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the-blind-geisha · 2 years

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21 Fanfiction Author Questions

Saw this floating about and decided to give it a go!

♡ How many works do you have on ao3?

26, but all about the fanfiction space, I have more than that.

♡ What’s your total word count?

1,110,855 for some unholy reason. XD;

♡ How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Well, I've written for more than just what's on AO3, so I'll list them.

Ronin Warriors YuYu Hakusho Yu-Gi-Oh Sonic the Hedgehog (yes lol) Assassin's Creed (better known for Syndicate though) Final Fantasy XV Final Fantasy VII Overlord (Anime) Original Teratophilia/Exophilia content

♡ What are your top five fics by kudos?

The Devil's Contract - 854 The Demon King of the Desert - 775 A Love Most Profound - 767 As You Wish, My Lady - 338 The Tome of Ashurbanipal - 319

♡ Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, mainly because I want people to know I appreciate them taking a second out of their day to support me and tell me what they enjoyed, are looking forward to, ect about the story they read or are reading. I sometimes have to use a translator, and I love that. I love knowing people from all over are still reading my stuff.

♡ What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I deleted it but it was called The Dove Effect. It was set in Victorian London where the reader fell ill to Tuberculosis / Consumption Disease. Her partner had to watch as she suffered in a hospital, leaving him with little he could do to save her. Risking it, he kissed her and still kept her close only to get sick in return and die before her. She suffered of heartbreak, finally dying sometime after, not of the disease, but of her broken heart; thus the story's name, as doves usually die without their soulmate.

♡ What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Any and all of them, depending on how you wanna look at it. XD;

But seriously, I do try to give a lot of my fics happy endings.

♡ Do you write crossovers? If yes, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever written.

I used to, mainly because of how my character, Oreana, works. Sadly, a majority of those aren't for viewing pleasure, as they are very cringy. Too cringy for me to let them be seen.

There was a very old crossover I wrote years ago in my late teens that I tore down. I forgot what it was called, but a lot of the anime and video game protagonists I had come to love were brought to life by scientific means in the current day. A catastrophic event occurred, causing all of them and a few humans who lived through it, to be located underground in an endless maze of rooms and the like. I think Kenshin and Vash were the 'leaders' of the many.

♡ Have you ever received hate on a fic?

HAH...yes...yes, I have. The recent ones were from a previous stalker, but there was one in particular that was interesting to me. It was someone who left a crummy comment on Contract, so I reported it as spam as the admins suggest you do with anon hate. A few weeks later, they reviewed Tome chapter 1 and apologized. I did appreciate it, as it's very rare anons will do that.

There was a time way back in my FF.net days where I had someone constantly harassing me through my YYH fanfics to where I had to tell people to not respond to them. I even had to shut off anons to where the person made an account just to DM me 2—yes—2 different DMs to tell me in lengthy detail how much I suck and why. I knew what it was, didn't read it and let it sit there for about a month before bothering. When I did, the tl;dr of it was to say they and their friend wanted to be my friend but hated how I acted at times and how disturbing my content was on another site. Lol They made an account, my dears, just for that... lol. And not another peep was had afterwards.

♡ Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I think that's all I'm known for, requested, commissioned to do, so yes. X”D

What kind? Errr...I mean, I prefer there to be plot with my crazy fuckin', but I don't mind pure on kinky goodness without reason. Just rare I write that unless requested.

♡ Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yup. The Worthless Humans. It was stolen word for word and posted on Fanfiction.net sometime after they BANNED NSFW fics...so...yeah. I think you can easily read through my AdultFanfiction.net (at the time—it's now .org) reviews and one of my reviewers is like 'hey, just curious if you posted this on FF.net...? because it's on there...' Here it is. Found it:

I had to confront the person who was claiming their friend wrote the story and told them to post it. Enough complaints were filed anyways, and it was torn down because it violated the major TOS of no NSFW stories.

What's funny is...about a year later (I think) that Yoko person apologized for the misunderstanding. She explained that a person who was her friend at the time claimed to be the writer and gave her the go ahead to post it on FF.net. The sad part is... I think I know the person Yoko was mentioning, as that person tried to be my friend too and would send me stolen artwork from YYH artists I followed claiming to be the artist and that it was a gift to me. lol

♡ Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I've had many people asking if they can! (1) (2) to show a few.

For future reference: I really don't mind if people do translate my works. I just ask to be known as the author, linked back to and notified. Not just for the obvious, but so I can link the translated work in case other people read mainly in that language.

♡ Have you ever co-written a fic?

Oh goodness, decades ago it feels. Both with ex-girlfriends. LOL Those fics are gone now, of course.

♡ What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Oreana with any of my hyper fixations...? lol

I mean, right now it's: Oreana/Demiurge Demiurge/Jaldabaoth Demiurge/Reader of some variant Demiurge/ Albedo/ Fem!Reader Demiurge/ Jaldabaoth/ Reader (could be M/F) Link/Midna Link/Zelda Zelda/Midna Ignis/Noctis

♡ What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

The Bride of the Four Horsemen. Very sorry, loves. ;~; I've tried and failed... lol

♡ What are your writing strengths?

Pft, heck if I know. Does anybody know my strengths? I will say one of my lovelies from France told me that, whether people commission me or request a story from me, I always seem to write something that hits their emotions just right—that something I wrote resonates with them, making the piece all the more personal. So maybe that?

♡ What are your writing weaknesses?

Not knowing when to let the reader breathe... Attaching too many sentences together. I am getting better at that. I swear. Lol

♡ What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic?

I refuse to do it now unless I have the source nearby. I just don't trust google translator.

♡ What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Ronin Warriors. Those fics are gone to the abyss, so I doubt you'll ever read them. They're protected on my PC only.

♡ What was the first fic you've written? (Extra question)

Actually...if you're talking about any fanfic, that would be a mega old Mighty Ducks Animated Series one I wrote offline when I was in 5th grade. Sadly, don't remember the year. Somewhere in the 90s maybe??

♡ What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written?

So far, The Demon King of the Desert. It's been a nice escape from some stuff, and it has helped me—in its own way—to show that you need to let go and enjoy the small, happy moments, for they are fleeting.

#looked fun #writer woes #fanfiction #monster lover #anime #fandoms #writer questions #mod talks

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floripire · 8 months

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tessa presents: floribeth's absolute biggest regrets* as asked by the incomparable @thatslayer

*most of this is already information that's out there but it can get dark so i am sticking it underneath a cut too just in case

floribeth's regrets mainly center around her parents, triad, sue, doug and derek. but they also come from the choices she made. because the consequences became these huge things that just snowballed and now she has to carry that for the rest of her undead life because she can't take any of it back.

it's not so much that she took a shortcut to get to sue's party, because everyone sneaks through the maple hollows cemetery, but if she had just left derek machado to his sadness instead of trying to engage with him (even if her intentions were good), he wouldn't have snapped and wouldn't have turned her in the heat of the moment and, afterwards, he wouldn't want her dead to get to hope mikaelson.

and if derek hadn't turned her, sue wouldn't have died at her party and if sue wouldn't have died, then doug, joe and tammi wouldn't have a reason to become hunters in the first place and they wouldn't have worked together with derek, veronica and burr. they wouldn't have lured her (and jed and his sisters) back to maple hollows after graduation.

then there is hacking into triad industries' database. if she didn't go trawling through their servers in a desperate attempt to prove that they were shady - and to prove to herself that she could get in and out undetected - veronica greasley wouldn't have send burr and a hit squad to the dalisay residence and her parents would still be alive.

and if the servers are secure and her parents would still be alive, triad never would have had a reason for taking her to the detention facility. and if she hadn't been taken to the detention facility, guard caleb smallwood would still be alive, too.

sometimes, flori regrets her vampirism. now don't get her wrong, the lows were hellish but the highs brought her the people she always needed in her life: her best friends. the love of her life. it has brought her new knowledge and new experiences. it's very bella swan-esque of her, she knows, but vampirism enhanced her life. vampirism made it better and she likes to think this is always where she would have ended up, regardless.

the thing that she regrets about it, however, is the fact that she's going to lose everyone she loves; it's not something she can prepare for, the way you can prepare for a pop quiz and she hates that.

because she doesn't know what that grief is gonna look like for her. is she going to deal with it in a healthy way? is she gonna go off the rails? the not knowing kills her. the unknown is terrifying to her. and she knows she's going to end up regretting certain choices and behaviors down the line.

sure, she's gonna have hope around which she's thankful for. she's gonna have the saltzman twins around (depending on whether one subscribes to them becoming heretics at some point to sidestep the merge, which i do) and she's gonna have kaleb and mg and cleo, too.

but it's hard not to look at the witches and werewolves, fae and humans in her life and not see their future headstones sometimes. it's why she's obsessed with making memories and preserving them.

so tl;dr: flori's absolute biggest regrets are (and will forever be):

causing her parents deaths

causing sue's death (and causing doug, joe and tammi to become hunters in response to sue's death)

causing caleb smallwood's death

the losses she will face down the road and the way she'll respond to said losses; it's kind of like having "pre regret" regrets

#long post /#thatslayer #floribeth dalisay / headcanons; metas and world building.#death mention /#death of a loved one /#//idk if this makes sense but yeah #//this is it xD

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sladewilsonisanantihero · 3 years

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The Original Intent of Terra and how Deathstroke got the bad end of the stick for it

Okay, Deathstroke Children (Idk what to call you guys because fellow Deathstrokers would end this conversation immediately), I found the time to do this, so let's get to it!

(Note: My original laptop broke with my comics, so I have no images to spare, so it will be sourced. Another note: Many words will be in bold. Partly so that for those reading will not lose track.)

But if tl;dr:

Cold Hard Truth: Everyone from Terra fans to Deathstroke fans needs to stop seeing these characters as real people.

Original Terra wasn't human trafficked or whatever sob story people want to label her with. The CREATORS intended her to be written as Evil without the mental illness and to die for the shock value. They had Raven, The Literal Empath, spell this out in Judas Contract. As for Deathstroke's involvement, he was shoved into her creation story, and Marv Wolfman himself recognized his mistake in doing that.

And for those calling Deathstroke a nazi, Original Terra had nazi-like beliefs where common people should fear and serve them or be killed off just because they're 'special'. Again, BLUNTLY stated in the Judas Contract. So if you're going to call Deathstroke a Pedophile, we'll call OG Terra a Neo-Nazi. (But I highly advice for Deathstroke Fans to not start that kind of war, but I had to say what I had to say.)

Don't get me wrong. (Hopefully all) Deathstroke fans know that their relationship was wrong just like Marv Wolfman, and we do not support pedophiles! But Slade isn't a pedophile! He was never intended to be written as one! It was a mistake made on many levels and should be rewritten like OG Terra's Evil Neo-Nazi-like personality, instead of being thrown into cancel culture.

Also for Deathstroke fans, don't get upset over their content and begin any argument emotionally. Just enjoy whatever good content we can get and support it if you can. Hopefully we'll get our Deathstroke movies and so on!

So I've briefly chatted with one of you over the matter with Terra/Tara Markov and how upsetting it is about how people refer to Slade Wilson as a Pedophile. That is a serious accusation that would make it very uncomfortable to argue about since it can easily make it seem like we justify the actions of pedophiles, and that we are part of pedophile culture that does exist in social media space.

AND WE SHOULDN'T, AND FOR ANTIS READING THIS WE WON'T.

But there was a time when I used to have a blog called friendlyremindersofsladewilson, where I defended Slade and put the blame all on Terra. I was 14 at the time, and looking back at it, I am not proud of it because I realized now as an adult how I defended it for most of the wrong reasons, but still stand with the fact that SLADE IS NOT A PEDOPHILE.

And since this took place when I was so young, it compelled me to write this post because I fear some of you are really young, too, and may end up in this regretful position.

So to make it clear, what Slade had been written to do is a crime, and we should acknowledge it, but not in the way as if it was a crime acted out in real life.

What I mean by that is that there's a clear separation between fiction and reality where one isn't real (Duh!). In this case, it's about the mistakes made between fiction and reality. In reality, mistakes made by the person responsible is on the person. In fiction, mistakes made is dependent on the creator's intent, and sometimes the creators can make mistakes themselves.

Most notably Terra's:

Tara Markov/Terra was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.

In Marv Wolfman's literal website, he stated in his online "What the-?" column:

"Which leads to Terra. That was easy. George and I wanted a Titan who betrayed the others. we also wanted to play against every reader conception of who characters are. George and I knew her whole story before we began and we knew she would die. We set the story up with her trying to destroy the Statue of Liberty to show she was the bad girl, but we knew if George drew her as a cute kid everyone would simply assume she would be ‘turned’ from the dark side because that’s the way it was always done which is why that wouldn’t be the way we did it. Tara was insane an stayed that way right until the moment she died. By the way, she IS dead. I don’t know what other writers will do with her – if anything – but if they want to honor the original series they will leave her dead. The Terra from Team Titans was – as stated – some kid the villain kidnapped and physically and mentally altered her into looking and acting like the original. But she was NEVER the real Terra."

And it should also be noted that he stated before this statement that:

"...Only mistake I think I made with him is having him have a physical relationship with the 16 year old Tara Markov. That was wrong."

So Marv Wolfman himself recognizes that what he did was a mistake, but his intent on Terra was never to write a victim.

And quick note: Insanity isn't written as a mental illness here. It's written like how many villains are labeled as insane for having skewed beliefs that deviates from the common good.

Terra truly had some nazi-like beliefs where she BELIEVED that everyone who wasn't 'special' like her and the Teen Titans deserved to be treated like shit because they weren't 'special' like them. She bluntly said it herself in the Judas Contract.

As for George Perez's comment in an interview I found in this website:

"GEORGE: Tara was just a cute little girl, although I based a little bit of that on my wife Carol’s sister, Barbara. A little upturned nose… Barbara does not have the teeth that Tara had. I wanted Tara to be a girl who looked normal. Which also means her death caught everyone even more offguard.

Tara, she was made to be killed; she served her purpose. That was it.

ANDY: You didn ‘t get any attachment to Tara?

GEORGE: No, because I knew we were going to kill her. So I deliberately used all the things to make her as likeable and cute as possible, so people would never believe we were going to kill a sixteen-year-old. And she was a sixteen-year-old sociopath. She was one of our cleverest gimmicks; we deliberately created her in order to lead everyone astray. So we couldn’t build any fondness for her, ’cause we knew full well what her whole motive for existence was. Her existence was basically to keep the stories interesting; we were tossing a curve that no one would have expected.

ANDY: You didn ‘t even love to hate her, huh?

GEORGE: No. I loved handling her, because she was such a good idea. But she was an idea. Not as much a person. She was there to show exactly how much their humanity can be one thing they have to be careful about, the Teen Titans have to be careful about. . . they can be too trusting, or their own weaknesses can be used against them."

Terra was supposed to be a representation of An Evil Betrayal of Trust and That Not All Cute Girls Are Good.

But they took it too far by making her sleep with Deathstroke because they wanted to truly make her look evil by literally sleeping with the enemy. Y'know because this was the 80s, and women having sex was an evil act back then, and that point of view has somewhat or barely improved 40 years later.

Deathstroke was just shoved into this idea, and Marv tried and perhaps failed at trying to undo this mistake with his talk with Beastboy (Tales of the Teen Titans issue #55) and before his confrontation from Wintergreen (Deathstroke (1991); Chapter 35).

So just as I had stated at the top in the tl;dr, it was a mistake made on many levels and should have been rewritten out just as many had done with OG Terra's true personality, and be done with it.

Random person: "He still slept with a 16-year-old."

And it's not that hard to make other heroes and villains do this mistake. Because again, it's all fiction. Deathstroke's fictional. As in Not Real, so we could literally undo the damage by rewriting this mistake. Or make it worse by making Terra the rapist by her using her Earth powers to bind Slade down and force him, and you can't deny that it's plausible. Because she's fictional. Anything can happen. So why didn't Slade tell Beastboy whether he slept with her or not, maybe it was because he really didn't want to but he was forced into it. And that's just something you can't dump on a very emotional man who was trying to kill you a moment ago.

ALL THE POSSIBILITIES BECAUSE IT'S FICITIONAL!

But ANYWAY, I went way too dark there.

Ending on a brighter note: Personally to all Deathstroke fans, please value your mental health, please don't start any arguments that'll compromise it, and continue supporting Deathstroke in whatever way you can!

#Deathstroke #Slade Wilson

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gisellelx · 3 years

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Consider this ask a general prompt for any nerding you would like to do for us re: linguistic thoughts about various Cullens. Also: any particular headcanons of how they've influenced each other's speech in general? (I was going to say re: Edward emulating Carlisle but that might not be the most interesting example)

Okay commence much belated nerding out. Relevant post.

Under a cut because sorry, I went to town here. tl;dr--the Cullens sound different to each other, and their backgrounds and relationships have affected the way they sound over time. But they all can sound exactly how they need to any time they need to.

Here are two useful things we know about why people do or do not change the way they talk.

Communities of practice: this is a concept which comes from education but which has gotten adopted in several adjacent fields, including sociology and linguistics. Basically, the idea is, the way you talk will reflect the kinds of relationships you want to have with people around you, and how you want to draw lines separating your group from other groups. My easiest-to-understand example of this is that my friends from college athletic bands had some terms and inside practices which arose because of our shared experience of playing in those bands. We were in band twenty years ago, but if you're having drinks with a few other bandos and leave the bar, someone will go "ohhhhh see ya!" like the cheer we yell when someone gets put in the penalty box at a hockey game.

Convergence and accommodation: Speakers often try to sound like people they want to connect with in more than just practices and inside jokes. The more you want to connect with someone (combined with your personality), the more likely you are to adopt their style of speaking. This is in the short term, which is accommodation (you start to speak more slowly because the person you're speaking with speaks more slowly) or dialect convergence (over time your whole way of sounding starts to shift toward other people's.) Some evidence that extroverts do this faster, but it also depends on how desirable the connection is.

Convergence is probably more influential for the Cullens than CoP, although I imagine there are some CoP kinds of things that happen to vampires more broadly and the Cullens specifically. In particular, I suspect (and write) that the Cullens have lots of euphemisms for things: they talk about "mistakes" to avoid talking about murder, about "Royce" and "Charles" to avoid uttering the word rape, Edward's rebellion is called The Time or Edward's Sojourn (that's Carlisle).

The bigger question is, how would they sound and how would they naturally converge (or not!) based on their personalities and relationship.

So. You have the Cullens. Kind of a rough-and-tumble rundown of their varieties:

Carlisle: I headcanon Boston Brahmin . In the 1700s, the London accent was /r/-full, so Carlisle would've arrived to the US sounding more like a current-day American speaker than we associate now with British English (received pronunciation usually being the exported one). He would've hobknobbed with the educated elite on the eastern seaboard and picked up what they sounded like at the time. He loves being American--this is where he found his purpose and his family. So shifting toward that accent makes sense for him.

Esme: Lower middle class US midlands. The central Ohio accent is often perceived to be extremely neutral. It's not--there are some truly funky features--but people think it is, so there's not much reason to move away from it. She might have tried her hand at a transatlantic accent, but she slides back into her middle Ohioan often, because it's easy and it's not usually considered "bad" anywhere. She makes fun of the way Carlisle says rather. He teases her about how bag and egg are the same sound for her.

Edward: Northern Cities Shifted Chicago. If you've ever heard a Chicagoan pronounce the word Chicago, well, there you go. I realize this probably fucks with the gentle, sexy attempt-at-American accent delivered by Robert Pattinson. Edward was born too late to have transatlantic imposed on him, and so his accent was probably left to be.

Rosalie: Another reason they hate each other--they sound alike. Rosalie is on the other side of the Great Lakes, was born not that much later, and Rochester is another major source of Northern Cities Shift. So she and Edward sound...pretty much the same. They're both upper middle class/upper class and are picking up the prestige version of the NCVS.

Emmett: Appalachian. Pretty much enough said. The post I linked at the outset lays out a few things from Appalachian speech.

Jasper: East Texan. Texas is not general southern--there are a handful of features which make it notably different than say, Louisiana.

Alice: Upper class Mississippian. Now, this is somewhat indistinguishable to a northern American or non-American ear--maaaaybe you notice sort of "high class southern" but it's subtle. She's got a bunch of features of southern English, though, but the more prestigious versions of them. Not quite To Kill a Mockingbird--that's Alabama-- but that's not a bad place to start to hear it.

So that's where they're starting. Where do they end up?

Carlisle: sticks with Brahmin. The moment he arrived in the US means a lot to him, and so he defaults back to that first major change, when he adopted an American identity.

Edward: Probably goes without saying, but he sounds exactly like Carlisle. He shifted his default as soon as he was able, and his intense adoration of Carlisle means he converged on Carlisle's variety. He also picks up Carlisle's idiolect--particular phrases and verbal tics--again, because he wants to be like Carlisle in any way he can. "Oh my God will you quit; you're not Carlisle" is a phrase that gets uttered in annoyance often.

Esme: Keeps her central Ohio accent. She loves Carlisle more than anything, but there's nothing particularly stigmatized about her variety. So she keeps it. She's happy to be her own person.

Rosalie: Does not wish to be a part of this family and regrets her change. She certainly does not converge toward Carlisle's style, but the pressure of sounding anything like Edward, even if his dialect has shifted, is also grating. She brings her NCVS a little more toward Esme's Ohio variety over time.

Emmett: This man killed a bear* with his bare hands in the Smoky Mountains. He's real proud of being a mountain man and he sounds like one. He also has a healthy disdain for the upper-crustness of Carlisle and Rosalie and Edward and is determined to bring them back down to earth. Over time the most obvious parts of his dialect do fade--he doesn't use "a huntin'" very often, for instance. But he can shift into full on Appalachian on a dime and often does. It's fun for him.

Jasper: Stays East Texas. He's very proud of his cowboy identity, and is the least connected to the Cullen family as a community of practice. He can sound like whatever his paperwork says he does, but in default, he's still got the same Houston variety he's had for two centuries. I don't love darlin' darlin' Jasper in fic but I chalk that more up to writers learning how to have a light hand with dialect rather than it being something he fundamentally wouldn't say--he absolutely does say it. Also says bless your heart.

Alice: Biloxi is not that far from Houston, and she and Jasper, who are wound around each other, pick up each other's verbal mannerisms and reinforce subtle aspects of each other's gulf of Mexico accents. She both mellows Jasper's Texas English while also moving her own English toward his.

So in "default" mode, the Cullens sound a little different to each other. But there's no way a Twipire would somehow be unable to move perfectly and seamlessly between multiple English accents as they needed to. There's no reason to think that any of them showed up at Forks High School sounding like anything but exactly what their paperwork said their dialectal background ought to be.

*by the way this would've been a black bear, not a grizzly. I'm sure he loves grizzlies, but he wasn't fighting a grizzly in the Smokies. He probably got tangled up with a really mad mama bear. This is a pet peeve of mine, I admit.

#linguistics #twilight #accents #cullen family #carlisle cullen #esme cullen #edward cullen #rosalie hale #alice cullen #jasper hale #long post #giselle gets too srs bsns #tw: rape mention

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ginjointsintheworld · 3 years

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I think 4.04 is the one where Lauren speaks to Iggy about of Leyla is her new addiction or not. I hate that idea but I get why they’d go there, especially since there was such a visceral reaction to Lauren’s own visceral reaction to Leyla potentially leaving, so I’m hoping Iggy gives her good advice. He can be so hit or miss and lately he’s been missing a lot for me. What do you think about that idea, by the way? I don’t think Leyla is an addiction because people just can’t be that, not in the same way drugs are, at least. I think Lauren’s just feeling the rush from being in love for the first time and feeling everything deeply, which is just her personality.

SO TRUE ABOUT IGGY BEING HIT OR MISS AND MISSING LATELY. i wasn't a fan of him trying to lowkey force his way of grieving onto wandy in the last episode because she was right about not being able to feel crushing grief every time a patient has a set back. but it was a learning moment for him so, ya know, hopefully he's back on track for when lauren comes for advice.

i find that people who call leyla lauren's new addiction say it out of an excuse for not liking the ship and have a passing, surface understanding of their story & characters. like you said leyla is a whole ass person with thoughts and feelings and reactions. can a person be emotionally dependent on or unhealthily co-dependent with another person? yeah. but what have we seen in their relationship so far that indicates that? from their meeting to their friendship to their relationship, they've been pretty comfortable doing their own things. whether it was lauren giving leyla a space to move as she pleases to living together with separate jobs. even now, lauren doesn't feel the need to constantly hover over leyla who's literally in arm's reach. she occasionally annoys casey for updates (which i think leyla would put a stop to real quick if she thought he was really being a spy given her 'are you spying on me' reaction) but we've seen lauren leave the ED and the residents to walsh and go deal with other issues within the hospital. LEYLA went to go find LAUREN in 4x02.

frankly i think the basis of this addiction viewpoint came from lauren's closet breakdown + whatever shady happenings she did for the 5th spot. however that was a moment from visceral fear of losing the life she's started to build with someone she whole heartedly loves, maybe for the first time ever. especially considering that lauren knows how hard it is to keep up any kind of relationship with someone from across the country. /Lauren/ picked washington for college because the distance made it easier for her to leave her family. plus even leyla was thinking about how hard it'd be to do a long distance relationship but she was more prepared to accept that and the work and confidence to make it work. because leyla really, really, fucking loves lauren too. that moment and action, while incredibly boneheaded and stupid and wrong, was an extenuating situation, not their norm. we've seen their norm, we're seeing the norm now. lauren and leyla are two independent people with their own lives that they were living before. the difference now is when they go out and experience the world they have someone at home to share the pieces of it with.

also i know we're all used to seeing lauren just relentlessly suffer with only fleeting morsels of happiness and her being consistently happy and feeling safe to be emotionally vulnerable must be jarring but i promise it's not a Red Flag lmaooo. her girlfriend is working nights while she works days and they are undoubtedly bone tired after their shifts and probably only catch each other as one leaves and the other comes home.... it's perfectly reasonable for lauren to miss leyla. she's never really had someone to miss before.

tl;dr leyla isn't an addiction, lauren just has a well rounded life for once.

#anon #asks #whew this got long lol #anyways if iggy doesn't firmly reassure lauren that leyla isn't her new addiction #i will be punching that man in the throat

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drivingsideways · 3 years

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so what were your final thoughts on my mister?

It’s probably the best show I watched in 2020, and will probably remain in my top shows of all time as well! I mentioned some of the reasons why in a post I did a while back but can’t find now because tumblr’s search function + my terrible tagging system = disaster. But I’m happy to talk some more about this lovely show!

First though, let me get the things I didn’t enjoy out of the way- this is mostly just that it has pacing issues and honestly could have been two or even three episodes shorter.

On the flip side, one of the charms of this story is that it’s not in a hurry to get anywhere, allowing its characters and its audience enough breathing room and time to get where they need to be.

And they are such lovely characters! You can tell that the writer and director loved these characters, all of them, not just the two protagonists. Every one of them is necessary to the story being told, no matter how much screen time they have; taking one of them out of the story would be like removing a piece of tile from a beautiful mosaic.

As for the story-it’s honestly one of the most compassionately told, uplifting stories about what it means to be human and live in our imperfect world as our imperfect selves that I’ve watched.

The show covers a lot of ground, but in particular I was thrilled by how this was a story that basically talks about the damage that our patriarchal society, with its very masculine coded ideas of honour and shame and success does to all of us, but to men in particular. What’s particularly lovely about this show is that its fundamental view is so compassionate that its answer, its thesis is that the only way of escape from the prison of a terrible, all pervasive system is love; love that is outward looking as much as it is inward looking. And it’s all forms of love- romantic, filial, platonic, and just more fundamentally- reaching out one human being to another. It takes an entirely different approach from many Western shows that I’ve seen tackle the same themes; there the answer always seem to be that the most radical act of liberation is self-love; this is often achieved through acts of brutal physical violence (think of the number of stories that feature women with guns that are sold as empowering - and they often are, but imo, in a very limited way) or otherwise a sort of journey of self-discovery that ends with the characters realizing their own worth and therefore becoming “free” (though nothing, absolutely nothing changes around them from a systemic point of view). It’s often implied that this achievement is entirely self-propelled, self-generated through strength of character and relentless determination and the people around the character have very little to do with this transformation.

My Ahjussi’s take on this strikes at the heart of the lie that is this premise: that we can exist and thrive as solitary islands with dependence and social connection being weaknesses that we ought to shed along the way to achieving some higher level of perfect contentment as emotionally well adjusted persons who need nothing external to themselves to maintain that contentment.

Instead, My Ahjussi’s protagonists are two people from opposite circumstances who are nevertheless drowning because they are unseen. Dong-Hoon’s perfect-on-paper life hides his deep misery that comes from playing by the rules that require men to repress their emotions and perform masculinity in a particular way; Ji-an is an outcast/ society reject because we live in a society that hates poor people, and consequently has little use or regard for its rules, that she constantly breaks, even though it often makes her situation worse. But it’s the only way she knows to survive, so she keeps doing it. Their solitary emotional battles have exhausted them both; it’s only when they reach out to each other and end up fighting each other’s battles for them that they begin to find a way out of it, and together. For Dong-hoon, that’s letting go of the stifling honour codes of masculinity to admit vulnerability and therefore bring an honesty into his relationships that fundamentally changes them for the better and for Ji-an,it’s finding Dong-hoon and via him, people who genuinely are interested in her welfare and not in her usefulness to them. Both of them, in the end, are saying “I can’t do this alone”, and the story reaffirms both the truth of that vulnerable cry and also reminds us that as human beings we want to give people the help they need, because on a deep level we do have the connection of our shared humanity that can and DOES win over whatever our current late capitalist dystopia has taught us to expect or want. It’s beautiful and radical and just the story we need in these times.

tl;dr...Anon, I loved it.

#my mister #my ahjussi #thanks for the ask anon!#Anonymous

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hmslusitania · 3 years

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I see we're going ape over buddie and Choices tonight so

Yknow in 2.07, when Shannon comes back and her and Eddie have their first scene together? The argument at the end, after Eddie says it wouldn't be a good idea for her to see Christopher bc she left them, she says she needed him, she needed a husband and a co-parent - and "I needed someone to have my back!"

To which EDDIE says, "I always had your back"

*insert Incredibles "coincidence? I think NOT" gif here*

(Also side note, I do like that the show doesn't try to sugarcoat what Shannon did being messed up, and that Eddie's own actions weren't really the right thing either[thinking about his conversation with Buck where he says he got to pretend he left for a noble cause even tho he was running], and that it was just a sticky situation that neither of them were equipped to handle in any way, and snowballed. I do kind of wish we could've gotten post-divorce Shannon and Eddie and Christopher interactions, figuring out how they fit together, if at all, bc I like those intricate and messy situations but I could see how that might get too close to retreading old ground re: Michael and Athena's divorce. But I do hate how ive seen the fandom like. Seem to oversimplify things with Shannon sometimes? And make her the ultimate villain, and Eddie Did Nothing Wrong, Ever)

Hi Anon!

The decision to have Buck and Eddie's first bonding moment end with "You can have my back any day" and "or, y'know, you could have mine" only to then six episodes later find out that at least a contributing factor to Eddie's marriage dissolving was that he "didn't have her back" is like. Such a galaxy brain chaos move for them to take, honestly. Like?? They could've had the phrasing be literally anything in 2x07 but instead they had it directly echo Buck and Eddie in 2x01. What was the reason? Why did they do this?

As for the rest of your ask:

(gosh this got long and, uh, opinionated. It is Not Pretty below the cut)

One of the things I really liked about Eddie Begins is that we did get to see him at the beginning of his journey in being Chris's dad because it gives us an opportunity to appreciate how amazingly he's grown as a father. Like, he didn't start out as a perfect dad and he was definitely kind of lost in the woods at the beginning there when it came to the whole "how do I parent" thing. And before Eddie Begins, we'd only ever seen the end result of the growth he's gone through, where he really is a fantastic dad whose son is basically his entire reason for being. Before Eddie Begins, we get to hear him say things like "I left first" and "I've failed that kid more times than I can count but I love him enough to never stop trying" but we kinda have to take that on faith? Because we hadn't actually seen him be anything besides a good dad until we saw his Begins episode. (And even then in his begins it's like "area man in his early 20s unsure how to care for small child while also coping with PTSD and a toxic support system" which like. yeah. no shit. there's one hell of a learning curve there)

The thing about Eddie and Shannon as a couple and as parents that always gets to me is that they were so fucking young. We don't know exactly how old Eddie is in the show, but we can guesstimate pretty safely that he's around the same age as Ryan which would make him between 23 and 24 when Chris was born, and it seems reasonable to believe Shannon was around the same age. It's also a pretty common reading in the fandom -- although I'm not sure how much canon support there is for it because we really, really don't know anything about their relationship pre-Christopher unless I'm forgetting something -- that they got married because Shannon got pregnant and that was the Done Thing. And when you're 23-24, baby on the way, freshly married, that is just like. So much. It sure as hell ruined my parents' relationship when they did that exact thing, and then they disliked each other until they were 27 and then they got divorced, and no one was happier than me about it, I have to tell you.

Back to the show, I can only give you my impressions, obviously, but the impression I have always gotten from the whole "I left too" conversation and the context that goes into it and the different behaviours we see exhibited by the characters is that Eddie "left" first and it comes across to me that he was basically an early twenty-something kid running scared from the abstract concept of being a father in general, and then when he was forced home by an honourable discharge, and was confronted with the reality of Christopher, he managed to step the fuck up and become Christopher's dad. It's there in 2x02, right? "Oh, you've got a kid? I love kids!" "I love this one." Eddie doesn't strike me as a Swiss Army Knife all-purpose Dad(tm) the way Bobby is. Eddie is Christopher's dad. (and like, of course, he's obviously moved by kids when he's on a call, we've seen that enough times to know that if there's a child who can even glancingly remind him of Christopher, Eddie's sense of self-preservation goes out the window, and I love that about him as heart-stopping as it can be in practice)

Shannon, on the other hand, didn't run from the idea of being a mother -- at first. When she left, it wasn't from the abstract. She left Chris (and "gave up" on Eddie, thanks Helena). She was not running from a concept, she was running from a reality. I think Shannon is a fascinating character to include in a television show as a side character, because she really isn't a one note character. Like, she was unarguably a bad mother, and from what we saw, she was a questionable romantic partner to have (but as you said, anon, Eddie was also not 100% the best romantic partner when he was with Shannon either; their entire relationship so far as I can tell was built on sexual chemistry which, uh, super does not sustain a relationship), but she also seems to have been a devoted daughter? I mean, yeah, it's entirely possible that her mom being sick was a convenient excuse to bail -- and obviously she didn't come back after her mom died, and didn't, y'know, contact her son or husband in the interim, so yes, I can see that being a valid way to read the situation. I don't think she's the Ultimate Evil, because she strikes me as a very human character in all the ways that people are more often than not really fucking flawed.

But then we get back to the actual break-up scene. The first time I watched it (and second, and third; then the fourth time the person I was watching with was like "I mean, sure, but it could also be read in this light") her "I'm just learning how to be someone's mother" speech really bothered me? Partly because it was the abstraction of it, right? Eddie doesn't like kids, he likes Christopher, and Shannon sort of had the inverse journey there, I guess, where it went from she didn't know how to be Christopher's mother, to she didn't know how to be a mother. And that speech bothered me because it always sounded to me like she was bailing again. She begged Eddie to let her back into Christopher's life (guilt? I guess?) and like, straight up bribed him with sex which was sure a choice, and then decides -- for a second time -- that she's out. It sounded, to me, she was handing Eddie papers and maybe, in a few years, possibly, once she'd had "time" to "figure out how to be someone's mother" she would try again. Just like she had in the interim between leaving when Christopher was little and the time of season 2.

And like, that could totally be a misunderstanding of the scene and what she was saying. It's what I took away from it, but that could very well be influenced by the fact I was raised by divorced parents and my dad had custody and if you count up all the time I spent with either parent when I was a minor, I was predominantly raised by my father and have had an especially tempestuous relationship with my mother that is mostly (sometimes) repaired now that I'm in my late twenties and have not lived with her since I was sixteen.

Back to the show, and to your comment that the fandom tends to treat Shannon like the Ultimate Evil and act like Eddie Did Nothing Wrong, I mean. Yeah. Fandom as a rule tends to shirk nuance. We're all fools here on the internet sitting in our blue industrial waste container crying about a wee woo show. I personally believe a more nuanced take on that might be that Eddie has shown a great capacity to learn from his mistakes (sometimes to make fun, shiny, new ones, but for the most part, just like ends up doing better the next time) and Shannon did not show that capacity in the time we knew her.

I think, depending on what they did with it, there was potential for an interesting storyline if they'd played through the divorce. I don't think it would've been rehashing ground covered by Michael and Athena's divorce because I can't see Eddie and Shannon having reached a point of amicability and friendship. The only thing we know they had in common was Christopher, and frankly, when you boil it down, the ways they engaged with Christopher as a person were so disparate that -- to me -- it really didn't seem like they had Christopher in common when you get right down to it. But I wouldn't have wanted to see Christopher and Eddie dragged through an ugly divorce process. They deserve better than that.

There's also a conversation to be had about Shannon's blatant ableism towards her own son, but that is extremely not my lane since I am not disabled myself. But even from an outside perspective, basically their entire parking lot conversation in Haunted, uh, haunts me with it's repugnance and the fact that instead of calling her on any of it, Eddie "Chronically touch starved" Diaz's response was to kiss her? Gosh golly do I wish that was one of the mistakes he learned from properly instead of finding a new, shiny version.

ANYWAY this got long, tl;dr (although if you clicked on the read more, you probably read it) version is No, Shannon is not the Ultimate Evil, she's a shitty mom not a demon in a skin suit and a pretty yellow sundress; and No, Eddie is not a flawless human who's never done wrong in his life but holy fuck is he trying and he'd be the first person to tell you he's made mistakes (and often has been); and no, sorry, I don't want to see the divorce storyline play out because we probably would've had to see either Eddie Bashing, Shannon Redemption, or Shannon turning up again like a cardboard cut out of a cartoon villain the way Eva did and I want to be witness to exactly zero of those things.

#the ghost ship answers questions #I...honestly don't know what to tag this as #I have thoughts about eddie and shannon's relationship #that are probably unpopular opinions #teal dear she's a shitty mom not a demon in a skin suit and a pretty yellow sundress #and I also don't like her for personal reasons #and eddie is not perfect but I wouldn't want him to be and like seeing him try to improve constantly #and also am personally predisposed to like single dads #also for personal reasons

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theji · 3 years

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Both GGDD recently filed lawsuits against toxic solos and antis (again) and with that, came a new wave of discussions, such as this, on how GG is so 'poor thing', so alone. Or questions on why isn't DD helping him etc?

I really find it ridiculous that after all these years, after the storm that he has weathered through and emerged stronger from, people still think of GG as this helpless boy who's struggling on his own, without help from his management company, no close friends, no resources etc. The thoughts of 'Gege only has us. Gege needs our protection' is frankly just delusional, toxic even.

No, I hate to break it to you but GG has a close-knitted and reasonably capable team who takes care of him work-wise, keeps him well-fed, sometimes brings him some laughter and respects him as a boss. GG has a competent legal team who takes care of his interests, gives him advice and acts promptly when antis defame him. GG is backed by huge corporations like Tencent and CCTV. GG has the support and endorsements from industry veterans like various directors and seasoned actors/producers/singers who recognise him for his talents, hard work and good personality. GG has close friends from the industry whom he can count on in times of need, private friendships that he doesn't need to tell anyone about. GG has brands that adore and value him, and show him support in various ways outside his endorsements. GG has loving and supportive parents. And finally, GG has his Gou Zai Zai, his 24-hours shelter, his all-in-one source of comfort, support, stress-relief, advice, joy, motivation, companionship, etc. And also 🐢.

This is Xiao Zhan we're taking about. The entrepreneur who set up his own design and photography studio while juggling university. The guy who once made a cool RMB 200K from a design project even before graduation. The guy who bravely gave up his former budding career as an graphic designer to pursue a new career in the entertainment industry at the ripe old age of 24. The guy who refused to give up on his dreams and insisted on continuing dance practice even when his toe nails came off. The guy who was new to the entertainment industry but had to depend on himself to secure work, travelling on his own to auditions and public engagements. The guy who spent months filming under harsh schedules and conditions without complaints. The guy who was put through the worst and an unprecedented PR storm any public figure ever has to go through and made it through in one piece, even emerging bigger, better and stronger.

I could go on but to what end? You can't wake up a person who's pretending to be asleep. Those who still insist on viewing GG through diminished lens will always see him as someone lesser. Frankly, I think it's really disrespectful to disregard GG's capabilities and achievements, all in the name of 'love'.

GG may look pretty and mild on the outside but he is made of stronger stuff on the inside. He has likened himself to bamboo, resilient and tough enough to weather through storms. Hear it from the man (yes, man. Not boy, not baby) himself. He needs no protection. I don't know how many times GG needs to repeat himself before his 'fans' can get the message. Focus on his works, celebrate his achievements, spread positivity within the fandom, do good for the community, follow him rationally, purchase his endorsements within reasonable means, don't obsess over polls and rankings, don't start or engage in fan wars, treat other fan groups with respect, focus on your own lives and keep a distance from his personal life.

战, meaning battle, to fight, is literally his name.

TL;DR, GG knows his shit and fans should mind their own business.

#xiao zhan #spread positivity #GG knows his shit #fandom reflections

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melrosing · 3 years

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It is so weird watching the show and seeing how much they lionized/whitewashed Cersei, Tyrion, and Tywin while dragging Jaime through the mud. It’s so weird because by removing Jaime’s actual love story and growth, removing Tyrion’s darker impulses, skipping the fallout from Tysha reveal, eliminating fAegon & Stoneheart, elevating Cersei’s role in the story, they basically left nothing for either of the Lannister brothers to do besides stand around, make speeches or go on pointless side quests.

Yeah, I’ve been wanting to go into the whitewashing of certain Lannisters for a while because it’s so plainly a thing they’re doing, but I can’t quite put my finger on why? Because I think the reasons kind of vary depending on which Lannister you’re looking at.

Like in Tyrion’s case I think it’s pretty straightforward: he’s a fan favourite, the good guy on the bad side - I think the popularity Tyrion had at the time (dude was iconic whilst early GOT was airing) was something D&D were unwilling to compromise, and they felt GRRM’s shades of grey would do just that. So they made the bizarre choice to leave him completely stagnant, just sounding a little more tired as the show went on. I mean, they were so desperate to keep Good Man Tyrion that they made Shae’s murder an act of self-defence (...and then never really raised it again because turns out fans still weren’t really okay with it either way).

Tywin and Cersei is... a weirder case? Like D&D’ve full on come out and said they consider Tywin ‘lawful neutral’ (Tywin? The guy who ordered the gang rape of a child purely to hurt his own?? Are you sure about that???), and I think it’s obvious they think of Cersei somewhere along the same lines, but with a whole lot more gendered ‘but she’s just a girl! just a lady! just a mum!’ thrown in. D&D wrote all these kind of nurturing moments for both, where they try and make out that all the extremes the Lanns go to, they do for the love of one another - and I think they think they’re doing something clever like ‘humanising the bad guys’ with that. But in Tywin’s case it’s senseless considering what this man has done in their own show, never mind the books... and in Cersei’s case it results in a fuck load of misogynistic bs that I ranted about the other week.

Thing is, I think they do extend this to Jaime, in a strange way. I’ve heard people say they think Jaime in the books is meaner and crueler than Show Jaime, to which I just have to ask ‘where?’ because Book Jaime has a sharper tongue, sure, but Show Jaime has a way higher crime count, along with no clear desire to actually improve himself (Brienne is the one who has to keep reminding him to do it). I think these additional crimes are included to keep Jaime on Cersei’s moral level if I’m absolutely honest, because D&D do genuinely believe they’re only as bad as each other (à la ‘she’s hateful and so am I’).

And yet at the same time, this Jaime kind of acts soft when he’s not doing Cersei’s bidding, so the audience goes ‘oh, he’s not so bad!’ Even though... he’s not so good, either. But what ‘Soft Jaime’ does is bring ‘softness’ to House Lannister. Because this isn’t really supposed to humanise him, it’s supposed to humanise them. It’s used to make the family behind the atrocities look like ‘just normal people fighting for their family, albeit on the wrong side of things’. He’s used to make Cersei more sympathetic, because through Jaime we get to see this vulnerable, motherly Cersei that D&D came up with. He’s used to make Tywin seem like a more fatherly figure, too i.e. through the reading lessons, the father-son chats, plus Jaime actually managing to get teary-eyed over the guy’s death in S7 lmao, none of that’s in the books but it’s in the show.

The second Jaime departs from KL, Team Lannister becomes entirely unsympathetic (and no, D&D, the baby isn’t helping), so he’s sent straight back to bring some of that back, because D&D do believe that somewhere deep down, the Lannister cause is about love and family (it isn’t), and they needed the twins’ soft basement death to communicate that. Cersei by herself is a villain fighting for the throne and for power (book Cersei, in short), but Cersei combined with Jaime is ‘just parents trying to protect baby uwu’. Look! Sympathetic villains! For your consideration!

So ultimately Soft Jaime is there primarily to provide a sympathetic lens for the bad guys i.e. his dad and sis, because see what Jaime sees! Cersei’s just a lovely mum, Tywin’s just a strict but otherwise loving dad, and hey, they all love each other even if they’ve got funny ways of showing it! (congrats on missing the point of the Lannisters completely!! congrats on missing how GRRM actually uses Jaime to show how cruel and unpleasant Tywin and Cersei really are, even to the person they supposedly love most!!!)

What does it all mean?? no fucking idea, I think D&D were just very taken with the idea of ‘grey characters’ but had no clue what it means to explore the darker shades - in their mind, it’s about finding a justifiable reason for everything their villains do, and trying to make them out to be otherwise almost decent. Why is this such a big thing with the Lannisters and not... Ramsay or Euron or something? Probably just because the Lannisters were popular and the actors were amongst the strongest in the cast and so they devoted their best character writing to them, only unfortunately their best character writing is um... shit!!!

tl;dr honest to god can’t summarise this, just purging my brain of some thoughts that I hope at least distantly relate to your message

#ask #Jaime Lannister #Cersei Lannister #Tywin Lannister #asoiaf #rape cw #anti got #got for ts

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seerofmike · 3 years

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The Writing In Apex Kinda Sucks And Also They Use Ship Bait As A Plot Device I Hate It Here

a stupid essay/rant encouraged by @zombiegloss that originally started as a youtube video script so if its like. weird at points. this was intended to be a verbal rant SNZISKSIA

basically i'm gonna talk abt the caustic-wattson-crypto relationship drama and how i think it was mishandled and how much the writers kind of Suck because i Can

you are free to disagree with me on any of my points and think that this aspect of the story was handled well, this is just my opinion, and i'd love to hear your thoughts and counterpoints !

first, addressing some things:

i know this is a battle royale and not necessarily a story-based game, so i can’t expect it to have masterful witcher-style writing.

but with the direction the game seems to be going; putting quests, evolving interactions, and comics in the game, plus coming out with a lore book and hinting at something bigger in the future, i think it’s fair to criticize it for lackluster writing, especially since what i’m criticizing has been something present since Apex’s story technically began.

secondly, i am not a professional writer. i’m a high schooler who writes as a hobby. i don’t have the decades of experience that some of the apex writers do, and i can’t claim to be a better writer than they are--but i also don’t have to be a five-star chef to realize that something tastes bad. when i critique something and give suggestions, i am not saying i could’ve done it better. i’m just bringing up what i think could have worked.

third, before i upset anyone , when i say a relationship is badly written, i’m not telling you that you can’t ship it or that your ship sucks. i’ll briefly touch on the shipping aspect of this and how it’s a detriment to the story but Ye

okay, so with that out of the way, let us Begin

relationships are often the emotional core of a story, and how strong your reaction is to conflict in these relationships depends on how the story sets them up. if you want the audience to care about these characters and what they go through, you need to develop them and establish the type of relationship they have well. it’s why so many people cried in the last episode of telltale’s the walking dead. you’ve spent roughly 12 hours bonding with clementine and protecting her, and your relationship with her is part of several story beats as well as character beats for lee.

when these two characters’ relationship reaches its peak at the end of the game, it’s powerful, and it’s emotional. you care. you feel something, and the fact that you have to choose what to do to lee only makes it more gut-wrenching.

now, the walking dead is entirely story-based and especially character-driven, so it may be unfair to compare it to apex, but i just wanted to lay the groundwork down for what i think is a strong relationship that makes you feel something when conflict arrives, in this case the conflict being lee getting bit and clementine having to decide his fate.

the broken ghost in general is kind of not-good sometimes, tom casiello previously wrote for soap operas and you can really, REALLY tell sometimes.

this story feels like it should’ve taken place a little later, and that we should’ve had a season to actually set up the characters and their relationships, but that’s a story for another day.

to put it bluntly, the set-up for the crypto, wattson, and caustic conflict is done poorly. for caustic and wattson's relationship it’s a little better, but not by much.

wattson and caustic having a relationship was hinted at in season 2, when her lore indicated that caustic was among one of the Legends who comforted her after her father died. In season four lore materials posted on Twitter, an email from Jacob Young states that Caustic is acting paternal towards Wattson. In season five, interactions get added to the Game, and this is the first time we actually see their relationship in action, as they have unique revive voice lines for each other. in the quests, when wattson is injured, caustic lashes out at loba and attacks her out of what seems to be anger at wattson’s current state.

Side Note this plot point was really stupid and done for cheap drama because she literally wakes up like two chapters later and they don’t even give her anything to say it’s just suddenly oh yeah crypto and wattson are working together. the same exact injury thing happens to octane later but nobody gIVES A SHIT because again, it’s just cheap soap opera drama.

their relationship might seem a little bit sudden for anyone who wasn’t on top of twitter lore drops, but like, it’s okay, i guess. i’ll give it the slightest credit for at least establishing something between the two in terms of voice lines and stuff, even if for some it might seem like it came out of nowhere.

what did come out of nowhere, though, was crypto and wattson’s friendship. in the quests, crypto and wattson are tasked with rebuilding the broken ghost because of their respective skills, and they’re seen talking in chapter six while they work on it. we’re not really given a clear timeline on how long the story in the broken ghost is, but i think it takes about a week, maybe.

unlike wattson and caustic, their relationship has been given absolutely zero material to work with before now, not even a passing glance in the trailers--which is a little weird considering crypto took down the repulsor tower and destroyed wattson’s home, but. Whatever.

tl dr of the chapter: crypto and wattson talk to each other while doing nerd shit, crypto laughs at wattson’s bad pun, and then suddenly they’re BESTIEEEES, until a couple dozen lines later in the same chapter. then they’re Not.

crypto’s drone gets hacked by revenant while everyone was kind of on edge after the reveal of a spy in their midst, he gets framed as the spy by caustic, anddddd wattson gets upset.

before i get into how dumb this storyline is, i’m gonna talk about the set-up to this conflict.

we have been given no reason to believe that these characters have ever talked to each other, and quite frankly, their friendship doesn’t really make sense.

ignoring the fact that crypto destroyed wattson’s home--which she probably doesn’t know about, so that’s forgiven for now--crypto is a paranoid guy. in the lore book he makes people stand on fucking footprints in his house so he can scan them for weapons and listening devices, and he apparently doesn’t stick around much after the games and nobody knows anything about him because he doesn’t talk to them.

a key part of crypto’s story is the fact that he is undercover and afraid of anyone finding out anything about him ever. him becoming friends with wattson kind of comes out of the blue, and we’re not even given a reason as to why they supposedly became close in the first place. i would kind of understand if like, maybe he draws parallels with her and mila in his mind and it makes him open up a little more, but that doesn’t happen. he just laughs at her joke and suddenly they’re friends.

maybe they’re trying to go for this ‘wattson can become friends with anybody’ angle, kind of hinted at with caustic but not really we’ll get into that, but that also? kind of doesn’t make sense since so many of her voice lines straight-up say she doesn’t understand people and electricity is more her thing, but honestly, she also does have those really friendly elements in her voice lines too, so its not as egregious as what they did with crypto.

their sudden out-of-the-blue friendship would’ve been fine if they spent a little more time fleshing it out, and giving us something to work with, but instead, the story immediately tries to rip it apart and frame it as this grand conflict where crypto is framed as the mole, crypto then accuses caustic, and wattson feels betrayed.

except it doesn’t really work, because we don’t give a shit. for several reasons.

one: crypto and wattson became friends and then ended their friendship in the same exact chapter. they did not speak to each other onscreen until this chapter began, you can read the entire quest on the wiki and see for yourself that their interactions up until that point were nonexistent aside from mentions in the narration that they were building something together.

the reason wattson feels betrayed is kind of stupid too. why does she really care that much if one of them betrayed loba? nobody else really cared about the fact that one of them was a spy, in fact, nobody even seems to like loba that much, and they just found out that loba’s been lying to them this whole time, and wattson was conscious for that conversation and had a speaking line, so she’s fully aware of the situation.

maybe it’s just like, the idea that one of them lied, but that’s still kind of a weak reason.

this entire betrayal thing is just dumb, and it gets even worse when you realize that there could have been an actual legitimate reason for wattson to feel betrayed by crypto--even if it still would’ve come across as weak conflict because of their newly established friendship, it would’ve made more sense than this.

Crypto destroyed Wattson’s home. He took down the tower and then all the flyers and stuff invaded Kings Canyon and made it their bitch. Not only that, but Wattson considers the Syndicate her family. The Syndicate are the very people who framed Crypto for murder and he’s trying to take them down.

They could’ve set up actual conflict with these things, and it almost seemed like they would, because Caustic briefly brings up that Crypto could be working with Revenant because he has something against the Syndicate but then that doesn’t really go anywhere and we’re just back to Wattson feeling betrayed because either Crypto or Caustic was a spy and she doesn’t know who.

Weak conflict could’ve been made better by a strong relationship and a weak relationship could’ve still been interesting with strong conflict, but both the relationship between Crypto and Wattson and the conflict that drives them splitting up as friends were really weak and didn’t make much sense.

It would’ve been ten times more interesting if Wattson found out Crypto ruined her home, the arena she grew up in, and was now participating in the Games to take out the people she regards as her family. That’s where her distrust could’ve manifested and conflict could’ve began, but instead it was the stupid betraying loba thing. why do you care. you just started talking to this guy like 2 hours ago.

also caustic’s whole reason for framing crypto feels stupid as fuck. he didn’t just frame crypto randomly, he framed him specifically because he doesn't want him to influence wattsob because he likes her Big Brain, but this is the FIRST time we have seen those two interact.

what influence is he talking about? wraith and wattson have been shown to be friendly with each other in the trailers, according to tom’s tweets, and in the story too so why doesn’t he frame her? at this point the audience had slightly more build-up for those two’s relationship than crypto and wattson and a betrayal storyline would’ve felt a little more deserved if still weak.

this is the point where i briefly want to touch upon shipping, and the fact that part of this conflict feels driven by shipbait.

aside from their relationship coming out of nowhere and the writers trying to make the stakes seem high and deeply emotional to the characters involved (despite this essentially being the first time they’ve ever interacted) tom casiello literally addresses shippers in a tweet regarding chapter seven, and as the story between these characters progresses, it becomes clear to me, at least that the crypto-wattson thing is just bait for shippers, and it’s lazy.

it’s easy to get away with giving your characters little to no relationship development if you’re just counting on shippers to do the heavy mental lifting for you

why should i put any effort into making this relationship seem believable? people are going to see a young guy and a young girl having bare minimum interaction and assume there’s romantic interest! then i don’t have to do any work, see look, it’s a ready-made relationship wrapped in a bow for me! all that’s left for me to do is give them conflict so i can keep teasing shippers with lines like ‘you never deserved her’!

i think it’s reasonable for me to suspect shipbait, since tom casiello likes doing darksparks shipbait on twitter, and i’m like, eighty percent sure mirage and bloodhound suddenly being childhood friends in the book is shipbait too, because these characters were the number one ship in apex for a long time despite little to no interaction, and then all of a sudden in the lore book they’re childhood friends despite this literally never being mentioned before?

like bloodhound is set up to be mysterious and nobody knows what they look like, or where they’re from, or who their family is--except for mirage Apparently, who played with them when he was a kid on their home planet, and has seen them with their mask off, because bloodhound did not wear a mask when their parents were still alive.

its weird.

i’m pretty sure they’ve said somewhere they were working on this book before apex even came out, so i could just be completely wrong and they always planned for mirage and bloodhound to know each other, but if that’s the case, why did they never mention it like they did octane and lifeline?

i refuse to believe MIRAGE never brought it up either like ‘heeeeyy bloodhound remember when we used to throw eggs at our parents lab haha wanna go do to that to bangalore’s room’

[silence]

‘good talk buddy’

ANYWAYS I GOT OFF TOPIC. POINT IS, shipping is a detriment to the story because the writers don’t feel like they actually have to put any work into establishing or developing the relationship between characters when they know the community’s just going to do it for them anyways, and that they can put in shipbait and it’s fine and it makes sense when it really doesn’t.

imagine watching captain america civil war after not seeing a single other marvel movie.

why would you care about the avengers splitting up or tony and steve butting heads or steve’s commitment to bucky? you wouldn’t care, at least not as much as someone who’s seen all the movies and knows the relationship between the characters and why the sokovia accords exist in the first place. you don’t have context and you don’t have any reason to be emotionally invested in these characters’ relationship.

this feels like that. the writers tried to squeeze this relationship and stuff into a single chapter and we don’t fucking care unless we were already invested in the idea of their relationship (shippers) because we barely spent any time with it.

so to summarize this little section, the set-up of this storyline Kinda Sucks! crypto and wattson barely seem to know each other, because we the audience barely saw them together and the writers are relying on shipbait in place of a relationship.

wattson and caustic are a little better but not great, but the conflict is stupid and it only gets stupider.

moving onto summarizing the rest of the broken ghost, gibraltar and caustic talk, caustic LITERALLY confesses to being the mole and says he framed crypto so he couldn’t corrupt wattson and to appear innocent because his identity was suspected, then that wraps up the season storyline.

season six begins with new voice lines, where wattson has had enough of crypto and caustic’s shit and is all passive-aggressive and going ‘this doesn’t change anything’. she has to decide who to trust, and how to figure out The Truth for herself because she’s not a little girl anymore. crypto and caustic are both trying to convince her they’re innocent and it creates some interesting conflict.

just kidding. it’s terrible conflict. you want to know why?

BECAUSE GIBRALTAR TRIED TO TELL HER THE TRUTH, RIGHT AFTER THE SEASON 5 QUEST HAPPENED, AND SHE LITERALLY REFUSED TO HEAR IT.

LIKE THERE’S A SEASON 6 LOADING SCREEN WHERE HE’S TELLING EVERYONE THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED, AND WHEN HE GETS TO WATTSON AND IS LIKE HEY I KNOW WHO THE MOLE WAS AND WHY THEY DID IT, SHE JUST GOES i dont wanna hear it. i need to think

IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH WHY ARE YOU REFUSING TO HEAR IT

SHE SPENDS ALMOST TWO ENTIRE SEASONS MAD AT CRYPTO FOR SOMETHING HE DIDN’T DO BECAUSE SHE TOLD GIBRALTAR TO FUCK OFF WHEN HE TRIED TO TELL HER WHAT HAPPENED

ITS SO DUMB

i think it was towards the end of season 6 or the beginning of season 7 where apex posted this picture of wattson asleep at her desk where she has a letter from gibraltar on it that looks like it tells her the truth, so she knows now, she knows what happened, but NOW her issue is the fact that she doesn’t know anything about crypto.

WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT IS YOUR GODDAMN DAMAGE. YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT BLOODHOUND EITHER ARE YOU THIS UPSET WITH BLOODHOUND TOO?? HAVE YOU EVER TALKED TO PATHFINDER. DO YOU HATE PATHFINDER TOO

oh but she was friends with crypto and now she’s mad that he lied to her EXCEPT THEIR RELATIONSHIP WASN’T BUILT UP WELL SO IT JUST FEELS STUPID. THEY SPENT LONGER BEING NOT-FRIENDS THAN THEY SPENT BEING FRIENDS. THEY BECAME FRIENDS IN ONE CHAPTER AND THEN IMMEDIATELY AT THE END OF THAT CHAPTER THEIR FRIENDSHIP ENDED AND THEN WATTSON SPENT LIKE 2 SEASONS MAD AT HIM FOR SOMETHING HE DIDN’T DO .

AND THE WRITERS TRIED TO RECTIFY THIS BY SAYING OH SHE’S NOT MAD ABOUT THE TRAITOR THING SHE’S MAD BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM AND IT’S LIKE WHY THE FUCK DID YOU NOT MAKE THAT CLEAR WHY DOES SHE SAY ‘IT DOESN’T CHANGE WHAT YOU DID’ IN HER VOICE LINES WHY DOES SHE CALL HIM A TRAITOR IF HER CONFLICT WAS HER NOT KNOWING MUCH ABOUT HIM . WHAT DID HE DO.

HE JUST STOOD THERE AND LAUGHED AT HER JOKE AND THEN HE GOT FRAMED AND THEN THAT WAS THE END OF THE CHAPTER AND NOW SHES SUDDENLY LIKE IM ACTUALLY MAD BECAUSE YOURE A LIAR AND I CANT TRUST YOU EVEN THOUGH I NOW KNOW YOU WERE FRAMED I STILL DO NOT LIKE YOU AND HES LIKE YEAH THATS MY FAULT

The Caustic voicelines are stupid too, again his reason for framing Crypto was stupid and a lot of his voicelines just seem to be that shipbait thing again but like from the angle of overprotective dad who doesn’t like the new boyfriend. it’s stupid but not as egeregious as this next part which is

crypto telling wattson his identity.

CRYPTO was framed for MURDER and is paranoid and can’t trust anyone and doesn’t talk to anyone and the last time he did talk to someone he got framed for Another thing and the person he was talking to turned her back on him and actively refused to know the truth for like 2 seasons and then he went This Is Fine I Can Tell Her My Identity

the stupidest update to this storyline was crypto telling wattson the truth

why did they do it on the dropship where there are presumably syndicate members and other legends around.

why didn’t he scan wattson for listening devices like he did for pathfinder in the book.

why is he telling her his identity when he knows she has very close ties to the people that FRAMED HIM for MURDER. Does he trust her that much? WHY? They spoke to each other in a chapter and then spent two seasons not talking to each other beyond passive-aggressive BS. why are you so fucking stupid taejoon

their relationship was so poorly set-up that even if the writers maybe intended for them to come across as close friends who had spent weeks bonding, it really feels like they became friends in a single conversation, had a falling out, and now crypto suddenly trusts her with his identity after an undetermined amount of time because he wants to be friends again.

that does not make SENSE this conflict feels contrived AS FUCK and the resolution feels even worse and unearned UGGGHHHH

it honestly comes across as crypto feeling desperate for friendship, and maybe this would’ve worked better if that’s the angle they played it as.

he’s been alone for roughly two years, and just wants a friend, and he’s honestly so lonely he just breaks down to the first person who’s really talked to him. it could’ve been an interesting little part of his character, and they could've gone into depth about how much this situation has affected him, but that’s not what they’re doing. he’s still paranoid and anxious and doesn’t trust anyone, except for wattson, because the plot needs him to or else there won’t be any stupid soap opera drama.

and to rub salt in the wound, wattson’s new voice lines with caustic have him telling her that she forgave crypto.

WHAT ARE YOU FORGIVING HIM FOR. ARE YOU FORGIVING HIM FOR BEING FRAMED? WHY DID HE HAVE TO APOLOGIZE TO YOU WHEN YOU WERE THE ONE WHO REFUSED TO HEAR THE TRUTH?

did the conversation just go hey my real name is taejoon park and something bad happened to me and she went aight i forgive you WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

Caustic’s new voice lines to Crypto where he’s like ‘what did you tell her’--YOU TOLD GIBRALTAR STRAIGHT-UP YOUR EVIL MASTER PLAN LIKE A SUPERVILLAIN AND NOW YOU’RE SURPRISED WATTSON AND CRYPTO ARE ON GOOD TERMS NOW?!

THAT’S LIKE TELLING SOMEONE YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER AND THEN BEING SURPRISED WHEN YOU BECOME THE VICTIM OF IDENTITY FRAUD. YOU SET YOURSELF UP FOR THIS WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE CRYPTO DID SOMETHING SINISTER OR LIED OR WHATEVER. WHAT THE FUCK. WHY DO YOU HAVE LIKE 3 BRAINCELLS

this is at like ten pages already so i’m going to just try and wrap this up quickly.

it’s frustrating seeing this storyline play out when there are actually good relationships and storylines written into apex. i’m kind of getting tired of the loba and revenant conflict, but we at least had set-up to it in the form of a few animated shorts and it doesn’t play out as stupidly as this story does. bangalore and loba’s friendship is actually developed well, even if the point between the end of season 5 and season 6 where they suddenly talk like each other feels like it could’ve used a little more.

where crypto and wattson having an established friendship in the broken ghost failed, lifeline and octane’s established friendship works because we’ve been told since octane’s release they were childhood friends and given lore materials that indicate they’ve known each other for a very long time.

apex wants this storyline between crypto and wattson and caustic to feel dramatic and tense and ultimately rewarding when crypto and wattson did become friends for real and stuff, but instead it just comes across as hollow and empty.

there’s nothing there. it’s a case of tell, don’t show, and it looks like this stupid conflict is gonna keep going for another couple of seasons at this rate.

side note: this entire script was written before the new twitter comics

please tell me ur thoughts and feel free to respond with ur own lil essay

also believe it or not this is not the "shipping is a detriment to apex's story" essay i was gonna write this is a completely different essay that has some overlap SKXISOSOW

#apex legends #apex critical #crypto #wattson

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bloededhoine · 3 years

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I notice a lot of fans don't really bring up how Roche uses Ves for her "feminine qualities (for lack of a better word)." I hate that in Witcher 2 he sends her to Loredo dressed as a prostitute and it is implied she does this sort of thing regularly? I do know that Roche cares for her but sometimes his behavior needs a reprimand. Do you have any thoughts on this?

i absolutely love questions like this because they really make me think. plus, this is one of the rare posts that's a system special! give @claire-verlaine your love. she's simply amazing.

first things first, spoiler warning for chapter 2 of roche's path in w2 and big trigger warning for discussions of sex work, sex trafficking, rape, war, unequal power dynamics, and brief mentions of underage prostitution. also this is really fucking long. sorry.

let's start with the geekiness: prostitution as a cover for espionage has a long and awesome, albeit poorly documented, history. it was really big with the confederacy (read: racists) during american civil war, and while their motives were undoubtedly awful, these spies were simply amazing. rose o'neal greenhow was recognized by the confederate president for her role in their victory at the first battle of bull run. belle boyd seduced a union (read: racists but more covert) general, found out the date and location of the next war council, drilled a hole in the floor in the meeting room, and sat in the crawl space and took notes of the entire thing.

although there were many successful female union spies, most of them didn't use sex. there's no clear consensus on why this was, but it's entirely possible that such enlightened progressives figured sex work to be demeaning. clearly, union men were avid consumers, but also thought women didn't know any better and needed to be protected from men who would exploit them. meanwhile, these awful southern racists had no problem with "exploiting" women, but inadvertently granted them a shit ton of political agency and prestige!

this all brings us to our next point, which is that nothing is inherently wrong with sex work, although it does put workers in incredibly vulnerable positions. for every spy that successfully used prostitution as a cover, there were likely many others that failed. without even considering the consequences of being discovered as an enemy spy, sex trafficking was (and continues to be) a very real risk for anyone in that situation*.

nearly the whole history of sex work legislation shows how little people, especially upper class men, understand it. the spies in the civil war were both lucky and unlucky in that they operated quite independently. they didn't need to take orders from someone who was entirely unqualified to give them, but they also had no safety net in case something went wrong. if belle boyd so much as sneezed while eavesdropping, there would be almost no chance she'd get back home alive.

however dangerous this job was, most lady spies during the civil war began spying before they were even recruited by the army. these women weren't doing it on anyone's orders, they were doing it because they had the skills and believed in the cause (remember that in this case that belief was not an admirable quality).

rose o'neal's (possible) handler, thomas jordan, had a huge network of spies, and all evidence points to him giving her way more independence than usual. thomas jordan wasn't who rose went to for orders, he was who she submitted her reports to. in my opinion, the sex she had to obtain this information was consensual.

ves' scenario is obviously different in regard to her chain of command. she is going into sexual situations under the direct orders of a (male) commanding officer. just writing this has the alarm bells going off in my head. what good is having someone to get you out of a dangerous situation when they were the one to put you in that situation in the first place? but this is where we get to what's special about roche. he is, as they say, not like other girls.

it's no secret how much roche loves his team. when the blue stripes are killed he says that everything he loved died. if ves dies in an eye for an eye he is absolutely devastated. the blue stripes aren't just roche's subordinates, they're his family. when you see the stripes outside of battle the camaraderie is even clearer: they fist fight their commander and each other to blow off steam, they play games, have contests, etc. ves' knowledge of roche's dark and troubled past is more proof that the trust goes both ways.

roche would never put his family in an unnecessarily dangerous situation, nor would he have them do something he personally wouldn't do. even if it's just from a morality perspective (like double crossing radovid for the man that had foltest killed), roche goes it alone.

so, we know roche is a (compratively) good guy. but we also know that intention, often, doesn't mean shit. i mentioned earlier how most of the people making decisions for sex workers have little to no idea of what they are doing. it doesn't help that their intentions are all about controlling (mostly) women and getting rich in the process, but even the best meaning legislator could unknowingly do a lot of damage. roche is way more involved in ves' missions than thomas jordan was in rose o'neal's, but i think that's a good thing.

as i'm sure you lovely witcher connoisseurs know, roche is a literal whoreson. he is very aware of what goes on in brothels, and, depending on how you read into his relationship with foltest, what it's like to not really be able to say no. if anything, roche's involvement here is a good thing, since he has years of first hand experience with exactly what ves is going through, but without the safety net of an elite team that loves him and are frighteningly good soldiers.

plus, ves is far more capable than your average soldier, even in a blue stripes-calibre group. she's an absolute badass. most women who used prostitution as a cover for spying went into it with no combat or espionage training whatsoever. they knew how to be personable, how to be seductive, and how to use men's biases to get them to spill all their secrets. clearly, this knowledge served them well, but what about the occasions when it didn't? they were not fighters. at all. ves has both the "feminine charms" and the terrifying combat skills. of course, these scenarios usually have her acting as a spy, not an assassin, so those skills are more of a failsafe, but it's still very important to her own safety and the morality of the whole situation.

TL;DR

to sum up, anon, i do agree with (what i assume to be) your reasoning, but not the conclusion you came to. if someone told me an older male superior was having a younger female subordinate act as a prostitute to gain intel during a time of war, i'd be ready to start cutting off dicks.

but that's not the whole story. the older male superior has a personal background in (possibly) coerced and underaged sex work. the younger female subordinate is a highly skilled soldier, and second in command of an elite unit. both of them have a very close familial relationship developed over several years. a similar relationship exists between the the other members of the unit in their command. personally, i think those factors make this a completely new situation.

that being said, i'm certain that my beliefs aren't the only ones out there. as long as we can all agree that the base scenario is unequivocally wrong, there should be absolutely no reason to (civilly) not discuss whether or not the special circumstances make it okay.

* i'll take this as an opportunity to say that the enforcement of anti-sex work laws force sex workers to be either a criminal, a victim, or dead. these laws are the problem, not the solution. the solution would be supporting unions for sex workers, giving them the same legal protections given to any other worker, and treating them like humans, not statistics.

#anon #sorry this is so long #i got carried away #roche tag #ves tag #shaun the sheep talks to humans #also anon you get the honourable award for most interesting ask ever #i absolutely loved it

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sonnetthebard · 3 years

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This is kind of an extension from a headcanon I sent a while ago about Owen's superiors not being the best people and not really caring about their agents, just that they get results, but it should be fine on its own. I'm just thinking about it again and want to talk about it more

You mentioned before that they don't usually pay his medical bills, but they also don't usually let him leave the field when he's injured unless it's something life threatening. That's one of the few things Owen doesn't get much slack on from them. He's gotten results while injured before, so his superiors don't see why he can't do it again(he usually can, but that's not the point). He'll usually get a bit of time to recover, a few days to a week depending on the severity of his injuries and the importance of the mission he's on, but he's still in the field and working during that, and he's still expected to complete his mission with the same standards as if he wasn't injured. It's not too bad(in his opinion, but he's also kind of used to it) when Owen's not hurt too badly, but it can get a bit messy when he is -S

Guess what, S? I'm back at it again. You gave me so much info here that I just... had to. Genre: Romance/ Angst Words: 957 TL;DR: Curt discovers how terrible Owen's superiors are. TW: Mentions of injury, swearing, abuse

This one's a bit shorter, but that's ok.

______________________________________________________

Owen limped into his hotel room. He'd gotten shot in the thigh during their latest mission- stealing military secrets from the Russians. He had been sloppy, really. That's why he had gotten shot to begin with. He couldn't be angrier at himself. But he'd gotten to a hospital in good time, and luckily the price for having the bullet removed and the wound tended too wasn't too steep here. He couldn't afford to stay the night at the hotel, though, and a crutch was just a bit expensive. he was trying to budget himself so he could afford to eat. As soon as he got in, Curt frowned.

"Hey... hey, O, you okay?" Curt asked.

"I'm fine, Curt." Owen grumbled.

He was far from fine. His leg had just been stitched without anaesthetic. It was sore, but sterilized. He probably shouldn't be walking on it, but he'd spent his cab money on the stitches. His superiors made him pay medical bills, so... he had to skimp on some things. Which wasn't great, because he also knew he'd be expected to be back at work tomorrow, to the same standards he usually worked at. He just needed rest. He needed to stay off his feet for the night. Come tomorrow... he'd still have a limp, but he was sure it would be manageable.

"What's with the limp?" Curt prodded.

"I got shot." Owen sighed.

"Woah! Woah, why aren't you at the hospital?" Curt's eyes widened, walking over and taking his boyfriend's arm, leading him to the couch to sit. "You should be somewhere with doctors to take care of you!"

"Relax, doll. I already went to the hospital and got the wond tended to." Owen soothed him, chuckling.

"Then why aren't you still there?" Curt blinked.

"I couldn't afford to stay the night." Owen shrugged casually.

"What?" Curt froze, confused.

"I couldn't afford to stay the night." Owen repeated.

"No, I heard you." Curt clarified. "Just... what do you mean?"

"It's pretty self explanatory, Curtis." Owen rolled his eyes. "I didn't have the money to stay in one of their cots."

"Did they budget your mission or something?" Curt furrowed his brows.

"No... I did." Owen explained. "The only thing that my superiors pay for is my room. And even then I think they let your superiors pay for it most of the time."

"They don't pay your medical bills?" Curt's jaw fell slack.

"Certainly not." Owen scoffed. "Do... do yours?"

"Um... yeah? All of them." Curt blinked. "Alright. Okay. Well... I'll see if I can get Barb to tell me how to tend to it..."

"No thank you." Owen started to laugh. "Love, if it means that much to you, I will call her myself. I trust myself more than you- no offense meant, darling."

"None taken. There's a reason I'm not a doctor." Curt chuckled. "Okay. Well... while we let that heal, I'll handle recon tomorrow."

"No." Owen shook his head quickly. "No... if my superiors were to learn I shifted my responsibilities to you, the punishment would be severe."

"Punishment?" Curt scoffed. "O, babe... you got shot!"

"That doesn't matter. I'm a spy. A bullet shouldn't take me down." Owen scoffed.

"Okay... um, I hate to tell you this, but I get at least a week when I get shot." Curt bit his lip.

"What?" Owen blinked.

"Mostly so that I don't do more damage, or... you know, die." Curt nodded.

"Valid points... but how do you get the missions done?" Owen asked.

"We usually send in another agent." Curt told him.

"Right..." Owen sighed.

"How long have they been doing this?" Curt asked. "Sending you out into the field injured with no support..."

"Well... as long as I've been a spy..." Owen shrugged. "It's simply the way things are done where I'm from."

"Right. Well... my people don't. And I don't want to risk bringing an injured asset into the field. You understand, right?" Curt tried to speak Owen's language. Owen nodded reluctantly. "So you're going to rest tomorrow, and my people will make sure that your people don't find out. I swear, Cynthia is going to lose her shit when she finds out about this... don't be surprised if you show up to work and find a new boss there because honestly Cynthia might kill them."

"Let's hope not." Owen chuckled. He sighed. "You're sure Cynthia will make sure I'm safe?"

"Babe, she's basically adopted you." Curt teased him. "I'm not letting you go out there wounded."

"Fine." Owen relented. "Thank you, love."

"Now... let's get you to the bed, and I'll get you dinner." Curt soothed him. He scooped Owen into his arms gently- which shocked him. He didn't think Curt could carry him that effortlessly.

"Should I be scared?" Owen teased.

"Of what?" Curt blinked.

"What you're about to try and pass as food." Owen rolled his eyes playfully. "My humour is wasted on you."

Curt made an effort to take care of Owen the next day... and, with much persuasion, the rest of the week. The Americans sent another agent to cover for Owen without telling the Brits. Curt was right to say Cynthia would be pissed. She'd already started the research process on how to get Owen transferred to A.S.S.- even if there was likely no workaround for that. They would at least try. And... it made Owen feel incredibly valued. Something he didn't feel a lot of the time at his own workplace. It made him want to be an American- even if they had butchered the English language. Because they may not be as sharp as the Brits, but they made up for it in heart, and Owen was beginning to see just how valuable that was.

#tw: bullet wound #tw: injury #tw: abuse #tw: swearing #saf #spies are forever #tin can bros #tcb #owen carvour #curt mega #curtwen #oneshot #fanfic #send more!

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godsofhumanity · 3 years

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Question! You said before your opinion on Perseus and Medusa. But... what's your opinion on Theseus?

oohh, Theseus, Theseus, Theseus.

TL;DR- i don't particularly like Theseus, but i think his myth is okay as long as it doesn't involve women, because he's a little shady.

okay- his myth starts out pretty great, and he's like really noble and all, and it's wonderful. but then the whole thing with Ariadne goes down and it's pretty iffy.

i know that lots of people hate Theseus because he just "abandons" Ariadne at Naxos, but if I'm remembering correctly, there's a version of the myth where Theseus is explicitly ordered by Athena to leave Ariadne because Dionysus has called dibs. and Theseus is so heartbroken about having to leave Ariadne, that he forgets to change the sails on his ship so that his dad knows that he's alive, and then his dad thinks that Theseus is dead, and kills himself. not to mention the whole affair with Phaedra trying to sleep with Theseus' son and everyone ending up dead. it's tragedy all around, and i'll be honest- i feel bad for Theseus.

but the problems with Theseus' character, as with most Greek heroes, lie with his treatment of the various women in his life. if he did indeed love Ariadne, then based on his portrayal in later myths, i feel like she's the only one he ever truly really loved, and after losing her, his character just goes down hill, fast.

first of all, there's the kidnapping of Helen (when she was 10) and him keeping her with his mother until she was old enough to be properly married. for obvious reasons, i don't think i need to go further into why this is despicable.

then there's the stuff with him helping his bro to kidnap Persephone. now, in one account (by Diodorus Siculus, 4.63.4), Theseus actually attempts to persuade Pirithous to abandon the idea of kidnapping a literal goddess, which is good I guess. but he still goes along with it anyways, and i just... Theseus is kinda dumb.

there's also some myths concerning Hippolyta- but honestly, there aren't many favourable versions of the myth to choose from:

Hippolyta falls in love with Theseus and leaves the Amazons willingly, but the Amazons get enraged and start a war

Theseus kidnaps Hippolyta

Heracles kidnaps Hippolyta, and then gifts her to Theseus as a "spoil of war"

Theseus and Heracles work together to do a little Amazonian kidnapping

Hippolyta falls in love with Theseus and leaves the Amazons willingly, but Theseus has a change of heart and ditches her for Phaedra, thus starting a war

either way you look at it, 4 out of 5 of the versions of the myth are absolutely shit and it doesn't look spectacularly good for Theseus.

still, Theseus isn't a complete shithead. during the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodamia, Theseus actually does punish some gross centaurs who commit atrocities against the female guests at the wedding. he also helps out my boy, Oedipus, when he's out and about wandering in the wilderness.

i guess what i'm saying is that Theseus has a... diverse personality, and idk if it's easy to say whether i love him or hate him because his myths really just depend on who's writing them.

#anyways yeah. but i know a lot of people hate his ass #uhmm this is just my opinion but!#anon #anonymous #asks #theseus

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thegayhimbo · 3 years

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I saw your reblog about Alcide, if you don't mind answering what are your personal thoughts on him?

Hi there. Sorry for the wait on this. I actually thought this was going to be a simple answer, but I realize there's a lot I wanted to say about the character in relation to how the fandom perceives him as opposed to how he actually comes off onscreen.

When I first saw the show, my feelings about Alcide ranged from okay at best to indifferent at worst. I didn't hate him, but I didn't care for him. He wasn't my favorite character on the show, and I found most of his story (and the werewolf plots) to be boring. I was actually surprised when I came online and found out he had a following with certain fans.

Upon rewatch, I'm still mostly indifferent to Alcide, but I lean a little more towards mildly disliking him now. And a lot of that has to do with how the fandom (especially people on Reddit) treat him vs how he actually comes across in the books and on the show.

I’ll start off by saying that I never liked Alcide in the books. He was an asshole, and most of the time he used Sookie to advance his position in the werewolf pack. What little relationship he had with Sookie felt one-sided on his part. It also doesn’t help that he unfairly blamed Sookie for stuff that was out of her control (like the death of Debbie in the books or the death of his father.) His attraction to Debbie in the books is also something that doesn’t reflect well on him. Contrary to the show’s portrayal, Debbie in the books was written as a one-dimensional psychopath with a jealous streak and no redeeming qualities. She’s basically a cartoon villain with no depth to her. The result is it’s hard to understand why Alcide got into a relationship with her in the first place, and it makes it look like he was just thinking with his dick. In other words, Book Alcide was nothing to brag about.

As for the show, like I said, I’m mostly apathetic to Alcide’s character (with a few exceptions that I will talk about in a minute) and I thought he was pointless. I know he was suppose to be a vehicle to introduce Sookie to the world of werewolves, but the way that was executed didn’t work. Common consensus in the fandom seems to be that the werewolf plots in both the books and the show were tedious and forgettable. It’s ironic because I know there are Alcide fans out there, but whenever I’ve asked them about what they thought of the werewolf stories, their responses range from “I don’t remember them” to “They were bad.” A lot of fans didn’t care for them. They could have been cut from the show without affecting the main story. That’s a problem because Alcide was usually involved in those stories, and the result is it was hard to care about him because of how non-compelling they were.

As for the character himself, I wasn’t impressed with him for a number of reasons.

First, there’s his relationship with women. I didn’t pick up on this the first time, but a rewatch has shown me how sexist Alcide came off during certain moments on the show. Case in point: His relationship with Debbie. One of the big conflicts between Alcide and Debbie on the show is that they both wanted different things. Alcide didn’t want kids and was fine not being in a werewolf pack. Debbie was the opposite where she did want kids and wanted to be a part of a community. Nothing wrong with that, but it was pretty clear from the get-go that this relationship was never going to work out. The problem though is that Alcide never seemed to recognize that, and kept trying to force Debbie to be something she didn’t want to be: A housewife who didn’t have kids, who was isolated except for her and Alcide, and who spoke softly and cooked meals for him. Basically the opposite of what Debbie was. And yes, I get that Debbie had a lot of problems and made really poor choices, but Alcide’s method of imposing his idea of what she should be was not the way to have handled that. It doesn’t help that he didn’t really seem to care about what she wanted because he thought he knew what was best for her. Like I said, that’s pretty sexist on his part.

And then there’s Sookie and how she factored into Alcide’s relationship with Debbie in seasons 3-4. I find it telling that when it comes to how this situation was handled, fans are eager to blame Sookie and Debbie for the whole mess that resulted in Alcide abjuring Debbie and Debbie getting killed by Sookie, but people rarely call out Alcide for his part in all of this. Personally though, I think Alcide bears some of the blame here for what happened.

Something that’s been pointed out is that during seasons 3-4, Alcide has only known Sookie for a brief period of time. Season 3 for instance takes place over the course of 9-10 days whereas season 4 takes place over 10 days (October 21st-October 31st). That’s about 2-3 weeks at best. And yet, despite only knowing Sookie for about a week in season 3, and despite having been in love with Debbie for a number of years, he’s already pining for Sookie:

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Now maybe you could argue that he saw Sookie as a replacement in season 3 because his relationship with Debbie deteriorated and he was heartbroken. However, that excuse doesn’t hold up in season 4 when he’s supposed to have repaired his relationship with Debbie during the year Sookie was gone in faerie-land, and yet he’s still lusting for Sookie despite only knowing her for a short period of time.

It’s so telling to me that only a few days after Debbie’s death in season 5, Alcide tries to have sex with Sookie when they’re both drunk, and he tells Sookie “I’ve waited so long for this.” It really puts his relationship with Debbie in a negative light, and calls into question whether he actually loved her at all.

I’m not saying that Debbie was blameless in this, and it doesn’t excuse her cheating on Alcide with Marcus or trying to kill Sookie, but it’s not like she didn’t notice Alcide was eyeing Sookie for some time. This was a woman who had hitched her sobriety onto Alcide and felt isolated and alone, and the man she was depending on was emotionally cheating on her. And rather than owning up to that, Alcide tries to gaslight Debbie into thinking she’s crazy and it’s all in her head. He literally says that to her when they’re in bed together, and it’s nasty.

What’s frustrating is this usually gets overlooked in the fandom when people talk about Alcide’s character, and he’s usually referred to in a sympathetic light whereas Debbie is blamed for being an unstable, violent whack-job whereas Sookie is blamed for being a house-wrecker, even though she was in a relationship with Eric at the time.

This is also one of the reasons I never liked Sookie/Alcide as a pairing, and why them getting together at the end of season 6 felt forced: Putting aside how their only sexual interaction up to that point was Alcide trying to have sex with Sookie one night when they were drunk and Sookie vomiting all over him, it was basically Sookie getting pigeon-hold into the role of domestic housewife for Alcide. And I’m sorry, but I find it unbelievable that they were together for 6 months and Sookie never once picked up on any unkind or dirty thoughts from Alcide during the time they were together until the season 7 premiere when that suddenly was a problem.

But even putting aside his relationships with Sookie and Debbie, the biggest problem I have with Alcide is he’s not a compelling character. He’s a character whose motivations and personality change when the plot demands it, and most of the time the writers didn’t know what to do with him and just stuck him in different stories with no rhyme or reason. It doesn’t help that he has no character development during his time on the show. There is no difference between the Alcide we meet in season 3 and the one we end up with in season 7. The result is I don’t care about him.

It’s funny because I’ve seen plenty of fans project these kind of criticisms onto Jason, but I actually think they apply more to Alcide than they do to Jason.

Jason actually had character development. He learned to become more responsible and be someone others could depend on. He began to move away from his womanizing behavior in the later seasons and eventually settled down and had a family. He re-evaluated his stance on supernaturals, and actually became an ally for them in several ways. There is a big difference between the person he was in season 1 and the man he became by season 7. If people missed that, or chose to ignore it, that’s on them, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Alcide on the other hand..............what was his character development? How did he grow as a person? What did he learn from his relationships with Debbie or Sookie or Rikki? Or even from the whole werewolf pack nonsense? Cause I’m drawing a blank here. Was it suppose to be that pack life wasn’t for Alcide because it would turn him into a power-hungry asshole? I never got the impression that was a problem for him in the early seasons, and it was a contrived conflict that was manufactured for season 6. The show never did a good job fleshing out what his arc was suppose to be.

Also, say what you will about Jason’s stories, but at least they were memorable: Amy and Jason’s relationship. The Fellowship of the Sun. The werepanthers. Becoming a cop with Andy. His relationship with Jessica. His hunt for Warlow. I would also argue that each of these stories added something to Jason’s character, and helped him grow as a person. Alcide’s arc on the other hand.......................not so much. When I was rewatching, I had to take notes just to remember what was going on with the werewolves, and even when I was rewatching, I felt the overwhelming urge to hit the fast-forward button. That is how boring those scenes were. It says something that even Alcide wasn’t able to carry them.

TL;DR: I’m apathetic to Alcide (with a few moments where I find him unlikable), and I don’t think he was a good character. The werewolf plots were tedious at best and irritating at worst, and Alcide’s arc on the show wasn’t compelling or interesting. I don’t hate him the same way I hate characters like Bill, Hoyt, and Violet, but I don’t like him either.

#true blood #tgh opinions #alcide herveaux #debbie pelt #sookie stackhouse #jason stackhouse #happylittlepuppydog #the southern vampire mysteries

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