#i vow not to get into that essay here but his motivations were coming from a different place than for eg. tfa where hes much more justified | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thequiver · 3 years

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i need that bruce and arkham essay plz

I’ll answer this tomorrow I told you almost two and a half hours ago and yet here I am. At almost 4 am so bear with me folks.

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS DISCUSSION OF TROUBLING ACTIONS, SERIOUS MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES, AND VIOLENCE

So, what really starts me in on discussions around Bruce and Arkham, and something I feel like a lot of people either don’t know, conveniently ignore, or forget is that Bruce was in his youth, an Arkham patient. Specifically Alfred sent Bruce to an Arkham boy’s’ rehabilitation facility upstate. Against his will. Because he was obsessed with the idea of shooting and killing his parent’s murderer and had almost attempted suicide. This rehabilitation facility is where Bruce meets and befriends Harvey Dent. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Following his stint at the rehabilitation facility- Bruce exhibits even more troubling behavior, which suggests that his time at an Arkham facility did not teach him healthy coping mechanisms or do much to help him learn to process his emotions. While still a young man (18 or under) Bruce:

Responded to a question a teacher asked in class by burning it into their front yard

Hired a homeless man to pretend to be Alfred to sign paperwork that would authorize the erasure of his memories via electroshock therapy (he ultimately did not go through with the procedure)

Used the Irish mob to track the location of Joe Chill and then interrogated him

Now I understand that despite having a certification in mental health first aid, and having PTSD, that I am by no means an expert in human psychology. But I feel comfortable saying that the Arkham system failed Bruce Wayne and that Bruce Wayne does not have healthy coping mechanisms.

Bruce ultimately did not commit suicide because he believed it would not be what his parents wanted for him, and vowed instead to dedicate his life to stopping crime - from that moment until he finds Joe Chill and learns that the motivation behind his parents death was simply that Chill needed a quick buck and that his parents death, to quote the fandom wiki had “no deeper meaning,” Bruce’s quest for vengeance and stopping crime is based around a conspiracy surrounding his parent’s murder that he has concocted in his own mind. One might think that after learning that the motivation behind the murder of his parents was money, and Bruce Wayne being a billionaire that he might have stopped to consider that perhaps crime is motivated by poverty, but alas, world’s greatest detective my ass.

Bruce, now fueled by the loss of his parents and the anger that his parents death has been reduced to the need for a quick buck begins his multi- year training montage. During this montage, while he’s ignoring Alfred’s attempts to contact him, Bruce let’s an assassin into the home of one of the men training him, and the man’s dying breath warns him that death would come of fostering close personal relationships, and Bruce sure didn’t listen to therapy, but he does take that message to heart. As a way to formally end his training, Bruce then climbed to the top of Wayne Tower and jumped off.

These are not the decisions of a man who is mentally healthy.

From pretty much the get go we see Bruce go from a child who was powerless in a situation where his parents were taken from him, into a damaged young man who was failed by a mental health facility and then spent seven years training to beat the absolute shit out of criminals after finding out that his parents were killed for a quick buck. The Joker at one point has to stop Bruce from stabbing the Riddler in the face. And of course we’ve all seen Bruce almost beating criminals to death and beating the shit out of his kids, and forming plans on how to take down other superheroes. These are not healthy behaviors.

But how does Arkham tie into this beyond Bruce being a former patient? What I’ve tried to do is establish a few things.

Bruce Wayne was failed by the Arkham system (a system that, at the time of her death, his mother was desperately trying to reform)

Bruce Wayne has control issues (both in that he has issues regulating his emotional responses and those responses lean towards extreme and violent behavior, and that he wants to be in control and he wants to be right all the time)

Bruce has not made an attempt to seek professional help since Alfred sent him to the rehabilitation facility (or as I said in another post of mine “Bruce refuses to get therapy and make that everyone else’s problem.”)

Bruce has self destructive tendencies

Arkham is a system that Bruce cannot control. He couldn’t control it when he was a patient, and he wouldn’t be able to control it as a major donor seeking to fix the broken system that failed him and carry on his mother’s legacy. What medical professionals in a mental health facility do are outside of his control.

Furthermore while punching a criminal to the point of near death or disfigurement, or dropping an unconscious goon at the police station will typically stop a run of the mill mugger, thief, etc, from committing more crimes at least for a while (assuming of course that they can even make an arrest when the chain of custody on any evidence has been broken), more high profile criminals the ones we see as recurring members of the Rogues Gallery who seem to be motivated by something other than poverty are typically found unsuited for trial and would thus be sent to a rehabilitation facility, like Arkham.

These high profile villains offer more of a fight than a mugger who hasn’t had a proper meal in the last two days, and as such they can usually injure Bruce while he’s in the Batsuit. This feeds into two of Bruce’s things- his self destructive behavior, and his history of violent behavior. But- is Arkham worked, if the rogues really were to be rehabilitated the opportunity for the catharsis brought on by the violence both towards and from them would be gone, Bruce would not be in control of their recovery, and as we’ve seen, Arkham has failed Bruce, and imo it’s unclear if he thinks Arkham can actually help people.

Bruce doesnt fix Arkham because that would mean admitting that it failed him, that it needs fixing because he is not mentally well, he does not want to admit that he is not in control of himself or that he is in some way “damaged.” Fixing Arkham would also stop the revolving door of break ins/outs that provide him with the catharsis brought on by violence- if it ceases to be real life monopoly jail the frequency of these encounters would dwindle and as many of us know, bad coping mechanisms often become a habit and Bruce would become twitchier.

Furthermore, handling all of the Arkham break outs gives Bruce a sense of accomplishment on his self assigned mission to squash crime- he’s handling all of these big name villains, on a rotating basis means that he is busy with at least one of the rogues pretty much all the time. This sense of accomplishment is important, after all, it’s not like he’s doing anything to stop crime at the source, and without a sense of accomplishment how could he ever hope to moralize at other heroes and hold them to an impossible standard that he himself is not even meeting?

Bruce’s time in the Arkham system is something that is often overlooked but does quite a bit in shaping Bruce’s perspective and decision making. And they’re not good decisions or good perspectives.

#anti bruce rhetoric #anti-Bruce rhetoric #arkham asylum #Arkham #batman #bruce wayne

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every-kirishima-eijirou · 4 years

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The Beauty of Red Riot’s Origin Story: Episode 72 Analysis (LONG POST AHEAD)

Well, here we are! I’ve been waiting ages to watch this episode, and now, it’s finally done, and I am more than happy with how it turned out. I’ve seen it in both Japanese and English, back to back, and both Toshiki Masuda and Justin Cook knocked their performances out of the park, and the emotion conveyed in their voices only made our boy’s origin story that much more emotional. But WHY is it so emotional? What makes such a seemingly ordinary backstory have such an impact on a viewer? (Especially viewers like, you know, US). Well, this is the purpose of this lil analysis here, so let us explore how Kirishima’s backstory contributes so nicely to his character. (Disclaimer: Manga screencaps are not my translation).

Let’s start from the beginning:

This panel shows us what we already knew to begin with: Our boy Kirishima is good-natured, stands up for others, and has strong, manly convictions. Nothing special, really, and the revelation that he was like this long before he entered UA is a great foundation for his character. In that regard, he has a similar foundation to Deku, but what differs is their struggles. Now, we know Deku grew up without a quirk in a society where quirks have been thoroughly normalized, but what does Kirishima struggle with, if anything? Is that even possible, what with him being so outgoing and boisterous?

As it turns out: yes. It’s VERY possible. This is where we see that our Red Riot is not as infallible as we may have thought. Yes, Deku had a hard time growing up without a quirk, and while Kirishima was born with a quirk just like most others, he grew up being ashamed of it, which if you think about it is a lot worse in some ways. Quirks are hereditary, and for many people, including Kirishima, quirks are also an important part of one’s own identity. This can inspire feelings of depression and even envy towards people with “better” quirks, like Mina. In contrast with Kirishima’s more traditional view of heroism and chivalry, Mina has a flashy quirk and bubbly personality, which is really effective for diffusing the situation with the bullies. This is where Kirishima’s manliness fails him, and no, not because he got shown up by a girl (thank GOD for that). It’s because heroism in the “modern” age favors heroes who can provide entertainment. Someone who’d be right at home in, say, the idol industry (like Mina). According to his friends, Kirishima’s hardening quirk, which he sees as boring, would not fly in today’s society. Now, Kirishima doesn’t care so much about what his peers think of him, but he’s still ashamed of his quirk, so he trains to harden his body and spirit, both literally and figuratively:

Also much like Deku, Kirishima has his own hero he looks up to: Crimson Riot. He serves as Kirishima’s main source of inspiration. It’s where he gets his hardline traditionalism from, and also how he copes with having a quirk he sees as “boring”. Again, this is where he and Deku differ. Deku looks up to All Might in a fanboyish sort of way, which inspired him to strive to be a hero as well. Kirishima, on the other hand, not only sees Crimson Riot as an inspiration to be heroic, but also because they have similar quirks. It’s only natural for a child who’s been conditioned be ashamed of something they can’t help. It’s something I can personally relate to as someone who struggled a lot with sexuality as a teenager, and something many others can surely relate to as well. This makes our boy an effective source of inspiration as well.

However, no matter how hard he trains, both physically and mentally, Kirishima still can’t train himself to not feel fear. It’s only natural for ordinary people to feel fear. After all, fear was what kept humans alive back when they were just starting out. Still, this goes against all of Kirishima’s ideals of what being a hero means. Sure, he has no problem standing up to some regular school bullies, but unlike him, Mina didn’t hesitate to act when her friends were cornered by a 30-foot tall villain in the street. She’s a prime candidate for UA, so what chance does he have of getting in if he can’t stand up to a literal supervillain?

So, he gives up on his dreams of getting into UA. He didn’t act when it mattered. That was it for him. Even worse, the incident where Deku saved Bakugou from the slime monster made headlines. It was good that Horikoshi showed how this affected Kirishima, who was totally uninvolved, because it makes you think of what exactly that implies. After that incident, Deku was miraculously given a powerful quirk by All Might. Maybe if Kirishima were the protagonist, he would have been so lucky, but that’s not the case (more on this later). Despite this, Crimson Riot blesses Kirishima in a more indirect sense:

In his frustration, Kirishima throws a book against the wall, and coincidentally, this hologram-looking thing of Crimson Riot starts playing, and it’s exactly what he needs to hear. As he listens, Kirishima realizes that not even Crimson Riot is immune to fear, but he copes with it by telling himself that failing to save someone because you didn’t do anything is far worse than charging in and giving it your best shot. That way, he can live his life without regret, which is, from then on, what Kirishima strives to do.

Finally, with a fresh motivation to get into his dream school, our boy pulls through (and gets 2nd place in the entrance exams!). To commemorate this, Kirishima dyes his hair and vows to leave his past behind him, and Red Riot as we know him today was born.

This should surprise absolutely nobody, but Kirishima’s is my favorite backstory in the whole series, and to conclude this lil essay, I’m going to explain why. As I said before, his backstory is something a lot of people can resonate with. Feeling shame and self-doubt is something many people go through, and it’s prevalent with people who have conditioned themselves to feel ashamed of something beyond their control. Coming to terms with my bisexuality was a struggle for me, so I can definitely relate indirectly.

This ties into the SYMpathy vs EMpathy argument. A lot of backstories in My Hero Academia, or even media in general, are tragic in a way that not everyone can relate to (not criticism, just observation). Let’s take Todoroki, for example: he was essentially quirk-bred by his father and was abused by him, being trained to the point of overexertion. On top of that, his mother gave him the scar over his left eye, and he has carried that trauma with him his whole life. Not everyone had such a toxic upbringing, but Todoroki sure did, and many people feel sorry for him. In other words, they sympathize. Kirishima, to contrast, had a much healthier upbringing, but has a lot of internalized self-esteem issues that everyone can relate to (or empathize with). While sympathy is the capacity to feel sorry for someone, empathy is the capacity to UNDERSTAND someone. Don’t get me wrong, tragedy is often a crucial element to a story’s narrative (if it’s done well), but it’s sometimes more cathartic for the viewer to see a character overcome more everyday struggles, especially if they can understand them on a fundamental level.

The last argument I will make goes back to what I was saying about Kirishima not being the protagonist, and I think if he WERE, his origin story would not be nearly as impactful. One might say that Kirishima embodies the more stereotypical “hot-blooded” shonen protagonist than Deku does, and I agree to some extent. However, it works better for him to be a supporting character. In most shonens (like Naruto), the protagonist’s backstory is established right away, and as such, the viewer always sees their character in the context of what they were like in the past (we get it STOP SHOWING US THE FUCKING SWING--) In Kirishima’s case, his backstory comes into play much later, and by that point, we are already so familiar with his Red Riot persona that the revelation that he wasn’t always so eager and optimistic hits that much harder, and seeing how it contrasts with Kirishima as we know him in the present feels more rewarding. Yes, we get to see bits and pieces of it early on, like when he feels inadequate after meeting Tetsutetsu and seeing that their quirks are nearly identical, but seeing those feelings fully presented in his backstory only serves to drive that home. In short, we see, at a glance, how far he’s come since then, instead of being forced to watch the whole process from start to finish, and it works really well.

Another common trend among shonen protagonists, as I said before, is their tendency to be blessed with miraculous new abilities to make them special (and that includes Deku). Obviously, that didn’t happen with Kirishima. He had no pro-hero mentor to guide him, nor an all-powerful booster quirk to bolster his hardening abilities. He got to where he did through sheer perseverance and hard work, with only his idol’s words to keep pushing him forward. While Deku also had to work hard to get to where he is, fortune was on his side, and the fact that Kirishima pulled himself up by his bootstraps (so to speak) is, to me, a lot more admirable.

And THAT, my friends, is the core of why Kirishima means so much to me as a character, and even if he doesn’t become the #1 hero in the story, he’s my personal #1 hero. So, on that note, thank you for all your support, and as always...Stay sturdy!

tl;dr I FUCKING LOVE KIRI SO MUCH YOU GUYS

#admin talks #essay #episode 72 #kirishima eijirou

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libermachinae · 4 years

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An Abundance of Prowls

I remembered the first time I read IDW, feeling like I couldn’t get a hold on Prowl’s character, like he existed as a general concept but I was never really sure what his goals were or why he did... anything he did. I mentioned it to my girlfriend, who was delighted to introduce me to the discourse of our local cop car/war criminal.

Months later, in anticipation of Prowl Week, I said to myself, “Well, I could read through all of Prowl’s appearances, in the order they were published in, and see how the writers developed him over time. That could help make sense of his character.”

Friends. It did not. Here’s a summary, plus my thoughts. [Spoilers ahead!]

Infiltration: Prowl’s first appearance in IDW is him yelling at Ratchet for exposing the Autobots to the humans. We’ll call this guy Rule-Abiding Prowl, and he’s very steady/boring throughout the rest of the -ation series. His main function is to try to stop kids from being involved in the plot. Thanks Furman.

Spotlight: Kup: Our first glance of Spec Ops Prowl. Though he’s not physically present for most of the issue, Nick Roche still delivers a Prowl who is behind the scenes, pulling the strings. I was honestly surprised by how early on this was set up, considering everything we’re about to trudge through.

Megatron Origin: More Rule-Abiding Prowl, this time by Eric Holmes. He has a job, he does as he’s told, he clings to the chain of command like a padlock.

All Hail Megatron: Seven instances in which we’re victorious! It’s number-cruncher Prowl time; also anxious, war-weary, slightly hopeless Prowl. Maybe Shane McCarthy was trying to do a combination Roche and Furman? It’s all for naught, in the end, because Roche got brought back in to follow up on Kup’s story and he dove all the way in with Prowl being a sneaky bastard.

Spotlight Prowl: Can’t get too far ahead of ourselves, though! Mike Costa wanted Prowl to be a hardboiled detective with a a spark of gold SO BAD. Also the point at which Prowl falls into his terrible cycle of learning a lesson only to learn the opposite thing in the next issue. In this case, it’s between doing what’s right regardless of the rules, and sticking to the rules because order is paramount. Is this unresolved internal conflict going to haunt our boy for the rest of the continuity? Mmmm. Transformers V1 is more of the same, except now Prowl has a little buddy. Can’t lie, Streetwise delights me and I wish he’d stuck around.

Death of Optimus Prime: Co-written by Barber and JRo, so it’s tricky to say who exactly was responsible for what, although I have a feeling JRo was all over that Peaceful Resolution backstory. This does provide a perfect bed in which to sew the seeds of who Prowl will be in the coming arc.

MTMTE: Okay, full disclosure? I jotted this guy down as Warm Prowl in my notes. Through flashback, JRo gives us a gentler version of the character whose blunt nature and vow to regulation are underscored by a hidden concern and appreciation for his partner, Tumbler. Don’t look at me, I think about the conversation about the coming war and them leaving together all the goddamn time. Also, JRo waves at his buddy Roche’s Spec Ops Prowl from afar.

RID: War’s over, everyone can (literally!) go home! Prowl? Hey, bud, did you hear the news? No, ofc not, because this is Endless War Prowl, the guy who is convinced the Neutrals are out to murder everyone and also that Bumblebee sucks at his job. This is also the arc where Bombshell happens :(

Dark Cybertron: Prowl Buries His Trauma

Spotlight Bumblebee: Rude boy. Doesn’t like Bumblebee? Doesn’t respect the chain of command?

Autocracy/Monstrosity/Primacy: Prowl wants to follow rules! He trusts Optimus’ judgement! Babey Prowl.

RID Pt 2: It’s hard to classify this Prowl because so much of what he does in this arc is in response to things that have been done to him. The Decepticons mind controlled him, so he has to keep them from getting the Engima. He’s been saddled with gestalt coding, so now he needs to have the Constructicons along wherever he goes. Spike Witwicky betrayed him years ago, so dammit, now he’s gotta spend a Saturday trying and failing to squish one tiny human. He’s Renegade Prowl in my notes, because this is definitely the point where he stops giving a shit about rules. (Get a teeny bit of Warm Prowl, tho, when he calls Bumblebee his best friend. Kinda comes out of nowhere, the guy could have used your support like, any time over the last few years, but it’s a nice moment.)

Combiner Wars: Absolutely loses his goddamn shit. It’s like Spec Ops Prowl, going behind everybody’s backs, making the “hard choices” (he’s literally deciding to kill off the Cybertronian species; please keep this detail in mind), but he does it all as a giant combiner who solves problems by smashing them, so we’re gonna stick with Renegade Prowl. Barber wants to blame this on gestalt coding. I shrug and say sure, though I do raise a hand to question it when Optimus proceeds to beat him up for it.

Sins of the Wreckers: NAUGHTY SPIDER TIME. Roche takes all of Barber’s Bitch Prowl energy and embellishes it with those sweet spec ops tactics we’ve been missing so dearly. Gone are giant combiners smashing shit: now it’s just Prowl having ideas, making deals, and twisting morality to suit his own needs while desperately trying to avoid the fact that he has a conscience. Roche also makes the fascinating move of highlighting Prowl’s shittiness while subjecting him to Tarantulas’ arguable shittierness. There’s a nice moment at the end when he decides he wants to do better going forward, though Roche leaves it open for other authors’ interpretations via violent interruption by Impactor. Nick Roche never writes Prowl again, and an infinitesimal part of the internet grieves.

MTMTE Pt 2: AKA the misadventures of Luna I, AKA the one scene where Prowl’s helping with the dishes and actually seems comfortable for the first time in centuries. JRo takes a comedic approach to the character which is evocative of his Warm Prowl invention. Just one thing. Remember that detail I told you to remember earlier? About how he was entirely ready to bring Cybertronians to extinction? Here to Sentinel, Prowl says, and I quote, “And unlike you, I don’t feel the urge to kill the rest of my species.” I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, so rather than risk turning this into an actual literary essay, I’m going to leave it at that.

Optimus Prime: Two versions of Prowl in here: one from the past, where he describes himself as “unpopular” and beats up Jetfire, and present-day, where he somehow ends up in a ship with Stardrive, Garnak, Wheelie, and a vamparc gun from Autocracy. No one bothers to explain how this came about, the same way no one explains how by the books, rule-driven Prowl started battering prisoners before the war ever started.

Unicron: The most bizarre. Prowl does his whole logic thing, gotta sacrifice Devisiun so we can save everyone else, y’know. But then, in the showdown with Shockwave, he gives a whole speech about how the real battle is within the self, to make sure goodness prevails or something like that. It comes out of nowhere and I guess is a follow up from the Wreckers, but honestly idk?

Lost Light epilogue: Rule-Abiding Prowl! Hey dude, how you been? Work for Windblade now? Have an official job reviewing Functionist Cybertron and establishing ties with the Galactic Council? Neat!

Optimus Prime epilogue: Giving this one its own thing because it’s one of Prowl’s most memorable moments for me, personally. He begins by acknowledging his own multifaceted nature through an argument with Shockwave, arguing that every one of an individual’s identities are “real” and rendering this entire exercise moot. After I dragged myself off the floor from that realization, I went straight into the line that has always stuck with me, “We are our actions... not our hopes.” Barber wraps up Prowl’s character by having him acquiesce to the criticism he’s been facing since the beginning of the continuity. It places a heavy emphasis on Spec Ops Prowl, the one who made “hard choices” in hope of possibilities that rarely came to pass, but is not entirely bound to that identity. Every aspect of Prowl I’ve described here performed actions that influenced the overall plot of the comic, though his motivations throughout are rarely transparent. What do we make of it, now that the character himself is now saying they didn’t matter? Is Prowl the sum total of the crimes he committed, friends he betrayed, and lives he sacrificed? In our calculations of Prowl, is there any variable that represents an unclaimed seat on the Peaceful Resolution?

Answering that question isn’t what I set out to do here, though, and I’ve already had to stop myself from writing an English essay once. I hope someone finds this useful, because putting it together was like building a puzzle of pieces that don’t quite fit together. You could even argue that not all of them are important, and that some bring down the integrity of the whole. They’re all in the box together, though, so we’ve gotta make something out of them.

#maccadam #idw tf #prowl #my writing

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dragonkeeper19600 · 4 years

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Houseki no Kuni vs. Steven Universe

Context: I commented on a Houseki no Kuni video on YouTube agreeing there was no point in comparing Steven Universe and Houseki no Kuni, as a lot of marketers have done in the past, because Steven Universe is clearly better. A Houseki no Kuni fan derided my view and “challenged” me to explain. So, I found myself writing an essay. An actual essay. To explain what Steven Universe does right and what Houseki no Kuni does wrong. And, I stand by it enough that I want to repost it here.

So, here we go.

Let's talk character, shall we? Now, a lot of fans of Houseki no Kuni bring up the fact that comparisons to Steven Universe are mostly arbitrary, that despite being gemstone-based works, both have different rules, lore, characters, story, etc. All of which is totally fair and accurate. We shouldn't assume that two stories are the same or are even trying to accomplish the same thing because they both have a character named "Yellow Diamond" or "Padparadscha" in them. But, that said, there are a few story similarities the two works share. Both deal with a main character who undergoes an arc from an immature idealistic to someone much more mature and wiser. (Though, this is a storytelling convention unique to neither series.) Additionally, a major focus in both works is the main character's relationship to their main parental figure and role model. In Houseki no Kuni, this would be Adamant-Sensei. In Steven Universe, this is Steven's mother, Rose Quartz. Rose Quartz is deceased, of course, and Sensei is not, but for the most part the protagonists' relationship to these individuals is very similar. Both Phos and Steven go from idolizing these figures and seeing them as the epitome of what they themselves should aspire to to strongly reevaluating their previous hero-worship and coming face to face with all the hardship they've truly caused in the past. In this way, Phos and Steven can be said to through similar stories with similar lynchpins to start their journeys.

However, the moment you realize this crucial similarity is when the comparisons between the two arcs begin to crop up. And, in every way, Steven Universe is more dramatic, more focused, and has a better setup and payoff than Houseki no Kuni. And don't think I'm saying that Steven Universe is tonally darker than Houseki no Kuni because it isn't. That's not what I mean by "more dramatic." Dramatic doesn't refer in this case to scariness of subject matter or imagery, it refers to how strongly motivated the protagonist's decisions are. How badly do they need something and how are their decisions motivated by that need?

Let's start with Steven Universe. While Steven's goals. problems, and beliefs change a lot throughout the course of the series, there are two clear motivations that remain throughout his entire journey. They are:

1. Protect the Earth.

2. Who am I?

That's it. Everything Steven does can more or less be boiled down to those two things. The first problem represents the biggest physical source of conflict in the series. There are wild gem monsters roaming the Earth endangering the human population, many of the antagonists who come to Earth want in some way to harm the Earth. Keeping the planet and the human race safe is what motivates not only Steven but all his allies.

The second motivation deals with Steven navigating his identity as not only a gem hybrid but, perhaps even more crucially, as the only child and heir to someone he's been taught to believe was a great hero. His mother, Rose Quartz, protecting humanity from destruction. She led a rebellion against a tyrannical government to free other gems. Despite being an alien, she grew to love humanity and fell deeply in love with one human man in particular. She gave up her very life to have Steven. Etc., etc. From the beginning, Steven has been attempting to live up to his mother's legacy. In this way, Steven's second motivation, who am I, is even more important than the first because it is what drives him, and the rest of the Crystal Gems, toward the first goal. The reason they fight so hard to protect Earth is largely because of the precedent set by Rose Quartz. This is what changes wanting to protect the Earth because it's the right thing to do to needing to protect the Earth as a way to connect to Rose Quartz, someone they all love and long for. When you compare the two, wanting will always be less powerful than needing.

As the story goes on, Steven learns slowly but surely that the situation isn't as black and white as he'd thought. The monsters he'd been fighting are actually gems who underwent an involuntary transformation, most of the villains who attack humanity aren't doing it simply because of their wickedness but are directly reacting to what Rose Quartz has done. Their actions are the fallout of her actions, and a lot of the antagonists are motivated by very real and (as Steven discovers) justified hurt by what Rose Quartz did to them. Many of them are mourning people who were lost in the war she caused, several were emotionally wounded by her directly, including some among Steven's closest friends. Steven's view of his mother changes from sunny and worshipful to one of uncertainty and even resentment. But, through Steven's growing knowledge, wisdom, and attitude change, his goal of "Who am I?" remains unchanged. Because now, his goal changes from proving he's like his mother to proving he's not like his mother by becoming a better class of hero, one who heals instead of hurts. Though his quest of self-realization has changed from "I am the same," to "I am different," the core goals that motivate his thinking have not changed.

Now, keeping all of that in mind, Steven's needs and how the most important figure in his life informs those needs, let's go back to Houseki no Kuni. Phosphophyllite starts off the series in many ways the same position as Steven. He's the youngest gem, he's weak, he's inexperienced, and he's naive. He completely idolizes not only his Sensei but also the fighting skills of the other gems, wishing to be as strong as they are. The main difference in their situations is that while Steven started off the series being adored by the other gems, Phos mostly only irritates his people, but in all other ways, Phos and Steven start off in very similar places.

Phos's goal is also clearly established in the first episode/chapter of Houseki no Kuni: "I want to be valuable." Phos is constantly derided for being a worthless gem. With a hardness of only 3.5, useless in battle, and in general incompetent, Phos wants to prove that he can be useful, that he can be needed. So far so good. That's a strong motivation and a clear way forward for the story. The building blocks of Phos's arc have been put in place.

The problem, the big problem that drags the rest of Houseki no Kuni down, is the execution. The inciting incident (the thing that gets the plot started) in Houseki no Kuni is when Sensei hands Phos the notepad and tasks him with writing the encyclopedia. Immediately, there's an issue of timing. Phos may be the youngest gem, but the story clearly establishes that when the story starts, he's 300 years old. Why is Sensei only now asking him to do this? The fact that gems are immortal beings doesn't change how many days and seconds long 300 years is, which is a lot. Phos's attitude and desire to be useful aren't a new thing, so why did Sensei wait until he was 300 to give him something to do? Like, what was Phos doing all that time? And, if Sensei was content to let Phos carry on doing nothing for 300 years, why did he decide now was the time to give him a job? Just a whim? Sorry, but a whim is not enough. Sensei doesn't need the encyclopedia done. If he needed it, it would have been done hundreds if not thousands of years ago. But no, he comes up with this on the spot, as Phos is lying in a bag in pieces, presumably just to make Phos feel important.

But, okay, now Phos has been given a task. Finally. So, does Phos use this task to prove he can be useful? Does he strive to be the best writer/researcher he can be in the hopes that people will take him seriously? Does he even seem to care about the encyclopedia thing at all? Nope. His immediate reaction is to whine and complain that the encyclopedia assignment is not good enough. For the length of time that the encyclopedia remains a plot element (which is surprisingly little), Phos frequently expresses a lack of interest if not outright disdain for the project. Heck, even when Euclase tries to get him to investigate Ventricosus's shell, something he points out no other gem knows anything about and would be a huge discovery, Phos immediately tries to pass the task back to Euclase. They're outright asking him to do something important, something no one has ever done before, and he's not doing it.

Okay, that by itself wouldn't be so terrible because Phos finds another goal for himself in the form of Cinnabar. Early on, as Phos struggles to find a starting point for the encyclopedia, he talks to Cinnabar and discovers how bad his situation is. Cinnabar, too, carries on a task that he knows has no value (night patrol), he never interacts with anyone because the mercury constantly radiating off his body makes him a danger to everyone, and he's even more fragile than Phos with a hardness of only 2. Everything about Cinnabar's character seems designed to make him appear as the one person lowlier then Phos. Here is someone who could actually need Phos. Phos's vow to find him a better job (something only he can do) is a powerful moment because it shows how Phos is choosing to make himself valuable, by helping someone in a way no one else can.

So, then, Phos's bond with and desire to help Cinnabar is a big motivator in the story, right?

That's a hard no, as well. After Phos returns from the ocean, his desire to help Cinnabar becomes mostly an afterthought. As the story goes on, Cinnabar becomes less and less relevant. The manga rapidly approaches the point where Phos never thinks of Cinnabar at all. Late in the story, the other gems actually find a better job for Cinnabar without Phos, something which is humiliatingly easy for them to do. I get that Phos slowly forgetting Cinnabar is supposed to be a tragedy, symbolic of him losing himself as more pieces are broken off and replaced, but it doesn't read as tragic because I didn't like the person Phos was in the first place. He was whiney, incompetent, and showed an inability to follow basic directions despite being 300 fucking years old. So, his transformation was just from "asshole" to "different kind of asshole." Yeah, I don't care about that. I don't miss who Phos used to be, and I don't like who he is now, so his transformation doesn't affect me as either positive or negative. It's just kind of a thing that happens.

But, why does Phos change so much? What is it that made him so bitter, so jaded (but somehow no wiser or more competent)? Well, that would probably be the winter with Antarcticite and his quest to learn more about Sensei and his connections with the Lunarians. Antarcticite's shattering and capture marks the first major personality change in Phos. It's the beginning of his cynical outlook, and his desire to rescue Antarcticite is what compels him to investigate the Lunarians, which leads him to Sensei. Since the Lunarians and Sensei are much more the focus of the plot, I'm not sure why we wasted so much time with the encyclopedia and Cinnabar if the true inciting incident was Anarticite's shattering (halfway through the anime!) but whatever. So, now we have clear motivation, right? We have a clear need, right?

Not really. Because there's no reason Antarcticite's fate would lead to Phos being suspicious of Sensei. There isn't. I get why he would become more interested in the Lunarians, but why would that lead to growing hostility toward Sensei? Antarcticite's shattering wasn't Sensei's fault, and none of the other gems who have lost partners have a desire to blame or question Sensei, so why does Phos? Because he's just special or something? Phos discovers that all the other gems suspect something's up with Sensei and the Lunarians, but they've all agreed not to bring it up because they respect Sensei. Phos was just as devoted to Sensei as everyone else, so why can't he let it go? He doesn't grieve more than the others, he isn't any smarter than the others, so what? It gets even more muddled when he realizes Antarcticite also knew and didn't want Sensei investigated. So, Antarcticite, Phos's main source of grief who is supposedly so special to Phos and his main motivator doesn't want Phos to investigate Sensei, and Phos still can't let it go. There's a moment (which is featured in this very video), where Phos murmurs to himself that he "just wants to know the truth." Oh, he just "wants to know?" So, we're back into wanting instead of needing. Phos's quest for the truth, by his own admission, is a want and not a need. But, just wanting is not good enough. Wanting is not compelling, wanting is not interesting. He has to need the truth about Sensei.

Like, suppose the Winter Arc happened differently and Antarcticite's shattering was Sensei's fault? Like, Sensei does something or says something that leads to Antarcticite's shattering. The most extreme version of this is that Sensei shatters Antarcticite himself (something we've seen him do to Phos and other gems before) because Antarcticite accidentally discovered something about Sensei's connection to the Lunarians. And, suppose Phos was the only witness to this incident because it's winter and all the other gems are hibernating. And, let's further suppose that Phos tries to tell the other gems what happened when they wake up, but none of them believe him because Sensei is just so beloved. Now, Phos has a real reason not to go along with everyone's complacency, now Phos's quest for knowledge becomes a need instead of a want. Because now, it's not just curiosity driving him, he's compelled to seek justice for Antarcticite. And this goal sets Phos apart and makes him valuable in the way he always wanted because now he's the only one who will hold Sensei accountable, someone no one else is willing to do. And, this carries the same tragic irony that the actual story tries and fails to convey. In his desire for self-actualization, Phos has condemned himself to a lonely road no other gem would choose to walk and that he himself wouldn't have chosen at the start of the story.

But, that's not the version of the story we were given. Instead, it's curiosity that moves Phos, and as he loses more pieces of himself, the things that he used to care about, rescuing the other gems from the moon, fighting the Lunarians, helping Cinnabar, all fall away as Phos constantly gives up on his previous goals in pursuit of new ones. Again, I get that this is supposed to be tragic, but if the main character can't be bothered to care, then why should I? It's not helping that Pho's character arc is caused by (not symbolized by, caused by) physical changes that basically means he becomes brain-damaged every time he loses a body part. Instead of changing and growing organically, as Steven does, Phos is instead having his mind, memories, and personality reset after every arc. That's not growth or character development, that's just stat change.

I could go even deeper into the series and all of its problems: how the Lunarians' motivation is also a "want" instead of a "need," how the series uses Buddhist imagery and motifs to trick people into thinking the story is more profound than it really is, how the character designs for the gems make them all look like the same person wearing different wigs, and how many of the side character have one-note personalities as opposed to Steven Universe's complex characters and unique character designs, but when you get right down to it, Houseki no Kuni's main core issue is that there isn't a good enough reason for anything to happen. Steven Universe has clear emotions that drive the story forward. Houseki no Kuni does not.

When I was in sixth grade, my language arts teacher told us that a story was not just a collection of events. It's not just, "this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened." It's, "this happened because of this or this happened to complicate this." Steven Universe does that. Everything that happens is a consequence of what happened before. Houseki no Kuni just kind of has things happen. Why does Sensei give Phos the encyclopedia assignment? Just a whim. Why does Phos want to investigate Sensei? He's just curious. Why do the Lunarians want to pass to the next world? They just think it'd be nice. Why did Sensei reconstruct Phos after 220 years? Because Sensei is a dick.

In light of all this, I'm fully convinced that the reason Houseki no Kuni gained any kind of popularity at all is because of the art style of the anime. That's it. Because, when you really break it down, it doesn't have anything else going for it. Except the soundtrack, I guess. The soundtrack is nice.

#steven universe #houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous #analysis #criticism #phos #sensei #cinnabar #rose quartz #antarcticite #lunarian #writing

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barbara-costa · 4 years

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2. Fabulations & Trees

What if we could talk to trees?

Reflecting upon the lecture on Fabulation and Design, I realised the word did not mean what I thought it meant - related to fabulous, meaning beautiful or amazing. So I searched for the meaning.

to fabulate: to tell invented stories; create fables or stories filled with fantasy to relate an event as a fable.

Then on Wikipedia, I found the term Fabulation was popularised by Robert Scholes in his work The Fabulators, to describe a style of novel similar to magical realism but that did not fit into the traditional categories of realism or romance.

Interestingly, after having written the first draft of this post I read in the book Critical Fabulations that the writer also chose to describe the meaning of the word at the beginning of the book.

Now I am beginning to understand what our lectures are trying to evoke with the connections between the past and the present and how historical events overlap and connect in so many ways, some of which are not instantly evident.

The forward section of the book spoke to me on so many levels. In the past, Design was about jumping straight into solutions. Nowadays, as we are constantly reminded in the course, we need to understand the user, empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test and repeat the process over and over. This process isn’t linear and designers should move back and forth through the stages as necessary to really understand who the users are, what they do and their needs.

I think that jumping straight into a ‘solution’ or a final ‘idea’ can be quite a natural reaction when faced with a problem to solve, so for our project we are aware of this tendency and have been trying to focus on the process, but every time we meet ideas keep on flowing and we feel excited.

There are 4 of us in the group. A designer/maker, a people-watcher, a word smiths and a coder/hacker. We are so excited!

We have collated our ideas and have been using a colour each to comment on them via Google Docs. At our last meeting we discussed a bit more and decided that we wanted to focus on well-being.

I am a tree lover and one of my ideas was to take ‘tree-hugging’ to another level. Since starting this project, I have found so many interesting websites, articles and books about trees, which I shall continue exploring beyond the course. I believe that technology could enhance the power of trees to help people manage health problems like depression and anxiety, feel more grounded and connect with nature. One website* states that the vibrational properties of trees have many health benefits. So, imagine if technology could enhance this vibration? *http://peacockplume.fr/lifestyle/hugging-trees-good-your-health

Imagine if as you talked to a tree, you heard subtle sounds coming from it? These sounds would match our own tone of voice with a choice of tones controlled by an app or a device on the tree itself, depending on the mood and need of the user. I speculate that having the feedback from the tree would have an effect somewhat similar to talking to a therapist. Usually therapists direct our questions back to ourselves and transform our own statements into questions, for us to answer. We have the answers to our deepest questions, but we do not always listen to ourselves. Talking to trees is a thing nowadays and there is a movement called Forest Bathing*, where people go for guided walks in the woods and are encouraged to talk to a tree of their choice and get to know them.

I feel that these activities have the potential to work because trees can make us look within. It has never been more important to look within than right now, with the increase of social media where many of us expose our lives to the world and find it hard to know when we’ve done too much.

The group thinks trees have a potential for the project. Two members are very keen and have shared materials they have found. I particularly liked the music for trees app at Regents park. See the image below.

A group member shared an essay about the trees that made me reflect on the lecture Fabulation and Design. I wanted to see if I could connect the facts like in the lecture as an experiment with the skill of fabulation.

The essay is called What’s a tree worth? by Jill Jonnes (http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/essays/what-tree-worth). She gives a chronological (1905 to 2006) account of trees becoming important in the infrastructure of cities and well-being of citizens in American cities. She describes the social and economical benefits of having trees in urban spaces, which started by president Theodore Rooselvelt, who was a tree lover and an exception since politicians didn’t, and still many don’t, see much value in trees.

By the 1970’s most Americans lived in cities. Tree lovers watched as trees began to disappear due to the Dutch elm disease, development and shrinking municipal budgets for tree planting. But in 1989, Chicago’s newly appointed mayor, Richard Daley Jr., a self-proclaimed tree hugger, vowed to plant a half-million trees as part of his effort to revive his decaying Rust Belt city.

I found that in 1989 there were major events in the world. A ‘tree revolution’ was about to start in the USA while on the other side of the world revolutions started in Central and Eastern Europe that resulted in the end of the communist rule. In the same year, British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee proposed an information management system that initiated the process of creating the World Wide Web, which was the foundation of the internet as we know it now.

Even though these events may not be directly connected, I feel that in some ways they do connect. We wouldn’t be talking about technology enhanced trees if the world had not changed and developed so much that we are now able to know what is going on around the world through the web, and are free to think and progress without worrying about threats from dictatorships in European countries.

For some years after this , trees did not make as many headlines, but times are changing. Now that we don’t need to worry about dictatorships, at least in Europe, and have the incredible World Wide Web at our fingertips, we can focus on planting and protecting trees, which are a priority today, especially with millions of trees being cut down around the world, which is the devastating situation of the Amazon, with a president that have outraged environmentalists and citizens alike when he announced publicly that there is too much ‘free’ land in the Amazon that can be used for farming.

In addition to all of the benefits that trees bring to cities, listed by Jill Jonnes, I’d like to think that ‘Tech-Trees’ would help us connect with our true selves, help us deal with the stresses of living in big cities and motivate more people to plant and protect trees.

To end this post, I attach an extract from the essay which I think is very relevant today.

Caption from bottom to top

1. A tree therapist that listens to people and makes sounds that reassures and empathises with the person who is talking to them.

2. A technology enhanced park with trees that vibrate at the roots so that people feel this subtle vibration to enhance their yoga session.

3. Here trees vibrate on the ground and release an aromatic mist that makes them feel good. The aromas and vibration speed and style can be selected through an app.

4. A smart park with ‘tech-trees’, mediation pods, walking meditation foot path and free fruit to be picked from tress.

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curtashiism · 5 years

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I read a really excellent post about Adel’s character arc in UTK2. It then got me thinking about one point I’ve been wanting to argue for a while about Derek, and the narrative’s treatment of him, and I finally decided to type it all up. So here’s a really long essay/meta/character analysis that no one asked for.

(Note to self: why do you always write these things at 3 in the morning?)

I don’t think Derek relied on the Healing Touch, or at least, not in the way the game says he did. I don’t think he ever relied on it as a way to complete surgeries. In Emilio’s case- well, let me put it into context first, taking the Healing Touch talk out of the equation.

Derek was a surgeon having to juggle four patients at once. All in serious and unstable (in other words, critical) condition. When you have that number of people to treat at once, and such limited resources (in this case, the resource was Derek himself), you have to apply a concept known as triage. This was very lightly touched on in that chapter, though never by name.

Basically, you have to look at the patients and their conditions. A broken arm gets treated before the flu, for example. Then you look at their status- how is their heart rate, BP, oxygenation, pain level, etc? Are they stable, or are they getting worse? In this specific situation, you had Emilio, Heather, and two unnamed others. The other two were never seen, but it’s safe to assume they were even worse off than Heather and Emilio. Heather and Emilio started at out roughly equal condition and stability, but then Heather lost consciousness.

So you have four patients, all unstable (somewhat inherent with what we see from GUILT, since it’s prone to worsening at random times [CoughWhenThePlotDictiatesCough]), probably with similar vital signs and such, which would make it a bit of a toss-up. BUT there’s one crucial difference- by the time the operations start, Emilio is the only one who’s still conscious. Consciousness is a big deal- it’s a lot more then plot relevance. A person passing out suggests whatever injury or illness is present is going to become fatal pretty soon if left untreated. It means that whatever is going on has taken such a toll that the brain goes “yeah, sorry, I gotta check out and deal with this other stuff. Good luck.” (Or, alternatively, that the brain itself is injured.) That means that all three of the others automatically were in more danger than Emilio. That is why Derek made the judgment call to treat Emilio last. It was one crucial area that suggested he was more likely to survive than the others, and that ironically doomed him.

This decision was said- even by Angie- to be the correct one. Even if it cost Emilio his life, three other people walked out of there; Derek and Angie just took Emilio’s death harder because he was younger and they knew him better.

Alright, now let’s re-introduce the Healing Touch into this. Yes, Derek does mention the possibility of using it to Angie, but notice how he really only brings it up after she questions his triaging? I don’t remember the exact, verbatim dialogue, but it’s to the effect of, “are you sure you want to treat Emilio last?” “Yeah, and if I have to, I can use my Healing Touch.”

He’s not relying on it to save Emilio, or else it would have been the first factor he mentioned while assessing the situation. (In other words, something like, “well, these three are in bad shape, but I can use my Healing Touch for them, let’s save Emilio first.”). He’s bringing it up as a last resort; he’s saying he’ll use it if and only if he has nothing else. (And, though this is little more than a headcanon, I kinda got the impression that he knew on some level saving Emilio wasn’t going to happen, but he falsely reassured himself that his Healing Touch would work to give himself enough hope to carry on with the other three operations. That interpretation, though, would require far more rambling from me, so I’ll save it for another day.) He’s saying that he’ll treat Emilio like a regular doctor would, and if the situation looks too dire, then he’ll use it in the hopes of saving him. It’s exactly how the Healing Touch should be used. He just ran out of time to attempt it.

One of the four patients wasn’t going to make it out of there, and it just happened to be Emilio. Derek himself kinda notes this while he’s having his internal conflict later- wondering if Heather would simply have taken Emilio’s place had he treated Emilio first. And yes, she probably would have. Again, Tyler and Angie (grudgingly, for the latter) both said that Derek made the right choice. That means even if he had been relying on the Healing Touch like he was accused of, his only misjudgment would have been in motivation, not action. His alleged dependence on the Healing Touch didn’t alter the outcome.

All that said, there was one way that Derek was relying on the Healing Touch. Paradoxically, that reliance had nothing to do with surgery; he relied on it psychologically. In UTK2, before the resurgence of GUILT, when Derek is at his best and happiest- even then, Derek has self esteem issues. They just happen to come across at that point in the story as just adorable modesty. When he’s at his worst, post-Emilio, we see the true depth of it, including the fact that he doesn’t actually think he’s a good doctor. A lot of the seeds for this are planted in UTK; he gets very little respect from his colleagues at the start of the game. Sure, at that point he’s not exactly a respectable doctor, but it still is easy to see how being treated as a joke would take a toll on a guy’s confidence, no?

Consider this, too: in Derek’s eyes, his only strength as a doctor is surgery. But before he discovered his Healing Touch, back in chapter one of UTK, he wasn’t the most capable surgeon at his hospital, let alone in the world. In short? Even his greatest skill, at that point in time, was average at best. Ouch.

But then, a bit later, he discovers his Healing Touch, while also vowing to shape up as a doctor. Since they happened simultaneously, it’s easy to see why he thought they were the same event. Suddenly he was a great surgeon, and shortly after that he was a fantastic surgeon, and then before he knew it he was the world’s best. To him it was because of the Healing Touch, and not any of his own merit.

To Derek, the Healing Touch was what earned him respect- even from the friend/classmate whose papers he used to cheat off of!- it made him the best in his field, it led him to save hundreds of lives that otherwise would have been doomed... No wonder the Healing Touch was so important to Derek that losing it made him go from “traumatized and in need of intensive therapy” to “total wreck”.

And that’s my point, really- he was relying on the Healing Touch psychologically, not physically/practically. It wasn’t a matter of needing it to complete operations, it was a matter of needing it to view himself as a doctor worthy of his spot at Caduceus.

So, if I had to say it briefly: what happens when you take someone with no self esteem, give them a rare and enviable skill, then traumatize them so badly that they can’t do it anymore, all the while having them be screamed at and berated by the person/people they trust most? Derek. Derek happens.

#trauma center #trauma center under the knife #trauma center under the knife 2 #derek stiles #trauma center: under the knife 2

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ichinoue · 6 years

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Ok but why are many IshiHimes so hypocritical? Like I've read an essay saying that Ichigo & Rukia don't owe Orihime & Renji their love (literally no one said that). Then the statement RIGHT AFTER says that "it was Uryu who loved Hime" and that "SHE OWES HIM"? Like, what?! I know that most IRs don't give a shit about Hime, I've seen UH posts with anti Orihime tags!! But this? It's so wrong, like WHEN THE HELL DID URYU LOVE HIME? It was never implied, saying he has a crush is way overreaching

continued: I’ve seen people say that they only hate Orihime cuz she “couldn’t turn around & see who actually loved her”!! What? So according to them it’s so taboo that Orihime got together with her supposedly first love, but it’s sooo ok if Uryu did? If IR did too? Many people marry their first love, it’s actually seen as the most romanctic & beautiful thing, yet these people downplay Hime’s love and twist it into “it made her weak” when her love was what motivated her to become strong. Can they even read?Here’s the thing: I think it can be argued that Ishida’s romantic feelings for Orihime were implied….but Ichigo’s feelings for her were implied like 30 times more lmao.Who was taunted about her the most by his enemies? Flew off the handle when they namedropped her just to get a rise out of him? Who was teased by his family about “Bringing an Orihime-level girl home” and told “Why are you so pissed? It’s not like Orihime’s your girlfriend?” by a dude who just flirted with her? Who is the one who knelt at her bedside? Bowed in front of her while vowing to protect her? Who walked around like a zombie the day she was abducted? Dragged creeps out of classrooms for coming onto her? Commented on how she’s “followed” a lot the same day boys were whispering about her in the hallway? Went berserk when Tsukishima called her on the phone? Who did Urahara make Orihime’s dress for just to tease him about her? Who was encouraged to flirt with her by Yoruichi? Who blushed about her for five straight pages? Who said “sorry, Grimmjow but I’m not allowed to get hurt anymore” because Orihime said so? Who was dead on the ground but could still hear her voice? Who rose up from the dead because “She’s calling me” ? Who attacked their own friend yet immediately turned to Orihime chanting “I will protect her…” ?Honestly now. Show me the Ishida–>Orihime evidence that is anywhere near as blatant or impactful as the Ichigo–>Orihime evidence. Like, just try to come up with something that’s anywhere close to the vow to protect, or the Grimmjow battle, or “She’s calling me…Get up…I will protect her.” etc.The Ishida–>Orihime evidence is a very short list of subtle clues that is completely trumped by a loooong list of Ichigo–>Orihime evidence that ranges from subtle to straight up obvious as hell.And some of the evidence people gave for Ishida liking Orihime is the literally the same exact shit we would say about Ichigo liking Orihime. The softened looks, or the gentle demeanor towards her, the hints of jealousy, or becoming flustered by her….when Ishida does it, he’s in love, but when Ichigo does it, it means nothing?And so, it’s just bizarre to me that people were so quick to accept that Ishida had feelings for Orihime, as if it were already canon, but yet they downright refused to believe that Ichigo could ever see her as anything more than just a friend. Because they had already convinced themselves that Ichigo loved Rukia, so there was just no way, right? Basically I feel like Ishi/Hime was just an extremely watered down version of IchiHime. The amount of content it was given and the evidence for it was so, so weak compared to IH evidence and content. Point blank. Not only did we have Orihime’s canon love on our side from day one, but we also had Ichigo–>Orihime evidence that completely trumped Ishida–>Orihime evidence in both quality and quantity. Whatever they had, we had better, and much, much more. “I’ve seen people say that they only hate Orihime cuz she “couldn’t turn around & see who actually loved her”!! ”Now, following that logic, and given that they spent the entire manga claiming Ichigo didn’t love or care about Orihime, shouldn’t they have also hated Ichigo because he “couldn’t turn around and see who actually loved him” …? Especially when you consider that, unlike Ishida, Orihime’s feelings were actually made canon. They were emphasized and reinforced in every single arc, over and over and over again. They were introduced the moment Orihime was introduced, in chapter two. She was given a love confession early on, expressing how she would want to love Ichigo in every single lifetime she lived i.e. forever. Nothing vague or subtle about it. So much narrative focus was given to Orihime’s love for Ichigo. Why? Because they were going to end up together in the end.(Meanwhile, I think if Ishida did have feelings for Orihime, the purpose for it was to parallel Ryuuken/Masaki/isshin and we all know how that one turned out).So, from a narrative standpoint, why exactly should Ishida’s vaguely implied, rarely focused on, never-made-canon feelings take precedence over Orihime’s explicitly stated, continuously focused on, solidified-in-canon love?Is it because uwuwu Ishida’s love is so Pure and he’s such a Nice Guy :)))) he Deserves it :)))) while “Whorihime” as they so lovingly refer to her felt nothing more than just a ~toxic obsession~ for Ichigo? Because they’re still pretending Ishida’s “love” was ever solidified in canon, while also downplaying Orihime’s feelings and insisting she didn’t actually love Ichigo, even though it’s a canon fact?

They just love to ignore/twist canon, huh?And that’s beside the point that love isn’t about “owing.” The people shaming Orihime because “she owed Ishida her love!!!” are the same people who always said “just because Orihime loves Ichigo that doesn’t mean he has to love her back!!!” and it’s like….hello? Are you awake? Do you see the hypocrisy? If Ichigo didn’t have to love Orihime back, why does Orihime have to love Ishida back? Again, this isn’t about owing. If Ishida did love Orihime, that doesn’t mean she had to love him back. She could have, if that’s where her heart led her, but it just…didn’t. She loved Ichigo and only Ichigo. She said herself that she wanted to love the same person (Ichigo) for five lifetimes (forever). Not a different person seventeen months later. Kubo wrote that for her. He didn’t want nor intend for her to love anyone else, because he knew she would end up with Ichigo in the end. He knew that since chapter one. That’s why he put so much focus on her love for him in the first place. It’s that simple.And just like the antis always said: “Just because Orihime loves Ichigo, that doesn’t mean he has to love her back.” …And they were absolutely right! He didn’t have to. He just did. There was no force, no pressure. He fell in love with her all on his own, of his own heart, mind, and freewill, without her even having to confess first (while he was awake to hear it) or anything. There was no “owing.” He was harboring feelings and pining after her for years, just like she was for him. The novel confirms it. But really, the bottom line is, if they care about Ishida so much, I’m not sure why they would even want him to end up with someone they’ve deemed as a “titty whore” who doesn’t love him and only married him because she feels sorry for him, or “owes” him as they insist.Goes to show that they didn’t care if Ishida was actually happy and married to someone who loved him wholeheartedly in return the way he deserves. They just wanted Orihime out of the way.

#anon #asks #long post #IchiHime #why can't i talk about things in a concise manner #the impossible task

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klaineitupanotch · 6 years

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Elfinder Fic Masterlist.

It’s late, but here’s my list of Glee fanfiction! Hopefully I’m posting this right lol. I’ll go oldest to newest (roughly anyway). Another Time, Another Place What if Kurt had met Blaine a year earlier? How would his life have changed? In his sophomore year, during the spring, Kurt Hummel ends up by chance meeting a charming young man named Blaine Anderson, who turns out to be in his own Glee club. The two begin down the road of becoming friends and then the journey that their relationship takes them. Will they be able to face any problems ahead? No matter what they may be? https://archiveofourown.org/works/709573/chapters/1311324 Notes: My very first fic written in 2013 (I believe lol, or maybe 2012) so it’s far from perfect, but it’s where it all began for me. A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Vows In the competitive city of LA, Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson are trying their best to break into showbiz. Neither one figured their chance would come in the form of a modelling gig that would not only pay the bills but help the cause for marriage equality. Where this golden opportunity could lead to more than exposure in the media. https://archiveofourown.org/works/866205/chapters/1662102 Notes: Cute lil fic I did for the Klaine Reverse bang. Knocked Him For A Time Loop In the year 1903, young magician Blaine Anderson longs for an escape from his impending arranged marriage. A spell gone wrong thrusts him into the year 2013, where he meets Kurt Hummel. Someone equally surprised to find the boy he’d chosen as an essay subject suddenly appear in his bedroom. As if trying to figure out how to get Blaine back to his own time wasn’t hard enough, both started to ponder the same question: Were they star-crossed lovers or merely kindred spirits thrown for a time loop? https://archiveofourown.org/works/962502/chapters/1886645 Notes: Second fic I did for the reverse bang. What a Feeling Through the hell he faced while living in Lima Ohio, Kurt Hummel finally made it out of the backwards cow town to the city of San Francisco. However, to survive meant dreams had been crushed, hopes forgotten, and impenetrable walls built around him. Long gone is the naive youth who dreamed of Broadway and romance. To the new Kurt Hummel, romance is dead. After finally turning 21, Kurt decides to let loose and finally get laid. He didn't count on the two young men that would come into his life because of this choice. Enter Sebastian Smythe and Blaine Anderson, both offering different things within Kurt's life, and causing varied reactions within him. Will he be able to keep the life style he fought so hard to gain without the risk of emotions ruining it? https://archiveofourown.org/works/704320/chapters/1299141 Notes: This one is technically Sebklaine/Kurtbastian/Klaine/Seblaine, so be prepared of that going in. My first forray into writing Sebastian into the fray and I loved it, lol. Hummel and Oates Klaine ‘80s AU. Sometimes even potential soulmates can get off on the wrong foot. Enter Kurt, the ballsy co-manager of Dare to Flare, the hottest gay club in the East Village, and Blaine, a newly hired cover band artist at the same club. Right from the start, the boys’ first impressions of one another go astray thanks to some incorrect gossip and an accidentally spilt drink. Can two men who aren't even on a first name basis ever put their differences aside? https://archiveofourown.org/works/1272997/chapters/2631142 Notes: This prob the fic I’m most proud of, even if it’s far from perfect. It was super fun to write. Who doesn’t like the 80s!

Viloncello Blaine Anderson finds himself being given the opportunity of a lifetime, when he is approached by Hunter Clarington the Third, a rich lord who’s singular goal is to become the best luthier of his age. Soon, Blaine gets the chance to play his finest creation, a cello that’s perfect pitch is spell-bounding, to compete at a world wide competition. Little does he know that accepting the job will also lead him to meet a mysterious young man with the voice of an angel. https://archiveofourown.org/works/2152764/chapters/4704513 Notes: Another Reverse Bang fic for 2014. Sinner or Saviour After years of feeling lost, Blaine Anderson thought he’d finally found his path in life: one that would make his family proud while keeping him far away from a life of sin. But despite his best efforts to start anew, Blaine finds himself falling into the same morally reprehensible patterns as before. Seeking guidance, Blaine looks to God for help but never in a million years did he expect his prayers to be answered — especially when his potential angel-demon hybrid saviour stirs in him the very thing he had been trying so hard to escape. Notes: 2nd fic for Reverse Bang, I went out of my comfort zone for this one lol (religion, angels and demons). https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249658/chapters/4936905 Threw A Wish in a Well Kurt Hummel is a winner, in his senior year of high school he got everything he wanted. He landed the lead role in the school musical, won the election for student body president and most of all got accepted in NYADA, the school of his dreams. The only thing missing from Kurt's fast paced life in New York was one thing: love. After coming back to Ohio during Thanksgiving to keep a secret going, Kurt makes a wish. To find the love of his life but Kurt never expected to end up falling on a cute guy in ripped jeans as the coin fell. Leaving Kurt and one Blaine Anderson to deal with discovering such a strong connection only to be kept apart soon after. https://archiveofourown.org/works/769966/chapters/1444797 Notes: I was tempted to not include this one since it is abandoned. BUT I do want to eventually go back to it and end it. Maybe it people read it that will help motivate me too. ;) A Wedding Fit for People Magazine Off in Estérel, France and tucked away from public eye, Broadway star Kurt Hummel and rock musician Blaine Anderson are about to marry. As the couple look ahead to their happy moment, they both think back to some of the key moments in the course of their relationship, and how they’ve come so far in spite of their fast-paced lives. https://archiveofourown.org/works/4520904/chapters/10284594 Notes: Reverse Bang Fic again. I think this story is one of my best (if not the best) I’ve written so far. https://archiveofourown.org/works/4520904/chapters/10284594 Welcome to Paradise Kurt Hummel's life has been full of nothing but school work. Unhappy and alone, he grows bitter from the stress of it all and keeps himself closed off from the world. But when Kurt encounters a group of students who ask him to be their model for a fashion show, he suddenly begins to question everything about himself and his life. In spite of knowing nothing about fashion, Kurt finds himself drawn towards the project, the group, and most of all the group's leader Sebastian Smythe. https://archiveofourown.org/works/3752428/chapters/8328058 Notes: This is Kurtbastian, but without any Blaine hate in it. It’s a story very close to my heart. I’m really proud of it, and loved writing it (though Klaine is still my otp I swear lol). Who Do You Think You Are Blaine Anderson is preparing to embark on a new solo chapter of his life: entering college. To those around him, he might appear to be just another ordinary eighteen-year-old, but when his loving parents are none other than the Doctor--Earth's constant saviour and last of the Time Lords--and River Song--a human weapon who defied destiny and fell in love with her target--nothing could be further from the truth. Between the pressure that comes with having such a family legacy to live up to, and the stress of keeping so many secrets from everyone he knows, it's no wonder that Blaine has sworn off relationships. Yet on his first day at the Cambridge School of Visual & Performing Arts, Blaine meets Kurt Hummel and immediately feels drawn to him, challenging his convictions. Suddenly, surviving the wait until Blaine can join his parents in the TARDIS after graduation is the least of his worries. https://archiveofourown.org/works/13759926/chapters/31622952 Notes: My most current story, though I started it years ago. I’m super happy with this one. For an added bonus, my current fic plans, though it’s slow goings at the moment. In Progress Rediscovering Paradise The sequel to Welcome to Paradise, it pics up where the epilogue leaves you off. I am currently writing this story, I’m at chapter 4. The plan is to wait till it’s fully written and edited and I’ll post the whole thing in one. I’m also aiming for 8 chapters. The continuation of Threw a Wish in a Well It’s on my to do list. I have a number of chapters I wrote years ago. They’d just need to be tweaked and revised heavily. I want to give this story a proper ending. So I’ll prob spend some time on it once the Paradise sequel is finished. Not What I Imagined Another Kurtbastian fic! It will be my take on ‘what if Kurt had met Sebastian instead of Blaine?’ How canon would differ etc. No Blaine hate, no Blaine at all actually. Super excited to write this one. My headcanons are running wild. I’ll be writing this for me really lol. I have various other ideas... no idea if and when I’ll get to them. The above three projects will keep me busy enough with the rate I’m going writing these days.

#fic writing adventure #elfinder #klaine fanfiction #fanfic masterlist

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thingsarered20 · 6 years

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Jeremie Belpois and Jerlita:Part 2

Well my new puppy is finally asleep which means I have time to do part 2 of this essay . It will focus on season 2.

(I don’t even know why I chose this pic, I just wanted an opening pic)

Ready to get thrown into Sector 5? Then let’s go!

In the season premiere New Order, we learn Jeremie improved on the Superscan so that way Aelita would no longer have to spend every waking moment on Lyoko(prior to improving the Superscan Aelita was their only way to know if a tower was activated, the Superscan was merely a supplement to Aelita and had to be run manually). I find it cute how he actually took the time to upgrade the superscan so she wouldn’t have to spend the whole wait till he found an antivirus stuck on Lyoko.

(Obligatory pic of them for reasons)

Later in the episode while Jeremie is walking with Aelita in the woods to work on a project for Mrs.Hertz’s class, they talk about horror films and Jeremie states he does not have time for movies as he has his hands “full with X.A.N.A”). This quote sums him up pretty well, he won’t let himself rest or have any fun until X.A.N.A is gone for good. This is important because a common piece of dirt he gets thrown at him is that he doesn’t spend enough time with his friends. Wait...you’re telling me you’d rather he party then work as hard as he can to defeat the demonic entity that is constantly trying to kill him and his friends? There is also something else I don’t get about that, people claim because Jeremie doesn't go to Lyoko he doesn't do anything to fight X.A.N.A. Yet those same people also complain he works too much. So, which is it? Does he do nothing to fight X.A.N.A or does he do too much to fight X.A.N.A?

At the end of the episode Jeremie gives Aelita a cellphone as a gift and it is adorable!

(Yeeeesh how loaded is this kid? Cellphones are NOT cheap)

In Mister Puck, the visions Aelita had been having since first entering the Hermitage become too much to keep ignoring or to keep writing off as nightmares. So, when they all head to Hermitage to see if they can put a stop to them Jeremie reassuringly holds her hand.

(D’awwwwww)

As for St.Valentines’s Day I already talked about that episode in a separate post. However, I would also like to point out if you wanna demonize Jeremie for being a 12-year old kid experiencing his first bout of jealously then be my guest and frankly, everyone gets jealous at some point in their lives. I personally feel it does Jeremie a favor by showing he’s a regular kid with flaws like the rest of us rather then making him seem too perfect.

(”YELLOW!””PINK!” You guys are cool and know where that reference is from right?)

In Final Mix, Jeremie is hard at work trying to find Aelita’s anti-virus so they can defeat X.A.N.A and is too busy to fix a mixing board so Aelita does so in lieu of him. After fixing it she discovers she has a talent with the device and is picked to be the DJ for the school party later that night. When Jeremie hears he states he considers the party a “waste of time”(Gasp!). “What a jerk!”I can already hear people saying but, wait...there’s more to it then that. Jeremie was already established as a hard worker in season 1. There’s no reason why in season 2 this would be any different. It makes sense why he considers working hard to beat X.A.N.A more important then partying. Sure enough, X.A.N.A does end up possessing Jim and kidnapping Aelita. This shows Jeremie is very much properly paranoid. Every event people get mad at him for blowing off to work gets wrecked by X,A.N.A in some way. Don't get me wrong saying it was a waste of time was harsh but I understand where that thought process comes from.Getting rid of the evil demonic A.I comes before partying in Jeremie’s eyes. I’d also like to point out he does not actively prevent her from going. He’s not happy about it but, he’s not gonna stop her from doing what she wants. Much as he likes her company and probably wants the extra help on his research, he knows she’s no little doll he can keep on his shelf and play with whenever he wants.

(Opening up about an addiction is tough)

In Temptation, Jeremie begins behaving very strangely to the point of getting rude and defensive for no reason. Even making unwarranted returns to the past despite knowing they make X.A.N.A stronger(they learned this in episode 30″A Great Day”) and starts blowing off classes that are not P.E to work. Aelita goes to tell him he should take a break but he responds “Oh yeah, does X.A.N.A take breaks?!”. When Aelita says she does not want to lose him, Jeremie realizes she really is concerned and gets his mind back for a second and goes to explain what’s been going on with him but right when he is about to open up to her X.A.N.A attacks “You see X.A.N.A never takes breaks!”Jeremie declares. After a RTTP Jeremie is found passed out on the floor. He cannot be woken up and is in a coma. Aelita hacks into his video diary and they find out that Jeremie has been using an neuronal headset to increase his intelligence with each RTTP in hopes of being able to find Aelita’s antivirus faster. It comes with a cost though each RTTP with the headset takes a drastic toll on his mental and physical health(explaining the moodiness and the coma). he knew this but still used it to try to save Aelita faster. What happens to him don’t matter as long as Aelita comes out the other end of it safe. In the end Jeremie is able to break away from addiction to the RTTPs and breaks the headset.

(What would you do if some girl came up to you and accused you of kissing her in front of your de-facto girlfriend?)

In X.A.N.A’s Kiss X.A.N.A plays on the groups emotions in a divide and conquer bid. Naturally Jeremie and Aelita are part of this and have a falling out as a result of it. When the realize they were doped they still need to find Aelita. Jeremie knows right away where she is and the fact that they polymorph got there first does not take away the fact that he knew right where to find her. Aelita is able to tell Jeremie about from his double because as she puts it the real Jeremie “Would not have kissed her like that” some take this to mean its’ because the clone kissed her without having consent and she knows that the real Jeremie would not use kissing her as a weapon to gain her trust. Wether you agree with that interpretation is up for you to decide.At the end of the episode guess what? Aelita and Jeremie both share their first onscreen, no X.A.N.A shenanigans, no ulterior motive behind it kiss with each other and it is beautiful. It’s even the trope image for “Post-Kiss Catatonia”.

(I would’ve put a screencap but it must be viewed in all its gif glory)

(Here’s a screencap anyway)

(I just liked this shot)

In Franz Hopper, the titular man himself shows up in the lab one day and deactivates the five towers that were activated without having to set foot on Lyoko. He then vows to help the group defeat X.A.N.A by finding Aelita’s anti-virus. The next day is Jeremie’s birthday and it is revealed that he parents still want him to consider going to the school for gifted children that was previously mentioned in “Plagued” and has been keeping this quiet from his friends considering he doesn't have any intentions to leave them. What follows after his dad call is a cute scene were his friends all wish him a happy birthday and he is given a cute drawing by Odd as a gift.

(Cute)

They then all go the factory to meet up with Franz who is shocked that they have been using the scanners to go to Lyoko as it is a “very dangerous procedure with serious side-effects such as cell degeneration”. Ulrich and Odd check out fine but Yumi is apparently suffered cell degeneration in her brain. The others upset about Yumi and most likely wanting a scapegoat pic on Jeremie as he is the “brains of the operation”and Franz names him the one who let “X.A.N.A destroy my(meaning Franz’s)diary”. This is not true, Jeremie didn’t “let”X.A.N.A destroy the diary. X.A.N.A took over his body and made him do it. Everyone except Aelita treats him horribly and his role as operator is taken over by Franz during their mission to supposedly get the data to program the anti-virus for Aelita. Jeremie points out it in unfair he is being blamed and that they all decided to be in this together(which I point out in part 1 they did). Upset at being treated this way and having had enough Jeremie agrees to switch schools and calls his dad to take him the next day. He realizes while sitting in his room that there’s no real the real Hopper could’ve known about the diary. Only him and his friends knew. That leaves only the one who did the crime in the the first place:X.A.N.A! Forgetting his anger, Jeremie goes to rescue his friends. He stops Aelita before she can be virtualized into Franz-X.AN.A’s trap and sends the Scyphozoa a decoy of Aelita instead which gives it indigestion. Then he trolls Franz-X.AN.A and fixes the damage X.A.N.A did to his friends on Lyoko. The tower is deactivated and the next day Jeremie assures his friends that is not angry with them and that Yumi never suffered from cellular degeneration.Jeremie immediately letting go of his anger at the way he was treated and being blamed for something that wasn’t even true the minute he found out his friends were in danger is a great show of how big this kid’s heart is. When he dad comes to pick him up he declines and instead elects to stay at Kadic with his friends. When Jeremie states his father is great, Ulrich states “like father, like son” and honestly I couldn’t agree more.

(D’awwwwww... again)

In The Key, following the revelation that Aelita is not an A.i but a human being, the girl develops a complex about her humanity and anger towards her father Franz Hopper for taking her life from her, shuts down the Supercomputer thus killing herself. However, Jeremie realizing the computer is not responding goes to the factory and finds her and is able to revive her from her attempted suicide. He comforts her while cradling her in his arms and tells her that they will save the world from X.A.N.A together and then she can start a whole new life.

(Sniffs)

Having a suicidal friend/partner/family member is not easy, not matter how old you are but, the fact that this 12(well 13 now)year old boy was able to handle that kind of situation and talk her out of any more attempts on her life is impressive to me. When Aelita is saved by her father after having all her memory stolen by the Scyphozoa when she returns to Earth, Jeremie catches her and pulls her into a comforting hug,

(Stop making me cry episode!)

Jeremie later assures the other that while X,A.N.A may be free he’s not giving up and that he feels X.A.N.A is not invincible. He also assures Aelita that fighting X.A.N.A is not her job alone and that it’s there job. He then initiates a circle of friendship hand hold and the season concludes on that.

(If I don't stop crying I'll ruin my computer)

The fact that Jeremie, one of the least social of the Lyoko Warriors initiated the hand hold gets me every time. Well that’s it for season 2!

(What I’m going to attempt do now(meaning going to sleep)

Part 3 will come...eventually

#Code Lyoko #code lyoko essay #jerlita #jeremie belpois #jeremy belpois #aelita stones #aelita hopper #aelita schaffer #jeremie #aelita #Jeremy x Aelita #jeremie x aelita

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blackbatpurplecat · 6 years

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My Thoughts on Batman #50

Originally, I had not planned on writing a review on the latest Batman disaster, eh I of course mean issue. Many people have already said many things about it so it’s impossible for me to say anything new. But a few lovely kittybats have asked me for my opinion so here we are.

So what’s the shameless clickbait’s story: I have no idea how much time has passed since the rushed proposal and now but while beating up Kite Man, Batman and Catwoman spontaneously set up a rushed wedding for the same night. Quelle surprise. They don’t want to invite any of their loved ones except for one witness each and a drunk as fuck judge. You know, everyone’s dream wedding. This is like drunk Las Vegas levels of romantic.

Batman goes to a bar to get a drunk judge. Not even very subtly but for everyone to see because he’s “the master of disguise.” And Catwoman gets Holly out of Arkham. Because for whATEVER THE FUCK REASON, Selina is STILL friends with the mass murdering psychopath who doesn’t give a fuck about Selina, was okay with Selina dying for her and also tried to kill the man Selina allegedly loves.

Bruce comes home to prepare with Alfred. Selina brings her deranged mass murderer to Wayne Manor to help her put on her cat funeral dress. The toxic fumes from the sewers Selina had dragged the dress through have apparently finally kicked in because it’s not black/white anymore but black/lilac.

Both pairs leave their walk-in closets at the same time, see each other, Bruce and Selina kiss, and then each pair goes to another room to have a last moment of whatever. I mean they’re ready, they could just leave then and there! Grab the limo and go, what’s so hard about that?!

In the most touching moment of the issue, Bruce asks Alfred to be his witness. Then father and son hug. They don’t even use that many words, it’s just a simple understanding of mutual love. It’s beautiful. Though while I smiled at those panels, I wish a moment between the groom and the groom’s father was not the loveliest display of affection in a fucking WEDDING issue but who cares.

Meanwhile, Selina and Holly talk. Holly says that she’s never seen Batman so happy and that she’s always thought Batman can’t be happy to be who he is. On the way to the rooftop they want to get married on (because that’s ALL there is to those two characters. fuck you, King), Selina seems concerned. She’s written a letter to Bruce to express her feelings for him but hasn’t finished it yet. Then she asks Holly if she thinks that Catwoman’s a hero. Holly says “yeah sure” while looking absolutely sincere and caring and NOT suspicious AT ALL.

Seriously WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! Why not write I AM EVIL on her forehead as if we wouldn’t already know how fucked up Holly is. After EVERYTHING, why are we supposed to think that Holly is Selina’s friend?! Why does Selina still think she’s her friend?!

But I digress.

So while Selina is apparently wondering if she’s worthy of the BIG HERO BATMAN, Bruce asks Alfred if he can be happy. Alfred answers “yeah sure.” I mean it’s not as if Bruce has ever been happy before, right? He only has a loving father, a big family, good friends and colleagues. No one of them makes him feel any happiness ever.

We cut back to Selina who’s crying on a different rooftop. She’s finished her letter to Bruce in which she explains why she can’t marry him, and put it in the Batcave for him to read later. Later as in after she’s torn out his heart. She throws away her ridiculous cat ears veil and jumps off. Then we cut back to the “wedding.” Bruce, Alfred, and the drunk judge have been waiting for a long while. By the way, I have NO idea where Bruce had stored the judge while he was getting ready! Was he in the Batmobile’s trunk? Chained to the rooftop? We’ll never know.

Alfred tries to explain away Selina being late but Bruce knows she won’t come. He throws away his tie and jumps off, leaving Alfred yet again to deal with everything. But this time, it’s understandable. That man, who doesn’t trust easily, has just been stood up at the altar by the woman he loves.

I know they’ll probably reconcile eventually in the distant future because COMICS but in reality, that relationship would be fucked beyond repair. You leave me at the altar without a word? You are fucking dead to me and I don’t EVER want to see or hear from you again.

We then see Holly at Arkham Asylum. Selina had apparently locked her back up, that’s why Holly is walking around now (WTF?!). Holly enters a cell or the basement or whatever that place is and kneels before Bane and his homies, consisting of Riddler, Joker, Hugo Strange, Scarface (and the Hand up his ass), Flashpoint Batman a.k.a. Thomas Wayne and characters I don’t care to look up.

It’s revealed that everything has been Bane’s plan! I’m not 100% sure how far back this revelation goes but I’m guessing to the beginning. Bane had recruited Batman’s enemies and allies(?) to carry out an impossible to foresee chain of events that would result in Batman being emotionally broken. Everything was set up so Batman would get Selina out of Arkham to fight Bane and from there, Bane had hoped things would unfold just the way he wanted...? What is this, the DCEU?

So Thomas Wayne talked Bruce into the rushed proposal - what if Bruce had not fallen for it? Joker told Selina to break up with Batman - she seemed more than sure of herself and why should she care what JOKER says?! Holly told Selina she makes Bruce happy - and THAT made Selina question everything?!

It’s dumb. As always.

What I haven’t really mentioned so far are the letters Bruce and Selina had written to each other for after the wedding. I thought that’s what vows are for but what do I know. King once again refers to apparently the only issues he’s ever read about Batman and Catwoman and shows us ONCE AGAIN his poor writing skills:

So Bruce remembers how they met in Batman #1 (1940). How The Cat was just another criminal until he saw her eyes. He saw that her green eyes were actually blue and orange and red and purple and yellow and I have absolutely no idea what drugs Bruce was on that day. And because Selina’s green eyes were blue, he knew she was different, a mystery to be solved. But she’s not a mystery to be solved. And because she’s not a mystery to be solved, he realized HE can’t be solved, can be more than the boy who lost his parents, can be the man who loves her. Alright. Cool essay on eyes, Bruce. Your color theory was a bit off but you proved you’ve heard of it. Now you wanna tell her what you love about Selina’s character? Or why you love her? No? Okay.

Selina remembers how they met in Batman: Year One #1 (1987). How an undercover Bruce tried to save Holly and how Selina beat him up for it. (I still don’t know how Selina knows that was him) She thought he was just another asshole (for saving your asshole friend... Selina, I believe you are the asshole here) until she saw his eyes. She saw that his blue eyes were actually white and yellow and green. What the fuck?! Had Scarecrow farted that day and the fumes were all over Gotham?! Are they all high all the time?! And because his blue eyes weren’t really blue, she knew he was different, a perfect hero without flaws. But he’s not a perfect hero without flaws, he’s still the boy in pain who despite the pain, goes out to save everyone. He’s still a child and that makes him a hero and Selina realized if she married that heroic child, Bruce would be happy and stop trying to save the weak and innocent. She can’t do that to Gotham. So as a heroic sacrifice, she’ll break his heart and not show up to the wedding so he can be super fucking miserable to be in better shape to save people. Selina, even I wouldn’t want to marry you after you pulled this dumb shit.

Yes, we’re back to that old and fucking idiotic idea that Batman can never be happy; that Batman has to be a miserable, depressed, sad fuck to be Batman. Whoop dee doo. That certainly has NEVER been brought up in the comics. Let’s ignore that Batman goes out to save people DESPITE being depressed, not BECAUSE. That he’s turned sadness into something good. And that being married to the love of his life does not magically cure depression. That being happy is just another motivator to go out and save people. Yup, let’s ignore logic altogether.

So without considering everything behind the scenes, it’s an okay issue. It’s nothing special, it’s not outstandingly written but rather hacky (because it’s King). It has pretty art (because it’s Jones) and it’s basically an art gallery. We get many absolutely gorgeous pieces, MUCH better than most variant covers, of Batman and Catwoman. Some are original, some reference old stories. I was very happy to see some purple Catwoman art there!

All in all, Batman #50 was dull.

---

Now on to the clusterfuck behind the scenes:

You all already know that I��ve never liked Tom King’s writing. He has nice ideas but his execution is utterly awful. He doesn’t understand the characters he’s writing, he doesn’t get their motivations, he’s turned Selina into a stupid Mary Sue, he has no consistent time line etc etc. There’s a lot wrong with King’s run but BatCat fans were so starved for more BatCat that they were willing to overlook the dumbness and just enjoy the BatCat interaction. Even though Bruce and Selina very rarely interacted or even shared panels in that 50 issues run.

Ironically, I want to use King’s words here to describe him and his style:

He thinks he knows something deep. Profound. But he doesn’t know a damn thing.

Then DC and King proudly announced that #50 would be the big WEDDING ISSUE, the thing everyone’s waited for. I was suspicious. But NO WE MEAN IT YOU ARE INVITED TO THE WEDDING HERE YOU HAVE A WEDDING ALBUM AND HERE IS THE DRESS AND THE BACHELORETTE PARTY AND WE SEND TOM KING TO TALK ABOUT BATCAT’S LOVE ON TV AND THE ISSUE WILL HAVE 5000 VARIANT COVERS MARK THE DATE JULY 4TH THE WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING NOT A TRICK THIS TIME

The closer the date came, the more I was willing to think “hm maybe they’ll actually do it, they even gave Catwoman her solo run back, I’m sure Selina being married to Bruce will give Jones many ideas to write about, we’ll get a married woman in her own solo title and a married Batman, and why would they get so many artists to draw variant covers if it’s not happening, it would be SUCH a HUGE dick move if they canceled it at the last second”

But then DC did what they do best - disappoint. They themselves spoiled the ending a few days before the issue came out. While artists were still showing off their wedding pieces, while comic book stores were preparing events with decoration and cake and costumes, while people were putting #50 on their pre-order list, DC pulled the rug out from under EVERYONE’s feet.

It was ALL a big setup. A marketing stunt to boost sales. And unfortunately, it was successful. Doesn’t matter how many fans were disappointed and hurt, how many fans canceled their pre-orders - the numbers were big and black and that was what mattered.

After the big spoiler, King headed to Twitter, trying to do some damage control. I AM SO ANGRY PLEASE DON’T BE DISAPPOINTED THERE ARE STILL 50 MORE ISSUES TO COME PLEASE BUY MORE OF MY COMICS I PROMISE MY STORY ARC IS TOTALLY CELEBRATING BATCAT’S LOVE JUST STAY AND BUY MY COMICS

You ever heard of the story The Boy Who Cried Wolf? King, DC, you blew it. You blew it BIG time! I even dare to say you’ve never blown it like this before! Sure, you’ve disappointed and treated us like shit before but this time, people actually believed you. New readers who had not been burned by you trusted you and old readers desperately wanted to trust you because we all love that iconic couple.

What makes this entire affair worse than everything else is the huge buildup. You assured us #50 would be the game changer, you put so much effort into fooling us, so much money to set up a ploy. Fans are deeply disappointed because they had thought this was FINALLY the real deal after all those years. I mean BatCat have been married before. Many times. But it was always either AU stories or you rebooted it. And it had never been hyped up like this before.

Personally, I’m tired of being right. I’m tired of the same old spiel over and over. I wanted it to be real for everyone who got excited over it but what I had feared would happen happened. I’m kinda glad I never got into King’s run because that meant I wasn’t that badly hurt. But I saw the reactions of other fans and my heart goes out to all of them.

DC and King could have simply published a comic with a huge FUCK YOU splash page as centerfold. And the worst part is THAT WAS IT! The hype is dead, hope and trust are gone. Even IF Bruce and Selina eventually get married in #100, the pure happiness and excitement will never come back. It’ll be tainted, we will all be wary, no one will dare to get their hopes up again. Now everyone feels like I felt after the proposal issue; it was the big first time and it was bad. The first time can never be recreated and that wedding craze can never be recreated either.

And we don’t have any reason to feel safe. Again, even IF the wedding happens in the last issue (and I’m sure it would be the last issue as the BIG FINALE because no one wants to write or read about badass characters being married, marriage is boring after all), DC will eventually get another writer. Who tells me the next writer won’t break them up again? Who tells me King will actually let them get married in the first place? He’s lied to us before, why still have faith in him?

So after #50, we’ll get more issues of a depressed Batman who will hunt down Bane and make up with Selina (even though I doubt she deserves it). Maybe we’ll see the Batfamily’s reaction to the fucked up wedding (judging by King’s tropes, it’ll happen over burgers), each member’s relationship with Selina will be strained, maybe Holly gets her ass kicked, I don’t know.

And frankly, I don’t care. I don’t want to read the same bullshit I’ve been reading for years just written more poorly (because it’s King). I wanted to see Bruce and Selina together. I didn’t get it so who gives a fuck anymore.

I’m only excited for the TRUE Bruce x Selina wedding that’s coming up in Chris Dee’s Cat-Tales fanfic. I know she won’t disappoint her readers.

#review #batcat

17 notes · View notes

centerofstupidity · 6 years

Text

Dracula the Undead: Author’s Note Part 1 Snark

If you enjoy the content you are reading, please like and follow the Center of Stupidity blog.

Interested in reading the previous Dracula the Undead chapter snarks? They can be found here.

Summary: An aperitif of the clusterfuckery that is to come. This is a long-winded and self-congratulating author's note.

Both writers claim that their novel stays true to Bram Stoker's vision even though it contradicts and re-writes the original story.

In case anyone wants to read the original author's note in order to form their own conclusions, you can read it here.

~ Dacre's Story ~

Since I am a Stoker, it is not surprising that I have had a lifelong interest in the work of my ancestor.

At the risk of sounding like a complete ass...

This "interest" is financially motivated.

Bram’s youngest brother, George, believed to be the sibling with whom he had the closest relationship, was my great-grandfather, so I am Bram’s great-grandnephew.

"Which means that I am related to Bram Stoker and can write an 'official' sequel to Dracula. And that will make me a shit-load of money."

In college, I wrote a paper on my great granduncle,

I'm getting the impression that is statement is supposed to make Dacre Stoker sound unique...

Even though there are plenty of other college students who have written an essay about Bram Stoker or Dracula for an assignment.

For instance, yours truly did a PowerPoint presentation on Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley for a class in college.

examining what may have motivated him to write Dracula.

Again, this isn't groundbreaking stuff.

Many people have published articles or books discussing Dracula.

Scholars like Professor Elizabeth Miller have dedicated their lives to studying it.

My research opened my eyes to how, from my family’s perspective, the history of the book Dracula, is pretty tragic.

"And before I give everyone a history lesson, I'm telling you all this so I can justify butchering my ancestor's work."

Bram Stoker died without ever seeing Dracula become popular. The sales of the novel were so limited at the time of his death that his widow, Florence, thought she would never benefit financially from Bram’s “wasted” seven years of research and writing. With Bram’s other fiction and nonfiction books out of print, Florence was convinced she would live out her days on a tight budget.

Actually, that isn't true.

According to scholar John Edgar Browning, the majority of critics gave positive reviews.

His findings were published on February 1st, 2012.

It is important to note Dracula: The Undead was published in 2009.

But in an interview in 2013, Dacre Stoker said this: There is this statement that used to kind of drive me crazy—‘Dracula was met with mixed reviews when Bram was alive’.

He then briefly discusses Browning’s research.

Which means that Stoker knew about Browning’s findings...

But he ignored it and printed misinformation.

Dacre adds that it was only "ten years after Bram’s death" when Dracula became popular.

Posthumously, Bram started to receive recognition as the progenitor of the modern vampire/horror novel.

Not to diminish Dracula and its impact on popular culture...

But it is not the first influential vampire novel.

Varney the Vampire is.

Dacre Stoker goes on to talk about Florence Stoker (Bram Stoker's wife) and her legal dispute with the creators of Nosferatu.

He also states that Dracula became public domain in the U.S.A since 1899 because Bram didn't complete a requirement so Florence Stoker had to live off the U.K. royalties.

With the U.S. copyright lost, Hollywood, corporate America, and anyone else was free to do whatever they wanted to Bram’s story and characters.

This is the part where the reader is supposed to boo and hiss at Hollywood...

And then give Holt and Stoker a standing ovation for writing Dracula the Undead.

Dacre Stoker talks about how his family wasn't asked for approval of "any of the hundreds of incarnations of Dracula over the next century."

My father’s generation had a negative feeling for all things Hollywood and Dracula.

Which is understandable given what happened.

But after reading the author's note...

The history of Dracula is being used in order to deflect any criticism.

And to justify bastardizing Dracula under the pretense of honoring Bram's original vision and righting a past wrong.

—except, of course, for Bram’s original novel.

So we have two options:

They knowingly endorsed a novel that defamed Bram and mocked the original novel.

Or they loved Dracula and would be appalled that Bram was dragged through the mud and the original lore was ridiculed.

According to Ian Holt in an interview in 2010, he says that “Bram’s bitter demeanor was even worse in real life than we depicted in the novel.”

And in the same interview, Holt passively aggressively says: “Do your research. The fact that the chapters with Bram were written almost completely by Dacre in consultation with his family means nothing to them.”

So yeah...

I’m leaning towards option number one.

I didn’t write about these issues in my college paper, but they were always on my mind.

Dacre Stoker admitted that he didn't read Dracula until he went to college.

Stoker says it was "a shame" that his family was unable to "control the legacy of my great-granduncle" and "lay claim to the character of Dracula."

It was many years after college that I met an interesting character, Ian Holt.

Stoker doesn't realize that calling someone "an interesting character" can be a veiled insult.

Ian is a screenwriter who has been obsessed with all things Dracula since childhood.

A lot of people love all things Dracula.

Doesn't mean that they are a talented writer.

Ian, being a true idealist, had a plan that inspired me to not accept the frustrating history of Dracula.

"He was my knight in shining armor!"

He wanted to change history.

History reveals that change isn't always positive.

Sometimes it is negative.

Ian’s plan was simple: to reestablish creative control over Bram’s novel and characters by writing a sequel that bore the Stoker name.

To my surprise, none in my family had ever considered this.

Translation: "Why haven't any of my family members tried writing a novel? It's the obvious solution to the problem."

And it didn't occur to Stoker none of his family members had any interest in being a writer.

It really pisses me off when people act like writing any kind of fiction is easy or that anyone can be a writer.

While any literate person can write, not everyone can be a writer.

It requires talent and passion along with the desire to learn about the craft and improve your writing skills.

Intrigued, I decided to join Ian on a roller-coaster ride as coauthor.

And for readers, it is a nightmarish ride where clusterfuckery gallops and a literary classic is violently raped.

In writing Dracula the Un-Dead, I felt a strong sense of duty and familial responsibility.

"It isn't because I wanted to piss all over my relative's legacy and make a shit load of money."

I hoped to work with Ian to represent Bram’s vision for the character of Dracula.

Bram's vision should be called Sir Not Appearing in This Novel.

We aimed to resurrect Bram’s original themes and characters, just as Bram conceived them more than a century ago.

The Dracula characters appear in name only.

They are cast in an unfavorable light.

As for the themes?

They are discarded.

So many books and films had strayed from Bram’s vision—

It is extremely rare for adaptations to stick extremely close to the original story.

Usually, adaptations take artistic license with the source material.

And just because an adaptation or a retelling differs from the original story, doesn't mean that it will automatically suck.

For instance, I like films, mangas, and video games that are inspired by/loosely based on Dracula.

and thus our intent was to give both Bram and Dracula back their dignity in some small way.

Dracula is depicted as a misunderstood man with fangs who is every woman's erotic dream.

And readers are supposed to despise Bram.

I think Bram would be proud that a family member has taken this initiative, and finally done justice to the legacy he created.

Bram would be livid that his work was bastardized and that his descendant depicted him as a desperate and a talentless hack.

~ Ian’s Story ~

I am not ashamed to say it, I LOVE horror films.

Ah, all-caps.

How I loathe thee.

A lot of people like horror and it is a popular genre.

So that doesn't make you unique.

And horror movies are no longer considered depraved or scandalous.

Holt mentions that his favorite horror movie as a kid was Dracula (1931).

When I was ten years old, my mother bought me a record for Halloween with Christopher Lee narrating the story of Dracula by Bram Stoker. Reading that record sleeve changed my life, for it was then I learned that Transylvania was an actual place and that Dracula was a historical figure.

Where do I begin?

If you are LISTENING to an audiobook, you are not READING IT.

Ian was "inspired" by the audiobook that he decided to read Dracula.

I was surprised at how different the novel was from the films—and I had seen every Dracula film ever made.

"Who knew that Count Dracula swings both ways? Or that Mina is an assertive and intelligent woman and not a stupid Dracula fangirl?"

The novel was more intelligent, astute, and dark.

While this literary abomination is a cash-grab filled with gratuitous gore and sex.

The novel had more intricate and exciting characters than I could have ever imagined.

While Dracula the Undead has depraved lesbian vampires and a whiny prat along with a handsome and misunderstood vampire who only wants tru luv.

I felt cheated by Hollywood. I vowed revenge!

I get it, Holt and Stoker.

I'm supposed to hate Hollywood but adore your literary travesty.

Fifteen years later, my opportunity came.

And Dracula fans wished that it never arrived.

Flipping channels one night, I came upon a program on the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that this story will result in name dropping. And Holt insisting that he is a scholar.

On the program, Coppola held up the 1972 book In Search of Dracula written by Fulbright Scholars Professor Raymond McNally and Professor Radu Florescu (Prince Dracula’s actual descendant).

Vlad the Impaler is also known as Vlad III, Vlad Dracul or Vlad Dracula.

Sometimes he is referred to as Vlad III of Wallachia or Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia.

But I have never heard of any scholar referring to Vlad III as "Prince Dracula."

A quick Google search reveals only this book and a YA novel called Hunting Prince Dracula.

Every time I see Vlad III being mentioned as "Prince Dracula", I can't keep a straight face.

Because it reminds me of Beni Gabor calling Imhotep his "prince."

Coppola had used the professors’ research of the historical Prince Dracula’s life as inspiration for the opening sequence of his film.

And he discarded the rest of it in order to make Dracula a guy who is looking for his one tru luv.

Before taking a breath I was on a plane to Boston College to meet the professors. After showing them some notes on the screenplay I planned to write based on their book,

"I smelled an opportunity to make some money!"

the professors sold me the rights for one dollar

"They were impressed my awesomeness!"

The friendship I forged with McNally and Florescu has borne fruit in many ways. I soon began traveling with the professors giving lectures on the impact of Bram Stoker’s novel on our culture.

According to Dracula the Undead on the official Penguin Publishing House website, Ian is being described as:

There is a BIG difference between being a fan, a historian, and a documentarian.

A quick Google search reveals that Ian Holt has not published anything in an academic journal.

However, one of the first things that pop up in an internet search is this.

This garnered me an invitation to speak at The First World Dracula Congress in Bucharest, Romania, in 1995—a gathering of Dracula/horror scholars from around the world.

I don't doubt that Holt went to The First World Dracula Congress.

But I don't think he was a speaker.

Elizabeth Miller wrote a report about the gathering.

And Ian Holt isn't mentioned among the speakers.

Holt went sightseeing in Romania and how he made "the dream I had as a ten-year-old come true."

Thanks to the friends I made at the First World Dracula Congress, I was asked to join the Transylvanian Society of Dracula—a scholarly organization dedicated to the study of all things Dracula.

We get it, Ian Holt.

You want us to think that you are a scholar because you are friends with scholars and historians.

But I don't think a scholar would be constantly name-dropping.

Through friends in the society I met Professor Elizabeth Miller, the world’s foremost authority on all things vampire, Dracula, and Bram.

"And I'll use my scholar friends as a shield to deal with criticism."

Professor Miller asked me to speak at the Dracula convention in Los Angeles in 1997, where we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the release of Bram’s novel.

According to a report on the 1997 Dracula convention in Los Angeles, Holt isn't mentioned as being one of the speakers.

Holt says during the convention he came up with an idea to write a sequel to Dracula. He admits that a Dracula sequel isn't a new idea.

But a Dracula sequel was never written with "input from a member of the Stoker family."

Holt goes on to say that "securing that input became my goal" and contacted the Stoker family patriarch.

Still scarred by the Nosferatu copyright affair and years of being ignored and abused by Hollywood, the members of this generation of the Stoker family wanted nothing to do with me.

I could be wrong...

But I'm getting a strong feeling that Holt was miffed that some members of the Stokers didn't want to touch him with a ten-foot pole.

Especially since Holt said the Stoker family at "long last" supported the idea for an official sequel.

But I wouldn’t give up.

Holt says how he "kept building up my film-writing résumé and Dracula connections." He eventually meets Dacre Stoker.

I pitched him my sequel idea, which at the time I had been planning as a screenplay. Dacre was enthusiastic and suggested that the proper way to proceed was with a book first.

If it is a novel, then it will be proper lit-ra-choor.

Because a movie wouldn't be "deep" or "elevated".

Both Dacre and Ian agreed to a writing partnership.

And Dacre contacted his family members and presented them with the sequel proposal.

Once it was understood that this would be a labor of love,

"We gleefully shit all over the original lore and insist that it was all a lie."

our intentions honorable, and that our plan was to restore to the world Bram’s original vision and characters,

If that was the case, then:

The original lore of Dracula wouldn't be repeatedly violated.

The Crew of Light wouldn't be depicted in an unflattering light.

And Bram Stoker wouldn't be vilified.

the Stokers offered support, at long last.

Translation: They finally appreciated my genius!

Dracula the Un-Dead is the culmination of my lifelong dream and years of hard work.

"And why is the Devil laughing and doing a victory dance?"

It is my gift to every horror nut out there.

If by "gift", you mean a literary turd, then I agree with you.

My greatest wish is we have created a book that is close to Bram’s original gothic vision

"Close to Bram's original gothic vision"?

Hell no!

It contradicts the original story and reads like a shitty Coppola's Dracula fanfic.

—while modernizing it at the same time.

By stealing a twist from The Empire Strikes Back and copying a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Believe me, I realize how lucky I am.

And readers will regard this novel as a plague upon mankind.

I have been truly blessed that in some small way, my name will be linked with

a mean-spirited and shitty novel.

that of my hero, Bram Stoker—

I'm not convinced that Dacre or Ian regard Bram as their hero.

Here is an excerpt from the novel:

"If there were to be any truth to Stoker's novel it would have to be where no sunlight could ever reach."

Translation: you can stick it where the sun don't shine.

the man who invented modern horror.

I'll say it again...

Stoker wasn't the only one who invented modern horror.

Some of the other writers were Edgar Allen Poe, Ann Radcliffe, Sheridan Le Fanu, Algernon Blackwood, and H.P. Lovecraft.

5 notes · View notes

lifeflowingon · 3 years

Text

| QUICKSILVER | 4 |

• SUMMARY: After a student is gruesomely murdered on campus, Baek Haeju finds herself trying to extract information from the only person who might know the truth. But is secretive English major Min Yoongi just a witness? Or is he the culprit?

• WARNINGS: Death, murders, sex.

• WORDS: 3704.

"I comb the crowd and pick you out, my mouth moves too fast for you to figure it out.

It starts: eyes closed to fingers crossed to 'I swear, I say".

XO | Fall Out Boy

"It's okay."

"No, Haeju... I crossed the line."

Jungkook is standing behind Haeju as she makes some toast for herself before heading out to work, trying not to look at her best friend. Jungkook left her a dozen voicemails and showed up at her apartment this morning, asking for forgiveness.

Haeju can't say no to his smile. She knows that she always forgives him too easily, but it's Jungkook.

"Seriously, Jungkook, that's fine," sighs Haeju, turning around. She lets out a little gasp as she realizes how close Jungkook is. He seems truly sorry, and his eyes look red and tired.

"I just don't want you to think that I used that information to deliberately hurt you," he says, placing a finger under Haeju's chin. "The first thing I saw was your purity ring and I just... I'm so sorry."

"It was a fake fight," says Haeju, reaching out for Jungkook's hand and removing it off her chin. "That's fine."

"And he believed it, right?" asks Jungkook excitedly.

"I... yeah. He did." Haeju feels uneasy, because she can't stop thinking about Yoongi and how he tried to be nice to her after the "fight" with Jungkook. He seems to be a decent guy after all, even if he's a little arrogant, but Haeju always seems to be attracted to those guys.

Not that she's attracted to Min Yoongi, because she's not. He has only been nice to her for a day after all, and the fact that they're meeting after her shift doesn't make her feel nervous at all.

No, not at all.

"You look pensive," chuckles Jungkook.

"Oh, yeah," blushes Haeju, pushing Yoongi's eyes out of her mind. "Um... so I forgot to tell you something."

"Yeah?" grins Jungkook, grazing Haeju's cheek with his hand. Why is he being like this? Haeju doesn't understand, Jungkook has never been this... physically affectionate with her. Sure, a couple hugs and kisses on the cheek, but not this.

"Yoongi has a tattoo," blurts Haeju. "A silver circle, just like the one on the papers you got. And two of his friends do too."

"Holy shit," says Jungkook breathlessly, dropping his hand. "I mean, really? Wow! But... Haeju, this is great!"

"Sorry I didn't tell you before, it just came to mind," blushes Haeju, and Jungkook gives her a hug.

"You haven't even been friends with the dude for a day and you're already a jackpot of information," says Jungkook, holding her tightly. "You're the best. The best!"

"I know," teases Haeju, and Jungkook gently lets go of her.

"Now... I know you guys are hanging out today, for your project or whatever," says Jungkook calmly. "It doesn't matter how long it takes, as long as you get more info on him. Now I'm convinced this society exists."

Haeju remains silent as Jungkook stares at the ceiling in concentration. Then he looks at her again and smiles widely at her. "You're so amazing. Did you know that?"

"You've said that several times, yes," giggles Haeju, and all of a sudden, Jungkook grabs her hand.

"I feel like apologizing again," he says, and Haeju shudders as their fingers intertwine. "I feel like such a jerk. I really didn't want to hurt you, and I want to make sure you know that."

He's stepping closer, and Haeju looks into his eyes, wondering what's going on. "And if I've been a coward when it comes to us..." he says, and the words make Haeju's heart explode. "It's not because of your vow. It's because I'm an idiot, that's all."

"Us?" echoes Haeju.

"Unless I've been misreading you for the last year... you like me, don't you?" asks Jungkook as he leans in. "There's all this tension between us, and I can't ignore it anymore. Neither can you."

Jungkook kisses her, and warmth engulfs her. His lips move slowly on hers, and it's just like she imagined it. This is better than her first kiss with K.C. This isn't a dream, it's really happening, and she feels Jungkook's arms wrap around her.

"I like you," Jungkook mutters against Haeju's lips. "Sorry for being such an ass. I was afraid of ruining our friendship. Sorry for not kissing you that night, I wanted to. I really did."

Haeju smiles, happiness all over her face, and she's about to kiss Jungkook again when Chaerin enters the kitchen, letting out a loud squeal. "You guys! Oh my gosh! You were totally... Finally!"

Chaerin runs over to them and hugs them, still squealing. Jungkook looks embarrassed but he's still grinning, and Haeju knows that her face probably resembles the color of a tomato.

"Chaerin, we need to keep this quiet," says Jungkook, and Haeju's heart sinks a little. He looks at Haeju and mouths "Yoongi" to her, making some of the uneasiness go away.

"Why?" asks Chaerin, suddenly irritated.

"Haeju is working on a special project for the paper," says Jungkook. "And I don't want my editor to find out that we're... um. You know."

Jungkook puts an arm around Haeju's shoulder, and Chaerin gives them a knowing smile. "Okay, fine," she chuckles. "This totally makes up for the crappy day I had yesterday."

"Oh, sorry to hear that," says Haeju, remembering how Chaerin seemed miserable the morning before.

"If you see Jung Chaeku walking around with a black eye, it wasn't me," winks Chaerin, stealing Haeju's toast and walking out of the kitchen.

"Whoa, a black eye?" calls Jungkook after her.

"Yes!" calls Chaerin from the living room. "So you better be a good boyfriend to Haeju!"

Jungkook raises an eyebrow at Haeju, who starts laughing uncontrollably. Jungkook just shrugs and gives her another peck on the lips, and the butterflies in Haeju's stomach are out of control.

"I could get used to this," he smiles.

Haeju tries not to sigh, not to squeal and scream with joy, but she can't help a nervous giggle. She thinks of her sister, Jihye, who always said that Jungkook and Haeju would end up together, even when they were in their early teens. Haeju should email her soon.

"Yeah... same here."

xxxx

Haeju stares into space dreamily; still thinking about the kiss she shared with Jungkook. She still can't believe it happened and she looks around for signs of the apocalypse, but everything seems all right.

"Haeju, you have a customer," calls Peter from the back, and Haeju blushes as she rings up some books for a tired looking guy.

"Books are so unnecessary," yawns the guy. "But my teachers keep telling me, 'Namjoon, you need to buy them. Namjoon, you need to pass this class.' Isn't showing up good enough to get a degree?"

Haeju laughs at Namjoon's comments, and he pulls his wallet out of his pocket, staring at the myriad of credit cards in it. He finally decides on a shiny black one, and he smiles coquettishly at Haeju.

"Your eyes are beautiful," he says. "What are you doing working behind a counter?"

"This pays my rent," smiles Haeju.

"Ah, rent," says Namjoon as Haeju hands him his receipt. "The struggles of the college student! Don't worry, I'm sure you'll make enough money to forget about rent someday. What's your major?"

"Public relations," says Haeju.

"If I ever need a PR lady, I will call you," says Namjoon, cocking his head to the side. A pretty boy approaches him, and he runs his hand through his hair impatiently.

" Namjoon, hurry up," he snaps, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, and Haeju stares.

"See something you like?" the guy retorts and Haeju looks away shyly, earning a dry laugh from Namjoon.

"Now, now, Seokjin, calm down," says Namjoon pompously. "Let's go. "See you later, Haeju."

Namjoon looks around before leaving and his eyes focus on something in the back of the store, but Haeju is too embarrassed to follow his gaze. Namjoon nods and he and Seokjin leave the bookstore, and Haeju clutches her name badge anxiously.

Seokjin had a tattoo. He had a silver tattoo on the back of his ear; Haeju saw it when the guy was fixing his hair. This is getting intricate, and Haeju regrets not asking them more, and she also wonders if Namjoon has a tattoo as well. Yeah, the secret society definitely exists. She just wishes she knew what the circle means.

Killing freshmen? No, that can't be it. Yangmi was a first, and nobody had any motives to kill her. She was just an outgoing student with a basketball scholarship, no known enemies. So why?

"Hey."

Haeju looks up and Yoongi is smirking at her, his hair a little messy. Haeju's feels a foreign sensation inside of her, and her trademark blush betrays her. She didn't even see Yoongi walk in.

"Buying something?" she asks politely.

"This," says Yoongi, placing a chocolate bar on the counter. Haeju looks at Yoongi's hands, at the rings on his fingers, at the black fingernails. She looks up again and they both smile at each other awkwardly as Haeju scans the bar.

"Any ideas for our essay?" asks Yoongi as he hands Haeju some money. "I've been thinking about us all day - Our essay. Our essay, yeah."

"Um, I don't know what to write about," says Haeju, giving Yoongi his change. "My shift ends in about fifteen minutes. Think you can wait?"

Yoongi pockets the money and winks at her as he starts unwrapping the chocolate. "I'll wait for you outside, Baek." He gives Haeju a long, calculating look before walking away, and two girls in line stare after him in awe. One of them has long, brown hair, and the other one has short spiky hair.

"He's so mysterious," giggles one of them as Haeju is about to check them out.

"I would totally do him," says the other one, and both start giggling and squealing.

"Did you find everything okay?" asks Haeju coldly, scanning some books. These girls are kind of annoying, really. And what's up with those short skirts?

"Yeah," says the brown-haired girl, who then turns to look at her friend. "I'm in the same class as Kim Taehyung, you know, the drama major?"

"Oh, the odd one with the weird outfits?" says the redhead.

"That one. I kind of want to be friends with him; he's always hanging out with Yoongi. Ugh, Min Yoongi is so freaking hot!"

"60.95," mutters Haeju, feeling more and more upset.

"And all those rumors about him... fuck, he's just so yummy," giggles the redhead, and Haeju loses her patience.

"Do you mind paying? Or do I have to wait?" says Haeju acidly, and the girls scoff at her.

"Ladies, I'm so glad you found your books," says Wonjae out of nowhere. "Let me give you your change..."

Wonjae gently pushes Haeju away from the register, taking money out of the till. Haeju looks at the manager, Jihye's ex-boyfriend who was kind enough to give her a job, and she feels ashamed about her behavior. Wonjae gives Haeju a side glare, shaking his head in disappointment, and the girls leave. Haeju is still seething, irritated by the shallow girls, but Wonjae seems genuinely upset and Haeju decides that she has more important matters to take care of.

"You've been kind of off today," says Wonjae. "You just channeled Jihye right there with that snappy attitude." Wonjae smiles sadly, and Haeju knows that he's still pining over her sister.

"Just a lot going on," mumbles Haeju.

"Hey, guys!" says Kiwoo, putting his name badge around his neck.

"I'll sort out the receipts," says Wonjae, placing a hand on Haeju's shoulder. "Go home and relax or something, just make sure you come back with a better attitude."

"Sorry," says Haeju, and she means it.

"We all have bad days," smiles Wonjae, and starts pushing her away. "Go, baby Baek, go."

Haeju takes off her name badge and walks away, feeling guilty. Sure, she was distracted all day, thinking of Jungkook's kiss. But her reaction to the girls was something that she didn't expect. Why did she feel so angry with them? Yoongi is attractive, that's true, so the girls weren't doing anything wrong. Haeju goes to her locker and retrieves her purse, scolding herself for being a bad employee. She can't afford to lose her temper like that again, especially not in front of Wonjae.

She waves at Kiwoo and Wonjae before leaving the store, and an odd sense of fury corrodes her when she steps outside and she sees the girls talking to Yoongi. He looks bored and his smile seems a little forced, and his hands are in his pockets.

"Yoongi!" calls Haeju and Yoongi looks over at her, a grateful smile appearing on his lips. He doesn't even say goodbye to the girls, he just walks away, looking relieved.

"I was this close to pulling out my rape whistle," says Yoongi, his expression pained.

"That bad, huh?" mocks Haeju.

"You have no idea," says Yoongi. "So, library? We could pick up some books there and then just go outside and read. The weather is so nice today."

Haeju looks at the cloudy sky and then back at Yoongi, and of course he would say it's nice weather. He seems like the kind of guy who loves a cloudy day.

"Sounds great," says Haeju, and they start walking towards the library.

"Are you feeling better?" he asks tentatively as they walk.

"About what?" asks Haeju.

"Jungkook."

Haeju doesn't look at him, afraid that her eyes will give it away. Of course she's feeling better about Jungkook, they kissed this morning. She's feeling nothing but bliss, and everything is perfect in the world.

"Yes," nods Haeju. "Glad to have him out of my life."

"That's... good," shrugs Yoongi. "You shouldn't be around people like that."

"You mean like you?" asks Haeju, sticking out her tongue.

"Hey! I was only mean to you because I thought you had something with Jungkook," says Yoongi defensively.

"Jealous?" teases Haeju.

"No, I meant something like a conspiracy against me," sneers Yoongi. "Jealous? You wish, Baek!"

"I'm too good for you anyway," huffs Haeju proudly as she starts to walk faster.

"Walking fast won't me make want to be your friend!" calls Yoongi after her, and Haeju starts laughing as she turns around to face him.

"Who says that I want to be your friend?" says Haeju loudly.

"Do you hear that?" says Yoongi, placing his hand behind his ear. "That's my heart breaking."

"You have one?" retorts Haeju playfully.

"Yeah, right here." Yoongi grabs Haeju's hand and places it on his chest, and he's smiling tauntingly at her. Yoongi's hand on hers makes her shiver a little, and she just looks into his eyes, seeing how warmly he's looking at her.

"It's beating," notes Haeju.

"It is, isn't it?" says Yoongi, letting go of Haeju's hand. "Told you I had a heart. I never lie."

But thoughts of the tattoos come rushing into Haeju's mind, and she doesn't know what to believe.

xxxx

Yoongi is still writing on his journal, and Haeju waits patiently as she rests her head on her hands. She glances around the garden, watching other students who are reading or just hanging out. She also looks at some of the people leaving the library and smirks when she sees Chaeku walking out with a curly-haired girl. Yes, he has a black eye. Chaerin can act really crazy sometimes.

"So... rain."

Yoongi's voice is mocking and full of sarcasm, and Haeju decides to play along.

"Yeah... rain."

Yoongi and Haeju glance at each other and they start laughing, realizing how ridiculous their assignment sounds.

"We're in college, for fuck's sake," groans Yoongi. "Sorry about the blasphemy."

"No need to apologize," says Haeju, touching the cross around her neck. "I'm not a stuck-up Christian."

"Hmm," says Yoongi, jotting down some notes on his journal. "Still, I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"You already did that a few days ago," mocks Haeju, but Yoongi doesn't say anything, he just continues to write. They sit in silence for a while, the cool breeze making everything feel pleasant, and Haeju flips through the pages of the book that Yoongi picked at the library.

"I want to figure you out," says Yoongi, breaking the silence.

"Excuse me?" asks Haeju, looking up from the book.

"I can't figure you out, not yet," muses Yoongi. "It's kind of killing me. I usually read people easily, but I feel like you're hiding something."

"You're paranoid," blushes Haeju as she looks away. Of course she's hiding something, she's spying on him, she's probably going to be the end of him. Haeju heart aches a little at the thought.

"I probably am," smirks Yoongi. "I just don't trust people, it's my nature."

Haeju looks at him and she can almost see how Yoongi's defenses are floating in front of him, teasing her. He's never going to open up to her, she will never find out anything about Yangmi. And somehow, that thought is a little comforting.

"Why?" asks Haeju curiously.

"Why what?" responds Yoongi, stretching his arms.

"You said you don't trust people... why?" Haeju tries to sound understanding and warm, hoping that Yoongi will open up at least a little. But there is darkness in his eyes, and his nostrils flare with distrust as his hands clutch his notebook tightly. He's a different person now in Haeju's eyes, a person who looks dangerous and secretive, a person who is capable of the utmost evil. Haeju's shaking, and she hopes that Yoongi doesn't notice. But then Yoongi smiles and all bad thoughts disappear, and Haeju wonders if she just imagined everything.

Yoongi chuckles softly and his lips part to answer Haeju's question.

"I don't trust myself."

"That's a pretty strong statement," says Haeju, trying to keep things light.

"I have nothing to hide, that's why I'm telling you," says Yoongi simply.

"Nothing to hide, hmm," muses Haeju. "Does that mean that I can ask you anything?"

Yoongi considers her for a moment and then slides his journal down his back pocket. "It depends."

"Ah, so you do have stuff to hide," says Haeju.

"No, it's not that," says Yoongi coolly. "I just don't know you that well."

"What do you want to know?" asks Haeju, knowing that she might regret saying that.

"Are you single?" asks Yoongi bluntly.

Haeju hesitates for a second, but she knows that she has to lie. "I... yeah. Yes."

"Hmm." Yoongi stares at his own hands and seems to be examining his fingernails with infinite detail, and then looks at her shrewdly.

"Why do you want to know?" insists Haeju.

"I was just curious," says Yoongi. "And... Well, you heard Tae. I've seen you around before."

"Are you a stalker?" says Haeju, trying to sound mocking but just coming across as nervous. Yoongi is not hitting on her, is he? This is the most inconvenient time. Not because she's with Jungkook now, but because she has no feelings for Yoongi whatsoever. None.

"You're hard to miss, Haeju," says Yoongi, sounding sincere. "And we had a class together during your first year, I think. You just seemed like the kind of girl who would never talk to me."

"What makes you say that?" asks Haeju, now feeling a little remorseful.

"You're a nice girl, that's all."

"But Tae is a nice boy, and he talks to you," points out Haeju.

"Tae has been my friend for years," says Yoongi dismissively. "Tae and Hoseok are my best friends, they kind of have to talk to me."

Yoongi says this in such a pragmatic way, as if his friends really have no choice. Haeju realizes that he seems lonely and terribly sad; there is a hint of despair in his eyes when he speaks.

"Well, I would be your friend, but you don't want me to," says Haeju.

"Why should I let you in?" asks Yoongi, scratching his cheek. "What makes you different from other girls?"

"I..." Haeju has a loss for words. "I don't know."

"There you go," says Yoongi, running his hand over the grass. "Fuck, this conversation is depressing."

"You made it depressing!" exclaims Haeju.

Yoongi laughs and nods as he lies down on the grass. "Sorry, I tend to do that. Wanna lay down with me?"

"I should... go home," says Haeju, mildly tempted to follow Yoongi's suggestion.

"Do you live nearby? Do you want me to give you a ride?" asks Yoongi, sitting up.

"No, I can walk, but thanks," says Haeju in a flustered tone. "We didn't get anything done."

"We have time, we have a semester," says Yoongi as they both start getting on their feet. They're very close to each other as they stand up and Haeju's eyes trail down to Yoongi's neck, and then to the exposed part of his collarbone. She can see half of the tattoo right there, mocking her, taunting her. But then their eyes meet, and it's a whole different sensation.

Haeju's fingertips feel warm, and Yoongi looks like he's about to lean in, but this isn't right.

She looks away and she swears she can hear Yoongi's disappointment, and she's surprised by the regret that starts sinking in her heart.

"See you later, okay?" says Haeju wretchedly, her emotions confusing her like never before.

"Sure, whatever," says Yoongi, walking away from her. She turns around and starts walking quickly, as if that will make her forget about what just happened. She tries to think of her kiss with Jungkook, anything to make her forget about what Yoongi is making her feel. She's supposed to hate Yoongi, she's supposed to use him for information. That's all she needs from him.

And nice girls don't feel like this, they don't feel confusion like this. Good girls like one guy, and one guy only, and they stay with that guy forever.

She shouldn't feel like this. But she does.

She likes Yoongi.

| masterlist |

#bts #bts au #au #min yoongi

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flukeoffate · 7 years

Text

Governor Pryce Appreciation

(Contains spoilers for the Thrawn Novel)

There has been a few anti-Pryce posts on my dash this week and My thoughts on her spiraled out of control. I just wanted to throw my two cents in without making a mess of those posts. This is in no way meant to attack other people’s opinions, just studying what I like and dislike and considering reasons for the various reactions she gets.

(Extremely long character examination essay that I may have spent the better part of three or four hours on under the cut.)

I like Pryce. And I admit, the more I thought about her story and personality while writing this, I have maybe even grown to love her.

Is she a likeable person? Well, by the time of Rebels: no. Definitely not. But how many villains are likeable within the time of their introductory story? Few, I think. What I believe makes a villain likeable is their backstory, and also how charismatic they are during their screentime.

I want to examine some famous Star Wars villains. IMO there are very few Star Wars villains that are interesting until you dig deeper into their characters.

Unpopular opinion time: Vader and Tarkin are stupidly boring characters in A New Hope. They show up, kill some people, then lose a battle. We don’t know about Vader being Anakin Skywalker. He just looks cool. And Tarkin-well, I frankly think his interest came more from Peter Cushing’s acting more than the character itself. It is no secret that I’m a huge Hux fan, but the thing that drew me to him initially was his screaming speech. Other than being the ‘Tarkin’ of TFA, (and I use this description begrudgingly for the comparison) Hux doesn’t do much more than Tarkin ever did. All three of these guys are boring cardboard villains until you delve into their histories. Vader=Anakin? Holy shit, tell me more! Tarkin is classy AF and came from Space Australia? Sign me the fuck up! Hux has an abusive father and the weight of the First Order’s future on his shoulders? Damn, that is something to examine!

Pryce has the same problem as the above three: when they are introduced, they are already fully formed villains. You don’t see their developement. It’s done. Their story is pretty much over. No development is expected within their initial debut, their sob stories are not the focus of the plot. Like the aforementioned three, Pryce is 2D boring until you read her backstory. Why is she singled out as terrible compared to the others?

Well, without playing the gender card, I want to say it’s because she doesn’t display the charisma of the others. She is cold, doesn’t look flashy, and lacks charisma in Rebels. She just has one thing going for her: a generally evil and contemptuous thirst for authority and control. It’s standard and boring. I will grant that.

Where I differ from a lot of readers: I think she is a fantastic villain after reading the Thrawn book.

The most popular villains are either someone who has characteristics that you either identify with, or you aspire to have. And the more I think about Pryce, the more I realize that her story is actually very relatable, at least to me.

Pryce starts out as a member of a prominent family with a profitable mining company. She has aspirations of getting away from her backwater planet. Fuck, a lot of people have that urge. It’s not an evil trait in itself. When it the mine is forcibly taken from her family (more specifically her parents are threatened) she vows revenge, and it catipults her into motion. She gets out of there and to Coruscant. Ok, pretty basic. A lot of people hold grudges, it’s not super villain stuff yet. It’s a pretty simple vendetta focused on destroying one obviously corrupt and dislikable government official. (Which, seeing as the entirety of Star Wars is based on fighting evil and corruption, I find it ironic that her initial motive has come under scrutiny.)

All things considered, Pryce is pretty crafty in her plans. Sure, she can be devious. She has the makings of a good spy if she were properly trained. But for the most part, her plan revolves around using the established system against her enemies. THAT is a direct parallel to Thrawn himself. He makes his plans work through ingenuity and finding loopholes. But where Thrawn lacks the ability to manipulate the politics of the system, she can. But more importantly, she grows: she isn’t perfect at navigating the political system to start. It takes a fall from grace to lead her there.

And here we come to the crux of her relatability: her biggest downfall was betrayal from those she trusted the most. People she worked with, people who claimed she was their friend, people who claimed the friendship was genuine even after their schemes had been revealed.

I have had ‘friends’ betray me. Let me tell you it is a mind-blowing and traumatic experience. My therapist actively made me recognize my ex-friend drama as a real traumatic event that should not be trivialized.

And Pryce faces trauma. She was betrayed in the worst of ways, systematically and over a period of years. Pryce was physically, emotionally, and professionally assaulted. When she was drugged during ascension week and threatened? Holy shit, that is the kind of scenario associated with kidnapping and rape. And it was used as blackmail. You don’t shrug something like that off. I felt genuine disgust and fear for her in that scene. Then later, her ‘friends’ involve her in a plot that mixes her up with SAME PERSON who attacked her? Holy shit, wonderful way to reinforce that trauma. And then her friends bring her deeper into their plot by actually endangering her in order to manufacture more trust. And that same plot was made to FRAME Pryce in the event of a take down. She could have been imprisoned or worse, all because of her ‘friends’.

But you know what? Pryce overcame all of this. She fought any fear and pushed it down. She took control of the situation with grace and dignity. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. She manipulated her attackers, destroyed them with cleverly obtained evidence, and took them down with the law at her side. And she never forgives them.

I think that is something people don’t like. That she doesn’t forgive.

Frankly, she doesn’t owe her ‘friends’ a goddamn thing. They are as brutal and manipulative as Pryce becomes. They don’t get a free pass on this for being on the “right” side of things. They are horrible people. Good on Pryce for letting them rot. They fucking deserve it.

I often find myself wishing I could do the same to the people who hurt me. I’m glad she got the opportunity and took it. I would not have the same courage. Fuck all that nonsense about forgiveness being the brave thing to do. In my experience, forgiveness is a lip service phrase followed by a societal pressure to ‘be nice’. Fuck that. I want to be angry. I want them to suffer. But I don’t follow through—because revenge is seen as a negative trait, especially for a woman. There is a reason women resort to sneaky tactics for revenge: it is unbecoming to outwardly express our rage.

Pryce is never shown to have more than a few friends. All of them betrayed her trust.

I relate to that. Viscerally.

You know who has not betrayed her?

Her parents.

We don’t have the full scope of their relationship, but from the getgo we see that Pryce is ready to pounce on anyone threatening her parents. That is a constant through the book. And her parents obviously love her at least as much as any parent should be expected. They are concerned for her wellbeing, and are generally in touch with her. And by the end of the book, she isn’t the same person who vowed to ruin a corrupt official. She has taken up her mantle of anger and distrust. She discovers that she is ready, willing, and able to kill for her family and damn the casualties. She doesn’t care about other people. Other people never cared about her. Her life has proven to her one truth: trust no one. Beyond her parents, she has no love for anyone. The times she tried were a disaster.

There is a tragedy in that. I have experienced betrayal. But I have also had true friendship. We have no indication she ever had the good with the bad. I’m pretty sure that if I can pity Hux for having a shitty childhood, I can pity her for the events that left her so jaded.

So, yes. I like Pryce. I think she has damn good reasons for being the way she is. Do I condone her actions at Batonn? Hell no. Do I hate how she affects Thrawn? Yes. But Batonn is her Anakin to Darth Vader moment, the point where she truly goes to ‘the dark side’. I’m glad to have been given the opportunity to see it unfold. She can continue to be the frigid flat villain in Rebels, because now we know where she comes from. Rewatching Rebels shows her in a new light just as much as it changes how we see Thrawn. And we might see her comments now and think: you evil bitch! But damn, if that doesn’t make me like her more. Before the book, she was a generic Imperial baddie. Now I actually have an emotional response to back it up, and that is WAYYYYY more interesting.

I think the one big thing that prevents her from getting more love is that she doesn’t have the traits that fans typically like to explore in fanfic. She is closed off, and has no real big candidate for shipping purposes. And she doesn’t have any meaningful commonality with the heroes in Rebels beyond being the Governor of Lothal and therefore the enemy. She doesn’t have a specific vendetta driving her actions, she is just doing her job. By the time Rebels takes place, Pryce is not making impressive plans of destruction and she is done with any self reflection that might garner sympathy. But I don’t think she needs it. The book is enough.

With characters like Kallus, you could see than he had a sort of joy for the hunt in the first seasons. Then you learned more about his personality and he grew. Pryce doesn’t get the same treatment. Some people love Phasma for being an absolutely cold monster with no emotion. But Pryce isn’t cold or monsterous enough to have the same level of ‘wtf?’ that makes Phasma interesting (again, adding to the list of boring characters that are only great with their backstory considered...) Most of us can’t relate to the sheer heartlessness of Phasma and are compelled by it. Both Pryce and Phasma are self centered and power hungry individuals. But where Phasma has no conscience or hint or moral code, Pryce does have the capacity for such things, and that make readers see her selfishness as a negative trait to be hated instead of studied.

Maybe people find Pryce’s motivations too easy—a lot of us have friends who aren’t friends, and love our parents. Maybe her relatability is so common that we forget that these still qualify as three dimensional traits. Maybe we are afraid to admit that we have anything in common with her.

Pryce is a good character. I liked her parts in Thrawn. I was scared for her when she was drugged. I felt her loneliness when she couldn’t confide in her friends. I laughed my ass off at the unemployment office scene. I felt her shock and sorrow when she realized no one could be trusted. I envy her tenacity and bold resolve. I don’t have half her courage.

I like Pryce.

#arihnda pryce #governor pryce #pryce appreciation #anti-pryce #pryce love #tw: rape #a strong comparison but I felt it needed to be addressed in this so the R word stayed in.

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occupyvenus · 7 years

Text

But why?

Dark!Dany in season 7 (part 1 of ~4).

I was almost finished writing down my dark!dany-impressions from episodes 1 and two, but then episode 3 aired and I decided to completely change the structure of this little essay and start anew. So of course, this took way longer than anticipated. I decided to finish the first part now, hopefully post the second part later today or tomorrow and complete the third and fourth after Dany went Dracarys in ep 4 (because she will, I just know that she will)

A couple of disclaimers before I get started :

First: D&D are playing loose (very loose) with the social rules and norms established in the books. I will try to keep any “that doesn’t make any sense, in the books xyz would happen” out of this. For example if the show tells me that besieging a city from all sites, thereby cutting its supply lines, will cost the least civilian life, I will take that as a fact. If the show claims that Cersei’s claim to the Iron Throne is “secure” enough to be seen fucking her own brother, at least within Kings Landing and in the mind of several Reach Lords who answered her summon, I will accept that as well. In short: If D&D say that’s how it is, then that’s how it is.

Second: I do not believe that primarily judging characters and their actions from a westerosi point of view really makes sense anymore. The world in which this story takes place should be taken into consideration, yes, but watsonian consistency and accuracy have really taken a backseat to the doylist intentions the show is trying to express. D&D are clearly changing and constructing plot lines, characterizations, decisions and reactions with a modern audience in mind and, most importantly, to accommodate their modern moral and ethical views. This is not to say that modern audiences lack the capacity to put themselves into alien positions and worldviews. This ability simply seems to be very inconsistent and sometimes even contradictory. For example: Even though decapitation has mostly vanished as a form of punishment, it’s fairly easy to recognise the supposed “justice” in such an act. If we are presented with a culprit guilty of a capital crime. As the show has displayed many times, chopping off someone else's head for breaking a vow, does not turn you into a blood-thirsty murderer or ruthless tyrant, even though we all agree, that it’s good we don’t do that anymore. But on the other hand (pun intended) if one of our good guys were to cut of a thief's hand on screen -a widespread punishment for theft over many continents and centuries, including the setting of asoiaf* - we would probably have a harder time to “forgive” them for it. I know I would. Humans and their perception of “moral” are weird. I’m sure there are some theories out there on why that is and what influences this, imo, rather weird phenomena, but I hope you understand what I mean when I say: We can accept different realities and their rules, but only when we can. In my opinion, that’s a framework D&D are carefully working with.

You can disagree with me on that, but that is how I am going to approach the show from now on, this little post included. I will focus on what the show-runners are trying to convey to a modern audience. How do they want us to react to what happens on screen and what tools do they use to influence and guide our reaction. Many of my estimations will be intuitive and not necessarily fully objective, so everyone is free to disagree with me in that perspective. But if you want to refute one of my arguments here, solely based on “but it is based on the medieval !!!”, you will have to present a very compelling case for me to care. Because the show mostly doesn’t care on what time period Westeros is vaguely based on, so why should I?

Third: These are only my opinions, blah blah. I do not claim to have an insider in HBO who tells me what they were trying to do. These are only my thoughts, my analysis, my interpretations.

Fourth: I don’t “hate” Dany, I don’t think she is the most evilest person on the show, I simply believe that she is moving into a darker direction. Honestly, that would be the exact twist the series could need right now. It’s starting to get a bit boring and predictable.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get started with the first big question:

Why even conquer Westeros ?

I believe that both intentions and consequences are important. As a rule of thumb I always judge an action by its consequences, the character of a person by their intentions. This is often intertwined, an “evil” person will often do “evil” things, “good” people can sometimes do “evil” things for “good” reasons, and if a “good” person keeps doing “evil” shit you will sooner or later question how “good” they really are. It’s useless to say that all of this is indeed very subjective and it’s pretty unlikely that two people will always be on the same page. No one has to agree with me on that (after all the entire field of philosophy has been arguing about this for centuries), but I found it to be a fair and meaningful way to assess “ethical positioning”, at least for fictional fictional characters and my own opinion.

So in this first section, I will focus on the question Why does Dany even want to conquer Westeros? Rather than her qualities as a queen or the consequences of her actions I will try to focus on her intentions, on what drives her to conquer the Seven Kingdoms. I will end this section on whether those intentions justify or warrant the price she is willing to pay for the Iron Throne and talk more thoroughly about it in later parts.

Season 7 has had a number of interesting hints and revelations about this issue.

EPISODE 1 “DRAGONSTONE”

I honestly didn’t pay much attention to the single short scene Dany had in episode one. (I was preoccupied with the case umber & karstark vs the north). But some comments made by Dany-fans caught my attention and made me take another look at her behaviour. What I’m talking about is Dany entering the Throne Room in Dragonstone, walking towards the throne (a symbol for “ruling”) but moving to the next room, rejecting it for the carved table Aegon planned his conquest on 300 years ago (a symbol for just that - “conquest”).

I read comments along the lines “This was such a great character moment! It really shows where her priorities lie” or “She doesn’t just want to rule, she wants to win!”. After giving it some thought I fully agree with these statements, but ... I do not think that’s ... a good thing? This reminds me very much of something Dario said in season 6:

You weren’t made to sit on some chair in a palace. [...] You are a conqueror, D Stormborn.

I think he is spot on with this. It has been shown again and again that what Dany is good at, what she thrives at, is conquest. Fighting and defeating your enemy. My question is: does this make her a good candidate for the Iron Throne? Shouldn’t her conquest simply be the means through which she accomplishes her real goal - ruling - instead of her true vocation? I don’t believe that Dany actually wants to sit on a throne, she simply wants to win it. Robert showed that good soldiers don’t make good kings, I do not believe that good conquerors make good queens neither.

EPISODE 2 “STORMBORN”

This episode tackles and subtly undermines two motivations behind this conquest, that made it an relatable, righteous venture in both our and Danys mind.

First, Dany admits that Dragonstone “doesn’t feel like home”.

Dany to Viserys in Pentos [s1]: I don’t want to be his queen. I want to go home.

Dany to Tyrion in Meereen [s5]: I fought so that no child born into Slaver’s Bay would ever know what it meant to be sold or bought. I will continue that fight here and beyond. But this is not my home.

Dany to Tyrion in Dragonstone [s7]: I always thought this would be a homecoming. Doesn’t feel like home.

Longing for one’s home is an outmost humane desire. We can empathize and sympathize with this. We can’t begrudge her for this wish or the actions she takes to fulfill it. She might have never spend a day of her adult life in westeros before, but it has always been “home” in her mind. Now she is faced with the ugly reality that it isn’t. That Dragonstone, and I would deduce the Seven Kingdoms as a whole, are a strange, foreign place to her. If the castle she was born in, her family's ancestral seat doesn’t feel “like home”, what will? The Red Keep? The Iron Throne? It is quite tragic, but the only real home Dany ever knew was the House with the red door in Braavos she lived in as a child. And that is not the home she will find at the end of her conquest.

Second, Dany realizes that the common folk is not praying for her return, sewing dragon banners and drinking secret toasts to her health.

The wine seller and Dany [s1]: You know there are many in your homeland who pray for your return princess. -- I hope to repay your kindness someday.

Tyrion and Dany [s5]: When you get back to you home, who supports you? -- “The common people”.

Dany to Varys [s7]: They call out for their true queen? They drink secret toasts to my health? People used to tell my brother that sort of thing and he was stupid enough to believe it.

Acknowledging that Viserys was a fool to believe this, certainly shows maturity and that she’s come to understand “how the world works”, but this notion, that she would return the rightful ruler to her people also gave her conquest a “moral backbone”. After all Dany has always depicted herself as a champion for the common people (at least as long as she was in essos, more on that later). If she believes that “her people are crying out for their true queen”, even if it isn’t true, simply if she believes it, her conquest is to some extent meant to fulfill the wishes of her subjects. Whether that is an important factor for the legitimacy of a feudalistic ruler, is another question, but it definitely is a quality we admire and look for in a good ruler. What makes the King in the North scenes so powerful and engaging, is the fact, that both Robb and Jon are chosen by their people. This has always played an important part in Dany’s self-image as a ruler. She was always shown to be loved by the essosi commoners (ie former slaves), she herself has stated that “the common folk” is who supports her in westeros. But quite frankly the show hasn’t addressed yet what the westerosi small folk is thinking about the dragon queen's return. Neither has Dany. It is only brought up once, when Varys starts to recount how unpopular Cersei is and Dany shuts him down immediately.

I noticed that “the good” Dany could do for the small folk in Westeros is mostly addressed by her supporters, not herself. Varys claims to back her because he believes “she is the best chance the common folk has”, Tyrion is the one to tell Jon that she “protects people from monsters”. In her time in slaver's bay she brought this up numerous times herself: What SHE could do to better their lives. But since she landed in Westeros, she only talks about bringing peace and prosperity to the people twice. Once when talking to Onella, who immediately shits all over warfare-the-nice-way and tells her to be “a dragon” (more on that in part 3) and a second time when talking to Jon. But this sentiment was brought up in the context of how “a targaryen on the Iron Throne and a Stark as warden in north” have been good for the realm. It isn’t directly linked to Dany herself, rather her conception of her family's legacy and it’s influence in the past.

EPISODE 3 “THE QUEENS JUSTICE”

This episode has done nothing to paint Danys motivation in a, let’s say “humanitarian”, light. Quite contrary, Dany freely admits in her own words that this conquest is most and foremost about her. Her wishes, her desires, what she thinks she deserves. She is approaching her “negotiation” with Jon with two key arguments in mind. First, her hereditary claim as a Targaryen and secondly, her personal claim based on her life experiences.

The last King in the North was Torrhen Stark, who bend the knee to my ancestor, Aegon Targaryen. In exchange for his life and the life of the Northmen, Torrhen Stark swore fealty to House Targaryen in perpetuity. [...] You’ve travelled all this way to break faith with House Targaryen? ...

I’ve already talked about my problems with Dany calling herself the “rightful” ruler. Though she admits that her father was an “evil man”, she doesn’t acknowledge Robert's Rebellion as a justified uprising against a tyrant. She simply sees her father as the bad apple of the family. As a single outlier in the otherwise “consistent” history of “righteous” Targaryen rule. Not only showing an unwillingness to accept any wrongdoings done by her house, her father gets outsourced as an exception, but also the consequences his downfall has for her “birthright”. Notice how she is specifically introduced as the “rightful” ruler (which is a little node at Jon heritage as well). She insists that the oaths Torrhen Stark made to Aegon are valid for eternity. She accuses Jon of “breaking faith” and “being in open rebellion”. She is not trying to re-establish House Targaryen post-rebellion, she is refusing to acknowledge the rebellions significance, as if it doesn’t even matter. Her goal is to keep the Targaryen rule going, because in her mind, it never was rightfully “interrupted” in the first place. This is a mind-set that hasn’t changed since season 1.

While this argument seems to be prepared, her “outburst” that follows, reveals her most honest thoughts and opinions.

I was born in Dragonstone. Not that I can remember it. We fled before Robert’s assassins could find us. Robert was your father’s best friend, no? I wonder if your father knew that his best friends sent assassins to murder a baby girl in her crib. Not that it matters now, of course. I spent my life in foreign lands. So many men have tried to kill me, I don’t remember all their names. I have been sold like a broodmare. I’ve been chained and betrayed, raped and defiled. Do you know what kept me standing through all these years in exile? Faith. Not in any gods, not in myths and legends. In myself. In D Targaryen.

Don’t get me wrong, she deserves sympathy for all this. She was victimized for most her life, breaking free of this role, taking agency and even drawing strength from her abuse is indeed inspiring. I don’t know if that was the purpose of her speech, but I’m sure that many people perceived it that way. I don’t want to badmouth those who took just that away from it.

But somehow ... it also raised some “tragic-villain-backstory” alarms in my head. You know, traditionally at the end of the movie, when our heroes are chained up somewhere in the bad dudes lair and ask “Why are you doing this?” and the villain responds with all the bad shit that happened to them. Talking about how the world wronged them, often how our heroes wronged them. “All my life the laughed at me, look who’s laughing now?”

This is not a sentiment directly expressed by her, but I feel like it’s so heavily implied that it’s fair to list it here. She has endured many, many hardships and now she feels that the world “owes” her big time. I feel like her ambition of conquering an entire kingdom has crossed the line of “not letting all your traumas stop you” and entered the realm of “I deserve everything I want, no matter the cost because life was unfair to me.” And that really is a text-book villain motive.

I really do not like to compare female characters, and I’m not trying to say that one of them “had it worse than the other”, but all of these things also apply to Sansa, some of them even to Cersei. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in an episode titled “The Queen’s justice”, we see one Queen using her sufferings to support her claim, one taking revenge on those who wronged her and another taking care of her people’s needs. All of these three women have suffered in similar ways and while two of them use it to justify their rather selfish behaviour, one of them is shown to spend her time working for others. This “parallel” is only amplified by Bran mentioning Sansa’s wedding night in the same episode. The only reason I can see for Bran bringing up this specific incident (there were many other options to proof his three-eyed-raven powers), is to draw a connection to Danys speech. Again, I am not necessarily trying to set them against each other, but Danys approach to coping with her abuse, at least resembles the one Cersei chose to take. Compare Danys speech to this book quote from Cersei and tell me you don’t get similar vibes:

I waited, and so can he. I waited half my life. She had played the dutiful daughter, the blushing bride, the pliant wife. She had suffered Robert's drunken groping, Jaime's jealousy, Renly's mockery, Varys with his titters, Stannis endlessly grinding his teeth. She had contended with Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and her vile, treacherous, murderous dwarf brother, all the while promising herself that one day it would be her turn. If Margaery Tyrell thinks to cheat me of my hour in the sun, she had bloody well think again.

This makes me believe that Dany is more or will be more like Cersei than she would like to think. If we all believe that Cersei is power hungry, isn’t Dany as well? For very similar reasons?

The ending of her little speech also makes her seem a bit megalomaniac.

[...] Do you know what kept me standing through all these years in exile? Faith. Not in any gods, not in myths and legends. In myself. In D Targaryen. The world hasn’t seen a dragon in centuries until my children were born. The Dothraki haven’t crossed the sea, any sea. They did for me. I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms and I will.

It’s no surprise really. She is the Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, the Khal of Khals. It’s no wonder all of this goes to her head. This also ties into her conversation with Melisandre in episode two. She immediately assumes that the prophecy is about her, or at least, seems rather pleased at the possibility. She seems to be taken aback when Mel said she (only) “has a part to play”. (At least that’s how I interpreted it, it’s not really easy to know what EC is trying to convey with her ... “acting”. Sry, not sry.) She has fully accepted herself as a chosen one, a prophesied savior, an über-mensch. Whether because of her lineage or her own achievements, this attitude hinges on plain arrogance and is way more often found in “villains” than “heroes”.

Please notice that her speech is not triggered by Jon refusing her claim, but by his insistence that the white walkers are real and coming for all them. Having her react like this at that point off the argument seems a bit out of place. It could boil down to shitty writing, but it could also be meant to emphasize an apparent contrast between Jon and Dany. Jon embraces leadership to protect his people, Dany seeks it to satisfy her need for self-importance.

While episode two subtly degrades her relatable and philanthropic motivations, episode three highlights those who are ultimately self-centered. Those rooted in ideas of superiority and entitlement. Whether she feels entitled because of everything she had to endure or her birthright as the last (lol) Targaryen, isn’t important. The point is that she feels she deserves to rule. She feels entitled to the seven kingdoms because of external circumstances, not because of her own qualities or competence.

I would also like to point out one more thing: Dany could have very well stayed in Essos. She could have chosen to remain in “the Bay of Dragons”, rule as it’s queen, bringing real stability to the region. The show swept that under the rug, and yes, I promised to just take the bullshit D&D feed me at face value, but it she just left Slaver’s Bay behind when it was time to conquer Westeros. I don’t see any reason why the region shouldn’t return to chaos after she, her armies and her dragons are gone. After all, it was “D Stormborn and her dragons coming to Meereen”, as Tyrion put it, that finally brought the former Masters to obey. Now that she’s busy somewhere else, what’s going to keep them in check? Daario and his 2000 Second Sons?

She could have stayed there, leading a comfortable life as it’s queen, caring for the people who worship her as the breaker of chains. Instead she decided to lead a war of invasion on Westeros. She decided to leave as soon as a fragile peace took hold, to wage war again. For what? If Dany isn’t fighting for “home” or “the will of her people”, what is she fighting for? What is left? She said it herself: D Targaryen. She is fighting for herself. This all is primarily about her and no one else. Honestly, I have a hard time rooting for someone who starts an invasion for selfish reasons.

This was part 1 of this long-ass post. I really hope I can finish “Tyrion Cricket starring in Danoccio” today or tomorrow. The sections “Fire and Blood and Burning Shit” will follow most likely after episode 4 has aired and my favourite topic right now (Targ!Cest vs Targ!Bowl) will come shortly after that. Stay tuned and thank you for your attention.

#game of thrones #got s7 #got meta #dark!dany #anti-daenerys #meta #my stuff #don't know how to tag this so I don't get in trouble #sry no gifs they just take to long

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lesmotsincompris · 7 years

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Thoughts on Game of Thrones S07E07

It’s over. It doesn’t mean we won’t hear about the show anymore, as mainstream media tends to make a huge noise over every little rumour for the upcoming season, but at least we now have some distance between ourselves and a new episode of GoT. Let’s enjoy it.

I’ve heard that the critics are back to praising the show, which surprises me but also doesn’t. On the surprised side, I’ll give that this was better than S07E06, but it was still far from a good episode overall. On the unsurprised (but disappointed nevertheless) side, people praising GoT despite all the inconsistent characterizations, plot contrivances, awful dialogue, and shoddy worldbuilding isn’t exactly new. If this season was the breaking point for only a handful of people, I’m already happy.

We had an extra long episode and I have no idea why. There was a lot of stalling, especially in the King’s Landing subplot. It’s amazing how D&D can put useless crap on screen and actually relevant events and character development offscreen. Priorities.

I’ll probably post a season review at some point, but for Sunday’s episode here’s what I have:

King’s Landing

I’m gonna be honest: I watched this episode yesterday and I barely remember most of the dialogue now. This isn’t a very good effect for one of the most relevant gatherings in your entire series, but that’s hardly the first time one of the show-exclusive “big moments” didn’t work for me.

Part of the reason for that is the conga line of contrivances that led to this meeting. The removal of Aegon’s storyline from the books left Daenerys and Cersei to fight each other, with the septsplosion last season and the show-only Lannister poverty making the odds even worse for Cersei. To give the Lannisters a chance, D&D had #TeamDany coming up with stupid plan after stupid plan. Even so, they still have two dragons and the bigger army, while Cersei’s Golden Company is a Narrow Sea away; they could have ended the war in this episode if they wanted to. Why didn’t they try this instead of a truce?

You can argue this would weaken their forces against the army of dead, except: a) Dany accepted the idea of a truce even before she was fully convinced of said army’s existence; b) they should know better than to trust Cersei Lannister. Despite Cersei’s inconsistent characterization (Lena Headey is a goddess doing wonders with that character), I think we can all agree that nobody expected her to suddenly work for the good guys. The characters don’t know Cersei had her own pet zombie, but we do (and apparently everybody around her, since she keeps calling him Ser Gregor?) so the presence of the wight is hardly a game changer.

Other than that, there was a lot of walking and stalling and characters restating the same things they said before. Not very exciting. Though I legit enjoyed Qyburn’s necromancer bonner when he saw the wight.

But see, here’s a problem: we got more emphasis on secondary characters like Qyburn, Bronn, or the Hound than more important characters like Daenerys or Brienne. The Hound in particular got a lot of screen time this season and there was some heavy CleganeBowl foreshadowing, because of course D&D would do CleganeBowl. That’s why I keep calling the character “Hound” and not “Sandor”. What’s even character development. Or themes.

Brienne of Tarth said “fuck loyalty”. What’s next, Sansa Stark murdering a man out of revenge and smirking at the sound of his screams? Oh wait...

What is Euron still doing in the story? There was a lot of teasing that he would be worse than Ramsay, but for the moment we got nothing. He’s Littlefinger 2.0: a shadow of his book self, damned because the showrunners don’t know what to do with him and can only think of stupid subplots to keep him around for some mysterious reason.

Cersei and Tyrion meeting is another evidence of how talented Headey and Dinklage are, yet the scene accomplished very little in terms of storytelling and characterization. The show barely explored the emotional consequences of Tywin’s murder for Tyrion, nearly dropping this entirely after season five, so it’s hard to feel it when he claims to hate himself for it. Shae got it even worse and her murder was forgotten altogether, something that I should have seen coming back in season four when they Greedo-ed her death scene.

It’s hard to believe Cersei would pass a chance of killing Tyrion, even without the valonqar prophecy. Why did they do this? It makes Cersei even more inconsistent (they’re certainly not gonna redeem her character or anything) and makes Tyrion’s plot armor even more obvious. This was the show that seven seasons ago would have responded Tyrion’s “give him the order” with “Ser Gregor, kill him”, followed by Tyrion dead. Ned and Robb Stark did not die for this.

Speaking of Ned, I can’t stand those references to R+L=J (A?). Seriously, guys, this isn’t clever, especially not in a show with so many dick jokes. We got it the first ten times.

Jon is an essentially good character in the books, but the show is trying to make him a saint. A dumb saint, of course, because again being honorable and honest is framed as stupidity and cleverness is something evil. Just a reminder: Ned Stark lied too. In fact, one of his biggest lies became this show’s hero, but I don’t expect D&D to notice that.

I still don’t know wtf they want with the Cersei pregnancy subplot. Cersei and Jaime seemed to have broken up for good, but we thought that before and we were wrong. Particularly when Cersei became the personification of Jaime’s worst nightmares, performing the act that he broke his vows to prevent. But hey, nothing stands in the way of true love, right?

Speaking of true love, the show romance of Jon and Daenerys is finally a worse love story than Twilight.

Things I legit enjoyed: the snow falling in King’s Landing. A bit sudden, but still a beautiful sequence.

Dragonstone

Everything about Theon was infuriating.

First we had more fellating of Jon, with both him and Theon stating their characters and motivations. This is lazy writing, pure and simple. If the audience isn’t already aware of Theon’s identity conflict, D&D have done a poor job as writers and this scene won’t fix it.

Here’s another thing: as much as I love the Starks, Theon doesn’t owe them anything. He wasn’t a bastard or a ward, he was a hostage. He was taken to Winterfell specifically so Ned could kill him in retaliation in case Balon did anything stupid (something he was likely to do because Balon).

Plus we already had Theon realizing the Starks were his true family back in season… three? Four? This shouldn’t come as a huge revelation, and least of all from Jon. What’s the emotional significance of Theon and Jon’s relationship in the show? This moment, if we needed it, should have happened with Sansa or Bran, two Stark kids he had an actual on screen relationship with.

Worse, how does Theon claims his place among the Ironborn? With toxic masculinity! The fight scene was overly long, entirely unnecessary, and terribly offensive. I missed the whole kick-in-the-crotch thing and I’m glad I did because I might have thrown something at my TV. D&D have a repulsive track record in dealing with trauma and PTSD, and Theon’s in particular, but this was a whole new level. Mutilation and torture aren’t funny and shouldn’t be used as a joke. I can’t believe I have to actually say this!

Ugh, fuck this show.

Winterfell

I have to confess actually I enjoyed the Winterfell scenes, despite everything that led to them.

Again the show is damned by the poor foundation they establish for their big moments. Yes, watching Littlefinger exposed by Sansa is almost wish fulfillment, but there’s no reason this shouldn’t have happened earlier this season other than the writers really, really wanting to save it for the last episode. In order to achieve that, they came with the stupidest subplot of the entire series, putting Sansa and Arya against each other for reasons you can find only in the most insane and misogynistic posts on Reddit.

There’s no way to take this back. We have no indication that Arya and Sansa were pretending to fight this whole time and a few clues that they weren’t, so in the end Arya still threatened to rip her sister’s face off. This is disturbing and I refuse to ignore it. Yes, having the two sisters finally bonding is nice for a change, but nothing will give me back the brain cells that I lost watching the Winterfell plot this season.

Again women bond over murder, but at least this time they did it better: a public trial, with all of Littlefinger’s crimes listed, a clean execution, and no smirks of empowerment.

There are also minor nitpicks, such as Bran’s visions now counting as evidence, the fact that nobody had any reaction to Littlefinger’s crimes or execution, Sansa calling herself stupid, or the old “one Stark sister couldn’t have survived what the other did” debate. Get out of fuckin’ westeros.org forums, D&D!

Everybody misses Ned, but not Catelyn. Or Robb. Or Raccoon.

On a boat/Dornish lush forest

Boatsex did not live up to its hype. This was supposed to be the culmination of Jon and Daenerys’ feelings for each other, and… well, now that I phrase it this way, it was: it was just as bland and forced as all of their interactions this season. I thought I would remember Team America’s sex scene and I wasn’t disappointed with myself.

The editing was kinda weird too, jumping straight to some auntie fucking, with a seemingly jealous Tyrion lurking and a Robot-Bran voice over completing the creepiness. Okay.

So. The R+L=J revelation. There’s so much wrong with this scene I would need a whole essay tearing it apart. In fact, I may actually write one later this week. That’s how angry I am. A little preview, then.

We often speculate what show events will be or won’t be in the books in some form. Stannis burning Shireen or “hold the door” are likely to happen, though under very different circumstances. R+L=J is one of such events, and we know this revelation will happen in the books too. Among all fan theories, this is the strongest, considered canon by most readers.

It won’t happen in the books like this. There’s a lot about this scene that directly contradicts canon, both book and show. Maybe D&D don’t realize this because they’re hacks, but that hardly makes things better. This isn’t the first deliberate change to the source material, of course, but it’s one of the easiest to avoid and one with terrible implications.

First things first: Robert’s Rebellion didn’t just happen because Rhaegar abducted Lyanna, it happened because Aerys murdered Rickard and Brandon Stark when they demanded answers on this abduction, and then requested Ned and Robert’s heads. In doing so Aerys gave the middle finger to the entire feudal contract in the worst possible way, so he had to be removed. That Lyanna and Rhaegar loved each other doesn’t change this in the slightest. The Rebellion was still entirely justified.

So. Love. Maybe Rhaegar and Lyanna loved each other, but how long did it last? The murder of Rickard and Brandon Stark is show canon too. At some point Rhaegar learned about this, because the fight at the Trident happened. You know, Ragger was such a great guy that he decided the best course of action was to leave a pregnant Lyanna isolated in a tower and go fight defending his mad father. All of that is also show canon, by the way.

At what point did Lyanna learned that her father-in-law murdered her father and brother? Was she in a baby-making mood after that? If she never learned, it’s also bad because Rhaegar knew, and then we have rape by omission. If she did learn, at some point she became a prisoner in a tower.

Even if somehow there’s an explanation for all this that makes Rhaegar come out as a good guy, there’s still the fact that he was a 20-something, married and with two children, and the fuckin’ crown prince. There’s a huge power imbalance in their relationship, so in the best case scenario we have a dubious consent.

All that is to say: don’t romanticize Rhaegar and Lyanna. Don’t romanticize because Rhaegar was a douchebag and even if Lyanna was on board in the beginning, at some point she deeply regretted this.

Not happy with that, the show was also extra cruel with Elia Martell. It’s almost ironic, given that show-favorite Oberyn Martell gave his life so that the suffering of his sister Elia was acknowledged. D&D didn’t learn their lesson.

Before Rhaegar ran away with Lyanna, he and Elia had two children, one of them a boy named Aegon. This was also established in the show, including Aegon’s name. Aegon was the heir to the crown, but dissolving the marriage between Rhaegar and Elia means disinheriting him and his sister, thus removing House Martell from the succession line. Quite shitty, huh? It doesn’t even make sense politically, since Rhaegar would lose the only major house supporting him. I can’t see what he would gain with that, we have no indication he hated Elia and his kids that much, and Targ polygamy was a thing the show could totally have used if they really wanted Jon as a legit child. Oh no, but he must be a child of monogamous true love.

Worse, he must bear Aegon’s name. Why would Rhaegar have two children named Aegon? That’s just plain stupid. I can’t help but think they wanted this so Jon could bear Aegon the Conqueror’s name, a name fit of a true hero. Not honorable nice foster father Jon Arryn, no. That’s not heroic enough.

When I watch a bad show, I like to play a game: what’s the worse thing they may want with a scene?

With this one I got: they want to romanticize rape, erase a woman of color and her children, and turn Jon into the most cliche fantasy hero possible, precisely the type of character ASOIAF goes out of its way to criticize. But as much as this last part infuriates me, the first two are still more offensive, and frankly dangerous.

Fuck you, D&D. Fuck you with a Valyrian sword. I’m done with tolerating your unfortunate implications.

There’s something rotten in fantasy if we still cheer this kind of narrative.

Oh yeah, and the Wall fell. It was pretty. All very predictable too. The only thing surprising me in this show is how gross it can be to give us the most white-centered, male-centered cliche fantasy story possible. Maybe it is all about cocks in the end.

#antigot #anti got #got hate #got negativity #got criticism #personal: watching things

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