Is Bioware Giving Us FanFic Prompts?

I giggled when I heard the surgeon NPC say this. Surely someone, somewhere has used this as a smutty literature fanfic prompt? I just adore Bioware. (And Dragon Age.)

(Sorry it's so dark, but it's the words that are important.)

Vivienne's Victory (Dragon Age Inquisition)

Recently I decided to replay Dragon Age: Inquisition and, amazingly, since I've played it through SOOOOO many times (over 20 and I stopped counting), I'm actually finding new cut-scenes.

For example, I never got this scene before, so thought I'd share in case anyone else was like me.

I generally don't get Vivienne's personal quest until late in the story, and apparently I never speak with her after Bastien dies, after the scene where she talks about funeral planning. I just go straight for the main story ending. I didn't realize Vivienne had more to say. And I thought she liked me....

Conversation I Had With My Cat Tonight

Me:  Why aren't you eating your canned food?

Cat:  It's in my orange dish.

Me:  ... And?

Cat:  The canned food goes on my white plate. Treats go in my orange dish. This canned food is in my orange dish. It is not a treat.

Me:  But you love your canned food.

Cat:  Yes.

Me: ...

Cat: ...

Me: ...

Cat:  I'm still not eating it.

Me:  Right. I'll scoop it out and put it on the white plate. Geez. Are you an excellent driver, too?

Cat:  I do not get that reference.

Me:  Sorry. It's from Rain Man.

Cat:  Remember, you are speaking to a cat.

Me:  Oh. Yeah.

Cat:  And I prefer Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man.

Me *hands over the now filled white plate*:  If you wake me up tonight with a clawed paw on my cheek going, "IS...IT...SAFE?" I am cutting your TV time right down to zero. Now eat your canned food.

Cat: nomnomnom

Damsel is a Word not a Trope

I have noticed lately a trend in which the word "damsel" is used as short-hand to mean "damsel in distress."

As in:
"I need you to scream for me."
"Like a damsel?"

Or:
"I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the damsel."

This chaps my hide.

"Damsel" is not an intrinsically pejorative word. It simply means "young, unmarried woman." The word itself has no relation to powerlessness.

In fact, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, the word damsel comes to us (by way of French) from the Latin domina which means mistress, as in a female master.

So the entire foundation of the word damsel is rooted in power.

It just happened to share the same first letter as the word distress, and thus someone, who confused alliteration with wit, coined "damsel in distress."

To conflate the "damsel in distress" trope with the actual word "damsel" is NOT A GOOD THING. 

Because -- remember, damsel by itself just means woman -- what you're actually saying is:

"I need you to scream for me."
"Like a woman?"

Or:

"I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the woman."

When the word those screenwriters were really looking for is VICTIM.

"I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the victim." 

That is what Dolores should have said in the most recent episode of WestWorld. The show has rubbed our faces, across multiple episodes, in the victimization of Dolores, beating us over the head with how she is intended to be raped and murdered. That's her storyline, because that's all the men who visit WestWorld want -- to rape and murder an innocent farmer's daughter.

But her being a woman isn't the thing that needs fixing. She can be a woman -- a damsel -- who fights back. She can be a damsel hero. A Big Damn Damsel Hero.

What she wants fixed is her role of victim falling foul of evil, murderous men.

And the word WOMAN is NOT a synonym for VICTIM.

I don't care that what you really meant to refer to was the trope. What you're SAYING and what people are HEARING -- whether consciously aware of it or not -- is that women are victims. They have no other role. They can't be heroes. Women are by default "in distress"-- so much so that you don't even have to add the "in distress" part, you just say woman and the audience will fill it in on their own.

Oh, and only women can scream, apparently. That's adult women for ya, sniveling, crying, screaming. Men never do that.

I've only seen the trailer for that Tarzan movie, not the movie itself, but apparently the scream/damsel exchange was considered important because it's in said trailer. WHY?? Why does that merit a spot in the trailer? That's how our heroine is defined, is it? Ooh she's better than Ordinary Women, she's not a damsel!

Of all the comebacks she could have snarled, and this being a period piece, she could have spouted some very worthy phrases of disdain (I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR), all she does is throw shade on damsels? 

You can do better, screenwriters.

If for no other reason than the fact that "I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the damsel" is an ehh line given strength by the situation, but "I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the victim" is MOVING, with call-backs to all the scenes of victimization we've witnessed before, where Dolores, Special Victim Extraordinaire, takes back her power and violates her programming to defend herself.

Eschewing stereotypes and trope trigger words in favor of being ACCURATE is just BETTER WRITING.

Try it.

Why Is It Always Planets?

I only recently was able to watch STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS. And I have a question about the Star Wars universe, in general.

Why is it always planets?

Original Star Wars (the 1977 movie) had the Death Star and destroyed Alderaan and I get that. Special effects of that type were totally new, and it made an impact. It also proved how irrevocably, irredeemably EVIL the Empire was.

Except of course, it WASN'T irredeemable. Somehow the most irredeemable character WAS REDEEMED. (Don't get me started.)

Back to the Death Star.
Even though it had a total major design flaw, the Empire decided to rebuild the Death Star for Return of the Jedi.
I guess because thinking you can repeat the exact same motions and they'll result in a different outcome is one definition of madness and the Empire is pretty insane? I dunno.

Anyhow.
Death Star 2 is also destroyed. And in spectacular ignorance of the saying, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall", the First Order decides that the problem was IT WASN'T BIG ENOUGH.

So now we have Starkiller Base, which can destroy five planets at a time, in contrast to the Death Star's measly one.

Which I suppose makes the First Order MOAR EVIL.

But honestly, did we need that?

The human brain can only process so much. Does the audience feel five times the shock as we did at the annihilation of Alderaan? Do we have time to feel *anything* before the plot moves on?

I believe we felt for Alderaan because we felt for Princess Leia. There is no emotional touchstone for those five planets. They're just fridged. They existed to be killed. And it's a waste, because they don't provide any particular motivation for our main characters that those characters didn't have already.

Not even the special effects justify it. We see awesome special effects all the time now. It's not 1977 anymore.

You may scoff, and say these quibbles are outside of the movie's reality. And you'd be right.

But I've got a problem with Starkiller Base WITHIN the reality of the movie.

Let's say I'm General Hux (because I'm assuming he's more likely to make calculated, strategy-based decisions on behalf of the First Order than Kylo I-do-what-I-want Ren). I would think the entire concept of Starkiller is a Really Bad Move strategically.

I get that the people on those planets are A Problem. And the First Order wants to Make An Example.

BUT WHY DESTROY THE PLANETS?

Each of those planets has flora, fauna, and mineral wealth. They have infrastructure, machines, factories, libraries. Why destroy all those resources when you could use them to strengthen the First Order?

ALSO

If you wipe out a galaxy, doesn't that make traveling in that area more difficult? Like those "Last Gas for 100" miles signs? Take away all those planets and you impair the First Order's future logistics for shipping, refueling, and combat staging.

So I'd be ordering the brain trust that designs Evil Weapons to create a contagion - and requisite delivery system - that kills people, dissipates rapidly, and leaves the animals/ecosystem/infrastructure and other planetary wealth intact.

Because that is totally what the First Order needs. It would make empire building much cheaper, easier, AND more difficult to fight against because the delivery system could be mobile, and there could be multiple iterations, because it wouldn't have to be THE SIZE OF A PLANET ITSELF.


I was just getting warmed up on how this could actually work, and how you could make the special effects for that shit really scary, and it wouldn't have the same science-related problems that planet explosions have, but I've deleted it all because really, who needs that sort of Evil? And maybe that's the problem.
Maybe these thoughts are TOO EVIL for the Star Wars universe.

*sigh*

This is why I write Happily Ever After Romance.

Because at heart I'm really a Psychotic Space Ginger. *headdesk*