#unfortunately if a villain is TOO sympathetic we the audience... stop liking the heroes

[howtofightwrite]

What’s the best way to come up with a backstory for nigh-irredeemable villain and hate sink without getting into Unfortunate Implications territory? I’m specifically worried about ableism - making him a sociopath or giving him a traumatic backstory both imply things I don’t want to about mental illness and trauma. I thought about giving him a privileged background with parents who never told him “no” and shielded him from consequences of his actions, but I feel like that takes too much agency away from him and shifts too much blame to his parents.

This is one of those situations where there really isn't a single, “best,” solution.

One of the first things that comes to mind is, don't try to make your audience feel sorry for your villain.  This is a personal opinion, so you're free to disagree, but if you're trying to build up your villain, presenting a tearjerker backstory undercuts that. It diminishes your villain. Sort of like characterizing Batman as, “a rich boy with daddy issues,” really shortcuts the whole, “Dark Knight,” mystique.

Digging into a villain's backstory can be quite perilous. Especially if you're trying to show the adversity that shaped them into the baby eating monstrosity we see in the present. Under the best possible circumstances, you can potentially make the character a deeper and richer individual as a result, but this comes with a severe risk of accidentally turning them into a whiny, entitled, and petulant while robbing them of whatever genuine threat they'd managed to build up.

In fact, a villain who actively conceals elements of their past, (or throws out small fictions about their origins) can be far more threatening, and also build up that mystique by depriving the audience of information about how they became who they are. For a moment, consider the sheer volume of speculation about the backstory of Heath Ledger's version of the Joker, sparked from his erratic and inconsistent explanations for how he came to be (and how none of those stories really line up with his behavior.) Especially the part where his constantly erratic and chaotic persona slides right over a shockingly methodical approach to violence that keeps the character compelling. You don't know who he is, and he's constantly trolling everyone who tries to get a better understanding of him.

One situation where you can start digging into their backstory is if their villainous plan actually has a solid philosophical foundation. This can get into some pretty disturbing territory, as your villain may literally be a terrorist, but if they're trying to put an end to an unjust social order, stop some greater evil, or are even just out for revenge against a group that has wronged them in the past, you can get a legitimately sophisticated villain that could be downright sympathetic, while also being a complete monster. Somewhat obviously, this is going to be a lot harder to balance, but the option is there.

These kinds of villains can actually play against narrative expectations, and what we tend to expect from stories. In the vast majority of cases, the hero in a story is seeking to maintain, or restore, the status quo, while the villain seeks to disrupt or alter it. This can become a point of reference to quickly identify who is the hero, and who is the villain. This also means you can have a story where the villain is, legitimately, trying to create a better world (and not just in the vague and intimidating, creating an evil world they can rule over, but legitimately seeking to improve it), and is opposed by a hero who is trying to maintain an unjust, or even oppressive, status quo. Within that, the more extreme the villain's methods, the more complicated the calculus becomes. (Especially if they can avoid crossing a threshold where they're simply sowing misery indiscriminately, and their, “brighter future,” starts to sound like empty platitudes.)

Again, there isn't one right answer, but if you want an irredeemable villain, you probably shouldn't try to redeem them by delving into their backstory.

-Starke

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#Starke answers #how to fight write #writing advice #writing tips #writing reference

[equalseleventhirds]

also (w359 spoilers ahead), marcus cutter is a stand-out villain bcos like, u kno that writing advice that goes 'everyone feels justified in their actions so u have to make a Justification for your villain doing evil', but ppl keep doing those villains wrong (i have Thoughts on why but that's another post)

cutter, like, we understand his motivations. we know he was wronged in his youth! we can see some sympathy there! and we can see his goal is what he genuinely thinks of as a Better Humanity.

and yet we are not pulled into 'well he's right he's just Using The Wrong Methods'. we can also see how what he believes is wrong, even tho he's twisted it around to think it's right. we can see where a lot of his goals are mostly about making things better for himself, even as he pushes a line of 'for progress! moving forward!' along with those self-interested goals. and, vitally, he's not up against heroes who are trying to ~keep the status quo~ or w/e, or go sadly 'well because of your Methods we cannot accept your Very Good Goal'

he's a very good example of a villain with a reason, a plausible reason, an at times sympathetic reason, but with whom we do not side, and who also gets to be campy and evil and fun.

#w359blogging #i think one of the major failings of ppl taking the 'give villains a justification' advice and doing it wrong #is that they assume 'justified' means 'sympathetic' but like. VERY sympathetic. #unfortunately if a villain is TOO sympathetic we the audience... stop liking the heroes #ppl don't necessarily... like to feel conflicted abt good vs evil in media. this is why sometimes Just Evil Villains succeed so well #bcos the 'give villains a justification' thing is about adding realism to your writing #but sometimes audiences don't want realism. they want to feel GOOD when the villain is taken down. #(not all the time. some ppl like the conflict. but also some media is so damn bad at doing a Properly Conflicted Thing #like? black panther? did great on 'good motive bad methods' bcos the good motive was CONTINUED by the good guys #other media... says 'good motive bad methods' and dismisses the motive entirely bcos of the methods #no one can ever take up that cause again without being tarred by the same brush (is the message of the story) #and that's uhhhhhh rly shitty writing and also NOT a good way to feel conflicted abt the heroes & villains for the audience #bcos either they must hate the villain's good motivation or they have to like. question the heroes. .......anyway.) #this is all to say! cutter's a fantastic balance between 'understandable motivations' and 'just genuinely evil u can root for him to fail' #like you UNDERSTAND him but you don't AGREE with him. he's got the realism without that ethical quandary. #it's not the same approach to an understandable villain as black panther but it is a good one for a different message #....................i said these thoughts were another post. they are instead tags. sorry about that.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Lila Rossi: I’d Say She’s a Good Villain, but Then I’d Be Lying (300 Follower Special)

Deception and cunning are easily two of the most important traits an antagonist could have. It shows that even if they don't have the strength to overcome obstacles, their wit is more than enough. This kind of trait is why characters like Lex Luthor, David Xanatos, and Princess Azula are so beloved, simply because of how intelligent they can be as villains and pose a real threat to the heroes.

It's clear that the Miraculous Ladybug writers want Lila to be seen as this, but the writing seriously fails to back that claim up.

Easily one of the most controversial characters in Miraculous Ladybug is Lila, mainly for the writing surrounding her. But there was a time where she was actually more of an ambiguous character, mainly for the lack of screentime she had until Season 3. But unfortunately, the more appearances she's had have painted a very poor portrait of an antagonist.

Lila's Tragic and Sympathetic Motivation for Hating Ladybug

Lila's first appearance was at the tail end of Season 1, “Volpina”. She was a new transfer student from Italy, and quickly made friends with a lot of her classmates for the lies she told, including being friends with Ladybug (which Alya blindly believed without doing any research like any excellent journalist). But because of how close she was getting to Adrien, Marinette, in a rare act of selfishness, transforms into Ladybug just to chew out Lila for lying about knowing her, humiliating her in front of Adrien. And this is the only motivation we get for what Lila does afterwards.

I'm not saying that it's wrong for Lila to get upset at Ladybug for doing this, and I like the moment of weakness Marinette has, but this is literally the only explanation we get for Lila deciding to side with Hawkmoth, a literal terrorist. As much as I hated the way the arc turned out, I could still understand Chloe siding with Hawkmoth, as it was clear that Hawkmoth was manipulating her and taking advantage of her ego. Lila? Ladybug's mean to her one time, and that inspires her to conspire with a complete stranger who brainwashes people to attack the city, which endangers innocent people and causes God knows how much in collateral damage if not for Miraculous Ladybug fixing everything.

I just don't get how a single negative interaction with someone is enough to conspire with a literal supervillain. Even in Season 3, when Marinette and Lila truly became enemies, it was because she risked exposing all the lies she told, which could damage her reputation. Sure, it's petty, but it makes sense for Lila to want to keep up the illusion. If she was simply an antagonist to Marinette in her civilian life like Chloe was before “Miracle Queen” , I'd be fine with that, but the writers clearly want her to be seen as on the same level of evil as Hawkmoth. I'll get into why that doesn't work later on.

Why Lila is an Excellent Liar

In my Master Fu analysis, I had pointed out that despite all the flaws he had, the narrative insisted on portraying him as an incredibly wise mentor. The same problem applies for Lila as well. We're supposed to see Lila as an expert manipulator and liar, but her lies are insultingly obvious. She always claims to be friends with celebrities and does all these awesome things, and in an age where we can have almost any question answered thanks to the internet, nobody ever stops to question her.

It's even more frustrating when you hear Lila talk about saving Jagged Stone's cat, when Jagged Stone is established to be very fond of Marinette (evidentially more than his own daughter), and nobody ever points that out. I think if Lila's lies were more stories about her travels around the world than outright lies about real people, it could have worked. It'd still be hard to believe, but it's something.

But this is a problem with writing shows aimed at children. As much as we hate writers who need to spell out things to kids, sometimes, they just don't understand some of the media they consume. Seriously, I never got this joke in SpongeBob as a kid, and I can't believe Nickelodeon actually approved this.

So the dilemma when writing a show with children in mind is finding that sweet spot between assuming your audience can figure it out, but not being too vague in your details. It's even harder when you need to find a way to convey the fact that someone is lying without being too obvious. Unfortunately, the show clearly fails to do that

Okay, this is going to sound like an incredibly weird thing to cite, and I only know about it because I used to know someone who was a huge fan of the franchise, but the movie Monster High: Friday Night Frights does a better job of subtly explaining to the audience that a character is lying. Please, just hear me out.

The movie follows the main characters competing in their high school's roller derby for the season after everyone on the usual team gets injured, and the championship match is against another school whose team tends to cheat to win matches. How they manage to do this without getting caught is anyone's guess. While the main characters are practicing, their coach, Clawd, notices a spy for the enemy team taking video of them to study their moves. In response, he calls over one of the athletes, Operetta, to chew her out for her showboating attitude. In reality, he's alerting her to the spy. Only using facial expressions, he clues her, and by extension, the audience, in on the fact that they know what the opposing team is trying to do.

This soon leads to Operetta pretending to tell the enemy team about their secret plan for the championship match, which was really an attempt to outsmart them to gain the advantage in the final stretch. The brilliance of this is how the audience is informed of this with no dialogue, and there's no scene afterwards spelling it out for those who don't get it. It manages to convey deception without being too obvious that Clawd and Operetta are being deceitful.

I think if there were more subtle hints to show the audience Lila was lying, she would be seen in a better light. As it is, Lila's lies are just pathetic, and it's ridiculous that everyone believes her. Which leads me to...

Lila, the Master Manipulator

I once read a Star Trek: Voyager fanfic that poked fun at the series by claiming that the reason a lot of the dumber episodes like “Threshold” and “Twisted” happened was because one of the crew members was an alien who unintentionally produced mood altering pheromones, with Captain Janeway actually realizing they were all high because of said pheromones, while two of the unaffected crew members were wondering what the hell they were doing before they found out the cause. Why do I bring this up? Sometimes, it feels like Lila is an unintentional parallel to the alien in that story.

Like so many characters, it's clear the show desperately wants the audience to view Lila in a certain way, but her actions do very little to actually back up that claim. When she's not using lies to tell stories about so many famous people she knows like her uncle who works for Nintendo, Lila is using strategies to manipulate everyone that are so obviously deceptive, the Thermians could pick up on them. Everyone and their mother knows how ridiculous a lot of what Lila does in episodes like “Chameleon” and “Ladybug” are, and I've talked about them before, so I'll try to be quick.

First off, as someone who had access to accommodations through high school and has had assistance in college so far, there is no way in hell that Ms. Bustier should take Lila's tinnitus at face value in “Chameleon”. If a student has a disability that could interfere with the education process, physical or developmental, not only does the school have to evaluate their performance, and determine if they're eligible for an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, but her teachers would have to be notified in the first place. As her primary educator, Ms. Bustier would be part of the team to oversee Lila's IEP and determine what accommodations she needs to help her learn better with her tinnitus and arthritis. But because the writers don't know what Google is, they just ignore it,  assume that Lila can just say she has a disability, and have everyone believe it. Even when Eric Cartman pretended to be disabled to compete in the Special Olympics, he put in more effort to look the part, even if he looked like a caricature.

Then there's the fact that that in “Chameleon”, everyone just believes Lila when she says Marinette stole her grandmother's necklace when not only is said necklace from the Agreste line of jewelry, but Alya, who is Rena Rouge, can't pick up on the fact that it's a fake. All she does to justify these lies is come up with a sob story about how nobody believes her, yet nobody ever tries to defend Marinette except Alya one time, and it was after she got expelled.

Or what about in “Oni-Chan”, where Lila thinks having Kagami kill Ladybug while claiming she'll back away from Adrien is a good idea? Let's say Oni-Chan does kill Ladybug or at least take away her Miraculous, what then? We know Lila wouldn't go through with this promise, and as soon as Kagami sees her harassing Adrien, she'll be ripe for akumatization again. Overall, not a great plan.

And yet somehow, this last example is what made her worthy enough to become one of Hawkmoth's most trusted agents. I'm just going to say it: Lila is not a good fit for the power of illusion. Whenever she's Volpina or Chameleon, she always goes out of her way to make a big show instead of being subtle with her deceptions. “Chameleon” is the worst offender, as even though Lila gets the power to shapeshift into someone else, instead of being discreet and cornering people into kissing them and gaining their appearance, she just runs around to get Ladybug's attention instead of being subtle. Even Felix had the bright idea to pretend to be Adrien to catch Ladybug off guard. How do you lose to something that happened in “Felix”?

Despite all of these screw-ups, we're still supposed to see her as this master of deception worthy of allying with Hawkmoth in both his supervillain and civilian form, when really, she's a terrible liar on the schoolyard and on the battlefield.

Why Lila is an Important Character

In the grand scheme of things, Lila just isn't as important of a character that the show loves to parade her around as. She's nothing more than a plot device used to raise the stakes in an episode, given how much reality seems to bend over just to accommodate for her lies. Even when the show alludes to her being part of bigger things, like her deal with Adrien, or her rivalry with Marinette, they don't even go anywhere.

She just feels pointless when you remember Astruc's brilliant idea to force Chloe into being the final Akuma for the season while Lila isn't even mentioned once. She only really makes appearances whenever the writers feel like it, which is why it’s hard to take her seriously. Why should I take this character seriously as a threat if the writers refuse to take her seriously as a threat? Why build Lila up as a big threat and not give her a major role in the finale? Why even include her in the show in the first place when you could show Chloe being more manipulative to fill in the plots Lila plays a big part in?

As of the time I am writing this analysis, four episodes of Season 4 have aired, three of them have been about lies or deception, and Lila hasn't been mentioned at all. It honestly seems like she won't appear unless the writers need a easy way to drive up the conflict, so they can justify it by saying that Lila's “superpower” of lying is more powerful than the common sense of everyone else.

I'm sorry this post was shorter than the last one, but compared to Master Fu, there's not that much to say about Lila that I haven't already said. Even the show barely gives her any attention, so it's hard for me to really find a lot to talk about.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #thomas astruc #thomas astruc salt #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #lila rossi #volpina #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #cat noir #chat noir #gabriel agreste #hawkmoth #hawk moth #shadowmoth #shadow moth #alya cesaire #rena rouge #kagami tsurugi #ryuuko #ryuko #riposte #oni chan #onichan #caline bustier #zombizou

[letteredlettered]

hi! ive been following your writing for a few years now and i drop by periodically to check if you have anything new posted, and im really surprised that you seem to be enjoying the untamed? im curious what you think about the show - its story and characters, the acting, the production, etc. idk if you know, but the untamed is the most successful example of a current trend in chinese entertainment, where popular online novels centered around a gay romance is adapted into a 'safe' drama.

continued:

due to the many explicit and implicit restrictions imposed on creative media in china, many crucial plot points have to be changed (often badly) or removed, including the nature of the relationship between the main characters. the untamed is considered the most loyal adaptation so far, but like all other works in the genre, it received criticism for weak acting and queerbaiting. that's why im really curious about what you think of the show as it is, as itself, free from its context.

if you're interested, you could also check out guardian! it features much better performance and chemistry by the leads imo, but the story was heavily botched bc the original incorporates and reinvents a lot of classic chinese folklore beautifully and stuff like that is considered disrespectful and not-pc. i think it's really sad how so many great pieces of writing with complex world-building and plotlines are simplified into... idek what to call them, but just, less than what they are.

im sorry this turned into a rant. as a mainland chinese person with oh so many frustrations about our current society, it's hard to comprehensively describe my feelings about the untamed's popularity. it's the first mainland chinese show/movie to gain this much organic interest abroad so i should be glad? but, but. anyway, yes, im sorry.

There’s no need to apologize for ranting, but I admit to some confusion as to whether you want your question addressed or the rant. Because I’m me and tend to be thorough, I’ll address everything, in reverse order.

First of all, I’m sorry that this show is sad to you. I’m sorry that the popularity of it is difficult. I’m also deeply sympathetic to your frustrations about your society, as I too am deeply frustrated by my own.

Secondly, yes, I’m aware of the context of The Untamed. I’m aware that the book it’s based on is a BL novel, and that, in order to align with Chinese politics, overt queerness was erased from the adaptation. I’m aware of the censure laws of gay media in China. I’m also aware that some aspects of necromancy and morality were adjusted to make the show more palatable for general audiences, but I’m fuzzier on those details. Lastly, I’m aware that the popularity of the show calls attention to certain things, such as fanfic, and that attention results in more censorship,

The fact of this erasure and this censure provokes a lot of questions: by consuming this product, which contains erasure and censure, do we engage in the erasure and censure? By posting gifs and writing fanfic and talking about this product, do we increase its popularity, thereby encouraging additional erasure and censure? By increasing the popularity of this product, do we diminish the popularity of the original gay morally gray canon, thereby decreasing representation? Do we discourage other authors in China from writing explicitly gay morally gray material? In short, are we allowed to enjoy this media?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. However, I do know that boycott is a very effective tool when it can inflict economic pain on the producer, or when it can exert pressure on an entity to change. That said, I feel like a lot of the calls to boycott certain media these days are a lot like telling people to stop driving their cars to stop climate change: it’s suggesting that individuals can solve the problem, which presupposes individuals are the problem, and therefore fails to address the scope of the problem, or present the possibility of a real solution. Not watching The Untamed isn’t going to change laws about portrayals of homosexuality onscreen in China, partly because the laws in China are a much bigger problem.

The other part of it is that The Untamed is coded queer, so if you run a successful boycott against it, you end up with . . . less queer TV. I know a whole lot less about China than I do about the Hays Code, but if you had told gay people during the Golden Age of Hollywood that they couldn’t enjoy movies that were coded queer because they weren’t explicitly queer, they’d have said you were crazy. In fact, many people will tell you that media that was coded queer was a big reason we got more explicit queer stuff later. And as I’m sure you’re aware, the US is still fighting that battle . . . partly because it wants to sell movies to China.

So then there’s a question about whether me, an American in the US, liking something coded queer from China but not explicitly queer--does that encourage Chinese censorship? Should I only support texts that are explicitly queer? But the answer is the same--it’s not addressing the scope of the problem, and by supporting texts that are coded queer, you could be paving the way in the future for something brighter.

But you weren’t talking about boycott! You were talking about your discomfort with the popularity with this show, which I accept. I understand feeling uncomfortable. I can only hope it makes you a bit more comfortable to know that plenty of fans are deeply aware of the context and do wrestle with the question of what liking this show means in the context of a society that would never allow aspects of the original to be portrayed onscreen.

Thirdly, I’m not against trying Guardian at some point, but by comparing the acting and chemistry of the leads to The Untamed, I feel like you prove our tastes are very different in these regards. I love the acting of the leads in The Untamed; I found their chemistry off the charts. It’s okay you don’t feel the same.

Lastly, you asked my opinion of The Untamed: its story and characters, the acting, the production, sans context of the canon upon which its based and censorship laws in China.

a. I love the overall story, but the plot has deep plot holes. Quite a few segments do not actually make sense to me, because the plot is so haywire. However, I’ve never cared that much about plot, except when it gets in the way of characters and themes, and for the most part, this plot serves its characters and themes, except when the parts they leave out are so confusing that I cannot follow the story. As for the story, it feels like it’s built for me, because ultimately it’s about moral decisions and how to make them; it’s about guilt and paying for mistakes; it’s about learning, changing your mind, and remaking yourself. Really, I’m not sure there are many stories I love more--except they killed my favorite character, and I almost quit. So, that certainly put a damper on things.

b. I love the characters most of all, although the villains are really two-dimensional. However, large parts of the plot are not Hero vs Villain, they’re Hero vs Society, and then some Hero vs Himself in a way that suggests the Hero is no longer a hero. I could talk about the characters forever, but suffice it to say I think they’re really strong. Also, the relationships are really exquisite, particularly when it comes to family dynamics. Unfortunately, they killed my favorite character off. Also unfortunately, there are six women in this show, only two of them are main characters, and every single one of them dies. It disgusts me.

c. I think the two leads are exceptional, in particular Xiao Zhan . . . when he’s not being too broad, which he is quite a bit. However, I do wonder how much of this is direction and production style, because in many instances, he’s quite subtle, and the choices he makes are astounding. Then there are times where it’s like they needed more footage, or wanted to drive home a point, and he turns on the extra, and it’s awful. It could just be him, but I actually feel it’s the case with most of the actors, which does make me think it’s a directing issue. Meng Ziyi never really has that problem though, because she is the most perfect of all. But then take He Peng, who I actually thought could be incredible, but every scene was just SO BROAD that I began to feel sorry for the poor dude having to act that part. But there is nothing to be said for Wang Zhuo Cheng, who really is just terrible, which is sad, because it’s a great part.

d. Production-wise, it’s really hit and miss. So much of the locations are truly beautiful. A lot of the costumes are too, unless the shot is too close. I actually don’t mind the wigs; I love the long hair. The CGI is terrible. And then while a lot of the shots are beautiful, some of them are awkward, and the pacing is really difficult, imo. It really seems like they wanted to drag it out, and there are so, so many scenes where I’m sort of embarrassed that we’re in the same scene or that we’re still looking at someone’s face, or that everyone is just standing there waiting for the shot to finally end.

I will say that film is a language that does differ from culture to culture. It could be that both the broadness of the acting and the awkwardness of the editing are my cultural lens based on American and a lot of western film. When I watched older Hollywood films, the acting is a lot more broad and maybe a little less “true” feeling, but I understand that it’s not the case everyone in the past was a bad actor. It was just a different style, so I’m not sure I’m equipped with the cultural knowledge of Chinese acting, cinematography, and editing to be able to really judge the value of these things.

I do know how I feel, which is that the editing is the biggest hurdle for me while watching the show. However, I feel that the beauty of it makes up for a lot, and the strength of the characters and themes really carries it.

I hope I addressed your points adequately, and I wish you well.

#Anonymous #the untamed #china

[vanilkaplays]

. There's a difference between having villains who are "relatable" and having villains who are *more sympathetic than the heroes*. Sometimes we go from "This guy is relatable, don't be like him because of everything else he does" to "never mind he's a villain, he's so *sympathetic*! How dare that so called hero stop him!"

I have been fortunate to avoid most unsavoury takes. Usually they get to me when somebody smarter and more eloquent than me adds a reasonable counterpoint. I think I follow the right people. However, I know strange things sometimes happen within fandoms. This is the site where "it's sad that Kylo Ren had to watch his dad die :(" sort of opinion appears occasionally, and while some things make me giggle, I'm also happy to only see it so often.

This is all a little vague, though, so I'm first going to say that I'm honestly not here to judge how somebody engages with a piece of fiction. I'll repeat that: I'm not here to judge how somebody engages with a piece fiction, what kind of fiction they consume, what characters they like or dislike, why, whether their fave is "problematic", what headcanons or art they produce, etc. And if it happens, I keep it to myself. It's none of my business. (Unless it harms somebody else, of course.) But I know some odd and/or aggressive discourse can happen on this hellsite for sure, which usually gets to me in the form of those legendary posts we all collectively shake our heads about in disbelief.

But, yeah, if we're going to talk about villainous characters with some tragic background or whatever, as it often happens in stories, and some people are going to be like, "Mr. Mass Murder Sad Backstory actually did nothing wrong, uwu," then I'm definitely gonna look at that a little sideways. I'm not sure whether it happens because people have difficulty accepting that they, they the good people, like an evil character, or because they like the character so much they feel the need to explain the evil away, so that it doesn't negatively reflect upon them, or they somehow internally feel the character should be better because they like them, so surely there's a reason for their evil behaviour. I don't know.

Hell, there's nothing wrong with liking a completely fucked-up character for what they are. Because they're interesting. Because they have style. Because their villainy is fun to watch. Or because they're sexy. Whatever the reason might be. Like that big ass and titty, milfy vampire from Resident Evil who everyone fell in love with recently. Like, who cares she wants to slice you into a shish kebab? She's not real. They're not real. They're a piece of entertainment. They're supposed to be entertaining.

And, yeah, some professional writers certainly do that, too. Or something of the sort. They're so infatuated with their own villain that they can't see them for what they are, maybe they even unfortunately share some of their dumb views ("Hurr-durr, overpopulation is killing the planet, so everybody should just die."), but they begrudgingly let the heroes stop them, if they must.

There's also something to be said for when a writer of a villainous character is obviously a piece of.... work themselves, or even better a shitty corporation (through its poor employees), very possibly with shitty production leaders, that doesn't even know what they're talking about, and that then oozes out of their writing. The audience then rightfully doesn't vibe with that, and they will start poking holes in the "good guys" and in how the "bad guys" are portrayed and why.

I will end this here because I don't even know what I'm talking about at this point. I'm not even sure I understood the ask correctly. I'm certainly no authority on this matter, so I'm basically just thinking loudly here.

[do-your-socks-have-holes-in-them]

On the Other Side / Ch15: Movie Night

Last / Masterpost / Next

Summary: For the past thirteen years, a secretive organization has been raising two groups of superpowered children. Half of them, since their very first memories, have been told they’ll grow up to be brave and strong superheroes; the rest were taught a much harsher view of the world, and groomed to become villains. Neither group knows of the other’s existence. But when a certain trio of heroes-to-be meets two future villains who really just want to be left alone, they all realize how much they haven’t been told.

Warnings: non-graphic violence, bullying, child abuse, sympathetic/good Deceit (Devon) is a main character

A/N: And I said, "I'll start updating regularly again." You know, like a liar. (but actually tho im doing a big bang so it's unlikely i'll be able to even try to update anything else regularly until the end of summer :/)

Read on AO3

Late Saturday morning, Thomas regarded the trunk of his car skeptically. “I really don’t think we needed to buy so many tiny flashlights and screwdrivers.”

“Uhm, I really think we did. Who’s the more experienced thief here, Thomas?” Remy’s unsubtle hand gestures made it clear what the answer was supposed to be.

“Just because you stole gum from a convenience store when you were thirteen—”

“I’m now a master criminal, yes, exactly. I’m glad you understand. The tiny flashlights are super important, trust me.”

Thomas sighed, amused. “If you say so. You gonna help me carry these bags?”

“Nope.”

“Remy—”

“I don’t have time, hon, I gotta go talk to Emile about all this, remember?” He neatly dodged Thomas’s attempt to foist a grocery bag on him. “I know you’re gonna miss me, but I’ll see you later, babe, don’t worry.”

Thomas scoffed and swatted his arm, which backfired a bit in that it nearly made him drop one of his bags. “I’ll live.” His words may have been dismissive, but he was smiling. That smile was still on his face as he made his way into the building and through the hallways to his own room. Most of the snacks were left there to be distributed later. He took the rest, along with the less innocuous items hidden at the bottom of the bags, and went down the hall to Logan, Roman, and Patton’s room.

“Good morning,” he called, after knocking in a pattern they’d agreed on the previous night so they would know it was him. He set the bags down and pressed a hand over his mouth in an effort not to “aww” out loud when he saw the kids.

They were all piled together in the blanket fort, and it looked like they’d been there the whole night. Patton was still asleep, tangled in a blanket, while Logan used him to prop up the book he was explaining to Devon- who, of course, tried to act like he already knew it, but his eyes were wide with interest. Meanwhile, Virgil was still curled up under Patton’s arm, where he’d become trapped at some point in the night, and Roman was telling him some grand story, complete with illustrations and various bits acted out. The smaller boy looked enthralled, if a little wary of all the wild gesturing. Roman paused mid-emphasis when Thomas walked in, just short of smacking Logan in the face, and Devon reached out and slowly pushed his arm back down.

Thomas smiled. “Hey guys, I brought you some stuff.”

“Ooh! What is it? Did you get good snacks?” Roman scrambled out of the fort and almost tripped on Patton, who had started to wake up. He turned over, holding Virgil to his chest like a teddy bear. The latter made a face and squirmed away, causing Patton to finally open his eyes.

“Oh. Sorry,” he laughed. Virgil waved him off with a shrug.

The kids gathered around, and Thomas started to show them what he and Remy had bought. “Of course I got good snacks, who do you think I am? Most of them are staying in my room for now, though, because I know you guys.”

There was a chorus of “aww.”

“Other than that, I got some clean clothes for you two, so you won’t need to keep wearing the same outfits all the time or borrow from the other kids. But I had to guess at your sizes, so if something doesn’t fit, tell me, okay?”

Devon and Virgil nodded shyly and took the clothes, hiding them under blankets in the fort for now. They would try them on once Thomas was gone; changing with him right there would be embarrassing, even if he couldn’t see them behind the blankets that hung down.

“Now… everybody come close, this part is secret. Remember the plan we talked about?” They all nodded. “I know not all of you were sure if you wanted to help, and I’m not trying to push you into it or anything, but I got you all some stuff for it- if anyone decides they don’t want to come, that just means there’s extras for those who do participate.”

“I’m coming!” Roman reminded him, in his version of a whisper.

Thomas laughed. “You made that clear, don’t worry. So, uh, we’ve just got a few little things that might be useful- most of it Remy insisted on, so don’t ask me what the putty is for.”

“Ooh, you were with Remy?” Patton grinned, clearly believing he was being subtle.

“We were just doing boring work things, so shush- and quit doing that thing with your eyebrows at me, Logan.” Thomas blushed, wishing he knew how to stop letting children embarrass him. The shopping trip may have been a boring work thing, but it was very hard to convince himself Remy hadn’t been lowkey flirting with him the entire time nonetheless. “Take the stuff already and leave me alone.”

“How about this,” Roman offered, “we’ll stop if and only if you let us have a movie night! I mean, we really need to- did you know they haven’t seen any Disney movies?!”

Thomas hummed, pretending to think hard about it. “That sounds like a deal I can agree to. I’ll bring my laptop in here for you later, how about that? I know you’d rather use the big TV screen," he said over disappointed protests, "but I really don’t want to risk having Devon and Virgil leave the room when it’s not necessary, alright?”

“I guess,” Roman huffed. “But that means you have to give us more snacks for it!”

“Whatever you say.”

Movie night, naturally, had to wait until it was at least evening- you couldn’t very well have one in the morning. Roman and Patton spent nearly all the preceding time planning it and gushing about how amazing it was going to be, to the point where the other three almost wished they weren’t having it, if only to get some peace and quiet. By the time Thomas came back after dinner to let them borrow his computer, the blankets in the fort had been rearranged countless times, and the kids had a list of everything else they wanted in order to make it absolutely perfect. Thomas went along with some of their requests, if not the ones like ‘a bunch of plastic balls so we can turn the room into a ball pit,’ and they managed to get everything arranged without anyone yelling at each other.

The movie they’d all decided on for tonight was Sleeping Beauty- they should start with a classic, right? Logan was in charge of holding the popcorn, because he was the only one who could be trusted not to spill it or eat it all himself. During the opening credits, Roman bounced in place impatiently, while Patton carefully arranged his stuffed animals so he could hold them all and none would feel left out, ignoring Logan’s reminder that they were inanimate objects and had no feelings to hurt. When he was finally satisfied and looked up, he caught Virgil staring at him, looking conflicted. As soon as their eyes met the smaller boy  looked away, blushing and wrapping the too-long sleeves of his jacket around himself. He and Devon had changed into their new clothes by now, but he’d refused to give up that hoodie any longer than was needed to wash it, and even that had been a struggle.

“Hey, Virgil?”

He looked up again, defensive.

“Do you wanna hold one of my toys?”

Virgil shook his head roughly, retreating into his hood. He didn’t need toys, he wasn’t a baby.

“Are you sure? This one’s all the way on the outside, I’m afraid it’s gonna get lonely… would you mind just holding onto it for me?” He held out a black stuffed cat, clearly well-loved by the fact it was missing an eye. Virgil hesitated, but finally took it, setting it down on his lap just so Patton wouldn’t be disappointed. Maybe it wasn’t too bad to hold it for him, as long as he wasn’t actually hugging it or anything.

“Oh- look, look, it’s starting!”

They both turned back to the screen at Roman’s exclamation. The credits had ended, and the fairy-tale book was opening.

“In a far-away land, long ago…”

Roman watched Devon and Virgil, waiting for them to see how great the movie was. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem too impressed. “Don’t you like it?”

Virgil shrugged.

“It’s kinda boring,” Devon admitted. “Like, oh, there’s a king and a queen and a princess and they’re rich and perfect and everyone loves them- who cares?”

“That’s because this is the exposition,” Logan pointed out. “We need to know who they are before we can get to the real beginning of the story, in which a—”

Roman swatted his arm. “Don’t spoil it!”

The movie continued up to the celebration of the baby Aurora’s birth.

“Those gifts suck,” Devon decided. “Why couldn’t they give the princess something cool? They could’ve given her magic powers and instead they just made her really pretty and good at singing.” Virgil nodded in agreement, making a face. They were both startled out of their snark when Maleficent appeared.

“She’s an evil fairy,” Roman stage-whispered.

Logan added on, “It was a great insult for the king and queen to invite everyone in the kingdom and not her, especially when she’s so powerful.”

It was hard to tell if the intended audience for these explanations was actually listening. They were staring at the screen, wide-eyed, as Maleficent turned around and cursed the princess. Roman took this as a good sign that they weren’t bored anymore.

“It’s just so impractical,” complained Logan, watching the pile of spinning wheels burn. “I mean, has the king even considered what this will do to the price of cloth in his kingdom? Everything will have to be imported!"

“Shut up, it’s a fairy tale,” Roman whined.

Devon looked almost impressed. “You know, he has a point.”

“Oh, just watch the movie.”

The three fairies, at least, were not a point of contention. It was generally accepted that, being fairies, they shouldn’t be expected to make sense- although, really, hiding Aurora away from civilization to keep her safe wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Maleficent doesn’t know anything about love, or kindness…”

When said Maleficent came back, it was hard not to notice the younger boys’ nerves. Logan saw Devon go very still and quiet next to him, no longer making fun even though Maleficent’s weird little minions were objectively ridiculous, and Patton could feel Virgil jump with every angry lightning strike, holding the stuffed cat tightly to his chest.

“It’s okay,” Patton told them in a whisper, “she doesn’t win.”

Roman was beginning to despair. “Don’t spoil it, Pat.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “It’s hardly a massive plot twist, Roman. In movies like this, the good guys always win.”

Thankfully, the tension was dispersed by a transition to a much lighter scene. Even Virgil relaxed and giggled at the fairies’ attempt to create a birthday party. Some of the humor was lost on them, however- they didn’t have the faintest idea how to sew or bake, either. What was a “tsp?” The other kids seemed to know. Maybe it should have been obvious what exactly Flora and Fauna were doing wrong.

The scene with Aurora-slash-Briar Rose and Prince Philip… didn’t go over quite so well.

“Oh, oh, he’s back, look! With a horse! Bet you think he’s cool now, right?”

The prince promptly fell off said horse into a stream, and Virgil snickered, raising an eyebrow at Roman. That was about as clear a wordless answer as he could ask for.

And now, the princess was dancing around singing about love?

“Gross,” muttered Devon and Logan in unison.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Logan continued as the two finally danced together. “I suppose I can understand her falling in love so quickly, given that he’s not only a handsome prince, but also the first person she’s ever met besides her guardians.”

“So you admit he’s handsome!”

“But what reason does Philip have for suddenly loving her so much, he’d rather marry her than become king? He’s only known her for a few minutes, and most of that was just listening to her sing without even seeing her.”

“The fairies did give her a magically good voice,” Devon mused. “Maybe she enchanted him to fall in love with her without realizing it.”

Roman reached over and gave them both a light shove. “It’s romantic, quit ruining it!”

“I think it’s cute…”

”Thank you, Patton!”

If Devon was oddly quiet after that, it was because he was grossed out by the sappy love stuff, and then worried about Maleficent’s bird finding the fairies- definitely not anything to do with the song about dreaming of having a friend hitting just slightly close to home. At least the kings were funny.

“Okay, maybe he’s a little cool,” Devon finally mumbled, watching Philip tell his father he was going to marry the random girl he’d just met. That was still a dumb decision, but anyone who could argue with a king and not be at all scared was at least slightly impressive.

Nobody really liked the part where Aurora was all distraught about not being able to meet Philip, so after a bit of sad silence, Roman took the opportunity to check in. “Do you guys like it so far?” he asked, clearly needing the answer to be yes.

Virgil nodded hesitantly, and Devon shrugged: “It’s… not bad. But I still think there should be less stuff about love, and—”

He gasped and cut himself off when Maleficent appeared in the fireplace. Virgil pressed up against him, eyes almost as wide as the hypnotized princess.

“Should’ve known she could just make another spinning wheel…” He tried to sound cool and unimpressed, and not scared. “Stupid king. She’s magic.”

Virgil whispered something in his ear.

“Oh, yeah- it doesn’t even matter, anyway, right? They can just get the prince to come back and kiss her, ‘cause they’re already in love.” His face scrunched up at the thought of kissing, but it was a solution.

However, as everyone else already knew, it wasn’t that easy.

Virgil sat up so quickly when Philip was attacked and captured by Maleficent’s minions that he would have fallen over, had Patton not been there to catch him.

“But did you see how many of ‘em he fought off before they got him?!” Roman punched the blankets around him to demonstrate, making sound effects.

If Roman was still happy, that probably meant Philip would be fine, right? Not that Virgil cared what happened to some stupid prince in a movie. Maleficent could kill him, for all Virgil cared. …But she wouldn’t, right? No, that wouldn’t happen, Patton and Logan had said she didn’t win in the end.

That reasoning didn’t stop both him and Devon from remaining tense for… pretty much the entire rest of the movie. Even if Philip was okay, they really didn’t like seeing him in Maleficent’s dungeon. At least in the Room they didn’t get chained up- Virgil shuddered at the thought.

“See!” Roman exclaimed triumphantly, when the fairies finally arrived to help him get out. “I told you he was cool!”

“I guess,” said Devon, sounding a whole lot more impressed than he wanted to let on. “Fairies are still doing most of the work, though.”

Then came the most exciting part of all: the final battle between Philip and Maleficent. From the moment she landed in front of the castle and turned herself into a dragon until the end of the movie, there were no snarky comments to be heard, and hardly even any disgusted faces made when Aurora was awakened by true love’s kiss.

“See? You didn’t need to be so worried, good prevailed in the end!” It wasn’t until Roman turned to face the two younger boys, and saw them still pale and anxious despite the movie being over, that he realized worrying about the ending may not have been the full issue. “Um… Guys? Is something wrong?”

Virgil and Devon had a brief, tense whispered conversation before Devon spoke up- very quietly, almost like he didn’t want to be heard.

“Are we evil?”

In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Virgil climbed over him, conspicuously placing himself between his friend and Roman. He didn’t seem to realize he was still clutching Patton’s stuffed cat.

“Wh- no! Of course not!” Roman jumped to his feet to emphasize how serious he was, and they both flinched a little. “Why would you think that?!”

Devon waited for Virgil’s cautious nod before saying anything else. “It’s just- Maleficent… she was evil, and she looked like us, kind of, and- and she could shapeshift like me.” He touched the scales on his face and remembered the dragon. “So- it seemed like… the movie was saying those things are evil. I dunno, it’s dumb,” he trailed off, shrinking behind Virgil. “I- I mean, we already knew we’re villains…”

“No, you’re not,” Roman said firmly. He pushed the laptop aside and sat down in front of them, so they couldn’t avoid looking at him. “You’re not anything like her! You’re not evil, you’re nice and you care about people and- and if anything, you’re more like Aurora.”

They both looked up, if only so he could see their skeptical faces. How did that make any sense? She was a princess.

“No, really,” he insisted. “Because you didn’t even do anything wrong, but the teachers and everyone are trying to hurt you because they’re the evil ones, but now you’re gonna get a happy ending! Because I’m the Prince, and I’ll fight them for you.” He stood again and struck a pose to demonstrate.

Devon gave him a soft, genuine smile, then smirked as a thought occurred to him. “Just don’t try to kiss us.”

“Ew, no!”

Everyone laughed. As Roman sat back down, he almost didn’t feel the tug on his shirt. He looked over to see Virgil looking not-quite-at him, chewing on his lip nervously. Once he saw he had Roman’s attention, he took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut and went for it.

“T-thanks. For saying that.”

In an ironic turn of events, Roman was speechless. Virgil’s voice, now that he heard it, was lower than he would have expected from such a tiny kid, and somewhat rough- maybe because he hardly ever talked. And now he was peeking up through his bangs, waiting for Roman’s reaction, looking like he kinda wanted to run away. Oh, shoot, Roman needed to say something back and not make it awkward, didn’t he?

He pushed through his shock to answer, “Of course. It was all true, after all.” Then he nudged Virgil’s hood back slightly in order to mess up his hair, because he couldn’t let things get too mushy. Virgil hissed and smacked his hand away, and the natural order of things was restored.

“But really though, what did you think of the movie?”

Virgil curled up in the blankets. His heart was still beating too fast just from saying four words- if he talked any more, he was afraid he might die from it. But he gave Roman a shy thumbs-up, and from the grin he got in response, that seemed to be good enough.

#sanders sides #roman sanders #virgil sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #patton sanders #logan sanders #my post #my writing #on the other side

[spongeguyandlelouchvibridankia]

The Milo Murphy’s Law Wiki Guy AU: Balthazar Cavendish Vs The World: Chapter 2: Prologue: The Best/Worst Almost Decision of His Life

“Put your hands up, fair citizens!”

 Green foliage, tall shady trees, bright sunlight, and clear blue skies…

 Yep.

 This DEFINITELY wasn’t boarding school.

 “Stick ‘em up! Come on!”, a young boy with fair brown hair and light freckles aimed his water pistol at a bunch of giggling boys, of thin and thick build, who stood in a line with their hands now raised up.

 “Oh no! Whatever will we do?”, a tall stick like kid named Marcus asked with a laugh, struggling to mean it.

 The bank robber, pacing up and down with a potato bag he had drawn a dollar symbol on, tried his best to glare at them, even though he too couldn’t take it seriously.

 “Shaddap!”, he yelled, in a pretend grown up voice, still stifling giggles.

 An air of anticipation permeated the area, everyone awaiting the truly fun part of the game.

 School uniforms lightly floated in the wind, a few leaves sticking to their trousers, as breaths were bated for the arrival of the hero of the game.

 “Come on, man! Come out!”, Kevin, a small sniveling kid with glasses yelped, and he got whacked by the muscular well built boy named Ronald.

 “Knock it off, Kevin!”

 “Sorry, sorry, the wind blew off my hat!”, a spirited young voice could be heard from behind the bushes, and finally, the game could be continued.

 “I give you by the count of five to give me all your money!”, the bank robber announced, and he waved his water pistol around, an attempted commanding tone to his voice which failed since he sounded so young.

 Leaves crunched under his black polished shoes as he pointed the water pistol at the boys.

 “5… 4… 3…”

 A leap in the air could be heard and some boys began prematurely cheering as a figure soared through the air.

 “2… 1…”, the robber said, tightening his hold on the pistol, preparing to shoot.

 “STOP, THIEF!”

 The voice was loud and heroic, echoing across the forest plain, and as he landed with a resounding thud, hip hip hurrahs were sounded by the “hostages”.

 The robber turned around, and despite this being out of character, he couldn’t help the wide grin on his face as he said…

 “Balthazar Cavendish…”, he uttered in pretend resentment, his pupils dancing with glee.

 “I say, it’s time for you rapscallion to head to the nick!”

 Clad in his school uniform, with the important addition of a flowing red cape that blew in the wind magnificently, Balthazar Cavendish, aged 10 years old, less dick headed, more obsessed with his father’s love, and somehow as confused about everything, stands tall in the grass, his honey blond hair and thick black framed glasses complimented by a heroic grin.

 He readied his fists of justice, a cowboy hat tipped just over his eyes, giving him a mysterious aura.

 He was happier than he had ever been in his short 10 years on the planet Earth.

 The Bank Robber and Cavendish circled each other, determined yet giddy grins plastered on their faces.

 “You ready to fork over the cash?”, The Bank Robber asked.

 “In your dreams, which you will have in jail!”, Cavendish retorted.

 The other kids crowed “OOOOH!” at the two combatants.

 “So, you actually think you can stop me?”, asked the Robber.

 “I don’t think…”, Cavendish started, posing fabulously.

 “I know…”, he almost whispered, but loudly enough for The Bank Robber to hear.

 The Bank Robber cocked an eyebrow and gathered up some spit, but he failed to spit on the ground properly.

 “You’re doing it wrong!”, Ralph pointed out.

 “Raise it from your throat!”, Edward instructed.

 “Really put your back into it!”, Liam advised.

 Finally, The Bank Robber let out a spit that pleased the audience, and he scowled at Cavendish, a twinkle in his eyes.

 Cavendish started to approach, his steps like those of giants, colossal and all important.

 “Oh! You’re approaching me? Instead of running away, you’re coming right to me?”

 Cavendish continued to approach, his face smug and brazen.

 “I can’t beat the stuffing out of you without getting closer!”

 The Bank Robber laughed “evilly” and grinned at his opponent.

 “Oh ho! Then come as close as you like!”

 And so, the two boys walked up closer and closer, silly smiles on their faces as time seemed to slow down.

 “Fight! Fight! Fight!”, the “hostages” cheered on, hoping to get in on the fight after the “main event”.

 Cavendish and The Bank Robber kept walking until they finally met, faces mere breaths from each other, foreheads touching, eyes up close and personal.

 “Give me your best, Balthy!”, The Bank Robber taunted, but he did so from a friendly, encouraging place.

 “Would I ever let you down, Ollie?”, Cavendish said, almost lovingly, before the two finally collided, “punches” and “kicks” exchanged in a scuffle of epic proportions.

 The other kids could barely contain their excitement, and soon, they all started to engage in the battle, mostly just laughing as they missed terribly.

 Over the top calls of “Hwah!” and “Take that!” and “Ora!” and “Muda!” could be heard as the boys showed a complete disregard to the conventions of combat.

 Their teachers and parents would not be pleased, but, really, when were they ever?

 Here, away from the stuffy classrooms and strict guide rules, away from the suffocating conventions and crushing expectations, they were able to be something so incredibly special…

 Themselves.

 Soon, though, they grew tired of the game, as kids do.

 However, they refused to end the fun they knew was short lived as it is.

 “C’mon, mates!”, Collin called out from the madding crowd. “Run to the trees!”

 “They’ll never catch us alive!”, Ryan boasted.

 “I’ll make sure they catch you dead if you don’t shut it, Ryan!”, Terrence chided.

 Still, the boys ran like animals, crowing and laughing and shouting as they spread out in the forest of Yews, climbing the ancient trees like agile monkeys.

 Cavendish tried to climb one, but unfortunately, his cape got stuck between his feet, and the rushing onslaught of hyperactive children obstructed him from reaching his intended location.

 “I can’t climb like this!”, he complained, annoyed by the constraints of his situation.

 Suddenly, he heard a loud whistle from the tree tops, and he looked up, his eyes darting around for the source of the sound.

 “Up here, Balthy!”, Ollie, or, well, Oliver, The Bank Robber, motioned for him to climb up to the branch he was on.

 But try as he might, Cavendish just couldn’t reach the first branch, it was just too high for him.

 Oliver’s hand, however, was not.

 “Thank you for taking Oliver Turing lifts! We lift, you join the ride! Going up!”, Oliver announced, and a less than amused Cavendish was carried up thanks to his friends arm.

 “I could have done it myself.”, Cavendish protested as he sat on the branch and pouted.

 “Cheers to you too.”, Oliver sarcastically replied as he punched his friends arm, making Cavendish smile just a little.

 “Careful with that arm! I need it!”, Cavendish fake protested, and he punched back, making Oliver blush.

 The two boys sighed and sat on the branch, the sun now beginning to set, its dark orange colors painting the sky with marvelous results.

 “This has been a good day.”, Oliver stated, and Cavendish nodded in agreement.

 “I mean, we broke a ton of rules and they’re going to murder us, but still.”, Cavendish added, and Oliver shrugged.

 “I don’t know. My dad’s pretty cool about this kind of stuff.”

 Oliver then added a little quietly, a little privately, like he was hiding a treasure…

 A secret…

 “He’s pretty cool about my stuff.”

 Cavendish didn’t really know what that was about, but he was too busy dreaming a familiar dream.

 As ever, he was a little too focused on himself to see the forest for the trees.

 He stood up on the branch and pointed at the horizon.

 “Oliver…”

 Oliver raised an eyebrow. “Oh, boy. First names… This must be important, Balthy.”

 Cavendish smiled back. “Of course it’s important. I’M saying it, after all!”

 Oliver rolled his eyes humorously. “Whatever you say, Balthy.”

 Cavendish resumed his sentence. “No, seriously, listen!”

 He pointed at the horizon again, his eyes sparkling with hope. “One day, Ollie, I tell you one day, I am going to be the GREATEST hero ever!”

 Oliver couldn’t help but laugh. “Balthy, you say that every day, and every day you fail all your classes.”

 Cavendish frowned, not wanting to be reminded of that. “It’s only the physical ones…”, he muttered sadly.

 “Yeah, as if your dad wants you to be behind a computer.”, Oliver joked, but Cavendish wasn’t.

 “Ollie! I really mean this! I really do want to be a hero!”

 His eyes were pleading, and Oliver knew that he was being serious.

 So he stopped joking and took on a sympathetic smile. “Sorry mate. I know you are.”

 Cavendish forgave him with a soft smile and he returned his gaze to the sun.

 “Just imagine it, Ollie! Real bank robbers, real villains, bowing down before my presence! Fear in their eyes! Respect in their surrenders!”

 Cavendish posed on the branch, nearly losing his balance but regaining it.

 “I’ll be the very best, like no one ever was! I’ll kill all the monsters and aliens and maniacal overlords!”, Cavendish boasted and promised with childish enthusiasm.

 Oliver grinned back. “Don’t forget us bank robbers!”

 “Them too!”, Cavendish nodded.

 He then resumed his speech. “And then… Then I’ll meet the queen! And I’ll get knighted!”

 He bowed slightly and then, with a quieter, more hopeful voice, whispered “…I’ll finally make my Dad proud…”

 And then he shouted out. “And I’ll be loved by ALL!”

 His voice echoed and echoed, his declaration of universal adoration for himself reverberating across the trees.

 Cavendish then almost slipped and Oliver caught him, setting him back on the branch.

 “Careful, Mr. Hero! Don’t want to die before the first day, now, do you?”

 Cavendish laughed sheepishly, and soon the two boys sat in silence, observing the setting sun, peaceful.

 Well…

 Almost.

 Oliver kept stealing glances at Cavendish, as if…

 As if he wanted to tell him something.

 “Balthy…”, he finally roused the courage to open his mouth. “…You say you want to be loved by all… But…”

 Cavendish didn’t need him to finish. “I know, Ollie, but my mind keeps changing!”

 He complained, his hands waving to all sides. “My Dad says it makes me weak and soft, but at the same time I can’t help but feel like it would be totally fantastic to be loved by everyone! You know?”

 Oliver smiled shyly. “Personally, I only need one person to love me.”

 Cavendish nodded. “Mums are pretty wicked.”

 Oliver shook his head, Cavendish missing the point as ever.

 Cavendish then put his arm around Oliver.

 “Thank you for being such a good listener, Ollie. I feel like I can tell you anything.”

 Oliver suddenly schooched a little closer, hands a little clammy, voice a little shy.

 “Balthy…”

 He was uncharacteristically quiet.

 Cavendish looked back at his friend with a cheerful smile.

 “Yes, Ollie?”

 Oliver took a deep breath and closed his eyes, bracing for impact.

 He had been preparing this question for months, ever since the two had met in boarding school and hit it off immediately.

 He had rolled it over and over and over in countless math classes, physical education classes and sleepless nights.

 God knows how many times his lips had uttered the unspoken question!

 And now, he was going to belt it out.

 What’s the worst that could happen? Untimely rejection, eternal pain and the small matter of depression?

 Well…

 Here goes nothing.

 “Balthy… Are you…”

 He gulped.

 “…Gay?”

 His heart skipped a beat as Cavendish’s face turned curious.

 “…No… No I don’t think so.”

 Oliver wanted to bury his face in his hands and burn all those teen magazines in the doctor’s office, when suddenly…

 “I mean… I’m not sure.”

 Oliver gave him a curious look in return.

 “Not sure?”

 Cavendish nodded slowly, thoughtful now, the still setting sun reflecting off of his glasses.

 “I guess… I mean… I honestly don’t know.”

 Suddenly he returned the question.

 “Are you?”

 Under any other circumstance, with any other person, Oliver would have denied.

 Only his dad knew, and he was sure that only he would understand.

 But here, in the shaded grove of the yew tree, with his best friend by his side, his face not judging but just wondering, he felt brave enough to say…

 “…Yes.”

 Cavendish smiled simply. “Oh, ok.”

 Oliver wasn’t sure why he was so worried. In fact, he knew that most of the world was quite more accepting these days.

 But perhaps it wasn’t Cavendish who was close minded…

 But his dad.

 “You don’t think it’s… Weird?”, Oliver asked, and Cavendish shook his head.

 “Nope! The world has changed for the better on that, Ollie!”

 Oliver smiled, but Cavendish frowned as he continued.

 “My world, though… Hasn’t.”

 Oliver was sure he knew what he meant, but he decided to let Cavendish explain himself.

 Cavendish’s eyes turned distraught and his body language resigned and melancholic as he talked.

 “My world smells of boot polish and gun powder. My world tastes of baked beans and disappointment. Its sounds are loud and disapproving, it’s closed and limiting like a cage with no exit. My dad would lose his mind if I told him anything like that.”

 “He doesn’t have much of a mind to lose, Balthy.”, Oliver joked, and Cavendish couldn’t help but laugh.

 The two boys grew silent again, only the wind breaking said silence.

 “…I think I might like both.”

 Oliver looked back silently and Cavendish looked back speaking.

 “I fancy Maura for example.”

 Oliver nodded, knowing this to be true.

 “But Mark’s pretty fetching too.”, Cavendish admitted quietly, feeling strangely ashamed, despite being next to his freshly out of the closet confidante.

 “So… You’re Bi?”, Oliver asked, twiddling his thumbs.

 Cavendish considered this, and shrugged. “I reckon.”

 Oliver nodded, but for different reasons. “Cool word.”

 The two kept staring at the distance.

 “…I want to be loved, and maybe by a man.”, Cavendish concluded, and he half laughed half sobbed.

 “My dad would kick me into the middle of a warzone for that.”

 Oliver turned to Cavendish, a little bolder. “Then… Fuck him.”

 Cavendish was startled by the rude language, and he turned to Oliver reprimending

 “Ollie! Watch your mouth!”

 “Why?”, Oliver asked, his bravery overpowering his insecurities. “We’re our own people, not the tiny soldiers marching to your Dad’s fife.”

 Oliver grasped Cavendish’s hands, making the young lad blush.

 “Balthy…”, Oliver started, his heart in his throat. “You said you’re not sure if you can have love. But your Dad’s wrong!”

 He got closer. “If that’s what he thinks, then he’s clearly a brain dead zombie with… With… With no brain, because life is all about love!”

 He neared Cavendish again, his eyes deep and his breath warm.

 Cavendish could feel it on his face and it steamed up his glasses.

 Most weird of all?

 He wasn’t totally against it.

 “Balthy… Balthazar…”, Oliver whispered, his fingers caressing Cavendish’s, making the spectacled boy warm.

 “Life… Is about giving and receiving love. It’s about…”

 Oliver implemented the message to himself for once.

 “It’s about accepting that you love others… And that they love you. And that you want to make others feel loved… And that… You deserve to be loved…”

 “I… I don’t know if I do deserve it…”, Cavendish admitted, but Oliver hushed him as he neared ever closer, lips almost touching.

 “…Well… You’ve got me fooled.”

 The two boys giggled, and, inches apart, closed their eyes.

 Lips pursed, hearts stopped, breaths bated…

 They got closer and closer…

 Until…

 “BALTHAZAR. T. CAVENDISH!”

 “Uh oh…”, Cavendish whispered, and he looked down to meet the absolutely furious face of his father, disappointment and disapproval knitted all over his face.

 Cavendish’s father didn’t need to say another word.

 His cold, hard stare said it all.

 Cavendish started to disembark the tree, and as he neared the ground he extended his hand to help Oliver down.

 But before Oliver could take the hand, it was pulled away as Cavendish was grabbed by his father, who tried to restrain the squirming child.

 “Dad, what are you doing?”, Cavendish asked, but Chief Cavendish wouldn’t say anything as he forcefully held his son, who kicked and swung wildly all over.

 “Dad, wait, I want to say bye to Ollie…”, Cavendish started, glasses now crooked on his head, confusion reigning supreme in his eyes.

 “You are.”, was the chilling answer, as the car doors were swung violently open and Cavendish was shoved in, the back of his head bonking the top of the car.

 “Ow!”, he rubbed his sore head, but clearly his father didn’t care, as he slammed the door, silencing poor Cavendish immediately.

 He then gruffly entered the seat, the thud of another slammed door making Cavendish jump in fright, a little too much in Chief Cavendish’s mind.

 “Settle the fuck down, boy!”, he shouted, and the car revved up, spewing out smoke that obscured Oliver from view, still on the branch, still reaching out his hand, in the blind hope it would be taken by Cavendish, who stared hopelessly out the car window, tears in his eyes.

 Cavendish would never get another chance to hold that hand.

 1.  Some of you will note that this chapter (and chapter 3) do not feel like they’re in the future. I delve deeper into this in the next chapter, but to clarify, the reason for all this is that Cavendish lives in a bubble of the past, and he doesn’t get to live in the future, unlike his B.O.T.T time travel companions.

2.  There is a definite contrast between this chapter and most. The rest are very depressing, while this one is almost relaxing. This is a lot because until the end of the story, these are perhaps the only moments where Cavendish is himself.

3.  Some might find the game the kids play to be pretty dumb and not very fun sounding, but there is a good reason: These children are boarding school attendees, ones who are forced to live traditional lives. In other words, any freedom is good freedom.

4.  The floaty, almost magical tone is quite fun in this one! In general, I liked making this chapter a lot, though it really began to flow when we get to the tree.

5.  There is an intended vibe from the opening scene of “Toy Story”.

6.  Cavendish, thanks to this story, has only become more complicated. He is egocentric, stuck up, pig headedly sure of himself, abject to criticism, averse to love and in general kind of a dickhead. However, his heart is good and he does mean well and deep down, he really wants to save people. He just needs some guidance and if he accepts the real Cavendish, he’ll be well on his way to becoming a true hero. I must warn you, it will take some time in this story for Cavendish to truly become a good guy, but don’t worry! He is a hero in the end!

7.  I don’t think, I know, is easily one of the main themes of the AU. Confidence is key to anything, and these deeply unconfident people need to learn this.

8.  “You’re doing it wrong” is a reference to Hermione saying this in “Harry Potter and the Philosophers/Sorcerer’s stone”.

9.  I really tried to get this slice of life British movie tone out of this scene. It was definitely different to my usual fare.

10.                   A yew tree is the oldest tree in the UK. Basically, symbolism of Cavendish still being held back by tradition and living in the past.

11.                   Cavendish getting stuck and needing help to get up (and complaining about it) is basically his whole arc: It’s not that he isn’t any good, it’s not that he has no skills. But no man is an island; If Cavendish wants a good life, he needs to accept love.

12.                   Oliver’s last name is a tribute to Alan Turing, another homosexual British man who suffered due to who he was deep down.

13.                   I must confess that I was thinking of making Oliver young Dakota for a while. However, not only would it be dumb, but also, Dakota has a… VERY tragic backstory, and let’s just say he could never go to England. Bits of this backstory are revealed here, and in future stories, you will find out all of it.

14.                   POKEMON REFERENCE IN ONE OF CAV’S LINES!

15.                   Monsters (Pistachios), Aliens (Duh) and Maniacal Overlords (The Master)

16.                   Notice that again, despite his heart being in the right place, Cavendish cares more for the honor and respect and adoration of being a hero, rather than the act of helping someone else.

17.                   Cavendish’s biggest conflict in the story is rather he should be loved or not. Thanks to his father, he is a toxic male, sure that he needs no one but himself, sure that emotion and kindness are weaknesses. The story demands that he learn to accept love, or he’ll lose.

18.                   Some might find the casual conversation about sexuality weird, but personally, I think kids are less particular about this kind of stuff until society or their families make them think it’s weird.

19.                   Reckon

20.                   I hate saying this, but as much as I like Oliver, he never comes back. This is one of the tragedy’s that shape Cavendish, and some scars never heal.

 If you thought this chapter was heavy… HOO BOY, WAIT FOR 3!

#milo murphy's law #milo murphy's law fanfic #The Milo Murphy's Law Wiki Guy AU #balthazar cavendish #balthazar cavendish vs the world #Balthazar Cavendish Sr. #Oliver (OC) Milo Murphy's Law

[breakingarrows]

Tony Stark The Center of the Universe

Watching Jack Saint’s video, Spider-Man Far From Home Is Kind of Messed Up, got me thinking about the same sort of things I pondered in my review of the film on Letterboxd, namely the worshipping of Tony Stark by both the film franchise and the audience themselves. Not to discredit Robert Downey Jr., he’s quite charming, but boy is that character not deserving of the worship he gets. Stark bookends, for now, the film franchise, with even a Spider-Man film being very focused on Stark.

Having Peter’s arc in the film being that he needs to stop running from assuming Stark’s role in the larger world is antithetical to what I want out of a Spider-Man story. This isn’t even taking into account that he is a 16 year old, and is definitely not at all able to become the lethal world policeman Stark was. Peter even argues against it, but the film discredits that by having the climax comes after Peter utilizes Stark’s tech to build himself a new suit and finally take back the glasses, a stand in for Tony’s role. They can’t have him kill the bad guy, as Tony does, since that’d be a terrible look for any high schooler hero. In this film it is explained that Stark created and maintained a space station housing hundreds of flying killer drones for deployment anywhere (as well as having access to everyone’s personal accounts/phone data/etc), something which is never interrogated by the film or its characters. It's just accepted that, yeah, Stark built autonomous weapons and left it in the hands of a 16 year old. Cool.

Stark’s entire foundation as a hero is built around the contradiction that he didn’t want to make weapons anymore and instead would become one himself, justified because he is the only one capable of using it to sort out the bad guys from the good. Funny coincidence, this is the same kind of ideology the US has about its own imperialism abroad. This first film is hoo-rah, pro-American propaganda only reinforced by the second film where Tony relents and allows his best bud Rhodey (re-cast because Terrence Howard was too expensive and presumably easily replaced with another black man) to take his prototype suit for use by the USofA so long as Rhodey is the one piloting it, because he’s a “good guy.” A recurring theme in this franchise is all about power in the hands of “good guys” being okay and having to revert power back to “good guys” when it ends up in the hands of “bad guys.” A theme repeated strongest in the instances of Black Panther and Far From Home.

Black Panther centers on T'Challa, king of Wakanda, being overthrown (through a legitimate process within Wakanda) by Killmonger who uses that power to propose invading and killing foreign countries. T'Challa stops him, reclaims the throne, and all is right, except… the process by which this disaster nearly occurred is never questioned. Wakanda is ruled by a monarchy, a highly fraught form of government, and the film literally lays out the ways that could fuck over millions of people. Only this is brushed aside as T'Challa ended up on the throne afterwards, its okay! Years later, Far From Home comes around and Peter is given a database of privacy violations galore and drone strike capabilities and its all fine until he makes the mistake of passing it off to Beck who nearly uses it to kill his friends. Peter gets the glasses back and all is right in the world, never mind the process by which this situation originated and the continued existence of the drones.

Circling back to the chronological progress of Stark, Iron Man 3 rolls around and continues the thread of weapons-but-not-weapons. You see, Stark doesn’t make weapons but he does make autonomous suits that also act as remote controlled drones. A major gag in one scene being that Tony was remotely controlling a suit during the entire time you thought he was inside. Now he doesn't even have to put himself in danger, he is even farther removed from reality than he already was in the suit with its reliance on digital displays. Now it's just like the disconnect of soldiers blowing up civi- I mean Taliban fighters on the other side of the world. At the very least, Iron Man 3 ends at the only redeemable place Stark’s arc can end: he destroys every weapon created, the Iron Man suits included. Then Age of Ultron shits on this film’s arc about as much as Infinity War does on Ragnarok.

Stark doesn’t make weapons but he does once again have autonomous drones working crowd control and creates an AI that ends up wanting to, and nearly succeeding to, destroy the world. That is all forgiven and Civil War comes and brings up the lesser endpoint of Stark’s arc: that there does, in fact, need to be some form of oversight after Scarlet Witch kills twenty-six people. Whether this oversight is in the form of US imperialism (which it is) doesn’t matter. This ends in a “Whoops! My bad” house arrest for Scarlet and… that’s about it. Captain America says: while yeah, killing civilians was unfortunate, the Avengers shouldn’t have any higher authority because it would hamper their effectiveness (and he’s probably still mulling over SHIELD being Hydra). In the end, the film agrees with him on the basis that no consequences reach anyone, as Cap busts his war crime buddies out of jail, Stark puts Ross, the higher authority, on hold, and that line of thinking is never addressed again (a recurring theme throughout this franchise).

Spider-Man: Homecoming has a gag where Peter’s suit, courtesy of Stark, has a kill switch, which is one of those goofs that tells you a lot when you think about it. Now, Far From Home comes around and Stark doesn't build weapons except for what I mentioned earlier: his space-deployment platform of drones he left in the hands of a teen. These drones also happen to have AR tech he stole from an employee, mockingly renamed, and then fired because, as this movie shows, the dude was crazy! We can’t have Beck give a “man of the people” speech and actually be sympathetic, that would point the finger at Tony! Our man! Our Messiah! Our lynchpin! So instead we have him threaten to kill his coworkers in the next scene and mumble about killing kids later on during the climax. Nothing to see here folks, just another cartoon villain sacrificed at the altar of Stark. This is something Killmonger can empathize with, having received the same sort of treatment.

These movies are a vacuum. The big finale, Infinity War, sympathizes with Thanos and his genocide, and somehow even more reprehensible, his abuse towards his daughter. Endgame doesn’t even bother to engage with rejecting his belief at all, instead it just is the heroes unable to cope with losing and trying to just reverse what happened. Scarcity of resources and overpopulation are capitalist myths that Thanos, and the films, portrayed as truth. Whales return to swim in the Hudson River, so maybe things aren’t all bad. Nevermind that the dude had the ability to shape reality and didn’t have the imagination to whip up more resources.

Not that any of this should be surprising. Iron Man bookends the franchise and Iron Man remains the sort of ideological standard for the franchise. With Far From Home that doesn’t appear to be changing so much as the accepted Gospel future heroes need to adhere to.

Long live Stark.

#Film Criticism #Getting this out of my head so it stops bugging me #Criticism #writing

[douxreviews]

Black Panther (2018) Review

"Wakanda forever!"

Hail to the king, baby.

Following the death of his father in Captain America: Civil War, Prince T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman, all gentle charisma and troubled stoicism) returns home to Wakanda to take his rightful place on the throne. Unbeknownst to the new king, the vengeful Erik ‘Killmonger’ Stevens (Michael B. Jordan, all burning intensity and justified anger) has teamed up with Wakanda’s old enemy, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, full on supervillain campiness), to bring T'Challa down and take the throne, and the mantle of Black Panther, for himself.

Phase Three of Marvel's plan for global conquest, I mean, cinematic universe got off to a spectacular start with Civil War two years ago and hasn't put a foot wrong since. Black Panther isn't going to do anything to change that. This is another strong entry in a franchise that has reached a level of quality control most studios can only dream of. But I do feel that it isn't quite as strong as it could've been.

Everything gets off to a rather unpromising start with a clunky (but nicely designed) info dump about the history of the fictional nation of Wakanda (a loving realised Afrofuturist Shangri-La, despite the odd bit of dodgy green screen here and there). I am no fan of these exposition heavy intros. I know they serve a purpose, but they always feel like the lazy option. Then the film suddenly cuts to Oakland, California (director Ryan Coogler's hometown) in 1992 for a second prologue to a much better, more interesting film: a film that is aware of its own cultural significance and has a lot of important things to say, things that will make a lot of people in the audience uncomfortable (and so they should). This film you can tell Coogler wanted to make, it's the film Black Panther is for most of its two hour runtime, except for that bit halfway through where it jets off to South Korea to be play at being a Bond movie (and a bloody good Bond movie it is, too).

Then the third act comes along and everything that previously made Black Panther great is slowly pushed aside so we can have a conventional superhero flick big battle, where the heroes take on the bad guy and their minions and there's a race against time to stop the thing. There's always a thing to stop. Normally this doesn't bother me too much. As predictable as final showdowns are, they are usually quite good. Sadly, this isn't the case here. The whole thing just lacks the vibrancy that the film's earlier, smaller scale, action scenes possessed. Plus, those armoured rhinos don't look that great. I love the concept, but the execution left a lot to be desired.

It’s a shame that Black Panther stumbles at the last hurdle, because it gets right what most of Marvel movies get wrong. In Jordan and Serkis it has two great villains, with Jordan the clear standout. His Killmonger is basically everything that Loki and his fans think the trickster god is; a fully three dimensional and sympathetic villain. This is also the best Marvel film for female characters, with great roles for Lupita Nyong'O (mercifully spared the thankless token love interest role so many Marvel leading ladies are lumbered with), Danai Gurira (who is as handy with a spear as she is with a katana), and Letitia Wright, who not only steals the film as T'Challa's tech genius baby sister, Shuri, but the whole goddamn MCU. If she is not in every single Marvel movie from this point on I am going to lodge a formal complaint with Kevin Feige.

This entire film is drowning in great acting talent. Coogler has assembled what is unquestionably the best cast ever put together for a comic book movie (until Avengers: Infinity War comes out). Unfortunately, this is also one of the film's problems. There are just too many amazing actors here that the film repeatedly struggles to find interesting things for them to do. Some are able to do wonders with the limited screentime they are given (looking at you, Sterling K. Brown and Winston Duke), while some of the cast's biggest names, like Angela Bassett or Forest Whitaker, are left floundering. Whitaker's character might as well have been named Basil Exposition since he exists purely to deliver crucial plot info and nothing more.

Notes and Quotes

--Not sure what Martin Freeman is doing here. He's not a terrible addition, just a noticeably unnecessary one, almost as if someone from on high stipulated that there must be at least one heroic white man in the movie.

--Apart from a few references to Civil War, the film is refreshingly untangled from the greater Marvel continuity. Which is surprising, considering this is the last film before Infinity War kicks off in the spring. There wasn't even a whiff of an Infinity Stone.

--Like so many comic book movie villains, Killmonger's scheme is a little too convoluted and reliant on convenience to be completely believable.

--I fully expect to see costume designer Ruth Carter's name up there come Oscar season next year.

Shuri: "Don't frighten me like that, colonizer!"

Shuri: "Great, another broken white boy for us to fix."

T'Chaka: "You are a good man, with a good heart. And it's hard for a good man to be a king."

Three out of four sneakers.

Mark Greig is in the Bad Place

#Black Panther #T'Challa #Shuri #Erik Killmonger #Nakia #Okoye #Marvel #MCU #Doux Reviews #Movie Reviews #something from the archive

[roxannepolice]

I'll still be disappointed if they go for "Evil Renperor" because I'll wonder why Star Wars, a franchise where the villains are decidedly un-subtle and which has had a consistent message of compassion even for your enemies, would make Kylo a sympathetic villain in the first two movies, show him not doing some of the worst thing he could've done (Why didn't he shoot at Leia, for example?) and yet ramp up the evil in the last movie so we would root for his death. It would be so inconsistent.

Well, that’s the unfortunately good question: if Disney-LF haven’t perchance bitten off more than they can chew in this trilogy. On the one hand they created a villain so naturally sympathizable with it would be against all the messages of compassion to kill him off, on the other a character too complex to make him into a pitiably mockable repentant sinner on a light side auto da fe - and yet on the other they framed him into an esthetic so weighted culturally, historically and politically that for many it would be immoral to generalize the compassion he evokes. By using practically the same villains as the last time, they put themselves in a situation where, if they want to give the saga a satisfying conclusion, they’ll have to put their money where Lucas seems to (I’m not saying actually did) have put his words only. RotJ’s ending is interpretable as to whether the point was fighting evil empires only and Vader’s redemption was in sacrificing his life to help overthrow one or or if the point was Luke’s journey into an understanding of compassion old jedi lost ages ago, which in turn allowed Anakin to rediscover his own humanity - but epix’s ending can’t have both without sacrificing some of its dramatic value. 

I really, really think they’re going to put their money on the compassionate message and, though it’s highly likely I’m giving them too much credit, the hitherto black and white depiction of political conflict was meant to put the audience in a sithy absolutist perspective that will become undermined in the last episode. Compassion means literally co-feeling, which in turn implies discovery of our selves, our humanity, in other people - also, if not particularly, in its ugliest form, just as Luke only saw himself in his father after giving in to his fury. I don’t bash against the attitude that says well, I believe in redemption, I think everyone deserves it but, tbh, that’s not what compassion is all about, it’s not about an abstract ideal, it’s about the essence of humanity. 

Which in turn makes me really hopeful that they won’t give us consciously (yet at the same time incompetently, which really makes me wonder who exactly are we sympathising with) evil renperor but rather go the route of a misguided idealistic despot (again, I find it interesting that on some cards of late they used this exact word to desribe him - despot is a pretty neutral term, compared to dictator or tyrant, desribing a mode of rule rather than its character: every tyrant is a despot but not every despot is a tyrant, so to speak), accompanied by the stormtrooper rebellion and, though perhaps I am asking too much, maybe will even show some diversity among fo officials. I also can’t stop keeping up hope regarding that bit of compassion that the sequels are pretty clear Kylo Ben still has in himself. Hitherto we’ve only seen him act against people he had personal (though more or less far-fetched) grudge against, now he put himself in position of responsibility for people he would have to stretch really far to believe they’ve hurt him. Yes, he’s on a quest to destroy the past but my question is what will happen when he’s faced with an actual choice: his let’s-call-it ideological goal and a life of a person only very remotely standing in the way of that ideology. We know he wasn’t fine with the destruction of Hosian system. I think his quest to destroy the past will basically go like Luke’s burning of the jedi tree, though maybe he’ll actually succeed at burning some huskiest husks himself (like slavery). 

The bottom line is that I’m not really fond of overly political interpretations of Star Wars but, tbh, if they do want to maintain their bit of simplified political wisdoms, then simply evil fo tyrannizing everyone while helpless innocents don’t know what to do or massively join the only good resistance is the exact thing they shouldn’t do. This is the subtle genius of the prequels: liberty dies in thunderous applause. Having a choice between freedom and safety most people will choose safety - and that on its own doesn’t make them evil to be banished once the war is over. If Star Wars really want to show their simplified wisdom, the most interesting path is to make resistance guerillas that third parties will be geuinely afraid of and will willingly subjugate themselves to fo in fear, the way western democracies compromise their ideals out of fear of terrorist attacks, many people honestly not knowing any better the obvious heroes turn out to be the greatest threat in western news, I said it. 

But the simplest point is that if you really consider a space opera for kids an authority regarding neo-nazism, neo-imperialism, terrorsism, democracy or civil disobedience then I think you need to reconsider the perceived gravity of the topics.

#asks #episode ix speculation #renperor #tw: nazism #tw: terrorism

[mypralaya]

I’ve talked before (A LOT) about the problematic way in which Haven was handled in regards to race and religion, and also occasionally the very Victorian Slut-Shaming Parable backstory (has sex once time, life is ruined, literally becomes a demonic vessel) but it finally struck me today, after like three years of being her fan, there’s some gender-y stuff going on too? Haven is a super duper hyper-feminine character. She’s drawn with the insanely long hair, clad in pink and purple and lots of jewelry the one or two times we see her in civilian garb, her personality is based around nurturing and nonviolence, her codename is the result of caring for children, and her villainy comes not from her own agency but the control of another, specifically control via pregnancy. It’s really hard to get more archetypically and stereotypically feminine than that. Meanwhile, the heroes are mostly male, and, this being the 1990s, all hyper-macho and muscular and aggro. And among the team, both women (Polaris and Wolfsbane) temporarily side with and defend Haven...as does a Madrox dupe who is portrayed as extremely sensitive, weepy, and wears a pink crop top stating “Stop the Hate”. Meanwhile, Haven’s male ally, her tall and muscular angry brother Monsoon, is the one who turns on her (which is right of him btw, I’m not saying that was bad on his part) So it’s female or ‘feminine’ characters who are drawn to her as allies, male or masculine ones who oppose or betray her. Though in fairness, I should note that Val Cooper, also a woman, pretends to join her but is double-crossing her. There’s a thing here, is what I’m saying. But unlike a lot of the other stuff I’ve talked about, I don’t think it’s actually malicious per se? Like it really does not feel like “male good, woman bad!” is what the writer was going for. Given my theory that he was just trying to write an atypical sympathetic villain, I think he gave Haven a lot of these traits to make the audience like her more. Like, I know that, even knowing how much power Haven actually has and how technically the good guys are in the right, seeing these huge angry guys yelling at, threatening, attacking a seemingly defenseless lady ---especially one who is such a lady--- gets my hackles up. It makes me want to defend her. Even though I’m not even some chivalrous dude, I’m a woman who tries to be all about “yeah fuck gender roles and expectations!” It’s a very culturally instinctive thing. And I think that might be the intent? Cuz I think if the writer wanted us to scorn Haven, he would have just made her be feminine in the way that female villains usually are---that is, super sexy instead. And probably had her kick a few children instead of caring for them. Like Haven is very much clearly a Good Woman archetype here, and I think we’re meant to see her as such (which is why I’m kinda shocked that wasn’t enough to save her, but I think that’s because her death issue was done by a new writer, who I think just wanted to get her out of the way for the villains he wanted to write, as was a really common thing in the 90s because of how the writers got changed like every week) I do think there was still some unfortunate issues here---namely that Haven’s stereotypical “mother” nature is basically her downfall, both in terms of the literal pregnancy and personality-wise in her refusal to ever actually attack her foes---but like, it’s not rage-inducing like the other stuff is to me, just interesting. Iiiiit probably helps that I have a huge Thing for mother goddess figures and really love that about her. >.>

#xmen #x men #Radha Dastoor #haven #meta #gender #sexism

[ganymedesclock]

You should see the TvTropes entries for Lotor and his team. They've typecasted Lotor as the standard evil villain type. Bleck,

Yeah, I’m aware.

I mean, I have kind of a mixed relationship with TVTropes, because they tend to do this, and there’s a really unfortunate angle to a lot of the tropes, including seemingly innocent ones: like “Action Girl” suggesting that a female character that is capable of defending herself is inherently unusual and noteworthy while for men the comparable trope is “Non Action Guy” because we all know men are always physically strong and women are always physically weak, right...

As far as Lotor’s page, my biggest issue is the repeated idea that Lotor “pretends to be a good guy” when, as I’ve said before, it’s a fairly big deal that Lotor’s whole agitating for compassion to the downtrodden is not something that wins him points with his audience at all. The audience he’s speaking to is Zarkon’s empire, where mercy is practically a dirty word. When they’re whipped into a fervor for him, it’s because 1. his sparing Throk benefits them, because they think now they’ll be able to get off the hook around him in a way they don’t with Zarkon, and 2. because he carefully packaged all of it in the empire’s atmosphere of Conquest And Domination.

I think a lot of fans feel like Lotor as a character is trying to willfully deceive them into liking him and thinking he’s a good guy and so there’s this very personal anger. And I think that’s a lot of the fandom dislike of his character- they feel like he’s somehow aware of the fourth wall and trying to get in our good books as a character rather than being a complicated character with some sympathetic sides and some scary ones where both are flexed and come into play depending on the situation- exactly as the writers described him pre-season 3. That you’d feel bad for him and also be scared because he’s a threat.

One of the entries calls Lotor a “[female dog] in sheep’s clothing”, a more ‘generous’ one claims he’s “faux affable”.

The interesting thing is, I’m familiar with what tvtropes specifically means by “faux affable” and Lotor doesn’t fit that outside of his carefully staged political game in s3e1. Otherwise, when Lotor’s talking about the heroes (he hasn’t really had a conversation with them yet) he’s dryly sarcastic and very clear about his unfavorable opinions.

When Lotor talks up Allura, “Someone’s learning,” and “well-played, paladin,” he means it- he acknowledges that he’s being shown up. I think that would put him as much more genuinely affable. Faux affable in TVTropes’ vernacular is “I’m here to cut your limbs off but I’ll call you a good sport” while Lotor not only is more honest about his feelings unless he’s very specifically trying to deceive a targeted audience (which he only did once) but compared to Zarkon’s salted earth attacks, Lotor tends to be more than happy to leave Voltron with partial victories.

In s3e4, robbing the team and making away with the comet, Lotor really could’ve been nasty and tried to blast the hell out of Voltron while they were floundering unconscious. But as long as Lotor gets what he wants, he doesn’t have too much of a problem letting the paladins have what they came for, such as the way he leaves Puig relatively untouched.

This is why I stopped hanging around Tvtropes.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Lotor #like you can have conflicting reads on a character #that's fine #my beef with tvtropes #is that it presents what basically boil down to a lot of subjective opinions #as objective facts #polymepheus

[thisisevenharderthannamingablog]

OUaT S6 Wrap-Up 3/3: Characters & Conclusion

Part 1: Structure | Part 2: Theme

In my 6x01 review, I posited the following arcs for this season:

Rumple’s arc has to do with whether he can avoid repeating his own early story – especially challenging when it seems that he has lost this child before he can even be born – and regain what he has lost, before it’s too late.

Regina wants to start a new story, but she’s already taken a step down the path she walked once before, and her other half is out there plotting evil.

Emma has been told that her story will end soon, just as it finally seemed that happiness was within her reach. Can she avoid this? Should she avoid it?

And indeed, those were each brought to a conclusion by the end of the season.

Rumple did avoid repeating his own story. 

Regina has started two new stories, one of each of her selves.

Emma met her fate and has her happy ending.

There are a lot of devils in those details, though. 

First off, I want to say that guest villains got treated terribly this season. As I noted earlier, we never found out much of anything about Hyde -- nothing about how he came to be so powerful, why he wanted Storybrooke, or what even his deal was other than revenge on Rumple. We never got a coherent explanation for the nature of the Evil Queen as an entity. Gideon made more sense in retrospect, but for his first few episodes he was apparently without any motive, which significantly weakened their impact. We were on the brink of the season finale before we knew what moved the Black Fairy, and even after her centric her whole plan continued to make no sense. She had to kill Emma because it’s prophesied? She wanted the town because why exactly? The Dark Curse was suppose to do what? What the hell kind of lazy bullshit?

The long-term characters’ side is not much better.

Emma’s trip around the Hero’s Journey came to a conclusion in S5. We spent this season in an extended denouement for her, the attainment of her happy ending. Those steps were doled out in agonizingly scanty increments -- moving in together, getting engaged, breaking the engagement, doing it again, the tacit admission on screen (at last) that adults in a committed relationship often have sex, and the wedding itself. The only other thing they had on tap for Emma to do all season was to endure visions of her own death -- a matter she can only passively endure -- and fight a redundant duel. It’s telling that the supposed turning point of the finale, when she chose to return to Storybrooke, happened off-screen.

Even the wedding -- a visual at which her story has been aiming for four seasons -- was a stop and go affair that hardly received the build-up I would have expected. The two engagements, multiple episodes of separation, followed by the “do it now/no wait don’t/never mind do it now!” back and forth made it difficult for this audience member to give a damn about the ceremony. Much as I still love the characters, their circumstances for the second half of this season have felt contrived in the most laborious fashion. Pancakes don’t make up for that, guys.

The Savior mythology remains so murky that’s hard to imagine why they bothered with it at all, except as a sorry attempt to justify the idea of the Final Battle. What they added by bringing in multiple additional Saviors doesn’t work very well on that level.

With both Jafar/Aladdin and Rumple/Fiona you had a clearly-defined long-term nemesis relationship with logical character roots. Aladdin and Jafar were fighting over their mutual home territory, and there is a natural potential for conflict in any parent-child relationship. In the wish world, we had Emma and Regina, which is certainly a long and complicated relationship supporting the idea of a conflict.

None of these prop up the idea that any old villain can come along and say, “You’re a Savior and I’m a Really Evil Person, so I now we have to fight to the death.” (I know I keep complaining about this, but I am still floored that they tried to sell it.) And then, having laboriously tried to establish that, they threw it all out the window anyway with Emma as the sole savior of the multiverse in the finale.

That mess aside, giving Emma a light season after the S5 wringer she went through might have made sense, except that no one else seems to have anything pressing to do, either.

This could have been an interesting season for Regina. She started out with major focus on her, got a lot of attention during the wish episodes, and spent several additional episodes working out the aftermath of her doomed romance with Robin. Unfortunately, whether it was in the idea or the execution, I have to say that her plot had a vital flaw; as either a conflict or a character study, Split Queen never took off and flew.

Looking back, I feel that they passed over a major opportunity for introspective interaction in favor of having the two Regina versions insult and throw fireballs at one another. This should by rights have been a subtle contest between perfect equals, and it was not. Even among the character’s fans, the resolution of her inner conflict did not appear to be a rousing success. (For those of us who didn’t like the character to begin with, it was a travesty.) Since then, she doesn’t seem to have any significant role to play. Her relationship with Zelena appears to have no solid foundation, but is either on or off depending on what the writers want Zelena to be doing in reaction to Regina. Having her give hope speeches cements the change, but it feels weird? Don’t get me started on the fact that somehow both halves of her have a happy ending now.

Rumple barely had anything to do all season, which is outright bizarre, given his role as the prime mover in so much of the plot in previous seasons. His role in creating the situation that led to Gideon’s abduction was never addressed head-on, which weakened the thematic power of the season’s second half for him. Ditto Belle coming back again, as if all of her doubts early in the season were quite forgotten.

His conflict with the Black Fairy -- which you might assume would be a Big Fucking Deal that could have drawn him into long-term cooperation with other characters -- wasn’t even a thing until the very end of the season. That conflict was ended in a way I can only call perfunctory. What finally changed in him? How did it change, given that he’s the Dark One?  The whole “Darkest of all the Dark Ones” bit was never even mentioned.   Why is it okay for him to kill Fiona but it wasn’t okay for Snow to kill Cora?

I guess we’ll never know, and that is the core my problem. There was a curious avoidance of introspection throughout the season. The show has always depended on conflict and magical flash, of course, but it also gave its characters chances to reflect on themselves and their roles at regular intervals. After all of these years, one might expect characters to be assured in their identities, that this season would tie things off securely.

I feel like Charming was the only character who came out of this season well, having resolved a major lingering issue from his past. Snow had no individual story. Killian was retreading ground the writers churned up quite thoroughly last season. Emma was largely facilitating contrived drama via dubious characterization and also repeating herself a lot. The less I say about Regina the better. Rumple got to play two notes all season -- controlling husband and alarmed dad -- neither of which is exactly new ground.

Conclusion

I end this wrap-up with the strong impression that whatever the root cause, the writers had no idea what to do with this season. I suspect for one that they didn’t expect a renewal at all, that they threw this together in a panic. They put together a skeleton half-composed of the Savior thing and half of Regina’s arc. Each of these plots had a parallel at the start of the season, and both of them were dropped by the halfway point, only to return in a painfully weak form in the finale. In the middle was mush.

Everything about the Savior mythology this season feels tacked-on, last-minute, and desperately inorganic to their previous story. There also wasn’t very much of it. They introduced this thread in the Aladdin scene from the season premiere, came back to it a few episodes later, but then… forgot? or otherwise neglected to tie it back to that theme at all when they wrapped up Jasmine and Aladdin’s adventure late in the season; there was literally nothing Savior-related in that story. Meanwhile, Emma’s side of the parallel turned right and dove into a motiveless, stakeless swamp with Gideon and the Black Fairy, which relied on the characters repeating the phrase Final Battle as if hearing it enough times would make anybody believe that it was important. Having the battle turn out to be internal, fine, but what was that stupid fight scene for, then?

I also have to state my firm belief that Regina was supposed to be in the Black Fairy’s spot. I have no idea what happened there, but seriously. There was absolutely nothing in her supplied back-story that made Fiona’s behavior or dialog in that episode comprehensible.

Whether or not they initially planned it this way or if fatigue set in partway through a planned season-long arc, Regina’s story came to an end ⅔ through the season. Her early parallel was with Jekyll and Hyde, but again all of that was disposed of along the way. There was no callback to its origin in the resolution of that arc (in fact, I don’t think anyone at all has even mentioned Hyde since he died, which I feel supports my theory that the sole reason for including him/them was create the Split Queen situation). The inner battle that originally created the two Reginas -- her powerful desires to hurt other people -- was elided in a resolution that recast the entire story to be a sympathetic one about her relationship to herself. Jekyll and Hyde died; the staggering human cost of Regina’s choices was erased. Even her Evil Queen half got to come back after her finale sacrifice, happier than ever.

Finally, there was no link whatsoever between these two anchor plots. Regina’s story concerned herself and Snowing and slightly Zelena, but Emma was barely present in it. Emma’s story concerned Regina for exactly as long as we thought that Regina might be the Hooded Figure; after that was cleared up, she became irrelevant in it. To this weak framework the writers attached bits and pieces of additional stories that again had no thematic resonance with either of the main plots, resulting in the hodgepodge of elements diagrammed earlier.

The writers didn’t think they were going to have the long hiatus they ended up having, so it’s not surprising that they failed to plan for the break, but that lack of information -- along with the drought of news regarding any season 7 right up until the actual finale -- adds to my sense that there has been some really terrible communication going on behind the scenes. And if it feels like we just watched an entire season of filler plot, that’s because they stretched what might have been a half dozen episodes’ worth of good material out to 20.

It’s not what I wanted to be writing at this point, to say the least.

#b thinks about once upon a time #ouat #anti regina #anti rumple #ouat negativity