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meggtheegg · 6 months

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FNAF Movie Theory...

I'm pretty sure there's still one major plot twist in the universe of the movie that's been set up for a sequel but hasn't actually happened yet. Heavy spoilers under the cut:

After watching the movie in theaters and then revisiting a few scenes on Peacock, I'm still kind of convinced that Mike Schmidt is Michael Afton.

Here's my reasoning. A lot of the characters spend time acting like they know something the audience/other characters don't, and those things are...mostly resolved. But some of them just...kind of aren't.

The main thing that sticks out to me is William's whole storyline. Starting with the scene where he offers Mike the job, his behavior is almost explained by the movie's logic. He sees Mike's name, seems...kind of deeply upset, looks at him very closely, stands to get coffee, and has a moment of visible internal conflict. Then he instantly offers him the Freddy's job. The way the movie frames this, it seems to be saying that he recognized the name of one of his victims, realized this was the kid's brother, and decided to kill him right then and there. Which is passable as an explanation, but it has a lot of holes, if you look deeper.

Why would William so instantly recognize a fairly common last name as the brother of some kid he killed that wasn't even anywhere near Freddy's? Why did he kidnap/kill Garrett in the first place, in some random forest in Nebraska? Why did he see the name on the file, then immediately stop and examine Mike's face so closely, when Mike's memories/dreams pretty clearly show that they never saw each others' faces when Garrett was taken? Why did he send Vanessa to "keep Mike in the dark" if he purposely gave him the job to get him killed? Why not have the animatronics kill him right away? He didn't know that Mike was searching for the man who took his brother, and while he could have maybe guessed he was still actively haunted by what happened based on Mike beating up a guy that he thought was kidnapping someone, it still feels like a weird choice to go and hire him, then just have him do the job with no issue for a few days.

As for Vanessa, we see that she's been cleaning up William's messes for years. Why is Mike the one she changes her mind and stands up to her father for? There's no implied romance between the two and no particularly meaningful connection beyond them both having family issues. I guess she cares about Abby because she's a kid, but kids getting hurt clearly never stopped her from helping her father before.

And, on a more meta level, this is Scott and his storytelling style we're talking about. The man puts plot twists inside of plot twists and everything always ties back into the Aftons, somehow.

So, here's my theory: I think that Mike is William's kid, but Mike's mom left Afton when he was young and remarried the man that Mike thinks is his father.

It seems convoluted and maybe cliche, but if it's true, then suddenly there's an answer to all of those questions. "Michael Schmidt" isn't exactly an eye-catching name, unless you had a kid named Michael and your ex-wife married a guy with the last name Schmidt. Garrett's kidnapping, then, becomes an act of intentional, petty revenge rather than an extremely random coincidence. Giving Mike the job and sending in Vanessa suddenly becomes about piecing together how much he knows and figuring out if he's worth trying to reconnect with or is just a threat that needs to be killed. (It feels worth noting that William is as far as I can remember the only person to call him Michael in the whole film. He also very pointedly never says "Schmidt" until he's decided to kill Mike and suddenly announces his full name out loud. If he went by Michael as a little kid, that is what William would default to calling him, but if he took the new husband's last name, that would be like like salt in the wound that he wouldn't want to voice. By finally saying it out loud, it feels like he's making the decision to fully separate himself from Mike.)

As for Vanessa, if Mike is her brother, it makes sense that he would be the person she'd turn against William to save. It would be weird for her not to tell him, but she could also be trying to protect him, in some way. There's never any mention of her mother, and it seems like it's just been her and William for a long time. Also, ending the movie with her in a coma feels like a strange narrative choice, but it makes sense if she knows information that's purposely being kept hidden for the sequel.

Of course, it could just be that the movie has kind of messy writing and I'm trying to fix it because I want there to be a deeper reason for it. Maybe there is no Michael Afton in the movies, or maybe he's off chilling and doing his own thing somewhere and we'll see him in the sequel. Only time will tell.

#fnaf movie #fnaf movie spoilers #five nights at freddy's #five nights at freddy's spoilers #michael afton #mike schmidt

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tea-mew96 · 11 months

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I really need to discuss ROTB Optimus Prime cuz I think he's become one of my favorite versions of the character. Spoilers and analysis below cut

I'm aware that there's many who aren't happy about the way ROTB Optimus was characterized, but I'm not one of them. On the contrary, I think ROTB Optimus is brilliant. I sincerely believe that this movie improved on something that I feel the Bay films missed out and failed on: it blatantly showed this is an Optimus who hurts and does the things he says or does because he's hurting and doesn't want himself or anyone else to needlessly suffer.

There are many, myself included, who view Bayverse Optimus as a guy who has been so drained by being a war leader, who is so tired of being backstabbed, that he is no longer willing to give second chances to the Decepticons, who have made it clear time and time again that they're not going to surrender and won't stop their destructive ways. Because of that, it leaves Bayverse Optimus no choice but to fight back just as dirty as the Cons do.

The problem is that while this is a perspective that can be concluded to, it's not one that the Bay films capitalized on. They had the chance to see between the lines of their own storytelling and emphasis Bayverse Optimus' mental state, but rarely did. You get slivers of it in AOE and TLK, but it gets overshadowed by the all the problems those two movies are riddled with. I believe this issue is primarily due to Bay's often limited line of thinking as a director, but it could be caused by other factors.

ROTB emphsizes Optimus Prime's state of mind frequently throughout its runtime. You see it when Mirage talks to Noah about how Optimus seems to be blaming being stuck on Earth on himself, you see it in Elena's conversation with Noah by the campfire, and you see it when Optimus Primal and Airazor discuss how on-edge Optimus Prime appears to be. But I'd say it's the most obvious after Scourge stabs Bumblebee and Optimus states later that "It should've been me." Holy shit, if that line doesn't raise a thousand red flags I don't know what will.

ROTB Optimus is very much putting all the burden on himself to the detriment on his own mental health. This "put all the burden on me" attitude is not uncommon for an Optimus-you can see this trait in almost every version of the character-but it does paint a worrying picture.

Also like many iterations of Optimi, ROTB Optimus understands when an opponent can be reasoned with and when they need to have their ass kicked. He recognizes, after being mocked by Scourge and getting his ass handed to him at the museum fight, that Scourge, Battletrap, and Nightbird are not interested in peace. The only options they give you are surrender, join them (either willingly or forcibly), or die. They're also not just your average Decepticon: they are powerful minions of Unicron, and Airazor describes Scourge as being all but invincible.

ROTB Optimus rightfully concludes that Unicron must be stopped and that the first step of doing so is to kill off the Terrorcons. While I'm sure some people probably didn't like it, Optimus' blatant declarations on killing Scourge didn't bother me. I did notice how many of his death threats were after Bee was out for the count and most are a banter response to the ones Scourge gives out first. It's also important to note that the only way Optimus Prime was able to get a final blow on Scourge was with the assistance of Noah and Primal.

TL;DR ROTB Optimus is what Bayverse Optimus should've been and still maintains the traits of an Optimus.

#transformers rise of the beasts #rise of the beasts #rise of the beasts spoilers #optimus prime #maccadam #tf analysis #tea.txt

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smytherines · 14 days

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I love One Step Ahead for all the obvious reasons (gay angst), but also because it is so packed with little storytelling moments. Also it just seems exhausting. So much happens in that song:

1. Motorcycle chase (with office chairs)

2. Boat chase

3. Staff fight

4. Sword fight

5. Vigorous musket loading

6. Run up the staircase

7. Hang glider chase

8. Fistfight

9. Run halfway down the stairs again

And the entire time they are doing all of this, they're belting out a vocally demanding song. I mean, no wonder Curt Mega had to take a breath during that final note. That's a feat of endurance. I simply would've passed out and died.

One Step Ahead is one of my favorite setpieces of all time. In anything. Ever. It is so impressive, and it is even more impressive when you realize this was done by a tiny little independent company with the theatre budget equivalent of $1.50. Unreal. It should not be possible.

And the thing is, One Step Ahead is the perfect narrative counterweight to A1P1 (Spies Are Forever). The amount of thought they put into this is just stunning. Because here's the thing: A1P1 is also incredibly physical. For most of the song Curt and Owen are on the move, they're going up the ladder, they're fighting goons, they're going down the staircase, they're running.

But more importantly, Curt and Owen are touching a lot in A1P1. And yeah, that's fun in a swoony curtwen vibes way, but its also incredibly important to the narrative. They are touching a lot, and when they aren't touching they are standing just a little bit too close together. Its subtle enough that you initially dismiss it as a stylistic choice, but once you have the full context it is remarkably intimate.

Those are important details- like the way Owen has his arm around Curt and is literally holding his hand when they're talking to Cynthia. Its meant to tell us that they are together. In the romantic way, yes, but also they're just aligned, working together, on the same page. They are partners here. They literally have each other's backs.

And that's down to Curt Mega and Joey Richter selling the absolute shit out of these roles, and genius choreography by Lauren Lopez, and Corey Lubowich being the director of all time.

The digital download BTS has a part with Joey and Curt rehearsing the bit where they do the hug, and right after that they're trying to figure out what cool action poses to move into and Corey says that he wants to see something with them "connected," which is just... yeah, that's the perfect word to describe what is going on in A1P1. These two are connected.

So then we get to One Step Ahead. At the very beginning, Curt does the arm clasp with Tatiana. The first time they did this, Curt had a flashback of Owen. Owen was still his partner in his heart. But this time that bond is severed. Curt thinks of Tatiana as his partner now.

We get into the action of the song, and Curt and Owen do not touch. Even when they are very physically close together, there are weapons between them. In A1P1 they had lots of moments with their backs turned to each other, trusting each other, working perfectly in sync. In One Step Ahead they are facing each other head on. They are literally and figuratively fighting. They are breaking up.

The only moment during this sequence where they are actually touching each other is when Owen slaps Curt, Curt punches Owen twice, and they do that lock up move. They're only touching to hurt each other now.

And its so subtle and well executed that you don't really think about the parallels between these two scenes the first time you watch them. But you feel it on an emotional level. They had about ten minutes to establish the relationship between these two, and they used that ten minutes so effectively that the staircase scene ends up hitting like a ton of bricks.

Just. I love this show. I love how much TCB and Curt Mega and the rest of the cast care about this show. I'm so grateful they keep coming back to it. I cannot wait to see what they do with these scenes for Spy Another Day.

#spy another day #spies are forever #owen carvour #agent curt mega #tin can bros #curtwen #saf #tcb #tinlightenment world tour #saf rants

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nephriteknight · 2 months

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Thoughts on Daggerheart!!

I'll admit I haven't really been following it until today, but after watching the videos released today I got very excited and ended up building a character and reading a lot of the book, as I am wont to do (might post about them later lol).

Now, full disclosure, I wouldn't say I'm all that familiar with the TTRPG space outside of D&D, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. That said, I've played D&D, Wanderhome, Alice is Missing, and the fan-made Hollow Knight TTRPG, and I've watched some AP of Kids on Bikes, Call of Cthulhu, Monsterhearts, and Candela Obscura, which is a longer list than I was expecting. Huh. Anyways, my thoughts!

I really like the duality dice! It's such an interesting way to do mixed success that incorporates story/character into mechanics, which is great.

Related to that, I also like Hope as a fluid resource, and I think that Fear is a nice way to both prompt GM action and to just create a fun sense of dread as the GM takes more tokens

The lack of turn order/action economy is... cool, and a really interesting idea, but my thoughts on this are complicated. As we're seeing in the oneshot right now, it really helps to keep combat as part of the story and give the players and GM room for creativity. (For example, Bunnie describing a counterstrike as part of her dodge, and being able to take it as soon as the GM's turn is over, as well as the tag team feature, which is very cool.) That said, I think this mechanic might not work so well with less experienced or less confident players, who might have trouble taking the initiative (heh) to act in combat (I know I certainly would if I wasn't playing with close friends). That's not really a criticism though -- this is a collaborative storytelling game, and part of playing it is making big moves and taking turns guiding the story. If that's not for you, then you might prefer a different system, which is fine! I think this mechanic has the potential to be really, really dope, but I also think it's the bit that has the most potential to go poorly in my eyes.

The art, design, and general aesthetic feel of this game are so unbelievably up my alley. I love it. That's all.

I'm excited to see that they're working on mechanics for playing disabled characters, but since they aren't out yet I can't really comment. (I did notice that the character in the bard art is in a wheelchair, which is dope.) Also, as others have noted, Daggerheart uses "heritage" and "ancestry" rather than "race", which is a small but good choice.

Personally, I also really like the choice to move away from precise measurements of distance and gold. This one is very much a personal preference, and I know some people will rightfully disagree, but I like it! As a DM, trying to determine the appropriate costs and rewards for things has always been a headache, and this seems much easier to manage; measuring distances with convenient and tangible measurements like the short side of a playing card or the length of a piece of paper also feels much easier to use.

The downtime mechanics are great! Each of the activities you can take prompts you to describe how you heal yourself or another, destress, repair armor, or prepare yourself for what's ahead, which really encourages quieter character moments both introspectively and with others. I'm a big fan of this. This combining of role play and mechanics is also present in other features, such as one of the major level 1 healing abilities, which is more effective if you spend the time it takes to cast learning something new about the person you're healing or sharing something about yourself.

I didn't look at this too closely because I was just making a character for fun and don't have a party to play with, but as part of character creation you're given questions about your relationships to your party members to answer. Wanderhome also has these, and they were MASSIVELY successful in creating depth and meaningful connections between players -- after our table's session zero I was already so invested in all our characters, and when we actually played them they really came to life. I haven't looked to closely at Daggerhearts version of this, but I'm very excited to see them.

The experience mechanic seems really fun and creative, and I especially like the idea of using a phrase rather than something specific. That said, when I played the Hollow Knight TTRPG, which also lets players create their own skills, the open endedness of it was more confusing than inspiring, and there was a lot of potential for a usefulness disparity between players. I do think Daggerheart explains it better, though, and limiting the use of experience with a Hope cost helps to counteract any choices that might be too broad, so hopefully it will work better

I probably have more thoughts, but it getting late and I have a headache, so that's all I'm saying for now :D

Overall, Daggerheart has combined a lot of things I've liked in other games with promising mechanics I haven't seen before, and I'm very excited to try it out. I'm now realizing that I just made a list of things I like without any negative feedback, which isn't what I wanted to do, but I'm not really sure what to criticize without having played it myself.

I'm most curious to see how the non-initiative mechanic works; it has the potential to be a really excellent solve for a major problem in D&D (plenty of people have talked about how initiative limits teamwork, can be boring when its not your turn, etc, so I won't get into it here), but I don't think it's a solution that will work for everyone. Of course, games can't work for everyone, and shouldn't try to. It's working really well on CR's oneshot as I write this, but making choices and sharing spotlight in TTRPGs is literally their job, so I'm not surprised this works for them. I could see this going really well with some tables I've played with, and really poorly with others. I'm still really optimistic, though; it seems like the kind of thing that with the right table could be really excellent.

#you know its not the point of this post but im gonna say it anyways: highly recommend wanderhome #good game; thank you saltzman for recommending it #daggerheart #critical role #table top role playing game #ttrpg

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tavtime · 7 months

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One of the things I've been thinking a lot about (as I very, very slowly write my longfic about it) is this theme in BG3 of conflict between gods or godlike authorities versus ordinary people. I think the things it has to say about how "the Great and the Good" treat people they consider their inferiors, and where real power is actually located in that dynamic, are very interesting.

Like. Ok. Literally every full companion's personal arc is concerned with that companion being used as a pawn by an actor with greater scope of influence than themselves: Karlach is on the run from Zariel; Lae'zel finds herself in direct conflict with her people's god-queen; Shadowheart's entire relationship with Shar is dependent on her compliance to being bent to Shar's purposes at the expense of all other connections; Mystra tells Gale to blow himself up to earn her forgiveness and derail a competing power. Even Astarion and Wyll, who aren't beholden to gods per se, are struggling against being manipulated by those who hold sway far beyond the scope of their own (Cazador is not just powerful as a vampire but implied to be socially powerful as well, and Wyll's conflict is not just with Mizora but also his father in his capacity more broadly representing the needs of Baldur's Gate).

And the interesting thing with each of these, what gets brought up time and again, is that these gods and betters aren't actually the ones exercising power over the situation. They're trying, via manipulation of those in service to them, but they aren't actually exerting influence directly in most cases. The implication is of indifference, impotence, or being themselves beholden to a greater power (Gale does make an offhand comment re: how willing Ao would be to overlook Mystra's interference in mortal affairs). The people who actually end up exercising power in this situation are the little people, the ones nominally being used.

Which, Thing One, I think this is a very intentional storytelling choice that yields fantastic contrast to the interactions between the controlled party and the antagonists. The Dead Three are a threat in large part because they were willing to get their handa dirty and operate on the material plane. The first real boss the player faces, Ketheric, is not just chosen of Myrkul directly wielding some of his power, but transforms physically into his avatar. Orin and, to a lesser extent, Gortash as well, can be analyzed along similar lines.

But Thing Two, which I think is really the thing I want to spend the most time turning over, is that the story takes a pretty clear position on moral and personal value in this situation. Basically, in the conflict between the ordinary people of the world and its gods and paragons, the narrative comes down very firmly on the side of the people who are considered pawns or disposable. The protagonists are the ones winning this fight, not their gods, and every time a character gets the opportunity to rise above their "station" to be on equal footing with those powers it's framed negatively. Durge embracing Bhaal, Astarion completing the Ascension, Shadowheart becoming a Dark Justiciar, Gale reforging the crown, Karlach becoming a mind flayer, any Tav or Durge choosing to dominate the brain - all of these involve the character gaining a large amount of power, and all of them are framed by the narrative as "bad endings" (though whether you as the player personally feel differently about them is left up to you, of course). The sole exception to this might be Wyll, who has the opportunity to step into his father's shoes, but even then, there is some aspect of power only being framed as "good" when it is used in service of the people.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that there is an allegory here about class conflict and the power inherent to ordinary people which I think is worthwhile to examine, and is a crucial part of any thorough analysis of BG3's themes.

#and don't even get me started on withers as a pov for the hand of the author. i could talk about that funky little dude all day #this is by no means world shattering or original analysis of an rpg lmao. but it is taking up space in my brain #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #karlach #wyll #shadowheart #gale #lae'zel #long post #meta

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artbyblastweave · 6 months

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Which Fallout game would you recommend to someone who's played none of them?

Depends on how you like to spend your time. Discounting a couple wild-swing-and-miss games that are only dubiously canon, Fallout games can be roughly grouped into the West Coast games- a trilogy composed of Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout: New Vegas- and the Bethesda-headed East Coast Games, consisting of Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 (the last of which is a multiplayer game-as-service that I don't own a machine powerful enough to play. I hear mixed things.)

The east coast games lean heavily into Bethesda's house style- big, lovingly-crafted open worlds, a heavy focus on exploration and environmental storytelling, satisfying dungeon-crawl-based loot loops, and so on. They aren't well written and from 4 onward they aren't terribly deep RPGs. In particular I can recommend 4 as a fun romp that's quite accessible from a gameplay perspective but a really bad showing of what the rest of the series is about thematically- a lot was lost in a push for mass market appeal. If you liked Skyrim there's a good chance you'd like Fallout 4, except I'd argue wholeheartedly that Skyrim had worldbuilding as a priority to a much greater extent than 4 even at its nadir. It's set in Boston, if that sweetens the pot at all. It did for me.

By contrast the west coast fallout games are in fact actively well-written and invite engagement from a lit-crit perspective. There are themes and shit. Of the west coast trilogy I'd recommend Fallout: New Vegas (and I'd recommend it above Fallout 4), in no small part because It's the only one of the three created in a 3d engine (the first two are top-down isometric) and it strikes a decent balance between the open-world go-anywhere philosophy of an elder scrolls game and the meaningful-choices-they-thought-of-everything RPG sensibilities. The only minor downside is that It's an indirect sequel/finale in regard to the first two games, which means there's a significant number of callbacks, returning characters, and returning factions that are rendered slightly more legible by having played the first two games. But not much more legible- you get the gist of everyone's deal just by playing and talking to everyone. There's also a decent amount of jank on numerous fronts because it was basically commissioned as a spinoff game in under 18 months but taking that mulligan into account it sort of becomes even better, pound for pound. Play this if you liked Disco Elysium and want to play a game that's significantly less heavy than that on all fronts but also lets you be a cowboy and get in shootouts with Fascist roman larpers and robots and shit. Play it even if that doesn't sound good. Play it. Play Fallout: New Vegas. Play it

#ask #asks #meta #thoughts #fallout

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witsserviceablesubstitute · 1 day

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It’s definitely a majority of newer fans who both don’t get the history between Buck and Eddie, but also who don’t care. They came into the series because Buck kissed a man, as well as already knowing the rep that a lot of Buddie shippers tend to hate all the women love interests. So their entire experience watching the first six seasons is clouded by wanting be contrarian.

Which is not a terrible thing since the women didn’t deserve the hate as they got, but rooting for bi!Buck while actively ignoring the relationship built between him and Eddie just so you can not be called a Buddie shipper and champion for Tommy once you get to that season, is weird.

That said, my post was mainly because I was trying to scroll the tag and was only seeing post after post after post about Tommy being the greatest friend and love interest Buck has had, so I was being mildly petty. Because Buck has great relationships with the people in his life, and Eddie is extremely important to him regardless of if they become a couple. There is no need to punch down on him because folks want to uplift Tommy, but they don’t seem to get that.

And I know there are Buddie shippers who punch down on Tommy, but I’ve said before, they’re the same people who dragged the women. So at least they’re consistent. This new wave of drama is purely because Buck is bi now, and a lot of the shippers who defended the women no longer care about them and are actively dismissing Buck’s past relationships to praise Tommy. Which is hypocritical and very common in fandom, but goodness is it annoying sometimes. Especially when it’s as unnecessary as it is in this context.

Heya! There's a lot of magical overthinking in fandoms because it comprises a very large group of different people from different places writing essays about a text (like the nerds we all are). Fandoms are kinda big tutorials and when things become toxic it's a little like when academia becomes toxic. Do you know how many articles I've read that were basically hating on the previous article? I was an English Lit Major— there are entire novels that are aggressive refutations of the arguments made in other novels (so much effort).

Toxic divisions in fandom aren't so much about people trying to be contrary or consciously hateful. It's fear of in-group rejection and trying to say something bigger about themselves, their experiences, and their beliefs and using a text to do so. Cycles of creating in-groups and out-groups within fandoms (which is what ship wars do) is more about what state the individuals are in, and what they're trying to communicate and signal about themselves then it is about the characters or relationship. Protecting a fictional relationship becomes about protecting the ego, the pride, a world view, a sense of self, of self worth, of decorum... Etc. Therefore, a position is chosen and ground cannot be ceded because doing so is an ego death and others doing so feels like a betrayal.

It's why I hate ship wars so much. It's not about the bigger picture or the queer narratives or about championing anything. If it were then conceding would be easier. I could say something like, "I think the writing for Karen, and Buck and Eddie's love interests is misogynistic but indicative of network television" and it wouldn't feel like an attack. Instead they'd want to expand and evolve my points on misogynistic storytelling. I could talk about how the choices they made with Buck and Eddie were homoerotic, how denying it is unhelpful, without triggering a flurry of passive aggressive refutations. Instead they'd want to engage in why television storytelling is full of socialist brotherhoods (thank you Chinese danmei fans for that term). I could talk about how honestly amazing it is that Buck can explore an attraction to men at all, no matter who he's with, without it feeling like I'm hurting people. Because it is a big deal. I'd argue Stiles and Dean were more bi-coded and they absolutely weren't coming out of that celluloid closet.

Speaking of Dean. Another thing that ship wars do is choose an enemy. This can looks like one side making an enemy out of the institution of television itself and that being the justification for harassment (it's not). When that happens the other side can overcorrect by being the institutions greatest protectors and that becomes the justification for harassing fans in the out-group (it's not). However, unlike people in television who have systems in place to deal with harassment, disenfranchised queer fans do not. And, honestly, the thing that made me hate Supernatural was not Destiel. It was watching a young woman tell Jensen Ackles that Dean meant so much to her as a bisexual woman and the room turning on her immediately. An overcorrection. The rage I felt as I watched her tremble as they boo'd her... I can't watch Supernatural without feeling some echo of it.

#911 #911 show #kinda #queerness in television #queerness in media #911 abc #supernatural #buddie #the last i time I'll engage in this type of convo i think #i don't want the show to turn into a source of stress for me #thank you for the ask #and thank you for indulging my navel gazing ❣️

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olderthannetfic · 2 years

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Is anyone else getting increasingly creeped out by the "conflict in stories is never necessary! Conflict is just a thing Westerners put everywhere in their media because they're so aggressive and individualistic that they can't imagine going through life without antagonizing other people! Look at Asian storytelling, THAT doesn't have conflict!!!" brigade? Because personally, I'm just waiting for them to pull some creepy Noble Savages shit about how Asian people are all so enlightened and peaceful and we should all take up yoga or whatever to get on their level.

... also, I have no fucking idea which "Asian storytelling" they're even talking about. Like, I could definitely see them shun any modern Asian media involving any sort of internal or external conflict because "but that's clearly been influenced by the evil Westerners!!!" or whatever. But even looking at traditional literatures, from what I remember of Genji monogatari, Journey into the West, and the Ramayana, those aren't exactly 100% conflict-free static narratives about people always being perfectly happy and content and effortlessly getting whatever they want the moment they realize they want it, either.

Spoiler: it all comes down to a 2012 tumblr essay by the art collective still eating oranges:

The significance of plot without conflict

Wikipedia’s dramatic structures article comments “It is notable as one of the story structures that emphasizes no conflict.” but then cites only this tumblr essay.

Frankly, it’s bullshit.

Sure, the structure isn’t defined by conflict, but it can certainly accommodate it. The conflictless examples are often poetry, not long-form narrative fiction. Even that dumbass essay is talking about slice of life 4koma.

You know what else has the structure of intro+rambling anecdote+twist+conclusion?

A joke.

It’s the structure of a fucking joke, guys.

The only thing distinctive here is the way we choose to talk about the plot beats in some long narrative. You can take a novel and apply Western three-act or five-act structure or East Asian 4-act structure. The actual plot beats that make up an exciting adventure tale are the same. It’s the lens you choose to analyze it through that changes.

The big thing facile analyses miss is that these structures are imposed after the fact. They’re a way of taking a thing we already liked and going “Okay, but why does this one work?”

The other big thing it misses is that “conflict” does not mean enemies or violent disagreement. In any plot longer than said slice of life 4koma, there tends to be some kind of unmet need or a choice between things.

Wikipedia’s article on Kishōtenketsu, which does not mention “conflict” or this tumbr essay at all, is far better at explaining the conceptual structure. If you read the examples for fairytales rather than 4-line poetry, it becomes clear that the differences between this and Western structures are at best that it favors a picaresque narrative at the beginning rather than an inciting incident.

And to be perfectly honest, fucktons of East Asian media, including old shit, features a classic inciting incident. Some of it has rambling travelogue parts, but so does older Western literature. Tight, unified plots without digressions are for pulp novels and films in a time of media plenty. Long-ass books with a chapter on the sewers make sense when you have fewer total works and they’re consumed in a different context.

That essay makes sense if you’re a collective of short-form slice of life comics artists from the West.

I do not think it is a good explanation of how East Asia writes long-form narrative fiction.

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positivelybeastly · 3 months

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How do you feel about X-Men '97 coming back?

"Quite the meritorious happenstance, don't you think? One might have thought our tale lost to the annals of history, a dusty page in a tome left up on a shelf to be only occasionally perused as a curiosity or in a pique of nostalgia . . .

But it is not to be so!"

"As Tennyson himself said, "Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them, volleyed and thundered; stormed at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well, the X-Men.'

. . . Paraphrasing, of course."

I am incredibly excited.

Now, that's not to say that there aren't issues already - this is very much a nostalgia driven series, aimed pretty much precisely at me and my generation, and if I'm objective about it, I would have preferred it if X-Men: Evolution had come back instead. In terms of long form storytelling and character development, it was just better than the 90s show.

There's also some iffiness going on with Sunspot, who's joined the main cast - I believe his skin tone is incorrect, which is a common problem with a lot of Latino and Afro-Brazilian characters in comic books to this day, and given that they've made the cool choice to make Morph non-binary, I would've figured they'd want to depict Sunspot as accurately as possible?

That being said.

It just looks fucking good, man. Ray Chase is doing an amazing job of channelling the original Cyclops actor, who is no longer with us; the animation still feels very much in keeping with the original show, while still looking a MILLION TIMES BETTER (I completed a rewatch of the show not long ago, and hoo boy does season 5 especially look really rough); and after so many years of Krakoa comics, there's something to be said for going back to basics.

Is it a reversion? Yeah, a little bit. But I like my X-Men to be warm, and a family, and friends, and to play baseball and basketball, and not to all fucking hate each other, so sue me, I'll accept a step back for the story if it means I get the characterisations I prefer back.

Besides, the comics still exist for people who want the Krakoan stuff, so a bit of more original flavour X-Men for those of us who don't want our mutants to be living in various kinds of dystopia won't hurt anybody.

This also gives the show runners an opportunity to fix some of the issues the original show had, like a much more weakly written Jean and Jubilee than they ever were in the comics, and a chance to adapt some storylines that have NEVER been adapted before, like Inferno. I'm optimistic!

And, selfishly? Between the Marvels, X-Men '97, and what's currently going on in X-Force, I'm just ready for Beast to be written well again. I'm really hoping that he gets some good dialogue, a fun fight scene, maybe even a focus episode this season, but so long as he isn't doing some abominable shit, then I'll happily take it.

Maybe that makes me fickle or easy to please? Guilty as charged, then. I'll happily be easily pleased, because it means I'm fucking happy with what I get. :P

I don't know if I'll have a '97 verse? I can already tell you it'd be verse: hated and feared, but there's not a lot that's substantially different about TAS Hank to how he was in the 90s. That being said, I'm DEFINITELY going to try and get my hands on as many caps as possible - as you can already see, the lad looks so handsome!

#straysomethinginthewoods #verse: earth's mightiest!#outofmuffins #gif warning

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katierosefun · 4 months

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Hello!

I’m rewatching BE (again) and I’m curious what you think of the timeline of jwds. Some people are like oh yeah they def did stuff/something after [insert arrest/clue/chase scene/homoerotic moment] and stuff like that. I personally think that while there was a lot of sexual tension going on, nothing really happened until the ds arrest scene which was basically a confession. If I had to add anything to what happened in that scene I would say the “missing” part is that I think ds stopped jw from full on confessing bc ds knew he was going to jail. He didn’t want anything to happen bc it would leave jw tied to him but also not really tied to him and he didn’t want jw to wait for him or feel trapped. Jw has had no one in his life to count on and be cared for by. Letting jw create that link between them only to be whisked off to prison two seconds later would exacerbate his abandonment issues. Homeboy literally cried over ds’s hands he would not have handled an acknowledgment of anything beyond “juwoon-a” well. Also I fully believe that jw did not visit him in prison and ds wouldn’t have allowed him to if he’d gone.

But yeah anyways those are my very messy thoughts lol. What do you think about the timeline? Do you think anything happened that wasn’t shown in the show and/or how things went at the end and after Nam Sang Bae’s death anniversary (I also think that was the first time they’d seen each other since ds got out of prison)?

Thanks!

hi anon!

to answer your questions: i honestly think part of my love for beyond evil is that there are some pretty ambiguous moments where it seems like dong sik and joo won hung around each other more than was seen on screen, so i personally love playing with whatever might have happened between them during that time.

that said, from a more technical perspective: i think the beauty of a lot of television shows (not just beyond evil, but especially beyond evil) is that there's always going to be an ambiguity of what happens where and what's shown on screen or not. i think true film theory professors/geeks could ramble for hours about the power of the camera in storytelling and how it completely changes the medium of what we know vs. what we don't. which is really all to say that i think since it's a show that has a camera that turns on and then turns off, beyond evil inherently is going to have scenes that probably happened but just aren't actually shown to the audience.

so just by default, i think there must have always been things happening between dong sik and joo won that just didn't happen in the show, and that's just by virtue that this is a television series that's made deliciously more ambiguous by director shim na yeon and writer kim su jin's creative choices.

but from a fan's perspective: oh yeah, i think dong sik and joo won absolutely had some closer will they-won't they moments that we didn't get on screen. not necessarily because the cast and creators cut them, but just talking about the characters themselves here--i like to think that joo won and dong sik had plenty tenser moments of just. figuring out whatever the hell is going on with their relationship.

and as a fan/fanfic writer, i definitely love playing with what could have happened in those kinds of moments. in some versions, i like the idea of one of the two of them crossing a line somewhere . . . and in other versions, i like the idea of the two of them telling themselves that what they have is enough, and neither of them will do a single thing about it until maybe a year or ten years after the events of beyond evil. but who knows! the world is our oyster when it comes to things like that. it's just always nice to see when people have different interpretations and different ideas of how joo won and dong sik might have finally gotten together :)

#answered #anon #beyond evil #i did not mean to write like. 6 paragraphs about this show but clearly. i black out whenever i think about this show #but also i love talking about like . . . film theory + the power of the camera in general and all of its implications

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shepherds-of-haven · 2 years

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lena pls feel free to ignore this because it is very off topic but i don’t know any gamer gamers and i’ve seen you and other tumblr people talk about those games where you make choices and romance various aliens and do you have to shoot the video game gun good to play those?? my gaming skills are on the level of pokemon or nancy drew for example but i would like to kiss aliens too !!

Hi anon, it's no problem at all, I love to talk games! So I sort of separate the games I like to play out into two categories:

RPGs with choices

Choice-based games

"RPGs with choices" are what you've probably seen me talking about on here, like Bioware's Mass Effect (the one where you get to kiss aliens) and Dragon Age (the one where you get to kiss, like, elves and mages and etc.) or Spiders's Greedfall. These are some of my favorite games in existence, so I can't not urge people to play them as soon as humanly possible, because the stories, characters, and choices are absolutely fantastic; but these do contain real-time combat elements! So for Mass Effect, for example, you will need to aim and shoot things in between wooing your crewmates, and you do run around fighting enemies you encounter on missions. I'm not really good at shooting things, by any means, and you can play these on an easy difficulty, but if your level of comfort is more turn-based, this is something to know heading into it! Same goes for Dragon Age and Greedfall: you do have to fight things, but taking it slow and playing on the lowest difficulty might be less intimidating for you! Maybe look them up on YouTube to get a feel of the gameplay first!

Honorable mention here is BioWare's oldest game, Knights of the Old Republic, which is set in the Star Wars universe and features a kind of turn-based combat, though it takes some getting used to if you're used to things like Pokemon. However, there aren't really romance "options" (if you play a female character, for example, you have one male romance option, and if you play as a male, the reverse is true), and a brand-new remake was recently announced, so it might be worth waiting for that, since the old version does have some bugs unless you download some mods!

If turn-based games like Pokemon are more your speed, I'd recommend trying out games in my second category, which are more casual, typically more "choice-based," and not reliant on real-time combat at all. Among these are:

TellTale Games - all of the ones I've played from TellTale have featured excellent storytelling, and their gameplay style is all about making choices and investigating things via point-and-click (so I guess pretty similar to Nancy Drew), so there's no combat or anything like that (you do have to make some choices quickly, though). These feature less overt romance, though some titles do have it and let you choose between romantic interests for your character! I'd recommend their Walking Dead games or The Wolf Among Us to start out with!

Life is Strange - yes to romance options and yes to point-and-click gameplay! I definitely recommend starting with the original, which I believe just had a new remastered version come out. I haven't played Life is Strange 2 or Before the Storm (the prequel to the first game), but I also adored the latest entry in the series, Life is Strange: True Colors! However, like the TellTale games, these do have you play a set protagonist, not a customizable one where you get to choose your name and gender, etc.

Honorable mentions specifically for you:

Fire Emblem - if you haven't given the Fire Emblem series a try, I'd recommend it, particularly the latest and greatest entry, Fire Emblem: Three Houses! There are less choices to be made here (you get to choose what house you join in the latest one, which greatly diverges the story you experience, and things like who you want to spend time with; but there's less dialogue or story-altering choices like in the other games), and it features turn-based combat just like Pokemon. There are so many options to romance (and even matchmake between other characters as well!) in these titles that it will make your head spin. Gender-choice protagonists and the ability to romance/pair up characters started with Fire Emblem: Awakening, I'm pretty sure, so you could start with that one; Fire Emblem: Fates (not as good imo); or try out the most recent and richest title, Three Houses!

Persona - like Fire Emblem, this is not an actual "choice-based" game in the same sense of the others, but there is a large cast of romanceable options, a brilliant story and world, and turn-based combat very similar to Pokemon. And you do get to choose how to spend your time and make little dialogue choices, and there are different endings to each story as well! However, if playing as a female or male protagonist is important to you, only Persona 3 Portable has that option, and you'll have to wait to play that one when it's released on Steam on January 19th!

Honorable mentions in this category also include Supermassive's games like The Quarry and Until Dawn. These are horror-based games, though, but are all point-and-click choice-based games that do feature some romance/flirtation, though you switch between different (preset) character perspectives to help see these relationships through (or ruin them, it's up to you). Best played with other people for maximum effect!

Hopefully that helps you out, anon! And if anyone has any other suggestions to throw in there, feel free!

#video games #video game recommendations #recommendations

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hamliet · 2 years

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Rereading A Game of Thrones

In light of my recent Fire & Blood reread, I decided to reread the whole ASOIAF series because, well, why not. Below are some general observations/musings on the themes, character arcs, alchemy, and foreshadowing of book 1. I'll do this for the others as well. It's not really a meta so much as observations and thoughts.

Themes

Good Intentions Pave the Way to Tragedy

The most basic storytelling in existence tells us that protagonists have plans work out for them, just because they're good people with good intentions. Martin's whole schtick with A Game of Thrones is turning this on its head.

So many POV character's arc ends with their best intentions blowing up in their faces.

Ned tries to do the right thing and appoint the rightful heir. Robert's will was given to him, after all. He then even confesses to treason to save his daughter. He's still executed.

Catelyn leaves Winterfell as a mother to get justice for her child who was almost murdered. As a result of lies, she ends up unjustly arresting Tyrion and unwittingly helps set in motion a chain of events that results in the loss of her husband, risks to her daughters, and the potential loss of her eldest son, who crowns himself king in the north.

Daenerys saves Mirri Maz Duur and Eroeh and uses MMD to save Drogo. It just results in more death; the khalasar consumes itself, she loses Drogo and her child, and learns how little a life is worth when everything else is gone. Eroeh even faces a worser fate.

Sansa only wanted a happy ending like in the romantic songs she listens to; she accidentally gives Cersei the warning she needs to arrest her father. She then pleads for mercy and is rewarded with her father's head. Sansa had no bad intentions, but she lost her family and her freedom for this.

Arya intends to be a strong warrior and hates when others are bullied. She kills a boy at the end out of fear. She just wants to save herself. She didn't do anything wrong per se, but it will haunt her and influence her negatively down the line.

Good intentions, even righteous actions, guarantee nothing. But that doesn't mean they are pointless, either. Why? Because, Daenerys's arc shows us what you can do when only the dead and stone remain, when she arises from the ashes like a phoenix. Jon's arc shows us that others can pull us back, make loss bearable.

Duty vs Love

Duty vs. love is one of the main elements of a Romantic story, and Martin's identified himself as a Romantic. Guinevere and Lancelot, anyone? The love that cannot be, the love that is doomed because of duty--there's conflict. Courtly love is a key piece of this, and it's literally defined as:

a highly conventionalized medieval tradition of love between a knight and a married noblewoman, first developed by the troubadours of southern France and extensively employed in European literature of the time. The love of the knight for his lady was regarded as an ennobling passion and the relationship was typically unconsummated.

(Also yes the Romantics drew heavily on medieval tradition.)

It ties into the motif of the human heart against itself. Ned, the most honorable man, in the end chooses love over duty (Sansa's life over his honor). Arguably, he chose both, because his duty as a father is to protect his child first and foremost.

Yet those who eschew duty for love completely aren't framed positively either: see, Cersei and Jaime, Robert over Lyanna, etc. Neither, of course, is eschewing love for duty. Stannis, we know from the show, will in the end choose duty over love (burning Shireen), and it will be for nothing.

Instead of "duty or love," what Martin seems to be trying to do is explore the nuances of individual situations and choices, and to suggest that duty to others' wellbeing can't so easily be separated from love.

Jon, after all, ends up trying to choose between duty (the Night's Watch) and love (helping Robb become King of the North). In the end, though, it's the love of his friends on the Night's Watch that brings him back. It's not just because he said some words. It's their love, and it's the reality of the Others' threats--since the Others threaten them all, including every person Jon loves.

Justice and Mercy

It's a tale as old as time (or at least as old as the Bible): justice vs. mercy. Can true justice exist without mercy? Or is that just abuse itself? Is mercy really the exclusion of justice?

Stannis, for example, is said to be the full embodiment of justice. And notably? That's not a good thing:

Lord Stannis in particular. His claim is the true one, he is known for his prowess as a battle commander, and he is utterly without mercy. There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.

Just as we in the real world struggle with this question of when mercy becomes injustice, and when justice becomes injustice without mercy, so the characters struggle. Even Ned's honorable justice--executing Garen at the start of the book--turns out to have been wrong, and he's executed in a similar fashion at the end of the book. But it's not ironic justice; it's just sad.

Ned is caught precisely because of both, just like love and duty: justice, in that he refused to act in time to get Joffrey under his wing, but would have saved his life if he had. But it wasn't just to put Joffrey on the throne, so he doesn't.

He also tries to show mercy to Cersei by encouraging her to leave with her kids. He just misunderstands Cersei and assumes that, as a mother, she will prioritize her kids' lives first and foremost. Except, the tragedy is that Cersei has never had her father prioritize her life as anything more than a pawn to be used, and so Cersei calls Ned's bluff: "what of my wrath, Lord Stark?" It'd be easy to say Ned underestimated Cersei because he saw her as a role and not as a person, but I don't think that's quite true either. The reality is... Ned had good intentions. It just didn't work out, because injustice is the opposite of justice and of mercy, and injustice isn't a force of mindless orcs from a foreign land to be brought down. It's among us and it's within each of us.

The Outsiders

The real heroes of the story, the ones I'll call the Big Six, are Jon, Daenerys, Tyrion, Arya, Bran, and Sansa. Interestingly, all of them are outsiders--except Sansa. Jon is a bastard. Daenerys is an exile. Tyrion is a dwarf. Bran is crippled. Arya is a girl who doesn't like society's rules--and Jon directly compares her situation to his: "Arya never seemed to fit, no more than he had."

But just in case we were tempted to brush off Arya and especially Sansa as being not truly outsiders, we have Daenerys' chapter where she eats the horse heart which tells us exactly why Sansa is also an outsider to a degree:

If she choked on the blood or retched up the flesh, the omens were less favorable; the child might be stillborn, or come forth weak, deformed, or female.

Yep, female is seen as weak and a poor omen.

If I Look Back, I Am Lost

This is the line Dany repeats to herself after Drogo's death. She can't bring herself to look back at what she could have done differently. In the moment she says this, it makes sense: she can't bring Drogo back, and she can't undo what she's done already. She can only look forward. However... she's going to have to look back at some point, probably in TWOW, and that should provide a wake-up.

The most notable other character doing this at this point (don't worry, everyone will end up here by book 5!) is Tyrion. His proposal to Shae--that she act like his lover with romance--is essentially him reenacting his trauma with Tysha. A whore pretended to be your wife, so now you're asking Shae to pretend to love you. It should be clear from the start that this isn't going to end anywhere good.

Alchemy

Dismemberment of a "good man" is usually a symbol in alchemy for what needs to happen in order for the process to go. The man's parts are scattered. and he is killed, but from that scattering, everything will be purified and then brought back together. Pretty clearly the Starks (and also Tyrion and Daenerys, whom Ned tried to save).

The Process

When Jon says his vows in the godswood, it's clear that the weirwood trees are designed after the three stages of the alchemical process: "The forest floor was carpeted with fallen leaves, bloodred on top, black rot beneath. The wide smooth trunks were bone pale, and nine faces stared inward." The black stage is associated with death and decay, the white with skeletons (rinsing away of impurities). Red is the final stage.

The city of King's Landing also emphasizes these three colors: the Sept on Visenya's hill is white and crystal; the Dragonpit on Rhaenys' hill is black, and the Red Keep on Aegon's is, of course, red.

When Sansa finally gives up on her delusions of Joffrey, she "g[ives] herself to the darkness," which could be read as giving herself over to the black stage, to being transformed.

Green is the color of the prima materia, or the substances that will be made into the philosopher's stone. Tyrion fights at the Greek Fork. Bran is referred to as a "only a green boy with the smell of summer still on you." When Daenerys sets out on the Dothraki see, she has the following conversation:

"It's so green," she said.

"Here and now," Ser Jorah agreed. "You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood.

To me, this seems to indicate where Daenerys's arc will go: red completion.

The Wind

Again as @argentvive has pointed out, Dany being born in the middle of a terrible storm is likely a reference to the line from the Emerald Tablet about the Philosopher's Stone being "carried by wind". But there are actually a lot of references to wind in AGOT, like this Bran conversation:

Bran listened. "It's only the wind," he said after a moment, uncertain. "The leaves are rustling."

"Who do you think sends the wind, if not the gods?"

Maybe Bran will be an alchemist for Daenerys? Because her association with wind is strong in this story. When Khal Drogo gives her the silver horse, she says "Tell Khal Drogo that he has given me the wind." Indeed, he's given Dany what she needs to start her journey, and he will give her even more. When she tries to convince her husband to go to Westeros, she tells him ships are "Wooden horses with a hundred legs, that fly across the sea on wings full of wind." Drogo never takes Dany to Westeros, but this is how sailing works. Dany will arrive in Westeros carried by wind.

Also of note: the sea in alchemy can be representative of the mercurial waters, the substance that the stone is dissolved in before being coagulated. The Dothraki fear the sea, but Dany needs it.

Markings

The philosopher's stone, and most romantic couples, in alchemical stories, are made of characters with opposite "markings." These alchemical opposites are:

Male: Sun, sulphur, fire and air, hot and dry, red, gold, heart. Female: Moon, mercury, earth and water, cool and moist, white, silver, mind.

Arya is heavily marked as water and earth. Syrio Forel tells her she must become a "water dancer," and that's precisely what she does.

Pretty much all of the Starks of import are white. Sansa wears white silk. Bran wears silver pins. Jon is also water (snow). However:

Bran often dreams of wings and flying, which might indicate a future air marking for him. Daenerys has a similar dream about wings and flying. Yes, crows vs dragons, whatever. I genuinely wonder if Bran might switch markings at some point like Dany does.

"A dragon was air and fire."<--actual quote.

Daenerys's Rebirth

So as mentioned above, Dany undergoes a switch in her markings. This is also something argentvive has covered extensively. Drogo rides a red horse; Dany silver. Drogo is the "sun and stars," while Dany is the "moon of [his] life." But, as the story tells us through this myth, a moon can become a sun:

Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.

Towards the end of the story, Dany becomes red, sulfur, the sun, fire, and air; she even becomes heart via literally eating a heart. During the Mirri Maz Duur scene, it's noted that Drogo is forced to soak in a tub, and:

Her handmaids filled the tub with tepid water that stank of sulfur,

After this, Drogo's red horse is killed, because he will no longer be red; Dany will. The entire tent becomes bathed in red, and just in case we weren't aware this was a rebirth scene, Daenerys literally gives birth.

The blood had gone everywhere. Even the sandsilk walls were spotted with red, and the rugs underfoot were black and wet.

But her birth is not finished. No, it's dissolved, but not coagulated. Hence, the fire.

She climbed the pyre herself to place the eggs around her sun-and-stars. The black beside his heart, under his arm. The green beside his head, his braid coiled around it. The cream-and-gold down between his legs.

The eggs are interestingly placed by the three principles of alchemy: heart, mind (head), and body (since body characters can be, um, lusty). When Dany is reborn through the fire, she is naked like a baby, both child and mother (she's noted to be lactating, which she will use to feed her dragons).

Ser Jorah Mormont found her amidst the ashes, surrounded by blackened logs and bits of glowing ember and the burnt bones of man and woman and stallion. She was naked, covered with soot, her clothes turned to ash, her beautiful hair all crisped away . . . yet she was unhurt.

The Show That Shall Not Be Named (Mixing references here I know)

In regards to that dreadful show citing Viserys' death as an example of Dany being "cold" to her enemies... whew. So not true. When Viserys is executed, Daenerys does exactly what Ned Stark says anyone who executes another should: look him in the eye. She's asked to turn away, and she refuses. In other words, there's zero framing that we should be disturbed by her reaction--in fact, we should see her as honorable for it. It's also noted that Dany's handmaidens note that Daenerys's grief is real: "You have not laughed since your brother the Khal Rhaggat was crowned by Drogo," said Irri. "It is good to see, Khaleesi."

Rather than Dany's reaction being a sign of her nonexistent coldness, I think it's more another example of the main theme mentioned above: Dany kept trying to protect her brother by not telling him the truth about how the khals viewed him ("Khal Rhaggat"), even though 1) if she had, he'd have hurt her, and 2) he really should have been able to open his eyes and see the truth, but he willingly blinded himself not unlike Robert Baratheon. She had good intentions. It just didn't mean that there weren't extremely negative consequences. That also doesn't mean she should have told him, either.

Insofar as Bran ending up as some kind of king, Tyrion's line in the show was something about how Bran had the best story. A joke in the show, but possibly something like this will be said in the books (and, y'know, make sense). Bran is told by Old Nan: "My stories? No, my little lord, not mine. The stories are, before me and after me, before you too." Stories matter.

Foreshadowing:

It's hard to know what is accurate foreshadowing. There are some elements of George's original plans in this book that have clearly been scrapped. It's a retcon, but also not, because the retconning is less about changing the endgame and more about changing the steps along the journey. For example, the line about Jaime looking "like a king" at Winterfell, Jaime being appointed Warden of the East, etc, all seem to line up with Martin's original plan to make Jaime a villain to take the throne.

That said, for stuff that does pay off:

Jon wondering about his mother is followed up within three short paragraphs with a switch to the line "They said it was Donal Noye who'd forged King Robert's warhammer, the one that crushed the life from Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident." He's your daddy, Jon.

Varys is associated with the scent of lilacs from his very first scene. Lilacs are only else used to describe... the color of Dany and Viserys's eyes. He had Targaryen (or Blackfyre) connections from the start.

Jon and Dany have an interesting parallel that may or may not be alchemical: both are associated with bears. Jon is mentored by Jeor Mormont, and Dany inspires Jorah Mormont.

#agot #a game of thrones #agot meta #asoiaf meta #kinda #a song of ice and fire #daenerys targeryan #jon snow #tyrion lannister #sansa stark #cersei lannister #arya stark #bran stark #varys

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veliseraptor · 1 year

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@mayedays replied to your post “Sometimes I get immensely sad that you're not in...”:

What do you see as the other options? Bc the alternatives to defanging or death that I can see are (1) the author subjecting the antagonist to serious suffering/punishment (up to and including 'fate worse than death') to appease readers' sense of justice or (2) the fandom becoming so much more toxic towards the character (and their fans) bc of rage that justice (read: punishment) "wasn't served". (And I hate those options too! This feels like a no-win situation!)

I feel like you are talking about something a little different than I am, first of all, in that you seem to be talking about the canon fate of characters in-universe whereas I was specifically (in this post) talking about the way characters get written in fandom. But since I'm here and this does feel relevant to my interests, I'll take it!

Firstly, I don't think that avoiding a storytelling choice because "readers/fans will react poorly" is...a good way to do writing. An understandable way in this day and age, certainly! But I also think it's generative of...well, you know how people talk about the phenomenon of media being bleached of its color for the sake of not offending potential advertisers? That's what I see happening as a result of this kind of implied emotional terrorism, or fear of emotional terrorism on the part of writers.

Like I said, I think it's understandable to be scared of how people are going to react to something you write, whether that is for your own sake or the sake of a hypothetical reader - it's human to want to avoid unpleasant experiences. But I think caving to that fear, or accepting that as a stifling force on the creative decisions a writer feels at liberty to make, is neither desirable nor inevitable.

Secondly - it is relevant that I was talking about fandom here, because in a canon setting the antagonist is probably going, in some form, to have to lose. But if I'm engaging with this purely on the personal level of "how do I like to see writers handle their antagonists," there is a wide variety of ways for a narrative to treat its antagonists with grace. Even if an antagonist dies horribly, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a narrative decision that I by nature have a problem with. (I have discussed before the internal conflict for me between 'but I want this character to live :(' vs. 'it makes for a better narrative if they die', including with several of my own original projects.) But the way that defeat or death is handled can make a world of difference in my (personal) response to a text.

I have read books where it feels like the aim of the text is specifically punitive: it wants to punish the bad character, it wants to make them suffer, it wants to illustrate that they deserve it. I tend to not enjoy that. It's not the only way to write an antagonist's defeat, and not even the only way to write an antagonist's death. It feels miles better to me, as someone who tends to get invested in antagonists, to read a text that doesn't come with a punitive mindset baked in. (Punitive texts aren't inherently bad, they just tend to not be for me.)

But that isn't the only way to write a conclusion, and there are ways of hurting or even killing an antagonist that don't have to feel like the goal of the narrative is specifically to punish them. (I wrote a whole essay about an example of this! There were footnotes and everything.)

But I think the bigger thing here, that is perhaps just a distinction between the way I approach this question and the way you seem to be, is that the question you're asking is predicated on the understanding that the question of "how a text handles its villain" is a matter of how readers/fans will react to a text, and that is a major determining factor in how a story should be told. I just fundamentally disagree with that, and I think a story that is written under those premises is going to suffer.

#mayedays #lise has opinions #christ that got long #i need to eat dinner #i wrote this instead of doing havdalah whoops #actual english major lise #does this make sense? i hope so

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tonedeafkunst · 6 months

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assorted helluva boss sentiments

I knew it from the moment asmodeus appeared on screen. I felt it in my soul, I could see the heart eyes. I wonder how it ever felt to be a doubter because I was never one

2. While I do enjoy Fizzarozzie as much as the next guy I do hope the series continues to be about IMP instead of shifting focus every season? or at least concluding some type of arc for Millie and Moxxie? It feels weird that we haven't seen them in the last two episodes.

3. Speaking of weird things that don't fit. Musical numbers. 4 in one episode is way too much if they're going to be full-length musical numbers. Fizz's song should've been cut after the first verse -like the distraction one- and it should have been way less pop. Get fucking weird with the songs please I dare you. ALSO TOM CARDY. MORE TOM CARDY ALWAYS PLEASE THANK YOU

4. speaking of things that stop tempo to a halt and are way too based on the internet's love for the trope rather than the actual quality: Stolitz. not the ship in itself but the conflict it's going to endure in the next episodes. Please. for the love of god. "Oops" was without a doubt one of the best episodes in the series by virtue of the fact the characters TALK AND COMMUNICATE TO ONE ANOTHER. and as Oops shows, this doesn't mean having less conflict or interesting stuff happen! You can have Stolitz without getting this played-out fanfic Will-they-Won't-they bullshit and still make it interesting! I'd usually trust the writers cause Helluva Boss is one of the best-written series I've ever seen, flat out, but Stolas' backstory episode makes me weary. PLEASE have them communicate, Blitzo's problems aren't going to be carried away by it all because he's the protagonist and the story centers around HIM, having Stolitz be an arc of personal growth rather than the end point of said arc will make it MORE engaging

5. silly things interruptions. The Major Sin Design Debacle was obviously bad faith bullshit, and I enjoy every one of the Deadly Sins' designs, but I especially enjoy their theming. Lust isn't tied to any particular negative environment because this show, rightfully, doesn't want to depict lust as a sinful thing in the first place lmfao. Beelzebub as a party queen completely incapable of holding back is good, Sloth being depicted as hospital land is fun and I hope they expand the joke further, Wrath being a fiery and desolate land is appropriate. Greed is fun as a design and I find it very apt that a group of animators would depict the sin of avarice as being into entertainment and the merchandising of said entertainment and the people behind it. I do wonder why he's an insect? maybe there's some catholic lore behind it I don't remember but considering they (rightfully) are only kind of inspired by it as Beelzebub shows I would have preferred to see Mammon as a bit more parasite-like. Also, did I miss something. WHy is he Australian. he should definitely be British. though if you apply that logic I guess everyone should be British in hell

6. and last but not least... why oh why, if your show wants to focus on inter-character relationships (and it clearly does and it's the correct choice in every kind of storytelling) would you ever bring in class warfare and make the anticapitalist the asshole. Striker might want to kill our fave bird bottom but he's right. "ooooh but he works for Stella he's part of the system" hey the fact S2 stripped her of all her nuance doesn't excuse making Striker's cause into a joke as well. I just pray the writers KNOW what they're doing (and if Stolas' Harvest Moon Festival characterization is still canon, then they should be aware of what they're writing) and... I don't know if I'd prefer they ignore the entire theme by closing it off with a joke or at least give a satisfying ending of """compromise"""" to the entire system in hell. Considering how every romantic relationship between an imp and an overlord has been shown to either be incredibly positive or at least healing, and how the only negative relationships we're shown are -by nature of the show- character-focused and don't really touch on the systematic oppression of imps, I don't trust SpindleHorse will ever actually give space to the Imp Socialist Revoluton, which is a damn shame.

I'm going to go ahead and make the mistake of tagging this because I'd really like to find other fans to discuss with but please. for the love of god. If you read this until the end and aren't able to recognise this criticism is born out of LOVE for this show and a desire for it to become even better than it is. do us both a favour and ignore me.

Mediocre bad shows don't elicit this type of reflection and engagement and if they do for you I urge you to stop letting media make you more miserable

#helluva boss

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kirabook · 3 months

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My Paralives Impressions~

Relationships [link]:

Back when I was much more involved in the brainstorming of paralives with other peeps, this is an idea that cropped up and it's cool to see how they came up with this concept. You aren't just friends or lovers with people, every relationship has multiple different faucets. Great for storytelling. Also would be fun to switch households and learn this para you like a lot maybe secretly hates your guts. I remember someone bring up a relationship where they hate each other's guts but still kiss every other Friday (I can't remember if the devs confirmed that could happen but I imagine it could) I always liked how in Sims 2 relationships were more of a two way street and this is a great modernization of that concept imo.

Togetherness [link]

Obviously they're still filling in animations here and there, but I remember being amazed by how easy it was to create group interactions. No more clicking a character one by one to make them enter a specific room or sit at a table together or whatever. I feel like it could still be improved… the method to select them all I mean. Well, you can still just click on them to select the ones you want instead of dragging your mouse so you've got options. Pretty sure I read once that the Paras you select outside your household won't necessarily agree to being "together" with you. Can't just select the whole town and demand they do push ups or dance with you.

Togetherness Cards [link] (though the video mostly showed them in group interactions, they are in single interactions too)

I'm generally pleased with the direction they decided to go here. Instead of having to click over and over again to keep a conversation going between paras, you can have an ongoing interaction and influence it every now and then optionally. Just feels a little more natural too. Would two strangers with absolutely no chemistry really become besties after one interaction in a typical Sims fashion? Nope, and that's kinda fun. By going with something like this, if an attraction system is put into place (which I can't remember exists yet or not), then two paras who ACTUALLY have something in common or are attracted to each other maybe can naturally become besties in a shorter amount of time and skip some steps in between.

I remember some people wondering if the card choosing could be autonomous (as in, you don't even have to click it, the game could choose for you) so went to check. Here were some dev comments on the matter,

"Choosing cards is the way to advance relationships, and having Paras select one automatically could have big impacts on your game without you understanding why, it's certainly something we could think about tho :)"

So maybe won't be something available for release, but maybe in the future. I like to play it risky with high autonomy myself so I hope it's a thing.

Jobs [link]

A while back when someone posted that youtube video of a guy saying Paralives is pretty much just the Sims with a different coat of paint and don't have enough mechanics to differentiate itself from the Sims. This is the part that made me scratch my head the most. I mean, other than they different take on social interactions and personality, even the careers system is not something I've seen in The Sims. Not even the active careers are like this. I was even more confused when he claimed he was a patron member and saw everything and still had this opinion.

I like that you have somewhat of a choice in what you want to do with your job. Like me right now irl. I'm very comfortable where I am. I'm not trying to climb a corporate ladder or get a promotion. Sure, I'd like a raise every now and then but I like my current job. With a system like this, you don't HAVE to chase the corporate ladder. You can just have your job and slowly build up perks within it.

Also the fact that there's not really "career tracks". You don't start your job at the local hospital as a bed pan cleaner and someday become a top surgeon. You have to actually apply for different positions and sometimes they're not even associated with the same business/company. I really like that little touch of realism. The road to the top isn't a straight line, but a maze with some dead ends along the way.

They said there wouldn't be active jobs at the time of early access release, so I wonder how it's going to work. I mean, we saw Anisa getting a job in the video but not much else. Maybe she disappears when she gets to the building ala Sims 3 career rugs. I would have no problem with something like that since I'm quite used to it. It's not a complete rabbit hole and still allows you to fill out the town with custom buildings and decor. Maybe the more basic jobs like being a Barista aren't necessarily "active", but Anisa will stand there for 8 hours a day taking coffee orders at the register like an NPC/role sim.

Needs/Wants [link]

This is the part I really wanted to see peoples opinions on. It's quite different from LBY, Sims, and Inzoi. There are no needs meters, just a general statement of what the Para is feeling. I'm like 50/50 on it. I actually like the idea, but I wonder how I will feel playing it? It's like forcing you to be less micromanagy and just enjoy playing the game rather than watching your needs meter like a spreadsheet simulator. But what if there's something going on in the world or the para is sick? I would want to know exactly what I need to fix before it gets too bad and all their needs are suddenly red…. but then again, it's kinda a fun challenge to guess how they're actually feeling without the meters?? I dunno. Still hoping fears or something makes a comeback but not sure how it would work here. Maybe if you do the exact opposite of what the "want" stays. Like "I don't want to talk to this para". You make them talk to that Para and they get upset? Dunno.

Anyway, I really love all the concepts they've developed and implemented. They seem to have fun tinkering around with it but I guess the general audience can't truly know how it plays until we get a chance to do it ourselves. I didn't expect them to announce early access even though I speculated maybe they could. So looking forward to next year~

#paralives #paralives game #text

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