#this is not a critique the last two episodes have made me feel more emotions than i have in Months | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

uglypastels · 3 years

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New Beginnings // roommate!au

(a/n) I’m sorry @duskholland for coming up with these aus. the good thing about it is, that I have no self control so here it is, the New Girl!roommate!au :) i’m not gonna say it’s great, and also i’v seen like 5 episodes of the show maybe so it’s definitely my own take on the pilot. hope you like it.

word count: 6.3k

warning: swearing, sexual references (the first paragraph is as bad as it gets), dark humour and mentions of murder, sex trafficking - basically reasons why not to move in with strangers you meet off of craigslist. Please be safe and responsible. but it’s all just fluff and humour. Also, possibly some horrible writing cause i couldn’t bother editing this <3

“And when I walked into the bedroom I found him in there, completely naked, with some slut sucking his dick… so basically, that’s why I need a new apartment.” You looked around at the three men in front of you, realising you had zoned out a bit there while telling your story. “Sorry, what was the question?”

“Uhh,” the blonde one, which introduced himself as Harrison earlier, spoke, “Do you have any pets?”

“Oh,” well that was embarrassing, “No, I mean I had a schnauzer when I was younger and I always wanted to get another one but who am I kidding, nothing will ever live up to Mr Snuzzlekins.” For the love of God, shut up! “No, I don’t have any pets.” You felt your entire face heating up. Suddenly you became very aware of a strand of hair that was in front of your face so you pushed it behind your ear

“Mr Snuzzlekins?” The other one, Tom, laughed with a small smile.

“My sister named him,” you lied. You were already embarrassed as it was.

There was a moment of silence where no one knew what to say next, so you decided to break the tension. Awkwardly laughing, you said: “You know, the funny thing is, I didn’t expect you to be… guys.” That was true. When you had been searching through the Craigslist advertisements there had been a lot of applications for housing but you had ignored most of them because they sounded too much like human trafficking scams or some other creeps looking for a way to get a girl. You had particularly found interest in this apartment, not only because of the actual great (and safe looking) location of the building but also because you had thought that the ad was written by a woman. Not that you didn’t think a woman could murder you, but it did bring a bit more security to you to live with someone of your own gender.

Well, as you saw three men sitting in front of you, you had guessed that wrong. They did seem nice enough though. Handsome too. You really hoped they weren’t murderers. They wouldn’t do well in prison… also, your death. Not a favourable outcome in the slightest.

“Why’d you think that?” the third one asked. You had missed his name during the introduction round, but you already felt like you could be good friends with him. His boyish charms made you think he was younger than the other two, though he did have a very small resemblance to Tom. You found it cute how his curls bounced around when he moved his head.

“Well, the ad, it was phrased… very femini-ninely...” That was definitely too many syllables. Could this interview go any worse? No, probably not. But the guys didn’t seem to mind your momentary idiocy.

“Oh, yeah, we had our mum write it for us.” Tom explained, sitting a bit more straight up, “We had been trying to find someone else to live with us ever since our friend Tuwaine moved out, but we kind of suck at advertising ourselves, so yeah-”

“Oh, well that makes sense, yeah.” Their mum wrote it. So they were a family. Brothers? Yeah probably. You didn’t really see how the Harrison guy fit into that since he didn’t look anything like the other two. Shattering blue eyes instead of the warm hazel. Dark blonde hair instead of the reddish-brown. All three had magnificent bone structure that you had to admit, but not in the same way.

“So, what do you guys do?” you decided to ask.

“We’re actors,” Harrison said, pointing at himself and Tom. Since you had no heart palpitating reaction when you first saw them, you could probably safely assume that they were still trying to find their break out role. Harrison pointed at the third of their addition before continuing. “Harry is more of a behind the scenes man, photography and directing, that kind of stuff.”

“That’s… interesting.” You smiled. Were you about to move in with three wannabes? If you were, would it be inevitable that you’d end up paying the rent for all of them because they wouldn’t be able to find gigs? That was a bit harsh. Besides, you could always look for a new place before that happened and move out. And who even said that you could move in, in the first place? “Anything I might have seen you guys in? Or some of your work?” You directed the additional question to...Harry.

Harry. Harrison. Try to remember that.

“I’ve had a few roles on the West End, nothing big yet but once I have a role, it’s at least steady for a bit, you know,” Tom said.

“I’ve mostly been doing headshots for people, so I doubt you’d have seen anything I’ve done.” Harry said. You nodded to his statement.

“And Harrison has been signed with this fashion designer. You might have seen some ads around town.” Modelling. Not another model to live with. You tried not to let your smile fade.

“No, sorry, I don’t think I have. But I’ll be on the lookout.” The grin you put up actually reached your eyes genuinely.

“So what about you?” Harrison was the one to ask, not noticing any change in your demeanour. “What is it that you do?”

“I’m a teacher. I know, not very glamorous or anything- and I might sometimes come home with an abundance of ice-lolly sticks- but it’s good fun and it pays well.” You looked around some more around the apartment. As you focused on the spacious living room of the loft, you wondered how these guys could afford it. Were their rich parents paying for it? Was there secretly asbestos in the walls, making rent not even a problem? Were they going to kill you?

It was a really nice flat. With exposed brick walls and wooden beams at the ceiling, which the guys used cleverly to hang their houseplants from. Even with the large space and the big windows covering the outer walls of the room, it felt very homey. Comfortable.

“I’m sure you already know, but it’s a really great place you guys got.” Compliments always worked, so that was your way to go to ensure you had a roof over your head soon. Feeling a bit more comfortable now, you decided to get up to walk a bit around the room. The reason for that specific action was unknown to you, but you did it.

It had been the first day since your breakup that you had actually made an effort in looking presentable. Hair washed and brushed, you had clothes on that had zero Cheeto dust on it. Of course, since these were guys it probably didn’t even matter to them what you looked like but when you still thought you might be living with other women, you were terrified of being denied because of how you looked or something. That could still happen, but they just didn’t seem like the shallow type. And they had seemed really surprised when you appeared at their front door, as if they didn’t expect a girl to show up either.

All three of them turned their heads as you walked around, following you with their eyes. It was a mix of curiosity and the same fear that you saw in people on competition shows, when they were waiting for the judges’ critique.

You looked out the window to see the view. It was a lovely lookout on the city.

“How come your roommate moved out?” Was it your place to ask? You had no idea. They didn’t seem to mind the question, though.

“He moved in with his girlfriend instead.” Harry was the one to answer. A heart wrenching feeling fell over you. You didn’t know this Tuwaine, or his girlfriend, but a sudden wave of hatred towards them and their happiness overwhelmed you. Why did everyone have to be all happy and in love? It was disgusting. You were sick of it.

“Well, I definitely wouldn’t mind living here.” Somehow you managed to speak out without showing any of your feelings through it. You allowed yourself to walk around to the kitchen island. It was recycled wood with a dark varnish on top, making the light from outside shine on it. You could almost see yourself reflecting in it. Were they this clean or had they no idea how to cook?

“Don’t get me wrong, you seem great, but we don’t really know anything about you yet.” Tom got up and walked up to you. The other two followed his steps. You were now standing on opposite sides of the kitchen island, making you feel as if you were a bartender ready to take their orders.

“There really isn’t much more to tell. I mean, I did just go through a break up, so emotions are uhm… out there. I might be spending the next few weeks watching horrible Hallmark movies, like 4 or 5… a day.” You saw the disgust on Harry’s face and quickly made an attempt at recovery. “But I can do that on my laptop and headphones, so ya know, I’ll be quiet. I’ll be in my room the entire time too, probably, so you might not even notice I’m here.” You tried to sell yourself as un-pathetically as possible. It had come to desperate measures in desperate times. Because, what your (possible) new roommates didn’t know, was that you had already spent the last four weeks looking for a new place, and while there was no luck in that, you had to do with sleeping on the tiny couch of your best friend.

As if he could actually read your mind, Harrison’s next question was: “So, where have you been living the last few days then? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Not at all,” you said, finding large interest in the pattern of the stained wood. Not looking up at the three men, “I’ve been living with my best friend. She’s great but I just don’t think I'm suited for the life she and her supermodel friends have-” Why did you mention the models? Your eyes shot up to Harrison’s. But it was Harry’s and Tom’s that were wide.

“Supermodels?” Tom coughed out. You nodded, having leaned in with your elbows on the table, looking rather unimpressed. The way Tom’s hands grabbed for the sleeves of his roommates did not go unnoticed by you. Before you could say anything, he excused himself and the others and they had disappeared into the corridor. Earlier on they had told you that was the way to the bathroom. They were trying to whisper, but weren’t doing a great job at it. You could hear every word perfectly well.

“What are we thinking, guys?” Tom said, closing the door behind him. When he turned around, Harrison and his brother were rubbing their arms, on the spots where Tom had been a bit too rough on his grip. Harry sat down on the edge of the bathtub, while Harrison decided to remain standing,eventually leaning against the tiled wall. There was a bright light in the small bathroom, but the vintage green tiles made it all look much darker.

“She seems nice.” Harrison spoke up finally. “But I don’t know, she’s obviously a… she. Won’t that be weird?”

“What do you think, Tom?” Harry asked his older brother, who, even though had been the one to pull them into the bathroom, had not planned on saying much. “You’re the one with experience in living with a woman. So try to cancel out those supermodels for a sec.”

“I don’t know,” Tom bit the inside of his cheek. Before he had moved in with his brother and best friend, he had been living with his then girlfriend, Stacey. They had been together for a while until she had decided that maybe, this wasn’t meant to be after all. Unlike you, though, the apartment had been in his name so he had a place to stay, but he just couldn’t get himself to live alone in a place that was intended on being lived in by two people. So, he moved out.

“I mean… every girl is different, so I can’t say shit.”

“I’m really not that bad!” you shouted from the other side of the door, immediately hiding your mouth behind your hands. Now they knew you were listening to their private conversation. The bathroom door opened and Tom’s head popped out. He saw you sitting on the couch.

“Could you- could you hear all of that?” he pointed back into the bathroom. You nodded, still covering your mouth, scared you would say something else embarrassing. But the guys seemed to be just as abashed. One by one they walked out and came to sit on their basically appointed seats on the sofa. Did they have their own claimed seats? Would you need to be prepared to only sit in one spot of the room forever? Shit, they had all the seats with the window view…

“So,” Harry said, “when you said supermodels-” but he never got to finish his sentence because Harrison slapped him across the back of his head. You suppressed a small laugh. It didn’t go unnoticed by Tom, who reciprocated the expression. This, in turn, was missed by you. You only looked in his direction a second later, when the smile had slightly faded already.

“Thanks for saying that whole ‘every girl is different’ thing. Not saying I can’t cook… even if that is going along with the stereotype, but I wouldn’t exactly want to be accepted to live here as a nanny… not that I think you guys can’t take care of yourselves! I mean just look at-” you eyes wandered around them just for a second before coming back on the right track. “- at the apartment. What I mean is- uhh.”

“Guys are dicks?” Harrison suggested.

“Yes! No! No, of course not, well some. But I don’t think you guys are. You seem really nice. I’ve just had… experiences with living with other types of guys and that really was not the planned outcome now that I think about it and I don’t know why I can’t shut up now because I have no idea why I’m telling you all this.”

“Is this Spencer that we’re talking about here?” Tom asked and your eyes shot to his direction, shocking even him. The name had become somewhat of a trigger for you in the last few days. At the last moment, you realised you had actually mentioned his name yourself to them during your introductory story, so that spared you a good bit of humiliation there. You decided to keep quiet. You all did. Great, because this day had not gone awkward enough. Maybe you could sink into the surface of the ground and die there? Then there would be no more reason to find any living space. It would all be over. Yeah, that really didn’t sound too bad even.

“So, do you wanna see your room?” Harrison broke the silence and his words surprised everyone, even him. You took longer than it should have to comprehend what he had just suggested.

“What? Uhh, yes! Yes! Oh my god, that would be fantastic. Thank you.”

“Great,” Harrison clapped his hands on his thighs before getting up. Then he extended one of those hands to you. He led you to the corridor opposite the bathroom, the third door on the left. The door had some scraped paint residue on it and you could see a poor attempt was made at pulling off the scotch tape that held up posters on it or something? It opened up to a room. It wasn’t big or small. The wall color was a nice beige, a bit of a sandy, almost peachy color. You could definitely work with it.

The guys let you take it in, but also took that moment to give each other death glares, most of them directed at Harrison.

“What exactly were you thinking?” Tom asked him, this time properly whispering. For extra measure he extended his neck to look into the hallway to see if you were walking out of the room again.

“Actually, I was thinking about how you had showed up at my door at 2 am when Stacey dumped you.”

“She didn’t dump me. No one was dumped.” Tom denied like always.

“No, you were definitely dumped, mate.” Harry said, not even making an attempt at hiding the amusement in his voice.

“Anyway,” Harrison ignored the interaction between brothers, “I thought of you and how miserable you were then. She’s probably going through that same thing.” If not worse, he wanted to add, but he also didn’t want to edge Tom’s ego any further. “So, let’s give her a chance.”

Tom still didn’t seem to be entirely sure. He raised his eyebrow, thinking. He looked once more at the corridor, expecting you to walk out any moment, but you still were in the room. What were you even doing there? The place was entirely empty.

“Fine,” he gave in, “but if she turns out to be completely psychotic, you’re kicking her out, Haz.” He immediately noticed the wince in Harry’s face. Had he mistimed his words?

Yes, he had, because you were standing right behind him now. The sight of you made his heart stop for a good second as he went pale.

“Fucking Christ,” Tom gasped, “if you live here, you’re getting a bell. None of that sneaking around.”

“Are we talking service, hand, cow, or the kinky cat collar type?” you smirked, knowing you had gotten him completely flustered at your joke. While Harrison and Harry burst out in laughter, Tom didn’t move a muscle. His cheeks and neck, however, had started to turn a lovely rosy colour. He opened his mouth a bit, just to close it up again as he changed his mind.

_______________________

While you had told them that you would be spending your days crying into a pint of ice cream while watching movies, reality was much more different from that. It was true that you barely left your room, but that was because you were too busy unpacking all your things out and setting up your room. The guys were nice enough to help you bring up the furniture sets and the boxes, which had been lovingly left at the curb of the building by the people from the moving company.

That ordeal had taken up most of Saturday. Your first task was to set up the bed, which Harrison helped you with. You tried to tell him that you didn’t need help, but your words were futile the second you almost dropped a wooden plank on yourself. The flatpacks were easy enough to understand, and unlike what you had done there, you weren’t the worst when it came to building, so all the furniture was set up by the end of Sunday. It meant that you could spend the rest of the week opening boxes and making your room really yours.

But Monday also meant work, so you only had the afternoons and nights to do it. Together with the fact that you had to leave early for work, meant that the guys really barely saw you. The only sign of your presence would be the music you were playing from your room while doing the unpacking.

It was the fourth hour of your One Direction sing-a-long that Tom walked into the living room. Harrison popped his head up from his book to look at his friend. He did not look happy.

“Dude,” he said. The one word already evoked all that Tom wanted to say, but Harrison loved to annoy him.

“What?” he opened up his book again, pretending not to really pay any attention to Tom. This was made harder when Tom sat down next to him.

“If I hear What Makes You Beautiful one more fucking time-”

“Then what?” Harrison still kept his eyes on the words on the pages, not taking in a single word.

“You have to do something. I can’t take it.”

“Why do I have to do something?” Harrison closed his book with his finger still between the pages and looked at Tom, just in time to see him narrow his eyes in annoyance.

“Really? So do you wanna see your room y/n?!” His voice turned higher as he mocked Harrison’s words, following it up by a gagging sound. “You’re the one that got us here. Now, go solve it.”

“I really don’t mind it. If you’re so bothered, go talk to her yourself.” And with that, Harrison went back to his book. This time actually reading the words. It was enough for Tom to know that the conversation was over. He didn’t even try to argue. He gave Harrison one more glare and got up. While walking to your room, he noticed that Harry had actually been in the kitchen this whole time, listening in on their conversation. He tried to give his little brother a look, hoping for support, but he didn’t get any of that. Harry disappeared behind the doors of a cupboard and Tom went into the corridor, still rolling his eyes.

When he reached your door, he couldn’t hear you singing anymore. It was just One Direction coming from the speakers. Now, he enjoyed the lads just as much as the next guy, but after a while he just needed it to stop. And coming in in five hours was definitely a while.

He knocked on the door. There was a sound that resembled you. A bit of a murmur that formed no particular word. It didn’t sound like a denial though, so slowly, in case you didn't want him to come in, he opened the door.

You were quick in decorating the room. Only a few days ago it was still empty and a bit cold looking, now the walls were covered with posters and pictures. You had used one entire wall just for your bookcase. There didn’t seem to be an order on the shelves just yet, but you left that for the last thing to do since the rest of the room seemed a bit more important at the moment.

The bed was unmade, with several pillows thrown about over it. Behind it the headboard, which simultaneously served as a shelf. Stuffed animals and a few more books were strewn about. Overhead were fairy lights, matching the ones on the doorframe and on the bookcase. Together with the lamp that was on the desk, it was the only light in the room. Since it was dark, it gave the room a warm and cozy atmosphere.

But the first thing that Tom noticed when he walked into the room was the smell. Coconut? It wasn’t overwhelming, just strong enough to be pleasantly surprising and noticeable.

You were standing on a small step ladder, which you usually used to reach the upper shelf of your bookcase (high walls gave the opportunity for more shelves, which you could never say no to). You were in the middle of hanging up a picture on the wall as the song from your speaker continued.

Can we take the same road, two days in the same clothes-

You were holding on to the frame with both hands, trying to centre it on the nail in the wall, but every time you pulled away, the frame would slant to the side.

And I know just what she’ll say if I can make all this pain go-

Tom saw you get fed up with the picture, throwing it on the bed with a groan. That’s when you looked up at him. The dim and soft light was shining just at the angle that when he looked at you, he could see the tear streaks down your face. You had definitely been crying. You were still sniffling a bit when you stepped down to the floor.

“Am I too loud? Sorry.” you immediately reached out to your phone, which was connected to the speaker, and pressed down the volume. Then you decided to just turn it off completely. Maybe you’ve had enough of it for now.

“Uhh, a bit, but it’s fine. We like 1D here, so.” Tom suddenly felt like a real dick when he saw the small, apologetic, smile you gave him. You were holding the speaker in your hands as you sat on the bed, staring at it, a bit lost, and Tom wasn’t sure if he was supposed to leave or not.

“Are you okay?” he asked. You had clearly forgotten he was still there, because you looked up looking a bit frazzled.

“No.” You said honestly. What would be the point in pretending? You couldn’t fool anyone even if you tried. Misery was the only thing feeling your once Spencer-filled void. Ugh, the sound of his name, even just in your thoughts, made you want to scream. Unconsciously, and a bit to Tom’s amusement, you had grabbed one of your pillows and started to hit your fist right in the middle of it. Your hits were getting harder and rougher.

“Ever considered boxing?” He brought you out of your haze. You looked down at the pillow, seeing the sad looking indent on the kitten-patterned pillow. Tom took the pillow away from you and fluffed it out to its normal shape before putting it back.

“It’s just been hard, you know,” you said, more to yourself than to him and Tom understood that. He knew what you meant. He had been in that same position not too long ago and seeing you like this did definitely bring back some of those feelings he had tried to suppress back then.

“Like, I thought he was the one. And I know it sounds so stupid, I don’t even believe in that whole soulmate crap, but he was it for me. For the first time, I could actually imagine myself enduring nine months of hell to have a kid with him, sorry if I’m being TMI.”

“You’re good,” he said. He also understood that feeling. Maybe not in the exact, child bearing way, but he could resonate with that whole it thing. He had felt the same way about Stacey. He had never told anyone this, and was never planning on telling anyone, but the day before they broke up, he had been out in the city looking for an engagement ring. It had come unplanned. He wasn’t thinking yet about actually proposing. But he had been in town for an audition and on his way home he saw the jeweller. It was the first time he had ever thought of it, and it seemed right, so he walked in and just looked around.

“You must think I’m so pathetic though. Crying for weeks about some douchebag.”

“Well, you’ve only lived here for five days, so I wouldn’t know about that.” He smirked. You groaned again and fell with your head on a big fluffy pillow.

“But no,” he said eventually, “I don’t think you’re pathetic.”

“Thanks.”

_______________________

Another week had gone by and your mother had somehow found out about your new living arrangement. So, the last 20 minutes you had been sitting on the couch, listening to her yelling.

“No mum, I’m fine.” you said, for what felt like the 50th time. Right at that moment, Harry showed up in the living room, making his way from a shower to his bedroom, only a towel around his waist. His usually curly hair was a wet mop, covering most of his face.

“You don’t even know them!” your mother shrieked.

“Harry, are you going to murder me?” you asked as he walked by, covering the microphone of your phone. Without missing a beat, or looking down at you, he answered with a snappy “Yup,” and walked into his own room.

“They’re really nice guys, mum.” You told her. It took you another ten minutes to convince her not to come over tomorrow (or ever, in general). The conversation had taken an abrupt turn when suddenly, she invited you to a video call. Knowing that if you didn’t answer it, you would never hear the end of it, you accepted the call. Your mothers face, or better said, forehead, showed up on screen. You tried to cover your chin as best as you could with the collar of your sweater since you were too tired to hold up your phone at a reasonable angle.

“Hi mom,” you sighed.

“Where are they?!” she said, looking around as if she could actually see more than what your camera showed. You were going to lie that they had gone out, but right at that second Harry walked out of his room. Thankfully he was dressed, but his hair was still a bit wet. His shoulder was just visible in the corner of your screen and you tried to move to the side, but your mother had noticed him already.

“Who’s that?” Why did your mother always have to be so loud?

“Uhh, that’s Harry.”

He looked up at the mention of his name. You were scared that it would make him uncomfortable if you talked about him to your mom, it was making you uncomfortable for sure, but instead he jumped up at the opportunity and the next second he was leaning on the couch, almost over you, and smiling at your phone.

“Hi.” He waved to your mother. His quick movements made his hair move around, giving you a nice first row experience of the fountain show coming from it. You wiped the water off your face.

“What’s your name again?” Your mother asked.

“Harry, Ma’am. Harry Holland.” He said with a smile. You both knew that when your mother had asked him his name, she meant his full name. She wouldn’t be able to make any deep research, but it was in case you suddenly went missing, of course.

“How old are you?” your mother went on with the third degree, glaring at your roommate at each question. Harry answered it all with a big and charming smile. You held the camera, hoping the couch could eat you already. This could not get any more embarrassing, could it?

Oh, it could. Because half way through, your sister had shown up and sat down next to your mom. She didn’t say anything, but suddenly a text notification popped up on the top of your screen.

Who’s the hot guy?

Your sister was not imbecile, yet she loved to act like it. Of course, Harry saw the text and erupted in a loud laugh, startling your poor mother. As the timer on the call was reaching 30 minutes you decided to say your goodbyes and end the conversation. Harry was still laughing.

“So… you’re sister…” he said once calming down.

“Don’t even think about it. She’s 17.” you glared at him and he immediately shut up, which you appreciated.

“Well, your mom seems nice,” he eventually said. You knew he didn’t mean it in that way, but in the context of your previous exchange, it didn’t sound great. Now you were the one laughing.

“That is not what I meant!” he shouted out, grabbing a throw pillow and hitting you on the arm with it lightly.

“Jesus, calm down. I know.” You grabbed the pillow from him. You were both in a fit of giggles by then. It took a moment to catch a breath and by that point, your head was actually hurting.

“So do you think I’m hot?” Harry asked, raising his brow like the cheeky fuck he is. You just rolled your eyes and hit him with that same pillow. Maybe a bit too hard, because it knocked him off balance and when you looked up, he was no longer leaning on the backrest of the sofa.

“Oops. Sorry.”

_______________________

Something you had to learn the hard way when it came to living with the guys was that you had to lock your doors. They weren’t doing it on purpose, but they had a tendency to forget to knock when walking into the bathroom, or even your bedroom. Specifically, Harrison.

Usually, you’d consider him to be the more logical of the three, but that didn’t really mean that much. He was just as much of an idiot as the two Holland brothers at times.

The bathroom incident had happened during your first week of living with the boys. You were taking a shower. The loud water had cancelled out the sound of the door opening so you didn’t know that while you were washing your hair, Harrison had walked into the bathroom.

In his defence, he thought it was Tom showering, not you.

You had not been made aware yet of the honourable fifth member of the household: a life size Nicolas Cage cardboard cut-out. So, when you pushed the shower curtain aside, and were met eye to eye with Nick Cage himself, you screamed bloody murder, almost falling in the bathtub. The door opened to horrified Harrison, realising his mistake. He realised it as soon as he heard the screams, which clearly did not belong to Tom.

But another scream followed, which was shorter and more specific, followed by a “Fuck!” made him feel like something else had happened. It sounded like you had gotten hurt. So, obviously, he walked in to see if you were alright.

You were, in fact, alright, and seeing him standing there, eyes wide as he saw your naked body, you screamed again for him to get out. He took a second to grab Nick and pull him out of the room, mumbling a few sorrys, and closed the door behind him.

Flushed, slightly angry, and with a pounding heart, you dried off and got dressed. Unlike the guys, you were never one to parade half naked around the house on your way from the bathroom to your bedroom.

You walked out, a pile of old clothes in your hands, to see Harrison. He looked like a puppy that might be about to be smacked with a newspaper on his nose. Usually you were very much against that disciplinary practice, but Harrison was no puppy, and you had been scared shitless.

“y/n, I’m so sorry.” he apologised as he followed you to your room. You were telling him that it was alright, and actually quite funny, but he really wanted you to know that it was an accident and that he didn’t mean to scare you like that or walk in on you naked or linger his eyes on you for that long.

“Seriously, Haz, it’s fine. Shit happens… just, don’t walk into the bathroom anymore when I shower. Or ever actually, if I’m in there, don’t.”

“Yeah, of course.”

And he kept to the promise. You didn’t get any other sudden visits in the bathroom, but it was not the last time that Harrison saw you naked.

You were all going out to a bar one night, and a bit shamefully, you were taking a bit longer than usual with getting ready. The guys had been waiting for a while already, and you were trying to hurry up, but you just had no idea what to wear. Finally you had found yourself a dress that might make you get a bit lucky that night. You weren’t even planning on hooking up, but the attention was appreciated. In your, still not exactly over your break-up situation, it was actually needed.

In the meantime, the guys were deciding which one of them had to go and tell you to hurry up. It was getting late and they needed their time to get completely smashed. And while waiting for you, getting knock out drunk was definitely not happening.

Harrison drew the figurative short straw. He thought you were doing your make-up or something, being aware how much time that can take sometimes. He never imagined opening the door and seeing you standing in the middle of your room, only in a pair of panties. You didn’t see him at first because your dress was over your head as you tried to pull it on. Harrison closed the door before you saw anything. But you could hear the thud of the door closing.

You pulled the dress over your body, grabbed a pair of matching heels and put them on as you got out of your room. There you saw Harrison. His red cheeks indicated that he was the one who had walked into your room. Tom and Harry were standing at the door. They could see you walk out and their eyes had gone a bit wide. Clearly, the dress was serving its purpose.

Having already gone through this whole embarrassing scenario already, you decided to spare Harrison. You have him a soft smile.

“Could you help me zip up?” you asked, turning your back and pushing the hair away from the zipper.

“Uhh, yeah, yeah, of course.” He was so flustered. It was actually adorable. You could feel his hands on you as he grabbed the two sides of the dress and the zipper and slowly, carefully, pulled it up.

“Thank you,” you said when he was done. He didn’t respond, his face still as red as a stop light. And it didn’t get any better when you kissed him on the cheek.

It was definitely interesting to be living with them, but you couldn’t complain about a single thing… except for the laundry, maybe.

The END

> Thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed

> please leave a comment or ask with your thoughts. i love reading them and let me know if you want to see more of this au cause i really enjoyed writing it :)

>masterlist and link to taglist in bio

tagging:

@definitely-not-black-cat @artemisiaarm @nerdyhockeygirl @miraclesoflove @justasmisunderstoodasloki @thefridgeismybestie @m19friend @creative-happenings @parker-holland-osterfield @fanficparker @fanficscuziranout @peterparkoure @xxtomxo @happywolves81 @captainbuckyy @tra-gicx @qxeen-of-hearts @varshavisuu @kangaroobunny @petersunderoos96 @the-lost-fairy-tale @nerd-domland @sleepybesson @rissa067 @the-queen-procrastinator @scarletteclipze @screeching-student-unknown @spiderrrling @lonelyavenger @tomhollanders2013 @miraclesoflove @playinonaloop @queenoflostspirits @roses-hxlland @hereiamhereigo @sunnydays0803 @averyfosterthoughts @moorehollandplz @beiroviski @you-bleed-just-toknowyouarealive @peterparkerbabyyy @multifandomlover21 @lmaotshollandd @badbitchydecisions @tikapollak @awesomehritz @madzleigh01 @oh-what-a-beautiful-parker @taciturnspidey @quaksonhehe @mountainsforwords @harryfobter @peepeeparkerr @viagracex @ethereal-beauty-p @slytherin-chaser @worldoftom @moonysoftt @peeterparkr @wazzupmrstark @saintlavrents @peachybloomss @blissfulparker @chloecreatesfictions-archive @fallinfortom @bitchydecisions @okokimfreakingoutahh @rxsydreams @musicalkey @joyleenl @multifandomdoodles121 @awkwardfangirl2014 @marvelouspeterparker @siriuslyslyslytherinyes @lunalovegoodsgirlfriendyes @bitchydecisions @okokimfreakingoutahh @quinjetboi @sheranatic111 @zspideyy @lizzyosterfield @dahliasbroken @parkerlovebot @itstaskeen @sarcasticallywitty15 @sluttytears @lilhoodhippie @theliterarymess @marlenetough @tomsirishgirlx @hiiii-i @wonderfulfluffer @dumbledorrs @hollandstea @roseke @outshineallthestars @spideyspeaches @ieatchildrenfordessert

#tom holland au #roommate au #tom holland x reader #harrison osterfield x reader #harry holland x reader #tom holland fanfiction #harry holland fanfiction #harrison osterfield fanfiction #fanfiction #fluff

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itoldsunset · 3 years

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ipytm episode 3 thoughts (very very long), take it or leave it. i have a lot of asks in my inbox and honestly i'm overwhelmed (there are a lot of feelings about this episode that i'm not prepared to hold because i am processing my own) so i don't think i'll get to them, but here are my reactions after thinking about it for a bit.

i kind of wonder what my reaction to episode 3 would have been had i stayed off of social media all day yesterday. my mindset going into ipytm was, "i don't want a cheating plot, but if there is one, i trust nadao to handle it well" because they're responsible for some of the best writing i've ever seen in thai television. i still believe that. i wish they hadn't chosen the cheating plot because there are other relationship conflicts to explore that don't involve cheating, but for me it's not a dealbreaker.

i disagree with critiques saying they did it for ratings or sensationalism. if anything, they lost viewers from this. people are not okay with cheating plots, and the team most likely knew this when they wrote it. yet they took that gamble anyway, which makes me want to believe they have something they want to say, and i'm waiting until the series ends to give my final judgment on whether they succeeded in that message.

i watched the episode live and saw thai fans' live reactions on twitter, then i spent the morning checking everyone's reactions here on tumblr. as of right now, thai twitter has not stopped insulting the director, the writers, and the company. the backlash is harsher than anything i've seen from international fans (i'm leaving it at that so please don't ask me). pretty much everyone hated what happened this episode, which i understand. but i don't think it means that it was lazy writing or that teh was out of character. i definitely think there's a problem, though, if the majority of viewers are feeling alienated from the show, because it means something went wrong along the way with the storytelling.

it is totally possible and in character for teh to cheat on oh-aew, because you can love someone with your whole heart and still hurt them and betray them (to be clear, it's still not okay). and it is totally possible for teh to have done something as shitty as this and still grow up to be a decent person in the end. this is where the time jumps become an issue for me. we left episode two with teh crying because he was afraid of losing oh-aew, and then we land in his third year where he's seemingly indifferent to oh-aew. but we weren't part of that journey, and the storytelling didn't lead us there emotionally. all we see is oh-aew being a super dedicated partner who is trying to salvage their relationship, while teh is completely distant and seems to have given up altogether.

i get it, he's insecure about his career and the possibility that he might end up like khim, and jai is the last thing he has to latch on to his now-more-elusive dream of becoming an actor. he's barely thinking about oh-aew and he's incapable of being a good partner right now, especially since oh-aew's success and happiness in advertising probably makes teh doubt himself even more. he's so in his head he's not even himself anymore. he has completely lost who he is, which is why he seems so foreign to us here. the objective facts are all there, but the emotional connection to make me empathize with him isn't, which is why all the shitty things he did this episode--juxtaposed against all the wonderful things oh-aew did--make him come across as such an exceptionally terrible person. and the thing is i know he still loves oh-aew. in the sex scene, he still clearly loves oh-aew. sure it was initiated by a desire to improve his acting for jai, but during the sex and the morning after, the love and affection for oh-aew are still there. teh just doesn't recognize it because all he sees is oh-aew having left him for better (a new career track he's happy with and doing well in, a group of friends who understand and support him) while teh remains stuck in the same loop holding on to jai as his last hope, which is why he's giving jai his everything. none of that makes any of it okay, but it makes it make sense.

i wish they had spent more time developing this internal conflict so that we could see it better, because it was only after rewatching it a couple of times, sitting on it, and reading people's reactions that i could begin to understand where teh is at in this episode. and i know we like that itsay gave us a lot to analyze, but i think ipytm has tried to jam too much into too few episodes that it ends up leaving the audience with blanks to fill in, which is a bit more work than i want to do when i'm enjoying a series. i think teh and jai got too much screen time, and teh and oh-aew not enough. i think there's a lot of insider stuff about drama/comm arts that's taking up space, which might resonate with folks who come from that field but not the majority of the audience who don't speak that language. i think if they had given more time to exploring teh and oh-aew's relationship, we wouldn't be seeing as much of this backlash.

a cheating plot doesn't make it cheap drama. i would happily watch a series that tackles infidelity in relationships because it is a super real topic with lots to explore: how does a couple navigate the aftermath of infidelity? can they rebuild trust, and how? what are the consequences to the relationship? all of these are important things to address, but the topic deserves a lot more space than a five-episode series can deliver, especially when it's combined with teh and oh-aew's other conflicts related to career, ambition, and other coming of age struggles. so for me it's not the cheating plot that's the problem but more so the fact that i don't think there's enough time for them to do it justice.

all that said, i think there's a tension here between a creator's creative vision and audience expectations, and i think this is an example of the showmakers maybe going too far in their vision to the point of alienating the audience. itsay is a comfort show and teh is a comfort character for a lot of us, and it's justifiable that folks are upset at the turn he's taken in ipytm. i'm also disappointed that it seems like teh remains the main character in ipytm while oh-aew's role has been reduced, because i can tell pp's acting has really improved and i would have loved to see more of him on the screen. the cheating storyline also makes it a lot harder to root for teh and oh-aew, and that honestly hurts the audience and affects our relationship to the show, and is another consequence of the writers choosing to go in that direction.

for me personally, itsay was full of angst but it gave me joy to watch because i loved watching teh and oh-aew fall in love with each other and i was rooting for them to overcome their obstacles to be together. ipytm has proven a lot more stressful to watch, where it doesn't spark that same joy but a lot more anxiety about "what's next," which was definitely a choice in setting the mood of the sequel. the material just doesn't work with the audience's emotions in the same way, it almost works against us. there's not the same sense of comfort and nostalgia and romance, but a darker realism of coming of age, and i wouldn't blame people for dropping off for that because it's a legitimate shift and doesn't match everyone's tastes in terms of the media they want to consume. i think we can hate the choices that were made here because they don't speak to our demands as an audience, but i wouldn't say they did it for the drama or for the ratings.

#i promised you the moon #ipytm #itsay #i told sunset about you #bkpp the series #ipytm spoilers #textpost

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galemalio · 4 years

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3 Examples of Racial Bias in Animation Storytelling

It’s not hard to grasp that a white person, while not explicitly or consciously racist in the sense we might usually imagine, is still inherently racially biased because they benefit from and grow up used to white supremacy.” - Scottishwobbly, Tumblr

This is nothing new. This is something POC (People of Color) have been talking about in separate fandoms. Nevertheless, it needs to be acknowledged by those unaware.

This article is not made to say that some of the animations that I will use as examples are bad. But in the hopes that we, as consumers and creators, will do better in the future in handling characters that are POC.

Most often, racial bias in storytelling is when the narrative treats white or light skin toned characters better than darker skin toned characters. The darker skin toned characters are often POC-coded or actual POC.

White creators often do not notice their racial bias in their storytelling as they benefit from and grow up with white privileges and white supremacy. This can also apply to light-skinned POC who have light skin priviliges.

Some of us don’t often see it but real people who relate to the characters of color do. Especially when it reflects from their experiences with racial bias, microaggressions, colorism and flat out racism.

So when they speak up, it’s important to listen to them to unlearn the racial bias we may have in ourselves.

I will be emphasizing “the narrative” for I am criticizing how the story treats its dark-skinned characters and not because I am criticizing the characters themselves.

This article is critiqued by @visibilityofcolor as a sensitivity reader once and then additions were made before publishing. If you’re looking for a Black sensitivity reader, you can contact her.

This article is a 14-minute read at average speed so buckle up. Unless you want to skip to your show mentioned below. External Tumblr Resources will be put in the reblog.

Here are three examples that I was made aware of.

Example #1: The Narrative Treats the Light-Skinned Character at the Expense of the Dark-Skinned Character

Steven Universe was one of the animations that pushed lgbt+ representation in cartoon media. However, there are narratives here and there that showed racial bias.

SU creator Rebecca Sugar was raised with "Jewish sensibilities" and both siblings observe the lighting of Hanukkah candles with their parents through Skype.[1] Rebecca Sugar also talked about being non-binary.[2]

But as a white person, she (and the rest of the SU crew) is not aware of the inherently biased values from growing up and benefiting from white privilege.

One example is the human zoo. There are people that have spoken up about this such as @jellyfax of Tumblr who pointed out that the Crewniverse mishandled a loaded topic and reinforced a white colonist propaganda where the captive humans of mostly black/brown people are naive, docile and childlike in order to subjugate the people that they colonized. .

What I’m here is how a character of color from the main cast is more obligated to the lighter-skinned character.

In the episode, Friend Ship, one fan had spoken out about how Garnet, who had been validly angry at Pearl, was compelled by a dangerous situation to forgive Pearl. Garnet is a Black-coded character. While Pearl is a light-skinned character.

Garnet was mad at Pearl for tricking her into always fusing with her. Then they were trapped in a chamber that was going to crush them. In this situation, they have to fuse in order to save themselves but Garnet refuses to because she was still angry at her.

In the end, they were forced to talk it out, for Garnet to understand Pearl’s reason for wanting to fuse with her and everything worked out well.

The narrative focused so much on Pearl’s self-worth issues at the expense of Garnet’s right to be angry.

Yes, it showed that Pearl is trying her best to make up for it but Garnet should have been allowed to work at her own anger at her own pace instead of being obligated to consider Pearl’s feelings over her own.

I wouldn’t have noticed it until someone had mentioned it. Because it was never my experience.

But it’s there, continuing the message that it’s okay to put the emotional labor on Black people and disregard their own feelings for the sake of the non-Black people who have hurt them -particularly light-skinned women.

White Fragility and Being Silenced White Woman Tears

Again, racial bias in animation storytelling is often not intentional because white creators do not experience it due to white privilege.

Without meaning to, that scene alone shows Garnet as the Angry Black woman trope that is ungrateful and rude to Pearl who then ends up in tears. Without meaning to, Pearl with her light skin, became the tearful white girl trope that had to be sympathized over.

The Angry Black Woman trope is a combination of the worst negative stereotypes of a Black woman: overly aggressive, domineering, emasculating, loud, disagreeable and uppity.[13]

The Tearful white girl trope comes from the combination of the stereotypes of white women being morally upstanding and delicate and therefore should be protected.[13]

Which, unfortunately, many white women have taken advantage of.

These two tropes are harmful to WOC (Women of Color) because they experience the "weary weaponizing of white women's tears". This tactic employed by many white women incites sympathy and avoids accountability for their actions, turning the tables to their accuser and forcing their accuser to understand them instead.

(Image by Виктория Бородинова from Pixabay)

In "Weapon of lass destruction: The tears of a white woman", Author Shay described that white tears turns a white woman into the priority of whatever space she's in. "It doesn't matter if you're right, once her tears are activated, you cease to exist." [11]

White woman tears have gotten Black people beaten and lynched such as Emmett Till. Carolyn Bryant who had accused 14 year old Emmett Till of sexually harassing her in 1955, admitted she lied about those claims years later in 2007.[15]

In Awesomely Luvvie's "About the Weary Weaponizing of White Women Tears", she states that the innocent white woman is a caricature many subconsciously embrace because it hides them from consequences. [10]

In The Guardian’s article, "How White Women Use Strategic Tears to Silence Women of Colour", Ruby Hamad shares her experience:

"Often, when I have attempted to speak to or confront a white woman about something she has said or done that has impacted me adversely, I am met with tearful denials and indignant accusations that I am hurting her. My confidence diminished and second-guessing myself, I either flare up in frustration at not being heard (which only seems to prove her point) or I back down immediately, apologising and consoling the very person causing me harm."[4]

This is not to say that all crying white women are insincere. But as activist Rachel Cargle said:

“I refuse to listen to white women cry about something. When women have come up to me crying, I say, ‘Let me know when you feel a little better, then maybe we can talk.’”[3]

One of the most quoted words in “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.” is this:

“It is white people’s responsibility to be less fragile; people of color don’t need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible.”[3]

When white women cry in defense, instead of taking accountability, People of Color are then gaslighted into thinking they’re the bad guy. This is emotional abuse and a manipulation tactic.

People of Color shouldn’t have to bend backwards to accommodate discomfited white or light-skinned people who have hurt them.

How She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (SPOP) Did It Right

Despite SPOP having good lgbtq+ representations, there are other biases in the show. Such as Mara, a WOC whose only purpose was to sacrifice herself for the white protagonist. There was also the insensitive joke in their stream regarding Bow’s sibling that perpetuated an Anti-Black stereotype which Noelle Stevenson has apologized for.[14]

But the scene I have encountered where the Black character was validly angry and his feelings were treated well by the narrative, came from SPOP.

Bow, a black character, was validly angry at Glimmer, a lighter skinned character. Glimmer made a lot of bad decisions, one of them was using Adora and their friends as bait, without their knowledge, to lure out and capture Catra.

Glimmer tearfully apologized in Season 5, Episode 4. Adora readily forgave her. But Bow didn't.

They faced dangers along the way but the story didn't put them in a dangerous situation where Bow has to forgive Glimmer in order to get out of it.

This was Glimmer's words of apology:

"Look, I know you're still mad at me. Maybe you'll be mad at me for a really long time. I deserved it. And maybe... maybe we'll never be friends like we used to be. But I'm not going to stop trying to make it better. I made a mistake with the heart of Etheria. I should've listened to you and I'm sorry. You get to be mad. For as long as you need to be. But I'm not going anywhere. And when you're ready, I'll be here."

In short, Bow was allowed to take the time to be mad and not just get over it for someone else’s sake. The story validates his feelings and he was allowed to take his own pace. That is emotional respect the story gave to him.

Example #2: The Narrative Gives Better Endings or Portrayals to Colonizers than Their Victims

Avatar: The Last Airbender has handled dark themes well such as genocide, war, PTSD, disability and redemption with great worldbuilding.

However, I never noticed the racial bias in ATLA until people spoke up of the double standards in ATLA’s treatment of light-skinned colonizers compared to their dark-skinned victims-turned-villains.

The characters in question -Iroh, Azula, Jet and Hama- are all flawed and well-rounded in a believable way. But how the narrative treats them is unequal.

General Iroh is an ex-colonizer who gets to redeem himself and not answer for his past war crimes, living a peaceful life as a tea shop owner. The only reason Iroh changed was when he was personally affected by the negativity of their military subjugation -his son’s death. It wasn’t the harm of the Fire nation ravaging Earth kingdom villages or cities and affecting millions of people that opened his eyes.

Azula, the tyrannical daughter, had closure of her mother's rejection when she was a child and was able to escape imprisonment.

Jet and Hama, victims of colonization who have done bad things, did not get similar conclusions to their stories OR compensation for what they have gone through from the Fire Nation's colonization.

Jet was given a second chance but was arrested for trying to expose Zuko and Iroh being firebenders -firebenders who were their enemies for conquering their villages. Then he died from the injuries of the person who had brainwashed and mind-controlled him.

Hama was imprisoned for life.

Compared to the sins of the light-skinned colonizers, the narrative didn’t give Jet and Hama the development where they could heal from their trauma, receive compensation for what happened to them and really have a chance in life.

The dark-skinned victims of colonization just became a lesson to the viewers how they shouldn’t hold grudges for being colonized. The end. They have received consequences for their actions but there is no continuation to their stories after that.

It almost seems like the narrative is saying that because they have harmed colonizers who have no part in their trauma (and in Jet’s case, some Earth kingdom villagers), they are therefore unworthy to be given an actual chance in life.

While Azula and Iroh, who have actively participated in conquering, colonizing and attacking the Earth Kingdom itself, were.

Someone once said that if indigenous people have control over Hama’s story, it would have been done differently. But the ATLA crew are white, non-indigenous people who prioritized redeeming colonizers instead.

The narrative has also affected how the ATLA fandom thinks. If most fans are asked who they would want to be redeemed, the popular option would be Azula over Jet or Hama.

Once again, I don’t think the ATLA crew noticed it due to their racial bias. But still, the harm is done and the racially biased message is continued:

The colonizers and their descendants don’t have to make amends for the colonizers’ crimes. Or if they do, only lightly since it’s in the past (no matter how recent that past is).

The colonized who rebel will tend to hurt innocent people and then get a grisly end for getting in way over their heads.

I would venture as far as to say that the narrative may have the added subconscious desire to quiet their white anxiety on the vengeance of the colonized. As I have learned when writing about Vodou stereotypes and how they have stemmed from the history of white anxiety of Black vengeance, of Black fetishization and of dissolution of the white race through intermarriages.

In @visibilityofcolor’s blog, someone asked:

“So I saw some of the really heated debates on here and on twitter about how if Iroh and Azula can be portrayed sympathetically despite their actions then characters like Jet and Hama should've been given a chance too. Do you think that the writers understood the implications of only redeeming characters from the colonizer/fascist nation but not giving the characters who suffered because of their fascism a second chance too?”

To which VisibilityOfColor replied:

“No, because at the end of the day, the writers are white. When it comes to stuff like this, it’s no surprise when we see white writers redeem problematic characters before they actually redeem victims of those racist problematic characters. For instance, Dave Filioni, who worked on both avatar and star wars rebels, did the same thing when redeeming agent kallus who was an soldiers in the imperial army and took credit for a genocide. where as victims of the empire were still painted in negative lights. i really don’t think they understand.

They have this ‘be the better person’ view on things, which is what a lot of white people tend to emulate when it comes to people of color standing up to their oppressors. and unfortunately, these are ideas passed on to children, esp minorities. that they should forgive people and communities who hurt them and ‘be the better person’. this is why white ppl don’t need to write narratives for people of color.”

Example #3: The Narrative Favors the Light Skinned Character Than Dark Skinned Character in Similar Situations

I would like to reiterate that racial bias in storytelling is often not intentional. I am not saying the creators and the people who support them are bad people. No.

However, I encourage that once a racial bias is made known in our work, it is our responsibility to change them to stop the perpetuation of its harmful message.

Hazbin Hotel is a popular cartoon with whimsical designs and its concept opens the conversation about redemption. The creator, Vivziepop may not have noticed the racial bias in her cartoon as a white Latina [5] that grew up with and benefits from white privileges, along with the Hazbin crew.

In the Youtbe video, "Hazbin Hotel - How Art took over Writing", Staxlotl states:

“I understand that there was a lot of time and effort put into this pilot, almost three years worth of effort. But I think most of that time was spent into the art and visuals when it should’ve gone into polishing the writing in the characters.”[6]

Once again, I’m not here to critique the characters but how the narrative treats its dark-skinned characters.

The story treats Charlie, the white-skinned, “Disney-esque” protagonist princess differently from how it treats Vaggie, the dark-skinned, more outspoken and protective Latina girlfriend of Charlie who supports the princess’ cause.

In its pilot episode, both girls experience humiliation. While Charlie is portrayed by the story as someone the viewers have to feel sorry for...

...Vaggie is portrayed in her humiliation as the butt of the joke for the viewers.

While they both didn’t like what Angel Dust did, Charlie was sympathized over in the narrative as a moment...

...while Vaggie’s angry but valid callouts were dismissed and ignored as part of the comedy.

While Charlie was someone that needs to be protected in the narrative...

...Vaggie is left to fend for herself.

Again, I don’t think the creators noticed the racial bias of their cartoon. However, this racial bias is reflected in the harmful perceptions that dark-skinned women, particularly Black women and Black girls, are more mature, tougher and need less protection at a young age.[7]

This adultification bias perceives them as challenging authority when they express strong or contrary views and are then given harsher discipline than white girls who misbehave.[8] And this continues when they grow up.

In a 2017 study, Black women and girls aged 12-60 years old confirmed they are treated harsher by their white peers and are accused of being aggressive when they would defend themselves or explain their point of view to authority figures.[8]

This bias also coincides with the Spicy Latina trope of a brown-skinned, hot-blooded, quick-tempered and passionate woman.

Everyday Feminism described this trope as "Although objects of desire for many, the spicy Latina may have too much personality to handle. So much so that she is often viewed as domineering or emasculating." [16]

Sounds familiar? (Look at Angry Black Woman trope above.)

Why is it that a light-skinned character, Charlie, is allowed to be vulnerable and be sympathized while the dark-skinned Latina character, Vaggie, is mocked, dismissed and expected to tough it out?

Severina Ware had to remind the world in her article that relates to the bias against dark skinned characters:

“Black women are not offered the protection and gentleness of our white counterparts. We are not given permission to be soft and delicate. We are required to exhibit strength and fortitude not only because our lives depend on it, but because so many others depend on us. Black women should not be charged with the responsibility of saving everyone when nobody is here to save us.”[12]

As @cullenvhenan of Tumblr has said in her post:

“if you're a white creator and your brown/black characters are always sassy, reckless, aggressive or cold and your white characters are always soft, demure, shy and introverted you should think about maybe why you did that”

(Image above from Iowa Law Reviews’ “Aggressive Encounters & White Fragility: Deconstructing the Trope of the Angry Black Woman”)

Detecting Your Own Racial Bias

It would be hard. No matter how much you edit and create, you may miss it because it was never your experience.

So how do we prevent our racial bias from creeping into our creations?

Listen to POC and their feedback.

As @charishjb from Instagram has shared, here is one of the things that we can do (tumblr link here) [9]:

Consider POC voices. Listen to their experiences. Hire sensitivity POC readers. Put multiple POC voices in positions of leadership in creative projects.

Then we can stop the racial bias that perpetuates again and again in the media. I hope for that future.

#racial bias #racism #colorism #animation #steven universe #su #pearl #garnet #atla #azula #general iroh #jet #hama #hazbin hotel #hazbin vaggie #lynching mention #lynching tw #writeblr #artblr

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dukeofonions · 3 years

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The Problem With Asides

Before I get into anything I want to clarify that this is not going to be a criticism of the two Asides episodes we’ve gotten so far. This is a critique of the concept of Sanders Asides as a separate series from the original Sanders Sides. A second note I want to make is that this is, just as all my other posts are, a personal opinion. This is not meant to be an attack on anyone, just a general criticism from a confused writer and viewer of the show.

And final disclaimer: A lot of what I’m going to say is based on information that I no longer have available. It’ll mostly be me recalling things I heard and if I at any point get something wrong please feel free to let me know.

That being said, let’s get into this, shall we?

(Fair warning this post is very long hence why I’ve divided it into parts so feel free to read then come back as you wish)

Part One: The Concept of Asides

Some time ago last year, I believe shortly after Dealing With Intrusive Thoughts came out, was when the idea for Sanders Asides was first announced. The basic concept of it being shorter, more lighthearted videos focusing on the Sides outside of the main storyline. This format would allow them to give us more Sides content in between the long waits for the main series since those episodes were beginning to take more time to produce.

Of course, everyone was eager for more Sides, so the majority of people were excited. Not only that but due to the main series tackling heavier themes, the episodes were becoming more angsty with less time for the characters to just relax and goof off with each other. The idea of having episodes reminiscent of the low stakes, sillier, happier content of season one was a welcome break from the more complex episodes and would be a nice return to form for the series.

We were also informed that these episodes would be much simpler than their main series counterparts and wouldn’t disrupt the work being done on Sanders Sides, which meant we didn’t have to worry about long gaps between the main story episodes, right?

(Another disclaimer: I am perfectly aware of the main reason why we were not given as much content last year and am not blaming Thomas or the team for doing what was necessary to keep themselves safe and hope they continue to do so as this continues into the new year)

Jump to November 22, 2019, where we got our first official episode of Sanders Asides, roughly five months after DWIT came out. Which, for this fandom, was record time to get more content and I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly they were able to get this out. Though at the same time, I wondered why it took five months to make what was meant to be a short, simple episode.

So imagine my surprise when I went to watch the episode and saw it was nearly 20 minutes long. Which, okay, isn’t that bad when you compare it to the lengths of the more recent Sanders Sides episodes. But at the time, I was under the impression that the Asides would be, well, much shorter. The longest I expected would be maybe 15 minutes, but you know what? It’s the first episode and it has been a while since we’ve had Sides content, so maybe they wanted to give us a little extra due to the long wait.

I started the episode and at first, I was overjoyed when I saw the first shot of all the Sides sitting in the living room in their onesies about to have a movie night. This was exactly what I’d been hoping to see from this series! It’s pretty much a staple thing in the fandom for the Sides to have movie nights together, and now it was happening in canon!

At the moment, I had high hopes for this series and was filled with joy.

Then that hope and joy were immediately crushed when I realized this was yet just another Virgil-centric angst episode. In fact, this entire episode was, well, exactly like a regular Sanders Sides episode. Sure, there were some jokes here and there, but the tone of the episode was no lighter than the last Sanders Sides episode. If anything DWIT felt lighter in comparison to this one.

Which leads me to ask, what the heck happened?

Part Two: Literally the Same Show

At this point in time, we’ve only had two episodes of Asides. Usually, I try to hold off my judgment of a series until I’ve had at least one other episode to see if my original criticisms still stand.

To be fair, I did think Flirting With Social Anxiety was a step in the right direction. More comedy, a lighter tone, yes. Perfect. But again, just like with Are There Healthy Distractions? This episode quickly dove right back into the angst pool, and just like ATHD it was a pretty long episode, clocking in at almost 25 minutes.

Not only that but again, both FWSA and ATHD don’t feel any different from the episodes we’ve been getting in Sanders Sides.

1. They’re just as angsty.

2. Roughly the same length as Sanders Sides episodes.

3. Take about just as long to produce.

4. Contain a lesson to be learned.

Which, okay, you can have lessons in lighter shows too, but we’re already getting that in Sanders Sides and Sanders Asides was described as, well, being less plot heavy. Yet so far both episodes are still tied in with the main plot.

ATHD deals with the aftermath of DWIT, not directly but it’s pretty obvious that the whole thing with Virgil’s reveal at the end of that episode is being addressed in the background. Which, kind of takes away the impact of that ending, but I’ll get to that later.

Then FWSA takes place after Putting Others First and again, is dealing with things from that episode in the background. Again though, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It makes sense to see the characters dealing with things from past events.

So why is it a problem here? Because, again, Sanders Asides is meant to be a separate series, and all the subtext brought on from the episodes in Sanders Sides makes the plots in these two episodes confusing.

For example, I was perplexed during my first watch of FWSA because I couldn’t understand why the focus of the conflict was lying. I didn’t understand why Virgil and Roman came to the conclusion that Thomas’ reason for being unable to approach Nico was because he was lying to himself, when both the title of the episode and what we were shown points more to, well, social anxiety being the problem.

(Quick note: One could argue that this was done purposefully to have Virgil putting the blame on Janus since he doesn’t like him and wouldn’t want to admit that he was the one responsible, but this series has had a bad habit of favoring Virgil in the past so until we get more answers I’m gonna leave this on the backburner)

It didn’t help that I had no idea when this episode was meant to take place in the timeline, and I originally thought it could take place a bit after season two since Roman and Virgil seemed to be doing better, but more on them later.

All of this bugged me until I found out that FWSA takes place after POF, and after watching the live stream that followed and getting some more context, the lying thing made a bit more sense, but the fact that I was as confused as I was just caused more frustration to build up. And I wasn’t the only one who got thrown off by the “Lying is wrong” message of FWSA so I had to ask again, why was this episode a Sanders Asides when apparently, you need information from the last Sanders Sides episode in order to understand it?

So you’re telling me, that the second episode in what is supposed to be a separate series that isn’t meant to be a part of the main plot, is now integral to the plot of the main story you’re telling in what is, as you have said, a separate show? How does that make any sense?

Okay, one could argue that Thomas getting a love interest doesn’t really fit with the current storyline that’s going on in Sanders Sides, and that is a fair point. The problem with that is, FWSA takes place right after Putting Others First.

You all remember what happened at the end of that episode, right?

Part Three: Intrusive Plots

At this point we’ve all become rather accustomed to the long waits in between videos, it’s nothing new to us, and for the most part they haven’t done anything to harm the current plot of Sanders Sides. Sure, the length of time between videos can cause people to lose interest, but for the most part the tone of the last three episodes of Sanders Sides hasn’t differed much and the story flow is still going along smoothly.

Let’s start with Selfishness vs Selflessness, which is the episode that sets up the big climax for season two. It’s still got its jokes and funny moments, but the overall tone is far more serious than previous episodes have been. This carries on into DWIT where Thomas has been so stressed out lately that he’s begun to have trouble with his intrusive thoughts.

Virgil even gives a pretty good summary of Thomas’ current mental state: “He recently realized he’s a bigger liar than he thought he was, he doesn’t understand himself, he’s committed to skipping a big callback, and he’s sleep-deprived. So yeah, he feels like a piece of dirt who has no control over his life.”

And all that was a direct result of the ending of SVS, despite DWIT not being the direct follow up to that episode the two are still intertwined. Remember that for later.

DWIT ends with the long awaited reveal of Virgil having been a “Dark Side.” Even though the majority of the fandom had figured it out by as early as Can Lying Be Good? That didn’t take away from the emotional gut punch that this scene was and it’s one of my favorite moments from the series. I may have to make a whole post breaking that scene down but what matters is that this scene was a turning point for Virgil’s character.

We’ve seen him trying to hide the truth from Thomas ever since Janus and Remus started popping up, and there were close calls with both of them nearly revealing it themselves and continuously dropping hints to Thomas. Only for Virgil to admit it to Thomas himself, and leave before Thomas can even say a word.

We don’t know for sure how Thomas is feeling in this moment, but it’s clear he’s been shaken by this. He doesn’t really have a lot of time to process it before he remembers to acknowledge the audience and close out the video.

This comes up again once we finally get to the monster of an episode that is POF, the follow up to SVS that everyone had been waiting over a year for. Right away we see that Patton and Roman will be at the forefront of this discussion with Logan popping up every now and then, but who doesn’t show up in this episode despite having played a role in SVS?

Virgil.

He’s nowhere to be seen and his absence is definitely felt. Why wouldn’t he be part of this discussion? He was there in SVS and had a lot to say on the matter, he was even part of the decision to choose the wedding over the callback! So why wasn’t he there?

Well, just look at the ending of DWIT and there’s your answer. Of course he isn’t about to show his face after that. Not when Thomas is already under so much stress already and he isn’t sure how Thomas will react to seeing him-

*insert random voice whispering off to the side*

Wait, Virgil has seen Thomas since DWIT? When?

*whispers continue*

Oh, right, they interacted in Sanders Asides. How did that go again?

*whispers explain*

Huh? Thomas said he’s cool with Virgil despite revealing that he’s been hiding something from him this whole time? That “something” being the fact that Virgil was once considered part of the others that were currently making Thomas’ life miserable?

*whispers confirm*

Really? They’re both okay with each other now? Well, good for them.

So wait, then why didn’t Virgil show up in POF? He was there during the first discussion and honestly he’d have more of a reason to show up than Logan who wasn’t really present at all in SVS.

*whispers explain*

He just wasn’t need there? Hm, alright. Guess that makes sense…

Well okay, Virgil and Thomas are on good terms once POF rolls around, Virgil isn’t present during the conversation because he isn’t needed and I suppose his presence would make things worse. Especially once Janus revealed himself, he wouldn’t allow him to get a word in. Even though Janus could probably silence him but I digress.

Fast forward towards the ending of POF, remember when I said to remember how SVS and DWIT were connected? Well DWIT is just as important to POF, acting as a bit of bridge between to the two episodes.

Janus brings up Remus (both directly and indirectly) twice in this episode.

First here:

Notice how Roman’s breakdown is already being foreshadowed here, the camera focusing on him while “Logan” says this isn’t an accident.

The second time Remus is brought up is at the very end after Janus has revealed his name:

“Oh, Roman thank God you don’t have a mustache. Otherwise between you and Remus, I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is.”

(No I am not posting screenshots of this scene I already got emotional over the last one)

As we saw at the end of DWIT, Roman does not have a good relationship with is brother. So much so that when Thomas refers to Remus as such, Roman creates a different analogy that compares Remus to a mirror, reflecting everything Roman doesn’t want to be.

Roman desperately wants to distance himself from Remus, not wanting anything to do with him. We’ve only gotten a glimpse of just how far this loathing goes, and part of that comes from Roman finally breaking down after being told by Janus that if it wasn’t for a mustache there’d be no difference between him and Remus.

This shook Roman more than anything else in the show has so far, moreso than him being the one to decide that Thomas should give up the callback. He was the one that pushed Thomas to make that decision, believing it was the noble thing to do, only for it to only make Thomas feel worse and then be told by Janus that his “noble sacrifice” was all for nothing.

Janus, the one who had been supporting Roman throughout SVS, buttering him up and encouraging him to go after his dream, told him that his sacrifice was worthless. Then to top it all off Janus admits what he did and brushes it off as a joke. He doesn’t apologize to Roman, leaving him in the dust, then when Roman responds by laughing at his name he’s shot down even lower.

And when he looks to Thomas and Patton for help, for answers, anything.

They stay silent.

Patton tries to reassure him, telling Roman that they love him, but he doesn’t believe it. He sinks out, and that’s the last we see of him.

Selfishness vs Selflessness, Dealing With Intrusive Thoughts, and Putting Others First are three of the biggest (and dare I say most important) episodes in the series. The three almost act like a trilogy, with POF leading to something bigger, the season finale. Which will be culmination of all three of these episodes.

We’ll be seeing Virgil’s reaction to Janus having been accepted by Patton and facing his own past as a “Dark Side.” Then we’ll find out what has become of Roman after he disappeared at the end of POF, and how it now affects his relationship with Thomas.

*whispers return and begin to whisper*

I’m sorry what?

*whispers repeat*

Virgil already knows about Janus getting somewhat accepted? Well okay I guess he would, wish we could have seen his reaction to that but oh well, no big deal. At least we got the Roman and Thomas confrontation to look forward to.

*whispers whisper*

Roman has already interacted with Thomas since POF? When?!

*whisper*

In FWSA? Oh yeah, how did that go again? It was super awkward right? Since Roman doesn’t really trust that Thomas loves or values him?

*whisperly whisper*

They get along just fine as if nothing happened?

*whispersty*

It looks like he might still be upset with him since he’s being a bit passive aggressive?

*whisper*

Can’t really tell because the three are too busy trying to talk to a cute guy at the mall?

Okay, I guess that all makes sense…

Looks like Roman and Virgil still aren’t on the best terms with Thomas but are able to push that aside to help him talk to this handsome stranger, and hey, it worked! Thomas now has a boyfriend! Just look at Roman and Virgil at the end, they’re both so happy with Thomas!

Looks like now they can focus on this new chapter in their life and leave the events of POF behind them. I mean, now that Roman and Virgil seem pretty cool with Thomas it would just feel weird to suddenly have them angry with him again, wouldn’t it?

Part Four: The Problem

Sanders Asides was originally described as being a series separate from the main storyline of Sanders Sides. Promising us shorter, less complicated episodes to give us a little something in between the longer, heavier episodes in Sanders Sides. This was a great idea that ended up falling apart the moment it began.

When I was going through SVS, DWIT, and POF I mentioned that the three of them felt like a trilogy. All three of them link together to tell one bigger story, and on their own they get the job done. They set up the season finale perfectly to the point where you have an idea of what to expect and what to look forward to.

The main things being the aftermath of Virgil’s reveal and Roman’s breakdown, which would most likely cultivate in them teaming up against Janus. This would also involve Virgil coming to terms with his past and Roman having to face Remus.

Of course, none of this has been officially confirmed, but given everything we’ve seen up to this point it just makes sense.

The story for season two is nearly complete, all we’re missing is the conclusion.

Then Sanders Asides showed up and threw everything off course. What was supposed to be its own thing crept into a story that was already (for all we knew) set up and being put into place.

We were told that the Asides wouldn’t do anything to disrupt the flow of Sanders Sides, yet it’s been confirmed that there will be one or two more episodes of Asides before we get the season finale.

Why? Why are these episodes necessary when everything was set to move forward after POF? If these episodes are that important that they absolutely have to be made before the finale then why are they simply not part of the main series?

You could say “Well they’re not directly tied to the main plot, that’s why.” But need I remind you that Asides as a concept was just intriduced after DWIT came out? These episodes were written specifcally for Asides, which unless I’m wrong means that they were just added into the main story with no planning whatsoever.

FWSA honestly feels like it should have been the start of season three, something that should have waited to be introduced after season two wrapped up because it’s just too much.

We already have so much to unpack from SVS, DWIT, and POF now we also have a new love interest on top of that?

Virgil and Thomas’ resolution doesn’t even feel all that special because it wasn’t talked about directly between them. Thomas was indirectly letting Virgil know they were still okay, so what does that leave for us? All that build up about Virgil being a “Dark Side” only for it to be brushed over like it was nothing, and this happened in an Asides episode, not even in the main series.

It also makes Virgil’s absence in POF confusing when they had already set up the perfect reason for him to be absent in DWIT, but according to the first episode of ATHD Virgil and Thomas are okay with each other. Sure, Virgil being there might have made things worse but at that point everyone was making things worse.

We no longer have a confrontation between Thomas and Roman to look forward to because in FWSA we see them interacting as normal. Even the passive agressiveness isn’t anything new to Roman and really, it all just sounds super petty which he had been known to behave like that even when nothing is seriously wrong. Not only that Roman is overjoyed at the end, having finally gotten something he desperately wanted, the happy ending he deserved.

All that’s left for him is to fave his feelings towards Remus, but what would even happen there?

The problem with Asides isn’t the quality of the episodes, FWSA is actually one of my favorite episodes. The problem with Asides is that the team is taking what should have been something small and turning it into a far too elaborate for what its original purpose was: To give us more lighthearted content to enjoy in between the waits for the heavier episodes.

Instead it just feels like they’re adding onto something that really didn’t need adding on to, creating more work for themselves when it just isn’t necessary, and that worries me.

Final Thoughts

Honestly, it’s hard for me to make all these judgments when no one has any idea what the finale is going to be like. And usually, the team is able to excede my expectations and create something amazing.

But with all these new Asides episodes that feel like they’re just being crammed in at the last second, it makes me wonder how the rest of the series will go if they continue down this road.

Season two started September 1st, 2017, it is now January 3rd, 2021. Throughout season two the production of episodes became more elaborate, and there have been complications that arose from trying to make these videos as a result that sent production screeching to a halt. And on top of that, these Sanders Asides have been added to create even more work for Thomas and the team.

I don’t understand why they’d do this to themselves when it’s already become more difficult than ever to make videos in general, not just Sanders Sides.

We were offered something simple that would have satisfied everyone during the difficult times, only to be given something that honestly, wasn’t even needed. I do appreciate Thomas trying to get us more content, but I don’t think he or the team realizes just how content we’d all be with just a five minute video of the characters we love just doing something as simple as hanging out and having fun, especially with how dark things have become all around us.

We don’t always have to be watching these characters struggle, sometimes we just need to see them be genuinely happy.

(Thanks to everyone who took time to read this monster of a post, I did not mean for it to get this long but it’s been dwelling on my mind for a while and I wanted to make sure I got out everything I wanted to say. Again, this is all just a personal opinions and you are not obligated to agree with me. If you have an objecting opinion I would not mind hearing it but please keep any discussions civil.)

#dukeofcritical #sanders sides #ts criticism #sanders sides criticism #patton sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #logan sanders #long post

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night-unfurls-its-splendour · 3 years

Text

The Critique of Manners Part V

~Or~

An Attempt at an Objective Review of Emma (2009)... VOLUME ONE

Yeah, that's right. You read it correctly. This long awaited review is gonna be a TWO PARTER because, yes, I have that much to say about this version. For context, all my previous reviews have been upwards of four, maybe five thousand words. this one, this present paragraph excluded is 7,806 words. Fortunately it's all written (finally) so you won't have to wait an interminably long period of time between parts one and two. maybe a week. Part One will explore the Introduction, Cast and Characterization, and Sets and Surroundings.

1996 brought us a bright and fun feature film interpretation of Jane Austen’s “Emma”, written/directed by Douglas McGrath and starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam; that appealed to the 90’s romantic.

In December of the same year (February of 1997 in the US) the more sober and “technically accurate” (for why that’s in quotations, read my review) Kate Beckinsale/Mark Strong adaptation appeared from ITV and Andrew Davies, and calmed the purists who burst into flames at the Hollywood travesty that they dared to christen “Emma”.

We’ve already gone over my feelings on both of these versions (my mixed stance on the chick-flick that was McGrath’s offering, and my dislike for the rather washed-out and subtly questionable choices of Andrew Davies’ interpretation) and for thirteen years these were the choices (the stagey 1972 version falling somewhat by the wayside, as these versions tend to do.)

And then, in 2009 a new and somewhat divisive version was produced by the BBC

Directed by Jim O’Hanlon and written by Sandy Welch, it was a vibrant 4 part mini-series which starred uniformly inspired casting choices and made Jane Austen, her work and her wit, more accessible than ever to laymen such as myself. Whether that approach is an advantage or a drawback is, of course, entirely up to the individual.

Fascinatingly this version has the same run-time as the 1972 6 Part Serial starring Doran Godwin (read my review here), and yet somehow feels like it manages to give so much more depth to the story while also fitting in all the major plot points and then some.

I’ve already admitted a particular partiality for this version. It was my first brush with Austen, when my sister convinced me to watch the last episode with her on its debut run on PBS Masterpiece. It ignited my interest in Jane Austen and because of that, for a long time my only stance on it was that this was the only really good version and that all others were just varying degrees of bad or not-as-good-as-this.

The bones of this review, like those of my reviews of both of the 1996 versions, were written some six years ago and can actually be read on IMDb if you really want to do a “then vs now” comparison of my style of critique. All of my reviews from that time (they were all written very close together) were very defensive of this version and very reactionary to criticisms of it that compared it to (mostly) the ITV version, which they viewed as infinitely superior.

Having now gone a little over ten years as the “most recent adaptation”, the 2009 version is a darling of Austen Blogs and tumblrinas alike. It’s grown into its own a bit more, so such reactions and defenses are, generally, unnecessary.

This is the last of my Emma reviews written and in my course of watching and re-watching various versions I kept assiduously away from watching this version (which would have demolished my attempts to come to this set of reviews with a cleaner slate than my first attempts at critique) even when my longing for Johnny Lee Miller’s playfulness and Romola Garai’s emotion were strongest following my Emma ‘97 re-watch. I fortified myself by re-reading passages of the book and came to my re-watch of this version having not watched it for at least six months and with a fresher, hopefully, more measured perspective.

As always I’ll be covering the cast and overall handling of the script in comparison with what I know from reading the book, commenting on the suitability of the sets and houses, and airing my thoughts on the accuracy and appeal of the costumes (I have a lot to say). I may even critique some manners.

So with that rather lengthy forward out of the way, let’s dive in.

Cast & Characterization

This time I think I will start with Knightley, and end with Emma, with the side-characters filling the intervening space. Also I’ll just start by saying I love almost all of the casting choices in this adaptation so just be ready for that.

Jonny Lee Miller really is the Knightley for me. He portrayed an ideal balance of Mr. Knightley’s qualities. I know that for some people the teasing and scolding friendship that Emma and Knightley have will never quite escape the brother-sister comparison. Such people may view it as a block for Knightley’s seeming like a viable romantic lead; but I personally think Miller really captures that dynamic while still showing the subtle progression of Knightley’s feelings for Emma.

Mr. Knightly is one of my favorite Austen heroes (Second only to Col. Brandon), and maybe Miller’s portrayal colored my reading of Knightley forever, but I find that, usually, when something that strikes me as better, or more accurate to my reading comes along, it tends to come through when I re-read, and that has not yet happened for Mr. Knightley.

What I really think is great about the 2009 interpretation of Mr. Knightley is what an easy and comforting presence he is, without being apologetic when he scolds Emma (more on this later). I think this is communicated especially well by how often we are actually shown Mr. Knightley taking his almost-daily walks to Hartfield, how smoothly he comes and goes, and how happy Emma is every time she sees him coming up the path (usually, just at the perfect moment when she needs something to put her back to rights.)

Mr. Knightley is Emma’s comfort object, and that is just part of a bigger theme of warmth and friendship that makes this version my favorite. They weren’t awfully subtle about it though. Check out the Latin motto over Knightley’s head here in the entrance to Donwell: “SED SEMPER AMICO” or “Always, for a friend”.

At the time there were some that complained about how Jonny Lee Miller looked too young to be Mr. Knightley (an argument that, quite unjustly, is also presently being leveled at Johnny Flynn), I would like to remind everyone that Mr. Knightley is but seven or eight and thirty – the same age as Miller when he played the part in 2009, and Flynn, at 36 (I believe) wasn’t too far wide of the mark.

This is by far my favorite representation of Mrs. Weston (and not just because we worship at the altar of Johdi May in this house). They go to great lengths to show exactly what Miss Taylor’s relationship with Emma is like – not only how emotionally essential she is as Emma’s companion and friend, but also her failure to exercise authority, which is key to understanding Emma’s character and her choices throughout the story. Emma’s less kind statements are reprimanded only with a gentle “Emma!” and a knowing smile, and little more: the bare minimum, and rather more complacent than correcting when dealing with a willful teenager.

This is the only adaptation with time enough to give Mrs. Weston’s conversation with Mr. Knightley about Emma its own scene, and the script is so damn close to verbatim I can’t help visualizing this scene every time I read the book.

But even with her knowing smiles and lack of discipline with Emma, May still does an excellent job bringing out, not just her character’s deficiencies as an authority figure, but her sensitivity and tender affection as a friend.

Another great thing about Johdi May as Mrs. Weston is her adorable dynamic with Mr. Weston (Robert Bathurst).

Words can’t express my delight with Robert Bathurst in this series. His heart-felt performance brings such a wonderful life to this character. In particular his desperate longing to have a closer relationship to his son – his pride when Frank is admired—and his pain when Frank disappoints—are so rich, and I almost want to kick Frank on behalf of his father even more than on Jane’s account. It’s really it’s a tough call which Mr. Weston I prefer between Bathurst’s performance and Rupert Graves’s in the 2020 film.

Louise Dylan as Harriet Smith *Chef Kiss*: she’s such a delight and I think she’s the most accurate (probably?) Harriet? She’s got a healthy enough figure to be called “plump” while still fitting modern tastes of what is “pretty”. She’s fair without looking deathly pale, and sweet and a bit slow without being portrayed as an utter lack-wit (I mean, there’s “ship-court” but we’ll talk about that later.)

In the scene where she reveals to Emma that it’s Mr. Knightley she believes herself in love with (not Frank Churchill) she says this all to a horrified Emma and it’s got some great horror movie style camera work and music, similar to the 2020 version, but Dylan plays it with perfect unknowing sweetness and innocence, which I think the 2020 version didn’t quite capture as well.

I think this is maybe the most screen time any Robert Martin has had and, since we love Mr. Robert Martin, that can only be a good thing. I am so glad that we actually get to see him coming to Mr. Knightley about his intentions to marry. I like how it’s set up, I like how they use implication, and I also think the actor, Jefferson Hall, gives a really excellent, emotive performance as a character who with so few lines.

Like with Alastair Petrie before him, we get to fall in love with Hall’s Mr. Martin and his long-suffering self.

Laura Pyper may not be as fair as some other Jane Fairfaxes and her singing isn’t a patch on Olivia Williams’ but I find her the most compelling in the role. She’s physically less imposing than Olivia Williams or Polly Walker and I think that lends greatly to the character, but what she really captures (and emotion is such a big theme in this adaptation) is fatigue. Not just frustration, but outright distress just barely being concealed under the surface. She’s still delivers Jane’s pointed returns to Frank’s jabs with fortitude and feeling, but I really feel how tired she is.

Rupert Evans played a Frank Churchill that is both agreeable and deeply frustrating– he had charisma that drew me in as a viewer, but not enough to excuse Frank’s behavior (unlike, for instance, Ewan McGregor). This is the only adaptation that really has enough time to show all the faces of Frank’s character, which is crucial to Emma’s development since Frank is her mirror in so many ways. Correspondingly to Laura Pyper’s barely concealed agitation, Evans’ Frank has a similar, seething frustration, which takes the Austen layman by surprise when it starts to bubble to the surface in the Strawberry Picking sequence in Episode 4.

I love Blake Ritson, but I do not care for how Mr. Elton was portrayed in this version. From the minute he slinked onto the screen, you could just tell, which I think is slightly in contrast to the book where he’s not quite so slimy. I think it was just a little bit lacking in subtlety.

Along with that, this script gives the audience some satisfaction in sort of punishing Mr. Elton for his choice of wife – but that, also, I think is in opposition to the book where Mr. Elton is not only satisfied with his bride, but Austen goes so far as to write about Emma’s disgust in that he seems positively proudof his wife. This just goes to show that the Eltons are as bad as each other and a weird kind of power couple in that way (the 72 version actually captured this pretty well in spite of the odd Mrs. Elton’s-got-a-thing-for-Knightley runner). But in the 2009 version, Elton (while still of one mind with his wife) is made a literal ass of as he leads his wife’s donkey to Donwell.

As amusing as this absurdist (and again, not subtle) symbolism? Visual humor? is, I think the interpretation of having Mrs. Elton actually ride a Donkey was, perhaps, a bridge too far. Mrs. Elton of the book does make the suggestion of using donkeys but not in the context of riding on their backs and I can’t blame anyone for putting this on their “WTF Moments in Austen Adaptations” list. It’s on mine.

Speaking of Mrs. Augusta Elton (nee Hawkins), let’s talk about my profound and enduring love of Christina Cole as the consummate odious woman of 00’s British TV. I mean I’m sure she must have gotten tired of being typecast like this (Blanche Ingram etc.) after her wonderful performance as the sweet Nora in He Knew He Was Right, but she’s just so good at being nasty. Cole’s Mrs. Elton is definitely up there in my ranking of favorites (although Tanya Reynolds gives her a run for her money) riding the balance between being fabulously gauche and supremely punchable.

Like with so many other characters in this adaptation John and Isabella Knightley (Dan Fredenburgh and Poppy Miller) are not just given their due diligence (in some they hardly even get to show their faces) but they are expanded as characters – this is used mainly for exposition but it works. It helps give context to viewers who are unfamiliar with the story, makes the John Knightleys more than just side-characters, and emphasizes the family element. Fredenburgh hits many of the same notes as Guy Henry did in the 1997 version, striking the perfect balance between caustic wit and cantankerous jabs. I’d put his grumbling speech in the carriage at Christmas right up there with Henry’s for natural flow.

Guys. Guys. Guys.

I liked Michael Gambon as Mr. Woodhouse, Emma’s charming (if ridiculous) hypochondriac father – let me just clarify: I NEVER like Michael Gambon in ANYTHING (except as Squire Hamley in Wives and Daughters… and, okay, also in Cranford. BUT OTHER THAN THAT—he was a terrible Dumbledore.) And you know between Squire Hamley and Mr. Woodhouse maybe we’ve hit on exactly what Gambon’s element is – utterly insufferable but somehow endearing.

The 2009 interpretation brings a new layer of depth to Mr. Woodhouse. While other versions play him for straight comedy (None more so than 1972 and 2020), Gambon somehow makes you understand the way Mr. Woodhouse thinks. He makes you feel his constant anxiety, and in so doing makes the character deeply sympathetic while still amusing and kind of annoying. He makes Mr. Woodhouse very human. He even manages to inject the idea of Mr. Woodhouse having a sense of humor himself. Although Bernard Hepton staring at Mrs. Elton in bewilderment has its own merit, Gambon’s Mr. Woodhouse actually smiles to himself after getting off a zinger about the Highbury folk being a quiet set.

And while we’re on the subject of humanizing comedic characters with emotional cores that tend to get glossed over, it’s time for Part 2 of “Why Miss Bates is the Most Fucking Devastating Character in Jane Austen and Why We Should do Her More Justice”.

Now since I was so very longwinded on this subject, which I have so many feelings about, in my deep-dive into the financial situations of the denizens of Highbury in my 2020 review, I shall endeavor to be snappy with this.

"Miss Bates, decieved by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not immediately catch her meaning; but when it burst upon her, it could not anger, though a slight blush showed that it could pain her." --Emma, Chapter 43

Tamsin Greig was amazing as Miss Bates.

Greig displayed a different visual model than Sophie Thompson or Prunella Scales, though she excelled at wittering on without a thought. But, as I’ve expressed before – If being chatty is your only requirement for a good Miss Bates, Get. Thee. Hence. From. My. House.

One of the most important things Jane Austen did as an authoress was address the limitations of women (Especially middle-class women) in her time period. Miss Bates is one of the deepest dives into that representation. She’s not just some caricature of a maiden aunt, and to portray her as such is not only wrong, it’s insulting. The Director and writer (Jim O’Hanlon and Sandy Welch) chose to portray Miss Bates as far more than just comic relief. Like Mr. Woodhouse, they highlighted her humanity. Her distress is apparent not just when Emma openly insults her, but all throughout the story. From the opening that SHOWS you exactly what her situation is, to her nervous chatting and exposition; even when Jane is present, she still reads her letters out loud to guests because this is her routine. This is all she knows to do. It makes the impact of Box Hill, that much more poignant. And with all of that, she’s still funny.

Ok guys. It’s time to talk about Romola Garai.

Garai is maybe the most polarizing Emma ever? Which makes a certain ironic sense to me, since Emma is maybe Austen’s most polarizing work?

Personally, I love her. Yes, I acknowledge that there is a LOT wrong with her body language, but we’ll touch on that later.

I think Romola Garai was a fantastic Emma. I think she succeeded where everyone before her kind of faltered – she made Emma spiritedand likeable in spite of her faults. And I think Emma should be likable in some ways. Clearly Austen underestimated how many of her readers—present and future—would relate to Emma, as it remains one of her best loved and most commonly adapted works. Whether you think Emma should be an intentional MegaBitch™, or just forehead-slappinlgy ignorant, her character has a definite gravitational pull, and this was something the makers of the series in particular wanted to capture: Emma’s charisma, and Romola Garai has that in spades. Her incredible energy helps one to understand why everyone loves Emma so much, beyond her just being the first woman in the neighborhood.

I love Garai’s energy and I love how when she fumes about Mrs. Elton, they wrote it so that she doesn’t just have an internal monologue, but that she rants out loud, to herself. This kind of captures Austen’s narrative in a way voice-over monologue just doesn’t. I just wish they’d included the line

“The Kindness and protection of Mrs. Elton!—‘Jane Fairfax’ and ‘Jane Fairfax.’ Heavens! Let me not suppose she goes about Emma Woodhouse-ing me!—But upon my honour, there seem no limits to the licentiousness of that woman’s tongue!”

Don’t tell me you don’t read that in Romola Garai’s voice.

I like the continuity of Emma’s deficiencies in this version (beyond her over-confidence). I like that the fabricated “Emma at 16” sequence has her showing off her determination to beat Jane at accomplishments by waving Milton in Knightley’s face, and that at 21, the next time she gets it into her head to be more accomplished (for Harriet’s benefit, this time) she’s STILL stuck on Milton.

The bookmark is even in the same place! This made me feel SEEN because this is exactly what happened to me when I tried reading Jane Eyre for the first time. This is as nod to Emma’s easily distracted nature and why she’s not as accomplished as Jane, and why her painting is only “pretty good”. She just can’t start a thing and finish it, and as someone with the same problem (which is why my tumblr is full of reviews for period dramas, with pretentions to wit, instead of the 50 Reylo fanarts I’ve planned but never drawn.)

Sets & Surroundings

Well here we are again at your favorite part and mine (idk if you do care or not, this is my favorite part) the deep dive into the manor houses used!

The unfortunately named Squerryes Court in Kent played the role of Hartfield and you guys have probably guessed that this is my favorite Hartfield. It is. (Although one cheeky thing I noticed is, if you look close at that window up front there, the little circular one? That’s the window in Harriet’s bedroom, which is presumably supposed to be at Mrs. Goddard’s school.)

Now, as there’s a whole featurette on the 2009 version about the houses and sets I know more about the choices and decisions that went into these houses than any of the other versions I’ve talked about.

Specifically, I think Squerryes Court is the best Hartfield because first of all it’s a very fine house BUT it’s not ginormous. Perhaps its greatest advantage though was the level of freedom the set designers were given with it. They were, for instance, allowed to re-paper certain rooms and change the curtains and furnishings and, as such, it feels more like a home than any other house I’ve seen used in a period drama. They even, thoughtfully, went for decorations and styles that would be a bit dated in Emma’s adulthood. These are her mother’s curtains and papers, and the Woodhouses, so reticent to change, haven’t updated them. This silent hint at Emma’s mother gives the interiors such a sentimental hominess, it’s hard not to feel comfortable just watching the show.

They also went for bright, warm colors because, this version, like Autumn de Wilde’s, does not run from color, and in the 2009 version, the bright, popping colors are even more far-reaching. There are golds and emeralds in the sceneries, as opposed to the almost sterile-feeling pastels in the De Wilde’s version. An incredible amount of care and thought went into the atmosphere of these sets and I think that’s just wonderful. (I am not saying that care and thought weren’t put into de Wilde’s version, I just think that the family aspect and concept of hominess was given more of an emphasis in O’Hanlon’s interpretation.)

An old standby in period dramas at this point, Losely Park was used for Donwell Abbey. While I totally understand the contrast to the warm, feminine atmosphere of Hartfield that they were going for in this choice, an Elizabethan manor with all the characteristic straight lines and dark colors of that period of architecture… well perhaps you’ve already spotted the problem with this choice for Donwell Abbey.

It isn’t an Abbey. Not by any meaning of the word. While certainly larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike it, Losely Park is not low or sheltered and it’s really not big enough.

I’m pleased to report that I may have solved a great mystery of the 2009 version – the filming location for Randalls.

I think I may say with some relative confidence that Stockett’s Manor in Oxted was used for Randalls in this version. Stockett’s manor is not creditedas the filming location for Randalls (it iscredited as the ballroom for The Crown Inn – ironic, since the ball is held at the Crown because Randalls has no room big enough for it) so I looked it up at historicengland.org.uk and found the picture listed there identical to the house used for Randalls (Oust House and all) so mystery solved?

I love this house as Randalls. This is believable for Mr. Weston’s small estate. And that’s important for this version, because the snow panic in this version is here in full.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Catch part 2 here

#emma 2009 #jane austen #jane austen emma #emma woodhouse #mr. knightley #romola garai #jonny lee miller #period dramas #regency

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tedturneriscrazy · 3 years

Text

🎶Knock, Knock, Knockin' On Hooty's Door🎵

I wonder if anything will happen in this episode.🙂

(I say as if I didn't watch the episode twice before going to bed and writing this post)

I don't think I'll ever not be amused by the way Hooty just...does things with his face

Seems like he found a thesaurus at some point

Okay so it's canonically spelled "Hootsifer," good to know

Also, this is really all we get of Lilith, huh?

His little hoot/coo at Lilith's letter❤❤❤

To borrow a meme format: If I had a nickel for every time Alex Hirsch was involved in a show where one of the characters was experiencing pubescent voice cracks, I'd have two nickels, which isn't very much but it's weird that it happened twice

Eda's face🤣

As much as this bit is played for laughs, Eda's clearly still shaken by what happened last episode

Jeez, Luz, priorities /j

Pictured: Hooty

The way King talks about being pelleted implies this is something Hooty does on the regular

Hooty's plan to help King is literally a Buzzfeed quiz? Okay then

Betcha never expected lore from Hooty, eh?

"DO NOT INTERRUPT"

Officially a "type of worm"

The dance being a grievous insult wasn't exactly from nowhere, but still funny nonetheless

WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE FUCKING COCCOON

Tiny Nose playing Switch definitely seems to be drawing from Dana's real life experiences

Wait, Hooty and Tiny Nose are friends?

Well shit, turns out she could use magic this whole time. Guess her going Super Saiyan wasn't just the power glyph.

I am extremely skeptical of your medical credentials, TN

I have so many questions about the methodology they used for the blood test(s)

I think Hooty may have misinterpreted what King was looking for

I'm still amazed at how King has had, and continues to have, moments in the show with some of the greatest emotional weight

Ooh, sound powers!

"IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A CRUMBLE!!!"

It just occurred to me that that segment consisted mostly of Alex Hirsch talking to himself

Hello not-at-all obvious setup

Today I learned that Hooty is the baker of the house. Maybe he'd critique Amity's fairy pie.

Aaaaand there's the sleep inducing

Oh shit

In hindsight the Owl Beast being part of a dream sequence is rather obvious

Wow, Eda, tell us how you really feel about the Owl Beast

Oh we're just gonna ride aboard the Trauma Express today, huh?

Oh, I guess Lilith did make an appearance, after all

Damn, Gwen, not even looking

Oh shit dad issues

Sandy Cohen?! (To anyone who gets that reference, hi. How are your 30s treating you?)

Well, I know who Peter Gallagher voices now, anyway

Oh dear...

(Also, bright flashing lights triggering the curse? There's an epilepsy allegory in here somwhere)

Blood and eye injury? Gotta stretch that Y7 rating

Now we have some context for that look on Eda's face when Lilith mentioned their dad: good old fashioned guilt!

I desparately want to make a "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" joke, but I'm better than that

New memory! Raine!

Oh no...

I get the feeling I'll hate this part, too

They were exes!😢 Guess the fandom called that one

The reasoning for them being exes is understandable, all too real, and goddamn heartbreaking

That said, the fact they never stopped loving each other🥺😢😭

I do hope we can see Raine again under less...traumatic circumstances. Maybe that wedding that was mentioned?

Oh shit, are we getting into the Owl Beast's memories?!?! What a tweest!

Bet nobody expected Cloaked Moonface to show up in the frickin Hooty episode

(Also, holy shit I briefly forgot this was the Hooty episode)

Who is this mysterious cloaked figure? And why are they so tall and long?

So the curse was a sealed beast this whole time. Damn.

And it was just picked up as beach junk to sell as a trinket. So much for it being connected to Belos. (Not that people will stop trying to do so)

Who had "experiencing sympathy for the Owl Beast" on their Bingo cards for this episode? Yeah, me neither.

And here we have the necessary Eda coming to terms with her curse segment. More accurately, Eda and the curse coming to terms with each other.

Goddamnit why does it have to be cute

"It's like sandpaper" IT'S LIKE A CAT I FUCKING CAN'T

Insert Steamed Hams reference here to kill the mood

New transformation!

Oh no she's hot!

No, Hooty, you made it surprisingly much, much better!

She might have a problem pushing people away and holding onto guilt, but Eda always knows that she looks damn good

Oh right, Luz having girl problems. Fuck, so much is happening in this episode!

"Cotton-candy-haired Goddess" LUZ! 🤣

Attuned to other people's emotions = being a fucking creeper

Oh Luz, what happened to you back home?

Also, 99.999% certain Amity would love your cheesiness

That's...rather morbid, Hooty

So much lore development, including the fact the Owl House has a basement

Classic inanimate object silhouette fakeout gag. Subversion in 3...2...1...

There it is!

I can't imagine being pelleted is a fun experience.

Honestly I have so many questions about how Hooty got Amity there in the first place, but I'm not so sure I actually want to know the answers to any of them...

Cue much panicking

Wow, I'm really getting some Into the Bunker flashbacks

Oh this is gonna be amazing isn't it

I commend Luz for not actually dropping dead of embarrassment

Seriously, how can Hooty set all this up so fast yet not hold a pen?!?!?!

Poor Luz, she thinks this is destroying her chances

Meanwhile Amity is just "Oh, Titan, is this actually happening?!"

The way she's fixing her hair!❤

Goddamnit Luz let this play out, she's so clearly into this!

"Again?!" Okay who do I have to kill?

Luz is luzing it

Nooooooo....

JUST TALK FOR FUCK'S SAKE (aka how like 95% of issues in literally any plot could be solved)

Noooo Amity's so heartbroken right now💔

This isn't what either of them wanted!

To be fair, Hooty, Luz had a part in this too. Not that she can be blamed entirely. Poor thing clearly had some awful experiences back home...

Now Hooty is McFucking losing it

Why did I think he was gonna say "Looks like I'm gonna have to JUMP!" I think I've watched too much Homestar Runner (jk there's no such thing)

Those pulsating organs are still gross

Eda swooping in to save her son (No, really, he actually is now)

I'll say things get weird when Hooty gets upset!

Yes, King! Save them with your voice powers!

Damn that is some romantic lighting, and Luz is enjoying the eye candy (cotton candy, if you will)

Luz's reaction to Harpy!Eda is the family-friendly summation of how the fandom has reacted.

Hooty really just tearing up the landscape in remorse

Mother-daughter moment about love life!

I appreciate not just Eda's encouragement but her actually asking Luz what she wanted

God, Eda is best mom

Also, OH FUCK IS THIS HAPPENING?!

OH SHIT

THESE ADORABLY AWKWARD NERDS❤💜💙

"I'm not as cool as you think" could be interpreted as self-deprecating, but here it seems...oddly reassuring?

The way Luz eloquently says how she wants Amity in her future...beautiful❤

Luz making some good faces

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

YOU CUTE DORKS I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

THERE IT IS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

LOOK HOW HAPPY SHE IS

WE WERE LOSING OUR SHIT OVER A PECK ON THE CHEEK THREE WEEKS AGO AND NOW LOOK WHERE WE ARE HOLY FUCK

Awkwardness is still there, but that's to be expected

BET Y'ALL DIDN'T EXPECT THAT TRAILER SHOT TO BE IN THE HOOTY EPISODE HUH

THE WAY LUZ RUBS AMITY'S HAND😭😭😭😭😭

(And yeah, it's gonna still be scary, but only because it promises to be so wonderful)

Let's give it up for Hootsifer, goddamn!

Let'a also appreciate just how fucking funny it is that Lumity becomes official in the Hooty episode

Fus ro WEH!

Hooty actually saying "Luz's new GF" out loud...

In just about any other show the love interests getting together would be a climax/culmination of the entire plot. Here? It's actually used to advance the plot, and that is brilliant!

Dana Terrace and the crew really just knocking it out of the park again and again, huh

"They're adorable, and deserve all the happiness!" Well said, Hootsifer. Well said.

Probably for the best they had Hooty promise that. As much as what happened/progressed, there was a lot of property damage.

OH SHIT ONCE AGAIN

King's dad/relative! And he's voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson!

GODDAMNIT HOOTY

Wow. Just...wow. This episode.

King has voice powers! Harpy!Eda! Lumity are girlfriends for real!!!!

How do you pack so much into a single episode?! And so expertly?!

I had my suspicions before, but this confirms it: The Owl House is the greatest show of all time.

And we have two episodes left until the hiatus! And 11 episodes in the season after that! What are we in for?!?!?!

I, for one, can't wait to find out!

#the owl house #toh hooty #luz noceda #eda clawthorne #king clawthorne #lilith clawthorne #gwendolyn clawthorne #dell clawthorne #raine whispers #amity blight #lumity #toh s2 spoilers #the owl house s2 spoilers #the owl house season 2 spoilers #the owl house spoilers #toh spoilers

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my-bated-breath · 4 years

Text

On an Immensely Popular Post

Disclaimer: What I’m writing here may not be completely accurate -- like most works of art, literature, and even STEM tend to be -- and as a new fan of ATLA, a few of the metas I publish may be obsolete or unintentionally insensitive. That being said, I like to believe that I can contribute something valuable to this fandom. In all my (real) metas, I wish to be as objective as possible and not rely on my biases, fanon, or common “knowledge” that may just be misconceptions. If anyone reading this finds something to be false or contrived, I am always welcome to constructive criticism. What I am not welcome to is senseless hate or bashing.

My first experiences with the ATLA fandom begun a long, long time ago, but the most recent and powerful revival of my love for ATLA started with me actually watching the show and soon after, with me falling into the endless abyss of ATLA metas on Tumblr. Sifting through the well-written analyses and the emotion-based rants had taught me a lot about critical thinking and the power of influence, so now I’d like to present a meta that critiques an extremely popular post with over 60,000 notes. And since it’s so popular, this is the part where I must make yet another disclaimer.

Disclaimer: I hold nothing against lesbians4sokka (whose name has now been changed to comradekatara). They have the right to share what they want, but since this particular post has become so influential that it’s still being reblogged regularly to this day, I believe it is within my right to criticize it - emphasis on “criticize,” which is different from “hate.”

Now that that’s out of the way, let us begin:

Lesbians4sokka/comradekatara covers 3 main subjects in their post, which I will quote/summarize below:

(1) Ma/iko: “...the entire foundation of mai and zuko’s relationship was built on how miserable they were together, and how they would just sit there and hate the world together— letting their misery fester as they enabled each other’s depression— and I think that’s really unfortunate because they would work so well as friends if they weren’t trying to make their dumpster fire of a relationship work.”

(2) Zutara: “similarly, what makes zuko and katara’s dynamic so compelling is that they share the same flaws, only as opposed to mai’s apathy and misery, it’s katara’s rage and guilt that zuko identifies with. they both share trauma over having lost their mothers, and both in a similar way (sacrificing themselves for them) and they both cope with their grief through rage, often misplaced… katara and zuko have a deep & profound friendship, but if they were to be in a relationship, they would only bring out the absolute worst in each other thru enabling each other’s rage and emotion-driven decision making.”

(3) Z/uk/ka: this pairing makes for a healthy and wholesome relationship because throughout the boiling rock, we see that “sokka and zuko make an excellent team, as they balance each other perfectly. sokka thinks big picture, and plans ahead, but zuko will charge into situations.” They inspire each other, they trust each other unconditionally, they become more open and supportive of each other, they share a lot of common interests and narrative parallels, and in general, just make each other happy (which could work both platonically and romantically).

As for my response: I’m sure many of you are expecting me to start to save the “best for last.” That assumption would be incorrect because I actually have the least to say about point 3.

I agree that Z/uk/ka can be a good relationship. Their dynamic is funny, playful, supportive, etc. etc. (there are so many positive adjectives I could use to describe their dynamic, the list could go on forever). And they could make a great couple.

…

What, did you expect more from me? That’s it, I’m done.

I’m not here to attack Z/uk/ka as a ship, because while I can never actively ship it (I’m a sad, narrow-minded exclusive shipper, always had been and always will be) I can objectively appreciate them as one. It’s points 1 and 2 I’m more concerned about.

Now, since we’ve already begun working backward, I’ll begin my critiques on point 2: I could write extensively about the parallels between Zuko and Katara, including but not limited to shared pain and a few shared flaws - and just a few, because their weaknesses diverge in many important places. However, since I’m trying to write as objectively as possible and since Zuko-Katara parallels have already been discussed to death, my analysis will focus elsewhere.

However, something from comradekatara’s post that I would first like to address is this-

[Zuko and Katara] both cope with their grief through rage, often misplaced. in the southern raiders, they both act deeply insensitively towards sokka by acting as if his grief over his mother’s death is somehow less valid simply because he is a lot quieter in his coping mechanisms and doesn’t project his rage & guilt onto everyone else.

- or rather, the idea that Zuko and Katara’s shared pain causes them to act insensitively towards Sokka (and though the post does not mention it, Aang as well).

(Note: these points have already been covered by countless metas before mine, so you can skip/skim this section to read a newer argument in the next section.)

Even ignoring the fact that the Southern Raiders had many out of character moments, Katara’s insensitivity towards Sokka is first and foremost a reaction against his insensitivity towards her.

_____

Dialogue from Season 3, Episode 16 “The Southern Raiders”:

Aang: Um ... and what exactly do you think this will accomplish?

Katara: [Shakes her head in dismay.] Ugh, I knew you wouldn't understand. [Begins to walk away.]

Aang: Wait! Stop! I do understand. You're feeling unbelievable pain and rage. How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa? How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?

Zuko: She needs this, Aang. This is about getting closure and justice.

Aang: I don't think so. I think it's about getting revenge.

Katara: [Angrily.] Fine, maybe it is! Maybe that's what I need! Maybe that's what he deserves!

Aang: Katara, you sound like Jet.

Katara: It's not the same! Jet attacked the innocent. This man, he's a monster.

Sokka: Katara, she was my mother, too, but I think Aang might be right.

Katara: Then you didn't love her the way I did!

Sokka: [Hurt] Katara!

_____

While I believe that Aang’s principles of forgiveness are morally sound, the way he pushes his beliefs onto Katara undermines much of her grief. At first, Aang tries to relate to Katara’s experiences by comparing them to his own, but there is a forceful connotation to his dialogue that suggests that Aang considers himself to be the moral authority compared to Katara. Hence, Aang judges Katara (“I think it’s about getting revenge”) without trying to reach out and understand her, forgoing the empathetic common ground in favor of taking on the moral high ground.

Thus, when Sokka tells Katara, “she was my mother, too, but I think Aang might be right,” Sokka is not only saying that Katara should choose forgiveness, he is implying that Aang is the ultimate moral authority on this matter and that Katara should accept that. Moreover, similarly to Aang, Sokka’s opening line, “she was my mother, too,” had the potential to establish common ground between himself and Katara, but the added “but…” places Sokka on the moral high ground against her instead. Of course, when we remember that just two lines ago Aang equates Katara to Jet, Sokka agreeing with Aang seems even more thoughtless and unsympathetic.

So when Katara lashes out against Sokka, ostensibly “acting as if his grief over his mother’s death is somehow less valid simply because he is a lot quieter in his coping mechanisms and doesn’t project his rage & guilt onto everyone else,” it is important to note that Sokka undermines Katara’s louder, more visible way of grieving as well (though that discounts that for most of the show, Katara only uses her grief over her mother’s death to sympathize with others).

Moreover, Katara’s line, “then you didn't love her the way I did!” is hurtful, yes, but it is not necessarily equivalent to “you didn’t love her as much as I did.” Katara’s love for her mother is different from Sokka’s because her pain over her death is different -- after Kya’s passing, Katara had to carry the emotional burden of becoming a pseudo-mother to Sokka (see Sokka and Toph’s conversation in “The Runaway”), a burden that did not cease after she joined the GAang (see the entirety of “The Desert”). To Katara, Kya was not only her mother, but the representation of the childhood she lost and the sacrifice made to protect her life. Sokka simply does not have that same relationship with Kya.

I do not mean to say that Sokka and Aang unfairly taking on the moral authority in this situation means that this authority instead belongs to Katara (and Zuko) - “The Southern Raiders” is filled with questionable moments from all parties involved. However, TSR is an episode that delves into Katara (and Zuko)’s relationship with a mother’s sacrifice, so how Zuko and Katara respond to this specific trauma from their past does not dictate how they respond to painful circumstances in the present/future. Let’s see how this is true.

Sozin’s Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King

No doubt Zuko and Katara felt some form of frustration upon Aang’s disappearance, so let’s see how they “[enabled] each other’s rage and emotion-driven decision making”:

Here, Katara and Zuko make a decision together that turns out to be calm, rational, and not at all emotionally-driven despite their mutual frustration and worry towards Aang.

Sozin’s Comet, Part 2: The Old Masters

Zuko holds immense pain and self-loathing over betraying Iroh, yet Zuko and Katara’s conversation does not enable/exacerbate negativity from any party involved (since Zuko often translates his grief into anger, and Katara was evidently angry at Zuko’s betrayal). Instead, their conversation is open, encouraging, and constructive.

(Note: this is where the review of points made by previous metas ends.)

Hence, to say that “[Zuko and Katara] would only bring out the absolute worst in each other [through] enabling each other’s rage and emotion-driven decision making” - when we are given in-canon examples of the opposite being true - would be a sweeping and inaccurate generalization.

But for the sake of argument let’s say that, hypothetically, Zuko and Katara’s relationship would fail because they only bring out the worst in each other. And here’s where the argument falls apart for me - Is the argument here that Zuko and Katara have an incredibly meaningful friendship yet somehow this “friendship” causes them to enable each other, thus encouraging each other’s worst flaws and regressing each other’s growth? Is a healthy friendship - much less a “deep and profound” one - not one where two individuals can learn from each other in positive ways and balance each other’s shortcomings?

Or is it something different we’re saying here? Are we saying that two individuals can have a “deep and profound” friendship and yet the moment their relationship shifts from platonic to romantic, they are terrible for each other?

While many significant platonic bonds are stunted when they become romantic, I still believe it to be common sense that some of the best romantic relationships stem from a platonic foundation. But since much of “common sense” on the internet sees that “sense” is nonsensical and “common” is a nicer way to refer to mob mentality, I have done my research to show how Zuko and Katara could have been an excellent case of a friends-to-lovers relationship.

An excerpt from my meta, “Research Shows that Zutara Would Have Been the Ideal Friends to Lovers Dynamic.” (give it a read if you want to see references to relationship-research and an overanalysis on diction/tone)

The reason why Zutara is framed as a “toxic and unhealthy” relationship is that their romance would be a classic example of the enemies-to-lovers trope, a trope which modern media has not been particularly kind to. However, when executed correctly, enemies-to-lovers can produce a healthy and loving relationship, frequently relying on friendship as an intermediate between the “enemy” and “lover” stages in the most well-executed versions of this trope. Meanwhile, the trope of friends-to-lovers is just as popular as enemies-to-lovers, though the specific dynamic required between two individuals to achieve this transition is not well-known. Recognizing this, Laura K. Guerrero and Paul A. Mongeau, both of whom are involved in relationship-related research as professors at Arizona State University, wrote a research paper on how friendships may transition into romantic relationships…

According to Guerrero and Mongeau, “...scholars have argued that intimacy is located in different types of interactions, ranging from sexual activity and physical contact to warm, cozy interactions that can occur between friends, family members, and lovers…” Guerrero and Mongeau then reference a relationship model where the initial stages (i.e. perceiving similarities, achieving rapport, and inducing self-disclosure) reflect platonic/romantic intimacy through communication while the latter stages (i.e. role-taking, achieving interpersonal role fit, and achieving dyadic crystallization) often see both individuals as achieving a higher level of intimacy that involves more self-awareness.

In the rest of my research-based meta I demonstrate how Zuko and Katara’s platonic interactions in the show fit into the stages of communicative intimacy (i.e. perceiving similarities, achieving rapport, and inducing self-disclosure) that Guerrero and Mongeau describe as being mutual between friendships and romances. As such, crossing the line between friends and more-than-friends most likely would not cause a dramatic shift in the Zutara dynamic since much of Zuko and Katara’s platonic intimacy easily translates into romantic intimacy. I’ll end off with another excerpt from my meta.

Excerpt from “Research Shows that Zutara Would Have Been the Ideal Friends to Lovers Dynamic.”

“...it would be remiss to simply dismiss the Zutara dynamic as one that would instantly become toxic should they pursue a romantic relationship.”

With that little thought in mind, let’s move onto point 3: an exploration of friendship, romance, and why toxicity is not exclusive to the latter.

Let’s start with what I agree with:

“The entire foundation of mai and zuko’s relationship was built on how miserable they were together, and how they would just sit there and hate the world together— letting their misery fester as they enabled each other’s depression...”

I’m not sure how necessary it is for me to elaborate on this point given that it’s already been accepted by comradekatara and perhaps 60,000+ other users on Tumblr (a gross exaggeration but this remains unimportant), but in her essay, “Zuko, Mai, and the Nature of True Intimacy,” Araeph contributes more nuance to the concept of Ma/iko and mutual misery, stating that,

Unfortunately for [Zuko and Mai’s] relationship, Mai is and will always be a pessimist—a character trait, not a character flaw, in her. The key difference lies in how Mai and Zuko use their negative feelings. When Zuko sinks into negativity, he gives up on any actions that will materially change his world for the better; Mai, on the other hand, can remain negative even at the height of her character development, and it does not impede her ability to act.

So while Mai enables Zuko’s depression, Zuko does not necessarily do the same for Mai. Nonetheless, throughout their relationship for the first half of season 3, neither of them communicate constructively or push each other to grow as people.

This may be the third disclaimer I’m making, but I first want to say I have nothing against Mai. However, I do have something against the idea that “[Mai and Zuko] would work so well as friends if they weren’t trying to make their dumpster fire of a relationship work.”

Their relationship is a dumpster fire, yes, but will the flames cease simply if the amount of intimacy in the relationship changes?

comradekatara state themselves that their entire romantic relationship is quite depressing - they are only able to connect through empty physical intimacy and mutual hatred of the world. Without that, there is little left for them to bond over. Once Zuko overcomes his conflicting morality and inaction from the first half of season 3, he becomes someone who is strongly guided by his principles and beliefs. However, for the entirety of the series, Mai is characterized by her moral apathy. To cite from Araeph again,

It is moral intimacy that is the last and worst omission for Mai and Zuko… Zuko’s struggle to find and follow his principles is the most central aspect of his character, yet it is a struggle Mai neither understands nor respects…

Lack of moral intimacy (not sharing the same core beliefs) is something that applies to both platonic and romantic bonds. Thus, just as transitioning from a meaningful friendship to a romance does not inherently create toxicity in a relationship, switching from a romance that exacerbates one (or both, depending on how you interpret it) party’s misery does not necessarily erase the preexisting negativity in a relationship - perhaps some of it may subside, sure, but as long both parties continue to fail at communicating and understanding each other, even their friendship seems bleak at best. In this case, Mai and Zuko may work well as conditional friends, or in other words, friends who are only friends when they have something to mutually be miserable over. And this tiptoes the line of speculation, but they could be a formidable political team. But unless the Ma/iko dynamic shifts drastically in the lovers-to-friends transition, I’m not sure if there’s much potential in a friendship between them.

In conclusion, there is a lot I don’t agree with from comradekatara’s post, but if there’s one takeaway I want to impart onto everyone who’s read this far, it’s this: crossing and uncrossing the line between platonic and romantic bonds is not always a transformative experience for the relationship, and the nature of human relationships is a complex spectrum -- not a light switch that can only be set between healthy and unhealthy.

Thank you all for reading!

#atla #atla meta #my bated breath analyzes #this is more pro-zukka than anti-zukka #but I will include neither in my tags #zutara #anti maiko #once again this is a critique #not a post meant to tear anyone or their views down #my bated breath's posts

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seerofmike · 3 years

Text

The Writing In Apex Kinda Sucks And Also They Use Ship Bait As A Plot Device I Hate It Here

a stupid essay/rant encouraged by @zombiegloss that originally started as a youtube video script so if its like. weird at points. this was intended to be a verbal rant SNZISKSIA

basically i'm gonna talk abt the caustic-wattson-crypto relationship drama and how i think it was mishandled and how much the writers kind of Suck because i Can

you are free to disagree with me on any of my points and think that this aspect of the story was handled well, this is just my opinion, and i'd love to hear your thoughts and counterpoints !

first, addressing some things:

i know this is a battle royale and not necessarily a story-based game, so i can’t expect it to have masterful witcher-style writing.

but with the direction the game seems to be going; putting quests, evolving interactions, and comics in the game, plus coming out with a lore book and hinting at something bigger in the future, i think it’s fair to criticize it for lackluster writing, especially since what i’m criticizing has been something present since Apex’s story technically began.

secondly, i am not a professional writer. i’m a high schooler who writes as a hobby. i don’t have the decades of experience that some of the apex writers do, and i can’t claim to be a better writer than they are--but i also don’t have to be a five-star chef to realize that something tastes bad. when i critique something and give suggestions, i am not saying i could’ve done it better. i’m just bringing up what i think could have worked.

third, before i upset anyone , when i say a relationship is badly written, i’m not telling you that you can’t ship it or that your ship sucks. i’ll briefly touch on the shipping aspect of this and how it’s a detriment to the story but Ye

okay, so with that out of the way, let us Begin

relationships are often the emotional core of a story, and how strong your reaction is to conflict in these relationships depends on how the story sets them up. if you want the audience to care about these characters and what they go through, you need to develop them and establish the type of relationship they have well. it’s why so many people cried in the last episode of telltale’s the walking dead. you’ve spent roughly 12 hours bonding with clementine and protecting her, and your relationship with her is part of several story beats as well as character beats for lee.

when these two characters’ relationship reaches its peak at the end of the game, it’s powerful, and it’s emotional. you care. you feel something, and the fact that you have to choose what to do to lee only makes it more gut-wrenching.

now, the walking dead is entirely story-based and especially character-driven, so it may be unfair to compare it to apex, but i just wanted to lay the groundwork down for what i think is a strong relationship that makes you feel something when conflict arrives, in this case the conflict being lee getting bit and clementine having to decide his fate.

the broken ghost in general is kind of not-good sometimes, tom casiello previously wrote for soap operas and you can really, REALLY tell sometimes.

this story feels like it should’ve taken place a little later, and that we should’ve had a season to actually set up the characters and their relationships, but that’s a story for another day.

to put it bluntly, the set-up for the crypto, wattson, and caustic conflict is done poorly. for caustic and wattson's relationship it’s a little better, but not by much.

wattson and caustic having a relationship was hinted at in season 2, when her lore indicated that caustic was among one of the Legends who comforted her after her father died. In season four lore materials posted on Twitter, an email from Jacob Young states that Caustic is acting paternal towards Wattson. In season five, interactions get added to the Game, and this is the first time we actually see their relationship in action, as they have unique revive voice lines for each other. in the quests, when wattson is injured, caustic lashes out at loba and attacks her out of what seems to be anger at wattson’s current state.

Side Note this plot point was really stupid and done for cheap drama because she literally wakes up like two chapters later and they don’t even give her anything to say it’s just suddenly oh yeah crypto and wattson are working together. the same exact injury thing happens to octane later but nobody gIVES A SHIT because again, it’s just cheap soap opera drama.

their relationship might seem a little bit sudden for anyone who wasn’t on top of twitter lore drops, but like, it’s okay, i guess. i’ll give it the slightest credit for at least establishing something between the two in terms of voice lines and stuff, even if for some it might seem like it came out of nowhere.

what did come out of nowhere, though, was crypto and wattson’s friendship. in the quests, crypto and wattson are tasked with rebuilding the broken ghost because of their respective skills, and they’re seen talking in chapter six while they work on it. we’re not really given a clear timeline on how long the story in the broken ghost is, but i think it takes about a week, maybe.

unlike wattson and caustic, their relationship has been given absolutely zero material to work with before now, not even a passing glance in the trailers--which is a little weird considering crypto took down the repulsor tower and destroyed wattson’s home, but. Whatever.

tl dr of the chapter: crypto and wattson talk to each other while doing nerd shit, crypto laughs at wattson’s bad pun, and then suddenly they’re BESTIEEEES, until a couple dozen lines later in the same chapter. then they’re Not.

crypto’s drone gets hacked by revenant while everyone was kind of on edge after the reveal of a spy in their midst, he gets framed as the spy by caustic, anddddd wattson gets upset.

before i get into how dumb this storyline is, i’m gonna talk about the set-up to this conflict.

we have been given no reason to believe that these characters have ever talked to each other, and quite frankly, their friendship doesn’t really make sense.

ignoring the fact that crypto destroyed wattson’s home--which she probably doesn’t know about, so that’s forgiven for now--crypto is a paranoid guy. in the lore book he makes people stand on fucking footprints in his house so he can scan them for weapons and listening devices, and he apparently doesn’t stick around much after the games and nobody knows anything about him because he doesn’t talk to them.

a key part of crypto’s story is the fact that he is undercover and afraid of anyone finding out anything about him ever. him becoming friends with wattson kind of comes out of the blue, and we’re not even given a reason as to why they supposedly became close in the first place. i would kind of understand if like, maybe he draws parallels with her and mila in his mind and it makes him open up a little more, but that doesn’t happen. he just laughs at her joke and suddenly they’re friends.

maybe they’re trying to go for this ‘wattson can become friends with anybody’ angle, kind of hinted at with caustic but not really we’ll get into that, but that also? kind of doesn’t make sense since so many of her voice lines straight-up say she doesn’t understand people and electricity is more her thing, but honestly, she also does have those really friendly elements in her voice lines too, so its not as egregious as what they did with crypto.

their sudden out-of-the-blue friendship would’ve been fine if they spent a little more time fleshing it out, and giving us something to work with, but instead, the story immediately tries to rip it apart and frame it as this grand conflict where crypto is framed as the mole, crypto then accuses caustic, and wattson feels betrayed.

except it doesn’t really work, because we don’t give a shit. for several reasons.

one: crypto and wattson became friends and then ended their friendship in the same exact chapter. they did not speak to each other onscreen until this chapter began, you can read the entire quest on the wiki and see for yourself that their interactions up until that point were nonexistent aside from mentions in the narration that they were building something together.

the reason wattson feels betrayed is kind of stupid too. why does she really care that much if one of them betrayed loba? nobody else really cared about the fact that one of them was a spy, in fact, nobody even seems to like loba that much, and they just found out that loba’s been lying to them this whole time, and wattson was conscious for that conversation and had a speaking line, so she’s fully aware of the situation.

maybe it’s just like, the idea that one of them lied, but that’s still kind of a weak reason.

this entire betrayal thing is just dumb, and it gets even worse when you realize that there could have been an actual legitimate reason for wattson to feel betrayed by crypto--even if it still would’ve come across as weak conflict because of their newly established friendship, it would’ve made more sense than this.

Crypto destroyed Wattson’s home. He took down the tower and then all the flyers and stuff invaded Kings Canyon and made it their bitch. Not only that, but Wattson considers the Syndicate her family. The Syndicate are the very people who framed Crypto for murder and he’s trying to take them down.

They could’ve set up actual conflict with these things, and it almost seemed like they would, because Caustic briefly brings up that Crypto could be working with Revenant because he has something against the Syndicate but then that doesn’t really go anywhere and we’re just back to Wattson feeling betrayed because either Crypto or Caustic was a spy and she doesn’t know who.

Weak conflict could’ve been made better by a strong relationship and a weak relationship could’ve still been interesting with strong conflict, but both the relationship between Crypto and Wattson and the conflict that drives them splitting up as friends were really weak and didn’t make much sense.

It would’ve been ten times more interesting if Wattson found out Crypto ruined her home, the arena she grew up in, and was now participating in the Games to take out the people she regards as her family. That’s where her distrust could’ve manifested and conflict could’ve began, but instead it was the stupid betraying loba thing. why do you care. you just started talking to this guy like 2 hours ago.

also caustic’s whole reason for framing crypto feels stupid as fuck. he didn’t just frame crypto randomly, he framed him specifically because he doesn't want him to influence wattsob because he likes her Big Brain, but this is the FIRST time we have seen those two interact.

what influence is he talking about? wraith and wattson have been shown to be friendly with each other in the trailers, according to tom’s tweets, and in the story too so why doesn’t he frame her? at this point the audience had slightly more build-up for those two’s relationship than crypto and wattson and a betrayal storyline would’ve felt a little more deserved if still weak.

this is the point where i briefly want to touch upon shipping, and the fact that part of this conflict feels driven by shipbait.

aside from their relationship coming out of nowhere and the writers trying to make the stakes seem high and deeply emotional to the characters involved (despite this essentially being the first time they’ve ever interacted) tom casiello literally addresses shippers in a tweet regarding chapter seven, and as the story between these characters progresses, it becomes clear to me, at least that the crypto-wattson thing is just bait for shippers, and it’s lazy.

it’s easy to get away with giving your characters little to no relationship development if you’re just counting on shippers to do the heavy mental lifting for you

why should i put any effort into making this relationship seem believable? people are going to see a young guy and a young girl having bare minimum interaction and assume there’s romantic interest! then i don’t have to do any work, see look, it’s a ready-made relationship wrapped in a bow for me! all that’s left for me to do is give them conflict so i can keep teasing shippers with lines like ‘you never deserved her’!

i think it’s reasonable for me to suspect shipbait, since tom casiello likes doing darksparks shipbait on twitter, and i’m like, eighty percent sure mirage and bloodhound suddenly being childhood friends in the book is shipbait too, because these characters were the number one ship in apex for a long time despite little to no interaction, and then all of a sudden in the lore book they’re childhood friends despite this literally never being mentioned before?

like bloodhound is set up to be mysterious and nobody knows what they look like, or where they’re from, or who their family is--except for mirage Apparently, who played with them when he was a kid on their home planet, and has seen them with their mask off, because bloodhound did not wear a mask when their parents were still alive.

its weird.

i’m pretty sure they’ve said somewhere they were working on this book before apex even came out, so i could just be completely wrong and they always planned for mirage and bloodhound to know each other, but if that’s the case, why did they never mention it like they did octane and lifeline?

i refuse to believe MIRAGE never brought it up either like ‘heeeeyy bloodhound remember when we used to throw eggs at our parents lab haha wanna go do to that to bangalore’s room’

[silence]

‘good talk buddy’

ANYWAYS I GOT OFF TOPIC. POINT IS, shipping is a detriment to the story because the writers don’t feel like they actually have to put any work into establishing or developing the relationship between characters when they know the community’s just going to do it for them anyways, and that they can put in shipbait and it’s fine and it makes sense when it really doesn’t.

imagine watching captain america civil war after not seeing a single other marvel movie.

why would you care about the avengers splitting up or tony and steve butting heads or steve’s commitment to bucky? you wouldn’t care, at least not as much as someone who’s seen all the movies and knows the relationship between the characters and why the sokovia accords exist in the first place. you don’t have context and you don’t have any reason to be emotionally invested in these characters’ relationship.

this feels like that. the writers tried to squeeze this relationship and stuff into a single chapter and we don’t fucking care unless we were already invested in the idea of their relationship (shippers) because we barely spent any time with it.

so to summarize this little section, the set-up of this storyline Kinda Sucks! crypto and wattson barely seem to know each other, because we the audience barely saw them together and the writers are relying on shipbait in place of a relationship.

wattson and caustic are a little better but not great, but the conflict is stupid and it only gets stupider.

moving onto summarizing the rest of the broken ghost, gibraltar and caustic talk, caustic LITERALLY confesses to being the mole and says he framed crypto so he couldn’t corrupt wattson and to appear innocent because his identity was suspected, then that wraps up the season storyline.

season six begins with new voice lines, where wattson has had enough of crypto and caustic’s shit and is all passive-aggressive and going ‘this doesn’t change anything’. she has to decide who to trust, and how to figure out The Truth for herself because she’s not a little girl anymore. crypto and caustic are both trying to convince her they’re innocent and it creates some interesting conflict.

just kidding. it’s terrible conflict. you want to know why?

BECAUSE GIBRALTAR TRIED TO TELL HER THE TRUTH, RIGHT AFTER THE SEASON 5 QUEST HAPPENED, AND SHE LITERALLY REFUSED TO HEAR IT.

LIKE THERE’S A SEASON 6 LOADING SCREEN WHERE HE’S TELLING EVERYONE THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED, AND WHEN HE GETS TO WATTSON AND IS LIKE HEY I KNOW WHO THE MOLE WAS AND WHY THEY DID IT, SHE JUST GOES i dont wanna hear it. i need to think

IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH WHY ARE YOU REFUSING TO HEAR IT

SHE SPENDS ALMOST TWO ENTIRE SEASONS MAD AT CRYPTO FOR SOMETHING HE DIDN’T DO BECAUSE SHE TOLD GIBRALTAR TO FUCK OFF WHEN HE TRIED TO TELL HER WHAT HAPPENED

ITS SO DUMB

i think it was towards the end of season 6 or the beginning of season 7 where apex posted this picture of wattson asleep at her desk where she has a letter from gibraltar on it that looks like it tells her the truth, so she knows now, she knows what happened, but NOW her issue is the fact that she doesn’t know anything about crypto.

WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT IS YOUR GODDAMN DAMAGE. YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT BLOODHOUND EITHER ARE YOU THIS UPSET WITH BLOODHOUND TOO?? HAVE YOU EVER TALKED TO PATHFINDER. DO YOU HATE PATHFINDER TOO

oh but she was friends with crypto and now she’s mad that he lied to her EXCEPT THEIR RELATIONSHIP WASN’T BUILT UP WELL SO IT JUST FEELS STUPID. THEY SPENT LONGER BEING NOT-FRIENDS THAN THEY SPENT BEING FRIENDS. THEY BECAME FRIENDS IN ONE CHAPTER AND THEN IMMEDIATELY AT THE END OF THAT CHAPTER THEIR FRIENDSHIP ENDED AND THEN WATTSON SPENT LIKE 2 SEASONS MAD AT HIM FOR SOMETHING HE DIDN’T DO .

AND THE WRITERS TRIED TO RECTIFY THIS BY SAYING OH SHE’S NOT MAD ABOUT THE TRAITOR THING SHE’S MAD BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM AND IT’S LIKE WHY THE FUCK DID YOU NOT MAKE THAT CLEAR WHY DOES SHE SAY ‘IT DOESN’T CHANGE WHAT YOU DID’ IN HER VOICE LINES WHY DOES SHE CALL HIM A TRAITOR IF HER CONFLICT WAS HER NOT KNOWING MUCH ABOUT HIM . WHAT DID HE DO.

HE JUST STOOD THERE AND LAUGHED AT HER JOKE AND THEN HE GOT FRAMED AND THEN THAT WAS THE END OF THE CHAPTER AND NOW SHES SUDDENLY LIKE IM ACTUALLY MAD BECAUSE YOURE A LIAR AND I CANT TRUST YOU EVEN THOUGH I NOW KNOW YOU WERE FRAMED I STILL DO NOT LIKE YOU AND HES LIKE YEAH THATS MY FAULT

The Caustic voicelines are stupid too, again his reason for framing Crypto was stupid and a lot of his voicelines just seem to be that shipbait thing again but like from the angle of overprotective dad who doesn’t like the new boyfriend. it’s stupid but not as egeregious as this next part which is

crypto telling wattson his identity.

CRYPTO was framed for MURDER and is paranoid and can’t trust anyone and doesn’t talk to anyone and the last time he did talk to someone he got framed for Another thing and the person he was talking to turned her back on him and actively refused to know the truth for like 2 seasons and then he went This Is Fine I Can Tell Her My Identity

the stupidest update to this storyline was crypto telling wattson the truth

why did they do it on the dropship where there are presumably syndicate members and other legends around.

why didn’t he scan wattson for listening devices like he did for pathfinder in the book.

why is he telling her his identity when he knows she has very close ties to the people that FRAMED HIM for MURDER. Does he trust her that much? WHY? They spoke to each other in a chapter and then spent two seasons not talking to each other beyond passive-aggressive BS. why are you so fucking stupid taejoon

their relationship was so poorly set-up that even if the writers maybe intended for them to come across as close friends who had spent weeks bonding, it really feels like they became friends in a single conversation, had a falling out, and now crypto suddenly trusts her with his identity after an undetermined amount of time because he wants to be friends again.

that does not make SENSE this conflict feels contrived AS FUCK and the resolution feels even worse and unearned UGGGHHHH

it honestly comes across as crypto feeling desperate for friendship, and maybe this would’ve worked better if that’s the angle they played it as.

he’s been alone for roughly two years, and just wants a friend, and he’s honestly so lonely he just breaks down to the first person who’s really talked to him. it could’ve been an interesting little part of his character, and they could've gone into depth about how much this situation has affected him, but that’s not what they’re doing. he’s still paranoid and anxious and doesn’t trust anyone, except for wattson, because the plot needs him to or else there won’t be any stupid soap opera drama.

and to rub salt in the wound, wattson’s new voice lines with caustic have him telling her that she forgave crypto.

WHAT ARE YOU FORGIVING HIM FOR. ARE YOU FORGIVING HIM FOR BEING FRAMED? WHY DID HE HAVE TO APOLOGIZE TO YOU WHEN YOU WERE THE ONE WHO REFUSED TO HEAR THE TRUTH?

did the conversation just go hey my real name is taejoon park and something bad happened to me and she went aight i forgive you WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

Caustic’s new voice lines to Crypto where he’s like ‘what did you tell her’--YOU TOLD GIBRALTAR STRAIGHT-UP YOUR EVIL MASTER PLAN LIKE A SUPERVILLAIN AND NOW YOU’RE SURPRISED WATTSON AND CRYPTO ARE ON GOOD TERMS NOW?!

THAT’S LIKE TELLING SOMEONE YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER AND THEN BEING SURPRISED WHEN YOU BECOME THE VICTIM OF IDENTITY FRAUD. YOU SET YOURSELF UP FOR THIS WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE CRYPTO DID SOMETHING SINISTER OR LIED OR WHATEVER. WHAT THE FUCK. WHY DO YOU HAVE LIKE 3 BRAINCELLS

this is at like ten pages already so i’m going to just try and wrap this up quickly.

it’s frustrating seeing this storyline play out when there are actually good relationships and storylines written into apex. i’m kind of getting tired of the loba and revenant conflict, but we at least had set-up to it in the form of a few animated shorts and it doesn’t play out as stupidly as this story does. bangalore and loba’s friendship is actually developed well, even if the point between the end of season 5 and season 6 where they suddenly talk like each other feels like it could’ve used a little more.

where crypto and wattson having an established friendship in the broken ghost failed, lifeline and octane’s established friendship works because we’ve been told since octane’s release they were childhood friends and given lore materials that indicate they’ve known each other for a very long time.

apex wants this storyline between crypto and wattson and caustic to feel dramatic and tense and ultimately rewarding when crypto and wattson did become friends for real and stuff, but instead it just comes across as hollow and empty.

there’s nothing there. it’s a case of tell, don’t show, and it looks like this stupid conflict is gonna keep going for another couple of seasons at this rate.

side note: this entire script was written before the new twitter comics

please tell me ur thoughts and feel free to respond with ur own lil essay

also believe it or not this is not the "shipping is a detriment to apex's story" essay i was gonna write this is a completely different essay that has some overlap SKXISOSOW

#apex legends #apex critical #crypto #wattson

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bedlamsbard · 3 years

Note

So, I get the distaste for Rebels and The Bad Batch (definitely that last one), and I can certainly suggest @agoddamn's series of watching Clone Wars (because wow, I'd forgotten how poor that series could be), but with The Mandalorian, the most I can understand of your dislike of it is how it handles previous characters. Which, yeah, Filoni and his Precious OCs, but other than that, what about it? I mean, the plot/theme seemed simple to me: focusing on the relationship between Din and Grogu.

Ack, I didn't realize that out of context of my past ten years of fannishness and fannish engagement the takeaway from recent critical posts would be "Bedlam hates Star Wars," let alone "Bedlam hates Rebels"!

Look, I love Star Wars -- I genuinely do love Rebels and TCW, I'm very fond of Resistance and most of the films, and there are other parts of the ancillaries (books, comics, games) that I love, like, and/or enjoy. There are other parts of the saga that I dislike, a lot of it that I'm pretty neutral on because I just don't care; there's very little that I outright hate. (There are things that I avoid because I know I would hate them; I won't read Dark Disciple because the old EU Republic/Clone Wars comics from Dark Horse were formative for me and I'm not really over how Quinlan Vos's story line got retconned for TCW and thus the novel, so I don't feel the need to rub my face in it.)

I think, especially with Star Wars, there's a tendency to think that people only complain because they dislike or hate whatever it is they're complaining about it. I don't talk about the parts of Star Wars I actually hate because I frankly don't see the point in talking about the stuff I have no emotional investment in, or where my emotional investment only is distaste -- that's why I'll almost never talk about the ST. (And why I've only talked about the back half of Rebels S4, which I do genuinely hate, a handful of times over the years: I don't want to think about the thing I actually hate.) I talk about Rebels and TCW because those are the parts of Star Wars that I love and because I occasionally want to dig into why there are parts of them that just don't work for me. (And I do realize that if anyone pays attention to what I reblog and don't it may come off as me not liking them particularly; 99% of the time I only reblog TCW or Rebels gifsets immediately after I've rewatched episodes, and I haven't been doing rewatches lately for various reasons.) Critique doesn't mean "I hate it," it means "I want to think about this more on a critical level." It means "I love the puzzle pieces, why does the way they were put together not work for me? How could they have been done differently so that it would have worked for me?" Like I said a few weeks ago, while I don't want to actively add negativity to the fandom, I also don't really want to sit down and shut up if something isn't doing it for me if otherwise I love the thing; I want to figure out why it doesn't work. This is the flip side of "if you can't say anything positive, don't say anything at all" -- I'm not talking to Dave Filoni or the other showrunners (and I would never say any of this to the face of anyone at Lucasfilm), I'm sitting here talking to myself and to my friends about why the puzzle pieces don't quite come together for me. (And the bonus of me putting it on Tumblr is that I can actually find it again, because sometimes I do want to go back and see what I said about XYZ.)

If I'm not actively talking about all the things I love about Rebels or TCW it's because I don't particularly feel the need to justify why Thing works for me, because I already know it works for me. Or because I spent the first two years or so of Rebels and big chunks of TCW doing episode liveblogs, which are on the back end of my "Bedlam watches Rebels" and "Bedlam watches TCW" tags, and I don't feel the need to come back and say "I love the way XYZ happened" six or seven times. Or because I think it would be obvious because I've written something around a million words of fanfic about the two of them. Or because I have three Rebels tattoos and am a Rebels cosplayer, which obviously I don't really talk about on Tumblr but is something that I personally know. I mostly have not talked about The Bad Batch publicly (and only a little privately) because mostly it's not doing much that triggers strong feelings in me one way or another, though I do have the whole "why are these puzzle pieces not working for me, how would I have put them together differently" feel about parts of it.

As for Mando specifically -- look, Mando's fine. I understand why it appeals to a lot of people, even if I am not one of those people. I don't particularly find Grogu appealing either on a character or an aesthetic level. I find that for me personally the show varies wildly in quality from episode to episode; I find it to be a little too clever about itself in how it deals with both the world, its plot, its place in the saga, and its characters in a way drives me up the wall. It hits a couple of really specific things that are huge do not wants for me and some of that is on a shallow note of "I don't like how they do their Twi'lek prosthetics" and some of it is "I don't particularly like the aesthetics" and some of it is a weightier "I'm confused about what the thematic points of the show are because they're all over the map" and yes, some of it is, "I don't like how Mando intersects or does not intersect with other parts of the saga." Or the way that it gets valorized for being live action rather than animated by a lot of the fandom and then gets elevated over the other parts of the saga that I care about the most (TCW and Rebels). I've talked in the past about how Mando genuinely made me feel gaslit, even if that was no one's intention and thus was not actually gaslighting; it just managed to hit on my specific issues. I don't talk about Mando that much because mostly I just don't care and when I do talk about it it's because it managed to trip into something I do care about.

And if I sound particularly cranky right now, it's because every time I say something critical and it starts making tracks out of my usual circles, someone comes in to go "wow! you must hate Star Wars!" or "wow! you care a lot about [aesthetic choice]! why would you care about that!" or "wow! you're an idiot for thinking XYZ would happen/not happen!" or variations thereof. I've been in fandom for twenty years. I've been in this fandom since George W. Bush was president. I know how it goes. I'm going to reiterate the post I made after the Mando finale:

in any expanded canon, people are going to have different deal-breakers on where they can suspend their disbelief and it’s not a judgment on you and yours if theirs is different than yours. nor does it automatically say something bad about them! it just means y’all have different priorities and that’s fine! neither one of you should be jumping down each other’s throat because their line in the sand is “this contradicts something in previous canon” and yours is “the CGI is unconvincing.”

I feel like I’ve been seeing a lot of condescension (rather than hostility, which tbh is par for the course in SW so I just tune it out) recently and like…people can have different priorities. it’s fine. they’re not stupid for having their priority be “I don’t like the prosthetics” when your priority is “character A was mean to character B.” don’t worry, Lucasfilm isn’t listening to any of us.

#this was the first thing I saw when I turned my computer on for Sunday zoom #so I am perhaps a LITTLE crankier than I would have been otherwise #sorry about that #bedlam replies

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prodigious-ladybug · 3 years

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wishmaker thoughts

in terms of it being a single installment in the larger narrative of miraculous ladybug, i don’t have a lot of thoughts on wishmaker other than ‘haha cool someone knows both of their identities at the same time wonder where this will go’ bc like. i am unable to separate myself from the idea that i absolutely cannot judge something (in this case, season- and series-long arcs) until i see it in its Entirety, in its Proper Complete State (which i know doesn’t exactly mesh with television as a serialised art form but jhdfghj wtvr thats a whole other discussion) so i don’t, and won’t, really have an opinion on luka knowing their identities until i see what the show does with it

on the other hand, in terms of its own merits as an episode (as in, the parts of the episode that are self-contained and are supposed to have their own story arc within the 20min) wishmaker was probably one of the weaker episodes of the show? alec’s akumatisation practically came out of nowhere - the show usually does a pretty good job of setting up the through lines that lead to a character’s akumatisation right from the start of the ep (you know, like with actual foreshadowing and good writing and shit) but wishmaker felt more concerned with the interactions between luka & adrien & marinette than having the villain feel natural within the story. which is all well and good, like this episode is about those three and should be focused on luka’s relationship with adrien & marinette if it wanted to have the proper impact of luka finding out their identities, but it just seemed like the episode couldn’t balance being both a run of the mill, monster of the week episode and an Event episode at the same time (that being said, i doubt this episode would’ve been enough to hold its own across a two parter so i get how the unbalance arose). instead of throwing alec’s characterisation out of whack they couldve used his early screen time to lead up to his akumatisation more naturally - surely something about being a tv presenter and having to be fake all the time for a living and not staying true to what his younger self wanted or SOMETHING would like. be putting him down in the dumps or smth. idk. that’s just off the top of my head surely the writers could come up with something more substantial. and yeah this might take away some attention from the emotional core of luka, adrien & marinette but it’d at least 1. tie in with the theme of the episode and 2. set some precedent for his negative feelings instead of him getting akumatised in like. ten seconds hgfdfghjk

the only other thing that kinda rubbed me the wrong way was how wishmaker’s power seemed especially contrived, even for this show? like i Know half of the akumatised powers are to either get ladybug and chat noir to kiss (contrived for the sake of romance which is. generally fine in a romance show and also approved by my shipper brain) or reveal their identities (which actually ties into the plot and the villain’s motivations and therefore makes it...not really contrived) so wishmaker being used to reveal their identities is fine. but um. the leap hawkmoth made in how his powers would do that is. wild. it’s like:

reveal people’s childhood wishes

???

reveal lb & cn’s identities

profit

and again, i know hawkmoth has given an endless list of powers to people that make you think ‘what the fuck was he hoping to accomplish with that?? what did he THINK would happen?’ and i’m all for hawkmoth having dumb plans, being soundly beaten and then having to figure out smarter ways to beat lb & cn, but i guess my problem here is that in this episode he was actually proven RIGHT. like he had no guarantee that lb & cn wouldn’t have childhood wishes a la dino man and mr banana, but he really put out this fairly weak akuma with the immediate assumption that it would reveal their identities and like?? if viperion wasn’t there he’d have achieved it! (well, idk abt ladybug, he’d at least probably hit chat noir, which is. an interesting au to think about). the link between revealing childhood wishes and revealing lb & cn’s identities seemed like a massive leap in logic to me (more than this show usually makes), and idk if anyone else felt that when watching the episode but like kjhdfghjk hawkmoth buddy can you explain your thinking for just a second like i’ll accept what you’re doing i just need to know why the fuck you’re doing it and how you got there

but other than that! i really really liked this episode and i was hyped up the entire fucking time!! i had to keep pausing it bc i was getting overwhelmed LMAO. i guess one thing i will say so that this doesn’t seem like a wall of negativity (which i swear i didn’t mean for it to be, there were only two (2) things i didn’t like about the episode that i felt weakened it, it just takes me a billion words to get to my point) is that however they handle luka knowing their identities in future episodes, i fucking loved the way they handled it in this episode. for some background, i’ve honestly never cared much either way abt luka, i have zero negative feelings about him, it’s just that he has the unfortunate case of not being a character type i particularly care abt, and the writing hasn’t done anything much to endear him to me. he’s fine, and i certainly like him more than other characters, but i’m pretty much as neutral on him as you could get. UNTIL THIS EPISODE! okay not really, something abt him agreeing to be friends with marinette in crocoduel made me go ‘:) what a nice boy :)’ BUT! THIS EPISODE! i’m proud to announce i’m officially a luka stan. LYING BALD-FACED TO LADYBUG? KING. LYING TO LADYBUG AFTER THE SEASON OPENER OF HIM GETTING AKUMATISED OVER MARINETTE LYING??? i am SO here for internal character conflicts YES! this is what i WANT! set up a character who has a strict line in the sand and put them in a situation where they’re forced to cross it anyway, and see what happens next!!!! i really would not mind a whole character study on luka after this. like....the fucking intrigue.......why did he lie, and how does he feel about it? does he regret it? does he consider it a necessary evil? i’m sure all of this will be answered in like. a single line from him five episodes down the road bc that’s how this show handles shit like this but. those last few minutes were really just straight bangers i’m still not recovered

well this was. longer than i thought it’d be. and again, i liked this episode a lot, idk what compelled me to write all this out. i usually don’t have a lot of formulated thoughts like this after an episode of ml; i think that it was just bc there were a couple things i could actually critique in the ep that it made it easier to pick apart my feelings. but anyways!

TL;DR wishmaker, in its self contained elements, felt a bit weak as an episode bc 1. alec’s akumatisation was mad rushed and 2. the way his powers were used to further the plot felt contrived to me (yes, even for miraculous). but, in the episode’s over-arching elements within the season/show, i immensely enjoyed it, primarily because of the amount of intrigue it set up in 1. luka’s characterisation and 2. the possibilities emerging from luka knowing lb & cn’s identities

#miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers #wishmaker #wishmaker spoilers #i really cannot. say anything concisely #anyways this was fun i'd like to write my thoughts out after more episodes but like i said i generally Don't Have Any #like if an episode is good all my thoughts will be 'wow that was good :)'#ml air more duds so i can ramble on forever challenge

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