#In the show they're obviously still right at the beginning of their story of course

[venusdebotticelli]

I don't currently have access to a computer to make it myself, but I am begging someone who does to please make an edit of Ed and Stede with the quote "We deserve a soft epilogue, my love" over it in an artsy font.

Obviously, because it would be extremely funny, given current fandom events.

But also, these two only met later in life, when they're both so done with the absolute shit sandwich life has served them up to that point, and they've both been told their whole lives that they can't be soft. The spirit of the quote just so happens to fit them so well too, they absolutely deserve to write their own soft epilogue with each other!

But also also, I cannot stress this enough, it would be extremely funny to me, personally, for petty reasons :p

[fatuismooches]

I don't know if you write about Tsaritsa but... Do you think you can write a Tsaritsa x fem reader? There is not enough fanfic about her 😭

HELP ANON I don't write for the Tsaritsa (yet) because there are not even crumbs for her, there are only microscopic particles 💀 But just for you I will whip up some stuff for her and her lover 😌 Now that I've typed I realize some of these are just general but pls bear with me lmao

I like to think Tsaritsa was good friends with the other Archons in the beginning, before all the Khaenri'ah stuff happened. Venti even pranked her in the past. So after she cut contact and isolated herself from everyone she probably gets sad and lonely from time to time, wondering if what she's doing is truly the right thing. If you haven't met the other Archons she will tell you some stories about them. If you have met them, presumably because you have been with her since the beginning/for hundreds of years, she will still get nostalgic and bring up old memories again. Tsaritsa's methods and tactics can be heartless and cruel but... she still is the God of love. She misses who she was before she had to take on this incredible burden. You have to comfort her and hold her during these times. She values any kind of comfort. She appreciates you greatly for sticking by her side despite her sins. Wanderer mentions that love is another form of sin. She may view her love to you as a kind of sin, or something she doesn't deserve, so she will make sure to treasure you greatly. You are afforded the best in like... everything. I could elaborate but just think of anything you want of the highest quality. If she can't get her hands on it, one of her Harbingers will.

Sorry but you are not leaving Snezhnaya. Tsaritsa is very fearful of losing you after what she's been through. If she lost the only person she has left she doesn't know what she'd do. She has made an enemy of the whole world so your safety is very important. If you were ever hurt or wronged by the divine/Celestia it would only harden her resolve to take them down for good. After she takes them down, I think she would want to step down from her Archon role. Her job is done and her people can live freely now. Delulu moment: You two would disappear and go live a peaceful life somewhere else. She would change her form so no one would recognize her and then you would introduce her to the way of life of an average married couple.

Speaking of, sometimes she likes to change her form to go out among the streets of Snezhnaya. She really does care about her people. She's just gotten bad at showing it ever since she started the Fatui and their missions. In her changed form she likes to observe the happenings of her nation. If she finds out there are unresolved conflicts going on, she'll make sure the Fatui deals with it. Tsaritsa also has a nice singing voice. She likes to sing to the kids too and listen to their stories. And she sings to you too of course. Lullabies, mostly. When she finally returns she will tell you all about what happened. Of course her skin is very cold. It has never bothered her but it probably will catch you off guard quite often. So Tsaritsa wears longer clothes so you can cuddle her without getting too cold. She doesn't mind if you sit on her big throne. She thinks it's cute. If you're brave enough to sit on her lap during a Harbinger meeting that's up to you. Obviously, you are owed the same respect as Tsaritsa herself. Even the Harbingers know not to upset you. Though if you want some friends they're the best choice. Tsaritsa doesn't mind as she thinks very fondly of them.

[goginaporter]

rina + iconic couples in media

this is my fun way of responding to the alternate universe prompt for @rinaweek <3. rina and their parents in every universe, finding each other and falling in love. alsooo this post was slightly inspired by this absolutely brilliant edit linked here (x) and if you want rinatroyella or rinajacey edits, please lmk and I'll send my favorite ones <3333

troyella

the essays that can and have been written about troyella and rina are extensive (and I'm happy to do a longer form one in a separate post). but from being the new girl x boy who's never moved, girl encouraging boy to audition for the musical and actually commit, kissing in the rain, starring in the school musical together, to making a huge commitment to the other person on a stage in front of a bunch of people, rina is quite literally troyella reincarnated. and yeah, lots of people can argue that troyella is perfect as is, that they didn't need another version. and on one hand, i agree. but the way in which rina takes core parts of troyella's story while standing on their own as a ship is beautiful and truly does justice to the original franchise by anchoring the story around these two, both individually and as a couple, just as was done with troyella in the original trilogy. my favorite troyella parallel moment from s4!

4x01 - ricky sneaking into gina's room just like troy would come into gabriella's room through her balcony

4x02 - the note ricky gives gina in the hallway to meet in their secret staircase is just like the note troy slips in gabriella's locker in hsm to meet on the rooftop. (honorable mention to them auditioning for and getting the roles of troy and gabriella in this ep as well <33)

4x03 - of course, it has to go to their rendition of can i have this dance. their voices sound gorgeous and though the choreo they do has similarities to the original, they've made it their own.

4x04 - this one is kinda reaching but I wanted something for each ep! in hsm2, sharpay forces troy to sing a song with her, one she prepared for the talent show, instead of allowing him to go on a date with gabriella. in a similar vein, though with considerably less scheming from dani's side, dani is selected to replace gina as gabriella because she is so busy with the movie, though this is done behind her back.

4x05 - has to go to the rain kiss obviously. although troy and gabriella only ever kiss under sprinklers, it's the same vibes. there's also a still (not included in the scene) of the rain kiss of ricky holding gina's waist as she throws her arms up that's so reminiscent of troyella in the rain during cihtd.

4x06 - ricky and gina running down the hallway at the beginning of the episode feels like a direct parallel to troy and gabriella running to auditions in hsm. also rina fighting to save the show is super similar to gabriella (and troy once gabriella convinces him) pushing for the theater department to put on a show about them for their spring musical.

4x07 - they're literally playing troyella in this ep so I could say so much. i'll just use this space to talk about how much I love them in a night to remember and how much it looked like they were dancing at their wedding. I will say that terri, gina's mom, telling ricky about gina's movie with a smile on her face, reminds me a lot of gabriella's fans setting troy up to talk shit about her on camera to convince her to focus on the decatholon. also reflects sharpay telling troy about stanford, again with a smile on her face.

4x08 - again, this ep is rife with toryella coding because they're literally playing troyella, but the show goes super meta in having them sing the right here, right now reprise as ricky has just found out that gina is potentially moving across the world to film her movie, just as troy finds out about stanford and struggles with gabriella not being there for the rest of their senior year. on a much less angsty note, ricky singing love you forever to gina has the same vibes as troy choosing gabriella and going to school close to her, not to mention that lines in the song directly reference the song "high school musical" (which you can read more about here <3). gina also deciding to move the movie to salt lake is very much her "I choose basketball but I also choose theater but more than all of that, I choose gabriella" her version is "I choose filming this movie but I also choose theater but more than all of that, I choose ricky" just a beautiful perfect scene all around.

these s4 moments only scratch the surface of the troyellarina tether but i'll stop ranting for now and move on to rina's teen drama parent sets.

jacey

after s1, tim federle did an interview where they asked him about him about the ricky / nini / gina triangle, he directly mentioned dawson's creek in guiding his writing process, stating that at the center of his thought process was "how do I surprise audience members with who they're going to ship?" (x). for those who don't know the jacey lore, to make a long story short, their love triangle centered around joey, pacey, and dawson. joey and dawson were childhood best friends and joey has a crush on dawson. pacey and dawson are best friends and joey and pacey do not get along initially. after events of life, dawson asks pacey to "look after joey" at the beginning of s3, the two get super close and eventually catch feelings for each other and they secretly date as they figure out a way to break it to dawson (sound familiar?). they do break up but come back together at the end of the show and are endgame. the parallels between jacey and rina exist both on and off screen. dawson and joey were the initial endgame for the show, just like rini was the show's s1 endgame. however, electrifying chemistry between katie and joshua (jackson) & sofia & joshua (bassett) in their respective shows changed everything. rina is one of the strongest examples of continuing this legacy of disrupting the initial plans concocted in the writer's room to make way for insane chemistry. some of my fave jaceyrina parallels

rina and jacey having a formative, chemistry presenting moment in a car (rina in 1x05 during homecoming, joey and pacey in 1x during their science project)

the sheer parallels between them in 3x19 of dawson's creek and 3x08 of hsmtmts with their kiss scenes. just watch here (x) and here (x) to see. the "stop me" "wait" parallels actually make me go crazy

joey tutoring pacey in 3x09 and gina (presumably) becoming ricky's tutor after 4x06

i'm rewatching 3x09 in preparation for this and jacey has a scene where dawson catches them talking about pacey helping joey with a ballroom dance scholarship thing in exchange for tutoring and he asks them what no one can find out about and a) pacey sucksssss at improv just like gina it's like that 4x02 scene with rina and ashlyn and b) it also feels like rina with the chocolates, again with ashlyn LMAOOO in 2x04

ALSO in this ep (wow it's a goldmine), when dawson and jen catch joey and pacey ballroom dancing, they're forced to join the class and the instructor psychoanalyzes both couples. for jacey, she mentions that the tension and bickering between them suggests their underlying attraction for one another. this is literally what val (their choreographer!!) does after watching rina perform wdykal in 3x05

too much to explain for the final scene of this episode but i just encourage everyone to watch 3x09 to get the same sense of a major scene in a coat check and an ensuing apology

pacey telling joey he remembers everything in 3x22 and ricky telling gina he's never forgotten a thing she's said in 4x03

pacey telling joey that the simple act of loving her is enough for him and that she's "off the hook" and ricky telling gina that of course she has to go and be a star, as well as singing lyf not knowing that she was staying in slc, so he just wanted to let her know that he loved her for the sake of it, not to convince her of anything

pacey having to tell joey something but lying to protect her (and ricky having something to tell gina but lying to protect her (3x07)

naley

another paragon of teen drama royalty is naley. literally the best people ever and it makes sooo much sense that rina is similar to them because they're actually rina's grandparents. naley birthed troyella, who birthed rina. a beautiful family tree. anyways, naley doesn't seem to, on the surface at least, seem to have a lot of parallels to rina. a shy tutor girl and a cocky basketball player who get married after knowing each other for less than a year? (though I will go down with my headcanon that rina gets married super duper young, will not be taking any arguments). despite this, at their core, naley's love for each other is so reminiscent of rina's love for each other, not to mention some incredibly direct parallels that the two have, listed below:

nathan dropping haley home after a party & ricky dropping gina home after homecoming ("yeah, this is my house" & "so, this is where I live")

connecting over dubious circumstances (nathan requesting haley as a tutor/getting close to her to get back at lucas & gina convincing ricky to stay in the show so she could get gabriella, attending hoco with ej to psych nini out but instead connecting with ricky)

nathan putting haley's hand to his heart after telling her it's racing (it was because of drugs but still, it beats for haley) and ricky putting gina's hand on his heart after telling her that his heart's racing (i'm telling y'all this scene is the same, just with the characters and setting swapped)

alllllll of naley's s2 angst is like the intense and more painful version of rina's angst in s4

naley invented rain kisses (even if they existed before them, no they didn't) and rina obviously does justice with their own rain kiss in 4x05

when nathan proposes to haley (their first proposal), he tells her that "I could love you forever." audience, what's the title of ricky's love song for gina? i rest my case

haley being nathan's tutor and gina being ricky's tutor <3333

nathan sneaking into haley's bedroom to study and makeout and ricky sneaking into gina's bedroom to sing and makeout

nathan and ricky being haley and gina's biggest fans when it comes to their careers, putting their success over their personal feelings (nathan collecting clippings of haley's tour, paying chris to let her record music & ricky decorating gina'ss trailer, encouraging her to go to nz to be a star)

rina served cheerleader x basketball player (though at different times and both were fictional but wtv) just like naley

this was super nonexhaustive as rina also has parallels to jam, mondler, sethmer, romeo & juliet, and so many other ships. however, I'm lazy and didn't want to write all of those out. maybe I'll return to them another time, but for now, pls enjoy this <3333

[mauesartetc]

Thoughts on Helluva Boss Episode 204 ("Western Energy")

Well that was a whole lotta nothin', wasn't it.

Let's discuss.

Pros:

-Edward Bosco does a fine job with Striker's voice, and Bryce Pinkham has a couple surprisingly powerful line deliveries when Stolas has reached his lowest point. It's nice when the story gives this character some emotional range outside of horny and mopey.

-This character design is way too cool for this show, like damn.

-Striker's living space was unique and interesting, and the magma in the environment matched his horse well.

-The fight scene with Moxxie and Millie vs Striker was well-choreographed and the camera didn't move around too much. Looks like the animators learned their lesson from last time.

-I liked how Moxxie took a chance and used Striker's homophobia (or perhaps disgust toward "lesser" imps?) against him to escape his grip.

-The devil horns on the EKG screen were kinda cute.

Cons:

-What the hell's up with this title. "Western Energy"? Is that a reference to something? Is it a pun? I get the "western" part, but "energy"? It puts me in mind of some obscure Zen concept rather than this episode. Just vague, confusing and not clever. Hell, "Take The Shot" was right there! I know there's not much shooting in Striker's plotline (we'll get to that bit of stupid momentarily), but this references both the A- and B-plot! C'mon, writers. At least act like you care.

-Again with the arbitrary censorship... I think multiple characters utter the word "cunt" in this episode, but it's bleeped each time. Guys... This is an internet show. This isn't network TV. If you're worried about getting demonetized on Youtube, don't use that word in the script to begin with. Easy.

-Not many laughs in this one, huh. In the last couple episodes I've found at least one thing to chuckle about or say, "Hm, that's kinda clever, I guess", but man, I was stone-faced for the duration here.

-Is that really how you pronounce "Andrealphus"? I've been saying it "An-dray-AL-phus", but Stolas says "An-DREE-ul-phus". People who are more familiar with demonology than I am, feel free to weigh in.

-Speaking of which, it's quite an accomplishment to make Andrealphus look even worse than he did in his illustration. Something about how tiny his head is in proportion to his body throws me, and of course it doesn't help that his face was always pinched in a teardrop shape with a tiny beak (which looks nothing like a peacock, because fuck accuracy). And if anyone's wondering if he uses any ice powers this episode... He doesn't. He uses telekinesis to drop a couple lumps of sugar into his tea, but that's it. You rip off Elsa and set the guy up in an ice castle but couldn't even give him ice powers? What a load.

-Kinda floored at this line from Stolas: "Cheating implies a betrayal. This woman never gave two shits about me, or our very much arranged marriage."

For fuck's sake, writers.

"You guuuuyyyys, it technically wasn't even cheating, see? Stolas is totally innocent and pure and you should like him!!!" The camera even trucks out dramatically as if he's saying something heroic. Christ...

Even in an utterly loveless marriage, there's still the expectation that each party will be faithful to the other, and having sex with someone else is a betrayal unless both of them previously agreed to open up their relationship. No indication that ever happened here, so...

All this scene demonstrates is that Stolas hasn't learned a thing about being a fucking adult and owning up to his mistakes. This just doubles down on the whole "I'd feel bad if I hurt you" thing (when you obviously did hurt her, you twit). Does Viv Medrano seriously believe admitting fault and apologizing makes a person weak or unlikable? Because I have news for ya: It's very much the opposite.

-Also, Stolas ends that mini-speech with, "As far as I'm concerned, this divorce is far overdue." But... Stella and Andrealphus have already agreed to that. That wasn't even a question. They're just trying to settle what Stella will get in the divorce. Do these people even read their scripts out loud?

-Striker's return comes way too late in the series. There are too many episodes forming a cushion between his introduction and Western Energy for him to feel intimidating. It's possible IMP could've discussed a plan of action regarding Striker, but no one mentions him once. If the characters don't see him as a threat, why should the audience?

The tension would have remained high if, immediately after the harvest moon episode, IMP moved Stolas and his family to a safe house while Striker was still on the loose. Little does Stolas know, however, he's a sitting duck, since Stella has called Striker and informed him of their location. Feels like that'd be much more exciting than just ignoring his existence for five episodes.

-When Stolas calls Blitzo, he refers to Striker as "that little cowboy friend of yours", implying he remembers him from the Harvest Moon Games. But, um... Question. Did Blitzo ever tell Stolas Striker almost killed him?! We have no idea! It's never confirmed!

At the end of the harvest moon episode, I seriously thought the team just forgot to write Blitzo warning Stolas about his would-be assassin. I know the story's trying to get across how little Blitzo actually cares about him, but this is a pretty huge conversation to overlook. Like damn, just how thoughtless can one person be. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!

-(Also, who the hell says they were "stolen", Stolas. You're not an object; you're a person. You were kidnapped. I know this is bordering on grammar pedantry but it's distracting how much this weird phrasing sticks out.)

-Once again, the symbolic sin colors are inconsistent. I mentioned in the last review that the Greed ring in Helluva Boss is green despite the fact that the traditional color for greed as a sin is yellow. In this episode, we glimpse the Sloth ring, as this official tweet informs us:

One problem: Sloth is pink instead of the traditional light blue.

I wouldn't mind this if the ring colors broke from tradition across the board, but they don't. The Wrath ring is red and Lust is deep blue, as is customary. So it seems the art direction is throwing darts at a board to see which rings get the "lol, random" color treatment and which ones don't. These odd choices would be much more understandable if there were a story reason for certain rings looking the way they do, but at this point, I think we know better than to hope for that.

-In both this episode and The Harvest Moon Festival, Striker is characterized as self-aggrandizing. His previous appearance saw him declare himself superior to other imps, while this one shows off his giant statue with an enormous boner. Why, then, is he annoyed at the little imps singing his theme song? Wouldn't that be an ego boost? It would've made more sense for him to play along with it, or even better:

STOLAS: How does one get their own theme song?

STRIKER: (smiles, rubs his thumb and fingertips together) You pay for it.

-All the scenes with Blitzo and Loona in the doctor's office could've been cut and the story wouldn't have lost a thing. You can show them arriving and show them leaving with Loona wearing the cone, but everything else in the B-plot is filler. These episodes aren't beholden to a TV schedule that demands the duration falls within a certain range. There's no reason this episode needed to be nineteen minutes long.

-Getting pissy at some rando wearing the same hat as you is just about the dumbest reason to start a fight I've ever heard. Let's change around the dialogue a bit:

BIKER: Lookee here, fellas! The city slicker got himself a cowboy hat! That is sooo cute. Well, if you wanna dress the part... (cracks knuckles) might as well play it. It's not perfect but holy shit, I came up with that in two minutes. What the fuck, Viv. This is why you have co-writers. They aren't there to kiss your ass and mindlessly accept everything you do; they're there to catch little things like this and make them better.

-There's no "thump" when the top of the exploded gas station hits the ground, and judging by its size and implied weight, there should definitely be a sonorous thump.

-Striker mentions that Stella paid him to give Stolas "the royal treatment" (aka a slow death), but if that's the case, why did he try to shoot him at the Harvest Moon festival? Why did he shoot at him in the cafe?? If one of those bullets hit, wouldn't that affect his payday? Also, can't help but notice how terribly convenient this is. We wouldn't want our expert assassin to be too efficient, or precious Stolas would be dead. God damn this is contrived.

-Here's a line with a ton of story potential that goes unexplored (and will probably remain as such for the rest of the season, let's be honest): Stolas points out that Striker "is working for a royal right now", exposing some hypocrisy in his hatred for them. This brings up an interesting question: Why is he in cahoots with this one specific royal despite detesting all others? Why is she the exception? Could it be his loyalty to her transcends a simple business relationship? If he has angelic weapons and wanted to kill just any royal, he could have done it. But maybe this is more personal. Maybe Stolas needs to die because he hurt Stella.

Perhaps on the other side, Stella shares Striker's belief that he's superior to ordinary imps- another exception. Giving any other imp the time of day would disgust her, but Striker's just different somehow. And being as athletic and rugged as he is, he's a far cry from Stolas, who she's never found attractive.

I know it's a pipe dream for this series to develop any romantic pairing besides Stolitz, but how interesting would it be if Striker and Stella were having an affair of their own, and genuinely loved each other? How would they reconcile their personal feelings with long-held prejudices? What kinds of effects would hiding this shameful secret have on them? Would they make strides to be more open-minded? Would they see how their relationship mirrors Stolas and Blitzo's and reach an understanding with them? Will Striker's anti-royal principles override his love for Stella? Will he, in possession of angelic weapons, fulfill his quest to kill all royals, including her? There are so many possibilities here.

But of course, wringing any kind of compelling narrative out of this show's villains would require the writers to treat them as complex people rather than caricatures, so... yeah.

-If Stolas' legs are untied, what the fuck is stopping him from getting up and sneaking out of the cave after Striker leaves him unattended? He even has enough range of motion to kick him in the face. Obviously his leg wound would cause mobility issues and he'd have to stop the bleeding so Striker wouldn't track him easily (perhaps rolling into a magma stream to cauterize the wound? If demons are immune to fire, as Episode 1 established, I don't think magma would hurt much), but goddamn, try something. If you're going to die either way, you don't have much to lose, do you?

OR, why doesn't he just roll off the back of the horse when they're still in the city? Just check behind you to make sure no cars are coming and bail, dude. Striker might not even realize you're gone until he's entered the desert.

This is the exact same problem Stolas had in Seeing Stars, where he was so helpless against the plot's demands he couldn't even climb out of a van window, or morph into his full demon form like he did in Truth Seekers, or just leave the studio to find his fucking daughter. Y'know how I keep saying these characters have no agency? These characters have no damn agency.

-Kinda weirded out by how flirty Andrealphus is with his sister. "You're so lucky you're attractive"? "My fiery vixen"? Just... why. I get that incest used to be a thing in real-life monarchies, but assuming Andrealphus has other romantic options readily available to him (see also: ambiguous bird class), this fixation on Stella doesn't make much sense. If Viv wanted to make him subtly creepy, well... there are other ways to do that.

And let's be real, we can safely surmise Viv hates research with a passion, so I'm betting she didn't get this idea from history, but from Game of Thrones. I get a strong feeling she sees real-world facts as boring homework and the fictional world as exciting and full of wonder. If a person just cherry-picks different elements from fictional media they like and stitches them together like Dr. Frankenstein grafts body parts, that'll result in something great too, right? ...No.

-You're seriously telling me Stella didn't know how royal lineages work after being betrothed to a prince since childhood?

I mean wow, the show has portrayed Stella as inconsiderate and comically sadistic, and now she's stupid as well? These writers are hell-bent on giving her zero positive traits, aren't they.

-"A Goetia's never behaved like this before." Are you shitting me, Andrealphus? Hell's existed for (presumably) thousands of years and not a single noble has fucked an imp before? I could maybe buy that none of them have been as stupidly blatant as Stolas has, so perhaps these affairs have gone unseen and unremembered. But assuming they never happened? Come on now.

-Where'd Striker's horse go?? Feels like he could've been helpful in the fight against Moxxie and Millie, but after the theme song, he's completely missing. We don't even see him in a stable or anything. I know he's animation-intensive but y'all could at least give us a narrative reason he's not on screen.

An easy fix to this would be to show Bombproof (yes, that's his name, and it's awesome, and I hate that the characters never say it) out of breath at the end of the long journey, and Striker telling him he's earned a good rest. He could then hop into a magma pool and disappear under the waves for the remainder of the episode. There ya go. Simple.

-If Millie's ordinary axe can chop Striker's angelic pistols in half, why are angelic weapons such a threat to demons? During the yearly extermination in this universe, what's stopping them from forming an army and shooting the angels' weapons full of holes? Crazy how a single scene can unravel Hazbin Hotel's entire conflict.

-Did y'all want any kind of satisfying closure between Blitzo and Stolas regarding what went down in the Ozzie's episode? Well keep dreamin', because we've got this horrendously half-assed, tacked-on bullshit that you'll easily miss if you blink.

Fuck you, show.

And in another text following this, here's what Stolas says:

"If you don't feel like coming, that's OK! I'm sure I can do without [the grimoire] for one month."

Why do you need the fucking book at all, Stolas.

He's used it to make the harvest moon visible at the festival, but it's never clear what purpose that serves. We've never seen him use it for anything in his daily life; just that thing that happens once a year. Come to think of it, we've never seen Stolas in his day-to-day job. As a Goetia demon, he has legions to command (Andrealphus even mentions them), but the story never shows us the political, leadership-driven side of his life. He just sits around doing sweet fuck-all. Striker's argument against monarchs is that they "talk over [the lower classes]", but there's a strong case to be made for them simply contributing nothing of substance to society.

All in all, this episode made me feel nothing. There was no meaningful progression in the story. Sure, Stolas is injured, but he has the exact same problems of being married to someone he wants to divorce and Blitzo being emotionally distant. Stella has the same problem of Stolas being alive, even though she herself called off his execution. Striker's still at large. Moxxie and Millie still have a squeaky-clean relationship, Blitzo's still an ass, and Loona will likely return to her regular self in the next episode. Functionally speaking, everyone ends the episode in the same place they began, making me wonder what the point of it is in the larger narrative. Getting a hunch that Viv just needed an excuse to hospitalize Stolas so the audience would pity him.

I'm calling it now: Stolas is out of the hospital in the next one. He might still have some bandages and whatnot, but his injuries won't present any real obstacles to him until they're convenient to the plot. I'm betting there won't even be scars where Striker stabbed him, because at this point, continuity is WAY too much to ask of this show.

If this were a better-written series, Stolas would actually use his damn wealth and political power to put a bounty on Striker's head that'd have everyone in Hell gunning for him. Or why not use those legions he has at his disposal? Furthermore, now that he knows Stella hired Striker, what's stopping him from having her executed, or banished, or imprisoned, or something? But then if the characters used their brains, Viv wouldn't get the plot she wants, and we can't have that.

The previous episode had me curious to find out what would happen next. This one just added nothing to my life. I don't know how much longer I can keep watching this show. I'm not a fan of hate-watching media as life is short and there are numerous shows and films out there that'll make much more enjoyable use of my time. "If it sucks, hit da bricks" and all that. Yet Helluva Boss still has a pull in being an incredible teaching tool for how NOT to write a series. Writing these reviews has been thoroughly educational for me, and it seems they've helped others as well. But fuck, man. At what cost. When will I finally throw up my hands and say "Enough"?

If I hear the next one's not terrible, I might give it a watch. But that's a pretty big if. I'm very tired.

[fizzingwizard]

Five: the one you've been waiting for, about Moomintroll!!

It is so much fun to go on a rescue mission to find Moomintroll. The bittersweet beginning, with Moomintroll sad as Snufkin leaves for the winter, and Snufkin's dread when he returns in spring to havoc and no Moomintroll... mwah. Love it

Goodness Snufkin chill out would ya

Snufkin might love you, Moomin, but that doesn't mean pics of your body gone splat in the mud isn't absolutely getting posted on his Instagram

So in this game Moomintroll is pretty angelic. He doesn't have a bad word to say about anyone. It's nitpicking of me, but yeah, that take isn't for me. I like my hospitable, awkward, endlessly tolerant Moomins with a pinch of spice. Actually it's rather funny because so much of the game characterization seems to pick off the cartoon, but Snufkin and Moomintroll themselves are just so nicey-nice...? At least we spend enough time with Snufkin to hear him take a few digs at the other colorful characters lol.

I MISSED TAKING A CAP OF SNUFKIN FALLING ON HIS ASS that would have been perfect revenge too ugghh

BUT THE PIGGYBAAAACK

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

[fizz.exe has stopped working]

Can't get over how cuuuute this is. If the whole game sucked, it would still have been worth it just for this ending haha. Btw I will definitely have a piggyback in a fic some day and this is the inspiration xP

I love how Snufkin's flower-covered hat blends right in with the flower bed when they're hiding teehee

So theme again. When Snufkin hurts his foot, he encourages Moomintroll to go on without him. But Moomintroll says no, we'll go together, hence piggyback. This is my favorite way the theme comes out, and not just because it's cute, but because it involves Moomintroll overtly offering to help and then really helping. Not needing to be coaxed and indulged or endured first. Yes, in the real world there are all types and we all need to get along. But Snufkin accepts nearly all help, talks to everyone kindly (much more kindly than they are to him!), and isn't even wrong when he tells Moomintroll to go on without him - neither does he make a fuss about going together anyway.

So what growth is he supposed to have here? He doesn't decide to not leave in winter anymore (and I certainly wouldn't want him to). The story is like "Snufkin learned something" and it's... that he should keep being friends with the people he's already friends with? Even though he never said he planned on doing otherwise...? Or are we just punishing him for daring to go on loner adventures period? Maybe a cut scene showing him running away from the Fillyjonk or avoiding parties or something would have helped frame things better, but as it is - I fully understand what the story wants to say, I just don't believe it actually says it.

Take this scene. In essence, I don't have a problem with it. But, since when does Snufkin kick people out of Moominvalley? More likely he's the one skedaddling... "But it's the Park Keeper!" So? In Moominsummer Madness he destroys the park but the Park Keeper still is the one with authority, so it's Snufkin who tries to leave. That's minor, though, what bugs me more is this "Moomins tolerate everyone!" bit. Of course it's not bad...! But Moomins definitely do not tolerate everyone and go to lengths to drive certain types away... Including potential romantic threats haha. This isn't a complaint, the game just goes in a different direction than what I prefer when it comes to Moomins. But Moomintroll is a little over the top, that's all I'm saying...

"He just dammed the river without asking and imprisoned all the animals and caused a forest fire... But I'm sure deep down he's a nice guy"

psst fizz it's a game for kids...!

yeah i know it's my blog and I'll bitch if I want to bitch if I want to bitch if I want to

I digress. The point is how cute these two obviously are. Gaaah. The piggyback 💕💕💕 Also Snufkin's little (>m<) face!

[rosinbae]

always ⋆ kim taerae

◜✧◞ SYNOPSIS ─ where kim taerae encounters a certain flirtatious enhypen member at kcon.

◜✧◞ PAIRING ─ kim taerae x enha member male!reader

◜✧◞ GENRE ─ fluff.

there were many interactions during kcon that breezed past taerae's mind.

his mind was mainly focused on other things, like the stage, debuting, stuff like that. the realization that he debuted took long to dawn on him until he actually began interacting with the other idols.

one of those idols being a certain member of enhypen.

l/n y/n, jesus christ he's gonna make taerae lose his mind.

taerae has heard of enhypen, obviously, they're one of the most popular boy groups of the current generation, but y/n in particular, he's a whole different story.

he's hears stories of y/n, him being the member who flusters everyone without even trying. how he had so much of the 4th gen wrapped around his fingers, specifically members of many boy groups.

"oh, l/n y/n? that man will flirt with anything that moves, it's normal for him".

taerae hears whispers, he hears rumors, he's read articles pertaining to dating rumors surrounding the boy. most of the articles are all in good fun, though, because y/n doesn't seem to actually care about love.

he doesn't think much about it.

until he meets the boy himself.

taerae had just finished up a conversation with a member of tempest, identically named kim taerae, how funny huh? he bid goodbye to him and turned the other way to find his group again.

come on, it's a group of nine! it's not like they can get that far anyway—

"lost?"

"ah!" taerae jumps, startled by the sudden voice. he turns to his right and dear god, there stands l/n y/n, smiling at him. "jesus, you scared me".

"my apologies" y/n smiles lightly, looking taerae up and down, which confuses him. "are you lost?"

"not really" taerae mutters, playing with his fingers. "i'm just looking for the rest of my group".

y/n looks down at his shirt, a look of recognization coming to his face. "zerobaseone? oh! your kim taerae!"

taerae looks shocked, surprised, dumbfounded. "i'm sorry? you know me?" he feels stupid asking that question, because of course he did, y/n was a social butterfly, he probably knew everyone here without even talking to them.

"my members and i watched many of your boys planet performances" taerae feels his breath hitch at those words, they make him feel so.. special? for an unknown reason he couldn't fathom, those words had an unexplained affect on him.

"oh— uh.. you did?" he quickly asks, feeling his face unexpectedly heat up. y/n chuckles, closing his eyes as he smiles. he nods, staring at taerae like he just found the love of his life.

"i wasn't even gonna watch the show" y/n begins, another chuckle leaving his lips. "but then jake showed me your back door performance so then i started watching and maybe i voted for you—"

"you? you voted for me? that's.. shocking, i'm flattered!"

taerae didn't think he would ever say this to someone in his life, but his heart sort of warms at the thought that another idol voted for him.

especially someone as.. known as y/n.

y/n narrows his eyes at taerae, smiling to himself as a certain thought comes to his mind.

"your much prettier in person".

taerae goes still at the comment, his face goes even redder at the words. this is literally just y/n, taerae, he flirts with everyone, he's just being nice.

"i— well, thank you" taerae continues playing with his fingers. "do you say that to everyone?"

"huh?"

"you call every boy you meet during promotions pretty?" taerae is brave enough to ask, with y/n's reputation, he could just be saying that for fun, to fluster taerae.

"nope, just the really pretty ones" y/n emphasizes the word pretty by directly making eye contact with taerae, a sly smirk coming to his face as he notices the tint of pink hue that spreads on taerae's cheeks.

"i guess i'm special then".

"i thought you already knew that?" the enhypen member inquires, whistling the tune to say my name as he awaits taerae's response.

taerae gives a soft chuckle, mind immediately drifting back to the fact that he had to find his group. "oh god i have to find my group!"

"oh? did i distract you?"

"well yeah but not in a rude way or anything—"

y/n chuckles once again, enjoying the way he continues to fluster the younger. "just kidding, i have to find my group too, lets walk together".

"together?"

"what? i wanna walk with a pretty boy, i'm taking a chance" y/n comments seamlessly, he reaches over to link their arms, making taerae freeze for a moment before he looks down at the floor.

"lead the way then, genius".

taerae links his arms back with y/n, the two of them now walking around the stage together. he never knew really, but y/n was pretty funny, and he found himself laughing from time to time at a joke he said.

taerae learned a lot of new things about y/n he otherwise wouldn't have known if he hadn't met him at the stage of kcon. he learned that y/n is a vegetarian, has two dogs, used to do archery in high school, and had actually only watched boys planet to vote for him.

it's funny, really. two months ago kim taerae would have never expected that he'd be walking around, linking arms with, giggling with the guy who has had dating rumors with half the boy groups of the fourth generation, because that just seems so unreal even if it is happening right now.

y/n is much of a social butterfly, he's waved and said hello to at least seven people from different groups already as they walk around the stage, looking for their groups.

"what do you mean you liked en garde better than switch?"

"don't fault me, kim taerae" y/n replies quickly. he gives taerae a look of amusement, and the kim simply gives a playfully eye roll, looking the other way. "it's just preference" he shrugs.

"you did look very cute during the stage, though".

"is this all you do?" taerae questions, which is ironic considering he's linking arms with this guy. "compliment me?"

"do you not want me to?" y/n counters, shaking his head a tiny bit, which makes taerae frown. "i'm being honest".

"maybe too honest".

"accept my compliments, taerae, i feel bad knowing you don't".

taerae looks down once again, not wanting to make eye contact with y/n, fearing he'd probably melt if he did so. "how long have we been walking for?"

"i think my group abandoned me, they're tired of me" y/n sighs dramatically, placing a hand on his chest.

"i would be too.."

"excuse me?"

"hm?"

taerae makes no effort to hide his laughter, immediately bursting into giggles as he couldn't hold it in. "i'm sorry, i couldn't help it" he says behind his hand, which he used to cover his mouth.

"your making fun of me after how much i have complimented you?"

"we've known each other for like— forty five minutes".

"they were very important forty five minutes to me".

the enhypen member shakes his head, gosh, he was such an actor wasn't he? taerae had no idea what he was supposed to say next, because he was getting confused about where his group could have possibly been—

"oh y/n! there you are!"

a raven haired boy walks y/n's way, deadpanning when he saw him linking arms with taerae. "again, y/n? what did i tell you about flirting with every new rookie—"

"hey! i'm not doing anything wrong!" y/n counters. he points at taerae, who suddenly gets nervous. "he likes me! right taerae?"

taerae chuckles, simply shrugging. "it could go either way".

"is that how you speak about your senior? i'm appalled".

y/n finally lets go of taerae, placing his hands on his hips. taerae laughs, looking to his senior and quickly bowing. "wow, i can't believe this, after i accompanied you all this time?"

"i mean— i did appreciate your company".

"of course you did".

"should i leave you two?" y/n looks back to his member, blinking. "i'll be right there, jay".

"okay then" he gives y/n a weird look before walking back over to the rest of his group.

y/n watches him walk away, and he turns back to taerae, who immediately shrinks under his gaze. he blinks for a moment before taking out a pen. "let me give you my number".

"your— your what?"

taerae thinks he's hearing things, but y/n just smiles at him, so casual about everything. "i'm giving you my number, because i like you".

taerae wonders if he does this with every other boy he's flirted with.

"but if you don't want it—"

"just" taerae sighs, slumping his shoulders. "just give it to me".

taerae watches as y/n writes down his number on his wrist, he is so much prettier up close..he wonders in his head. "call me, kim taerae~".

"i don't plan on doing so".

what a lie that was.

[crownedwille]

ngl im kinda confused on why people support crown wille so much. i’m open to the idea, but i’ve always read him the same way since ep1. he was miserable from the beginning of the show (before he even met simon) up until the end. everything about the monarchy affected him in a negative way. wille and simon could not have existed as a couple if wille didn’t step down (and i feel this is something i feel they’ve expressed since s1.) ntm that there is no such thing as a good monarch and wille has never wanted to be in that role. wille is not a PUBLIC person. and nether is simon.

i’m not sure why some ppl think the fall of their relationship came out of nowhere; different problems can always arise, especially with teenagers. maybe some more explaining would help me understand, but at this point i think crown wille was such a stretch to root for.

i’d also like to add that s1 and s2 more likely had open endings to leave as cliffhangers, while s3 is the conclusion of the story. obviously, it’s not to say that everything is figured out, but that everything will be okay.

oh boy, you really want me to get into this again, here we go

he was miserable from the beginning - yeah, imagine me wanting him to have actual development and have a different mindset in the end. you don't start off your protagonist with the same mindset and that never changes, that is not proper satisfying storytelling imo. and it seems like i do have to remind people every time but if wille steps down he will still be a prince, just the second in line and no longer the heir - which is exactly who he was in the beginning. so yeah actually nothing has changed. and there was already attention and pressure on him and he still had duties and i honestly do wonder what was so different about being crown prince bc they never actually showed us.

so he will never really 'escape' the monarchy, he still is part of the royal family, his mother is the queen and he ABSOLUTELY will be a public person his entire life. and simon by association too. a fucking sex tape came out with them and wille came out to the world as queer, there is no way that people won't care anymore about it just bc wille wouldn't be crown prince anymore in a year. and as if him renouncing wouldn't make any headlines and be a huge deal and simon and wilhelm wouldn't have to deal with the aftermath and consequences of that (if they're still together at that point which i have my doubts)

there will always be attention on wille and that is something that should be obvious and i don't understand why the fandom is choosing to be so naive and blissfully ignorant about this. no, i do know, bc the show is framing it like that and wanting people to think that and stay naive and blissfully ignorant to all these facts

and i love hearing how my interpretation was wrong from the start and of course you were right all along. how dare i had hope and thought the point of killing off erik and making wille the crown prince is bc he would do things differently and bring changes and "start a revolution" bc that is totally not what the show has been about before abandoning it and taking the easy way out and not wanting to deal with what that would really entail. how dare i saw wille question traditions at hillerska and him making a public speech addressing that as him stepping into his role as crown prince and show signs of a great, competent "leader" before they also abandoned that and made sure none of that mattered and erased his growth in s3. how dare i thought wille and simon both wanted changes to the monarchy instead of letting it stay exactly how it is and giving it over to a person who has done fucked up things to them and likes the system as it is

if that and the stuff you're saying was the message the entire time i find it really sad tbh and i call bullshit on it. i definitely don't see how everything will be okay now with none of simon's or wille's mental health issues addressed and implied they're actually working on it but yeah of course they escaped the ~evil~ monarchy now and it was all its fault they didn't work out and now they're completely fine and all their problems have vanished, how could i forget

[mootmuse]

'The Terror retold exactly the same except' AUs:

Fitzjames and Franklin speak in valley girl accents to each other ('That Francis guy is such a bummer, I swear.' 'Right??? You are so nice to him and he does not deserve it.' Most of their scenes would read exactly the same.)

Hickey is making food blogs the entire time. See this real youtube video thumbnail that gave a friend the idea:

modern AU:

Corporate AU. heavy emphasis on the lunch meetings purely because there's so much comedic potential there.

The meetings function exactly like the officer's dinners on the show. I want more of them.

Fitzjames spends each and every one telling the same self-aggrandizing stories, good old boy-ing his way into duties that are technically Crozier's job without actually having Crozier's qualifications or experience.

Fitzjames' jokes are carefully crafted to appeal to the members of the racist, misogynistic good old boy's club he's desperate to join who are always delighted to have a little giggle at something they're not supposed to say. The good old boys laugh and his coworkers pat his ass in all the right parts of his stories

except for Crozier. Crozier sits through each lunch meeting looking increasingly constipated and getting increasingly more obviously buzzed each time he has to sit through one.

Fitzjames being Like That stretches meetings out long past the point where anyone else there might have been able to leave in time to get a real break. He also cheerfully suggests having these meetings after it would be time to leave for the day, because that works so much better for Franklin's schedule. (Franklin might or might not attend, of course, terribly sorry, something came up at the last minute, dreadfully kind of you all to understand.)

Blanky always laughs at Crozier when he rants about it afterward. Blanky was smart enough to not take any promotions which would require that level of corporate bullshit. Blanky is the smartest character in this fic.

Fitzjames starts the story working in sales. Please Like Me, Oh God Please Like This Shell of a Personality I Have Constructed, but professionally. When someone doesn't and it gets under his skin, it hasn't gotten under his skin, he's only pursuing inventive new strategies for interdepartmental cooperation. He's pursuing that new account to make a sale, because every sale matters! He's very good at it. He's thriving. He's completely fine.

He tells a story about a time he got his picture in the papers, even while he still had that sling on from saving all those people! He's sure he looked a fright, but [important person] still had it framed at [important place], how embarrassing! Have you seen it?

The audience has to sit through every little detail of at least one of these meetings. every detail. All the small talk. All the stories. that precious lunch break, trickling away. the audience is hitting page down frantically but it's too late, Fitzjames is already telling the roast duck joke (again). Franklin laughs. All the hangers-on and underlings laugh. crozier is about to swallow his own tongue.

I love Fitzjames very much, for the record. Which is why I get so excited about where he was at at the beginning of his character arc. I think most of us have worked with this guy. Nightmare coworker (affectionate).

[nirogryphon]

whats ur parallel fanon

i'm assuming you saw this post, right? are you talking about that specific guy? that's adzuki. idk if you're wanting headcanons about what i think about that boss or an oc lore dump. to me they're both, so that's what you're getting. it's gonna get long, get some popcorn.

in my splatoons world post-memverse runthrough, beans (my four) beg marina to let it out because he saw that it was sentient and wanted it to join his bf as a polycule. It's got a very similar level of kindness and whatnot to beans, but is extremely dry, blunt, and overall "emotionless" (not true, we'll get to that).

you see, i don't think parallel canon is 4, but merely a program made to mimic 4. Marina wanted one of the best in the NSS, so she asked Beans (instead of Ty, who was an elite, but then again, who got their ass handed to all those years ago again?) to offer up a brain scan to get a copy of that fighting skill of theirs for what would become the Parallel canons. Unfortunately, like with any technology, this wasn't perfect, especially with someone who was sanitized like how beans is. That scan ended up grabbing some other aspects of him, like a bit of his personality and, mainly, his fear of himself. He's gotten over it for the most part, at least that's what he thought anyways. When testing, fighting a perfect copy of yourself isn't going to pop up really at all, so this doesn't come up as an issue until Marina's released her little game for the sanitized to use, allowing the one freak scenario to arise.

The rogue code, formerly dormant, activates immediately when beans ends up confronting parallel canon. He's hesitant at first, but remembers it's not him, merely code made to look and fight like them. So, without much worry, he begins to charge at it for the fight, that code kicking in to overdrive and making it act the exact way beans would if it were the other way around. It retreats. It cries out, garbled, in supposed simulated fear. Beans stops in his tracks, staring down at the clone, only seeing his socked face staring back in the reflection of the mask.

This sparks a snowball effect of new programming being written without an author, a program learning, becoming sapient, alive. A scenario that forces one to confront something he wasn't fully ready for and another to realize what it is. Subsequent run attempts, the two keep learning about themselves and eachother in combat, regardless on if either of them like it, until eventually coming to a rather peaceful confrontation, a realization that neither want to hurt the other, and yadda yadda yadda something something long messy story short it's a reconnection with the self and learning to love oneself again. I don't want to get into detail here, I'm personally still torn on whether or not this exact part should be sfw or not, so, lol.

Regardless, it's still ultimately what the memverse was made for: helping the sanitized remember and become themselves again, and while it isn't an evil agent 4, what we got works way better with what I had already and it's just perfect.

As for adzuki itself, I'm not sure exactly the details on its anatomy when given the physical form outside of the memverse. I do want to stick to a very similar palette to what PC has in the memverse, as well as being made out of goo still, but does that mean it's a physical jelleton in the walking world? Don't know for sure yet. I'll work that out in time. Adzuki's voice is an AI recreation of Beans', sounding extremely similar, but obviously synthesized.

As for personality, Adzuki is a lot like beans in its ideals and bonds. However, due to being based off code not meant to emote or show tone, it struggles a lot in doing so, save for a few exceptions. It can only really express emotion through body language instead, and a lot of what it says is extremely clinical, blunt, and dry. Think Data from Star Trek. Of course, that doesn't mean it is emotionless, quite the opposite. Adzuki merely expresses emotions very differently than the regular inkfish. There's also a few ways to gauge how intense the emotion it's feeling is via how unstable the goo it's made out of is or by how bitcrushed its voice has gotten. Essentially: the drippier and messier it is, or the more low quality the voice is, the more intense the emotion it's feeling is.

Some exceptions that break that stoic mask of sorts can be via substance use, like drinking or smoking weed. Once that code is overwritten inside it during these exceptions, Adzuki is almost indifferentiable from beans beyond appearance.

Adzuki, unlike canon PC, loves using the order roller the most out of all the order weapons. It's extremely annoying with it, and enjoys sneaking up on someone to vert-swing them.

[ca-suffit]

I've never really gotten why people are so into Loustat. Maybe if you only read the books? But in the show they're just not happy most of the time. And of course there's the whole domestic violence aspect of it. Whereas Loumand WERE happy together most of the time. They had interesting discussions, enjoyed art together, had long walks, and were sexually compatible. Yes of course there's the horror with Claudia, but as a couple, they were happy. So what's up with that?

it's hard to know where to start to answer this cuz there's so much I could get into. I'm gonna skip the book history cuz wiki is right there, but yah it's basically a book thing. they were the relationship that ppl wanted to see the most, bcuz they started the series (which wasn't a planned series to begin with) and ppl wanted to see them grow and heal their issues. anne rice had personal grief issues attached to their creation and louis in particular. that's why he's moved aside for a lot of the series but does return more in the end as a main, romantic focus.

all the vampires are p polyamorous, so even if there's main focuses at times, they are constantly moving around each other. loustat *are* going to be the underlying show focus, they've said, and they don't have to sideline louis like the books did if they don't want to. I expect they'll make him more prominent and generally make a better flowing story in a lot of ways than the books.

loumand is v short in the books but it's similar to the show in that louis is seeking someone who he thinks has more answers to life's meaning than lestat ever gave. the show deepens that a bit more too by making them both men of color who would understand similar ways of surviving in the world than lestat as a white man understood.

(as an aside to all the book stuff too, it has to be said that part of the fandom's preference of loustat is bcuz it's a relationship that has a white man in it tbh. it's not like ALL loustat ppl are racist or anything, but "loumanders" has been used in place of a racial slur here for a while so it's still def part of it from some. ppl will always say it's not racist, it's from the books....but........it v obviously both sometimes)

the show has also drastically changed the timeline of these relationships as well. the books had loustat lasting 60-70 years for the IWTV arc of it. loumand...I can't remember the exact time, if it's given, but it's a LOT shorter. the show has rly fleshed out both relationships in ways much more than the books give us.

re: the DV. armand is also abusing louis too tho. the show's addition of the drop is new but louis and lestat physically fight in the books a lot, and lestat is emotionally abusive. however, armand is abusive too, with his ability to get in other vampire's heads. the book relationship feels entirely forced in a lot of ways tbh. bcuz of louis' connection to humanity (idk if this is outright stated or my own thoughts), he's easy to mentally manipulate as a vampire. it happens a few times to him, but armand is the first.

so armand and lestat are kind of two sides of the same coin in a lot of ways. as individuals and as partners to louis.

I am interested to see where the show takes them all, bcuz lestat and armand *also* have a history.

I think the show is doing and will do a better job at exploring all these relationships and growing them out. where loustat is now won't always be who they are, same for whatever loumand becomes. all of these vampires still exist around each other in some capacity, bcuz their community is so small. they all have a history with each other somehow. the books never explored that v well but I expect the show to do it. claudia's death hangs over all of them and it's never addressed with armand again in the books, so I'm wondering how the show will do it. but it's an event and a grief (at least for loustat) that connects them all forever and is a major player in how loustat exist forever after and talk about themselves too.

so I literally don't blame anyone for disliking loustat for where it's at rn. I mean, u don't have to ever like it tbh! but we're v early for seeing all of this and getting the foundation for where the story is going from here on. I obviously don't know for sure, either, but this is the start of where everything else will branch off.

a lot of book ppl are trying to cram everything into the first series mainly bcuz ppl don't like seeing lestat being judged the way he is. but....this is supposed to be a long series? everything is not going to happen in S1 and S2 that mainly stem from book 1. I wish ppl could just relax and let the story tell itself. there were years in between the books being published, sometimes not even knowing another book was coming at all. the show is telling its own story and it's ok to go at the pace of where it's leading us.

omg this was long. idk if I rambled more than answered anything but lol. u can always ask more if u want.

[animehouse-moe]

Chainsaw Man Chapter 144: Guns, Nails, Katana

Fujimoto just keeps the good times rolling! It's a shorter chapter for sure, but it's very fun, detailed, and leaves you with quite a few questions, so still plenty I want to chat about.

Alright, first and foremost, Special Division 7. They're obviously a part of Public Safety, but they're the only Devil Hunter division that we've seen operate in tandem with the police force. Even more than that is what constitutes Special Division 7. If it weren't for Mifune, we'd have a totally different picture of it, but as of right now it's safe to say it's dominated by hybrids.

Of course, like Mifune there's caveats to that rule, such as this individual that appears first.

It's hard to say for certain, but they're most likely a fiend rather than a devil, the nail fiend to be specific. I doubt that there are many fiends, but it's safe to say that any that exist will be women thanks to Quanxi's tastes.

Anyways, they're immediately a very fun character, stringing the students up by nailing their uniforms to the wall. A very safe and passive approach to subduing the weaponized children... until they talk back. A very fun bit of expectation subversion (whether that's in the peaceful beginning or violent twist is up to the reader, really).

And then the big man himself shows up, Katana Man. This has me very excited. Very very excited. Bringing Katana Man back, but as a dog of the Public Safety Devil Hunters has so much potential. Chainsaw Man is bound by Public Safety, and Katana Man has it out for Denji something fierce. Incredibly interested to see what they do with their reunion.

Alright, two important details.

The first, the Justice Devil. This is now the third time they've shown up when associated with Asa/Fami. So I think it's pretty clear that Fami has the Justice Devil under her control at this point, which is pretty cool/scary. It presents the opportunity that Fami orchestrated Asa's death in order to give War a vessel, that it used Yuko to make contact with Asa/Yoru, and that Fami is using Justice to power up the Chainsaw Man church a little.

Because of that, it begs the question of what other Devils she has under her control that we don't know about yet. We know that the Eternity Devil was her, but what about the Bat Devil? And what about any that we've yet to see, what about any of the adults that have formed contracts with devils like this guy has?

Second, how are these hybrids/fiends kept in check? They're not chained up in the basement, and we know for sure that hybrids like Katana Man don't act in the best interest of the people. Makima's not hear to literally control them, so what force could be keeping these individuals in check? Is Nayuta helping out Public Safety on the side? Did they force the individuals to make a contract with a specific devil? And what on God's green earth is Kobeni's devil contract!

Loads of questions as we continue to build up the story here to the inevitable idea that Asa will be drawn out to fight. It's just a question of if Fami's gotten to Asa or not. But I feel like we'll find out soon. Hype chapter once more as Fujimoto kicks Part 2 into high gear for the first time in a good while.

[sibylsleaves]

I really like the idea of some kind of injury/illness being the new lifestyle change that Ryan is talking about, because honestly I have no other idea what it could be. Sidenote: I know you're not thinking he's getting a queer realization this season (honestly rn I'm not either, its just too much to cram into 3 episodes) but do you think we might get one next season?

answering these together because even though i know queer realization & feelings realization (which i believe is what the second anon is referring to) are different things i feel like they're obviously connected and my answer is kind of the same for both of them. so.

I've never been the person who's 100% sure they are going to make Buddie canonically romantic and that's still true now. (Actually the scene that made me a believer didn't happen until season 6...for some reason it was the graveyard scene, although really it was the way the show KEPT emphasizing Eddie and Buck's relationship throughout 6b. The graveyard scene just felt incredibly pointed at the end of like 3 straight episodes of grief/tenderness/flirtiness/etc).

Did getting canon confirmation of Bi Buck change my opinion? Of course. But it moved me from basically thinking there was very little chance to thinking there's maybe a 50% chance. I don't necessarily think that just because we have Bi Buck means we're definitely for sure no doubt about it getting Buddie. Do I want that? yes, obviously.

I think where I'm at now is hopeful that it is coming next season--and by "it" i mean any truly unambiguous indication that Buck and Eddie have romantic feelings for one another (whether or not they actually get together, which I think they could potentially draw out a bit longer).

Where I'm also at is that if they don't do that next season, I'm not sure it's happening at all. Confirming Buck as bi is, imo, THE biggest catalyst they have toward turning Eddie and Buck's relationship romantic. And the fact of the matter is we (and they) don't know how many seasons we're getting after season 8 so if they do want to do it, they might as well do it now (and by now I mean next season).

I believe Tim when he says that he doesn't plan storylines out super far in advance. So I do believe that he may not even know for sure whether they are going to go down that road or not.

What I also know is that he loves Buck and Eddie and their dynamic and so if nothing else I trust him and the other writers to continue writing that relationship with the care and love and nuance that made me into a Buddie shipper to begin with. I don't need them to be canonically romantically together in order to enjoy the show or enjoy the ship. Obviously, I would love it if they did and I think it would be a great storytelling choice to shake up one of the main dynamics in the cast. It would give them a lot of new material and story to explore, which, after eight seasons, they kind of desperately need, given how repetitive/dead-ended/just plain ABSURD some of the storylines have felt in recent seasons.

At the end of the day I do think Tim/the writers are going to do whatever it is they want to do, and whatever they think is right for the story. As a creator I respect that, even if I might not agree about what the right thing for the story is.

[generationlosscorkboard]

Cool Gen 1 Details Masterpost!

This is dedicated to all the small details in the series that we just love :) (most are story related, but I might chuck in a few BTS ones in there too)

They may or may not contribute to future theories, but it's fun to have a list of them otherwise. write a comment or send an ask if you have any you would like added! I'll be keeping it updated :D

Obviously, spoilers if you have not seen. Any of it.

(I'm placing a cut here so it's not taking up a massive space on everyone's blogs because it is LONG)

Episode 1: The Spirit in the Cabin

The Tv was turned on, showing static, but then turned off right before Ranboo woke up.

Ranboo, before waking up, is morse coding "SOS" (Source: Ranboo on Stream)

Ranboo seemed like he was shocked awake.

Ranboo, despite the mask being off, does not see the cameras/forth wall.

the first audience interaction was to knock the urn over. according to Charlie and Ranboo, the urn was supposed to be chat? but then Charlie improvised the grandma thing- (Charlie BTS ep1 Stream)

the string for the urn broke so a ghoul with a pencil smacked it-

Ranboo's reaction to the urn was "it wasn't supposed to be like this-" (Credit: razberrypuck on tumblr)

somehow Ranboo could tell that the mask turning on was bad, saying "no! no! no!"

Ranboo re-reacts to the urn after the mask turns on.

the forth wall is a "weird painting" in MaskOn mode

There could of been a third Dimension door in which Ranboo ended up in an amusement park parking lot whist said amusement park is being destroyed. Ranboo was also mad in this one. (Source: Ranboo VOD: Talking all about it!)

so we all agree that the slime and demon guts that Charlie ate this episode was probably organs and such, right?? right. Course, this begs the question as to what was he WEARING-

there were… glitches? In this episode. And I don't mean the really obvious ones where Ranboo found the tape and such, I mean stuff that's just a frame long. Intentional? unknown, there's nothing hugely interesting happening but it's still worth mentioning.

"Behind You" on the fridge

Charlie had no idea who the third ghoul in the cupboard was.

when the ghoul with the tape came through the door, there was supposed to be a fight or flight thing, but uh. yeah didn't happen. (Charlie BTS ep 1 Stream)

Jerma's dollhouse :P

Frank, is a dead guy. Begs the question of why they're lugging a corpse around, but ya know. Also, according to the file seen on the BTS Twitter page, he was one of the taken, so just like Sneeg. interesting!

Sneeg is that one character you regret saving because they're just so critical and judgy all the time (Source: Charlie BTS Ep 2 Stream)

Charlie was frozen in an uncomfortable position in the box because he couldn't move without revealing himself too early. (They'd also forgotten that he could of had a false back on it AHSGHGA)

Sneeg was frozen in place yet awake and very alert for the sleeping time skip.

Charlie's mother wants the painting as a mothers day gift (Source: Charlie BTS ep1 stream)

Episode 2: The Mastermind of the Warehouse

(apologies in advance if I don't see every Saw detail, I am not super familiar with it)

I personally can't find it, but apparently Ranboo did the morse code SOS at the beginning of this episode too (Source: Ranboo on Stream)

The Big Brother vibes with the tv's in every room were immaculate

according to the meter in the corner, they used electricity to revive Ranboo up after he died.

yeah no Ranboo actually died then (Source: Ranboo VOD: Talking all about it!)

it didn't matter which key was chosen, it was going to be the right one regardless, for humor reasons (Source: Charlie BTS ep 2 Stream)

100/100 is not a used measure of eyesight acuity.

The surgery room had an L on the wall (L for charlie ig)

Charlie had three cars in him!

he also had: his Gutetti (guts that were previously an ingredient in the first episode), the mouse trap trap, a mini tank, a knife, a rubber chicken, and two army men (Charlie states he swallowed a whole battalion). Oh and the Bad Hat of course-

there's a heart on the toilet (I have yet to figure out whether this actually means anything)

It was a bad day to be a cheesecake

Charlie can only be heard after The Puzzler complained about screaming (this was intentional)

Charlie introduces himself as megachad to The Puzzler.

The streamers were told to base their characters after their streamer selves (Niki Stream)

Austin is implied to be the only one who seems to register Frank as a Dead guy.

Sneeg, upon being released, goes up to Ranboo and says "I'm gonna be right back"

Everyone freezing whilst Showfall employees bring back and reprogram Sneeg, as if they were paused.

Sneeg's hands were not retied.

Ranboo's mask was playing up between the candy room and closet, and an employee turned it back on. (i'm sorry I lost the credit but it think it was tiktok)

The Puzzler's ass is canonically big. He broke the door. Very important fact.

After the blacklight turns off for the second time, Ranboo places a hand on Ethans sholder and says in his NPC Voice "That have must not been the way." whilst pointing at the correct door.

As the Puzzler and Rats leave the room for the final time, Ranboo is Staring directly at Ethan.

Whilst in the closet (HA) Ranboo spelt out SOS in morse code with one hand, before stopping himself with the other (Credit: lego giraf on tiktok) (it's a little unclear, but the hand cover definitely looks intentional EDIT: Ranboo confirmed this on stream-)

Ranboo and Sneeg didn't even register that Ethan died, just said "I guess it's not that way!"

the only person who died to a bomb, despite the majority of the cast having bombs around their neck, was The Puzzler.

Episode 3: The Choice

Hetch "not being able" to shut off the cameras :D

Wire Monster is 7ft tall (Source: Ranboo on Stream)

One of the employee's had a dollar sign drink??? stylin

Showfall is only guesstimating what "busy work" looks like. it's an "approximation" of what an office would be like.

the backgammon case feels. important.

2+2=5 (1984 reference my beloved)

Ranboo found an army man right before the usb

Newspeak (1984 reference my-)

There's a third whiteboard, with the Day Three plans on it (Source: Ranboo on Stream) let me see it Ranboo let me see it

Hetch states "they've upped security since last time" (credit: razberrypuck on Tumblr)

you can see the box + screens already set up in the main control room

The D&D streamer (who was actually a set decorator who suggested this) talks about using "Dominate Person", a spell used for controlling a person's actions (Source: Ranboo on Stream)

Charlie was actually streaming, and for a while. I believe the beginning of the stream lines up with Ranboo's first sighting of the Wire guy.

loads of streaming buzzwords and requests for money, plus the "drama" that was only half addressed and barely any accountability actually taken. We love the meta stuff ya know

When we see Wire Guy again, that's Sneeg dead on the ground. look his hat's there too!

There's a bucket of blood labelled Slime.

Charlie didn't take the axe, and they later were stopped by a boarded up door (credit: Stacehq on tiktok) (this also feels like a call-back to the whole bolt cutter thing in Ep1, even more so cause there's some on the wall)

Charlie only grabs the bulletproof vest after Ranboo grabs a knife

Hetch asking Ranboo to "tell them The Hetch did this" has a double meaning (Source: Ranboo on Stream)

After taking to Hetch and getting the map, Ranboo switches to be more cold and silent. could be simply because they're motivated by the end to it all being so close, but I feel other things are at play.

Whilst it was cut from the livestreamed version, in the original cinematic Hetch is gone when you glimpse the room through the door after Ranboo and Charlie exit. this may return in the founders cut, we'll see.

earlier on, an employee had been shown very dead and with a lot of blood, yet later, when Ranboo stabs an employee, it's wires.

Charlie's voice gains a robotic quality when yelling "Ranboo the Button"

A bunch a employees appeared from nowhere, including places that had previously been shown empty seconds before. (I think this was intentional)

The Button had the gen loss four on it (Source: Ranboo on Stream)

Ranboo didn't follow the exit sign at the end, which meant he instead went to the "exit" (Source: Ranboo on Stream, apparently their favorite detail)

Truman show bow, but this time we see what lies beyond (IT'S NOT GOOD)

Ranboo's mask turning on after the bow, are the lights really an indicator of it being on or off?

Ranboo's mask was broken due to the struggle.

Ranboo's mask flickering in the final scene was actually showfall returning his memories.

Ranboo didn't know the audience wanted him free, or attempt the 50/50 to break the system, only to change their mind when they found out what living truly meant. he just knew they voted for him to die.

Ranboo is still moving for a few seconds after the box closes.

MISC

The Gen 1 Spotify playlist made predominantly in February includes such bangers as "You Spin Me Right Round" (Carousel Ref), "A Mask of My Own Face" (the mask + the question of are you, you), "Biggering" (hell yeah, Corporation music!), "Puppet Boy" (Showfall puppeting the cast) …and "Crucified".

Crucified (or at least, the version sung by Ghost) also appears in the playlist that is presumably for 2, so. do what you will with that information.

The Showfall logo also has the Gen Loss 4 (GL) in it (Ranboo stream)

On the BTS twitter we see a close up of a prop office corkboard which includes: - A backwards C red and green colourblind test (asking if you're seeing what you're supposed to see) which also has a image of a brain with the occipital lobe highlighted - Frank's very blacked out Taken File with [Deceased] stamped on it - A quote of the day which is "We can see only a short distance ahead, be we can see there is plenty there that needs to be done." - A couple unfilled time off request forms - Some Office Regulations (there's a lot to unpack there, I'll do it on a different post) which covers up Office Microwave Etiquette (presumably number 1 is "don't turn on the microwave when there is a hole in the back") - A note that says "the colour of the week is RED" (assumably the correct code colour) - and two handwritten notes. Difficult to read, but I'll try my best and update when I do.

This world, (according to the time off request form on the set corkboard), is set in 2024. Yet the unknown figure we see at the end purposely is using VHS Tapes, and a Box Tv. I'm guessing they were recording the show, rather than playing.

Also for funsies this person is now fanonically me, Zero. I'm recording the show, for EVIDENCE. (unless it's the founder. if so then I am in a different room, also recording the show, but for evidence.)

oh there are so many more tapes-

[lilithfairen]

Shit RWDE Says: "Up Yours, Queerphobes" Edition

I've been tempted to do "Shit RWDE Says" posts for a while, but collating such posts seemed like such a expense of time. Until now, where RWDE is giving us the perfect opportunity to see just how deeply they despise a queer relationship for existing in fiction and how much they hate and blame queer people for a cartoon and the romance between two women.

So let us begin the MKRY~

"We kept downplaying the growing relationship between Blake and Yang, while treating every interaction between Blake and Sun as absolute proof of romance, but you're the ones eating scraps."

"How can we insinuate that sapphic women are horrible people for loving each other? Let's pretend they don't care about anyone else just because they care about each other!"

"The worst wlw ships are the canon ones, because what if they actually express love and affection for each other instead of a man?"

"Let's not forget the real victim here: A MAN."

"I am so pissed off over the existence of a sapphic relationship that my brain completely shuts out 99% of the show in order to pretend that the plot is being ignored."

"Those stupid queer folks and their stupid ships, not caring about good storytelling like us folks."

"All fictional worlds must have queer folks angst about being queer. Also it's your fault that tender embraces each other or flat-out tackle-hugging and cuddling or blushing at each other are all things homophobes don't register as 'romantic' when it's between two women."

"I see no problem with comparing a sapphic relationship to this."

"I am so offended by the idea of a sapphic relationship that I fail to listen to a character openly, plainly, and bluntly explaining the circumstances."

"I am the same person who still cannot register something a character openly, plainly, and bluntly explained because I am just that pissed off at two women kissing."

"I cannot stand the idea that the creator of the series planned to include a queer relationship in their story. Who in their right mind would make anything except for what I approve of?"

"I live in a world where saying a creator will do something they obviously never will means that they're going to do that exact thing. Also I am an idiot."

"This relationship is poorly written because Yang doesn't carry a grudge about something Blake already addressed all the way back in V6. Also, as an Adam Taurus stan, I believe Blake should be guilt-tripped and shamed by her love interest." (Really, this comes from an Adam stan. Are you surprised?)

"God, a woman being attracted to another woman? what the fuck."

"I cannot wrap my head around women having romantic feelings."

"Blake rightfully belongs to Sun and the only reason he doesn't get her is the worst part of the fandom, i.e. queer folks!"

"If I ignore Blake and Yang having the hots for each other since V7, then it doesn't count at all! I only register heterosexuality!"

"In reality, I was constantly being brought new courses from the waiters, but ignoring it because I had arbitrarily decided that only one specific course constituted as dinner at this one specific restaurant (but none of the other restaurants I enjoy, mind you)."

"I, who have been whining about Bumbleby and bee fans and how Sun has totally been wronged all day long, am now registering people expressing their glee and delight over the episode in the same fashion that I register all of Blake and Yang's interactions. Which is to say, desperate denial."

"Let us repeat: The real victims here are men at the hands of those awful writers and queer folks oppressing us Blacksun shippers!"

"We who demanded that a woman belong to a man who repeatedly offended her and refused to respect her wishes are now declaring other people to be disrespectful and entitled!"

"No matter how much I claim otherwise, I hate how two women confessed their love to each other and would skip over it in subsequent rewatches to pretend it never happened."

"How dare a woman not give a man who stabbed her in the stomach, cut off her friend's arm, and gaslighted her the trust and respect he's entitled to!"

"I totally don't hate sapphic relationships, but Blake and Yang's relationship clearly received undue focus in V9! Which is to say, any whatsoever."

"I am a blithering queerphobic asshat who genuinely believes no one would ever write a sapphic relationship unless it was purely out of desperation. (And thank goodness the person I sent this ask to doesn't give a shit about that!)"

"People become worse people when they aren't heterosexual!"

"Poor writing is when I cannot register anything characters do other than their queer relationship because I'm so pissed off at them being queer!"

"Me, a person with Real Taste, have ignored literally every element of two characters and their relationship except for their colours."

"Queer people aren't queer unless they loudly and explicitly state that they are queer at the earliest possible time! And no, it doesn't count if they openly express their attraction to each other!"

"THERE IS NO TEXT BIG, BOLD, OR UPPERCASE ENOUGH TO HIGHLIGHT MY DISPLEASURE THAT CREATORS OF A SHOW ARE ALLOWED TO MAKE CONTENT I DISAPPROVE OF AND THEN LET PEOPLE SHOW THEIR LOVE OF SAID CONTENT THROUGH A T-SHIRT OF LESBIANS RIDING A BEE. BECAUSE CLEARLY THE ONLY REASON ANY CREATOR WOULD WRITE A SAPPHIC RELATIONSHIP IS TO SELL T-SHIRTS."

[rolandrockover]

Sandy, Tomorrow Shandi

Shandi is always a challenge with the Kiss fans. There are quite a few of them who obviously like this song and don't make a big secret of it. These are usually the Australians, who are all into Unmasked (1980) anyway, because that album has already passed into their heritage.

Then there are those who sell their secret love of it to the outside (fan-) world as a so-called guilty pleasure. When I read something like that, I always ask myself why, if you like something, should you feel any guilt about it? After all, it's just a nice and harmless song that you can listen to on a sunny day and doesn't hurt anyone, and not a latent pyromaniac disposition or a similar nasty habit. But this question is of course just pure automatism, and basically doesn't need to be answered at all, because the answer is basically obvious.

To be more precise, obvious like a gang of thugs surrounding us all, playing with clubs in their hands, keeping a wary eye on us to make sure we only give the right answer, otherwise we'll get into trouble with them, because they can't stand soft pop crap like Unmasked, especially not schmaltzy stuff like Shandi (1).

But you don't really have to be afraid of them, because those fellas are mostly just hardcore fans from the very beginning. If you throw them a hot pizza topped with double cheese, they'll leave you alone and pounce on it. And they're not the fastest either, if you know what I mean. But to each his own, I don't begrudge anyone their favorite gang gestures.

Anyway, to slowly turn the corner back to Shandi I think most of you might know the rip-off stories about Joe Walsh's Tomorrow from 1978 and Bruce Springsteen's Sandy (4th of July Asbury Park) from 1973. In this case I've chosen its cover version by The Hollies from 1975 for my illustration because I think it shows the similarity a little better. And if you shouldn't know it, don't be shy, because nobody has to feel guilty here, just check out the links and have a listen. Everything else should fall into place in no time at all.

For my part, I am firmly convinced that after Kiss' appearance at the Daisy in '73, nothing good came out of them anymore, and that everything went downhill from there anyway (2).

I mean, after all, everyone has to draw a line somewhere.

Side Note:

(1) For some unknown reason they leave the Aussies alone and tolerate their contrarianism.

(2) Of course I love Shandi, always have, and still do. Unmasked is on high rotation for me in the summer. Well, probably every other summer, but still.

Shandi (1980)

Tomorrow (1978)

Sandy (4th of July Asbury Park) (1975)

[twilightguardian]

New review from Lilith Fairen where I really begin to wonder if she has reading comprehension so poor that I should feel guilty for being harsh to someone with a mental disability. The lack of fundamental comprehension is that bad.

Either that or she does this on purpose because like CanonSeeker, she thinks that "criticizing the critics" aka bullying, is a sane thing to do.

But of course Lilith doesn't comprehend the first thing about criticism because it has to come from some sort of intellectual place. But she doesn't do that. She's just hating because she hates Celtic Phoenix/Raymond, and not for anything that he's done, but because he's a fan of a show she dislikes: Madoka Magica. She is peak petty and childish.

Where as most so-called "capital C Critics" and "RWDE" are genuine fans of RWBY and look at it through this lens of being a fan, Lilith is not a fan of FRWBY. She doesn't understand the point of it, doesn't comprehend it. It's rather sad considering she's a writer and should know how writing works, and that it can involve editing. Someone who is more artistically inclined takes their criticism to an artistic level, but she doesn't understand this.

Anyway, by now it's clear that I'm not really responding to Lilith or any of her pathetic ilk because they're going to keep doing this no matter what. My goal isn't to communicate with those who have gouged out their ears in order to keep hating. My goal is to make sure anyone who talks about Fixing RWBY and becomes curious about it will see how Lilith and people like her twist things around to lie about a fan project done out of passion, telling people its done out of spite because people like her cannot stand it when people are more successful and popular than her. Especially if it's a man, doubly so a Madoka Magica fan.

You have an illness. You are mentally obligated to make yourself unhappy. Dislike FRWBY all you want, but no one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to watch a fan video. Having gone through all the saved logs of your previous tumblr, I know for a fact that you have a visceral need to be unhappy. You can't help yourself. Seek therapy or at the very least unplug your internet. Go outside, breathe some fresh air. The internet has obviously not been good for you.

Mistral is canonically meant to be based on Asia. How dare the worldbuilding actually reflect that. No, it should be more Western or else you're fetishizing. Because erasing other cultures from existence for no reason is totally a logical route to take, right? Absolutely bonkers insane fucking logic. This woman is stupid or racist. Pick your poison.

Also keep in mind the only fandom Lilith regularly partakes in is still a Japanese anime. It's fundamentally Asian. All the characters are Japanese and they likely partake in Japanese culture. You write stories based on these characters I guess you're automatically "fetishizing" Asian culture. That is Lilith's twisted ass logic.

Lilith wouldn't know what a good reason was if it slapped her in the face and stole all of her possessions.

Plot isn't the only important thing to the story, and as a writer I'd HOPE that Lilith knows this, but unfortunately it seems not. That doesn't bode well for her story, which I've been struggling to get past the first twenty or so paragraphs.

Essentially what she's complaining about is the fact that characters take some time to actually be people. We get time for the characters to breathe, but more importantly for character relationships and dynamics to be established, enforced, reinforced and enhanced. But no, it's not plot, so it's not important. No wonder she likes the canon show, which neglects this. If she does this with Glints Saga as well, I can't see many people actually caring about the characters or the romance she's so interested in writing for in the first story. Then again, I'm sure she's perfectly fine with it if it's in something like Precure. Though she only seems to like a la mode.

Look at how the logic here doesn't follow. The girls are aided a little bit by their companions which means they aren't protagonists.

Apparently according to Lilith a protagonist is someone who doesn't get assistance from anyone ever, who doesn't interact with anyone. Effectively what Lilith wants is a mary sue protagonist, which canon RWBY never was nor will Fixing RWBY Team RWBY ever be. Plus the girls in canon get help from other characters all the time, and rarely do anything for themselves unless Jaune brings up an idea first and if they do it's after sitting around a whole lot and the only thing they manage to accomplish is getting a lot of things destroyed and people killed.

Raymond also hates the female protagonists so much that he makes them more active characters in their own story than canon. Because he hates them. Makes perfect sense.

Lilith once again showing she knows nothing about anything. Changing the location of a scene from a train station to a festival and expanding upon it isn't padding. Unless Lilith is actually a critic after all. She's using Fixing RWBY as a way to critique the canon show but hide it behind the guise of hating on a "critic" so she doesn't lose her friend group. Because heck knows she doesn't have friends anywhere else from the look of it.

She doesn't understand what padding is in a story. Padding is useless fluff that adds nothing to a story. If there are important character dynamics going on, and worldbuilding being shown through the setting, it's not padding. Simple as.

Raymond's writing of Madoka fanfiction has nothing to do with this. Lilith is trying to label Raymond a pedophile, I suppose, which is incredibly cunty behaviour. Salem is canonically 16 during the setting of The Lost Fables and yet her design makes her look like she'd fit in with the cast of Grease. Making a 16 year old actually LOOK like a 16 year old isn't gross, Lilith. Grow the fuck up, I implore you.

This is what happens when you only scroll through the video. Neo, Ruby, Yang, Weiss, Roman and Qrow are all framing devices. Neo just happened to be the first one, followed by Yang. But she wouldn't know that because she doesn't pay attention. Her goal, despite calling Fixing RWBY a "spitefic" is to act spiteful and to lie and be a massive bitch in service of defending a show that she barely cares about and likely wouldn't if it hadn't been for hearing through the grapevine that RWBY had a massive "hatedom".

Also really telling how obsessed Lilith is with the idea of subservience. I'd think she's projecting quite a bit. Just like how obsessed she is with complaining about Fixing's Shiloh or Roman. Raymond lives in her head rent free.

Ahh. So she does know that Neo isn't the only framing device used. Love that she implied that but then had to admit that's not true. It didn't even take her a full paragraph to admit she lied.

You can dislike the framing device all you want, but it's more engaging than what canon did. It also wasn't pointless, and her saying that it was doesn't make it true. The point of it was to show that these are stories that the girls know, possibly modified over the millennia, to show that these stories are all interconnected. These are fairy tales of Remnant, but also those fairy tales weren't the whole truth. Lilith can't comprehend anything unless it's directly spelled out to her, and she admits it by calling it confusing. If it requires her to rev up a braincell, it's too confusing. Just sit back and consume product, that's how you watch RWBY, this is bad because it makes you think!

She doesn't want to summarize the rest of it because it's actually good and that ruins her narrative lol

Yes, I repeat, a child didn't look like a child. It's like those really cheap 80's movies where a 14 year old is played by a 38 year old. Yes, I totally believe you're a high school student, sir.

It's apparently wrong to want Salem to look as old as Ruby was during volume 1. Because she looks like she's 30. She looks no different than she is now when you take off the special effects. She looked no different in age than when she had children, which is unfortunate.

lmao she's mad

Like what does she want? This isn't an AU or a full rewrite. It's a reconstruction project with the goal in mind to show how RWBY could be a lot better with a couple of little tweaks and changes. Like I said earlier, what Raymond is doing is essentially developmental editing. He's not the author so he's not going to do any major changes to the story. Ozpin still has a host at the end of the day. Vernal was still a little servant of Raven and died. These preserve the overall plot beats of the stories while being different, but there's nothing that fundamentally changes by design. That's on purpose.

There's a difference between hating or being frustrated with aspects of a show and hating the entire thing. Raymond falls into the former camp. He likes RWBY. Doesn't mean he can't have problems with it. That's too much for some people's little pea brains to understand and that's very unfortunate. It creates unnecessary division and toxicity in the fandom than there should or really needs to be.

Some people have this revulsion to others actually wanting to engage with their fandoms in ways those people don't like and have this sense of entitlement to the fandom and what goes on in them. It's a disturbing trend, especially with those that have a problem with discourse and critique. Some think that any kind of fandom engagement that isn't wholly, unquestioningly positive is automatically hate and that's disturbing.

It's really not. Raymond has only watched the first episode and he disliked it, though couldn't put his finger on why. This has nothing to do with that spinoff, and I have no idea why Lilith would think that. The episode was recontextualizing a bunch of fairy tales in Remnant's world that everyone would have known.

Raymond has said a few times that he doesn't want to touch Fairy Tales of Remnant because he has no interest in it at all, so there would be no sense for him to do it in episodes 6&7 of all things.

It's commendable that Lilith is trying very hard to use that dusty old thing in her head, but she's still got a ways to go. Her logic doesn't follow, the speculation that she has doesn't come from anywhere and has no follow through.

She loves repeating herself, doesn't she? Girl, this isn't twitter. Saying things over and over and over doesn't make it more true.

Just because you can't comprehend why something was done doesn't necessarily make it bad lol

Also can't say that I've really come across anyone except for Lilith who says it's disorienting, which leads me to the conclusion that until further evidence of someone who isn't an "anti-Critic" says the framing device was confusing, that it's said deliberately to have something to complain about, because otherwise, there would be nothing to complain about. She's already struggling so much with this review because she knows it wasn't that bad so she has to look for things. I am so happy that Lilith is so boringly predictable that I said hours before her 'review' came out that she was going to focus on Neo being the first in line for the framing of the story.

What's telling about it, Lilith? The point of words is to actually have meaning behind what is being said.

She says the emphasis isn't on Team RWBY, but they take up the majority of the transitions.

Neo to Young Yang, Adult Yang to Young Blake to Adult Blake, Young Weiss to Adult Weiss, Young Ruby to Adult Ruby to Teen Qrow to Adult Qrow then finally to Young Roman. So she's not even correct that Qrow ends the section. Neo and Roman bookend the segment, but the meat of the segment is taken up by Team RWBY+Q.

Now, could he have started with a member of Team RWBY? Sure, definitely. But if you look at the bolded names you'll notice a pattern.

1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6

The bookends get the first and last, but the middle portions get double focus. It balances out.

Only Ruby's weapon is damaged, but it's presumed to still be able to fight in gun form. She just cannot transform it into a scythe. He said nothing about Blake's weapon, Yang's weapon, Weiss' weapon or any other weapon. Not only are none of the other characters are impacted due to their weapons. Yang and Neo are injured. Blake, Weiss and even Ruby are still readying to fight.

Also really ironic she's so bent out of shape that she thinks FRWBY doesn't have the main characters do anything when canon doesn't allow them to do much, either. Why aren't you complaining about that, Lil? Could it be that she doesn't actually care? She just has such a hateboner for Raymond because he likes Madoka.

Raymond has never insisted that everything about RWBY is 'horrible and terrible'. It's heavily flawed, and frustratingly so. Raymond has consistently been the more positive person of his reaction friend group over the years, often saying he likes many things of the show. But Lilith doesn't know this because unlike me, who tried to understand Lilith before speaking about her, she's only seen his skits and videos specifically for Fixing RWBY. She knows nothing about him, and thinks nothing of trying to pin every terrible thing she can think of onto him, from pedophile to racist.

Lilith doesn't understand the concept of deep editing. Not anything beyond the basics of spelling, grammar and maybe attempting to change a few minor points around. Comparing the beginning to her older draft of Glints Saga: Papillon to her newer version, she doesn't do much significant to change it.

Don't get me wrong, it's BETTER than the older version, but that's not saying much. Lilith is too precious with her story to do something like what Raymond is doing: a developmental edit, a large edit that might change a lot of things but make the overall story better.

And Matrixdragon decided to chime in as well.

Yang is trying to stave off hypothermia with Neo. She can probably move, but it wouldn't be the best thing for her. But like I said above, Yang's weapons are not damaged.

I think this is actually a fair criticism, and one I've seen a little bit with other people. To each their own, really. It's not like RWBY didn't try and do the same thing with Volume 1 and the whole background NPCs, keeping the events isolated to a small group of important characters. What Raymond is doing here is cutting out background characters that don't need to be there and can be filled with other ones, ones that can lead to better character dynamics and interactions than if they were strangers. Some people are going to like that, and some people won't, and that's fine. It's certainly not unique to FRWBY and no one else complains when coincidences for story happen in any other franchise, though. So it's a little eyerolling when it's suddenly a problem because a fan did it for a fixit fic.

Do old ladies have a stereotype of being curious? Maria didn't wander into the middle of a battle zone during her first introduction in canon, either, so what's your point? The whole train was being attacked so it wouldn't matter where she'd go she'd still be in the middle of a battle zone. We know from context that she's a former huntress but it makes no sense otherwise why she'd wander in other than to have a contrivance that she's there, which makes the contrivance more noticeable. We don't even learn that she can still fight until late into the Atlas arc.

At least with Fixing RWBY's new introduction of Maria, she is shown off the bat to be a capable fighter and we know right away that she likely came to the area to help fight. That makes the contrivance more understandable as a reason why she'd be there. She's a character that got a lot of focus in canon even if she just walked past the camera because she has a highly unique character design, so it's not a secret she's going to be important, and some people even rightly pointed out she was likely a silver-eyed warrior due to how they framed the opening to the anime.

The characters don't trust Roman. Blake certainly doesn't. But they acknowledge he's in this with them for better or worse and now they're all stranded together, so there wouldn't be any point in lying to everyone.

Yang is not someone I would call 'mature' in canon. Being an angry little sourpuss when things don't go her way or someone challenges them is not what anyone would consider mature.

It's also not that Yang is unwilling to give Blake a chance, either. She hasn't completely forgiven Blake for what she'd done, and Yang is under no obligations to forgive her, either. Forgiving someone has nothing to do with maturity, and the fact that this seems to imply you think so is unsettling. It means that someone cannot have feelings about something traumatic that happened, and the more 'adult' thing to do would be to just get over it. Things like this don't resolve overnight. They take time, and before Yang and Blake can become a proper couple, they need to properly work things out, not sidestep the issue and pretend like nothing's wrong until there might be, then step on eggshells around each other, wondering if the other is mad at them for no reason.

I don't think Adam gave a shit about being detected. It's not like he was trying to ninja his way through the train car. It also wasn't just Cardin he had to deal with, but Qrow and Russel at the same time. I honestly don't remember whether Cardin was a competent fighter in canon, but we know he was at least tactical and not an idiot. So 'the likes of Cardin' only means someone thinks he's an incompetent fighter because he's a bully. But Cardin in Fixing isn't like Cardin in canon. He was more competent in the scenes where he fought and he likely became stronger during aftermath of Beacon.

The only ones being spiteful around here are you two. It's seriously pathetic.