#also i liked the main character's relationship with her brother got a lot of focus

[libraryleopard]

Young adult coming-of-age novel

After she's outed by her ex-best friend at her old school before transferring to a Catholic high school, sixteen-year-old Yamilet is determined to keep her sexuality under wraps, but her plan is complicated by a cute girl at her new school and her own complicated home life

Indigenous Mexican American lesbian main character; Chinese American lesbian love interest; indigenous Mexican American bisexual side character; Black gay side character

[tocomplainfriend]

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN!?

I came back to or HB and I got run over with the lack of Female character content. Specially in the queer area!

We got Millie, who gets the lowest attention. See doesn't have and actual episode about her as a person. Unhappy Campers it's not an actual episode about her- it's mainly Moxxie and her dealing with it. We don't get any flashbacks in comparison to Blitz, Moxxie, and Loona. Even when Chaz it's her ex, we only get the Moxxie's part of the story. We get an episode with full focus on Bllitz, Stolas and Moxxie perspective of things in an episode, but we never follow Millie alone her self.

What we got about Millie: Good at killing (Melee weapons), supportive, Country girl, anger? Moxxie's Wife

Unhappy campers tries to give her attention but not actually doing it. She gets everyone to love her and show she can do an endless amount of tricks. But the episode concentrates in Moxxie getting insecure again. The fact they barely want to write her shows in just giving her long fighting scenes instead.

What does she do? Like, does she have her group of friends outside of her job or no? How does that make her feel? Being in your mid 20's and not really having many friends, it's quite a thing to explore. Or does she have actual friends outside of Blitz, and her husband.

How does she feel about Blitz stalking them? Cause in the pilot she just laughs it off a lot! Why? She didn't say anything about Blitz coming to Ozzies to see them. Does she actually dislike Loona or the fact she is a hellhound? Does she feel like a normal Joe underlooked, cause maybe her family with multiple kids didn't give her top attention and recognition? Probably not because they didn't write that- I imagined that, just know. Apparently she just had a 'boring' good family and that's why we don't see anything of that.

I just fill in the spaces where the is nothing to say regarding Millie with Headcanons, basically...

Loona gets written kind of back and forward. She was so nice by the end of season 1- to then beat the shit off Blitz in season 2, episode 2. And She was given the reason of "blitz did something that hurt her" when she was in the wrong for being awful to the customers in the first place and try to guilt-trip her dad. In that same episode, we get Loona's backstory for getting adopted, but from Blitz Perspective. I loved how she was with Octavia. But she backtracks into being mean to everyone. Hopefully she gets to interact with her by the end of the season!

Verosika... Where is my girl? Haven't seen her! She gets to have genuine frustrations towards Blitz, I'm happy for that. I hope they don't write her into had being the bad one for blitz to look better.

Stella, she gets written as the worst to elevate Stolas as the least bad person to justify him and Stolitz. Her view of also getting forced to marry someone as a child is never given, she gets the least out of it to- she doesn't get any book or power- she sticks to her family. I think writing her as "stupid" and also the "I love tormenting you" is so shallow. Her power as an antagonist gets killed in order to put her brother as the main danger instead.

One thing in writting I don't think it's intentional is her treatment of Striker. It does call my attention that Stolas call Blitz an Imp, and imp based names- same with disregarding Millie and Moxxie- Meanwhile Stella treats her assistant like shit and says shit if "plebeian blabla" but when she gets in the Phone with Striker to cancel the killing. She is polite and calls him darling. Which is different!

I love that Octavia gets attention, but I know she is written to also elevate Stolas as a character. -And the writting fill force her into forgiving him. Also... her relationship with her Mom? Someone? Can we explore what she thinks of imps or hellhounds compared to her parents?

Sallie May? 2 Lines in 1 episode.

Barbie? Her story dealing with her mom dying got pushed in the BG due to her deleted content. uh... get drugs from being sexual as a +30 woman to a 19 yr human. Doesn't want to deal with Blitz cool! Fizz gets more backstory with Blitz than with her...

Glitz and Glam. They show up and act like assholes to Fizz (to make him seem more vunerable and dealing with a lot). For some reason, the concept of Mammon being abusive to Fizz only matter if it towards him. Because he just let Glitz and Glam take his place, even if they were being bitches to him- that doesn't make them have to endure Mammon's treatment too. They are also over villainized as if Blitz or wasn't an ass to everyone too.

Bee is there probably for one episode due to wall Kesha and shit. She is a contradiction on her self "gluttony - over indulgance" to then "Loona your dad is drinking to much and it worries me" ??? She is there to be a party girl and tell Loona what to do.

Overall she also only get Queer content out of the male characters. There is not a single WLW thing going on anywhere here. Meanwhile most the teasing of ships and jokes is MLM (blitzXmoxxie,blitzXstriker, blitzXstolas, blitzXchaz, blitzXfizz, moxxieXstriker, moxxieXchaz, fizzXasmodeous)

The only possible WLW joke is Bee and Loona. That's it!

For a show that gets to praised for representation of the trans woman character, It's less of a secondary character just yet. And no non-binary character anywhere.

(DO NOT SAY oh but in the BG, NO I'm TALKING ACTUAL CHARACTERS IN THE SHOW-not the bg succubus or the art team putting random stuff around!)

[whoistrash]

Why change matters and how Amphibia did it better than The Owl House.

"Watching and Dreaming" made me cry a lot during its premiere. I was amazed and, I'd say, dazed by it. Then I forgot about it for a while. Now I finished re-watching Amphibia for the first time since TOH ended. My hype died down, and I have some thoughts. A lot, actually.

Amphibia's ending was incredibly painful and made me sob like a baby for two whole weeks the first time I watched it. That's because it was not only beautiful and heartbreaking, but truly GOOD. Brilliant, actually. I absolutely agree with a statement that any other ending would literally be a contradiction to the whole main plot, especially Anne's arc. The girls had to learn to let go in order to grow as individuals - the thing they had the biggest problem with. Saying goodbye was the only logical option, plot-wise. It still hurt like hell, though. Separating the multidimensional, against-all-odds relationships (especially my beloved spranne. Ouch, ouch, ouch). The Owl House does no such thing - everybody stays together. They live happily ever after.

Paradoxically, I think that it's the main reason why I'd choose "The Hardest Thing" over "Watching and Dreaming" every single time. I know we shouldn't really compare them in EVERY aspect, since TOH had way more things to deal with in the final episode, but the fact that Luz got to not only stay, but to freely travel between worlds as she pleases really took the whole "growing up and finding your true self no matter what the other people do/say about you" thing out the door. Luz from season one, episode one, and Luz from the finale are not really that different. Well, she certainly became more traumatised and depressed than before, but in terms of personal growth? Nope. Luz - from the very beginning - was cheerful, open, caring and very selfless, willing to literally help every stranger she met no matter how it would affect her. She had little to no boundaries, but, well, you can't argue that she was A GOOD, SELFLESS PERSON. Now, we could say that her arc here would be learning that sometimes you should put yourself before others, that you can't save everyone, that you can't trust every person you meet. And she learns it! She fucking does! She helps Philip not knowing who he will become, and then suffers from the consequences, because she helped the wrong person. And then it's all erased, when she saves Collector's life and meets Papa Titan (or whatever we call them).

I have so much to say about this. All of TOH's "villains" (Amity, Lilith, Hunter, The Collector) that were given a redemption arc literally get turned into lifeless, edgy trauma dumpsters, that suddenly loose all of their previous character, quirks and sass (well, maybe except for Lilith, she just started to express them differently, I think, but still, it was WAY too big of a change). I won't dwell on it (since many, many fans called it out already - as they should), and will focus on something different. The only one marked as irredeemable is Belos. Good. Okay. He's irredeemable, because he's a white, christian puritan who won't listen to anyone but himself. Also a genocidal maniac. That's the lesson for Luz here. "You can't save everyone. Some people are just straight up evil". And it's very, very true. But.

From all of the "villains" I mentioned before, Belos is the one that had the most reasons to, let's say, take a dark turn. Those reasons are what makes him irredeemable - he's just too convinced he's right, because, in his mind, he has evidence to prove it. But how do we learn about this? Maybe by seeing his part of the story? Maybe by learning about his brother and Evelyn, about their relationship? It couldn't be straight up awful, since Philip literally brought his brother back to life over and over again, he wanted his brother, or at least the picture of Caleb that satisfied him the most. There was more to it than only "you betrayed me and now I will hate you forever". Do we get to see any of that? No. Instead we get an all-knowing, all-doing being that literally choose Luz as "the one" for being kind and trusting, that convinces her that Belos is, indeed, a lost cause. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Luz, the person that on the literal episode two was told that there is no such thing as a "chosen one" and that she can't always hop into action to save everybody, because, it's, well, not always possible, DOES EXACTLY THAT in the finale by taking a bullet for The Collector, the, you know, very freshly redeemed and suddenly cute and funky villain, whom Luz trusts immediately. AND SHE IS REWARDED FOR IT BY BEING MADE THE CHOSEN ONE. BY A GOD-LIKE BEING THAT CLAIMS TO BE ALL-KNOWING AND CAN DECIDE WHO IS RIGHT AND WHO IS WRONG, BECAUSE OF PERSONAL (King) REASONS. Just like, you know... Belos? The irredeemable villain? And then Luz lets go of the moral dilemmas that's been keeping her up at night for the past months, makes up her mind, defeats the bad guy, learns nothing, and gets to stay in the Boiling Isles and on Earth. With her beautifully redeemed girlfriend and friends whom she kept secrets from and lied to out of fear of being ostracised (you see the pattern here, right?) for, again, months.

I love Amphibia. I love The Owl House. But Amphibia handles it's "villains", generally wronged characters and the whole change/no change thing way better. Well, maybe besides the Core - they got a bit wasted in my opinion. But still. Sasha. Grime. Marcy. Andrias. Anne herself. They learn and change. And more importantly, they face consequences and come to understand and accept them. There's no "chosen one" here. Anne gets the proposition because she's the first one to use the music box for good in literal millenia. A fact, plain and simple (not an opinion based on personal motivations), that makes sense plot-wise, and adds so, so much to Anne's arc. Because Anne from season one, episode one wouldn't care. The one from the finale cares very damn much. And that's the biggest difference.

Saying goodbye makes the message way stronger. The more I think about it, however, the more I'm starting to be afraid that there's no The Message in The Owl House to begin with. Luz learns very little, yet ends up with everything she ever wanted. There's no power behind it. The "find the right people and choose to trust them, not everyone will be your friend" and "some things are out of your control, some people are just bad" aspect is even weaker, as proven by basically the whole season 3. I will end it by my favorite quote from Amphibia, that I think about on daily basis. Have a good day, y'all.

"Change can be difficult, but it's how we grow. It can be the hardest thing to realize you can't hold on to something forever. Sometimes, you have to let it go; but, of the things you let go, you'd be surprised what makes its way back to you."

[comradekarin]

living for your hotd hot takes!!! what do you wish would have happened in S1 & S2 in your ideal world?

thank you anon. i know some people are sick of me bitching….but blame ryan and sara!!! i love when i get asks anyway, it’s fun :)

now, i won’t go into specifics mainly because i don’t know what plot points i would change exactly (while still keeping it faithful to the show/books). but as for season one, in an ideal world, there aren’t so many time skips. i do understand that time skips and short seasons are because of budgeting, but the frequent time skips didn’t help with establishing the dynamics between the characters, namely alicent and rhaenyra. i believe there’s an entirety of twenty plus years shown in season one, yet a lot of groundwork isn’t really laid down. i personally wish we got more harwin/house strong. it’s easy to forget larys is harwin’s brother, and larys is such a major player with teamg that it really makes you wonder his relationship with his brother and father. more of harwin and rhaenyra! i would even go as far as to wish for more interactions between nyra and alicent’s kids outside of the pivotal scenes we got. in an ideal world, season one would truly show the build of resentment, of bitterness, of suspicion and distrust amongst not just the kids but the adults as well. the events leading up to the estrangement of rhaenyra and alicent in their adulthood (though, this is implied more than explicitly stated).

this last wish is more personal, but i wish the writers hadn’t cut out jacaerys and rhaenyra’s conversation before he left for the north in s1. jacaerys wishing to fight, like daemon, and urging his mother to act for every second she stalled him and his siblings remained in danger. granted, rhaenyra appeared very naive and childish in the script, so it’s probably for the better it never made the final cut.

i’m only halfway through season two, but my main issue with the season so far is the lack of consistency when it comes to characterization. there’s a lot of back tracking and contradictions that make the characters we loved in season one unrecognizable in two. in an ideal world, season two would focus more on team black/green kids. developing the relationship between aemond and aegon (and their dynamic with alicent). letting the audience see jacaerys being political savvy and his budding friendship with cregan while he was up north. the writers acknowledging the bond that rhaena should have had with jacaerys and lucerys; she was ward of dragonstone for six years yet the writers seem to forget this fact. seeing baela murder cole via burning in 4k would also be pretty cool. giving baela way more screen time and actually allowing her to have a voice about the war, the dragonseeds, rhaena and so forth. daemon interacting with the dragon twins more. showing visenya during daemon’s many episodes at harrenhal! the fact that childbirth is such an important component in his relationship with his mother, laena and rhaenyra yet it’s not emphasized is also criminal. but just cutting the harrenhal episodes will do, too. and more jacaela! i’m crazy so i catch all of their crumbs, but i do wish their scenes were less jace centric and more mutual. like, sure, we get the eye, dinner and council scene, but those are short lines rather than dedicated screentime. and even in baela’s moments of comforting jace, her opinions on things are never really mentioned. everything she says go back to what rhaenyra will think, how rhaenyra will react, what rhaenyra will do, etc. i also wish we could see more of aemond and alicent? i think i get her and aegon’s dynamic, but i’m not entirely sure where her and aemond stand. aegon and sunfyre! jace and vermax! addam and jace’s friendship! more of corlys and rhaenys’ reaction to lucerys’ death (lucerys never truly beat the favorite grandson allegations). or, lucerys and visenya being mentioned at all. and i can’t believe i’m saying this, but more otto!! and less criston cole (it’s insane cole has more screentime than all of tb!kids).

season two honestly feels like filler and stalling, yet the writers aren’t using this time to build up tension or meaningful dynamics so that they can really sell season three. it doesn’t showcase grief all that well, either, so i wish that would be improved, too.

so, there’s probably a bunch of other things i want to see but i won’t bore you too much, anon!! outside of baela burning cole, i feel like my wishes wouldn’t stray too far from the narrative? if anything, it would only enrich show canon.

[munchkinmarauder]

So I'm reading What If Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker were siblings and I find myself disappointed- this book is probably just not for me. Shame I really wanted to like it and I recognise the landmark significance of having a writer of Roma decent finally write Wanda. It's a wonderful thing and I hope it opens more doors for the writer and for Roma and other minority creators to write minority characters. However, reading this I have mixed feelings. I've got some thoughts under the cut (spoilers).

I'll give this book a 4/10 but it's treatment of Pietro and other non American characters has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm a massive Pietro fan and a fan of both twins so I may be biased. I hope others can get more out of this book than me. It definitely has it's good points that I can see winning it some fans.

Let's just say this is a YA book that reads very YA. I can definitely see the appeal for fans, especially of Spiderman. Wanda is the main character though little of her lore gets used and her relationships are destroyed. The author does make a genuine and really nice effort to respect and call focus to Wanda's heritage and the disconnect of being an American adoptee.and there are some nice mentions of Django but it all gets undercut by the author harping on about how wonderful Aunt May is for introducing Wanda to him.

I do encourage people to pick this book up and form their own opinions. If you are a fan of the MCU and Spiderman comics you'll probably walk away happy and have mixed feelings as a comic Wanda fan (Quicksilver fans and fans of the twins relationship just save yourself the trouble and not read this book trust me!). Maybe wait till it's cheaper though as it's a lot of money to spend on something you might not like - I'm planning on returning or donating my copy because I walked away feeling cheated.

The book however is very American and Wanda is emphasised to be American. The American characters are largely good and the foreigners with foreign accents largely bad. Other Romani characters are either cameos or evil. If your a fan of Pietro and the twins relationship just don't pick this up.

Basically as long as Wanda has a brother with a similar name to Pietro she'll be fine, her bond with her twin can just be superimposed onto other characters. It negates the importance of one of the most important sibling relationships in comics and reads like Magneto's letter to the twins in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (except where the reader believes that Orlando meant for Magneto to be unironically right). It feels a little dirty and like it's there to serve Peter Parker and give him a win rather than Wanda. Anything meaningful that could have been said about the twins relationship is instead given to Peter.

Making Pietro a one dimensional evil twin was a very boaring and very overdone take. Writers love to make Pietro evil despite the characters history and it never has been done well (as has the evil twin trope in general) and has always been immediately walked back in the comics for a reason.

And while I definitely don't think the author intended it this way, having Wanda have zero interest (Pietro is treated terribly by his sister, the other characters and the narrative from the second he appears or is mentioned) and reject her "evil foreign" family in favour of her "wonderful white American" family has some unfortunate implications.

Wanda also rarely accomplishes anything for herself. The 616 Wanda learns magic on her own, immigrates to America with her brother, builds her own community and reclaims a racist name thrown at her. She works hard and everything she accomplished was her own. In this book everything she accomplishes is because of Peter, Ben and May - they find her a Romani community, she doesn't seem it out on her own, they take her to strange who is souly responsible for teaching her magic and tells her everything she needs to do. Wanda is super passive in this book.

No hate to the writer though. I do think their talented and they have acknowledged they know people will be unhappy with some of the takes in the book. I respect what they've created even if I don't personally like it.

https://x.com/MunchkinM17/status/1828490359682298342

[darkstarofchaos]

Yet more EarthSpark S2 spoilers.

And now for some general thoughts about the season itself.

Where was Nightshade during all this? They are a main character, why did they not have so much as a subplot in another character's focus episode? People talk about Thrash getting sidelined, but he had a whole episode plus a paired episode with Twitch. Nightshade is barely there, and when they are, it's either a battle scene or sharing the scientific spotlight with Wheeljack.

Speaking of Thrash, I liked his episode. I would like to think finding a random Quintesson on earth and then shooting it into space will have repercussions later in the season, especially with the Quint lore in the final episode. But now that the Decepticons are just flat and evil, I might not even watch that far.

Why are the Decepticons interchangeable now? Starscream and Shockwave are the only ones allowed a personality beyond "smash stuff". And yes, I'm counting Breakdown in that, because he's a shadow of his former self, and the whole thing with him being a parent to Aftermath got dropped after five minutes. And you know, I might be giving Shockwave too much credit, because disagreeing with your leader on one course of action isn't a personality trait. And Starscream's ultimate goal is apparently just smash stuff. So you know what, I'll amend that, why do none of the Decepticons have a personality beyond smash stuff?

Like. Twitch ends up in the Decepticon base in the guise of Spitfire, and we don't get a single characterization moment. I guess the Cons all just stand and snarl at each other when they aren't on missions.

On the other hand, I don't understand why so many people were confused that the Decepticons were following Starscream, because why wouldn't they? He seems to have been doing a fine job, judging by the number of Emberstone shards the Cons had. I get that most Starscreams can't get support to save their lives (often through no fault of their own), but the Decepticons here seem to have no reason not to follow him.

Moving on from the Decepticons, I'd have to call the trailer episode and the carnival episode the worst of the lot. The whole subplot with Robbie having a crush was the most uncomfortable thing I've had to sit through in a while, and I would not voluntarily watch it again. And the trailer episode was just tedious. I get having something more relaxed in between the Spitfire two-parter and the finale, but couldn't they have found any other plot for it? People rag on the bear episode, but at least that had a nice little lesson about not messing with people's prostheses rolled in. This episode was just. Nothing. But it did come with a distinct lack of squicky "feeling your brother's crush through your psychic bond" stuff, so I'll give it that it's rewatchable.

Okay, this was a problem with S1 too, but that psychic bond has to go. It's creepy and invasive, and it's only going to get more so as the humans get older and start exploring adult relationships. At least give them some way to close it or otherwise shield themselves from it (it's also a constant plot hole, because characters often end up in danger that the others somehow don't notice. Like, is there a range on this psychic thing? How far apart do they have to be before they can't feel each other anymore? This thing is not explained well enough, and I don't see why it even needs to exist).

Assorted episode nitpicks:

That is not how you dispose of hard drives. Why did you not wipe them before recycling.

No food ever touches the plates on the dinner table in the Quintesson episode. I am unreasonably bothered by this.

How did none of the adults think to address Spitfire's insistence on being part of the mission by pointing out that Twitch is older and more experienced than her? Like, yeah, Spitfire probably wouldn't have cared, but someone should still have put their foot down and said she can't go on a mission until she's had some training.

Megatron, you are the only non-participant who can fly and the final stretch of that obstacle course was over a ravine. Why were you not in a position where you could quickly help out if someone fell? Twitch wouldn't have had to go back to save Alex herself and the whole thing with Spitfire being mad because she crossed the finish line first wouldn't have happened if you had positioned yourself more strategically.

Actually, Megatron proposed the race, Megatron wasn't close enough to be helpful during the race, and Megatron said they needed to let Twitch and Spitfire sort things out themselves, which resulted in Twitch getting bodyswapped. Every problem in this episode was Megatron's fault. Optimus, why are you not vetoing any of this? Why are you just standing there and letting Megatron pit kids against each other? You're a leader, do some leading!

On the other hand, Megatron wanting to resolve everything by letting the arguing parties fight it out is on brand for him, so like. Kudos for characterization, now get an adult in here.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 1

Propaganda under the cut

Mipha

Honestly she's not just a victim of yaoi, tbh. Basically: she canonically had a massive crush on the protagonist, Link, which consistently gets swept under the rug or ignored entirely in favor of shipping Link with her brother Sidon, their fellow champion Revali, or Zelda herself. She deserves nice things and so many people just... completely overlook her??

She has a crush on Link, but so does her younger brother Sidon, who is much more affable and outgoing. Link/Sidon is the more popular ship. Mipha gets a lot of flak for being a weak female character who's only defined by her romantic relationship to the protagonist. That's not really fair; she has her own storyline about being the golden girl from her town who everyone looks up to, and the hole that's left in the town after her death. It is unfortunate that she is better remembered as the less compelling corner of a love triangle.

The princess of the Zora, sweetheart of the Zora's Domain. Champion pilot of the Divine Beast Vah Ruta. Master healer, cut down in her prime by an ancient evil. But you wouldn't know it, because she's reduced to someone who was in love with Link (the game's protagonist), and therefore has to be sidelined and villainized to ship Link with her younger brother Sidon or her fellow Champion Revali.

Zelda

She spent 100 years in a metaphysical wrestling match with an ancient and primal evil after seeing it destroy almost everyone and everything she held dear in the hopes of saving the few that remained and Link's main goal after HIYAHing his way out of a amnesia-inducing coma was to come in and tag team said evil in order to save her and like 90% of the memories he can regain focus on their relationship with each other and its gradual improvement up to the point where Link fucking dies protecting her and it's the push she needs to awaken the power to push back the blight and PEOPLE ARE STILL OUT THERE IN THEIR POST-CANON FANWORKS TRYING TO TELL ME THAT LINK FUCKS OFF AND LEAVES HER ALONE TO GO SMOOCH THE HOT FISH PRINCE BECAUSE ZELDA WAS BEING TOO OVERBEARING OR WHATEVER AND HE COULDN'T DEAL WITH THE EXPECTATION??? LIKE ZELDA'S WHOLE FUCKING ARC WASNT ALSO ABOUT HER STRUGGLING WITH EXPECTATION AND FAILING TO LIVE UP TO IT AND YOU WANT ME TO BELIEVE THIS WUALITY THEY BOTH OSTENSIBLY HAVE IN COMMON WOULD DRIVE A WEDGE BETWEEN THEM?? WHERE'S ZELDA YOU COWARDS?? I DON'T EVEN CARE IF YOU DON'T WANT HER AND LINK TO BE TOGETHER, JUST STOP DIMINISHING THE GRAVITY OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP AND MAKING ZELDA SUCK FOR NO REASON. SHE'S A BIG NERD! SHE GETS TOO IN HER OWN HEAD! SHE'D DO ANYTHING TO HELP THE PEOPLE SHE CARES ABOUT! SHE UNASHAMEDLY AND EXCITEDLY TRIED TO FEED HER PERSONAL KNIGHT A LIVE FROG IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE! HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE HER 

Im specifically saying botw Zelda here because oh my gOSH this poor girl can get made out to be like a horrible bitch when people. want link to get that shark dick. on average she doesnt get thattttt badly treated compared to some others but goddamn.

title character but people hate her because they want link to get w sidon. so she gets fridged or entirely forgotten even though shes literally his canonical soulmate and they have been reincarnated together hundreds of times (w ganon but whether u make em poly or make him the long suffering third wheel is up to you). people will be like oh but zelda was mean to him that one time (??). be serious w me rn. she just got removed from fandom entirely and if that isnt the epitome of victim of yaoi idk what is.

[enteringdullsville]

A seasonally appropriate updated version of the old relationship chart.

EDIT: I just want to give advice for some other aspiring writers out there who want to write for pairings but aren’t necessarily writing romance stories.

If you want people to take your pairings seriously (and I don’t mean people who don’t ship them, but rather people with their high and mighty “this pairing shouldn’t be canon” perspectives), you need to be able to justify why they’re with someone and not somebody else. People have types; for example, Crimson (who isn’t pictured) is looking for someone who’s down to earth, sensible, mature, and dependable. That is to say, nobody in the core cast.

And on that note, if any of you are experimenting with bigger core casts, don’t feel compelled to pair everyone up with another member of said core cast. I don’t mean that in an aromantic way (although that certainly helps), but it certainly feels less forced and makes romantic plot lines come off as less suffocating. What you see here is 2/3 of my main cast. I’m also a firm believer in not changing orientations in characters that have set-in-stone canon ones, regardless of what they are, so I just make everyone who isn’t aro swing every way, no matter how camp or butch they seem. That should at least take the edge off of shipping wars.

Lastly, if you feel a pairing comes off as “boring”, congratulations on writing a healthy relationship! Much more to the point, just focus on what those characters have in common. There was a point in development where Rudy/Olive felt a little too generic, so I took a closer look at previous stuff I had done for them, as well as what their respective backstories, character flaws, and motivations were to build upon their dynamic. Olive especially benefits more from this process in the long run, since I was paranoid about people viewing her as a “Satellite Love Interest”.

Looking entirely within the core cast :

Violet X Gordon/Strong Suit

Both are giant nerds who love to write creatively

Best friends since they were 8. Began dating/got married when they were 23

Violet’s demiromantic; it took her a couple extra years to realize she wanted a romantic relationship with him

Gordon was in love with her since he was 13 and was fully prepared to let it go if it meant they could stay friends

Married for 5 years with a sweet little handful daughter

Mild mannered behemoth and his vicious scarecrow wife

They’re each other’s muses

He can carry her with one arm

Rudy X Olive/Scratch Paper

Dorks, the lot of them

Rudy has the right combination of being fun but not insane; perfect for someone introverted but silly like Olive

Initially tried to dismiss her feelings as an infatuation before settling for simply pining in secret. She completely forgot that the entire series is on the internet for people, Rudy included, to see

Rudy likes her in turn because she doesn’t view him as a menace or a child. He also sees her as the cool, mysterious loner girl and that’s a massive plus for him

He knows she has it bad but is waiting for her to build confidence

She’s teaching him how to draw. He loves her surrealist works

She’s not afraid to take shots at him or call him out on his idiocy

J. X Paige/Mystery Novel

Neither talk that much and have definite social anxiety, but they ironically are very comfortable around each other

Her interest in him started off as curiosity about J.’s generally mysterious behavior

They’re uncharacteristically cuddly with each other

J. very briefly used to have an unrequited crush on Peony. Paige is still a little salty if it gets brought up

Since Rudy and J. are brothers, Olive and Paige have gotten closer as friends in turn

Angie X Bryan/Sugar and Spice

Silly, flirty girl and soft, dorky guy

Angie hits on him constantly, but since she hits on a lot of people (and a lot of people hit on him) he initially doesn’t take her advances seriously

Angie wants to squeeze and hug him so badly

Bryan wishes he had her confidence; Angie wishes she had his sensibility

She can lift him over her head

Chloe X Geneva/Mad Science

Tsundere and Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Geneva thinks she’s just the cutest thing

She can easily pick Chloe up and it drives her crazy

Chloe catches feelings quickly; Geneva’s of course oblivious

No matter what Chloe invents, Geneva still thinks she’s cool

Chloe’d be more outwardly receptive to her if she weren’t so obsessed with looking mature

Lyman X Ingrid/Death Glare

A more low key “background romance”

Sprang from Ingrid’s “freaky is hot” mentality

Lyman has no fear of Ingrid, and that helps their relationship

It takes a bit for Ingrid to see beyond his cool empath powers

Ingrid is surprisingly huggy with him. Lyman’s cool with whatever

Noah X Whitney/Checkmate

Chill slacker and high-strung rule follower

They’ve been friends for years so Whitney’s not as tsundere as Chloe, but she still refuses to admit her increasingly obvious feelings

She gets insanely jealous whenever Noah flirts with someone else, which is often

Geneva calls him a “notorious cootie catcher”. He’ll flirt with any Drewman older than 20, but all Whitney has to do is raise an eyebrow and he becomes a stuttering dork

He keeps her balanced, she keeps him motivated

Tyler X Fuchsia/Tooth and Nail

You know what? Actually screw opposites attract. Let similar people be in love for once

In all seriousness, while Fuchsia’s less likely to antagonize people unprovoked, Ty’s got better people skills

Established relationship. Tyler’s the one who vouched for Fuchsia to join ICT

Fuchsia gets very easily embarrassed by PDA

Most people are terrified of her, but Tyler thinks she’s adorable

Sometimes Fuchsia comes in to work with massive marks from Tyler’s shark teeth. Don’t bring it up to her face

Amber X Aaron X Perry/Triple A

The old Archie, Betty, and Veronica schtick

Both fall for her early on and she thinks both of them are cute. It takes a long time before Amber gets tired of their rivalry and takes them both

Amber totally calls the shots in their ménage à trois. Aaron and Perry are completely whipped

Amber and Aaron are a classic cheerleader and jock matchup. Both are peppy, goofy sweethearts

Aaron and Perry are a great rivals to lovers story. Even after burying the hatchet, they still try to one up each other constantly

Perry and Amber are yet another tsundere and cinnamon roll pairing, although since Perry’s so excited for somebody to think he’s actually cool, he’s a lot more outwardly nice to her, even before getting together

Both Aaron and Amber agree Perry’s adorable. Any affection they give him leaves him a blushing mess

Aaron is the one who carries them over his shoulders to prove a point

Amber’s endgame is to expand the relationship until she achieves world domination. Her sights are on Tyler and Fuchsia next.

Landon X Alexandre/Gilded Lily

Semi-toxic yaoi. Like, not so toxic that you wouldn’t want them to get together, but enough to stop them from being glurgey

Al’s normally a pushover, but Landon’s great at pushing his buttons to tick him off

“I can fix him” vs “I can corrupt him”

Landon’s best friends with Veronica, who ping pongs between wanting him to become her brother in law and threatening Landon to get his talons out of her big brother

Landon’s very selective of his partners. Alex ticks all his boxes of being sweet, perky, and a little awkward

[all-pacas]

being unfamiliar w house md i at least know of most main characters except for 13, mind explaining what their deal is to an outsider?

MY GIRL

So first of all let's just make it clear for the record. Tumblr loves her because 13 is a) played by Olivia Wilde so she's super pretty and b) a Canon Gay (bisexual). For a show like Hatecrimes MD, she's actually pretty fairly portrayed -- it's fetishized a little and joked about a lot, but she's shown in relationships with men and women, there's no bi erasure involved, when she does play into the All Bis Are Slutty trope, it's because she's having an elaborate mental breakdown and sleeping around to cope. Hilariously she's like the third person on the show to do this, so it doesn't even come off as "those slutty gays!"

(I mean. Arguably they're all slutty gays. But you know.)

AS FOR WHAT HER DEAL IS.

In s3 House fires/loses the original team of Foreman, Cameron, and Chase, and eventually (after as much stalling as he can get away with) hires a new team:

TAUB, sleezy little guy plastic surgeon, just here to have fun

KUTNER, Kal Penn playing an enthusiastic nerd here to have fun,

and 13, real name Remy Hadley.

To fuck with Cuddy, House originally hires 40-odd doctors -- anyone who sent him a resume -- and then began whittling them down one by one. To keep track, he'd given them all marathon placards. 13's number was, you guessed it, 13. Her whole gimmick was that she was "mysterious" -- House found her hard to read and she was good at not giving him any hints, and she played into it by refusing to talk about herself and continuing to go by "Thirteen" even once everyone else was introduced. Her name was later revealed, after she made the final team, but House keeps calling her 13, and he often jokes that people who call her Hadley don't know who she is. It sticks around as a nickname at work. Her personal friends/girlfriend/boyfriend tend to call her Remy, but her coworkers stick to the nickname.

It's kind of interesting to note that reception for her was actually kind of negative when the show started. She gets a LOT of character focus, far more than Kutner and Taub, and this was soon enough after losing the first team (Chase and Cameron in particular barely existed on the show for a while, Chase only becoming a major character again two and a half years later) that folks resented her "stealing the spotlight" or having main character syndrome. In retrospect, I don't think it's that bad, although it is definitely true she's favored over other characters.

Anyway.

Part of 13's secretiveness is because of the House Obligatory Tragic Backstory. 13's mother had Huntington's, a genetic disease that is fatal and super degenerative. So did her older brother. 13 knew she had a high chance of having it as well, but refused to get tested out of fear. She eventually does -- and oops, she has it as well. This means she's got about 10 years left to live, and fewer without symptoms. This causes her Existential Sex Bender and a general pattern of risk taking: it's a hard thing to cope with.

Meanwhile, she's on House's team. She's really good: creative and unflappable, if maybe not as devoted to diagnostics and the team as a "lifer" like Foreman or Chase are. She and House also grow close; refreshingly (COUGH Cameron) it's never treated as a shipping thing. He just... sees her becoming self destructive and cares enough to stop her; he cares about her.

13 is still notoriously secretive, and she literally vanishes in s7. Tells everyone she's going on vacation and cuts her phone lines. It turns out she goes to prison for over-prescribing meds... to her brother. She euthanized him, as he was suffering badly from Huntington's. Made it look like an accident, that he did it. This sort of destroys her: she feels like it was the right thing to do, it's what he wanted, but she still killed him. 13 tells House, and House offers to do the same to her when her Huntington's gets bad enough.

She doesn't stick around the team for long after getting out of prison. She meets a woman named Amy, and they fall in love; she and Amy go off to some Greek island to try and enjoy the 8-ish years 13 has left. (In episodic terms: she's on the team for s4+5 and most of 6; vanishes for almost all of s7 because she's in jail, and has only guest roles in s8.)

She briefly dates Foreman and it was just really weird. No chemistry. No idea what they saw in one another. The show is so bad at romance.

Most compellingly to me specifically, she and my boy Chase end up being really good friends. They had some Ship Tease for a while, the show might have been trying to set them up, but Olivia Wilde's career was taking off and she stopped being a regular on the show. This was, as far as Chase/13 is concerned, a good thing. Because the show is bad at romance. So instead they just become good friends. Chase also murdered a dude one time, and 13 ends up telling him about her brother. In the same episode, she calls him late at night for help and he just... shows up, no questions asked. They have a lot of shared issues: sick/dead mothers and complicated feelings about them, murder, Existential Sex Benders when they're depressed, and a dislike about talking about personal issues. They also are uniquely close to and good at reading House, and the show even goes so far as to refer to them as the "prodigal daughter/son" in relation to him. So fandom has sort of latched onto the idea of them as "like brother and sister," "best friends," which isn't super supported in canon (they ARE good friends, but no more), but... the venn diagram of these two is a circle.

Crucially, both 13 and Chase, despite putting on good fronts, are very lonely people. So is House. So it's nice to think they can have their own sad little found family, especially once House "dies" and might not bother letting his prettiest employees know.

[symphonic-scream]

Okay. I'm getting back into writing. Fics. So, I've got ten aus up for the chopping block. Which one would y'all rather see me try?

DESCRIPTION OF EACH AU UNDER THE CUT TO SAVE SPACE

So. Details below! Vote, spread the word, I don't care. Just wanna write someone people are interested in

Persona 5 Magic Au:

Follows the plot of Persona 5 Royal but, instead of personas, each member is either a monster or has magic. Action focused, with darker themes and violence.

The Phantom Queers:

The Phantom Thieves are all adults, all very queer. Hifumi is a newly out trans woman and Joker introduces her to his Gay Friends to help mentor her on her queer journey. Mostly fluff, talks about some bad stuff, but about accepting who you are

Persona 5 Inaba Au:

Joker has just moved to Inaba and suddenly his ordinary year in a small turn has been turned into a mad search for a murderer. Aka, It's Persona 4, but with the Persona 5 characters. Regular warnings for death and Persona themes, but with some fluffier and lighthearted group moments.

Persona 5 Pirate Au:

A young boy with a ship sets out to gather the greatest pirate crew of all. Their goal? To take down corruption coast to coast, getting back at the corrupt societies that threw them aside. Very actiony, got some more mature themes. But also. Boat.

Niijima Twins Au:

Okay this one's quick to lay out. It's Persona 5 Royal but Akechi Goro is the twin brother of Makoto Niijima. That's it. Changes things. Has the same themes as Persona 5. But. Lots of heavy emotional conversations and unhealthy sibling relationships

Persona 5 Heroes Au:

Too young to be members of the formal hero league, the Phantom Thieves are instead a team of Youth Heroes, their nemesis being a serial killer for. Some reason. Heavy focus on Makoto x Haru. Like. They're the main plot in this one it's a gay au

Persona 5 Age Swap Au:

So the adult confidants are now teens and the teens are the adult confidants. Sojiro got arrested and now has been sent to Tokyo to serve his parole for a year. What adventures will he have? Again, just general Persona type themes

Persona 5 Pokemon Au:

Uhm. Yeah they're all Pokemon Trainers traveling in the same general directions, who all witnessed something that made them all agree to stop corruption in the region. Lighter than the others since it's Pokemon

Persona 4 Tokyo Au:

Yu Narukami has been arrested and now has to spend a year in Tokyo for his parole. However, staying out of trouble is impossible when the Metaverse gets involved. Aka, it's P5 but with the P4 characters. Will be Persona level themes again

Persona 4 Apocalypse Au:

Inaba has been covered in a dense fog, inky shadows lurking around every corner. While the survivors are holed up in Yasogami High, some can't help but feel like they could be doing more. One of the darkest ones on the list. Death and shit. It's an apocalypse au what do you expect?

[sanguine-tenshi]

Right so, I'm playing through the game for the second time and i have... opinions. I'll put all of it under the cut since I know some people are waiting for the full realease.

Final warning, spoilers ahead.

Okay so, I'm not exactly happy with how the main plot turned out, primarily because of Pen.

To begin let me say that I'm not a fan of Pen. He's a good character, but god is he cunt. He is entertaining tho and I kinda do miss seeing him around town.

Anyway, when Logan and Grace were explaining the whole thing to you I was fully expecting Pen to be a red herring.

I just kinda expected for them to make Pen this convenient, prideful idiot. Someone the main bad guy manipulated to their ends.

I expected for his backstory to be something along the lines of a weak kid who failed at protecting someone/himself growing up and working towards becoming this big strong muscular guy only to fail again. There being something about him losing to Heidi or Hugo or someone like them, ya know, some bad guy with inhuman strength. Like maybe some bandit or something attacked Sandrock, he tried to protect everyone and failed because the person was genetically altered. Maybe even somehow tie it into the Duvos plot.

He heard about Vivi inhaling fumes and because of that Hugo and Heidi came out overpowered, so he's like al'ight imma do that. And so he goes off into the dessert, because no matter how much he works on himself he'll never be enough. Instead he stumbled onto this ancient weapon.

He plays the whole trip as some sort of training trip, as him finding the secret to strengthening his body or something. He keeps the weapon a secret partly because he is a part of the church, but mostly because Pen WANTS to be The Protector of Sandrock. He wants the credit. He wants the praise.

This way it's explained why he has the weapon and also why he blamed the tower incident on Logan.

And if they had done that they could have used the fan theory of Pen and Owen being brothers (with a strained relationship). That way you can fluff up both their backstories. Hell, throw Logan into the mix as well. Like maybe despite Pen being a small sickly kid he always got himself into trouble (his delusions of grandeur being ever-present) and so either Owen or Logan or both had to save his dumb ass.

And maybe Owen still has those overprotective brother tendencies Pen accidentally trained into him.

And you can still get him tangled into the Miguel plot, but make him the useful muscle headed idiot. Like maybe Miguel is just manipulating him, maybe he found out about the weapon and is blackmailing Pen, depends on which direction you prefer.

And then you have a line for a legit redemption arc for him, as yes he did a bad, but he's still redeemable.

Idk, I just feel there's a lot more to play around with this way and they wouldn't have to just drop a whole ass character at the end of the game... again.

And even if you disregard all of my ramblings so far, it straight up just doesn't make sense for Pen to be the one to poison Howlett. I'd expect that from Matilda, but definitely not Pen. For crying out loud! I'd expect him to punch Howlett to death and then play it off as 'Oopsie! Daddy got crushed by rocks! Guess he shouldn't have been sniffing around old ruins, huh? It's almost as if old ruins are dangerous and stuff. Who could have guessed that one?'

Also, all focus is put on Pen when Matilda is supposed to be the main villain. There's just not enough of her being the bad guy. The set up is great for her, yes, but all we really see of her villainous self is her betraying us during the Duvos fight and the final robot fight. Outside of that all the focus is on Pen and I just don't get that. Like either commit and make him the main bad guy or let Matilda actually do something.

Like I'm hoping they are holding back stuff for the main release but I doubt it.

Anyway, that's my rambling two cents. Thoughts? Opinions? Agree? Disagree?

[httyddragonfox]

Hunter vs Luz's death/Flapjack vs the Titan

It's interesting that both Luz and Hunter had a death scene in the third season. Hunter's death was more a climax to his arc, while Luz's was more a climax to the main arc.

Both were pretty much killed by Belos, but in different ways, lead up, aftermath, etc....these two characters also get a lot of focus in the show.

First let's start with Hunter. Hunter is Belos' creation, in an attempt to have a version of Caleb he wants beside him. The relationship between them was extremely toxic. Belos saw him as a replacement of his brother and an extension of himself for Hunter's whole life. If Hunter didn't fit the mold, he would be killed. In a way, Belos is obsessed with the idea of Hunter. Hunter is his, like Caleb was his, they're not allowed to be their own people. Hunter finally escaped, and started to find himself in the human realm. Once they were near ready to return to the Demon Realm, Belos made his move and attempted to take possession of him again, this time through maximum force. In this attempt he tricks Hunter and Luz into finding the Titan's blood for him so he could use Hunter to return to the isles and kill everyone there. Hunter is his tool, as he always was. Using Hunter, he tries to kill all of the witches present, and then impales Flapjack out of petty spite. This makes Hunter furious enough to fight back, he resists Belos' control over him to thwart his plans and give him cold declaration of who he is and what he wants. In a way, Hunter attempts to kill Belos, firmly against him now. It doesn't work, and Belos is shocked, I tell you, shocked that Caleb would betray him like this. So flabbergasted, he leaves the group alone and continues to see Caleb's ghost haunt him for his deeds. Back to Hunter, he is dying because of what Belos did to him. Flapjack in turn, sacrifices what's left of his life to save him. Hunter inherits his magic in the process and his death forever sticks with the group.

What about Luz? Luz is just another Human, but because of this Belos respects her. He wants to get her on his side, proving he's right, so in a way it would prove Caleb wrong, and justify all his actions. Luz seems to strike chords with him, "You did it to him first" caused him to back off. When she was killed by Belos, it was an accident. He was aiming for the collector, but it doesn't really affect him when she dies, except now the pests are really going at it. The Titan sacrifices what's left of his life to stop Belos and revive Luz. After he's defeated, all he does is try to appeal to their humanity, doesn't even bring up his defeat or the fact he killed her. Also, when the fight is over the magic she inherited from the Titan goes away as the Titan finally passes on.

Some differences to note, Hunter and Belos had a more personal relationship so his death and fight against him would strike a harder chord with him. Luz was just another Human who happened to be in his way, so their conflict is more focused on evil vs good, instead of guardian vs child.

Flapjack was Hunter's best friend, who just wanted him to live never mind the outcome. The Titan wanted Belos defeated never mind the outcome. There's a difference there. Flapjack sacrificed himself so hunter could live, Hunter got his powers as a side effect. The Titan sacrificed his power so Luz could defeat Belos, Luz got to live again as a side effect. Flapjack would do anything for Hunter and would always be by his side. Relatively, the Titan just met Luz, and was only lending her his power. He wouldn't want to spend an indefinite amount of time with Luz, he'd rather pass on once the job was done. For Flapjack the job wouldn't be done until Hunter had lived his full life, thus staying with him.

Yes, the Titan's death did have a lasting impact, but mainly for Luz as she couldn't use glyphs anymore.

This shows us that Hunter vs Belos was a character driven climax, while Luz vs Belos was a Plot/World driven climax. As I learned, character driven climaxes have a lot of close up shots, and plot/world driven climaxes have a lot of faraway shots. The fight between Luz and Belos was Isles wide, so lot's of faraway shots. The fight between the hexsquad and possessed Hunter was in front of a graveyard, not even in the whole graveyard, so lot's of closeup shots.

Maybe that's why Hunter's death had a lot more umpth behind it, because it was a lot more personal of a confrontation. Luz's battle with Belos was amazing, but it was more a duty of the hero, and that has a more hands off approach, probably why the Titan and her didn't go too deep into backstories.

Everything in Hunter's possession and death had personal connotation with it, while with Luz's death while sad, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then the right place at the right time.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

[number-1-kuaidul-fanboy]

Yugioh Best Friends Ranked

So YugiohEverything did this recently and I’ve ranked both the protags and the main girls so I figured, why not? I need something quick and easy to write this morning. Also, since there’s some debate on who counts as the best friend character in each show and I have some notably weird opinions on this, I’ll say right out of the gate which characters I’m including: Joey/Jonouchi, Sho/Syrus, Crow, Shark, Gongenzaka/Gong, Soulburner, and Luke. (Of whom I’m going to use whichever name I’m more to used to using.)

7 Gongenzaka

Honestly, Gongenzaka being the lowest here isn’t a slight against his character at all. There isn’t a bad character from this set to me. Gongenzaka is definitely the weakest but I’ve actually really grown to respect him. I think his style of duelling was really cool, especially the growth of him learning synchro summon despite it being against the traditions he was brought up with. That’s really neat. And the one time he ever did use an action card was against Z-Arc, in an attempt to save his friend, which is a really compelling moment. The only reason he’s the lowest is because I don’t feel like his personality is all that interesting, I definitely like him more for his duelling. He is a very good friend to Yuya though, as I’ve also come to appreciate in my most recent watch of Arc V. So just know, I respect Gongenzaka, I just like these other characters more.

6 Sho Marufuji

Betcha didn’t see this placement coming. I go on and on about how much I love GX and for every other character ranking, GX’s pick would be near the top, if not the top. Sho meanwhile… I do really like him, especially his relationships with Judai and his brother, Ryo and his growth in the series, especially season four but I like the other characters much more.

Still, people dunking on Sho is news to me. People really hate this guy?! Jeez, what did the dub do to him to make him deserve this? (Okay, maybe it is based on the sub but considering how the GX dub is and that it’s one of the more watched dubs, it definitely stands to reason that the dub just screwed him over.)

5 Luke

Luke is a weird one because I feel like he’s probably more like the rival character but out of the main friend group, Yuga undeniably has the closest connection to Luke. So I’ll count him as the best friend. Luke is a lot of people’s favourite character from Sevens and while I do prefer Yuga and Romin, I do enjoy Luke’s dorkiness and even some of his more arrogant moments when they’re done right. It is annoying that he basically never loses but I guess it’s to counteract Yuga, who loses and wins quite evenly. So overall good character.

4 Shark

Yeah, I’m counting Shark as the best friend instead of Bronk. Because Shark is far more prevalent, far more interesting, has more development and purpose in the narrative, and it’s his connection with Yuma that’s given the most focus in the climax of Zexal II. In my mind, Kaito is the rival, he just got screwed by part two. And you know what? I think Shark is a really neat take on the best friend character. He’s definitely Yuma’s friend, and shows that care often, if begrudgingly or in a strange gruff way and that’s really fun and a great counterpoint to Yuma. Also, do I even need to talk about their final duel? Feels out the wazoo.

Honestly though if “main girl” wasn’t a stupid arbitrary category for these shows, I’d argue Kotori is Yuma’s best friend because they actually have a really good platonic dynamic and they make a point of her mere presence boosting Yuma up in the final part of the Barian arc. But for this list, I say and argue Shark.

3 Joey Wheeler

Man, how I’ve grown. Once upon a time, a young man was in quarantine with his younger sibling and, being very bored and needing a distraction, the man agreed to watch a few episodes of this show his sibling liked, of which he’d only ever seen memes of and thought sounded stupid as shit: Yugioh Duel Monsters. On that first watch, the man could not stand Joey, due to his voice, inflated ego, and lack of duelling skills and while the man did grow to respect Joey as a duellist later in the show, he could never bring himself to like his character. Now, two years later, I question what the hell I was thinking because Joey is easily one of the most compelling characters from the original series. Out of everyone on this list, he’s easily the most supportive as a friend. He always has Yugi’s back, up to and including jumping off a cruise ship to save Yugi’s Exodia cards and sacrificing his life for Yugi’s after he breaks free of Marik’s mind control. Heck, he’s willing to die for Mai as well in Battle City and his whole motivation in Duelist Kingdom was to use the prize money to afford his sister’s eye surgery so she wouldn’t go blind. He is such an ideal best friend it’s hard not to respect him, especially my absolute favourite moment of his: surviving the full force of the Winged Dragon of Ra and coming out of it still on his feet. Joey is literally just an average scrappy guy with a deck he threw together and some street smarts and he is duelling on the level of gods. It’s hard not to admire that.

2 Crow

This one and the last one are honestly kind of interchangeable. I like Joey’s role in the narrative better than Crow’s as I will concede that Crow too often took the spotlight away from other characters. This didn’t really annoy me that much outside of WRGP which was just terrible on literally every front and either way. Personality wise however, I do prefer Crow. He is an absolute sweetheart and his backstory was honestly heartwarming, especially that part in the dub where it’s implied he didn’t have a name so one of his first friends named him after one of his cards. I know I’ve brought that up before but it honestly is one of my favourite moments from 5Ds, and Crow is one of my favourite characters in 5Ds. Heck, I even love him in Arc V, despite him being notably more aggressive there. I think it makes sense considering the change to his backstory, which is still really cute, though I will admit his 5Ds backstory is better. I might also be a little biassed because I watched Arc V before 5Ds so Arc V was my first exposure to Crow and I loved him there.

1 Soulburner

Hahahaha, I’m gonna get burned for this one :)

I’m so sorry.

I debated whether I wanted to include Soulburner or Kusanagi on this list because there are good arguments for either of them being the best friend. However, I decided to go with Soulburner since A) I prefer his character and B) 5Ds has been the top pick for one of my lists like this before. So here we go, Soulburner. The adorable sweet dorky bean who sucks at technology in a technology based show and is the one horrifically traumatised character in VRAINS that got proper closure and whose backstory was one of the biggest tearjerker scenes in VRAINS for me and that is saying something considering how much this show made me cry. I really love his dynamic with Yusaku, of being one of the first people Yusaku trusts and of course, Soulburner and Flame are adorable. I love their sassy back and forths and Flame’s death tore me to shreds partially because of just how hard Soulburner took it. Soulburner is just so… outwardly positive and sweet that seeing him break hurts me so deeply, and gets me more invested in his character. I relate to him in a lot of ways, from his little quirks to the way he reacts to those traumatising events he was put through. Also, I didn’t talk about it when I first saw it (because I was still so broken up over Roboppi and was anxious about Ai) but Soulburner vs Revolver is one of the best duels in VRAINS and was a really good resolution to Soulburner’s character arc. So overall, Crow and Joey are probably better best friends but I personally like and relate to Soulburner more so he gets the edge here.

[raayllum]

In regards to your last post, they did do that with Soren (ik ik you weren't talking about him) but his character has depth and a more satisfying arc (relating back to the vulnerability is strength theme) so I'm cool with him

Here's the thing about Soren though, honestly. He's just jerky and loyal enough to his father (and the fact that Viren asks him to kill the princes rather than Claudia in the first place) that in S1 it's more of a tossup, even if I do remember being more worried about Claudia / her skewed worldview in S1 than I was about Soren.

TDP also has more complex explorations of morality (if not in some ways just exploring actual morality) than most shows aimed at kids/young teens do.

In She-Ra, the war is mostly a backdrop conflict used to explore relationship conflict, so when characters do defect from like, a conquering empire, it's because they've realized they aren't 1) treated well there by their 'friends' or 2) would rather be someone's friend than enemy. That's fine as a show focus, but it is more shallow in the morality department; thus, even though I have issues with how Catra's redemption arc was executed, I still always absolutely knew it was coming. To be clear, there's nothing with a predictable character arc (I love good setup and subsequent payoff and would take that over a 'subversives surprise' any day) but it did make her less interesting / harder to watch her be continually terrible to the people around her, even when they just risked everything to save her from death.

In The Owl House, every antagonist besides the main villain is either just misunderstood, misguided, redeemed, or all three (hi Hunter, Amity, The Collector, Lilith). There are a few others - Boscha, Kikimora, Odalia - but they're all regulated to small episode conflicts (each get like maybe 2 eps as an antagonist at most) and it's just... they all want power. Okay, cool.

What I'm trying to say through these examples is that's not a lot of moral depth in their character arcs, and to me, that makes a redemption arc less interesting to watch. However, Soren is a very morally driven character and he struggles with the morality of his choices and of his father's. His redemption arc ties in many other important relationships in his life and develops them (Claudia, Viren, Callum, Ezran) all in different ways. Ezran is his king and becomes his new purpose; Callum is a second chance and also kind of a little brother and also kind of an emotionally unavailable best friend who doesn't entirely trust you; Claudia is his sister turned enemy; Viren is, well... We're gonna get into how complicated that is even more, I'm sure.

I guess that's also what it comes down to me, the sacrifice / inconvenience element of the character doing the redeeming. Soren had, and has, something to lose by staying on the side of the good guys. He defects for his safety, yes, but he leaves behind his little sister and his previous idealization of his father on his own terms through a series of events and his own realizations. He shows up on the good guys' doorstep with "We're doomed." Even in S4, he's still losing things and at least somewhat on the losing side, with his entire family on the other side of the line. (Compare and contrast to Amity, whose entire family - all four of them - unanimously ditch her crappy mother or Catra, who defects after realizing she's effectively worthless to the new #1 villain replacing her, etc. They lose nothing, really, in the end.)

And again, I think Soren's arc works because well... it's the only one that TDP has had in this way. Rayla defects immediately, so her redemption arc works a bit differently. Claudia is still in the middle of her "what if I got worse haha jk... unless?" arc. So they all work as his primary arc foils in a very nice way. Now Viren is going through a bit of Soren's S2 arc, which we'll have to see how that goes, but full fledged died and resurrected and dragged through the mud by his daughter's determination to keep him alive sad old sack of an evil man isn't an arc you see often, now is it?

Soren realizes he's wrong without 1) a mentor figure or 2) heroes pointing it out to him and offering him second chances (save Ez sparing both him and Claudia in 3x02, which had an impact for sure but like - think of how much more reaching out, comparatively, even someone like Zuko got from protag team). Part of this is also because Soren starts off in an interesting place for a 'redeemed character' which is that he starts off on the 'right side' (protecting the king) so he has more of a restoration/maturation arc than an outright redemption arc, in some ways.

So Soren's arc is unique within his story, it's very well paced, there's a depth of morality, and it's tethered to theme so so well. It's *chef's kiss* and refreshing for someone who honestly doesn't truthfully love redemption arcs most of the time (at least not the classical kind) so it's just. Nice, y'know? It's really nice

[wordwiilderness]

Finished Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros, here are some thoughts...

Overall, I thought Iron Flame was slightly better than Fourth Wing, which was surprising because often sequels that come after big reveals that suddenly expand the world our story is in can make the story feel unfamiliar and disorienting.

I was also open about how unhappy I was at the end of Fourth Wing when Xaden was portrayed as the wrongful party for keeping the rebellion a secret from the daughter of the general who a) was a leader of the kingdom they were rebelling against and b) executed his and many other children's parents from rebelling before them :/ But please, explain to me why your less-than-a-year-long relationship trumps all that.

Iron Flame did a little better by letting Xaden stand up for himself and giving Violet better reasons to feel betrayed (i.e. not wanting to be lied to about things that put her in danger rather than just wanting full disclosure because they're dating).

I enjoyed how the rebellion plot played out. I won't say much about it to avoid spoilers, but lots of new information is revealed! It felt well planned out, and it was interesting to see how each of the characters reacted to learning the empire and their friends' secrets.

My biggest criticism in terms of plot and worldbuilding for both Fourth Wing and Iron Flame is that the Venin are not at all compelling villains. I really don't have anything good to say about them. The conflict that makes this series interesting is the political corruption within the empire.

We also learn more about dragons and their governing system in this book, which I was especially excited about. Lots of the information we got left me with more questions than answers, so I'm very excited to see what comes next. In the third book, I'm hoping we get to see the Empyrean in action and get to meet more of the dragon elders.

I felt that this second book focused more on the plot than the first book, which I think was a good choice for this series. I can't help but compare Rebecca Yarros's writing to Sarah J. Maas's fantasy romances because they're very similar in my mind. With Maas's writing, I always see her series decline after the main couple gets together and there's not enough plot and worldbuilding to carry the series. I was worried Yarros would follow the same script, but it seems like now that Violet and Xaden have agreed they're in love, we're seeing more focus turn to other parts of the story. It's not that the romance part of the story has completely been abandoned, but that the author doesn't have to fill the entire book with smut and relationship drama to make up for a terrible plot.

In the third book, I would like to see more focus on Violet's other relationships and even more development of plot and worldbuilding. I think this book's biggest weakness is that we didn't get to see much development of Violet's friendships and most disappointingly, her long-lost brother that she recently reunited with.

Overall, this is still a fun series! I'm excited to see what the third book brings to the table!

[hyog-blog]

Wonderland of Love

Today the dash reminded me of one of the steamiest and hottest historical war cdramas that is pure fun, delicious flirting, and two main leads exploding into sparky fireworks of mutual attraction the minute they see each other. It's one of my favorite performances by Xu Kai (apart from Arsenal Military Academy which is still THE BEST one). The man is a very good actor and is perfect for the romantic genre, but this whole cdrama just let him have so much fun with this youthful, daring, and dashing character who is very capable and too smart for his own good (but doesn't want to get into the whole shitty palace power-play, and I get you boy, no one ever wants that stuff, just go play warrior with your boys and a pretty girl). He has quite a bit of character development and the plot is fast-paced with lots of cool fighting scenes. There is literally not a single boring thing about this drama!

For me, this was The Double of 2023 in terms of steamy-hot romance and amazing on-screen performances, although this drama does focus on romance much more. It's that rare case when the actors just click both on screen and in real life, looking like a perfect match in every regard. On-screen couples, they either have it or they don't, that X Factor or whatever you call it. Well, this couple was definitely one of the best ones in regards to love/relationship development, which was the opposite of a slow-burner, or at least, the plot was so action-packed that they got to see each other often and the ML would never miss an opportunity to woo his girl or sneak into her bedroom at night (hehe). Flirty and straightforward.

The girl (Cui Lin, played by the mesmerizing Jing Tian) was also amazing in this one - a powerful fighter, a brilliant strategist, the daughter of a famous general, and a cunning little fox who most of the time was a few steps ahead of the ML, but was rarely left behind. And unlike him, who stubbornly resisted being dragged into the royal shenanigans, she understood that it was quite unavoidable, plus - she wanted him to get all that power because he was one of the good guys, who could actually make a difference, make everything better somehow.

But being a good AND a smart guy, he didn't want to have anything to do with it unless he really really had to. The couple had quite a bit of drama around him taking the responsibility and becoming the Crown Prince (which also meant they both would be locked inside the palace they kind of hated if they did get married). It was twisted, it was fun to watch, and they did manage to work around that in the end (the finale was also incredibly satisfying, with no open endings and that kind of stuff).

There's also a slightly weird obsessive-possesive love scenario with the FL's not-actually-brother who goes off rails to have her no matter what, up to the point that he betrays his whole country (because, duh, she's smart AND pretty), to keep things fresh between the two leads so that they don't get too lovey-dovey with each other, heh))

I just wanted to mention this sweet historic cdrama here as well - it's perfect for everyone who loves good fighting scenes, smart characters, plotting, loads of flirting, good acting, pretty leads, and a fair amount of steaminess. 100% rewatchable. Do watch it if you haven't already!