#And it MAKES SENSE. They're all so messed up and they have horrible backgrounds

[hajihiko]

If I may ask, which plot twist hooked you onto DR2?

The "you were the bad guys all along" one!

[wednesdaythesecond]

pls tell us your fucked up petekey fic ideas. the people need to know

Ohhhh I have so many petekey ideas but my most recent one, I spent like 17 hours telling @bootlegfrnk about it. Okay so, uh, warnings for mouth gore, violence, abuse, vomit, incest- y'know, the fucked up stuff

Gerard and Mikey are weird awkward basement dwellers who don't know how to talk to people but they're y'know, 👀 of that age, and they're horny so they make out and fuck each other and ignore how weird it is. This goes on until Gerard goes off to college and Mikey doesn't have an older brother to fuck hide behind and has to talk to people himself.

When Mikey's not joined at his brother's hip, he's got that awkward but cute boy swag and ends up getting girlfriend 💕 we love to see it!

When Gerard comes back during a school break, he walks in on Mikey making out with his girlfriend and Gerard does not like that. He does not like that at all. Mikey is HIS brother and no one else is allowed to touch him! But obviously, Gerard can't come out and say that so he silently seethes every time he sees Mikey with his girlfriend and spends the rest of his time sulking in his room.

Mikey still wants to hang out with his brother though, so he finally convinces Gerard to come to a house party with him. Mikey's a lightweight because he's young and skinny and I said so, so he gets completely wasted right away. Gerard's also pretty drunk, which removes any and all inhibitions, so when he sees Mikey kissing his girlfriend, he snaps.

Gerard grabs a chunk of glass from a broken bottle and finds Mikey throwing up in the bathroom, where he tries to cut Mikey's tongue out. They're both drunk, it's an improvised weapon and the tongue is mostly muscle, so they end up on the floor, wrestling on the floor while Gerard slashes and hacks up the inside of Mikey's mouth.

There's blood everywhere, Mikey is making this horrible gurgling choking noise and Gerard is breathing hard and hissing about "that bitch" and "fucking touching you." Gerard's hands and cut up to hell, Mikey's mouth is a mess and they're both covered in each other's blood (and who says romance is dead?)

Gerard leaves Mikey lying on the floor (on his side so he doesn't choke on his vomit or blood or what's left of his tongue because Gerard is such a good brother), washes his hands, bandages them and flushes the chunk of glass down the toilet.

Mikey's tongue isn't fully severed but it's cut up to hell and whether from the vomit or dirty piece of glass or lying on a nasty bathroom floor, it gets infected. Seriously, badly infected. He ends up getting a total glossectomy (surgical tongue amputation) and never kisses his girlfriend or talks again.

Mikey retreats back into the basement, hides behind comics books and his brother again, avoids people and breaks up with his girlfriend. He learns sign language and never tells anyone what happened. He doesn't want to think about what happened. If Mikey doesn't tell anyone, he can pretend it never happened, pretend he doesn't know how Gerard got those scars on his fingers.

Gerard's not like that, not usually, it was only that one time. He'd never hurt Mikey again.

But he could, so Mikey stays quiet in every sense of the word.

Gerard and Mikey start hooking up again. It's fine, it's whatever, it's a physical release and they're both shut ins so it just makes sense. If Gerard kisses Mikey a little too hard, licks inside Mikey's mouth, that mess of scar tissue and insecurity a little too possessively, Mikey can ignore that.

My Chemical Romance forms almost exactly like it did. There's fans and shows and attention and albums and songs and interviews.

Mikey doesn't talk in interviews. He used to use sign language and it's the 00s so Gerard acts as his interpreter but it's so much easier if Gerard just answers for Mikey. He knows Mikey so well, he knows exactly what Mikey would say. Mikey can simply fade into the background, disappear behind his brother, it's easier that way.

It's the summer of 2005, Warped Tour and Pete Wentz has noticed the silent stoic figure hiding behind Gerard. He doesn't know a single thing about Mikey Way but he wants to know everything about him.

What's his favorite song? Why does he play bass? Has he ever kissed a boy? Does he want to? Why doesn't he talk? Can he talk? What's his deal? If he doesn't talk, what does that mouth do?

Mikey isn't used to get this much attention from anyone (barely even Gerard anymore <3) and he doesn't know how to react. He likes this attention and he kind of likes Pete. Pete's hot and funny and actually shows interest in Mikey as a person instead of just as an extension of Gerard. Pete tries to learn sign language and he's not great at it, but he's trying. Pete goes out of his way to talk to and hang out with Mikey, rather than just expecting him to be around by default. Pete respects Mikey's boundaries (no leaving marks, don't kiss him on the mouth, don't ask about the tongue thing). He's everything Gerard isn't and Mikey is more than a little into that.

Of course, Gerard won't like that Mikey's falling for someone else, but he's never going to find out, is he?

[aho-dapa]

hi i just found your account and i just realized we kind of have the same problem with sjm but went 2 different ways about it. i read the books in like a week during a depressing episode so i didn't retain all that much and the parts i didn't like i just replaced (mostly bc i felt like the books were lacking in so many aspects that i don't feel bad basically rewriting it in my head). but the way i went about it is mostly changing the characters i want to like (rhysand, feyre, nesta) and just pretend they didnt do things that didnt make sense to me or they had good reason to do it. i was always bored with tamlin and the high lord of the night court is so up my alley so i just make rhys a little better in my head. i hate that sjm set him up to be morally grey but didnt make the darker parts in the right place if that makes sense? like i dont mind questionable morals in a character if it's to protect their family or people which is kind of what sjm started doing but then made him kind of a bad high lord? and i dont think she even sees it like that tbh bc i know she loves rhysand so i think she left the shitty situations in hewn city and illyria like that to set up plot but didnt stop to think what it would mean for rhys to not do shit about those situations. i know some people have theories that rhys might end up being a villain and is just manipulating feyre and the sisters but i think that's giving sjm too much credit tbh. i think she really leaned into the romance and the rest kind of morphed into the background but honestly i do love romance so i feel like i ended not minding it as much as other people at times. i'd rather have romance than a messy plot which is what sjm gave us (especially in acosf). also none of her characters have that much depth to them (feyre, nesta and rhys are probably the ones that have more but their actions don't always match with how sjm led us to believe they were) so i dont mind just making stuff up in my head like for example mor, she barely has a personality so i made her up one bc i wanted my proper lgbt representation.

anyway im sorry im ranting on your blog like this but it's interesting that so many people can agree that sjm set up a good world but the plot and characters ended up falling flat. and it's funny that the readers end up making the characters more interesting in fanfiction whether it's making rhysand the villain or making up how i think sjm meant him to be

I completely understand!! When I first read ACOTAR, I did the same for Rhys and Feyre because I truly didn't mind them until ACOWAR and sjm's constant inconsistent character writing caught up to me and my suspension of disbelief.

Also I think rewriting characters her characters in our head to make them more entertaining or relatable is something this fandom thrives on. A lot of people like Nesta because they relate to her even if the cabin years are a narrative mess. I personally relate to Tamlin too because of this both because and despite how his character was written.

Yeah, I also don't really mind rooting her or liking morally grey characters or even downright horrible people because sometimes they're just more interesting to me personally. In a sense, Rhys has a bunch of contradictions that don't mesh well because of sjm trying to make him some paragon of moral goodness when his character never even functioned that way even in the beginning.

I also like the villain manipulation Rhys hc but I also don't think that's where sjm is going with it. She fumbled too hard with Tamlin’s arc of abuse to suddenly make the mastermind move with Rhys.

Tbh it's really fun (and tiring) making up new canon adjacent personalities for her characters. I think the maybe unintentional problem with this is that the fandom uses those characterizations in critiquing characters or even hating them.

[wolves-etc]

thoughts on The Last Of Us episode one, largely in the order I had them:

[thoughts on: 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9]

(I have some spoilers from tumblr, a vague awareness of the older gays & younger gays situations, and a friend's recommendation that I'd really like this show. I didn't realise how evocative this would be in a mid-pandemic world. the show quickly set me right.)

— all kudos and respect to mr "I have an opportunity to infodump to a crowd about disturbing fungal diseases and I am going to make the most of it." loses points for warning people about hypothetical future dangers while actively smoking at them.

— the views we get of the crowd and the host during the second half of his speech are interesting - they're so still, all rapt attention, while he's talking about humans made puppets. it's unsettling.

— and the visuals during the theme music? gross. the guy who recommended this to me is squicked out by fungus. I may have used the words "wetly unfurling" while confronting him about this.

— I'm struck by the apparent ritual of joel setting his alarm, sleeping through it or ignoring it, and having to be alerted by his daughter anyway. he's a mess. (<3)

— there's something very real and unsanitised about their home environment. sarah's presumably not the worst cook in the house, but still they're eating eggshell. there's takeaway in the fridge that tommy sniffs before having any (though I wish he didn't decide against it then put it back.)

— and joel's shirt is on inside-out. bless him.

— sarah and joel passive-aggressively siccing the neighbours on each other is bitchy and great

— the first glimpse of the unrest of the pandemic being someone visibly panicking, closing the shop, herding sarah out, telling her to go straight home? I'm trying not to do too much real-life comparing. but that's ouch.

— we have a dog!! a border collie!! mercy I love you I am giving you up for dead given the genre we're in but I very much hope to be proven wrong <3

— "three nails plus one cross equals four-given." please, please tell me people don't speak like that. lie if you must

— the mental shift from "that blurry old lady in the background needs medical attention" to "oh. oh this is a horror show, the characters just don't know that yet, oh no" was a fun one

— "and you were never gonna [get the watch fixed] for yourself" OH BOY

— it's functional depression vibes in joel and it's intense. he won't get the watch fixed for himself, and he probably wouldn't celebrate his birthday for himself either - I'd buy that the pancakes could have been more for sarah than him, but then she insists on cake, and he doesn't suggest anything he'd enjoy better. still, he seems willing to make an effort because she wants to, and that's nice.

— that moment, sitting down to watch a movie together, sarah falling asleep against him? joel's a mess, but he has a good relationship with his daughter, and that's refreshing to see. there's real love there.

— mercy is a very good dog and sarah COULD DO WITH MORE ANXIETY SLASH SURVIVAL INSTINCT, FRANKLY,

— and we get the first glimpse of joel being brutal and unhesitating when it's called for. the sense that he's already made a shift in thinking that sarah's slower to - she's scared, crying, not yet really believing that it was necessary.

— sarah in the back of the car being smart enough to put together - given what she knows - that any one of them could be infected. it's awful.

— "[they've] got a kid, joel." "so have we. keep driving." fuck

— (how must that feel for sarah? if she's the thing to be protected, it must be her fault.)

— okay the infected's too-quick movements and bird-like head tilts? very "inhuman software on human hardware." it's cool.

— this scene here, though. there's a lot here. they're saved, in the nick of time, by a soldier. the soldier receives orders that he has to double-check. joel calls him sir, says please don't, has to know what's coming. it's unfair and it's horrible and there's nothing he can do.

— and I had a lot of thoughts about that. about how the US military - quite aside from the huge wrongs it does to other countries - promises people to chance to do some good, and to be a part of a family, and betrays them on both counts. leaves its soldiers with trauma and no way to manage it. leaves them, perhaps, with chronic depression, in a job I don't even want to speculate about because neither the military nor construction work are kind to the body. it's betrayal on top of betrayal as standard. and it's cruel, very cruel, that the military betrays joel again here. (edit for reasons and for at least one "article" possibly lying to me)

— and it's a fucking needless way for sarah to die. fuck.

— okay. okay.

— we get this little reminder that the birds, the trees, the sunlight, they all keep going. no matter what goes on with humans. and I, for one, find that comforting.

— and that comfort is VERY NEEDED because holy shit it's twenty years later and joel barely even hesitates to throw a bound child's body onto the fire. (practical and brutal, when it's needed. I don't even want to wonder whether he's done it before.)

— he's still wearing his broken watch and he is very much not okay.

— tess is all steel. I'm a little scared of her as a person and I love her as a character. what the fuck are they both up to that they can handle criminal dealings like this.

— "I promised him you wouldn't hurt him, but I would very much like for you to hurt him." CLEAR AND TO THE POINT.

— no but that's a lot of fun though. clear communication, what seems like no real lies when she's negotiating with her captor, just a forthright attitude that's so easy to believe and a comfortable willingness to mislead him.

— "you don't have a fucking ear on your fucking head" would be a fun way to accuse someone of not listening

— "y'all talk it through, but please remember that I'm bleeding out." I LIKE MARLENE

— and here we see joel's fight response to trauma, which will, I hope, serve him well. that flashback was evil though.

— what the FUCK is the expression on ellie's face. is that awe. is that delight. miss, you're very fucked up, do you know that

things I expected: ellie being a murder child; joel being a traumatised badass with a soft spot for her. did NOT expect ellie to be THAT much of a murder child, or joel's soft spot to be that well-armoured. this is gonna be interesting to see.

and I didn't expect tess, who's interesting, and scary in her own right, and rugged in a way women aren't generally allowed to be in the zombie genre. this was a really pleasant surprise.

[protagonistheavy]

Not that I ever expected greatness but the FNAF movie sucked on multiple levels. Even if you try to squint and give some generosity to the production, i feel like the direction itself is just flawed to its base.

Most importantly I feel like all the charm and appeal of FNAF is entirely lost here. The movie simple isnt scary at ANY point and leans more as a suspense-comedy than anything else. There's no horror of basically any magnitude. The restaurant quickly loses any sense of creepiness as we get so accustomed with the limited set and rarely get to see anything that made the original restaurant in FNAF so unsettling; the animatronics look way too good and function way more like a regular robots to actually scare anyone, way too much emotion from them -- on top of the fact that we get very familiar with them as characters. They don't use compelling angles enough to sell the creepy-animatronic factor, and we dont see them in regular action to ever get that feeling of "oh god, these corpse robots are interacting with people."

There's basically no gore except cuts, only one James Bond-style death trap, and a VERY campy silhouette death. There is so much potential in this factor, all the gears and machinery that could be used to create horrible situations... but none of that is properly utilized. Violent engagements with the animatronics are just a matter of a guy in a suit pushing other people around. The most violence you get is the fucking cupcake toy, which is just a straight up ghoulie I guess, it's the only competent threat in the movie and is way overused.

But then on top of all this........... get this, there really isn't enough jumpscares in this movie. Which is so fucked up! It's normally too easy for movies to include too many jumpscares... but here, there's such a disappointing lack of them. Jumpscares is so much what FNAF is, if any movie was gonna have too many jumpscares and get away with it, this is the one!! And yet we only get three in the entire movie, including a mid-credits scene, and they're ALL THE SAME GAG. Ugh! The animatronics are supposed to be surprising and hard to see, not henchmen for a Batman villain.

And then the comedy, of which there is too much of, just doesnt normally hit. I giggled more at just the fact that I was watching a FNAF movie than I did at any intentional gag. And this sucks so much too because humor is also a key part to the FNAF feeling, how so many times it can surprise you with such a good joke, or refresh you after a scare by providing something funny in between. That just isnt present here, you just get regular old Hollywood humor, at best it's a "so bad its funny" kind of humor.

Finally, the movie tries too hard to cram in every good idea FNAF ever had into one plotline, and the result is a plotline that makes no sense -- not with the FNAF lore, and not even with its own self. You will be left with so many dumb questions that have no good answers, and even more if youre a fan of the series. Characters are completely different from their inspirations, their motivations are even more whack as hell. It's like the director read a summary of deep FNAF lore and just figured shoving every idea into one plot would be spooky and cover all their bases, but it just makes a jumbled mess of a plot with characters you never give a shit about, in a world that makes little sense and does little to draw you in.

Funny enough, I happened to watch Willy's Wonderland in the background at a party the night before, and even though I wasnt even watching it completely, I have to admit that movie just seemed more compelling than FNAF. It had a protagonist I wanted to learn about, mysteries that keep you wondering, humor that was ridiculous enough to make me laugh more sincerely, and animatronics that frankly had a spookier appeal to them, in a premise that was much more engaging. In some ways, Willy's is even truer to the spirit of FNAF, albeit with Nic Cage action sequences; there's at least a better attempt at conveying a complete story, and it does more to create spooks and frights with the setting. I really loved in Willy's the scenes where Nic Cage is cleaning the place, I love the attention to detail -- which gets you engrossed with the setting, makes you feel like youre there, convinces you it was indeed a happy place once before becoming tarnished. Im definitely thinking waaay more of Willy's than I am of FNAF lol.

[throwaway-yandere]

Solitary here,

Just read my matchup and it really does seem like a thing for me to get rejected because of my hearing disability😞 Wait, I can finally go back to my keyboard emojis now that I'm about to reveal myself XD

At the beginning of the matchup, I actually had to take a step back from reading because it felt like you were in my mind. It seems you've somehow you've gotten to know the 'real' me (or whoever that's supposed to be)

I still wonder why turning on anon made it easier for me to talk about vulnerability and such, (really sorry for those 2 personal asks, really didn't mean to make it personal, aaaaahhh,) but in another way, turning anon also made it harder for me to talk to you because I accidentally created yet another way of talking to you (I assure you, it's still me though. I'll just have to stop signing off as Solitary to go back to me? I think?)

So, thank you for the matchup Ansy. Thank you for talking to me and thank you for being an amazing person. I hope once I send this ask I won't fall into the background again. I haven't had this much fun in months (if not years)

-Solitary/leftdestiny-posts/Shiro

(I feel like my real name suits this matchup more but for the sake of you having to recognize me I'll sign off as Shiro XD)

(p.s. you don't know how many times I had to delete a message about my fish when I wasn't anon. If I accidentally slipped up with that you would've known it was me 😂)

(p.p.s. I'm pretty sure if you're about to replace all the actual emojis with my keyboard emojis you would've found out)

(p.p.p.s. I'm so anxious about revealing but I can't hide forever. Especially not after getting a matchup that tells me to not be afraid of rejection. Sorry, rambling again XD)

Ho.... holy sht. Okay this was an emotional rollercoaster of an ask holy sht– wait–

1) I LOVE YOU NO MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS I FRICKING CHERISH, ADORE YOU PLS 😭😭😭 I LOVE YOU UNCONDITIONALLY MY COMRADE

2) phck I based some of those lines on my personal experience as well sht this is making me emotional. If you find that monologue to be familiar then I guess we went through something similar. I'm not going to go around and say "I know the real you" because this is merely a perception of what I have based on your request and asks. Don't also let my fic define who you are. Our identity is not rigid. All those sides you have? They're all you. They're all the "real" you. Just because you act differently when with your friends versus your family doesn't mean your traits have to be mutually exclusive. You can be a very cheerful person to one person and very calm to the other, it doesn't discredit anything if that makes sense. Some people take a life time to grasp who they are, some might never actually find out what describes them just right, and that's okay. Finding yourself is a difficult process, and you don't have to force it.

3) PLEASE NEVER BE SORRY ABOUT THAT. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR OPENING UP. I'd feel so horrible if I didn't know my first tumblr mutual was going through these things while I'm just messing around 😭😭😭😭 please reach out to me whenever you feel down!!! You're my first tumblr friend okay!!! I will hunt you down that's not a promise that's a threa–

4) HUeuaiaiUEISI NO YOU. N O Y O U . *PULLS OUT A MILLION UNO REVERSE CARDS* SHUT UP NO YOU NO YOU'RE AMAZING SHUSH–

Shaiiaia this ask is making me emotional. I had a feeling but I wasn't too sure 😭 i don't know what else to say just. I love you comrade.

[depizan]

well, with the Emperor being dead-all-along, I am curious about many characters who's story is connected to him: Scourge; Kira, Syo Bakarn, and the other Children; the Hand of the Emperor; Tol Braga and his strikte team

A lot of the Force User class stuff exists in something of a quantum state - because my fics don't focus on those classes, I haven't nailed down exactly how much stays "canon" in ficverse.

Oddly, though, the Emperor being dead would make surprisingly little difference. The Children are a fine sleeper agent idea even if it isn't actually the Emperor controlling them when they're activated, just a powerful Sith Lord, or some form of conditioned second personality. (Which, if I remember right, is how the First Son/Syo Bakarn thing worked, anyway.)

Kira can still struggle with the conditioning, just as she did the Emperor's influence, and overcome it. If anything, it just adds a potential layer of angst with the question of whether she really did escape (which I don't remember game canon questioning).

Tol Braga, if no one uses common sense and sits on him, can still assemble a strike team for his terrible idea of Emperor kidnapping. The Emperor turning out to be dead doesn't make this a notably better idea. He and his strike team just get caught by the conspiracy faking the Emperor's continued existence instead of by the Emperor. They likely wouldn't even find out it isn't the Emperor, and Braga can still have his turn to the Dark Side due to being a phenomenal idiot, er, I mean having an overabundance of pride.

Whether this mess will include Ianya and the Jedi Knight crew up to that point depends entirely on where in the ficverse story it ends up landing. If Ianya is still down for suicidal strikes on the Empire, it does; if she's discovered her daughter is alive and is doing better, then she'd recognize it for the horrible, horrible plan that it is and refuse to sign on. (Though she could still end up roped into trying to rescue Tol Braga's strike team.)

As for Scourge... *reads his wookieepedia entry* uh, what in all heck? Oookay, this could go one of two ways. Either Scourge is another Sir Not Existing in This Ficverse, and parts of Tol Braga's strike team and/or rescuers there of get aided by some other defecting Sith Lord or all of that very muchness or something akin to it is still true and Scourge just doesn't know that the Emperor's already dead (so much for Force visions - or his vision has mistaken discovery for action). If the latter, then the plan to kill the Emperor does happen, and they learn that he's been dead all along, stab his corpse a time or two, just to be sure and go from there. If the former, then perhaps this is where it's discovered that the Emperor has been dead for a bit, and everything diverges rather more from the game version of the story.

As a lot of this is more happening in the background, I'm not entirely sure what I'll end up going with. Though I'll probably at least keep the Force Sensitive sleeper agents thing. It helps with Kira and Ianya bonding over their questionable pasts, and gives them parallel darknesses to fight.

[shewholovestoread]

Hi, thank you for your analysis they’re good :). What so you think about the it’s LA I’m sure there was traffic scene? Because for me GIGI kind of let her of the hook easy. That was inconsiderate of Dani. I was curious about your opinion for that scene. Thank you :)

Hi Anon, sorry about the delay, was down with damn covid (though since it was omicron, all my tests were negative, so go figure)

A little background: Dani has had a rough day, the CAC endowment that she thought was sorted is back to blowing in her face, Bette and Pippa have rallied their supporters and forced the CAC to backtrack. Gigi and Dani were supposed to attend Eli's recorder concert but Dani forgot and instead of telling Gigi that she lost track of time, lies and says that she's stuck in traffic and won't be able to make it.

The scene starts with Gigi and Dani at Dani's home, they're getting ready for dinner, going over their day and then we get to this shot:

I think this exchange is important because while Dani did lie, there's no indication from her face or body language that she messed up, in the sense that she forgot to continue the lie. It seems that she just had a long day and decided to tell Gigi the truth rather than continue lying. It doesn't matter much in the scheme of things but it's important nonetheless because she could have just stuck to her story and avoided everything that follows.

I also want to draw attention to Gigi's expression, her expressions around Dani are usually very soft so seeing this hardness on her is rather obvious that she is indeed pissed off. Gigi's a devoted mother, she absolutely adores her kids and takes that responsibility very seriously, I don't think, inviting Dani for the recorder concert was something she did without thought. Because Dani is turned away from her, she doesn't see this shift in her expression.

Dani still hasn't sensed the shift in mood, when Gigi asks her, "So you lied to me?" She's being flippant in her response, I don't think she means any of this out of malice or disregard, she's just trying to joke, hoping to dispel any tension that might arise. She doesn't get serious till Gigi says, " Do you want to hurt me?" This is in stark contrast to her fights with Sophie (those two were horrible when it came to communication) Instead of beating around the bush or attacking Dani, which would have immediately made her defensive, Gigi instead lays out the consequences of her seemingly 'small lie', that it was hurtful, she hurt Gigi's feelings.

Now and this is the important part, it's the way Gigi tells Dani that her actions were shitty without launching into a verbal attack. She acknowledges that Dani's been having a tough time and reiterates her support for her but tells her, in no uncertain terms that she's not going to be a punching bag for Dani to lash out at when she's having a bad day. Also, at no point does she raise her voice, she's still speaking TO Dani, not AT her and that's an important distinction. She's telling Dani why her actions hurt her while affirming that she does care about her.

This is followed by this:

A sincere apology from Dani who looks decidedly sorry about her actions and that she hurt someone she cares about. This is one of the things that I love about Dani when she's with Gigi, she makes mistakes and does mess-up but she actively apologises and means them. She's not just saying the words, she puts in the work and does better.

When Gigi crosses the table, it looks like she's about to leave, except she doesn't. She stands in front of Dani and pulls her in for a hug and just holds her. Even though they've just had a fight, Gigi doesn't withhold her affection from Dani. She told Dani that her behaviour was hurtful, Dani apologised, Gigi accepted that apology and they moved on, there's no need to keep flogging a dead horse.

A hallmark of any relationship is how well the people within it communicate with each other and with Gigi and Dani, their ability and willingness to be open and honest with each other is what sets them apart from the other couples on the show. They're willing to be vulnerable with one another especially when it isn't easy.

I can understand Anon's question about whether Gigi let Dani off the hook too easily. We've become accustomed to seeing screaming matches and blow-out fights between couples in the pursuit of "realism", couples who spend the whole duration of their argument actively shouting at each other and reaching no solution at the end of the ordeal. Gigi and Dani had a difficult but needed conversation in a mature way where they each communicated their grievances, heard each other out and then moved on as you're supposed to. That's the healthy way of dealing with conflict.

[volturialice]

what's the best jalice trope? soulmates? friends to sweethearts? stranger human & stranger vamp to vamp friends to lovers? I personally think that enemies to lovers doesn't fit them

ooooh that's such an excellent and impossible question! I love them so much I wanna write them as every trope tbh.

but I assume you're exclusively talking about meeting/beginning-of-relationship tropes here so I'll limit myself to those.

soulmate - I've said it before and I'll say it again, they're basically already a soulmate au in canon. having magical foreknowledge that this chewed up war criminal in a diner is actually your One True Eternal Love? empathically sensing that a mysterious stranger loves you unconditionally and instantly trusting her despite your violent and traumatic background? yeah, it makes them extremely easy to write a soulmate au for. so although I like soulmate aus more than your average bear seems to, I kind of consider them low-hanging fruit when it comes to jalice, unless you subvert the trope somehow and give them some nice thorny obstacles.

friends to lovers - friends to lovers is a really fun challenge for them! tbh, writing them any intro where they don't start out with the aforementioned magical knowledge of each other is a fun challenge. with friendship, you have to not only give them a non-magic-based foundation but get them to fall in platonic love first. in jalice's case, there's a lot of non-romantic things to love about each other, a lot of complementary qualities that I know I love in my friends. I have to be honest, though—the friends to lovers trope by itself is rarely messy or complicated enough to catch my interest. that said, I think everyone should read @goldeneyedgirl's gorgeous jalice friends to lovers au.

enemies to lovers - this is one of my favorite tropes in general, because it's so intrinsically messy. I agree that it doesn't fit jalice—at least, canon jalice—though, because their devotion to each other is so extreme and they have no built-in reason to be enemies. HOWEVER, I look at that and think "challenge accepted." I can make them enemies. I can make them enemies all day. it's easy to accomplish that through external conflict means—put them on opposite sides of a war, or in different cults with opposed ideologies, etc etc. but I think the same complementary qualities they love about each other, they could also very easily hate about each other, giving you an internal ETL conflict. I mean, alice is so loud and shallow and materialistic and controlling! jasper is so dull and reserved and passive and judgmental! they can totally belong on rival debate teams or covens or opposite sides of a ballroom sniping at each other.

honorable mention: another of my favorite tropes that is difficult to pull off is lovers to enemies (and enemies as lovers. delicious.) this usually involves a betrayal or misunderstanding of some kind (which I also love, unless that betrayal is infidelity, a personal squick of mine. otherwise, the more horrible the better.)

so yeah. when it comes to jalice, I'm not sure I have a favorite meeting trope because by this point, I've seen them all executed well somewhere! I guess you could say my favorite trope is

a) anything that takes away their magical, insta-love advantage,

and

b) anything real messy, that uses that mess as a way to explore the characters.

what about the rest of you? I wanna hear your favorite/least favorite jalice tropes. chime in gang

[iamnmbr3]

I think the most irritating part for me is that it felt like only Jon understood the sheer magnitude of the decision to either damn their world or another. Like in mag 199 I was confused why they kept being like "it wouldn't be our fault if another apocalypse happened" when there would still be deaths. "They'll have plenty of time to figure it out" makes it sound like they're handing the fears to an organisation rather than a population of unaware people who are of different ages, different backgrounds, different personalities. Basira was right when she said it was messed up that they were making the decision but it's worse that everyone still didn't understand it. Everyone except Jon.

YES YES YES THIS!!! No one else even hesitated or seemed to feel guilty. There wasn’t a sense of weight. They didn’t seem to grapple with it and they seemed irritated with Jon for bringing up the fact that they were condemning billions of other people to be fed on and tormented by the fears.

I would have felt better about it if it was framed as two horrible choices - watch your whole world suffer and die or risk that the same might happen to countless others. But it wasn’t. The characters acted like they actually found a good solution. The ending is practically upbeat. The people who will suffer in the other worlds the fears visit are given no voice. 

Remember in the end of Bifrost Incident when we hear the distress cries of the ships and worlds being consumed and how chilling that is? We get nothing like that here. If we had, it would have totally recontextualized the ending and framed it as something horrifying (which would be fine in a cosmic horror tragedy!) but instead we just get the characters listening to birdsong and talking about their cat. We see them enjoying the fruits of their decision and we don’t see any of the suffering caused by it. Because of that it doesn’t feel like the narrative is inviting us to think about the implications of their choice. Instead it feels like the narrative is actively encouraging us not to.

Especially because Jon, the only person who tries to speak up for the rights of the people in other worlds, gets repeatedly silenced and demeaned.The way they just shut Jon down every time he tried to raise concerns really rubbed me the wrong way. Especially because it felt like it wasn’t being framed as a moment of tragedy and horror but rather as though we were supposed to agree with their treatment of Jon.  

It’s especially weird because this season really leaned heavily on using the fears as an explicit metaphor for systems of oppression. Like it wasn’t subtle. At all. Some of the episodes weren’t even metaphors - like the one that was literally about surveillance or the one that was literally about police brutality. 

Because of that, it seems very thematically dissonant that the ending has the characters deciding to inflict the fears on new victims and then not feeling guilty about it. They explicitly say that it’s the “responsibility” of the people in the other worlds to deal with the problem of the fears. Even though those people have no idea what’s coming and had no responsibility for causing their own fate. Because the story has been so explicit with its “the fears are actually systems of oppression” message this season has some unpleasant implications. 

The characters basically decide to inflict a system of oppression on people whose voices they do not care about and have not listened to and then justify their actions by saying that it’s entirely the responsibility of the oppressed to deal with the consequences of their oppression and if they they fail to do so it’s on them. And that’s framed as a happy ending that we’re supposed to root for. 

Now I don’t think that was actually the intent here. Rather I think it’s reflective of the fact that the last few episodes seem to have been rushed and consequently no one seems to have thought about the implications of any of the storytelling decisions. We see that in so many things - from characters saying one thing and then contradicting themselves a little bit later to the complete muddling or abandonment of the themes that were developed throughout the story. 

[sarawatsaraleo]

I hope you dont mind me asking but how do you make you cpm gifs? They're extremely pretty! And whenever I try to change my coloring they look horrible!

Of course I don’t mind and thank you for your wonderful words 💙 I’ll try to explain the best I can with a little step-by-step guide to one of the colors I did in my last cpm gifset and show how I usually do it! The guide is under the cut. 

1. So I’m going with this shot and at this point I’ve already imported the frames, converted them into a smart-filter and added my usual sharpening and blur, so we´re ready to get started! 

2. After that, I’ve just added some standard adjustments to the colors and light, making sure that the colors I’m not changing are looking good! You should just do your own thing here, adjust the colors to your liking, there’s never no right way to do this. After that, I add a vibrance adjustment layer to make the colors pop some more and now the fun begins!

3. In this particular shot, the colors I want to change are the green tones and the best way to assure a good result, is to make sure that every green nuance in the shot are the same. So I add a new selective color layer that focuses on turning up the green nuances of the shot (like shown in the pictures) and here I change the yellow nuances to green too, because green and yellow often mix together, especially in scenes from The Untamed. 

4. I duplicate that color adjustment layer until there’s a wonderful, even green color in the shot and now we have to perfect base to start actually changing the color! 

5. For this particular color palette, I needed gifs that matched this lovely reddish color and to make it easier for me, I added a new layer with an example of the color in question so it’s easier for me to see when I’m getting close to the correct nuances. 

6. And now for the actual color-changing! Turning green to red isn’t exactly easy since they’re pretty much opposites on the color spectrum, so we’re meeting the colors in the middle and changing the green to yellow with a new Selective Color adjustment layer.

7. By duplicating that last Selective Color adjustment layer, we now have a wonderful yellow color on our leaves instead of the green and well, this works great too if you’re going for some autumn-vibes, but we’re going for redder, so we’ll continue! 

8. And now it’s time for the last selective color adjustment layer! Hitting just the right nuance is often difficult and it takes a lot of playing around with the different colors and balances, sometimes you have to adjust the contrast or brightness of the color in question to get it completely right. Luckily, this specific color was quite easy to hit as seen on the image above! 

9. It doesn’t have to stop there though, there’s many more nuances you yourself can play around with to see how the scene looks in different colors and find the ones you like the best!  But this is just a method for this particular shot and shots like it. Some colors are easier to work with than others and the more contrast there is between the colors in the shot, the easier it is the work with them. If all the different nuances in a scene blend together too much, it is almost impossible to do anything about the colors in general! 

When it comes to playing around with colors, there’s a lot of different methods, techniques and guides out there that can make it easier for you, but I’ll just make a few more mentions of things that are good to know! 

10. Hue/Situation can quite often do wonders when it comes to changing colors, so I have to mention this method too. It allows you to select for example all nuances of one specific color and change them into the whatever color you want. It’s great for scenes where you have a simple, one-color background that you quickly need to change or similar situation .. but this method doesn’t work all the time though. The effect can affect the other colors in the shot, give a pixelated appearance or just make it look .. wrong, so be careful with it when you use it! 

11. The ‘Color Balance’ adjustment layer is important to mention when it comes to working with colors too. You can do amazing things to these with this layer, like quickly making a scene less blue or changing the color of a background, but it can also be difficult to work with. As shown above, I can create some beatiful red colors by using the color balance, but it also messes with the faces, hair and clothes of wwx and lwj - which means we have to use masks to delete parts of the effect (as shown in the second picture above) and this works wonderfully, if it’s in a scene with little to no movement .. but if there’s a lot of movement, you can kiss this method goodbye, because it’ll look horrible 😅

Okay, I hope that helped and made sense?? I’m running on pretty much no sleep atm, yet decided to do this now 🤦‍♀️ so I can’t tell if I’ve explained myself clearly 😂 but if there’s something that doesn’t make sense, something you would like me to elaborate or you just have more question, send me another ask or more and I’ll help whatever way I can! 

[buddha-in-disguise]

We finally have an original trailer for next weeks Supergirl episode (5.14).

Now usually I’m more than optimistic to see the new trailers or teasers, but after not only the debacle of 5.12, but other problems that have been identified before that; the fact we are rapidly running out of episodes (still unconfirmed if it is 20 or 22, although 20 looking likely as the date for end of filming is confirmed for 17th March), that no original trailer was shown immediately after the 100th episode (that has generally been well received by fans & critics alike, a considerable improvement), I am actually being cautious/worried over the whole thing. Why wait a full week to drop the trailer, instead of riding on the high of the 100th episode? I'm not one for trying to read things into anything, but it feels as if they might've decided to re-edit the trailer after 5.12 exploded in their face so badly. Of course I could be wrong, but with William in the episode it is possible he was in the trailer, and it could've once again become a whole level of backlash (more about William later).

Anyone who knows me will tell you one of my defining traits is I’m a pretty optimistic person. I like to be pragmatic, so I don’t get bogged down often with concerns of what might happen, rather my perspective is, let’s see what happens. I was of this mindset right up until Crisis with Supergirl. I still feel that 5a was by far the strongest part of the season, which normally I find isn’t the case with Supergirl. Usually I find the second half of a season is where Supergirl generally is at its best - where it can finally pull together the strands it has been playing with in terms of main plot line from episode one. By about episode 12 or so, we begin to get an idea where it is heading. That not only hasn't happened this season, with episode numbers dwindling fast there seems to be no way they can pull back from some of the honestly calamitous decisions that seem to have plagued much of the midseason.

I was relieved to see that the promo photos show a Dansen moment.

I am though also not entirely sure we're going to get anything that is meaningful between Kelly and Alex, as the background, synopsis and other photo suggest that they get caught up in the VR world. I have a horrible gut feeling, just as they're about to make out at Obsidian (some workplace making out hello, I'm here for that), there is an explosion (as per trailer), then the fallout from that.

Don't get me wrong, we've had so little of Kelly, and Dansen in general it will be good to see them onscreen together, and working in a hostile environment as a couple; especially as we haven't seen much of Kelly beyond Obsidian or wielding the shield. I hope her army training, alongside Alex's military training with the DEO actually get to be a tangible plot point.

As an aside, remember the little video clip Azie posted just around Christmas that had the Dansen fandom collectively falling down in incomprehensible piles of goo? While the quality isn't great, there is no doubt those outfits match these. So Azie threw one hell of a tease our way beyond what we thought! I do hope that means we genuinely see more than a moment of Dansen, but again Azie has spoken or posted about scenes she has filmed or have been part of the promo set of photos, only for a lot to not make the final edits.

So below are some of the other promo photos for the episode.

My concern is once again we see William at CatCo alongside Franklin. Which infuriates me, because (as I've said many times, this absolutely isn't because if Staz), but why is William once again there, when Nia is a journalist? Yet they pop Franklin in the shot - a reoccurring character certainly, but either remove William, or remove Franklin and allow Nia to be back as a journalist in Catco. Her actual job! I know we get the following episode (15) that is Nia centric, but as with Kelly, Nia's screen time has been so ridiculously low for an established main cast member, that I find it impossible to understand why they couldn't have at least allowed them screen time in these circumstances.

But no, again William is the journalist. Even Franklin is a journalist. Nia is MIA. I'm beginning to think she doesn't even know what CatCo looks like anymore.

It's the imbalance I (and many others) am finding so annoying this season. Imbalance that wouldn't take much to address if they'd just changed scenes a little, without disrupting anything of note of the storyline.

So I decided to check main cast numbers, and it made for interesting reading. Last year had 9 main cast listed. This year it is officially 12. We can argue that James wasn't in many episodes, but he did feature quite heavily before Mehcad left. The same could be said for The Monitor, who is listed as main cast up until Crisis.

Equally Lex Luthor isn't listed as a main character, but considering his screen time since Crisis, I've no doubt he might as well have been. The same for Malefic, who was pretty heavily used prior to Crisis.

So even if we subtract James and The Monitor, and only add in Lex Luthor as a replacement we are still on a higher number of main cast from last season.

Honestly, this for me has been a big part of the problem, with trying to fit in too many characters at the expense of previously established cast. Add in that William's story has made absolutely no sense since Russell died, especially since Nia and even Kelly could've handled the same storylines; it just seems a complete mess.

This isn't about who you ship or who you prefer as a character. Everyone is suffering because of the uneveness of it all. Alex has no cohesive story so far (even though she has a good amount of screen time). Kara and Lena have the screen time, but it also feels really clunky of late, and getting ridiculously drawn out; although I'm hoping since the 100th we'll see it begin to smooth out. The Danver sisters, Brainia, Dansen, even Lena and Kara (whether you view it platonic or as Supercorp is neither here nor there on this and I'm not about to get into arguments that are not relevant to what I'm trying to say here), J'onn with Alex and Kara, Nia and Kara, Brainy and Lena; the list goes on. Every single interaction seems to be suffering.

We all invest in characters, but overall it feels like a mess of unnecessary pairings (Lex and Brainy, Kara and William primarily) or cast additions that has detracted from all characters, and the crux of the story seems to have been lost in the midst.

I really want Supergirl to show us otherwise, but this is about the 3rd or 4th time I've written similar posts, and there has been no or little forward momentum. Time is now against the show as much as the problems it has generated, and there is no way sidelined cast will be able to pull the numbers back up, even with centric episodes like Nia in 5.15. Will Kelly get a more centric episode that doesn't revolve around her brother? Nothing suggests she does, so she'll lose further ground, which in turn means so will Dansen. Brainy has been used a lot, but again at the expense of all the previous pairings the viewers were invested in (whether it was Alex and Brainy, Brainia, Brainy and Lena or to a lesser degree Brainy and Kara).

But hey. Don't worry. William is here to save the day and the girl. *sarcasm, in case anyone wasn't sure*.

[veryotl]

I feel like we can see so much more of their personalities in OFD2: Like Hoshi seems to take a lot of heat for a while and even make it funny, but there's definitely a point where he'll snap. Seungkwan seems to have such a high EQ and is intuitive to what others around him are feeling and feels everything on a higher level. And a lot of them said they tried not to get angry bc of the cameras, and it makes you kinda wonder what they're like without cameras...

Pt.2 of OFD2 thoughts: Jun always puts others first which is opposite of the hyung team typical “leader” aka KING . Also, 95 line dynamic is interesting- I think JH is definitely devious and cunning, while SC is dorky dad but very competitive, and JS was the first to say, “should we talk about it?”- to which the other two agreed with. I wonder what 17 thought when JH debuted under an “angel” image. DK is kinda naive? But in a way that makes him trusting and very supportive of others.

I’m so sorry it took me so long to respond!! I wanted to wait until I had a computer so I could give this the work I think it deserves, and plus it helps now that I’ve finished OFD2!

There are quite a few interesting turns and revelations of personality, I agree. I like how the large conflict happened partially because they felt pressured to be entertaining. Part of Seventeen’s charm is how raw and natural they are in their humor and their dynamics. They’re all very harmonious after years of being together, and their humor flows very naturally just from their personalities. However, when put in a situation where they feel as though they are not interesting enough or funny enough, they begin to play jokes or make decisions that are not natural for many them such as hiding the other team’s objects or being mean spirited. They force themselves to try and be funny when they don’t feel they’re amusing enough because they don’t want to lose the love and attention of the fans which they consider valuable but also fragile, and stemming from how we think they’re funny or cute, which is true. But then directly after, they show the real reason why so many fans love Seventeen. Joshua goes to Coups and says “You know… I think they were really hurt. Maybe it would be good to talk to them?” and Coups says, “Do you think so? You’re probably right. We need to fix this right now.” and they all gather and apologize and talk it out and go back to being a team and a family. And I think that’s so so important. They consider their good will and strong relationships more important than any show, any gag, anything and even if Coups as the leader doesn’t realize he needs to call a meeting, he creates an environment where Joshua or any other member feels safe enough to tell him when there’s an issue or something that could be resolved or done better. And THAT’S leadership and family and everything.

Onto the personal levels, I’ve always called Seungkwan my honorary little brother and one of my “mind twins”, someone who thinks like me, because I honestly believe he’s incredibly emotionally intelligent. He senses the mood, and is so intuitive to everything happening around him. I believe that’s where he gets his humor and his desire to make others laugh, because he can tell when the mood is bad and he makes it his mission to find the right thing to help the members to feel better, even if it means kicking his legs up after hours and hours of exhausting practice and cheering that they can make it through even though he’s just as tired as everyone else.

Jun is another one of my “mind twins”, because he very rarely enjoys being in charge of things, but he likes to feel in control. Normally, he does this by remaining in the background, doing what needs to be done as he sees fit. If the room is a mess, he’s not The8 levels of must-keep-clean, but if it bothers him enough he’ll clean up without mentioning it or making it a big deal, or he’ll cook when he’s hungry or Wonwoo asks him. His episode of being the king fascinated me, as we don’t get many chances to be in the spotlight and in power. The very first thing he does is he recruits Seungkwan, very likely because, as we just discussed, because Seungkwan has the ability to read the atmosphere of the members and smooth things along well, helping it be less awkward. Jun also tries his own ways of making it less awkward, by making cute jokes and referring in kind, cute ways to the members in the rare occasion that he has to tell them to do something. The hyung line turning “leader” into “king” was actually a cute, fun change to make, and it demonstrated a lot how the members each handle the responsibility. Coups, for instance, jokingly become a tyrant, because for once the role of leader is a temporary, easy task with only the burden of deciding a schedule and buying things instead of his usual thankless, hard work of mediating with the members and the company and dissolving fights and having to be the voice of reason and hard work. Wonwoo also used it to be tyrannical, because generally Wonwoo is an easy target for teasing and fun jokes and he doesn’t take it too much to heart, but this gave him the power to turn the jokes around. Jun, however, demonstrated himself in the way of being a little more caring and worried about the members, and it was fortunate it fell on a day where the production team had planned a full schedule so he didn’t begin to feel horribly pressured.

‘95 line dynamic is so interesting. As individuals, there’s the leader with the responsible dad side as well as the immature kid side, the dark angel who is both kind and cunning, and the sweet and gentle boy who is also a dork. They all have multiple “faces”, sides that they show at different times. And then there are pairings which is almost like a mix-and-match flavor game. You can have the cunning swindler who is willing to manipulate his way into anyone’s heart and the sweet boy with the soft voice who you can’t help but love without him doing anything. You can have the hyper competitive boyfriend-winning-a-stuffed-animal-at-a-fair type and also the kind heart who will joke and compete but will make sure you’re okay when it’s all over. You can have the caring but snarky angel who will care for you but do so in an overblown “who’s child are you” way and the leader who cares for you by taking your punishments for you or making you sit down with the person you’re mad at and talk it out even if you don’t want to. The dynamic possibilities are amazing and just so so good and I can’t talk too much about them, but the example of the episode with the whole mess going down is a fantastic example of the dynamic of Joshua and Coups, which we don’t see often. Joshua going to Coups and openly expressing his own discomfort, but not telling Coups “as a leader, go fix it” but gently nudging him, opening him to the idea of it, and Coups readily accepting the guidance and idea as the leader. I hope we can see more of their dynamic soon.

and lastly since this is getting way too long, precious DK. DK has a very interesting image, somewhere between awkward and naive. I’ve written about this before, but I think one of the most if not the single most important dynamic in Seventeen is the one between Hoshi and DK. As friends, they’re cute and Soonseok is life, but as people, Hoshi is so so important in DK’s life. DK is a little naive, but he’s also very kind-hearted. because of this, he aspires to do what Seungkwan can do, read the atmosphere and brighten people’s day with jokes and laughter. However, often it backfires on him. People end up laughing at him instead of with him, calling him naive when he wasn’t being, and sometimes they don’t laugh at all. While some things are fragile about Seungkwan, his jokes being rejected aren’t that high on the list. However, for DK, it feels like a personal insult to his good intentions and it can get him down. Hoshi is a popular member, and his friendship with DK sort of validates DK’s fragile confidence, giving him the boost he needs to try and lighten the mood. Hoshi balances out DK, laughing at his jokes and taking his concerns seriously, and he helps act as a connection to get DK to Seungkwan without the burden of them sharing the same role without the burden of seungkwan getting more praise and recognition, and seungkwan recognizes his good intentions and can help his jokes take off like Hoshi can. Without the presence of Hoshi in the group, it’s hard to imagine that DK would be anything less than a black sheep talented but often unable to communicate with the rest of the group. He is naive and trusting, but he’s also supportive just like you said, and i’m glad during OFD we got to see him develop a character without the help of Hoshi for a little while, kind of to show how much his confidence is grown, even just for a little bit.