’s relationship is somewhat like Humbert and Dolores (from Lolita) - can’t comment on this as I only read the first chapter of the book.

It makes me think that she uses sex as a way to cope and the only way she can connect with people (and it’s superficial), which doesn’t work for Shinji because she needs to be her guardian (and ultimately fails to be purely his guardian once she crossed that no-no boundary).

Another thing to note was her backstory about her dad. There seems to be a dissonance, given that she resented her dad for not spending time with her due to his work, but he ended up sacrificing her life for her. I do think it’s a bit of guilt (because resenting her dad but he saves her - these two contradicts one another). It’s clear that her issues to connect stems from her backstory regarding her father.

It’s interesting how she compares Kaji to her father. I do think she loves Kaji, but “reminds him too much of her father” (as to put it simply). There is this... stereotype that we find someone similar to our opposite-gender parents, no matter how shitty they were towards us. I believe that it is because we tend to stick to something that is familiar to us, even if those type of people aren’t good for us (I think to break this cycle is to practise self-awareness and know what is good for us).

Anyway, Misato is a character that I really liked (as all the characters in Eva) because they highlight Hedgehog’s Dilemma that stemmed from their parental issues. Maybe I have not watched a lot of anime, but female characters with issues with their fathers are not as explored deeply as male characters and their parental issues. A lot of times, female characters (especially in shounen) serves as a romantic interest and yes they can have really sad backstory, but not issues towards their father and how it affects their relationship with other people. So far, the only ones I had seen is Mukuro (Yu Yu Hakusho), Misato and Neon Nostrade.

7. Disney's Cinderella

First of all, she has been a victim of abuse since she was a child. It's not easy for her to escape her predicament. Where can she go? It's not that easy.

Boy. I hate how much people remember Cinderella wrongly and attack her for being "backwards", which is actually factually wrong.

Cinderella always get flack for using the Prince to "escape" her predicament when "she can do it herself".

I say that's bullshit. I actually came across a youtube video: Cinderella Stop Blaming the Victim [please check it out for more in-depth analysis]

Despite all that, she's doesn't internalize it. She knows she doesn't deserve to be treated this way, and she does to a certain degree stand up to them (whenever the cat makes her tasks harder). She knows when to fight back and restrain herself because it might endanger her life.

After years of suffering in this domestic household, she remains kind, compassionate and hopeful. Which is not an easy feat. The problem is, these traits are often seen as feminine and synonymous with being weak. But it is actually, in fact, signs of strength. The mental fortitude she has to remain kind after all she went through is a sign of strength.

The Fairy Godmother only appeared when she was losing hope - take note that she ends up crying because her stepsisters tore her mother’s dress (which is the most disturbing scene in the film).

Even I had remembered this wrongly - one crucial fact is that... She did not want to go the ball to nab the Prince. That was her stepsisters. Homegirl just wanted to chill. She did not even know she was dancing with the Prince!

When Lady Tremaine locked her up to prevent her from reaching the Prince, it wasn’t the Prince that saved her. She and her animal friends got her out of the room, and proceeded to prove that she was indeed the maiden that had danced with the Prince. Her marrying the Prince was only a fitting end to her because it provides her a home and an escape from an abusive household; however, it was her resilience for holding onto fate and being mentally strong, and her initiatives partially contributed to her happy end. The Prince is more like a passive character.

I highly think that people tend to brush her traits - e.g. compassion, having fate, being kind is listed as feminine. However, it is far from being weak, which most people would deem it as. But that is definitely not true.

“No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish can come true.”

8. Mikasa Ackerman from Attack on Titan

Mikasa is either a hit or miss among AOT fans. Some people like Mikasa because she is physically strong and her loyalty to Eren is admirable. On the other hand, some people think she’s clingy and her being physically strong makes her a Mary Sue.

Whether or not you like Mikasa, there is a fact that she is not a Mary Sue. The definition of a Mary Sue is a female character lacking in weakness and seems perfect.

She is physically strong, yes - I believe that Isayama wanted to distribute traits to the trio. Even Hannes has said it in S1. Armin represents intellect, Eren represents grit and Mikasa represents strength. So her being physically strong makes sense, and Isayama also provided an explanation for it (being an Ackerman).

However, this does not mean she lacks any weakness. Arguably, her loyalty to Eren is both a liability and her strength. This “weakness” has been highlighted by her dilemma between her loyalty towards Eren and her belief that mass genocide is wrong.

[I won’t go into details about the manga parts that have not been animated as of 2021, can’t spoil it too much].

#daisy buchanan #mikasa ackerman #misato katsuragi #evangelion #cinderella #mulan #haibara ai #ai haibara #detective conan #shiho miyano #neon nostrade #hxh #hunterxhunter #blanche dubois #a streetcar named desire

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song-of-oots · 3 years

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Fuchsia Groan: my (un)exceptional fave

A while ago a friend of mine was asking for people to name their favourite examples of strong female characters, and my mind immediately leapt to Gormenghast’s Fuchsia Groan because it always does whenever the words “favourite” and “female character” come up in the same sentence. In fact scratch that, if I had to pick only one character to be my official favourite (female or otherwise) it would probably be Fuchsia. There are not sufficient words in the English language to accurately describe how much I love this character.

The issue was that I’m not sure Fuchsia Groan can accurately be described as “strong”, and until my friend asked the question, it hadn’t even occurred to me to analyse her in those terms…

Actually this isn’t completely true; Mervyn Peake does describe Fuchsia as strong in terms of her physical strength on multiple occasions. But in terms of her mental strength things are less clear cut. She’s certainly not a total pushover, and anyone would probably find it tough-going to cope with the neglect, tragedy and misuse she suffers through. In fact, this is something Mervyn Peake mentions himself – whilst also pointing out that Fuchsia is not the most resilient of people:

“There were many causes [to her depression], any one of which might have been alone sufficient to undermine the will of tougher natures than Fuchsia’s.”

Anyway, this has gotten me thinking about Fuchsia’s other traits and my reasons for loving her, going through a typical sort of list of reasons people often give for holding up a character as someone to admire:

So, is Fuchsia particularly talented?

No.

Is she clever, witty?

She’s definitely not completely stupid, and her insights occasionally take other characters by surprise, but she’s not really that smart either.

Does she have any significant achievements? Overcome great adversity?

Not really, no.

Is she kind?

Yes. Fuchsia is a very loving person and sometimes displays an incredible sensitivity and compassion for others. But… she can also be self-absorbed, highly strung, and does occasionally lash out at other people (especially in her younger years).

So why do I love Fuchsia so much?

Well, I’ll start be reiterating that I don’t really have the vocabulary to adequately put it into words, but I will try to get the gist across. So:

“What Fuchsia wanted from a picture was something unexpected. It was as though she enjoyed the artist telling her something quite fresh and new. Something she had never thought of before.”

This statement summarises not only Fuchsia but also the way I feel about her (and for that matter the Gormenghast novels in general). Fuchsia is something I’ve never really seen before. On the surface, she fits the model of the somewhat spoiled but neglected princess, and yet at the same time she cannot be so neatly pigeon-holed. It’s not just that her situation and the themes of the story make things more complex (though that is a factor); Fuchsia herself is so unique and vividly detailed that she manages to be more than her archetype. She feels like a real person and, like all real people, she is not so easy to label.

Fuchsia is also delightfully strange in a way that feels very authentic to her and the setting in general (which is particularly refreshing because it can all too often feel as though female characters are only allowed to be strange in a kooky, sexy way - yet Fuchsia defies this trend).

She’s a Lady, but she’s not ladylike. She’s messy. She slouches, mooches, stomps and stands in awkward positions. Her drawing technique is “vicious” and “uncompromising”. She chews grass. She removes her shoes “without untying the laces by treading on the heels and then working her foot loose”. She’s multi-faceted and psychologically complex. Intense and self-absorbed, sometimes irrational and ruled by her emotions more than is wise, but also capable of insight and good sense that takes others by surprise. She is extremely loving and affectionate, and yet so tragically lonely. Simultaneously very feminine and also not. Her character development from immature teenager to adult woman is both subtle and believable. She has integrity and decency – she doesn’t need to be super clever or articulate to know how to care for others or stand up for herself.

Fuchsia is honest. She knows her own flaws, but you never catch her trying to put on airs or make herself out to be anything other than what she is. She always expresses her feelings honestly.

She’s not sexualised at all. I don’t mean by this that she has no sexuality – though that’s something Peake only vaguely touches on – but I don’t really feel like I’m looking at a character who was written to pander to the male gaze (though her creator is male, I get the vibe he views her more as a beloved daughter than a sexual object).

Finally, I find her highly relatable. I am different to Fuchsia in many ways, but we do have several things in common that I have never seen so vividly expressed in any other character. This was incredibly important to me when I was a teenager struggling through the worst period of depression I ever experienced – because she was someone who I could relate to and love in a way I was incapable of loving myself. Her ability to be herself meant a lot to me as someone struggling with my own identity and sense of inadequacy. It didn’t cure my depression, but it helped me survive it.

What am I trying to say with all this?

I love Fuchsia on multiple levels. I love her as a person and also as a character and a remarkable piece of writing. I mention some of the mundane details Peake uses to flesh out her character firstly because I enjoy them, but also because it’s part of the point. Her story amazes me because it treats a female character and her psychological and emotional life with an intense amount of interest regardless of any special talents or achievements she happens to exhibit. She doesn’t fit the model of a modern heroine but neither does she need to – she’s still worth spending time with and caring about.* To me the most important things about Fuchsia are how different and interesting and relatable she is – and how real she feels.

* To be honest, this is part of the point of the Gormenghast novels in general. The story is meant to illustrate the damage that society – and in particular rigid social structures and customs – can do to individuals with its callous indifference to genuine human need. Fuchsia is one of many examples of this throughout the novels. These characters don’t need to be exceptionally heroic in order to matter – they just need to exist as believable people. And despite how strange they all are, they often do manage to be fundamentally relatable.

Why am I talking about female characters in particular here?

The focus on “strong” female characters and the critique against that is pretty widely acknowledged. Growing up, I definitely noticed the lack of female characters in popular media and the ensuing pressure this then places on the ones that do exist to be positive representations of womankind – someone girls can look up to. It’s very understandable that we want to see more examples of admirable female protagonists, given that women were traditionally left to play support roles and tired stereotypes. The problem is that the appetite for more proactive female heroines can sometimes lead to characters who are role models first and realistic human beings second (characters who I mentally refer to as Tick-All-The-Boxes Heroines). It’s not a problem with “strong” proactive heroines per se, but rather lack of variation and genuine psychological depth (not to mention a sometimes too-narrow concept of what it even means to be strong).

Male characters tend not to have this particular problem because they are much better represented across the whole range of roles within a story. You get your fair share of boring worn out archetypes. You get characters who are meant to represent a positive version of heroic masculinity (and now that I come to think of it, having a very narrow and unvarying presentation of what positive masculinity looks like is its own separate problem, but outside the scope of this particular ramble). We don’t usually spend time obsessing over whether a piece of fiction has enough examples of “strong” male characters though, because we’re generally so used to seeing it that we automatically move on into analysing the work and the characters on other terms. And because there are often more male characters than female, they don’t all bear the burden of having to be a positive representative of all men everywhere. They exist to fulfill their roles, and often exhibit more variety, nuance and psychological depth. They are also often allowed to be weird, flawed and unattractive in ways that women usually aren’t (which is a damn shame because I’ve spent my whole life feeling like a weird outsider and yet this perspective is so often told primarily through a male lens).

Tl:dr; Fuchsia Groan is a character who feels like an answer to so many of those frustrations that I felt growing up without even truly understanding why. A large part of why I love her is simply because of how much I relate to her on a personal level. I admire her emotional honesty and her loving nature… But there’s also a part of me that was just so relieved to find a female character who exists outside of the usual formulae we seem to cram women into. She is unique, weird and wonderful (but non-sexualised). Psychologically nuanced and vividly written. She isn’t exceptionally heroic or talented or a high achiever – but she does feel like a real person.

Female characters don’t need to tick all the right boxes in order to be interesting or worth our time any more than the male ones do.

#fuchsia groan #gormenghast #mervyn peake #female characters #mental health #depression #long

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actualbird · 4 years

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nobody asked but here i analysed polygon’s “unraveled” and bon appetit test kitchen’s “gourmet makes” and i think they are similar and use three key story elements to their success | a 1.9k word long analysis by an unhinged creative writing fresh grad trying desperately to use their degree to connect two dots

If you asked me who my favorite internet celebrities are, I would not hesitate for a second to answer. Brian David Gilbert from Polygon and Claire Saffitz from Bon Appetit Test Kitchen. They’re awesome! They both host popular YouTube webshows about video games and cooking respectively, two things I am terrible at and don’t do very often. And yet I am enraptured by every episode of their shows. Why? How?

My thesis is this: Polygon’s “Unraveled” and Bon Appetit Test Kitchen’s “Gourmet Makes”, while wildly different shows on many levels, are extremely similar in how they use three key story elements very, very, well.

These three story elements are 1) Plot, 2) Character, and 3) FAWWIEOT (it’s an acronym, I’ll explain it later, I promise)

Let me start with the first and most basic story element these two shows wield amazingly: Plot.

Plot is, in simplest terms, what “happens” in a thing. This is what you’ll find on a movie’s Wikipedia page summary, the details of what went down, the events that took place, the things that occurred. There are many different types of plots because there are many different types of stories, but one of the most basic kinds of plots is very clearly illustrated by something called Freytag’s Pyramid.

Freytag’s Pyramid is a very simple plot that is moved forward by a non-negotiable in many, many stories: conflict. All is well, the line is straight, then a challenge arises and things start to escalate. At the climax, a decision or a group of decisions are made that leads to a de-escalation of the conflict, bringing things down until we are back at a flat line and the conflict has been resolved.

Every single episode of Gourmet Makes can be plotted onto Freytag’s Pyramid

Nearly every single episode of Unraveled can be plotted onto Freytag’s Pyramid too (with the exception of some, like a number of the categorization episodes, the Kojima name generator)

I know what you’re thinking. “So what if Gourmet Makes and Unraveled fit on some funky pyramid? What does that mean?” Well, dear reader, it reveals to us just one of three reasons why these shows are so enjoyable.

Freytag’s Pyramid is basic as shit, and yet it is one of the first plot structures taught to fictionists because people, up to this day, like it. Why? Because Freytag’s Pyramid fulfills two very important desires that we, as humans, love. 1) The desire for there to be a problem and 2) the desire for that problem to be resolved. It scratches our eternal itch to want to watch shit go down but doesn’t leave us up on a cliffhanger, it gives us our catharsis.

Gourmet Makes gives you the entertainment of watching Claire struggle with her task. Then Gourmet Makes shows you Claire slowly and surely rising above the challenge (notable in literally every episode of Gourmet Makes). Unraveled makes you watch BDG work himself up into a frenzy trying to do something stupid, but then Unraveled shows the payoff of...of watching BDG do something stupid, but this time towards some kind of resolution (very notable in the latest Unraveled “How to increase your stamina with terrible video game tactics”).

It is clear to me that Gourmet Makes and Unraveled both use plot in a way that gives viewers satisfaction. But what keeps them coming back for more?

Well that leads us to the second story element: Character.

People love Claire Saffitz and BDG.

Don’t believe me? Look through the tags of literally any gifset of either of them. Here, I did it for you. Here’s some tags for Claire:

And here’s some tags for BDG:

It’s pretty obvious to see that these two are well loved, but why? It’s not just because they’re both good looking, it’s because Claire Saffitz and BDG, with how they are presented in their shows, are good characters.

Claire Saffitz in Gourmet Makes isn’t scripted. She brings her own human frustration, determined hard work, and joyous glee to the show and it makes watching the show all the more enjoyable. BDG in Unraveled, however, is scripted, but he brings to the table his chaotic performance and ‘off the shits’ lecturer energy that brings the viewers in. Regardless of their differences, Gourmet Makes and Unraveled are similar when it comes to character because of one thing: they actually have characters.

What am I talking about? Well, for a period of time on the internet, people in the cooking media sphere and the video game media sphere settled for video content that was divorced from who was presenting the information. Videos like the ones from Tasty where everything was filmed top down and you only saw two hands perfectly putting ingredients into a bowl. Videos like the myriad of video game walkthroughs or video essays that are presented only by a disembodied voice who also seems allergic to actually having fun. This is content that hinges on the fact that people like seeing cooking or video games and that the presenter will mostly just be a background thing.

Bon Appetit Test Kitchen and Polygon both did not want to succumb to this style of presenting information. They both made the decision to bring their presenters into their video content, highlighting their respective presenters’ personalities, quirks, and styles. This is evident in all of Bon Appetit Test Kitchen and Polygon’s video content, not just Gourmet Makes and Unraveled. Do I watch Bon Appetit's show It's Alive because I want to actually make foccacia? No, it's because I love how Brad Leone mispronounces words and makes me laugh. Did I watch "Fixing Anthem’s boring mech’s with ballsy design" because I actually give a shit about video games? No it's because I love how Pat Gill jokes about fake testicles and also I think he's hot.

The fact that there are actually characters for us on screen to see, makes Gourmet Makes and Unraveled good shit. We’ve got a plot with clear conflict, but that means nothing if there are no personas for us to root for. Gourmet Makes and Unraveled gives us these personas. They give us Claire Saffitz whom we want so desperately to see smile and succeed. They give us Brian David Gilbert whom we want so desperately to see go a little bit crazy. They give us people to connect to, and that often bridges the gap to viewers who honestly don’t give a shit about cooking or video games. Viewers like me who just keep coming back to Gourmet Makes and Unraveled because of the fact that these are characters I care about, these are characters who I want to see smile after finally nailing the recipe or slowly take off their suit as they tell me shit about Zelda I don’t understand.

Gourmet Makes and Unraveled utilize plot in a way that makes these webshows satisfying, and they use character in a way that makes these webshows accessible and keeps people invested.

But they go further.

This brings us to our last story element, not exactly a common or rudimentary one, but an important one nonetheless: Fucking Around With What Is Expected Of Them.

(I know there’s probably a legitimate literary term for this, but sue me, quarantine has kept me stuck in my house since March, so I may have forgotten the exact words I learned in class. FAWWIEOT will have to suffice.)

The gist of FAWWIEOT is that stories have been around for fuckin ever, and because of that, there are clear patterns and tropes that stories follow. FAWWIEOT is the recognition of those patterns and tropes, using them, but finding a different outcome or flair to make themselves special, to make themselves stick out. Kinda like when you’ve got a fic on AO3 tagged with ‘friends to lovers’ but also tagged with like, I dunno, something completely random like ‘character is also a dragon’. Use the tropes, but do something different. Give the audience something they already know, then throw in something new to make them remember your content specifically.

Gourmet Makes and Unraveled FAWWIEOT (I’m using the acronym like a verb now, this is my post, I’m allowed to) very purposefully using an important technique: Flaws.

The standard trope of a cooking show is the chef easily talking to the camera as they perfectly put the ingredients together. All the food comes out perfect on the first try and everything is heavenly and wonderful. Classic cooking shows like Barefoot Contessa (hosted by Ina Garten) and Everyday Italian (hosted by Giada de Laurentiis) followed this pattern, and it made for good television.

But who fucking watches television these days? Everything is online now, and the internet is vicious. If you aren’t interesting, the internet will throw you out to the gutter. So how did Gourmet Makes set themselves apart?

By showing you that things aren’t perfect after all. Gourmet Makes shows you every trial that Claire tries, they show you her successes, but also her failures. They show you when she gets tired and hopeless, they show you when she bounces back and tries again. Gourmet Makes made a cooking show that was flawed, and people loved it.

And what about Unraveled? The design of Unraveled, from BDG’s suit and mug to his presenting style, key us in to the fact that we are watching some sort of lecture. Some kind of educational performance. Personally, this makes me think that Unraveled is FAWWIEOT-ing academia and basically any other media where an “expert” talks at you.

The standard pattern of experts talking to you are basically like TedTalks. You have somebody very well versed in the topic trying to explain to you something, showing you their hypothesis, their process, and their findings.

Unraveled FAWWIEOTs expertise by making BDG research the most crazy shit like OSHA regulations or the Geneva Convention, make the wildest hypotheses like ‘Monster Energy in the morning will be a good idea’ or ‘Sonic is blasphemous’, and then, ultimately, completely unravel himself. The expert in Unraveled isn’t an all knowing being who is always right, he is flawed (and loses his marbles, more often than not.) And we love it.

FAWWIEOT-ing is key because of how it gives us a pattern we know, and then does something new. Novelty is important on the internet, and Gourmet Makes and Unraveled have made a name for themselves on the unique way they Fucked Around With What Was Expected Of Them.

Gourmet Makes and Unraveled are two of my favorite webshows on the internet as of now, and there are many reasons why, many reasons I didn’t include in this post. What I wanted to do here is to highlight how these shows use story elements to be good content because at the core of these videos, even if they aren’t literary fiction, they are good stories. Good stories with a plot that satisfies us, with characters we can see and love, with new twists that keep us on the edge of our seats.

Good stories make for good content, and Bon Appetit Test Kitchen and Polygon have me as a subscriber for as long as they continue on this road.

Thanks for reading!

(Read my other Polygon-adjacent analysis essays at actualbird.tumblr.com/tagged/nobody-asked-but

If you have any suggestions or ideas for more Polygon-adjacent analysis essays I can write, send me an ask!)

#polygon #batk #bdg #unraveled #nobody asked but

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freddieofhearts · 3 years

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Bye bye, dears (for now!)

I know there have been a lot of rumours and some posts about me leaving, so here I am to set the record straight and say a quick ‘au revoir’. This post is long, and I don’t expect everyone to read the whole thing—if you just want information on how to keep in touch, or about access to my removed fics, scroll to the bottom. ⬇️

Why are you leaving?

Firstly, of course I’m not leaving Freddie. This is just an ongoing hiatus from the social side of fandom, because while I have some incredible friends here, who have done all they can to support me and have made this experience wonderful in lots of ways—it’s also true that the social space has become more and more toxic for me.

I get a wild amount of hate. Despite never having my ask box enabled on here, people create new accounts just to message me and tell me all the problems in this fandom are my fault, that I’m faking being sick, that I should kill myself, that I’m fat, etc. I also very regularly get hateful comments on AO3.

Obviously I realise that I’m not the only one who receives these cruel attacks, but it’s become increasingly hard to handle them—especially as some people (‘real’ accounts, not faceless anons) do continue to blame me for wider problems in the fandom. It makes me feel consistently sad, anxious, and paranoid, so that I can’t focus on anything Queen-related that I enjoy.

More pressingly, it’s affected my mental health, which is—imperfect at the best of times. As I’ve occasionally alluded to in older posts on this blog, I have a history of anorexia, OCD, PTSD, and some other overlapping issues. Most people who know me in the fandom are also aware that I’m ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ to Covid-19, significantly immunocompromised, and have been isolating at home for eleven months.

The combination of all of these things + the constant toxic messages has really been triggering me, and leading to an uptick in disordered behaviours, which my body cannot sustain. Every new instance of hate from an anon—every time there’s another indication of groups in the fandom wanting to ostracise me further—my reaction is deeply self-punitive and unhealthy. Ultimately I need to be out of this environment for, at least, a protracted period. My therapist, my partner and my close friends in the fandom support this decision.

So, what went wrong?

In 2019, I expected to be an absolutely tiny blog in the Queen Tumblr landscape. The fandom was already well-established, and I have never worked to ‘build a following’ on here—I think I’ve linked my own fic a maximum of three or four times!—in fact, more or less the opposite. As I mentioned above: ya girl is nutty as a fruitcake. As a result, I often avoid extremely niche things in daily life which cause severe anxiety for me, Relevant examples here: I never look at my timeline. I never intentionally look at my follower number. Yup, it’s strange, I fully admit it, but it’s best for me to go with these things—usually. In Queen fandom, however, this avoidance both of analytic stats and of most direct engagement led to some problems... My followers grew without me realising, and way more people were reading my blog than I was aware of. I was still in a—“Wow, this fandom is very frustrating, and rife with ableism, racism, etc., so how do we fix this???”—mindset, and I wanted to share my opinions, sure! but I also thought I was sharing them with 15-20 like-minded people.

Now, intent is not impact, and I recognise that I was brusque, didn’t phrase things particularly sensitively, and absolutely did hurt some people by criticising the fandom so freely. I still regret this—and I regret just as much the fact that some assholes have used my criticising the fandom on my own blog as implicit justification for attacking authors. I have said on here many times that I don’t condone that behaviour—but I also think there’s some truth in the presumption that these anonymous malcontents felt my critiques somehow ‘permitted’ them to engage in abuse. For the first few months, though, I genuinely had no idea there was a link at all—and so I was initially slow to condemn this abusive behaviour in public, because I was taking it for granted all authors agreed it was shitty. It took someone directly telling me (shoutout to @a-froger-epic) that people had identified a connection between my posts and the anons, before everything fell into place.

I would like to offer my apologies to the fandom at large for not being more quick on the uptake about this, because I feel that had I realised sooner that these people were taking ‘inspiration’ in some way from me, it might have been easier to put a stop to it. It does seem that there is still a lot of confusion about whether I support them and which of their views I agree with. Let’s be 100% clear on this: I do not support the anonymous commenters on AO3. At times there is some, limited overlap between parts of their views and parts of mine, but even that is less than you may think—I often see anonymous comments from so-called ‘Freddie fans’ that I substantially disagree with.

Perhaps even more importantly: I do not support anyone who sends anonymous hate on Tumblr.

What’s all this about ‘overlap’ with the anons?

Let’s do a mini-summary of the myths vs. the truth. There are views I hold which are genuinely unpopular in the fandom—but which I own up to completely, and have never tried to hide in any way. I’ve never needed to use anonymous to share my opinions because I’m completely open about them! What people who don’t know me tend to have ‘heard’ about me, though, is usually a drastic distortion of my real opinions.

What people think I think:

- Freddie should never top.

- It’s okay to send anon hate if someone writes Freddie ‘wrong’.

- It’s more important to correct ‘wrong’ portrayals than to respect other writers.

- It’s inherently wrong to be more interested in band pairings than canon pairings.

- Freddie should be overtly written as a r*pe survivor/victim (and not doing this is wrong).

- Freddie should be overtly written as having an eating disorder (and not doing this is wrong).

- Kink fics are wrong.

What I actually think:

- I believe Freddie did have a strongly defined sexual identity with marked preferences, but I don’t think Jim Hutton lied when he said that Freddie topped. I believe Freddie did top, but this isn’t the time or place to get into my thoughts on why/when/how much. I do believe that my analysis of the sources relevant to this subject is as historically accurate as one can reasonably be in matters of sex (where historical accuracy will always be particularly limited and imperfect)—but I don’t think it’s morally wrong to write Freddie as topping more than he probably did.

- I don’t believe there’s only one ‘right’ version of Freddie (all others being ‘wrong’). I do believe it is possible to be more right or less right—but I’m also conscious of the fact that this scale of value is not one by which everyone measures fanfiction. As a result, then, I don’t think that any perceptions surrounding ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ justify sending anonymous, non-constructive criticism, or outright hate.

- I do believe constructive criticism is a good thing. I welcome and appreciate it myself; I have received it on my fics in Queen fandom, and it has made them better. I have been in writing workshops which included very forceful criticisms, and the value of such feedback has been intimately and immediately part of my life as a writer for years. However: in this case, I have accepted that my opinion differs from the general community preference, and so I no longer offer any constructive criticism (outside private beta-reading). I haven’t changed my view, but I’ve changed my practice to align with community norms.

- I do not think any single, individual writer has a personal responsibility to write about Freddie Mercury in any given way. That ranges from including the more distressing topics to which I’ve devoted attention (such as trauma)—to concentrating on ‘canon’ pairings like Jimercury—to, even, focusing on Freddie at all.

“Now, that doesn’t sound like you, @freddieofhearts,” you might be thinking. And I know it doesn’t; I think something I’ve done a poor job of articulating is the difference between how I view each individual fan—namely, as free to shape their creative experience at will, even in ways that I might find distressing or offensive; even in ways that you might find distressing or offensive—and the way I view the Collective. I think people have interpreted some of my critiques of ‘Queen Fandom’ as meaning something like: “You-in-particular, a specific Queen fan, are doing it wrong and should change everything about how you do it; also you don’t really care about Freddie.”

And—that’s not it. What any given fan, as an individual, does, isn’t a problem. And that can be true alongside—concurrently with—a multivalent critique of how the fandom is lacking in representation of Freddie’s life, with all that that (wonderful, deservedly celebrated, but also profoundly traumatic) life entailed. I still hold that view; I still have myriad problems with ‘the fandom’ (structurally, collectively, historically and presently—from the 1990s to the 2020s). Some of what I want to work on (away from the social life of fandom) is expressing those critiques with greater nuance, in ways that can’t be misinterpreted as shading any particular fanfiction author or subgenre of story.

In brief: I haven’t changed my mind, but I think Tumblr is an untenable environment in which to discuss the things I want to analyse, especially as there is an ever-present danger of hurting someone.

Can we keep in touch? Where is the fic?

I will drop by this account periodically to check out posts that friends have sent me, so you can always sent me a private message to ask for my contact details on the other app that I’m using now for fandom friends. Multiple Freddie conversations and projects are going on over there, off-Tumblr, with a much ‘gentler’ environment and no bad actors—I personally love it!

All my fic has been downloaded and saved. I don’t want to deal with constant harassment on AO3, but I’m happy to share a copy with anyone who missed it and wants to read/re-read something. I also saved everyone’s lovely comments and thoughtful con-crit, so none of that has been lost or erased.

Thank you to everyone who welcomed me to the fandom, made me think, taught me, shared with me, sent me into fits of the giggles, collaborated with me creatively, and otherwise made this one hell of a ride! Love you all. ❤️

#au revoir my dears #lil gay bby

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parachutingkitten · 3 years

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Season 5 Analysis

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I am going to be applying the concept of criticism to a TV show you presumably love and adore as much as I do. If you do not want your idea that the show is immaculate to be challenged, I would not advise reading past this point.

Additional Disclaimer: This includes criticism of Nya’s arc, so if you’re the type of person to get catty about this subject, turn back now.

Mood for this season: It’s spoopy time.

You don’t need to, but if you are interested, and haven’t seen my analysis of past seasons, you can find those here:

Pilot - Season 1 - Season 2 - Season 3 - Season 4

You can also find all of these, and future installments, on my blog using the tag #analysis

Hey everyone! I’m still doing these things! Let’s see, when was my last one? Over two years ago...? Yikes, I owe y’all an apology. I really didn’t mean to put these off that long. Anyway, get ready to hate me, cuz although (for the most part) this seems to be the fandom favorite season… I think it’s overhyped. I know, don’t kill me. I’ll explain myself. I don’t think it’s bad or anything, it’s very well structured, but I definitely wouldn’t rank it among my favorites. First, for a little context, I am making a one second of every ninjago episode video right now, so I’ve been binging the series and all it’s shorts back to back, so I think I’ll have a bit more to say about connective tissue between seasons, and hopefully you guys can look forward to more of these analyses between now and the new year when I’m releasing that video. I’m also officially a film major now so… sorry if I come of as extra pretentious or get too deep. Anyway, let’s jump into the thick of it, shall we?

Plot

This is probably the area I have the fewest number of complaints about. This season has a breakneck pace and it keeps everyone busy. I think that’s why people like it. Everyone’s favorite has something to do. Which brings me to the question… which ninja’s season is this? Lloyd is on a lot of the promotional stuff, but he’s possessed and out of the picture for over half the season, so that can’t be right. Cole turns into a ghost, and the season is a ghost season, but that can’t be right cuz I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone claim it was his. Nya reaches her true potential, maybe it’s hers? Well, she does have a large b-plot, but she is consistently not a part of the a-plot. Kai has a whole thing with being protective of Lloyd, he has his fear of water, maybe it’s just another Kai season? Thing is, it’s no one’s. It is an ensemble season, and I think that’s a healthy thing for ninjago to keep doing. The more we label certain seasons for certain ninja, the more complaining we’ll get about who’s turn it is for screen time that we’ll miss out on telling a good story. Also, If the season is focused on a ninja you don’t like, you are less likely to like the season (see my next analysis for that can of worms). Again, this season tells it’s story really well. Morro directly ties into the ending of last season, and Nya’s getting water powers was foreshadowed the season before. That’s some cool connective tissue to start. The opening episode establishes the three different things the ninja will be looking for, and for once they’re actual tools instead of a series of weapons, blades, masks, whatever. I like that. Jay has some really good humor, Zane has his speech changes, Kai has his irrational fears and protective instincts, Cole has his ghost angst, Lloyd has to deal with his father’s passing, Nya is a new water ninja, Wu has a shop to run and a student to reconnect with, even Ronin has an arc about developing morals and gaining friends. There’s the mystery about how to deal with the ghosts, what the rules are, there’s the leader subplot, the ninja’s money situation, and lore of the different realms, they even worked in Skylor and Borg, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on. This is a tightly woven script that manages to include a lot of new concepts that you get pretty quick. I don’t feel like there’s even that much fat to cut. The opening is a little slow and strange, and the cloud kingdom episode feels a little unnecessary, but I do like the idea of visiting a different realm early in the season so the audience isn’t caught off guard in the climax. Again, the plot all works for me, it’s the other stuff I find myself pretty meh on.

Characters

Ronin

I’m pretty sure Ronin is the only new (non villain) character introduced. I like him a lot. Ninjago needed a true wildcard to shake things up and be unpredictable. I also think he’s pretty nicely woven into the action of the plot. I think his introduction is a bit strange. Like, the ninja already know him, but we’ve never seen him before? Just the way they talk about him sounds like they’re quickly recapping who this guy is for those who missed previous episodes. It’s fine if the ninja already know him but either 1) Introduce or foreshadow him a season earlier or 2) Introduce their dynamic to the audience before it becomes plot relevant. Maybe the ninja are grumbling about him being a nuisance while tea shenanigans are going on or something. Or maybe you have a scene of him stealing the scroll and making snarky remarks about the ninja while he does it. Idk. just something so his sudden plot relevance isn’t out of nowhere. Also, I don’t hate his and Nya’s dynamic, but I know a lot of people love it, and I’m just not totally here for it. Is he supposed to be a father figure for her? Mentor? Frienemy? Just plain friend? (love interest???) it’s not super clear and I could have used some clarification. I also like his use and tie to the next season, so overall, well integrated character.

Nya

I’m adding in Nya here cuz she goes through a major character change, and how she’s handled is one of the things that rubs me the wrong way about the season. A lot of people will probably disagree and/or hate me for this section of the analysis so… here we go! The thing she has to get past to reach her true potential is fear of failure (supposedly) and the solution to that is to just… not care as much? First of all, I know this isn’t supper important, but the fun thing about the ninjago elements is that every elemental master matched up personality wise with their element. Jay is the energetic master of lightning, Kai is the hothead master of fire, Zane is the calm and calculating master of ice, Cole is the strong and dependable master of earth, Lloyd is the literal child master of energy. This especially goes for all the new season 4 masters. So what qualities are often associated with water personalities? Well, serenity, control, flexibility, elegance, patience… calm. You know, like a Zane type character (the element directly adjacent to hers). These are things that Nya isn’t - or at the very least don’t define her. (there’s also something to be said about water and its ties to more feminine qualities, which Nya has been actively shown to reject, but I won’t go into that rant here.) She was designed as the fire master’s sister, and when you try to fit a fire personality into a water shaped character mold… it doesn’t exactly mesh well. It doesn’t make sense. But, like I said, whatever. Maybe that’s the point? Like she has to change her personality to be more in tune with water? Sure. But let’s talk about this fear of failure thing. Because that’s the stated thing that dialogue tells us she needs to overcome. But when has Nya ever been afraid of failure? Fear of failure means avoiding doing something because of fear. Nya is ridiculously persistent, always has been (you know, fire personality). She tries training when no one tells her to, she makes her own alter ego to try and be a hero and save the people who would constantly tell her she wasn’t ready. Wu says she only wants things that come easy, but that’s never been her character before now, she has carried the team with her tech, research, and covert ops that no one forced her to do, all things which are not easy. Fear of failure is usually characterized by what if questions. If Nya is so afraid of failure, why don’t we hear her saying stuff like “but what if I’m not strong enough, what if I can’t save them in time, or worse, what if I lose control of my power and end up hurting people?” Cole shows much more of a fear of failure this season surrounding his insecurity about being a ghost. He wants to sit out from missions because he’s not sure he’ll be able to do it - he’s afraid of failure. But whatever, the writing isn’t clear at expressing her true setbacks, but she does display a real problem that a lot of people have and I think could have been well done if set up correctly. She shows an undying persistence that gets her too close, and makes her increasingly incapable. She lets her frustration hinder her progress (again, fire personality trait), and I think that’s interesting because I don’t think ninjago has done this character arc yet. The supposed solution to this problem is that she just needs to… care less? And yes, I kind of see where they were going with this, we sometimes cloud our natural potential by thinking about it too much, but saying “you need to stop caring” is the absolute wrong way to word it. Caring is not her problem, the problem is her control over the emotions that come from her caring. Caring is a good thing, and teaching kids that if you’re ambivalent about your problems, they’ll go away is not a good message. What she needs to do is take a step back. She needs to take a break, stop to think, and look at the big picture instead of hyper focusing on the roadblock directly in front of her. The usual and much better wording of the moral I think they were going for is “stop overthinking things”. Teaching kids to look at a problem from a different angle and give themselves time to cool down is a great thing. And just think of it, in the climax she could have this ah-ha moment where she steps back and looks at the bigger picture - the whole town, surrounded by the ocean - and gets the idea to sink the preeminent into the water, you could even easily tie that back into the bucket exercise, and that’s what triggers her true potential rather than the current… I’m honestly not sure what. Random flashbacks and the end of the season approaching quickly. Alternatively, you could tie it more directly into samurai x, and make her struggle with letting go of the past and allowing yourself to give up something good in your life to progress to something better. Anyway, I don’t think this was a bad decision long term, she needed to be solidified on the team as a full fledged ninja, I just think this season doesn’t handle the transition that well. Anyway, whatever, I’ll be waiting for your hate comments in the notes.

Romance

Um… there’s none this season? Like there’s a few Wusako moments that are still as weird as they were in season 2, but they’re really not prevalent. There’s also the Jay seeing the future thing which has some weird implications next season (again, some interesting connective tissue between seasons), but that’s about it. Maybe that’s part of why I don’t love this season? Like where’s the pixane? Lol, I’m kidding. But maybe that’s why a lot of people do like it. If you don’t like the canon ships… this is a nice little safe haven for you. Rare for a majority of the series.

Villains

So Morro is a good idea… in theory. I know he’s the fandom’s favorite edgy boy, but idk I think the brand of angsty teen they ended up with was more of an angsty 13 year old than 17 year old. His voice is really grating and I always want to yell at him to just… go get some cough drops. Stop throat screaming, use your diaphragm man! Also, everyone goes on about his last minute redemption, but as far as season 5 goes, he has like half a second of a change of heart. Literally, when Wu comes over and he’s drowning, he’s still being a persistent little idiot like “you never cared about me nooooo!” and it’s only at the last possible second that gives him the crystal, and even that he does it kind of saltily. The preeminent is pretty cool, I like her concept, her design, all that. All the other ghosts are fine I guess. Nothing super memorable out of them, although their aesthetic, especially when there’s a bunch of them swarming around is pretty cool. One last thing was I never understood how Morro “becoming the green ninja” worked and what exactly it was that… did for him? Like he didn’t actually get the power of energy, right? I don’t remember him using it. Did just him defeating Lloyd make him the green ninja? How does that transfer work? And why did he need it to take over the world or realms or whatever? Like I get that it’s supposed to give him more power and what not but idk, it wasn’t super clear. That’s a minor thing though.

Climax

Pretty cool. I like the ATMOSPHERE. Green light is a hard thing to use and justify correctly, but it works really well here, especially with the dark kinda gray blue sky complimenting it. When the preeminent starts walking into the ocean, it’s genuinely terrifying, but you understand exactly how it works and why she’s strong enough to do it. Nya’s true potential is again a little out of left field and could have had some better motivation put behind it. Like what is it Nya learned in that instant? To not be afraid to protect people? She’s… been doing that. Idk. I’ve hit on that enough for now. Overall, there was good variety. I like the green ninja fake out, I like the realm hopping, I even like the little Garmadon visit and Lloyd getting the robe. I feel like we didn’t need a part one and two, you could have had different titles. I mean come on. But hey, now we know, if Pix had only been there, the whole climax would have been wrapped up in like 10 minutes apparently. Pix for the win.

Humor

Really good. Like I’m surprised how much I laughed. Jay wasn’t annoying humor, it was good stuff, there were some good running gags, there’s a solid fourth wall joke about who the lead ninja is at the beginning of the season. Overall, I am pretty impressed. My favorite joke was perhaps the bit where Jay is sarcastically positive, the voice acting is just really solid. Then again, there’s also the whole Borg scene where he roasts half the ninja, that’s solid stuff right there. There’s just some really solid character interaction this season and the humor feels a lot more natural and less forced.

Drama

Okay, we’ve got a lot this season. Y’all know how I feel about Nya’s arc by now. It does not work for me. Ronin’s relationship with her is alright, but kind of comes out of nowhere. Ronin’s solo plot about kinda working for the ghosts works. Cole’s ghost angst works for the most part, although I wish he would have actually skipped a mission and then gone in to help save his friends once they can’t do it without him. That was probably the most solid drama of the season. The other main thing we have this season is Kai’s whole… fear/protective streak. This also doesn’t really work for me. Like, I get that Lloyd and Kai are friends and stuff, like his whole true potential was centered around Lloyd. But like, why does it have to be framed so weirdly? Sometimes in trying to make it seem like Kai is protective of him, it seems like the other ninja just like… don’t care about him? Not all the time, but there are some weird vibes. Also, it doesn’t really go anywhere. No one learns anything about themselves from this subplot, nothing comes of it, there isn’t really a payoff. Also, Kai has yet another irrational fear, this time of water, which really comes right the hell out of nowhere. They try to explain it away like “Oh, Kai feels powerless and so water can get to him” but like… what? That’s the exact situation he was in at the end of season 2 and he seemed perfectly content to literally swim across the ocean (which um… what do you mean the sworn protector of ninjago can’t swim?). Where is this coming from?! Again, it doesn’t really go anywhere, there’s not a point where he has to learn to confront it or he grows because of it. It’s just pointless stuff added cuz the writers like giving Kai vague trails to try and develop him. The cloud kingdom is kinda cool. That last minute twist about them working with Morro is… stupid and unnecessary though.

Spotlight Episode

I really like the Spinjitzu master tomb episode. Some cool riddles, I like the first two rooms a lot. I do think the third room is a bit strange. Like, the clue was “don’t look ahead” and the solution was to look beneath them, which is the exact same solution as the previous room. Like, you already have magic ice that shows the future, why not play into that? Don’t look ahead could maybe mean don’t look to the future, the opposite of that being the past. Maybe they have to draw on their past adventures to solve it somehow? Learning from the past is a good lesson, right? But overall, I really like it. Some real solid humor this episode. This episode has the sarcastic Jay optimism, Kai totally stalling for time, Zane dealing a pretty sick burn on Cole, just a lot of fun stuff. I like it. It just has great energy and nothing feels like it’s drawn out for too long.

Misc

The aesthetic this season… can be inconsistent, but the main ghost vibe displayed in the opening theme is really solid and I really like it

Speaking of the opening, Ghost wip is great and the opening in on par with last season’s (which is my fav) for sure

Ice age references… okay.

Chima references…. OKAY...

Okay, but like Deepstone can… kill ghosts? Or not? Is it just something ghosts can touch? It’s supposed to be like water in weapon form, right? Like that’s how I understood it when they first introduced it. Wouldn’t the deepstone bars kill Ghoultar then? And then like, Cole’s bike is made of deepstone. He uses it as a weapon. Wouldn’t it kill him? It kills other ghosts when they touch it. How… how does it work?! I need answers!!!

The captain of the steam boat says they’re going as fast as possible, but later Ronin comes in and cranks it up like twice as fast… that always bothered me like, why would he lie about that? Who is this captain and why is he so chill about everyone’s lives?! And then later Wu cranks it up yet again, like the ship had slowed down to it’s previous speed. What the hell is happening with the controls of this ship???

So pissed that the nasty CGI nightmare cloud monster that chases the ninja is named Nimbus. Totally forgot about that. I have an OC with a cat named Nimbus… I promise, there is not going to be a stupid twist bout the cat being the monster thing in Mists of Fate. That would be very stupid.

I was all excited that season 13 gave us minecart chases, but I totally forgot season 5 gave us one first. I really like the return to the caves of despair btw, good reuse of a known location.

How many times this season did we do the:

Kai: Oh, I don’t like water, I can’t do it uwu Cole: ...You serious?

Thanks for reading! And if you got this far… I don’t know. I would love to hear your thoughts if you have any! These are just my opinions, so don’t think too much of it if you disagree.

-Kitten

#ninjago #analysis #ns5 #ninjago possession #parachuterants

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scripttorture · 4 years

Note

Are there usually pretty clear lines of separation between instances of torture, negligence, and unethical experimentation? Or do the three tend to cross over pretty often because of general lack of respect for prisoners in those types of situations? (Sorry if this sent twice, Tumblr is being dumb)

There isn’t always a clear separation in reality. The lines can be pretty blurred. (And no worries about multiple copies this place is a hellsite I understand.)

I make a strict distinction because I feel like that can be helpful to writers who might be… approaching a common sci fi scenario with no knowledge of how medical experimentation works.

The reason I make that distinction is because I think that otherwise it’s really really easy to fall into the trap of portraying torture as ‘smart’ or ‘scientific’. Which… it isn’t. It can’t be.

Here’s the thing: if any kind of torture or neglect is going on then it is a variable. And anything truly scientific needs to account for variables. The big question here from my perspective isn’t so much ‘could this cross section of abuse happen’ it’s ‘could the scientists get results from it’.

If you want to write smart scientists who are actually making some kind of progress with their discoveries then torture isn’t usually a good fit.

The exception would be when the experiment itself is torture, something like ‘how long does it take the average person to die if we take out their intestines?’ or ‘what happens to the body when a person is starved?’

I’m going to throw out a couple of examples to show you what I mean writing wise and then talk about how these things happen in reality.

Say you have your bad guys doing something suitably sci fi like trying to graft wings to some humans.

In a truly scientific (but unethical) scenario there will be lots of groups of test subjects/prisoners all of whom will be submitted to a slightly different regime to see which gives the highest success rate. They might all be given different drugs after the grafting procedure, or the grafting procedure itself might be subtly different.

But their cell conditions, food, and general environment would need to be kept constant. That’s done so that procedure itself is reproducible. So that the evil scientists can confidently say ‘this version of the procedure is the most successful one and therefore we should use it.’

These test subjects could still be suffering a lot because the point here isn’t to reduce their suffering (hence unethical). The point is to make sure that they’re not suffering in a way which impacts the results.

Now if there are torturers in the facility this careful controlling of factors goes out the window because torturers do not show self-restraint, patience or any real ability to follow instructions.

The torturers might be going round beating up the prisoners or depriving them of food or interrupting their sleep (I’m just picking common tortures here). And any of those things would be expected to effect someone’s immune response and/or chances of dying. And the torturers (if they’re behaving like torturers) won’t keep records of this or do it in an even, consistent way.

Which means all the results the scientists are gathering become… meaningless. Because now rather then the results showing the most successful version of the procedure they show… well probably something completely random.

May be all the test subjects on site 3 died regardless of the procedure used (because there were torturers on that site but not the others). May be the only tests that were successful were the subjects at the last four cells of the corridor (because it was further for the torturers to walk before beating someone up).

Note that the scientists in this do not know the reasons why these things happened and they might not have enough information to guess.

The information gathered is flawed. And if using this procedure on a large scale is a later plot point… well it could still be possible with the second scenario but you’d expect a much higher failure rate.

I’m a scientist. My day job is testing medicines. The history of medicine, and science generally, is full of abuse.

But that abuse does not look like the cackling evil ‘scientist’ who has a grand total of one test subject and somehow gets consistent, reliable results.

And when torture and/or neglect overlap with genuine attempts at experimentation in real life it gives results that can’t be taken at face value. They need to be analysed and tested further, sometimes for decades, in order to determine whether they’re genuine or not.

Let’s take some examples that are more like real life.

Imagine a scenario where scientists are testing a new vaccine* on prisoners. They are doing this in an unethical manner, by vaccinating the prisoners, waiting for a while and then deliberately infecting them with the disease. Unknown to the scientists the prisoners are routinely sleep deprived.

Sleep deprivation depresses the immune response. Some of the prisoners develop the disease when vaccinated and die. Some of them don’t but they do get the disease when they’re deliberately infected, suggesting the vaccine doesn’t work. And some of them don’t develop the disease when deliberately infected.

Now we know today that sleep deprivation reduces the immune response and there is evidence that it can make vaccines in particular less effective.

So does this particular vaccine work or not? The true answer is that we can’t tell and more data is needed.

But without the knowledge that at least some of these prisoners are sleep deprived the scientists can’t arrive that conclusion. They can’t really make any definite conclusion.

As another example let’s look at the case of Elsie Lacks**.

Elsie was a black child committed to a mental institute in 1950. She was deaf, epileptic and had developmental disabilities of some kind. She was experimented on without her consent during the period she was hospitalised and died at the age of 15.

We have records of some of the things Elsie was forced to endure because samples sizes were such that some of the experiments must have involved every single epileptic child in the hospital.

One of the recorded experiments was on brain imaging. It involved draining the fluid around the brain (a painful and dangerous procedure) in order to take pictures of it and identify the cause of epilepsy.

Stress and trauma can effect the structure of the developing brain. There was no attempt to account for the fact that the overcrowded, dangerous conditions in the hospital could have effected the end results.

There was also no attempt to account for the fact that these children were being used in other experiments. And that means that if this experiment did identify key brain differences there’d be no firm evidence that those differences were due to epilepsy rather then trauma or other experimental procedures.

What I’m trying to highlight here is that abuse in an experimental scenario isn’t just unethical it gets in the way of drawing accurate conclusions.

Torture does sometimes take place with a lot of pseudo-scientific trappings.

Abuse in concentration camps around the world comes to mind because (with a few exceptions) this mostly seemed to involve individual doctors picking out people to abuse with no real regard to results. Things like attempts to change eye colour by putting chemicals in people’s eyes and sewing twins together appear to have been conducted with pseudo-scientific trappings, rather then as careful experiments.

I say that these things weren’t experiments because there does not appear to have been any consistency, attempt to create a control group or sufficient sample sizes to draw conclusions.

And yes, I realise just how fucked up all that sounds when we’re talking about people who were tortured to death. That’s part of my point.

There’s a difference between a villain who is primarily focused on abusing others and a villain who doesn’t really care whether their victims suffer or not so long as they get data.

Torture can take place with pseudo-scientific trappings and unethical experimentation can take place alongside torture and neglect.

I make that strong distinction to encourage authors to think about what the most important part of their scenario is and tailor what they’re writing to reflect that. I want you to think about what’s going on in your story and what the consequences should be for the characters and the plot in general. Mostly I want writers to understand what ‘experiment’ means before throwing the word around and making torturers look smarter then they are.

An experiment should be:

Reproducible

Conducted with control groups

Conducted with a big enough sample size

Well recorded

Involve only one small change to procedure at a time

Account for variables

Analysed

So what’s the important part of your story? Is it that the victims suffer, or that the bad guys get some kind of knowledge? And if it’s the latter does the victims’ suffering have the potential to get in the way?

I don’t really believe in hard writing rules. So long as a scenario isn’t actively supporting torture I try to take a ‘never say never’ attitude.

The message here isn’t to never ever mix these things together: it’s to take the time to understand the separate components before you do that.

And think about what any mixture you write might be implying.

I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*I chose this as an example because this sort of thing happened and because there were some massive risks involved with a lot of early vaccines. This does not mean they were worse then the diseases they protected people against when they worked. See hemorrhagic smallpox. Or don’t if you want to sleep tonight.

**I come back to this one a lot because it absolutely infuriates me.

#writing advice #tw torture #tw racism #tw genocide #tw ableism #tw unethical experimentation #pseudo scientific torture #torture is not scientific #unethical experimentation #unethical medical experimentation #neglect #neglect in hospitals #starvation #beating #scientific method #behaviour of torturers #writing torturers #writing scientists

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elaz-ivero · 3 years

Text

Celestial Bodies- Television Script // E1- Pilot

"If your afraid of these hills, of the pastures past the signs, of the people here who are just living their lives then your not going to make it out of here alive" -

Category - Young Adult

Genre- Coming of Age/ Thriller

Synopsis- Radon Springs, a small town tourist hotspot where the Bluepark radioactive disaster is memorialised in printed t-shirts, keychains and commemorative mugs. Within this town five teenagers, from social butterflies to newcomers unaccepting of the small-town traditions to investigators who learn of things they’d rather not know, find themselves in a religious once dead prophecy on top of the usual teen drama, romance and occasional death.

Tone- Dreamy, dark, nostalgic.

Inspo- Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Devil All the Time, I'm not okay with this, End of the F***ing world.

Celestial bodies is a project that I've started so that one day I can perfect it and add it to my end of year portfolio, since it's my first television script it's a bit rough and more literary than normal following my roots as a poetic writer. I use Writerduet.com for drafts of my scripts and celtx.com as a space for collaborative work and the 'rough' drafts sits around 2,223 words long the length of a flash fiction story. Following an already insane idea, each episode follows a specific colour scheme with the opening pilot being scarlet; danger, action, consequences.

The pilot of Celestial Bodies follows a non-conventional three-act structure to reflect the instability of the setting, in a place where radiation runs rampant and affects the technological efficiency of cameras, compasses, radios and computers of course it'd affect the filming process in a meta-way. I've always imagined Celestial Bodies being shot on disposable camera's at times and being overlayed with bleeding and colour replacement effects to make the film feel as though it is deteriorating as one watches which helps reflect the breaking mental stability of the opening episodes main character.

ACT ONE

The episode begins with a recording of an old documentary, the screen flickering and fading in and out of focus the establishing shots of the town interwoven with a male voiceover telling the history of RadonSprings and the infamous radioactive disaster hidden in its memory. I tend to stray away from prefactory information in introductions, however, I don't believe this choice takes away from the intrigue especially since almost everything else is shown to the audience through background visuals/ allusions in speech.

After this recording dies down, the voice mellowing to a melodramatic drum the shot changes to an establishing shot and we briefly meet our first character.

Dallas is the eldest daughter to her first-generation immigrant parents who've moved away from the illustrious big city to focus on whats important, family, connection and affordable house prices. Dallas is calm, collected, well-reasoned and willing to start over in a new town, make friends three years older than her and find herself again or under the worst circumstances hide away again and retreat into a formulated identity. We meet Dallas as she reckons with her parent's decision and when a stranger appears at their house at the end of the episode desperately reaching out to her mother and claiming to know her Dallas is left alone, her parents fleeing forgetting to pack her and her brothers. Left in a parental position and lost Dallas is desperate to find people her age whom she can connect with.

ACT TWO

We take a break from Dallas to establish Gecko, a young boy coddled by his mother for years who is about to do the unthinkable.

We meet Gecko briefly in the present day, wearing bright tight-fitting clothing, his hair recently dyed, movements pre-planned and anxious a brief cutaway to a few nights prior shows him in the form he's used to, 20 years old and still wearing hand-me-downs from his grand-father. He's apart of an average radioactive family, a mother faking her therapy degree and psycho-analysing her own son, a displaced father, drop-out older brother and him; a trigger-happy straight-A son still reckoning with his own gender and sexuality and unable to get higher-paid work because of his disability. The scene is slow but punctual with an intruder entering Gecko's house and threatening to attack his mother, Gecko does the only thing he can think to do, he grabs his absent fathers hunting gun and shoots one lethal shot into the burglar's back.

His mother takes care of it, burying the man in her tulip garden she reasons with him that this won't be the end for him and that if he just pretends everything's normal...no...everythings perfect it'll be fine. People die of gradual radiation poisoning all the time, people disappear all the time.

ACT THREE

Act three is an amalgamation of the aftermath of all these events, Gecko reinvents himself becomes a walking performance and summer school starts, all his old friends are back in town. Lexa owns a motorcycle, Scottie's picked up some work, Bea's preparing for the tourist season, each of them unaware of the changes that have been made to this small town.

Before I start Episode Two, I'm planning on going back through this script and adjusting some dialogue and lengthening some scenes so they feel more natural.

But that's Scarlet Fever! I love the vibes of this episode and how eratic it is in its unnatural delivery. My goal for this project isn't to complete drafting the two seasons I've planned but to just write a script that isn't shit. I'm loving this project so far and the characters are some of my favourite, so refined and mature!

Till next time

-E

#screenwriting #screenplay #celestialbodies #amwriting #writeblr #character concept #tv #televisionseries #iamnotokaywiththis #sydney novak #ya #yagenre #writing #fantasy #pilotepisode #i am so not ready for this project

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ailuronymy · 4 years

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Book Club: Tallstar’s Revenge, chpt. 1-9 overview.

Thoughts on the new Windclan, courtesy of famed Erin Hunter impersonators:

“DIRT BOYS!! LET'S MAKE THEM ALL DIRT BOYS!” -- K.

"I understand we've stressed extensively that ALL Windclan love running and are skinny binches and need to be under the sky or they're sad, BUT half the clan has always been buff as fuck and live like moles :) :) we just didn't mention it before because it wasn't important to Harry's journey :) :) :)” -- S.

For this first share, we’ll keep to the questions posted earlier in the week so that there’s some kind of structure to what we’re doing! Please feel welcome to do the same and @ailuronymy + use the tag #ailuronymy writing challenge. Happy reading and I’m looking forward to seeing your feelings about this book.

1. First impressions?

S. better than Bluestar's Prophecy. K. Not as bad as BP but also hoo boy, you peel back the onion and it only gets uglier the more you think about it huh K. Me, reading the book initially: Wow I actually kind of enjoyed this! Me now: I See. I See The Truth.

2. How did you feel reading this section?

S. mostly the usual amount of exasperation! But it was also fun and I like Tallpaw K. About the same! Not as bored as BP, and I do like Tallpaw, so that's a blessing in disguise.

3. What chapter did you find most interesting/moving/effective, and why?

S. probably the one where Heatherstar causes a ruckus and acknowledges Tallpaw's best interests. There was genuinely tension and it was refreshing to have a character in authority actually act reasonably towards Tallpaw. K. I agree, that one had me really excited to read.

4. What chapter did you find least interesting/effective/most frustrating, and why?

S. I honestly struggled with chapter eight. If I have to read too much action being described, I black out. I just find it so boring. That's not actually a criticism at Erin Hunter. I just have a short attention span for people Doing Things that aren't talking, sword-fights, having big emotions, sex, or any combination. And even then, the sword-fights and/or sex still have to keep to a reasonable word limit or I wander away. I'm the worst. I'm literally like a child who only wants to eat sweets, but in written form. S. I forgot basically all of chapter eight for the above reason of being terrible, so that's on me.

K. I have nothing written at all about Chapter 7. I liked seeing the apprentice training being like, at least marginally different than Thunderclan's but also It Sucked Bad Chapter Moving On.

5. Is there a passage that stuck in your mind–for good, or not-so-good reasons? What is it, and why did it stand out? Try breaking it down and analysing what this passage does and how.

S. I actually had a nice time reading about Plumclaw and Tallkit interacting. She was talking him through having his first mouse, I think, and it was genuinely sweet and moving in a way that Erin Hunter's writing almost never is. There was a legit connection and for a moment, I actually believed in these characters as people who lived together and actually have relationships and care. That’s really what I’m about, so it was a pleasant surprise to find in this book.

K. I have two brief passages for different reasons: “He’s my son,” Sandgorse snarled. “I’ll decide his future.” Heatherstar stiffened. “I decide the future of my warriors.” LOVE Heatherstar showing the fuck up. Absolute legend. K. “Tallkit heard worry in her mew. “Is that why we tunnel under the moor?” he asked. “To hide from the dead warriors in other Clans?” — First tunnelling mention! The idea of Windclan taking shelter from/expertly evading the ghosts of their enemies because of their speed is honestly pretty fun, but I don’t trust the Erins with it one bit. K. This kind of legend is something I think I'd much prefer in like, a Watership Down style myth or story? K. But not if Erin's touching it. S. I was like, "oh this is the sickest thing you've ever--no no no no no" K. (oh, and just for fun, one of my other fave quotes was Dawnstripe saying "We guard the edge of the world." That felt cool.)

6. What themes did you notice in these chapters? What motifs or repeated symbolism/description appeared to you?

K. Love is a big one, obvs. K. Also, lots of stories and storytelling? Which feels just like Erin slapping more bullshit in here but like, that feels kinda relevant.

S. I struggled to find cohesive themes in this chunk, except I think division? The division between the tunnellers and moor runners, between Tallpaw and his mum, between Heatherstar and her clan. That's really what popped for me.

K. Oh, and like... expectations. The clan's expectations of Heatherstar, Sandgorse's of Tallpaw, Tallpaw's expectations for himself.

7. How do you feel about the characters, their motivation, their choices?

K. They're like. Not the worst? Lots of them fucking suck, as usual. But I'm at least very happy that I actually want to see Tallpaw succeed and grow. Also Heatherstar and Dawnstripe and Barkpaw are great.

S. I like Tallpaw! That's a lot of projection on my part, but I've found him a lot less grating than Bluepaw (who I also wanted to love). S. One of my first major aggravations in the early chapters is Shrewpaw. He's unbearable, and what makes him so is the one-note bullying. It's the equivalent of reading someone go, "I'm not touching you," in an annoying voice for nine chapters, which I feel is another example of Erin Hunter's habit of repetition. There was less of that in this book than BP, but I still counted a few instances of cats having the same conversation a few times. S. The other cat I can't stand is Sandgorse. My god. That moment when he tells his literal infant son to go cheer up his depressed mother made me just about scream. S. “Go cheer up your mother, child” GO CHEER UP YOUR WIFE, HUSBAND

K. This is where it's gonna get interesting, because I think my fucking senses were dulled by how much Erin fucked up dads last time, because I didn't hate him off the hop!

S. To me, he smacks of a lowkey toxic masculinity. And the kind of emotional manipulation he does makes me [narrow eyes]. S. (I didn't take very good notes about this bit, because I forgot. I only have "Sandgorse is such a loser" but I trust past me's judgement).

K. I strongly do think that my impression of Sandgorse is different if only because I think I was so tired at seeing all the non-existent dads in Bluestar's Prophecy that the fact that he actually has conversations with his son and wife for more than like, a sentence, made me go "Oh thank god" And maybe this too is a bit of a projection, but I sort of initially saw him as like... that well-meaning dad who tries to be nice but still manages to fuck up and not actually listen to what people need at all. Like, the classic stupid dad in a bad TV movie who has A Dream for his kid. Where he doesn't mean to be an asshole, he just thinks he's right and that his kid agrees with him because Why Wouldn't He. So I think I took a lot of his dialogue and actions to be a bit more well-meaning-but-still-not-great rather than fully toxic. Obviously it doesn't end well for anyone, but I guess I've just seen too many father figures go around with nice intentions who have absolutely Zero ability at reading a room let alone their kids

S. I think for me, that is the problem. And I think I am less forgiving towards it.

K. Stormtail [Bluestar’s father, Bluestar’s Prophecy] feels like more of the asshole dad, to me, but like. They're both different brands of Not Good.

S. Stormtail is super just a complete prick, no doubt. I think Sandgorse is more engaged with his kid, for sure. But I think it's a very hollow engagement, because he denies everything about Tallpaw's actual personality and desires and just sees him as an extension of himself to control. Which is sort of parental abuse 101.

K. Oh, and while we're discussing them: Palebird huh. Again, Erins, can't write a woman, but like. I don't know, I think that like... she felt like a neat character for the first chapter and now they're doing their Bad Things with her by making her boring and Just Sad and kind of useless in the background for them to mess with and probably kill off later. Like, she doesn't have a whole lot of personality, but she could. S. I think I'd like all the characters more if I spent less time with them. Like, I think for me, the pace is too slow, the dialogue is too long, and because of that, I get bored and annoyed with the characters. Whereas I think if it was only a couple of chapters, forcing the dialogue to be more punchy and illuminating of their character, and less mired in sadness (Palebird) or digging stupid holes (Sandgorse) or bullying (Shrewpaw), I'd have a lot more fun. But as it stands, Palebird starts talking and I start zoning out because they've really done her so dirty in this.

8. If you could ask any character in this section a question, what question would you ask them?

K. Heatherstar: How does it feel to be the baddest bitch in the room at any given moment K. Palebird: Why the FUCK are you with this bastard K. Sandgorse: WHY are you LIKE THAT ALL THE TIME

S. Barkpaw: what is it about learning medicine that you love? Or.... Barkpaw: how did you decide to give up your future with others, for a future in medicine? What was that decision like?

K. A more serious question from me, hehe: Tallpaw - If no one was watching, what would make you happiest to do or say? K. Shrewpaw: What about yourself do you feel most inadequate about? What part of that drives you to act towards others like you do?

S. Shrewpaw: what's your fucking damage, buddy?

9. In your opinion, what is “world-building” and how important is it to you as a reader (or writer)? How do you feel about the world-building of these chapters so far? If you could, would you change anything, and what would you change?

S. Oh, I hate it. S. What's hilarious is that for maybe the first time ever Erin Hunter is putting effort in. You can see how hard they're working to make tunnelling sound "cool" or relevant, how they're describing all these tunnel-related skills and techniques the way they do with fighting or whatever. S. And the irony is it's such a wasted effort because personally? Could not care less. This world-building enraptures me none amount and I spend the whole time scoffing like, sure Jan.

K. One of my notes off the hop is: "I know that Erin’s trying to like… make Windclan look unique by adding these new positions, but just labelling some warriors as “moor runners” doesn’t cut it. Their job is: “hunting and patrolling the borders”. That’s just? An average warrior thing to do? It’s not special, and naming it something fancy doesn’t make me feel like you’re actually adding anything to Windclan’s mythology here." Which is really just tunnel adjacent, but it's still relevant.

K. Other choice tunneling notes: "...Listen, I get it, inter-clan conflict is wonderful. But WHY do the moor runners and tunnellers hate each other? If the tunnels are so important to Windclan’s way of life, SURELY the above-ground warriors would feel respect for them? And if Windclan holds such value in their tunnels (Palebird literally just said that the tunnels mean they’re “stronger and cleverer” than the other clans), then WHY would Windclan cats hate them for it?? To have this weird seemingly generational distrust between the two castes is just. Fucking bananas." k. "Hey Erin: Why introduce the tunnellers at all if you keep putting them down and saying how much worse it would be to be one. What’s the point."

S. “I'm still not over the fact they're [Erin Hunter] like... "what can we do to make Windclan, the clan who famous won't even build nests because they like to live under the stars, special and different from the rest... oh I fucking know."

K. "Why is no one in charge in this clan that’s been a tunneller?? Heatherstar and Reedfeather just… fully don’t understand tunnelling and tunnellers needs?? If I were making this system, I’d have it be mandatory that the leader and deputy have to be one from either caste." S. Why not just ban it already. S. I mean, the book tries so hard to convince us tunnelling is useful. I believe none of it.

K. ALSO why don't the tunnelers b a t h e K. "They're permanently soiled with dirt and soot" DO THEY BATHE??? DO THEY?? WHY DO YOU HATE THIS NEW CASTE THAT YOU SEEM TO LOVE? K. Erin Hunter: look at my cool new worldbuilding set! I'm going to shit on it for an entire book

K. Like. I'm having a hard time pinpointing what I would do better, but like... I think I want it to feel 1) more cohesive and believable. 2) It needs to be useful and cement this clan as a group of living, working people. It has to make some kind of sense (to an extent) but also have a purpose! 3) sometimes worldbuilding doesn't need to be "uhh they need more jobs" sometimes it can be "we have this myth about running faster than the ghosts of our enemies" and that's just as successful if you do it right. Like, Erin thought you needed to entirely overhaul Windclan and make them Different to make them better. Instead of working with what's already there!

S. I personally feel it doesn't take much to make the clans really different from each other, and it's more the subtle things that make huge differences, not--like you said--more jobs or anything. Really don't want to blow my own horn, but like, to use the chapter I just wrote as an example: just by making elders vote to make major decisions alters the clan significantly. That's just one thing, that's putting different emphasis and a new swing on a preexisting facet of every clan. But immediately you get the effect and it has run-on effects too, which is what good world-building should do. It should be hard to remove any one piece without the whole castle crashing down. And this book is basically about how removing one “major” piece (tunnelling) effectively didn’t change anything, really. K. It just doesn't feel right to me! It's too big a change to feel natural, let alone how fucking bad it is.

K. And like, honestly, the Erins even did okay with just highlighting the territory and environmental differences! I've read all the different fucking ways they can write a forest after 30 books and they really have written them all. Even just making THAT a focal point helped to make this book feel somewhat distinct and fresh!

S. One of my long-standing gripes with Erin Hunter is that their environments are boring and basic and they need way more close detail on plants and whatnot but that is a personal preference, and not actually a flaw. Although admittedly, if you do spend time making an environment interesting, it turns out that becomes a reason to read and a pleasure, instead of something you have to trudge through to get to the Actually Good Bits. But that's not what they're about and I can acknowledge that, if not respect it.

Extra notes:

S. [Sandgorse’s] basically the dad equivalent of a pageant mum? K. Yeah! K. Sports Dads are just Pageant Mom Regional Variants. S. Oh my god.

K. The story isn't about [Palebird] and at this point it just feels kind of sad to have her onscreen. S. Yeah, I get the feeling she exists to make Tallstar feels unloved, basically. K. Which sucks! S. "Your mum likes your dead sibling more" is uhh a brutal way to tell a story, Erin.

K. For one: Barkpaw is... the best cat S. YES S. My boy. K. The Erins only know three medicine cats: Softe, Don't Fucking Touch Me, or The Only Reasonable Gay

K. 1) “Tallpaw swallowed a purr. “No racing, I promise. No having fun whatsoever on the dawn patrol.” I Love Him. 2) Dawnstripe seems nice and I think she and Stonepelt need to be friends. 3) I loved Tallpaw's little chase sequence and how clever he is :>

S. I just can't get over how much it breaks my suspension of disbelief to imagine cats digging. S. Of all things. S. I can tolerate the bullshit fighting better than I can believe cats digging with any efficiency whatsoever. K. They remind me of the Meerkats from Lion King 1/2. K. And I. K. Despise. K. That film. S. Windclan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U76zyUFg3Xo K. PLEASE END MY SUFFERING

K. I think what pisses me off about [Shrewpaw] the most, sidebar, is that he's like this from the start. Who is teaching him this??? Who is raising this little monster boy???? Who in Windclan is just? rearing xenophobes???? S. Like, he's newly born and walking around being a little fascist. S. And no-one is doing anything about it! All the adults are like, "huh, yeah, kids, am I right?" K. He isn't even as cool as Thistleclaw! He's just a little mean weasel boy! S. Sandgorse is literally like, "yeah that little weak moor runner punk child, what a coward, scared of getting sand in his eyes." Like, that's not the right response At All. K. EVERYONE IS SO RACIST ALL THE TIME SEND TWEET S. And none of the moor runners are being like, "hey stop calling him wormcat, his name is Tallpaw and he's your clanmate." S. Additional sidebar: Shrewpaw calling Tallpaw "wormcat" is my favourite thing in the book. S. It's like if I walked up to a nerd I didn't like and was just like, "lol wormboy." S. Devastating. K. RIGHT S. It's so funny. I was literally there like, "okay this is bad behaviour, Shrewpaw, that's not the right way to act, but also? fucking hilarious." K. It was funny at the start and now that it's his Thing it's even more funny. Like you can't think of anything better to say that you keep invoking the "Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?" goof at all hours. S. It kind of reminded me of the time I was teaching and I had to put a ban on the word "Elmo" because the kids kept basically making it a slur on each other, but it was also the funniest thing and it was SO HARD not to fucking lose it. S. Me, being a good teacher: "All right, that's enough, no-one is allowed to call anyone else 'Elmo' anymore." S. Me on the inside: [dying]

#ailuronymy book club #tallstar's revenge

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