the curse of TMA?
Feb. 15th, 2020 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitThe day before yesterday I introduced a work colleague to The Magnus Archives. (Yes, I am shamelessly seeking out opportunities to tell people about it.) She was interested, so I played the first episode for her while we worked, and she loved it. She has a long commute and was excited about the prospect of something cool to listen to.
And my innocent act of evangelism seems to have brought down a curse upon us. That evening, while driving home, my colleague was in a minor car accident (not her fault, no one hurt, insurance taking care of damaged car). The next morning, while I was taking my walk, as yet unaware of colleague's accident, I stumbled over an uneven sidewalk and fell hard. My glasses flew off but fortunately didn't break, I hit my head (which I didn't realize until considerably later, when I looked in a mirror and saw a little dried blood on my forehead), scraped and bruised my knees and my hand, and bruised some ribs as well.
I'll be fine but I am quite sore. I blame the city for not maintaining the damn sidewalks better, and Jonathan Sims for his cursed creation.
Colleague is somewhat surprisingly still enthusiastic about TMA, and said things like "the one with the book was SO CREEPY!" and "the coffin one, what the hell, did the other guy end up in the coffin?!" I heroically said nothing spoilery in response.
In other Rusty Quill-related developments, I have some thoughts about things in Rusty Quill Gaming through episode 37, "Ups and Downs," but mostly about 34, "Gai Paris," under the cut.
It's not all that surprising, I guess, that Oscar Wilde would write a nasty article about Bertie. And if it was just the article, which mostly satirized Bertie's stupidity and his pretensions of heroism, I wouldn't mind very much. But the thing about the picture . . . I have problems with this as a storytelling choice.
Even though James makes it clear that Bertie isn't at all ashamed of being gay (and the game universe seems at least to have no legal prohibition against male/male sex, and perhaps no or very little social prohibition) I think the picture as described is nevertheless a kind of queer shaming. Alex leaves the description a little vague, for reasons to do with iTunes's content guidelines, but it's clear that the picture shames Bertie for some combination of (a) bottoming, (b) possibly being sexually submissive in a bdsm sense, (c) liking feather boas, and (d) being soppy/sentimental/easily wrapped around Oscar's little finger. All of which are feminine-coded and, when associated with a man, queer-coded.
Bertie gets shamed for the one aspect of his personality that he has no reason to be ashamed of. Admittedly, trying to shame him for anything actually shame-worthy (e.g. his snobbishness or his bullying) would fail, and this "feminine" side of Bertie is the only thing he's ever shown any embarrassment about. Well, that and not actually having any money.
I get what Alex was trying to do here; Bertie's humiliation is important in setting up the reveal that Harkness, Harkness, Darkness and Sphinx are forcing him into a performance of heroism that he actually hates. But I still don't like it. I think it could have been accomplished in some other way that doesn't end up echoing the homophobia of our own world.
I did find myself feeling a bit sorry for Bertie after the Exposition Box reveal, even though in that same episode he says one of the few genuinely, as opposed to comically, horrific things I've heard from him: his casual assertion that what he did on the train was okay, because no one else's lives matter as much as his. (Most of the time, I feel like someone should have whispered to James that if you want people to dislike a character, you need to make his awfulness less funny, less comically exaggerated.)
I will also feel sorry for Bertie if Brutor is dead, even though it will be Bertie's own damn fault.
And my innocent act of evangelism seems to have brought down a curse upon us. That evening, while driving home, my colleague was in a minor car accident (not her fault, no one hurt, insurance taking care of damaged car). The next morning, while I was taking my walk, as yet unaware of colleague's accident, I stumbled over an uneven sidewalk and fell hard. My glasses flew off but fortunately didn't break, I hit my head (which I didn't realize until considerably later, when I looked in a mirror and saw a little dried blood on my forehead), scraped and bruised my knees and my hand, and bruised some ribs as well.
I'll be fine but I am quite sore. I blame the city for not maintaining the damn sidewalks better, and Jonathan Sims for his cursed creation.
Colleague is somewhat surprisingly still enthusiastic about TMA, and said things like "the one with the book was SO CREEPY!" and "the coffin one, what the hell, did the other guy end up in the coffin?!" I heroically said nothing spoilery in response.
In other Rusty Quill-related developments, I have some thoughts about things in Rusty Quill Gaming through episode 37, "Ups and Downs," but mostly about 34, "Gai Paris," under the cut.
It's not all that surprising, I guess, that Oscar Wilde would write a nasty article about Bertie. And if it was just the article, which mostly satirized Bertie's stupidity and his pretensions of heroism, I wouldn't mind very much. But the thing about the picture . . . I have problems with this as a storytelling choice.
Even though James makes it clear that Bertie isn't at all ashamed of being gay (and the game universe seems at least to have no legal prohibition against male/male sex, and perhaps no or very little social prohibition) I think the picture as described is nevertheless a kind of queer shaming. Alex leaves the description a little vague, for reasons to do with iTunes's content guidelines, but it's clear that the picture shames Bertie for some combination of (a) bottoming, (b) possibly being sexually submissive in a bdsm sense, (c) liking feather boas, and (d) being soppy/sentimental/easily wrapped around Oscar's little finger. All of which are feminine-coded and, when associated with a man, queer-coded.
Bertie gets shamed for the one aspect of his personality that he has no reason to be ashamed of. Admittedly, trying to shame him for anything actually shame-worthy (e.g. his snobbishness or his bullying) would fail, and this "feminine" side of Bertie is the only thing he's ever shown any embarrassment about. Well, that and not actually having any money.
I get what Alex was trying to do here; Bertie's humiliation is important in setting up the reveal that Harkness, Harkness, Darkness and Sphinx are forcing him into a performance of heroism that he actually hates. But I still don't like it. I think it could have been accomplished in some other way that doesn't end up echoing the homophobia of our own world.
I did find myself feeling a bit sorry for Bertie after the Exposition Box reveal, even though in that same episode he says one of the few genuinely, as opposed to comically, horrific things I've heard from him: his casual assertion that what he did on the train was okay, because no one else's lives matter as much as his. (Most of the time, I feel like someone should have whispered to James that if you want people to dislike a character, you need to make his awfulness less funny, less comically exaggerated.)
I will also feel sorry for Bertie if Brutor is dead, even though it will be Bertie's own damn fault.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-16 09:37 am (UTC)Yeah, I had the same issues as you. Though Alex sort of tries to walk back/undermine the potential Unfortunate Implications in a later ep, which I suspect means he realized the same thing or had it pointed out to him.
I mean, it's credible that this is something Bertie would feel embarrassed by, but the framing runs the risk of setting it up as "this is something objectively embarrassing, haha." Which is not the intent, I think, but -- Unfortunate Implications, as I said.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-16 01:05 pm (UTC)I feel this is also a moment of realizing (for me and probably others) that Alex Will Kill The Dog if the dice so dictate, which means that no-one is safe.
He says proudly that he's never fudged a dice roll, and there are some truly blood-chilling ones. Punches do not get pulled.