#2015 was an insane year for critical thought

[pinkfey]

rachel amber haters were literally like ugh i can’t believe she cheated on chloe with these two grown ass men twice her age, one of which being her violent drug dealer, the other being the guy who literally groomed drugged kidnapped and murdered her….. what a manipulative snake!!!!!

[raayllum]

Transcript of Aaron Ehasz Interview (Sept 2024)

Podcast link here. Transcript down below with bulk under a read more.

R: Alright so welcome back to the Wordswithdragons podcast, and today I’m joined by a very special guest, the co-creator of The Dragon Prince, Aaron Ehasz. 

A: Hello, thank you for having me today. Glad to be here.

R: Thank you so much for being here. Um, yeah, so, as we semi touched on, it is the 6 year anniversary of The Dragon Prince this September 14th.

A: Yeah.

R: Do you have any thoughts, reflections, feelings about the show having gone on for this long and being such a big part of people’s lives?

A: I mean for starters, it’s really hard to believe it’s been on for six years. Like that seems insane to me. Cause it seemed like we had — Justin and I had been working on it for so long before it finally came out because we had worked on the story and then gotten feedback, and help in improving that pitch and bringing it out and we had it set up at Netflix, and we had to — we wrote the pilot obviously, and we didn’t know where we were gonna produce it, and found Bardel. So there was so much time between even just starting to think about it and when it came out.

R: Yeah, cause that was like 2015, right?

A: Yeah, I guess we started the journey in 2015 and we got with Bardel by the end of 2016, and it got released evidently in 2018, so... Yeah, yeah, cause I remember even we were writing kind of the end of season 3 when we had that panel with Marco and named the character after Marco.

R: Oh yeah.

A: The character [chuckles] from the first episode, we only had an opportunity for him to say his name out loud in that last episode because we were writing the ending while we were showing the episodes for first time, so. Anyway, that’s my reflection, it’s great it’s been six years.

R: Yeah. I know The Dragon Prince has been a really like — both life changing and I think, like, life affirming experience for a lot of people, myself included. So we just really appreciate everybody’s hard work on the show and are very excited for season 7 and hopefully beyond as well. As well for any future projects that Wonderstorm comes out with, like Bonders sounds amazing.

A: I feel — well first of all, thank you for saying that it’s life affirming, that’s such a nice thing to hear about something you’ve worked on, but I also agree that Justin and I feel a ton of gratitude for the whole team and the work and heart that everyone put into making this. I think people wanted it to be meaningful and special and that takes a certain kind of energy and vulnerability to build something like that, that you share, and our whole team really did give that in building the show.

R: Yeah. I think for sure. I think that’s like, um, I was even — I was rewatching some of the show earlier for — for a parallel, and it was the scene between Avizandum and Zubeia when she goes to him in like her kind of corruption dream semi-nightmare, and obviously that’s such a heartfelt, touching scene, and it’s always so strange. Because on the one hand, you should hate Avizandum, he killed Sarai and Rex Igneous has rightful criticism of him, but then you watch that scene of him and he really did love his family, so I think the show being able to draw out those strong, conflicting emotions for so many of the characters is one of the reasons why it connects with people to the degree that it does.

A: And that’s one of the themes you probably see in the show — just gonna make a quick —

R: Yeah, yeah for sure. 

A: Avizandum, which is that being a good dad can make up for awful lot of [R laughs] monstrosities, as long as you’re doing it in the name of being a good dad. I’m joking, uh. Of course, yeah, Avizandum was always meant to be a complicated figure like many of our characters. 

R: You mentioned that you guys have been working on — I think season three during this panel with Marco, or Marcos, and I remember, I think you’ve said before that the seasons get worked on concurrently, that there’s a decent amount of overlap.

A: Yeah.

R: I’ve always wondered, because we know — obviously, I’m a big Rayllum fan — but I’ve always wondered, cause I know they weren’t originally planned, and then you guys were boarding season two when you were like, “Hey, maybe this should be a thing,” and then probably like shifted and tweaked things or changed things to write more towards that in the future... Um, I’ve always wondered, if there was time, like at that time, to go back and change anything in season one for them, or the season one that we see was just like that?

A: I don’t recall there was time to change season 1 — that does happen because we are working on things in parallel because we are working on something in the script and then some time later we are working on the later stage of production, like an animatic, and we’ll be able to kind of give notes or even make changes with the knowledge of what’s coming, so that has happened. But in the case of Rayllum, I don’t think so. I mean, I think — again, I remember...

R: It was a while ago, yeah.

A: We were rekindling, or when we were realizing that something was being kindled between them, it was watching an animatic so that shouldn’t have informed our writing of season one, but our later stage stuff. But we weren’t trying to force anything so it got in there naturally and I don’t think we went back and changed anything.

R: Yeah, that’s what I’ve always — they had those kind of vibes to me from like episode two and three, obviously season two brought a lot more people on board, but I was always curious. Cause in season one, like, I think, it feels so natural, it feels so organic, and like I’ve shown — one of the things I love about Dragon Prince is it’s a great way to connect with friends and family and you kind of catch up with each other like through the show, of “oh have you seen the new season yet?” and that sort of stuff. And so when I’ve shown the show to like my brother-in-law, who is not plugged in at all, he also kind of picked up on it in season one, so I’ve always been curious. 

A: You know, what else, I’ll even say, I think we initially, intentionally planned they weren’t going to be a couple. We were like “Oh yeah, no, they’re—”

R: Friends, yeah.

A: Friends, with different views of the world and they journey together, and we don’t want them to be a couple. We’re not — we’re definitely not targeting it. I think we were intentionally not targeting it, and then it was “too bad creators! [R laughs] We’re going to fall in love despite everything you’re planning.”

R: Well, that very much I think even fits what they represent to each other, of like you don’t have to do this path that you think you have to do...

A: Yeah.

R: You can be something new. I always kind of felt like Ezran and Zym were — felt very kind of like designed as foils, as like a pair, of like through Zym, Ezran learns more so like how to grow up, and they’re both like the princes who will be king, and then Callum and Rayla also kind of felt sort of like developed as a pair, in terms of like — he needs to gain more confidence, she’s pretty confident on the surface.

A: Yeah.

R: She needs to learn how to open up, he’s really good at being open especially in the beginning.

A: Right. 

R: So I was always like...

A: He needs to be murdered, she needs to learn how to murder someone.

R: Yeah! They complete each other, yeah. Uh... Some other questions that I had [rapid typing]. So I guess, maybe, I have some questions that are more season specific, in respect to time, but I also had like more general questions. 

A: Okay.

R: So, one of the things I’ve always love in general and really love about The Dragon Prince is its like use of philosophy and like its deeply interested in ethical and moral questions, and presenting some answers for some of them, but like are those the right answers? We don’t know. 

A: Right.

R: So I know King Harrow’s choosing of Lady Justice’s blindfold is a pretty apt comparison to John Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance—

A: Yes.

R: Of, you know, you strip away everything that you could have, like advantages, disadvantages, and think, would the system work for me? Which has been useful when I’ve like, had to tutor students in philosophy actually, but I was curious, were there any like philosophical concepts or ideas that people really, or you really, wanted to work into the series? ‘Cause we have a lot of trolley problems.

A: Right. Um, probably. I mean like, I should say, I was a philosophy concentrator in college so I absorbed a lot. Things like  Rawls, I had a class with John Rawls, and thought that was a really interesting concept and I liked including it, and I thought we can include it in a fun way, the idea of justice. So other philosophy probably makes its way in, it can makes its way in accidentally or subconsciously, so nothing specific right now comes to mind. I will say, as with kind of Avatar before this, I don’t like to have — I’m not trying to have a right answer, ever. I’m trying to have the characters have a deeper understanding of what they’re struggling with, and y’know, move in a direction of deeper understanding, so if anything, it’s more interesting to me to see conflicts between maybe philosophical approaches that are different and see how — Oh well, this has these kinds of results, and positives and negatives, and this has... so that the audience can have a chance to say, “Oh well okay, I have some thoughts on that,” or “here’s what I feel,” and that’s why sometimes I think we see the fandom actually kind of go back and forth—

R: Yeah.

A: On — around characters and people’s choices, and things like dark magic or Viren, which are controversial, are things where like, I do not have a strong point of view on... the kind of binary right or wrong of... Viren in the long term. He’s made a lot of wrong choices and he’s made a lot of choices for good. 

R: Yeah.

A: He is an arrogant and power hungry person and he’s also a caring and loving father and someone who wants to have a positive impact on the world, right, like?

R: Yeah.

A: So those conflicts play out in him. But similarly, I think with maybe most of the philosophical ideas I can think of, I’d rather get to like a place where everyone just has a chance to entertain those thoughts and ideas and struggle with them, or hold them in an authentic way, and then can come to their own conclusions and feelings. I mean, I have some deep feelings about like, the world, and how can people be optimistic or not pessimistic or—y’know, what it means to hold onto hope or what it means to try to move past conflict, and I have beliefs that there are conflicts that get so you know, kind of sewn in, that they feel they are impossible to untangle, and especially if the game you’re playing is who started it, or who did the worst thing, where you can’t just ever untangle it. You can’t ever find a right or wrong, so how do you get past that? That’s one of the questions I was hoping Rayla, Callum, and Ezran would try to—

R: Figure it out.

A: Struggle with. Anyway, I’m giving a very long winded answer—

R: No, no.

A: That’s the philosophy that comes to mind. If something comes to mind for you, you can bring it up and I can go, “Oh yeah, that was probably influenced by so-and-so.” [R laughs] Or maybe not.

R: Well, one of the things I loved about season six was kind of — you see, even... One of the things I thought was really interesting was we see, not quite like that return to trolley problems, but we see Aaravos at the end of season 5 is telling Viren you have to make the sacrifice so that you can live, and then we see Rayla tell Callum, “Hey, if the choice ever happens, you also have to sacrifice me,” for — so Callum can live, but also for like the greater good and that sort of stuff. And then you have Kpp’Ar, who — I love Kpp’Ar, I think he’s terrible and interesting and I love him.

A: Awesome. He is — we’ll learn a little more about him in the future, but yes.

R: And obviously when Viren’s like, “A child will die,” and this is a kid that Kpp’Ar would’ve known, and we see in The Puzzle House that he loved these kids, and whatever is up with the Staff is bad enough that Kpp’Ar’s like, “Okay. I’ll make that sacrifice.” Which feels very much in a way like he’s given up on dark magic, and to a certain degree he’s both given up on the mindset of dark magic, and maybe also hasn’t given it up in the same way. Like I love that — Claudia, you know, obviously, puts Viren above all else, is she always right to do so? Maybe not, but we get why she’s doing it, that’s a hard thing to say. And then we have Callum, who also seems inclined to put Rayla above all else, and because we like Rayla more, we’re like “Yeah, he can do that, it’s okay for him to do dark magic for her, that’s fine,” even if there’s also like, consequences. Cause most characters in the show, like you said, everybody kind of wants the same thing, they wanna have a positive impact on the world, they want to protect their loved ones, but what constitutes that world, what they think is a positive impact, or who they want — how they protect those people, that’s all very malleable and can fluctuate. Viren says “Claudia, you’re on the wrong path,” and we’re like yeah, he’s right, and Karim says the same thing about Janai, like the exact same thing, and we’re like, well he’s wrong.

A: Yeah. I mean a lot of things come to mind when you’re talking through that, but one is there’s often a conflict between rigidity and rules and some kind of compassion, or emotional decision, and those decisions are hard, right? Like I dunno, maybe Kpp’Ar should’ve said, “Okay just this once, it’s Soren,” or not, I don’t know. I mean obviously Kpp’Ar had taken himself to some deep horrible place and he really had, actually. And was like, “Okay, dark magic is just corruption when you start and keep going down this path, but this Viren’s kid so I don’t know.” One of the things here, I think there’s a relationship between — you know, sacrifice plays a role here. Sacrifice and thinking about generations and generational conflict and thinking you know maybe in a way I think is interesting. I think about the beginning of season 6 when Claudia has done all of this and sacrificed another life but also sacrifices some of her soul or whatever to save her dad and he’s like “No no! This is not the way! A parent is supposed to do this for a child but never the other way around,” right? And there’s something to that I find interesting which is — it’s almost the inverse of children having the opportunity to start anew and break cycles, parents potentially have the opportunity to make sacrifices that don’t pass by burdens onto their kids, but sort of like that’s the mirror I see a little bit, in terms of how do you have generational change and evolution? It’s somewhere in younger generations being able to not get stuck on conflicts and burdens, but also the older generations recognizing that they may have to be the one to take the — and this is I think a natural... I dunno, it’s something I think about a little bit and came to mind when you were talking. So we’ll see more about what is the meaning of sacrifice and when — when do you... trade? Yeah.

R: Yeah.

A: Side note on sacrifice. You’re familiar with Game of Thrones? You’ve watched all of Game of Thrones?

R: I’m decently familiar, yeah.

A: Okay.

R: And if not, I can have Kuno explain it to me later, so.

A: One of the things I love about the sacrifice Ned made, that we didn’t realize he’d made until I think the very end of the series, we realize — a sacrifice to his kind of reputation, right? And I’m talking about him representing Jon Snow as his bastard to protect him, right? Think about that, that’s a sacrifice, he had to go through the anger — he didn’t tell his wife the truth, he didn’t tell anyone, because it was the only way to protect the child, and as a result he lived with — even though the truth is that he was a really honest, good, or evidently he didn’t go cheat on his wife, he sacrificed that part of his reputation to protect Jon, at least how I see it. I think things like that are kind of interesting. I dunno.

R: Yeah. Yeah, I think it speaks to that idea of — one of the things I love about Dragon Prince is it’s so much about choices.

A: Yeah.

R: Like one of the things I really really liked about season 6 was that, you know, Callum is like, “Okay, I’m going to get myself purified, healed of dark magic,” and Rayla was his light, which was very validating, cause I had noticed in season two there was like some framing so I was like well “Maybe, maybe” you know? And then slowburn buildup but it was — I think that was a great moment that really paid off. And he’s told “if you ever do this again, it’ll corrupt you completely.” And whether he will or won’t — I personally think that he will, but spoilers, you know — but whether he will or won’t, I think it’s really nice because now whatever choice he makes, he’s making with the full context, of what this would do to him.

A: Yeah.

R: Whereas in season two, yes he was making his choice to do dark magic then, and I don’t necessarily think he would make a fundamentally different one if he had known what it would lead to, but there’s a different kind of awareness. Like I always of it would’ve been so easy to have Harrow not know that Viren was going to kill Zym, cause that’s such an easy way to kind of let Harrow off the hook of well Viren went off and did this on his own, and Harrow had no idea, and blah blah blah, right? Cause we like Harrow, he’s a — again, he’s a good dad, we’ll forgive a lot. And instead, it’s not his idea but he’s fully aware, he signs off on it. And I think constantly pushing characters to make hard choices — kind of like what Ezran says, “these aren’t dreams, these are choices.”

A: Yeah.

R: You can choose love, you can choose to make... It’s something that makes all the characters feel so fully developed and interesting, so I always appreciate that you guys push them to make the hard choice. 

A: Yeah. Cool. Thank you.

R: One question I did have is, uh, Karim is one of my favourite characters.

A: Okay. Unusual person. A lot of people hate — or love to hate...? I love him too. 

R: I also love Kasef, so I think I just kind of love everyone, because I’m like well, they’re really interesting. I feel like [Karim’s] arc was one of the things I loved most about season 4 because you can see him really wrestling with his choices and I love watching him fail, cause that’s kind of all he does, so that’s always fun. But I am really curious obviously now he’s been betrayed by Sol Regem, Katolis is in ashes and maybe they’ll blame Karim for that cause Sol Regem is like — dead, and now, presumably his only hope is going to be that his sister doesn’t execute him on the spot? 

A: Yeah.

R: So is there anything you can tease about Karim’s arc in season 7?

A: Yeah, so — so it’s not just Karim, there’s an army of people who betrayed Janai, and — and...

R: What do we do?

A: Yeah, what do we do? That will be something we’ll have to see them grapple with pretty much right away in the season. Especially cause [Karim’s army] showed up for this battle where they were never even — they were just planning to sweep up the ashes afterwards, so when they didn’t get the dragon support they needed, I suspect they lost really quickly. 

R: Yes, yeah.

A: So uh... Yeah, but basically as of the start of season 7 — all of them are prisoners of Queen Janai and the question is — what do you do with that? What do you do when you have an entire army and your own brother who betrayed you? And so that’s — we’ll find out.

R: Yeah. [Laughs] 

A: But yeah.

R: Yeah. Another question I had going forward was Terry and Claudia obviously I thought had a really beautiful relationship arc, particularly in season 6, and we saw in season 4 the lengths he’s willing to go to for her, and how Terry, I think, is a great example of how there’s a lot of character traits where we think “oh, if you’re a selfless, helpful, accepting person, you’re a good person,” and I feel like Dragon Prince does a really good job of how, Rayla’s selflessness can be great but it can also be kinda bad, or, um, Terry can be super accepting, maybe a little too—

A: Yeah.

R: —accepting sometimes, right? So I feel like at the end of season 6, it will presumably be him, Claudia, and Aaravos for a little bit now that he’s out of the prison. And it feels like maybe Terry might hit a breaking point?

A: Here’s what I will say — Terry is a really special character and if you watched him, he’s so good, and what we’ll find out is, he is — there is an episode called TRUE HEART and he is someone who has a true heart.

R: Oh that’s so sweet.

A: It’s very impossibly rare and special — but also we all understand what a true heart is in some way and we’ll learn a little more about that. But yeah, the question of what will Terry do, what can he do, is difficult because he has a very strong sense of right and wrong, but he has a very deep capacity for love and he loves Claudia with all of his heart. Where does that present an impossible conflict, it may... we’ll see a challenge.

R: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

A: I’ll also throw in like I sometimes see some parallels between Terry and Uncle Iroh—

R: Yes.

A: Though Uncle Iroh I think has a very different journey. Iroh is kind of a recovered problematic person who now has some wisdom and enlightenment, so in terms of the difference between the purity of a true heart versus where Iroh is more of a later stage enlightenment, the love that they have for the kind of complicated person that they are with is similar to me. And the way that they both sometimes have to, or don’t have to but...

R: Choose to?

A: You have to give that person the space — you can’t force them to choose right or wrong, you can be there with them, you can try to guide them, you can — but ultimately you have to give them the space to fail, and eventually, you may have to turn your back on them. 

R: Yeah.

A: At some point. I don’t know. But um yeah — I still see them as connected characters in my mind. 

R: I think I can even see some of that with even the way Callum is with Rayla, like season five onwards, of like “I’ve hit my turning point, I’m not mad at you anymore, and you can steal my key, you can lie to me, and I’m not going to have you open up to me out of guilt or obligation, I want you to tell me what’s going on when you want to tell me what’s going on, and I’m going to give you the space for that.” So I think it speaks to that unconditional love that I think—

A: Yeah.

R: —a lot of the characters are blessed to have. But I do see the Terry Iroh connection. So another thing that I thought was really interesting was — obviously next season is dark magic, and I’m very hopeful that maybe we’ll learn more about the origins of dark magic or Elarion, even. 

A: Great.

R: Because I know when I was watching Sol Regem burn down Katolis, it made me think of what might’ve either happened or almost happened to Elarion in the past, you know? 

A: Yeah.

R: Even down to Ziard and Viren both die, kind of deflecting and trying to save people, with the same staff, you know, and how the cycle continues to just always repeat itself over and over again. And if there was like — yeah, cause burning down Katolis was a massive shakeup, you know?

A: Yup.

R: And what maybe the process was there, with the — Aaravos seems like he’s trying to repeat the cycle of like “Oh I’m going to take down the dragon monarchy or I’m gonna use that vacancy to my advantage, and mess with the Sunfire elves.”

A: He has a specific vendetta against Sol Regem, obviously, but it’s one where he has played it out in... What’s certainly meant to be implied, even though we’ll find out more later, is that one of the great mysteries of Sol Regem’s life is that his mate disappeared and he never found her. He’s the freaking Dragon King, and she disappeared. And though we don’t know how or what happened, while she was buried alive. He killed her. He didn’t even realize it, somehow. Somehow, Aaravos manipulated him into killing her, and he doesn’t — I dunno, I assume Sol Regem does understand when it must have happened, but that moment, it’s like an impossible — it’s meant to be just...

R: Awful.

A: He’s tortured him for 1000 years or whatever, without him knowing he was being tortured by Aaravos, and now he’s given him the mercy/cruelty of knowing the resolution to the mystery was that he killed her. And one of the things that worked well with that was that, we had sort of said Sol Regem can smell the truth from a lie, so he has the horrible curse of being able to know this is the deep dark truth. So I dunno, I think um, are we going to find out more about that? So, if we can eventually get the Book Three novel out [R laughs], we will find out more about that.

R: I did wonder, I was like “Maybe this is something that was gonna be in the book three novelization.”

A: Yes, we will find out more in the book three novel, it may be a year or so before unfortunately. And then I don’t think we’re gonna get too deep into that in season seven, that’s part of — it is involved in what we’re thinking about as the third arc, understanding and resolving the third arc, is gonna go a little deeper into...

R: Some of the history, yeah.

A: Some of the stuff that happened with Sol Regem. But yeah, no, I — it’s enjoyable to have these figures like Aaravos and Sol Regem who are ancient and operate over the course of centuries and are incredibly powerful, yet they can’t — or at least Aaravos,  they can’t conflict directly as easily, and so Aaravos has played this really complicated game. Anyway, but yes Sol Regem is part of that, but there’s — there’s more, there’s more people who — beings that took from him. He feels that Leola was unfairly punished and that that was — you know, he sees a future and he has something... All this time, a burning — it’s the twisted form of his love, in which he’s full of hate right now to the beings who brought this about. Obviously, Sol Regem played a role because he’s a rules dragon.

R: Yeah, yeah.

A: He is the one who betrayed her to the Cosmic Council ultimately — but how do you punish the Cosmic Council? That’s a bit more complicated.

R: Yeah. No, I remember finishing season six and just being so impressed with the story. Like, taking that direction, and almost doing a lot of recontextualization, because it’s one thing to have like your worldbuilding where “magic in the story works like this” and it’s just very kind of like hand of God, you know? Like oh — cause the magic system has always been unfair, that’s why we have Callum, you know? It’s another thing to say we’re going to have characters in the story who are responsible for it being unfair. And now we’re just going to have that in terms of conflict and themes of destiny. We have about seven, ten-ish minutes left I think.

A: Probably seven, if that’s okay?

R: Yeah. Of course. 

A: I’ll throw one other thing in there, which is that — cause characters experience things that change them: has Aaravos experienced — I’ll phrase it as a question, even though probably the answer is here, has Aaravos experienced much that has changed him in the last — since the death of Leola? I mean certainly some things, and is what’s happening now changing him in any way? Is it satisfaction, is it the relationship with Claudia, and what does that mean to someone? That’s a question that I think we’ll have to watch play out a little bit.

R: [Intrigued] Okay. Yeah. One thing that I really liked about Leola’s character was I felt like she had pieces of each of the main trio in her? Of this very helpful innocent well meaning child, kind of like Ezran — and I have also always seen Ezran as autistic as well cause I know that Leola canonically is — and then you also kind of have the whole oh she gave  / helped humans have primal magic, which obviously Callum has. And even just being this young elven girl punished for her compassion and mercy, that felt a lot like Rayla. And when making the choice for Leola to be Leola, was that something intentional or like the choice for it to be a child rather than another loved one?

A: It was very intentional that it was a child... And we talked through other versions of Leola that could’ve been, in other ages, genders, relationships with Aaravos that an important person was lost. Some of the things I liked about the way, Leola both as a child, children are the cycle breakers.

R: Yes, yeah. I think it was the strongest choice.

A: And in particular also, the idea of coding her autistic was a little bit like not as cued to kind of accept the social order and the order of things, but actually more open in a way to in what some people see as like — something that’s broken which is not taking those cues, something else about that — not being bound by it that allowed her to have compassion that crossed the line in terms of the perceptions of what the Cosmic Order needed to be in it — but it made her more, both as a child and an autistic person, to make that choice and do what she did that changed everything.

R: Makes a lot of sense.

A: [Her being a child] also frames it with some innocence obviously right? It’s not calculated, it’s kind. 

R: Yeah.

A: So I dunno.

R: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been curious about how Ezran might be challenged now that Runaan is back in the picture.

A: That’s a great question. That’s a great question. I mean, it’s so weird, it’s like no one even asks that, it’s like “Cool,” Rayla’s like “I’m gonna go get him. Awesome! Runaan’s back.”

R: Yeah I’m like either — either Callum is like “Ezran will be totally fine with it,” and Ezran  is probably not going to be fine with it, or maybe Callum knew that maybe it wouldn’t be great, and kept it under wraps. Yeah, I’m so excited for that like trio, potential broyals conflict, so...

A: Well, I mean, Ezran is a very special kid and he’s very positive and kind and forgiving and all of this. But we’re talking about, Runaan is back.

R: Castle’s destroyed.

A: Katolis is rubble. Where does that leave him?

R: Yeah.

A: You know? I mean — so I’m excited about that part of Ezran.

R: I know the fandom is really, really excited for Ezran to get to be — not that he hasn’t always been complex, but to get to be like messier, of letting his emotions maybe get the better of him and that sort of thing. So people are definitely hype for that, for — cause I feel like season six really brought home a lot of things for Soren, and it seems like season seven is going to do a similar thing for Ezran, so that’s — that’s really exciting. Um, with our final couple minutes, I wanted to see — do you have any questions that you want fans to ponder or to be thinking about?

A: Um... Gosh. I don’t think I have anything specific that we haven’t talked about, but you know. On some level, like, you know how do you take the tragedies and conflicts that we all inevitably face repetitively and relentlessly and kind of learn to move forward in hope and optimism? I think that’s more of a question of like how do you personally learn to process — all the kind of bullshit in the world, and process it, and still move forward as a kind, connected—

R: Measured person.

A: —hopeful person? That’s a challenge we all face in our lives, so that’s like...

R: Yeah. Well, I think the show does a good — really good job at asking and challenging that — that question. Uh, yeah, I think — I think that’s our time for today, uh. Thank you so much, this was... 

A: It was my pleasure. 

R: This was a lot of fun.

A: It’s always my pleasure reading your theories and your—

R: [Gasps] Oh my gosh.

A: Honestly, I came on today and to tell the truth [R laughs] a little bit intimidated.

R: Oh my God. 

A: You’re so—

R: I also felt intimidated [laughing] so don’t worry.

A: You’re so insightful and articulate, that I almost am like [R laughs] what if they catch me that there’s something not as smart in the show as I thought it was?

R: Oh my gosh, no, you’re fine.

A: [Overlapping] So anyway, I really enjoy what you write—

R: [Overlapping] I’m also a writer so I know what it’s like to be like “I did this subconsciously,” it’s — yeah.

A: I love what you instigate in the fandom and the kind of conversations you support and engage in. I’m a huge fan of yours, so.

R: Oh! Thank you so much, that’s so sweet. Um. And I am a huge fan of yours.

A: Yay. That’s a great way to end a podcast.

R: That is a great way. Okay. Alright, well thank you so much, hope you have a great day, great week, uh, and — yeah. Okay.

A: Alright, and I’ll see you soon, we’ll do this again sometime, I hope. 

R: Yes! Yeah. Okay.

A: Alright. Thanks again. Alright, bye.

[f1reladymai]

Do you think the Smoke and Shadow comic foreshadows Zuko and Mai as future rulers of the Fire Nation?  It showcases their strategy skills along with improving their communication as they strive to find a solution to save the children of the fire nation capital. Even though they are broken up, they work well together and shows their compatibility as rulers.  Thoughts? 

omg my first anon, hello and thank you for asking me this question !!

I talk a little bit about this in my video essay, actually. while I hate the comics and I think it’s stupid that they broke up, it does give them a chance to grow as people and into their positions in the world. the writer confirmed that they got back together 3 years later, meaning they’re young adults when they reunite, and they would have grown from their teenage selves.

in The Promise (2012) we already see their communication improving (well, Mai’s anyway) when she says that Zuko can come to her with any issues he has and he should be able to talk to her about his feelings because she’s his girlfriend. this already shows that he has someone he can rely on who is willing to listen to him, someone he’s known for a long time.

in Smoke and Shadow (2015), we see this communication improving. one thing that gene luen yang got right is that Zuko would absolutely be pinning over Mai, given how much that loser (affectionate) was obsessed with her.

although she is with Kei Lo at the time, Zuko expresses how much he misses her and that he wants her back, as well as acknowledging how happy she looks. he does this instead of repressing his feelings, and Mai talks about her point of view of the situation, being open and honest (despite it not being what Zuko wants to hear).

it is not only their communication improving that shows the potential they have at running a nation together, but also who they’re going after in Smoke and Shadow (2015). one criticism that people give Mai is that she doesn’t care about people, and in turn, the Fire Nation citizens. however, in this comic we see her and Zuko working together to take down a terrorist organisation. while part of it is to protect Zuko, she calls her own dad (who is leading The New Ozai Society) “insane” for his political beliefs.

not only that, but she sends him to prison in the end and says that he deserves to go.

this is after she helped free her little brother, Zuko’s little sister and gaggle of other Fire Nation toddlers (with Zuko) !!

so, yeah. while I hate the comics, I think they do show some potential of Zuko and Mai working well together as rulers of a nation (even though “Fire Lady” doesn’t seem like an active role in politics, but we can pretend or hope that changes with Mai).

[nordleuchten]

Hey there! :) Do you happen to know what was Lafayette's opinion on Robespierre as a person and/or as a member of the National Assembly? Did he left any declaration in his memoirs? As far as I know, their different political views led them sometimes into arguments and slanders.

Have a nice day!

Dear @faxelange,

in short, they were not on the best of terms – not at all. The disfavour was mutual as neither Robespierre liked La Fayette nor did La Fayette liked Robespierre.

Despite this, there is not nearly as much commentary on Robespierre in La Fayette’s letters and Memoirs as one might expect. The references that are made are mostly general statements about Robespierre and not specific about their relationship. Generally speaking, La Fayette wrote in his Memoirs about what he thought valuable for his readers and important to mention. I think he judged his disagreements with Robespierre and Robespierre in general, at the point of him writing his Memoirs (1830s), as simply no longer important. It would be easier to give a detailed description of Robespierre’s opinion of La Fayette than the other way around since we have many statements by Robespierre.

The relationship between Robespierre and La Fayette was during the first years of the Revolution civil, or better, nonexistent. Things changed when La Fayette wrote on June 16, 1791 a lengthy letter to the Legislative Assembly, criticizing political groups as a potential thread to the constitution and the stability of France – the jacobins were here his primary target.

Although he railed against factionalism of all varieties, the Jacobins were his primary target. “Organized like a separate empire … blindly controlled by a few ambitious leaders,” the Jacobins were, as he put it, a “sect,” a “distinct corporation in the middle of the French people, whose powers they usurp by subjugating their representatives.” Read into the record two days later and republished in newspapers of every political stripe, the letter generated heated debate.

Laura Auricchio, The Marquis – Lafayette Reconsidered, Vintage Books, New York, 2015, p. 258.

Two days later during a meeting of the jacobins, Robespierre stated:

Strike down Lafayette and the nation is saved.

Laura Auricchio, The Marquis – Lafayette Reconsidered, Vintage Books, New York, 2015, p. 259.

Things went downhill rather quickly after that.

In La Fayette memoirs there are two mentioning’s of Robespierre, both are rather indirect, as they detail public attacks of La Fayette’s character that Robespierre had some connection with.

It would occupy too much space to detail all the hostilities of the anarchists against Lafayette; their defamations in the Patriot and the Chronicle were pushed to the most insane excess. Robespierre attacked him at the jacobins, first requiring that he should not be called upon to prove what he advanced. The club itself formally denounced him at the bar of the assembly, by the mouth of Collot d’Herbois. Some members of this faction alleged as proofs of his criminality certain letters, which, when read, were received with patriotic applause.

Marquis de La Fayette, Memoirs, Correspondences and Manuscripts of General Lafayette, Vol. 3, Craighead and Allen, New York, 1837, pp. 336-337.

We can see very clearly in this passage that La Fayette’s problem was not with Robespierre alone and while this excerpt gives seemingly more insight into Robespierre’s opinion of La Fayette, the way the event is retold also tells us a lot about La Fayette’s opinion.

The second part is from a letter that La Fayette wrote his wife Adrienne on April 18, 1792:

Parties are at present divided in this manner [the question of war]. Robespierre, Danton, Desmoulins, &c., &c., form the jacobin sink. These puppets are moved behind the scene, and serve the court by disorganizing all things, by exclaiming that we are beaten without resource and by attacking Lafayette, “who has deceived, they say, the people and the court, guided the conduct of the far less culpable M. de Bouillé, and who is more dangerous himself than the aristocracy.” (…) The other party, called the high jacobins, and which supports the present ministry, is composed of Bordelais, the abbé Sièyes, Condorcet, Roederer, &c. These men hate and fear Robespierre, but dare not render themselves unpopular.

Marquis de La Fayette, Memoirs, Correspondences and Manuscripts of General Lafayette, Vol. 3, Craighead and Allen, New York, 1837, pp. 411-412.

Again, La Fayette was not only in disagreement with Robespierre. Today Robespierre is often presented as the one and only embodiment of the Jacobins but there were many more and yes, Robespierre was certainly even back then a prominent and influential member, but La Fayette’s disagreements were with the jacobins as a whole as much as with Robespierre personally.

Perhaps it is easier to dissect La Fayette’s opinion based on what he did not thought about Robespierre. In the letter to his wife that is already quoted above, La Fayette also wrote:

Such is my situation: I belong, as I wrote before to you, to no party except to that of the French nation; but my friends and I will serve whoever will do good, defend liberty and equality, and maintain the constitution by repulsing everything tending to render it aristocratic or republican; and when the national will, expressed by the representatives chosen by nation and by the king, shall tell us that war is inevitable, I will do all that lies in my power to promote its success.

Marquis de La Fayette, Memoirs, Correspondences and Manuscripts of General Lafayette, Vol. 3, Craighead and Allen, New York, 1837, p. 413.

These were the things that La Fayette supported and believed in, this was his agenda. In not agreeing with Robespierre, we can assume that La Fayette felt as if Robespierre did not meet his principles. Another point is raised in this statement:

(…) by repulsing everything tending to render it aristocratic or republican (…).

Robespierre was without a question on the republican side.

This was all quite political but since La Fayette saw political opinions as the expression of underlaying principles, a political disagreement was often, not always though, also a personal disagreement, although things did not usually escalate like they did with Robespierre.

I hope this cleared things up a bit and I hope you have/had a lovely day!

[marnz]

hello friend!! i was wondering since you both read and write a lot if you had any recs for books that are narrated by death?

also! how is your original novel writing going? you posted a snippet to tumblr once of the opening scene i think and i still think about it because your writing was so descriptive and lush

friend!! please accept my apologies in this delayed answering, your message was so kind that every time I thought about it I got overwhelmed 🥰

Okay books narrated by death! The only one I’ve read is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and it is gorgeous, I was so obsessed with it as a kid however it is about wwii in germany so ymmv.

however! I did some research and Mort by Terry Pratchett comes highly recommended (it is part of discworld). I enjoy Pratchett, he’s very fun. Death is also a big character in the Sandman Comics by N*il G*iman. I do not enjoy G*iman but ymmv!

I also am duty bound to recommend In the Woods by Tana French, a gorgeous, atmospheric murder mystery that is deeply spooky and unsettling. Death is not the narrator…but I do believe it is a character (many many interpretations!)

I feel quite bad sending you away with like 3 recs so here’s what I’ve been reading

- Exordia by Seth Dickinson - I’m not done with this yet but so far it’s like, what if every sci fi first contact military propaganda action movie…got lost and ended up being about the moral quandary of the trolley problem, Kurdistan, pink noise, and prime numbers? what if an author who hates imperialism and loves math decided to write a book length call out of Barack Obama’s drone warfare program with body horror? what if you were a cringe fail elder millennial in nyc that rescued a sexy alien with 8 snake heads instead of only one and every time you physically touched it was a sex scene? And this made the savior of the world? this book is for: homestuck fans, people who were in tragic situationships with their wife and their bestie, pilots, people who like their sci fi hard

- Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin - okay if you haven’t read this stop everything and read it immediately. This book is for: tragedy lovers!!!! Gay people!!!!! Francophiles. Marxists. People who were into the social network rpf in 2013 and read that one fanfic where Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg get cast in a Giovanni’s Room adaption and finally fuck. Anyway. Earlier this year (or possibly last year?) I read a memoir about toxic masculinity and how it demands emotional alienation of the self and I was like “okay. I mean. Obviously?” And buddy. Baldwin says more about this topic in chapter one than that author did in his whole book. And it’s sooooooooooo beautiful god like every paragraph has a life ending sentence.

- the Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai - the year is 1985 and the location is Boystown, the Chicago gayborhood. Our hero? Yale, art lover, is trying to pull off an insane deal at work and survive the devastation of the AIDs epidemic. But actually the year is 2015 and our heroine is Fiona, Yale’s best friend, who travels to Paris to track down her estranged daughter and then her emotional repression stops working! I know this book sounds devastating and it REALLY is, like at one point I was sobbing so hard my husband got really worried and I was like, no, it’s all good, thumbs up! But ALSO this book is very funny and very joyful. This book is for: people who love to laugh. People who love to cry. Art lovers. People who love emotionally messy families.

- I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai - a film studies professor & podcaster returns to her elite high school boarding school 20 years after graduating and find herself getting sucked into investigating the murder of her junior year roommate, who was murdered senior year and is now the internet’s favorite cold case. Please note this book is a response to #MeToo. This book is for: people who love True Crime but are also critical of it. People who love twitter drama. People who were losers in high school. People who devotedly at watch YouTube essays. Hot divorcées. Angry women.

I have also read a lot of excellent non fiction, the Murderbot diaries (just read themmmmm! Worth it), the entire Kate Daniels series (again.), the new SJM book, and some mid to bad books.

[laf-outloud]

To clarify, when I said Jensen is not a producer, I didn't mean he didn't hold the title or the job. He was given the title and the job, sure. But he has absolutely zero idea how to do it and (going by what I've seen) very little interest, humility, curiosity, or care to actually learn. Never mind the backstabbing part, keeping the idea from Jared was INSANELY stupid from a business perspective. Jared would've helped because he's incredibly generous. Of the two, it's Jared who is the producer. I remember at 2015 Comic Con when Jared was asked if he'd like to direct besides acting he said no, if he was going to do sth else it would be producing. All the way back in 2015 and he already knew what he could do. He's smart & self-aware enough to know his strengths and put effort into cultivating them. Jensen is a passable director who is better than passable when the camera is on Jared, maybe due to what seems like his own weird proprietary-ish obsessive love-hate, admiration-jealousy mess when it comes to Jared. He really should stick to acting & directing. He can make money and minions out of those. Friends, however? Not so much, but he doesn't seem interested in the ONE real friendship we've watched him benefit from over the years, so I'm guessing he's not worried abt friends. He's happy to play up for hellers then sulk when they fall for what is clearly an act, and he's never spoken up abt the hate Jared gets from vocal fans of Jensen. And how many vocal Jared haters has Jensen employed so far? Even creativity isn't his forte: Unlike Jared, Jensen never reads scripts in advance despite complaining (read: throwing ppl under the bus) later and for YEARS abt SPN plots & dialogue. He needs to shut up, stop thinking, accept directing and acting jobs that pay, and bask in the gross horny lies, er, "flattery" from his loon fans. As for Jared, I hope his sympathy, generosity, and kindness don't mean he ends up giving Jensen work on Walker or any other project Jared helms, and I hope Jared never feels he owes it to Jensen to help out by appearing on any fiasco Jensen decides to make. I'm so grateful Jared was never on The Boys or TW. He has ample sense not to, but we've seen how his kindness makes him continue to support Stands to help out. Jared's caption on the latest Instagram post was poignant. Slide through life with people who love you. Not "with good buddies" or "good friends" or even any indication to the bond he and Anson have after surviving that horrible crash. No. He chose to say "people who love you". It's sad that he now knows that there are others who don't and were only ever using him. Remember the cryptic Instagram post a few years ago on his birthday, when he said (paraphrasing here) that it was awful and some people were working against him? I thought it about someone behind the scenes. Now I think it must've been about Jensen. He wouldn't have sounded so hurt if it had been anyone else. Imagine rooming with your costar, discovering you have so much in common, building a beautiful cult show together, starting families and doting on each other's kids, all of it for FIFTEEN years, only to discover the dude you had to create boundaries with wasn't simply too controlling or obsessive because you were his most precious best friend, oh no. It was because he never had any friendship or love for you in the first place. God. I'm so glad he has his family and Gen and his kids and people like Anson. Thank you for allowing me to send you all this. You're a wonderful blogger with a good head on your shoulders and a heart in the right place. I respect you a lot because you keep your criticism where it counts. You don't make fun of people's looks (ppl we hate, like Dmitri, Danneel, etc), for instance. I love your blog. Have a good day or evening, laf-outloud.

Thanks for clarifying the producer part! I totally agree. Obviously, there were issues from even before the announcement, but the fact that Jensen admitted to sitting in his car while everything supposedly ran smoothly on set (and later finding out they had to do a bunch of reshoots), told me all I needed to know about his producing 'skills' early on. And if Jensen decides to continue directing, I hope he takes advantage of some of the directing programs studios offer so he can improve his skills.

I'm truly grateful that Jared's been able to experience a much healthier and loving environment around his family, his true friends, and his coworkers. Every time I see photos of him, he just looks healthier and happier than he seemed to be on the SPN set.

Thank you for sharing everything else, I really have nothing to add because you've said it so much better than I ever could, and especially, thank you for your very kind words! I may get salty sometimes, and don't always get things right, but I do try and stay fair, and I'm glad that you, and hopefully others, see that. Sending love back to you and best wishes for a wonderful weekend!

[staringdownabarrel]

I've just seen Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One. I didn't think it was violent enough basically, and the rest of this post is just me droning on and on ad nauseam about that.

My initial reaction is that I'm not entirely sure why this needed to be a two-part movie. The plot isn't any more complex than any of the previous Mission Impossibles. It's not any more thematically complex either, so it's not like it needed a slower pace to properly explore anything. It's still the same kind of "you need to stop this before the world ends" kind of plotline the other ones have had.

The action sequences weren't any more complex, either. It actually feels like Dead Reckoning was a step back from Fallout, which was trying to be as intense as you could be without being bumped up to the next rating. Instead of trying to basically be the action movie you could take your kids to when they're not old enough to see John Wick, it stepped back to being a fairly bog standard action movie with an M rating (our equivalent of the American PG-13).

So I'm forced to wonder where the $291 million budget went. Obviously some of it went towards actors' salaries, who could basically demand whatever they wanted and expect to get it at this point in the franchise, but the rest didn't go towards creating insane action sequences that couldn't have existed in the previous movies. I'm assuming a lot of it was because they kept paying the staff during the eighteen months or so they stopped filming because of the pandemic, but I don't actually know if they were still paying the staff during that period or not.

This is unfortunate because everything needed for this existed. The cast was large, and some of the sets would have allowed for truly intense action sequences. They just chose to never go as hard with it as they could have, even though this is very much the kind of movie that lives and dies by the quality of its action sequences.

To be absolutely fair here, the action sequences weren't terrible. They were mostly pretty good. It's just that there's a huge jump from the quality of these action sequences and what I was hoping for, based on the general trajectory of the series up to this point.

The other thing with this being a two-part movie is that I thought we were beyond this fad now. Yeah, the MCU did it with Infinity War and Endgame, but those were initially announced when the two-part final movie fad was still in full swing. And yeah, Dune did it, but it was in the position where it had to either be a two-part movie or a TV show in order to be a good representation of the book (and it probably should have just been a show).

This was something I was thinking about when I was wondering why the action sequences weren't as intense as they could have been. My initial assumption was that this was probably just because people aren't going wild for the kind of brutal, non-stop action sequences that you see in stuff like John Wick and The Raid anymore. Yeah, this movie was originally written in 2019, but huge blockbusters like this go through a million rewrites during production anyway even when there isn't a pandemic stopping production for almost two years.

But obviously whether or not this is currently a trend clearly wasn't the number one concern of the production team. They still wanted to do a two-part movie, even though that fad died down almost completely in 2015 or so. Plus, those brutal action sequences still have their fans; it seemed like John Wick 4 was popular enough. So they could have gone for that same vibe with this one where it was basically trying to be as violent as it's possible for an M-rated movie to be before it gets hit with an MA (our equivalent of the American R rating).

If anything, it would have made a lot of sense for them to go down that route for this one. In 2014 or so, one of the common criticisms pearl-clutchers would have was that M-rated action movies basically seemed to be rules lawyering their way into avoiding being rated MA. So if they had have gone right up to the line between M and MA, it would have made sense because they seem to want to bring back other 2014 trends too.

Just to reiterate here, I do think the action sequences in Dead Reckoning were good; it's just that they weren't as intense as they could have been. The example of this that I'd give is that partway through the movie, there's this bit where Ethan fights two bad guys in an extremely narrow alleyway while the main villain is confronted by Ilsa and Grace.

This could have been one of the most intense action sequences in the franchise, both in terms of brutal violence and emotional intensity. Really, it should have been the kind of action sequences that'd go on to become among the most iconic in the franchise, along with the bathroom fight from Fallout. Instead, it was just good enough to be interesting, but not quite the intense, balls-to-the-wall scene I was hoping for.

It also doesn't feel like it really got any emotional payoff either. Even though this was meant to be one of the most emotionally intense scenes of the series, it kind of felt like the emotional payoff wasn't there. Ethan was sad when he got to the bridge, but it didn't feel like this really informed anything he did afterwards; at least not to a point where he acted differently to how he was in previous films.

That's kinda how it was with every other action sequence in the movie, too. It just feels like there wasn't a lot in this one that hadn't been done better by any of the previous movies. It's not like there were any real budget or financial restraints. When you're talking about a $291 million movie that's two hours and forty-five minutes long and is getting a second part, those kinds of restraints are suggestions, not hard rules.

I guess that's the real trouble. This actually would have been a perfectly serviceable movie if it'd been a standalone movie. It's just that when it's the seventh or eighth movie in an ongoing franchise, you're always going to be asking if it stands up to the previous one. For me, this formula has gone stale.

Plus, as I mentioned before, what part of this plot really needed a second part? It's already a long movie. I'd at least get it if these movies decided they were gonna go hard and be these strings of non-stop action that were as hard as you could go with this rating. That way, you could make the case that this is the kind of movie you show your kids if you really want to see John Wick but they're not old enough to see it yet. As is, it just feels like most of this is probably just filler and whatever pay-off is coming in the next part probably isn't going to be worth it.

I guess the best part of this is that basically every major character gets to do something. One of the bigger problems a lot of long-running franchises like this have is sometimes they'll have characters be in certain movies because they're contractually obligated to have them there. They won't actually get to do a whole lot beyond take up space on set or in front of the green screen, but as long as they're there, the contract is being fulfilled. At least in Dead Reckoning, everyone gets to do something, regardless of whether they're a new character or they've been in the series for a while.

I think I'm just frustrated because there was a fair bit of hype surrounding this. It seems like there's a lot of people who are basically of the opinion that it's good and the only reason it didn't do well at the box office is because it was competing against Barbie and Oppenheimer. I don't really think that tracks because there's definitely people who would have just picked one of the three, but not so many that it'd skew the box office this much.

I think the truth is that this series' formula has gone stale and people are ready to move on from it if it's not going a lot further with what it does well. It's just that there's nothing about it that's terrible enough to warrant a bad review and it's perfectly serviceable if you watch it in isolation. The formula isn't stale because this is irredeemably bad, it's stale because it hasn't changed at all since the mid '00s, basically.

[the-delta-42]

Series

My Multi-chaptered Fics/Series

War Circle AU - Miraculous Ladybug - Marinette has an older brother who has the Wolf Miraculous, the head of the War Circle.

The Pirate Prince - Legend of Zelda - Link was orphaned at 3 months old and taken in by the King of the Gerudo, Ganondorf. Fast-forward seventeen years later, a disagreement results in Link leaving and start sailing the seas as the captain of The Fierce Deity, a Pirate ship that is known for hunting down various Criminals and pirates alike, But the winds of destiny throw Link back to his family. Zelink.

To Find Hyrule -  Legend of Zelda - Link never expected to find a home on the waves. Tetra never expected to find a home in a person. A Series of non-chronological One-Shots that'll vary in length that'll follow Link and Tetra, and their growing relationship, as they look for New Hyrule. Set after Phantom Hourglass. I decided there wasn't enough of Tetra and Link, so here's a series of one shots around them. Telink.

To Find Hyrule Reblogged - The To Find Hyrule series in Chronological Order

Agents Like Us -  Zootopia - Before Nick was hustling with Finnick, he was a secret agent with Mammal Military Intelligence 5 and FBI. Now, ten years after Nick left, his old partner has come to call. After all, Nick can't run from Jack, not again. This story will contain Ships. Featuring Nick Wilde, Judy Hopps, Jack Savage and Others.

Rewrite History - Miraculous Ladybug - Bunnyx changing history of Ladybug’s orders, in an attempt to advert a disastrous event.

To the Final Frontier - Miraculous/Star Trek -

Valentine’s Prompts - Miraculous Ladybug - The Prompts from DeviantArt’s Valentine’s day

Bridges AU - Miraculous Ladybug - Adrien and Marinette have a falling out and Marinette is forced through the pain of losing her family. Started out as salt, future parts will retcon things

Marivenger - Miraculous Ladybug/Marvel - Marinette teaming up with the Avengers

Critical - Miraculous Ladybug - Marinette is injured in an Akuma attack and is left fighting for her life

Armed AU - Miraculous Ladybug - While fighting an Akuma, Ladybug is disarmed and exposed to the city of Paris

Hush AU - Miraculous Ladybug - Marinette’s parents discover her secret

Rules of Precinct One - Zootopia - The rules that all Officers in Precinct One have to follow. Zootopia.

Revealed - Miraculous Ladybug - Marinette has a terrible secret revealed after Rose is Akumatized

New Car AU -  Miraculous Ladybug/Transformers Prime - Marinette thought she had a normal car, after her last one was stolen and torched, but it opened her world up for a whole lot of insanity.

Maribat -  Miraculous Ladybug/DC - Genetics are a wonderful thing, unless the substitute Science teacher is an arsehole. Bio Dad Bruce Wayne.

Miraculous Transformers - All MLB-TF cross over fics

In Plain Sight -  Miraculous Ladybug/Transformers - LB-14 and CN-15 were dispatched to Paris under orders from Optimus Prime. Nowhere in those orders was the recommendation for them to crash into a building and reveal themselves to a group of locals.

Autobot City - Transformers: Prime, Rescue Bots & Robots in Disguise 2015 AU

Grief -  Miraculous Ladybug - WARNING! THIS STORY HAS MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, VIOLENCE AND SOMEONE TAKING THEIR OWN LIFE! IF THIS IS LIKELY TO SET YOU OFF IN ANY WAY DO NOT READ! A moment is all it took. A moment is the cost of a battle. A moment that starts a whole domino effect that leads to the end for so many.

Too Far AU - Miraculous Ladybug - This series has implied and referenced rape/non-con elements. If this is likely to trigger, offend or otherwise make you react in a negative way DO NOT READ! A group from another class believe Lila's lies too well and believe Marinette is working with Hawkmoth. The group decide to take the law into their own hands, only for them to go too far in their 'interrogation' techniques.

Winged Mirabel AU - Encanto - An Encanto AU where Mirabel has wings

Know Better AU -  My parts for Tumblr's Fake Apology AU, but I'm going to remove as much of the salt from it as possible. - Miraculous Ladybug - Marinette hears Nino and Adrien talking and gets the wrong end of the stick, which creates a domino effect that causes a dark secret to be revealed. TW: contains mentions of abuse, past non-con and Gabriel Agreste being a shit person

Family - The Walking Dead -Alvin and Rebecca reluctantly agree to foster Clementine, a troubled child they've fostered before, after her latest foster family send her back into care.

TWDG Wing AU - The Walking Dead - If you were fortunate enough, you were born with wings. If you weren’t, you’d hope a child in your family would born with wings. Lee and his younger brother fell into the former camp, their parents were in the camp with them. Centuries ago, people with wings were once treated as deities, then were hunted, and then treated with the utmost respect. After an apocalypse interrupts Lee's journey to prison, he suddenly finds himself acting as a guardian for a little girl called Clementine. While doing his best to care for, and protect, her, he finds himself on the long road to redemption.

TWDG Reunions AU - After Clementine and AJ are exiled from the school, they make their way to New Richmond and the New Frontier. After reuniting with some old friends and a couple of accidents, the pair forge a new life in the community. Ten years later, they experience a tragedy and an unexpected reunion.

The Black Order - Harry Potter - The Order of the Phoenix wasn't the only secret group that stood against Voldemort and his Death Eaters. But no one wants to talk about the Black Order.

Why? - Miraculous Ladybug/Incredibles/Marvel/DC - In a misguided attempt to help his friend, Adrien takes her sketchbook and shows it to his father. The actions Gabriel takes draw world wide condemnation and causes two families to band together to bring him down.

Hindsight - Miraculous Ladybug - Lila doesn't agree to Adrien's deal, so Damocles never goes back on his decision to expel Marinette. Soon, Mdm. Bustier is in an interview at another school and finds that there are more differences between her previous and current workplace than she expected. A few days later, Marinette is offered a place at another school, while her previous class realise the truth about Lila. After an incident during an Akuma attack, everyone starts to understand that hindsight is 20/20.

Your Royal Highness - Miraculous Ladybug/Assassin's Creed AU - For over 2000 years, three kingdoms, known as Eden, Elysium and Babylon, appeared. For 2000 years, the Assassin's have protected those kingdoms, as well as the vaults that are hidden within them. With the Prince of Elysium in Paris, two Novices are placed as his body guards in a bid to expediate their training. Unfortunately, Hawkmoth appears, leading to one of the Novices to being given a Miraculous. Soon Hawkmoth will understand the meaning of Nothing in True, Everything in Permitted.

Full Moon - Miraculous Ladybug/Harry Potter - At three years old a werewolf, by the name of Fenrir Greyback, bit Marinette during a full moon. Being a werewolf is Marinette's biggest and greatly guarded secret, even more than her identity as Ladybug. And Lila, in an attempt to turn everyone against Marinette, accidentally tells the truth.

The Truth - Miraculous Ladybug - Marinette trying to tell Adrien the truth leads to a series of unexpected events.

Fall of Order - Miraculous Ladybug/Star Wars - On the cusp of starting her Jedi Trials, Padawan Marinette Dupain-Cheng was on her last mission with her Master Wang Fu attempting to gain Mandalorian support in the final days of the Clone War, when Order 66 was broadcast and the Republic became the Empire.

Returns - Lee is confused after waking up in the middle of a forest with Carley and Ben, meanwhile at Ericson's, Clementine is trying to wrap her head around dead friends coming back to life and her unexpected condition.

Master and Padawan - Star Wars: Rebels A.U. The Jedi and the Republic never fell, Anakin didn't fall and Palpatine is dead. After Obi-Wan and Luke bring back a prisoner from Malachor, the Council must decide what they must do with Maul’s captured Apprentice.

Home - In the final year of the Clone War, four years after being forced to leave her home, Jedi Clementine Marsh is forced to take four Jedi and their troops to her home world, after the Wildfire Virus is accidentally released while sparring with Anakin Skywalker's apprentice. Forced to confront her past, Clementine must ensure her men survive while waiting for Republic aid.

The Walking Dead Game What Ifs - Inspired by the works done by @thecrusadercomrade and @bourbonificould. A set on disconnected oneshots based on Telltales The Walking Dead Game with elements from The Walking Dead TV Show.

[2xplusungood]

Some thoughts on Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (2015)

So this movie came out when I was in middle school and I remember absolutely despising it because it was different from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. WW has and will always will have a special place in my heart and is still one of my favorite movies of all time.. but in terms of adaptation, its very bad. Its no secret Roald Dahl hated it and I see why.

But now rewatching Charlie almost 20 years later, I have to say its an amazing movie and a wonderful adaptation of the original book.

I've seen people criticize the opening becuase Willy Wonka's opening is absolutely ICONIC. The footage of real chocolate being made makes you hungry for a chocolate bar as you see liquid chocolate cascade over itself vs. Charlie's cold CGI opening. So WW's is better right?

Well, not necessarily. WW was made to sell chocolate first and foremost, so having such a chocolate filled opening is really just doing its job of advertising for Quaker oats by showing a very realistic portrayal of chocolate while also setting the stage for a fun romp in the world of candy.

Charlie's opening is cold because its also setting the stage. Its simultaneously fantastical and nonsensical while also being foreboding and ominous. Its a fun romp to be sure, but it does have its dark side as children are being picked off one by one in factory accidents. Its whimsical but its not SAFE.

You can see a clear inspiration from old Fairy tales in Dahl's writing, where things are magical but have a clear dangerous, darker side to them. Matilda was the story of violent abuse by an authority figure. The BFG had giants that ate people. And Willy Wonka's chocolate factory almost acts as a portal into a fairy world where the foolish are punished if they do not heed the warnings.

WW, for all its magic and nostalgia seems to miss this (Which is why the boat scene is just so JARRING). I LOVE Gene Wilder as Wonka, but does he act like someone who's been isolated inside of a factory for the last 15 years due to his own paranoia? He's insane to be sure, but he's also suave and is an amazing showman.

Charlie gets Wonka a whole lot closer to the source material. He almost seems completely disconnected from reality, and while he has a showman's spirit, his social skills are as horrendous as you'd expect a eccentric recluse's to be.

The other ticket winners are also handled a lot better. WW's does alright with setting up their flaws when showing they won, but until they get bumped off, aside from Veruca, none of them really have much of a personality.

WW's Augustus Gloop just straight up does not have a character. The most he gets is cracking a joke about how much chocolate he's going to be eating and getting overexcited about a room where everything is edible and then... gets punished for drinking from a chocolate river in a room where everything else is fine to eat. Honestly I just feel bad for him

Charlie's Augustus Gloop absolutely nails him being a glutton. In just about every shot of him he's shoveling chocolate in his mouth and goes outright BEAST mode in the candy room grabbing everything he can and shoving it in his mouth and almost CHARGES into the river. His punishment feels a lot more warranted as he's also kind of a dick as well.

WW's violet has a somewhat competitive nature.. but not really aside from the gum record, which honestly comes off more as a silly game between her and a friend. Otherwise shes just kind of a smartass (I'd honestly rank her just behind Veruca. Overall just kind of... alright as a character.)

Charlie's Violet is EXTREMELY competitive, and thats reinforced throughout the film as she tries to suck up to Wonka to win the grand prize and has a very unhealthy dynamic her mother (reinforcing the core themes that the children are not at fault, its the parents for making their kids like this)

Veruca Salt's great in both movies. No complaints.

Now Mike Teevee. I have a lot to say about him.

WW's Mike Teevee is an extremely, EXTREMELY lukewarm take on the character. While he does make a couple references to violence things that happens on TV, he's just kind of an excited kid who gets overexcited becuase he loves TV and wants to be a part of that world and literally does.

Charlie's Mike Teevee is an absolutely AMAZING modern take on the character. Roald Dahl hated what TV did to children (Anyone who's read the book and seen how long the Oompa Loompa song is for him could probably guess that) and Mike is a great reflection of that. He's not stupid but his overindulgence in media has robbed him of his innocence and turned him into a cynical know-it-all, making him an amazing foil for both Charlie and Wonka as he constantly points out how all this whimsical fun makes no sense, and theres a clear parallel to anyone who's read the book or watched WW and were like "ackshully thats not how that works." He ultimately meets his fate due to his own hubris, thinking he's a genius for figuring out that the TV room is basically a teleporter, but really he's foolish for not realizing he's completely out of his element in such a fantastic setting.

As much as I love WW, the one thing that does not sit right with me is the Slugworth plotline. Charlie and his family live in extreme poverty to where even a loaf a bread is a luxury. He's essentially given the choice between making sure his family is taken care of financially for the rest of their lives, or... not doing so, so that some rich business tycoon can get even more rich. I mean sure, it would suck for Wonka's one good deed in making a candy specifically for poor kids being corrupted, but thats a lot to put on a child.

Charlie in WW is also alright as a character. Like he's a genuinely good kid, but it makes it a point that he wants to win more than anyone else, but you don't really get that feeling. Sure he has a passing glance at the factory and is very curious about it, but Charlie's Charlie does a lot more to show that the factory and Wonka has always been a part of his life as he's been basically living in its shadow. Chocolate is a rare treat for the bucket family, and you can tell just by the way they slowly nibble at the corner whenever they have one that they want to savor every crumb of it.

I don't think I even have to go over how bad the grandparents are in WW. Theres an entire subreddit about Grandpa Joe while the rest are just kind of silent props. Charlie's Grandpa Joe is a lot more fun, still young at heart despite how old and weak he's gotten, Grandma Joesephine is a sort of reflection of that and is very encouraging, Grandpa George is an AMAZING character despite his little screentime, being the more cynical one of the family while at the same time being very wise, advising Charlie to not squander a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a bit of temporary financial security. Grandma Georgina is just sort of comic relief but is still genuinely sweet.

Charlie's father was killed off in WW, but in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory he plays a small but important role in the story, as despite him having what might be the most boring, mundane job you could think of still finds small joy in it, something that is clearly passed down to Charlie.

As a result of Charlie's father being dead in WW, his mother does a lot more heavy lifting in the story, being very cynical but in a way that makes it clear shes just trying to protect Charlie from the disappointment in the overwhelmingly likely scenario that he never finds the ticket, reminding him that his family will always be there for him regardless of what happens.

However, this means that Wonka ends up being a sort of father figure to Charlie which.. doesn't really work narratively. Wonka is a very whimsical person, but he's also not a great role model. As much shit as the plotline with Wonka's father tends to get, I think it really does make him a more interesting character and gives context for why he's so reclusive and disconnected from other people and the found family aspect of the ending really ties everything together nicely.

Overall, both movies are amazing in their own ways Willy Wonka for a more lighthearted comidic take of the story and Charlie for one that is much closer to Roald Dahl's original vision. Now wheres my adaptation of Great Glass elevator I wanna see Wonka talk about the genocide of the rest of the solar system.

[thatshitkrejci]

I do not entertain thoughts of a One Direction reunion; I feel hysterical when I take the premise seriously and then deflate when I consider whether I would have fun seeing Louis and Liam in concert these days. I’ve made my peace with the unique moment that was following 1d, culminating in the release of their final album, Made In The A.M. (MITAM), in November 2015.

1d is fun pop music. From a critical perspective, the vocals are strong to middling (sorry Up All Night and Take Me Home era Niall and Louis), and the instrumentation is rarely interesting or challenging. It’s hooky radio-pop, and if you let it sweep you up you’ll find yourself driving with your best friends, car windows down, shrieking “it’s gotta be yooooooououoUOOUUUUUU.”

1d entered an “indefinite hiatus” eight years ago. Since that time, the back half of MITAM has been my favorite run of 1d songs to revisit. I think many of these songs are their best. Some may argue these songs cannot be their strongest because Zayn isn’t involved. The truth is, MITAM includes the most cohesive sound and technical chops of any 1d album; it benefits from the band’s years of experience as artists and increased creative control over writing and production. With a run time of 58 minutes it is too long, which is perhaps why I prefer to revisit its last 10 songs and not the first 7.

But this isn’t meant to be a retrospective album review. What I’ve been thinking about is the feeling of hearing new music from a band for what you are certain is the last time. Knowing the band was ending made many lyrics from MITAM feel too literal (oh, why you’re wearing that to walk out of my life?) as the band crooned about loving you goodbye and giving it to you one last time.

When I hear the last ten songs off MITAM, I tap into the emotions I felt when I first listened. The end of the album takes you on a journey through acts of nature, longing, and demographic-appropriate lustiness. It’s a frenzied finish about holding on, wishing you didn’t have to go, and promising to find each other in the next life. It’s easy to imagine them writing this album about the end of your own relationship with Liam, Harry, Niall, and Louis (and maybe Zayn too, depending on how much you’d processed his exit months prior).

The lyrics of Walking In the Wind felt insane in context. How else am I expected to take a wistful song about missing what you had but knowing you’ll always have memories of the good times?

You can insert yourself as the main character of any 1d album with countless songs about desperate love and broken hearts. But these songs felt personal and pointed to me. At the time of its release, I could not help but read them as both a goodbye to the band and to the band’s relationship with its fans.

You know I’m always gonna look for your face. You can call me if you need me. We could live forever. It’s never enough.

Last First Listen: Reflections on One Direction's final album (formatted version)

[taegularities]

well this discourse about sex songs basically has been old..in general not just jk

i think sex is beautiful, one of the most intimate things to happen in a relationship, its lovely, just another human emotion and artistry is writing about one's emotions, then why not sex

also having freaky songs does not make you less of an artist or it means lacking substance, that's weird of people to think that way

and idk why people are going all "this is not the jk ik" or "this isn't BTS" when BTS has always written explicit lyrics

yoongi goes all suck my dick in huh recently, namjoon in sexy nukim and smoke sprite, jimin's like crazy had a lyric about getting ridden, taehyung has a lyric where he says "turning me upand back off line this", also BTS has a fair share of lyrics about sex or that point that way so🤷🏽‍♀️

and I have started recent examples

probably it's hitting people now bc now these lyrics are in english, in a language they understand, that's why its too explicit for their pure ears

also most of 3d lyrics are not directly explicit, 90% of the songs including the rap verse, suggestive, do people know the meaning of explicit even😭😭

if you dont like Jack's verse listen to the alternate version, whic i personally think is just corny, it's mild like a pop song generally is, that simple

idk what we're people expecting out of a jack harlow Collab cause the kinds of lyrics he generally writes this is nothing lol

what I think is

people are not giving genuine criticism just pure bullshit i have been seeing the whole day

i didn't like 3d, not bc it's explicit not bc jack harlow verse has me clutching my pearls not bc I think this image doesn't suit jungkook thats insane,

i didnt like 3d bc I felt the chorus was empty, the beat is good, but the song felt incomplete, it lacked the feeling of a complete chorus it felt going on a high and then it disappoints cause, it doesn't give that satisfaction that a chorus should give, that's my criticism part of it

also as a 2015 army myself I love that jungkook is not afraid anymore to show himself, that boy has been insecure forever, been sexualised since he was a minor, and now when he's taking that power back to himself where he controls how people look at him, people want to box him into the flower boy image that they think suits him

probably it's not bighit not scooter but his own decision to have those songs, he's been mature emotionally for a long time his lyrics have always been beautiful, him releasing 2 songs suggestive songs sex in a long career of 10 years i guess I can take it, heck i would take an album even

sex songs definitely don't mean someone's less of an artist or talented. i have my thoughts on this whole thing called 3D, but i still won't add much to the ask now except that opinions are def all valid, whether we like or dislike it or prefer the original or alternate version! — if anyone wants to add smth more, feel free to do so!!

[balletroyale]

Asked and Answered: An assortment of long overdue answers

dance-like-matty asked: that mayerling livestream😬……..

To be honest I haven’t watched it yet. It’s not a favourite ballet, and to sit through it in-person with my favourite cast was hard enough...

do you know anything about how nikisha fogo is doing in sf?

She was out for almost a year with an injury. SFO aren’t as public with their recordings and castings so it’s hard to know how well she’s doing. 

have you seen skylar brandts rose adagio? her balance is insane

link for it

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CLyIah8HPMK/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

what are your thoughts on her? i personally saw her kitri and i had no complaints. great technique and character, her principal title is well deserved IMO, heard her giselle was out of this world too. i don’t understand why people say she isn’t deserving of her principal title just because her parents have money and are donors to ABT. The talent is definitely there and she made her way through the ranks for over 10 years.

Yes I think she’s a great dancer and I think she should be at a better company. 

Nepotism can lead to very underserving people getting promoted ahead of themselves, which is why so many are quick to dismiss anyone who benefits in that way. Luckily in Brandt’s case, she does have the talent to back it up. 

why is diana vishneva still listed as a principal if she doesn’t dance with the company anymore (as far as i can tell) ? 

She does still occasionally. 

There’s a lot of politics behind stuff like that in Russia. It isn’t a title she’s just going to give up, and the clout of having her listed is good for them as well. The Mariinsky also frequently leaves people listed as principals for years after they stop dancing. 

hey so what do you think of manon as a ballet? are you. fan? not a fan? choreography, structure? i saw it for the first time recently and idk how i’m feeling about it just yet. just curious! your blog is awesome :)

Manon for me has the best PDD of any ballet I’ve seen. They match the story and emotions perfectly. Many people adore Macmillan’s PDD but find the rest of his ballet’s boring. I understand this criticism. I feel that way about Mayerling. But for me, I can overlook it in Manon. I find the corps scenes well put together, and find Lescaut to provide enough entertainment in other scenes as well. 

what does it mean when something says a vaganova graduate graduated in the 'class of _____'? for instance 'renata shakirova graduated in 2015, class of tatiana udalenkova'.

.... it’s what it says on the tin, I don’t really know how else to explain it? That’s the year she graduated from the Academy. 

What is your favorite cast of Manon? Thinking about buying a DVD of it, but cannot decide between the DuPont/Bolle version or Sarah/Vandream version.

Lamb/Muntagirov all the way. I don’t really rate Bolle. 

[lesbianakaashi]

The Forgotten Shounen: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

This is not a “Why you should watch/read khr” or anything like that. This is just me going into the deep dive and throwing my findings at you. I’m making this because khr used to be my favourite series when I was 15 (I had plushees, posters, tradingcards, the art book etc) and now as an adult I constantly find myself baffled at how unknow it seems to be.

1. Okay first what is khr?

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! or just Reborn! is a series by Akira Amano which was published in Weekly Shounen Jump from 2004 to 2012 (with 42 volumes) and got an anime adaption which run from 2006 to 2010 on Tv Tokyo (with 202 episodes and one OVA).

2. What’s it about?

Khr is a parody of the italian mafia and plays in a world where the mafia is heavily influencial. The protagonist is the japanese middle schooler Sawada Tsunayoshi who is known as “No good Tsuna” because of his failing grades, general weak and cowardly personality and weak physics.

He becomes aware of the mafia world when a 2 year old baby called Reborn arrives at his house claiming to be the greatest hitman and declaring himself his home tutor. Reborn was send by the 9th head of the Vongola famiglia who is ready to retire and looking for a new heir. Which of course, is supposed to be Tsuna and now it's Reborns job to shape him into a worthy sucessor.

Tsuna rejects the violence of the mafia world and refuses the position as the 10th. Thanks to Reborn and his general craziness Tsuna meets different people and starts to make real friendships. Reborn wants 6 of those friends to be Tsuna's future guardians, basically a group of people which will be closest to him in the vongola famiglia. Tsuna might have no interest in those positions but the friendships he builds with them become really precious to him.

Reborns arrivial also brings in the enemies of the Vongola family which leads to Tsuna being forced to engage in battles. Generally Tsuna openly avoids fights and prefers to run away but will put himself in danger for his friends' sake or because of something Reborn did.

Through out the series Tsuna matures and gains strenght but he never becomes a power fantasy. He's just a guy with many flaws who grows through the human connections he makes.

Personally I think the relationship between Reborn and Tsuna is one of the best student teacher reltaionships in all of manga only topped by Mob and Reigen from Mob Psycho 100. Especially the last arc really underlines their unique relationship to me.

Furthermore, khr offers a new and unique battle system: The flames. I'm not gonna go into to too much detail but the general idea is that one fights with their dying will flame which basically turns off your the savety switch so you can fight with everything you have. The flames are seperated into different categories such as: sky, storm, mist, rain, sun, lightning and cloud and have different attributes asigned to each one. Tsuna's use of the sky flame and his transformation when using it is still one of my favourite shounen transformations to this day.

3. What happened?

The series did really well and then not so well over the course of its serialisation. After the manga got an anime adaption it increased in populairty and video games, light novels, and other products such as CDs were created based on the series. Reborn is one of the best selling series of Weekly Shōnen Jump and has sold around 30 Million volumes overall. It was and still is very popular in Japan but rather unknown in the west.

According to the article "The Rise and Fall of Weekly Shonen Jump: A Look at the Circulation of Weekly Jump" khr was the 10th bestselling series in Weekly Shōnen Jump, with a total of 7 million copies sold in 2007.

This number increasing to 15 milion in 2008. Which placed khr into the 4th best selling series of 2008 in Japan.

Between 2008 and 2010 those sales declined but still kept strong with khr as the 6th top selling manga in 2009, 8th best selling in 2010 and then 24th best selling in 2012.

In November 2014, readers of the Da Vinci magazine voted khr number 17 on a list of Weekly Shōnen Jump's greatest manga series of all time.

After the anime came to an apprupt stop in 2010 for unknown reasons the manga sells took a visible hit. (Apparently the studio wanted to put the anime on halt because they were busy with other projects and give Akira Amano time to develop her story but I couldn't find any source for this claim) Furthermore, the rushed last chapters of the manga in 2012 declined the popularity of the series even more. There's no offical statement as to why the manga was ended in such a way but it's reasonable to assume that Jump either cut it considering the decreasing sales or Akira Amano choose to end it for personal reasons.

Nontheless, Tsuna not being included in Jump Force (a fighting game where you can play as different characters from Jump) in 2019 even tho he made it in earlier Jump Stars games also underlines the decreased interest in the series.

Rumors on a reboot or anime adaption of the last two arcs surface from time to time but are genereally unlikely. Artland the studio which made khr has gone bankrupt around 2015-2016. It might be taken on by another studio but rather uncommen especially with such an old series.

4. Art style

The khr anime ended over 10 years ago and the old art style might not be appealing to newer audiences.

Especailly because the anime adaption follows Akira Amanos old art style which heavily developed within the years. Here a picture comparing characters in the new art style:

A modern anime adaption in the new art style would be aesthetically pleasing. It would probably look similiar to Psycho Pass since Akira Amano did the concept art for this series.

(My personal art student hot take is that both art styles are unique and fun. Up to this day Akira Amano still has my favourite art style and even if the amount folds in the characters clothing is a little extreme I love it dearly.)

5. Criticism

The show is not without flaws and even if I greatly enjoy it it wouldn't be right not to adress them.

Daily Life Arc:

A lot of people view the first 20 to 25 episodes as fillers and quickly lose intererst in the series. This is due to the fact that Akira Amano inteded the series to be a gag manga and focuses the first chapters on world building, character introduction and comical narratives. It's rumored that the decision to develop the story into a battle shounen was made because the sales weren't doing well enough at first. So the first chapters/episodes may seem titidious but are necessary for the story and the development of the characters. The tonal shift from a more gintama like gag manga to a darker battle focused story can also be offputting to some viewers.

Either way a lot of people blame this arc when discussing why khr never got an english dub or didn't end up on Toonami. I've also read that the manga never finished serializing in the north america. However, it finished in other western languages like german and spanish.

Censoring:

The anime censors A LOT. From Gokudera's smoking habit, Yamamoto's whole character arc which deals with heavy themes such as depression and suicidal thoughts. The general bloodiness of the manga was censored and sometimes whole chapters and characters were left out even if those were important to the devolopment of others.

Filler episodes:

Out of the 202 episodes the anime has around 29 filler episodes which makes roughly 14 %.

Sexism:

Even if Reborn was written by a woman most female characters are rather flat and their storylines often tied to a male character in one way or another.

Genereal things:

Khr, like many other long running series, is sometimes criticised for a lack of world building or unpopular narrative choices.

6. Hope?

Khr isn't exactly dead. As stated before the series is still very popular in Japan and still gets new merch pretty regulary. There are also petitions floating around for a reboot or a new anime season but those never get a lot of traction. Furthermore #Reborn2期アニメ化 (#Reborn2ndAnimation) used to get some traction on twitter not too long ago. Last year the Anime News Network did a poll on which anime the readers would like to see a rebooot of and khr placed second.

Either way here's a collection of recent khr things I could find.

- In 2018 a new bluray set was released in north america

- The khr stage play reached yet another new season

- A mobile game was released last year

- Currently ongoing anime cafe event called "Concerto di Vongola"

- Last month there was an event with the former VAs and stage play actors where they discussed their favourite khr episodes.

- There has been an increase in blind reacts to the openings on youtube which might bring in a new fan base. The biggest one I could find had around 90k views and was made in 2019. On this note check out the soundtrack. The first openeing Drawing Days by SPLAY still makes me go insane (but I'm biased of course)

There also renewed hope for a new season/reboot because Shaman King, Inuyasha and Bleach got anounced for new seasons after a long hiatus. It's important to keep in mind that the circumstances for those series are differnt tho. For example bleachs new anime is often tied to the immense success of the gatcha game.

7. Conclusion

Khr is a series which used to be a flagship for Weekly Shounen Jump and is deeply beloved by it's fans, especially in Japan. It influenced other shounen series like bnha. It would be nice to see it gaining a bigger fanbase in the west :)

[emotions-ew]

A Collection of Queer Country Artists and Songs for anyone who doesn’t feel like there’s country music they can relate to...

There is this idea that country music is like just Republican men singing about beer, and trucks and also Jesus,  and that is kind of fair because loads of it is but there are some cool as hell queer/lgbtq+ country artists. Finding those and finding that representation in a genre of music I was literally raised on kind of changed my life in a tiny way and I wanted to share that.

(This is by no means a comprehensive list and also I’m basing the “Country” part of this sometimes on my subjective opinion/limited music knowledge so yuh please don’t hate me if I get some wrong)

Also link below for a Spotify playlist of my favourite gay/gayish country music, some mentioned in this post some not, (with a title that isn’t obviously gay for anyone who can’t openly listen to gay stuff on their public accounts for whatever reason) so feel free to skip the massive essay and just jump straight to that. And pretty please repost if I missed anyone/ any songs you love.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7KB6PmUxnpkU7lih8Bysvw

Artists To Follow:

Chely Wright

- Right off the bat, Chely Wright is a legend and I’m in love with her. So, in the 90′s Chely Wright was kind of a huge deal. She started her career as a singer/songwriter and released her first album in ‘94, which was critically acclaimed although never reached the commercial success of her later works. By ‘97 she was really hitting her stride, dropping her breakout hit “Shut up and Drive” (a personal favourite of mine) followed two years later by the biggest hit of her career “Single White Female”. Throughout all that Chely Wright was, to the world, a good old fashioned, heterosexual southern gal. Privately it was a bit of a different story. She had public relationships with male country artists, all while pursuing a secret decade long relationship with a woman. 

I hadn’t ever really heard a Chely Wright song until a few years ago so I never knew about her music or career pre-coming out but I do know that even though by the time she came out in 2010 she was by no means at the height of her fame Chely Wright is kind of one of the biggest names in country music to be out and proud (in my opinion) and I love her like an insane amount. I literally play her music in my car when I have passengers just so I can be like “fun fact this singer is actually gay-” and then subject them to a lengthy explanation of her entire career. She came out with an album and a memoir and the album is my favourite of her work because it’s so fucking raw and because I relate to most of it immensely. Anyways Chely Wright went fucking through it in her journey to being her authentic self and now she’s out and proud and married to a woman and they have a family together and I’m a fucking sucker for a happy ending and y’all should add her to every playlist you have. And on top of that her music is genuinely good. Coming out undoubtedly damaged her career but I think that

Brandi Carlile 

- As far as I can tell Brandi Carlile has been out her whole career. I feel like this list is just going to be me saying “I’m in love with her” about a bunch of women old enough to be my mother but in my defence, I am honestly in love with her. She’s been making music since she was like, seventeen, and has had a bunch of massive hits, as a singer, songwriter, and producer. If you want to cry kind of happy tears listen to her performance of “Bring my Flowers Now” with Tanya Tucker. She’s won Grammy’s and CMT awards and she’s done it all as an out Queer woman. She’s also a founding member of The Highwomen, an all-female country music group who released their first album in 2019, comprised of Carlile, Marren Morris, Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires. I really love this band because they’re four artists who are immensely successfully in their own right collabing, much like the Highwaymen, and their music is phenomenal while also being a fuck you to mainstream country music and their inability to properly represent women in country music spaces. 

She’s been married to a woman (smoking hot and also brilliant) since 2012 and they have two kids together and if you want to cry (again) then you have to listen to her song “Mother” about her eldest daughter. A queer country artist absolutely worth adding to all your playlists. 

Brooke Eden

- As I understand it Eden came out publicly in January of this year. She’s engaged to Hilary Hoover, who she’s been dating since 2015 apparently. I can’t even imagine the pressure that must be on a person and how stressful it would be to keep a relationship secret from the whole world for years and personally I think they’re a cute as hell couple and I wish them literally all the happiness in the world. 

Brooke Eden has a few older songs that I think are really good, my favourite being “Act Like You Don’t”, and while her new stuff isn’t my usual country vibe I am a sucker for literally anything gay and it is legally my gay duty to stream any song that she releases to support my fellow queer. It’s quite different to anything Wright or Carlile sing but I actually kind of love that because it shows that country music of all different shapes and sizes and styles can be sung by queer artists. 

Amythyst Kiah

- Okay so I am a very new listener to Amythyst Kiah, but her music is literally so beautiful it would be a straight up sin to not include her on this list. Her music is country-blues-roots esq (more roots than country, I think?) and her voice is so unique. She grew up in Chattanooga and has been playing music since childhood. She recently made her Opry debut which is fucking awesome. She also belongs to a band called Our Native Daughters, described as “A supergroup of Black women in traditional music”. Their debut album “Songs of Our Native Daughters” did numbers and I haven’t listened to the whole thing but my favourite so far are “Black Myself” and “I Knew I Could Fly” so y’all add that to your playlists along with “Wild Turkey” by Amythyst Kiah because holy hell her voice on that will blow your mind.

Steve Grand

-        The first man to make this list, he should frankly be honoured. Grand has been an out and proud gay man making country music since like 2013, and I have so much respect for an artist who chose to simply never be in, choosing instead to simply write gay ass songs about being in love with men and letting the chips fall where they man. His music is always going to have a special place in my heart and, he’s cute so if you’re into men and music by men give him a google. add him to your playlists, his All-American Boy album is literally just a dozen songs that are perfect to yell-sing along to.

Katie Pruitt

-        Not hugely knowledgeable on Katie Pruitt but her music makes me feel crazy intense emotions and is absolutely gay

 Honorable Mention Artists I haven’t Really Listened to But Who I Know to be gay thanks to google and might be your thing so totally check them out:

Brandy Clark

Ty Herndon

Shelly Fairchild

Lavendar Country

Trixie Mattel

Cameron Hawthorn

Drop any other names of artists or songs you know of 

 Specific Songs That Make Me Fucking Cry or (in good and bad ways (but always in a gay way)) or basically are just gay as hell:

If She Ever Leaves Me; The Highwomen

- So, this album came out about a week before my first (and only) girlfriend broke up with me. The general gist of the song is a woman singing about how her loved isn’t ever going to leave her but if she does it sure as hell won’t be for a creepy man in a bar. A little ironic that I felt I related to it so intensely, considering she did in fact leave me. There’s this one lyric that goes “I’ve loved her in secret/I’ve lover here out loud/the sky hasn’t always been blue” and my girlfriend and I were crazy deep in the closet so I drew her a cute little picture of a grey cloud and on the back I wrote that lyric and I gave it to her and to me it was kind of a promise that one day I’d get a chance to love her out loud and even though I never actually did this song is forever going to make me cry because of the little bit of hope that lyric gave me and the way it’s inclusion on this overwhelmingly mainstream country album made me feel like acceptance was just that little bit closer. 

 All American Boy; Steve Grand

- Definitely one of the first gay country songs I ever heard, and Steve Grand didn’t once sacrifice a scrap of country for the gay. It’s beautiful, it’s a little sad, it’s hopeful. It’s forever going to hold a special place in my heart and the music videos is kind of one of my favourites ever. I found this song before I found myself and the way it made my heart warm should have been a stronger sign than I took it to be. 

Like Me; Chely Wright

- When you love someone you kind of make it your mission to know them in a way that no one else can. This song by Chely Wright is sort of an ode to that, and how even once you lost someone, you’re still going to know every little thing about them. On top of that it sort of speaks to the idea that all these things Wright learned about this woman, she learned in secret and she knew her and loved her in secret and now that they’re gone from each other she’s left with all of this knowledge and all of these questions and no one to answer them. I love the way it’s so slow and the melody and her voice, the way it’s low and a little raspy, make this one of my favourite Chely Wright songs.

The Mother; Brandi Carlile

-        Sorry but a song about being a mother by a queer woman is going to make me cry every time and actually I’m not that sorry. It’s quite a simple song, if any song written by Brandi Carlile can ever be described as ‘simple’, it’s an ode to her daughter. My favourite line is “you are not an accident/where no one thought it through” because it speaks to the fact that in order for queer women to have a kid together they have to want it so damn bad and also I just like the way her voice sounds on that line. This song is also the perfect thing to listen to if you ever for a second feel like being gay/queer is going to stand in the way of you having a family because it absolutely doesn’t have to and if that’s something you want, you can have it. Don’t let people try and convince you otherwise.

Loving Her; Katie Pruitt

-        Unapologetic gay love. Opening a song with “If loving hers a sin, I don’t wanna go to heaven” is a fucking baller move and she went there. The lyrics are beautiful, and her voice is phenomenal. It could be a sad song, about confronting religious repression and grappling with what that means for your love, but instead its triumphant. Katie Pruitt doesn’t give a fuck if you have a problem because she’s going to write songs for her lover.

Jesus From Texas; Semler

-        Not actually totally sure this is a country song, but it has the words ‘Jesus’ and ‘Texas’ in the title so I feel safe including it in this list. Honestly, I don’t really know why I relate so hard to this song. Like, I wasn’t really raised with religion, so I don’t know what it is about this funky little tune that makes me want to sob but there’s something about this tune that makes me want to do whatever the opposite of get up and dance is, but like, in a good way.

Lovin’ Again; Steve Grand

-        Breakup song that ends kind of positively? So good to sing along to at high, high volumes. The idea that losing someone doesn’t have to mean losing yourself and just because you can’t love them doesn’t mean you’re not ever going to love again. But also kind of about how it’s hard to get over someone, I don’t know it’s just good.

Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears; Lavender Country

-        Jesus christ if this isn’t the coolest shit I’ve ever heard in my life. Sorry but a gay country group formed in 1972 who dropped possibly the first gay themed country album, and this was the title of one of the songs. God I am in love.

 Songs that (to me) are a little fruity or that I just relate to in a gay way:

Picket Fences; Chely Wright

-          Chely Wright is gay but this song came out long before she did and when she wrote it, it wasn’t supposed to be gay which is why it’s in this section and not the previous. The reason it’s included at all is because frankly ma’am, Mrs Wright, it’s a little fruity. And I feel a little bad for joking because honestly to me, the way I hear this song and knowing the context (that Wright was deeply closeted at the time she wrote and released it), it’s kind of just sad. The general gist of the song is Wright asking what’s so great about a traditional lifestyle anyways. It could be read as a woman genuinely questioning why we push that expectation that she’ll have two kids and a husband and a picket fence lifestyle, or even could be read as a woman who’s trying to deflect how much she does in fact want that, you have to listen and form your own opinion. But to me, it feels like a woman who’s desperately trying to justify why she doesn’t want that life not because she can’t have it, but she knows it will never be right for her. I don’t know it’s hard to explain I just feel like this song is a little bit gay even though I’m sure she didn’t intend that.

Sinning with You; Sam Hunt

-          Sorry but this song is gay. Sorry but you can’t write the lines “I never felt like I was sinning with you/Always felt like I could talk to God in the morning” and “if it’s so wrong why did it feel so right” and “But I never felt shame, never felt sorry/Never felt guilty touching your body” and not to mention the opening line of “raised in the first pew/praises for yeshua/case of a small town repression”, and expect to not sit in my car sobbing as I realised that while I never felt like what we did was a sin she absolutely did, and wishing I could have told her that I was sorry for making her carry the weight of both our souls but also that it wasn’t a sin and nothing in the world could feel that good and be that bad and it isn’t right that she had to be so ashamed of something that was just so good. Sam Hunt actually said after he wrote the song that while it was reflection on his own relationship with faith he genuinely hopes that people in the lgbtq community can like find comfort or whatever in his words and like go off king, we stan an ally.

  How do I Get There; Deana Carter

-          This ones easy, it’s about falling in love with your best friend and suddenly realising you want more than just friendship with them. Sorry Deana, that’s gay. In my Deana Carter of like Year 10 I played this song on repeat and screamed along to the lyrics as though singing it hard enough would make her like me back.

[myjunkisyuzuruhanyu]

So I always thought the Shoma hate started with the whole misogynist accusations and the Yuzu fans were really upset that someone who was friends with him and idolized him was like that, but it seems to have been going on a lot longer than that, maybe even since he made his seniors debut, so I have to ask... why? Why has he gotten this amount of hate? Nathan I get cause he's an insanely good skater, if nothing else, and him and Yuzu embody the whole technique vs. artistry debate, but why Shoma too? Is it because he's seen as Yuzu's "heir apparent," which annoyed the fans or something else?

God, I hope Yuma stays away from it all. I've only seen general complaints about him being overscored and nothing of the vitriol Shoma and Nathan get (though I'm not on twitter so...)

There's a universe where Shoma winds up at TCC instead of with Stephane and he and Yuzu train together for a bit until Covid. The reactions would have been Very Funny

(Atm it probably needs a disclaimer: this has nothing to do with the hate and some valid criticism I received over the last few days, so my view isn't any different than before)

I can't tell you when exactly it started but what I have seen over the years myself before that stream incident in 2019. I am also not aware of all the background stories and not aware of the hate in the Japanese FS community as I cannot read that and I don't know if things there are rooted differently. I can only say what I know from Japanese fans that the stream incident wasn't a topic ppl took much offense in. So keep in mind that what I know is not a complete picture just my general impression following Shoma over the years.

In general I think every top skater has his share of haters. So Shoma having haters while gaining popularity and results was inevitable.

One of the problems that caused hate always was that "Shoma is overscored". Mainly the point of haters was that because of his questionable jump technique he shouldn't get the credit and points he gets for his jumps, thus doesn't deserve any of his medals and shouldn't be a top skater. I don't deny that his jump technique isn't the best and criticism isn't hate per se but some take it too far. This kind of hate existed since his last junior season when he began to win medals, especially prominent when Shoma won with his "flawed" jumps over Boyang Jin at Junior Worlds 2015. Imo Shoma's jumps have gradually improved over the years. I think the criticism of the evaluation of such "flawed technique" should be brought up to the judges though.

I think 2017 Worlds is another turning point in the Shoma "hate" because he was not even 2 points off from winning the world title and if he wouldn't have messed up his 3Lz he would have won over Yuzu. When Shoma was before looked at by most fans as Yuzu's "cute kouhai" but was too far off to beat him in scores all was quite well. I think since Worlds 2017 some Yuzu fans didn't like Shoma anymore because in their view no one deserves to come close to Yuzu. So some turned their dislike of the scores and results into hate. And because Yuzu also back then had the biggest fanbase, the number of haters grew.

I still think though that most of the "hate" was tame back then and mostly also done under the flag of wanting fairness. Because the evaluation of scoring isn't Shoma's fault you always had this argument against it. Accusing someone of being "overscored" is hardly in a skater's power to change thus I think ppl don't like it but still most ppl wouldn't hate on Shoma for it no matter who they are a fan of. (btw not all Shoma haters are Yuzu fans or Boyang fans)

Ofc there were other minor incidents where for example Shoma was hated for not complying to the Olympic oath having questionable jumping techniques or other small issues against him personally, but most of it wasn't taken into account by most. And I am for sure not aware of all kind of hate there ever was. (thankfully)

I think with Shoma's rise in the ranks ofc there were ppl afraid Shoma would take Yuzu's spot, there are even big conspiracy theories about Shoma being "JSFs favorite" and how his family buys his scores and advantages. Like in 2017 they accused Shoma of buying a rink in France because he trained there before IdF 2017 citing that it was unfair he could already train in France and others couldn't. But those kind of theories had no "proof" so weren't taken into account by the general fans either.

I would say Shoma haters waited for something like the stream incident to happen to make Shoma look like an awful human being. Overscoring and technical flaws turn some ppl off but the hate got through the roof with the accusations. (I have explained my point of view on the stream incident often enough so I won't repeat it here again)

I will never understand what the reason for any kind of hate is towards a person you personally don't know. Everyone makes mistakes but hating, insulting and name calling and raising serious accusations isn't needed at all. Criticisms is fine as long as it's respectful and is open to discussion, so you can learn from your mistake.

___

I do hope Yuma doesn't have to receive the same kind of hate Shoma and Nathan face but with Yuma's rise and being obviously close to Shoma and having Shoma and Nathan as rolemodel he already has an influx of hate thrown at him. How much and if he is aware is another topic.

[swan-of-sunrise]

Spellbinding (Chapter Fourteen)

Summary: While dealing with a surprising new development in their relationship, Loki and (Y/N) are stuck in the middle of an explosive feud between Steve and Tony.

Pairing: Loki X Reader

Word Count: 3.7k

Warnings/Disclaimers: None

A/N: I’d call this a filler chapter but I absolutely love writing about the Avengers as a whole! I also thought we needed a little break from the plot for some team bonding before things get too crazy lol I hope that you enjoy!

Chapter Fourteen November 22nd, 2015 Avengers Tower, New York City (Previous Chapter)

“You read this book when you were how old?”

(Y/N) smiled mischievously and turned her attention back to reorganizing her closet. “I was seven. I checked it out from the library without telling my Aunt Evelyn and read it late at night; I couldn’t sleep without my nightlight on for months afterwards but I’m glad I read it, since it’s a literary classic and everything.”

Loki let out a half-laugh and turned the page of his book. “Well, if we’re ever blessed with children, I think we should wait until they’re at least twelve to introduce them to Dracula. Perhaps even fourteen.”

“Children?”

In an instant, Loki froze and it dawned on him what he’d accidentally said. (Y/N) was also frozen, her arm still extended to grab a hangar from inside the closet. “I-I…I just meant…I’d like to…” Loki cleared his unusually tight throat. “I, ah, wouldn’t mind having…you know, children. Someday. With…with you.” Dammit, I’ve made a mess of things again, Loki inwardly groaned.

They’d only been together for a little over four months and it was much, much too early in their relationship to bring about the subject of children. But after he acknowledged his love for (Y/N), it was challenging for Loki to envision a future without her in it and lately, the idea of a more permanent future with the woman he loved was all he could think about. He knew that his girlfriend liked children; back when she still worked at the New York Public Library, he’d fondly watch her helping them with their homework or reading to them and since officially becoming the Cosmic Sorceress, she’d visited the children’s ward at the nearby hospital once a week to cheer up the young patients. And despite what others might believe, Loki also liked children and the thought of being a father one day – while admittedly a little nerve-wracking – was not an unwelcome one.

Just as (Y/N), with her (Y/E/C) eyes widened in shock, opened her mouth to reply, there came the sounds of voices shouting angrily from the common room down the hall. In an instant, Loki and (Y/N) summoned their magic into the palms of their hands before sprinting out of her suite and down the hallway.

Steve and Tony stood on either sides of the common room and were fully engaged in a blazing argument by the time Loki and (Y/N) arrived. Skidding to a stop beside (Y/N), Loki’s first thought was that he’d never seen either man as angry as they were now, even during the Battle of New York.

“Because you flat-out refused to listen when I said to wait, three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are at the hospital in critical condition!” Tony yelled.

Steve stepped closer and shouted back, “And if I hadn’t acted when I did, an entire apartment complex would’ve been demolished anyway and dozens of people would be dead! Those agents would be fine right now if you hadn’t hesitated to use your scanners!”

“You mean, if I hadn’t stopped to think the situation through?!”

“You’re acting like a civilian, Stark, not a soldier! Our job is to make the tough decisions as quickly as we can for the benefit of the whole, we don’t have the luxury of holding committees for every choice we make!”

“Bullshit, it’s better to weigh options instead of barreling in without a plan; that’s what you’re best at, though, isn’t it? If you hadn’t made the dumb-ass decision to crash that plane in ‘45, you and Carter-”

Before Tony could finish his sentence, Steve landed a punch on his jaw that sent him staggering backwards. Tony quickly surged forward to retaliate, but Loki used his magic to halt his movement while (Y/N) used hers to stop Steve. “Enough!” They dissolved their magic and with matching looks of contempt, both Steve and Tony turned and stormed away, leaving Loki and (Y/N) to gape at each other in shock.

“Yeah, that was a continuation of what happened on the Quinjet.” They turned and watched Bruce step out of the elevator with a weary expression on his face. “I’ll explain everything to you both, but can we do it in private? The rest of the team’s at each other’s throats and I don’t want all the fighting to accidentally trigger the Big Guy…”

After leading the scientist into (Y/N)’s suite and subtly lighting one of her calming lavender-scented candles, Loki sat beside his girlfriend on the sofa and listened as Bruce talked. “This arms dealer was holding an entire apartment building in Luxembourg hostage, said he’d blow the place up if his demands for more guns weren’t met. Fury sent Steve, Tony, Bucky and Clint this morning; the plan was to surround the building and find a way in before going after the guy, but he decided he didn’t want to wait any longer and turned an automatic timer on for the explosives. Cap sent the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in to clear the building and Tony said to wait for the agents to give word before ordering Bucky to take the shot, but Steve didn’t listen. Bucky took the shot, got the guy, but the explosives still went off.” Loki and (Y/N) exchanged looks of confusion, and Bruce continued. “There was a pressure timer hidden in his hand, they call it a dead man’s switch; Tony scanned and saw it at the last second, but Steve was already giving the order to Bucky.” Bruce started pacing as he ran a hand through his hair. “It’s like a civil war; Clint and Nat are taking Tony’s side, they think Steve could’ve waited a little longer, and Sam and Bucky are on Cap’s side.” He snorted in derision. “Thanksgiving dinner should be a blast this year.”

(Y/N) nodded, a saddened expression on her face, but Loki furrowed his brow. “Thanksgiving? You host a dinner of thanks on Midgard?”

“I’ll explain it to you later.” She flashed him a brief smile before returning her concerned gaze to Bruce. “Is there anything we can do?”

“You both should probably just stay out of it; they might come around faster if they see that you’re neutral in all this.” The scientist walked to the door. “I’d better go down and talk to Fury, so I’ll see you guys later.”

Once Bruce closed the door behind him, (Y/N) threw herself back against the cushions of the couch and sighed. “How could something like this have even happened? We’ve been such a strong team these past few months and now…”

“They’re both strong-willed men and stubborn in their own right, you know that. Each holds steadfast to their beliefs no matter the consequences; this is a trait of theirs I’ve both admired and admonished in all the time I’ve known them.” Loki admitted. “But Banner is correct, any attempt of ours to help may only worsen the situation for everyone.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Taking in (Y/N)’s troubled frown, Loki decided to try distracting her from their fighting teammates, laying down and resting his head in her lap so that he was staring up at her. “So, a feast of thanks sounds…quaint.”

As he’d hoped, she relaxed as she gave him a look of amusement and began running her fingers through his hair. “It’s more than that, silly. In America, it’s a day where we give thanks for our lives and the people in them. We sit around a table for dinner and let our loved ones know just what they mean to us, that we cherish and appreciate them, no matter any differences…we might…we might have…” (Y/N) trailed off, pausing a moment before gasping in excitement. “Loki, I think I may have either a brilliant plan or an insane one!”

“I know just what you have in mind, darling. Let’s go!” They both hurried to the living room closet and tugged on their coats and scarves; they had a long, long day of shopping ahead of them.

Although he’d acclimated fairly well to Midgard in the months since his arrival, one of the things Loki still utterly despised about the realm were its ‘grocery stores.’ They were crowded, lit by horrendous fluorescent lights and stocked to the brim with inedible, overpriced food; whenever he’d been asked to accompany one of his fellow Avengers on their shopping trips, he would come up with every excuse under the sun to decline their invitation. But he decided to put aside his displeasure for the benefit of his girlfriend and teammates, resigning himself to pushing the rickety metal shopping cart up and down the aisles as (Y/N) read off her hastily-written list.

Their shopping trip had gone far better than he’d imagined and in no time, they were carrying their bags into the lobby of the Avengers Tower.

“You know, we’re going to need an extra pair of hands to help us with the cooking on Thursday.” (Y/N) pointed out as they stepped into their team’s private elevator. “I’m not very good in the kitchen, as you already know, but I’ve always been able to bake pretty decent pies.”

Loki nodded. “All right, so who did you have in mind to help?”

At that moment, the elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal the smiling face of his golden-haired brother. “Ah, there you are! The J.A.R.V.I.S. just informed me you had returned from your outing, was it productive?”

“…You could call it that.”

The tone of his girlfriend’s voice prompted Loki to glance over at her; she was looking from Thor to him, her eyebrows raised and a triumphant smile spreading across her face. Finally understanding her words, Loki’s smile morphed into a look of absolute horror. “Oh no, no, no, not him…!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Wait, you guys cooked all this? Without burning the kitchen down?”

Loki couldn’t help but give Bruce a pained look. “Believe me when I say that it was not for lack of trying, Doctor Banner.”

Since they wanted dinner to be a surprise, they’d prepared each dish in one of the kitchens used by the new S.H.I.E.L.D. organization; unfortunately, in their attempt to be secretive they were forced into cramped quarters with rather primitive kitchen appliances at their disposal. And to add to Loki’s growing list of responsibilities, he was forced to babysit the love of his life and his brother in order to prevent the dishes from being ruined by their absolute lack of culinary skills. More than once, he had to use his magic to protect the food he’d cooked from (Y/N)’s over-zealousness with the spices and at one point, he was forced to quickly talk Thor out of using his lightning to rapidly cook the turkey. Hopefully it’ll all have been worth it, Loki tiredly thought to himself.

As if in-tuned with Loki’s inner monologue, Bruce nervously adjusted the sleeves of his coat and replied, “Well, I hope this works and doesn’t just end up making everything worse.”

“You and I both, Doctor.” His eyes were drawn to the elevator as its doors opened, revealing (Y/N) and a cart filled with the feast they’d cooked, and he hurried over to meet her. “Everything’s going to plan so far, they think that it’s only the seven of us for dinner.”

With the help of Bruce, they went about setting the enormous table. “I just sent Thor to fetch Team Cap, so they should be here any minute.” Once they finished, (Y/N) removed her apron and smoothed out her skirt, her anxious expression softening a fraction as she turned to the two men. “Now we see if our brilliantly-insane plan will work.”

Loki had just enough time to lean down and press a reassuring kiss to his girlfriend’s forehead before the elevator doors once again slid open.

“Mmm, smells good in here!” Tony grinned, walking up to (Y/N) and handing her a bottle of wine. “I had Pepper ship one of my best labels over from Malibu for the occasion.”

Natasha did little to hide her amusement at his words. “You just couldn’t resist, could you? And you,” She turned to shoot Clint a glare. “If you don’t stop fidgeting, Barton, we’re going to have a problem.”

“I can’t help it, this stupid suit’s uncomfortable!” Clint grumbled; once Natasha returned her attention to the others, the archer rolled his eyes and whispered to Loki, “Damn straight jacket. (Y/N) forced you into one too, huh?”

“Yes, I-” The sight of Steve, Sam and Bucky entering the room behind Thor caused Loki’s words to die in his throat and as the others caught sight of them, he surreptitiously summoned his magic into his hands in case a fight broke out. Out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted Thor and Bruce exchanging weary looks.

Steve’s face was a mask as he stepped forward. “Stark.”

“Asshat.”

All Hel broke loose; Steve and Tony lunged towards one another, their struggling forms barely held back by Bucky and Clint. A cacophony of shouting quickly filled the room as both sides began arguing with each other, but just as Loki raised his arms to use his magic, (Y/N) calmly stepped forward and walked in between the warring groups. The shouting and struggling instantly stopped as they gawked at (Y/N), but she merely smiled warmly at them as she spoke. “Thank you all for coming to our Thanksgiving dinner, Loki and I are glad you were able to make it. Bruce mentioned that you usually don’t celebrate together, but this is my first Thanksgiving with you all and I wanted to mark the occasion with my new family…all of it.” Her words seemed to have their desired intent, as both Steve and Tony relaxed their stances and the others backed away from them. “Now, we should start eating before everything gets cold!”

Needless to say, dinner was a tense affair. Where there was usually the sounds of deafening chatter and laughter, there was quiet murmuring and stoic looks. Loki watched (Y/N) with equal amounts of admiration and sympathy as she tried her hardest to engage their teammates in conversation with one another and with each failed attempt, he could see a little more of her heart breaking. After learning the difficult truth about her parents and having lived so long without a family, (Y/N) deserved to have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with her friends. They all did, really. This has gone on long enough, Loki thought to himself as (Y/N) silently stared down at her plate; after a slight moment of hesitation, Loki got to his feet.

“I’ve done a fair amount of reading about this country’s Day of Thanks, and the custom of expressing what one is thankful for whilst surrounded by their loved ones piqued my interest. So, let’s begin.” Loki swallowed thickly, looking around the table at his teammates’ confused faces before settling on (Y/N)’s. “I’m thankful for you, darling. You came into my life at a time when I believed I could never be deserving of love and you showed me not only was I deserving, but that loving you would make me a better man. You’re the love of my life, and believe me when I say that all our lives have been blessed since meeting you.” Loki and (Y/N) shared a smile and as he turned back to address the others, he felt her take hold of his hand and squeeze. “And I know you may find this difficult to believe, but I am also thankful for all of you. When I first joined the Avengers, I was bitter and filled with resentment at the prospect of serving out my sentence on a planet I despised with people I despised even more. But after a short while, once we’d come to understand one another, you accepted me as your teammate and friend. Well, some of you more than others.” His eyes flicked to Tony, who hid his small smile behind his hand, and to Clint, who gave him a small shrug. “I value our kinship above all else and on this Day of Thanks, I implore you all to remember our bonds with one another. Severing those bonds on account of a petty disagreement is something you all will come to regret in the future; take it from me, I have firsthand experience in that particular department.” He and Thor shared a knowing look as he took a seat; although he wasn’t comfortable expressing his emotions so openly, the look of pride in his brother’s eyes had made it worth it.

The table was quiet for several moments, until Steve cleared his throat. “Well, I’m, ah…I’m thankful that after coming out of the ice to an unrecognizable world I was able to find such great friends and teammates in you all.” His azure eyes flicked hesitantly over to Tony. “We may not get along all the time or agree on everything, but that doesn’t mean we should allow ourselves to become divided.”

Tony’s face remained unchanged throughout Steve’s speech and when he got to his feet, Loki could practically hear the others’ sharp intakes of breath. The billionaire held Steve’s gaze for a heartbeat before offering him his hand over the table with his trademark smirk on his face. “Couldn’t have said it better myself, ‘Roid Rage.” The two men shook hands and the room almost instantly relaxed; Loki exchanged looks of triumph with his co-conspirators as dinner continued, satisfied that their plan had been successfully implemented.

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“Dinner was delicious, by the way.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, darling, though I’m not sure what the others thought of it.”

“Well, they were a little too distracted to hand out compliments on food, wouldn’t you say?”

The pair had decided to spend the night catching up on their reading but instead of utilizing the library, they had made themselves comfortable in Loki’s bed with their books and plenty of blankets. Loki sat up against the headboard, his legs stretched out across the mattress and his ankles crossed, and (Y/N) was leaning against his side, her head resting comfortable in the crook of his neck and her free arm holding Loki’s around her waist. They sat in comfortable silence as they read their own books, occasionally permeating the tranquil atmosphere with light conversation.

“Um, Loki?”

“Hmm?” Loki could feel (Y/N) shifting beside him, so he tore his eyes away from his book and watched as she marked her page and set her book down on the bedside table. Setting his own book aside, Loki adjusted himself so he could see her face better. “What is it?”

(Y/N) bit her lip and played with the sleeve of her sweatshirt before answering. “We’ve been so busy planning Thanksgiving dinner and trying to get the team back together that we haven’t had a chance to talk about what you said the other day.” Loki’s brow furrowed in confusion, and the corner of (Y/N)’s mouth twitched. “About wanting to, um, have children. With me.”

“Oh.” Loki felt himself pale; he’d completely forgotten about his slip-up and being reminded of it caused panic to flare in his chest. “I-It was stupid, (Y/N), I just…we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, I only meant-”

His explanation was abruptly cut off by (Y/N), who had covered his mouth with her hand and was shaking with suppressed laughter. “I always love those rare moments when you’re the one to get flustered; a little line always forms in between your eyebrows.” She leaned forward and pressed a brief kiss on the spot before moving her hand from his mouth to cup his cheek. “I was surprised by what you said the other day because I didn’t realize that you’ve imagined the same future that I have.” (Y/N) shyly looked down but she reached for his free hand and intertwined their fingers together. “I may not have much experience with relationships, Loki, but I love you with all my heart and if there’s anyone I want to share that wonderful future with someday…well, it’s you.”

A grin slowly formed on Loki’s face; removing one of his hands from hers, he gently took hold of her chin and coaxed her to look at him. “Really?”

She nodded, her (Y/E/C) eyes sparkling with happiness. “Really.”

Surging forward, Loki held her face in his hands and smashed his lips against hers. (Y/N) made a sound of surprise before wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing back with equal vigor; Loki eventually found himself lying flat on his back while (Y/N) straddled his waist, one hand clutching her hip while the other traveled up and down her spine as they kissed. (Y/N) pulled her lips away from his and just as his throat made a noise of protest, she began kissing along his jawline and down his neck; needless to say, his annoyance quickly morphed to groans of satisfaction. Only when her soft lips brushed against a particularly sensitive patch of skin near his collarbone did Loki lose all restraint; he flipped them over so that (Y/N) was pressed against the mattress and after grabbing her hands and threading their fingers together, he held them over her head and hungrily attacked her eager lips with his own until an unfortunate lack of air forced them to break apart.

“I said I’d like children with you someday, Loki, not today!” (Y/N) exclaimed breathlessly, a dazed sort of smile illuminating her face as she looked up at him.

Loki let out a laugh before kissing her forehead and rolling off to lay on his back beside her; try as he might, he couldn’t keep the broad grin off his face. “Apologies, my love, but you’re entirely irresistible. If I’d known there were kisses like that in store for me, I’d have told you all that ages ago…”

Later that evening, (Y/N) was fast asleep against his chest and the sounds of her quiet snores filled the room as he stretched out on the bed in contentment. I suppose there’s only one thing left to do, Loki thought tiredly, pulling (Y/N) closer and glancing over at the bedside table that hid the engagement ring before sleep finally claimed him.

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A/N: Wow, that was a lot of fluff! Thank you all so much for reading and commenting! I’ve created a Spotify playlist inspired by this series, and I’ll be updating it every time I upload a new chapter. Enjoy!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2wx8TZwpDN0l33tES3W3Nk

Chapter Fifteen

Spellbinding Masterlist

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