#might actually go back and rewatch the first half of s1 so i can write down all the shit rust says/does that syb would also say/do

[direwombat]

y'know. i started watching true detective yesterday and. if you stripped syb of her fc5 specific lore and dropped her into a detective show....she would be rust cohle.

[chipthekeeper]

Andor S1 Rewatch Commentary - Episode 6

me really early in this: "oh i'm not saying much"

also me: *makes this the longest one yet*

Alllllright, it's about time to start The Eye. I have a different kitty with me tonight. We'll see how long that lasts though, he seems like he already wants to run. Anyway definitely gonna be so normal about this one I promise……I promise

*painful groaning* I'm already whinin—god! (honestly you can almost stop reading here, it's mostly this)

Oh I'm so excited!! Little, are you excited? (he didn’t answer but he was purring) It's time for the heist! Is this your favorite episode? Is that why you came to sit with me? I bet so

Yeah, I think I'm just confirming the intro music in this arc is the best by far…slash my favorite, which makes it the best

Oh I'm gonna fucking sob. Ohhhhh……..

Coffee on the road. And a stupid hat. They gave Cassian the worst hat and I think it's funny *giggling* He looks so stupid

I really love how bitter Nemik is after learning that “Clem” doesn't really believe, of how bitter he is that he was wrong. Or that he thinks he was wrong, cuz he's not wrong. You know, he's “half right,” yeah, that's—it's a better way of putting it

Skeen watching again…he's always watching very fuzzily in the background

The Dhanis!!!!! I love them. So many good walking sticks here

I have to pause so I can yell at this fucking cat *I yell at the cat, then bang the fuck out of my knee on the coffee table when I come back* FUCK ME!! Oh my god. Okay. Having a great time. Back to it

Petigar’s curiosity is so interesting to me. Feel like he could have been turned eventually. If he hadn't been…shot, oh. Spoiler alert

I feel like I'm….not saying much in this because I'm just writing in my head again, slash just taking…taking notes more than writing I guess. Seen it a million times, already written about it so much, and yet just taking notes

*most excited gasp yet* There they are!!!!! There's my girls!!!!! *sighs* They're so cute. I just want to know about their night before, slash the morning—the whole timeline of this day is really interesting to me. Because it's still foggy like it's the morning but within the, I don't know, 40 minutes of the show it's completely nighttime. I have found it confusing. So I try not to think about it, but I do anyway

“They slaughtered her whole family” *groans for a full minute*

I love in the…in the behind-the-scenes thing when Britell talks about like the music of the Eye, the actual like, event. And then you just hear that one and you can kind of imagine how all of them sound together…..It's gotta be SO loud *laughing, then another gasp* Sharon!!!

I'm so sad already, I'm gonna lose muh boys :(((

Feeling a lot about Vel’s braids right now. I don't know why

*snickering at their faces when the guy is peeing* Not to quote my own fic but, “the Empire goes wherever it wants”

*pathetic whimper* I just whine every time I see them, it's gonna be like that the whole time until I just…until I start sobbing. I've been trying to mentally prepare for that all day, but I don't think it's….gonna work

He's 12 he can dress himself. Now come dress me! “Perhaps you've expanded?” Oh Roboda I love you…..Ah? Did Leonart just flinch when he started coming over? Oh god, fuck this guy. “Might fear the back of my hand,” yeah. Roboda you deserve better, leave him!! “I look forward to seeing that” *snorts* Scalped him. Twice in one scene!

Thinking back to the first time I watched this, and when the one guy said “company, halt” and then Taramyn said “squad, halt” I was so. nervous. Because I was like, oh, he said the wrong thing, they're gonna know, they're gonna know and they're gonna get found out, they're all gonna die! And you know, um, I was wrong but then I was right

It's kind of wild how smoothly this goes until it doesn't. And I…I'll say it again, but I’m really gonna miss the whole week of wondering how it was gonna go wrong, because you knew it had to. You knew something had to go wrong, even if they succeeded. And you had a whole week to theorize about what would happen. And now we're just not gonna get that

I like Gorn’s trench coat

Scuba girlfriends!!!!! Such a cool shot. Wait, was that more of the old temple or something….under the water..? Hmm no, that doesn't make any sense

GORNBODA!!!!!

See, it’s starting to get darker, it's already the evening. The lights are coming on. How many hours has it been, how many did it take for them to walk over?? I just kinda yadda yadda the whole timeline writing about it, but I want to know for sure

Get down! music yay! That's probably my favorite track, after their song *I just start doing the notes*

“You're stalling” oh god I love this sceeeene. It's….god, I don't know, I just I can't be coherent. I just love it and it gives me a stomachache and I'm so proud of her for going but I'm so sad for her that she has to–she'll think—she'll have this nightmare for forever. Being up here, scared of the weight, taking too long

Too wrapped up in Vel thoughts to acknowledge the banger line that the Dhani chieftain gives

Wheeee! I remember their jump being part of the trailers, and speculating and speculating, speculating what the hell that could be about. No one was anywhere close. Didn't even know who it was doing that

I love this guy that the chief has to push out of the way. He looks like one of my uncles…..And then he fist pumps hahaha

There’s much more to the garrison, like off to the side…in the mountain…that I never really look at. And I need to think about that. I don't know why (this is the part of the editing process where I realize I’m leaving most of this in just for fic notes for later)

Love this guy sitting down on the job—woop, and he pops up

Oh Nemik is so scared, about to blow it all. No, you let the boy go! Leave him alone!!.....Cinta’s here to save the day, god what a fucking badass. Jesus

Bitch slap!!!!

I love how quickly Vel turns it on after the jump. “Starts now” Like she was scared up there, but as soon as Cinta snaps her out of it she's back, she's locked in. She's making herself big

I want to try whatever that drink is. Also need to look at some screencaps and see what kind of food they've got going on

Sharon's so happy. That guy's so happy, everybody happy and I'm gonna cry *painful chuckling*

Fuck. No I'm not ready I'm not ready I'm not ready I'm not ready. Ohhhh god okay, pausing. Pausing, because I'm not ready *pauses it and takes several deep breaths* Okay….. *very deep and long whine as I turn it back on* Nooo-oh god. Okay. I have to pause already in the middle because I can't—gah, fuck! Okay. I…yeah, I don't think I'm gonna say any real…words? Gaahhh—Cinta’s voice, I…..that's oh my fucking god, I'll never get over it…..And she has to physically—she has to physically stand up straight and and shake it off. I—hoohhhh. Okay. Yeah, I'll have more thoughts…I'm sure. I'm sure they'll come but uh….right now I'm….I’m just…goo

Rewinding a little bit to say that Vel making Clem go out first is really funny to me, always

Need to learn how to play this card game that they're doing. Is it sabacc? I don't actually–I don't think so. I’m sure there's lots of variations of sabacc, but I don't think that's one of them

I love Vel’s cool jackettttt

Must be so satisfying to get on the set of a Star Wars ship and just flip all the little buttons and switches

“Fire in the hole!!” That moment had to be such a big deep breath, like okay…maybe we can actually do this “LEEETTT’SSSS GOOOOOO!!!!!”

Noooooo Lance Hunter you fucking—!!!

When can she yell at me?

Cinta gets changed really fast *laughs* never really noticed that before, she does such a quick change. And I'm sure we're not seeing every second of this but still it's kind of funny after a million watches. I do really wish that they sort of addressed how it must have felt for her to wear that. But I guess that's my job. And eventually I'll do it but….oh it hurts

It's the first day of manual labor this guy's ever done in his life…..he would never survive in the marketing department

Those stairs do not look really safe to be going down quickly. But that's the Empire for you

The music of the Eye!!!! I got a chill. I got a chill! How many times have I watched this and I still get a chill? *sniffles* Fuck I've got goosebumps all over me

The moment of realization on Jayhold’s face. Beautiful. Just beautiful. “Seven years serving you? I deserve worse than that”

If I was one of these TIE pilots I'd be saying umm no thank you—oh my god. Such a traumatic sound, the sound of that cart flippin’--- ayyy shot of the day!

*more intense groaning* ahhh fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck……God. It's never ever gonna not piss me off the way that they killed Gorn. Just, in a completely missable shot, like you can literally blink and miss it. Literally………Fortunately though, he's not dead and I-I'm keeping that conspiracy theory close. Is it true? No, absolutely not. But I believe it anyway

COVER HIM Skeen, you fucking bastard. That is the wrong gun for this. No!!! Heh, I wasn't even quoting Vel, that was just my natural reaction *laughs painfully*

Oh god…….*deep sigh, then groaning while talking* This shot kills meeeeee…."Where's Taramyn" and then just…Vel’s face, jesus

I think I lied, I think this is my favorite track…..wheeee! Oh….I didn't mentally prepare for that part either…..

Really wish we'd had a shot of Cinta up there seeing the Rono go. Really really really wish we'd seen that

Watching for the first time when he's like, I can't feel my legs. I'm like, oh, thank god! He's just paralyzed! He's not dead!! Yeah……

I wish somebody would med spike me, honestly

This is another trailer shot. And that was one that you were just like, whaaat the fuck could they possibly be doing in this show?

Aaahhh Nemik holding on to Vel's leg, I'm normal about it!!! CLIIIIMMMBBB!!!!.....I am crying, let the record reflect

Okay fine, I guess they just couldn't have showed Cinta up there because she was already going down but still! Still!! I deserve to see that. And you know what…I don't even think–it could still—oh, there's the crying lady and now I need to stop talking because I'm gonna cry too…

Not the hands!!! *blows raspberry*

“That's not fair” yeah that's all I'm gonna say. That's not fair. It's not fair……….I need to make some more gifs. Right now

*whining like an abandoned puppy*

This place looks peaceful at least. Ol’ Doctor Quadpaw…..I wonder what kind of cybernetics he has….God, Vel's face :((( that's her little brotherrrr :(((

“Yeah, luck. Drives the whole damn galaxy doesn't it?”.........God. The tension. It's like, constricting my fucking body, even though I know what's happening…. "Me against everybody else”..... I think…what I choose to believe…is happening in this scene, is that Skeen is suicidal, but he doesn't want to do it himself. I don't have a brother, he's dying in that hut. So I don't want to be here anymore

Just…what a shocking moment. I'm sure I screamed, I don't fully remember but I…I know I was shocked as hell. Probably screaming no you idiot, that was a test!!! Even though I don't really believe that anymore but I definitely did then

“Thank you for trying” and then she holds his armmmmmm *sniffles*

Is this where I plug my idea that the kyber crystal was actually Vel’s mom's and she recognizes it and she does not want to give it back to her dad? Just a free little headcanon there for you. That's in the version where I believe that Vel’s mom died. And was maybe a Jedi? Okay nah, we don't have to go that far

Ghorman mentioned. Ding, that's two 

Hmm. “It's a Devaron blue.” Lots of blue….they're both wearing blue, Mon was wearing blue…What's happening?

Was Kleya almost smiling there? I always thought that but it didn't really look like it this time. This guy's definitely smiling. I don't really use this as a reaction enough. I need to make that gif. The breath….yeah, you get to laugh and be relieved but my girl’s traumatized forever now!!!!

What an episode! What an arc! What a show! God. We're halfway done rewatching which means we're h….halfway to new shit. Fuck. All right, I'm gonna turn this off now cuz it's Daredevil time in a few minutes (spoiler alert, it was not Daredevil time for long)

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 27: Daria Episode Recs

I saw the question again so I've been thinking about it: what would be good Daria episodes to use to introduce someone to the show? I've been pondering this since B said that he'd tried to watch it and couldn't get into it, not because I am going to try to convince him to--I feel like that's a jerk move and also sort of a waste of time--but because I get why he didn't get into it, and I think starting Esteemsters is not a great way to try. Because the thing is that it is a show about teenagers and high school and he is 34 years old. It's definitely possible to get into Daria as an adult; I know people did during its original run and probably still do now. But it's never going to weasel its way into your brain and permanently change your DNA if you watch it for the first time in your 30s, the way it did to me when I watched it for the first time at 13. I think in some ways I love Daria so much because it grew with me--which is to say that yes it is the sort of show that can do that, but one of the prerequisites for a growing-with experience is starting out with the media when you're not-grown. It's really impossible to say what I would think of the show if I'd watched it for the first time in my 30s or even my 20s.

Anyway, I think part of the issue with trying to get anyone into the show by just starting at 1x01 is that the early episodes, while they aren't bad, are much more one-note and simplistic than the later ones. The show at its best was so thoughtful, developed its characters so well, included so much nuance--but you're not going to see that in the first half of season 1, which is mostly just Nerd Fantasy: smart outcast makes fun of other people and comes up with various schemes to make herself the winner of all the weird and embarrassing situations she finds herself in as a high school student. I do like these episodes, I'm not trying to say I don't know, but they're not the strongest and they don't show off the diversity and intelligence of the show very well. I find them the least-rewatchable.

Not even I started watching at 1x01. I think the first episode I saw might have been Write Where It Hurts, which is the last episode of S2.

On the positive side, most of the episodes are sufficiently stand alone that you don't need to start at 1x01 to understand what's happening.

So--what would I recommend to someone who wants to give the show a try but doesn't want to commit to watching the whole thing, or even the whole first season, up front?

1x13 The Misery Chick: I think this episode is the closest this show comes to a thesis statement, and is one of the best episodes for 'decoding' Daria's character. It uses most of the main cast and shows off several different characters and dynamics. It includes a couple of different registers--the darkly comic, the serious, etc. And it's in S1 so it gives you a sense of the show's early era, while still being more complex than, say, College Bored. (Boxing Daria is the other episode I consider to be truly essential for understanding Daria as a character--but I cant recommend someone start at the finale lol.)

1x12: The Teachings of Don Jake: A good episode for Morgendorffer family dynamics but honestly I just consider this one such a Classic I have to include it. I think it also is a good test of whether or not this style of humor is for you.

2x05 That Was Then, This Is Dumb: I think this episode places the show pretty well in its cultural context: that Daria is the Gen X daughter of Hippie Parents (actually she's probably an older Millennial technically, but the show is very Gen X). Also, even though the Yaegers are mercilessly mocked by both the narrative and Daria, this is one of the episodes where she does question her assumptions and judgments ("People believed in stuff back then.")

2x13 Write Where It Hurts: Another episode that really goes into Daria's character and inner life. Also as I said I think this was my first episode, and it worked to get me interested in the rest of the show.

I think I would start with those. There are others that spotlight particular parts of the show, like particularly good Morgendorffer family episodes, or Jane episodes, or Lawndale High episodes, and so if I thought someone was showing an interest in some specific aspect I might have more recommendations. There are also some personal favorites, like Road Worrier or Lane Miserables, that I didn't include because I didn't think they were really representative of the show. And I don't think anyone should really start with anything in seasons 4 or 5. Those are too different, and I think they need to be appreciated in context. But if I were to rec from those seasons, I'd probably say Lucky Strike, which is one of my overall favorites, and maybe something like Psycho Therapy or Groped by an Angel for character-centric episodes that are still understandable as standalone episodes.

[spn-romantica]

So I watched SPN for years, right up until the end of S11, when they brought back Mary. I heard that S15 would be the last season, and I was like ‘oh ok I’ll rewatch (for like the 8th time) and finish SPN then’ BUT THEN 15x18 happened and I was violently pulled back into the SPN fandom. I still haven’t caught up fully watching yet, but I’ve read so much discourse now...and I have thoughts. Hypotheses currently. I’ll wait to finish the whole show for real to call any of this theories but, I wanted to record my thoughts.

They’re about Chuck. As a villain. Which weirds me out. As an antagonist? Sure. As evil? No. Can’t envision it. I just finished my rewatch of S5 and, damn, but if Chuck is the ultimate villain, S5 reads very differently. :0

But I recently saw a post comparing Dean’s reaction in 1x18 (I believe) to his in 10x05 (for sure) about when someone mentions his mother’s death. In 1x18, it’s Sam when they were children and Dean gets angry. In 10x05, it’s a group of high school girls and Dean just bops his head along to the song. The post was framing it as 10x05 not understanding Dean’s thoughts about his mother, but I think that both episodes understand Dean. When Dean is a child, the trauma over his mother’s murder is still fresh. By 10x05, the event is 70 years in the past. Of course it still affects Dean. Of course. You never really get over something like that. But I’d argue that after 70 years, Dean has moved through the stages of grief to acceptance. It still hurts, but like an old ache, not a fresh, still-bleeding wound.

Interestingly, 10x05 is when we see Chuck, after a long absence. He’s watching the play, probably happy that someone loves his work enough to even make a musical, but he is also watching the Winchesters. The actual episodes of the show, aka the books Chuck writes, are what Chuck knows/cares about regarding the Winchesters. Despite being God, I’d argue he doesn’t pay attention to every second and all the little minutia of the boys’ lives. So, here in 10x05, we have confirmation that Chuck is around to see that Dean has healed from his mother’s death.

Later, in S11, Dean acts as therapist/life counsellor to Chuck/God, regarding Amara and Lucifer. And it works! Dean teaches God about family and about healing. Why does God listen to Dean Winchester, a random human? Perhaps it is because of S1-5. Perhaps it is because Dean and Sam were part of God’s test, as God himself describes it in 5x22.

What was the test? Was it God’s experiment about choice and free will? About freedom vs peace? Or, perhaps, was God trying to understand sibling relationships? He and Amara are two faces of the same coin. They are siblings, but with very different outlooks and it caused a rift between them, caused Chuck to seal Amara away before she could destroy his creations. Chuck regretted this, but saw it as a necessary betrayal. But then, some time later, Chuck’s angelic children experience their own betrayal and sibling rift. Lucifer tries to turn the angels against God, rebel and reject God. He makes demons, for sure, and maybe even Hell. But why? God figures that Lucifer was maybe jealous of the new baby (humans) like others in the show postulates. Or maybe Lucifer had beef specifically with Michael, because humans are little more than amoebas from an angelic perspective. Aside from Castiel, Anna and a handful of other angels, angels consistently view humans as humans might view dust mites. Maybe humans were the cause of the rift between Michael and Lucifer, but it was Michael and Lucifer’s relationship that needed fixing in the end, regardless.

So God is left with the sad conclusion that maybe close siblings will inevitably betray each other and be unable to forgive and heal. He wants to heal with Amara. But he also wants Michael and Lucifer to be able to heal. (It doesn’t occur to God that maybe Lucifer’s problem was never with humanity or Michael; it was with God.)

So God has research to do, to see if it’s possible for siblings to experience such deep betrayal and still heal. He turns to his little hairless apes, the only sentient species on Earth with potential to parallel the angels. He starts testing siblings. Cain and Abel are first up. Needless to say, but the betrayal was too strong and left no room for healing. But on down the line of Cain, God continues testing. Eventually, we come to Sam and Dean.

God has scheduled Michael and Lucifer’s family counselling session for 2010. All the data up to this point says it can only end badly. Maybe it’ll half-kill the Earth, but it’s finally time for Michael and Lucifer to meet and for one of them to die. God isn’t happy about this conclusion, but it’s what the data says. So, finally, the last test subjects, the last in the line who will be the vessels for Michael and Lucifer’s showdown, arrive. Sam and Dean Winchester are to be the last sibling test. The conclusion seems foregone at this point, but there is no point in cancelling the last bit of the test after so long, so it continues. God watches. And Sam and Dean surprise God. Siblings after siblings had failed for millennia to heal. Betrayals too strong, healing too little, too late. But Sam and Dean. no matter how badly they hurt each other, find a way to come back together and heal. They don’t give up on each other, despite millennia of data to the contrary. Still, the angels and demons push and push at Sam and Dean until their rift is as wide and as deep as Michael and Lucifer’s, as God’s and Amara’s (in late S4). It seems, despite the brothers’ best efforts earlier on, it’s all for naught.

But there is a further element of randomness, something God couldn’t foresee. Castiel. God hasn’t had occasion for romantic love in his own experience, so he is entirely blind to what choices Castiel is likely to make. He provides an element of randomness to the experiment, an essential part that gives Dean the ultimate chance to go back to Sam and begin to heal (4x22).

Throughout S5, Sam and Dean heal. There is hurt, still, of course, but they love each other and forgive each other. By 5x22, they’ve surprised everyone. Even the angels have given up on turning them against each other, and have shrugged and settled for using Nick and Adam as the vessels for the showdown. Sam and Dean passed their test. They were siblings who betrayed each other and healed from it. God reconsiders how family counselling will go with Michael and Lucifer. He figured it would be the Apocalypse, the end of the problems between Michael and Lucifer, as one of them dies, as had always happened before. But, Sam and Dean showed God, that though it is rare, it is possible to heal. So God gives Sam and Dean an out. He gives Sam the strength to seize back control from Lucifer, should things go south.

Finally, the showdown arrives. Michael and Lucifer meet. They talk things out. To God’s surprise, Lucifer reveals that he never had a problem with Michael. He had forgiven Michael long ago. But Michael couldn’t forgive Lucifer. He had to be a ‘good son’ and do what he thought God wanted him to do. But Michael didn’t realise, that God doesn’t give orders. Free will all the way, baby! But the whole thing comes as a surprise. Apparently, all this time, the problem relationship wasn’t siblings, it was parents.

Oops.

Good thing God had a back-up plan.

Sam throws himself and Lucifer (and Michael and Adam) into the Cage. Michael and Lucifer have an eternity to figure things out between each other now. But that’s beside the point. The point is, now, that God has to start testing all over again. Not how to fix sibling relationships, but how to fix parent-child relationships.

God restores Castiel, perhaps for a few reasons because God exists outside of time, but originally it may have been just for one. He likes Castiel. He is impressed that Castiel invented free will for himself, broke free of angelic programming (multiple times over), and did it all for love. It’s novel. It’s interesting. God might even think it’s sweet. But God has had time later, and thought about it, and he has a plan. And Castiel is essential.

But Dean Winchester is the key.

Sam and Dean’s relationship with their own father has been strained, but both boys find a way to forgive John his flaws and failings, and love him. Whenever they do get a chance to see him again, post his death, they don’t hate him. They’ve healed. John’s relationship with Sam and Dean is one point of data, Abraham and Isaac another. There are many data points that God can reflect back on and consider.

But as S6 through S10 roll on, God watches Sam and Dean and Castiel. He even watches Crowley and Rowena for another data point. Dean is his main focus, however. (This is a little meta, but as the story focuses more on Dean than Sam post S5, it ties in. Prior to S6, both Sam and Dean were essential - the sibling test. Now, post S5, the parent test, Dean is the most essential. Of course, Sam and Castiel are important too. But Dean is key.)

Dean is a good father. He was a good father to Sam, even when he was only 6 years old himself. He was a good father to Ben. He was willing to die for Bobby John. He’s always good with kids. Not only that, but Dean is blunt enough, brave enough, and crazy enough to tell God to God’s face what he thinks. God needs Dean’s advice, his perspective and opinion on family relationships, but he also needs to see what Dean would do if he were in God’s shoes.

[Edit (1/04/21): After seeing Michael and Lucifer (mostly) heal, and after seeing Sam and Dean heal their relationship, God finally has hope for him and Amara. So God logically wants to retrieve Amara from her prison. But how? Well, he could just wander on up to Cain and do it himself, but what would Amara say? “So I see you’ve come crawling back, eh, Chucky?” She wouldn’t be impressed with God. She wouldn’t understand, because she’s hopeless too. SO how to give her hope? How to make her see that she and God can be okay again? Why, stick her near Dean Winchester, of course! So God sets things up for Dean to get and lose the Mark of Cain, thereby ensuring that Amara will feel a connection to Dean and stick around him/keep him alive long enough for Dean to work his life-coach magic.]

In S11, God and Amara heal their relationship because of the hope Sam and Dean gave God, and also the direct advice Dean gives God. God and Lucifer, not so much.

God needs more data. He needs to see what Dean would do. In comes Castiel’s relevance. God sets things up so that Lucifer can have a son. A nephil. Jack. And God points Castiel in Jack’s direction, trusting Castiel’s ability for unconditional love to keep Jack alive long enough for the experiment. Castiel becomes Jack’s father. But Castiel will never betray Jack, the way God betrayed Lucifer. And, besides, Castiel isn’t the target of this experiment. But it is Castiel’s relationship with Dean Winchester that provides the link needed to get the experiment rolling.

Because Jack is Castiel’s son, he is therefore Sam and Dean’s nephew. Except, God has been watching Castiel and Dean. And, frankly, their romantic love for each other is so obvious even God cannot miss it. Through Castiel, Dean sees Jack as his son too. He loves Jack, exactly like a son. In this way, Dean parallels God, and Jack parallels Lucifer.

But God knows Dean would not easily turn on any child, let alone his own child. So God had a plan for that too. One that Amara helped him with.

They brought back Mary Winchester.

Mary is the one person in existence whose loss would hurt Dean enough to spur him to action. So, she was brought back to die. It was a matter of only a few years of gentle prodding to get everything in position. Jack causes Mary’s death. Dean is faced with a horrible decision. If Jack can kill Mary, what’s to say that Sam and Castiel wouldn’t be next? Mary’s death is like everything beginning all over again for Dean as well. Her first death set off a chain reaction, a series of unfortunate events that spanned decades and nearly caused the ruination of not only Dean’s life, but Sam’s and John’s and even the world. That scar, which had healed as well as it could after 70 years, that God saw was healed in 10x05, has been violently opened up again. It’s the only thing that could force Dean’s hand, that could get him to betray Jack and try to kill him. If Jack had killed Sam or Castiel, it wouldn’t have had the same effect. Both Sam and Castiel had died and come back so many times, and while it would hurt Dean and make him doubt Jack, their deaths would be a sacrifice that Dean would feel obligated to respect, to give Jack a second chance like they would both want. (And God has been laying the groundwork for Dean, convincing him that Jack is evil, will be evil like Lucifer, can’t be allowed to live. All things God has thought about Lucifer over time. Was Lucifer inherently evil? Was their rift inevitable?)

So, here it is. The big test. Will Dean kill Jack? Will he betray Jack and cause an unhealable rift? Or will he find a way to heal, like he did with Sam against all the odds?

And, once again, Dean impresses God. He refuses to kill Jack.

But now we’re in the endgame. Sam, Dean and Castiel are aware that Jack’s life was only on the line because of God. It’s not something they can forgive, or understand. They’re all God’s guinea pigs, and while he loves his guinea pigs, he knows he’s hurt them in the name of science, of knowledge. or healing, and God can’t undo what he’s done. Free will is linear, after all. So it is time for the Winchesters, Castiel and Jack included, to be done with God. God is done with them, too. It’s time for them to be free and at peace. The experiments are done. God has decided not to kill Lucifer. He has decided to try to heal. He can get Lucifer out of the Empty and talk and try to fix things. He has forever to fix things, now that he knows he can. (The last element of this, Jack forgiving Dean for trying to kill him, is something I have limited knowledge of, but I am under the impression happens so... To be added in the edit once I finish the series.)

But the only way the Winchesters will be able to rest, is if they think God, the last and greatest villain, is out of the way. They know they’ve been manipulated their whole lives, first towards the sibling experiment and now the parent experiment, so they need to think God is gone so they can feel secure in their free will once more. Truthfully, God never took their free will. He set them up in situations, maybe even gave a bio-chemical nudge of anger (Dean) or attraction (Sam and Eileen) every now and then. But the choices were always theirs. Still, God knows they won’t see it that way. So he sets things up so that they can defeat him.

He lets them win. He wants them to win. They cannot defeat God, after all. It’s not God’s time, and Death is the only one who can claim God in the end, as the two embrace as friends and walk to the next existence. But the Winchesters need this, and so God allows it. A last gift, to the beings who have been such help, hope and inspiration to him.

With an eye for an eventual S16, 15x20 is written to be ‘an ending’ but also one that could easily be reframed as a bad dream.

For example...

Unfortunately, after Jack, suped up on a extra Grace God lent him, restores the Earth and expends all the Grace (”giving up the mantle of God so that their is no God, no plans, only Free Will”), and Dean, Sam and Jack head back to the Bunker to regroup and gather the ingredients to do the spell to rescue Castiel from the Empty, they’re jumped by monsters who are angry with how much God has fucked with them on behalf of the Winchesters. 15x20 is all a djinn dream Dean is trapped in.

16x01 is Dean waking himself up from the djinn dream, Sam and Jack escaping their own monsters, and then the end of 16x01 is Dean saying something about waking Castiel up from his own dreams in the Empty. The rest of S16 sees the boys save Castiel, reunite with Eileen, start a monster-hunting Bobby Singer/Men of Letters-esque organisation, Dean and Castiel getting together and getting married on Valentine’s Day, Jack getting to live a normal life, going to school, making friends, etc.

If their is no S16 ever (which would be criminal), then 15x20 makes no sense, unless it is plainly a recount of an old, hopeless ending written by God. However you spin it, 15x20 is not the way it seems (like owls).

All things being said, God is an antagonist, but he’s not evil. He’s an asshole, sure, but he never once worked against the Winchesters, never bet against them, never tried to erase or end them. He wanted them to win. He wanted to see the fruits of free will be love, second chances, hope, forgiveness, healing, and happiness, not just betrayal, pain, selfishness, jealousy, disappointment, and hopelessness.

Why is the ending he shows Becky ‘hopeless’? Because God is. He has spent his long existence losing his most loved family members. Amara, Lucifer. How can things end well for God, when they can’t even end well for humans? But Sam and Dean defy the script, again and again. They surprise God, defying the statistics, defying the hypotheses, throwing the experiment into disarray. Giving God hope. Sam and Dean were okay. Dean and Jack were okay. If God had a romantic love, he would find hope from Dean and Castiel being okay. But when God wrote the book he showed Becky, he was writing what he thought would happen. In the end, surely, not even Dean can be enough to hold Sam and Cas and Jack together. But in the end, as we see, as God sees, he is proven wrong and he’s happy to be wrong. He’s hopeful. And he can leave Dean, Sam, Castiel and Jack, and all the angels and all the humans, to rule the Earth and the Heavens. He doesn’t need to learn anything more from them, so he heads to the Empty, with Amara, with Lucifer, with Death (Billie or not, Death is there for God in the end), and they can all depart for a better existence of their own.

If you read all of this, thanks! I eagerly anticipate watching the remaining 10 seasons so I can come back and edit the heck outta this, but until then, if y’all have any thoughts, I’d be interested to hear them~

TLDR: God is a morally bankrupt scientist and the Winchesters are his guinea pigs, but he’s not evil and he does love his guinea pigs, even if he could really treat them nicer.

[lover-of-trash-and-people]

bittersweet netflix shadow and bone finale (s1 e8) rewatch; accoutrement: white wine with ice cubes in it (no YOU'RE a mom drink shh)

my wine's like fruity I love her

light and darkness title card we love to see it

Inej looking at Alina before she goes below deck to hide <3

okay that 'what can you really do on your own' was like not fun that shit hurted

okay but Jesper's 'not enough'? <3

oh no my baby Zoya's first inkling that Darkles does not really care

omg Helnik just appeared and I remembered how much heartbreak I have to face in this episode

gods I love Danielle as Nina so so much

'this can't be it' said she with her pleading smile with downturned eyebrows MA'AM I-

don't break my dumb little heart

I might hate Calahan's little accent but they're making me tear up

oh gods I literally cannot keep a hold on myself when Dani's accent bleeds through with full force, it's like she comes more alive or smth

'I will keep you warm' SIR WHAT-

I am surprised they showed a leaning in for a kiss so soon but I'm not mad about it

her little eyebrow twitch at 'what are waffles'

when that rando said 'i hunt slavers now' a dread settled into me because I knew what was about to go down

Matthias looking somberly at the stuffed wolf's head </3

I am so incredibly entranced by this exchange between Fedyor and Nina and what it represents, it's very interesting that they pushed up their storyline to match with the timeline

damn it's kind of jarring to be back in the Fold

'REMEMBER WHO'S DRIVING'??!!!! *you better stop* meme, *i am, disgusted* meme, *oh wow, oh wow* meme

Mal you fucking idiot you could never take the crows by surprise

the music rising as Kaz starts explaining his thought process, fucking perfection

haha Mal bitchass Inej caught you

'Because if he isn't with Kirigan's crew, he's with ours' WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED

'And why would we destroy the Fold? It's the greatest weapon we've got' valid point at the moment but you know I don't necessarily agree with your methods

the use of the light tunnel in the show instead of Alina just being a super flashlight in the books is quite an interesting addition as well

is this an inappropriate time to point out how pretty Ben Barnes is

okay I kind of love the depiction of the shadow powers okay sue me

'they are traitors who tried to kill you' why are you suddenly making valid points despite having kind of committed low scale genocide

'i never said I was smart' YES MAL BE THE VOICE OF HIMBOS EVERYWHERE

Kaz's face going from 'can you believe this idiot' at Mal to 'fuck me I'm gonna do the same thing aren't I' at Inej

'For who would oppose us now?' *himbo romantic rival appears out of nowhere and shoots at him* god I love this show

him standing calmly in his ridiculous all black attire after nodding at his soldier to stop the himbo in his tracks, i fucking can't

could she summon light without the Darkling making her after he put the collar on her until the uhm moment in the books? idts but in the show she can hmm

'only because I'm not in the game' you tell him Jesper

not me snickering at 'you'll be seen not as a saviour, but as a heretic' LMFAO

'Shame. I'll have to give that speech again now.' THIS SHOW IS A FUCKING COMEDY AND YOU CAN'T PROVE ME WRONG

YES LET'S FUCKING GO SULI SOLIDARITY

Darkles casually whipping the Cut out like a shuriken or a throwing knife at Jesper because he shot at him lmao I can't

INEJ FUCKING GHAFA STABBED ONE THE OLDEST AND MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN THAT WORLD AND THAT IS VERY TELLING OF HER POWER

that moment where you actually think that affected him despite having read the books and watched the show

and then he has to go and fucking say 'it will take more than this' and I can't be help but be a little bit impressed at this old fool's resilience

throwback to when he said 'the king is a child' sir you make some valid points sometimes and it does make it difficult to hate you

I would just like to inform everyone that it is currently 6:09 am IST and I am sipping my second mug of wine while watching netflix sab for the second time instead of doing my three papers that are due tomorrow

I'm sorry but Inej jumping to check on Zoya after she gets knocked over by the volcra? first class display of solidarity and sisterhood as well as Inej's inherent kindness

Kaz jumping in front of a FUCKING VOLCRA AND STABBING IT WITH HIS CANE to save Inej, you best believe love is true, kids

god the volcra are so ugly and gross, they did such a good job with them

they kind of remind me of these creatures (I think they might have been called Hollows or smth) from the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children movie

STAG VISION TIME

despite my dislike for the callous nature with which the stag plotline was handled, I kind of dig the stag vision scene

'It's just me and you now, Alina. And we're all we need, anyway.' I actually feel bad for this old fool simping for this wonderful gorgeous powerful woman despite lying to her and manipulating her and exploiting her power

okay 'I never needed you' *stabs the bone fragment out of his hand* beautiful power move I fucking love you so so much

alright ben looking like ✨ that✨ not only in physical pain but also emotional pain at what the Darkling clearly considers another betrayal from this girl he wants to give the world and maybe? loves? maybe? or at least has feelings for makes my fucking heart hurt while simultaneously soar at Alina taking back control and reclaiming her power as her own and stepping into her own

'how do you claim such power' okay could have had better dialogue there writers

the fucking score lifting as she says 'you cannot claim what was not given to you' good people my heart is full

one day I'll talk about my defense of the chosen one trope because god damn I kind of love it

hmm I wonder was that brief hesitation that we saw on Alina's face due to her thinking about the 'you chose to betray our people' comment or the 'i was trying to save us' comment because that will define some of her actions in the later seasons (hopefully god if we get some, I honestly don't know what with this stupid brownface debacle)

I'm not saying talking about brownface and pointing out that it is wrong (for further context, I am actually brown) and harmful is stupid btw I'm talking about the incidents involving brownface in question

I don't wanna talk about this anymore but I might feel like I need to and end up posting about it idk

goodness Ivan actually believing in this cause makes me so sad because he too has been victimized by the system that ostracizes Grisha and he has every right to feel the way that he does

Ben actually fighting in that ridiculously heavy cloak and kefta when he's about to turn 40 this year makes me super impressed because I as a 19 year old sometimes wake up with muscle pulls after weeks of inactivity it's weird idk

also I understand that this Mal Darkling fight is completely fanservice and serves nearly no purpose to the plot in general but like I? love it?

'I don't have to kill you Darkling. Your past will do it for me' YES HIMBO GO OFF YOU TELL THAT OLD MAN GODS THAT WAS SEXY AS FUCK

maybe it's because I know Darkles will survive and will come out of it more powerful but I can't get myself to feel bad for him at the moment

Inej and Mal tearing up at Alina's condition made me almost feel something despite it being super obvious she was gonna be fine and save their asses at the last moment

HER POWER

a solitary Kaz in spotted on the western side of the newly expanded fold in his signature all black emo boy look

okay but the crows with zoya and malina is such an adorable team? I literally love them so much?

INEJ'S FUCKING SMILE AT ALINA GIVING HER THE DAGGER AND KAZ LOOKING AT HER AGSGSGSHSJSJSK MY HEART CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE

SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO NAME IT WELL GIRLIE I KNOW IT TOO AND MY FUCKING HEART IS LITERALLY GONNA BURST

okay I know they had one interaction but Mal and Jesper would be besties in another universe

Kaz glaring at Jesper when he answers ''course not' to Alina's 'will you still be trying to kidnap me?' tell me one fucking adaptation that got the dynamics between characters this perfectly

okay why do I love that Alina kept the jewellery as maybe a small nod to she has the wits to, um, you know, I don't wanna say steal, but, um, yeah, steal it because she knew she would need money to survive on the run

oh Jessie I love you so much I wish you hadn't said those things on you ig story about the brownface

it's like every single celeb I grow attached to god's like nope that one is going to do or say something problematic (hey btw im not reassigning blame to god for stuff people have done out of their own free will, 'twas a joke)

AAAAAAAH them saying 'the deal is the deal' in the show even though they didn't have to but like they did and I love them for it

Inej literally not being able to not stare at Kaz's face and smile after this <3

'I didn't expect it to burn at all. But it can be destroyed in the end. Just like him' babe you're not wrong but like um just you wait

god Mal being on supportive boyfie mode is well, absolutely adorable, obviously, but I wish we got to see more of him as a person outside of his attachment to Alina

kaz my little demjin I wish you hadn't have had to suffer so much to meet the crows and find your calling

fastforwarding Zoya's arc is also an interesting choice to me

I wish the hug hadn't been done though, it didn't feel earned

maybe Alina awkwardly and half-heartedly (remember, at this point the alliance is fresh and they still don't entirely trust each other) reached for a hug and Zoya avoided her? and then the rest of Zoya's lines followed? that would have made more sense to me at least

I love Sujaya as well, she brought life into Zoya with whatever little screentime and scraps of writing she got

inej asking kaz 'what's your angle?' beep bop bleep morp I sense another incoming embarrassing love confession

'but we do need you' *stares at her face intensely* 'I need you' ah look at the clock, look's like it's time to screech and flap your arms like you're a volcra because you're incapable of containing your emotions

NO YOU CAN'T GO DIRECTLY FROM KANEJ PROGRESS TO HELNIK BREAKUP (TEMPORARY, MIND YOU)

helnik my loves you don't deserve this I'm so sorry for both of you

Matthias fucking smiling ruefully while he says 'this was... just a cruel joke all along' THIS IS NOT FUCKING OKAY

omg hellgate

AAAAAAAAH NINA IS ON THE SAME FRAME AS THE OG CROWS I CAN'T HANDLE THIS

CAMERA PAN FROM KAZ SAYING 'JUST HOW THIS ALL STARTED... WE'RE GONNA NEED A HEARTRENDED' TO NINA OVERHEARING HIM AND LOOKING OVER?????!!!!!! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING THIS TO ME?!

Nina genuinely being curious as to the status of the sun saint because she obviously still cares

Also, 'But she is a Saint' okay Kaz trying to earn brownie points you have succeeded

DID THAT SAILOR JUST SAY 'GOED MORGEN FENTOMEN' TO MALINA BECAUSE I AM NOT OKAY WITH THEM JUST THROWING THAT IN MY FACE ALL OF A SUDDEN

gods I know I'll probably see them again but my heart is full of sorrow as my eyes drink in the sight of my crows for the last time for a while

I know people were annoyed at the meadow flashbacks but guess what? as a darklina, I loved them

'now that the Darkling is dead' could have phrased that a little differently my dudes that line needed to hold more weight

am I glad that they showed Darkles in this state with his nichevo'ya as a tasty little cliffhanger despite not being entirely true to the source material? maybe but only because Ben Barnes saying 'follow' and the nichevo'ya doing exactly so sent a chill down my spine

well, that's it for now, I'll have to move on I guess, get back to my real life which I'm obviously not ready to do

thank you to whoever actually read these things

I probably should have just made reactions or commentary videos instead but I'm lazy

my tumblr will probably go into inactivity once more as I emerge from my stint in the grishaverse

it was quite short (less than 2 months), considering the length of my other obsessions but it was definitely more intense than the other ones

[fanfoolishness]

Mandalorian live-blogging, chapter 12, the Siege!

What did the Client really want to do with Grogu? He didn’t exactly seem to be on good terms with Gideon.

Din: “I finally know where I’m taking you — away from my life but not from my heart *cryyyyyy*” — oh wait, was that not the one?

The very practiced way Din is asking Grogu to do complicated shipboard maintenance suggests this has absolutely happened how many times before?

Din is so expressive here! All his gestures! So much nodding! His “no!” Hands! Shit, maybe my storyline about Din teaching Grogu sign is being carried on right here.

This may be the longest amount of time Din Djarin has spent continuously talking in about a year. I love how Grogu brings it out of him. He’s clearly exasperated by the shitty ship, but endlessly patient with Grogu, and I love how his voice absolutely conveys both of those emotions simultaneously

The tender way he says “no no no” to Grogu is so gentle.

I also love his contentedly narrating to Grogu as a part of their daily routine

I could easily watch 20 minutes of that type of content every episode and try to include pure adorableness like that in just about every fic I write

Oh, Cara Dune... why are you such an enjoyable character played by such an obnoxious person? I’m glad Gina Carano is taking her nonsense elsewhere, especially since it was clear she’d had multiple warnings, multiple chances to educate herself, but damn, I am gonna miss Cara on screen lugging Din around like a rag doll, or just smashing people in the face. I really appreciated seeing a woman on screen with the physique and capability to be that effortlessly kickass.

Din Djarin, wearing a jetpack: scrambles off his shitty ramp with all the grace of a flying lobster

I love the dynamic of Greef and Cara and Din. I hope we at least get to see Greef again! Maybe he’ll be like “now that the town’s cleaned up, the Marshal’s moved on.” Also, since when do we have Marshal in Star Wars? I’ve seen how many SW movies how many times, and no such thing as local law enforcement, let alone local law enforcement with a Western flair? Then all of a sudden Mando S2 shows up with Cobb Vanth and Cara Dune and I’m wondering if it’s an actual legal position in the Outer Rim and like, a cultural title of Outer Rim humans on many worlds (because it sure as shit doesn’t sound like a title you’d take in the Core Worlds).

Anyway, Greef’s actual love and adoration of Grogu is the sweetest. Maybe he and Peli can start a Grogu fan club and be the founding auntie and uncle.

Still can’t believe I missed that statue of IG-11 until I saw it pointed out here on tumblr.

Just think of how this is probably the first time Din’s been around this many children since Sorgan. And Sorgan kids had it different, they had a world that loved and protected them, and a place they could freely be above ground, and so that was fine; and Din had thought the children of his covert, the foundlings, they were fine too. But then it turns out it wasn’t true, the foundlings weren’t safe, they were slaughtered. And this is Nevarro, a township that wasn’t Home, but was nonetheless home to his people; and he remembers a little school in their hidden, simple covert for the foundlings in their training helmets; and he’s both heartened and pained that this group of children, at least, are able to be schooled in a safe place.

Din trusts these people as much as he’s trusted any non-Mandalorians, and it’s a lot! He knows he can ask them for help with the ship, he knows they saved his life and Grogu’s. And yet still see how unsure he is to leave Grogu at the school! He knows they don’t mean harm, he sees how beautiful and well-used the school is, he knows it should be safe... but he still stares after Grogu, barely looking at Cara, wanting to follow him. “Wherever I go, he goes,” says Din desperately, barely bearing to trust that anyone else could keep the kid safe like he could.

I keep thinking I need to write a fic of him flying off to go get Grogu at the end, now that I’m rewatching it, perhaps now is the time!

I’d love to have some of these kids’ Star Wars hairstyles

Hey! The Maelstrom! I know that! You know Han Solo did the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs? And I love correcting people when they think SW didn’t know what they were talking about? Parsecs ARE a unit of distance and that’s what Han meant because of the Maelstrom! He got dang freaking close to it! Anyway I’m just very excited because y’all do realize they built the Sun Crusher in the Maelstrom? Anyone here read those books?

Grogu is such a little shit! and he really did just say “Patu,” huh

I love Greef’s beard. I love it! Are we saying it enough? It’s great!

So is Nevarro basically an asteroid? Are they seriously flying to the other side of the planet for this? Maybe it’s tiny? How can Din fly over half a planet on a jetpack? Nevarro must be a galactic pebble.

I could watch Din just get in and out of vessels all day long

Din is just so excited to use the Phoenix and I love that he’s not that good at it but loves it anyway. “Hold tight”

Lava tide? The hell is this shit planet.

Din is not impressed by stormtroopers one little bit. I love him standing there all nonchalant.

Din is just sooooo shiny in this episode.

Cast it into the fire, Isildur!

Why do these bases never have guard rails for these giant drops

The Mythrol asked the same question 1.3 seconds later

Mythrol? Cracks of doom? Mithril??? A coincidence? Surely not

Greef I love your outfit so much

Yeaaaaaaah get those Snoke-looking bitches outta here

Din with a horrible sinking feeling... “I don’t like this...”

Din is heavily regretting letting this man live rn

Din must have been seeing. FUcking. RED

You know if they stop building their hallways with fucking COVER the stormtroopers won’t keep getting killed in them by enemy assailants with better weapons and aim

Din running to get his son <3

Cara SMASH and I love it

Din, you flew away over the LAVA? That is so badass. And I love his very clumsy superhero landing. And taking a running leap off the top of the lava flat

I love that Cara doesn’t quite get the whole kid thing, but totally supports Din in his love of fatherhood

Cara would be GREAT at driving the Mako

I do love how often environmental hazards take out scouttroopers on their speeder bikes. Like, no shit! You’re a human trying to go 300 miles an hour? Since when is our reaction time capable of that???

Dammit TIE fighters! They’re much more intimidating on a planet, actually. They pack a serious punch when you aren’t shooting ship-sized lasers back at them

Yes!!! The shitty little Razor Crest that could!

And Grogu’s excitement! He trusts Din so much now that it doesn’t even enter his mind they might be in danger. He just knows Din’s here, we’re gonna have fun, I trust him.

And think how much Grogu has grown since S1. He would have been hiding in the back with all of that excitement beforehand, not excited and waving his hands and giggling

Din is just... resigned to Grogu being sick. And he could clean Grogu up and go back to see Greef, but he just wants to make sure the kid’s okay... especially after what he’s just learned about Moff Gideon.

I do miss the slower pacing of S2. I would have liked another episode in between this and The Jedi where Din just sort of processes and deals with all of this new information.

Oh hurr hurr wait I write fanfic

I like that some of these Imps don’t have the Coruscanti accent. They’re just like... y’know, American.

Gideon is so childishly pleased by his Darktroopers, like get over yourself, dingus

If Favreau took this episode I wonder if that means he wanted to make sure all the mythology and shit is going according to plan. Or maybe I’ve just been watching too much X-Files. If Chris Carter wrote an ep, it was mythology ONLY, and that was it.

The end! Maybe I’ll write tomorrow :)

[eisforeidolon]

So here's the thing, I actually used to be one of /those/ D*stiel/C*stiel/M*sha stans when I first got into SPN. But it only lasted for about a year, and I was p young and just found out about Tumblr so I got easily influenced. And I only became a stan between s7 and s8. Then I lost interest in SPN for years, decided to rewatch the show properly (so without skipping s1-s3 like I tragically did the first time) and I completely snapped out of it. Meanwhile you have people who have been here 1/2

for years, continuously, and who still seriously think C*stiel is as important as S&D and even more, that he and Misha have been carrying the show on their backs, that D*stiel is ~real and endgame~, etc. etc. And it baffles me. It truly does. Idk how anyone can go for years believing in this feeble fantasy, when the show and the cast&crew are continously proving it wrong. It's truly some cult-ish and weird behavior. All I know is that everyday I regret my SPN past more and more. 2/2 

*****************************************

We all make mistakes, Anon, and at least you learned and grew and moved past it? 

I get being influenced by an online fandom.  You don’t even have to be super young to get overly caught up in so many people all together insisting something is true.  Why would they write thousands of words of really in-depth meta about symbolism if there wasn’t something there to see?  Why would they continually state that Misha’s a lead with such surety if it wasn’t true?  That would be crazy!

Which is the thing - it is crazy, and it’s not limited to this fandom by any means.  The same sort of convoluted meta and denial came out of the TJLC people, the Harmonians, Sterek, etc.  But it’s not even just a fandom phenomena - chemtrails, flat earthers, moon landing conspiracists, etc.?  It comes from the same sort of place - there’s something very seductive for some about being part of a special group that “gets it” when most people don’t.  Even without that, people in a group tend to go along rather than go against the flow.  So someone could easily join fandom, end up in a circle of true believers totally by accident and wonder why everyone around them is insisting that rock is a duck.  A lot of people, instead of leaving, are going to either agree it’s a duck to avoid making waves or actually start to wonder if it might not be a duck after all since everyone in the echo chamber surrounding them swears it walks and quacks like a duck.

Anyone who is objectively looking at the totality of the show and its promotion can pretty easily see - from where the focus is, from what the obvious conclusions about objective events are, from what those involved talk about and how they talk about it?  Well, all of it makes that ‘heller/minion fantasy bubble look just as flimsy and transparent as it is. 

For somebody getting a lot of their information about interviews and cons secondhand from determined misinterpreters, though?  For somebody skipping or only half-watching through every scene that doesn’t involve their ship or their favorite character?  For somebody smack dab in the middle of a bunch of other people all insisting that lump there is totally obviously a duck as it sits there like a rock because if you only look at it from this specific ~*most important*~ angle...?  It gets a lot harder to see clearly.  Especially for anyone who is actively refusing to look because they really don’t want to know it’s a rock.

One of the things that still sticks with me quite a while later now is the post I saw in the episode tags by a ‘heller after some conflict between Dean and Cas.  They straight up said they could not see any way what had happened could be interpreted to be ship-positive ... so they’d just have to wait for the meta writers to tell them how it was.  After a certain point, it really does just come down to actively choosing the shared fantasy over admitting the obvious reality. 

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Liked About Red vs Blue: Season 2

(Top 5 Dislikes)

One post down, one more to go… and then twenty-six more to go for the rest of this series. Why did I decide to do this again? Meh, whatever. Let’s just get on with it as we resume looking over Season 2.

#5. Machinima

Okay, this might sound weird, but hear me out. The machinima last season was… basic. Not bad mind you, there is only so much that you can do without a lot of creativity and resources. Resources that RT didn’t have at this point in time. But mostly, they just went through the default motions. Nothing really stood out. It had some cool stuff, like them somehow managing to blow the Warthog on top of Red Base. I think they even said in the commentary that trying to replicate it for the remaster was a pain in the ass. Still, it just didn’t stand out, though the humor made you not notice.

Clearly, the RT guys wanted to push themselves a little more now that they knew how Halo operated and they could machinimate better. Which they did. I noticed a lot of little things when watching the season. Like having Caboose jumping up and down during the opening gunfight while behind a rock, or even Doc just pretending to fire his blaster. Or having Simmons more or less trembling in the finale when his… ugh… fax parts act up and you can tell what Grif is staring at when he questions it. Or adding in things like Lopez’ note in the finale, and even having it written in binary. Heck, we even have smoke come out of Grif’s helmet when Simmons catches him in the act.

These are small things, but it helps make the world and characters feel a little more alive. Clearly, machinima has its limitations, and we’re a long way away from them adding in animation. But creative people will find a way to work within their limitations, and even use those limitations to their advantage. Considering how long this show has been going, I’d say that they succeeded.

#4. Caboose’s Mind

One of the most memorable parts, and one with some actual effects on the characters, is when Church and Tex go into Caboose’s mind to kill O’Malley. It’s one of the weirdest, yet funniest parts of the season. We get to see how Caboose views everyone, with Tucker being stupid and Church being obsessed with being Caboose’s best friend. He gets them wrong, but it makes sense because it’s how /Caboose/ interprets these individuals. They aren’t supposed to be accurate. It’s especially funny when we see the Reds and only Simmons is close to right Grif is Yellow (which they outright did to prove that he was Orange to viewers), Donut is a girl since that’s what Caboose thought at the time, and Sarge has a pirate accent instead of a Southern one. 

It’s just funny to see Caboose, who at this point had been portrayed as the most dim-witted, and how he views these people. It kinda reflects what he wants with Church being his best friend and the Reds fearing him and his greatness. His ideal version of himself is pretty much a cool version of himself, though otherwise not too different. Church’s reaction and frustration at all fo this, especially Caboose!Church, only makes it funnier as is Tex being unfazed by all of it. It did kinda throw me off when I watched it the first time, but God it’s funnier on rewatch now that I know what’s going on. It’s a nice look into Caboose’s mind, and we got to see glimpses of the others int he S14 episode Head Cannon.

I think the biggest things though were for one, we got a location that wasn’t Blood Gulch finally. Sure it’s pretty much a standard video game map with a bunch of cubes, but after having the only setting be a canyon, it was refreshing. We also have some major impact with this since due to all the chaos, Caboose’s character becomes what it is now. We can debate all day how we should view Caboose and his intellectual level, but I do think that this helped endear the character to people and allowed him to stand out much, much more. Even now I know very few people, if anyone, who dislikes Caboose so while maybe they should acknowledge that he was more or less brain-damaged, the character himself has become better due to this. Which is nice~

#3. O’Malley Subplot

Speaking of Caboose’s mind, the O’Malley plot was by far the standout in this season. At first, it wasn’t too much since only Tucker cared about Caboose’s sudden murderous behavior. But once Tex came back, things picked up. While the backstory wasn’t totally accurate, it would certainly lead to more ahead. The fight in Caboose’s mind was fun. Tucker got to show some genuine competence when he came up with the plan to make the Reds turn their comms off and even using Lopez as a backup plan. With how much more competent Tucker grows later once circumstances pretty much force him to, this was an early sign showing that he is capable. He just needs to be pushed into doing it.

O’Malley himself didn’t stand out too much, just being kinda murderous. Then he escaped into Doc. I’ll go more into this next season, but this was the best decision ever. Doc is a whiny goody-two-shoes while O’Malley is gleefully, over-the-top evil. The contrast of the two personalities works super well and is just really funny to watch, though again it applies more for the next season. By the end, O’Malley makes his move and firmly sets himself up as the first proper Big Bad of the series, and he’s the perfect villain for the Blood Gulch Chronicles.

Overall, the whole subplot was really fun even though it did kind of have a slow start. It brought back Tex, had some really funny moments like the Reds' reactions to Lopez’s horrible love song. At least Donut liked it, haha~ It gave us our first proper villain, which led to one Hell of an insane finale. Even everything in between with Donut getting captured by the Blues and them trying to use this to make Sarge build them new bodies was fun to watch. The first half of S2 s super fun, but the second half is, without doubt, the best part for me. O’Malley was the catalyst, and to this day is one of my favorite villains. Love it~

#2. Improved Production Standards

Season 1 was good but flawed. It was clear that the RT guys weren’t really sure what they were doing. Audio quality was meh, jokes could drag, and the pacing was rather slow. It makes sense though when you read about what the original plans were. RvB was meant to be a miniseries, and nothing more. But pretty much a combination of them not getting to what they planned as soon as they thought (Donut was supposed to be in pink armor much sooner for example, and they realized how long it was taking to get there) as well as just coming up with more ideas extended things to a nineteen episode run. So there was no long term plan and things like writing and machinima were done in mere days in between releases. Plus there were only two main machinimators, Burnie and Geoff, and if you listen to the original S1 commentary they are both clearly exhausted. Burnie even said on a one-on-one podcast with Geoff on how they had pretty much had every conversation ever and they’d be like some old married couple just staring at each other. You can find it here if you’re interested, it’s a fun one~

So yeah… when you look back you can kinda tell that S1 was a bit of a rush job, and a tiring one at that. It’s still very good and like I said, they found ways to use so much you barely notice things were made up on the fly. But clearly, they needed a better system. Enter Matt Hullum. He had already been voicing Sarge, but he ended up stepping in to play a larger behind the scenes role. He joined Burnie on writing and directing, and thus they started planning things much farther ahead. As such, they knew the general plot and thus things could be tightened. The pacing is much better with episodes feeling faster, but having plenty of things happening. I already talked about the machinima improvements, which having Matt as well as Gus coming back from Puerto Rico also helped there. The voice acting, while still amateur, improved as well as the audio mixing. The filter is still a little distracting, but it and the general audio mixing is greatly improved. Pretty much every aspect of S1 was improved big time. It wasn’t perfect, but still, they clearly put a lot in creating a more quality product.

Season 2 had a hard job. Season One had to prove that this was a show worth watching. Season 2 had to prove that it could keep going and wasn’t just a one-hit-wonder. And ho boy did they. It’s funnier, it’s more ambitious, and even starts adding in some story. This season got the viewers from last time to come back, and probably brought in some new ones. It proved that this was a show that was sticking around and that RT had staying power. If this season failed, RvB would probably just be remembered as this funny Halo show. But it succeeded because they wanted the show to keep succeeding and be good, and that effort shows.

#1. Improved Characterizations

The thing that I enjoyed most about Season 1 was the character interactions. They just had natural chemistry and their interactions were funny. The characters themselves though were a little one-note. They had personality, but they didn’t really stand out when you compare them to other comedies like The Simpsons or South Park. I guess that RT realized this as well because this is where the characters really begin to become the same ones that we know now. Not all of them mind you like Simmons and Tucker are the least fleshed out here, but even then the signs of who they would become are there with things like Simmons clinginess to Sarge and the joke about Tucker’s rock, as well as the previously mentioned show of competence when pushed.

Donut and Grif show more of their personality, with Donut expressing his hobbies like home decor and growing to like his lightish-red armor. Grif shows his more lazy slacker attributes, like sleeping during meetings and forgetting the ammo, and his unhealthy habits like smoking and his constant eating. Which he’s pretty much doing intentionally to annoy Simmons and mess up the parts that he got from him. Lopez also got a lot of personalities now that he can talk. Namely, after the Reds nearly kill him and the Blues use him for their own means, he hates them all and his apathetic personality has stuck ever since. Poor guy has had such a hard time, haha. And I already went into Caboose, so there's no need to repeat myself. Even Shelia got sassier this season~

The one I think got the most improvement though is Sarge. In S1, he was just kind of a standard sergeant character you could find in just about any military movie, and the voice reflected it. Here? Matt just goes off the wall. He said in the S2 commentary that Sarge is pretty much the combination of various 50’s character tropes, like the grumpy old guy and the mad scientist. It shows. Sarge’s hatred of Blues and love of warfare are much more evident, especially in the finale. His hatred of Grif is also much more played up. We see that he is absolutely insane with his conspiracy theories about Lopez being brainwashed by the Blues instead of reprogrammed and turning Simmons into a cyborg instead of just getting a new robot. Sarge is the opposite of sensible, and having this guy be the leader and forcing everyone to follow his plans due to it is freakin’ hilarious. Matt exaggerating the accent from this point on only adds to this characterization and is much, much more fitting.

The characters, in my opinion, are the best part of Red vs Blue. This season demonstrates that very well. Unlike S1 where there were only shades of their later portrayal, this one uses broad strokes. I think some of the better voice acting can also be due to this since the cast now has more of a character to fool around with instead of just having to more or less act like their everyday selves. The characters were stronger, and as such the interaction and humor were even better. As such, it is my favorite part of Red vs Blue Season 2. Can they keep it up in Season 3? Well… we’ll find out soon~

[immortals-malec]

ok talk about why clac.e didn't work pls -deamaia

Oof rant here we go. let’s hope it all makes sense because i ramble a lot when i rant. For me it’s the damn writing for them is why c!ace didn’t work, (the chemistry is another one but the writing drives me nuts) So in s1, c!ace was developed as a somewhat high school/your basic white YA novel couple and they stay like this for the rest of the series, they never grew out of it. Until like their last damn scene in 3x22Most of their writing always fell flat in s1, the moments were either down right creepy or just look like they wanted to bang the entire time, they were supposed to have like romantic stepping stones for their relationship and yet, there was none, nothing felt romantic (this can fall on the no chemistry thing as well but I felt like it was the writing as well). But there was some moments you could be like okay cute, but you can realize everytime they had that ‘oh cute’ moment damn Ruelle was playing in the background so we can just thank her for that. Like in 1x11 they had like this moment about what happened in the TWI universe, they’re talking about how this is real and shit I’m like you are trying to tell me that what they said in the AU world is what they felt? Sh!Jace was there for like two seconds and got stabbed! And sh!Clary legit faded out of existence for awhile there, how did she know how that Clary felt??? I was so confused it was supposed to be a romantic moment and yet it confuses the fuck out of me.  S2 things just get worse because of siblings plot shit and the fact is they still try to move them along as a couple but just ended up making them have a brotherly-sisterly bond, and the fact is they probably could’ve ended the plot sooner but choose not to and show us Clary moving on with Simon and Jace sleeping with people to forget he’s in love with his sister. Tbh they forgot about c!ace until 2x14 and they suddenly remembered that they were endgame and rushed to get them back together, which some of their moments during that time was yeah sorta okay I still didn’t feel anything romantic going on for them, that fucking glow-y scene in 2x19 is scarred into my brain, that’s like supposed to be romantic-bonding for 2.0 of their relationship is just what the fuck. Without the special effects I would’ve hated to be a cast member watching them hold onto each other while a fan blows air, I would’ve walked off or just cried from how bad it was. And than we have the oh so famous c!ace scenes in 2x20, I still honestly can’t remember feeling for them here, like yeah he’s dead but hes gonna come back in like two seconds. And that damn “i love you” scene that should’ve been cut, one never addressed it, didn’t make any sense (was just there because someone was a little upset that Malec was gonna get a whole I can’t live without you scene) and two because I feel like because is might have been the road to that damn stupid ass shit Jamie gives them and therefore the other writers who actually have brains had to.So now s3 which is the start of everybody is tired of the unearned crap c!ace is given. Because here is when they start trying to build up c!ace (and s!zzy too) as this epic in love, meant to be couple, which is a lot of my eyerolls in 3a come from. You really don’t see it in the first episode but boy in the ones after it you do. The whole talk in 3x02? Like what the fuck where did that come from because I sure as fuck don’t feel like you have given those emotions off before and I don’t remember you looking like this in the s1/s2 writing where was that and also this is basically Magnus’s fucking lines from 2x07! I don’t remember what the fuck happens in 3x03 other than Izzy wearing that dress and the Malec/Maryse dinner.  But 3x04 is just a fucking mess and it’s by our favorite writer Jamie!! Who wrote those incesty lines in 2x04! But she’s here writing lines out for c!ace that don’t make any fucking sense and it’s just for c!ace fans. like the whole “My love for clary is stronger than your magic” bullshit, just what the hell, that whole episode is basically telling me that they love each other, but they aren’t showing me because that’s how storytelling works, you gotta do both, Malec has it, it’s not that hard. And also I totally almost forgot that half of s3 was spent with Jace forcing Clary not to tell anyone about the wish, ooo couple goals, not. Than 3x05 happens, tbh I forgot most, other than the Malec drama with the stupid timeline which effects the whole damn show and the angel getting his heart punched out by Lilith and Jace getting spelled.But yeah that stupid ass two month timeline that effects the whole show because Alec and Magnus really began their relationship in s1, they just didn’t make it official to the whole world in s2. It really hurts c!ace and their epic love story they try to give us. Because how did they fall in love to the point where Lilith had to get Magnus to spell Jace, because he’s so in love with her that it’s stronger than the Queen of Hell’s magic???? Unless they’re trying to tell me that they either fell in love in s1 or during the time they thought they were siblings.Which is really fucking bad, so when did they fall in love?! They never showed me in the episodes’ writing. Anyways moving on, c!ace gets some more toxic moments and that another “I love you” scene which just had me on the ground because why Jesus. Do they do this to me. And than we have Izzy talking about how much Jace has changed since they met Clary which has me like this????? ‘Cause hm, well ever since Jace met Clary, he’s treated his siblings like shit and became even more of an asshole, and that’s stayed the same over the past three seasons? Where is the change? Here you see that they’re trying to make them seem like Alec and Magnus, who’ve actually changed since they met each other, c!ace? That’s nowhere in their writing. Then we have the whole 3x08 thing where he’s killing clary in his mind, which i have no words for that since i only watched it once. 3x10, good episode, no c!ace moments other than that fake ass cry and ‘cLAEEERY’ yell. And now 3b is where we get to see all of the book!c-lace moments that either don’t make any sense or are just plain toxic. 3x11 I basically skip all of the Jace-c!ace related moments mainly because i can’t stand his face and i watch this episode right before i go to bed so yeah. But it’s a good episode.  3x12, oh the famous shitty reunion that falls under bad writing and bad chemistry, I can’t tell if it was the writing or the chemistry for that one, the reunion should’ve been nice ass top tier but yet- we get weird ass smiles, barely any emotion because I know they do write like ‘the character feels happy’ some crap like that, because I remember the 2x20 script having something like that- but with c!ace nothing- just nothing. Just about how Jace wanted to take her to Paris, lol where in the fuck did that come from because he’s never mentioned that, nEVER. Than we got 3x13- lol my favorite episode (not) this episode was just a shitty filler, but the c!ace moments make me wanna sleep and gag which was all of the action I felt during one of their scenes.  So in this one they are back together and trying to figure out how to get the rune off of Clary, because first she really doesn’t want to have s-ex with Jace, ‘it’s never gonna be just me and you, it’s him too.’-  which they end up forgetting. Than we get the shittiest build up to a first time scene ever, because this just comes out of nowhere really I guess if you count the previous episodes as build up, but there’s no  build up in this one, it just comes out of no where really. One minute she’s like I wANT THE RUNE OFF  before I get the d to- i mean it’s YOLO, give me that d. Like????? WHERE. But here’s where we get a book-quote that doesn’t make any damn sense but we gotta do it. “I will love you until I die, and even after then” some shit like that, I can’t remember. Does she even say I love you back? But honestly here did that even come from, the writing makes me wanna go hide. And we also get the shittiest written/filmed worse chemistry after first time scene ever. Like it’s supposed to be romantic??? But the way its filmed and written is just so damn bad, all I did was gag my first watch and rewatch of it. Not to forget the whole it’s basically a incest three thing, because her brother decides to send her a message afterwards.And 3x14 which is just ughh, most of the c!ace ones were with her brother, and the fact is the little ice skating thing was meant to be cute, I guess but I really didn’t feel shit, they were barely in the next episode. 3x16, also known as the dumb and dumber part for them, because lets summon Lilith-, but also the whole Jace is able to bring her out of becoming evil works on paper, made me have a headache because how was he able to be the one to pull her back??? Like that trope is amazing but for c!ace doesn’t make sense, because they haven’t shown me that they are in love that much, or care that much. 3x17-3x18, I just remember him being there, that stupid wings shit and her knocking the shit out of him when she turned dark clary. Oh but the next one- me hate. We got Jamie once again proving that she’s a shit writer, because we got c!ace and drugs! And don’t forget the whole she’s gonna force herself on him, but don;t worry he can push her away, even though he’s about to pass out. (And never once address this) Barely of them in the next one, because we got another return of the “Until I die” quote that still doesn’t make sense. That I rolling my eyes again, now in 3x21/3x22 they didn’t actually piss me off or make me roll my eyes, because somehow the writing was finally somewhat good for them. But they had to throw the “Loving cells” quote and comparing themselves to Malec, which writers you aren’t trying to hide at this point you were trying to make them out to be next to the Main couple, when I was like I could like them. Their last scene is so damn good! Like punch in the gut. WHERE WAS THAT THE WHOLE TIME. Shorter story with the writing: C!ace suffered from tell us all about it but we won’t ever show you/unearned development. All because Todd and co were chickens who didn’t want to change the endgame relationships and didn’t write them good.Mainly in the end you can tell that like I said before because they fucked around with them, they had to give them the unearned writing, so they could match up with Malec. Because just like go through gif sets of them, most of what c!ace got is what Malec had before, except better writing and better chemistry. The chemistry is another reason-  but I believe the writing is the bigger one in the end. 

[blayzez]

I'm sorry, I know I don't usually post discourse on my blog. I'm just... really hurt right now.

At the age of 24, after spending my entire childhood forcing myself to believe I was straight because that's what my family and religion said I was supposed to be, I finally acknowledged that I was bisexual. Even then, I was still second-guessing myself: What if I only think I'm bisexual because the internet/social media makes it seem like the "In" thing? What if my sexuality is just a mask and not who I really am? What if, what if, what if. It was hard.

Then I saw Voltron. Lance seemed to have a bisexuality arc laid out for him, and it was obvious that he didn't quite know he was bi and/or wasn't emotionally ready to acknowledge it.

That was just so validating. It made me happy to know that being confused about your sexuality -- not being sure if you're the sexuality you think you might be -- was common enough to include it in a kid's show and it made me feel so much better! I was so happy, and with Lance's help (and the help of my friends and therapist), I was able to finally accept my sexuality for what it was. And I'm an adult. Think about how many kids his arc could have helped! Kids who were questioning, kids who were unsure, kids that might not being surrounded by a good support system and have to hide who they are. Lance was shaping up to be someone kids could really look up, admire, and in turn accept themselves for they are because of him.

And now that's washed down the drain. It meant so much to me, perhaps meant so much to a lot of kids that needed that role model, but it clearly meant nothing to the writers and that is just so disheartening.

This isn't even about shipping. I love K/ance with all my heart, but I would be okay with any endgame ship so long as it was written well. This includes keeping the characters in-character and allowing the romance to help in their character development. Keith was the most likely candidate -- he really did make Lance a better person and vice versa -- but if someone else filled that role and filled it well, I would have been perfectly fine with that! But that's not what we got. Instead, the boy who has been insecure ALL SERIES has to spend his only romance building up his partner and have that not be reciprocated. That most-likely-candidate boosted him up more than Lance's actual romantic partner, and that is just bad writing. That's not a good relationship. Relationships are two-way streets; you can't have only one of the partners be supportive -- they have to be EQUALLY supportive. And A//urance was not that. A//urance was rushed, did not help the characters develop in the slightest, and took away TWO great role models.

I don't like Allura. I think I've made this clear before, but I really don't like her. I was neutral to her in s1, then the whole Not-All-Galra arc happened in s2 and my opinion of her started going down at that point.

But she didn't deserve the hand she was dealt. She was the only woman of color in the main cast, and they KILL HER??? WHY????? I may not have liked her, but that doesn't mean she was a bad character! On the contrary, she was a great role model and I'm sure many girls of color looked up to her. And then they just kill her? First they take away the great role model Lance could have been as a confused bisexual character, and then they take away the only woman of color on the main cast. WHAT. THE. FUCK. You can't just do that! I feel so horrible for the kids who looked up to those characters only to have it all ripped out from under their feet.

Oh, but there was a random gay wedding at the end, so that makes it alllllllll better~

Except it doesn't. Adding in a gay wedding/kiss with little-to-no build-up is more likely to cause confusion than anything else. And it doesn't erase how dirty they did Lance and Allura. Both characters deserved better.

On the topic of shipping, yes, it was queerbait. I refused to believe the showrunners were doing that -- I absolutely refused because I trusted the showrunners completely. Surely they wouldn't have ALL OF THESE ROMANTIC PARALLELS between K/L with other canon romantic couples for nothing. Surely they wouldn't have developed K/L's relationship more than any other relationship unless there was a really good reason for it. SURELY THEY WOULDN'T BE OKAY WITH VAGUING ABOUT THE SHIP MULTIPLE TIMES AND BEING OKAY WITH DW USING K/L FOR MARKETING PURPOSES IF IT WASN'T GOING TO HAPPEN.

But nope. All of the media techniques to subtly hint at a romance used specifically for K/L meant nothing. It was just bros being bros nothing gay here.

And that is BULLSHIT.

Honestly, the whole season just screams, "SHOCK VALUE," to me. They wanted to shock people, but I don't think they really considered the repercussions of how they were doing it. I get shock value, bringing up the interest and encouraging audiences to rewatch the series to understand why the shock was actually built-up from the beginning, but there's right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. Voltron took the wrong way and screwed it up royally.

To be clear, I am not against straight ships. Far from it, some of my favorite ships are heterosexual. Nor do I fetishize mlm relationships -- K/L is only the second mlm relationship I've come to really love (the first being Hau and Gladion from Pokemon Sun & Moon). It's just that K/L really struck a chord with me and with so many other people, and to take that away for the sake of a straight ship and some shitty shock value? Dirty thing to do to the show's audience. Don't build up proper LGBT+ rep UNLESS YOU ACTUALLY FUCKING HAVE IT. The only rep? Shiro, and a hastily-added Zethrid/Ezor ship. Blaytz, too, but that was glossed over tbh and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the audience (not on tumblr because we analyze everything to death lol) completely forgot about Blaytz's interaction with that make Galra. That's not proper rep. That's throwing it in and thinking, "It exists so our job is done."

Media in general has being doing LGBT+ rep dirty for SO LONG. Even when we had positive LGBT+ characters in media, they were still characters based off of gay stereotypes. They were good positive characters, but were still perpetuating a certain bias against LGBT+ by displaying these stereotypes as fact. Times are supposed to be different now. We're supposed to be progressing, making it BETTER. I really thought Voltron was going to be part of that progress, that it would give us a well-written, well-developed, well-loved LGBT+ representation for kids of this generation to look up to and admire and learn acceptance -- about themselves and about others -- from. Instead, the showrunners three half-assed, tacked on LGBT+ reps and called it a day.

THAT'S NOT COOL.

This isn't about ships. This is about proper media representation for the LGBT+ community -- something that is really scarce, even now -- and how it affects the LGBT+ community when it's done badly. This also goes for racial rep. You can take two misrepresented groups and treat them horribly and then call it good rep. IT ISN'T. The poor representation of the LGBT+ community has proved to be detrimental in society's view of them. THIS DOESN'T HELP.

*sigh*

Off the topic of that, can we talk about how shit the writing was? Because it was really shit.

I'll admit that while I like s7, it wasn't written amazingly-well. Still, it wasn't bad and did have plenty of interesting episodes. Even with all of the asspulls we got in the last episode, it was still awesome because we got to see Shiro back in his element after losing almost everything in prior seasons. It was a mix of good writing and bad writing, but the good writing made up for the bad.

The seasons previous to that were well-done. Maybe not s4, but the other seasons were well-written and really enjoyable! There's a reason the show took off; the plot maybe standard, but the characters, character dynamics, and relationships were fantastic and were the true driving force behind the series and its success.

So why was s8 so all over the place? Why were plot threads that had been hinted at or outright confirmed left hanging or tied together hastily? So many things were alluded to in previous seasons only to lead to NOTHING. WHY???

Why did everyone BUT Lance get an arc?

What was the point of Lance getting a sword if it was never going to be brought up again?

Why was Keith's arc suddenly thrown to the wayside?

Why did Allura have to DIE for her arc to reach its conclusion?

WHY?

So many people complained about bad writing in Voltron, but I had always believed that the writing in Voltron was relatively good. Sure, it had its problems (like the entirety of s4, and the MFEs being boring as shit), but it was mostly a well-rounded show with well-rounded characters.

And s8... just threw all of that away.

All of that potential, all of those good arcs -- wasted.

The writing went downhill SO fast, and it's just such a shame. Something that meant so much to me has dissolved into the mess s8 was. It's disheartening.

I also want to apologize to all of my followers who followed me because my K/L optimism and metas. I'm sorry if I got your hopes up; I really thought K/L was the logical conclusion -- everything was building up to it, right from the first episode and even continuing in s7 (hell, even s8 added to it) -- and I truly thought the writers were going to follow through with all of the logical conclusions the previous seasons built up. I had faith in them, but I was wrong. For that, I apologize. I know it's just a cartoon show, but I also know how influential and meaningful media can be -- especially for marginalized groups -- so if my hype bringing you up made your fall harder when s8 was released, I am so sorry. You didn't deserve that; nobody in the fandom did.

I'm so jaded and disillusioned right now. Voltron has been a major inspiration for me; I originally decided to be a cartoonist to bring LGBT+ representation to children's media because of Steven Universe, but it was Voltron that really motivated me to reach that goal. I looked up to Voltron -- it was my muse, my main inspiration. I've learned so much about writing -- writing character arcs, relationships, etc. -- from Voltron and all of the analyzing people did. Seeing it devolve into what it did is upsetting. Something I loved so much has let me down, and I'm hurt and disappointed.

But more than ever, I want to create cartoons that don't do this; cartoons that tie up its loose ends, follow through with obvious character relationships, puts the main characters through complete arcs, and give proper development to them all. Cartoons that have proper LGBT+ and racial representation -- with LGBT+/characters of color that can be admired, that won't fall flat, that will teach the children of the generation about acceptance of others and acceptance of yourself regardless of sexuality, skin color, gender identity, etc. Voltron failed in that aspect; it was a compelling show that failed in everything it needed to succeed in. I refuse to make that same mistake.

With that, let's all look ahead to future and enjoy the fanworks that do these wonderful characters justice. Let Voltron's failure inspire you to create and make something better, something that will be much more impactful, much more meaningful.

Don't let it get you down; let it bring you up.

[janiedean]

Anyone who think Kit is a good actor is an idiot. And there's so many of them. That's why the world is getting worse and will be dominated by robots 🤖

oddmy dearest @the-bitter-gremlin hopefully you’ll get the tag because I really wanna make sure you see this reply :’DDDDDD

now, point the first: thanks for calling me an idiot! :D I mean, okay, not that grades mean anything of course but given that I went as far as graduating HS in the top five of my class, that I have two degrees one of which with the highest possible vote in a field that’s technically not too easy and that it’s even certified that I speak at least one language at native-tongue level and I can get by in two others other than mine I think my brain is fine enough, thank you.

I also watched more movies than the average person (no, I did, really, I considered studying cinema instead of going to proper uni for real), my top ten favorite movies is all stuff made before the nineties except for one and all my favorite actors are Certified Good Actors Like For Real and I got called a snob for my movie/actor taste more times than I can count. the only reason I’m doing this long-ass preamble is to inform you that if someone can’t act, I can recognize it and I have absolutely no problem admitting it even if it’s someone I like as a person or whose work I enjoy. for one, I can 100% admit that my favorite italian actor when he was nine back then was pretty atrocious (he got better admittedly but I haven’t followed him in a while, so who cares), and I still enjoyed his movies anyway even if he was terrible and I even knew it, but hey, he was hot, so who cares, right? and I enjoyed a fair amount of horribly acted italian fiction because it was fun, so really, I don’t have anything to lose here.

this was all a long preamble to tell you that yes, my favorite actor is marlon brando not the first idiot passing off the street, and yes, kit is actually good at what he does and no, people are not idiots for thinking that.

now, never mind that idek if you saw him in anything that’s not GOT, but the only movie of his I’ve seen where he was really meh was the spy movie and that was because the entire plot sucked ass and the character was terrible but everything was terrible. for the rest, he certainly pulled a better american accent than half of the british actors I’ve heard (it was brimstone by the way, excellent movie, watch it), he can do comedy (watch seven days in hell :D) and ah, yeah, he’s just making a movie/finishing a movie with xavier dolan who’s like… not someone known for picking bad actors. also, uuuh, he went to school for that actually, but not just anywhere -

ah, wow, HE WENT TO THE SAME SCHOOL WHERE LAURENCE OLIVIER, VANESSA REDGRAVE AND JUDI DENCH WENT but okay, sure, they’d totally take someone talentless according to them? and actually:

In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise the majority of Central’s submission was judged “world leading” or “internationally excellent”. The school has been ranked highly by The Guardian, placing it sixth in its league table of specialist institutions[9]and ninth for Drama and Dance.

LOOK AT THAT, TOP-NOTCH SCHOOL.

now, what is that british acting schools prepare people for? theater.

which means that he’s a theater actor first and foremost, which shows in his damned acting because if you notice he does half of it with his voice, but I guess you were too busy thinking he’s too good-looking to act, right?

except that not counting theater stuff, GOT was the first job he had *and* his first job on tv, which means that of course he wasn’t as good as the others in the beginning, because a) acting for the theater and for tv aren’t the same, b) it was his first job and not everyone is named leonardo dicaprio and can act their way out of a what’s eating gilbert grape at seventeen.

thing is: while at least one of his co-stars hasn’t improved in the role they have (imo but it’s also the writing) and most of the others GOT actors are either seasoned professionals or had acted for the camera before and had less issues adapting to it, he actually got better, and he actually acted a lot better when he was feeding off other people. case in turn:

that’s jon and jaime in s1. admittedly, not kit’s best effort unless you interpret it as jon being so lovestruck by jaime being around him that he’s like 404 page not found, and he had one scene with NCW from then until S7, and they didn’t even interact. NCW is miles better than he is here, obviously, but like, NCW has been in the job since the early 90s and I assure you his first danish movie isn’t his best acting effort either even if it’s not bad. BUT, let’s go to another S1 scene:

jon and sam discuss sex, yey! here he’s with a guy - john bradely - who’s probably (at this point) better than him at reciting on screen, but with whom he’s had a lot more scenes and that is playing his best friend and with whom he presumably hung out a lot and with whom he’s had a lot of time to work with. and even if it’s still S1, if you look at it it’s miles better - he does a lot more of microexpressions, he never looks at the camera (first sign of bad acting btw, he didn’t do it in the previous scene either but there he looked starstruck all the time, here he doesn’t) and like, you can already see that there’s a vast difference in between the two. and it’s the same season, five episodes apart - supposedly they also filmed it later and he’s already more at ease with it. 

now, small pause to remind you that at this point jon doesn’t have too much extra baggage BUT that kit actually read the damned book and you can see it because he makes very precise choices ie in the book after jon burns his hand he flexes the fingers of the hurt one every time he’s nervous or he’s about to lie or something, and he does the exact same thing (link here btw), and fyi, with the exception of partially alfie and gwen, no one in the cast actually went as far as that so HAHAHAHAHA WOW SUCH BAD ACTING, INNIT? anyway, that was season one. I’ll spare you and myself S2/¾ also because if I link you the jon/ygritte scenes I’ll shoot myself in the head. instead, let’s go to season five and 5x02, as in the season where I literally would have quit the fucking show if it wasn’t for jon’s storyline.

if you look at this, he doesn’t even say a fucking word until the ending, and you can see exactly what he’s thinking just looking at his damned face, because if you pay even the slightest bit of attention you notice that he changes expression minutely with every damned word sam and thorne say, you can see his eye movements, then he goes from complete sour to sad to angry to surprised to delighted to worried to happy again in the span of four minutes without even talking once and it’s miles better than anything he did in S1. 

or you could also rewatch the scene where he punches ramsay in S6 where he does a lot of microexpressions that speak for him without even talking, again, in an episode where he did all the stunts on his own same as the rest of the show, and that’s really not little given all the work it goes into being, uh, the main character, who also happens to have to be a seasoned fighter and use swords and so on. (I can’t link but I think I exhausted my limit for linking videos on tumblr so whatever *SHRUG*)

guess what: HE IMPROVED. GREATLY. IT SHOWS. learn to watch the damned thing, it doesn’t take going beyond GOT to realize it. and now, two last things I have to say to you before I finish this because I honestly wasted too much time on you already.

one: he might not be the best actor around - fair enough -, but kit’s definitely good imo. not passable, not decent, not average - he’s good. and he’s learning and he’s improved tremendously in the last eight years and it shows, and he put enough effort into this role to a) read the canon, b) incorporate the canon into it, c) actually changing scenes so that they fit canon more, d) do all his own stunts, e) carry 60% of this whole damned liver-destroying show on his shoulders since at least S5 in which his sl was the only saving grace of the entire thing and he executed it perfectly, so kindly fuck off and don’t go to people calling them idiots because they think an actor is good.

(ps: I <3 kit but I’m like, a lite fan not ride or die, and I’m old enough to beyond the age where his looks distract me from his skills, and there’s people in GOT whose acting I like more, but his is imo very good and very suited to the character since HE’S PLAYING A GODDAMNED INTROVERT WHO’D HAVE BEEN INTO NIRVANA IF HE LIVED IN THE NINETIES, he’s not going to be all extrovert about it.)

two: going into people’s askboxes and calling them idiots because they enjoy something and insulting what they enjoy is a) rude, b) uncalled for, c) an asshole move.

next time let me/us/whoever enjoy this guys’ acting in peace and keep your fucking opinion to yourself, because honest, if I could spend twenty years out of almost thirty of my life keeping my mouth shout about how much I hate HP to a) my rl friends, b) my internet friends and I could keep myself from informing them that I think it’s really bad under their posts or in their inbox or to their face because I’d be an asshole if I decided to shit on what they like, then you can pay me the same favor (or about anyone else) and not go around dissing stuff people like to their faces when they said openly they like them.

sayonara and call me when you get an emmy nomination :’)

[kihocrystal]

Spring 2018 - Final Impressions

Sorry this post is so late (again)! I had a *really* busy July, which really didn’t help at all. But anyway, here’s my thoughts on the shows that I finished this past season! All but one are sequels, though (and the one non-sequel was a carryover from last season)... Don’t worry, I’ll watch stuff like Megalobox and Hinamatsuri eventually! :’D

All “reviews” are listed in alphabetical order!

Amanchu! Advance - 8.0 / 10 (B-)

I liked season 2 as a whole! (Except for one episode / thing…)

QUEERBAITING SUCKS

I dunno if this is the fault of the anime or the source material…

…but this is still the most blatant example I’ve ever watched >_>

episode 11 didn’t need to happen!!! Why couldn’t Kokoro just… be a girl

or y’know, just let Pikari and Teko continue to “love” each other as they have! OTL

maybe why it annoyed me so much is that it’s like… a total bait & switch that went on for 2 SEASONS

to be fair, the reveal kinda went over my head? But when r/anime pointed it out, that’s when the salt began :/

yet the finale still has them blushing over reading thank you notes? It’s like this show wants its cake & eat it too

at the end of the day, the Kokoro stuff just… got in the way of Teko & Pikari’s interactions, platonic or not >_>

Also I’m one of the few people who actually liked the Peter arc

and it gave Ai some spotlight time!!!

it’s nice to have a little story arc to change things up (as opposed to an episodic structure)

(though I understand why many didn’t care for it… it leans a lot more towards supernatural than usual)

IMO they at least gave precedent w/ that one lucid dreaming episode w/ Teko, though

AND THERE’S ACTUAL SCUBA DIVING THIS TIME \o/

the underwater moments can be very magical… definitely the visual highlight

And the cast of characters is still enjoyable to watch too~ (def. a good group dynamic there)

Kokoro is considered a polarizing character for sure

I didn’t mind him that much until, y’know… his gender reveal led to the queer-baiting thing >_>

The finale was really nice though! It had pretty diving scenes and had cute Teko & Pikari moments~

In any case, this is still a very relaxing and heartwarming anime~

It has all the things I enjoyed about S1 here; it’s just the things added on top were a mixed-bag

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card - 8.0 / 10 (B)

EVERYONE IN THIS SHOW IS BEING VAGUE AS SHIT

But at least the mystery is interesting!

It’s just too bad it took like… 20 episodes to start getting any kind of explanation :’)

I actually watched the original series through a r/anime rewatch at the end of last year!

(meaning there wasn’t much time for me going from that series to this sequel)

I enjoyed the callbacks to the original series as well!

(including going from *anime* canon! i.e. the 2nd movie actually being canon)

The visuals look nice! Even though it almost looks a bit… *too* rounded in comparison to the original

I enjoyed watching Sakura capture all the new cards in different ways~

Even though this season was VERY light on plot (mostly), this aspect provided the action~

Also I enjoyed watching the character interactions too ^^

But yeah… the lack of overarching plot development and VAGUENESS kinda holds this season back

that being said, the final episodes set up some potentially interesting developments to come

and the finale itself *definitely* was not a conclusive one, so S2 better be confirmed soon!

Overall, I still enjoyed this continuation for the things it did right! I’ll be looking forward to a S2~

Darling in the FranXX - 8.0 / 10 (B)

Well this is/was a… polarizing show, to say the least.

I enjoyed it overall, but certain things about it hold it back from a higher score for me.

There’s two main elephants in the room with this series, really

#1 is… the heteronormativity

this was basically from the get-go, and in the roots of the story / themes itself

since the themes revolve around male/female partnerships & the importance of that… Yeah

one of the core quotes being “a female and a male aren’t complete w/o the other” …Yeah, again

also the sex-like positions of the “stamen” and “pistil” while piloting also doesn’t help

the workings of this world’s society has hetero relationships as the standard and doesn’t really allow for other options

(i.e. the FranXX piloting, Ikuno’s female attraction not working out in both operating the mech & her feelings for Ichigo, etc.)

at least Ikuno and Ichigo got a scene to talk about their attraction feelings & make up somewhat ^^

plus the Nines are basically gender non-binary but are seen as antagonistic forces for most of the show… Yeah

and just basic hetero things (like sex & pregnancy) were like being attacked in this show (when it’s not in real life???)

there’s an image meme that’s like “no, Prime Minister Abe… this will not get people to have babies” (…agreed :’D)

sure, there are *many* ways you can interpret this show, but the fact that so many people have seen it as such is Not Good

#2 is… the show supposedly “jumping the shark” towards the end

the main culprit of this (for many people) seems to be the “suddenly aliens!” reveal in episode ~20

this didn’t really impact my enjoyment of the show at all, but I definitely understand why people would be disappointed

in a way, it does kinda shift the story away from the themes it was using prior to this…

perhaps the lack of foreshadowing was another reason the shift in plot didn’t go well

plus it tends to directly riff off of certain visual cues from other mecha (like Eva & Gurren Lagaan)

Those two main gripes aside, the directing & visuals in this show were what kept me interested throughout

music choices, visual choices, etc. just really made certain moments better than they probably should’ve been

I enjoyed the characters as a group as well (even if most of them individually weren’t anything to write home about)

Goro’s a good bro, Ichigo went through good development, Kokoro & Mitsuru developed as a good pair…

Futoshi ended up being kind of a fat joke to the end though (& it was interesting that him & Kokoro didn’t end up together)

of course, Zero Two is the one everyone loved (& I liked her & Hiro’s dynamic as well)

sure, some people felt like she had “no personality” after she realized the truth about Hiro, but I didn’t mind the change

Plus I like that this show had a… pretty good ending, actually! (All things considered)

Directing as always was on point, and we got to see everyone’s lives over time (& Hiro + Zero Two eventually re-uniting as kids)

I just wish the main group got to see the two of them again :’)

though I do wish VIRM actually got full-on destroyed instead of a “we might come back” ending :/

and the ending was also kinda like “oh yeah, all the Children sent away didn’t actually die!” ???

This show will likely have a legacy not unlike Guilty Crown going forward, but I thought it ended better than that show, for the record

But yeah, this show is far from perfect and has questionable themes. But I still enjoyed it over all for the things it did well~’

Nanatsu no Taizai S2 - 8.0 / 10 (B-)

Unfortunately, not as good as S1 (but I still enjoyed this season overall)

S1 felt like its own self-contained story, but this season is clearly a “Part 1” for things to come

I wish Diana had more to do this season… she lost her memory early on and STILL doesn’t have it back

she was out of the main conflict (& separated from the group) for most of it :/

she also had these WEIRD ANGLES & POSES all the time… the fan service w/ her was *Really* distracting

the only consolation is that we got to learn some backstory for her & meet her fellow giants

oh well, at least she’s met up with King again and is enjoying his company by the end :)

The Gowther twist is interesting, but the way they revealed it was kinda… underwhelming

plus that *also* hasn’t been resolved yet (like many other things this season)

Some good moments this season were centered around Ban

such as his relationship w/ Jericho, time w/ a resurrected Elaine, and the small arc w/ his foster dad :’)

Also the final Sin got introduced w/ Escanor! PRAISE THE SUN

he’s a fun character; skittish by night and INVINCIBLE by day

The addition of power levels was kinda weird

it wasn’t necessary in S1, so why add it now???

The training arc gave us a full flashback to Melodias’ past w/ losing Liza, which was nice (and sad ;~; )

plus the vs. 10 Commandments fight actually showed Melodias full-on dying? That doesn’t happen much

it was a brutal death too! Hard to watch ;~;

plus they even changed the OP animation to reflect that he died… now that’s commitment

of course he came back later on, but there’s a catch… (since he loses some emotions every time)

There were some good fights, mostly during the “tournament” arc

(especially Melodias vs. all commandments… a sakuga highlight for sure)

The finale had a good stopping point, but it definitely makes clear that the story’s not over

so yeah, unlike season 1, this season *needs* a season 3 to be worth the watch

So yeah, there were some good moments & fights this season, but as a whole, it’s weaker than S1

Shokugeki no Souma S3 (Part 2) - 8.5 / 10 (B+)

I enjoyed this season! Continuing on the darker tone that the first half of S3 set up

This plot line of Central taking over the school is still my favorite plot point thus far, tbh

in other words, shit is finally going down!

…even if many of Central are just mustache-twirling villains :’D

Erina’s gotten great development from this arc too…! She’s not just a typical stuck-up tsundere anymore

her backstory is definitely a harsh one. It was great seeing her gain the courage to stick up to dad!

We also learned more about Souma’s dad! :O

Especially about how he was seen as feared, and the pressure of success got to him :’(

along with how this backstory tied into Asami’s motivations as well

Most of the season was kinda a gauntlet of opponents for the “resistance” to face off against

seeing Akira turn evil (for a bit) was interesting, but it’s a good thing he turned good again~

we oddly haven’t seen a lot of the Elite Ten in cooking action yet???

The final part of the season started off the big Team Shokugeki! …but it only got through the first round

the stakes are definitely high for this one, and also seems like the big conflict of this arc for sure

it’s just, y’know… the season ending in the middle is not a good look, really

at least the ending wasn’t abrupt; it was open-ended but still had a sense of conclusion

All in all, a good second half of season 3 (with some of my favorite plot content thus far!). Keep it up!

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

Because I skipped the last two months, lol...

I mean, this one is not necessarily “coming this month,” since I’ll be travelling for a couple weeks in the middle of the month! So I’ll have time to write, but possibly not brain, and I’m not 100% sure what my internet access will be like, so I’m tentatively saying there will be no posts between the 10th and the 24th/25th. If everything goes to plan, though, I’ll build up some backlog of stuff in the evenings and be able to post a bunch when I get back. But we shall see!

Okay, ever on we go...

Precipice:

So, I’m nowhere near where I wanted to be at this point in the year, lol. This arc has been...hm...not really flowing as much as some of the earlier ones did? I think at least in part because Fluff Is Hard, so that half is taking a long, long time for me to get out. And Saw can be difficult, so that half is also fairly slow-going, too. Arc Seven (which takes place three years later) should go faster. Leia has a Key Milestone to meet, Infernalis has things to do, and there’s a Spoiler that sets up a major plot thread for arcs 8-14.

Which, as a head’s up, will most likely be split off into a separate fic. Which I think I’ve mentioned before, but just to be clear. Partly for length, partly for timing--there’s going to be a fairly long timeskip of six years--partly for subject matter/format because there’s a key Moment that happens in Arc Eight (working title Escalation). Right now, the plan is to title this second chunk Protectors, but I might use Precipice II or something instead, haven’t decided.

So, anyway, fun stuff in the pipeline here! I might do another bonus fic or two at some point. I’m guessing Arc Six will be about twelve chapters in total? Depends on how quickly I wrap up the Saw & Ahsoka & Rex storyline.

Oh! Before I switch topics--on the subject of the bonus fics, having read Thrawn: Alliances...there’s definitely one I want to write, with Padme and Thrawn. But, due to potential spoilers, it’ll be a while. Which...I guess I should remind y’all that I tend to work in a blended/tiered canon, drawing on both Legends and canon content as seems appropriate. Also, I locked my official canon before seeing Rebels, which is why Ahsoka and Rex have pretty significantly different backstories. I draw stuff in from later-released contact as it suits me/the story, if it does not completely contradict what I’ve established for the AU.

(Incidentally, as for drawing in Rebels content/characters, I’m still going back and forth on how much of that I wanna do. As I think I’ve mentioned before, the timeskip between Part 7 and Part 8 includes the entire run of the show, and I already had Thrawn worked into a later storyline, plus Rebels would pretty significantly diverge starting with the end of S1/beginning of S2 anyway, so...there it is. There is something I’m leaning towards using Kallus and Zeb for, in around part 13/14, but we shall see.)

AU Outlines:

Let’s Go Steal a Crossover will materialize at some point, I swear.

Also The Mask of Zorro/California Gold Rush AU Fusion No One One Person Asked For. Which is a very long title but pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. I should rewatch that movie at some point. Not just for this, but because I love it.

Also, having read Alliances, for somewhat spoilery reasons the Pellaeon AU is back in my head with a vengeance. (I mean. Not that it ever really left because it’s a fun and somewhat self-indulgent one I pick at pretty frequently.) Anyway, I probably will write that one up at some point, but holding off for a suitable spoiler moratorium ‘cause some of the stuff that came up in the novel will/should be referenced. (...this AU, for those of you who don’t know, is the one where Gilad Pellaeon impulsively kidnaps a fourteen-year-old, one thing leads to another, and now Thrawn is working with the Rebels.)

Also also, at some point I should update Ventress and Her Tiny Time-Travelling Conscience. Because Past!Obi-Wan, Padme, and Palpatine should probably all weigh in on what’s going down...

Other Existing Fic:

Fingers crossed for Distaff and/or Auxiliaries. Because I am very fond of them, I just haven’t had much juice flowing for them lately, sadly.

Also, eventually The Caladrius? I think/hope?

New Projects:

There are THREE of them! :D Because I clearly don’t have enough going on, lol.

First one is Our Faces Like a Mirror (working title); AKA the first big chunk of a potentially massive “shadowsong accidentally fell in love with Bo-Katan and now feels compelled to tell her story” project. This one covering from the backstory civil war until she leaves to join Death Watch. Don’t want to say too much more, since it might be my BB project for next year.

Second is Bail Unfucks the Timeline (which lacks a working title). It’s pretty much an expansion of the AU Outline version. There’s quite a bit of negative space/gaps to fill in, so we’ll see when this comes in. (It also might be a BB project, IDK.)

Third is Untitled ObiAniDala AU Extravaganza. Based on a prompt from @obianidalasuggestion.

Timeline/dummy summary because I are Clever.

In another galaxy, this would be the year the Clone Wars began.

In this one, it’s the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Republic.

I’m still poking around at worldbuilding for now. Figuring out where Obi-Wan has been for the past twenty-five years since Bail helped him escape the Temple (and making this suitably distinct from Kanan’s backstory); working out Padme’s timeline; having fun with tiny Anakin and Ahsoka; debating whether to adjust Palpatine’s age for credibility, or have the subplot of him overthrowing Plagueis in the background...

Now, courtship narratives aren’t really my strong suit so I have no idea on timing for this one, either, but I’m having fun building it and it will come eventually.

(Also, it occurred to me--and this isn’t the direction I’m going with it--but this prompt also lends itself to a Dark Trio OT3 fic. Where Obi-Wan the Sith apprentice and Padme the clever politician are plotting to overthrow their mutual Master and rule together, or have already done so, and then Anakin falls into their laps, so to speak...again, not going there because while I definitely enjoy reading Empress Amidala AUs (and occasionally Sith Obi-Wan AUs), I am not at all confident in my ability to write one, and besides I’m having way more fun worldbuilding the other one. Just...IDK sharing as an example of how my brain tends to go off on Tangents, which is why I have many AUs of my own AUs and sometimes updates are slow, lol...)

Original Fiction:

With the help of some challenges on the origfic community I post to, I actually got some stuff done this month! Hopefully will keep doing stuff because I’ve missed by origfic characters the past year or so...

Anyway, that’s what’s coming! What have y’all been up to lately?

[amisbro]

Let’s answer this

If someone asked me RIGHT NOW “Where are you in terms of UtaPri and the fandom?” That is arguably the most complicated question I would ever have to answer...and I took World Culture in High School!

Okay let’s be serious UtaPri is legit one of the few franchises that tests me mentally in the sense of Figuring out Broccoli’s next move with Merch What they could do gamewise What is going to happen with the Anime Information on other projects (Shining Masterpiece/Theater ,DVDs ,Stage shows etc.) What the next step in the universe would be as a whole with the different units and COULD THEY CREATE MORE...I never discussed this one but its something I had been thinking about Its also one of the few that has allowed me to mess with the Canon and treat groups that might not have been treated fairly and write them in ways that I enjoy...matter of fact SPOILER TIME but one of the next fic works coming this month is my yearly Birthday concert but with a twist that you’ll see for the first time when the birthday comes up. It HAS also been one of the more frustrating fandoms lately that I have been in/dealt with and I’m not going to bullshit it anymore. History Lesson So back in 2013 (and more specifically near the end of it I discovered a gif of one of the characters from the series...at the time I had no idea who it was and ,if you remember, Tumblr made an update that hid the tags unless you went in the post on a person’s blog (generally the OP) and found out what it was.  In this case it was Ren Jingugji of STARISH whom I found out was voiced by Junichi Suwabe.  That name sounded familiar and I discovered he was in BroCon as the brother Kaname whom was a Monk (and also a womanizer...there’s a comho) (Also if I got the occupation for Kaname wrong I apologize.  I could have sworn that was his occupation but its been a while since I watched the series so forgive me on the mistake if there was one) Well after this discovery about UtaPri I went and looked it up on my favorite website (okay second...ANN is first anymore) in Wikipedia and I discovered it was a Otome/Visual Novel game and that intrigued me...what intrigued me more was researching some of the characters and at the time legit five intrigued me Natsuki Shinomiya of STARISH and the whole of QN QN was interesting because ,since I was just discovering UtaPri at this point, I knew jack about them...but I wanted to see what I could learn about them from observation/  Legit the ONLY SPOILER I retained at the time was that Ai was programmed with the memory of Aine or something of that effect...again its been a good while. Season 1 I watched through DVD and if you go through this blog you will see that I did two different blogs on that and Season 2.  When I did Season 2 that was through the site crunchyroll and I remember at the time I was talking with someone using the “Fan Mail” option (hey tumblr staff bring that back will ya...I actually liked that option) and before I got to Season 2 someone had told me about Camus.  The reason for this was because I mentioned (at the time) I despised Ren’s character for being a womanizing playboy that didn’t give a s**t about being an idol.  Now yes that was actually wrong but it was the thing I remembered from my first watch through (which was when the conversation with the tumblr user occurred). Before we discuss Season 2 you have to know this.  Because I knew at the time info would be readily available on the “initial 6″ (Cecil wasn’t in STARISH yet) legit the only one I remembered reading about was Natsuki and originally I thought I was going to enjoy his character...matter of fact for anyone that wants to know that doesn’t from S1 the “Best Boy” spot was something like this Tokiya (before Cecil has {BEEEEP]) Cecil And once the Season was rewatched it was Ren after realizing the crap he not only went through in Season 1 but then later in Season 2 HOWEVER Once Season 2 came about and QN was introduced anyone that knows me knows that my faves showed up in Ai and Camus (and also Ran)...Reiji I never could really embrace and I have TRIED!  Something about him I just can’t get with. (I know I know...I can’t deal with him but I have no issue with Myu right?  Yeah I’ve been working on that one for over 4 years and it ain’t easy) So Season 2 was ON FIRE! Legit all of the songs I could kind of embrace (I legit replayed Crystal Time all day for like 3 weeks straight if I remember...might have been shorter but it was a murderous loop trust me) and the story (for the most part) was a very light and funny tone from what I remembered.  Yeah there were the “heavy” moments but you didn’t want to have a nervous breakdown after the episodes ended...that was me in Season 4 when Episode 11 happened BUT ANYWAYS Season 2 was ALSO the introduction of the “Renegade Princes” in HEAVENS and around this time they were just a trio (June 6th would be the airdate and the “official” birthday of HEAVENS I guess?  I think some use the 27th of June so its funny) and I was like most people.  I wanted them to fall on their ass and never be seen again so we could get to the STARISH/QN part of the story (cos I legit watched the SSX OVA like 50 times and can damn near recite that fucker word for word if I remember scenes hard enough...I think it was the first time I saw Myu with glasses too!) Now here was the thing about HEAVENS AT FIRST I was like the fandom like “Look at these jackasses.  All they want to do is start shit and cause problems for STARISH so they need their ass beat” and well they did lose and I think I remember the first time being REALLY HAPPY about it but I think around the second time I THINK (and I would have to go back through my notes) I was less harsh on them.  I know by the time I got to their debut episode (and I finished it) a THIRD TIME I had no issues with them left...then again this might have been during the space between Season 3 and 4. Actually...yeah the third watch was between Season 3 and 4 cos I wanted to see how the “Original Trio” acted and then I would compare that with the “new boys” later.  If I remember right (cos I am trying to NOT rewrite history) when I first saw the “Fully Powered” HEAVENS The one I probably took the most issue with was Van (sorry @baku5ds) but it was because he reminded me of Ren from Season 1 and I wanted to deck his ass...still kind of want to punch him then for acting like a knob but he’s aight now! Season 4 was going to be an interesting time for me See before Season 4 started I remember asking people how they thought the season was going to go and they thought it would go like this HEAVENS would lose (well they were initially DQ’d so kind of right) and then it would be down to STARISH and QN with HEAVENS as background characters (which is what they were in Season 3 cos we didn’t see them again till the new 7 showed up). When we found out it was going to be duets between STARISH and HEAVENS it became interesting for me because remember this:  Because I watched legit the initial debut for the Trio (and their subsequent loss) twice a part of me wanted to see what Broc would do FOR THEM because I personally had kind of “been there/done that” with STARISH and I learned as much as I could for three seasons and dealing with their personalities...nothing wrong with that but after a while you need to interject new characters to freshen up a series. One thing I remember being asked was basically this “How can you like HEAVENS when you don’t know about them?” (That’s not the question verbatim but considering this question was on skype legit now over 2 years old I dunno if I can find it again) We have to remember that around the time of Season 2 (when I watched it) I legit only remembered Ai’s part of the wikipedia entry so...why should I have liked QN? I really DIDN’T read the STARISH part of the wikipedia entry so why have liked them? See the way I work as a fan is through observation and I see what I see and then make my judgements based on that.  I STILL think that the School staff was borderline antagonistic (all of them and that includes Shining) and when STARISH officially got to debut with Nanami as the composer I smiled cos in the end the “bad guys” (even if they really weren’t) “got theirs” What I got legit curious about was this during Season 4 Even if my opinion and a STARISH fan’s opinion on HEAVENS never matched up could we have that civil discussion to say “okay you don’t like them that’s cool but please respect that I do” We all know about the “3 weeks of hell” and I won’t relive those but those were the WORST 3 weeks of my life.  I legit think I damn near had a headache that lasted that entire stretch I was that annoyed cos I could legit see the story in front of me but everyone else was like “Nah fam...that ain’t true” then HEAVENS lost in the Triple S after their perseverance of dealing with “Daddy’s bulls**t” and I don’t know if I was more annoyed about that or the prior weeks with the “EiiOto Mess” and the rest of the duet project cos in my head I knew one part of the fandom would be THRILLED while the other would be annoyed...I think anyone that knows me knows where i was to the point someone made a stalk account on twitter to try and get on me...didn’t work cos I know how to block people! ANYWHO! I’m going to try and keep the rest of this brief af...I say try so we won’t go over 6th stage (and how I thought that was a trainwrck...maybe I was too harsh back then to be honest) but I do want to discuss this Whenever I hear (and others I know) that “HEAVENS’ role is only to make STARISH better” I half ass chuckle because if we are talking about groups to make STARISH BETTER well...there was QN and then STARISH was again kind of like “Nah fam” and we know what happened. I dunno that I am annoyed with the fanbase...matter of fact I can almost tell you flat out I’m not but if I had a gripe with the “Western/International” base it felt more like at times y’all didn’t want there TO BE fans of the “Renegade Princes” because I know a friend of mine made a VERY INNOCENT post when it came to Shining Live and HEAVENS and they asked “What would the HEAVENS fans want in Shining Live for them” and I remember the Anons and how they were kind of rude...not a good way to grow a fanbase kids. Let’s be clear on this and I’m going to try and make this brief I don’t hate STARISH nor their fans I don’t hate QN or their fans (obviously I am one) I’m more frustrated because you see when you are someone like me who IRL dealt with a lot of s**t and was an underdog his whole life I always root for them...I want to see that upset! I think I would have enjoyed STARISH’s story a bit more IF they showed that they could “take it on the chin” one time and then go “Okay we lost that round...let’s give it hell next time!” I know they technically COULDN’T do that with the story they were telling but don’t you think that Suwabe right?  He worked on KnB and he could have said “Well look...in this series my school beat the main school (Seirin) and then they came back eventually and beat us...couldn’t we do something like that?” Irony before anyone says anything is he ,SuzuKen ,Kishow ,OnoD ,to a lesser extent Shimono and Tatsun (might have been more...I think Toriumi was on Suwabe’s team) all knew what happened but I think because of certain issues they HAD to write UtaPri where STARISH was basically unstoppable...best guess It gets frustrating sometimes to be a fan of the series (less so for me now that I play on the JP account more full-time now) and you want...really all of the groups to do well but you know you really want your group to do well.  It also somewhat gets upsetting when you ask people “Would you watch a season that was just HEAVENS?” and then they tell you they would skip it...never mind that you watched effectively 2 full seasons of the “main group” but EYYY I dunno I think I get agitated and I know there are others that do too.  I would NEVER just turn my back on the franchise because I love it but I think I just wish that HEAVENS got repped well on this site and even facebook better than I feel like they do.  I think sometimes they will never get this “stigma” of being an “antagonist” off of them and that sucks...but for some people the “first impression is the one that lasts” so I can’t fault that anymore I guess In closing I don’t think I could ever leave UtaPri behind but all I want is what is best for my boys and hopefully their day is coming very soon Au Revoir!

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Owarimonogatari Season 2 [Ougi Dark]

Yet again, this took longer than expected, lol. For some reason I’ve been a bit intimidated by how long this might take to watch and write about, even though it’s only three episodes long. But I’m still genuinely excited to see how it goes.

It’ll probably be another few weeks or so before I have time to get back into rewatching the earlier parts of the franchise, but I’ll try and get back into that sooner rather than later.

Thoughts under the cut

PART ONE:

Ooh boy that was a whole lot of talking. Not that that’s anything rare for this series, but it’s almost draining to get through a lot of plot-important exposition all at once. I’m not entirely sure I got all of it, but I think I did.

Starting from the beginning, I thought there was meant to be a recap of sorts called Araragi’s Story, but I guess whoever subbed this didn’t bother with it and cut it out? That sucks. But it probably wasn’t anything super important.

The beginning narration scene by Araragi was really nice, and helped set the mood for this being the final part of the story. Well, final part of the main story, at least. After this we still have Zoku-Owari, Off Season, and Monster Season to adapt, not to mention anything that comes out after that. But you get what I mean.

The OP was nice, but not quite as good as I was hoping for. I think I prefer the Ougi Formula OP over it. I might like it more once the arc’s done, though, since there’s a whole lot of symbolism that’d probably feel more effective with the full context of this arc. Also, it’s still kinda interesting to me how Ougi’s VA’s singing voice sounds really different to her Ougi voice. I’d be hard-pressed to realize that it was the same VA if I didn’t know it was.

I knew that this arc would start with a whole lot of talking as everyone basically recaps the current situation and their motives and plans, but damn that was still a whole lot of talking in not a long period of time. Wow.

A lot of people seem to dislike Gaen, probably because she tends to exist for the sake of giving lengthy exposition like this, but I like her. Something about her whole character just appeals to me, and I like listening to her talk. Her whole casual punk outfit and her smartphone obsession and whatnot are a really interesting contrast with what sort of a character she is, and what purpose she serves in the story. I also love how half the time when she talks, the sky turns rainbow-coloured. In general I love her rainbow theme.

It’s really cool seeing Shinobu in her complete form. You don’t exactly see it often. I kinda forgot that she’s actually really tall. Her playing around with Yotsugi to ‘get back at her’ for all the insults was surprisingly cute.

I should have figured that we’d get more talks about the shrine and the lake and whatnot since that’s been built up for the last two arcs pretty heavily. And, well, a large part of the entire story, really. It’s nice to get one big recap about the main points on it, even if it was kinda hard to keep track of. But I get it. I’m pretty sure it had already been said before, but I kinda forgot that it was Shinobu who destroyed the shrine at the lake originally, so that actually helps make things click more in my head.

It makes sense that they’re deciding to enshrine Hachikuji as the new shrine god to keep her around in the real world, and to help restore balance more. I probably should have seen that as a possibility. Although I can’t exactly blame myself for not getting all of the stuff to do with slugs and snails. That came a bit out of left field.

I knew that Ougi wasn’t exactly the Darkness, but it’s interesting to hear that she’s still trying to ‘perform the same role as the Darkness’. Well, that’s exactly what she’s been doing this whole time, but still.

I’m PRETTY sure I’ve been told what her true identity is, but I won’t bring it up until it’s explicitly stated. Though with the ‘reveal’ at the end of this part, of Ougi being an apparition, I feel like it’s pretty obvious. But even from before this arc it was fairly obvious. I mean, it was always clear that she wasn’t human. She was always too immediately alien, too inhuman, too strange to not be an apparition of some kind. And the fact that she clearly has some ability to mess with people’s thoughts and memories. And that one time in Ougi Formula where she, like, slithered through the air around Araragi’s head. You get what I mean. And at that point it’s not TOO difficult to guess at her ‘origin’. But the whole Darkness thing does kinda throw things off and make it more unclear. At least before it gets shot down.

The weird thing about this arc is that we know in advance that Ougi’s not going to die. Since she shows up in Hana, which obviously takes place after this arc. So that kinda spoils the fact that things aren’t going to go Gaen’s way. But obviously if Nisioisin allowed us to know that in advance, then it’s not going to be much of a big deal in the end. It does make me pretty curious to see how this arc will actually end, though.

PART TWO:

And so the truth comes out! As I suspected. Or, well, as I was spoiled. But even without being spoiled on it, the truth is pretty to guess.

Before I get into talking about all that, I first want to say that I’m so, so happy we got a section with Nadeko. Seeing her again like this is so great. I’m so proud of her. I love that she’s pursuing what she wants to do. She’s obviously grown a lot as a person, which is immediately visible through the fact that she cut her fringe short, since that was always the shield she used to avoid confrontation. I also kinda like how ‘not cute’ she looks in her outfit there. It feels like she’s accepted that she doesn’t have to stick rigidly to ‘being cute’ at all times, and can just be herself. 

The whole section with Ougi and Tsukihi was pretty interesting, and kinda melancholic. I wasn’t really expecting Ougi to be thrown off by Tsukihi’s attitude that much. I’m still not fully sure what to make of Tsukihi as a character. She and Karen just sorta feel  . . . not super fleshed out. Maybe it’s just been too long since I watched Nise. But I still liked their conversation. And it also makes more sense when you get to the end of this episode and get told that she was seeking out Tsukihi because of Araragi’s feelings of guilt and uncertainty about if it’s right for Tsukihi to keep living the way she is.

Getting back more to the start of the episode, I liked the whole explanation about how since Ougi’s entire existence is ‘a lie’, since she’s specifically an ‘impersonation’ of the Darkness, then she herself would become a target of the Darkness once her true identity is revealed, and her identity as ‘a lie’ is upturned. It fits the internal logic of the series. I also really liked the visuals and direction of that specific scene. Especially the part that looked a little like that part in Shinobu Time where it has the side-scrolling painting.

Also I kinda had to laugh at the goddamn ‘fan’ pun. Wow. That was kinda . . . on the nose. I forget if it had actually been established that Ougi was introduced to Araragi as a fan of Kanbaru’s, but it makes a lot of sense now that we know her existence is heavily tied with the Rainy Devil and that whole scenario. So I guess this also helps contextualize the fact that we saw Ougi talk with Kanbaru in Hana.

The fact that Ougi was an apparition created by Araragi was something I knew in advance, maybe since before I even saw Owari S1, but I didn’t know the exact specifics of it, so the fact that she’s literally the representation of how harsh Araragi is on himself was a bit of a surprise. It makes sense, though. I kinda want to get the timeline straight on this one, to remember when exactly Ougi entered the scene. I know that we more or less first saw her in Nadeko Medusa, but we know now that the entire first half of Owari S1 happened directly before that, and I think that’s when Ougi was first introduced, chronologically. I’m not sure, though.

I really like this reveal. At least since it really ties the whole story together, and contextualizes the place Araragi himself has in the story, on both a practical and thematic level. Considering how big of a narrative point his self-loathing and indecision has been, it works really well that Ougi is literally the living representation of that. And the fact that she exists for that purpose helps explain her motives for doing what she does. That is, since Araragi deep down thinks that he’s continually doing the wrong thing, that he’s over-stepping his bounds, that he’s upsetting the natural order of things. I wonder if this also implies that he knew subconsciously that the help he tried to provide for Nadeko in the Snake arc wasn’t really fully beneficial in the end, and that he never really understood her to begin with, and was leaving some serious issues unchecked. Considering how Nadeko Medusa as a story arc is basically one giant consequence for Araragi’s poor handling of Nadeko as a person and her issues, it’d be really neat if that arc only existed because of his subconscious doubts about how he acted. It really puts a spin on how self-defeating he is, if something like that literally only happened because he was afraid that he hadn’t truly helped her. For the record, the thing with Hachikuji was related to the actual, real Darkness, right? Even though the story pointed out how he had his own doubts about her general existence.

The fact that the ‘battle’ between Ougi and Araragi is now framed as an act of suicide is pretty morbid, but as I said, this wasn’t going to be a conventional battle. Seeing Ougi openly begging for her life was pretty depressing. It makes sense that she wouldn’t want to simply be killed, especially not by her own creator. Though, as said, we still know that she doesn’t die, so . . . yeah. This also makes Gaen seem even more creepy, with how casually she’s talking about Araragi needing to kill someone that’s for all intents and purposes a part of himself.

This also puts a kinda morbid spin on the fact that this is ‘the end of Araragi’s adolescence’. One way or another, he has to confront this part of him that represents his adolescence, which is also how he described Ougi at the start of the arc. It’s also worth noting how this ties into the ideas this entire season has been setting up. Like how a fair bit of Mayoi Hell was about Araragi having a walk down memory lane and being able to confidently say ‘yes, I would do all of those things again if I had the chance, even if they might have been mistakes’. As time’s gone on, he’s become more and more able to accept his choices and his decisions, and come to terms with himself as an individual. So in a way, he’s already begun moving past the point in his life that Ougi represents. Which is, I think, part of why she’s become more pitiful lately, more vulnerable. I’ll still wait and see how it actually plays out, but I imagine that, since she doesn’t die, Araragi is going to simply end up accepting Ougi as a part of himself that he doesn’t need to kill. I’m not exactly sure how that’d work, and how she’ll be kept safe from the Darkness, but we’ll see.

The way that this whole scenario is being framed as the end of Araragi’s adolescence reminds me a lot of Utena, and how the movie version of that is called The Adolescence of Utena. Though the thing that reminds me more of Utena was that scene of everyone at the park, completely silhouetted as they lean against pillars while talking. That whole scene was 100% Pure Utena, and I loved it.

Also, I forgot to mention it, so I’ll just say here that even though we knew in advance via Hana that Araragi and Shinobu ended up in their pact together, it was still kinda . . . emotional, almost, to see him spell out that he plans to go back to how they were. And of course, Shinobu herself also said that she wants to go back to being a young girl again. There’s something kinda tragic about the way that they got given the perfect chance to end their already tragic relationship, but they both decided to go back to it in the end. In general, the entire dynamic between Araragi and Shinobu is kinda fascinating. It makes me excited to finally watch the Kizu films.

I’m also intrigued by the implication that if Ougi dies, Araragi will easily find Kagenui and Oshino [I think] again, since she was the one tied to their disappearances. I wonder if we’ll see them again by the end of this arc.

Either way, I still kinda feel like the resolution to this arc has been spelled out in advance by Hana, but that’s OK. This might be the end of Araragi’s adolescence, but it’s not the end of the entire story.

I still also kinda wish they could have aired this as a proper TV anime and stuck Zoku-Owari on the end, but in the end I enjoyed being able to binge watch each arc of this, and it would have been slightly weird to get to a big emotional climax and then have 4-5 episodes of what I think is meant to be a silly epilogue story. But still. I hope it doesn’t take Shaft too long to get it out, even though they’ll have their hands full soon.

PART THREE:

OK I gotta admit that even if this ending played out pretty much exactly as I expected, it still hit me really hard and now I’m kinda tearing up. Ugh. This series really knows how to push my buttons at times.

I figured that the ‘battle’ between Ougi and Araragi would end with him accepting her, but I really liked how it played out. The whole scenario of it, with them talking to each other while the Darkness appears as a black hole behind Ougi was pretty intense and emotional. For some reason, something about the focus on the idea of right vs wrong in this entire season sorta confused me on some level, but it kinda clicked at some point as I realized the pretty obvious point that Araragi’s entire deal is that he hates himself, and constantly feels that what he does is wrong, and tries to figure out what’s right. So it makes sense that this is the culmination of this entire arc of his. That he accepts that he, as a person, is right, and that Ougi, as a person, is also right. What he said about how he wasn’t simply ‘saving Ougi’ by pushing her away from the Darkness, but ‘saving himself’, kinda got to me. As he said, this whole time he’s simply spent his time being saved by others, but this was his time to save himself, and in that way he was able to make an ending for his adolescence.

And then Oshino showed up and I kinda had to fanboy for a moment because seriously I’ve been waiting YEARS for this to happen, I’m so happy about it. Seeing him finally say he respects Araragi, and seeing him say that he won’t criticize him because he’s simply saving himself, was pretty fucking great. And of course we got that little moment to show off that Hanekawa is a complete badass who traveled to the fucking South Pole to drag this dude back just in time. It’s still hilarious seeing her get completely surprise Ougi like this.

I really was not expecting this to end with Oshino acknowledging Ougi as being his niece, but it explains why she’s still around. On one level you could call it kinda cheap, but it makes sense that the solution to the problem of ‘the identity Ougi made for herself is a lie’ is to make it so that ‘the identity Ougi made for herself is the truth’. And since the lie was thus cleared up, the Darkness went away. I really like that her own, individual identity as Ougi Oshino was acknowledged in the end. She deserved it.

I also really liked the narration part where Araragi talked about how he had thought that loving others meant not taking care of himself. It pretty much sums up most of how he’s acted in the story thus far, but it also shows how he’s grown, and realized that he has to be able to love himself as a person.

Not gonna lie, I got kinda teary at the scene between him and Shinobu as they talk about how they feel about each other, and their choice to remain together, even if it means going back to that situation of Shinobu being the dregs of a vampire trapped in a shadow, and Araragi not being human and not being vampire. Something about their entire relationship makes me kinda emotional. The way it ended with Shinobu covering them with her bat wings while she presumably bit his neck was really nice, and kinda bittersweet.

I’m kinda surprised we got half of the last episode devoted to the epilogue, but I liked it. It was a nice way to come down from the pretty intense emotions of the first half.

I’m not really gonna comment much on the scene with Karen because uuuuuugh why, but it was nice seeing him tell her that, even though her idea of what’s right is ‘helping others’, she should also figure out how to help herself.

So I guess we now know what the deal with Kagenui is. I’m glad she’s not dead. So it looks like Hanekawa’s going to look for her now. She really has become an adult. Which, in itself, is a really nice thing to see. She hasn’t been a huge part of Owari in general, but I’ve loved seeing Hanekawa grow up and become a confident, independent adult who can accept all of her imperfections.

I liked seeing Hachikuji being the new shrine god. That was a cute scene. Though it kinda ended in an unexpectedly emotional way, with the point about how the shrine is her new home, which I hadn’t really considered, but it’s a really nice way to end her story, since for the entire story thus far she’s basically been homeless.

The part where Hanekawa realizes that Araragi and Senjougahara are on first-name basis, and teases the two about it, was really great. Seeing Senjougahara get flustered about it was cute. As I’ve said, it’s always nice to see her being an awkward, regular person who’s bad at expressing her feelings and gets flustered fairly easily. And then of course they all got on first-name basis with each other, which was really nice.

It was also nice to get that little cameo from Kanbaru delivering flowers. That was nice. I presume it was more or less a reference to the whole meaning of ‘Hana’. Either way, it was heart-warming to see her get a genuine graduation present for him.

I really, really like the fact that the main story ends with Araragi seeing a random girl who’s presumably about to fall down some stairs, and running off to save her, with Senjougahara and Hanekawa happily waving him off. It’s a really nice book-end to the story, and it helps reiterate the point that Araragi would save anyone, and that he doesn’t regret having saved Senjougahara when he did. And now he has people he’s close to who understand and love him for who he is, and know that this is simply the sort of person he is. And of course we got to see Ougi at the end, which was nice. It was a pretty simple line, but I liked the point Araragi made, that he’s changed as a person, but he’ll always be himself. It’s a fitting way to end a story of someone’s adolescence.

And then we got the scene at the end with Shinobu giving a fairy-tale like description of Araragi’s story, saying that in the end they all lived happily ever after, with Araragi thinking to himself that he can hear her telling that story from inside his shadow, and he’s curious to see where the story goes next. That was just a really nice way to end things.

The ED wasn’t anything super special, but it was a nice image to ends things on. It’s kinda cheesy, but it’s always nice to have these sorts of stories end on the note of the characters graduating.

All in all, this was basically the best way the main story could have ended. It wrapped things up really nicely. Seeing Araragi’s whole character arc reach a conclusion like this as he learns to love himself is really great. As I’ve said before, I’ve technically been watching this series for over three years now, so seeing it come to a close, even if it’s just the end of this chapter, is really emotional. Seeing these characters all grow so much as people has been wonderful, even if there’s some really bittersweet elements like Araragi and Shinobu reentering their tragic, dependent relationship.

As much as this series has some serious faults, I still genuinely love it at the end of the day. I hope it doesn’t take me too long to get back into rewatching it, since I still want to slowly get through that.

[miss-m-calling]

Fandom 5k letter

Requests:

Adult Wednesday Addams -- Wednesday Addams

American Gods (TV) -- Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

Cabin Pressure -- Carolyn & Arthur & Martin & Douglas

Moonlighting (TV) -- David Addison/Maddie Hayes

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with.

I do give more or more detailed prompts for some of these canons than for others – that’s not because I want some more than others, but only because for some I get lots of ideas, for others I’m more “waves arms all over the place give me more of XYZ I love in canon!!” I hope whatever I put down sparks your creativity, and feel free to reach out through the mods if you have any questions! My likes and DNWs are all the way on the bottom of the letter.

Without further ado…

Requests:

Adult Wednesday Addams

Wednesday Addams

Genres: Action/adventure, Canon-style plot, Humor, Slice of life, Worldbuilding

I belatedly discovered this webseries, and it resurrected (see what I did there?) my love for Wednesday and how the Addams Family canon runs on the endless possibilities of this loving, happily eccentric family being 100% true to themselves and the world just having to deal with it. The show was everything I never knew I wanted till I watched it, the perfect blend of Addams-macabre and cozy slice of life with bonus Wednesday navigating the world alone, without always knowing her family will back her up, and it made me crave more of adult Wednesday’s mini adventures in LA. For this canon, I’m good with gen or, if you want to write that, more of Wednesday’s adventures in dating guys who really aren’t up to the challenge, and you can absolutely have Wednesday interact with OCs I haven’t listed as part of a pairing. I’m keeping the prompts pretty short, just to (hopefully) pique your creativity, as I expect I will love any way you make these or any similar scenarios play out:

-Wednesday goes to IKEA

-More of Wednesday’s interactions with the nice interns at her receptionist job. Maybe they invite her out to happy hour, or to the beach or a club. Or maybe we get to eavesdrop while they shoot the breeze on their lunch break, possibly over barbecue-chicken pizza from CPK.

-More of Wednesday’s gigs. She already babysits and walks other people’s dogs, what else might she do for extra cash that would be both really common and seemingly ill-suited to Wednesday, except she totally makes it work for her? Cat sitting (especially if the cat belongs to someone incredibly rich whose house is full of secrets – and expensive things for the cat to knock over), driving an Uber/Lyft, becoming an AirBnB host, catering/server, working the late shift in a New Age/occult supply store where none of the woo is real…?

-Or, alternately, Wednesday finds a career that is perfect for her, in which she can have success and respect. What ever could that be and still fit into the non-Addams world?

-Wednesday tries speed dating

-Or, she runs into Brian a.k.a. chains guy (I cackle with glee every time I rewatch the bit when he tries to kiss her at the pet store) a third time – how does it not go quite as he wanted or expected this time?

-Wednesday’s family comes out to sunny, plastic, image-conscious LA to visit her and make sure she’s doing alright. She gives them a tour of the city, and LA will never be the same again.

-Wednesday takes an evening class, or goes back to school part time, or enrolls in an online degree program

-Wednesday takes a road trip, alone or with her apartment mates/colleagues/Brian/strangers she met for carpooling purposes. Bonus points if you work in real roadside attractions, or tourist traps, or famous sites/landscapes.

-It’s Dia de Muertos, and Wednesday goes out to celebrate and soak up the atmosphere. It may or may not live up to her expectations.

-If you wanted to get a bit meta and/or enjoy playing around with different formatting, what does Wednesday’s Tumblr/Twitter/Facebook/Tindr look like? Or, Wednesday gets tasked with updating company social media at her receptionist job, and she does it with her own special flair.

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

Genres: Action/adventure, AU - canon divergence, Canon-style plot, Character development, Getting together, Smut, Worldbuilding

Let me preface this by saying how much I appreciate that you are willing to write for an ongoing canon! I love this pairing, and while most of my prompts are basically the same ones I’ve used in exchanges before S2 (which I am watching) started airing, let me assure you that I am 1000% fine with your fic getting jossed, or including a divergence from what we already know or how things happen in canon. You can work with the canon -- or as much of it as we have by the time you’re done writing -- or diverge in a way that works for your story. Really truly honestly it’s all fine since you are writing for an active canon, and I really truly honestly appreciate you wanting to tackle this! Canon divergences and canon-flavored-if-not-entirely-compliant stories are my jam, so please don’t feel anxious as the canon keeps unfolding, nor pressed to keep up with S2 if you can’t or don’t want to watch it right now. (I tried to keep S2 spoilers to a minimum in my prompts, but there are some spoilers.)

So *clears throat*

I ship it. Yes I do. They had me at “gimme-my-coin-dead-wife”-flicks-him-into-wall. The snarky road trip was the best thing I never knew I wanted until it happened, and I adored every second of it. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit toward the end of S1, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Also I love love love how their dynamic is about equal parts spikiness, pathos, and humor (they’re funny! and the canon doesn’t shy away from putting them in ludicrous situations), and it weaves seamlessly between those three. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there’s the angst of he having killed her, feeling really guilty about it, and then bringing her back.

Please give me either missing scenes from the road trip (if you can work in a divergence, that’s great - for example, I like Salim, but if you want to have him boot Sweeney and Laura to the curb and go off on his own, or Sweeney to boost his taxi before Salim catches them, or whatever else to have those two alone, go for it!), or a S1 divergence (instead of going to Ostara, they go where? to see whom? about getting Laura resurrected) or something about these two post-S1/during-S2:

-Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident – whatever happens next, some punching may be involved.

-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me, you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other.

-Laura asked “What does Wednesday have to lose?” and the answer is…? (Yes, give me that sweet poetic justice. One possibility, though not remotely the only one, but as of S2E3 Laura is technically a god-killer...)

-On a similar note, Wednesday told that luckless cop that Sweeney had been against the big gods’ war from the start, and while Wednesday lies, Sweeney definitely seems to be participating out of a sense of obligation and lingering guilt over the war he ran from long ago, rather than lust for a good fight or even a dominant death wish. What if he decided to hell with Grimnir and his war and his having Sweeney kill random people? I’m guessing Sweeney too drank three glasses of mead so he can’t back out without dire consequence - but he does have a fierce, dead woman in his corner.

-They go to some as-yet-unnamed old god (feel free to bring in whatever mythology you want) in order to bring Laura back to life. Between Sweeney’s mouth and temper, and Laura’s mouth and temper, it doesn’t go well. Now one or both of them are in big magical trouble with a pissed-off deity and have to get themselves/each other out of it.

-Things happen and Laura finds herself in the position to throw Sweeney under the bus but also help/save him, and while he knows it’s only karma, he can still be pissed about it - how do they navigate this?

-Laura gets fully alive again, but traces of her (un)dead state remain – what are they, how does she cope, what price did she/he/they have to pay for her resurrection, and how does their relationship change? I’d especially be curious how it would work if they’re already a sorta-maybe-item and *then* she’s alive again and it’s weird in a new way.

-For reasons I’ll leave up to you, Sweeney and Laura have to stay put in a single place for a while and end up essentially cohabiting, regardless of what their relationship is at that point. Take “cohabiting” as literally or as creatively as you want -- in any case, I’m sure it will be marvelously disastrous and amazing.

-Slight or major AU from the opening of “The Ways of the Dead”: Laura has hitchhiked with Sweeney instead of going off in a huff with Wednesday, or she otherwise gets to New Orleans sooner, and she and Sweeney tear up the town together. Gimme bar fights, carnival shenanigans, backstage craziness with the Christian rock band (Sweeney seems to have a backstage pass on a lanyard around his neck when Laura finds him)… Maybe they even cross the paths of some loa and it doesn’t get all angsty (for what it’s worth, I think the reason the sex magic didn’t bring Laura back to life was because she couldn’t accept the truth(s) revealed during the astral-plain sex – see how she defaults straight to “this is all Wednesday’s evil plan” the morning after – not because the loa fucked them over as Sweeney said). They were actually getting along nicely in those first couple of scenes, only ribbing each other a little while still being their grouchy selves, before they got to Le Coq Noir. I wouldn’t have minded seeing some more of that.

-All the old gods hide their true appearance to an extent. A situation arises in which Laura sees Sweeney’s true, or at least old, self (I’m thinking of his surprise!poignant monologue about when he used to be a king, and the glimpse of him in full Celtic warrior mode in the S2 teaser). Or Wednesday’s war ends in victory, meaning the old gods again get belief, worship, and sacrifices. How does Laura, the ultimate skeptic even when she’s on the other side of the mirror, react? How does this new knowledge and new reality change her opinion of/attitude to Sweeney? Or to flip that around, if Sweeney were again relevant and believed-in, would that actually change his bad attitude and fix his issues (my guess is it would be complicated)?

-The power of names: for all his “dead wifeing,” there comes a time when Sweeney (has to) call her by her actual name, and that’s a tricky moment for them to navigate. Or, Mad Sweeney is almost certainly not his actual name, since true names have great magical power and so must be kept secret; Laura discovers or learns his name, from someone else or from himself; what does she do with that knowledge? Or, Sweeney gets to say “cunt” in a situation (sexual or otherwise) where, not only does Laura not peel his lips from his gums, but she finds that she can’t object, even though she knows that he knows that he’s getting away with it.

-So far in canon, it’s pretty clear that Sweeney has a lot of complicated but sincere feelings for Laura. But Laura is still pretty focused on Shadow (or rather her idealized vision of Shadow and what their relationship might yet be), whom she seems to equate with her own lost-maybe-to-be-regained life, although she’s starting to soften toward Sweeney as she realizes he’s doing things for her that are not all about getting his coin back (and her sparring match with Wednesday in “Muninn” may finally force her to accept that her relationship with Shadow died alongside her and Robbie on that road in Indiana). Tell me the story of how Laura stumbles her way to starting to feel more complex, maybe kinder or softer, really annoying for her blunt-force-trauma-personality things about Sweeney and about the notion that her dynamic with him is different from the way she tended to use men for her convenience without really letting them in in the past. Also I’m pretty sure that even if they felt the same – or sorta in the same ballpark – about each other, their relationship would still run on a lot of conflict, and I would so be here for it.

-On that note: in “Munnin” it also becomes clear that Laura has, without realizing it herself, started to rely on Sweeney. The “I trusted you” line made me think, whoa she’s too mad to catch herself doing it but this is huge for Laura, and the fact that she goes off with Wednesday (!) basically because she’s mad at Sweeney because she thinks he’s prioritizing his debt to Wednesday over her… Yeah, I would like to see that explored some more and/or to see Laura and Sweeney get to a point where they trust each other and rely on each other, and know it and accept it, however difficult the getting there and being there may be for them.

-And since I’m on the subject of Laura, you know how she’s not actually an abrasive bitch all the time to everyone? And when she is, the people on the receiving end of it sometimes richly deserve it, and anyway it’s refreshing to see a female character who doesn’t bother flirting and accommodating others for the sake of social harmony? As much as I enjoy watching her rip into people (ahem, Sweeney), I also love it when she acts differently, like her genuine interest in getting to know Salim and her joy in seeing him again in S2, or her running passive-aggressive battle of wills with Wednesday, or even her general disaffection and numbness in “Git Gone.” Her beginning to feel sympathy for Sweeney and her anger and disappointment when she feels let down by him are a part of that, and I’d love to see all that explored more. Nuance! Give me all the nuance and seeming contradictions in both Laura and Sweeney’s characters!

-My perfect AG spinoff would basically be Sweeney and Laura tooling around America, looking to get her resurrected (whether they succeed or not is up to you), stealing ever more ridiculous vehicles, arguing/fighting and having those pesky moments where vulnerability and genuineness creep in – and fucking. So yessiree I’d be down for porn, including “it’s technically necrophilia/zombiesex” porn.

-All the petty, ridiculous ways in which Sweeney’s bad luck manifests itself make me laugh (can’t help it, won’t even try), and I’m down for more variations on that theme.

-If you wanted to throw in some worldbuilding, maybe something exploring living death. Magical bargains. What kind of favor did Sweeney do for Ostara that would be worth her bringing someone back to life as repayment? What other powers might Sweeney have (he doesn’t seem on a par with someone like Wednesday and Ostara, nor is he really a god, more a mythological being/kinda-deified former-mortal)? How long can a dead wife keep going before she’s “soup”? What other superhuman abilities might dead!Laura have? Can the dead do magic? What even are the rules governing and the limits of different beings’ magical abilities?

If it helps your inspiration, you can find some of my meta and lots of tag-burbling about these two here. I have read the book though I remember it only in bits and pieces, and while I prefer the show characters and the fact that they get thrown together, you can use or riff on book material if you want. With reference to one of my DNWs, for this canon, describing Laura’s physical decay is totally fine. Also, Shadow/Laura don’t interest me except as a part of Laura’s backstory (so if your story wants to include Laura figuring out or having already figured out that pinning all her hopes on Shadow to make everything right is unrealistic, unfair, and not how it works – by all means, go for it!), and Shadow/Sweeney interest me not at all.

My one canon-specific, really strong DNW for this pairing is this: I’m not into Laura being Essie’s reincarnation/descendant or – as fanon suggests and canon hints she may be – some sort of reincarnation of Sweeney’s wife from back when he was a king in old Ireland. Reincarnation/“new love looks like old love”/“lost love found again” plots bore me, and I don’t enjoy ships that hinge on characters being somehow destined to be together. Characters having agency is my jam as much as canon divergences are. Or if your fic really needs to go there, please please please don’t dwell on the Laura-Essie-Sweeney’s-wife-of-old thing, a brief mention would be more than enough. I’m certain Laura would have neither time nor patience for the notion that Destiny Fate and All That Jazz threw her together with ginger minge, and even if it were technically true, she’d still want this relationship to work on her terms – and Sweeney obviously has a problem with Laura’s cheating, her relationship with Shadow, her personality (though he also recognizes they’re alike in many ways), and all that maps onto his anger and sadness over becoming irrelevant over time, so it’s not just about Laura. So yeah, let them be their own (grumpy, spiky, dysfunctional) people, and let Laura’s dynamic with Sweeney not be shaped solely by his past and his issues.

Cabin Pressure

Carolyn Knapp-Shappey & Arthur Shappey & Martin Crieff & Douglas Richardson

Genres: Action/adventure, Canon-style plot, Humor, Slice of life

I just want more canon-y stories with their loopy humor and their weird yet loving family dynamics among the crew. Shenanigans in mid-flight or in the tedium which precedes and the tiredness which follows them. Someone smuggles (knowingly or not) an exotic animal on-board, legal, security, medical and/or slapstick chaos ensues. A mechanical, passenger- or smuggled-goods-caused problem arises and is solved during a journey. More games played on board GERTI. Playing around with a specific destination, like in many episodes, would be a plus. If it helps inspire you, my favorite episodes in terms of tone and content are: Douz, Gdansk, Johannesburg, Limerick, Ottery St. Mary, Uskerty, and Xinzhou.

For this canon, I prefer gen with maybe, if you want to go there, some Douglas/Carolyn on the side. That’s a ship I always thought had potential – they understand each other very well and trust each other... some of the time, but they’re both also snark-masters, tend to look down on anyone not as smart or quick-witted as they (Arthur being the sole – occasional – exception), and are really good about keeping their defenses up against other people. But I requested the gen group, and I definitely want the gen group – please don’t feel pressed to write the ship, that’s just a wild suggestion I threw out there.

Moonlighting (TV)

David Addison/Maddie Hayes

Genres: Action/adventure, AU - canon divergence, Canon-style plot, Established relationship, Getting together, Humor, Mystery/procedural, Slice of life

I osmosed tons about this show over the years but didn’t get around to watching it myself till recently. And then I loved it much more than I thought I would! Yeah, sure, some of it’s dated, and some of it’s ropey in terms of how the characters interact ( all the casual sexism and battle of the sexes stuff are very 80s indeed), but the chemistry! the banter! the funny! the shiptease! Gimme!

I tried to come up with lots of prompts, but ended up with a list of stuff I love about the show – and would love to see in fic – with some prompts mixed in. Hope it helps! Basically, give me as much of the show’s “flavor” as you can, and I’ll be happy.

My two DNW requests for this canon would be: please ignore everything that happens post-S3 (so if you want to write Maddie/David in the aftermath of their resolving their UST, please go ahead with the canon divergence of your dreams, I bet it’ll be a million times better than canon), and please don’t have secondary characters (Agnes and Herbert, or Maddie and David’s relatives and exes) hijack the story. They can be in it, but I really do want a David/Maddie story, despite the canon sometimes sidelining them due to behind-the-scenes shenanigans.

Prompts/likes:

-all the banter, wordplay, innuendo, puns, comic repetition

-arguments – those long, explosive, funny, overlapping, always hilarious fights they have

-breaking the fourth wall – yes, please. In canon, they often seem to know they’re fictional characters but ones that exist in the real world, with studio lots and such. Do they now know they’re characters in a fanfic of fictional characters that also exist in the real world, or something even more mind-screwy?

-David calling Maddie “blondie blond” – it just makes me laugh – and Maddie calling him “Addison” when angry but “David” when worried or when shit hits the fan

-random cultural nods – off the top of my head, canon referenced Spanish poetry, objectivism, American realist drama, Dr. Seuss, Shakespeare, of course all the Hollywood tropes and genres; go high or low culture, go famous or obscure, even if I don’t know the reference, I want it! Ditto if you decide on a plot that parodies and pays homage to a cultural landmark story (The Silence of the Lambs? Much Ado about Nothing? A Hitchcock movie? Something else?), I’d love it!

-speaking of: I love the pun-tastic episode titles referencing everything under the sun

-all the canon-era detail which both takes me back and jars me with how much things have changed: people smoking in public buildings, seeing someone off at the boarding gate, dial and push-button telephones, VHS rentals, no cellphones/internet, all the 80s fashion and permed hair… Throw it in just for kicks or weave it into the plot (e.g., they’re following someone and only have a paper map and their own faulty sense of direction to help them)

-casefic – I love the silly plots (and chases! All the chases!), which often combine really gruesome outcomes or real violence with slapstick. I’d be especially tickled if you wrote a plot that starts out silly and seemingly innocent (e.g., they get “hired” by a kid who lost their homework) but ends up deadly serious, or vice versa

-I also love the flashes of really dark humor, usually provided by David snarking about plot developments, though my favorite example remains the intro to S3E1, with David assuring his sick mother that they’ll sweep the Emmys, and then they lost big time and we see a title card saying that the mom died on Emmy night. What can I say but: ROFL

-Maddie and David are really pretty terrible detectives, but they always manage to solve the mystery – or a solution falls into their laps – and I’m here for it

-Blue Moon almost never seems to take on actual paying clients – what else might David and Maddie do for much-needed cash? Bodyguards, extras on a movie, professional consultants on a movie (probably a really shlocky, C-grade production being filmed in the middle of nowhere), dance marathon, talent contest…

-all the shippiness before the UST becomes RST – in canon they slow-danced in a bar, they slept side by side on a plane, he’s snuck into her house multiple times when he was in trouble, etc. etc. etc. The sky’s the limit!

-maybe they get together in a different way than in canon and/or they have a relationship that departs from canon? Or how about if they resolve the UST as they do in canon, but then find a way to be both partners and lovers, without getting so wrapped up in what they each think the other one should be that they spoil everything? Basically, could they be mature enough to have a relationship that works for them both, or be friends with benefits, or hell even break up but remain each other’s most important person (and maybe still have sex occasionally)?

-tropes – the canon plays with so many tropes, you could too! Some suggestions: there’s only one bed, undercover as lovers/married/client and bodyguard, waking up married, any variation on Lady and the Tramp you can think of (including David having to pretend he’s a class act while Maddie has to play the slob, for a case or because of a situation with their families or…), they get zapped by a mad scientist they’re surveilling and swap bodies, etc.

-road trip! Oh the possibilities...

-playing Twenty Questions or another game during a boring stakeout, and personal revelations come spilling out

-Maddie’s experience as a model proves key to cracking a case, whether you want to make the whole story a riff on the world of fashion (The Devil Wears Prada parody, anyone?) or use that as a surprise plot point

-they get tangled up (again) in international espionage and go on a globe-trotting adventure, either chasing a MacGuffin or being chased – basically, get them out of Los Angeles and their relative comfort zone, and send them Indiana Jones-ing all over the world

-the show often makes 80s-typical mean jokes about Russia and the Cold War – what if a case took Maddie and David to the Soviet Union in its last years? Give me all the culture clashes, David being obnoxious and Maddie trying to be diplomatic, all the vodka, chases down frozen streets and over the frozen Neva River, dodging the KGB, sneaking around behind the scenes at the Bolshoi or Kirov Ballet and winding up on stage…

-when they visit a “rough” dive bar in S1, there’s a whole scene of David teasing Maddie to show tough-girl attitude, and she quips that she can’t wait till he has to accompany her to a high-society event. Um, yes please!

-they attempt to date like a regular couple, and stuff keeps getting in the way – whether they go to the opera/ballet and a fancy restaurant, or a basketball game and out for beers, or they try a quiet dinner and a movie at home (or all of the above!), canon-like complications keep interrupting. But then again, the ridiculous way they work is what brought them together in the first place. Bonus points if the fish-out-of-water partner ends up getting into the other one’s date-activity of choice, while snarking all the way.

-David has been to Maddie’s house multiple times – including to sleep over, both platonically and not – and they’ve both crashed at the office, but what little we see of David’s place, it seems to be a bachelor pad/hovel with a large yet mysteriously unfurnished living room. Maddie visits David/comes to spend the night/hides out with him from villains, and shenanigans ensue.

-canon often resolves the clash between David’s opportunism, happy-go-luckiness, and cockiness, and Maddie’s gentle idealism, worrywartness, and romanticism, by having David “win.” That can be funny, but what if the plot gave Maddie the right a bit more?

-I’m honestly not that into smut for this pairing - a fade to black, something implied, something referenced, innuendo, maybe brief flashes (heh) of what the characters think about/imagine/remember work much better with the canon’s overall tone, I think.

Likes:

I love pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories. I love character-driven and plot-driven stories equally, and I love fics which mix humor and angst/serious business when appropriate for the canon.

I love stories about characters at work and play, group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too, etc.

I love irony, snark, humor as well as angst arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in, linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories, hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, worldbuilding, spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, characters who are their own worst enemies as well as those who can get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other.

I especially love workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters are competent and dedicated to the job, and while they may not be exactly friends and they may well irritate one another, they still manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise and sometimes reluctance/discomfort). Or, if they can’t get along, show me why not and what’s preventing them from finding common ground.

In terms of ship dynamics, I love (where it fits the characters) banter, competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved), oh-god-why-did-it-have-to-be-you-what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this, bickering yet loving couples, faithfulness, characters who are serious about their romantic interests, characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are, characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed, fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping. A dynamic I cannot resist is shipping a couple who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, one betrayed the other or they betrayed each other), and while they love and want each other they’re also not willing to change sides or surrender/compromise their identity for the other’s benefit, and how they might (or not) make their relationship work anyway.

I don’t have any very specific likes for smut, other than smut fitting the characters – show me how their canon dynamics spill over into the bedroom (or other place of congress). I also like sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves (e.g., the person who’s usually quiet or more passive taking charge, the more aggressive person goes with it possibly snarking or commenting on it as long as they can). And I like sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition, antagonism, oh-god-this-is-a-bad-idea-but-we’re-going-for-it-hammer-and-tongs, not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not, or just people getting way more into it or being more affected by it than they thought they would. When it fits the characters and their canon dynamic, you also can’t go wrong with we-both-wanted-this-for-forever-and-now-we-both-know-it-so-here-we-go-diving-in-headfirst. For het and/or slash, oral, vaginal, anal incl. pegging, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) – it’s all good. You can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, kinks, incest, underage, genderswap/genderbent characters, xeno, non-/dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore/blood and come are fine), toilet humor, character bashing, issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons, unrequested ships, soulmates and soul marks, major character death (unless it’s canon), serious illness or injury, pregnancy and children, holiday or wedding setting/theme, secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job, reference to RL current events, 1st/2nd person POV, AUs which have nothing to do with canonf