#again I have issues with her characterization. but this is some of the best we've gotten in years

[cluescorner]

I love how The Boy Wonder is characterizing Talia. Like, I have some disagreements (mainly in that I still don't like the idea that her relationship with Bruce was somewhat encouraged by Ra's because like...idk it just feels weird to me. I also don't like that Talia seems pretty chill with murder, since I still think she's most interesting as somebody who kills only when there is no other option) but overall I think it's a pretty good way of showing her as a complicated woman.

She knows her father is cruel and will do things that go too far, but she genuinely believes in his mission and will do whatever she thinks will serve it (another benefit of actually touching on the ecologist angle of the LoA). It's also notable that she only fully betrays Ra's when she knows that HE has compromised his own cause at the altar of ego. Her loyalty to the cause doesn't mean she'll let Ra's do whatever he wants, ESPECIALLY as it pertains to her son.

Her relationship with Damian is also complicated in a way that feels a lot more in-character and reasonable than usual. No matter what her intentions were with the action, she abandoned Damian to Bruce and that HURT HIM. It's given him issues where he constantly strives to not just be good but to be BETTER than the others so that he won't be left again. It can be the right decision for both Damian and herself AND ALSO cause them a lot of pain. She loves him dearly, he is her heart. But just like she puts herself through suffering for a goal she believes is righteous and just, she puts her son (her heart) through that same pain because she believes it is the right thing to do. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

It gets a bit too self-deprecating at the end for me (I honestly don't think Talia would consider herself unworthy to be proud of Damian), but it shows her with a level of self-awareness and an understanding of her errors. Issue 4 also shows a lot of my favorite traits of Talia's in full force: her perseverance and her confidence in her own moral judgements (if not in her interpersonal relationships).

[life-of-eris]

HOOOO BOY Phantomarine has me by the throat rn. I have... hm. Hm.

So like. This is the We Love Girl Crimes website, the Sad Little Meow-Meow Defence Brigade website. Of course we love Cheth and Cheline, these two are laser targeted for an audience who loves morally grey badasses. Both are AMAZING, in terms of both design and characterization.

But I think I like Cheline more?

Which really wasn't the case until This Page. Firstly because, well, we've seen more of Cheth! He's our call to action, he got a KILLER mini comic about his state of mind, the author has shown us what's under his sharp and snarky exterior, and it's a very sad god who feels alone but still desperately loves his charges and wants to help, even if they hate him. Mwah, wonderful.

But Cheline FUCKING HATES humans. At first I thought it was a programming issue, for lack of a better word? Like, some kids just come out fucked up, yanno. Or maybe she really was The Devil. But like, fuck dude, I wouldn't want to be the caretaker of the things that killed my siblings either! Of course she fucking hates people! Of course she has utter contempt for the species that destroyed her family. It's a little weird that Cheth leaves it at fucking with the dead, frankly, he could be So Much Worse than just kinda... Being spooky to people on boats?

Because here's the thing. That kind of bone-deep (heh) hatred comes from a place of love. Cheline loved her siblings. Even Cheth, I think! Six dead, and Cheth was getting too friendly! In a twisted sort of way I can totally see how shattering him seemed like the better option at the time. He won't be around, they can never be as close as they were again, but he's not DEAD. And so what if she has to kill a few meat bags and tell some lies to keep it that way, her brother is orders of magnitude more important than the Odious Fucks she has to keep churning out. They'll make more. It's fine.

It's been heavily implied that Pavel has a spooky resemblance to one of the dead gods, right down to the name. And Cheline is looking for excuses not to hurt him, even though it's in her best interest to Get Rid of That Fucking Thing as soon as possible. She's bantering with his mom, showboating a little, having a smoke break while all of her plans may be falling apart at that very moment to spend time with a mortal she claims to hate. Until a couple of pages ago, she even seemed to be enjoying watching Vanna puzzle things out. Until the half-breed was mentioned.

And even though it WAS a reasonable guess to make, given the info Vanna had, Cheline just UNLOADS all of this fucking, ancient elder lore, things that have been forgotten for five thousand years, things we the audience and presumably the people of that world have no POSSIBLE way to know, because fuck THAT ONE in particular! Fuck her corpse and fuck her memory! And it's such a violent reaction- Cheline, I think, is even more emotional than Cheth, and in a way I think that kind of implies that when she loves, she loves with all she's got, to the point of destruction.

Anyway this has been a very long and rambling way to say that Cheline tickles the same part of my brain that Lucretia Taz did, and I cannot WAIT to find out of her expression in that last panel is "ah shit I may have gotten away from myself" or "that's right worm you fucked up!" Both are FUCKING AWESOME, I LOVE CHELINE SO MUCH

[rmbunnie]

The new Nightwing has been really good, and I'm curious and optimistic for where this new arc is going to go: my only issue is, why is it lesbian cops again???? And also, I'm sorry Nightwing fans, Dan Watters is doing a great job all in all and his Dick characterization is the best we've had in years imo but when it comes down to it? I'm liking Green Arrow's "several masked vigilantes use a communal identity to try and bring violent justice to a social issue" storyline more than I'm liking the Captain Hollow storyline. Although both are engaging, and to be fair By The Book feels more like Maggie character development than an overarching story attempting to comprehensively cover the issue of violent retaliation to corrupt government forces (the new issue ends with "Finale" which ?? two issues is really weirdly short for a named arc imo, but maybe I've just been reading too much 90s/2000s stuff lately,) Captain Hollow is confusing me thematically, and though I trust the story to unfold with time, if Finale really means the end for this storyline, it would end underexplored. Spoilers for yesterday’s Nightwing and the By the Book arc in general (that’s 125 and 126) below.

Captain Hollow is introduced killing the cop who murdered that teen boy through the Helios project, now revealed as a domestic abuser. His motive for killing is explained as targeting cops who violate Bludhaven’s Law, where you condone the actions of all of your fellow officers regardless of brutality or corruption. So, not very righteous. After this he targets Maggie “good cop” Sawyer, planted in the BPD to weed out corrupt officers (although I don't think she's fired anyone notable in recent issues iirc?) and a Helios defender whose most recent violations of BPD’s Bro Code are saying it’s bad to kill teen boys and abuse your children? It sets up this weird dissonance where Captain Hollow is explained as this awful group dedicated to giving police free reign to brutalize however they want, (nevermind that they already are doing that and the guy they killed would have gotten away scot free, because maybe someday they might be held accountable internally!) but one that's introduced targeting a corrupt asshole who kills children with Spheric tech, and a woman currently allied with/defending Spheric. Which could mean nothing.

The narrative feels critical of the belief that corrupt cops are singular bad apples, and I’m sure Maggie's shock and denial that Ani’s kid finds cops scary and that Nightwing doesn’t respect police procedure as the most efficient form of justice is setting up for a realization, even if Maggie in general is less sympathetic to me than I think she's meant to be. Collectively, the attitude the story is taking, Maggie being both Captain Hollow’s next target and pro-Helios (the only thing she has in common with the previous victim besides Henry Allison (issue 126's acting CH) having beef with them,) and the CH member in the most recent issue saying Nightwing “knows nothing about Captain Hollow,” could be foreshadowing the explanation about Bludhaven’s Law being a red herring. With this in mind, I wouldn’t be completely shocked if it was revealed that some Captain Hollows took issue with Spheric instead of solely targeting cops betraying the BPD (or aligning with Spheric is viewed as a betrayal of the BPD,) especially since there are four people operating as CH, but only Allison has motive to kill Dietrich. However, the talk about Maggie “dividing the department,” especially given the BPD’s clear dislike of her and the fact the Captain Hollow speaking is a mole in the department, therefore also aligned with Spheric, plus the dialogue that she’s “humiliating (the BPD),” and the willingness to take a child hostage pretty thoroughly disproves the notion that Spheric involvement or Dietrich’s child murder is a Captain Hollow motivator, which makes me concerned they’re just playing CH straight with a kind of “yeah the corrupt cops are bad but Hollow's fighting against them because they're WORSE cops trying to hurt Maggie, the well-intentioned cop :(“ thing which is… the less compelling of the two critiques to me.

Ultimately, the reason I prefer GA’s masked killer community storyline to Nightwing’s comes down to personal preference (sorry if that was clickbaity!) I’m giving her time, but Maggie’s constant “but the cops couldn’t be hurting the city” makes me like her less, and I think also think the Freshwater Killer interests me more because prejudice in city infrastructure is a less-explored topic. Plus, when it comes down to it, the Freshwater Killer arc is about victims of a corrupt system trying to bring attention to their poisoning, and the Captain Hollow arc, as it stands, is about cops using disguises to fight back against the idea that they might ever not be unconditionally allowed to partake in the violence they’re currently being actively enabled to do, and in doing so, being the only ones tangibly harming the corrupt, setting up the corrupt cops as victims of this embodiment of the system of brutality rather than willing participants in it. It feels like it's almost a story about whistleblowers being victimized, except nobody is blowing any whistles. Even as it stands now, it has the potential to be a solid concept about how constant reaches for total offensive force can make an already corrupt system eat itself alive, and I’m absolutely not saying the story is sympathizing with the dead guy who hit his kids, but the story operates with Maggie established as good, and in doing so, puts the death of kid-killer in the same basket as targeting well-intentioned, unaware Maggie, while limiting CH’s violence to cops only, when the cops in question are perpetuating the militarization of their precinct.

But trust that I’m following both series and enjoying them, and I trust Dan Watters to cook with this one. I’m excited to see where he takes it, as long as it’s taken somewhere. I just hope we aren’t leaving Captain Hollow behind with his two issues of going after cops using corrupt piece of shit murder tech because of flimsy justifications for why they aren’t corrupt enough for him.

[hestzhyen]

Some Hiyuki (and Chiyuki) Thoughts

Hello, dear void. Let's yap about Best Girl for a bit.

Just two badasses in one of the coolest spreads in the series so far.

I've had a lot of Hiyuki and Chiyuki topics bubbling around in my sad excuse for a brain for a while now and they kind of reached boiling point with the latest Kagurabachi WSJ cover (Issue 01, 2025). There's some good and bad and quite a lot of neutral so once again I'm just writing things down to make sense of what's going on in my head. I've got stuff to say about Hiyuki as a character and her most popular ship pairing, "Chiyuki" (Chihiro/Hiyuki).

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Note: I started drafting this back in December of 2024 so obviously developments (or lack thereof) in the manga since then have changed a few things. If something seems out of place then it's probably something I missed updating before posting this. *----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Alright, let's get this out of the way: Chiyuki ain't it for me in the romantic sense and I much prefer HakuHiro. I'd even go so far as to say that I'd actually rather see Kagurabachi have no romance at all than pair Chihiro up with Hiyuki as they are right now (more on that later).

But I'm also a major contributor to the Fandom Shipping Wiki pages for both HakuHiro and Chiyuki- I wrote the bulk of the content in the Canon, Moments, and Fandom sections for both ships as ThaerRyanim. So it's not like I hate the Chiyuki ship; far from it, in fact. It's not my jam but I was happy to help when someone reached out to me for assistance in filling out the Chiyuki page to prevent it from getting auto-pruned for lacking content. Therefore I won't be bashing the ship in here. I will be quibbling about mischaracterisations in the ship portrayed by the fandom at large a bit though.

I also really, really like Hiyuki as her own character. I love how she's been written and characterized as a badass with none of the baggage that usually weighs down women in shounen. Seeing her get to be so fuckin' awesome as a true equal in brawn to Chihiro was rad as hell. Combine that with not being sexualised or cast as "comically" super butch and I was won over in a heartbeat.

So I guess this is all from the perspective of a Hiyuki fan and die-hard HakuHiro shipper that doesn't like the romantic interpretations of Chihiro and Hiyuki's dynamic, but also sees the appeal and isn't going to trash the ship for the hell of it.

Kagari Hiyuki: Certified Unencumbered Badass

She was love at first sight.

This could age incredibly poorly as the series goes on but I have some faith in the author based on his writing choices around other characters that I love. I have a lot of complicated feelings about how women are depicted in media in general, but I won't be getting into them here. I guess the easiest way to summarize them is that "I wish women could be cool and physically strong without being cast as butch or secretly super girly more often". And Kagurabachi has delivered perfection in Hiyuki.

So far, she's been an agitator causing conflict because her mentality is so different to Chihiro's despite them agreeing on some fundamental things. Hiyuki's also noble, tough, and has depth to her with how willing she is to change her mind about Chihiro and set him up to talk with her bosses. Yet she's not too concerned about him and his well-being despite obviously feeling some sympathy by the end of the Rakuzaichi arc- no emotional support pillar stuff here.

From what we've seen so far she's basically your typical aggro rival character shoved in a woman's body and set loose to wreak havoc as needed. Hiyuki's so strong that she's basically an in-universe singularity that can keep up with magical nukes. She also loves to brawl with that good ol' hot-blooded penchant for violence and hates when someone doesn't match her all-out energy. But Hiyuki's not just a meathead- she cares deeply about doing the right thing and saving people, which is where her core character conflict will come from later on most likely. She wants to save and protect and will put her life on the line to do it in a way that's usually only reserved for men.

Her moment of weakness during the climax of the last arc was also incredibly gender-neutral in it's framing. Instead of revealing a scared, insecure inner voice and showing her trembling over the potential consequences, she simply wavers in the moment with an overload of conflicting desires almost exactly like Chihiro does. Then firms up her resolve and resumes punching to protect Hakuri until she brings the whole damn auction hall down to mark the end of the arc. God, I love her.

Hiyuki is a rival character done right. She's tough, a bit silly, a meathead to contrast Chihiro's tactical approach, and a fundamentally good person who might be working for some less-than-good people without realising it. She effortlessly gets under Chihiro's skin like no one else just by existing as herself too. Slightly feminine without any feelings that she should be girlier from the author. I LOVE KAGARI HIYUKI.

Well, so do a lot of people- the list to shake her hand would be miles long. But...

Canon vs. Fanon Interpretation

Yes'm

Hoo boy. So this is where some feathers might get ruffled, if anyone's reading this.

Everyone's going to have a slightly different interpretation of characters, events, and so forth. It's a lot of fun to browse through different community spaces to see all the unique perspectives people approach a series from, the things they notice and the conclusions they draw from the same information everyone else has.

I just don't understand why people take Hiyuki and give her huge bazongas, child-bearing hips, put her in girly clothes, and turn her into a generic tsundere a lot of the time.

Isn't the appeal of her character that she's a fearsome warrior with good intentions and a few screws loose? I understand that her fairly androgynous appearance isn't everyone's preference, but isn't that what Hinao, Sumi, and Iori are for? I sincerely don't like bashing people for what they enjoy. I just don't understand why Hiyuki gets treated the way she does by people who claim to like her. I figure if you like a character then you appreciate how they appear and act in canon.

She's got some attributes of a tsundere to be sure- the excessive pride, a caring heart that doesn't come across well in most of her behaviour, and particularly the Western misconception that they are often violent towards their love interest. The potential is there. But Hiyuki's much more than a collection of tropes put together to slot her into a galge lineup.

Like I ranted about before this, Hiyuki's presentation isn't feminine. Heck even the official EN translation messed up her pronouns because she was framed exactly like a guy in her role would be in her debut chapters! Instead of a trope bundle, Hiyuki is just herself, and I think this is the page that captures her best:

Ch. 20, before they settled on standard naming conventions for the series (fixed in volume releases unless you count Cloud Gouger, AKA Kuregumo)

She's never the brightest bulb nor the most compassionate person in the room. But she doesn't have the classic tsundere problem of not being able to be honest about what she's feeling- Hiyuki is 100% authentic every time she's on the screen, even to the point where she'll speak with her fists if she can't properly articulate her thoughts. She's brash and bold and says what's on her mind or punches the point home. And the kyaa-slap/borderline misandrist abuse tropes don't fit her either. She likes to fight because she's hot-blooded and prideful, not because she's trying to cover up her embarrassment! From what we've seen, she needs a moral reason and a strong opponent (and authorisation from her superiors) to bring out Rikuo in the first place.

This is something else that could age incredibly poorly depending on how the story goes, yeah. So far I've been given no reasons to doubt Hokazono-sensei's writing after he did the same gender-neutral framing with Sumi's actions then Iori's backstory though. He's not writing these girls to be waifu material but people. So to see Hiyuki getting reduced to a collection of ill-fitting tropes genuinely pisses me off sometimes.

I feel like she gets mischaracterised in the same ways Hakuri often does. People see some rough data points that point them towards a character archetype they already know and decide that's what the character is. Hakuri gets typecast as a funny weakling loser or a generic blushing uke (depending on what side of the fandom you're on), and Hiyuki gets typecast as a one-dimensional tsundere. It's stupidy reductive to how they actually appear in canon and is disrespectful to the rich writing behind them.

The warping of physical attributes is just a side-effect of this in my opinion. Even though Hokazono-sensei's art style has changed a lot since Hiyuki debuted, her general appearance hasn't, so I wonder where all the hyper feminine art of her is coming from. She's pretty flat and slender most of the time in canon, but a lot of artists round her out to give her more generic anime girl proportions. Same way Hakuri is often drawn as the more diminutive partner with Chihiro even though he's about the same build and even a smidge taller in canon.

I don't have a problem with individual people making what they want to see. I get that some people want to see Hiyuki dressed in feminine clothes and/or imagine what she'd look like if she had a bit more meat on her. I just have a problem when the vision of the fandom at large doesn't mesh with what's portrayed in canon. It makes talking about the characters frustrating because it's like we're referring to two completely different people.

Anyway, I'm not the fandom police, so I mostly say nothing and move on aside from an occasional rant to myself like this. And so we come to...

Chiyuki as a Ship

This yap is becoming a yapfest, huh?

It's... alright?

The mischaracterisations Hiyuki suffers in the wider fandom do affect how much I dislike this ship. Seeing her as a tsundere also messes with the bond between her and Chihiro, so we get a lot of subtly OOC portrayals of them in ship art. The worst ones even affect how Chihiro's portrayed and leave a really sour taste in my mouth. He's not a generic stoic guy manhandling his fiesty, blushy girlfriend who definitely doesn't appreciate his rare gestures of affection, nope. But again, it's easy to ignore and move on, so I do. I don't look for Chiyuki ship art anyway so maybe I've just had a bad batch of examples appear on my feeds.

It's hard to say how they would actually act in canon since they haven't interacted much for a while. I don't think the ship would appeal to me in that context either though. It was tough for me to help with the Wiki since I don't like the romantic tropes that could apply to them now or be likely in the future, like Belligerent Sexual Tension and Dating Catwoman. I just don't like Enemies to Lovers plots no matter what genders are involved, OK? It's the only thing I dislike more than doomed romances (sorry FushiUru, but I wrote a short essay talking about the appeal of that ship at least). I don't understand the appeal of going from annoying the shit out of each other to falling in love somehow. It just seems like a setup for a toxic relationship full of bickering and petty arguments that makes everyone around them hope they break up some day.

If they are intended to be the end-game pair though, then the only thing I'll ask of the author is to convince me.

I don't ask for much in terms of romance, honestly. I prefer when authors eschew a romantic sub-plot instead of including one for demographic reasons or whatever, but I'm at peace with the fact that most stories will have a canon romance of some kind. And of course it will involve the MC and the woman closest to him more often than not. I just don't like how most shounen romances are written.

Oh wow, what a hot take! But seriously, most of them feel like they're there because the guy's obligated to get the girl in the end. The authors rely on a few ship tease moments to set up all the flags instead of putting real thought into developing romantic chemistry a lot of the time, which leaves the last-minute pair up feel hollow and unearned. Doubly so when the protagonist is simply reacting to advances from the love interest... shounen readers can probably start listing off a bunch of titles where all the "effort" and interest comes from the girl while the guy's reaction ranges from blushing embarrassment to completely missing everything. We get her perspective on romance plenty but barely anything from him! Those subplots would feel way more rewarding if they got even half the effort the MC-deuteragonist friendship plots got.

I'd hate to see Hiyuki reduced to that kind of role. She's so interesting because she's got a shounen rival setup instead of a heroine's, you know? We get her thoughts about how Chihiro's annoying, a threat, someone she has to put down for the good of the nation, a crazy do-gooder, then someone who needs to prove himself as a good guy to her bosses. No thoughts about how cool and admirable he is or any other flags really- she's not thinking of him in terms of a potential romantic partner since we left off with her and it's so refreshing. It can always change going forward but I hope even if it does come to pass then she's not the only one with the burden of developing that relationship in the narrative.

In general there's not much to go on for the ship right now, however. I honestly struggled to help fill out the Wiki for it with enough content to remove it from the pruning list because they just haven't interacted with each other a lot yet. That's probably going to change as the Sword Bearer Assassination Arc goes on, given Hiyuki's billing as someone about on-par with Hakuri and Shiba in the story so far. Hopefully we'll get to her soon and then there will be lots more information on what she'll become to Chihiro! Just based on what we've seen so far, though...

Well, that paragraph aged really poorly. We've apparently got a long while to see what happens between them. Even so:

OK. I'm gonna say it.

I see them as siblings.

"Shut up and start hitting him already!"

I know it can come across as petty or vindictive since I prefer Chihiro's other major ship, but I guarantee you it's not. I actually feel a little guilty pulling the "I see them as siblings" card after witnessing that same take being used in bad faith to dismiss queer ships countless times. But it's genuine here: Chihiro and Hiyuki remind me so much of how my sibling and I used to interact that I got downright nostalgic.

Obviously my sibling and I never had magical nukes to use on each other (the world would be well into a permanent nuclear winter if we did). It's just that Hiyuki and Chihiro effortlessly annoying the hell out of each other but still trusting the other to get the job done is peak sibling behaviour, in my humble opinion! I couldn't see them any other way after their little squabble in the storehouse fight. There's also this bit about their designs:

Delusions

Something something cool rival pose Hiyuki and cute heroine pose Hakuri

The design parallels between Hiyuki and Chihiro get me feeling a certain kind of way and this cover activated the brain worms. It's so deliberate that they have the same colour scheme in canon and this AU-ish art- mostly black with a bit of red on top- and now they have matching loose arm bandages for some reason? Hakuri's the only one of the three who gets to do his own thing!

I've got two theories on why this is, but we really need to see more of Hiyuki before I'm comfortable with going on a major yapfest about them. Suffice to say that she's either the LI as someone extremely similar to Chihiro so she "gets" him in a way no one else can, or she's actually related to Chihiro somehow. I prefer the second one far more than the first but I won't drop the manga if Chiyuki is the end-game. (Told you it was batshit nonsense.)

Yes that's both of their faces layered over each other's. Hm.

There's a lot of joking and grumbling about Hokazono-sensei having a boner for black-white-red colour schemes over everything else, I know. He uses it all the time and doesn't seem keen on deviating. Chihiro is the face of the series and black-white-red is his palette though. So I think that's an aesthetic choice to set the vibe of the series and make it more striking when it's broken- like with Hakuri's black-white-blue and the Bearers being in pink, yellow, blue, and green. Other semi-major characters like Shiba and Uruha have different palettes or deliberately don't include one of the triad, like Samura who is missing red from his. The only character who's matched Chihiro in this regard in every coloured appearance is Hiyuki.

Not only matched, but copied when other characters don't, like in the techwear cover.

To the point where even her face is almost identical to Chihiro's.

It's just a theory and I've been wrong so often I should shut up and stop sharing my thoughts forever! But this feels extremely deliberate in a series that takes so much care in layering details to present the themes of the story. Whether it has romantic intent or not is something only the author knows- it could definitely be a flag for the two of them being so similar that they naturally belong together even if they seem like opposite reflections. I'll just hold my pet theory close to my heart and see what happens with them once we finally get back to the folks we left behind at the start of Samurabachi.

Alright... that's it. If you made it through this, thanks. Let me know how stupid and wrong I am if you care enough to. And have fun shipping whatever you like to your heart's content!

[dilfdoctordoom]

Tell me everything u know about Bette kane

With pleasure!

Bette's the cousin of Bruce & Kate Kane & her origin is, at best, a little messy.

She was originally introduced as Bat-Girl alongside Kathy Kane Batwoman (who is a DIFFERENT CHARACTER TO KATE KANE) to dispell rumors that Batman & Robin were gay.

She's very smart from the get-go & figures out Batwoman's identity all on her own. As is typical for the Silver Age, she gets into a lot of zany antics. Her favorite hobby is weaponizing misojyny.

She gets to join the Teen Titans towards the end of Volume 1 by creating a fun spin off team in Titans West! This is my most beloved Titans team, just a bunch of my blorbos in one place. Really and truly made for me personally.

Then the universe explodes, so naturally, Bette's back with a new backstory.

I'm really not a fan of it. Bette's origin didn't have much to do with Dick Grayson; now, it's all focused on him.

Plus side, she's going by Flamebird and she has a kick ass costume.

She gets reintroduced in a redux of the Titans West story and does get some fun moments, I won't lie. She pops up in The New Titans and is so <3.

Her next big appearance is in Hawk & Dove Annual and it's spectacular. This is the peak of all comic characterization ever. Issue of all time. I'm obsessed it genuinely makes me insane.

She gets some cameo stuff to do, until Titans/JLA: The Technis Imperative. She isn't up to much here, but! It sets up her story in Titans Secret Files & Origins #1 which leads wonderfully into Beast Boy.

Beast Boy is so good to her it's unreal I love her new costume. Nothing beats the original, but I like the update.

She gets more fun appearances with Titans LA (Titans West 2.0). Fun fact! Titans LA was originally gonna get its own book written by Geoff Johns.

Urm. Universe blows up again. New 52 happens. I die inside.

I hate Bette in this era so much it's unreal. Her Batwoman arc is a rehash of her Beast Boy arc with added fridging. She gets Batman to imply she'll become a villain. It's just really gross, IMO, and utterly unneeded... it's done to get her to a place she's already at. Like if we had Dick Grayson get skewered by a pedophile while Batman gets fucked so that he could move on from Robin... like we've done that. Why are we doing it again but gross.

She's had some appearances in Rebirth. I hate all her 'Tec ones-- Bette Kane would never join the military after what happened to Kate. She'd never join in general, but especially after that.

She did get an appearance in DC's Legion of Bloom that I loved! It's Titans West/LA again unsurprisingly and it's just a fun story about them on a mission. She's returned to her Flamebird glory and not forced into being gross Hawkfire.

She hasn't had anything since that & as the main title she'd realistically show up in is Titans, I'm hoping it stays that way. I do not want Tom Taylor within ten feet of her.

[aihoshiino]

What are your thoughts on how onk is handling ruby recently

So I've been rattling my brains about this since long before this ask – since the chapter 123 leaks dropped, if I'm honest and I think I'm at a place where my feelings are "I understand why these choices are being made, I just don't like that these are the choices they went with".

(I kind of talked about this elsewhere last week, by coincidence, so sorry to anyone about to see me repeat myself LOL)

As someone who really, REALLY loves Ruby, it feels like there's been a consistent failure to properly center her and give her focus and interesting things to do since around the start of Tokyo Blade. Black hoshigan Ruby (as I've mentioned in a previous post) was a really interesting and exciting opportunity to dig into Ruby's trauma and darker feelings that OnK is comparatively quieter on. But with the benefit of hindsight now that the arc is over, it's clear that the whole thing was just a plot cul-de-sac - if I were feeling particularly uncharitable, I would go as far as to call it filler to waste time until Aqua was back in revenge mode. She might not ping back to white stars until 123 but black hoshigan Ruby essentially ceases to be relevant once Aqua is back in the picture until she can be used to serve his arc again.

And the frustrating thing is - I was so, SO fucking excited to see how Ruby was being handled in the start of the movie arc! It felt like we were building up to a really fantastic examination of Ruby's relationship with all three of her mothers, and the way toxic motherhood in general trickles down and poisons someone for long after they're out of the environment of abuse. The incredibly strong and vivid depictions of Ruby literally triggering and retraumatizing herself by engaging with material that depicted Ai's own abuse and the way it dragged back memories of her own abuse and abandonment were so powerful and so scary - her pain absolutely overflowed out of every single page and the care and tenderness with which it was depicted made me feel so deeply for Ruby. This poor, poor girl who has been in so much pain for so long and has done her best to be happy and strong but is at last reaching her human breaking point - it was so fucking good!

The arc we were promised for Ruby at the outset of the movie arc was, no joke, exactly the sort of thing I had been hoping and praying for Akasaka to do for her ever since I got back into the series in April. I really, genuinely thought this was finally going to be Ruby's time to shine and achieve some meaningful healing and catharsis.

And then the arc completely switches tracks to be about Aqua instead and all we've gotten from Ruby since is incest bait and her simping over her brother.

To be clear, I am 100% aware I am being disingenuous here and that there is way more going on than my eyerolling dismissal of it, but I'm trying to get across how it feels for me as a Ruby enjoyer VS how my Themes And Characterization And Narrative brain logically understands what is going on.

It absolutely completely makes sense for Ruby to be behaving this way right now. Gorou was the first and only person in her short life as Sarina to make her feel safe and valued and cared for and having the miracle of their reunion granted to her after she was sure she'd lost him forever and just as she was at emotional and mental rock bottom? That shit was GUARANTEED to turn her brain into soup and Ruby developing confusedly romantic and unhealthy feelings for Aqua vis-a-vis projecting Gorou onto him when she is so desperately in need of comfort and support is maybe not pretty or flattering, but it feels honestly, authentically weird and messy and uncomfortable. Oshi no Ko's willingness to portray character relationships with enough of that honesty to just let them be weird and fucked up and icky and unhealthy sometimes is something I really, really appreciate about it.

My issue is not that this plot point has happened to begin with - my issue is with how it's been framed. This is partially exacerbated by the manga's schedule getting FUBAR'd just after this reveal dropped and thus forcing us to stew in what I imagine is still the relatively early stages of this new status quo for maybe longer than intended, but we have gotten little to no serious examination of how Ruby actually feels about any of this. Almost every interaction the twins have had since this reveal dropped has been incest bait jokes. The fact that Ruby was in the middle of a massively overdue bit of character development that was finally all about her and her feelings only for that to get thrown to one side in favour of her being all uwu oniichansensei and being treated like a comic relief character is just so, so deeply insulting and betrays such a huge lack of respect for Ruby and her feelings.

The relative shallowness and childishness of them is, I think, intentional and accepting this uncritically as yummy ship bait is clown behaviour - we are playing around in this space specifically to soften us up for when the twins finally have an open and honest confrontation about this, but all that means is that for the time being, I am being asked to laugh at and vicariously enjoy Ruby's unhealthy, fucked up feelings born from her deep trauma and to be perfectly frank that just leaves me feeling fucking insulted.

As a survivor of the little sister incest anime boom and a fan of Revolutionary Girl Utena, I simply have no patience for a series that purports to take itself and its characters seriously then turns around and plays sibling incest for nudgewink laughs and ship bait, especially when it has derailed and, in the short term, superseded and ruined what was shaping to be an exciting and deeply emotional character arc for a character desperately in need of focus.

[petalstem]

Thoughts on the new graphic novel excerpt!

This is the first time in years that I have been GENUINELY excited about something relating to canon WC. Genuinely. Like, the past few graphic novels WERE good, I'm a big fan of Winds of Change, but like. I wasn't HYPED over them. I still pirated them (I did buy Winds of Change after I pirated it though, it was on sale).

I ADORE what we've seen of the art so far, the character designs are really cute and seem very in-line both with the characters, as well as just... being good! I love Rustys little striped tail and his brown ears especially. The expressions and movement is really good as well, I love the characterization we're seeing already with Rusty and Graypaws expressions.

I LOVE the inclusion of Princess! This is great for several reasons, firstly, it shows they are willing and able to make changes, something I'll elaborate on in a bit, and it also helps with the cohesion between Into the Wild and Fire and Ice. Fireheart randomly remembering he has a sister he's never mentioned or thought about ever in the middle of Fire and Ice was just... weird. Especially given how Princess is ALSO an outdoor cat who lives nearby, it's clear that he just. Wasn't written with a sister in mind. Having Princess show up as an established character BEFORE she's relevant is a subtle change I really like.

Now. To elaborate on changes. I am desperately, DESPERATELY hoping they change some stuff from the original books. While I think arc 1 is still worth reading, and still solid books, so much of it has aged HORRIBLY, namely, all of the constant horrific ableism that goes unaddressed and unchallenged. In an ideal world, they would

1. Introduce Snowkit before his death. Preferably establishing that the idea he 'can't learn' is unfounded (It is, IN THE TEXT ITSELF, shown that he IS capable of learning, given how Dappletail communicates with him through gesture. He is ABSOLUTELY capable of learning and it's ableist of the series to continue to shove the idea that he can't).

2. Have Fireheart either not make constant comments about Cinderpaw having a miserable life for being disabled (Despite the fact she's literally happy as a medicine cat), or have someone actively challenge him on this. This might not even be that big of an issue in the graphic novel if they don't let Fireheart's thoughts show up as often as they do in the books, as it's mainly him THINKING about how 'miserable' Cinderpaw is and not outright SAYING it, but I just found him incredibly tiring with HOW often he'd sulk about Cinderpaw during scenes when she was literally acting happy and healthy.

3. Give Brightheart more agency. One of the most shockingly ableist moments in all of arc 1 is when Firestar tells Cloudtail that he has to take Brightheart as an apprentice, that she'll never be a true warrior, and that she's entirely his responsibility now. While Brightheart is sitting with them. Firestar quite literally talks to her BOYFRIEND as if she's a small child who needs to be looked after and not like the fully grown adult woman she actually is. This scene could very easily be fixed, by just having Brightheart being the one talking to Firestar, and to get rid of the comparison to her being Cloudtail's apprentice. Brightheart going "Hey Firestar, I'm ready to be a warrior again and Cloudtail and I have some ideas on how I can best hunt" solves basically 90% of the problem. Also, remove the scene of Firestar saying how Brightheart being moved to the elders den was because she was going to have to be an elder. That's literally not even true, she was moved to the elders den explicitly because the elders liked having her around, and because they needed room in the medicine den, but Brightheart still needed time to heal. Firestar's literally objectively wrong there

4. This one isn't about ableism, so it's less important, but get rid of Princess's bizarre dialogue about how she "wants to decide Cloudkits destiny" and how Fireheart needs to "make him a hero just like him". It's baffling and it's really uncomfortable, why does Princess think she "deserves" to choose her kits "destiny" because he's her firstborn.

5. Also not about ableism, but I feel this is also incredibly important, don't fucking include the lines about StarClan being the reason Clan cats are moral. It's disgusting on so many levels how BloodClan is said to not care for the young, sick, or elderly ENTIRELY because they don't believe in StarClan. This childrens series should not have the fucking moral of "religion is what makes us moral", that's revolting. Just change it to its their lack of community, not their lack of religion

Ultimately, I think things are really looking up for the graphic novel. I'm certainly buying a copy, and I'm really excited to see how it turns out. I have some hope of them changing some of the worst parts of the first arc, namely, the limited ability to see Fireheart thoughts as often as the books do will most likely cut down on how often he's able to be ableist towards his Clanmate, but ultimately, even if they don't change the worst parts, I'd guess that the art alone would still warrant a purchase!

[eldritchmochi]

Word prompt for the letters! SWORD TIME

mina pls that is so many letters lmao

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

okay, if it is not obvious, i have thought SO MUCH about disability in exandria, so heres a general worldbuilding headcannon vs character based hc but it's shown that disability isn't overly impactful in exandria. basically everything we've seen ranging from pcs like shakaste to big npcs like dancer and also smaller one off pcs like the moorbounder dealer in the city of beasts, whatever the name is, they're fully functional within society despite major physical disabilities and theres functionally not a whole lot of ableism at a surface level when it comes to worldbuilding (thanks matt).

however..... its not hard (for me) to extrapolate how the dynasty in particular would have a not great view on disability (thank u cherry for putting it into words as i was charlie day-ing over coping skills early on). it's not something that i talk about explicitly in coping skills (and may not since it would be really info dumpy and not vibe with the way i write or characterize the wizards lmao) but it's something ive spent a great deal of time thinking thru for the dang fic and my in-head notes are basically a) in a modern setting like coping skills, the healthcare situation moves at a glacial pace partly because elves live forever so what is a several year wait for a non emergent specialist issue and b) major disabilities, things that impact daily living to a significant degree that cannot be "fixed" with magic, are at best really only tolerated until anamnesis or consecution so the body can be reset into a more perfect form

i could wax poetic about the nitty gritty as it relates to coping skills specifically, but that is like, the base premise of 90% of the fic lmao

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

okay so, heres the thing: with the exception of a few squicks, if something is well written with some fukken *heart* i will eat up just about anything. theres some tropes i don't really get myself and haven't found anything with it that's interested me, like hanahaki, but i have fav fics involving things i notoriously avoid, like kid fic and hs aus. like legitimately, my absolute fav fic is a non explicit hs au, which considering i basically dont read non explicit fics OR hs aus is fucking wild

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

lets see, i did one here for an ashrym fic, and one here for general shadowgast so lets go with a single character, and a delightfully weird song for her

obviously imogen, again, because its funny. do not ask me why spotify recommended this german edm country album to me a bit ago but i listened to the whole thing and it fucking slapped, and this song immediately went on my hells playlist

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

I AM ONLY DOING ONE BECAUSE I DONT TRUST YOU MINA (ilu but also damn many letters lmao)

but callowmoore is just chefs kiss. i don't see anything necessarily romantic between them but i love the idea of the two of them bonding over being absolute gremlins. ashton definitely needs a charismatic wingman and fearne definitely needs someone who has (some level of) smarts re Doing Crimes, so the two of them playing off each other is just delightful and i love how soft they are with each other in cannon and in turn all the fanart (especially the forehead kiss???? im still not normal about that)

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

hmmmmmmmmmmm okay i guess maybe reylo? the rots kiss was absolute garbage rey deserves better BUT i am in theory into her domming the shit out of him but reylo shippers as a whole soured me on the ship and now i just hhhh no thank you, even from authors i trust to write it in a way i'd enjoy :C

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

T answered here! (basically no lmao)

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

homestuck :I like part of it was definitely the Fandom Cycle of falling out if interest with something, especially once there stopped being new cannon i could access but a bigger part of it was seeing all my fav artists and writers in the fandoms, particularly the ones 30+, PARTICULARLY Black artist, being absolutely shat on by kids for the crime of... being adults in fandom spaces basically, or otherwise creating fanworks that featured non-white, non-thin depictions of the characters. i live vicariously thru @/roundandtalented when they spam share hs art because i still love those characters but yeesh ye olde tumblr hs fandom got VERY toxic

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

answered once here with ashton and here with astarion so i guess i gotta keep the train going with "a" name characters

hmmmmmmmmmm

okay lets say abby from ncis (i have watched Many crime procedurals lmao). i imagine she and i would be GREAT fashion buddies, especially when i'm bubblegum pop kawaii to her scary goth. we could swap tips on breaking in big stompy boots and all the best places for cute clothes, and i think we're fairly close in size too so could even SWAP gasp The Dream

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

god i do not know if fandom as a whole has picked up on any of the various things i've built in my fics but tbh i think its absolutely hilarious how i inevitably write a porn/camming au for like every fandom i write multiple fics for. it happens, every single time. EVERY TIME. in fact, mine and cherry's sg camming au started with me lampshading this trend i have, laughing about how FINALLY here was a fandom where i couldn't write camming and make it work, except whoops i thought too hard on it and made it work. this occurred over the course of like..... a single evening. i had the basic outline sketched out within twenty minutes of me being like "theres no way i could write camming into critical role, NO WAY" i am not even exaggerating

so i guess maybe my hilarious contribution to critical role is the contemporary magical setting proof-of-concept???? cherry did say there werent really that many at the time i asked because i lov me some modern aus

there are maybe some letters left idk at this point lmao but here is the meme for those of u who made it thru all that

[tobi-smp]

I know I just said this in dms but I am convinced that once c!crimes stories both end, it’s gonna be the final blow to the dsmp as a whole (assuming that Quackity, Sam (and sort of Karl) finish their character arcs beforehand, since as of now they have the strongest character lore aside from crimeboys)

Like I know a lot of people don’t wanna hear this and I myself hate admitting it but a good 90% of content anymore is purely headcanon and copium, and nothing that has truly been expressed or possibly ever will be expressed in canon. Most characters in fan content, aside from the ones that actually Are full characters and don’t slip to bad writing and whatnot, are just fans taking those characters and making them better than what the ccs can make.

Lemme be clear though, that making fancontent and making the characters more interesting and developed than canon could possibly ever provide is fine! Every fandom whose source material turned to shit has done this. But since we are all in the dsmp fandom, it’s just really unfortunate that it’s been added to that list.

Ik plenty of fic writers can do this series justice, I always have faith in them. And I know ppl will take inspiration from dsmp to make some of the most amazing shit imaginable.

But as it stands right now, almost no other cc aside from the ones I mentioned above have been able to really do anything interesting with their characters since early s3 and they’ve been shoved into the background and left to the waste side.

I definitely get that feeling. the big exception being characters with rock solid writing who aren't around much or aren't around Anymore (jack manifold, ponk, and slime are some of the best characters on the dsmp, but they aren't likely to carry season four any time soon. I'm gonna put out a missing persons report for c!dream in the next 10 minutes) and people with overall Good writing and characterization who haven't hit their stride with consistent storytelling yet (I've never been disappointed by foolish's writing for instance, and foolish is Around on the server quite often. but it's been a Good While since he really told a Story on the dream smp)

moreover, I think a lot of the new users have promise, they're just struggling to get their footing on a crumbling foundation.

but between dropped story lines, scheduling issues that go on into infinity, streamers deciding that they don't Want to engage with lore anymore, a lack of awareness and communication with other plot lines, and just outright Forgetting your own characterization and character connections we've gotten to the point where very few people feel like they're in character anymore. and the worse this issue gets the less confident I feel in these characters ever having a satisfying conclusion to their character arcs. or even, Character Arcs at all.

I've said it before, but it almost feels like I got tricked into being invested into stories and characters that ultimately did not matter and would never matter again. it's no secret that I started this blog because I was a techno stan, a bedrocker first and person second, and we know how that one turned out for me. but the sheer amount of time that I invested into the egg arc or the enderwalk series cannot be understated. I genuinely thought they were some of the most interesting stories happening on the dsmp and then just fizzled out and died.

the love that I put into clingyduo wasn't rewarded, the last time beeduo was interesting together was when wilbur was writing them, getting truly invested in niki during pogtopia lead to her character stagnating with nothing to do, why did c!puffy go out to buy milk after the red banquet and then never come back. etc etc etc etc

and the worst part about all of it is, I'm still invested. I'm not even just invested in the characters that haven't let me down yet, I Want all of them to be good. I'd gladly Give Them the chance to be good. because I'm some kind of fool

[doctorofmagic]

Hello friend! I play Strange on a Marvel RP server and one of the regular RPers there wants to play Clea! (:D) She's only a casual comic fan like me and we've been digging into Clea's history to see what we can do to make a hybrid MCU/comics Clea to match the hybrid Strange I have.

The problem we're running into is figuring out her personality without rereading all the comics. I read that she made the first advances on Strange so that gives her some sort of boldness, but from what both of us remember, her run as just a non-powerful apprentice in the 60s was a bit boring and (in our recollection) she was a rather flat "damsel in distress" more than anything.

So we're trying to find what her personality actually is in canon. We know what she *is* in terms of roles over the years, and her history. But that doesn't say anything about what she likes, dislikes, introverted or extroverted, how good of a leader she is (if she likes it or does it out of obligation more than anything), stabs at her Myer-Briggs profile, and other fun things like that. Basically, things that have been really well established with Strange and recorded all over the internet in character analyses don't seem to exist with Clea.

You seem to love Clea so I'd love to get an idea of your take on her personality (and, if you wish, how it's evolved from the 60s onward). I'll be looking at what's established in the Death of Doctor Strange run but that's not that much with her whole history to establish a personality, well, *beyond* being just another woman in Stephen's sphere.

Go as little/long as you like, I know this is a big ask :) Thanks in advance!

Greetings, my friend!

Ohhh, that one will be a challenging ask but I'll give my best. Clea has changed A LOT since her debut in the 60's. I'll give a quick overview of each phase and from that you and your friend can work on her characterization. Although this is, of course, merely my own interpretation of Clea.

Strange Tales v1!Clea is brave and bold enough to betray Dormammu by just seeing Stephen's courage and inherent goodness. She's never afraid and she shows great knowledge about the Dark Dimension. She's often the damsel in distress but for someone who was conceived in the 60's, I believe she's pretty strong and independent on her own.

Doctor Strange v1!Clea is somewhat curious and the one to make the first move, but she still remains the nerfed apprentice who can't return to her own dimension. She's not shy at all and she's not afraid of showing her emotions and thoughts.

Doctor Strange v2!Clea and Defenders!Clea are my least favorite version of the character. This is the one who is submissive, insecure, jealous, melancholic. She doubts her own strength because she compares herself to Stephen, and this version is basically the female being reassured by the male character. This is why she leaves Stephen in the first place. It's only at the end of the run that we manage to see a strong Clea again, willing to fight her own mother in order to get the throne of the Dark Dimension. She starts showing the first signs of independence and strength without depending on Stephen. But that's just a looooong road.

Doctor Strange - Sorcerer Supreme!Clea is absolutely my favorite version!! She's the girl boss I always believed her to be. She's a queen and she actually saves Stephen twice!! She's confident enough to get married to him but she doesn't leave the Dark Dimension's throne for him. She won't take Stephen's BS and overprotective attitude toward her. She will confront him about it and she will make her stand whenever she's unpleased. In DSv2, she leaves Stephen because she believes Morgana's love is stronger than hers. In DSSS, she says she will never do that again. When they part ways, it's because they're both too busy with their own issues. Stephen is hiding from Salomé, gathering the power to fight her, while Clea lost her throne and is back to leading the rebelion against Dormammu. But they're mature enough to be aware that they still love each other.

After that, I don't believe there's a good representation of Clea until DODS, in which she's strong but also emotionally damaged for everything she'd been through. Waid's interpretation of her is okay, except that he ruined her memories and that was disgusting, especially when she's a woman literally being gaslighted by a male character. That's a huuuuuuuuuge no-no.

Now, with everything in mind, I can come up with a summary.

So basically I believe Clea - in a general context - is determined, stubborn, clever, powerful, definitely a girl boss, she dislikes when things are unspoken, she's not afraid of emotional conflict in a relationship because she wants to fix things rather than leaving it in the shadows, she's honest and willing to learn more about human culture, she questions certain social traditions, she IS a natural leader for she was the one to lead the rebellion against Dormammu, she became queen of the Dark Dimension once, even though she finds her duty a bit boring, she's definitely definitely definitely horny on main as much as Stephen, they both share the trait of loving too much, she hates when people underestimate her, she's independent and has lived centuries, which means she's wise enough to fight for what's right. Canonically speaking, she loves flowers, rabbits, popcorn, snow and flying. She will use magic to do silly tricks in order to make Stephen laugh. She's definitely an extrovert because she loves meeting people and learning more about human traditions. She's strong enough to bring Valkyrie back to life with her magic, and Val is one of her best friends for sure. She can ride Aragorn (Val's horse), which tells A LOT about her because Aragorn is picky. She also made Val's new outfit, and although little is shown, she's also close to Patsy. I think Clea is lonely as much as Stephen, but the difference is, she doesn't want to. I think she enjoys when she's surrounded by people. Clea never learned love until she met Stephen, but she deserves so much more than just a single romantic relationship.

Regarding MBIT... I'd say she's an ENF(T)P. She's an extrovert for sure, but she will definitely perceive the world by her impressions (this is how she fell in love with Stephen in the first place. I guess N is meant for sorcerers after all). I'm a bit conflicted about the F/T because, although she makes decisions based on her emotions (leaving Stephen because of Morgana and then confessing she still loves him in the middle of a battle), she also allows logic to dictate her fate (leaving Stephen to lead the rebellion because people are suffering). I suppose she's more mature now to make decicions based on logic so perhaps she's a T? Not sure about that tho. And lastly she is aware that magic is not about control so her mindset is probably based on letting things play out.

I think Clea is the type of character that is figuring things out as she goes. She's not perfect but she's strong and brave enough to fight for what she believes. She fights for love, most of all, and she's not afraid of being who she is. And this is precisely what makes her so interesting and my favorite match for Stephen. She makes him be a better man by allowing him to grow emotionally. She's the light of his dark heart, even though she doesn't know everything.

I guess this is pretty much everything I can offer about her. I hope it was enough! Have fun with your rp!!

[bklynmusicnerd]

At the live event TA also thinks Trina is too passive when it comes to Joss and Esme.

I think I wrote about this before but obviously I agree lol. I think it's interesting that she included Joss along with the more obvious issue of Esme but she's right. The current writing for Trina when it comes to how she deals with her disingenuous friendship with Joss and her cold war feud with Esme is antithetical to what the show has told us Trina is about.

Trina is supposed to be blunt, passionate about what she believes in, someone who values truth/honesty and someone who doesn't cower to bullies/villains. So I find the way she's held back when it comes to these two frustrating in various ways. Just from a storytelling standpoint, why are we being denied the potential for good drama?

Maybe if Trina checked Joss more often, the character wouldn't come across nearly as insufferable. At the very least, more people would find the friendship real and genuine. Maybe if Trina was consistently allowed to recognize Esme as a girl who tried to destroy her life, then this expired antagonist would actually have some dramatic value again.

And I don't think it's a matter of Trina being the "good girl" heroine because we've seen Trina be blunt and fearless in a number of scenarios, often with her own boyfriend and mother. So I find this conditional passivity to be a bizarre writing decision. One that I don't think rings true to Trina.

And I'm hoping the fact that the actress has called it out, means that there will be a pivot in the writing. Bravery is very key to Trina's characterization, we should not see her shying away from conflict with her best friend or the girl who tried to destroy her life.

[spaceorphan18]

So beside being invested what did you think about Rings of Power? I really loved it and I can't wait for S2! :)

Oh, hi Nonny! I'm sorry I'm behind on answering asks. I hope you're still around - because I do love talking about Tolkien, and I don't get to do it a whole lot here!

So - yes, I'm interested, and I thought it was much better than I worried it would be. I still has some issues though that I hope they work on.

Okay, story stuff behind the cut in case people don't want to be spoiled. And because I'm wordy, as usual.

****

I'm mostly going to break this down by character/story arc

Galadriel - I liked her a lot more than general consensus, but I do understand the concerns. There's a lot of room in Tolkien's canon to let Galadriel be whatever the story needs her to be. What they made her be, however, is mostly an angry, aggressive, and static character. I don't blame the actress -- she's doing great with some questionable script writing. I'm fine with her wanting revenge, but they're swinging wildly on this one note, and really need to give her more depth and nuance moving forward.

(Also /what/ was that dark scene where she threatened Adar? I mean why go that far?)

Halbrand/Sauron - Okay, I love LOVE the idea of what they did here more than the actual execution. This is one of those times where the show was trying to have its cake and eat it too. They were trying to walk this line -- making him seem like he could be a real lost king, or someone who was going to be the Nazgul, and wanted to play up the mystery of who Sauron was but... they could have spent a lot more time letting us in on the secret, and letting him be way more manipulative than he actually was. I feel like it was /such/ a missed opportunity to not have him just be sinister, or at least unsettling, the whole way through.

I also think there was a missed opportunity not to have him spend more time with the Elves (as he does in canon) teaching them how to make their rings. It was weird to me that it was, like, a half episode.

Loved the actor (kudos to having him have the whole Aragorn feel to him). Loved the scene between he and Galadriel in the last episode -- so, so good. And I'm really glad they didn't try to force some weird kind of romance there, and instead were opting for two sides of a similar coin kind of thing.

Again - interested to see where they go with this -- will they stick to canon and have him involved in the fall of Numenor?

Elendil, Ilsildur, and Numenor - Look, we know how this ends - with Numenor sinking into the sea and Elendil and Ilsildur creating the last alliance (with the Elves) to defeat Sauron. I think there's a good start here -- both with Elendil and Ilsildur and with the beginnings of the fall of Numenor. I can't say this was the most interesting part of the show, but it does have potential for getting some really fascinating fantasy politics going.

Celebrimbor, Gil-Galad, and the Elves - Out of all the places we've been, the land of the Elves feels kind of limited, and I wish they'd expand the scope here a little. Celebrimbor isn't like I thought he'd be, but that's okay -- I do wish we had more of him though. Gil-Galad feels so stiff and undeveloped. Let him expand his role a bit.

Elrond - Yes, I love him and everything about him. No complaints. Let's give him more to do in upcoming seasons.

The Dwarves - This was pretty well done. Even if there were some huge departs to canon (There should only be one Durin at a time) I think this might be the strongest story line in the show. I loved Elrond and Durin's friendship. I also loved Dessa - and how she's somewhat a Lady MacBeth character. The characterization in these plot lines feels like it was handled the best.

The whole Mithril being the Elves' savior thing -- *sigh* Look, I know they're limited because they don't get the Silmarillion, and it's causing some strange things to happen. And I'm not a Tolkien purist - I'm fine with changes but... wtf?? Mithril was somehow created from the Silmarils and a balrog and... no. Stop. Stop explaining it.

The Southlands - I was a little worried at first, because all of the characters here were original ones. While I really did not care about the romance between the Elf dude and the Southlander woman, overall, I think what they did here was pretty good. The tension during this story line was pretty well done, and the characters weren't nearly as annoying as I feared they might be.

I still feel like the kid has some part to play -- will he become a great king of men and become one of the nazgul? That'd be a twist, huh?

I also kind of loved the eruption of Mt. Doom -- though another missed opportunity not having the Southlands change to Mordor on the map.

Adar - I actually loved this character -- because he struck on some of the lore actually from canon, and made him a sympathetic villain. Idk, I just thought it was cool what they did with him. The orcs, too, were rather well done -- and much more menacing than in the original trilogy, tbh.

The Stranger - I love Wizards, I really do. I think they spent too much time making us wonder if it was Sauron, though, when it clearly wasn't. All signs point to Gandalf, which would be.. I get it, even if Gandalf wasn't in the third age. They have room to tell the story of one of the blue wizards, which would at least be a neat twist. I also kind of wonder if he's Saruman - because that'd be even more unexpected. I suppose we'll see. I do hope, though, he has more interaction with the others, though, because this plot line was so disjointed that it kind of felt annoying to go back to it.

The Hobbits - *sigh* This is where I'm confused - in canon, there are three factions of Hobbits and the Fallohides are the ones that are wanderers, not the Harfoots. Nothing about these Harfoots resembled what we know about them in canon, so why not make them Fallohides? I don't get it.

Anyway... when I heard they were bringing Hobbits into the mix, I kind of groaned. It was better than I thought it'd be, but still not great. They were just kinda dumb -- and it was their own fault they kept getting killed by the stranger. Nori drove me crazy. Oops. (Also - holy Elijah Wood look alike with this actress.)

Some other things --

The LotR references - as someone who loves Easter Eggs and callbacks, even I was getting a little bit tired of them. They were going out of their way to pay so much homage to the original trilogy that I felt like it was trying too hard.

the cinematography is gorgeous. It is the most expensive TV show ever filmed, and it shows. I hope that push back about the show doesn't cause Amazon (or who ever is funding it) to cut the budget on this - because omg, is it beautiful.

The score was fantastic - yes, good, goes in with the wonderful cinematography

The show has some pacing issues. Some plot lines drag on too much. Others are rushed.

Also, as reviewers mentioned - some of the dialogue is really awkward and just plain weird.

So.... are they going to show the making of the other rings? Are they going to show the downfall of men into the Nazgul? How's the fall of Numenor going to go? Will they expand into the east and south? There's a lot of story to tell yet -- I'm hoping they listen to some feedback about this first season and try to improve upon it. There's a lot of potential here, and I want to see it grow into an even better show!

Those be my thoughts! Thanks for asking Nonny!

[thankskenpenders]

(Maybe spoilers for IDW Sonic 40?) I'd like to say two things: first, that cover where Eggman is a streamer is just so good. The little chat at the bottom is amazing and I love that people are already photoshopping him onto other games. Second, on a more serious note, do you think we've seen enough of both of them to tell what tangible difference, if any, there is between Ian and Evan?

That cover is, indeed, very good. I also love that the health bars are based off of the UI for Sonic Chronicles

As for the differences between the two: Evan's style on IDW Sonic is obviously influenced by Ian's since she's a fan of his work and it's still the same series, but I definitely got a different vibe from her stuff right away

Broadly I would say it's obvious that Evan is relishing in her new position and is trying to explore fun new corners of the IDW world right away. I love Ian's solo run to pieces, obviously (he gave us Tangle and Whisper for crying out loud), but it has a different vibe since he had already been writing Sonic for over a decade. He was comfortable jumping into a long story arc like the Metal Virus saga really early on after so many years spent refining the way he writes Sonic stories, whereas Evan's first two arcs have both felt somewhat experimental. You can tell how excited she was to send the Sega girls off on a mission together, or to do stuff with Chao, or to base the premise of the latest arc very loosely off of a weird old Sonic chapter book

There's also a lot of subtle changes in the dialogue and characterization that I picked up on quickly. Evan seems less afraid to make Sonic playfully rude with his friends, for example, whereas Ian had made him more of a softie over the years. (Not that Evan's Sonic is a jerk or anything - I think it's a good balance.)

But Amy's probably one of the best examples. Evan clearly set out to make Amy a frontline fighter again right away. Not that Ian was sidelining her or anything, but she's literally been going on adventures in all of Evan's first eight issues back to back. She's also definitely writing Amy more as the platonic ideal of Sega Amy, whereas in Ian's solo run... Okay, I think people exaggerate the claims that Amy got turned into Sally, but consciously or not... there's definitely some Sally in the way Ian was writing her for a while. The two are certainly distinct characters, and it's Sega's fault in the first place for making her one of the heads of the Resistance, and they drifted even further apart as Amy fell out of her leadership role. But it's there in a lot of Ian's run as he slowly weens her off of her role from Forces. There's a lot of good Sega-style Amy scenes, too, but when I go back and reread pretty much any scene where Amy is commanding the Resistance I can just feel the specter of Sally looming over the story

And of course there's Shadow, who Evan is trying very hard to take in a more balanced direction. Ian certainly gave it his best too, but if you listen to the BumbleKast you can literally hear in his voice how tired he is whenever the back and forth with Sega on Shadow's characterization comes up

This might just be my imagination, but as a writer who's also an artist it also feels like Evan is more eager to script things in a way that will lead to interesting layouts and visuals. This is my third post today referencing the kaleidoscope effect when Sonic broke the maze but seriously, that part was SO GOOD. And the chateau in CR&BB felt very much like a location that she thought would be fun to draw

I'm sure there's more I'll be able to pick up on as we get more stories from Evan (and I'd probably be able to pick out more hallmarks of her style if I'd read Ghosts of the Future or Silver Age already lol), but she definitely has her own style. One that's extremely compatible with Ian's, but a different style nonetheless

[cheryls-blossomed]

I know you’re not watching The Flash and maybe not answering questions about it anymore so I hope this isn’t a terrible imposition if I ask this and it’s totally okay if you don’t want to answer but I’m so interested in your thoughts about the misogynoir in the flash in respect to Iris & Cecile. Both black women and yet somehow I feel that Iris is the one that suffers from the misogynoir while Cecile suffers from bad writing, like there is a difference between how the characters are treated. Thank you for taking the time to read this 🙏

Aw, not an imposition at all, nonnie! Thank you for taking the time to write to me. I am always happy to answer Flash questions, even if I'm no longer watching. I think I'm at a place where I've properly distanced myself emotionally from the show that I don't have to avoid everything about it, in order to not get invested again. I've divested myself of that investment (I think).

To answer your question, I think you raise some important points. I think Cecile suffers from terrible writing, quite frankly. She isn't a well-constructed character: we're told she's a fantastic attorney, but every once in a blue moon when the show showcases her in the courtroom, she is portrayed as utterly incompetent. She has powers that make zero sense and have no real proper constraints. Her most consistent character trait is that she's very intrusive, to the point that it renders her unlikeable. But she doesn't have many other discernible character traits, other than what the plot wants her to do in a particular moment. For a character who now is so much at the forefront of the show's story-telling, she isn't a well-constructed character to be able to carry those arcs, because the ground-work for her characterization was something the writing never invested in. The writing invests in Cecile's presence in the story-telling; the writing fails to invest in Cecile as an independent character. Thus, she suffers from quite frankly atrocious writing. But I would add that the narrative throwing story-lines at Cecile with zero build-up and attributing character traits to her with zero character work having been done, and TPTB patting themselves on the back for giving Cecile prominent story-lines, while completely failing to write Cecile as a well-rounded character with actual backstory and with plots that are actually salient, rather than plots which are just prominent in screentime, while lacking in actual depth of story, is misogynoiristic writing. Cecile should be written as a well-rounded character, but she’s not. 

Misogynoir entrenched in the narrative is perpetuated against Iris constantly. I've always said that Iris is a very well-rounded character, despite the fact that she has been sidelined frequently, even in story-lines which ought to feature her prominently (see the Mirrorverse arc, for example) and often times not given her due. But we know Iris so well. We've seen her grow as a character; we know that she's brave and determined and loyal and fiercely loving and warm and clever and that she sees the best in people. We've seen her carry emotional burdens; we know that she bottles up her most painful emotions. We know Iris. The issues are external to her character: Iris is an amazing character. The way the writing treats her is extremely problematic, however. It's Iris's treatment in the narrative that is at issue. Misogynoir is perpetuated against her time and again: story-lines are premised upon her suffering and suffering and suffering, and even when she's suffering, her suffering is not prioritized. Her pain is not prioritized, despite the fact that the narrative constantly traumatizes her. Violent imagery is frequently perpetuated against her. Other characters are given free rein to yell at her. She is rarely comforted. She is always comforting. She doesn't get moments with her husband to themselves. Instead, she gets trauma and pain inflicted upon her, but that trauma and pain are never prioritized. Her healing is also not prioritized at all. Most of the time, the show brushes off her healing. We had one episode of her dealing with her grief over the death of her child, and then the show forgot all about her pain. We had one episode where she attends a group therapy session and voices the trauma that she endured in the Mirrorverse. And then the show forgot all about her trauma, other than one line from Kristen Kramer, of all people. We are told she is enduring a painful time sickness that will likely have her disappear, but not only does the narrative choose not to give her prominence in a story-line about her enduring further pain, physical, emotional, and mental, her pain is something she endures largely by herself. Meanwhile, she is expected to be strong, to be there for others, to be the one supporting, the one comforting. Rarely is that reciprocated onscreen. The misogynoir perpetuated against her affects all her central relationships: her relationship with her husband is sidelined and affectionate moments, few and far between already, last two seconds and are interrupted, while they are constantly physically forced apart and forced to deal with the trauma of being separated and having to fight to find their way back to each other; her relationship with her father has become largely non-existent, meanwhile we can watch Joe be affectionate towards random characters like Nora Darkh, but not towards his own child; her relationship with her children, while absolutely wholesome and beautiful, is something we only get to see in glances, in short moments, here and there; her relationship with Nora I, who died in her and Barry's arms, was complicated and the structuring of that arc enabled the narrative to further traumatize Iris; when her brother returned for an episode, she was not allowed to interact with him, but forced to tearfully watch him from a mirror, because she was trapped. The misogynoir is so entrenched within the narrative and perpetuated against Iris constantly. Iris is constantly denied what other characters get readily, including episodes which focus on mental health, healing from trauma, loving moments with her family, spotlighting her journalism arc (CCCMEDIA IS IRIS WEST-ALLEN'S BABY AND NO ONE ELSE'S, THANK YOU VERY MUCH), a Pulitzer prize, etc.

I'll always love Iris West-Allen. I may have no interest in the show, anymore, and I am completely emotionally detached from the show at this point, but Iris is my baby, and I so, so, so wish that she had had writers who loved her as much as we do and who treated her with the care and love that she deserves and who weren't so, so harmful to her.

[fillingthescrapbook]

Kung Fu Busted

Before I begin, I want to say that I am grateful that there is a television show like Kung Fu, a program that has a primarily Asian cast. I am also thankful that the CW decided to renew the show for a second season although the ratings aren't very high. Now with that said, I really hope the network's decision to renew early-ish would give the creative team enough time to fix the problems of this show. Number one being its lead character.

I feel bad for Olivia Liang, the actress playing Nicky Shen, because she is a good actress. The material she's working with though is really doing its damned best to make Nicky unlikeable. And it's one thing if she was written to be a flawed character working towards becoming a better person--she's not. She was presented as someone who wanted to escape her life, who found peace--and who is forced to come back to the life she ran away from.

In the pilot, Nicky is someone who learns that people cannot stand alone, And that a community is stronger together than apart. She learns that her choice to abandon her life instead of facing her problems didn't solve anything--and has, in fact, caused more troubles for her and her family. She learns this--and applies that learning in the second episode, when she gets a random and truncated story revolving around a young woman trying to save her mother from an abusive boyfriend. And then Nicky devolves.

In Episode 3, Nicky helps out an overworked woman by charging at the problem with no thoughts about consequences. But at least she was helping someone. Because Episodes 4 and 6 has Nicky at her most self-centered. She's breaking the rules, she's breaking the law, and she's breaking the fragile relationships she has just so she could go after mystical weapons that are vaguely defined as dangerous...if they fall into the wrong hands.

Even Episode 5, where Nicky is supposed to care about someone else's plight, started and ended with Nicky's obsession about the mcguffins. Which marred an otherwise well-plotted episode.

The thing is, Nicky being this prickly and out-of-touch could very well be written into the show. She spent three years in a monastery. While that wouldn't have made her oblivious to the world at large, it would have hampered her social skills a little bit. Imagine having to speak in Chinese for three years and suddenly having to switch back to straight English again? Imagine having spent days only on training, on meditation, and on chores--and then having to live a life centered around earning again? Those are stories and conflicts that can be fleshed out and woven into Nicky's return to her old life.

The second episode could've been so much better had Nicky's arc with the mother and daughter victims of domestic abuse taken the whole episode, instead of just a third of it. They could've cut out Althea's c-plot about being a bridezilla and have her be more involved with Nicky's a-plot instead. This actually helps the relationship between Nicky and Althea become deeper, leading to Althea helping Nicky out in the next episode without questions, and with Nicky becoming the first person Althea talks to about her secret. Meanwhile, Nicky's strained relationship with her parents could've taken up the b-plot more with Evan, Henry, and Ryan playing a bigger part there--which could lead to Nicky and Ryan having a spat which would lead into their issue at the start of Episode 3.

I have thoughts about the structure and overall plot-messiness of Episodes 3, 4, and 6 as well--but I want to move on to my next problem with the show: the characters, outside of Althea, do not feel realistic.

Henry is Kung Fu's plot Macgyver, the one character to call for whatever Nicky needs to do that other characters can't help her with. And outside of his interest in mythology, his background in petty crimes, and his presence in the Chinese community center, we don't know a lot about who he is as a character. Because he only exists to be Nicky's key to whatever plot she needs to unlock.

Evan is a more interesting character in that he is a person of authority who wants to protect Nicky--which is a treasure trove of moral dilemmas. But it feels like the writers don't know what to do with Evan. Because, similar to Henry, he only appears to provide Nicky with keys to plots she needs to resolve. And it doesn't really help that the actor playing Evan, Gavin Stenhouse, doesn't have chemistry with Olivia Liang.

Then there's Ryan, Nicky's brother who was supposed to be the one closest to her before she went AWOL. Ryan whose most interesting characteristic so far, his membership to the LGBTQ+ community, was resolved off screen. I know LGBTQ+ coming out stories have been done so many times already--but can you imagine Ryan's story had Nicky come back with him engaged to a girl? Because his confidence deserted him when he needed her the most? Because the sister who said she would stand by him disappeared during the time he was being pressured to get engaged and marry? And then imagine his storylines after coming out? Having to find safe havens? Having to deal with a different kind of discrimination? That could provide so much b-plots that could go so well with procedural a-plots for Nicky to solve as she repairs her relationship with her family. So much potential lost.

Which brings me to Nicky's parents. Tzi Ma is wasted on this show. He is a very good actor, and aside from the great scenes he had in the first two episodes, the only thing he's been given to do is act the doting husband and loving father. Tan Kheng Hua gets more meat in her stories as Nicky's mom, but her characterization wavers between protective mother, disappointed mother, and cold mother so much that you don't even know if she's supposed to help Nicky grow, or be a villain Nicky needs to defeat.

Althea's fiancé is just eye-candy, the villain Zhilan is just a moustache-twirling baddie, and Pei-Ling doesn't know if she's Nicky's voice of reason, devil's advocate, or a ghost who just doesn't want to share everything she knows to Nicky.

The characters are a mess. Which makes it no wonder that Kung Fu, as a story, is such a mess too. You have too many cardboard characters needing some color into their personalities. And the show focuses too much time on mystical weapons and a mysterious villain that doesn't really have any teeth. So what we've gotten so far is a show that can claim they have Asian representation--but doesn't offer anything else.

[hopevalley]

A long time ago someone pushed you toward the talk/discussion about HER (humor, emotion, romance). Now that we've seen more stuff, do you think this is still their goal? How good are they at it?

Oh, for sure this is still the goal they aim for with the stories they choose to tell, and has probably been since the start of the show. As far as how good at it the showrunners/writers are... Hah. I think they do their best with what they have, let’s put it that way. I can come up with all kinds of fun ideas and fancy storylines they “could have used instead”...but it doesn’t mean they had the budget/capability of filming it. At least, not every time.

Also, hindsight is 20/20. It’s easy to see where the show went wrong after it’s on the screen to see. Maybe when it was being talked about behind closed doors, things were just different, you know?

Over the course of the seasons I’d argue they’ve done a lot with HER. In early episodes I felt like they were trying to splash the different components across the cast, so while Elizabeth and Jack were getting the romance, Abigail got an emotional plotline and Lee got something humorous.

Around S5 I felt like there was an effort being made to “balance” each individual’s plot(s)...with varied success. Carson and Rhonda’s plotline went pretty well. Rushed or not, they felt like they had a comfortable connection/relationship, and we got both light sweet humorous bits...and the deeper more emotional stuff, too. Bill and AJ got...all three, really, where the writers were clearly trying to do a sort of humor/romance thing that segued into a drama/angst/romance...but with a lot less success than Carson and Rhonda, I felt.

Basically, my opinion about HER as a “goal” is: excellent. But it’s not as easy to balance as it sounds, mostly because you’ll give your audience whiplash or make them question character motivation if things swap too quickly or don’t feel...natural enough?

Think about S2′s drama with Elizabeth and Jack and Charles. It was probably one of the most hated parts of the entire show thus far, and with good reason: it felt forced, like it wasn’t the sort of thing these characters would do/bother with/partake in.

That’s kind of what happened with Bill and AJ, and with a similar cause behind it. Instead of the writers wanting Drama at the forefront of their storyline, though, it was Humor. The issue is that humor has to be natural for it to feel Good to the audience, and what we got didn’t feel like something ANYONE would do or partake in, least of all these characters. 

AJ being a fugitive aside, she came to Hope Valley for a very good reason, and it’s silly to think for even a second that Bill “Chief Investigator” Avery wouldn’t have known that. In AJ’s appearance scene she kinda comes out and says, dismissively, that she just got tired of running. There’s more to it than that. Bill knows this. If AJ turned herself in and went out of her way to come to Hope Valley instead of literally any other place (especially after having recently been in TEXAS), it’s because she trusts Bill to some degree. I think the writers wanted to capture the same “banter” and “feeling” that S4 gave to these characters: AJ is a royal pain in the neck, Bill tolerates it but makes snippy remarks, and in the end AJ’s kinda into that (and into him) and it’s all gucci.

But the writers forgot to keep in mind that what created the “banter” and the “feeling” these characters had in S4 were the circumstances they were in in S4. AJ is literally an accountant, okay. She’s not stupid. She’s not naive. She doesn’t trust easily and she’s lost everything she ever had that was good in her life (except maybe her mother, but we don’t know if her mother is even okay now). Even after kissing Bill in S4, he locked her up. There is no reason for AJ to think she can seduce Bill...and in S5 she doesn’t really try to? But she keeps throwing out these “I’M SINGLE AND READY TO MINGLE.......BILL ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME I SAID I AM S I N G L E!” lines that...are supposed to be kind of funny/awful but just ring as awful because...why is she acting like this? And why wouldn’t Bill be angry with her when she “turned herself in” but constantly seems to be trying to get him to...admit feelings? But at the same time her desire to turn herself in is painted as VERY genuine? What?

Again, they forgot what created the circumstances that made AJ and Bill interact the way they did in S4, and tried to recreate it without the backdrop that made it make sense in the first place. It’s a classic case of mistaking “what happened” for “characterization.” 

This is really important, especially when it comes to characters like AJ, because we’ve ONLY EVER seen her when she was in a bad situation/place. We don’t even hear about her until Bill gets the news that she retracted her testimony and disappeared, and when Bill finds her he finds someone who was threatened into lying, who didn’t burn or dispose of the original accounting books (even though she knew she was supposed to have done that), and who is immediately afraid for her life because if people KNOW she didn’t burn those books, there’s no reason to let her live/assume she’ll keep her mouth shut. The episodes managed to be funny because AJ is just an argumentative person (and Bill is a staunch believer in Justice), but the POINT of the end of their S4 interaction wasn’t “oh AJ’s hot for Bill.” or, “Bill realizes she’s running to protect herself and so doesn’t stop her.” The point was that both characters were actually right about different things, and emotionally/mentally kind of managed to meet in the middle. AJ realized the books and payoff money were necessary for Bill to prosecute the people who deserved it, and Bill realized that AJ lied for an Understandable Reason. She’s not that bad. Actually, she’s a pretty good person. Things aren’t always as they seem, and all that.

S5 tried to recreate all that energy without the proper backdrop. Sure, AJ’s still a fugitive and S5 makes no effort to dance around the fact that prison is a really terrible place and AJ is afraid to go there (but wants to move on with her life and is willing to just get it over with), but she’s not in Immediate danger the way she was in S4. Also, S4 Bill knows AJ is a decent person. There’s no reason for him to learn that again in S5.

I want to remind you that like I said above, we don’t actually know what “normal” AJ is like. We don’t see her, we don’t hear from her, we don’t have a clue how she lived or acted or was. The entire time S5 is going on, she knows she’s headed to prison for a potentially VERY LONG sentence (perjury + escaping jail + other felonies = 10 years at least at this time). Anything she does or says isn’t “the real, genuine AJ.” It’s, “AJ at this time in her life.” Which is why them grabbing onto Flirty as a trait was odd; she flirted ONCE in S4; making it “a defining character trait” in S5 was not a good idea, and didn’t feel to me like they were displaying any kind of understanding about the character. She just wasn’t very likable in S5, but the reason is because they wrote The Interactions (or tried to) and not The Characters.

This circles back around to HER because it’s important to balance it and make storylines that make sense REGARDLESS of your overarching “mood board” goal. By default I feel like most people really enjoy humor/romance with some deep emotion/friendship/adventures packed in. Trying too hard to cram it in because You Just Have To makes for weird storytelling.

(I want to add here that like, okay... so we can pretend that AJ’s acting like a whack job because she wants some kind of positive feedback from Bill before she potentially dies in prison, even if that’s just “if things were different we coulda had something together.” The problem with that is...that...they don’t know each other, and WORSE, we barely know them? So her popping in out of nowhere after one (1) kiss a year earlier doesn’t make any sense. They wanted to play up “hey Bill did enjoy that kiss, though!” as if it meant he loved her, but like, how could he? He doesn’t know her. He’s probably attracted to her, but there’s a difference and these characters...would know that? They’re grown ass adults.

Anyway, I feel like S6 did a bit better with using HER effectively, even though they had to cut a lot of stuff out. Allie was a good balance in that regard, for example, and I can’t help but think the success is in part because they stopped trying to cram HER into every individual plotline, as they seemed to be doing in S5 (I mean, the wedding was like this, the railroad issues were like this, etc), but rather, tried to utilize all of these things when they felt appropriate--not necessarily all within a single plot.