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RehtseNosaelg99 In reply to NomadicMind [2020-10-28 15:28:45 +0000 UTC]

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Pika-la-Cynique In reply to Igenlode [2017-09-04 19:42:42 +0000 UTC]

I agree completely on your first point, and frankly it just adds to the overall frustrating sense of wanting to break the cycle for me - I was aware of the same-ness and was really wanting to be done drawing angrily-emotional Straight!Sarah speechifying, and thinking it was high time we reached a more fun level of interaction for those two....

All credit to fanworks and analyses that have come before me, but yes, Linda Williams is an atavistic bogeyman of failure as a human being to Sarah, if one takes a slightly sombre look at what the story implies and if she has taken the moral of the film's events to heart. Being glamorous and beautiful and beloved - and irresponsible and selfish; Sarah does not "forget about the baby" when her own parallel temptation comes, and I'm pretty sure she comes to realize the applicability and see her beloved mother's faults more lucidly.

"Losing myself" and wearing black - aye, not to re-word what I have Sarah saying on-page already. If Jareth loves her "regardless", she has no manner of moral handrails in dealing with him at all, and the movie does gift us with allll the subtext on the "your eyes can be so cruel" and "I will be your slave". There's some debate as to how Sarah's navigating the Labyrinth doesn't even seem to always be about her making the "right" (moral) choices and decisions, but rather, being somewhat ruthless (how she steals Hoggle's jewels, suffocates the doorknob-dude...!), and *that* is what gets her through to the center to stand as Jareth's equal.... Here, there's even third parties involved who are rooting (or even liable to take action...) for "sexpot evil queen" outcome. As she says, Jareth isn't deliberately playing up a seductive corruptor role, but, tie in with Sarah's fears mentioned above of her desires leading her to become a selfish person who uncaringly causes/lets harm happen to others, and she intuits a slippery slope.


... very much a break-through. Not sure you've read through all the previous comments but as I explained elsewhere - this conversation, in written scribbled notebook form, just kept going, into yet more circular blame and angst and complications - but in setting it to paper? suddenly, the cartoon drawing phase, the stalemate-breaking line happened - tadaa.

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Igenlode In reply to Pika-la-Cynique [2017-09-11 16:05:11 +0000 UTC]

Makes sense that the Labyrinth doesn't care about or reward 'good' moral choices  - why should it, after all? It's Jareth's Labyrinth, and he's certainly not averse to cheating (i.e. turning on the clock) if the Labyrinth-runner seems to be doing too well in it...
It's not a teaching tool - it's an obstacle designed to give the runner the appearance of a chance: the necessary escape clause that has to exist, but doesn't actually have to be usable... (Fae morality)

Third parties - Frank'n'Furter? Shipper-mode Christine?

I don't always have time to read through the comments, but on this one I did (though I was seriously running out of time when trying to write that last sentence (about 3 seconds to spare, I think)). So yes, just a quickie comment to try to acknowledge that

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Pika-la-Cynique In reply to Igenlode [2017-09-12 08:14:40 +0000 UTC]

Third parties: Jadis and Stepdaddy Darkness. Frankie is also on board I daresay.

I do appreciate your rationed-time thoughtful comments throughout!

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Pika-la-Cynique In reply to thehornedwitch [2017-07-13 08:31:53 +0000 UTC]

Oof, good call, nice song.

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WyattAnderson In reply to thehornedwitch [2017-07-13 01:12:24 +0000 UTC]

I love you so much for this comment and I don't even know you

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Pika-la-Cynique In reply to daydreemer14 [2017-11-27 22:29:56 +0000 UTC]

Thanks! You know, I come back to this a few months later and I gotta concentrate to keep up too! Odd experience.

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Pika-la-Cynique In reply to Angsynthia [2017-07-10 14:38:30 +0000 UTC]

Hi and welcome, I'm flattered.
So long as you are watching me, you'll get notifications of my uploads when you are on-site. And update schedule is Wednesdays-ish, all being well.

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Pika-la-Cynique In reply to DamianWayne1 [2017-07-10 15:45:07 +0000 UTC]

Ahaha, thanks.
Y'know, I may have a Loki plotbunny lurking under the furniture, but can I just point out - do you really think GND-Sarah is liable to get starry-eyed and fangirly over a smirky magical bad guy dressed in leather and swagger demanding worship/servitude? yeaaahhhh no, been there done that "you have no power over me".

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DamianWayne1 In reply to Pika-la-Cynique [2017-07-10 16:02:49 +0000 UTC]

Lol, yeah, you have a point. *waits patiently for Loki plotbunny to appear*

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Pika-la-Cynique In reply to EllenWeaver [2017-07-10 12:04:12 +0000 UTC]

see you had me so spoiled for feedback and debate a few pages ago, I was almost worried.

Delighted to thrill and entertain, as always.

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EllenWeaver In reply to Pika-la-Cynique [2017-07-10 23:35:12 +0000 UTC]

I've been out of town, adulting.  Yesterday was about the first time in two weeks I've had a chance to check up on anything.  I do have a problem with GND, and it is twofold.  One, I find more inspiration in idea-generation from *bad* Labyfic than *good* Labyfic, and GND is always top-drawer stuff.  Two, (and tho J.R. has absolved me, it still remains a problem), when good fic is having the Important Conversations, laying the bone of contention bare, I am moved to snatch that bone and run with it to my own stuff, because it looks like My Bone.  But it is not My Bone.

Someone elsewhere in these comments (maybe your own replies) there is a line or two about Sarah's un-likeable-ness.  She's selfish and manipulative and bullheaded, and a thief, and cruel in teasing Hoggle with what she's stolen.  And this un-likeable-ness is something we rarely see in a woman hero.  Things can happen TO women, but apparently God forbid we have to side with a hero who wields her own power against others in a selfish and petty manner.  (A lot of this can be forgiven if the woman in question is sexually alluring or aesthetically pleasing or both--see Mary Queen of Scots all the way to Serena Joy in the Hulu Handmaid's Tale.  And Sarah has both going for her via Jennifer Connelly.)  What I LIKE about the bone of contention in the GND relationship is that Sarah is allowed to be selfish and unlikeable, and therefore real, and yet what she does here in this conversation and in so many others in character-exposing discussions is that for Sarah, she's not trying to be unselfish so she can gain other people's approval and affection.  She's not sacrificing or suppressing a part of her personality so that she can win their love (Hell, not even for Jareth!).  She's mindful of her morally dubious areas so she can avoid HURTING other people, and if that doesn't just harmonize perfectly with the overarching themes of the source film, then I am a plastic dinosaur typing on a kindergartener's open iPad. 

Second thing going on here, and I don't know if it's because you're a genius or because you've broken trail for this big conversation from day one of this comic or because there's just a tremendous amount of material in this canon where writers of all stripes and abilities have laid out a map of all outcomes, potential outcomes, false trails, smex pitfalls and bridges (maybe all three) BUUUUT one of the things I've learned in adulthood is that just because you're right doesn't mean you win, just because you're persecuted doesn't mean you're innocent, and just because you suffer doesn't necessarily make you a better person.  And I love that Sarah's realization of her own moral vulnerabilities doesn't come from anything Jareth's DONE to her, but rather from her own good conscience and what she sees in herself in juxtaposition with him.  His declaration of love, completely genuine and not self-seeking, I think helps her remember it.  There's a way for her to love him back that she seems to know can bring out the best of them both, and her own selfishness in wanting him need not be destructive.  Yay for her bullheadedness.  A thousand times yay!

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Pika-la-Cynique In reply to EllenWeaver [2017-07-11 11:11:32 +0000 UTC]

Re: Don't You Want To Feel My Bones - I know what you mean about stealintegrating Good Ideas as extra brush strokes in your own take on characters. But one can consider the example of Our Lord And Saviour David Bowie - there was this article pointing out he very much had this attitude, if he saw another artist doing something interesting he'd appreciate and point it out and then eventually be like "yeah so if you're not taking this interesting concept any further Imma snatching it". I suppose I should source that, but... yeah. Sometimes there are throwaway lines in goodfic that blow your gd mind and cause a wee epiphany and then that is how it is in your own mindview. And this kinda ties into your 3rd paragraph, too - I ain't doing this fresh out of seeing that one film, I'm doing this after *inhaling* copious quantities of fanfics both more insightful and cleverer than anything I could fumblingly come up with, and the delightful popcorn id-gratifying fluff/drama/smexytimes fics too. fanon

As to Sarah, there's the little-trod path of *her* turning Dark (I will throw no stones, we all like our wicked bad boys sexing up the approved Good Girl, and "fallen woman" tropes are often moralizing or 2edgy). You had that lovely line about her "wide streak of submissiveness, like a welt"; and it's not quite the same dynamic and sliding rule of power but I'm intrigued by her faultline that Jadis seemed to have sniffed out, that she would make an excellent evil sexpot queen - perhaps beyond any of Jareth's expectations or ability to handle. Because he enables some of that stuff at the cost of his own skin, almost - "regardless" gives her dizzying freedom to be cruel to him. Maybe that "I need you, all of you" means her need for Jareth is for that darker side of her; not just her selfish (sexual/emotional) wants, but to have  Jareth as her scratching post, the one outlet she can be awful and callous with because he can probably take it and give as good and not judge her or want her less. And that could be pretty spirally and masochism tango and self-destructive indeedy..... But she does also value her self-mastery, without suppressing a part of herself, as you say, so it is not a fitting outcome for her character arc for her to become overpowered or twisted by any kind of violent passions. So yeah. As deliciously and perversely complicated as this can be, she bullheads her way through labyrinths and finds the center and her own power, I think she'll be fine.

But sometimes the comments here (and elsewhere) are real entertaing/frustrating, on that unlikeable-ness of Sarah's and the expectations of female grace and self-martyrdom in complicated ships.....

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Pika-la-Cynique In reply to Katkelman [2017-07-10 12:04:27 +0000 UTC]

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Pika-la-Cynique In reply to ashley-f [2017-07-09 09:50:06 +0000 UTC]

"ink smudge" is hint of Dark!Jareth-iness creeping in, a visual cue I'd used before.

Jareth "pulling down a subdimension" is a flippant way of summarizing the rather catastrophic end of the comic's Ballroom arc (and their canon final encounter, almost....)

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Teehee100 In reply to Nyysjan [2017-07-08 14:05:45 +0000 UTC]

Wow! This is a very good point. I'm also glad that it isn't a horror story. All the same *squeeeee*, I'm glad he said it all the same. Balance and equality seem to be a thing that these two really need to work out to help go forward rather than side-stepping or backwards.  

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